Since JoomGallery 3.0 BETA was already very stable and only few bugs were reported we started to work on new features in parallel. As a result we decided to publish a new Beta version directly containing these features without releasing a stable version of JoomGallery 3.0.
The greatest additions are password-protected categories and the possibility to limit image uploads in certain time frames (so, it's possible to allow users only to upload an image every three days).
Besides that it is now possible to exclude single categories from the toplists and the search by using the correspondent options for each of these categories in category manager.
For improving user experience we added an option with that you can display upload buttons in each category. So, your users are able to upload directly into categories which they are viewing without having to go to the user panel first.
Along with that there was also an improvement in the popup of editor button plugin JoomBu which is used for inserting images into articles: Now, FineUploader is used there, too. This way it is possible to upload and insert images faster and more easily. Please note that you have to update editor button plugin JoomBu and content plugin JoomPlu, too.
Besides the upload we also added a new feature for downloads: You can optionally enable the output of number of image downloads in the different views. However, please note that this number is not as reliable as the hit counter is because user can download images also by using the right click, not the download icon. So, these downloads cannot be counted as downloads.
Starting with this version it is finally possible to create valid image URLs (with file extension .jpg) even for images that are output through the script. You can find more information about that in the documentation article about SEF URLs for images.
Furthermore you can explicitly reject not yet approved images in image manager now. Along with that it is also possible to send a message to the image owner about the reason of rejection.
Of course, compulsory smaller fixes and performance improvements have also been added.
You can read up on all the changes by clicking on a new button in backend of JoomGallery -> 'Help and Information'. With that the complete changelog of JoomGallery 3.x will be displayed. The same is possible on the summary page after updates.
Have fun with the new version!
We would be very happy about each feedback post in our forum.