Puttering

I hate to reinvent the wheel.

(As an aside, that probably explains why I don’t like to drive the same road back that I take to the store, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.)

Roller ChainLiz Arden and I were discussing using off-the-shelf widgets in product design. We mostly do that all the time. A conveyor builder, for example, would no more design a proprietary chain or sprocket for the electric motor than build a fiberglass cow to straddle the conveyor belt in a book factory. See, someone else has already invented the roller chain and you can buy as much as you want at any industrial hardware store.

This story is about websites.

I mentioned this preference for off-the-shelf stuff because I’ve been jinkering with the North Puffin Gallery. That’s my site over here that acts as a portal to my mom’s paintings and scratchboards, my own portfolio of interesting work that may be for exhibit only, and the emporium where I try to separate art afficionados from their moolah.

Lazy I am. I like slideshow gallery presentations but I hadn’t bothered changing from my static display, mostly because I really didn’t feel like reinventing the wheel. Or writing the code.

There are 29,763 freely downloadable slideshows available online.

Lazy I am. I like slideshow gallery presentations but I hadn’t bothered changing from my static display, mostly because I really didn’t feel like wading through all that code.

OK, I started wading.

First things first. The design parameters.

Any slideshow must “fit” the other pages on the site.
The “slides” had to be easy to update as the exhibit changes.
Slides should link to descriptive (or sales) pages.
The show should have navigation buttons.
The page cannot use Flash™.
The code had to be open source and easy to change.

The original source code of “open source software” is freely available and the owner allows all users to use, redistribute, and modify it.

Flash™ is common on sites but (fortunately) many designers are moving away from it in applications like this. It is sloooooooooooooow loading. The back buttons are difficult (or impossible) to make work. Basic text functions like copy-and-paste don’t work. Adobe doesn’t even use it on their own site. And it doesn’t scale well to mobile devices. I decided right from the start to use standard HTML and Java coding.

I found a bunch that fit my list.

Sample Page No. 1This is Ger Versluis’ Carousel, a page that has that displays multiple images in a 3D, carousel style. It has a number of lovely tricks for code that was written a decade ago. The slides slide in from either right to left, or left to right. I can set it to have pretty much as many images in view as I want (I chose three for this sample). Each image can have its own associated link. The carousel pauses on mouseover. And the script works in all browsers introduced since about 2001. Cool.

But it doesn’t have a way to title the images and there are no navigation buttons.

 

Sample Page No. 2Patrick Fitzgerald developed this script about the same time Mr. Versluis released the carousel. It doesn’t have the multiple images sliding around that we see on other pages but I made my own custom Start and Pause buttons, and moved the other links to match my page layout. The best part for me is the dropbox that lets you go to any slide in the show and then restart the flow from there.

 

Sample Page No. 3Book Flip is another image slideshow from Mr. Versluis. This time he simulates a page being turned to reveal two new slides at once. It is indeed an impressive display. I set it to flip horizontally because our browsers and monitors mostly display in landscape but it can work vertically. Each image can have its own associated link. The carousel pauses on mouseover. And the script works in all browsers introduced since about 2001. Cool.

But it still doesn’t have a way to title the images and there are no navigation buttons.

I like the carousel in number 1 and the book feel of number three but I love the controls and added text in number two.

Blog Contest:
OK, OK, it’s really a survey. I really want to know which of the three slide shows you like better. Click one of these links to drop me a quick email to let me know or leave a comment below.

Sample #1         Sample #2        Sample #3
Something Else
A winner (chosen from among all the entries) will receive a free lifetime subscription to the No Puffin Perspective™1!

And if you want to look at the code to tell me how to add the buttons to Number 1 or Number 3, that’d be great!

Next up, why the remote control for your TV doesn’t speak to your BluRay player.


1“Lifetime” in this case means the life of the world, the Internet, or this online column, whichever ends first.

 

 

3 thoughts on “Puttering

  1. Herr Blogmeister: Thank you for including me in your list of patrons who read and enjoy your blog. I AM honored even though I’m sure there’s an asterisk beside my name because you know how utterly inept I am with new technology. I did not understand a Freakin’ thing you wrote about, and I sadly admit it.

    I can, however, grasp the concept of using an already tried and successfully trusted gizmo (or widget) instead of sitting down and painstakingly designing something new that will work and does not violate the existing patent. It makes sense; and the wheel-reinvention analogy was good.

    I recently watched an old movie on VHS (did I mention that I am inept with new technology?); and it was about how the white man mistreated the American Indians in the 19th century. At one point in the movie, the Indians were moving their families to the “Indian Nation” — which later became the State of Oklahoma; and they were dragging their belongings on poles because the wheel had not been invented in their culture. I thought, “how fitting”.

    In many US States, certain Indian tribes allegedly get tax exempt revenue from Casino gambling, even though their Tribal Chiefs no longer wear head feathers and chant around an open fire while smoking ground up cactus needles mixed with indigenous tobacco.

    Today, Indians have come a long way and have moved with the times. They have not reinvented the wheel; but instead have brought that technology into their new-found culture. Thank goodness their casinos are adequately outfitted with Roulette Wheels and not Roulette poles.

    — George

    • Our mutual friend, Dangerous Bill, invented a pentagon-shaped wheel long ago. It didn’t work. He “concluded that wheels are impractical and useless. Anyway, the New World got along just fine without them until those pesky Europeans came along with their carts and wagons.”

      D.B. speaks the truth. The pre-European roads were smooth as silk so it was far easier to move belongings and trade goods back then. Those danged wheeled things just made ruts and ruint it for us travois builders. (Hey, you’ve heard of the “Silk Road” haven’t you?)

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