Eventually I discovered the little gem that if there is no node_modules directory in your current directory it will search recursively looking for said directory. The solution was to simply create a node_modules directory within my project and run the npm install command from it’s parent directory. A bit awkward but I like it. It would be nice if this was better documented but I certainly see the reasoning for such behavior.

Anyhow, it’s smart to keep your npm packages local to the project in most instances so you don’t get the random WTF when you update for your current project and an older project decides to crap the bed. Like I said, quick note. I hope it helps you, if anything my writing about it will keep the thought well branded on my brain.

Cheers!

Anyhow, some time after this NetBeans started taking forever, and I mean FOREVER! to create a new file. It was getting painful. Sometimes as long as a minute to create any kind of file. Anyhow, I opened up Tools->Plugins and started poking around only to find a plethora of plugins I certainly don’t use and make no sense to have installed. CVS! Really!?

In order to actually find that these plugins are activated you have to go to the Installed tab and check the Show Details box, which seems a little strange but okay. There you will find and, for sanity’s sake, deactivate CVS along with any others you don’t use. I also deactivated Mercurial and Subversion, which I haven’t used for years since falling head over heals for Git.

Finally, I deactivated the Git plugin, which at the moment was at version 0.2.12.42.1 (holy version number Batman!). After this NetBeans was back to creating files in a reasonable amount of time.

Cheers

Update: The fix is in the repository at WordPress.org and should show up in your plugins shortly. Hopefully this fixes the path issues. The version number is 0.2.0.

I was notified recently by the WordPress team that the version of TimThumb that was bundled with Tag Gallery contained a possible security vulnerability. In order to fix the issue I updated to the latest version of TimThumb for the current Tag Gallery. Unfortunately, there is a path issue occurring for many people including myself involving the way TimThumb calculates the document root for local files. I’ll be releasing a fix for this at some point today. Stay tuned.

Also, to clear up any confusion on the version and features, this will only be a security update without the new features I’ve been working on. The new version of Tag Gallery with new features will be 0.5 and as I find time to work on it I do although I’ve not be able to for months. I’ll keep everyone informed as time allows.

I’ve only recently begun work on the plugin but plan to release it publicly in the next few weeks. The plugin is called StackPress and I hope you all enjoy it.

More importantly, Tag Gallery 0.8 with all the super goodies is very close to being finished. Widgets, Shortcode UI, new caching mechanism and Admin page with cache manager and setting defaults. It no longer relies on TimThumb so we can hide the thumbnail generation mechanism and get rid of the exposure it may cause. You can choose to use the old Tag Gallery version from the Admin page if you like but you will not get any goodies, just a few bug fixes. It also has a template system so you can make your own templates. Many effects have been added including grayscale, sepia, mirroring, water-marking and many more to come.

Most interesting, this release will mark the beginning Tag Gallery being able to handle more than just images. The architecture has changed drastically so we could, potentially, generate thumbnail previews of any file type including Video, PDF, ODT and many more. If the particular file type does not yet have a generator it can use an icon from the Media Library representing that file type. This feature is in the very early stages of development but it should be full steam rolling by the release of 1.0, which should be sometime in the late summer.

Anyhow, I had hoped to release an update to Tag Gallery by mid January but it doesn’t pay the bills. I am devoting much of my free time to it’s development though so I’m hoping to release it any day now. When you see Tag Gallery instances in the sidebar of this site you will know I’m within a week of it’s release.

Aloha!

I went searching for a better gallery implementation and of the 300 or so image plugins available none of them seem to do what we wanted.  I don’t want to install a whole new media management system such as NextGen gallery as WordPress already provides a Media Library.  I don’t want to host my media with an external provider as I would much rather keep control of my assets in one place: my blog.  I want to manage media in a more intuitive manner and very much like the gallery short-code without the shortcomings.

I found Justin Tadlock’s Cleaner Gallery which cleans up the built in gallery and allows for very easy inclusion of java-script lightbox effects such as the Thickbox which is included with WordPress.  Cleaner Gallery is a step in the right direction but still does not overcome the cumbersome management of the galleries, and it was never meant to!  Shortly after I found Paul Menard’s Media Tags plugin which is absolutely great.  So why not mash up the two into a Cleaner Gallery managed by Media Tags!

Introducing Tag Gallery.  It’s a quick piece of work and solves the issues of managing galleries, at least for me.  Your mileage may vary.  It is a short-code implementation and you can include as many of them as you wish on any given post or page.  You can set the thumbnail width and height and whether or not to show captions.  If you have Cleaner Gallery installed it will use your java-script settings from that plugin for the display of your tag-gallery. In fact, Tag Gallery generates the same markup as Cleaner Gallery and even includes the CSS from that plugin.  Why reinvent the wheel when you can maintain compatibility?

To use Tag Gallery simple add tags to your images in the Media Library (as long as Media Tags is installed!) and insert a short code similar to the following into your post or page:

What this tells Tag Gallery is to get all the images from the Media Library with the tag ‘mytag’ and create a gallery three columns wide, without captions, and make the thumbnails 15opx square.  Of course, you need to wrap your short code in square brackets.  At the moment, I don’t know how to show a short tag example with brackets without it being processed by WordPress.  Any clues to do so would be greatly appreciated. Installed Code Colorer.  Seems to be working well enough.

So with the previous short-code we would end up with something like the following:

By default, captions are set to false and thumbnails are set to 150px width and height.  Columns default to three and tag is set to ‘tag.’  If Tag Gallery can’t find your tag in the Media Library it will not display anything.  The following Tag Gallery has our thumbnail size set differently than the previous example.  Specifically, I set the ‘theight’ property to 100.

The plugin does not have any test cases and has only been used with WordPress 2.9+ so I can’t say whether it works with any previous versions.  Let me know if you find it works with them or not.  Honestly, your WordPress should be kept up to date but I understand some people have their reasons to keep with an older installation.  I don’t recommend it though.  If the plugin finds itself useful for people I will add features and fix any bugs that arise as I am made aware of them.  Check the readme.txt in the plugin for a list of options and what not.  Let me know if you find a bug and I hope you enjoy this simple but effective plugin.  Finally, I would like to thank Paul Menard and Justin Tadlock for their great plugins, without which, Tag Gallery would have been much more work.  Cheers and Aloha.

Update: As I was migrating the website I lost the post about tag-gallery.  Why did I lose it?  Because I edited the db by hand deleting post revisions and accidentally selected that post.  I always make backups before doing anything like this but considering the site is only two days old and there were only a few records I decided against it just to get the site up and moving.  Shame on me.

I’ve built some wild web experiences before but I think the time for lightning bugs crawling around on your screen, 3D dandelion menus, and the like are taking a back seat for a bit.  In fact, I haven’t built crazy interfaces of the like in quite some time.  Content should be more interesting than the interface and the interface should strive to make that content accessible, easy, and portable, to name and link a few basics.  At least for now…

The site you are viewing is running on WordPress 2.9.2 at the moment.  It is being served by the beautiful Nginx web server and PHP 5.2.10.  It’s caching content using WP Super Cache and a few rather interesting rewrite rules in the Nginx configuration.  I’ve recently been moving all my websites from Media Temple, whom served me well for nearly eight years, to a few virtual private and cloud based hosting services.  I’m sure I will blog about my reasons for said migration soon enough.  I hope this site evolves to provide some interesting and useful content.

I have been working on building a new company over the past nine months called Shiftus.  It deals with the tedious and mundane tasks of managing schedules across timezones, locations, roles, and other automagical hooplah.  I hope it will prove helpful to some and I think the word automagical should be in the dictionary.  Aside from building Shiftus I also do consulting work of various types from building websites and mobile applications to software auditing and artwork.  If your stuff is broken I might be able to fix it; no promises but I’ve made a few things work here and there over the years so if you have an interesting project drop me a line.