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Flash-Based Galleries For Your Images
October 12th, 2007 in Graphics | 108 Comments
In many situations web designers should avoid Flash and prefer usual text-based presentation. For instance, in most tasks related to pure text presentation Flash is neither necessary nor user-friendly, and it also has some serious accessibility problems: in fact, “pure” text is easier to maintain and easier to copy and paste.
However, if you’d like to present some multimedia-content, particularly images, Flash can often be a feasible solution, with flexible image management for web designers and impressive visual presentation for users. Used moderately, Flash-based galleries can give the presentation a fresh spark and create a rich visual experience you might want to offer your visitors.
In this post we present some of the free, attractive and flexible Flash-based galleries you can use to present your images more effectively. You might find some useful references to further galleries in our article 30 Best Solutions For Image Galleries, Slideshows and Lightboxes.
Flash-based Galleries: An Overview
Polaroid Gallery offers a quite unusual way of presenting a bunch of photos online. The script loads images and image titles dynamically from an external XML file. Then the script processes the data and creates an interactive flash gallery in which all images are presented as Polaroid-photos.
The images are kind of thrown on the the table randomly and create a beautiful mess — the idea resembles BumpTop, physics-driven 3D-desktop with draggable folders and files. You can move the polaroids around with the mouse, and you can double click a Polaroid picture to zoom in.
To use the gallery you simply need to define your images and your galleries by modifying the XML-file accordingly. You can also define the legend to describe the content of the images. Besides, you can specify your Flickr ID and the gallery will automatically load the latest pictures from your Flickr RSS-feed. The loaded pictures are automatically scaled, centred and smoothed.
The script is free and open-source, and the .zip-package includes a .fla-file you can modify to improve the script. To ensure an optimal presentation your images should have a square format; otherwise the Polaroids don’t look particularly pretty.
The Flash XML Gallery offers a flexible solution for integration of multiple albums into one single gallery. The script can integrate popular photo sharing communities such as Flickr and Picasa. You can use a wide range of transition effects.
The images can be read from RSS or added manually. To add the images you have to upload them to the specified directory and define them in the XML-file. The only usability issues of The Flash XML Gallery are the facts that you a) can’t navigate through the gallery by clicking on the images and b) you can’t get back from the fullscreen to the overview simply clicking on the image. In both cases you have to use the navigation slider below the displayed image. The slider informs the user whether the next image is already loaded.
dfGallery is probably one of the most powerful Flash-based gallery solutions out there. It supports the instant integration of Flickr, Picasa , Fotki and Photobucket; of course, you can add your custom images as well or add an RSS-feed from which the images should be taken.
The gallery is easily customizable, meaning that you can e.g. define the time duration of the slideshow, hide menu system and scale the images from RSS feeds. dfGallery also enables you to switch between the single view mode, full screen mode and the print screen mode.
Apart from wide language support, the gallery makes use of a liquid layout and therefore fits to any size you specify. And it’s also possible to define the background mp3 music for your galleries. The full manual for dfGallery including examples and necessary code snippets for customization is available in the dfGallery Reference Documentation.
Flash Page Flip is a Picasa template based on the free version of the FlashPageFlip flash engine on Flashpageflip.com. It lacks the advanced functions of the commercial versions but still makes a very nice photo album on your website. You can see and hear the pages flip.
The download offers two templates: one for a landscape oriented album, the other for a portrait oriented album. Sizes can be changed by editing the header.xml file in the template folder.
Picasa Flash Photo Stack Gallery is a simple Flash template that enables you to click through a stack of your favourite photographs. Unfortunately available only as plug-in for Picasa.
You can find more plugin for Picasa users in the overview Crear galerías de imágenes profesionales con Picasa (Spanish).
Carousel is another interesting approach for showcasing images. The script reads the data from a HTML- or XML-file and displays the images in a circle. Similar to iPhone, visitors can browse through the gallery sliding the mouse along the screen; alternatively also the keyboard can be used.
You can define an automatic rotation of the images (max rotation set to 90°/sec counterclockwise). New modified versions are coming soon - as well as a detailed documentation on how the XML-files should be structured.
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gr8pixel (October 12th, 2007, 10:44 pm)
nice article guys! i was looking for something like this for a long time… :)
keep it up!!!
David Horn (October 12th, 2007, 10:45 pm)
Nice list - although I’m surprised you’ve left off Todd Dominey’s Link [slideshowpro.net] - it’s great, so customizable and lovely to look at! Similar in appearance to the dfGallery you have above.
Thanks for the list.
Dustin Brewer (October 12th, 2007, 10:49 pm)
Yeah I am surprised as well to not find Slideshow Pro listed, I use it frequently for my clients in web design and it is extremely easy to modify and use.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (October 12th, 2007, 10:55 pm)
@David Horn, Dustin Brewer: we’ve listed only free solutions. Slideshow Pro, definitely a highly customizable Flash-based solution, costs $29 for a single-user license. Please read the introduction carefully.
chris (October 12th, 2007, 10:58 pm)
what would be the best alternative to slideshowpro that is free?
like just a basic crossfade slideshow that is xml driven?
Lucas Ferreira (October 12th, 2007, 11:14 pm)
Despite not free, I’d consider Link [www.imagevuex.com] also. Good gallery
eurojoe (October 12th, 2007, 11:18 pm)
There is one more great flash gallery that we should not forget: Link [my.slideroll.com]
eurojoe (October 12th, 2007, 11:21 pm)
Sorry, the link didn’t get through: Slideroll
Link [my.slideroll.com]
Jason (October 12th, 2007, 11:25 pm)
This is a good start on decent gallery solutions but SlideShowPro should definitely be on this list. Even taking into consideration the 29 dollar fee, you cannot beat the quality and features included in SlideShowPro and SSP Director. Another slightly cheaper product you should consider is MonoSlideShow which can be found at monoslideshow.com.
Gustav E (October 12th, 2007, 11:46 pm)
Hm, I don’t see why this is necessary, since flash really is the spawn of satan when it comes to the web. Really, all flashpages should be banned since it forces users to have 3rd party software on their computer to even view the content, and peoples with os’es like FreeBSD are completely lost, since flash isnt available for the bsd-platform.
So everyone that looks at this and thinks “Oh, how cool isnt that, i’ve gotta use that on my site”, think again and look for an equivalent javascript-based solution (almost every browser handles javascript more or less).
Kerwin (October 13th, 2007, 12:03 am)
Please don’t leave out Link [www.bananalbum.com] in this list.
It’s a great (and free) flash image gallery.
gr8pixel (October 13th, 2007, 12:10 am)
oh.. and if you guys want to create your own flash image galleries i think this might be a good start (for beginners):
Link [www.kirupa.com]
Link [www.kirupa.com]
gr8pixel (October 13th, 2007, 12:15 am)
Vitaly, what do you think about this?
Link [www.airtightinteractive.com]
oh.. and pls tell me if i’m contributing too much.. lol
tiraeth (October 13th, 2007, 12:21 am)
Mainly for Flickr Gallery, but always flash-based and very impressive:
Link [flickr.flashapis.com]
Jason Beaird (October 13th, 2007, 12:26 am)
@chris: If you just want a simple cross-fading gallery, you may want to skip flash altogether and go with a javascript solution. One method I’ve used a few times for this is the Link [sonspring.com] which takes advantage of the Link [slayeroffice.com] script.
chris (October 13th, 2007, 1:07 am)
thank you jason, ill check it out!
chris (October 13th, 2007, 1:24 am)
this will come in handy, but how would i make it work to have more than just 1 slideshow on same page? i tried changing the div to class and edit the css, but didn’t work, any suggestions?
santin (October 13th, 2007, 1:39 am)
How about this
Link [fotologue.jp]
Dentist (October 13th, 2007, 2:19 am)
Thanks, very good list.
Magazine Cover - make your own magazine cover! Be a superstar! Prove to your friends how famous you really are! All you need is a photo from that fancy digital camera of yours.
Flickr Album Maker - a new tool to collect your flickr photos to make your album is available now. With this tool, you can collect photos in Flickr Organize easily and send to Flickr Album Maker.
Flapi - open source Flash image gallery.
And other Link [www.namized.info]…
Michael (October 13th, 2007, 2:37 am)
@ Gustav:
Your logic (replace all Flash with Javascript) would make no sense according to my server logs. 99% of my users (academic library site) are using an OS that can support Flash. Only 78% have Javascript turned on.
Additionally, 98% of computer ship with the Flash player.
Personally, I hate Flash and use Firefox Flashblocker. But I also keep JavaSript turned off most of the time, so AFAIC, neither method works for me. But for the vast majority of my users, Flash is better.
Mike M. (October 13th, 2007, 3:14 am)
LOL @ gustav the token Flash Nazi. For the 98% of us who use the regular old operating systems, these galleries rock.
I’m using the DFgallery for my father’s website. It’s splendid.
Link [www.ducktrapphoto.com]
btezra (October 13th, 2007, 3:28 am)
I’ve used Link [www.imagevuex.com] for Link [www.craigbiertempfel.com] and have been quite pleased with the results.
It’s quite inexpensive IMHO and easy to implement and work with after the install.
Ryan (October 13th, 2007, 3:40 am)
I love how the comments thread is creating a nice compilation of other free image viewers :-)
Anyways, you guys should do a mini list as well of Image Viewers from tutorial sites and others that include the actual FLA for learning purposes. Someone already mentioned the Kirupa ones. I like the “grab and slide” effect on this Link [www.wakeuplater.com] — and it also includes the FLA…
AnDrEsZ (October 13th, 2007, 4:59 am)
Fotolog is amazing, i’m just uploading some images and it’s really awsome.
Keith Parent (October 13th, 2007, 5:26 am)
yep, i agree. it’s very similar to the dfGallery, but it does have a one-time cost of $25. it’s very to customize and has almost every feature you could want or need.
Nikko (October 13th, 2007, 6:20 am)
Another very nice gallery free Link [www.flashimagegallery.com]
^_^
Abdel (October 13th, 2007, 6:28 am)
Hello every body … and excuse my English
First I want to thanks Smashingmag for the great work that they do for us … it realy help users to increase there knowledges of evereting concern web application, design or everything and more, you cover a lot of domains … so thank you for sharing all that with us …
smashingmag is the first site that I visit every morning but this is my first post and not the last … for this post I want just to add a link to a flash galery that I know and use for my personal galery.
The name of the galery is PicsEngine, and it’s a flash based web galery interface. The admin panel use AJAX. Here is somme fetures (this is the translation ofthe french vesrion of the official website):
1- Diffrent level of albums (galery)
2- Name and description of each photo
3- Creation of Thumb for each photo
4- Editing photo on line (Crop, resize)
5- Posibility to transfer a batch of photo by FTP
6- Manage photo and albums (with drag and drop)
7- RSS
8- Include an Ajax admin Panel
9- Possibility add Comments for each image (with enabe/desable options)
10- Show hinde comments
11- Possibility Download (with enabe/desable options)
The application require Flash 8 plugin
I think, that this is one of the best web galery application that I’v seen
This is the link to the official website :
Link [www.picsengine.com](In French Only)
This is the démo page of the frontoffice gaery :
Link [www.picsengine.com]
And this is the link to the Admin panel (Username : demo, Password : demo)
Link [www.picsengine.com]
Hope that it can help ! know that all of the site is in french, but if you need help you can ask your questions here on smashing mag. and once again excuse my english.
therapix (October 13th, 2007, 6:50 am)
Excellent as usual. Gosh, I love this website. Create t-shirts or any item, I’ll buy it.
Sibran (October 13th, 2007, 5:24 pm)
I have used ImageVue, really a nice gallery app to!
Link [www.imagevuex.com]
Flasher (October 13th, 2007, 10:43 pm)
Link [www.flashpageflip.com] is very good.
Brandon (October 14th, 2007, 12:58 am)
planning on having an english version of the softwarE??
Brandon (October 14th, 2007, 1:00 am)
sorry, the post above
but an english version for PicsEngine??
Are there any other flash galleries that can be linked to iPhoto??
glittle (October 14th, 2007, 1:35 am)
I like this one, it is similar, and it can go in things like FaceBook.
jesse (October 14th, 2007, 2:07 am)
chris and jason:
another javascript slideshow that is very powerful/customizable/ graceful:
Link [dynamicdrive.com]
Jordan Meeter (October 14th, 2007, 2:09 am)
Thanks for this incredible list. I’ve been researching for months and have not found anything. Now all of my questions are answered!
creative (October 14th, 2007, 2:15 am)
Link [www.airtightinteractive.com]
a good flash gallery
geo zel (October 14th, 2007, 5:54 am)
Link [www.stegmann.dk] porta using the simpleviewer is the BEST
george zel (October 14th, 2007, 6:13 am)
Link [www.stegmann.dk]
Ed (October 14th, 2007, 8:30 am)
Also check out the Link [effectscode.com] effect.
johnny d (October 14th, 2007, 8:47 am)
also check coverflow gallery: Link [www.webdesignerwall.com]
Keith (October 14th, 2007, 5:45 pm)
Looks very nice to me. I have implemented Link [gallery.extrarisk.com] before, but it isn’t as great as I expected it to be. Perhaps, this list of Flash galleries can help to enhance some of Link [www.neohide.com].
Mehmet Günce Akkoyun (October 14th, 2007, 11:43 pm)
hi all,
this topic is greath :)
i made my web side with poleroid style but i made it with css and js
bkawalec (October 15th, 2007, 5:23 pm)
excellent article, as usual. Just when I needed it!
I’ve downloaded the Link [sonspring.com] (a javascript gallery) and it works great, very easy to customize.
Tilman (October 15th, 2007, 6:16 pm)
The designer in my wants something much less obtrusive, much less “designy” and I hate those small thumbnails that ruin the impression of “large” images. That is why I made imgStack: Link [tint.de]
Nick (October 15th, 2007, 9:38 pm)
Jack Sauer (October 15th, 2007, 10:09 pm)
When will you guys write a similar article on Flash-Based Galleries for our Videos?
Cj B (October 15th, 2007, 10:57 pm)
Great list! But how about something that can read the iPhoto files? I _love_ Link [globs.org]. Which can be seen in action Link [photodump.cjbonline.com]. Just wish there were an updated and flash version, as this one is a couple years old!
Kevin (October 17th, 2007, 8:31 pm)
There’s also a nice photo viewer from effectscode.com - I particularly like their second example, Link [effectscode.com].
What’s really nice about effectscode.com is that you dont need a separate XML file - you can embed the XML in your webpage. Plus it’s backwards compatible and displays alternative text if your viewer doesnt have Flash, rather than forcing them to install it!
dennis3484 (October 17th, 2007, 9:55 pm)
PicsEngine really rocks but an English version (and other languages) would be great.
Maxwell Herbert N. (October 17th, 2007, 10:08 pm)
Just Excellent Work guys, I learn a lotttttttt from you, thx for all, i just wanna say keep it up, and your fruits are rise if me english its bad sorry i speak spanish from: Dominica Republic, God Bless you all, and His words be on you. to give the wisdow he want
Adam C. (October 18th, 2007, 4:22 am)
Is there anything like this that would give these effects (of polaroids drops, or flipping pages for output to DVD and Flash (as I’m building a slideshow for the wedding - i’d like something just as cool for the flash)
Martin (October 19th, 2007, 4:22 pm)
I’d used SimpleViewer at Link [www.haobam.com]. Its a great way connecting with my Flickr Album.
Alan (October 24th, 2007, 12:20 am)
Great list. I would also add SlideshowPro and the super-cool Dreamweaver plugin from DWUser “XML Flash Slideshow V3″ Link [www.dwuser.com] .
FranklinSS (October 30th, 2007, 12:55 am)
Here is another Flash based Photo Album Sharing. It is still in Alpha.
It lets you create you own layout, which is unique in this space, and you can zoom to the full resolution of pictures, which is also unique.
Here is an example : Link [www.zoomomail.com]
Here for the site: Link [www.zoomomail.com]
Misafir (November 16th, 2007, 8:25 pm)
PicsEngine really rocks but an Turkish version (and other languages) would be great
Paul Swagerman (January 15th, 2008, 8:59 am)
check Link [www.viewbook.com]
Saverio (January 17th, 2008, 6:44 am)
Carousel been moved on Link [www.flshow.net].
Thanks for linking.
Rien (January 22nd, 2008, 1:13 am)
If you’re looking for a flash gallery which you can manage online you should give Viewbook.com (http://www.viewbook.com) a spin. They seem to aim at presenting work online in a clean way (photo albums, slideshows, portfolios).
raj (January 28th, 2008, 10:37 pm)
Very Nice and Inspiring Article!!
Keep it up guys!
Bali Web Designer (February 21st, 2008, 6:49 am)
Hmm nice article, theres a more complex sample and free download on sephiroth.it by Allessandro Crugnola :) but this one pretty simple and easy to understand
phppassion (April 16th, 2008, 3:07 am)
Nice Article!!
Keep it up guys!
Georgios (May 2nd, 2008, 12:59 pm)
Very good article and some of these galleries are amazing. I don’t want to advertise but I think you should have included a gallery like the one Oxylus built Link [www.oxylusflash.com] or Triworks on FlashDen etc. There are quite a few really hot galleries out there !