Event Gallery

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Details: Created: 10 May 2025

Is the jump from Canon's excellent EF 85mm f/1.4L to the premium RF 85mm f/1.2L worth the hefty price tag? Join me as I dive deep into a personal comparison, justifying my recent (and significant!) investment. We'll look beyond the spec sheets, comparing real-world image quality, handling, and that elusive "magic" that makes a lens truly special. If you've ever battled Gear Acquisition Syndrome or wondered if the latest RF glass lives up to the hype, this one's for you.

Details: Created: 22 September 2024

I need to inform you about upcoming changes to the Google Photos APIs that will impact how Event Gallery integrates with Google Photos.

Unfortunately, as of March 31, 2025, Google is removing certain features that Event Gallery currently relies on. This means that directly accessing Google Photos within Event Gallery will no longer be possible. Existing Events/albums will stop working. We know this kind of behavior already from the changes to Picasa back then. Honestly, the Google usage policy forbids creating a clone of Google Photos. Some users notified me about blocked apps in the recent past. So it might be not the worst thing to retire this kind of integration.

Bet let's continue the cat&mouse game!

I'm actively exploring two potential solutions to ensure a smooth transition:

Option 1: Use shared links. This is already available and will support albums with up to 150 images.
Option 2: I integrated the new Google Photos Picker. It allows you to select images from Google Photos and upload them to local webspace or an AWS S3 bucket.
Bonus Option: The Flickr-integration is still working fine!

The time of saving money for hosting images seems to be over. I highly encourage you to use local images or AWS S3 buckets. While this is not free, it also does not break the bank. Since the new Google Photos Picker is available in the file upload for an Event, pulling data from Google Photos is effortless! Using a Flickr Account is also a viable option!

I appreciate your understanding and patience as I work through this. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you,
Sven

PS: the Google Photos Picker API integration is already available in Event Gallery 5.4.2

Update 27.12.2024

If you need to migrate your images from Google Photos this usually involves a lot of work. To shortcut this, I added a "Migrate to local" button to Google Photos images. This button will create a copy of the Event and download all the images from Google Photos to your local webspace. It will not use the large original images, but use smaller versions with only 2400px. Event Gallery 5.4.3 will contain this feature and is in an early version available here: Event Gallery Extended 5.4.3 Dev

This migration feature is very new and only MVP. It works for my Events. If you have any other requirements to make your life easier, please get in touch with me.

Update 08.02.2025

The Joomla CLI is now capable of migrating the Google Photos Events. Just execute this command line for example:

php joomla.php  eventgallery:migrate-google-photos --dryrun=false --target=s3

This would migrate your image to an S3 bucket. Use

php joomla.php  eventgallery:migrate-google-photos --help

to get information on how to use this CLI command.

You can migrate to local webspace or to an S3 bucket. Running the cli command in dry run-mode will show you what it'll do. The whole process will take some time, be patient. The feature is available in Event Gallery 5.4.6 and the magic link from the previous version if gone. Images a copied over from Google Photos with 2400px. This is changeable in the config.php file of Event Gallery.

Summary:

start the Joomla CLI and execute the comannd you need
delete the Google Photos Events

If 1) does not work, you can re-execute it. You can also delete the copies of the Google Photos Events if needed and start over again.

Update 10.05.2025

It looked like Google was not doing anything. But the changes are coming in now. For some albums, it is already impossible to load images. If you still use the Google Photos integration in Event Gallery, please switch. Using the CLI to migrate photos will not work anymore since the images are no longer accessible. I'll remove that Joomla CLI extension with Event Gallery 5.4.10.

Details: Created: 05 March 2024

Exciting news! I've finally launched a brand-new website dedicated solely to showcasing my photography services. For years, my previous website served as a jumbled mix of a review blog, shop, support page, and even a platform for my personal work. It was definitely time for a change!

Head over to https://bitsnlight.de to explore my offerings as a photographer in the Barchfeld, Bad Liebenstein, Bad Salzungen, and Wartburgkreis region. I specialize in capturing precious moments at weddings, events, birthday parties, and more. So, if you're looking for a photographer to preserve your special occasions, don't hesitate to reach out!

Details: Created: 30 January 2023

Joomla 4 is out there since August 2021. It brings some new coding styles with a compatibility layer for the old Joomla 3 way of coding. Event Gallery 4 supports Joomla 3 and Joomla 4, which blows up the code and complexity. There are only several months left where Joomla 3 is officially supported. I'm currently re-coding to support the J4 coding style fully.

With Event Gallery 5, I'll drop any Joomla 3 support. Event Gallery 4 will continue supporting Joomla 3, but will get only bug-fixes in emergency cases.

Do you need to worry? Not really, since all of you already made the jump to Joomla 4, right? ;) For those who have not, it is not that hard. Here is how I did it with several sites:

Update to Joomla 3.10
grab a copy of your Joomla 3 site with https://www.akeeba.com/products/akeeba-backup.html
create a running server
practice the Joomla 4 update and write down all the necessary steps. If you fail, return to step 3
apply your steps to your production server

I had only a few issues. The template needs an update, that is for sure. Maybe you need to uninstall unused components and install all available updates for the rest.

There is an article for the migration: https://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_3.x_to_4.x_Step_by_Step_Migration

Details: Created: 06 December 2021

Event Gallery 4.0 is available. Between version 3.12.10 and the latest version, more than 50 tickets made it into the gallery component. Most of the changes are around the Joomla 4 support. Thanks to some engaged users, I was able to tackle many details to optimize your user experience, especially in the back end. Thanks a lot and keep reporting! The release notes you can find here: Release Notes

One mayor change you noticed: there is version 4.0 now! For about 8 years, I kept the 3 in front of the version number. But this makes it hard for you to notice how severe the changes between different versions are. Now we're back to a common version schema. Changes in the first number indicate that you need to carefully test your site with the new version. There will be no problem if you don't use any template overrides or custom CSS adjustments. If you do, check that your modifications are still working. I'll be careful with breaking changes, but they will happen.

With Joomla 4, the place where you need to enter the download id for Event Gallery Extended changed. If you encounter any update issues, please update the download ID. This page will show your download ID and the process to add it: How to add a Download ID

Details: Created: 03 June 2021

Today you might have seen emails from Google telling you details about your Google App which handles your Google Photos credentials.

First, don't worry! But you might need to do something.

Details: Created: 01 October 2020

Coding, blogging, reviewing, photographing, RC-racing, full-time-jobbing. That takes a lot of time. Time which is missing for writing new articles and let this site look alive. So, I want to give you a quick update on how Event Gallery is doing. If you ask yourself: "WTF is Event Gallery"? Simple! It is a gallery component for Joomla. Display images from Google Photos, Flickr, Amazon S3 or your local webspace on your Joomla site. Modules, plugins, it is all there. On top, you can sell your images with a tiny e-commerce shop. But enough advertising. Event Gallery is around for 7 years not. At least as a public available version. I started developing it for Joomla 1.5! For Joomla 2.5 you had the opportunity using it too. We're now in the Joomla 3-age, but hopefully, this ends soon. Joomla 4 is around the corner (this time for real ;) and there are many changes necessary to adapt Joomla components to work with the new system.

Nearly two years back I started with the first tiny steps to support Joomla 4 Alpha. Tiny in terms of spending weeks removing jQuery from the backend and implementing things with Vue instead. I thought great, that was easy. During the last few weeks I adapted my workflow to Joomla 4, migrated all the automated tests. The result: a huge pile of things I overlooked! The good news now: they are fixed and I can proudly say, that Event Gallery is ready for Joomla 4 and you can welcome it with open arms!

Details: Created: 24 August 2019

Lately, I decided that I need a 35mm lens. This article is about my thought on the available options.

Details: Created: 21 October 2018

There is fantastic news about Google Photos. With Event Gallery 3.10 they'll work even after January 2019. The process of getting Google Photos is slightly more complicated, but I made a tutorial video to get you started. Check the article for limitations and implementation details.