eeFlickr : Flickr photo gallery
Development and Programming
Lisa i did not take it as criticism 😊 it is something that makes my forehead squinch up when i think about how to deal with commenting. and also photo uploading but i guess thats a good thing.
one thing i have tried to do with this is follow the API and try not to put my own output methods in the module. the “tag cloud” stuff is where i did put some of my own stuff in but i thought it called for it there.
the default cache refresh in the module is 1 day. (i plan on adding a clear cache button and a update time option to the module CP) if you did not cache the data flickr would return the data fresh every time you ask for it, which would slow down your site considerably depending on which tags you were using and how you nest them. When i building my templates i just set refresh=”1” until i was done.
I use both eeFlickr’s cache and EE template caching once i got my html the way i wanted it. and the load is very fast and since each tag is cashed independently depending on the prams passed. different pages once the cache expires will update at different times. because chances are there is not someone loading every page of your site at the same time. Reused tags on multipul pages are only cached by eeflickr once so there is no overhead on using the same tag with the same params on many templates or many times in the same template.
my first crack at the flickr api was a standalone PHP app that i modeled off of EE’s url segment variables and template system. however i slapped myself around one day asking why am i trying to re-invent this. thats where the module came in.
lumis, thank you for expanding on that. The refresh being 1 day makes perfect sense, and I did as you do and set it to 1 until I was done. I have it at 60 right now as I’m still setting up the flickr end, but will likely set it to 120 once that’s done. 12 calls a day; seems reasonable, I think.
I need to dig into the tagging aspects, I haven’t gotten there yet. I still want to set up entry-image relationships using a custom field, passing the information by embed, so I can store those images on flickr. I also like it that you’re using segments because I am envisioning that this may allow me to call in flickr images based on tags at the same time that I call in my entries based on the Tag module tags. I still have some features to add, but this module is definitely making things easier.
This module is fantastic. I almost have it working exactly how I want it, but I have run into a snag. I’m not sure where to post the snag (it has to do with retaining info retrieved via segmenting) but it’s directly related to this module. So is this question a module question or a general “how to” question?
I say ask it here, especially since lumis is watching; I can always split it off if it ends up being a general EE question. You can also isolate if that is the case by hardcoding the variable to test and if it works, then try the segment approach. I admit I’m curious though.
I say ask it here, especially since lumis is watching; I can always split it off if it ends up being a general EE question. You can also isolate if that is the case by hardcoding the variable to test and if it works, then try the segment approach. I admit I’m curious though.
This may not be that interesting as I may (yet again) be missing something very basic. But here I go.
On what will be my main photo page (http://digifiend.com/index.php/site/test), I have successfully created a page with all of my flickr sets. Clicking on a set (lets take the 200710-Maine photoset, top left corner) successfully retrieves small sized thumbnails of all the pics in the set. In segment 3, the set number appears, and in segment 4, the word photoset appears (http://digifiend.com/index.php/site/test1/72157602564394884/photoset).
Now the goal will eventually be to have a larger pic on the right hand side of the page displayed when one of the pics on the left is selected. This will be done via an <a > with the set number in segment 3 (to retain the set thumbnails), and a photo number in segment 4 (replacing the temporary photoset keyword).
I’m having a problem on figuring out how to retain the set number. Since the exp:eeflickr:photosets_getPhotos function doesnt have a mechanism to actally pass the set id (which probably wouldnt make much sense), I can’t figure out how to harvest and reissue the segment which was previously assigned by the exp:eeflickr:photosets_getList {id} variable.
The ultimate goal is to have the initial URL to the page which calls a specific set of images be /72157602564394884/photoset and have any pictures selected change segment 4 so the URL looks like 72157602564394884/1161197623.
Does this make sense? Is there a better way to do this?
I figured it out. In an A HREF, quote marks arent necessary for the {segment_3} variable, once I corrected the syntax, the URL works properly.
Hey, DF - my folks were in town this weekend and I’ve had no time to pop back into the forums until now. I”m glad you were able to get this worked out, because I was having some trouble following and was about to ask for the template code. =)
No worries, I guess I sometimes have problems grasping when to use quote marks and when they aren’t necessary. I’m pleased with the layout, I just need to make some basic decisions on how I want to style it all.
Hope the visit with the ‘rents went well, I never know how that will go with me until it happens 😊
Df, if you want to post your quotation mark questions in a new thread, then I’m sure we can help. Give a code example or two you’re confused about.
The visit went great; I only knew about it about 15 hours before it happened - it was rather a last minute decision on their part. =)
I figured out the segment questions, thanks for the offer of assistance. Everything is working although I admit I am having a devil of a time getting the pagination line to look similar to the example provided by Lunis. I have a feeling its because of font styles being applied earlier.
You can kind of cheat by viewing source on the example and checking out lumis’ CSS. 😉
hey, lumis - starting today I’m getting a few errors, even on pages where eeFlickr is not called. I’m not sure why the errors would appear on pages where the module isn’t present…
Notice: unserialize(): Argument is not an string in /www/username/public_html/system/modules/eeflickr/mod.eeflickr.php on line 1602Thanks =)
hey, lumis - starting today I’m getting a few errors, even on pages where eeFlickr is not called. I’m not sure why the errors would appear on pages where the module isn’t present…Thanks =)Notice: unserialize(): Argument is not an string in /www/username/public_html/system/modules/eeflickr/mod.eeflickr.php on line 1602
FYI… I’m not sure if this has anything to do with your errors, but Flickr had a fairly substantial upgrade yesterday.
http://blog.flickr.com/en/2008/01/12/downtime-notice/
Ah probably did, the errors are gone now.
I’m still concerned about two things: 1) why didn’t it fail more gracefully? That’s probably a Flickr API thing. And it wasn’t a fatal error either, just a notice.
But 2) why is this module being called on pages that do not contain any of the tags? meh. I’ll check out some of the template debugging later this evening and try to find out what’s going on. =)
Lisa
yeah that was Flickr Upgrades… what should of happened is if the API is unreachable it will use previously cached data IF you have it. otherwise there is nothing it can do but fail.
I have several catches in there for failed API responses but its hard to test all possibilitys because flickr is not down often.