How to Embed Flickr Slideshows in WordPress blogs

The old method for embedding a Flickr slideshow in a WordPress blog no longer works after WP 2.1. Flickr creates really nice Flash-driven slideshows and there’s easy HTML code to embed these shows on regular web pages, but the code doesn’t work on WordPress-driven sites because the (tinyMCE) editor software removes the code. Now there’s a solution.

(If you want to know the history, see my original article about embedding Flickr slideshows, which is based on Paul Stamatiou’s experience with embedding Flickr. It no longer works.)

But now you download the flickrslideshow plug-in from Kumara Sastry and enable it. Then you can use a simple plug-in notation to embed your show. You can only embed a Flickr set, which means you have to do a little work on Flickr, but who cares, it looks beautiful! Substitute your own Flickr user ID and your set’s ID number…here’s the way you embed a show in your blog entry.

[cc][flickr user_id set_id][/cc]

1. Download the plug-in and enable it;
2. Put your photos on Flickr and create a set containing the photos you want in the slideshow;
3. Find out your Flicker user ID or the Flickr ID of the person whose photos you want to show (yes you can show anybody’s public photos);
4. Or you can get your user ID and set ID all in one fell swoop at flickr.com when you are logged in -> Flickr / You / Your sets / (then click the set to show it); look at the URL in the browser header; your user_ID is of this form “numbers@Nxx” and the set ID is the long number at the end of the URL;
5. The slideshow will be 500 pixels wide – if your blog is narrower and you’re comfortable hacking simple PHP you can change the width inside the plugin’s PHP file;
6. Put the [] stuff into your blog entry or page as a part of the text in the page – in my case for the Project Happiness Behind the Scenes set it’s what you see below. The photos in this show are mostly by Shmuel Thayer, who accompanied the Project Happiness group to India:

[cc][flickr 7874830@N02 72157607078483851][/cc]

[flickr 7874830@N02 72157607078483851]