1.5 -> 2.01 - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[devenh]

For readers not familiar with Clint Eastwood's movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", please note that my thread title is an attempt at some humor.

I've waited a while to upgrade in order to see how things have been going. I have nearly 200 galleries and over 30K photos in EE, so I didn't want to take the plunge too early.

Hopefully the problems I've run into are due to my oversights or lack of understanding and any help correcting these would be highly appreciated. I have run into one major problem which if I can't overcome soon will force me to revert back to 1.5 (see "6. Can't uplaod photos" at the end of this message)

1. The basic upgrade went smoothly - GOOD

I downloaded v2.00 and unzipped in, then applied the 2.01 patch, and made changes to the setup file all on my local PC. I upgraded by deleting everything in my existing EE gallery (except my photos directory) located on my server, then uploaded the files to the server and followed the rest of the instructions.

2. Upgrade files need checking, 2.5mb of hidden files - UGLY

Unzipping EE2_upgrade seemed to take a long time and the upload was 8mb, which seemed large. After some checking I found that the zip file contains 2.5mb of hidden files that I presume are unnecessary ("thumbs.db"). Oops!

3. Some minor upgrade issues - BAD

These are mostly minor:

a. Gallery group order set to 1 for all galleries, had to recreate the order.

b. Exhibition order reset to 10, 20, 30, 40, ... Maybe this is a new feature.

c. All my groups upgraded correctly except for two (out of about 20), which were reversed -- the Volleyball group contained baseball galleries and the Baseball group contained volleyball galleries. Rather than rearranging the groups, I just renamed them.

d. I didn't find any mention in the instructions of editng the backup preferences.php file. Only found this by reading admin\backup\readme.txt file.

e. backup/ee_backup_files needs 777 permission.

f. Rating and Comments along with Speed Measurements are turned on by the upgrade (they were off on my 1.5 setup).

g. In 1.5 I had set the default to display 30 thumbs in the list display. The upgrade reset this to 10.

4. General functionality, look, and feel - GOOD

It looks good. Here are some comments and suggestions:

a. Could use some more page styles.

b. I preferred the way 1.5 displayed microthumbs -- 2.0 greys out all the thumbs except the current image begin displayed.

c. Can the full sized images be centered in the page?

d. The bottom left hand corner of Passepartout 6 frame is missing.

e. It would be nice if there were a "Save As" option in the Styles editor. I realize you can effectively do this currently, but it takes several steps.

f. Is there a way to override the images displayed as most recent photos? Sometimes one adds images that are way, way, out of order. For instance, I just added some skiing photos from last season and it just doesn't seem right to have them displayed as most recent.

g. How can you add more flash options in the default photodata form?

h. It would be great if the structure editor could display groups in alpha order.

5. Batch photo/size updater not practical for 30k photos - UGLY

It is just not practical to use this form to upgrade over 30k photos. I can only process 8 to 18 photos at a time. I'd have to this 3,000 times ...

6. Can't upload photos - VERY UGLY

I created an new gallery, uploaded the photos, and began uploading. In 1.5 I could select 50+ photos at a time to upload and it worked very well. With 2.01 I can upload only 1 to 5 photos at a time. Sometimes I upload 500 photos to a gallery, so this is a MAJOR problem which may cause me to revert back to 1.5 very soon.

After uploading 40 photos (of 80), EE will no longer upload any photos. I press the upload button and just get a blank screen.

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving,

Deven
www.biglens.com

[Pekka]

2. Upgrade files need checking, 2.5mb of hidden files - UGLY

Unzipping EE2_upgrade seemed to take a long time and the upload was 8mb, which seemed large. After some checking I found that the zip file contains 2.5mb of hidden files that I presume are unnecessary ("thumbs.db"). Oops!

Good point.


3. Some minor upgrade issues - BAD

These are mostly minor:

a. Gallery group order set to 1 for all galleries, had to recreate the order.

Because site structure changed a lot internally. This is a big upgrade and some things are not so smooth.


b. Exhibition order reset to 10, 20, 30, 40, ... Maybe this is a new feature.

Yes, and I'll make it an option later.

c. All my groups upgraded correctly except for two (out of about 20), which were reversed -- the Volleyball group contained baseball galleries and the Baseball group contained volleyball galleries. Rather than rearranging the groups, I just renamed them.

That's bit odd :)

d. I didn't find any mention in the instructions of editng the backup preferences.php file. Only found this by reading admin\backup\readme.txt file.

e. backup/ee_backup_files needs 777 permission.

I assumed these were familiar issued because this was an upgrade to already working installations.

f. Rating and Comments along with Speed Measurements are turned on by the upgrade (they were off on my 1.5 setup).

g. In 1.5 I had set the default to display 30 thumbs in the list display. The upgrade reset this to 10.

Again, some things were easier to reset than revert.

4. General functionality, look, and feel - GOOD

It looks good. Here are some comments and suggestions:

a. Could use some more page styles.

I think so, too.

b. I preferred the way 1.5 displayed microthumbs -- 2.0 greys out all the thumbs except the current image begin displayed.

c. Can the full sized images be centered in the page?

The transparencies and other visible stuff are style CSS issues that you can freely alter and edit.

d. The bottom left hand corner of Passepartout 6 frame is missing.

The whole frame pack is a bit messy.

e. It would be nice if there were a "Save As" option in the Styles editor. I realize you can effectively do this currently, but it takes several steps.

The save feature was a last minute addition. I'll see if it can be made as a package (zip?) later.

f. Is there a way to override the images displayed as most recent photos? Sometimes one adds images that are way, way, out of order. For instance, I just added some skiing photos from last season and it just doesn't seem right to have them displayed as most recent.

Well it's a computer program and those are quite inflexible unless you instruct them what to do. What do you want there exactly?

g. How can you add more flash options in the default photodata form?

Edit admin/SETTINGS_dropdowns.php
Also via "Edit EE system files" editor.

h. It would be great if the structure editor could display groups in alpha order.

I think it does (there should be small order buttons there, or maybe they are 2.02...).

5. Batch photo/size updater not practical for 30k photos - UGLY

It is just not practical to use this form to upgrade over 30k photos. I can only process 8 to 18 photos at a time. I'd have to this 3,000 times ...

That step is not a show-stopper - and you can do it is batches. What you say about 8-18 photos at a time sounds strange, I have done thousands at a time without problems.

6. Can't upload photos - VERY UGLY

I created an new gallery, uploaded the photos, and began uploading. In 1.5 I could select 50+ photos at a time to upload and it worked very well. With 2.01 I can upload only 1 to 5 photos at a time. Sometimes I upload 500 photos to a gallery, so this is a MAJOR problem which may cause me to revert back to 1.5 very soon.

After uploading 40 photos (of 80), EE will no longer upload any photos. I press the upload button and just get a blank screen.

This must be related to the size updater problem above. Upload should work with any number of photos. Are the resulting files ok? Blank non responsive screen is ofter a sign of too low php memory limit. Try changing your php.ini

memory_limit = 32M

Other pitfalls may be
- browser
- virus checker / web page sniffer
- firewall settings
- slow server (or actually slow server data buffering)

If you like me to take a look and try out some possibilities PM me info how to reach your EE admin and access the folder with ftp. I'm most interested to see what the problem is and find a cure.

[Faustini]

Hi!

Regarding issue #2:

Pekka, at the DOS prompt of Windows XP, run the following command line in the root of your installation package just before zipping it:

del /f /s /q /ah thumbs.db

That command should silently erase all Thumbs.db files from all subfolders from within it is run, including hidden and read-only ones.

;)

[devenh]

PEKKA:

I have sent you a PM. Thank you!

I understand that my "Most recent photos" problem is unusual. Maybe an option to exclude a gallery from the "Most recent photos" selection would be something to consider. I am sure there are other things on your list that are a much higher priority.

FAUSTINI:

After deleting the thumbs.db files on your local drive, you may want to check to make sure that they were not copied onto your server. My FTP program did copy the hidden files to the server, so I had to delete them there too.

Deven

[Pekka]

Deven, You have PM.

[devenh]

Just an update:

Pekka worked over the weekend and fixed the major problems which were apparently unique to the configuration of PHP and Apache on my server. Thank you Pekka!

I can now select thousands of photos and update their sizes, a vast improvement.

Uploading photos has also significantly improved. I would suggest that the Batch Sleep and Report Type options available in the photo size updating form be applied to the uploading photos form in order to speed up this process.

My guess is that 1.5 was still faster that 2.0 when adding photos because it did not have to perform the browser updates that 2.0 is doing. Since I fequently add 200 or more photos at a time (often from a hotel room late at night), any further improvements would be appreciated.

Thanks again,

Deven

[yosemite]

Yes it does seem that 1.5 is faster than 2.1 since i retrograded back to 1.5. i had 2.1 installed and running great and had no problems at all and was very satisfied until i ran into the ie6 thumbnail display problem. many of my galleries would not display in ie6 and i guess it is a problem in ie6 since 2.1 is xhtml compliant. it seems like it would only effect certain galleries.

this coupled with no support for ecommerce forced me back to 1.5

once these are resolved i would not hesitate to go back to 2.1 in a second!