Introduction
Thank you for purchasing Pile Gallery, it really means a lot to us! Our goal is not to quickly sell you a plugin and then forget about you. We hope you can use Pile Gallery to create something awesome, but if you run into any bugs or features you might need, or just want to say hi; please get in touch with us via our contact form, we're glad to help!
As we're sure you know, Pile Gallery enables you to create piles of images which can then be fanned out by clicking on an image. This allows you to put many images on the page but take up less space.
If you feel something isn't covered in the documentation but should be, or it's not covered properly, let us know, we'll be happy to add it!
Installation
The installable plugin file can be downloaded from Themeforest. Make sure you download the installable plugin file. There is also a full package which does contain the plugin, but it also contains other assets, so it can not be installed directly. Once you found the plugin file, go to the WordPress admin and navigate to the Plugins section. Once there, click the Add New button near the top of the page and click Upload on the following page. Browse for the pluginz zip file, select the installable file and click Install Now
If you get an error at this point complaining about file size, execution time or an already existing directory see our FAQ for the solutions. Go To FAQ
Allow some time for the plugin to upload. Once instaled you will see the option to activate the plugin, press the activate button to activate the plugin on your site.
Getting Started
Once the plugin has been installed a new menu item will be available under the Media section in WordPress. Click on the Pile Galleries menu entry to get started.
The Pile Galleries List
The first thing you'll want to do is add a new pile gallery by pressing the Add New button at the top of the page. Add a title and select the source of your gallery.
Featured Images From Posts
This type of gallery will pull in a list of featured images from posts. All you need to do is select which taxonomy should be used to group the images.
Images From Uploaded Media
This type of gallery will pull in images from your uploaded media. It will only work if you have taxonomies associated with your images. This is not a feature of WordPress by default but you can add this using a plugin. We recommend Media Categories. Note that the titles of the images themselves will be used as titles.
Custom Built Gallery
This is the most flexible type of gallery. It allows you to specify the exact piles you need by creating them by hand. A pile can be added by specifying a title for it and selecting the images you want to show in it.
Once you've set up your gallery publish it and go back to the pile galleries list, you are ready to add a pile gallery to your site!
Showing A Gallery
Galleries are shown by using a shortcode. A shortcode is a special piece of text you paste into the WordPress editor. Instead of displaying the text it will replace it with a gallery.
Take a look in the pile galleries list, there is a Shortcode column in the table. copy the shortcode and paste it inside any post's content where you'd like it to show up. For example:
[pile_gallery id='27']
Customizing The Shortcode
The shortcode has a number of parameters you can add to it to make it do your bidding. One parameter is always required, the id, the rest is optional. To add a parameter you will need to use the same format as above: parameter='value'. Here are all the parameters you can use:
- id
- The id of the gallery. This can be copied from the pile galleries list page.
- gutter
- The distance between images. This is set to 30 by default.
- columns
- The number of columns to display images in. This is set to 3 by default.
- pile_angles
- This sets the angle of the images inside the pile. It is set to 2 by default, low numbers work best.
- delay
- The delay added to the fanning out effect. It is set to 0 by default.
- random_angle
- If set to true the images will be placed at random angles when fanned out. Set to false by default.
Updating The Plugin
Updating the plugin is a simple affair. Before you update make sure that you haven't modified any plugin files. If you have modified plugin files you will loose those changes when you update.
The easiest way to update your plugin is to delete it and then install and activate the update. All your settings and data will remain in tact :)
Frequently Asked Questions
This section provides answers for the most common questions based on emails, support requests, comments and other communication we've had with buyers. If you have a problem, please take a look here first, chances are you'll be able to figure out your issue.
Q: When installing the plugin I get an error: 'Destination folder already exists'
A: This means that the plugin is already installed. If you were trying to install the plugin then all is well! If you are trying to update the plugin then you'll need to delete the current plugin first. Unless you've modified the plugin files you will not loose any data, your settings and content will be in tact. Simple delete the plugin, then install and activate the update.
Q: When installing the theme I get an error: 'The plugin does not have a valid header'
A: The most common reason for this message is that you are using the incorrect file. You will need to upload the Installable file only, not the whole package. Please read our Installation guide for more information. In some extremely rare cases this can be caused by an internet connection disruption. If this is the case, try to upload the file again, it should work.
Q: I get an error when uploading, my server complains about file size limits, max execution time or memory limits
A: This error is caused by server limitations. Some hosts set the upload limit to as low as 2Mb by default. In some cases even a single image can be larger than this limit.
Whenever you upload anything to your server (an image, a WordPress theme, demo content, etc.) there are three limitations servers can impose. Execution time, memory limits and file size. The file size limitation will not allow you to upload files larger than the limit. The execution time will not allow you to execute a script for more than the set amount of seconds. The memory limit sets how much memory each script can use.
The solution for this varies from host-to-host. You can call them or write to their support team and ask them to increase your upload limit to at least 32Mb, the max execution time to 120 sections and the memory limit to 64MB.
What's New
This is the initial release of the new Vet Theme so there's nothing new just yet. Whenever new versions are added we'll list the new stuff here with a changelog included underneath.
Need More Help?
If you need more information we suggest reading all related topics in the documentation and looking into the FAQ section, this has answers to the most frequent questions. If you're still stuck after that you can contact us via our contact form.