permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

Kris · 2014-10-02 18:08:12

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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-02 18:36:42)

Matthew · 2014-10-03 00:00:25

Photoswipe hasn't been viable for a while now. That's why we dropped it.

Major version released are timed based on a number of factors, not all of which I am legally permitted to discuss due to various NDA restrictions.

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.

Kris · 2014-10-03 01:07:54

Matthew wrote:

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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-03 01:16:24)

rod barbee · 2014-10-03 01:20:25

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 make those 500 already published galleries update automatically?

No. Only albums originally managed by Publisher can do that.

Kris · 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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-03 01:28:46)

rod barbee · 2014-10-03 01:29:21

yes. All you would need to do is then upload a new CE4 template with the same name as the old CE3 template (overwriting it) and they would instantly update.

Kris · 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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-03 01:42:54)

rod barbee · 2014-10-03 01:46:50

changes made to that one template are immediately pushed to all related galleries

this seems pretty clear. Change the template and changes are pushed to all related galleries. This isn't the same as adding images to an album.

Kris · 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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-03 03:23:05)

Matthew · 2014-10-03 13:56:55

Kris wrote:

I'm not complaining though. This and changing to website design through WP theme would make life so much easier for me.

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.

As for the cart packages feedback, that belongs in a Cart thread where Ben can see it and take it under advisement.

Kris · 2014-10-03 17:02:03

Matthew wrote:

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?

Matthew wrote:

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.

Kris · 2014-10-03 17:15:53

Matthew wrote:

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.

Last edited by Kris (2014-10-03 17:18:25)

Matthew · 2014-10-03 17:46:36

WordPress's visual editor is garbage. I never use it at all; it's full-time text view for me.

Honestly, I would love to phase Pages out altogether. The WordPress theme is capable of handling nearly everything, when combined with auto index and galleries, and makes updating far easier. People seem reluctant to embrace WordPress, though, as I guess some find the CMS concept intimidating. The Web Publishing Bundles consistently outsells the Blog & Galleries bundle by a significant amount, which just leaves me scratching my head in confusion.

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#1 2014-10-02 18:08:12

permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#2 2014-10-03 00:00:25

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#3 2014-10-03 01:07:54

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#4 2014-10-03 01:20:25

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#5 2014-10-03 01:27:41

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#6 2014-10-03 01:29:21

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#7 2014-10-03 01:34:27

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#8 2014-10-03 01:46:50

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#9 2014-10-03 03:18:26

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#10 2014-10-03 13:56:55

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#11 2014-10-03 17:02:03

Re: permalink removal and ce4 thoughts...

#12 2014-10-03 17:15:53

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#13 2014-10-03 17:46:36

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