Just in time for 2015 we have a brand new version of Juicebox for your perusal. Check out some of the great new features:

Pro Lightroom Plugin

This is a long requested feature that is now finally available. The Pro version of the Juicebox Lightroom Plugin allows you to configure all of the (over 130) Juicebox-Pro config options directly from within Lightroom. The Pro Lightroom plugin is now easier to install via a separate installer included with the Pro download.

Juicebox-Pro Lightroom Plugin

Android Fullscreen Mode

Android’s Chrome browser has a fullscreen API that allows webpages to fill the device screen, hiding the browser UI. This is especially useful for image galleries, where bigger images are better. Juicebox will automatically detect for fullscreen API support and will display a fullscreen expand button. Embedded galleries will automatically expand to fullscreen mode. Check out the Juicebox demos on Android to view this feature in action.

Android Fullscreen Mode

Slicker Gallery UI

The default gallery options are now more polished and minimal. On desktop, galleries use the fade transition and captions are placed over the main image to tighten up layout. Opacity on the gallery buttons has been lightened.

Image navigation buttons now only show on hover and the entire overlay will hide after 4 seconds of inactivity time. This gives a cleaner, more minimal presentation. As usual, all of these options are tweakable via the config options. Check out the demos to see the new minimal UI in action.

Fully Windows 8 Compatible

Windows 8 touchscreen devices such as the Surface Pro are fast growing in popularity. These devices hold a special challenge for web gallery design since they handle keyboard, mouse and touchscreen input. The Juicebox UI has been tweaked to handle this in a graceful manner.

Lots of Bug Fixes

As the web platform advances there are continuous changes to device and browser functionality. The Juicebox code base is continually updated to accommodate these changes, handling new browser bugs and features. For example, Juicebox is now fully compatible with iOS 8 and the new iPhone screen sizes. See the full change log here.

Upgrading to v1.4.3

As always, Juicebox-Pro upgrades are free within the same major version number. Check here for upgrade information. Juicebox-Lite users can get the update here. Please report any issues in the support forum. Plugins and templates have been updated.

We recommend you download this upgrade right away. If you have been holding off on purchasing Juicebox-Pro, now is a great time to try it out, using our 30 day money back guarantee.

Showkase is our complete image portfolio website creation tool. Showkase lets you build a great looking HTML5 image portfolio website from scratch – no coding required. In this post, we are going to feature 3 beautiful example websites built with Showkase. We talked to each website creator to get their thoughts on Showkase.

Our first featured site is Hellweiss by Lutz Heckelt.

How did you hear about Showkase?

I used SimpleViewer for quite a long time to show my photos on the Internet. After Juicebox was introduced, I switched to Juicebox to make my website work on smart-phones, too.

I found Showkase when I was looking for a photography-template or gallery to build a website for a friend of mine. She had no experience with programming so she needed something that did not require programming skills. To us, it was also important that the site had a simple, nice and clean design.

We searched for nearly a complete day – and I had the feeling that we had been on every site on the Internet that’s offering templates or website-solutions for photographers. Finally, I remembered that Simpleviewer had released an all-in-one solution: Showkase. Showkase fulfilled all our requirements.

One day later I moved my website to Showkase, too.

What features of Showkase do you find especially useful?

I like that all picture uploads and all the customizing could be done from within the admin-panel of Showkase (no editing of files is necessary). This works like a charm and it even gets better when you upgrade to the pro version of Juicebox!

To me, it’s really useful that you can make custom settings for each gallery and that you have full control of which buttons (e.g. full-screen, direct link, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that you want to show.

Any other comments or feedback?

Thank you for keeping your software up to date. I like it that you guys work hard on fixing problems fast (in the forum and by releasing new versions on a regular basis). Keep it up!

Next, we have Oxford Photo Works by Jim Hendrix

How did you hear about Showkase?

My old website was generated by Lightroom. It was too simple, would not adapt to mobile phones and tablets, had no e-commerce capability and was too hard to update. First, I found Juicebox and began using it. Then, I found Showkase.

What features of Showkase do you find especially useful?

Especially useful features:

– Adaptability to tablets and mobile phones.

– E-commerce via Fotomoto.

– Easy to add and remove individual images from galleries.

– Plays slide show with theme music.

– Package is completely reliable!!!

Any other comments or feedback?

I am gaining recognition steadily and my Showkase website is one reason why. I proudly hand out business cards, knowing people will be impressed when they view the galleries.

Finally, we have Reinform by Dietmar Stupka

What features of Showkase do you find especially useful?

I love the easy setup and administration. And I like the clean design.

Thank you Lutz, Jim and Dietmar for sharing your websites and your thoughts on Showkase!

Have you built a great website with Showkase? If you’d like to submit your work to be featured in future posts, please let us know.

Here is a quickie video tutorial for Juicebox newbies. It shows how to install JuiceboxBuilder and build your first web image gallery in around 5 minutes.

Watch on YouTube

Juicebox has the ability to dynamically load images from Flickr by username, tags, sets and much more. This makes updating galleries super simple. Just upload a new image to Flickr and it will show up in the gallery.

On June 27th Flickr will change their API to be more secure. We have updated Juicebox to handle this change. Any Juicebox gallery that loads images from Flickr must be updated to the latest version (v1.4.2) or images may not load. If you haven’t upgraded in a while, this is a good opportunity to make sure you are running the latest version including all the recent fixes and improvements.

Getting the Update

As always, Juicebox-Pro upgrades are free within the same major version number. Check here for upgrade information. Juicebox-Lite users can get the update here. Please report any issues in the support forum.

It’s been a while, but rest assured we have been busy here cranking on the latest version of Juicebox Gallery. Juicebox v1.4.0 is fresh out of the oven and we have baked in some tasty improvements.

A Multi-Size Image Gallery

Multi-Size Image Support

The web is now viewed on many different sized screens – from phones and tablets to huge cinema displays. Add in ‘retina’ displays and you have a wide range of pixel dimensions to handle. To best handle this situation, Juicebox 1.4 now supports multi-size images. This means multiple sizes of the same image are stored on the server, and the most suitable image size is selected and served to the user, thus optimizing display quality and download time.

JuiceboxBuilder-Pro Multi-Size Image Support

Juicebox-Pro now supports 3 customizable sizes of images: small, medium and large. JuiceboxBuilder-Pro will automatically generate multiple versions of an image and save them in the gallery folder for display as required. Read more here.

Improved iPhone Layout

The iOS 7.1 Safari update includes support for the ‘minimal-ui’ viewport tag which hides browser chrome and leaves more of the screen for website content. Juicebox now supports this tag, and we have improved the iPhone default layout to take advantage of the increased screen space. Check out the comparison below between Juicebox v1.3 and v1.4. Notice that we can now display twice as many thumbnails in portrait mode.

Juicebox iPhone Layout Comparison

More Styling Options and Improved API Support

We added new fine-grain color options and small screen mode layout options. There are new API methods to allow better integration with your site. We also added support for custom purchase URLS to allow you to specify custom links for the buy button.

Improved Core Performance

We have re-built the Juicebox core rendering engine to improve performance across the board. This means snappier transitions, faster repaints and a smoother UI. We have especially focussed on improving mobile performance, including using CSS transforms over JavaScript tweens where supported.

Lots of Bug Fixes

As the web platform advances there are continuous changes to device and browser functionality. The Juicebox code base is continually updated to accommodate these changes, handling new browser bugs and features. See the full change log here.

Upgrading to v1.4

As always, Juicebox-Pro upgrades are free within the same major version number. Check here for upgrade information. Juicebox-Lite users can get the update here. Please report any issues in the support forum. Plugins and templates have been updated.

We recommend you download this upgrade right away. If you have been holding off on purchasing Juicebox-Pro, now is a great time to try it out using our 30 day money back guarantee.