slideshowpro VS monoslideshow

[liquidmonkey]

has anyone used both of these programs?
i've used SSP but only the stand alone flash version and its simply taking too long. i'm going to try the plugin for LR but also saw this monoslideshow when doing a search in this forum.

what would be some positives and negatives be for each?
oh, is the director version for SSP really that much better? and why?

 

[johnbeardy]

I can only help regarding SSP and SSP Director. It depends what you are trying to achieve and what coding skills you have available, but Director adds a lot more power under the hood, and makes administration easy once things are set up.

So for example, uploading new images is very slick with the export SSP-Dir plug-in - it's an export in Lightroom, you choose your album in the Export dialog, and wait while the images are uploaded to SSP Director. No hacking around with XML files. I also use my SSP Director to supply multiple sizes of images - handy if I wanted the Flash movie to scale to each visitor's screen size, or want to maintain HTML and Flash sites. Another example would be putting images in more than one album - again very easy with a database. So far, I'm using SSP in a 1''% Flash site I'm building, in my existing HTML-based pages, and in iframes in my blog.

I'd also add that SSP's support is very good indeed and they improve the product on the back of user suggestions. On the other hand, to take full advantage of these features you need to have access to Flash, PHP/mySQL skills.

 

[liquidmonkey]

my coding skills are average IMHO, i can do the whole xml thing, learned action script and flash CS3 enough to be able to play around with SSP for flash. it took awhile but i got it in the end.

basically i would like maximum control with a product that offers continuous updates (ie, not going out of business anytime soon) and of course, ease of use.
i noticed that SSP has updates almost every month or more but MSS last update was some time ago.

how does director get the various image sizes when pluged into LR?
and would the plugin convert my finished RAW into jpgs sizes i wanted?

can i add text to each photo in the xml or does the plugin do that automatically from my metadata or similar?

i know its a lot but thanks for your help

 

[johnbeardy]

"how does director get the various image sizes when pluged into LR?
and would the plugin convert my finished RAW into jpgs sizes i wanted?
can i add text to each photo in the xml or does the plugin do that automatically from my metadata or similar?"

There are alternatives. As I am using it now, I simply use SSP's LR Export plug-in to upload my raw files as full size JPEGs to SSP Director, and SSP Director then uses ImageMagick on the server to cache a resized JPEG (with a random name) at the size requested by the Flash movie. This cached file will then be served each time a Flash movie calls that image at that size. This means that at any point there will be the full size JPEG plus a number of cached copies of that file - thumbnails of various size and larger size images. If I wanted my main Flash movie to display pictures full screen, Director would just go on creating sizes each time there's a visitor with another screen size. I don't want that, but it would be little effort for me.

That is what I do, mostly. You can also upload the JPEGs at the size you choose, and tell the SSP component not to resize. It's control versus flexibility.

As for the text, the plug-in uses what is in the metadata in LR. If you want it to differ from your image, you could use a virtual copy, change its metadata, and then upload the JPEG from that VC. Alternatively, once the file is uploaded, you can change the text in the Director control panel. The same applies to sorting - initially they are in the order in which they are uploaded, but you can move them around in Director. You can also move them to other SSP galleries and albums, delete them.

With Director, you never really see the XML. You point the SSP component to a URL.

John

 

[liquidmonkey]

thanks johnbeardy, much appreciated!



no one else with input on these awesome slideshows?