1. HTML

My ultimate objective is - to keep the html as simple as possible. So, the final product is as following. The first image has a class called "show". Class show has higher z-index, so image with this class will display on top, thus image with this class will always display on top of the rest. The second thing you need to know is the DIV with "caption" class. It has the highest z-index. That DIV will be used to display the caption. The caption is retrieve from the REL attribute in the img element. You can put html element in the REL attribute. Be aware of extra padding and margin of the html elements you used. (eg h1, p).

Have a look at the html code:

CSS

In this section, I declared a container #gallery for this image slide show. The CSS for this tutorial is pretty straight foward, the most importance thing is the z-index. You have to make sure the "show" class z-index is lower than the "caption" z-index.

3. Javascript

Finally, the Javascript code. I have added comments in each line to explain what it does. My concept for this image slide show:

• Hide all the images
• Display the first image and caption
• Find the image with "show" class, and grab the next image using next() method
• Add "show" class to next image
• Animate the image (fadeout the current image, fadein next image)
• And, it repeats above steps over and over again

1. $(document).ready(function() {        
2.       
3.     //Execute the slideShow  
4.     slideShow();  
5.   
6. });  
7.   
8. function slideShow() {  
9.   
10.     //Set the opacity of all images to 0  
11.     $('#gallery a').css({opacity: 0.0});  
12.       
13.     //Get the first image and display it (set it to full opacity)  
14.     $('#gallery a:first').css({opacity: 1.0});  
15.       
16.     //Set the caption background to semi-transparent  
17.     $('#gallery .caption').css({opacity: 0.7});  
18.   
19.     //Resize the width of the caption according to the image width  
20.     $('#gallery .caption').css({width: $('#gallery a').find('img').css('width')});  
21.       
22.     //Get the caption of the first image from REL attribute and display it  
23.     $('#gallery .content').html($('#gallery a:first').find('img').attr('rel'))  
24.     .animate({opacity: 0.7}, 400);  
25.       
26.     //Call the gallery function to run the slideshow, 6000 = change to next image after 6 seconds  
27.     setInterval('gallery()',6000);  
28.       
29. }  
30.   
31. function gallery() {  
32.       
33.     //if no IMGs have the show class, grab the first image  
34.     var current = ($('#gallery a.show')?  $('#gallery a.show') : $('#gallery a:first'));  
35.   
36.     //Get next image, if it reached the end of the slideshow, rotate it back to the first image  
37.     var next = ((current.next().length) ? ((current.next().hasClass('caption'))? $('#gallery a:first') :current.next()) : $('#gallery a:first'));     
38.       
39.     //Get next image caption  
40.     var caption = next.find('img').attr('rel');   
41.       
42.     //Set the fade in effect for the next image, show class has higher z-index  
43.     next.css({opacity: 0.0})  
44.     .addClass('show')  
45.     .animate({opacity: 1.0}, 1000);  
46.   
47.     //Hide the current image  
48.     current.animate({opacity: 0.0}, 1000)  
49.     .removeClass('show');  
50.       
51.     //Set the opacity to 0 and height to 1px  
52.     $('#gallery .caption').animate({opacity: 0.0}, { queue:false, duration:0 }).animate({height: '1px'}, { queue:true, duration:300 });   
53.       
54.     //Animate the caption, opacity to 0.7 and heigth to 100px, a slide up effect  
55.     $('#gallery .caption').animate({opacity: 0.7},100 ).animate({height: '100px'},500 );  
56.       
57.     //Display the content  
58.     $('#gallery .content').html(caption);  
59.