How to Set Up Your Home Page Featured Content Section
If you look at the home page of this site, you’ll clearly see the featured content glider at the top. It’s very simple to add the featured content glider to your site. Follow these simple steps, and you’ll have it done lickety-split.
Step 1 – Activate Featured Content on the WP-Genius Theme Settings Page
Near the top of the WP-Genius Theme Settings Page, you will see a setting titled “Featured Content on Home Page.” Simply select yes and save your changes. The default setting will display up to 5 featured articles in the glider. However, you can display an additional 4 featured articles beneath the glider by changing the “How Many Featured Articles” setting to 9. The theme will display either the most recent 5 or 9 featured articles in reverse chronological order.
Step 2 – Select Some Posts to be Displayed in the Featured Content Section
If you want a post to appear in the featured content section, simply tag the post as “featured” (without the quotes). To add a tag, simply find the “Post Tags” box on the right side of the Write Post screen and enter it there. NOTE: The slug for the “featured” tag must be featured for the featured slider to show posts. If this is not possible, you may instead replace “featured” with “featured-2″ (or the current post tag slug) in the features.php template. In addition, you must have at least two featured posts for the slider to work properly.
Step 3 – A Few Words About Featured Content Images
1. Featured Content Image Size: The ideal size for an image in the featured content glider is 540px wide by 250px height. For a simple, quick and free method to resize images, visit this site.
2. Use the Get the Image Plugin – If you haven’t already done so, you should install and activate this plugin. It will save you a lot of time and energy when it comes to using images on your site.
3. Upload Your Image – Once your image is the proper size, simply upload via the standard WordPress image uploader found on the Write Post page (just under the post title).
4. Alternatively, You Can Use a Custom Field – If you prefer, you can simply add your Featured Content image via a custom field. The custom field names you need to use are as follows:
- For the images that appear in the glider: custom field name = “home_feature_photo,” and the value needs to be the file path to your image (e.g. http://wp-mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/filenamebenz.jpg).
- For thumbnail images: custom field name is “post_thumbnail,” and the value needs to be the file path to your image (e.g. http://wp-mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/filenamebenz.jpg).
Filed Under: Tutorials
We’re all about video and I am trying to insert video into your cool “Featured Content” section on the front page of the Genius Template. If I can manage this easily I will upgrade to the Licenced Template and use it for my clients.
Is it possible to use Video in the “Featured Content Section” (The black front panel) in Genius?
Thanks! Great looking Template
We took a quick look at your site. There are two basic issues. 1. – Your page titles are really, really long. Any thing you can do to shorten them will improve the way they display on your site (this will apply to any theme that you might use). 2. There are a couple of display tricks that you can use when working with flash in WordPress. Let us know if you are interested in them.
[...] If you want a post to appear in the featured content section, simply tag the post as “featured” (without the quotes). To add a tag, simply find the “Post Tags” box on the right side of the Write Post screen and enter it there. NOTE: You must have at least two featured posts for the slider to work. For detailed information on featured posts, click here. [...]
Just bought and installed your theme for a client, with modifications. For the most part, a very nice and well-written theme.
Have a suggestion for you: in index2.php, and in functions.php as well, you really should add stripslashes() to all of the box titles (e.g. $wp_genius_cat_box_1_title). My client has box titles with apostrophes (e.g. What’s New) and they show up with backslashes added in the theme options and the homepage.
Hi, I’m helping my friend out with his site and in the featured content slider its says comment instead of the post title.
Matthew: please visit the solostream support forum. That’s where we will providing all support going forward.
The slideshow not work. Tried to make a category “Featured”, nothing is appened, tried to make a post into a “test” category and placed the tag “featured”… nothing is happened.
Just a big black space.
Please Note: If you have a support-related question for this theme, please visit the Solostream Support Forum. We will not address support questions here.