Wanted: Home Page Slide Show Type Rotator

Hey rackAID,

Even though this isn’t a “module” or anything like that, I’ve been using jQuery (which crawlers can read the alt tags on images) and it works great on mobile devices as well. It’s very easy to setup and don’t need anything but jQuery & the Cycle plugin (http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/). A simple basic setup looks like this:

<div class="slideshow">
          {exp:channel:entries channel="slideshow" orderby="random"}
          {slideshow_images}
          {/exp:channel:entries}
      </div>

.slideshow is the default class that jQuery Cycle uses. I create a custom channel called slideshow which I can create entries for each image that I want included. I use 1 custom field which is an image file to upload into my directory of choice. The img tag includes the field name that I created (slideshow_images) and then I call title for the alt tag.

I added orderby=”random” so it doesn’t display in any particular order. If you want the images linked to a URL, you can include something like this:

<a href="http://{site_url}templategroup/template{url_title}">{slideshow_images}</a>

When you create the entry, the url_title in the template is replaced by the url in the entry. You just specify where you want it to go. If the images will go to a totally different templategroup or external link you can create a custom field and call it slideshow_url. Then when you create an entry, just type the URL into that field and use {slideshow_url} in the a href tag.

Hope this helps, or gives you some type of direction. There are endless possibilities, this is just something basic.

I do something similar to Danny except use Fieldframe and Matrix so that you can assign a banners field to different entries which can then contain multiple rows with image/text/link combinations. That way you can have different banners on every page if you like.

I’ve used Danny’s method as well on sites. It work’s great. It’s a great jquery plug-in, and you can add “navigation” to your rotator as well so the user can page through the various shots at their own pace if they want.

Hey Tyssen,

Hmmm interesting, I haven’t gotten to use FF or Matrix as of yet… do you mind explaning how it works.. I’m not sure if I “get it” by looking at P&T’s site. Maybe some screenshots as to how it ties together the way you explained it?

Thanks,

Danny

I do something similar to Danny except use Fieldframe and Matrix so that you can assign a banners field to different entries which can then contain multiple rows with image/text/link combinations. That way you can have different banners on every page if you like.

Danny,

I’m working on a quick screen cast for you. I’ll provide a link to the video in about an hour.

Sounds good Fabian, I’ll be on the lookout.

Thanks,

Danny, I’m working on a quick screen cast for you. I’ll provide a link to the video in about an hour.

Danny,

The screen-cast is up: http://vimeo.com/channels/tutee

It runs a bit long, so be sure to fast forward through the boring stuff. Hope this lends a bit of clarity.

Fabian

Using Matrix is kind of like embedding entries inside other entries. So if you wanted to assign multiple image/alt/link combinations to a single entry you can do it with Matrix rather than creating separate weblogs and using related entries.

So if you wanted a js image cycle attached to a particular entry, you’d create a Matrix custom field with {image} {alt} and {link} fields and then within your weblog entries tag you’d have

{name_of_your_custom_field}
<li><a href="http://{link}">{image}</a></li>
{/name_of_your_custom_field}