The next beta release of Web Photos Pro Server Edition is ready for download.

After much hem-ing and haw-ing, as well as some tu-ing and fro-ing, I’ve decided to get rid of the requirement that the Zend Optimizer be installed in order to use Web Photos Pro Server Edition. This means that Web Photos Pro Server Edition should be runnable on any vanilla PHP installation.

Please let me know if you install it, and how it works for you.

Regards,
– Frank

Version v1.0b6
Release date: May 26, 2005

Download is here.
Installation instructions are here.

New Features:

1. Removed the Zend Optimizer requirement. This code can now be run without the Zend Optimizer installed. In other words it should run fine on any vanilla PHP installation.
   

Changes:

1. Added a Dutch translation (thank you Michiel!).
   

2. Minor changes to Wordpress plugin
   

Bug fixes:

1. EXIF display is now correct.

Things to be fixed in 1.0 final:

1. Admin pages
2. Weblog support
3. Server Edition Wordpress plug-in

The next beta release of Web Photos Pro Server Edition is ready for download.

This is quite close to the final release, but as I’ve said “final beta release” several times before, I won’t make that claim for this release (though I sure would like it to be the final beta release!).

The big changes are these:

1. Improved Search
   

   Standard text searches use AND logic with sub-string matching. This means that searching for “friends family” now finds photos where the words “friends” and “family” both appear. And if you type “friends !family” then it will find photos with the word “friends” and not the word “family".

   Tag and GeoInfo searches have been improved as well. Where standard text searches do sub-string matching, meaning that searching for “rank” finds photos with “rank” and “frank” and “ranking", searches that are limited to the “Tags” field do full string matching, so that a search for “rank” find photos with the tag “rank” but not the tag “frank” or “rankle".

   GeoInfo searches use a “near” search algorithm, so that when you search for “37.8033,-122.4059″ (near Coit Tower in San Francisco), it finds photos within 10 miles of that latitude/longitude. You can set the search distance and units as well, e.g. “37.8033,-122.4059,1km” finds photos within 1 kilometer, rather than the default 10 miles.

2. Internationalizable Text
   

   All text, with the exception of some installation error messages that should never be seen, has been internationalized. If anyone creates a version for their language and would like to have it become part of the next release, please let me know.

3. Gallery and Album Paging
   

   If you have galleries or albums with lots of images, and you would like to display them in pages, rather than all on one page, you can now do that. In addition, I’ve added “First” and “Last” links, everywhere that “Next” and “Prev” links appear.

4. Wordpress Plug-in
   

   After several recent emails asking how to best integrate thumbnails and photos into their blogs, I decided to see how hard it would be to write a Wordpress plug-in. Not that hard it turned out. In fact the hardest thing was deciding what functionality to leave out.

   I’ve decided to release two plug-ins, one for those with Web Photos Pro Server Edition installed, and one for those without, because with Web Photo Pro Server Edition installed there are all sorts of cool things I can do, such as display random images, cover photos, recent images, even the tag lists. The non-Server Edition plug-in is available now, with the Server Edition plug-in to follow.

5. Direct Access Functions
   

   Web Photos Pro Server Edition has a built-in templating engine that does a pretty nice job of creating galleries and albums. But if you want to integrate the photos you’ve uploaded using Web Photos Pro more tightly than the templating engine allows, it’s been hard to figure out how to do that. So I created some “direct access” functions that give you access to the raw data, before it’s been output by the templating engine. Things includes all the data available to the templating enginer, including which albums are in a gallery, which photos are in an album, the titles, descriptions, tags, preferences, etc.

   The direct access functions are available at the bottom of the file ‘render.php’ (which is at the top level of the Web Photos Pro Server Edition source code). There are five functions that allow you to get the raw 1) gallery data, 2) album data, 3) photo data, 4) find images, and 5) exif data.

   The next release will wrap these direct access functions in some glue that will make it easier to drop thumbnails and images into your website. In the meantime, feel free to rummage through the raw data, and use it directly.

What’s next? Well, I have a quick Web Photos Pro v1.1.1 release to get out that you’ll need before you can turn on the paging feature that’s been added to this server release. Then I’ve got a stripped down version of Web Photos Pro that I’m working on that targets a particular company’s photo service. And after that I’ll get the final version of Web Photos Pro Server Edition out the door along with that Wordpress plug-in.

Whew! In the meantime, let me know if you’re using the server edition, and how it’s working for you.

With kindest regards,
– Frank

Version v1.0b5
Release date: May 11, 2005

Installation instructions are here.

Notes:

1. New features can be seen at these urls:

   http://www.webphotospro.com/weblog_images/
   http://www.webphotospro.com/examples/skins/style_1/
   http://www.webphotospro.com/examples/skins/style_2/

2. “Latest Photos” album can be seen at this url:

   http://cornwall.backtalk.com/photos/cornwall/

New Features:

1. Improved search.
   

   All text searches are AND queries, i.e. all query words must be found.

   Tag searches are exact match AND queries.

   GeoInfo searches find photos “near” the specified lat/lon. NOT queries can be specified using ! operator (e.g. !friends = NOT friends and “!san francisco” = NOT “san francisco”
   

2. GeoInfo search looks for photos “near” the specified lat/lon. Search “lat,lon,distance” where distance is a number followed by m (miles), k or km (kilometers), or n (nautical miles).
   

   Examples:
   31.44,-121.56,10m (search within 10 miles of 31.44,-121.56)
31.44,-121.56,50km (search within 50 kilometers of 31.44,-121.56)
31.44,-121.56,100n (search within 100 nautical miles of 31.44,-121.56)
   

3. Text is internationalizable.
   

   Additional languages can be created and dropped into the /lang/ directory, with a corresponding change to /lang/select_lang.lib.php. Please contact support@webphotospro.com if you’re interested in creating a language file for your language, and would like to share it with the Web Photos Pro community.

   Note: not all error messages have been internationalized, only those that might be shown to a visitor of your site.
   

4. Added paging capability to Gallery, Album and Find pages.
   

   Page size can be chosen on the HTML:Gallery and HTML:Album preferences pages in the Web Photos Pro application.
   

5. Added “first” and “last” links to Image pages.
   

6. Added “direct access” functions that allow you to use Web Photos Pro Server Edition without the templating engine. The functions are at the bottom of the file ‘render.php’. These functions provide access to the raw data that is produced by the Server Edition engine for its templating engine.
   

7. Created a Wordpress plug-in for non-Web Photos Pro Server Edition users. A plug-in for Server Edition users will be released soon.
   

Changes:

1. If you’ve added GeoInfo to a photo (i.e. lat/lon), then two links are now displayed: “Map” and “Find". Map links to a map showing the geo location, and Find links to “search for photos within 10 miles".
   

2. Changed RSS tag label from “XML” to “RSS”
   

3. Changed source release file permissions to 755
   

4. Updated EXIF library from http://www.offsky.com/software.exif/index.php
   

5. Skin updates to reflect several new skin variables.
   

6. Updated error messages so that installation problems should be more transparent.
   

Bug fixes:

1. GeoInfo lat/lon is no longer truncated improperly.
2. Improved fopen() error messages.
3. No longer gives “beta timeout” message if server license key has been entered.
4. Multi-word tags are now properly linked
5. Fixed problem when “custom” image size was chosen
6. Admin and private album passwords now work on IE

Things to be fixed in 1.0 final:

1. Admin pages
2. Weblog support
3. Server Edition Wordpress plug-in
4. Commercial vs non-commercial functionality

Entry updated on May 12, 2005

Aldo wrote asking, “If I wanted to use my photos on a WordPress powered weblog, which version of your software should I get? How does it integrate with WordPress?”

As I read back over my previous answer, I realized I was making Aldo’s life way too complicated – embedding <img> tags – bah humbug. And so, in the interest in making Aldo’s life just a little bit easier, and giving him a reason to try Web Photos Pro again, I’ve just released a Wordpress plug-in for our Web Photos Pro users.

Now, inserting a thumbnail or image into Aldo’s blog is as easy as embedding a <wpp_image> tag, like this:

<wpp_image:/photos/dynamic/:Beach:IMG_2456.JPG>

When the page with that tag is displayed, the Web Photos Pro Wordpress plug-in will convert the tag into a thumbnail which is linked to the photo’s web page in your Web Photos Pro album (just like it does for the image at the top of this entry).

If you want to know more, or you want to download the plug-in, please check out this page.

Regards,
– Frank