December 25, 2006 at 11 p.m. Tagged as: Blog, Programming, Javascript, Releases, SmoothGallery

Hey it’s Christmas ! Christmas, shmistmas, Hannouka, or whatever you may call it, we have a gift for you !

…Smooth Gallery v1.0…

So, Merry Christmas from JonDesign ! :-)

Si vous êtes Francophone, une version Française de cet article est disponible.

Some of you might have heard of JonDesign’s SmoothSlideshow. SmoothGallery is its evolution. And it’s released, live, available to you right now !

Using mootools v1.0, this javascript gallery and slideshow system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading…) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website…

So, what is so cool about it ?

Unlike other systems out there, JonDesign’s SmoothGallery is designed from the ground up to be standard compliant (and search engines friendly): You can feed it from any document, using custom css selectors.

And even better, this solutions is very lightweight: The javascript file is only 15kb.

Why consider it instead of a Flash-based solution ?

• Let’s imagine you want to add a showcase of your last products, or even a showcase of one product on your homepage. Would you want to restrict it only to the users who have Flash enabled ?
• Another important point is the fact that using this script, you will have fully standard compliant web pages (which is important for accessibility, for example).
• Using a flash based solution, search engines won’t see your content nor links. Not really the expected result, right ?
• Oh, and do you really want to rely on a big company’s proprietary licensed app for your website ?

Wow cool ! How much does it costs ?

Nothing, it’s free as in beer and even better, this library is open-source, GPL licensed to be precise.

On what browsers does it run ?

Since it’s based on the mootools library, it’s somehow platform agnostic. I have fully tested it on:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Internet Explorer 6 and 7
• Safari

Where can I find it and how to install it ?
Go directly to the lib’s website !