X3Photo Gallery Forums

Wow, I love the new and fresh and modern look of X3 so I'll wait for further development since basically I think that X2 is a very good gallery software and if you make it a lot better, as it seems to be, I'll remain with it...

Agreed with above : love what I've seen so far !
Great job done Karl keep this up, thanks !
Can't wait to check the full preview in december...

Had some ground-breaking advances with X3 lately, although Im feeling bad that I don't have a link for you yet. The good news is that the X3 framework is maturing much more than I originally had in mind for an early preview version. I have been working on X3's internal image manager lately, which serves appropriate image sizes to the device based on image layout, area size, device screen size, pixel ratio and orientation ... This basically means you can serve big juicy images to large screens without having to worry about smaller devices, who are served smaller images for improved performance. I still aim to launch an early demo of capabilities this month!

Sounds great again!

Sounds awesome.
Can't wait anymore!!!

Karl, please again, give us your Imagevue X3- Roadmap. We are waiting. A Roadmap is really a necessity. Thanks.

My mac hard drive died a few days ago, but I managed to secure a backup of my data, so major crisis averted.

giampaolo wrote:Karl, please again, give us your Imagevue X3- Roadmap. We are waiting. A Roadmap is really a necessity. Thanks.

A bit difficult, especially if you are expecting dates, which I simply don't have the option to offer right now. Perhaps this helps:

1. Launch 1st public teaser of Imagevue X3, which at an early stage primarily focuses on being an awesome foundation for modern gallery-related websites.

2. Clean up a bit, and launch a few color variations and target an early Imagevue X3 alpha.

3. Work on the new admin interface, which will be cleaner and simpler in many ways.

4. Launch a brand new www.photo.gallery, which basically will cater to a new and quite different end-product.

5. Work with a few substantial layout variations that can be combined with color themes.

6. Lots more awesome ideas but will need to be worked out in time first things first.

Thanks Karl. I understand and respect your situation. In July 2013 you wrote "it will be ready in December." We are now in December. Then in March 2014? Or June 2014? Or 2015 only? I stayed loyal to your product but it becomes difficult to wait any longer. You understand us? Good luck Karl.

giampaolo wrote:Thanks Karl. I understand and respect your situation. In July 2013 you wrote "it will be ready in December." We are now in December. Then in March 2014? Or June 2014? Or 2015 only? I stayed loyal to your product but it becomes difficult to wait any longer. You understand us? Good luck Karl.

Yes I do understand, but unfortunately regardless of what I say or don't say, I can't make this happen any faster than it happens, no matter what. Instead of working with client projects and earning a proper salary, I am sacrificing my time into creating something I believe to be the next generation of gallery/portfolio websites. Is this your problem? No. Those of you who wish to consider other solutions, my only recommendation would be do it ... (I would).

I admit that for a good time before the summer, things were not really moving forwards with X3. The reason was simply that we did not have a clear idea of how we imagine the future of photo galleries on the web and the future of Imagevue. A lot has happened in the last 1-2 years with the emergence of mobile devices, small screens, html technologies, retina screens, browser improvements, flash getting outdated ... I feel since around summer, we hit a pinnacle in web maturity and our visions became much clearer, something which gave room for the progress we are doing with X3, which unfortunately you have not had a taste of yet.

I do in fact have an early playground built on X3 just waiting to get published, but for the benefit of the project, there was some delays because we found ourselves integrating more cool stuff than intended in this early preview. It just does not make sense to rush something half-ass just to please an audience, in some cases creating the opposite effect.

Is X3 on moving forwards?
Yes it is, and very much so.

Can you provide an exact launch date?
No I can't. If I do this, I will either find myself lying, or I would have to set a date which may be much later than I hope to launch it. I should be able to provide early beta versions with a certain layout for those who like what they see in an early template style.

I am in doubt about waiting, or looking for optional solution. What do you suggest?
I would suggest looking around for other solutions, what can it hurt? I would love to please you people with Imagevue X3, and this is my intention, but it simply does not make sense for me to ask people to wait. Another thing to be said, is that Imagevue X3 will be VERY different than X2, and it could be this is not be what many existing users are looking for. The previous X1/X2 concept is built on ideas conceived almost a decade ago, and a lot of happened since then. X3 is our vision of how a gallery should function in 2014. We want to launch X3, and we want it to be awesome, and this is our only motivation.

100% certain - A playground built on X3 will be available to view in January.
100% certain - A beta version will be available to public 1st quarter 2014, although it may be limited in several ways. After beta, obviously we aim to improve in all areas from the inside and out.

Looks like its gonna take at least 7 months to have a finished, usable X3 (July 2014). Like many others I'm kind of disappointed too since I had plans for this, but I guess it takes time to implement all the feature requests (new themes, shuffle pics on load, seo features, mobile etc etc etc) on this forum and also maintain good standards and aesthetics. I just hope the end product comes up to everyones reasonable expectations and is worth the wait.

btw, if u have hard disk problems/blue screens, programs like Rollback Rx are really useful. Also tools like Google desktop for Mac https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24587/google-desktop might help speed up finding those important files lying deep/lost in your desktop.

No pressure though, we are the end users and you are the creator. I do understand some new concepts take time to start from scratch and get shaped into a finished product, especially if some of the underlying components/programming languages being used themselves are undergoing a change and where things depend on multiple factors.

I guess its not gonna go any faster by refreshing this forum everyday but will definitely keep an eye on this.

All the best.

Although I haven't posted in this thread so far, I've been following it for the last few months. I am also a bit disappointed that X3 is taking longer than expected, but it's much appreciated that you (Karl) provide us with some kind of roadmap, even if it's just a rough estimation. It really makes a difference (as opposed to "silent" developers who say nothing, stick to "it'll be done when it's done" or just give vague answers aka the run-around treatment).
Also, to be honest, X3 is not so urgent for me. I hope to see it happen soon, but I can live with X2. Still, as I say, it's nice to know how things are going, so thanks for the heads up.

+1 with Carlos !

Thanks very much mjau-mjau

Agreed with my 2 collegues above. Hoping X3 will come sooner than expected now
I'm wishing you a great New Year's Eve and a fab 2014, Karl as to all Imagevue satisfied users !

Thought I'd just drop by on this 1st day of 2014 and post some snapshots of the new "sidemenu" that comes with Imagevue X3. This is in many ways similar to the left side menu in X2, but much more flexible. It basically hides outside the edge of the screen until it is triggered either by tap/swipe (touch devices/mobile) or hover (non-touch devices/desktop). By default, this menu will display on smaller screens (ipad and smaller) instead of the horizontal menu, but there will be an option to use the sidemenu also on large screens (mouse/desktop). The sidemenu works better than the horizontal menu for deeper, more substantial menu structures.

The sidebar toggle button, snapshot typically from a small device.


Scroll downwards on the page, and the sidebar toggle button minimizes itself, but remains available (all devices):


Let's hover mouse over that menu button shall we (on touch screen, you can tap the button or swipe the screen). The stage animates smoothly, and slides in the sidemenu, which can be navigated independently by vertical scroll/swipe.


Nicely animated treemenu collapsed/expanded at will, and there are settings for having the menu collapsed or expanded by default ... Also a close/open same level setting, similar to X2:


Snapshot from an actual iphone retina (therefore the snapshot is double-sized), button behavior differs slightly. After the menu is opened, the close button remains in the same spot so it is super-simple to open/close the menu by tapping.


The sidemenu basically works the same on larger screens, although it will simply take less horizontal space once it is displaying:


Once the menu is displaying, simply hover mouse outside the menu area, and it will close nicely by itself.

Wow!
Some great screenshots!
Good to see you are doing some work during the public holidays! heheh I haven't even had a holiday yet either! Had to cancel plans to go overseas!


""I just hope the end product comes up to everyones reasonable expectations and is worth the wait. "" lol. .. Funny.

X3 DEVELOPMENT
I feel that there should be priority of the CORE. Then let that go to beta and be tested and tested. Whilst doing that for 1-2 months, build all your additonal features. I hope you do have a road map, as trying to do everything at once will just lead to delays.
Ask yourself: "What is your goal?" Answer: To create a new simple up-to-date HTML5 Gallery to be the CORE of ImageVue X3. Now Quick! Grab a pen and write that down for me.

Make the ENTIRE web application modular. So you can turn features off/on that you couldn't in x3. It goes without saying, that it would be A LOT easier to manage (and develop) several smaller components, rather than ONE MAMMOTH GALLERY with its features etcetera. So building the final product is not what is important. It is building an X3 GALLERY and then once created, develop and add your modules and extensions on afterwards.

Just like Joomla, Wodpress, Mambo, and every other eCommerce and CMS platform. They all take a modular approach. ...


I really feel a "X3 Gallery Only" should be coming out soon as it has been a year. We don't need garbage and rubbish like Facebook and Twitter (to begin with). Just make it a simple up-to-date HTML5 Gallery
- 1. A standard theme (front/back).
- 2. HTML5 front/back + pre-loading etc. (There are dozens of free / paid scripts you can copy ideas off here! hehehe J/K) and
- 3. Create an Extension platform for things to be added.

Hooks and API's - whatever you choose, just make it dynamic and pleeeeease hurry up and release a "basic cut-down X3 Core" to your incredibly patient and devoted customers!!!

So in summary, why don't you guys forget Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and everything that can wait. Focus on the CORE so that it can be rigorously tested whilst you develop the modules - e.g. a Mobile + Tablet extension/module for it? Just focus on the desktop interface and worry about mobile AFTER we are all playing with BETA or Final CORE. heheh (Please!).......


POWER PACK for X2
Why is this, or has this been, dead in the water for a year now?
Does anyone want to continue building and improving the power pack? Not everyone will upgrade to x3 if they already have their X2 site in place (not immediately anyway ).
So why is no one improving the Power Pack? I would happily pay $25 - $40 for that "pack with potential" to be improved! heheh....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Cheers!