Hi there,

I just upgraded from 1.1.7 to 1.2 and was excited to see that I could upload FLV movies right from Admin. I did that, and when viewing the album, the generic audio/video thumbnail comes up. I click to get to the video, and the player comes up.

When I actually click to play the video, nothing happens. The player is reporting a video of 0:00 length.

I've tried this with both addins with the same results and in multiple browsers (IE, FF, Opera). I've even installed the latest Adobe Flash.

Is there something else I should be doing to get these to play?

Thanks!

http://www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery/photos/Movie_0004.flv.php

I notice that you have changed the name of the zenphoto albums folder. Is it possible that the permissions of this folder are such that browsers cannot read files from them? I see that clicking on images for the full sized image also fails, so maybe the two problems are related.

All my albums have 777 permissions.

I had an already established '/photos' directory set up before I installed ZenPhoto. Instead of moving everything into the ZenPhoto album folder, I tried to redirect ZenPhoto to look outside at the '/photos' folder.

In my config, I have:
'code'
$conf['album_folder'] = '/photos/';
$conf['external_album_folder'] = '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/';
'\code'

This lets me use ZenPhoto with my existing folders and images, but when I click on the image for full size, I see the directory is:
http://www.bigwheelrally.com/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

When I change the external_album_folder to just '/photos/' I get the error:
"Error: The 'albums' directory (/photos/) cannot be found."

Seems like the full directory path is allowing ZenPhoto to operate, but crashing full size image links.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

If the photos folder is within the zenphoto folders, you should leave the external_album_folder NULL. Certainly you should not be setting both those items.

If the photos folder is outside the zenphoto folders there is a good chance it is also outside of the folders your web browser can access. That would prevent the flv player from playing the movies.

My site is www.bigwheelrally.com

ZenPhoto is set up at:
www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery

and the photo albums are at:
www.bigwheelrally.com/photos

I've tried every combination of setting both album_folder and external_album_folder.

It appears that you can set external_album_folder outside of the ZenPhoto install location, but then links to full size images won't work.

Seems that for full size image links, ZenPhoto is using the external_album_folder location as a folder on the site.
i.e. www.bigwheelrally.com[external_album_folder]\albumname\picture.jpg

Can you confirm this?
Thanks

p.s. what part do Path Overrides play in all this?

Links to objects outside of the web folders will fail because the WEB browser cannot access them. This will impact any Javascript which is feeding on the actual images. It will also effect full images if they are not being processed by zenphoto. (e.g. Unprotected.)

There is really nothing we can do about this, it is as they say, a fact of life.

Path overrides are not relevant to this. They are only for when zenphoto for some reason is unable to deternine the paths on its own.

All the folders I'm talking about are INSIDE the publicly accessible web folders. You can verify this with the following links:

ZenPhoto is set up at:
www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery

and the photo albums are at:
www.bigwheelrally.com/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

My photos folder is not within ZenPhoto folders (but is within my accessible web folders), so I set external_album_folder to the proper location.

The problem is that for image links, ZenPhoto is using the external_album_folder location as a subfolder.
i.e. www.bigwheelrally.com`external_album_folder`\albumname\picture.jpg

But, external_web_folder is required to be the full server path to the albums folder (for example: '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/') according to the config file.

So, links to full size images point to non existant folders:
http://www.bigwheelrally.com/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

Ultimately, my question is: [b]How can I point ZenPhoto to use another folder on my site as the albums and preserve full size image links and FLV playback?[/b]

Thanks

For full sized images you have to set the image protection to protected. For the FLV images you will have to modify the theme to pass the player URLs to the other WEB site.

Hi sbillard,

I'm sorry, but I think we're misunderstanding each other as your recommendations don't seem to make sense to me.

I'd like to back up and start over:

1. I only have one publicy accessible web site (www.bigwheelrally.com).

2. I already have a photo album folder in the root of my website ("/photos").

3. I have installed ZenPhoto 1.2 in its own root folder, and have renamed that folder from "/zenphoto" to "/gallery".

[b]4) How do I configure ZenPhoto to have it use my existing folder that is not inside the ZenPhoto folder?[/b]

Thanks

You have to change the statement in zp-config.php regarding the external album folder. That needs to be a server path to the folder where the album resides. Having done that, if you want full sized images to be viewable you will have to set the protection selection to protected. If you want flash players, etc. which are browser based to be able to process the images you will have to supply them with WEB URLs to the image using the WEB address of the other site.

Hi again,

Ok, I'm on track:

1. "server path to the folder where the album resides" - I have set this in config.php as:
   $conf['album_folder'] = '/photos/'; $conf['external_album_folder'] = '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/';

2. "set the protection selection to protected" - Where does this need to be set? Is it in Admin, or is it a CHMOD on the folder itself? (I would have searched the forums for this, but the "search" box appears to have been disabled?)

3. "supply them with WEB URLs to the image using the WEB address of the other site" - This one has me confused. I only have the one site, so I'm not sure what you mean by "other site".

Thanks!

2. This is an option on the image display tab.

3. You have said you have two sites: www.bigwheelrally.com and some other site unnamed where you have installed zenphoto. Your links for the FLV must reference www.bigwheelrally.com.

2. Got it. Sorry I didn't see that before. This resolved the full size images not being accessible. Thanks.

3. I've said that I only have the 1 site (www.bigwheelrally.com). ZenPhoto is installed in the /gallery subfolder of this site. The FLV is trying to link to the 'external_album_folder' that is set up in config.php, but it's not allowed.

`

How can I get the FLV players to use the subfolder /photos on my main site?

Thanks

As I have been trying to tell you, you have to modify the theme to pass the correct URL to the FLV player.

I am not sure if that can be done on the theme alone. Probably you have to modify the flv player plugin. The flv player - if I recall correctly - uses relative paths for movies: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=11284#msg82454