Used to be good

Hey @igs – Erick here from Imagely. Thanks for taking the time to review.

This release introduced new templates for most display types – thumbnail, slideshow, imagebrowser, compact album, extended album. For all but slideshow, we did this in such a way as to not alter existing displays, so those will stay the same. For new installs, or if someone hits reset, they’ll get new gallery defaults which provide the new look, but they can always get the old look back by adjusting a couple settings.

For the slideshow, we DID take the unusual step of updating the libary that powers all slideshows, so the look is different. The old JS library hasn’t been updated in something like 6 years, and we didn’t feel comfortable having users rely on such an old library.

For this release, we did not add options to the new slideshow, other than width. But we will be adding options for autoplay, showing controls, transition effect, and interval.

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With all that context in mind, I wanted to ask two questions:

1) Once options are added to the slideshow, would that satisfy your concerns, since that’s the only thing that can’t be done exactly like the old version?

2) I see you previously left a 5 star review. Is the change to the slideshow really sufficient to drive you from 5 stars to 1 star? I ask because NGG has six displays and hundreds of options, and also because the old slideshow, frankly, was not that good. If the new slideshow is missing options you’d like, but everything else is good, could we ask you to bump down from, say, 5 to 3 stars?

3) You mentioned bugs. Can you clarify which bugs you’re seeing? After 100K updates, we’ve heard a few complaints like yours about the slideshow, but not really anything about other bugs.

4) You said old versions are vulnerable / unsafe. Are you referring to my point above about the old slideshow engine? If so, there’s no evidence I know of that it’s vulnerable or unsafe. It’s just old.

Even if you don’t change anything about your review, I do want to thank you both for using NGG, and for taking the time to share you thoughts about the new release.

@igs – I should add that because we’ve had enough people ask about it, I’ll probably put a rush on re-introducing autoplay, showing controls, transition effect, and interval to the slideshow within the next few weeks, so users can get close to matching old slideshow. Just a heads up that’s coming.

@igs – because of some feedback on the slideshow (yours, and a few other users in a forum thread), I personally worked on this today and pushed a change to NextGEN Gallery that adds the following options to the new slideshow:

Autoplay (yes/no)
Pause on Hover (yes/no)
Show Arrows? (yes/no)
Transition Style (Fade/Slide)
Interval (in milliseconds)
Transition Speed (in milliseconds).

So there are more options than the old one. The only thing the new engine lacks is the diversity of Transition Style effects.

This will need to get a review and QA/testing before we release. But it should be ready relatively soon.

If you decide you want to try it in the meantime, I can provide a beta – just email me for it (erick at imagely.com).

Thank you for trying to resolve the issue. I do appreciate that. While I have moved on and installed another plug in, which did involve an all nighter creating new galleries, I do appreciate your trying to fix the issue. Honestly the review was an emotional one spurred on by a pop up on my dash board asking me to write a review just as 106 galleries on a real estate website had failed. While my review was valid the one star may have been too harsh, especially in light of your dedication to fixing the issue. I have changed it to a 3 star. I do not lightly change plug ins, especially when it involves a lot of work. I try to do my homework before committing to a plug in (hence the title of this review). I have had problems with your plug in several times and this was just the last straw sorry to say. Please understand that as a web designer I need to depend on the plug ins that are the building blocks of those sites. I do not have the luxury of having them not perform especially on commercial sites. I appreciate your trying to fix the issue but I can not afford to have problems like this occur.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by igs.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by igs.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by igs.

Thanks @igs. Appreciated. Even though you’ve changed, I’ll keep you posted once we’ve push the update I mentioned above so you know.

There is no need. The work involved to change again is too great. I am gone. Thank you for your professionalism and I wish you well

I know you don’t need it, but just an update: We were doing last minute testing today, and it looks like we’re going to push a release tomorrow that adds the options above to the new basic slideshow.