Multiple Multidirection Conveyor Belt slideshows with Lightbox?

[sevrinsevrin]

Hello there -

This sounds insane, I am sure, but:

I would like to have up to five Conveyor Belt slideshows running on one page: three going left, two going right.

Further, I would LOVE to have the images, once clicked, open up in something like Lightbox instead of going off to another page.

I have already successfully converted the script to run left-to-right instead of right-to-left but cannot seem to get two conveyors (not to mention five!) running in the same page at the same time, no matter if they run in the same direction or not.

Am I asking too much?

Thanks in advance!

[jscheuer1]

It is (probably) insane. At the same time it is doable at least in theory. The reason that I say that it is probably insane though is that the screen redraw and CPU resources required for 5 conveyors alone would be enough to cripple most computers at least to the degree that the display would look jumpy at best. If the images involved are large in byte size, the problems would be magnified.

Folks often want to push DHTML scripts to their limits without consideration for what this may wreak in various browsers and/or on various computers.

The web is not a TV. Whatever you do requires resources on the user's end that are limited. Because of this, subtle is better than blatant, if you catch my drift.

[sevrinsevrin]

> subtle is better than blatant

Actually, the effect I was going for, because of the graphics involved, was fairly subtle (no, really - small, simple gifs) but your comments are extremely useful and I absolutely appreciate the candor and care your response contains.

How about two conveyors (one left, one right) with lightbox?

The site and gifs are here: http://www.coreyshead.com/monstersandrobots.html

(no, I am not suggesting keeping the fade, yes, I know the site is a horrible, deprecated mess - this is the cost of being a developer: your own site falls to shite as you work on everyone else, yes, my beta is table-less ... )

The images behind the present links are what I am proposing would come up in Lightbox.

If no to two conveyors, could I use this with Lightbox AND is there any way to stick the js in a .js file off the page with just a link in the header?

Thanks for the responses!

[jscheuer1]

This may actually be feasible then. I did say it was possible in theory, my main concern was how extreme in resource consumption the finished project would be.

I've already implemented (for another request from another poster) all of this (if I understand you correctly) except for the multiple conveyor part:

http://home.comcast.net/~jscheuer1/s...a/conveyor.htm

I also happen to be playing around with a multiple use conveyor script that I already wrote, upgrading it, and already see how it could be tied in with the above, in place of the single conveyor. But there will be a bit more coding involved before that comes to fruition.

Watch this thread for further developments. In the meantime, feel free to comment further.

[sevrinsevrin]

> I've already implemented (for another request from another poster) all of this (if I understand you correctly)

You've got my thinking down pat with that, actually: a conveyor (or 5 - grin grin) with connection to lightbox or similar script.

Heck, I don't even need the fancy-schmancy later version lightbox (some of the slickness therein makes me a bit queasy, y'know?), just any way to attach another script that will effect the display of the image clicked on the conveyor.

Heck, thickbox'd be fine, too. Anything to allow my viewers to view the proposed gallery all on one page.

Again: thanks!

[jscheuer1]

I realize that the lightbox display can seem overly slick or imposing in contrast to some pages. However, the animations can be disabled and the overlay (the part that grays out the rest of the page) can be altered so as to be either unobtrusive (very low opacity, which I like in many cases because it still allows closing the lightbox by clicking anywhere outside the image box) or non-existent.

The real trick in combining these two scripts is getting the conveyor to stop (cross browser) while the lightbox displays. I've worked that out for the single conveyor as you can see. It shouldn't be too hard to do for multiple conveyors.

[sevrinsevrin]

> the animations can be disabled

I figured as much. I am already aware of the ability to adjust the png opacity.

The reason I brought up using something potentially lighter was because it would be ... lighter; being mindful of your previous concern for the weight of the multiple operations.

Thanks!

[jscheuer1]

Lightbox no longer uses a png for opacity. It's just style now and has been for some time, but it can be adjusted in the configuration of the main script. Here are the options in the version 2.04a lightbox.js file I modded for use with the conveyor and other scripts:

//
//  Configuration
//
    fileLoadingImage:        'images/loading.gif',     
    fileBottomNavCloseImage: 'images/closelabel.gif',
    cookieForFirstLight:     false,  // use session only cookie for first light?  (true/false)

    overlayOpacity: 0.8,   // controls transparency of shadow overlay

    animate: true,         // toggles resizing animations
    resizeSpeed: 7,        // controls the speed of the image resizing animations (1=slowest and 10=fastest)

    borderSize: 10,        // if you adjust the padding in the CSS, you will need to update this variable
    
    forceLocal: false,     // set to true to force lightbox into a frame or iframe 
                           // (default: false) - will allow lighbox effect to appear on the top page of an iframe if any

    startCallback: function(){}, // callback for ligthbox start
    startCallbackType: 'afterFinish', // scriptaculous effect callback method default = 'afterFinish'

    endCallback: function(){}, // callback for lightbox end
    endCallbackType: 'afterFinish', // scriptaculous effect callback method default = 'afterFinish'

	// When grouping images this is used to write: Image # of #.
	// Change it for non-english localization
	labelImage: "Image",
	labelOf: "of"

// End Configuration -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you disable the animation, it will make the code lighter to execute.

So now anyways, I've got a bit further with the multi use conveyor and lightbox:

http://home.comcast.net/~jscheuer1/s...onveyor_oo.htm

But just now I looked at the title of this thread and saw:

Multiple Multidirection

and hadn't really been thinking about that. However, at that rate, this script might be the one to use for that part:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamici...wler/index.htm

[sevrinsevrin]

> Lightbox no longer uses a png for opacity

Ah, well. Don't I feel foolish? (the answer is yes)

> this script might be the one to use for that part:

Nice! I saw this, too, and thought "well, there's two different scrollers, anyway":

http://www.vicsjavascripts.org.uk/Co...usScrollII.htm

I will play around some more with the bits and direction you have provided and see what can be done/discovered on my end, with my limited understanding. Thanks again!

[jscheuer1]

I had looked at Vic's page before because he had linked it to a thread I was participating in as a possible solution for the original poster's situation. I noticed some inconsistencies in how the vertical scroller operated in at least two browsers (Opera and Firefox), but haven't looked at his code. That aside for the moment (the issue only arose when manipulating the vertical scroller with its scrollbar - things got out of kilter sometimes), there should be a way to set that up with my Lightbox mod. It should be just a matter of setting up the scrollers and finding the hooks in them to stop and start them in relation to the lightbox popping up and being dismissed - the basics (on the lightbox side) of which I've already worked out.

I just looked at his code, it's a nightmare. There are two scroller scripts on the page and it is unclear which or if both are being used. Also, the code looks unnecessarily complex to me, at least at first blush.