View demo Download source

Today we want to share a simple parallax content slider with you. Using CSS animations, we’ll control the animation of each single element in the slider and create a parallax effect by animating the background of the slider itself.

The idea for this comes from the slider of the Kendo UI homepage, a framework for modern HTML UI. After we got some requests and questions about how to do something like that, we decided to recreate the effect.

How it works

The slider contains several slides and each one will have an h2 element, a paragraph, a link and a division with an image:

<div id="da-slider" class="da-slider">

	<div class="da-slide">
		<h2>Some headline</h2>
		<p>Some description</p>
		<a href="#" class="da-link">Read more</a>
		<div class="da-img">
			<img src="images/1.png" alt="image01" />
		</div>
	</div>

	<div class="da-slide">
		<!-- ... -->
	</div>

	<!-- ... -->

	<nav class="da-arrows">
		<span class="da-arrows-prev"></span>
		<span class="da-arrows-next"></span>
	</nav>

</div>

The core of this slider is the animations for each one of the elements. We’ll control the behavior of the elements by giving a “direction class” to the respective slide. For example, when we slide the current slide to the right, we will give it the class “da-slide-toright”. There will be four different classes for each of the possible slide directions and origins:

• .da-slide-fromright
• .da-slide-fromleft
• .da-slide-toright
• .da-slide-toleft

Given these classes, we can control the animation of each element:

/* Slide in from the right*/
.da-slide-fromright h2{
	animation: fromRightAnim1 0.6s ease-in 0.8s both;
}
.da-slide-fromright p{
	animation: fromRightAnim2 0.6s ease-in 0.8s both;
}
.da-slide-fromright .da-link{
	animation: fromRightAnim3 0.4s ease-in 1.2s both;
}
.da-slide-fromright .da-img{
	animation: fromRightAnim4 0.6s ease-in 0.8s both;
}

/* Adjust animations for different behavior of each element: */
@keyframes fromRightAnim1{
	0%{ left: 110%; opacity: 0; }
	100%{ left: 10%; opacity: 1; }
}
@keyframes fromRightAnim2{
	0%{ left: 110%; opacity: 0; }
	100%{ left: 10%; opacity: 1; }
}
@keyframes fromRightAnim3{
	0%{ left: 110%; opacity: 0; }
	1%{ left: 10%; opacity: 0; }
	100%{ left: 10%; opacity: 1; }
}
@keyframes fromRightAnim4{
	0%{ left: 110%; opacity: 0; }
	100%{ left: 60%; opacity: 1; }
}

Options

The following options are available when calling the cslider plugin:

$('#da-slider').cslider({

	current		: 0,
	// index of current slide

	bgincrement	: 50,
	// increment the background position
	// (parallax effect) when sliding

	autoplay	: false,
	// slideshow on / off

	interval	: 4000
	// time between transitions

});

The parallax effect is created by moving the background of the slider to the opposite direction when sliding. With bgincrement you can control the amount of pixels it will be moved.

Demos

1. Demo 1: Default options
2. Demo 2: Slideshow (different animations)

Notice that we are using a simple fallback for browsers that don’t support CSS animations and transitions.

We hope you like our little experiment and find it useful!

View demo Download source

View demo Download source

With the responsive awakening in web design it becomes important to not only take care of the visual part of a website but also of the functionality. Elastislide is a responsive jQuery carousel that will adapt its size and its behavior in order to work on any screen size. Inserting the carousel’s structure into a container with a fluid width will also make the carousel fluid.

In a carousel, one could think that simply making its container “shorter” will solve the problem on smaller screens, but in some cases (e.g. when we have bigger images) it might be reasonable to resize the items as well. This and other options are part of Elastislide’s properties.

Elastislide uses the jQuery Touchwipe Plugin which allows you to obtain the wipe event on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

The images are by Karrie Nodalo and you can find her awesome photos here:
Karrie Nodalo’s Photostream on Flickr
Her images are licensed under the Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The HTML Structure

The Markup for the carousel consists of a main wrapper that will adjust to the width of any fluid container you put it into. (If you put the carousel in a container with a fixed width, it will not adapt. So make sure that your container has a fluid layout.)
The carousel element will have an unordered list with linked images:

<div id="carousel" class="es-carousel-wrapper">
	<div class="es-carousel">
		<ul>
			<li>
				<a href="#">
					<img src="images/medium/1.jpg" alt="image01" />
				</a>
			</li>
			<li>...</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</div>

Use your preferred ID and call the plugin like this:

$('#carousel').elastislide({
	imageW 	: 180
});

where imageW is the width of the thumbnails.

Options

Elastislide has the following default options:

speed		: 450,
// animation speed

easing		: '',
// animation easing effect

imageW		: 190,
// the images width

margin		: 3,
// image margin right

border		: 2,
// image border

minItems	: 1,
// the minimum number of items to show.
// when we resize the window, this will
// make sure minItems are always shown
// (unless of course minItems is higher
// than the total number of elements)

current		: 0,
// index of the current item
// when we resize the window,
// the plugin will make sure that
// this item is visible 

onClick		: function() { return false; }
// click item callback
// Example of how to get the index
// of the clicked element:
/*
$('#carousel').elastislide({
    onClick  :  function( $item ) {
        alert( 'The clicked item´s index is ' + $item.index() )
    }
});
*/

It is also possible to dynamically add new items to the carousel. The following is an example on how to achieve that:

var $items	= $('<li><a href="#"><img src="images/large/1.jpg" alt="image01" /></a></li><li><a href="#"><img src="images/large/2.jpg" alt="image01" /></a></li>');
$('#carousel').append($items).elastislide( 'add', $items );

I hope you like this plugin and find it useful!

View demo Download source

With the CSS3 3D transformations we can create some neat effects by transforming elements in three-dimensional space. Slicebox makes use of the 3D transforms properties and allows different kind of effects. The main idea is to create three-dimensional image slices that will rotate and reveal the next image as another side of the 3d object. In case the browser does not support 3D transformations, a simple slider will be used as fallback.

Please note that you can only see the cool 3d effect of Slicebox in a browser that supports those CSS3 properties (currently Chrome and Safari).

The images used in the demos are by Rick Harris. They are licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Usage

In order to use Slicebox, put your images in a container with the class “sb-slider”:

<div id="sb-slider" class="sb-slider">
	<img src="images/1.jpg" title="Creative Lifesaver"/>
	<img src="images/2.jpg" title="Honest Entertainer"/>
	<img src="images/3.jpg" title="Brave Astronaut"/>
	<img src="images/4.jpg" title="Affectionate Decision Maker"/>
	<img src="images/5.jpg" title="Faithful Investor"/>
	<img src="images/6.jpg" title="Groundbreaking Artist"/>
	<img src="images/7.jpg" title="Selfless Philantropist"/>
</div>

Then you can call the plugin with

$('#sb-slider').slicebox();

Options

Slicebox comes with a set of options that you can adjust for various types of effects:

orientation			: 'v',
// (v)ertical or (h)orizontal.

perspective			: 1200,
// -webkit-perspective value.

slicesCount			: 1,
// needs to be an odd number between 1 and 15
// (if you want the limit higher, change the _validate function).

disperseFactor		: 0,
// each slice will move x pixels left / top (depending on orientation).
// The middle slice doesn't move.
// The middle slice's neighbors will move disperseFactor pixels.

colorHiddenSides	: '#222',
// color of the hidden sides.

sequentialRotation	: false,
// the animation will start from left to right.
// The left most slice will be the first one to rotate.

sequentialFactor	: 0,
// if sequentialRotation is true this will
// be the interval between each rotation in ms.

speed3d				: 800,
// animation speed3d.

speed				: 600,
// fallback speed. You might want to set
// a different speed for the fallback animation...

fallbackEasing		: 'easeOutExpo',
// fallback easing.

slideshow			: false,
// if true the box will be rotating automatically.

slideshowTime		: 2000
// interval for the slideshow in ms.

Check out each example and you will see how to create different behaviors with the options.

Hope you find it useful, feedback is welcome!

View demo Download source

Today we want to share a simple circular content carousel with you. The idea is to have some content boxes that we can slide infinitely (circular). When clicking on the “more” link, the respective item moves to the left and a content area will slide out. Now we can navigate through the carousel where each step will reveal the next or previous content box with its expanded content. Clicking on the closing cross will slide the expanded content area back in and animate the item to its original position.

The beautiful animal icon set in the ZIP file are by Cyberella and they are licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) License.

The HTML Structure

The structure consists of a main container and a wrapper for the items. Each item contains

<div id="ca-container" class="ca-container">
	<div class="ca-wrapper">
		<div class="ca-item ca-item-1">
			<div class="ca-item-main">
				<div class="ca-icon"></div>
				<h3>Stop factory farming</h3>
				<h4>
					<span class="ca-quote">“</span>
					<span>Some text...</span>
				</h4>
					<a href="#" class="ca-more">more...</a>
			</div>
			<div class="ca-content-wrapper">
				<div class="ca-content">
					<h6>Animals are not commodities</h6>
					<a href="#" class="ca-close">close</a>
					<div class="ca-content-text">
						<p>Some more text...</p>
					</div>
					<ul>
						<li><a href="#">Read more</a></li>
						<li><a href="#">Share this</a></li>
						<li><a href="#">Become a member</a></li>
						<li><a href="#">Donate</a></li>
					</ul>
				</div>
			</div>
		</div>
		<div class="ca-item ca-item-2">
			...
		</div>
		...
	</div><!-- ca-wrapper -->
</div><!-- ca-container -->

The initial view of the content carousel:

When we click on “more…”, another content area will slide out and move the respective item to the left:

The default options are the following:

$('#ca-container').contentcarousel({
	// speed for the sliding animation
	sliderSpeed		: 500,
	// easing for the sliding animation
	sliderEasing	: 'easeOutExpo',
	// speed for the item animation (open / close)
	itemSpeed		: 500,
	// easing for the item animation (open / close)
	itemEasing		: 'easeOutExpo',
	// number of items to scroll at a time
	scroll			: 1
});

We hope you enjoy this simple carousel and find it useful!

View demoDownload source

Today we want to share a fancy content rotator with you. It shows some image with a headline and sub-headline in each slide and allows navigating through the slides using the thumbnails that also contain a headline. Hiding the thumbnails will reveal a scrollable text container and the navigation arrows will move up so that one can navigate to the previous or next slides.

The beautiful images are by Andrey & Lili. The images are licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License.

We also use the jQuery Mousewheel Plugin by Brandon Aaron and the jScrollPane Plugin by Kevin Luck.

Examples

We have two examples, one with autoplay and one without:

• Example with autoplay
• Example without autoplay

For the HTML structure we will have a main container, the content wrapper and the container for the thumbs. Each cr-content-container needs an ID assigned which we will reference in each thumb with data-content:

<div class="cr-container" id="cr-container">
	<div class="cr-content-wrapper" id="cr-content-wrapper">
		<div class="cr-content-container" id="content-1" style="display:block;">
			<img src="images/1.jpg"class="cr-img"/>
			<div class="cr-content">
				<div class="cr-content-headline">
					<h2>The slide title</h2>
					<h3>
						<span>Some sub-title</span>
						<a href="#" class="cr-more-link"> read more →</a>
					</h3>
				</div>
				<div class="cr-content-text">
					<p>Some text here...</p>
				</div>
			</div><!-- cr-content -->
		</div><!-- cr-content-container -->
		<div class="cr-content-container" id="content-2">
			...
		</div><!-- cr-content-container -->
		...
	</div><!-- cr-content-wrapper -->
	<div class="cr-thumbs">
		<div data-content="content-1" class="cr-selected">
			<img src="images/thumbs/1.jpg"/>
			<h4>The slide title</h4>
		</div>
		<div data-content="content-2">
			<img src="images/thumbs/2.jpg"/>
			<h4>Another slide title</h4>
		</div>
		...
	</div><!-- cr-thumbs -->
</div><!-- cr-container -->

The default options are the following:

$('#cr-container').crotator({
	// slideshow on
	autoplay 			: false,
	// slideshow interval
	slideshow_interval 	: 3000,
	// if true the thumbs will be shown initially
	openThumbs			: true,
	// speed that the thumbs are shown / hidden
	toggleThumbsSpeed	: 300
});

We hope you like this little content rotator and find it useful!

View demo Download source

In the following tutorial we will create an asymmetrical image slider with a little twist: when sliding the pictures we will slightly rotate them and delay the sliding of each element. The unusual shape of the slider is created by some elements placement and the use of thick borders. We will also add an autoplay option and the mousewheel functionality.

We’ll use the jQuery 2D Transformation Plugin for rotating the images and the jQuery Mousewheel Plugin by Brandon Aaron for the mousewheel control.

The beautiful photos are by Andrew and Lili and you can see their Behance profile here:
http://www.behance.net/AndrewLili
The images are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Allrighty! Let’s start with the HTML!

The Markup

First, we will wrap all our slider elements in a wrapper with the class “rm_wrapper”:

<div class="rm_wrapper">
...
</div>

Inside of that wrapper we will have a container for the actual slider list, some mask and corner elements, the heading and a hidden div that will contain all the image sets:

<div id="rm_container" class="rm_container">
	<ul>
		<li data-images="rm_container_1" data-rotation="-15">
			<img src="images/1.jpg"/>
		</li>
		<li data-images="rm_container_2" data-rotation="-5">
			<img src="images/2.jpg"/>
		</li>
		<li data-images="rm_container_3" data-rotation="5">
			<img src="images/3.jpg"/>
		</li>
		<li data-images="rm_container_4" data-rotation="15">
			<img src="images/4.jpg"/>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<div id="rm_mask_left" class="rm_mask_left"></div>
	<div id="rm_mask_right" class="rm_mask_right"></div>
	<div id="rm_corner_left" class="rm_corner_left"></div>
	<div id="rm_corner_right" class="rm_corner_right"></div>
	<h2>Fashion Explosion 2012</h2>
	<div style="display:none;">
		<div id="rm_container_1">
			<img src="images/1.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/5.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/6.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/7.jpg"/>
		</div>
		<div id="rm_container_2">
			<img src="images/2.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/8.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/9.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/10.jpg"/>
		</div>
		<div id="rm_container_3">
			<img src="images/3.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/11.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/12.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/13.jpg"/>
		</div>
		<div id="rm_container_4">
			<img src="images/4.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/14.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/15.jpg"/>
			<img src="images/16.jpg"/>
		</div>
	</div>
</div>

So the unordered lists will have the first set of four images where each list element has some data attributes for the image sets and the rotation degree. We will use that data to know which images come next and how much each image should be rotated.

The mask and corner divs will be absolute elements that we will place on top of the slider, slightly rotated in order to cover some areas. Since we will use the same background color for these elements like the body’s background color, we will create the illusion of the images being shaped in a certain way.

Then we’ll add the elements for the navigation and the autoplay controls:

<div class="rm_nav">
	<a id="rm_next" href="#" class="rm_next"></a>
	<a id="rm_prev" href="#" class="rm_prev"></a>
</div>
<div class="rm_controls">
	<a id="rm_play" href="#" class="rm_play">Play</a>
	<a id="rm_pause" href="#" class="rm_pause">Pause</a>
</div>

Let’s take a look at the CSS.

The CSS

First, we’ll reset some styles and define the properties for the body. (Remember, if we would have another background color, we would want to change the background and border colors of some of the elements in our slider, too.)

@import url('reset.css');
body{
	background:#f0f0f0;
	color:#000;
	font-family: 'PT Sans Narrow', Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size:16px;
}
a{
	color:#000;
	text-decoration:none;
}
h1{
	padding:10px;
	margin:20px;
	font-size:40px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	text-shadow:0px 0px 1px #fff;
	color:#333;
	background:transparent url(../images/line.png) repeat-x bottom left;
}

The main wrapper will have the following style:

.rm_wrapper{
	width:1160px;
	margin:0 auto;
	position:relative;
}

The container for the slider will have any overflow hidden, which will help shaping our slider since we will cut off the outer sides of it:

.rm_container{
	width:1050px;
	overflow:hidden;
	position:relative;
	height:530px;
	margin:0 auto;
}

The heading will have the following style:

.rm_container h2{
	background:transparent url(../images/lines.png) repeat top left;
	padding:10px 30px;
	position:absolute;
	bottom:170px;
	right:0px;
	color:#000;
	font-size:36px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	text-shadow:1px 0px 1px #fff;
}

Let’s define the width for the ul to be bigger than the container since we want to make the list element float next to each other:

.rm_container ul{
	width:1170px;
}

By giving a negative left margin and a thick border to the list element, we will overlap the images and cut off the right sides so that we create our asymmetrical shapes by rotating the elements then. The border color will be the same like the background color of the body (or the container).

.rm_container ul li{
	float:left;
	margin-left:-80px;
	position:relative;
	overflow:hidden;
	width:310px;
	height:465px;
	border:30px solid #f0f0f0;
	border-width:50px 30px 0px 30px;
	background-color:#f0f0f0;
}

We’ll position the images absolutely:

.rm_container ul li img{
	position:absolute;
	top:0px;
	left:0px;
}

In the following we will style the mask and the corner elements. They will be all positioned absolutely and we’ll give them the grey background color. By rotating them, we’ll make the images to appear as being “shaped”:

.rm_mask_right, .rm_mask_left{
	position: absolute;
	height: 110px;
	background: #f0f0f0;
	width: 530px;
	bottom: -30px;
	left: 0px;
	-moz-transform:rotate(-3deg);
	-webkit-transform:rotate(-3deg);
	transform:rotate(-3deg);
}
.rm_mask_right{
	left:auto;
	right:0px;
	-moz-transform:rotate(3deg);
	-webkit-transform:rotate(3deg);
	transform:rotate(3deg);
}
.rm_corner_right, .rm_corner_left{
	background: #f0f0f0;
	position:absolute;
	width:200px;
	height:100px;
	bottom:0px;
	left:-65px;
	-moz-transform:rotate(45deg);
	-webkit-transform:rotate(45deg);
	transform:rotate(45deg);
}
.rm_corner_right{
	left:auto;
	right:-65px;
	-moz-transform:rotate(-45deg);
	-webkit-transform:rotate(-45deg);
	transform:rotate(-45deg);
}

The navigation elements will be placed to the left and right of the main container:

.rm_nav a{
	position:absolute;
	top:200px;
	width:38px;
	height:87px;
	cursor:pointer;
	opacity:0.7;
}
.rm_nav a:hover{
	opacity:1.0;
}
.rm_nav a.rm_next{
	background:transparent url(../images/next.png) no-repeat top left;
	right:0px;
}
.rm_nav a.rm_prev{
	background:transparent url(../images/prev.png) no-repeat top left;
	left:0px;
}

The pause/play control will be placed to the top left of the main container:

.rm_controls{
	position:absolute;
	top:0px;
	left:-40px;
	height:20px;
}
.rm_controls a{
	cursor:pointer;
	opacity:0.7;
	padding-left:24px;
	font-size:16px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	height:20px;
	float:left;
	line-height:20px;
}
.rm_controls a:hover{
	opacity:1.0;
}
.rm_controls a.rm_play{
	display:none;
	background:transparent url(../images/play.png) no-repeat center left;
}
.rm_controls a.rm_pause{
	background:transparent url(../images/pause.png) no-repeat center left;
}

And that’s all the style! Let add the spice!

The JavaScript

The main idea for the slider functionality is to add another image before the current one with a slightly increased rotation degree than the current item. Then we will animate the rotation and make the new images appear.
So let’s start by caching some elements and checking if we are dealing with a special needs browser in order to deal with some issues:

//our 4 items
var $listItems 		= $('#rm_container > ul > li'),
	totalItems		= $listItems.length,

	//the controls
	$rm_next		= $('#rm_next'),
	$rm_prev		= $('#rm_prev'),
	$rm_play		= $('#rm_play'),
	$rm_pause		= $('#rm_pause'),

	//the masks and corners of the slider
	$rm_mask_left	= $('#rm_mask_left'),
	$rm_mask_right	= $('#rm_mask_right'),
	$rm_corner_left	= $('#rm_corner_left'),
	$rm_corner_right= $('#rm_corner_right'),

	//check if the browser is <= IE8
	ieLte8			= ($.browser.msie && parseInt($.browser.version) <= 8),

Then we will define our main function:

RotateImageMenu	= (function() {
...
})();

RotateImageMenu.init();

And then we define the following in our function:

	//difference of animation time between the items
var	timeDiff			= 300,
	//time between each image animation (slideshow)
	slideshowTime		= 3000,
	slideshowInterval,
	//checks if the images are rotating
	isRotating			= false,
	//how many images completed each slideshow iteration
	completed			= 0,
	/*
	all our images have 310 of width and 465 of height.
	this could / should be dynamically calculated
	if we would have different image sizes.

	we will set the rotation origin at
	x = width/2 and y = height*2
	*/
	origin				= ['155px', '930px'],
	init				= function() {
		configure();
		initEventsHandler();
	},
	//initialize some events
	initEventsHandler	= function() {
		/*
		next and previous arrows:
		we will stop the slideshow if active,
		and rotate each items images.
		1 	rotate right
		-1 	rotate left
		*/
		$rm_next.bind('click', function(e) {
			stopSlideshow();
			rotateImages(1);
			return false;
		});
		$rm_prev.bind('click', function(e) {
			stopSlideshow();
			rotateImages(-1);
			return false;
		});
		/*
		start and stop the slideshow
		*/
		$rm_play.bind('click', function(e) {
			startSlideshow();
			return false;
		});
		$rm_pause.bind('click', function(e) {
			stopSlideshow();
			return false;
		});
		/*
		adds events to the mouse and left / right keys
		*/
		$(document).bind('mousewheel', function(e, delta) {
			if(delta > 0) {
				stopSlideshow();
				rotateImages(0);
			}
			else {
				stopSlideshow();
				rotateImages(1);
			}
			return false;
		}).keydown(function(e){
			switch(e.which){
				case 37:
					stopSlideshow();
					rotateImages(0);
					break;
				case 39:
					stopSlideshow();
					rotateImages(1);
					break;
			}
		});
	},
	/*
	rotates each items images.
	we set a delay between each item animation
	*/
	rotateImages		= function(dir) {
		//if the animation is in progress return
		if(isRotating) return false;

		isRotating = true;

		$listItems.each(function(i) {
			var $item 				= $(this),
				/*
				the delay calculation.
				if rotation is to the right,
				then the first item to rotate is the first one,
				otherwise the last one
				*/
				interval			= (dir === 1) ? i * timeDiff : (totalItems - 1 - i) * timeDiff;

			setTimeout(function() {
					//the images associated to this item
				var	$otherImages		= $('#' + $item.data('images')).children('img'),
					totalOtherImages	= $otherImages.length;

					//the current one
					$img				= $item.children('img:last'),
					//keep track of each items current image
					current				= $item.data('current');
					//out of bounds
					if(current > totalOtherImages - 1)
						current = 0;
					else if(current < 0)
						current = totalOtherImages - 1;

					//the next image to show and its
					//initial rotation (depends on dir)
					var otherRotation	= (dir === 1) ? '-30deg' : '30deg',
						$other			= $otherImages.eq(current).clone();

					//for IE <= 8 we will not rotate,
					//but fade out / fade in ...
					//better than nothing :)
					if(!ieLte8)
						$other.css({
							rotate	: otherRotation,
							origin	: origin
						});

					(dir === 1) ? ++current : --current;

					//prepend the next image to the <li>
					$item.data('current', current).prepend($other);

					//the final rotation for the current image
					var rotateTo		= (dir === 1) ? '80deg' : '-80deg';

					if(!ieLte8) {
						$img.animate({
							rotate	: rotateTo
						}, 1200, function(){
							$(this).remove();
							++completed;
							if(completed === 4) {
								completed = 0;
								isRotating = false;
							}
						});
						$other.animate({
							rotate	: '0deg'
						}, 600);
					}
					else {
						$img.fadeOut(1200, function(){
							$(this).remove();
							++completed;
							if(completed === 4) {
								completed = 0;
								isRotating = false;
							}
						});
					}

			}, interval );
		});

	},
	//set initial rotations
	configure			= function() {
		if($.browser.msie && !ieLte8)
			rotateMaskCorners();
		else if(ieLte8)
			hideMaskCorners();

		$listItems.each(function(i) {
			//the initial current is 1
			//since we already showing the first image
			var $item = $(this).data('current', 1);

			if(!ieLte8)
			$item.transform({rotate: $item.data('rotation') + 'deg'})
				 .find('img')
				 .transform({origin: origin});
		});
	},
	//rotates the masks and corners
	rotateMaskCorners	= function() {
		$rm_mask_left.transform({rotate: '-3deg'});
		$rm_mask_right.transform({rotate: '3deg'});
		$rm_corner_left.transform({rotate: '45deg'});
		$rm_corner_right.transform({rotate: '-45deg'});
	},
	//hides the masks and corners
	hideMaskCorners		= function() {
		$rm_mask_left.hide();
		$rm_mask_right.hide();
		$rm_corner_left.hide();
		$rm_corner_right.hide();
	},
	startSlideshow		= function() {
		clearInterval(slideshowInterval);
		rotateImages(1);
		slideshowInterval	= setInterval(function() {
			rotateImages(1);
		}, slideshowTime);
		//show the pause button and hide the play button
		$rm_play.hide();
		$rm_pause.show();
	},
	stopSlideshow		= function() {
		clearInterval(slideshowInterval);
		//show the play button and hide the pause button
		$rm_pause.hide();
		$rm_play.show();
	};

return {init : init};

As you noticed, we will treat older browsers a bit differently so that the slider works properly.

And that’s it! We really hope you enjoyed the tutorial and like the result!

View demo Download source

View demoDownload source

Today we want to share our latest experiment with you: the 3D Wall Gallery. Using the Safari browser the images of this gallery will be put into 3D perspective, when scrolling or sliding. When viewed with another browser, the gallery will be shown normally, retaining all the functionality.

For seeing the 3D effect, please try the demo in Safari.

Summarized, you can do the following things in this gallery:

• Hover an image to see a description
• Slide through the images using the jQuery UI Slider at the top
• Use the mouse wheel to scroll through the images
• Use the thumbnail previewer at the bottom to choose an image
• Use the hash anchor for the image in the URL to get to it directly
• Click on an image to slide it to the left (notice the hash anchor in the URL)
• Turn it into a 3D wall when scrolling/sliding (Safari users)
• Flipping the perspective when changing the slide/scroll direction (Safari users)

We are using the jQuery hash change plugin by Ben Alman:
jQuery Hashchange Plugin

And we are also using the jQuery Mousewheel Plugin by Brandon Aaron:
jQuery Mousewheel Plugin

The beautiful photography is by Alan Antiporda from Illusive Photography and you can find his Flickr Photostream here: Illusive Photography Photostream

When viewed in the Safari browser, you will see the perspective happening while scrolling or sliding. When changing the direction of scrolling, you will notice that the perspective will tilt to the other side.

You can navigate through the images by either using the jQuery UI slider at the top or your mousewheel.

You can also use the thumbnails previewer to click on an image and get to it directly.

When hovering over an image you can see a little description at the top.

We hope that you enjoy our little experiment and find it useful!

View demoDownload source

View demoDownload source

In this tutorial we will show you how to create and use a thumbnails preview slider with jQuery. Since we got a lot of requests to show how to make the preview slider work separately from the full image view, we decided to make a tutorial on how to use the little thumbnails preview part only.

Check out the Sweet Thumbnails Preview Gallery where me make use of the thumbnails slider idea.

The images are by talented tibchris and you can find them on his Flickr photostream:
tibchris’ photostream

So, let’s start with the markup.

The Markup

The HTML structure will be built up of a main container list that will hold the dot items and a special list item for the thumbnails. The special list item will have the class “ts_thumbnails” and it will be the element that holds the little window where we will see the thumbnails once we hover over a dot.

<ul class="ts_container">
	<li><a href="#">Image 1</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 2</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 3</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 4</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 5</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 6</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 7</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 8</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 9</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Image 10</a></li>
	<li class="ts_thumbnails">
		<div class="ts_preview_wrapper">
			<!-- List with thumbnails/preview items -->
		</div>
		<span></span>
	</li>
</ul>

The empty span will be the little triangle that points to the current dot.
The thumbnails list which will be inside of the div with the class “ts_preview_wrapper” will have the following structure:

<ul class="ts_preview">
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/1.jpg" alt="Thumb 1" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/2.jpg" alt="Thumb 2" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/3.jpg" alt="Thumb 3" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/4.jpg" alt="Thumb 4" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/5.jpg" alt="Thumb 5" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/6.jpg" alt="Thumb 6" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/7.jpg" alt="Thumb 7" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/8.jpg" alt="Thumb 8" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/9.jpg" alt="Thumb 9" /></li>
	<li><img src="images/thumbs1/10.jpg" alt="Thumb 10" /></li>
</ul>

Now, let’s take a look at the style.

The CSS

The main container list will be of relative positioning and its width will be the sum of the all the dots’ widths:

ul.ts_container{
	list-style:none;
	margin:0;
	padding:0;
	width:170px;
	margin:20px auto;
	position:relative;
	height:17px;
}

Like we will see later, the width of a dot is 11 plus a padding on each side of 3 pixels. This is just a general style for the main that we will we using in all three showcases. If you have more than 10 dots, you will need to adapt this value to fit all the items (same for the height).

The list items, i.e. the dots, will float left:

ul.ts_container li{
	float:left;
}

The dots itself will be a background image and we will indent the text so that we don’t see it:

ul.ts_container li a{
	display:block;
	text-indent:-9000px;
	width:11px;
	height:11px;
	outline:none;
	padding:0px 3px;
	background:transparent url(../images/sliderIcons/dot.png) no-repeat top center;
}

On hover, we will change the position of the background image so that we see the lower part of it:

ul.ts_container li a:hover,
ul.ts_container li.selected a{
	background-position:50% -11px;
}

The last list item which is our special thumbnails container will be of absolute positioning since we want to move it around. It’s initially not visible:

ul.ts_container li.ts_thumbnails{
	display:none;
	position:absolute;
}

The empty span will be our little triangle. We will set it’s position dynamically since it depends on the size of your thumbnails:

ul.ts_container li.ts_thumbnails span{
	background:transparent url(../images/sliderIcons/triangle.png) no-repeat top center;
	width:15px;
	height:6px;
	position:absolute;
}

Tip: If you feel generally uncomfortable with using empty elements in your HTML, simply add a meaningful text to it and set the text-indent to a very low value so that it’s not visible. Your HTML will be more readable and you can sleep better :)

The preview wrapper will have a white border and a nice box shadow. The dimensions are, again, set dynamically since they depend on the size of your thumbnails. The overflow should be hidden, because we will have a row of thumbnails in the list inside of this wrapper:

.ts_preview_wrapper{
	border:5px solid #fff;
	overflow:hidden;
	position:relative;
	-moz-box-shadow:0px 0px 5px #999;
	-webkit-box-shadow:0px 0px 5px #999;
	box-shadow:0px 0px 5px #999;
}

The list with all the thumbnails will be absolute, since we want to animate its left position in order to show the right thumbnail. The dimensions are calculated dynamically, for example, the width will be the sum of all thumbnails widths. But we will look into that when we define our JavaScript function.

ul.ts_preview{
	position:absolute;
	left:0px;
	top:0px;
	margin:0;
	padding:0;
	list-style-type:none;
}

The list items that hold the thumbnails will be floating left, so that they are stacked horizontally:

ul.ts_preview li{
	float:left;
}

The thumbnails need to be display block, to avoid any spacing in the li:

ul.ts_preview li img{
	display:block;
}

And that’s all the style! Let make some magic and go through one example.

The JavaScript

The main idea of this little thumbnail slider is to be able to use it with any (reasonable) size of thumbnails and to add certain effects to it. So, we will make a plugin which will look as follows:

(function($) {
	$.fn.thumbnailSlider = function(options) {
		var opts = $.extend({}, $.fn.thumbnailSlider.defaults, options);
		return this.each(function() {
			...
		});
	};
	$.fn.thumbnailSlider.defaults = {
		speed		: 100, //speed of each slide animation
		easing		: 'jswing', //easing effect for the slide animation
		thumb_width	: 75, //your photos width
		thumb_height: 75, //your photos height
		zoom		: false, //zoom animation for the thumbs
		zoomratio	: 1.3, //multiplicator for zoom (must be > 1)
		zoomspeed	: 15000, //speed of zoom animation
		onClick		: function(){return false;} //click callback
	};
})(jQuery);

Now let’s take a deeper look at the plugin functionality. First, we need to define some variables:

var $this 				= $(this),
	o 					= $.meta ? $.extend({}, opts, $pxs_container.data()) : opts;

var $ts_container		= $this.children('.ts_container'),
	$ts_thumbnails		= $ts_container.children('.ts_thumbnails'),
	$nav_elems			= $ts_container.children('li').not($ts_thumbnails),
	total_elems			= $nav_elems.length,
	$ts_preview_wrapper	= $ts_thumbnails.children('.ts_preview_wrapper'),
	$arrow				= $ts_thumbnails.children('span'),
	$ts_preview			= $ts_preview_wrapper.children('.ts_preview');

We also need to calculate some values that we need to set to certain elements. The “ts_thumbnails” container which is our little white frame that holds the list of thumbnails, will have a width composed of the thumbnail width and its border (which is 5 pixels on each side). The height will also contain the height of the little triangle span which is 6 pixels. The top will always be the same, a negative value since we need to “pull it up” to be above the dot list. The left value is calculated by getting the left position of the current dot and subtracting half of the thumbnails width. This will position it at the beginning of the respective dot, so we need to add half of the dot’s width in order really center it correctly above the dot:

/*
calculate sizes for $ts_thumbnails:
width 	-> width thumbnail + border (2*5)
height 	-> height thumbnail + border + triangle height(6)
top		-> -(height plus margin of 5)
left	-> leftDot - 0.5*width + 0.5*widthNavDot
	this will be set when hovering a dot,
	and the default value will correspond to the first nav dot
*/
var w_ts_thumbnails	= o.thumb_width + 2*5,
	h_ts_thumbnails	= o.thumb_height + 2*5 + 6,
	t_ts_thumbnails	= -(h_ts_thumbnails + 5),
	$first_nav		= $nav_elems.eq(0),
	l_ts_thumbnails	= $first_nav.position().left - 0.5*w_ts_thumbnails + 0.5*$first_nav.width();

Now we need to set all those values:

$ts_thumbnails.css({
	width	: w_ts_thumbnails + 'px',
	height	: h_ts_thumbnails + 'px',
	top		: t_ts_thumbnails + 'px',
	left	: l_ts_thumbnails + 'px'
});

Next step is to position the triangle correctly. For calculating the top of the triangle we need the height of the thumb plus its border. The left value will depend on the width of the thumbnail: we take the width plus the border and take half of that, and then we subtract half of the width of the triangle. This will center the little triangle:

/*
calculate the top and left for the triangle/tooltip
top		-> thumb height + border(2*5)
left	-> (thumb width + border)/2 -width/2
*/
var t_arrow	= o.thumb_height + 2*5,
	l_arrow	= (o.thumb_width + 2*5) / 2 - $arrow.width() / 2;
$arrow.css({
	left	: l_arrow + 'px',
	top		: t_arrow + 'px',
});

The list “ts_preview” that holds all the thumbnails, needs a width and we can calculate it by multiplying the width of a thumbnail with the number of total thumbnails:

/*
calculate the $ts_preview width -> thumb width times number of thumbs
*/
$ts_preview.css('width' , total_elems*o.thumb_width + 'px');

Then we set its width and also its height, which will simply be the height of a thumbnail:

$ts_preview_wrapper.css({
	width	: o.thumb_width + 'px',
	height	: o.thumb_height + 'px'
});

Now we will define what happens when we hover a navigation element i.e. a dot. We’ll get the index of the dot to know to which thumbnail item we need to slide to. Then we calculate the left value to which we want to slide the frame to, i.e. the “ts_thumbnails” list item. We also animate the list of thumbnails to the right position which we know because of the current index of the dot.

If the zoom option was chosen, we will increase the width and height of the thumbnail:

$nav_elems.bind('mouseenter',function(){
	var $nav_elem	= $(this),
		idx			= $nav_elem.index();

	/*
	calculate the new left
	for $ts_thumbnails
	*/
	var new_left	= $nav_elem.position().left - 0.5*w_ts_thumbnails + 0.5*$nav_elem.width();

	$ts_thumbnails.stop(true)
				  .show()
				  .animate({
					left	: new_left + 'px'
				  },o.speed,o.easing);				  

	/*
	animate the left of the $ts_preview to show the right thumb
	*/
	$ts_preview.stop(true)
			   .animate({
					left	: -idx*o.thumb_width + 'px'
			   },o.speed,o.easing);

	//zoom in the thumb image if zoom is true
	if(o.zoom && o.zoomratio > 1){
		var new_width	= o.zoomratio * o.thumb_width,
			new_height	= o.zoomratio * o.thumb_height;

		//increase the $ts_preview width in order to fit the zoomed image
		var ts_preview_w	= $ts_preview.width();
		$ts_preview.css('width' , (ts_preview_w - o.thumb_width + new_width)  + 'px');

		$ts_preview.children().eq(idx).find('img').stop().animate({
			width		: new_width + 'px',
			height		: new_height + 'px'
		},o.zoomspeed);
	}		

}).bind('mouseleave',function(){
	//if zoom set the width and height to defaults
	if(o.zoom && o.zoomratio > 1){
		var $nav_elem	= $(this),
			idx			= $nav_elem.index();
		$ts_preview.children().eq(idx).find('img').stop().css({
			width	: o.thumb_width + 'px',
			height	: o.thumb_height + 'px'
		});
	}

	$ts_thumbnails.stop(true)
				  .hide();

}).bind('click',function(){
	var $nav_elem	= $(this),
		idx			= $nav_elem.index();

	o.onClick(idx);
});

And that’s it! Now, let’s take a look at some examples!

Example

In the demo you will see four different examples, we will show you how to apply the last one. For that, we need to set the width and the height of the thumbnails and define some other parameters. We want the image to zoom in when we hover over the dot, so the following parameters are set:

$('#demo4').thumbnailSlider({
	thumb_width	: 174,
	thumb_height: 260,
	speed		: 200,
	zoom		: true,
	zoomspeed	: 10000,
	zoomratio	: 1.7
});

We hope you enjoyed the tutorial and find it useful!

View demoDownload source