PhotoPressPro: WordPress Photo Blog Theme for Professional Photographers

PhotoPressPro has been out for over a year now, and while it’s had quite a few changes to the control panel, the blog that your readers see didn’t change much. This was intentional – we didn’t think it would be a good idea to change the look of your blog just so you could install an update. However, we’ve received a lot of suggestions for making the theme better. So we rolled them all up, added a few of our own, and created PhotoPressPro Platinum.

In the interest of not repeating a lot of information, see a quick comparison here, and check out a tabbed walk-through of the Platinum control panel.

We are also offering the Platinum theme with WordPress installation and support, and much more, in "The Works" package. It’s the perfect option if you are a new blogger, or just new to WordPress. Check out the pricing page for more information.

We’ll be adding Platinum blogs to the Showcase soon, so feel free to nominate your own blog (or your favorites) in the comments.

PhotoPressPro version 1.3 is now available for downloading, and is fully compatible with the very latest WordPress, version 2.8. Don’t worry, it still works perfectly well with older versions, back to at least 2.6.

As you may know, WP 2.8 introduced many cool features, especially for themes and widgets. Unfortunately this caused a few problems with – you guessed it – our theme, and our widgets. Namely, the PhotoPressPro Control Panel and the custom “multi” widgets. So, the Control Panel has been completely redesigned and made even easier to use, and new widgets were added just for WP 2.8 users.

Check out the new Control Panel below. The menu is all Ajax-ified, so you can move freely about the pages and click the big “Save Changes” button only once.

There are some new features too, of course.

• New Widgets for WordPress 2.8.WordPress 2.8, recently released, introduced a killer new Widget API (application programming interface) that makes writing Widgets easier than ever. However, it broke some PPP widgets, namely PPP Search for Menu Bar, PPP Link, and PPP Multi-Pages. For WordPress 2.8, the PPP Search for Menu Bar has been reborn as "PPP Simple Search", and the PPP Link widget is now "PPP Simple Link". Fortunately, the new built-in WordPress "Pages" widget does almost the same thing as PPP Multi-Pages widget, so I didn’t bother rewriting it yet. All the above widgets now support unlimited copies, each with its own settings.
• Footer background color. In the "Colors" section, you now have the option to set your Footer background color.
• Content heading and text alignment. In the "Text and Fonts" section, you can now choose to left-justify, center, or for whatever reason, right-justify your content headings and text.
• Right-click warning box options. In the “Other Options” section, you can customize the text in the box that pops up when someone tries to right-click on your page. Or, you can leave it blank, and no box will pop up at all.
• New "Default" Snapshot and header image.
• Improved styling of Widgets for the menu bar. WordPress default widgets now look right, and this should allow the menu to support any Widget.

Pretty exciting stuff! Let us know your woes or wows about WordPress 2.8 or PhotoPressPro 1.3 in the comments.

This release takes care of a few more-or-less “minor” bugs. Speaking of less minor bugs, if you’re using PPP 1.2 and you’re using the Simple Slideshow, make sure you check that the header images are, you know, still there after updating.

On a happier note, this update also adds support for the new Snapshot Chooser widget plugin, which allows you to offer several different Snapshots for your users to choose from.

If you previously purchased PhotoPressPro, you should have received an email with a link to download the updated theme. Check the Update page or the README.html file in the downloaded theme for instructions and details about the update.

I’m proud to announce PhotoPressPro 1.2, a major upgrade that adds even more features. Many of you have been waiting very patiently for this, and for that, I am most thankful. I hope it’s worth the wait.

Simple Slideshow Header

Since PhotoPressPro launched, we’ve used the Flashfader plugin to create the header slideshow. It’s a great plugin, but as any Flashfader user probably knows, it comes with quirks; some of which can be particularly bothersome to photographers.

We’ve added a new section to the Control Panel to easily create a header slideshow, eliminating the need for a separate plugin. (Flashfader is still supported, of course.)

As the name suggests, configuration is very simple. You can configure the height of your slideshow, the number of seconds to show each image, the number of seconds to fade between each image, and an option to randomize the images. You can upload as many 984-pixel wide images as you wish, and you can change the sequence of the images.

Why do I need this?

Good question! Honestly, the main idea was to reduce the amount of support issues I’ve received with Flashfader, but there are several side benefits.

The Simple Slideshow is written in Javascript and HTML, and does not use Flash. This is nice for a few reasons.

• The entire header slideshow becomes a link to the home page, making it optional to add an additional link to the header menu.
• Millions of people enjoy using the web on devices that don’t support Flash, but do support Javascript.
• The Simple Slideshow also degrades nicely; if a visitor’s browser does not support Javascript, the first image in the list is displayed.

And keeping to the “Simple” moniker, the images you upload are never resized, cropped, or re-sampled in any way; so photographers, be assured that your image fidelity will remain fully intact.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Stats

This update adds a new Control Panel section for SEO keywords and description, and a place to enter code provided by your web stats service; allowing you to take even better control of your blog.

“Meta” keywords and description tags are important elements used by search engines to index your blog. Using unique and specific keywords will increase your chances of being found by someone searching for your exact services.

Web stats services such as Google Analytics require some JavaScript code to be added to your site. You can paste the code in the Control Panel, and it will be inserted in the footer, just above the </body> tag.

Bugs Killed

No one likes to admit it, but bugs happen. This update fixes more than a few flubs.

• If using Flashfader, the ability to change the banner height has been restored.
• Added code to remove the WordPress-generated hardcoded CSS for image galleries. Now styled like post images.
• Fixed image uploading problems on some servers, mostly Windows web hosts.
• Fixed problems with some PPP Multi-page Widget options not being recognized.
• Major and minor CSS fixes, mostly for non-post images (galleries, comments, etc), the navigation menu, and the footer. You may find the footer text slightly larger than before; this was actually a bug, so you may need to reduce the size of the footer text in your Control Panel to restore the smaller text.
• Improved styling with Internet Explorer versions 7 and up.
• Added the missing Search button back to the Search widget.

This was the biggest update yet, and I hope it’s the last for a while, aside from the always possible bug patch. I’m working on a new venture that will eventually envelop, and greatly enhance, PhotoPressPro. I shouldn’t say much now; in fact, forget I said anything. Just enter your email and we’ll remind you when the time comes.