mouser thanks for your nice words.
-adi_barb
+1

[1] when clicking on [selected] there will be a dropdown which will display the categories and when a category is selected, the last picture and question posted in that category will appear in the slideshow. I'm afraid if there will be tens of categories the dropdown will be annoying being too high. I'm also not sure about what to do with the "topics" there.
[2] I think a black background will not match the rest of the design and think about the fact that there could be uploaded pictures with small sizes. Big slideshows looks great due to the large size of the images
e.g: buildinternet.com/project/supersized/default.php
[3] in the picture, there is no header and footer. I'm a little bit confused about how people will get on the previous page or homepage.
-adi_barb
(Adi, I numbered your points.)
The main idea of the slideshow is to focus on the images (and questions) with as few distractions as possible.
[1] misunderstanding: I meant these to be links to the Categories & Topics
pages.
I'm not even sure if that's a good idea. Maybe best leave it out completely.
[2] Point taken. Thoughts: A black background is commonly used for slideshows - think of Flickr and Picassaweb. They are otherwise white background so maybe it doesnt clash so much because of that?
The blue background could be used successfully - but only if it is kept very minimal IMO.
[3] Normally you get out of a slideshow by clicking on the close button - if that said [Home] instead of [x close] I think it would be clear (?)
Re header & footer:
Slideshow is about images. They have to be the focus.
Say we used the layout of the individual question page and put the controls beneath the image - many people would have to scroll down to see the full image or to get to the controls. That's why I dont want the header.
Also dont want the header or footer becasue they distract from the images.
~ I'll try doing a mockup of a blue page with the links across the top and see how that looks.