jAlbum 33 is here, adding tools for easy backup and restore of projects and comes with more user friendly settings. Let's dive right into it.

New settings window

Based on support experience, we've reworked jAlbum's settings window to be more user friendly. The first thing you notice is that it has a much smaller window than before. This is because we're using a new default skin called "Plain". Plain only provides the most commonly used settings, and they are therefore easy to find. If you need more "bells-and-whistles", go for our advanced skins like Tiger, PhotoBlogger and Story.

The second thing you'll notice is that the "Structure" and "Widgets" panels seem to be gone. They're now moved under the "Advanced" tab, should you need them.

The "Pages" and "Images" panels have been reworked as well. Here's the new "Pages" panel:

  As you can see, the somewhat confusing "Image linking from thumbnails" section is gone. You now have the equivalent settings (highlighted here) available under the reworked "Images" tab instead:

You now simply tick checkboxes for the types of images you wish to include in your gallery: Scaled images, originals or both scaled images and originals. (Thumbnails are currently always included).

Here are other improvements to the Settings window worth noting:

• Window size calculation has been improved, now making room for your OS dock as well
• Very large skin UIs now get scroll bars instead of expanding the settings window beyond screen size
• The "Apply" button has been removed (settings are automatically applied when you make albums or close the window)
• Skins may now supply their own fancy icons :-)
• The "Hi DPI" settings have been moved to Images->Advanced. We recommend using 2x Variants instead as that gives the same effect on Hi DPI screens ("retina" screens) while maintaining a fast gallery for users with ordinary screens
  

 

 

Every year we add more and more functionality and features to our skins. 2023 isn't different in this regard. You might have noticed that a handful of our bundled skins recently received major updates. It started with a Samples page redesign – which hasn't been deployed yet – so you can enjoy these enhancements even before we exhibit them. Let's see what are the news:

Simpler styles

Over the past two decades, the landscape of web design has undergone a remarkable transformation. While the early 2000s were characterized by skeuomorphic designs, where websites mimicked real-world textures and objects, with the advent of mobile devices, minimalism, and plain design emerged. The focus shifted towards usability, enhancing user engagement and accessibility. Our default skin – Tiger – still carries this skeuomorphic heritage that started with Chameleon and later Turtle. Even though you could make Tiger look simpler before version 4 too, now I added a few simple styles – Latte, Portfolio, Plain Light, and Plain Dark – to make authoring simplistic web galleries even easier.

Latte style

Plain Dark style

Plain Light style

Portfolio style

Check out all the styles of the Photoblogger skin and the Story skin too!

The hero image, or theme image, now can be covered by a semi-transparent color layer, or a pattern, and can be made black and white. And naturally, you can even hide the image altogether for an even simpler look.

Download the tool

Note, you will need this tool too.

Fancy creating new styles?

I have developed a small tool that creates a new style from the current settings. If you'd like to play with it, download this tool, tweak every setting to your liking, and save it as a new style with Tools / External tools / Create new style from the current settings. You can specify which settings to include and exclude, but in most cases, you don't need to modify this – just give it a name, and press OK. You might need to reload the skin (Ctrl-R) for the new style to appear in the "Styles" box.

If you think your new style would appeal to other users, please send us the style files; stylename.css and stylename.jap from the Skin directory (Ctrl-Shift-S) / styles subfolder. You can send your design for any of our bundled skins, and we will exhibit the best ones, and perhaps even include them in the skin, with your permission.

Hero image slider

Previously, only the Photoblogger skin had an image slider in the hero area. Now both Tiger and Story skins have received a hero image slider, which works a bit differently from Photoblogger's. This one selects random images from the whole album, subfolders included. It selects different images on every page load and takes the device's screen size into account, selecting the images that fit the best into the available screen space. This way you'll hopefully see less beheaded portrait images on desktops. :) Below you'll find a few samples.

Story skin sample

Tiger skin sample

"Sticky" boxes

Using features like the Shopping cart, Feedback, or Filtering, the visitors might easily get lost when the associated boxes get out of the screen. You have to remember that there's a filtering box on the top of the page, and if you'd like to change it, you have to scroll up (and down again). These so-called "sticky boxes" stay in the viewport as long as you are browsing the thumbnails. Look for the "Always visible" setting on the related settings panel! These boxes have also received a minimize/maximize button in case they are too large, and cover too much of the screen. In Photoblogger skin, the sidebar boxes have received a similar treatment, but here the boxes stay put in the sidebar, not covering the main block.

Tiger

Initial view...

Scrolled down...

Photoblogger

Initial view...

Scrolled down...

The top bar in the Tiger and Photoblogger skins, (and the similarly functioning "Control bar" in the Story skin) have received the same "Stick to top" feature, so the visitors can always access the important navigational elements.

Let us know what do you think! (laza@jalbum.net)

Laza

We're proudly presenting jAlbum 32 to you. Here's why you should get it:

    
Improved WebP writer

Now jAlbum produces far smaller and less blocky WebP images again. When we first introduced WebP images, it was clear that WebP produces the same quality images as JPEG, but using less disk space. We however eventually needed to retire the WebP generating code as it was "native" (i.e. CPU specific) and didn't support Apple's new "Apple Silicon". The new Java based code, although fast, didn't (to our surprise) produce as high quality images as before: Images were larger and more blocky than we expected. Now the good people at IDR Solutions have rewritten the WebP writer with incredible results. Here are some sample images:

Original JPEG (99KB)

Before WebP 60% (30KB)

Before WebP 80% (56KB)

After WebP 60% (18KB)

After WebP 80% (41KB)

As you see, you now get the same quality at roughly half the size, also meaning twice the delivery speed over the internet! Isn't that cool? There is admittedly slightly more detail in the twice-as-large JPEG vs the new 80% WebP version (look at my forehead), but if you use these WebP images as 2x Variants, then you get an unbeatable combination of sharpness/detail and decent file size.

Hint: Perform a "Rebuild all" operation in order to force jAlbum to rebuild all WebP images.

Configurable keyboard shortcuts

A Polish user reported that he couldn't type certain "foreign" characters without triggering jAlbum to open various windows. It turned out that the Polish key mapping, relying on CTRL+ALT+key combinations (or right-ALT+key if you wish) did indeed collide with several jAlbum shortcuts. In jAlbum 32 you can therefore set up your own keyboard shortcut mappings for several jAlbum actions, and you can do it on a language basis as well. For general edits, edit system/shortcuts/shortcuts.properties. For language specific edits, edit system/shortcuts/shortcuts_XX.properties, where "XX" is the ISO 2 letter language code. Detailed instructions are found within the shortcuts.properties file. We've fixed the problem with Polish key mappings now. If you make fixes for your language, please pass us your language specific key mappings.

Improved Review mode

Review mode now applies image tools to images just like Edit mode does. This is sort of what you'd expect, so now Review mode works as expected :-)

Better translations

jAlbum 32 uses Google Translate to assist translators with user interface translations. This cuts the time needed to translate jAlbum considerably. Humans still need to double-check the translations as computers still don't always get the context right. With jAlbum 32, the Italian translation for instance, which has lagged behind considerably, is now up-to-date thanks to a combination of Google Translate and human help.

Here's how it works: The "Translator's" menu (Tools->Translator) have received three new menu items: "Update skin translation (auto update)", "Update ALL skin translations (auto update)" and "Update jAlbum translation (auto update)".

When selected, jAlbum will compare the (complete) English translation with the translation of the currently active language and use Google Translate to translate the missing portions. These will be appended to the end of the relevant texts_XX.properties file. jAlbum now opens this file in it's embedded text editor for verification. As you hover the mouse over each translation, jAlbum will show the corresponding English text as a tool-tip. This ensures that you can verify that the context is right:

It's now possible to maintain the translation of jAlbum or a skin in a fraction of the time it previously took. It you notice that the translation of jAlbum or your favorite skin lags behind, please consider becoming a translator. This is a volunteer effort that we reward with recognition and free licenses+storage. If you're interested, just write me!

We also have the "Update ALL skin translations (auto update)" menu item: This one will update all supported languages of as skin and open all translations for verification in the editor. If you're a skin developer and your skin is lagging behind on several languages. This make your skin current. Just remember to have those translations checked by a human as well.

Improved UI responsiveness

jAlbum 32 has significantly improved user interface responsiveness when navigating slow storage devices. This isn't a new feature really, but rather a fix for a bug introduced in v30.1. Opening a larger project on my Synology NAS could take close to a minute with the user interface freezing during that time. Now it's down to seconds again. Should jAlbum need a bit more time to open a project, it now also presents a spinning wheel pointer.

That's it. You can read about all changes and download jAlbum 32 here.

I dare to claim that jAlbum v31 is the most important update we've made in years. Bold words, but even skeptics agree. This release brings jAlbum closer to your mobile phone than ever.

We now use QR codes to ease everything from adding images and videos from your phone, to previewing galleries on your phone and inviting others to contribute with images.

The importance of this integration cannot be overstated: For many people, the mobile phone is now their preferred camera. After all, it fits in your pocket and the image quality has increased drastically over the years. Disregarding that, the mere fact that over 50% of web galleries are viewed on mobile phones today demands that your galleries look and behave great on such devices as well. With jAlbum 31, previewing from your phone and adding images from it is now done in seconds.

Add from phone

People struggle to transfer images from phones to computers in all kinds of ways:

• Using a cable
  
• Through email
• Through cloud services
• Using AirDrop (if you're fully within Apple's ecosystem)
• Using dedicated apps

All these methods have obvious drawbacks: "Where's that cable?", "Uh, that's slow", "I don't own a Mac", "I don't have that app" etc.

Phone preview
As stated earlier it's highly important that your galleries look great on mobile devices as well. Now it's easier than ever to check their appearance on your mobile. You no longer need to upload the galleries prior to viewing them on your phone, and no typing long addresses either. Just SHIFT-click the preview button. This presents you with a QR code. Aim your phone's camera onto that code and follow the link presented. You're now previewing the album on your phone.

Before developing v31, we never imagined that QR codes could bring so many benefits. Don't you agree?

What are you waiting for? Get jAlbum 31 today! v31 is a free update to anyone who is on a current support and update plan. Discounts apply to old users. Just sign in and head to our purchase page to see your low upgrade price.