How to stop gallery feed block from cropping thumnails?

[Jim M]

Sorry to hear that you are frustrated. The warning prior to the upgrade has been put in place to let you know that if you use an application/plugin/theme/language pack in the marketplace and that there is an upgrade (or not) for it so that you don't encounter a broken community when you upgrade. If you have a completely custom theme, the warning in place is for you to check the theme because we don't know what is happening, so we just want to give community administrators a heads up prior to them pulling the trigger.

I'm afraid, this a choice to run these addons/customizations and, unfortunately, keeping them up to date is a requirement if you want to upgrade your community. If it is causing frustration, you may wish to limit the customizations that you have on your community so that things are more unmodified/default and can be upgraded without worry. There is the "Easy Mode" theme editor where you can change colors on the theme but keep templates the same, so you don't have to worry about a custom theme upgrade.

Alternatively, this is not a security release so you're more than welcome to take your time in upgrading to ensure that you get your customizations working. Releases on our end will be monthly so perhaps when we start announcing betas, it would be a good time to start preparing yourself for an upgrade, if you choose to continue running customizations. It is also worth noting that December and January releases will be more maintenance/bug fix related so it may allow you to pace these upgrades.

[FZ]

I have reduced the customisations on my website to the Behemoth theme by @TAMAN, who's dedication to keeping it working I am happy to support, @opentype's templates which I bought years ago and who continues to keep working at no additional cost to me. I have removed the Enhanced Clubs app which did nothing but confuse my community, and the only other one I have in place is the Member's Country flag, which I am now told I have to pay for again if I want it to work with your latest release. That makes me angry because I already paid for it and now I must pay again for the same damn thing with no additional benefit to me, simply because you guys keep shifting the goal posts? This is wrong on so many levels. 

Honestly, I understand that software developers need to earn a living but seriously, the last 5 years on IPS has left a very bitter taste in my mouth. You constantly put these annoying pop-up messages on the front end of the website for reminders to update this or update that. We then do the updates and chaos ensues. You must think that we have nothing better to do than work on these websites? Maybe some forum owners do, but I'm sure that many of us simply keep the forums as a benefit to our communities with similar interests in the hope that soon social media will finally be dead. 

Yes, IPS has become a frustration in my life and to make it worse the extortion that goes with it makes me want to go back to using good old Simple Machines Forum. 

[Randy Calvert]

A couple of important things to call out here...  

7 minutes ago, FZ said:

and the only other one I have in place is the Member's Country flag, which I am now told I have to pay for again if I want it to work with your latest release. That makes me angry because I already paid for it and now I must pay again for the same damn thing with no additional benefit to me, simply because you guys keep shifting the goal posts? This is wrong on so many levels. 

IPS is not the developer of that resource and is not selling that resource.  They don't make decisions about how much third party resource developers sell their work for and they don't dictate if/when any sort of renewal costs would apply.  

9 minutes ago, FZ said:

You constantly put these annoying pop-up messages on the front end of the website for reminders to update this or update that.

Keeping the software updated is critically important.  Not only for when something goes wrong and you come looking to IPS for technical support but also for the safety of your site and the protection of your user's data.  You're welcome to ignore upgrading, but it's very dangerous to do so.   

Now... if you don't want to see those messages frequently, simply create two logins for yourself.  One that is an Admin and gives you access to the ACP.  Only login to that if you implicitly need to access the ACP.  The other as a Global Moderator.  It would not see the upgrade notifications.  (They're shown only to admins.)

[FZ]

7 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

A couple of important things to call out here...  

IPS is not the developer of that resource and is not selling that resource.  They don't make decisions about how much third party resource developers sell their work for and they don't dictate if/when any sort of renewal costs would apply.  

Keeping the software updated is critically important.  Not only for when something goes wrong and you come looking to IPS for technical support but also for the safety of your site and the protection of your user's data.  You're welcome to ignore upgrading, but it's very dangerous to do so.   

Now... if you don't want to see those messages frequently, simply create two logins for yourself.  One that is an Admin and gives you access to the ACP.  Only login to that if you implicitly need to access the ACP.  The other as a Global Moderator.  It would not see the upgrade notifications.  (They're shown only to admins.)

Who created the Marketplace? Indie developers? 

I manage well over 50 WordPress driven websites with multiple plugins, free and paid, and I never have as much hassle upgrading anything on those sites as I have with the 2 IPS driven sites I have (one being my own, the other a church site). It's a constant drama that I can live without. 

Just last week I spent the entire Saturday and Sunday getting my photography community back up to speed only to find that I am out of date again a couple of days later and must now buy the friggin' plugins again. What kind of BS is this? 

No man, this won't go on for too much longer, I can promise you all that. 

[Marc]

19 hours ago, FZ said:

Who created the Marketplace? Indie developers? 

I manage well over 50 WordPress driven websites with multiple plugins, free and paid, and I never have as much hassle upgrading anything on those sites as I have with the 2 IPS driven sites I have (one being my own, the other a church site). It's a constant drama that I can live without. 

Just last week I spent the entire Saturday and Sunday getting my photography community back up to speed only to find that I am out of date again a couple of days later and must now buy the friggin' plugins again. What kind of BS is this? 

No man, this won't go on for too much longer, I can promise you all that. 

Sorry to hear you feel that way. 

In answer to your question, the marketplace was created by ourselves. However it is just that. It's a marketplace. It is for 3rd party authors to sell their items. They choose what and how to support their items. 

I would say here, you mention you have issues with some items and support, and not with others. It may be advisable therefore to choose those items which have a level of support suitable to yourself.

19 hours ago, FZ said:

That makes me angry because I already paid for it and now I must pay again for the same damn thing with no additional benefit to me, simply because you guys keep shifting the goal posts?

Im not sure where you get the impression here that IPS is 'shifting the goalposts'. We have been doing updates in the same manner for a long long time, and have been doing monthly updates for around a year. These updates are not something that is new in any way.

[FZ]

You don't get it. 

Here I am with a problem that you say you will only look at if I update to your latest release. This is regardless of the fact that I have a paid up license for this platform. You now say you are not going to help unless I keep my products up to date.

If I do this update to the latest release I will have to re-purchase an app that I already bought, otherwise it will not work on my website. 

THIS IS WRONG!

And it seems to be happening all the time now. I am not a piggy bank. Your software should not be designed in such a way that it is requiring monthly updates that break other things. 

Two things are becoming clear to me here; 

1. I will NEVER purchase anything from your marketplace again. 

2. I no longer have any trust in the goodwill of IPS as a worthy developer of solutions. 

If you can't get new business for your products at a reasonable rate know that draining your existing client base with these constant updates is only going to last you so long. 

[Marc]

Unfortunately Im not sure what else I can add here. What you have said above, is not actually correct. What we have said is you are experiencing an issue that I cannot reproduce on my end on the latest release. Therefore for that reason, its very likely a bug in the version you are running. 

With regard 3rd party applications, we do not update or products to keep 3rd party products running. We provide updates when there are breaking changes, inform our 3rd party authors, and they would then update their code. Have you tried approaching the author of that item for advise, and told them of your issue? 

I do sympathise with your position. However, I do feel your anger here is somewhat aimed in the wrong direction. You are frustrated that a 3rd party item may not work if you update, and that the author will charge you if it doesn't. The frustration there is with the 3rd party item. I'm sure you can appreciate that from our point of view, if you have an issue with the software and don't have all the latest bug fixes, its only reasonable for us to ask you to apply those latest bug fixes.

[FZ]

Whether I am right or wrong isn't actually the issue. The point I am hoping to make is that running an IPS platform is not a friendly experience anymore and based on the update policies here it ends up becoming an expensive exercise to keep abreast. 

In these difficult times frivolous expenses such as these constant software subscriptions are not going to keep on working as a business model for very much longer. There is no benefit to be had here and pretty soon people like me are just going to unplug the things that are constantly leeching off us. 

That's it. I've said what I have to say. 

[FZ]

On 11/4/2022 at 5:42 PM, Marc Stridgen said:

Please could you upgrade to the latest release and test first of all? Once you have done this, if you are seeing the same, we can get this escalated to be looked at

I have now finally been able to upgrade to the latest version, so if you could please investigate why the block is not drawing from the full gallery that would be appreciated. 

[Marc]

Please could you confirm you have left this long enough to check. Just looking there, its currently showing an image from 2015

[FZ]

1 minute ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Please could you confirm you have left this long enough to check. Just looking there, its currently showing an image from 2015

Not sure I understand the question? I have images in the gallery dating back to 2006. As described it only seems to select from a handful of those randomly and then it repeats them over and over. It's been several weeks since I made the block. 

[Marc]

55 minutes ago, FZ said:

Not sure I understand the question? I have images in the gallery dating back to 2006. As described it only seems to select from a handful of those randomly and then it repeats them over and over. It's been several weeks since I made the block. 

I need to know the handful it is actually showing in this case, as unfortunately without having this information, there is no way of me knowing if its showing a new one

[FZ]

10 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

I need to know the handful it is actually showing in this case, as unfortunately without having this information, there is no way of me knowing if its showing a new one

I'll have to write them down then over a few days, but just don't have the time to expend right now. I only look at the site once or twice a day. 

[Marc]

1 hour ago, FZ said:

I'll have to write them down then over a few days, but just don't have the time to expend right now. I only look at the site once or twice a day. 

No problem. Sorry I couldn't be of more help straight away, but of course if it was only showing the first few or something, that would be easy to spot. But its showing things from years gone by

[FZ]

On 12/12/2022 at 3:24 PM, Marc Stridgen said:

No problem. Sorry I couldn't be of more help straight away, but of course if it was only showing the first few or something, that would be easy to spot. But its showing things from years gone by

I don't know much about PHP coding, but this looks like it can only be related to the math behind randomisation and how this is being implemented. 

[Marc]

8 minutes ago, FZ said:

I don't know much about PHP coding, but this looks like it can only be related to the math behind randomisation and how this is being implemented. 

While I agree that if there is an issue, it would indeed be related to the randomisation of the items, I cant replicate this. I would need examples in order to proceed. From what I have seen, even on your own site, they look to be correct