Shashin 2.3 Now Available at wordpress.org

Beta testing is now done, and Shashin 2.3 is available for download from wordpress.org. If you have the beta version, go get the final version from wordpress.org. Thanks very much to everyone who helped with testing – you found bugs that I had missed and provided helpful feedback on the new features.

Update 2/10: …even more bug fixes – version 2.3.4 is now available. A few people using Shashin with WordPress on Windows were having problems adding certain photos. This is fixed now (the problem had to do with photos that had no date indicating when they were taken – mySQL on Windows insists on having a date). Also, the [salbumlist] tag is now working again (I overlooked it in my previous testing). Lastly, you can now put more than one [salbumthumbs] or [salbumlist] tag on a page (it never occurred to me to try this, but someone wanted to, and now it’ll work).

Update 1/30: Yet another minor release is now available – version 2.3.3. I rewrote the album syncing method for faster performance. There should be a noticeable improvement when clicking “sync all,” especially if you have a lot of albums (or a lot of photos in your albums). I also fixed a bug – Shashin wasn’t correctly updating its photo data when an album was moved from one Picasa album to another. Shashin can now also handle a # character at the end of album URLs when adding an album (the # appears in certain Picasa links – it’s not actually part of the album URL, and it was tripping up the RSS feed).

Update 1/25: Another bug fix release is now available at wordpress.org – version 2.3.2. This is an important one, so please upgrade. You’ll need to deactivate and then reactivate Shashin after uploading the new version. It fixes a problem with albums getting added multiple times when you try to sync albums. It also fixes a problem with the album thumbnail widget – it now automatically links the album thumbnails to Picasa, instead of trying to load all your photos in the sidebar. And it includes the first localization file contribution – Shashin in Dutch!

Update 1/23: I just updated Shashin at wordpress.org with a couple of bug fixes (version 2.3.1). It wasn’t loading language localization files correctly, and in certain situations it was reporting a database error when there wasn’t one. Both problems are fixed.

95 Comments

  1. Patrick January 21, 2009

    The new version still gets the same error that we talked about over email. It only imports the first 10 or so albums of mine.

    ShashinAlbum::setAlbumPhotos – Failed to read Picasa RSS feed for album.

    Thoughts?

  2. Patrick January 21, 2009

    When I try to upload the album manually that seems to be causing a problem, I get this:

    ShashinAlbum::setAlbum – Failed to insert/update database record for album. SQL Error:

    Note, the RSS feed for my account does look good though. I don’t see any issues there.

  3. Mike January 22, 2009

    Hi Patrick – I haven’t had any trouble adding all your albums on my test box, including the “graduation” one that was giving you trouble. There must be something different in your environment that’s causing the trouble. Can you let me know if your web site is running on Windows or Unix, your PHP version, and your mySQL version?

    Also, if you’re comfortable editing some code, please go to line 323 in ShashinAlbum.php and add these lines, before the “return” line:

    var_dump($feed_url);
    var_dump($feed_content);
    var_dump($new_photos);
    exit;

    Then try to add your albums again. When it fails you’ll get a whole bunch of text on your screen. Please save the html for that page and email it to me.

  4. Bruno Cunha January 22, 2009

    Hello!
    I’ve installed Shasin plug in version 2.3 and now I’m getting this error: “Shashin Error: unable to retrieve random photos”.
    Is there a fix? 😉
    Please, this is a great plug in.
    tks

  5. Chris January 22, 2009

    Hello again Mike,

    I just upgraded to 2.3. I was getting the following error on both of my album pages – “Shashin Error: unable to retrieve albums.”

    Here was my code:

    [salbumthumbs=2|3|4|5|6|7|10|11|12|13|14|16|19|20|21|22|26|24|25|28|,5,n,n,left,clear]

    After a bit of head scratching, I found that the additional | at the end of the last album key before the column # caused it not to load the album list. It appears that it wasn’t causing an issue in 2.2 but now is. I fixed both…and now I’m up and running.

    Just and FYI.

    Keep up the great work!

  6. Bovoy January 23, 2009

    Hi, I have updated my Shashin to version 2.3 yesterday, but when I sync my albums, I got this error information:

    ShashinAlbum::setAlbumPhotos – Failed to update record for photo ID 5292200402525852994. SQL Error:

    I am new user of Shashin and I believe it is a good plugin.
    Can you please tell me how to deal with this?

    Forgive my poor English.

  7. Mike January 23, 2009

    Hi Bruno – Can you show me how you’re using the tag? There is probably a mistake in the syntax you’re using.

  8. Mike January 23, 2009

    Hi Bovoy – this error is coming from the database. Can you check your mySQL version? If it’s older than version 4.1, it’s not compatible with Shashin.

  9. Bovoy January 23, 2009

    Hi Mike
    Thanks for your reply.
    My mySQL version is 4.1.22, I think this is compatible with Shashin.
    And it was OK when my Shashin version was 2.2.

  10. Mike January 23, 2009

    Hi Bovoy – I just ran into the same error. I’ve uploaded a fixed version to wordpress.org. Shashin was reporting a database error when there actually wasn’t one. Thanks for letting me know about this.

  11. Tommy Keene January 23, 2009

    The old version of Shashin let me set display to Highslide if you clicked on an image, but if you clicked on an album thumbnail, it took you to picasa. Is there anyway to do this with the new version? I have a latest album widget on my sidebar, and when you click on it it opens up highslide and I want it to take me to Picasa.

    Thanks. Great plugin!

  12. Daniel Todd January 23, 2009

    Love it. Great plugin.

  13. Mike January 23, 2009

    Hi Tommy – sorry, that was an oversight on my part. When I changed how the salbumthumbs tag works in Shashin 2.3, I was trying to simplify showing album thumbnails and their photos on a page. The widget uses the same underlying code and I didn’t think about the impact on the widget. I’ll try to fix the widget over the weekend.

  14. Kristiaan January 23, 2009

    Hey Mike,

    Great update. Appreciate the work you put into it!
    I was wondering if you already found a way to seperate albums from two or more picasa accounts automatically?

    I would love to be able to put the albums of our kindergarten school and the ones from our primary school (both different accounts) automatically.

    Some progression on that yet?

  15. Bovoy January 23, 2009

    Hi again Mike!
    Thanks for you hard working!
    The problem has been fixed.
    But there is another problem, the same as Patrick, Shashin can only import the first 10 albums of mine. I have added the codes you told him, but it didn’t working.
    Waiting for your reply.
    Thanks very much.

  16. Mike January 23, 2009

    FYI. This plugin works great with Language Switcher.

    http://www.poplarware.com/languageplugin.html

    If you name your Picasa albums with the correct `[lang_es]` tags, then the album shows up in WordPress via Shashin in the proper language.

    Captions work, too. Good code!

    You can see this at http://carinabro.mdf.net, where the blog is in Romanian and English.

    Is there anyway to have the controlbar disappear when the mouse is moved off the photo, so you can see the entire image uncovered?

  17. AS January 24, 2009

    2.3.1 setup to save an error

    Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /home/18aisi/cms/wp-content/plugins/shashin/Shashin.php on line 603

    2.2.1 Normal

  18. Neil January 24, 2009

    Bruno: I had the same error in my sidebar widget but it looks like I just had to remove/re-add the widget and it’s working properly.

    Mike: A minor bug, not causing any usability errors, but one of my albums is showing up twice in “Your Albums” (but not in display). When I select “Include in Random,” the radio buttons toggle between the 4 available (Album 1 Yes/No, Album 2 Yes/No, if that makes sense). When trying to delete either of the duplicate albums, I get “Album not found.”

    I’ve dropped all the data from my DBs, but as soon as I sync that one particular album, it duplicates itself for some reason. Again, no big deal since it only seems to show up in the backend, but I thought I’d bring it up. Thanks for all your work!

  19. Neil January 24, 2009

    Just wanted to report that this one album keeps multiplying every time I sync…not sure what’s going on. The only thing that seems to work is “starting over” every time it’s time to sync by dropping the DB entries.

  20. Mike January 25, 2009

    Hi Kristiaan – I haven’t forgotten. This didn’t make it in version 2.3, but it’s still on the wish list. I haven’t received other requests for this, so it hasn’t made it to the top of the list yet.

  21. Mike January 25, 2009

    Hi Bovoy – in Patrick’s case, when we tried to add or sync all his albums, it always failed on a specific album. Is this what’s happening to you too? If so, can you give me the URL of the album that fails?

  22. Mike January 25, 2009

    Hi AS – I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean but “2.3.1 setup to save an error.” Can you tell me what you clicked that caused this error?

  23. Mike January 25, 2009

    Hi Neil – I found this problem and fixed it. Look for version 2.3.2 at wordpress.org to get the fix. You’ll need to deactivate and then reactivate Shashin after uploading the new version.

  24. AS January 25, 2009

    Thank you, Meki
    click “Save” to preserve the options after
    Warning: array_merge () [function.array-merge]: Argument # 1 is not an array in / home/18aisi/cms/wp-content/plugins/shashin/Shashin.php on line 603

  25. Norman Liebold January 25, 2009

    Dear Mike,
    with the version 2.3.1. my problem is already fixed – no errors, if i added albums. Thank your very well!

  26. Bovoy January 25, 2009

    Hi Mike,
    My picasa url is http://picasaweb.google.com/ibovoy
    The one which can not import is http://picasaweb.google.com/ibovoy/wQVkjD#
    Please see to it. Thanks very much.

  27. Jesper January 25, 2009

    Hi Mike.

    I’m doing a new site for my daughter so that I can reuse her old site name for her little sister/brother. But I get an error.

    ShashinAlbum::setAlbum – Failed to insert/update database record for album. SQL Error:

    I’m using:
    WP2.7
    PHP4.4.7
    Apache1.3.37
    MYSQLClientAPI5.0.41

    I have seen another post about this problem, but no solution (that I could understand)

  28. Neil January 25, 2009

    Mike: thanks for pushing that 2.3.2 update. Album syncing is working as expected now!

  29. Mike January 26, 2009

    Hi AS – Please deactivate and reactivate Shashin in your plugins menu. This is necessary to reset the options when upgrading to version 2.3

  30. Mike January 26, 2009

    Hi Bovoy – The # at the end of the link you gave me is not part of the album URL. If you try again without the # at the end, it should work.

  31. Mike January 26, 2009

    Hi Jesper – please let me know the URL for the album, and I’ll take a look.

  32. Jesper January 26, 2009
  33. Mike January 26, 2009

    Hi Jesper – Could you try it without the # on the end? I’ve started getting reports from other people too, having trouble because of the # at the end. That’s fine for a regular URL but not for the album’s RSS feed. I don’t know why Google has started adding a # to the URLs. Let me know if removing the # solves the problem for you.

  34. Jesper January 26, 2009

    Thank you removing the # from http://picasaweb.google.com/JesperThusgaard/Gibraltar190907# works. I’ll keep testing.

  35. Krissi January 27, 2009

    Hi there, Mike! You remember the bug with the removed pictures showing as blank spaces in the album? This has surfaced again after installed the latest version (I’ve got 2.3.2 running). I had two videos in one of my photo albums, and decided to remove them from the Picasa album. I have updated the album (have also automatic updated turned on). But the two blank thumbnails are still visible in the album. And they turn up in the random image block on my sidebar.
    Link to album: http://snuppa.krissi.net/?page_id=1594&shashin_album_key=25
    Link to album in Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/krissifontaine/HKNN2008Skibotn

  36. Mike January 28, 2009

    Hi Krissi- thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure what’s causing this. I didn’t lose the fix I made before, so it’s not the same reason. I’ll try to track down the problem.

  37. Brian January 28, 2009

    Hi Mike,
    Thanks for creating such a great plugin! The random images widget is giving me an error message that it can’t retrieve the random images. Any thoughts?

  38. Mike January 29, 2009

    Hi Brian – I’m not aware of any problems with the random images widget (but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one…). Does it give you that message every time you load a page, or just occasionally? If it’s every time, there’s something wrong with the widget; if it’s occasional, then there’s probably something wrong with your photo data. Also, please try these two things:

    1. Try the widget with the “any” option for the album choice, and then with 2 or 3 different albums, and see if that makes any difference.

    2. Try using the srandom tag in a post or page and see if that works for you. The tag and the widget use the same underlying code. Testing the tag will give me a clue if the problem is with the shared code or just the widget interface to it.

  39. Ken January 29, 2009

    I’m just starting to play with your plugin and so far like what I see. I’ve been using Gallery2 in the past and I’m converting over to using Picasa to host my pics and this plugin looks great in my initial foray.

    Question for you regarding highslide – can the same functionality be accomplished using jquery? It’s already included in the wp-includes directory and has a great deal of functionality. It’s on my list of things to learn. 🙂

    If jquery would fit the bill, and I suspect it would, it would remove a piece of code that needs to be served and eliminate the commercial use issues.

  40. Mike January 30, 2009

    Hi Ken – several photo viewers have already been written based on jquery. See http://leandrovieira.com/projects/jquery/lightbox/ and http://fancy.klade.lv/ for example. There are actually a ton of different options – see here: http://planetozh.com/projects/lightbox-clones/

    I added Highslide support to Shashin about a year ago, when there weren’t nearly as many choices. Highslide is one of the most mature of them, and a key feature is that it can also play Picasa’s Flash videos. It’s not straightforward to swap in a different photo viewer, as they each have their own approach to defining groups for slideshows, etc.

  41. Dustin January 30, 2009

    Hey Mike,

    I just upgraded my Shashin to version 2.3.3 and when I go to sync albums I receive the following error: ShashinAlbum::setAlbum – Failed to parse album feed. I have no SQL errors being reported. The location where I have the widget reports the following error: Shashin Error: unable to retrieve albums.

    I did however, receive this SQL error when it came to Shashin settings: Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /home/demonicpagan/blog/wp-content/plugins/shashin/Shashin.php on line 607

    I’m using WP 2.7 PHP 5.2.6 MySQL 5.0.67

  42. Mike January 30, 2009

    Hi Dustin – Sorry for the trouble. What version did you upgrade from? If it was prior to version 2.3.2, you’ll need to deactivate and reactivate Shashin in order to make some needed changes to the Shashin database tables. If that’s not the issue, let me know.

  43. Dustin January 30, 2009

    I upgraded from 2.3.2. I had deactivated and reactivated the plugin and still getting the same deal with the ShashinAlbum::setAlbum. I have not reattempted the Shashin settings yet.

  44. Dustin January 30, 2009

    Here is a SQL dump of the 2 tables I have

    — phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
    — version 3.1.1
    http://www.phpmyadmin.net

    — Host: localhost
    — Generation Time: Jan 30, 2009 at 06:45 PM
    — Server version: 5.0.67
    — PHP Version: 5.2.6-1

    — ——————————————————–


    — Table structure for table `wp_shashin_album`

    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `wp_shashin_album` (
    `album_key` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
    `album_id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `user` varchar(255) character set latin1 NOT NULL default ”,
    `name` varchar(255) character set latin1 NOT NULL default ”,
    `link_url` varchar(255) character set latin1 NOT NULL default ”,
    `title` varchar(255) character set latin1 NOT NULL default ”,
    `description` text,
    `location` varchar(255) character set latin1 default NULL,
    `cover_photo_url` varchar(255) character set latin1 default NULL,
    `last_updated` int(10) unsigned default NULL,
    `photo_count` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `pub_date` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `geo_pos` varchar(25) character set latin1 default NULL,
    `include_in_random` char(1) character set latin1 default ‘Y’,
    PRIMARY KEY (`album_key`)
    ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=13 ;

    — ——————————————————–


    — Table structure for table `wp_shashin_photo`

    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `wp_shashin_photo` (
    `photo_key` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
    `photo_id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `album_id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `title` varchar(255) character set latin1 default NULL,
    `description` text,
    `link_url` text,
    `content_url` text,
    `width` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `height` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `taken_timestamp` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `uploaded_timestamp` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
    `tags` varchar(255) character set latin1 default NULL,
    `include_in_random` char(1) character set latin1 default ‘Y’,
    `deleted` char(1) default ‘N’,
    `enclosure_url` text NOT NULL,
    `enclosure_type` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (`photo_key`),
    UNIQUE KEY `photo_id` (`photo_id`),
    UNIQUE KEY `photo_id_2` (`photo_id`)
    ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=212 ;

    I did the settings thing again and it returns the error above in my initial post.

  45. Krissi January 31, 2009

    Mike!
    After ugrading to 2.3.3 and updating the album where I had removed the two videos – the two blank thumbnails for the videos are now removed from the album also! So whatever you’ve done, it worked. Great!

    I just want to give you cred for this fantastic plugin!! I’ve been using Gallery2 in my blogs for years, and was a bit afraid “converting” to Picasa and your plugin. But there was no need for worries! Your plugin is excellent, and the support extraordinary! Thanks! 🙂

    Krissi

  46. Mike January 31, 2009

    Hi Dustin – thanks for all the info. Your table structure looks good, so that part of the update went ok for you. Let’s start with your Shashin settings (if you’re settings aren’t being saved for some reason, that can break a lot of other things). Please add the following to the very end of shashin/display/options-main.php:

    <?php var_dump(get_option('shashin_options')); ?>

    and then let me know what kind of output you see at the bottom of the Shashin settings page.

  47. Dustin January 31, 2009

    This is what the var_dump gives me.

    string(2) “N;”

    Doesn’t appear that any of my settings were/are getting saved. I would think that a dead give away would be seeing something where my picasa server would be at in the input box and the appropriate radio buttons selected. None of which are the case. The picasa server box is blank and none of the radio buttons are selected.

  48. Mike January 31, 2009

    Hi Dustin – You’re right – it looks like your options got corrupted somehow when you upgraded. If you don’t mind making some temporary code edits, please do the following:

    1. Go to line 607 in Shashin.php (where you got the error when you tried to save your settings before). And change it to look like this:

    //$shashin_options = array_merge($shashin_options, $_REQUEST['shashin_options']);
    $shashin_options = $_REQUEST['shashin_options'];

    2. Enter your settings in the Shashin settings form, and save it. It should work this time.

    3. Go back to Shashin.php and change line 607 back to what it was originally (i.e. uncomment it, and remove the line you added after it).

    4. If you’re using Shashin widgets, you’ll need to go to the widgets menu and set them up again (the widget settings are also stored in shashin_options)

    5. Save the settings form again, just to make sure everything is ok with it, and double check that the widget settings are still correct.

    Hopefully that will fix everything for you. If not, let me know.

  49. Jason February 1, 2009

    Hi Mike,

    I am running 2.3.3 (initial install/not upgraded) and I can see everything fine in the tools menu. I can update my options. I’ve linked 2 albums from Picasa. I can see my pictures in WordPress admin, but when I try to insert an album in a page or a widget, I get these errors:
    Page (http://retiredjudges.org/gallery): Shashin Error: unable to retrieve newest photos.
    Widget: Shashin Error: unable to retrieve random photos.

    Any ideas? The code I used in the page was [snewest=1|2|etc,640,2,4]

  50. Dustin February 1, 2009

    I made those edits you told me, resaved my settings, and put things back. Now everything is back in place. Thank you very much for your assistance. This plugin is awesome as ever still. Also glad to see your site is back online after being down for some time yesterday.

  51. Mike February 1, 2009

    Hi Jason,

    You’ve almost got it… I didn’t mean “etc” literally in the instructions. It just means you can add as many IDs as you want, separated by the | character. So this should work for you:

    [snewest=1|2,640,2,4]

  52. Jason February 1, 2009

    Mike,

    I got it! Thanks! This is a really awesome album you’ve created. Props to you. Your program beats NextGallery any day. Hey, one more question. When the Highslide comes up, it puts the control menu for the images right on top of the faces of most of my pictures. Any way to move it to the bottom or up higher?

    Thanks,
    Jason

  53. Mike February 1, 2009

    Hi Jason – Thanks very much. Yes, you can adjust the position of the control bar. I should add an option for this (I’ll put it on the list for the next version of Shashin). In the meantime, open Shashin.php and search for “overlayOptions” (it’s at line 677). Under it you’ll find a line that says:

    position: ‘top center’,

    You can change that to any of the values described here (you’ll see “position” described under the Parameters list).

    http://highslide.com/ref/hs.registerOverlay

    Just remember to keep the characters before the single quotes. Shashin needs them for the code to parse correctly.

    After you get the basic position you want, you can nudge the controlbar around further by playing with its margins in shashin/display/highslide.css. Look for “.highslide-controls”.

    If you customize the css file, copy it to your active theme directory, and Shashin will find it there. That way your customizations won’t get overwritten the next time you upgrade Shashin.

  54. Jason February 1, 2009

    That worked perfectly! I decided to move it to bottom center and turned on “show on mouseover.” Thanks!!

  55. Ian February 2, 2009

    Hi Mike. First off, I can’t thank you enough for the plugin. I have tried several different plugins that interface with picasa, and yours is by far the best.

    I have been running into a slight issue though. I am having a problem similar to what Patric reported at the top of this comments thread. When trying to add albums I first tried to add all my albums with my picasa url, It only added the first 6 albums. So I went on adding the rest of them manually. While most of the albums added fine there were 3 that did not take. They seem to add fine, but then if you click within them you see none of the pictures show up for the albumn. In its stead there is the following: Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in “wp-contentpluginsshashindisplayadmin-edit.php on line 60”

    I have tried removing and adding the albums several times with the same results. I then tried to upgrade from shashin 2.2.1 to 2.3.3. The albums still won’t add, and I am unable to remove them either. “ShashinAlbum::deleteAlbum – Failed to delete photo records for album ID 2147483647. SQL Error:”

    I am running WordPress 2.7, Shashin 2.3.3, Windows 2000 Server, Apache 2.2.9, MySQL 5.0.

    Thanks for any help you can provide.

  56. Mike February 2, 2009

    Hi Ian – I’m sending you a revised version of ShashinAlbum.php via email. It won’t fix the problem you’re having with adding albums, but I found and fixed a small bug that should fix your deleting problem. What seems to be happening in your case is the albums are getting added only halfway. The album metadata is being saved but the data for the individual photos is not. I’m not sure what’s causing this problem. I believe Patrick’s problem cleared up with Shashin 2.3.3, but clearly you’re still having trouble. Can you email me the URLs for the albums you’re trying to add that are giving you trouble?

  57. Oleg February 4, 2009

    Hello Mike,

    Great plugin, the best I could found for displaying popup photos from picasa in my blog. Thank you a lot for it.

    The only problem I have with centering set of images in a page.
    For example, I use the following command:
    [sthumbs=14|13,160,2,n,none,clear]
    How can I make thumbnails of these 2 photos centered?

    Using ‘center’ alignment feature in Worpress WYSYWIG doesn’t work.

    The only way I could make it is to switch to raw html edition and put command in a ‘center’ tags:
    [sthumbs=14|13,160,2,n,none,clear]
    But if I switch back to WYSYWIG, then ‘center’ tags dissapear.

    I’m sure there is some easier way to manage centering.

  58. Oleg February 4, 2009

    Errr. When I posted the previous comment, ‘center’ tags dissapeared from my text.

    Here again with ‘_’ around:
    The only way I could make it is to switch to raw html edition and put command in a ‘center’ tags:
    __[sthumbs=14|13,160,2,n,none,clear]__

  59. Mike February 4, 2009

    Hi Oleg – Currently the only way to do this is what I think you’ve already tried. Like this:

    <div style=”text-align: center;”>[sthumbs=whatever…]</div>

    Someone else just asked for centering too. I’ll add it to the to-do list for the next version of Shashin.

    Note that you shouldn’t have “clear” as the last argument to sthumbs. This is an optional argument for the “clear” CSS property for clearing margins (possible values are “left”, “right”, “both”, or “none”).

  60. Oleg February 4, 2009

    Hi Mike!

    Thanks for quick reply. I’m looking forward to new version of your plugin!

  61. Tyson February 6, 2009

    Why is it when I post the tag to my page/post, all I see is the tag itself and not the albums? I know it must be something simple but I cant figure it out. Other Picasa tools I have used have given my no problems with the tags. Its driving me crazy!

  62. Mike February 7, 2009

    Hi Tyson – I’m happy to help, but you need to let me know exactly what you typed for the tag, so I can let you know how to fix it.

  63. Krissi February 8, 2009

    I’ve been struggling with the clear and float settings. I’d like to be able to do something rather simple. Have two images side-by-side, and the text over and under them.
    But, when I use ie:
    [simage=xxx,200,n,left]
    [simage=xxx,200,n,left]
    I get the text at the right side of the last image. This I’d like underneath the images. Example: http://snuppa.krissi.net/?page_id=2326
    I’ve tried playing with clear/float variables, but I’m not able to make it work whatever settings I test.
    I know there must be an easy answer for this.

  64. Krissi February 8, 2009

    Mike, forget my last entry/question. I wasn’t using the br clear=all command correctly. When I did, it worked. 🙂

  65. Mike February 8, 2009

    Hi Krissi – an easier way to do this is with the sthumbs tag, like this:

    [sthumbs=photo_key1|photo_key2,200,2,n,none,both]

    This will place the two images side by side, and clear both margins (meaning that the text you put after the tag will go under the pictures and not flow around them)

  66. Pablo Castro February 9, 2009

    Hi Mike! First I want to thank you for the great work you´ve done with these plugin.

    I need your help. I use the “salbumthumbs” command several times on one page with a description besides each one, and when I click on the thumb it takes me to all the photos of the album as it should be, but it repets all the fotos for every “salbumthumbs” command I wrote. I mean, I get every description for each album and repeats all the photos for the album I chose.

    I´ve upgraded to version 2.3.3 and it´s the same, running with WordPress 2.7

    Thanks for any help you can provide.

  67. Mike February 10, 2009

    Hi Pablo – You found a bug! I just uploaded a new version to wordpress.org (version 2.3.4) that should fix this for you.

    Also, you might want to try the salbumlist tag. I think it might work better for what you’re trying to do than the salbumthumbs tags

    http://www.toppa.com/shashin-wordpress-plugin/#shashin7

  68. eboye February 10, 2009

    I just installed your plugin, and configured it, I was amazed how easy this was, but when I put random images widget in sidebar, images in page are not shown in highslide. they are shown as a link to image itself. What am I doing wrong?

    10X in advance

  69. Mike February 10, 2009

    Hi – it looks like you’re using a Google Analytics plugin that is conflicting with Highslide. Try turning it off temporarily and see if that helps. Could you let me know which Analytics plugin you’re using? There’s more than one out there. It may have an option where you can tell it to ignore links to certain domains. If so, set it to ignore links to “ggpht.com” (that’s where Picasa images are served from).

  70. Phil February 11, 2009

    Hi Mike, I have been using your plugin for some time. I could say your plugin makes my site. See deltaphian.com and westburyhigh.us. My family and fiends love having my photos available (and presentable). Shashin is a really nice piece of work. Since the update my albums open in a new window or tab instead of the same (I am using your Highslide). I am on the hunt for the answer but have found no joy. Any insight? Thanks for a great plugin. Phil

  71. Mike February 11, 2009

    Hi Phil – Thanks for using Shashin. You’ve got a javascript function installed called externalLinks() that is making them open in a new window. My guess is that you’ve got a plugin that is rewriting your links to external sites so that they open in a new window. I’m not sure what that plugin might be. If it lets you add exceptions for certain sites, then make an exception for ggpht.com – that’s where the Picasa images are served from.

  72. owen February 13, 2009

    Hello!
    I’ve installed Shasin plug in version 2.3.3 and now I’m getting this error: “Shashin Error: unable to retrieve random photos”.
    Is there a fix?
    But it is ok in 2.2.
    Please, this is a great plug in.
    tks

  73. Mike February 14, 2009

    Hi Owen – Can you let me know the syntax you used for the tag? The new version is more sensitive to mistakes in the syntax – that might be the problem.

  74. Jesper Thusgaard February 22, 2009

    Hi.

    I’m using this great plugin on my daughters homepage. Unfortunatly the home page is not open to the public.

    I use this tag to show albums on a page:
    [salbumthumbs=pub_date desc,2,y,n,left]

    I want the newest album to be on top (and the tag does that) but when I show the album I want the oldest picture to be on top.

    If you need to see what I mean I’ll make changes to my own home page.

    BTW. I thing your plugin is great and I plan to test it on my own homepage. So please let me know if there is any specific ways you need this done.

  75. Mike February 22, 2009

    Hi Jesper – you can control this on the Shashin settings page. Look for “sort order” under the heading “Album Photos Settings”

  76. Jesper Thusgaard February 24, 2009

    He he should have seen that myself.

    Is it possible to use a picture in a post? Couldn’t find a TAG for it.

    J;-)

  77. Milan Stosic February 24, 2009

    Hi Mike.

    I have some questions for you, because I’m little confused:
    1. Is there any way to have same order like in PicasaWeb, because for some albums I just can’t get it to be the same. I’ve tried all order options from settings page, but none of them works as I would like to.
    2. If I reorder my pictures at picasaweb, will that affect their order at my website?
    3. When I press Sync All my albums don’t sync (even if I have over 40 alubms synchronised) until I add my album link again. This started after last upgrade to v2.3.4

    I’m probably missmaching something but I dont know what. I use [salbumthumbs] tag

    Thanks. Best wishes. Milan

  78. Mike February 24, 2009

    Hi Jesper – you’re looking for the simage tag:

    http://www.toppa.com/shashin-wordpress-plugin/#shashin6

  79. Mike February 24, 2009

    Hi Milan –

    1. No, not currently. I’m planning to add this in the next version.

    2. No.

    3. Can you sync the albums one at a time? (by clicking the green sync icon next to each album name on the Shashin admin page). It’s possible Shashin is running into a timeout problem trying to sync all your albums at once since you have more than 40 albums (especially if the albums have a lot of photos). That is, it might not be able to process all the albums’ RSS feeds before it reaches the time limit when your web server expects it to send a page back to the browser. You could try adding this near the top of Shashin.php (right before the “global $wpdb;” line) :

    set_time_limit(60);

    The default time limit is 30 seconds, so this will give Shashin more time. Some php installations are configured to disallow this change, so it may not work. Let me know what happens.

  80. Noelyci March 5, 2009

    Hey Mike,

    Love love love this plugin, it made converting from blogger even easier for me. However, I notice that my captions are showing up white on a white background, can you tell me where I can change this? http://ingmanndesign.com/virtual-insulin-pump-hotties/ is the link. I really don’t want to dig through the rest of my theme as it’s complex enough as is. Thank you in advance!

  81. stu March 6, 2009

    noelyci, the highslide css is in: wp-contentpluginsshashindisplayhighslide.css. Look for css .highslide-caption and add in your font color there. Great site by the way.

  82. Mike March 6, 2009

    Hi Noelyci – Stu is right. If you customize highslide.css, save it your your active theme folder. Shashin will find it there. That way you won’t lose your customizations next time there’s a Shashin upgrade.

    Also, I recommend the Firebug add on for Firefox (just Google “firebug: and it’ll come right up). By using it’s HTML inspection feature, you can mouse over any element on the page and it will tell you the styles being applied to it.

  83. Brad March 9, 2009

    Hi Mike,

    Shashin’s been working great for my website. Thanks so much for your work on this. I ran into a problem today though when trying to add some new photo albums to the my site. Two new albums have been added to my Picasa account, but when I went to my wordpress site and clicked on the “sync all”, no new albums appeared. Also, some additional photos to old albums didn’t appear either.

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks, Brad

  84. Rob March 9, 2009

    I just installed the plugin, still trying to get it to work. (It only displays text, not a gallery.)

    Initially, it wouldn’t even load my photos. I entered my Picasa URL, http://picasaweb.google.com/jimrob and it said it failed to read the RSS feed. It did get the albums, but not the photos. I tried changing various settings and nothing worked. Then I simply added a “/” to the end of my URL, and it found them. ????

    Still haven’t got past the text being displayed… it only shows [salbumthumbs=to_show,max_cols,location_yn,pubdate_yn,float,clear] rather than a gallery.

  85. Mike March 9, 2009

    Hi Brad – the “sync all” button only syncs albums previously added to Shashin (it doesn’t assume you want to add all your Picasa albums to Shashin). You’ll want to add the new albums in the form under the “Add Albums” heading. I’m not sure why new photos didn’t appear for albums already in Shashin. Did you get an error message when you clicked “sync all” or did it say it was successful?

  86. Mike March 9, 2009

    Hi Rob – I’m not sure what happened with adding your albums. A trailing slash shouldn’t make any difference. If you have any further trouble like that, let me know.

    For the tags, please check out the documentation. You’ll get the hang of it when you see some examples – an example of the salbumthumbs syntax is here:

    http://www.toppa.com/shashin-wordpress-plugin/#shashin7

  87. steve March 9, 2009

    i was hoping you could tell me why my gallery looks like this?

    http://blackdog61.com/?page_id=3

    All the images are cut off and the white background is not centered behind the images. Its just all funny looking.

    But i do like the plugin, could you help me fix these bugs?

  88. Mike March 9, 2009

    Hi Steve – your site’s theme is affecting the Shashin images. It has a css class called “entry” that is adding a margin to the images and throwing off the display. The easiest solution is to edit shashin.css and add the following to “.shashin_thumb img”

    margin: 0;

    Then save shashin.css to your theme folder. Shashin will find it there, and then you won’t lose this customization next time there’s a shashin upgrade.

  89. brettbum March 9, 2009

    I’ve been playing with this plugin on a test site and love it. 🙂 I had the same issue that Steve ran into I believe and the margin: 0; solution fixed it. 🙂

    for anyone designers trying to experiment, I’d recommend taking a good look at the shashin.css file right from go. 🙂

  90. Georg March 10, 2009

    Hi Mike,

    Very nice plugin!

    I have localized it for the Danes. Or almost. Most of the widget labels are not localizable. Also, most of the pull-down menus in the other parts of the plugin is not localized. This doesn’t matter when it is numbers (not to a Dane, anyway), but it would be nice if the other menu options were localizable. Especially the Sort Order menu option would be a very good candicate for localization. 🙂

    At the Shashin Options page, the explanatory texts twice says “Double the … padding value in shashin.css. I am uncertain as to how to interpret “double”. What value is to be doubled? Does that also apply if the user has changed the initial value?

    Please, let me know if I should make my Danish language files available right now or wait for an update with more strings localized. 🙂

  91. Georg March 10, 2009

    PS: Is there some sort of wordplay involved in the PayPal-header about tips and cows?

  92. Georg March 11, 2009

    The Danish language files are available from this page: Brug Picasa-billeder på din blog.

    Mike, you are welcome to include them in the zip.

    I will keep the localization updated.

  93. Mike March 11, 2009

    Hi Georg – Thanks very much for creating a localization file. I will add localization support for the areas you mentioned. I’ll plan to add your localization file in next version of Shashin. I will send you a beta copy first so you can update your localization before I release it.

    Yes, the reference to cow tipping is a play on words, as “tip” has two different meanings in English. You can read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow-tipping I imagine the meaning will be lost in translation 😉

  94. Jeroen March 13, 2009

    Hi Mike,

    When I am using the salbumphotos tag in post to show all the photos for a specific album I also have the ‘Go Back’ link, which in this case is not necessary.

    Is there a way to remove the link in this case.

    Thanks in advance and also for this great plugin.

    Jeroen

  95. Mike March 14, 2009

    Hi Jeroen – you found a bug! It’ll require code changes in a few different places to fix it, so I don’t have a quick fix for you. I’ll get it fixed in the next release. Thanks for letting me know.

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