d13design

After a fair bit of re-writing, adjusting, adapting and preparing the d13gallery Wordpress plugin is now available to download from the Wordpress.org website.

This is a great move forward as it’s now tied directly to an SVN repository meaning that any changes or fixes get updated every 15 minutes and you get the added bonus of single-click upgrades through your Wordpress admin screens.

The plugin has been available for only 8 hours and has so far been downloaded 125 times — so there’s still a demand for the gallery even after Wordpress have added the functionality natively.

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Ever since I joined IconBuffet I’ve had one of their dynamic banners sat on my blog. It did its job–displaying my avatar and my points total with a referrer link as well.

Now that I’ve been bitten by the bug (the same one that got me for Pokemon–”you gotta catch ‘em all”) I’ve upgraded my account to VIP. Because of this I wanted to add something a bit more detailed to my site.

This simple plugin let’s you embed a more detailed stats panel on your blog or homepage. (more…)

D13Gallery is a simple Wordpress plugin that allows you to quickly add thumbnail image galleries to your posts and pages. By including a simple HTML-like tag to the body of your post, a folder on your web server can be scanned for images and a gallery generated automatically.

An example of a d13Gallery can be seen above - a folder containing 8 images has been scanned and thumbnails generated and displayed as part of a Wordpress page.

D13Gallery is compatible with Wordpress 2.3.x, tested with Wordpress 2.5.1 and is available to download now from the Wordpress plugin repository.

Editing the settings of your d13galleries is quick and simple using the inbuilt options screen - simple adjust your settings for size, quality and layout and click “update” to apply the changes to all of your galleries.

What’s new in version 3.0.x?

The plugin code has been completely re-written providing faster processing and more robust support for the Wordpress platform as well as more support for strict PHP installs. The infamous “permalink bug” has now been fixed and additional functionality has been added to support CSS layout and lightbox components.

Above, the inbuilt options screen as part of your Wordpress admin pages.

The inbuilt options screen also features extensive support documentation helping you get the most from the plugin.

What’s new in version 3.1.x?

Version 3.1 extends the flexibility of the d13gallery plugin. Using the admin screens it is possible to define settings for how all of your d13galleries will appear — version 3.1 allows you to override these settings for specific galleries.

The sample gallery above uses the standard d13gallery code within the Wordpress post:

You can, however, specify a number of settings when you add a specific gallery:

This gallery uses some specific, overriding settings:

• Number of thumbnails per column - 2 (instead of 4)
• Max width of thumbnails - 200 (instead of 100)
• Max height of thumbnails - 160 (instead of 80)
• JPEG quality - 30% (instead of 80%)
• Launch method - lightbox (instead of js)

So, the code used within the Wordpress post to add this gallery is:

Installation

1. Begin by downloading the plugin file using the link above.
2. Extract the files to your local machine.
3. Upload the whole d13gallery folder (including the folder itself) to your plugins directory - typically http://www.yourblog.com/wp-content/plugins/
4. Activate the plugin using your Wordpress admin pages.
5. Familiarise yourself with the documentation under “options > d13galleries”
6. Get cracking!

Using a Lightbox component

There’s plenty of javascript lightbox components out there but one that is consistently reliable and easy to use is Lightbox 2 by Lokesh Dhakar. There’s also a handy Wordpress plugin to handle the script so you don’t need to manage the trouble of embedding the script and CSS into your theme.

D13design recommends Lightbox 2 by Lokesh Dhakar and the Lightbox 2 Wordpress plugin for use with d13gallery.

Like the plugin?

If you’re using the plugin and it seems to be doing what you need it to do why not show your appreciation by buying me a pint of cold, crisp beer.

Need more support?

If you’ve followed the steps above or read the help documentation and still need assistance then please add your question below.