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xFlow! : A Javascript and PHP based Coverflow style gallery.
Want a smart gallery for your images and videos? You've come to the right place! Introducing xFlow!, the PHP and Javascript Coverflow replacement.
Posted by Paul Whitrow, 6th April, 2009 | Permalink
Let's be honest, the web is awash with galleries and image viewers of all shapes and sizes, but one of the nicest, slickest and most eye catching ways of presenting images has been produced by Apple. Their Coverflow image presentation script (originally found in iTunes) is, was, and will remain simply awesome.
I liked the functionality of Coverflow so much I wanted to reproduce it using Javascript. A quick Google search showed that I wasn't alone in this endeavor!
I had a look around (at the potential competition!) and found one that I really liked. Michael L. Perry's Cover flow in Javascript. This is a great script and featured some of the core functionality I was planning on building. So being a true believer in not wasting recourses I decided to use that script, plus Scriptaculous, as a base and got cracking on some development.
Fast forward a year and a half (yes really, though not all of that time spent at a keybourd - obviously) and we have a finished product: xFlow!
There have been so many changes to Michael's original code that it's barely recognisable. However, I really wanted to give him credit here for kick starting the whole thing. Michael, I thank you and I hope you like what I've done with it 
OK, so what's new about xFlow!?
Well, I'll simply list it's main features and let you decide:
- Creates all thumbnails in PHP to reduce overall Javascript memory requirement (other galleries use Javascript image reflection scripts)
- Items are aligned in a curved plain to aid perspective affect
- Items psuedo fade as they move back out of focus
- Galleries are housed in their own directories for SEO enhancement
- Each gallery is controlled by an XML file in RSS format to enable linking and following of individual galleries by RSS subscription (example)
- Import Flickr photo streams
- Import YouTube video streams
- A 'sitemap' file is produced (example) using the recognised sitemaps.org protocol for enhanced SEO purposes
Galleries can be password protected to enable private images to be uploaded (also encrypts the XML entries)- Images can be watermarked during upload process to make image theft more difficult, and to promote your own work
- Display items in first to last or last to first order
- Images can be resized during upload
- Images can be rotated during upload
- Images or videos can be uploaded from a local source (your machine/device) or a remote location (another website)
- Other galleries can be displayed as tiny thumbnails or standard links at the bottom
- Built in custom image viewer (NOT Lightbox!)
- Mouse wheel support in gallery and viewer
- Preloads the main images in the background for slick image browsing
- Individual titles and descriptions for all items
- Items can be shifted around until you get the order you want
- Fully customisable gallery options per individual gallery
- Automatically create a gallery from a ZIP archive full of images / videos that you upload
- Automaticalley create a gallery from a directory of images or videos, or a combination of both
- Language support
- Easy to re-style with a single style sheet
- Supports GIF, JPEG and PNG image formats
- Supports Flash Video (FLV) video format
Plus many others!
I've tried to build it with SEO in mind. Accessibility is a little more difficult as the gallery uses Javascript, but it will still show the images if Javascript and CSS are turned off.
It's also been tested in all the latest Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari (for Windows) browsers with no reportable errors (at least so far), so if you do find any can you please report them back here with the relevant browser info (type, version etc).
If you fancy trying it out, hop on over to xflow.pwhitrow.com and have a play.
Please could you leave any feedback / ideas / gripes / whatever in the comments section of this article and I will do what I can address them.
To do
xFlow! will continue to develope over time as I think of new features, improvements, bug fixes (pah!) or get worthy requests.
Add Flickr support- DONE!Add YouTube support- DONE!- Anything else that I think of...
Posted on Monday 6th April, 2009 at 12:52 pm by Paul Whitrow, and filed under
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