IMAGES is a free tool that allows you to share and mark-up graphic designs, Web pages, pictures, and photos.  Invite team members, managers, clients, and consultants to view images, draw notes, and make comments.

Graphic design is an important part of our work making software and Web sites. The Images tool is the start of a commitment from Assembla to support designers.  We find that developers are also using it to present diagrams and documentation.

Why use Images?

• It looks good.  Our flash-based image viewer presents your creation in a full-screen mode, with no distractions and no compression, and turns your mouse into a joystick for scrolling and zooming.
• It's easy.  Drag and drop the thumbnail image of any uploaded file into the Image Gallery.
• It's collaborative.  Team members can draw on the images and make comments.  The Assembla alert system notifies you and keeps the conversation going.

If you’re a designer – a UI designer, a graphics designer, a textile designer – you know the earlier you collaborate with your management, your customer, your software developers, the faster you’ll get your designs completed. The more complex your design, the more time and cost you’ll put into it. Getting fast feedback can make the difference between being right and being rich

How to get it?

 

You can add an Images tool to an existing space from the Admin/Tools tab in the space.   You can add it to a new space by selecting the Graphic Designers tool bundle.

Click here for a tour of the Images tool with more information and sample screens.

About the Implementation

When we started building this feature, we looked at some competing applications.  We saw a flash image viewer that we liked.  We didn't like the cramped feeling that the other apps gave us when running the whole application inside a flash window, or the complex controls.  We saw that our integrated tool should have a better email alert system to keep the conversation moving.  So, the Assembla Images tool builds on our existing flow messages, alerts, and team permissions.  However, the secret sauce is a Flex and Flash application for viewing images and drawing notes on them.  It has a nice feel and a great full-screen mode.  Our open source development environment now includes the flex code, along with instructions for compiling it using the free Flex 2 SDK.  We like the result, and we hope to do more with Flex.

Images need a a visual interface, not a text interface, so we show image thumbnails for navigation, and use javascript drag and drop to place them and sort them in the image gallery.

Please post comments with your suggestions.  Thanks for looking.