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HowToUseSlideshows
How do I use slide-shows in my mediascape?
What is an mscape slide-show?
A slide-show is a collection of audio, images and video that are played one after another (or even together) in a particular sequence.
In that way it is more complex that just an image or an audio.
Images and audio files can be imported into the mediscape, but a slide show has to be created in the mscape maker.
Think of it as telling the user a short story with media.
Why would I want a slide-show in my mediascape?
Mediascapes are about media and places, you can associate an image with a place or an audio with a place. But there may be times in your mediascape where you want to show the user more than just one image or audio. You may want the user to rest a while and see a collection of information relating to the place that they are in.
For example, if you have a collection of old images and sounds relating to a historic building on a larger site then you could assemble them into a slide-show and play that slide show when the user arrives at that particular building.
How do I create a slide-show?
Gather your media
You need a collection of different types of media that you want to show and possibly extra pieces of media that you want to include to bring them all together, for example; a musical backing track or a spoken narrative.
Enable slide-shows
To do anything with slide-shows in mscape maker you first have to enable their use.
Right click on the media object in the left hand panel.
Select ‘Add Slideshows’ from the menu
The ‘Slideshows’ object will appear in the list of media objects.
Create a slide-show
Right-click the 'Slideshows' object and select 'Add Slideshow'.
A new slide-show object will appear below the 'Slideshows' object. You can edit its name if you want to.
Now double click this slide-show and a window will appear where you can add things to the slide-show.
There are two parts to it. In the top part you can drag an audio file to play in the background, and in the larger, lower box you can drag the media items that you want to show. When you drag an image or video into the lower box it will always be placed at the top of the list.
Note: You can only drag media items here from the left-hand panel of mscape maker. You cannot drag media here from the folders on your computer or desktop. First you must import them into the mediascape and then drag them from the left-hand panel to the slide-show window.
Each item in the lower box has a time associated with it, you build the slide-show by editing these times to control the order and duration that each item is shown for. The order of the list depends upon the timing information for each item. As you change them you will see the list shift about to keep them all in the right order.
Note: If you have an item that you want to show more than once in the slide-show you simply drag it into the box as many times as you need it and adjust the timing controls accordingly.
Associate the slide-show with a region
Below the map in mscape maker are buttons for creating different shaped regions. Click on one (for example; ‘create circle’) and you will see a circular region appear in the centre of the main screen. You can move it around and resize it or just leave it where it is.
Drag the slide-show object you have just created, from the left-hand bar and drop it onto the region. This will make a wizard (a dialogue) appear that will ask you how you want the slide-show object to react to the enter event and the exit event. The usual choices are to play on enter and to stop on exit. You will be asked to confirm the choices you made, and that is it. You have a region that has a slide-show associated with it and it will start on entry to the region and stop on exit.
Testing the slide-show
As a slide show is more complex than just including an image or audio in your mediascape you may want to test it to confirm that it all works. To do this try running your mediascape on the mscape tester by clicking the 'Tester' button on the top bar of the window.
For more on testing your mediascape have a look at
Using the mscape tester.
