Export/Import Parameters Command (Beta) now available
One of the things that’s always driven me crazy about the Component Inspector panel in Flash is that it doesn’t provide a way to save settings. There’s simply no built-in way to copy the parameters of one instance of SlideShowPro over to another in a separate FLA, or share your settings with another user. So, I decided to experiment with creating my own parameter copying utility, and before I knew it had built just that.
Using the JSFL engine in Flash CS3, I’ve built a couple of commands that make the exporting/importing of parameter settings fast and easy. Parameters are exported as an xml file, which can then be imported back into Flash, parsed, and assigned to a separate instance of SlideShowPro. You can even share the XML file with someone else, and they’ll be able to take a default, new instance of SlideShowPro and convert it (size, color, behavior, everything) to an instance that’s identical to yours.
These will also make upgrading to new point releases easier. The scripts are purposely written so that any parameter in SlideShowPro that matches one in an imported configuration file are modified, and any that do not are left alone. This way you’ll only have to modify new/changed parameters between point releases.
Last but certainly not least, an exported parameter file can also be used with the “standalone” version of SlideShowPro for Flash that comes with the extension download. So you could technically build your slideshow in Flash, export a parameter file, use that file with the standalone version, then update the parameters in the XML whenever you need to change something (without returning to Flash and publishing a new SWF).
Both scripts require Flash CS3 (simply not possible in earlier versions, sorry), and will be included as part of the extension installation when they’re no longer beta. If you’d like to try them out, download here (login required). Note: commands no longer beta and are now part of the SlideShowPro for Flash installation package.
SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1 Released
Hot on the heels of SlideShowPro 1.7.0 going final, the 1.1 build of SlideShowPro for Lightroom has also been finalized and is now available for download in the Account Center. This release packs in everything from the 1.7 build of SlideShowPro, plus these Lightroom specific features:
- New “Header” area to display a logo (with link), gallery title and gallery description
- New “Wet Floor” effect
- 4 template groups, each containing 8 variations for landscape/portrait, dimension and aspect ratio (32 options total).
- New inputs to directly assign an audio file and caption
- New Director formatting panel
To read all the details on this release, see the full version history.
Thanks again to the Lightroom beta testers for their assistance and feedback.
The final release of SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.0 is now available for download in the Account Center. This release went through about three weeks of beta testing, where a handful or problems / optimizations were made thanks to the numerous SlideShowPro for Flash users who helped kick the tires.
So, what’s new in this release? Here we go…
- Volume control in the media player (for both audio/video)
- Navigation can now be positioned on top
- Media player can now be positioned on top
- Auto-start option for videos (toggle off/on). When off, you can assign a preview graphic, and a “play” button is displayed over the preview.
- Media RSS support
- “Content Format” option to control the size of imagery (full screen or normal) SlideShowPro Director publishes, or are grabbed from a Media RSS feeds containing multiple image options should format imagery for.
- New album preview style: “Banner”.
- New “Crop to Fit All” option to fill the whole component area (instead of content area)
- Preloader and timer can now be aligned to any of the 8 clockwise points.
- Preloader and timer can now be positioned inside the content area or inside content (latter looks best with ‘floating’ style imagery)
- Two new preloader styles — “Spinner” and “Pie Spinner”
- Control knob for media player video scrubber
- Multiple XML files from different sources can be combined/loaded as one gallery using OPML
- Completely revised caching system for better bandwidth consumption
- Padding controls for captions, albums and the gallery
Additionally, the download archive comes with something new: a “standalone” version of SlideShowPro for Flash in SWF form that’s accompanied by an editable XML file (for modifying parameters). This allows developers who do not own Flash to modify and use SlideShowPro for Flash.
If you want to read the whole nitty gritty, check out the whole version history here.
SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1 beta now available
Now that SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7 is nearly final, a beta version of SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1 is now available for download. This release incorporates all the fixes, updates, and changes in SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7, plus adds a number of Lightroom-specific fixes, updates and new features.
The most notable change in SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1 is a collection of default templates (shown left). There are four styles, each containing a number of aspect ratios and resolutions to choose from. These make it incredibly easy for new users of the product to get the look / size they want quickly, with all the presets for image export size and slideshow dimension taken care of.
Also of note is a new built-in effect that has proven very popular among SlideShowPro for Flash users — the ubiquitous “wet floor” effect. The reflection can be toggled on/off, with extra controls for reflection depth and intensity.
Last but certainly not least, and by popular request, an optional header element has been added above SlideShowPro that displays the gallery title and description, plus a container to load a graphic that can be anything you want (most will probably incorporate logos or some kind of branding). The graphic can also be assigned a URL, so you can use the image to provide a link back to your main web site, or whatever else you want. The header includes complete controls for padding, spacing and alignment.
If you’re a SlideShowPro for Lightroom user and would be interested in trying it out (and providing feedback), download here.
In what will likely be the final beta before going final, beta 4 of SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7 is now available for download. This release fixes a few little things that were in the previous beta, and nothing else. If you’re a user of SlideShowPro for Flash, feel free to download if you’d like to kick the tires.
Update (2/10): The Director API is now in public alpha.
While the introduction of the on-demand image publishing system in Director 1.1 made it much easier for you to publish slideshows using SlideShowPro, it did limit your ability to use Director’s imagery and data outside of SlideShowPro. Because of the complicated way in which the URLs were published for the on-demand system, it was virtually impossible to get your optimized images for use in other areas of your website. To bridge that gap, Director 1.2 will feature a simple API that allows you to access your galleries, albums and images via PHP or any other web programming language. We’ll begin beta testing Director 1.2 in the coming weeks, watch this space for an announcement.
To show you just a glimpse of the possibilities, I’ve created a simple Lightbox2 example using the API. It makes a direct request to our slideshowpro.net Director install for the “Open Road” album. In the process of making the request, we tell Director we want two different versions of the images for the Lightbox display. Just like with SlideShowPro, we can request them at a certain width and height, cropped to fit or proportionally scaled and at whatever quality and sharpening settings we desire. The Director API puts the full power of the on-demand image publishing system at your fingertips.
Of course, this will also be available for the Director hosting service at slideshowpro.com. The API for both versions of Director will be released in public beta form in the coming weeks. If you are well-versed in PHP, have a Director install (whether on your own server or the hosting service) and would be interested in a private beta for the API, shoot me an email (brad[at]slideshowpro.net) and you can get started even sooner!
SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.0b3 available
The beta train for SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7 keeps chugging along with a third release that’s now available for download. This releases fixes a couple of bugs from the second beta, and provides further refinements / optimizations to other new features. There is one new thing however, and that’s a circular control “knob” inside the progress bar of the media player to control scrubbing. You could scrub before by clicking and dragging the end of the progress bar, but this release makes the region a bit more obvious. The color of the element can be independently controlled.
If interested, here’s the 1.7.0b3 version history.
Thanks again to everyone who’s tested 1.7 and provided feedback thus far.
If you have upgraded to 1.1.8 and are suddenly having issues with thumbnails not showing up, Director 1.1.9 is your ticket back to stability. Turns out some of the new ImageMagick parameters we are utilizing were only introduced in ImageMagick 6, so if your install was using an older version of ImageMagick the image processing was failing.
That’s the only change, so if 1.1.8 is working as expected you can sit tight.
Primarily a bug-fix release, Director 1.1.8 is now available for download. Along with the minor bug fixes, it includes two changes that are worth noting here.
First, as more and more of you have taken advantage of using ImageMagick for image processing, we’ve noticed that most hosts use the 16-bit, default version of ImageMagick. While 16-bit image processing is useful for editing imagery, it really has no use when displaying optimized images on the web. Director 1.1.8 now automatically uses 8-bit processing for its on-demand image publishing, which in many cases will drastically reduce the file size of the optimized imagery. As always, your originally uploaded imagery remains untouched, only the optimized copies Director creates are affected.
Lastly, when the beta for SlideShowPro 1.7 was released, the new “vidpreview” parameter was not supported in Director. We’ve added that functionality in Director 1.1.8, so if you are testing out the new SlideShowPro beta your existing video previews will now also be published as the larger video preview.
For the rest of the changes, check out the Director version history.
SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7.0b2 available
The second public beta of SlideShowPro for Flash 1.7 is now available for download. This release mostly refines/fixes a few things from beta 1, with the notable exception of a couple of new additions. First, a video play button now appears in the center of a video’s preview graphic (if one is assigned), and as you might expect, it plays the associated video when clicked. It also appears at the end of a video if Display Mode is set to “Manual” (so that it can be restarted).
Secondly, the “Director Image Format” option from beta 1 has changed names to “Content Format” because that same functionality now applies to Media RSS feeds that contain a selection of imagery to choose from. In other words, if a feed contains large, high-resolution imagery and “Content Format” is set to “Full Screen,” SlideShowPro for Flash will load the largest possible version that’ll fit a user’s monitor resolution. If “Normal” (the default), SlideShowPro for Flash will load the largest possible version that’ll fit the SWF size in HTML.
To read more about this release, see the beta 2 version notes. And as usual, feedback is encouraged.
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