Creating an Image Gallery

The main problems are as follows:

• Images cannot be indexed or searched without storing textual information separately.
• Images are usually large, bloating the size of tables.
• Table fragmentation affects performance if images are deleted frequently.
• Retrieving images from a database involves passing the image to a separate script, slowing down display in a web page.

Storing images in a database is messy, and involves more scripting. It’s much more efficient to store images in an ordinary folder on your website and use the database for information about the images. You need just two pieces of information in the database—the filename and a caption that can also be used as alttext.

Unless you’regood at visualizing how a page will look simply by reading its source code, I find that the best way to design a database-driven site is to start with a static page and fill it with placeholder text and images. I then create my CSS style rules to get the page looking the way I want, and finally replace each placeholder element with PHP code. Each time I replace something, I check the page in a browser to make sure that everything is still holding together.