benchodroff.com

I normally utterly hate flash intros to websites, but in my case it kind of made sense to add one. I want to showcase my better photography work in a slick and intuitive Flash interface for people who do not know me, but still allow people who are familiar with my blog to get to the rest of my content quickly.

Dan Zula turned me on to the free flash photo slideshow applet AutoViewer, which makes me want to loosen my belt and….well it’s sexy. It is incredibly tiny and loads a set of pictures in a directory using an XML file. It really doesn’t get much easier and prettier than that. There is even a Pro version which offers the full Flash source code and the ability to configure many options. For $45, it is slightly tempting – but I am happy with the free version for now. I have never developed with Flash before, but perhaps one day I’ll look into it. It would be incredibly hot if I could code in the ability to leave comments on the pictures…

Some people out in the internet might be wondering how they too can run a WordPress blog that has a custom flash intro page. To do so, it is quite easy if you know where to look. Do not bother modifying your theme or moving lots of pages around. Instead, use the plugin “Pages Link To” to create a new page that has a Custom field that links to your flash page. You can then set this new page to be your intro page in Wordpress by going in the admin to “Options” -> “Reading” and now select your new static page to be the Front Page. Optionally, you might wish to create a new page titled “Blog” that links to your blog so users can easily get to the blog without seeing the flash intro.