Pluto

What's Pluto? It's yet another static gallery website builder, based on Astro.

How to use Pluto

Get the code

Run git clone https://github.com/PRRPCHT/Pluto.git to get Pluto's code on your computer. Then in your favorite terminal navigate into this Pluto folder and run npm install in order to install the needed dependencies. NodeJs is required.

Configure Pluto

Set the images up

The images to appear in your gallery must be located in the public/gallery folder. We recommend exporting your images in a web-friendly format. Pluto has a folder based navigation. While it is possible to just copy a lot of images in the gallery folder and call it a day, we recommend having a proper folder hierarchy.

Set the configuration (optional)

The pluto-config.json file helps customizing your gallery.

• gallery_name: gives a custom name to your gallery. Otherwise, Pluto is being used.
• gallery_alignment: defines the alignment of the images in the gallery. Possible values: left, center, right.
• gallery_style: defines the style of the gallery: thumbnails vs large images. Possible values: large, thumbnails.
• description_position: defines the position of the description, above or below the images.
• description_alignment: defines the alignment of the description in the gallery. Possible values: left, center, right.
• base_path (optional): defines the base path when deploying to a subdirectory (e.g., /photos). If your site is hosted at https://example.com/photos, set this to /photos. Default is / (root).

You can also define the base colors of the web app in the src/styles/global.css file. Both the light and dark themes allow to change the main background (--color-base-100), the alternative backgrounds (--color-base-200 & --color-base-300) as the font color (--color-base-content).

Set the descriptions (optional)

Each folder can contain a gallery.md file. Using markdown you can describe what's displayed in the folder. If no description is provided, nothing is displayed.

Make the gallery

Run npm run build --release to make your gallery. The result will be available in the dist folder. Copy the content of this folder to your web server... and enjoy!

Security & privacy aspects

Security

Pluto doesn't provide any security feature e.g. login, rights, groups... It's however posible to leverage your web server's basic authentication system to protect the access to your galleries. Here's an example for running on an Apache server:

1. Create a .htpasswd file in the public folder. This file will contain the logins and the passwords of the users that can log in and see your images. There are several online password generators such as this one that uses bcrypt. Your .htpasswd should look like this:

   pierre:$2y$10$mkzHGvShweaLccauQsE4tO33TdAmed0LZ4LYpSG82ryzYopIYM5tm
   sophie:$2y$10$R99Z9kj0GmriTQZ/M4i0Z.Kd8BbcSItiwGb1Kf2k7pp8nOQ.EZNAO
   

2. Create a .htaccess file in the public folder that will restrict all access to your gallery:

   # Enable basic authentication
   AuthType Basic
   AuthName "Restricted Access"
   AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd
   
   # Require valid user to access any file in this folder or subfolders
   Require valid-user
   
   # Optionally, prevent direct access to .ht* files
   <FilesMatch "^\.ht">
       Require all denied
   </FilesMatch>
   

This way your images won't be reachable by anyone.

Privacy

Pluto comes by default with a robots.txt in the public folder that block search engines to give a look at your images. Remove or edit this file to change its policies. Your gallery still remain opened to anyone if not protected by a password.