Update: The old server that I used to use for my website and also to implement the rotating banner on this blog, is down. It will likely to be down for quite some time.
When I moved by website from my long-term personal server to WordPress.com the one bit of functionality that I lost was the rotating banner image.
The image of the sunrise just north of Kaikoura in the banner above is static. It’s always the same. Back on the original website I had a collection of 40+ images that, thanks to a small perl script, would cycle through each one. As of late 2008 you can still see this in action on this page – just hit the refresh button to see the banner image change.
I’d like recreate this effect on this site. But I have to do it without server side scripting and I should also probably do it to maximise the benefits of Web 2.0. I’ve got some ideas about how to do this using Flickr, Pipes and JSON or similar. These ideas will have to be reality tested. However, the first thing I should do is check to see what others have already done.
Ahh, it appears that there is the need to pay for a CSS customisation to enable this. 4 cents a day paid via PayPal. The approach outlined here and requires a server somewhere that will allow you to upload a PHP script. Essentially the approach I was using on my original server.
Not very Web 2.0. Will experiment with Flickr and Pipes, do a bit more searching. Can do some testing without requiring the CSS customisation upgrade.
David,
The lovely Mandigo WordPress theme has rotating header banners as a built-in feature (check out my site, at http://wt.similibus.org)
Mandigo can be downloaded from
http://www.onehertz.com/portfolio/wordpress/mandigo/
G’day Will,
Thanks for the pointer, however, I think there is a slight disconnect between my requirements and what Mandigo will provide. Please, correct me if I’m wrong.
My blog is hosted on WordPress.com, not my own server. It’s my understanding that because of this I’m limited to the themes which WordPress.com provide. i.e. I can’t install my own themes written by others.
Yep, it seems the WordPress.com support forums confirm my assumption.
It’s a pity, the theme looks quite good.
Of course, there is also the other disconnect, I’m an old geek who hasn’t done much coding in recent times and I guess I’m seeking excuses to waste some time over the Xmas break.
David.
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