Three New Features in RocketFusion!

New Photo Gallery layout, and PayPal now part of the Calendar Module

In this article we outline two new features in the RocketFusion platform, and how to use them. If you have questions, please let us know.

New Photo Gallery Layout Option: Lightbox

More and more new customers are using photos to tell their story, or part of it anyway, and more and more of those customer websites are showing on mobile devices, which have different capabilities than the old laptop screen, namely touch-sensitivity, and smaller screens.

We've had what's called a "Lightbox" capability in our Photo Gallery module for a while now, but newer tools are always beng developed, and so we keep changing up which one we use. Recently it was something called FreeWall, but it has some code issues and frequently wouldn't display all the photos it was supposed to.

This past week we switched it out with something called Unite Gallery, which has an incredible array of features, runs very quick, and responds beautifully on all devices. The Lightbox aspect of the thumbnail grid layout is particularly nice in that it responds not only to finger slides on a mobile device, but also left and right arrow on a computer keyboard.

Unite Gallery also provides two links when you mouse-over a thumbnail: Zoomed-in Lightbox, and Link to the Photo's Page, which is important if you're using the Photo Gallery as a shop (using the built-in PayPal feature).

If you're not already using the Lightbox setting in your Photo Gallery and you want to try it out, simply go to any Photo Gallery page (the main Gallery that lists all the Categories, a Category page, or an individual Photo page), mouse-over the white button with the three dots, and click the orange "Settings" button.

Scroll down to the "yn" section of settings and set "yn Use Images Lightbox" to Yes, then click Save Changes. You'll get a nice photo layout like above:

http://OldOrchardBeachOceanFrontRental.com/gallery/3/0/Light-Houses

Note what happens when you mouse-over a thumbail if you're on a laptop of computer, or if you touch one of the photos if you're on a mobile device. It's pretty cool.

New Page-based Gallery Slideshow

The Unite Gallery tool also has a nice Slideshow built-in, but as of this writing you canot have both thumbnails AND a slideshow from those same thumbnails above it. We are hoping the author of this tool will allow for multiple instances of slideshows and thumbnail galleries on the same page. That will be cool.

However, the Slideshow tool does work on regular Pages of your website. Try that out. Go to any regular page and click the blue Slideshow button. You can choose any Photo Gallery categories you want to include.

Tips: when using a Slideshow, you must make sure that the photo categories you including have at least a few photos set to Slideshow = Yes. In the category list, you can see how many images in each category has slideshow = yes. For instance, (2 of 10) means two of the ten images in that category is set to slideshow = yes. And (all of 10) means all ten are set to yes.

Additionally, the new slideshow requires that Lighboxes be set to yes. Go to the Admin Panel, click "Site Settings" then "Images" in the top left column of links. Scroll all the way down and set "yn Use Images Lightbox" to Yes, then click Save Changes.

Adding a PayPal "Add to Cart" button to Calendar Events

At the request of the Arts Block in Greenfield, we have added the ability to directly charge people to attend an event, which will then display a PayPal "Add to Cart" button for that event.

To use this feature you need to have a working PayPal account, and have set your website to use it. (To do that, simply go to the Admin Panel, click Site Settings and then PayPal. Enter in the email address you use for PayPal, then click Save Changes.)

If you have a PayPal account and you've set it up in your website, all you need to do is create or edit an existing calendar event, click Advanced Info, and enter in the price and shipping/handling fees. Shipping fees are optional, but can be used to offset your credit card fees. People can enter in the quantity, then click the Add to Cart button. You should get an email from PayPal indicating a payment was made. The name of the "item" they purchased will be the name of the event and the date.

Your website will not keep a record of the purchase, as all the lifting for this feature is carried by PayPal's shopping cart. You can, however, use their back-end merchant interface to sort and export purchases if you need to make a simple Will Call list.

Always Working for You!

We hope you enjoy these new features. If you have any questions about these new features, please call or email Mik.