Thanks, Cathy. Poll submitted (using GD Library now).

Just installed the premium Upgrade. The installation seemed successful and I see the plugin in my list of plugins.

When I select Batch Editor, I see three fields, second field prefilled with number "48".
After entry of my search parameter in the first field, I press Enter and get the following error message:

Warning: simplexml_load_file(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0 in /hermes/bosweb26d/b445/ipw.longprin/public_html/advantica/stockphotos/wp-content/plugins/ss-professional/lib/batch-manager/batch-manager-results.php on line 37 Warning: simplexml_load_file(http://www.advantica.com/stockphotos/?s=rock&post_type=image&symbiostock_network_search=true&ipp=48): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /hermes/bosweb26d/b445/ipw.longprin/public_html/advantica/stockphotos/wp-content/plugins/ss-professional/lib/batch-manager/batch-manager-results.php on line 37 Warning: simplexml_load_file(): I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://www.advantica.com/stockphotos/?s=rock&post_type=image&symbiostock_network_search=true&ipp=48" in /hermes/bosweb26d/b445/ipw.longprin/public_html/advantica/stockphotos/wp-content/plugins/ss-professional/lib/batch-manager/batch-manager-results.php on line 37

Is there anything else I have to do after installing the plugin?

Dropping like a stone, today on its way down it broke the $50 level. That's almost 20% decline since its recent height.

The only explanation is that the investors must have noticed the meteoric rise of Symbiostock and its image pool climbing over 100,000 last month. That, or some traders coming back from their vacations noticed only now that Yuri rebalanced his portfolio.

The life used to be simpler, and usually the things were either black or white.
Now they consist of many shades of gray. In other words, a folder that looks empty through the File Manager program, in reality contains all kinds of files. As Leo pointed out, it's just that the mere mortals couldn't see them.

Anyway, after spending 2 days examining all folders on my website, and looking for some explanation about the empty symbiostock-rf folder, (it didn't help that my main disk drive crashed at the same time and I had to deal with reconstruction of  my LR catalog on a new drive), finally I received the following message from my ipower (my host) help desk:

I have corrected the permissions for the directory 'symbiostock_rf' and now the files are loading fine through FileManager.
The size of the complete directory 'symbiostock_rf' is 4.0GB and it includes 516 files.

I really sympathize with Leo who has to put up with dozens of different hosting environments to make his program work without any glitches in every possible combination.

Quote from: LesPalenik on August 31, 2013, 11:46

I found there both, minipics and small previews (385x590 pixels).

I would need to retrieve some of the real images (in the actual uploaded size). Where are they stored?

 

One more thing - jump into the folder and actually look at its contents just to make sure its not lying to you

My host is ipower.com, wp 3.5, Symbio 2.5.6


1. When I click on that (0 files) folder, it is indeed empty.

2. Since it appears that the images are still in the cache (encoded with strange names), is there any way to use those files to recover the images and put them where they belong?
 
EDITED:
I just tested paid download for an image - in two file sizes: bloggee and the largest size (over 4,000 pixels in largest dimension). Since the symbiostock-rf folder was empty, I wanted to find out if the download will use the small pictures in the wp-content/uploads/symbiostock-rf-content.
Surprisingly, the download worked fine and  the large file seem to have the correct resolution.
Now, where did it come from?If the files were retrieved from the cache, is there any way to save them and transfer them to the proper folder?

Then, I contacted support at my host and asked them to check for possible multiple occurrences of symbiostock-rf folder in the entire site structure. They couldn't find another instance of that folder and they also confirmed  that the folder in question was indeed empty.

So, it seems that my images are not lost, they are somewhere, but where?
 

The symbiostock_rf folder seems empty. 
I am using GD library, since Imagemagick as PHP extension is not supported by my host. Do you think, the actual images (except the minipics and small sizes) were never stored on my site? Or were they somehow erased? Or maybe there are somewhere else?

Are images that should be stored in the symbiostock_rf folder used to create downloadable images for the buyers?
Most importantly, do I have those images or are they all gone?

Attached is a screen shot.

One more detail. The Perm column (Permission?) is set to "700" for symbiostock_rf and "644" for wp-content/uploads/symbiostock_rf_content and some other folders.

I found there both, minipics and small previews (385x590 pixels).

I would need to retrieve some of the real images (in the actual uploaded size). Where are they stored?

 

I think, you are right, Kathy - it should work like Dropbox, you just get more storage space

If you schedule the backup process overnight or handle it in chunks, it should work. I can accept that.
 

Most definitely, they should be separate fields.

In terms of storage, compared to the actual image and other metadata, the few extra fields would be insignificant. I would be happy even if the new fields were just short codes.

looks OK to me

The current image categories are functional, easy to use by the authors and buyers, and work great.

However, since Symbiostock was designed primarily for the benefit of the artists, it doesn't have to be as restricted as the conventional agencies. I envision the underlaying image database as a powerful and flexible platform being able to store additional information that could add even more value to the system.

Specifically, I'm thinking about additional categories. For lack of better word, I'd call it artist categories, type, groups, or something similar. Maybe even two more fields - type and group.
The users wouldn't necessarily see or use it, but the contributors could use various codes to assign more meanings to their images, and then filter on it and possibly even perform other processes on the filtered sets.
For example, we could have various pricing codes, filter on them, and then perform a bulk price change. Or a "original" and "derived (cropped) image" category. Perhaps creation year or maximum image size. Color workspace and other technical data, such as camera, lens, or filer used.
Everybody hase different needs, but by adding a few extra codes / fields to the image database, we could configure and use the images creatively to make our "digital assets" even more useful and productive. Something between Lightroom and inventory item database.

Having those extra codes doesn't mean that they have to be used by everyone. Some people would find it vary valuable, some may never use them, and others might warm up to them once their basic site is up and running.

By now, I uploaded hundreds of images, but still don't know when to "feature an image" and when not.

1. What is the difference between the Symbio Featured category (I think I understand this one) and Featured Image (with the thumbnail) ?

2. At present, the Featured Image comes as default.  If I don't want all images featured, can I configure the Image Process screen so that this option (Featured Image) is unchecked?
 

Quote from: LesPalenik on August 27, 2013, 14:36

I never noticed any lines or banding on my screen, so maybe it was fixed in the GD library or present only in certain situations.

If you have something isolated on pure white (FFFFFF), then resized (by GD) images, like thumbnail, preview and every image sent to buyer (below large, which is not touched by GD), have horizontal lines containing FDFDFD pixels. It is almost invisible and easily removable. Other images, with no white background, maybe are affected too, but color change is below noise level.

Andrzej, thanks for explaining it.

Back to my previous question:
If my host supports ImageMagick only in the binary form (not as PHP extension), is there anything I can do to make Symbio template work with that binary program?