Frontpage Slideshow is a picture slideshow add-on that was originally designed for Joomla, however, the company that created it has released a static version that can be used on any website that primarily uses PHP. What does that mean for us? That means it's compatible with Drupal, WordPress, VBulletin, etc. Frontpage Slideshow is a nice, easy way to give your website's look a fresh, dynamic edge. To see a demo of Frontpage Slideshow, check out www.frontpageslideshow.net.

To see a demo of FPSS on a Drupal site, check out www.fatalfitness.com/fpss/fpss-demo.

It is a commercial add-on, but it runs something around 22 Euros. The current version (v1.7.2) also comes with seven different templates to choose from (you can demo these from the site as well). Because there wasn't a lot of documentation on installing this with Drupal, and I made a lot of mistakes when I added FPSS to my site, I am making this to help others who might be interested in running this product on their site.

First, get FPSS from www.frontpageslideshow.net.

1. Unpack the Static PHP version zip file.

2. Navigate inside the folder "fpss" to "slideshows", copy the folder "demoslideshow" (inside the same directory) and rename the copy to "myslideshow". This will act as the folder of your slideshow. I also advise keeping the demoslideshow as a backup.

3. Important: You need to maintain the structure of the slideshow folders. That means you ALWAYS put your slide images inside the "images" folder. Your slide contents are located inside the data.php file and the configuration options of your slideshow are located in the configuration.php file. The structure of your slideshow folder must always be:

fpss
-----slideshows
-----------yourslideshowfolder
-------------------images
-------------------configuration.php
-------------------data.php

You can obviously change only the "yourslideshowfolder" to whatever you want.

4. Upload (using FTP) the entire "fpss" folder to the root of your site. If your site is www.example.com then the folder would be located like so: www.example.com/fpss

5. The installation instructions say to add the code below into your theme's page.tpl.php file (anywhere between the html body tags). I opted to use it in a different way. (You can also use the method above to put it just on your front page by adding the code into page-front.tpl.php. If there is not one, just make a copy of page.tpl.php and rename it.)

I chose to instead make a new block that only shows on my front page, and chose to have it located in the content section, with a weight that puts it at the top. (Make a test page first, and have the block only show up on this page.) Use the PHP input format for your block and make sure that line breaks is turned off for the PHP input format (administer -> input formats). The code that you will use to call your slideshow is this:

<?php
// START of "Frontpage Slideshow" settings
	$nameOfSlideshowToDisplay = "myslideshow"; 					// Enter the name of your slideshow. Slideshows are in folders inside /fpss/slideshows/.
	$URLofyoursite = "http://www.example.com"; 					// Enter your site's URL.
	$AbsoluteServerPathofyoursite = "/home/user/public_html";	// Enter the root path of your site on the server.
	
	// do not edit below this line
	include_once($AbsoluteServerPathofyoursite."/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php");
// END of "Frontpage Slideshow" settings
?>

Edit the code block to reflect your site's paths. Don't worry, if you get it wrong, you'll just get an error message.

6. Publish the block onto your test page and take a look. You will see the demo slideshow in place as you haven't yet edited your slideshow. This is what you'll do next.

7. Change the CONFIGURATION options of your slideshow. Locate the configuration.php file inside /fpss/slideshows/myslideshow/ and edit it per your needs. Make sure you read carefully what each option does. You'll have to mess around with the sizes and test them out with different templates to find what works best with your particular site.

8. Add your SLIDES: Edit your slideshow's data.php file (in the same folder) to add/delete slides. Simply copy/paste or delete the data blocks marked with "slide elements" and edit the properties of each block to reflect each slide's contents (slide title, category, tagline, text, image). The demo slideshow has 4 slides in it but you can copy and paste them to add as many as you want.

9. When you're done with editing the contents and configuration options of your slideshow, refresh your test page. Once you have your FPSS the way you want it, publish it from the test page to wherever you want!

Comments

cmseasy’s picture

I found: http://code.google.com/p/fpss-drupal/
You can use fpss as a Drupal module.
There is a litle bug: the slice does not hold his slideshow in edit mode.

Bigger problem when using fpss: processor load in FF and IE goes to 100%.

Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP (see https://getcomposer.org). It is not a website development tool.
Allow webbuilders using to choose their own building strategy. Do not require composer for webdevelopment or production websites.

ohmto’s picture

as often i was surfing the web .. i found this nice installation or configration of the "Frontpage Slideshow" and i think that article is the source of this above instructions.

http://forum.joomlaworks.gr/index.php?topic=1777.msg6561#msg6561

and i found an important trick


INSTRUCTIONS FOR WORDPRESS, DRUPAL and other CMS users...
-------------------------------------------------------------
When using a CMS like Wordpress or Drupal (or any other PHP based CMS), the steps to add Frontpage Slideshow in your template/theme are exactly the same as the above.
* For Drupal users add the FPSS code block inside the page.tpl.php file of your theme, located in themes/yourtheme/

hope you find it useful...and thanks for this nice topic... but i still don't find it quite easy to install the FrontPage Slide show on drupal !!!
it is very good with joomla and very easy to installed on joomla but with drupal it is still little hard ..at least for me :(

leob’s picture

Hello,

I am agree with you that the installation of this module on Drupal is really complicated and I almost giving up to install this module. I bought the module but I couldn't make it work. It is really frustrating. I really appreciate if you could help me out. Here it is my problem.
I followed all the instructions as it says on the installation instructions but nothing. I created the css folder in my theme as I have read in this post. Everything looks fine and in the configuration page it shows that, engines, templates and css exist. I am not sure but I think the error is with the code that I place on the page.tpl.php to call the slideshow. I am working on a localhost with wamp. Here it is the code with the paths that I am using:

// START of "Frontpage Slideshow" settings
	$nameOfSlideshowToDisplay = "myslideshow"; 					// Enter the name of your slideshow. Slideshows are in folders inside /fpss/slideshows/.
	$URLofyoursite = "http://localhost/test				// Enter your site's URL.
	$AbsoluteServerPathofyoursite = "sites/all/modules/fpss/";	// Enter the root path of your site on the server.
	
	// do not edit below this line
	include_once($AbsoluteServerPathofyoursite."/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php");
// END of "Frontpage Slideshow" settings

With this configuration it shows up the text but no images, styles or anything. If I change the path then it shows up two different errors. The first one says this:

warning: include_once(sites/all/modules/fpss/fpss/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\wamp\www\test\sites\all\themes\test site\page.tpl.php on line 136.

And the second one:

warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening 'sites/all/modules/fpss/fpss/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php' for inclusion (include_path='.;C:\php5\pear') in C:\wamp\www\test\sites\all\themes\test site\page.tpl.php on line 136.

I was trying on Internet to find a solution but nothing came up so it would be great if anybody could help me out.

Thanks.

solidlink’s picture

The location of the stylesheet folder. This holds a cached version of the FPSS template_css.php output. Stylesheet folder doesn't exist.

What the fvck is this shit? I created folder for engines and it worked but not this darn fcking css.

getting me all riled up man!

pan0s’s picture

The folder structure of my php static version of frontpageslideshow is quite different than the one stated above... (v1.6)
and it looks like :

[ fpss ]

-[ images ]

files : img01.jpg,......,img04.jpg

-[ includes ]

files : css_js.php, language.php, navbar01.pgp, navbar02.php

-[ mod_fpslideshow]

folders : [default] , [fsd] , [jj_obs], [jj_rasper], [tt] ,[ uncut ]
files : fpss.js, fpss.php, fpss_uncut.js, fpss_uncut.php, mootools-fpss-comp.js, mootools-fpss.php, mootools.js

-fpss.php

any idea of how the structure should be organized before placed into the root ?

thanks in advance

Progression’s picture

I have the same file structure as pan0s. I cannot find anymore instruction on this. Please help.

scarer’s picture

in the folder mod_fpslideshow

bwill’s picture

Using Drupal 6.x

In reference to setting this up in a block for display on a certain page, what would be the AbsoluteServerPathofyoursite for a localhost site? For example localhost/testsite. I've tried htdocs/testsite, and added folders in the front all the way up to where Apache is installed.

Also, where is the css file created? I put it all over the place and the fpss module in admin stll tells me the folder does not exist.

Here are the errors I'm getting in the block

warning: include_once(ApacheWebServer/Apache2/htdocs/testsite/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in F:\Program Files\ApacheWebServer\Apache2\htdocs\TestSite\includes\common.inc(1645) : eval()'d code on line 8.
warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening 'ApacheWebServer/Apache2/htdocs/testsite/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php' for inclusion (include_path='.;C:\php5\pear') in F:\Program Files\ApacheWebServer\Apache2\htdocs\TestSite\includes\common.inc(1645) : eval()'d code on line 8.
mkolga’s picture

Is there no way to configure this within Drupal - as you would with the other CMS's? Or are we stuck with configuring the slideshow from the PHP files??

bjste’s picture

I'm wondering if you did find an answer on this question, caus I'm thinking the same!

??

tburton’s picture

We have a Drupal 5.2 site and have loaded the module and a slide show to the front page. We want to run a different template on a slide show on an inside index page but the configurations on the inside slide show are being over written by the slide show on the home page. Any thoughts why this would be so ?

alextorpey’s picture

I just installed this, and it appears as though it is displaying but without any CSS... all of the text of the slideshow appear, but no images and nothing is formatted, it just displays the text, almost entirely unformatted. Has anyone has this same problem before or have an idea on what to do?

thejimmy’s picture

I am considering adding FPSS to my Drupal site. Is it possible to iframe it into an area on my page? So that I would create a html page with just the code to display the slideshow and then have that iframed in...

Also, how does one go in and update links, pictures, etc?

danny0085’s picture

install and configure Frontpage SlideShow in drupal

http://tips-linux.net/en/content/frontpage-slideshow-drupal

joelbox-Mondial-IT’s picture

Hi, I installed the module(s) according to all of the above and more without succes.

I have the as earlier mentioned. The image area is black and the upload 'wheel' keeps spinning forever. (In configuration setting when I set java to yes. It is slightly better: the photo's, switch into place but witout overlays and tekst just like the viewsslider module).

Perhaps someone, who has a full working version of this module could post how it is done and what is needed.

The workaround I am using is the php code in a block and directly running the code without the module, then it shows the demo version witout anyproblems.

sgprs’s picture

Just follow the common instructions for uploading fpss.

Now here's the issue: Nowhere in the instructions for both the mod and FPSS does it tell you that you have to create the css folder in your theme directory. If it's not there, fpss will throw all kinds of errors and go haywire.

Once you upload the fpss mod, then upload the slideshow itself, then put the css folder in your theme directory... everything will work fine. I'm have two different sites using FPSS with absolutely no issues what-so-ever.

Message me if you still have problems.

Good luck!
Chris

joelbox-Mondial-IT’s picture

Thanks Chris, good work. kr. Joel

haemps’s picture

After ive created a slideshow using the fpss mod i cannot add a Slide. I just get the message that i need to create a Slideshow first to add a Slide altough ive already done that and there is no Slideshows in the dropdown list.

Any solution?

Help would be appreciated!

updt: i looked around and saw that the module aint compatible with i18n. sucks

solidlink’s picture

Need help, Chris...

been putting the darned "css" folder into every darned folder i can think of, still it doesnt work. yet it works for engines. im like wtf? can you please help ?

Pooortrait’s picture

Put an empty CSS Folder into the root and that'll do ; )

akanevsky’s picture

So, I have the FPSS module working properly, but I have noticed a little quirk. When I use a template with a sidebar (eg 'Uncut') and I add a new or edit an existing slide, it gets demoted to the bottom of the slideshow sidebar. When I add a slide, I would like it to be promoted to the top. Any ideas about how to do this from within the module or perhaps alter the code?

jaimeguzman’s picture

Hi everyone..

I read and follow all the steps but i can't use fpss in drupal. Actually i use a drupal 6.17, i install the module like a any module
and later configure the settings for fpss module.
And i try to create a slideshow test, later somo slide... but when i put the block created... I dont see nothing.

And the other way if i don't use the module.. use directly the scripts, the css are die... !!

Well i think that the module don't use a nicely implementation of import css, because if import the css from the fpss's web i don't have problem, but if i try to use only in my server the slideshow died.
My principal problems are :
- I can't create node slideshows and see node slide creates
- CSS are died

Thanks for all & sorry for my bad english

Saludos from southamerica !!!

jamierc’s picture

I'm struggling to get this to work, getting the error below, which I guess means it cant find the necessary files. All are uploaded to the root.
I don't know what to write in the php code for my site root. How can I find this out? At present, I have the site root as /public_html

Thanks for any help!

Jamie

warning: include_once(/public_html/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /public_html/includes/common.inc(1695) : eval()'d code on line 8.
warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/jamierc/public_html/fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/jamierc/public_html/melody/includes/common.inc(1695) : eval()'d code on line 8. 
matteoraggi’s picture

there is the same error here: www.gmsedie.com