This is not how this plugin was intended to be used so it would require quite some modification to the code to get the desired result. Sorry, but that's way beyond the scope of this thread.
Printable View
Please excuse my limited understanding of the Plug-in but, what is its purpose? Are we supposed to drag the files from the server directory "gallery" and place them into the "image" folders? I use Zen Cart as a shopping cart only.
No worries, happy to explain.
You're supposed to use it as a standalone page where you can display any images you want. The idea is that you have the images on your computer and then you can upload it from your computer to the server through admin using the simple admin interface.
You probably could manually copy the images into the /gallery/files/ directory if those images are on the server, but if you do that, thumbnails won't be created automatically.
You can check the demo site to see how it works.
I see the advantage of linking "thumbnail" and "Medium" dirs to an "everchanging one-of-a-kind" shopping cart site. I could catalog one-off, product lines ie; artworks, and hand-made items. Otherwise, I would just save server space and bandwidth by linking to Google Photos like so... https://photos.app.goo.gl/dbzYtzvzSRnNUaRt6
Agreed, but google photos or similar are not controlled from the admin - you need to login elsewhere to add/edit/delete photos, and you need to find a way to embed it to a new page on your site. Embedding then might cause other problems, especially with responsive design etc etc.
The idea with this plugin is to have it all "centralized" and all under the same admin. As for bandwidth and server space, well... You're not going to have hundreds (or thousands) of photos in your gallery - I mean who would want to go through all of it - so we're talking about maybe 5 MB max in the gallery. I doubt that's gonna have a major impact on anyone - even if you're on some old-style hosting account that gives you 1-2 GB of disk space (but keep in mind most of the decent hosts nowadays don't really impose low limits on disk space). Same goes for bandwidth which is nowadays mostly unlimited...
But anyway... Everyone can decide for themselves and can probably decide which option is best for *their* business model. This plugin is just one of the many ways you can accomplish something, and that's the beauty of Zen Cart - you can do whatever you want. :smile: