ibrahimhalefoglu

ReadSpan adds two lightweight engagement features to your WordPress site:
Reading Time Badge 
A pill-shaped badge that displays estimated reading time, injected before, after, or both sides of post content. Supports three SVG icons (clock, book, stopwatch), custom colors, shapes, padding, and font size. Works via shortcode too.
Scroll Progress Bar 
A fixed-position progress bar (top or bottom of the viewport) that fills as the reader scrolls. Supports solid color, gradient, configurable height, and a real-time countdown feature in the badge.
Highlights
<ul>
<li>Zero JavaScript dependencies — vanilla JS, passive scroll listener with requestAnimationFrame throttle</li>
<li>CSS custom properties for instant style updates</li>
<li>24 configurable settings via a clean 3-tab admin UI with live preview</li>
<li>Mobile hide option (below 768 px)</li>
<li>Dark mode admin UI (prefers-color-scheme: dark)</li>
<li>Shortcode <code>[readspan]</code> support</li>
<li>PHP 7.4 compatible, no Composer required on production</li>
<li>Follows WordPress Coding Standards and DDD architecture</li>
</ul>

ReadSpan — Customizable Reading Time Badge & Progress Bar

Show a reading time badge and a scroll progress bar on your posts and pages — fully customizable from the admin panel.

Sehrish Anam

Nuvora Reading Time & Progress Bar is a lightweight, developer-friendly plugin that adds two things readers love:
<ol>
<li>A reading time badge — shown before/after your post content.</li>
<li>A scroll progress bar — a sleek bar at the top (or bottom) of the screen that fills as the reader scrolls.</li>
</ol>
<h4>✨ What makes it different?</h4>
AI-assisted reading time adjustment 
Posts with lots of headings, bullet lists, and short paragraphs are scanned faster by readers. The plugin detects structure in your content and intelligently reduces the estimate — labelled “AI-adjusted” so readers know.
Per-post overrides via meta box 
Override the calculated reading time for any post. Hide the badge or progress bar per-post, right from the editor.
Accessibility-first design 
– Semantic <code>role="progressbar"</code> with live <code>aria-valuenow</code> updates 
– Meaningful <code>aria-label</code> on every element 
– Keyboard-focusable progress bar 
– Fully respects <code>prefers-reduced-motion</code> 
– Screen-reader-friendly badge with word count in ARIA label
Minimal & performant 
– No jQuery dependency (vanilla JS) 
– No external assets, fonts, or CDN calls 
– No database writes beyond settings 
– No user tracking whatsoever 
– ~1.5 KB JS / ~1.2 KB CSS (gzipped)
Elementor Widget included 
– Drag and drop the Reading Time widget directly in Elementor 
– Full widget controls for badge display and styling 
– Works seamlessly with Elementor’s responsive settings
Developer-friendly 
– Template tags: <code>rte_the_reading_time()</code>, <code>rte_get_reading_time()</code> 
– Filters: <code>rte_badge_html</code>, <code>rte_show_badge</code>, <code>rte_ai_adjustment_factor</code> 
– CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) content support 
– Per-post type configuration
<h4>📐 Settings</h4>
<ul>
<li>Custom WPM (words per minute) — default 238</li>
<li>Enable/disable AI-assisted adjustment</li>
<li>Badge position: before content, after content, or both</li>
<li>Choose which post types show the badge and/or progress bar</li>
<li>Customise badge label text (use <code>{time}</code> placeholder)</li>
<li>Pick progress bar color, height (1–10 px), position (top/bottom)</li>
<li>Optional percentage tooltip on hover</li>
<li>Respect <code>prefers-reduced-motion</code> toggle</li>
</ul>
<h4>🔧 Template Tags</h4>
Use in your theme:
<pre><code><?php rte_the_reading_time(); // echoes "5 min read" ?>

<?php $data = rte_get_reading_time(); echo $data['minutes']; ?>
</code></pre>
<h4>🪝 Filters</h4>
Customise badge HTML: 
 add_filter( ‘rte_badge_html’, function( $html, $result ) { return $html; }, 10, 2 );
Disable badge conditionally: 
 add_filter( ‘rte_show_badge’, ‘__return_false’ );
Tweak AI adjustment factor (0.75–1.0): 
 add_filter( ‘rte_ai_adjustment_factor’, function( $factor, $html ) { return 0.85; }, 10, 2 );

Nuvora Reading Time & Progress Bar


I was having an issue with post timing, but after downloading and using this plugin, my problem was solved. It’s a great plugin


Good Plugin

A minimalist, accessible reading time badge + scroll progress bar. AI-assisted time adjustment, per-post overrides, zero tracking.

ReadSpan — Customizable Reading Time Badge & Progress Bar vs Nuvora Reading Time & Progress Bar