Support » Plugin: WP Photo Album Plus » Folder Structure And other customizations

  • Resolved JT83

    (@jtintner)


    Hi There-

    I’m hoping this finds someone who has worked with this plugin enough to help me with some customization as well as settings and folder structure.

    I have a client that has over 20K photo assets using a PHP photo Gallery called Coppermine. In short we want to roll all of the content into a wordpress photo gallery.

    The gallery must support search, custom fields for things like ( Location/base, year, Author etc…)

    Albums must be placed in their own folder structure given the nature of his content so something like this tree below might make sense

    <ul><h2> SITE SECTIONS</h2>
    
    <li>Marines</li>
    <li>Air Force</li>
    <li>Navy</li>
    <li>Department of Defense</li>
    </ul>

    Inside one section of the site say for example Marines he will have about 60-70 albums

    <ul>
    <li>Album 1</li>
    <li>Album 2</li>
    <li>Album 3</li>
    <li>etc...</li>
    </ul>

    Each section of the site will have a similar structure where albums for each section need to be contained in their own folder structure.

    I have set the site up in multisite to try and parse out some of the overhead that the photos will take up.
    So the way that WordPress structures MultiSites is as follows

    WP-Content
    Blogs.dir
    1
    2
    3
    4

    Each number represents a “folder structure” in the wp-content folder. So lets say for example folder 2 is the marines section of the website.

    What I need is something like the following

    <ul>
    WP-Content
          </ul>
    <ul>
    <li>Blogs.dir</li>
    </ul>
    <ul>
    <li> 1</li>
    <li>2</li>
    </ul>
    <ul>
    <li>Album 1</li>
    <li> Album 2</li>
    <li> Album 3 </li>
    <li> Etc...</li>
    <li>3</li>
    <li> 4</li>
    </ul>

    All of the images of the albums need to be in their own folder just given the fact that he has 20K assets

    I have tried Next-Gen and it does a good job of the file structure but lacks the ability of search and my client needs search for this gallery. I don’t care if we have to use the tags field for search criteria but I need some field within the album that is searchable via the wordpress search.

    I understand that if you are in the Marines section of the site that it wont be able to search in the airforce galleries but that is actually the preferred method per my client.

    Also, I’m not to fond of the way that WP-Photos plus organizes the page and I’m not sure if I’m just doing something weird in the setup or if its just so overwhelming that I’m not able to comprehend the interface because I’m already overloaded with trying a variety of photo albums.

    Here is a screenshot that I put together of the ideal situation of the page layout and I think WP-Photos plus can do this I’m just not sure where I’m going wrong

    http://i.imgur.com/b46tOFx.png

    The general layout is something where you go to the Marines section of the website and the landing page you see is all of the albums in that section of the site.

    In theory it would be pagenated so 20 albums at one time?

    When you click on the album it takes you to ONLY that album for you to flip through each image, so Album 1 could have 200-300+ photos in that one album of which again is pagenated. Showing 20 thumbnails at one time?

    Each thumbnail on this page should have a title and an author showing.
    When you click on that image it opens in a light box and you see more detail i.e Tags, Description, base etc… Any fields that I want to show should be shown.

    Lastly, given the nature of the quantity of photos, is there a way for me to upload the folder structure and then key off the file name to do some behind the scenes SQL queries to change titles and descriptions. I have all that rich data from Coppermine, but it appears that when I upload a photo via WP-Photos plus it changes the file name on the server to incremental numbers so I have uploaded images that have specific file names but when I look via FTP they have all changed to an incremental number which is not going to work.

    I’m really hoping that someone has done this because I’m on my last whim here before I change technologies all together.

    http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-photo-album-plus/

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
  • Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    Okay it seems that my way to try and visualize the data didnt work let me try that again
    WP-Content
    Blogs.dir
    1
    2
    Album 1
    IMAGENAME.JPG
    IMAGENAME 2.JPG
    IMAGENAME 3.JPG
    IMAGENAME 4.JPG
    Album 2
    Album 3
    Etc…
    3
    4

    ImagenameWHATEVER.JPG should be pulled in from the file name and not create its own nomenclature

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    All of the images of the albums need to be in their own folder just given the fact that he has 20K assets

    There is a site with over 120.000 photos in one folder without any problem.

    You can switch to tree-structure, having no more than 110 entries per folder, but that is not organized by album.

    In theory it would be pagenated so 20 albums at one time?

    When you click on the album it takes you to ONLY that album for you to flip through each image, so Album 1 could have 200-300+ photos in that one album of which again is pagenated. Showing 20 thumbnails at one time?

    No prolem, you can paginate thumbnails, album covers and slideshows. It is currently assumed that the max is: 1.000.000 photos in 1.000 albums

    it changes the file name on the server to incremental numbers

    Yes, but the filenames are kept as photo names. You can truncate the (.jpg) extension during import/upload.

    You can bulk ftp and import, also folders at once, optionally foldername -> albumname.

    As i see your long story, (almost) everything you want is possible, except folders per album. This is because it is too dangerous with respect to system intgrety, and there is no ned to.

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    You do not need to split it up in different blogs.

    The (sub)albums can be nested to any level, and the album in every node in the tree can be displayed, as cover or the content (sub-albums and/or photos)of it.

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    I guess I’m just unsure how to actually set this up. Given the fact that there are a tremendous amount of settings I’m having difficulty wrapping my head around this.

    With regards to Search function, I think having this split into multi-site will be the way my client wants to go just given the fact he wants searches to be localized to that section of the site.

    So if you are in the Marines you should only be able to search pictures uploaded to marine albums.

    Also I tried to enable to search and re-index my sample photos and it did not work is there something that I’m missing?

    Here is my sandbox site.
    http://monocreativelabs.com/wp-photos-plus/gallery/

    I have added content to the tags field such as Candy,Cookies,Popcorn

    and added content to the description field for one of the photos like this
    Does description show Sushi, soup, coffee

    The wordpress search doesn’t seem to pick it up even though I have indexed the photos

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    The wp core does not know anything about wppa+ so the wp core search engine also does not know.

    You need the Search Photos ( WPPA+ Search Photos ) widget.

    You might also like the Photo Tag Cloud ( WPPA+ Photo Tags ) and the Photo Tags Filter ( WPPA+ Photo Tags ) widgets.

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    i did a search in the plugins and could not find “Search Photos” unless I’m totally reading outside the box here I can’t seem to find this plugin 🙁

    I need to add custom fields to each photo as well that are indexable.

    Base, Inscription are two fields I need to add to each photo asset which again need to be indexable, it seems like you keep responding and showing me the way to make this work so I hope these last few questions can be answered.

    Is there any documentation written on how to set up WPPA and an explination of each of the settings? It seems to be overwhelming at the moment and want to try and get one section of the website working and then can replicate the process for all of the albums.

    Is there a way to scan a folder on the FTP for files to it can create albums? I.E
    Folders
    ABCALBUM1
    ABCALNUM2
    etc..
    And create an album off each folder?

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    Jacob what about the adding of custom fields to each photo asset? I found the search “widget” but I thought it was a separate Plugin my apologies I should have looked in the widget section.

    I think I’m almost there with this!

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    Is there a way to scan a folder on the FTP for files to it can create albums? I.E
    Folders
    ABCALBUM1
    ABCALNUM2
    etc..
    And create an album off each folder?

    FTP FOLDERS that contain photos to your depot directory:
    …/wp-content/wppa-depot/admin/ ( if you are admin ) and use the Photo Albums -> Import Photos screen. You can automaticly create albums with name = foldername.

    You can do very much with the description field, including the use of keywords ( kind of variables ). See: http://wppa.opajaap.nl/geographic-data/?wppa-album=128&wppa-photo=2302&wppa-cover=0&wppa-occur=1 and http://wppa.opajaap.nl/iptc-and-exif-data/?wppa-album=60&wppa-photo=2173&wppa-cover=0&wppa-occur=1
    The rendered (translated/filled in) keywords are searcheable and become indexed automaticly if you have indexed search enabled.

    Any user data can be put in IPTC or EXIF tags before upload, and become indexed as soon as you use them in the description field.
    So, i do not see the need for extra custom fields.

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    I’m still very worried about the file structure that the photos are placed in. I need them to be in seperate folders, given what i’ve been told by the hosting provider I’m hoping that this is that last missing piece that I’m still not understanding.

    When you upload any media to wordpress it usees the notion of
    somedomain.com/wp-content/uploads/YEAR/MONTH/File

    Given the hosting provider (Go-Daddy) strongly encourages me to not have more than 1024 files in any one directory I need to try and stay within those requirments. This is just given to the fact that this site does get a lot of uploads on a monthly basis and I fear that we will be crippled like we are today. I have already gone through the re-association of photos into folders locally on my PC but I need to have a clear understanding that the WPPA+ creates a similar folder structure. I tried to use the “tree structure” in the settings but it didn’t seem to change anything inside the file system.

    I looked at this http://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-upload-dir/ which is a custom format for directories. This would allow each individual to upload substantially more without effecting the integrity of the system. Does WPPA+ have this similar concept? or how could I make it function the same way?

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    I’m still very worried about the file structure that the photos are placed in. I need them to be in seperate folders, given what i’ve been told by the hosting provider I’m hoping that this is that last missing piece that I’m still not understanding.

    Normal modern os support much more. I know about a site having at the moment 507 albums and 119115 photos in the system, in one foder. It will be published next week.

    But, you can convert to tree structure in Table VIII-A10, then there will be no more than 100 subfolders and 100 imagefiles per folder, giving space for ten million photos no deeper nested than 4 levels.

    You did not test well enough. In the tree structure photo number 1234567.jpg will be: ../wp-content/uploads/wppa/12/34/56/7.jpg

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    When an album has over 200 photos and I want to add a new photo, the latest photo I’ve added when I go to edit the album does not show up at the top…

    Is there any setting that I’m not seeing that will allow me to show the newest uploaded photos first?

    I want to make sure that editing new files is not confusing when you see older photos inside the album.

    I tried the tree structure and converted one section of the site to tree but I’m not seeing the files being allocated as you describe.

    I’ve tried enabling that prior to doing an import via the WPPA Depot, After

    I tried enabling it after doing imports and then uploads of single photos

    I still don’t see the files being organized in the tree as you describe

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    Since I’m unable to edit Posts that I post on here I was now able to see the tree structure, it was in a differnt location
    /wp-content/blogs.dir/2/wppa/FOLDER number

    What is the allocation of those folders? Since they are just numbers I’m unable to tell what albums they are… I’d like to be able to pull in the album names.

    Also is there a way to add categories so for example

    I have albums like the following

    USN 0001-0010
    USN 0011-0019
    USN 0020-0029

    These above three are all in one Category Say something like “NUMBERED UNITS”.

    Here is what I’m trying to mimic. I’m rebuilding this website
    http://usmilitarypatches.com/gallery/index.php?cat=2

    That might help all of this

    Plugin Author Jacob N. Breetvelt

    (@opajaap)

    Single site system: …/wp-content/uploads/wppa/…
    Multiblog system: …/wp-content/blogs.dir/[blogid]/wppa/…

    What is the allocation of those folders? Since they are just numbers I’m unable to tell what albums they are… I’d like to be able to pull in the album names.

    This is the way there are never more than 100 subfolders and 110 photo files in any folder. This is what you asked for. You should not manually do anything inside the …/wppa/ folder to not jeopardize the system integrity.
    As i explained before: photo id number 1234567 has filename 1234567.jpg and will show up : …/wppa/12/34/56/7.jpg

    Let me explain a few design basics:
    – The existance of a photo inside wppa is defined by the existance of a row in db table wppa_photos.
    – The id ( integer > 0 ) is the unique identifier of the photo and will be used only once.
    – The filename on the server is ( in the flat system ) [id].[ex]
    – A photo can and must be in one album.
    – The album where the photo is in, is defined by the album field in the photo record.

    So there is no physical relation to the photo filename and the album where it is in.

    You can sort the photos globally by setting Table IV-C1, or per album on the Edit album information screen

    Thread Starter JT83

    (@jtintner)

    So let me get this straight if I use the tree structure
    It will
    create a folder structure like this
    You say

    As i explained before: photo id number 1234567 has filename 1234567.jpg and will show up : …/wppa/12/34/56/7.jpg

    so there is a folder
    12
    inside of 12 there is a folder
    34
    inside 34 there is a folder called
    54
    and inside of 54 there is an image called
    7.jpg?

    If I upload an image with the file name
    AAFES_28V129.jpg

    Where does that get placed? and why doesn’t it keep that file name

    Why does it just seem to randomly throw images into folders.
    ./wp-content/blogs.dir/[blogid]/wppa/IMAGE1-99.jpg(or whatever)
    After it reaches that 100th image it then creates a folder?
    Folder 1
    Folder 2
    Folder 3

    And so on adding 100 images at a time until 100 folders are created with 100 images inside each folder?

    Below is a screenshot of the tree structure it made for one section of the site. Not sure why there are already 24 folders created when I only have 3 albums
    USMC 1 (46 pictures)
    USMC 2 (156 pictures)
    USMC 3 (57 pictures)
    http://i.imgur.com/wA5C0gN.jpg

    If it turly changes the name of the file on the server, that will not work for us given the fact that is not a future proof system if and when you’d ever want to change technologies this naming convention will not work.

    In an idea situation the files would be in

    blogs.dir/WPPA/YEARFOLDER/MONTHFOLDER/IMAGENAME.jpg

    This way its organized and understood the file structure. That is a future proof way of doing things.

    Unless there are some settings to keep file name this solution will not work as I need a way to quickly

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
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