SkyDrive: new Timeline view and improved photo upload performance
Microsoft just announced that it is rolling out a SkyDrive update at the moment that is updating the all photos section on the SkyDrive website. Previously, all photos that you uploaded to the service were more or less lumped together on the all photos page making it quite difficult to find specific photos stored at the file hosting service.
The update changes the view mode on the all photos page to a new timeline view that is automatically sorting photos based on the date and time they have been taken. The company notes that photos are sorted into groups by event and time in the new view so that same-day photos of different events are now automatically sorted into different groups.
Take 20 pictures at a birthday party with your phone, and then a photo of your parking spot at the airport a few hours later? Now they'll appear as two different groups in the timeline.
As you can see on the screenshot above, photos are now sorted by date and time on the All Photos page on SkyDrive. One interesting option made available here is the year and month view that you can use to quickly jump to a specific month and year to browse all photos taken in it.
The feature looks similar to what Dropbox is offering on its website. Dropbox is sorting photo uploads by month on the site, while Microsoft narrows the sorting down to month, day and time instead. And the photo viewer on Google Plus? Also not that different.
So, Microsoft is closing the gap and maybe improving it a little bit in regards to the recent update.
Photos can now also be viewed as a slideshow or in a filmstrip mode where one image is displayed on the screen and others as thumbnails at the bottom of that page. Here you also find information about the photo listed on the right side of the page.
Changes are also being made to PowerPoint and Word documents that you have uploaded to SkyDrive. They are now shown in a new layout and with thumbnails as well on the website.
SkyDrive desktop users benefit from faster photo upload speeds from desktop applications. Microsoft states that improvements made to the client and server code have resulted in upload speed improvements of two to three times.
Tips:
- To run a slideshow select a photo in a folder or by date by clicking on it. You are taken to the photo viewer. Here you can select Play Slide Show from the menu at the top. Slideshows are displayed in fill screen mode.
- Windows phone users can upload full-resolution photos to SkyDrive which is a complete backup option of sorts.
Can’t understand why they don’t allow you to sort photos in individual albums by date taken.
Cuil. Now they need to get working on the ability to upload from the sky drive app on my Android tablet directly to any album of my choosing on FB. ;-)