Can the xara photo slideshow widgets be customised in any way?

[steve.ledger]

The slideshow widgets supplied with Xara Web Designer Premium 9 are .js (Pure DHTML) based. No flash.
I recommend trying it for 30 days
► http://www.xara.com/products/webdesigner/

[Rocketman]

ok, just in case anybody else reading this is having similar issues with the lack of customisation for the xara-supplied widgets, there is a workaround, which is not ideal but does seem to work.

What I have done is to create a small rectangle using the shape tool and position such that it covers the numbered boxes that sit below the slideshow. If you colour this rectangle to be the same as the page background and use the 'arrange' facility to bring the rectangle in front of the numbered boxes (whilst taking care not to cover any of the slideshow itself) then you effectively mask the numbered panels. Providing the page background is the same colour as the rectangle then it basically looks invisible - so all you see when you preview the page is the slideshow photos and not any of the thumbnails that accompany it. I guess this only works if you have a plain, rather than a patterned or image background (or at least it would be difficult to achieve this result if that is the case).

I've yet to try this on a live site and perhaps its not the most ideal solution. If anyone has a better idea please do let me know, or if you can think of any reason why this workaround might not work in practice then let me know

Regards
Tom

[steve.ledger]

just a shame their own widgets aren't a little bit more customisable!

Pretty well all of the widgets are third party which have been modified and licensed for inclusion with Xara Software.
If you want full customisability, then you can edit the JavaScript such as I did here to remove the numbers:
► http://xara-users.info/demos/fass-wi...bers/index.htm
Details here ► http://board.xara-users.info/viewtop...&t=4715#p32048

If anyone has a better idea please do let me know,

See above

[Rocketman]

Pretty well all of the widgets are third party which have been modified and licensed for inclusion with Xara Software.
If you want full customisability, then you can edit the JavaScript such as I did here to remove the numbers:
► http://xara-users.info/demos/fass-wi...bers/index.htm
Details here ► http://board.xara-users.info/viewtop...&t=4715#p32048


See above

Brill, thanks Sledger!

Just out of interest, is that forum that you linked to a different xara forum to this one 'talk graphics' or just an older version or something?

[tomsbs]

I am using the Nivo Sllider widget. I discovered you can change some additional settings by editing a js file.

After you export the project, look for the file: jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js in the Export folder. At the very bottom of the file there are a number settings you can change. Some are not real obvious as to what they do but you can play around. Editing here I was able to turn off the annoying naviagtion dots and also get it to start on a random picture.

Another problem though is that Web Designer may overwrite your modified file later on when you export and/or upload again in the future. I was able to get around this by copying the modified jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js file to the xxx_web_files folder. Apparently these files are copied in last so your modified file will overwrite the generated one. I am not sure this works under all circumstances so it would be wise to check the page in question after an update.

You can also make some changes when you are in the Nivo Slider screen using it's "Page and Layer" gallery. For example, before you begin adding photos, delete the text lines in all four mouseover layers. This will erase the caption text from showing if you don't want it.

[jonazen]

One more to add to the list -- jAlbum -- I've been using this for the last few years. I was support a super simple 4 page site for a trade organization when they asked if I could display all the photos from their annual convention. Of course I said "yes", and started searching for tools as soon as I hung up. After looking through several sites, jAlbum looked like a good choice, and I have to say that I've been very pleased with it. There's a fairly enormous user community, a large variety of skins to start with, and many options to customize the presentation.

Here's a very simple site built in DPX-v8:
http://thenafd.com/index.htm

...and if you click on the Convention menu item, a drop down will let you pull up photos of the last few years events, e.g., 2012:
http://thenafd.com/convention%20pictures%202012.htm

This is a very modest / plain example of what can be done with jAlbum. We went in this direction because I was able to pull the whole thing together very quickly at very low cost to the client, and I simply dropped the code into a Xara placeholder in the site, uploaded the images and was done.

Feature rich, and if you take care of hosting, it's free. Alternatively, you can pay a modest annual fee (I don't, and don't know the price off hand) and have them host albums for you. Here's the site:

http://www.jalbum.net

[steve.ledger]

Brill, thanks Sledger!

Just out of interest, is that forum that you linked to a different xara forum to this one 'talk graphics' or just an older version or something?

It's an independent Xara software users forum which began in 2010, so it's much younger (newer) than TG.

[hobbspeter]

The other solution is to use third party slide show utility such as www.visualslideshow.com to build your custom slide show, then use a placeholder to add the slide show to your page.

A placeholder is a simple rectangle (or any object) into which you can add code to add the code to your HTML documents. If this sounds like it would work, then we can give you more specific directions.

[/B]Hi Gary,
I have created a slideshow with visualslideshow but need help in adding the HTML code. I have drawn a rectangle in the location where I want the show and then gone to the Pageholder section and copied the code for the Head and Body into the HTML places. But when I save the page the background gets all messed up and the slide show does not function.
Can you walk me through the steps i need to take to make this work?
Many thanks.
Peter Hobbs at Verity Graphics

[steve.ledger]

Perhaps this older tutorial might help? Similar software, same company.
► http://xara-users.info/demos/visual-lightbox/index.htm