XML Slideshow with Ken Burns Effect

_index++;
    if (_index == xml.firstChild.childNodes.length) {
        _index = 0;
    }
    //if picture is loaded, just show it. if not, wait until it loads                                                                                           
    if (mcHolder["mcPhoto"+_index].loaded) {
        showPicture(mcHolder["mcPhoto"+_index]);
    } else {
        TweenLite.to(mcPreloader,.5,{_alpha:100});
        TweenLite.to(mcBlack,.5,{_alpha:80});
    }

Using the following recipe will create a header that will constantly be up-to-date with images from your posts, without ever having to manually modify the source files.

1. Add the bdw_get_images function from here to your theme’s function: http://is.gd/fO8GT

2. Rename the slideshow’s settings.xml to settings.php, change the contents to this: http://pastebin.org/61397

3. Change the category_name in settings.php from ‘Projects’ to whatever category you want to use. Note that I am randomizing all posts from that category. I’m also displaying the post title, then underneath that, the post category. I’ve added the posts permalink as url=, so people can click on the photo and be taken directly to the post. You can also replace The Loop entirely with whatever you need.

4. Within wordpress, edit your header.php and add: <script language="javascript">AC_FL_RunContent = 0;</script> <script language="javascript" src="AC_RunActiveContent.js"></script> in the wordpress header location

5. Wherever you want this slideshow to appear, add the rest of the script contents. You must tell the script to look for settings.php instead of settings.xml. Here’s what I use: http://pastebin.org/61514 The Very Important Part is on line 27, ‘flashvars’,’xmlPath=settings.php’,

First, you should check really well all the paths from and to your xml file. Make sure that everything is in it’s place, because some browsers skip over some errors.

Secondly, you should check with your host and make sure that Apache HTTP mod_gzip is disabled. There were some errors i the pats when this setting made the slideshow work.

1. First you have to make the character set that you want to use available in the slideshow. For this you need to open the main.fla file and in the Library(Ctrl+L) you’ll see, among other assets, two movie clips called description and title. In each one of those you have a dynamic text field. Just select it and add the custom characters that you need to use, via Character Embedding….

After your set of custom characters are embedded both in the title and description area you need to save the file and recompile it(Ctrl+Enter).

2. Now, you have to make sure that your xml file is utf-8 encoded. You can do this with an advanced editor such as Notepad++ or Coda. If your characters still don’t show up, you should try to use the html entities(ascii code) of those characters.