Introduction

Thank you for choosing SlidePress to manage your SlideShowPro assets in WordPress! This plugin makes it easy to setup and include SlideShowPro albums and galleries in Wordpress pages and posts making integration as easy as possible. We give users the same controls and styling abilities found in Flash, but from within the WordPress Administration Panel.

Installing SlidePress

Activating Plugin

Installation of SlidePress is as easy as of any other WordPress plugin. Just download SlidePress zip package, extract it anywhere you like and upload it to wp-content/plugins directory. After uploading, your plugins directory should look like this: (please note your installation may include other plugins not shown here)

Navigate to Plugins page of your WordPress Administration Interface, find SlidePress in a list of plugins and click Activate.

That's it! You should now be able to see SlidePress in the top-level menu of your WordPress admin panel.

Before you start using the SlidePress plugin, a licensed copy of SlideShowPro must be installed with SlidePress. SlideShowPro is commercial package and is not included with our SlidePress plugin bundle. Please refer to "Purchasing & Installing SlideShowPro" section below.

Purchasing & Installing SlideShowPro

In order to include SlideShowPro slideshows in your SlidePress installation you will have to purchase the SlideShowPro player first. Visit SlideShowPro.net for more information or to purchase a copy of the software.

After successfully purchasing SlideShowPro, download zip package from the SlideShowPro.net Account Center and extract it. Inside you will find a number of different folders, but for the SlidePress plugin you will use files found in the Standalone/Source/ folder. Upload its contents to wp-contents/plugins/SlidePress/flash directory on your server. Note: Be sure to upload only the contents and not the directory itself!

After you do this, SlidePress will be fully functional and ready to manage your SlideShowPro assets in WordPress.

Cross Domain Configuration

By default, the Flash Player has a security wall that prevents the loading of data from a domain that is different from the one a SWF resides on. In other words, if your SWF were hosted on www.mydomain.com and either your static XML file or installation of Director were on www.myotherdomain.com, then the SWF wouldn't have permission to load images.

So how to do you grant permission? It's done with what's called a "cross domain policy file." It's a simple XML file that the Flash Player automatically looks for at the outside domain (the one Director or your XML is hosted at), and if the file grants permission to the domain hosting your SWF, your images are allowed to load. SlidePress automatically generates the required XML file based upon the domains listed.

For more information, visit the SlideShowPro Support Wiki.

Creating a SlidePress Gallery

Overview

"SlidePress Gallery Overview" will be the first page you'll see when clicking the SlidePress top menu link from within the WordPress Administration Panel. From here you will be able to see your current User Role:

...manage recently added galleries (this section will show up only if there are galleries to manage and if you have the required user rights to access it):

...and add a new gallery (this section will show up if you have the rights to add galleries):

After you choose "edit settings" or "add new gallery" you will be redirected to corresponding SlidePress admin page.

Required Fields

By default when you enter the "Add Gallery" page, most presentation parameters will be pre-filled for you based on values found in the default.xml template file (located in wp-contents/SlidePress/templates directory; take a look at "Optional Style Presets" section below). Only the first four fields will remain empty and are required to successfully create a new SlidePress gallery.

"SlidePress Gallery Name" - provide a name for the gallery you want to create (unique Gallery ID will be generated out of it automatically; see "Publishing SlidePress Galleries" section).

"SlidePress Gallery XML Path" - this is the path to SlideShowPro image feed, either found in the Album & Gallery management areas of SlideShowPro Director, or the path of a manually created xml document.

"XML Type" - SlideShowPro accepts incoming XML image data from a variety of sources.

Default - Feed from a static XML file created in a text editor, uploaded to server.

Director - Dynamic XML file created created by SlideShowPro Director. The XML to be used for SlidePress can be found in SlideShowPro Director, either from the landing page dashboard or from the album section. Click the 'copy' button which copies the XML path to your clipboard for use in the SlidePress plugin.

Media RSS - Feed from a Flickr API or other RSS 2.0 media source.
Note for Flickr photostreams: Make sure to have &format=rss_200 at the end of the feed URL so that SSP can correctly process the feed.

OMPL - Allows loading of multiple XML files. For more information, visit the SlideShowPro Support Wiki.

Manual Entry - Gives users the opportunity to create XML data from within the SlidePress interface. Visit the SlideShowPro Support Wiki for information on proper usage and formatting.

WordPress Gallery - Upload image content directly through WordPress posts. Use the Add Images feature and create a gallery based on all images in a particular post. Use the WordPress post ID as the gallery source, thumbnail generation is activated by default to create smaller images for gallery previews.

"SlidePress Gallery Size (W x H)" - width and height of the embed gallery.

Optional Style Presets

The Add Gallery page by default uses parameters presented in default.xml file, which is the only xml file in wp-contents/SlidePress/templates directory at the time of initial installation. Later you can add your own presets in the same directory and they will show up in "Optional Style Preset" drop-down list. This feature will be useful for designers creating style templates for clients, or users wanting to recall frequently used settings. After creating SlidePress galleries, those Gallery ID's will be also added to "Optional Style Preset" select box, so that you may use your previous styling parameters and presets on new galleries.

Gallery Style Settings

There are many parameters which you can use to completely customize the look and feel of your SlidePress gallery. Parameters have been arranged for users convenience into the following groups:

"Album Settings" - This section consists of all possible album parameters, such as: album background color, transparency level, padding, text size, color and alignment, etc.

"Gallery Settings" - Includes general gallery options: background color, order, navigation bar visibility and its general parameters, etc.

"Media Player Settings" - SlideShowPro includes an integrated media player that appears when a video is loaded, or an album contains background audio. Here you can find all parameters that are responsible for its look: media player icon, progress and volume bar color, text size and color, scale level, etc.

"Navigation Settings" - The navigation bar at the bottom of SlideShowPro is where a user controls the slideshow. In this section you can customize it in every way possible. Parameters include: color, background color, spacing, thumb and icon options, etc.

"Content Settings" - Content parameters: alignment, color, format, order, scale, etc.

"Caption Settings" - Captions are a great way to enhance your slideshow by providing textual information about your photos and in this section you can control how they will look like when they show up.

"Feedback Settings" - SlideShowPro for Flash displays two "feedback" graphical elements that visually communicate invisible events occurring in the background. These include a preload animation and a timer element that visualizes changes in display mode as well as transition pause countdowns.

"Audio & Video Settings" - Here you can set Audio and Video playback parameters, such as whether playback must start automatically, volume level, video smoothing, etc.

"Miscellaneous Settings" - Other presentation settings including cache settings, typefaces and more.

"Presentation Settings" - Here you can set the actual feel of the slideshow, the way it will be presented to the user. Available options include: transition style, direction, length, whether it can be controlled from keyboard, etc.

For a full description of each SlideShowPro parameter please refer to the documentation found at http://wiki.slideshowpro.net

Publishing SlidePress Galleries

How to include in pages or posts

There are currently two options for adding SlidePress galleries to your WordPress posts or pages - future releases may include additional custom presentation options.

Standard - Specified SlidePress gallery will be inserted directly into the post or page itself, in-line with any other content found on the page.

Insert the following tag into the post:

[slidepress gallery='gallery id']

and substitute 'gallery id' with actual Gallery Id, which can be found on the Manage Galleries page.

After you save and publish the post, the tag will be replaced with appropriate SlideShowPro code and corresponding gallery will appear.

ThickBox - A SlidePress gallery will open in ThickBox window upon clicking a link within post or page. Note: By default this feature is disabled, refer to "Setup -> Presentation Options" section to see how to enable this feature.

To pop-up slideshow in a ThickBox window insert the following tag:

[slidepress thickbox='gallery id' title='mytitle' image='mypreviewurl']

Substitute 'gallery id' with actual Gallery Id, and optionally provide a title for the link ('mytitle') and a url for the image ('mypreviewurl') to be inserted in this link. If you do not provide a title or an url of the image, SlidePress Gallery name will be automatically inserted instead.

Managing SlidePress Galleries

Overview

All current SlidePress galleries are available on Manage Galleries tab. Here you can preview, edit, and remove them.

Preview provides a quick view of existing galleries in a separate pop-up window for easy reference.

If you want to change setup or presentation parameters of a particular SlidePress gallery, click "edit settings" and you will be redirected to an interface which is similar to one found in the Add Galleries area, fields will be populated with the current settings for that gallery. When you are finished making changes, click the Update button and your changes will be saved.

Export Feature

After selecting a particular gallery from the Manage Galleries page, below all of the options at the bottom of the screen is the Export SlidePress Settings feature. This allows you to take all of the values for that particular gallery and save in an XML file to your desktop. The XML filename is automatically generated but may be changed if necessary. These XML files may also be uploaded to the wp-contents/plugins/SlidePress/templates directory and used it as a style preset for new galleries.

Setup

Setup page holds some general SlidePress options, which affect behaviors of the entire plugin.

Presentation Effects

These options govern how SlidePress galleries are presented within WordPress pages and posts. Standalone option is integrated in SlidePress and activated by default and cannot be turned off. ThickBox feature is disabled by default, you can turn it on or off whenever you like and the required code for launching a ThickBox will be added to your WordPress website. (See also: How to include in pages or posts section above.)

User Roles

There are three main operations done by users working with the SlidePress plugin - Add a New SlidepPess Gallery, Modify / Delete SlidepPess Galleries and Change SlidePress Options. Each of this operations maybe restricted by Administrator to a particular User Role within the WordPress blog. For example lowering permissions for Add a New SlidePress Gallery ability to an Editor level, will permit creating of new galleries to Users holding Editor Role, but will not give the Editor access to modify/edit/delete existing galleries or change plugin setup options.

Additional Support

If you are experiencing difficulties with the SlidePress plugin or have questions not covered in this documentation, please visit our website.