About Fluidr

Fluidr presents a new way of exploring Flickr photos and videos.

It was designed to allow you, the viewer, to discover and interact with Flickr photos and videos with as little distraction as possible. This is achieved by:

Large images — On Flickr, after viewing at most the first page of a user's photostream all subsequent pages are filled with small thumbnails. This is not the best way to appreciate photos or videos and so Fluidr only presents users with large images. If you click on an image, an even larger image is seamlessly loaded and displayed (if the creator provided a large image of course).
Far fewer page loads — Photos are loaded as you need them without you needing to locate and click on a 'next' link. This allows you to get through thousands of images without waiting for subsequent pages to load, and without loading images you don't need. You can also add favourites and comments without having to go to a photo or video's own page to do so. Time spent waiting for pages to load can now instead be used to discover more on Flickr.
A simple interface — Fluidr reduces the prominence of all page elements other than the photos and videos themselves. Once in the middle of viewing a stream there are no distracting comments with flashing images getting in the way of you appreciating the photo or video. In addition, the background for all images is black which brings out the contrast and colour in photos and videos.
Keyboard shortcuts — These allow you to get through multiple images without switching between your mouse and keyboard
- Type home key to return to the top of the page
- Type spacebar or → or j to move forward through the stream
- Type ← or k to move backwards through the stream
- Type d to toggle the display of photo descriptions etc. (slideshow mode only, not in Internet Explorer)
- Type z when the current item is a photo to zoom in (slideshow mode only)
- Type v when the current item is a video to begin playback (slideshow mode only)
- Type f to add or remove the current item to your favorites (slideshow mode only)
- Type c to begin entering a comment on the current item (slideshow mode only)
- Type tab followed by enter when in the comment box to post the comment
- Type m to show the current item's location on a map (slideshow mode only)
- Type o to open the current item's page on Flickr (slideshow mode only, you must allow popups)
Sorting by Interestingess — Although viewing a photostream in most-recent-first order is great, sometimes you want to drill down to the best a user or group has to offer. Fluidr allows you to sort by interestingness which allows you to view the best images first. Share a link to this view to display your own photos in a more flattering order.
Shuffle images — You can also display images in random order which prevents users from seeing the same image each time they view your photos, and allows them to see photos deep into your photostream even you might have forgotten having taken. For instance, my e-mail signature has a link to all my best images in a random order.
Explore videos — Although Flickr began as, and will always be, primarily about photos, there are some very creative videos on it. Unfortunately it is rather hard to find them amidst all of the photos. Fluidr offers users the option to filter most views to show only videos. This is particularly useful when viewing the most intersting videos from a specific date. For instance try today's most interesting videos.

Fluidr is a hobby project of Sidath Senanayake (haelio on Flickr) and was initially developed as a way to share photos with friends and family without them having to wait for page loads each time they moved from one large-size image to the next. They soon found that they would get a lot further into a photostream before moving onto something else when they used early versions of Fluidr.

In light of this it was decided to offer Fluidr to a wider audience as a way to give something back to the wonderful Flickr community. Fluidr will always remain free to use and ad-free. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do! If you like Fluidr, please tell your friends about it.

Fluidr relies on 3rd party open source software and has been inspired by other websites. Please see the credits page for more information and attributions.

Credits

The idea behind Fluidr was borne the first time I used Bing's image search. I was taken aback with the feature that allowed you to keep on scrolling through the search results without needing to click on a 'next' link. Being a heavy Flickr user, I thought of putting the two together, and learn some web programming and design while I was at it.

Fluidr would like to thank the following:

The Prototype Javascript Framework — An excellent lightweight library that makes coding in Javascript a pleasure. Clear documentation and an informative user base made developing this site a lot easier.

Highslide JS — Highslide JS code underlies the way Fluidr opens photos when you zoom into them. Highslide is extremely customisable but if you want to dig in and hack with the code yourself you will find it written in a very lucid manner.

Adi Scoarta's calendar widget — An easily extended javascript based calendar widget. It is used to allow for users to chose an arbitrary Explore date.

The PHP.JS Project — Portions of this library are used for Fluidr functionality.

Flickriver — Alex Sirota's website provided useful UI ideas. Flickriver is very similar to Fluidr, and offers some features that Fluidr doesn't provide yet. I highly recommend you head over to his site and try out his profile badges.

InDefero Software Forge — InDefero provides a free and ad-free project hosting complete with SVN and GIT as well as a clean and functional web-based interface to handle issue tracking and documentation. It also allows for the hosting of private projects. You can either download the software and run it on your own server or use their free hosting option.

Firebug — Probably the most useful Firefox extension for web developers, Firebug allows you to debug Javascript, profile network loads, track AJAX requests and edit CSS in real time. This was probably the single most useful tool used when making Fluidr (after my trusty text editor of course).

Flexcroll — When Fluidr encounters particularly long photo and video descriptions it inserts a customized scroll bar which is generated using Flexcroll. This was essential to creating scroll bars that matched well with the dark theme Fluidr sports.

Fluidr is currently in alpha and is a closed project. I intend to open source the code at some point once it is cleaned up. In the meantime, you can track it's progress and provide change requests and issues at Fluidr's project page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Fluidr was designed in the hope that it would be as easy to use as possible. If you are having issues perhaps the following will help answer your question. If not, please try providing feedback and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Why are my pictures visible here?

Fluidr uses the official Flickr API and so can display whatever results it returns. Many other Flickr viewers and tools exist and will also be able to access your photos through the same means.

If you would not like Fluidr display your pictures in general searches, you will have to make a few changes to your Flickr settings. Please follow the following steps:

Navigate to the Hiding Your Account settings page
Select the "Hide your photostream from site-wide searches on flickr.com?" option
Select the "Hide your photostream from searches on 3rd party sites that use the API?" option

Note that this doesn't work if someone specifically searches for you in the user box above; it only prevents your photos appearing in general searches.

Keyboard shortcuts aren't working

Many of the keyboard shortcuts only work when you are in slideshow mode. To enter slideshow mode, simply hit spacebar, j or k. Keyboard shortcuts should then work fine.

How can I be notified of updates to Fluidr?

The easiest way is to follow Fluidr on Twitter.

I'm getting far too many 18+ results!

Firstly, apologies for this! This can be solved by setting the Safe Search settings in your Flickr account. Head on over to this page and select the option that suits you best. Please note that unless you have signed in, you can only view 'safe' content.

Where's the source code?

Currently Fluidr is a closed project, but the plan is to open source everything at some point in the not-to-distant-future. If you would like to contribute to Fluidr in a technical or design capacity, please submit a question via the feedback page.

I like Fluidr! How can I show my appreciation?

Thank you! Fluidr was designed as a way for me to share my photos with my family and friends and so is entirely a personal project and so if you enjoy using it that's enough :) If you really like Fluidr, consider telling your friends to give it a spin or adding it to your favorite Flickr Apps here. If you feel like sending me money—I'm flattered—but no thanks! Please add whatever contribution you had in mind to your next donation to charity instead.