[Galdget p+] URL list setup

The URL list setup screen can be found in the “Settings” sub-menu of the main admin menu:

or

It opens up the URL list setup page, a place where you manage your list of pictures and websites.

A short reminder about some less obvious things:

1. Plugin version and language code: if you should want to object on plugin behavior, report a bug or provide other feedback, plugin version and language code should be provided. Also, if you are preparing a translation for this plugin to your language, you must know your language code.
2. A brief help is provided on the setup page, it might save you some time sometimes. You can send your impressions, suggestions or bug reports from there.
3. Items in the list can be reordered by dragging their ordinal numbers up or down.

In the following text we will explain the elements of the URL list.

№

The ordinal number of each item. You can drag the ordinal numbers up or down to reorder items in the list. The numbers are generated automatically.

URL

The link to the item that you want to display in your gallery. The main thing. It should point to an existing image or web page. It is best to use the images from your blog. You may also use images from other web sites, but keep in mind that they may forbid “hotlinking” at their will, so some day your gallery might start looking bad with or instead of actual images.

When displaying images in your galleries, either local or remote, try not to break any intellectual property rights.

URL can be provided in one of the following forms:

• https://web.site.address/folder/subfolders/image.jpg – a https link to an image, .jpg .jpeg .png .gif and .bmp are valid extensions.
• http://web.site.address/folder/subfolders/image.jpg – a http link to an image. If your blog is on https, you should avoid using http links in the galleries, since they easily might be cut out by your visitors’ browsers, and they will most likely not see them.
• https://web.site.address/folder/subfolders/pagename.extension – a https link to a web page, all non-image extensions are considered web pages, like .html, .htm, .php, .asp etc.
• http://web.site.address/folder/subfolders/pagename.extension – a http link to a web page. Same rules on avoiding them applies as for the pictures.
• dir://folder/subfolder adds the contents of the directory on your blog to the gallery, instead of single image or web page.

URLs that point to images can be previewed in the list setup screen by double clicking on them. The preview image dissapears when you move the mouse outside of the URL text box.

dir URL, dir://folder/subfolder

As stated above, the dir://folder/subfolder lets us put the folder on the URL list, and then copy several images or other files into this folder, instead of providing URLs to each image or file separately. Also, when we add new images or files to this folder, we don’t need to add them to URL list, they will appear in the gallery as we copy them into the folder.

The folder location can be one of the following:

• Root folder of your blog, something like
  • /var/www/html/
  • /var/www/html/blog
  • C:\xampp\htdocs\
  • C:\xampp\htdocs\blog
• Upload directory of your blog, like
  • /var/www/html/wp-content/uploads/
  • /var/www/html/blog/wp-content/uploads/
  • C:\xampp\htdocs\wp-content\uploads\
• Directory where [Galdget p+] plugin is installed, like
  • /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/galdget-pp/
  • /var/www/html/blog/wp-content/plugins/galdget-pp/
  • C:\xampp\htdocs\wp-content\plugins\galdget-pp\

If you create a subfolder, e.g. “MyGals” in any of the above folders, you can have an item like

• dir://MyGals

in your URL list.

If you create subfolders under “MyGals”, say “Nature”, “Pets” and “Kites”, then you put the following:

• dir://MyGals/Nature
• dir://MyGals/Pets
• dir://MyGals/Kites

in your URL list, and you have three separate items, that may belong to different groups if you decide so (more on groups below).

As of version 1.0.3, the dir: directive may also point to a single file. In this case, all the above features apply to the file provided, and also the benefit of having an additional txt file with added details (as described in the following paragraph).

dir contents

In the directories that you enlist in your URL list, you can put image files and they will appear in some of your galleries, in widgets or on pages or posts. The same goes for other files – web pages.

If you prepare a .txt file with the same file name as the image or some other file – it will be treated as additional information about the image or web page. The first line of that file should be a link, URL, where you want to point the visitor of your blog when she/he clicks on the gallery item (image or web page). You may leave the first line blank, in which case the image itself (or a web page itself) will open. All other lines are treated as the gallery item description, and will be displayed in the pop-up box when visitor hovers the mouse over the gallery item.

Scaling %

Scaling factor is applied to web pages that you include in your galleries, as well as to the images if they are treated as web pages in widget setup. Scaling factor can go between 0 and 500% and it should be set up so that the web page we want to show in our gallery is displayed nicely. Too big – only the top left corner of the page will be shown, too little – the whole web page will be squeezed into the top left corner of the gallery.

The size that the “web page” contemplates depends on the actual gallery size and scaling percentage. For example, if we have a widget 210 pixels wide and 300 pixels high, and we set the scaling to 60%, the page will be rendered in the space that is 350 pixels wide and 500 pixels high (because 350 x 60% = 210 and 500 x 60% = 300).

Please remember that some web pages may have different layouts for different sizes, you may get the simplified “mobile” version of the site if gallery size is small and scaling is big.

Duration

The number of seconds that an item will be displayed before switching to the next one. If you set it too small – the visitors will not have time to see what you are showing (and eventually decide to click on it). If you set it too big – the fast visitors will not notice it’s a gallery, they will only see the first item and run off before the second appears.

Group

The number of the group that the item belongs to. Each item in the list belongs to one or more groups. If it belongs to more than one group – you separate the group numbers with comma.

The other half of the story is the fact that each gallery, be it a widget or a shortcode on the blog page or post, displays the items from one particular group. This is how you can have a number of galleries with different contents throughout your blog.

On top of it, the group number 0 is considered “general” and the URLs that have group 0 are shown in all galleries. This is where you put your dearest pictures, company logo…

If you want to keep it simple and have only one gallery, then you can use group 0 for all links and don’t bother to read about groups. Otherwise you have to plan a bit, decide how many different galleries you want to have and group the URLs properly. Or you can just use a fresh group number each time you need a new gallery.

Slugs

Slug in WordPress is URL-friendly and human readable name of something (post, page…) that lives at the end of the URL which points to that something. For example, the slug of this page is galdget_pp_url-list-setup.

Apart from page and post slugs, [Galdget p+] has additional slugs that, together with page and post slugs, can be used in URL setup to narrow (or more strictly determine) times and places where our URL will show up in the galleries.

If you don’t want this comfort – just leave the slugs empty and carry on.

The slugs in URL setup list can be:

• pageslug as defined by the blog, e.g. galdget_pp_url-list-setup, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on this page.
• -pageslug e.g. -galdget_pp_url-list-setup, which means that the item with this -slug will be displayed on all other places except on this page.
• postslug as defined by the blog, e.g. hello-world, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on the post with this slug.
• -postslug e.g. -hello-world, which means that the item with this -slug will be displayed on all other places except on the post with this slug.
• home.page means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on the blog’s home page.
• -home.page means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other places except on the blog’s home page.
• cat.categoryslug for categories defined in the blog, e.g. cat.nature, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on the category page which displays the category with the slug nature.
• -cat.categoryslug e.g. -cat.nature, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other places except on the category page which displays the category with the slug nature.
• in.categoryslug for categories defined in the blog, e.g. in.nature, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on posts or pages that belong to the category with the slug nature.
• -in.categoryslug e.g. -in.nature, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other places except on posts or pages that belong to the category with the slug nature.
• tag.tagslug for tags defined in the blog, e.g. tag.strong-language, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on the tag page which displays the list of posts tagged strong-language.
• -tag.tagslug e.g. -tag.strong-language, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other places except on the tag page which displays the list of posts tagged strong-language.
• as.tagslug for tags defined in the blog, e.g. as.strong-language, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only on pages or posts tagged as strong-language.
• -as.tagslug e.g. -as.strong-language, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other places except on pages or posts tagged as strong-language.
• hour.0-24 e.g. hour.8-13, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only between 8:00 and 13:59. The interval may also be specified as hour.8 for 8:00-8:59 or hour.8- for 8:00-23:59 or hour.-13 for 0:00-13:59
• -hour.0-24 e.g. -hour.8-13, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed at all other times except the specified interval.
• dow.1-7 e.g. dow.3-5, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed only between Wednesday and Friday.
• -dow.1-7 e.g. -dow.3-5, which means that the item with this slug will be displayed on all other days except between Wednesday and Friday.
• dom.1-31 and -dom.1-31 for days of month
• doy.1-366 and -doy.1-366 for days of year
• moy.1-12 and -moy.1-12 for months of year

You can combine more slugs to narrow your conditions even more, you simply put them with comma in between. This way you create complex conditions, like e.g.

• in.nature,-in.maritime to appear on posts or pages that belong to category nature but at the same time do not belong to category maritime.
• in.nature,-as.strong-language to appear on posts or pages that belong to category nature and are not tagged as strong-language.
• home.page,-dow.1 to appear on blog’s home page on all days except on Mondays.
• home.page,dow.1 to appear on blog’s home page only on Mondays.
• dow.2,-dom.1 to appear on all Tuesdays except if Tuesday is the first day of month.
• dow.2,dom.1 to appear on all Tuesdays that are the first day of month.
• dow.5,hour.20-23,as.strong-language to appear on posts and pages that use strong language, but only on Friday evening.