Front Page Sliders for Images and Posts

Front page sliders for images and posts are key elements of many sites, and yet sometimes difficult to select. Often I am looking for the option to pull in excerpts from pages or posts, or at least to add a link overlay on a slide.

Nemus slider is one of the few free plugins that provides the options for text overlays and links to posts. The overlays accept html and shortcodes, and I have added buttons to the overlays using the SvegliaT Buttons plugin. The plugin is easy to use and effective – I recommend it!

Meta slider is highly rated, and the pro version is very powerful. I bought it, and I like it ($19-$99, depending on the license)! In the pro version, buttons can be added using shortcodes (as above) in the HTML overlay editor (in the Media upload window); styling is also possible in the custom theme editor, and includes features such as page curl. Meta slider provides good support for CSS styling.

Slider Villa offers some nice plugins; I’ve used the Pinwheel Slider on a restaurant site (Stage Stop) and the Indexo slider to pull in pages on a travel site (Himalayan Connections).

Smart Slider was used on the front page of this site; the plugin offers a lot of flexibility (cost, $29-$99).

Weaver Show Sliders is a plugin that I’d like to check out further. It appears to have a plethora of options, and works in conjunction with Weaver Show Posts plugin.