GLoSS - Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer now available
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-07-25 20:13
SuicideDog wrote:
Well on my pictureframe (400mhz) it's a little slow with the transitions now.
Weird. I really didn't think I'd been doing any work in that area between this version and 0.6. Yeah, I could slightly reduce the number of frames as you suggest in the next version.
I haven't played around with the desktop changer. My attention is primarily on the screensaver. So far it's working great and I haven't had any problems with it. I'll let you know more. I would still really love some of those hot keys I talked about, but other than that it's great.
Stephen
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-07-25 23:01
Thanks.
I'm really unsure how to go forward with the hotkeys to integrate with Gallery directly (i.e. take you to the Gallery page for the current image). The reason is that the ImageBlock module does not give me an ID back that I can use to reference back to the image in the gallery. It may be that I can make a modification to the ImageBlock module, but that's not really my area of expertise currently, and it then means that anyone wanting this functionality then needs to modify their own Gallery to support it, which just makes the whole issue of support more complicated for me.
I am looking at putting a feature in the Desktop Changer to record a history of images that the screensaver shows, so that you can go back and view the last 10 images that the screensaver showed etc.
I'm also working at superimposing the EXIF info and Gallery description discreetly over each screen saver image if desired (fully configurable of course).
Did you also change the fading effect. It seems to fade a little slower now.
Been thinking about this a bit more.
I think the issue may be caused by the new image sampling I'm having to do to nicely resize images to fit. I notice a difference in the speed between two PCs of mine, once of which just has onboard graphics and which is noticeably slower at times.
Just downloaded 0.8.0.6 I'm running it on Win2k without any problems. Is there anyway to have it not download the original file? Generally the original file is much larger than I need. I tried leaving the username and password blank as I don't give the anonymous user rights to view the original image, just the largest resized image. However, it looks like you have to use your Gallery ID for GLoSS to work. Generally speaking, for me, the largest resized image is the biggest I would ever need. Is this possible? Or is it possible to not supply the username and password?
Tim Musa http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-08-29 00:02
It should work fine without specifying a username and password.
If you don't specify a username, GLoSS won't attempt to log on to your Gallery before attempting to download an image. You won't obviously be able to specify which albums GLoSS should download random images from in that case.
Using the DebugView utility mentioned on my website, and the details of your gallery, I can see that GLoSS is using the following command to retrieve a random image from your Gallery: http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=imageblock.External&g2_blocks=randomImage&g2_show=fullSize|heading|title&g2_maxSize=1024
which should be a standard Gallery URL appropriate to the ImageBlock module.
If I enter this into a browser, I get... nothing.
After taking some of the parameters off the end of the URL, I found that removing the fullSize value from the g2_show parameter will then give me an image from your Gallery. However, this image is only thumbnail sized.
It seems to me that this is a limitation of the ImageBlock functionality, and as such, there is not a lot I can do about it unfortunately. What I have been keen to do with GLoSS is to have it work with the ImageBlock module as-is (i.e. not have to get users of GLoSS to customise their ImageBlock module just to get GLoSS to work). Besides, I don't really know much PHP at all. ;-)
I quite agree that what you're looking for (to be able to download the largest publicly available resized image) would be great, but I think it's out of my control (being a limitation of Gallery, not GLoSS).
You've probably already considered this, but I just use a Gallery username and password with read-only permissions for GLoSS to use when accessing my Gallery. Would that workaround be good enough for you?
I'd be keen to know what you think. I've one or two suggestions I would like to make to Gallery devs about the ImageBlock module, so the more feedback I get, then the more that helps me with my suggestions for slight changes to the ImageBlock module.
Generally the original file is much larger than I need.
Another thing I should reiterate is that GLoSS caches all images locally. It's only the first time that each image is retrieved from your Gallery that the image will be downloaded.
I'm not saying that is an answer to your query. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to worry about GLoSS using a lot of bandwidth every time it tries to retrieve an image from your Gallery.
Thanks for the clarification of the image size options.
I did run into what I think is a problem. I am running GLoSS on Windows 2000 here at work. All I use here is the screen saver portion, and that is working perfectly. However, I installed it at home on my wife's computer (also running Windows 2000). On her's, all I wanted to use was the desktop changer. This doesn't seem to download any images from the gallery. I tried the screen saver on her computer and that works perfectly, downloading and caching images from the albums I selected. The desktop changer does pull images from the cache, but never downloads any new images. I checked this at work today and see the same results. All features of the screen saver seem to work, while the desktop changer only pulls images from an existing cache directory. I know that in previous posts you were not really supporting Windows 2000. Just wondering if you could look at this? I can help in any way you might need.
Tim Musa http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-08-31 20:13
Tim,
Thanks for all the feedback.
I'll certainly look into it. I can probably set up a Win2000 machine to do some testing on.
I've sent you a private message regarding your Gallery settings.
I did run into what I think is a problem. I am running GLoSS on Windows 2000 here at work. All I use here is the screen saver portion, and that is working perfectly. However, I installed it at home on my wife's computer (also running Windows 2000). On her's, all I wanted to use was the desktop changer. This doesn't seem to download any images from the gallery. I tried the screen saver on her computer and that works perfectly, downloading and caching images from the albums I selected. The desktop changer does pull images from the cache, but never downloads any new images. I checked this at work today and see the same results. All features of the screen saver seem to work, while the desktop changer only pulls images from an existing cache directory. I know that in previous posts you were not really supporting Windows 2000. Just wondering if you could look at this?
I did some testing on a clean Windows 2000 machine running on Virtual PC and hitting my own Gallery. Both the desktop changer and the screensaver seem to work fine for me. I emptied the local cache folder before testing both of them, and they seemed quite happy.
I'll be honest, I can't think what would explain the difference you're experiencing, I'm sorry. Like I said the other day, they both use the same code to talk to your Gallery, so if one of them works, the other one should too.
If you wanted to, you could try running the DebugView tool which I mention on the Instructions page on my website, which would give you a log of what the desktop changer and screensaver are doing. You could save that output and email it to me if you want me to look into it further.
I sent you a PM with my DebugView log files. It looks to me like the Desktop Changer is not logging into the gallery, and therefore is no able to pull down a new image. Since I don't make the original sized images available to Guest, GLoSS probably can't download the right image.
Hope this helps.
Tim Musa http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
KevinRea
Joined: 2006-09-13
Posts: 17
Posted: Wed, 2006-09-13 22:52
Conor,
I don't think that this is a Windows 2000 specific issue. I just downloaded GLoSS and am running it on a Windows XP machine and am observing exactly the same behavior as Tim. Also original sized images are available to the user configured to login to my Gallery2 site.
My Gallery2 (version 2.1.2) site is hosted on a Linux machine:
Operating system Linux
Kernel version 2.6.17.7-grsec
Machine Type i686
Apache version 1.3.37 (Unix)
PERL version 5.8.7
PHP version 4.4.2
I'll also send you DebugView log files in a personal email.
Kevin Rea
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Wed, 2006-09-13 23:16
Thanks guys,
I will look into this hopefully in the next few days, and the log files will be helpful.
I sent you a detailed message including the log file, but here's my quick analysis. The screen saver logs in when it starts up using the configured username/password. The desktop changer does not. I have Gallery2 configured so "guest" does not have any view permissions. When I give "guest" view permissions the desktop changer works. In my opinion, the destop changer should also log in before attempting to retieve an image.
I hope this helps. Great stuff by the way.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 03:02
Tim/Kevin,
You guys are indeed correct. The Desktop Changer was not logging in before attempting to retrieve random images. I have my Gallery configured to serve images to anyone, which was why my (obviously shortsighted!) testing hadn't picked it up.
I've now fixed this and tested it against Tim's gallery on WinXP, and it works fine. You're right Kevin, it won't have been relevant to the OS it's running on.
It'll be fixed in the next version, which will probably be up in 2 or 3 days, and should be the first official release (i.e. Version 1.0.0) of the whole GLoSS package.
Thanks for the feedback and compliments, it's helpful and much appreciated; if you've got any other feedback for me, I'd love to hear it.
Any chance of web proxy support? I'm stuck behind a firewall.
Cheers,
- Rog
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 09:08
Quote:
Any chance of web proxy support? I'm stuck behind a firewall.
Yup,
On the list of things to do. I'll try and get it into the next version (due in the next couple of days) - I just really need to find somewhere to put the settings on the configuration forms! ;-)
I'll post here where it's available, and I'd be grateful for some feedback afterwards to let me know if it works successfully, since I don't have a proxy setup that I can use to test.
Fantastic! Will keep an eye out and let you know how it goes.
KevinRea
Joined: 2006-09-13
Posts: 17
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 17:48
Conor,
I'm looking forward to your 1.0 release!
My main interest in GLoSS is as a means to push pictures to my extended family members. I'd like to be able to set up family-member-specific albums on my Gallery2 site that get displayed as the screen-saver/desktop for that person. Ideally the display algorithm could be configured to be random or cycle through all the pictures in the album. Other family members then just upload pictures to the appropriate albums to push the pictures out to the specific person they want.
As far as I can tell GLoSS fits the bill, except for maybe the accumulation of cached pictures. Does GLoSS place a limit on the number or cumulative size of the pictures that it caches? The scenario that I'm concerned about is that the album contents will be dynamic, with pictures being added and deleted. The added pictures work fine, GLoSS will just download them when they are randomly selected. The issue is with the deleted pictures.
When a picture is deleted form the Gallery2 album, there will most likely be a copy of it in GLoSS's cache. I'm assuming, that unless GLoSS is in the offline mode, these pictures will not be selected for display since Gallery2 will not offer it up as a random image, but they will remain in the cache. Over time the cache will become bloated with these pictures that have been deleted from the album.
Is this a correct analysis of what will happen? If so it it possible to implement a feature where items in the cache get deleted if they haven't been selected for display after some configurable amount of time (or selection cycles)? Or perhaps a limit on the total size of the files in the cache (or total number) with the least-used image being deleted when space is required?
Thanks,
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 20:18
KevinRea wrote:
When a picture is deleted form the Gallery2 album, there will most likely be a copy of it in GLoSS's cache. I'm assuming, that unless GLoSS is in the offline mode, these pictures will not be selected for display since Gallery2 will not offer it up as a random image, but they will remain in the cache. Over time the cache will become bloated with these pictures that have been deleted from the album.
Is this a correct analysis of what will happen?
Great minds think alike. ;-)
That is indeed a correct analysis, and one of the first things already on the list for me to start next week was to do something along the lines of an auto-purge when GLoSS starts up. My thinking would be that a user could set GLoSS to run a purge of the cache on startup every X days, and remove items from the cache that are older than Y days/months/whatever. That way, the cache stays a bit fresher. If an image gets purged, but is still in your Gallery, then GLoSS would just download it again anyway if needed, so there's no chance that images still in your Gallery but purged wouldn't be displayed.
Does that sound about right?
Good suggestion about the cache size limit. I'll add that to the list too.
I just want to add proxy support to GLoSS and I'll release the next version as the first official release 1.0.0 of GLoSS.
The other thing I just wanted to comment on is your suggestion of random vs cycling through an album. I'm simply using the RandomImage functionality in Gallery, and as such am limited by the functionality it provides. It doesn't provide the ability to cycle through images in an album. My expertise is not really in PHP or server-side stuff, so I'm not going to get into making mods to Gallery itself to support GLoSS. It's much easier for me if GLoSS just talks to plain vanilla Gallery installations.
You might also be interested to know that the next version of GLoSS also includes auto-update, so once you've installed it, it should automatically keep itself up to date with the latest version of GLoSS from my website, so you won't have to keep manually updating the software on your family's computers.
Interesting to hear that your motivation for using GLoSS is the same as my motivation for originally developing it was!
It depends what you mean by "on startup". Do you mean whenever GLoSS trys to get an image to display, or at system startup time? The former makes sense, the latter I think would be inadequate.
My inclination would be to keep track of usage, that is how many times a cache image has been used during the last n days (of online usage), and purge a file when it's usage falls to zero. Your proposed algorithm would achieve same effect as long as the cache file dates are updated each time they are used (in the online mode), and not only when they are first created.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 22:36
Thanks for thoughts.
Not sure why you think purging on system startup is inadequate. Can you elaborate a bit? Much easier for me as developer to get the purging out of the way in one shot on startup. ;-)
Good idea about "touching" the file date though.
How about, if an image is returned from Gallery, but exists in the cache, then the file date of the cached image is updated to current. Then, whenever GLoSS starts up, it automatically purges images with file dates older than X days/months, etc.
I think the basic algorithm you are suggesting is fine. My concern is the frequency of the purging. I don't know about you, but I sometimes don't restart may system for months, so it would seem to me a better idea to do the purging on a periodic basis when GLoSS is running. Remember I'm interested in GLoSS as essentially a self-updating electronic picture frame for family members. I can see my mother leaving her computer on for long periods of time.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Thu, 2006-09-14 22:59
KevinRea wrote:
I sometimes don't restart may system for months.
Yeah, I wondered if that was it.
I'll have a think about the best way to proceed...
I would have to agree about the system startup frequency. There are several times where I also leave my system up for long stretches of time.
I do really like the idea of cleaning images out of the cache if they haven'tbeen "touched" in x days.
Tim Musa http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Mon, 2006-09-18 01:24
Hey there,
Version 0.9.5 is now up on my website with a fix for the Not-Logging-In issue, and also support for specifying a proxy.
It also now includes an auto-update check, so that you can be notified when a new version exists on my website (this can be turned off).
I'd be keen for feedback especially on whether the proxy stuff works okay.
If things are mostly hunky-dory with this version, I've got a couple more things to tweak, and I'm going to re-release it as the first official version of GLoSS, Version 1.0.0!
Then I'll get on to a couple of the other bits and pieces I'd like to polish up.
One little thing, the refresh interval seems to wait the requisite amount of time and then spend a few seconds fetching the next image. Perhaps the next image can be fetched in advance during the refresh interval? This is also apparent when the blanking on startup option is chosen. Maybe the blanking should be deferred until an image is available for display, rather than showing a blank screen for a few seconds.
I'm not sure what the default options are, but I think centered and blank on startup would be on for most people.
Thanks for a great little app, the desktop changer is nifty too. I'll send a donation your way after I get some friends set up on the 1.0 release.
Cheers,
- Rog
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Mon, 2006-09-18 02:13
Glad to hear the proxy settings work.
Good suggestion on the pre-fetch idea; I'll bear it in mind.
Yeah, the defaults are not centred and not blank on startup, which was just what suited me; E.g. my setup is twin 19" LCDs, so I didn't want my images centred. I'll change the Blank On Startup one to default to On though.
I'll probably tidy up a few loose ends, and maybe write some simple doco for my website, and release it as version 1.0.0 later on this week.
I'm having fun with it, so glad some other people are enjoying it too. ;-) Thanks in advance!
I looked back through the previous private message that you sent me with your previous log files and if I replace your .com address with .org, GLoSS works for me.
Oops, my bad. Somehow the Gallery 2 url reverted when I upgraded. Most likely pilot error. This does indeed solve the issue.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Mon, 2006-09-18 23:45
No worries. ;-)
Glad to help. I've changed the message in the dialog a tiny bit, so that it's a bit clearer that, in this case, Gallery wasn't returning any type of error message at all, since there was in fact no Gallery listening for Remote Protocol calls at that url...
It seems as though each time I upgrade to a new version of GLoSS, the URL to my Gallery2 site reverts from www.reaworld.org to www.reaworld.com. I may have mis-configured the original version of GLoSS when I installed it the first time, so maybe this is coming from a stale registry entry? When I reconfigure the URL and then exit and restart GLoSS, the URL is remembered correctly. It only seems to revert when I upgrade. Any idea what's going on?
Kevin
KevinRea
Joined: 2006-09-13
Posts: 17
Posted: Fri, 2006-09-22 23:22
Connor,
I've been fooling around with the screen saver in version 1.0 and I noticed that a few images were displayed an then things seemed to stop working. It seems this happens when the random image selected for download is not in jpeg format (some of the pictures in some of my albums are png files). I'll send you the log file out of band. After image "dad.png" is served up by Gallery2, the screen image never changes.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Sat, 2006-09-23 02:28
KevinRea wrote:
It seems as though each time I upgrade to a new version of GLoSS, the URL to my Gallery2 site reverts from www.reaworld.org to www.reaworld.com. I may have mis-configured the original version of GLoSS when I installed it the first time, so maybe this is coming from a stale registry entry? When I reconfigure the URL and then exit and restart GLoSS, the URL is remembered correctly. It only seems to revert when I upgrade. Any idea what's going on?
Kevin, yes, I think you're correct. The installer is probably using the first value you ever entered. I'll try and fix it in the next installer.
It seems this happens when the random image selected for download is not in jpeg format (some of the pictures in some of my albums are png files).
Next version of GLoSS in a day or so should provide support for PNG, TIF, PCX, PCD, PPM, PAL, GIF etc formats, although I've only tested with PNG and TIF in my Gallery, and I also note that Gallery seems to serve TIFs as JPGs anyway (certainly the ImageBlock returns JPGs for uploaded TIFs, and it's the ImageBlock that GLoSS is using to retrieve images from your Gallery), presumably because browsers don't generally support TIF.
Images other than JPG are converted to, and cached as, JPGs when they're downloaded.
I'll also fix the installer so that if it's an upgrade install, then it doesn't touch the previous settings.
Thanks for bringing these to my attention, Kevin. ;-)
I think it's ok for some image types not to be supported, but they should not cause the application to stop working.
I've also come across another issue that I think is related to the purging feature you just added. When a file is purged it remains in the image history. When the image history is displayed GloSS hangs. Here's the DebugView log:
00022518 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022519 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022520 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022521 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022522 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'.
.
.
.
.
and so on forever.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Mon, 2006-09-25 22:28
KevinRea wrote:
I think it's ok for some image types not to be supported, but they should not cause the application to stop working.
Sure. I have now changed things slightly so that if GLoSS can't successfully stream an image of a particular format from Gallery, it should safely ignore it and carry on happily.
KevinRea wrote:
I've also come across another issue that I think is related to the purging feature you just added. When a file is purged it remains in the image history. When the image history is displayed GloSS hangs. Here's the DebugView log:
00022518 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
Okay, thanks for that one too. Image History should now safely ignore history entries for cached images that no longer exist on disk.
Latest version should have fixes for all the issues you've kindly raised in the last few days.
I upgraded to version 1.0.1 and the URL issue as well as support for png files work great. After I had upgraded I noticed that you had posted 1.0.2 and I downloaded that with the intention of installing on another computer but the installer hung at the last step.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-09-26 03:07
Sorry about that.
Does that mean it's not working for you at all? Or just that the installer failed, but GLoSS is working okay? Choosing About... from the menu will tell you which version of GLoSS is successfully running.
I was attempting to do a clean install of GLoSS on an XP machine, and the installer hung at the last step, after the pop-up-window with the instalation progress bar was displayed (the bar remains empty). GLoSS was not installed. The cache directory was created, but the .../Program Files/GLoSS directoy was not. I will try installing it on my laptop to see if somehow this is a machine-specific issue.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-09-26 20:21
KevinRea wrote:
The installer hung at the last step, after the pop-up-window with the instalation progress bar was displayed (the bar remains empty). GLoSS was not installed. The cache directory was created, but the .../Program Files/GLoSS directoy was not. I will try installing it on my laptop to see if somehow this is a machine-specific issue.
Bit weird. Haven't experienced that before, and I've done quite a few test installs on XP by now.
The installer software I'm using (InnoSetup) is not written by me, so not sure what it might be doing.
I take it you tried repeating the install on the same machine? Same result?
I did try repeating the install on the same machine with the same result. I also tried doing a clean install on another XP machine and everything worked fine, so there must be something special about the first machine. I will re-download GLoSS-1.0.2-Setup.exe on the off chance that the file got corrupted.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Tue, 2006-09-26 23:01
Mmmm, does sound a bit machine-specific. You can run the installer from the command line with a parameter of /LOG, and it will write a log file into your temporary folder. You could try that and see if there's anything in there that helps clarify the problem.
You can run the installer from the command line with a parameter of /LOG, and it will write a log file into your temporary folder.
I did this but no log file was generated. The installer seems to spawn another process with the name "is-G1D6L.tmp", that looks to be the one that is hanging. Any other suggestions for debugging? Perhaps you can make an earlier version of GLoSS available on your web site so I can see if this is specific the the latest setup that you generated. The computer I am trying to install on is an HP Mediacenter and is a bit strange in that it is configured to have 2 virtual CPUs. That said, I have not experienced any issues installing other software packages.
Kevin
conorboyd
Joined: 2005-03-29
Posts: 166
Posted: Wed, 2006-09-27 20:15
Kevin,
I'm honestly not sure what the problem is with the installer on that particular machine. I can't build an "older" version of GLoSS itself, but I can rebuild the installer, which I'll do later on today if needs be.
However, if you've already got GLoSS set up on one of your machines, you can quite easily manually install it on subsequent machines. The installer doesn't really do much more than unpack a couple of files and prompt you for the initial configuration settings.
To manually install it on your subsequent machines do the following:
Create a folder called GLoSS in your C:\Program Files\ folder.
Copy GLoSS.exe and GLoSSSupport.dll from the same folder on your original working machine.
Copy gloss.scr from the Windows (C:\Windows or C:\WINNT or whatever) folder from your original machine to the new machine.
Simply run GLoSS.exe to start the Desktop Changer and configure the Desktop Changer and Screensaver from the menu as required.
Posts: 166
Weird. I really didn't think I'd been doing any work in that area between this version and 0.6. Yeah, I could slightly reduce the number of frames as you suggest in the next version.
Apart from that, any other feedback, good or bad?
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 35
I haven't played around with the desktop changer. My attention is primarily on the screensaver. So far it's working great and I haven't had any problems with it. I'll let you know more. I would still really love some of those hot keys I talked about, but other than that it's great.
Stephen
Posts: 166
Thanks.
I'm really unsure how to go forward with the hotkeys to integrate with Gallery directly (i.e. take you to the Gallery page for the current image). The reason is that the ImageBlock module does not give me an ID back that I can use to reference back to the image in the gallery. It may be that I can make a modification to the ImageBlock module, but that's not really my area of expertise currently, and it then means that anyone wanting this functionality then needs to modify their own Gallery to support it, which just makes the whole issue of support more complicated for me.
I am looking at putting a feature in the Desktop Changer to record a history of images that the screensaver shows, so that you can go back and view the last 10 images that the screensaver showed etc.
I'm also working at superimposing the EXIF info and Gallery description discreetly over each screen saver image if desired (fully configurable of course).
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 35
Sound great.. so far everything has been spectacular. How many downloads have you gotten on it?
Stephen
Posts: 166
About 175 over all the versions so far.
Although how many of them will be people like you who've downloaded multiple versions I can't tell.
It's interesting how few people bother to put in a name/email address on my download request form. :-|
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
Been thinking about this a bit more.
I think the issue may be caused by the new image sampling I'm having to do to nicely resize images to fit. I notice a difference in the speed between two PCs of mine, once of which just has onboard graphics and which is noticeably slower at times.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 79
Just downloaded 0.8.0.6 I'm running it on Win2k without any problems. Is there anyway to have it not download the original file? Generally the original file is much larger than I need. I tried leaving the username and password blank as I don't give the anonymous user rights to view the original image, just the largest resized image. However, it looks like you have to use your Gallery ID for GLoSS to work. Generally speaking, for me, the largest resized image is the biggest I would ever need. Is this possible? Or is it possible to not supply the username and password?
Tim Musa
http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
Posts: 166
It should work fine without specifying a username and password.
If you don't specify a username, GLoSS won't attempt to log on to your Gallery before attempting to download an image. You won't obviously be able to specify which albums GLoSS should download random images from in that case.
Using the DebugView utility mentioned on my website, and the details of your gallery, I can see that GLoSS is using the following command to retrieve a random image from your Gallery:
http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=imageblock.External&g2_blocks=randomImage&g2_show=fullSize|heading|title&g2_maxSize=1024which should be a standard Gallery URL appropriate to the ImageBlock module.
If I enter this into a browser, I get... nothing.
After taking some of the parameters off the end of the URL, I found that removing the fullSize value from the g2_show parameter will then give me an image from your Gallery. However, this image is only thumbnail sized.
It seems to me that this is a limitation of the ImageBlock functionality, and as such, there is not a lot I can do about it unfortunately. What I have been keen to do with GLoSS is to have it work with the ImageBlock module as-is (i.e. not have to get users of GLoSS to customise their ImageBlock module just to get GLoSS to work). Besides, I don't really know much PHP at all. ;-)
I quite agree that what you're looking for (to be able to download the largest publicly available resized image) would be great, but I think it's out of my control (being a limitation of Gallery, not GLoSS).
Actually, it looks like there's already a feature request in this area: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1217372&group_id=7130&atid=357130
I've now added some votes of mine to that request.
You've probably already considered this, but I just use a Gallery username and password with read-only permissions for GLoSS to use when accessing my Gallery. Would that workaround be good enough for you?
I'd be keen to know what you think. I've one or two suggestions I would like to make to Gallery devs about the ImageBlock module, so the more feedback I get, then the more that helps me with my suggestions for slight changes to the ImageBlock module.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
Another thing I should reiterate is that GLoSS caches all images locally. It's only the first time that each image is retrieved from your Gallery that the image will be downloaded.
I'm not saying that is an answer to your query. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to worry about GLoSS using a lot of bandwidth every time it tries to retrieve an image from your Gallery.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 79
Thanks for the clarification of the image size options.
I did run into what I think is a problem. I am running GLoSS on Windows 2000 here at work. All I use here is the screen saver portion, and that is working perfectly. However, I installed it at home on my wife's computer (also running Windows 2000). On her's, all I wanted to use was the desktop changer. This doesn't seem to download any images from the gallery. I tried the screen saver on her computer and that works perfectly, downloading and caching images from the albums I selected. The desktop changer does pull images from the cache, but never downloads any new images. I checked this at work today and see the same results. All features of the screen saver seem to work, while the desktop changer only pulls images from an existing cache directory. I know that in previous posts you were not really supporting Windows 2000. Just wondering if you could look at this? I can help in any way you might need.
Tim Musa
http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
Posts: 166
Tim,
Thanks for all the feedback.
I'll certainly look into it. I can probably set up a Win2000 machine to do some testing on.
I've sent you a private message regarding your Gallery settings.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
I did some testing on a clean Windows 2000 machine running on Virtual PC and hitting my own Gallery. Both the desktop changer and the screensaver seem to work fine for me. I emptied the local cache folder before testing both of them, and they seemed quite happy.
I'll be honest, I can't think what would explain the difference you're experiencing, I'm sorry. Like I said the other day, they both use the same code to talk to your Gallery, so if one of them works, the other one should too.
If you wanted to, you could try running the DebugView tool which I mention on the Instructions page on my website, which would give you a log of what the desktop changer and screensaver are doing. You could save that output and email it to me if you want me to look into it further.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 79
Conor,
I sent you a PM with my DebugView log files. It looks to me like the Desktop Changer is not logging into the gallery, and therefore is no able to pull down a new image. Since I don't make the original sized images available to Guest, GLoSS probably can't download the right image.
Hope this helps.
Tim Musa
http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
Posts: 17
Conor,
I don't think that this is a Windows 2000 specific issue. I just downloaded GLoSS and am running it on a Windows XP machine and am observing exactly the same behavior as Tim. Also original sized images are available to the user configured to login to my Gallery2 site.
My Gallery2 (version 2.1.2) site is hosted on a Linux machine:
Operating system Linux
Kernel version 2.6.17.7-grsec
Machine Type i686
Apache version 1.3.37 (Unix)
PERL version 5.8.7
PHP version 4.4.2
I'll also send you DebugView log files in a personal email.
Kevin Rea
Posts: 166
Thanks guys,
I will look into this hopefully in the next few days, and the log files will be helpful.
I've been a bit busy on some other stuff.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
I sent you a detailed message including the log file, but here's my quick analysis. The screen saver logs in when it starts up using the configured username/password. The desktop changer does not. I have Gallery2 configured so "guest" does not have any view permissions. When I give "guest" view permissions the desktop changer works. In my opinion, the destop changer should also log in before attempting to retieve an image.
I hope this helps. Great stuff by the way.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Tim/Kevin,
You guys are indeed correct. The Desktop Changer was not logging in before attempting to retrieve random images. I have my Gallery configured to serve images to anyone, which was why my (obviously shortsighted!) testing hadn't picked it up.
I've now fixed this and tested it against Tim's gallery on WinXP, and it works fine. You're right Kevin, it won't have been relevant to the OS it's running on.
It'll be fixed in the next version, which will probably be up in 2 or 3 days, and should be the first official release (i.e. Version 1.0.0) of the whole GLoSS package.
Thanks for the feedback and compliments, it's helpful and much appreciated; if you've got any other feedback for me, I'd love to hear it.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 14
Any chance of web proxy support? I'm stuck behind a firewall.
Cheers,
- Rog
Posts: 166
Yup,
On the list of things to do. I'll try and get it into the next version (due in the next couple of days) - I just really need to find somewhere to put the settings on the configuration forms! ;-)
I'll post here where it's available, and I'd be grateful for some feedback afterwards to let me know if it works successfully, since I don't have a proxy setup that I can use to test.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 14
Fantastic! Will keep an eye out and let you know how it goes.
Posts: 17
Conor,
I'm looking forward to your 1.0 release!
My main interest in GLoSS is as a means to push pictures to my extended family members. I'd like to be able to set up family-member-specific albums on my Gallery2 site that get displayed as the screen-saver/desktop for that person. Ideally the display algorithm could be configured to be random or cycle through all the pictures in the album. Other family members then just upload pictures to the appropriate albums to push the pictures out to the specific person they want.
As far as I can tell GLoSS fits the bill, except for maybe the accumulation of cached pictures. Does GLoSS place a limit on the number or cumulative size of the pictures that it caches? The scenario that I'm concerned about is that the album contents will be dynamic, with pictures being added and deleted. The added pictures work fine, GLoSS will just download them when they are randomly selected. The issue is with the deleted pictures.
When a picture is deleted form the Gallery2 album, there will most likely be a copy of it in GLoSS's cache. I'm assuming, that unless GLoSS is in the offline mode, these pictures will not be selected for display since Gallery2 will not offer it up as a random image, but they will remain in the cache. Over time the cache will become bloated with these pictures that have been deleted from the album.
Is this a correct analysis of what will happen? If so it it possible to implement a feature where items in the cache get deleted if they haven't been selected for display after some configurable amount of time (or selection cycles)? Or perhaps a limit on the total size of the files in the cache (or total number) with the least-used image being deleted when space is required?
Thanks,
Kevin
Posts: 166
Great minds think alike. ;-)
That is indeed a correct analysis, and one of the first things already on the list for me to start next week was to do something along the lines of an auto-purge when GLoSS starts up. My thinking would be that a user could set GLoSS to run a purge of the cache on startup every X days, and remove items from the cache that are older than Y days/months/whatever. That way, the cache stays a bit fresher. If an image gets purged, but is still in your Gallery, then GLoSS would just download it again anyway if needed, so there's no chance that images still in your Gallery but purged wouldn't be displayed.
Does that sound about right?
Good suggestion about the cache size limit. I'll add that to the list too.
I just want to add proxy support to GLoSS and I'll release the next version as the first official release 1.0.0 of GLoSS.
The other thing I just wanted to comment on is your suggestion of random vs cycling through an album. I'm simply using the RandomImage functionality in Gallery, and as such am limited by the functionality it provides. It doesn't provide the ability to cycle through images in an album. My expertise is not really in PHP or server-side stuff, so I'm not going to get into making mods to Gallery itself to support GLoSS. It's much easier for me if GLoSS just talks to plain vanilla Gallery installations.
You might also be interested to know that the next version of GLoSS also includes auto-update, so once you've installed it, it should automatically keep itself up to date with the latest version of GLoSS from my website, so you won't have to keep manually updating the software on your family's computers.
Interesting to hear that your motivation for using GLoSS is the same as my motivation for originally developing it was!
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
It depends what you mean by "on startup". Do you mean whenever GLoSS trys to get an image to display, or at system startup time? The former makes sense, the latter I think would be inadequate.
My inclination would be to keep track of usage, that is how many times a cache image has been used during the last n days (of online usage), and purge a file when it's usage falls to zero. Your proposed algorithm would achieve same effect as long as the cache file dates are updated each time they are used (in the online mode), and not only when they are first created.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Thanks for thoughts.
Not sure why you think purging on system startup is inadequate. Can you elaborate a bit? Much easier for me as developer to get the purging out of the way in one shot on startup. ;-)
Good idea about "touching" the file date though.
How about, if an image is returned from Gallery, but exists in the cache, then the file date of the cached image is updated to current. Then, whenever GLoSS starts up, it automatically purges images with file dates older than X days/months, etc.
I thought that seemed a reasonable way to go?
Good to talk these things through though.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
I think the basic algorithm you are suggesting is fine. My concern is the frequency of the purging. I don't know about you, but I sometimes don't restart may system for months, so it would seem to me a better idea to do the purging on a periodic basis when GLoSS is running. Remember I'm interested in GLoSS as essentially a self-updating electronic picture frame for family members. I can see my mother leaving her computer on for long periods of time.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Yeah, I wondered if that was it.
I'll have a think about the best way to proceed...
Thanks for taking the time.
Cheers,
C.
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 79
I would have to agree about the system startup frequency. There are several times where I also leave my system up for long stretches of time.
I do really like the idea of cleaning images out of the cache if they haven'tbeen "touched" in x days.
Tim Musa
http://www.musaland.com/gallery2/
Gallery version: 2.1.1
Apache version: 1.3.34
PHP version: 4.4.2
Graphics Toolkit: ImageMagick, GD, NetPBM
Operating system: Windows Server 2000 SP4
Posts: 166
Hey there,
Version 0.9.5 is now up on my website with a fix for the Not-Logging-In issue, and also support for specifying a proxy.
It also now includes an auto-update check, so that you can be notified when a new version exists on my website (this can be turned off).
I'd be keen for feedback especially on whether the proxy stuff works okay.
If things are mostly hunky-dory with this version, I've got a couple more things to tweak, and I'm going to re-release it as the first official version of GLoSS, Version 1.0.0!
Then I'll get on to a couple of the other bits and pieces I'd like to polish up.
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 14
Looks good!
The proxy settings work for me.
One little thing, the refresh interval seems to wait the requisite amount of time and then spend a few seconds fetching the next image. Perhaps the next image can be fetched in advance during the refresh interval? This is also apparent when the blanking on startup option is chosen. Maybe the blanking should be deferred until an image is available for display, rather than showing a blank screen for a few seconds.
I'm not sure what the default options are, but I think centered and blank on startup would be on for most people.
Thanks for a great little app, the desktop changer is nifty too. I'll send a donation your way after I get some friends set up on the 1.0 release.
Cheers,
- Rog
Posts: 166
Glad to hear the proxy settings work.
Good suggestion on the pre-fetch idea; I'll bear it in mind.
Yeah, the defaults are not centred and not blank on startup, which was just what suited me; E.g. my setup is twin 19" LCDs, so I didn't want my images centred. I'll change the Blank On Startup one to default to On though.
I'll probably tidy up a few loose ends, and maybe write some simple doco for my website, and release it as version 1.0.0 later on this week.
I'm having fun with it, so glad some other people are enjoying it too. ;-) Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Hey Conor,
I updated to your latest release and now when ever I configure a valid username/password I get the following error message in a pop up:
Unable to log on to your Gallery. The error message returned by Gallery Was: Unknown response or other failure.
Here's the debugview log
00000000 0.00000000 [976] GLoSS.exe: Invoking Gallery command: http://www.reaworld.com/pictures/main.php?g2_controller=remote:GalleryRemote&g2_form[cmd]=login&g2_form[protocol_version]=2.00&g2_form[uname]=kevin1&g2_form[password]=peanuts
00000001 0.08856265 [976] GLoSS.exe: HTTP Error 302:
00000002 0.11216760 [976] GLoSS.exe: Login failure: Unknown response or other failure.
Posts: 166
Kevin,
I looked back through the previous private message that you sent me with your previous log files and if I replace your .com address with .org, GLoSS works for me.
Does that solve your problem?
Cheers,
Conor
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
Oops, my bad. Somehow the Gallery 2 url reverted when I upgraded. Most likely pilot error. This does indeed solve the issue.
Kevin
Posts: 166
No worries. ;-)
Glad to help. I've changed the message in the dialog a tiny bit, so that it's a bit clearer that, in this case, Gallery wasn't returning any type of error message at all, since there was in fact no Gallery listening for Remote Protocol calls at that url...
Any other problems, do let me know.
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
I've just packaged up the current state of GLoSS up and released it on my website as the first official non-beta version 1.0.0.
Many thanks to all those who've given me feedback, suggestions etc. Keep 'em coming.
I've a few ideas for a few things I still want to add, so watch this space...
Cheers,
C.
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
It seems as though each time I upgrade to a new version of GLoSS, the URL to my Gallery2 site reverts from www.reaworld.org to www.reaworld.com. I may have mis-configured the original version of GLoSS when I installed it the first time, so maybe this is coming from a stale registry entry? When I reconfigure the URL and then exit and restart GLoSS, the URL is remembered correctly. It only seems to revert when I upgrade. Any idea what's going on?
Kevin
Posts: 17
Connor,
I've been fooling around with the screen saver in version 1.0 and I noticed that a few images were displayed an then things seemed to stop working. It seems this happens when the random image selected for download is not in jpeg format (some of the pictures in some of my albums are png files). I'll send you the log file out of band. After image "dad.png" is served up by Gallery2, the screen image never changes.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Kevin, yes, I think you're correct. The installer is probably using the first value you ever entered. I'll try and fix it in the next installer.
Thanks for keeping the feedback coming.
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
Hmmm, yes, I've only been working with jpegs so far. I'll look into having GLoSS handle other appropriate formats.
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 166
Next version of GLoSS in a day or so should provide support for PNG, TIF, PCX, PCD, PPM, PAL, GIF etc formats, although I've only tested with PNG and TIF in my Gallery, and I also note that Gallery seems to serve TIFs as JPGs anyway (certainly the ImageBlock returns JPGs for uploaded TIFs, and it's the ImageBlock that GLoSS is using to retrieve images from your Gallery), presumably because browsers don't generally support TIF.
Images other than JPG are converted to, and cached as, JPGs when they're downloaded.
I'll also fix the installer so that if it's an upgrade install, then it doesn't touch the previous settings.
Thanks for bringing these to my attention, Kevin. ;-)
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
I think it's ok for some image types not to be supported, but they should not cause the application to stop working.
I've also come across another issue that I think is related to the purging feature you just added. When a file is purged it remains in the image history. When the image history is displayed GloSS hangs. Here's the DebugView log:
00022518 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022519 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022520 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022521 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'. Read of address 00000000
00022522 236923.68750000 [2156] GLoSS.exe: ImageHistory OnPaint error: (EAccessViolation) Access violation at address 0057A933 in module 'GLoSS.exe'.
.
.
.
.
and so on forever.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Sure. I have now changed things slightly so that if GLoSS can't successfully stream an image of a particular format from Gallery, it should safely ignore it and carry on happily.
Okay, thanks for that one too. Image History should now safely ignore history entries for cached images that no longer exist on disk.
Latest version should have fixes for all the issues you've kindly raised in the last few days.
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Hey Conor,
I upgraded to version 1.0.1 and the URL issue as well as support for png files work great. After I had upgraded I noticed that you had posted 1.0.2 and I downloaded that with the intention of installing on another computer but the installer hung at the last step.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Sorry about that.
Does that mean it's not working for you at all? Or just that the installer failed, but GLoSS is working okay? Choosing About... from the menu will tell you which version of GLoSS is successfully running.
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
I was attempting to do a clean install of GLoSS on an XP machine, and the installer hung at the last step, after the pop-up-window with the instalation progress bar was displayed (the bar remains empty). GLoSS was not installed. The cache directory was created, but the .../Program Files/GLoSS directoy was not. I will try installing it on my laptop to see if somehow this is a machine-specific issue.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Bit weird. Haven't experienced that before, and I've done quite a few test installs on XP by now.
The installer software I'm using (InnoSetup) is not written by me, so not sure what it might be doing.
I take it you tried repeating the install on the same machine? Same result?
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
I did try repeating the install on the same machine with the same result. I also tried doing a clean install on another XP machine and everything worked fine, so there must be something special about the first machine. I will re-download GLoSS-1.0.2-Setup.exe on the off chance that the file got corrupted.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Mmmm, does sound a bit machine-specific. You can run the installer from the command line with a parameter of /LOG, and it will write a log file into your temporary folder. You could try that and see if there's anything in there that helps clarify the problem.
Cheers,
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer
Posts: 17
Conor,
I did this but no log file was generated. The installer seems to spawn another process with the name "is-G1D6L.tmp", that looks to be the one that is hanging. Any other suggestions for debugging? Perhaps you can make an earlier version of GLoSS available on your web site so I can see if this is specific the the latest setup that you generated. The computer I am trying to install on is an HP Mediacenter and is a bit strange in that it is configured to have 2 virtual CPUs. That said, I have not experienced any issues installing other software packages.
Kevin
Posts: 166
Kevin,
I'm honestly not sure what the problem is with the installer on that particular machine. I can't build an "older" version of GLoSS itself, but I can rebuild the installer, which I'll do later on today if needs be.
However, if you've already got GLoSS set up on one of your machines, you can quite easily manually install it on subsequent machines. The installer doesn't really do much more than unpack a couple of files and prompt you for the initial configuration settings.
To manually install it on your subsequent machines do the following:
Conor
Christchurch, NZ
GLoSS: Gallery2 Local Screen Saver & Desktop Changer