MG 2.3 Is Media Gallery worth buying?

[Davyc]

I've used the Media Gallery before, many years ago, and I'm considering buying it for my Rock Music site to display band images from various bands, along with YT videos from the same bands. Is this a good bet, or would generating individual forums (article format) be as good as, or even better.

I've not used the Media Gallery since version 1, so I'm well out of the loop. I can play with the front end on here, but what I'm curious about is the back end and how much versatility there exists in terms of manipulating the front end to display various layouts, or is it fixed?

Some help and advice would be appreciated.

With thanks

 

[CedricV]

In my experience, but this may well depend on the niche, it’s hardly being used.

 

[tajhay]

In my experience, but this may well depend on the niche, it’s hardly being used.

This.

 

[JamesBrown]

10 years ago it was used extensively. But since then, it must have become much easier to post directly into threads and that's where all photos go. I keep my version installed and updated, but only because there is a lot of history within.

Starting out now, I would not buy or install it.

 

[Davyc]

Thanks for the feedback, it has been really useful in my decision-making and I will forego the purchase and use the forums as was my first thought.

I can remember a good while ago a developer called Sonnb who developed a gallery add-on which was brilliant. Sadly, he/she decided not to embrace the desire to upgrade for Xenforo 2+ going forward. It was a superior gallery and well received; shame it's not still around.

Thanks again for your feedback

 

[Sim]

Will very much depend on your niche.

My biggest site has only just over 1,500 images in the gallery - most photos are just attached to threads.

However, ZooChat has a massive gallery of nearly 700,000 images across 3,300+ categories, running on XFMG v1.1.18 (forum is XF 1.5) ... and I've been discouraging users from uploading a lot of new images due to technical issues (unrelated to the gallery software).

Once I get the site upgraded to XF 2.3 and fix those other technical issues, I expect photo uploads to explode - we're going to need to implement some new systems to manage the volume of photos.

 

[Ricsca]

In my opinion, activating "Mirror Attachments from Forums" so that the photos uploaded to threads go to certain categories of the gallery, the gallery becomes very useful because it contains organized photos

 

[CedricV]

In my opinion, activating "Mirror Attachments from Forums" so that the photos uploaded to threads go to certain categories of the gallery, the gallery becomes very useful because it contains organized photos

I have legit never knew about this before.

 

[Ricsca]

I have legit never knew about this before.

this option should be promoted because it is really useful, but instead almost no one knows about it!
for example I have a forum on parrots with the forum sections for the various species and all the photos that are uploaded in the threads end up in the Gallery categories of the various species how many users visit the gallery find the photos of the parrots divided by the various species.

 

[Suzanne O]

I've used the Media Gallery before, many years ago, and I'm considering buying it for my Rock Music site to display band images from various bands, along with YT videos from the same bands. Is this a good bet, or would generating individual forums (article format) be as good as, or even better.

I've not used the Media Gallery since version 1, so I'm well out of the loop. I can play with the front end on here, but what I'm curious about is the back end and how much versatility there exists in terms of manipulating the front end to display various layouts, or is it fixed?

Some help and advice would be appreciated.

With thanks

Yeah mate it is worth it.
It upgrades when you upgrade your forum.
With all those pics you've restored they'd look good up in the media gallery

 

[briansol]

Mine was really busy in the old days. But, as mentioned by others above, once attachments got better, it began to die. no longer were people looking for image hosting and pasting in links. It could be done inline now.

If i were starting a new forum today, i would not use it.
But, other niche's that are photo-first, may be more useful.

 

[Wing]

Has been great for our hobby niche https://www.v303rdfightergroup.com/index.php?media/

 

[Seeker-Smith]

We use Media Gallery pretty extensively 1.1 million attachments. Plus all images and videos posted in our forums get mirrored to the Media Gallery. It has some features I wish I could turn off and a couple I'd like improved but overall it works.

My main complaint is its inconsistent with the way images are displayed and scaled compared to the forums.

 

[Wing]

We use Media Gallery pretty extensively 1.1 million attachments. Plus all images and videos posted in our forums get mirrored to the Media Gallery. It has some features I wish I could turn off and a couple I'd like improved but overall it works.

My main complaint is its inconsistent with the way images are displayed and scaled compared to the forums.

For the forum attachments, do you have them uploaded to a specific repository album? Also is there a way for them to not flood the rest of the gallery, especially the widget overview of latest images? I guess that’s my largest concern is if random graphics and images from forum posts are going to spam/flood our gallery that has actual legit wallpapers, screenshots ect

 

[Forsaken]

For the forum attachments, do you have them uploaded to a specific repository album? Also is there a way for them to not flood the rest of the gallery, especially the widget overview of latest images? I guess that’s my largest concern is if random graphics and images from forum posts are going to spam/flood our gallery that has actual legit wallpapers, screenshots ect

Look at the Album Mirroring add-on @Painbaker made me; it creates albums that are linked to threads (or any associated content).

 

[Seeker-Smith]

For the forum attachments, do you have them uploaded to a specific repository album? Also is there a way for them to not flood the rest of the gallery, especially the widget overview of latest images? I guess that’s my largest concern is if random graphics and images from forum posts are going to spam/flood our gallery that has actual legit wallpapers, screenshots ect

We about 30 or so forums users post to. Those are mirrored to matching albums in the MG.

Our MG is changing almost continuously. The best you can do is put the static stuff in galleries near the top but the display will have all the newest posts.

I would like to have better control over the center but it is what it is.

 

[smallwheels]

In my eyes Media Gallery is massively outdated, cumbersome to use and does not even meet the most basic expectations for a Media Gallery in 2025. It is really many miles behind what can reasonably be expected and what one would not even test/check in beforehand as one would assume it a given based on basic expectations. See here for a a couple of topics it has:

A very good example for that is the official Gallery add on:

• no drag and drop upload
• an interface that comes from the mid 2000s
• a strictly hierarchical album system that does not allow to create albums as virtual instances from existing pictures in various places but instead you have to upload from scratch into each album.
• no possibility to sort/arrange the order of the pictures
• no simple way to set a cover picture other than automatic
• no userfriedly permanently visible labeling of an album cover with the name of an album
• no bulk-labeling fields during the upload process
• a permission system directly from hell that does not uploads from anyone other than the owner if it is not a personal album

The whole thing is so clunky and outdated - when I started using it after buying it I felt cheated on as I bought a piece of software that was not cheap but turned out to be so far away (in the sense of below) from even the most basic modern standards and features that I could not believe that something like that is sold as an official company add on today. In my opinion it is horrible in almost every aspect (I did not start to talk about the optics, just about usability and technical things). Which - as a side effect - leads to barely any of my users using the Gallery. Which then has direct negative effects on the users, the usability and the intensity the forums are used. Even worse as there is no alternative from a 3rd party.

Also, if you want to insert a picture from the MG into a post you can browse the MG from the editor but you cannot search at all - it is a completely useless nightmare. As a consequence barely any of my users uses it. Unfortunately there is no competition/alternative for it.

While I do use this feature on my forum

"Mirror Attachments from Forums"

I think in many cases for a normal forum the MG is not necessary. And where it would be useful it is held back by the embarrassing outdated state of development it suffers from in pretty much every imaginable aspect (and some less imaginable). I'd go as far as to say this addon does harm to the reputation of XF as the forum software is really good and decent while the paid gallery addon is the exact opposite (which is to a degree true for the resource manager addon as well, but not as dramatically).It really needs a major overhaul to be worth buying it.

 

[thunderclap82]

In my opinion, activating "Mirror Attachments from Forums" so that the photos uploaded to threads go to certain categories of the gallery, the gallery becomes very useful because it contains organized photos

Where is this option? I'm not seeing it in the settings anywhere.

 

[Ricsca]

Go to edit a category of the category and at the bottom you will find the mirroring option to connect it to a node of the forum.
Once the connection is made, when a photo is uploaded to a thread (or post) it automatically goes to the category of the gallery that has been set for that node.

 

[Geiri]

I've used the Media Gallery before, many years ago, and I'm considering buying it for my Rock Music site to display band images from various bands, along with YT videos from the same bands. Is this a good bet, or would generating individual forums (article format) be as good as, or even better.

I've not used the Media Gallery since version 1, so I'm well out of the loop. I can play with the front end on here, but what I'm curious about is the back end and how much versatility there exists in terms of manipulating the front end to display various layouts, or is it fixed?

Some help and advice would be appreciated.

With thanks

As many stated it depends. But If your longing is to collect Images and videos from bands to build a database. It is a great addon.

I use it to collect car photos, and I use the "Mirror Attachments from Forums" to catalog by year or to a specific category, in the gallery and to keep photos where they can be easily browsed. Not hidden in a thread deep down. People are into looking at photos than reading text nowadays.

I say, YES