Smooth Slider: Free WordPress Plugin For Slideshow Of Featured Posts

Smooth Slider is a WordPress Plugin for creating a dynamic slideshow for featured posts on a blog. The slideshow created by Smooth Slider are JavaScript and Text based, that’s why bloggers will get full benefit of Search Engine Optimization as the texts are readable by Search Engines. Below are the details related to this plugin, by clicking on each tab you can see that particular detail as well.

Version 2.2 Released

Index | Changelog | Installation | Upgrade | Usage | Credit

Overview: A free WordPress Plugin to assign a post as featured posts on a blog and then create a slideshow with them to show at any location on a blog. Some of the important features of this plugin are as below:

Highlighted Feature (from version 2.2) : Ability to create ‘Multiple’ sliders and an option to decide which post/page should show which slider

1. Search Engine Optimized Slideshow

2. Fully Customizable CSS

3. Choose Posts and Pages as Featured Posts/Pages on Single Click

4. Simple but Decent Slideshow

5. Match Slideshow With WordPress Theme

6. No Need Of Knowledge of PHP, HTML or CSS

7. Easy To Install Plugin

8. Full Support Available

9. Readable by search engine as you can see the screenshot on Lynx browser available on our blog

10. Option for trasparent background, so that rounded corners can be supported

11. Slider Preview in admin panel

12. Can convert to pure image Slider

13. Facility to put Custom Images in place of navigation numbers

14. Images Original Size as well as custom size Option

15. Pick image from content or the custom field

16. New custom field implementation, to allow not to display images on selective posts

17. A new template tag to display Category specific posts on Smooth Slider

18. A new template tag for WPMU, to get slider posts from all over the WPMU site

19. Option to change Read More text and also put it in your language

20. Permission setting option to restrict the users from adding posts to Smooth Slider

21. Remove posts and pages from Smooth Slider selectively or remove all the posts from the slider at one go from the settings page itself

22. Option to retain specific html tags in the slider posts

23. Option to specify custom text or html in place of navigation numbers or buttons

24. Smooth Slider complete uninstall on plugin Delete

25. A new custom field slide_redirect_url can be used for a post/page to redirect that slide to some other custom url other than the permalinkof the post/page

26. The images will be cropped now as per the size, we have used timthumb here. Just be cautious that you use the images on the same domain.

WordPress Version – Requires at least: 2.7

Tested up to WordPress Version: 2.8.6, WPMU 2.8.6

Author: Tejaswini Deshpande

Screenshots: Screenshots for Smooth Slider

Demo: Internet Techies Home Page

Download: Download Link from WordPress for Smooth Slider

Support Forum: Smooth Slider Forum

Version 2.2 (11/24/2009)

1.New – Multiple Sliders can now be created from the settings page. Post/Pages can be selectively put in the slider of your choice. Also, you could decide which post/page should display which slider (from the Edit Post/Page), though the page/single post template file contains regular Smooth Slider tag only.

2.New – Added an option to limit the content on the slider by ‘words’. Previously it was only with number of characters due to which sometimes for some posts the last word on the slider was shown broken. Now you can use any of the two, either limit content by number of characters or number of words

3.Fix – Fixed the issue with get_smooth_slider_cat tag. There was a bug when this tag ws used for home page. Now it is working as per the specifications.

4.Fix – For using the custom images for navigation, there was an issue with ‘getimagesize’ php function for some servers. Removed this fuction and directly put options to specify the custom images height and width.

5.Fix – When the navigation numbers are used, there was some clicking issue, like the numbers needed to be douoble clicked in order to go to that slide number. This issue was observed with some installations of Smooth Slider (like on demo page). Hopefully this would get fixed with this release.

6.Fix – Changed the name of the database table from ‘slider’ to ‘smooth_slider’ in order to avoid probable database conflicts and be more specific.

Version 2.1.2 (11/26/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 2.1.2

1. New – Added an option to change the transition speed between two slides. Now you can control the speed with which one slide slides off and another slides in.

2. New – Added an option to enable the autostepping or autosliding or disable it.

3. Fixed – A blank slide appeared on the slider if the post which is in slider is deleted from wp-admin. Fixed the issue, now if the post which is also in slider is deleted, then it will also be removed from the slider, fixing the blank slide issue

4. Fixed – The scheduled or draft post placed into the slider will not appear on the actual slider. It will appear only in case when the post is published.

5. Fixed – WPMU issue with get_smooth_slider_wpmu_all that the post permalinks direct to a wrong url, that represents the current blog only, though the posts are pulled from other blogs. This issue is fixed in this version of Smooth Slider.

Version 2.1.1 (11/19/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 2.1.1

1. New – Added an option whether to crop images or not. This was essential after version 2.1 because, some of us use the images from other location than the wordpress installation. In that case timthumb does not operate

Version 2.1 (11/18/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 2.1

1. New – Now the images will not be sqashed to fit the size, rather they would be cropped properly. Used timthumb.Caution: Please use the images stored on the same domain on the slider.

2. New – A new custom field slide_redirect_url can now be specified to redirect the slide to another URL than the permalink

3. Fixed – Admin menu dropdown were getting stuck only on Smooth Slider settings page, fixed that issue

Version 2.0 (10/08/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 2.0

1. New – Now you can add pages to Smooth Slider along with posts

2. New – Images Original Size Option

3. New – Pick image from content or the custom field

4. New – New custom field implementation, to allow not to display images on selective posts

5. New – A new template tag to display Category specific posts on Smooth Slider

6. New – A new template tag for WPMU, to get slider posts from all over the WPMU site

7. New – Option to change “Read More” text and also put it in your language

8. New – Permission setting option to restrict the users from adding posts to Smooth Slider

9. New – Remove posts and pages from Smooth Slider selectively from the settings page itself

10. New – Option to retain specific html tags in the slider posts

11. New – Option to specify custom text or html in place of navigation numbers or buttons

12. Fix – Fixed issue of Smooth Slider settings page with Internet Explorer

13. New – Optimized Smooth Slider code internally

14. New – Smooth Slider complete uninstall on plugin Delete

Version 1.2 (09/22/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 1.2

1. New – Slider Preview in Smooth Slider’s setting page

2. New – Facility to set transparent background to the slider

3. New – Facility to Convert it to pure Image Slider

4. New – Remove all the posts from Smooth Slider in one click

5. New – Custom Images in place of navigation numbers

6. Fixed – CSS id names and class name fixed, to avoid probable conflicts with theme styles and other plugin styles

Version 1.1 (09/14/2009) – Check the details about Smooth Slider Version 1.1

1. New – Active Slide in the slideshow will now be highlighted with bolder and bigger navigation number

2. Fixed – Added No Script tag brosers not supporting JavaScript for showing the slideshow

3. Fixed – Issues with WordPress MU Smooth Slider Options update from setting page

This plugin is easy to install like other plug-ins of WordPress as you need to just follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Copy Folder “Smooth Slider” from the downloaded and extracted file.

2. Paste it in “wp-Content/plugins” folder on your WordPress Installation

3. Activate the plugin from Dashboard / Plugins window.

4. Now Plugin is Activated, Go to the Usage section to see how to use Smooth Slider.

You can upgrade the plugin to latest version from Dashboard / Plugins page of your blog. Go to that page, and scroll down to “Smooth Slider”. If you are getting a message that “There is a New version of Smooth Slider is available, View version details or Upgrade Automatically”. Click on “Upgrade Automatically” to get the latest version installed on your WordPress.

You can also download the latest versions from here and then follow the below mentioned method of manual upgrade,

1. Download the latest version of Smooth Slider from this page

2. Extract and Copy the folder “Smooth Slider”

3. Deactivate the Smooth Slider on your blog from Dashboard / Plugins page

4. Replace the Older Folder of Smooth Slider from “wp-content/plugins” folder on your blog installation.

5. Activate the Smooth Slider from Dashboard / Plugins page.

Done! Now you have upgraded the plugin to latest version.

1. If you want the slideshow on your home page, then open Index.php file from “Dashboard” by clicking on Tab “Appearance / Editor” and paste the following piece of code at the suitable place.

if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider' ) ) {
     get_smooth_slider(); }

If you want to put the slider before the list of articles on your WordPress blog homepage, put the above piece of code before the WordPress Loop (the code is a php code, so ensure that it is enclosed within the php tags). WordPress loop code is shown below:

if(have_posts()) : while(have_posts()) : the_post();

Complete example:

<?php if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider' ) ) {
  get_smooth_slider(); }
if(have_posts()) : while(have_posts()) : the_post();
   ....(rest of the loop code)
?>

2. The content in the slider can be picked up from either the post content or the post excerpt or a new custom field slider_content. You can add the custom field on the Edit Post panel for each of the posts.

3. You can also put a thumbnail image for each of the featured post on Smooth slider. All you need to do is create a new custom field slider_thumbnail on the edit post panel for the particular post and put the link or source URL of the image in the value column.

4. Almost all the fields that appear in the Smooth Slider are customizable, you can change the looks of your Slider and make it suitable for your theme. The defaults set are according to the Default WordPress theme. Also, you can change the number of posts appearing in the slider and the pause or interval between the two consecutive posts on the slider. For making these changes, there would be  a settings page for Smooth Slider in the wp-admin screen of your blog, once you enable the plugin.

5. A new template tag to display Category specific posts on Smooth Slider is there. Use get_smooth_slider_cat(‘category-name or category slug’) to get the posts from that category only on Smooth Slider.

Sample call:-

In the php opening and closing tags put the below code wherever you want the slider:-

if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider_cat' ) ) {
     get_smooth_slider_cat(‘google’); }

If you do not pass any value in the tag, then the category of that page would be automatically picked up. For example, you have put this tag on a category template page and now you have opened category page “Google”, then the slider would only display the posts from Google category and when you open “Microsoft” category archive, then the slider would display the posts from Microsoft category only. For this you use this template tag without passing any argument. On the non-category page like home page, all the posts added to slider would be displayed on the slider.

Sample call:-

In the php opening and closing tags put the below code wherever you want the slider:-

if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider_cat' ) ) {
     get_smooth_slider_cat(); }

6. A new template tag for WPMU, to get slider posts from all over the WPMU site is also there. Use the template tag get_smooth_slider_wpmu_all to get the site wide posts on your WPMU installation.

Sample call:-

In the php opening and closing tags put the below code wherever you want the slider:-

if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider_wpmu_all' ) ) {
     get_smooth_slider_wpmu_all(); }

In case of this template tag, only the care you need to take is, if you do not want a certain post from a specific blog on your WPMU site on the Smooth Slider, you need to remove it in the slider. This is because this template tag traverses and finds out the featured posts from each blog on your installation sequentially. So, maybe a single blog having lot many unwanted featured posts can eat up the maximum number of posts on the slider limit specified on your main blog Smooth Slider settings.

7. On the “Miscellaneous” section of the settings page => put all the html tags that you wish to retain in the “Retain these html tags” input field.  Put the tags in the following manner,

<br><a><p>

Don’t separate them using commas, neither use “/” anywhere.

8. If you have selected “First Image from the Content “ (Refer above point), then it may happen that for a certain post you do not wish to display any image though the post has a image in the content. In such case, just populate ‘x’ (without quotes)  in the custom field slider_image_control for that particular post or page. Then no image would be displayed at all. This would enable the selective inclusion of images on the slider.

9. In case you wish to redirect a slide to another URI other than the permalink, you can use the custom field slide_redirect_url for the post/page to specify to which URL you wish to redirect that slide when the visitor clicks on it.

Multiple Sliders Feature

Check this page to read more on ‘Multiple Sliders’ creation and usage feature added in Smooth Slider version 2.2

Previous Releases: Specific Usage Details

==> Newly added usage section for Release/Upgrade 1.2

==> Newly added usage section for Release/Upgrade 2.0

==> How To Display Smooth Slider On The Blog’s Home Page Only

==> Optimize Smooth Slider To Avoid The jQuery Library Load In Head Of Your Posts

Video Tutorial – Smooth Slider

---

---

1. Step Carousel Viewer – for fantastic image and text carousel jQuery plugin. Thanks to Dynamic Drive.

2. FeatureMe WordPress Plugin – serving as a strong base for our development. Thanks to Oscar Alcalá.

3. Farbtastic Color Picker – for fabulous color picker jQuery plugin, we could include it on our settings page. Thanks to Steven Wittens

4. jQuery JavaScript Library – for invaluable jQuery javascript library which made all our tasks so fast and easy. Thanks to John Resig and team.

We also express our thanks to all the plugin developers whose invaluable plugins and codes helped us learn how to write WordPress plugins. And we are always grateful to WordPress Codex whose detailed and flawless guidelines always served as best resource to learn wordpress core and develop the base.