WordPress dot com have just introduced a new block that lets you display a carousel of posts. It’s called the Post Carousel block. The post that introduced it says that ‘by default, the block will display your most recent posts’.
I wonder whether that means that there is (or will be) a way to get the Post Carousel block to display older posts if one wants? I can’t see a way at the moment. Maybe I am missing something.
Actually, I can see one way to show older posts and that is to take advantage of the options to specify author, categories, and tags of the posts.
I could tag certain posts with something that is unique – such as ‘top-charlie’ and that would force those posts to show. But that workaround is isn’t a good use of tags.
A better idea might be if WP was to introduce an option to specify a date range for the posts.
Carousels For Self-Hosted Sites
It just so happens that over the best day or two I have been looking at carousels or sliders for a self-hosted site. I settled on one using a plugin named MetaSlider.
The pro version allows you to overlay text. And even better with the theme I use (GeneratePress pro version) it is simple to integrate the slider right into the header element.
Now having worked out how to do it, I am not 100% sure whether to do it.
On the one hand I know I myself am magnetically attracted to anything that moves. If I walk into a shop and there is TV with an advertisement for a headband to wear when out hiking, I stare at it.
On the other hand, developers say they hate sliders/carousels and that people hate them.
‘Sliders’ implies sliding, but the option I like in MetaSlider are where one image (with a text overlay) fades out and another replaces it.
In other words, nothing slides and nothing moves – left to right or whatever.
Imagine a slider at the top of a web site, with an image fading out and being replaced by another, and then another. That’s what I am thinking about. Do you love or hate them?
Leave a comment