Overview

Portfolio offers a wide range of support and customizability to allow it to be used for a variety of purposes. To this end and to keep it as straightforward as possible, Portfolio splits its interface into two main sections: viewing and configuration. The configuration section is divided by area (e.g., Content, Appearance, Backup, etc). Once you have a general idea of which area is responsible for which aspect of the app it becomes much easier to quickly tweak a color, add an image, hide a gallery, or present to a client.

The Front Screen

The front screen functions as the launch pad for the rest of the app, providing the navigational functions for your galleries and for accessing the management areas. The configure button at the top right corner provides access to the rest of the app.

This is the screen that is displayed first after launch. It will display all of the galleries and folders you’ve chosen to display in the gallery manager.

Tapping on the configure button will open up the configuration area allowing you to select the area you'd like to edit or to lock the app.

Configuration

All configuration is handled from the various sub-sections of the configuration screen: adding, removing, and editing of the gallery hierarchy under Manage Galleries, the front theme and overall appearance under Customize Appearance, and backup up or restoring of the library under Backup/Restore.

Appearance customization is handled completely in the appearance customization panel and includes the splash screen, external screen placeholder, and viewer appearance. If it’s part of the appearance of the app (other than your content) then it’s in this panel.

Configuration - Content

The gallery management panel is responsible for all content loading and editing, which includes both the gallery/folder structure and the media to be shown. In this panel you can create the gallery and folder hierarchy, selectively hide or show them, configure per-gallery settings such as the slideshow soundtrack and metadata overlays, and add or edit gallery content.

The content you load into Portfolio can be spread across a gallery and folder hierarchy you create. Folders and galleries in Portfolio function similarly to their counterparts on a computer: folders and files. Folders contain other folders and galleries while galleries contain the content. If you view it, it’s contained within a gallery while folders are there to let you divide up your galleries into different groupings. Folders are only for organizational purposes.

See also:

Configuration - Appearance

You can customize the splash screen, external screen placeholder (shown when not in the viewer), various colors, and the title at the front.

Configuration - Backup/Restore

To help with deploying across multiple iPhones and iPads and to allow multiple sets of content Portfolio provides the ability to export and import the library.

A more detailed overview of backing up and restoring the library is available.

The Viewer

The viewer is responsible for actually displaying your content and any interaction with it. Viewing images, playing videos, and browsing PDFs are all done within the viewer. Tapping any gallery from the front launches the viewer with that gallery set as the content source. Where possible, the behaviors of the viewer from swiping left or right to switch items to pinching to zoom have been based on the native Photos app.

Using the viewer is also covered in more detail in Basic Viewing.