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.

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This update fixes a bug in PhotoQ 1.8 and 1.8.1 that resulted in the queue not always being posted in the correct order. More details on this bug can be found on the forum. Thanks go to Trash for reporting this one.

I am sorry for the short update cycle, I know that most of you guys barely updated to 1.8.1. Still, I found this bug to be rather critical and preferred to fix it right away.

I finally managed to put an update for PhotoQ together. No new features this time except for the Spanish translation (muchas gracias, Caleidos), but quite a few bug fixes. Among others, this update should fix the photo upload bug that appeared on Windows servers in PhotoQ 1.8.

Here is a more detailed list of bugs fixed:

• Photo upload bug on Windows Servers
• PhotoQ should now be PHP 5.3 compatible
• PhotoQ with lot of photos in queue should no longer slow down admin interface
• Hopefully no more malformed divs that break PhotoQ on IE

As already mentioned shortly above, PhotoQ and iQ2 are now both also available in Spanish thanks to the translations by Caleidos. He even put up a webpage where you can stay up-to-date with the latest Spanish PhotoQ version. If you are a Spanish PhotoQ user, make sure you check it out at: http://blog.caleidos.org/2009/09/17/traduccion-al-espanol-de-photoq/. Same for iQ2, you can find a page with news on the Spanish version at http://blog.caleidos.org/2009/09/23/traduccion-al-espanol-del-tema-iq2/.

I have similar good news for Chinese users of PhotoQ. Anthony Chan, who maintains the Chinese translation, also included a page on his blog where you can get the latest news on the Chinese version. Check it out at : http://ckanthony.myvnc.com/blog/?page_id=3

At the same time as PhotoQ, iQ2 also got a small update. The update puts back the image link on the frontpage, even if the image links are generally turned off. If you use iQ2 and PhotoQ and update PhotoQ to 1.8.1, please also update iQ2 to 1.2.2 at the same time.

I just made a small update to iQ2, new version is 1.2.1.

Here are the changes, all of them have a corresponding option on the iQ2 settings page:

• You can now set your own description and keyword meta tags of the HTML head part that are used for SEO (and no longer display mine that I somehow forgot in there. sorry :-) )
• By default the main image links to the next post. You can now disable this such that you can use iQ2 with a lightbox style library if you want (by changing the main view in photoq to image link for example). Thanks to unico for pointing this out on the forum.
• You get an option to suppress displaying of the WordPress version in case you are paranoid :-)

Enjoy, and have fun.

Did you ever have to fiddle around with countless custom fields to have your images displayed in your favorite WordPress photoblog theme? With PhotoQ 1.8, stuff like having to manually enter the correct URL into the correct custom field becomes a thing of the past. In PhotoQ 1.8, theme support through views has been completely reworked and made so flexible that it now works with virtually any WordPress theme there is. Further, a convenient auto-configuration option allows you to setup PhotoQ to work with your favorite theme without, well, configuring anything.

Here is the list of highlights of this major update of the PhotoQ WordPress Photoblog Plugin:

• Use any theme you like together with PhotoQ, thanks to the new “freeform” view option
• Zero-configuration presets for some of the most popular photo themes
• Theme authors can easily generate presets for the users of their themes

At the same time the iQ2 Photoblog Theme has also been updated, there is now an option to add a static front page. For a full list of changes of both PhotoQ 1.8 and iQ2 1.2 as well as for upgrading instructions, read the rest of this post. For a complete documentation and installation instructions, please check out the main PhotoQ page.

I am still looking for translators for PhotoQ and iQ2. Right now, they are both available in Chinese (Hongkong, Taiwan), English, French and German. If you are able to help with a translation into any other language, just drop me a line. Any help is highly appreciated.

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