What can I use for having post extracts/summaries with image as slider

[Inga]

The subject line pretty much says it:

Under my normal header, I would like a full-width slider of feature post extracts with thumbnail images. Normal sliders seem to show only images.

This must be possible, because I’ve seen it, and if any theme can do this, surely either Weaver Pro (which I’m currently using) or Weaver Xtreme (to which I plan to switch) can do it.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Inga

[scrambler]

Use the plugins Weaver Show Posts and Weaver Show Slider.

Weaver show post lets you create filters that define a selection of posts and how to display them.

Weaver Show Slider can show these posts in a slider.

The plugins works with any theme

[Inga]

Thanks, Scrambler, but I’m really struggling with this.

I figure what I want is a carousel slider with maybe 5 or 6 posts in 3 cols on a desktop display. 

I got as far as displaying 3 excerpts in 3 cols below the header & above menu, which is okay .. sort of .. . But no “Next” buttons, though specified, and no paging buttons. Basically, I have 3 static excerpts in 3 columns. 

http://thewellness.net/

I want a slider of posts ONLY on the front page, preferably below the menu.

I know how to put a slider INSIDE a post, but I want it above the side bars and main body. I assume this would be in a widget, but so far only the header widget ignores the side bars and displays full-width. 

And I would like a carousel-type display in which posts would slide across the screen automatically, if not clicked, but still allow the reader to choose to move the posts ahead. 

I would like 3 post in 3 cols to show on a desktop.

I would want 2 posts in 2 columns to show on a tablet in vertical mode.

Only 1 post at a time with arrows to the next, etc., on a mobile phone.

IOW, the slider should be totally responsive. 

 

I don’t like the spacing of headings on the current 3 cols. Will I have to make sure that the titles of all “feature” posts are precisely the same length in order not to gimp up the display?

I don’t need the number of comments to show in the slider. How to change that? 

[Inga]

Oh, yeah .. and I set the excerpt length for the slider to 25 words. The results look rather longer to me. 

[scrambler]

You have created the filter to display the post in 3 columns.

What you want now is create a slider, and in the slider options, select the filter you created as the source.

Then Insert the slider and not the show post in your area

[Inga]

Thanks. I thought that’s what I did, but I clearly missed something. 😉 Back to the drawing table .. 

[Inga]

Okay, I’ve been using the “Post and Slider Options.” I now made sure that the “feature” slider used the “feature” filter.

And I inserted the following in the Header HTML:

[show_slider name=”feature”]

But I still don’t get the slider effect. http://thewellness.net/

I might mention that the instructions for “Show Posts” are great – explicit and clear. And the proper shortcode is created automatically. It would help if, after setting the slider option, the tab would show the correct code to insert wherever the slider is supposed to display, just as the “Show Posts” tab does. 

Not so for creating the slider. A little more help would be great. 

[Weaver]

BOTH Show Sliders and Show Posts add an insert shortcode button on the Page/Post editor, so you question is confusing.

There are two different tutorials for Show Sliders linked from the Show Sliders/Posts Quick Start page.

http://demos.aspenthemeworks.com/plugin-demos/tutorial-create-image-slideshow/

http://demos.aspenthemeworks.com/plugin-demos/tutorial-create-posts-slideshow/

[scrambler]

Your page still shows that in the Header HTML you have a Show Post shortcode and not a Show SLider one.

Make sure to clear your cache Including any cache plugin.

Also try to remove everything in the header HTML and see if it all disappears. If it does, then go back and add the Slider shortcode

[Inga]

Bruce, my question is confusing because I’m confused!! 😉

I did use the “insert shortcode button” on the page, but that inserted the slider inside the main content area between the side bars, and I want it above the content and above the side bars. So my next attempt was to insert it in the header. (I now realize that’s the wrong place, but I at least wanted to create a real post slider before moving it anywhere else. 

I noticed the first link to creating an image slide show. But I don’t want an image slide show. I want a slider showing post excerpts. I went through the image slide show tutorial, and none of it seems applicable to my situation. It seems to create a post for a slide show. But I want a slider above the posts.  (The slide show for creating posts just takes off from the image slide show – meaning it is based on displaying a slide show within a post. I did that earlier, but that’s not what I’m after.)

To recap:

I created the content in the “Filters” tab of of “Weaver Post and Slider Options” specifying a display in 3 columns.

I created a slider (or so I thought) in the “Slider” tab of “Weaver Post and Slider Options” giving the Filter as the source of the content.

I then inserted the shortcode 

[show_slider name=”feature”]

in the HTML section of the header.

In case that was a mistake, I changed it to 

[show_slider name=feature]

(left out quotation marks).

Both shortcodes had the same result (remarkably enough): http://thewellness.net/

What am I missing?

I want to make sure I have a 3col slider before I worry about where to put it.

Or is the problem with the 3cols? Is that not possible? Can I have only a single post excerpt showing at a time? (I’ve seen 3col post excerpt sliders on other sites, so was sure that Xtreme could do it.)

Inga

[Inga]

Thanks, Scrambler 🙂

It appears that ZenCache (previously QuickCache, recommended in the Weaver documentation) was the problem. I disabled it and can now see the changes. And that makes me think that the plugin is no good for our visitors either. There has to be a better way.

I now put the shortcode 

[show_slider name=feature]

in the Advanced Options – HTML – Post Header section.

And I get a slider exactly where I want it. Great! The only problem is that it shows 1/3 the width of content, rather than showing three slides that advance through the cycle of 6. (This is a test site, so some of the posts don’t have images.)

Is it not possible to have a 3col slider that advances through 6 or more posts. Is it only possible to have a slider showing one post at a time? (My filter defines 6 posts and 3 cols. and that’s how I’m getting a slider in 1/3 of the space under the header.)

If I could get a 3col slider right there, it would be perfect! 🙂 

On second thought, I only want the slider on the front page, so I would have to find a different way of putting it there, other than the Post-Header code. And there is an image-text offset problem. The slider does not appear to respect the specifications for these. 

[scrambler]

I believe to get what you want you need a filter that display post in a single columns, then on the slider side, you choose a carousel and you use the carousel options to make it 3 posts side by side. You can define a minimum number and a maximum number so that on mobile if will eventually show less than 3 side by side.

As for only having it on the front page, if you can use one of the HTML insertion areas, they have that option.

If not, we can use custom CSS so that the header HTML only shows there

[Inga]

Ah.. thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Will work on that .. 

[Inga]

Okay, I chose 1 col in “Show Posts” and in “Slider” I chose “Carousel” with min 1 post and max 3. 

It works, but not as the kind of carousel to which I’m used. (I think Amazon.com spoiled me. They have great carousels.)

The six-post slider shows 3 posts, then another three. Then it appears to reverse/go back to show the first 3 again. I would expect that in a carousel the slides would seem to continue to go in the same direction, starting over again with the first slide. As it currently is, it’s not a true carousel function, since it doesn’t appear to go around (like a carousel), but appears to jerk back and forth. 

A programming challenge? Or is there a setting that I overlooked?

It works reasonably well on a narrow browser window. I couldn’t get my desktop browser to show less than a slide and a half, but that’s fine. 

I chose a stop/play option, and that looks bad, because the “Stop” option overlays a thumbnail image. 

The paging function added too much space below the slides, so I deleted that as well. 

I have changed the “Show Posts” to 9 posts. Now it jerks backwards after 3 screens instead of 2. 😉 
http://thewellness.net/ (I was too lazy to upload all the Thumbnail images. The regular images are pulled from the main site, but that doesn’t seem to work for thumbnails.)

[Inga]

Just so you know, I am going to test out some other carousel plugins. 

My preference would be to use Weaver native abilities because I suspect they would use fewer resources. 

I’ll let you know if I find something that works well.

Inga

[scrambler]

There is a carousel option that specifies the number of elements to move on animation, just set that to one

[Author]

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