SIGE – Simple Image Gallery Extended

Simple Image Gallery Extended creates galleries in Joomla! articles – with Turbo Mode

Simple Image Gallery Extended is a powerful gallery content plugin for Joomla!

Simple Image Gallery Extended (SIGE) offers a dynamic platform to seamlessly integrate pictures into your articles. Its distinctive feature lies in its versatility – every parameter can be controlled directly through the syntax call.

SIGE Pro introduces a backend component, allowing users to manage galleries directly from the site’s backend. This streamlines workflow provides enhanced control and offers a comprehensive view of all galleries, significantly improving the management of large image quantities.

The Pro version’s backend component enables direct uploading and editing of images and handles complex tasks efficiently. This significantly reduces loading times and improves overall site performance, especially when processing large images or creating extensive galleries, making SIGE Pro a powerful tool for creating high-quality, professional image galleries.

A valuable complement to SIGE, the Editor Button allows you to effortlessly tweak parameters on-the-fly within an article, streamlining the image integration process.

Key features of SIGE include direct parameter call, watermark functionality, IPTC data reading, thumbnail storage, image cropping, various sorting options, list output, CSS image tooltip, and the Editor Button, among others.

One of the most remarkable innovations of SIGE is its Turbo Mode. Unlike any other Joomla! plugins, the turbo mode substantially speeds up the image-loading process by creating two text files from the gallery’s HTML output, which are then loaded in successive runs. This bypasses the need to process each image individually. During a test with 50 large images, a gallery equipped with features like thumbnail saving, watermark generation, and original image resizing took only 1 second to create in Turbo Mode, compared to over 17 seconds required without it.

To further enhance the user experience, an Editor Button is available for adding the galleries into articles. This button displays all the settings and parameters of the plugin, making the syntax selection process significantly more straightforward and enriching the overall usage of the SIGE plugin.

Features

• Thumbnail generation and storage: Preview images are created and stored – faster loading, better quality
• Turbo Mode – the whole gallery is loaded from a text file
• Parameter call – individual galleries possible
• Lazy image loading
• Backend component to create galleries and add images information (PRO)
• Integration of Slimbox, Lytebox, Shadowbox, Milkbox and Mootools
• Lytebox installed to display a slide show and avoidance of JS conflicts
• Number of images displayed adjustable
• Pictures can be viewed without a link
• Random order of the images
• Sort by modification date possible
• Captions
• Read IPTC data (title and description)
• Read text file (title and description) – support for multilingual files
• Print option – print image easily in the JS view
• Download Option – download image with one click
• Show a single image (no gallery and with gallery)
• List view – image output as a list
• Crop function
• Watermark function
• CSS Image Tooltip
• Editor Button – SIGE Parameter
• Link words with gallery
• The original image can be resized
• Valid XHTML 1.1 – CSS and JS files are included in the head section, eliminates syntax errors
• An index.html is automatically generated in each image folder, to protect against the reading of the content by the browser
• Backend German / English and some more languages

Installation

Install the plugin in the backend and enable it under Extensions – Plugin-Manager – Simple Image Gallery Extended

Update

A new version can be easily installed over an existing installation. Of course, you can uninstall any older version first or replace files via FTP (path: plugins/content/sige).

Usage of the SIGE plugin

With the syntax call {gallery}folder{/gallery} – folder must be located in images – the gallery can be embedded in the desired position. Parameters can control the gallery. (see List of parameters)

Example

• Create a new folder in images (e.g. joomla-rocks) – so the path to the images is images/joomla-rocks
• Upload your images into this new folder
• Enter in the article (where you want to place the gallery):

{gallery}joomla-rocks{/gallery}

List of parameters

Galleries can be adjusted using parameters in the syntax call.

Possible parameters

width – Width of the thumbnail – example: 300
height – Height of the thumbnail – example: 300
gap_v – Vertical gap – example: 30
gap_h – Horizontal gap – example: 30
quality – Quality (jpg) – möglich: 1-100
quality_png – Quality (png) – possible: 1-9 (Compression level)
displaynavtip – Show navigation tip – 1 = yes, 0 = no
displayarticle – Show article name – 1 = yes, 0 = no
thumbs – Generate and save thumbnails – 1 = yes, 0 = no
limit – Activate limiting – 1 = yes, 0 = no
limit_quantity – Show number of images – example: 10
noslim (deprecated) / noLightbox – Deactivate lightbox effect – 1 = yes, 0 = no
sort – Random order – 1 = yes, 2 = no, ascending, 3 = no, descending, 4 = ascending by modified date, 5 = descending by modified date
root – Path to the images starting at the root folder – 1 = yes, 0 = no
ratio – Maintain aspect ratios of the images – 1 = yes, 0 = no
caption – Display captions – 1 = yes, 0 = no
caption_description – Display short description in the caption – 1 = yes, 0 = no (PRO)
iptc – Title and description of IPTC data – 1 = yes, 0 = no
iptcutf8 – IPTC data is already UTF8-encoded – 1 = yes, 0 = no
print – Display printing option in lightbox – 1 = yes, 0 = no
count – Set count variable manually – example: 5
single – Show a single image – example: imagename.jpg
scaption – Caption in single view, only use with parameter single – example: This is my caption
single_gallery – Show gallery if parameter single is used – 1 = yes, 0 = no
salign – Align single image – example: left / center / right
connect – Connect images in other syntax calls – example: bildset
download – Show download button – 1 = yes, 0 = no
list – Display images in a list – 1 = yes, 0 = no
crop – Enable crop function – 1 = yes, 0 = no
crop_factor – Zoom level – example 50 for 50 percent (enter without %!)
thumbdetail – Choose image section for thumbnail – 0 = 1:1, 1 = top left, 2 = top right, 3 = bottom left, 4 = bottom right
watermark – Enable watermark function – 1 = yes, 0 = no
watermarkposition – Position of the watermark – 0 = centered, 1 = top left, 2 = top right, 3 = bottom left, 4 = bottom right
watermark_trans – Transparency of the watermark – 0 to 100 – 0 = opaque, 100 – completely transparent
encrypt – Encryption method – 0 = ROT13 – very weak, but fast. 1= MD5 – safe, fast. 2 = SHA1 – very safe, slower than MD5
image_info – Show image name or IPTC data – 1 = yes, 0 = no
image_link – Set a link – example: www.kubik-rubik.de
image_link_local – Allows to set internal links, to use with image_link – 1 = yes, 0 = no
image_link_new – Open link in a new window – 1 = yes, 0 = no
column_quantity – Images per line – example: 3 (for 3 images in one line)
css_image – Enable CSS Image Tooltip – 1 = yes, 0 = no
css_image_half – Half the size in tooltip – 1 = yes, 0 = no
copyright – Link to the author – 1 = yes, 0 = no
word – Link the gallery with a word – example: Gallery
watermarkimage – Set a different watermark image (image has to be located in plugins/content/sige/plugin_sige) – example: watermark-new.png
calcmaxthumbsize – Calculate maximum size of all thumbnails – 1 = yes, 0 = no
fileinfo – Information from text file (captions.txt – see slide Extras) – 1 = yes, 0 = no
turbo – Activate turbo mode – 1 = yes, 0 = no
resize_images – Resize original images – 1 = yes, 0 = no
width_image – Maximum width of resized images – example: 800
height_image – Maximum height of resized images – example: 800
ratio_image – Maintain aspect ratios of the original images – 1 = yes, 0 = no
images_new – Overwrite resized images – 1 = yes, 0 = no
nodebug – Suppress debug message output – 1 = yes, 0 = no
filterImage – Filters the loaded images by specific name parts – Example: .png|.webp (PRO)