Vertical thumbnails are here - RSMediaGallery! Revision 3

It's finally here - the update everybody waited for. RSMediaGallery! now offers the ability to create landscape (horizontal) as well as portrait (vertical) thumbs. Please take a few minutes to read the new exciting features we've added to our Joomla! Image Gallery extension.

Create image thumbs of any size and ratio

Until now, users were forced to create crops (thumbnails) of their images with a fixed aspect ratio (4:3). With the latest revision of RSMediaGallery! it's now possible to select any portion of an image and create a thumbnail. In order to do this, just go to your image, edit it and check "Free Aspect Ratio". You will now be able to select any size you'd want. The parameters for setting up the resolution have also changed because of this - you now have to specify only either the width or the height and the rest is calculated automatically by RSMediaGallery!.

We've also improved the administration interface - in case you are using long portrait images, the thumbnail preview will scroll down along with the browser window so that you can see the realtime preview without having to scroll up; if you want to publish your images automatically as they get uploaded, there's a checkbox that will allow you to do so.

Set folder and file permissions

There are some servers that require you to mess around with permissions in order for images to work. We've had reports of such servers saving files (thumbnails) with 600 permissions, which meant that even though the images existed on the server, they wouldn't be accessible through the web. In order to overcome this, we've added two new settings - Folder Permissions and File Permissions. This will force newly created folders and files to inherit these permissions - most likely the issues we've mentioned earlier will no longer be a concern from now on.

Show galleries anwyhere on your website with the RSMediaGallery! System Plugin

A new parameter has been introduced that can help you create a gallery out of a single image. Just type in the placeholder the number of the image you'd like to show up from the gallery and only that image will be displayed. Clicking on the image however will launch the full image gallery. For example, let's say that you have an article about your fishing trip from last weekend - you took a bunch of photos and you want to display them around the article, but you'd like your readers to be able to browse through all the images when they open one. You'll have to use either the Content or the System Plugin and add the {rsmediagallery tags="fishing trip"} syntax, but with a twist: add the image="number" parameter inside it. For example, if you want to show just the first image, use {rsmediagallery tags="fishing trip" image="1"}. If you want to show the last (fifth, in our case) image in the set at the end of the article, use {rsmediagallery tags="fishing trip" image="5"}. The users reading your article will click on any image and then can proceed to browse the other images from within the lightbox - this creates infinite possibilities on how to place your images!

The lightbox used in the Content Plugin (and the new System Plugin) has been improved in terms of usability - your website's visitors will love the new navigation system. You can browse images by using the left and right arrows on your keyboard, as well as using the new, bigger arrows that overlay the photo - you don't have to click on the arrows themselves, it's enough if you click on the left or on the right side of the photo. This change has also allowed us to reduce the stylesheet & javascript's size.

Also, you can now show the description of the photo along with the title. The full description will popup when the lightbox is opened - HTML is accepted so you can place links or any other content you'd like.

Where do I get the new version?

The new RSMediaGallery! version can be downloaded from the Free Downloads section.

What if I run into issues?

Most known issues are documented in the RSMediaGallery! Documentation section. If you still haven't managed to get it up and running on your website, please consider purchasing a support subscription so that we may be able to help you. Purchasing a support subscription allows us to continue development on RSMediaGallery! (and all our other extensions) as well as provide top-notch services to our customers.