Pics.io Release Notes, Early July 2018
More comfort, more security, more video
June has been a productive month for Pics.io. Many things have been improved, fixed, and updated to make the whole system more secure and comfortable to use.
The most significant improvement happened in the way Pics.io works with video files.
First of all, this is the long awaited Visual Diff Tool for videos.
So far, the diff tool was only available for static images, which works great for photographers, designer, and creative directors. Now you can do the same thing with video files as well.
We’ve even made a short video to give you an idea how it works.
You no longer need to open and play each video separately, trying hard to remember the difference between them. Instead, you simply put two videos side by side and play them simultaneously. In this way you can visually compare two different versions of your video with much more precision and accuracy than you could have done before.
The second improvement is that you can now see your previous video revisions that you have uploaded in Pics.io.
Before you could only see the latest revision on the very top, which we believe was quite rather frustrating for the videographers. So, we’ve fixed that, and you’re welcome to watch the whole sequence of video revisions from day one.
Now a few words about improvements that deal with comfort.
The changes we’ve introduced in this domain are quite small, but sometimes it’s the small details that make all the difference, right?
The first nice improvement is about the filenames of your assets.
You can now rename the impersonal filenames of your assets (such as IMG_9945.jpg, for example) into something more meaningful and memorable. So, you can rename your files right inside Pics.io app, with a mere double click on the filename.
The next improvement deals with websites.
Among various website templates in Pics.io, there’s one unique template — Proofing Template — that is totally interactive. It works as if you actually invite an outside collaborator inside your collection in Pics.io.
With all its advantages, Proofing Template had one serious drawback — your outside collaborators could not see the structure of the collection you shared with them. They could only see a number of unclassified assets with no structure whatsoever.
So, we’ve fixed that. Your collaborators can now see all the sub-collections inside your Proofing Template website. An your dialogue with your partners of customers can now be much more consistent and substantial.
3. And the final improvement that is going to make your Pics.io use much smoother is what we call breadcrumbs.
To understand how they work, let’s take a short imaginary tour into Pics.io. For example, you want to know how many images you have in your digital library with a keyword “monochrome photo”. Here’s what you probably do:
- Select Keywords in the left toolbar in Pics.io and find “monochrome photo”.
- Discover that you have four nice images with this keyword. So far so good…
- One of these images especially attracts your attention and you want to check the whole collection it belongs to.
- So you hit Collections and you’re about to open the necessary subcollection …
At this very moment … oops…. a co-worker you share a desk with spills her coffee all over the table.
Ten minutes later, after all those frantic efforts to clean up the mess, you come back to Pics.io. And you see those four images and your mind is completely blank. How did I get here? What I was looking for?
To save you from this brain-racking experience and help you quickly get your bearings, we’ve introduced breadcrumbs. A quick look at that top of the panel is all it takes to see “Keywords / monochrome photos”.
Thank goodness! Now you’re all set and ready to move on.
Well, that was all about comfort and convenience.
Let’s go on to discover some new things in Pics.io that are meant to increase the security of your assets.
First of all, it’s about how you change your working folder in Pics.io that is connected with your Google Drive account.
Changing a working folder is a pretty dodgy thing to do. If this type of permission is given to many of your teammates, this can potentially lead to unauthorized and irreparable changes. In plain English, you may lose access to your entire library in Pics.io.
To prevent this from happening, we’ve introduced an additional security measure in Pics.io. If some of your teammates decides to change your working folder, the admin receives an urgent notification. And if this was a mistake indeed, Pics.io support team will rush to rescue and quickly restore the status quo.
A similar notification is sent if some of your teammates makes a potentially destructive sync, i.e. a sync that is likely to delete a way too many files from Pics.io.
If this is not something that you want, you can promptly revoke these changes, and nothing will be lost.
So, here’s what we’ve been working on recently. Stay in touch for further updates. And remember that you’re always welcome to drop us a message at support@pics.io with your comments and suggestions.
