Flickr Press

Flickr is a great solution for managing your photos, but it can be a bit tough to show those photos on your site.  There are some existing plugins to integrate Flickr with your site, but none of them worked the way I wanted.  So I built my own.

Choose which page to use

Choose which page to use to show your albums.  If you want links to Flickr to open in a new window, tick that.  You’ll probably want to hide photos marked as private too.

Choose which of your albums you want to hide

If you choose not to display certain albums on your site, tick them here.

{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }

Lincoln Adams April 6, 2011 at 4:47 am

Thanks for creating/maintaining this plugin. Some suggestions for a future release:

Make it so sets are grouped into collections when collections are used for easier viewing.

I sometimes have videos as well and the plugin shows the the video as a screen capture, but doesn’t indicate that it’s a video, so people looking at won’t be aware that it’s a video and click to Flickr so they can view it. I don’t know if that’s available in the API, but if there’s some way to alert the viewer that a photo is actually a video, that would be great too.

That’s it! I’ve spent hours upon hours looking for a simple Flickr plugin that would add a basic gallery without too much bloat as yours has been the only one that fits. Thanks again!

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Anthony April 5, 2011 at 7:03 pm

Hi Deezy – Currently, the Flickr Press plugin doesn’t support comments on photos. That’s on my list of things to do one day, but you’re actually the first to ask for it. Do you think it should use the Flickr comment system, or the WordPress comment system?

Hi Travis – Regarding the PHP content call (the_content) – I think that every theme should be using this already if they adhere to the WordPress theme guidelines, shouldn’t they?

Note: Regarding Permalink Structure
I’ve had a few people report issues with different permalink structures. I always use a structure with a trailing slash, so I hadn’t considered that some people don’t.

I’ve put together a new version with some changes that should work whether or not you use the trailing slash, but I’m not quite ready to release it on WordPress.org.

For now, you can download version 1.3.2 here.

Please give that a try and see if it fixes your permalink issues. If it does, let me know. If it causes other issues, let me know about that too. Thanks everyone.

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Deezy April 8, 2011 at 5:43 am

Hey Anthony,

Thats good to know.
I am actually using the ‘Facebook Comments for WordPress’, which allows me to hide WordPress comments on pages/posts where Facebook comments are enabled.

Do you think I can integrate the Facebook comments in the gallery?

Resource: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments-for-wordpress/

– Deezy

Travis March 31, 2011 at 10:36 am

First off. I love the plug-in. It is by far the easiest and most easily customizable one (as far as css goes) for Flickr that I have found so far.

I am having some issues with it, though. I don’t think that they are necessary to “fix”, but it would be helpful to have them in the read-me file, or even listed somewhere on the configuration settings in WP itself. I found them while doing tests between an existing template and one that I am currently working on.

Permalink Structure: Even with pretty permalinks, the structure has to have a trailing /, otherwise the links appear broken and show as a 404.

PHP Content Call: If there is no call for , the gallery isn’t placed on the page at all.

Thanks again for putting this together. I am really looking forward to shortcodes!

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Travis March 31, 2011 at 10:38 am

And by call for (blank), I mean the_content(), but inside those php brackets.

Deezy March 31, 2011 at 8:30 am

Hey Hi.

This is an awesome plugin. I was very happy the day I found and installed it.
Works great.

One question — How do I open the comments. I would like for people to be able to comment on each album and on each photo.

Best regards,

– Deezy

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Anthony March 8, 2011 at 6:54 am

Phew – again, my apologies folks. I uploaded the latest version to WP SVN right before bed last night, and apparently it didn’t fully commit. One folder, containing the Flickr API library didn’t get included in the ZIP file generated by the repository.

Not sure why that happened, but I have just pushed out Version 1.3.1, and this time I’ve downloaded it directly from the repository too, to test it. Works for me.

Anyone having problems with this version?

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Anthony March 7, 2011 at 10:26 pm

Hi folks, apologies for the lack of updates. I’ve just pushed an update for Version 1.3 up the WordPress SVN now, it should be available for updating via your admin areas shortly.

I’ve tested this version against WordPress 3.1, and it works for me without issue. If you report any future bugs here, I will address them as soon as possible.

Note: I’ve seen a few comments from people having trouble with the URL structure. In most cases, it looks like people are using the default permalink structure – that is, site.com?p=3. For this plugin to work, you MUST be using “pretty permalinks. Set these up in your admin area, under Settings -> Permalinks.

I’ve also had a few people point out that the caching system was causing some problems. This includes the warning messages about mysql_query() that some of you saw. This issue should also be fixed now.

I know we’ve also mentioned integrating new things like a Lightbox, shortcodes, and multi-lingual support, but these issues seemed more pressing.

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Josh Betz March 8, 2011 at 2:52 am

The plugin won’t activate for me now. I’m getting the following error:

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘wp-content/plugins/flickr-press/phpflickr-3.0/phpFlickr.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/local/lib/php’) in wp-content/plugins/flickr-press/flickr.php on line 17

Josh Betz February 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm

What are your plans for the future of this? It’s a handy plugin, but there are a few things that it desperatly needs. The first is to to fix the following error:

Warning: mysql_query(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /wordpress/wp-content/plugins/flickr-press/flickr-includes.php on line 20

Warning: mysql_query(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /wordpress/wp-content/plugins/flickr-press/flickr-includes.php on line 21

I’d also like to suggest built in theme support. ie) Look for certain template files, and if they exist, use them to determine how the layout works.

Fixing the error is definitely most important though.

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D3N1553 December 31, 2010 at 5:14 pm

NVM o_o problem solved… my gallery is working fine again still I’m looking for bigger images -not the slideshow,normal view-_._

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D3N1553 December 30, 2010 at 10:10 pm

Hmmm… the plug in worked like a chrm a moment ago, but I created 2 more sets on flickr and I coldnt get them to show on wordpress, so I clicked clear on the API settings and retried … but I get this “Oops! Flickr doesn’t recognise the “frob” this application is trying to use.”

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Shauna December 18, 2010 at 7:36 pm

Hi Anthony,
Thanks so much for the great plugin. It’s exactly what I was looking for. But there is a problem with the links on my photos page. It says “404 Error File Not Found.” I found out why, but I don’t know how to fix it. The url is missing my page id: ?page_id=348/ in between my domain name and album/72157625617989492/nha-trang/. Which file in the plugin should I edit and how?
Thanks!
Shauna

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Alex Covrljan December 6, 2010 at 7:15 am

Hi –

I just installed WP and this plug-in – both vanila installs. I was able to link to my flickr account via the API and the folders appear beautifly and the slideshow works great.

But when I click on the folder or image count, I get “Not Found”.

http://www.covrljan.com/?page_id=2

Thoughts?

Thanks for the help!
Alex

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Macitaly August 27, 2010 at 5:27 am

Anthony, modifies works perfectly and now navigation is clear, well done (thumbup)
And I’m impressed by your speed, too 🙂

About shortcodes, actually, the first step is to show the gallery in page/post, alone or after text.
After this, I think that you can add features in second time, of course, the more the better, but as gallery is conceived seems a good base with which to work.
For sure, add shortcodes to restraint per set/album/tag and per popular/recent/views with, in case, limit number of images shown, could be amazing but, hey, step by steps 😉

WPML works creating empty copies of post/pages and other features, but not all page/post lists recognize them, so sometimes it’s difficult to find in admin link’s lists. Anyway, you don’t need to understand that system, if you implement shortcodes, each admin can add it to pages that need gallery.

Definitely Lightbox (may be with a slideshow feature, so the site become indipendent from Flickr) it’s an useful option to activate, after admin will choose one or other possibility.

I see custom description as a bit complicate (but I don’t know Flicker’s API) and think that an option to choice a default number of words/chars from original Flickr description, could be enough and a sort of “ready to go”, meaning that the user manage images from Flickr and see shown in site, a sort of one-time-configuration-and-go 🙂
Anyway, if you are able to add description in admin, in Albums tab, could be useful. Both solution, of course, even better 😀

Instead, a big other feature (but this can be part of a stand alone plugin also) seeing that you like to work with both API, could be to manage inserting images in Flickr, directly from WP administration.
There is another plugin that does this and actually it works (not updated, unfortunately), even if it manage uploading of one image a time.
Integrating your gallery with that one, can be an impressive photo manager plugin.
Anyway, this is another thing, better to work on improving this good gallery, before 🙂

Of course I’ll send you the link when will be published, by now I’m working in maintenance mode, so site is closed, even if, if you want to make some test “on the road”, I can create an admin account for you and you can test it, only let me know.
Also, if you make it translatable, I can translate it in Italian.
Thanks for your work

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Anthony August 25, 2010 at 8:01 am

Hey folks,

I’ve just uploaded a new version which should be available for download shortly. It adds a button to clear the API authentication details to the admin area, allowing you to change to another account.

Also added/changed some links on the View Album and View Photo pages, which should make navigation easier for your users. Macitaly, please let me know if this helps.

Other points I’ll look at for a future version:
– Provide shortcode support (Please nominate any specific functions you’d like to see)
– Maybe include a lightbox script to “pop” photos, rather than opening on a new page
– Look at providing a custom description, or supporting extended descriptions

I’m not sure about WPML as I’ve never used that before, but I’ll try to find time to take a look at it over the weekend. Maybe there’s something I can do to make for a smoother integration. Macitaly, could you email me a link to your site? I’d love to see it in action.

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David August 25, 2010 at 12:44 am

Hi Anthony,

Is there any way to change the api key and shared secret in the plugin? Initially I provided the api key and secret for my own account but now want to change it to another account but there appears to be no option to do that. I’ve tried re-installing it but it remembers the settings from last time.

Thanks in advance!

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Anthony August 24, 2010 at 11:28 am

Hi Macitaly,

Some great points there. Let me review tonight. The plugin doesn’t currently offer shortcodes, although that’s a nice idea too. Do you have any specific shortcode functions you’d like to see?

Eg, list all photosets, list all photos in XX photoset, etc

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Macitaly August 24, 2010 at 8:50 am

Again me, Anthony
I would suggest a feature: about description that appear in set list, should be possible to have a limited number of word/chrs like an excerpt? sometimes description on Flickr’ sets can be long and this can spoil the page layout. A “Read More” that drives to internal page could be a solution.
Also, a link like “Go back to the gallery” or “Go back one step” when are in single photo page, could be useful, as isn’t so intuitive to click on photo’s title to go back.
Last: what about to use also a kind of lightbox, when list of thumbnails are shown?
Sorry for so many questions, but this could became this plugin more and widely useful.
Thanks again

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Macitaly August 24, 2010 at 8:03 am

Hi Fergus,
nice plugin, works smoothly but I have one problem: I use WPML as multilingual manager and it create additional page for any translatable language.
So, as in Flick press it’s possible to select only one page in which to show the gallery, I ask you if there are shortcodes or something similar to show it in other pages.
Thanks in any case for your plugin and hope for support 🙂

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