Slideshows Galore!

There are many good reasons for adding a slideshow to your website. Here are a few, I'm sure you will be able to think of more.

• Add movement, color, and visual interest
• Allow interactivity
• Showcase products or pages on your site
• Save space: one show versus 20 images on a page
• It's harder for people to extract (and steal) your images from the show
• Link images to pages on your site

Flash or Javascript?

My preference is to make slideshows using Flash. There are some advantages to doing this.... your slideshow may be quicker loading, no hefty scripts on the page, better quality, more ability to add special effects, links, background music,and so on. Overall, a Flash slideshow will perform better, load quicker, and helps to protect your images from theft.

What About Free Slideshows?

You can find certain websites that allow you to create a slideshow for free, using their online applications. I find it hard to believe that anyone who is serious about their online business (and your website IS a business), would actually consider doing this. Are we all conditioned to expect everything for nothing these days?

Here are 3 good reasons why I would never do this...and you shouldn't either.

1. You are providing free backlinks to their website. Basically giving away your traffic
2. Limited options...try linking your slide images to pages on your site for example
3. What sort of impression are you creating to your vistors? Do you want them to take you seriously, or are you happy that they see you won't spend a few bucks on a slideshow for them?

Just remember...if someone is prepared to allow you to use their software, bandwidth and resources to create a slideshow, there must be something in it for them. And there is: you get their show, and they get plenty of your visitors. Not a good trade, in my opinion. It might be okay for a Myspace page, or a part time hobby blog, but a serious online business? I don't think so :-)

Some Slideshow Examples

This first example is as simple as they come. You can hover over the bottom of the show, to enable the control panel. No special effects with this one, just a plain show with a very simple transition effect between images.

Another simple style, but this time with the addition of a visible control panel at the bottom, and a border around the player. A viewer can choose to just watch the show (and click images to visit specified URLs if you want that enabled), or they can move forwards, backwards, and stop/start the show. Simple, but effective. If you click on an image, it will take you to the homepage of this site (page will open in the same tab, so use your back button to return here).

A little more advanced, this show has numbered thumbnails at the bottom. You can click on any of the images, and you will be taken to the specified page (in this case, I have chosen the homepage of this site, to open in a new tab).

Something a Little More Fancy Perhaps?

This show is XML driven, and uses thumbnails to show a preview of each slide. Each of the slides can be linked to webpages of your choice.

That's a great way to encourage people to click through to your internal webpages. A nice pic, along with a tempting caption, who can resist clicking to see more? Some of these slideshows have been linked to the homepage, and some haven't.

A very similar show, but the thumbnails remain hidden unless you click the bottom left icon (try it!). Also, slide numbers are shown in the control panel.

And this show is more compact...the controls won't show until you mouse over the image. There is then a small panel where the viewer can choose between watching the show, going forward or backwards, or displaying thumbnails of all the images. Prettty neat!

And the last one.... complete with background music (I'm not a great fan of music in a slideshow. But IF you decide to do it, then don't have the show set to auto play when the page is opened). Background music can be turned off using the speaker icon, and the show will continue without music.

Some Slide Transition Examples

A transition is the way is which one slide will move onto the next. It can fade out, drop down, slide across etc. Below is a slideshow that will show you 50 different transitions (there are more, but these will serve to demonstrate some of the different ones).

How To Get Your Own Flash Slideshow

We offer a service to create a unique slideshow for your website. Prices start from as low as $50. That will give you a slideshow similar to any of the ones shown on this page. Up to one dozen images, with headings and optional links to any webpages of your choice (a small charge for extra images).

You will need to supply.....

• images
• urls
• title that you want for each image
• music (if you want that added...you must supply music that you are entitled to use)

Let us know the order that you want the images, and your favorite transition effects. Do you want the show to start automatically when a visitor opens the page, and should the show auto repeat?

When you receive the show (in .swf format) you will be given a few lines of code to paste onto your page, along with the swf file that needs to be uploaded to your media-files folder. Some of the slideshows also use an XML file, in which case that file is also uploaded to your website.

To order a slideshow (or just ask any questions you might have), please email me at at site.designsnz (at) gmail.com with "slideshow" in the subject line.

All the best, AJ

Remember, form+function=beauty.