Slideshow on a web page
Cycle2 is the best - simple to use with a lot of options. Since the code is available only through HTTP (http://malsup.github.com/jquery.cycle2.js), not HTTPS, it is better to download the code instead of using the HTTP URL to avoid browser warnings for HTTPS websites. Cycle2 is mobile friendly.
Sliderman.js is not bad. It is more involving to use than Cycle2. Its requirement to specify image dimensions is a show stopper for some scenarios. It is not mobile friendly.
If a slideshow has only a few relatively small images, jQeury Cycle Plugin is great. It preloads all the images before starting a slideshow. It become inappropriate when total size of all images is large (e.g. multiple MB's). Ajax slideshow is a must.
Google AJAX Slide Show does the job well. It has two limitations:
- It takes images only from Media RSS. This is not a problem, but an advantage if one prefers to store and manage images on popular sites such as PhotoBucket, Flickr, and Picasa Web Albums. Google+ Photo can work too, but it seems to feed only low resolution photos. Picasa Web Albums Data API can be applied to Google+ photo. Unfortunately, Google AJAX Slide Show appears to use thumbnails instead of the presened images. Fortunately, the thumbnail size can be specified. For example, to display images of size 640 pixels, the following URL can be used: "https://photos.googleapis.com/data/feed/api/user/{user ID}/albumid/{album ID}?alt=rss&imgmax=640&thumbsize=640u" where imgmax=640 is used out of caution just in case Google AJAX Slide Show starts to use the images not thumbnails as expected. "u" of "640u" is for making sure the images are uncut.
- No variation of transition. In other words, it generates only plain vanilla slideshows.
Creating RSS can be fairly easy with tools such as those from .Net, but creating Media RSS that meets the requirement of Google AJAX Slide Show is an involving job. Many XML elements seem to need to be defined.