Installing the Plugin and Setting up Your Image Folders

The setup for the AWSOM Pixgallery plugin takes only a few steps and does not require you to edit config files or your theme. To get your gallery up and running please do the following steps in order for a NEW install (please read through the entire process before starting):

1) Download and unzip the plugin files to your computer.

2) Move the plugin folder called awsom-pixgallery to your websites wp-content/plugin folder (please note it MUST be called awsom-pixgallery).

3) Create a folder on your webserver to hold your images. You can call this anything, but remember the name. This folder does NOT have to be set to 777. If you need to create your own cache folder (see step 5) it is best to not have this folder or the cache folder in the same set of folders as either parent or child of the other or as any part of the same chain of folders, so don’t make cache/MyImageFolder or MyImageFolder/cache. It’s not recommended that you place your image folder or cache folder outside of the WordPress install folder chain. WordPress uses relative linking and this can lead to problems if these folders are outside of your WordPress folder. It’s best to place your folders within the wp-content/uploads folder since this is where your other images will be anyway (ones used in posts and pages uploaded using the image upload function), It makes your site more portable, and AWSOM Pixgallery can even make a default folder there for you.

4) Log into your site and go to the Admin area and click the link to Plugins. Find the AWSOM Pixgallery entry. Click the Activate link next to the plugin.

5) AWSOM Pixgallery will attempt to create a default cache folder for you. If this does not work and you receive an error statement please do the following to create a cache folder:

Create a new folder on your webserver called “cache”, if you already have a folder called this you may name this folder differently, but remember the name you use. This is where the plugin will save the automatically created thumbnails of your image gallery images.
Set the permissions for the cache folder to 777 using your FTP program (if you need help on how to do this please read the tutorial called 3: Moving Files to Your Web Server at the www.awsom.org website.)
In the Admin area click the top level link of “Options” or “Settings” (for WordPress 2.5.x and later) and then in the sub menu click the link for “Pixgallery” to go to the Pixgallery options area.
In the Pixgallery options page scroll to the bottom and input the cache folder you created in step 3 in the field called Cache Path. Make sure it has a / after it’s name–so if you created it in the main folder of your site and it was called ‘cache’ input it as cache/ If it was in a subfolder input it as MainFolderName/cache/ replacing the MainFolderName with whatever the name is of your folder you put the cache folder in.

6) Upload your images to the folder that you created in step 3. You can add images over time also and AWSOM Pixgallery will automatically thumbnail and add them to the archive whenever you add new images.

7) To make your archive visible on a page start a new page (best usage) or post and add the following line of code to it:

[pixgallery path=”/MyImageFolder/”][/pixgallery]

Note how you place the MyImageFolder name in the code with a / before and a / after the folder name. For convenience you can copy this code from the PixGallery Options area where an example is kept or use the code above. You may place text above or below this code and it will appear on the main page of your gallery. You can also use the Generator function in the Theme–>AWSOM Galleries area after setting up your Gallery.

11) Once you save and publish the page your gallery will appear.

12) You may create any number of image gallery folders you like as separate galleries, simply add the above code to a post or page to show the new gallery by referencing the folder you create. You may even have multiple folders within the same gallery. Any folders under a folder referenced by the code will be displayed in your archive as a sub gallery. To see some examples of this please see the Art galleries at http://www.onezumiverse.com

At Stage 8 you may want to also look at the default options for how Pixgallery will create your thumbnails, what grid it will present the thumbnails to the viewer (how many across and how many down), what sorting order they will be in, etc. To read up on what each option does please see the AWSOM Pixgallery Options Guide.

Upgrading from a Previous Version of AWSOM Pixgallery

To upgrade from a previous version to the 4.7.X version:

1) Go to the Admin Plugins menu and deactivate the previous version of AWSOM Pixgallery.

2) Delete the pixgallery folder from your wp-content/plugins folder.

3) copy the new awsom-pixgallery plugin folder to the wp-content/plugins folder (please note the folder name now MUST be awsom-pixgallery)

4) go to the Admin Plugins menu and activate the 4.7.X version.

5) Upgrade is complete. If you have pre-existing captions you will want to enable “Legacy Mode” in Pixgallery Options until you have updated all of your captions to the new system. See the Pixgallery Options Guide page for more details.

6) Optional steps: There is a new option in the Pixgallery options area to create the default cache folder used by the new version of the plugin.
It is not a requirement to switch to the new default cache folder if your previous one was working fine, it’s just an option.
For anyone having issues with their cache folder it is suggested to click the “Create Default Cache” button, which should eliminate
your issue. The cache folder field will then automatically update to reflect that you are using the default cache folder. You may delete the old cache folder you were originally using.

7) AWSOM Pixgallery now also has the ability to create a default gallery folder in your uploads folder. You can create this folder by going to the Manage Galleries admin menu and clicking the create default gallery button.

Managing Galleries

You will probably want to set up your default gallery. To do this click the “Theme” Or “Appearance” tab in the Admin area and then select the link in the sub area for “Pixgallery Galleries”. It’s easy to add a gallery:

1) In the gallery name box type in the name of the main gallery folder you want to place your images in. You may also input a Custom Name which will replace the gallery name in the gallery display and breadcrumb. Next input the path to your gallery from the root of your WordPress install. Make sure you have a / before and a / after the path. You can add a caption, which will appear above the gallery on the main page of your thumbnail view of the gallery. You can use HTML in the caption box if you wish so you can add links, line breaks, or anything else you want. You can also add tags for your gallery (searching by tag not implemented yet, but you can add them now so when the feature is activated in a future version it will work immediately). Last select if you want this gallery to be the default gallery. Click the Add Gallery button to add your gallery to the database.

2) To delete a gallery select the gallery name from the drop down list at the bottom of the page and then click the “Delete Gallery” button. (note, you can’t delete the currently selected default gallery, if you want to delete this one switch a different gallery to be the default then delete the first gallery).

3) To edit an existing gallery select the gallery name from the drop down list and click the “Edit Gallery” button. This will load the gallery at the top of the page and allow you to make corrections to the text, click the “Update Gallery” button to save your changes.

4) If you want to see a complete list of all of your inputted galleries click the “Show All Existing Galleries” button. This will list all of the Galleries in the database in a master list which also allows you to edit or delete them.

5) You may have the plugin generate the post/page code needed to have your pallery appear by selecting a gallery from the drop down list then clicking the “Generate Code” button. Copy and paste this code into your page/post and your gallery will appear.

Managing Image Captions

Now that you have your gallery up you will probably want to add some captions to some of the images. To do this click the “Write” or “Posts” tab in the Admin area and then select the link in the sub area for “Pixgallery Image Captions”. It’s easy to add a caption to an image:

1) In the image name box type in the name of your image with it’s file extension, and the file path to the image (including the image name), and in the image caption box add your caption text. You can use HTML in the caption box if you wish so you can add links, line breaks, or anything else you want. You may also input a Custom Name which will replace the file name in the gallery display. You can also add tags for your image (searching by tag not implemented yet, but you can add them now so when the feature is activated in a future version it will work immediately). Last select the gallery you want the image to be a part of. Click the Add Caption button to add your image to the database.

2) To delete a caption select the image name from the drop down list at the bottom of the page and then click the “Delete Caption” button.

3) To edit an existing caption select the image name from the drop down list and click the “Edit Caption” button. This will load the caption at the top of the page and allow you to make corrections to the text, click the “Update Caption” button to save your changes.

4) If you want to see a complete list of all of your inputted captions click the “Show All Existing Captions” button. This will list all of the captions in the database in a master list which also allows you to edit or delete them.