PlusKit: Importing Pages without Text Area, Photo Gallery

Classic
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RW 8.0.3
PlusKit 4.1.2.1333

The PlusKit FAQ says:

You need to have at least two pages in your RapidWeaver document: the source page and the destination page. In a text area on the destination page, type the following
@import((source_page_name))
where “source_page_name” is the name of the page that you are importing.
Once you’ve entered that text, when you preview the destination page, you should see the source page inserted.

  1. The existing, RW built-in Photo Gallery has no text area where this code can be inserted. Adding text under the html body text “@import((Photo Gallery))” writes that phrase to the generated web page but does not function so as to import anything. Same with adding that phrase to the html header tab.
  2. Assuming there’s an answer to #1, now there are two pages for the purposes of navigation with the same name. Naming the orginal built-in gallery “Photo Gallery 1” and the PlusKit target page “Photo Gallery 2” will be confusing to users because the content is the same.
  3. How can I put a Stack onto the supplied Photo Gallery page? (“Put this stack on a separate page, and import it with PlusKit into your Photo Album page”)??

PlusKit’s FAQ also says, “Most of the time, if you’ve followed all the requirements and the import is not working, then it simply won’t work.”
Does the Photo Gallery supplied with RW (with ten or so images) then qualify as a “complex” page??

The purpose of this is create a photo gallery where a click on the thumbnail of an image brings up a magnified image. This is supposed to work, but it does not. Hence the need to use PlusKit, or…
Have already contacted the developer.

Observation: RW-supplied pages do not play well with Stacks.
Test page: ok2legal.com

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Correct, stacks are ment to be used in a Stacks page type from the Stacks plugin.
I haven’t used the built in gallery page in years but I seem to remember it does have a light box feature.

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Technically, I believe you need at least 3 pages.

  1. A PlusKit page where you configure PlusKit for the project.
  2. The “source” page that will be imported into another page.
  3. The “destination” page where you will be inserting the content.

I haven’t tried pulling a RW8 gallery into another page with PlusKit, but you can do it with RW7, so I expect it to work with RW8.

Do you have a PlusKit page added to your project? Can you configured it to allow you to import “Photo Album” pages?

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You can prevent any page from appearing in navigation, but going to that page’s General Settings in Inspector and unchecking “Show in navigation”.

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I don’t believe you can do #3.

You may be better off using Stacks and a gallery stack rather than the built-in photo album page. There are a number of very nice gallery stacks available which provide much more control of “photo albums” than the built-in photo album page.

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I had done that. The “source page” is the photo gallery. There is a destination page as well. PlusKit does not let you specify either; so how does this work?

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True. But then I’m out $20 for PlusKit. I’ll submit the chargeback, though I’ve wasted way too much time on this already. It’s aggravating that when built-in functions don’t work (I’m referring to Photo Gallery) in RW 8 and the only support offered is license retrieval and sales. I know Realmac is a small shop and I’ve tried to keep my support requests to the forum, but at a certain point you can only throw up your hands.

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PlusKit is my product, not Realmac. We do offer support. The link to support is at the bottom of every page of our website.

The PlusKit import feature works by allowing you to import one page into another. But, as noted in the software itself, there are limitations on what can be achieved with that technique.

  • The first is that you can only import into areas that use “styled text” (which is the most text areas in RapidWeaver, the sidebar, and the headers/footers of a few other page styles).

  • The second limitation is that importing doesn’t work with every sort of page. The simpler the page, the more likely the result will be successful. More complex pages, like photo albums, blogs, and Stacks, will have limited functionality.

We provide “Try Before You Buy” downloads of everything we sell. You’re free to download PlusKit, give it a try in your application and buy only when you know for sure it will be useful for you. We don’t want you to pay for anything you don’t use.

If you don’t think you’ll use this tool, send us a support message: http://yourhead.com/support and we’ll issue a refund and cancel the license.

Also FYI: I would recommend NOT filing a chargeback. Those cost small businesses like ours quite a bit of money and drive up prices for everyone else. If you simply contact us we can issue a refund – and that doesn’t cost anyone anything. :smiley:

Isaiah

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I made both a tech support request and a refund request. Haven’t heard back on either.

That means there is no way at all to import RW’s built in photo gallery, since it doesn’t use styled text. And trying to import the photo gallery into a styled text area on an otherwise blank page doesn’t work. I don’t think the user should have to engage in such extensive experimentation, forum postings, support requests for perhaps the most trivial use of the program: importing RW’s built-in photogallery onto a blank page.

BTW: your customer support FAQ page is a zendesk referral page. Once there, the only way to return to your main site is by manually re-entering the URL. Same if you submit a support request: no link back. I’m happy to hold off on the chargeback if a refund is issued. My experience has been that refund requests ar all too often ignored by merchants, thus requiring a chargeback.

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I was able to import a Photo Gallery Page with photos onto a Stacks page and a Styled Text page using PlusKit 4 RW8. It took about 2 minutes to set it up.

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I’m impressed! If you can lay out step by step the process you used, I would appreciate it.
I’ve already got the PlusKit page activated.
The PhotoGallery is already set up–gallery option.
Did you use a theme for the styled text page? Can you post an image of your set-up?
Thanks.

Do you mean you imported the gallery onto a Stacks page as well as imported the gallery into a styled text page?

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I made both a tech support request and a refund request. Haven’t heard back on either.

One came at 2am yesterday. And the next at 3am. It’s only just been 24 hours. I decided to answer you here on the forum as it seemed like the most recent.

We will get to the refund I promise, but please understand that we’re a small company doing our best. It will take a day or two when a refund and license cancelation is involved. If that’s too slow, you can move ahead with the chargeback if you like. The results will be similar, but I’ll be $20 in the hole. :frowning:

That means there is no way at all to import RW’s built in photo gallery

Yes, mostly. You can import into the sidebar of a photo album page. But that may have limited utility.

And trying to import the photo gallery into a styled text area on an otherwise blank page doesn’t work

This works in some situations. However, as I mentioned before a photo gallery page is a complex page and there are some limitations. Since you’ve already asked for a refund, I’m not sure explaining it now would do much good, but for anyone else reading this please know this does work, and I’d be happy to walk anyone through the process.

the most trivial use of the program: importing RW’s built-in photogallery

This is by no means trivial. Which is why there’s an explicit warning inside the software itself about it.

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If you’re trying to build a gallery on a more complex page with other components I would probably recommend against this approach on the outset. You’d be much better served with a Stacks page and some of the excellent gallery stacks that are available. Those are designed from the ground up to be part of a page with other things.

I don’t think the user should have to engage in such extensive experimentation

I agree! I know that’s probably strange coming from me, but it’s absolutely true. And I told John almost exactly that when he showed me this plugin 10+ years ago. But he went ahead and built it anyway. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

When John decided he needed to give focus on his day job he asked if I could take over maintenance and support of these plugins. So now I do my best to keep PlusKit alive for those folks that still enjoy it – for folks that don’t I offer refunds. :smiley:

It’s far too old and baked into the community for me to change it very much at this point.

I have tried to make the “sharp edges” of the plugin – the bits that are prone to failing badly – a bit more explicitly labeled with warnings, and did rewrite the guts of it last year to make it A LOT more robust with the modern RapidWeaver API. And made the trial period a lot more friendly to casual experimentation before you are asked for payment…

But yes, it’s not especially user friendly and takes more than a bit of technical knowhow and experimentation to make work. Suggestions are always welcome – constructive and positive ones doubly so. :smiley:

BTW: your customer support FAQ page is a zendesk referral page.

I’ll check to see if we can customize that bit of the page. Thanks for the suggestion.

Isaiah

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I just used a quick mock-up.
New Project > Stacks Page (home) >Any RW 8 Theme.
Added PlusKit page (PlusKit) Important remember to enable Advanced @import and Complex Pages (I enabled all) under import on Inspector
Added Photo Album page (photos)
On home page added a text stack and simply used @import(photos))
Added a Styled Text page (styled_text) and add the text @import((photos))

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Perfect! Thanks @slavi

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Tried this.
The gallery layout is completely lost.

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I can wait for the refund, as long as I know it’s coming.

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