sigplus 
Version
1.4.2.12 (last update on Oct 21, 2012)
Rating
Compatibility
Reviews
242
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Date Added
13 March 2010
Even while simple to use, sigplus offers an impressive set of features. Images suitable for gallery preview are automatically generated with cropping and/or centering, and clicking on a preview image brings up a pop-up window overlay (so-called lightbox) showing the original full-size image without navigating away from the current page. Images in a gallery can be displayed in fixed or flow layout, they can be shown on a slider or carousel/rotator, or an image can blend into another using a fancy transition effect. Appearance and behavior are highly configurable including image margin, border, padding, slider/rotator orientation (horizontal or vertical), animation speed, slideshow delay, image sort order, etc.
Despite its versatility, sigplus is completely free. It is a full-fledged product with all features included, there is no need to buy a commercial professional version with extra features or purchase club membership that grants you additional privileges.
Translations included: English, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew*, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak and Spanish* (asterisk indicates front-end only). Joomla 1.5 users should install plg_sigplus-1.3.x (and optionally mod_sigplus-1.3.x), users of Joomla 2.5 and later should use the package installer pkg_sigplus-1.4.x (click "Download" for the latest version released in the series to date for maximum compatibility).
I had been a user of Simple Image Gallery plugin for some time, but as I grew more confident as a Joomla user I needed more control and better performance - plus the reliability of an actively developed gallery plugin - so I went out looking for an alternative.
My research led me to 2-3 plugins that stood out form the rest for their extensive documentation, plethora of options, paired with user friendly configuration.
As I tested them on my local installation first and then on my website, sigplus soon arose as a dominant option. The features that I like best are:
- Its performance. For some reason, thumbnails load faster with sigplus, notwithstanding whether mootools or jquery engine is chosen.
- Its slightly modified version of Slimbox. The developer has made the popup engine more "international" by replacing the hardcoded buttons/pictures for "Next", "Previous", "Close" with discrete and aesthetically pleasing buttons with no text. This is a great improvement in user experience for non-english websites.
- The plentiful popup styles.
- The ability to define the tags that trigger sigplus! Many gallery extensions out there use {gallery}, which can cause problems some times, if more than one such plugins are installed, which is not that uncommon. Even during the testing/selection process, this proved to be very handy.
- The various options for the handling of javascript, like loading the local copy or using CDN.
I did however come across some issue, with code being displayed below the loaded image popup with Slimbox for mootools.
I was tentative contacting the developer since there did not seem to be a very explicit/formal way to get support. So I emailed him explaining the problem, being careful to frame the communication as a "bug report" instead of asking for help or a fix.
I was blown away by the response I got, the involvement and the time spent by the developer to address my problem.
He was very quick to locate the issue and propose fixes...but I did not make it easy for him with my lacking reporting and manual errors.
Then he took control and fixed the issue himself on my site in the blink of an eye. He even proposed to address some other javascript errors on my site!
That's the mark of great sense of responsibility and good will, which is totally obliging.
In short, the support was mind-blowing. Even if this was a commercial plugin or paid support, I could not expect it to be more high quality, effective and prompt.
I will surely be donating to the project, because it is very deserving.
If I had a request, it would be to include "Shadowbox" as a popup option; to my mind it has a very classy quality, very fitting for some particular uses.
I don't know if is within the scope of the project to add support for flickr and picasa. Personally I use a gallery component with such functionality for hosting a large collection of photos broken into categories. It would definitely turn into a complete solution, but it's certainly not an omission.
My research led me to 2-3 plugins that stood out form the rest for their extensive documentation, plethora of options, paired with user friendly configuration.
As I tested them on my local installation first and then on my website, sigplus soon arose as a dominant option. The features that I like best are:
- Its performance. For some reason, thumbnails load faster with sigplus, notwithstanding whether mootools or jquery engine is chosen.
- Its slightly modified version of Slimbox. The developer has made the popup engine more "international" by replacing the hardcoded buttons/pictures for "Next", "Previous", "Close" with discrete and aesthetically pleasing buttons with no text. This is a great improvement in user experience for non-english websites.
- The plentiful popup styles.
- The ability to define the tags that trigger sigplus! Many gallery extensions out there use {gallery}, which can cause problems some times, if more than one such plugins are installed, which is not that uncommon. Even during the testing/selection process, this proved to be very handy.
- The various options for the handling of javascript, like loading the local copy or using CDN.
I did however come across some issue, with code being displayed below the loaded image popup with Slimbox for mootools.
I was tentative contacting the developer since there did not seem to be a very explicit/formal way to get support. So I emailed him explaining the problem, being careful to frame the communication as a "bug report" instead of asking for help or a fix.
I was blown away by the response I got, the involvement and the time spent by the developer to address my problem.
He was very quick to locate the issue and propose fixes...but I did not make it easy for him with my lacking reporting and manual errors.
Then he took control and fixed the issue himself on my site in the blink of an eye. He even proposed to address some other javascript errors on my site!
That's the mark of great sense of responsibility and good will, which is totally obliging.
In short, the support was mind-blowing. Even if this was a commercial plugin or paid support, I could not expect it to be more high quality, effective and prompt.
I will surely be donating to the project, because it is very deserving.
If I had a request, it would be to include "Shadowbox" as a popup option; to my mind it has a very classy quality, very fitting for some particular uses.
I don't know if is within the scope of the project to add support for flickr and picasa. Personally I use a gallery component with such functionality for hosting a large collection of photos broken into categories. It would definitely turn into a complete solution, but it's certainly not an omission.
Owner's reply
Offering more pop-up window engines that are compatible with the sigplus lightbox scheme is on the agenda but without compromising the compactness or the ease of use of the extension. Though not yet decided, future versions of sigplus will probably ship with a certain set of pop-up window engines and provide a single-click installation of other engines. Similarly, integration with flickr and picasa is a planned feature but might affect the current design of the extension, and needs further consideration on our part.
Simple, flexible, well documented, and a joy to use. I'm a complete newbie and I was able to get this up and running straight away, and use it in many different contexts on my site. You can use it as a module, or embedded in HTML. It can be used as a scrollable box or placed paragraph-style in a page. You can customize just about everything about its look and feel.
Thank you very much for this excellent module. so simple and very powerful. People like you are the back bone of joomla.
thanks once again
thanks once again
I am amazed once again with the extension from here. I didn't expect too much but I get all what I ever wanted in one simple gallery and even more. I paid the other day for some joomla gallery and now I see that this one is much, much beter and I want to say one simple but warm: THANK YOU!
don't frustrate yourself searching a free and advanced yet simple enough, clean, lightweight and does everything you want gallery...it's all here in sigplus... cheers...
Very good plugin. I've tried other gallery plugins and this is by far the easiest and best looking.
One question: I understand I have to have a labels.txt file for the image titles and descriptions but I can't find how to set write the text file or where to put it.
One question: I understand I have to have a labels.txt file for the image titles and descriptions but I can't find how to set write the text file or where to put it.
Very easy to install and configure. I had it up and running with minimal effort. Thanks for making such a great photo gallery available.
Wonderful Plug-In and easy to use. I have tried so many others with great frustration. I installed sigplus and my site came to life! Thanks You for this one.
One Question: Can you put a watermark on the full size image?
One Question: Can you put a watermark on the full size image?
Owner's reply
Yes, this is a supported feature, look for "watermark" in the list of configuration settings on the page http://hunyadi.info.hu/en/projects/sigplus/settings or check out the live activation code examples in the sigplus Test suite.
There is no support in the website you have to pay. The plugin does not work with Joomla 1.5.21. I get this error "[sigplus] Critical error: Image folder is expected to be a relative path w.r.t. the image base folder."
Owner's reply
I must say that the statements in this review are factually wrong. At the time the review was written, the sigplus demo site was running under Joomla 1.5.21. As for support, it comes primarily in the form of very extensive documentation. For instance, the list of error messages (including the quoted message) and explanation for each is found on the page . However, you must agree that it would be quite absurd if free support were available for helping you in a project you otherwise get paid for when you could find a solution to your problem in the documentation. Even while the extension is for free, developer time is not. We are always happy to answer questions not covered by the documentation and assist in non-commercial projects as time allows.
After trying a few gallery plug-ins for the newly released Joomla! 1.6, I have finally found a quality plugin that looks good and just works!
Many thanks to the developer.
Because I prefer to use the MilkBox style on my site, the only improvement I would suggest is for the developer to allow the photo labels to appear as part of this particular style, the same as they do with the Boxplus. I have seen this with Milk Box 2 but not as part of a Joomla plugin.
Many thanks to the developer.
Because I prefer to use the MilkBox style on my site, the only improvement I would suggest is for the developer to allow the photo labels to appear as part of this particular style, the same as they do with the Boxplus. I have seen this with Milk Box 2 but not as part of a Joomla plugin.
Owner's reply
The latest release of the extension does support image captions with the Milkbox pop-up engine, see the section "Pop-up window engines" in the sigplus test suite. Unlike boxplus, however, HTML is not allowed in Milkbox captions due to limitations in the Milkbox implementation and HTML tags will be removed automatically.
Sigplus image gallery is simply the best image related plugin on JED.
Easy to install, use and the results are just wonderful. Great thanks to the developer.
Easy to install, use and the results are just wonderful. Great thanks to the developer.
Sigplus has surpassed my expectations! It is truly a multifaceted tool and has surpassed all other extensions like it on JED!
I have set it up with relative ease and the settings allow simple yet powerful customizations!
While working on a project I needed an adjustment to a particular feature. I then emailed the developer (Levente Hunyadi) and he provided the solution!
Very admirable and I am truly grateful! Great respect for the man and the product! Highly recommended!!! :)
I have set it up with relative ease and the settings allow simple yet powerful customizations!
While working on a project I needed an adjustment to a particular feature. I then emailed the developer (Levente Hunyadi) and he provided the solution!
Very admirable and I am truly grateful! Great respect for the man and the product! Highly recommended!!! :)
Page 8 of 13
