Yes there seem to be alternative solutions, but the Widget Wordpress Gallery needs to be brought up to standard now. This problem's been around for a long time and it's about time Yootheme solve it.

Using anything other than the media manager just isn't viable for general non-technical users. I really love what Yootheme have done with all their improvements, but this one needs to be resolved quickly. We've been waiting too long. The gallery is a main part of the Widget collection and with the new launches now out of the way, I hope the talented Yootheme team can focus on this and get the job done.

Thanks for moving this thread to the new support forum. I chimed in myself regarding the details of how the WidgetKit Gallery works as well. My specific notes are located in the Old Forum Thread: Re: Wordpress: Widgetkit slideshow when images in folders?

Summary of Incompatibility Between WordPress Media Manager and WidgetKit Gallery:

1. WordPress Media Manager does the following when uploading images:

   • Upload image to folder structure using a year / month format similar to: /uploads/2011/12/.

   • Creates multiple copies of the same image with various sizes supported by the theme.

     Example: Uploading featured_1.jpg will create multiple copies such as:

     • featured_1.jpg
     • featured_1-110x80.jpg
     • featured_1-115x115.jpg
     • featured_1-150x150.jpg
     • featured_1-290x200.jpg
     • featured_1-300x195.jpg
     • featured_1-920x300.jpg

     Therefore, the native WordPress functionality would turn 12 images uploaded into 84 total images with these various size dimensions.

   • Adds new database record for the primary image file (featured_1.jpg).

2. WidgetKit Gallery loads images in the following way:

   • WidgetKit Gallery does not reference the WordPress database for images to load for its Gallery.
   • Rather, it allows the user to specify a folder from which to load images into its gallery.
   • If specifying one of the image folders used by the WordPress Media Manager (uploads/2011/12/), ALL images and and their many size variations will also be loaded into the WidgetKit Gallery.
   • The best option for using WidgetKit Gallery is to create specific gallery folders and to upload gallery images via FTP.

Problem with Current Functionality

WidgetKit Gallery requires users to use a separate tool outside of WordPress to upload images for their image galleries.

Current Resolution

This has been brought to the YooTheme Development team's attention and they have committed to reviewing options for changing the WidgetKit Gallery to specify gallery images via native WordPress Media Manager. This is currently supported in other WidgetKit features like Accordion and Slideshow. Until the development team is able to review the effort, I'm not certain as to when or if this change will occur.

Options to Consider in the Meantime:

Option 1: Use free and easy FTP tools like FileZilla FTP Client. This information is meant for those less familiar with FTP.

**OR**

DISCLAIMER: Use At Your Own Risk

I have no experience or make guarantees with the plugins listed below.
These were pulled from Google Search.
Always proceed with caution when working with any plugins you are unfamiliar with from WordPress.

Option 2: Add FTP like functionality to WordPress via plugins like:

• WP FileManager
  
  • See Article: How to add a FTP like File Manager in WordPress with WP-File Manager
• WP Easy Uploader
• WordPress Flash Uploader
• Media File Manager
• Easy FTP Upload

• List-Yo Files

  OR

Option 3: If the above suggestions are unacceptable, considering using all the WidgetKit features except for WidgetKit Gallery. There is an abundance of alternative gallery plugins to utilize.

Although the options above are not a fix and certainly not what you might have been looking for, my hope is these give you some options to consider while waiting on an update, should one be worked into the release schedule.

Can I just say....

This evening I loaded NextGen Gallery by Alex Rabe.

It has an option to load a custom selector.

I set it to data-lightbox="group:test" and it works FANTASTICALLY.

Lightbox takes over and looks so much better than default nextgen.

Plus I get all the upload features that nextgen offers and gallery/album configurations etc.

Near perfect.
Nextgen is user friendly for sites that I do not maintain, and that regular users will work on.

The new Widgetkit 1.1 release has its own option to upload images to the Gallery widget. Just drag and drop images from your desktop to the Widgetkit UI and they will be uploaded to your server. We know there are still features missing like managing folders, etc. but this is our first step to improve the image management.

I have noticed this as well.

I think having a way for Widgetkit to take over the standard gallery function in wordpress would be great.
You can then use the normal wordpress function for uploading images and adding a gallery into a post/page, then when you click the image, BOOM Yootheme lightbox takes over and displays images instead of going to an attachment page or directly to the file.
This in itself would be handy.

@Mark and Everyone,

The core developers have a huge list of requested features they have to prioritize while fixing bugs and releasing new themes that work on both Joomla and WordPress. Many feature requests get turned down while others are tabled for consideration. For this reason, I honestly was not certain how high on the list it was to integrate the WP Media Manager into WidgetKit Gallery.

I was able to ask one of the core developers today where this was on the priority list. The Good News is this feature is definitely on the development list. However, it's not going to be included on the next release - WidgetKit v1.0 Beta 20 - which is being finalized this week. The focus on Beta 20 is a series of bug fixes that were introduced with the WordPress 3.3 upgrade.

I did NOT get a confirmation that it will make it in the next release. However, here's to hoping .

Also, I did share this thread with the YOOtheme Team to make sure your voices are heard. I'll follow up at some point in the future.

Thanks,

David Carroll

I was very dissapointed when I realized that Widgetkit doesn't follow native WP coding best practises. Widgetkit should make use of WPs own built-in features wherever that is possible. That gives YooDevs less code to maintain, and users a much more coherent UI.

I applaud Woothemes for having done this for ages. They are hands down one of the (if not THE) best WP theme makers out there. Their framework is extraordinary in every way, though not as flexible as Yoo in others. But at least they make use of the built in features of WP wherever they can.

So thumbs up for WP integration. Who on earth uses FTP to upload image galleries anymore? Or pre-crops images before they are uploaded? Thats a thing of the past!

Just my 2 cents

Regards
Kristoffer

I created my own uploader only for Widgetkit.

Creating an uploader with the ability to create folder's isn't very timeconsuming..but would be great to see an included sollution in the widgetkit to avoid having to hack any files in the future

If it's a problem to integrate it with Wordpress' native uploader, why not simply create a custom multifile uploader along with the ability to create your own folders for each upload / select already created folders in a given destination ?

@riny.heijdendael :

The folder / img upload/delete feature is availible in the latest version of Widgetkit

Thanks for the suggestion riaz about NextGen, if we can't come up with a workable solution using yootheme's system I will give NextGen a serious look.

@Mark,

Well said. I've sent this note to the developers to let them know your thoughts.

Best Regards,

David Carroll

Love YooTheme, Love Balance Theme, but this same issue is killin' me. Please bring WidgetKit up to snuff here, we should be able to load images into a slideshow...

Actually, a few more notes: with WordPress 3.3 & Latest Widget Kit as of Jan 5 2012 --> Slideshow doesn't seem to have any way to add an image. You can't seem to select even a folder (you can do that for a gallery, not for a slideshow). And, if you FTP an image up to a folder, you can't even use the <HTML> editor to insert the HTML to reference the image. Am I missing something or is the slideshow completely non-functional?

UPDATE: I was able to get the <HTML> to work, but only after adding the image "height" and "width" attributes -- it's at least a temporary fix. Good luck getting this working guys, looking forward to it!!

UPDATE II: Also -- the "Delete" button in the upper right hand corner looks like a "minimize this tab" button -- just deleted a few slides without even realizing -- maybe toss in a "are you sure you want to delete this slide?" warning, or something? WP has so many collapsing functions in the upper right hand corner that it's just something to consider. Thanks!

@brianmac2021 - Thanks for the notes. I'll share these with the development team in case they are not already aware of these specific issues.

David -- Many, many thanks. You guys have really ramped up your support lately. Love it. I'll keep the notes coming if they are helpful. Looking forward to BETA 21

Thanks for the update David. Much appreciated. I can understand that the developers think this is a feature request, I'm sure there are others like me who feel it's more of a bug, at least it's bugging me. Maybe it's not technically a bug, but I still get an uneasy feeling that Widgetkit has moved of out of Beta without this.

Add-ons like Widgetkit should be created with the non-technical user being the number one audience (that obviously goes for the majority of things on the web). Please can we start leaving behind the thinking that we're making these products for 'us' and start thinking about our non-technical clients who need web applications that are easy to use. Let's forget copying and pasting shortcodes and FTPing photos, let move to "click click result!". BTW YooTheme products are the best I've seen in its class, but I get tired of seeing interfaces that are harder to use than they should be. I hope Yootheme start to do more testing with all different types of end user. I'm desperate for YooTheme to keep the innovation going because your design is so brilliant, just don't forget the backend stuff.

I realise there's likely to be lots of feature requests, there always is with popular software, but even though the Yootheme Wordpress audience is smaller than the Yootheme Joomla audience (I assume), I hope such an important addition will not be far away.

Again I appreciate the update David and I also appreciate all the great stuff that Yootheme is doing.

Hello, I am also having problems with the slide show, plz solve this, because balance is a fantastic theme.

Hi kostantinos,

If you wouldn't mind, please post your specific issues in a new Question and post the link back to this question so I can be notified and take a look. It's not clear if the issue you are experiencing is related to the feature request for improving the way images are uploaded. So please do include specific details regarding your issue.

Also, as you are creating your Question, please add Admin access info to the section "Add hidden information".

Thanks,

David Carroll

Going back to the original question, I too would like to see the widgetkit incorporate it's own file uploading or at the very leasy allow images to be selected from a folder and added to/removed from the gallery.

Our end customers rarely understand how ftp works.

We're selling website solutions based on being able to easily update website using WordPress.

FTP should be an option but widgetkit should not force it's use.

If WordPress creates multiple images through media manager, then so be it. Could you please give the option to "add" and "remove" images to a gallery when browsing through media folders, rather than just rely on the entire folder.

The current model seems a very 1990's approach.

Thanks,
Wil.

Wil - Thanks for the feedback. I just sent a link to your response to the YOOtheme team. I'm hoping they have it on their task list for an upcoming release.

Thanks,

David

I know the bulk of these responses has to do with the Gallery, but image selection for Slideshow seems broken as well.

It works fine for the first slide, but choosing an image for any other slide updates the image in the first slide.

Example: use media manager to choose an image for slide 2. The image replaces whatever image you had selected for slide 1.

EDIT: as requested, here's a more detailed explanation:
http://www.yootheme.com/support/question/5576

Eric - Your specific issue is the first I've heard of it. Can you open this as a new question and post the link back here. I'd like to review it more closely.

Thanks,

David Carroll

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback. As I receive new comments, I post an update to the YOOtheme Team.

One thing that helps is for people to click the plus (+) sign on the actual question which currently has 10 votes. It's a good way to compare the level of interest in this question versus other questions.

Thanks,

David Carroll

I can't believe I just paid 34 euros for this. Integration with the wordpress uploader is abysmal. I have spent the last few days moving a client site to wordpress in order for them to have more control over uploading images and I stupidly assumed that the widgetkit would have a decent user interface. How wrong I was.

Now I am out of time and money so I am going to have to use this gallery and show my client how to upload images via filezilla.

The only thing I'm glad about is that I almost purchased a yootheme together with the widgetkit but had the presence of mind to wait and see how the widgetkit panned out. Needless to say, I won't be bothering purchasing the theme

Aksel,

Would you mind sharing your notes on what you did to add image uploader?

Thanks,

David Carroll

Hi David,

Sorry for the late reply..hadn't favorised this thread. Done now

I basically just created an admin interface with a standard multifile uploader where the uploader choose if they wanna add uploaded files to an exising folder or if they want to create a new folder. If the last choice, they get a textfield where they enter the name of the new folder.

I haven't put much effort into the functionality other than the basic features which is needed for my clients.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for sharing your notes.

Any news on this David? Has this now been addressed?

At last, but not really good enough.

It is probably 250 days ago that I posted about this on the old forum, so it has taken a very long time for you to even look at the problem. Nothing wrong with that - it is your choice to provide poor support for your products.

What is incredible though is that you have continued to advertise this as a feature which works with wordpress, which it clearly doesn't.

This is false advertising, illegal in the EU.

Great to hear Sascha

Hope you get the foldermanagement function implemented soon aswell. This is pretty simple to add as I've done this for my own plugin..atleast for the Wordpress edition

Possible workaround: use "Media File Manager" plugin to first organise your gallery pix into folders, then create a gallery and select the corresponding folder.

Hard to get though is that there is no "enable/disable" or add/remove button for each gallery-item.

I agree this is crippling user experience, so work for yootheme devs...

YooTheme - please move this upload item up your list. Just finishing an install for a client who loves the Polaroid style photo wall, but doesn't understand why they can't upload from the Media Manager...

if anyone needs this contact it i made a small plugin for widgetkit and you can get it for 20 euros to help me keep developing it!

http://www.evertical.net

http://www.evertical.net/button.png