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Pixaria Gallery 2.0 Official Press Release

LONDON, England - October 31, 2007 Pixaria today unveiled Pixaria Gallery 2.0, a comprehensive content management system that gives photographers everything they need to publish and sell digital images on their own website for just $239. Among more than 20 major new features, Pixaria Gallery 2.0 provides photographers with a powerful new search engine which brings support for advanced Boolean image searches, a brand new, standards compliant user interface and the ability for photographers to designate users who can upload photos of their own.

"I'm proud that Pixaria has really evolved to another level in version 2.0." said Jamie Longstaff, creator and developer of the software. "It's been great to get so much support and input from the user community and they've helped to refine almost every aspect of Pixaria Gallery for this release."

At its heart, Pixaria Gallery is a web based digital asset management system with its entire user interface designed to be accessed through a web browser (such as Internet Explorer on Windows or Safari on a Mac). The software is powered by a combination of a MySQL database and the PHP scripting engine and Pixaria Gallery can therefore be installed onto website packages provided by all major hosting companies. For those photographers new to the dark arts of web design, servers and databases, the developer offers free installation onto any web server that meets the system requirements.

Once Pixaria Gallery is up and running, images can be uploaded into the software's library through a web browser interface or by FTP for larger volumes and importing images is a snap thanks to Pixaria's built in support for IPTC and EXIF metadata and per-image metadata editing during the import process.

Images that have been imported into the library can be organised images into public or private galleries and are immediately searchable by keyword, rights management settings or even image colour. There is also a fine degree of control over what visitors can see thanks to easy to use permissions controls that operate via configurable user groups and which can be applied to galleries or individual images.

In addition to the publishing and library management tools, Pixaria Gallery also makes it easy to sell digital downloads or products like prints with a highly configurable store system that can connect directly to PayPal for instant download of purchased images. Photographers also get a high degree of control over how users buy images with preset configurations for providing quotations by individual image, by all the images in a cart, by automatic price calculation using pre-defined rules and even by invoicing for all downloads made by a user in a month.

Pixaria Gallery also includes a configurable lightbox system which features options for providing PDF contact sheets, lightbox sharing and drag and drop image re-organisation. In addition to this, the key features are rounded out by the inclusion of a simple blog publishing tool, image watermarking, e-cards, contact form and even support for outputting images as Flash movies for enhanced security. What really separates Pixaria apart from other similar software on the market though is that all of the features are included in a single package for a single price and none of the source code in the software is encrypted or locked down in any way. This means you have the freedom to tinker and customise Pixaria Gallery to your heart's content.

"I think it's vital that if you're buying software for your website, you should be able to use it as you see fit" said Jamie Longstaff. "We're seeing this in digital music now, and it should be the same with software too. If you buy Pixaria Gallery, you can change anything you like about the way it works. Users really appreciate that and tell me so every day!".

Pricing & Availability
Pixaria Gallery 2.0 is now available for $239 (US) through www.pixaria.com. Registered Pixaria Gallery 1 users can upgrade to Pixaria Gallery 2.0 for $30 (US). Customers who purchased Pixaria Gallery 1.5 on or after June 1, 2007 are eligible for a free upgrade to Pixaria Gallery 2.0. Full system requirements and more information on Pixaria Gallery, can be found at www.pixaria.com.

About Pixaria
Pixaria Gallery is now in its second year and has a devoted user base of amateur and professional photographers who participate in an active community on the Pixaria website. Pixaria Gallery was created by London based, independent software developer Jamie Longstaff with the goal of being the most affordable way for both amateur and professional photographers to get started selling images on their own website.

Press Contacts:
Jamie Longstaff
info@pixaria.com

Pixaria 2.0 Five Days On

Well, here we are five days on and Pixaria 2.0 is looking like a solid and reliable release which is getting some great feedback from the early adopters. I'm pleased that there are relatively few bugs in version 2.0 and for this I would like to thank all the beta testers but especially Nick Unwin who's detailed and well research bug reports we all have to thank for getting Pixaria 2.0 out on time!

So where next? Well, I'm already at work on Pixaria 2.0.1 which will be out in a week or two to fix minor bugs in the current version. Further on, and I'm turning my attention to adding support for more payment systems, a fully multi-lingual user interface and user interface enhancements on both the front and back ends that didn't make it into 2.0.

Thanks to everyone for all the support on version 2.0 and here's to the future!

Pixaria Gallery 1.5.4 Released

For those still using Pixaria Gallery 1.5, I've released a minor update which fixes three bugs in 1.5.3. All users not intending to upgrade to version 2.0 are advised to upgrade. To get the update, please e-mail me, quoting your original purchase details.

Pixaria 1.5.4 will remain in maintenance mode until further notice but I will not be adding new features to it as my main focus is now on version 2.0 and above.

Pixaria Gallery 2.0 Available Now

I'm very pleased to announce that Pixaria Gallery version 2.0 is now available. It's taken me six months to complete the biggest update that Pixaria has ever seen but I know that it will be worth the wait thanks to a ton of great new features I've packed in.

To find out more about what's new in this version, please check out the features page for full details or if you just want a quick list of new features and changes, try the version history.

Users who bought version 1.5 after the first of June can get free updates by e-mailing me or if you purchased before that you can upgrade for $30 using the upgrade options on the purchase page.

Documentation updated for Pixaria 2.0

Much of the documentation for Pixaria has now been updated for version 2.0 and if you're considering upgrading, it's important that you examine the upgrade instructions and FAQ before you begin as there are important changes from version 1.

In particular, you may find it useful to consult the following changed pages before you upgrade:

1. Pixaria 2.0 Frequently Asked Questions
2. System requirements
3. Upgrading Pixaria 1.x to Pixaria 2.0
4. Search engine friendly URLs with Mod_Rewrite
5. Secure your website against hackers and image thieves
6. Available image properties in the image detail view
7. Available image properties in the image thumbnail view

Pixaria 2.0 Coming October 27th

I'm pleased to announce that Pixaria Gallery 2.0 will be released on Saturday the 27th of October 2007. The new version of the script represents six months of work and a complete overhaul to almost every aspect of the software from the user interface to the administrative features.

Major new features in this update include photographer image uploads, image download logging, a brand new search engine, new image import workflow, new user interface and improved performance.

Registered users who purchased from June 2007 onwards will get a free update to Pixaria 2.0.

For more information, please see the Pixaria 2.0 FAQ

Pixaria 2.0 Demo Website Updated

If you're following the development path of Pixaria 2.0, you may like to know that the demo website has been updated with the latest beta (beta 4), which was seeded to testers yesterday.

Over 80 bugs have now been found and (mostly) fixed which means that a release date for version 2.0 is getting ever closer. If all goes according to plan and no major new bugs are found, I should be able to release version 2 later this week.

The main changes to be seen on the updated demo site are improved performance in Internet Explorer, many fixes to the lightbox, improved reliability of the search engine and a new look for the image detail view (a work still in progress).

To take a look, please go to http://try.pixaria.com/

Pixaria 2.0 Status Update

Testers have now received Beta 3 of Pixaria Gallery 2.0 and the number of bugs remaining to be squashed from the earlier betas is growing ever smaller.

Provided that no major new issues emerge between now and the weekend, I hope to be able to release version 2.0 of the software this Saturday or Sunday but this all depends on how I get on with the required updates to the documentation and website.

I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to all the beta testers who's input will help ensure a better product for everyone!

Documentation update - Pixaria 2.0

I've updated the documentation on setting up and configuring search engine friendly URLs in Pixaria 2.0. Changes made for version 2.0 make it much easier to configure mod_rewrite than it used to be in version 1.x and full details of how to use a .htaccess file can be found online here:

http://www.pixaria.com/wiki/ModRewrite

Pixaria 2.0 Feature List

Well, this is it... The moment you've all been waiting for, the (almost) final feature and change list for Pixaria 2.0. In addition to the major changes listed below, there are many minor modifications that don't really need a mention. It's also worth pointing out that there are a couple of features still to be added to the list.

In no particular order:

1. Ability to set which products are available for which images
2. Users can be given photographer login and image upload privileges
3. Images can be set as active or inactive in the library
4. Galleries be set as active or inactive in the library
5. Users and admins can download the contents of a lightbox as PDF contact sheet (configurable by admin)
6. It is now possible to import image files into existing directories in the image library
7. News articles are now displayed by means of a plug-in allowing easy integration on the home-page
8. Send lightbox to friend
9. Rewritten search engine with universal Boolean support, wild cards and enhanced keyword and key-phrase support
10. Ability to edit individual images' metadata during import
11. Option to append new keywords in batch edit tools
12. Can navigate galleries, search results and lightbox using previous/next buttons
13. The Ming library is no longer needed to display images in Flash format
14. Completely standardised CSS based front end
15. New look search forms in admin and front end
16. Ability to move images from one gallery to another
17. Option to list images in galleries by the order they were added to the library
18. Image download logging for paid and free images
19. Upload images using a web browser and complete the import process in one sequence
20. The user interface and error feedback for deleting images has been improved
21. Sort gallery images by date added to the library
22. Completely rewritten mod_rewrite support with simpler configuration
23. Textual gallery names can now be used in search engine friendly URLs (with mod_rewrite)
24. Administrators can create user accounts by inviting people to register
25. A user can browse all their lightboxes without making them the default
26. Search for images by colour (requires images to be tagged with colour information)
27. Improved keywords system for images (keywords now separated by commas in all forms)
28. Administrators can browse and view users' lightboxes
29. Continue shopping button in the cart view screen
30. Text formatting support in news blog (via Markdown)
31. Admins can delete directories in the incoming directory file browser
32. A contact form has been added (configurable by administrator)
33. All image downloads are now logged
34. Improved compliance with RSS specification (now RSS 2.0)
35. Admins can now choose which individual images to import when importing a directory of files
36. Shorter page number lists when browsing images in the front end
37. Fixed an issue that could limit the number of images that could be imported into a gallery in one go

Pixaria 2.0 Demo Website Online

A new demo site running Pixaria 2.0 is now online at:

http://try.pixaria.com/

The demo is fully functional but at the present time, I'm not allowing any admin demo access as the software is still in beta testing. If the beta test goes well, I hope to release Pixaria 2.0 next week.

Remember that the Pixaria 2.0 FAQ is available in the documentation. Anyone thinking of upgrading is strongly encouraged to consult the FAQ first.

Pixaria 2.0 Beta Now Underway

Pixaria 2.0 is now in beta testing with a limited selection of users before rolling out to a few additional testers in the next few days. If all goes according to plan, version 2.0 will be released in the next two weeks.

Watch this space for more information coming soon...