[opus_az]

Hello...

I'm looking to display images (ads, really) as a full screen slidesho with assorted effects. Preferrably it'd fetch from a SQL database. If not SQL then I'd need a way to easily send slideshows to multiple remote locations.

Any suggestions?

[Gavin]

I can't think of anything off the shelf but you may be able to applescript iPhoto or even trigger a the screen saver with images downloaded to a particular folder.

Someone could whip up a custom application in Real Basic. That can handle the Quicktime interface for image display and transitions, as well as database connections.

[Mediaman_12]

You could possibly use the inbuilt Apache web server, and use some sort of html,Flash, javascript or PHP based solution. I think I came across a few when I wanted something to do a slideshow on a web-site.

[opus_az]

Originally Posted by Mediaman_12 

You could possibly use the inbuilt Apache web server, and use some sort of html,Flash, javascript or PHP based solution. I think I came across a few when I wanted something to do a slideshow on a web-site.

Yeah, I'm finding those too. Problem is I'd still have the browser bar visible. This is more for a kiosk application

[Mediaman_12]

look for Web Kiosk on MacUpdate There are various Safari/webkit kiosk apps. including this Free one.

[opus_az]

Originally Posted by Mediaman_12 

look for Web Kiosk on MacUpdate There are various Safari/webkit kiosk apps. including this Free one.

Thanks!

[Mithras]

Another option would be using a Quartz Composer screen saver and an RSS feed for the images. I think that'd work rather well, actually.

Here's a quick example of a screensaver that grabs image URLs from a configurable RSS feed -- I have it preset to show some random rafting photos of mine. You could have it do something tamer, of course, if you're not into the rotating cube thing. Unzip and put it in ~/Library/Screen Savers/ to try it out.

RSS Slide Show.qtz.zip

I use Feeder to generate the RSS feed, but you can make it by hand with a text editor easily enough. Here's the first bit of the feed:
[codex]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Photos</title>
<link>http://harnly.net</link>
<description>Some photos</description>
<generator>Feeder 1.4 http://reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/</generator>
<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
<language>en</language>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 01:53:01 -0400</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 01:53:01 -0400</lastBuildDate>

<item>
<title>Photo 1</title>
<link>http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~aaron/travel/colorado/photos/high/IMG_0612.jpg</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 00:25:06 -0400</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="false">photo-1</guid>
</item>

<item>
<title>Photo 2</title> <link>http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~aaron/travel/colorado/photos/high/IMG_0614.jpg</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 00:26:07 -0400</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="false">photo-2</guid>
</item>
<item>
(etc)
</channel>
</rss>

[/codex]

[Mithras]

I tweaked the screensaver to use a 4:3 aspect ratio. Anything else will look squished or stretched, though. Here's a screenshot: