v1.5
Media Gallery is a native Geeklog plugin that lets you manage your photos and other media (video / audio) on a Geeklog powered website. With Media Gallery it is easy to maintain albums of photos, video and music via an easy to use web interface. Media Gallery takes advantage of the many features of a Geeklog powered website, including integrated searching, featured albums, random image block and full support for the Geeklog security model. Media Gallery has evolved over the years to become a full featured media management system for your Geeklog powered website.
Overall, Media Gallery offers a nice blend of ease of use with many advanced features to give you a robust multimedia gallery for your Geeklog CMS site. I hope you enjoy using Media Gallery and I always welcome your feedback and suggestions.
Media Gallery is Copyright 2004-2007 © Mark R. Evans mark [at] gllabs [dot] org.
The Media Gallery Plugin is licensed under GNU General Public License Version 2.
If you make enhancements or modifications to Media Gallery, I would appreciate it if you would share your changes with the Media Gallery community.
Media Gallery was inspired by the excellent Gallery Project. Gallery is probably the best open source photo / media management systems available today. Gallery has been integrated with many other open source packages, but it never provided the type of integration I desired. I wanted something a little less featured, easy for Grandparents to use, but yet with enough features to make it easy to manage. Media Gallery is the result of this desire.
To achieve the desired results, I had the opportunity to see how others solved similar problems. Many design features, and in some cases code were borrowed from the Gallery project. Also, the Coppermine Gallery provided ideas and how-to's on accomplishing some features. I looked at several Geeklog plugins to see how they accomplished integration and because of the hard work of others, my job was much easier. Many thanks to those that have allowed me to see their work and in many cases borrow from it!
Media Gallery uses several Open Source Packages, including:
Media Gallery has added several new key features in v1.5, below is a quick list of new or enhanced features in this release:
Media Gallery now supports three types of slideshows. The original JavaScript slideshow, a cool looking Litebox slideshow and finally an experimental Flash based slideshow with full screen capabilities. There is a small drawback with the Litebox slideshow, the user must manually click to move from one image to the next.
Media Gallery now includes a neat Flash based mini-slideshow applet that can be embedded in your Geeklog content via an auto tag. Actually the mini-slideshow is very powerful and can be used for all sorts of things.
This allows you to now include video content from sites such as YouTube or Google video in your Media Gallery items. The content is still hosted and streamed from the originating site, but the videos will appear to be fully integrated in your album. You can also use the video auto tag to embed these remote videos into your Geeklog content.
If you have a streaming Flash Video Server at your disposal, you can now include these streamed FLV files in Media Gallery.
There has been a significant amount of effort placed into cleaning up the templates used by Media Gallery. Now, all colors and fonts are controlled via the mediagallery.css style sheet. This should make it much easier to integrate Media Gallery into sites that do not use the Geeklog standard professional template.
Media Gallery can now automatically extract any embedded thumbnails from MP3 files and use them as the media item thumbnail. Media Gallery also attempts to extract the MP3 title, artist and genre and places these items into the media caption / description fields.
The old JUPLOAD Java upload applet has been replaced by a new, open source, solution that solves all issues working with FireFox 2.0.
A full code review was performed and several tweaks were made that reduce the overall memory requirements of Media Gallery and have also produced improved performance.
These are just the major feature improvements, there have been several other minor enhancements and additions as well. See the full ChangeLog file in the distribution for more details.
From the Gallery Main View, select Create Album from the Options drop down menu. Give your new album a name and description, check the default setting to ensure they are to your liking and save. You now have your first album.
Now that you have a new album, let’s put some media items into it. Click on the thumbnail from the Gallery Main View and that will navigate you to the new album. Now select Add Media from the Options drop down menu. This will give you the web based upload form. Use the Browse button to locate a media item on your local computer to upload and enter a title and description. Hit the save button and your media item will be uploaded. Once Media Gallery has processed the upload, you should see a confirmation message that the file was successfully processed. If you receive an error message, double check your configuration.
This concludes the Quick Start. Media Gallery has a lot of other features and methods for uploading media, please read the remainder of the documentation to gain a better understanding of all the functions and features Media Gallery has to offer.
Album attribute configuration options control which features are available in this album and also how the album will be displayed.
If this is enabled, users will be able to post comments on the media items contained in this album.
If this is enabled, users will be able to view the embedded EXIF/IPTC data of the JPG images. You can disable EXIF processing, or you can have it display below the media item or in a pop-up window. Also, you can control what EXIF/IPTC meta data is displayed by configuring the EXIF options located in the Media Gallery Administration screen.
If this is enabled, users will be able to rate your media items. Once a user has rated an item, a cookie is set on their workstation and is checked each time they try to rate an item. Users will only be allowed to rate an item once.
If this is enabled, a RSS feed for this album will be created / updated each time you add or remove media to this album. The RSS icon will appear to the right of the album name. This allows your site users to subscribe to the RSS feed and keep up with any changes to the album.
NOTE: Permissions are not checked when a user views the RSS feed. If you have a protected album and enable the RSS feed, anyone who knows the feed name can view the feed.
If you have enabled the RSS feed for an album, you can also enable the Podcast option. If this is enabled, the RSS feed will be created with all the required enclosures to create a Podcast feed. This can be used by tools such as iTunes to view, listen or watch the media items in this album. For a more detailed description of the Podcast feature, see the Special Album Types – Podcast Albums section.
If this is enabled, a sort drop down menu will appear in the lower right hand corner. This will allow your site users to sort the media items to meet their preferences. Note, this only sorts the display of thumbnails for the user, it does not alter the sort options you specified in the album configuration.
By default, all media items in an album are sorted by upload time, with the newest always displaying first. By selecting a new sort order, each time a media item is uploaded, the contents of the album will be resorted using the order you specify here. This will become the default sort order that the album will use.
Postcards allow your site users to send a media item to family or friends with a short note. This can be a great tool to help your users advertise your site. Postcards can be completely disabled, enabled only for logged-in users or enabled for all users.
Please use caution when you make your choice, postcards could also be abused and used for spamming if you allow anyone to send them. As a protection against misuse, Media Gallery does support enabled a CAPTCHA string on postcard creation if the CAPTCHA v3 or above plugin is installed.
See the section on Postcards for more details on this feature.
If this option is enabled, the album description will display just above the first line of thumbnails.
If this option is enabled, the number of times an album has been viewed or entered will be displayed on the main Media Gallery index page and for any sub-albums in this album.
Note: If you are the owner of the album or have the mediagallery.admin attribute, your browsing will not increment this counter.
If this option is enabled, each thumbnail will show the number of times the item has been viewed.
Note: If you are the owner of the media item or have the mediagallery.admin attribute, your browsing will not increment this counter.
Each media item can have a set of keywords associated with it. These are primarily used to improve searching. If this option is enabled, the keywords will be displayed below the thumbnail image.
The frame around each image / thumbnail is the album is specified here. Media Gallery supports several different frames.
This specifies if any sub-albums should be listed before the media items or after. If enabled, all sub-albums will be displayed before the media items are displayed. If disabled, the sub-albums will be listed after all the media items.
Determines the size of the thumbnails for the album. There are three choices:
When a user selects to view or listen to an audio / video file, you as the system administrator have a few options on how you will play this file.
For media items in the album, Media Gallery can display them as a slideshow. There are three types of slideshows in Media Gallery:
If you do not want to have a slideshow feature for the album, choose Disabled.
This determines the number of rows / columns of thumbnails per page.
By default, Media Gallery will use the most recent thumbnail as the album cover.
You also have the option of uploading an image to be used as the album cover. By selecting the Attached Thumbnail checkbox and specifying the image to upload in the Thumbnail input, you can add the album cover. When you attach a thumbnail to the album, that image will always be used as the album cover.
Media Gallery also allows you to specify one of the images in the album to be the album cover as well, instead of using the most recently added item. This is configured in the Manage Media screen.
Albums can also be featured and
configured to show on the
front page, specific topic or all pages. To feature an album, simply
check the
Set as Featured box and select where it should be displayed. Media
Gallery will
not show a featured album to a user who does not have the privileges to
see
that album.
You can have more than one featured album. For example, you could have
a
different featured album for each Topic on your Geeklog system.
Each album can have specific options for displaying or handling any media within the album.
If this is enabled, each time a media item is uploaded, if no caption has been entered, the media items filename will be used in the caption field.
Media Gallery supports an integration with DigiBug, an online photo printing service. By enabling this option, a new link/icon will appear in the lower right hand corner of the media view. This link will add the photo to the DigiBug shopping cart.
For full details on the Online Printing feature, see the Online Printing Section.
Enabling this option will add a Download link to the media item view screen. This will allow your site users to easily download the media item to their local system.
You can restrict or disable the ability for your users to view the originally uploaded image. The options are:
This option specifies whether the image media from this album should be included in the site’s Random Image Block.
NOTE: Only users with the mediagallery.admin attribute may change this setting.
You can control the maximum resolution of images placed into the album. If you specify values for both width and height, any image media which is of higher resolution will automatically be resized to these limits.
If you do not wish to limit the resolution, place a zero (0) in both fields.
You can also restrict the maximum file size allowed in this album. By specifying the maximum size in kilobytes (Kb) you will limit the ability to upload any media larger than this size. Any item which exceeds this size will be discarded and an error message stating the file is too big will be displayed after the upload.
If you do not wish to restrict the file size, place a zero (0) in this field.
You must specify the size of the Display Image (the image that is shown when viewing the media item). Media Gallery has several pre-defined sizes and also the ability for you to add a custom size (see Media Gallery Administration).
When the image media is uploaded, Media Gallery will create the display image using the size specified here.
NOTE: If you change the Display Image Size after you have already added images to this album, those existing image items will not automatically be resized. This setting will only affect any new image items uploaded. To resize the existing items, see the Media Gallery Administration section.
Each album can enable or disable watermarking. Also, each album can have a unique watermark image and location. To enable watermarking, select the checkbox for Automatically Watermark on Upload.
This specifies the transparency used by the watermark image. The lower the number, the lighter the watermark image will be on the original image. The higher the number, the darker the watermark will appear.
This specifies where on the image media the watermark should be placed.
You must select an existing watermark image to apply to newly uploaded image files.
NOTE: Changing these values do not affect media items already uploaded to the album, these settings only apply to newly uploaded image media.
For full details on Media Gallery’s Watermarking features, see the Watermarking Section.
Each album can be configured to only accept a certain type of media. For example, if you create an album that should only contain music (i.e.; MP3 files), you can make MP3s the only allowed media type. Any other type of media that is uploaded to this album will result in an error to the user informing them that the media type is not allowed.
The list of allowed media types is:
|
Image |
Audio/ Video |
Other |
|
JPEG |
MP3 |
ZIP |
|
PNG |
OGG |
Any Other Type |
|
TIF |
WMV |
|
|
GIF |
SWF |
|
|
BMP |
MOV |
|
|
TGA |
MP4 |
|
|
PSD |
MPEG |
|
| |
FLV |
|
| |
Remove FLV |
|
| |
Embedded Video |
|
For more information on the different media types, see the Support Media Types section.
By default, only the album owner or a user with write permissions can upload media items. User uploads allows you to open the album for contributions from regular site users.
If this feature is enabled, any logged-in users to the site will have the ability to upload media items to this album. If this is not checked (disabled), only users with write permissions to the album will be able to upload new items.
Moderation allows you to store any new uploads by logged-in users into a temporary holding space where they can be reviewed and either approved for inclusion in the album or rejected and deleted. Moderation is a great tool to ensure only appropriate media items are added to your album by your user community.
By enabling this option you will force all new media items uploaded by logged-in users to be redirected to the moderation queue.
This option is only valid if you have Allow Registered Users to Upload Media to this Album enabled.
If you have enabled moderation for this album, select the group of users who will be responsible for reviewing and approving media submissions.
If this option is enabled, all members of the moderator group will be notified via email when new media items have been uploaded. Media Gallery tries to keep from flooding the inbox of the moderators, so if a user uploads 10 media items in a very short period of time, only one moderator email will be sent.
For more details on Media Gallery’s moderation capabilities, see the Moderation Section.
Media Gallery supports the Geeklog security model, using
Owner, Group,
Logged-In and Anonymous permissions for each album. Media Gallery does
not
support permissions to the media item level, but instead the album
level.
Media Gallery supports a single global permission, whether or not to
allow
non-logged-in users access to your albums. If you set the Configuration
Option,
Login Required to Yes, then only registered site
users can view your
albums, regardless of the album’s individual permissions.
Each album has a set of permissions associated with it, these
permissions
determine who can view, edit or add media to the album. The permissions
are:
|
User |
Read Permission |
Edit Permission |
|
Owner |
Read |
Edit |
|
Group |
Read |
Edit |
|
Logged-In User |
Read |
Edit |
|
Anonymous |
Read |
|
Definitions are as follows:
|
Attribute |
Description / Definition |
|
Owner |
Each album has an owner; it is the user who created the album. Owners will always have READ / WRITE permissions. |
|
Group |
Each album has a group owner, this it the Geeklog group that has ownership of the album. Group Owner can have either READ permission or READ/Write permission. |
|
Logged-In User (Members) |
This is any user who has a login account on your site and is logged-in. Logged-in users can only have READ permission or no permission to view the album. |
|
Anonymous User |
This is any user who has not logged into your site. Anonymous users can only have READ permission or no permission to view the album. |
|
Read Permission |
Allows the user to view the contents of the album. |
|
Write Permission |
Allows the user to edit the album attributes (name, description, security permissions, etc.) and upload media to the album. |
Hidden albums have a special purpose;
They are normally
hidden from all lists presented to the standard user, but can be used
for auto
tags. For example, if you have an album that only contains images you
wish to
use in articles, but don’t want people to browse the album
directory, you can
mark it as hidden. All auto tags to this hidden album will only provide
the
image, without a hyper link to the album.
User’s who have WRITE access to a hidden album will see them
as normal albums
during browsing.
If you change the permissions of an album and it contains sub-albums, you can force Media Gallery to set the exact same permissions on all sub-albums by selecting this option.
To create an album in Media Gallery, select the Create Album option from the Options drop down menu. Each album has a set of configuration attributes that control how the album will be displayed, options for media presentation and access rights.
In the album view screen (you must be viewing the album you wish to edit), there is also an Administration Drop down menu, this is where you select to Edit an existing album. The edit screen is identical to the create screen and allows you to modify the settings of an album and also change the parent album (effectively moving the album to another parent).
If the album you are editing contains sub-albums, you have the option of forcing all children albums to have the exact same permissions as the parent. If you choose to do this, check the check box labeled: Force Child Update.An album can be deleted by selecting the Delete button in the album edit screen. If you select to delete an album, you will be given the option to move all sub-albums and media to another album or delete them. If you choose to have all the contents deleted, it is permanent, there is no undo function and all the media and sub-albums will be removed.
There is a Batch Delete Albums function available in the Media Gallery Administration screen. This will present a list of all albums and allow you to select which ones to delete. There is no option to move the contents of the albums when using the Batch Delete Albums function, all media items and sub-albums will be permanently deleted. Please use this feature with caution.
From the Gallery View Screen, there is an option to sort your
albums. This
will control the presentation of your albums to your site users. Albums
are
sorted in descending order, meaning the album with the highest order
value is
listed first.
Select Sort Albums from the Options drop
down menu and you will
be presented with a list of all your albums. To sort the sub-albums of
a parent
album, select the Parent Album’s link and that will give you
a list of all
sub-albums for that parent.
By selecting a specific set of configuration options, you can create special albums that can be used to serve a specific purpose.
Member Albums are a special feature of Media Gallery v1.4+ that allows the site administrator to give their site users their own album or albums to upload media into. Member Albums are special in that there are some protected options the member cannot configure, such as setting the album as a featured album or turning on/off moderation. As the site administrator you can specify certain restrictions such as maximum allowed file size, maximum resolution of images or overall disk usage quotas for your members.
Media Gallery allows the site administrator to specify where Member Albums can be created. For example, you could create a special album titled Member Gallery's and have all Member Albums placed under this album. Or, you could specify that Member Albums can be created anywhere that the user has permissions to create. For example, by specifying the root album as the Member Album Root, site users could create albums directly off the root album. But, they could not create new sub-albums under another user’s album, permissions would not allow this.
Media Gallery also provides the ability to automatically create Member Albums when the user registers with your site. The drawback to this method is that not all users will utilize their Member Album and you may have several empty albums lying around your site. To address this issue, Media Gallery provides a featured called Self Enrollment where the user can select to have their Member Album created and after they agree to your Terms and Conditions the album will automatically be created. This extra step will help reduce the number of unused Member Albums.
To enable Self Enrollment there are a few options:
To help manage those Member Albums that are created and never used, there is an administrative function, Purge Member Albums that will list all the empty Member Albums on your site and also show the last login date for the user. This batch house-keeping function will make it very simply for you to remove those unused albums.
Just as Member Albums can be automatically created when a user registers with your site, they can also automatically be purged or archived when the user is removed from your site. Media Gallery allows you to choose whether to delete the album and all of its contents automatically or move it to an archive area.
Member Albums provides a flexible and safe method to allow your site users to share their media items on your website.
For specifics on configuring and administering Member Albums, see the Media Gallery Administration Section.
There is a new album attribute called Podcast Album, if this option is checked for the album, the RSS file will included the required enclosure tags needed for podcast clients. The RSS files will also use the album’s cover image as the RSS feed image.
Media Gallery can also display a podcast album differently, using a single column layout similar to the Geeklog story layout. To enable the podcast layout, select the following album attributes:
If the media file is MP3, Media Gallery will display a small player below the thumbnail to allow your site users to easily listen to the podcast online.
Hidden albums have a special purpose; They are normally hidden from all lists presented to the standard user, but can be used for auto tags. For example, if you have an album that only contains images you wish to use in articles, but don’t want people to browse the album directory, you can mark it as hidden. All auto tags to this hidden album will only provide the image, without a hyper link to the album.
User’s who have WRITE access to a hidden
album
will see them as normal albums during browsing. This includes
any user with
the mediagallery.admin attribute.
The heart of Media Gallery is the actual media you upload into your albums. Media Gallery supports a wide range of media types. Media Gallery has some unique methods to handle your uploaded media, below is an overview of how Media Gallery processes the media items.
Media Gallery does not store your images and other media items outside of the web root. This means, it is possible that a user could view your media items directly, bypassing the Geeklog security model. Don’t panic, there are controls in place to minimize this, but it is possible. You will need to decide if the controls Media Gallery has in place will meet your needs and requirements.
Unlike many gallery solutions, Media Gallery does not store your media items in subdirectories that are named after the album they reside. Instead, there is no relationship to the album and the physical directory where the media items are stored. Media Gallery has 16 directories, named 0-f, where it will store your media items.
Also, Media Gallery will use a unique hash algorithm to create the actual filename used to store your media. An example is 09b1867c5238c1c9035bc73f76b29bf4.jpg.
These two features add to the overall security of your media items since it would be almost impossible for someone to actually guess both the directory name and the unique hash filename. But, this also makes it very difficult to export your media items or physically manage your files locally.
There is an option to disable the unique hash naming feature, instead Media Gallery will simply use the original filename of the media item instead. This makes downloading the item a little less confusing.
Media Gallery never displays the item filename in a URL. The filenames are disclosed in the rendered HTML page, in the image tags. My thought here is that if you give a user access to the album through Media Gallery and they use the View Source option of their browser to see the actual filenames, they already have access to the media item anyway.
I believe the media items have an appropriate level of protection that will prevent a non-site user the ability to view your media items directly.
A concern that I have heard voiced is the ability for other sites to hot link to your media items. Basically, making them available to their site, but using your bandwidth. There are several options available outside of Geeklog and Media Gallery to prevent this from happening. Most hosting services offer a method to prevent hot linking. If you are running the Apache web server, there are many solutions to prevent hot linking. If you are running Microsoft's IIS server, there are ISAPI filters available to prevent this as well. Do a Google search on "hot link protection" and you will be presented with several options.
One note of caution, if you choose to use a hot link protection method and also give your site users the ability to print images using the integrated on line printing feature of Media Gallery, you will need to allow the domain digibug.com to pull images directly from your site. Be sure and include digibug.com in the allowed exception list.
A quick note on why Media Gallery was designed this way. Originally, when I first wrote the initial version of Media Gallery, I did store all the items outside of the web root, only allowing access through the program. I found several problems and issues with this approach over time. Browsers did not cache the content, since it was dynamically sent each time. Some privacy tools and ad blockers would block the content. I decided on a compromise, let the images be directly accessible, with a naming and storage convention that would make it very difficult to guess. So far, this solution has proven to be successful one. I understand there may be some users who feel they need a 100% guarantee that no one outside of their logged-in website users can access their media items. Unfortunately, in this case, Media Gallery is probably not the best solution. I would recommend looking at the Gallery2 Bridge that supports embedding Gallery v2.1 into Geeklog, Gallery v2 does support storing the images outside of the web root.
Media Gallery supports a wide range of media. Including image, video, audio and any other type of item you wish to add. You can control what types of media are allowed on a per album basis. Also, depending on the Graphics Package you are using, some media types may or may not be supported.
Media Gallery will automatically convert all uploaded image media to JPG format. There is an option you can specify during the upload (Browser based upload only) to disable the conversion.
|
Format |
Description |
|
JPEG |
JPG is a commonly used compression / storage format for image media. |
|
PNG |
PNG is a bitmap image format that employs lossless data compression. |
|
TIF |
Tagged Image File Format is mainly used for storing image media. TIF format is only supported by the ImageMagick graphics package. |
|
GIF |
Graphics Interchange Format an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. |
|
BMP |
BMP is a bitmapped graphics format used internally by the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 graphics subsystem (GDI), and used commonly as a simple graphics file format on those platforms. |
|
TGA |
TGA File Format, often referred to as TARGA File Format, is a raster graphics file format. |
|
PSD |
The .PSD (Photoshop Document) format stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels & spot colors, Clipping paths, and duotone settings. PSD format is only supported by the ImageMagick graphics package. |
|
MP3 |
MP3, is a popular audio encoding format. It uses a lossy compression algorithm that is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. |
|
OGG |
Ogg is an open standard for a free container format for digital multimedia, unrestricted by software patents and designed for efficient streaming and manipulation. |
|
WMV |
WMV (*.wmv) files use Microsoft's ASF container format. These files can be played by Windows Media Player and other players such as MPlayer, VLC media player or Media Player Classic. |
|
SWF |
SWF is a proprietary vector graphics file format produced by the Flash software from Adobe (formerly Macromedia). Intended to be small enough for publication on the web, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. |
|
MOV |
The QuickTime (.mov) file format functions as a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text (for subtitles, for example). |
|
MP4 / MPEG |
MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. |
|
FLV |
Flash Video (FLV) is a proprietary file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (formerly known as Macromedia Flash Player) version 6, 7, 8, or 9. |
|
Streaming FLV |
Same as above, but referencing a streaming flash video server. To use streaming FLV files, you must have a streaming Flash video server. |
|
Embedded Video |
Any embedded video from sites such as YouTube or Google Video. |
Media Gallery will now determine if there is an embedded thumbnail image in an uploaded MP3 file. If there is, Media Gallery will extract it and automatically use it as the attached thumbnail for the audio file.
Media Gallery will also pull the title,artist, and genre for the embedded tags and use these to auto fill the media title, description and keywords.
|
ZIP |
If configured, Media Gallery can extract a ZIP file and process the contents inside. |
|
Other |
Allows any other type of media not defined above to be placed in the album. |
Media Gallery will create a thumbnail and display image for all uploaded image media. This means that Media Gallery will maintain three different copies of an image. The decision to create static thumbnails and display images was based on performance. An image is uploaded once, but viewed many times. It make sense to create the thumbnail/display image one time and display it many times instead of dynamically creating the thumbnail/display image each time it is displayed. There is a huge performance gain and this gives Media Gallery the ability to scale to higher number of concurrent users. The downside is there is a large disk space requirement since these images are statically stored on the server.
When new media is uploaded to Media Gallery, there are several actions performed. Many of the actions are controlled via the album configuration.
When a new image is uploaded, Media Gallery will do the following:
When new video media is uploaded, Media Gallery will do the following:
When new audio media is uploaded, Media Gallery will do the following:
As you can see, how Media Gallery deals with new media is very dependent upon how the album is configured.
Media Gallery supports several methods to add media to your albums; Direct Browser Uploads, Import via FTP, Upload via JUPLOAD Java Applet and the Windows Web Publishing Wizard.
Before we get into the details about how to add media to your
albums, there
needs to be a little discussion on outside factors that affect
uploading to
your albums. Server configuration and PHP’s configuration
play a major role in
how uploads work and what can be uploaded. For example, PHP’s
configuration
file (php.ini) controls the maximum file size that can be uploaded. It
also
controls the maximum size of a page that can be submitted. See this
online FAQ
for more information.
Let’s discuss the options for adding media to your albums:
This option allows you to upload media to an album. You must
specify a
caption for each uploaded file; the description field and keyword
fields are
optional. You may also upload a thumbnail with each item you upload for
the
album.
Browser uploading is very convenient, but it does limit the size and
how many
items you can upload at one time. For example, if your PHP
configuration only
allows 2 megabytes file uploads, you cannot upload anything larger
through the
browser upload screen. If you have 20 or 30 items to upload, you can
only
upload a maximum of 4 items at a time with the browser upload.
Gallery Remote is a JAVA applet developed by the Gallery Project. They are gracious enough to publish their API and specifications so it can be integrated into other projects.
With Media Gallery v1.4.4 and above, there is full support for using Gallery Remote as an upload tool.
To use Gallery Remote, it is as simple as downloading the applet and installing it on your computer. Once you have it installed, setup a connection for your Media Gallery site by choosing Add Gallery URL, the url would be http://www.yoursitehere.com/mediagallery.
JUPLOAD is a JAVA upload applet.
To use JUPLOAD, you must have the Java Runtime Environment installed on your local computer. Once the applet is started, you can select the destination album for your uploads via the Album Select drop down menu, then using the JUPLOAD applet, select which files you wish to upload and submit.
Media Gallery supports uploading directly from Microsoft Windows XP, using the Web Publishing Wizard. This is a very easy and convenient method to place media items into your albums.
Microsoft officially removed the “Web Publishing Wizard” from Windows Vista.
Before you can use the Web Publishing Wizard, you must first tell Windows about your site, this is done by installing a small registry file that will give Windows the details about your site.
To get this registry file, go into the Media Gallery Upload
Screen and select
the Windows Publishing tab. Select the
correct registry file for your
operating system. Install this registry file in Windows by
either double
clicking on the saved file, or by choosing ’Run’
from the download dialog box.
You are now ready to publish to your Media Gallery installation
directly from
Windows XP.
Open up a folder with images or other media items you wish to publish,
look in
the left menu under File and Folder Tasks and you should see Publish
this
folder to the Web. If you had selected only a couple of items to
publish by
first highlighting them in Windows Explorer, it would read Publish the
selected
items to the Web.
Follow the Windows prompts until you get to the ’Select
Provider’ screen, here
you should see your website. If not, you need to install the registry
entries
by following the procedure above.
You will need to sign on (the wizard will prompt you for your Geeklog
username
and password).
You should see a list of your albums now, select the one you want and
select
Next. Or, you can create an album at this point, simply choose
’Create Album’
button and follow the prompts.
You will be asked if you want to resize the files before uploading.
This is up
to you, if you choose to resize your files, it will generally decrease
the time
necessary to upload the items, but Windows XP can alter or destroy some
of the
embedded EXIF information during the resize. Also, if you choose to
allow your
users to utilize the On line Printing Feature, the smaller you make the
original image, the fewer options your users will have when printing
the
images. For example, they will not be able to print a 16x20 inch
photograph if
the original size is changed to 1024x768 pixels. Decide if you want
your images
resized and then select Next.
Your files should now start uploading.
The Windows Web Publishing Wizard is not very good about reporting
errors, you
will want to check your Geeklog error.log if there were any problems
uploading
your files.
Keep in mind that the Windows Web Publishing Wizard is under the same
size
restrictions are uploading via the browser. So if your PHP installation
has a
maximum file size of 2 megabytes; that would be the largest file you
can upload
through the publishing wizard as well.
Once the wizard has completed the upload, it will log you out of the
website.
NOTE: In order to force the logout at the end of the
uploads, Media
Gallery tricks the XP Publishing Wizard by placing a dummy upload
record at the
end of the XML manifest. This causes the XP Publishing Wizard to report
and
extra file on the upload. So, if you are uploading 10 images, the XP
Publishing
Wizard will actually report x of 11 images uploaded. Don’t be
alarmed that the
image count is incorrect, it does not affect the items you upload and
it is
purely cosmetic.
If you have enabled ZIP file support in the System Options, you can upload a ZIP file containing images. Media Gallery will unzip the file, including any embedded sub-directories, and then import each of the files. Media Gallery will automatically create albums for each sub-directory found in the ZIP archive.
To add streaming / remote media items to your Media Gallery albums, when you select Add Media there is a new tab called Remote Media. Select this tab and a new upload form will display.
Upload Fields:
If you choose, Media Gallery can automatically apply a
watermark image to
each image uploaded to your galleries. Media Gallery includes a
Watermark
Management system that allows you or your users (if they have ownership
permissions on an album) to upload, delete and edit watermark images.
To enter
the Watermark Management, select Watermarks from the main Admin
dropdown menu
in the Album View.
When uploading watermarks, mediagallery.admin have the option to
specify if a
watermark image should be public or private. If marked as public, any
user who
has ownership permissions on an album can use this image as a
watermark.
Private images can only be used by the user who uploaded them.
Albums can be configured to automatically watermark images when they
are
uploaded, or you can manually watermark images at anytime. To
automatically
have them watermarked, enable Auto Watermarking in the Album Edit
screen.
To manually or selectively watermark imgaes, this is done in the Media
Management screen. Select the images to watermark and choose
Watermarking from
the batch dropdown.
Once an image has been watermarked it cannot be watermarked again.
Depending on the album configuration, Media Gallery may need to resize the uploaded image. If the image is larger than the resolution specified in the album configuration, Media Gallery will automatically resize the image to be at or below the size specified.
Media Gallery will apply some additional processing to MP3 and OGG audio files.
This option allows you to perform batch moves or deletes on
media in an
album. It also allows you to manually resort the media in the album and
add a
caption to each item in the album. You can also select which image will
be used
as the ’album cover’ for the album. This is the
image that shows in the album
list.
You can also edit the attributes and perform basic image edits by
clicking on
the image from the Media Management screen. This allows you to change
the
capture time, rotate the image, and modify the title, description,
category or
keywords.
You can also zoom in on any media item by selecting its icon; a full
view will
be opened in a pop up for viewing.
The following functions can be performed in the Manage Media Screen:
|
Batch Rotate Images |
Select the images you wish to rotate by checking the Select Box to the left of the thumbnail. Select the direction to rotate the images from the batch drop down menu and then click the batch button. |
|
Move media to new album |
Select the media items you wish to move by checking the Select Box to the left of the thumbnail. Choose the destination album from the album drop down list and click the move button. |
|
Delete Media Items |
Select the media items you wish to delete and then click the delete button. WARNING: Deletes are permanent, there is not method to recover the items. |
|
Watermark Images |
If you have enabled watermarking in the album attributes (you have defined a watermark image to use), select the images you wish to have watermarked. Select Watermark from the batch drop down menu (Watermark will not appear if no watermark image has been defined for the album), and click the batch button. |
|
Set Album Cover |
By default, Media Gallery will use the newest image in the album as the album cover, but you can specify a specific image to use instead. Select the image you wish to use as the album cover by clicking the radio button to the right of the thumbnail (Cover Column). Be sure to press the save button to save your selection. |
|
Reset Album Cover |
If you had previously selected a specific image for the album cover but now want to return to using the Media Gallery default of showing the newest image, select the radio button labeled Reset Album Cover. Be sure to click the save button at the bottom to save your selection. |
|
Sort Media Items |
You can manually sort the order of the media items in your album. To the right of the thumbnail is a small entry box with a number in it. These numbers control the order the images are presented in the album. Larger numbers show first. You can change the sort order by changing the numbers in this box. Be sure to click the save button at the bottom to save your changes. |
|
Include in slideshow auto tag |
Media Gallery’s
slideshow auto tag is a very powerful feature, but it does have some
limitations. If you mix portrait and landscape images in the slideshow
auto tag, it does not look as nice as having images of all the same
size and orientation. You can select which images to include in the
slideshow auto tag by selecting the check box under the Include
in SS column. |
|
Edit media items title, description, keywords and category |
You can edit the title, description, add keywords and modify the category for each of the items in the album. Note: The category drop down will not appear if there are no categories defined. |
You can also edit all the attributes of a media item by selecting the [Edit] link below each thumbnail.
You can edit the specific attributes of a media item by
selecting the
media’s thumbnail from the Manage Media Item screen or from
viewing the media
item in Media Gallery.
This screen allows you modify the general attributes of the items, such
as
orientation, title, description, etc. You can also attach a thumbnail
to the
media item. If a thumbnail is attached, that thumbnail image will be
displayed
when viewing the album thumbnails.
Reset Views
This will reset the views counter to 0.
Reset Rating
This will erase all existing rating data for this media item.
Original Filename
This is the original filename as it was uploaded to Media Gallery. This
is only an informational field that can be used if you need to export
your media items.
Attached Thumbnail
This option allows you to attach a thumbnail to the media item. The
attached thumbnail will be displayed in the album index view. If you
want to remove an existing attached thumbnail, simply uncheck the
attached thumbnail checkbox.
You can replace an existing attach thumbnail by selecting the browse
button and choosing a new image to upload.
Replace File
If you want to re-upload the file or upload a new file to take the
place of an existing media item, select the Replace File checkbox and
specify the new file in the entry field.
Alternate URL / Remote URL
The Alternate URL is used by auto tags to provide a link to an
alternative location instead of the media item view. Current the
fslideshow: auto tag will use this field.
The Remote URL is used by either the Streaming FLV media type or an
embedded video.
Title
The media items title.
Description
The media items description
Keywords
Keywords for this media item to enhance the searching feature.
Category
The category this media item should belong to.
Capture Time
This allows you to change the capture time stored in the database.
Don’t forget to hit Save to store your
modifications in the database or to upload the new thumbnail or
replacement file.
If you use the Import via FTP or XP Publishing Wizard to upload items to your albums, you did not have an opportunity to enter a title or description for the items. The Batch Caption Editor is a streamlined interface designed to quickly and easily let you add/edit the title and descriptions for your media items.
This option allows you to quickly sort all the media in an album based on Upload time or Capture Time (it will use the EXIF data if available in your media). Select which options you desire and submit, all the media items for that album will be resorted.
Media Gallery supports a full RSS feed which will include all albums and also a per-album RSS feed which can be turned on / off in the Album Attribute Editor. There are two types of RSS feeds, an overall feed which shows all the albums on your site and then album specific RSS feeds.
Media Gallery supports a moderation
feature which allows
users to upload media items to albums with member upload permissions.
The media
items are placed in a moderation queue until a moderator approves or
deletes
them.
Moderation is configured on an album by album basis. Each album can
have a
different set of moderators if you choose. Moderators are determined by
Geeklog
groups.
For example, you could create a Geeklog group called “Youth
Album Moderators”.
For a set of albums, you could turn on moderation and select the
“Youth Album
Moderators” as the moderator group. When a user uploads a
media item to any of
these albums, all the members of the “Youth Album
Moderators” group will
receive an email notification that a new media items is awaiting
moderation (if
configured, email notification can be turned off in the Album
Attributes). Only
the members of the “Youth Album Moderators” group
can approve the media items.
The exception is that the Mediagallery Admin group can also approve
them as
well.
When a moderator logs into the system, for the albums they moderate,
there will
be an option on the Administration Drop down menu called Media Queue,
showing
the number of items in the queue. The moderator will enter the Media
Queue and
either approve or delete the media items.
One of Media Gallery's goals is to be a very resource friendly application, specifically designed to run in a shared hosting environment. To accomplish this goal, many batch processes such as FTP Imports, Watermarking or resizing images is done using the Batch Processing System. The Batch Processing System takes large batch operations and instead of performing them in one large run, breaks them up into several smaller runs called cycles. For example, if you are going to watermark 100 images, Media Gallery will create a batch session and watermark the images in several cycles. This approach solves several problems when running in a shared hosting environment. First, most hosting providers have a maximum amount of time a script can run, if you exceed that time, the script simply stops. By processing large operations in smaller chunks, the server will never timeout. Second, processing image files is a very resource intensive process, generally taking a large amount of the CPU processor. Again, in a shared hosting environment, many hosting providers have limits on how much CPU a script can use in a specific timeframe. To keep you out of trouble with your hosting provider, Media Gallery's batch processing system will esure that it does not take too many CPU resources.
Media Gallery allows your site users to specify some preferences in their viewing habits. Media Gallery will place a menu option under User Functions labeled MG User Options. Registered site users will have the ability to configure the following items:
Site Administrators can disable this ability or can turn off the ability to configure any of the above items. In the Media Gallery Administration Screen, select System Options and configure which items a user can configure in the User Preference Overrides section.
If you choose, Media Gallery can automatically apply a
watermark image to
each image uploaded to your galleries. Media Gallery includes a
Watermark
Management system that allows you or your users (if they have ownership
permissions on an album) to upload, delete and edit watermark images.
To enter
the Watermark Management, select Watermarks from the main Admin
dropdown menu
in the Album View.
When uploading watermarks, mediagallery.admins have the option to
specify if a
watermark image should be public or private. If marked as public, any
user who
has ownership permissions on an album can use this image as a
watermark.
Private images can only be used by the user who uploaded them.
Albums can be configured to automatically watermark images when they
are
uploaded, or you can manually watermark images at anytime. To
automatically
have them watermarked, enable Auto Watermarking in the Album Edit
screen.
To manually or selectively watermark imgaes, this is done in the Media
Management screen. Select the images to watermark and choose
Watermarking from
the batch dropdown.
Once an image has been watermarked it cannot be watermarked again.
Media Gallery takes full advantage of the Geeklog comment engine, allowing your site users to leave comments on your media items (if you have enabled comments in the album attributes). Since Media Gallery uses the Geeklog comment engine, all the protections provided by the Spam-X plugin to prevent comment spam are also enforced in Media Gallery. Also, the speed limit restriction (only allowing comments to be posted every XX seconds) is used in Media Gallery.
Media Gallery fully supports Geeklog’s auto tag
feature. These are tags that
are embedded in an article / story that are processed when the article
/ story
is displayed. Auto tags are one of the most talked
about features of Geeklog
/ Media Gallery. They can be used to give simple integration
of audio and
visual components to your Geeklog stories, static pages, forum posts,
etc.
All auto tags are immediately followed by either a media ID or an album
ID.
Many auto tags support additional parameters to help you control the
look and
feel of the resulting integration.
Auto tags also honor album permission settings. If a user does not have the permission to view an album, any auto tags referencing that album or its contents will not be displayed to that user. The only exception to this rule is the global Login Required setting. If you have enabled the Login Required setting, all auto tags will display even though an anonymous user cannot view the album.
Media Gallery also supports a couple of special features when
it comes to
auto tags. By default, Media Gallery will alternate the alignment of
the
thumbnails from left to right throughout your articles. If you prefer
to
specify a right, left or no alignment, you can use the align: parameter
to
force the alignment to your preference.
The album auto tag will create a thumbnail image using the album cover. This auto tag can only use the thumbnail image.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
height:## |
sets the height of the thumbnail image to ## px high |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Determines the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
linkid:## |
If linkid: is specified, the album auto tag will link to the media item specified with the linkid: parameter. Omit the linkid: parameter to have the album auto tag link to the album view. |
|
border:0/1 |
1 places a border (frame)
around the thumbnail |
|
link:0/1 |
1 enables the thumbnail having
a link to the album. |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
Example:
[album:1 width:200 height:200 align:auto border:1 link:1 A sample album auto tag]
This example will place the album cover thumbnail in the story using a height/width of approximately 200x200 pixels. Media Gallery will preserve the aspect ratio of the image, so the size may not be exactly 200x200 but it will not be any larger than 200x200. The alignment of the thumbnail will be automatically alternated between right and left depending on the other auto tags in the story, it will have a small border around it and will be hotlinked to the album view. The caption will display below the thumbnail.
The media auto tag is the general purpose auto tag, it will work with each any of media. For audio and video media, it will display the attached thumbnail or the generic media thumbnail if there is no attached thumbnail. For image media, it will display the media items thumbnail.
|
Parameters |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
height:## |
sets the height of the thumbnail image to ## px high |
|
border:0/1 |
1 places a border (frame)
around the thumbnail |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
src:orig, disp or tn |
Specifies which image to use as the source, the original image (full size), the display image or the thumbnail. If no src option is given, the thumbnail image is used by default. |
|
alt:0/1 |
1 will use the alternate URL of
the media item for the href link |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
For example [media:200706012342 What a pretty flower] will become
Creates a raw <img> tag of the media item with an optional link to that media item. The img: auto tag does not support any formatting beyond the thumbnail size and alignment. The purpose of this auto tag is to give you the ability to place a raw HTML <img> tag in your story. Also, the img: auto tag does not provide a link to the original image.
|
Parameters |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
height:## |
sets the height of the thumbnail image to ## px high |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
src:orig, disp or tn |
Specifies which image to use as the source, the original image (full size), the display image or the thumbnail. If no src option is given, the thumbnail image is used by default. |
The slideshow auto tag will embed a JavaScript based slide show in your story.
There are a few restrictions with the JavaScript slideshow; images are not centered, so if you have both landscape and portrait images to display, the portrait images will align to the left. To assist you in having full control over this auto tag, in the Manage Media screen for each album, you have the option to select which image items will be included in the slideshow. This gives you the ability to select images with similar size and orientation, which makes for a much prettier slideshow.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
height:## |
sets the height of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
border:0/1 |
1 places a border (frame)
around the thumbnail |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
delay:## |
The number of seconds to display an image before moving to the next one. |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
Places a Flash based mini-slideshow on your page. As the images scroll, there will be a link to each individual image. The caption, if specified, will display below the slideshow.
NOTE: The mini-slideshow will not have a border around it.
The Flash mini slideshow will also use the alternate URL field if specified for the media item. This allows you to have the image link to another article, site, etc. instead of the Media Gallery media view.
If the user does not have Flash support installed, or is has an older version, a message informing them of this will be displayed instead of the actual slideshow.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
Sets the width of the slideshow to ## pixels wide |
|
height:## |
Sets the height of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
src:tn/disp/orig |
Specifies which image to use as the source:
|
|
link:0/1 |
0 = no links to the media |
|
delay:# |
Specifies the number of seconds to display each image before moving on to the next image. |
|
title:top/bottom |
top=places a title banner at the top of the slideshow, bottom=places a title banner at the bottom of the slide show. |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
Places a small (200x200) video player in the article/story for media_id= and auto starts the video playing. The video auto tag can be used to embed any video item from Media Gallery into a story. This includes remote video such as YouTube videos.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
Sets the width of the video to ## pixels wide |
|
height:## |
Sets the height of the video to ## pixels wide |
|
align:auto, none, right, left |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
autoplay:0/1 |
If set to 1 the video will automatically begin playing, if set to 0, the user will need to press the play button to begin playing. |
NOTE:You cannot change the width / height of embedded remote video files, the size is controlled by the embed string you specified when the video was added to Media Gallery. In this case, the width / height parameters are ignored.
Places a small (15x200 no thumbnail or 200x200 with thumbnail) audio player in your story. If there is an attached thumbnail to the audio item, it will be displayed above the player controls.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
align:auto, none, right, left |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
autoplay:0/1 |
If set to 1 the video will automatically begin playing, if set to 0, the user will need to press the play button to begin playing. |
Allows for media items or any item stored in an album to be downloaded by the user.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
Places a text link to a media item - No thumbnail is used.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
alt:0/1 |
1 will use the alternate URL of
the media item for the href link |
|
href text |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the href text |
Places a thumbnail image of the specified media item (using media id ). This does not put a link, only the image. The caption, if specified, will display below the image.
The use of the image: auto tag is depreciated, please use the media: auto tag instead.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
border:0/1 |
1 places a border (frame)
around the thumbnail |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
src:orig, disp or tn |
Specifies which image to use as the source, the original image (full size), the display image or the thumbnail. If no src option is given, the thumbnail image is used by default. |
|
link:0/1 |
1 places a link to the display image, 0 will disable linking to the original image. |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
Creates an ’original’ image, this will use the originally uploaded image so the size can be much larger than the standard thumbnail.
The use of the oimage: auto tag is depreciated, please use the media: auto tag.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|
width:## |
sets the width of the thumbnail image to ## px wide |
|
border:0/1 |
1 places a border (frame)
around the thumbnail |
|
align:left, right, auto or none |
Sets the alignment for the auto tag, valid options are left to align left, right to align right, auto to have Media Gallery alternate alignment right/left and none for no align. |
|
caption |
any text before the closing ] will be used as the caption for the image |
The Album ID is displayed (only for Administrators only unless you enable Enable Media ID Display) on the Album View page in the lower left hand corner. The Album ID is also displayed in the URL, it is the aid parameter passed in the URL when you are viewing an album. Look in your browsers address bar to see it or look at your browsers status bar when you mouse over an album from the main album page.
The Media ID is displayed (only for Administrators only unless you enable Enable Media ID Display) on the Image Detail page in the left footer.
Media Gallery v1.5 fully supports Geeklog’s auto link features. This allows you to embed auto tags from other plugins into the title and descriptions of any album or media item. Auto link support is automatic and there are no configuration options necessary.
Media Gallery is fully integrated with Geeklog’s statistics engine. There is nothing special you need to do to take advantage of this feature. When a user displays the Site Statistics in Geeklog, Media Gallery will report the total number of images in the system , the Top Viewed images and the Top Ranked (if ranking is enabled) images.
Media Gallery is fully integrated with Geeklog’s search engine. There is nothing special you need to do to take advantage of this feature. You should note, that is a media item does not have a caption; Media Gallery will use the Album Title when displaying the search results.
Media Gallery also has its own search system, which adds additional features over the standard Geeklog search. Media Gallery’s search allows you to specify a specific category and also search keywords.
Just like Geeklog’s Featured Article, you can also feature an album. If an album is featured, it will display on the homepage (or whatever topic page you specify) either before or after the stories for that page. Media Gallery offers additional functionality over how Geeklog’s featured stories by allowing you to specify a different featured album for each Geeklog topic.
To make an album featured turn on the Featured Album attribute in the Album Edit screen and select the topic and location for the album to display.
When Media Gallery is installed, it automatically creates a
Random Image
block in the Geeklog blocks system. This block is disabled by default
and can
be enabled by turning it on through Geeklog’s Blocks
Administration.
The Random Image Block will show a random image from your albums,
changing each
time the page reloads and providing a direct link that the album where
the
image resides.
Media Gallery also integrates with Geeklog's User Profile system, displaying the last 5 media items uploaded by that user and any albums that the user owns. If a user has not uploaded any media and does not own any albums, nothing will be displayed on the user profile page.
This feature can be turned on / off by setting the User Profile Integration option in Media Gallery's System Options configuration screen.
Media Gallery’s look is controlled via template files and all fonts and colors are controlled via the mediagallery style sheet.
There are two special alignment classes in the style sheet:
These two styles control the alignment of all of the admin screens. If you are using a Right to Left (RTL) language and the alignment does not look good, all you need to do is modify these two styles to meet your needs.
The MGpluginMI styles should not be altered, these remove all padding and margins from the Media Gallery images to allow the frames to properly display.
To easily change the color scheme or font in Media Gallery, you will want to edit the CSS for the mgPlugin styles.
Media Gallery has the ability to display the embedded EXIF/IPTC data that is stored in your images by your digital camera. If you wish to use this feature, you will need to tell Media Gallery which EXIF/IPTC data elements you want displayed. Please note, not all data elements are actually stored in your image, this depends on the digital camera or scanning process. By default, there are a few key items already enabled.
To select which EXIF/IPTC data elements are available for display, enter the Media Gallery Configuration Screen and select EXIF/IPTC Administration. This will present you with a list of all the EXIF/IPTC elements that Media Gallery recognizes. You should check the checkbox to the right of the elements you want to be displayed with your images.
Keep in mind, you can enable / disable EXIF/IPTC support for each of your albums in the album configuration screen. You can also choose how the EXIF/IPTC data elements are displayed, below the media item, in a popup window or both.
Media Gallery allows you to create categories to help organize your media items. Categories are only used in the Media Gallery search function. You can limit your search to a specific category, or search for all items in a specific category.
Using this option, you can add, edit and delete your categories.
Media Gallery will support a full RSS feed which will include all albums and also a per-album RSS feed which can be turned on / off in the Album Attribute Editor. Media Gallery supports the following RSS types; RSS2.0, RSS1.0, RSS0.91, ATOM, ATOM0.3.
Here you will configure how RSS feeds will work for your site’s Media Gallery:
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Build Full Album RSS Feed |
This option allows you to create a feed for all of your albums |
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RSS Feed Type |
Select which RSS Format to use. |
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Exclude Empty Albums |
This will exclude any albums that do not contain media items |
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Only include albums available to the public |
This will allow you to only include albums that allow anonymous access |
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Base filename for feed |
This is the base file name, Media Gallery will automatically place the extension .rss onto the Full Feed, and will create files named: basefilename##### .rss for your album feeds, where ##### is the album id. |
This function will rebuild the full Media Gallery RSS feed. Normally you should not have to use this function as the feeds will be maintained automatically any time you make a change (upload, move, delete) items from your albums.
If you were to make several title / description edits to your media, you may want to rebuild the full RSS feed to ensure these changes are included.
Also, when you first enable the RSS Full Feed, you may want to run this to do the initial creation of the file.
This function will rebuild all of the individual Media Gallery album feed files for those albums that have RSS enabled. Normally you should not have to use this function as the feeds will be maintained automatically any time you make a change (upload, move, delete) items from your albums.
If you were to make several title / description edits to your media, you may want to rebuild the albums RSS feed to ensure these changes are included.
Media Gallery has been designed to run in many diverse environments, but there are always issues that pop up.
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Symptom: |
Uploading media items results in a blank page. |
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Solution: |
Generally this is a result of trying to upload a file that is larger than the file size specified in the following php.ini configuration directives: |
Verify that the php.ini settings are large enough to allow the file upload.
Another issue that can cause a blank screen after upload is insufficient memory. Most default PHP installations are configured to use a maximum of 8 Mb of memory per process. Media Gallery requires at least 32 Mb of memory to process larger image files. Check the value of the memory_limit directive in your php.ini
If these solutions do not solve the issue, check your web server’s error log file to see if there are any diagnostic messages. Please post the issue at the Media Gallery Support site’s forums.
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Symptom: |
Thumbnails and display images are not being created after image upload. |
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Solution: |
Validate that the directory permissions will allow the web server write access to all the sub-directories under public_html/mediagallery/mediaobjects/. |
Also, double check to ensure your graphics package is properly configured.
Both of these can be checked by going into the Media Gallery Administration Screen, selecting System Options and saving. Media Gallery will run a self-check to validate directory permissions and graphics package. If any errors are reported try to fix the issue and try again.
If you run into problems when using Media Gallery, there are a few standard trouble shooting items you should perform to help isolate the problem.
Check your web server’s error log
One of the first places to look for detailed error messages is in the web server’s error log. Depending on your hosting environment or your hosting service, how you do this varies. Many hosting services will actually place an error_log file in each of the directories that run PHP code. So, for example, if you are having a problem uploading images, check in the public_html/mediagallery/ directory to see if there is an error_log file.
Check your Geeklog error.log
Geeklog maintains its own error file, it is located in the logs/ directory. Depending on the type of problem you are having there may be more detailed information in this file.
Turn on Verbose Logging in Media Gallery
Media Gallery does a very good job of logging its steps as it attempts to process images, etc. By turning on Verbose Logging, it will log much more detail which may help diagnose a problem. These messages are logged to the Geeklog error.log file mentioned above.
Search the Support Forums at the Media Gallery Support Site
There is a very good history of issues and resolutions in the support forums at the Media Gallery Support site. Check and see if there have been others with a similar problem. If not, please post your problem there and it will be addressed as quickly as possible.