What Is The Difference Between A Category And A Gallery?

I am really trying to make sense of these but it's just not working. Can someone please help me understand the difference between a category and a gallery and when should I use one over the other. 

Category is like senior portraits: Then you add your student galleries to that like : Baker_jon, Anderson_Judy Ect.

Or like category: Long jump skiing competition: Then galleries like: Age 9-12, age 13-16, Adult 

That appears to be what I am doing in creating main categories, then sub-categories and then galleries and sub-galleries under the sub-categories for holding the photos but it only kind of partially works when uploading from FTP as everything basically ends up in the root sub-category even when I an 4 or 5 sub galleries down trying to process the photos and sub-folders uploaded by ftp into the sub-gallery.

From the FTP upload article:

To upload via FTP, upload the folder of photos you are wanting to upload into the sy-upload folder. After they have uploaded, go to the page you are wanting to add them to and click Upload Photos. You will now see the folder(s) you have uploaded and click process next to the folder you are wanting to add.

Sub Galleries
If you upload a folder with sub folders in it, it will automatically create sub galleries.
Example:
Main Folder Name
Sub Folder 1 (has photos)
Sub folder 2 (has photos)
Sub folder 3 (has photos)

This will create the 3 sub galleries called "Sub Folder 1", "Sub Folder 2", "Sub Folder 3".
You can even add more sub folders inside the sub folders to create deeper sub galleries.

The above only shoves all the photos and sub folders into the root category instead of in the selected gallery even though I have the desired sub-gallery open and select the FTP process upload from there. I have almost a million photos over 10 years of work that need to go onto the site in the correct places and right now I'm having trouble getting even one show done correctly.

So what am I doing wrong with the FTP process or what is wrong with the FTP process?

You will have to wait on tim for this, i only answered your question on difference of gallery vs category

Yes, thanks for your explanation. It was a sanity check that we were not totally off base.

I can confirm that it can be done

assuming that I want to put two more subcategories, male and female
in the ftp inside the sy-photos folder I have to create a folder that can be called anything, abcdefg, whatever you call it is indifferent and then inside you load the folder tree with photos that you
and
abcdefg/male
abcdefg/female

when you click on "upload photo" the one inside THE SUBCATEGORY (not the root one) will select the abcdefg folder

p.s. abcdefg disappears and you will see subcategories , male and female under subcategory 100

. 

the big problem of sytist is that if you fail to upload the photos in the subcategory , you have to delete everything and start again, you can't move it. at first I had to do it all over again many times, then with experience it's just to be careful but doable ,

Thank you Marco for your help. Your description is very similar to what we wish to do structure wise. 

What we were not doing that has to be done is use the upload photos icon under the sub-directory and that is why all the candid and win class photos for each day were winding up in the wrong place.  We were going to where we wanted the photos and sub directories but using the Big Blue "Upload Photos" button then selecting process for the uploaded folder. It's big and blue so why not?  I didn't find any distinction in the manual for the upload buttons and links being different and that is what was putting the photos and creating the sub-directories in the wrong place.

If you have any tips for FTP setup you are using please pass them along. 

Thanks,

Yes I agree it would be nice to be able to fix a mistake and not have to delete everything and start over. Especially when 30,000 or more photos may be in an upload and you may be trying to do this at a show. 

I did figure out with FTP you have to create a dummy folder. When processing the FTP uploads we were sometimes trying to create to much of a structure and then for whatever reason maybe we used the correct upload photos button for the sub cat it would duplicate the structure or we would use the wrong button and everything would wind up in the root area again. Either way we would need to delete everything again. Then we would try again and maybe we used the correct button and would put things in correctly driving us crazy as we could not put a finger on why things were not working or were working.

The FTP upload structure we would use would be along the lines of: Dog Events > Dog Events 2023> ABTC > Ringside Candids. In the ringside candids sub-cat we would upload using FTP

abcdefg > Thursday > dir 1 ~ dir 21
                 > Friday > dir 1 ~ dir 21
                 > Saturday > dir 1 ~ dir 21

Provided that we use the correct upload photo icon or link (as appropriate for the particular sub cat) for the sub-cat Ringside Candids, that would mean we should have success during processing to create the sub-cats xxxday, then create all necessary sub-cats (classes) for each day and populate with the photos contained within all in the correct place of Dog Events > Dog Events 2023> ABTC > Ringside Candids

That is what I see you are basically doing too.

You can create the structure of the folders / subcategories faster with the " add sub galleries " button then use ftp only for the last subcategory

Right. I guess I called them sub-cats by mistake (comes from my work - used to cats), we are creating sub-galleries after Galleries section and sub cats > Dog Events > Dog Events 2023. We would create sub-galleries down to the level where we have photos sorted on the computer. Then use FTP to create sub-galleries from there but might decide to try creating one more sub-gallery level (thurs. Fri, Etc.) before the classes.