I am going through what seems to be an endless selection of WP based slideshows.
There is 2 main uses of them. One is to turn the header area into a slideshow. The other is more like a gallery system, inline. I have need to make use of both types, so I would like to include both in the discussion.
Which WP slideshow do you like for inline galleries?
Which one do you use for header replacement?
I was going over one that got my attention yesterday for the header replacement style slider: Meteor Slides but I still havent decided on a good gallery style one that supports thumbnails for in page content. From what I saw in the video and screenshots, this one is more of specifically a content slider.
For header slideshows I have used jQuery sliders: Nivo and Blueberry. Not plugins but as coded solutions. Both work nice.
For gallery I’ve used so far NextGen plugin and my own css styled solution.
I am familiar with Nivo and like that slider, I will check out the blueberry one as I am not yet familiar with it.
NextGen gallery looks great and I see it one of the most popular ones out there. I came across another today that caught my eye, EasyRotator and I think I will be trying to integrate that one first.
I was able to get meteor slider to replace the custom header image with conditional statements in the header.php file in the theme and with a few extra lines of css to resolve layout glitches, it seems to be working quite well. its a little confusing though as I need multiple slideshows and there is a few things that I dont understand. However, the plugin developer is VERY active in the support forums, so thats a major plus. I figure I will be asking a few more questions in there I think as I work in sliders on more pages but I made good progress today!
I’m not sure what your preferences are and can only speak from mine. Personally I’m a fan of paid plugins that are well supported by their authors. I make use of many plugins but the main thing is how well supported they are and I"m happy to pay a small amount to secure that support. To that end I’ve used Slider Pro on a number of sites. It is an easy install, easily customised and pretty straightforward.
My philosophy is based around the fact that most of my time gets taken up with troubleshooting, if I can save an hour or two of chargeable time by paying for a good product then it is worth it. It also allows me to fire troubleshooting questions direct to the person who knows their product best. Thankfully in the slider arena we are spoilt for choice.
Wow! I am checking that one out, its the best I have seen so far. It looks so good and the way the thumbs work is pretty nice. The responsive slider demo is pretty cool, plus it looks like it has good mobile integration which is becoming more and more of a consideration these days. May be more than I need in this case but definitely one to keep an eye on for future projects.
Just as a follow up, here’s another I came across today. It was recommended through another plugin developer I totally respect. Also when you can get a quote from the lead developer of Wordpress singing your praise you know you got a good thing going. It’s called Soliloquy. I can’t vouch for it personally but it comes with good praise from some people who know better than I.