2. Using Gallery Remote

2.1. Running GR on platforms without an installer
2.2. Preferences
2.3. ImageMagick setup
2.4. Logging
2.5. Saving/loading
2.6. Using HTTPS
2.7. Using QuickConfig (for administrators)

2.1. Running GR on platforms without an installer

Gallery Remote was written in Java. If you have Java 1.3 or later installed on your machine, you may be able to run the app with the command: java -jar GalleryRemote.jar assuming you are in the same directory as the GalleryRemote.jar file.

This will not include some libraries that GR needs to run effectively; most notably icons will be missing, and file saving may be disabled and EXIF information may be ignored. This is only available in Gallery Remote 1.3 and later.

2.2. Preferences

Even though there is now a Preferences dialog, the preference files can still be edited. You should not modify the defaults.properties file, but you should read it to understand what each preference does. Then, you can edit the GalleryRemote.properties (it is created the first time GR is run) and add or replace the preferences you want to change.

The preferences files used to be stored in the same directory as the GalleryRemote executable, and has been moved (and renamed) to the current user's home directory.

On recent versions of Windows, this is the Documents and Settings/username directory in the boot partition. When you upgrade from versions older than 1.0b6, you will lose your current preferences unless you copy the previously used remote.properties to ~/.GalleryRemote/GalleryRemote.properties (~ means your home directory).

2.3. ImageMagick setup

GR will use ImageMagick (IM) to speed up (very greatly) the computation of resized images for thumbnails, previews and image uploads. On Windows, the installer will automatically install and set up a subset of the IM functionality, so there is nothing special to do.On other platforms, you should install IM separately (http://www.imagemagick.org) and tell GR by renaming the im.properties.preinstalled to im.properties and set the imConvertPath to the exact path to the Convert executable in your ImageMagick installation.

We will add more platform support as time goes on, but we may need help. If you compiled ImageMagick for a platform we don't already have support for, please get in touch with me at (paour at users dot sourceforge dot net) so we can include your binaries in our standard distributions.

2.4. Logging

If you encounter a problem, the logging system may be some help, and we will definitely request it if you ask for support. By default, GR writes most log information to the file GalleryRemoteLog.txt in the temporary directory for your platform. If you want to see more detailed information there, you can set the Log level to "Detailed, very verbose" in the Gallery Remote preferences dialog.

If you would like to see the log unfold as you use the application rather than having it go to a file, you should change the following:

  • In file GalleryRemote.properties (this is the preferences file, explained in the Preferences section), set

    toSysOut=true
    						

  • In file Gallery Remote.lax (in the directory where Gallery Remote was installed), set:

    lax.stdout.redirect=console
    						

Caution: Be careful before posting your log to forums or sending it to anyone: your password is printed in clear text in several places.

2.5. Saving/loading

In order to attempt to guarantee that you will not lose your hard work if the upload doesn't work and Gallery Remote doesn't recover gracefully, it will save the project before attempting to upload into the same folder your Gallery Remote options file resides. If something does happen, you can load the project again, and even modify it (it's XML). You can also save and open a project at any time. Project files use the extension .grg (for Gallery Remote gallery); this extension is not automatically mapped to Gallery Remote (you can't double click the project files and expect something useful to happen).

2.6. Using HTTPS

You can use https:// URLs with Gallery Remote to connect to secured web sites. This functionality is only available on Java 1.4 and later. If the site you are attempting to connect to uses a server certificate that is not certified by a trusted certificate authority, Gallery Remote will be unable to connect. If that happens, you will need to add the site's certificate to the Java registry of trusted certificates:

  • go to the site with Internet Explorer

  • go to menu File>Properties

  • in the Properties window, click Certificates

  • on the Details tab, click Copy to File...

  • in the wizard, select DER-encoded X.509 certificate and save it to a file

  • open a console window (cmd.exe)

  • type the following command-line:

    keytool -import -trustcacerts -file path_to_cer_file -keystore %JAVA_HOME%/jre/lib/security/cacerts -alias arbitrary_name

  • you'll be prompted for the store password, which by default is changeit

2.7. Using QuickConfig (for administrators)

QuickConfig allows Gallery administrators to make it easy for end-users to set up their Gallery Remote installation. End-users will only have to enter a URL, which they can copy from an email from the administator, into the QuickConfig tab of the Gallery Remote preferences dialog to set up pretty much anything.

To create said URL, the administrator can just deploy on a web site a file that contains a specially-formatted copy of a GalleryRemote.properties file. Within this properties file, the administrator will include keys and values that correspond to what they want to override in the end-user's preferences. This file can the be deployed anywhere, and the URL to it communicated to end-users.

Special case: Gallery URLs: include keys like url.99, username=99, etc to specify the URL and type of your Gallery. You need to use 99 for the Gallery preset number for Gallery Remote to find the key. The new Gallery URL will be added after the last existing URL on the end-users Gallery Remote installation. If you omit the username and/or password, Gallery Remote will interactively ask the end-user to enter them when he first tries to log on.