An example of Alex Rabe’s nextGen Slideshow Widget as an animated Flash Banner. It’s only being used on this page.
Most WordPress themes usually place the #header or #banner or #masthead div (division)
in a theme template file called header.php. Because headers are different from theme to theme I cannot promise there won’t be problems. Anyone comfortable editing their theme files can follow this tutorial. People uncomfortable with editing their WordPress theme files might be surprised at the astounding lack of mystery to it all.
PREPARATION
Pick a good height and width ratio and use it for all your slide show images. It should be the same ratio you use in the Slideshow widget options.
If the banner div your slide show goes into is 990px width and 300px height, crop your images and then re-size them to about or exactly this dimension. The slide show will look better this way. For this to work you have to add another sidebar to your WordPress theme. Please make a backup of your theme’s header.php and functions.php first.
CREATING A NEW SIDEBAR (WHICH IS NOT REALLY A SIDEBAR).
Paste this code into a plain text file and save as slideshow.php:
<?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('BannerDiv') ) : else : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
Upload slideshow.php to your currently in use theme’s folder.
REGISTERING A NEW SIDEBAR (EASY!)
You have to register the new sidebar in your theme’s functions.php file or it won’t show up in the Widgets Manager.
So add this snippet to your theme’s functions.php. Back up this file,first!!Make sure to add it between the opening and closing tags.
The file called Theme Functions (functions.php) will have opening and closing tags. These tags are very important. Your website will not work without them. They look like this:
Opening tag:
<?php Closing tag: ?>
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'BannerDiv',
'before_widget' => '<div id="header-slideshow" ', This can now be styled in the theme stylesheet.
'after_widget' => '</div> ',
'before_title' => ' ', This is blank because we don't need a title on the slideshow.
'after_title' => ' ', Ditto.
));
Save your changes. Make sure to add this to the functions.php before the next step.
Paste this code snippet
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/slideshow.php"); ?> IN BETWEEN <div id="header"></div>
so that it looks like this
<div id="header"><?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/slideshow.php"); ?></div>
Some themes don’t use #header – so the block might be called by another name. Look for #masthead or #banner. If the block in question also contains a navigation menu – make sure not delete the code for that. Make sure to back up header.php first.
FINDING YOUR NEW SIDEBAR
Now go to Appearances >> Widgets see your new “sidebar”. Drag the NextGen slideshow widget to the new sidebar then you can add in your slideshow width and height.
I hope it goes without saying that you need to have the nextGen plugin installed in order to use the nextGen slideshow widget.
You should see something like this:
More Plugin Experiments
Using (WP PLUGIN) Multifeedsnap to display Feeds. If the Feed URI is too long and full of ampersands(&) shorten them at TinyUrl.com.
Multifeedsnap is compatible up to WordPress 2.5.1 but does work with 2.7 ( and sort of with 2.8.4). I added my own styles for the feeds by editing multifeedsnap.php. Multifeedsnap grabs whatever html is in the feed so expect some difficulty. You’ll probably have to do a lot of CSS kungfu after you get the feed items. You can limit the amount of items to display,too: [ feedsnap,12] feed url [ /feedsnap>
Be warned that unless you have control over the feed you’re displaying you won’t be able to do anything about the HTML in the feed. If the desired content does not have a feed – you can use Yahoo Pipes or a Dap (Dapper) or another HTML to FEED service to create one. Please make sure to contact the content owners to ascertain if this is OK to do.
Discontinued! [ feedsnap>http://tinyurl.com/byeam2[ /feedsnap>
My Netflix movie Queue +Multifeedsnap
Amazon RSS and Tags
You can pretty much just whomp in any old keyword and Amazon will come up with something.
http://www.amazon.com/rss/tag/coffee/popular/ref=tag_tdp_rss_pop_auto
By Aerobie
Buy new: $24.86
32 used and new from $16.21
Customer Rating:
Customer tags: aeropress(282), coffee maker(229), coffee press(211), coffee(202), espresso(180), americano(101), best(57), caffeine(49), cappuccino(45), french press(41), camping(20), latte(19)
By Coffee People
Buy new: $29.99
8 used and new from $27.49
Customer Rating:
Customer tags: k-cups(536), donut shop(384), keurig(255), k cups(227), coffee people(209), coffee(181), keurig coffee pods(140), k cup(100), extra bold(82), bold(34), keurig k-cups(15), donut shop coffee(11)
By Keurig
Buy new: $133.99
85 used and new from $75.00
Customer Rating:
Customer tags: k-cups(362), keurig(274), keurig b60(223), coffee maker(182), single serve(167), single cup(122), coffeemaker(120), coffee(102), single serve coffee(76), keurig coffee maker(34), b60(14), k cups(7)
By Starbucks
Buy new: $20.74
6 used and new from $18.88
Customer Rating:
Customer tags: starbucks(194), vanilla coffee(174), ground coffee(133), flavored(108), coffee(102), vanilla beans(69), ground(47), dark roast(45), french roast(38), flavored coffee(12), vanilla(7), gourmet coffee(4)
By Keurig
Buy new: $14.89
60 used and new from $8.75
Customer Rating:
Customer tags: k-cups(273), reusable filter(240), keurig(228), filter(106), single cup(100), coffee(91), my k-cup(89), single serve(73), coffee maker(58), coffee filter(16), reusable filters(10), reusable(7)
Test Whisknyc referrer greeting from mccormicky.com
–@–