dan.imbrogno

<p>WordPress’ built-in Text widget is great, but it’s not all that user-friendly. Now you can use FlexSlider Space Manager to use the Tiny MCE editor that you’re familiar with to create “Slides” and organize them into “Slideshows”. You can then drop these Slideshows into any sidebar.</p>


Flexslider Manager

Add a hero slideshow to any sidebar and display it with Tyler Smith's Flexslider. To use this plugin you must first install Space Manager.

Mahabub Alam

<p>BoldSlider is a lightweight, fully-responsive slider builder for WordPress with a real visual editor — drag layers on a canvas, set per-device overrides, and embed via shortcode or Gutenberg block.</p>
<h4>Free version highlights</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Visual builder</strong> — drag, resize, rotate layers on a real canvas. Eight resize handles. Keyboard nudge + delete.</li>
<li><strong>Per-device responsive</strong> — override layer position, size, font size, color, and visibility separately for Desktop / Tablet / Mobile.</li>
<li><strong>Layer types (7 free):</strong> Heading, Paragraph, Image, Button, Shape, YouTube embed, Vimeo embed.</li>
<li><strong>Slider effects:</strong> Slide, Fade, Cube, Coverflow, Flip, Cards.</li>
<li><strong>Backgrounds:</strong> image (with cover/contain/percentage/auto fit, repeat, 9-grid + custom position), color, uploaded MP4 video.</li>
<li><strong>Background animations:</strong> Ken Burns, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Pan Left, Pan Right.</li>
<li><strong>Navigation arrows</strong> with placement (inside/outside) + position (top/middle/bottom) + size + offset + colors + hover styles.</li>
<li><strong>Pagination</strong> (bullets / fraction / progress bar) with placement, position, bullet size/gap, clickable, active + inactive colors.</li>
<li><strong>Thumbnail strip</strong> (Swiper Thumbs).</li>
<li><strong>Autoplay</strong> with delay + pause-on-hover.</li>
<li><strong>Layer animations</strong> — 8 CSS-based entrance presets (fade, fade-up/down/left/right, zoom-in/out).</li>
<li><strong>Button hover styles</strong> + 12 built-in arrow icons.</li>
<li><strong>Starter templates:</strong> Multiple ready-to-use templates (Hero, Business, Portfolio, Testimonials, Promo / Sale, Product Launch, Team, Event, Startup, Minimal, Restaurant, Charity, Welcome).</li>
<li><strong>Embed</strong> via <code>[boldslider id="your-slider-slug"]</code> shortcode or Gutenberg block.</li>
<li><strong>Import / Export</strong> sliders as JSON.</li>
<li><strong>Duplicate</strong> sliders + slides in one click.</li>
<li><strong>Slider library page</strong> with thumbnail previews + search.</li>
<li><strong>Performance:</strong> lazy-load images, no jQuery, no external CDN, deferred JS.</li>
<li><strong>SEO friendly:</strong> semantic <code><h1></code>–<code><h6></code> headings, <code>alt</code> and <code>title</code> attributes (Media Library or custom).</li>
<li><strong>Accessibility:</strong> keyboard navigation, proper ARIA labels.</li>
</ul>
<h4>External services</h4>
<p>BoldSlider does not call out to any external services or CDNs. All assets are bundled locally inside the plugin.</p>
<h3>Development</h3>
<h4>Source code</h4>
<p>The compiled/minified JavaScript and CSS files in <code>assets/dist/</code> are built from the uncompressed source code included in this plugin:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Editor UI (React):</strong> <code>editor/src/</code> — JSX components, store, hooks, views, and SCSS styles.</li>
<li><strong>Frontend runtime:</strong> <code>editor/src/frontend.js</code> — Swiper initialization and layer animations.</li>
<li><strong>Block editor script:</strong> <code>editor/src/block.js</code> — Gutenberg block registration.</li>
<li><strong>Stylesheets:</strong> <code>editor/src/editor.scss</code> and <code>editor/src/frontend.scss</code>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Build instructions</h4>
<p>Prerequisites: Node.js 18+ and npm 9+.</p>
<ol>
<li>Navigate to the plugin directory: <code>cd boldslider</code></li>
<li>Install dependencies: <code>npm install</code></li>
<li>Build production assets: <code>npm run build</code></li>
<li>For development with live rebuild: <code>npm run start</code></li>
</ol>
<p>The build pipeline uses <code>@wordpress/scripts</code> (webpack-based).</p>
<h4>Third-party libraries</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://swiperjs.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Swiper</a> v11 — MIT License — touch-enabled slider engine.</li>
</ul>


BoldSlider

A fast, modern WordPress slider plugin with a visual layer editor. Powered by Swiper. No jQuery, no external CDN.

Flexslider Manager vs BoldSlider