The navigation bar at the bottom of SlideShowPro for Flash is where a user controls your slideshow. It can be customized a variety of ways, all of which will be explored in this chapter.
By default, the navigation bar is displayed inline at the bottom of the component in every slideshow you publish. If you'd rather not display any navigation, set NAVIGATION/Appearance to "Hidden" in the Component Inspector. Your slideshow will continue to operate as normal (your users simply won't have an interface to use).
Additional Appearance options include "Visible on Rollover" which only displays the navigation when the mouse pointer enters the component space.
The navigation bar is always the same width as the player, but its height changes according to the height of content it contains. When using "Always Visible" for Appearance, the height of the navigation bar decreases the size of the Content Area. If you use "Hidden" or "Visible on Rollover", the Content Area size is not affected. For this reason it's a good idea to style the navigation before creating slideshow images.
The navigation contains four major elements: background, link preview, links, and buttons. See image below.
The navigation background is comprised of two layers. The first is a flat color layer, the second a semi-transparent gradient drawn on top. You may adjust the color, transparency and gradient style of this area using these parameters:
NAVIGATION
Background Alpha - Alpha transparency of the first background layer.
Background Color - Color of the first background layer.
Gradient Alpha - Alpha transparency of the gradient effect in the second layer.
Gradient Appearance - Style of gradient.
Link previews are pop-up windows that appear when mousing-over navigation links. They contain preview thumbnails of the content associated with the link that will load when clicked. You may adjust their color, transparency and other options using these parameters:
NAVIGATION LINK PREVIEWS
Appearance - Controls whether the previews are loaded.
Size - The width and height of the preview window.
Scale - The image scaling to use.
Background Color - Color of the window frame and pointer arrow at bottom.
Stroke Weight - The thickness of the window frame.
Background Alpha - Transparency of the window frame.
Shadow Alpha - Transparency of the drop shadow underneath the window.
Album content is represented through a single row of thumbnail images or textual numbers displayed in the center of the navigation. When clicked, the slideshow content assigned to them is loaded. There are a wide variety of styling options for this area by using these parameters:
NAVIGATION LINKS
Appearance - The style of navigation links to display.
Load Animation - Controls whether the links animate into view when an album loads.
Spacing - Amount of horizontal space between each link.
Background Color - The color of the radius corner background underneath all links.
Inactive Color - Default color of link text or thumbnail background.
Active Color - Color of link text or thumbnail background when associated content is currently loaded.
Rollover Color - Color of link text or thumbnail background when moused-over.
Shadow Alpha - Transparency of shadow effect drawn underneath each link.
Number Size - Point size of numbered links.
Thumbnail Size - Width/height of thumbnail links.
Thumbnail Inactive Alpha - Default transparency of thumbnail links.
Thumbnail Stroke Weight - Width of the background color drawn around/underneath thumbnail link images.
Background Alpha - Transparency of the radius corner background underneath links.
Background Shadow Alpha - Transparency of shadow effect drawn inside the link background.
The navigation bar contains an embedded set of buttons for content navigation, playback and to engage other functionality. While browsing a slideshow, each playback button will automatically enable/disable when they can/cannot be used. For example, if a user is viewing the first image, both the "Previous Image Group" and "Previous Image" buttons will disable, for it would be impossible to go backward. Advancing to the second image would enable "Previous Image," and so on.
The following parameters control button appearance:
NAVIGATION BUTTONS
Appearance - Which buttons to include in the navigation.
Color - Default color of buttons.
Rollover Color - Color of buttons when moused-over.
Glow Alpha - Transparency of glow effect drawn underneath buttons when moused-over.
Gradient Alpha - Transparency of gradient effect drawn on top of buttons.
Inactive Alpha - Transparency of buttons when made inactive.
Shadow Alpha - Transparency of drop shadow drawn under or inside buttons.
Shadow Style - Controls whether drop shadows are drawn underneath or inside buttons.
Your keyboard may be used to control buttons in the navigation when your SWF has focus in the web browser. Focus is enabled by clicking anywhere inside the SWF. This is turned on by default. If you'd rather not give your users this option, you may turn it off by setting OPTIONS/Keyboard Control to "Off." Here are the accepted keys and their function:
F: Enter full screen
G: Open/close gallery
N: Hide/show navigation bar
Left arrow: Load previous content
Up arrow: Skip to next content link group
Right arrow: Load next content
Down arrow: Skip to previous content link group
Space Bar: Pause/auto-play playback