Darren Mothersele

A while ago I published a Views 2 plugin on my fserver that uses the lightweight jFlow (plugin for jQuery) to make simple slideshows. You can download the module here. It's quite simple to get up and running, but I thought I would write some documentation, as there's some advanced configuration that is possible that might not be obvious...

The basic setup is to have a block that features some rotating images. To do this add a new display to a view (for example, a block, or attachment), then select jFlow as the style to use for this display. In the options for jFlow turn off display of all the controls. Set the height and width of the container, as this is a requirement of jFlow. Add an image field to the view and save.

You can create more advanced styles by using the controls. A very basic example is to have numbers that switch between the images. To do this add a views result counter to the list of fields for the view, but set it to "Exclude from display" in the field settings. Then go back to the jFlow style settings and select this field as the control. You will then see a list of numbers that you can click to change slide. If you wish you could turn off automatic transition so clicking the controls is the only way to change slide.

Another example is to use thumbnail images for the controls. You can do this by adding an imagecache preset for a tiny thumbnail, then adding this to the view as a field that is "excluded from display" then, again, selecting this as the control field in the jFlow settings.

You could also add the next/prev controls in the jFlow settings and then theme them using CSS, for example, to move the location of the controls, or display them as arrows images.