Assembling web slides takes quite a bit of time, and there are often over 100 slides to make every month. Rather than spend hours in Photoshop, I decided to create a web app in PHP, leveraging ImageMagick, that builds the slides programmatically.
Blue Slide Example
Grey Slide Example
Purple Slide Example
Red Slide Example
Fonts can be changed within ImageMagick calls and informational bar colours can be altered with Photoshop or GIMP.
Step 1. index.php
First thing accessed by the user. Prompts for upload of the image file. Image file should be at least 780 x 175, but this is not enforced by the code at this time.
Step 2. imgprep.php
The user will not see this as it happens in the background. The uploaded image is resized to a width of 780, while keeping the aspect ratio intact. This not only makes cropping easier, but it also allows more of the image to be cropped in the next step.
Step 3. crop.php
The newly resized image is presented to the user with a simple cropping interface. The initial size of the cropping box is the exact size of the image header on the slide. Once the crop is selected...
Step 4. eventdata.php
This is the data entry screen and is the final screen seen by the user. A simple form allows for entry of the event's title, date and time, branch, and selection of a bar colour. Once complete, the next step is run, and displayed on the right side of the split screen.
Step 5. createslide.php
The final step and assembly of the elements. This exectutes behind the scenes and won't be seen by the user. The cropped header from step 3 is combined with the event data into a final slide. This slide is presented on the right side of the eventdata.php screen.
MCLD SlideGen contains code and contributions from:
- Start Bootstrap - Simple Sidebar. Released under an MIT License.
- Deep Liquid - Jcrop. Released under an MIT License.
- StackOverflow - PHP Questions. With gratitude.
Coded in PHP. Utilizing ImageMagick.