Updates

  • February 2, 2012

    Facebook Like Gate

    We are happy to announce 4ormat Promote Tools. Whether it is growing your audience, helping you track your influence, or growing your overall business, we hope that you use these 4ormat Promote tools to their full advantage.

    Tab & Like Gate
    Increase your Facebook Page Like count and showcase your work by integrating an attractive and easy-to-install, branded splash page. This Welcome Facebook Like Gate will be shown only to your new Facebook visitors. Facebook visitors that already like your page will be shown your default Facebook tab. View Like Gate Feature

    ECR Articles:

    It has been said that there will never be another Da Vinci; we've pushed the limits of human knowledge to such an extent that most new discoveries are made in highly specific areas of highly specific fields. True as this may be, we have also learned to limit ourselves by thinking it is better to be a master of one profession than a tinkerer in many.

    Read : Multidisciplinary You

    Terry Ratzlaff is a photographer whose ethos dictates he be a part of the moment to best capture it. In his words: "a good image is a good image no matter the camera. Don't get caught up in the technological hype, instead get caught up in the moment."

    ECR Interviews: Terry Ratzlaff

    Matt Terry investigates the nature of constructive criticism in this piece for ECR. Within, he provides insight on both giving and taking criticism as well as detailing the importance of critique in the creative process.

    Read : Deconstructing Constructive Criticism

    Themes & Social Integration: We are working on some new and interesting themes that we'll be releasing very soon. We are also planning to add sharing tools to your 4ormat website.

    Thank you for using 4ormat!

  • December 15, 2011

    Happy Holidays

    We've released our latest theme - Scandinavia.

    With a clean, minimal design, our latest theme holds true to its namesake. Scandinavia is a vertically-scrolling theme which introduces the ability to define border widths around elements of your 4ormat website.

    Login to 4ormat to view Scandinavia

    In our latest ECR Interview, we spoke with Pierre Dal Corso. This widely renowned Parisian fashion photographer shares his thoughts on post-production; including his disdain for over-processed images, the increasingly commercial nature of photography, and portraying models as powerful figures.

    Read ECR Interview with Pierre Dal Corso

    We had a chance to catch up with with 4ormat user Cristina Viscu. Born in the U.S.S.R. and having moved to the U.S. in 2006 at the age of 15, Cristina is a fashion photographer with a distinctive style which showcases her love for overexposed lighting. She gives ECR her insights on the nature of working in the fashion industry, the challenges of imparting a portrait with emotion, and quotes Richard Bach for inspiration.

    Read ECR Interview with Cristina Viscu

    We also published an article on the Correct Use of Social Media for Freelancers, by Matthew Terry. This article provides a fresh perspective on the different approaches creative freelancers need to take when thinking about social media, though many of the tips are useful for any discipline.

    Read "Correct Use of Social Media for Freelancers"

    We are proud to have introduced a range of new features to 4ormat in 2011, including our new Themes system. We look forward to bringing you even more exciting updates in 2012.

    From everyone here at 4ormat, we hope you have a great holiday season, and wish you all the best in the new year!

  • November 22, 2011

    Private Pages And More

    As part of our commitment to improving 4ormat based on community feedback, we have implemented one of our most popularly requested features: Private Pages. Any page on 4ormat can now be password-protected. Using this in combination with a Page's visibility setting, you can now create completely hidden, password-protected pages for your clients.

    To apply privacy settings, just click on the Page Permissions button for the Page you wish to be password protected and set a password in the provided field. Private Pages are compatible with mobile devices and the iPad, meaning that your clients can view your galleries on the go.

    We've released our latest theme - Horizon.

    This theme displays your work in a horizontal layout centered vertically across all monitor sizes. This new theme provides options for spacing between images as well as social icon support. We have also included the option to select between three different image sizes, with smooth loading incorporated for the best possible experience for your visitors. If you are using the "Original Top" theme with a horizontal layout, we recommend you convert your site to this new theme.

    In an effort to assist our users with any issues they might have with their 4ormat site, we have launched our Knowledge Base, which contains articles on specific topics aimed to answer your questions and guide you through the process of creating and managing your site. We will continue to add articles to this collection as our aim is to make 4ormat as easy to use as possible.

    Many of these articles also have corresponding video tutorials, offering you a comprehensive resource for getting the most out of 4ormat.

    Explore Create Repeat, 4ormat's online magazine, has started publishing a new series of interviews with photographers. These interviews provide insight into the creative process as well as details like equipment and studio techniques.

    ECR Interviews: Greta Rybus
    ECR Interviews: Benjamin Kwan

  • October 11, 2011

    Announcing Dynamic Themes

    We are incredibly excited to announce that Dynamic Themes is now available to every 4ormat user. This update comes packed with new and exciting features!

    We are happy to announce the introduction of Dynamic Themes to 4ormat. The Dynamic Themes update features a completely remodelled Design Interface which allows you to preview and customize all themes in real time. Each theme comes with its own set of customizations and pre-packaged skins. For our Pro Users, we've also provided full access to your 4ormat site's HTML and CSS; now you can fine-tune every last pixel.

    All users will now be able to use Dynamic Themes. To access the new features all you have to do is login to your 4ormat dashboard.

    Dynamic Themes introduces a new page type: Simple Pages. We have designed Simple Pages to let you quickly build text-based, informational pages like resumes or "About Me" sections. Simple pages include a one or two-column layout which can be resized and its elements re-ordered. All of the standard image, video and text elements are supported. Best of all, Simple Pages look great in every theme.

    We have completely redesigned the mobile experience of your website. The new mobile design has the look and feel of an App and presents your photos in a full screen format allowing the viewer to fully immerse themselves in your work. It also works great on all modern devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and both Blackberry & Android phones and tablets. Make sure to check out the Design Panel to configure the look of your new mobile website.

    We have also added an Advanced Design section to our Support Forum for all your CSS and HTML questions. Here you will be able to post questions for other users to answer as well as find help on customizing your website. Advanced Design Forum

    We want to thank all of your users who signed up for the Themes Beta and took the time to send us their feedback. There was lots of thoughtful feedback and we are very thankful to have such amazing users. We have decided to award a FREE YEAR of our Pro Plan to Raphael Gunther who sent us tons of great feedback. Congratulations Raphael!

    The release of Dynamic Themes represents a total overhaul of the underlying framework of 4ormat. For us, that means the power to introduce even more new features requested by our users like private pages, a comprehensive knowledge base, and many more to come. We also plan to release new Dynamic Themes on an ongoing basis giving you an ever-widening range of options for your portfolio.

  • May 24, 2011

    New Themes System Coming Soon

    It has been an exciting few months. We are very happy to share the latest 4ormat news with you.

    Dynamic Themes - Arriving 2011

    For the past few months we have been working on a new design system. We believe this new system will revolutionize 4ormat and the way you design your portfolio website.

    The new themes system will allow you to customize and preview the design of your entire website using a brand new easy to use design interface. 4ormat themes will also allow the advanced user to modify the HTML and CSS of a website, providing complete freedom to modify every detail of its design.

    The themes system will be ready in about a month. To receive early access to the themes system please join our themes beta program.


    Explore Create Repeat - Online Magazine

    As many of you know, we are very passionate about creating the best possible portfolio platform. We are also exploring other ways we can help and give back to the creative community.

    We are happy to announce the launch of "Explore Create Repeat", an online magazine published by 4ormat providing insight and inspiration to the creative community. ECR will be updated on a weekly basis and we hope you'll visit often.

    Explore Create Repeat : http://4ormat.com/ecr


    PayPal Support is here

    Now you can pay for your 4ormat website subscription with PayPal. We added this option after a few of our users from the UK experienced problems with using their credit cards on 4ormat.



    New Website Spotlight

    We've updated the 4ormat Spotlight page. Curating hundreds of websites proved a lot more difficult than we originally anticipated. We are very excited to showcase some amazing work from 4ormat users. Our list for the next Spotlight update is already growing into the hundreds. Visit our Spotlight page: http://4ormat.com/spotlight


    Featuring: Pierre Dal Corso

    We are very proud to host Pierre's work on our 4ormat platform. We have featured the website of Pierre Dal Corso on our 4ormat homepage and we think its a great representation of what 4ormat can do.

    Pierre Dal Corso photography: http://www.pierredalcorso.com/


    New Features by Popular Demand

    Several highly requested features have been added to make 4ormat even easier to use.

    We've added two new options to the Settings panel. First, you now have the option to add image protection to your website which prevents visitors from right-clicking to save your images. Second, for users who regularly update pages with large sets of assets, you can now choose if you want to add the elements to the end of your page or to the beginning.

    We also just added support for adding pages outside of categories. For those using the top menu layout you will now find it easier add menu links alongside your dropdown navigation.

  • February 22, 2011

    A Great Start To A Great Year

    We are happy to start the year off with some fantastic new features. Keep an eye on 4ormat in 2011, we plan on sharing some exciting news this year.

    Custom Paths

    Now when you create a page your web address (URL) will be kept as clean as possible. If you create a page titled "About" the page path will be "http://example.com/about". These new custom paths are not only clean looking but they will improve your SEO or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

    We suggest all users login to their 4ormat website and modify their old numbered paths to a new clean name. You can do this inside each page under the "Page Options" control.


    Asset Manager

    We added an asset manager to the 4ormat Advanced CSS section. This new feature will allow you to upload extra images and PDF files which you can link to from your pages or website CSS.

    For those users looking to use background images on their websites, now you can host the extra files directly on your 4ormat site. You can also upload your PDF resume and link to it from your pages.


    Better Support

    We enjoy providing help to our users, and for this reason we decided to build a better and faster support system. Now we can answer questions with clarity as well as archive solved questions that may help future 4ormat users. If you need support, please post a message on our New Support System


    New Team Members and About section
    We are excited to welcome Dave Carney and Mike Ferrier to the 4ormat team. Not only are they close friends but we think they're some of the best developers in town. If you think 4ormat is great now, wait until you see what we can do with the help of Mike and Dave.

    Take a peek behind the scenes of 4ormat in our new About section.


    Coming soon - Full PayPal support

    Over the past couple of months our European users have experienced issues with the credit card payment method. For this reason we have built a monthly PayPal subscription feature that we will be launching very soon.

  • December 8, 2010

    More Features For Everyone

    You can now upload a custom favicon in the Settings section.

    Favicons are square in nature, if you would like your Favicon to have a unique shape please upload a transparent PNG. Our uploader will create a transparent favicon based on your PNG transparencies.

    Taller Horizontal Images

    By popular demand we are happy to announce the support for 550px images on horizontal layouts.

    Nicholas Creevy - using new taller horizontal images

    You can switch to using taller images with a few clicks by going into your Page and clicking Page Layout and selecting 550px from the pulldown in your Horizontal Layout.

    New Advanced CSS Editor
    We have updated our Advanced CSS editor. For those of you that use this advanced feature, you will appreciate the automated color coding as well as smart indentation provided with this editor.

  • November 23, 2010

    New 4ormat Website, iPad Support, Top Menu grids and Menu styles

    Accounts:
    We've decided to eliminate the Free 4ormat account for new users. Instead, we now offer a 30-day free trial Basic account. This allows everyone to test 4ormat for 30 days at its full potential. If you are currently on a Free plan your account stays untouched.

    iPad support is here! Similar to mobile, your website is automatically formatted for the iPad interface. Visit your 4ormat website on the iPad and view your work using swipe gestures.



    Top Menu Grids
    After many weeks of hard work we have released the top menu grid options. Now you can place all your navigation options along the top of your website.


    Menu Styles
    We added new customization options to the "Menu Design" interface. This allows you to customize the look and behaviour of your website navigation.

  • November 18, 2010

    Introducing "Promo Codes"

    We decided to create a new rewards system. Now everyone can earn Unlimited Free Months.

    Each 4ormat user has a unique promo code. We keep track of every user that signs up to 4ormat with your Promo Code. For every user that continues to use 4ormat past their 30 day trial you will receive 1 Free month.

    We made sharing your promo code easy :
    Click here to for your Promo Code & Share Links


    Payment History
    We improved the Payment Information. Now you can see your entire Payment History. We also simplified all our payment language, you should now clearly see how many free months you have.

    Menu Links
    All menu links now open in a new window/tab. Meaning if you linked to your Blog from within your menu your blog will now open in a new window.

    Forums Improved
    We improved the design of the forums as well as brought back the search feature. This will allow you to find posts much faster.

  • September 8, 2010

    Listing Pages & Menu Links

    We are happy to announce two new features which have been requested by a majority of our users. After weeks of development, Listing Pages and Menu Links have arrived.

    When you add a new page to your 4ormat site you will notice a pulldown allowing you to create a "Page" an "Listing Page" or a "Link".

    Listing Pages contain image thumbnails that are linked to other 4ormat pages or external links. Only one layout is available for this type of page with more layout options coming soon. The current listing page layout uses thumbnails sized 200px x 135px. You can upload any size image and 4ormat will resize and crop the image to size automatically.


    The Links feature allows the placement of links within your menu. Now you can link to your email, blog or twitter account directly form your website navigation.

  • July 6, 2010

    Website Keywords (Meta Tags)

    One of our users noticed that their 4ormat site was turning up in search engine results without a useful description. We agreed, and within 12 hours of posting on the Forums , we rolled out some modified HTML to improve search results and added a new feature to your Settings Panel. Now you can can define a description and keywords for your site. This will greatly improve search results of your website in search engines such as Google.

  • July 3, 2010

    Mobile Layouts Improved

    We fixed minor issues we were experiencing with Android Mobile phone layouts. Now your website should work on most modern mobile phones. We're also working to create more advanced templates for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad.

  • May 22, 2010

    New Video - 4ormat Website in 3 Minutes

    We created a video showcasing the power of 4ormat. It's a quick look at how fast and easy it is to setup a site on 4ormat.com. We hope you can share it with your friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUl6P96wmI

  • April 13, 2010

    Multi-Image Uploader

    Now you can upload multiple images at once to your pages with a just a few clicks of the mouse. While running tests we were able to upload 60 high resolution image per minute to our own 4ormat sites. This means any 4ormat user can now upload images to their website at blazing fast speeds.

  • April 6, 2010

    Spotlight Section

    We launched our Spotlight section featuring websites that have been created within the first week of 4ormat being live.

  • March 31, 2010

    Quick Website Setup

    We created a simple site setup wizard which allows new users to quickly create their website with just a few clicks. This new feature helps all new users start their 4ormat website even faster.

  • March 22, 2010

    4ormat is Live!

    The date that changed everything. After a full year of development we finally go live with our 4ormat Beta release.