file uploading from front end
 

I know this is not specifically an Atahualpa issue but I am hoping someone here can help me with this. I been searching the internet for weeks to no avail. I need to add upload capabilities to the front end of a few pages or a set page that allows the scouts and parents to upload photos without requireing them to log into wp-admin.

I was going to use photosmash to do this because I was told that it has the capabilities but I decided against it because the author has stopped development of the plugin. I went with NextGen Gallery which has a public uploader created by a third party but it is full of bugs and flaws. I will use it however if I am unable to find a better solution.

I thought about using Uploadify, but lots of people using wordpress with it complain about how complex it is and many cannot even get it to work. Plus I am really looking for something that has the ability to upload several files at once. Because many times they may be uploading 20-30 pictures at once.

I considered paying someone to write a plugin to do this for me so I asked for bids and many were 500-700 dollars which I suppose is fair but since I am paying out of my pocket for all of this thats a lot more than I can afford for a non-profit troop website.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

When they upload the images what is the intended purpose? For instance are they supposed to be added to a gallery? Also any solution you implement needs to take into account file sizes.

One thought is perhaps to use something like Flickr. You could use a plugin to show a Flickr album and give those you want access to upload to the album.

With the NextGen public uploader it allows a single image to be uploaded at a time and I can choose on the back end if I want it to be published instantly or held for approval which means someone has to log in to the dashboard and approve it. We take trips to Canada, Florida and other places camping and several people normally take pictures. Well as is common everyone on the trip wants copies of everyone else s photos, so what we do now is everyone scans them or if there digital put them on disk and they go to a person in the troop who then combines all the photos and places them on a master cd and then copies that 10-20 times or more for everyone in the troop who wants a copy.

Often the cd is delayed weeks or months if it takes a while for one or two people to get the photos to the person who burns the master copy because she will not do it until all the photos are turned in. I am trying to find a way to streamline the process so that she does not have to spend so many hours doing the work and the pictures can be made available to the troop much faster and easier. I am not sure how they will feel about flickr because I am not sure they will want the photos on a public area where everyone can view them. So I was going to use nextgen and password protect those pages if that is the wish of the parents.


So basically I want to be able to create a gallery or album for example called SeaBase 2011 and I want any scout or parent who was at SeaBase 2011 to be able to upload their photos there if they want to so that others in the troop can have access to them.

I think a better soluion would be to use flixker or one of the other photo sites that are built to handle photos

Thank you I will suggest that to the troop and see which option they think is best.