Whoever has had the opportunity to work with silverstripeundesrtands  how the drag and drop features can enhance productivity. Modules in Silverstriupe CMS are great but are wholly integrated within the full framework and cannot work without the huge memory and disk overhead that this framework comes with.  I decided to develop my own independent image gallery admin module, using php / mysql / jquery technologies from the examples below.

The idea is to develop a full featured image gallery with backend features, like the one we have for eyelash gallery, product developped by me a few years ago.

This post provides version 0.1  of JQGallery, an administration module for image gallery management. It has been tested on Firefox /Chrome and will not work with IE6. Please note that it is not secure, not to be used as such in a production environment yet.

Let me know if you find bugs. A demo is available here (upload / delete are disabled)

Installation is quite easy :

1. check that your server matches the following requirements : php 5 / mysql 5
2. download : jqGalleryAdminDemo (829)
3. unzip to a folder within htdocs
4. configure mysql access  in db_mysql.inc.php with database details (server / database / user / password)
5. manually create the table : load the sql setup file from includes/setup.sql in your database, using phpMyAdmin
6. check that the apache has read/ write privileges  on the uploads folder
7. and off you go
8. come back to use with bug reports and enhancement requests

code samples used to develop JQGalleryAdmin :

• drag & drop code
  http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/dynamic-dragn-drop-with-jquery-and-php/
  http://www.wil-linssen.com/extending-the-jquery-sortable-with-ajax-mysql/
• swfupload + plugin
  http://blogs.bigfish.tv/adam/2009/06/14/swfupload-jquery-plugin/
• swfupload event  customization
  http://blog.codeville.net/category/jquery/
• jquery prompt plugin : impromptu was tested but not used
  http://trentrichardson.com/Impromptu/index.php
• instead I use alert :
  http://abeautifulsite.net/notebook/87
• images and style sheet elements from bluetrip css framework

The Autogrid ext js extension, delivered via the ext js forums, is a quick grid extension that does not come with inline editing features but is ready for the job. The purpose of this autogrid is to enable quick building of datagrid via server side loading of meta information for columns. The autosave feature allows the user to keep the grid’s configueration over various sessions. 

I have worked a few hours to deliver this refoactoring of the autogrid that is an extension of the EditorGridPanel, and it brinbgs new features :

• save order and direction of query sort
• allow inline editing including specific field for dates (can easily be extended)
• sends new data to server in the form of field name / field value, allowing quick writing of generic save queries.

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xls2mysql is a  standalone application for Windows XP / Vista  that  creates SQL queries from Excel data,  including table create statement, using columns names  from cell values in the first row.

• Xls2mysql improves your productivity by automatically converting Excel records to SQL insert queries ready for mysql. 
• Xls2Mysql  saves precious time for real work on your dynamic  websites or mysql powered application :

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Silverstripe CMS, currently relying on prototype for javascript and AJAX interactions, seems to be moving slowly to JQUERY : while contributors and developers might think this is a good move, I personnally wonder about the effort required for such a migration on an interface that relies heavily on AJAX. Anyway, I provide below a quick hack opf the famous gallery module, with the following modifications (demo coming soon) :

• uses jquery’s lightbox implementation of modal galleries.
• implements GalleryFolder Page type that displays first thumbnail of each gallery sub page

How to : setup jquery  gallery for silvestripe

• download jquery and add the requirement to your main page OR gallery page
• download gallery-jquery for silverstripe (384ko) and install it as gallery module
• flush your database (/db/build?flush=1)
• include GalleryPageContent in your template or GalleryFolderContent

that should be it, have fun

We provide here a modification of Mark Allen ‘ Blogroll page plugin, that inserts blogroll into any page of your blog . What we did here is modify his plugin to create more than just a list : we make pages out the blogroll list, one page per category. The first page lists categories with link to blogroll list for this category. Slight Modification but useful fo SEO. Future implementations should modify title page to integrate category description. Enjoy and let us know how it goes.

• Demo here
• Download : blogroll-links-pages