The SlideShowPro Player allows you to assign preview images to albums in the gallery. This walkthrough will show you how to setup albums to load preview graphics, as well as instructions for creating / loading them in your XML file.
The instructions here extend the instructions for creating slideshow images, so if you haven't already built a slideshow that loads slideshow content you should do that first before proceeding.
There are a few styles to choose from for album preview graphics, all of which are detailed here.
With a style in mind, set Albums Preview Size to the dimensions you want. With "Inline..." styles, the width/height assigned will be the actual preview size. When using "Banner", the height is assigned, but the width is automatically calculated for you using the width of the album itself. When using "Fill", both the width and height values are automatically calculated using the width and height of the album itself.
To see the calculated dimensions of the preview, temporarily set Startup to "Open Gallery". The live preview of the component will display the target dimensions.
Albums Preview Scale dictates how your images are handled if they are not the same size as the preview container. The default setting is "Proportional," which means that your images will be proportionally scaled to the preview container's dimensions.
In the case of both "Inline" styles, a "Proportional" scale will scale the image to the largest dimension possible without cropping. In the case of both "Banner" and "Fill" styles, "Proportional" scaling is the same as "Crop to Fit" scaling, in that the image is proportionally scaled until it fills the container, then cropped in the center.
If you would like to apply no scaling or image size detection at all, set Preview Scale to "None." Your images will be loaded "as is."
Using a photo editor like Photoshop, create a graphic at the dimensions your album preview requires, then save it to your desktop. For the purposes of this walkthrough, we'll name it "albumThumb.jpg".
Connect to your web site via FTP and navigate to "slideshow/gallery/album1". Upload albumThumb.jpg to the root of the "album1" folder.
Download the "images.xml" file from "http://yoursite.com/slideshow/" or remotely edit it through your FTP client. Inside the album element add a tn attribute that points to where albumThumb.jpg file is. For example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gallery>
<album lgpath="http://yoursite.com/slideshow/gallery/album1/lg/" tn="http://yoursite.com/slideshow/gallery/album1/albumThumb.jpg">
<img src="image1.jpg" />
</album>
</gallery>
When finished, save the XML file. Remember to upload it to your site if editing locally.
With the XML file updated, publish a new movie or refresh your web browser. Open the gallery and you should see your album preview graphic.