fluxiom blog - home

More storage space for the same price

2008-06-11T08:46:00Z

Next to some under-the-hood improvements we launched an update last week and increased the file storage space for all fluxiom plans.

Private plans now get 1 GB (up from 300 MB)
Basic plans now get 3 GB (up from 800 MB)
Pro plans now get 8 GB (up from 3 GB)
Deluxe plans now get 20 GB (up from 8 GB)

We hope you find the increased storage space useful. If you aren’t already a customer, join us today

Introducing the fluxiom widget

2008-03-28T10:52:00Z

Downloading assets from your fluxiom account has never been so easy! With the new fluxiom widget it is easy to keep track of the activities and new file uploads to your fluxiom account and with just one click you can download files.

The fluxiom widget leverages the branding settings from your fluxiom account to provide a well reached cohesive brand identity. Learn more on how to personalize your fluxiom account.

download now

Download fluxiom widget for Mac OS X

IMPORTANT NOTE: To use the fluxiom widget you have to make sure that the API is activated for you fluxiom account.

more tools: fluxUp!

Our free desktop application fluxUp! allows you to transfer files or entire folders to your fluxiom account with drag-and-drop ease. fluxUp! is available for Mac and Windows

for developers

The fluxiom widget is based on the fluxiom API that allows programmers to access/read/write fluxiom data from third-party systems (eg web-based/desktop products, back-office systems, OS X dashboard widgets, Yahoo/Confabulator widgets, ...).

Safari 3 support

2007-11-28T10:33:00Z

With the latest refinements and improvements we launched today fluxiom now officially supports Safari 3 for Mac.

Safari 3 for Mac OS X Tiger is included in the free 10.4.11 software update. There is also a beta version of Safari 3 for Windows available. Enjoy!

fluxUp! now brandable

2007-10-17T16:39:00Z

fluxUp! is our free desktop tool that allows you to upload files to your fluxiom account with drag-and-drop ease. We are proud to announce a new version of fluxUp! today.

Next to some under the hood improvements, the appearence of fluxUp! can now be customized. fluxUp! uses the brand settings (like color scheme and logo) in your fluxiom account to visually integrate fluxUp! into your business. And sure fluxUp! is Leopard and Windows Vista ready.

Big thanks to Alexander Danmayer for the great work on fluxUp!

fluxiom API Update Part 1

2007-10-05T09:43:00Z

Update: The API update is deployed!

We are constantly improving fluxiom and today we announce some improvements to the API.

On October 15 we will deploy a new version of the API which will add branding information to the account info. With this it will be possible to brand your fluxiom add-ons.

This update will only modify the /api/account.xml call:


$ curl -X GET -u <username>:<password> https://<subdomain>.fluxiom.com/api/account.xml

The returned XML code will contain a new branding_info tag, which will be present if the branding of the account is active and will look like this:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<account>
  <subdomain>account</subdomain>
  <company_name>wollzelle GmbH</company_name>
  <account_holder>Dieter Komendera</account_holder>
  <address>Mystreet 123</address>
  <country>AT</country>
  <location>Under the Danube</location>
  <zip_code>12434</zip_code>
  <plan ssl="true" stages="true" multiple_users="true" versions="false" branding="true" full_text_search="true">Pro</plan>
  <branding>active</branding>
  <branding_info>
    <title>kommen's fluxiom</title>
    <font_color>#ffffff</font_color>
    <top_color>#ff4444</top_color>
    <bottom_color>#555555</bottom_color>
    <logo>/t/12345abcd/logo.gif</logo>
    <background_image>/t/12345abcd/header-background.gif</background_image>
    <updated type="datetime">2007-10-02T11:10:48+02:00</updated>
  </branding_info>
  <trial>false</trial>
  <stats used_space="629953890" used_bandwidth="62233621" available_space="838852608" available_bandwidth="838857179"/>
  <created_on type="datetime">2007-05-23T00:00:00+02:00</created_on>
  <updated_on type="datetime">2007-05-23T00:00:00+02:00</updated_on>
</account>

Description of the tags in branding_info:

title The title specified in the branding section, which is normally displayed in the browser window title
font_color The calculated font color fluxiom uses to display text in the header.
top_color The top color specified in the branding section. This is the top color of the header in the gradient.
bottom_color The bottom color specified in the branding section. This is the bottom color of the header in the gradient.
logo URL to a GIF image in the format of 150×79px which is the generated logo.
background_image URL to a GIF image in the format of 10×79px which is the generated header background gradient.
updated Date when the branding was last updated. Gives plugins the ability to cache the branding images.

In the next weeks we will add two new API features:

Ability to tag assets
Retrieving generated thumbnail images of assets

Details follow!

fluxiom website update

2007-09-13T13:02:00Z

fluxiom comes with an awesome interface and lots of UI effects. So, it’s logical that the fluxiom web site could use a little bit more visual eye candy, and we’ve worked hard to relaunch it in new glory.

First thing, we’ve reduced the start page to provide a nice and welcoming introduction to fluxiom:

Second, we added more details on the features page, including more and richer screenshots (try zooming in!). And sure enough some cool effects like our Rocket Columns on the features and the fluxUp! pages, when switching tabs.

The new fluxiom site features screenshots and images from Viennese photographer Christof Wagner, who allowed us to show off fluxiom by using his very own fluxiom account. A big thank you!

And, last but not least, we’ve added real-time searching on the fluxiom blog:

We hope you enjoy the new site as much as we do!

Maintenance: Monday, July 30

2007-07-27T13:36:00Z

fluxiom will be under maintenance on Monday, July 30. It will take place beginning at 10am CEST, and should take no more than 2 hours. During this timeframe fluxiom may not be reachable.

Update done!

Different countries, different characters

2007-07-10T15:28:00Z

fluxiom now offers built-in support for international filenames. Whether it’s japanese Kanji, simplified Chinese or any alphabet, fluxiom will display filenames correctly in your browser and they also persist after you download or share those assets.

Note: Unfortunately, when downloading or sharing multiple files in a ZIP package that contains files with special characters in the filename, Windows will discard the original filenames. For this reason fluxiom includes a list of the original filenames in every ZIP package you download.

Put your assets on stage

2007-05-02T15:42:00Z

With the new version of fluxiom, we want to introduce a new powerful feature to you: Stages.

“Putting your assets on stage” means giving a client restricted access to some of your assets. In the following article we’ll give a practical example on what “Stages” are able to do and how to use it.

Let’s say we have a client called “Roger”. We assume that we’ll have to create a small ad for him and he wants to get noticed about how the current version looks like and about changes we made.

For this job, we’ll create a tag “Roger’s assets” and apply it to all the assets we want to give Roger access to.
When done, click on the “Roger’s assets” tag in the tag bar to see only the assets with that specific tag. This view will exactly be the view that Roger is going to see when he wants to access assets.

Let’s create a stage for this view. A click on the “Stage” button will unveil the “Create stage” panel.

Enter a title (for example: “Roger’s assets”) and an optional message.
Enter email addresses of people you want to give access to the stage (you can always add or delete guests later).
Enable sneak preview if you don’t want to allow downloading of your assets.
Create the stage by clicking on “Create stage”. A click on the “preview” link will show you the view the invitees are going to see.

Click on the “Stages” tab to get an overview of all stages that have been created. Each Stage has an “edit” link to change title and description as well as an option to invite and delete guests.

After the “Roger’s assets” stage has been created, Roger will get an email with a link to the stage and a magic phrase to login.

Now he’s able to preview and download (depending on what you allow) all assets tagged with “Roger’s assets”.

If you need to add more assets to this stage, just tag them with “Roger’s assets” and they’ll automatically appear on the stage.

Note: Roger can easily stay up-to-date by subscribing to the stages’ RSS feed. Whenever an asset gets added or updated he’ll get a notice.

Using the fluxiom API

2007-05-02T14:44:00Z

The fluxiom API allows developers to hook into fluxiom and connect it to third-party applications. It can be used for searching for assets, retrieving assets and uploading new ones, and querying metadata. Whether you’re planning on hooking some internal application into fluxiom, or writing a general plugin for desktop-based software, the API can do it for you. And it’s really easy to use to boot with!

Activating and deactivating the API

The API is strictly opt-in, and the account holder of the fluxiom account has to agree to the API terms. To enable or disable the API, and review the API terms, please go to “Account” -> “API” in your fluxiom (only the account holder has access to this page), and follow the instructions.

Technical information

The fluxiom API is implemented via plain (if you like, over “vanilla”) HTTP calls, and generally can be described as RESTful.

The basic call is HTTP GET request to a URL describing what type of information you want to query. Also, you’re required to add user credentials via HTTP Basic Authentification.

Security is provided via SSL if the plan of the fluxiom instance you query has support it. The basic and private plans only support password transmission via plain text.

Let’s get started with a basic example (we recommend using cURL for getting started and testing out the various capabilities that the API provides):

$ curl -X GET -u username:password https://account.fluxiom.com/api/assets.xml

This command issues a HTTP GET request to /api/assets.xml. If there are assets in your fluxiom account, and the API is enabled, it will return HTTP status code 200, and a XML document listing the assets.

If nothing is found, a HTTP 404 “not found” response will be returned.

(Note: While all browsers do, not all versions of cURL directly support the fluxiom SSL certificate. If that is the case add a -k flag to ignore cURL warnings about the certificate.)

Here’s a list of the various API calls available:

Object type	Operation	URL
Account	List information	GET /api/account.xml
Users	List all users	GET /api/users.xml
Users	List specific user	GET /api/users/id.xml
Tags	List all tags	GET /api/tags.xml
Assets	List all assets	GET /api/assets.xml
Assets	Search for term	GET /api/assets.xml?query=term
Assets	Search by tags	GET /api/assets.xml?tags=tags
Assets	Information	GET /api/assets/id.xml
Assets	Download an asset	GET /api/assets/download/id
Assets	Create new asset*	POST /api/assets.xml
Assets	Update asset,*	PUT /api/assets/id.xml
Assets	Delete an asset	DELETE /api/assets/id.xml
Upload	Upload a file	POST /api/upload.xml
Assets	Asset versions	GET /api/assets/id/versions.xml

*Creating and updating asset file data requires to use the POST /api/upload.xml call first **Updating assets requires the versioning feature, available in the pro and deluxe plans

A detailed list of API calls and return values is coming soon, stay tuned!

Upload your assets with fluxUp!

2007-05-02T11:17:00Z

A convenient way to upload assets to your fluxiom account is to use fluxUp! — a free tool available for Mac OS X and Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

You can download fluxUp! from www.fluxiom.com/tools

features and advantages

upload complete folders or a selection of files

To make multiple uploads even easier, you can select complete folders or a selection of files.

select files and directories to upload via drag & drop

Just drag your files or folders on the fluxUp! into fluxup! and it uploads it for you.

Mac users: You can also put fluxUp! into your dock and just drop files on the dock icon.

multiple uploads

You are not limited to upload only one file at a time. With fluxUp! you can upload multiple files at once.

more reliable uploads

fluxUp! can handle big files better than browsers and it doesn’t mind if the internet connection is interrupted for a short time.

upload in the background

With fluxUp! you don’t need an open browser window. It does its job in the background.

branding

The newest version of fluxUp! (Download here — available for Mac+PC) also supports branding. This means if you’ve activated branding in your fluxiom account, fluxUp! will sport the same branded application header as the online application.

About tagging

2007-05-02T11:14:00Z

A tag is simply a word you use to describe an asset. Tagging is a lot easier and more flexible than fitting your information into preconceived folders—the key is to tag sparingly and with focus, using words that are highly descriptive.

How to organize your set of tags

Simply put, the tags are like categories. You can use tags to categorize your assets with one or multiple tags. (How to create tags).

The tags are available for all users in your fluxiom account right below the search and zoom toolbar at the top of the asset browser. You can mostly deduce your individual set of tags from the profession you and your team is working in. To give you an idea here are some tag sets form other customers:

Design agency

Personal use

Tags show up on the top-bar in the asset browser and are used to navigate/filter the content so you can find things fast just by turning on/off certain tags. For example, if you click on the core tag “Images” from the topbar only assets with the tag “Images” will appear in the thumbnail view. If you click on “Today” you will only get assets that have both tags: “Images” and “Today”. With the tag bar it’s that easy to browse and find assets.

Tip: Use tags sparingly! You can still add “freeform” tags to every asset e.g. in the description field to help fluxiom shoot straighter when searching for assets.

tips, workarounds

rate assets in fluxiom: just create the following tags: *, **, ***, ****, *****

If you like to share a tip or your tag set please send it to support at fluxiom dot com. Thanks for sharing!

Easily share your assets

2007-05-02T07:52:00Z

Deliver your assets right to your clients or partners, without worrying about file sizes or full email boxes ever again!

Just select the assets you want to share.

A click on the “Share” button reveals the “Share” panel: Enter the recipients email address, a subject and an optional message.

There are three different methods you can use to share your assets:

Send link: This means the recipient will get an email in which he finds a link and a password to download the shared assets.
Send attachments: The recipient will get an email with the shared files attached. Warning: Because of certain inbox size limits some recipients may not be able to receive emails containing large files.
Use my email client: Your default email client will open a new email message, containing the magic phrase and the download link. This comes in handy if you want to use the address book of your local email client, plus you can easily share the files with more than one recipient.

Choose one of these three methods and then click the “Send” button. Done.

The recipient will get an email with the shared assets attached or a link (depending on the method you’ve chosen) and the magic phrase. The link will lead the recipient to a download page like this:

After entering the magic phrase, downloading will start immediately. Note that there’s only one file to download, as fluxiom will automatically provide a ZIP archive of the shared files. This shortens download times and is more convenient for the recipient.

Style your descriptions

2007-04-25T14:52:00Z

Give your Asset descriptions a better look and highlight important things like keywords or add links. Remember that fluxiom also searches through descriptions so they will not only look better you will also find assets much easier.

fluxiom gives you the ability to format descriptions with Textile a lightweight markup language. You can use textile to format Asset and Stage descriptions.

Basic text formatting

*this text is bold* gets this text is bold

_this text is in italics_ gets this text is in italics

create headlines

h3. This is a headline

will be displayed as

This is a headline

The number is the importance level. E.g h1. is more important then h2. and and will be displayed with a larger font.

create an unordered list

* Item in a bulleted list
* Another item in a bulleted list

will be displayed:

Item in a bulleted list
Another item in a bulleted list

create an ordered list

# Item in a numbered list
# Another item in a numbered list

will be displayed:

Item in a numbered list
Another item in a numbered list

To insert a link

"fluxiom":http://www.fluxiom.com

will create a hyperlink and is displayed:

fluxiom

Enough theory ;) – here’s an an example:

Here is a beautifully styled description…
... and it will be displayed like this in the details panel:

In addition, good descriptions allow you find your assets more easily:

More options

For more detailed documentation on what you can do with Textile take a look at textism.com.

Maintenance: Wednesday, May 2

2007-04-24T15:52:00Z

fluxiom will be offline on Wednesday, May 2. Maintenance will take place beginning at 10am CEST, and should take no more than 3 hours.

This is step one of a two-step process that provides two major updates and a bunch of minor tweaks to improve the whole fluxiom experience. In a second step (to be announced) we’ll add another high-performance server to improve the infrastructure for our growing group of users.

In addition to the new features the new hardware will speed things up. So stay tuned for the upcoming features and thanks for your patience.

Update done