What is LightFlow?

LightFlow is a template (skin) for jAlbum. Using jAlbum combined with the LightFlow skin, you can easily create stunning customized photo albums.
Albums built with LightFlow allow the visitor to flip through photos just with the mouse wheel or with the arrow keys. Clicking an item will zoom in smoothly to show it in a bigger format. Graphical effects like image reflection or image watermarking / stamping don't require server side technologies like PHP or such.
You can structure your album into different folders and divide it into multiple index pages. You can display captions for thumbnails and descriptions for folders. You also can include non-image files as for example videos, pdf or zip files in your album. Colors for background, fonts and links are freely selectable, so you can exactly match your website design. Both thumbnail and slide images can be watermarked or stamped with customized texts or logos.
And of course, last but not least, LightFlow produces w3c validated XHTML 1.0 transitional.

New features of version 3

LightFlow version 3 is an almost complete rebuilt of the previous version.
It now offers still more flexibility in appearance, content syndication and website integration.
Despite the new features, the user interface remains clean and user friendly. Features you liked in previous versions, as for example flexible labeling, commenting and coloring options, w3c xhtml validness or image filters to watermark or individually stamp your photos, still persist.

With version 3 you have furthermore:
  • the possibility to integrate different types of content like images, movies, animations, flash or even whole web pages even when they are hosted on different external web servers.
    That means that you don't have to upload such heavy content, just link to it! Whether it's a Youtube, Daily Motion, Google or what ever video you can show it in your album! For more details see: Embedding videos and external sources
  • 7 different ways items may flow - that's 7 skins in one:
    1. items may flow normally as in versions 1.x and 2.x
    2. items may flow in an elliptic way around 360 degrees
    3. items may flow on a straight horizontal line
    4. items may flow while each item turns around itself
    5. items may piled up on a stack
    6. items may flow like a sinus curve
    7. items may flow in a circular way around 360 degrees
  • Exif/IPTC or other meta info can be added to all photos automatically or individually to specific photos (see Info+ feature)
  • Shopping cart integration for fotomoto, PayPal or other payment providers
  • slide show option which are both idependently customizable for thumbnail images and slide images whereas the album visitor may control the display duration
  • mouse wheel navigation not only for thumbnail images but also for slide images
  • circular item flow option, means, that the flow doesn't stop at the last item but begins anew from the beginning
  • navigation breadcrumbs which come in handy for easier orientation and navigation when your album has a deep folder structure
  • image preloading, means, while displaying a slide image, the next slide is already being loaded in the background to be ready to display
  • image download option, so album visitors can easily download your high quality slide images, when you have enabled this option
  • client side reflections, so you don't need to have PHP or such on your server nor to let jAlbum generate the reflections. This will either simplify album integration or speed-up album generation!
  • transparent reflections, so your album can display nicely a background image which is shining through the reflections!
  • search option, so album visitors may search your photos based on their keywords (see Search feature)
  • background music option, whereas album visitors keep the control over the music player
  • easier and cleaner integration of the album in an existing website because the used javascript libraries are much more mature than before.
  • freeware, since v3.10.0 LightFlow may be used free of charge

I hope you enjoy the new LightFlow v3!