Virginia Breeze

We have gone in great detail through the construction of the NextGen Gallery here in order to help some folks like myself who don’t know a lot about FTP transfer do some basic things. Now we are going to add a feature called ImageFlow  which will present photos in a different and some would say interesting manner.

Here is the location of this plugin in the Wordpress. org plugin section.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-imageflow/

I didn’t use Plugin Central for this operation because we need to install a file from the plugin  in the root directory.   The root directory can be called different things but basically it is NewsLinkBriefs in this case since I installed it in one of my other blogs.

So we keep our trusty (and free) Total Commander around for these things and we discussed how to use it in detail when we did the NextGen Installation posts.

But  when did we decide I was the Pope and needed to start talking about “we” instead of “i or me”?  Good question.

So now you locate the reflect.php file by clicking on the ImageFlow file to reveal its parts.  Simply load this file in trusty F5 and blast off with it to the other side of the FTP program.  It’s now part of your blog or in this case NewsLinkBriefs.  You can delete it from its original location and move on to upload the remaining files to the Plugin directory.  Activate the Plugin. When you write a post all you need to do is place this tag in the HTML area with the correct Gallery ID which is probably not going to be 99.

[imageflow=99]

Click on Gallery (probably next to Comments or near it) and Album to find the Gallery ID. All you Galleries are located in there on the right and they should have ID’s. If you look to the right of Album you should see ImageFlow down at the end. There are things in there you can adjust. You can get rid of the reflection if you choose. And there are some other things there you probably should leave along. At least I should leave them alone.

And that’s it. Now some of your images will come flying at you whenever you click on your blog to say “Hello”.  Right now that seems to happen best if you use the scroll wheel on our mouse.

Blogging is certainly an entertaining process, isn’t it?

To check out how this thing looks you can go here. . .

http://newslinkbriefs.com/2008/03/13/imageflow-gallery/

We have really taken a tour in this effort to install a super plugin for Wordpress. And there is only one thing left to do prior to reaching our goal.

It is time to install Plugin Central by Vladimir Prelovac. So go to this post and locate the plugin. And then use the tools we have discussed in Parts I through IV to install it.

As I have said many times this is a step by step process for seniors or whoever with no background in these things. So please go back and review if you need to be reminded of any steps.

Once Plugin Central and its companion Post-Plugin Library are safely installed and activated in your Plugin file go to the upper left corner of you browser just below the toolbar and click on Dashboard. Now look just below and Dashboard once again in red letters. Just to the right of it you should see Plugin Central. Click on this and the Plugin Central box will open giving you an option to click on and list all of your plugins or only your active plugins.

Now we are going to use this wonderful tool to install NextGen Gallery. Here is the location of the zip file.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/nextgen-gallery.zip

Right click on it and look for Copy Link Location. Left click on this and then go to the Plugin Central/ Easy Plugin Installation box we noted earlier in this post. Below the option to list plugins you will see the area we need. Right click and then paste your zip file in here. Click install plugin and watch as it does its work.

Total Commander is not needed here. In less than five seconds the plugin is installed and ready to use. Or if you are forgetful like me and already installed this plugin you will receive a message that goes something like this “Installation failed. Plugin already installed”.

Oftentimes you do not even need the zip file. Just type in NextGen Gallery and PC will locate it and install it anyway.

Another cool option is to click on the List all Plugins button and get your list of plugins. And then copy/paste any or all of them as you choose into your other Wordpress blogs. This tactic assumes you have installed PC in all your blogs. Just copy/paste into the PC box and click on Install. What could be simpler or easier than that?

It is such a wonderful time saving tool I know you will want to do this. But remember to always backup your database using the plugin we installed in a prior post or one of your own choice prior to any installation.

So you have now installed NextGen Gallery and our mission here is complete. Getting it up and running is a task beyond the scope of this set of posts. However instructions for doing this are in good supply.

Another David has gone into great detail about it. And here is the link.

http://dpotter.net/Technical/index.php/2008/03/04/nextgen-gallery-review-introduction/

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Safety is a cheap and effective insurance policy. ~Author Unknown

Prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent. ~Author Unknown

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This is the next in my series of posts for folks who have never blogged before and have some basic questions and a need for explanations that hopefully leave out no pertinent details. Our ultimate goal is to install and make functional a very cool plugin called NextGen Gallery.

The steps we have been taking here are baby blogging steps but I wish I had found something like them last summer when all of my blogging efforts began. Maybe there are some others who are just beginning and missed learning about it all beforehand.

We have covered unzipping and uploading files. And now we are going to begin uploading plugins.

Before we upload NextGen Gallery we are going to add Plugin Central as I noted earlier. This will make all of our plugin chores much easier.

And prior to this we are going to upload one other little beauty. It is called Wordpress Database Manager (WP-DBManager) and I use it prior to uploading anything into my blog. Also it has a setting for automatic backup of the database and I receive a backup file in my email once per day.

Because of the complexities of plugin installation it is imperative to back things up before making changes. And getting in the habit of doing this early is the best way to avoid sad circumstances later on. I am assuming that this plugin plays well with your setup of course. It did with mine.

So here is the download location.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/

Go here and download the file into your computer. Unzip it as we discussed in the earlier post. Put it in your plugin file. Open Total Commander and locate the file. Upload it to your blog. Go to Admin/plugins and activate it.

It’s a very easy process once you have done it a few times. Now click on Dashboard in the very top/left hand corner of your window right below the tool bar in your Wordpress blog. You should see the name of your blog just below it and a few other things just below the name of your blog starting with Write and Manage. To the right of them will be the terms Design and Comments. And then you should see some others based on your individual setup. Database is what we are looking for and click on it when you find it.

Now you will see just below Database a line of terms starting with Database and ending with Uninstall WP-DBManager. The second term is Backup DB. And we should do this as we prepare to install a second plugin called Plugin Central.

But we have run out of time and space once again. Next time we will install Plugin Central. Hopefully I have not left out anything so far.

Bye Bye for now.

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Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks. ~Author Unknown

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What, exactly, is the Internet? Basically it is a global network exchanging digitized data in such a way that any computer, anywhere, that is equipped with a device called a “modem” can make a noise like a duck choking on a kazoo. ~Dave Barry

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In part one we installed Total Commander and set it up so that it should work at this point. Once the username and password are installed all you have to do is click on the program and hit Control plus F to bring up the window with your blog’s name. Then you click on the name you want (if you have entered more than one blog) and hit Connect. Files flash before your eyes and you are ready to upload something.

But let’s be clear about one thing. I don’t know everything about this program. I can make it upload files and install them. Primarily that involves plugins and themes. All we are doing here is going over the simple stuff.

We are not going to install the NextGen Gallery plugin at this point. We are going to install Plugin Central so that almost ALL of our future plugin installations will be much simpler. Plugin Central was created by the guy I wrote about earlier. HIs name is Vladimir Prelovac and he helped me with my blogging efforts. Here is his blog

Vladimir Prelovac Online!

And here is the link to Plugin Central

So let’s begin to upload this plugin into our Wordpress Blog. We may not finish everything in this post because when you try to write down every step and leave out nothing you are going to take up a lot of space! But we will get there soon. I promise!

Hit Control plus F

Click on your blog’s name.

Hit connect.

See your cpanel and files on the left or the right half of the screen.

Double Left -Click on public_html

Double Left-Click on wp-content

Double Left-Click on plugins

Go to the other side of the Total Commander program and you should see your computer files starting with C Drive at the top (or whatever letter holds all your stuff).

You will find the Plugin Central plugin there and Double Left-Click on it. This should send all the other files away and isolate the one you want near the top of the window. Double click on it again and you should see some php files. One step above the php files is where you want to be so go back up one step. As a general rule one step above the php files is the file you want to upload in most cases. So it is good to check that they are actually there. This ensures that later when you go to your admin/plugin area there will actually be something there!

But we digress. You have an isolated plugin sitting there and you want to upload it into the plugin section that you have already opened on the other side. Left-click one time gently on your plugin and then press the F5 key. This will open a window that says Upload at the top. You don’t have to type anything in it if you already clicked one time gently on your plugin. Just click OK and files will once again flash before your eyes.

And you should see the plugin right where you want it on the other side of the Total Commander program and nestled securely with all your other plugins.

Next time I will discuss how you got that plugin from Vladimir’s blog to your computer so that you could do this.

Because we are not going to leave out any steps. That’s why I am doing this. Because there may be another older guy like me out there who would like to start a blog. And he wants to do it on his own domain. He wants to OWN his work. And he doesn’t have a clue how to do this.

When we went to school they didn’t discuss this stuff. I know it is difficult to comprehend how this could be. But believe me.

It was.

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