Gallery v 04.03.03 has passed the Release Tracker testing required for "core" extensions project and has been officially released as the recommended version. However, because of the module's very antiquated design, lack of full XHTML compliancy, and legacy code it will not be included in DotNetNuke framework packages. If you would like to install it on your site or upgrade from v 4.03.00, please visit the project's CodePlex downloads page at:
http://dnngallery.codeplex.com/releases/view/54533
The good news is that this release fixes the issues which made the prior release 04.03.00 unusable when running in an ASP.Net 4.0 application pool or under DotNetNuke versions 5.05.00 and later. Here are some of the other release notes highlights:
Minimum DotNetNuke Version: 04.09.03
The following bug fixes are included in this release:
- Use of the exclamation mark character (!) in the name of a child album causes files added to that album to actually be added to the parent album and prevents the album from being edited. Since the exclamation mark is being used in legacy code as a replacement for the forward slash character in urls containing the path parameter, the exclamation mark must be excluded from album names. Added "!" as one of the invalid characters in the regex used to validate child album names both client and server side.
- When a site containing a Gallery module is migrated to a different url or supports multiple portal aliases for the same portal, the gallery RootURL becomes invalid as it is stored as an absolute url including the domain name. Although the now invalid RootURL can easily be changed in the module settings to accommodate such migration or use of different portal aliases it should be stored in ModuleSettings relative to the portal's home directory. Updated settings control and configuration class to use and store home directory relative RootURL and implemented IUpgradable to modify value of this setting for all Gallery modules at the time of upgrade to this version.
- When a gallery album has more than 5 pages, the insertion of "..." in the pager is inconsistent often resulting in two sets of "..." appearing side by side. Modified pager rendering code to insert "..." more appropriately.
- Removed excessive vertical spacing between album cover thumbnail its title that would contain rating stars if this were a file not album.
The following enhancements are included in this version:
- For SEO purposes the title of the media item is now displayed in the browser title bar, i.e. added into the HTML <head><title></title></head> tag of the page, in both in-line and pop-up mode of the image viewer, media viewer, flash viewer, and slideshow viewer. As the slideshow viewer advances through its images, the browser title bar is updated to display the current image title.
- For SEO purposes the path to the currently selected child album being displayed in the gallery thumbnail view (Standard, List, and Card views) is displayed in the browser title bar.
- In prior versions, selecting "Slideshow" from the context menu of either the album cover or of any image thumbnail in the album would always start the slideshow with the first image contained in the album. Modified slideshow to start with the first image being that of the thumbnail image whose context menu was open when clicking "Slideshow". Order of images displayed in the slideshow now respects sort order and direction.
- When changing to a different view or sort order/direction, prior versions resulted in a redirection to the first page of the top level gallery. Modified code to redirect to the first page of the current album rather than that of the top level album.
- Due to some extensive code changes involved in implementation of the above, we took the opportunity to refactor code to use strongly typed generic lists rather than untyped arraylists for storage of gallery lists such as BrowsableItems, MediaItems, IconItems, FlashItems, SortList resulting in the removal of 100's of explicit type casts using CType.
- Added new configuration setting for JPEG image compression (Encoder.Quality) used when saving images that were resized upon upload or later manipulated using the image viewer/editor. In prior versions, the default GDI+ Encoder.Quality of 70 resulted in compressed images with many artifacts. The new setting defaults to an Encoder.Quality of 80.
Note that if you had installed the 04.03.03 RC2 release candidate of Gallery, this official release is identical to the RC2.
Most likely, 04.03.03 will the the final release of Gallery in the 4.x series. Work has begun on the design of MediaGallery5 which will be built from the ground up using the latest web technologies. Other than being able to read Gallery 4.xx.xx metadata and media files during the upgrade process, MediaGallery5 will bear little resemblance to its predecessor.
Gone will be the metaphore of albums being physical folders. Instead there will be "collections" of media whose physical storage can be nearly anywhere - either on the site's web server or on some photo/media sharing service. Collections will be able to be defined "ad hoc" - for example a collection of images that have been tagged "dogs" and "golden retrievers", taken in the state of Maine since February 1, 2000. There will also be "groups" of MediaGallery5 users who have joined together to share media of a particular interest. A wide array of metadata will be retained on each media item and the ContentItem and taxonomy/folksonomy features of DotNetNuke 5.05.01 and later will be put to good use in handling media tagging, ratings and comments
Although the first release will most likely employ a Silverlight 4 user interface, MediaGallery5 will be designed as a framework or Gallery workshop supporting various providers or plug-ins for the components of the presentation layer (collections, groups, previews, slideshows, upload and edit) and for the media source layer (site's web server filesystem, media sharing services, etc.). Because this will be a very complex module consisting of multiple components, do not expect the first beta release for 6 to 12 months. Currently I'm setting up the multi-project VS2010 solution, designing and coding entity classes and the provider framework, and the MS SQL table schema. Soon other developers, both from the "old" Gallery team and "new" ones not previously involved in Gallery, will be invited to join in working towards our first release. If you're up to the challenge, please contact me at bill (at) wesnetdesigns.com.