Freeway and Slideshow Pro

This is my first tutorial, so bear with me. It’s hopefully explained out thoroughly enough for everyone.

First and foremost slideshow pro can be found at ([url]http://www.slideshowpro.net[/url]) and is wonderful software that costs $20 bucks.

You will need: [b:7eebd25553]Flash MX 2004 or higher[/b:7eebd25553] [b:7eebd25553]optional photo software such as iPhoto or Photoshop[/b:7eebd25553] [b:7eebd25553]a text editor such as BBEdit or TextWrangler.[/b:7eebd25553]

[i:7eebd25553]*You will also need some place to store your images and Flickr support is integrated easily as well (how sweet is that?)[/i:7eebd25553]

There is a massive [url=http://www.slideshowpro.net/downloads/userguide/ssp/SSP_User_Guide.pdf]user guide[/url] that comes with slideshow pro and you can download it without buying the software to see just how comfortable you’ll be. It’ll walk you through the first steps of setting up your first slideshow and how to get your images to load in the slideshow. It’s not difficult to figure out, no action script, so don’t worry.

Slideshow Pro requires two files to work. The outputted SWF file and an XML file with a list of the images, their titles and captions (optional), and the order you’d like them to be shown. The user guide walks through the easiest ways to creating these two files, so no XML experience is necessary. This has massively been made easier using Slideshow Pro Director, so check that out as well.

Todd Dominey has done an amazing job of now offering screencast’s describing how to setup your first slideshow on the website.

[url=http://slideshowpro.net/mov/screencast/firstslideshow.mov]Slideshow Pro screencast (quicktime required)[/url]

[url=http://slideshowpro.net/mov/screencast/director_walkthrough.mov]SlideShow Pro Director Screencast (quicktime required)[/url]

[b:7eebd25553]Integrating with Freeway:[/b:7eebd25553]

Once you have the flash part completed (again you can test out if things are working in flash’s preview option) you’ll want to find a place in your Freeway document to place the flash SWF file. You’ll just want to place the created SWF file, because inside the SWF file it stores the location of the XML file you have to "address" in Flash (you can have the entire "http://" address in there or just the file name if it’s going to be in the root directory where the SWF file is going to be located. Again, that part is done in Flash, so no XML locator for Freeway.) You can either embed the SWF as an HTML markup item or just drop it in there however you’d like to do that.

Then you’re done. Again, things such as editing the album titles and editing album descriptions are all covered in the manual, so check out the manual and see for yourself.

It’s totally worth $20 bucks and for those who want an even easier time you can purchase Director as well ($20). Basically what that requires is a server with MySQL on it (don’t worry, its super easy to do, its like 3-4 clicks to setup.) It basically takes care of everything for you. Watch the [url=http://slideshowpro.net/mov/screencast/director_walkthrough.mov]screencast[/url] and see what I mean.

I encourage you to flip through the user guide and check it out. If you’d like an example of Slideshow pro in action visit [url=http://www.danjasker.com]my website[/url] and click portfolio. Also on slideshowpro’s web forums you can click "[url=http://slideshowpro.net/forums/viewforum.php?id=3]Show and Tell[/url]" and see how other people have used it or just hop around the product’s website.

If you want a basic slideshow that doesn’t require any actionscript off the bat and you’re looking to up the anty on a web design project, slideshow pro is great software to get familiar with.

Hope this helps.

CableGuy2

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A welcomed tutorial indeed.

Just to double check:

All Flash movies and xml files with relative links work fine uploaded to a server via Freeway?

The xml file and gallery folder are placed at the top of the html publish folder and not in Resources?

If I wish to add other seperate SSP flash files that also use relative links - I have to change the lgPath and tnPath in a new xml file (e.g "images2.xml") to point to a new folder containing the image and thumb resources + modify the Flash file to point to a this newly created xml file?

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Well glad I could help out.

To answer your questions:

1. The only thing that Freeway uploads is the SWF file, you’ll have to FTP your image folder (with lg for large versions and tn for thumbnails folder structure) and the XML yourself to your server space. You can put the images in any folder (just make sure to change the location in your XML), but if you’re putting your XML file in another folder you’ll have to in Flash change it say "/directory name/images.xml"

2. If you wanted to add another SSP instance you’re right you’d have to change the lgPath and tnPath in a newly created XML file and then modify the Flash file to the new name of the XML file.

Again Director super-simplifies this where you have Director create everything and then Director produces a link that you put into your flash file and it does the same thing. A real time saver.

Post any other questions if anyone has them.

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Thanks for the tutorial. It seems that SlideShowPro needs some expensive software like “Flash MX 2004 or higher” to run. I hope I am missing something here because $5-600 is a bit scary, especially as Freeway (and what I see of Slideshow) seem such value for money offerings for the amateur do it yourself web designer.

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If you use Adobe Lightroom or iPhoto, just buy (or get) the plugin for that. Works great and does the simple slideshow’s in a snap. No separate Flash program required then.

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Belated thanks for Bronze Patriot’s suggestion:-

“If you use Adobe Lightroom or iPhoto, just buy (or get) the plugin for that. Works great and does the simple slideshow’s in a snap. No separate Flash program required then.”

Is there a particular iPhoto plugin you suggest - I see there is a “Slide iPhoto Exporter” which sounds like it could do the job. There is also “iPhoto Slideshow 1.0.”

I guess that as a novice, an iPhoto plugin which is best suited for uploading onto a Freeway page is the one I want.

Thanks again.

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Hands down, this is the best plugin that works with Aperture and iPhoto! You can do Lightbox, BananAlbum, and MORE!!

flashalbumexporter.home.comcast.net/~flashalbumexporter/

This link is also found via Apples’ pages - www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/aperture/flashalbumexporter.html

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On 4 Feb. 2008, 4:35 am, Philip Lock wrote: I guess that as a novice, an iPhoto plugin which is best suited for uploading onto a Freeway page is the one I want.

The plugins wont upload directly to FW. You have to export your final selection to a folder (I put mine in the same folder as my website, alongside the FW file). Next, publish that folder to the internet in a set folder. Finally, create an iFrame inside FW to link to that published folder on your site.

Hope that helps.

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Hi all I am a newbie to freeway and web design regarding slideshow pro i’ve set up all my files and when i click on the swf or html from slideshow it works fine and i can view my slideshow. When i import to Freeway 5 either by drwing an HTML box of dragging either the html file or swf file i cannot view the slideshow in my browser from freeway. what am i doing wrong????

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Teena

Freeway and Slideshow Pro work perfectly together. The main issue is getting all files into the correct place in your site folder. You should land up with 5 files after making your Slideshow into a .swf file. They are: A folder containing the images; xml file; html file; SWF file and a FLA file (if you’re using Flash and Slideshow Pro together.) All these files need to sit in the site folder with the HTML file for the particlular page that the slideshow appears on.

Freeway will not upload these through it’s own upload, they have to be uploaded manually via FTP (Transmit’s Panic app is good for this)

If you have Slideshows on different pages within your site, you’ll need to create folders for each page. This you do within Freeway. Then place all your Slideshow files into that page folder in your site folder, or upload via FTP into the page folder on your webspace. If you don’t separate each page with folders, the .xml files will not work as they duplicate and therefore need to be placed in separate folders.

Hope that puts you on the right path.

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