The SlideShowPro Player has been updated to version 1.9.8.8. New builds of both the Flash components and Lightroom plugins are now available for download.
This release adds (by popular demand) a full screen toggle to the Media Player interface. The toggle appears whenever video is loaded and when Navigation Appearance (navAppearance) is set to “Hidden”. This should come in very handy for those using the SlideShowPro Player to display videos.
Updated components and plugins may be downloaded through the Account Center.
Today we’re updating all SlideShowPro Player products (Flash components, Lightroom extension, standalone SWF) to version 1987. This release extends the player with core changes/enhancements, including enhanced “fluid scale” functionality.
Fluid scale enhancements
One of the popular ways Flash developers use the SlideShowPro Player component is dynamically modifying the component’s dimensions to match the browser window. Also known as “fluid scaling”, the practice involves embedding a SWF at 100% width/height in the HTML document, then using ActionScript to dynamically resize/position elements inside. You can see a number of sites using this method on our examples page.
Historically however, loading content from SlideShowPro Director in a fluid layout has always been a bit tricky, for Director publishes formatted images on-demand at the (fixed) size of the slideshow. To get around that in fluid layouts, developers have usually turned off Director Large Publishing so their original images are displayed instead. While this practice works fine, it’s not optimal, for images can sometimes be much larger (in dimension and file size) than necessary; leading to player latency and wasted bandwidth.
So we decided to do something about it by adding a new “Full Screen” option to Director Large Publishing. When selected, images that match the maximum screen resolution of a viewer’s display are requested for the “normal” slideshow. So when used in a fluid layout, the images are always large enough (regardless of how the user scales their browser window) and load faster than retrieving originals. These same photos are then also used when the SlideShowPro Player enters full screen mode, thus saving disk space and bandwidth.
Fluid scale in Lightroom
With improved fluid image support added to the SlideShowPro Player, we then wondered what we could do with the Lightroom extension to take advantage of the new functionality. The result? New in v1.9.8.7 are slideshow export options for “Fixed” (the usual) and “Fluid”. When “Fluid” is selected, the exported slideshow fills the browser window and re-sizes/aligns if a user changes their browser window’s dimensions. You can also control the amount of space between the slideshow and the browser frame.
» Read fluid scale instructions
Additional updates
In addition to the fluid scale enhancements a couple of other items were added:
Media ‘type’ attribute:
Because some people use the SlideShowPro Player in environments where images and/or videos are requested with URL strings that don’t include file suffixes, we’ve added support for a new type attribute for img elements in XML markup. For example, if src pointed to a video without a file suffix, you may now add type="video" to the img element. The SlideShowPro Player will then skip file type detection and render the asset as a video.
Video preview support for Single Content:
For those who use the SlideShowPro Player to show a single video (through the “Single Content” XML File Type) we’ve added a new videoPreviewURL parameter. This allows you to assign a URL for a poster graphic to be loaded and displayed before the video (when the player’s videoAutoStart parameter is set to “Off”). This parameter isn’t displayed in the component Properties panel, but is modifiable with either ActionScript or (with the SlideShowPro Player SWF product) as a FlashVar through the player’s embed code. We’ve included a new example in the SlideShowPro Player SWF download that shows how to assign a video and poster graphic in the HTML document without using XML.
Download
All updates can be downloaded now through the Account Center.
SlideShowPro Director
An update to SlideShowPro Director (and SlideShowPro.com) that incorporates SlideShowPro Player 1.9.8.7 is coming soon. We’ll keep you posted.
SlideShowPro Player patch released to fix full screen issue
This week Adobe released Flash Player 10.2, which ushered in a number of improvements and optimizations, but also (unfortunately) caused the SlideShowPro Player to not scale properly when viewed full screen.
Today we’re releasing updates to all applicable products that resolves the full screen issue so the player scales as expected. Here are update instructions for each product.
SlideShowPro Director (self-install)
Sign-in to your installation of SlideShowPro Director and follow the prompt to automatically update. If you are a SlideShowPro.com subscriber your installation has already been updated, so you don’t need to do anything.
SlideShowPro Player for Flash (AS3)
Only the ActionScript 3 version of the component was affected. If you have the ActionScript 3 component installed, uninstall it through Adobe Extension Manager, then download SlideShowPro Player for Flash 1986 through the account center. Install that extension, then update FLAs using older versions of the component by following these instructions. Once the component and your FLAs are updated you may then publish new SWFs for your site(s).
SlideShowPro Player SWF
Like the Flash component, this was patched with the full screen fix (but keeps its current version number, 1986). To update your slideshows, sign-in to the account center, download SlideShowPro Player SWF, then update any SWF you currently have on your site (or installation of SlidePress). Once replaced the slideshow will function as expected in full screen.
SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom
No update is required! Full screen works fine.
Questions?
If you have any questions concerning this update feel free to contact us.
SlideShowPro for Flash / Standalone updated to 1.9.8.5
Today we’re releasing an update to the SlideShowPro for Flash components (ActionScript 2 and 3) as well as a player update to SlideShowPro Standalone. This release (1.9.8.5) includes a number of tweaks and adjustments to the player, a couple of bug fixes, and some new things as well.
The player now includes a “Loop” playback option. It allows you to turn on/off boundary detection at the beginning and end of an album. By turning it on, you can navigate from the first asset back to the last, and vice versa. This works with the navigation bar, content area navigation, and public methods called via ActionScript.
Also new are additional caption appearance options: “Fixed on Rollover” and “Fixed on Rollover (if Available)”. These are the same as “Fixed” except they only show-up on mouse-over.
This release also incorporates changes to the default appearance of captions. The “header” background is now transparent by default, and we’ve added additional parameters to control the padding and color of header text. This gives the captions an updated appearance, and offers designers more control.
There are a number of other tweaks/improvements to the player you can read about at the wiki.
For those of you using SlideShowPro for Lightroom, an update that incorporates 1985 (plus other updates) is coming soon.
SlideShowPro for Flash / Standalone updated to 1.9.8.4
Both the SlideShowPro for Flash components and SlideShowPro Standalone have been updated to version 1.9.8.4. This is mostly a maintenance update to address a few little issues, but does include some new/updated functionality that may be of interest.
First, we’ve added a “Single Content” option to the XML File Type parameter. This allows you to assign an absolute URL directly to an image or video as the value of XML File Path (instead of assigning an XML file). This will be most useful to those who wish to present a single video, without navigation, captions, or any accessory stuff.
Second, a couple of new events were added for gallery screens: current, and total. The former broadcasts the current screen number in view, while total broadcasts the total number of screens available in the gallery.
Third, some important revisions were made to the Media RSS parser for improved handling of titles and captions. Now, titles and captions are retrieved from the “media:” elements in an RSS item, and if those aren’t available, it falls back to the parent “title” and “description” elements. If those aren’t available either, no caption or title is used. This makes caption/title parsing more accurate.
For a complete list of what’s in 1.9.8.4, see the version history. To download, sign in to the account center. The Lightroom version of the player will be updated early next week.
For those of you thinking about upgrading to Adobe’s new Creative Suite (CS5), we thought you should know that SlideShowPro for Flash will work fine in the CS5 release of Flash. We don’t have the absolute-final version of CS5 yet, but we know from betas provided to us that things are working as expected. We’ll keep an eye on the matter and address any issues if they arise (though we doubt there will be any).
If you are planning to upgrade to Flash CS5, or any of the CS5 family editions, do us a favor! Click the links below to place your order with Adobe. You’ll pay exactly the same price you normally would, but with the added bonus of giving SlideShowPro credit for the referral. We’d appreciate the support!
Pre-order Flash Professional CS5
Pre-order Adobe Design Premium CS5
Pre-order Adobe Web Premium CS5
Pre-order Adobe Master Collection CS5
Developer Dean Krueger (of Red 6 software) has developed his own, third-party plugin for Apple’s Aperture photo management application that exports images, thumbnails, and XML markup for use with the SlideShowPro player. Named “Aperture Export for SlideShowPro“, the plugin has functionality and a user interface similar to the export plugin we developed for Apple’s iPhoto, but is a completely custom creation built especially for Aperture. If you’re an Aperture and SlideShowPro player user, check it out!
The public beta of ThumbGrid 2 is now available for download.
A couple of key points about this component. One, this is a time limited public beta that requires at least Adobe Flash CS3 and SlideShowPro for Flash in order to use. Two, you don’t have to own or use the 1.x version of SlideShowPro ThumbGrid — we’re opening this up to existing ThumbGrid users, and those who’ve never used the product before in the hope we’ll receive more feedback.
We cover a lot more in the release notes, including answers to common questions we expect to receive, so hit the link below for more information (and to download the beta).
Download ThumbGrid 2 public beta
Note: to see an overview video of what’s new in this release, click here.
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.
SlideShowPro for Flash 1.9.8.1 released
A small maintenance release to SlideShowPro for Flash has been released that fixes a couple of edge-case video issues. See the version history for details.
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