Official Page: http://laxa.ca/ee_easy_gallery.html

This gallery module is designed to allow individual galleries to be tied to individual blog entries. So, for example, if you were to have an entry reviewing a video game then you could set up a small gallery right on the entry to show off screen shots.

Great for:
- Review items like Products, Games, Restaurants, etc…
- Games: screen shots.
- Product: photos of different angles and different variations.
- Real Estate: showing different photos of the place and rooms.
- Events: events photos, random pictures of previous shows.
- Articles, Weblog: photo gallery related to a particular weblog entry.

I’m just creating a module that functions similarly to my previous CMS’s gallery functionality.  This is not an extension nor a modification of the standard EE Photo Gallery Module.

This will be a ‘donate ware’ Extension/Module, something that’s will help me out and motivate me to develop this software. You can send you donations by clicking the “Make Donation” link below at http://laxa.ca/ee_home.html .

Easy Gallery has these features:

  * Use existing EE Weblog fields (categories, url_title, date stamp, date expire, etc.)
  * Integrates with the Weblog, one weblog entry = one gallery
  * Upload multiple images using Flash
  * Automatically create thumbnails and resized images (Small, Medium, Large)
  * Add image captions, date modified, date stamp information
  * Extract the URL to be used on the weblog entry.
  * Add, edit, delete images.
  * Batch process thumbnails and data.
  * Use Expression Engine Gallery Tags
    <exp:easy_gallery:image></exp:easy_gallery:image>

Future features:

  * HTML JPEG Uploading
  * Enable only on certain Weblog
  * Different image directory structure (entry_id, site_id, weblog_id)
  * Image Ordering and Sorting
  * Java/Flash/Javascript based PHP image cropping
  * Watermarking Images
  * Integration into the Easy Shop Module
  * Slide Show (Flash or Javascript)
  * More detailed options (hooks to flash slideshows, xml feeds, etc…)
  * Image Comments

Required

  * (Included) jQuery for AJAX style functionality (http://jquery.com/)
  * (Included) SWFUpload (for flash upload) might change. (http://swfupload.praxion.co.za/)
  * PHP4 (not working yet on PHP5)
  * Tested on EE v1.6

Bugs

* Currently will clash with other Extensions that use Publish / Edit “TABS”.
* Keywords are currently not being used
* No way to show the “Caption” when Editing Images
* Some mysterious “Warning” messages on the “Publish / Edit” section

Troubleshooting

1) If you receive a Error Code: HTTP Error, Message: “404” dialog box when uploading pictures through “Flash Upload” then follow the directions below.  This is related to the mod_security bug:

If you are using Apache with mod_security this will not work, you need to put the following in your .htaccess file to disable mod_security:

2) Publish / Edit: Clashing TABS, Blocks, Headers
This might be an issue of other extensions conflicting.  One important code that I just implemented on to Easy_gallery allows it to play nice to with other extensions.  Other Extensions might not use the extension and therefore conflict not just with Easy_gallery but other extensions that it co-exists with.  To remedy this you might want to check out the other extensions and make sure they use the $EXT->last_call variable.

Bugs
* Javascript errors on Internet Explorer
* LIMIT=“3” when using the EE Tags

Feedback

* What do you think of the script?
* How do you feel about having jQuery running on the Control Panel?
* Is the Flash Uploader and external “upload.php” too cumbersome to use?
* Any Ideas to make it better?

does it use the standard EE gallery ?
or does it have it’s own gallery,

It’s its own gallery with its own table. 

It does not extend the standard EE gallery.

ok i understand what you want to do, seems really promising (like if you want to have a entry that displays several pictures) like when you are doing a review of a product you can have several pictures added (pretty neat)

Ok several questions:
1. Will this be paid/free? (i don’t mind paying, if it’s really good) i have some upcoming projects where i can use this.
2. Why use flash for the uploading? (on my development pc i have flash disabled)
3. Will it use upload preferences of expressionengine ? Cause look: lets say i have 2893 entries and all have a 5-7 pictures..that would be a massive clutter of images if they are not categorized/managed, one of the methods you can do the following: let the module make a directory for each entry (using url_title as name), then you have a more manageable directory structure.
4. Can this module have categories? let’s say: i have 34 weblogs and each of them has a lot of entries which pictures attached would be a little handy if you could have for each weblog a different *parent* directory
5. possible to browse the current directory and choose from them (and maybe possible to embed them in the entry itself? sometimes you need picture to use in a article)

I hope you understood what i meant, if you need more explanation, would be happy to write a extended version with more samples

This module has a lot of potential (it is good for review sites and sites with a extended product database with pictures)

P.S. i wanna beta test (love to break things)

btw,

what is “Easy Shop Module” ??

Victor G - 11 August 2007 09:49 PM

btw,

what is “Easy Shop Module” ??

Easy Shop is an eCommerce Extension and Module combination.  It allows an weblog entry to have eCommerce fields like price, dimensions, options, variations, sku, etc.

Like the Easy Gallery Module you’ll have the ability to update the products data via the Publish / Edit tabs instead of going inside the “Modules” tab.

Also have the ability to update product information via CSV document to do batch updates instead of spending hours updating several products.

It will use the Easy Gallery to showcase multiple pictures of the product.

That’s just a small list of features I have in mind for it.  I’ll focus on the development of Easy Gallery first before solidifying the plan of Easy Shop.

Victor G - 11 August 2007 09:31 PM

ok i understand what you want to do, seems really promising (like if you want to have a entry that displays several pictures) like when you are doing a review of a product you can have several pictures added (pretty neat)

Ok several questions:
1. Will this be paid/free? (i don’t mind paying, if it’s really good) i have some upcoming projects where i can use this.
2. Why use flash for the uploading? (on my development pc i have flash disabled)
3. Will it use upload preferences of expressionengine ? Cause look: lets say i have 2893 entries and all have a 5-7 pictures..that would be a massive clutter of images if they are not categorized/managed, one of the methods you can do the following: let the module make a directory for each entry (using url_title as name), then you have a more manageable directory structure.
4. Can this module have categories? let’s say: i have 34 weblogs and each of them has a lot of entries which pictures attached would be a little handy if you could have for each weblog a different *parent* directory
5. possible to browse the current directory and choose from them (and maybe possible to embed them in the entry itself? sometimes you need picture to use in a article)

I hope you understood what i meant, if you need more explanation, would be happy to write a extended version with more samples

This module has a lot of potential (it is good for review sites and sites with a extended product database with pictures)

P.S. i wanna beta test (love to break things)

1. This will be a donate ware project.  I’m not really familiar with licensing agreements and stuff but the goal is to get something out, learn more about extension and module development and have people help me out while making some small donateware money to help me out

2. I’m experimenting on multiple upload functionalities.  I like to find a way where I can drag and drop or choose multiple files to upload simultaneously.  I don’t like to use flash either but that’s the only one i can find so far other than using manual Input tags.

Upload goals:
- Multiple Uploads
- Progress bar
- Unlimited Size Upload
(If you have any other suggestions or applications, java, flash, activex, just let me know.)  At the moment its very clunky and not really easy to integrate.

3. One Entry is One Gallery and you can customize that weblog entry to have whatever fields you need.  Each image has a few fields like (caption, orderby, date stamp, date modified, etc.) the url_title will bring them to whatever template you create for it (listing of the photos, entry page for the gallery, *whatever you want*)  I’ll have a sample page of this by next week.  I’ll integrate some EE Tags so you can have extra functionality.

The images uploaded at the moment are placed into the ‘images/easy_gallery/ENTRY_ID/’ directory.  I’m not sure if this is the best way, there maybe a better way of doing this.  I figured this is the best and easy way to avoid having millions of images in one directory.

4. You can use your existing EE ‘Categories’ Tab to categorize you gallery.

5. I want to eliminate the current ‘Upload’ function of EE and replace it with Easy Gallery.  Each picture will provide a image URL taht you can use in your article.

I hope this is coherent :D I hope to create the most useful and thought out software and getting feedback like this will totally help me out developing a module that is stable and that works out for several people.

Thanks for your interest and I’ll have a beta happening next week.  It will be very clunky but at least it will get the ball rolling.

Quietly following this thread, Wil. Looking forward to a beta!

great my man, looking forward to the beta,

well if flash is the easiest way, i do not mind, not a sacrifice

not a bad idea: ‘images/easy_gallery/ENTRY_ID/’
cause let’s say when you have multi weblogs and the same url title that can cause problems..so entry_id seems the solution,

donationware is ok (pm me paypal email)

This seems a very promising module,

+ Added “Select Cover”
+ Add / Edit Image Caption
+ Delete Image
+ Custom Image Dimensions for Small, Medium, and Large Sizes.
+ Copy Small, Medium, Large Image URL
+ Create Small, Medium, Large image version of Original
+ Delete All Small, Medium, or Large Images

* Working on EE Tags for easy EE template integration.

Attached two new screenshots of the “Edit Images” and “Image Operations” pages.

very nice,

One thing (what about watermark ?)
just an option i guess (don’t care if i have to photoshop watermark)

oe oe now i think deeply into this,

it is becoming very nice indeed man, love your work (this has to be native EE functionality) heh

can;t wait to get my hands on that beta and break it

(edit: have you taught of multi sites ?)

I’ll just try to get this thing up and running right away and then make the necessary clean up to the code and then add extra features that would be nice to have.

I’m sure once we get this thing up we can have people give feed back on watermarking etc.  Add the ability to upload a watermark and have it on the “Small” version of the images.

Multi-Sites - not yet, what about multi sites?  you mean making them work with 1.6 multi-site functionality?

well, lets say

i have:
Site1 (weblogA,weblogB,weblogC,weblogD,weblogE)
Site2 (weblogF,weblogG)
Site3 (weblogH,weblogI,weblogJ,weblogK,weblogL)
Site4 (weblogM)

in your method now the files will be uploaded in:
“images/easy_gallery/ENTRY_ID”

As you can see this can become little bitchy when you want to lookup an image (not so bad, just thinking forward)

One solution is
“images/easy_gallery/site_id/weblog_id/entry_id”

so the structure will be this:
“images/easy_gallery/site_1/weblog_34/566”
“images/easy_gallery/site_1/weblog_33/244
“images/easy_gallery/site_1/weblog_22/567”
“images/easy_gallery/site_2/weblog_12/3456”
“images/easy_gallery/site_2/weblog_11/32”
“images/easy_gallery/site_3/weblog_4/456”

seems like a little more organized:
the reason why not to use “weblog_short_name/site_short_name”
is because you can change the short_name and that can cause problems for the old entries… but the ID you can never change it

One other way of doing that is: giving every weblog it’s own directory (assign it in the module settings)
and setting up like a
{exp:easy_gallery weblog_id=“2” entry_id=”{entry_id}”}
{easy_gallery_image_thumb_url}
{easy_gallery_image_medium_url}
{easy_gallery_image_full_url}
{easy_gallery_caption}
{/exp:easy_gallery}

The {easy_gallery_image_full_url} can act as a {comment_url_title_auto_path}...wich you can define in the module settings of easy gallery for that particular weblog.
So you can change the name of the directory and just change the {easy_gallery_image_full_url} in the settings to reflect the changes.

These are just some organization idea’s

P.S. will i be able to BROWSE other galleries? To use in the current entry

Thanks for the clarification regarding Multi-Site.

The current “images/easy_gallery/ENTRY_ID” will not conflict at the moment but I do agree that organizationally wise that it might be better to insert the “SITE_ID” as well in there and make the directories a little bit more descriptive as well.

I’ll definitely implement that before the final version. :D

——-

Browse other galleries, I agree there should be but haven’t found the best way to load other galleries yet.  I’m thinking maybe having a drop down all the galleries and then have it reload the Image list.  I’ll dive into that a little bit more.

Let me know what features are a big priority so I can start thinking of ways to implement them in the meantime.

Thanks for all your input.  Surely it will make this script a quality script. :D

well i think the top priority is organization of the files

i gave it more taught:
i think the {easy_gallery_image_full_url}  way is a pretty good way of doing it:
since you can change the directory/url for each weblog you can have your own thing

/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/ENTRYID
/images/easy_gallery/site_1/cpu_reviews/ENTRYID
/images/easy_gallery/site_1/hardrive_reviews/ENTRYID

so in the module>easy_gallery>settings>site_id>weblog>directory
you can have:
Directory: /home/username/public_html/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/
Full url: http://www.mydomain.com/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/

and when you use
{easy_gallery_image_full_url} in the tag for that specific entry_id
it will parse: what assigned in the settings:
http://www.mydomain.com/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/2568/example-image_full.jpg

The reason i think setting up settings for each weblog is a great feature. is that you can change the directory to what you wish. and have easy_gallery use it

Example:
Directory: /home/user/public_html/product-pictures/site_id/motherboards/
url: http://images-products.mydomain.com/site_id/motherboards/

you can use subdomains etc

I know you just started etc and maybe this is a little difficult at first hand,

i am willing to help you with features, explaining them in full detail and give examples
(i suck at programming) so that i cannot help you with.

But i serious think this is wonderful/perfect module and i want to help as much as i can.

P.S. I have some other ideas for other modules that can serious bring EE to the next level. But that is whole other story and much more complicated module (but with awesome power).

But keep up the good work LOVE YA

Victor G - 13 August 2007 10:52 AM

well i think the top priority is organization of the files

i gave it more taught:
i think the {easy_gallery_image_full_url}  way is a pretty good way of doing it:
since you can change the directory/url for each weblog you can have your own thing

/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/ENTRYID
/images/easy_gallery/site_1/cpu_reviews/ENTRYID
/images/easy_gallery/site_1/hardrive_reviews/ENTRYID

so in the module>easy_gallery>settings>site_id>weblog>directory
you can have:
Directory: /home/username/public_html/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/
Full url: http://www.mydomain.com/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/

and when you use
{easy_gallery_image_full_url} in the tag for that specific entry_id
it will parse: what assigned in the settings:
http://www.mydomain.com/images/easy_gallery/site_1/motherboard_reviews/2568/example-image_full.jpg

The reason i think setting up settings for each weblog is a great feature. is that you can change the directory to what you wish. and have easy_gallery use it

Example:
Directory: /home/user/public_html/product-pictures/site_id/motherboards/
url: http://images-products.mydomain.com/site_id/motherboards/

you can use subdomains etc

Directory structure is definitely more elegant and I’m sure people wouldn’t delete Weblogs but they might probably rename them.  I think that would be a rare thing for them to rename a weblog anyways.  Maybe we can have it as an option.

Certainly “images/easy_gallery/SITE_ID/ENTRY_ID/” is the most functional but not as elegant.

“images/easy_gallery/ENTRY_ID/” is the very basic with no chance of conflicts at all.  Database wise it seems like there are no duplicate entry_id created on any of the site_ids.

It seems like there’s 3 great ways to store images.
We should have a setting on the module so we can pic which structure to follow.

Victor G - 13 August 2007 11:00 AM

I know you just started etc and maybe this is a little difficult at first hand,

i am willing to help you with features, explaining them in full detail and give examples
(i suck at programming) so that i cannot help you with.

But i serious think this is wonderful/perfect module and i want to help as much as i can.

P.S. I have some other ideas for other modules that can serious bring EE to the next level. But that is whole other story and much more complicated module (but with awesome power).

But keep up the good work LOVE YA

We’ll talk more about these after I get the beta up

I too love EE and hope I can build all the functionality that I grew accustomed to with my previous CMS that I have developed.  I love developing applications like these better than designing website.  I just want to stick to coding and leave the designing to the designers.