Feature Request - Meta Titles and Descriptions on Albums and Images

boo

HI,
Can you please consider adding:
Page Meta Title and Page Meta Description fields on Albums and Images.

We are currently using the custom fields for the page Meta Description, but we now need to add more information to the page content on Albums and Images which we need to use the custom fields for, this is a critical requirement for the site to progress further.

I think it would be a positive step forward for your gallery system so will you please consider it.

Many thanks.

acrylian

Sometimes it helps to look at what's already available:
http://www.zenphoto.org/documentation/plugins/_plugins---html_meta_tags.php.html
Just enable it and it will add the info to all theme pages (standard theme pages as well as Zenpage pages and articles).

sbillard

Please also note that you can put unlimited data in your custom fields. You can even organize it as separate fields if you wish. Review the filter-custom_data plugin for examples. Note especially the handling of the comment custom data as this is a good example of the separate field noted above.

boo

Hi, I wasn't aware of the meta tags plugin, I will have a look at that tommorrow, thanks.

I was aware about the separate fields for the custom data fields is possible but I was concerned because the lady that does the admin is not technically minded and I think it would cause her a lot of confusion. But I will definitely read through the docs to see how we may use it in the future.

Brilliant thanks again for your help.

boo

sbillard

Thus the suggestion that you look at the comment custom data. The plugin presents that on the admin interface as separate fields for name, address, city, state, etc. You could do the same for whatever details you need.

boo

Hi,

I've had a look at the custom fields filtering, but I'm afraid that it is way too complex for me, maybe you might create an admin interface to create custom fields at some point in the future.

Thinking about it what we would like is an additional field like the image description which would also use the tinymce editor.

We were thinking about have an "Interesting Facts" field on Albums and Images, we would have preferred to keep the Interesting Facts separate from the description so we can place it elsewhere on the page and format it differently, but for now I think we will add it to the description.

Many thanks for your help,
boo

sbillard

All these things are possible with filters. However, if they are too complex for you you will have to find someone to do them for you. They are not features that we intend to add to Zenphoto in genaral.

boo

Hi, that could well be the answer, find a php coder or maybe even have a go myself on my test machine when I'm feeling bright and brave. It does worry me that I might break it and then have no idea how to fix it.

Do you have an example for a custome field filter that would use the tinymce editor ?

We are still using 1.2.5 at the moment, is 1.2.6 in production state now, it says RC1 on your site.

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

Zenphoto 1.2.6 has been released on August 10th: http://www.zenphoto.org/2009/08/zenphoto-1-2-6-released/

DId you try the html meta data plugin? It does everything automatically from the actual available info. Alternatively you could reuse the location etc field.

boo

Hi, yes I had a look at it, but yes I was hoping for a textarea field to use for the meta description.

We are ok currently for the meta title as we are using the standard "getbare" titles which is fine, so I apologise for asking for the meta titles to added into admin, at the time I thought it would be good to have the option.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Meta Descriptions we were using:
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo getBareAlbumDesc(); ?>" />
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo getBareImageDesc(); ?>" />

But now we are using:

<meta name="description" content="<?php echo getAlbumCustomData(); ?>" />
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo getImageCustomData(); ?>" />

We were using the bare gallery, album, image descriptions from admin for the meta descriptions but google was not indexing the description text off the pages, so I assumed that they do not index it if it is also being used as the page meta description, hence why we are now using a different description from the "Custom Data" field.

If I tried pasting some of the text off a description into google search box it did not return any links to Lis's pages even tho the pages themselves were indexed on google.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I could setup the filters I might try and change the current field "Custom Data" to "Page Meta Description" on gallery, albums and images.

and create a new field that uses tinymce called "Interesting Facts" on both albums and images.

Do you think it's the right thing to do ?

Many thanks,
boo

acrylian

If you are actually just wanting to use the description for the meta description and nothing specific the html meta data plugin is the way to do as it does exactly this automatically without needing to add anyhting to your theme files. You can choose on the plugin options what meta data entries you want to use at all.

boo

Hi, yes but that's the problem, google was not actually indexing the description text off the page when doing searches and I think it's because it was also being used for the meta descriptions.

Maybe they consider it as duplicate content ?

Also it does allow for more flexibility to customize the meta descriptions on search engine results and hopefully produce more click throughs.

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

Might be that the "duplicate content" is an issue here, although the meta html tags are actually not really important today and the plugin truncates it to the allowed length. If Google does not index your pages even without html meta tags there might be another reason.

acrylian

I just tried and took the "photos of sidmouth..." description from the gallery page and got right the first entry on google. Remember google does not update the cataloge every day and not at once. It does not work with the desc from the first image though, but that one is quite general sounding.

Btw, the recommended uses of the <title> tag is "imagetitle / albumtitlte / site title". (I know the standard themes don't do this right now..)

boo

Hi, that's great actually because the gallery index meta description is hard coded and not the gallery description field and is not the same, I think you've just proved my point, I'm sure I'm right on this one.

Whenever I've done the same on albums or images in the past, no results in google.

A few days I renamed most of Lis's images to make them more search engine indexable and submitted a sitemap so we are now waiting for google to reindex the site.

So unfortunately we can't test right now but I do feel fairly positive I'm right.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

There only other difference between the description on the gallery page and the ablums /images is that the albums / images description are in a table to make them dynamic width , surely that would not cause any issue ?

Many thanks,
boo

boo

Hi, please see message above.

Just out of interest how quickly does Lis's site load from where you are, is it ok ?
Where are you in Sweden ?

boo

acrylian

Don't think that the table will cause issue indexing but table constructs are more complicated. Better is to use semantic code (for example <p> for texts and such).

Speed of the site is quite fast. And I am in Northern Germany...;-)

boo

Hi, ok I'm still learning css, I didn't realise you could have a background color and border with a paragraph tag, excellent thankyou for that info, I will have a play later.

Good to hear her site loads quickly, great.

and Hello to you in Germany : - )

---------------------------------------------------

Here's the html description from an image

Can you please look to see if there is anything that may affect indexing ?

---------------------------------------------------

<div id="image-description">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="image-description-table">
<tr>
<td><span id="editable_2" class="zp_editable zp_editable_image_desc">This view was photographed from the top of a very steep hill looking down on Sidmouth, possibly 300 feet above sea level.</span>
<script type="text/javascript">editInPlace('editable_2', 'image', 'desc');</script></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

You should really get rid of this table, especially for cleaner code. btw. You can have borders and background with any block element.

boo

Hi, ok great.

I'll come back to you about the custom fields filters at a later date,
when I'm ready to seriously look at it and try and implement it, this is all progressive and it's great that
you have built in these features to greatly improve Zenphoto's capabilities.

Thankyou for all your help!
boo

boo

Hi,

I was wrong I have used a table for the gallery index description as well.

Interesting the gallery index description is structured with paragraphs but the album and image descriptions are line breaks and no paragraphs, all from the database and tinymce ?

I think Paragraphs are the way to go, as you stated above, better page markup and search engine indexing.

Ok, have had 1 or 2 beers too many tonight so I'd best leave it until tommorrow after I've had quite a few cups of strong coffee : - )

Thanks,
boo

boo

Hi, ok it's beacuse she's used justification.

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

TinyMCE is setup to use line breaks instead of paragraphs because some theme place the description and such already in paragraphs what leads to validation issues. But it is of coures possible to configurate TinyMCE differntly. Please see the troubleshooting guides.

boo

Hi, ok I've changed tinymce, great we now have paragraph formatting and hopefully line breaks on "shift", brilliant thanks!

force_br_newlines : false,
forced_root_block: "p",
force_p_newlines : true,

I've been looking at changing the description tables over to css, I'm guessing the span tag with display:block is the way to go ?

Your a Star Mr Acylian!

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

Or divs or parapgraphs direclty. Those are already a block elements (headlines are, too).

boo

Hi, ok have a slight problem with tinymce with the new changes.

In the editor it displays correctly:

<p>This is in Bedale in North Yorkshire. Beautiful gardens to amble around and beautiful birds of prey to see. You can take your picnic and you wouldn't see everything in a day.</p>
<p>We will definately return soon.</p>

But on the page we actually get a line break in between the paragraphs.

and the "delete" key no longer works before the new paragraphs in Firefox.

Maybe tinymce has a few bugs ?

Thanks,
boo

acrylian

A line break is the default behaviour of a paragraph. If youn don't want that you need to change the css. And/or try changing this "force_p_newlines : true," to false (see the details of configuration on the tinymce wiki).

Aboute the delete button and TinyMCE, I can't answer. This might be browser dependend. Please see the tinymce website if there are know bugs. 1.2.6 has of course not the latest one. I will soon update the nightly though.

boo

Hi, sorry I didn't explain that very well what we get now is:

paragraph tag - then tinymce also inserts a line break tag followed by the next paragraph tag

I'm sorry to keep taking up your time, I'll do some searching on the net see if there is a solution.

boo

Hi, I cannot find anyone with the same issue with tinymce, a line break tag is being inserted in between paragraphs tags.

`everything in a day.

We will definitely return soon.

`

The line break does not show in tinymce's editor html inspector, but is output on the page.

Is it possibly being caused by zenphoto integration ?

Many thanks,
boo

acrylian

I guess the line breaks are leftovers from the old setting and you have to delete them manually now. I just tried with "force_br_newlines : false" and "force_p_newlines : true" and could not reproduce it.

boo

Hi, ok still happens when creating new images etc.

So I've just upgraded my test machine to 1.2.6 and try it on that, have there been many bug fixes since the stable august release ?

Ok, it does it on 1.2.6 as well.

settings are:
`
apply_source_formatting : true,
force_br_newlines : false,
forced_root_block: "p",
force_p_newlines : true,
`
Many thanks,
boo