When I find a good plugin I do like to give the developers a bit of a heads up here on the blog. My latest find is the Featured Content Gallery plugin by iePlexus.
If you have a blog which is based around promoting just about any type of product at all, I reckon you’ve just gotta love this brill plugin which once again demonstrates just how powerful and usable the WordPress platform really is.
So What Does It Do?
As you can see below, it creates a scrolling gallery of “featured content” from one of your site categories. Simple and easy to use, all you have to do to create an attractive looking dynamic content unit displaying as many of your most recent posts as you want to highlight is to pop the URL of the image you’ve used into the post into a custom field.
(click the image above to see the plugin in action on my blog)
The clever plugin does the rest, sizing your images appropriately to create a great and visually appealing display on your blog. There are a whole host of easily customisable options for this plugin meaning you should be able to make it fit in with your theme and product areas quite readily.
I’ve been looking for a plugin that would do this for quite some time and I was extremely surprised at how easy it was to use. Last time I tried to find something like this all sorts of complex manual resizing was required so I’m thrilled!
March 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Could you not have chosen your lingerie site to show that plugin in action Kirsty? I’m trying to see what the plugin does whilst looking away from the screen, screaming “eeeeurgh”, “stop pointing it at me”, and “dear god no”
March 5th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Looks a Great plug-in but I can think of better places to put the sandwiches!
March 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
hey Kirsty,
I actually found this a few days ago and it looks awesome. I have really had some issues in trying to set it up this up with one of my blogs. I have posted on their support forum but as yet (7 days) and no response. Could you let me know, exactly where di you place the code on your index page? Also do you think the fact that I am using the static home page plugin, it might have an affect on it?
Thanks Kirsty,
March 5th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Hi
Good isn’t it – the plugin I mean !
My only gripe with the latest version of this plugin is that it doesn’t use an external style sheet. So, if you look at your page source you’ll see all the css malarkey.
Version 2 didn’t let you link to a page but the latest version does.
It’s a great plugin though – I use it on several sites. Tends to work well with the Revolution wordpress themes.
Cheers
John
March 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I love this plugin – it’s becoming a real feature in the new RevolutionTwo themes.
Personally I quite like looking at your blokes undies site! Yum! Your site looks good too lol! Although I have to say I don’t get the Obviously Mens anatomical underwear. And as for the new Greg Homme range on DeadGoodUndies – well I never!
March 5th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
LOL, I’m glad you all liked it (well, except John who seems to be traumatised by the sight of other blokes in their undies)
Karen – Ohh… I’ve just seen the new Gregg Homme ranges. That’ll be an interesting article or two I get out of that, lol!!
Marc – I just stuck it in my sidebar file and it started working fine. I don’t know if the static plugin might affect it or not?
March 6th, 2009 at 4:20 am
I’ve tried it before, but it did not. What could be the problem ?
March 6th, 2009 at 7:23 am
No worries. I actually just bought the revolutiontwo theme and it comes standard with this plugin.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Another really clever plugin I came across a few months ago and worked amazingly well for my one site (dramatic increase in traffic, increase in content and increase in community) of site was, wait for it, an FAQ plugin.
I just installed it. People can ask questions. I can then approve and answer them. The Q&A goes live (on its own page or a FAQ general page) and the person gets emailed the answer as well. It really did an amazing job. The problem was during xmas I was answering almost 20 questions p/day.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Hey Kirsty! Thanks for featuring our plugin here. I wanted to let everyone know we just upgraded the plugin to version 3.2.0 today, and it’s available for download in the official WP repository: Featured Content Gallery WordPress Plugin. By the way, John’s issue was resolved – the CSS is back in an external file. Enjoy!
March 10th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hey Kirsty,
An interesting site
and a great plugin. I’m thinking of using this for one of my new sites I’m creating at the moment. Will play with the plugin and see if it can be of use. Thanks for the tip.
Cheers
Paul
March 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Hi Kirsty! I’ve been using this plug-in quite a lot, and it’s awesome. I’ve got another question for you, though. On your “undies” site, when you go to the Shop page and click on “Accessories”, for instance, it’s the next page I’m interested in. How to you manage those datafeeds?
March 21st, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for the tip! I was just working with some gallery plug-ins for Joomla, and wondering how I could do the same effect in WordPress (I’ve got sites done in both). This is exactly the answer I was looking for! Thanks a million!
March 30th, 2009 at 11:32 am
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