Melbourne ecommerce theme - editing your slideshow

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  Home page slideshow

The Melbourne theme includes a responsive slideshow on the home page that resizes based on the size of the device your customer is using.

Your home page slideshow can have up to 5 images, with a choice of 2 different transitions, and the option to speed up or slow down the slideshow. You can also add a title, caption, and a button that links to other pages. The slideshow resizes for different devices, and looks gorgeous on tablets and phones.

Edit your slideshow in the Design & assets -> Theme editor section of your store's Toolbox. There you can upload new slideshow images, and enter captions and links, and select the position of your captions. This can be found in the Home Page - Slideshow section'.

You will need to upload your slideshow images at a good resolution... at least 2048px wide, as the images are stretched out on very large screens. The optimal size for your slideshow images is 2048px × 600px (or 1290px × 480px if widescreen mode is disabled). You can do this using most image editing programs, but many people find Pixlr useful.

If you are not using the text overlays on the slideshow and adding your own text into your images, you'll need to create images to ensure that bits of your text aren't chopped off on mobile devices. The slideshow scales to display on all devices, but if you are putting text in your images, you'll need to bear in mind that the width that is displayed when scaled on mobile devices is 778px wide in the centre of the image. When creating your images, you'll need to ensure that any text you put in there is within the 778px area.

Using Pixlr to create a slideshow image

Pixlr is a free online image editing program, where you can edit your images in your web browser.

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  Pixlr editor

1. Go to the Pixlr editor
2. Click "Create a new image"
3. Set the size recommended above, and click OK
4. You now have your canvas to work within. You will need to explore the various tools and options. You can add your own images in Pixlr in the bottom right by clicking the + symbol. This adds the image as a layer that can be moved around. You need to make sure when you're doing this, that you don't stretch your images. You can do this by holding down the shift key when re-sizing.
5. When your slide is looking gorgeous, save it by choosing "Save" at the bottom of the page.
6. Choose JPEG for your format, and set your quality to high
7. When you've saved the file to your computer, upload it by following the instructions above.

Updating your slideshow

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  Home page slideshow

Edit your slideshow in the Design & assets -> Theme editor section of your store's Toolbox. Scroll down on this page until you find the section called Home page - Slideshow. Make sure you delete the demo images, captions, and links that are currently there before you start to upload your own images.

• Number of slideshow images - Your first option is to select the number of images to use in your slideshow. Set this to the number of images you have ready to upload.

• Slideshow transition - by default we've chosen the fade transition, as it's not too distracting. If you're after something a little more dynamic, choose one of the slide transitions.

• Slideshow speed - If you have only 2 images, set this to slow. If you have 3 or 4 images, set this to medium. If you have 5 images, set this to fast. If you're using captions on your images, you should view your store and make sure the slideshow isn't too fast for your customers to read the captions!

Underneath this section, there is a section for each individual slide;

• Upload image - To upload an image to your slideshow, click the "Choose file" button, and select the image on your computer. Make sure your images are 2048px wide × 600px (or 2048px × 762px if widescreen mode is disabled) high or they will be stretched. There's a tutorial on this page with step by step instructions on getting your slideshow images the correct size.

• Title - If you want title text to appear as an overlay on your slide, enter the text here. You should preview it to make sure you haven't written too much text. This field accepts text only. Entering HTML here may have unpredictable results. If you don't want a caption, or have included the text you want in your slide image, you should leave this field blank.

• Caption - If you want text to appear as an overlay on your slide, enter the text here. You should preview it to make sure you haven't written too much text. This field accepts text only. Entering HTML here may have unpredictable results. If you don't want a caption, or have included the text you want in your slide image, you should leave this field blank.

• Button text - If you want a button to appear as an overlay on your slide underneath the title and text, enter the text you want to appear on the button here. Generally you want tis to be a short call to action like "See More" or "Buy Now". If you don't want a button, you should leave this field blank.

• Button Link - If you want your button link somewhere, enter the page address that you want to link to. You should ALWAYS enter your links as relative URL's. To get the relative URL of a page on your store, view the page in your web browser, and copy the address of the page that's directly after your domain. e.g. if your page is at "joes-widgets.spiffystores.com/pages/blue-widgets", the relative url of this page is "/pages/blue-widgets".

• Position - Choose to display your caption and button on the left or the right of the slide. Generally to get this looking great, you'll need to look at your image and choose which side to crop so that you get a good point of focus.

• Colour - If your image is dark, you should set this to "Light". If your image is light, you should set this to "Dark". You may need to adjust your image before uploading to get it to work nicely with the overlay text and button.

When you are done editing your slideshow, or want to save it to view it in your store, scroll down an click the Save Settings button.

HELP! - My slideshow photos are blurry!!!

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  Pixelated or blurry images don't look too great! Make sure you source good quality photos for your slideshow, and upload them at the correct size!

If your slideshow images look blurry, they were either uploaded blurry, or aren't high enough quality to be used in your slideshow. You'll need to source higher quality images.

You will need to create your slideshow images at the correct size of 2048px × 700px (or 2048px × 762px if widescreen mode is disabled) so that they're not stretched or squashed. You can do this using most image editing programs, but many people find Pixlr useful. That's why we've included instructions above on this page on how to get your slideshow images the correct size :-)

You should ensure you source good quality photos for your slideshow, as this is the first thing your customers will see when they visit your site and set the tone of their shopping experience. Spend time to get your slideshow images looking gorgeous, as cheap looking, unprofessional or ugly images will will definitely have a negative effect on your sales.

You can also email us if you need help getting your slideshow images looking gorgeous! You will need to send your images to us attached to your email if you want any help with this.

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