The SlideShowPro Player can load both images and videos and display them in the Content Area as well as stream MP3s of background music for each album. This chapter covers acceptable file formats, scaling, alignment, hyperlinks, preloading, caching, as well as a basic walkthrough on content creation.
The player can load non-animated GIFs, JPGs, or PNGs. SWFs are acceptable too, but for interactivity reasons it is best to only load SWFs that do not include buttons or anything that requires mouse input.
FLV and F4V, as well as H.264 videos saved as MOV, MP4, M4V and 3GP. H.264 is recommended.
You can assign MP3 files to load as background audio for any album. MP3s must be encoded with a sample rate of 44.1 khz one of the following supported bit rates (kbps): 8 / 16 / 20 / 24 / 32 / 48 / 56 / 64 / 80 / 112 / 128 / 160. Most MP3s meet these criteria, but if your audio plays back fast or slow, it's been encoded using an unsupported bit rate and/or sample rate.
The width/height of your instance, as well as the Content Area inside, dictates how large or small your content is when loaded. By default, content is loaded and proportionally downscaled (if necessary) to fit the Content Area. Other options include "None" (scaling turned off), "Crop to Fit" (proportionally scales content until it fills the Content Area, then cropped), "Crop to Fit All" (just like "Crop to Fit" except it uses the entire area of the instance), and "Proportional" (proportionally downscales/upscales content larger and smaller than the Content Area). The following illustration shows their differences (green outline is the Content Area sized horizontally and vertically):
When content is scaled using the "Proportional" or "Downscale Only" options, you can choose whether the content is scaled to the edges of the Content Area through the Content Scale Percent parameter. By default it's set to 100%, but you can set this to a lower value to force the content to a smaller scale within the Content Area. This gives a little bit of breathing room between your content and the edges of the component.
If your content is smaller than the Content Area, you may also choose where your image is positioned inside. This is controlled through Content Align. Options include "Center", "Top Left", "Top Center", "Top Right", "Center Right", "Bottom Right", "Bottom Center", "Bottom Left", and "Center Left".
By default, slideshow content is loaded without applying any strokes or padded background around their perimeter. They're simply loaded as-is. If however you'd like to give each slideshow image and/or video a "framed" look, you may do so through the parameters noted in the left diagram.
Frames use a CSS-like system, whereby you can increase / decrease the amount of "matting" around an image by adjusting a padding attribute. This is handled by Content Frame Padding, which must be set to a value higher than zero in order to apply a frame color and alpha transparency .
All slideshow content is invisibly preloaded before it appears. Progress is communicated to the end user through a preloading animation in the center of the Content Area. When the animation ends, the requested image will load. More information on preloading can be found in the Feedback chapter.
The SlideShowPro Player can cycle through all of the content in an album and invisibly load them into the browser cache. When used, any requested content that has been cached will display immediately without any preloading. Caveats include a slightly longer album startup process, as well as additional server load. If bandwidth isn't a concern however, it's there for you to use. To turn this feature on, set Cache Content to "Only Thumbnails" to load just the thumbnail images used for link previews and navigation links (more on both of those in the Navigation chapter), "Only Images" to skip videos (if included) or "All" to cache all the content an album contains.