¿Vídeo? ¿On Flickr?

¡Yes! But not video like YouTube or Vimeo or Google Video or ... Flickr's definition of video is probably closer to the original concept of motion pictures, complementing and enhancing the concept of still pictures which is Flickr's main asset.

I'll probably have to post a lot more about it in the future, but for now, let me just show you what "video" means in Flickr:

SlideShow Magic

Lots of people ask how to put a slideshow in a post entry; that's normally done embedding Flickr's old slideshow, the Flash one. You can obtain the code for it from at least two sources:

• Blogger Templates
• FlickrSlidr

For example, I got one from FlickrSlidr and tweaked it a bit to give this one, showing images from my Zenit & co. set:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Not so Random Group Badge

Because copyright problems, few people set up a badge to show photos from a group pool. Those who do and elect to show a "random" sample, will end up showing again and again a little group of photos taken from the latest ones, only randomly ordered.

It's a known problem and it's being looked on, according to Flickr staff's post in their help forum; it doesn't seem to be high in the schedule, though.

You can see a sample of such a badge up there, with photos from Voices in the Wilderness*.

*I had to take down the example, sorry.

Badges: Easiest than ever

When this blog was born the only way to add a Flickr Badge in a Blogger blog was to edit the template and position it there, eventually moving the style parts to the page's style section. Things have changed a lot, and this new item has been due for quite some time. Here it is, at last.

This is yet an old-style blog but if you have have a new blog or updated an older one to the new style that uses page elements in a visual layout rather than a text template, adding a badge is a way simpler matter. Here's how:

1. In the dashboard click in Manage: Layout. It'll go to the Template tab and, inside that, to the visual layout editor. You can reach that from your blog too: just click the Customize link in the Navbar.
2. Click one of the Add page element boxes of the bar where you want to insert the badge.
   
3. In the selection box that appears next, select HTML/JavaScript.
4. Paste the badge code in the edit box that appears now and click the Save button; the badge is now a page element that you can move around, just like the rest of 'em.
5. You're done; enjoy your newly badged blog :-D

This (new) instructions work for both the HTML and Flash badges, as well as for the Zeitgeist.

Image sample

337-Cyan, originalmente cargada por lucamar (Luis).

This image is the biggest one can post to a blog from Flickr: It's 500x500px. Note how it doesn't fit in this template: that could be easily solved modifyng either the template (to make more room for the entries) or the width and height parameters of the img element.

You'll have to click to click in the title to see the post by itself, to see how it overflows to the right, invading the sidebar

What about Opera?

I've checked and re-checked and for some unknow reason neither the Flash Badge or the Zeitgeist show up any photo, if you're using Opera. I don't know why; both work as expected in Firefox (and siblings), IE (and siblings), Safari, etc. Curious, to say it mildly...

And the Zeitgeist?

It should show photos from my stream, but the part that selects it doesn't work, so it shows everyone's