It’s nice to be back after about 10 days of absence. My previous posts have been about Applications that students need to achieve more while in school.
Today I have decided to start a new series of post that will be showcasing several useful open source application. This series is more about applications reviews and to also showcase the numerous useful applications available in the open source sector.
The first post in this series is about a gallery application known as ‘Simple Gallery’.
The need for pictures and videos in this modern world are numerous. A good camera and a high storage capacity are one of the criteria that a lot of people put into consideration before getting a new device. Pictures and videos, especially in this social media age are important to a lot of people and below are some reasons why a lot of people are really into the trend;
It acts as a safe place for anyone to capture their moments thereby acting as the custodian of those moments. People take it as the best way to save their memories and they often go through these media files when they want to remind themselves of the event that occurred as at that time.
A lot of people use it to entertain their guest and also spice up their dates. Some people run out of topics to discuss while on a date. In this situation, showing the other party pictures and videos from your device is always a sure way to escape a boring outing because there’s always a story behind every picture and a lot of emotions can be generated from these stories.
A lot of people see it as a personal source of entertainment. Some days might get so boring that the only way out is your device. You can decide to go through your old photos or watch comedy videos if you have some. Personally, I can never get bored if I have my device with me.
It serves as a means of acquiring knowledge. Personal Investment is a good way to grow in life and technology has made it possible for us to learn by watching video tutorials and sometimes through graphic Illustrations.
There are other reasons why videos and photos are relevant but I will not concentrate on that due to the fact that my primary purpose is to introduce you to an application that helps you manage and also gets the best out of your photos and videos. Better management of your photos and videos enables you to easily navigate your gallery and also eliminates the added stress, time lost and discomfort you can get by using the wrong gallery manager.
Simple gallery
Simple gallery according to the developers can be defined as
A gallery for viewing photos and videos. A highly customizable gallery capable of displaying many different images and video types including SVGs, RAWs, panoramic photos and videos.
In simple words, it is an open source gallery for android devices.
Features of Simple gallery
Here I will talk about some features that made me like the application during my usage period.
Easy user interface
The user interface is one of the few things that determine if an application stands a chance on a user's device in this competitive application era. Most people don’t get to explore an application because of the buggy user interface. You can’t blame these people because they do have alternatives to every application.
Personally, I believe the Simple gallery has an average user interface in a sense that it’s not a very fancy interface and it’s not also too scanty. It’s easy to navigate and perform a task without additional tutorials.
Screen customization
When either going through your photos or viewing videos, Simple gallery gives you the ability to easily effect changes right there from the screen without having to go through the normal long settings process. You can easily change the thumbnail column count through the right gesture, you can exit full-screen mode with the right gesture and also get access to a lot of customizable buttons right there on the screen.
The ability to lock the full screen while viewing a video or slideshow is an added advantage of this application because it eliminates the interruption often experience when the user mistakenly touches the screen. I personally lock the screen each time that I’m making use of the application to avoid the issue of disturbance as mentioned above.
Security
Security is everyone’s responsibility and it is always advisable for everyone to take the safety of His/her information serious. Most personal data that get leaked online is due to the carelessness of the victim.
Unlike most gallery application out there, Simple gallery takes your security seriously and that is why they have added an additional layer of protection to make sure people that have access to your photos and videos have your full consent. They made this possible by giving three options to protect your photos and videos.
These options include;
The ability to lock and make some items disappear from the gallery. I use this method when I have a very sensitive media file that I don’t want anyone to have access to without my consent.
The ability to protect the whole application. I use this method when someone wants to borrow my phone for a specific reason. Locking the whole applications gives me that rest of mind that none of my photos or videos will be accessed during the person’s stay with my phone.
The ability to lock file transfer or deleting. Personally, I always keep this feature active because I have Nieces and Nephews that might accidentally delete my photo or video. Apart from children, anyone can accidentally delete or want to move your file. The simple gallery always gives me the needed rest of mind that my files are safe irrespective of the individual handling my device.
However, You will have to set your desired pattern, pin or fingerprint in other to activate any of the security methods. You are also free to activate the whole three methods depending on your needs.
Flexible customization
This application has a lot of other cool features that every user should activate in other to have the best user experience. Its flexibility in terms of customization is an added advantage and one of the reasons why I’m still using the application.
Some of these customization include;
The ability to customize the text colour, background colour, application colour and the application primary colour. This gives the user the ability to fine-tune the application to familiar colours thereby making the user more comfortable and relaxed in His/her favourite colours.
The ability to include, exclude or manage certain folders. This means you can comfortably exclude your private folder from appearing in the gallery.
Availability of the recycle bin. On our personal computer, We are used to restoring files that were mistakenly deleted with the help of the recycle bin. Sadly this feature is not available in most Android phones and therefore makes it hard to recover deleted files. Simple gallery, however, reignites the easy process of using the recycle bin on your android just the same way you use on your personal computer. This feature when activated moves your deleted files to the recycle bin instead of the conventional android deleting
.
Minor Features
There are numerous features that I can only mention without a deeper explanation. Some of them include;
- The ability to access the phone camera from the application.
- The availability of the search button and ability to sort the display according to the user desired pattern.
- The ability to create or delete folders from the application.
- Availability of an Image editor.
- The ability to pin an image to the top for easy access.
Conclusion
We all have different taste when it comes to applications. Judging from the above article, Simple gallery has proven to be a good gallery with a lot of substantial features that will add spice to your viewing experience. I will advise you try it yourself before passing your judgement on this awesome application.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are entirely my own personal views and does not reflect the mind of anyone else.
Links
Project repository
https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery
Github profile
https://github.com/dongentle2
Android download link
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro
Resources
This post and all its contents were written by me based on my Experience, Research, Knowledge and personal use of Simple gallery Android application.
Most Images are from my usage screenshots and all other ones are properly referenced.
Series backlinks
This is the first Post of this series.