Animated GIF? HTML5? For slide shows

[greenmorpher]

I have just generated my first slideshow in PhotoLine and found to my astonishment that the only formats offered are PDF and SWF.

No Animated GIF? No HTML5 (preferred format for iPad and iPhone graphics, I understand)?

Comment?

Cheers, geoff

[Sus]

You mean something like this ?

[Herbert123]

Gif is better avoided for animation: it only supports up to 256 colours, and quickly becomes unwieldy in terms of file size.

For slide shows on the web and mobile most of the time a jquery script is used. Most are free, and are quite easy to set up. Make sure to find one that supports touch screens. There are many variants.

Or, if you need something a little bit more fancy, you use a video editor to place all your images, and convert it to a video, and share that. If you need something quick, easy, and surprisingly flexible, try the old Photo Story 3 by Microsoft.
http://download.cnet.com/Photo-Story-3- ... 39154.html

[greenmorpher]

Fine, thank you, but I want to know why PL can't save in the two formaTS named.

Cheers, geoff

[greenmorpher]

Fine, thank you, but I want to know why PL can't save in the two formaTS named.

Further to this, I understand HTML5 is the future -- replacing flash (SWF). it is what works best with iPhones and iPads.

Is that correct?

Cheers, geoff

[bkh]

Fine, thank you, but I want to know why PL can't save in the two formaTS named.

Further to this, I understand HTML5 is the future -- replacing flash (SWF). it is what works best with iPhones and iPads.

Herbert123 already commented on animated GIF – it's unsuitable for slideshows. In addition, it doesn't have its own transitions, so you'd have to compute imtermediate frames which would make files much larger still. Btw., if you want to try, you can create an animated GIF without transitions using PL's "Animate Layers".

If you want to publish a slide show on the Web, HTML 5/CSS 3 may be the future. However, HTML 5 and CSS 3 still aren't a standard and won't work, e.g., on IE before 10PP3. CSS 3 by itself (so far) only allows very basic transitions (unlike PDF and SWF), so you will end up having to compute and store intermediate frames for more sophisticated effects. You can't stop/go forward/back either (but SWF slidesows form PL seem to have the same problem). Maybe it's also worth noting that this doesn't create a single file which you can play back, but html and css code to be added to your existing web pages, along with the original image files. Imo, this is not simpler than to add one of the JavaScript solutions available (which can also provide a better UI and better backward compatibility with IE).

But, frankly, I don't think it's worth to invest much in PL's slideshow function. So far, I always ended up using some other solution, mainly because you can't edit a slideshow in PL once it's exported. For offline viewing, I normally use the built-in slide slow capability of whatever image viewer available, which lets me pause/go back/fast forward if needed. For a pro slideshow, there are too many missing features (sound, Ken Burns effect, combining several images on one screen, …) – for such a slideshow, one needs a dedicated player app or conversion to a video.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[greenmorpher]

Many thanks, Burkhard, for this detailed explanation. I'll just move on from the slide show facility in PL. Sad. I don’t need complexity, just a simple rolling picture display. PL can do it, but the output is the question.

Cheers, geoff

[greenmorpher]

Aargh -- many thanks for your helpful suggestions, but don’t worry about it further, folks. I have just discovered that the app I use for building sites, Sandvox, has a built-in slideshow capability. Just dump in the pictures…

I had actually looked up the Help file, but only to see how I could use SWF or PDF. I didn't think to search on "slide show" until this morning!

Sandvox is a mac only template-based app. it has limitations, but is wonderfully easy to use and remarkably flexible. Particularly when you want to add a slide show and you think to look up "slide show" in the help.

Oh well!

Cheers, geoff

[erikals]

yes, don't use gif for slideshows, gif is seldom used these days, but atill applies to emoticons and such

if needed, here are some previews on gif anim in PhotoLine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWYjPaGhxNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13vRYhksa3U