SlideShowPro News

08.30.10  |  SlideShowPro Director 1.5 (final) released

After a month and a half of extensive beta testing and feedback, we’re thrilled to announce that Director 1.5 is now final and ready to go! Nearly a thousand people tested the beta, and we received a massive amount of constructive feedback along the way. We greatly appreciate the support from everyone who participated.

Director 1.5 is a major (and free!) update to the content management system that not only provides integrated slideshow publishing (using the SlideShowPro Player) but also offers an entirely new HTML5 photo and video player for iPhones, iPads and Android devices. The HTML5 player runs in the web browser, so there’s no applications or plugins for the user to install. It runs in their web browser, is accessed through your own web site, and allows the same content from your Flash slideshow to be browsed with touch controls (including swipe!) using the largest amount of screen real estate possible. Director 1.5 gives publishers the ability to deploy rich, dynamic media content that is universally accessible across virtually every possible device that may access your web site.

If you are a SlideShowPro Director user that didn’t participate in the beta, you can catch up on what’s new in our updated wiki.

If you have a self-installation of SlideShowPro Director, you may upgrade using the application’s built-in updater. Simply sign-in to Director on your server and click the upgrade notice at the top. If your installation of Director is older (and doesn’t support auto upgrading), please see these upgrade instructions.

If you have a SlideShowPro Director hosting subscription, we plan on updating everyone’s installation this weekend (so disruptions, if any, are kept to a minimum). Subscribers should stay tuned to the hosting status blog for more information on the upgrade.

08.23.10  |  SlideShowPro 1.5 beta updated, nearing stable release

We’ve packaged up another update to the SlideShowPro Director 1.5 beta, labeled Build 5452. This update fixes a handful of bugs and also includes some refinements to how content is published using Director. See a full list of changes in the beta forum.

With this release, Director 1.5 is feature complete and hopefully bug-free. Barring any show-stoppers in this last beta phase, we expect to release 1.5 as stable to self-hosted customers in the next few weeks and hosting subscribers soon after that. So if you are a beta tester, please update to the latest build (via the in-app updater or the account center) and let us know if you find any issues. Thanks!

08.04.10  |  Love Director and SlideShowPro Mobile? We need testimonials!

If you’re currently beta testing SlideShowPro Mobile and Director 1.5 and have integrated Director’s new publishing into your site, we’d love to hear from you! For marketing and promotional purposes (both us and you), we’re looking for testimonials we can publish. We’ll of course reciprocate the favor by linking back to your site, so you’ll receive some great return traffic.

Want to submit a testimonial? Here’s how:

1) Send an email to: support AT slideshowpro.net
2) Write about how you’ve used Director and the mobile player, plus a URL to your site.
3) Include your first and last name (or business name) for attribution.
4) Attach a medium-sized photo of yourself (around 250px will be fine).

We’ll pick testimonials from the results and publish them here on the site when Director 1.5 goes live. We appreciate the feedback!

07.30.10  |  Director 1.5 beta updated, SlideShowPro Mobile now supports Android

The beta train for SlideShowPro Director 1.5 keeps rolling along. This new build (Build 5394) contains several fixes but most notably is the first beta to include support for Android phones (Android OS 2.0+ required).

One of the more difficult aspects of developing for Android is fragmentation. Unlike iOS, which is used only on Apple devices, Android is used on multiple devices and is often modified to some extent by the manufacturer or the carrier (or both). Because of that, we could really use your help in testing our mobile player if you are running an Android phone (OS 2.0+). You can either try the beta on your own install, or just load up our mobile demo directly. We’d appreciate any and all feedback, and be sure to include what device/OS version you are using. Thanks!

Please note that this is still beta software and should not be used on production websites. We cannot guarantee if it will work or when bugs will be fixed.

07.21.10  |  New beta of SlideShowPro Director 1.5 / SlideShowPro Mobile available

Over the last week, we’ve had more than 100 early adopters kicking the tires on the SlideShowPro Director 1.5 beta (which also includes SlideShowPro Mobile). Thanks to their testing and feedback, we’ve been able to resolve several issues with the release of the second beta for 1.5, Build 5354. The new beta is available via the in-app upgrade process or the account center.

For more info on the beta, check out the dedicated wiki section for 1.5. We greatly value your feedback, so be sure to drop us a note in the beta form if you encounter any issues or just have a suggestion. Again, thanks for testing!

Please note that this is still beta software and should not be used on production websites. We cannot guarantee if it will work or when bugs will be fixed.

07.14.10  |  Director 1.5 beta released

A public beta of Director 1.5, which includes the new SlideShowPro Mobile media player for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, as well as integrated slideshow publishing, is now available for users with Director installed on their own servers (hosting subscribers with us will receive the final version).

Because this is technically beta software, we encourage only those who are comfortable upgrading their installations to non-final software install the upgrade. If that’s okay with you, head over to the 1.5 upgrade notes to learn how to upgrade.

Also at the wiki is documentation on the new integrated slideshow publishing, as well as instructions on how to update an existing slideshow to support the mobile player.

As noted earlier, this is technically a beta release, so we ask that you only publish new slideshows or provide the mobile player fallback to existing slideshows on low traffic or non-live sites, just to be safe.

An important note regarding player compatibility: At this time, we only recommend that users of SlideShowPro for Flash or SlideShowPro Standalone attempt to modify their player embed code to support the mobile fallback player. We are working on updates for SlideShowPro for Lightroom and SlidePress that will allow those products to work much more seamlessly with the Director embed code.

We’re offering this beta because we very much want to receive feedback on the work done thus far, and to see if there are any oversights, bugs, or general issues we can assist with. Please contact us if you have feedback.

Our goal is to burn through this beta and get to a final release as quickly as possible. We greatly appreciate everyone’s input and time. Have fun!

07.13.10  |  New in Director 1.5: slideshow publishing

Back when we announced SlideShowPro Mobile, we explained that the mobile fallback player could be enabled simply by updating your Flash Player embed code (with code provided by us). What we didn’t explain was where the new embed code would come from.

We had a number of options for offering the code (including just plopping it in a wiki document and calling it a day), but one option rose above as the most elegant solution: integrated slideshow publishing. Below is a screenshot:

Director 1.5 (which will be a free upgrade for all Director users) will now allow you to embed a slideshow / photo gallery of any album or gallery without requiring any other products. You simply kick-up the “Embed slideshow” window from inside an album or gallery, choose a style, enter a size, and modify some of the player’s main options. Click “Copy embed code”, paste your clipboard into an HTML document, and you’re done! Desktop users will see the Flash version, while mobile clients (including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch) will see a clickable poster that leads them to the mobile player.

For new users of Director only interested in the default player, or those who only want to modify a handful of options, this will make slideshow publishing as easy as embedding a YouTube video. And because Director is powering it all, you’ll have a slideshow that works across all desktops, laptops, and compatible mobile devices, as well as the ability to update the content being loaded by both the Flash and mobile player anytime you want.

As an existing user, you may be wondering how your current slideshows factor into this. Here’s how it’ll work. You embed a new slideshow from Director in your HTML document that loads the album or gallery you want to display, then edit the player embed code to point to your own SWF. So you’ll be able to leverage the player embed code Director publishes, include support for the mobile player fallback, while retaining the ability to create your own custom slideshows using one of our SlideShowPro player plugins (including ThumbGrid).

Rest assured, we’ll be posting all the instructions you need (it’ll be easy, really!) at the time Director 1.5 beta drops (which will be this week — maybe even tomorrow).

If you have questions, fire away.

07.09.10  |  SlideShowPro Mobile demo, beta news

Today we completed work on the 1.5 public beta of SlideShowPro Director that includes the new HTML5 SlideShowPro Mobile player. If nothing catches fire or breaks down over the weekend, you can expect to see a public beta released early next week.

In related news, we’ve posted a demo of SlideShowPro Mobile you can try out. This has all the same content from the demonstration video, plus general improvements.

To view, get your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, load this news post, then click this link. That will take you directly to the mobile player itself.

If you try it out and have feedback you’d like to share, we’re all ears.

Oh, and there’s “one more thing” concerning Director 1.5 beta we haven’t written about. We think you’ll like it. Stay tuned!

06.11.10  |  Lightroom to Director Plugin updated for Lightroom 3

The Lightroom to Director Plugin, which allows you to upload images directly from Lightroom to your Director install, has been updated to 1.0.5. This version resolves an issue with the recently released Lightroom 3, where uploads would fail because of a deprecated method call. Upgrading to 1.0.5 should fix that issue. You can download the latest version of the plugin from the account center.

If you have not had a chance to upgrade to Lightroom 3, it is available for purchase from Adobe.

05.03.10  |  DirectorExport for Aperture

Developer Andrew Newdel of Core Signals has made available a release version of his DirectorExport for Aperture plugin. The plugin is for Apple’s Aperture photo software, and gives users the ability to upload content from their Aperture library to one or more installations of SlideShowPro Director (both self-install and hosted with us). The uploading takes place within Aperture, so you can update Director content without using a web browser or exporting images as an intermediary step. It’s simple to setup — just enter your Director API credentials found in the app’s “System Settings” screen. After verification, you can upload content to an existing album, or create a new album as part of the upload process. The plugin also respects embedded metadata in your photos, and can automatically publish titles/caption data if present. Here’s a screenshot:

The plugin is free for use with a single installation of Director. If you need to upload content to more than one installation, you can license the plugin for $19. Check it out!