Shimon Rura and I have developed a JavaScript (Ajax)-based slide show program. You can test it out at http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/exhibits/slide-shows and the comments in the code explain how to adapt it for use on another site. Unlike some other programs that we have seen, this one downloads all of the images in the background so that changing from slide to slide is instantaneous for the user, with no time spent looking at an “image loading” screen. The thumbnail feature seems kind of nice too. That is done with browser-resized images. We’re looking for design experts who want to write skins for this system. Basically we need some styles and buttons (the ones you see were done in GIMP in a few minutes by Shimon and don’t work very well with MSIE). Credit will be given. Comments would be appreciated on any aspect of the program and its interface.
10 thoughts on “JavaScript Slide Show software ready for release (and someone to give us better icons)”
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I just gave it a spin, works great. Some form of feedback when you click Slower or Faster would be nice. A speedometer perhaps, or an audiovisual feedback when you click the button. Also, the navigation leaves me feeling a little lost. How do I get back to where I came from? Interestingly, the back button pops me all the way out, which is a simple shortcut, but it’s not what I expected to happen (I expected to see the previous photo). Perhaps a graphical “leave this slideshow” button would help here.
I love the night shots of LA.
Philip,
Killer. Please send the link to smugmug.com. This blows away their viewer, in terms of speed of loading the next photo, when you click “next.” Bravo!
Very nice, thanks for sharing!
The browser resized images, well, suck; white men can’t jump and browsers can’t resize. Maybe extend the specfile to have a column for the thumbnail?
Another solution that could be interesting is another header field in the specfile, “Thumb-url:”. In my case, I have a galery with thumbnails and full views. What I would be interested in is when people go there, they can click “slideshow”, which runs your script. But for the thumbnails link, they may as well go back to my gallery. So if the header is present, use that, if not, link to your browser-resize (or specfile thumb column) thumbnails page.
Documentation such as where the images should live, how to install, etc. would be helpful.
I don’t like how the next/previous buttons move location when you it goes from a portrait vs. landscape image. These buttons should always be in the same place.
Just implemented it on my site:
http://bas.scheffers.net/snaps/
Go to any gallery and click “Slide Show” at the right hand bottom.
The specfile option is rather Philip specific, taking a partial url and adding “.3.jpg” (or 4, depending on size) at the end. Most users would be unlikely to use that scheme so I hacked it to ad nothing if there is no size given.
I needed dojo.js, which could be added to the big comment at the top of the script.
Other than those two nags, it was rather easy.
this one let’s you bookmark:
http://natbat.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/javascript-slideshow-fun/
Can you make it so clicking on the photo advances to the next?
With regards to the one that lets you bookmark (above) I have just finished playing around with it a bit more [http://code.natbat.co.uk/javascript/slideshow/index5.html], and now in addition to the back button working, it updates the document title which lets you view the images in your browsers back history (still Firefox only at the mo tho) have you considered making yours work unobtrusively with JavaScript? so that without JavaScript enabled the user can still view the images? Neat use of the image pre-loading by the way! 🙂
Great job on the slide shows and images Phil. I’ve enjoyed your pics at photo.net and I’ve been eagerly awating your aerial pictures. These sets have been worth the wait.
Nice. I like the speed.
Some constructive feedback:
The auto-change feature often doesn’t work in Mac Safari (yes, I hit “Play”).
It’s impossible to link directly to an individual image (aside from grabbing the direct link to each jpg). Some kind of permalink would be nice.
Would be nice to see a photo on the first page when you enter the show. It’s a little barren without one.
Would be nice to have some visual feedback when clicking the faster or slower buttons. How much am I making it slower or faster? You could do this either with a sliding scale, or the actual number of seconds between changes.
Good work!