I will soon recommend you start by just seeing and trying
it. It basically allows you to present
a series of slide shows, giving each one a different category (or subcategory)
name.
You can have as many slide shows (known as "locations") as you want
and EACH can
contain as many slides ("photos") as you want. ALSO, instead of
a photo BEING A
photo, it can be a mp3 audio OR a flv (Flash type) movie.
Anyhow, CLICK HERE
TO SEE MY SAMPLE INSTANCE. Note: I do not myself
own many photos, so I created a bunch of different photos by pasting different
TEXT
on top or the same picture (each of the photos is similar ONLY because I own few
photos -
each photo with different text is in fact a totally separate, different photo).
Within one slide show, my example shows one instance (somewhere) of
how a
movie is presented instead of a photo and it shows one instance of an audio
interface,
instead of a photo. It is important you view every slide in each of the
slide shows to
see all the capabilities (also, know that Flash buttons sometimes require a
small mousemove
between button clicks for the button, Forward or Back, to work - just a small
Flash quirk).
Now, let me show you what you have to change to make MY
INSTANCE into YOUR
VERY OWN INSTANCE, in every regard: your words, your labels, your caption,
you
categories, your text, and your jpegs, gifs, mp3s, and flv movies.
You basically just
make an xml file with content THAT
LOOKS LIKE THIS (<- click this link).
The directions you follow to change that key xml file to
make everything your own is
HERE (<- click this link).
The zip file containing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED
IS
HERE (<- click this link). (Everything
goes in one place, e.g. one folder, on YOUR own
web site.)
(To see the actual size of the app, change the <body
bgcolor="#ccffff"> to <body>. Then the
background color of the body of the web page will not be the same color as the
background
of the Flash Display Utility application.)
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AN OPTION (sometimes I think I confuse people with options, but other
people like them; if you
are happy with the directions above you can skip this - look at it later):
If you would rather not edit a xml file, but would instead like to use a
BUILDER to automatically build
the key xml file for you from scratch HERE
IS A LINK TO SUCH A BUILDER and here are the
DIRECTIONS FOR USING THE BUILDER.
Once done building the key xml file in the Builder,
copy the code that was produced from the textarea at the bottom of the Builder
to NotePad or SimpleText
and, with the bottom textbox (Save As Type) set to "All Files",
Save it As photoGallery.xml (of course you
will put this file on your desktop or on your web server - wherever the Display
Utility itself is run from).
AND: If you want your own local copy of this Builder and the Directions, CLICK HERE FOR THE ZIP FILE.
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If you use the Builder locally (from your Desktop) and create a photoGallery.xml (or otherwise create your
photoGallery.xml) and then upload it, along with the needed gifs, jpegs, mp3s, and flvs (if any) and the swf and
index.html file , to whatever folder you like on your web server and it will work. (In fact the thing is so easy, that
really just this last sentence might be considered complete directions for using it. You really should try it;
I think you will like it.)
With certainty, the thing will work from literally any web server. Upload the photoGallery.xml and the associated
resources with WS_FTP95 LE, FrontPage or ANY FTP tool to your web site and that will work just fine. (Again, of
course, in addition to the photoGallery.xml file and the needed resources, you must also upload the swf file - which
really is the Display Utility machine itself - and its associated html file, which is named index.html
in the "kit"
from the zip, but may be renamed to anything you want.)
Note about images: suggested maximum size: 325 X 265 pixels
absolute maximum size: 340 X 290 pixels
SUMMARY AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RELATED TO THIS APPLICATION:
In short, I offer free to teachers and others an extremely easy-to-use and useful display utility - to have
a organized GROUP of categorized slideshows, which can include my audio or my video player
on some of the individual slides. The ONLY thing you have to do to use it is change text, gif and jpeg, etc
addresses, ALL IN ONE xml (text-type) file to use it (and these are the only changes necessary
to change it from instance to instance)!! (There is a link in the material below to the directions and
the complete kit of all you would need.)
[By the way, to use the audio player, you can start with a wav recording and use the
Free Mp3 Wma Converter by Renan Broquin to change it into a much smaller mp3 audio,
which streams through my player (an easy conversion, which has great sound quality and plays
even over a 56K dialup connection). This one audio player can play any number of mp3 audios
by just changing the address/name typed in - thus you can instruct the student
type in more
than one address into the player, in the instructions on a single slide.
To change videos to the flv files my movie player runs, you can also do this very easily with other free
software, if you start with a avi file. With free software called the Riva FLV Encoder , you
can change any avi to a flv. (Other movie formats can also be changed to flv using this free software,
but typically you have to check the box to omit the sound for the translation to
work. Another way
to convert any movie you have to flv format w/o using Flash is noted elsewhere
on this web page --
see the section "Cross-platform flv (new great flash movie format)
PLAYER", below.)
Like with the audio player, this one video player can play any number of flv videos by just changing the
address/name typed in - thus you can instruct the student type in more than one
address into the player, in
the instructions on a single slide. (FOR BOTH THE AUDIO AND VIDEO PLAYER,
the file names
can be made to be anything and you may leave off the .mp3 or .flv extension and
the file will still be
called up by its name - making these players very friendly.)
If you need to record an audio and you want to do it directly on your PC computer, then
a $10 microphone and the free Audacity program for PC will make a wav (which can then
be converted to a mp3 with the other free software I mentioned above).
The Display Utility works fine just running locally from any folder on the desktop or
hard drive; thus it is a good way, in general, to provide results of investigation (be they audio,
video, pictures, text, or any combination thereof). NOTE: While Flash 8 Player must be in the browser
used - and that *comes with* 90% of modern browsers - it is not necessary to view this material from
a web site.]
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