Another crop of Elgg 1.0 plugins has emerged adding to the list from my first and second posts about Elgg Plugins. Of note there is a new gallery plugin and a translation utility.
Artfolio, by Fredrique Hermans of ANN-Designs, is an image gallery or portfolio. At version 0.7, it is in beta, but sports many great features–yet there is a catch which I will get into later. Like blogs and many other elements of Elgg, you have options for viewing your own artfolio, those of friends, all site artfolios. It comes with a system for tagging as well. There is a file browser for uploads, and it automatically creates thumbs and intermediate resizes of the graphics. It is the first plugin that I have encountered with a five star rating system–an oft requested feature.
Here’s the catch. Although there was no caveat, it only works if you install elgg in your public_html folder. Eager to try it out, I carefully followed the installation procedure with the usual steps. The only additional step was to create an artfolio directory in the public_html folder with 777 (or 755) permissions. Unfortunately, my Elgg install is in a subdirectory, so although it installed fine, I was greeted by blank rectangle rather than the image. I checked the artfolio folder, and indeed, the image and its resized companions were there. It appears there is an issue with file paths if it is not installed in the root. The reason, I am reviewing it is that developers that I trust have had good experiences with it. The good news is that the developer has found the code necessary to allow it to work when Elgg is installed in a subdirectory. We should see it within a few days.
It is certainly an ambitious plugin with a clear development path. If you have Elgg installed in root, don’t hesitate to give it a shot. The rest of us will be able to use it soon.
Xlate is translation mod by ontimeguy (aka Joey One Time) that relies on Yahoo’s Babelfish technology. While web translation software is less than perfect, you generally can figure out what the author meant. Installation was a bit out of the ordinary. You unzip the file locally. Next you take the translation directory and upload it to your Elgg root. The remaining contents (without the translation directory) and the xlate directory that contains them go to the mod folder:
xlate/translate
goes into elgg. While
xlate/manifest.xml
xlate/start.php
xlate/views
remain in the xlate directory which is in turn uploaded to elgg/mod. Once activated, babelfish appears under the owner’s block navigation.
Click on the flag representing the language you want to view, and the page come up in the other language.
While the translations are not perfect, this mod is a must have for a site with a diverse international audience.
Stayed tuned for more overviews of Elgg 1.0 plugins. They appear to be arriving steadily. In addition, I will update this post with the fixed version of artfolio.
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