Hi, I recently wanted to research about Zenphoto so looked it up on wikipedia. However, the article was deleted some time ago. I have requested and admins have restored it. However, I'm quite new to the program and so not in a position to improve the article all that much to prevent it being deleted again. Seeing as wikipedia has a lot of influence I think it would be good if some people who knew more about it than I do to put in a few minutes and fix up the article so it isn't deleted again. In particular they needed more links from websites that were not this one.
Cheers,
rusl
Zenphoto
Comments
Summary Box at the top
Operating System : should it be Apache or Unix/Apache?
Platform : Does it support other databases apart from MySQL?
History
Update a bit the history and remove the last 2 paragraphs.
Technical description
Not sure of what is "unique" or "most unusual", but I would highlight the following:
– flexible upload protocols
– ability to create albums automatically from documents uploaded in the albums folder
– resized photos and vignettes created automatically from the original photos using GD or Imagick (or ImageMagick?)
– dynamic albums
– besides p?oto gallery, two types (?) of content : news and pages
– multi-lingual gallery and administrative interface (depending on themes)
– various levels of controlled access
– functional customization with supplied and external plugins (easy to install: drop them in and they are installed)
– high level of visual customization via supplied and 3rd party themes. Themes may be customized without touching the program itself (knowledge of CSS and basic PHP/HTML required). (Sample galleries available)
If anyone thinks of features to add to the list (or things to remove), please post them below. As Rusl said, please also provide any link to outside, 3rd party references or discussions you might think of.
Unless someone else wants to volunteer, I'll think of something and could update the entry in a week or so.
which is why I asked for suggestions as to what I forgot to talk about.
But outside references would be most useful. So anyone who has links to outside sources, links, articles, etc. that talk about Zenphoto would be helpful. It is one "easy" way to demonstrate that it is not an advertisement.
P.S. That being said, I looked at other descriptions of photo-gallery software (I had tried a few of them beforehand) and many "approved" descriptions look like paid advertising. The main difference with their pages is that they have a few outside links as well.
I think the reason it got delete is that it sounded like a description by us (not sure who created it first). I personally would like to see specifically hightlighted that we are not just a gallery (we often appear in lists with simple jquery galleries!) but a media focussed CMS with images, mutlimedia, news/blog and pages. Also the object model framework should be highlighted as that allow to leave the "standard" theme way.
We tried to highlight the main features on the download page slideshow (a longer one is to be found on the user guide article "features). GD or Imagick (ImageMagick is related but different). Not exactly true for many plugins. If a theme has not already built in support, you have to add at least an function (Zenpage of course is more complicated).
As of links to add: I had collected a few nice articles about us here:
http://www.zenphoto.org/pages/testimonials
With regard to plugins and themes, I had other bad experiences with systems where one not only needs to upload them in a specific folder (like the Themes folder), but also to "inform" the system that a new plugin or theme has been installed. With all the obvious problems if one makes a typo during the process...
I assume you already edited the article? The main intro text is still quite inappropiate limiting it to ""a simpler web photo album." Btw, seems we and a lot of other tools got thrown out of the photo gallery comparison article as well.
Got another link: http://www.zenbien.com/infos/
That is a French forum about Zenphoto. Our own user vincent seems to be active there.
There is also a page with install info in French etc:
http://www.zenbien.com/category/zenphoto
Another resource I just found is this:
http://www.publishyourarticles.org/home/technology/zenphoto-guide-everything-about-zenphoto.html
It is a bit outdated, but the list of links is well organized to make a great tutorial.
As a result of that work, I'll probably come with a better set of instructions for the Zenphoto website. Right now, I find them well-suited for the technically inclined but not for the lambda user. If I succeed in making my instruction set simple enough for my parish priest, my member of parliament and my 98-year-old grandmother, then we'll have something great.
I have updated the entry on the comparison page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_photo_gallery_software
I think that one is fairly complete, although – by definition – limited to the "photo" part of Zenphoto.
It raises the question as to whether it should be part of other wikipedia pages such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems
... and I haven't found a page like that for film and music galleries.
You mean the installation instructions? IMHO you need to have some webtechnique knowledge to install an application on a server. Otherwise issues are always pre programmed. As you know this webstuff is a lot more complicated at times than the "casual" users thinks. Sometimes they are better off with either a one-click install or getting someone to help them. (btw, I am coming from design/illustration, so I am not a programmer by default.).
But we appreaciate any input to make any of our documentation better (so far not people much did want to help). So feel free to make suggestions.
Actually we also do want technically inclined users that do custom stuff with Zenphoto as well...:-) As you might have noticed the plugin and theme development of 3rd parties is not that active compared with other projects and those of course don't come from the "lambda" users.
I see no other gallery system there. We of course are aware that we probably can't compete with the bigger CMS like Typo3, Drupal, Joonla and WP both in usages and community but an addition there would probably not bad if possible (even a pure gallery system manages content..;-))
http://www.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?name=Zenphoto&scriptid=150
It provides a backend demo. They are usually a little behind the current release (no wonder with all that other tools listed!) but mostly just one version.
Btw, when you add it please update the logo as well. Also "Announced in April 2012. A Sponsorship program [4] will add advertising to zenphoto." is not correct. There are no ads in Zenphoto itself of course, just on the website. That should be edited as well.
I have updated the Wikipedia page.
So, please check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenphoto and comment.
P.S. I have yet to find the way to update the logo, so that hasn't been changed (yet).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Zenphoto#Zenphoto
outside links are most welcome.
Thanks.
Things you could add:
- Zenpage supports nested categories. ("Pages are classified by category." is wrong, news articles are - also articles and pages can be commented)
- (partly) metadata support for multimedia items
- .m4v/m4a (technically .mp4 but specified if video or audio) are supported
- the mutli user management capabilities (maybe better than the sentence you have maybe)
- multilingual support (not only for descriptions actually
- MySQL 5.5 is recommended like php 5.3 is, it works with mysql 5+(I have only that on my live server, too).
"Administrative interface available in 13 languages"
Sadly that is not really true. Some languages are quite outdated and not maintained. Actively maintained are currently Dutch, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Slowak, Italian and naturally English.
Btw, the showcase gallery now has the items tagged by usage of Zenphoto and/or Zenpage, so you could get more example.
What else Links do they need? (The CMSresource one is really outdated, not sure if it makes sense to have such old ones? But probably does not matter if the Wiki guys are satisfied..;)
There are still some links missing from (I also did some older ones):
http://www.zenphoto.org/pages/testimonials
I will probably move those to a separate user-guide entry a la "Articles about Zenphoto" some time. The testimonials site is not really maintained so we probably should create a sticky forum thread for this...)
You could also link to the youtube etc videos we have in http://www.zenphoto.org/screenshots/screencasts/
Question:
"the mutli user management capabilities (maybe better than the sentence you have maybe)"
–> What sentence(s) should I change? It didn't seem clear to me.
Sample Galleries
My choice is highly subjective, but I tried to highlight sites where "pages" were more than a basic contact page. A few entries of the Showcase, such as Vincent Bourganel's gallery, need to be updated.
In the part that highlights galleries integrated in a non-Zenphoto website, I have added the new one I'm developing for our parish at http://stjamestheapostle.ca/photos I haven't submitted it for showcase because I still want to add a few features, but the shell is there.
Outside Links
I'm not part of the Wikipedia team, so I cannot tell you exactly what is needed for outside links. I think the following would be greatly appreciated:
– reviews in magazine (web or paper) or in a commercial platform such as ZDnet;
– other tutorials on outside websites.
For example, I note that "Piwigo" links to two articles in Linux Magazine, and "Gallery Project" has links to three Google Summer of Code projects, an article in PC Magazine, and that their documentation and showcase are on two "independent" websites (i.e. 2 different domain names).
I'll post ideas about this website in a separate thread.
I would suggest something "management of multiple users with different rights. Also note the terms "gallery" means in ZP terms the Zenphoto install or at leasat all albums. Rights are applied to "albums". (we have a glossary on our site)
Regarding sample galleries. There are a lot of sites that use a full feature Zenpage theme with news and pages. Those are actually the sites we like to focus on. But of course the article should not be an ad as we said before.
I have no knowledge about any articles about Zenphoto in "offline" magazines or such.
As I said, my selection of galleries is entirely subjective. I did not check all 150-or-so showcase galleries, but I noticed that most galleries that use Zenpage use it fairly minimally: for contacts, bio and such, usually without images. I thought it would be more appropriate to highlight galleries that made fuller use of Zenpage possibilities, that go beyond a series of albums with one or two basic pages.
As usual, thanks for the feedback.
The dates/release stuff for Zenphoto plugins will be removed as these are always current.
I do note that there is a significant number of third party plugins that are either obsolete or no longer needed. Not sure what we should do with them, though. Of course if they no longer work that is an issue. But for many I have no means to test even if I had the time. We would have to rely on our forum members for feedback here.
Actually I don't care. Probably not worth the work. Web software except maybe the big ones like WP will get into newspapers or magazines so we will never be able to satisfy them. Fact is it is not that much written about Zenphoto.
On a more practical note, I have saved the text which will make a good introduction to the user manual. So all is not lost, far from it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_photo_gallery_software
quote from diff:
"removing Zenphoto - deleted at AFD as promotional / non-NPOV"
Promotional? non-NPOV? the table is there to simply state facts!
However, I really cannot understand this. What does Wikipedia expect here? Zenphoto is surely one of the most used gallery focussed CMS out there. At least some others seem to be deleted as well (and some articles have also a note about missing references).
@Michel: Since you have an account maybe you could investigate that?
The first article – the one that was deleted 1-2 years ago – had very little content and looked more like an ad. Once it was undeleted, I did my best to improve the content, make it as factual as possible, but once an article has been flagged, it needs to be perfect to get back online.
Basically, what seems to be needed are "independent sources". My interpretation is that it has to be talked about in places like C-net, MacWorld, Linux Magazine, etc.
Although Zenphoto is a very good product (I'm admitting a bias here) and easier to customize than many other ones (I know, I have tried to customize a few galleries), it hasn't been referenced on too many websites and has very few external "independent" references. The few we were able to find were highlighting the limitations of versions 0.9 or 1.0. Besides, we don't promote automatic installs means we are not high on the list of galleries promoted by popular web hosts.
Besides, on a personal note, I'm a very minor contributor to Wikipedia. Outside of the Zenphoto article on Wikipedia, I have mostly corrected a few factual mistakes in articles, mostly related to Québec and more often in French. Therefore, I'm not a "notable contributor" on Wikipedia.
I don't think there is any point – for me at least – to request undeletion of the article unless we have significantly new stuff to go with it:
– Independent sources (this currently seems to be their main concern: whether it's good or bad, if it's published, it's worth it). Last time, sbillard, acrylian and myself found all we could, from memory, personal sources and Google, but the list was weak.
– A major contributor. If by any chance one of the forum members has written many well-recognized articles on Wikipedia, they will have more clout than I have and their request for undeletion and subsequent article will have more clout than mine.
– Closer relations with a few major web hosts... although I'm not sure the advantages outweigh the drawbacks.
There is also no point in trying to write a "new" page called Zenphoto, as the Wiki software will automatically link it to the deleted one.
As for the page Comparison of photo gallery software, I have noticed that within a couple of weeks, it reflects what is on Wikipedia. So if someone successfully reinstates the Zenphoto page, it will appear in the Comparison page.
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P.S. I still have the text file of the Wikipedia page as I had updated it. I will use it as part of my lambda user guide, but if someone is able to successfully reactivate the Wikipedia page, I am more than willing to email the file I have.
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P.S. You could look at the "discussion" at Articles for deletion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Zenphoto
Indeed there are very few references to us (all still are collected on a article "Articles about Zenphoto" on the user guide btw). I monitor the web for new stuff. But who can compete with WP and others on that anyway..:-) But it seems that goes for most others which are also marked.
Seems people just use Zenphoto instead of writing about it...you can interpret this as a good sign...;)
a lot of people consider wikipedia the more reliable version of google, which to some is already the holy grail of information. not being included in a comparison list on wikipedia means the project doesnt exist, no matter how big and happy the user community is. if the article isnt there.. well, not ideal, but the lists are where new users come from if they are looking for a semi-unbiased source.
just sayin'..
Although Wikipedia is a quite good resource it is a common knowledge that you never should rely only on it alone. It is good on well known and popular topics but not always on more niche ones (which Zenphoto surely is one).
btw, most people seem to think Google is the internet and there we are good setup..:-)
UPdate: Seems we are at least back on the comparison page (unless my browser cache is playing tricks on me).
- if it gets taken off again, I will use my account to reverse it.
- if it gets taken off again, I will politely ask grubernd to reverse it.
- if it gets taken off again, I will log off and sacrifice my "IP address" to reverse it.
- etc.
It is really trivial to reverse changes to Wikimedia pages... there is no excuse not to do so.