Flash Slideshow Module for Gallery2?
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d_blatner
Joined: 2006-03-22
Posts: 9 |
Posted: Wed, 2006-03-22 13:20
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Hi, is there any possibility to have a flash slideshow through a module instead of the normal slideshow of Gallery2? I had some troubles with the normal slideshow with the new Opera browser, not that important but anyway.. A flash slideshow would be more comfortable and the Pics would change with a blend effect. Further the change time of pictures would be very exactly. Have somebody time and skill to do such a module? I know it is not easy and that's the reason why I ask someone who have the knowledge. greetz |
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Posts: 8601
definitely possible and we'll gladly provide guidance to anyone who wants to work on it. the existing slideshow module is a good starting point, as it loads all the data needed for the slideshow.
Posts: 26
On the way, maybe, see votes...
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P.
Posts: 38
This would be great. I'd want to embed this slideshow into other pages such as myspace. A good example would be something like photobucket.
Posts: 8601
we'd love to have someone work on this.. we don't have anyone doing flash slideshow development now.
Posts: 8339
Actually I am.
-s
Posts: 1
Hi, here is a link you guy's might wanna check out http://robcos.com/software/exlide.
I looks very nice.
Perhaps you can use it for further development.
Erik
Posts: 8339
After forcing myself to put my Flex app away for a while, I finally made some progress on the flash slideshow.
I would have never guessed it would be so hard to pass an external array into flash - Whew!
So what I have so far is the method, and a basic swf made from flash components(I will customize later).
We take an image array from php->serialize it->pass it to flash through flashVars->unserialize it-> and use it for our image array inside flash.
Simple right?
TODO:
For now I'm just passing one album to it for testing, next I'll need to be able to choose an album (most likely via flash's ExternalInterface).
Add timers for autoplay.
Add titles, thumbnails, exif(?)
Snaz it up a bit.
Right now I'm using an external galleryembed page. Will need some help with the actual module.
see it here.
-s
Posts: 8339
Making progress, added a auto-play button, and more importantly my famous full screen button
-s
Posts: 8339
Sorry, my service went down for the night. back now
Posts: 8339
OK, I need some input here.
I seem to be getting off on some wild tangent.
What is it we want for the slideshow module exactly?
Just a simple replacement/option for the current js based one?
Because I have that already (player only). Need help with the module part.
Or do we want a flash based gallery explorer and slideshow app like the exlide/expose app?
This would be the wild tangent I'm getting off on ;)
Or Both?
I need to know what I should be focussing on to get this to release status.
-s
Posts: 8601
both seem quite cool. probably the motivation here is to get a slideshow that is more versatile/usable and scalable than the current browser based module. so something with minithumbs would be cool, but isn't necessary. album browsing probably isn't needed, though a slideshow that includes all subalbum might be nice.
so i suggest focusing first on the UI for a basic slideshow.. add an option to see photo data (title/description/date..) and make sure any text will be localizable. any other UI ideas to make it cool and more usable at the same time are a plus.
Posts: 13
Hi, I just discovered this thread. Was asking about the fullscreen slideshow in another thread. Suprsider's flash-based slideshow looks really neat, and would be a great replacement for the browser-based (non-fullscreen) slideshow. Maybe add user-selectable delays, allow it to get photos from subalbums and display titles/captions, and figure out how to modulize it, and it'll be fantastic.
I guess the problem with Flash is that it's always trapped in the browser window, so "true" fullscreen isn't possible, unlike with the Java applet. Replacing the fullscreen slideshow would likely require a rewrite of the applet to allow recursive subalbums, and to work with reasonable speed. The current Java applet is pretty primitive.
- escargot
Posts: 8339
I've actually come a long long way from the version I've posted.
I have around a dozen or so versions I'm working with, each with its own components I'm going to merge into one or two apps.
There have been requests for a small version to include in external pages like myspace accounts to run a specific album's slideshow with links to the original gallery. This one is quite easy and could be done in no time at all.
But the larger whole gallery inclusive app needs more time, and I'm limited with my own time as this is the busy season for me as a home builder.
As for the fullscreen flash problem. A popup window fullscreen with no toolbars is pretty close to fullscreen, so maybe an otpion for that too.
On another note. Flash Player 9 is out, and the flash/flex gallery is an exceptional app that could be developed into an entire frontend for gallery.
-s
Posts: 13
Hi suprsidr, that sounds great! I've just posted a bounty for an improved fullscreen slideshow. It's not a huge amount of money, but maybe it'll help as a motivator for you and others working on slideshow apps. I guess the biggest problem is gracefully handling large galleries with nested subalbums, since most of the slideshow apps I've seen focus on having cool transition effects and fancy interfaces.
Good luck with your work on the app!
- escargot
Posts: 1
I'll second the smaller embeddable version, especially if it's so easy :D It could just be really useful for brochure/commercial sites where people might use Gallery to manage a lot of pictures, and want to be able to embed a slideshow somewhere prominent (like the homepage) on the public site. I'm speaking from experience here as I'm doing a freebie project for a family business and it'd be perfect.
If you need an example, real-world, usecase ;) : it's a fly-fishing shop, and they have gigs of photos. They take photos of all their trips and make CDs for the clients. They probably won't upload all of those, but enough to frequently update with photogenic/noteworthy trips. I've set them up with F-Stop to upload to their Gallery. I figure a link in the navigation to the gallery for people who want to browse the photos will be nice, but... One of their main desires is being able to easily update a slideshow with recent trips. I know it's unpaid open source work, but hey you were asking what people would like to see. :D
Posts: 8339
Speaking of cool interfaces and transition effects, the latest itteration of my flash slideshow is taking shape.
Any thoughts on this one? (I still have to add an auto button and album nav)
-s
Posts: 8601
cool! that one seems more like an image browser.. did you implemented it as a theme or module?
Posts: 8339
Actually is communicating with gallery via an external gallery embed type of page. When we complete the module part, we will still need some kind of external script for the live connection.
This one will be like an all-in-one allowing users to browse the gallery, play mp3s and flvs(already implemented) and play a fullscreen(browser limited) slideshow.
I can see the possibility of using this one app as a simple slideshow to replace the current java-base app. Just passing the proper mode via flashVars can adjust its functionality.
You've got to love Flash
-s
p.s. I have no idea how to setup the module part, so when the swfs are ready there will be a new thread just for the module dev. So be prepared ;)
Posts: 8339
Alright!
If I could get some people to come by and give this baby a whirl(literally) - and let me know what else it needs.
Besides the fullscreen button (on my list).
If you feel daring enough.... proceed here.
-s
Posts: 8601
some feedback:
- slideshow button doesn't seem to do anything
- would be nice to have an indicator while a photo is loading
Posts: 8339
The slideshow button creates three new buttons on the bottom to control the show: Previous | Auto/Stop | Next
When I implement the resize to fullscreen onEnter function you will be able to see these buttons and all controls without scrolling. I'm thinking this should be a flameless popup window for fullscreen effect.
And Loader progressbars are on my list.
Over 900 lines of code for this sucker. Not alot to you, but for me its a ton
Did you get a chance to see the flv playback(in album suprsidr or apple ads) and/or the mp3 functionality?
-s
Posts: 8339
Added progressbars, trying the fullscreen onEnter function.
Posts: 32
my observations:
When in slideshow mode, the progress bar doesn't work. It displays, but doesn't update till the image is fully loaded, and then disappears (ie: 0% until it all the sudden shows up).
If you made it preload the next (and previous (hmmm... cache would probably keep it?)) image in the album, while the current is being displayed that'd be great. To clarify: your viewing img1 in the slideshow and the progress bar shows up under/half-transparent in the current image. If progress time is set to $foo, and it takes longer than $foo to download img2 that would halt the "display" of the next image till it's fully loaded.
Other than that: excellent work! The current java slideshow engine is by default a memory&resource hog, as a result of JRE, and this just looks *so* much better! So thanks a bunch for this work, it's bound to help a few late adaptors realize the pros of using open software!
Posts: 8339
Here is another I whipped up.
Trying different layouts.
-s
Posts: 8339
Great scott - I think I've got it.
This one just might be all that we want for a slideshow.
I decided to redirect myself to just the slideshow as mindless suggested above.
This one is more practical, ridding it of the carousel which takes up too much space.
And if we like it, I'll git 'er done.
And then I can continue dev on the carousel.
Please let me know what you think.
-s
Posts: 13
Wow, that one looks really good! I never really liked the carousel -- it was difficult to navigate and not a very good use of screen space, but this looks like a great alternative to the current slideshow.
How does it deal with preloading? Is it able to deal with large galleries, nested subfolders and so on elegantly? For me that's a key requirement, but others may feel differently.
Anyway, I really like this one, and even if it doesn't solve all the problems of the current Java client, it's a huge improvement. Nice.
Posts: 8339
I have yet to deal with subalbums, and non-PhotoItems. I was thinking I would just allow it to play the current album(not subalbums), and to just plain screen out non-PhotoItems.
But that is all up for debate.
My sample album has 87 items in it, are they loading quickly?
Does the scroller seem to full/long?
Try the same url with a g2_itemId of 962 - an album with only a few items - looks kinda funny, I may have to disable scrolling for small albums, and/or break up larger albums into say 40 or so items.
I could add support for mp3 and flv as in the carousel, but yet I 'm thinking KISS(keep it simple stupid).
I also have an idea for a preloader like you suggested above. Having 2 image loaders, alternating loads to keep them always full.
I'll probably try it tonight or tomorrow morning.
More feedback please!
-s
Posts: 13
It seems to load fairly quickly with the 87 items, but then again, even the Java client will load very quickly with under 100 items or so. From an interface point of view, I don't see a problem with the scroller only displaying a few items to the left and right of the current image (personally, I don't even care much for a scroller, but some people would). Even if there are 5000 pictures and the scroller only displays a few at a time, it's not a huge problem, since this is supposed to be a slideshow, not a navigation tool.
I agree that mp3 and flv support is superfluous. It's a slideshow tool, not a multimedia swiss army knife.
To handle large albums or subalbums, you'd probably have to load most data incrementally (this perhaps should even extend to fetching filenames from the database). Perhaps the loader could always have the next 10 (more or less) filenames and thumbnails loaded, rather than getting them all at the beginning, and a second preloader would fetch the next full-size image while the current one is displaying. That way the slideshow could start right away without having to wait for all the thumbnails to load, and would scale nicely to shows with more pictures.
This is all more easily said than done, of course
Posts: 8
Suprsidr, you have this flash player available? I am looking for a solution to easily publish slideshows to our gallery and be able to include them in a slideshow on our myspace account. (We're running a monthly night down here in Miami, http://www.myspace.com/salvationmiami).
Posts: 8339
I'm actually planning an XML version for use on external pages.
When I get this one more stable, I'll add XML support to it so it can do both.
I was also just reading a tutorial on the flicker api, and I'm thinking of making a flicker style badge for gallery - probably XML driven also.
So to answer your question, soon
- I still need more feedback on this latest one! Microsoft recently issued a security "Fix" that causes my webserver to go down every couple of hours, so now I'm tracking that down. F*#@ing microsoft!
-s
Posts: 5
Nice work on this flash module, I was thinking it would be great if this module could be used for general browsing of the gallery as well. I really like how SlideShowPro is doing it, they have now come out with "SlideShowPro Director" which uses php and mysql to store the photos but Gallery2 has all that already.
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My Blog is at: http://rumi.studio2pi.com.au/
Posts: 8339
This one is an all in one, image browser, slideshow app, mp3 player, flv player.
Still working on it though
I'm currently working on the xml part of the slideshow only app, so you could easily place it on external pages.
-s
Posts: 8339
Ok, so this one is running off a gallery generated rss feed with 10 items.
I wasn't able to use the simple feed settings as they don't include the enclosure tags.
But its as simple as setting xml to true and including the xmlUrl in the flashVars to make it work.
I'm not currently including thumbs for xml until I figure out how to parse the thumb url out of the feed.
But like I said, its the same app, with a simple change of flashVars.
Comments? Questions?
-s
Posts: 32509
suprsidr:
kudos to all the work you've done here. i like how the slideshow is coming along and it's great that we've a mp3 module in g2 now. thanks!
some rather subjective suggestions for the slideshow, feel free to ignore them
- the "loading" screen is rather distracting. often, i see the loading screen for a longer time than the actual images.
can't you load the next image in the background? maybe keep showing the current image and have a small sign at the top or bottom or in a corner that the next image is loading.
- most transitions are pretty hard / abrubt / distractive. they attract more attention than the images themselves.
i prefer soft transitions. it'd be great if there was a transition that just blends from image A to image B. nothing moving around, just a soft blending.
- also, it'd be great if you could choose between transitions: - blend, - random transition, - bottom up, ...
- the menu / controls are a little small. maybe make the buttons a little larger.
another alternative: overlay the menu over the actual image. that way, the controls can be huge and they wouldn't distract. a lot of apps do that.
- does it already have keyboard controls?
people love that.
as i said, this probably just reflects my own taste.
Posts: 8339
I was just updating the XML portion of this slideshow, and I'm having trouble controlling the size/scale of the image.
So I went ahead and added height & width to the enclosure tag of the feed.
Any objections? mindless? valiant?
The specification for enclosure has 3 required fields: http url, lenght, and type. But it hasn't any notes about optional fields. So will it still validate?
I would also like to add a thumbUrl to enclosure for the loading of thumbs like the regular version. Again any objections?
@valiant - I'm currently working with some of flash's built in transitions, I think it is a great idea. I had almost forgotten about the transitions in the dom version as I use firefox almost exclusively and as you know ff does not support ie filters. And it would be great for everybody to be able to use them.
I just stumbled across a class for preloading the images into the client cache for ready use. This should eliminate the hardness of the transitions, and allow me to swap the images more smoothly and also the loaderBar. - Wish me luck
-s
Posts: 32509
Can you please post your patch to the XML feed / feed generation?
Any standards violated?
Posts: 8339
Well, after many sleepless nights (not really) I have the alternating loaders working.(finally)
So the next image is loading while the one is displaying.
@valiant - as for the xml validating, not so good.
any suggestions? maybe move the thumUrl, and image height and width from <enclosure> to its parent <item>?
-s
Posts: 86
Hi, suprsidr. Great Job! Can I ask whether if the slideshow will eventualy become a theme? Meaning that all the thumbnails, photos/files will be loaded directly into flash or that it will only act as a module such that the loading of the images/files into flash will only occur when the user selects slideshow? I hope that it will be the former. Wondering when the module/theme will be released to the general public? Looking forward to it... Thanks for your time and effort...
Posts: 8339
Well, so far there are three versions I'm working on.
The Carousel is more like a frontend to G2.
The SlideShow is more for an alternative to the DHTML and Java versions currently shipped with G2.
And the XML version is intended for use on external pages.
All three apps are at about the same stage - all work with only a few minor bugs left to track down.
The most important todo's are:
Making of the actual module for the SlideShow.
Working on the UI for the SS and the XML versions
Fix/add the necessary changes to the rss module that flash needs for display.
Get some more feedback ie. suggestions, feature requests.... (ok to be critical)
Thanks for your interest vampy
-s
Posts: 8339
@valiant
adding the vars necessary for flash to use the rss feeds that gallery produces at this point will only invalidate the feed.
According to the lit I read, you can add anything you want to your feed.
In order for it to validate though, you need to create a namespace, and define those extra items there first.
So for my feed I have added to <item>:
<width>1024</width>
<height>768</height>
<thumbUrl>
http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=292&g2_GALLERYSID=ccfceb47a8af59d64adb7ed2dd17636c
</thumbUrl>
<view>
http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=291&g2_GALLERYSID=ccfceb47a8af59d64adb7ed2dd17636c
</view>
I would probably like to move them to their own sub of item ie.
<flashvars url="http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=291&g2_GALLERYSID=ccfceb47a8af59d64adb7ed2dd17636c" width="1024" height="768" thumbUrl="http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=292&g2_GALLERYSID=ccfceb47a8af59d64adb7ed2dd17636c"/>
maybe even including the thumb dimensions and mime type.
But again this would involve creating a namespace.....
Currently there are two flash app I have developed for use with G2's xml feeds: the XML SlideShow and the XML Flv player.
But an XML mp3 player could also be made very easily, and I also had a thought of the flickr style badge.
So that is where the xml end stands.
-s
Posts: 32509
suprsidr
Good stuff.
Andy yes, if you add new XML tags / elements, you should define your own schema.
@preloading:
not sure how you implemented it.
what i'd like to see is image 2 is loading while image 1 is shown. once you stop showing image 1, image 2 should be displayed immediately.
what i see in your latest version is that after displaying image 1, it loads for a while and then displays image 2.
i don't know actionscript / flash. can you do multi-threaded flash apps? thread A could do the preloading, thread B does the rest. A could notify B or B could poll A once the image loading is (almost) done.
Posts: 8339
@valiant with me being on the same network as my servers, I don't get to experience this app the same as you. Everything is pretty much instantanious when it cones to image loading. I can only count on trace events to report what/when/where actions are happening.
I do indeed have two loaders working, one loading while the other is displaying.
They listen for events:
wait for the other loader to transition out before transitioning in.
wait for load to complete before transitioning in (only if the other is out)
And of course they also listen for button events.
So I setup my dev version for all to see, with the addition of 2 loaderBars, one for each loader.
I also replaced the image title text with the name of the current loader displaying said image.
You should see say bigImage being displayed as altImage is loading.
So if I could get some feedback as to whether or not my loaders are behaving correctly it would be appreciated.
Keep in mind that I'm on a lowly 1 megabit dsl that carries a considerable load. Which may explain "it loads for a while and then displays image 2".
thanks,
-s
Posts: 86
HI, suprsidr. I tested your development page and it load nicely for me... I mean that the images are loaded in a couple of seconds... with each transition... So I presume that that's okay... But I don't whether if that's because I'm on a 100Mbps connection (university connection)...
Oh by the way, I don't know if it's meant to be but when i click on each thumbnail, the current image name is being displayed but if I just use the slideshow mode, the name of the current image showed in the slideshow does not get displayed at all.
Great Job!
Posts: 39
Suprsidr, just 1 request so far:
With my 23" LCD monitor it's annoying to me when a browser window tries to take over the full screen. I tried to resize the window, but then the Flash element doesn't resize or center with it. So then I'm stuck with a window that fills my screen to see the cool Flash browser OR carousel. Please consider taking that auto maximize and scale to fill the screen out.
OR just blame it on us Mac folk that like to have many windows open everywhere at once. Windows apps are much happier dominating the entire screen, so I understand how this happens. =)
Incredible job! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of this to try and make it work here. Perhaps I've overlooked them. =)
Keep up the great work!
Thanks!
Posts: 8339
Sorry, for the delays, I've been very busy lately with $$ projects.
But I thought I'd just drop a note.
One of my current projects requires a slideshow that is easily updated, so of course I recomended Gallery and made this quick little gallery/xml driven slideshow.
I think its quite close to something someone here had requested.
If there is enough interest I'll package it up and release it.
-s
Posts: 86
HI, suprsidr. I tried the link you provded but it gives an error of "Service unavailable." Just to state the obvious, I'm interested in the module... and waiting eargerly for the release... Just wondering whether you will release the necessary flash files so that users can modify the layout as they need to... Thanks for all your hard work....
Posts: 8339
Yeah, sorry about the service unavailable problem
I've had it up to ^ here with windows servers, I'm moving everything to my linux server today and reformatting this server to linux also.
Say adios to the boys in redmond
As for releasing the necessary files.... that would mean releasing all the custom class packages too. These are needed to render the swf.
-s
Posts: 39
suprsidr,
Good luck on the linux transition! I'm eagerly awaiting a hackable slideshow as well. Don't worry about the fit and finish. Functional is priority 1, and I think you've already been there done that! =)
Thanks again!
Posts: 86
HI, suprsidr... Wondering how's the module coming along? Hope everything is well...
Posts: 8339
Sorry about the delays
My time is very tight lately. But this project is not forgotten 
Something I whipped up for a client though may be of interest.
Gallery2 XML Mini Slideshow.
Small and portable(place it in any webpage) with links to the larger images in gallery2.
As seen on my site.
Get it here.
-s