New: Facebook upload and email direct from DSLR Remote Pro

[Chris Breeze]

DSLR Remote Pro for Windows v2.7 is now available for download from:
http://www.breezesys.com/DSLRRemotePro/index.htm

This release adds the ability to upload photos to a user's personal Facebook Page directly from the photobooth. This release also adds the ability to email photos directly from the photobooth. No other software is required. All that is required is an internet connection and either a touchscreen or a modified standard keyboard (see why it needs to be modified below).

The Facebook upload settings allow you to specify the name and description of the photo album where the photo will be stored together with a comment for the photo. You can also specify the maximum dimensions of the photo in order to control the size of the file to be uploaded.
The email settings allow you to specify the email subject and message text. You can also specify the maximum dimensions of the photo in order to control the size of the file to be emailed.

After taking the photos the sharing screen is displayed giving the user the option to upload the photos to Facebook and/or email them. If they select the Facebook upload option the touchscreen keyboard screen is displayed to allow the user to enter their username and password (this can be entered using a touchscreen or a standard keyboard). A small web browser window then opens with the Facebook login page and the user needs to click on the "Log in" button (or type Return) to login. If this is the first time they have uploaded a photo from the booth they will also need to authorize the PhotoboothUploader app. Once this is done the photo is uploaded to Facebook and the user is returned to the sharing screen.

If the user selects the email option the touchscreen keyboard screen is displayed to allowing them to enter the email address they wish the photo to be sent to (this can be entered using a touchscreen or a standard keyboard). The photo is then emailed after which the user is returned to the sharing screen.

Users can enter they Facebook login name and passowrd or the email address for emailing photos using a touchscreen or a modified standard keyboard. The keyboard needs to be modified to disable certain keys to prevent the user from breaking out of the photobooth software and gaining access to the Windows desktop. The keys can be disabled using specialized kiosk software or by physically modifying the keyboard by gluing or wedging the keys so that they can't be pressed or by cutting the tracks on the keyboard circuit board so that nothing happens when the keys are pressed. The following keys need to be disabled: Esc, Ctrl, Win, Alt, Menu.

The photobooth setup wizard has been updated to include Facebook upload and email photo options. The easiest way to get started and to set everything up is to use the photobooth setup wizard and to select the touchscreen, Facebook and email options. Please see the help file for more information on how to setup and use the Facebook upload and email photo options.

[bkiter1]

Hello Chris,

That sounds great!

Would it be possible to setup automatically to upload to a fb company page?

[Chris Breeze]

You can already do this using DropBox/Box/Google Drive and IFFT/WappWolf. The new Facebook upload option is to allow users to upload to their personal Facebook accounts which can't be automated because they need to enter their login details and authorize the upload app.

[bkiter1]

Got it! I thought with the new version it was going to be simpler to upload to company pages


You can already do this using DropBox/Box/Google Drive and IFFT/WappWolf. The new Facebook upload option is to allow users to upload to their personal Facebook accounts which can't be automated because they need to enter their login details and authorize the upload app.

[MarkusC]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for the new feature. It works great. At least for e-mail (that's what I have tested)

I was just surprised that it is not possible to send the cropped picture.
E.g. Cropping out one stripe of a two stripe-print

I am using the dropbox/wapwolf system to upload the cropped pictures to Business Facebook Pages now.

To privat pages I can only send the complete print.

Is there a work-around? Maybe I just did not understand all possebilities.


Thank you in advance.

BR
Markus

[tomm]

Will this feature also be added to NK Remote?

[Chris Breeze]

Will this feature also be added to NK Remote?

Yes, it will be added in the next release of NKRemote. This is in the final stages of testing and should be available next week.

I'm also planning to add it to Webcam Photobooth and PSRemote.

[Chris Breeze]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for the new feature. It works great. At least for e-mail (that's what I have tested)

I was just surprised that it is not possible to send the cropped picture.
E.g. Cropping out one stripe of a two stripe-print

I am using the dropbox/wapwolf system to upload the cropped pictures to Business Facebook Pages now.

To privat pages I can only send the complete print.

Is there a work-around? Maybe I just did not understand all possebilities.


Thank you in advance.

BR
Markus

It isn't possible to use the cropped copy at the moment, but this is something I'm considering. A cropped double strip of 4 would give a tall, narrow image which isn't ideal for emailng or uploading to Facebook. It might make more sense to use Hotfolder Prints to create a screen-friendly version of the photos and to send that instead.

[Professorlooney]

It isn't possible to use the cropped copy at the moment, but this is something I'm considering. A cropped double strip of 4 would give a tall, narrow image which isn't ideal for emailng or uploading to Facebook. It might make more sense to use Hotfolder Prints to create a screen-friendly version of the photos and to send that instead.

How would we use the Hotfolder option along with the new feature of emailing, Or where you saying to use Hotfolder and the old way of doing it?

I love the new feature so far, will try it out tomorrow at an event.

Fingers crossedX

Professor Looney

[Chris Breeze]

You can't use Hotfolder Prints to format the output and DSLR Remote Pro to email them at the moment, but it might be worth exploring in a future release.
My current priority is to add email and Facebook to NKRemote, Webcam Photobooth and PSRemote, which I hope to complete in the next couple of weeks. Once I've done that I plan to prepare an update for Hotfolder Prints in time for WPPI at the beginning of March.

[MarkusC]

A cropped double strip of 4 would give a tall, narrow image which isn't ideal for emailng or uploading to Facebook. It might make more sense to use Hotfolder Prints to create a screen-friendly version of the photos and to send that instead.

I use horizontal stripes with 3 Pictures and a line of text below.
People like it a lot.
That would work well for Email or Facebook.

I would be very happy if I could send these stripes per Email etc.

When all the other stuff is done and if I am not the only one who likes it...

[Professorlooney]

I use horizontal stripes with 3 Pictures and a line of text below.
People like it a lot.
That would work well for Email or Facebook.

I would be very happy if I could send these stripes per Email etc.

When all the other stuff is done and if I am not the only one who likes it...

I like the strip thing as well. However I did a test run last night at a small party about 75 guests and I crashed about 5 times. It seems like every 10 or so sessions and I get an error message about program stopped responding. Windows tries to fix but I can not wait when I have a line of guests waiting. Also some of the keys on the keyboard are very slow to respond to the tap on the screen Y being on of them, I think it would also help to speed things up if there was already a gmail aol hotmail and yahoo button on the screen. I may try to make this myself next week between events.

Professor Looney

[Chris Breeze]

I use horizontal stripes with 3 Pictures and a line of text below.
People like it a lot.
That would work well for Email or Facebook.

I would be very happy if I could send these stripes per Email etc.

When all the other stuff is done and if I am not the only one who likes it...

You could argue that most people are going to view the photos on a smart phone and so a more vertical layout (but not as tall and narrow as a 4x1 layout for 6"x2" strips) would work better. You probably also want to add different logos or branding for printing and for uploading. Either way the ideal solution is to use a different layout for emailing and Facebook than for printing. It makes more sense to me to use Hotfolder Prints to do this than to over complicate the photobooth software. I plan to look at this in more detail after I've updated NKRemote, Webcam Photobooth and PSRemote.

[Chris Breeze]

I like the strip thing as well. However I did a test run last night at a small party about 75 guests and I crashed about 5 times. It seems like every 10 or so sessions and I get an error message about program stopped responding. Windows tries to fix but I can not wait when I have a line of guests waiting. Also some of the keys on the keyboard are very slow to respond to the tap on the screen Y being on of them, I think it would also help to speed things up if there was already a gmail aol hotmail and yahoo button on the screen. I may try to make this myself next week between events.

Professor Looney

I spent the whole of yesterday trying to get it to crash when emailing photos with a debugger connected. So far it has successfully completed two runs of over 600 photos without any problems - take one photo, display share.jpg screen, select email, enter email address, email image then exit share.jpg screen and repeat. I'll run some more tests today using different configurations.

I haven't been able to reproduce any problems with slow responses to the touchscreen keyboard. On my system it was just as responsive after 600 emails as it was at the start. If you can provide more details about how to reproduce the problem I'll try it on my system.

[Chris Breeze]

After 3 days' exhaustive testing I've finally managed to find what was causing the software to crash on some computers when sending emails. I've just released DSLR Remote Pro for Windows v2.7.1.1 which fixes the problem.

[Professorlooney]

Thank you, Thank you. I have been busy printing with my new toy(3D Printer) and was going to reopen the app today as I have an event this evening and see if it still was doing it. Thank you. Now hopefully my keys are responsive as well.

Professor Looney

[Professorlooney]

I ran the new software through a party last night, with the update. No crashes as of now, however the y key and a few others are still very slow to respond to the touch on the screen. That is one reason I think a preset key for yahoo and a few of the other popular mass email programs would be a good idea, yahoo, hotmail gmail aol I just bring the physical keyboard in when the session has ended and let them type in there email for now with the actual keyboard. until I can figure this issue out.

[Chris Breeze]

I can't think of any possible reason why some keys are slower on the touchscreen keyboard. I've tested this on my system and all keys respond identically. I must have typed in over 1000 email addresses in the passed week using the toushcreen keyboard and it has always responded immediately. Does the problem happen when you select the "Test keyboard..." option from the touchscreen settings dialog or only when running in full screen photobooth mode?

You can add preset keys for common email services by using a keyboard.xml file. The simplest way to do this is to save the current keyboard layout by selecting "Test keyboard..." in the touchscreen settings dialog then hold down the shift and ctrl keys and click the left mouse button and save the files in your photobooth images folder. Then delete the four keyboard images (keyboard_lowercase.tif, keyboard_lowercase_pressed.tif, keyboard_uppercase.tif, keyboard_uppercase_pressed.tif). Then edit the keyboard.xml file to add the new keys. The ".com" key shows how to define a key which returns a string. Please see the help file for more details.