Title: Awful programming techniques
Last modified: September 3, 2016

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# Awful programming techniques

 *  [RichTWebGuy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/richtwebguy/)
 * (@richtwebguy)
 * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-programming-techniques/)
 * There are two unforgivable things the authors of this plugin have done in the
   source code (well two as far as I know so far).
 * 1. Putting absolute file paths in the database – so if you move your DB from 
   development to production server, you’ll have to fix the options – if you can
   find them. Paths should be relative to document root or wp-content or such.
 * 2. Storing option info in the DB as base64. so if you search for a bad file path
   or such, you’ll have trouble finding it. eg. “NextGEN Gallery” is “TmV4dEdFTiBHYWxsZXJ5”
   if you base64 encode it.
 * This plugin should carry a warning label – like cigarettes or other hazardous
   substance.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Plugin Contributor [photocrati](https://wordpress.org/support/users/photocrati/)
 * (@photocrati)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-programming-techniques/#post-7921841)
 * [@richtwebguy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/richtwebguy/) – Thanks for
   the feedback. As far as you first item, this was addressed some time ago in the
   code, but even so using the Reset Option will sort out any older installations
   as the case may be.
 * As to the second issue, although difficult in the example you use (which appears
   related to the first item) the Reset Option should correct these paths as well;
   or in many cases clearing the image cache will also help to sort out problems
   with these paths.
 * – Cais.
 *  Thread Starter [RichTWebGuy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/richtwebguy/)
 * (@richtwebguy)
 * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-programming-techniques/#post-7921864)
 * What happened to imageURL in the objects returned by nggdb::get_gallery
 *  [edanzer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/edanzer/)
 * (@edanzer)
 * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-programming-techniques/#post-7921865)
 * [@richtwebguy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/richtwebguy/) – You probably
   saw in some other threads, but just wanted to confirm we pushed an official update
   today that addresses the imageURL issue. Thanks.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Awful programming techniques’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/nextgen-gallery/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=2083961)
 * [Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes - NextGEN Gallery](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nextgen-gallery/)
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 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [edanzer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/edanzer/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-programming-techniques/#post-7921865)