Installation

Locate the install file

The install file have a name something like layersliderwp-x.x.x.installable.zip. The installable part is the keyword that you should look for.

A recently downloaded version will be the install file itself and you can skip right to the actual installation process.

Older versions, on the other hand, was packaged differently and you may have to first unpack the main ZIP file, then find the install file inside. This was because the main plugin package contained other useful assets besides the install file like the documentation, examples and source files. These are now accessible from our website and new downloads will get you a combined package that can be uploaded to WordPress right away.

Installation through the WP admin interface

1. Locate the installable file described in the above section.
2. On your WordPress admin area navigate to Plugins → Add new, then press the Upload Plugin button on the top of the page.
3. Choose the installable ZIP file mentioned previously, then hit the Install Now button.
4. WordPress might ask you to enter your FTP login credentials. Click on Proceed when you've finished.
5. The plugin is now installed, click on the Activate Plugin button.
6. A new menu entry called LayerSlider WP should appear on your WordPress admin sidebar.

How-to: Installing LayerSlider on a WordPress site

If you're unsure how to install the plugin,
just watch our short tutorial video.

Installation via FTP

1. Locate the installable ZIP file described at the top of this page, then unpack it.
2. Open your favorite FTP application and connect to your server. Navigate to the "/wp-content/plugins/" folder.
3. Copy over the "LayerSlider" folder extracted from the installable ZIP file.
4. Navigate to the Plugins page on your WordPress admin area and click the Activate button below LayerSlider WP.
5. A menu entry called LayerSlider WP should appear on your WordPress admin sidebar.

Troubleshooting

• Please be aware that you must use the "layersliderwp-x.x.x.installable.zip" file when you try to install the plugin on the WP admin area. The main package that you've downloaded contains a lot of other assets. You must unpack it first, then find the above mentioned file inside for installation.
• If you receive a No valid plugins were found error message, you've almost certainly uploaded the wrong ZIP file. Please read the previous point and the installation instructions again.
• The Destination folder already exists error message means that you already have another copy of LayerSlider installed and you can't use multiple versions simultaneously. Make sure to deactivate and delete the previous copy or check your theme settings to disable bundled versions (if any) before attempting to install the new release. This will not affect your sliders and settings, they will remain still and be available after you've finished installing the new version.
• In some very rare cases, certain server settings (e.g. upload size limit, memory limit) could prevent you to install the plugin from your WordPress admin area. If you're experiencing any issue, please contact your server host and ask them to change the relevant settings. Alternatively, you can also revert to the FTP installation method, so you don't have to wait in the meantime.
• If you receive an error message that says "Are you sure you want to do this?", it's most likely the same server configuration issue explained in the previous point. WordPress displays this as a generic type of error message, so there could be other reasons as well.
• Your web hosting service provider might offer other methods to install plugins such as web-based FTP clients or 3rd party solutions made explicitly for WordPress. Although these should be fine, it's possible that in some cases they might not work as expected and you will need to revert to one of the conventional methods.
• If you're experiencing any issue after installing LayerSlider, please try to temporarily disable other plugins and switch to one of the default WordPress themes to see if it helps. LayerSlider should play along nicely with any plugin/theme you use, but incompatibility issues could occur due to several other reasons.

Activating the plugin

Why activating?

In addition to your purchase, you're entitled to the following exclusive features and services by activating your site with a license key:

• Enjoy our priority support services to get help quickly and easily.
• Receive 1-Click plugin updates, including early access releases.
• Unlock premium features in the plugin providing new and interesting ways to extend the capabilities of your sliders.
• Import premium slider templates, which you can use as a starting point for your projects. We're releasing and updating premium content regularly.

I received LayerSlider bundled in my theme

We take plugin development very seriously and we're dedicated to offer the best product we can produce. Even if you're using a non-activated copy, it still has great features with almost unlimited capabilities to be a premium experience. Nevertheless, some additional features and services are only available for our direct buyers who have supported the plugin development by purchasing LayerSlider.

If LayerSlider came bundled in your theme, please keep in mind that it is a bonus item that you essentially received for free. While we are providing a premium experience for everyone, it's important to know that we do not receive any share from theme sales.

Theme bundles is a great way to increase our popularity by offering our unique and useful products to the crowd. However, product development and customer support require a lot of resources thus we can only offer our services to our direct buyers. By offering some exclusive features we're encouraging users to support the development of future versions of LayerSlider.

How do I activate LayerSlider?

You just need to enter your license key received after purchasing LayerSlider into the PRODUCT ACTIVATION section and press the Activate Now button.

Where is my license key?

You can find your license key in the email received upon the purchase. You can also find and manage all your licenses by logging in on account.kreaturamedia.com to manage your account.

Can I activate multiple sites?

You can use LayerSlider on as many sites as your licenses allow. A Regular or Personal license can be used for a single website only. However, by deactivating your installation, you can freely migrate your license to another server/domain if you're moving your site. Your license covers additional development mirrors as well. Development installation are counted differently than live production sites. You can use LayerSlider on 3 additional development installations per site covered by your licenses.

Subdomains and individual sites in a WP Multisite environment are considered different domains/sites and you need to purchase separate licenses for each domain/site where you use LayerSlider. The only exception is when you are not running different sites and purely use subdomains for localization or special landing pages within the same installation.

Why was my activation canceled?

Despite the impression you may have, this banner only shows when your site wasn't actually activated in the first place. What's likely is that you've previously deactivated your site, but it was stuck in an activated state. This message is displayed for the sake of consistency as "stuck" activations could result all sorts of strange symptoms like issues with updating LayerSlider or downloading templates. This is an automated error checking mechanism intended to notify you about changes in the product activation state.

If you received a "LayerSlider product activation was canceled on this site" notification, please review all the potential issues that could cause this:

• you've moved your site or your domain name has changed;
• you've remotely deactivated your site using our online tools or asked us to do the same on your behalf;
• you're using a non-genuine copy of LayerSlider
• your purchase have been refunded or the transaction disputed;

If none of the above mentioned reasons can explain your case and you feel it happened mistakenly, please let us know by opening a support ticket or contacting us via our Contact Form, so we can help you uncovering potential issues and restoring product activation.

IMPORTANT: Please make sure that you're using the latest version of LayerSlider and try to re-activate your license with that version. Newer releases always include lots of bug fixes, so you can eliminate potential issues that might be relevant.

How can I transfer licenses or deactivate past sites?

If you still have access for the site

Just click on the deactivate button in the Product Activation box and you are all set. The license key that you've used for that site will be available to activate other installations.

If you no longer have access for the site

We've made an account management utility where you can log in and list all your licenses and sites where you've activated LayerSlider. From there, you will be able to remotely deactivate any site you wish. Please visit: account.kreaturamedia.com

If you cannot access your account or someone else purchased LayerSlider on your behalf

In cases like these, please open a support ticket or contact us via our Contact Form and ask for help in order to restore your account or transfer licenses to another account. Please also provide any proof you can in order to confirm your identity as we handle data security and personal information very seriously.

Limitations on license migration

To fight against piracy and other forms of misuse, our systems are monitoring for suspicious activities. Our ultimate goal is to have a great user experience, thus we've tuned our systems to only flag suspicious activities with a good reason.

In case when our systems detect such activities associated with a license key, LayerSlider might prompt you for an activation approval. This does not mean that your license is no longer valid or you won't be able to use it for future activations. The approval process is mostly automated and a staff member from our Support Team will review your case as soon as possible with high priority.

The usual patterns we're monitoring for include:

• Unusually high number of activation attempts within a short time frame;
• Consistently reoccurring activation attempts on the same sites

Troubleshooting

• You can't use your theme's purchase code / license key in case if you've received LayerSlider bundled in a theme. For more information, please read the Theme bundles section above.
• Please double check that you've entered your license key correctly if product activation doesn't accept it. Verify that you haven't accidentally included spaces or other surrounding text and characters.
• In some edge cases, servers might be configured in a way that prevents your installation from connecting to our server. Usual symptoms include An unexpected error occurred error messages. It's worth asking your web hosting company about this if you've ruled out other possibilities. Also, check the LayerSlider → Options → System Status screen to identify potential issues you might have on your site.
• If your activation was canceled, please refer to the Why was my activation canceled? section.

Updating the plugin

Updating via Auto-Updates on activated sites

After performing Product activation, LayerSlider updates will automatically appear on your site in the same way as any other WordPress update. You can check if there is a new version available on the Plugins or Dashboard → Updates pages. A notification will also appear on the LayerSlider WP admin pages about new releases.

To access early-access versions, select the beta release channel in the PRODUCT ACTIVATION box.

Updating the plugin manually

Once you've downloaded the most recent version from account.kreaturamedia.com you can deactivate and remove the old version, then install the new one. Your sliders and settings are in the database, removing the plugin won't touch them. You don't have to worry about losing your work, as keeping LayerSlider backward compatible is one of our top priorities, even for really old releases.

Updating the bundled version in themes

If you've received LayerSlider as a bundled item in your theme, new releases will be provided by the theme author through theme updates, since Auto-Updates won't work without activating your copy of LayerSlider. However, if you choose the purchase a license for LayerSlider, theme bundled versions can also be activated and updated without reinstalling the plugin.

Troubleshooting

• Please note, WordPress checks for new updates periodically at certain times and caches the results. Even if there is a new version available, it might not appear immediately after activation.
• Our auto-update solution requires product activation and is only available for our direct customers as described in the Updating the plugin section.
  
  If you receive an Update package not available or similar error message during the update process it might a symptom of an interfering 3rd party theme/plugin. We are constantly notifying and working together with various authors whenever we notice such issue. Unfortunately, these issues cannot be fixed from our end and a temporary solution is updating manually or temporarily disabling other plugins and switching to the default WP theme.
  
  Another possibility might be a stuck activation. If you've used our online tools to remotely deactivate a site (or asked us to do the same on your behalf) your site might no longer be activated. The same can be true if your license key has been revoked due to a refund or another reason. In cases like this deactivating your site and then immediately re-activating it can help.
• Keeping LayerSlider backwards compatible is one of our top priorities. However, there are times when major updates introduce new features and new settings, which depending on their defaults might alter your sliders a bit. If you experience any unwanted change, it's always a good idea to check the settings of your sliders, there are probably new options to control these changes.

Managing sliders

Slider Groups

Since LayerSlider 6.9.0, you can group sliders. This feature allows you to basically have folders for your sliders. You can create custom groups by dragging a slider and dropping it on another. There's also a new bulk action to group selected sliders together in a single step. You can remove sliders from a group with the same principle: just start dragging a slider, and drop it on the remove tile.

When you import multiple sliders, either with a ZIP file or by downloading slider packs from the Template Store, they will be automatically grouped together. The Clear & Remove Group button allows you to immediately break up the grouping and have all sliders moved outside of the group. This won't touch your sliders and they will remain available on the main grid.

This feature only works in the Grid View at the moment. The list view displays sliders without grouping and you won't notice anything different, even if some sliders are in a group.

Importing slider templates

Press the Templates Store button located before your list of sliders, to reveal the template store screen.

Importing templates will allow you to see our settings and get familiar with the plugin. You can find both simple and complex sliders to discover LayerSlider's capabilities. You can freely experiment on these sliders without worrying since you can always import a new, untouched copy.

Premium slider templates are particularly useful as a starting point for your future projects. We're releasing and updating premium templates regularly. Our goal is to cover most use cases, whether you need a slider for personal use (such as slideshow for family photos), or you want to use it on your business website, or even on billboards. Our selection includes great examples for retail shops as well as templates for creative work.

Troubleshooting

• Check the LayerSlider → Options → System Status screen to identify potential issues you might have on your site.
• Importing our demo sliders requires the PHP ZipArchive extension installed on your server. To see the availability of this extension, please navigate to LayerSlider → Options → System Status. Please contact your web hosting service provider if it's unavailable.
• Importing a slider will add its images to your WP Media Library. Larger sliders might have a file size that exceeds the upload limit set on your server. To increase the maximum file size of an upload, please contact your web hosting company.
• Larger sliders with many images could also consume considerably more memory during the import. Most servers should not have any issue with larger sliders, but in some cases you might experience unexpected issues like partially imported sliders.
• If you're experiencing any issue with importing, it's probably linked to memory or execution time limitation on your server. To fix these issues, please contact your web hosting company, since they usually don't offer a way to change these settings remotely.

Import / Export sliders

Importing sliders

At the top of the LayerSlider home screen press the Import Sliders button. This will open a modal window where you can choose a previously exported .zip or .json file to be imported by pressing the Import button. For additional information, please read the details in the modal window.

Exporting sliders

Hover over your slider and click on the icon to reveal slider actions, then select the Export option. This will download a .zip file that you can upload on other sites or use as a backup.

You can also export multiple sliders by selecting them with the checkbox when hovering over them, then choose the Export Bulk Action option below the slider list. Please note, selecting multiple sliders with images can drastically increase the exported file size and could lead import issues on sites with certain server settings.

Troubleshooting

• Check the LayerSlider → Options → System Status screen to identify potential issues you might have on your site.
• Importing sliders requires the PHP ZipArchive extension installed on your server. To see the availability of this extension, please navigate to LayerSlider → Options → System Status. Please contact your web hosting service provider if it's unavailable.
• Importing a slider will add its images to your WP Media Library. Larger sliders might have a file size that exceeds the upload limit set on your server. To increase the maximum file size of an upload, please contact your web hosting company.
• Larger sliders with many images could also consume considerably more memory during the import. Most servers should not have any issue with larger sliders, but in some cases you might experience unexpected issues like partially imported sliders.
• If you're experiencing any issue with importing, it's probably linked to memory or execution time limitation on your server. To fix these issues, please contact your web hosting company, since they usually don't offer a way to change these settings remotely.

Using Google Fonts

LayerSlider can load custom fonts hosted by Google on fonts.google.com. Select LayerSlider → Options from your WordPress admin sidebar, then choose the Google Fonts tab to find the corresponding section. Custom fonts loaded with the editor will be automatically added to the pre-defined fonts you can choose from in the Slider Builder.

Character set support

By default, LayerSlider uses Latin characters for added Google Fonts. However, it supports Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Khmer and Vietnamese scripts as well.

Themes with Google Fonts support

Many WordPress themes support Google Fonts. However, it's common that they only load them on the front-end pages and they will appear incorrectly when you would build a slider on the admin interface. To workaround this issue just add them in LayerSlider and check the "Load only on admin interface" option. This way you can avoid loading the same font multiple times on the front-end pages.

Permission settings

Select LayerSlider → Options from your WordPress admin sidebar to locate the permissions settings. From there you can easily select any user role. Members of the selected role will have permission to change plugin settings and manage your sliders. By selecting the option Custom and entering a capability you can target users more accurately. For more information about WordPress capabilities, please read the Codex page.

About the Advanced Settings section

Navigate to LayerSlider → Options from your WordPress admin sidebar, then select the Advanced tab. You can find many troubleshooting options to workaround common issues you might experience on your site.

System Status

Select LayerSlider → Options from your WordPress admin sidebar, then click on the System Status button. System Status is intended to help you identifying possible issues and to display relevant debug information about your site. It also provides tools to list every server settings, easily set up a debug account or to erase all plugin data. To find out more about using System Status, please follow the on-screen instructions when navigating to its page on the admin interface.

Getting started with the slider builder

Since LayerSlider allows you building professional grade animated material, its slider builder interface can be a bit overwhelming at first. There are many options to control every aspect of your content. This is why it is important to take time and try to understand the basics with the following tips:

• Read the tooltips: Almost everything on the admin interface reveal further information with tooltips. Just move your mouse cursor over option fields, buttons, and other interface elements, and the exact description of those will appear in a tooltip message.
• Use the preview mode: By pressing the Preview button you can see your work in action instantly. Don't be shy to change settings. If you're not sure about how an option works exactly, just change it and observe the differences in the preview mode. When previewing a layer, you can change the content and settings on the fly, and see the changes instantly, without the need to jump in and out of preview every time something changes.
• Use slider templates: Discussed under Gettings Started / Importing slider templates, you can see how we built our demo sliders and which settings we used to achieve certain animations. You can find both simple and complex sliders to discover LayerSlider's capabilities. Don't be afraid of making changes on these samples, you can always import a fresh copy at any time. Premium slider templates can also be the starting point of your projects since we're focusing on covering most use cases.

Slider settings

This is the page where LayerSlider navigates you after adding a new slider. On this screen you can set common settings like the size of the slider, and customize its appearance or features in the other sub-sections.

We do not provide an extensive list of settings here since every option has its description displayed on the admin interface. Please review them carefully, so you can customize your slider behavior and appearance in the way you like.

Adding slides

As mentioned previously, we don't have an extensive list of all the available options in this documentation, since the admin user interface contains all these information and you can access them on the fly. Just hover over an option/button with your mouse cursor, then a tooltip will appear describing the option in question.

Please note, keeping space efficiency in mind we hide some options used less frequently. Just click on the SHOW MORE OPTIONS button, then you can reveal every slide option.

Managing slides

About slide transitions

LayerSlider offers more than 200 pre-defined 2D/3D slide transitions. By using the Transition Builder it can be easily extended with custom ones for your own needs. Slide transitions will only use the background image of slides since web standards don't offer a way to "capture" all contents within a slider. It's important to keep in mind that layers will not be used for slide transitions, even if they made to look like a background image.

Modern web browsers are required for 3D transitions to work properly. If you select any 3D transition, LayerSlider will prioritize them over 2D ones. The plugin has multiple fall-back levels whenever a visitor's machine is not capable of showing certain transitions. In general, 2D transitions are supported on all major web browsers.

Linking slides

Linking a slide will make its entire surface clickable. You can also link layers to add a button or a smaller control. Based on your settings, layers can be either above or below of the slide link, making it possible to link both.

Click on the insert... button and use the Choose Page or Post option if you want to link a WordPress resource like a page, post or attachment on your site. This way URLs will be generated automatically and point to the right place even if you change permalinks. It's also the way to use localization plugins like WPML where URLs might change according to the selected language.

Smart links

Smart links can control the slideshow, media playback and other aspects of sliders. It's an easy way to trigger certain slider actions when clicking on the linked element. It can be used for something small and trivial like adding a custom "stop" button up to building your navigation area replacement with your own customizations.

Just click into the linking field and you will be presented with a list of available slider actions. There is only one action that might require some explanation: switching slides. You can achieve that by entering a hash tag (#) followed by the slide number that you want to jump to. For example, if you want to jump to the third slide, you need to enter #3 into the linking filed.

Deeplink

A deeplink is a slide alias name, which you can use in your URLs with a hash tag so LayerSlider will start with the corresponding slide when visitors arrive to the page. Example: domain.com/page/#welcome

Use only lowercase alphanumeric values. You can also use this feature to implement slide navigation with links.

Preview area features

The preview area has many hidden features, which can drastically improve your productivity.

Preview area toolbar

Hidden features

Adding Layers

Managing layers

Layer types

Device support

It's possible to build multiple layouts for different devices in the same slider by dynamically showing and hiding layers. With the Show this layer on the following devices buttons, you can choose on which devices should the currently selected layer appear.

Embedding videos

LayerSlider supports YouTube, Vimeo, and self-hosted HTLM5 video/audio out of the box. We've integrated many features for these solutions such as setting autoplay, preview image, volume and other controls. They will also automatically pause and resume the slideshow while playing.

Just choose the Video / Audio layer type to embed multimedia contents. For YouTube and Vimeo videos you need to paste the embed code from their website into the text field. Otherwise, click on the Add Media button to add self-hosted HTML5 video or audio.

To use HTML5 self-hosted video/audio, please make sure you're using supported media formats described here. We recommend using MP3 or AAC in MP4 for audio, and VP8+Vorbis in WebM or H.264+MP3/AAC in MP4 for video. The supported formats may vary between browsers, but you can also provide multiple formats if needed by holding down the Ctrl/Cmd key and selecting multiple items from your WordPress Media Library.

At the moment we do not support other media players out of the box since those solutions have their own distinct APIs to control media playback. However, users with web development experience can use the LayerSlider API to detect slider events and run custom code to control 3rd party media players.

Using WP shortcodes and interactive content

Make sure you add WP shortcodes or other interactive content (such as Google Maps embeds, custom scripts, etc) to an HTML layer. Shortcodes will only be rendered on front-end pages, so don't be afraid if the slider builder interface doesn't show the result you would expect.

Using interactive content highly relying on Javascript can be problematic, and might not work properly. Since we cannot workaround every possible issue in someone else's code, it's possible that some shortcodes and embed will be broken.

It also worth mentioning that in responsive mode LayerSlider only scales the layer element itself to gain extra performance. The content inside should adapt the dimension changes on its own. While this happens automatically in most cases, shortcodes and complex HTML might not be resized in sync with the slider.

Layer transitions

This is where you can build your layer transitions. This section can be daunting at first since LayerSlider offers many options to customize every aspect of your work. However, everyone can learn it quickly and easily by following the tips already mentioned previously:

• Read the tooltips: Almost everything on the admin interface reveal further information with tooltips. Just move your mouse cursor over option fields, buttons, and other interface elements, and the exact description of those will appear in a tooltip message.
• Use the preview mode: By pressing the Preview button you can see your work in action instantly. Don't be shy to change settings. If you're not sure about how an option works exactly, just change it and observe the differences in the preview mode. When previewing a layer, you can change the content and settings on the fly, and see the changes instantly, without the need to jump in and out of preview every time something changes.
• Use slider templates: Discussed under Getting Started / Importing slider templates, you can see how we built our demo sliders and which settings we used to achieve certain animations. You can find both simple and complex sliders to discover LayerSlider's capabilities. Don't be afraid of making changes on these samples, you can always import a fresh copy at any time. Premium slider templates can also be the starting point of your projects since we're focusing on covering most use cases.

There are multiple types of animation, you can view one at the time by clicking on its title or icon. In each section, you can find the description of what it does and when it will be used. For clarity, we've made animated illustrations that you can see by hovering over the icons. The green highlight shows which transition types are being used by the layer, while the scaled (larger) icon shows the currently opened transition section.

Linking layers

You can link a layer under its Link & Attributes tab. Enter a URL and set whether you want to open it on the current page or in a new tab/window.

Click on the Choose Page or Post button if you want to link a WordPress resource like a page, post or attachment on your site. This way URLs will be generated automatically and point to the right place even if you change permalinks. It's also the way to use localization plugins like WPML where URLs might change according to the selected language

Smart links

Smart links can control the slideshow, media playback and other aspects of sliders. It's an easy way to trigger certain slider actions when clicking on the linked element. It can be used for something small and trivial like adding a custom "stop" button up to building your navigation area replacement with your own customizations.

Just click into the linking field and you will be presented with a list of available slider actions. There is only one action that might require some explanation: switching slides. You can achieve that by entering a hash tag (#) followed by the slide number that you want to jump to. For example, if you want to jump to the third slide, you need to enter #3 into the linking filed.

Layer attributes

You can also apply commonly used attributes (such as a unique ID or classes) on layers in the same section. These settings are made for users with web development experience who want to use custom coding to achieve a customization level that a visual editor cannot provide.

Apart from the pre-defined list of attributes, it's also possible to add your own. In the custom attributes section, you can enter any attribute name, including pre-defined ones to override them. Many 3rd party plugin uses custom attributes, this section is important if for example you would like to set up a FancyBox image gallery on LayerSlider layers.

Layer Styles

Under the Styles tab of your layers, you can find commonly used formatting options to customize their appearance. We highly recommend using these settings whenever it's possible, instead of adding unnecessary HTML code to the contents of layers.

This is where you can also set the position of layers with the Left and Top options. While you can use the visual editor to move layers around, it's often better to fine-tune them here for a pixel-perfect result.

Image editor

With the help of Adobe's Creative SDK, LayerSlider 6 now has a built-in image editor. You can perform common tasks like resizing, cropping, rotating images, as well as photo retouching, adding frames, text, effects, stickers and a lot more. It's like a mini-Photoshop.

Look for the icon on the upper left corner of any image picker button to launch the editor with the currently selected image.

Popout editor

One of the main design goals with LayerSlider 6 was the ability to work right in the preview area, without having to scroll up and down constantly to change settings. In addition to keyboard shortcuts, we've also added a Pop out editor button, which will transform layer options into a floating window that can be resized and placed wherever you want. This makes it extremely easy to edit everything in one place.

Timeline

The timeline feature can be used to review all layer transitions occurring on the slide at once. The color-coded markers clearly show when and what happens. You can even grab the playhead and move it back and forth to play segments at your own pace.

Dynamic layers from posts

You can pull individual post information by using post placeholders. These are working very similarly to WordPress shortcodes. You can enter one or more placeholder into the layer's content area, then LayerSlider will automatically replace them with the appropriate content from posts. You can even mix them with static content. Example:

This post was written by [author] on [date-published] will be
This post was written by admin on March 13, 2015

Using post filters

By using the post filters you can target certain WP posts or pages to pull information from. LayerSlider supports custom post types, tags, categories, and taxonimies to find literally any kind of custom content that themes and plugins may use. To set filters you just need select a dynamic layer and click on the Configure post options button. In the opened modal dialog window you can also order the results in your preferred way.

Get the items from results to work with

The post filters are global across slides, but you can select items from the results independently. This allows you to work with posts in a custom order, for example, you can retrieve only the even/odd posts from the results. If you want to follow the original order you can choose the option following, then LayerSlider will get them automatically.

Using mixed content

You are not forced to build sliders with dynamic contents only. You can mix them with static slides and layers.

Using custom post fields

You can use the [meta:fieldname] post placeholder to pull content from custom fields. Please make sure to replace the fieldname part with the actual field you want to pull information from.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: Can I use static and dynamic contents at once?

  A: Sure, you can mix them freely. Just make sure to select the Dynamic content from posts layer type.

• Q: Can I set custom [excerpt] for posts?

  A: Yes, just enable the excerpt field under Screen Options when you're editing a post/page, then enter the desired content.

• Q: How excerpts are generated?
  • Manually entered excerpts will remain "as is", without any modification or formatting. Custom HTML code is allowed.
  • Auto-generated excerpts have all shortcodes and HTML tags removed and they will appear as plain text.
  • Auto-generated excerpts will be trimmed down to 55 words. The [...] "hellip" sign will be appended at the end if the text exceeds this limitation.
  • Custom word count used by themes will be automatically applied in your sliders. Developers can override it by using filter hooks.
  • Auto-generated excerpts respect WP's <!--more--> tag, so you can easily split your content at the point you want.
• Q: Can I work with fixed posts?

  A: No, the purpose of dynamic sliders is to automatically update their contents when you add a blog post or any other content on your site.
  
  However, there is a simple workaround with a similar result. You can find specific posts with unique properties (e.g. custom tag) just by setting the right filters in the Post Options section of dynamic layers. The results will not update as long as you don't add more posts that match to the selected filters.

• Q: Can I use content from multiple posts on the same slide?

  A: At the moment you can't. This feature is yet to be added in a later update.

• Q: Can I pull content made by WooCommerce or other plugins?

  A: Yes, see the "Using custom post fields" part.

• Q: Can I pull content from custom post fields?

  A: Yes, see the previous point.

Multilingual sliders

How to translate the admin user interface?

1. Download PoEdit

   There are several apps available to help you with translating .PO files. PoEdit is a popular one, and it's available on every major platform. You can download it from here.

2. Start translating

   Open the default LayerSlider-en_US.po file from your "/wp-content/plugins/LayerSlider/locales/" folder. When you save your work PoEdit will generate you a .MO file which will be needed to apply your work.

3. Name your files properly

   WordPress recognizes your localization by a special formatting of file names. You will need to include the right language and country codes so it can identify what language your work is made for.

   For example, a French localization would have the file names: LayerSlider-fr_FR.po and LayerSlider-fr_FR.mo. You must follow this syntax, including the dash, underscore, and lower- or uppercase letters.

4. Apply your localization

   Copy your newly created .PO and .MO files into the "/wp-content/plugins/LayerSlider/locales/" folder. WordPress should use them immediately if you named your files properly.

Creating multilingual sliders with qTranslate

qTranslate (and its successor, qTranslate X) is the one of the easiest way to create multilingual sliders in LayerSlider. It is a free and simple plugin that supports a shortcode-like syntax to enter text in multiple languages, so it can display the proper one for your visitors. LayerSlider supports shortcodes and other special syntaxes within the contents of layers, so you can enter something like this to create a multilingual slider:

[:en]English text[:de]German text

The line above will output "English text" if the visitor selected English page and "German text" if the visitor selected German. You can read more about qTranslate on its WP.org plugin page.

Translating with the WPML plugin

You need the "Multilingual CMS" version of WPML with installed WPML String Translation add-on.

Translating the plugin's user interface:

• Navigate to WPML → Theme and plugins localization
• Make sure that the "Translate the theme and plugins using WPML's String Translation and load .mo files as backup" option is selected in the "Select how to translate strings in the theme and plugins" section. This should be the default selection in newer versions of WPML.
• In the "Strings in the plugins" section select LayerSlider and press the "Scan the selected plugins for strings" button below.
• Under WPML → String translation menu item, you can now see and edit the strings that the LayerSlider UI uses. This list might be cluttered with other translatable strings, so you might want to select the "LayerSlider" option in the "Domains" dropdown list.

Creating multilingual sliders:

LayerSlider registers translatable strings when you save your work. If you want to translate a previously created slider, you need to re-save it first, even if you don't change anything. Once LayerSlider registered the translatable items, they will appear under the WPML → String translation menu item in your WP admin sidebar.

You can quickly filter the translatable items to your slider contents by selecting the "LayerSlider Sliders" (or "LayerSlider WP" if you're using an older version) option from the "Domain" dropdown list.

After translating a string and marking it as complete, they will automatically appear in your front-end sliders. Whenever you make a change in your sliders, the affected strings will be marked as "Translation needs update" in WPML's String Translation module.

The WPML team was kind enough to provide an official step-by-step guide of translating LayerSlider sliders. It explains and illustrates every step of the way in detail. Click here to read their guide.

Keyboard shortcuts

General interface shortcuts

Slide actions

Managing layers

Positioning layers

Slider revisions

LayerSlider 6.3.0 introduced a new premium feature: Revisions. Have a peace of mind knowing that your slider edits are always safe and you can revert back unwanted changes or faulty saves at any time. This feature serves not just as a backup solution, but a complete version control system where you can visually compare the changes you have made along the way.

Reverting a slider to an earlier version adds another snapshot to Revisions, which can also be reverted if you change your mind and would rather return to the original copy. Slider Revisions also saves the undo/redo controls. Even if there is no perfect snapshot, you will be able to undo the changes in-between to find what you are looking for.

Method 1: Using shortcodes

Shortcodes are special text snippets, which you can paste into almost all places where you can enter text like the WordPress page and post editor. They will then automatically be replaced with the appropriate content on your front-end pages. Shortcodes are one of the most commonly used methods of inserting contents to your site. A lot of 3rd party plugins (e.g. page builders in themes) can also accept LayerSlider shortcodes to add sliders to your pages.

Each slider has a unique shortcode. You can hover over a slider in your list and click on the icon to reveal slider actions, then select the Embed Slider option to see its shortcode. You can also find the shortcode of a slider at the bottom of the Slider Builder page next to the save button.

For advanced customization, you can add a filters attribute to your shortcode to control on which pages the slider should appear. Read the Using filters section to learn more. Example shortcode: [layerslider id="1" filters="homepage"]

There is also a way to override the "Starting slide" option with the shortcode. Using the firstslide shortcode parameter you can force embeded sliders to start with the specified slide, even if the slider has different settings. This is particularly useful when you want to embed the same slider in multiple times showing different slides. In the following example we're forcing the slider to start with the second slide: [layerslider id="1" firstslide="2"]

You can override most slider settings. Please read the Overriding settings section for more information.

Classic Editor helper utility

We've also added a small utility to the WordPress Classic Editor toolbar. It will display a modal window with your most recent sliders to choose from. After selecting the sliders and changing the embed options as desired, press the "Insert into post" button to put the corresponding shortcodes into the editor. See the illustrations below.

Method 2: Gutenberg

Recent WordPress releases are now shipped with their new page editor called Gutenberg. It's aimed to be an alternative for popular page builder solutions and offers WYSIWYG visual editing.

LayerSlider now includes a dedicated Gutenberg block, which you can use to easily insert sliders into posts and pages. If you aren't familiar with Gutenberg yet, here's a quick tutorial:

1. Click the + sign, then select the LayerSlider block from the Widgets category. You can also use the search feature to quickly find any block.
2. The LayerSlider block is now automatically added to your post / page. You can select the block and move it around with the handle on the left side.
3. At this point the block is only a placeholder showing where the slider would be displayed. Click on the Slider Library button and select the slider you want to insert into your post / page.
4. That's it! You can now press the editor Publish / Update button to save your changes and the slider will be at the right place on your front-end pages.

Additional details:

• To change the slider, you just need to select the LayerSlider block, then click on the "tiles" toolbar button located above the block.
• You can customize your LayerSlider block with extra options available at the right sidebar. If the sidebar isn't visible, just press the cog icon at the top right corner of the editor page.
• You can also quickly edit the embedded slider by pressing the "pencil" toolbar icon.

Here's a quick video showing Gutenberg and the LayerSlider block in action:

How-to: Using the LayerSlider Gutenberg block

This video helps you get started using the new
Gutenberg editor with the LayerSlider block.

Method 3: WordPress Widget

LayerSlider supports widgets, so you can add sliders to your front-end pages with just a drag n' drop action. To do that, navigate to the Appearance menu on your left sidebar and select "Widgets". Grab the LayerSlider WP widget and drop it into one of your widget areas.

Please note that some themes may not support a widget area that you're looking for. In this case, you can create a new widget area by editing your theme files. Here is the official documentation about widgetizing your theme. However, this requires web development knowledge and we don't recommend it for users without experience.

For more customization, you can enter custom filters in your widget settings to control on which pages the slider should appear. Read the Using filters section to learn more.

By entering a custom value into the "Override starting slide" option field, you can force embeded sliders to start with the specified slide, even if the slider has different settings. This is particularly useful when you want to embed the same slider in multiple times showing different slides.

Method 4: Elementor

Elementor is a free page builder that became very popular in recent years and is loved by millions for its simplicity. We highly recommend to give Elementor a try as it can easily be your best and smoothest experience. LayerSlider has a dedicated Elementor widget, which comes all the features you would expect and more. For example – in Elementor's fashion – embedded sliders are live and you can see a real-time preview of your site. You can also quick edit sliders without ever leaving Elementor. Changes made in sliders are reflected in real-time.

If you aren't familiar with Elementor yet, here's a quick tutorial:

• After installing Elementor, you just need to edit a page as you normally would. You'll notice the added "Edit with Elementor" button, which will launch the Elementor Editor.
• In the Editor, you can search for the LayerSlider Widget with the search box at the top of the sidebar. Just start typing "layerslider".
• Elementor automatically converts WordPress Widgets into Elementor Widgets, so you'll likely see multiple matches. Choose the one with the real LayerSlider logo (three overlapping layers). That's the dedicated and much more feature-rich widget you'd want to use.
• Grab the widget and just drop at any place you see fit in the right side preview area. LayerSlider will immediately prompt you to select a slider you want to embed.
• That's it! You've successfully embedded a slider to your page. Of course, there are customization options you can find on the left sidebar when selecting the LayerSlider widget.

Here's a quick video showing Elementor and the LayerSlider widget in action:

How-to: Using the LayerSlider Elementor widget

This video helps you get started using the
LayerSlider widget made for Elementor.

Method 5: Visual Composer (WPBakery)

Visual Composer, also known as WPBakery Page Builder, is yet another popular page builder solution. Visual Composer comes with its own LayerSlider element out of the box. You can add the LayerSlider element to your site just like you normally would, then you can select the slider you want to embed. Due to the discrepancy between various versions of Visual Composer, we don't have a tutorial video or more specific guide at this time. However, if you are a Visual Composer user the process is the same you've already used to and it's pretty straightforward.

Visual Composer also accepts shortcodes discussed in method 1. You can add a text element and paste the appropriate shortcode into it to embed sliders. The below illustration shows the WPBakery Page Builder, which was the original plugin before they split apart with Visual Composer.

Method 6: Other Page Builders

Most page builders in themes support embedding LayerSlider sliders out of the box. Whether you're using a custom solution or a 3rd party plugin, there is likely a way to use them with LayerSlider.

Either there is a dedicated module/block/widget for LayerSlider, or you can insert shortcodes in the same manner described in the first method.

If you experience any issue, please review the available options your page builder offers. Since each solution differs in design and behavior, there is no universal guide to them. You can also consider just using more conventional methods like shortcodes and widgets described in method 1 and 3 respectively.

Method 7: PHP function

Because a slider can be an integral part of your site, you may want to insert it dynamically from the template files. There is a PHP function (with additional filtering options) to do just that. For example, you can call it from the header.php file of your theme and it will insert your slider into the corresponding area. By providing filters you can show it on certain pages only depending on your settings. Here is the function definition:

The following examples are all valid:

					<?php layerslider(1); ?> // Displays the first slider on every page
					<?php layerslider(1, 'homepage'); ?> // Displays the first slider only on your home page
					<?php layerslider(1, 'my-custom-post-title'); ?> // Displays the first slider on a custom page by name
					<?php layerslider(2, '1369'); ?> // Displays the second slider on a custom page by ID
					<?php layerslider('homefullwidth', 'category-name'); ?> // Displays the slider with the slug 'homefullwidth' on ali/custom page by a category name
					<?php layerslider(3, 'homepage,about-us,1234'); ?> // Displays the third slider on multiple pages

It is important to check the corresponding slider ID on the LayerSlider WP slider list page. When you remove some sliders, their IDs won't be re-indexed and the sequence you would expect may broke up. This is important for data consistency.

Using filters to display sliders on specific pages

Filters can be used to target specific pages where you want a slider to be displayed. This can be extremely helpful if you're inserting sliders in a way that would show them on multiple pages. By using filters you can set custom conditions that would otherwise require programming skills. Our solution is easy to use for anyone and the currently supported filters should cover most use cases.

• Front Page: The special name homepage can be used to display the slider on your site's main page.
• Page ID: Use a page ID to display sliders on a specific page. You can find the page ID in the URL (post=<number>) when you're editing a page/post on the WP admin area.
• Page Slug: A page slug can also achieve the same purpose as page IDs. The page slug is the editable part of the permalink, which you can see when editing a page/post on the admin interface.
• Category: You can also filter for category pages. Providing a category name will display the slider on all pages belonging to that category.

Important: You can set multiple filters. Just provide a comma separated list if you want to display sliders on multiple pages. Mixing the different kinds of filters together or providing multiple IDs/slugs/category names is not a problem.

Example: The filter list homepage,about-us,1234 can be split into three different filters:

• homepage – your site's main/front page
• about-us – a page slug (permalink)
• 1234 – a page ID if you don't use pretty URLs

Overriding slider settings

Version 6.8.0 and above allows you to override slider settings via the shortcode and the layerslider() PHP function. This can be useful if you want to make small changes in certain situations without duplicating the slider. For example, you might want to change the slider skin on some pages to fit better to a different page style. This can be achieved like so:

• Shortcode:
  [layerslider id="1" skin="borderlessdark"]
• PHP function:

  <?php layerslider( 1, '', array( 'skin' => 'borderlessdark' ) ); ?>

Another example could be the starting slide. You might want to insert the same slider on multiple pages with a different opening:

• Shortcode:
  [layerslider id="1" firstslide="3"]
• PHP function:

  <?php layerslider( 1, '', array( 'firstslide' => 3 ) ); ?>

Using the Transition Builder

LayerSlider WP supports various types of slide transitions. The Transition Builder offers you an easy-to-use visual editor to create custom transitions for your own needs. Transitions created with the editor will automatically appear in the list of available transitions when you're editing a slider.

Tips & tricks

We can recommend the same tips as we mentioned in the Slider Builder section:

• Hover over an option field with your mouse cursor to reveal more information.
• Watch the preview. The best way to learn is to instantly see how each option affect the transition you're building. Just play with the settings and observe the differences to understand their role.
• We have sample transitions, too! They should be already added to the Transition Builder when you first visit the page. You can see the settings we've used to build these samples. You can also import any of the 200+ pre-defined 2D/3D transitions we're using in the plugin.

Building 3D transitions

3D transitions are made up with 3 animation steps to create more complex transitions with multiple actions. The "animation" step is required, but the "before animation" and "after animation" steps are optional. You can use them to do some preparation before the animation starts or restore back some settings after it is finished.

To help you better understand what are these steps, here is a simple example:

• Before the animation starts, you may want to scale down columns
• Then rotate them to left
• Finally, you want them to scale up back

If you want a really simple transition, you don't have to use all the steps. In this case, please make sure to untick the "Enabled" checkboxes for the corresponding steps.

About LayerSlider WP Skin Editor

The LayerSlider WP skin editor offers you a graphical way on your WP admin area to modify LayerSlider skins without the need to work with files on FTP. The Skin Editor automatically detects additional content, so you can customize skins from other sources as well.

About LayerSlider WP CSS Editor

With this editor, you can enter custom CSS code, which will be included on pages containing LayerSlider sliders. This gives you a chance for much more complex customizations that the Slider Builder interface cannot provide. Your CSS code will also be included in the Slider Builder, thus the Preview mode should pick them up and show the appropriate result on-the-fly.

About LayerSlider API

LayerSlider is built on standard web technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and offers a way to extend the capabilities of the plugin through the LayerSlider API. Please note, this requires programming skills and web development experience, thus we cannot recommend it to users without the necessary knowledge.

Event reference

Event callbacks is a way to receive notifications and run custom code when certain actions occur in sliders. The following events can be used under the Event Callbacks tab of the Slider Builder.

Event Data object

Most event handler functions will have the same 2 pre-defined variables passed. Those are the jQuery Event object and our custom slider data object. You can name these variables by your choice, but we will refer to them as event and slider in our examples.

Every slider data object will contain the same properties, regardless of the used event. However, it's possible that some values are not yet set depending on the current point of execution. The data object contains the most relevant information, but we've also included the entire LayerSlider instance data source, which you can use to access or modify properties on the fly, as well as to add new methods to implement new features.

We encourage everyone to use the browser developer tools and examine the returned data by using console.log() to see potentially undocumented data. Here is an example that you can paste into your browser's JavaScript console. Please make sure to use the right selector when targeting the slider container element on which the LayerSlider instance was created.

				var data = jQuery('#slider').layerSlider('eventData');
				console.log( data );

API methods

The below API methods can be used to control sliders externally, modify their behavior, or wire them up with 3rd party solutions. By using the right combinations of API events and commands, you can implement new features or extended the capabilities of the plugin with custom code. Please note, API events are exposed to the API commands in the same way as anything else. Be aware that most API methods will trigger the appropriate API events as well.

Examples

• Switch slides with custom controls:

  				<a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="$('#slider').layerSlider(2);">Change to slide 2</a>

• Combining callbacks and API methods:

  The following example will bring up an alert message after every slide change with the current slide number. It can be used with the slideChangeDidComplete event callback.

  						function(event, slider) {
  							alert('The current slide is: ' + slider.slides.current.index);
  						}

• Using API Events from external code:

  LayerSlider relies and makes use of jQuery's event handling capabilities. This means that all jQuery-related event handling features and functions can be used, such as .on(), .off(), live and delegated events, attaching multiple events with namespaces, etc. You need to bind these events to the slider container element.

  						jQuery('#layerslider').on('sliderDidLoad', function( event, slider) {
  							console.log( event, slider );
  						});

Legacy API - OBSOLETE, DO NOT USE

Event reference

Slider data

To list all properties in the data object just paste this code snippet into a callback function and check your browser's Javascript console:

				for(key in data) {
					console.log(key + ' = ' + data[key]);
				}

API methods