FlashGalleryGenerator

[Chai]

Hi,

I just finished working on a Flash photo gallery and slide show application. The site is live online on Monday. I have to thank Kirupa site for being such a great resource for my research.

Well, it started off from a conversation with a friend who could not find a Flash photo gallery that would do what he wants. He told me it need to be easy to manage and customize.

I, myself as an amatuer photographer, would like to have to same thing to show off my family photo so I decided to create my own app.

Before I knew it, a few months later, here it is......

http://www.flashgallerygenerator.com/main.aspx?demo

Please let me know what you think?

Thanks,
-Chai

[chriskalani]

It is pretty nice. the only thing I can see that should be changed is when the picture come up it fades in really fast and then all of a sudden there is a white flash over the picture. Yous hould get rid of that flash and have the pictures fade in a bit slower. Nice and easy.

[Chai]

Chriskalani,

Thanks for your comments.

The effect that you saw on the page is called "Photo". It is one of several available effects that you can choose and apply it to each album. I would say, you can customize it to work the way you want. Transition time can also be specified based on your preference.

[hybrid101]

dude, that's nice:D
i like it a lot, and i think you could actually produce this commercially or something:)

or make it open source, so we could fix bugs and stuff
:thumb:liking it!

[Chai]

Thanks hybrid101.

I'm glad you like it. Since I just launch the site, I want to gauge how people react to the application first. If I have a lot of requests asking to make it an open source...I might consider that. You never know.

For now, I want to keep this baby under the wrap. :cool:

[SmurfMX]

I'd say spiffy up the interface, it seems really unrefined right now. A bar preloader for the images would also be a nice touch. Also, as was previously stated, the flash effect isn't all to great, a fade in would work much better. It's a good idea, and has some good potential just needs that little extra polish that will attract people to it.

[unclesond]

Ditto on the fade and transitions.

[JoshuaJonah]

If you make it possible to have multi-level albums like this:


Photographer1- africa trip- pic1
pic2
pic3
- europe trip- pic1
-pic2
Photographer2- babies - pic1
pic2
-monkeys - pic1
pic2

I would be all over it.

[Chai]

I guess I was not clear on my second post about transition effects. Well, since this application is an XML driven program, all you need to do is to change the transition type, <transType>, attribute to whatever effect you want to apply to an album. The application provides you with 10 different transition effects.

If you have a moment, you can go back here http://www.flashgallerygenerator.com/main.aspx?p=demo and see the change that I made. I just changed the effect from "Photo" style to "Fade" style. I think it's very flexible in term of customization.

SmurfMX, I do agree with you on the preloader when loading photos. I'll work on that sometimes this weekend. I do appreciate your constructive critic though.

Defective, since my goal is trying to keep things simple for average users to manage the XML files. I don't want to confuse them with a complicate file structure. But I totally understand that your need is different.

Thanks a lot guys for all the suggestions.

[Chai]

SmurfMX,

Like you suggested, I have implemented an animated preloader to show image downloading status. You can see the change at http://www.flashgallerygenerator.com/main.aspx?p=demo

Cheers :cons:

[RabBell]

nice, I like this a lot...well done :thumb:

one question though, is it possible in the demo on the site to let people change the transition type so they can see not only the other types but also how easy it is to change it?

I don't mean give them the chance to edit the xml but let them see what the different effects are and how it changes the overall gallery?

but again, great work :cool:

[skiistari]

Excellent work. I love it.
Just one thing-- you should move the "FlashGalleryGenerator" water mark to somewhere else. It's sorta impeding and ugly.

:D

Congrats on a job well done!!

[Chai]

Thanks RabBell and skiistari. Your comments really make my day. As long as everyone thinks this tool is useful, I'm happy. :ko:

RabBell said:
one question though, is it possible in the demo on the site to let people change the transition type so they can see not only the other types but also how easy it is to change it?

Chai: Actually, there is a page that show you how the transitions work, you can check out this site.
http://www.ericd.net/blog_images/transitions.html


skiistari said:
Just one thing-- you should move the "FlashGalleryGenerator" water mark to somewhere else. It's sorta impeding and ugly.

Chai: The word "FlashGalleryGenerator" only shows in the lite version but you can repositioning the word by changing the value of the <watermarkLocation> attribute. If <watermarkLocation> value is "top", the word will be displayed at the bottom and it will be shown on the top when the <watermarkLocation> value is "bottom".

[Chai]

I just added a new tool on my site, Thumbnail Generator. This .NET utility will loop through all your images folders and create thumbnails for you.

http://www.flashgallerygenerator.com...spx?p=resource

Keep on shuttering...