Stories from July 2008

Pixaria Gallery Version 2.3.4

Posted on Saturday, July 19, 2008

Pixaria Gallery version 2.3.4 is now available to all current users. This update adds the ability to archive galleries for simpler administration and introduces new filtering options to the gallery list view in the admin area.

There are also some improvements to the image list view for contributing photographers in the front end as well as numerous minor bug fixes.

You can get the update by e-mailing me at upgrade@pixaria.com. Please don't forget to check the release notes, change log and template diff tool before upgrading.

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

Upgrade subscriptions discontinued

Posted on Saturday, July 19, 2008

Owing to some apparent confusion over the Pixaria upgrade subscription process, I've decided to discontinue this method of paying for Pixaria upgrades.

A significant number of people were unaware that these subscriptions were a recurring automatic payment and this was causing problems for a number of people so I've cancelled all current subscriptions effective as of today.

What does this mean for me?

Your upgrade license will continue to be valid but you won't be automatically billed at the end of the six month subscription period - yay!
All current subscribers will continue to be entitled to free upgrades until Pixaria 3.0 is released next year - double yay!
Any Pixaria user without a current entitlement to free upgrades, will need to purchase a one off upgrade to entitle them to free upgrades until version 3.0 is released.

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

Assumptions in software engineering are bad...

Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Jamis Buck (via Daringfireball) on the mistakes people make in assuming that an arbitrary feature should be easy to add to a software application.

Imaginary work is always easier to do than real work. It is much more attractive (being more quickly done) and once you see the imaginary work, it can be very difficult to identify the real work it masks

I run into this issue fairly often with Pixaria users and prospective users so even though the article's from 2005, it's just as relevant today - even more so as I think about what to include in Pixaria 3.0.

Read the full article here...

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

E-mail problems

Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008

If anyone's tried to e-mail me in the last 24 hours and not had a response yet, the reason is that I'm having serious issues with my e-mail service which is part of my hosting provision with MediaTemple.

For the last 24 hours I've had only intermittent access to webmail and sporadic pop3 download access which means I've got a lot of e-mails sitting on a server which I can't read. I'm also away for three days from tomorrow which is inevitably going to mean another e-mail backlog for me to work through. I'd like to apologise for the delay but rest assured I will answer e-mails as soon as I can.

For what it's worth, I'm also considering leaving MediaTemple and finding a hosting company that doesn't make fixing things so complicated (and slow) so hopefully, this won't happen again..!

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

How to get your Java FTP applet licensed

Posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Some people have been running into difficulties with licensing the Java FTP applet in Pixaria. The good news is that from the next update, the entire process will be massively simplified but in the meantime, you can use these tips to get up and running.

Firstly, you need to upload the license file 'license.oxw' to resources/ext/jclient/ and then ensure that the path to the 'license.oxw' file in the scaling.properties file is correct:


-/resources/ext/jclient/scaling.properties

This needs to be entered as a full path on a single line in the file like this:

You must enter the full path to the file like this:


regfile=/resources/ext/jclient/license.oxw

or in this form:


regfile=/imagelibrary/resources/ext/jclient/license.oxw

You must ensure that you only include this line once.

Next, you need to enter the path to the license file in the template for the upload tool which you can find at resources/templates_admin/admin.jclient/upload.view.tpl.

The license path needs to be entered as a relative path exactly like this:


<param name="regfile" value="../ext/jclient/license.oxw">

That should be it..! You may need to relaunch your browser to see the changes but if you have any problems, let me know.

The developer of the applet has asked me to remind everyone that when you buy the license, it will only work on the domain you enter. This means that if you buy a license for 'www.mysite.com' it will only work at http://www.mysite.com/ and not at http://albums.mysite.com/.

If you want a license that will work on multiple subdomains, you MUST purchase a license for 'mysite.com' which will then work on any domain of the form http://*.mysite.com.

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

Notes about the Java Upload tool

Posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Some users are having problems with the Java upload applet due to some issues with the online documentation for setting up licenses for this feature.

It appears that the instructions I've provided don't always work properly and I'm seeking clarification from the developer on the correct way to install license files for the software.

I would also like to point out that there are also some problems with instructions given by users in the forums and that license files should NOT be placed into resources/admin/ as putting any types of files into this directory is unsupported.

The documentation should be updated with correct instructions within the next 24 hours and I'll post an update when it's all sorted..!

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

Development update

Posted on Monday, July 7, 2008

I've had a lot of correspondence recently on the subject of ideas and suggestions for improving Pixaria all of which has come at a good time as I'm beginning to think about what to include in Pixaria 3.0 which I'm targeting for a release early next year.

Between now and then, I plan on only one more major release of Pixaria which will be version 2.5 and tie up loose ends and work in progress features in the current release. Some of the enhancements in progress for the near future include improvements to the user interface for browsing galleries on the back end, including support for archiving galleries to save on space and new filtering tools similar to those in the admin user list.

Looking further ahead, I plan to finalise the entire feature list for Pixaria 3.0 before the end of this month and hopefully begin development work in August. Version 2.x will continue to be developed after the branch point for Pixaria 3.0 but it's unlikely I will add any new features to it after this time.

As usual, I won't be publishing a list of what's going into version 3.0 until near the time of the release. What I will do however is publish a list of those features that I will not be adding to Pixaria which I hope will make it clearer what my intentions are for the future of the script and avoid any false hopes of features that are never going to arrive.

During the course of development, I'll be posting regular updates, teaser screenshots and snippets of information about the new features in version 3.0 so make sure you're subscribed into the RSS feed for this blog to be notified of updates automatically.

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

How not to do a user interface

Posted on Thursday, July 3, 2008

Anyone who says good software user interfaces don't matter is talking out of their butt. Don't believe me? Check out the scary (and I mean scary) TripLog/1040 for iPhone and you'll see what I'm on about:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/2635257578/

(Via Daring Fireball)

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it

Tools to help you use Pixaria

Posted on Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Regular users of Pixaria may not be aware of three important tools and utilities I offer to help with the process of managing and upgrading your Pixaria website.

To remedy this, I thought it might be useful to give a quick run through of some of the utilities in the 'Extras' area of Pixaria.com:

Release notes

Whenever a new update to Pixaria is released, the release notes page is the place to look to see details of everything that's changed since the previous version.

Every change ever made to Pixaria is included in the release notes which makes them an important resource to use when upgrading. Major changes such as the renaming of files and folders or the removal or modification of major features which may affect how your site works are always highlighted.

File change log

To complement the release notes, I also produce a file change log for every release which lists all the files that changed since the previous version. This is useful if you've made lots of modifications to your site or just want to know which files to replace to upgrade your website.

Template comparison tool

As an additional resource for sites with heavily customised themes, the template comparison tool goes beyond the detail of the file change log and allows you to perform side by side comparisons of all the template files between any two versions of the script. The line by line file comparison simplifies the process of finding which parts of your custom theme need to be modified to match the default look and feel when upgrading.

Permalink del.icio.us Digg it