ASUSTOR Releases Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta

ASUSTOR released a new version, although it’s only a beta version for now, of their Photo Gallery NAS feature. The new version brings a lot of new features as well optimizations and speedups on existing function. The new Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta is available now and it is compatible with all ASUSTOR NAS devices running ADM version 2.5.2BDF1 and onwards.

The new Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta offers multi-level folder structures, increased thumbnail processing speeds, and more sorting functions than before. New features also include auto rotation to correct orientation of uploaded images, a concealable side navigation bar that shows album folder structures, and an intuitive search function. Customizable browsing quality based on the device and network environment was also added in order to give you the best experience. Those are all great things that I’m sure will be welcome among the ASUSTOR NAS users.

This latest version of Photo Gallery is using a new database technology that makes most of these functions possible, such as the multiple levels of folders as well as the greatly increasing thumbnail processing speeds that will give you a much smoother browsing experience.

We take more and more digital photos every day and the larger the collection grows, the harder it gets to sort and manage them. We want this to get as easy as possible and the new Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta version offers some new improvements here. You can now switch between Album and Browse modes when viewing photos. Users can also customize the browsing interface according to their preferences where customizable items include language, hide and show the number of comments, show the total number of photos on a page, image aspect ratio, and the ability to prioritize image quality or speed according to the usage environment or device. Another new feature is the ability to auto-rotate photos based on the information stored in the image file. This can save many hours of work manually rotating all your panorama shots, for example.

“In our modern technological age, the total output of digital photos is growing significantly every day. The ability to manage all these photos has become a key issue for many individuals,” said Vincent Tseng, Product Manager at ASUSTOR. “Photo Gallery allows users to save time and effort while helping them to centrally manage all of their photos. Users will be able to effortlessly browse and share all of their favorite photos with friends and family around the globe.”

The new Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta is available directly from the Beta Apps section in your ASUSTOR App Central and it is also available as a direct download for devices that don’t have an active internet connection. There’s also a new Android app, AiFoto 2.0 beta, available to work with the new Photo Gallery 2.0 Beta. A new iOS version will also be available soon.

Key features for the Photo Gallery 2.0 beta version

• “Album” and “Browse” viewing modes: “Album” mode, organizes all the photos from the various subfolders of an album into a single level for convenient browsing while “Browse” mode allows users to browse through photos in detail according to the album and subfolder infrastructure.
• Multi-level folder structure support: In “Browse” mode users can create multiple levels of subfolders. And for second level folders can assign permissions, providing flexibility for permissions management.
• Concealable side navigation bar: Provides album thumbnails and total photo count for each album.
• User preferences: Individual users can decide whether to show the total number of comments and whether or not to have the side bar automatically open to the location of the current album being viewed. Users can also change the interface language and configure image quality according to browsing device, optimizing the browsing experience.
• Intuitive sorting: Ability to sort images in ascending or descending order according to file name or time taken.
• Adjustable browsing: Supports photo wall, 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9 image ratios for display along with an ability to scale down images to a minimum of 0.60 times. The number of photos shown per page can also be configured (50, 100, 250, 500, 1000).
• Automatic image rotation to correct orientation, saving time and energy.
• Comprehensive search function: Can use keywords to search within specified albums and folders. Can also specify search criteria such as file name, album name, file description, comments, commenter, time taken, time uploaded and tags.
• One-click sharing to social media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Plurk, email)
• Intuitive drag and drop management: In “Browse” mode, supports directly dragging and dropping photos to move them.
• Can configure album cover and tags (for a single photo or batch of photos).
• Slideshow viewing mode
• Provides comment function for users to interact with each other.
• Supports a wide range of image formats: RAW, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF
• Supports video playback