Software Update: jAlbum 12

Version 12 of jAlbum has been released. This program makes it easy to generate and edit professional looking HTML photo albums. In a clean interface, photos can be easily adjusted, the order can be changed and the appearance of the web page can be determined. If everything is to your liking, the result can be placed on a web page via the built-in FTP client. Because the software is developed in Java, jAlbum is available for a wide range of operating systems. The Windows version has issues with some versions of Java and is therefore bundled with Java, resulting in a larger download.

Previously there was also a free version that showed ads, but the program is now fully commercial and can be tried for 30 days. A standard license for version 12 and all updates from the 12 series costs 39 euros. This bundle is temporarily offered with a discount of 10 euros. Other licenses, for commercial use or in conjunction with cloud storage, are also available available. If you don’t need these new options or prefer not to show ads with your photos, it’s better to go to version 9 stay. The changelog for this release shows the following changes and improvements:

News and Updates

• Redesigned user interface, more targeted at professionals and cleaned-up. Read blog post
• Embedded browser preview (Google Chromium) streamlining the work flow. (Can be switched off under preferences)
• Auto updates the album preview when playing around with settings when viewing the “Preview” panel. Invites exploration of jAlbum’s capabilities
• Faster: Avoids reprocessing of already processed images and videos when resuming interrupted album builds
• Faster: Better file attribute cacheing, minimizing file IO during operation of the user interface and album making
• More snappy thumbnail painting in user interface, especially about slow network drives
• New “Effects” settings tab allowing easy and detailed control of album-wide image effects like watermarks/texts, logos, grayscale, auto-correct and arty filters via an easy to use interface. (Effects applies to all images unlike their “Image tools” counterparts). (Advanced users: The chosen effects are synced with the user variables panel)
• New “Share” panel to simplify sharing albums via different social networks. jAlbum’s sharing is now opt-in, ie you have to click the frog to share an album with jAlbum followers and in the http://jalbum.net/explore/recent section
• jAlbum now checks and informs about incorrectly configured ftp account profiles, ensuring that jAlbum can properly generate links to the published albums.
• Skin information like feature set and support links now available in new skin information window
• New Notification Center that remembers and presents notifications in a less obtrusive way
• Now deletes unused slide and original images from album folder, thereby cleaning up albums when playing around with various skins
• Added “Use as folder thumbnail” toolbar button
• Added “New page” toolbar button
• Album object information is now available when hovering the mouse over the new info “i” status icons
• Speed-up to deleting directories about SAMBA mounted network drives
• Folders and web pages now follow the same label type view+editing as images instead of being locked to file names. (Hint: Alt-click the name section to rename object)
• Prints license state on splash screen
• Skins Mr.Burn5 and Fully now bundled
• Implemented logging levels
• Updated texts. Thank you all translators!

Bug fixes

• Rewritten change detection. No more spurious “Do you wish to save changes” warnings
• Fix for broken “Repair all links”
• Fixed bug causing lost reference to image directories when storing the project file outside of the image directory
• Null pointer fix to deepLastModified API call
• Fixed painting bug on some look and feels
• Fixed bug that prevented switching back to explorer when clicking a folder of the project
• Various bug fixes