SlideShowPro News

08.15.08 | Lightroom to SlideShowPro Director plugin updated

An update for the Lightroom to SlideShowPro Director plugin has just been released. The update should resolve issues that been affecting users when using the plugin with Lightroom 2. Also, based on user feedback, we've added some optional controls to the exporter that allow you to set image quality and dimensions on export.

You can download the update from the SlideShowPro Director Extras page.

Director 1.2.3

We've found and fixed a few more bugs in the new Director 1.2 release and Director 1.2.3 is now available in the account center. This upgrade is recommended for all users running any version of 1.2. For a list of changes, see the version history page in the wiki.

08.11.08 | Director 1.2.2, Lightroom to Director

Earlier today, we released Director 1.2.1 with a few bugfixes. Unfortunately, we introduced a new bug, so 1.2.2 is now out. If you are having issues with 1.2.1, try upgrading to 1.2.2 to see if that helps.

Also, we've released a final version of the Lightroom to SlideShowPro Director plugin. This plugin allows you to add imagery to your Director install straight from Lightroom. For more on the plugin, check this page at the wiki. To download the plugin, visit the extras page for SlideShowPro Director. The plugin requires the latest version of Director or an account with the SlideShowPro Director hosting service.

08.06.08 | SlideShowPro Director 1.2

After more than six months of development and testing, SlideShowPro Director 1.2 is now available in the Account Center.

If you've been following the 1.2 development and beta cycle, you probably know that the key addition to 1.2 is the new API. Now well documented on the SlideShowPro wiki, the API allows you to connect to Director's data and the on-demand image publishing system from outside of Flash. The possibilities are endless and we'll be showing you some examples of what users have already done in the coming days.

Apart from the API, Director has received several user interface tune-ups, including custom buttons, pagination on the albums and galleries index pages, a more functional album content tab and much more. For a full list of the changes, see the version history over at the wiki.

One important note before upgrading to 1.2. You must be running Director 1.1 or later in order to upgrade to 1.2. If you are running a pre-1.1 install, you will need to upgrade to 1.1.9 first, then upgrade to 1.2.

Happy upgrading!

07.24.08 | Director 1.2 RC2

The second (and probably final) release candidate is now available for Director 1.2. It contains a few fixes to the installer as well as various performance improvements. If you are running the beta or first release candidate, please upgrade and report any issues you see. We expect a final release of 1.2 early next week.

07.22.08 | Director 1.2 Release Candidate

After a lengthy and productive beta cycle (thank you beta testers!), Director 1.2 has reached the release candidate stage. At this point, we are feature-locked and barring any unforeseen bugs this will be the version that goes final in the coming days.

So, if you have been testing, please give this version a try and let us know if something doesn't behave as expected. For a full list of the changes, see this thread in the beta forum. As always, the release candidate is available for download in the account center.

07.18.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 8

Thanks to some valuable feedback from our beta testers, we've closed a few more lingering bugs in the Director 1.2 beta and released beta 8 in the account center. For a list of fixes, see this thread in the beta forum.

We'll monitor this over the weekend and if all goes well, you should see a release candidate for 1.2 sometime next week. Thanks for testing!

07.15.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 7

Hot on the heels of beta 6, beta 7 is now available for those of you participating in our public beta for 1.2. This release fixes a few small issues that popped up in beta 6, particularly with our old friend Internet Explorer.

We're getting quite close to a production-ready release of 1.2, so you're feedback is more important than ever. Help us find those last few bugs before 1.2 goes final by posting over in the beta forum.

07.11.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 6

We're inching toward a release for the next major version of Director. Beta 6 is now available in the account center.

This beta continues to refine the new API (including adding a helpful Cache class to the DirectorPHP class). We've also added the ability to add tags to content in Director as well as fetch content by tags from the API. To upload the newest API Demo, click here.

Otherwise, we've done quite a bit of fine tuning to the Director interface. In particular, we've overhauled how the content tab works as well as adding custom buttons to the entire interface. Another change (based on user feedback) is pagination for both the albums and galleries index pages, useful if you have large amounts of content.

As always, we'd appreciate your feedback in the beta forum. Happy testing!

06.18.08 | View SlideShowPro Director content on your iPhone

Even though internal work continues on SlideShowPro Director 1.2 public beta, that hasn't stopped a number of developers from finding creative things to do with the product's new (and still in development) API. Case in point: iShowPro from Visual23. It's a free (and in beta as well) template Director 1.2b users can use to display Director content on their iPhone. The developer is looking for feedback, so if you're running 1.2b, we suggest you give it a try!

06.09.08 | SlideShowPro Director Hosting relocated

We wrote about this more in depth over at our hosting status blog, but for those who don't follow or subscribe to that site, the back-end for all hosting accounts was recently upgraded for improved speed and stability. The hardware we were using wasn't working as well as we'd like, so everything was successfully relocated late last week with very little downtime or issues. Everything appears to be running better than ever now.

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.

05.07.08 | 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.

04.17.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 4

As betas usually go - two steps forward, one step back. With the new metadata functionality we introduced in Beta 3, we inadvertently broke the link template functionality. Also, the new EXIF/IPTC dialogues were not showing up in IE 7. We've fixed both of these issues with Beta 4, now available via the account center.

As always, we appreciate your feedback (good or bad) through the 1.2 beta forum.

04.16.08 | Director 1.2 Beta 3: EXIF/IPTC support expanded

Although the major focus for Director 1.2 has been implementing the new API system, there was one other thing we have been itching to improve for some time now. As many of you have pointed out, most images are embedded with a rich set of metadata about when the image was taken and what settings were used. This valuable data is known as EXIF and is inserted into the file by the camera itself at the time the image is taken. Likewise, it is common for images to include IPTC data, which is data that is input in imaging software such as Photoshop or Lightroom. Many photographers use this data to identify the copyright owner, give the image a caption, and so on.

Up until now, Director has been mostly ignoring this data. However, starting with 1.2 Beta 3, we've revamped the album settings tab to expose quite a few EXIF and IPTC fields. We've also exposed more Director data, allowing you to quickly create dynamic captions and titles with a mix of Director, IPTC and EXIF data.

Director 1.2 Beta 3 is now available in the users area. Please do remember it is still in the beta stage, so use with care. Screenshots of the shiny new stuff:

03.28.08 | SlideShowPro Director Lightroom export plugin available

Now that we have the beta version of SlideShowPro Director 1.2 out, which includes a new API, we're also making available the new Lightroom export plugin we talked about earlier this week. This plugin is also considered a beta, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Note that this plugin requires the 1.2 beta of SlideShowPro Director in order to work, and does not currently work with the Windows version of Lightroom when exporting to slideshowpro.com hosting accounts (exporting from Windows to an installation of SlideShowPro Director 1.2 on your own server seems to work fine).

So if you're interested in trying it out, feel free to download here and let us know what you think.

03.27.08 | Director 1.2 Beta now available

We've finally chased down the last few issues with Director 1.2 and have released it in beta form via the Account Center here at slideshowpro.net. The regular disclaimers about using beta software apply.

Before we get to the exciting stuff, a word of warning about 1.2. You can only upgrade existing installs of Director to 1.2 if the existing install is running Director 1.1 or later. So, if you are still running 1.0.9.9 (or an even earlier version), you will first need to upgrade to 1.1.9 (the latest release of the 1.1 line), then you can upgrade to 1.2.

So what's new? At first glance, Director 1.2 looks quite a bit like Director 1.1. It's beneath the surface that the most notable change has been implemented, as Director has been fitted with a new API that opens up Director's data and imagery to just about anything you can dream up.

There are a few notable fixes and additions in Director itself. First, Director now exposes more data to link templates, allowing you to create more useful, custom link templates. The link template system now also has access to the on-demand image publishing system, so you can link to an optimized copy of the image. To illustrate this, a new link template is included in the update that opens an optimized copy of the image at 800x800 in a chromeless popup window. One final fix that is noteworthy - we've finally found a fix for the batch selection issue on Mac browsers. Yeah!

There's more too, so be sure to check out the full changelog for your favorite change/fix.

03.24.08 | Coming soon: SlideShowPro Director export plugin for Lightroom

By popular request, we're currently putting the finishing touches on a new SlideShowPro Director export plugin for Adobe Lightroom. What does it do? It allows you export images from the Lightroom Library directly into an installation of SlideShowPro Director on your own web server, or a hosted version of Director on our site. You'll be able to choose either an existing album to populate with your photos, or create a new album as part of the upload process. The plugin will also (optionally) maintain the titles and captions already assigned to your images in Lightroom.

The plugin is possible because of the new SlideShowPro Director API which is currently in private beta and scheduled to be released as part of the upcoming 1.2 update (which should be out soon). The plugin will be available, free of charge, once 1.2 is out the door.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

02.26.08 | Trials available across the board

After far longer than I'd care to admit, we finally have a free, fully functional trial of SlideShowPro for Flash for people to download, test out, and kick around. Containing both the Flash extension and the standalone version (in SWF form), the trial is exactly like the real product except it's limited in the amount of content it can load (three pieces of content total).

With that, all three of our products now offer free trials for new users to try out. This isn't exactly useful news for existing users, but hey. Better late than never, as they say.

02.12.08 | Director API Public Alpha

We've had a great response to the Director API since we announced it a few weeks back. To make things easier, we are turning the 1.2 alpha of Director into a public affair. So, any interested Director users who want to try out the API can do so and discuss it via the forums. To get started, read this post in the newly minted Director API forum.

01.30.08 | Announcing the Director API

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!

01.23.08 | Director 1.1.9

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.

01.22.08 | Director 1.1.8 released

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.

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.

12.13.07 | 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.

12.05.07 | 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.

11.29.07 | New licensing options for developers

For quite a while now, the single user license agreement for SlideShowPro for Flash (which you've read, right?) has disallowed the embedding of SWFs created with SlideShowPro for Flash inside a proprietary software application for redistribution. It's provoked a fair amount of confusion, so we decided to do something about it. Today we're offering a new OEM license for SlideShowPro for Flash that grants permission to software developers interested in using SWFs as a component of their own software. You can read more about the OEM license here. The license sells for $499, and may be obtained by emailing us.

Additionally, we've also been asked by developers if bulk licensing is available for SlideShowPro Director. So today we're offering a new SlideShowPro Director Developer Pack that includes 20 licenses / keys for Director at a specially discounted price (approx 20% off each license). The pack will generate all 20 keys at once, so anytime you need to install Director on a new domain you simply login and grab a key from your profile page.

Developers can contact us with any questions about these new licensing options.

11.26.07 | SlideShowPro Director hosting now live!

Brad and I are pleased to announce that web hosting for SlideShowPro Director is now up, running, and available! Head on over to the SlideShowPro Director Hosting page for more information about pricing, features, and other details. There's also a new FAQ on hosting that should answer most common questions, but you can also drop us an email with your query.

If you've always been curious how SlideShowPro Director works, or have never been able to install the downloadable version, now's your chance to see what Director has to offer. Subscribe now for 6, 12 or 24 months, or try before you buy with a 14-day free trial. We firmly believe that once you use Director to manage your content and publish imagery for your slideshows, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

11.16.07 | Announcing SlideShowPro Director Hosting

I hinted earlier at something "else" coming on Monday, November 26th, and here it is: Director hosting!

Beginning the 26th, everyone will be able to use SlideShowPro Director to manage their slideshow content. You'll get your own subdomain (you.slideshowpro.com), unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, and the peace of mind knowing your SlideShowPro Director installation will always be up to date with the latest version, securely backed up, and constantly watched over.

Hosting will be affordable, purchasable in chunks of time (6 months, 1 year, 2 years), and completely automatic. Your space will be setup automatically after your subscription, so you'll be able to login and immediately get to work. We'll also be offering a 14-day free trial so everyone can kick the tires. We expect the service to be popular with those who'd rather not install server-side software, or those who simply have better things to do.

For those using Director on their own web servers, don't worry. The hosted version of Director will be nearly identical to the downloadable version, with the only differences being an extra utility or two in the hosted version for managing access, etc. So whether you purchase Director and install it on your own box, or one of ours, you're getting the same application.

More details will be announced on the 26th.

Director 1.1.6 now available

Another bug-fix update (full changelog) for Director is now available. The main fixes in this release put an end to issues with avatar uploads, how content was ordered after it was uploaded and a particularly nasty bug that caused several things to break when using a language other than english.

11.06.07 | Director 1.1.5

A bug-fix release for Director is now available, fixing several minor issues along with a bug that caused emails sent from Director to fail on some servers. For a full list of the changes, visit the Director version history.

11.01.07 | Flash Player 9 for Leopard updated. Director uploads work again.

Yay! Adobe has come through with an update to Flash Player 9 for OS X 10.5 (Leopard) that fixes the upload breakage in SlideShowPro Director. So if you're using 10.5 and Director, head on over here to grab the latest version.

10.26.07 | Director and Leopard

We're just as excited as anyone about receiving our copies of Leopard, Apple's latest iteration of Mac OS X. However, there does seem to be a glitch in Leopard with regard to uploading content into Director. We haven't seen this firsthand, but several users who've already received their copies of Leopard have wrote in to report the issue.

So, if it is absolutely necessary that you be able to upload to a Director installation from your Mac, you might want to hold off on upgrading to Leopard until we can isolate and fix the issue. We'll be grabbing our copies of Leopard later on today, and getting Director into line will be a top priority. More to come...

Update (10/27/2007): We've since confirmed this problem ourselves, and learned that the issue is with the Flash Player in Leopard (10.5), and affects any web site out there (of which there are plenty) using Flash as an upload gateway. Adobe is apparently aware of the issue and working on an update.

10.18.07 | Director 1.1.4 now available

Well, the factory is running at full tilt lately and another bug-fix release for Director just rolled off the line. The main issue resolved in this release was a problem with how portrait images were being scaled down and optimized for your slideshows. This bug also manifested itself by not honoring the focal point setting for the affected images. Both issues are now resolved, as well as a few others. For full details, check the version history.

10.10.07 | Director 1.1.2: Client-side caching is back

With all the advantages of Director's new image publishing system, there is one downside that has always bothered us. Since the images are being returned dynamically, browser side caching is being ignored, meaning that no matter how many times you watch a slideshow, the server still sends the image over the wire, even if it already exists in your browser's cache. Many of you have noticed that the preloaders in your slideshows are always visible, and this is why. Not only is this bad for user experience, it also can cause quite a spike in bandwidth on your server, which we experienced here at slideshowpro.net.

So after reading up on the HTTP spec, we've rolled out Director 1.1.2 which bridges the gap to your (or your user's) browser and smartly detects if the image exists in the browser's cache. If it does, Director instructs the browser to use it and virtually no data has to travel from the server to the browser, saving a lot of bandwidth.

Also new in 1.1.2, two new translations: Italian and French. Director is now available in six languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Thanks translators!

For a full changelog for 1.1.2, visit the version history. To download, hop on over to the Director product page.

10.03.07 | SlideShowPro 1.6 and SlideShowPro Director 1.1 now available

Title says it all! SlideShowPro 1.6 and SlideShowPro Director 1.1 are now available for purchase / download. As noted before, these updates are free for all current users of both applications, and can be downloaded through your profile here at the site. Click on the "User login" link at the top of this page to enter the new Account Center.

Couple of important notes concerning these releases:

One, if you're upgrading to either product, be sure to read the update notes included with both. A lot has changed in both of these releases, so it's important that you take the necessary precautions to avoid problems.

Two, we've decided with these new releases to revise our product pricing. This will only affect new users, for both products are free updates for all existing users. That said, we're sure there are some people out there who were holding out on obtaining Director 1.1 (or additional installation keys) until the final version was available, so to be fair we're offering a special Director coupon code that'll allow existing users to purchase Director for the old price. To obtain the coupon code (which is available for the next two weeks), login to your profile, and if you purchased SlideShowPro before today you'll see the code at the top.

Thanks go out to all our beta testers and language translators who helped us make these releases even better.

10.01.07 | We're done

I'm pleased to announce that after numerous weeks of private / public beta testing, SlideShowPro 1.6 and SlideShowPro Director 1.1 are "final" and ready to roll. In tandem with the updates will be a new design for slideshowpro.net, updated screencast videos (which will now be available as a podcast), completely new documentation (all user guides rewritten), a new Photoshop CS2/CS3 script (will write more about this later), as well as updated demonstration files using the latest version of SlideShowPro.

We'll be sending out an email blast when everything is complete, which we're guesstimating to be either sometime tomorrow or Wednesday. We just have a few little things to take care of before then.

Thanks to all the beta testers who helped kick the tires!

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.

08.31.07 | Quartz Button Pack buttons updated

For those brave souls who are trying out the release candidate of SlideShowPro 1.6.0, and are also using the Quartz Button Pack, we've updated the set to include full screen / normal screen buttons for 1.6.0's new full screen mode. If you've purchased Quartz but aren't testing out 1.6.0, there's no need to download the updated set. Nothing else has changed expect for the extra group of buttons. This updated pack will replace the current pack once 1.6.0 goes final.

As usual, login to your profile and click the download link to get them if interested.

08.27.07 | Release candidates now available

After a full summer of development, and a couple of weeks of private beta testing, we're finally able to publicly offer release candidates for both SlideShowPro 1.6 and SlideShowPro Director 1.1. Feature wise, a lot has changed in both products, but that's only half the story. We've also put a considerable amount of time into under-the-hood improvements. You know, the kind of stuff that never gets a fancy bullet point, but is there nonetheless.

With that, if you're feeling brave, you can now login to your user profile and download the first release candidate of both products (assuming you own both, of course). But before you do, please remember that both are still considered betas. We've spent a lot of time kicking the tires on both, and feel strong enough about their stability to offer both publicly. But we fully expect there to be issues that will require resolution before going final with both products.

SlideShowPro 1.6.0 RC1 installs as a separate extension in Extension Manager, so installing that is pretty straightforward. SlideShowPro Director 1.1 RC1 on the other hand, because we're dealing with server-side software, isn't so straightforward. If you download Director 1.1, refer to the sticky entries in the Director 1.1 Release Candidate forum before attempting to install / update your existing installation of Director, or install a new build.

New forums have been setup for both products as well. We encourage anyone who downloads and uses these releases to provide feedback through those channels.

Before I go, one last thing. Many thanks to our private beta testers who were kind enough to help kick the tires. Their time and feedback was more than helpful.

08.15.07 | Screenshots of Director 1.1b

For those who aren't beta testers, here's a couple of screenshots of SlideShowPro Director's "Snapshot" page, which is your central hub for overseeing recent activity, copying data feeds, and other tasks. Here's a couple of hi-res previews:

Snapshot page: black (default) theme

Snapshot page: white theme

By the way, these screenshots were grabbed using a private beta of Skitch, a cool new utility for OS X. We actually have 4 beta invites (gone!) we're not using, so if you're a Mac user and would like to try the app out, hit me up.

08.10.07 | Beta testers needed!

Would you like to help "kick the tires" of SlideShowPro 1.6 and Director 1.1? If so, jump over to our beta signup page and send us your email address. Please be sure to use the same email address that's part of your slideshowpro.net user profile so that we can verify your identity. The beta is open to any user who owns a license for either product, but we will stop asking for participants once we feel the room is full enough. So if you're interested, signup now, and make sure you read the Terms & Conditions first. Thanks!

08.08.07 | SlideShowPro 1.6.0 Beta video demo

Remember all those times when I said that "video wasn't supported" in SlideShowPro? And that loading FLVs was a bit of a hack? Well, not anymore. The next update to SlideShowPro, version 1.6.0, will support direct linking to FLVs from your XML file, just like you would an image. So all you have to do is create an FLV, link to it in the XML, or upload it to Director. Here's a little demonstration I whipped up using a trailer for the movie Ratatouille.

The demo doesn't show this (cause there's only one piece of content), but if SlideShowPro is set to "Auto" Display Mode when reaching a video, the video will temporarily switch Display Mode to "Manual," and after completion of the video will switch it back to "Auto" and progress to the next "image." This way you could line up more than one video, or mix videos with photos, and they'll playback in a loop.

As for the media player, it appears at the beginning of a video for 5 seconds, then slides out of the way. If you want it back, move your mouse down towards where it would normally be, and the player will appear. And like all other parameters in SlideShowPro, you'll have complete control over its color, text size, scale, etc. You can also turn off the navigation to just show video and the media player if you'd like.

And one last thing -- your videos will scale just the same as images. So if they don't fit exactly, you can proportionally scale them, downscale larger videos only, or scale and crop to fit.

So there you go! Back to work!

08.05.07 | Director Preview Video: On-demand image publishing

If you are wondering why we went silent after our first few preview videos for Director 1.1, this post should explain quite a bit. Somewhere along the line we had an "ah-ha!" moment that led to a drastic change in how Director publishes images for SlideShowPro. We realized that generating content by manually filling in values in the "Generate content" tab was a tedious, backwards way of doing things. After all, if SlideShowPro already knew what size images it needed, why couldn't it just "tell" Director automatically? So, beginning with SlideShowPro 1.6 and Director 1.1, that's exactly what it will do. The generate tab is long gone. You simply upload your full quality imagery into Director and SlideShowPro will request the exact size it needs, receiving an optimized copy from Director on the fly.

For more on this change and why it was needed, check out a quick preview video covering the new on-demand image publishing system, then let us know what you think at this dedicated thread in the forums.

08.01.07 | SlideShowPro / Director update pricing and features

Alrighty everyone! After a considerable amount of work, here are a few highlights from the next versions of SlideShowPro and SlideShowPro Director.

SlideShowPro 1.6.0

• FLV playback support
• Integrated media player for handling video and audio
• Transition pause countdown animation
• Revised play/pause feedback element
• Ability to remove navigation bar from view when gallery is open
• Centered text in captions, album titles and descriptions
• More parameters to control the width, height and scale of thumbnail pop-up previews and album previews
• Ability to peruse links in the navigation without snapping back to current image in view (when in auto playback mode)
• Lots of visual improvements to live preview mode to make editing easier

SlideShowPro Director 1.1

• Complete user interface and design overhaul
• Vastly improved organization of content
• New on-demand image publishing system
• Image sharpening
• Ability to copy/move images between albums
• Ability to batch copy/move/delete images in any album
• Editable template system for assigning hyperlinks to images
• Automatic reading of IPTC caption metadata (if available) on image upload
• International language support
• One-click copying of XML file paths
• Interface themes (comes with two - black and white)
• User avatars
• Integrated server/installation information
• Ability to "remember me" when logging in

And now for the best feature of all! Both updates will be free of charge to all current users. Yes, free. Why? Because we're crazy. No, seriously, we could have easily up-ticked both to "2.0" and passed around the collection plate, but we don't roll like that. Consider it a "thank you" for your constructive feedback, word-of-mouth support, and for taking a chance with us in the first place.

All that said, there is one small caveat for a small percentage of Director users. SlideShowPro Director 1.1 will feature a new key authentication system (and revised license agreement) that will allow you to install the software at one domain, and one domain only. If you need to install Director under a second domain (or more), you will need to purchase a new license for each additional domain. Most people use Director at only one domain anyway, so this won't impact the majority of users. But everyone else will need to purchase additional licenses if they administer Director installations on multiple sites.

If you're one of the affected people, you may be thinking "W-T-F." But hear us out. The reason for moving to a system like this is to prevent the escalating issue of software piracy, license agreement abuse, and to ensure that everyone pays their fair share. We dislike these type of systems just as much as anyone else, but for the continued development and support of Director it's simply unavoidable.

Alright, so now that we have that out of the way, the next series of blog posts will highlight some of the aforementioned features, including a demo of SlideShowPro playing FLVs, and a thorough explanation of how Director's new "on-demand publishing system" works. We'll also be offering a private beta for both product updates, which we'll announce more information about in the coming days.

05.24.07 | Director Preview Video 2: Manage preferences

We've just posted our second video previewing the next release of Director, this time walking through some of the new options in "Manage preferences". If you are at all interested in modifying Director's interface, translating Director into your own language or applying image processing defaults to new albums automatically, you might want to have a look.

So, check out the video and then give us any feedback you may have via this thread in the forums.

04.23.07 | Big Director update coming

We're hard at work on the next update to SlideShowPro Director, which will feature a near-complete overhaul of its user interface. Why the big change? Because nearly a year has passed since the first release of the administrative app, and there are innumerable ways in which it can be improved, expanded, and made easier to use. Brad and I have been listening to your feedback in the forums, kicked around a few ideas of our own, and have made considerable progress over the past few weeks.

If you're a Director user, but haven't offered feedback, we want to hear from you! We've got the car on blocks with the hood popped open, so if there's something that bugs you about Director, or ways in which you feel the app can be improved or made easier to use, now is the best time to make your voice heard. Jump into the Director feature request forum and fire away.

In the coming weeks we'll be posting screenshots, highlighting changes, and again requesting feedback from you. Stay tuned.

12.21.06 | Director Release Candidate Available

After positive reports with the betas for Director 1.0.8 and a few final bug fixes, a release candidate for 1.0.8 is now available for download. There are no known issues with this release, and if all goes well it will be released as final sometime next week.

Most of this update is fixing things found in the beta phase, but one enhancement of note is even more functionality for Director's new uploader. You can now select full size images, thumbnails, your album thumb and even audio, then upload it all at once. Try it out, we think you'll like it.

Before upgrading, be sure to check this thread in the forum for the proper upgrading process. We'd also appreciate your feedback (good or bad) here.

12.19.06 | Director 1.0.8 Beta 2 available

The Director 1.0.8 beta series continues to roll along with beta 2, now available for download.

This release patches a few issues found with the first beta, but also adds a new feature: Smart image sorting. You now have three additional options (aside from manually dragging and dropping them into the desired order) for sorting images within an album. These three options are: filename, date (newest first) and date (oldest first). Of course, Director remembers these values and automatically reapplies them when new images are uploaded, making it possible to always have the freshest images show up first (or last) in the album.

If you would like to test this new version, read this post first to see if any of the outstanding issues are a show-stopper for you. Remember, it is still beta, so use caution before updating any production sites.

Thanks for testing!

12.11.06 | Director 1.0.8 Beta available

A beta release of Director 1.0.8 is now available for download. This release fixes a few bugs from the alpha release a few days ago, plus a big plus for Windows users: IE 7 compatibility. To read more about what's in this release, and how to provide feedback (please do!), see this forum thread.

12.07.06 | SlideShowPro Director 1.0.8 alpha released

An alpha release of SlideShowPro Director version 1.0.8 is now available for Director users to download from the Director download page. This includes the awesome new uploading utility I wrote about a few weeks ago. There are some caveats though you should be aware of, so if you're interested in kicking the tires be sure to read this thread first. It contains important information about upgrading and what's supported.

10.23.06 | Coming soon to Director: batch uploads

Hey Director users! Something new (and very cool) coming your way in the next update (version 1.0.8).

The process for uploading imagery has been completely overhauled, streamlined, and is easier than ever to use. Version 1.0.8 sports a new uploading utility written in Flash that allows you to select as many images on your local machine as you want, then upload them in one big batch.

This applies to both new and existing albums. So whether you're creating a new album or adding a bunch of content to an existing one, uploading images will be faster than ever.

Here's what else is cool. Because we're using Flash as our uploading mechanism, upload size limitations are gone. Why? Because Flash treats each image as a unique session, unlike the current uploader (written in PHP) which treats your images as one big file. So as long as each individual image file is smaller than the limit imposed by your web host, you won't have to worry about upload file limits anymore.

Finally, one last feature. A real, honest to God progress bar. Not a fake progress animation or anything like that, but a real-time display of your upload progress. Screenshot below:

Expect to see 1.0.8 hitting the download pipe soon.

09.13.06 | SlideShowPro Director 1.0.7 Released

A new build of SlideShowPro Director is out the door. Couple of bug fixes, plus a new feature: albums may be linked to directly, which makes linking to single albums easier than before. Registered users may login to download. Also check the version history to see what's changed.

09.01.06 | SlideShowPro Director 1.0.6 Released

After a few beta versions, Director 1.0.6 is now final. Registered users may now login and download the update. What's new? Check out the version history, which includes a few bug fixes, a couple of changes, and new functionality including a preferences pane, additional scaling options, and visual tweaks here and there.

07.17.06 | Director 1.0.5 Released

A new update for SlideShowPro Director is available for download. As usual, it's free for all registered users. Changes are mostly bug fixes, but there is one new feature -- square thumbnails. This alternate thumbnail type captures the center area of an image and creates a square shaped thumbnail; giving your collection of thumbnails a uniform look.

To check out what's changed, see the Director version history. To download, login to your member page (through User Login above), and click on the Director product link. The update link is on the following page.

07.16.06 | Director screencast

A new screencast for Director has been posted to the site. It's about 14 minutes long and demonstrates how to import photos, generate slide show images, edit metadata, and publish a slide show from Flash that retrieves its data from Director. So if you haven't seen Director in action yet, this is a good introduction to the basic mechanics of the product. Watch it here. (QuickTime required)

06.22.06 | SlideShowPro Director 1.0.4 Released

SlideShowPro Director 1.0.4 has been released and is now available for download. It's a quick release that squashes a few bugs here and there. Nothing major. Feel free to skip this one if you're not experiencing any issues with 1.0.3. Otherwise, login to your member account and download.

06.14.06 | Director 1.0.3 final is out

After a number of beta versions released into the wild, the final version of 1.0.3 is ready to roll.

I already wrote about new features in the previous entry, but there's one important update I left out: SlideShowPro Director can now be installed on Windows servers running IIS 5.0+ or Apache 1.3+.

1.0.3 is a free update for all Director users, and is now available in the member section for download. Simply login, click on the Director link under the "Your product purchases" header, and grab the update.

Thanks to all the beta testers who helped kick the tires for this important update.

06.02.06 | Director 1.0.3 beta released

For all you Director users out there hop on over to the Director product page to check out a beta release of the next update, version 1.0.3. Please note that this should only be used by those interested in testing new features, which include complete image processing (Director now generates optimized versions of large photos in addition to thumbnails if you don't want to pre-process your slide show imagery using a desktop app), image rotation, navigation between images in the Edit Images pane, a revised layout for the Generate Content tab, additional formatting options for generating image captions, faster rendering of preview images in the Edit Images tab, and "memory" settings for your album's images so that any new images you upload automatically inherit (and are published with) the values of all the other content in your album.

Since there's lots of new stuff it's best to kick this out the door as a beta before going totally live. So if you kick the tires, please send some feedback -- even if everything functions normally for you. Thanks!

05.23.06 | SlideShowPro Director 1.0.1 Released

How about that? Barely 48 hours after 1.0 was released comes version 1.0.1. A couple of small tweaky things were patched, plus a new feature that will certainly come in handy for those with large amounts of photos -- XML caching.

Here's how it works. When SlideShowPro requests gallery data from Director, Director returns the XML data, but also caches a static version of the document. So if Director receives another request from SlideShowPro and the data from the first request hasn't changed, Director points SlideShowPro to the cached version instead of generating an entirely new XML file. This considerably speeds up the parsing of your XML, especially with large galleries. All of it is done automatically so you don't have to change a thing.

In addition to the caching of XML on the server-side, Director 1.0.1 also resolves the hassle of XML caching in web browsers. Director now appends a unique variable onto the end of XML file path when it's sent to the Flash Player; fooling the player into thinking that the XML data is new so it doesn't use a cached copy. This ensures that your users always receive an up-to-the-minute version of the XML; not a version that's been cached on their local machine.

Comments and suggestions for future versions are appreciated. Head on over to the Director forums if you have a tip. To download the update, login to your member page.

05.21.06 | Introducing SlideShowPro Director

Today I'm pleased as punch to announce the launch of SlideShowPro Director, a brand new app now available from Dominey Design and BradleyBoy Productions.

What is Director? Well, it's quite simply the easiest way to get your photos into SlideShowPro. It installs on any Linux server with PHP/MySQL, has an intuitive Ajax-driven user interface for managing all your photos, creates thumbnails in a snap, plus a whole lot more. And like SlideShowPro, it comes with a full User Guide explaining everything from installation to setup, and is priced nicely at $20 per copy.

So head on over to the Director promo page, or view a promotional video to see the app in action.