At long last, TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 is available. The update has been in development far longer than any other engine I’ve worked on, and I have been quite impatient to release it. I think the end result justifies the wait, however, and I hope you’ll agree. Before I get into outlining the improvements, there are matters of housekeeping which must be addressed regarding the release.
Please note that at present, the 2.0 update applies only to the Pro version of the gallery. An update to the standard version will follow in due course.
Notices
Most importantly, the TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 update is a free update to current subscribers; there is no upgrade fee. To download the update, use the download link provided at time of purchase.
Also important, TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 is a mandatory update for Fotomoto users. The update utilizes the new and improved Fotomoto API, while Fotomoto will eventually cease support for the old API utilized in the 1.x series of releases. Fotomoto galleries created using the 1.x series of engines need to be replaced using the new 2.0 update.
Version 2.0 is a major update with very little recycled code. Due to the massive extent of the revision, templates saved using the 1.x series are not compatible with version 2.0.
TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 has been successfully tested in both Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 Beta 2 on both Mac and Windows platforms.
As of version 2.0, the Inline Slideshow mode is dropped. For those users having chosen the Inline Slideshow as their preferred method of using the Highslide gallery, the 2.0 download also includes version 1.9.5, the final maintenance release in the 1.x series of updates. This version of the engine should only be used for its Inline Slideshow mode. Those users wishing to utilize any other features should migrate to version 2.0.
Beginning with TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 and continuing with future releases, TTG web engines will no longer be distributed with templates included. Instead, theme templates will be available via the new Web Template Theme Packs page, accessible via the Special Purpose Templates menu.
Windows Safe-Mode is gone. TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 has been thoroughly tested and beat upon by users, and the troubleshooting feature was found not to be needed. But should our optimism be proven unwarranted, the measure will be resurrected in an update, though I hope it won’t come to that.
New in 2.0
And with housekeeping matters done with, we get on to the good stuff. TTG Highslide Gallery Pro 2.0 includes a number of new features and improvements, beginning with streamlined performance and GUI revisions for a more fluid workflow. Those familiar with previous versions will find new options and controls sprinkled throughout the engine, side-by-side with familiar tools. I’ll not go through every new slider and input here — that’s for another time — but here’s a summary of 2.0’s most notable additions, beginning at the top and scrolling downward.
In the Site Info control pane: A great deal of reorganization here in an effort to improve workflow and control groupings, and many new controls supplementing old features. New handling of image embedding in the gallery description, with images now selected by image ID, rather than by path and file name. The biggest change here, however, is the page footer, which is now more robust than before. Footers now stick to the bottom of the page, regardless of page content and offer enhanced styling options. The site navigation menu can now be mirrored in the footer for easy access to navigation from the bottom of a gallery.
The Color Palette control pane houses options relating to the thumbnail grid and Highslide slideshows, and has undergone significant changes. The new Grid Spacing slider allows users to control the amount of space between thumbnail items and works best with even numbers. Odd numbers are problematic, but that’s just the way it is.
Image ID Tags have been replaced by the flexible, new Image Info Bars. There are two bars, split and appearing above and below each thumbnail. These bars may be merged, however, and made to reside either above or below the thumbnail. Image Info Bars may house metadata from the Library — use the Image Info control pane to assign metadata source — and/or cell numbering. The appearance and layout of the bars is fully configurable.
The Slideshow Highslide Mode now offers several options for the appearance and positioning of the slideshow controls, as well as a much-requested Auto Play feature.
In both Slideshow and Proofing modes, headings and captions are available for large image views, and fully configurable. Optionally, captions may contain image download links and/or permalinks. Download links and permalinks may also be positioned on the thumbnail grid using icons, with several icons to choose from for each.
BoxOver tool tips may now be enabled/disabled individually for each element on the page. No more “all or nothing” tool tips.
Color labeling has been reimplemented to more resemble Lightroom’s Library, and is no long token-based.
GPS geo-tagging of images is now supported and integrates with Google Maps, allowing viewers to zoom into locations, go to street view, fetch driving directions, etc. Special thanks to Joseph Colson for programming the logic that enables this feature.
Moving into the Appearance pane, the Client Proofing Gallery — formerly the Selection Gallery — is mostly unchanged, but now includes several icon options for selected/unselected images.
Shopping options are now implemented via the new E-Commerce Options control group. A lot of fool-proofing has been done here; through a system of conditions and overrides, it is no longer possible to create broken galleries by enabling conflicting features simultaneously. Selecting any E-Commerce Mode other than “None” will automatically disable the Client Proofing Gallery. Also, it is impossible to enable more than one set of e-commerce options at the same time.
The shopping interface has been completely revised. Shopping carts are now unobtrusive, ensuring that your image galleries look like galleries, and not like storefronts.
The PHP shopping cart — formerly the “Transactionless” cart — has received some general improvements, including the ability to factor in a flat-shipping rate. Users may choose whether or not to factor shipping costs into sales-tax calculations according to local business regulations.
Fotomoto now supports the sale of images as downloads and provides variable pricing for downloads based on usage licensing. Sell your images as desktop wallpaper, stock imagery and more, all configurable from within your Fotomoto account and sold directly from your image gallery. See Fotomoto for service details.
In the Output Settings control pane, TTG Highslide Gallery Pro now makes use of the new watermarking capabilities in Lightroom 3. When loaded in Lightroom 2, users will be presented with the old watermark check-box. Special thanks to Timothy Armes for helping out getting this to work simultaneously in both LR2 and LR3.
By popular request, TTG Highslide Gallery Pro now supports pagination! Spread large galleries across multiple pages, using page navigation bars to browse. Please note that pagination is not available when the Client Proofing Gallery features are enabled; enabling the Client Proofing Gallery will automatically cause all of your images to appear on a single page.
And that’s the rundown of what’s new in the 2.0 update. I think it’s all really shaped up into a nice release, and I hope you will enjoy using it to maintain your websites and present your images. The release has been thoroughly tested by a dedicated group of users, and I feel pretty confident in having hammered out any bugs; this is a stable release with no known issues.
Coda
Wrapping things up, be sure to check out the templates available on the new Theme Templates page. I will be adding new templates soon, and will continue to grow the collection over time. Be sure to check out the TTG Highslide Gallery Pro product page as well, as it has been completely rewritten to provide up-to-date usage information for version 2.0.
My schedule for the next several weeks is hectic — borderline insane — but I will soon be scrapping the old Highslide tutorial videos and recording new videos fully detailing usage of version 2.0. I will begin at the beginning, and this time will make it all the way to the end. Look for announcements on these soon, and I will get videos made and posted as quickly as my schedule allows.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
This update is fantastic, thanks so much!
I only have one problem – I’m using the Paypal shopping cart and it adds my postage charge for each item I add to the cart. I’ve set the “shipping per additional item” to 0. So if I set my postage to $5 and someone buys 10 items, the postage is $50. Am I missing something? I’d rather just set a total postage rate if possible!
Read all about PayPal shipping options here.
Fantastic, thanks very much.
Matt
with the upgrade to 2.0 will I lose all my existing saved templates and have to rebuild them?
Yes.
With the new version using fotomoto integration, is there a way to not have the “shopping bar” display? I prefer the look of having the “buy a print..” links only when the picture is opened. I looked but if there is an option i must have missed it.
Use this code in the Output Settings, extra CSS field:
<style type=”text/css”>.image_info_shop { display: none; }</style>
Didnt seem to work. I pasted the code into “add CSS rules in . Not a big deal. I may leave it like that for now and see how people like it.
It works, but I think Wordpress is messing it up; it “curls” the quotation marks, which invalidates them as code. Copy and paste the code into a plain text editor, then copy and paste it from there into Lightroom. Or just type it out carefully by hand.
I am trying to convert my client galleries on my website to the new version of Gallery pro 2 with fotomoto. My previous Gallery Pro worked just fine with fotomoto and showed the “buy print” options when the Photo was enlarged. However now when you enlarge a Photo it says “The Widget is not in API mode” Now I added the code you mentioned in the “add css rules in” to disable the toolbar at the top of the page but I still get the same message but the toolbar did disappear from the top of the page.
I just run a test gallery from the latest version and all seem to be in order. I’m therefore seeing this as pilot error. Here’s what to do:
1. Ensure you are running the latest version 2.0.1.
2. Appearance control pane, E-Commerce Options, set E-Commerce Mode to “Fotomoto” as this will enable the API.
I’m guessing you’re probably running 2.0, which incorrectly allowed you to skip over the E-Commerce mode and to begin setting up the Fotomoto links on large images without ever enabling the API. This is fixed in 2.0.1.
LOL it was indeed pilot error I was running version 2.0.1 however I skipped right over the e-commerce options. Thank you very much for your quick response and help. As always your templates and support ROCK!
Laura
Thanks. I like the easy fixes.