EE officailly dead?

[Cyclist]

In contrast to former comments by Pekka some months ago the project EE seems to be dead. Pekka hardly reacts to questions since changing the forum structure some months ago, only very few other user are able to help (if at all) and there is still no information about the "how" and "when" of going open-source. All these facts lead to the impression that Pekka is more interested in the photo forums and left EE alone. I understand that EE probably got too time consuming but I would have preferred if Pekka had given more information about his plans around EE. As it is now it's too uncertain if EE will continue or not. And how to get help if problems occure.
So I have to say Good bye! I love using EE and still think it's one ofy the best gallery scripts but with the lack of support I have to look for another solution. Sorry.

[UweB]

Yes, my thoughts as well. Especially while thinking of adding ever more photos to EE which is a lot work...
I few clear words from the owner would be nice...

[Pekka]

Before I say anything I have a question: exactly what are the support issues you have had with EE and which are not resolved or answered?

[Cyclist]

Well, it's not only what's concerning me but also observing questions of users not being answered / solved when the suggestions of other users couldn't help.

I don't want to offend you but for instance you promised in September posting the code for using repatcha within comments and guestbook. Taligent posted his own version but this one has an issue when CAPTCHA is entered incorrectly (you have to hit the back button then). For your version I am still waiting...

Other users had questions which weren't ansered since probaly nobody except you can't help in there cases (look for instance at the comment form issues wkitty42 and Tini72 reported).

you also wrote in July:
An announcement:
After careful consideration I have made my mind. In next month Exhibit Engine 2 is to be put under GPL licence which means Open Source. That means (hopefully) plenty of updates and fixes, improvements and features. I simply do not have time to do it it all myself, and EE is worth preservation and updates. So I look forward to work with people who are enthusiastic and eager to make the best gallery application surpass itself.
More details later,
Pekka

But you haven't given any further information yet and we have already February 2009...

I have observed this forum for many months and many questions kept not being answers when e.g. jeromino couldn't help. This all got worse whith establishing the new forum structure removing the EE forums from the main forum site. All that led to my impression that EE would be dead and the captain is leaving the sinking ship. I would be more than happy if my impression would be wrong and all is "only" due to a lack of communication. But also the lack of communcation leads to a great uncertainty.

What concerns me most is the uncertainty...

If you are still follow up the EE project it might be usefull if you would give more details about your plans and at least a little more intermediate information. Then everybody would know that the project is still being followed up and how it is going on.

I really would be happy if EE is going on and I could stay with that gallery script.

[devenh]

Pekka,

As a long time EE user, I share Cyclist's feeling that EE is dead. There have been no updates in over two years. The open source discussion seems to be going nowhere. Traffic on these discussion boards is way down and seems to indicate users are turning to other alternatives.

My feeling is that EE has had a very good external design. By that I mean the pages the end user sees and the pages that the web site owner uses to manage EE are well desiged.. OTOH, I think the PHP, CSS, and HTML code are unmanageable. I strongly suspect that this has made it very difficult for you to enhance and update EE.

If you are not going to further enhance EE and are not going to manage an open source type project, then I think you should simply release it to the public domain.

Deven

[Cyclist]

I am really confused. It's more than one week ago when I replied to Pekka's question but he didn't answer mine so far. That's a pretty long time. But meanwhile I noticed that on Pekka's site is running EE 2.04 which seems to be a new version (I hope).

Pekka, if you read this, would you be so kind answering the question about the future of EE? It doesn't has to be too detailed, just a general direction.

I only want to know if EE is going on and how.

[Pekka]

OTOH, I think the PHP, CSS, and HTML code are unmanageable. I strongly suspect that this has made it very difficult for you to enhance and update EE.

On the contrary, to me EE2 code is very clear - I wrote it you know :) It's procedural, logical, compatible and simple when you consider all what it does. I just recently did (on one EE2 user request) some small changes in EE list page display code which got 600-2000% faster display on very large galleries (tens of thousands of photos), I also rewrote random photos code for greatly improved speed and added Captchas. Else I have not had any need to make any changes to it. I have 90% of code done for converting EE2 databases to UTF-8, but as I do not need that feature it has not interested me much to put it on top of todo list. I know installer needs to be done, it's simple code to ask few questions and dump database but somehow I have never had time complete it. I have some other very big programming tasks which take all my spare time now.

If you need help understanding the code just ask. If you can write something better please share it. If you see bugs in EE code just tell me.

About styles (CSS):

Default CSS template in EE 2 is an example of what can be done. A style could be done without DIVs, some DIVs, only in Javascript, in any way you like. You don't need to use any templates but Global if you dislike complexity. 99% of components in templates do not have any html code in them. I have spent countless hours to do that open template system for EE2 users (else I would have done my own gallery hard coded). How many redesigned new styles have I seen shared? None. To me it frankly feels like work wasted.

People just can't be bothered and that is also how I now feel with Open Source: I have a hunch that in the end it'll be me who needs to do it all just like until now.

If you like to consider EE dead, then so be it, move on. To me it will never be dead. I'll keep doing it when needed and support those who need support. I check these forums when I have time - and lately I have not had much of it.

If you are not going to further enhance EE and are not going to manage an open source type project, then I think you should simply release it to the public domain.
Deven

Why? What will be different?

[devenh]

Pekka,

Thanks for your reply and thank you for all the work you've put into EE!

If you are making improvements, do you ever intend to officially release them?

Here are some of the concerns I have:

1. Upload speed has always been much slower than 1.5, often taking 2 hours to upload 700 photos.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=258244&highlight=upload

2. Support for color class and star ratings which are now pretty standard.

3. Lightbox.

4. Ability to import all IPTC fields and EXIF data (ExifTool does a great job of reading camera specific data). For instance, there should be no need to guess the lens or camera model as it is all there in teh EXIF.

5. Ability to search on multiple fields (e.g. category is X and keyword is Y).

If you can comment on any of these, it would be helpful.

Deven

[Cyclist]

Pekka, do you intend answering my questions at all?

[Pekka]

Pekka,

Thanks for your reply and thank you for all the work you've put into EE!

If you are making improvements, do you ever intend to officially release them?

Here are some of the concerns I have:

1. Upload speed has always been much slower than 1.5, often taking 2 hours to upload 700 photos.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=258244&highlight=upload


Some ftp servers are slow on handshake and fixing that is something that can not be helped in EE. For faster uploads, use Imagemagick (avoid GD2 sharpening if possible, it's very slow), upload largest photo sizes and set their size path to "NONE" (which means "just copy it"), then set other size paths to smaller than that.

In EDITOR_perform_upload.php set lines 48 and 49:

$s_redraw_force = "5000";
$sleep = "2"

to

$s_redraw_force = "0";
$sleep = "0"

but this means in many servers that you do not see the upload progress but "in flashes".

Only reason I can think for EE2 being is a bit slower than EE 1.5 is because EE2 does Imagemagick conversion the correct way, i.e. in better quality.

2. Support for color class and star ratings which are now pretty standard.

You means changing colors with Javascript? AJAX ratings? Jquery is someting that I have done a lot lately, so in time EE will get some of that, too.

3. Lightbox.

It's a lot of work to design and do it properly in list page, without tons of forms and tickboxes. Should be implemented with Jquery in my opinion.

4. Ability to import all IPTC fields and EXIF data (ExifTool does a great job of reading camera specific data). For instance, there should be no need to guess the lens or camera model as it is all there in teh EXIF.

I have had this requirement from the beginning: EE2 should not require any extra apps or modules to work. Making ExifTool as option is a lot of work for just getting MakerData in.

5. Ability to search on multiple fields (e.g. category is X and keyword is Y).

You can search photos in Category X and keyword Y in current EE2. You can also search all text fields. Multiple keywords are possible to code, but IHMO overkill - that's why I have not implemented them.

[Cyclist]

Pekka, why are you deleting my message? I just asked you to deactive/delete my account. That's possible with every forum system but I can't do it myself. So please delete my account!

[Pekka]

Pekka, why are you deleting my message? I just asked you to deactive/delete my account. That's possible with every forum system but I can't do it myself. So please delete my account!

We do not allow goodbye messages, that is the reason I deleted your post. If you do not want to use the forum, then do not log in. I do not delete any accounts here.

[DeadKenny]

Hi,

My only concern when I see a lack of updates is whether security is being kept an eye on. It's easy to be over confident about how secure your code is, but a new unknown before hack can easily pop up on any system. Looking through my logs there are a huge amount of hits on EE and some look like attempts at finding a back door. Though the vast majority are from Googlebot (so much that's it's consuming a fair bit of bandwidth!).

Anyway, I'm just concerned about leaving EE on my system when I haven't seen updates in a couple of years. Okay it's likely it's not needed any, but it's a confidence thing really as I'm used to regular updates on most software for security and bug fixes :D

I'm moving my server shortly to a NAS (probably a QNAP device) and not sure what I'll do about a gallery then anyway. I have seen posts about EE on QNAP though. Then again I tend to use Flickr far more than EE now. Though Flickr isn't entirely what I want. The sharing and social aspect is great, but it's a rubbish way of presenting photos, especially with the horrible white background. I think it may end up being either EE hosted by me or I get a paid account on a professional photo gallery site.

Cheers,

Tim.

[Pekka]

Googlebot has a habit of trying out nonexistent parameters to php variables, just to find if there is anything there. Often these end up in empty page for client and sometimes an error internally (especially with random keywords), so I have now redirected all "unknowns" to first page of combined exhibition. Then there are people who try SQL injections and empty vars, and those produce and error page and stored error in EE. When you see an error it means the attempt did not succeed.

Security is taken seriously, I assure.

One recently found bugfix that you should do is to replace in basecode/SECURITY_datacleaner.php

$data = str_replace($badbadbad,$goodgoodgood,$data);

with

$data = str_ireplace($badbadbad,$goodgoodgood,$data);

[DeadKenny]

Hi Pekka,

Thanks for the bugfix. Is there any central place and/or way you could notify us of these fixes though? As I say, security is my primary concern and not knowing about a fix could leave my site vulnerable potentially.

Looking forward, some kind of auto update / patching system would make things easier for those who would find it hard to maintain by hand editing source code.

Would be great if EE could get to where Wordpress is now in so far as the updating and maybe plugin system goes.

[ptlee]

Hi Pekka,

Would the download at http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=250579 include the fixes you have done since 2.02 was released?

Thanks.

Cheers,
PTLee

[PrimaPhoto]

I have been a member for years and still use EE and I think Pekka has done a wonderful job!!!

bw!

[UweB]

I'm a long time user/member as well and i agree that EEx is a great gallery for the internet as well as for real fotografers. But i miss further development as well. Right now there is no way to guess/know in which direction EEx is going... if at all.

[sh0x]

I'm a new user to EE, but a few friends have been using it for years. One of the reasons I waited to set this up is because the main page says there will be a full install for EE2 soon, so I waited for a couple of years. I had to search to find 1.5RC4 so that I could use the 2.0 upgrade and then the 2.02 upgrade. It seems the main thing was the DB creation and updates to the tables, otherwise I could have started with EE2 without going through this extensive installation. A simple sql file that I could import would simplify this install greatly.

I understand the author is busy but there doesn't appear to be an avenue for the community to contribute other than this forum. The documentation is difficult to locate. I don't see many how to's for customization. The app seems well written and I feel there would be more development, plugins, templates, and documentation available if the application was open source. It'd be a good start if the full install for EE2 was released and the main EE2 page updated, this would attract more people who could contribute to the project, but it "looks dead". The community could help with this, but there is no easy way to do so.

Otherwise I look forward to using my new installation of EE and hope for contributions from a growing community. The app serves its purpose as it is and is very functional, its the best gallery I've seen but it could be that much better. I've used coppermine and gallery2 but EE looks and feels much more professional. Its written by a photographer for photographers to display their images professionally. Thanks for this!

[picman]

Check this thread for a 2.0.4 install solution:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=9705405#post9705405