Best way to go about this in modx? Multi-user Photoblog

Hi,

neocube.co.uk

I came across this site on a hardware forum I visit. I have messaged the owner but not heard back yet.

In any case I was wondering how i’d go about creating something similar in modx.

I want to document a recent trip i took. I want to lead heavily with images.

Well, this particular site was done with http://www.pixelpost.org/
I don’t know what this does in detail. Seems to be a photo-blogging app...

In MODx, you’d most likely use MaxiGallery. Have a look:
http://modxcms.com/MaxiGallery-532.html
http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/MaxiGallery
http://www.netguru.fi/modx/maxigallery-lightbox2.html

However, MG is not a blogging tool per se. It’s great to manage images/galleries, but for blogging functionality in MODx you’d need to add Jot for comments (and maybe more, depends what you want/need). If you install MODx incl. the sample pages, a little basic blog system is already there.

You can create similar look in MaxiGallery by using SmoothGallery display type with external carousel (the part that shows the thumbnails) or going with the picture and thumbnails on same page tutorial from wiki and spicing it up with jQuery effects (tutorial hopefully coming in near future).

That does it for gallery wise, but here’s where it get’s tricky; if you want commenting for each picture (Jot snippet) you need to load the comments for the picture also with JavaScript when image is changed. There isn’t any instructions on how to do that yet.. haven’t seen anybody doing it.

So instead you might want to use the normal display type in maxigallery to start with and add jot comments there. Find instructions here. Once you get that going, you can start figuring out how to get the thumbnails of the gallery to the picture view and then finally add jQuery effect to fade in the picture if you want.

Here is one example setup of a gallery done with MaxiGallery, AnythingRating (for rating pictures) and Jot (for commenting). That is done by coroico who is the author of AnythingRating and AjaxSearch, both snippets supports MaxiGallery also. He can maybe give you some instructions also how to set it up if you encounter problems. But start first by trying it out your self and reading the available material.

Ah Photoblog, I guess that would its called.

The basic idea is to have and image at the top centre of the page (clicking next/back will cycle through a sub gallery) then a write up (not a comment) underneath. Under that I’d then like users to be able to comment.

I would like to have multiple sub galleries under a main gallery heading. E.g EUROPE ---uk, spain, france etc.. ASIA -- japan, china etc..

It might be that Modx isn’t the best tool to do this for a relative novice but (I already us it for another site so am familiar with the basics) I anticipate wanting to extend the site in the future to include forums, the ability for members to add their own photoblog on the same subject etc..

Well, in that case it’s much easier.. if I understood you correctly:

Create a document, eg. Spain:

• Have a MaxiGallery call in it that uses SmoothGallery display type, So you can upload images about Spain and they are shown like you see in SmoothGallery demo site. You can configure the SmoothGallery to hide/show various of it’s elements.
• Write your "blog" text underneath the MaxiGallery call
• Use Jot call below your blog text to allow commenting

That way the comments will be common for the entire Spain document, not separated for each picture. That’s pretty easy to set up.

Then in the EUROPE document you can do the same thing, but make MaxiGallery for example get only one picture from each child gallery (One from Spain, one from France, etc..).

Quote from: doze at Oct 09, 2008, 07:50 AM

Well, in that case it’s much easier.. if I understood you correctly:

Create a document, eg. Spain:

• Have a MaxiGallery call in it that uses SmoothGallery display type, So you can upload images about Spain and they are shown like you see in SmoothGallery demo site. You can configure the SmoothGallery to hide/show various of it’s elements.
• Write your "blog" text underneath the MaxiGallery call
• Use Jot call below your blog text to allow commenting

That way the comments will be common for the entire Spain document, not separated for each picture. That’s pretty easy to set up.

Then in the EUROPE document you can do the same thing, but make MaxiGallery for example get only one picture from each child gallery (One from Spain, one from France, etc..).

When you put it like that it sounds much less daunting. Will give it go

This is the look I want to recreate for the photos

http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/showcase/timed-gallery/

Quote from: c-m at Oct 10, 2008, 08:54 AM

This is the look I want to recreate for the photos

http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/showcase/timed-gallery/

Yes, that is included in MaxiGallery, just use &display=`embedded` &embedtype=`smoothgallery` &smoothgallery_timed=`true` in your snippet call.

Ok i’ve made some progression with this but am still stuck.

I have maxigallery setup and tested with smoothgallery which give the look i want.

Now for the actually blogging aspect.

When creating a new blog post I also need a new child gallery.

Imagine for instance i’m writing about a trip. I’ll have an overall page called Europe (or whatever). From here I want to be able to add a blog enty say for example about Spain. I want this entry to be created on a new page. On this page there will also be a maxigallery call that will allow me to upload photos for that blog entry.

Does that sound feasible?

I have a template setup with two content areas. Content-A that contains a maxigallery call, and Content-B that contains the [*content*] tag.

Somehow I need to force the blog to create a new page for each entry using a chosen template.

Just create a new document "Spain" under the Europe document and have a MaxiGallery call in it?