Photo Slideshow

[fiza]

We have a Plasma Screen setup connected to a PC in the Hall. The Plasma comes on everyday at lunchtime and switches off at the end of lunch. Does anyone know of any freeware that will allow me to put on a automated slideshow of photos for students and staff to see? I want the slideshow to be dynamic, as in, read the photos from a specified folder which I can update as and when required.

I know a Windows Screensaver will do the same job but the slightest move of the mouse or a keyboard touch kills it.

[localzuk]

Not really a software suggestion, but are the keyboard and mouse USB devices? If they are, any possibility of simply unplugging them?

[penfold]

We have that on xibo. Create a video of the photo's using Photostory and then install xibo on the machine with and upload the video to that. You can set the time that it is to play also.

[fiza]

penfold - I have considered creating a slideshow like that but I need it to be dynamic. The photos change on a daily basis so I dont want to be creating new slideshows everyday.

[kevbaz]

picasa?

[penfold]

You can still do this with xibo, but it means uploading new pictures which might get a bit time consuming. But you can set it up so that you can create a user to do this, so it could be done by a number of people?

[kevbaz]

or install picasa and open one photo which runs a slideslow of the entire folder i believe

[fiza]

ok thanks - i will give xibo a try.

[localzuk]

Try the attached app I've just knocked together. Just put it in a folder containing jpg,bmp,png,tiff,tif or gif files and it'll slideshow them, changing every 10 seconds. It also checks the folder for new images every ten minutes - so you can alter the contents of the directory and it'll automatically load them in to the rotation every 10 minutes.

 

EDIT: See later post for a new version.

Edited May 13, 2010 by localzuk

[ICT_GUY]

Awesome! Can you pls insert an escape function because then it would be pretty much perfect.

[localzuk]

Ok, new version 1.1, quits on pressing the escape key (or pressing Alt+F4). Also, if you pass it a single command line argument in ms that will be used as the time between slides, if you pass it 2 command line arguments, that will be the slide change time, and the folder check time.

 

eg.

 

lzSlideshowWF 10000 600000

 

That will result in slides changing every 10s and the program checking the folder for new images every 10 minutes.

 

If you pass no command line arguments, it uses 10s and 10mins as its defaults.

 

EDIT: See later post for link to download

Edited May 14, 2010 by localzuk

[fiza]

Localzuk - Pure Genius - I would thank you a hundred times if I could!! This is perfect!!!

[localzuk]

Localzuk - Pure Genius - I would thank you a hundred times if I could!! This is perfect!!!

 

You're welcome. I'm currently trying out a 'fade between' method, so the images can be faded rather than snap changes. Watch this space

[localzuk]

I've rewritten it in WPF, so I can play with transitions. New version attached. Edited May 14, 2010 by localzuk

[fiza]

Much appreciated

[localzuk]

Could someone download and test the attached copy of the app? It is supposed to fade out at the end of an image's display time, then fade in the new one.

 

For some odd reason WPF apps seem to randomly malfunction on my dev machine, so external input on whether it does what it is supposed to would be much appreciated.

Edited May 14, 2010 by localzuk

[fiza]

First photo comes up then fades nicely but fades to white. White background stays for 10 seconds and then onto next picture. Repeats

[localzuk]

First photo comes up then fades nicely but fades to white. White background stays for 10 seconds and then onto next picture. Repeats

 

Drat. Its being very irritating. What its doing is showing a pic, triggering the fade, instantly loading the new pic, fading it down, displaying the now new image with 0 opacity, then repeating in reverse.

 

Need to stop it instantly loading the new pic when the fade is running.

[localzuk]

Ok. Got fading working now. It now, by default, fades to black then fades to the new image.

 

To disable the fade, you have to specify a 3rd command line argument as such:

 

lzslideshow 10 600 0

 

So, the values are now in seconds, and the zero is for turning off fading.

 

New version now available here - Localzuk

[RTFM]

I dont suppose you have Adobe CS4?

 

Encore CS4 slideshow function is;

 

1) easy to use

2) quick to setup

3) looks very professional (a simply click in the 'pan and zoom' selection box and it really brings the slideshow to life)

 

I know its not a free suggestion, but i'll put it out there all the same.

[localzuk]

I dont suppose you have Adobe CS4?

 

Encore CS4 slideshow function is;

 

1) easy to use

2) quick to setup

3) looks very professional (a simply click in the 'pan and zoom' selection box and it really brings the slideshow to life)

 

I know its not a free suggestion, but i'll put it out there all the same.

 

Is it dynamic? ie. can it run automatically on computer start-up, with whatever images are in the folder that day?

[BatchFile]

Now that's useful!

 

Instead of staff bugging me to change the powerpoint running in Reception and the dining room, I'll run this from a folder on the staff shared area and they can put the photos/slides in themselves:D

 

[localzuk]

Now that's useful!

 

Instead of staff bugging me to change the powerpoint running in Reception and the dining room, I'll run this from a folder on the staff shared area and they can put the photos/slides in themselves:D

 

 

Indeed. I'm planning further things with it also - video support, audio support (ie. music playing whilst it is running) and possibly something like HTML support.

[localzuk]

Can I request an RSS option for later builds. Good work BTW

 

Interesting idea. I want to keep the 'setup' part as simple as possible (ie. I don't really want to have a 'setup' tool, instead everything should just be stuck in a folder, and read in.), so that would be a small challenge to do I think.

[BatchFile]

@Localzuk

Are there any system requirements that you're aware of? It's running great on my (decent) laptop and (more than decent) desktop machine, but crashing out on the (old and slightly decrepid Duron 1.1GHz with 256MB Ram and an ATI Radeon7000 Video card - on XP SP2) machine that runs the powerpoint display. Not a huge problem as we'll be replacing it soon anyway - but if there's something I need to install on it to get it to work I'll do it. Report of crash taken from application log is attached if that helps...

lzslideshow_error.txt