PubForge Blog

August 7, 2007

Creating Flash Slideshows using Flash and XML

Filed under: best practices, flash player — johntynan @ 10:58 am

Inspired by the WNYC’s flash player (or other xspf players) we were able to implement a flash slideshow player across all of the stories at KJZZ.org like the slideshow from this report on the Titan Missle Museum .

The beauty of this is that by simply creating an xml file with links to images and their captions like this:

http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/200702/atomictourism/slideshow/slideshow.xml

Unlike a program like SoundSlides, you can easily implement this player on the server side. You do not need to have software on the desktop to build the slideshow.

To do this, we used the XML Flash Slideshow program from flashnifties.com :

http://www.flashnifties.com/xml_slideshow.php

You can purchase this for $10, or they also have a free version.

While it’s not as integrated with the actual story, as described in the the Transom interview with Ben Shapiro here:

http://transom.org/guests/review/200706_ben_shapiro/

And while it is similar to the “Sound Slides” flash slideshow player

http://soundslides.com/

which NPR uses in any of the stories listed here:

http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=%22Audio+Slideshow%22

I think this will prove to be a useful tool for creating flash slideshows.

Tell me, what do you think? Is this merely a stop-gap technology towards creating videos?

What about the viral possibilities of this? Any ideas about the possibility of turning something like this into a “Slideshow Widget” to allow people to place on myspace or blogs?

What about the impact that this has on the page design? While I think it’s important to a photo with each story (which could also be distributed as part of an RSS feed) along with additional links, etc., how much do we place on a page? And how might this all be brought together into a more coherent whole?

Tell me, does anyone else have any experience with putting together a Slideshow using flash? What can you add to the discussion about your experiences?

Tags: PubForge, OpensourceBroadcasting, BeyondBroadcast

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July 28, 2007

Putting KJZZ on MySpace!

Filed under: social media, flash player — johntynan @ 12:14 pm

I just finished implementing the xspf flash player on KJZZ.org!

In looking at the developer’s forum, I found that cetra3 created a version which includes a Seek Button and play bar, which allows people to view where they are in an audio file as it is playing - as well as allows people to select where in an audio file they would like to listen.

I am not sure how close this is to WNYC’s audio player. I had an issue with their player not recognizing the xspf playlists as they were dynamically generated for each story (some weird 404 error in the header — likely more an issue on my end than theirs).

I’ve also put together some handy javascript to allow people to copy the code and embed this on their blog or myspace page. I’m also using the xspf file to serve random audio promos and images for the public radio talent quest.

For example, have a look at any news report at kjzz.org .

Perhaps this might be useful for other stations as well. If you have any questions about how this was done, please feel free to ask.
Tags: Pubforge, Opensourcebroadcasting, beyondbroadcast

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