22
May
2005
May
2005
WP Plug-in Reaches Beta1
Well the WPG2 plug reached Beta cycle 1 last night.. Time now to concentrate on cleaning up the templates to make G2 slick and clean..
Well the WPG2 plug reached Beta cycle 1 last night.. Time now to concentrate on cleaning up the templates to make G2 slick and clean..
. Theme: Refresh! by Beng Hafner
I love the potential of this plugin. The + levels on the gallery are awesome and give a clean, sophisticated, tree structure to the gallery that looks awesome. However, as a viewer I’m frustrated that it doesn’t seem to work as well as the promise implies, which makes me hesitant to try it on my site. I stopped by last night, clicked on the various tree structures/photos and was pleased with how quickly they displayed, etc. Today? Single and/or double clicking doesn’t seem to open various directories, the + tree structures don’t expand in all the galleries (only some) and this leads to a very frustrating viewing experience.
I also found the “click / doubleclick / nothing happens” problem on several other sites that I visited from the forum “show off” thread. Those particular sites didn’t incorporate the more sophisticated expanding +/tree architecture you did, but there seems to be a glitch that sometimes clicking on a picture will open the particular gallery and often times it wont — the user needs to do it several times. The first few times this happened I thought it was just me not clicking right … after several times and several sites I began to notice a trend.
In any event, this is probably the best looking plugin I’ve seen (REALLY classy looking) so if you get it working well (and it turns out not to just be install issues on these other sites) I’ll be first in line to add it to my site.
GOOD WORK so far gang.
The (+) is only a very new feature (post beta cycle 1), and as you have correctly pointed out still has a few bugs, including one when it comes to displaying albums that only have subalbums in them. We will be investing more time in the next two weeks into making this feature work, in line for its release into beta cycle 2 some time in June, 2005.
Good to know. I think you’re well on your way to making it “slick and clean” per your goal. My personal favorite (as detailed above) is the (+) feature. I like that when it works, the opening and closing of the tree structure doesn’t “jump” the page around — the top of the page remains where it should instead of so many codes (more/hide) where the page jumps around disorienting the viewer. It’s a small thing but adds to the overall class of the plugin.
Another small thing you might want to think about is some sort of “start” button for the slideshow. Yes, the more savy user figures out after a few seconds (hopefully) that the slideshow starts automatically. However, I go by the credo that we can never a) underestimate the braincramps surfers fall prey to; and b) can never make things too simple. The first few times I tried the slideshow I kept waiting for something to happen … then chnaging the drop-down menu to another size to see if THAT made it work … etc. In hindsight it was either a slow connection, something was wrong or I was just too impatient. The average surfer is impatient and if a site doesn’t appear to “work” for them, they’ll just leave. Just a thought. (I recognize, of course, that it’s easier to criticize that create … so hopefully you don’t mind suggestions?)
Never mind the suggestion, truthfully never tried the slideshow, glad to see it works in the Gallery2 Embedded mode
Not sure why it has delay in starting.. Maybe it is hidden in options some place, really should look at it sometime although, and upgrade this board it needs work!! *sighs*