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Categories
SIMGallery 
Version
1.0 (last update on Aug 26, 2008)
Rating
Compatibility
Votes
15
Favoured
18
License
Other
Commercial
Type
Views
12806
Users can create/edit/delete personal albums and upload/edit/delete/organize/browse photos. The user experience is identical to Facebook's (tm) photo album functionality! Users can also comment and rate photos. Commenting comes with captcha support.
Admin can control a huge variety of options, including setting the max number of albums allowed per user, max photos per album, photo dimensions etc. Admins can also delete user albums.
Navigating to the next photo does not refresh the page. Simply click on the image to do so (AJAX). While browsing photos, users can also set a photo as their avatar simply by clicking a link - again, it's done with AJAX. Admins and owner of the photo can also rotate it (AJAX), delete it, or edit it.
Uploading photos is a breeze. Users can select and upload multiple photos all at once. No more uploading photos one by one, and no more zipping up photos into a file first (who does that, really??).
Organizing/Re-ordering one's photos is done using drag and drop to change the display order, and users can even reverse the order of the photos by simply clicking a button - just like Facebook!
You can add captions to photos, select a specific photo to be the album cover, and even set one to be your avatar.
SIMGallery comes with 2 modules, a CB plugin, and a sh404SEF plugin.
SIMGallery standard module:
- Lists latest albums, random albums, latest photos or random photos
SIMGallery Ranking module:
- Lists photos selected by number of ratings, total ratings, ratings (number of rating divide by total ratings), number of comments, or hits/views count
- Can be limited to current week (starting from Monday), current week (starting from Sunday), past 7 days, current month, past 30 days, past custom number of days (configurable), or for all time (no time frame limit)
- Perfect for holding photo contests/competitions
SIMGallery CB plugin:
- Displays user's latest albums, random albums, latest photos or random photos (configurable)
- Emails user when someone commented on his photos
- Emails user when someone rated his photos
- Email notification can be disabled, enforced, or user-defined
sh404SEF plugin for SIMGallery:
- Creates human-readable and SEF URLs for every part of the component.
Both modules allow admins to set the number of thumbnails to display, the size of thumbnails, and the number of columns, which means the module can display horizontally, vertically, or even square. Both modules can be copied to create multiple copies to display different types of albums/photos.
SIMGallery is the ONLY fully community-driven gallery system. It was developed because I was frustrated that there was no other such gallery system out there, and the closest thing I can find requires a whole lot of hacking, modifying, and/or setting it on fire. SIMGallery solves all that, and is entirely Web 2.0 - just like how all photo galleries should be.
Feel free to test out the demo. You can view latest albums here:
http://mike.simbunch.com/Latest-Albums.html
Or start uploading photos:
http://mike.simbunch.com/My-Albums.html (requires login, of course)
Editor's Note
- This extension requires registration to download.
byNuMoon on September 13, 2008
I have found this component to be quite excelent. I did have a few 'niggles' on install, however the support I recieved has been excelent (despite a significant time zone difference).
I would recomend checking out the demonstration on the creators site, I have all functions working on my site.
The gallery component itself it very user friendly with an intuitive interface and the full range of options for the user (with no administration required once installed, just what I wanted!). The modules that come with it allow for displaying the uploaded/rated/commented items in a variety of ways (as well as, of course, the individuals gallery).
I am very glad I have this product on my site :)
I would recomend checking out the demonstration on the creators site, I have all functions working on my site.
The gallery component itself it very user friendly with an intuitive interface and the full range of options for the user (with no administration required once installed, just what I wanted!). The modules that come with it allow for displaying the uploaded/rated/commented items in a variety of ways (as well as, of course, the individuals gallery).
I am very glad I have this product on my site :)
bybarthle on September 12, 2008
When I saw first this component, I was quite excited and said to myself "Finally !". All the gallery components have some flaws. Expose is very good but doesn't have good modules, voting, commenting etc. RSGallery has too many bugs, template problems etc.
SIMGallery has everthing you can expect from a gallery: CB integration, commenting, voting and modules for displaying best rated albums, comments, votes etc. But only in theory.
It requires mootools1.2. Since J1.5 comes with mootools1.1 you have to install mootools and shadoxbox as well. If you are not experienced like me, you have rummage through internet just to find a way for installing this or you have to pay the guy some extras.
When I first installed it, literally nothing worked. Frontend publishing doesn't allow uploading because of mootools issue. If you are not logged in, it takes you to the registration page.
Worst of all, when I send an e-mail to the guy asking for e-mail with a little harsh tone as I was extremely frustrated, he just refunded my money back and called me uncivilized. Even though I apologized, and told him I want to pay if I can get a littler support, he didn't even reply . I have waited at least 2-3 weeks but no response.
If you are on a business, you have to accept customer complaints, you can't just ignore.
I guess we will have to continue waiting for a good gallery. This one is NOT it.
SIMGallery has everthing you can expect from a gallery: CB integration, commenting, voting and modules for displaying best rated albums, comments, votes etc. But only in theory.
It requires mootools1.2. Since J1.5 comes with mootools1.1 you have to install mootools and shadoxbox as well. If you are not experienced like me, you have rummage through internet just to find a way for installing this or you have to pay the guy some extras.
When I first installed it, literally nothing worked. Frontend publishing doesn't allow uploading because of mootools issue. If you are not logged in, it takes you to the registration page.
Worst of all, when I send an e-mail to the guy asking for e-mail with a little harsh tone as I was extremely frustrated, he just refunded my money back and called me uncivilized. Even though I apologized, and told him I want to pay if I can get a littler support, he didn't even reply . I have waited at least 2-3 weeks but no response.
If you are on a business, you have to accept customer complaints, you can't just ignore.
I guess we will have to continue waiting for a good gallery. This one is NOT it.
Owner's reply
"If you are on a business, you have to accept customer complaints, you can't just ignore."
You are absolutely right. However, there are 2 kinds of complaints: constructive ones, and those that are just plain immature. Your complain was not harsh. It was straight out offending.
As for setting up Mootools 1.2, it's pretty straightforward and my forums provide clear instructions on how to do so.
I have decided not to appeal to remove this comment, in the hopes that when people read this, they will learn to treat one another with courtesy, self-respect, and dignity, even on the internet.
byKorpio on September 12, 2008
If you want to give your Comunity site users something to talk about, this component is simply the best, I have been working for 8 years in comunity sites and this component just has everything to make your users share their pictures easily.
Realy nice job with this component Mike, and looking forward for more components.
Realy nice job with this component Mike, and looking forward for more components.
byglumpy on September 8, 2008
Please note, the above review of Simgallery does not reflect the software or quality of service.
The webhosting provider was unavailable for 10 hours due to a Large Ddos attack on the network. This has been rectified now and security measures have been put in place to stop this issue from happening again.
We hope you enjoy this joomla extension.
The webhosting provider was unavailable for 10 hours due to a Large Ddos attack on the network. This has been rectified now and security measures have been put in place to stop this issue from happening again.
We hope you enjoy this joomla extension.
byWebJIVE on September 5, 2008
I just purchased this component and the first time my customer tried to use it, they couldn't. The reason is this product communicates with the IONO licensing server (which I suspected) and if the authors site is down (which it is right now), your gallery is offline.
Until this licensing server tie-in is removed, this product has a lot of risks for production servers. I know this author is fearful his software is going to be compromised but, putting legitimate customers site at risk of not working is a poor business decision. I would look at another solution if this is unacceptable to you.
I will have to start looking for another solution again and that's too bad since this plugin integrates so well with CB and has some good modules. Another upside to this product is the uploader, which is first class! I will also check on refunds.
What led me to figure this out is my customers site started getting the dreaded IE7 Cannot open site XXX errors. When I went into the component in the admin, I thought it was a corrupted key.php error so I deleted the key.php from the server as the instructions on the site says to do.
"Everytime you update your license key, or update your domain/IP, you may have to delete the key.php file to continue. key.php located in /components/com_simgallery/"
This is what I did and not I get the error:
SIMGallery License Error: Unable to communicate with iono (i.e. http://www.ionolicensing.com/). I verified this by digging into the server logs.
As of this writing, the authors server is still offline and so is my customers gallery.
Until this licensing server tie-in is removed, this product has a lot of risks for production servers. I know this author is fearful his software is going to be compromised but, putting legitimate customers site at risk of not working is a poor business decision. I would look at another solution if this is unacceptable to you.
I will have to start looking for another solution again and that's too bad since this plugin integrates so well with CB and has some good modules. Another upside to this product is the uploader, which is first class! I will also check on refunds.
What led me to figure this out is my customers site started getting the dreaded IE7 Cannot open site XXX errors. When I went into the component in the admin, I thought it was a corrupted key.php error so I deleted the key.php from the server as the instructions on the site says to do.
"Everytime you update your license key, or update your domain/IP, you may have to delete the key.php file to continue. key.php located in /components/com_simgallery/"
This is what I did and not I get the error:
SIMGallery License Error: Unable to communicate with iono (i.e. http://www.ionolicensing.com/). I verified this by digging into the server logs.
As of this writing, the authors server is still offline and so is my customers gallery.
Owner's reply
This happened because my host was under ddos attack and was down for 16 hours. This is also the first time and only time such an unfortunate incident happened, and I am currently looking at other hosting options.
Do note that the license checking process is done only once every 10 days, so there is actually little chance of it occurring.
I am disappointed that you hadn't tried to contact me directly, instead of opting to write in a review for a problem that wasn't my fault. In any case, such incidents are pretty rare, and the host has already looked into the matter.