Asset Bank provides admin users with the ability to create embeddable versions of any slideshow they view. These embeddable slideshows can be shown on other websites with a chunk of HTML that is provided upon creation.

 

Prior to using the embeddable slideshow functionality you will need to set the following settings in the <tomcat home>\webapps\asset-bank\WEB-INF\classes\ApplicationSettings.properties file...

 

• slideshow-repurposing-enabled: needs to be set to true
• application-url: needs to be set to the url of your Asset Bank if you want to use refreshing embeddable slideshows from search results
• repurposed-slideshow-base-url: base url for embeddable slideshows (note, if this is left blank the base url will be the webapp url)
• repurposed-slideshow-base-path: absolute base path (if any) for storing embeddable slideshows (note, if this is left blank the base path will be the webapp root)
• repurposed-slideshow-path: url path for embeddable slideshows. This will be appended to any values provided inrepurposed-file-base-path or repurposed-base-url

 

 

If you are an admin user, and have enabled embeddable slideshows then when you are viewing a slideshow a new option will be shown in the  control panel menu 'create embeddable version'.

 

Clicking the link to create a new embeddable version will take you off to a page that enables you to specify the height and width of the slideshow you want to create. Dimensions can be specified in either pixels or percentage of the page and they define how big the actual flash slideshow displaying the images will be. A standard slideshow can be created which displays one image per slide with no thumbnail images. Alternatively, a photo essay can be created which has thumbnails across the bottom of the slideshow and text displayed on it (from selected attribute values).

 

Once you have decided on the size of the slideshow you can choose to either use exact copies of the 'large unwatermarked' images that are shown on slideshows in Asset Bank or convert the images to a size more suitable to the slideshow you create (i.e. if you create a small 400px x 400px slideshow then you really want to convert the images used so that they are a suitable size). Conversion options for images enable you to change the width, height, aspect ratio and jpg quality.

 

If you are creating an embeddable version of the search slideshow (rather than a browse or lightbox slideshow) then you can also specify that you want the slideshow to 'refresh'. A 'refreshing' slideshow will periodically re-run the search associated with it and change the images in the embeddable slideshow to match current results from the search. The period of refresh for these slideshows is specified in the repurposed-slideshow-refresh-period application setting (Note: If this setting is 0 or less then the refreshing option will not be displayed). 

 

If you want to change the length of time each image in the slideshow is displayed then you can do this (after selecting your chosen images in your Lightbox) by going to More actions > View as Slideshow, then clicking on the 'Options' link within the Slideshow. You will see 'Picture display time (seconds):' and you just need to alter this value to the desired number of seconds between each image before clicking 'Apply'.

 

Unless you are using a newer 'widescreen' version of Asset Bank (homepage-layout = full_width), Slideshows can be displayed in a list on the homepage for users to view by selecting “Show in list on homepage”. A default slideshow can also be set which is visible when users view the homepage by selecting “Default on homepage”.

 

Once you have created your embeddable slideshow you will be taken to a page that shows you the HTML to use to embed it on other websites, enables you to preview the slideshow you have created and also delete it if you are not happy with it.

 

You can also download your embeddable slideshow. This involves Asset Bank batching up all the necessary files into a zip file which can then be downloaded and used as needed. The download will be a zip file containing the following elements:

 

• Image files: Copies of the image files used in the slideshow
• XML file: A xml file that specifies the images to use in the slideshow, the order they are presented in and any associated captions
• HTML file: An example HTML file showing how to embed the slideshow on a website
• Flash and Javascript files: The files that do the actual work of showing the slideshow

 

All references to other files in the HTML and XML files contain no path information because everything is in the same directory. You will need to adjust paths if you download a slideshow and decide to move the files into separate directories for any reason.

 

Admin > Content > Embeddable Slideshows page lists all the embeddable slideshows currently in the system and enables you to view the code, download, preview or delete any of them.