Flash slide show for iWeb (Apple)
While researching an easy way to create and maintain a website (family website) my wife and I had decided to use Apple's iWeb application. Built to work with all the other applications in the Apple iLife suite, iWeb is really a cool application. It even packs a good set of effects-including reflecting images (something I have tended to like a lot recently). It is easy to build something and pretty easy to maintain. It even supports blogging decently enough. As we were building it, however, it was really apparent that their default slideshow was really poorly done. It uses javascript and isn't very flattering. It definately didn't match our family website's visual design. So I took it upon myself to make a new one. I did some research and saw that no one had done a flash based one and that most were javascript based as well. When starting I realized that the way that the default slideshow was built it meant you had to use a chunk of their javascripting no matter what. The poor design of this might be the reason why its been hard to create a flash based slideshow. It was outputted from iWeb in a way that it contained something special for each folder set of slides. This means to connect it to flash you have to take those variables and insert them into the swf. So I built some scripts to connect the old javascript and load all the image variables into the flash swf on page load.
The slideshow is built in flash 8 and visually works with a black template and it uses some reflection effects I've created in flash. It loads all the images in the beginning so it can seem to stall for a second or two if you have a ton of images. I've built in options (right click the images) to view the images in a seperate window and a direct print option. I've put it here for download if someone has iWeb and wants to try this. All you need to do is replace the slideshow_assets folder and you are good to go.
For an example (click slideshow or a slide to view it):
http://www.joshuabunting.com/sample/2007%20-%20Nursery.html
Update:
I've created a white version of the slideshow as well:
http://www.joshuabunting.com/myBlog/files/white/SlideShow_assets.zip
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| SlideShow_assets.zip | 25.86 KB |
iphone (not verified):
interesting... glad to be here. wil check your blog later.
John (not verified):
Your Slideshow Assets package is a Very handsome alternative to Apple's own White page. Why didn't Apple do this!
Darran (not verified):
Hi,
Do you know how to make this work in iWeb 08?
Many Thanks
Pozycjonowanie (not verified):
White or yallow version better than dark.
Best regards from Open Source
Aukcje (not verified):
Thanks for the flash slideshow. Can I insert this on my site to download?
Flash Clock (not verified):
Thanks for the download.
Terry (not verified):
Love this flash slideshow. Thanks for the download.
Terry (not verified):
Love this flash slideshow. Thanks for the download.
Midas (not verified):
Ok So this is a great Flash but I am not so savvy on how to use it? I want to but need your help on the steps. I have iweb 08 with my new imac. can you help?
Lewis (not verified):
Thanks for the download! Good work.
Edward (not verified):
This site is fantastic. I translate some article and insert on my site.
Aukcje Opony
paloma bonder (not verified):
Hi,
Im going crazy trying to add a slideshow to a webpage Im creating on iweb. Im nearly finished with it only missing the last part of adding the slideshows.
Can you please let me know how to do it???
Thank you sooo much!
Paloma
Trance (not verified):
White version better than dark !
Trance (not verified):
White version better than dark.
Regards, Tom Jelly
Terry McDonald (not verified):
Hi Josh
Like your slideshow very much and would like to use it, but with iPhoto '08 there is no "SlideShow_assets" to replace, just a "Scripts" folder. Any chance of an update?
Kind regards.
Terry
Collin (not verified):
Josh,
Thanks for this, but I'm unsure as to how I use it. I assumed when you say "replace the assets folder" you mean drop my photos into the folder, bu t that did not work for me. Can you provide a more detailed explanation please?
Thanks,
C
Collin (not verified):
Josh,
Thanks for this, but I'm a little confused as to what you mean by "replace the SlideShow_assets folder". I assumed you mean that I only need to drop my photos in the assets folder but that did nothing for me. Could you provide a more detailed explanation as to how to use this?
Thanks,
C
Wilcompute (not verified):
Thank you for this wonderful slide template, it is nice to see that people give from the heart still!!!!!
James (not verified):
Hi Josh, thanks alot for the flash slideshow, it was just what I was looking for. I am currently designing a website for a friend's design business. I know this might sound cheeky somewhat as I know you deserve the credit for this slideshow...but with my relatively low experience with this stuff (I'm more of a photoshop man than web builder you see, this is my first site) I dont know how to get rid of your name in the bottom right-hand corner of the (white) slideshow. Like I said, I dont want to get rid of it because I want to claim credit, I could just really do with it being a blank white as the whole site has a very slick, minimalist appearance.
Also, on the white slideshow, the writing which I put under the pictures in the photos page appear below the arrows on the slideshow (which I would either like to get rid of, or even better, to have the writing not appear under thr arrows but above or below them). sorry to clarify, the arrows display on top of the writing so that the writing isnt that visible.
Besides those two things the slideshow is amazing+I would never have been able to do anything like that myself so thanks alot.
Alex (not verified):
First off let me say that the slide show is beautiful. I would love to use it on my page, but I am having some difficulty. I replaced the SlideShow_assets folder completely, but it does nothing when I click on a picture. This is also what it did before I replaced the folder. Can I use this without .mac? And even if I can't use the new slideshow why doest it load the old one because I have read that it is supposed to? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Anonymous (not verified):
I love how everyone is putting up the flash slides and stuff. However, for someone someone who had no idea what their doing like me it becomes frustrating. I downloaded the link and I'm like what do I do with this? So what do I do with it?
It looks great I just don't know how to get it on mine...
Mark (not verified):
Your Slideshow Assets package is a Very handsome alternative to Apple's own White page. Why didn't Apple do this!
Peter Jones (not verified):
Hi, Joshua!
Just wanted to say: Beautiful! I really like it. I´ll definitely be adding your link to my site.
Keep up the great work!
:)
Peter
Anonymous:
Nice job on this! You ought to post a link to this blog entry in its own thread in the forum.
Also if you include a link to the download, I guarantee you will get a lot of visitors! People are always looking for easy, alternative slideshows for iWeb and yours is great!
varkgirl