I have a category devoted just for animated gifs and when these are randomly displayed, the slows down the page tremendously. Is there any way to display say only category id 2,4,8 & whatever in random instead of all of them? I dont mind hard coding this so it doesn't have to be pretty.

You can do this already in IP.

What you need to do is edit the album block for your page (assume for example you have default installation, then the site index page is called "3 Columns").

So essentially select:
1) CMS>>3 Columns>>Album

The actual edit is over 2 pages. The variables / block configuration you need is on second page, so:
2) Click "submit" this takes you to page 2.

3) Enter the categorie(s) to retrieve Pics from.

OK the CMS system is not very transparent (compared to original portal configuration, although it is like this because variables are now page specific rather than site-wide in the old system). It would be nice none-the-less to either be presented with all the options in one page, or else have an obvious link to the second edit page, rather than have to go through 1st page and click submit to see the second edit page. I'm sure MG intended to change it at one stage, maybe he forgot.

Sorry I've written from the point of view of displaying random images via FAP in IP image blocks- is this what you're doing?

ya but i dont have a second page like you descibed. here is what i see:



then i click submit and i see

Is that "ya" you have IP (IcyPhoenix)?

If that is yes, then re-read my first post - you do this through the CMS system, not album configuration.

so sorry i did not know what IP stood for. I do not have IP, I have the FAP version 1.4.1 only.

Could be wrong. but Random also means uploading 'new' pictures that havent been loaded to your browser yet or it's cache has been cleared.

 and if you have a large album...

OK, I'm assuming you mean the random pic block on the main album page ?

Give this a try:

OPEN album.php

FIND

BEFORE ADD

thats it, thanks!