CataBlog Release One has been released. A few missing interface holes have been filled, mainly bulk actions and category filtering are present in the CataBlog Admin Panel. A nice script was added to the systems tab of options to automatically detect new image files in the originals folder and make database entries for them. A new grid view has been added to help support CataBlog becoming not only a great cataloging and store generating tool but also an excellent image gallery tool. The LightBox is working better then ever and I am hoping the total functionality of CataBlog warrants lots of positive ratings and reviews at WordPress.org.
Thanks again for all the feed back and comments 🙂
- Zachary
- More Bulk Actions
- Upload multiple images at once
- Attach up to 10 images to one catalog item
Look forward to 1.0.1 with multi images.
Any idea when it will be done?
Thanks Zach
Actually 1.0.1 has already been released. It does not include multi images. Check the Changelog for a complete list of features by version. That being said, this feature is going to be a bit difficult to implement. I know it seems like all you might need to do is copy and paste some code, but it doesn’t work that way. I will try and release a 1.0.2 this week with a preliminary version of multiple images, meaning no guarantees it doesn’t completely break everything.
In fact now that I think about it a bit more, I am going to need to write code to let people create, remove, update and display individual images inside a catalog item. code which is mighty similar to what I already have written for the actual catalog items, but code that will need to be specifically written just for a images. This is not exciting me.
Maybe you need to rethink how you handle images.
Since the item is just a post, all that code already exists in WordPress. You can attach multiple images to a post. The images don’t have to be outside of the WP system like you have them now (although there are advantages to being able to just FTP a bunch of images and have them appear.) i think you could read from the originals folder and at the appropriate point (as designated from the admin) you attach the image to the post.
Let WP do the work for you.
Joy,
Thanks for you input, as always it is appreciated. I am aware that WordPress lets you attach images to posts, and I do like the idea of sticking with as much native WordPress code as possible. One reason why I wrote my own image upload code when I moved CataBlog to custom post types and didn’t just use the post thumbnail or attach image to post was I wanted more direct control over the images. I wanted control over how the image is resized and the possible background color of non cropped images. Another reason was my past frustrations with NextGen Gallery, and how it handled multiple image uploads. All the images processed in one post, terrible if you need to upload forty high resolution images at once, my server kept running out of memory. So when I designed CataBlog I broke up the image processing into different AJAX calls so the server could flush its memory after each image is processed, yes slower, but no memory errors. If CataBlog was a full time job I would redesign much of it, but as it goes I think it serves it purpose rather well.
– Zach
Thanks for your reply I never expected it to be finished this month let alone next. 🙂
Buda,
I just want to say that I am trying my best to find the time to complete the next upgrade. I have been super busy with work and other projects. Just wanted to let you know not to give up hope for multiple images.
– Zach
I pray for it each night 🙂
Hi, first of all thanks for this plugin. I’m currently trying it, and I’ll probably install it. I like the simplicity and ease of use, and I hope this doesn’t get lost with further developpement (I hate bloatware).
The only feature I’m really missing is the ability to import data from CSV files. Typing 100 descriptions on a web-based interface (that you possibly already have in a OpenOffice or Excel file) is kinda boring. Willing to beta test for that, feel free to email me.
Maybe a “short description” field would be useful to use in lists too. Or some sort of (auto generated) excerpt.
To conclude, a small glitch. In the “new catablog” page there is the text [EXCEPTS html formatting]. You actually mean ACCEPTS.
I’ll second all of that!
I forgot to mention that there’s a useful plugin called WP-CSV-to-Database that might help you out.
The new version of CataBlog now has support for CSV format. You may import and export CSV files just like an XML file. All you need is to make sure your server’s PHP version is up to date. If not you will be warned and won’t be able to export CSV files, but you will still be able to import CSV files. Try exporting your current catalog and opening it in Excel for a quick way to edit all your catalog information.
Zach,
The “quick edit” thing sounds nice, but in practicality it doesn’t work because you don’t export the post ID. So when you go to import the changes, you’re faced with deleting all the old data for the import to replace it or adding on to the end, meaning you’ll have duplicate entries.
This doesn’t scale well. I tried it with just 20 entries and because you are using ajax, I couldn’t tell when it was done (status bar says Done when the page loads), so I navigated away and only got half the entries.
And if it’s a live site, which I presume you would use it on, you just deleted all your data so there is nothing to look at while it is importing the new version of the entries.
You need to cut down the queries for the import; batch them together maybe.
Joy,
I have not experienced your problems, even with libraries of 50 or more items. Perhaps I need to create a more complex set of categories, but I haven’t noticed any lag or slow load times on CSV imports. I would recommend replacing your catalog data when importing edits. This is akin to creating, deleting and then recreating a bunch of Posts or Pages, which should work fine if the database is maintained. Just because the item ids do not stay the same isn’t that important in my humble opinion. That is unless you are doing tons of edits on a very large catalog. Also, I am currently using WordPress’s built in database inserts and deletes, which should be automatically optimized for the database. This is the point of abstracting the database into php classes so that all the delete and inserts may be joined together in one database call. I will look further into the performance issues you reported though, and look for alternative methods of importing data.
– Zach
BTW: So you know, the import feature does not use ajax at all. The import action is a simple form that is posted to the server directly. If each item is importing so slowly that it takes a second or more then something is weird. If the import just stops halfway through, perhaps there is a syntax error in the CSV. I will update the message and text on the import console to instruct people to wait in a future version and handle errors better.
Hi Zach,
Thanks for making this excellent plugin. I’d like to make the thumbnail clickable (so that both the title and the thumbnail link to the web address ).
Is that an option or do I need to edit the code? If yes, can you tell me where to look?
Thank you
Hi Nadir,
You should check out the template feature of CataBlog. It lets you control how the catalog html is rendered and lets one be very specific about things such as where the links lead to. You can read about the tokens at the template documentation. I am unsure but assume you are using the default template, simply wrap the
<img />tag near the top with a hyperlink to the link token,<a href="%LINK%"></a>. I hope that helped and makes sense, if not let me know and I will try again. 🙂– Zach
Thanks for the prompt response! I just did it and it worked like a charm 🙂
Also, sorry for posting my question twice, I thought my comment didn’t go through.
I’m also looking for an excerpt solution, I have a feed set up that displays the latest products on the homepage using the WP category for the posts that display the Catablog categories, but it is pulling the full description and I would like to only display the first couple of sentences.
Dan,
I am a little confused by your question? Are you using the newer “Public” feature or are you using the Shortcode to place your catalog items?
If your feed is rendering the built in WP posts than I would suggest you change your theme to use
the_excerpt()and manually set an excerpt for each page.If your feed is rendering CataBlog items (posts) than I would suggest creating a
taxonomy-catablog-terms.phpfile in your theme’s root directory and again usethe_excerpt()function.If I missed your question could you please try being more descriptive as to exactly what you need an excerpt for? Thanks.