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Updated Feature - Slideshows

ctstone
PBase Admin
PBase Admin
 
Posts: 166

Updated Feature - Slideshows

Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 11:20 pm


Thanks for all of the feedback on version 1.0 of our new slideshow. We are now happy to present a more refined attempt.

We were able to add most of the functionality that was requested including delay controls and image resizing (large images will now shrink to the size of your current window). We also fixed a few bugs and made some minor adjustments to accomodate slower connections.

You can now use your keyboard to more fully control the show. Left and right arrow keys will jump to the previous and next images. Up and down arrow keys will adjust the delay timing, and spacebar will play and pause the show.

Everything has been rather thoroughly tested in IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari, but if you find a recurring bug please post here or send me a private message indicating which specific gallery has the problem and your current browser name and version.

I did change and add some stylesheet IDs which I'll document here for our brave CSS hackers. I also changed the order that stylesheets are included so that custom styles will override default slideshow styles. Feel free to "display: none" any feature that you find unnecessary.
  • #slideshow_container: contains the entire show
  • #slideshow_info: contains title and counter
  • #slideshow_title: the title and link to full image page
  • #slideshow_counter: full counter
  • #slideshow_index: current image number
  • #slideshow_overlay: play/pause messages
  • #slideshow_image: all images show up here
  • #slideshow_controls: contains the delay controller
  • #1000, #3000, #5000, and #10000: the numbers
  • #slideshow_status: contains play/pause text
  • #slideshow_help: the question mark toggle switch
  • #slideshow_helpbox: the key command box

menno
 
Posts: 229


Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 11:52 pm


Thanks a LOT!! Awesome efforts, very much appreciated!!

Take care! -Menno

dennismullen
 
Posts: 9


Post Fri Jun 30, 2006 3:32 am


Please allow the slideshow at the original size. This is what we want to look at, not the reduced size images.

yawli
 
Posts: 3


Post Fri Jun 30, 2006 4:56 am


That's wonderful and marvelous for your work!
Thanks a lot!!

sheila
 
Posts: 1303


Post Sat Jul 01, 2006 6:44 am


dennismullen wrote:Please allow the slideshow at the original size. This is what we want to look at, not the reduced size images.


You have to bear in mind, Dennis, that there are some viewers who are still on dial up and I don't think that slideshows would work for them. Looking at your site (nice work), your images are large enough to allow some dishonest folk to nick them!

Cheers
Sheila
Sheila Smart
Canon 5D Mark III; 17-40L; 24-70 f/2.8L; 70-300 f.4-5.6 L USM; 135 f/2L; 100 f/2.8 macro; 8-15 f/4 L fisheye

Blog: http://sheilasmartphotography.blogspot.com/

dennismullen
 
Posts: 9


Post Sat Jul 01, 2006 2:57 pm


sheila wrote:You have to bear in mind, Dennis, that there are some viewers who are still on dial up and I don't think that slideshows would work for them.


That's no reason to not make it available. Their delay time would just be longer. It has nothing to do with the ability of people to steal pictures. I would be proud if someone wanted to steal one of my humble efforts.

thanks,

Dennis

contal
 
Posts: 1

SLIDESHOW:Image Caption

Post Sat Jul 01, 2006 4:40 pm


I am very happy with the new slideshow feature, excellent stuff !

Is there any way by which the captions for each image could appear during the slideshow ?

Thanx, Martin

reflectionsbyruth
 
Posts: 449


Post Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:50 pm


Dennis,
What Sheila also means is your images are too large to view on the screen without scrolling. When images are that big it doesnt work with any slideshow options no matter what website you view them with to be able to see the full image on your screen without having to scroll over each time.
The purpose of slide show is to set it and not touch the keyboard and just watch.
If you have to scroll over to see left to right or up and down to see the whole image, then there is no purpose to use slideshow.
:)

dennismullen
 
Posts: 9


Post Sun Jul 02, 2006 12:42 am


reflectionsbyruth wrote:What Sheila also means is your images are too large to view on the screen without scrolling.


Not everyone has a small monitor. Many people have 19" monitors with over 1400 pixel resolution. Give people choices and let them pick the size they want to run the slideshow at.

pinemikey
 
Posts: 3065
Location: Cypress, Texas


Post Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:11 am


dennismullen wrote:
reflectionsbyruth wrote:What Sheila also means is your images are too large to view on the screen without scrolling.


Not everyone has a small monitor. Many people have 19" monitors with over 1400 pixel resolution. Give people choices and let them pick the size they want to run the slideshow at.


Actually Dennis, while all your images are 16:9 and horizontal only, not everyone else's are. With this type of slideshow script unfortunately, you have to scale the image down to fit at least the most common resolution...which is 1024x768. The slideshow as it was used the "large" size, which is 800x600...which for your horizontals would have been fine..but with verticals 800 vertical doesn't fit on a 768px vertical resolution screen. So the image is scaled an additional little bit to fit, hence the picture quality suffers....and with the script horizontal images are presented in the same way as the vertical. I believe the scaling is universal for both.

This is an inherent problem with online slideshows...maximizing quality of the image within the available space.

My and other's vertical images now fit, but like you, I'm a little disappointed with the image degradation as it is compressed. Maybe there is a way to separate how vertical and horizontal images are displayed in order for your images not to be overly compressed. Unfortunately these new HD style screen dimensions are great for wide screen images but are not so good for verticals. My laptop is like this..it is great for panoramas...my new Panasonic Lumix TZ1 has a 16:9 format that is ideally suited for it. Unfortunately the verticals have to be scrolled up and down or changed to medium to completely view...and I really dislike medium. For Pbase it would be a programming nightmare to add all sorts of features to the slideshow to allow no compression here and vertical compression there. That is why Ctstone allowed us the ability to sort of fool around with the CSS to change the display a little. It doesn't help you, though, if you wish not to tinker around with the CSS like a few of us like to do.

If you look at my slideshow on Flickr you can see they employ Macromedia Flash 8 to display the slides...while the images are small...again a forced decison to accomodate people with 800x600 screen resolutions...the images are much clearer with no noticeable distorted compression the javascript scaling does.

dang
 
Posts: 3780


Post Sun Jul 02, 2006 5:25 pm


First (in case I haven't already) many thanks for this, it's great because I enjoy viewing entire galleries instead of just a shot or two. One thing I'd like to see (if easily possible) would be a link to comment/vote on photos, while in pause mode. Unless I've missed something (which wouldn't be unusal!) I have to go out of the slide show to do this now. But I guess too many links would add clutter, just wondered how everyone else felt?
Thanks again, it's an excellent feature and is working great imho.

ctstone
PBase Admin
PBase Admin
 
Posts: 166


Post Sun Jul 02, 2006 9:24 pm


dang wrote:One thing I'd like to see (if easily possible) would be a link to comment/vote on photos, while in pause mode. Unless I've missed something (which wouldn't be unusal!) I have to go out of the slide show to do this now.


It's not very obvious, but the title of the image is actually a link to its "normal" display where you can leave comments, vote, view it larger, etc. However, opening this link might reset the slideshow, so be sure to open it in a new tab or window.

Also, a word on the scaling/resizing that goes on in the slideshow. The slideshow uses the largest possible image size on the server, except for your original upload. At this time we are not using the original upload b/c in most cases, this size is entirely too big. We do realize that some users optimize and resize their images before uploading, and that the qualitiy of these images is usually superior. Someday we hope to have an option to accomodate these optimized originals, but for now we are going to be using the large size.

As for accomodating browser window size, the slideshow script takes into account both the width and height of the window it is running in. The image is then resized accordingly to prevent the viewer from having to scroll around to see the full image (resize your window while the show is running to see it in action). This process can affect image quality because the resizing is handled by the browser, and most browsers do not have very efficient resizing methods. However, I think this is an acceptable compromise, and I have yet to see any drastic qualtiy concerns.

dennismullen
 
Posts: 9


Post Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:34 pm


ctstone wrote:This process can affect image quality because the resizing is handled by the browser, and most browsers do not have very efficient resizing methods.


This slideshow feature has been way over thought. Resizing is distortion. the slideshow should just be an automatic click of the next button. If you can do it manually, the slideshow should do it too. If the picture is too big to fit on the screen manually it should look the same as a slide show. The original pictures are the most important ones.

Also the quallity of the large jpgs is not of the best quallity and it should be.

bobt54
 
Posts: 1090


Post Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:07 am


I actually have to agree with Dennis on this. I am thankful for this long over due feature, but I am trying to get away from having my gallery viewed in the large size (800x600) which is just too small.

1024 x 768 was the optimal setting for a 17" CRT and a 15" flat panel monitor. How many of those are being sold today? If you using are 1024 x 768 with a 17" or higher flat panel you are probably getting a headache. Most people, mistakenly, adjust the resolution of their flat panels to 1024 x 768 because the text and icons are what they were used to on their old 17" CRTs. Instead adjust the size of the icons and text. An 800 x 600 image on a well adjusted 19" flat panel is a dot.

I would like to see the slide show initiated at the picture level instead of the gallery level. Then, whatever size you were viewing pictures manually you would also view in a slide show. You would also be able to start at something other than the beginning of the gallery. Choice is a good thing.


PS Dennis, nice job on your galleries, they fit nice and snug on my 19" CRT and look wonderful. I then viewed them "crushed" to Large and they suffered greatly.

menno
 
Posts: 229


Post Tue Jul 04, 2006 8:18 am


I have to agree about the resize thing... indeed, as Dennis says, the original pictures are the most important. If people do not care about a way too large presentation, so be it. But let the ones who optimize their images to fit in most windows have the best luck because in my opinion they're also the ones who probably care about what they show to the world, their photographic skills, etc.
Many times when I see original (way too big for any screen in the world to fit in) file sizes on PBase I notice that pretty often the photos also lack quality, sometimes not even 'good enough' for a great fading slideshow as this one. Maybe that's a blunt thing to say but that's what I think. People who do make pictures fit in the screen and optimize them (I am one who tries that as well:-)) should have the 'priority' in this case, I think.

So; Original filesizes as main setting for the slideshow. And if the original appears to be way too big to fit in the screen, the PBaser's should probably just resize them if they care. It's what I do all the time because I do care.
So basically it means that people who lack too much attention for their work (and how to present it) are served here and not the ones who do care and edit a lot to add their great work to this PBase community.

Take care!

-Menno

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