SlideShowPro News

12.27.07 | 360icon

360icon is home to an collection of stunning, ethereal panoramas that capture empty buildings and desolate landscapes. 360icon uses QuickTime for most of their panoramas (so they can be rotated), but for their "Equirectangular" gallery they're using SlideShowPro for Flash to present static panoramas that expose the entire dynamic range of 360-degree imagery in flat 2D.

12.17.07 | Hosting milestone

It's been three weeks to-the-day since we launched hosting for SlideShowPro Director, and as luck would have it we crossed a notable milestone today as well: 10,000 images uploaded! Granted, it's small potatoes compared to some other photography related web sites out there, but we feel it's a fantastic beginning.

12.14.07 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.0.3 Released

This is a quick patch release that incorporates a missing parameter (Navigation Link Preview Background Color), which controls the background color of the link rollover thumbnails. It can be found in the "Navigation" area of the "Appearance" panel. Nothing else has changed in this release.

Current users can download here (requires login).

12.13.07 | New hosting upgrade: domain mapping

When accounts are created as part of our new SlideShowPro Director hosting service, users receive their own custom subdomain (e.g, you.slideshowpro.com) to login to their installation. But what about using your own domain to access your account? A number of people have asked about this since we went live a couple of weeks ago, so we built a utility to map domains to your installation.

Domain mapping is a paid upgrade ($20), and is available for as long as your subscription is held. You can purchase through the "Preferences" page of your hosting account.

Note: if you plan on purchasing, and intend to map a full domain (domain.com) and not a subdomain (you.domain.com), you should find out if your domain registrar supports altering CNAME records for full domains. Dreamhost, for example, doesn't allow this, and limits CNAME records to subdomains.

12.12.07 | "One heck of a deal for the money"

Michael Clark over at O'Reilly has written a very favorable review of SlideShowPro for Lightroom. Thanks Michael!

12.11.07 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.0.2 Released

After thinking I had the "Preview in Browser" issue fixed in 1.0.1, turns out it still wasn't working correctly for some people using Windows. This release should fix the preview issue once and for all. This release also brings back the Link Preview Width/Height parameters that were removed from 1.0.1 (for simplicity), but it caused some unforeseen issues with a particular layout style. So they've been brought back; effectively returning it to 1.0 functionality. Outside of that, the modifiable contextual menu items (if you right clicked on a SWF) have been removed to prevent people from messing with the SWF timeline, and the swfobject.js file has been updated to the latest stable version (1.5), which is a bit more optimized than the previous one.

Current users can download here (requires login).

12.10.07 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.0.1 Released

The first point update to the new SlideShowPro for Lightroom is now available for download. This release ushers in a near-complete reorganization of the side panels to help alleviate some of the layout issues found in the OS X build of Lightroom. Everything is a bit narrower now, and grouped using sub-headers labeled with the main interface elements they control ("Captions", "Navigation", etc).

This re-organization helps, but doesn't completely resolve the OS X problem, which as I noted in a previous news post is caused by a bug in Lightroom's panel system. It's ultimately up to Adobe to fix the problem for good, so perhaps something good will come from them down the road.

In general though, the new layout may actually be clearer for some new users as well, for parameters are grouped more closely around functionality, instead of purpose (color, transparency, size, etc).

Outside of that, this release adds a toggle for including hyperlinks, an "add watermark" option, independent controls for large/thumb image height, an easier process for assigning thumbnail link preview sizes, and bug fixes for "Preview in Browser" and the Cache Content parameter not functioning as expected.

To read the full version history, click here. To download the update, click here (must be logged in to the Account Center) and then follow the "Updating previous versions" instructions in the SlideShowPro for Lightroom User Guide that's included with the download archive.

SlideShowPro for Flash 1.6.9 Released

A very small point release that resolves an issue with cacheContent being assigned via ActionScript. Fixed in this release so that it behaves as expected whether assigned via the Component Inspector or with ActionScript. Most users can skip this release, unless you're assigning parameters via ActionScript.

12.09.07 | Lorne Resnick Photography

The portfolio site for photographer Lorne Resnick is full of beautiful photography divided up into seven sections. Each section loads its own instance of SlideShowPro for Flash, and each are accompanied by a very clever navigation customization that mixes embedded elements like the thumbnail navigation with their own buttons and a crisp border that keeps it all together.

12.07.07 | Those pesky panels

Since SlideShowPro for Lightroom was released at the beginning of this week I've been receiving a lot of email and forum complaints from Mac OS X users concerning panel layout problems. What's the issue? Well, Lightroom should consistently re-format interior panel content when the width of the panel column is adjusted. And most of the time, it does. But for Mac OS X users, if you scale the panel column as thin as it will go, quit/restart Lightroom, then open the panels again, you're in for a nasty surprise. The interior content overflows the panel width; making it impossible to modify some parameters.

The solution? Expand the panel, then quit/relaunch Lightroom. The panel interiors will reformat correctly.

I've been in touch with Adobe on this problem, for it clearly goes beyond SlideShowPro for Lightroom and is an issue with Lightroom's windowing layout system (and OS X, of course). The good news is that I've been able to confirm that it is a known problem. The bad news is that there may not be an application-level remedy anytime soon.

That said, I have been given some tips on ways to minimize the chances of panel content overflowing the container. It won't completely resolve the problem, but it will make the issue less prominent. Unfortunately, it will require a notable reorganization of the panel interface currently in 1.0, so when the update is released existing users can expect to see a number of changed controls. Shouldn't affect templates already created with 1.0, but the UI will simply look a bit different.

Email trouble

Sometime around midnight last night our mail server decided to take a nap, and any emails sent to "@slideshowpro.net" or through our Contact page were ignored and lost. So if you sent us an email late last night or early this morning, please resend. Thanks.

12.05.07 | Director 1.1.7

A change introduced in the latest releases of PHP precipitated a quick bug-fix release of Director this afternoon. If you are using PHP 5.2.4 or above, this update specifically addresses a variable collision problem with the new versions of PHP and Director's on-demand image publishing system.

We've also taken the opportunity to close up some holes in the upgrade process for older Director installs coming to the new 1.1.x line. For a full changeset, visit the Director version history.

12.03.07 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom now available

After a short delay to workaround a late-breaking issue, SlideShowPro for Lightroom is now available for purchase and download.

Most everything I'd type here about the product you could just as well read on the page linked above, so I'll take this opportunity to write about something else. First, my thanks to John Nack, Tom Hogarty and especially Andy Rahn at Adobe for their accessibility and assistance during the development cycle. Considering how little I knew about Lightroom's API and available functionality, it was incredibly useful to have a team of people "on the inside" to provide support when needed.

Second, if you already have Lightroom installed, you will need to grab the new 1.3 update first before installing. There are some particular things that went into the 1.3 build (as part of our beta testing involvement) that are required in order for the gallery to work, so be sure to grab that in advance.

Third, even though SlideShowPro for Lightroom contains the latest version of SlideShowPro for Flash inside (1.6.8 as of this writing), everything else is considered 1.0, so we'd love to hear your feedback on how you feel the gallery could be improved or any issues you have using the software.

Fourth, we'll soon be posting a screencast video that demonstrates how SlideShowPro for Lightroom works, so stay tuned for that.

That's it for now! Head over to the new SlideShowPro for Lightroom page if interested.