MG 2.3 Is Media Gallery worth buying?

Davyc

Davyc

Well-known member
Licensed customer
I've used the Media Gallery before, many years ago, and I'm considering buying it for my Rock Music site to display band images from various bands, along with YT videos from the same bands. Is this a good bet, or would generating individual forums (article format) be as good as, or even better.

I've not used the Media Gallery since version 1, so I'm well out of the loop. I can play with the front end on here, but what I'm curious about is the back end and how much versatility there exists in terms of manipulating the front end to display various layouts, or is it fixed?

Some help and advice would be appreciated.

With thanks :)
 
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Davyc said:
I've used the Media Gallery before, many years ago, and I'm considering buying it for my Rock Music site to display band images from various bands, along with YT videos from the same bands. Is this a good bet, or would generating individual forums (article format) be as good as, or even better.

I've not used the Media Gallery since version 1, so I'm well out of the loop. I can play with the front end on here, but what I'm curious about is the back end and how much versatility there exists in terms of manipulating the front end to display various layouts, or is it fixed?

Some help and advice would be appreciated.

With thanks :)
Click to expand...
Personally you would be better off using Showcase or IMS from Bob (xenaddons.com).

I use showcase for player profiles (Sports Team).
nzwarriors.com

Player - Shaun Johnson

This thread is for the general discussion of the Item Shaun Johnson. Please add to the discussion here.
nzwarriors.com nzwarriors.com

Content is king. You want to link the content with discussion.
 
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In my experience, its lack of features made it useless for our purposes.

For one, there is no way we can set the sorting order of photos and albums in the gallery. Consider where you might use it like a timeline or history. If you get new additions to the gallery, you want to insert them in the proper place in the timeline. Right now, it just adds them on as "newest" and that's all you get. Sure, we can fudge the name of the item in the gallery to fake an order, but it's 2025 and we shouldn't need to do that.

We can change the sort order order for things like name, date added, etc., but only manually. There is no way that I can find to set a default sorting method for all visitors. And if we could sort on our own criteria (like an assigned sorting order), there would need to be an option for that as well.

We also cannot replace images. Thing again of something like a timeline where, if you find a better version of a photo or have a better scan, it can't be replaced.

It also has a bug that XF staff couldn't reproduce when I reported. I have images of another member showing up with my name as the owner. And the owner can't see his own images. That could be specific to our installation, but who knows? Rather than troubleshoot, that was the last straw that made us stop using it.

It has the start of being a good add-on but it needs some serious attention to make it usable for many of us.
 
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sub_ubi said:
Anyone know anything like imgur for xenforo? a place where users can post their images and hotlink them elsewhere on the net?
Click to expand...
Like this one linked to my XFMG? This is linked by using the XFMG share link. Be aware, any links to your XFMG as shown will be using your bandwidth.

1000012511.webp
 
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What do you think is the best current alternative to XFMG?

A thread with an initial image and using the replies for comments?
A thread where each reply is a comment or new images?

I bought XFMG a while back but encountered many problems, although the option to include images from other threads was interesting...
 
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PhineasD said:
What do you think is the best current alternative to XFMG?

A thread with an initial image and using the replies for comments?
A thread where each reply is a comment or new images?

I bought XFMG a while back but encountered many problems, although the option to include images from other threads was interesting...
Click to expand...
[XB] XFMG: Attachment Mirroring Album Painbaker

[XB] XFMG: Attachment Mirroring Album

Mirror attachments to the Media Gallery album.

If you haven't installed that, it helps quite a bit with getting XFMG better integrated into threads and other content types.
 
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Over the years I've bought and tried Chevereto a couple times but integrating it was a problem. I did have better luck with Piwigo. I ended up sticking with XFMG and have Attachments: 1,187,794 Downloads: 10,154,767
 
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Unfortunately there are no alternatives to the official addon. I don't think addon developers feel like competing with an official addon as there's always the risk that the XenForo team suddenly decides to update it to modern functionality.

For the same reason there's no addon for documents and downloads management.

As you are wanting to host YouTube videos from specific channels please note that XFMG does not support YouTube channels, Podcasting / streaming nor your own Youtbe Channel / Account.

There is practically no integration with forum threads or other content.

It's certainly not bad software. But bolted on segregated functionality and static pages where users have a hard time navigating 'the giant dust and gas planet' if you have a lot of content.
It can add more confusion.
 
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Alpha1 said:
Unfortunately there are no alternatives to the official addon. I don't think addon developers feel like competing with an official addon as there's always the risk that the XenForo team suddenly decides to update it to modern functionality.

For the same reason there's no addon for documents and downloads management.

As you are wanting to host YouTube videos from specific channels please note that XFMG does not support YouTube channels, Podcasting / streaming nor your own Youtbe Channel / Account.

There is practically no integration with forum threads or other content.

It's certainly not bad software. But bolted on segregated functionality and static pages where users have a hard time navigating 'the giant dust and gas planet' if you have a lot of content.
It can add more confusion.
Click to expand...
Agreed. My membership on the content site is aging out. The site will die with me.
 
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Ricsca said:
Go to edit a category of the category and at the bottom you will find the mirroring option to connect it to a node of the forum.
Once the connection is made, when a photo is uploaded to a thread (or post) it automatically goes to the category of the gallery that has been set for that node.
Click to expand...

Does it work with attachments that were there before installing XFMG?

I reinstalled the add-on, and it only mirrors the new attachments, not the old ones. Using the "rebuild" option doesn't work either. What am I doing wrong?
 
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Alpha1 said:
Unfortunately there are no alternatives to the official addon.
Click to expand...
XenGallery was an addon on here and in a few ways better inplementation of the then/now implementation in the core. When XFG was added to the core, XenGallery developed stopped as people moved to the core product. And since then XFG has hardly been improved.

I guess a case of where adding things to core is detrimental to the overall ecosystem for forum admins. Especially with the speed of development and features in the core products over past few years.
 
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