Related Posts Slider WordPress Plugin

List of related posts at the end of content or in sidebar let the visitors explorer similar posts from the blog. What if those listed posts appear in a slideshow with image from those posts. That will definitely attract visitors to click on the post to read more, and in that way the pageviews will increase on your blog. Many of us use links or thumbnails to showcase related posts, but how about having a box with movable or sliding contents. In case of thumbnails, you add very limited number of posts as related content, but in slider, you can add as many related contents as you want. As you know, showing related content on a post increases keyword strength which is good for getting more traffic from search engines.

Keeping these things in mind, we have come up with a plugin named “Related Posts Slider“ to show related posts in a slideshow on self hosted WordPress blogs. Related Posts Slider (RPS) will showcase related posts on different locations in your blog in a slider format where visitors can click on the link in left panel and see excerpt and featured image from that particular post in right panel. As our focus in this plugin is to showcase related posts in a sliding format, so worked on that only.

Demo

We have not worked on getting related posts as there are so many plugins available for the same purpose. For using “Related Posts Slider” on your WordPress blog, you will have to use “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” also known as YARPP plugin or WordPress Related Posts Plugin (not both, just use one of these two) which is available for free on WordPress Plugin Directory. We picked YARPP because it is the most used related posts plugin with maximum customization and options. In future upgrades, we will try to make “Related Posts Slider” compatible with more related posts plugins like WordPress Related Posts.

Features and Benefits of Related Posts Slider plugin

1. Showcase related posts in slider format, either in news style or in horizontal carousel format
2. Arrow navigation to see more related posts, so add as many related posts as you want
3. Complete CSS customization from settings panel
4. 2 Pre Styled CSS provided with the plugin, one for dark colored theme and other for lighter theme
5. SEO benefits of showing more related posts on the post content page
6. Compatible with YARPP plugin and WordPress Related Posts Plugin
7. Widget option available for Related Posts Slider
8. Shortcode option to insert “Related Posts Slider” in between the content of a post
9. Translation ready

Adding related posts slider on your post content page will increase pageviews as well as the average time per visitor on blog.

1. If Yet Another Related Posts (YARPP) plugin is already installed then go to step 2. If no, then install and activate YARPP plugin on your WordPress blog
2. Download “Related Posts Slider” plugin and upload on your WP server at location “wp-content/plugin” folder thru FTP
3. Activate “Related Posts Slider” plugin from “Plugins” page
4. By default, the preview slider of related posts will start appearing automatically by end of the post content. You can change the placement of the slider from below the content to above the content or manual insertion from the plugin settings panel.

In case of manual insertion, You need to add the below piece of code in single.php (in most WP themes),

[code]<?php if(function_exists('get_related_posts_slider')) {get_related_posts_slider();} ?>[/code]

Now you can see the related posts appearing in a slider format at the location preferred by you.

As Shortcode support is available in Related Posts Slider, you can use the below shortcode anywhere in the post content to add the preview slider of related posts.

[rps]

You can customize the “Related Posts Slider” width, height, background and foreground colors, font size etc. from the plugin settings panel. For more information on that, read the plugin customization details.

Frequently asked questions for Related Posts Slider

Q. Related Posts are not appearing on the slider. Why the slider box is blank?

A. If the slider is not showing any related posts on the content page, it means YARPP is not able to pick related posts. You should customize the YARPP settings to select related posts properly. As YARPP is having threshold values and number of related posts options, you will have to set proper values to get related posts. To check whether YARPP is able to get related posts or not, the best way is to open the post in edit window and see the YARPP box which shows related posts in a list format.

Q. There is no change in the layout and design of related posts showing thru YARPP. Why so?

A. Even if you are using YARPP on your blog before installing Related Posts Slider, you will have to change the template code from YARPP code to Related Posts Slider code to get the posts in slider format.

Q. Is it compulsory to install “Yet Another Related Posts” plugin to install and add “Related Posts Slider”?

A. No. You can also install ‘WordPress Related Posts Plugin’ which is a bit lighter for the server (utilizes less resources) in case if you do not wish to use YARPP. Related Posts Slider is compatible with both the plugins.

Q. Is widget option available in Related Posts Slider?

A. Yes, Widget is available for RPS. You can add the slider in sidebar or any other widget ready area on your WordPress blog theme.

Q. Related Posts Slider is showing duplicate posts as the related posts. Any help?

A. Latest version of Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) i.e. V3.2 is having a feature of related posts cache. Because of that, YARPP is showing duplicate posts as related posts and as Related Posts Slider takes the posts generated by YARPP to show them in slider, RPS is also showing that bug. But you can solve this bug at your end by adding &action=flush to the end of YARPP setting’s URL, read more about the fix for issue on this page.

Version 2.0 (02/26/2012)

1. Fix: Upgrade to go with YARPP latest version i.e. version 3.4.3
2. Feature: Now you can specify number of items to scroll at once in Horizontal Carousel format of RPS

Version 1.3 (02/05/2011)

1. Feature: Now supports “WordPress Related Posts” along with YARPP
2. Feature: Added new slider format i.e. horizontal carousel using jCarousel jQuery plugin
3. Fix: Shortcodes (like “caption”) were appearing in slider excerpt in preview section, fixed that.
4. Feature: Made the plugin translation ready

Version 1.2 (02/13/2011)

Version 1.2 (01/30/2011)

1. Upgrade to go with YARPP upgrade i.e YARPP 3.2. Do upgrade if using latest version of YARPP

Version 1.1 (01/29/2011)

1. Fix – Sometimes below content, the slider was not getting atatched. Rather it was showing [rps]. This was when the content contains shortcode at the end. This update fixes the issue.

Default style CSS of Related Posts Slider

For Dark Color Themes – Dark Codrops CSS Color

Horizontal Carousel Format

Important!! => Before installing this plugin, install either
1)Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (also known as YARPP), which is freely available on WordPress Plugin Directory. YARPP is one of the best related posts plugin for WordPress blogs and sites.

2)WordPress Related Posts Plugin, which is also freely available on WordPress Plugin Directory. WordPress Related Posts plugin consumes less server resouces than YARPP but also has fewer options to pull the related posts as compared to YARPP.

Download Related Posts Slider 2.0

Credits
1. Compact News Previewer
3. jQuery JavaScript Library
4. WordPress Codex

WP Post Tabs

http://www.videogamergalaxy.com Cstrfreak

Great job with this plugin! Absolutely amazing! Thanks
http://www.devilsduke.com/ Kishore Mylavarapu

Great work .. superb plugin.
http://www.wppluginsblog.net Bilal Ahmad

I Reviewed the plugin in my blog. It is superb plugin. Great job admin.
http://techlunatic.com rohan @techlunatic.com

what effect does it have on the sites load time? wont using an additional plugin slow down the site? you can pull off the same effect with wordpress inherent features like shortcodes. and it will have a zero downtime since they are inherently called after the entire page has finished downloading.
On a diferent note, this is my first visit to your site an i must say this is the best customization of the thesis i have ever seen, good job there, and i am following your blog from now.:)
http://www.clickonf5.org Sanjeev Mishra

Hi,

I am glad that you liked our theme but this is not thesis or a custom thesis but a separate theme developed by Tejaswini. About the plugin, as adding plugins will definitely put certain load on site or server but its all about having an optimized plugins. As the plugin developed by Internet Techies Team goes thru so many optimization test, you will not find much difference on page load time after installing our plugins. Of course, the plugin will not cause downtime on your blog as it is just using the extracted posts from YARPP.

Thanks for reading Internet Techies, hope to see you more here.
http://www.niharsworld.com/ Nihar

Great plugin Sanjeev.

It will definitely try this to reduce the bounce rate.

I will let you know if i find any bugs or suggestions to share with you.
Adriana Almeida

Hi. Amazing job with this plugin. Tks for that.

But I have a big problem…

Until today, the plugin was working perfectly. I was having the problem with the [rps] in some pages, so, I got really happy with the upgrade. But now, the plugin does not work anymore… It show only the same page who is calling the plugin (ex: Post 1 show as related post: Post 1)

Since the YARPP had a upgrate too, first I think that the problem is with YARPP, but I ask this plugin to show the related topics automatically, outside of RPS, and it work just fine, showing all the related posts as it should do…

Any help? I do something stupid or the new version is with problems?

Tks for your work and attention and sorry my poor english!
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

Thank you Adriana for bringing the point in notice.

The YARPP upgrade in version 3.2 had some changes, that caused the issue. I just released the new version of RPS (i.e. 1.2) which will go with YARPP 3.2

Please test it and let me know if it works.
Regards,
Tejaswini
Adriana Almeida

Working like magic!

Thanks!
http://essepunto.it S.

I’ve a problem in my blog. The posts in the right column don’t scroll. Is the first install so I can’t know if is a problem of the plugin or of the theme. You can see a sample post here http://essepunto.it/2011/02/lg-optimus-one/.
http://pokerplasm.com PokerPlasm

Great plugin! I am having a bit fo difficulty getting it to run here: http://www.canadagolf.com/destinations/excellent-courses-golf-vacation-ontario-canada/

Everything works, except when I click on the titles on the left, it doesnt change on the right. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

It seems that jQuery is loading twice on your post. Please check as this can be a JS conflict. Also, please use the Internet Techies Support System at clickonf5.com to create the ticket. This will help me to respond to your query fast, as I do not keep track of queries in comment section.

Thank you.

-Tejaswini
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

I am not able to open the site, may be server is down this time.
Please use the Internet Techies Support System at clickonf5.com to create the ticket. This will help me to respond to your query fast, as I do not keep track of queries in comment section.

Thank you.

-Tejaswini
http://www.netchunks.com Shiva Chettri

Hello Tejaswini,

The plugin is really cool and I like it a lot, I am using it in my blog but I am wondering why this plugin is showing related posts even under my “Pages”, is not there any option to show the Related posts box only below the “Single Posts”. Check this for an example “Page” where it is displaying – http://www.netchunks.com/write-for-us/
http://adammitchellambert.com Melody

The previous and next tab and links of 2nd to other related post don’t work (post links can’t be executed).
http://www.netchunks.com Shiva

It would have been great if you could add the related posts fetching feature in this very plugin itself since that way we may be able to save server resources, Even one plugin makes a lot of difference to the server load specially if you have a lot of other plugins installed. Nevertheless a great plugin, thanks a lot for this contribution to the community.
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

Thank you Shiva for a valuable suggestion. I would definitely think implementing an inbuilt related posts fetching capability in the upcoming upgrade. Well, also thanks for the compliments. We are working hard to make it more useful in coming days.
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

Hi Melody,

Can you please create a support ticket at clickonf5.com so that I can look into it as well as keep track of it?
-Tejaswini
http://www.clickonf5.org Tejaswini

Hi Shiva,

I hope you have resolved the issue. I am giving this answer for other readers.

In such cases when you do not want the slider on pages, just want in on posts, select the ‘Manual’ insertion method and embed the Related Posts template tag in your single.php at appropriate position. Do not put it on page.php as it is a WP default template used for pages.

Thanks,
Tejaswini
http://eyuva.com Vivek Sancheti

hi ,

im in love with this plugin.
I wanna use it on my blog eyuva.com but problem is that your plugin makes some changes in footer section of my template and as i am using an free template it doesnt allow to change anything footer section.

so it there any solution for this ?

when i use this plugin my template shows license violation message.

please help me out.
http://www.quantapoint.com/test2/ James McGill

I have been looking for a featured content slider with a vertical carousel and this seems to fit the bill perfectly, except it looks for related posts. Is there a way to specify that this use specific posts or pages for “featured content”?

I really hope you say I can do so!
http://www.clickonf5.org Sanjeev Mishra

Wait for few days as you will get that in our own “Smooth Slider”. Thanks for your patience.
http://www.clickonf5.org Sanjeev Mishra

If you are facing any issue related to our plugin, you can create a support ticket at http://clickonf5.com to get that resolved soon. Thanks
http://themenfreund.de Marcus

Smooth Slider works very Good on my blog.

But I would have it with pleasure so this slide endless and not return to the first Post.

Is ist possible?

Thx for an answer
http://kazancexpert.com/ KaEx

Thanks for this awesome plugin.
I agree with Marcus and how can i edit size of widget? Because, sidebar area small from post area.
mitra

Hi,
I have implementing my blog and I have used this plugin with YARPP . WordPress version is 3.3.1. Its working but it can’t shows the arrows, left and right both. In a post, there are 6 related post, but it only showing 5 related post, bcoz I can’t scroll.
So what should I do?
please help.
Thank you.
DBW

This is a great plugin!!!

Would be great if you could create multiple sliders with category, tag specific and have the possibility to implement manually in to the theme with parameters.

Eg. 3,”max” => 6)); ?>

Maybe also [shortcode] with slider [id].

Lastly would be nice to configure the Sidebar Widget and actually have a Widget Title than breaking the theme sidebar look.

Thanks……keep up the good work guys! You make every every Related Post Slider user look special
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/related-posts-slider/ Satyendra Kumar Chauhan

What is Short Code and how add feature in this plugin.

Thanks.
http://www.mahdiyavar.com/news/ روح الله

Thanks for this awesome plugin.
http://futurepocket.com Future Pocket

Just wondering if I could request this to be integrated with the “Efficient Related Posts” plugin instead of the two it currently integrates with? Love the plugin and styling, but if it could somehow work with that one, it would be marvelous! Perhaps in a new update?
http://thomasandman.de Tim S.

Hey, plugin seems to be very great…BUT: it doesn’t work for me…not at all

1. I’ve installed YAARP. Doesn’t work, too. No related posts, nothing.
Before I’ve noticed YAARP after installing your related posts slider plugin, I usually used
the plugin “IGIT Related Post With Thumb”. And this one WORKS perfectly.

2. I’ve tested your plugin with YAARP and without (just the standard WP-Related-Posts).
I doesn’t see anything..

3. My WordPress installation is the latest 3.xx and I’ve nearly no other plugins installed which
could influence the related posts one. I’ve deactivated every other plugins to test this, but
without any results.

Can you please help me and give some tricks? Would be wonderful

With best regards from Germany (sorry if it’s too hard to read)

Tim S.
Diego Vagnoli

this plugin is good, but needs an upgrade. It contains the method “has_cap” that has been deprecated since wp 2.0
AndorNagy

Nice plugin, but I’m wonder how is it selecting the related posts? By key word or category?
http://www.facebook.com/GhenciuCiprian Ghenciu Ciprian

Hi. Error: wp-admin/admin.php?page=related-posts-slider.php

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page
http://www.facebook.com/cris.mcconkey Cris McConkey

I have the same problem on one site, but not another (using a different theme). I am wondering if I have to reset permissions somewhere to get this plugin to work
sackerly

This slider has started to appear on both posts AND PAGES on my site – how can I turn off the slider on pages? Thanks!
http://www.facebook.com/boyang.zhang.9 Boyang Zhang

What a nice plug in. Thank you so much for this. I have one question tough. How can I change the grey color of the slider array in horizontal carousel mode?
http://www.facebook.com/ibrahimah86 Ibrahim Ali Hamad

it doesn’t work on my blog 3.4.2
please i want to know what the problem is?
http://twitter.com/computersneaker ComputerSneaker

You have provided the links are not working because when it redirects me to that page, it is not giving me the sliding effects not even at wordpress official website.