Under The Radar: Circular – Elliptical Gallery

After lots of positive feedback about our previous “Under The Radar” feature, it’s time to delve into the FlashDen archives once more to find some more golden nuggets that you may have previously overlooked!

This week, we’re featuring a file that may appear as though it has sold well (88 sales at the time of writing), but when you realize that equates to only 14 sales per month over the past 6 months, you really have to ask yourself why this file hasn’t sold more. I must admit that even I don’t remember seeing this file first time around and I get to see a lot of files as a reviewer, so I hope a new audience now get to enjoy this file as much as I do.

File: Circular – Elliptical Gallery
Author: VF
Overview: XML image gallery that takes a set of normal, rectangular images, and displays them in a circle. Circular thumbnail images rotate around the main, larger image. Features a huge number of customizable options.

The overview above does not do this file justice. It has to be seen to be believed. This gallery features a totally innovative and unique front-end based on the fact that all images (including thumbnails) are dynamically converted into circles. Large circle in the center, surrounded by smaller circles around the circumference of the main image. In fact, it’s somewhat ironic that the author used so many flower photographs in the preview, as the entire gallery resembles an actual flower with all its petals being used as thumbnails. It’s fast, smooth and renders beautifully without any degradation or pixelation. But the incredible aspect of this file is that you can customize so many features. Here’s just a sample of what you can actually customize:

• Display gallery as a full circle, half circle, or quarter circle.
• Multiple transition effects.
• Loads images, SWF files and FLV video.
• Self-generated customized XML settings.
• Supports infinite number of images.
• Change multiple aspects of the user interface including size, alpha, color, spacing, borders and much, much more.

With so many customizable options one would think that the usability of this file might consequently suffer, but the developer has actually paid great attention to user interaction by implementing rollover captions, the ability to rotate the thumbnails clockwise or counter-clockwise on mouseover, and has also integrated a zoom effect and tool tip on thumbnail rollover.

If you’re looking for a unique gallery for a project or presentation, this could be the answer you’ve been looking for. A standing ovation please, for author VF for thinking outside the box and making the box… circular.

Have you produced a FlashDen file or know of a file that you think deserves to be featured on our blog? If so, please send the name and URL of the file to me, scott AT flashden DOT net. We can’t guarantee that we will feature your file, but we will definitely be taking a look at all your recommendations and we will be sure to share the best submissions that we think deserve some extra attention!