1 Topic by stoy (edited by stoy 2013-05-29 19:23:29)

  • stoy
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  • Registered: 2013-05-28
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Great product! A few questions and ideas...

Hi,

I bought the Showkase-Pro package to set up my photography website at sorenstoy.dk. You guys did a great job, and for me Showkase produces just the right kind of clean and efficient portfolio site.

I have a few questions and suggestions which I am hoping someone can answer or help with. In all of the below, please note that I am a hobby photographer, not a hobby programmer :-) That's why I selected Showkase in the first place:

* Fonts: There's already a few threads on diacritics, so I won't go there. I am having issues with the Lucida Console font (built in to Showkase), though, not showing up on other computers than the iMac where I created the web site. It works fine on my iPad and iPhone… Do I need to force download of that font from the site and how do I do it?

* Password protected pages: Any good ideas for how to protect various bits of your site without ruining the ease with which Showkase works? I've tried a few simple methods from Dynamic Drive, which sort of work, but it's not ideal.

* Slideshows: Don't/can't autostart on iPhone/iPad? At least I haven't been able to make it work...

* Galleries: Nested galleries would be extremely useful. For example being able to have a top page linking to galleries sorted by year. Any plans?

* Galleries: Would be great if the 'pages overview' showed all the nav orders, and you could change them there.

* Juicebox gallery: When I add a text description to a gallery, the text is always broken into two columns. Even if it is one sentence. On top of that, the right-most column is always placed so it starts above the left-most one.
Example: sorenstoy.dk/pubgal/souq-waqif-with-the-rx1/

* Viewers: Increased control/customisation of individual viewer on a site would be great. Also, use of different viewers on the same site would be great. I am currently operating my site as three different parts to customise viewers etc, but it is a bit cumbersome. I know you can customise with the Builders, but integration into Showkase would be excellent and in line with the existing simplicity of it all. Any plans for the future on this?

* Thumbnails: How can I control how thumbnails are generated from the original image so that they always reflect an interesting part of that image?

Again, Showkase is a great product - thanks for making and supporting it. I look forward to using it in the future too.

…and thanks to Steven for helping me with my account ;-)

Best regards,

Søren Støy
sorenstoy.dk

  • Registered: 2012-12-16
  • Posts: 938

Re: Great product! A few questions and ideas...

Thank you for your remarks and suggestions which we will take on board.
With regard to issues that I might be able to help you with...

I am having issues with the Lucida Console font (built in to Showkase), though, not showing up on other computers than the iMac where I created the web site. It works fine on my iPad and iPhone… Do I need to force download of that font from the site and how do I do it?

Other than Bebas Neue (which is an @font-face font which is loaded by Showkase if required), all other fonts are required to exist on the user's computer. Showkase offers a choice of 'websafe' fonts that are present on most Windows and Macintosh computers. If you want to be 100% certain that your text is displayed in the font you select on every computer display, then you would need to include the font in your Showkase installation as a web font. Please see here for details.

Password protected pages: Any good ideas for how to protect various bits of your site without ruining the ease with which Showkase works? I've tried a few simple methods from Dynamic Drive, which sort of work, but it's not ideal.

Each page you create in Showkase is given its own subdirectory. For example, if you create a page named 'Test Page', then a subdirectory named 'test-page' is created in your root Showkase directory. You could password-protect specific directories on your web server using .htaccess and .htpasswd files. Instructions can be found here.

Slideshows: Don't/can't autostart on iPhone/iPad? At least I haven't been able to make it work...

You should be able to create AutoPlay Juicebox-Pro galleries (in desktop browsers and mobile devices) by setting enableAutoPlay="TRUE" and autoPlayOnLoad="TRUE" in the 'Site -> Customize Viewers -> Edit Juicebox-Pro -> Autoplay (Pro Viewers Only)' section. However, as the Splash Page is displayed by default in mobile devices, you would need to either set showSplashPage="NEVER" or screenMode="LARGE" for galleries to initially AutoPlay in mobile devices.

Juicebox gallery: When I add a text description to a gallery, the text is always broken into two columns. Even if it is one sentence. On top of that, the right-most column is always placed so it starts above the left-most one.
Example: sorenstoy.dk/pubgal/souq-waqif-with-the-rx1/

Please see this forum thread for a possible solution.

Viewers: Increased control/customisation of individual viewer on a site would be great.

Please see the support section entitled Customize Individual Viewers for further information.

Thumbnails: How can I control how thumbnails are generated from the original image so that they always reflect an interesting part of that image?

This is not possible within Showkase. One possible workaround would be to create custom thumbnails in an image manipulation program such as Adobe Photoshop and swap them for the thumbnails created by Showkase.

  • stoy
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  • Registered: 2013-05-28
  • Posts: 2

Re: Great product! A few questions and ideas...

Hi Steven,

Thanks for coming back on this.

Regarding the topic of password protection, I'll definitely have a look at the .htaccess approach.

The slideshow I have on the front page of my website is a SimpleViewer show - that's the one that I can't make AutoPlay work for in iPad and iPhone... Is it only possible for Juicebox - that's how I interpret your answer?

Wrt. to my comment on increased customisation of individual viewers,  I had spotted the Builder options... what I was hoping for was that future versions of Showkase would allow this kind of customisation through the core package. I love convenience and simplicity. Let's me spend more time on taking pictures :-)

Best regards,

Søren

  • Registered: 2012-12-16
  • Posts: 938

Re: Great product! A few questions and ideas...

The slideshow I have on the front page of my website is a SimpleViewer show - that's the one that I can't make AutoPlay work for in iPad and iPhone... Is it only possible for Juicebox - that's how I interpret your answer?

Yes. The Mobile Player in SimpleViewer-Pro (which is used to display the gallery on mobile devices and in browsers which do not have Adobe Flash Player installed and enabled) does not support AutoPlay functionality.
(The Mobile Player in SimpleViewer-Pro supports fewer configuration options than the Flash Player. Please see here for a list of configurations supported by the Mobile Player.)