Hi Bob, et al,
I gave MODx and my nerves a break and came back at it today...
I looked at my project and examined the tree of documents and all the snippets and chunks I was using to get a web user - photo gallery system going. I had two different approaches going on in the site (following a bulletin board thread and Bob’s method).
So, today I went back to the MODx tutorial lesson page I created from
http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Beginner%27s_Guide_to_MODx. I then decided to get one thing done at a time: just get the MaxiGallery system working by itself, without any of the publishing snippets, users, permissions etc. After fiddling with it for a while I have the gallery working...(HooF’nnRay!!!)
* I created a main Gallery page with the following page settings activated: (Container, Rich Text, Log Visits, Published, Searchable, and Empty Cache.) I do not have the Cacheable box checked. I then installed MaxiGallery and called the snippet on the main Gallery page with the following call:
[!MaxiGallery? &childgalleries_ids=`all` &display=`childgalleries` &order_by=`random` &pics_per_row=`3`!]
* I then right clicked the main Gallery page to create a couple of child Gallery pages: AlanGallery and RobGallery. The page settings for the child galleries was the same as the main Gallery page except for unchecking the Container box. I then used the following call for each of the sub galleries:
[!MaxiGallery? &display=`embedded` &embedtype=`slimbox` &pics_per_row=`3` &thumb_use_dropshadow=`1`!]
I added some photos to each child gallery and it works! Well, sort of. I had trouble getting the gallery effects working right. I tried each of the Maxigallery calls I found on this page:
http://www.netguru.fi/modx/home.html. In the end I found that this call worked:
[!MaxiGallery? &display=`embedded` &embedtype=`slimbox` &pics_per_row=`3` &thumb_use_dropshadow=`1`!] I then found it did not work right in Safari; when the photo appeared in the middle of the screen it never lightened up and the forward/backward system did not work. Back into the MODX forum search I went. Sure enough this has been discussed before: there is an error in the Slimbox CSS. Changing some of z-index declarations did the trick. Read all about it here:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,16772.msg106837.html#msg106837
OK: so far so good. I now have a main Gallery page that links to child Gallery pages that will make the Slimbox javascript work in Safari and Firefox (I have yet to test anything in IE.) This may sound like no big deal but for me this is a HUGE milestone to have come this far. Separating my big picture goal into specific tasks and Bob’s help with the snippet calls made the difference.
I now would like to add the fudge topping: creating the system that web users have to login before they can add/edit each of the child galleries. To achieve this do I use the MODx Security permissions or do I need a mix of additional snippets? What I want here is for all the world to see the galleries, but only allow registered web users to login and then be able to add/edit their own picture galleries. I also want to keep these web users out of the back end (no access to the MODx Manager.)
Any thoughts on this will be very much appreciated!!!
Max
PS: after all this it occurred to me that having a very visible MODx demo with MaxiGallery installed would be oh so very helpful. A demo system that had a Main Gallery page, sub Child Galleries, and the different javascript effects with all the marching snippet calls(with explanations of what the snippet call is actually doing), and user logins etc would be a very effective way of ILLUSTRATING how all this goes together. This would go a long way to eliminating much of the confusion and repeated questions etc...
