I’m not technical at all, but an e-mail from NextGen today has made me wonder if I should update, or leave well alone. It’s probably better if I copy the text below. I would appreciate it if anyone has any thoughts or advice please.
Hi Lesley
My name is Scott Wyden Kivowitz, the Chief Community Officer here at Imagely.
Today I am sharing with you a very important notice about NextGEN Gallery, NextGEN Plus, and NextGEN Pro.
Today we released an update to all three of our plugins and we strongly encourage you to update immediately. Here is why.
On December 8th, 2020, WordPress 5.6 will be released and updating one of its core third-party libraries, jQuery, from version 1.12.4 to 3.5.1.
This is a significant change that will affect all WordPress plugins & themes. WordPress 5.7, which is currently scheduled sometime in March 2021, will include more jQuery-related changes. WordPress is quickly moving forward to take advantage of the latest technologies, which is excellent news for everyone in the Imagely community.
The latest version of NextGEN Gallery, NextGEN Plus, and NextGEN Pro are up-to-date and ready for WordPress 5.6 and 5.7.
Again, because of this, we encourage everyone in the Imagely community to update immediately to the latest versions, available in your account area:
• NextGEN Gallery - v3.4.0
• NextGEN Plus - v1.7.0
• NextGEN Pro - v3.1.0
Thank you for your continued support and ongoing feedback as we make our products even better.
I’m assuming that you’re using ClassicPress, so are concerned whether these updated plugins will continue to work on CP, which will continue to use jQuery version 1.12.4.
There’s really no way to be sure what will happen without testing first. But my guess is that all that the new versions of these plugins will be doing is modifying some code to avoid warnings that some of the code is deprecated (which it is in jQuery version 3.x.x, but not in 1.12.4). More specifically, I suspect that they will have changed jQuery(document).ready(function($) { to jQuery(function($) {.
The good news is that that change is actually compatible with jQuery version 1.12.4, so the plugins will continue to work with ClassicPress.
If you have a test site, I’d try the plugins out one by one and see if they work. If not, you could still try updating them one by one if you keep a copy of your current versions.
NextGen now shows “WordPress Version: 5.2.0 or higher” on its repo page, so I think all ClassicPress related arguments are moot. Even if it still actually works, updates won’t be shown and you won’t get any support.
Probably best to migrate to a plugin that declares support for 4.9 or earlier. FooGallery is quite good and works with WP 3.9+.
I guess this is inevitable. I have just migrated the site using NextGen back to WP. My clients purchased a lifetime licence at some expense so I don’t want to lose support and updates.
This might be good except it would mean redoing the whole site and retraining my clients in a new system. Not really an option.
Sorry Tim… yes. I’ve been using CP from the start. I think you and I have history regarding a test site and I never was able to set one up. I’m not sure how to keep a copy of my current version. Do I just take a back up (I use BackupBuddy) and revert to that if the galleries don’t work? I’ve noticed that NextGen just whizzes through all the updates without offering any options. I don’t think I can go back to WP now. My site has over 300 pages - over 1,000 images and regular blog posts over more than 7 years. My understanding was that a site like mine would not fare well with Gutenberg.
Yes, I thought I remembered that! I don’t thinking Gutenberg would be good for your site at all!
Yes, without a test site, that would one way. But it’s more disruptive than you’d need it to be. If you can get the zip file for each of your current NextGen plugins, then you could just reinstall the old versions. (You might need to install the Update Theme and Plugins from Zip File plugin to make this easier.)
I think zigpress was right. I’m paying for NextGen Pro (although I can’t find out how much at the moment), but I haven’t had the notification. I assume I am now shut out of their system. I like NextGen and more to the point, it is embedded throughout my blog posts - 296 to date. For every image, there is a link to a NextGen gallery.
I think I have no option but to go back to Wordpress, but I may need some help. First of all, may I ask why you said Gutenberg would not be good for my site? I don’t understand most of what I read, but my thoughts were I could create new blog posts with Gutenberg, but they may not look like my older posts. I would most definitely want them to look the same. I’m retired and I don’t mind the work. My guess is I would have to revisit every blog post and stick all the content into blocks. So, a block for every paragraph and image. Is that correct?
Would you envisage any other horrors?
In theory, I’m wondering if I can create a test site (but I couldn’t do that without help before), stick that back in WP and see how I get on. If it works, then can I make that site live without losing all the work I’ve done?
If it helps, this is how my site looks now Elements
It looks great. If you go back to WP, I would install the Classic Editor plugin. That way, you won’t have to touch Gutenberg.
I said Gutenberg wouldn’t be good for your site because it has lots of images, and Gutenberg keeps changing how it handles images within posts. So things would likely keep breaking or looking very different.
Oh dear. First of all, I thought the Classic Editor plugin was going to be withdrawn after a period. If it has survived the cull, then may I assume I could go back to WP, install that plugin and my site (fingers crossed) should look the same? I can continue creating new posts and old or new, they should behave the same way?
I hate this. I wanted to remain with CP, but my theme and galleries are tied in to Imagely. It seems as though something is going to break at some point if I don’t go back. It would be better now, before I create another 100 pages.
I know you have made it easy to go back, but I don’t have a test site. Should I be covered with BackupBuddy if I beam back to WP and things have gone pear shaped?
Just had a peek and found this:
“Classic Editor is an official WordPress plugin, and will be fully supported and maintained until at least 2022, or as long as is necessary”.
BackupBuddy should have you covered, but coming back to CP should be easy enough anyway if you create any new posts using the Classic Editor.
The truth is that no-one knows how long the Classic Editor will stay around in WP. But at least you will have two years more.
I’m afraid you’re experiencing the dilemma that WP’s behavior is going to cause for an increasing number of people. Either learn to build sites a completely different way, or switch to CP and maybe use a different plugin to build sites the same way as you already know.
I think I’m getting too old to start from scratch. Moving to FooGallery would mean rebuilding every single gallery and every image used in those nearly 300 blog posts - that’s over 1,000 images for the galleries and about 850 for the blog posts. I never really understand themes or plugins and I certainly can’t visualise a web site. What I have now has been done by trial and error over the years. This is the happiest I have ever been with the look of my site. Now I have one of the finest cameras ever made (and more time now I’m retired), I want to be out and about.
I remember ozfiddler talking about one of his clients with NextGen when CP first began. It’s a sobering thought to see the site has been moved back to WP. Perhaps I could continue here for another year or so, but I’m guessing my site will break at some point. I would rather move now than fix a broken site in the future. I don’t want to leave, but I need Imagely for my theme and galleries.
So… do I just press the transporter button to move back and then activate the Classic Editor? I did set it up before I found you here at CP. I made a back up this afternoon.
I really appreciate all the help and support I have received here.
Good job on the backup! Not sure what you mean by the “transporter button”, but moving back to WP and then activating the Classic Editor should do the job for you.
This has always been the case for NextGen. It is not the fault of the editor being used. If you use a plugin that does non-standard stuff, you have to live with that decision or do the painful conversion to a better plugin.
Most users just choose a plugin that does “stuff”. To suggest that we have somehow made an informed choice between “standard stuff” and “non-standard stuff” is nonsense.
This is what I did. There aren’t many articles on my site, but it all looks fine. Ultimately I have to go with whatever solution works best for my client.
Found it, although it wasn’t easy. The migration plugin download link was difficult to find and then I also needed this help Revert to Wordpress.
I’m not entirely sure what I should be checking, but everything looks as it should. There is one NextGen gallery update, but I was expecting another for NextGen Pro. I’ll spend the afternoon testing it out, but I was most impressed with your plugin. It was all done in less than 30 seconds
One silly question, but it looks as though there are many plugins that haven’t been updated. I update every time I log in to my dashboard - at least three times a month. There are huge gaps in some of the version numbers. Is it safe to assume they also stopped talking to me because I wasn’t using an up to date version of WP?
Probably, though sometimes developers skip a lot of numbers because they refactor the code or just don’t release some of the incremental updates in between.
