SlideShowPro News

09.29.07 | Wilco

Fans of the American rock group Wilco will recognize SlideShowPro at wilcoworld.net, the official web site for the band. With large images of the group performing live around the world, the gallery is fantastic collection of original photos you won't see anyplace else.

09.26.07 | What's up with the iPhoto plugin?

The ol' mail inbox has been filling up with people asking when an update will be released for the SlideShowPro iPhoto Plugin to make it compatible with iPhoto '07 (part of the new iLife 08 suite -- not the least bit confusing). So here's the deal. Yes, an update will be forthcoming. At this point we are researching what exactly has changed in the new release that's causing the plugin to fail, and once the problem is remedied we will release an update. When you ask? A conservative estimate would be sometime in October.

For what it's worth, the whole iPhoto plug-in breakage is hardly unique to us. Every time Apple releases an update to the product, they break plugins, and developers don't receive any fair warning or developer builds to work with in advance. It's simply a matter of downloading it like everyone else, and noticing that your plugin doesn't work anymore.

Thankfully, Apple has finally produced a API / SDK for iPhoto 07 plugin development, which is a whole lot better than it used to be (which involved complete hackery, to be honest). So hopefully this won't be as big a deal going forward whenever the next version of iPhoto comes out.

At any rate, we hear you. It's a pain. But an update is in the works.

09.22.07 | New in Director 1.1: "Focal Point"

We didn't plan on adding any new features this late in the beta testing game, and lord knows if we were a corporation with layers of management we never would have been able to do this. But since we're small and can rapidly prototype, test, and deploy, we can build something in the time it takes a project manager to draft a requirements document.

Alright, so what's the new feature?

Over the course of beta testing (and honestly before) we've been asked by photographers if it's possible to choose an area of a photo to use whenever it requires cropping. Currently, whenever an image requires cropping for the thumbnail navigation, an album preview, or when used as slideshow content with "Content Scale" set to "Crop to Fit," the image is proportionally scaled to fill the space it's loaded into, then cropped in the center. But what if you had a bunch of portraits, with the subject's head at the top of the image? All your subjects would be cut off.

So we started kicking around ideas. Add a parameter to SlideShowPro? That didn't make sense, cause you'd need an extra setting anywhere an image appears. Add to Director a Photoshop-like marquee tool to drag over an image to select an area? Better, but a bit cumbersome. Add to Director a drop-down to select a predefined quadrant (top left, bottom right...)? Easier, but not optimal for times where a subject is positioned somewhere inbetween those areas.

Then Brad came up with the best idea of all -- why not "point" at the area you want? Like you would with a camera?

So we added a "focal point" utility to the edit pane for each image. When clicked, a camera viewfinder-like graphic appears for you to click, hold, and drag to where your subject is. For example, if it were a portrait, you'd drag it near their face. And presto -- anytime that image is requested and a crop needs to be made, Director will maintain the assigned focal point to ensure that the subject is always in view.

We didn't plan on making this part of 1.1, but it worked too well not to. Want to see it in action? Check out this quick video that shows an image's focal point changing from the center to the top-center. Director then generates a new internal-thumbnail for that image, and will use that same focal point whenever SlideShowPro requests a cropped version. We think this will come in very handy for a lot of photographers out there.

09.18.07 | Director 1.1 multilingual preview

We haven't talked a whole lot about this, but a number our users will be interested to know that the soon-to-be-released SlideShowPro Director 1.1 will be multilingual. We currently have a group of people from around the world translating Director's default English text to Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, and most dramatically, Chinese. Want to see a preview? Check out this forum thread to see screenshots of Director's installation screens translated into Chinese. Pretty cool.

And in case you're curious, choice of language will be assigned through the very first installation screen, and used throughout thereafter. You can then change it anytime through the app's Preferences screen.

09.17.07 | Don Flood Photography

Be still my beating heart. Photographer Don Flood, who appears to specialize in capturing female fashion models and celebrities, is using SlideShowPro to showcase a gorgeous portfolio of work. Nearly every inline interface item in SlideShowPro is turned off, with the exception of the minimal "Line" preloader animation, and replaced with a simple, two button external navigation for flipping through photos. With the exception of the splash page, SlideShowPro is used on every page in the site, with great style. Check it out.

09.05.07 | David Brabyn

Filled with large, beautiful photos, the portfolio site of photojournalist David Brabyn is crisp, clean, and satisfyingly simple. SlideShowPro's background, as well as the navigation's background, are styled white so the images and navigation buttons (which are using our first extra button pack "Quartz") float above the page. Loads of beautiful portraits and news imagery to see.