I just released the most recent version of Slideshow JS. Version 1.5 brings with it major code changes that improve overall performance. I received several emails asking for various features and I incorporated many of them. Additionally, I addressed all of the known CSS bugs that were found. Here’s a short overview of the new features that have been introduced…

Improved management of variable sized images
If your slideshow contains images of variable widths, all images will be centered in the slideshow container.

Manual control
You can now manually cycle the slideshow by clicking on the current image.

Image display limit
Slideshow JS can display however many images you specify and then stop.

Configurable transition speed
You can now update how fast the fading transition lasts while cycling images.

Pause control
If specified, the current slideshow can be paused by hovering your mouse over the currently active image.

Image titles
Slideshow JS will not display a title bar containing a title for each image as specified by you.

Custom stylesheets
The pause message and title bar are completely customizable via your own stylesheets.

To see more of the script and for more detailed information, visit the project’s website. As usual, send me an email or leave a comment regarding your thoughts on the script.

For those of you that are interested, I’ve begun development on Version 1.5 of Slideshow. For more information about the script and some of the upcoming details, check out the Slideshow JS project page.

Overall, I’ve received some really positive feedback and am doing the best I can to incorporate all of the features that have been requested. I’m also going to be addressing a couple of lingering bugs that have been discovered. Once I get closer to releasing the next version, I’ll be sure to outline all of the squashed bugs and feature requests.

If you’d like to be notified whenever the next version is released, sign up using the link on the project homepage or leave a comment on this post.

I’ve received some good feedback on Slideshow JS, and some people have even emailed me with contributions and/or ideas. I’ve got a list of small fixes and features that I hope to eventually implement, but it may be a while before that happens as I’m busy with a couple of other things.

If you’ve used it and have a feature request or have discovered a bug, please email me at tom at tommcfarlin dot com and let me know!

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed that a number of people are downloading Slideshow JS. That’s great, but I also noticed that I never formally discussed the script here, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do that now.

I’m not going to belabor the project here as you can read much more about it on the project’s page, but I thought I’d highlight some of the features of the script here, what it seeks to do, and how to contact me regarding bugs, feature requests, etc.

About The Script
The purpose of the script is to provide a very simple way of cycling a set images in an HTML document. It doesn’t require any knowledge of CSS, JavaScript, or nuances of browser performance - it only requires that you know how to actually add script tags to the head section of your page.

The one caveat to using the script is that the images that you wish to cycle must be placed in a div container. All of the styles for this container are managed by the script, so you won’t have to write any CSS. The script is flexible in that it won’t interfere with any of your current styles, and that you can customize the placement of the images however you wish. Details on how to do this can be found on the project’s page.

Slideshow is cross-browser compatible between IE6, IE7, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. It also has two modes of cycling the images - it can fade the images, or cycle them with no transitions. Unfortunately, IE6 does not support opacity so fading does not work in the browser.

For more technical information about the libraries that Slideshow uses, and how it operates with respect to the DOM, see the project page.

Contacting me regarding feature requests or bug fixes
I was initially only developing the script for myself, but as a few friends showed interest in the script, I decided to try to make it as robust and flexible as possible for others to use. I’ve attempted to test it as much as possible, but it’s impossible to test every single use case.

If you find a bug, definitely send me an email and let me know exactly what you did to discover it. I’ll do my best to address it.

Slideshow’s purpose is to provide a simple way for you to cycle your images without worrying about CSS, JavaScript, or cross browser quirks. If you’ve got a feature request that you think falls in-line with this purpose (such as showing an image title overlayed on the image), then also send me an email.