views:

223

answers:

3

I have a friend who had been using a proprietary photo album product and reached a hard limit on the number of photos. He managed to export the data to spreadsheet format (including image filenames) plus he of course saved the image files themselves. He says there doesn't seem to be any other product that can import this format.

Is there any open source photo album software (preferably on Windows) that would be easy to modify to allow it to import this spreadsheet data? Or is there perhaps another solution I'm not thinking of?

A: 

Gallery is a well known PHP solution to host an photo album. Its open source and in PHP, so I don't believe it would be that difficult to add an importing component into it. Also, it is based on a database, which means that you can import the data from the spreadsheet (as a CSV file) directly into the hosting database.

monksy
Thanks, but my friend wants a desktop solution, not web-based
JoelFan
+1  A: 

Consider using the IPTC/XMP image metadata. If the files don't already have the right metadata, you might be able to add it from your spreadsheet using something like http://www.exiv2.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_photo_gallery_software (See IPTC support column)

ykaganovich
A: 

Under windows I use Google Picasa and under Linux I use Digikam and KPhotoAlbum.

Edit: Digikam now available for Windows.

Marcin Gil
Picasa is open source?
JoelFan
Nope, but it is free and I didn't hit picture limit yet (ca. 20k). However I'm anxiously waiting for KDE4 to work properly under Windows so I can have Digikam there :)
Marcin Gil
OK, but if you see the question, I specifically need the source code, because I need to modify it
JoelFan
Sure but for only one reason: to be able to import your data. Maybe it is possible to do with Picasa?Otherwise you can have Digikam under Windows: http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/378
Marcin Gil