To run this code please go to this URL:

http://www.swanvideo.com/slideshow/select.cfm

<admin>
large code snippet removed
</admin>

I'm using ColdFusion 8 and SQL 2000 to query database for image ID and Story ID, which are the same. I can't seem to figure out how to avoid displaying the clickable START of the slideshow, using a text link as shown or an image. Note that I need the title inside the cfoutput query for each story id. All works fine but for the multiple display. Obviously, I'm not understanding something pretty simple. Would you show me how best to run this and eliminate the multiple "start" text?

Simply remove the "start" text that you don't want to appear on the page.
For example:

<div class="floatbox" data-fb-options="group:slides">
  <a href="1.jpg">start</a>
  <a href="2.jpg"></a>
  <a href="3.jpg"></a>
  <a href="4.jpg"></a>
  <a href="5.jpg"></a>
</div>

Of course I thought of that from the beginning.

If I remove the start text, there's nothing for the user to click on to begin the slideshow.

What am I missing here?

Click on the one "start" text that remains after removing the four you don't want.

Are you serious? I don't get it. Is that your solution? It won't work. It cannot work.

The "start" text, or image, if I used it, is wrapped inside a ColdFusion cfoutput query; meaning for each of the ID's, the text will be repeated. My code should make that obvious. I cannot remove every "start". My code is just an example. The working page has over 600 entries so if I actually used this, "start" it would be repeated over 600 times.

I prefer to use an actual image but for simplicity, I just used the "start" text.
However, I assume you must know this. I'm asking for a working way around the problem with this dynamically created page. I don't know how to put the question any simpler. This is not a static page where I can simply remove each "start". You must have something very basic to make this happen, something I'm overlooking or don't understand.

If you don't understand what I'm asking, please ask me a question.
Assume I'm a novice, which I am and I need your help and understanding. Show me how to get my code, with the looping cfquery code, to work, so that the user has just one link upon which to get the slideshow moving.

It sounds like you want help authoring the page HTML using ColdFusion. That's not a service that Floatbox support provides. I can tell you the HTML markup you need on the page to accomplish what you are trying to do. It's your job to write or generate that HTML. It's really simple HTML and shouldn't be much of a challenge to write from any authoring tool.

If you don't want clickable content in a link, don't put clickable content in the link. I agree that this answer sounds so trivial as to be silly, but it is the full and correct answer.

I now understand that what you are really after is assistance with your ColdFusion back-end code that will output that HTML. As mentioned, that's outside of the scope of Floatbox support.

Algorithmically, it's as simple as

if firstLink then text = "start"
else text = ""