by Jason Eppink

Slideshowr is a Flash-based full-screen Flickr photo slideshow intended for long-term dedicated screens (like digital picture frames). It cycles through the latest photos from a user-specified photostream and presents them using optional and customizable pans, zooms, fades, and title/description text.

You can use Slideshowr to show off your latest photos, keep up with friends, or just watch random photos from Flickr!

Features - Demo - Download - Instructions - Notes
Features
Three ways to use Slideshowr:
  1. only specify a tag (shows latest photos from all users with a specific tag)
  2. only specify a user (shows all latest photos from a specific user)
  3. specify both a tag and user (shows latest photos with a specific tag from a specific user)
A "Settings" button in the bottom right corner lets you edit the settings from inside the slideshow, and a "Flickr Page" button in the bottom left corner opens a separate window with the Flickr page of the currently-displayed photo.

Automatically fetches new photos and updates every cycle.

Customizable pans, zooms, fades, speeds, and title/description text.
Demo
Since Slideshowr is Flash-based, you can test it out right in your browser. Give it a look! Feel free to mess with the settings, too.
Download
Slideshowr 1.2 (*.zip) 11/15/07

Slideshowr 1.1 (*.zip) 5/7/07
(Uses cURL. Eliminated cURL dependencies in v1.2.)

Slideshowr 1.0 (*.zip) 1/14/07
(Uses RSS feeds. No longer functional because Flickr changed the way photo URLs are constructed.)
Instructions
You can use Slideshowr locally (the software is on the same machine that will be running it) or remotely (the software is on a separate server than the one that will be accessing it). Slideshowr works on both Macs and PCs, but for right now I can only offer a thorough walk-through for Macs. (Why?)

Local Installation (Mac only):
  1. Apply for a Flickr API key
  2. Unzip the package and put the folder in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Sites/
  3. Open up api_key.txt, paste your API key in, and save
  4. Enable "Personal Web Sharing" in System Preferences (under Sharing/Services)
  5. Install PHP. I recommend the latest PHP Apache Module by Marc Liyanage
  6. Download the latest standalone Flash Player if you don't already have it
  7. Run settings.php and click [submit]. Make sure "running locally?" is set to "yes". (Do this even if you're not changing any settings or you will have problems!)
  8. Open slideshowr.swf in the Flash Player. A dialog box should pop up asking you to modify Flash Player settings to give this program permission to access your computer. Do so. If this does NOT happen, you must add the program manually here
  9. Quit and open slideshowr.swf again. If you see a progress bar, it works!
  10. I've included a snippet of AppleScript that you can set to run on start up that will automatically open the program and set it to full screen. The script expects to be in the same directory as all the other pieces, so make sure to change this if you move it elsewhere. Also, "Access for assistive device" will need to be enabled in System Preferences for the script to work.
Remote Installation (Mac and PC):
  1. Apply for a Flickr API key
  2. Unzip the package and upload the folder to your server. (You may need to change the permissions to 775. Also, I would recommend password-protecting settings.php to disallow others from changing it.)
  3. Open up api_key.txt, paste your API key in, and save
  4. Run settings.php and click [submit]. Make sure "running locally?" is set to "no". (Do this even if you're not changing any settings or you will have problems!)
  5. Download the latest standalone Flash Player if you don't already have it
  6. Open Flash Player and open the location of slideshowr.swf on your server. A dialog box should pop up asking you to modify Flash Player settings to give this program permission to access your computer. Do so. If this does NOT happen, you must add the program manually here
  7. Quit and open slideshowr.swf again. If you see a progress bar, it works!
  8. Running Slideshowr on login
    1. Macs: I've included a snippet of AppleScript that you can set to run on start up that will automatically open the program and set it to full screen. You'll need to adjust it to point to the file on your server and turn on "Access for assistive device" in System Preferences for the script to work.
    2. PCs: You're on your own :)
Notes
This software uses the excellent phpFlickr class written by Dan Coulter.

Slideshowr was originally written to supplement a digital picture frame I made from an old Apple Powerbook following instructions by Tim Schwartz.

I haven't had enough time on a PC to write a step-by-step for local installation, but essentially you need to install server software with PHP and run Slideshowr from the web documents folder. WAMP seems like it should do the trick, but I haven't been successful with it yet.

Slideshowr was written to cycle through the same set of photos for an extended period of time with only sparse updates (even though it checks for new photos every cycle). As such, the long "loading" screen that acts as a sort of announcement for when new photos have arrived might get in the way if the program is used to present a continuously changing stream of photos. I don't intend to update the software to allow for such a use, but the source has been included so you can do so yourself!

Currently no more than 15 photos can be presented in a slideshow at once. I'm not sure if this is a limitation from Flickr or Flash.

Slideshowr is open source (GPL). Feel free to make it better (and make sure to drop me a line when you do)!