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#1 General » turning gate blog hacked » 2017-02-07 20:50:22
- Kris
- Replies: 1
I'm assuming that Matt et al knows that the home page and first/second post of the blog has been hacked?
It has been for a several days now.
#2 CE4 Theme for WordPress » Removing the built in gallery in CE3 and CE4 theme » 2016-08-23 23:40:20
- Kris
- Replies: 0
Hi.
I am trying to use a different gallery plug in with my blog theme for CE3 and CE4.
However, it appears that the current built in gallery (photoswipe or magnific I think) is interacting with my proposed gallery system.
and is breaking it
Is there a way to remove the automatic gallery in the above themes at all?
I know its the theme, as when I switch to the default '2016 theme for wordpress', the problems with the new gallery disappear.
Thanks all,
Kris.
#3 General » CE3 and CE4 wiki docs in perpetuity...? » 2016-05-29 22:25:51
- Kris
- Replies: 2
HI all.
Was just doing a few maintenance things on a CE3 website of mine, and had to refer to the documentation often at
http://ce3wiki.theturninggate.net/doku.php
Can I assume that these support docs will remain online, or is there a means to download them en masse for future reference?
Thanks all,
Kris.
#4 CE4 Publisher » Using search in Publisher to return only exact matches ... » 2015-05-08 03:41:22
- Kris
- Replies: 1
Hi all.
As some might be aware, I recently asked about utilising LR6s new face scanning facility to scan and decode QR barcodes from within images.
http://community.theturninggate.net/post/29176/#p29176
Having done a little routing around, I and another LR plug in developer might be coming up with a solution to our needs.
The scanned codes within the images will be VCards, which will then populate certain metadata fields in LR6 with the data from the VCard which can then be exported to very specific filenames that we can search on using Publisher Search.
I've read
http://ce4.theturninggate.net/docs/doku … h_search&s
My questions ....
I was wondering if it's possible to 'restrict' search results from Publisher's search facility by
1. Only returning exact matches on filenames or part filenames and nothing else (no keywords for instance). For example, a pupils admission number might be 012345, but their image filenames might extend to A132-012345-123212, A132-012345-123454 and A132-012345-123959. I know this doesn't really make sense - 'exact matches on part filenames' , but I'm not sure if there is another way of doing it. Could a check be made on only accepting a six digit numeric code search criteria and nothing shorter?
2. Return matches on two search criteria, effectively AND criteria - e.g. the school code could be A132 in the above example. However, several pupils could have the same Admission Number of 012345 in different schools. Thus, using criteria A132 AND 012345 would only show the correct pupil. I assume.
3. Can we enforce the use of the + and or "" without the searcher having to know about it.
As information, my filenames would probably extend to {{school_id}}-{{pupil_id}}-{{date_stamp}}-{{time_stamp}}. With a VCard scanned data, I might be able to extend this somewhat to include richer data such as {{pupil_name}}.
Basically, I want parents (and other customers such as street, sporting events etc) to be able to search from one search entry box and return their own results and no others, while not easily being able to guess others. They also need to able to use the cart system on their search results.
A snag might be that pupil IDs in the UK are distinctly similar to timestamps, which might cause a few problems for me.
The database of school images would probably run into the many tens of thousands of images, if not more.
I can't find an example of a website with a working Publisher search facility. Does anybody have one I can view?
Is this possible in Publisher Search as it currently stands?
Thanks all,
Kris.
#5 Re: General » Lightroom 6 » 2015-04-26 06:36:54
That's okay. I didn’t think so anyway.
It just seems that Adobe has already done the hard part with image scanning for facial recognition, and can't understand why they might leave out such a useful feature. It has been requested before on their support forums, btw.
#6 Re: General » Lightroom 6 » 2015-04-25 20:03:23
Aww, go on, pretty please, sugar on top.
Has to be relevant to more than just me, surely?
Imagine all the events / dance meets / clubs / nurseries / schools / football photographers that would use this. Admittedly, this is all volume 'hot-dog' photography and not the artistic side, but it puts a fairly nice roof over my head.
With schools I get a database beforehand, but for most events you don't need to know anything about the attendees to the event beforehand, as you just print out labels that have qr codes with sequenced numbers on them which the portrait subject (or their parents) then keep. They then either visit a printing booth and type the code or take it home and type the code into their browsers and #kabam# up comes their images for purchase. How they run it so that only the first image has the barcode visible yet all subsequent images retain the data from the first image until another barcode is detected I don't know. I guess it must be that a numeric sequence must also be appended to the data from the barcode.
It's a wonderful system for photographers, which is why it costs megabucks.
I will admit though, that the commercial software tends to lab integrate as well, so there is more than just barcode reading. Unfortunately, this ties you in to the system that your preferred lab uses, usually Timestone in the UK, and hence why people have to pay those silly license prices.
If you need a sample image with a QR code in just let me know.
#7 Re: General » Lightroom 6 » 2015-04-25 05:19:00
Hia Matt.
Automatically matching and syncing data to pictures is a huge software industry in its own right, believe me.
As a school photographer (though not solely), matching student IDs to their pictures makes everything so much easier and is vital to update student record databases with images of pupils. But it's also very relevant to other sectors such as events and sports photographers. Imagine if this data could be incorporated into TTG database search facility.... (Do we have a swoon smiley?)
Several pieces of commercial software is available, but most rely on the camera being permanently tethered to a laptop and using a barcode scanner to renames files as they come in. This is a crap, restrictive system but is the one the vast majority of people use. An example of this is the Australian Timestone software (http://timestonesoftware.com) which is very popular, but runs into the thousands of UK Pounds for a licence.
An American photographer called Mike Fulton wrote a piece of software called fotovelocity.net which does exactly what I prefer - to photograph the pupil with a barcode somewhere in the image that later gets read by the software and data appended to the image. This is slightly cheaper than Timestone, but still runs into the thousands and he not interested in dealing with anybody outside the US.
If Lightroom can read and guess faces to add naming data, then it must surely be an easy upgrade to read an easily scannable QR code?
#8 Re: General » Lightroom 6 » 2015-04-23 01:13:21
Really? Happens much more often for me. Maybe on in three times I click on it. Forces me to save the template very often. I didn’t know the undo reset the bug though.
If Adobe changed the facial recognition into QR/barcode recognition, and placed the resulting data into the caption field, then you wouldn’t believe how useful this would be for me.
Anybody know if this is possible?
#9 Re: General » Lightroom 6 » 2015-04-22 19:09:06
Did they fix the bug that when one clicks on the 'Site Info', occasionally the web module appears to reset, losing the masthead and requiring a reload of the template?
Interested in CE3 functionality too.
#10 Re: General » e mail from my site not working » 2015-04-22 01:58:39
The majority of hosts, in the UK at least, are now no longer allowing phpmail transfers because of the problems with spam. This caught me out recently.
You have to use SMTP with a local email address that your host has provided. The problem then comes when customers use Google Apps for business. It's a right pain in the arse.
#11 Re: CE4 Gallery » Does anyone use LightZone rather than Lightroom. » 2015-04-04 05:34:21
In an attempt to go totally open source, I have tested lightzone quite a bit and like certain features about it
But there is no compatibility with any thing designed for Lightroom whatsoever.
#12 Re: Announcements & Information » PHPMail not working all of a sudden... » 2015-03-12 22:37:31
They are indeed.
Unfortunately, it looks like no host (in the UK at least) is allowing the use of phpmail() any more. If they had warned me that this was the case, I could have acted sooner.
As a test, I have set up an smtp account and mail address (using a dormant domain name) using my hosts local smtp settings, and it does work and mails get authenticated and sent from the cart as expected.
Unfortunately, the local server is refusing to allow the from address (the vendor email in the cart settings) to be anything apart from a locally hosted email account - i.e. it has to be the dormant domain name.
This is no good because if a customer replies to an order confirmation, it's getting sent back to the dormant account and I'm not going to receive it.
If I was using my local hosts email for everything, this wouldn't be a problem. But I use google apps for business for the various sections of the business.
I'll dive into using google apps for business smtp settings this afternoon. Unfortunately, they don't allow the old, free, grandfathered in accounts to be used as smtp forwarding relays. So I have to spend - but it's only about four quid a month though.
#13 Announcements & Information » PHPMail not working all of a sudden... » 2015-03-12 21:27:51
- Kris
- Replies: 2
Hello all.
Maybe a 'heads up' for us UK boys and girls....
Recently had a customer tell me that they are not receiving their email order confirmations and I'm not receiving my 'new order' emails.
Investigating, it appears that almost all UK hosting companies are removing phpmail() function from their hosting packages. Grrr. So far had a very long morning trying to get smtp mail settings working with CE3 cart and with my google apps for business account and also a local mail account at my hosting, all to no avail so far.
Apparently, Google no longer allow smtp mail forwarding for grandfathered apps accounts. Grrrrr.
So...
- I upgrade to their free 30 day trial account for full google apps to see if that rectifies, it doesn't.
- Try a local mail using my host and a no-reply@my-dormant-domain-name.com for mail authentication and it still aint working. More Grrr. EDIT - this aint working because it is refusing the cart 'from' email address as being a non local email address. I have three different carts/domains for different parts of the business and would prefer the 'from' to be the one the customers is using.
Yet the mail from CE3 pages works perfectly.
Shall struggle on, unless anybody can think of a better solution.
Below is their email about the removal of phpmail()...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Kristian,
As standard among UK hosts, we have implemented additional security measures against outgoing spam on our hosting servers, which involved a change in the mail server's configuration. In particular, it's not possible to send mail from the default email accounts and from non-existent accounts (using the simple mail function) anymore and the scripts are required to use proper SMTP authentication. This was done due to constant abuse of the mail function by various spambot scripts and other malware uploaded through outdated customer websites.
In order to resolve the issue, you need to use SMTP as the email sending method and to include SMTP authentication in your script. For authentication, you need to use a valid email address created in cPanel >> Email Accounts and its respective password. Please make sure that your script's settings meet these requirements and try sending mail again, it should work. #14 Re: CE4 Showcase » My CE4 Real Estate Site with Pics and Videos » 2015-03-10 23:46:34
Green gallery background?
#15 CE4 Cart » PayPal and guest checkout... » 2014-10-06 01:10:38
- Kris
- Replies: 1
Anybody else notice that PayPal UK no longer allow checkout as a guest? Only option is log in or create an account.
Arse.
#16 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 17:15:53
That's the goal.
I have found that using WP Theme allows for most of the options that are available in Pages to pertain, e.g. three column layout, font awesome etc, so that CE Theme driven sites can almost replicate the CE Pages designs. Thank you Matt for this capability.
The only fly in the ointment is that switching back and forth from visual view to text view in WordPress strips out so much HTML as to be a bloody nightmare - it strips font awesome codes for starters amongst other things. You have to either avoid visual view entirely (and therefore have to have a decent html capability), make sure you never click it or <ctrl a> and <ctrl c> before you do.
This is a very well documented problem with WordPress since time immemorial.
#17 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 17:02:03
That's the goal. Publisher makes updates far easier to apply, since you can effectively batch-apply updates/changes to all template-bound galleries.
So what you could do is leave your old galleries in place, aim Publisher at your /galleries directory (or wherever), and start publishing your new galleries, replacing your existing galleries via publisher at your own pace, and removing each old gallery as you go. Having the old export-and-upload folders in the publisher's target location isn't a problem.
Or just move the old galleries into a "legacy" archival location, and start publishing new galleries.
It would indeed. Batch applying updates would solve several problems for me and not leave me frozen in time. Batch applying changes would also be very useful to me in the future as obviously prices and packages change over time. At the moment I intentionally leave each gallery as bare and 'non-year-descript' as possible to avoid the need for republishing galleries, and use a separate information page linked from each gallery so that all changes are in one place. I also utilise the fact that each school's autoindex does not change over time, so yearly information such as 'deadline dates' are best placed there. Using publisher gallery template would obviate these requirements, I assume?
I can't have a '"legacy" archival location' of galleries unfortunately because, while galleries may be five or so years old, they are 'unlocked' for customers once a year and have to be compatible with the current cart system as parents can (and do) buy a lot of lovely timeline products picking and choosing images from previous years. Timeline products are panoramic framed prints that show their child's facial development over the course of several years. Updating galleries to publisher is just a sit down and grind them out job for the winter.
Can I also assume that the current CE4 publisher comes with the CE3 version bundled, like the WP theme?
As for the cart packages feedback, that belongs in a Cart thread where Ben can see it and take it under advisement.
Shall do, though we have spoken before on the topic.
#18 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 03:18:26
Really? I think it's as clear as mud. I don't think it makes clear that it can be used to make a gallery effectively 'upgrade' or jump to a later CE versions without any intervention. Nothing below mentions this:
CE4 Publisher is a plugin for Lightroom's Publish Services which allows you to easily manage photos and albums on your server when using supported TTG image galleries, without having to output images through the Web module.
Previously, to create a new gallery you would have needed to use the Web module to design and export your gallery, then an FTP client to upload the gallery to your server to be viewed online; you would repeat this process for each gallery to appear on your site. A change to published gallery or galleries – a design change, or the addition of images to or removal of images from the collection – required that you recreate the gallery or galleries in full and upload everything again. In short, making changes to published galleries was a time-consuming chore.
With CE4 Publisher, templates may be created from the Web module, then re-used as needed via the publisher to create any number of galleries; changes made to that one template are immediately pushed to all related galleries. You can publish new images individually or in groups to existing galleries directly from the Library module, or you can remove or reorder images in an existing gallery, all without having to revisit the Web module.
If it had, I'd have used it before.
I'm not complaining though. This and changing to website design through WP theme would make life so much easier for me.
#19 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 01:34:27
I underestimated its capabilities. I thought it was used to just update by adding or deleting images within already published galleries (something I rarely do), rather than actually referring to a single gallery template from which all galleries run. Interesting.
Makes sense now.
This from the documentation:
A change to published gallery or galleries – a design change, or the addition of images to or removal of images from the collection – required that you recreate the gallery or galleries in full and upload everything again. In short, making changes to published galleries was a time-consuming chore.
With CE4 Publisher, templates may be created from the Web module, then re-used as needed via the publisher to create any number of galleries; changes made to that one template are immediately pushed to all related galleries. You can publish new images individually or in groups to existing galleries directly from the Library module, or you can remove or reorder images in an existing gallery, all without having to revisit the Web module.
does not mention the capability and should be updated to show that you can use this to update CE* version jumps as well.
#20 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 01:27:41
Hi Rod.
So, if they had originally been placed on-line utilising CE3 publisher, this would have been a possibility?
Hmmm.
#21 Re: CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-03 01:07:54
And if you used CE3 publisher, then updating should simply be a matter of replacing your templates, and not necessarily having to upgrade your individual galleries.
As for the handholding, we do what we can. But it's a weird system to begin with, cobbled together around Lightroom's Web module, rather than the "standard" web workflow that most people are probably used to. That's one of the major reasons we continue to serve a very niche audience.
Hmmmm, so say I have 500 galleries all online all running on ce3 gallery and ce3 cart (I don't have publisher). I buy ce4 cart, ce4 gallery and ce4 publisher. I can somehow make those 500 already published galleries update automatically?
I think packages, customers need to know a little more information along the path, i.e. choosing a package is fine, but they need to know more clearly that
subsequent images are being placed into that package
given a choice of which item in their package the currently selected image refers to
what package items have been filled (preferably greyed out) and which have not
and very definite 'package complete' notification, add a further package or an individual item.
I know I would be inundated with queries because I have tested the current version on sample users. Current customers seem hmmm... okay with my hacked together packages at the mo.
#22 CE4 Gallery » permalink removal and ce4 thoughts... » 2014-10-02 18:08:12
- Kris
- Replies: 12
Thanks Matt.
I do have other reasons I haven't yet updated to CE3 yet. The main one being the depth of galleries that I have on-line that would need re-finding, re-exporting, re-uploading etc. I adore the uniformity of my websites / galleries / cart / blog etc, and is an excellent reason to choose TTG products. I can't have ce3 and ce4 products coexisting, e.g. the mobile nav is very different, galleries are incompatible. I also love photoswipe.
But when it comes to major version upgrade, it's not the cost to me, it's the time. I have to decide whether the enormous amount of work to change is justified, especially to my bottom line. For example (and I know my circumstances are probably quite unique here), I shoot many schools and each school I have probably shot for several years. One of the things that separates me from the other big UK schools photographers is that I never delete anything (unlimited bandwidth and hosting is compulsory), and all galleries from previous years are available every year through an auto index. Parents love it (I offer timeline products) and it hooks the school in. But it means that for uniformity and cart compatibility, I have to update not only the plugin design in LR but every single gallery for every school for every year. You can imagine....
Am I correct in saying that Publisher will not help me here? I would still need to do the above because of the version jump, i.e. ce3 to ce4?
Can I make a suggestion?
It would be preferable (imho) for the ttg update cycle to happen in the winter when I (and most photographers I know) are fairly free and are thinking about the year ahead and updating prices etc. Summer / Autumn releases are an absolute no go for me, as I just don't have the time. I just need patience till I'm free.
I also think that package implementation is still a little clunky for my typical customers who need hand holding at every step.
#23 Re: CE4 Gallery » How do I remove this icon? » 2014-10-02 18:04:16
edit...
placed response in a new topic as not to veer this one....
#24 Re: CE4 Gallery » How do I remove this icon? » 2014-10-02 04:22:07
Permalink permanence is one of the reasons I have decided to stay with CE3 and not update to CE4. I have certain private galleries that I cannot have customers permalinking in to. Blog, yes.
#25 Re: CE4 Showcase » Michael Richards Photography » 2014-08-25 01:31:52
Fascism rather than facism.