By Todd Dominey | Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 at 8:02 am

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.8.3 released

We’ve posted a notable update to SlideShowPro for Flash that brings the ActionScript 2 and 3 components up to version 1.9.8.3.

An important change in this release is that we’ve split the ActionScript 2 version into two separate components. The component that comes with the regular download is now for Flash 8 and higher only, while another (separate) download of the component is built just for Flash MX 2004.

Why the split? Well, for quite a while we’ve longed to enhance the visual display of text and other elements in the player with (optional) drop-shadows and other effects (like button glow), but have resisted in order to ensure consistent backwards compatibility. Today however, so few people are using Flash MX 2004 (it is 7 years old after all) that it no longer makes sense to sacrifice features for the entire user base of the player.

So with that, if you’re a Flash MX 2004 user you should download the separate version of 1.9.8.3 from your profile page. It includes all the same player updates and enhancements the other components have, with the exception of some new parameters that can’t be supported in that version.

Alright, so what’s new?

Drop shadows
Configurable drop shadow effects have been added to the navigation links background, navigation buttons (including a new “inner” shadow effect), navigation link preview windows, caption text fields, navigation number links, and gallery content (album previews, text fields, screen navigation text labels). The additional shadow options enhance styling and color options and can improve the legibility of text.

Enhanced navigation button options
In addition to being able to render drop shadows inside buttons (for an inset appearance), buttons can now change color when moused-over and display an optional glow effect. You can see the rollover/glow change in the player on the home page.

“Always Auto” display mode
An additional Display Mode setting has been added named “Always Auto”. When used, playback never completely stops while viewing a slideshow. If a user switches content, the content loads, then the transition pause starts back up again. This will help certain slideshow configurations where constant movement (with some user control) is warranted.

Inline error messaging
Chances are you’ll never see it, but if for some reason data can’t be loaded the component now displays an alert message and icon in the content area. This should especially help newer users of the player.

Video sizing improvements
There are a number of video encoders out there, and unfortunately not all of them encode videos using correct metadata, and sometimes no metadata at all. This release helps work around videos with metadata encoding issues by displaying them at their expected size.

Media Player time display
Another one of those little things been meaning to do for a while, but this release modifies how the media player displays time. Before, the media player displayed a single text field that contained total time for video and elapsed time when playing audio. Now, there is a consistent pair of fields for elapsed and total time for both audio and video playback.

There are a number of other tweaks, updates, and fixes in this release, which you can read about in the full version history notes.

The Standalone and Lightroom versions of SlideShowPro will be updated very soon to incorporate these changes. Stay tuned.