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SlideShowPro Director User Guide

1. HOW DO CREATE MY OWN LINK TEMPLATE Director uses a template plug in system when generating hyperlinks for all content in an album If you d like to write your own template open ssp_director plugins links It includes a sample link plugin for you to see To create your own create a new folder inside plugins links and copy the sample template php file over to it Use the sample as a guide It shows all the available variables Note Make sure to always create your plug ins in ssp_director plugins links so an upgrade won t overwrite them SlideShowPro Director User Guide 17 DOMNEY All images Dominey Design Inc All rights reserved SlideShowPro and the SlideShowPro logo are trademarks of Dominey Design Inc Any other trademarks and or logos used in this document are the trademarks service marks or logos of their respective owners SlideShowPro Director User Guide 18
2. Common usability and technical questions concerning Director are included in this chapter If at the end of this chapter your question remains unanswered visit http forum slideshowpro net INSTALLATION IS ASKING FOR A KEY WHERE S THAT After purchasing Director you were issued a unique key to install and use the software at one domain To obtain this key login to the Account Center at slideshowpro net On the right side ofthe page will be atable containing your key Copy paste this key into the applicable installation screen DIRECTOR DOESN T ACCEPT MY KEY WHY Director s license allows you to install and use the application under one domain If you are attempting to install the application at a second domain you will need to purchase an additional license key through your member profile at slideshowpro net If you are not attempting a second install double check to make sure the key you are pasting is exactly the same as the key displayed on your profile page Lastly there s stands a rare chance that slideshowpro net may be temporarily unavailable The web site must be live in order to authenticate your key SLIDESHOWPRO ISN T LOADING DIRECTOR CONTENT WHAT S UP There are two common reasons for this One you forgot to set XML File Type in SlideShowPro for Flash s Component Inspector panel to Director Two your slideshow is hosted at a different domain than the one Director is installed at and the Flash Player is shutting
3. Indicates parameter names that are assigned to SlideShowPro in Flash s Component Inspector panel They will also be used sporadically for typographical emphasis Constant width Used for samples of XML JavaScript ActionScript and other code Constant width italic A placeholder within code samples that should be substituted with your own value Let s get started with a general overview of how Director works SlideShowPro Director User Guide 3 How SlideShowPro Director works SlideShowPro Director is a server side content management system for SlideShowPro The software may be installed on your own web server or hosted with us through a subscription and is always on call to supply the content one or more slideshows need BROWSER BASED MANAGEMENT All content uploads and basic management is handled through any standards compliant web browser Firefox IE 6 IE 7 and c Safari supported Multiple user accounts with varying levels of editorial control may be created allowing non administrators the ability to easily update slideshow content through their own web browser Director users can upload as many images and or videos as they want and organize them using two container types albums and galleries Uploaded content can be copied moved or deleted at any time SMAPSHOT ALBUN ES Figure Snapshot page ALWAYS IN SYNC Whenever a content change is made in Director any slideshow linked Y BBBG38TDDUE to the affected c
4. automatically The content a smart gallery contains cannot be changed nor can a smart gallery be deleted GALLERIES INDEX Galleries are managed in the Galleries index It is here that new galleries are created and existing galleries are deleted All galleries are displayed by default but if you re searching for a specific gallery you may filter the list through the Search utility above the table You may also click on the Galleries Type Albums Modified and Created headers to vertically sort the list according to that column s criteria Figure Galleries index Clicking on an gallery title will open that gallery for editing EDIT GALLERY SUMMARY Clicking a gallery title from most pages within Director will load the Edit gallery section for that particular gallery There are two sub areas within this section Summary and Manage albums Summary provides inputs to set an gallery s title and description as well as a button to copy the gallery s XML File Path The Summary page also displays which albums are in a gallery and in what order they appear when loaded in a slideshow EDIT GALLERY MANAGE ALBUMS Manage albums is where you decide which albums are n se included or excluded in a gallery All active albums are NR H FE Galleries Edit gallery displayed for you to choose from To include an album toggle an albums light switch button to the
5. down your XML request for security reasons To allow the SWF to load content you must create a cross domain policy file See the last step in the Installation chapter for instructions DO HAVE TO USE DIRECTOR S ON DEMAND IMAGE PUBLISHING No If you re particular about your slideshow content and don t want SlideShowPro Director or SlideShowPro for that matter to scale resize or touch your images in any way you can get around the publishing system by uploading imagery that s already pre formatted to fit SlideShowPro s Content Area Then in SlideShowPro set Content Scale to None This will instruct Director to return the original images you uploaded and not attempt to resize format them in any way CAN UPLOAD MY OWN ALBUM PREVIEW Yes Click the Upload link in your album and select Album preview from the drop down Browse your local machine for the image you wish to use After upload your custom album preview will be automatically set to Inactive so it doesn t appear as slideshow content but will be used for your album preview image CAN UPLOAD MY OWN THUMBNAIL NAV PREVIEW IMAGES No These are always generated by Director and cannot be substituted with custom versions SlideShowPro Director User Guide 16 HOW DO CREATE A THUMBNAIL IMAGE FOR A VIDEO When a video is uploaded it is assigned a default movie image shown left to identify it in Director as well as in SlideShow
6. is in case the SWF is loaded from a URL that doesn t include www When complete save the file anywhere locally and name it crossdomain xml it must be named this Second upload crossdomain xml to the root of the domain where Director is installed For example http www myotherdomain com crossdomain xml DONE Installation is now complete Go ahead and login to Director with the username and password entered in Installation Step Five above But before you start uploading let s first familiarize ourselves with how Director organizes content SlideshowPro Director User Guide 6 Albums must be contributed to an album in order for it to be managed by SlideShowPro Director All albums contain a title a description an ID and an XML file path to load album content into SlideShowPro for Flash You may upload as much content as you want and edit that content s metadata title hyperlink caption as a group or individually Content can also be copied or moved between albums There is no limit to the number of albums you can create and they may be Albums are containers for your slideshow content Every image and or video you upload Mad deleted or edited at any time ALBUMS INDEX Albums are managed in the Albums index It is here that new albums are created and existing albums are deleted All albums are displayed by default but if you re searching for a specific album you may filter the list through
7. see the SlideShowPro for Flash User Guide and playback the assigned MP3 while your slideshow is being viewed MP3s are added to Directory through the Upload section which we ll discuss next ALBUMS EDIT ALBUM UPLOAD Each album has its own Upload section to upload slideshow content ema custom album preview images and audio The utility allows you to upload one or more pieces of content at the same time For more detailed information about uploading see the Content uploading and importing chapter later in this guide Figure Browse for content ALBUMS EDIT ALBUM SETTINGS Settings is where general options can be assigned to an album Currently this screen includes a single module Image metadata defaults This module allows you to globally assign image titles hyperlinks and captions to all existing and future content in an album There are a variety of options for both links and captions which you can read about in the Edit area for each metadata type SlideShowPro Director User Guide 9 Galleries mal gallery is a collection of albums It serves one purpose to group your albums together as asingle collection for a slideshow There are two types of galleries Custom and Smart A Custom gallery is one you create and populate with albums You may add or remove any album from a custom gallery A Smart gallery is created by SlideShowPro Director and populated
8. the Show utility above the table You may also click on the Albums Type Images Modified and Created headers to vertically sort the list according to that columns criteria Clicking on an album title will open that album for editing Albums Show Search Figure Albums index ACTIVE INACTIVE New albums begin with an inactive publish status This means that the a a album is considered unfinished and not included in any custom or smart L gallery This allows time for you to upload content and edit metadata before Figure Inactive album publishing it as an active album that can be considered for inclusion elsewhere If an album is changed from active to inactive the album is automatically removed from any gallery containing it Inactive albums are noted in the Albums section with a modified album icon see above You can toggle the active inactive state of an album anytime by clicking on the light switch button at the end of that album s row under the Actions column header EDIT ALBUM SUMMARY Clicking an album title from most pages within Director will load the Edit album section for that particular album This section is broken up into five sub areas Summary Content Audio Upload and Settings Summary provides inputs to set an album s title and description copy the album s XML File Path as well as historica
9. up position To exclude flip it down Sports ALBUM SORTING Figure Manage albums Like album content see the Albums chapter you can manually or automatically control the order of albums in a gallery The order that is established here will be used when populating the gallery section of SlideShowPro for Flash To manually sort click and hold on an album title and drag the album into the position you want To automatically sort click on Album title Date newest first Date oldest first or Date modified With auto sorting turned on any new albums you include in a gallery will automatically fall into the proper order depending on which sorting option you chose Lastly if you d like to edit an album included in a gallery click that album s edit button You will be redirected to the Edit album section for that album SlideShowPro Director User Guide 10 Slideshows EB Director s Slideshows area is a bookmarking utility to record URLs of slideshows that are a linked to Director This makes it easy to proof changes made inside Director by launching associated slideshows in a separate browser window When there s at least one bookmarked slideshow an extra tab containing your slideshow bookmarks will appear the far right of Director s main navigation for easy access anywhere within the application HOW TO ADD A SLIDESHOW BOOKMARK Click on the Slideshows tab in t
10. Pro for Flash s thumbnail navigation and link previews If you d like to supply your own image upload that image to the album containing the video then go the Content area Click and hold on the uploaded Figure Default f P video image image and drag it on top of the video s default image The video s default image will darken slightly to show when you can release Upon release your dragged image will now represent the video in all the aforementioned places GET AN ERROR WHEN UPLOADING CONTENT ANY IDEAS If you are a hosting subscriber contact us for assistance If you installed Director on your own server open ssp_director htaccess and ensure it contains the following lt IfModule mod security c gt SecFilterScanPOST Off lt IfModule gt HOW DO KNOW WHEN A NEW VERSION IS OUT Director s footer area will display a New Version Available hyperlink when an update is available Clicking the link will take you to the member area of slideshowpro net to download You can turn off update checking in the Snapshot Settings module on your profile page if you prefer If you are a subscriber for our Director hosting service your installation is always updated automatically UPDATED DIRECTOR CONTENT BUT IT S NOT SHOWING UP IN SLIDESHOWPRO WHY Your old Director content may be temporarily cached Try clearing Director s album cache through the Preferences page then reloading your slideshow
11. SlideShowPro Director User Guide For SlideShowPro Director 1 1 gt slideshowpro Contents Tigo o Une q RENO DRA ND DN A E 3 Fon SideSnonPro Director MONS japa a a a AS 4 Te USN TTT 5 ALOE qa A PU EAE EE T 5 05 IE E ieee 7 ETI E da cert thake E A O TOT 10 PSO I casas e PV CE Ro a 11 Content ublcadine nempo INE ansia cte ti sis 12 DIG Dla lle contenta Sd SO Wero Fe SN ries ta 14 ela loas ys OPA oo E A ai 15 Queto Ano ccc eee cesta tenes eee eee 16 SlideShowPro Director User Guide 2 Introduction Thank you for purchasing SlideShowPro Director the easiest way to manage edit and publish content for SlideShowPro for Flash This user guide contains all the instructions you need to install and use Director If you re in a rush and would like to start using Director with SlideShowPro for Flash right now and learn more about how Director works when you have time follow the instructions in the Installation chapter then open the Quick Start PDF that s included alongside this document The Your first slideshow with SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro Director chapter will speed you through the process of getting a slideshow up and running within a few minutes For everyone else though it s recommended you follow along to learn how Director works and the options available to you before jumping in Here are the typographical conventions you can expect so see throughout this guide Parameter name
12. able Prefix should only be modified by advanced users Everyone else can leave it alone When complete click the Setup database button INSTALLATION STEP FIVE SETUP ADMINISTRATOR Enter the username e mail and password for the administrative contact This user will have full access to all of Director s functionality When complete click the Install Director button INSTALLATION STEP SIX INSTALLATION CONFIRMATION Step six displays the results of your installation If all went well you should see nothing but green check marks Click the Login now button to complete the installation process and login to Director STEP FOUR CREATE CROSS DOMAIN POLICY FILE In order for your SWF to load content from Director when used online the Flash Player requires a cross domain policy file It s a security precaution that prevents SWFs from accessing data at a remote domain Even if you plan on hosting your SWFs at the same domain as your Director installation it s a good idea to create this file to be on the safe side First open an ASCII HTML text editor like Notepad or Dreamweaver and enter the following lt cross domain policy gt lt allow access from domain www mydomain com gt lt allow access from domain mydomain com gt lt cross domain policy gt Replace mydomain com with the domain where your SWFs will be viewed Notice that the domain is listed twice once with www and once without This
13. ash and TypefaceEmbed Off click on the instance of SlideShowPro for Flash on the Stage of XML File Path images xml p XML File Type Director your FLA to select it Open the Component Inspector panel Scroll to the bottom until you see XML File Path Delete the default images xml parameter value and paste the URL you Figure Modifying XML File Path copied from Director Then change the next parameter down XML File Type to Director HOW TO ADJUST IMAGE QUALITY SIZE AND SCALE SlideShowPro for Flash offers two parameters that are used by Director s on demand image publishing system Director Large Image Settings and Director Thumb Image Settings Director Large Image Settings accepts three numerical values The first is image quality which accepts a range of 0 100 100 being the highest quality and has a default value of 80 The second is sharpening which accepts a range of o 5 5 being the strongest and has a default value of 1 The third is image scale which accepts a range of 0 100 100 being normal and has a default value of 100 This last value image scale should only be used if you are setting SlideShowPro for Flash s Content Scale parameter to either None or Downscale Only and want Director to publish images that are smaller than SlideShowPro for Flash s Content Area dimensions Director Thumb Image Settings accepts the same values as Large but without the scaling option Sli
14. de of the Upload page Click Upload to confirm A progress bar will appear shown above right to let you know when you can expect the upload to be complete Note Some web hosts place limits on browser file size uploads Your limit is displayed in the Add content module If you need to upload a larger file use option two below SlideShowPro Director User Guide 12 OPTION TWO SELF INSTALL ONLY FTP 900 ftp slideshowpro net so Onceanalbum has been created in Director and if you ve ED 0x2 6 gt installed Director on your own web server you have the option Es album 74 3 gt of Uploading content to it with an FTP client Here s how E ace First click on the Summary link for the album you ll be transferring content to Note the album ID assigned to it in the E XML Info module Next navigate to your Director installation iai via FTP open the albums directory then open the folder B with the album ID you re looking for Inside will be three folders A A cache director and lg see left for example The lg folder is where the original content you upload is stored for that particular album Upload your content here Figure Album folder opened via FTP When complete return to Director in your web browser and click the Upload sub navigation link for the album you uploaded content to A message will appear informing you that new conten
15. deShowPro Director User Guide 14 Managing users SlideShowPro Director allows you to share a single installation of Director with other users each with varying levels of editorial control This chapter will explain how users are created and managed YOUR USER PROFILE To view your own user profile click on your name next to Hello at the top right any page inside Director It is here you may change your profile settings including username contact e mail address password snapshot module settings as well as uploading an avatar to identify yourself within the application MANAGING USERS A Users link will appear next to your username at the top of the screen if you are the user that installed the software Clicking the link takes you to the Users section where you can provide other users with access to your Director installation Director offers three user roles Editors Can edit any album attribute but cannot add or delete anything Contributors Same permissions as editors along with the ability to add or delete albums images or galleries Administrators All ofthe permissions of both editors and contributors along with the ability to manage users Note Only the original installer can administer users who have Administrators permissions Subsequent users given administrators permissions can only manage users with Editor or Contributor status SlideShowPro Director User Guide 15 Questions and answers
16. dia player if one of the video file formats listed above are delivered ACCEPTABLE CONTENT FORMATS FOR ON DEMAND PUBLISHING As redundant as it may sound Director s on demand image publishing system which takes imagery and formats it to fit SlideShowPro for Flash only works with images If video content is uploaded Director will return your original video as is without modifications By default SlideShowPro for Flash will proportionally scale your video to fit the component but if you d rather show video without scaling you should upload finished videos to Director that are already formatted to fit SlideShowPro for Flash s Content Area and optionally set Content Scale to None in SlideShowPro for Flash UPLOADING CONTENT There are three ways to add content to Director througha so ai S 2 Uploading new files web browser via FTP to an existing album or importing an ae existing SlideShowPro for Flash gallery Figure Upload progress dialog OPTION ONE WEB BROWSER The easiest and fastest way to upload content is through your web browser Click on the Upload sub navigation link inside any album then select the type of content you want to upload After selection click the Browse button A window will open in your operating system for you to select images and or videos on your local machine Select as many as you want then click Okay Your selections will appear on the right si
17. eShowPro Director User Guide 4 Installation If you are installing SlideShowPro Director on your own web server these are the instructions you need to follow If however you are a subscriber to our SlideShowPro Director Hosting service you can skip this chapter for everything is installed for you automatically SERVER REQUIREMENTS Director requires a web server running Linux Unix or Windows with Apache 1 3 or higher A Windows server running IIS 5 0 is also acceptable Additionally PHP 4 3 7 with safe mode disabled and MySQL 3 23 23 are also required Server requirements may be tested with the Director Server Compatibility Script available for download here http slideshowpro net downloads director test director test zip STEP ONE UPLOAD DIRECTOR Open your FTP application and make sure its transfer mode is set to Auto Next upload the folder named ssp_director included alongside this guide anywhere you like to your web server For the rest of this chapter we ll assume you uploaded it to the root of your domain http www myserver com ssp director STEP TWO SETUP THE DATABASE Director requires a new or existing MySQL database Director cannot create the database for you It must be created through your hosting provider If you re not sure how to create one contact your web host for instructions Once your database is ready collect these four pieces of information 1 MySQL Host Name e g mysgl myserve
18. ery that contains all of the albums it just created SlideShowPro Director User Guide 13 Displaying content in SlideShowPro for Flash SlideShowPro for Flash can link to any album or gallery in Director When linked the content associated with that album and or gallery is published on demand and tailored to fit the dimensions of SlideShowPro for Flash You may continually change the dimensions of the component or alter user interface options through the Component Inspector panel and Director will always return first generation imagery formatted to fit your instance of SlideShowPro for Flash HOW LINKING WORKS Every album and gallery in Director offers an XML File Path This is a unique absolute URL to that album gallery inside Director SlideShowPro for Flash uses this URLto communicate with Director and request the content it needs WHERE TO LOCATE XML FILE PATHS Because they re often used Director publishes XML File Paths in afew different places These include the Snapshot page which displays the five most recently modified albums and galleries the index pages for albums Albums in main navigation and galleries Galleries in the main navigation as well as the Summary page for albums and galleries In each case the process is the same Simply click the Copy button and the URL will be copied to your clipboard HOW TO ASSIGN AN XML FILE PATH With your XML File Path URL copied switch over to Fl
19. he main navigation Then click on the Add a slideshow button Two fields will appear below Give your slideshow bookmark a name you ll remember then enter the absolute URLtothe HTML document containing your slideshow SWF When complete click Add slideshow Your bookmark will then be available throughout Director To create additional bookmarks simply repeat the process SlideShowPro Director User Guide 11 Content uploading and importing This chapter provides more detail on the types of images and videos you can upload as well as options for getting your content into Director Let s get started on the ground floor with file formats ACCEPTABLE CONTENT FORMATS With images Director accepts GIF PNG or JPG The images may be any DPI and should always be larger in dimension and optionally DPI than your slideshow This way published images are downscaled as opposed to upscaled which can have harmful effects on image quality As for video you may upload FLVs or videos encoded in H 264 including MP4 M4V M4A MOV and or 3GP Note though that H 264 formats will only playback in SlideShowPro for Flash if a user s browser has the very latest version of Flash Player 9 installed which at the time of this writing was Flash Player 9 Update 3 For this reason it is recommended you only upload FLVs Lastly you may also upload SWFs but not SWF videos SlideShowPro for Flash treats SWFs like images and only engages its me
20. l content so you can see what content was recently added and who added it You can also see and click through to any gallery that contains the album Figure Album Summary page SlideShowPro Director User Guide 7 EDIT ALBUM CONTENT Content is where all the images and videos associated with an album are SLIDESHOW ORDER sorted edited and managed FILE NAME SORTING The order in which content is sorted is the order it will appear in a slideshow By default content is automatically sorted in the order in which it was uploaded To manually change this click hold and drag any image into your preferred order If you d rather automatically sort content options include File name Date newest first and Date oldest first Selecting these will hand sorting control over to Director for both existing and future content When an auto sorting option is used any new content that is uploaded will ACTIVE copy automatically fall into place ica MEM EDIT ROTATE DELETE When order is changed through either method the slideshow order field see above right will update with the numerical positions of each content piece EDITING To add a title hyperlink caption or assign an image as the album preview click an image s edit button A new window will appear offering inputs for you to make these changes Note To globally assign titles hyperlinks and captions to all current and future content a
21. ontent will reflect those changes For example if you had a slideshow on your home page and wanted to change the order of 7 a content in a particular album those changes would be made in Director Additionally if you needed to remove content from a slideshow but not delete it from Director any image video or album in Director can be made inactive so it s temporarily unavailable for viewing Figure SlideShowPro gallery ON DEMAND IMAGE PUBLISHING Director publishes first generation web optimized imagery tailored to fit any slideshow that requests content The original images you upload are used each time content is published so your slideshow imagery is always the highest possible quality regardless of how many slideshows are accessing the same content For faster delivery published images are cached and reused each time a request is made that does not contain new formatting requirements AUTOMATIC METADATA GENERATION If your images have embedded IPTC caption metadata Director will automatically use it for your image captions Additionally any album can be configured to automatically assign a title link or caption to all current and future content uploaded to that album This allows you to continually upload new content without having to hand edit associated metadata ONWARD That in a nutshell is how SlideShowPro Director works Next we ll cover how to install SlideShowPro Director on your own web server Slid
22. r comor localhost 2 MySQL Database The name of the database Director should use 3 MySQL User name The user name to login to your MySQL host 4 MySQL Password The password for this user name STEP THREE INSTALL DIRECTOR Open http www myserver com ssp_director in your web minang browser The Installation and setup screen will load see left Installation and setup and begin the six step process of installing Director Welcome to SlideShowPro Director SA slideshowpro DIRECTOR WS 1 INSTALLATION STEP ONE LICENSE AGREEMENT Read the EULA for SlideShowPro Director If acceptable click Agree INSTALLATION STEP TWO SERVER TEST RESULTS Figure Installation screen Step two displays the results of a basic server compatibility test If everything is okay click Continue Installation SlideShowPro Director User Guide 5 INSTALLATION STEP THREE KEY AUTHENTICATION Enter the Director activation key issued to you If you don t have a key visit http slideshowpro net and click on User Login atthe top right Login to your profile On the right side of your profile page will be a block containing your Director activation key Copy the key return to Director and paste it into the form field Then continue on INSTALLATION STEP FOUR ENTER DATABASE INFORMATION Enter the information you gathered in Step Two Setup the Database into the appropriate fields The fifth field Database T
23. ssociated with an album see the Edit album gt Settings section on the next page MANAGING Like albums content can be toggled active or inactive Toggling them inactive will temporarily remove the content from their album and any gallery containing the album Activating will bring it back If you d rather remove content all together click the delete button To copy and or permanently move content to another album click the copy move button BATCH SELECTING Albums Edit album To rotate copy move or delete a group of content hold down the Command Mac or CTRL key Windows and click on the file name of the first content piece Continue holding the key down and click on other file names to add them to the selection If you d rather select a range of content all at once S release the Command CTRL key press and hold the Shift Figure Four images batch selected key and select the last piece of content within the range you want Either way selected content will illuminate and Director will offer batch editing tools at the bottom of the browser window To cancel your selection click the Clear selection button or press the ESC key SlideShowPro Director User Guide 8 ALBUMS EDIT ALBUM AUDIO The Audio section is where you can assign an MP3 file to be used as background audio for that particular album When the album is loaded in SlideShowPro for Flash the component s Media Player interface will appear
24. t has been found and imported automatically OPTION THREE SELF INSTALL IMPORT EXISTING GALLERIES If you ve been using SlideShowPro for Flash for a while with your own XML file and slideshow content and are now upgrading to a Director with an installation on your own web server you may import your existing content Here s how Navigate to your Director installation via FTP Create a new folder named anything you want inside the albums imports directory For this walkthrough we ll name it my_import Upload your XML file and slideshow content to albums imports my_import You do not need to upload your SWF HTML or FLA COCO CEDO LLC LLC EEE EEETEEETEE TEESE EEEOEHETESEE EE EEEE ESET ELEEHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETEEEETELEL ELSE ESEEEEEESEEEEEEEELE LESSEE EE EEELELEEE EEE EEE E EEE ELD Note The XML file must be named images xml Director will not be able to find your XML file if named otherwise You may edit this on the server side through your FTP client Next return to Director in your web browser C