A few questions before upgrading

[busynut]

Hi all,
I installed EE 1.22 last summer and haven't been able to devote attention to it in the past few months due to numerous server/hosting problems. Hopefully those are now behind me so I've been reading through the posts here concerning the new 1.3 version and have some questions before upgrading. I downloaded the new version and have read through the documentation. If these have already been addressed yet I've somehow missed the answers I hope someone will direct me.

1. Payment for new version: Is the only method of payment PayPal? Are there any plans to accept credit cards? If we don't wish to open a PayPal account could payment be arranged via snail mail?

2. Templates and header/footer: I see in the new version there is a header/footer which is customizable. I'm wondering if this will allow me to do something like this... on the front index page I wish to use one of my photos as a banner so page margins would be zero (left and top). But on subsequent pages showing the exhibit browser and photos I do not want the page margins to be zero (meaning I don't want the same header). I've been trying to figure out how to do this in version 1.22 (haven't succeeded yet), and wonder if this flexibility is already built in to the new version?

3. On the same topic as 2. above, I suspect there's a way to do this with the individual stylesheets but since I'm no CSS expert I haven't figured out how to do this and how many of the ee scripts may need to be edited. Can anyone give me some advice?

4. Somewhere in the documentation in the 1.3 version I saw there were two different shareware amounts - one for the EE backup ($15?) and another for the new version ($35), yet the EE backup seems to be included in the upgrade version? Could you clarify if the total shareware amount is $50 or is the backup amount already included in the $35?

Pekka, thank you for providing such a comprehensive gallery program - it's definitely worth the investment.

[Pekka]

busynut wrote:
Hi all,
I installed EE 1.22 last summer and haven't been able to devote attention to it in the past few months due to numerous server/hosting problems. Hopefully those are now behind me so I've been reading through the posts here concerning the new 1.3 version and have some questions before upgrading. I downloaded the new version and have read through the documentation. If these have already been addressed yet I've somehow missed the answers I hope someone will direct me.

1. Payment for new version: Is the only method of payment PayPal? Are there any plans to accept credit cards? If we don't wish to open a PayPal account could payment be arranged via snail mail?

Currently Paypal is the only way, or sending cash to

Pekka Saarinen
Jollaksentie 55 E 1
FIN-00850 Helsinki
Finland

Finnish banks do not cash personal checks (!).
I'm in process of finding some shareware registration service which accepts all credit cards.

2. Templates and header/footer: I see in the new version there is a header/footer which is customizable. I'm wondering if this will allow me to do something like this... on the front index page I wish to use one of my photos as a banner so page margins would be zero (left and top). But on subsequent pages showing the exhibit browser and photos I do not want the page margins to be zero (meaning I don't want the same header). I've been trying to figure out how to do this in version 1.22 (haven't succeeded yet), and wonder if this flexibility is already built in to the new version?

Version 1.3RC has a page margin setting (0 to anything, in pixels) which is common for all pages. Of course e.g. index page can be hacked to have a different (i.e. fixed) setting quite easily.

3. On the same topic as 2. above, I suspect there's a way to do this with the individual stylesheets but since I'm no CSS expert I haven't figured out how to do this and how many of the ee scripts may need to be edited. Can anyone give me some advice?

See above.

4. Somewhere in the documentation in the 1.3 version I saw there were two different shareware amounts - one for the EE backup ($15?) and another for the new version ($35), yet the EE backup seems to be included in the upgrade version? Could you clarify if the total shareware amount is $50 or is the backup amount already included in the $35?

EE 1.3 licence is $35 and includes licence to use EE Backup when EE Backup is used only for EE.

If you use EE Backup for other databases than EE, then EE Backup licence is $15.

Pekka, thank you for providing such a
comprehensive gallery program - it's definitely worth the investment.


Thanks a lot!

[busynut]

Thank you, Pekka, for the payment information! I've copied the snail mail address... but am also hoping you'll be able to find a credit card solution. When you say Finnish banks don't accept personal checks... would they accept a certified bank check? :)

And thanks for clearing up the amounts due for upgrading. I hadn't realized the backup could be used for other purposes.

I found a solution to the styles problem I described! I've been banging my head for days over this and the solution (well at least the one I came up with) was pretty easy.

I wanted to use a banner image on the front index page and have page margins set to zero. I also wanted to use the same "style" on other pages but didn't want to include the banner or have the margins at zero. So I set up two stylesheets in the Styles folder (mystyle1 and mystyle2) - exactly the same with the exception of the Body element - where I inserted the desired page margins. Of course I added these styles to the styles.php script in the main directory. Then in the admin area I selected 'mystyle1' for the main index page and 'mystyle2' for the exhibits. There's probably an even easier way to accomplish the same thing, but this seems to work fine. I'm still using version 1.22, so perhaps I'll need to edit everything all over again when I get around to upgrading.

I'm still fine-tuning the style images and haven't linked the gallery yet into the rest of my site. I'll be able to post a link soon though I hope.

One more question (for now): on the rest of my site I link to my stylesheets in the head and this helps to reduce the amount of coding on each page since once the style is downloaded it's cached in the browser. Is it possible to do the same thing in EE rather than have the stylesheet printed on each individual page that's generated? Or is this not possible since it's a php file not a css file?

Thanks again!

[NetButch]

You can simply make an include file that covers your styles, then include them on the index page.

the php code for including is very simple



and everything in the filename.inc file will be inserted into your HTML in just the place you type that statement.

you can see my headers and footers on my website are created this way.

http://cmwphotography.us/gallery/index.php

have a great day.
Butch

[busynut]

Sorry I haven't had much time to get back in here for a while. Thank you, Netbutch, for your suggestion about the include file for the css - but that's basically the way it's currently set up. I guess I was wondering if there was a way to have it linked externally in the head i.e.
[link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"] - so that once it's downloaded by the browser it doesn't have to be included in the actual html page, thereby making loading faster. But on further reflection I guess that would be quite complicated since virtually all the php scripts in use by EE are set up to include it the way it presently is set up. ok I guess I'm just rambling now.

I still haven't upgraded (yes I'm quite the slowpoke)... mostly because I've been fiddling with my stylesheet. Got most things worked out but somewhere along the way I made a typo in one of the scripts which is showing up on the top of the "list.php" pages. LOL. Also, when I select "detail listing" in the exhibition browser the background colors for the column header and the rollovers are an awful dark brown color that I can't seem to get rid of. I can't find where to control this setting in the stylesheet (assuming it's in the stylesheet of course!).

If anyone would care to take a look-see and give me some feedback I'd be grateful.

http://www.bevzprintz.com/fp/ee/

Thanks!
Bev