I thought this might be a good place to post an extension I wrote, because I love and use the Atahualpa theme and it's the only theme I've tested it on. =)
It's called Un Gallery. It embeds a directory tree of photos as a gallery within WordPress. There is no choosing files via a WP admin page or adding files to the WP database or anything. Once configured, the extension just parses the photo file hierarchy including any edits, deletes or additions that are made to it since the last browser refresh.
The files are on github:
http://github.com/mmond/ungallery/tree/master
An example installation is available on my site:
http://markpreynolds.com/gallery
A few more details:
Imports a directory tree of graphic files and embeds them in WordPress. The main value of Un Gallery is zero management of the photo gallery within WordPress. After configuring Un Gallery, you can upload, move, delete and edit the photo files directly on the server. Un Gallery will pick up all the changes made to the file hierarchy immediately.
* Unlimited depth, breadth, and number of photos in library. Mine has approx 6,000.
* Photo library is managed outside of WordPress, simply update via FTP, SCP, etc. Un Gallery sees changes immediately.
* Set optional banner captions
* Hidden, private galleries
* Thumbnail cache files are added to photo directory for faster page loads
* Support for png, jpg, bmp, mov, avi, mp3, mp4
This script is still beta. Feel free to use it, extend it or contact me with questions.
Much of the script is taken from other published sources and noted inline.
Thanks for the great WP theme and all the support efforts on this site. It helped me debug the gallery formatting.
Mark
http://markpreynolds.com