Pixiq

Flash Gallery Beta is a project by an anonymous developer. It looks cool, but hasn’t been updated recently. I do really like how it looks, despite the faults (the main one being it doesn’t center vertical images). It uses an XML file to get the images, so I thought this would be a good project to get to grips with creating XML from Lightroom. Boy, was I ever right.

Lightroom only allows one AddGridPage, which is where the photos get created and assigned in the Grid. I’m not using a grid for this, but I still need the images created. The trick was to create a dummy page and then have the real page with the flash file rename to index.html. I also had a little help from Matthew Campagna with the XML creation. I was on the right track, but Matthew gave me the right turnoff, directing me to his XML Shadowbox Index.

This version for Lightroom is quite basic. It has Background Colour control, Jpeg Quality, Identity Plate and Copyright Watermark support. I’ve no access to the .FLA file so I’ve no control over the gallery features. The swf file weighs in at 11k so it’s tiny! Other features are a full screen mode and thumbnail scrolling.

Download | Install Instructions | Sample Gallery

Warning: Due to the way Lightroom handles Flash in HTML galleries, this will preview on a Mac, but may not preview on a PC. Finally, the crop ratio inside the gallery is 4X3, so you may want to crop to this to fill the gallery screen. Enjoy.
Update: I’ve justed added a Page Title Control and the About Menu.