[Resolved] Slider or carousel recommendation

[Mark]

Do any of the experts here have a recommendation for a simple, lightweight, efficient slider or carousel for an artist’s website? Must be able to handle WEBP format if possible. I’m currently using SmartSlider3, but they charge for the ability to use WEBP

Thanks!

[Fernando]

Hi Mark,

We don’t have a specific recommendation for Carousel Slider Plugins. The ones usually recommended here are Meta Slider and SmartSlider3.

For a free Carousel slider plugin that accepts Webp images, it might be good to ask for suggestions in our GP Community as well: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1113359788719597

Hope this helps!

[Matthias]

I just tried out a lot of slider plugins for my page as i wanted to have a look if one works fine with gutenberg/gutenblocks. Preferably also lightweight and not as clunky as the usual suspects.

I landed witch WP Swiper – its rather basic – and as usual you have the “problem” that it is developed by 1 person – but you have that with a lot of plugins. On the pro side: the slider it is based on is open source – and is used by firms as toyota, mcdonalds, disneys and others – which does sounds quite credible to me.

The plugin itself doesnt have many functions currently (some pagination options, effects, background, time+speed settings)- but if you just want something to slide and swipe (by hand gesture) it just works.
For customization (color, Navigation etc. position have a look at my older threads where the guys here helped me with some css)

Pros are: easy. I simply created a (rather complex) block using generateblocks – with image, headline, buttons etc.) – and just copied the whole container into the plugin block after i was done. And it was animated.
Only problem i discovered was that background images of generateblocks somehow didnt work as i wanted – but as the plugin has a option for that i just added the background image there – and it worked.
It is based on Swiperjs so -looking at the demo– there might be some nice features coming at some point. But imho – it currently covers all the basics most users would need.

So: lightweight and simple. And works with gutenberg/generateblocks.
I didnt test webp – but as i plannedd to have a look at that at some point. There is a topic on swipers github talking about that – so it might be possible. It would be nice to hear if it works for you (if you test that plugin).

In my opinion you could add wpswiper to the list of plugins to recommend – as it works nicely with gp+gb. So no need to develop you own solution (which i read in one of the forums of gp/gb) – hint hint. My2cents. Im not affiliated 😉

[Fernando]

Thank you for the recommendation Matthias!

[Mark]

Yes thanks Matthias. I can report that WP Swiper does support WEBP. But I now see that Smart Slider 3 actually does support WEBP as well, even in the free version, (even though they say that they don’t; they must have changed this due to competition), and the UI is so much better that I think I’ll stick with it.

[Author]

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