the first photograph leads, and nothing says so twice

A collection named its own main picture. A gallery is already ORDERED — somebody drags it into the
sequence they want — so "which one leads" was being answered twice, in two screens, by two mechanisms
that could disagree. Reordering a gallery and then wondering why the card had not changed was a bug
waiting to be filed.

So the grid here decides nothing at all. It is what the collection SHOWS, in the gallery's order, and
the pictures are no longer buttons: making them look pressable would promise a control that lives in
another screen. Adding, reordering and framing all belong to Galleries, and now so does this.

The `cover` column is gone from both databases.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

web/sections/CollectionsPanel.tsx

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import { useCallback, useEffect, useRef, useState } from 'react';
 import { useSearchParams } from 'react-router';
-import { Boxes, Check, Images, Loader2, Plus, Trash2 } from 'lucide-react';
+import { Boxes, Images, Loader2, Plus, Trash2 } from 'lucide-react';
 import { useClient } from 'hooks/useClient';
 import { Button } from '@/components/ui/button';
 import { Input } from '@/components/ui/input';
@@ -176,14 +176,6 @@ export const CollectionsPanel = () => {
       await clientRef.current.patch(`/fofos-admin/collections/${selected.id}`, { gallery_id: galleryId });
     });
 
-  const chooseCover = (path: string) =>
-    send(async () => {
-      if (!selected) return;
-      // Pressing the one already chosen clears it, which is how "no choice, use the first" is reachable
-      // again without a second control that only does that.
-      await clientRef.current.patch(`/fofos-admin/collections/${selected.id}`, {
-        cover: selected.cover === path ? null : path,
-      });
     });
 
 
@@ -279,36 +271,20 @@ export const CollectionsPanel = () => {
         ) : (
           <>
             <p className="mb-3 text-xs text-muted-foreground">
-              {photos.length} photographs, in the gallery&rsquo;s order. Click one to make it the main photo.
+              {photos.length} photographs, in the gallery&rsquo;s order &mdash; the first one leads. Reorder
+              them in Galleries.
             </p>
+            {/* Not buttons. Nothing here is a decision — the order is the gallery's and so is which one
+                leads. Making them look pressable would promise a control that lives elsewhere. */}
             <ul className="grid grid-cols-[repeat(auto-fill,minmax(9rem,1fr))] gap-3">
-              {photos.map((photo) => {
-                const isCover = selected.cover ? photo.path === selected.cover : photo === photos[0];
-                return (
-                  <li key={photo.path}>
-                    <button
-                      type="button"
-                      disabled={busy}
-                      onClick={() => void chooseCover(photo.path)}
-                      className={`relative block w-full overflow-hidden rounded-md border transition-colors ${
-                        isCover ? 'border-primary ring-1 ring-primary' : 'border-border hover:border-primary/50'
-                      }`}
-                    >
-                      <img src={thumbUrl(photo.path, 320)} alt="" className="aspect-square w-full object-cover" />
-                      {isCover && (
-                        <span className="absolute top-1.5 right-1.5 flex items-center gap-1 rounded bg-primary px-1.5 py-0.5 text-[10px] text-primary-foreground shadow">
-                          <Check className="size-2.5" />
-                          {/* "Main" rather than "Cover": the first one is the main photo by default, so
-                              the badge has to be true of a picture nobody chose as well as one somebody
-                              did. */}
-                          Main
-                        </span>
-                      )}
-                    </button>
-                    <p className="mt-1 truncate font-mono text-[10px] text-muted-foreground/70">{photo.name}</p>
-                  </li>
-                );
-              })}
+              {photos.map((photo) => (
+                <li key={photo.path}>
+                  <div className="overflow-hidden rounded-md border border-border">
+                    <img src={thumbUrl(photo.path, 320)} alt="" className="aspect-square w-full object-cover" />
+                  </div>
+                  <p className="mt-1 truncate font-mono text-[10px] text-muted-foreground/70">{photo.name}</p>
+                </li>
+              ))}
             </ul>
           </>
         )}

web/sections/collections.ts

@@ -5,8 +5,6 @@ export type Collection = {
   gallery_id: number | null;
   title: string;
   slug: string | null;
-  /** A media PATH, the same string a gallery item holds — see the site's schema. */
-  cover: string | null;
   description: string | null;
   descriptive_text: string | null;
   measurement: string | null;