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.

11.23.09  |  Director 1.4.1 released, features watermarking

We’re happy to announce SlideShowPro Director 1.4.1 is now available for download. Director 1.4.1 includes new support for built-in watermarking, allowing you to upload an image (transparent PNGs work best) to use as a watermark, then Director composites that image on your original content when it creates the optimized copy for your slideshows. You can define as many different watermarks as you like, and change what watermark is applied on a per-album basis. You can also control the positioning of the watermark and its opacity when composited with the image.

Director 1.4.1 also includes several bugfixes and four new bundled translations (German, Russian, Italian and French). For a full list of the changes, see the Director Version History page on the wiki.

If you are running Director 1.4.0, then you can upgrade using the in-app upgrade process. If you are running an older version, Director 1.4.1 is available in the account center.

If you use the Director hosting service, we’ll be deploying 1.4.1 to your account at the beginning of next week, once we know that all the bugs are worked out. Stay tuned to the Status Blog for more info.

10.26.09  |  Lightroom to Director Plugin updated to 1.0.4

A new version of the Lightroom to Director Plugin, which allows you to upload imagery from your Lightroom library directly to your Director install, has been released. This updated fixes an issue related to Director 1.4, where the albums list would sometimes appear blank when trying to export. Upgrading to the new version of the plugin should fix that issue. The update can be downloaded from the Director product page.

10.24.09  |  New to SlideShowPro Director hosting: Language support

Thanks to our ongoing translation project, and the hard work of many volunteer translators, we are glad to announce that the Director hosting service is now available in three additional languages: Spanish, Dutch (in both Standard and Belgium variants) and Serbian. To change the language in Director, go to your profile screen by clicking your username in the top right hand corner of any screen in Director. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page (under the Preferences heading) and change your language to whatever you like.

More translations are on the way. If your language isn’t supported yet and you would like to join our translation efforts, visit the SlideShowPro Director Translation Project. Any language that is more than 75% translated will be included automatically for all slideshowpro.com accounts and all self-hosted Director install as well.

10.24.09  |  SlideShowPro Director Hosting updated to 1.4

All SlideShowPro Director hosting subscriptions were updated early this morning to version 1.4, and everything appears to functioning normally. If you are a subscriber and have any problems or questions, please contact support. For more information about what’s new in this release, see this blog post.

10.20.09  |  Director 1.4 released

After an extended beta cycle, we’re happy to announce that SlideShowPro DIrector 1.4 is available for public release. You can download the upgrade right now via the account center, or, if you are already running one of the 1.4 beta releases, you can upgrade from within Director thanks to the new auto-update functionality.

What’s new in 1.4? Here’s a rundown of the major additions/changes. For a full list of changes, see the version history on the wiki.

Smarter XML caching
Usually, when a change is made in Director, any cached XML that is affected by that change is deleted completely. That means the next time a slideshow is loaded, the entire XML file has to be regenerated, which can take time depending on the size of your gallery. In 1.4, we keep what is called “fragment caches”, which means that the XML file is cached in manageable chunks. So, when a change is made in Director, only the affected chunk is removed from the cache, and only that chunk has to be regenerated next time. Bottom line: XML regeneration will be much faster in 1.4, particularly for large galleries.

Auto-updating
If you’ve ever had to manage several Director installs, you know the pain that can be associated with keeping them all up to date. That’s why Director 1.4 features a built in auto-update system. While you will still need to upgrade all your installs to 1.4 the old way, once they are running 1.4 all further updates will be handled in Director itself, all you have to do is click a button.

Simplified install
In addition to making application updates easier, we’ve also made the initial installation process simpler. Installation will now consist of a single file you upload to your server. You then load the file in your web browser, enter your server information, and presto‚ all the requisite files for SlideShowPro Director will be downloaded from our server to yours with all the correct file permissions and settings you need to get going. This system will ensure fewer installation errors and make the installation process easier for non-web developers.

Updated translations
Thanks to the new community translation project and the tireless work of our volunteer translators, the Dutch, Spanish and German translations have been bundled with the Director 1.4 package. We’ll be adding other languages as work progresses on those translations. To get involved, visit the translation project.

Generated video previews and thumbnails
In the previous point update to SlideShowPro Director, we enhanced videos by giving users the ability to assign separate images for video previews and thumbnails. Director 1.4 will take this functionality a step further by generating images from your uploaded videos. Simply upload a video, and SlideShowPro Director will automatically assign a still image. To use a different image from a video, pop-open the edit window to choose a different frame. For users who prefer creating their own video previews and thumbnails, nothing has changed. You can still assign your own images should you not want to use an image generated by Director.

Note: This functionality will require a server with the ffmpeg library installed. Director 1.4 will automatically find the library for you (if available). If you’re unsure whether your server currently supports ffmpeg, you may want to contact your web host.

Smart galleries
In Director 1.3, we introduced smart albums, which allowed you to group content from other albums based on tags, date and other information. In Director 1.4, we’ve extended Director’s built-in intelligence to allow for smart galleries. They work much like smart albums do, as you can add tags to albums and use those tags to form smart galleries. You can also use the date the album was created or last modified as a rule to further filter the included albums.

Rebuilt manage albums interface
Last but certainly not least, we have reworked a portion of Director that has needed some updating for quite some time. The manage albums screen, which is used to select which albums are included/excluded from a custom gallery, worked fine as long as you didn’t have too many albums. If you had a larger install, however, the screen slowed down and in some cases was not usable. We’ve now separated out the functionality, showing only the albums currently in the gallery by default. To add albums, you simply click the “Add albums” button, and any available albums are shown in a popup dialogue. The listing is paginated and can also be searched, so it should work well whether you have 5 albums or 500.

10.14.09  |  SlideShowPro Director translation project now live

The SlideShowPro family of products is used all over the world, with many of our users speaking languages other than english. For some time, we’ve provided basic templates that allowed Director’s interface to be translated, but it was a cumbersome process and not easy to update. Today, we are launching a web based translation project that will allow anyone to join in the effort to translate Director to their native language.

It couldn’t be easier to get started. Just visit the translation project in your web browser, then select your language. There may already be an existing translation in your language and if so, you can simply join in the work that is already underway. If you don’t see your language listed, start a new translation in the proper locale.

Once you have selected a language, you will be presented with an english message to translate. Type the string in your language, then click the Save button (or just press Enter) and another message will be loaded for you to translate. At any time, you can click the language name in the page header to see an overview of your translated messages as well as download the translation files for testing in Director.

If you have any questions or feedback on the translation application, feel free to drop us a line.

09.24.09  |  Latest Director beta includes group reordering

In case you missed it, Director 1.4 is currently available as a beta release and includes some great stuff. Get caught up on the original announcement here.

We’ve just released a new build (Build 3400) of the beta that includes one of the most requested features we hear from Director users: the ability to reorder multiple items within an album. In the past, you could only reorder a single image/video at a time, making it quite difficult to manage content order within large albums. In this new build, you can use the existing multiple-selection functionality in Director to select a range of images, then drag and drop them as a group to a new location in the album. For those who need visual proof, check out the example video below.

Watch Group Reordering Video

Remember, Director 1.4 is still in the beta phase, so it may be unstable or even unusable on some setups. If you are testing, please give us your feedback on all the new features over in the beta forum.

09.18.09  |  SlideShowPro Director 1.4 beta now available

A few weeks back, we gave a sneak peek at a few of the things we were working on for SlideShowPro Director 1.4. Today, I’m happy to report that those new features (and a few more goodies) are available in the form of a beta release.

Before we get to the good stuff, we should cover the standard disclaimer regarding beta software. You should not use this release on anything that is in production, as we cannot guarantee that it will work properly, or that it will work at all. If you do choose to use the beta, please make the appropriate backups of both the Director folder and the database before continuing.

So what’s new in 1.4? Here’s a rundown:

Auto-updating
If you’ve ever had to manage several Director installs, you know the pain that can be associated with keeping them all up to date. That’s why Director 1.4 features a built in auto-update system. While you will still need to upgrade all your installs to 1.4 the old way, once they are running 1.4 all further updates will be handled in Director itself, all you have to do is click a button.

Simplified install
In addition to making application updates easier, we’ve also made the initial installation process simpler. Installation will now consist of a single file you upload to your server. You then load the file in your web browser, enter your server information, and presto‚ all the requisite files for SlideShowPro Director will be downloaded from our server to yours with all the correct file permissions and settings you need to get going. This system will ensure fewer installation errors and make the installation process easier for non-web developers.

Generated video previews and thumbnails
In the previous point update to SlideShowPro Director, we enhanced videos by giving users the ability to assign separate images for video previews and thumbnails. Director 1.4 will take this functionality a step further by generating images from your uploaded videos. Simply upload a video, and SlideShowPro Director will automatically assign a still image. To use a different image from a video, pop-open the edit window to choose a different frame. For users who prefer creating their own video previews and thumbnails, nothing has changed. You can still assign your own images should you not want to use an image generated by Director.

Note: This functionality will require a server with the ffmpeg library installed. Director 1.4 will automatically find the library for you (if available). If you’re unsure whether your server currently supports ffmpeg, you may want to contact your web host.

Smart galleries
In Director 1.3, we introduced smart albums, which allowed you to group content from other albums based on tags, date and other information. In Director 1.4, we’ve extended Director’s built-in intelligence to allow for smart galleries. They work much like smart albums do, as you can add tags to albums and use those tags to form smart galleries. You can also use the date the album was created or last modified as a rule to further filter the included albums.

Rebuilt manage albums interface
Last but certainly not least, we have reworked a portion of Director that has needed some updating for quite some time. The manage albums screen, which is used to select which albums are included/excluded from a custom gallery, worked fine as long as you didn’t have too many albums. If you had a larger install, however, the screen slowed down and in some cases was not usable. We’ve now separated out the functionality, showing only the albums currently in the gallery by default. To add albums, you simply click the “Add albums” button, and any available albums are shown in a popup dialogue. The listing is paginated and can also be searched, so it should work well whether you have 5 albums or 500.

We’ve spent the last few weeks chasing down bugs, touching up Director’s interface and trying to squeeze as much performance as we can from this new release. Now, we need your feedback on how we’ve done. To download the beta, go to the Director product page and scroll down to the section marked “BETA RELEASE”. There you will see links to either download a new install or upgrade an existing install. We’re particularly interested in hearing reports on how the simplified install process works, and to that end we are offering a free activation key that anyone can use to install 1.4 during the beta phase (the key will expire once a final version of 1.4 is released). The free beta key is:

one-four-beta

As always, we appreciate your help kicking the tires of this new release. Let us know what you think in our dedicated beta forum. Happy testing!

08.25.09  |  SlideShowPro Director 1.4 sneak preview

SlideShowPro Director 1.4 is nearing completion and should be released as a beta within the next few weeks. For now, here’s a preview of a few notable additions you can expect to see.

Generated video previews and thumbnails

In the previous point update to SlideShowPro Director, we enhanced videos by giving users the ability to assign separate images for video previews and thumbnails. Director 1.4 will take this functionality a step further by generating images from your uploaded videos. Simply upload a video, and SlideShowPro Director will automatically assign a still image. To use a different image from a video, pop-open the edit window to choose a different frame. See the screenshot below for an example:

For users who prefer creating their own video previews and thumbnails, nothing has changed. You can still assign your own images should you not want to use an image generated by Director.

Note: This functionality will require a server with the ffmpeg library installed. Director 1.4 will automatically find the library for you (if available). If you’re unsure whether your server currently supports ffmpeg, you may want to contact your web host.

Auto-updating

SlideShowPro Director 1.4 will likely be the last Director update you ever download from this site. Why? Because Director 1.4, and all subsequent versions, will auto-update whenever a new release is made available. Like a desktop application, you’ll be notified when updates are released. Click a button, and SlideShowPro Director will update itself automatically. See the screenshot below for an example:

Simplified installation

In addition to making application updates easier, we’ve also made the initial installation process simpler. Installation will now consist of a single file you upload to your server. You then load the file in your web browser, enter your server information, and presto &mdash all the requisite files for SlideShowPro Director will be downloaded from our server to yours with all the correct file permissions and settings you need to get going. This system will ensure fewer installation errors and make the installation process easier for non-web developers.