It's obvious that few if any people here are interested in the script, but this is an interesting discussion. Try to consider the following not as a sales pitch but as a plea for sanity.
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Originally Posted by Greenguy
here's the problem: you're posting on a board that is populated by webmasters that think programs that automatically create galleries are shit, that programs that strip content for webmasters are just an excuse to steal, that the problem with the current state of TGP's & galleries are scripts like yours, that auto submitting software sucks ass, that 800 wide can be viewed by 100% and that's how we make sites & galleries, that free hosts suck, that counters are scumbags, etc.
So when you come in here to our house & spam your wares, you should not be surprised that you're being based, because not too many people here will condone your program.
I'm sure that it's being well received on boards that are populated with TGP people & gallery makers, but here, it stinks on ice.
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First, let's look at a few of the opinions you presented, because I think they are somewhat revealing:
- that the problem with the current state of TGP's & galleries are scripts like yours
- that auto submitting software sucks ass
- that free hosts suck
The rest of the complaints are objective, easy to understand, and fair opinions, but these three in particular are a bit ambiguous and even reflect a fair bit of ignorance (I realize that you weren't saying that you hold them necessarily, but bear with me because those that do are listening). Obviously Arylia in particular is neither auto submitting software nor a free host, but the fact that you feel these are attitudes that many of your members exhibit is interesting to me because it indicates a disregard for the content of the product itself and a judgment based instead on its purpose, which quite explains the reactions that Doctor Sticky is experiencing (as I'm sure you know). I can dig the free host criticism because it's essentially based on common sense, but if the members here do think categorically that "auto submitting software sucks ass" then I wonder -- is it that they actually tried the software and it doesn't work (and therefore sucks ass), or is it because they don't like the volume and types of submissions they personally receive on their own websites? The former should preclude people from reasonably criticizing a new unknown auto-submitter, and the latter seems more of an effect of some sort of cognitive bias (google "fundamental attribution error" for more on that). So if we were to really pick apart these objections it looks like we'd find that they are quite vacuous.
As for the first criticism on the list above -- what effect have "scripts like yours" (Arylia) had on TGPs that is undesirable? I understand that TGPs receive more submissions now than they used to, and I assume this is the "current state" that you are referring to (since we can demonstrate to you, and I will explain below, that Arylia in particular does not encourage sloppy templates). I also understand that it is inconvenient for you to implement an account system and that you'd rather not. But if your goal is for your site to be popular and profitable, you will want a lot of visitors. And having a lot of visitors would result in a lot of submissions, regardless of the existence or non-existence of any gallery builder or auto-submitter. So if your complaint is that scripts like ours forces you to implement the features that you need for your site to be popular, I'd suggest you just shut your site down now because dealing with that is just the first of many steps to being successful.
All of these objections notwithstanding, I think everything would be okay if everyone had come in to this post, saying "Gallery scripts are stupid, they're ruining the industry". I can appreciate that viewpoint, like I appreciate yours (even though we disagree) and I think your responses, greenguy, have been rather insightful in general and even somewhat entertaining. What's a little difficult is that people are criticizing the script for something it isn't:
- This script does not design your galleries.
- This script does not impose any minimum or maximum pixel width on galleries it produces.
- This script does not submit your galleries to other sites automatically.
- This script does not produced "canned" galleries that look like thousands of other galleries on the internet, unless the user builds their template that way (which they can do either with or without this script).
The purpose is simply to automate some of the boring and redundant tasks that all of us have had to do at one point or another. If we only had to "save 15-20 images" to run an adult site, this script would never have been written. That task must be carried out repeatedly and there's no good reason not to automate it.
Producing galleries that will be approved on TGPs will still take some time because you have to put effort into designing a sharp template and place each image. What you won't have to do is resize all of the thumbs by hand in Photoshop.
The bottom line here is that at some point you have to use some kind of software tool to simplify your work. You're not working with sheets of binary code when you manipulate images. But you can choose whether you use a text editor or a tool that's made for building web pages, and you can choose whether to use MS Paint, or a tool that's made for manipulating photographs, or a tool that's made for making picture galleries.
Arylia was designed simply to understand that
you are building a gallery, to make thumbnails, to place them, to keep track of and properly display banners and linkcodes where you specify, and to make even manual thumbnail generation faster and easier. It's not your personal gallery designer, it's just an assistant.
You still design the gallery -- it just builds it for you.
So we can disagree about a lot of things. You are welcome to think that the script will cause a great deal of evil and engender an environment of thievery and dishonesty between webmasters and their sponsors. And if you do think that, then I agree that it is reason enough for you to stay clear of it yourself, and not to recommend it to anyone. You are also welcome to think that it would not save you any time, or that it is too expensive, or that TGP owners will never buy it for this reason or that. But criticizing this script, or any script, for something that it isn't is simply ignorant.