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.
SlideShowPro Standalone and SlidePress updated
Updates to both SlideShowPro Standalone and SlidePress (our WordPress plugin for Standalone) have been released today. This release brings the Standalone version of the SlideShowPro player up to 1.9.8.3, and incorporates all of the changes / fixes / additions to the core player. The SlidePress update includes updated gallery settings to support the new player options.
To download the SlideShowPro Standalone update, sign into the Account Center. To update SlidePress, sign-in to your WordPress installation and click the “Plugins” menu option. You’ll have the option to upgrade from there.
When updating SlidePress and previewing a slideshow, you will see a warning if your uploaded SWF is older than 1.9.8.3. To remedy, simply download the latest version of SlideShowPro Standalone from the Account Center and replace the SWF in your WordPress installation with the latest version. After that you should be all set.
For a list of what’s new in SlideShowPro, see the Flash component’s version history.
Our WordPress plugin SlidePress has been updated to version 1.3 and is now available in the WordPress plugin directory for updating.
This version is notable for it includes a number of usability enhancements, bug fixes, and a host of underlying code improvements. Notable additions and changes include:
* Six new default themes to choose from when publishing a gallery.
* Complete redesign / reorganization of gallery settings interface (see below).
* Support for h.264 videos uploaded to the WordPress Media Library.
* WordPress page publishing from the SlidePress post button.
With this release we strived to not only fix problems that popped up after our previous release, but also improve the basic usability of the plugin. Of note is the “Style Settings” area, which before was one (very) long, noisy list of checkboxes, inputs and colored boxes. For 1.3 we’ve re-organized all the settings into containers which may be toggled open/closed for editing. In addition, settings now disable (and hide) if they aren’t applicable due to the value of a “parent” setting. For example, you now only see the pan & zoom customization settings if “Use Pan and Zoom” is enabled. This cuts down on the amount of visual inputs, and also avoids any potential confusion when editing.
Click here for the full version history. To upgrade, see the updating instructions in the wiki. Using SlideShowPro Standalone 1.9.8 is recommended with this release, so you should also update your SWF as well. Download the latest version of SlideShowPro Standalone from the account center.
SlideShowPro for Flash / SlideShowPro Standalone updated to 1.9.8
Updates to both SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Standalone are available for download in the account center. This version, 1.9.8, is a maintenance release that resolves a few issues that came about in recent weeks. If you’re not currently experiencing any issues with either product, you can skip this release. See the version history for more information.
SlideShowPro Standalone now a separate product
As part of the SlidePress announcement made earlier, we have spun-off “SlideShowPro Standalone” into a separate product.
First, we should note a little history. SlideShowPro Standalone was initially offered as a free accessory to purchasers of SlideShowPro for Flash who wanted a way to embed and edit slideshows without the Flash authoring application (or Lightroom for that matter). We included it mainly as a courtesy, but over time interest in it from new customers grew — especially after the SlidePress plugin for WordPress was developed, for the plugin leveraged the Standalone version to publish slideshows.
As a result, we had a number of new customers asking if they could just purchase the Standalone version to use with SlidePress (or elsewhere) for they had no use for the Flash authoring components that were included with it.
With that, today we’re spinning off SlideShowPro Standalone as a separate, more affordable option for new customers. And as part of our acquisition of SlidePress, the two products will be marketed together as an integrated slideshow publishing option for WordPress users.
Now, if you’re an existing user, you’re probably wondering how this affects you. The good news is that all existing users of SlideShowPro for Flash will have their account center profiles updated with a free copy of SlideShowPro Standalone. So nothing is being taken away from you, and you’ll still be able to download updates to the standalone version going forward.
If you receive a “thank you for your purchase” email sometime today, SlideShowPro Standalone was added to your profile (for free).
If you have any questions concerning this change, please let us know.
Today we’re excited to announce that the SlidePress plugin for WordPress – originally developed by Palms Development Company – has been acquired by SlideShowPro / Dominey Design Inc and is now part of the SlideShowPro family of products as a free accessory for SlideShowPro Standalone.
For many months now, SlidePress has proven to be a valuable utility for many SlideShowPro users who use WordPress as their web site publishing software. The plugin not only provides an easy way to embed SWFs, but also a complete user interface for creating customized slideshows and photo galleries using SlideShowPro as the media player.
SlidePress will continue to be updated and maintained as a free WordPress plugin. By bringing the plugin in-house, updates to it (as well as SlideShowPro itself) will be developed in-tandem for more synchronized public releases as well as deeper product integration going forward.
A new build of SlidePress has been posted today to the WordPress Plugins Directory that contains revised documentation as well as a handful of small improvements and updates. We’ve also re-launched the SlidePress site (domain changes have not fully propagated yet), and have migrated plugin documentation over to our support wiki.
Expect to see SlidePress expanded and improved in the months ahead. Thanks to Scott Shelton of Palms for not only creating SlidePress, but for all his assistance during this transition.
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