SlideShowPro News

05.30.08 | Back online

The slideshowpro.net server experienced about 2 hours of downtime this afternoon, but is now back online. Sorry for the inconvenience.

If you sent any email between 1:30pm and 3:30pm Eastern time, you may want to send it again just to be sure we received it.

Hosting accounts on slideshowpro.com were not affected, as the hosting platform now resides on a separate server.

05.29.08 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.8 released

A small patch that fixes a Media RSS parsing issue with Flickr feeds, plus embedding changes to the standalone version of the component. To read more about this release, see the updated version history.

05.23.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 5

After taking a unexpected break from 1.2 development to give our Director hosting service some much needed attention, we're back in business with beta 5.

This beta fixes a few small issues uncovered in beta 4, but the major changes are with the API. It's been completely reorganized and documented on our new wiki. We've also updated the API demo to match, so be sure to check that out.

For a full list of the changes, see this thread in the beta forum. Feel free to give feedback or ask questions about the beta in that forum as well.

05.21.08 | SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.3.0 released

A new point release update for SlideShowPro for Lightroom is available for download. This release tackles two things in the 1.2 build that were less than optimal -- hyperlinks, and embed size.

First, hyperlinks. In the current version of SlideShowPro for Lightroom, toggling on "Attach Hyperlinks" adds hyperlinks to each slideshow image so that (when clicked) a new browser window opens with that same image. It worked okay, but was a wasted opportunity to offer users something more (which you'd naturally expect by clicking on something anyway). So...we revamped the hyperlink functionality by incorporating a new "Popup" system. This allows you to export a third, higher-resolution set of slideshow imagery as part of your export. When a slideshow image is clicked, the larger version of that image is loaded in a new browser window along with its title, caption, and also a preloader (that uses the same animation options as the slideshow itself). The popups are fluid, so the windows will scale to fit smaller display resolutions if necessary, and proportionally downscale the popup images if necessary. You also have control over all its parameters within Lightroom. Also, by using Flash instead of HTML to display your popups, photographers have a little more security for their work instead of directly linking to a physical image.

Second, embed size. SlideShowPro for Lightroom is embedded, by default, at 100% width/height for extra features like the Header and Wet Floor effect, and so that your slideshow always "floats" in the center of the browser window. The one downside is people using lower-resolution displays, for SWFs embedded at 100% incorporating content that's larger than the display size can cause unwanted cropping and display problems. With that, this version implements a workaround that detects when a browser window is too small to display your slideshow and (like HTML) displays horizontal / vertical scroll bars if necessary.

As usual, this update is free for all current users of SlideShowPro for Lightroom, and can be downloaded here (login required).

(mt) Collective Motion Project

Web hosting gurus (and sponsor of this site) Media Temple (mt) is using SlideShowPro for Flash to present a spectacular collection of videos for their Collective Motion Project. 23 videos in all, the gallery is styled using the "Fill" Album Preview Style with custom graphics containing each video title and byline. You can open the gallery to jump in and out of videos, or select one and let the entire collection playback and rotate automatically. But the most impressive part is the content itself, with some really amazing motion graphics work. Check it out!

05.16.08 | SSP for Flash 1.8.7 / SSP for Lightroom 1.2.7 released

Adobe released a public beta of Flash Player 10 yesterday, which we tested out to make sure everything was kosher, and found that the full screen button wasn't appearing (cause our player detection needed updating to detect the higher version). So we patched it up quickly and pushed out updated builds for both SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom to accommodate.

Updates can be downloaded through the account center.

05.13.08 | SlideShowPro for Flash 1.8.6 released

This is just a quick release that changes the default setting of the "Smoothing" parameter added to the previous version (1.8.5) to "Off" instead of "On." Why the change? Well, it turns out that the smoothing filter caused problems when loading an XML file from a domain where cross-domain permission is granted, but the links contained inside the XML file point to separate domains. May sound like an edge-case problem, but it's fairly common with Media RSS feeds. So to keep things from being broken "out of the box" and causing unnecessary confusion, the parameter is now opt-in.

Nothing else is different in this build, so unless you were having issues similar to the aforementioned, you don't need to download it or update your slideshows. Update can be download through the account center.

05.09.08 | SSP for Flash 1.8.5 / SSP for Lightroom 1.2.6 released

New updates for both SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom have been released. Most notable in this release is a new "Smoothing" parameter (that replaces "Video Smoothing") that helps smooth out some of the jagginess when odd-size images are scaled and displayed in both products. This goes for everything from slideshow content to the thumbnail navigation and album previews. The extra processing required to generate the filter is negligible, but you can turn it off if need be.

These releases also fix a few other little tweaky things that were discovered recently. You can read about those in the updated version history at our new wiki.

Both updates are free for all current users and can be downloaded through your account center member profile.

05.07.08 | New help wiki launched

A couple of months ago we mentioned that a new help wiki for our products was in development, and today we're launching it. The wiki collects together all the content in our PDF-based user guides, how-to forum topics, forum stickies, API documentation, and more. We're hoping that the new format makes finding the content you need easier and faster.

Another reason for moving everything to HTML is to provide documentation in more than just English. Every document has an "Other Languages" box at the top right for alternate translations in Spanish, French and Italian. Right now pretty much everything is in English, and that's where we could use your help. Anyone can help translate a document by clicking a language link and entering their login and password to the account center. You'll then have full access to the non-English version of that document.

As for our existing documentation, we will continue to include the PDFs with our product downloads for at least another few weeks. That will give us time to fix any wiki issues, and hopefully get everyone accustomed to using the wiki to find the information they need before pulling the plug on everything that's been moved.

So when you have a chance, give it a look and let us know how it can be improved, or if you spot any mistakes / omissions.

05.01.08 | ChrisVector.com

Cristiano Siqueira, aka ChrisVector, uses SlideShowPro for Flash on his simple, elegant portfolio site to show off his incredible collection of vector illustrations and Photoshop wizardry. Chris is using the "Fill" Album Preview Style for his gallery, which allows an image to be used for each album element. He also removed the stroke that surrounds the component (through Content Area Stroke Appearance) to give his content clean edges all around. The navigation is styled with a muted gray with a hint of green, and the navigation icons are styled white with the shadow/bevel effects removed for a flat look. The link preview popups load a separate group of thumbnails that are purposely desaturated for a unique look. And finally, a drop shadow was applied underneath the SlideShowPro instance on the timeline (not something that's built into SSP, in case there's confusion) to lift the presentation off the page.

In all, very well executed and with tons of amazing, creative content to explore. Check it out.