Features

Usage

First step is launch the Media Portal configuration tool and go to the plugins page
Select MPPhotoSlideshow and choose Config
If you would like to change your background image from the default black image choose hear by entering a full file path or the full name and extension within your skins directory. The image should be 1920x1080.
Choose the interval between slides in milliseconds
Add a folder path(s) - this should be a parent directory as all subdirectories will be scanned - either by manually typing or double clicking the text box and selecting. Then click add
After you have added one or more photo paths click Build Cache. This may take a while depending on how may photos and folders you have
When complete click Save
At this point you should be ready to test the plugin out through the plugin menu in Media Portal

After you've gotten used to how the plugin works an you like what you see you may decide you want to create some of your own templates. You can do that should the configuration tool
Once launched choose New and type a name for your template. Templates should be based on a full screen size of 1920x1080. Things will be scaled as necessary if your screen is not that size.
Template Enabled - check this box if you want the template to be used during the slideshow
There is support for up to 8 pictures which you setup by choosing from the picture drop down and filling in all the fields
- Photo Width - the width of the photo (See below when choosing width and height)
- Photo Height - the height of the photo (See below when choosing width and height)
- Photo XPos - the X coordinate of the left of the photo
- Photo YPos - the Y coordinate of the top of the photo
- Label Font - the name of a font from the fonts.xml file for your skin
- Label Text Color - the HEX for an HTML color http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp
- Border Left - the left side border width
- Border Right - the right side border width
- Border Top - the top border width
- Border Bottom - the bottom border width
- Border File Path - choose your own border image if you like or leave the default. Recommend using a 2x2 png image
All enabled templates are used randomly during the period when the plugin is running

The width and height of the templates you create above determine what photos will be filled in them using the criteria below
- Aspect Ratio = 1
- Aspect Ratio between 1 and 1.5
- Aspect Ratio between 1.5 and 2
- Aspect Ratio greater than 2
The aspect ratio is calculated by taking the greater of template width or template height and dividing it by the other.
Basically there are 4 possible categories of photos, all of which will maintain their aspect ratio within the category.