[Snippet / Module] MiniGallery v0.8.1

Yes, this is yet another gallery system for MODx. Don’t get me wrong, MaxiGallery is great, but it’s front-end only at the moment (afiak) and many of my clients want something that can be managed via a module in MODx. So I took my MiniGallery project that I have been working on for years and integrated it into MODx, completely rewriting some parts. The result is a quick and easy way of getting an image gallery into MODx with minimal setup and no database; all image information is take straight from the files themselves. Thumbnails are created on-the-fly too.

I have submitted this to the repository, but I still consider it to be in beta stage at the moment since no one in the real world has actually used it yet and given me feedback, so I’m posting it here too. Your suggestions and feedback will be much appreciated.

As well as my own code, MiniGallery uses jQuery and Slimbox (which is a lightweight Lightbox clone).

Updates and instructions on use are also posted on my own web site: www.matthewdawkins.co.uk/minigallery.html.

(Tried to upload zip file but forum returned an error, but file is on my web site)

Hey matthewdawkins - thanks for sharing!

This looks really good.

A few questions looking at the demo on your site:

Once you go into a folder to view images, how do you go back out to the main level?

Does this have sorting options, such as by date, title, ascending, descending, etc.?

Maybe post a screen of the admin side?

Will be trying this out soon, thanks.

islander, thanks for your comments.

I take your point about the lack of navigation once you’re inside an album. At the moment the only way to get back is with your browser’s Back button, simply because I never got round to implementing a back link for albums. It wouldn’t be difficult to put in though, so I’m planning on putting that into the next revision.

Similarly, at the moment there are no sorting options, but this is planned. As the system doesn’t use a database, but relies on the files themselves, the way I’m proposing to implement that is to include an options file inside each album, in which I can store additional information about the album. In theory this can be used to store settings like sort criteria, sort direction, album description, copyright information, and maybe more. If anyone has any recommendations on options they’d like to appear in these album options, reply and let me know and I’ll see if I can add it into a later revision!

As for a screenshot of the admin side, I thought I included one in the sample album (basically a thumbnail view of the albums on a grey background, with a few management options that don’t appear client-side). I’ll attach it again here to make it clearer. I didn’t include the rest of the MODx interface in the screenshot, which may be what confused you...

One thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to preserve the EXIF data when scaling the images. There is a maximum image size setting, which means that images over a certain size are scaled down to a size that will fit nicely on a web page, but the process of scaling the image overwrites the original EXIF data. If the EXIF data can be preserved, that opens up a few more options for additional data we can display to visitors. If anyone knows how I can do this, please let me know!

Thanks for the info. Looking forward to the next release with nav buttons etc.

I didn’t click around enough to see the screen capture in the gallery. Looks clean and simple.

Thanks.

This one is promising, as a lightweight of MaxiGallery.
BUT,
1. Found 94 ’<?=’ short tags,
2. After replaced as long tags, still got 500 internal eror.

Currently I don’t have time to dig deeper, so I just want to let you know this.

@Goldsky:

Are short tags to be avoided, then?? If so, I didn’t realise that was a standard for MODx snippets. I’ve certainly been using them absolutely fine so far without any 500 Internal Errors. Still, if it’s still giving you errors after you changed the short tags to full tags then could it be that something else is causing the errors?

I’m hoping to have the next version of MiniGallery available to download in January, which will hopefully clear up a good deal of these early teething problems! Testing is always the killer though - even if it’s working absolutely fine on my test server, it doesn’t guarantee it to work everywhere else as well. Such is life.

Quote from: matthewdawkins at Dec 30, 2009, 03:45 AM

@Goldsky:

Are short tags to be avoided, then?? If so, I didn’t realise that was a standard for MODx snippets. I’ve certainly been using them absolutely fine so far without any 500 Internal Errors.

Avoiding short tags has been a common standard for open source web software.
Quote from: matthewdawkins at Dec 30, 2009, 03:45 AM

Still, if it’s still giving you errors after you changed the short tags to full tags then could it be that something else is causing the errors?

Yep, it was.
Well, I’ll give another test, after New Year.

Hi Matthew,

I looked at all available galleries and really like the simplicity of MiniGallery.
So i installed everything using instructions but am having a strange issue. See the attached screenshot.

it looks like the folder path is not getting resolved. And as a result even though new folders are getting created they cannot be renamed and pictures cannot be uploaded.

Do you have any thoughts about what might be causing this and how to fix it?

Thanks.

@outre99: Not come across that one before, but I imagine it may be something to do with the PHP short tags I had been using. As a previous poster (goldsky) pointed out, short tags should be avoided because not all servers are set up to handle them. This will be changed in the next release, so that might resolve your problem.

I’m also pleased to announce that the next version of MiniGallery is now in development (hoorah!) and I’m hoping to have a beta available soon. I’ve taken the revolutionary decision to use a database to manage the albums; this is pretty standard for an image gallery, so it’s only revolutionary because I’ve not used a database before with MiniGallery, because the point originally was for it to be a file-powered system rather than needing a database. However, since integrating it into MODx, that requirement seems to be somewhat redundant, hence the change. This opens up the system for more advanced features, which apparently people really want, like sorting options, additional information for each image and album, nested albums, and even less effort for the server. There will be a sync option though, so you can still upload albums and images via FTP and then synchronise the database in MODx so it all matches up. It’ll have the same simplicity, it’ll just be better!

I’ll keep you all posted...