Collage 2 is finally here!

If you’ve been waiting for the beta testing to be done, your wait is finally over. Collage 2 is ready for download. In case you missed the announcement with all the feature details, I’ve listed some of the details below.

Collage 2: Get it Now

New Features

We’ve been hard at work on this new Collage for almost six months, so there’s quite a bit to talk about. Read about all the new features here or jump over to our Collage pages and check out some screenshots. Our screenshots even use Collage... to show off Collage!

AJAX Slideshow

Add a super cool animated slideshow with AJAX image loading. Just one click and Collage does the rest for you.

Image Editing

Now you can zoom, scale, and crop your images just by grabbing them with the mouse and dragging them into position. Or, click on the auto-reset and your image will automatically be scaled to perfectly fit into the Collage thumbnail.

New Styles

We’ve added a new Styles window. If you’ve used Kwix or Carousel, you’ll be familiar with it. Even better, we’ve begged, bartered, and bribed Elixir Graphics into creating a few professional grade Collage Styles that are built right in. They even did our super cool icon too!

Cool Effects

Everyone loves the light-box effect. Now you can have it right inside your Collage. No more Javascript wrangling or Flash incompatibilities, either. With just one click Collage will scale images, add the Javascript, and upload everything for you.
Plus you can add even more description to your images without cluttering up your pages with a Hover box. Turn on hover boxes and a nice little box will pop up when the user moves the mouse over your images.

Loads of Graphic Options

Now there are even more ways to make your collage unique. There are a lot of new things to set, here’s the big list:

• Image Backgrounds
• Image Masking
• Image Overlays
• Selectable Corner Rounding
• Set the Rounding Radius
• More settings for your shadows
• More settings for your reflections
• Edge fading

Mouseover Effects

Every single graphic setting can be changed when a user hovers their mouse over a thumbnail. It makes it simple to produce eye grabbing interactivity. Simply copy over your idle-state settings and change, change a few settings, and voila!, you’ve got a professional mouseover effect.

And there’s so much more!

A live preview window to see all your settings in real time, xHTML strict coding, AJAX image loading, Fade-Out slideshow controls, higher quality thumbnails, and of course, better IE support than ever.

RapidWeaver 4

Collage 2 uses all the great new RapidWeaver 4 API calls. That means that we have much more control over the way we manage images and save files. Collage doesn’t degrade your images at all. Collage “hard links” to the original files, just like Time Machine does. It doesn’t take any extra space on your hard disk, but if you accidentally delete the original Collage will (as if by magic) make sure that a copy is safe and sound inside your RapidWeaver file. It’s like having your cake and eating it too!

Leopard

Leopard gave us the power to add some great upgrades to the Collage interface. We take advantage of some great animation effects and use Leopards built in image browsers to give you all the speed and power Mac users are used to. But don’t worry, we didn’t go over the top. In Collage 2 form still follows function.

Requirements

You must have RapidWeaver 4 to use Collage 2.

How much?

If you purchased Collage in the past three months then Collage 2 is a free upgrade.
If you purchased Collage before that then the upgrade to Collage 2 is just $7.95.
If you’re new to Collage then it’s $14.95.
If you qualify for a free update we’ll contact you via the email address you registered with. If you don’t receive an email or believe your email address has changed feel free to send an email to support and just ask -- we want to make sure you get the bargain that was promised.

How do I install it?

The easiest way to install it is to:

1. Open RapidWeaver
2. Close any open documents.
3. Download the Collage 2 disk image here.
4. Double click on the Collage plugin in the disk image window.
5. Quit and restart RapidWeaver

How do I upgrade?

This time we’re doing things a bit differently. Collage 2 is such a huge change from Collage 1 that we decided updating your existing Collage pages just wouldn’t produce quality output. Images would suffer because Collage 1 saves small images and Collage 2 needs nice big images for Slideshows and Lightboxes. So we decided that you should probably migrate you pages slowly, using the original images, that’s the way Collage 2 works best. Here’s what you need to know:

• Q: Will my Collage 1 pages be upgraded automatically?
  A: No, you should rebuild them from the original images.
• Q: Can I keep my old Collage 1 pages while building new Collage 2 pages?
  A: Yes! Collage 1 and Collage 2 run side by side.
• Q: Do I need to uninstall Collage 2 to run RapidWeaver 3.6?
  A: No. RW3 will ignore Collage 2.

How do I get it?

Jump over to our Collage page and grab a copy.

Tags: Collage, Release

Yep, you heard us. Collage 1.2 is free to use, free to publish, no restrictions, no time limits. Jump on over to the Collage page and grab a copy.

What’s the Catch?

As you might have heard, Collage 2 is coming very soon. It’s just around the corner. But Collage 2 is more than a just an upgrade. It’s an entirely new plugin. It’s so different that instead of just a regular upgrade we designed Collage 2 to load as a completely new plugin. You’ll be able to use both Collage 1 and Collage 2 pages on the same site.
So Collage 1 will be free and Collage 2 will be introduced in a few weeks. And no, it will not be free.

Answers to all your Collage 2 Questions

Can I get Collage 2 today?

No. It’s still in private beta testing. Soon, though. We promise.

What’s new in Collage 2?

That’s a secret. You’ll just have to wait... ...ok, I’m like completely bad at keeping secrets, that was as long as I could hold it in... ...it’s got a new lightbox, a slideshow, cool graphical frames, savable styles, rounded corners, a great new interface to let you customize everything, and a whole lot more. I’ll post more to this blog as we get closer to the release.

What are the requirements for Collage 2?

Collage 2 will only work with RapidWeaver 4. Collage 2 takes advantage of the great new RapidWeaver 4 plugin interface to do some really cool stuff. Rumor has it that RapidWeaver 4 will be a free upgrade, though, so as soon as it’s released you’ll be all set.

How much?

If you’ve purchased Collage in the last three months, Collage 2 will be a free upgrade.
If you purchased Collage before that, then it will be a $7.95 upgrade.
If you’re new to Collage it will be $14.95

Do I have to upgrade?

No. Of course not. We’re even making sure that Collage 1 will continue to work with the new version of RapidWeaver. But, we think we’ve made this new version of Collage so great that you won’t be able to resist!

Will upgrading change all my pages?

No. Collage 2 is a totally new plugin. Your Collage 1 pages will remain as they are. Since Collage 2 supports larger images for slideshows and lightboxes, it didn’t make sense to just “upgrade” the pages. It’s best to start Collage 2 pages from scratch, from the original images -- that way you’ll get the best quality output.

If I download the free version can I upgrade for free?

Umm... no. We actually have to feed our families, too. That means occasionally we ask for a little bit of money. In return we try to make the software absolutely great, totally irresistible, and super fun to use. Our hope is that after you’ve tried it out $15 will seem like a bargain.

Tags: Collage

Collage 1.7.3 is here: Go get your download.

A Few Tweaks
Collage 1.7.3 corrects a few bugs and adds a few refinements. It includes fixing a link bug in the header and correcting the way pages are marked as changed. There are no new features in this version but it is a free upgrade and it's recommended for all users.

Update: One more bug sneaked in at the last minute. We've squashed this one, too. If you downloaded in the first few hours of this release you may want to download the latest build.

Tags: Collage, Bugfix

Collage 1.7.1 is here: Go get your download.
A couple minor bugs crept into Collage when we released version 1.7 a few weeks ago. And there's no time like the present to fix those last few imperfections. Hopefully most people won't notice the changes, but a few probably will. If you use Collage on a regular basis you should definitely download this release. It fixes two known problems and also cleans up its memory more efficiently.

Fixes:
1. The Footer will now retain its formatting when both Header and Footer have paragraph justification applied.
2. The Add Link button should now be enabled when it needs to be.
3. Memory used for export should be reduced for large sites.

It's a free update for registered users, so download and enjoy.

Tags: Collage, Bugfix

Collage 1.7 is here: Go get your download.
This is primarily a bugfix release, but we've taken the time to refine the user interface a bit, reduce the file sizes dramatically, add support for RapidWeaver 3.6, and give the drop shadow a few more controls. Although there aren't too many new features, we think this version will be a significant refinement that you'll appreciate.

Happy Birthday
Looking back out our Download page, where we keep all of our version numbers and release dates listed, I see the the previous version of Collage is almost a year old. That's quite a while for one of our plugins. In that period of time a handful of blemishes have been pointed out. In this version we've tried to nail down every last one we had in our bugtracker, but if we've missed one, let us know.

Collage is #1
Collage was our very first plugin and also holds the distinction of being the very first third party RapidWeaver plugin. Even though it has remained at its current version for quite a while it's still one of our most popular downloads. It fills a very essential need and it does it really well with a minimum fuss. It's stylish and bloat-free.

Keep it Simple
But if you think it might be missing something, we want to hear from you. We still want to keep Collage in the bloat-free zone, but maybe it could do with a few more features, if carefully chosen. What do you think? Where should Collage go in the next year?

Things you should know
Collage 1.7 is free to all registered users.
Collage 1.7 works with RapidWeaver 3.5.1 and 3.6
Collage 1.7 requires Mac OS X 10.4 -- if you're using Mac OS X 10.3.9 you can download the Collage 1.6 from our Download page.

Tags: Collage, Update, Bugfix