Looking for a manual slideshow

[Mac Hine]

I'm trying to find a slideshow which doesn't automatically cycle through photos. I'd like one with a left & right arrow, to allow forward & reverse through the images. Thumbnails above would be good, as would be fade, or slide in & out. Not really interested in it continually cycling through the thumbs in a loop though.
I'd like to be able to copy the slideshow widget to other pages, from one to another, and change the photos accordingly, without having to download it each time. Just in case the widget becomes 'obsolete' I can still use the same one on new pages, for the sake of uniformity.
Maybe I'm asking too much, I don't know.

I tried the “Fade Slideshow Top” version in the widget gallery. I set the auto scroll delay to 60 seconds, as I couldn't find a way to stop it. Every time I preview the sample pages, the first photo changes within 5 seconds, although the rest do wait for a minute.
If I could stop the first photo changing early and inhibit the looping of the photo group (so they don't keep re-appearing in the thumb loop) so it gets the end and stops, would be just fine.

[rubiksolver]

If you don't need a lot of slides, you can create one using layers:
ManualSlider.xar

[Ben.Moses]

Hi Mac Hine,

With "Fade Slideshow Top" there is the option to set the auto scroll to 0, which will stop it from automatically scrolling.

[Mac Hine]

Hi Mac Hine,

With "Fade Slideshow Top" there is the option to set the auto scroll to 0, which will stop it from automatically scrolling.

Ah, thanks. When I tried that with the Nivo Slider set to 0, it just made it run through at break-neck speed. I thought it would do the same to all of them.
That's the first part sorted. I wonder if it's possible to stop the thumbs looping through endlessly?

[Mac Hine]

If you don't need a lot of slides, you can create one using layers:
ManualSlider.xar

I had a look. I think I'll need more slides though, could be 10 or 15 sometimes. But thanks for posting it.

[Mac Hine]

Ah, thanks. When I tried that with the Nivo Slider set to 0, it just made it run through at break-neck speed. I thought it would do the same to all of them.
That's the first part sorted. I wonder if it's possible to stop the thumbs looping through endlessly?

I've tried to add/change photos in the 'Fade Slideshow Top' slideshow. I copied a slideshow page & pasted it into the slideshow. I also tried duplicate page. I can add a new image to that page & it displays OK, until I preview. Then it isn't recognised and appears as a very small cross on the page. Tried with two photos now, both jpgs, but with the same result.

[Ben.Moses]

Hi Mac Hine,

When you insert your images you must not delete the original images, these have specific names applied which is used to make the widget work. Make sure your only replacing images, duplicate the pages as required, but do not delete the original images, simply drag and drop another image on top and it should replace it.

[Mac Hine]

Hi Mac Hine,

When you insert your images you must not delete the original images, these have specific names applied which is used to make the widget work. Make sure your only replacing images, duplicate the pages as required, but do not delete the original images, simply drag and drop another image on top and it should replace it.

Whoa! Hi Ben,

Thanks for that tip! When I'm following the instructions on the widget itself, it doesn't say anything as clearly as you've explained it to me.
I notice if I duplicate, it puts the image immediately below, whereas copy allows me to paste it to another position.

Now, one of the images I've copied, I re-sized. In the widget it looks fine (a lot smaller), but once again in preview mode the smaller re-sized image is displayed the same size as the original.
Is there some way to re-size images?

[Ben.Moses]

Hi Mac Hine,

There isn't a control within Xara that is capable of this, as the images are made to fill the whole Div space. However I've found a workaround, that if you open the widget and right click the image and select Names... there should be a few names on there, you want to remove the current "WTag:scaled(560):image" and replace it with a small numbered version, e.g. "WTag:scaled(280):image" (Half the size) then press Ctrl+S to save the widget, preview the site and see if that's correct (basically trial and error).

- Note: this is not a supported feature in Xara, and likely the support team wouldn't be able to assist you with this, so any questions regarding this should be kept on TG.
- Looked into the "WTag:scaled(280):image", the 280 = 280pixels and then this value is scaled depending on how the widget has been scaled in your website, however if this number is too large, then it will use the maximum value.

[Mac Hine]

Hi again Ben,

Thanks for your help with this.

I've had a look at the names you've mentioned with a view to change the scaling.
However it seems that although I could do this, all of the photos (except one) in the example are all landscape - which I want - but they have an aspect ratio of 2:1.
I'm guessing there's no way to change that part.
I'll need what's available from a standard camera – so either 4:3 or 16:9.
I even thought of adding a 2:1 frame to a 4:3 photo, but keeping the same photo height would make the frame way too wide for the page.


I also thought of using the pop-up option within Web Properties>Images, to produce a slideshow. I see within that I can 'show gallery browser controls', but those controls only appear when the mouse is over the image, they're also quite greyed out, not exactly obvious for inexperienced visitors.
That was the appeal of the Fade Slideshow – it has permanently displayed left & right navigate buttons, making it self-explanatory and easy to navigate.

At the moment I'm not sure where to go from here. To give you an idea, this is what I have on the original website and would like to replicate reasonably closely: http://udon-thani-homes.com/english/...center-en.html