I was just wondering if it was possible to add the Google No Captcha reCaptcha to the register and contact forms?

This is the one I would like to have: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html

I have the standard reCaptcha working (where you enter numbers/text from an image) but I would prefer to use the simpler tick box version if possible.

Yes. sure, you probably can write a plugin for it :-)

I'll give it a go

I have read through the Zenphoto Plugin Architecture documentation and created a basic php file containing:

@author
@package
@subpackage

$plugin_description
$plugin_author
$plugin_version

This file is in a folder of the same name that is placed in the /plugins folder but it wont show up in the plugins section of the control panel.

I can't seem to get other third party plugins to show either. I have tried several plugins and added the folder (usually containing a single php file) into the /plugins folder but they don't show up.

I'm probably missing something obvious but any help would be appreciated.

That is the clue ;-) Zenphoto plugins must be directly within the /plugins folder, not within a folder. It's either a file or a file and a folder. See also here:
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/zenphoto-plugin-architecture#template-theme-plugins
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/using-plugins-and-third-party-features
(Examples also for official plugins in /zp-core/zp-extensions/)

Well I think I did it. I have uploaded the plugin to GitHub and will update with any bugfixes as needed.

GitHub link: https://github.com/Epsilon8425/Zenphoto-noCapture-reCapture.git

Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.

Great, new plugins are always welcome. I will add an entry to our extensions section.

I just noticed I made a small mistake in the name/description of the plugin where I called it noCapture-reCapture instead of noCaptcha-reCaptcha. I have edited all of the files on Github.

Could you please update the details on the plugins page?

Ah, didn't notice that indeed. Sure, will update the entry. Gladly Github still redirects from the old url to the new as well.

Thanks for updating that for me. Unfortunately I couldn't get the link on the plugins page to work, it points to:

hhttps://github.com/Epsilon8425/Zenphoto-noCaptcha-reCaptcha

Which seems to have an extra "h" at the start. If I remove that the link works fine.

Sorry to be a nuisance, but would you mind checking the link for me? Thanks again for all of your help so far

Sure, just fixed it, one of these copy&paste typos. Btw, if you rename your readme.txt to readme.md you get the proper markdown formatting.

My thanks to Epsilon for creating this extension. Much appreciated. I tested it and it works, i.e. if I click the "I'm not a robot" box the email is sent and if I don't it isn't. I found that it needs a little CSS love to have it positioned nicely on the form. I stuck this in screen.css for Ardoise:

.g-recaptcha {
display: inline-block;
margin-bottom: 20px;
margin-top: 40px;
}

I have a general question about supported vs unsupported plugins. I did a search and found a thread where this is discussed, so I understand about the time the team has available to test these things. Personally I find it puzzling that two older plugins that provide a traditional style recapthcha are supported, but this nocaptcha plugin isn't. Nocaptcha is the way of the future, isn't it?

Simply time and priorities. I personally also rarely use comments and therefore captchas.

Since an apparently working third party plugin exists why should we waste limited resource to create our own? We may reduce the number of supported plugins in the future anyway.

But thinking about it it might make sense to provide one captcha plugin with all three options some time…

I guess my point was that it would make more sense to take this one over and support it rather than to continue to support the other two.

I have no idea if the original author is still supporting it at all. That might be an idea in this case, although we are generally very picky to take over third party stuff.

It wasn't clear to me either whether he is still supporting it. This was just a suggestion, given the direction that captcha technology seems to have taken. I've got it installed and working, so I'm not asking on my own account.

Sure, no problem. We're just can't monitor all plugins so I just mentioned I didn't know. If a plugin hasn't been update for years, does not always mean it is too old or unsupported. Some plugin can just work and simply don't need any update.

Rather funny, actually we need to switch to this anyway as the old recaptcha is being shut down soon being deprecated for a year already. Somehow missed that.

I hadn't noticed that either, but I'm not at all surprised. Actually the switch to Zen is good timing for me then, because I never managed to get nocaptcha to work in Gallery3. The nocapthca code is simple enough, but the Gallery3 plugin structure is rather complex and adapting the Gallery3 captcha plugin for nocaptcha pushed the limits of my programming ability. So I'd have been stranded.

[part two, due to post length limit. when will I get over this hurdle??]

The Zen plugin structure is simpler, but there are trade-offs. With Gallery3, there were a lot hooks for plugins to latch onto, which meant that you could write a plugin that was very configurable, particularly in relation to layout options, so that the non-programming user could just use it. With Zen, there often is a need to dabble a little in the code to use a plug-in. So they're much easier to write, but can require getting your hands dirty to use. At least that's the way it seems to me at this early stage. Personally I prefer the Zen approach.

I am not familiar with Gallery. We have a lot of hooks (or filters) as well but yes a lot requires indeed manual work. But the advantage is also offers huge flexibility if doing your own custom theme.