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Can't run slideshows

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 5:43 pm
by tbearie
I've used Highslide for years, but hadn't needed a slideshow until now. I lost a few days unsuccessfully trying to get code from the highslide site's barebones samples and the RoadRash samples to work. Finally I tried downloading the entire pages and discovered that none of them worked when downloaded (with no changes). They all have the thumbstrip misplaced and the entire appearance of the first slide broken. But then after a few clicks things straighten out.
The problem happens with all samples downloaded, and in all of my browsers.

I built a new PC about a year ago, running Windows 10, and haven't ever had any such problems before. Any idea as to what is happening here?

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:51 pm
by MisterNeutron
Sorry, but I don't have a clue. Nothing in the code has been changed since 2011, and the barebones samples all still work (assuming you've grabbed all the other requisite files, of course). No problems in Win10 or macOS 10.13.4, with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.

One quick sanity test.... Does this page work for you?

https://jgromit.com/matrix/bodythumbstrip/

This is Highslide JS with a vertical thumbstrip. I have hundreds of users using this software. If this fails, there's something very strange going on with your PC.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:43 am
by tbearie
That works fine both online and when downloaded and run offline. But one of us - either I or my computer - is nevertheless still insane. Absolutely no sense to this. Am pretty sure it has something to do with the "open the first thumb" instructions in the other slideshow samples - which this one apparently doesn't employ. It'll take me a while to study this one thoroughly - will get back to you when I figure it out. Thanks.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:39 am
by MisterNeutron
Are you trying to start the slideshow automatically when the page is loaded? There's a way to do that, but it does require some tinkering, since you're trying to create a virtual click on a specific thumbnail, and that's not really built into the script.

One thing I always tell people is never to try to use any of the "subsets" of the Highslide JS script. The full script isn't very large, so there's no reason not to use the whole thing. And the subset versions, like highslide-with-gallery.js, are usually lacking some pieces of code that are essential to making other features work. Stick to highslide-full.js or highslide-full.min.js (the latter is just a packed version, but the code is identical). This will spare you all sorts of heartache.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:45 pm
by tbearie
I'm just trying to run downloaded samples of in-page galleries. Not touching anything in the html, css, or js. Just "as is." And everysingle try results in the first image breaking out of the container (so pieces are left on screen when it corrects itself, and in the thumbstrip being way off from where it's supposed to be - although this corrects itself after a click or two.

I hadn't thought about the first page since I haven't got this project past step 1 yet, but I realize now that I want a normal webpage with image#1 in it from which the slideshow would then start. Like your Matrix page but with a single image.

Since these samples are messed up in all browsers, it must be a non-browser problem, but the computer wouldn't be involved in a webpage issue. The only thing I could think of where there's a possible connection between the html and my hardware is hs checking for display-related height and width. But I experimented with different display settings and still had the same problems. Also, the settings would be unlikely since the problem corrects itself.

Weird, huh?

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:54 pm
by MisterNeutron
Well, do the galleries display properly when you simply view them on the website here? If so, then when you download them, you're doing something wrong - not getting all of the files, for example.

If you download the entire zipped-up Highslide package - http://highslide.com/download.php - and extract all of the files to a folder on your PC, the examples should all work just fine.

Edit: And the example you should emulate is the mini-gallery.html example.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:21 pm
by tbearie
Yes, the galleries all display properly on their websites. I don't think it's likely that my browsers are losing files when downloading, but I checked several of the downloads anyway and couldn't find any html references to files that weren't there.

OK - I'll download the whole Highslide package and see what happens with those examples. Thanks for the suggestion; and thanks for the tip re the mini-gallery.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:27 pm
by tbearie
I've compared the original and the saved version and can find no differences - and no html calls for anything that's missing.

Worse, it turns out that the same is true for non-slideshow related examples, such as simple expanders and iframes which I've made extensive use of in an offline website and have never had any problems with them there.

I opened up "outer-glow.html" and saved it as "HS-glow.html". The file folder created by the save contained only the css and js files and the thumbnail. When that page opened up it had the thumnail, but clicking just went to "loading". The path to the full-image in the highslide/images folder was ok. But I moved the image (and changed the path) to the HS-glow folder. Same issue: just 'loading'.

Saving iframe.html resulted in a page with the iframe already opened up and not closeable.

Hoping you can find some clues there. If not, it'll be a while: I'm going to see if I can slip some code into my (currently fully functional) website.

Thanks for giving this bit of craziness your consideration. I'm going to bet that it'll turn out to be something really simple and totally stupid....

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:30 pm
by tbearie
Whoops - missing the original 1st paragraph - without which that didn't make sense:

Maddening! Got the exact same results. All of the html files in the examples folder work fine. But when I save them they become non-functional - with the exact same display errors as before.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:43 pm
by MisterNeutron
tbearie wrote:I opened up "outer-glow.html" and saved it as "HS-glow.html". The file folder created by the save....
Right there, you've lost me. If you open a page of HTML in a text editor and save it with a different file name, no folder is created. The only thing that's saved is the file.

If you're trying to save a page from within a browser, that's never going to work. The browser doesn't know how to grab, and save, all of the ancillary files. It will save the HTML code of the page, the Highslide CSS file, and the Highslide Javascript file, along with whatever images it can see on the page (but not the ones in a hidden container), but it won't save things like the highslide/graphics stuff, which isn't explicitly called out on the page. The script calls those resources when it's launched, so the calls to them aren't visible in the page code.

A browser's "Save page as..." function is almost useless these days - it can handle only the simplest of pages, with no active content on them at all.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:15 pm
by tbearie
I'm not so sure about the saving files thing: there can be many things that aren't saved in the folder, but which are then obtained from the original website. (Saved this page with a different name and it works perfectly.)

Hidden files, of course, would totally wreck everything. Since everything worked on all samples - except for initiating the first slide correctly - then it's sure a small piece of hidden file that I'm lacking.

So I'll go back to creating the webpages from scratch. Which is what I was doing in the first place - but I kept getting those same display errors. That's why I tried running the examples, hoping to compare and see what I was doing wrong.

Thanks for the help. Also for your other posts on the forum; I learned a lot by browsing through the forum when I first started looking to see if anybody else had my problem.

Re: Can't run slideshows

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:38 pm
by MisterNeutron
When you tell the browser to save the web page, it doesn't grab the highslide/graphics folder at all, which is critical for the script to work. The paths to those images aren't spelled out in the HTML, so the page-saving routine is blissfully unaware of them. Those image calls are buried in the script itself.

If you get a page cobbled together that seems like it should do what you want, but doesn't, upload it somewhere (some hidden temp directory, for example), and post a link. I'm sure I can debug it quickly, as long as you're doing relatively straightforward stuff (I don't do ajax, and always struggle with the so-called "in-page galleries," since I've never used them myself).