Using bigflannel Portfolio: Setting How Your Portfolio Looks

1) Introduction

bigflannel Portfolio is an HTML5 and Flash template with javascript embedding.

2) Basic cycle of use

Download bigflannel Portfolio either from the link you receive in your purchase email or here. Amend the settings on conf.php in the folder you have downloaded to configure your portfolio how you want it, then edit crossdomain-example.xml and upload the contents of the folder to your web host. Visit the portfolio in a browser and force refresh the page, browse and consider whether you want to amend the portfolio settings. Then amend the settings on conf.php as before and repeat this cycle until you are happy with the way your portfolio functions and looks.

3) Essential settings

The portfolio has different options you can set ranging from which SSP Director to use, to what your portfolio is called, whether it has a white or black background and how it opens, displays video etc. These options are set by opening the document conf.php in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder and editing the text of the document in your text editor.

Several options are required for your portfolio to function: apiKey, apiPath, sspHosted and defaultVersion. For more information on these settings, and installing the portfolio read the Quick Start Guide.

4) Optional settings

Of the other functions, the most important are choosing a white or black background (siteColor), setting the portfolio name or logo (hasSiteName, hasSiteLogo), removing gallery the 'All Albums' from your portfolio (hasUnwantedGalleries), choosing to pair verticals (hasDoubleVerticals), choosing whether to open your portfolio to a slideshow (hasSlideshow) or the first album in first the gallery, and then adding your about information (hasAbout) and other links (hasBlog etc.).

You can find a full list of all portfolio options, with example settings, here.

Using SSP Director: Managing Your Content

1) Add information to your user profile in the 'PERSONALITY' section to be displayed on your portfolio about page. Display a link to your about page on your portfolio by setting the hasAbout option as true in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder.

2) Create albums of images and or video to add to galleries and to be displayed. Set the album title and caption, these will be displayed in your portfolio gallery menu. Make albums active so you can add them to galleries.

3) Upload images and video to your albums and order them. Find out more about prepping images and video.

4) Add titles and captions to images and or video to be displayed over the image and or video in the top left corner before fading down. Add a link to an image and the image title and caption box becomes a link.

5) Create galleries. Gallery titles will be displayed on the portfolio navigation bar. You can choose which galleries to display by setting the option hasUnwantedGalleries as true in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder and then listing the ids of galleries you do not want to display using siteUnwantedGalleries. Find examples here.

6) Arrange and show albums by gallery using bigflannel Portfolio. Galleries displayed can be listed by the date they were created or alphabetically by gallery title. Set how your galleries are listed using the galleryOrder option in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder. galleryOrder can be set as byID or byTitle and you can find examples here.

Find out more about using SlideShowPro Director.

Your Portfolio and The Web

1) SEO

It's not only important to present your work well, it's important to be found. For more information on being found in the search engines, or on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website read SEO and bigflannel Portfolio. You can learn more about the most important first steps in the Quick Start Guide.

2) Using Your Portfolio with a Blog: Wordpress, Tumblr etc.

Use a blog to extend your about information, to get search engine placement and to show people why you do what you do. For more on this read The advantages of using a blog with bigflannel Portfolio. Add a link to your blog from your portfolio by setting the hasBlog option as true in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder. Find examples here.

3) Using Your Portfolio with Social Media: Facebook, Twitter etc.

Use social media to build relationships, to get search engine placement, to keep people up to date and to show people why you do what you do. You can add links from your portfolio to Twitter and Facebook by setting the hasTwitter and or hasFacebook option as true in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder. Find examples here.

4) Using Your Portfolio with Other Services: about.me etc.

There are other services you might use to do any of the above, about.me, linkedin.com, flickr.com for example. Add links to these services to your portfolio about page using the 'Elsewhere' links under 'Personality' in your SSP DIrector 'User' profile. Display a link to your about page on your portfolio by setting the hasAbout option as true in the document index.html in the bigflannel Portfolio download folder. Find examples here.

The Small Print: SSP Director Features Not Supported in bigflannel Portfolio

The following SSP Director functionality is not provided in bigflannel Portfolio:

1) Album date taken, place taken, tags, publish (although you can use this additionally and separately)

2) Content / image / video tags

3) Gallery publish (although you can use this additionally and separately)