jQuery Forum

the simple overview of how it works is :

location object contains multiple properties of the url accessible with javascript
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/window.location

window.location.hash if present, returns a string

the string has to be parsed to remove the "#"
when working with strings in jQuery you use native javascript string methods
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String

the starting slide value must be a number, not a string
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/parseInt

In order to create non numeric hashes you will need to do something like create an array of the words you want to use for URL's and add a function to locate the index position of the word in the array to pass as the starting slide integer as well as convert the index of the slides into words in the "after" callback
http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.inArray/

This is all reasonably straightforward for a single show in page. Multiple shows will require a more complicated hash system and addiitonal parsing functions to break the hash up into as many parts as you have shows.

Suggest you look to using the jQuery BBQ plugin to handle more than one show to accomplish what you want

 

Wow, thanks for the extremely thorough and generous reply. The topic is new to me, so I've got a lot of catching up to do. BBQ is really impressive but it's overkill for my needs. What I need is more rudimentary: just some way for people to be able to bookmark and share an individual photo from a Cycle slideshow on a page that has multiple slideshows. In other words, it's totally fine if slideshow widget #2 overwrites the hash values from slideshow widget #1, and so forth. And I don't need uniquely semantic hash "titles" for each image in each slideshow. I would just like for each slideshow as a group to be distinguished in the hash. So it should be pretty simple!

At this point, I'm struggling with how to parse the URL in order to get strings and integers for the respective "startingSlide" options, and how to write the "if" statements. (I realize this is low level stuff but I'm really trying!) Some of my slideshows will have less than ten images, and some will have ten or more, if that's relevant to the method used.

Malsup says here that the "parseInt" line on the original demo page code is no longer necessary due to changes in the plugin since the demo was written. So that's cool--I hope I'm understanding that correctly. But I'm not even that far.

Below is the basic pattern that I'm trying to develop. I hope my intentions are at least clear. Any help in pulling this across the finish line (and conforming to best practices) is again very appreciated.

1. $(function() {
2. var babiesindex = 0, puppiesindex = 0, kittensindex = 0; //start all indexes at zero (first image)
3. hash = window.location.hash; // get hash from url
4. slidenum = /\d+/.exec(hash)[0]; // malsup's regex gets the numerical part of the hash? 
5. 
   
6. if hash contains "babies" then set babiesindex = (slidenum || 1) - 1 // How best to do all this? A better approach?
7. if hash contains "puppies" then set puppiesindex = (slidenum || 1) - 1 
8. if hash contains "kittens" then set kittensindex = (slidenum || 1) - 1
9. }
10. 
    
11. $('#babiesshow').cycle({
12. startingSlide: babiesindex,
13. after: function(curr,next,opts) {
14. window.location.hash = 'babies'  + (opts.currSlide + 1);
15. }
16. });
17. $('#puppiesshow').cycle({
18. startingSlide: puppiesindex,
19. after: function(curr,next,opts) {
20. window.location.hash = 'puppies'  + (opts.currSlide + 1);
21. }
22. });
23. $('#kittensshow').cycle({
24. startingSlide: kittensindex,
25. after: function(curr,next,opts) {
26. window.location.hash = 'kittens'  + (opts.currSlide + 1);
27. }
28. });
29. });