Using without Director

Loading slideshow images

These instructions assume you're not using SlideShowPro Director and are interested in loading your own slideshow images into the SlideShowPro Player. We'll explain how here. You'll need an image editing software application like Adobe Photoshop. Just about any image editor will do, but because Photoshop is the industry standard we'll be using it here.

Before starting, make sure you have resized the SlideShowPro Player to the size you need. When finished, make note of the width and height of the player.

Step One: Create folder for content

Create a new folder on your desktop for your images. For the purposes of this walkthrough, create a series of nested folders on your desktop like this: "slideshow/gallery/album1/lg".

Step Two: Edit image in Photoshop

Launch Photoshop and open the original photo you want to edit. Select Image > Image Size from the application menu. A dialog will appear (see left) that displays the width, height and resolution of the image you have opened. First set "Resolution" to 72. Next, using the dimensions of the SlideShowPro Player, enter whichever value is the largest into the applicable field. The smaller dimension will automatically update so that your image is proportionally downscaled. When complete, make sure that "Resample Image" is selected, and that "Bicubic Sharper" is chosen in the drop-down. Click OK. Your image will resize to your new dimensions.

Step Three: Save and link

Select File > Save for Web and Devices from Photoshop's application menu. A new window will appear. In the right, select JPG as your image format, then experiment with Quality to find an acceptable compression level. When complete click "Save." Save the photo to the folder you created in Step One (which in our example would be "slideshow/gallery/album1/lg"). Repeat this step for each image you want to load.

Step Four: Upload folder

Connect to your web server via FTP and upload the "gallery" folder anywhere you like.

Step Five: Edit XML

Then edit your XML document so that it links to your images. In the lgpath attribute, enter the absolute path to the "lg" folder on your web site. Then create an img element for each image contained therein. For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gallery>
   <album lgpath="http://yoursite.com/slideshow/gallery/album1/lg/">
      <img src="image1.jpg" />
   </album>
</gallery>

Step Six: Upload XML

When you've finished editing the XML file, save it as "images.xml" and upload it to the root of the "slideshow" folder you uploaded to your site. E.g, http://yoursite.com/slideshow/images.xml.

Step Seven: Assign XML File Path

Now depending on which version of the SlideShowPro Player you're using, assign to its XML File Path parameter the absolute link to the XML file you uploaded.

Step Eight: Publish or load

If you're using :stapi:, publish a test movie in Flash. If using SlideShowPro Player SWF, refresh the HTML document embedding the SWF. You should now see your content loading.