The SlideShowPro Export for iPhoto plugin automatically creates all requisite imagery and XML documentation for SlideShowPro for Flash. When installed in iPhoto 4-7 for OS X, the free utility offers users a simple point and click interface to create all your photo captions, image hyperlinks, album descriptions, thumbnails, and more.
First, download the DMG from the “Extras” page at http://slideshowpro.net. Double click on the DMG file. A disk image will be mounted, and a new window will pop-up. Double-click on the file named “SSP Export.pkg.” Click through all the confirmation screens, and if all went well the plug-in will be installed in your copy of iPhoto.
Launch iPhoto, and move on to the next chapter for usage instructions.
The first step is to create one or more albums in iPhoto with the content you wish to export. If you already have albums, you may skip this and go on to the next paragraph. Otherwise, click the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the “Source” panel to create a new album. Drag and drop images from your Library into your new album. If you want more than one album, create them now.
When ready, select the album(s) you created (hold down Shift key to select multiples). If using iPhoto 5, select “Export” from the Share menu. For all other versions, select “Export” from the File menu. The Export dialog window will appear. Click on the “SlideShowPro Export” tab.
You will now be at the interface for the plug-in. The albums you are exporting are available in the top left panel, while the images within each album are below under “Image Settings.”
At the top of the export window is “Album Settings.” Change the Title of your album if you wish, and give it a quick description. Both of these fields will appear alongside your album’s thumbnail in the SlideShowPro for Flash gallery. The “ID” field is for creating permalinks and for ActionScript, which most people can leave as-is.
Next are the “Thumbnails” and “Images” boxes. These settings apply to every image within the currently selected album. If an image from your Library is larger than these settings, it will be proportionally downscaled. If smaller, its size will not be modified.
If you are using the iPhoto 7 version of the plugin, your version has two extra buttons below the “Thumbnails” and “Images” boxes. One is “Auto fill image captions,” the other “Clear image captions.” Clicking “Auto fill...” will fill the caption field of each image in the album with its file name and creation date (and overwrite any existing captions). Clicking “Clear...” removes them all.
At the bottom of the window is the “Image Settings” area. Simply select a photo in the left scroll window, and (if you want them) add a caption and hyperlink that will be launched if a user clicks on that photo in SlideShowPro for Flash. If you’d like to use the selected image as your album’s thumbnail in the gallery, click the “Use as Album Thumbnail” button and optionally change the default width and height.
You’re now ready to export your albums! Click the Export button. Navigate to where you’d like to export all your content (desktop is a good place). Click “New Folder” if you don’t already have an empty directory set up. When complete, click OK.
When finished, your images will be exported and an XML document named “images.xml” will be created in the root of the folder you previously selected.
You are now ready to load your content into SlideShowPro for Flash. Continuing from the SlideShowPro for Flash Quick Start Guide, save the FLA to the root of the folder you exported your images to. Select “File > Publish” from the application menu in Flash. Navigate to your folder, and open the HTML file Flash publised in your default web browser by double clicking on the file. Your images should now appear.
