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Pixaria News Gets Comments

Anyone visiting the Pixaria news blog from this week may have noticed that I've introduced support for adding comments to blog posts and I'm hoping that this will be a useful tool for encouraging feedback and discussion on the topics I post about.

To post comments, you will need to sign in using either and Open ID, Twitter or Disqus account and once you've done that you can post your comments directly to the blog and even mirror them on Twitter or Facebook. Enjoy..!

Pixaria Gallery 2.8.0 Released

I'm delighted to announce the immediate availability of Pixaria Gallery version 2.8, the first major update to Pixaria of 2010 and an important step on the path to the improved sales and e-commerce capabilities planned for this year.

This update includes a mix of new features, enhancements and bug fixes across the entire admin area that I hope will improve the user experience for everyone from admins to visitors.

The most important part of this update is an overhaul of the product administration control panel which is the first step in a series of changes leading to the implementation of new features such as support for one off or limited edition products like paintings and workshops. The work that's been done so far brings the user interface for product management into line with the rest of the admin area and includes changes to the database necessary to enable more product types. The update also adds support for rich text editing in product descriptions though this won't truly come into its own for a couple of releases yet.

Other improvements in version 2.8 include rewritten group management tools, new support for assigning permissions on a group by group basis and a completely rewritten security and authentication sub-system.

For full details of the changes in this update, be sure to check out the release notes and change log and don't forget that because there are some front end template changes in this release, it's a good idea to consult the template comparison tool before upgrading if you're using a custom theme.

As usual, registered users can get the update by e-mailing me at info@pixaria.com.

Pixaria 2.7.9 Now Available

I'm pleased to report that Pixaria Gallery version 2.7.9 is now available as a free update to all registered users. This version features an important new addition in the form of Smart Galleries - galleries that are generated dynamically from pre-defined search keywords and date ranges. This much requested feature enables you to create galleries that automatically update as you add new images to your library and make it easier to feature new content without having to manually add and remove items from standard galleries.

Also included in this update are a number of enhancements to the admin area including support for the simple slideshow from the front end (based on Lightbox2) and larger thumbnails in admin views such as the orphan image list.

As usual, registered users of Pixaria Gallery 2.x can get hold of this update by dropping me an e-mail to info@pixaria.com. Be sure to check out the release notes and change log before upgrading to ensure that you don't miss any important changes.

Advertising Experiment

Starting today, I'm running an experimental sponsorship/advertising area in the Pixaria documentation which will last for two months. Ads can be placed with BuySellAds.com for the bargain price of $10 (US) per month during which time, they will be visible on all Pixaria documentation pages.

I'm hoping that this will become a place where Pixaria users can advertise their own websites, products and services so if you're interested, you can find out more on the BuySellAds website.

If you have any feedback on the advertising program, please let me know.

Phil Coffman on iPhone Photography

Proving that you don't always need the most expensive kit to create some really interesting photographs, Phil Coffman's latest blog post explores a selection of iPhone applications that can transform ho-hum photos into something truly impressive (via DaringFireball).

Pixaria 2.7.3 Now Available

Pixaria 2.7.3 is now available as a free update for all users of Pixaria 2.0 and above. This minor update adds XMP metadata support (title, caption, keywords and copyright) to the new import and Flash upload tools which brings them up to feature parity with the old import tools.

If all goes well with this release, the old import tools, will be deprecated in the next update before they are removed completely by the end of this year. On that subject, if you are still using the old import tools, I would like to suggest that you take a moment to try the new upload/import tools and if you have any feedback, please let me know.

The update also includes a couple of bug fixes related to changing gallery avatar images and upgrading the database on new installations. To get the update, please e-mail upgrade@pixaria.com.

For details of the changes in this release, please see the release notes and for a full list of the changed files, check out the change log.

Offline Between Sept 25th and October 11th

Please note that between the 25th of September and the 11th of October, I will be on vacation and generally not in a position to respond to e-mail enquiries and forum postings. I will be periodically checking my incoming e-mails for new purchases and hope to be able to respond to messages within 24-48 hours but I can't guarantee this.

Pixaria 2.7.2 Now Available

I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of Pixaria Gallery version 2.7.2 which although largely a maintenance release, adds a couple of much requested changes including simpler navigation in the admin area and the return of the database export/backup utility.

I've also tweaked the front end language selection menu so that the current language is shown using a flag icon in the navigation toolbar. This makes it easier for users to pick an alternative language if they don't understand the default user interface language.

The update is available free to all registered users of Pixaria Gallery 2.0 and above by e-mailing info@pixaria.com. Full details of the changes in this update can be found in the change log and notes.

Development Update

It's been a while since I last posted a development update on Pixaria so I thought I'd take a moment to share details of the latest work that's in progress. After realising that attempting to cram thousands of new features into Pixaria 3.0 was going to be impossible, I've decided to break the feature list down into more manageable chunks and implement them more slowly - a process that began with version 2.6.

With that in mind and continuing the theme of recent improvements to the admin components of Pixaria, the next release (2.7) will include extensive changes to the tools for managing images and galleries. In the recently introduced web upload tool for example, it will be possible to seamlessly add newly uploaded images directly to existing galleries or to create a gallery from scratch. Other changes coming in version 2.7 include support for Cooliris for galleries, gallery RSS syndication and improved gallery admin tools among many other minor enhancements and bug fixes.

Beyond 2.7, the next big development milestone will be version 2.8 where I will be concentrating on expanging and enhancing the e-commerce capabilities of Pixaria. Of particular note here is that a number of big features originally intended for inclusion in Pixaria 3.0 will hopefully find their way into this release including:

1. Improved support for multiple and region specific taxes.
2. Support for limited availability, non image products such as workshops, CDs or books.
3. (Possibly) vouchers and credits.

Over the course of the summer, I will also be restarting the Divestock website with a new look and full integration with Pixaria. Watch out for more details on that coming in the next few weeks.

Pixaria Development Roadmap

Over the last few weeks, I've paused work on Pixaria 3 to tie up the loose ends on a few projects, something I've been meaning to do now for some time now. In the process of doing this, I've had a good long think about the direction development of Pixaria should go and what my priorities are for adding new features, improving the existing software and deciding how often releases are delivered.

For the first time, I've decided to publish an overview of my thoughts on this in the form of a roadmap, not just for Pixaria Gallery but for Divestock.com too.

Phase I - The Pixaria website

Redesigning the Pixaria website is something I've wanted to do for a while and I've finally started on it. By looking through reports on Google Analytics, I found that a lot of useful information isn't being seen and that some of the most popular pages (demo website and features) aren't as effective as they could be in providing useful information.

The current website also has a few, more arcane issues such as duplicated content, people having problems finding the documentation and a general lack of awareness of tools like the version history and file change logs. To address all these points, I've pretty much completed work on a new website which should launch in a few weeks and which I hope everyone will find significantly easier to use.

At the same time, I'm also going to move the Pixaria forums from the bloated PHPBB software they currently use to the much leaner BBPress which comes from creators of WordPress. Unfortunately, I may not be able to bring over posts and user accounts from the old forums but they will remain visible for browsing.

Phase II - Divestock.com

I'm ashamed to say that I've completely neglected Divestock.com since I launched it and as a result it never really fulfilled its purpose which was to promote Pixaria Gallery user's images.

To rectify this, I'm planning to re-launch the website in a much simpler form featuring full integration with Pixaria 2.5. I'm not going to go into all the details of how this will work at the moment but the intention is to have something up and running by mid April.

Phase III - Pixaria Gallery

Pixaria Gallery is now a mature software application with lots of useful features but as I develop it entirely on my own, I have to be careful to work on it in a way that I can manage without over-stretching myself. With that in mind, I recently spent some time looking at what my goals are not just for this release but for versions beyond that, taking stock of feedback I've had over the last year and making some big decisions that will affect the direction of development over the next few years.

The first important decision is that after soliciting points of view in the forums, Pixaria 3.0 will require PHP 5 or above. By dropping support for PHP 4, I'll be able to start replacing the internals of Pixaria with code that's easier to maintain and enhance. A major benefit of this is that, hopefully new features will be able to come more rapidly.

As I add new features, I have to be careful to avoid Pixaria becoming bloated or hard to use so my second decision is that I'm going to take a leap of faith and cut back on new features for the first release of Pixaria 3.0. Instead, the key goals of this release will be:

1. Simpler library management from uploading images right through to creating galleries.
2. A completely redesigned admin area that's easier to navigate and cuts down on the number of steps needed to complete tasks.
3. A new front end theme with simpler CSS and a cleaner design.
4. Full backwards compatibility with existing themes.

Because I'm not going to make Pixaria 3.0 a 'loads of new features' release, my third big decision is that it will be a free upgrade for all current users of Pixaria 2. It's my intention to follow version 3 fairly quickly with a smaller update which will add more in the way of new features and I will probably charge an upgrade fee for that instead.

I strongly believe that, this roadmap for the next 18 months is good news for everyone and will help to make Pixaria Gallery a better product with a stronger community of successful users. Let me know your thoughts by e-mail info@pixaria.com.