I am happy to announce that Dawn and I have completed most of the heavy lifting on a brand new version of the  Wall to Wall Photos website.

This was the first Drupal site we'd built where a family connection to the client existed, and this is also one of the projects that really got me fired up about Drupal 5.x 1.

The site was previously a Drupal 5 + Gallery 2 + Gallery module frankenbeast, but it got the job done. I was asked to help realize a vision for man I hold in high esteem- an offer I couldn't refuse, so to speak...

My father in law, Donald O'Neal, was dying of cancer, and he needed a way to quickly, but tastefully share with the world some spectacular photographs he captured over his photographic career. I was humbled, honored, worried, and curious; could Drupal be the solution?

At the time, there really was a shortage of good image solution modules in Drupal, and I knew even less about what I was doing with Drupal than I do now. I knew a little bit about the Gallery project, and noticed that Drupal and Gallery could be fused together.

Time being of the essence in this project, I thought this sounded like the way to quickly achieve what we needed, and the solution worked. The solution was cumbersome, fragile, and as previously mentioned, resource-inefficient- but it worked. 2

We launched the website in March 2007, and got a steady stream of low bounce-rate vistors averaging about 3 minutes per visit on the site- people were  digging through the galleries and enjoying Don's wonderful photographic art.

We were happy and considered the site a success. From that time until now, we'd made minor improvements and dilligently maintained the site, always planning to "do a 2.0".

At some point last month, a  series of upgrades rendered the site only partially usable, and rather than correct the issues (again), to keep the site shuffling along as-is (was), I decided then and there to begin working on a fresh new version of the site using only Drupal 6, contributed modules, and a contributed theme. 3

The brand new site is now live at www.walltowallphotos.com.

We're still pulling in metadata for most of the images, and doing some last-minute tweaks, so pardon the raw image filenames and such. The site should be usable however, and is certainly more so now than the old site was.

The following screen shot shows some of the new features available when viewing an individual photograph:

Go, and have a peek there and vote on photos you like - we could really use the vote data to make new site features around popular photos. Also, be sure to hit up the Serendipity button a time or two. ;-)

In the future, I may do a more in-depth feature on the site describing all modules involved, etc.

Feel free to drop me a line with suggestions or leave a comment here if you have something to share.

1. 1. Fired up about Drupal 5.x?! What was I thinking?!
2. 2. Also, do not get me wrong! I am quite pleased with both the Gallery Project and Drupal, and I appreciate the efforts of both communities!
3. 3. We used Acquia Slate for our base, and like all Top Notch Themes, it rocks!