Blog  straight off the cuff

Newest to Oldest  forever and ever

Five Questions with John Crain concerning Slideshow Pro

posted by on December 1st, 2008

What is Slideshow Pro?
Slideshow Pro is a photo and video publishing system primarily built for web applications. It was created for those without programming experience or those without the time to build an entire slideshow from scratch.

What Programming Language(s) Does Slideshow Pro Utilize?
Primarily, Slideshow Pro is built with the Adobe Flash platform. Delving deeper, there's quite a bit of PHP and javascript thrown into the mix.

Can Clients Manage Slideshow Pro Slideshows?
With the Director component of Slideshow Pro, a complete content management system can be created that allows managing and minor editing of media for the slideshow. Taking advantage of AJAX, Director completes tasks quickly and with minimal effort. Slideshow Pro also offers a plug-in for Adobe Lightroom that allows users to upload and manage photos from the Lightroom application.

What are some of the limitations to Slideshow Pro / Director?
To take full advantage of the creation of a slideshow in Slideshow Pro, users must have a working knowledge of Adobe Flash. Fortunately, this is only in the initial creation process and no Flash knowledge is required afterward.
Being built primarily in Flash, Slideshow Pro needs the Flash Player to be installed in the end-user's browser. While most modern browsers include and utilize this player from the start, many mobile devices will not display Flash content (no Flash, no Slideshow Pro).

Please Cite a Few Examples of Slideshow Pro / Director on projects by JLB.
JLB has used Slideshow Pro on countless websites for numerous purposes including product galleries, photo slideshows and video galleries.
A site utilizing a variety of features of Slideshow Pro is Phil Joel's website. The Photos section contains an expansive gallery of Phil's pictures from tour shots to behind the scenes footage. The Media section displays a collection of Phil's photos that can be browsed through and viewed without the need for downloading.
A much simpler example in which Slideshow Pro was utilized is Creekstone Homes of Franklin, TN.