google-photos-slideshow

NOTE: this project is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Google Photos.

A simple, live, communal slideshow.

• auto-updates as photos are added to the album
• live communal controls at http://localhost
• fullscreen mode
• easy to cast fullscreen to a Chromecast and still control from your phone or computer
• dark mode for viewing in a dimmed room

Quickstart

Option 1 : Python install (preferred)

Install

pip install google-photos-slideshow

Run

gpss

• The first time you run this, it will prompt you for the public url to your google photos album.
• Future runs will use the same album unless you specify a different one using --url or use gpss --fresh to get the prompt again.
• See gpss --help for more options.

   👋 Welcome to Google Photos Slideshow
         (not sponsored by Google)

    📜 Instructions:
        1️⃣ Get a shareable link to a Google Photos album 📸.
            - Open Google Photos in your browser 🌐: https://photos.google.com/albums
            - Open the photo album 📖 you want to display and click on it 👆.
            - Copy the URL 🔗 from the address bar 📋.
        2️⃣ 📋 Paste the URL 🔗 below to start the slideshow ✏️.
            - http://localhost will open and you can cast it to your 📺 TV.
        3️⃣ Share the album with attendees 🤝, and they can add 📸 photos as the slideshow runs.
        4️⃣ 🎉 Enjoy your slideshow! 🎥

    When done, press Ctrl + C to stop 🛑.

📋🔗 Enter the google photos album link you copied (or Enter ⏎ to go there 🌐↗️):
📋🔗 Enter the google photos album link you copied: https://photos.google.com/share/ASPFADSOFAMMVsdkmdpaSDFa923masDFAasdfanoij028203jqwmomsdpafm

Starting the slideshow...
Open your browser and go to http://localhost if you are on this computer
Or go to http://192.168.1.17 from another device on the same network (may or may not work depending on your firewall settings)
Ctrl + C to stop the server (or close the terminal)

Option 2 : Executable (if you don't want to install python)

• Download the latest .exe file release from the Releases tab on GitHub (that way =>).
• Double click to run.
• The executable is a simple but does not yet have the flexibility of the python package and could be harder to config.
• Really just meant as an easy Quickstart for users who don't have python installed.
• Uh-oh, Chrome might block the download because it's not a popular download. You can click "Keep" to keep the file but Windows Defender might still block it. Python install is probably easier for now...

View

Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost to view the slideshow.

Options

google-photos-slideshow --help

Folder Slideshow

You can also use a folder of photos on your computer as the source for the slideshow.

folder-slideshow /path/to/folder

Features

Slideshow

• Play/Pause
• Speed
• Next/Previous
• Live Communal Controls
  • anyone viewing the slideshow can control it (pause/play, next/previous, speed control)
• Live reload from source
  • you can add photos to the album as the slideshow is running and they will be added to the slideshow
• Fullscreen mode
• Link to photo source
• Autoplay videos
• Add music
  • spotify?

Support for multiple photo sources

• Google Photos
  • Public link only
  • Maybe add support for authenticated access?
• Local Folder
• Generic list of URLs (or file containing one URL per line)
• Google Drive
• OneDrive
• Flickr
• Instagram
• Facebook

Switching photo sources

• switch to generic config.yaml
• Change photo source live from UI

Photo order

• Random
• New loads first if added during slideshow
• Sort by date
• Sort by filename
• Allow re-ordering from UI

UI

• Dark Mode
• Correct aspect ratio
• Live updating favicon (icon in browser tab)
• Don't cut off photos
• Better icons
• Improve speed control (vertical select 0.125x(0.5s), 0.25x (1s), 0.5x (2s), 1x (4s), 2x (8s), 4x (16s))
• Page title from photo source
• Support fullscreen (and exit fullscreen)
• preview carousel
• Chromecast support
  • Works when on http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1
  • Works when on http://<local_ip>

Upload Options

• Upload button
• Drag and drop
• Take a photo from phone camera
• Add a photo from a URL
• Airdrop to server??
• Bluetooth to server??

Install

• pip install
• Docker
• executable
  • Basic UI for selecting photo source
  • Better UI for selecting photo source
  • Better way to re-config photo source other than modifying config.yaml
• walkthough selecting a photo source
• clear tutorial with photos of how to run each source
• serve by hostname on local network
• walk user through how to serve on their own domain
• offer hosted version

Documentation

• README
  • basic quickstart
  • Quickstart with photos
  • Show photos of end product
  • Feature plan
• Python
  • argparse commandline --help
  • some docstrings
  • full docstrings