SlideShowPro News

05.13.08 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.6 released

This is just a quick release that changes the default setting of the "Smoothing" parameter added to the previous version (1.8.5) to "Off" instead of "On." Why the change? Well, it turns out that the smoothing filter caused problems when loading an XML file from a domain where cross-domain permission is granted, but the links contained inside the XML file point to separate domains. May sound like an edge-case problem, but it's fairly common with Media RSS feeds. So to keep things from being broken "out of the box" and causing unnecessary confusion, the parameter is now opt-in.

Nothing else is different in this build, so unless you were having issues similar to the aforementioned, you don't need to download it or update your slideshows. Update can be download through the account center.

05.09.08 | SSP for Flash 1.8.5 / SSP for Lightroom 1.2.6 released

New updates for both SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom have been released. Most notable in this release is a new "Smoothing" parameter (that replaces "Video Smoothing") that helps smooth out some of the jagginess when odd-size images are scaled and displayed in both products. This goes for everything from slideshow content to the thumbnail navigation and album previews. The extra processing required to generate the filter is negligible, but you can turn it off if need be.

These releases also fix a few other little tweaky things that were discovered recently. You can read about those in the updated version history at our new wiki.

Both updates are free for all current users and can be downloaded through your account center member profile.

05.07.08 | New help wiki launched

A couple of months ago we mentioned that a new help wiki for our products was in development, and today we're launching it. The wiki collects together all the content in our PDF-based user guides, how-to forum topics, forum stickies, API documentation, and more. We're hoping that the new format makes finding the content you need easier and faster.

Another reason for moving everything to HTML is to provide documentation in more than just English. Every document has an "Other Languages" box at the top right for alternate translations in Spanish, French and Italian. Right now pretty much everything is in English, and that's where we could use your help. Anyone can help translate a document by clicking a language link and entering their login and password to the account center. You'll then have full access to the non-English version of that document.

As for our existing documentation, we will continue to include the PDFs with our product downloads for at least another few weeks. That will give us time to fix any wiki issues, and hopefully get everyone accustomed to using the wiki to find the information they need before pulling the plug on everything that's been moved.

So when you have a chance, give it a look and let us know how it can be improved, or if you spot any mistakes / omissions.

05.01.08 | ChrisVector.com

Cristiano Siqueira, aka ChrisVector, uses SlideShowPro for Flash on his simple, elegant portfolio site to show off his incredible collection of vector illustrations and Photoshop wizardry. Chris is using the "Fill" Album Preview Style for his gallery, which allows an image to be used for each album element. He also removed the stroke that surrounds the component (through Content Area Stroke Appearance) to give his content clean edges all around. The navigation is styled with a muted gray with a hint of green, and the navigation icons are styled white with the shadow/bevel effects removed for a flat look. The link preview popups load a separate group of thumbnails that are purposely desaturated for a unique look. And finally, a drop shadow was applied underneath the SlideShowPro instance on the timeline (not something that's built into SSP, in case there's confusion) to lift the presentation off the page.

In all, very well executed and with tons of amazing, creative content to explore. Check it out.

04.22.08 | SSP for Flash 1.8.4 / SSP for Lightroom 1.2.5 released

Small update that patches an issue with the Dissolve transition style in both products, plus tweaks to permalink loading and album preview formatting in the Flash version.

Both updates are free, as always, and can be downloaded through your account center profile page.

04.17.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 4

As betas usually go - two steps forward, one step back. With the new metadata functionality we introduced in Beta 3, we inadvertently broke the link template functionality. Also, the new EXIF/IPTC dialogues were not showing up in IE 7. We've fixed both of these issues with Beta 4, now available via the account center.

As always, we appreciate your feedback (good or bad) through the 1.2 beta forum.

04.16.08 | SSP for Flash 1.8.3 / SSP for Lightroom 1.2.4 released

New versions of SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom are now available. Version 1.8.3 of SlideShowPro for Flash includes a handful of bug fixes related to transitions and scaling (full version history here), while the 1.2.4 build of SlideShowPro for Lightroom simply brings the gallery up to the same build as the Flash version.

Both updates are free, as always, and can be downloaded through your account center profile page.

Director 1.2 Beta 3: EXIF/IPTC support expanded

Although the major focus for Director 1.2 has been implementing the new API system, there was one other thing we have been itching to improve for some time now. As many of you have pointed out, most images are embedded with a rich set of metadata about when the image was taken and what settings were used. This valuable data is known as EXIF and is inserted into the file by the camera itself at the time the image is taken. Likewise, it is common for images to include IPTC data, which is data that is input in imaging software such as Photoshop or Lightroom. Many photographers use this data to identify the copyright owner, give the image a caption, and so on.

Up until now, Director has been mostly ignoring this data. However, starting with 1.2 Beta 3, we've revamped the album settings tab to expose quite a few EXIF and IPTC fields. We've also exposed more Director data, allowing you to quickly create dynamic captions and titles with a mix of Director, IPTC and EXIF data.

Director 1.2 Beta 3 is now available in the users area. Please do remember it is still in the beta stage, so use with care. Screenshots of the shiny new stuff:

04.07.08 | Taz Goldstein

One of the more unique customizations of SlideShowPro for Flash, the video portfolio site of LA based director Taz Goldstein has a clever layout and great content to match. The layout slices an image of Taz in two, with the top area comprised of a SWF, and the bottom being regular HTML. The SWF loads with a darkened version of the top half of the photo, then SlideShowPro for Flash appears with the same image as the first, but at full brightness, textual navigation cues set inside, and a tad shorter so that the darker version still shows underneath the navigation (which has its background alpha set to semi-transparent. From there the image changes to videos to present three pieces from Taz's portfolio, of which the second one is really quite funny -- especially for fans of the 70s Battlestar Galactica (of which I most certainly am). Check it out!

04.04.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.2.3 released

This release brings the Lightroom version of SlideShowPro up to date with the latest Flash build, plus a new export option: permalinks. This has been available in the Flash version for a while, but wasn't added to Lightroom because of the technical issues in doing so. But they're in there now, and make it quite easy to copy a direct URL to a particular piece of slideshow content. You can read more in the updated SlideShowPro for Lightroom User Guide (the new "Extra options" chapter). Update can be downloaded here.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.2 released

Version 1.8.2 is now available for download. This release incorporates the changes to permalink functionality described earlier, a rewritten chapter on permalinks in the SlideShowPro for Flash Customization Guide, plus a couple of other small fixes. Update can be downloaded here.

04.03.08 | Permalink problems explained. Important changes ahead.

Lately there have been reports of issues when using the permalinks option in SlideShowPro for Flash. The problems stem from two factors unrelated to the component itself, but important nonetheless. First, there's a bug in the latest version of Flash Player 9 (9.0.115.0) for Internet Explorer on Windows that prevents javascript communication between SWFs and HTML (with AS that doesn't use ExternalInterface -- more on that in a minute). Two, in another IE related problem, SWFObject 2.0 -- the popular javascript method for embedding SWFs -- has issues when using VBScript, which is part of the process for how permalinks are used in IE.

Now, both of these problems are related to the fact that SlideShowPro for Flash's method for using permalinks dates back to Flash Player 7, before Macromedia made Flash/Javascript communication easier with their ExternalInterface class in Flash Player 8. It's precisely these old-school ways of communicating with Javascript that's causing both of these issues.

We could wait and see if Adobe fixes this problem in the next build to Flash Player 9, but if history is any indication (been doing this longer than I'd care to admit), this holds a good chance of not being resolved; especially since Adobe has been making numerous security/scripting changes to Flash Player 9 lately, and I doubt they'll be in the mood to open holes to allow outdated code to work.

With that, the next point update to SlideShowPro for Flash will get rid of the old school way and support ExternalInterface instead, which will cut out a bunch of unnecessary code and make permalinks easier to deploy. The downside though is that users of Flash MX 2004 will not be able to use permalinks. They will only work when published from Flash 8 or Flash CS3.

But as we've mentioned before with the updated transition styles, the vast majority of people these days are using Flash 8 or newer, so it's a change that shouldn't affect that many people.

So if you're having permalink problems, hold tight. A fix is on the way soon.

SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.2.2 released

Small patch to fix a couple of bugs found in the previous build. Click here to read the updated version history.

04.02.08 | Adobe Lightroom 2.0 public beta out in the wild

Want to see what's coming in the next big update to Adobe Lightroom? Well, you're in luck. Adobe has just released a public beta for Lightroom 2.0 that new or existing Lightroom users can try out. If you don't own Lightroom 1, it's a 30 day trial. If you do, you can use it until August 31, 2008.

As for SlideShowPro for Lightroom, we've been testing it with earlier (private) 2.0 betas, and everything works as expected. So you can use the extension with it just the same.

03.31.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.2.1 released

Small update that simply brings the Lightroom version up to date with the just-released 1.8.1 build of SlideShowPro for Flash. Free update for all SlideShowPro for Lightroom users, and can be downloaded here.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.1 released

Bug fix release that patches up a few issues found after 1.8.0 went out the door. Also added a couple of new JSFL commands for manipulating instances of SlideShowPro for Flash. One resizes the component to fit the Stage, while the other does the opposite. Both provide a quick and easy way to make the Stage and SlideShowPro for Flash the same dimension for quicker exporting.

Complete version history available here. Update is free for all SlideShowPro for Flash users, and can be downloaded here.

03.28.08 | SlideShowPro Director Lightroom export plugin available

Now that we have the beta version of SlideShowPro Director 1.2 out, which includes a new API, we're also making available the new Lightroom export plugin we talked about earlier this week. This plugin is also considered a beta, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Note that this plugin requires the 1.2 beta of SlideShowPro Director in order to work, and does not currently work with the Windows version of Lightroom when exporting to slideshowpro.com hosting accounts (exporting from Windows to an installation of SlideShowPro Director 1.2 on your own server seems to work fine).

So if you're interested in trying it out, feel free to download here and let us know what you think.

03.27.08 | Director 1.2 Beta now available

We've finally chased down the last few issues with Director 1.2 and have released it in beta form via the Account Center here at slideshowpro.net. The regular disclaimers about using beta software apply.

Before we get to the exciting stuff, a word of warning about 1.2. You can only upgrade existing installs of Director to 1.2 if the existing install is running Director 1.1 or later. So, if you are still running 1.0.9.9 (or an even earlier version), you will first need to upgrade to 1.1.9 (the latest release of the 1.1 line), then you can upgrade to 1.2.

So what's new? At first glance, Director 1.2 looks quite a bit like Director 1.1. It's beneath the surface that the most notable change has been implemented, as Director has been fitted with a new API that opens up Director's data and imagery to just about anything you can dream up.

There are a few notable fixes and additions in Director itself. First, Director now exposes more data to link templates, allowing you to create more useful, custom link templates. The link template system now also has access to the on-demand image publishing system, so you can link to an optimized copy of the image. To illustrate this, a new link template is included in the update that opens an optimized copy of the image at 800x800 in a chromeless popup window. One final fix that is noteworthy - we've finally found a fix for the batch selection issue on Mac browsers. Yeah!

There's more too, so be sure to check out the full changelog for your favorite change/fix.

03.26.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.2.0 released

This release mainly brings the Lightroom version up to date with the 1.8.0 release of SlideShowPro for Flash. This includes modifications to the parameter interface plus the default templates to reflect changes made in 1.8.0.

The 1.2.0 update does include however one new feature, and an important change to how thumbnail previews are displayed. As for the new, a radio button was added named "Expand Browser Window" that will modify your exported HTML document so that it automatically expands the browser window to fill 100% of a user's monitor. This will come in handy for people who are publishing large slideshows, which require larger than normal browser windows in order to adequately present. The option is turned off by default.

The second change is with thumbnail link previews. Before, you simply modified "Thumb Width/Height" to change both the exported size of your thumbnails, and the size of the pop-up link previews. This turned out however to be a problem with people trying to export large images to use as album previews, so additional parameters were added ("Link Preview Width/Height") for independent control over the size of the link preview windows.

Update is free for all current SlideShowPro for Lightroom users, and can be downloaded here.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.0 released

Hot and fresh out of the oven is a new point update for SlideShowPro for Flash that brings the component up to version 1.8.0. New in this release are four new transitions: "Blur," "Dissolve," "Drop" and "Push."

Both "Blur" and "Dissolve" are transitions I've wanted to incorporate for a long, long time, but purposely withheld because they weren't compatible with SWFs published from Flash MX 2004. Today though, the vast majority of our users have Flash 8 or Flash CS3, so the time felt right to add these in. If you're a Flash MX 2004 user, you'll have to update your IDE to Flash 8 or higher in order to use these two new transitions. (Note: the home page of this site was updated to use the "Blur" "Dissolve" transition, if you'd like to see a preview).

"Drop" and "Push" work in all supported versions of Flash. "Drop" is a transition that was added to an early beta, removed, and forgotten about. This release brings it back, plus the new "Push" transition which is similar to the "Filmstrip" customization demo we have in the account center in that new content pushes old content out of the way.

This release also unhinges the "Gallery Navigation" (the previous/next screen buttons) from the "Album..." parameters that used to control its appearance. The nav now has its own set of parameter settings, which allows for more creative control and will be less confusing to new users of the product.

Also in 1.8.0 are a few bug fixes and general updates, which you can read about in the version history. Update can be downloaded here.

03.24.08 | Coming soon: SlideShowPro Director export plugin for Lightroom

By popular request, we're currently putting the finishing touches on a new SlideShowPro Director export plugin for Adobe Lightroom. What does it do? It allows you export images from the Lightroom Library directly into an installation of SlideShowPro Director on your own web server, or a hosted version of Director on our site. You'll be able to choose either an existing album to populate with your photos, or create a new album as part of the upload process. The plugin will also (optionally) maintain the titles and captions already assigned to your images in Lightroom.

The plugin is possible because of the new SlideShowPro Director API which is currently in private beta and scheduled to be released as part of the upcoming 1.2 update (which should be out soon). The plugin will be available, free of charge, once 1.2 is out the door.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

03.22.08 | We want your parameters!

The recent builds of SlideShowPro for Flash incorporate a couple of handy JSFL scripts (accessible through the Commands menu in Flash CS3) that make exporting/importing parameter values easy. They allow you to export all of the customizations you've made to an instance of SlideShowPro in one FLA, and import / apply those custom settings to a brand new instance in a separate FLA. They were designed to make upgrading component instances cleaner and safer, but they had the unintended side effect of allowing people to share their parameters without having to share their FLAs.

With that, we thought it would be cool to offer a page here on the site where SlideShowPro for Flash users can preview, download, and share parameters. They would allow people who are new to the component the ability to quickly modify all the settings in an instance without having to manually change parameters; similar to how templates work in SlideShowPro for Lightroom.

So, if you use Flash CS3, and have an instance of SlideShowPro that's been styled in a way that diverges from the default settings, and wouldn't mind sharing your work with others, feel free to email us your XML file. You can do so by selecting "Commands > SSP - Export Param XML", save the XML file, and email it to us an attachment. You will of course receive name credit for your contribution.

Thanks in advance.

03.19.08 | Adobe yanks Lightroom 1.4 update

Lightroom users, heads up! Did you download the 1.4 update for Lightroom that Adobe pushed out the door on March 14th? Well, a couple of days later Adobe pulled the release, and is now (in the words of Tom Hogarty) recommending that anyone who installed 1.4 should uninstall it and reinstall Lightroom 1.3.1. I'm running 1.4, and haven't had any issues thus far, but if you're the paranoid type you might want to consider following their instructions. A 1.4.1 patch release is forthcoming, but no word on when that'll be available.

Alex Rapada Photography

Simple, clean, and beautiful, Alex Rapada's portfolio site is using SlideShowPro for Lightroom on multiple pages of his website to showcase his work. The home page rotates between two "welcome" images, while the rest of his portfolio is divided up into topics for fashion, weddings, people, and life. The slideshow in each topic area uses the "Random" Content Order option, the "Numbers" navigation style, and removes all of the strokes and background color from the component for a sophisticated look. The transition style is "Fade to Background," and the timer element is positioned inside each photo (instead of the content area, where a white timer wouldn't have been visible) by setting Feedback Timer Position to "Inside Content." A simple, effective presentation. Lots of great portfolio work to check out as well.

03.16.08 | AS3 version of SlideShowPro for Flash

A handful of SlideShowPro for Flash users have inquired when or if an ActionScript 3.0 compatible version of the component will be available. The answer? Yes, a 3.0 version is currently in development, and should be available sometime within the next few months.

The plan is for the 3.0 version to be exactly the same as the 2.0 version. As a matter of fact, you probably won't be able to tell the difference between the two. The ActionScript API will be different, especially in regard to handling events broadcasted by the component, but for the most part it should work just the same.

Unfortunately, converting all the functionality that's in SlideShowPro for Flash from 2.0 to 3.0 won't be trivial. Entire sections of the component will need to be re-coded, which of course opens up plenty of ways for things to break. So it'll simply take some time to transcode it all, and ensure it's working properly before putting it out there. A public beta will be offered once we have something available for testing.

03.12.08 | Elena Kulikova

Photographer and model Elena Kulikova is using SlideShowPro for Flash on a number of pages at her web site, including most notably the Fashion gallery. SlideShowPro is sized nice and large, with images used for the album previews in the gallery that contain the album title set inside the images using the typeface of the site (a similar look can be obtained without adding text to the graphics by using the "Banner" Album Preview Style in SlideShowPro, and embedding a typeface for them to use). The photography is beautiful, and the crisp white/blue theme is very clean and pleasurable. Tons of amazing images, so be prepared to stay a while.

Note: some of the photography may be considered NSFW, depending of course on where you work, so be advised.

03.05.08 | New button pack: "Pearl"

Now available for purchase/download is a brand new button pack for SlideShowPro for Flash users named "Pearl." This pack is just like the popular "Quartz" pack in that it comes with 18 icons in both 16px and 24px sizes, with the smaller size optimized for use with the "Numbers" navigation link appearance and the larger optimized for "Thumbnails." The set is comprised of 24-bit semi-transparent PNGs with subtle outlines and highlights that look great when set on top of all kinds of colors.

"Pearl" is just 9 bucks, and really easy to implement in your SWFs. Check out the "How Button Packs Work" screencast video for a bird's eye view, or hop on over to the purchase page to download your copy.

03.04.08 | Mavada

Web design and development company Mavada is using SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director to manage and display multiple slideshows and interactive product overviews throughout their beautifully designed web site. You wouldn't know it, but SlideShowPro is powering their portfolio overview, which includes SWF animations of their work and (through some fancy ActionScript) automatically moves the slideshow forward when each animation completes. You can also jump directly to a particular case study through the tabs on the right. SlideShowPro is also used on their tools page, where a clever side-navigation of software boxes is used to load particular SWF animations, as well as all of their client case study pages, including this one for product design company PDu. Here, more SWF animations are used, but they're using SlideShowPro's built-in auto-playback timer to step through / loop the product screenshots. Beautiful work all around.

02.28.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1.4 released

This release keeps the Lightroom version in sync with Flash, plus fixes a vertical alignment problem when not using the wet floor effect.

Registered users can download here if interested.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.4 released

This fixes a drawing issue with a few parameters when assigned values via ActionScript, plus a crazy conflict when using the component in FLAs that have Arial embedded in dynamic text fields (ahhh Flash, you crazy devil).

Registered users can download here if interested.

02.26.08 | Trials available across the board

After far longer than I'd care to admit, we finally have a free, fully functional trial of SlideShowPro for Flash for people to download, test out, and kick around. Containing both the Flash extension and the standalone version (in SWF form), the trial is exactly like the real product except it's limited in the amount of content it can load (three pieces of content total).

With that, all three of our products now offer free trials for new users to try out. This isn't exactly useful news for existing users, but hey. Better late than never, as they say.

02.25.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1.3 released

This update brings the Lightroom version up to the latest build of SlideShowPro, plus throws in a couple of small updates, including more accurate vertical centering when using the wet floor effect, and a modification to the loader.swf and index.html files so that the path/file name of "param.xml" can be modified through FlashVars if necessary.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.3 released

A patch update that fixes a few full screen related issues, plus a little glitchy issue when calling the nextImage() / previousImage() methods repeatedly. The standalone version was also updated in this release to support dynamically assigning the path to "param.xml" in case developers need to assign a file with a different name or location. If interested, you can read the full update notes here.

02.22.08 | Shannon Jensen

It's always interesting to see what Flash developers who know their way around ActionScript can do with SlideShowPro for Flash, and photographer Shannon Jensen is no exception. Shannon's portfolio uses SlideShowPro, but you won't see the component anywhere. Instead, Shannon is hiding SlideShowPro and leveraging the data and imagery it loads from SlideShowPro Director to construct her own navigation and playback system (based on the experimental "Filmstrip" demo we offer on the SlideShowPro for Flash download page). Shannon is also dynamically resizing imagery according to the browser window size by manipulating the size of the (unseen) SlideShowPro for Flash instance. And to top it all off, some really great photography in there as well. In all, one of the more creative (and advanced) uses of the component around.

02.18.08 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.2 Released

This release squashes an album switching / video bug, plus a problem with requesting "Crop to Fit All" content from Director when using the "Fullscreen" Content Format option. Also modified the behavior of "Video Auto Start" so that when set to "Off," the preview is treated like regular slideshow content and can be rotated in auto-playback mode just like imagery. Clicking a video play button stops playback and plays the video.

The one thing that's new is the formal addition of the export/import JSFL commands I wrote about recently, which have been updated since that initial beta to prevent versions of Flash earlier than CS3 from running the scripts, plus better error handling when an instance of SlideShowPro for Flash can't be found on the FLA Stage.

While I was playing around with JSFL, I went ahead and threw a third command into the install package that does one simple (but time saving) thing -- grabs SlideShowPro for Flash from the Components Panel, places it on the Stage, aligns it to the top left (0,0), assigns an instance name of "my_ssp", and renames the timeline layer it sits on to "ssp". Pretty handy if you find yourself creating as many FLAs as I do.

Update can be downloaded from the SlideShowPro for Flash download page.

02.15.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1.2 Released

This update patches an issue from the previous update where link previews weren't using the correct size (as assigned through Thumb Width/Height). Recommended for anyone who's using 1.1.1 and non-default values for link previews.

Lazarides Design + Construction

Home builder Lazarides Design + Construction is using SlideShowPro on their web site to showcase their portfolio of architectural work, which includes a wide variety of luxury home styles. LD+C uses the Album Preview "Fill" style to show a large example of each style, plus titling inside the image. They also swapped out the default navigation of SlideShowPro with their own custom buttons that match the color / style of their web site. Great looking site overall as well.

02.14.08 | Twitter user? Follow SSP.

Perhaps you've heard of Twitter. If so, chances are you have an account and use it to keep up with friends, news and whatever else you fancy. So to keep Twitter users in touch with all things SSP, today we added a Twitter profile that automatically receives published news from here on the site, and will be updated from time to time with random links and things that don't necessarily warrant a news post here.

Want to follow along? Click here to visit our profile and click on the "Follow" button under our logo. And if you're in need of a Twitter client and use OS X, check out Twitterrific. Tweet tweet.

02.13.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1.1 Released

This release brings the Lightroom version up to the 1.7.1 release of SlideShowPro for Flash, and includes a few Lightroom-specific fixes and updates. To read more about what's in 1.1.1, check out the version history.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.1 Released

Purely a bug fix release that addresses a number of issues found in the initial 1.7 release of SlideShowPro for Flash. To read more about what's in 1.7.1, check out the version history.