Updating NextGen Gallery after the Sites Move

NextGEN Gallery, which many of our sites use for photo galleries, didn’t make it through the Pilot-to-Sites migration and upgrade unscathed. The new version of NextGEN (1.3.5) played havoc with existing NextGEN settings and also made tweaks to the database.

As a result, if you’re using NextGEN, you’ll need to do a quick upgrade, reset your options, and (if you’re using the slideshow tool) re-tell NextGEN where the Flash “image rotator” tool is. To do this:

Upgrading NextGEN

• Log into Sites @ Lafayette (http://sites.lafayette.edu)
• Click on the “My Blogs” link from in the lefthand navigation column (it’s located in the upper lefthand corner, under the heading “Dashboard”) and click the hperlink for the site you want to update.
• After the site loads, scroll down the page and click on the “Gallery” link for NextGEN gallery (also located in the lefthand navigation column).
• When the page loads, NextGEN Gallery will inform you that it needs to be upgraded. Click the “Start upgrade now…” link and the program will update itself.
• You’re done upgrading!

Reseting NextGEN options

An unfortunate side effect of our NextGEN upgrade is that all of the program’s options appear to be replaced with the letter “a”. The fix is a simple reset of the program’s options. To do this:

• Navigate to your site and click on the “Gallery” link (as above).
• Click on the “Setup” link.
• Click the [Reset settings] button
• A pop-up window appears asking if you want to “Reset all options to default settings?”. Click the [OK] button.
• When the process is done, a “Continue…” hyperlink appears. Click it.
• The program takes you to the NextGEN Gallery home page. You can now click on the “Options” hyperlink in the lefthand navigation to go and tweak your settings back to what they were (if you’re using the NextGEN Slideshow function, then follow the instructions below)

Setting up the NextGEN Slideshow

With your options reset, you need to update your options. If you’re using NextGEN’s Slideshow function, you’ll need to re-tell it where to find the Flash image rotator script that NextGEN relies on for the slideshow. To do this:

• Navigate to your site and click on the “Gallery” link (as above).
• Click on “Options”.
• An options page loads, with a number of navigation tabs along the top of the page. Click on the link for “Slideshow”.
• There is a field called “Path to the Imagerotator (URL):”. Enter the following URL into the field:
  • http://sites.lafayette.edu/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/imagerotator.swf
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the [Save Changes] button.