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 links to other pages, and a caption to each slide as well. 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 2000px wide, as the images are stretched out on very large screens. The optimal size for your slideshow images is 2000px x 480px . You can do this using most image editing programs, but many people find Pixlr useful.

Using Pixlr to create a slideshow image

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  Pixlr editor

1. Go to the Pixlr editor
2. Click "Create a new image"
3. Set the width to 2000 and the height to 480, and click OK
4. You now have your canvas to work within. You will need to explore the various tools and options. You can open your own images in Pixlr using "File -> Open image" in the Pixlr menu. You can then copy and paste your images into your slide. 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 "File -> Save" from the Pixlr top menu.
6. Choose JPEG for your format, and set your quality to 80
7. When you've saved the file to your computer, upload it by following the instructions below.

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 somehting 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 960px wide x 400px 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.

• 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.

• Link - If you want to slide to 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".
  
  If you don't want your slide to link somewhere, leave this field blank.

HELP! - My slideshow photos are blurry!!!

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  Ugly or stretched 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 stretched, they were either uploaded stretched, or aren't the size that's required by the theme.

You will need to create your slideshow images at the correct size of 2000px x 480px 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 also 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.