DeepWave

I’ve finally found some time to update my two plugins - Hide Dashboard and MyGallery to WordPress Converter. In short, the following changes were made:

Hide Dashboard 1.2

• Added option to block access to the Dashboard via the URL Location bar
• Added option to allow authors and editors to view the Dashboard and other admin section pages

MyGallery to WordPress Converter 1.1

• Bugfix to import the description and caption (alttext) fields from MyGallery into WordPress as well.
• Added a variable to allow users to change the path of their MyGallery installation if it is different from the default directory

Hopefully, these changes will make the plugins more useful.

As a follow up to my rant in a previous posting, I’ve actually done something about it and put it on the net. Maybe someone can find it useful. Anyhow, I’ve updated my WordPress, and made various changes and updates overall. Hopefully, this current set of software will last, oh, at least the next ten minutes, before being considered out of date.

Recently, I ranted about how WordPress did not give me a clear way to upgrade from external plugins like MyGallery to new features that have been absorbed into “core”. Finally, I decided to do something about it, and thankfully, everything is open sourced, and so I actually could do something about it. And now that I have, maybe I should make it available publicly as well. Now, be forewarned, this is not a plugin which I intend to maintain very much, since I only need to use it once myself. But it could be useful to others.

In short, this plugin helps to convert galleries that use the MyGallery Plugin by Thomas Boley to use the WordPress attachments system and built-in gallery shortcode that comes with WordPress 2.5 or newer.

If you are:

• unclear about full backups/restores of WP Tables and All Files,
• or are not really comfortable with thinking about mucking around with php or sql tables,
• or are just not sure what to do and what this plugin is for,
• or have no idea what I’m talking about . . .

then please, do not use this plugin, because you may lose valuable data! This is a plugin for advanced and experienced WordPress users.

This plugin will attempt to convert MyGallery installations and related shortcodes to the new WordPress Gallery attachments and shortcode system. The actual image files used by MyGallery are kept in the same place and merely added to WordPress. Please note that not all MyGallery shortcodes are converted, so some manual editing is still required. Also, the conversion is only performed on published posts - unpublished drafts, revisions, etc are ignored.

This plugin will directly change WordPress tables, post data, and files in MyGallery. A full backup, ready to restore, is required - better still if you can try it first with on a “mirror” of your blog before actually doing it on the live one.

After the conversion is complete, you will probably still have to go through your blog posts to verify if the layouts are correct. Some (many?) page layouts may need to be edited and changed because there are no exact matches between the layout options in MyGallery shortcodes and WordPress. So, after the conversion is complete, please print or save the results page as a reference of the changes that were made so that you know which pages/posts to check/edit.

Also, due to the fact that WordPress attachments make use of parent/inherited posts as a way to associate posts with the attachments, the conversion process will associate attachments to the first matching published post. Therefore, having the same MyGallery gallery on multiple pages will probably not convert properly. Watch out for “(Previously Added) Parent Post ID:” in the results to indicate that an attachment has been used more in more than one posts.

Steps to take:

1. Upgrade your blog to WordPress 2.6
2. If you have to, disable your MyGallery plugin, but do not delete it or any of the files/tables, etc
3. Install and activate this plugin
4. Run this plugin and follow its instructions, the conversion process can take a long time to work, so please be patient!
5. Print/save the results page as a reference of the changes that were made
6. Once the conversion is complete, check your blog to make sure it is working properly. If things go bad, restore from backup and review what went wrong before trying this again
7. Check/Edit all pages for layout/correct conversion etc
8. Disable/Delete this plugin
9. Disable/Delete MyGallery Plugin
10. You can remove the “mygallery”, “mygprelation” and “mypictures” tables from your WordPress Database
11. You can remove the “tumbs” folder from each of your MyGallery gallery folders in the “myfotos” folder, but do not remove the “myfotos” folder or any of the gallery folders inside it, they have been added to the WordPress attachments system

All changes made by this plugin are irreversible - use this plugin at your own risk!

Latest Update (2008-08-23): Made a bugfix to import the description and caption (alttext) fields from MyGallery into WordPress as well. Also, added a variable to allow users to change the path of their MyGallery installation from the default wp-content/myfotos/ directory. You will need to edit the plugin php file to change this variable (near the top).

Download Sample Output (PDF File)

Download MyGallery 2 WordPress Converter Plugin 1.1

So, WordPress 2.5 has just been released. Its new gallery system is really good, I would like to use it. Unfortunately, the WordPress team only added such a feature in to the basic system long - far too long - after picasa and flickr made web galleries a norm. So WordPress users like me had to turn to advanced plugins like myGallery and features like Lightbox to add those much needed “flash”. And now, there is no clear upgrade path for users (who had no choice earlier but to use those plugins) to convert to the WordPress gallery.

Some of the gallery schemes used in WP25 conflict with myGallery, and they cannot co-exist until myGallery is updated. Thankfully, Alex Rabe’s NextGen Gallery  has been updated in time. But this is cold comfort for someone like me. When I chose myGallery, NGN was nowhere to be found. And now, with say hundreds of images in myGallery, what is the next step?

The WordPress development team should take into account the issues faced by users who had to deal with WP adding features into core that third party developers provided. The whole thing with Tagging is being repeated with media galleries. What’s next - caching?

Furthermore, at this point, I can’t even run the myGallery and WP25 gallery side-by-side. So I have to convert to NextGen Gallery (which thankfully has an import from myGallery function), then upgrade to WP25? This is a big job needing Big Hairy Balls. And all the time, there is this banner reminding not just me, but all my subscribers that I need to upgrade.

I am not objecting directly to the fact that the WordPress development team has adopted third-party features into core. I am merely saying that when they do something like that, the WP development team should consider the impact on people who did use the third-party function and made it so popular that it was folded into core. It is like screwing the very users who “voted” that the feature is a good one in the first place. If this sort of thing keeps going on, plugin developers will get pissed off and maybe I should bite the bullet and consider Expression Engine - at least I can scream dollars and sense into them.