SlideShowPro News

07.02.09 | SlideShowPro Director 1.3.8 released

We've released Director 1.3.8 to squash a few bugs that popped up in the recently released 1.3.7. Most of the issues revolved around the new "Download original image" link template, but this release also fixes a problem that surfaced in 1.3.7 that would prevent you from deleting albums.

Version History | Download

06.29.09 | SlideShowPro Director 1.3.7, DirectorPHP 1.1.5 released

Hot off the press are two maintenance releases for SlideShowPro Director (1.3.7) and the DirectorPHP class (1.1.5).

Director 1.3.7 is mostly a bug-fix release, but does include a few additions. Most notably, we now include a "Download original image" link template and we've changed our uploader so that it recognizes IPTC keywords and automatically adds them as tags. For a list of all the changes in this releases, have a peek at the version history.

You can download the Director update by logging into your account center profile and the DirectorPHP update is available on the Director extras page.

If you are using the SlideShowPro Director hosting service at slideshowpro.com, your installs are already running 1.3.7, so enjoy!

06.20.09 | Google now indexing external Flash content

Google has been indexing text found inside SWF files for a while now, but on Thursday they announced that they've added external content as part of their Flash indexing system. What exactly does that mean? It means that Google can now "see" the XML file that SlideShowPro loads and index any image links contained therein. When indexed, the images are associated with the SWF and HTML document embedding them so click-throughs would lead users to your slideshow.

Now, it's worth pointing out that this is brand new, and we've yet to test their claim, but it's an exciting development for anyone who would like their slideshow content to be discoverable by search engines. If you'd rather not let Google index your content, you can add a directive to your robots.txt file to block it.

06.17.09 | Top 10 user examples for June 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:

Cooperative Studios
http://www.cooperativestudios.com/

Cooperative Studios is a French multimedia company that specializes in providing surf and beach culture video content to news media and corporate clientele. Their web site, cooperativestudios.com, was developed by Will Hindson and uses SlideShowPro for Flash, SlideShowPro ThumbGrid, and SlideShowPro Director to present their portfolio of videos, plus photography. Interestingly, ThumbGrid (overlaid with a cool weathered frame) is used as an introductory navigational element in their "Footage" and "Portfolio" sections to dictate which video SlideShowPro for Flash should start with. Content captions are displayed outside of the component using ThumbGrid's rollover events. After selection, ThumbGrid moves out of view, and SlideShowPro for Flash appears. The component is augmented with lateral navigation links, as well as a close button to move back. According to the developer, the protected area of their site (where clients download assets) also uses SlideShowPro Director to offer download links to the original, high-resolution video files. In summary, it's a cool, creative, easily updatable web presence that is our pick for June "Site of the Month."

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

http://www.mileskirk.com/
http://www.olgastefatou.com/
http://www.amyguip.com/
http://www.guyaslan.com/
http://www.danhigginsphotographer.com/
http://www.vincentmounier.com/
http://www.shreniksadalgi.com/
http://www.t-photographic.com/
http://maziarzpeople.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.

06.05.09 | Say hello to Rob Henrichon

After corresponding with numerous people about our need for another support person, we've decided on Rob Henrichon -- a longtime SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director user who has worked within the internet industry for a number of years; including a support role for a large email marketing company. Rob will be assisting us (and you) with support questions regarding SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director, so you can expect to see his name in both the forums as well as in support emails from us starting next Monday. Welcome aboard Rob!

06.02.09 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.6 released

The 1.4.6 version of SlideShowPro for Lightroom is now available for download in the account center. This release includes the new pan and zoom functionality we talked about last week.

Also updated is a small change to how the gallery title and description in the Header element is populated. The values are now read from the gallery element in images.xml instead of param.xml. This allows gallery titles and descriptions from SlideShowPro Director to appear as expected.

05.29.09 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.6 released

The 1.9.6 version of SlideShowPro for Flash is now available for download through the account center. As announced yesterday, this release includes pan and zoom (a.k.a. "Ken Burns") for slowly scaling / moving photos in your slideshows.

If you are a SlideShowPro Director user, and intend to use pan and zoom, you should update to the Director 1.3.6 version that was also released today. It includes enhanced functionality when loading slideshow content that has focal points assigned to them when using pan and zoom.

If you haven't updated component instances in Flash before, we recommend viewing this updating video which demonstrates how.

Also, if you are a "Standalone" user of SlideShowPro, we have now made that version a separate download from the Flash Extension. Too many people were confused by the presence of the Standalone files in the same archive, so we made it separate. It's now linked separately on the SlideShowPro for Flash product download page in the account center.

The Lightroom version of SlideShowPro will be updated to this release early next week. SlideShowPro Director Hosting subscribers can also expect their accounts to be updated to the latest version of Director soon.

SlideShowPro Director 1.3.6, DirectorPHP 1.1.4 released

A new point update for SlideShowPro Director is now available for download in the account center. This release, version 1.3.6, includes updated focal point functionality to support the new pan and zoom effect added to SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.6 (also coming out today).

Outside of focal point, SlideShowPro Director 1.3.6 also includes a new UI theme named "Platinum." It's a middle-ground of sorts between the default Director theme and the extra "White" theme. See screenshot below.

For a full list of the changes, see the Director version history. This update is free for all SlideShowPro Director self-install users and can be downloaded through the account center. Then see the upgrading instructions for assistance, if necessary.

We've also updated the DirectorPHP class to 1.1.4, fixing a few bugs that have popped up recently. It can be downloaded from the Director extras page.

Say hello (again) to Tim

Today we're pleased to announce that Tim McFadden, someone who's historically been quite active in our community forums, will now be helping us (and you) with product support on a daily basis. Tim will be focusing mainly on SlideShowPro for Lightroom as well as the Lightroom to Director plugin.

We still plan on acquiring an additional hand to provide support for SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director, and hope to have someone filling that role soon.

05.27.09 | Pan and zoom in SlideShowPro

Pan and zoom, also known as the "Ken Burns" effect, is something that a number of SlideShowPro users have requested over time. Today we're pleased to announce that the next point update (1.9.6) will include support for it. Below is a preview.

Pan and zoom is independent of transitions, and actually works with all transition styles (with the exception of "Push"). You'll be able to control the direction ("In", "Out", "In and Out" and "Random"), whether the panning/zooming completes before moving on to the next piece of content (while in auto-playback), and the minimum and maximum zoom scale that should be used when zooming in and/or out.

If you are loading content from SlideShowPro Director, there's an extra bonus. Focal points (see left) assigned to images will be adhered to while panning/zooming. For example, if a subject in a photo is at the far left of the frame, and a focal point has been applied to the subject in Director, SlideShowPro will pan/zoom in a manner that will ensure that area stays in view. That way, your pan/zoom doesn't focus on an empty area of the image and zoom the subject out of the frame.

These focal points will also be respected in full screen mode, so regardless of whether you view the slideshow in the HTML document or in full screen mode, the pan/zoom effect will always look good.

We're now testing out a few more things, and should be able to release the SlideShowPro for Flash update tomorrow. More news then!

05.22.09 | SlideShowPro ThumbGrid 1.2.4 released

A new point update for SlideShowPro ThumbGrid is now available for download. This release adds more options to the existing Thumb Zoom Overflow parameter for additional control over where thumbnails can extend when upscaled. You were previously limited to "Top and Bottom" or "Left and Right", but you can now choose just one of those sides, or a combination of the two ("Top and Right", for example). This should give ThumbGrid users much more flexibility with where they position the component on the Stage.

Also new is a "clickThumb" event, which is similar to the existing "currentThumb" event, except it only broadcasts when a thumbnail has actually been clicked with the mouse (as opposed to being selected through other means).

SlideShowPro ThumbGrid users can download this update through the account center.

05.20.09 | Top 10 user examples for May 2009

Every month loads of SlideShowPro users 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 site's designer 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:

Gene Smirnov
http://www.genesmirnov.com/

Gene Smirnov's web site is the total package. Rich typography, a simple layout, and a portfolio of work that's overflowing with amazing photography. Smirnov is based in Philadelphia, and has shot photos for many music publications (Spin, Rolling Stone, URB, etc), record labels, and other corporate clients. Much of that work is presented using SlideShowPro for Flash for viewing and navigating between content, as well as SlideShowPro ThumbGrid which is layered (invisibly) above and accessed by clicking the center of each photo. Smirnov is also using the "Line" Preloader Appearance, which is positioned at the bottom of the content area, and a "Push" Transition Style that uses a very low setting for Transition Length; allowing content to quickly "pop" into view. Congratulations to Smirnov for a job well done.

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

http://www.WillKeeler.com/

http://www.lakitchen.es/

http://nkurence.com/

http://www.chrislearyweddings.com/

http://www.doodlebread.com/

http://www.monicalavandera.com/

http://visceralindustry.com/

http://www.cooperstudios.net/

http://seanmcginty.com/flash/

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.

05.18.09 | 22 new product videos

If you're like us, chances are you'd rather watch a video to learn how software works rather than dig through written documentation. And while we've produced a handful of product videos in the past, we've never focused on "just the basics" to better explain what our products are and how they're used. So we stepped back and produced over 20 new videos geared towards people who've never seen or used SlideShowPro, as well as those looking for clarification on how certain features work. We've also included a few tutorial videos demonstrating common tasks like updating component instances in Flash and merging slideshows published from Lightroom.

Check them out!

We're hiring! Need another support specialist.

Need some extra work? We're looking to hire another support specialist to provide basic to intermediate product assistance in the forums, via email, and other community support / troubleshooting tasks. Candidates should be fairly well versed in SlideShowPro as well as SlideShowPro Director, and be available during regular business hours (in the United States or a neighboring country).

If interested, please contact us for more information. We look forward to hearing from you!

SlideShowPro Director Hosting updated to 1.3.5

All subscribers to our SlideShowPro Director Hosting service received an update to version 1.3.5 this past Friday night (that actually coincided with a back-end infrastructure update as well). Everything is working fine for the vast majority of users, though we have heard some reports from a few subscribers of broken images in Director's administrative UI, which we're now looking into. If you sign in to your account and see anything unusual, please let us know.

In case you missed our previous news post about 1.3.5, read this to see what's new. And if you'd like to be instantly notified about hosting subscription updates in the future, bookmark our status site, or follow us on Twitter.

05.14.09 | SlideShowPro Director survey, in the mail

If you use SlideShowPro Director, sometime today you will receive an email from us asking you to participate in an online user survey.

Why, you ask? Well, we've found that in almost every internal conversation we've had about Director, we've made assumptions about how the product is used, what people use it for, etc. But we don't have any raw, quantifiable data to back those assumptions up with.

So with your help, we'll not only get a clearer picture about who you are and how you use Director, but your input will also help shape the future direction of our products.

To say thanks, once the survey is over we'll randomly pick 10 submissions and offer either a free SlideShowPro t-shirt, or tack-on 6 months to your SlideShowPro Director Hosting subscription (if you have one). Your choice! We greatly appreciate your time and feedback.

Note: If you don't see an email sometime today, check your SPAM folder to see if it landed there.

05.13.09 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.5 released

A new point release for SlideShowPro for Lightroom is now available for download in the account center. This release brings the gallery up to date with the latest version of SlideShowPro for Flash (1.9.5), and also includes a little re-organization of Content and Transition parameters (away from the "Images" area and into their own respective panels) so they are easier to locate.

05.11.09 | SlideShowPro Director 1.3.5 released

Version 1.3.5 of SlideShowPro Director is now available for download in the account center. This release of SlideShowPro Director includes a number of product functionality improvements and additions, including the following.

Revised edit content layout
The edit content area has been updated with a new layout. Of note is improved placement of the lateral navigation, plus a three column layout to allow more room for new content options (more on those next). The area also includes a "View original" button to pop-open the uploaded image (or video) in a separate window. Here's a screenshot:

Content metadata
The edit content area now displays general information about each image/video underneath the preview image, including its dimensions, when it was uploaded, etc. And if you want to see all the EXIF/IPTC metadata embedded in a photo, or the metadata that's embedded in a video, click the "More info" button and a dialogue will appear containing everything that's in there (see below).

Improved video previews
A popular request from those using video in SlideShowPro (and ThumbGrid), SlideShowPro Director now allows you to assign separate preview images for a video's "large" preview image (what appears before a video when setting VIDEO/Auto Start to "Off"), and for the video's thumbnail, which appears in SlideShowPro's navigation (or in ThumbGrid). You may either use image(s) already uploaded to the album containing the video, or upload new images. If new images are uploaded, focal points may be assigned like any other image. Screenshot of editing preview image below.

Appearance scheduling
Another request came from those using SlideShowPro Director on sites where slideshow content needed to change depending on which day a slideshow was being viewed. So new in 1.3.5 is an "Appearance" option available with every image and video that allows you to control when an asset is viewable using a calendar interface. For example, you could setup a slideshow that includes different content for each day of the week, and SlideShowPro Director would automatically change the content being published in the album when requested for a slideshow. Screenshot on right.

Optimized thumbnail navigation images
To support the new functionality in SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.5 which allows a separate batch of thumbnail images to be used for navigation links (instead of one batch for both links and the link previews), SlideShowPro Director now publishes a separate stream of thumbnail images for the navigation links. This means not only smaller images / file sizes and faster loading, but also improved image cropping through Director's focal point utility.

For more update information, see the Director version history in the wiki.

If you have SlideShowPro Director installed on your own server, you can download the 1.3.5 update here. If you are a subscriber for our SlideShowPro Director Hosting, accounts will be updated this upcoming weekend to coincide with an existing maintenance update for reduced downtime.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.5 released

A new point release for SlideShowPro for Flash is now available for download in the account center.

Version 1.9.5 has the usual mix of edge-case fixes and tweaks, but there's one new feature that's completely new, and that's the ability to load a separate batch of images for the thumbnail navigation.

Currently, SlideShowPro re-uses the same images in the thumbnail navigation that the mouse-over link previews use. This makes creating thumbnail content easier, and requires fewer files, but also means that unnecessarily large files for the navigation links can be loaded (making the population slower), and also prevents SlideShowPro Director's "focal point" functionality from creating images that are cropped specifically for the navigation links.

If you create your own slideshow content, you may continue to load a single batch of thumbnails if you want to -- you just have more options now should you want more control. SlideShowPro Director users (those who upgrade to the new 1.3.5 version, also out today) will receive this second batch of thumbnail images automatically.

As part of this update, the Photoshop export scripts have also been updated so they produce a second batch of thumbnail images that are cropped to fit the dimensions you enter.

Full version history available here. For more information on how to edit your own XML document and images to support this, see the updated wiki document. To download, sign in to your account center profile.

04.30.09 | Slide Press in the news

The excellent work of Scott Shelton, developer of the popular Slide Press plugin for SlideShowPro, was featured today in two articles. The first as part of a Smashing Magazine feature, the other an interview at LostInTechnology. If you are both a WordPress and SlideShowPro user, but haven't checked out Slide Press yet, check it out.

04.21.09 | Top 10 user examples for April 2009

Every month loads of SlideShowPro users share their creations with us. From those submissions we pluck out 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 site's designer 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:

Number Eight Wired
http://www.numbereightwired.com/

Featuring the work of designer / coder / 3D artist George Coltart, Number Eight Wired is easily one of the most unique sites we've ever come across. From the stunning opening animation (which is actually a preloader -- look closely) to the surreal 3D bouquet of animals and palm trees, Coltart's talents are unmistakable. It comes as no surprise then to note that for the past couple of years he's worked at the interactive agency Hi-ReS!, which has historically produced some of the most memorable, groundbreaking Flash sites on the web.

According to Coltart, who obviously has considerable ActionScript coding skills, he was "dreading" building the "Work" section of his site, for it would require dynamic updating, be navigable, etc. So to save time he used SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director, which "...stepped in and saved me countless hours."

As for how he customized SlideShowPro, its navigation was removed in the "Work" section; leaving just the Content Area for his images. He then augmented the component with his own previous / next navigation links, and used SlideShowPro's preloader events to render his own animation that slides across the top of the browser window (look up!). He also integrated his own tool tips and and other UI animations outside of the component that use a style identical to the ones inside SlideShowPro for visual unity all around.

SlideShowPro is also used in the "Reel" section to present a video of his work. Here he simply displays the media player interface on rollover, plus a Content Area tool tip / link to load a QuickTime version in a separate window.

Congratulations to George for a job well done!

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

http://www.industry11.com/portfolio

http://scherer-food-photography.com/

http://www.boyzandgirls.com/bluray.html

http://www.alonsocreative.com/work-photography-set-up-events.php

http://www.miszkinis.com

http://www.marcusroyhoffman.com

http://www.gerhardtrieb.at

http://www.alt-img.com

http://www.marciahamilton.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 through the links below.

Show & Tell Forum
Contact us

04.20.09 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.4 released

This point release brings the Lightroom version up to date with the latest build of the Flash component (1.9.4). New UI controls have been added for Audio Auto Start as well as Feedback Preloader Text Size. Registered users of SlideShowPro for Lightroom can download this update from the account center.

04.17.09 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.4 released

A new point update release for SlideShowPro for Flash is now available for download in the account center.

This release has its usual mix of tweaks and fixes, but also rolls in a couple of new parameters: Audio Auto Start and Feedback Preloader Text Size. The first allows audio that's associated with an album to not auto-playback when the album loads, and instead lets the user initiate playback themselves (note that the textStrings property was updated as well to include messaging for the media player when Audio Auto Start is turned off). As for the latter, a Text Size parameter was added to control the point size of the text field inside the new "Beam" preloader. This should certainly come in handy for those using bitmap typefaces that require specific point sizes in order to work.

Check out the full version history notes here.

04.09.09 | FoxyCart and SlideShowPro

For those who are interested in integrating e-commerce functionality into their slideshows (to purchase prints, for example), there's a new FoxyCart integration kit for SlideShowPro that links up your SlideShowPro for Flash slideshows with the popular e-commerce package FoxyCart. Check it out.

04.07.09 | Director 1.3.3, DirectorPHP 1.1.3 released

We've just released minor updates to both SlideShowPro Director and the supporting DirectorPHP API class. For a full list of the changes, see the version history.

One notable fix is a resolution to a problem that has been around since the Director API was introduced. Previously, if an image had malformed metadata (in either the EXIF or IPTC tags), the API parser would break, causing any pages you had built with the API to die silently. The only solutions were to remove that image altogether or strip the image of its metadata, neither of which was ideal. With the introduction of Director 1.3.3 and DirectorPHP 1.1.3, we believe we have implemented an effective workaround that will prevent these images from being a problem.

Download Director 1.3.3 | Download DirectorPHP 1.1.3

04.05.09 | SlideShowPro ThumbGrid 1.2.3 released

Small maintenance update that improves component instantiation and garbage collection. This release is aimed towards those who tried to use more than one instance of the component in the same FLA. We only recommend those who had trouble doing the aforementioned updating to this version, for nothing else has changed.