Showkase has a lot to do on publishing a site (for example building page records and generating thumbnails for gallery index pages) and, with a large site, this can take some time.
Unfortunately, there is little that a user can do to reduce the publishing time.

Work was done in Showkase v1.7.3 to minimize the publishing time. Please see the Version History page where you'll see this entry for Showkase v1.7.3:

  • Faster publishing for sites with large numbers of galleries

At the time, I created a test site with 128 galleries.
Publishing after changing the theme or the value for 'Customize Theme -> Gallery Index Page -> Thumb percent height' (which requires new thumbnails to be generated) took approximately 60 seconds.
However, subsequent publishes (without making any changes that would affect the thumbnails) took approximately 5 seconds.
Previously, thumbnails would always be generated and the publishing time for this sample site would always have been approximately 60 seconds.

If you are using a version of Showkase prior to v1.7.3, then please try upgrading to the latest version (v1.7.4) and you might see a difference in the publishing times.
For reference, full instructions for upgrading a Showkase site can be found here.

With Showkase v1.7.4, try changing the theme (for testing purposes... you can change it back afterwards), publishing your site and then try publishing it again immediately afterwards (without making any changes).
The subsequent publish action should be significantly faster than the initial publish action.
I realise that you will not be publishing your site without making any changes but this should at least check that the thumbnail generation is not happening when it is not necessary.

If you are already using Showakse v1.7.4, then, unfortunately, there may be little than can be done to speed up the publishing on your web server.

Please check with your web host to see what version of PHP your web server runs.
If you are using PHP 5, then try upgrading to PHP 7 (if your web host has this available for your hosting plan) to see if this results in a performance boost.

It might also help to know exactly how large your site is so please let me know how many pages of each type you have within your site and approximately how many images you have in each gallery page.
Thank you.

To display the Back Button in Small Screen Mode, set showSmallBackButton="TRUE" (in the 'Back Button (Pro)' options section).
Please note that in Small Screen Mode, the Back Button will be displayed only on main image pages (and not on thumbnail pages).

178

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

You're welcome!

179

(1 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

Unfortunately, Showkase is unable to extract EXIF information from images.
However, Showkase can extract the IPTC title and/or IPTC description for use in the image titles and captions.
Please see 'Editing Individual Captions' in the Pages section of the Showkase User Guide for details on how to extract the image's IPTC title and description.

There are some special codes that can be entered into titles, captions and descriptions:
{iptctitle} causes Showkase to look for embedded iptc metadata in the image and insert the contents of the title field if present.
{iptcdescription} is translated into the iptc description field if present.

If entering IPTC data via Adobe Photoshop, {iptctitle} corresponds to the IPTC 'Document Title' field and {iptcdescription} corresponds to the IPTC 'Description' field.

180

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

You can set default values for Juicebox gallery pages within Showkase via 'Site -> Customize Viewers -> Edit (Juicebox-Pro)'.
After setting configuration options there (and clicking 'Save' afterwards), the new default values will be used each time you create a new Juicebox gallery page (but you can still tweak each Juicebox gallery individually on the Juicebox gallery page itself).

181

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

You're welcome!
I hope you get on well with Showkase.
If you have any further queries, just post a new topic in the forum and I'll do my best to help you out.

182

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

Unfortunately, as you have discovered, there is currently a problem with the installation of svBuilder-Pro whereby Adobe AIR reports that the installation file is damaged.
This is not strictly true (the file is not actually damaged) and I suspect that the true nature of the problem is either a certificate problem or an issue with the application trying to verify the publisher.

However, due to the demise of Flash, SimpleViewer has been retired (since July 2017) and there will be no more updates.
We now focus our attention on Juicebox (our HTML 5 image viewer) and Showkase.
It is unfortunate that SimpleViewer is no longer being actively being developed but web technologies move on and Flash has served us well as a gallery platform over the years.
Please see this blog entry entitled "The End of Flash and What this Means for SimpleViewer." for details.

Due to the problems current facing SimpleViewer and Flash in general (please see this forum post for details), I would not recommend creating SimpleViewer galleries and would suggest that you use Juicebox instead.

The ability to create new SimpleViewer galleries was removed from Showkase v1.7.1 (released on 15 September 2017) and SimpleViewer-Pro is included in the Showkase Pro Viewer Bundle more as a courtesy for users of older versions of Showkase with pre-existing SimpleViewer galleries than anything else (although I'd still recommend converting SimpleViewer galleries to Juicebox galleries within Showkase by editing a SimpleViewer gallery page, going to the 'Advanced' tab and changing the page type there).

Although, as I mentioned above, there is no way to install svBuilder-Pro, you can still build a SimpleViewer-Pro gallery (if you really want to) by using the Adobe Photoshop Plugin or manually.

I hope this helps to clarify things.

183

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

You're welcome! I'm glad it worked for you!

184

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

If there is already an existing page folder named 'abstracts', then Showkase will use 'abstracts-2' for the next page named 'Abstracts'.

If the original 'abstracts' folder no longer exists on your server (for example if the corresponding page has been trashed), then to change the 'abstracts-3' folder name to just 'abstracts', rename the page corresponding to the 'abstracts-3' folder (on the 'Pages' tab via the blue 'Rename' link) to something that does not already exist (like 'xyz') and then rename it back to 'Abstracts' (clicking the 'Save' button after each rename). As long as there is not already a folder named 'abstracts' in your Showkase root directory, Showkase will name the folder directly after the page name (without any number suffix) using lowercase.

I hope this helps.

185

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I'm glad you've got it working.
Thank you for letting me know.

186

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

Make sure that you have done all three parts in Step #2 above (otherwise the input will still be validated as an email address).

If you are unsure about commenting out the lines of code I noted above (in Step #2 - Part #2 and Step #2 - Part #3) by adding // to the beginning of each line to be commented out, then you can delete the lines instead.

Be sure to republish your site and clear your browser's cache after making the changes and before reloading your site's Contact Form page.

As I mentioned previously, I tested my instructions out myself before posting them yesterday and it worked fine for me.
I've just double-checked my instructions from scratch today, copying and pasting from my post above and it still works fine.
If you follow the instructions exactly, then it should work for you, too.

187

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

If you want to change the 'Email' input box to a 'Tel' input box, then please try the following:

(1) Change input box label
Open the 'showkase/_themes/base/pagetypes/contact.tpl' file in a plain text editor and change line 70 from:

<label for="email">Email <span class="required">*</span></label>

... to:

<label for="email">Tel <span class="required">*</span></label>

(2) Prevent 'Tel' input from being validated as an email address
Part #1:
Open the 'showkase/_themes/base/pagetypes/contact.tpl' file in a plain text editor and change line 71 from:

<input type="email" name="email" required="true" class="input-field">

... to:

<input type="text" name="email" required="true" class="input-field">

Part #2:
Open the 'showkase/admin/plugins/contact/master/contactcore/contact.js' file in a plain text editor and comment out lines 21 to 24 inclusive as follows:

// if($(this).attr("type")==="email" && !emailRegEx.test($.trim($(this).val()))) {
        // $(this).addClass('invalid');   
        // valid = false;                
// }

Part #3:
Open the 'showkase/admin/plugins/contact/master/contactcore/contact.php' file in a plain text editor and comment out lines 81 to 83 inclusive as follows:

// if(!PHPMailer::validateAddress($userEmail)) {
      // throw new Exception ('Please enter a valid email');
// }

(3) Change full email body text for clarity
Open the 'showkase/admin/plugins/contact/master/contactcore/contact.php' file in a plain text editor and change lines 95 to 100 inclusive from:

$mailer->Body =
    $userMessage
    ."\r\n\r\n"
    .$userName
    ."\r\n\r\n"
    .$userEmail;

... to:

$mailer->Body =
    "Name: " . $userName
    . "\r\n\r\n"
    . "Tel: " . $userEmail
    . "\r\n\r\n"
    . "Message: " . $userMessage;

(4) Hardcode a specific user email address
Open the 'showkase/admin/plugins/contact/master/contactcore/contact.php' file in a plain text editor and change line 92 from:

$mailer->addReplyTo($userEmail, $userName);

... to:

$mailer->addReplyTo('email@address.com', $userName);

... changing 'email@address.com' to whatever email address you would like to use. (This is where the email address entered in an unmodified contact form would be used.)

(5) Hide the site email address
On the contact form settings page, scroll down to and expand 'Spam Prevention' and select the 'Hide email address' checkbox. This will obfuscate the site email address in the contact form page.

(6) Republish site
Update the files within your site with the modified versions by clicking the 'Publish' button.

I've tested this myself and it works fine.

Please note that the line numbers noted above refer to the current version of Showkase (v1.7.4).

188

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I'm glad you've been able to resolve your problem.
Thank you for letting me know.

189

(1 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

It sounds like a server configuration issue or a PHP mail restriction of some kind.

As I mentioned yesterday in this forum post, I checked exactly this functionality (a regular Contact Form without any modification using a Gmail address) and it worked fine for me (on my own server).

Showkase uses PHPMailer internally to send the Contact Form mail.
Here are PHPMailer's own notes on the "Could not instantiate mail function" message.

This means that your PHP installation is not configured to call the mail() function correctly (e.g. sendmail_path is not set correctly in your php.ini), or you have no local mail server installed and configured. To fix this you need to do one or more of these things:

  • Install a local mail server (e.g. postfix).

  • Ensure that your sendmail_path points at the sendmail binary (usually /usr/sbin/sendmail) in your php.ini. Note that on Ubuntu/Debian you may have multiple .ini files in /etc/php5/mods-available and possibly other locations.

  • Use isSendmail() and set the path to the sendmail binary in PHPMailer ($mail->Sendmail = '/usr/sbin/sendmail';).

  • Use isSMTP() and send directly using SMTP.

Please confirm with your web host that PHP mail functionality is enabled on your hosting account.
Please also check that the sendmail_path is configured correctly in your PHP settings. (Your web host should be able to help you with this.)

There could also be a restriction in place whereby mail is not being sent on your server due to the email address you use not matching the domain of your website. (Your web host should be able to confirm this.)
If this is the case, then please try the following:

(1) Open the 'showkase/admin/plugins/contact/master/contactcore/contact.php' file in a plain text editor.

(2) Change line 91 from:

$mailer->setFrom('mailer'.strstr($siteEmail, '@'), $userName);

... to:

$mailer->setFrom('mailer'.strstr($siteEmail, '@'), $userName, false);

I cannot be sure that this will make a difference but it is certainly a quick and easy thing to try.

Please note that the line number above refers to the current version of Showkase (v1.7.4).

190

(1 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

This looks like it might be a duplicate of your query here (looking to use Gmail to send the Contact Form emails rather than the server's own PHP mail functionality).

Unfortunately, Showkase was not designed to send emails via SMTP through a Gmail account and I'm all out of ideas.
The Contact Form within Showkase requires PHP mail support on the server and this is the only method that is officially supported.

I was happy to try to help by providing what looked like a possible solution direct from PHPMailer's own Gmail example but, as this did not work, then the best course of action might be to try to persuade your web host to enable PHP mail support on your hosting account so that you can use Showkase's Contact Form as it was designed to be used.

Edit:
Incidentally, using a Gmail address in a Showkase Contact Form works fine (I have just double-checked this myself earlier today) but emails sent by the form might be delivered to your Gmail account's spam folder.
In order to see these messages, it is sometimes necessary to log into Gmail via a web browser as messages marked as spam are not always passed on to an email client program (such as Outlook or Thunderbird).

191

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I'm sorry to hear that my suggestion does not work.
Unfortunately, the code I posted above came straight from the PHPMailer Gmail example here so I'm not sure what else to suggest.

As I mentioned previously, the Contact Form within Showkase requires PHP mail support on the server and this is the only method that is officially supported.

The best thing to do might be to ask your web host if they could enable PHP mail support on your hosting account and you could then use Showkase's Contact Form without modification.

I realise that this is not a direct solution to your problem but it might be the best course of action.

192

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

That's great! Thank you for letting me know.

193

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

i want to up Juicebox Page footer

In a Juicebox gallery page, the body content includes both the body text and the gallery.
Also, in Maribo (the theme you are currently using), the body text appears above the gallery.
If you want to swap the positions of the body text and the gallery and insert the footer between the body text and the gallery, then this would probably involve modification to several Showkase source files.

I want to delete body content only in a specific gallery

This would me much easier to achieve than swapping the position of the blocks (and sections within blocks).
The easiest way to do this would be to edit the page in question and clear the 'Page title' and the editor's input text area.
If you really want to remove the 'page-body' container from a specific page, then please try the following:

(1) Find the number of the page in question. View the page's source in a browser, scroll down to the opening <body> tag and you'll find something like this:

<body class="light type-juicebox page-7 group-0  body-open-sans headings-open-sans ">

(The page number in this example is 7.)

(2) In your theme's 'custom.js' file (for example, in Maribo, use '_themes/maribo/js/custom.js'), add the following code:

$('.page-7 .page-title').remove(); // To delete the page title only

... or:

$('.page-7 .body-content').remove(); // To delete the body text only

... or:

$('.page-7 .page-body').remove(); // To delete the page title and the body text

... changing the page number as necessary.
(There is no need to republish your site after modifying a 'custom.js' file but you may need to clear your browser's cache before reloading your page.)

The top, gallery, and footer layouts on mobile are incorrect

Your site's Juicebox gallery page looks OK to me in Mobile Safari on my iPod Touch 6 (iOS 12.1).
Please let me know what you see and what you expect to see and maybe I can help further.

194

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

You're welcome!

195

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I have enabled the three images sizes and Use full screen expand, but it always show the menus at the top and the bottom.

All Showkase pages (under the Boma, Kosel and Maribo themes) always show the navigation menu.
This is by design (so that visitors can easily navigate throughout the site).

The only way to have a full-page gallery within Showkase is to use the Gallery Manager theme.
However, the Gallery Manager theme supports only Juicebox and ListViewer Gallery pages (not About, Basic or Contact pages) and does not display the navigation menu on any pages.

If you really want to have a full-page gallery within your website, you could perhaps set up two separate Showkase sites (one using the Kosel theme and the other using the Gallery Manager theme). Next, create a Juicebox gallery page in the Gallery Manager site and then use a Navigation Link page type within the Kosel site to link directly to the Juicebox gallery page in the Gallery Manager site. You could include a Back Button in your Juicebox gallery to allow visitors to seamlessly return to a chosen page within your Kosel site.

Please note that the imageScaleMode configuration option (in the Main Image section) in the Multi-Size demo gallery is set to FILL so that the images always fill the gallery's image area no matter the size or shape of the user's browser window. (Cropping will occur if the aspect ratio of the image does not match that of the browser viewport.)

I also noticed that I cannot seem to cascade Gallery index pages.

Showkase supports only two levels in its menu system. Gallery Index pages are always top level pages and the Gallery pages listed on a Gallery Index page are always second level pages.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to nest Gallery Index pages under other Gallery Index pages.

196

(4 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

The bug noted above (regarding a PHP memory_limit value of -1) has now been fixed in Showkase v1.7.4 which has just been released.
Please see the Version History page for a full list of changes between versions. (The Version History page will be updated very soon in the next website refresh.)
Full instructions for downloading the latest version and upgrading a Showkase site can be found in the Upgrading Showkase support page.

Upgrades are free within the same major version number so if you purchased Showkase v1.0.0 (for example), then you can download all v1.x.x releases at no further cost.
Download links always point towards the most recent version that you are entitled to (rather than the version you purchased), so you can use your original download link from your purchase email to download the latest version.

Upgrading a Showkase site should be a quick and easy process (instructions in the link above) but please be sure to make a full backup of your site first, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to reinstate your original files at a later date.

197

(5 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

The bug noted above (regarding a PHP memory_limit value of -1) has now been fixed in Showkase v1.7.4 which has just been released.
Please see the Version History page for a full list of changes between versions. (The Version History page will be updated very soon in the next website refresh.)
Full instructions for downloading the latest version and upgrading a Showkase site can be found in the Upgrading Showkase support page.

Upgrades are free within the same major version number so if you purchased Showkase v1.0.0 (for example), then you can download all v1.x.x releases at no further cost.
Download links always point towards the most recent version that you are entitled to (rather than the version you purchased), so you can use your original download link from your purchase email to download the latest version.

Upgrading a Showkase site should be a quick and easy process (instructions in the link above) but please be sure to make a full backup of your site first, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to reinstate your original files at a later date.

198

(4 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

The bug noted above (the Juicebox version number not displaying in 'Site -> Customize Viewers') has now been fixed in Showkase v1.7.4 which has just been released.
Please see the Version History page for a full list of changes between versions. (The Version History page will be updated very soon in the next website refresh.)
Full instructions for downloading the latest version and upgrading a Showkase site can be found in the Upgrading Showkase support page.

Upgrades are free within the same major version number so if you purchased Showkase v1.0.0 (for example), then you can download all v1.x.x releases at no further cost.
Download links always point towards the most recent version that you are entitled to (rather than the version you purchased), so you can use your original download link from your purchase email to download the latest version.

Upgrading a Showkase site should be a quick and easy process (instructions in the link above) but please be sure to make a full backup of your site first, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to reinstate your original files at a later date.

199

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I'm sorry to hear that my suggestions did not help.

Showkase should work fine out-of-the box on most web servers but it sounds like there may be something unique to your own web server which is causing your problem.
It sounds like there may be a problem storing PHP session variables but the Showkase Server Compatibility Test should pick this up.

I'd be happy to help further but I'd really need access to your web server and Showkase site in order to investigate further.
If you are agreeable to this, then please email me your FTP login details (host, username and password) and Showkase login details (URL, username and password). (I have sent you an email. Please check your messages.)
I'll not change or delete any existing files on your web server but I'll need access to upload a test Showkase site (which I'll delete after I have completed my tests), check the functionality of your own Showkase site (so that I can see the problem for myself) and also check your web hosting account's PHP settings (in case they are somehow relevant to the problem).
Thank you.

200

(3 replies, posted in Showkase Support)

I've not encountered such a problem before so, unfortunately, I do not know what might be causing it.
However, here are a few things to check and try which might help.

(1) Change your password
Try changing your Showkase login password by following the procedure noted in the FAQ below.
I lost my password, how can I reset it?

(2) Upgrade (or reinstall) Showkase
If you are not already using the latest version of Showkase (v1.7.3), then try upgrading following the Upgrading Showkase instructions.
Even if you are already using the latest version, try reinstalling it to ensure that all core Showkase files are present and correct on your web server.

(3) Run the Showkase Server Compatibility Test
Try running the Showkase Server Compatibility Test.
Even if you ran the test before initially installing Showkase, please try again in case your web host has made any changes recently and any of the tests currently fail.
The results of the tests may point us in the right direction.
There are troubleshooting tips for any test fails that you may encounter on the test's support page.

(4) Run Showkase in debug mode
Try running Showkase in debug mode to see if any error messages or warnings are displayed in the application's status bar which might help to pinpoint the cause of the problem.
Open your 'showkase/admin/settings/constants.php' file in a plain text editor and change line 12 from:

define('DEBUG', false);

... to:

define('DEBUG', true);

Please note that the line number above refers to the current version of Showkase (v1.7.3).

(5) Check in with your web host
If the problem has only started to happen recently and you have not changed anything yourself, then this suggests that something might have changed on your web server.
Please ask your web host to see if they have made any changes recently which might be affecting your hosting account (and, subsequently, Showkase's functionality).

I hope these suggestions help.
Please let me know how you get on and if I can be of any further assistance.