SlideShowPro News

03.31.09  |  SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.3 released

A new point update for SlideShowPro for Lightroom is now available for download. This release, version 1.4.3, updates the gallery so that it uses the latest version of the Flash component (1.9.3), and makes adjustments to the gallery interface to accommodate new / changed parameters. These include the new “Fixed” / “Fixed (if Available)” Caption Appearance options, an independent alpha transparency slider for Caption Header Background Alpha, and the return of “None” as an option for scale.

SlideShowPro for Lightroom users can download this update through the account center.

03.27.09  |  SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.3 released

A new 1.9.3 build of both the AS2 and AS3 versions of SlideShowPro for Flash is now available for download in the account center.

This release is a bit larger than expected, for not only were a few bugs resolved, but we spent time tweaking behavioral things as well as including some new stuff. You can read the whole version history here, but here are a few highlights.

New caption style: “Fixed”: We usually avoid including new things in point updates, but this was an idea that popped up recently that was quite easy to implement and include, so we threw it in. This new caption style is a cross between “Inline” and “Overlay”, in that it’s inside the content area and spans the width of the component (like Inline), but doesn’t encroach into the content area and is layered above content instead (like “Overlay”). Here’s a preview.

Caption Header Background Alpha: In previous versions, the alpha transparency value (assigned through Caption Background Alpha) was used for both the main background as well as the header background. This release includes a separate control for the header’s alpha, which allows you to build a caption like the preview linked above (where it’s invisible).

Revised ‘return to normal’ formatting: A number of people asked about this, so we’ve revised the Full Screen Reformat option so that “normal” images are reloaded when returning from full screen to normal screen (instead of re-using the full screen one as before).

Revised “Random” behavior: For as long as SSP has been around, “Random” order has been a playback state. If you turned it on, sequentially ordered content in the navigation would be randomly loaded while in auto display mode. This prevented someone from manually browsing content (randomly), and caused the navigation to jump around when a lot of content was loaded. So we revised this by shuffling album content order at the data level, which now makes the navigation links themselves appear in random positions. This way you can browse content in random order either manually or automatically, and it operates like any other slideshow. We think it’s much easier to understand and use this way.

Standalone updates: The standalone version now includes a method to return component parameter values, plus a couple of unique variables for assigning the start album when the SWF is embedded.

Photoshop export script updated: The free Photoshop export script now includes an input to control image quality, plus some fixes to the “Export Folder” version so that it can use PSDs and RAW images.

There’s plenty more little things here and there, so take a look at the version history if interested.

03.26.09  |  A slew of Director updates

Today brings new updates all around for SlideShowPro Director and friends. First, Director itself has been updated to 1.3.2 to fix a few small, but annoying issues. See the full list of changes here and download the update from the account center.

Also, the DirectorPHP class has been updated with a new ‘exclude_smart’ parameter for the album->all method. This handy parameter allows you to only return custom albums if you’d like, and works just the opposite of the existing ‘only_smart’ parameter. The ‘exclude_smart’ parameter requires the Director 1.3.2 update in order to work.

Finally, The Lightroom to Director plugin has been updated to version 1.0.3 and is recommended for users of Director 1.3 or later (including those using the Director hosting service). This new release ensures that your smart albums do not show up in the albums listing when you export images from Lightroom to Director.

Updates to the DirectorPHP class and the Lightroom to Director plugin can be found on the Director extras page.

03.25.09  |  Modal box demos now available

A number of SlideShowPro users have contacted us asking if it’s possible to display SlideShowPro in a “modal” JavaScript box, and if so how to do it. So we picked some of the most popular Javascript modal scripts out there that supported SWFs, including FancyZoom, HighSlide, LightView, LightWindow and ShadowBox, and built demonstrations of each.

Click here to see the demonstrations.

SlideShowPro for Flash users can download this demo from the account center.

03.25.09  |  SlideShowPro Director hosting updated to 1.3

All subscriber accounts were updated to version 1.3 around 1am last night. Everything appears to be running smoothly. If you have an account and see a problem, please let us know. Otherwise, we hope you enjoy the new version!

03.23.09  |  Full screen / display mode issue, with workaround

A few people have been submitting emails and posting forum threads asking about an issue where SlideShowPro’s playback would shift from pause to play (and vice versa) when entering and exiting full screen mode. It was a strange problem, for we were unable to replicate it in every browser we tried, until we used Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista.

Turns out the issue is a known bug in Flash Player 10 (that appears to be Vista-only) where the player is firing a KEY_DOWN event when entering / exiting full screen. It also just so happens to fire the same key code the space bar uses, which is what SlideShowPro uses to toggle playback.

As a temporary workaround, you can prevent this from happening by setting SlideShowPro’s OPTIONS/Keyboard Control parameter to “Off”. That will keep the event from firing.

The bug has been open for a few months now, so to help resolve this in a manner that will keep keyboard functionality operable we’ll change to the KEY_UP event in the next point update. It’s pretty much the same as KEY_DOWN, but is completely unaffected by the player bug. Expect to see that point update sometime this week.

03.20.09  |  SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.4.2 released

A new update for SlideShowPro for Lightroom is out that fixes an issue where the Lightroom 1 gallery wouldn’t operate correctly in the Windows version of Lightroom. This release also brings back the NAVIGATION / Link Preview Background Alpha parameter, which had been accidentally removed. Free update for all SlideShowPro for Lightroom users, and can be downloaded now through the account center.

03.20.09  |  Director 1.3.1

Several server-specific issues have popped up related to the performance tweaking we did in 1.3, so we’ve released a bug-fix update that should resolve those problems and a few other issues we’ve discovered. So, if you are having problems with the new version of Director, please try 1.3.1.

Download 1.3.1 | View version history

03.18.09  |  Top 10 user examples for March 2009

Every month loads of SlideShowPro users share their creations with us. From those submissions we pluck out the ten most creative, beautiful, interesting, or unique examples and post them here as well as in our monthly e-mail newsletter.

Site of the Month honorees receive a free SlideShowPro t-shirt as our small way of saying ‘thank you’ for making us look so good. And our site of the month this month is…

SITE OF THE MONTH: Katja Kuhl

http://www.katjakuhl.de/

Maybe it was the opening picture of fiddy that pushed this one over the edge, but this month we’re choosing the site of Katja Kuhl as our Site of the Month for March. Katja uses SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro ThumbGrid to display an attractive, easy to navigate portfolio of photos, music videos and commercials. There’s simply a ton of creative content (stretching back to the late 90s), and all of it is served up by SlideShowPro Director. You can browse forward and backward with his own custom arrows, view just a particular type of media, or click “View all galleries” to see a slideshow with everything in it. Lots of great content to see.

THE REMAINING TOP 9…

http://www.daviddijoux.com/
http://www.justinthornton.com/
http://arosarkitekter.se/
http://www.rebecca-marshall.com/
http://www.boncha.com/
http://portwiture.com/
http://stefanradtke.com/
http://www.freie-digitale.de/
http://www.simmsimaging.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 our contact page or post to the Show & Tell community forum.

03.18.09  |  SlideShowPro Director 1.3, DirectorPHP 1.1 released

After many months of work and several rounds of beta testing, we’re proud to launch Director 1.3 today (available in the account center). Most of the shiny new stuff that makes this release so great was covered a few weeks back in our “5 days of Director” series of posts: archive size, metadata defaults, album settings / preview, gallery utility and last but certainly not least, smart albums (see the full version history for more).

Another enhancement we focused on in this release was performance. We went over Director with a fine-tooth comb and are convinced that this is the fastest release of Director, ever. Just be sure you have followed these instructions and Director should hum along nicely after your upgrade to 1.3.

Finally, due to some changes in 1.3, we have also released a new point update (1.1) to the DirectorPHP class. As always, you can download that from the Director extras page.

We’d like to thank all of you who participated in the beta for 1.3, as well as those who sent us suggestions along the way. We couldn’t do it without you!