Plugin Copyrights + Perso Footer replace LMT

Plugin LMT, License Manager Tool, is not compatible with Piwigo 2.5 yet. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can replace it with plugin Copyrights and plugin Perso Footer.

Plugin Copyrights lets you define licenses and apply them on photos. This plugin is much simpler than LMT because it relies on standard administration screens: Batch Manager gets new filter and new action, and you can also change the copyright on the photo edition screen.

Plugin Copyrights for Piwigo let you create licenses and apply them on your photos.

Plugin Copyrights for Piwigo let you create licenses and apply them on your photos.

Plugin Perso Footer lets you add a piece of text in your footer. Very simple.

Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer

Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer

Social Buttons replaces Google+1 and TweetThis

Plugins Google+1 and TweetThis are no longer supported and are replaced by the new plugin Social Buttons. The idea is to have all your social media buttons merged into a single plugin. Social Buttons currently manages 5 social networks: Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.

New plugin Social Buttons let you share pages on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.

New plugin Social Buttons let you share pages on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Plugins Google+1 and TweetThis are not available on Piwigo 2.5. For a faster upgrade of your photo gallery to Piwigo 2.5, deactivate these plugins. Let’s also say that FacebookPlug is not compatible yet with Piwigo 2.5, so if you’re only interested in the “like” button feature, replace it with Social Buttons too.

Piwigo 2.5 on Piwigo.com

As usual each time a major new version of Piwigo is released (version 2.5 this time) many Piwigo.com users ask how to upgrade. It’s nice to see how motivated you are! But you will have to be patient. As said on blog post Piwigo 2.4 and upgrade on Piwigo.com :

On Piwigo.com, you don’t manage updates, so it’s useless to try by yourself. The update to Piwigo 2.4 will be applied automatically without any action from you.

Version 2.5 is a much smaller step than version 2.4 was. It means that plugins and themes are simpler to adapt and that upgrades will occur sooner. I hope first photo galleries will be upgraded in less than 2 weeks.

New on Piwigo 2.5: as long as your thumbnail is not ready, we display a default icon.

New on Piwigo 2.5: as long as your thumbnail is not ready, we display a default icon.

Once your gallery is upgraded to version 2.5, you are notified by email with a summary of changes. The main advice to have your Piwigo upgraded to 2.5 as soon as possible: deactivate plugins you don’t really use.

For now, discover changes introduced in Piwigo 2.5.

Theme Simple, version 4

Theme Simple has been updated to version 4. It applies to derivated themes Simple Grey, Simple Black, Simple White and Simple Sunset. The main changes are on the page of the photo as you can see on the 2 following screenshots, comparing version 3 and version 4.

Theme Simple version 3 for Piwigo

On theme Simple version 3, no icon in the top-right corner and previous/next thumbnails are vertically displayed.

Theme Simple version 4 for Piwigo

On theme Simple version 4, icons and different display for previous/next thumbnails.

As you can see, changes are not big, visually speaking. Actually changes are huge, technically speaking. We use the same HTML templates as in default theme Elegant, and it makes the theme much simpler to maintain and we avoid a few bugs that were complicated to fix until now (such as distorted photo on very small screens).

Icons for theme Simple version 4

Close-up on icons: we have integrated icons from theme Elegant on Piwigo 2.5

If you encounter any specific customization issue with this new version of theme Simple, please contact Piwigo.com support.

Special Gift for Valentine’s Day

For upcoming Valentine’s Day (next Thursday) February 14, 2013, Piwigo.com multiplies referral bonus by 3: for all subscriptions validated this day, referrer and referred user get a 3 months bonus instead of 1.

As a reminder, the referral programm is explained on blog post Referral Program.

Here is an example of referrer with 6 referred users!

Here is an example of referrer with 6 referred users!

Why Piwigo.com is not free?

This blog post is related to Piwigo.com which includes hosting, installation, updates and backup of Piwigo. Piwigo, the software distributed on Piwigo.org is, and will stay, opensource and free.

Among the photo hosting services on the web, many are free. Running these infrastructures costs money: servers in data centers, electricity power, salaries and so on… These services need to make money, one way or another. The model of these “free” services implies counterparts. “If you don’t pay for the product, then YOU are the product”.

To make it simple, the main purpose of these free services is to attract as many users as possible and generate as much content as possible. The most common way to make money is to monetize users data, mainly with targeted ads. For an advertiser, knowing that you like cooking has a huge value. The true users on these services are not the users actually, the true users are advertisers.

Our goal at Piwigo.com is not to sell your data or improve your “profile” for targeted ads. Our primary goal is to provide a service you appreciate (and buy): our true users are you, sharing your photos, not advertisers.

Protect your photos against copy

One of the most frequently asked questions on Piwigo.com support is “how do I forbid copy on my photos ?”. Here is how Piwigo can help you.

Before listing tips and tricks it is important to understand that no protection against copy is 100% reliable, be it on Piwigo or anywhere else: as soon as a photo is visible on the web, it can be copied, one way or another. It is just “more or less” easy, depending on computer skills of the thief. If anyone says otherwise there is a good chance he is either naive or incompetent or simply a liar.

Which technical protections are available in Piwigo?

  1. plugin rightClick prevents from  right click on photos. Please note that it has no impact on administrator users.
  2. on screen [Administration > menu Users > sub-menu Manage], say “no” on option “high definition enabled” for all users
  3. on screen [Administration > menu Configuration > sub-menu Options > tab Display > section Photo Page], deactivate icon “Download this file”
  4. on screen [Administration > menu Configuration > sub-menu Options > tab Watermark], add your own watermark.
Piwigo 2.4 introduced the "watermark" feature. All your photos are automatically watermarked.

Piwigo 2.4 introduced the “watermark” feature. All your photos are automatically watermarked.

These are only “technical” protections, with a limited efficiency. In addition we recommend to highlight that “All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in whole or in part without prior written permission.”, for example. You can choose to display this message in several locations. For example:

  • in page banner
  • in a PWG Stuffs block, anywhere on the page
  • in a personalized menu with plugin Advanced Menu Manager
  • in page footer with plugin Perso Footer
Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer

Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer

 

Progress on Piwigo 2.4 updates

Piwigo 2.4 has been released 2 months ago. Approximately 70% of Piwigo.com galleries are now running on this new version, including all new installations. They can take advantage of new features and new plugins such as GuestBook, Header Manager or Batch Downloader (I will write specific post for each of them).

Multiple size is a new feature on Piwigo 2.4

Multiple size is a new feature on Piwigo 2.4

This week, more galleries can be updated because we have installed plugin Embedded Videos (replacing GVideo) and themes Gally-Graphite and Gally-Grum Dark 2. The plugin Autosize is not ready yet for Piwigo 2.4, and many galleries are using it. Considering the major changes in Piwigo 2.4 for photo sizes, Autosize needs extra testing. If you want your gallery to be updated sooner to version 2.4, you should deactivate plugin Autosize.

Read-only mode is over

The read-only mode is now over. It took much more time than expected (17 hours approximately, including a whole night if you’re in America or Europe). We’re really sorry about that and this is why we have added 3 days on all subscriptions and trial periods.

Next time, if the hardware takes too long to recover, we won’t use the “read-only” option on the spare servers: the spare servers will be fully functional, including administration and photo upload.

Happy upload!

Planned read-only mode

In 1 hour, Piwigo.com will activate its “read-only” mode: you won’t be able to use your administration panel and upload photos, but the visitors can still browse the gallery. During the few hours of the “read-only” period, we will redirect visitors to the spare server while hardware operations are performed. Then we will go back to main server and switch off the read-only mode.

System upgrade, expected downtime

On Wednesday July 25th 2012, 4AM UTC, important system upgrade on Piwigo.com servers. The downtime should last 1 hour, maybe less.

Don’t know your timezone compared to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)?

  • New-York-City, USA = midnight
  • London, UK = 5AM
  • Paris, France = 6AM
  • Berlin, Germany = 6AM

Happy summer time!

Update: the downtime has lasted 1 hour, as expected. Everything went fine. MySQL server was a little slow at startup, but now running very fast.

Piwigo 2.4 and upgrade on Piwigo.com

A few users of Piwigo.com have also subscribed to the newsletter on Piwigo.org and of course, since last friday they know about Piwigo 2.4 availability. Several of you have already asked us how to update their gallery.

 
On Piwigo.com, you don’t manage updates, so it’s useless to try by yourself. The update to Piwigo 2.4 will be applied automatically without any action from you. The next question is “when?”. Here follow a few details about how Piwigo is updated on Piwigo.com.

First we must slightly adapt and test Piwigo for Piwigo.com architecture. You must understand that on a given server, thousands independant galleries are installed but they are all running on the very same source code. This is what we call a “massively multisite” Piwigo.

Then we install Piwigo 2.4 on Piwigo.com and we start to switch galleries, one by one. Of course updates are automatic. What makes your gallery updated earlier or later? It mainly depends on the extensions you use. Indeed even if Piwigo 2.4 was released two days ago, most of the extensions are not compatible with 2.4 yet.

Progressively extensions are made compatible with Piwigo 2.4 and we install them on Piwigo.com. The upgrade script detects the extensions you use and if all the extensions are available on Piwigo 2.4, then it upgrades your gallery. Maybe it would be good that you deactivate all the extensions you don’t really use, if you want to upgrade as soon as possible.

Now you understand the process we use, but it doesn’t really answer your question “when?”!. Let’s go back in time and see how fast was the upgrade to Piwigo 2.3 on Piwigo.com: the first galleries were upgraded after 3 weeks and the latest after 8 weeks. Considering that version 2.4 brings much more changes than version 2.3, it would be a real performance if we finish with the same delay.

Once your gallery is upgraded to version 2.4, you are notified by email with a summary of changes. To sum up: be patient, Piwigo 2.4 and its major changes are coming soon on your gallery!

Future Piwigo 2.4, ready to beta-test?

Following our roadmap, a new major version of Piwigo every 6 months, version 2.4 is now ready for beta-tests. The stable version is planned for April and then plugins and themes will be updated for compatibility. If you want to know all details about version 2.4, read Piwigo 2.4.0RC1 announcement.

Here follows a list of the biggest changes you’ll find in Piwigo 2.4:

  • multiple size: instead of just 2 sizes (thumbnail and web size) Piwigo 2.3 includes 7 sizes. Square, thumbnail, S, M, L, XL, XXL.
  • mobile version: if your visitor browse Piwigo with a smartphone, Piwigo automatically loads the mobile theme, designed and optimized for tactile navigation.
  • new default theme: Elegant replaces Sylvia as default theme. With it grey colors, menu and comments toggle, we hope you’ll find Elegant modern and beautiful as we do. (of course Sylvia is still maintained)
  • many improvements on ergonomy for administration panel, several screens have been redesigned from scratch.
Piwigo 2.4: when visitors browse your gallery with a smartphone like iPhone or Android, Piwigo automatically loads the mobile theme.

Piwigo 2.4: when visitors browse your gallery with a smartphone like iPhone or Android, Piwigo automatically loads the mobile theme.

Before Piwigo 2.4 stable is available, we propose you to beta-test it. Either you simply browse the Piwigo 2.4 beta-test demo, or we create a complete 2.4 installation for you with administration panel available, just ask!

Transfer your Piwigo Gallery to Piwigo.com

This question is frequently asked on Piwigo.com support: is it possible to transfer an existing Piwigo photo gallery to Piwigo.com? The answer is “yes”. We have done it several times from various hosting providers.

Our goal is not to host all Piwigo galleries on Piwigo.com, because we believe that the Web is and must remain “decentralized” but for some users, Piwigo.com is cheaper than their current hosting provider or simply offers a better quality of service while maintaining the same high level of freedom.

Before we proceed, you have to be aware that Piwigo on Piwigo.com is slightly different than Piwigo downloaded on Piwigo.org. A few features are missing:

  1. you can’t install any theme/plugin. There is a list of available extensions. We have tested and validated them all. If you want an extension that is not currently available, ask us and we will see what we can do.
  2. no FTP access. You can’t add photos with the synchronization method. If you already use the web form or pLoader to upload photos, you won’t feel the difference. If you current photos have been added with synchronization, we will manage the conversion into “virtual” albums.

Here is what we propose: test Piwigo on Piwigo.com with these differences in mind and if Piwigo.com fits your need then pay your 1-year subscription and we will manage the move to Piwigo.com, with no additional fee. You will keep all your photos and related info such as user comments, descriptions and so on.

Theme Simple, album description under thumbnail

Small update on theme Simple today. This update brings bug fixing such as centering photo on slideshow but also a new display option. On the albums page, it is now possible to display album title and description under the album thumbnail and not only next to the album thumbnail.

Piwigo and theme Simple: album description can be displayed under the album thumbnail

Piwigo and theme Simple: album description can be displayed under the album thumbnail

Piwigo and theme Simple: by default description is displayed next to the album thumbnail

Piwigo and theme Simple: by default description is displayed next to the album thumbnail

To configure theme Simple, open screen [Administration > Configuration > Themes] and click on the “Configuration” link in the Simple box.

Link to configure your theme in the administration

Link to configure your theme in the administration

This update automatically implies bug fixing and new option on child themes Simple White and Simple Black.