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Friday, September 19. 2008
CoverFlow Fun at Work
I had some fun mixing a couple different JavaScript technologies and web services together to create something "interesting", and helpful for our Children's Room.
Introducing the Saratoga Springs Public Library's Children's Room Photo Gallery!
For the services, I am using Google's AJAX API to serve up my jQuery library, rather than me having to deal with keeping it upgraded and gzip/compressing it. You can read more about it here. For the photographs, I am using Flickr, as many other libraries do. It was one of the easiest and quickest that I could use with a nice desktop-based management tool that also didn't hog network bandwidth while searching for new photos (ala Picasa, or Microsoft Live Photo Gallery). Now staffers in that department can create their own photo sets (or photo categories) and manage their own images.
For the JS effects, I am using two separate libraries. Since I'm using Google's AJAX API to serve up jQuery I'll start with that one... I'm using ThickBox to show a larger version image of a thumbnail when clicked on. The nice things about Thickbox is that (1)it integrates with the other script I'm using, (2)it automatically resizes the images to fit (if too big for the viewport), and (3)is very versatile in its use of modal dialog support. The other library I am using is something called "ImageFlow" written by Finn Rudolph, which is one of the best JS-based CoverFlow implementations I have seen. The Official ImageFlow website isn't as fancy as someone else's implementation, so you may wish to check out the version that also has YouTube integration, and automatic rotation/slideshow.
I know there's currently no way to get from that page back to our home page or other areas of our website. To be honest, I'm not entirely concerned about that at the moment, I have many more pressing non-web-related projects of higher importance (at work) to work on, unfortunately.
Update: Apparently ThickBox is not being fired with the newest photoset, and I'm not sure why...it worked before a staff member updated the textual descriptions of the images, because I tried it. No idea why it's not working now - anyone have any ideas?
Introducing the Saratoga Springs Public Library's Children's Room Photo Gallery!
For the services, I am using Google's AJAX API to serve up my jQuery library, rather than me having to deal with keeping it upgraded and gzip/compressing it. You can read more about it here. For the photographs, I am using Flickr, as many other libraries do. It was one of the easiest and quickest that I could use with a nice desktop-based management tool that also didn't hog network bandwidth while searching for new photos (ala Picasa, or Microsoft Live Photo Gallery). Now staffers in that department can create their own photo sets (or photo categories) and manage their own images.
For the JS effects, I am using two separate libraries. Since I'm using Google's AJAX API to serve up jQuery I'll start with that one... I'm using ThickBox to show a larger version image of a thumbnail when clicked on. The nice things about Thickbox is that (1)it integrates with the other script I'm using, (2)it automatically resizes the images to fit (if too big for the viewport), and (3)is very versatile in its use of modal dialog support. The other library I am using is something called "ImageFlow" written by Finn Rudolph, which is one of the best JS-based CoverFlow implementations I have seen. The Official ImageFlow website isn't as fancy as someone else's implementation, so you may wish to check out the version that also has YouTube integration, and automatic rotation/slideshow.
I know there's currently no way to get from that page back to our home page or other areas of our website. To be honest, I'm not entirely concerned about that at the moment, I have many more pressing non-web-related projects of higher importance (at work) to work on, unfortunately.
Update: Apparently ThickBox is not being fired with the newest photoset, and I'm not sure why...it worked before a staff member updated the textual descriptions of the images, because I tried it. No idea why it's not working now - anyone have any ideas?
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Apostrophe in "Luke's Bionicles" needs escaping?
Error: missing ) after argument list
Source File: javascript:tb_show('Luke's%20Bionicles',%20'http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2870517311_1fb5fd5b61_b.jpg',%20'slideshow1')
Line: 1, Column: 14
Source Code:
tb_show('Luke's Bionicles', 'http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2870517311_1fb5fd5b61_b.jpg', 'slideshow1')
Error: missing ) after argument list
Source File: javascript:tb_show('Luke's%20Bionicles',%20'http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2870517311_1fb5fd5b61_b.jpg',%20'slideshow1')
Line: 1, Column: 14
Source Code:
tb_show('Luke's Bionicles', 'http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2870517311_1fb5fd5b61_b.jpg', 'slideshow1')
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I feel rather embarrassed that I didn't cover that... Thank you!