I notice when new albums are uploaded (ftp), the status defaults to published. This should be reversed so when the Gallery is 'live', the admin can work on new albums without them being viewable. Then when ready, set to publish via the Admin setting.
Comments
Perhaps the admin upload page should allow just the creation of the album. Until that is available (no promises) it is a simple matter to FTP the empty folder and go to admin to mark it not published. Little chance of anyone seeing it in the mean time and if they do, there is nothing there.
I'm sorry but I agree with macalter that the value should be in the options and should not be by default "published". Looking at the problem for a different angle, the option can be called share/do not share. I could be using the server as a remote backup of my pictures and might not want to "share" all my pictures.
if there is a problem with published/unpublished albums perhaps zenphoto should make the two states more clear to users rather than making everything published by default.
What is so hard about setting an album to not published before uploading to it? You can do that when you upload the first image using the admin upload. If an album is not published, nothing in it is visible.
macalter: how many albums are you creating at a time before publishing them? Or maybe you are marking each image unpublished? That is unnecessary as not publishing the album hides all images.
Again: First create the albums with the admin interface and mark them unpublished. (You will have to upload one image to do this unless you use last night's build.) Then FTP your content.