We really went all out creating this brand new control panel (admin) for A Photo Folio. It’s got so many cool features (a few that no one else has), I wanted to highlight them all for you here.

First off it’s easy on the eyes. A nice clean design with tabbed categories and sub categories for easy navigation.

The color control is amazing. There’s so many different possibilities, but I tend to like shades of grey combined with a couple “POP” colors for impact (can you tell).

There’s a whole bunch of fonts for your menu and title plus a couple choices for the text. I wanted to have several styles or contemporary serif’s and san-serif’s plus a few old standards that design people love. If you want to use your own title font just upload a jpg or png as well.

Ok, this is pretty standard but I love how it looks, you can move the order of the galleries and categories by just grabbing that grid spot on the bar. Sweet.

Stats of course, where would we be in this world without visitor stats. You can load google analytics or mint to get more information about your visitors.

Now, check out these kick ass features no one else has.

Image position. You can specify where on the page the image sit. This is especially amazing for your single images. In the past you would have had to photoshop it onto a blank page to get it centered or or over on the right. Not anymore.

Big thumbs. Ever tried to do an edit with those tiny thumbs. Not fun. We made them big so you can see what you’re looking at. Yipeeeeee.

Micro template control. I really like how you can adjust your logo position on the page and specify the font size and kerning. There’s also a few other controls specific to each design that really makes the designs fully customizable.

There you have it, several reasons why I think our control panel kicks ass.

Wow this is pretty nice. I’ve been looking for something for my commercial engelfoto.com portfolio (not the portfolio linked). I love that you guys care about the design and allow control over it. And the price is fantastic for what you get. I love the ability to add stories and text. Very nice.

One thing I’m not quite sure I understand yet is if there is any control for multiple images on one page. You know, like the “other guys” offer. I know you allow us to control orientation… but can I place one photo on the left of page 1 and another photo on the right of page 1…?

Google analytics… great choice as well. I do this with my portfolios, it’s great to see where people are checking you out. Right now I’m famous in Poland!

BTW, I forgot to mention, that in my eyes, the control panels and administrative interfaces are what make or break an application for me. A product can have a beautiful design, but if I have to do too many manual steps to get work done, the work won’t get done. It’s nice that you showed some of the details of the control panel. It really gives me an idea of how useful your product is. Someone once said that products that are FUN to use will get more use. It’s totally true.

@ Jeffrey: No you can’t do what you’re talking about at the moment. I’d say that’s a couple months down the road for us. For now you have to make a spread out of two singles in photoshop and upload. when we do make the upgrade it will work for everyone who has a site.

As more templates come available over time, what options will there be if I want to move to a newer one. Reason I ask, Livebooks is just one ‘template” so to speak. You guys seem to be leaning towards having different design base templates that will be added. So is a photo folio user locked to that one folio template only or with a nominal fee be able to choose another?

I have to say you hit a home run with a photo folio. I am very interested, but the main hassle and huge frustration with all the folio website companies is that they force hosting only on their servers. I use a very reliable and trustworthy small local hosting company and really hate the idea of leaving them.

You can switch once for free and then it’s $100 each time after that.

I’m talking with my partners about a self hosted solution. It will probably cost more because of the extra setup and because we have to modify our control panel which is centrally located and not put individually on each site.

I forgot to mention the batch uploader that allows you to load 50 images at a time to your site (I’ve actually done more and suspect you can do 100 at a time).

I Did 500 images in one go with the batch uploader and it didn’t seem to be a problem - In my opinion the control panel works fantastically well.

Hi Rob. I’m just wondering how far off you are from offering the 2 single images spread feature? You mentioned above (in July) that it was a couple of months away, so is it pretty close now??

@ Dan, Sorry to say it got put on the back burner for the moment. I should put that somewhere. I don’t expect it to happen now till the first of the year. Video is my highest priority at the moment.