52 replies to this topic

[Darksbane0]

First off this isn't a rant or a complaint thread. I'd also like to say that for random photo stuff the new gallery is very nice. I'm just trying to get a feel for whether or not I should begin looking for other options for my gallery needs.

Currently I'm running gallery version 3.2 and it suits my needs very well. Gallery 4 however in its current form does not. The cropped square thumbnails, lack of bulk upload, inability (as far as I can find) to specify image order, and the strange (and to me confusing) navigation inside gallery categories all make it something I can't use. I currently use the gallery to store specific images that convey information organized into categories and sub-categories which I set in a specific order to make navigation easy. I generally upload hundreds of images at a time into each of these categories and have them all arranged in alphabetical order according to caption.

I'm really just looking to know if in future releases of the Gallery these issues might be addressed in order to give us as admins control, so those of us with galleries which don't just consist of random photos uploaded from various users might be able to keep updating. It would also be nice to know if Gallery 3.2 is going to be supported in the new version of IPB. The new IPB looks extremely nice so if I'm going to have to find a new Gallery option before it is released I'd like to know sooner rather than later so I can upgrade the board asap.

[3DKiwi]

I agree with much of what you say. I think we'll see a bulk upload option return although I have no use for it.

What concerns me is the low importance of new images. The thumbnails are so small (plus square) it's sometimes hard to see the image. I want new image to have the main focus and surely these are more important than Recently updated Albums which get a bigger thumbnail?

Things need to improve before I upgrade. At the moment Gallery 4 looks like a backwards step to me and I'm certain my members will complain if I upgrade to it.

3DKiwi

[ZakRhyno]

I agree with much of what you say. I think we'll see a bulk upload option return although I have no use for it.

What concerns me is the low importance of new images. The thumbnails are so small (plus square) it's sometimes hard to see the image. I want new image to have the main focus and surely these are more important than Recently updated Albums which get a bigger thumbnail?

Things need to improve before I upgrade. At the moment Gallery 4 looks like a backwards step to me and I'm certain my members will complain if I upgrade to it.

3DKiwi

Agreed, with all the points. I can use bulk upload, as the main upload will not take my video file. Usually I put in on my server then point to the upload in the directory feature and proof I was a go.

[Arus]

Agreed. If galley 4 doesn't improve fast..., I will need to look for another solution.

I really want to know what they were thinking with gallery 4...

[Enes K.]

Gallery 4 is very nice and useful. Media Share will improve the Gallery again after few weeks..

[THL]

Also the ability to stop people sharing albums just amongst friends needs an on/off admin option...

[Ditchmonkey]

Gallery 4 so misses the mark for a flexible and configurable community gallery solution that I am in the difficult situation of looking at moving my entire site to another software platform as an upgrade just isnt going to work at this point. Funny thing is that IP.content is an excellent example of an extremely flexible and configurable product. The most fundamental goals between various IPS products seems to be at odds with each other.

IMO a product like IP.content should render a gallery obsolete. Images should just be another data type shared by all software components (including attachments in forum threads). The "gallery" should merely be the front end abstraction of a particular data type from a central database. Not only would this greatly simplify these software components that don't play well together, it would solve another great shortcoming of the IPS suite: tagging for all data types and true single search functionality.

[Mikey]

Gallery 4 is great, I love it.

I recently signed up for a Flickr account, first thing I notice: Hey, this looks and feels like IP.Gallery 4. Flickr is hugely popular so I'm happy to have something which works in a similar way on my site. My members constantly comment on my photos, it gets more use than gallery 3.2 ever did on my website.

Bulk upload is available via simply multi selecting images to upload..

[ZakRhyno]

Gallery 4 is great, I love it.

I recently signed up for a Flickr account, first thing I notice: Hey, this looks and feels like IP.Gallery 4. Flickr is hugely popular so I'm happy to have something which works in a similar way on my site. My members constantly comment on my photos, it gets more use than gallery 3.2 ever did on my website.

Bulk upload is available via simply multi selecting images to upload..

But having bulk as in MAJOR bulk is done on the ACP side and currently it is now there. Gallery for is simple if you don't have a big community, but Gallery 3 had tools and options in it so that it would work with both major and small needed for people.

[Arus]

Gallery 4 is great, I love it.

I recently signed up for a Flickr account, first thing I notice: Hey, this looks and feels like IP.Gallery 4. Flickr is hugely popular so I'm happy to have something which works in a similar way on my site. My members constantly comment on my photos, it gets more use than gallery 3.2 ever did on my website.

Bulk upload is available via simply multi selecting images to upload..

Mimicking something popular is fine.

The way I see it, the devs made Gallery 4 simpler. That's fine. However, they should have left options (or features) existed in gallery 3 intact or at least have options to turn them on/off.

Not only the devs made Gallery 4 simple on surface, its core features were trimmed down as well. I cannot accept that; that's taking steps backwards.

[3DKiwi]

No doubt a bug but when I click on "My Gallery" from the top right drop down I don't expect to see other people's images / albums in my own gallery index page.

3DKiwi

[Axel Wers]

No doubt a bug but when I click on "My Gallery" from the top right drop down I don't expect to see other people's images / albums in my own gallery index page.

At least two times already reported as bug.

[3DKiwi]

At least two times already reported as bug.

My point is that something so plainly obvious should have been picked up before final release.

3DKiwi

[Axel Wers]

My point is that something so plainly obvious should have been picked up before final release.

I was hunting bugs here, but this bug I found when I installed Gallery (4.0.2) on my live board.

[Matt]

I've been very open about the development process with Gallery. In the release announcement I made it very clear it's a new product and bugs are expected. I also made it clear that if you have a very gallery-centric site then you should demo the new version and make an informed decision whether or not you wanted to upgrade as it is so different.

I've always said that this is just the first release of the new 'direction' for Gallery. It'll mature and we'll make it stronger in the weak areas and develop it further inline with customer's wishes.

In terms of bugs: we did have a lot of people testing it but these things always happen with brand new code. We've put out two releases in two weeks and we're working on the third maintenance release for this week.

We're on it, don't worry.

[media]

I've been very open about the development process with Gallery. In the release announcement I made it very clear it's a new product and bugs are expected. I also made it clear that if you have a very gallery-centric site then you should demo the new version and make an informed decision whether or not you wanted to upgrade as it is so different.

I've always said that this is just the first release of the new 'direction' for Gallery. It'll mature and we'll make it stronger in the weak areas and develop it further inline with customer's wishes.

In terms of bugs: we did have a lot of people testing it but these things always happen with brand new code. We've put out two releases in two weeks and we're working on the third maintenance release for this week.

We're on it, don't worry.

Great news for the third release.. I've been waiting for it...

[Darksbane0]

I've been very open about the development process with Gallery. In the release announcement I made it very clear it's a new product and bugs are expected. I also made it clear that if you have a very gallery-centric site then you should demo the new version and make an informed decision whether or not you wanted to upgrade as it is so different.

I've always said that this is just the first release of the new 'direction' for Gallery. It'll mature and we'll make it stronger in the weak areas and develop it further inline with customer's wishes.

Thanks for the response Matt, that doesn't really answer my concerns though. I know in the current version I can't upgrade and keep the same functionality, which is fine if Gallery 3.2 will still be supported and compatable with board 3.2. If it isn't though and Gallery 4 is still missing these features then I'm going to be stuck trying to find a new solution to my gallery while trying to do a board upgrade. So to boil it down I guess my 2 questsions are:

Is Gallery 3.2 going to be supported and compatable with board 3.2?
Is the ability to use old thumbnail size, bulk upload, and image ordering going to be added into Gallery 4.0?

[Matt]

Bulk upload in some format will be added to Gallery 4.0 - but it'll probably be an admin tool. Members can use the flash uploader to upload 10 images at once which should suit most people. I think it's a poor solution to ask the average person to create a zip file and then upload that.

Album sorting will also be making a return to Gallery.

[joelle]

When all bugs are being resolved and most importantly when upgrading a big gallery (+30000 images, +4000 albums) actually works without tons of problems, then I might be more than happy to go the 4.0.x route.

[Darksbane0]

Bulk upload in some format will be added to Gallery 4.0 - but it'll probably be an admin tool. Members can use the flash uploader to upload 10 images at once which should suit most people. I think it's a poor solution to ask the average person to create a zip file and then upload that.

Album sorting will also be making a return to Gallery.

Thats great to hear that those two things will be coming back. Admin only bulk upload is fine by me, I just need it back as an admin.

So by omission does that mean there is no chance that the thumbnail will be able to be customized in size and not cropped? Couldn't that be something in the advanced options at least with a big warning that it could break the skin? I'm fine with customizing my skin so it displays correctly I just prefer to not have to make actual code modifications, which is what I would have to do to stop it from cropping myself.