Dear @peterpolow ,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
I must admit that our story is actually very similar. I created this plugin because I ended up in exactly the same situation as you. I had also been using Photonic, and when it stopped working last year, I needed an alternative for the website I manage. That was the reason I started developing this plugin in the first place. Once I had it working for my own needs, I decided to publish it in the hope that it might help others as well.
So I am really glad you wrote here. Feedback like yours is very valuable, and I will very seriously consider adding this feature to support your case.
Do I understand correctly that you are looking for a gallery behavior similar to the one shown on this page?
I just want to make sure I understand your expectations correctly before I start developing something that misses the target. If possible, could you please send me one or two working photo gallery websites that show the kind of behavior you would ideally like to have? That would help me a lot.
Have a nice evening.
Best regards,
Jan
Hi @peterpolow ,
Anything like this?
https://pasteboard.co/gIak7mE1RpT9.jpg
(I have tried to paste the image directly here it it keeps failing to upload it.)
Kind regards
Jan
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This reply was modified 2 months ago by
Jan Zeman.
Hi @janzeman,
Thank you very much for your fast reply!
Do I understand correctly that you are looking for a gallery behavior similar to the one shown on this page?
No, I’m actually looking for a gallery as simple as the native (classic) WordPress gallery (currently i’m not working with blocks). So that the photos from a single photo album in Google Photos can be displayed in the content section of a (custom) post like this, and that I can add my own text, tag and category if needed.
It would be great if there was also the option to choose a layout like the Justified Grid or Masonry, but I could possibly implement that myself.
Currently, each “photo gallery” on the website is a (custom) post with a (custom) field containing the (short) URL to the photo album in Google Photos. In the website’s theme templates, I currently ensure that the user is redirected to the photo album in Google Photos, but I’d prefer to keep the user on the website and “serve” the photos in the post on the website.
Does the above explanation make it clear enough for you?
Thanks in advance for your response.
Kind regards,
Peter
Hi @peterpolow ,
I think I understand. Give me some days. Latest during the weekend I will have something ready.
Kind regards
Jan
Hi @janzeman ,
Please take it easy, there’s really no rush! I really appreciate you taking the time to expand the functionality of your plugin.
One thing I did think of that might make things a bit more difficult: Google Photos galeries sometimes contain videos. It would be great if they could also be played in a “lightbox” (I currently use PhotoSwipe, but I think Glightbox would also work). Do you think this is also possible with the way your plugin works?
Kind regards,
Peter
Hi @peterpolow ,
Please give it a try and update to plugin version 1.0.7.
On the Settings page, please look for “Grid Mode.” I hope this is at least close to what you were asking for.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a professional WordPress developer, just a hobbyist, so it is possible that I misunderstood part of your last explanation and followed my own interpretation a bit too much instead of studying the classic WordPress gallery behavior more deeply. Please check whether your goal is achievable with the current version.
In principle, adding this shortcode to your post will render the whole album. I used your cycling album link below and it works on my test page:
[jzsa-album link="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNKmqHo_G9Qnw5qkrKB04rVYiN5JwExBT7hVOcFFFBbG0f9M85kzedUsyQl3N6dpg?key=RDRQWEg4aTZCaGpKVGR2ekdZSFBGaE1jLWcwb1Fn" mode="grid" grid-layout="uniform" grid-columns="4" grid-columns-tablet="3" grid-columns-mobile="2"]
There are also several options available to adjust both the grid behavior and the fullscreen view. You should still be able to add any text above or below the gallery grid.
Please let me know what works and what does not work for your site, and I can continue improving it from there. Next time I should probably read your explanation a few more times before implementing anything. I added the ‘Justified’ layout, Masonry I can try next time.
Ideally please create a new post on your site, it can be a copy of an existing one and try to build that post by using the jzsa-album shortcode. Then you can share with me the result and say very concretely what worked well and what is still missing.
It was a bit hectic, but I also quickly tested one technical spike, and it seems that extracting video links may also be possible. So in theory, your newer request could be supported as well. But let us take it step by step first and make sure the basics work properly.
Best regards, Jan
Wow, @janzeman !
As a “non-professional WordPress developer,” you’re pretty fast and good! Did you do it all by yourself, or did you get a little help from a good AI chatbot? 😉
Your solution sound really good, and from what you describe, it would be exactly what I’m looking for.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to test it during the day, but I hope to have some time tonight. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve tested it.
Kind regards,
Peter
Hi @peterpolow ,
Nice to read this!
Well, I am a developer, mainly focused on mobile apps, and of course I use AI as well. I am just not very experienced with WordPress. Everything I do there is really more of a hobby, mainly to support and maintain a community website.
No stress at all. I already have plans for the weekend anyway, but I promise I will respond to all your findings.
In fact, already this morning I was thinking that “gallery” would be a better name for the mode than “grid,” so I may push this small change later tonight in version 1.0.8.
I will do my best to make the plugin useful for your site 🙂
Talk to you soon,
Jan
Hi @janzeman,
I’ve done some testing, and here are my findings.
- The photo grid displays correctly and neatly.
- Clicking on a photo does nothing; a lightbox doesn’t open to display the full image.
- When I look at the source code, I see two primary divs; the first has the class “jzsa-grid-shell” and the other has the ID “jzsa-gallery-1-player” (this one is hidden: fixed position outside the window).
- Within the first div (jzsa-grid-shell) is another div (jzsa-gallery-1) containing the gallery images with an img-tag, but without an a-tag around it. That’s probably why clicking on the photo doesn’t show a larger version.
- The second div (jzsa-gallery-1-player) appears to contain the default swiper slider. If I adjust the CSS to display it within the screen, I can click the rectangle in the top right corner to display the photos in full size and navigate.
I ran the test in this test environment and, just to be sure, also in this test environment, where I got the same result.
Does it work in your test environment? Can you elaborate on the above findings?
Kind regards,
Peter
Hi @janzeman,
I just found out that when I double click on een photo, the photo opens in full screen as part of the swiper slider (not in a lightbox).
Two observations:
- A photo always displays across the entire screen, even if it’s in portrait orientation. This causes the top and bottom of the photo to be out of view.
- For a video, only an image with a “play button” is displayed; I can’t play the video.
I hope this is helpfull to make it even better.
Thank you in advance.
Peter
Hi @peterpolow ,
Only shortly as it is relatively late.
It’s amazing that you created the test environment(s). That will simplify our communication. This discussion is very valuable to me – already now I identified 4-5 changes I must do to make the plugin more intuitive.
For me all works on your environment as expected. The problem might be that what I selected as default values is based on my assumptions and preferences which for sure can be very off from the standards or mainstream expectation.
You already discovered that the default value of full-screen-switch is ‘double-click’. Change it to “single-click” or “button-only”. Thinking about the discoverability this was wrong choice from my side and I will probably change the default value to ‘single-click’ in the next version.
[jzsa-album link="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNKmqHo_G9Qnw5qkrKB04rVYiN5JwExBT7hVOcFFFBbG0f9M85kzedUsyQl3N6dpg?key=RDRQWEg4aTZCaGpKVGR2ekdZSFBGaE1jLWcwb1Fn" mode="grid" grid-layout="uniform" grid-columns="3" grid-columns-tablet="2" grid-columns-mobile="2" full-screen-switch="single-click"]
[jzsa-album link="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNKmqHo_G9Qnw5qkrKB04rVYiN5JwExBT7hVOcFFFBbG0f9M85kzedUsyQl3N6dpg?key=RDRQWEg4aTZCaGpKVGR2ekdZSFBGaE1jLWcwb1Fn" mode="grid" grid-layout="uniform" grid-columns="3" grid-columns-tablet="2" grid-columns-mobile="2" full-screen-switch="button-only"]
In general, have you discovered the Settings / Onboarding page? That one will reveal a lot! There is also a shortcode playground section, many samples and list of cca 30 shortcode parameters which will allow you to fine-tune your experience – your preferences.
Working with this Settings / Onbording page is a key factor to the final success. You find it under your-domain/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=janzeman-shared-albums-for-google-photos. Alternatively you click ‘Settings’ on the plugin entry on the Installed plugins page of your WP. I should probably rename it from Settings to Settings & Onboarding or similar.
The combination of 30 parameters is very rich – I surely haven’t tested all possible combinations.
Entire screen? Fix it via: full-screen-image-fit="contain"
Videos are not currently supported as I wrote you last time. I even did not know it shows the “Play icon”. I will look on videos but first after we fix all the photo related questions for your case, OK?
Best, Jan
Hi @janzeman,
I must admit that my previous test was rather rushed, which is why I only added mode=”grid” to the shortcode. My expectation was that the default settings would correspond to the behavior I personally found logical, but I realize it was quite easy to assume it would work as I expected. In the meantime, I have studied the settings page and made good use of the great “playground-option” to perform more testing and set the behavior as I prefer.
Here are some more findings:
- It seems that only a hex code works for the background color. With
background-color="transparent", it falls back to #FFFFFF, which is visible if you adjust the “background-color” of #content. On this page, I made the background color yellow so you can see that the background-color of the grid and slider is not transparent. If I set it to a hex code it works as expected.
- I don’t see a download button anywhere when I use
show-download-button="true" in the shortcode.
- I played around a bit with
image-fit and grid-sizing-model, but with grid-layout="justified", I can’t get the same layout as in Google Photos. A photo in portrait mode fills the width, but not like in Google Photos where the entire photo is visible and there is no empty space around it. In the justified layout, the columns always remain the same width, except for the last row where two photos fills the full width.
- On my iPhone (tested with Chrome and Safari), I do see the navigation arrows, but when I tap on them, nothing happens. Only swiping works to go to the previous/next photo.
Enjoy your weekend, I’ll hear from you again soon. 😉
Best regards,
Peter
Hi @peterpolow ,
I rewrote a lot. Introduced some breaking changes but will risk to do this step. I made ‘gallery’ to be the default plugin experience. Right now I got all 4 videos from your sample album to work. Time for family skiing tomorrow and yes, you hear from me next week 🙂
BR, Jan
That sounds good, both the progress you have made and the skiing! Enjoy!
Hi @peterpolow ,
Thank you, it was very good skiing event!
The video request is much more complicated than I though. I’ve invested 3 evenings since and first now I am reaching somehow acceptable experience. Some of your videos I’ve seem cca 200 times already 😉
My hope was to release a new version today but I better wait, test carefully and publish later. I will try to do so by Friday, or during the weekend the latest.
Kind regards
Jan
