Show Time!
We've been releasing betas of Carousel for about a month, now. Carousel has some fairly complex Javascripts and adding the new version of MooTools created more than a few bugs. But we've managed to squash them all and improve how we work with some of the Javascript heavy themes too. Now it's show time and Carousel is ready for everyone, not just the adventurous beta testers.

What's New
If you've been following along with the betas, then this version will only have one difference -- the version number. But if you're updating from Carousel 1.1, then you'll have a few nice new features and some important bug fixes.

• The latest and greatest version of the MooTools Javascript base library. This means better compatibility with other things that use MooTools.
• Improved image AJAX. Now Carousel will only download the first few images. This improves load times and makes the page work more smoothly.

What's Fixed

• We now work well with PlusKit, Kwix, PayLoom, and Accordion -- which all now use the latest MooTools as well.
• Add Link and Remove Link buttons no longer get out-of-sync with selection.
• The Media Inspector no longer gets out of sync with the selection.
• Improved interoperability with themes that rely on moo.fx (the library that came before MooTools). Such as Elixir's Dark and Light and the RapidWeaver Business themes.

How much?
Like most updates from YourHead Software this update is free.

How do I install it?
The easiest way to install it is to:

1. Open RapidWeaver
2. Close any open documents.
3. Download the Carousel disk image here.
4. Double click on the Carousel plugin in the disk image window.
5. Quit and restart RapidWeaver

You'll need to republish pages before the new content (like the new javascripts) gets to your server, but otherwise there should be no changes required.

I need more help!
Check out our Carousel info pages on our wiki. Or visit the forum and look around. Maybe you need some more Carousel styles? Try checking on our Styles forum or just visit Henk's page, he has a ton of great stuff to download.

How do I get it?
The most recent versions of Carousel are always available (with release dates and build numbers) on our Downloads page. Or you can just click right here: Carousel v1.2

Tags: Carousel

Download it now!

Carousel Beta 4

Yet another javascript error has been corrected. This bug was introduced in the previous beta -- so if beta 3 didn't work out so well give this one a shot. It should definitely improve things for quite a few folks.

Tags: Carousel, Release

Download it now!

Carousel Beta 3

This is another small modification to Carousel to fix a few bugs. Although a number of very small changes were made the two most notable fixes were:
1) Carousel will no longer fail when more than one is put on a Blocks page.
2) Carousel will now work well with some themes that rely on moo.fx, such as Elixir's Dark and Light, and RMS's Business Funk Effects and Business Skyline Effects.

Lots of Carousels

In beta 1 we introduced a bug that caused multiple Carousels not to work very well on a Blocks page. That's corrected now. But remember to keep it simple. Having too many effects on a page nearly always leads to problems. Remember, your pages need to work well on some pretty flaky old PCs with almost no RAM. Simple is almost always better, anyway.

Old Moo

A few of the aftermarket themes from RealMacSoftware and Elixir have some slick effects. Those effects rely on a fairly old version of the predecessor to MooTools called moo.fx. MooTools 1.11 and moo.fx are not very compatible. And the list of incompatibilities has grown since the previous version of MooTools. MooTools continues to innovate and the more they progress the more likely they are to have issues integrating with old version.
Many users have a fair amount of time and money invested in those themes and it could be a while before they get updated with MooTools. I didn't want to leave those users out in the cold.
I've spent a great deal of time tracking down and designing workarounds to clear out the incompatible pieces of moo.fx before loading MooTools and to ensure that MooTools does not tread upon the necessary moo.fx functions. This approach of custom library integration is far from perfect, but it will probably work with many of the existing scripts.
This, of course, does little to address the conflicts between MooTools and other base libraries, like Prototype and jQuery. Those libraries are not currently compatible with MooTools and since they all are doing similar things in similar ways it's not likely that those issues will be resolved any time soon.

Tags: Carousel, Release

Download it now!

Carousel Beta 2

We're going to release another beta of Carousel. We had to make some significant changes to the AJAX loading of images. A bug was fixed that caused empty Carousel content areas to fail in Internet Explorer and to some extent in other browsers too. This was the only change that we made, and we suspect that if no other bugs are reported then this version will become the released version 1.2.

Tags: Release, Carousel

Download it now!

Carousel Beta 1
As some have noticed Carousel and Accordion have been stuck in Mootools 1.0 for a bit too long. This has caused some problems when these plugins are combined with other plugins that use newer versions on a Blocks page. Specifically Kwix and Payloom (as well as some plugins from other vendors) were not compatible.
This release brings Carousel up to date, corrects a few outstanding bugs, and adds one new low-level feature. Read on for more info...

What's Mootools?
At YourHead we sure like Mootools. It's a super lightweight Javascript base library that adds a lot of basic functionality to Javascript as well as some easy-to-use additions for building smooth animation and triggering all sorts of events. We like Mootools because it's fast, complete, and small. Three things that don't often come together.
The current (at least for a little while) version of Mootools is v1.1. It's not compatible with older 1.0 versions (or the new 1.2 beta). That means we try to update everything together. Accordion is next on our list.

Other Bug Fixes
Safari 3 introduced an odd incompatibility with certain Mootools style accessors. In particular the "overflow" style was no longer accessible as it's own function (as in el.style.overflow), even though this worked in previous versions of Safari and continues to work in Firefox. Fortunately Mootools often provides many ways to do things (just like on a Mac). So the same property is also accessible via a parameter to the getStyle function, as in: el.getStyle('overflow'). Code changed, everyone is happy.

A New Feature
You may not notice, but the background image loading Javascript has changed a bit. For those viewing large Carousel images or viewing over a slow link this will probably make life quite a bit easier. And for everyone else it shouldn't make any difference at all. The script will now only load a few images at a time, and only load the rest if the user browses to them. More specifically it loads the content images for all of the visible thumbnails plus the thumbnails on the next "page." Any other pages will only be loaded as they're needed.

Tags: Carousel, Beta

A bunch of people have asked how I created the Blocks info page. And after telling them, "It's obviously a Carousel in a Page Block, can't you tell?" The befuddled emails and forum posts that I got in response, even from some of the forum pros, made me realize that it really isn't obvious. And even after knowing it WHAT it is the HOW was still elusive.

So we've made a little step-by-step guide that does just that -- tells you HOW to create a page just like that.

But we're pretty lazy here and we know you'd like to be too. So we let you download a Blocks Library Page and a Carousel Style so that all the details are taken care up front. All you have to do is create the pages, drop in the layout/style, and add the content.

Click Here to get started.

Tags: HowTo, Carousel, Blocks