CE3 Feature Update #2: Auto Index, Gallery, Pages
Hello! Today, another round of hefty updates to the CE3 plugins. The changelogs are pretty big, so I'll tackle the highlights below and refer you to the wiki for itemized changes.
The following updates are available now:
TTG CE3 Auto Index 6.0.2
TTG CE3 Gallery 5.0.2
TTG CE3 Pages 6.0.2
To access the updated versions, please lookup your downloads by order number. Also, I think I've managed to sort out SKU-based update notifications so that bundle users won't get spammed. So we will be resuming email notifications of updates, as before. Hurray!
Here are some of the exciting new features in this update:
New menu layout for mobile
In the previous update, I added the "Natural" layout style for mobile navigation. In this update, "Natural" gets some tweaks, and we also have the new "Naturally Collapsible" hybrid layout:
The "Naturally Collapsible" mobile navigation layout is great for multi-level navigation.
The new layout borrows from the "Natural" design, but makes it collapsible. It's especially great for multi-level navigation, as it takes up less space than the "Collapsible" layout, while displaying sub-menus in a sensible way.
Redesign UI Icons
The user-interface icons for the gallery were functional before, but as I've lately been working on the upcoming CE3 Client Response Gallery -- where icons are arguably of greater importance than anywhere else -- I increasingly began to feel very "beta" about our handling of icons. And so I ripped out all of the code and have rewritten the UI from scratch.
We're still using Font Awesome icons for the UI, because they're ... well, awesome. But the icons and their layout are now quite a bit tidier, I've been able to work in some slider options for Icon Size, Icon Offset, Icon Spacing and Icon Border-radius (rounded corners), I've made them easier to press on touch-screens, and have made them subtly more attractive than before. The changes are on the grid icons, but subtle improvements have also been made to the Highslide slideshow UI, to icons appearing in site navigation, and elsewhere.
Permalinks for everyone!
Permalinks are now first-class citizens in TTG CE3 Gallery. Previously, they were available only to Highslide galleries. And as of version 5.0.1, they were also made available to Photoswipe galleries only when using TTG CE3 Publisher. We made them better.
Permalinks may now be used in Highslide and Photoswipe galleries, with or without Publisher. Additionally, permalinks will now pass through redirection to mobile galleries, and will be honored in password protected galleries (the specified image launching after login).
The tradeoff is that permalinks are now a PHP-only option, so enabling the feature will cause your galleries to export as PHP documents rather than HTML. Not a big deal, though, as permalinks are really only useful when galleries are online (which is where PHP runs).
New "Robots (Privacy)" Option
The new "Robots (Privacy)" option is in the Page Setup control group, in the Site Info control pane. By default, the option is disabled and galleries will be unchanged from previous versions. Enabling the feature will mark the gallery or page as noarchive, noindex, nofollow for web bots, which should prevent the page being crawled by search engines or bandwidth consuming spiderbots. Ew, spider-bots.
The feature will be enabled automatically when galleries are password protected, as we assume that if you're protecting access to a gallery, then you probably don't want people finding it via search.
We imagine this feature will be of interest when publishing galleries of sensitive subject matter, such as boudoir, nudes or weddings.
Do note, however, that this is not a magic bullet. For these commands to actually work, the bot must respect them; not all bots will respect them. See Google's explanation for more details on how these commands work, and if you seriously need to prevent a page being bot-read, consider manual implementation of a robots.txt file.
Other stuff worth mentioning ...
- Improved rendering in IE9 and IE10.
- Recoded our carets for drop-down menus so that you can now use Font Awesome icons in Navigation Item labels without your menu freaking out.
- Tweaks to PHPlugins implementation.
- Tweaks and improvements to overall page styling, and added a few options to the Web module interface.
- Reworked aspects of the full-screen Home page in TTG CE3 Pages.
Demonstrations
The demonstration/promo site has been completely updated with the latest builds, so you can see the new mobile navigation layout and other tweaks live at http://ce3.theturninggate.net.
I've also posted a demonstration of TTG CE3 Client Response Gallery, so you can check that out on your computer, tablet or phone.
March 20, 2013 at 12:27 am
Awesome work guys. Really great to see not only new features but polish AND implementation of requested features. Knowing that all my clients and visitors will have a seamless and functional experience with permalinks regardless of device or gallery type (protected or not) makes me a very happy camper. No more hacks,YAY!
I’m also very pleasantly surprised with the anti-bot option. This is very welcome and love that you’ve automatically enabled it for password protected galleries. Great decision.
CRG looks GREAT too! Are we “close” to release? Can’t wait to implement!
March 20, 2013 at 1:33 am
CRG is coming very soon. Possibly even later today, if I can get things together without stumbling over any unexpected bugs. If I do hit bumps, then likely tomorrow or the next day. Stay tuned!
March 20, 2013 at 12:31 am
PS, glad to see email notifications are back. I subscribe to the blog feed but having an email with the direct link just makes things easier and sometimes these posts get buried in the feed.
March 25, 2013 at 3:37 pm
I got through the CE to CE2 upgrade by myself in good shape, but I afraid the CE2 to CE3 upgrade is more than I can manage without hiring somebody.
It would be helpful if there were a list of people out there who would accept work migrating sites from one version to another. In the meantime, I’m going to run CE2 until it won’t run anymore (and I hope will keep running for a long, long time.)
March 25, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Hi Roger,
There’s nothing outright wrong with continuing to use CE2. It’s just that it’s not optimized for mobile and tablets the way that CE3 is, and that our support for CE2 going forward will be minimal.
CE3 is also very in tune with using the Publish Services plugin, TTG CE3 Publisher. That also works with CE2, but if you’re going to upgrade your site for use with the publisher, then you may as well upgrade to CE3 at the same time. Or if you’re already using the publisher with CE2, then upgrading to CE3 should be that much easier, as all you need to do is replace your gallery template(s) to update all of your galleries at the same time.
Otherwise, you might ask for help in the forum. You might be able to pick up someone to consult there; Rod Barbee is a certified expert in all things TTG at this point.
Or hit the tutorials in the documentation section. This one in particular.