Hi,
I wrote a little plugin that is able to create zip-files on the fly while streaming them. Other than that the functionality is the same as Zenphoto's album-zip.
Advantage over the built in functionality is, that download starts immediately. You don't have to wait for zip file to be created before it is sent, but unlike using persistent archives it is always up to date.
There is a small drawback though. As the zip-file is still being created while getting sent, there won't be a filesize given. So resuming the download and estimated time till completion inside your browser/download manager won't work.
Requirements:
PHP 5.1.2 is required and safe mode = off is strongly recommended as timeouts may appear for large albums with safe mode enabled.
Usage:
just download from the link provided below and unpack the zip-file into your plugins folder.
enable the plugin.
and add the following line into your album.php, whereever you want the download-link to appear:
printAlbumZipStream();