customized gallery websites for professional photographers

Admin Upgrades

From time to time we make ugrades to the admin program - sometimes minor details, sometimes major overhauls.

With the release of admin Version 4.0, we are happy to say that from now on admin upgrades will be free and automatic for clients using version 4.0 or later!

Prior to Version 4.0, we occasionally had to charge a reasonable fee to perform major upgrades, due to the significant amount of work involved in updating older code. Unfortunately this is still the case for our clients using the older admin versions. Although all our admin versions work well and do their job, we of course would eventually like to see all our clients using the latest and greatest version - but, this is a process that will take time to work through.

WideRange Admin History

This page lists the development history of the admin control panel, mostly concerning features available to the user.

  • 1.0
    • Manage up to 6 levels of galleries and subgalleries.
    • Each gallery has 5 different layout options.
    • Upload photos to multiple galleries.
    • Photo thumbnails automatically generated at various preset sizes.
    • IPTC data already existing in uploaded jpg files is automatically entered into the datafields. New data entered is embedded as IPTC data in the uploaded jpg file.
    • Specify keywords and choose available print sizes for each photo.
    • Manage print sizes, display options, and prices.
    • Manage news items.
    • Collect an email list, and compose and send mass text-based emails with up to three photo attachments.
    • Manage a page of links, which can be organized in link categories.
    • Manage general site options
      • Site title, description, and keywords are included in the page metadata on every page of the website.
      • Site author, copyright statement, and URL are embedded as IPTC data in each uploaded image.
      • Choose a gallery for the homepage slideshow, and manage the homepage welcome text.
      • Enable a "vacation" message that can show on the shopping cart page.
  • 2.0
    • Restructuring of the products and shopping cart system.
      • An open 3-level hierarchy allows flexibility to enter any kind of product into the list, not just prints.
      • Batch process prices to instantly adjust all selected item prices.
      • Each product has description, thumbnail, page keywords, and page description fields.
      • Batch add photos to each product. Not necessary anymore to modify each photo to set the available print sizes. Saves time when adding additional print sizes.
      • Set whether a product is available for sale or not.
    • Adjust the photo sequence for each gallery independent of other galleries.
      • Easy to use drag-and-drop interface to arrange photos into desired order.
    • Each gallery gets page keywords and page description fields.
    • Advanced discount system
      • Set discount codes, to apply percent of item price and percent off shipping price.
      • Each discount code can apply to all photos and products, or any combination of certain photos and/or certain products.
    • Site Pages feature enables management of text content on contact page and shopping cart.
    • Template Pages feature enables management of all "static" pages.
      • Inserts contents of one large text field into the existing site framework. Accepts custom html code.
      • Set URL code, page title, page keywords, and page description for each page.
    • New admin design. Light colors and styles; not black anymore.
  • 2.1
    • Photo Search Engine
      • Photos get Search Tags field for all possible applicable search terms.
      • Build a Search Index of suggested search terms. Offers an alternative means of displaying photo collections online, besides the exising gallery structure.
        • Organize the index with a 6-level hierarchy.
        • Each index term can have multiple alias terms which are also searched for. Any search input is first checked in the index for aliases.
        • Each index term gets a paragraph, page keywords and page description fields.
      • Search engine searches photos' titles, locations, keywords, and search tags, and outputs the thumbnail results.
    • FCKeditor advanced Text Editors for most of the text fields throughout the admin
      • Easily add links, bold, italic, underline, font sizes, colors, lists, emoticons, and special characters without having to enter any html code.
      • Switch to Source code mode to enter html.
    • Dynamic Site Navigation
      • Manage the main site header and footer navigation links.
      • Enter the label, link, and whether it links to new window.
      • Makes it easy to add new template pages to the site navigation.
  • 2.2
    • Started software versioning to keep track of admin upgrades.
    • Flexible gallery layout options
      • Set the number of columns and thumbnail size for each gallery.
      • Choose whether or not to show the photo titles under the thumbnails.
      • Choose whether or not to link the thumbnails to the large photo pages.
    • Enhanced product page features geared for non-print products.
      • Create product menus and submenus.
      • Each product has 4 different layout options, similar to the galleries.
      • Set the number of columns and thumbnail sizes for each product page, like the galleries.
      • Display photo thumbnails associated with the product.
    • Optional feature: Linklok Automated Product Downloads.
      • After Paypal payment is made, customer is returned to a page with download links, and an email is also sent to the customer with the download links.
      • Includes all the sophisticated features offered by the Linklok software.
      • Downloadable products are managed in the same admin product system with all the other products, and integrated seamlessly with the site's shopping cart.
  • 2.2.1
    • Shipping Zones
      • Add as many shipping zones as you'd like.
      • Set shipping prices for each product for each shipping zone.
      • Customer selects shipping zone prior to check out; cart automatically updates the shipping costs.
  • 3.0
    • URL Rewrites for "Friendly" URL addresses
      • Example old style address: "http://www.widerange.org/gallery.php?gallery=colorado"
      • Example new "friendly" url: "http://www.widerange.org/gallery/colorado/"
      • Old addresses automatically redirect to new addresses, for seamless continuity with existing external links and search engine page rankings.
    • Canonical Meta Tags
      • Prevent potential erroneous search engine penalties for duplicate content.
      • Consolidate multiple pages into one page rank; for instance, galleries with multiple pages get ranked together as one page.
    • Admin overhaul to improve usability and intuitiveness
      • Data tables have been simplified to show only relevant information. Different levels in data tables are color tinted to improve visual understanding.
      • Data fields are pared down when Adding content, to make it easier and quicker to add content. Modifying content still allows full advanced functionality.
      • New PRINT WIZARD makes adding print sizes and display options much easier.
      • Confusing "Sequence" variables are mostly purged from the admin. Now sequencing of the photos, galleries, news, and searches is easily controlled with a simple dropdown menu.
      • Extensive HELP documentation explains all advanced features. Includes a HELP index and FAQ page.
      • GETTING STARTED page offers step-by-step directions on how to start using the admin.
  • 3.1
    • Multi-Photo Flash Uploader
      • Select and upload multiple photos at once.
      • See upload progress bars and thumbnails as each one uploads.
    • More Site Settings to control via the admin:
      • Contact and Paypal addresses
      • Google Analytics insertion
      • Newsletter Subscription insertion
      • Homepage Keywords
  • 3.1.1
    • External Gallery/Product Linking Option
      • Galleries can have arbitrary links designated, instead of being constrained to the gallery database structure. Same with product pages.
      • Enables more flexibility within the galleries, to build a menu of galleries that link to other non-gallery pages, or other external websites. Also provides a way to insert one gallery into two different places in the gallery structure. Same with product pages.
  • 4.0
    • Centralized Code Set and Database (both front-end and back-end files)
      • Allows for frequent, free, and instant admin upgrades into the future for all clients using this version or later.
    • Improved Advanced Text Editors
      • Unwanted text formatting (when copied and pasted from Word or other HTML pages) is automatically removed upon pasting
      • Text blocks are automatically formatted into paragraph tags for clean code.
    • Improved Drag-&-Drop Photo Organizing within each Gallery
      • Doesn't require Flash anymore. Easier to use and much faster than before.
    • Multiple Currency Support
      • Choose from 21 currencies that Paypal handles worldwide.
      • All prices throughout the site and shopping cart are listed and processed accordingly.
    • Optional Image Protection
      • Prevents users from easily downloading the large size images by right-click-saving or dragging-to-desktop.
      • As with any image protection technique, this can be fairly easily bypassed but it should deter most casual users from downloading the images. We still highly recommend adding a small watermark to your images before uploading.
    • Google Fonts Support
      • Choose from Google's 500+ fonts (See here: http://www.google.com/webfonts )
      • Greatly expands the font design possibilities beyond the standard dozen or so system fonts.
    • New and improved custom programmed jQuery Slideshows
      • Replaces the old Flash slideshow. No more Flash needed, so the slideshow will work on all devices including iPhones and iPads
      • Works on all major browsers, including IE8 and greater. IE7 and older show a static image instead of the slideshow.
      • Option to add a slideshow to the template pages.
    • Large-photo Overlays
      • If a larger image file exists for a photo, a "Larger View" link shows on the photo page, which when clicked launches a screen overlay with the larger image.
      • More info here.
    • XML Sitemaps
      • Option to generate an xml sitemap of all galleries, photos, pages, and products.
      • More info here.
    • Print Sales Statistics
      • Chart print sales by history, years, months, photos, print sizes, display options, customers, countries, and states – and sort the data by income or number of prints sold.
      • Interactive graphs, charts, and maps to visualize the data.
      • Hooks up with Paypal to automatically record new print sales.
      • Ability to manually populate the statistics with past sales.
      • More info here.
 
 
 
 
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