How can we help?

Getting started

Visitors can browse Recent light, open public albums, and view photographs without an account. Members can upload photographs, create albums, and choose a personal theme.

1. Select Join MyATX and create an account.
2. Sign in with the email address and password you chose.
3. If you forget your password, select Forgot password? on the sign-in page. The one-time email link expires after one hour.
4. Use Log out in the navigation when you are finished.

Uploading photographs

Select Add photo in the navigation. Choose a JPG, PNG, or WebP image up to 8 MB, then add a title and an optional accessibility description.

• The title appears when someone points to the photograph.
• The image description helps visitors using assistive technology.
• You may assign the photograph to one of your albums during upload.
• Gallery tiles use a uniform crop, but the original uploaded image is preserved.

Opening a photograph displays its original file. Administrators can remove photographs under Admin → Images.

Creating and managing albums

Open Albums and select Create album. Enter a title, a description, and choose whether the album should be private.

Add existing photographs

Open an album you own and select Choose uploaded photos. Check the photographs to include and select Save album. A photograph can belong to one album at a time; selecting one from another album moves it.

Delete an album

The bottom of the album-management page contains a red-bordered Danger zone:

• Delete album, keep photos removes the collection but returns its photographs to “No album.”
• Delete album and photos permanently removes the album, its records, and its uploaded image files.

Private albums

A private album and every photograph assigned to it are visible only to its owner. Private-album photographs do not appear under Recent light, and visitors cannot open the album with a direct link.

Set privacy while creating an album or open Choose uploaded photos and use the Private album control. Private albums display a Private badge to their owner.

Changing your appearance

Signed-in members can open Settings, choose one of the themes made available by the administrator, and select Save appearance. Theme choices are saved to the account and remembered on the device.

Account access

Administrators manage accounts under Admin → Users.

The registration switch on the same page controls whether visitors may create new accounts. Existing members can still sign in when registration is closed.

Installing themes

Administrators have two installation choices under Admin → Themes.

CSS upload

Enter the theme name, folder name, description, and author, then upload one CSS file up to 5 MB. MyATX creates the manifest and an images folder automatically.

ZIP package

A ZIP package may be up to 5 MB and must contain theme.json and theme.css at its top level. Optional PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, or AVIF files belong under images/. The unpacked package may not exceed 20 MB.

Newly installed themes remain disabled until an administrator checks them in the installed-theme list and saves availability.

Plugins

Plugins live in their own folders inside plugins/, with a plugin.php entry file. Installed plugins appear automatically under Admin → Plugins.

The current hook points are home_after_gallery, settings_after_themes, and image_uploaded. The included Gallery Notes plugin supplies the editable curator’s note below collections with at least three public photographs.

Installing on your server

MyATX is designed for a web server running PHP 8.2 or newer and MySQL or MariaDB. PHP needs the mysqli and fileinfo extensions; zip is optional but required for ZIP theme uploads.

1. Upload the gallery files

Upload the contents of the gallery folder using your hosting file manager, SFTP, or another secure deployment method. Place them in the public folder for the address where the gallery should appear—for example, your domain’s document root or a gallery subfolder.

2. Create the database

Use your hosting control panel to create a MySQL database and a dedicated database user. Give that user access to the new database, then import database.sql using phpMyAdmin or the database-import tool supplied by your host.

3. Configure MyATX

Copy config.sample.php to config.php. Enter the database host, port, database name, username, and password supplied by your host. Database hosts are not always localhost, so use the exact value shown in the hosting dashboard.

4. Set writable folders

The web-server account needs permission to write to uploads/ for photographs and to themes/ for administrator-installed themes. Use the permissions recommended by your host; avoid making folders publicly writable when a narrower setting is available.

5. Open the gallery

Visit the domain or subfolder where you uploaded MyATX. Create the first account, which becomes the initial administrator, then review Branding, Users, and Themes in the admin area.

Security and backups

• Keep config.php private and never publish its database password.
• Use HTTPS for the gallery and its sign-in pages.
• Back up both the MySQL database and the uploads/ folder.
• Keep PHP and the web server updated through your hosting provider.
• Use a dedicated database user instead of a server-wide root account.