Almost 5 years ago, I was doing a lot of Flash development work and taking pictures on the side, and I wanted to write a little flash app that would let me stick a bunch of images in a folder and have a nice little gui for people to view them on my site.  A couple nights of work and what became Photofolio was born.

Once I got to version 2 and added thumbnail support, I posted a version on my site and let people download it for their own use. I figured that if I found it useful, maybe other people would as well. In fact, for a while I used photofolio as the basis for my online portfolio. That is until so many other people did so that I had to start custom coding new looks to differentiate myself.  <grin>

Well it took on a life of it’s own and as of today I was up to version 6 with all kinds of neat doodads and customization and such.  However, I haven’t had the time to add the features that people have been asking for, and I wanted to keep the source code under wraps with the fantasy of turning it into a real product one day, not just donation-ware. So I’ve decided that starting today, anyone who has paid for photofolio in the past, or donates in the future, can also download the source code to customize as the see fit.

This is pretty sad for me because I started Photofolio when my father was still alive and remember working on it up in CT for the months that we sat around while he was sick.  It’s also sad to see the end of something, though you could also look at it as the beginning of something new.

Here’s what I posted on the photofolio.us site:

OK, big news here. Since
I don’t have the time maintain PhotoFolio the way I’d like, and since
all of my users are such supportive people, and since life is short:
I’ve decided to release the source code .fla files for the latest
version of PhotoFolio to all of those people who have, or will in the
future, donate to the cause. So if you’ve bought a Photofolio license
in the past, you can log in using the download information I emailed to
you, and grab the zip file.

Since
the reason I’m doing this is because I have no time, I won’t be able to
support the source code at all, but I think my work is fairly clean so
Flash geek among you should find is useful. Also, any further money
that I receive from PhotoFolio donations will be send to the wonderful
AndreaB, who has run the PhotoFolio support forums out of the goodness
of her heart. So please continue donating.

This
is a bit of a melancholy decision for me, certainly marking the end of
a small era in my life. Please do good stuff with it, and thank you for
your support all these years.

-Bill Wadman