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AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 rc1 now available
Hi everyone, the release candidate for AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 is now available from the AWSOM Pixgallery product page. This new version has the final features of the 4.4.4 release, which now includes the 1st version of the Automatic Watermarking system for Pixgallery. With this new watermarking system you no longer have to go to the trouble of photoshopping your images with your url or custom overlay image, Pixgallery will do it for you. For this first version it’s limited to the bottom right corner of your images, but you can choose the overlay color of the text (which will display your blog url) or you can provide a file called “watermark.png” in the awsompixgallery/images folder which will then be placed over your image (an example file is already there for you to view).
You can view all of the new features and bug fixes on the Beta information page. Please note that I believe this version of the plugin will be the “final” release, but since the new features have begun to grow in complexity, and with the wide range of webserver setups in existence, I’m hoping that people can give me feedback if they encounter any issues with this version before I certify it as official.
Also note that you need to delete your current cache files before the watermarking function will operate. This is also true if you want to switch watermark types. So go to your webserver and find the folder you set as your cache folder (in the Pixgallery settings page) and delete all of the files in that folder (if you are using the default one that Pixgallery creates it is located at wp-content/uploads/cache within your WordPress folder) Also make sure you go to your admin–>options–>pixgallery page and set the new setting to the way you want them otherwise your current galleries may not appear correctly until you do so.
AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 Beta 4 released
Hi everyone, the (probably) last Beta for version 4.4.4 of AWSOM Pixgallery has been released and is available from the AWSOM Pixgallery product page. The new version has a fix for the Custom Gallery image feature (now fully working!) as well as a new feature to eliminate the display of names and links under thumbnails. It also fixes an issue where the wrong thumbnail would be displayed for an image with the same name but in a different folder.
I’m working on one last major feature addition for 4.4.4 and then a full stable release will happen and I’ll move on to version 4.5.0–which will have some really big new features.
As usual, Beta software is exactly that, software that may work properly but could still have some bugs–please read the Beta release page for information on this release and any known issues before installing this version on your site.
Sharing Revisited
I’ve chimed in on my take on the whole Social Networking linking issue here previously but I wanted to update things a bit. My major issue with the whole thing of asking visitors to submit links to your stuff was mostly based around the initial situation where 5 gazillion buttons were being added to people’s sites and cluttered up the look of things. It was pretty nasty and in many cases looked like there were more buttons appearing than actual text in the post entries they were attached to. This really turned me off. (in much the same way as a site that is literally crammed with Google ads and other flashing/floating ads)
However, with the usage of the Share This plugin, I’m no longer quite as upset by the whole thing–since the buttons are hidden unless a user wishes to actually access them. I’ve added in the classic version of the plugin to this site and will test out how it goes. I’d love to hear people’s comments on what they think about this whole trend toward adding social linking buttons to blogs–do you think it’s a natural addition and helps the site or do you think it’s an unnecessary and bad idea and makes things look cheap?
With a little help from friends….
Hey everyone, I wanted to let you guys know that the next Beta of AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 will be available in a few days with a full stable release shortly after–all thanks to Nathan Moinvaziri, the original Pixgallery engine designer. We’ve managed to get back on track and get many new fixes and enhancements in place, most notably the new custom folder image system is now working. So hang in there just a little while longer while I do some testing and rewrite some other areas of the code to work with our new engine system.
A reminder of why Beta software is called that
I just wanted to let everyone know that the AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 Beta has an issue in regard to one of it’s new features: Custom Gallery thumbnail images. Basically I didn’t add in the correct code to enable this properly, so if you use the “pxggalleryimage” image file name using the same image type (jpg, png, gif) in multiple folders you will get the same image as the thumbnail in all of them. (but, if you use 3 different file types, one gif, one png, and one jpg you will get different images and it will work right for 3 folders).
DOH! I left out the code to select the correct image for each folder to be different. Nothing else is affected though, so if you weren’t trying to use this feature there aren’t any issues and you won’t have any thumbnail problems. So hold off on using this feature (unless you only want to set 1-3 folders with custom images) until I get the corrected code into a new Beta. I’ll post here when it’s updated.
Sorry about that, just another reminder of how Beta means exactly what it is, unfinished.