Dear zenphoto community,

first of all thanks for this great software. I'm new to php and feel like doing a lot on try an error. Anyway, because of the good documentation, I got the gallery running, everything was fine so far.
Now I have the idea of putting a special slideshow on my custom index page. It should show the first photos of the albums (same as thumbnails) and name and description. If you click on one of these photos, you should be linked to the picture page of the first photo of the album. It's like a gallery page where you leave out the album page.
I just need a tip to go on. I have seen pages doing it that way...so it is possible...
Is it maybe easier not to go with the included slideshow but trying to set up one on my own? Maybe it is also to difficult to get the right images and text automaticly? Easier to create a folder with all this images? You see, I'm on a point I just don't see the path to go.
I'd be happy if someone could help this ambitious rookie...
Thanks a lot!

Please no double posts...

I would suggest to learn php basics first if you are really that new and get familiar with Zenphoto theme basics as well. You would have to use Zenphoto's object model and of course jQuery/Javascript for the slideshow itself (our slideshow uses the jQuery Cycle plugin). For theming and the object model we have tutorials on the user guide.

Our standard slideshow can be called directly for albums via the object model as well. How is explained here:
http://www.zenphoto.org/documentation/plugins/_zp-extensions---slideshow.php.html (see printSlideShow)