The newest version of the PhotoQ Photoblog Plugin for WordPress now also supports WPMU. All of PhotoQ’s major features are also available under WPMU, allowing you to host your own photoblogging community.

Here is a list of the major changes in PhotoQ 1.8.3 (there also is a compatibility update for iQ2: iQ2 1.2.3. If you use both, iQ2 and PhotoQ, please upgrade iQ2 to version 1.2.3 before upgrading PhotoQ to version 1.8.3. If you don’t, PhotoQ cannot be activated while the old iQ2 theme is running.):

• WPMU compatible (for differences with respect to WordPress version, see below).
• Queue can now be sorted according to different criteria (e.g. Capture Date that is read out from EXIF metadata).
• PhotoQ now supports non-standard locations of the wp-content folder  (advanced users only, see below for details).
• Photo title and/or description can now be automatically read out of EXIF “ImageDescription” field. The corresponding settings are under “Further Options->Auto Titles” and “Further Options->Auto Description”.
• File permissions are now handled in the same way WordPress handles them (i.e., folders get permissions of parent folder, files get permissions of parent folders minus execute permissions). Should give fewer problems with files that cannot be deleted via FTP if Apache runs under a user different from the FTP user. Permissions of existing PhotoQ files and folders can be recursively changed to match the new handling through the button “Fix Permissions” under “Settings->PhotoQ->Maintenance” (Note that this is not mandatory and it is a good idea to backup before you do so).
• Fixed bug that made appear watermarks at an angle.
• New theme preset for AutoFocus.

Thanks to all the people who helped me test the WPMU version. Special thanks to Ovi and Stéphane for all the very helpful reports and comments.

Differences between PhotoQ for WordPress and PhotoQ for WPMU

Most of PhotoQ’s features work in exactly the same way under WordPress and WPMU. See the main PhotoQ page for the full documentation. Here is a list of the few things that are specific to WPMU.

• Install into “plugins” folder not “mu-plugins”.
• FTP uploads are disabled in WPMU. Users likely do not have FTP access anyway.
• “imgdir” cannot be chosen but is fixed to the upload directory of the individual blog.
• All users share the same cache directory located at “wp-content/photoQCache”.
• Some settings like, e.g., the ImageMagick setting, can only be changed by site admins and are  sitewide, i.e., they apply to all blogs.
• You can place your own theme presets in the folder “wp-content/myThemePresets” (just create it if isn’t there and make sure Photoq has read access). These presets will then be available sitewide.
• Cronjobs: Put the “wimpq-cronpost.php” file (or to whatever you rename it to) to the WP root as explained in the PhotoQ documentation. To run the cronjob on a specific blog you need to execute the corresponding url: e.g., blogXY.yoursite.com/wimpq-cronpost.php or yoursite.com/blogXY/wimpq-cronpost.php instead of what you would do with standard WordPress (which would be yoursite.com/wimpq-cronpost.php).

PhotoQ and non-standard location of wp-content

PhotoQ should now support “wp-content” directories that are defined to lie outside of the WP root (see codex for details). If you move wp-content away, you also have to set the path to the directory (the WP root) that contains wp-load.php at the top of the new file “whoismanu-photoq-wploader.php”. This is needed because otherwise Ajax related PhotoQ files have no way of knowing from where to load WordPress. Also, you will have to do this everytime you update photoq. Sorry, there just is no other solution to this right now (If interested see http://alexrabe.de/2008/08/06/the-hassle-with-wp_content_url-and-wp_plugin_dir/ for a discussion of this)