jAlbum 18.4 (64-bit)

What's new in this version:

jAlbum 18.4 (64-bit)
News and Updates:
- Now uses an embedded web server to serve previews, thereby working around problem previewing JSON based albums on external browsers
- Uploader now displays current data transfer rate too
- Updated embedded web server from Jetty 6 to Jetty 9, thereby gaining years of fixes and improvements.
- Now prints remote album size during size calculation (better feedback during long calculations)
- Developers: Meta object now added for video too
- Updated bundled skins Tiger, Projector and PhotoBlogger
- Updated status bar icon (for album sharing)
- Updated English, German, French, Dutch, Turkish, Swedish and Korean translations. Thank you dear translators!
- Minor improvements

Bug fixes:
- The title bar of the settings window could sometimes appear beyond the screen bounds
- Fixed crash bug when starting album sharing on Linux (Since Java 9)


jAlbum 18.3 (64-bit)
News and Updates:
- jAlbum's Text and Logo effects now supports layers, meaning that, for semi transparent images, the texts and logos may be positioned all over, on top or behind the existing images. See demo
- You may now individually control whether to force thumbnails or closeup images to JPEG format (see Settings->Images->Advanced)
- New MarginFilter capable of adding semi-transparent margins/borders to images.
- Supporting other users? Hold down SHIFT or ALT while searching for a UI setting to have the path written to the clipboard too
- Developers: Skin UIs may contain tables too (JTable instances) that becomes persisted with the project and appears as variables in the skin. (The generated variables contains the table contents in CSV format)
- Developers: new getJSONMaker() API call to AlbumBean (engine)
- Developers: Improved error message for embedded skin editor
- Updated the bundled skins Tiger, PhotoBlogger and Projector
- Translations updated. Thank you dear translators

Bug fixes:
- The settings window could sometimes appear too far to the left or top of the screen
- Fixed handling of EXIF data for certain images
- Fixes/updates to Facebook importer plugin
- Labels would appear faint on OS X Look and Feel (Explore view) if file names were more than 15 characters
- Minor fixes


jAlbum 18.2 (64-bit)
- jAlbum now has search!. Type your way to that color or font setting instead of browsing through deeply nested settings panels. Finding the right setting has never been easier
- Bundled updated Tiger and PhotoBlogger skins


jAlbum 18.1 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New work flow indicator to better assist new users in the start-make album-upload album work flow (shows for unlicensed users only)
- Somewhat faster album deletes when deleting published albums
- Uploader now has a better auto-discovery mechanism for determining the web root URL and web root folder.
- Uploader has a new mechanism to auto-discover the ftp server name given the web address. Correctly identified server names turn green
- Bundled the completely rewritten PhotoBlogger 2.1 skin.
- Made generic error dialog expandable to reveal full stack trace
- Minor robustness improvement to uploader. (Reconnects if ftp server reports that data connection is down during transfer)

Bug fixes:
- The preview address of the upload window was incorrectly adding a slash (/) when referencing plain files
- The upload dialog is now modal in order to avoid bug in Mac OS X where the upload confirmation dialog appears behind the upload dialog


jAlbum 18.0.1 (64-bit)
- Change log not available for this version


jAlbum 18.0 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New Project Gallery allowing you to visually browse web preview thumbnails of your album projects (See File->Project Gallery or new button next to the "New project" button). The project gallery allows you to explore all projects present in "My Albums" as well as all projects listed under "Recent Projects"
- Faster album uploads, especially updates to exiting albums due to rewritten media RSS handling and minimizing network IO calls
- Exclude now deletes cached thumbnails
- Removed obsolete Show thumbnails with high JPEG compression quality option
- Removed obsolete Progressive mode image setting
- Removed obsolete URL-encode links option
- Languages updated. Thank you dear translators!

Bug fixes:
- More robust uploads. Now recovers from upload problems arising due to inconsistencies between the "manifest.jmf" cache file and the true contents of the server
- Fixed broken Media RSS generation (URLs weren't absolute)
- Save changes warnings were sometimes generated even though no changes has been made


jAlbum 17.1.5 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Updated bundled skins Tiger, Projector and Responsive
- Added convenience link to Preferences->Album from within New Project dialogue to simplify permanently changing file locations

Bug fixes:
- Media-RSS support was broken (since 17.1) also affecting mobile viewing
- Album uploads would fail if the "manifest.jmf" cache file got out of sync with the server state. Now detects this and recovers upload instead of failing
- Albums using non-standard index page names or extensions ("album.htm" for instance) wouldn't have their thumbnail showing up correctly on the profile page after publishing


jAlbum 17.1.1 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Added Dutch translation update

Bug fixes:
- Deleting published albums via ftp wouldn't work
- Windows version had trouble handling https based web locations
- Location editor wouldn't work on Windows (ECDH keypair problem blocking Google maps)


jAlbum 17.1 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Completely rewritten skin template parser. Potentially faster as templates are now parsed once to an internal object tree (Abstract Syntax Tree) and from there evaluated to final pages multiple times. The new parser not only caches the internal object tree, it also caches compiled scriptlets for scripting languages supporting this (JavaScript and Groovy. BeanShell doesn't compile well so far)
- Introduced Groovy as scripting language. Note, this is still an experimental alpha. The sharp release is scheduled for Q1 2019. Read more here.
- Update image reading library to TwelveMonkeys 3.5. Problematic CMYK JPEG images should now work again.
- Adapted colors for Mac OS X Mojave
- Now allows preview browser to be operated while building album
- Removed obsolete "Local Flash preview" preference
- Moved "Video support" to Preferences->Advanced (no need to touch for the vast majority)
- Updated Korean translations for ZigZag, Mr.Burn5 and Responsive

Bug fixes:
- Problematic CMYK JPEG images should now work again
- Adding some https web locations could cause an SSL handshake error
- Fixed bug causing loss of skin project settings if loading skin while another skin is still loading
- Fixed crash bug upon opening preview window on Mac OS X Mojave
- Ensured that the text field specific undo stack is cleared when the user is about to edit titles, comments or keywords. Users can now safely hit CTRL/CMD+Z to undo without going past initial value

Known issues:
- Preview browser can occasionally hang while being operated on OS X Mojave. This is likely a bug in OS X Mojave or the underlying Java. We'll provide an update as soon as possible or trust that Apple's next service release fixes this


jAlbum 17 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Completely rewritten review mode featuring thumbnail navigation, image zooming and multiple image comparison (1-6 images)
- Way faster and better behaving zoom control installed in both Edit and Review mode
- Better integration with Review mode and Explorer and Edit mode (hit Space to review selected image(s))
- Reads EXIF metadata from video files as well (MP4 and MOV)
- Supports camera date/creation date for mp4 and mov videos too
- Has new "Disable color subsampling" option under Settings-Images-Advanced. Will produce even better looking JPEGs when checked. Currently only applies to images with compression quality >= 90. Disabling chroma/color subsampling increases file size about 17% but doubles the horizontal and vertical color resolution of images. See this article
- Explore mode adjusted for lower CPU usage = better performance
- Now runs on Open Java 11 on all platforms. Earlier, the Mac version was using Oracle's Java 8 and Windows version using Java 9. With Java 11, Oracle's Java is under a commercial license. We therefore moved to the open source "Open JDK 11", which should be working as well by now.
- Remembers width of folder property panel if "Remember last window position and size" is checked under Preferences
- All versions has reduced footprint due to removal of unneeded Java code
- Default video resolution for generated videos bumped from 480p to 720p
- Now capable of correctly importing incorrectly written Windows comments and titles
- Rewritten Mac file chooser integration (runs on Java 9+)
- Embedded browser now accepts all certificates (avoids certificate related errors)
- Moved "Clear project list" to top and added confirmation dialog
- Updated bundled Tiger, Zigzag and Minimal skins

Bug fixes:
- Fixed Location editor (updated to newer Google Map APIs
- Projects zipped on Windows could only be unzipped on Windows
- Improved rendering of cropped images in Edit mode
- Fixed problem when skin hints were ignored when switching to same-family skins when no project is open
- The crop focus plugin didn't respect custom theme image ratios
- Explore view would incorrectly scroll to the top then objects were added via file selector
- Fixed bug in project importer. Wouldn't handle albums with more than 2 folder levels
- Various bug fixes
- Would throw IOException when generating albums made purely of non re-encoded videos
- Hopefully fixed issue where recent project list could get cleared accidentally


jAlbum 16.2 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New "Adjust camera date" function to correct the camera date (EXIF date) of images (available by right clicking items). Select multiple items to batch-adjust dates.
- File duplicate support: Select an item or items (image, video, folder) and select "Copy" followed by "Paste" to have the selected items duplicated
- Updated bundled skins Tiger and Photoblogger
- Developers: API adjustment to allow plugins to invalidate the metadata cache of album objects
- Refactored-out old code

Bug fixes:
- "Smart upload" could sometimes turn into "Upload all"
- Videos could not be rotated
- .thm files (thumbnail image files) weren't addable through the user interface


jAlbum 16.1 (64-bit)
Nеwѕ аnd Uрdаtеѕ:
- Nеw „Міrrоr соntеnt“ lіnkіng bеhаvіоur аllоwіng соmрlеtе ѕераrаtіоn оf јАlbum рrојесt fіlеѕ аnd уоur іmаgеѕ wіthоut hаvіng tо duрlісаtе fіlеѕ.
- Uрdаtеd bundlеd РhоtоВlоggеr аnd Zіgzаg ѕkіnѕ
- Іmрrоvеd еrrоr dіаgnоѕtісѕ
- Uрdаtеd trаnѕlаtіоnѕ. Тhаnk уоu dеаr trаnѕlаtоrѕ!

Вug fіхеѕ:
- Fіхеd rаrе сrаѕh соndіtіоn trіggеrеd whеn соnnесtіng tо rеmоtе ѕеrvеrѕ
- Тhе lосаtіоn еdіtоr wоuldn’t wоrk fоr ѕоmе v16 uѕеrѕ
- Fіх fоr nullроіntеr ехсерtіоn thrоwn whеn сlісkіng рrојесt rооt nоdе whіlе еdіtіng ѕub fоldеr nаmе
- јАlbum соuld hаng whеn сlоѕіng сеrtаіn аlbum рrојесtѕ thаt rеlіеѕ оn thе thеmе іmаgе ѕеlесtоr
- Тhе еmbеddеd еdіtоr соuld hаng іf thе рrіntіng ѕуѕtеm оf thе соmрutеr wаѕn’t соnfіgurеd rіght
- Fіхеѕ fоr соmраtіbіlіtу wіth ѕkіnѕ uѕіng thе ЈЅОNМаkеr АРІ


jAlbum 16 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New cleaner project file format. jAlbum's project control files are no longer scattered among your images but neatly tucked under hidden ".jalbum" folders. jAlbum will upgrade projects to new format automatically. (Use this conversion tool if you ever need to open projects in older versions of jAlbum)
- Now allows any image file, (not just album objects) to be dropped onto the selectors of the folder property panel.
- More robust image reading. Now handles for instance broken Samsung Galaxy S7 panoramic images too
- More informative error messages if connecting to ftp servers fails
- Displays camera date in info tool-tip when hovering mouse over objects
- jAlbum now provide much faster search in Tiger skin, especially for large albums by using one centralized JSON database instead of one database per folder.
- jAlbum's theme image selector now allows cropping. Currently supported by Zigzag skin
- New tool to zip project files (Tools->External tools->Zip project file)
- Users can now control video quality and scaling while being in advanced mode
- Advanced video settings now allows multiple parameters with same name. This simplifies applying logos on top of videos for instance
- Developers: Now produces pretty printed JSON data files if logging level is set to FINE or higher
- Developers: New IO.zip API
- Developers: New SmartProgressMonitor API
- Developers: Updated JSON library to json-simple3.0.2
- Swedish, English, German, French, Dutch, Korean, Hungarian and Turkish translations updated. Thank you dear translators!

Bug fixes:
- Hitting preview when preview window had been iconified wouldn't de-iconify window
- Fixed occasional hang when failing to connect to servers (Mac)
- Opening embedded editor when no project is loaded would produce an error
- Improved parsing of GPS coordinates to handle oddly formatted coordinates
- Albums made with flatten, alphabetical or date structure (Settings->Structure) would include excluded objects too
- Unselected nodes of folder tree collapsed when moving files between folders
- Broken folder links weren't showing in Explorer view making them hard to detect and repair
- Various bug fixes to internal APIs


jAlbum 15.4 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- The preview browser now runs in a separate window. (One can optionally switch it back to integrated/embedded mode). The advantages of using a separate window is that you can use a larger window for previews without having to expand the jAlbum window. You can also easily play with various screen sizes to better adapt galleries for various devices (see new "Responsive" button in preview browser's toolbar when running in windowed mode). The "Windowed" preview mode is more like using an external browser for previews, but with the advantages of responding better to skin, style and settings changes within jAlbum.
- Main user interface updated to be more streamlined and intuitive: View mode buttons now left-aligned and community related buttons moved to the top-right corner.
- New project button ("+") added next to project list.
- Made JSON metadata generator more flexible by allowing callback hooks
- Bundled the new Zigzag skin
- Updated bundled Tiger and Turtle skins
- Made browser action buttons translatable

Bug fixes:
- jAlbum sharing wouldn't save share settings (since 14.1)
- Used cached thumbnail within jAlbum even if target image was updated
- Made metadata parsing more robust
- Fixed bug in iterator element causing incorrect object inclusion in certain situations (since 15.3)
- Fixed incorrect thumbWidth and thumbHeight variables for representing folder thumbnails when image has been cropped
- Fixed pricing link not showing when license missing and signed in
- Fix for missing characters in some asian languages


jAlbum 15.3.4 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New user interface setting to generate JSON files no matter what skin is used (Settings-Advanced-Metadata). This setting has been added to support a new Wordpress integration we're about to release
- jAlbum now has an improved "expression language" syntax enabling skin developers to use expressions like ${first|second|third} causing the first non-empty variable to be picked. This syntax also accepts default strings: ${aperture:"Missing aperture"}
- Usability improvement: Added the default smart "Make Album" as the 1:st menu item of jAlbum's Make album context menu
- Updated bundled skins Tiger and PhotoBlogger
- Updated Slovenian translation

Bug fixes:
- Fixed an issue with the representing thumbnail for folders having wrong "thumbWith" and "thumbHeight" variables if the target image is cropped in jAlbum, thereby distorting the aspect ratio of such thumbnails


jAlbum 15.3.2 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Developers: the ja:if category test tag now accepts a comma separated list of categories, for instance ...
- Updated bundled Tiger skin to v1.8.1

Bug fixes:
- Developers: Fixed incorrect line number references and error messages for many script related errors (BeanShell scripting)
- Some images generated from Nexus tablets caused errors (unable to interpret shutter speed)


jAlbum 15.3.0 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- jAlbum's Explore view now allows ratings and flags to be set via context menu
- Developers: new ja:iterator element that also iterates over hidden objects and custom pages, otherwise same behavior as ja:fileiterator
- Folders may now have description text (set under folder properties) that differ from the folder comment. Skins can specify separateDescription=true in skin.properties to activate this
- Engine now produces slide images for representing folder images as well and not just thumbnails
- Updated Turkish and Finnish translations. Thank you dear translators.

Bug fixes:
- imagePath on index.htt would point to thumbnails instead of slide images
- Fixed bug in print support (printing.inc)


jAlbum 15.2.0 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Introducing a new notion: Web directory. The Web directory is a global preference which can point out the root of a local web structure where to put album folders by default. jAlbum can now be instructed to either put new projects in an "album" sub folder of the project folder (still the default) or in a folder under the new web directory
- jAlbum's recent project list now finally displays the name of the project file instead of the containing folder's name if the project name isn't the default name (jalbum-settings.jap). This allows project files to be located under the same folder without ending up in a long list of the same folder name printed. Renaming an entry under "Recent projects" will rename the project file instead of renaming the project/image folder in case the project name isn't the default (jalbum-settings.jap). Use "File->Save project settings as" or Explorer/Finder to make the initial project name change
- Web locations may now use relative as well as absolute URLs
- Slight performance enhancement to album making
- No longer switches to newly installed skin (may cause unwanted changes to open projects)
- Bundled with updated Java 9.0.4 (Windows + Linux)
- Installed size reduced with 70MB (pruned unneeded code from bundled Java)
- Developers: The StateMonitor can now monitor changes to the music play list component too

Bug fixes:
- Fixed bug causing blank full screen review view mode under OS X High Sierra
- Fix to unwanted regeneration of images
- Wouldn't properly show license expired message
- User variables weren't picked up from folders
- If copying files where source file was missing, would delete destination file instead of signalling an error (since introduction of hard links)
- Fixed rare nullpointer bug during album build


jAlbum 15.1.0 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Support for MPEG-4 audio file added (.m4a extension)
- Internal music player updated to play both m4a, wav and mp3 files
- Defaults can now be stored and applied on a per-skin basis. See "File->Save as Skin Default"
- Cut+Paste support added. This mimics the Cut+Paste behavior in Windows Explorer and facilitates moving album objects around. Just select some album objects to move, hit CMD/CTRL+X, go to the destination folder and location and hit CMD/CTRL+V to paste the objects. The objects will be pasted close to the mouse pointer location. This feature will probably be appreciated by those who organize huge albums and feel uneasy with dragging and dropping and the scrolling it usually involves.
- Updated bundled Minimal and Tiger skins

Bug fixes:
- Fix to "directory already exists" error during ftp upload
- IPTC keywords weren't imported properly if they were semicolon separated


jAlbum 15 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- New 30 trial days for everyone! Free update for anyone having a current support and update plan or active Premium or Power subscription. Discounted updates for users with older licenses. (See status under Help->"About jAlbum" inside software or on your jalbum.net profile page.)
- Supports 360° images (Tiger skin + new property panel under Edit while editing 360° images)
- Supports hard links! Drastically (20 times) reduces size of album folders by using hard links for original images and resource files (Toggle under Preferences->Album)
- New JPEG reading code capable of properly handling several odd JPEG variants and color profiles. (TwelveMonkeys)
- Now offering four new extra high quality image scaling algorithms: "Blackman-Bessel", "Blackman-Sinc", "Lanczos" and "Mitchell". jAlbum's image scaling should now match the best alternatives in the industry. See Settings->Images. Credit to TwelveMonkeys for these.
- New folder property panel allowing quick and intuitive selection of folder specific titles, descriptions thumbnail images and theme images as well as allowing easy selection of theme image crop focus.
- Theme images may now be selected separately from representing folder images. (Updated Tiger skin demonstrates this, and more skins will follow)
- The whole code base, including all extensions, refactored to use Java 8 features and more performant constructs. The result should be slight performance enhancements, including somewhat lower startup time
- Easier to use backups: Now generates "lifeboat" file to album folder during Make album instead of during publishing (toggle under Preferences->Album). This enables users to retrieve backups from published albums even if they were uploaded with 3:rd party ftp tools.
- Removed ability to include hi-res images (doesn't seem to be used)
- Smoother looking splash screen :-)
- Bundled with updated Tiger skin supporting separate theme images, among other improvements
- Allows adding web locations requiring basic http authentication too
- Windows and Linux versions bundled with latest Java 9.0.1
- Mac version bundled with updated Java 8u152
- Updated languages. Thank you dear translators. Missing your language? Contact us!
- Developers: JDraggableList now supports static lists too
- Developers. New APIs for adding theme images to your skins.
- Developers: New "projectionType" variable available (in json format too) to identify 360° images
- Old code solutions factored out

Bug fixes:
- Fixed user interface scaling issue for hidpi screens causing too small user interface controls (Windows).
- Videos larger than screen size couldn't be edited (Windows only)
- The preview didn't always render the full web page on initial display
- Web root verification failed for servers that redirects between protocols
- Fix to "IllegalStateException" being thrown on occasion when using the clipboard
- Clearing xmp coordinates now properly imports backing GPS coordinates again
- Didn't handle xmp based GPS coordinates expressed in deg,min,sec format
- "Verify web root" didn't work for ftp servers that redirected between protocols
- Various minor robustness fixes


jAlbum 14.1 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- jAlbum's uploader now allows multiple file selection. Facilitates batch deletion greatly
- jAlbum's text editor improved with better character encoding detection and support for loading and saving with explicitly stated encodings
- jAlbum's database import tool now supports importing from xml based image metadata databases as well as csv files
- Bundled Tiger skin updated to v1.3
- New "Cache image ordering" external tool that greatly speeds up album builds on albums ordered by camera date
- Robustness improvements to database import tool.
- Bundled Java updated to v1.8.0_144
- Updated Slovak translation
- Developers: New JFormattedComboBox component that allows presentation of combo box data in various formatted ways, for instance percentage format.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed startup crash caused by Windows 10 Creators Update (affected Windows look and feel only)
- Fixed broken error window if jAlbum fails to start
- Fix issue preventing jAlbum from starting if clipboard was in an illegal state (caused by some 3:rd party clipboard management software)
- Developers: JComboBoxes having numbers as model wouldn't update correctly when loading projects
- Developers: The thumb.path variable for the current folder of JSON files incorrectly included the current folder itself


jAlbum 14.0 (64-bit)

News and Updates:
- Introducing the new and fully responsive "Tiger" skin that's intended to replace Turtle
- New stylish dark user interface look - Darcula. (If you prefer the old look, change back under Preferences)
- New album object type: "Web locations". Web locations are objects that can refer to any web page, not just local ones. This opens for some really interesting new applications for jAlbum. See for example this album collecting popular TED talks on YouTube. To add a "Web location" to your album, drop the web page onto jAlbum or select New page->Web location. Why not use this feature to make a master album out of existing albums?
- Bundled skins "Minimal", "Base", "PhotoBlogger", "Turtle" and the new "Tiger" skin now supports Web Locations.
- jAlbum now has integrated GoogleMaps location tagging, see Edit->Location
- jAlbum can now automatically embed xmp based copyright notices on all images (Settings->Images)
- Better integration with external editors, for instance PhotoShop (alt-double click to export to choosen editor)
- jAlbum's Text effect (Settings->Effects->Text) now supports background color
- New importer to import metadata from various database backed photo management systems (see Add->From database file)
- Batch rename now supports regular expressions (select several album objects and select rename to launch batch rename tool)
- Adapted for Java 9
- "Skin family" mechanism allowing skins belonging to the same family to share the same project settings. This simplifies moving from one skin to another without having to re-enter the same settings. This applies when moving from Turtle to the new Tiger skin for instance. Just open an existing Turtle project and switch to Tiger, then make the album again. ("Skin family" is a skin property)
- Developers: New "include" and "exclude" attribute to ja:fileiterator element allowing a comma separated list of categories to be included or excluded, for instance
- Developers: New "category" attribute for ja:if element, simplifying testing on categories, for instance: . Please replace with for better future compatibility.
- Bundled with updated Java 8u131
- Developers: new JDraggableList component allowing skin user interfaces to allow end user to arrange objects by drag and drop
- Reverted to again presenting "extensions" directly under jAlbum's context menu. (Deleted rotate items for sake of space - available in the toolbar)
- Translations for major languages updated. Thank you dear translators!

Bug fixes:
- jAlbum wouldn't start up properly on some recently updated Windows 10 systems
- Fixed error importing settings from albums published on https: URLs
- Improved handling of some malformatted JPEG images
- Native Mac file chooser didn't respect initial directory
- Fixed missing lock icon for password protected albums for accounts having more than 10 albums
- Fixed line number calculation error if line number info is missing
- Group by place now also respects xmp based GPS coordinates
- Fix for WOFF font rendering for internal web browser (Mac)
- Polished UI for Darcula
- Fixed color error on Nimbus look & feel