XMG Presale Questions

[AjayJunkies]

Hello, questions about XenForo Media Gallery:

Importing & Converting

1. Is there an available importer for Coppermine Photo Gallery, or is this pending XMG 2.0?
2. Any recommendations for a respected person who can provide paid conversion service for XMG to CPG, once the importer is available?

XMG's Frontpage

1. What's the difference between Any and Site view of the Media frontpage?
2. So I thought Album would show me album covers, but instead it shows me all images contained within albums. Is that correct?
3. Is there any 'traditional' view to show categories, then albums, then images?

XMG's Features

1. Are the tags globally searchable to find the same tags in other parts of website? Or is it constrained to only XMG?
2. Is there an album description? Or an album is just a container?

Thank you in advance. My website receives over one million unique visitors per year to the galleries, so they form the central bulk of my website's needs. I look forward to assessing XMG in more detail and happy new year's eve!

Joel

 

[Chris D]

• There are no current plans for an importer from Coppermine. A suggestion should be posted in the Suggestions forum if you'd like to suggest it (if one doesn't already exist).
• As no importer currently exists, one would need to be custom developed. You can request this in the Custom Services and Development Requests forum.
• Site media is media in categories. Album media is media in albums. Any is both.
• Albums have a thumbnail that is made up of a random selection of images contained within the album. However, it is possible to change the thumbnail. It could be changed to your own selection of images from the album or you could even upload a thumbnail for it manually.
• Categories are just a different container for images. Albums can't be inside categories, only images.
• Tags only exist in XFMG.
• Albums can have titles and descriptions.

 

[AjayJunkies]

Thanks, I appreciate your detailed responses.

Categories are just a different container for images. Albums can't be inside categories, only images.

1. Just to confirm, I can have sub-categories within categories? For example ... "Ford Motor Company" as a parent category, then "Ford Mustang," "Ford F-150," and "Ford Taurus" as three sub-categories of images.

2. Albums are only created by members, correct? Members cannot create categories; only the admin can create categories, correct? But both members and admins can upload into the category, if allowed by permissions, correct?

3. An existing album cannot be moved in its entirety to a category, but I suppose the images within the album can be batch moved to a new category, correct?

4. Is there a setting to disable user Albums, since I'd like to force my members to utilize a category structure that I provide?

Sorry, I'm just trying to think through the structure of XMG's hierarchy.

 

[Chris D]

1. Yes, that's correct, sorry. Categories can contain other categories and media items (but not albums).
2. That's correct.
3. You can use the inline moderation features to bulk move images from an album to a category and vice versa, yes.
4. Yes, just set the various album permissions to "Not Set (No)"

 

[AjayJunkies]

1. Yes, that's correct, sorry. Categories can contain other categories and media items (but not albums).
2. That's correct.
3. You can use the inline moderation features to bulk move images from an album to a category and vice versa, yes.
4. Yes, just set the various album permissions to "Not Set (No)"

Thanks for clarifying the details of your album and category structure. I understand it now.

Questions about future development:
1. Is it still the plan to offer converters in XMG 2.0?
2. Is XMG 2.0 going to be released with the new rewrite for XF 2.0? Or is XMG 2.0 going to be available with XF 1.4.x series?
3. Is the current version of XMG actively being worked on, or have development efforts been focused to XMG 2.0?

 

[AjayJunkies]

Oh, I can't believe I forgot to ask about these as well:

• Batch upload images via FTP?
• Define number of columns and rows on thumbnail page?
• Define dimensions of thumbnail / intermediate size photos? (Does XMG even generate an intermediate sized photo for display on the image page?)

 

[Chris D]

1. There are already converters for XFMG from various platforms. They will continue to be added if there is enough need. In nearly 2 years, there's been very little interest in a Coppermine importer so at this stage it looks unlikely.
2. The major version numbering of XFMG is likely to stay inline with XF now, e.g. XFMG 2.0 will be developed and work only for XF 2.0.
3. We don't currently have anything to say about XFMG 2.0. Our main focus will be XenForo 2.0. In the mean time we will be maintaining our current products as normal.

 

[Chris D]

Oh, I can't believe I forgot to ask about these as well:

• Batch upload images via FTP?
• Define number of columns and rows on thumbnail page?
• Define dimensions of thumbnail / intermediate size photos? (Does XMG even generate an intermediate sized photo for display on the image page?)

• No batch upload via FTP, no.
• You can define the number of items per row in Style Properties and the number of items per page in options (so, yes).
• You can define the dimensions of thumbnails, e.g. width and height of thumbnails. There are no intermediate sized photo. Images can be resized upon upload based on a maximum width/height you specify in Options.

 

[AjayJunkies]

There are already converters for XFMG from various platforms.

Is there a converter for IP.Gallery to XMG?

 

[Chris D]

Not currently.

That one will likely get addressed, but there isn't an ETA for that yet.

 

[AjayJunkies]

Not currently.

That one will likely get addressed, but there isn't an ETA for that yet.

I may be one of the first in-line to test IP.Gallery to XFMG, so please let me know when this is done!

More questions:

• Given that you can only upload photos from the front-end, have you had any reports / do you foresee any time-out errors with uploading large albums? I have some albums (what you would consider "categories") with thousands of photos that I would upload all at once.
• Do you have live examples of existing customers with XFMG installations of more than 10,000+ photos?

 

[Chris D]

1. This will be completely dependent on server configuration. There are some typical PHP limits, max_input_vars and post_max_size that would affect that being possible. Typically most default configurations will probably only allow you to save ~ 50 at a time. However, if you increase these values (and maybe others) then it should be possible to save many more at a time.
2. This is probably the biggest: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/media/ Over 400,000 images.