SlideShowPro Account Center: User Forums

Wow! very nifty and helpful feature guys! Nice indeed. ... I'll miss the old way a bit but this kind of change is good.   (...way better actually)

So this brings up a question  regarding that automatic SSP resize feature; Does that mean could one set-up SSP and it's images in percentages too?
Meaning, it could automatically adjust and optimize the slide show and its images to any one's browser size? If not, it sure feel pretty close in its ability to do just that.    WDYT?

ps.. Impressive Director interface too!   

Last edited by svrichard (2007-08-05 22:04:34)

Genius.  Love it - most of our clients would struggle to get everything right with generating content etc as they aren't tech users but this new system makes it more or less fool-proof.  Great evolution guys.

the best way to improve it is to remove it!

this looks amazing!

this new system makes it more or less fool-proof.  Great evolution guys.

this new feature enables many new possibilities

I am very excited!

Since SlideShowPro will handle video (with 1.6), will Director handle a video upload?
Will Director re-encode the video into the proper format?

Thanks!
-Baldwin

Good questions...

macwise wrote:

I don't see how this will be possible anymore if they cannot choose the size of thumbnails, especially if they're to be square.  Any light you can shed on this?

Thumbnail size is set via the component inspector now and those values are passed on to Director, which returns the optimized thumbs at the setting you provide. So, even if you hide the built in navigation, SlideShowPro will still recieve the thumbs at the size you enter in the component inspector.

How will director now handle the option of crop to fit or crop proportionately?

The "Image Scaling" setting in the component inspector has been expanded to include "Proportional" and "Crop to fit", and again SSP passes these values to Director and Director returns the images in the format specified. The choice is also independently available when setting your thumbnail sizes.

How are verticals or squares handled in a wide SSP format?

I'm not sure I follow here, but the same Image Align properties exist now that did before for images that are smaller than the width/height of the SlideShow.

Once again, what if a user wants a custom dimensioned image in the album preview?

Like the thumbnails, there are now size settings in the component inspector for Album preview. You can choose between proportional and crop to fit here as well.

It is also important to point out that if you can you use the originally uploaded images directly with no optimization. This happens one of two ways: First, if the image size requested is the same as the original, Director simply returns the original image. Also, if you set the Image Scaling parameter to "None", Director returns the original image with no optimization.

tarik916 wrote:

I think this feature is GREAT for 95% of the applications, but did you include and image size override in the component inspector?

On one of the sites that I've created, I am using a full width (roughly 900px) slideshow to display the album selection screen, but the images are sized to fit within a designated space (roughly 450px). Without the specified size, the image would of course span across the entire screen. I was using the dynamic gallery resize for album selection, but there were some weird things going on, so i decided to go this route.

http://www.phototia.com/weddings/

Please let me know if there can be a solution for this.

Good point. We're looking into this...

Brad,

Thanks for your quick response.  Maybe I'm the only one here that feels this way, but since my clients can choose any size thumbs they like, and my auto-thumbnailers dynamically fit the thumbs into a grid or a scrolling layout, it seems like a huge limitation for them to have to open up the FLA. In fact, since I am usually the one managing the install, it means there's more for me to manage now, when my objective is to really just put the entire site in their hands.  I realize I can probably specify these sizes through an XML file for them to manage, but there are inherently so many more steps involved, and it seems like a downgrade for the user experience and control.  I do think this new on-demand publishing system is cool, and I think it's the right choice for your product.  Still, if it's possible to retain control over thumb/image sizes in director somehow, then my vote is unequivocally for it.

are images cached? if i had a peak on visits this could make he server generate lots of images at the same time and making it very cpu processor demanding... if hey are chached... can you manage the caches for each size?

juanlacueva wrote:

are images cached? if i had a peak on visits this could make he server generate lots of images at the same time and making it very cpu processor demanding... if hey are chached... can you manage the caches for each size?

Absolutely, the images are cached. The one thing you can always count on is that we use SlideShowPro and Director right here on all the slideshows at SSP.net, so we certainly know the importance of lightening the load whenever possible. The album cache works very much like the xml_cache, when an image is changed any caches for that image are cleared and will be regenerated next time a request is made.

As far as managing the cache, the new Director install will allow you to manually clear any caches that have not been accessed in 7 days (meaning they probably were created during testing but are no longer needed). The link to this action will be found in the preferences pane. If you can set up cron jobs, you can set this action to run everyday to keep your caches lean and mean.

You all are amazing. This is going to make my life so much easier. I can't wait for the new versions of Director and SSP to be released!

chris wrote:

Macwise, you're not the only one. To ban manual control functions from director to the component inspector is a step backwards for me. Hope, that automatic an manual control stay side by side in the new director.

I would add my name to this list as well. From what I've read here I think you would be removing a useful tool for many people including myself. Adding features is great, but I don't think you should remove existing functionality in the process.

Cheers,

Andrew

another vote for having the ability to control the size of the photos in director.  I can get around it, but I like to stay out of Flash as much as possible.

My point is, that within a gallery, I have album with images that can't be the SAME size, and as far as I can see that's no longer possible in the new director or in the new slideshowpro, since slideshowpro only can set ONE image size for each swf file.

Last edited by catoha (2007-08-29 05:44:48)

I agree.  Removing this functionality has not encouraged me to upgrade, but rather create my own solution from the ground up to compete with SSP/SSPD.  I HATE thinking in this direction, as A)it requires development that I'm not too interested, mainly because B)The product is already in place, and I love it - it's SSP and SSPD, albeit the older, deprecated versions.  I agree with arossphoto.  When you are developing software, adding features is great, but taking away features that are critical for your base just seems like poor forethought.  (My company develops enterprise web-based software, previously for other companies, now solely for ourselves.)

I'm NOT trying to be critical for the sake of being critical.  You guys have done a fantastic job, and man, to create a product AND brand as you two have is a great feat, and one that is undeniably a great asset to the photo community.  You guys should be getting awards for all the advancements you've made for photographers.  That's partly why it's such a blow to have an essential feature for many photographers simply stripped out, and abandoned, as though this big of a decision doesn't have the impact it really does.  It's (kind of) akin to GM saying that they now have an on-demand radio system, where the buttons have been completely removed from the radio.  Now, instead of YOU choosing what you're listening to, the radio automatically senses your speed and location, and picks tunes that best match those criteria.  It won't be perfect.  It CAN'T be perfect.

Saying that we should stick with 1.0.9.9 is a statement that hurts, too, as just yesterday I had a client that was asking me how they could transfer images from one gallery to the other.  I informed them that it was available in the new version of the flash module they were using, but that we couldn't upgrade to it because they couldn't size thumbs and pics, a critical feature for their site.  Needless to say, they were bummed, as was I. 

So, I'll ask a different question.  Is there a way to include this functionality in SSPD current and future versions for a legacy version of SSP?  This way it will sense whether or not the SSP instance is the legacy version, and if so, it will provide the ability to size the images/thumbs?  Just a hope and a dream...