Those of you running Web Photos Pro 1.0b16b are probably wondering where the next release is.

Good question.

The short answer is that I’m working on it, and it’s very close to being done. I considered doing another beta release, but have decided to press on and get Web Photos Pro 1.0 final out the door.

If you want to be notified when the final is released, make sure to sign up on our mailing list using the form in the right hand colum of this page.

In the meantime, you can keep using the product by moving your computer’s clock back before January 30 – just don’t forget to set it back to the right time when you’re done.

With kindest regards,
– Frank

Two comments showed up the other day. I particularly loved the one that said”

“Your comments seem to contain a lot about raising the cows rather than the benefits of eating the steak and how to cook it for maximum results. Maybe I just haven’t read enough. I’ll keep reading.”

“They’re right you know,” my wife Rachel said laughing. “You write from a programmer’s point of view, but you really need to be writing from a customer’s point of view.”

Guilty as charged. Rachel’s in marketing, and I’m the programmer. I love making things work, and I assume that other people will look at what I’ve done, understand the implications, and immediately see how to make use of it themselves.

Rachel on the other hand understands that people buy solutions not beautiful code or cool features. That means that in order for Web Photos Pro and Web Photos Pro Server Edition to become successful, I need to convince people that these two products can be used to solve their particular problem.

I’ve started that process as part of the site redesign. For example, I added a key features list, a 1 minute tour, and a better examples page. But while those pages are useful, they don’t really answer the question – “How do I use Web Photos Pro in my business?”

If lonestar1 is reading this, and wanted to tell me about the more about problem he’s trying to solve, I’d be happy to help him understand whether Web Photos Pro is the right product for him.

In the meantime, I’m back to work on getting the final product out the door.

Regards,
– Frank

A lot has happened over the past three weeks, since I last updated this weblog. The big event was moving back down to Cornwall. It’s great to be back, and when this product goes final it will even better, as I’ll actually have time to do all the things on my Cornwall todo list – like run, surf, sail, and play the violin.

The broadband connection in London got turned off, and I’m back on a 33.6K modem connection (that’s right, BT seems to have nothing but 33.6K modems in their Pay As You Go racks down here). But all’s not completely lost – I have a friend whose office has an ISDN line, and I’ve been over there a few times to enjoy lightning speeds of up to 128K.

Thankfully I can do most of my work offline, with my iBook on the left, and my Windows box on the right. I’ve been head down as much as possible for the past three weeks, or as much as moving, plus having two energetic boys, ages 2 and 5, who love bothering their Dad while he’s working, will let me. Over the three weeks I’ve gotten the new website design integrated (with a lot of Wordpress hacking), added a database to store emails, demo keys and product purchases, built an automated demo and license key system, and created a mini mass mail system. Not bad for three weeks where I was lucky to work 1/2 time most of the time.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited about the new web site design. I really like the new design done by Lori Leach over at Zenful Creations. I found Lori via Design Outpost, and while the Design Outpost process wasn’t as well-documented as I would have liked, the range of designs we got was fantastic, and Lori’s entry was just what we were looking for (though we didn’t know it).

The design process reminded me of our realtor in Sausalito, Jerry South, who was always talking about the “lies of the buyer". He said buyers say they know what they’re looking for, but they rarely do. Time after time he’s seen buyers buy something that had little in common with the brief they gave him at the start of the process. And the same thing happened to us – we said we wanted something more “corporate” looking, but when we compared the other designs with what Lori gave us, it was a no brainer.

I hope you like the site design as much as I do. Please do send comments, good or bad.

By the way, there are a number of pages which, on Internet Explorer in particular, do not render properly. This is usually due to an image somewhere on the page that is bigger than the left (main) column. I know about these problems, but fixing them is going to have to wait until I have a chance to rewrite the documentation (most of the problems are in the Documentation section). And that’s not going to happen until late February or early March at the earliest.

Until then, keep well.

– Frank

Web Photos Pro uses a skin (or template) to format your photo albums.

Web Photos Pro 1.0 comes with a choice of two great-looking skins – one with a white background, and one with a black background. (Future versions of Web Photos Pro will come with a wider variety of skins to choose from, as well as color schemes for each skin.)

If the built-in skins don’t look right for your site, don’t worry, creating a skin to match your existing web site is easy.

What is a skin?

A skin is comprised of HTML, CSS, skin-variables, and skin-controls. If you’re familiar with programming, or if you’ve created Movable Type templates, you’ll have no problem understanding how to build a Web Photos Pro skin.

All HTML and CSS in a skin is output directly, while the skin-variables and skin-controls output page specific information such as the page title, album name, image information, etc..

Where do I start?

The first place to start is to read the skins documentation.

If you’re still confused, the next place to visit is our online support forum. Here you can get help with any questions you might have.

If you’re still having problems, you might be interested in our Skin Design Service.

Customized Skin Design Service

We’ve had several people ask whether we will help design a custom skin. The answer is yes!

If you have an existing web site, we can help you create a set of web skins that will make your photo pages look exactly like your web site.

The basic charge for creating a set of three skins (Gallery skin, Album skin, and Image skin) for use with Web Photos Pro is $75*.

To create a set of six skins (Gallery skin, Album skin, Image skin, Find skin, EXIF skin and Error skin) for use with Web Photos Pro Server Edition is $100*.

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