All three files contain the same code. Download the most convenient one. Downloading Notes: VBS FILE IE may try to run the VBS file instead of downloading it! You'll have to right-click and select "Save Link" or "Save Target" to save the file to your hard drive. TXT FILE Be sure to save the downloaded file with a VBS file extension. If your Windows has the default behavior of hiding file extensions, you will have to quote the file name. For example, don't save it as test.vbs, but as "test.vbs". Using quotes forces Windows to honor your file extension. ZIP FILE No problems. The zip file may (or may not) contain other information or directions. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SlideshowBasic.vbs ------------------------------------------------------------------ OVERVIEW: If you have a collection of pictures and/or sound and/or text files, this script will create the HTM web pages needed to display your files in a slide show that doesn't require JavaScript or frames. Just run the script and answer a few questions. Every question has a default answer already given, and in most cases you'll be able to simply accept the default. You don't need (and shouldn't have) web pages. The script will assemble the necessary web pages from your existing pictures, text, and sound files. The presentation will show slides in NAME SORTED ORDER. If order is important, you should consider prefacing your file names with numbers. For example "0010_test.jpg" instead of "test.jpg". In order to be consolidated into a single "slide", related sound, picture, and text files MUST have the same base names. For example "test.wav" and "test.gif" or "foo.mp3" and "foo.txt". If you only have a picture but no sound or text, no problem. Likewise, it's okay if you only have a sound or only have text. As long as you have SOMETHING, a web page will be created for you and entered into the slide show sequence. For those pictures that will have associated text, try to make the picture small enough so there will be room on the page for the text. ------------------------------------------------------------------ FILE TYPES: The script will always assume you have three types of files: Text, picture, and sound. It will always ask what types of extensions those files have. The default value shown should cover all situations. Really. If you don't have files of a particular type, it is safe to let the script run with the defaults. However -- If you have files of a particular type but you DON'T want those files included in the presentation, you may want to exclude that file type from the list. You should NOT exclude all file types! Enter a dummy file type like "zzz" if you really have a need to ignore all existing files of all different file types. You may also be able to exclude files by location rather than by type. More on location later... Text files can only have one type of extension. The default file extension is ".txt". Text files should be "plain text". Plain text is NOT Microsoft Word format or RTF format, or anything else. Plain text should not contain embedded HTML. Any embedded HTML in the plain text will be escaped and will appear as literal visible tags. Single newlines in the plain text will be ignored. Double newlines (a blank line) will be converted into a new paragraph tag on the web page. Picture files can be any of several different file types. The default list of types is ".png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp". Extensions should be separated by commas. Spaces will be ignored. Periods are optional. For example this list is equivalent to the previous list: "png,jpg,jpeg,gif,bmp". The file extension list is processed left-to-right. The first picture found in the designated picture location will stop the picture search. For example, if you had files named "test.jpg" and "test.bmp", then "test.jpg" would be the picture used in the slide show. The "test.bmp" file would not be used. Sound files are handled the same way picture files are handled. The default list of sound extensions is ".wma, .asf, .wav, .mp3, .mid, .au". ------------------------------------------------------------------ FILE LOCATIONS: The script will always assume you have all three types of files (Text, picture, and sound) and will always ask you where they are. Some people like to keep pictures in folders separate from web pages, so the script can't just assume everything is in the same place. If you don't have a certain type of file, no problem: When the script asks you where those files are, just tell it to look where the rest of your files are! It won't find any of those files there (since you don't have any) and everything will be fine. On the other hand, if you do have files of a certain type, but you don't want the script to use those files in the presentation, just lie to the script and tell it to look in a folder where it won't find anything. The script will look at the relative location between all the folders you select and will generate the correct relative URL data so everything will work on the web. However, experience has taught me to avoid a few possible locations! Try to avoid using file names or folder names that have spaces in them. Sometimes the literal space will work, and sometimes it gets translated to "%20". Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't! Also avoid having your sounds "higher" than your web pages. For example, if your web pages were in C:\InetPub\mypage\presentation\content\, you wouldn't want to put sounds in C:\InetPub\mypage\audio\. Doing so would mean MediaPlayer would have to handle a "double dot" to traverse up the directory tree. A browser can do that and figure out the correct URL with no problem, but MediaPlayer has a bad habit of passing the double dots up to the web server to resolve. And most web servers will refuse URLs with double dots. Sounds are safer (more likely to work) when they are below the presentation, for example C:\InetPub\mypage\presentation\content\audio\. ------------------------------------------------------------------ DEFAULT VALUES: To accept the default answer for the folder browse dialogs, press the "Escape" key or click the dialog "Cancel" button. To accept the default value for the text input dialogs, you can press "Enter", "Escape", or click the "OK" or "Cancel" buttons. The only way to not accept the default value is to change the displayed value before pressing "Enter" or clicking "OK". Why allow "Cancel" for the default? Because browsing for a folder was so awkward that I wanted to implement a default answer. I put as much intelligence into the script as I could to try to guess which folder the user wanted. If the script's guess was correct, the user could just accept it without having to drill down through all the folders. The only way I could do it was to use "Cancel" as the default because it returns a detectable empty result. However, this meant hitting "Cancel" on the folder dialogs to accept the default, but hitting "OK" on the text dialogs to accept defaults. In user testing, this proved to be a source of confusion. So "Cancel" became the consistent way to accept the default. Because hitting "Cancel" on a text dialog returns an empty result to the script, entering an empty value will also be interpreted as accepting the default. An empty value will NEVER be accepted. There is only one case where you might actually want an empty value, and that's the part where you're asked for the "URL Path" (directory information which should preceed each item). If items are in the same folder as the HTM file, then no "URL Path" is needed. However, because the script can't tell the difference between a user hitting "Cancel" to accept the default or hitting "Enter" on an intentionally empty value, the script will use "./" where an empty URL path might have sufficed. If that confused you, don't worry. The script does a fine job of figuring out a URL Path that will work. Just accept the default and you'll be happy. ------------------------------------------------------------------ WEB PAGE EDITING: Feel free to edit the resulting web pages! Use "Notepad" if you don't have anything better. I suggest using these free editors: Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org/) NVU (http://www.nvu.com/download.html) HtmlGate (http://www.mpsoftware.dk/htmlgate.php) What you should NEVER use is Microsoft Word. Word (like many other Microsoft products) produces web pages that don't contain standard HTML and can ONLY be viewed with Internet Explorer. ------------------------------------------------------------------ DISTRIBUTING: Both the web pages produced by this script AND the script itself can be distributed and modified without restrictions. The author Eric Phelps has released the script into the Public Domain. Such generosity is accompanied by the total absence of any guarantee, warranty, or responsibility for the script, the files it produces, or the effects the script or script-produced files may have. The script is, after all, plain text. The burden is on the person using the script to examine the script source code and determine whether or not the script is usable and safe. Operating systems and browsers are constantly changing. What works today may not work tommorrow!