You Will Need

1) A working version of SlideShowPro Director (1.5.1 or better) hosted at slideshowpro.com and your own web hosting, or a working version of SlideShowPro Director (1.5.1 or better) installed on your own web host, purchased separately

2) Your web host FTP username and password

3) Your SlideShowPro Director login URL, username and password

4) A text editor such as TextEdit on a mac or Notepad on a PC

5) An FTP Application such as Filezilla

Installing bigflannel Portfolio

1) Download the latest version of bigflannel Portfolio if you have not done so already:

bigflannel Portfolio latest downloads

2) Set your portfolio options

The portfolio has 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. All the following items exist in the file already, just amend the text and then save the file. Be careful not remove any quotes and commas or add them if they are not there already.

These options must be set for the portfolio to function:

apiKey

Your SlideShowPro Director apiKey. Find this labeled 'API Key' under the link 'System Info' at the top right of the page in a self-hosted SSP Director or under 'Account Info' in a slideshowpro.com hosted SSP Director.

Examples of apiKey include:

$apiKey = 'local-6972a6a61fb7ca21be715gd276f9dc9a'

values: your SSP Director API Key in quotes

apiPath

The path to your SlideShowPro Director admin site. Find this URL / web address under the link 'System Info' at the top right of the page in a self-hosted SSP Director or under 'Account Info' in a slideshowpro.com hosted SSP Director.

Examples of apiPath include:

$apiPath = 'bigflannel.com/portfolio/admin'
$apiPath = 'bigflannel.slideshowpro.com'

values: your SSP Director API Path in quotes

sspHosted

Whether SlideShowPro Director is hosted at slideshowpro.com, in which case sspHosted is true, or hosted on your own web host, sspHosted is false.

Examples of sspHosted include:

$sspHosted = true
$sspHosted = false

values: true or false

defaultVersion

The default version used to display the Portfolio. If 'flash' bigflannel Portfolio will default to using Flash, as long as version 10 is supported, otherwise it will use HTML5. If 'html5' bigflannel Portfolio will default to using HTML5 unless the visiting browser is IE6 or below, in which case it uses Flash.

Examples of defaultVersion include:

$defaultVersion = 'flash'
$defaultVersion = 'html5'

values: flash or html5 in quotes

pageTitle

Set the Portfolio title indexed by search engines, displayed in a search result as the Portfolio title and displayed at the top of the browser window when arriving at your portfolio.

Examples of pageTitle include:

$pageTitle = 'bigflannel Portfolio Photography Template'
$pageTitle = 'Johnny Appleseed, New York Wedding Photographer'

values: text in quotes

pageDescription

Set the description of the Portfolio indexed by the search engines and displayed in a search result under the Portfolio title.

Examples of pageDescription include:

$pageDescription = 'A template for displaying images and video professionally.'
$pageDescription = 'Environmental portraiture.'

values: text in quotes

pageKeywords

Set the keywords of the Portfolio indexed by the search engines.

Examples of pageKeywords include:

$pageKeywords = 'image, video, portfolio'
$pageKeywords = 'image, video, portfolio, still, life, still life, ted, morrison, ted morrison, bigflannel, portfolio'

values: text in quotes

This one is optional but looks great:

hasSiteName

If hasSiteName is set as true, the text defined in siteName is permanently displayed at the top left of the portfolio subsequently.

Examples of hasSiteName include:

'hasSiteName' => true
'hasSiteName' => false

Learn more about all portfolio options

3) Edit crossdomain-example.xml

First, edit the filename itself. Change it too crossdomain.xml. Then open the file in a text editor such as TextEdit on a mac or Notepad on a PC. Replace the text bigflannel.com with your domain name. If your portfolio is going to be at myportfolioofimages.com, replace bigflannel.com with the text myportfolioofimages.com. You need to do this twice, once for the non-www version of a domain and once for the www version.

Note, if you forward other domains to your main domain, you will need to add these to crossdomain.xml also. Copy, paste and edit the lines you amended for your main domain for each additional domain.

4) Upload your portfolio

Open your FTP application. Create a connection to your web host using the FTP address, username and password. Navigate to the folder you want your portfolio to exist at. Either in the root folder, so your portfolio appears at your domain name, or in folder of your choosing, so your portfolio appears at an address at your domain.

Examples include:

bigflannel.com
place files in the the root folder of your web hosting.
bigflannel.com/portfolio
Place files in a folder portfolio in the root folder of your web hosting.

5) Browse your portfolio

Visit your portfolio in a web browser and take a look at your images and video. Then take things a step further with other important first steps and finally explore all the options your portfolio has to offer.

Find Out More About Using bigflannel Portfolio

1) Find out more about using your portfolio

2) View all the options and settings for your portfolio

3) View examples and tips on using your portfolio

4) Troubleshoot your portfolio if you are having problems

5) Ask, and answer the questions of, other users here

6) Submit a support request using the button at the top of the page if you're having problems