Zenphoto

Nearly in time for the New Year we finally managed to get up a proper functions guide that now replaces the old improvised version on the Trac. It's generated using PhpDoc. Currently it includes all template functions you can use for theming.You can reach it directly via http:www.zenphoto.org/documentation or via our user guide page.

Since zenphoto relies heavily on its community, we have added a poll on our news section for you to vote what new features you would like to see in future versions of zenPhoto.

We only list feature requests that have tickets posted on the Trac. So if you want to add a feature request, that's the place to say so. The features getting the most votes will be set on our priority list.

May the best feature win...:-)

Update: Sorry, the poll function is broken currently. We try to fix it soon.

Update #2: The poll is now fixed and working.

• Integrated setup and upgrade, makes both easier [sbillard]
• Setup now performs a system setup, corrects many issues on its own, otherwise lets you know what to fix [sbillard]
• Password protection for gallery/albums [sbillard]
• Significantly improved administration tools [sbillard]
• Removed admin pass from zp-config and encrypted it in the DB table [sbillard]
• Pre-caching of images [sbillard]
• Additional IPTC fields [sbillard]
• Global album sort including ascending/descending. Album inheritance of these settings [sbillard]
• Full list of resolved issues on Trac

• Fixed significant bug that forced usuers to manually make the options table [trisweb, sbillard]
• Full list of resolved issues on Trac

 

• Simplified the install process by getting rid of a lot of the fields in zp-config.php [sbillard]
• Email your password from the admin login [sbillard]
• Ability to sort in ascending or descending [sbillard]
• Full list of resolved issues on Trac

 

• Subalbum administration including ordering, deleting, editing, uploading, etc. #6 [sbillard, trisweb]
• Subalbum paging. #2 [sbillard]
• RSS feeds for gallery, albums and comments. #7 [WillHamilton, thinkdreams, Alenonimo, acrylian]
• EXIF display #4 [trisweb]
• Download complete album as zip using: printAlbumZip() #32 [mankind]
• Password protected theme (temporary solution); load the theme 'default-pass' #46 [La0c00n]
• Support for Videos (flv, mov, 3gp): ZenVideo #54 [La0c00n]
• Geospatial Visualization (Google (...)

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I started working on a Zenphoto theme to sort of mimic the performance of Google’s Picasa Web Albums service (which is very nice, and was recently upgraded to 1 GB of free storage, see my public albums there for a good example).

Picasa-Web made huge strides in the usability of online photo viewing, in my opinion. The main advantage was the quick loading of previous and next images when browsing an album in the one-image view (where most browsing takes place, or at least, where the user cares most about speed). It was all done in JavaScript and AJAX, of course, and images were even loaded in low-res (pixelated) first so you at least saw something if you were too fast for your connection.

The other real speed improvement came unexpected–simply using the ‘onMouseDown’ event instead of ‘onClick’ to trigger the image switch. It’s incredible how much faster the (...)

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Zenphoto 1.0.8.2 was released quietly yesterday. Yep, there’s a .2 after that! Like you’d expect from software released without unit testing, we encountered several little bugs in the 1.0.8 version, followed by another bug in 1.0.8.1, hence, 1.0.8.2, which is now looking good.

Download Zenphoto 1.0.8.2 Here!

This is a larger release than the minor point makes it seem, with many changes to the core code and how things work under the hood. Read the changelog for more juicy info, or check Trac for constant updates. Read below for sweet details about this big point release…

One of the biggest changes is that images that have been cached are now detected and served directly from cache– no more going through i.php for every single image. This reduces traffic, helps with caching, and improves performance and page load (...)

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• Faster image loading by using the cached image path directly if the file exists. [trisweb]
• Custom suffix for image pages (eg: /alb/img1.jpg » /alb/img1.jpg.php) Defaults to .php, is backward-compatible with older URLs by 301-redirect, and makes sense. #16 [trisweb]
• Now compatible with PHP safe_mode restriction. [trisweb]
• Fix for permissions wrongly set in cache folder (could not delete cached images). [trisweb]
• Added optional Unsharp Mask for thumbnails, defaults to off. Config param: thumb_sharpen. [trisweb]
• Refactored the way requests are handled. Split into 2 include files: controller.php and functions-controller.php. [trisweb]
• mod_rewrite rules for sub-albums complete; works to infinite path depth. [trisweb]
• Much improved SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - URLs are always 301-redirected to their single canonical form (...)

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