Before migrating from SMF 2.0 to XF - Gallery question - 1

[Cmely]

Hi,

I'm currently considering switching from my current forum which is running under SMF 2.0.7 to a XF installation. I have, as you can certainly imagine many questions.

Some of them are related to the use of a Photo Gallery and I definitively need your help on this regard, due to the specific usage I'm making of a Gallery on my forum.

If your answers / suggestion involve use of free/paid addons, I'm fine with that.

I'm running a photography forum. One part of this forum is a Curated photogallery. This mean that picture submitted are evaluated by our Curators staff which decide if yes or no the picture is going to get published to gallery.

The whole current curating process is this one :

• A picture is uploaded by a member in the curating queue section of the Gallery,
  
• In the mean time a post with the picture is created in the forum,
  
• Using a rate system (very similar than "Post Ratings" by @Luke Foreman), curators give a rate to the picture in the forum,
  
• The picture have to be rated by three curators,
• Members can see the rates given by curators,
  
• You can see some examples of the ratings scale here : http://www.lux-optima.com/index.php?topic=702.0 or in any post of this thread : http://www.lux-optima.com/index.php?board=74.0
• if the picture is selected by our curators, then the picture if moved from the curation queue to the appropriate category of the gallery, that you can see here : http://www.lux-optima.com/index.php?action=gallery and an automatic message is sent to the member to tell him/her that the picture have been published.
• If the picture is not selected, then the picture is moved from the curation queue to the archive category of the gallery (whichi is not visible except by curators) and an automatic message is sent to the member to tell him/her that the picture have been published.

Based on this description, what is very important for me is :

• A photo gallery of course,
  
• A curation system allowing several curators to evaluate a picture with a more extended system than the default basic 5 stars one.
  
• Each rates given must be visible by members
  
• An automatic message is send based on curators decision

Do you think I could do something similar to this with XF? and how?

 

[Paul B]

That would require custom development.

 

[Cmely]

I'm kind of surprised it's possible without custom coding on SMF (except the automatic message) and not with XF ?

 

[TPerry]

I'm kind of surprised it's possible without custom coding on SMF (except the automatic message) and not with XF ?

Well, if you are referring to the SMF gallery add-on, then no it's really not. In an 8 year life span, that gallery should have evolved with many feature requests that were added (such as what you referred to in your other post). This gallery has been in existence at most for less than 2 years. As the author of it released new versions, new requested features were added to it regularly. I'm sure the same philosophy was used with that SMF Hacks gallery you referred to.

You have to realize, that the features you want are going to be needed by very few sites, so usually it will not be something that is built into core (or it will be several years into existence because the author wanted to expand it).

 

[Cmely]

I'm well aware about that @Tracy Perry .

I'm not asking for specific features here, but more for advices / hints / suggestions on how I could get a similar result (even if it's not the exact same than the one I'm using currently on my SMF forum) or what kind of workaround could be possible.

This is what I've been doing with my SMF forum : there are no features for curation so I had to find a workaround.

I guess there is here many experimented XF users who knows all the tricks and all the features already available. And I'm requesting for their expertise


On my current forum, with the Gallery add-on I'm using there is the possibility of having a post created in parallel when a picture is uploaded (the post, in the forum, will show the picture also).
I'm using an addon (exactly the same than "Post Ratings" by Luke Foreman) and the curation was taking place in the forum, not in the Gallery.

The only thing I had to be done was a small piece of code toautomatically send a message when a picture is (or not) selected.

So I guess I may better results if I break down my big question in smaller parts

- When you publish a picture in the Gallery, is it possible to have this picture published also in a thread / node ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Do you know if it is possible to use "Post Ratings" by @Luke Foreman in the Gallery ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Do you know other advanced notation system that could replace the default "5 stars" one ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Is there a way (with or withou addon) to automatically send a message to member based on the value of custom fields? or a way I could do without that ?

Thank you very much for all your suggestions.

 

[TickTackk]

When you publish a picture in the Gallery, is it possible to have this picture published also in a thread / node ? or a way I could do without that ?

No. Can be done with custom development.

Do you know if it is possible to use "Post Ratings" by @Luke Foreman in the Gallery ?

No.

Do you know other advanced notation system that could replace the default "5 stars" one ? or a way I could do without that ?

No. But you can change the phrases for "Star 1", "Star 2" etc etc to your rating like Awesome, Extreme! or something like that and then add a custom class to each stars. And use css to apply your own images instead of star images.

Is there a way (with or withou addon) to automatically send a message to member based on the value of custom fields? or a way I could do without that ?

Yes. But would require custom development.

 

[TPerry]

- When you publish a picture in the Gallery, is it possible to have this picture published also in a thread / node ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Do you know if it is possible to use "Post Ratings" by @Luke Foreman in the Gallery ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Do you know other advanced notation system that could replace the default "5 stars" one ? or a way I could do without that ?
- Is there a way (with or withou addon) to automatically send a message to member based on the value of custom fields? or a way I could do without that ?

All will require custom add-ons, which I do not believe any are in existence that would perform these features.
Post Ratings could probably be extended by either Luke or a second party (but I'd hate to use an add-on to extend an add-on).

 

[Cmely]

I guess I can use Custom fields to do the curation, as shown in screenshots :



My problem would be then how to prevent a curator (which would have permissions to rate) to change other rates ?