There really needs to be some docs about this -- in mojo, when you try to add the "flickr slideshow" feature to a page, it asks for a) flickr username, ok I can figure that part out, and b) flickr API key.  What does it want for that, and how, exactly, do you get it? 

I posted a rant about this, on behalf of all relatively-clueless non-developers everywhere.  But then I went back to flickr and winged it, and lo, there's that pesky API key, so maybe I'm not as clueless as I often fear I am -- but others might be even more confused about this than I am.

Or maybe it's just me; web 2.0 seems to be evolving rapidly, and I only just kinda figured out web 1.0.  All this social network stuff makes about as much sense to me as the average "reality show" -- but I'm a hermit, so that's probably not really a shocker.  But I've got flickr pics doing a slideshow thing in my sidebar, so I guess I'm happy. 

What I'd really prefer there in the sidebar is one of those blocks of thumbnails, like you sometimes might see in a "who's online" context -- but I'd want it to be my flickr pics, or in any case, some pics somewhere, rather than online or most recent members/users.  Yeah I could code the straight HTML, and make all the thumbs too, but that's a really web 1.0 way of doing it; there must be something more elegant nowadays.

Thx,

Andria

It's actually fairly straightforward; it's just the "nomenclature" in use at Flickr that was my stumbling block, I think -- I don't really think of a sidebar slideshow being an "app" -- and though I'm fully conversant with HTML/CSS, I can't really think of myself as a "developer" -- HTML being primarily a display-formatting language, I guess I'm more of a "formatter" -- a designer, really -- not a programmer.

Basically, the steps are

1) get a flickr account, if you don't have one already;

2) upload some pics, and put them in a "set";

3) in Mojo, edit a page, and add the feature "Flickr Slide Show";

4) view the page, and you'll see the red text prompting you to enter various details for the feature;

5) click the "monkeywrench" to edit the feature instance;

6) in the blanks provided, enter your Flickr username, and the pixel dimensions you want the slideshow to be;

7) for the API key requested:

  a) at the Flickr site, you need to request an API -- to save the time and trouble finding where to do that, go to http://www.flickr.com/services/api/keys/ -- and yes apparently you do want to create an app, if you're requesting an API.

  b) choose non-commercial or commercial version -- non-commercial for most stuff unless you're creating it for a site that's expressly dedicated to turning a profit;

  c) go ahead and describe in the blank provided what you want to do with the resulting slideshow (or whatever it is you're making -- a slideshow in this case);

  d) if you selected non-commercial, your next page will give your API key; in this instance, where you just want to plug it into the Mojoportal feature, you're done -- grab the alphanumeric key and enter it in Mojo in the blank for "flickr API key", beneath the username blank (in the "feature edit" screen for the Flickr slideshow), and once you save, you should then see the slideshow on the page.

  e) if you selected "commercial", you're on your own, and probably know so much more than I do about this sort of thing that you really didn't need these instructions in the first place.

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That's the basic process.  Not sure how well I described it; I did this late last night when my eyelids were 3/4 lowered, which probably accounts for my initial stupidity in recognizing how simple this really is.  If anyone has better terminology for the described actions, please, please feel free to edit -- I can only use the terms I know and recognize, but again -- I'm no developer, so I may not refer to things accurately or appropriately.

Have fun on your mini-vaca, Joe -- the weather here in Atlanta is so totally crap, I could use one myself. 

Andria

Well you're more than welcome; I love mojoPortal, it's so much easier to deal with than any other blog or CMS I've worked with -- everytime I run into one of these issues with mojo that I think is a stumbling block, it ends up being so easy I'm ashamed of how dumb I've shown myself to be. 

When I was initially planning this blog site, I tried out WP again, and looked over my last effort at a blog with Joomla, but there are so many issues with both of them, including the whole "back-end admin" thing, that I finally just setup another mojo site (I recently upgraded my asp.net hosting for an unlimited shared-server account, so I can pretty much setup mojo sites to infinity!).  Not sure yet if I prefer the "blog" feature or just the regular page editing -- though I do really like the ability to show a user-defined-length excerpt, with that read-more link I was inquiring about recently. 

One thing I'd really like to find or figure out is if the order of the posted articles in the blog feature can be rearranged -- right now it's newest to oldest, but I think I'd prefer it the other way, but can't find or figure out if there is any way of changing that, and if so, where that might be.