FRQ

Will this gallery plugin work with my theme?

IA Magic Galleries should work with any theme. They are run with front-end scripting that is independent of the theme. The rule is that if you can add a picture, you can add a Magic Gallery.

Are the photo galleries flash-based?

NO, but it may look like that. IA Magic Galleries are secure SVG-based presentations run by our proprietary presentation player, IA Presenter. IA Presenter has much of the functionality of Flash but is designed for the modern browser environment in pure vanilla JavaScript.

Are the galleries mobile-friendly?

Yes, all our gallery designs are responsive and mobile-friendly. We constantly make optimizations to improve mobile performance.

Can I upload multiple images at once?

Yes, of course. IA Magic Galleries uses WordPress as its native media management environment. As long as WordPress allows it, IA Magic Galleries allows it.

Can I password-protect galleries?

Yes, WordPress allows you to password-protect pages and posts. You can find a good instruction about how to add password protection on this blog on HubSpot.

Can I add a watermark to my photos?

Currently, IA Magic Galleries does not offer native watermark protection. There are many plugins that can apply a watermark to your images, and as long as the images are watermarked, they will appear so in the Magic Galleries.

Does the IA Magic Galleries plugin make the galleries?

Not really! The IA Magic Galleries SAS generates all galleries in the form of SVG presentations. The plugin only provides the URLs of the images and transmits the settings from the Gallery Settings GUI.

Can I install the plugin on a local server or in WP Playground?

Yes, the server can be installed in local or temporary environments for testing. However, there may be some limitations, especially for premium services. You may also encounter problems with multiple local environments running under the same IP address or changing your IP address after installation. Such problems may be temporarily resolved if you reactivate the plugin. Note that the premium service (coming soon) is based on per-server licensing and is intended to work primarily with fixed production servers that are accessible publicly.

Do I need to update the plugin to get new Galleries?

Not at all! It is, of course, always recommended that you update your plugins to ensure better security and compatibility with new versions of WordPress. The update cycle of the plugin is unrelated to updates of the Magic Galleries, the Gallery Setup Interface, or IA Presenter (the environment running the galleries). These are not a part of the plugin itself but are provided by the IA Magic Galleries SAS services.

Is there a Premium version of the plugin?

Not yet, but it is coming soon. Well, there will never be a Premium version of the plugin itself. The plugin is always free and open source. There will be a subscription-based Premium service, which will allow users many more galleries, more customization options, video support, and more. You will be notified inside the plugin when the Premium feature becomes available and will be asked to join.

What are Promotional Galleries?

While developing the Premium service, we have decided to offer several Galleries as a promotion for early adopters. Such galleries will become part of the premium package for new installations but will remain free for the current installation.

Can I transfer Promotional Galleries to a new server?

No, unfortunately. Promotional features of the service are connected to the server and the WordPress site. Changing the server or the site will require a new registration to our SAS services (transparent to the user), and the installation will be considered new. Note that the free service does not require user registration.

Why did the Gallery Settings Interface change when I haven’t updated the plugin?

The Gallery Settings Interface is a presentation run by IA Presenter, just like the Magic Galleries. The plugin automatically updates the IA Presenter app and other resources needed to work about once every five days. The Gallery Settings interface is just one of the resources, like the Overview and the Help presentations. Such resources are stored in the WordPress database. Thus, when the service includes new or updated galleries, the interface is modified to reflect the changes.

I sometimes see a small lag in the movement of the Magic Galleries; why?

The IA Magic Galleries are based on the browser’s native support for SVG graphics. SVG allows complex movements and scaling. Not all browsers optimize SVG graphics equally well and older devices may lag slightly with complex galleries. One thing you can do is reduce the size and dimensions of the images you upload to WordPress. Some modern cameras and phones produce ridiculously large image dimensions. Always optimize images for the web before uploading to your media library. It is recommended that the larger dimension of the image not exceed 2048px. WordPress’s media library should process images to different dimensions automatically, and Magic Galleries will try to use the smallest image possible, automatically loading higher resolutions as needed. If the images are very large, the browser may be unable to keep up with the transformations.

Thumbnails are not square, and galleries load too slowly; why?

This indicates that WordPress did not process images correctly and thumbnails were not generated. The Magic Gallery is forced to use the original images, which are probably large. This is why the Magic Gallery loads too slowly. Check the WordPress media settings and use one of the many plugins to regenerate thumbnails. After the images have been processed, recreate the problematic galleries by going to the Magic Gallery post, clicking preview to regenerate the gallery with the new images and saving it.

When I open a gallery, I see a message that IA Presenter has expired. What is this, and what can I do?

IA Presenter is the environment that runs the galleries. The libraries have an expiration time of about a week. If you get an expiration message, one of two things has happened: (1) the browser has loaded the page from its internal catch without reloading it, or (2) the WordPress site has not updated the library, which should happen every five days or so using the WordPress native Cron Event system. First, try reloading the page on the browser. Second, you can force the plugin to update its library and resources by deactivating and activating it in the plugin menu. If this does not solve the problem, or you get an error during the activation, there may be a problem with your server registration on our sites. If this happens, contact the Information Aesthetics support system. If reactivating the plugin solves the problem, but then the problem reappears after a week, there may be an issue with WordPress Cron events. Check the Cron Events in the tool menu of the WP admin panel (you may need a WP Control plugin for this) and look for a daily event called “iamagicgalleries_lib_update”, or contact your WordPress host provider.