SlideShowPro News

02.05.10  |  Director 1.4.1 updated to build 4241

We’ve released a maintenance update for SlideShowPro Director, build 4241. Notable fixes include FFmpeg support for Windows servers and a fix for users of Flash 8, who were unable to test movies inside Flash with previous builds of 1.4.1.

This build also includes the latest work from our translation project. If your language is still not supported, translating it is easy and can be done entirely from your browser. For more, check out the translation project site.

A full changelog can be found on the wiki. The update is available now via the in-app upgrade or the account center.

02.01.10  |  SlidePress 1.3.4 update

A small update to SlidePress has been released this morning. This release — version 1.3.4 — fixes a problem with xmlprc and a relative path embed problem in installations using clean URLs. Users of SlidePress can grab the latest update from within the WordPress control panel or download manually from the WordPress Plugins directory.

01.30.10  |  Top 10 user examples for January, 2010

Every day, users of our products share their creations with us. From those submissions we pick the ten most creative, beautiful, and/or unique examples and include them in our monthly newsletter. Whichever site from those 10 stands out just a little more is crowned “Site of the Month”, which not only gives the winning user bragging rights, but also awards them with a free SlideShowPro t-shirt as our small way of saying ‘thank you’ for making us look so good.

SITE OF THE MONTH:

Ben Pieper
http://benpieperphoto.com
(SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid)

Ben Pieper is a photographer located in Kansas City, Missouri. He got his start in professional photography shooting for Hallmark, and now runs his own photography studio. His web site, powered by SlideShowPro for Flash and ThumbGrid, offers a full-browser presentation of his portfolio, including many wonderful shots of products and food (speaking of food, check out the Motion section for a fun video). As for presentation, the SlideShowPro player’s interface is turned off and scaled 100%. Alongside it on the right is ThumbGrid, presented in a dock-like fashion. Ben also layered barely-there arrows on top of content to travel backwards and forwards. In all, a really great presentation. Congrats to Ben for a job well done!

THE REMAINING TOP 9 (ALL FANTASTIC – DIVE IN!):

http://sbeelman.com/photography/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, SlideShowPro Director)

http://www.johnnysavage.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, SlideShowPro Director)

http://www.dirtybastardsmx.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash)

http://www.marcwilson.co.uk/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid)

http://sockittomenow.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash)

http://www.importedlight.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, SlideShowPro Director)

http://timmelideo.com/
(SlideShowPro Standalone, SlidePress, SlideShowPro Director)

http://www.krystamanthe.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, SlideShowPro Director)

http://www.phuket-luxury-villa.com/index.php
(SlideShowPro Standalone)

Note: To respect the privacy of our users, only those sites shared directly with us are considered and included. If you’d like us to consider your site for next month, please submit your site by sending an email or posting to the Show and Tell Forum.

01.29.10  |  SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.9.1 released

A point update for SlideShowPro for Lightroom has been released today. Version 1.4.9.1 brings the extension up to the latest version of the SlideShowPro player, and (should) resolve a problem with some user’s galleries where the player would sometimes fail to initialize correctly when refreshed in the browser. Users of SlideShowPro for Lightroom can download this free update from the account center

01.27.10  |  Cross domain policy file maker

Over the years, the SlideShowPro player has introduced many users to the Flash Player’s cross domain security wall. This firewall pops up whenever a SWF embedded at one domain attempts to load data (XML, RSS, etc) from a separate domain. Without a proper crossdomain.xml file at the separate domain, the Flash Player quietly shuts down the request (and thus prevents a slideshow from appearing).

To avoid common formatting errors when creating these crossdomain.xml files, we’ve built a handy Cross Domain Policy File Maker app. Simply type in the domains you need, download the file, then upload it to the root of the domain where data is served from.

This app is bare-bones by design, and doesn’t cover the complete range of options found in the cross domain policy file specification. Only the very slimmest percentage of people ever need something more than what this app provides, so we purposely kept it basic and user friendly. We hope it makes formatting these documents easier and error-free.

Check it out here.

12.30.09  |  Top 10 user examples for December 2009

Every day, users of our products share their creations with us. From those submissions we pick the ten most creative, beautiful, and/or unique examples and include them in our monthly newsletter. Whichever site from those 10 stands out just a little more is crowned “Site of the Month”, which not only gives the winning user bragging rights, but also awards them with a free SlideShowPro t-shirt as our small way of saying ‘thank you’ for making us look so good.

SITE OF THE MONTH:

Jar Design
http://www.freshnotcanned.com/work.htm
(SlideShowPro for Flash, Director)

Located in beautiful Burlington, VT USA, Jar Design is using SlideShowPro for Flash and our CMS product SlideShowPro Director to display their portfolio of work on their web site. The usage is simple, elegant, and incredibly easy to navigate. The gallery is loaded up with “fill” style album preview graphics (that have been customized with rounded corners), plus an external navigation consisting of a pair of forward/backward buttons and a gallery button that appears only when necessary. You can also switch between different galleries of content with the large buttons positioned underneath. Overall, the site is bold, fresh, and well executed. Congratulations to Jar Design and Deluge Studios for a job well done!

THE REMAINING TOP 9 (ALL FANTASTIC – DIVE IN!):

http://www.acfb.org/events/holiday_card/
(SlideShowPro for Flash)

http://www.gabrielabrustphotography.com/
(Custom Flash, Director API)

http://www.nicholasbreslow.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director)

http://finemotions.com
(SlideShowPro for Flash, Director)

http://www.iheartnola.com/?p=693
(SlidePress)

http://www.susanmcwhinney.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, Director)

http://www.huberthayaud.com/
(SlideShowPro for Lightroom)

http://www.pacosinisterra.com/
(SlideShowPro for Flash, Director)

http://www.outoftheblue.com/design/work.htm
(SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid)

Note: To respect the privacy of our users, only those sites shared directly with us are considered and included. If you’d like us to consider your site for next month, please submit your site by sending an email or posting to the Show and Tell Forum.

12.23.09  |  Holiday break

Our offices will be closed Dec 24th-27th for the Christmas holiday. Rest assured we’ll be keeping an eye on this site as well as all Director hosting accounts, so if anything goes wrong someone will be available to jump in and resolve the matter. Happy holidays, and we’ll talk to you again next week!

12.21.09  |  SlidePress 1.3.3 released

Now making its way up to the WordPress plugins directory is a 1.3.3 update for SlidePress. This is purely a bug-fix release that resolves a few issues that popped up in the past couple of weeks. You can read the list of updates here.

12.07.09  |  SlidePress 1.3.2 released

An update to SlidePress was posted this morning that addresses a handful of plugin bugs and feature updates. You should now be able to upgrade automatically within your WordPress installation, or download the update from the WordPress plugins directory.

The main new feature in this release is SWF uploading through the browser. This was formerly a manual process (only via FTP), and proved to be a bit cumbersome and error-prone for some new users. So we built in an uploader that creates the proper directories and moves the SWF to where it needs to go.

This release also updates the behavior of gallery style settings. Before, if galleries were created that borrowed the style settings of a saved gallery, and edits were made to the saved gallery settings thereafter, those changes would not update the “borrower” gallery. This update changes the behavior so that any galleries that use the settings of another gallery are “linked,” so to speak, so that changes to the original gallery settings are automatically migrated.

Also updated are usability improvements to the SlidePress button drop-down and the style settings drop-down. These now trigger a separate dialogue window to select galleries instead of displaying them inline. This should make selecting galleries in installations with many galleries much easier.

To read the full version history, click here.

12.02.09  |  Top 10 user examples for November 2009

Every day, users of our products share their creations with us. From those submissions we pick the ten most creative, beautiful, and/or unique examples and include them in our monthly newsletter. Whichever site from those 10 stands out just a little more is crowned “Site of the Month”, which not only gives the winning user bragging rights, but also awards them with a free SlideShowPro t-shirt as our small way of saying ‘thank you’ for making us look so good.

SITE OF THE MONTH:

Measure
http://www.designmeasure.com/

Iowa-based graphic design and communication studio Measure is using SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director to present their portfolio of print, editorial, and interactive work online. Underscored with an eye-opening background color animation, SlideShowPro for Flash is floated in the center of the site with a transparent background, a customized gallery icon, and a gallery that uses “Fill” style album previews. Measure has also augmented SlideShowPro for Flash with a caption element pinned to the right-side of the window that dynamically updates with textual content using SlideShowPro’s events. Last but certainly not least, Measure is also using PHP to access SlideShowPro Director’s API on a mobile page that includes selected works.

THE REMAINING TOP 9 (ALL FANTASTIC – DIVE IN!):

http://agendaphotography.co.uk/
http://www.roderickvosshop.nl/
http://www.alupacreative.com/portfolio
http://www.joequint.com/
http://www.mkippen.com/
http://www.jasonliske.com/
http://www.remusedstudio.com/
http://onmy.planet.ee/photo/
http://www.superyachtmedia.com/

Note: To respect the privacy of our users, only those sites shared directly with us are considered and included. If you’d like us to consider your site for next month, please submit your site by sending an email or posting to the Show & Tell Forum.