Responsive Design

As more and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile phones and the number is continuously growing, responsive design has become a necessity rather than a trend. This year it is more important than ever to create websites that are optimized for different screen sizes. Responsive design allows pages to adapt to different devices, making it easy for users to navigate and interact with the content.

Some of the primary benefits of responsive design are improved user experience, larger mobile traffic, and higher search engine results. Visitors are more likely to engage with content and stay on a website that is optimized for mobile devices. Also, Google and other search engines favor mobile-friendly websites in their search rankings, so integrating responsive design can aid in increasing your website’s visibility and attracting more traffic.

WordPress’s unique plugin, Smart Slider, makes it easy and simple to create a website that looks great on any screen size. Our huge template library aids you with pre-designed templates that you can choose from offering one of the best resources for responsive design. These templates are also fully customizable allowing you to adjust the slider design to your specific requirements. But that’s not all, to make it even more affordable for website owners and designers, we offer several free versions of our unique templates.

Therefore, creating a website with responsive design is not even hard, you just need to be provided with the right tools to do it. Just like with Smart Slider, you can simply use a template or you can fully customize your own. With the pre-made templates and responsive design tools Smart Slider’s interface lets you create a website that looks great on any device. In addition, there’s no need to worry because it doesn’t require any extensive coding skills.

Check out the template library and decide for yourself. Start creating your own mobile-friendly website now.

Minimalism

For some years, minimalism has been a trendy design style, and it shows no signs of disappearing in 2024. The use of simple, clean elements to produce a sleek and modern aesthetic is the main point of minimalist design. This approach is particularly beneficial for websites that wish to exude sophistication and professionalism.

Focusing only on the essentials is the secret to great minimalist design. Therefore, it’s critical to apply a limited color palette, basic patterns, and clear typography. White space is also an important part of minimalist design since it contributes to a sense of serenity and spaciousness.

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One advantage of minimalist design is that it makes your website more user-friendly. Users can focus on the information and browse the site more quickly if the distractions are removed. Minimalist design can also help your website load faster improving user experience and SEO.

Smart Slider’s templates come in a variety of minimalist designs. From simple text and image sliders to more advanced designs, you can create a clean and modern website. Furthermore, with our customizable templates, you can truly make it your own by adding your personal touches to the design.

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Make it easy for your visitors to navigate your site by creating a sleek and modern page. Head over to Smart Slider’s template library to find numerous unique templates.

Typography

Typography plays an increasingly large part in website design in 2024. Many designers experiment with a larger selection of typefaces and styles thanks to the rise of high-resolution screens and improved font rendering technologies. As a result, typography may now be employed as a powerful design element as well as a practical one.

The usage of a huge, strong font is one design element we can see more of in 2024. This is a powerful tool for drawing attention to key headlines or messages. Serif typefaces are also gaining popularity because they provide a sense of sophistication and beauty.

Furthermore, custom fonts are becoming more accessible allowing designers to build their own distinctive typefaces that reflect the character of their company. However, it’s important to keep in mind that by implementing these unique fonts into your slides, there’s a possibility that their appearances will vary from the original.

I will show you an example of an outstanding hand-drawn font which is an emerging trend among designers as well. Its artistic look and resemblance to natural handwriting, allow you to add a personal touch to your design. These types of fonts are best used for headings or as decorative elements.

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It is critical to take readability and accessibility into consideration when selecting typefaces for your website. Strong fonts may be eye-catching but they don’t seem to be the best choice for body text. Sans-serif fonts are neater and should be used for longer pieces of text. Also, it can’t be dismissed to make certain that your font choices are accessible to users with visual impairments. Therefore it’s essential to test your designs using tools like color contrast checkers and screen readers.

The typographic possibilities in Smart Slider’s designs range from slick and futuristic to more classic and neat. You can experiment with different font choices and styles with our customizable templates to discover the right match for your website.

It’s also worth mentioning that highlighting a text or putting an animation on it is turning out to be a great new trend as well. These typewriter effects or highlighted headings are very useful in case you want to emphasize an important part of your content. In addition, animations are great tools for bringing your website to life.

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Animation

In web design, animation is a great, effective technique, and we see even more implementations of it in 2024. Animations can add depth and variety to your website, from subtle animations that improve the user experience to fearless, attention-grabbing effects.

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Micro-animations are very popular this year. These tiny animations can be used to signify interactions, such as when a button is hovered over or clicked. They can also be used to add aesthetics to a page, such as a moving or changing background.

Another emerging trend is the usage of 3D and immersive animations. With the emergence of virtual and augmented reality, designers can now build more immersive user experiences. This type of animation can seem more complex to carry out, however, Smart Slider’s clear interface helps you through each step. So you can easily achieve your desired result without it being overwhelming.

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Whether you want to apply subtle animations or provoke a mesmerizing feeling, Smart Slider provides you with a variety of different options, from simple text and background animations to more complex layer animations, you have every tool to bring your vision to life.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

A call-to-action (CTA) urges visitors to take a certain action, so it’s an important component of any website design. CTAs are even more important in 2024, as companies and website owners seek to boost their conversions and engagement.

The use of tailored CTAs is one thing we see more of in 2024. Personalized CTAs, as opposed to a generic “Sign Up” or “Subscribe” button, can be designed to match the user’s behavior or interests. For example, a visitor who has spent a significant amount of time on a given page may get a CTA that is relevant to the content of that page.

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Another emerging trend is interactive CTAs. Interactive CTAs, as opposed to a static button or link, can be more engaging and inspire visitors to take action. It is more eye-catching than a standard button when the CTA changes its color or shape when it’s hovered over.

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The possibilities of CTAs in Smart Slider 3 range from simple buttons to interactive and customizable CTAs. You can experiment with different layouts and styles to discover the best match for your website with the use of our customizable templates.

Ready to put Smart Slider 3 to the test and improve your call-to-action game? Visit the template library for some inspiration and start building a website with effective CTAs today!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the main concepts of WordPress’s design trends in 2024 are based on accessibility, unique design, and increased engagement. Smart Slider 3 is a WordPress plugin that enables website owners and designers to make gorgeous and mobile-friendly websites by giving access to a large template library and an easy-to-use interface that offers a variety of customizable opportunities.

We all know that applying trends to develop a modern website can be a fantastic idea, but keep in mind that they change all the time. You should also be paying attention to your content and SEO to stay relevant. Users will stay on your page if it is fascinating to them, but search engines will only find you if you have great content to offer. Utilizing animations and effects might catch the attention of your visitors, but no one should overdo it.

All in all, you can create without any doubt a better user experience, engage more visitors and stay ahead of your competition in the ever-changing digital world by leveraging these trends, ideas, and tools.

The post 2024’s Biggest WordPress Design Trends to Follow appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/how-to-animate-text-images-like-a-pro/ Wed, 02 Aug 2023 07:04:55 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=53228 If you ever wondered how to give your website some life and make an impression on your visitors, you’ve come to the right place. Nowadays most websites have changed from static pages to interactive platforms that engage users and create their own stories. Sliders stand out as a strong tool among many, to achieve this. […]

The post How to Animate Text & Images Like a Pro appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> If you ever wondered how to give your website some life and make an impression on your visitors, you’ve come to the right place.

Nowadays most websites have changed from static pages to interactive platforms that engage users and create their own stories. Sliders stand out as a strong tool among many, to achieve this. They effortlessly improve the user experience, while also delivering information and showcasing items.

This brings us to Smart Slider 3. It’s more than a simple slider plugin, as it offers a variety of animation and effects, that can make your website stand out. We’ll guide you through the process of creating these interactive effects step-by-step, from slide animations to learning how to animate text on them.

Now, without any further ado, let’s jump into the world of animations in Smart Slider 3.

📚 Table of contents

🎓 Getting Started with Smart Slider 3
⚙️ Understanding Slide Animations
⚡ Dynamic Text Effects: How to Animate Text
🔎 Bringing Depth with Zoom Effect
🌊 Making Waves: Using Wave Animation
💻 Storytelling with Timeline Animations
🎨 Customization
✏️ Best Practices for Animation Usage
💡 Conclusion

Getting Started with Smart Slider 3

Okay, let’s get things going by introducing you to the amazing world of Smart Slider 3. You can install the plugin now if you haven’t yet done it on your WordPress website. You’ll be stunned by its user-friendly interface and cool features, I promise.

Making your first slider is simple once Smart Slider 3 is up and running. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Making a New Slider:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard and select “Smart Slider 3” from the menu on the left.
• Select the “New Project” button, and voilá a new slider was born.

2. Selecting a Template (Optional):

• Smart Slider has got you covered even if you are not a design guru, so don’t worry. To spark your imagination, you might choose a pre-made template.
• There’s a huge selection of eye-catching templates to pick from, and they can all be customized to match the feel of your website.

3. Adding Slides and Content:

• Now comes the more enjoyable part. Slides should be added to your slider and it should be filled with interesting text, eye-catching images, and anything else you want to highlight.
• You are not restricted to a single layout with Smart Slider 3. Allow your creativity to soar!

4. Customize Your Slider:

• To customize the behavior and appearance of your slider, take a look at the slider settings. You can change the slider transition, the autoplay, the navigation, and much more.
• Pay attention to the responsive settings to make sure your slider looks good on desktop and mobile devices.

Now that you are familiar with the basics of setting up your slider, let’s get into the world of animations and effects that will make your slider stand out. Let’s get started!

Understanding Slide Animations

Alright, here’s where the real magic begins! Slide animations are like the secret ingredient that adds that wow factor to your sliders. These transitions between slides can be subtle and smooth or bold and eye-catching, depending on the vibe you want to create.

How to Apply Slide Animations

1. Select Your Slide:

• Open up your Smart Slider 3 editor and choose the slide you want to add animations to. Remember, each slide can have its own unique animation.

2. Explore Animation Options:

• Once you’ve selected the slide, head to the “Animations” tab in the slide settings. Here, you’ll find a treasure trove of animation effects waiting for you.

3. Pick Your Animation:

• From classic fade-ins to dynamic move-ins and captivating zoom effects, Smart Slider 3 offers an impressive range of animations to choose from.
• Go ahead and experiment with different animations to see which one complements your content and brand the best.

Top Tip: Less is often more when it comes to slide animations. Subtle and elegant transitions can have a more significant impact on your audience than an overload of flashy effects. Keep your focus on enhancing the content and user experience.

Example Animations

Not sure which animation to go with? Let’s explore a couple of scenarios where specific animations shine:

• Fade-In:  Ideal for a clean and professional look, the fade-in animation smoothly transitions between slides without stealing the show. It’s perfect for minimalistic designs and when you want to keep the focus on your content.
• Move from Left or Right: Want to make a bold statement? The move-in effect from either side can add that extra punch to your slider. Use it to introduce new sections or showcase striking visuals.
• Zoom Effect: Ah, the beloved zoom effect! If you have stunning images or products to flaunt, this animation can make them pop on the screen. Your audience won’t be able to take their eyes off your slider.

 

Remember, Smart Slider 3 gives you the flexibility to set the animation speed and even add delays if you want to create a well-choreographed presentation.

Now it’s time to let your creativity run wild and make your slides come alive with animations that leave your visitors wanting more.

Dynamic Text Effects: How to Animate Text

Okay, now we’ve got the hang of slide animations, but let’s take it to the next level! Your text elements are your slider’s storytellers. In addition, they add a whole new level of interactivity and engagement.

Ready? Let’s get started and see how we can animate text and engage your audience!

How to Animate Text

1. Add Your Text Element:

• To animate text, start by adding the text that you want to animate using either the Heading layer or the Animated Heading Layer. This could be a headline or any text you want to emphasize.

2. Add Text Animation:

• Once you’ve added your Heading Layer, navigate to the “Text Animation” sections of your layer’s Content settings. Here you’ll find a variety of text animation options to choose from.

3. Explore Styles:

• Check out Smart Slider 3’s selection they offer you to animate your text in different styles.
• On each heading, you can set both an Incoming and Outgoing animation. Whatever you are looking for you’ll be spoiled for choice.
• In addition, you can change other aspects of the animation to fine-tune it to your unique preferences.

4. Animated Heading Layer:

• On the other hand, you can also go for the Animated Heading Layer, which is perfect if you want to change a specific part of the text to another one from a list. However, this effect only works if you have at least two lines of text in the Animated Text field.

 

Pro Tip: Ensure that the way you animate your text matches your brand’s personality and your website’s theme. It’s important to stay consistent to create a polished and professional look.

When Should You Animate Text?

There are many ways to animate your text and add value to your content. Let’s look at some cases.

1. Catchy Headlines:

• • For your headline, you can use the Typewriter effect to reveal your headline letter by letter. This will create anticipation and intrigue in your visitors’ minds.
  • Play around with different text animations for your Headings, they can add a nice touch to your content, in a subtle way.

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2. Portfolio:

• • However, there are other ways it can be used to create interest, like sharing information about yourself. Adding a slow and elegant animation is the best way to make your portfolio impressive.

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3. Quotes:

• If you have great quotes and testimonials that you want people to read, you can choose from all the different incoming animations Smart Slider 3 offers, to focus on those impactful words.

Don’t overdo it: While text animations are a great way to grab the reader’s attention, don’t go overboard. Stick to what’s important and use animations to highlight those elements. Remember, a tiny bit of animation can make a difference in keeping your audience interested. Let your text speak for itself.

You are now in control of how your text looks and feels, so let’s create a slider that’s full of dynamic text effects.

Bringing Depth with Zoom Effect

The zoom effect is a great way to add depth and dynamics to your slide. It’s an effect that instantly draws attention to certain parts of the slide. Besides, it makes them look bigger and more alive.

How to Use the Zoom Effect

1. Select the Layer to Zoom:

• To use the zoom effect, select the layer you want to use a zoom effect on. You can use any slide element, such as an image, text, or even a heading.

2. Add a Zoom Effect:

• Once you’ve selected the element you want to add a zoom effect to, go to the layer settings and click on the “Animation” tab. You’ll see a list of options however, we’ll only need the scale animation.
• Under it choose the one that suits your slide. Decide if you want to bring your content closer to your audience or create a subtle downscaling effect. Then, adjust its settings to your preferences. There are many different ways to use this zoom effect in Smart Slider 3.

3. Use the Ken Burn Effect:

• Another way to add a unique zooming effect to your content, specifically to your background images, is to use the popular Ken Burns effect.
• Head to your slider’s Animations settings and under the Background Animation section enable the Ken Burn Effect. It’s extremely simple and elegant.

 

Pro Tip: Strategically use the zoom effect to highlight important content or product details. You can also use it as a soft hover effect to captivate users when they are interacting with your slider.

Creative Ways to Use the Zoom Effect

1. Product Showcase:

• If you are running an e-commerce site, highlight your product images with the zoom effect. Showing off your best offers will make your customers feel more confident in their purchase decision.

2. Interactive Image Gallery:

• Create an interactive image gallery with the zoom effect. When your visitors hover over your images, they will get a much closer look, creating an interactive and immersive experience for your visitors.

3. Elevate Your Background:

• • Move your background a bit, by adding the Ken Burn Effect. This zoom effect is simple and elegant and works on any kind of image.

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Zoom effects are a great way to add depth to your slides. However, it’s important that you remember that you don’t want to use too many zoom effects on your slider. Instead, focus on one or two essential elements to zoom in or out on and let them take the spotlight.

Making Waves: Using Wave Animation

Wave animations are the perfect way to add vibrancy to your sliders. So, let’s dive deep into the world of wave animations and learn how to bring your content to life.

How to Use the Wave Animation

1. Add Wave Animation to Your Background:

• You can add it to your background in Smart Slider 3, so think about what slider’s background can benefit from a bit of motion.
• Once you’ve chosen your slider, go to your Slider Settings page and choose the Animations tab. Inside the Background Animations section, you are provided with two different options to add a wave animation to your slider’s background. (Morph – Wave, Distortion – Wave) This type of animation will be only noticed when your visitors switch between slides.

Check out these templates to see them in action:

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2. Add a Wave Animation as a Divider:

• You can also add a wave animation as a Shape Divider. Just below the Background Animation section, you can spot the Shape Divider option. They are perfect for creating smooth and interesting transitions between the sections of your website.

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• What’s even more, is that each shape has its own unique animation, which you can fully customize. In addition, many of them are designed as animated wave-like shapes, and setting them to continuously move creates a simply marvelous result.

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3. Wave Animation Settings:

• Plus, Smart Slider 3 lets you customize the wave effect, giving you complete control over the intensity of the wave animation. Keep in mind that the goal is to add a thoughtful touch to your content, not overshadow it.

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All in all, adding a wave animation can be a great way to give your sliders a magical touch that will keep your visitors engaged and interested in your content, so let your creativity flow.

Storytelling with Timeline Animations

In Smart Slider 3 each layer animation is shown on a timeline, where you can change its delay and duration. If you click on an animation, it will open the layer window’s animation tab, where you can edit the animation you’ve chosen.

When you press the space key, animations will start up, giving you a preview of what they’ll look like.

Another awesome thing about timeline animations is that you can copy and paste the animation from layer to layer. So if you’ve made a really complex animation, all you have to do is copy it to different layers and you can save yourself time and effort.

Tips on Creating Timeline Animations

• Top Tip: Keep your timeline animation short and to the point. Focus on what matters the most to keep your audience engaged and avoid overloading them with too much information.
• Use timeline animations to create a seamless narrative that grabs your audience’s attention.
• Combine engaging content with smooth animations and you’ll have a mesmerizing storytelling experience that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Use the timeline animations to bring life to your slider and create an unforgettable story.

Customization

Now, that you’ve learned about the different animations and effects, your slider is more interesting than ever before. But don’t worry, we’re not finished yet. In this part, we’ll customize and personalize your designs until they are absolutely perfect. So, let’s get started.

Additional Animation Settings

1. Duration and Delay:

• Change the duration of your animations to control how fast or slow a layer animates, and you can also add delays to create a timed animation sequence.

2. Layer Alignment:

• Ensure the correct positioning of your animated layers with alignment settings. It’s the small details that matter!

3. Mix and Match:

• The fun part starts when you start mixing different animations and effects together. All of the above-mentioned animations and more are here at your disposal to create hypnotic effects that grab your audience’s attention and keep them glued to your content. So don’t be afraid to mix and match!

So now that you mastered the basics of animation, you’re ready to take your website sliders to the next level. Show off your creativity and let your website sliders steal the show.

Best Practices for Animation Usage

You’ve learned how to use Smart Slider 3’s animations and effects with ease. Now, let’s look at some important best practices to make the most of these dynamic tools while keeping your website fresh and professional.

Tips for Using Animations Tastefully

• Keep It Simple: Animations can be a great way to grab your audience’s attention but don’t overload your slider with a ton of effects. Too many effects can be distracting and overwhelming.
• Keep It Inline with Your Brand: Make sure your animations match your brand’s identity and design. Stick to a consistent style and color scheme to reinforce your message and create a unified experience for your audience.

User-Friendly Experience

• Navigation: Make sure your slider’s navigation is easy to understand and use. Give a clear overview of how the slider should be navigated.
• Attention Span: Attract your audience’s attention in the first few seconds. Avoid animations that are too long, as visitors may lose interest and move on.
• Testing: Make sure to test and preview the slider on different devices and browsers to ensure it works properly and looks the way you want it to.

By following these tips, you can make your sliders look amazing and not only let your audience see what you have to offer but also make their experience on your website better. Keep in mind that the key is to find the perfect balance between creativity and usability.

Conclusion

To sum up, your sliders will be full of life and imagination. From slide animation and zoom effect to how to animate text and create wave animation, we’ve even touched upon the captivating timeline animation and more. You’ve come a long way on this animation journey and Smart Slider 3 has been the perfect partner along the way.

Keep in mind that the best way to use animations is to keep them tasteful, relevant, and in line with your brand’s identity. Less is more when it comes to animations, a cohesive and visually appealing slider will leave your visitors with a lasting impression.

Thank you for joining us in this journey of animations and effects! Your commitment to improving the visual appeal of your website and engaging your audience is truly admirable.

The post How to Animate Text & Images Like a Pro appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/step-by-step-guide-create-an-image-carousel-in-wordpress/ Fri, 19 May 2023 08:50:42 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=52395 One of the easiest ways to engage your audience is providing them with dynamic and visually appealing content. Image carousels have become popular as a result of their captivating nature. It allows WordPress websites to showcase their content and message effectively. Are you curious about how to add image carousels to your website? Then keep […]

The post Step-by-Step Guide: Create an Image Carousel in WordPress appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> One of the easiest ways to engage your audience is providing them with dynamic and visually appealing content. Image carousels have become popular as a result of their captivating nature. It allows WordPress websites to showcase their content and message effectively. Are you curious about how to add image carousels to your website? Then keep reading.

It doesn’t matter if you are just starting your journey in the WordPress design world or if you have years of experience behind you. This post will aid you with useful tools and the knowledge you’ll need to create your own unique image carousels that without any doubt will boost your website’s popularity. Here’s a step-by-step guide for building an image carousel in WordPress.

However, before we go any further with the technical stuff, we need to understand the importance of image carousels in WordPress. Now, the reason why we have to get a better understanding of its advantages and objectives is because this way there will be no doubt about why they are today a crucial part of many websites.

To answer all the questions you may have regarding this topic, we’ll dive into the most common FAQs like:

• How to make image carousels in WordPress?
• How to customize the appearance, control, speed, and transitions?
• How to add descriptions and captions?
• Which plugin is best suited for creating image carousels?

and so much more.

That’s not even all of it, we’ll also explore how Smart Slider 3 can assist you in building sliders that are guaranteed to leave your audience filled with surprise and wonder.
So let’s dive in and learn how to make the most out of image carousels in WordPress.

📚 Table of contents

🎓 Understanding Image Carousels in WordPress
⚡ Getting Started with Smart Slider
✏️ Creating Image Carousels with Smart Slider
💻 Advanced Features and Customization
💡 Conclusion

Understanding Image Carousels in WordPress

Slider carousels or image carousels, which are also occasionally referred to as slideshows due to their behavior, represent content in a fascinating way. They introduce their details or images in a rotating style.

Their way of offering visually engaging content in an interactive method gained them increasing popularity among web designers and developers.
In addition, their ability to represent captivating content in a limited space also didn’t lessen the appeal.

Why Use Image Carousels?

Purpose:

• Presenting customer testimonials or reviews:

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• Highlighting products and services:

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• Showcasing image galleries:

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• Displaying logos:

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• Introducing your team:

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• Presenting your latest posts:

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• Flaunting your social media posts:

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Benefits:

• Increase Engagement: They motivate interaction with your slider, which results in longer visit times.
• Effective Space Utilization: Carousels solve your space issues by letting you display numerous bits of material in a small space even when your screen space is limited.

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• Visual Appeal: Dynamic and eye-catching carousels improve your website’s looks and make a lasting impact.
• Better Storytelling: Carousels have a narrative flow that makes it possible to convey stories or lead visitors on particular journeys.
• Very Adaptable: You can implement them into a variety of websites, including blogs, e-commerce, portfolios, and business websites.

What is the Best Plugin for Creating Image Carousels in WordPress?

If you search for plugins that allow you to create image carousels for WordPress, you will find various options at your fingertips. However, Smart Slider is an outstanding alternative.

There are various plugins available for WordPress that allow you to create image carousels. Nevertheless, Smart Slider 3 is a highly suggested alternative. To speed up the production of carousels, this robust and feature-rich plugin provides a user-friendly interface, several customization possibilities, and a selection of pre-designed templates. Smart Slider makes it easy to make professional and highly engaging image carousels for your site. It helps you with improving your website’s visual appeal.

Now, we fully understand image carousels and the benefits that come with them. Let’s move on to the actual actions we have to take to create them in WordPress with Smart Slider.

Getting Started with Smart Slider

The first step in the building process of image carousels is to install and set up the Smart Slider plugin on your WordPress site.

With Smart Slider creating carousels is simply the best. It provides a number of customization options to achieve your desired look without sacrificing the user experience or technical necessities for SEO. Let’s take off on this journey together.

Installing and Setting Up Smart Slider 3

This can be achieved in a few simple steps:

• Navigate to the left column of your WordPress dashboard to the “Plugins” section and click on the “Add new” option.
• Write “Smart Slider 3” into your search bar, then click on the “Install Now” button.

 

• As soon as it’s ready, you can activate the plugin for your website.

Once you are done with the activation process, Smart Slider will offer you all the visual and textual guides you will need through documents and tutorial videos.

Smart Slider 3’s Dashboard

When you are ready, you can move on to the next step of navigating to the Smart Slider Dashboard where the actual magic happens. Here you can start creating your image carousels, but first:

• You need to get comfortable with the various possibilities the Dashboard offers.

 

• Then you can move on to check out the wide range of pre-designed and stunning templates the template library provides. Make sure to check out all of the unique slider types as well.

Create your First Image Carousel

You can either choose to start from scratch or you could try out a template that matches your idea:

• Press the “New Project” button, so you can start creating your slider with the carousel slider type.
• It’s up to you if you would like to start with a completely blank slider or add a template from the library.

Managing your Slides

Now as your slider is created, let’s dive into how you can make it your own unique image carousel slider:

• Firstly, to add new slides to your design, simply click on the “Add Slide” option, this way you can make it into an actual carousel.

• Boost your slider’s content by uploading your images. You can add it to your slide’s background or just as a design element.
• Not to mention, you can tailor your content to your own preferences, by including headings, buttons, transition effects, or any type of design. Smart Slider offers a wide range of features that you can play around with until you find the most suitable ones.

Now that we’ve answered the “How do I add an image carousel in WordPress?” question, we can gather that if you follow these easy steps, adding an image carousel to your WordPress website doesn’t have to take a genius. Smart Slider’s clean interface and extensive settings help you out and take the burden off your chest.

Let’s move on to the next section, which will help us discover the possibilities of customization in Smart Slider 3.

Creating Image Carousels with Smart Slider

Smart Slider stands out from other sliders with its broad options for design. Therefore, if you are looking for a plugin that allows you to conveniently edit the effects and look of your image carousel and tone it to your page’s individual design, then you should try out Smart Slider.

Let’s find out how to make the most of Smart Slider’s various features for image carousel customization.

Styling and Design

You can find a wide range of tools to edit your carousel:

• Important layout elements: You can adjust the slider and slide size, maximum pane width, and the minimum slide distance of your carousel for your own preferences.

 

• Slide Editor: Here you can configure all of your design elements in your slide to match your brand. This includes backgrounds, colors, fonts, and many more unique settings.

Animations

There are some unique ways to elevate your project with fascinating effects in Smart Slider. Let’s look at some of them that can improve the visual impact of your image carousel:

• Animation Types: To create dynamic and seamless slide changes, choose from a variety of transitions and animations, you can set your slide to a single switch and more.
• Duration: Tailor transition time to manage the rate at which slides change delivering the best possible user experience.

Removing or Adding Captions

Smart Slider 3 lets you add captions or descriptions to give your photographs more context or information:

• Text and Heading Layer: Easily add text layers to your slides to add informative text or draw attention to particular elements. Don’t forget that the clearer the images and shorter the text, the more likely users are to engage with your content.
• Formatting Options: Change your captions’ font family, size, color, alignment, and animation effects. Moreover, pay special attention to the buttons and links, they should be large enough so that they can be easily clicked, even on mobile devices.

Responsive Design

It is essential to make sure your image carousel appears fantastic on all devices in today’s mobile-driven environment. Making responsive carousels is easier with Smart Slider 3:

• Basic responsive behavior: The responsive behavior of the carousel slider is one that it displays as many slides as it can fit within the current size, without resizing the slides until the last one can no longer fit.

• Responsive controls: The slider is touch-friendly for mobile users, and it includes both arrows and bullets for navigation and quick access to the slides, which you can hide if you want to save space.
• Full-width product carousel: This image carousel has equal spacing between each slide as a result of the side spacing option.
• Single Switch: To eliminate empty space you can enable this setting while also setting the Main Animation to Horizontal.

 

• Utilize the mobile-friendly features: Optimize the font sizes with the Font-Resizer, adjust the layout, and everything that may come up in order to offer an effortlessly convenient sliding for your audience.

FAQs

 

You have the ability to make your WordPress site’s image carousel into a visually appealing and compelling slider by using Smart Slider 3. We’ll look at even more advanced options that can elevate your carousel in the following section.

Advanced Features and Customization

It can be gathered that Smart Slider offers a wide range of options to take your image carousel to the next level in WordPress.

Now, let’s look at some of the more advanced features that we hardly mentioned above, so they need more explanation to do. These are the ultimate solutions for effective performance and interactivity with your carousel.

How do I Add Navigation Arrows or Dots to the Image Carousel in WordPress?

With Smart Slider you can, without any difficulty, insert arrows and bullets into your slider. This makes it easy to enhance the user experience, giving them control over your image carousel.

In the Controls tab add arrows or bullets or even both to your image carousel to improve the user experience:

• Arrows: Give users the option of manually navigating the slides using the designable arrow icons.

 

• Include Bullets: At the bottom of the carousel, you can show a series of dots that represent the current slide and allow for easy navigation. Design them to match your preferences.

Dynamic Content

You have control over what particular post or page your image carousel displays thanks to Smart Slider 3:

• To ensure that just the chosen pages or posts are displayed and that they appear exactly how you want them to, use the variable option in Smart Slider. They allow you to pull data from a dynamic source to your slide.
• With them, you can pull the post titles, descriptions, or URLs to your slides.
• To use them, add a layer to your slide and find the Data button above the input field.

 

• Then, clicking on the button will open the Insert variable popup, where you can find the list of available variables and the result they’ll display.

Are There Any SEO Considerations for Image Carousels in WordPress?

Without any doubt! Smart Slider takes into consideration every aspect of your image carousel to optimize for SEO.

Additionally, here are some awesome tips to improve it and make it even more noticeable:

• Add alt text to your images: They make it easier for search engines to index your images, especially when the slider mostly represents images with a small amount or no text at all.

 

• Set proper H tags: Well-structured content is crucial for SEO, adding the correct headings can make or break your visibility.

 

• Write text without H tags: Not everything needs to be a heading.

With these cutting-edge options, Smart Slider 3 gives you the freedom to design image carousels that are customized to your unique preferences. Hop on to the final section for a summary of the main ideas we discussed.

Conclusion

All things considered, image carousels can be used as the perfect tool for mesmerizing and enlightening your audience. As we all know, visual engagement can be essential in today’s digital environment.

We learned that you can design gorgeous image carousels in WordPress that not only draw attention but also improve user experience. All this is thanks to the flexibility and powerful features of Smart Slider 3.

In addition, we looked at how to use Smart Slider 3 for this purpose following a step-by-step process. From setup and installation to customization we covered everything.
By reading through these recommendations, you now have all the information and resources you will need.

Therefore, now you can design interactive carousels that are both visually appealing and match the goals of your website.

Smart Slider is here to take the burden off your chest and help you implement and take advantage of these benefits. So in case you still haven’t checked out these features, you should make sure to don’t miss out. These characteristics include an easy-to-use interface with various settings for customization so you can create your own ideal image carousel in WordPress.

Regret is often born from missed opportunities. So why wait and regret? Get started and elevate your website with stunning image carousels that catch the eye and leave your visitors in a daze. Keep in mind, that every step you take has an impact on your online presence.

Are you ready? Install Smart Slider 3, if you haven’t yet, and unlock a world of possibilities for your image carousel in the WordPress world. It’s time to engage and captivate all of the users.

The post Step-by-Step Guide: Create an Image Carousel in WordPress appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/what-is-a-slider/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 08:00:55 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=9831 Sliders. Carousels. Slideshows. No matter what you call them, sliders are an incredibly versatile design tool that allow you to showcase images, video, and other content beautifully and more effectively while maximizing the space on your website. Whether you need a simple way to display a slideshow of photos on an eCommerce or real estate […]

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]]> Sliders. Carousels. Slideshows. No matter what you call them, sliders are an incredibly versatile design tool that allow you to showcase images, video, and other content beautifully and more effectively while maximizing the space on your website.

Whether you need a simple way to display a slideshow of photos on an eCommerce or real estate websites, or want a bold video header with calls-to-action, sliders can help you quickly grab your visitors’ attention.

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In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into sliders, using examples from Smart Slider 3, a popular slider plugin for WordPress. We’ll explore what they are, how they’re used, the various kinds of sliders you can create, as well as all the different types of behaviors, elements, animations and effects you can include in your sliders.

What is a Slider?

The term slider is used for a design element, which is added to a WordPress page to display visual content. From classic image slideshows to modern fullscreen sliders, sliders come in all shapes and sizes. Using the right WordPress slider plugin, it’s easy to create your own sliders.

Designers love sliders for their flexibility and the visual elements that make it easy to tell a compelling story. Site owners, on the other hand, love them because they can promote multiple facets of a business within one website component and space. At their most basic, an image slideshow might contain a series of images, each with its own caption, like this example:

But in recent years, sliders have evolved to provide greater functionality and feature beyond simple images and text. Now, you can add video, use layers to combine images, text, and buttons, and even include a mix of elements and animations — all within the same slider.

Let’s take a look at a few modern examples.

Amazon uses sliders liberally throughout its site to promote its products. On the homepage, there’s a slider with featured products, as well as several small sliders below with best sellers.

In this example, Airbnb uses a slider on its homepage to display cities were people can book short stay accommodation around the world:

And in this more complex example, Lonely Planet uses a fullscreen homepage slider incorporating navigation and text previews to showcase its latest featured articles:

These are just some of the big brands using sliders to showcase their best content while maximizing all-important screen space.

But it’s not just big brands using sliders. Sliders are easy to add to any WordPress site, and there are plenty of options out there, particularly for WordPress users.

How Do Sliders Work with WordPress?

Adding sliders to your WordPress site is as easy as installing and activating a plugin, and then using the provided visual builder to design your slider.

There are many WordPress slider plugins available, which allow you to create sliders and add them to any page or post on your site. You can download free slider plugins from WordPress.org. Below, you’ll see Smart Slider 3 is the highest rated slider plugin for WordPress:

There are also many premium slider plugins available for WordPress, such as Smart Slider 3 Pro and Revolution Slider, the latter of which is packaged with many ThemeForest themes.

Typically, free slider plugins offer only basic features, such as the ability to create image sliders with captions and simple transitions. When you upgrade to a premium slider plugin, you can start building more complex sliders using layers, images, text, videos, CTAs, animations, and more.

Types of Sliders

There are several different types of slider, each of which provides the structure for a slider, on top of which you can add other elements. These are the types of sliders you will find in Smart Slider 3:

• Standard – Also known as a slideshow, this type of slider enables you to display several images, one at a time.
• Carousel – This type of slider displays two or more images at a time, which users can cycle through.
• Showcase – This type of slider lets you put the focus on one image, but also give a sneak peek at other images in the series.
• Block – A content block features just one slide but can include many different elements (text, image, video, etc), animations and effects.

Types of Slider Layouts

In addition to slider types, there are different slider layouts that determine how a slider type will look on a web page.

• Boxed – This is the most typical type of layout you’ll come across on the web, such as an on eCommerce site displaying product items. It makes the slider fit into its container.
• Full width – Display a slider across the entire width of a page.
• Full page – This fullscreen layout fills the entire page above-the-fold.

Working with Slider Layers

Free slider plugins (with the exception of Smart Slider 3) allow you to create only basic slideshows using images and text. Premium slider plugins, on the other hand, let you design to your heart’s content with layers.

Layers are basically content building block that you can add to sliders to create more functional, beautiful, and complex designs. Similarly, Photoshop and other image editing programs use layers to enable users to stack and work with different types of content.

The most basic layers you’ll find in premium slider plugins include: Headings, Text, Images, Buttons and Videos (YouTube, Vimeo, and self-hosted).

Some premium and advanced sliders may also offer other types of content layers, such as: Icons, Lists, Captions, Image boxes (and image areas), Transitions, Progress bars, Counters (and circle counters), Audio, Text areas and iFrame.

The best way to fully understand how layers work is to see them in action. Check out the video below to see how layers work in the free version of Slider Slider 3.

Adding Animations and Effects to Sliders

You’re probably familiar with the default right to left slide background animation that many images slideshows use when transitioning through images. But what’s exciting about working with sliders is that there are many more awesome animations and effects you can use to add both bold and subtle effects to your website.

Background Animations

Whether you want to fade, rotate, zoom, or have your images metaphorically explode, there are dozens of different background animations you can use for transitions between each slide.

Layer Animations

Similar to background animations, layer animations enabled you to animate particular layers in your slider, such as the button animation below.

Text Animations

With text animations you can animate your words and bring text to life as a chain of lines, words, or characters.

Ken Burns Effect

Make your slides pop with this elegant zooming and panning Ken Burns effect, invented for film. A simple way to give your images the illusion of motion.

Parallax

Add depth to your sliders—or, at least, the illusion of it—with parallax. Parallax images move at different speeds and create an optical illusion of depth.

Animated shape divider

Add moving curves, clouds, and diagonal shapes to your sliders with an animated shape divider effect.

Particle effect

Stunning yet deceptively simple. Using the particle effect allows you to add moving shapes and lines, dots, triangles, and polygons that follow the cursor

Creating Sliders: Features and Functionality to Look Out for When Choosing a WordPress Slider Plugin

Now that you’ve got a basic understanding of the different types and behaviors of sliders, as well as layers, animations, and effects, it’s time to look at some of the advanced features you can expect to see in reputable WordPress slider plugins.

From different types of content and dynamic elements to performance and optimization capabilities, these are the features you should look out for when choosing a quality slider plugin.

Visual Editor

Every good slider plugin should come with a visual editor that allows you to design each individual slide, much like how you would with Photoshop and other image editing programs.

Visual editor allows you to drag-and-drop layers, change fonts, sizes, colors, add animations and effects, and generally manipulate the content in your slides to look exactly how you want.

Layers and Customization

Imagine if Photoshop didn’t have layers? It would be difficult to design and edit images, right? Surprisingly, many slider plugins don’t use layers. Without them, you’re severely limited in how you can design your plugins.

Layers allow you to create content-rich sliders, which might have various images, text, video, and other elements layered together to form one interactive slide.

When choosing a slider plugin, make sure it includes the most basic layers (headings, text, images, video, and buttons), as well as any advanced content you might need, such as icons, audio, lists, and counters.

Live Preview

Like any software, live preview allows you to quickly see every change you make in real-time. For example, after updating an image or adding a text layer or transition, you can click ‘Preview’ to quickly preview your changes and see what your slider looks like with all over your layers, animations and effects working together.

Dynamic Content

You aren’t limited to adding just static images, video, and text to your slides. Some slider plugins, like Smart Slider 3, allow you to populate slides with dynamic content, such as WordPress and Joomla blog posts, YouTube playlists, and even products from your WooCommerce site.

This means you can dynamically display content, such as your eCommerce store’s best-selling products, your latest blog posts, or even new video additions to your YouTube channel.

Page Builder Compatible

If you’ve built your site using a page builder, such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi, Site Origin or WP Bakery Page Builder, be sure to check that any slider plugin you choose is compatible.

Responsive Design

Ensuring that your site design is responsive is crucial now that Google has moved to mobile-first indexing. So choose a slider plugin that provides responsive design out-of-the-box.

Some sliders, like Smart Slider 3, provide device-specific settings for desktop, tablet and mobile. This means your sliders will automatically adjust for different devices. You can choose to enable features like tilt and swipe, or simply turn off sliders for particular devices.

Support and Updates

Premium slider plugins should always come with priority support, so if you run into any issues you can get in touch for help. Support generally doesn’t come with free slider plugins, though you can use the WordPress Support Forums if you have any questions.

Keeping your slider plugin up-to-date is also important for security and performance, and so you can upgrade to receive new features.

Speed and Performance

There’s a common perception that sliders negatively impact website performance. Often, people add images to sliders that are too big or haven’t been optimized. So if a slider plugin further impacts performance, it’s a double whammy for page load speed.

It’s important that your slides load immediately but don’t slow down the loading of your pages, so look out for slider plugins that offer image optimization such as generating smaller images for tablet and mobile visitors and converting the images to WebP for faster load time. The ability to lazy load some of the images is another great feature to have. Both of these techniques will help your slides load quickly.

SEO-Friendly

When you’re adding different types of content such as images and video to your sliders, it makes sense to leverage it for SEO, right? So when choosing a slider plugin, make sure it’s been designed with SEO in mind and its HTML structure follow SEO best practice. This will ensure your individual slides—along with the alt text you have entered for your content—ranks in search.

Developer-Friendly

If you want even more control over the design of your slides, look for a slider plugin that’s developer-friendly and allows for custom code within slides, but also allows you to edit external files for customizations like animations and effects.

Conclusion

Now that you learned all there is to know about sliders and how they work with WordPress, you’re ready to start creating your own! As I mentioned above, there are some great free options, but I’d highly recommend starting out with Smart Slider 3, which you can download from WordPress.org.

Smart Slider 3 comes with loads of features and options (including everything mentioned in this article and more). Check out these stunning slider examples and download Smart Slider 3 for free to get started.

The post What is a Slider? The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Sliders appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/introducing-morph-and-distortion-animations/ Thu, 07 Oct 2021 06:00:41 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=42353 It’s never easy to create an amazing website that stands out from the crowd. You need eye-catching, user friendly design and some modern effects. The latest update of Smart Slider Pro is here to bring you some cool stuff. This time we’ve brought you two new groups of Background Animations. They’re called Morph and Distortion, […]

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]]> It’s never easy to create an amazing website that stands out from the crowd. You need eye-catching, user friendly design and some modern effects. The latest update of Smart Slider Pro is here to bring you some cool stuff. This time we’ve brought you two new groups of Background Animations. They’re called Morph and Distortion, and they give you a total of 12 new effects to use on your sliders. Let’s explore these new features together!

What’s a background animation?

Before we check the new effects, first let’s learn what a background animation is. The background animation is the kind of effect that you see when one image changes to another. This happens when you switch slides either by a control (such as an arrow) or using autoplay.

It’s worth noting that some background animations are not noticeable on background colors. It’s due to the way the animations work: they manipulate the background in a way that it’s hard to spot it on a solid color. The new Morph and Distortion animations are great examples of this. So, make sure you use them on images only.

What are Morph animations?

Morph animations magically transit one background image into another in an unconventional way. The transition is mind-blowing but very smooth, so it’s perfectly suitable for any modern websites.

What are Distortion animations?

Distortion animations are liquid-like transitions between images. You can create stunning glitch transitions made with WebGL to catch your visitors’ attention. Unlike the Morph animations, they affect the whole image simultaneously. Although they still look super modern, they’re a bit more fun looking.

Where to find the new animations?

The new animations are available in 3.5.1 of Smart Slider Pro. To take advantage of them make sure you update first! Once updated, select a slider and go to its Animations tab. Please note that background animations are only available in the Simple slider type.

Real Life Morph and Distortion animation examples

Every new Smart Slider feature comes with inspiring example sliders. There’s no difference with the Morph and Distortion animations either. To show the strength of the new effects and to inspire you, we’ve created a slider template. This time we’ve chosen a movie theme and we’re using the Distortion – Flow effect on the background images. What’s the result? Check the demo and find out!

Oh, and by the way, we revamped some old templates to use the new effect. Do you need more inspiration to use these new animations? Be sure to check these revamped Morph and Distortion templates, too!

One of the sliders we chose was the Cosmetics slider, which uses the Morph – Wave animation when you switch slides.

The Organic Food template takes advantage of the new Morph – Brush animation to create a stunning slide changing effect.

The Photo Story template’s most important part is its large and gorgeous images. We choose the Distortion – Storm animation to make the slider more stunning.

We wanted a more subtle animation for the Top 5 Products template, so we chose the Distortion – Mosaic effect. This effect looks absolutely ravishing on this modern full page slider!

Conclusion

The Morph and Distortion animations are amazing additions to Smart Slider. They’re cool and modern effects which will help you create more beautiful sliders than ever. The 4 Morph and 8 Distortion effects let you experiment and find the animation that suits your site the most. Start using the new effects today!

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]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/top-10-features-of-smart-slider-3-pro/ Sun, 10 May 2020 11:37:19 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=18873 Smart Slider 3 is quickly becoming the go-to slider plugin for WordPress. With more than 500,000 active installs — including 20,000 new installs in just the past four weeks — there’s nothing stopping this plugin’s phenomenal growth. In fact, Smart Slider 3 is outpacing every other slider plugin at WordPress.org. So why is Smart Slider […]

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]]> Smart Slider 3 is quickly becoming the go-to slider plugin for WordPress. With more than 500,000 active installs — including 20,000 new installs in just the past four weeks — there’s nothing stopping this plugin’s phenomenal growth. In fact, Smart Slider 3 is outpacing every other slider plugin at WordPress.org.

So why is Smart Slider 3 so damn popular right now? If you’ve tried this user-friendly plugin, you know it’s super easy to get started creating a good-looking slider with minimal effort, no matter your skill level. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Smart Slider 3 makes designing sliders fun!

And that’s just the free version of the plugin — when you upgrade to Smart Slider 3 Pro, you get 100+ professionally designed slides and templates, 16 layer types, dynamic generators, animations, and more. To bring you up to speed with what this intuitive plugin can do, let’s take a look at Smart Slider 3’s top 10 features.

1. Default and Absolute layers

There are two different visual ways in Smart Slider 3 to create content: using Default and Absolute layers. It’s these innovative editing options that set this plugin apart from the competition and help make it the easiest to use slider plugin for WordPress.

Working with Default layers is like working with a page builder. You can use columns and rows to quickly build your slides, and with a clean design that’s fully responsive.

Working with Absolute layers, you have the freedom to work with layers unobstructed, much like you would in Photoshop. You can place your layers anywhere you like and even position them on top of each other to create stunning sliders with dynamic effects.

2. Rich Layers

Imagine if Photoshop didn’t have layers. It would be difficult to design and edit images, right? Surprisingly, many slider plugins don’t offer layers, which severely limits what you can do with your slider designs.

Not Smart Slider 3, though — it’s the most advanced slider plugin when it comes to layers, boasting 21 different layers, which you can use to create a professional and good-looking layer slider.

3. Extensive Slide library

Whether you’re time poor, have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to design, or just need a kick-start with designing your slides, Smart Slider 3 Pro comes with a stack of beautifully designed templates that you can customize with your own content.

The Slide Library comes with 100+ pre-designed slides for everything from product sliders and hero headers to magazine layouts, and testimonials.

4. Impressive Template Collection

In addition to the extensive Slide Library, Smart Slider 3 Pro also has a huge collection of professionally designed slider templates, which you can also browse and import. The template collection includes customizable slider, block, and page templates.

Once you’ve imported a template, you can change the colors, fonts, layers and more to suit your website. If you’re new to Smart Slider 3 Pro, playing with the design of a demo template slider is a great way to learn how the plugin works — and what it’s capable of.

I highly recommend checking out the plugin’s collection of example sliders so you can get a feel for what you can build with Smart Slider 3 Pro.

5. Dynamic Generators

One of Smart Slider 3 Pro’s most useful features is its ability to pull in dynamic content from loads of different sources — 32 sources, in fact — including WordPress posts, WooCommerce products, YouTube, Dribbble, Pinterest and more.

How is this feature useful? Say you wanted to auto-populate your sliders with videos from your YouTube channel, images from your Dribbble portfolio, or photos from your Flickr account. Also you can create a Post slider or a Product slider, which show your latest post or product, and can update itself automatically. You could do all this with Smart Slider 3 Pro.

6. Animations and Effects

Sliders have evolved far beyond the simple image sliders and transitions that dominated websites 10 years ago. What’s exciting about working with sliders now is that there are awesome animations and effects you can use to add both bold and subtle elements to your site.

Here are some of the animations and effects you’ll find in Smart Slider 3 Pro:

Background Animations

Whether you want to fade, zoom, rotate or explode your slides, there are 70+ background animations you can use for the transitions between each slide.

Layer Animations

Similar to background animations, layer animations let you animate the individual layers of your slides which you can cheer up your slider.

Text Animations

With text animations, you can bring your words to life by animating lines, words, or individual characters. A split text animation on your heading layer, or the animated heading attracts the eye and catch the visitor’s attention.

Parallax Effect

Add depth to your sliders — or, at least, the illusion of it — with parallax effect. With parallax enabled, your slides will move at different speeds, creating an optical illusion of depth.

Animated Shape Divider

Add moving curves, clouds, and diagonal shapes to your sliders with the animated shape divider.

Ken Burns Effect

Make your sliders “pop” with this elegant zooming and panning Ken Burns effect, which was originally invented for film. It’s a simple way to give your static images the illusion of motion.

Particle Effect

This effect is stunning yet deceptively simple. The particle effect adds moving shapes and lines, dots, triangles, and polygons that follow the cursor.

7. Responsive Options

With Smart Slider 3 you can create responsive WordPress sliders, so you slider will automatically adjust for different devices. Even the free version of Smart Slider 3 is fully responsive and has a lot of device specific settings. You can set the font sizes to lower or bigger on each device, or set different padding or margins, and wrap after columns value.

Smart Slider 3 Pro features you more responsive options than most of slider plugins. You can define device specific slider sizes, and you can use a different slide background image for desktop, tablet or mobile.

8. Speed and performance

There’s a common misconception that sliders are resource-hungry and negatively impact site performance. While some sliders may well slow down your site, you can rest assured that Smart Slider 3 Pro won’t.

It comes with image optimization (you can optimize and preload images to improve your website’s loading speed), lazy loading and — impressively — script optimization, which boasts efficient code, asynchronous loading, and minification. These features alone are more than you’ll find in any other slider plugin.

9. Developer-Friendly

Smart Slider 3 Pro is intuitive enough for beginners to use, but is also packed with features for developers. In the Pro version you get access to a bunch of advanced options, giving you even more control over your slides.

10. Support and Updates

Last, but not least, one of the best features of Smart Slider 3 is the folks who build and support it. The team at Smart Slider 3 put their heart and soul into this plugin and it shows — from the regular updates to the friendly customer support, you can trust that when you buy this plugin, you’ll be well looked after.

The free version of Smart Slider 3 has a 4.9 out of 5-star rating at WordPress.org. When you scroll through the latest reviews, you can see how much people really love this plugin! When you buy the Pro version, you can be confident that you’ll get even better, faster support.

Conclusion

Smart Slider 3 Pro is the most feature-rich slider plugin for WordPress. But it’s more than just a slider plugin — it’s a visual builder that lets you create sliders, blocks, app showcases, and other page elements for a truly dynamic website.

If you want a slider plugin that’s feature-rich, user-friendly, and optimized for performance, Smart Slider 3 Pro is a popular and versatile option that’s worth checking out.

The post Top 10 Features of Smart Slider 3 Pro appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/layer-animation/ Sat, 02 May 2020 11:45:39 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=17197 Everyone loves fancy transitions on their website. A layer animation helps catch and keep the visitor’s attention for as long as possible. Having smooth, lightweight animations on pages has become a trend as people tend to remember images and moving things easier. When you create your slider, and put your layers on it, everything stands […]

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]]> Everyone loves fancy transitions on their website. A layer animation helps catch and keep the visitor’s attention for as long as possible. Having smooth, lightweight animations on pages has become a trend as people tend to remember images and moving things easier.

When you create your slider, and put your layers on it, everything stands still in their place. However, wouldn’t it be fancy if the layers moved? In Smart Slider 3 Pro you have the option to use layer animations on your slider. They can come in, loop, go out, repeat, so you can create even complex animations if you want. Read this article and learn everything about layer animations.

Importance of layer animations

Layer animation helps you create really amazing sliders, because the movement catches the visitors’ eye. A small animation on a layer can help the visitor to focus on it, it makes your site modern and makes your website come alive. In addition, because of the movement, the visitors read the text on the animated layer subconsciously.

It is also important to mention that you should be careful with the animations, but don’t take them to the extreme. You should keep the harmony in the slider, make sure that the animations aren’t disturbing. When each layer moves at the same time in a different way, it might backfire. Having to focus on a lot of things can be confusing. When it comes to animations, less can be more.

In Smart Slider 3 Pro you can animate all of your layers, you can create any kind of animation that you have imagined. Also, there are a lot of predefined animations to choose from, if you quickly want to have an animation on your layer. The best thing is that if you are done creating a complicated animation, you can copy it to your other layers as well.

Animation types

In Smart Slider you can choose from a lot of pre-set layer animations. There are basic animations like the fade or move, special animations which were built from more Keyframes, and the newest type is the reveal animation. Reveal animation is an elegant and modern effect which can reveal the layers. It animates a colored box in front of the actual layer, which attracts the eye.

You can set all the animations at the Layer window → Animation tab, just select the layer and set an incoming animation, a loop, or an outgoing animation. Also, there is an option to set an Event, and the animation will be triggered by that event like opening a popup. You can read more about them below.

Animations in Smart Slider 3

In Smart Slider 3 Pro you can’t only add an animation to your layers, you can use text animation too, such as the animated heading or the highlighted heading. Also, there is an option to set a main animation to your slider and use animations on your background. These animations are fancy, and there are a lot of pre-defined types available which you can choose from.

In layer animation

The most popular layer animation is the incoming animation. It introduces the layer so the visitor can see it when they need to. In layer animations usually start right after the background animations have finished, but this can be changed for each slider. This kind of animations were made to introduce the layer, for example, fading it in or moving it in from outside of the canvas.

Create mask for a layer animation

To have an even more splendid effect, you can use the mask to make the layer animation only happen within the layer. When this option is used, the content of the layer will only appear when it reaches the original position of the layer. In other words, only those parts of the layer will be visible which are inside the layer’s original position.

Loop layer animation

The loop animation keeps repeating itself until an out animation takes effect on the layer, or until the slide is changed. Using the Events you can put a loop animation (e.g. a pulsing effect) on your layer when the user hovers over it, and when the cursor is not above the layer anymore the animation will stop.

Out layer animation

In Smart Slider 3 Pro you can use outgoing animations, too. Usually, they play right after the in-animation has finished, but they can be played right before the slide-switching, and they can be triggered by any event. The out-animations are used to hide a layer on the current slide. For example, on the headphone slider the text that appears first is hidden using layer animations.

When you create a complex animation and use events to trigger them, you should use the repeatable option. This function can be also useful if you want to create for example a flashing effect, where layers appear then disappear after each other. Both the in- and out-animations have a repeatable option. And the out animation can be skipped per slider, if you don’t want to wait for every single out-animation to happen when you switch slides.

Create multiple layer animations

In Smart Slider 3 Pro you can build complex animations with using keyframes. You can create as many keyframes as you want, and use it after each other. The basic animations can have multiple keyframes, with different animations in them. For example, you can create an in-animation, the layer can fade in, move left, move right and rotate.

Layer animations work the way that enables you to put as many animations on one layer as you want with Keyframes. Also, we’ve made some predefined chain animations to help you have a fancy animation as fast as possible!

Managing the layer animation on the easy to use timeline

Every layer animation appears on a visual timeline, where the delay and duration can be changed. You can see the three layer animations with different colors. When the animation is clicked, it will open the layer window’s animation tab, and let you edit the selected animation. Pressing the space key will start the animations, so you can see a preview on how they will look.

The timeline has another great feature. It lets you copy and paste animations between different layers. For example, if you created a complex animation, you can quickly have it on different layers. So you don’t need to create the animations all over again, you can save time and effort.

Specify events for layer animations

People sometimes want more from layer animations, for example that the animation happens with an event. With Smart Slider 3 Pro you can handle the animations with events. There are a lot of predefined situations, such as when the visitor clicks or the mouse enters the layer area. These events are perfect for creating simple events, which can be triggered if the user interacts with the slider. For example you can show layers when the user hovers on the slide, and hide them if their mouse leaves the slide area.

With default events you can cover a lot of use cases, but you can create your own custom event as well. Any specific layer animation can be triggered by any number of events, so you can create a popup for example, which can be trigger by clicking on the layer.

It is important to mention that there are no events without layer animation. Using events you can make layers appear and disappear on mouse over, mouse out or mouse click.

Two positions for your layers

In Smart Slider your layers can have Default or Absolute position. Working with Default layers is like using a page builder. Additionally, you can work fast with great responsive behavior. Absolute layers allow free editing, but its much more complex to achieve a good responsive look.

However, Absolute layers can be very useful if you build a complex animation, because these layers let you put a layer above or below the others. For example using Absolute layers you can create a popup, or you can create small moving elements like in the City example.

Final Thoughts

With a nice animation you can cheer up your website and you can raise the visitors’ attention. In Smart Slider 3 Pro you can use layer animations on every slider type, so in WordPress carousels or image sliders as well, and you can achieve what you’ve imagined.

Take your layer animations to the next level with the easy to use animation builder. Create unique and fascinating animations choosing a basic or a reveal animation. Don’t forget: a moving design element will always outperform any static one when it comes to grabbing your users’ attention.

The post Use Beautiful Layer Animations in Smart Slider 3 Pro appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/shape-divider/ Fri, 26 Apr 2019 05:48:05 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=18635 Smart Slider 3 Pro brings an amazing shape divider feature into the slider and page creation. This is a trendy and modern looking design element between sections. If you know page builders, you might be already familiar with shape dividers. The truth is that shapes aren’t regular slider features, but they do make them amazing. […]

The post Add Beautiful Section for your Website with Shape Dividers appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> Smart Slider 3 Pro brings an amazing shape divider feature into the slider and page creation. This is a trendy and modern looking design element between sections. If you know page builders, you might be already familiar with shape dividers. The truth is that shapes aren’t regular slider features, but they do make them amazing. Let’s take a look at them, and learn how you can use the shape dividers with your slider.

What is a shape divider?

Shape divider is a modern graphic shape which you can use as a separator between sections on your page. You can use it as a design element, and put it to the top or bottom part of your slider.

How to make shape dividers?

1. Install Smart Slider 3 Pro
2. Go to Slider settings → Animation tab
3. Click on Shape Divider
4. Choose top or bottom shape
5. Customize it
6. Publish your slider

With Smart Slider 3 Pro you can easily add shape dividers to your slider, all you need is to go to the Slider settings, choose your divider and set it. Every type of shape is different, you can use curve, fan or a simple rectangle type as well. In Smart Slider 3 Pro 24 divider types are available, which you can fully customize. They have the same settings, you can set the colors, the width and the height, and you can animate them.

Moving effects

The most interesting option is the special animations for every shape, which you can put to the top and the bottom of your slides, and they will move. Also, there is a superb option: you can animate the shapes on scroll. This means when you scroll on the page, the divider will be bigger or smaller. It gives an interesting result for your visitors.

5 ways to use shape dividers in web design

1. Broken grid layout

A broken grid slider is a modern way to design your slider content. These layouts are trendy and elegant, and call the visitors’ attention. This slider can fulfill many purposes, you can use it as a homepage slider, and it will make a modern look and a good first interaction with your visitors.

2. Slider blocks

Using a shape divider can cheer up your blocks, it looks good and professional. You can also use blocks between other slides or sections, and you can even create a whole landing page using sliders and blocks.

3. Animated divider

Animated shape dividers attract the eye, and draw the visitors’ attention. With Smart Slider 3 you can animate your shapes if you want, which you can customize: change the width, height, or animate it. You can also turn on a scrolling effect, and it will grow or shrink when the visitor scrolls.

4. Separator between sections

You can use the shape dividers as a cool separator. They’re great to connect a visual content with a single colored section. It is good if you use the same color for your shape divider as the section uses before or after your slider. In this case your divider will be merged in your section.

5. Design element

Dividers can be used as design elements in the background as well. The animated waves on the Rotating Slider is a good example for that. It attracts the eye, and makes a professional visual effect, and it is the part of the design.

Is the shape divider responsive?

Yes, shape dividers are fully responsive in Smart Slider 3, and you can set the divider’s width and height device specifically. All you need is to switch between the devices on the top, and customize it. Smart Slider 3 uses highly optimized SCGs to the shapes, because of that it looks good on any screen. The shape divider shows up below the layers at simple and block type sliders, however in carousel or showcase sliders, they are below the slides.

Tips for using shape dividers

• Don’t use too big shapes which hide your content. Always make it solid, and check it on mobile and tablet as well where you can customize the width and height.
• Use a matching color for the slider
• Use the type which fits your page content
• Don’t take them to the extreme
• Use them together with parallax effect which makes a powerful effect for the visitor

Final Thoughts

Shape dividers allow you to divide your sections and sliders with the responsive shapes. Choose the type, control the height, set a color, and animate it. Check our examples, and cheer up your slider with a cool shape divider!

The post Add Beautiful Section for your Website with Shape Dividers appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/animations-effects-smart-slider-3/ Thu, 28 Feb 2019 11:00:35 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=5162 Animation and movement is a huge part of today’s modern WordPress websites. A moving effect is great to catch the visitor’s attention and make the website stand out of the crowd. There are various effects you can use on your WordPress site. Below you can find which slider animations are available in Smart Slider 3. […]

The post Animations & Effects in Smart Slider appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> Animation and movement is a huge part of today’s modern WordPress websites. A moving effect is great to catch the visitor’s attention and make the website stand out of the crowd. There are various effects you can use on your WordPress site. Below you can find which slider animations are available in Smart Slider 3. Of course you can also find visual examples to understand every WordPress animation better.

Jump to your favorite effect or animation

• Main Slider Animation
• Background Animations
• Ken Burns effect
• Layer animations
• Reveal animation
• Highlighted heading
• Animated heading
• Parallax effect
• Particle effect
• Shape dividers

Main Slider Animation

It’s a known fact that an attractive WordPress animation can catch the visitor’s eyes. But sometimes, they’re far more impressive than the actual story, so it’s better to find a balance there. Impressive 2D and 3D animations look nice and professional on your site. Just be sure to you choose them carefully.

But sometimes, you don’t need such fancy transitions. Sometimes, you just want your slides to have a clear and simple animation. These are the times when you should consider choosing a Main animation. You can find them at the Slider settings page, on the General tab.

 

There are four Main animations available, but they allow lots of customization. Let’s talk about these animations a little bit. First of all, the Main animation is a special kind of slider animation. It is because it can affect both the slide backgrounds and the layers. For instance, if your layers don’t have layer animation the Main animation moves them. And they can move the slide backgrounds as well. That is, if you don’t select any Background animation.

To sum it up, the Main animation is great whenever you need a simple but elegant slider animation. It’s also a great choice when you would like to profit from the impressive touch feature. You can set the Main animation for Simple type and WordPress Carousel sliders.

Background Animations

There is a great variety of background animations offered by Smart Slider 3. You can choose from more than 74 animations and 13 is available in the free version as well. These animations happen only on your slider’s background images, colors or videos. The Background animations have no effect on your layers at all. In exchange these animations are more spectacular and they’ll easily wow your visitors.

Setting up a background animation is extremely easy. Hit the green Animations button, and then select the animations you like, apply them and you’re ready to go. It’s up to you whether you choose one background animation or select many.

 

You may apply Background animations to every slide at the Slider settings page. You can also select them to a specific slide only. This means that you can mix them with Main animations. For instance, if you set Background animations for one slide, the rest will use the Main animation. You might set a different Background animation for every slide in your slider. Whenever you need something impressive take a look at these animations. You can apply Background animations on Simple type sliders and slides.

Ken Burns effect

Ken Burns effect is an astonishing panning and zooming effect. Nowadays, Ken Burns effect is one of the most popular animations for websites. Thus, the most popular themes offer a possibility of using the effect. The reason is simple: it is a simple, elegant effect and works on any kind of images. Moreover, the effect is not resource heavy at all.

 

Smart Slider 3 allows you to add this effect on individual slides or each slide in the slider. The effect is available only if your slider is Simple type or Block type. You can achieve similar effect for your image layers using layer animations.

Basic Layer animations

Not all animations Smart Slider 3 offers happen on your background images. Smart Slider 3 allows you to add a layer animation to all 15 layers. There are a couple of predefined animation you can choose from. But if you need something unique, you can use the layer animation builder. It helps you create any kind of animation you would like to. We know the layer animation builder has a learning curve, so we wrote tutorials to help you master them.

 

Do you need the layer animation to happen only on some user action? For example when they hover over an image, some extra information should appear? The events got you covered. Of course you can find tutorials to learn how to use them.

The best part of the layer animations (and events) is that they you can use them on blocks. Blocks are the one slide “sliders”, which can’t have Main or Background animations.

Split text animation

The split text animation is special kind of WordPress animation. You can use this effect on the heading layers only. The split text animation works in a unique was as doesn’t move the whole layer but its text alone. The effect gives you the opportunity to animate the text in many different ways. For instance, as a chain of lines, words or characters.

 

Reveal animation

Reveal animation is an elegant and modern effect you can use on your site. The effect is created by a single colored box, which moves in front of the actual layer, revealing it.

 

Highlighted heading

The highlighted heading helps you highlight the most important part of the heading, delivering your message in the most effective way. There are several cool effects you can choose from to grab your visitors’ attention.

 

Animated heading

Old-school effects like the typewriter became trendy in modern websites again. The animated heading layer helps you add a typewriter effect to your slides. Saving vertical space and wowing visitors at the same time has never been easier!

 

Parallax effect

The parallax effect is a nice WordPress animation based on an optical illusion. The parallax effect creates the illusion of depth during scrolling. It works that way that it moves the images at a different speed and show them from a different angle. It gives an incredible visual experience for every modern website. Smart Slider 3 can create parallax effect for both slide background images and layers.

 

Particle effect

The particle effect is variety of small shapes like dots, triangles or polygons. The shapes move around the slider and interact with each other or with the visitor. They look rather stunning and they work great as a WordPress animation.

 

Shape dividers

Shape dividers are trendy design elements, which are great to connect a visual content with a single colored section. For instance, you can put a slider with shape divider that has a background video or parallax image between two section. It will look amazing.

 

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