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Scooch Features v1.3.

Scooch will work straight out of the box. Simply download the archive, unzip, upload, change a few permissions and it works. Scooch comes with a comprehensive manual to help you. Oh, and a non commercial license is free!

This version has been extensively tested but please report any bugs you find with full details of what task you were attempting and on what page you experienced a problem, or any improvements that you think we could make to Scooch via our contact form.

Download Scooch

Scooch is free for non commercial use!

Version: 1.3 (182.37 KB).

User Interface Features

  • Multiple language support: Scooch show now display languages includes South East Asian Languages accurately.
  • Create a show from a Zip Archive: Upload the Zip file and Scooch recognises image files within it and automatically creates a slide show and populates it with default text until you get around to editing it. Beautifully easy!
  • Scooch Lite: You can now disable all slide show controls apart from thumbnails for the ultimate stripped down, clean and light slide show.
  • Blog Homepage: Scooch index screenshot With the new homepage you can now use Scooch as a stand alone slide show blog! Not only that but by pasting simple data objects in to any PHP page you can use Scooch as a plug-in for existing sites with ease.

    Homepage features include slide show summaries (with automatic random image swapper), thumbnails, a tags list or tag cloud, live search and thumbnail bookmarks for other Scooch shows from around the Web.
  • Goggles Live Search: Goggles Live Search logo Our live search plug-in, Goggles has been added for finding Scooch shows fast! Like Scooch, it uses Javascript where present for live searching but otherwise moves seamlessly to PHP. Goggles will also be released independantly soon as an upgrade to GrowSearch plug-in for web sites.
  • Tags: Use tags to attach keywords to a show. Display tags as a list or cloud. Publish your content to the Web using rel-tags for fast and meaningful syndication.
  • Bookmarks: Add your favourite slide shows from other Scooch albums to your bookmarks and share the love!
  • Comments: comments emoticons screenshot Add comments to individual slides with emoticons, and track comments with specific RSS feeds.
  • Ratings: ratings stars screenshot Allow visitors to rate the slides. Also includes only one vote per IP address and aggregates the results using hReview.

Administrator Features

  • Customised slide shows: Show a simple bare bones slide show or display the show creation date, description, author, enable comments, enable ratings - all optional when creating or editing a slide show.
  • Customised blog index: Select the initial number of slide show summaries to highlight with full details and the rest display as thumbnails. The latest show is highlighted with a large first image.
  • Slide re-ordering: Screenshot of the controls for slide re-ordering Re-arrange your slide shows as you like with easy slide ordering in the Scooch editor.
  • Multiple image formats: Scooch now accepts PNGs and GIFs as well as JPGs and converts them all to beautiful thumbnails.
  • As easy as 1, 2, 3: Three simple steps to create a beautiful slide show: Add the basic details, add text and images then publish. Scooch will create a favicon, an RSS feed and build the slide show before you can say, 'wow'.
  • Favicons: A favicon is automatically created for each slide show.
  • Watermarked images: Scooch will watermark images on upload using any .PNG image you like.
  • Rounded corners on images: Rounded corners can be added automatically.
  • Advanced, accessible slide show controls: Select a thumbnail to load a slide, use forward and back buttons or play the slide show at a speed that suits you.
  • Easy editing: A password allows access to the editor and change any information you like as well as re-arrange your slides with the same 3 simple steps.

Go Scoochin'!

Scooch icon Create your own demo slide show. It will be added to the demo homepage for all to see!

For the Nerd in all of us:

  • All this goodness in a download of only 182.37 KB! Save the environment 1 Kb at a time!

Technical Features

  • Web Standards: Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict with semantic mark-up using CSS for all styling.
  • Accessibility (WCAG): Manually checked against the WCAG (Conforms to all Priority 2 and most of Priority 3 checkpoints).
  • Accessibility (ATAG): Manually checked against the ATAG. Conforms to all relevant checkpoints. Debatable fail on checkpoint 4.3 as we automaticlly convert URIs and line breaks rather than allowing html which then allows conformance to checkpoint 4.5.
   

microformats

Scooch uses hCard for slide show authors and individual slide comment authors. vCards for all can be downloaded via the hCard button in the foot of the new index and all slide shows (uses Brian Suda's excellent X2V parser).

hReview Microformat is used in the individual slide ratings in aggregate. Rel-tag Microformat is used for slide show tags.

  • Slide Show Functionality:
    • Javascript enabled? All the controls are present comprising the thumbnail menu, next and previous buttons and the autoplay controls to swap slides dynamically.
    • Javascript disabled? Enter PHP. PHP takes over and the slide show still works but PHP reloads the page for each slide swap.
    • No Javascript or CSS? All slides are visible on the page as plain text with the thumbnails acting as links to their associated slide. All other redundant controls are removed.
  • Reusable homepage objects: Each feature of the index is an include and every include is a complete XHTML/PHP data 'object' with optimised semantic html.

    Objects can be included in any other PHP page (like your existing index) to display aggregate slide shows data in any way you like.
  • Multiple RSS Feeds:
    • Scooch master feed for all slide shows
    • Slide show feeds
    • Slide show comments feed
  • User Settings Control Panel: Scooch now includes a settings control panel where you can set the web site name, admin password, admin email for RSS feeds, display summaries, thumbnails or both on the index and single rating by IP address.

    It also allows you to set image variables like maximum display width, default width, thumbnail size and max image file size to allow for upload. You can also turn on or off rounded corners on images and image watermarking.
  • No database: Scooch creates static files and allows you to edit and delete them without a database. The index and any slide show is a permanent physical file on the server.
  • Server Requirements:
    • PHP v4.3x or above support. The latest version is 5.1.2 so your host should support Scooch with ease.
    • PHP GD graphics libraries. Since PHP 4.3 there is a bundled version of the GD libraries so your web host should have them installed.
  • New! Wed 6th Dec - Anti–Spam: Spam filter for comments has been added.
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Scooch uses the latest best practice for ethical SEO.
    • Meaningful URIs: All shows are created with a meaningful URI containing the slide show title.
    • Resource Integrity: All slide shows are a single document conatining all the slides - no content is hidden from search engines or bots.
    • Meta tag population:Slide title, description and tags (keywords) populate the document meta tags automatically.
    • Accessibility minded object placement: Content always appears first with a skip link to navigation.
    • Semantic HTML: Correct use of headings and markup structure.
    • Scooch index optimisation: The new Scooch index is a blog interface displaying slide shows in summary. It will also act as a site map or pathfinder for bots to index all the slide shows and categories (tags).
  • Browser Testing: No browser-specific hacks have been used in the CSS. Workarounds have been included and the default CSS makes use of the Mozilla -moz-border-radius property for rounded object corners. You can edit the CSS and a detailed manual and inline HTML / PHP comments are provided to facilitate that.

    Scooch has been tested in the following browsers: Windows: FF 1+, IE 5+, Opera 8. Mac: Safari 1+, Camino 1+, IE5.2. There are minor differences but the content is still visible, Scooch works and no content lost.
  • Cookies: Session cookies are used to hold application data while creating or editing slide shows. Visitor cookies are only set on two events: To remember visitors' details (if selected) in the comments forms, or to remember visitors' display preferences in the Scooch homepage.

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