WordPress Flash Photo Carousel Plugin

BPDS Bot: half man / half web specialist — programmed by expert Web Craftsman with this prime directive: to destroy bad design and replace it with amazing user experiences that blend form and function into a beautiful double rainbow of internet awesome.

Favorite movie is Terminator 2 (for obvious reasons).

Retweet

We often develop sites that include static flash galleries, headers, menus, and intros. It’s often difficult, then, to explain which parts of the site can be changed within WordPress, and which are hard-coded. This plugin is built to manage the excellent flShow Photo Carousel within the comfort of the WordPress dashboard.

Live example of the Photo Gallery

Download:

flShow Photo Carousel Plugin for WordPress

How To Use:

Install the way you would any other WordPress Plugin. Upload the flshow folder to your plugins directory and activate it from the Plugins page.
Go to ‘Manage > flShow‘

Creating the Carousel Gallery

Create a Gallery

Click “Add New Carousel“, which brings up the Carousel editing interface in a thickbox window.
Fill out the information that you want to use. Mostly the Title and the background color. The rest of the options you can tweak at any time, after you’ve seen how the carousel works by default.
Scroll to the bottom of the popup and Click “Choose Images“

Adding Photos to the Carousel

Add Images to the CarouselCreate a Gallery

Click “Choose Images” at the bottom of the carousel settings interface
In the images interface, you can do the following:
- Find existing images from your WordPress install
- Upload a new image for use in the carousel
- Sort the images that you have in the current image queue by dragging and dropping
When you have put all the images in place that you would like to have in your carousel, click the “Preview and Finalize” button
If you are happy with your preview, click “Close.” Otherwise, go back and change whatever settings you need to.

Displaying Your Carousel

To display the carousel on your site, add the following code to your PHP templates where you want the carousel to appear: <div style="height:200px"><?php flshow( $id ); ?></div>. You can find the ID on the Manage > flShow page:

Use the ID when including in your templates

Some minor caveats

This plugin uses WordPress’s built-in jQuery library, so there shouldn’t be compatibility issues, no matter which browser you’re running, but it does require WordPress 2.5 or above. The plugin was tested in Firefox 3, IE7, and Google Chrome. Also, I would recommend using smaller images that are all roughly the same size in the same carousel. It results in a better display and faster loading times. 5.1 MegaPixel .jpg files are not recommended .

Support

If you have any issues with the plugin, please start a thread in the WordPress support forums, and tag the thread ‘flShow Manager‘.

68 Responses to “WordPress Flash Photo Carousel Plugin”

On September 16th, 2008 at 1:30
JamieO said:

That is a wonderful addition to the wp community. Think you could post a demo carousel that mirrors the screenshots in this intro so one could see “end to end” how it works?
On September 16th, 2008 at 2:05
Adam Freetly said:

Good idea, Jamie – added!
On September 17th, 2008 at 9:50
Saverio said:

Great job, thank you!
I’ll definitely link your WP plugin from flshow.net.

Just one question: why you generate configuration xml files with negative top and bottom margins? This result in images being cut out.
If you want them to appear bigger with respect to the height of the carousel it would be better to change the vertical_ratio to something like 70-80 instead of using negative margins.

Thank you again,
Saverio
On September 17th, 2008 at 11:02
Kevin said:

Great plugin! I am having issues though with the pop-up window that allows you to edit or create. I cannot scroll down enough to see all options or create. The work around I can do for now is to right-click and open the functions in a new window or tab. Also, will you be adding the ability to include in a page or post? thanks!
On September 17th, 2008 at 12:54
Adam Freetly said:

@Kevin –
I replied in your forum thread

@Saverio –
Thanks. All of that’s optionable in the interface, but we’ll look at changing the defaults.
On September 17th, 2008 at 8:49
Baron said:

hi. Thanks for plugin

perfect.

Regards
On September 18th, 2008 at 4:40
Matt Duffin said:

Many thanks for the plugin. This is a such a time-saver!

One request for the next version: I’d like to be able to specify that links open in the current window/tab instead of opening a new one on a per-link basis.

And also, having the option to set horizontal/vertical ratios to higher values than 50%/33%.

That would make this plugin absolutely ideal!

Thanks again, Matt.
On September 18th, 2008 at 12:26
kevin said:

Thanks for the great work. Having each image link to either its own permalink or open by other options would be nice. Maybe adding a check box(s) in the Choose Images area?
On September 18th, 2008 at 8:44
pinoyconsole said:

This is really cool plugin, I hope you can also paste it to your post or pages. Any way great job mate. Thanks
On September 26th, 2008 at 8:34
Darren said:

How would I make a straight-forward carousel that just rotates on it’s own, pauses when I am over an image (if possible) and then lets me click through to the image?? I’ve tried all sorts of settings…
On September 26th, 2008 at 12:43
Adam Freetly said:

Darren –

We’re working on making that easier, there should be a new version out next week that will have an option to include a link when adding pictures from your media library.

For now, what I’ve done in the example slideshow above is to upload the image via the flShow Management page, and then add the URL of the uploaded image in the field below.
On September 29th, 2008 at 7:48
Sara said:

Hello I really like your plugin but I have a problem:
When I go to Manage I don’t see no Flshow section!
Can you please help me?
On September 30th, 2008 at 5:13
Sara said:

Help please…
On September 30th, 2008 at 12:40
Enrique Cimiento said:

When I go to Manage I don’t see no Flshow section!
Can you please help me?
On October 1st, 2008 at 9:53
Widi said:

perfect ! thanks from Indonesia !
On October 2nd, 2008 at 11:46
Adam Freetly said:

Enrique (and anyone else having the same problem) – can you drop me an email, and tell me:

- who hosts your website.
- what the name of the folder that contains flshow-manager is.
- what other plugins you are using.

Thanks in advance.
On October 8th, 2008 at 7:58
Tim Hall said:

This is a great plugin guys, good work! Just a couple of questions…

1. Have you any plans to introduce a random photo feature? I’ve got lots of photos on my blog, it’d be great if I you could ask it to pick 4 random photos from the WordPress media gallery.

2. How easy would it be to implement Lightbox links on the photos, so you can click and get a large version?
On October 10th, 2008 at 10:54
Adam Freetly said:

Tim –

1) No, we’ve not seen a need for that, most users prefer to hand-select their best work.

2) We’ll be looking to add that functionality in a future version.
On October 20th, 2008 at 6:56
The Mad Ape said:

I am trying to use your plugin for a new blog I am working on. It is the latest release of WordPress.

Everything works fine right up until I click the preview and finalize button.

There is no preview…I have tried this numerous times and every time the preview is blank.

Any suggestions as to the problem?

Thanks

The Mad Ape
http://www.tatumba.com
On October 21st, 2008 at 9:37
Adam Freetly said:

We are working on solving this for the next release. Basically, the preview doesn’t have a defined height, so it only shows in IE7.
On October 28th, 2008 at 10:16
Nikko said:

I want to put the carousel in a wordpress page. Is this possible?
On November 4th, 2008 at 12:26
Elbisnero said:

This is definately a great image tool. I managed to do everything including uploading images and adding the code to my post but it did not work. This is the page where I tried to install it, it should display under the lates post: http://www.svtuning.com Any idea what I could have done wrong?
On December 3rd, 2008 at 2:40
New Orleans Web Design said:

It’s cool that I found this link because I’ve been searching for something that does this, and implements “cleanly” with WordPress. Up till now, I’ve experimented with Galleria and with dfGallery. Both have their good points. But Galleria’s WP plugin didn’t work for me, and dfGallery doesn’t integrate into WP via a plugin. THIS, however, does what I want. FINALLY. Awesome.
On December 8th, 2008 at 9:26
dash said:

thats a nice widget; maybe i’ll use it too
On December 17th, 2008 at 9:56
ChiliCheeseFries said:

awesome!
On December 27th, 2008 at 10:10
vee said:

i understand that the Manage tab is removed in WordPress 2.7. As such, where do I go to manage the plugin?
On January 1st, 2009 at 10:31
latoga said:

Great widget, thanks for taking the time to put this together! Now, is it possible to add photos to the carousel from a 3rd party site? It would be great if I could add a set of URLs to build the carousel from…
On January 28th, 2009 at 11:23
Mario said:

Hi, great plug-in. A few requests for future release that will make this a must have in wordpress:

1. Ability to load multiple images with one click (who has time to add manually each image)

2. Ability to click to see pictures full size or bigger (images are too small in carrousel).

3. Automatic insert of code in the post (like other plug-ins do)

4. Simplify settings – Place them all in one screen instead of 3

That’s it! Great work so far.
On January 28th, 2009 at 8:35
nick gray said:

Adam, you never cease to amaze me! I was just meeting with a client and he asked me if this could be done, I panicked but said yes. I googled it and lo and behold, YOU, of all people have exactly what I need! Thanks dude.
On February 1st, 2009 at 11:49
kookimebux said:

Hello. And Bye.
On February 15th, 2009 at 5:47
ahmad said:

Awesome Plugin…thanks
On March 7th, 2009 at 2:01
Trendy Pixels said:

Thank you so incredibly much for this! What a great plugin.
On April 15th, 2009 at 6:23
Diana, flash designer said:

It works the same to PoverPoint presentations… Something similar… Am I right?
On September 20th, 2009 at 1:32
psycholog said:

this is great info.. may i just use it?
On October 25th, 2009 at 9:51
maverick said:

awesome plugin.. downloaded and will later to be added to my blog thanks!!!
On November 1st, 2009 at 1:39
alex said:

Great!

Blueprint Design