Active Slideshow Manual - DMXzone...• Effect time: determines the time that a slide is fully visible and that the Ken Burns effect is being used • Transition time: specifies the

Active Slideshow Manual DMXzone.com

Active Slideshow Manual About Active Slideshow........................................................................................................1 Features ..................................................................................................................................2 Special features of the Flash viewer ....................................................................................4 Creating the Slideshow .........................................................................................................5 Editing the Slideshow...........................................................................................................11 Reference.............................................................................................................................14 FAQ .....................................................................................................................................16

About Active Slideshow Bring your photos to life in an amazing Flash slideshow. This extension uses amazing effects from the famous director, Ken Burns. The slideshow slowly zooms in and pans across your photos, bringing your photos to life. Furthermore, you can add your favourite sound or music track, making it the most enjoyable slideshow ever!

The extension allows you to create and customize your slideshow within a few clicks in Dreamweaver. Fireworks is used to convert the images to the specified size. The Flash player is used for displaying the slideshow to the user. The slideshow generates an instant user experience by streaming the images and sounds directly. This way the user can enjoy your slideshow instantly even with a low bandwidth connection. Note: You need Fireworks MX (2004) to use this extension

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Features • Amazing user experience

The slideshow generates an instant user experience by streaming the images and sounds directly. This way the user can enjoy your slideshow instantly even with a low bandwidth connection.

The slideshows uses a great zoom in and pan effect also know as the Ken Burns effect, furthermore it generates a cool alpha blending effect.

• Fully integrated in Dreamweaver; interactive dialog in Dreamweaver with all the options you’ll need;

an inline property inspector so that you can easily change visual options later on


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• Live preview in Dreamweaver: With a single click on the preview button in DW you can see within Dreamweaver itself how

your slideshow will look like!


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• Automatically generates and edits slideshow XML file

The extension creates the slideshow XML files fully for you! No need to dig in a difficult XML format everything is fully visual now

• Images are automatically scaled in the Flash viewer The Flash Viewer is using a smart imaging technique so that your images always fit in the

display • Original images can be automatically resized to fit the specified size while the proportions are

maintained • Add interactivity by adding a link on your slideshow

Special features of the Flash viewer The viewer of Active Slideshow uses a different viewer then the Flash Album Generator featuring;

• Intelligent image and audio pre-loading and streaming. • Extremely Lightweight (4k). • Resizable interface - Interface scales to fit browser window. • Cross platform (requires Flash 7 or higher).

You can find more information on Active Slideshow at http://www.dmxzone.com/go?10829 .


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Creating the Slideshow Before you start, define your site in Dreamweaver. This page shows you how to define your site. Start the extension by clicking on the Commands menu in Dreamweaver and choosing the Active Slideshow option. Or by pressing the icon in the object pallet.


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A new dialog will appear, we’ll start by filling in the Creation Options. First we’ll fill in the name. Then we select the Source Images Folder (the folder with the photo’s you want to use for your slideshow) and then we’ll select the Destination Folder where the gallery resides. Now we just have to fill in the Photo Format to determine the quality vs. image size options for the photo’s. The Resize to fit option enables you to resize the images of your album to the specified size (width x height). Because the Ken Burns effect uses a zoom effect keep in mind that you make the photos larger then the actual Flash movie (about 130%).


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Let’s fill in the Visualization Options. First we enter the Effect time option which determines the time that a slide is fully visible and that the Ken Burns effect is being used. Then we enter the Transition Time that specifies the time between slides with the alpha blending effect. After that you can change the Preloader Color and the Background Color, the default Preloader Color is black, the default Background Color is white. Check the Loop Slideshow if you want to repeat the Slideshow from the beginning after it’s completed.

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The interactivity options enable you to place a link on your slideshow. The On Click enables you to refer to a link after the user has clicked on the slideshow. The After GoTo enables you to go to a link after the slideshow

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is finished. Note: This option is only enabled when the Loop Slideshow option is disabled. You can choose the file that you want to link to by selecting the Browse… button. You can choose the target in the dropdown behind the Browse… button.

Finally we’ll select the sound options. You can attach an mp3 file by using the browse button and selecting the location of your mp3. After that you can set the Volume of the sound and specify if the sound should be looped or not by selecting the Repeat checkbox. If you want to enable to play music while still loading data check the Streaming checkbox.


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Press OK to generate your album. Fireworks, will start automatically to resize your images. In the status (batch) window you’ll see the total number of number of images that have been resized, the total number of images that need to be resized and the image name.


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After Fireworks has finished the batch process, Dreamweaver will give you the following notice;

Be sure to copy the slideshow.swf, your XML file, mp3 file and the photo folder to your server. Press OK and press f12 to preview and save. That’s it you’ve created your own slideshow! Note: If your site is on a remote host, you have to upload the HTM, SWF, XML, MP3 files and the folder with the photos to your server. Below is an example;


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Editing the Slideshow In this chapter we’re going to edit the properties of the slideshow using the property inspector of Dreamweaver. Click on the Flash object in the design view to display the properties of the slideshow. Below is a screenshot of the property inspector.

The name of the XML file is displayed at the left side of the screen, this is also the Flash ID name.

You can view your changes by pressing the preview button;


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You can also change the width and height of your album dynamically by changing the width and height fields;

Let change the Effect Time to a higher value;

As you can see your photo’s and the Ken Burns effect lasts longer then normal. You can also adjust the Transition Time to change the time between the alpha fading between the two photos.


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Let’s change the Preloader Color to blue and the Bg Color (background color) to red.

If you want to repeat your slideshow after it’s completed, please check the Loop Slideshow option.

You can also change the music that is plays during the slideshow by changing the name of the Bg Music property. You can adjust the Volume settings and the Repeat option to make your song loop or not. The Streaming option determines if the player should play your music while loading data.

The interactivity options enable you to place a link on your slideshow. The On Click enables you to refer to a link after the user has clicked on the slideshow. The After GoTo enables you to go to a link after the slideshow is finished. Note: This option is only enabled when the Loop Slideshow option is disabled. You can choose the file that you want to link to by selecting the Browse… button. You can choose the target in the dropdown behind the Browse… button.

This concludes our tutorial. We’ve shown you how to use our extension and we hope you’ll enjoy it!


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Reference

In this paragraph we give a short overview of the features of the Active Slideshow extension;

• Name: Use this field to specify the name of the slideshow. • Source Images Folder: The source images folder specifies the source folder of your photo’s. This can

be any folder on your local hard drive or network drive; • Destination Folder: The Destination Folder specifies the folder where the slideshow and the resized

images are stored. You need to upload this folder to you web server; • Photo format: adjust this value to determine the quality vs. image size options for the photo’s;


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• Resize to fit: enables you to resize the images of your album to the specified size (width x height). Because the Ken Burns effect uses a zoom effect keep in mind that you make these larger then the actual Flash movie.

• Effect time: determines the time that a slide is fully visible and that the Ken Burns effect is being used • Transition time: specifies the time between slides with the alpha blending effect. • Preloader Color: If you’d like you can change the color of your preloader. You can use the color

picker or enter a hexadecimal color value. • Background Color: Use this property to change the background color. You can use the color picker

or enter a hexadecimal color value. • Loop Slideshow: If you want to repeat your slideshow after it’s completed, please check the Loop

Slideshow option. • Background Music: Enter the path and file name of the mp3 that you want to use or use the browse

button to add music to your slideshow. • Volume: Enter the volume to specify the loudness of your mp3. • Streaming: Enable this checkbox to allow the playing of music while still loading date. • Repeat: adjust this parameter to determine if your sound should be looped. • On Click: enables you to refer to a link after the user has clicked on the slideshow. You can choose

the file that you want to link to by selecting the Browse… button. You can choose the target in the dropdown behind the Browse… button.

• After GoTo: enables you to go to a link after the slideshow is finished. Note: This option is only enabled when the Loop Slideshow option is disabled. You can choose the file that you want to link to by selecting the Browse… button. You can choose the target in the dropdown behind the Browse… button.


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FAQ Q: I changed a parameter but the change is not visible at my live site. A: Make sure you’ve uploaded your slideshow XML file to your server and that you’ve deleted your browser cache. Here is a link that shows you how to do this for internet explorer 6. Here is a link that shows you how to do this for other browsers. Q: My slideshow says it is missing a file A: You need to upload the slideshow.swf, MP3 file and XML file and the folder that you’ve specified for your photo’s to your server Q: I want to display a background image A: Set the wmode parameter in the Flash movie to transparent, on this page there is an explanation on how to do it. Other values for the wmode parameter are explained here. Q: My slideshow doesn’t display my photos A: Please make sure that the page of your slideshow is saved in the site that is defined in Dreamweaver to prevent path problems. You can also change the path to your images in the XML file. Q: Where can I find more information on Active Slideshow? A: You can find more information on the Active Slideshow at http://www.dmxzone.com/go?10829. Q: How do I create a slideshow for a standalone Flash player? A: Rename your XML file to slideshow.xml and open the slideshow.swf file to start the slideshow.


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Active Slideshow Manual - DMXzone...• Effect time: determines the time that a slide is fully visible and that the Ken Burns effect is being used • Transition time: specifies the