adding an auto slideshow to my site...where to start?

so I have been googling all sort of tutorials here and there and saw many parts of what i want to do. The problem I am not sure how to combine them to achive what i want to do...ok i am completly lost...sorry i am a AS3 newbie.


basically, i have a site that i want to be able to click on a button and start a slideshow with the following parameters:


1. load random jpgs onto the stage. I have a folder that contains about 20 jpgs (all 700x500pix). say 5 sec transition, positioned x=0 & y=0.

2. when mouse over the image, it would pause, and when rollout, it would continue the random slideshow.

3. the images should have a simple fade transition going from one to the next.

4. i do not need any buttons to control this auto slideshow, except when clicking on the main menu to goto another section of the site...which means the auto slideshow should will be unloaded from the stage.

5. lastly, some text that says "loading..." when starting the slideshow.


first, do i need to name my jpgs sequentially? or can i code it so they can be randomly selected? (i.e. "images/"+" + .jpg)

so can someone give me some pointers as to how i should approach this?

1 - You probably want a little xml file that lists out the images and the order you want to use, along with the transition and hold times.

2 - Use a timer to trigger the transitions - when you mouse over, just pause the timer; when you mouse out, start it back up.

3 - Take a look at TweenLite - it will handle the crossfades for you really easily.

4 - Supposing your users can get back to the homepage, you probably want to keep the slideshow around, just turn it invisible or call removeChild to get it out of the display list.

5 - Throw this on stage underneath everything - as soon as an image loads you'll never see it again.