How to build a slide show?

[Guest]

Hello All!

After working in the television industry, moving to a developing career has
been interesting to say the least. 3 years of developing with books, and the
help of you fine folks on this forum, I have learned quite a bit. But that
doesn't mean anything when your looking for your first developing gig. 15
years in television production, and not having a college degree in Computer
Science does not make me a very good prospect.
But, I have come across a job that is giving me a test, to see what I can
do. The test is to build a web site with a main focus on a slide show. I can
handle the pics and stuff, but I never built a slide show. I will be
searching tonite for ideas on how to create this, but if anybody knows of
some good examples or articles on how to this, it would be greatly
appreciated. The language I'm working with is VB.net.

TIA!!!

Rudy

 

[darrel]

After working in the television industry, moving to a developing career
has

been interesting to say the least. 3 years of developing with books, and the
help of you fine folks on this forum, I have learned quite a bit. But that
doesn't mean anything when your looking for your first developing gig. 15
years in television production, and not having a college degree in Computer
Science does not make me a very good prospect.
But, I have come across a job that is giving me a test, to see what I can
do. The test is to build a web site with a main focus on a slide show. I can
handle the pics and stuff, but I never built a slide show. I will be
searching tonite for ideas on how to create this, but if anybody knows of
some good examples or articles on how to this, it would be greatly
appreciated. The language I'm working with is VB.net.

Define 'slide show'. If it's merely a set of images that you navigate
through, you could build a tool to allow people to upload images, store that
info in a database, and then build a navigation system that walks through
each item.

To get a bit fancier, you could output the db info into an XML file and then
use a Flash interface to present the slideshow. This was is very nice:

http://www.slideshowpro.net/index.php

-Darrel

 

[Lucas Tam]

But, I have come across a job that is giving me a test, to see what I
can do. The test is to build a web site with a main focus on a slide
show. I can handle the pics and stuff, but I never built a slide
show.

You'll need to use Javascript + Javascript Timer.

If you want the pages to auto scroll forward, you would dynamically write
out client side javascript which automatically navigates the user to the
next page.

Getting facier, you can do dynamic updates of portions of the page with
Javascript (i.e. fetch the next image and replace the current image) - with
this method, the page won't even refresh, but only the picture will change.

 

[Guest]

Great suggestion guys!!
Here is what is expected of this task, to give you a better idea of what I
need to do.

Task -- Slideshow Application
1.Public facing site
a.A "Slideshow" consists of:
i.a name
ii.a description
b.An individual "slide" consists of:
i.an image
ii.a caption
iii.a photo credit (e.g., "Photo by Johnathan Smith")
iv.a "Next" and "Previous" button/link
c.Choose one of the following:
i. Automatically advance to the next slide after a given amount of time.
This amount of time can be different for each slide. For example, a slide
with a lengthy caption can be assigned a longer "display" time than another
slide.
ii.Add thumbnails to the slideshow previewing "Next" and "Previous" slides.
These thumbnails must be created in code with the full-size image, not
uploaded.
2."Admin" site
a.Admins must login and authenticate to the datasource.
b.The tool should support multiple slide shows. For example, we may want a
"Packer" slide show on one page and a "Holiday party" slide show on another.
c.Each property of a slide or slide show can be modified via the admin tool.
d.It is also possible to add a new slide to a slide show, or to add a new
slide show completely.

TIA!!

Rudy

 

[darrel]

Here is what is expected of this task, to give you a better idea of what I

need to do.

Rudy...take a look at the flash app I linked to. It can do a lot and simply
gets it's data from an XML file. So all you need to present to the flash
component is an XML file containing the files you want to show with their
captions.

-Darrel

 

[Brian Cryer]

You'll need to use Javascript + Javascript Timer.

If you want the pages to auto scroll forward, you would dynamically write
out client side javascript which automatically navigates the user to the
next page.

Getting facier, you can do dynamic updates of portions of the page with
Javascript (i.e. fetch the next image and replace the current image) -
with
this method, the page won't even refresh, but only the picture will
change.

Like Lucas said, you'll need to use JavaScript. The slideshow script that I
use and recommend can be found at:
http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/script12slideshow.htm.

All the best,

Brian.

www.cryer.co.uk/brian

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for your suggestions! I will look at all the options.
This has become even more important for me now, since I got laid off my job
yesterday. They waited till the end of the day, and then just told me they
are going to let me go, and need to get fresh blood in the company. Which
means we pay you too much, need to hire sombody cheaper and younger. So I
need to hit a homerun with this one. Thanks again for all your kindness and
help!

Rudy

 

[Brian Cryer]

Rudy,

sorry to hear your news. I've been there and its not nice. I hope you bounce
back somewhere soon ... the job market in the UK seems very buoyant at the
moment, I hope it is where you are.

all the best,

Brian.