Webinar

Showit Tips and Tricks. Join us for a Webinar on June 16 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/363697402 Join members of the Showit team for a 30 minute tips and tricks session followed by a question and answer time! We will try and answer all of your questions in the meeting but if we don't get a chance to answer your question we will send you an answer via email. Talk to you soon! Title: Showit Tips and Tricks. Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Time: 5:00 PM - 5:30 PM PDT After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Update and Webinar

Version 1.6 of Showit Sites was released today that included a bunch of fixes and features including:

• Support for MP4 and h.264 files that are supported by the Flash player
• SmugMug image feeds in photo galleries
  
• Match sizes on multiple selected items
• Background overlay color
• Background transition out
• Show untagged items in Media Library
  

We also did a demo of some of these features along with some sneak peaks of some galleries that are in the works, check out the session on our tutorials site:



During the webinar, the following topics were covered in this order:

• New features in the update
• Background color overlay and transition out
• New gallery widget coming soon
• Using tags to organize your files
• Laying out your site using alignment and distribution
• Matching the height and width of items
• Locking the aspect ratio on resize
• Drop down menus
• Creating a splash page
• Various Showit pricing
• Sites and SEO info
• Custom fonts
• Paypal integration
• Tracking web stats with Google Analytics
• How to start building a site
• Custom Client Pages
• Wrap up

Showit Q&A

We had a great Question and Answer time, if you missed it, check out the video on our tutorials site:

Updates....yea....

Be on the lookout for a nice update next week with a killer new gallery feature! We have 5 new galleries coming and I am so so so excited about them! Here is a sneak peak of one gallery that you'll be able to create in less than 5 seconds! Simply drag a group of images in and you instantly have a full screen gallery with a customizable "hover on/off" thumbnails window. Brett's been jamming on these for the past month and they turned out even better and cooler and easier than we had planned!

Aaron's also been working on updating the backend of our Media Lab to help you make more money! Our Media Lab delivered over 4000 DVD's last year and is now doing over 400/month! We put over $175,000 in photographers pockets last year and we're excited to make you even more money this year!

In order to do this we listened to your advice and axed Paypal as a payout option b/c of their heavy fees for biz accounts which many of you have.

Lastly we added in the ability to download and fill out your W9 right inside your account. We are required by law to collect these from you so another change is that we must now collect this form before we pay you but don't worry it's only 13 pages long. Just kidding. :) It's short so get it filled out and get your cash.

Ok...That's it! Rock on!

DJ

Showit Update

This morning we are excited to put out the latest update to Showit! This update comes with some major updates that will make editing your site a whole lot easier and some enhancements to use your site in new exciting ways!

CLICK LESS

Making changes across multiple layers just got a whole lot easier. We've drastically reduced the number of clicks it takes to make changes across as many layers as you need. Want to change the text size or color across your entire navigation... now it only takes a few clicks. Want to make all your images transition out the same way... just a few short clicks. The same goes for size, position, rotation, locking, links, and effects. Editing your site just got a whole lot faster!

NEW EFFECTS

We've changed the way you add effects to your layers to give you a little more freedom to do what you want and to give us some room to add more. You'll want to check out some of the new ones we've added... especially the Color Adjust effect. Now if an image doesn't look the way you want it to out on the web or you want to desaturate it... you can make some fine tune adjustments right within Showit!

SHAPE UP

We've redone the shapes in our media library to give you a lot more control over their style. You can now easily add round corners, gradients, and borders. Try adding a subtle gradient across a background square to get that finishing touch. Add a square with a black and white radial gradient, change the blend mode to overlay... and you've got yourself a nice vignette. The new polygon shape can take on as many sides as you want as well! Triangles or stars are all at your fingertips now.

BEHAVE

We've taught our software to behave a little better for you as well. Those pesky page groups will stay closed or open just the way they're supposed to now and they'll even stay nicely across editing sessions. And the same goes for the widgets and the advanced tab. You'll also notice we've added some menus when you right click. On the page list you'll be able to get the URL for any page or rename it right from within the list.

NEED A BLOG HEADER?

Now you can take your site to new places... your blog header! We've heard from a lot of you that you'd like to make your blog and your site look more alike... so we're taking steps in that direction. With the brand new ability to embed a page of your site... you can now easily customize your blog header or the top of your SmugMug page.

TIP

Having a tough time using the drag select without dragging that layer in the background? Without any layers selected... hold down the Shift key before you start your drag select... this should allow you to drag select without messing with that layer in the background.

Hope you enjoy!
-The Showit Sites Team

Showit Sites Update

Just two short weeks after our last update... in the wee hours of this morning... we released Showit Sites 1.2! This update comes with some minor bug fixes under the hood and a couple of sweet little enhancements you'll find handy right away. Fire up Sites and you should be asked to update automatically.

GETTING OUR WIDGETS IN A ROW

With the widgets that we've been adding and other content on the way, we realized our Showit Library of content needed some tidying up. If you open up the media library, you'll notice a bunch of new categories for the content we're providing for you. It's now a lot easier to find those home buttons and photo galleries.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Well, if it's a font name... not necessarily a whole bunch. That's why we added the actual fonts themselves to the font selection drop down. Now you won't have to select a couple different fonts before finding the one you want. With the preview, you'll get it right the first time.

WHAT A DRAG!

We felt your pain when it came to selecting multiple layers at the same time... it was a drag. Now it literally is a drag! Just drag out an area to select anything under the created selection pane. Very intuitive... and definitely a time saver. And if you still can't get all the specific layers you need... try out the layers tab. With a SHIFT or CTRL click... you can now select multiple layers from there as well.

MORE WIDGETS

Since our last update we've added a couple more widgets you'll want to check out. You can get your Twitter feed pulled in to your site now as well as create a button for PayPal payments. Just added tonight was a pop up menu! This gives you the ability to hide some of that navigation and let people focus on your images instead!


Hope you enjoy!
-The Showit Sites Team

Showit Sites Update

Today we released Showit Sites 1.1! Simply open up Showit Sites and it will automatically update itself. If you haven't already... download it for free and try it out. This update includes a bunch of new features that you guys have been asking for and we're excited for you guys to start using them in your sites.

CUSTOM FONTS ARE FINALLY HERE!

This has been one of our most highly requested features and we're proud to finally offer the ability to use your own customized fonts in your Showit Sites! To get started making your website even more customized... check out this PDF tutorial on how to make your custom fonts ready for Sites and the web.

¡HABLAMOS ESPAÑOL!

If Spanish is your native language then you might prefer to use Showit Sites that way as well. Inside Sites check out the menu: File -> Language. Rudy Arpia helped us out by translating all of Showit Sites into Spanish using the translation tool. If you're interested in using Sites in your native language send us some feedback from the Help menu to let us know. And check out the translation tool located in the Help menu as well.

WIDGET WONDERLAND!

We've been hard at work under the hood of Sites to implement an easy way to add widgets to your sites... and we're ready to roll! We've already added a couple of widgets to the Showit Library so be sure to check them out in the Flash area.


The Timer widget allows you to auto-advance pages, which we've had a lot of requests for. Drop it on a style group and sit back and watch your pages automatically advance. Perfect for those full page galleries!


The RSS Feed Reader does just what you think it would. Plug in the URL for the RSS feed on your blog and have your website keep up to date and directly link to the latest from your blog.

These are just a few... with more on the way!! Got any other ideas or something you can't live without? Let us know in the comments.

OTHER UPDATES...

On the side... we also decided to update out a couple other things as well:



COLOR PICKER - There are a lot more colors to choose from now... and if you need to get just the right shade from a photo you just added... check out the new dropper tool!

LAYER MENU - Check out the View menu to hide and show the layer menu... perfect for when your working on smaller layers.










SHORTCUTS - We're adding shortcuts all the time. You can learn them by checking out the menu system. Some of them you might find helpful:

Preview - CTRL + P
Publish - CTRL + SHIFT + P

Layer Forward - CTRL + ]
Layer Back - CTRL + [

Hide Layer Menu - CTRL + SHIFT + L

We hope you enjoy all the updates!
-The Showit Sites Team

The Showit Suite - Sweet. :)

If you're a Showit customer we want to hang with you at WPPI.

We will have two suites at the MGM Signature but space is very limited. We will be doing a couple of round table discussions so we can hear from you and if you're interested in being involved in something like this please post below and we will put up a schedule soon.

We will also have a room devoted to website design where you can get individual attention getting your website stoked out just the way you want.

:)
DJ

Showit Sites Update

Tonight we rolled out an update to Showit Sites which will automatically be downloaded and updated the next time you open Showit Sites. Included in this update are a lot of bug fixes under the hood including resolving some of the issues with drag and drop on the Mac. The following are a few of the fun things to check out:

Support for a wider range of Latin characters


Added a "Link to Asset" button to the media window so you can get a direct link to any of your images or files.


Addition of a Full Screen Button to the media library (look in "Components") to allow browsing of a site in full screen mode. Note: if you host your HTML you will need to export and upload your HTML again.


Option for links to open in an "Overlay" window. Check this one out as it is really cool and will allow you the flexibility of opening other HTML pages such as a blog or web page right inside your site without a popup or new window.


Added an option to specify a field as the reply-to email in forms so that when you receive contact form emails, you can click reply in your email program and reply directly to the sender.


In addition, this new version adds support for Adobe Air 1.5 for improved performance and additional fixes for locking user accounts, and we also added a translator app to allow people to begin translating Showit Sites (if you are interested in translating, let us know).

We have a lot more in the works such as custom fonts and additional plugins that needed a little bit more work before they are ready for public release. We hope you enjoy!

LIVE Design Webcast

Check out our live Showit Sites webcast where Nate Sees discussed designing in Showit Sites at 11 AM PST.
Video streaming by Ustream