The developers of Gallery, an online photo-album organizer, have officially announced the start of Gallery 3.  I have to say they have a very aggressive release date for the release of version 3.0.

Those of you that have been paying attention know that something is going on! At the Gallery Sprint a few weeks ago, we made a lot of decisions and got the ball rolling on a complete rewrite which we've decided to call Gallery 3. Development of new features on Gallery 2 has been frozen, Gallery 1 is now a completely separate project "Jallery", and the Gallery team is now busy at work on Gallery 3. It's definitely not ready to run on your website yet but we've set the ambitious goal of having a 3.0 release by February 1, 2009 and are on track to meet that goal.

Feature requirements for Gallery 3.0 can be found on the Gallery wiki page.

Gallery 2.3, an open source "photo album organizer", has been released. Lot of new features in this version of the Gallery 2.x branch.  Some of the new features and enchancements include:

• Slideshow module now uses PicLens to provide a rich, full screen slideshow.
• Comment module now offers spam moderation and Akismet support.
• New email notification module allowing users to configure events they wish to get notified for.
• Support for SQLite 3.x as a database backend.
• New SnapGalaxy module for prints from snapgalaxy.com.
• New Jpegtran module to support rotation and cropping of jpeg images.
• New database backup features.
• Themes can now override module template files.
• Performance and stability improvements.
• User interface improvements.
• Security improvements resulting from internal and external audits.

I know I'm a week behind about this, but I just came across the link via Gadgetopia:  Open-source PHP applications that changed the world.  The CMS related applications that were determined world changers are listed below.

• PHP-Nuke - 1999
• eZ Publish - 2000
• osCommerce - 2000
• phpBB - 2000
• Gallery - 2001
• Drupal - 2001
• MediaWiki - 2002
• WordPress - 2003
• Joomla! - 2005
• Magento eCommerce - 2007

When you split the list into three sections, you get the feeling that PHP-Nuke, ezPublish, and osCommerce have been around for a very long time.  More importantly, you begin to think that it is time for Gallery, Drupal, and MediaWiki to either be seen as mature applications or for those applications to finally grow up.

"Gallery 2.2.3 is now available for download. This release adds no new features. It fixes critical application security bugs in the WebDAV and Reupload modules. If the WebDAV or Reupload modules are active in your Gallery we strongly recommend that you either disable them, upgrade them via Downloadable Plugins or perform a complete upgrade to version 2.2.3."

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Gallery 2.2.2, a Web application for managing your photos, was released this week.  No new features have been added but over 30 bug fixes were included in this stability release.  Some highlights are:

• Fixed WebDAV for OS X / GNOME clients - Items are now recognized as images
• Fixed fallback theme / theme reset functionality
• Fixed PHP error in fetchWebPage() on too many redirects
• Fixed rewrite rule for embedded core.DownloadItem
• Fixed Upgrade Code for IBM DB2 / MS SQL Server

Check Gallery's download page for the latest version of Gallery.  The original announcement of Gallery 2.2.2's release can be found by clicking here.

"A few months back we released a preview for Gallery 1.6. This contained many new features including access keys, a template system, captcha support, and group support but it also is a dramatic change in the code and layout handling. To this date we have received almost no feedback on these new features. Without any feedback, it is hard for us to know if it still makes sense for us to release Gallery 1.6, especially in light of the fact that it is significantly different from Gallery 1.5. Please read on!"

"Gallery 2.2 (Double Double) is now available for download! In what has been close to a year of development, the Gallery team has packed this release full of new features and security enhancements. Major new features include: Downloadable Plugins which let you download, install, and upgrade modules and themes through the web interface; Dynamic Albums which let you set up albums based on keywords, ratings, and more; and WebDAV support for managing your photo library like a network hard drive with folders of images."

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