Bush Mackel

Okay, last time I wrote about all the woes of Gallery2 and WPG2. But looking back at it, (the post), I realize that I may not have been that clear in describing what exactly the problems were that I was experiencing.

Everything stemmed from me knowing exactly what I wanted…I wanted to use the WPG2 plugin with WordPress so I could have a cool photo gallery on my site. (Even though again, I could’ve just written my own) . Because I knew I wanted WPG2, I focused on just downloading it, installing it, and trying to get it to work. I’m still pretty green to WordPress and the like, so I thought the install would be exactly like every other plugin. Well let me tell you studio audience, not so.

If you’re looking to get this plugin, you’ll most likely start off here at this page : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpg2/ And like most ppl, you’ll quickly click on the Installation tab, see the “Download Plugin” button, and go to town. But the problem is once you have the plugin installed, and you try and active it and consequently configure it, you’ll run into problems if you don’t have another … I guess, plugin installed too, called Gallery2. Now on the installation page for WPG2, even though it does have, (imho), a few non descript lines about Gallery2, it really should say at the top of the page, “YOU MUST DOWNLOAD GALLERY2 (a seperate download), FOR WPG2 TO WORK!” Worse in my opinion is that there’s not a link on this page to even get to the GALLERY2 site! If you ask me, that’s just not good.

Through a couple searches on the big G, I finally found the Gallery website, http://gallery.menalto.com/. From here you can download Gallery2 in it’s latest form and in turn upload it to your website or whatever. But if you think the fun stops here, then think again. Once you have Gallery2 on your server, you then have to open it’s installer page on your browser to get it intalled. And, (as is a common problem for a lot of ppl), you will usually have to make sure php safe mode is turned OFF so that the installer will work. And honestly, it’s not everyday that I turn PHP safe mode on and off, so it took me a quick jaunt through my server settings to find out how to switch that baby on and off.

And after that, things … worked. I guess. I mean, obviously pictures are up, and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, I still have to figure out how to really configure and embed WPG2 into my site. And according to Brufus, that’s another headache and a half. Hopefully it’s nothing too much more than combing through a mess of CSS, but we’ll see.

Oh, and before you think that I’m really mad and angry with Gallery2 and WPG2, let me say…I know I’m an idiot and just rushed through this stuff a lot faster than I should’ve. If I had taken the 2 secs to read the installation notes on WPG2 I probably would’ve avoided an hour or two’s time searching Google and through support forums. WPG2 and Gallery2 seem great, I just have to get to know them a bit better!