[tweaks] Highslide Tweaks for XWD6

[Boy]

Inspired by John (covoxer) and Steve (sledger), I tried my hand at putting together some tweaks for the Highslide slideshow feature of XWD6. I zipped them up and attached them to this post. I used code snippets as presented on the Highslide website: http://highslide.com.

I’m nowhere near an expert in writing code and I hope, therefore, that John – who is one of the developers at Xara – is willing to take a good look at them. I’ve noticed that some code that I tried out seemed to reset some of XWD’s HS core settings, so perhaps it’s wise to wait till John gives his okay.

Most tweaks allow you to adjust settings/values. I included in the Placeholder “Replace with HTML code” window some directions. These are preceded by a double slash (“//”). I included some tweaks allowing to restore default settings/values because in some cases even after removing a tweak, the settings/values didn’t return to XWD’s original settings/values. This may very well have been caused by some code that didn’t really work the way I expected and which I, therefore, didn’t include in the tweaks.

The tweaks are listed in the next post. If you discover any issues with them, please mention them in this thread.

[Boy]

Description of Highslide tweaks for Xara Web Designer 6:

HS BG Dimming & Color.xar – allows you to set the opacity and color of the popup background;
HS BG Reset Defaults.xar – allows you to reset the default settings for opacity and color of the popup background;
HS Block Right-Click.xar – this tweak makes it impossible for a visitor to right-click an image and copy or save it. Please note that a visitor can copy/save the images in other ways;
HS Caption R or L + Width.xar – allows you to set the caption panel to the right or left of the popup image and set the panel’s width;
HS Center Popup + Default.xar – same tweak as introduced by sledger but default value (“auto”) is included;
HS Number All Images.xar – with this tweak each image in the slideshow is numbered and set off against the total count of images. You can customize display text and assign it to the header or the caption (footer) area of the popup;
HS Popup Set Margins.xar – this tweak helps you to keep certain areas of your web page (e.g., the menu) uncovered by popups;
HS Popup Defaults.xar – allows you to reset the margins to “0” again;
HS Preload Images.xar – you can set the number of images to be preloaded. If too many images are preloaded the page may act slowly.

[Boy]

Ah, I forgot. You can have the tweaks included in the Designs Gallery by clicking the "Disc Designs" button on top of this gallery. Browse to where you saved the tweaks folder on your hard disk and open the folder. Even though you don't see anything, click "Add". Now, the tweaks will be accessible through the Designs Gallery.

To use them, drag and drop them on the MouseOff layer of the page on which you have an image gallery. You can change the settings by opening the Web Properties window and selecting the Placeholder tab.

[steve.ledger]

Nice job of collecting and preparing these for use in WD6 Boy
Xtreme Pro 6 will also use the HS popups, so when that is released all the HighSlide tweaks will work there too.

Thanks for taking the time.

(Of course you realise you now have to support them )

[zaphodeist]

Hi Boy. Thanks very much for the tweaks, very generous of you 1st with a support problem here though I'm afraid [probably me!!] - tried the Centre, Caption Align and Numbering tweaks together and only the centring works Tried without it and the others individually but still no joy. Could you have a look at the .web for me please?

[Boy]

1st with a support problem here ...

I think I got it covered, neodeist. Looking at your file I noticed the following: First of all, you need to place the placeholders on the page itself. The caption align feature didn't work for you because you didn't enter any text on them (in other words: w/o text, no caption panel).

I redid your file a bit and attached it to this post.

LATER EDIT: As sledger pointed out, these tweaks missed the <head> name and therefore didn't work off the page. New .zip file will be uploaded...

[Boy]

(Of course you realise you now have to support them )

You got me worried there, Steve, especially when I saw neodeist's post!

[wolfcoach]

Boy - Thanks for these customizations. I hadn't visited the forums too often in the past, but I see that there is a great community out here!

I've been on the HS site trying to find out how to do 3 specific things:
- Get the slide navigation buttons to be bigger (like in the "red barn" example on http://highslide.com/#examples)
- Change the font size/family of the caption
- Use the black overlay options for the captions (like hs.registerOverlay)

Your mods worked really well for me - how did you grab the code from HS for your modifications?

Thanks again for the toys

[Boy]

Wolfcoach, glad you find the tweaks useful.

Sorry to say, but as far as I know the three customizations you want are not possible through XWD6 tweaks. You'd need to configure Highslide for that and that is impossible in XWD6. You could download the HS-pack and try to find your own solution and bypass XWD6's native HS-option. I haven't tried this but imagine it would be possible.

All possible customization code can be found on the HS website and their forum. Some of the code that I used for the tweaks I found here: http://highslide.com/ref/.

If you're going to pursue this, please show us your results. Would be very much appreciated.

[gpholman]

Hello Boy, thanks for posting these - the hard work anyone puts into contributions like this are very much appreciated.