Hi,
1) I didn’t say that I wanted to restrict the users. In fact, the way it is now, the plugin does the restricting. They will only see the full slideshow if they click on the first image. After that, the plugin restricts the slideshow to that image and the ones that come after it. Yes, it is possible that they may not want to see the ones prior to the one they clicked. If that is the case, however, then isn’t it just as likely that they don’t want to see the ones after it? It doesn’t make sense to only restrict it in one direction “intentionally”.
It’s possible that a user does like the ones before the one they selected, but something about that one caught their eye first, so they click it and get the slideshow that runs until the last image. They then see one that is a few images before the previous one they clicked, and see a couple of different images, and then the rest of the slideshow they have already seen, but still not seeing any of the images before the one they clicked. I think it would be far more annoying for them to get shown the same images over and over than to be shown all the images in one go.
The way it is now doesn’t give the users any more of a choice. In fact, slide shows are not meant to give the users the choice, other than to close it. If we want the users to only see the images they want to see, then we wouldn’t even use the slideshow option. It is a design decision to have a slideshow, or not. If users are fine with a slideshow, it makes sense to allow them to see the whole slideshow, rather than a truncated version. Most users will not know that they need to click on the first image to see the whole slideshow.
I think it would be better if the slideshow looped, so that no matter which image is clicked, they see the entire slide show. There could always be an option to turn looping on or off. Though, I was really just wondering if there was a work around way to change it in the code.
If it is a technical issue where it is too difficult (or impossible) to implement, I get that. I just wanted to know if it was possible…which wasn’t answered. Is it a hard-coded restriction, or is there a way to edit something to allow it to loop?
2) OK. I didn’t see an option, but I thought there might be a way to do it. My thought was that, if it was possible, it would allow you to put one image on the page (saving on loading time), and still allow people to see the full gallery, in full size, without having to leave the page. For what I am currently working on, it seemed like an interesting idea, but it’s not a big deal.
