ie Slideshow - User's Manual (free version)
 Used
by the National Park Service and Hands on the Land, this Flash-based slide
show tool is available at no cost. Please contact Interactive
Earth for a customized version or implementation consultation. Customized
versions may contain music, varied sizes, additional buttons, hyperlinking,
custom transitions and more.
System Requirements
The free Macromedia Flash Player version 6.0 or greater is required for
the use of this tool.
Features
Image Size
Ideally, images should be formatted to 534 px width x 333 px height.
An image that is less than or greater than this size will be centered,
but not resized, in the viewing area.
Title Bars
The slide show contains a lower-right title bar and faded-out upper
subtitle bar. Enter a title and subtitle into the variables of the slideshow.txt
file (see Using the Tool below).
Scrollable Description Field
Enter any length of text into the description field for each slide
in the images variable of slideshow.txt file. The field will
automatically resize itself for each slide's text length. Simple HTML
tags may be included into these descriptions.
Forward/Back/Start Over Buttons with Slide Number
These features are standard and cannot be customized in the free version.
Background Color
A background color can be assigned to fade in and out images in the
defined color.
Source Files
The source files must be placed in the same
folder as the HTML file containing the slide show <object> code.
Files include: ie_slideshow.htm, ie_slideshow.swf and slideshow.txt. Slideshow.txt
must be customized (see Code Generator and Using the Tool below).
To run the Code Generator locally, three additional files are included.
Open Code_Generator.htm to run it locally after downloading the source
files.
Code Generator
Use the Code Generator to create the contents
of slideshow.txt. Slideshow.txt contains customized information about
your slide show (title, image information, etc.) and must be placed in
the same folder as the other associated files.
Using the Tool
Save the ie_slideshow.swf file and place it in the same folder as the
HTML viewing file which contains the source code below. The additional
file, slideshow.txt, must also be placed in the same folder. In the downloadable
source files, an HTML viewing file has been included (ie_slideshow.htm).
This file name may be modifed. Its contents may be changed, except the
following source code which must remain in the HTML viewing file:
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/
flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="534"
height="448">
<param name="movie" value="ie_slideshow.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high"><param
name="SCALE"
value="exactfit">
<embed src="ie_slideshow.swf" width="534"
height="448" quality="high"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
scale="exactfit">
</embed>
</object>
If you choose not to use the Code Generator (above) to create the code
for slideshow.txt, the content of the file must be in the standard MIME
format application/x-www-form-urlencoded (a standard format used by CGI
scripts). The text of the file should be structured as in this example:
title=Interactive Earth&subtitle=Photos from the Field&bg_color=0x000000&images=aw_pelican.jpg|The
American pelican feeds on crustaceans and small fish in lakes and ponds.
During the summer of 2004, while working on a project for Great Sand
Dunes, we spotted these majestic (and a bit clumsy) birds in Dollar
Lake just west of the main Dunefield.|American White Pelican^bobcat02.jpg|This
wild North American feline spent the entire night perched outside of
a rabbit burrow. The bobcat unsuccessfully walked away after morning
light peaked over the ridge.|Bobcat...
This example plots only two images from the slide show example. Copy
the text above, modify the variables and save this file as slideshow.txt
in the folder that contains ie_slideshow.swf. Individual variables are
delineated by an "&" and are outlined below:
title=Interactive Earth
subtitle=Photos from the Field
bg_color=0xRRGGBB [Background color, enter a hexadecimal value following
"0x".]
images=Image1.jpg|Description text for image one|Subtitle for image
one^Image2.jpg|Description text for image two|Subtitle for image two...
The variable "images" above can contain as many slides as needed.
Each slide is delineated by a "^". Content within each slide
is delineated by a "|". The file is listed first, the description
second and the subtitle for the image is third. Leave a space for no content.
Do not use characters used to delineate text (&,|,^). The final image
should not be terminated with a "^". Simple HTML tags such as
<i> or <b> may be included in description texts. All image
files should be located in the same folder as ie_slideshow.htm.
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