LOVE LOVE LOVE the new embedded slideshow feature. Seriously, this has the potential to completely change the way I use Zenfolio, and could significantly improve the way I present my business on the web.

Thank you!!

One thing I really, really miss, and I'm hoping there is an easy work-around -- is there a parameter I can add to the code to enable autoplay/autostart of the slideshow? I think the need to have the user press the button significantly reduces the potential usefulness of the embedded slideshow feature.

Thanks,

Paul

 I too think the new embedded feature is really useful and pretty cool.

For some reason I am having some trouble getting the slideshow feature to work on the boards I post on.  Is anyone else having this problem?  I might be doing it wrong.

I don't think you can just drop it into a discussion board thread -- you have to put it in a programming environment, I think.

I've tried it on WordPress blog and blogspot -- worked perfectly in both places. Really, really nice implementation. I just hope they can give us an autoplay option sooner than later. 

it is very very awesome!  Love this!  and yeah, an autoplay option would be great too!  even if it's something we can add to the code manually without having to change the setup tool right away.  ;)

But thank you!  I love it!

We will add the AutoPlay into the next release of the slideshow. Personally, I think it is a little evil when something starts playing before I ask it, but maybe it is just me.

Really? Evil? I dunno -- I would definitely agree with you if it was an audio slide show or movie that just started blaring at you. But the usage I'm thinking of is more like a portfolio page where you want images to change automatically. Or you can use it to display images and messaging. I think a fair number of sites are using auto slideshows on their top pages.

You can see a couple different ways I have used autoplay slideshows here:

http://albanyheadshots.com

http://upstatephotographers.com

In both of these cases, the coding a user has to do, while not difficult, is tedious and slow -- nowhere near as easy and elegant as Zenfolio's new embedded slideshow.

Zenfolio's slideshow implementation is superb -- I spent a few hours playing with it this morning, and it is flat out the best I have seen anywhere on the internet -- except for the lack of autostart, and no audio. My guess is that if and when you implement these features, you will be shocked at how much usage the embedded slideshow option will get. 

All the best,

Paul

Yeah, as I said... we will add it in the future release. And thank you very much for your kind words!

yes I really like it.. works very well!  very nice interface for creating the code as well...  another excellent feature!

i love it to!  ditto on the auto start. 

i'd love to enable full screen viewing but only if it respects the pictures original size (i.e, does not stretch and distort it).   most often i only upload web-sized images.  i think the full screen mode should not enlarge smaller images, much like our current slide-show feature in the gallery.

is it possible to email a slide-show????  that would be nice too.

Kudos to Zenfolio for all the hard work.  great job ;-)

Lance

Lance,

You can always email the link, but if using 'outlook' you can't because outlook wont allow displaying of embedded flash... actually I tried it and I believe it sent it, but outlook when receiving it won't play the flash...  security issues... protecting you from viruses and other harmful programs, etc.

I'm pretty sure most email client programs would be similar...

Paul Grupp and Brenda Tompkins:

I've tried it on WordPress blog and blogspot -- worked perfectly in both places. Really, really nice implementation. I just hope they can give us an autoplay option sooner than later. 

Hi! I wasn't able to get the slideshow working on my Wordpress blog. I got a window with a slider and the actual source code from the Zenfolio code generator. No pictures at all.

Will you please provide a link to your blog? I'd like to see the slideshow. Maybe I can then figure out why I could not see my slideshow.

Thanks for your time!

George Jones

You need to open your page in source code to paste the feature, otherwise, you will only see the code.

I too love this new feature - thanks ZenF!

Hi George,

Sure -- you can see an example of how I used the embedded slideshow feature here: http://www.upstatephotographers.com/?p=901

The secret to making it work is -- when you open up the post you want to insert it into, go into the HTML editing window, and paste Zenfolio's code snippet into the post there. Then save the post before going back to the Visual Editor view.

Be aware that Wordpress is a bit quirky about code -- even in the HTML editor, it can make changes for you that can break things. In my brief experimentation with the slideshow, I found that if you paste the code in last, after you make all the other changes to the post, you have a better chance of it working perfectly the first time.

I also found that adding <code>  tag before the snippet, and </code> at the end reduces the chance of other edits in the post "breaking" the slideshow.

I am using Wordpress 2.8.

Best,

Paul

Kevin Thompson:

yes I really like it.. works very well!  very nice interface for creating the code as well...  another excellent feature!

Seems that most of my questions/observations deal with keeping things slim and organized. Here's another.

Because I do a lot of slide shows in my business, the creation of a collection and it being displayed on my home page will create more folders that I have to deal with. Thanks to Kevin, I learned much about organizing and grouping so I know I could create a group to hold my slide shows in one place. That helps some, but wouldn't it be nice to simply have the ability to HIDE a collection, a group or a gallery while still being able to get to it from direct links without using passwords? I have experimented with 'private' as the option in the access panel but that doesn't seem to give me the desired results. Anyone have thoughts on this?