When is Photopost going to go CSS based?

[Johnny Doomo]

1. I've been away for many years, and had an idea for a new photo site. I was suprised that when I checked the demo for the latest version that I was still seeing <table> tags in the source.

Are there any current plans to finally move Photopost to CSS?

I understand that Photopost does use CSS, but I'm talking about finally dropping the table code?

Am I waiting for something that is never going to happen or that is way down the road for Photopost? I love the script, but I'm hesitant about buying another copy when it seems like the script it's exactly "up-to-date" with the times as far as coding goes.

Anything you can tell me about speed improvements to the code, would go a long way to put my mind at ease about this issue.

This isn't a deal breaker for me, but I was taken back a bit, as I thought surely after the many years I was away the script would have done this by now.

2. Can you tell me if the site uses Ajax yet, and if so, in what places can I expect it, and how it has streamlined page loading?

Thanks for answering my questions, I'm still very interested in purchasing another license, despite my questions. I would like to know though, if now is a good time to buy, or if I should wait for an upcoming version that my answer some of my concerns or perhaps a Christmas sale?

[Chuck S]

My suggestion would be to check out PP8 there are lots of changes lots of ajax and all the css for a standalone is fully xhtml and css3 compliant. Yes there are still some tables but also lots of div ul and li elements. Remember the application also has to integrate with 20 different products so some template sets are geared to those other integrations.

The application is very streamlined. From what I remember about your sites you always hack your sites and use older code and getting you to update is hard. There is also with PhotoPost 8 a plugin system much like vb where you can add code to display into various places in the application. I think that is a plus for you.

The best thing to do I would think is update one of your sites and see as it would be a big improvement over older code.

[Chuck S]

A community photo gallery - My Photo Gallery

forgot to give a link you can see as far as standalone it is very sleek

[Johnny Doomo]

Thank you for your reply. I do hack my PP install a lot, and not knowing php fully, is a concern as I can sometimes muck up installs. So whatever speed PP has on a fresh install, that's not always what I get.

You're right that updating one of my sites might be a good idea, but then I'd have to renew their license, as well as if I did like it, purchase another.

I'm unsure what that link is to a standalone PP install. Does that mean that the demo located at A community photo gallery - PhotoPost Photo Gallery isn't a standalone, and may be slowed by incorporating VB and/or other stuff?

I was using A community photo gallery - PhotoPost Photo Gallery as a base of speed, ajax features, etc. Is this not the best PP install to be checking those on?

I've looked at v8 of PP a little bit, and it looks nice, and if the underlying code is still structured similar to the old PP versions, then that's a plus, as I know my way around the code pretty well.

Thanks for your replies, if possible can you clear up my above questions too?

[Chuck S]

I linked you to the one above to see all the new css enhancedments template layout etc

The site here is integrated with vb3 and hense uses a template set that is tailored to be used with vb3.

There was lots of template and css work basic design overhaul in PP8. There was more ajax added in like ajax ratings ajax comments etc.

You can read all the announments to see new features etc etc. The point I am making about the plugin system is you can probally make alot of your additions into the plugin system which should allow you to upgrade very easy keep things current etc.

Our code is sleek fast and streamlined I can not answer what impacts your hacking things may have on things which could very well make things slower which is why when I show examples I always show clean installs.

If you are familiar with our code you will not have trouble there is a tutorial on the new plugin system in the FAQ forum which will help you there.

[Johnny Doomo]

I hope it is ok to return to this thread after I have purchased, to ask some more question.

1. I am having trouble finding the rss page for photopost, has it been removed? I know my older copies of Photopost had a RSS page, and I thought it came with the standard default installation.

2. I am using the "uniform thumbnail feature", but when I regenerated my thumbnails using this feature, I instantly noticed all my thumbnails were more blurry / using more compression than before, but I had not adjusted the compression level at all during changing this setting. Is there a way to still use the "uniform thumbnail feature", but not have the thumbnails so blurry/compressed? (I noticed it said that I needed GD for this feature, and the normal setting before I was using ImageMagick.)

3. I've search through the settings and cannot find out where to prevent the large version of images from opening a popup window. On my older copies of PP it stayed within the page and showed the fullsized image when clicking on the medium sized image, but in 8.x when I click on a medium image, it opens a popup to show the image. I don't want this, yet I've searched through the "all options" admin settings and can't find anything to change it.

4. I was under the assumption that when I installed 8.x I would be looking the look of your demo install at A community photo gallery - PhotoPost Photo Gallery . Instead when going through all the template options, I'm only presented with rounded corner templates that IMO have very little style to them. Do I only get the look of A community photo gallery - PhotoPost Photo Gallery if I use a vbulletin database or something? I would like to get that look, even though I'm not using my forum for the user database if this is possible.

5. I would like to allow png uploads, but I noticed that PP makes both the original, medium size, and thumbnail images all png with little to no compression. Is it possible to still allow png uploads, but for PP to make the full, med, and thumbs to all be converted to jpg? I thought older versions did this.

6. When trying to make some default settings for galleries I create, I set the settings in the master category, but they won't pass down to that categories sub-cats. The two settings I am trying to get to pass down are "Default thumbnail layout?" to be set to Thumbnail by default instead of gallery, and "Default Sort Order" to be sorted by latest but apply to sub gallery sort order and not image sort order. Don't any of these settings pass to any of the sub-categories? Is this a bug? (I've not changed my 8.x code at all yet.)

7. BUG: When I try to register a new test user with the password

KDAzz}ko1td&/U\(

it posts fine to the first password field, but when I paste it into the verify password field it comes up a character short, and doesn't match the original. I'm sure it has something to do with the special characters in there, but can you fix this / tell me how to fix it so that my users can include special characters in their passwords, or give me code to completely disallow special characters from being typed or pasted into the password field if they aren't going to be supported.

Thanks for your help concerning these questions.

[Chuck S]

1. The rss link should be in your browser address bar in most browsers I beleive. The link as always goes to external.php

2. Have you checked and made sure your uniform thumbnails where like the default 120 x 78. Maybe an issue with your image size you have set. Could be an issue with your specific imagemagick version as there are bugs in different versions of that server software. Not every feature is going to work depending on your server software setup.

3. There is no such option. Your way old version also had multiple urls for the same which is a no no for SEO so our program opens larges in a popup and has for along time now

4. I have no idea why you would think your site is going to look like the vbulletin installed example here if your not installing with vbulletin integration. I know you have been a customer for along time so. The new standalone styles far surpass any old styles and are all css3 compliant. Can not really comment more without knowing more about how your installing url etc

5. No this never happened and your compression is going to be whatever quality setting you use for the processor. My png images are compressed if they can be. Remember your images are going to be compressed by the size thresholds you set and quality. If you upload an image smaller than your max size there would be nothing to size. Again I would need specific info here to comment as images are resized based on your settings. We have never saved images in a different format than they where uploaded in

6. If you check apply to children then it will trickle to the children. If I set a gallery view type and sort type they definately apply to my children. Remember you do not apply to children to children to children. The settings are passed from parent to child.

7. Thats easy in the register template this line for the password confirm change the maxlength from 15 to 25

Content visible to verified customers only.

[Johnny Doomo]

1. Can you help me get the external.php rss feed to show by galleries (categories), instead of linking to each individual image?

2. My thumbnail max width/height is set to 200px. My uniform thumbnail height / width is also set at 200px. Is this the correct way to use the uniform thumbnail feature?

3. Is there a way to edit the template of the popup that opens the full sized images? For example if I wanted to add a banner or give the pop up a border that matched my sites theme?

4. My previous links on this question got messed up, and both links seemed to link to the vb integrated demo. Can you please confirm that without vb integration, the default look of PP is A community photo gallery - My Photo Gallery and not this A community photo gallery - PhotoPost Photo Gallery ?

5. "We have never saved images in a different format than they where uploaded in" - Thank you this answers my question. May I suggest a feature that sometime in the future PP can convert image formats. The main problem I'm seeing is that when I pull images from other sites, some sites have jpg and some have png. But when the pngs are brought over to my site, when in comparison of the rest of the images that are jpg, the png thumbnails load slow, and they are always the last thing to load, even with a fast server, and fast connection you still see it scroll draw the 200x200 thumbnail that's over 200kb.

6. Ah that's what I missed. Is there any setting that applies to the sort order of categories themselves, so that when I create new categories they appear on the site from newest to oldest and not the default reverse of that? I know there is an "edit categories" setting in the admin, but when you add new categories it puts the newest one at the bottom, and I need it to put them at the top. Is this possible?


Finally, I remember when purchasing this latest PP that I saw something about having someone do custom coding. Do I ask those types of questions publicly in the forum, and if so which one, or is this something that would be acceptable to PM you?

Thanks for answering my concerns Chuck!

[Chuck S]

1. Do you mean am I going to create some custom script for you and post it here for you. Sorry that is not covered under product support. The rss script is not even close to what you want so I would think you want some custom thing. the rss script shows the last 50 products it is not some category list.

2. Can not really say without testing out and seeing your issue. It could be an issue with your settings or your imagemagick could be older and not truly support the issue or have all the codecs installed to allow such proper operation. If your thumbnails are crisp and clear when uniform feature is turned off and you rebuild thumbnails I would tend to think the imagemagick on your server does not natively support that feature. Not all Imagemagick things work on all imagemagick versions.

3. Edit the showfull template accordingly to your needs.

4. Yes my links are correct. You would be the first and only person who does not like the new css3 based photopost and the layout of pp8 so can not please everyone.

5. No problem glad to answer

6. Anytime you create a category you can set the default sort order. This means you must set it or it is going to fall back into the default of the coding which I beleive throughout is latest.


We do custom coding yes and that is best handled by sending an email. We do custom work on a first come first serve basis and as time permits. It also depends on the scope of the project as well. Any particulars would be covered via email.

[Johnny Doomo]

Can you tell me the email / form for sending custom coding questions to?

Also, I am still having trouble with that password issue I mentioned above. While it's not on the password confirm box upon registering any more. The problem is when a user already has that password. Whenever I try to login, PP is acting like that password is incorrect. I think there is more of a problem than just that 2nd verify password form.

This is happening specifically for the admin when I gave him that password upon PP installation. Could that password form upon installation have been limited as well? If so, it seems that when I try to login it should limit it to however many characters it initially allowed me when creating the account, but perhaps it's allowing more characters so when I copy and pasted a password, it allowed less in one area and more in another area which is then reading it as an incorrect password.

Either way, I am locked out of my admin, because on the machine I installed PP from that is still logged into admin, when I try and change the password it requires the old one, and it gives the same error, like I'm inserting an incorrect current password.

To re-create the problem, simply install a fresh PP and use KDAzz}ko1td&/U\( as the admin password upon installation. Then logout after the installation, and try to log back in, and it won't accept that password as a correct one.

Can you please tell me how to correct this issue?

[Chuck S]

Well one thing I see maybe that maybe something with your site is you can not save backslashes usually in sql they are used as an escape character meaning your password might be

KDAzz}ko1td&/U

Therefore I would suggest try experimenting without passwords with backslashes.

[Chuck S]

Yep just tried my internal classifieds setup and thats exactly the issue as I see it

I registered an account with the password I noted above and it works fine.

We sanitize all variables so backslashes are definately not usuable.

[Johnny Doomo]

Using the above mentioned password didn't fix my problem, but I was able to fix my problem with my admin by creating a new user and then assigning him admin rights.

My problem now is that on the registration form for PP, you are doing nothing to prevent backslashes within the password that I can see.

Surely you consider this a bug? Shouldn't the form tell you off to the side or under it as soon as a backslash is either typed or pasted into the password field that that special character isn't allowed?

From what I see, it just allows it, but then removes it from what the users password actually is.

This seems to be a pretty big hole in being user friendly. Am I missing something?

This is not to go into the problem that I had where PP allowed the 1st user, admin during install to use this as a password, and then when I try to re-login I can't. So basically, if I haven't setup an email for reset passwords to work correctly, I am SOL. This problem I was able to resolve since the 1 machine was still logged in as admin, but I'm still very concerned and would like the password field fixed for users that try and register at my site.

Can you please tell me how to fix this problem for user registrations?

[Chuck S]

Johnny the password is sanitized. Like I said backslashes are removed automatically in mysql. That is why variables use the parameters of addslashes and stripslashes on variables.

What I have said is if you type a password in the password box that has slashes then it would be saved in mysql without any backslashes.

Like I said I registered on my test site with the password in post 11 and it worked fine. I can login with no issues at all. Not too sure what your doing that is not working if your not entering backslashes.

If your trying to type a password with a backslash it will never match or work because it would never be saved with those backslashes.

If you want you could edit the registration template and make a note to users not to use backslashes but I can tell you in over a decade of photopost being around and thousands of customers this is never an issue.

[Johnny Doomo]

And what happens when you DO use a backslash in your password?

[Chuck S]

It is removed as I have said. Like I said I used your exact password registering an account I just did not place any backslashes in it.

[Johnny Doomo]

That's the problem.

So if its removed, and a user logs out, and then logs in when what they thought had a backslash in it, they can no longer log in.

PP is changing users passwords and removing backslashes, and if they log out and log back in, the password is not what they originally set it as.

This is what needs to be fixed.

[Chuck S]

Well like I said you can put a note in the password field if you want but I have already said you can not use backslashes.

Take note also your issue could be with copy and paste because one thing I do notice is if you try and copy and paste in the fields when you try and copy and paste in the second password box it is shorter.

[Chuck S]

By the way

Main Index - PhotoPost Classifieds

I used this as a test I registered an account even with the exact password you typed above username Doomo and can login fine.

The only thing I did was make sure I edited the register template accordingly to correct the maxlength variable to 25 like we already discussed.

Feel free to try for yourself.

[Chuck S]

Have you verified that what I am saying is true?

I would suspect here that you did not properly adjust your template as I noted in my original reply.