bxCarousel is an easy to use and customizable jQuery carousel plugin.

It allows specifying number of elements to display, number of elements to be slided and has optional prev-next controls.

It can work manually or with the "auto" mode where the duration between each item, speed and the direction of the transitions can be defined.

bxCarousel works as "infinite loop mode" where the items start to be displayed from the beginning once they are over.

dualSlider is a jQuery content slider plugin which can display any HTML output.

It has a pretty-unique, two-sided interface which both of them slides sequentially and while one side displays the slide, other can present extra information about it.

The plugin can auto-slide the content with the help of a start-pause button or every item can be browsed manually using the prev-next controls.

There are several options offered like the easing effect for each side, their durations and auto display being on or off.

Usually, many of the ready-to-use image sliders (check the best ones in the galleries category) require a specific width-height for a good looking output.

If your images don't have a standard size, jQuery Image Scale Carousel can be for you.

It is a jQuery plugin which auto-scales the images into appropriate height and width keeping their aspect ratio.

The plugin simply converts an array of images to a slider and supports manual browsing with previous-next controls and auto-play.

The download package also includes a PHP-based example which creates the "images array" itself by scanning a given directory.

Info: The website of the resource is in German however, the read-me file inside the download package which explains the details of the resource is in English (Google-translated English version of the website).

Pagemap ImageWall is a free one-file PHP script that enables creating an image gallery like a wall of images.

Once the directory of images is defined, the script creates the thumbnails automatically and shows the original ones with the help of a Lightbox.

The gallery is a single-page one with no pagination and can be customized with settings like background-colors, thumbnail quality, etc.

CU3OX is a free software (for Windows or Mac OS) that enables you to create beautiful and 3D Flash image sliders.

It has support for multiple transition effects like cubic, bounce or elastic where each of them can be customized with:

• the number of pieces
• tween type
• z-distance
• distance
• time
• delay and more

Besides adding images locally, it can get them from Flickr or PhotoBucket and upload with the built-in FTP engine.

Once creating the slider is completed, the software simply generates the code to be inserted inside the web page.

In order to edit the gallery, it is not required to use CU3OX again, updating XML files will be enough.

The output of the software is very similar to CU3ER, the popular 3D Flash image slider where the main difference is "this being a desktop version".

Sudo Slider is a feature-rich jQuery slider plugin that can display any HTML content with various presentation methods.

It is based on the Easy Slider and works by transforming the items in an unordered-list.

The plugin can load the items via Ajax and display them with slide or fade effects.

You can use multiple sliders in one page and it has support for forward-back browsing (every item can be bookmarked).

It is possible to set the slider to auto-create slide numbers, show prev-next buttons and/or make it work by simply firing an event (like clicking a link, submitting a form, etc.).

The plugin is small in size (~10kb) and unobtrusive.

Blockster is a lightweight jQuery plugin for creating featured content sliders with beautiful effects.

It rotates a a series of divs and displays any side info by pausing for a given period between each other.

The plugin has 2 effects which simply makes the transition between one element to the next block by block but results in an impressive look.

The transitions can be customized by defining the number of rows, columns and the speed.

Blockster normally shows every div in an order but it can be set to display them randomly as well.

SlideshowBox, an impressive kit for creating good looking image galleries easily and instantly, is giving away 5 Premium HTML licenses ($99 value/license) to WRD readers.

Details on joining the giveaway can be found at the end of this post.

What is SlideshowBox?

It is a set of 24 image gallery templates, built by the talented team of Jumpeye Components, with many variants of each from 3D to polaroid and simple to complicated ones.

They are both in Flash and JavaScript (not all of them), so you can select the one that fits the best.

All the galleries use a similar XML file as the data source which makes it possible to switch between galleries within minutes.

The galleries can be customized with the help of variables (speed of the slideshows, background images ,etc.) or a much easier way would be using the SlideshowBox online panel which helps you to customize the galleries quickly.

SlideshowBox comes with multiple versions:

• Free (for non-commercial use)
• Premium HTML (includes all the fully customizable 24 templates for commercial use)
• Premium Flash (includes a Flash component for integrating any of the templates to Flash websites for commercial use)
• Premium Plus (Premium HTML and Flash combined)

To sum up, the kit is very functional for anyone who wants to create an image gallery easily and a time-saver for all web designers/developers.

Also, the demo page featuring all the slideshows says it all.

How to join the giveaway?

There are 2 ways to join the giveaway where you can choose both (to increase your chances) or only one of them:

• Comment to this article.
• Tweet this post with hashtag #wrdssbox (To tweet this instanly, you can click: SlideshowBox: Image Galleries With JavaScript And/Or Flash (5 Premium Licenses Giveaway #wrdssbox).

Winners will be selected randomly on 06 July 2010 (1 week later). Good luck to all.

Codrops, a creative blog on web design/development (mostly jQuery), is sharing a beautiful photo stack gallery that is built with jQuery & PHP.

The gallery can display multiple albums and with the help of prev-next buttons, can paginate within them easily.

Once an album is clicked, it shows the images inside that album with a stack interface that is powered with CSS3's rotate property.

The gallery doesn't require a database. Rather, it scans the "albums" folder (using PHP) and automatically finds the albums and images inside them.

The reflections used only work in Webkit browsers but the overall functionality is compatible with all the major ones.

Gradually is a simple MooTools image slider that can present the images in an order and display an informative text for each (which is sometimes all we need).

It makes use of the HTML5 canvas element to create a beautiful transition effect.

The slider simply requires an unordered list of images (hopefully, with the same size) and uses the alt tag value as the informative text.

Besides the width/height values, the duration and interval when image is switched can be set too.

P.S. The download link at the website currently has a typo (here is the working one).