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1. 

   Z
   Member

   Hi,

   I recently purchased the Thematic Feature Site theme. It's a truly awesome framework, and I've really enjoyed playing around with it so far. However, a major issue I'm facing is figuring out how to make the featured content box on the static home page display the recent posts with their accompanying images.

   Ideally, I'd love to produce something very similar to these 2 examples:

   http://themeforest.net/item/sketchbook-blog-portfolio-theme/full_screen_preview/26665/

   http://www.pagelines.com/demos/stationpro/

   Looking through the php files, it looks like I either have to create a new feature-front-xx.php page and make edits to my functions.php, or locate a slide show plugin that will produce similar results.

   Here's what I hope to accomplish inside the featured content box:

   - Integrate the post titles and excerpts of 3 most recent posts.

   - Have the accompanying image of the post appear on the blank image box.

   - Make it so when the post title and/or the image is clicked on, will go to the permalink of that post.

   - Create 3 small buttons that when clicked will change to a different recent post & accompanying image.

   - Maintain the post title, excerpt and image placement the same as the original design of the Feature Site theme featured content box.

   My knowledge of CSS and php coding is very limited, so any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   Chris
   Moderator

   Hi,

   StationPro is using jFlow to create the content slider. Here is a tutorial for it: Step By Step To Create Content Slider using jFlow

   Chris

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   Z
   Member

   Hi Chris,

   I appreciate you getting back to me. I did take some time to study the link you provided me, and it seemed very do-able. The only problem I ran into is that I discovered that the author who created jFlow had their website hacked, and it was very difficult to locate another site which carried it. Eventually, I was able to locate a website tutorial which provides a download of the latest version of jFlow. I will post it here in case anyone's interested:

   http://return-true.com/2010/01/using-jflow-in-your-wordpress-theme/

   I did, however, find a nice alternative (since I didn't discover that source until recently). Here's what I did:

   - Downloaded & installed the Smooth Slider Wordpress Plugin. Here is the plugin source: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/smooth-slider/ and here is the author's website with more details on how to use the plugin: http://www.clickonf5.org/smooth-slider

   - Headed over to the function.php file on Thematic Feature Site. Deleted the numbers from the line: $rand = mt_rand(1,2); so it now becomes: $rand = mt_rand();

   - Inserted the following code under the line: include "includes/feature-front-$rand.php"; to activate the Smooth Slider plugin on the front page:

   /*Add Smooth Slider Wordpress Plugin*/
   if ( function_exists( 'get_smooth_slider' ) ) {
   get_smooth_slider(); }

   - Made customizations (color, font size,etc.) on the plugin's settings in WP Admin.

   And that was it! A nice plugin with sliding content. An option box appears in each post's editing panel for you to click on/off whether you want to add or take off that post from the featured sliding content on the front page.

   I may make an attempt to re-study and create a content slider using jFlow, but for the time being this alternative serves me very well. Thanks again, Chris!

   Posted 2 years ago #

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