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mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
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Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

25 Nov 2017, 09:10

X3.24.0 :fox: 
It's been a while since X3.23 folks, but after many struggles, we are proud to release new X3.24.0! This release has emphasis on new functional and logical features, many of which have been pointed out by our users, which should perhaps have been part of X3 from the very start. This release may not include tons of exciting new frontend features/plugins, but it does nevertheless include a lot of cool features which will benefit most X3 users.
* Current release is actually X3.24.2.

X3.24.0 DEMO
* You should probably read up on new features before visiting the demo's.
demo.photo.gallery
demo.photo.gallery/panel/

Updating to X3.24.0
Easy

* Choose ONE option:
  • Navigate to X3 Panel > Tools > X3 Updates (you may need to disable adblock plugin) :star: Recommended!
  • OR Download x3_updater.php, upload to your X3 dir, and access in browser {URL}/x3_updater.php
  • OR Download X3.latest.update.zip and update files manually by FTP. * If you use this option, you will need to manually hide your unnumbered folders by clicking "hide" button in panel after updating.
Installing NEW X3.24.0
Easy

Use one of the options below if you want to make a NEW installation of X3.24.0 in an empty folder.
* Not for updating existing X3 websites.
  • Download latest x3_installer.php, upload into the directory where you want to install X3 and visit {URL}/x3_installer.php in browser  :star: Recommended!
  • OR Download X3.latest.zip or X3.latest.min.zip (no sample pages), unzip and upload by FTP into the dir where you want to install X3.
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:star: X3.24.0 FEATURES  :star:

Numbered folders are no longer required
That's right. As most of you were aware, creating visible pre-sorted pages in X3 previously required creating folder names like "1.foldername" and "2.anotherfolder". Now you can just use "foldername" and "anotherfolder". I would like to emphasize however that you can still use numbered folder names like before.


Hold on ... How are pages sorted now and what about hidden pages? See next two related features:

Custom page sorting
With unnumbered folders we needed to add a new way to custom SORT pages by "drag and drop".
  • From the left panel content menu, simply drag and drop pages into order [screenshot].
  • Optionally, you can also sort pages from the gallery tab "custom sort" (like when sorting images) [screenshot].
  • Although CUSTOM is the new default for page sorting, pages are sorted by NAME until you apply a custom sort (by drag and drop).
  • Until folders are custom sorted (by drag and drop), NEW pages will be added into their natural order by name.
  • If you have already sorted a range of folders, NEW pages will be added to TOP of list (ready to be sorted into order by drag and drop).
  • I would like to emphasize that YOU CAN STILL USE NUMBERED FOLDERS (for example "1.foldername") to pre-sort your pages if you don't want to use custom sort by drag-and-drop. Keep in mind, if you drag numbered pages into a new custom order, X3 will ignore the number, and use the custom sort instead. THEREFORE, you should probably decide up front if you want to use numbered folders or custom sort by drag and drop.
  • There is a SMART feature in the X3 panel that DETECTS if folders are in natural NAME order or custom sorted (even after drag and drop custom sort). If X3 detects that folders are sorted by name, it simply deletes all sort INDEXES, and NEW folders will be added into order by name.
  • New "Reset folders sort" button available from page settings > gallery [screenshot]. When clicked, pages will reset to natural sort by NAME.
New HIDE (button) for files and folders
New feature to HIDE files and pages with a simple HIDE button in panel. No longer are you required to rename files with "__filename.jpg" to hide them from a page gallery, and no longer do you need to rename folders to hide them from the menu or a page folders layout.
  • Hide files by clicking the HIDE button in the panel gallery [screenshot].
  • Hide pages by clicking the HIDE button in the panel gallery [screenshot] or click the HIDE button for the current page [screenshot], or select HIDE directly from the left menu context menu [screenshot].
  • A "hidden" image will not display in the page gallery, but may still be used for page plugins, in page content and for page preview image.
  • A "hidden" folder will not display in the main menu or folders layout, but will still be available by direct URL.
  • You can still rename a folder with underscore "_foldername" to hide it AND make it inaccessible by URL.
New folders SORT methods
In addition to the new default custom sort method, you can now also sort folders by name, title, date and shuffle.
  • Set page folders SORT from page settings > folders > "Sort folders by".
  • You can change the DEFAULT folders sort method from main settings > page > folders > "sort by" [screenshot].
  • Although CUSTOM sort is the new default, a group of folders will sort by NAME until sorted in custom order (by drag and drop).
  • DATE sorting may be useful for BLOG pages, or pages with galleries that should list in chronological order. Folder date is extracted from folder creation date or from the page > DATE setting (if set) [screenshot].
  • Folders sort method will apply to the website menu and page folders layout (a page displaying child pages, often "albums").
  • For the sake of sanity, the left PANEL menu will always sort by name/custom order, even for folders that you have set to sort by date, title or shuffle. The website will sort correctly of course, but it would become messy if the left panel menu sorted branches by different sort methods, technically and logically.
New folders.json data file 
technical

Although this an invisible feature managed by the panel, there is now a new content/folders.json data file which facilitates the above features and more.
  • Stores sort index for custom sorted folders.
  • Stores hidden value for hidden pages.
  • Stores URL and path for quick lookup when X3 outputs pages.
  • The technical reason we added this data file, is because we need to store some page properties in a global data file. It is slow and impractical to store the above values separately in a folders page.json file. The new folders.json file will open up for more cool database-like features in the future!
Image data stored inside image as IPTC 
technical


All image data saved from panel (title, description, link, hidden, sort index) is now saved INSIDE each image as IPTC meta data. The advantage is that JPG images will keep all their settings when renamed, moved or copied to other folders. Titles and descriptions will be stored directly in the image and the panel will now show IPTC captions that you may have set from another application (Lightroom, iPhoto etc). This is so robust that you could download an image, upload to a different X3 website, and the image will still retain it's settings (title, description, link, hidden, sort index). This feature only applies for JPG files (supports IPTC) which after all is the format used for galleries. If you don't want to use this feature (for any reason), it can be disabled from settings > advanced > "Store image settings in image as IPTC" [screenshot].

New "Create new folder" options.
We have made available options to edit title, description, link, and hide page directly from the "Create new folder" dialog. These options can of course be edited from page settings after you create the page, but it is often practical to add these core page settings at the same time as you create the page. Another benefit is TITLE and LABEL fields automatically update while you write the folder name.


Improved panel content editor
  • New "insert image" option allows you to select from images uploaded to the current page and insert into content. Additional option "popup" adds the image as a link that opens the image in X3 popup, while "frame" option adds a styled frame border around the image. You can still click the image button without selecting an image to insert an empty image placeholder as before.
  • Dynamic value {{path}} now converts to correct folder path in editor preview mode [screenshot], which allows you to correctly preview images and links that use the dynamic {{path}} value.
  • Added "horizontal line" <hr> button. A nice way to add vertical margin between sections in your content [screenshot].
  • Added buttons for multiple header sizes h1 (large), h2 (medium) and h3 (small) [screenshot].
  • Added CENTER align button [screenshot]. * Unfortunately, since markdown does not support text align, this is just a hack that uses the <center></center> html tag.
New optional WYSIWIG content editor
beta

New optional WYSIWIG content editor available from main settings > panel [screenshot].
Image
BETA! The WYSIWIG editor is pretty cool and it can do things that the default markdown editor can't. I was even thinking about making it default editor until I discovered several disadvantages and why the existing MARKDOWN editor is in fact quite powerful for X3. For instance, we can't really use the X3 content templates/plugins [screenshot] with the WYSIWIG editor, because you wouldn't be able to edit an inserted HTML template (unless you go into "source code mode"). Furthermore, there is no "insert image" option, because the WYSIWIG editor requires a correct image path (which is not the same in panel as from the website). The HTML code (which you don't see) can get messy and corrupted, and there are several other minor flaws but I don't want to write a long post here. SUGGESTION: If you are comfortable with basic html/markdown code, I would suggest sticking with the existing powerful markdown/html editor combo (which has been improved in X3.24.0). If you don't understand basic markdown/html or if you have non-technical clients, it may be a good idea to enable the new WYSIWIG editor. * We hope to be improve the new WYSIWIG editor in time.

New image resize options
New image resize options available from panel Settings > Advanced.
  • Set default JPG quality for resized images [read].
  • New "Copy ICC color profile" from original for resized images [read].
  • New "Symlink request cache" toggle setting [read]. Disable if server has problems with symlinks.
Massive panel settings cleanup
I think all of us (myself included) at times have felt confused with the amount of settings in the X3 panel. The bottom line is that most of these settings are required at some point by our users to achieve the modern website layout flexibility that X3 offers. In X3.24.0, we have sorted settings (both main settings and page settings) into a more logical order, with several less used settings stacked into expandable sections.
  • All folder and gallery CAPTION options (inline captions, overlay captions and tooltip captions) are now organized under a captions section [screenshot].
  • Default page folder and gallery settings (main settings > page) are now stacked into expandable categories [screenshot].
  • Moved advanced page settings > Images section to Gallery > Captions > Caption Defaults [screenshot].
  • Moved Page settings > modules section to Page > Advanced [screenshot].
  • Reorganized page Folders and Gallery sections: Now, main layout options are displayed first followed by expandable category sections "Captions", "Popup" and "Advanced" [screenshot].
  • Page settings > "Details" renamed to "Page".
  • "Modules" concept renamed to "Layout".
  • Page settings > Menu > Dropdown Options now only display for top-level folders [screenshot]. This is because topbar dropdowns (carousel, list etc) can only be added to top-level folders.
  • Removed page settings > Menu > "reverse sort order" as this is now inherited from page settings > Folders > Sort.
Page gallery popup settings
All gallery POPUP settings can now be changed PER gallery from new page > gallery > popup section. Default popup styles and options are still set from main settings > popup.
Image

New popup "download" button
Many of you have expressed interest in having a "download button" easier accessible from the X3 popup. We have therefore added an option to include a "download" button directly in the popup caption. This option is disabled by default, but can be enabled globally from settings > popup > caption fields [screenshot] or per-gallery from page settings > gallery > popup [screenshot]. This option makes it easy to allow download for some galleries.
Image

New EU cookie consent plugin
New EU cookie consent plugin available from settings > plugins [screenshot]. Displays a cookie consent notification on page load to comply with the EU cookie law. Once visitor clicks the consent button, the notification will remove itself and not show again.
Image
  • Includes option to "use location services", which uses an external IP-to-location service to determine the country code of the visitor. Since the EU cookie law only affects countries in the EU, the consent notification will only display if the visitor is located in one of the countries affected by the EU cookie law. If disabled, the notification will display for ALL visitors regardless of location.
  • I wish I didn't have to add this plugin, as the "EU cookie law" has been misinterpreted and you don't really need it for most websites. The main purpose of this law was after all to inform about data-collection on websites that track user behavior for ads (etc) which is considered "intrusive" upon privacy (ref 1234567). X3 does not track data considered "intrusive" unless you are using a 3rd party plugin. It was however quite easy to add this plugin without disrupting X3, and some of you may feel obliged to use it, so here it is!
Facebook immediate preview on share
Some of you may noticed that Facebook failed to load page preview image when sharing a page for the first time on Facebook. We have now added og:image:width, og:image:height and og:image:type meta tags for page preview image, which basically forces Facebook to load and cache the preview image on first share [ref].


Video Intro plugin now works for mobile devices
With recent advancements in mobile browsers and the new playsinline attribute, we have now fixed the video intro plugin to also work for mobile browsers. Also added new setting "Disable on mobile devices" [screenshot], as it may still be useful to disable video intro on mobile devices if the video aspect doesn't suit the screen. PS! For mobile devices to autoplay video, the video must not contain soundtrack OR you must have the muted setting checked.

Audio player mobile autoplay
New audio player setting "autoplay for mobile devices" [screenshot]. Audio autoplay is not allowed in mobile browsers (for many reasons), but this setting is a workaround that triggers audio play when visitor first touches the screen.

New "Force URL" setting
New "Force URL" setting available from main settings > Advanced [screenshot] [screenshot] which allows you to force a specific URL for your X3 website. This is useful when you have multiple URL's (for example http://domain.com, http://www.domain.com, https://domain.com, http://domain.co.uk, http://anotherdomain.com) which all point to the same X3 website. Since it is counter-productive to have multiple url's for the same website [forum], we recommend consolidating and redirecting your url's to a single canonical URL of your choice. For example if you want URL to always be set to the WWW-version of your website, using SSL (https), you would write: https://www.domain.com. Any request that does NOT match the specified URL will then redirect appropriately from within the X3 app.

---

MORE X3.24.0 IMPROVEMENTS AND FEATURES
  • New Settings > Advanced > "Prevent search engines from indexing image pages" (SEO crawling) [screenshot]. When enabled, all image pages will output a X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header and all gallery image links will include a rel="nofollow" attribute, effectively telling Google to NOT index the image-landing pages [ref1][ref2].
  • Settings > Advanced > "Block image downloads" [screenshot] now also removes all download buttons (popup download button etc). This is useful because it is explicit that all downloads should be blocked when this option is enabled.
  • Fotomoto (plugin) batch check-in: All images in a gallery get checked in to Fotomoto when you first visit the gallery, with no need to click "buy" to have each image checked in individually.
  • Scroll-to-top button in footer is now hidden also on mobile devices when not required (page does not scroll).
  • Sidebar layout now also has scroll-to-top button [screenshot] (hidden when page has no scroll) [forum].
  • Better implementation of logo disabled for topbar-float layout.
  • Include custom javascript and custom/files/javascript before x3 core javascript [screenshot].
  • Carousel menu now takes into account page gallery ASSETS setting when extracting images "amount".
  • Added classes "amount-x" and "folder-amount-x" to amount-texts [screenshot] so you can easier hide the text for example with custom class .amount-0 { display: none; }.
  • Add custom rules to .htaccess wrapped inside # custom rules start<---># custom rules end. Custom rules will be copied when use you use X3 updater.
  • Loads of improvements to X3 core code.
  • Gallery sort
    • Sort order will now default to NAME if two (or more) items have the same sort value (f.ex file size or date).
    • If new files get added to a custom-sorted folder, they will display at TOP of gallery until re-sorted.
    • On gallery custom sort (drag-and-drop + save), the page's gallery SORT BY setting will automatically be set to "custom" [forum].
  • Video
    • Sort by "shuffle" now also works for video.
    • Videos keep the <hr> horizontal rule to separate video-items also when using gallery GRID layout.
    • Videos can now be custom sorted and hidden just like images.
    • Videos are now wrapped inside a <div class="x3-video"> element inside a parent <div class="x3-video-container"> for better custom style control.
  • Diagnostics page
    • Diagnostics page now loads all data via Javascript (XMLHttpRequest). This makes the diagnostics more secure and only displays output to humans.
    • Prevent diagnostics from caching on proxy-cache services (like Cloudflare or varnish). 
    • Diagnostics now removes unused directories /.sass-cache, /check and /diag, which some of you seem to have lying around from older X3 versions.
    • Improved test to check if /config/ folder is blocked (as it should be). Config folder is assumed blocked if test response is anything else than "HTTP/1.1 200 OK" (success response).
    • Create required /content/folders.json if is missing or warn if it does not exist and cannot be created.
  • Contact Form
    • Improved validation and sanitation of multiple emails added to "recipient" (this example will correctly validate the two valid emails only). If no valid recipients are specified, mailer will fail (obviously).
    • You can now set recipient email addresses (who receives the emails) directly in the contact form using a HIDDEN input field with name "recipient": <input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="email1@email1.com, email2@email2.com">. This is useful if you require multiple forms on your website which send to different emails than the one(s) specified in your main settings. If you specify a recipient directly in the form, it will override "recipient" from your panel mail settings.
    • Contact form EMAIL (visitors email) input field is now OPTIONAL. * Before, it was a required field for the form to work.
    • Improved FORM behavior: On submit, if the form is invalid (for example empty required field, or incorrect email format), the page will now scroll smoothly to the first invalid field, set focus and emphasize the field. * Before, page would just scroll to top if the form was invalid.
  • PANEL
    • Fixed auto image-orientation on image upload and added alternative options to fix image orientation after upload [forum].
    • Improved panel "manage" interface design [screenshot].
    • Improved panel popup captions design implementation [screenshot].
    • Added support for "paranoid level" panel security: Simply rename your /panel/ folder to anything you want so basically the URL is unknown to both human and robot hackers. For the X3 Updater to automatically manage your renamed /panel/ folder when updating, make sure to rename your panel folder to end with the word "panel" for example "/mysecretpanel/".
    • Much faster live SORTING from gallery manager (when toggle sort by name, date, size and custom).
    • Panel Tools > Updater will now show link to latest release post and includes proper version comparison (current version vs new version).
    • Panel Tools > X3 Updates now bypasses ADBLOCK (for those of you who have adblock browser plugin enabled). Adblock is also bypassed in x3_installer.php and x3_updater.php scripts.
    • Panel will now correctly remember users LANGUAGE selection on login page (when accessed from same computer/device). If no language was previously selected, language will default to Settings > Panel > Panel Language option.
    • Improved German language. Thnx @Niggoh
    • If logged out of panel (for any reason), performing actions (navigating or saving) will now redirect to login page instead of silently failing.
    • Allow GPX files in panel (upload/manage).
    • Cloudflare API no longer clears JSON ajax page requests, as these requests are managed internally by X3 request versioning.
    • Updated and added dozens of 3rd party Javascripts and CSS loaded from JSDelivr CDN.
    • Removed unused /panel/filemanager_assets/securimage/ directory.
    • Added auto-correct (on save) for incorrect orphan commas in toolbar > items [screenshot].
    • Added natcasesort to panel menu (so that "5.name" will sort before "22.name").
    • Tons of panel CODE improvements.
  • BUGS :beetle: 
    • Fixed so images with _underscore in name open properly in X3 popup window when shared on social media (Facebook) [forum].
    • Fixed javascript error which occurred when logo is disabled and logo-type previously set to "image logo".
    • Fixed a bug when visitor used "back" button in browser and could not click to re-visit the page that was navigated away from.
    • Fixed broken SLIDEMENU button on large screens when selecting slidemenu layout from the X3 STYLER.
    • Fixed a bug where videos with multiple dots in file name (f.ex "my.video.file.mp4") would not display in gallery.
    • Fixed a PANEL bug in Firefox (and possibly some other browsers) where dragging an item for custom sort might trigger "click" on drag release.
    • Fixed a PANEL bug where you could not SAVE image data in edit mode [forum].
    • Download-button in X3 popup now always points to the full size original image instead of the image that is loaded into the popup, which sometimes (depending on screen size) is a smaller resized image.
Happy updating!  :punch:
 
SilentD
Posts: 17
Joined: 31 Jan 2016, 08:40

Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

29 Nov 2017, 20:45

great update. You managed to address most of the small things I was missing. The only thing that still is bugging, is the carousel drop down menu, where you are only able to swipe once with the mouse, before it closes.

oh and would be be possible to force the normal top menu on mobile devices, instead of the mobile menu?

http://www.flashnmodels.dk/Gallery/   (mature content)
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

30 Nov 2017, 02:23

SilentD wrote:great update. You managed to address most of the small things I was missing. The only thing that still is bugging, is the carousel drop down menu, where you are only able to swipe once with the mouse, before it closes.
Never had this request before. The main purpose of the SWIPE event is for touch devices, where it is a obvious advantage to be able to swipe through items. It's not normal user behavior to mouse-click-drag-release items on desktops, and I would rather have disabled mouse-drag. You are after all initiating click events both on menu item and dropdown canvas when you are dragging items, and I don't see any other menu's were this feature is implemented (likely because it is no benefit).
SilentD wrote:oh and would be be possible to force the normal top menu on mobile devices, instead of the mobile menu?
How will you solve this though? Even the demo gallery with 4 main menu items would break on a normal iphone in vertical orientation. This would only work if you perhaps have 3 items or less. Furthermore, NONE of the topbar dropdown are logical to assume will work on a mobile device (except for perhaps a tablet). Normal dropdowns need to expand sideways, the list certainly won't work, and the carousel would at best show a single item and require swiping through items to get to the element the visitors wants to click. So if you wanted this, I assume you planned it, and only have a few top-level menu items without dropdowns?
 
SilentD
Posts: 17
Joined: 31 Jan 2016, 08:40

Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

30 Nov 2017, 05:54

I only have 3 items. and for that the menu is unnecessary.  Drop down not needed. At the very least you should have the option to do it, if you prefer.. 

as for the swipe with mouse.. how else would you navigate through the huge list I have? You cant arrow scroll with keyboard, and the arrows at the edges only click ONE ahead. No hold down option. ( and why are they way over there at the edge, and not at each end of the carousel border? The small navigation points underneath is the only thing you can use, which is quite annoying.

So yeah swiping is the logical way to go.. Multiple visitors mentioned it. If you can swipe with a finger you can swipe with a mouse to.. Its not a stretch. 
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

30 Nov 2017, 08:39

SilentD wrote:I only have 3 items. and for that the menu is unnecessary.  Drop down not needed. At the very least you should have the option to do it, if you prefer.. 
Yes, I can see how that would be beneficial. I will look into settings for this in next release ... I just don't like the fact that this will open up to users ruining their galleries, as it's hard for everyone to grasp that X3 can't magically make things work if they for example force horizontal menu also on mobile devices. How would your CAROUSEL menu work on mobile devices btw?
SilentD wrote:as for the swipe with mouse.. how else would you navigate through the huge list I have? You cant arrow scroll with keyboard, and the arrows at the edges only click ONE ahead. No hold down option. ( and why are they way over there at the edge, and not at each end of the carousel border? The small navigation points underneath is the only thing you can use, which is quite annoying.
I really don't understand your points about the arrow buttons left/right. If I click the right arrow 3 times quickly (which requires almost no effort), it proceeds by three items. This is much easier than clicking and dragging with the mouse. Of course, most users have no reason to expect mouse-drag behavior for a menu anyway. Why would they? Furthermore, I don't know how many items you have in your carousel menu, but it's good for a smaller range of items. If you need the visitor to quickly be able to access lots of items that are further down the list, then you shouldn't be able using this dropdown option in the first place.
SilentD wrote:No hold down option.
You are aware that your concept of "hold down" for the web could lead to visitor jumping multiple items when they only need to jump one? "Hold down" is not a web UI concept. Do you have an example of other website menu's that have implemented this successfully?
SilentD wrote:and why are they way over there at the edge, and not at each end of the carousel border?
Because this is more logical, and they don't clutter the interface. Besides, how would it help if the arrows are closer to the center floating around at some random area? Why not ask why the popup have buttons aligned far left/right also? [screenshot] ... It's better like this.
SilentD wrote:The small navigation points underneath is the only thing you can use, which is quite annoying.
You got the arrows AND you got dot navigation ... AND drag, for those who like to do things differently. Still not enough? Maybe this option is not for you.

I took the liberty to check your website, and found that you have virtually 100+ items in the carousel? Since you dislike the carousel so much, can you please show me another website that solves this in a menu carousel? Personally I would have recommend the following for your website: DISABLE child pages in your "MODEL GALLERY", and instead force the visitor to visit the page /Gallery/, which is obviously the best way for the visitor to view items.
SilentD wrote:If you can swipe with a finger you can swipe with a mouse to.. Its not a stretch. 
Never heard such a comparison. The main reason ALL mobile devices support touch/swipe, is because its a superior way to navigate with a finger ... For this same reason, the concept of SWIPE (or click-drag-release) on desktop never even existed before it was added for touch devices, because its not intuitive or natural for a mouse user.
 
SilentD
Posts: 17
Joined: 31 Jan 2016, 08:40

Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

30 Nov 2017, 18:45

I do know that this is your baby, and you want to streamline it as much as you can, to make it easy to work with for the majority.
I chose your platform because it came closest to what I needed. Dosnt make it perfect, but its damn close!  
Main reasons I appreciate were, the fast loading of images ( and keyboard enabled scrolling) and how well it integrates between devices. And obviously  how easy it is to build a quite advanced gallery without typing a single line of code. That has to be commended. 


you answered parts of your own question.. if there is no hold down option for arrows, and you have 100+ items in the carousel, it takes a long time to get from one end to the other. and since I have 6 items pr page.. at least it should make sense that one click moves 6 items not one. So one click = one dot. 
A small delay after clicking and holding down, before it starts scrolling continually, would solve your point about it going haywire. (thats a very common function btw)
As to why the arrows should be right next to the carousel. Because they are difficult to notice at the edges at first glance., and the right one is even partially covered by the scroll down element of the browser. Minor detail, but if you are a perfectionist ( and you do sound like one), it's noticable.


yes I have 100+ items in the carousel because I have 100+ galleries.. makes sense right? I do not care what other websites have or dont have. You made a function which only partially works.. Why one swipe and not multiple?.. That is the sole question you should consider here. 
You did answer with, "that its for touch screens".. Noted.    -    but I do like it on the pc with mouse to. I dont see why we need to argue about whether you find it useful or not. If it however is a problem to implement, that is a different story. 

Ever since the iphone people get more and more used to swiping things. And that transfers into regular browsing to. It does not matter if you use a finger or a mouse. Its the same thing. Tendencies will bleed over from one platform to another. Professional cameras start to have screens that behave like mobile phones now. 
Imagine if Canon had said: "Meh I dont see the point of a touchscreen. We have buttons for everything."

Infact I dont see why a horizontal swipe is any different than a vertical one, and if your mouse dosnt have a scroll wheel, you swipe up and down all the time, using the scroll down element on the right side of the browser. right? Scrolling or swiping. Its the same thing!... How is it any different..? Because its contained inside of a drop down menu you should not scroll or swipe it the same way? 

The problem is that I have a huge gallery, and I wanted an easy way to navigate through it..   The carousel was something I put in recently, because  one thing I noticed,  when looking at google analytics, was that people dont tend to visit the bottom folders very often.  After I put in the drop down carousel, more people did. (on desktops obviously).

When people scroll through my gallery the normal way, and if I had no drop down menu, every time you go into an sub folder, and hit the back button returning to the main gallery, you are moved to the top of the gallery. You dont stay where you were. Which means you lose oversight of how far down you were before.  
Lets say you want to look through the entire gallery in sequence, or you glimpse through it, scrolling down and find one folder that is interesting. You click into it, and after that you want to go back and continue down to see if anything else catches your eye.. But every time you go back to the main gallery you start at the top.  So you have to scroll down to where you were before, and remember where you were before each time.  

The carousel hepls with that, because it stays where you were. Thats why I like it..  (perhaps you should look into if its possible to hit the back button without being thrown back to the top of the page?

How else would you solve it? -  (shuffle is not what im looking for either, because it would change each time you go back, loosing all chance of knowing which folders you already have seen.)

The latest update with custom and date sorting helped a lot, which now enables me to put newest work at the top, in a different menu. Should I be very nick picky Id ask for an visitor option of how the gallery should be sorted, but the way it works now is ok.
Im a bit sad tho about that you cannot have dropdown menus for pages, if their content is loaded by assets from another folder.


I spend time looking through google analytics, and how people navigate through my page, so I know the behavior. Now Im trying to streamline it.

Forinstance appart from the fact that people dont look at the bottom much, another thing I noticed was that on mobile devices, less people visit the gallery altogether, and only click on the main page items. Which implies that a lot of people dont know what the mobile menu is. Or simply dont bother to use it.

You did a great job. Really.. The platform is avesome.. I just wish you would be a bit more openminded to things you dont necessarily agree with, unless its an issue of functionality that potentially breaks it.  

"I dont see the usefulness of this" -  is never a good answer in any argument. 
(people said that about planes, electric cars and even the internet. Point is, what you deem un-usefull, may be gold to others who will use it in ways you never imagined.)
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

01 Dec 2017, 01:02

Ok, I'm going to try to consolidate my reply to something constructive here. First of all, thanks for your kind words about why you chose X3. Next, although I may seem "rigid" in my replies, it does not mean I don't listen.  Half the improvements in this release X3.34.0 are based on former user requests. So let me try to answer briefly where it seems useful:
SilentD wrote:A small delay after clicking and holding down, before it starts scrolling continually, would solve your point about it going haywire. (thats a very common function btw)
Noted. Although this is normal in many NON-browser applications, it is not a browser function and therefore needs to be "hacked out" by custom javascript, which is "fragile" at best.
SilentD wrote:and since I have 6 items pr page.. at least it should make sense that one click moves 6 items not one. So one click = one dot.
Yes, we can add this as an OPTION.
SilentD wrote:As to why the arrows should be right next to the carousel. Because they are difficult to notice at the edges at first glance., and the right one is even partially covered by the scroll down element of the browser. Minor detail, but if you are a perfectionist ( and you do sound like one), it's noticable.
Noted. I was thinking of setting the color of carousel arrows to the "primary" skin color, so they are easy to notice. I don't think the solution is to move them ... On 1280px screens and down, there wouldn't be any space to move them anyway.
SilentD wrote:I do not care what other websites have or dont have. You made a function which only partially works.. Why one swipe and not multiple?..
I will try to fix the issues where the menu closes on mouse-drag-release. Keep in mind, this is a hover-based dropdown-menu ... If the visitor moves mouse outside the dropdown (for a long enough interval), it will close and I don't see how we can bypass that for mouse-drag-release.
SilentD wrote:Ever since the iphone people get more and more used to swiping things. And that transfers into regular browsing to. It does not matter if you use a finger or a mouse. Its the same thing. Tendencies will bleed over from one platform to another. Professional cameras start to have screens that behave like mobile phones now.
Imagine if Canon had said: "Meh I dont see the point of a touchscreen. We have buttons for everything."
As you say, we definitely don't need to debate this back and forth. Touch screens are SUPERIOR for ANY screen-only devices, may it be a phone OR camera. Thus SWIPE is therefore a superior method to interact with a screen-only device. A desktop does not have TOUCH (actually some do, but then they will simply inherit the nice touch swipe gestures anyway). I don't think mouse click-drag-release is remotely comparable to to a finger swipe gesture in it's simplicity. We can agree to disagree.
SilentD wrote:Infact I dont see why a horizontal swipe is any different than a vertical one, and if your mouse dosnt have a scroll wheel, you swipe up and down all the time, using the scroll down element on the right side of the browser. right? Scrolling or swiping. Its the same thing!... How is it any different..? Because its contained inside of a drop down menu you should not scroll or swipe it the same way?
Sorry I lost you here. What kinda device are you using here to scroll vertically by the way? A trackpad? A mouse with a swipe surface? Mouse wheel? Sounds like you are using Windows? Only Windows (not latest) will show a scrollbar on right side of screen. And "scroll down element on right side of browser" ... is this a button? "Swipe" and "click-drag-release" are two very different mechanisms. I don't quite understand what you are implying. Even if we improve the carousel "swipe" mechanism for mouse/desktop combo's, this will still involved click-drag-release for most users.
SilentD wrote:The problem is that I have a huge gallery, and I wanted an easy way to navigate through it..   The carousel was something I put in recently, because  one thing I noticed,  when looking at google analytics, was that people dont tend to visit the bottom folders very often.  After I put in the drop down carousel, more people did. (on desktops obviously).

When people scroll through my gallery the normal way, and if I had no drop down menu, every time you go into an sub folder, and hit the back button returning to the main gallery, you are moved to the top of the gallery. You dont stay where you were. Which means you lose oversight of how far down you were before.
Lets say you want to look through the entire gallery in sequence, or you glimpse through it, scrolling down and find one folder that is interesting. You click into it, and after that you want to go back and continue down to see if anything else catches your eye.. But every time you go back to the main gallery you start at the top.  So you have to scroll down to where you were before, and remember where you were before each time.
I get this. Every website owner will want to include a strategy to try to lead visitors, and get them to stay as long as possible. Keep in mind, even when your website is fast and logically tight, you will still face the fact that MANY (probably most) visitors will visit the home page and perhaps 1-2 galleries and then simply leave regardless of content quality. That will show in your analytics.
SilentD wrote:The carousel hepls with that, because it stays where you were. Thats why I like it..  (perhaps you should look into if its possible to hit the back button without being thrown back to the top of the page?
You mean remember previous page vertical scroll position? Hmm that could be possible. I just need to consider the pro's and con's here. If a visitor gets confused, they will leave the website.
SilentD wrote:The latest update with custom and date sorting helped a lot, which now enables me to put newest work at the top, in a different menu. Should I be very nick picky Id ask for an visitor option of how the gallery should be sorted, but the way it works now is ok.
You mean each gallery page, for example above the gallery, has a SORTING toolbar, that allows visitor to sort gallery by name/date/shuffle? This alongside a gallery search/filter is already on the agenda for a future release. I am not quite sure in your case how it will benefit the visitor to give them sorting options for a presentation-style gallery though. Personally, I don't know why I would want to re-sort images if I was viewing images in one of your galleries.
SilentD wrote:Im a bit sad tho about that you cannot have dropdown menus for pages, if their content is loaded by assets from another folder.
GOOD POINT. The menu needs to reflect settings applied in ASSETS folders. Will fix.
SilentD wrote:Forinstance appart from the fact that people dont look at the bottom much, another thing I noticed was that on mobile devices, less people visit the gallery altogether, and only click on the main page items. Which implies that a lot of people dont know what the mobile menu is. Or simply dont bother to use it.
You are probably noticing general UI behavior here. Mobile users probably visit less pages on a website altogether, and may have less time/patience. Also, they probably have less patience for menu's, just want to swipe down and view content, and may click any large inviting element that comes into view. You may not be able to alter this general behavior too much.

Thanks for all feedback. Never better than from someone who truly considers the usefulness of their own website. I have made several notes.
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

01 Dec 2017, 05:07

mjau-mjau wrote:GOOD POINT. The menu needs to reflect settings applied in ASSETS folders. Will fix.
After taking the time to think about this, I gotta backtrack my previous response to this. The point of the folder ASSETS setting is to allow a page (for example your home page) to display categories from another folder. OR perhaps an "about" page where you want to display some galleries from another galleries category.

In any case, I don't see why assets folder should extend your website MENU structure. If it did, it would mean your menu would have duplicate branches of menu segments (one for the assets folder itself, and one for the folder that is assigned to use the specified assets folder). The exception would be if you have hidden the specified assets folder, but then why would you use an assets folder in the first place? Further reasons I don't like the idea of this, is because it opens up for a lot of potential problems: What if you assign an assets folder from a parent folder? It would cause an unlimited menu-loop, where the menu will include itself in a child-branch, which then will loop up and include itself into infinity. Furthermore, if folder assets extend the menu, it would overrule the folders own child-folders, which might not be desired behavior. Logically, "folder assets" should be used to load another page's child-folders into the folders layout of the page itself, but not for extending the menu structure.

I would like to understand how you are using this, and why you need to folder assets option to extend the menu.
 
SilentD
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

02 Dec 2017, 23:36

Thanks for considering my suggestions and feedback.

To answer your question about assets from other folders, I see many benefits.

Such as using same content in multiple menus but with different attributes.

On my site specifically, I have the same content on two different pages:
The full "model gallery" and the "latest updates", which contains the 15 first folders from my gallery. Both have same content, but one is sorted by name and the other by date. Al tho not all to important, I could have a carousel drop down in both of them.

If this option would be possible, Id play a lot more with it, and would surely find more applications to use it in.

If then also you could mark multiple folder/gallery assets into one page, You could start to make pretty advanced stuff. Like: have a few galleries. Then a break and some text, then some more galleries, and then some more text.

Im sure this could be achieved in the content page, but I do not know how to code, so thats out of my league.
You mean each gallery page, for example above the gallery, has a SORTING toolbar, that allows visitor to sort gallery by name/date/shuffle? This alongside a gallery search/filter is already on the agenda for a future release. I am not quite sure in your case how it will benefit the visitor to give them sorting options for a presentation-style gallery though. Personally, I don't know why I would want to re-sort images if I was viewing images in one of your galleries.
yes. Many visitors revist my page often to see if there is anything new, so a sorting order by date is desirable for them.
And some of them visit to search for a specific model. In that case an alphabetic order is preferable.
My site is not only a gallery. Its also a portfolio for me, and the models I work with. So aside from showcasing my stuff, people in the industry browse my page to find models to work with.
 
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GeoPal
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

03 Dec 2017, 06:13

Hi Karl, there was a search function not quite ready yet, does it function and how to use it, or not yet... ? :)
Will be great if there is a search
Best. G
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

03 Dec 2017, 07:32

New Release X3.24.2
A few bug fixes to latest X3 release. Go to Panel > Tools > Updates and update!

BUG Fixes
  • Fixed a bug where folder names with underscore were hidden (for example "my_gallery"). * Only folder names that START with _underscore (for example "_mygallery") should be hidden.
  • Fixed "Refresh Menu" panel error (when using the settings > Advanced > "Manual refresh") [forum].
  • Fixed bug with POPUP settings when applying unique popup settings per gallery [forum].
  • Fixed a bug in the gallery carousel when using the EMBED video option and looped items failed to load video preview image.
Topbar menu CAROUSEL improvements
Took the opportunity to include a few improvements to the carousel topbar menu dropdown.
  • On arrow-navigation, the carousel now moves one PAGE instead of just one item.
  • Topbar carousel now supports keyboard navigation (arrow keys).
  • Carousel navigation arrows now use primary color to make them more obvious.
---
SilentD wrote:On my site specifically, I have the same content on two different pages:
The full "model gallery" and the "latest updates", which contains the 15 first folders from my gallery. Both have same content, but one is sorted by name and the other by date. Al tho not all to important, I could have a carousel drop down in both of them.
This will of course mean that you have duplicate menu segments in your main menu. Anyway, for reasons specified in my earlier post, this is not currently possible, although we will take it into consideration.
SilentD wrote:If then also you could mark multiple folder/gallery assets into one page, You could start to make pretty advanced stuff. Like: have a few galleries. Then a break and some text, then some more galleries, and then some more text.
It's a cool idea, but incredibly complex to implement. We would need to add some [gallery="path"] tag that can be used in the content, and then of course is the question how to apply the 100s of settings that users would want for each included gallery segment? Considering X3 galleries are complex in nature (javascript), it's not a small deal to just include various galleries here and then.
SilentD wrote:yes. Many visitors revist my page often to see if there is anything new, so a sorting order by date is desirable for them.
And some of them visit to search for a specific model. In that case an alphabetic order is preferable.
My site is not only a gallery. Its also a portfolio for me, and the models I work with. So aside from showcasing my stuff, people in the industry browse my page to find models to work with.
There will be a gallery search/sort/filter plugin coming soon, which allows you to search, sort and filter images in a specific gallery.

@SilentD: Btw I have included a few topbar carousel improvements in this release. See top of this post.
GeoPal wrote:Hi Karl, there was a search function not quite ready yet, does it function and how to use it, or not yet... ? :)
You speak of a global image search? Or a gallery-search/filter feature as specified above?
 
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GeoPal
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

03 Dec 2017, 07:57

What is the difference? As there are no tags, if there are specific words in each post or description, with the search function to be able to find and visualize those photos which are connected to nature or arhictecture...etc... That is probably what you also meant
 
torobouk
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

03 Dec 2017, 07:59

Hi Karl,
Update with X3Updater ....So easy,
I will try to discover the new improvements,
Thank's a lot 
http://www.gerardpastorelli.fr
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

03 Dec 2017, 22:55

GeoPal wrote:What is the difference? As there are no tags, if there are specific words in each post or description, with the search function to be able to find and visualize those photos which are connected to nature or arhictecture...etc... That is probably what you also meant
The DIFFERENCE:

Live PAGE search/filter
This will be a live search of images loaded into the current page. If there are 100 images and visitor types "architecture", the gallery will filter to images that have filename/title/description/tags that contain the search phrase. It's all based on javascript, and will basically search images already loaded into the page. This plugin will also allow you to filter based on pre-defined buttons, for example [architecture][streets][statues][all].

Global website image search
This feature is entirely different, as it would require connecting to some backend (PHP) to search ALL images in the website and return the results. Likely, all images would have to be indexed into a DB or JSON file up front also. Also, it has slightly different usage as you might imagine. It would be a global "search" input somewhere close to the main menu.

In both cases, "TAGS" will probably be a part of X3 soon.
 
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GeoPal
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Re: New Release X3.24.0 :fox:

04 Dec 2017, 02:01

Great news Karl, thank you! Great work on the last update!
Best, G