How to make Slideshow![]() Slideshow is the automated display system on PC or HP, for photos taken by digital camera. Simple photo viewer tool generally has a button for automated continuous display. But too simple! And you can not use this tool on internet Web site. So, you may want to have some tool, which can be used for local PC and internet Web site. OK! I will introduce for you the tool, which will satisfy all these requirements. I will show you the required functions step by step with JavaScript tool developed by myself. If you want to go straight to make slideshow now, a Step-by-Step procedure document, or, Step-by-Step procedure (slideshow version) are provided for the starters. 1. Is there any good way to show a bunch of photos on my HP?
If you want to upload a bunch of photos on your HP, you may want to do it with something like Slideshow style. Simpliest style will be like this. Sample01 2. Control Bar
Well done! But there is no control for display such as Start/Stop/Backward/Forward/Single Step/Resume. You may also need to have Progress-Bar, how the show is progressing. So, you may want Control Bar for the show. Sample02 ![]() Note: Music 'Mute'/volume control, and Narration 'Mute' buttons are added on controlbar. (Update6) 3. Enjoy BGM or Narration
You may also want to have BGM or narration for the Slideshow. Sample03 4. Audio Control Bar
Yes. You may also want to have Control Bar for Audio, which controls, such as, Volume control/Mute/Start/Stop/Forward & Backward Skip. But, sometimes it's not necessary to have 2 Control bars. You are right! There is an option for Control bar to display on screen. The Slideshow Control bar Start/Stop button synchronously controls Audio bar Start/Stop button. So, it's OK to have one, unless you need to have volume and speed control for BGM. Sample04 ![]() Note: Current browser, both PC and smart phone, has audio control function in browser. Therefore, omitting Audio Control Bar will release more application display space, especially in smart phone environment, and is recommended. 5. Display time for each frame
Instead of fixed time of interval for displaying frame, you may want to have a feature that can be set any time for individual frame. For the above example, each frame interval was 1 second. Now default interval is set to 5 seconds, and some frame now has 10 seconds. You can verify that the progress bar now has a proportional length for each frame. Sample05 (Note: Control bar shown here was the previous version style. Current version does not show the frame length.) ![]() 6. Title and Credit frame
You may want to have Title frame in the beginning, and Credit frame at the end of show, which will describe the nature of the show. Sample06 7. Synchronization with BGM/Narration and the show
It is not always necessary to have a synchronization with the BGM, but in the case of wedding ceremony, for example, it is nice to have the BGM fanfare synchronizes with the bride entrance from the door, or the end of the show synchronizes with the end of music exactly. It is possible to do that with the use of interval time adjustment for frame, but this method is very cumbersome if the insertion or deletion of the frame occurs. If you have several synchronization points, it almost impossible to maintain. So, instead of using interval time for frame, assignment of the start time to the frame will cover this problem. The tool provides the conversion method between interval/start time mode switching visvasa. "Start time mode" is an essential feture fot audio narration. This show is palying with "Start time mode", but you can't see the difference, though. Sample07 Normally you can start building slidshow by useing either way, and at the completion, by the provided convertion tool, both field can be populated syncronized. But, if you intend to have different time proceeding of the show, you can do so. 8. Comment and Date for each frame
You may want to have Comment and Date description text for each frame, not only on Title and Credit frame. Sample08 9. Text effect for Title/Comment/Date
You may need to have the ability to use various text effect feature such as Font/Color/Movement/Fade for the Title/Comment/Date text. Sample09 Ref:What is text effect The following figure depicts all of the Slideshow supported effects. ![]() The HTML tag can be embed into text, you can enjoy, not only different font effects, but also by using AUDIO, VIDEO, IMG tag, for example, imbedding Youtube or other Apps using iFrame, you can add various effects and make the frame attractive. 10. What about Zooming/Panning/Scrolling
This feature enables still image of photos to give movement and gives look and feel of a video movie, and animates. Sample10 Ref:What is Pan/Zoom/Scroll The following figure shows all the Slideshow supported features. ![]() 11. What about the transition effect between frame change
You may want the transition effect between frame change, and make the show fancy. Sample11 Microsoft IE (IE Document Mode up to Ver8) has 23 kinds of Reveal Transition, and Blend Transition supports. Note: As Microsoft does not support these functions after IE8, this Slideshow now support the same functionality, using CSS3 and Javascript. On the other hand, these functions are not supported for older IE versions by this Slideshow. Ref:What is Reveal Transition The following figure shows all Slideshow supported effects. The Transition is the image effect applied to the photos at the time of frame switching. ![]() 12. Not only 3:4 sized frame, but what about HD(9:16) sized photo frame
This sample is using High Definition (9:16) frame. Standard frame(3:4) sample: Sample12 13. Music File (.MP3) is not easy to use -Royality problem concerns
![]() You have no need to worry about the royalty problem. You can use the music which is published on YouTube. We can find many YouTubes, which are posted for music, or as a background music. So we can use Youtube as a BGM without displaying Youtube video. It is legal(?). Youtube Flamenco Guitar lesson by Jose Tanaka is used for as a BGM. Sample13 ![]() Note: Youtube control bar used to be displayed like this, but because of the recent Youtube UI change, displayed differently. (Ref: Update3 comment) 14. Want to have narration feature
Slideshow supports not only displaying text, but also support 'Narration'. Three text fields, Display1, Display2 and Display3 are general text fields, and the purpose and display 17 locations are free. But, generally Display1 is used for Caption, Display2 is for Comment and Display3 is for Date. In Display3 text 'Narration' text can be embeded using <audio> tag, but not dedicated to narration, text display fuction is same as before. If narration text is found in Display3 field, Background music volume will be decreased to low level and prevent for mix sound condition. But next frame, if frame does not have narration, background music volume will be recovered. Sample14 Slideshhow progress control bar has music and narration 'Mute' control buttons now. 15. Want to see other samples
The following example slideshow is using YouTube music for Flamenco dance with Guitar, my hobby, Flamenco Guitar is here. Flamenco Another samples are also here named "Four seasons in Japan" Demo1, and "Yakushiike Park" Demo2. 16. Slideshow seems to have many options. Can I override the option parameter(s) at runtime
There are 14 optional paramters, which have name. But some parameter(s) have multiple values defined.Yes. For example, the Audio control-bar or Slideshow control-bar display can be set ON/OFF, or default duration timer for frame change can be set to different time. All the options specified on uploaded Html file can be overrided at runtime. This will be very convenient to re-use the uploaded site content for other purpose, such as, embedding to Blog or other WEB site. Calling sequence format is like this; http://xyz.html#audiocontrol=0;1,showcontrol=0;1. Parameter(s) follows after # mark and can be set as many as you want with separating ',' (comma). The following Slideshow is an iFrame embeded sample using 'demo2'l, with No Audio Control and Slideshow Autoplay is set to OFF. This Slideshow is now waiting Start Resume Button or Single Step Forward Button to proceed next, and the music is not auto-played. note: iFrame is a technique, which bring other page into the frame defined on current page. Following example, using 'demo1', replacing background music to 'sakura variations' from Youtube 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wvQk57vwHY', directly, without changing original show. To adjust the length of Youtube, speed paramter is also overrided. All optional parameters are possible to be replaced, with new value(s) at the program execution time. For example, 'speed="10;1;1";' has 3 values, frame change speed, blend time and transistion time. So, actually 24 replaceable parameters are exist. Slideshow visitoers may not use this ferature, of course, but for the slideshow developper, this is a quite convenient feature. 17. Cool! I wanna use it
No need to have the knowledge about HTML nor Javascript. Only you need to do is to prepare the list of photos, music file, and the display option for each frame. That's it! All others are taken cared by JavaScript Library "slideshow.js". No need to download the "slideshow.js" file, though. As same as sample HTMLs on this page, server will take care all of the show functions for you. I'll show you the sample04.html. You can't see much coding here. source code of Sample04.html Inside the <head> tag, there are 14 option parameters (speed~debugdump), which are possible to replace at the execution time, if desired. Each line has a comment attached at the end of line and is self-explanatory. These 14 option paramters have predefined default value. If default value is OK, it's possible to omit that option parameter. The following template file's option parameters are using default values only, so you can find the default value there. The "data[n++]=" lines are defining photo frames. The "data[n++]=" line which does not have photo file name is displayed with gray, and generally can be used for Title and Credit screens. The text, image effect option parameters and template file description is HERE for your reference. If you want to use JavaScript Library "slideshow.js", you can download it. But, if you only want to use it, you even no need to download "slideshow.js". You only need to insert one line in the body tag as seen on the sample. Then, you can enjoy the free maintenance from possible update and/or enhancement, automatically. Thus, you can make your own slideshow, but there is no application program to load, and no need to install anything. If you don't like to make minimum 30 lines of HTML file by "notepad", HERE is the template file for you. Copy&Paste to notepad and add images(photos), add audio(music), add/modify parameters as you like it, and save the created file with extention ".html", not ".txt". This template has no photo, no music and displays blank space for picture. It shows like THIS. You need to add/modify text or parameter in 8 columns of slide[n++]="①|②|③|④|⑤|⑥|⑦|⑧"; line. Provided template file is a form of general basic style for use. With using this template, Add/modify to use various effects such as, Text, Transition, Panning/Zooming, etc. This is the modified example version for your reference. If you are truly PC beginner and need the Step-by-Step procedure for making slideshow from my template, or, Step-by-Step procedure (slideshow version) are provided for the starters. 18. More simple way
![]() They have little knowledge about programming sense. For those who don't have the ability, there is another simple way to achieve this goal, only by clicking mouse button. Microsoft is releasing, as you know, Windows Live Movie Maker for free. The Movie Maker is easy to make a slideshow, and once project is done, the tool I have developed, Movie Maker to Slideshow Conversion Tool, will convert to slideshow for you. You can not upload Movie Maker itself to Internet without conversion to some video encoded format, such as MP4. But video formatted file sometime becomes hundreds MB size, and will eatup most of your Web site space, at once. For example, Demo2, a 3 munites slideshow has about 2.3MB file size, but the video captured file size is 73.9MB, about 32 times larger than original size. Tool is quite simple and no manual will be required. But, the story that I happened to develop this tool is written on my Blog HERE. If you are interested with this tool, I will suggest you to read the article for this tool. (Ref: Update5 comment) ![]() 19. Future enhancement
Up tp HTML5, each Browser has different support functions, and different way of interpretations. Even in same maker, different version have had an incompatible problem and different interpretation. All makers are trying to make compatible between Browsers with the use of HTML5, as a standard. The new CSS3 or later CSS will standardize the Transition or Filer Effect. I've tested slideshow with using Microsoft IE and Google Chrome, and internally I am checking Browser maker difference and version's difference, and acting upon accordingly for compatibility, such as the case of the Microsoft proprietary Transition and Filter Effect. Also, even in Microsoft IE, from IE9 began to take HTML5 as a standard, and old proprietary API support is discouraged/discontinued. Update1: From the time of this initial development, Microsoft have released revised versions of IE10, IE11, IE12(SPARTAN) and now the latest IE (Windows 10 SPARTAN) is discontinued to use the Document Mode model, and the use of old version by <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=n"> tag is going to be invalid, and trying to support only the latest standard of HTML5. As W3C trying to standardize the CSS further, I will revise "slideshow.js" based on these activities and will eliminate the legacy APIs. Update2: Microsoft IE (up to Ver8) supports 23 kinds of Reveal Transition, and Blend Transition, and this "slideshow.js" have used that functionality. But now updated to support these functions without using Microsoft proprietary APIs, and achieved the same functionality with using CSS3/HTML5 and javascript. So, the latest IE or Google Chrome can enjoy this feature. On the other hand, as old IE versions do not support CSS3/HTML5, these functions are just disabled. Update3: Because of the UI change in Youtube, the small window of video screen is now displayed on the same place of Control-bar. Under the Smart Phone/Tablet OS, even though "Auto play" is specified, it will not automatically start the music by default. You need to start manually. Because of this fact, the control bar is mandatory. There is no need to have manual control such as start, pause, skip forward, skip backward and rewind. So, Youtube control bar display on screen is stoped now. Slideshow application can handle syncronized control with slideshow control. There are 2 ways to use BGM, from Youtube or Audio file. Current control bar works for either case, so there is no need to differentiate. But, in case of Youtube ![]() ![]() Update4: Microsoft new Edge browser and Google Chrome browser support. As old Microsoft IE versions and old Edge browser version are discouraged to use, this Library is currently maintained only for new Microsoft Edge browser (and Google Chrome browser). As of 2021/1/28 W3C announcement, HTML5 have been obsoleted, and WHATWG's Living Standard became the standard now. Update5: Free Microsoft 'Windows Live Movie Maker' support is currently stopped, and not able to download from Microsoft anymore. Microsoft announcement is HERE. Update6: New feature, 'Narration' is added. Description and sample can be find in article 14. Also, autohide for control bar(s) have been implemented. You can control the bar(s) by placing mouse on the frame screen. Update7: Latest version information and update history information of the library, slideshow.js, will be found in this PDF file. |