Add Items to the Content Slider (Slider Items)

Published: May 21, 2012

The content slider in the home page template uses custom post types for easy customization. Custom post types are no different than posts – except they are not allowed to mix with the posts. This means that you won’t see them in the regular posts section. Our custom post type is called “Slider Item”.

Create a New Slider Item

In the left hand menu, you will see under “Slider Items” > “Add New”. This will bring up the “Add New Post” page.

Simply add a title – this will be the title that will show up in the slider item. Add your content – note that only a small excerpt will be shown in the content slider due to spacing issues. Lastly – add a “Featured Image” to your slider item (a tutorial on how to do this can be found here).

Publish the Slider Item and view the page. A screenshot of Eureka is shown below:

Eureka's Home Page

Once the title is clicked, will lead to below:

Eureka Single Slider Item

Here is what Blue Slider items look like:

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Blue Theme Slider

The Rotary theme looks a lot different:

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Rotary Home page

Theme Specifications

Continue reading below to find specifications that is unique to each theme. For instance, although they all use custom post types – some of them have limits on how many can show in the page etc.

Eureka

For best results, use a feature image that is 380 pixels in width and 500 pixels in height. Use a .png image with transparent background. Also, you can assign a call to action button for each slider item. This will have to be created using custom fields. To learn more about custom fields, read this article. The keys to use are:

  • buttonText – this is the text you want in the button
  • buttonUrl – this is the url you want for the button

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You can also have the feature image float to the right, instead of the default – which is left. To do this – just enter key “floatImageRight” and value “true” (see above screenshot).

Blue

Blue Theme can only support 3 slider items. This is due to the front page layout – only 3 items will be visible in the bar right under the slider. The sort order of the slider is also reversed in the Blue Theme. You should also use .png image with transparent background. There is no real image dimension restriction – but keep it within 500 pixels wide and 300 pixels high.

Rotary

The actual custom post type name is “Roundabouts”. The limit is 5 – due to the way the carousel is built. The images will resize automatically, although for best results, you want to use images that are 586 pixels wide and 360 pixels high.

404 Errors

Due to custom post types, the theme will create a custom post slug for the slider items. You may experience some 404 errors when you try to view the post type. This can easily be fixed by going to the admin panel > Settings > Permalinks and click on “Save Changes”. Note that you don’t have to change anything – simply press Save Changes.

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37 thoughts on “Add Items to the Content Slider (Slider Items)

    Chay says:

    Carousel is not showing up on the home page. I am able to make more than one roundabout, but only one is showing up..Please Advise…
    -C

    Chay says:

    Oh whoops I see below I need at least three…let me try that first.

    B. Alex Thompson says:

    Also, how do I make a separate page for my blog along with allowing the dates and times to actually show? And how can I put the blog in the small box on the initial page like in the Eureka example site?!

    this goes back to the home page template. follow these steps:
    http://fearlessflyer.com/2012/05/setup-the-home-page-template/

    B. Alex Thompson says:

    You are awesome! I thought I combed every tutorial you guys had. A few more quick questions:

    Blog posts- Is there a way to get the dates and times to actually show on the blog page and the posts themselves? Sort of like how they are shown in the blog feed page:
    http://alexthompsonwriter.com/blog/
    http://alexthompsonwriter.com/feed/

    Also in the “From the Blog” section on the front page, what do I edit to get the full 4 digits of the year instead of the last two digits?

    B. Alex Thompson says:

    Hey Michael,

    I do not know if you are still around checking this section, but I hope you are because I can not get this slider thing to work at all. I tried making 3 slider posts using the exact wording from the image in the example. I even used the ipad png from the Eureka test page as one of the images. All I am getting is text without pictures. What am I missing?

    My page: http://alexthompsonwriter.com/
    Test Slider Item pages: http://alexthompsonwriter.com/slider/chisai/
    http://alexthompsonwriter.com/slider/test-pad/
    http://alexthompsonwriter.com/slider/shy-3/

    Any help or insight you can give would be much appreciated!!!

    Hi Alex, i believe you have to set up a home page template to see the slider: http://fearlessflyer.com/2012/05/setup-the-home-page-template/
    that template will go through your slider items and display it in a slider

    B. Alex Thompson says:

    How do I change the “Testimonials” title to something different? I thought it would be under Appearance>Editor>testimonials.php… I changed everything that said “Testimonials” to something else, but nothing changed on the actual page.

    Is there a time delay on these sections? I am in Appearance>Eureka Settings trying to change the Subscribe HTML… though the new stuff is saved, it’s not refreshing. I made one change and it didn’t refresh in my current browser, but I opened the page in another browser and saw the change. I made more changes and now they aren’t showing up in any of the browsers. I had the same problem with the Logo URL, but it appeared at random an hour or so later.

    testimontials is under appearance > theme options.
    try clearing your cache – both browser and server (if you have a caching plugin)

    B. Alex Thompson says:

    Yes, that is how you change the actual quotes within the testimonials section. I want to change that section from testimonials completely. How do I get rid of the Testimonials title? I don’t want to add quotes in that space, I would like to add updates of new products there.

    KimDiamond says:

    Hi Michael,

    Okay I figured it out .. did not know to copy the wording in the image from the example. So I did and I was able to create the click-able call to action. …

    Just wanted to let you know. So far I am able to figure every thing out over time. Now need to find a way to get really big images for my slider

    Need to figure out photo gallery ..

    Thank you

    good. I tried to make docs as easy to follow as possible.

    KimDiamond says:

    Hi Michael,

    Can you tell me how to add a click-able link in the header image slider of the Eureka. I tried to do this from the slider image section the button does not show up. I tried the wordpress codex page it is all German makes no sense at all. I am not sure if they are telling me to put code in editor or what.

    my site is http;//www.internetadvertisingdeals.com

    Thank you

    Kim Diamond

    Maty says:

    I figured it out. I only 1 or 2 but not 3. Need at leas 3 or more to make it work. This is my url http://www.mangodesignsdarwin.com/. Thanks.

    Maty says:

    Hi Michael, yes I have added more than 1. Am I missing something?

    michael says:

    can you send me your url? I have to see what’s going on.

    KP says:

    As you are editing/adding roundabouts, should you see the rotating slideshow in a preview in a new window? I can only see one at a time, no arrows to move to the next slide…not sure what I am doing wrong :/

    Maty says:

    I have the same prob, I can only see one at a time.

    michael says:

    have you tried adding more than 1 roundabout?

    David says:

    Have a problem with the pics in the roundabout resizing to the in-post size. This is only after I added the auto-rotate script, but it remains when I remove the script now too. Any ideas?

    David says:

    I figured it out (I don’t code so it’s really trial and error) that the script must replace the existing script at the bottom of ‘home.php’ or it messes with the size for some reason.

    Tina says:

    Hi there,

    I’m using the great rotary theme for a project, unfortunatelly I have a problem with the slider. I’m using 5 pictures (hardcoded in the theme in home.php) and the script for auto rotate mentioned above, but now it’s not possible anymore to skip through the last und previous pictures in the right order.
    For example: Picture 1 is in front, and when i click on pic 2 behind pic 1 on the right side, the slider skips to another, random picture.
    Don’t know whats wrong and how to solve it 🙁

    Greetings from Germany,
    Tina

    michael says:

    thanks for the note Tina. Do you have a url I can test?

    Amy says:

    Hi, I have Rotary By Michael Soriano Version 2.0 that I just paid for. I’ve put the Roundabout up just like you’ve shown here. However, on my website It’s only showing the Sidebar and the Pages I have made at the top. It’s not showing the roundabouts or the footer. Help Please.

    michael says:

    do you have a url I can look at?

    Jim says:

    Can you change where the Roundabout is linked to? I want it to go to a specific page, not just the Roundabout page for the post.

    michael says:

    yes you can – but it will have to be done manually in the theme.

    Chalyn Edwards says:

    How exactly do you do this? I need each roundabout linked to different websites…
    Thanks

    Dan says:

    I was wondering if there is a way to make the roundabout auto rotate every few seconds or so. Is this possible with this theme?

    michael says:

    yes, a user was kind enough to share his code: http://snipt.org/xoRm
    i will most likely include it in the next update.

    Dan says:

    Awesome man. Appreciate it. Good theme. Perfect for my project.

    poby says:

    As per your tutorial for Rotary theme, you mention to add-new post to the “Slider Items”, there is no “Slider Item” on my left side menu to choose from. There is a “Rotary” feature, but doesn’t do the trick. Help?!

    michael says:

    I’m sorry Poby. For Rotary its called “roundabouts”.

    David says:

    Great design. Thanks!

    One piece of info that I couldn’t find written anywhere was that the featured image size in the roundabouts is 586×360 pixels. This is important if you don’t want your image to be warped out of shape.

    Also a question… is there an easy way to change the order of the roundabouts? If not, they operate on the basis of the newest post to the front, and then back and behind clockwise. (So enter them in reverse order, basically, and the last post will be in the front).

    Thank you for the roundabout size. I’ll add that to the above.
    re the order of the roundabouts – you make a good point. the default order is descending, by date – just like regular posts. so if you want to change the order – as in the last post you enter will go in the back – the best way is to open
    template-home.php look for this code:

    <?php query_posts('post_type=roundabouts&posts_per_page=5');?>

    and replace with

    <?php query_posts('post_type=roundabouts&posts_per_page=5&order=ASC');?>

    this will reverse the order.

    now i’m not sure if i should make this the default behavior. thoughts?

    David says:

    I would leave it the way it is with the option of reversing it with the above code. It is mostly an issue when initially posting the first 5 roundabouts.

    Another thing to note is that, left as is, the 6th post will bump the 1st post off the roundabout. If this is what you want for your specific site design, then that ’roundabout’ post #1 has to be copied as a regular post or page if you still want that page to be accessible. Perhaps there is an easier way to change the post from a roundabout to a regular post…?

    thanks David. your inputs are real valuable. I will consider them in future updates.

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