Gallery 2 FAQ [Work in Progress]

Q: How do I update my CVS version of G2 without losing my images?
A: If you read the above question, you know there is a reason not to use G2 as your photo gallery yet. This is why. Currently, when you "update" your version of G2 it may require that you DROP the DB and clear the data dir. This means you lose all your hard earned $$$! (well, pictures actually). You can update cvs, and if everything appears to work... don't worry. If things appear broken, you should zap your gallery and start over.
Update: G2A4 Includes support for upgrading between releases of G2. It may not work backwards from G2A4 (A3, A2, A1), but it will work going forward. Of course, you may still end up having to zap your db and /g2data dir.

Q: How do I update my CVS version of G2 without losing my images?
A: See /gallery2/README.html for general instructions. Starting with alpha-4 upgrades are supported (you may not be able to upgrade from previous alphas however).. the basic process is to overwrite the codebase with the new code, then visit your gallery. You'll automatically see the upgrader if a core upgrade is required. If you don't see the upgrader then login as an administrator and visit Site Admin / Modules to see if any other modules need to be upgraded.

Q: Why do I have to delete my database and directory?
A: During the alpha, the developers want to be able to change the directory and/or database structure without having to worry about how the old code will deal with things. This means that its possible your "old" database or files will not be compatible with your "updated" G2. The reason for this is pretty simple: If they don't have to worry about this, they have far more time to code. Do you want them spending precious development time figuring out how to import old G2 data or making G2 better and better?
Update: G2A4 introduced the ability to upgrade from one version to the next on a moving forward basis. By that, I mean it can update anything after G2A4 but may have issues doing it for releases before G2A4.

Q: Are there plans to allow upgrading G2 to newer versions without loss of data?
A: YES! This is just an alpha thing to speed development. I would guess that near the end of alpha or beginning of beta, the db/dir will be stable enough for development of these tools. Update: This could be present in the next alpha!
Update: The ability to upgrade G2 between versions has been added in G2A4. It is possible that the upgrade script will NOT work on previous versions of gallery, but it should work from G2A4 forward.

Q: I customized a *.tpl.local file, but then removed it... but the customization is still showing up. Did I do something wrong?
A: If you remove a *.tpl.local file it won't switch back to the *.tpl file due to smarty caching. You can get it to switch back to *.tpl by clearing the smarty cache manually on the filesystem, using FlushTemplates test found in the /lib/tools/test/ page or by doing 'touch filename.tpl' which causes the last change time to update.

Q: I customized a *.tpl file, but then removed it... but the customization is still showing up. Did I do something wrong?
A: If you remove a local/*.tpl or *.tpl.local file it won't switch back to the *.tpl file due to smarty caching. You can get it to switch back to *.tpl by clearing the smarty cache manually on the filesystem, using FlushTemplates test found in the /lib/tools/test/ page or by doing 'touch filename.tpl' which causes the last change time to update.

Q: I really wish this feature were part of G2, is it planned? (there are surely ones I am missing?)
A: It is possible that it is planned. A few things I have heard mentioned include plans for mirroring, load balancing, upgrading from previous versions of G2...

Q: I really wish this feature were part of G2, is it planned?
A: It is possible that it is planned. See this list of requested features. Also see the feature request section on sourceforge. If you don't see your idea listed you can file a feature request on sourceforge and/or start a discussion about your idea in the G2 Development forum. If you do see your idea listed it may still be a long time before it gets implemented so if you or someone you know can help out with development, please do!

Q: Is the slideshow broken? Should the display of images/thumbs be messed up?
A: Its possible that the "IE7" code they are testing is messing something up for you. Try copying the "/templates/global.tpl" -> "/templates/global.tpl.local" and then deleting or commenting out the IE7 specific code. I believe it is the section below, so you know.

    {* We're experimenting with Dean Edward's IE7 patch:  http://dean.edwards.na
me/IE7 *}
    <!-- compliance patch for microsoft browsers -->
    <!--[if lt IE 7]>
    <script src="{g->url href="lib/IE7/ie7-standard.js"}" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="{g->url href="lib/IE7/ie7-css3.js"}" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="{g->url href="lib/IE7/ie7-css-strict.js"}" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <![endif]-->

Update: The IE7 code has been removed, but fixes and optomizations for IE6 have not yet been done. This means that some things may look wonkey, laid out quite oddly... but it is being worked on. You should be able to figure out if it is an IE6 issue by viewing your site in something like Mozilla Firefox. If it works in Firefox but not IE6, its due to the code not yet being optomized for IE6.

Q: Something looks funny in IE6?
A: We recently removed a standards compliance patch for IE (caused more problems than it solved) and may not have resolved all rendering issues in IE. You should be able to figure out if it is an IE6 issue by viewing your site in something like Mozilla Firefox. If it works in Firefox but not IE6, its due to the code not yet being optimized for IE6.

Contact us in the forum if you are having problems or need help.

Contact us in the G2 Development forum if you are having problems or need help.

Q: Once I have G2, where do I begin?
A: The BEST place to start is /gallery2/README.html. If you wish to jump ahead and start the install, you can point your browser at /gallery2/install/ instead. If its your first time, you WILL need to visit the README.html in order to get your MySQL DB setup.

Q: Once I have G2, where do I begin?
A: The BEST place to start is /gallery2/README.html. If you wish to jump ahead and start the install, you can point your browser at /gallery2/install/ instead. If it's your first time, you will need to visit the README.html in order to find database setup instructions.

Q: I am having trouble configuring a graphics toolkit (ImageMagick, NetPBM or ffmpeg). Help?
A: First- when the configuration asks for the path it is not asking for the path to the gallery2 module (like gallery2/modules/imagemagick). These directories are G2's interfaces to these programs and not the programs themselves. You need to find or install the binaries on your system, make sure they are executable, and enter the appropriate path in the configuration.

Q: I get an error about "max key length" installing with MySQL?
A: If you see this error while installing the Core module: Specified key was too long; max key length is 1000 bytes then you need to switch the database character set to something other than utf8. Currently some indexes we use exceed this default MySQL limit if the charset is utf8.

Q: I'm unable to install G2 Alpha-4 with Postgres db.. what's wrong?
A: There was a problem in alpha-4 with postgres.. please try a recent nightly snapshot instead (14-Dec for partial fix -- will allow you to install -- 21-Dec for full fix -- will also allow links to work).

Q: I'm trying the User Albums module with G2 Alpha-4 and it does nothing.. what's wrong?
A: There was a bug in alpha-4 with that module.. it does in fact do nothing.. update to a recent snapshot and it will work again.

Q: Where I should see dates I see "Wrong charset, cannot convert" or "Illegal character encoding" or "Illegal recode request".. what is wrong?
A: Some operating systems report invalid character sets to PHP leading to errors when trying to convert system-generated content (like day/month names in dates) to UTF-8. Work around this problem by placing the following in config.php:

require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/modules/core/classes/GalleryCapabilities.class');
GalleryCapabilities::set('systemCharset', 'ISO-8859-1');

Replace 'ISO-8859-1' with the appropriate character set for your system.