4images Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use the 4images Photo Gallery gallery software with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account. NEXCESS.NET specializes in hosting 4images software and this tutorial is meant to help you quickly setup your site with our web hosting service.

4images Photo Gallery is open source, meaning that you can use and distribute it as you'd like as long as you don't change it.

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and are setting up 4images Photo Gallery at http://johnsmith.com/4images/.

Follow these steps to complete the tutorial:

1. The first thing to do is to run through the SiteWorx MySQL tutorial and create a database for 4images to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called '4images' with a user named '4images'. When you do this SiteWorx will prefix the database and user names with some text resembling your domain name.

   With our example domain of 'johnsmith.com' the database name is 'johnsmit_4images' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_4images'.
2. Download the latest version of 4images Photo Gallery from the 4images website and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   For this example, we're also going to install the English language pack so download this package as well and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop.

   You should now have a '4images' folder and a 'language-pack-english' folder. Open the 'language-pack-english' folder. You should see two folders, 'english' and 'images_english'. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Put the 'english' folder in the '4images/lang' folder. Your 'lang' folder should now look like this:

   

   Put the 'images_english' folder in the '4images/templates/default' folder. Your 'default' folder should now look like this:

   

3. Upload the '4images' folder to your web hosting account. You can do this using an FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorial on our tutorials page. Once the 4images files and folders are finished, you can access the installation wizard.
4. For this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/4images/'. You should now see the first page of the install wizard. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Since you already installed the English language pack, click the 'English' link at the top right to switch from german to english. You now need to enter the information for the database you created in step #1. For this example, we'll enter the following information:

   • Database server type: mysql - Stays the same.
   • Database server hostname: localhost
   • Database name: johnsmit_4images
   • Database username: johnsmit_4images
   • Database password: mypassword
   • Prefix for tables in database: 4images_ - Stays the same.

   Choose a username and password for the 4images admin account. You will use this account to manage your 4images gallery. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Start installation' button to save your settings. You should receive a message saying that the script can't write the 4images 'config.php' file to the server. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Download Configuration File' button to save the 4images 'config.php' file. You should get a popup windows asking you to save the file. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Save' button and save this file to the desktop. Using your FTP program, upload this file to the '4images' folder on your server.

   Once you've uploaded this file, you can access the login page for the 4images admin control panel. For this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/4images/admin/'. Enter the login and password you created for your 4images admin account. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Log in' button to login to the 4images control panel. You should now be on the main page of the control panel. Your screen should look like this:

   

5. Before you continue, you need to change the permissions on some files and folders in order for the script to access them. You can do this using the CHMOD command in your FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorial on our tutorials page. For this example, you need to changes the permissions as follows:
   • CHMOD the 'data' folder and all the folders in it to 777
   • CHMOD the 'templates' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'templates/default' folder to 777 and all the files in the folder to 666
   • CHMOD the 'templates/default/media' folder to 777 and all the files in the folder to 666
   If you receive any errors when you're using your script to add or remove pictures or categories from your gallery, make sure you set the correct permissions to the files and folders listed above and then try it again.
6. Your 4images Photo Gallery installation is now complete. You can use the admin control panel to manage and customize your 4images gallery how you see fit. Click on the 'Go to the Gallery Homepage' link at the top right corner of the control panel to see your main gallery page. The link should pop your gallery up in a new window. Your screen should look like this:

   

   For more information on how to use 4images Photo Gallery once it's installed, check out the 4images Forum(German).

Back to web hosting tutorials page