October
13th
9 Jquery Slideshow Applications You CANNOT Miss
Jquery - The write less, do more javascript library has all sorts of different code samples that do a wide variety of things. Today, we’ll be looking at different Jquery Slideshow applications that can be used to diversify your homepage, content, or anywhere that is big enough to display an image.
Jquery Slideshow
- What it does: Click on an image and it expands the picture to its regular size with a grey overlay shading the content behind it. A great way to focus the attention on the picture that the visitor clicks on.
- Example: Link
———————-
- What it does: Takes an image (or div element) and fades the pictures in and out. Very impressive script for something that is so easy to create.
- Can also take adsense advertisements and fade it in and out. A neat little effect.
- Example: Link
———————-
- What it does: Displays images in a slideshow format. It has numbers at the bottom of it to navigate through the images easily. When one is clicked, it provides a neat scrolling action to the image that you’ve chosen.
- Example: Link
———————-
4. Enchance - Jquery Image Gallery
- What it does: Takes images and makes a slideshow with numbers on the side for easy navigation. When clicked, the box surrounding the image matches the width and height of the new image.
- Example: Link
———————-
- Has 6 variations for your images.. including: Shuffle, Zoom, Fade, turnDown, CurtainX and Scroll Right On Click.
- Example: Link
———————-
- Isn’t a downloadable file, but has an easy tutorial to make an awesome slideshow that fades between images. It focuses on minimal code for maximum results.
- Example: Link
———————-
7. Galleria
- This is a gallery for images, so it doesn’t qualify as a slideshow like the ones above. However, it has clickable thumbnails and features a nice file size (around 4kb).
- Example: Link
———————-
8. CrossSlide
- Very impressive application that fades to each image that you add to it, while scanning the picture. It is hard to explain exactly what it does, so check out the example.
- Example: Link
———————-
- Scrolls through images, has a clickable navigation bar and uses an AJAX loader in between images. Interesting, but the demos aren’t spectacular.
- Doesn’t have any instructions on how to install, so I’m suggesting that experienced website owners use this. (If “Source Code” and “Javascript” are foreign to you, stay away!)
- Example: Link
———————-
So hopefully after seeing 9 excellent examples of Jquery Slideshow Applications, you’ll be able to find a new way to showcase your popular posts or interesting images.
Thanks for visiting my blog! You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you will be able to get these personal blog tips for free!
9:46 am on October 13th, 2008
I am sticking to my old way of staying as far from ajax as I can.
Application for vieweing posts and images is called browser. Trying to stuff something else inside of browser for same purpose is excessive.
Rarst’s last blog post..Cheap or not? MSI Wind U100 Vs HP Compaq 2510p
10:31 am on October 13th, 2008
Rarst - Jquery isn’t Ajax.. but it functions the same way. Most of these applications provide a user an easier way to browse through photos and text.
Would you rather have 9 pictures stacked on top of eachother, or one slideshow playing all of those same images (with a navigation bar incase it’s going too slow)?
10:47 am on October 13th, 2008
@Brad
I am generalizing. And I think Jquery has functions that are referred to as Ajax as well, am I wrong?
What these applications do is break common experience to hell because publisher likes eye-candy. I had once clicked on such lightboxed image. It had blocked page and shown me image wihout any controls. Clicking image started loading another image. I had to search it with cursor to discover visible only on hover close button in the lower-right (!) of it. I know it’s worst case but still.
When I need to browse number of images I want to do that quickly, efficiently and in consistent way. I don’t want to figure controls for latest popular plugin all the time.
Yeah, yeah - I am ancient and minimalistic in tastes.
Rarst’s last blog post..Cheap or not? MSI Wind U100 Vs HP Compaq 2510p
11:02 am on October 13th, 2008
@ Rarst - What kind of website was that? lol.
I see your point about figuring out the controls.. Thats what I feel a lot of plugin publishers need to consider when developing such things.. Simplicity
11:05 am on October 13th, 2008
@Brad
It was software review site. I mean not even some photo thing, but software screenshots!
Rarst’s last blog post..Cheap or not? MSI Wind U100 Vs HP Compaq 2510p
1:22 pm on October 14th, 2008
Hey brad!
Nice post and thanks for featuring my script!
… I’m gonna try and update it sometime in the future since the coding style is a tad dated. 
James’s last blog post..7 things you can do so your users won’t leave
2:45 am on October 15th, 2008
[...] Have you noticed all the amazing articles lately that promise almighty power using the Über cool [...]
11:55 am on October 20th, 2008
These slideshow applications are being noticed on numerous sites, as they provide an extra bit of interactivity for the user. I haven’t seen anyone say that the use of a slideshow looked inappropriate on a site. A lot of big-name sites have been using them for quite a while.
Armen Shirvanian’s last blog post..Quality Builds On Itself
8:59 pm on October 20th, 2008
Brad I want to try one of them ,
but please tell which is the best slideshow script of 9 slideshow ?
BRANDON’s last blog post..Ramalan Satrio piningit
9:42 pm on October 20th, 2008
Brad ,
please answer will our blog be slow by putting the codes of slideshows ?
thx
BRANDON’s last blog post..Ramalan Satrio piningit
2:52 pm on October 23rd, 2008
@ James - Hey, It still works amazingly well. Don’t forget, simplicity is key!
@ Armen - Apple’s website comes to mind
@ Brandon - I really like all of the applications in this Jquery Slideshow list. If I had to choose one.. I don’t think I could. I would recommend any 8 of the slideshows (the ninth one has no instructions on how to install)
@ Brandon - It won’t make your blog any more slower than putting on the number of pictures you want in a slideshow format.. The actual script that runs the slideshow is very small.. Around 2kb-15kb
(about 3 seconds to download on dialup)
11:29 pm on October 28th, 2008
Many Thanks
12:04 am on November 8th, 2008
Brad
Why has nobody pointed out that your first example - Lightbox 2 - uses the Prototype Framework and Scriptaculous Effects Library - not jQuery???
Am I missing something?
10:44 am on November 8th, 2008
@ Robert - Hmmm.. My Mistake. It still however, is very, very cool.
3:30 pm on November 21st, 2008
Is it just me, or is it nearly impossible to find a jquery/javascript slideshow plugin that supports audio as well?
6:47 pm on December 15th, 2008
Thanks for this useful round up. Fantastic.
@Rarst the browser is an evolving platform not just something for viewing text and images. By your logic we’d all be looking at grey backgrounds with times roman fonts. Google Maps would never happen and web sites wouldn’t have a clue who we were. You’d be amazed at how much JS is used on modern sites to do simple things that aid visitor navigation, experience and presentation.
Still I’d like a slideshow that can slide show divs…bit more flexibility I suppose.
~ Steph
Steph’s last blog post..Dial2Do Review For iPhone
1:17 am on December 16th, 2008
@Steph
Web IS text and images. Fonts and backgrounds have nothing to do with JS y the way. Browsers are evolving in usability and functions, in technology they are stuck in XHTML/CSS/JS/Flash and are not fast to move from there.
JS is good and flexible technology. Flexible as in for every good example there is half dozen crappy ones.
Rarst’s last blog post..My Internet goals for 2009