Using SlideShowPro For Lightroom (Multiple Albums, Single Gallery)

Before we get started I'd encourage you to first re-read the original tutorial on creating and exporting a single album slideshow in Adobe Lightroom. The entire process this time will be slightly modified and will require an additional slideshow to be exported as well as a little experience in web development and a text editor like Dreamweaver, BBEdit, TextWrangler (free), or Textmate. Do not attempt to modify your XML files with a word processing / rich text editor like Microsoft Word or TextEdit in OS X. So go ahead in Adobe Lightroom and use the Export feature to create another slideshow folder with everything you'll need for the second album.

Inside of the originally outputted Adobe Lightroom folder from the first slideshow is a gallery-like folder named album1. We've gone ahead in the previous tutorial and moved the album1 folder (1) into our chosen Freeway site folder. Since we are going to be adding a second album to our previous slideshow gallery, we'll need to first rename our gallery-like folder album1 from our newly outputted Adobe Lightroom SSP folder to now be album2 and then we'll need to copy that folder over into our original published site folder (2) so that it matches the published site folder structure in the image above.

The next step involves opening the second album's images.xml file, in your chosen text editor, from the recently created second album folder. You'll then need to copy everything from the <album> (1) element to the closing </album> element (2).

Now open up the first album's images.xml file, in your chosen text editor, and you'll need to create a new line after the last closing </album> element (1) and then paste in what you copied from the second album's images.xml file (2). Your first album's images.xml should now have two <album> groups inside (3). Finally, you'll need to change all address mentions of album1 assigned in the second album group to album2 (4).

With your folder structure in tact and your second album folder name now correctly changed, plus the XML file edited so that all paths are pointing to the right places, go ahead and preview your slideshow in any browser. Click on the Gallery button (1) at the top-left of the the SSP navigation area. Your second album should now be appearing together in one gallery window. If you want to add additional albums you'd rinse and repeat this process. That's it, enjoy!