Atom Release Notes

Version 39, in beta

• UI changes to make better use of recent jAlbum core updates (custom skin icon, scrolling panels).
• More efficient routine for excluding unsupported objects.
• Fixes for some obscure bugs.

Version 38, Sep. 3, 2023

• Option to use a relative URL for the favicon.
• Redirected help links.

Version 37, Sep. 1, 2023

• UI changes to accommodate smaller laptops.
• jQuery update.

Version 36, Jun. 9, 2023

• There is now an option to have the skin treat solo web locations in folders differently. If this option is selected, and the skin encounters a folder that has only a single web location in it, and nothing else, it produces the usual folder thumbnail. But the folder thumbnail, if clicked, doesn't open the folder - instead, it goes directly to the target of the web location.
• Some thumbnail animation improvements.

Version 35, Apr. 25, 2023

• Forced creation of the output res directory, to avoid a rare jAlbum core bug.
• Updated version of jQuery.

Version 34, Mar. 28, 2023

• Improvements to the thumbnail display on phones when using large thumbnails and/or when showing captions.

Version 33, Mar. 26, 2023

• Default image bounds change.
• Changed help links to point to new hosting site for the user's manuals.
• Compiled to Java 14, to maintain some backward compatibility. The skin was using Java 8 for this purpose, but that will soon be deprecated.

Version 32, Feb. 27, 2023

• Simple swipe recognition included for slide pages on mobile devices.
• Twelve new preset styles.
• Color revisions to existing Dark and Light styles. This affects only newly-created projects, unless you re-select the style in a saved project, which refreshes the settings.

Version 31, Dec. 10, 2022

• Some changes in default texts.
• Addition of a flag to correct some jAlbum core misbehavior regarding resource files.

Version 30, Nov. 17, 2022

• Forced inclusion of photographic data if map support is chosen.
• Small increase in recommended image bounds.

Version 29, Oct. 15, 2022

• Choice of font for captions - font family, Google font, or WOFF - now applied to the top info text and bottom info text.
• Code cleanup.

Version 28, Oct. 5, 2022

• Option to specify a Google font to use for page titles and for thumbnail and image captions. Google fonts are copied to the album, so there are no calls to Google from the album page. The pages load faster, and it avoids GDPR problems.
• More efficient caching of user-added files (i.e., those that are not album objects).
• Code cleanup.
• Updated version of jQuery.
• Converted from BeanShell to Groovy scripting.
• Fix for an obscure bug regarding saving of the icon set choice.
• Fix for an incorrect user's manual link from one panel.

Version 27, Aug. 29, 2022

• Option to specify the font family to use for page titles and for thumbnail and image captions.
• Option to specify a WOFF file to use for page titles and for thumbnail and image captions.
• Fix for a small bug involving image preloading when using WEBP output.
• This is the last version that is compatible with jAlbum 27/28.

Version 26, Jun. 20, 2022

• Multiple coding changes to prevent cross-skin contamination by a careless skin developer. Among other things, all of the CSS attributes have been renamed. When you load an older project, the skin will update any custom code you have included. When you first remake an album that was created with an older version of the skin, you must not choose Process only updated subdirectories. Doing so will produce a badly broken album.
• More thorough cleanup of unneeded output files from earlier versions or from experiments with my other skins.
• Minor CSS tweaks.

Version 25, May 31, 2022

• Some default settings changes.
• The skin's "hints" file now turns off the generation of JSON files, which are not used by this skin.
• Minor CSS tweaks.

Version 24, May 2, 2022

• The skin now supports audio clips on slide images. This version of the skin can be used with jAlbum 27, but to make use of audio clips, jAlbum 28 is required.
• CSS and other code improvements.

Version 23, Apr. 14, 2022

• You may now specify a maximum width for page titles and slide captions. Allowing the thumbnails and slide images to occupy most of the width of a large monitor is fine, but allowing titles and captions to spread that far makes them difficult to read.
• The maximum width of text placed above and below the thumbnails is now expressed as a pixel count, rather than as a percentage of the page width. Values in prior projects are converted upon loading.
• Changes to the skin's slide responsiveness script to improve the display of videos on small phones.
• An improvement in the skin's handling of separate folder thumbnail settings.
• The skin now disables jAlbum settings that may not be used or are irrelevant in this skin.
• Small change to the skin's hints.jap file.

Version 22, Mar. 25, 2022

• The skin now uses the jAlbum core routines to generate folder thumbnail images. If you choose to have folders shown separately from the regular image thumbnails, the folder thumbnails are generated using the setting for Setting » Images » Image bounds » Folders. Otherwise, the folder thumbnails observe the image bounds for regular image thumbnails.
• Option to place an overlay icon on the thumbnails for videos, web locations, and folders.

Version 21, Feb. 24, 2022

• Option to show folder thumbnails in a separate section on the page, followed by the regular image thumbnails.
• Simplified credits line, without jAlbum and skin version numbers - site visitors don't care about versions. If you need to know what version you used to create an album, look at the page code - detailed information is present in a <meta> tag in the <head> section.
• This is the last version that is compatible with jAlbum 22/26

Version 20, Jan. 27, 2022

• Improved handling of navigation icons.
• Fix for a bug in the slide page responsiveness.

Version 19, Jan. 24, 2022

• Option to include ALT attributes on thumbnail and slide images, for search engines. If this option is chosen, an entered title for a folder or image is used as the ALT attribute. If no title has been entered, the file name is used. If this option it not chosen, the ALT attribute is still present (it's required for HTML validation), but is empty.
• Minor code cleanup.

Version 18, Dec. 18, 2021

• Increased maximum page width, to accommodate large monitors.
• Default page width, thumbnail bounds, and image bounds increased.

Version 17, Aug. 4, 2021

• Default image bounds increased.
• Several efficiency improvements.
• Minor code cleanup.
• Fix for a bug: the icon for returning from the slide page to the index page wasn't picking up the correct tooltip.

Version 16, Jul. 22, 2021

• Simplified image download option.
• All icons replaced with newly-created, cleaner SVG's. At typical display sizes, most do not appear different, but the files are smaller, and they scale better.
• Some default settings changes.

Version 15, Jul. 14, 2021

• Revised custom cursors for previous/next hover on slide images, for both fat and thin icon styles.
• UI compiled to Java 8, for the sake of users stuck with the 32-bit version of Windows 7.

Version 14, Jul. 8, 2021

• Revised user interface.
• Improved thin icons.
• CSS improvements.
• Some changes for cross-skin variable naming consistency.

Version 13, Jul. 2, 2021

• Support for PDF's added.
• Option to specify a background color for a thumbnail icon, e.g., a folder or a PDF that does not have a representing image.
• Structural changes for better handling of borders.
• Skin-specific folder icon, based on the default provided by jAlbum, but in shades of gray rather than blue.
• Cleaner keyboard navigation scripting.

Version 12, Jun. 11, 2021

• Option to use thin icons, in place of the default set.
• On-image navigation cursors changed from standard pointers to left/right pointers, with tooltips.
• Minor code cleanup.

Version 11, May 13, 2021

• Faster routines for excluding unsupported objects and forcing the use of original GIF's.
• Some default settings changes.

Version 10, Apr. 18, 2021

• Chained directories enabled. The jAlbum core has been modified to confine the chaining to sibling directories, so the navigation is no longer hopelessly confusing.
• Updated jQuery.
• Removed some old debugging code.

Version 9, Mar. 24, 2021

• A CSS change to prevent a visitor from inadvertenly selecting images and icons and turning them blue.
• An adjustment to the slide page image resizing lower limit.
• Some refinement of the navigation icons.

Version 8, Mar. 6, 2021

• Option to open web locations in new tabs, rather than the same tab.
• A fix for a bug in the scroll position memory function.

Version 7, Mar. 1, 2021

• An index page now retains its scroll position when returning from a folder or from a slide page.
• A minor tweak to the slide page responsiveness script.
• Minor code cleanup.

Version 6, Feb. 11, 2021

• Support for web locations added.

Version 5, Jan. 20, 2021

• A small improvement to the index page layout.
• Minor code cleanup.

Version 4, Dec. 11, 2020

• On a video slide page, the video now resets when it's finished, displaying the poster image again rather than the last frame of the video (which is often a black screen).
• The YouTube embed code now includes an attribute to prevent the display of related videos at the end of play, except for videos from the same YouTube channel.

Version 3, Nov. 5, 2020

• Option to enter top and bottom info text (text that appears above or below the thumbnails).
• Google Analytics code insertion moved to top of <head> section, per current Google guidance.
• Version number control added (inadvertently omitted in versions 1 and 2).
• Automatic cleanup of unneeded files in the hidden project/.jalbum directory.

Version 2, Oct. 19, 2020

• Improved slide transitions.
• Option to include YouTube and Vimeo videos in the project.
• Option to display underscores as spaces when using folder or file names as titles, browser tabs, captions, or tooltips.
• Updated help links from settings panels.

Version 1, Oct. 3, 2020

• Initial release.
• This skin is intended as a replacement for the Minimal skin. It produces a similarly minimalist album design, but retains almost none of the code from Minimal.
• The user options, album behavior, and underlying coding differ from Minimal in a number of ways:
  • Better control over maximum page width.
  • On a phone, thumbnail borders and padding are eliminated, and spacing between thumbnails is reduced.
  • Fully responsive slide page.
  • Smoother image transitions.
  • Better control over titling, captioning, and tooltip options.
  • Ability to customize the colors, beyond the Dark and Light preset styles.
  • More flexible image download options.
  • Easier selection of tooltip text for navigation icons.
  • Ability to include a copyright notice, a meta description, a robots tag, a link to a favicon, and Google Analytics.
  • Ability to apply custom CSS, with syntax highlighting in the user interface.
  • Better text string cleanups.
  • Customizable credits link.
  • Larger default image bounds for thumbnails and slide images.
  • Unsupported objects are automatically excluded from the project.
  • GIF's are not converted to PNG's, so animation is preserved.
  • Unified stylesheet, which reduces uploading and server calls.
  • SVG icons, to allow color selection.
  • Simplified icon set.
  • A relative URL may be used for the home page link.
  • Slide image preloading, for better page transitions.
  • No thumbstrip option.
  • No support for widgets or chained directories.
  • Compiled user interface. More robust and loads 6x faster.
  • Requires jAlbum 22 and Java 14 (Minimal is backward-compatible to jAlbum 14 and Java 8).
• This is a skin to use for making albums. It is not intended as a teaching tool. However, all the source code is bundled with the skin.