Version 2.6

I guess this is more of a question for Roger though I'm sure pure users might have some interest in this...

I've used about every web-based media manager out there to share media with friends, family, business associates and clients. For the last couple of years I've used SmugMug Pro and it has tremendous capabilities yet remains very user friendly. Though I was aware of GSP, I did not have a machine that would run it until I put together my Windows Home Server 2011 machine last month. I also have WHSv1 too.

Microsoft's Web Installer Platform made installation of GSP and any prerequisites very easy. I've been very surprised at most of the features of GSP especially the auto/batch conversion of videos into web-friendly formats. So first impressions remain in the very good category to me. After that, I started bumping into things that were anything but "consumer-ready". Appearance changes seem to require a fair amount of CSS know-how, adding/changing MIMEs (explained in another post), etc.

So being a newbie to GSP, I'm trying to understand what we have and where it is going. Is the long range plan to be a consumer-ready media gallery that requires minimal code knowledge? I've read some chatter about the next version having templates and more user control of appearance so that would be a great step. So is there a roadmap of where GSP is heading and a loose timetable?

My interest in GSP was piqued as I thought how I might use it. For my family we sort of have two levels of sharing:

1. All media (primarily video & photos) in which there is ANY interest to view by immediate family, gets loaded into some type of a web app so they are EASY to locate and view from anywhere. GSP would seem to fit that need pretty well. "Original" files remain somewhat locked up and isolated on our WHS machines and are not available for viewing. Our WHS machines also perform off-site backups of those files as well.

We learned a long time ago that web-based media tends to be viewed by our family members more than using Windows Explorer to look at a list of media filenames and using Windows Media Player or Quicktime to view.

2. Media which we intend to share more openly with extended family and/or for professional or business use, would be loaded into SmugMug simply because it has a professional look & feel and features that ease the sharing effort and burden.

So if GSP is evolving into a more consumer-friendly, mainstream product, that's great and we could give serious thought to satisfying items 1 & 2 with one product. Perhaps the next version will get GSP a step closer but closer to what, I don't know without a better feeling for its direction.

Please don't get me wrong, I really like GSP and am pleased with what I see but if it doesn't become less technical in some of its how-to's it won't stand a chance of becoming mainstream and/or being found on control panels of web hosting companies that provide automated installation services. I would like to see GSP succeed and blossom into a full-featured, consumer-friendly product. It certainly has great, great potential.

Thank you.