Why I didn’t update WPPA for WordPress 2.5
Some history first: For a few years now, I’ve been interested in photo publishing solutions for the web. Way back, when I still ran a static site, I was working on a desktop application for Mac OS X that would publish photo albums. I created it using AppleScript Studio, and it was called WebPhoto. I abandoned it in functioning alpha stages when I moved on to a dynamic managed site, and searched for a good solution for WordPress.
Back then, there was nothing good. So I created a super simple script. I called it WPPA (WordPress Photo Album). It was just a template page, but it enabled showing albums uploaded via ftp with the right naming conventions. While it worked for me, it was quite a deal uploading photos. Other people seemed to have issues with it’s very complicated way of working. So I sat down and wrote what was later known as WPPA 1.0
After releasing WPPA 1.0, I registered to have it on the official WordPress Plugin Directory. For some reason I don’t remember, I called it WP Photo Album and not WPPA. Here was the first issue, as I would find out later.
I tired uploading my files with SVN, but as geeky as I am, I’m probably not enough of a nerd. After a few tries I gave up, Till a few months ago. At my seventeenth try, I was successful. well, semi successful. I got the files up, but apparently didn’t do it properly, and it was appearing inside a double directory and causing naming convention issues. Also, I forgot that some part of my plugin relies on calling the exact directory structure. Hence all the issues that people have been having when downloading a zipped directory called ‘wp-photo-album’ instead of ‘wppa’ As much as I looked around, I didn’t realize what the problem was, because in my installation the directory was always named ‘wppa’.
For all those that emailed me. Sorry about not replying, I didn’t know the answer myself, and didn’t have the time to check it out. Thank you
Recently, I’d outlined plans for a major WPPA rewrite. Added features, more stability, better integration with WordPress etc. And then came the sneak peeks from WordPress 2.5. Apparently,
It had an album feature built right in. So why should I bother with my plugin when WordPress has it built it.
Initially, I started writing this post to explain why I would not be upgrading WPPA for 2.5, but looking over the comments, everyone seems to want it, So I’ll do the fixes required to get it rolling with WordPress 2.5, though I will wait with the major update and see how things go with the built in WordPress feature.
So for now, thanks to the help of Greg Tangey, Alexei, nycsummer and all the commenters who helped with their suggestions, WPP 1.2 apparently works with 2.5, But I will be holding future development till I see how the built in WordPress feature works.
Download it here.
Dan | April 28, 2008,
Hi
I’m trying to get WPPA working with WordPress 2.5 but I can’t create any albums, it says the album has been created but when I go to upload photos it says I need to create an album first.
Any help would be much appreciated
Dan
Seamus | April 29, 2008,
Hi
I’ve got the same issue as Dan unable to load anything as album not available even though message states album created. I’ve undated the write permissions to 755 so not sure what else to do or where to look?
Thanks
tommiehansen | May 2, 2008,
It says the exakt same thing to me. So is it really fixed for 2.5? Not really…?
Herman | May 6, 2008,
Hey guys,
I found out there aren’t any tables in sql DB. If there would be a sql script with witch you can input these tables manualy I think the problem is solved.
Please mail me if there is one!
Herman
Solixtar | May 10, 2008,
Here is the SQL Request to create the database:
CREATE TABLE `wp_wppa_albums` (`id` bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment, `name` text NOT NULL, `description` text NOT NULL, `a_order` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL, `main_photo` bigint(20) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`) );
CREATE TABLE `wp_wppa_photos` (`id` bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment, `album` bigint(20) NOT NULL, `ext` tinytext NOT NULL, `name` text NOT NULL, `description` longtext NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`) );
Jeff | May 14, 2008,
Hi there, do you have information on integrating this into a current Typepad blog? We are looking for a blog photogallery solution but have not found anything by 6 apart developers to use — any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Diego | May 15, 2008,
It doesn’t work for WP2.5… Does anybody have a solution?
Catalin | May 20, 2008,
I still have the same problem as everybody that wrote above. I ran the SQL request and created the databases, but when I try to create an album it doesn’t do it. I am running WordPress 2.3.1
Thanks!
jason | May 30, 2008,
Hi tried to add the table and I was able to create an album. But how do I now create pages based on those album?
jason | May 30, 2008,
I can’t get it to work with 2.5.1
I am getting this error:
Warning: include_once(C:\wamp\www\mysite/wp-content/plugins/wp-photo-album/theme/wppa_theme.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\wamp\www\mysite\wp-content\plugins\wp-photo-album\wppa.php on line 807
Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘C:\wamp\www\mysite/wp-content/plugins/wp-photo-album/theme/wppa_theme.php’ for inclusion (include_path=’.;C:\php5\pear’) in C:\wamp\www\mysite\wp-content\plugins\wp-photo-album\wppa.php on line 807
thanks
Erwin Kats | July 10, 2008,
it was working great, untill i updated WPPA…. its al messed up right now.
Michael Caputo | July 23, 2008,
I was having a similar problem, after upgrading to WP 2.6, the plugin wasn’t working, giving errors etc..
I logged into phpmyadmin and saw that there were 2 new tables created that had different names than the old WPPA plugin was using.. i used this query:
RENAME TABLE tbl_name TO new_tbl_name
to rename the old tables to the new name.
Seems to be working fine now.
Dennis | August 10, 2008,
Great contrib!!
Is there a way to display a album within a post by adding a tag like [album=1] (album name, id) etc..
Thanks again!
sling bag | May 25, 2010,
Hi tried to add the table and I was able to create an album. But how do I now create pages based on those album?