vBulletin CMS Widgets - United-Forum Nivo Slider Widget

Based on the Nivo Slider - all credit for slider awesomeness goes to them.
vB4 implementation goes to me.


What it is:
A slider for cms articles, it gets the articles via database, uses (if possible) the previewimage there and resizes it to slider size *update 1.1.0 cropping function included.

Livedemo on a Big Board (>2.000.000 posts)
the nivo slider on our site is customized to fit our heavily customized cms. Default look of this addon is shown in the picture below


facts about the nivo slider

Originally Posted by nivo slider homepage

- ~ 600.000 downloads
- 16 transition effects
- a ton of options
- different available themes
- ...

Installation

• upload all files (attached zip file) in the folder where you do need them - this has to be the same folder you will set via $slider_img_filepath (see picture)
  
  
  
• create a new php-widget and insert the following code:
  

  // DEBUG MODUS !
  $debug_modus = false;
  
  if($debug_modus === false)
  {
  	ob_start();
  }
  
  //nivo slider - uf - vb.org version
  //set these values as you need them:
  
  //your slider folder - has to be read and writeable
  //folder where all slider files are saved
  $slider_img_filepath = 'external/unitedforum/slider/';   
  
  //picture width and height !same as in the CSS FILE!
  $maxwidth = 650;                                  
  $maxheight = 250;    
  
  //do you want images without previewimage to be shown? slider is using the fallback then
  $show_articles_without_image = false;           
  
  //picture shown if your articles has no previewpicture
  $fallback_img = $slider_img_filepath . 'uf_fallback_slider.png';  
  
  //hardcoded maximum is 20 - if you want more just ask
  $number_of_articles_shown = 10;                                
              
  //lengh in characters of the article descriptions
  $description_length = 95;
  
  //stretch picture or crop them? false = strechting (default) true = cropping (beta)
  $crop = false;
  
  
  //Debug Messages
  if($debug_modus)
  {
  	echo "<span style='color:red;'>DEBUG MODE is ON! </span><br />";
  	echo "slider_img_filepath: $slider_img_filepath <br />";
  	echo "width: $maxwidth   height: $maxheight <br />";
  	echo "Strech or Crop? $crop <br />";
  	echo "show_articles_without_image: "; 
          var_dump($show_articles_without_image); 
          echo " <br />";
  	echo "fallback_img: $fallback_img <br />";
  	echo "#img: $number_of_articles_shown <br />";
  	echo "description_length: $description_length <br />";
  	echo 'directory ' . DIR . '<br />';
  
  }
  
  
  
  
  $article_type = vb_Types::instance()->getContentTypeID("vBCms_Article");
  $time = TIMENOW;
   
  if(!extension_loaded('gd'))
  {
  	echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> Your System does not support the GD-Libary. Please install the GD-Libary.<br />';
  }
         
  	$article_get = vB::$db->query_read('
          SELECT
              article.pagetext,
              article.previewimage,
              node.url,
              node.publishdate,
              node.parentnode,
              parentnode.url AS parenturl,
              thread.replycount,
              info.title,
              node.nodeid,            
              GROUP_CONCAT( category.category )
          FROM
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_article AS article INNER JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_node AS node 
                  ON (node.contentid = article.contentid AND node.contenttypeid = ' . vb::$db->sql_prepare($article_type) .') INNER JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_nodeinfo AS info 
                  ON info.nodeid = node.nodeid INNER JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_node AS parentnode 
                  ON parentnode.nodeid = node.parentnode LEFT JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'thread AS thread ON thread.threadid = info.associatedthreadid LEFT JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_nodecategory AS nodecategory ON nodecategory.nodeid = node.nodeid LEFT JOIN
              '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_category AS category ON nodecategory.categoryid = category.categoryid 
          WHERE
              node.setpublish = 1 AND
              node.publishdate > '. vb::$db->sql_prepare($time) .' -34560000 AND
  			node.publishdate < '. vb::$db->sql_prepare($time) .' 
          GROUP BY node.nodeid
          ORDER BY node.publishdate
          DESC LIMIT 20');
  
      $database_articles = array();
      
      /* my version of sorting the articles via relevance - i'll keep it in case someone is interested*/
      while($article = vB::$db->fetch_array($article_get))
      {
          $article['value'] = ( 5 - ($time - $article['publishdate'] ) / 86400 ) * ( 5 - ($time - $article['publishdate'] ) / 86400 ) * ( 5 - ($time - $article['publishdate'] ) / 86400 ) + (10 * $article['replycount']);
          $database_articles[] = $article;        
      }
      
      foreach($database_articles as $c => $key)
      {
          $sort_value[] = $key['value'];
      }
      
      array_multisort($sort_value, SORT_DESC, $database_articles);    
      
      //
      $i = 0;
      $section_array = array();
      $featured_articles = array();
  	
      foreach($database_articles AS $article)
      {
          $section_array[$article['parentnode']]++;
  
          $categories = explode(',' , $article['GROUP_CONCAT( category.category )']);
       
          if($show_articles_without_image == true OR $article['previewimage'])
          {
              if($section_array[$article['parentnode']] < 50 AND $i < $number_of_articles_shown)
              {
  				if($debug_modus == true OR !file_exists($slider_img_filepath . 'slide_' . $article['nodeid'] . '.jpg'))
  				{
  					//rebuild image to the height and width we want in the slider 
  					//called sprite since i got the code from our sprite addon :P
  					$sprite = imagecreatetruecolor($maxwidth, $maxheight);
  					if(is_resource($sprite) AND $article['previewimage'] )
  					{                   				
  						$imageinfo = getimagesize($article['previewimage']);
  						if(is_array($imageinfo))
  						{   
  							$image = null;
  							switch($imageinfo[2])
  							{
  								case IMAGETYPE_PNG:
  								$image = imagecreatefrompng($article['previewimage']);
  								break;
  								case IMAGETYPE_GIF:
  								$image = imagecreatefromgif($article['previewimage']);
  								break;
  								case IMAGETYPE_JPEG:
  								$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($article['previewimage']);
  								break;
  								default:
  								echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> Unknown image format. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
  								break;                        
  							}
  							
  							if(!is_resource($image))
  							{
  								//resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
  								echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> imagecreation failed. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
  								$article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
  							}
  							else
  							{
  								$img_width = $imageinfo[0];
  								$img_height = $imageinfo[1];							
  								
  								if($crop == false)
  								{									
  									imagecopyresampled($sprite, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $maxwidth, $maxheight, $img_width, $img_height );
  									imagedestroy($image);
  								}
  								else
  								{
  									//cropping
  									$ratiox = $maxheight / $img_height ;
  									$ratioy = $maxwidth / $img_width ;
  									$new_height = $img_height;
  									$new_width = $img_width;
  									
  									if ($maxheight > $img_height OR $maxwidth > $img_width)
  									{
  										if($ratiox > $ratioy)
  										{
  											$new_height = round($img_height * $ratiox);
  											$new_width = round($img_width * $ratiox);
  										}
  										else
  										{
  											$new_height = round($img_height * $ratioy);
  											$new_width = round($img_width * $ratioy);
  										}										
  									}
  									$cropx = $new_height - $maxheight;
  									$cropy = $new_width - $maxwidth;
  									
  									imagecopyresampled($sprite, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $new_width, $new_height, $img_width, $img_height);
  									imagedestroy($image);
  									
  								}
  								
  								
  								$img_filepath = $slider_img_filepath . 'slide_' . $article['nodeid'] . '.jpg';
  								$success = imagejpeg($sprite, DIR  . ($img_filepath[0] != DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ?  DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR : '') . $img_filepath);
  								imagedestroy($sprite);
  								if($success)
  								{
  									$article['previewimage'] = $img_filepath;
  								}
  								else
  								{
  									$img_filepath = DIR  . ($img_filepath[0] != DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ?  DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR : '') . $img_filepath;
  									echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> imagejpeg failed. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />
  									directory: '. $img_filepath ;
  									
  									$article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
  								}
  							}
  							
  						}
  						else
  						{
  							//resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
  							echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> picture is not readable.' . $article['previewimage']. '<br /> ';
  							$article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
  						}                  
  					}
  					else
  					{
  						//resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
  						echo '<span style="color:red">Warning:</span> article has no previewimage or sprite is no ressource. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
  						$article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
  					}
  				}
  				else
  				{
  					//we already have the image, no need to resize or crop anything
  					$article['previewimage'] = $slider_img_filepath . 'slide_' . $article['nodeid'] . '.jpg';
  				}
  
                  /*remove everything from the previewtext - html and bb. I do not want bold or colored text there. Cut to a decent length.*/        
                  $article['pagetext'] = strip_bbcode($article['pagetext'], true, true, false, true, false);
  
                  $article['previewtext'] = strip_tags($article['pagetext'], '<a>');
                      
                  $len = $description_length;
                  if ( strlen($article['previewtext']) > $len )
                  {                    
                      $article['previewtext'] = substr( $article['previewtext'] , 0 , strrpos( substr( $article['previewtext'], 0, $len), ' ' ));
                  }   
  
                  $i++;
                  //Build Array
                  $article_neu = array();
                  $article_neu['description'] = '<h2 style="font-weight:bold; font-size: 14px">'. $article['title'].'</h2><span>'. $article['previewtext'] .'</span> <a href="/content.php?r=' . $article['nodeid'] . '-' . $article['url'] . '">read on</a>';
                  $article_neu['htmlcaptionname'] = 'htmlcaption' . $article['nodeid'] ;
                  $article_neu['picture'] = '<a href="/content.php?r=' . $article['nodeid'] . '-' . $article['url'] . '"><img src="'.$article['previewimage'].'" alt="" title="#htmlcaption'. $article['nodeid'] . '" /></a>';
                  
                  $featured_articles[] = $article_neu;
              }
          }
      }
      
      //Randomize Array
      //shuffle($featured_articles);
  
  	//Debug Messages
  	if($debug_modus)
  	{
  		echo '#articles - featured and databasepull ';
  		var_dump(count($featured_articles));
  		var_dump(count($database_articles));
  	}
  
      
  $output_bits = '
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'nivo-slider.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'nivo-slider_uf_theme.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
      <div style="height:' . $maxheight . 'px;">
      <div id="wrapper">
          <div class="slider-wrapper theme-uf">
              <div class="ribbon"></div>
              <div id="slider" class="nivoSlider">';
              
                  foreach($featured_articles AS $article)
                  {
                      $output_bits .= $article['picture'];
                  }
              $output_bits .= '
              </div>';
              
              foreach($featured_articles AS $article)
              {
                  $output_bits .= '<div id="' . $article['htmlcaptionname'] . '" class="nivo-html-caption">' . $article['description'] .'</div>';
              }
              
              $output_bits .= '         
          </div>
  
      </div>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'jquery-1.6.1.min.js"></script>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js"></script>
      <script type="text/javascript">
      $(window).load(function() {
          $("#slider").nivoSlider();
      });
      </script>
      </div>
      ';
          $output = $output_bits;
   
  if($debug_modus === false)
  {
  	ob_end_clean();        
  }

• set refresh time to something big!
• save - add the widget to your layout - enjoy

Custom settings:

At the top of the php-widget code you can see the following:

// DEBUG MODUS !
$debug_modus = false;

if($debug_modus === false)
{
	ob_start();
}

//nivo slider - uf - vb.org version
//set these values as you need them:

//your slider folder - has to be read and writeable
//folder where all slider files are saved
$slider_img_filepath = 'external/unitedforum/slider/';   

//picture width and height !same as in the CSS FILE!
$maxwidth = 650;                                  
$maxheight = 250;    

//do you want images without previewimage to be shown? slider is using the fallback then
$show_articles_without_image = false;           

//picture shown if your articles has no previewpicture
$fallback_img = $slider_img_filepath . 'uf_fallback_slider.png';  

//hardcoded maximum is 20 - if you want more just ask
$number_of_articles_shown = 5;                                
            
//lengh in characters of the article descriptions
$description_length = 95;

If you change $maxwidth and $maxheight you need to edit the nivo-slider_uf_theme.css file, here:

.theme-uf #slider {
    margin:0px auto 0 auto;
    width:650px; /* Make sure your images are the same size */
    height:250px; /* Make sure your images are the same size */
}

Width and height have to be the same value in your php-widget and in the css file.

In additon to these settings i also included a "value/relevance function". Meaning the slider doesn't show your latest 5 articles, but instead weights them based on age and comments.

As older an article is the less likely it will show up in the slider.
More comments make it more likely.

This behaviour can be easily changed. I didn't include an if condition cause every board has different needs and i don't know whats best for you.
In addition conditions like "articles just from this section - or these sections, or this category, with a minimum of 10 posts" can be included via one single if condition. Again, i don't know what your board needs or what your category names are.

You can also modify the preview length (more words, less words), the preview style (color fontsize, fontweight .... Again different forums different needs. It's highly customizable.

Support:

Support and requests for the slider itself should be asked here http://nivo.dev7studios.com/
Same goes for different slider themes - a lot is possible, even thumbnails - again this is part of the nivo slider and not the vb4 implementation.

If you have any questions regarding the settings - or want different settings (which have to do with vb4) - ask, and i'll try to come up with some code // show you where you have to put what.

Slider not working. No idea why?

You will find a FAQ in the first comment, which will be kept up to date:
FAQ

The widget here is completely free. No charge, no branding.
But, we do not mind donations either. If you want to give us something. Since we are advertising free and fan based we are happy about every small donation.
( On Forumhome bottom right paypal button: http://www.united-forum.de/forum.php )



That's all
Hope it works for you.
Regards Mooff

[Mooff]

And now we know it's not fopen or url_access.
Resizing and everything works (not gonna look too good though given the width/height ratio of the pictures) but the slider can't save the pictures (cause the folder either does not exist or isn't writeable).

change:
//your slider folder - has to be read and writeable
//folder where all slider files are saved
$slider_img_filepath = 'Forum/slider/';
to

$slider_img_filepath = 'slider/'

[Gamelobby]

Originally Posted by Mooff

And now we know it's not fopen or url_access.
Resizing and everything works (not gonna look too good though given the width/height ratio of the pictures) but the slider can't save the pictures (cause the folder either does not exist or isn't writeable).


change:
//your slider folder - has to be read and writeable
//folder where all slider files are saved
$slider_img_filepath = 'Forum/slider/';
to

$slider_img_filepath = 'slider/'

Should be readable & writable.

Removed Forum/"


*edit*
Works.!!

But my images are WAY stretched out. lol
Now i need to play with the settings, i guess.

[Kr33p3r]

Originally Posted by Mooff

Designwise it is possible, but it's not easy to force the vb4-cms to look decent. :P

Truer words have never been spoken.

Sorry guys, you guys are looking at wordpress, not vBCMS.

The vBCMS is here:

http://www.cyberneticpunks.com/forums/content/

I still have the same issue however. It finds the fall back image fine.

Is there additional logging I can turn on?

[The Rocketeer]

Originally Posted by Kr33p3r

Truer words have never been spoken.

Sorry guys, you guys are looking at wordpress, not vBCMS.

The vBCMS is here:

http://www.cyberneticpunks.com/forums/content/

I still have the same issue however. It finds the fall back image fine.

Is there additional logging I can turn on?

Damn you!
for a min there I thought I finally got something

Very Nice Design BTW. Wish Anyone could make the vBulletin CMS look half decent.

[zairafusco]

i know it sounds stupid but.. i wanted to have a slider without nav buttons and another one without control buttons and... i'm not able to let controls and directions buttons to show and hide editing .css files... i only managed to hide the controls but now i can't make them appear again.. and the arrows.. there's no way to make them disappear....
i'm having some kind of cache troubles of what?
btw i'm running at once 2 sliders on my page (dynamic and static version)

thank you

[zairafusco]

sorry guys.. i must be a bit tired... read the faqs on nivo slider official website and found everything ...just playing with parameters like:

.nivoSlider({

controlNav:true,
directionNav:false});

and so on..

hope this one can be useful for someone!

thanks

[Scalemotorcars]

Ive been messing with this for some time and I have no problem getting one slider to work on my homepage but Im trying to get another to work in a specific section.

I made a 2nd directory for the slider. So the first is slider/ the 2nd is slider2/ I have all the JS files in both as well as the fall back image.

I made a 2nd widget with and modified the code to save images in slider2/ as well as pull from a specific section.

All fine until it comes to actually seeing the slides. I get the rotation and the correct text but no images. I checked the dir. and its 777.

URL's in the slider are all correct. I click the image and I get the correct page.

Just very stuck as to why no images in the 2nd slider. Any help would be great.

Heres a copy of the widget code.

// DEBUG MODUS !
$debug_modus = false;

if($debug_modus === false)
{
	ob_start();
}

//nivo slider - uf - vb.org version
//set these values as you need them:

//your slider folder - has to be read and writeable
//folder where all slider files are saved
$slider_img_filepath = 'clientscript/slider2/';   

//picture width and height !same as in the CSS FILE!
$maxwidth = 700;                                  
$maxheight = 375;    

//do you want images without previewimage to be shown? slider is using the fallback then
$show_articles_without_image = false;           

//picture shown if your articles has no previewpicture
$fallback_img = $slider_img_filepath . 'uf_fallback_slider2.png';  

//hardcoded maximum is 20 - if you want more just ask
$number_of_articles_shown = 10;                                
            
//lengh in characters of the article descriptions
$description_length = 95;


//Debug Messages
if($debug_modus)
{
	echo "<span style='color:red;'>DEBUG MODE is ON! </span><br />";
	echo "slider_img_filepath: $slider_img_filepath <br />";
	echo "width: $maxwidth   height: $maxheight <br />";
	echo "show_articles_without_image: "; 
        var_dump($show_articles_without_image); 
        echo " <br />";
	echo "fallback_img: $fallback_img <br />";
	echo "#img: $number_of_articles_shown <br />";
	echo "description_length: $description_length <br />";
	echo 'directory ' . DIR . '<br />';

}




$article_type = vb_Types::instance()->getContentTypeID("vBCms_Article");
$time = TIMENOW;
 
if(!extension_loaded('gd'))
{
	echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> Your System does not support the GD-Libary. Please install the GD-Libary.<br />';
}
       
	$article_get = vB::$db->query_read('
        SELECT
            article.pagetext,
            article.previewimage,
            node.url,
            node.publishdate,
            node.parentnode,
            parentnode.url AS parenturl,
            thread.replycount,
            info.title,
            node.nodeid,            
            GROUP_CONCAT( category.category )
        FROM
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_article AS article INNER JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_node AS node 
                ON (node.contentid = article.contentid AND node.contenttypeid = ' . vb::$db->sql_prepare($article_type) .') INNER JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_nodeinfo AS info 
                ON info.nodeid = node.nodeid INNER JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_node AS parentnode 
                ON parentnode.nodeid = node.parentnode LEFT JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'thread AS thread ON thread.threadid = info.associatedthreadid LEFT JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_nodecategory AS nodecategory ON nodecategory.nodeid = node.nodeid LEFT JOIN
            '.TABLE_PREFIX.'cms_category AS category ON nodecategory.categoryid = category.categoryid 
        WHERE
            node.setpublish = 1 AND
            node.publishdate > '. vb::$db->sql_prepare($time) .' -34560000 AND
	    node.publishdate < '. vb::$db->sql_prepare($time) .' AND
	    node.parentnode IN ( 136 )
        GROUP BY node.nodeid
        ORDER BY node.publishdate
        DESC LIMIT 20');
		
    $database_articles = array();
    
    $i = 0;
    $section_array = array();
    $featured_articles = array();
	
    while($article = vB::$db->fetch_array($article_get))
    {
        $section_array[$article['parentnode']]++;

        $categories = explode(',' , $article['GROUP_CONCAT( category.category )']);
     
        if($show_articles_without_image == true OR $article['previewimage'])
        {
            if($section_array[$article['parentnode']] < 50 AND $i < $number_of_articles_shown)
            {
            
                //rebuild image to the height and width we want in the slider 
                //called sprite since i got the code from our sprite addon :P
                $sprite = imagecreatetruecolor($maxwidth, $maxheight);
                if(is_resource($sprite) AND $article['previewimage'] )
                {                   
                    $imageinfo = getimagesize($article['previewimage']);
                    if(is_array($imageinfo))
                    {   
                        $image = null;
                        switch($imageinfo[2])
                        {
                            case IMAGETYPE_PNG:
                            $image = imagecreatefrompng($article['previewimage']);
                            break;
                            case IMAGETYPE_GIF:
                            $image = imagecreatefromgif($article['previewimage']);
                            break;
                            case IMAGETYPE_JPEG:
                            $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($article['previewimage']);
                            break;
                            default:
                            echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> Unknown image format. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
                            break;                        
                        }
                        
                        if(!is_resource($image))
                        {
                            //resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
                            $article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
                            echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> imagecreation failed. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            $img_width = $imageinfo[0];
                            $img_height = $imageinfo[1];
                            
                            imagecopyresampled($sprite, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $maxwidth, $maxheight, $img_width, $img_height );
                            imagedestroy($image);

                            $img_filepath = $slider_img_filepath . 'slide_' . $i . '.jpg';
                            $success = imagejpeg($sprite, DIR  . ($img_filepath[0] != DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ?  DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR : '') . $img_filepath);
                            imagedestroy($sprite);
							if($success)
							{
								$article['previewimage'] = $img_filepath;
							}
							else
							{
								$img_filepath = DIR  . ($img_filepath[0] != DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ?  DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR : '') . $img_filepath;
								echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> imagejpeg failed. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />
								directory: '. $img_filepath ;
								
								$article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
							}
                        }
                        
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        //resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
                        $article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
                        echo '<span style="color:red">Error occurred:</span> picture is not readable.' . $article['previewimage']. '<br /> ';
                    }                  
                }
                else
                {
                    //resiziing did not work - we are using the fallback image.
                    $article['previewimage'] = $fallback_img;
                    echo '<span style="color:red">Warning:</span> article has no previewimage or sprite is no ressource. ' . $article['previewimage']. '<br />';
                }
        

                /*remove everything from the previewtext - html and bb. I do not want bold or colored text there. Cut to a decent length.*/        
                $article['pagetext'] = strip_bbcode($article['pagetext'], true, true, false, true, false);

                $article['previewtext'] = strip_tags($article['pagetext'], '<a>');
                    
                $len = $description_length;
                if ( strlen($article['previewtext']) > $len )
                {                    
                    $article['previewtext'] = substr( $article['previewtext'] , 0 , strrpos( substr( $article['previewtext'], 0, $len), ' ' ));
                }   

                $i++;
                //Build Array
                $article_neu = array();
                $article_neu['description'] = '<h2 style="font-weight:bold; font-size: 14px">'. $article['title'].'</h2><span>'. $article['previewtext'] .'</span> <a href="/content.php?r=' . $article['nodeid'] . '-' . $article['url'] . '">read on</a>';
                $article_neu['htmlcaptionname'] = 'htmlcaption' . $i ;
                $article_neu['picture'] = '<a href="/content.php?r=' . $article['nodeid'] . '-' . $article['url'] . '"><img src="'.$article['previewimage'].'" alt="" title="#htmlcaption'. $i . '" /></a>';
                
                $featured_articles[] = $article_neu;
            }
        }
    }
    
    //Randomize Array
    //shuffle($featured_articles);

	//Debug Messages
	if($debug_modus)
	{
		echo '#articles - featured and databasepull ';
		var_dump(count($featured_articles));
		var_dump(count($database_articles));
	}

    
$output_bits = '
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'nivo-slider.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'nivo-slider_uf_theme.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
    <div style="height:' . $maxheight . 'px;">
    <div id="wrapper">
        <div class="slider-wrapper theme-uf">
            <div class="ribbon"></div>
            <div id="slider" class="nivoSlider">';
            
                foreach($featured_articles AS $article)
                {
                    $output_bits .= $article['picture'];
                }
            $output_bits .= '
            </div>';
            
            foreach($featured_articles AS $article)
            {
                $output_bits .= '<div id="' . $article['htmlcaptionname'] . '" class="nivo-html-caption">' . $article['description'] .'</div>';
            }
            
            $output_bits .= '         
        </div>

    </div>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="' .$slider_img_filepath. 'jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    $(window).load(function() {
        $("#slider").nivoSlider();
    });
    </script>
    </div>
    ';
        $output = $output_bits;
 
if($debug_modus === false)
{
	ob_end_clean();        
}

[zairafusco]

i don't know wha happened.. tried the whole thing from start several times but i'm stuck on this error (and no visible slides..).. the only difference i can get starting over is the line number

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /web/htdocs/www.dogmylife.com/home/beta/packages/vbcms/widget/execphp.php(191) : eval()'d code on line 24

i really don't know what to do..

thank you

[Mooff]

Most likely you are missing a semicolon in line 24 of the widget php code

that would be line 24
$fallback_img = $slider_img_filepath . 'uf_fallback_slider.png';

what does yours look like?

As for the other problems. I've read them, but unfortunately no time to look into it right now. Another coding projekt on our site keeps me busy right now.

[BadgerDog]

Installed for testing on 4.1.3 with thanks ...

Regards,
Doug

Edit: Un-installed .. didn't work (see pic .. just empty box with date).. thanks anyway for your efforts ...