Easiest Photo Gallery

[Russ]

Hi Frank, sorry no reply I've been away, first a couple of questions...
1. First off did you upload the file to your plugin folder? Not the module folder? Sorry if this may seem a stupid question - but it isn't, I've done this myself before now!

2. Which version of CMS Made Simple are you using?

3. Apart from the above, I can't see any reason why the module would cause an error in admin, since it is really not used there. (Check there is only one file with the function.ImageGallery in your plugin folder and that none like this are in your modules folder.)

4. If this is coming from a page you are trying to display with the tag....
Does the directory exist?
Do you have the backslash on the end of "upload/images/yourfolder/" ?

As for Albums , i'm not sure what you mean. You use different pages with different galleries and perhaps a 'links' page to act as an index and point to them? Upload the images to different directories? This might be what you want. Or you can have multiple galleries on one page - maybe a bit much though. Either way you can format them all the same or indeed differently.

Hope this helps, if not let me know, I'll be on line later today (UK Time)

Russ

[sydneysunshine]

Hello! Sorry if I've hijacked this topic...but I wasn't sure because of the release issues.
I am using the ImageGallery plugin on the site i'm developing. I've just installed the 'latest version' as indicated a few posts ago. The page in particular is http://www.bridges.org.au/cms/index.php ... ideo&img=2

In internet explorer the thumbs are showing correct width but are stretching either too long (bigpics) or too short (smallpics). In firefox it's fine. Is this an issue for my css or is there some coding I need to do (not very good at coding of script)

At the moment I've set them to force 350 x 262px and 96 x 70px but I want to upload images of different sizes instead of all 350 x 262px what can it be?

Also is there a way to popup the bigpic but with the navigation included i.e next previous etc. That would be great

[Russ]

HI sydneysunshine, I was going to say it's CSS but then I thought I'd check it out. I have to preface this by saying that my Internet Explorer 6 is running in an MS VirtualPC on my Mac.... and it looks just the same as my Mac running Firefox? Or at least close enough so I can't quite see what the problem is.

Creating the thumbnails with image manager - unless you create them yourself does default at least one dimension to 96px, I think - Patricis maybe able to help more here. If you want to create the thumbnails yourself and upload them in a different size then you could? The rest is set with CSS - so you can set it to what you want.

I maybe missing the point here - so if I am sorry

Russ (manchesterchilly)

[sydneysunshine]

Thanks for the quick reply - the site launch is tomorrow and I'd love to fix it. Ok - have a look at this page which shows the thumbs without the forced sizing. In firefox the images show up with correct proportions but in ie the height (set to auto) stretches. Sometimes the small thumbs show up about 25px height. http://www.bridges.org.au/cms/index.php?page=imagegallerytest

I suppose what I'm asking is that I want to tell the content editors to put in the regular tag and it will show up just like it does in firefox without having to specify the height and width each time in a unique div. Sorry if I don't make sense.

-Christine

[Russ]

Ok Christine, I think I'm with you now (although 'sydneysunshine' is such a splendid and evocative name when you freezing cold!)

If you don't want the images to distort, e.g. appear stretched then only specify one dimension - usually the width and don't specify the height and let the browser sort it out. It will keep the images 'in proportion'
e.g. in the following bit of CSS remove the 'height' declaration.

.bigPic img
{
**  height: 262px; ** remove this line

}

You may want to do this on thumbnail img CSS as well, although you can end up with a ragged display as some images maybe taller than others? This is set in the CSS and should be fine for all galleries unless you want to make them all different?

Still bloomin' cold here but at least it has stopped snowing and is now sunny Hope this helps.

Russ

P.S. You might also want to look at vaildating your XHTML and CSS. Failure todo so can have unforseen problems with web designs

[sydneysunshine]

hehe I'd love for it to snow! Anyway thanks!!! That was the trick. I can't think straight (3am) and didn't even think to remove the height.

Now I think this one may be too big a favour to ask right now ...do you have any idea about how I can get the images to popup with the navigation (with next and previous) just like without the popup. My javascript skills are limited to ctrl+c and ctrl+v 

[Russ]

Chrsitine, glad it worked. As for the javascript - i'm no expert either - RedGuy wrote the code - so you may well have to wait for him to pick up the thread.

However - popups are really in-accessible and, in 'my view', shouldn't really be used in web design. Just my thoughts, but if you need to persuade a client then there is loads of information on web-site accessibility on the web. It may also be that your country, (Australia I guess,) has laws about the accessibilty of web sites as we do in most of Europe and of course the USA.

Try putting a page through WebExtact:
http://webxact.watchfire.com/

In my view you should really be getting a 'machine test' pass on all three accessibility levels. This is of course not the whole story and the 'subjective criteria' can only be examined with proper testing and there are other things to consider like colour contrasts and screen readers etc. But at least it would be a good start

Russ
P.S. You can have our snow anytime - I'll take some sunshine and heat

[sydneysunshine]

Excellent points. I agree on the validation and have been doing ok until the popup script so I think I need to trash it and think of nicer solutions. Yes I've been challenged with this site (thinking of colours in particular). I'm doing the backend and had to css-ify a photoshop design that had been created and table-ified by the client. Nightmare but they are very nice people and I'm doing it as a favour.

[Russ]

I think it is a nice design and I know what it is like converting table based designs - arggh. But it is doable and considerably more accessible and maintainable when it is done Cheaper to on bandwidth.

Anyway I like the way the test image gallery works - simple and easy to use.

If you are interested... I'd look at font size - it's quite small on a Mac. When you enlarge the text, the design also fails a bit quickly too. And, I should add, I don't really like fixed width designs - prefering liquid or sort of semi liquid, but I can see why you have done so with this web site. Perhaps you could also make more of a feature of the menu?

Sorry - this all sounds a bit critical, but it is not meant to be... and perhaps it will look less so after a good nights sleep 

Russ

[sydneysunshine]

That's not bad critical...that's good feedback and I need it! I don't have access to a mac. I have a 'pixel-perfect' client and I wouldn't ordinarily be doing fixed width like this. I think it's called me learning a lesson about taking on jobs that had a prefinished design that was already live and 'perfect'.

Anyway it's being launched tomorrow (today) and I'll need to get onto some other stuff. PM me if you have more suggestions/feedback because i will attempt to rectify them but not before the launch (ironically). Thanks so much!

[Frank]

No worries on the reply time.  Mine won't be much better.

1. First off did you upload the file to your plugin folder? Not the module folder? Sorry if this may seem a stupid question - but it isn't, I've done this myself before now!

I verified that it is indeed in the plugins folder as function.ImageGallery.php.  Perhaps there is a case problem?

2. Which version of CMS Made Simple are you using?

Version = 0.11.2.

3. Apart from the above, I can't see any reason why the module would cause an error in admin, since it is really not used there. (Check there is only one file with the function.ImageGallery in your plugin folder and that none like this are in your modules folder.)

Confirmed.  There are no other files like it.

4. If this is coming from a page you are trying to display with the tag....
Does the directory exist?
Do you have the backslash on the end of "upload/images/yourfolder/" ?
[/quote[

This is coming from the admin section of the system as well as the home page.  I've not yet gotten as far as adding a tag into any of my other pages.

As for Albums , i'm not sure what you mean. You use different pages with different galleries and perhaps a 'links' page to act as an index and point to them? Upload the images to different directories? This might be what you want. Or you can have multiple galleries on one page - maybe a bit much though. Either way you can format them all the same or indeed differently.

Albums in the sense that I want to be able to upload multiple files at one time, pretty much to one folder.  One picture at a time is nice for a small set of pictures, but if my parents get their film (yes - non-digital) developed and put onto CD, I'd rather they can upload all pictures at one shot than one at a time.  It can be tedious on their slow connection.  If they upload at one shot, they can start the upload and walk away for an hour or two.

Although that just got me to thinking about how I am going to secure the photo folders.... (ewww...this just gets more and more messy).

Thanks for the assist.

Regards,
Frank

[Russ]

Frank, I'm afraid I can't seem to re-create this error, but have a look at permissions to the 'uploads/image/yoursubfolder'? Also have a look at the case of your extensions. Also PHP version and Apache? Last but not least is the CSS valid - where ever you put it?

Could you try a simple tag in a page and send these errors. Something like:
{ImageGallery picFolder="uploads/images/imagetest/"}

(Where the 'imagetest' gallery exists and it has some uploaded images.)

You can upload multiple files by creating thumbs of your images (width around 96px I think) called 'thumb_andyourimagename.jpg. These can then be uploaded in bulk using an FTP program (I use Transmit). (Watch you file extension cases and file types - they must be the same. You cannot have .gif thumbs with .jpg big pictures.) Loads of programs exist to do just this sort of thing including photoshop. My children use a Mac and Photoshop Elements and I've been playing with a dedicated program called 'Photo Express' which seems quite good.

Hope this helps

Russ

[JQ]

Russ,

Your imagegallery is awesome.
One question: Is there a way I can have it not stretch smaller images to fit my dimensions? I want it to shrink images that are too large, but leave images that are smaller than my dimensions (specified in CSS) alone.

Thanks!

[Russ]

Hi JQ, glad you like the ImageGallery

Try just setting one of the dimensions (usually width) in both the CSS for thumbnails and the bigger imgaes. This will mean the pictures don't get strectched. If you set that width to the smallest of the smallest image width you have, (should be 90px for thumbs,) then all images will be 90px wide. However, on the thumbs that means that some images can be taller than others so you may end up with a ragged edge and problems with image spacing - increasing the vertical spacing between rows can help here.

If you set both dimensions you are forcing the images to NOT scale proportionally, hence stretching or distorting.

Hope this is what you wanted? If not let me know

Russ

[damosky]

Does this gallery paginate so it doesn't list all images at once?