Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/4mrsJPorDtw/

Image slideshows and galleries are pretty much a necessity these days. Good thing there are a ton of powerful, yet free WordPress plugins to choose from that can get the job done for you.

Because there are so many plugins to choose from, making the right choice is that much more difficult.

Here are our 20 choice picks for all of your gallery and slideshow needs. Not only are these plugins free, but we’ve also put some consideration into performance, as well. After all, speed matters just as much as functionality.

You might also like our collection of the Top 100 WordPress Plugins for 2017.

WordPress Slideshows Plugins

Soliloquy Lite

The free version of the popular slider plugin, Soliloquy Lite is an easy-to-use and flexible way to add great-looking slideshows to your WordPress website. Sliders you create are fully responsive and look great on any device.

Meta Slider

What makes Meta Slider so unique is that it utilizes four different types of slideshow scripts: Flex Slider 2, Nivo Slider, Responsive Slides and Coin Slider. Each has their own selection of transition effects. You have the ability to choose the one that works best for you.

Smart Slider 3

Smart Slider 3 gives you features that are normally reserved for “pro” versions (even though there is a paid version available here as well). The top-shelf features in the free version include dynamic slides – which can be automatically created from your WordPress posts. Also featured are video slides from YouTube and Vimeo content.

Ultimate Responsive Image Slider

Beyond its responsive namesake, Ultimate Responsive Image Slider sports a plethora of options to help you tailor a slideshow to your specific needs. For example, there’s now an option for Auto Height, which will allow slides of different heights to transition smoothly.

WordPress Carousel Free

Carousel sliders are often a handy way to display sponsored logos. With WordPress Carousel Free, you’ll be able to create a responsive carousel with mobile touch support.

WP Slick Slider and Image Carousel

Choose between an image carousel and a more traditional slideshow with WP Slick and Image Carousel. The plugin comes with pre-defined designs to ensure a great look.

Tribulant Slideshow Gallery

Tribulant Slideshow Gallery features a variety of styles – including the ability to display slide thumbnails above or below a slider. Through the use of WordPress Shortcodes, there are many customization options available.

Genesis Responsive Slider

If you’re using the Genesis Framework for creating WordPress themes, then the Genesis Responsive Slider will fit right in. The plugin will take the featured image, title and excerpt from a page or post and create a simple slideshow.

Cyclone Slider 2

Cyclone Slider 2 is billed as being easy enough for beginners and powerful enough for hardcore developers. The ability to create custom templates speaks to its appeal for web professionals, while being able to choose from a ready-made template lends itself to the novice.

Meteor Slides

If you’re into having a lot of choices when it comes to slide transition styles, Meteor Slides has you covered with over 20 of them. The mobile-friendly slideshows are also compatible with WordPress Multisite.

WordPress Galleries Plugins

Envira Gallery Lite

The cousin of Soliloquy (mentioned above), Envira Gallery Lite shares a very similar interface and feature set. Galleries are optimized for both speed and SEO.

Gallery

Gallery features a number of ways to display photos on your site. You can use a traditional photo gallery, a photo album made up of several galleries, a slideshow or a single-image browser.

Simple Lightbox

Simple Lightbox is a highly-customizable and lightweight plugin for displaying attractive lightboxes for your photos. Using themes, you’re able to customize the look and layout. Links can be automatically activated so that you won’t have to manually code them in.

FooBox Image Lightbox

FooBox Image Lightbox is a bit unique in that it works in conjunction with an already existing WordPress gallery plugin (including their own FooGallery) and adds a slick, responsive lightbox. It also works directly with WordPress galleries and captioned images.

Gallery by BestWebSoft

Gallery by BestWebSoft helps you easily build an unlimited number of photo galleries and albums. You may custom sort galleries using a number of different criteria. And, everything you create will be responsive to ensure mobile compatibility.

Easy FancyBox

Easy FancyBox will automatically link your .gif, .jpg and .png images inserted from the WordPress Media Library to open in a beautiful FancyBox lightbox. It also supports native WordPress Galleries and the popular NextGen Gallery plugin.

Unite Gallery Lite

Aimed at being both a video and image gallery solution, Unite Gallery Lite is built for speed and power. It’s responsive, touch-enabled and even has a zoom feature.

Instagram Gallery

Bring in images from your Instagram account and display them as either a photo gallery or slideshow. As you add images to Instagram, the plugin will automatically add them to your WordPress site as well.

Awesome Flickr Gallery

If you’re using Flickr, Awesome Flickr Gallery is quite a flexible solution for displaying galleries and albums on your WordPress site. It’s compatible with both public and private photos, offers image size and cropping customization, and can be spiffed-up via CSS.

Photoswipe Masonry Gallery

Using the PhotoSwipe JS gallery, Photoswipe Masonry Gallery turns standard WordPress Galleries into attractive masonry-style displays. Masonry is great for times when you want to display thumbnails of different sizes in a neat and orderly manner.

Define Your Image

Now that we’ve found 20 of the top free slideshow and gallery plugins for WordPress, it’s time to put them to good use. Find the one(s) that best represent your vision and share it with the world!

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/34aKFLCwIKA/8-brilliant-portfolios-from-young-designers

Thanks to the internet, age or location doesn't mean much for a graphic designer anymore. In fact, most creatives don't mention their age in their design portfolio, and work with clients far from their hometown. So it's always a delight when you're blown away by someone's work and realise they're fresh out of school.

As the co-founder of Semplice, a portfolio system for designers, I see creative portfolios and fresh design talent every day. Below are just a few of my favourite portfolios from exciting new designers – some are self-taught, some still working toward their degree, others a few years into their design careers. 

01. Ana Realmuto

Realmuto’s About page hits all the right notes

Ana Realmuto's portfolio features branding, web design and social media content for clients like Jameson Whiskey and Wristology Watches. But my favourite part is her About page with its hilarious baby photos – a unique and memorable personal touch. (To be clear, Ana graduated from college in 2015 and is older than these baby photos portray.) About pages can make or break a portfolio, and Realmuto's page hits all the right points. 

02. Jakub Had

Had has packed a lot of great work into a few short years

At 20 years old, Jakub Had has more experience than a lot of designers that are many years his senior. His portfolio features print, product and UI design projects for clients like Budweiser, Charles IV app and Swissionare. 

I only wish it included case studies detailing his project stories, as case studies are crucial to understanding who a designer is and how they think. But it is clear from Had's portfolio that he believes simplicity is key. 

03. Lucas Berghoef

An unsolicited redesign for FKA Twigs shows off Berghoef’s skills

Lucas Berghoef's portfolio features a carefully selected range of projects, each designed like a magazine spread with artistic layouts and full-screen images. As a 2018 college graduate, it's fitting for Berghoef to share a class project or two, like his unsolicited visual identity for artist FKA Twigs. This project is polished and detailed enough to feel like client work, showing what Berghoef can do given full creative freedom. 

Unsolicited designs are a great way to showcase your skill as a young designer, however I recommend against including more than one or two. Berghoef's portfolio strikes the perfect balance. For more tips for brand new designers, take a look at our article on how to start building up your design portfolio.

04. Liz Wells

Wells’ case studies are exemplary

Liz Wells graduated with a design degree in 2015. Between then and now, her work's been recognized by The Webbys, Awwwards, FWA, Communication Arts, Cannes Lions, The One Show's Young Gun awards and D&AD, to name a few. 

Wells' portfolio case studies are exemplary, especially given the added challenge of showcasing her conceptual user experience work. Each case study uses video, photos, notes and sketches to bring projects for clients like Google, Spotify and VICELAND to life. Read more about writing great case studies like Wells' right here.

05. Jason Yuan

Yuan’s custom grid helps his work shine

Jason Yuan is a graphic and UX designer pursuing a BFA at RISD. He received attention across the internet for his unsolicited Apple Music redesign after the company rejected him for an internship. Interestingly enough, his portfolio now boasts a 2018 internship at Apple. A lovely custom grid showcases his personal and professional work, including a poster design page I've browsed more than once. 

06. Petra Sitaru

Sitaru uses her portfolio as a landing page, showing a light overview of her work

Petra Sitaru uses her portfolio as a landing page of sorts, with offshoots to her Behance projects and social accounts. It's a light overview of her whimsical design and illustration work, an approach that could work well for designers on the job hunt wanting to quickly curate their work for each application.

07. Daniel Barkle

Barkle’s strong visuals and animations keep the visitor engaged

Daniel Barkle's portfolio dazzles with so many engaging visuals and animations you don't realise how far you've scrolled down his project pages. An emoji cursor, full-screen navigation and snappy page transitions (plus an entire section entitled 'Play') do as much to reveal his personality as his personable case studies do. Barkle graduated from college in 2015 and given the work he's done so far, I can't wait to see more.

08. Katja Alissa Mueller

Mueller’s folio is clean and streamlined

Katja Mueller's portfolio leads with a simple project grid showcasing her range of skills, from graphic design to art direction to project management. Her case study pages are equally streamlined with clean layouts and large visuals of her work. Since receiving her design degree in 2015, Katja's created work for clients like adidas, Saatchi & Saatchi and Victoria Beckham.

Read more:

How to curate a creative portfolio5 quick and easy ways to fix your portfolio7 organisations design students need to know

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/f51xfboX5ig/

Email newsletters are a necessary component of doing business these days. Everyone should have a mailing list (you do have a list, don’t you?) and send out periodic messages. The content of those messages could be anything from your top new blog posts to promotional materials. Everything should be based on the needs of your organization.

Regardless of what you send, everyone faces the same main challenge: Entice people to open up your message, read it and interact. That’s the holy grail of email marketing. And, that’s where a great newsletter template can really make a difference.

When choosing a template, there are two rules to follow:

Your template needs to match your brand. So the visual elements like colors and images should look like they came from your company. Ideally, you’ll want a template that lets you easily customize the look so that you can get things just right. It should also fit the type of content you typically send.
Clean and simple is the way to go. The goal is to emphasize your content – not the fancy imagery of your template itself. A great template gets out of the way when it comes to content presentation. That means it’s usually best to avoid templates that are a bit overbearing.

With those simple rules in place, here are 10 newsletter templates that will help you to better engage your customers. Note that many of these selections support one or more WYSIWYG builder tools from a third-party service provider. This allows you to easily personalize the look and layout to fit your needs without having to dig into code. We’ll note which services are supported where appropriate.

E-Shop

E-Shop is a modern, attractive template that features a responsive layout. While not necessarily minimal, it uses great typography and whitespace to create a newsletter that is easy to read. It’s been Litmus tested with the major email clients (including Gmail, Yahoo, Thunderbird & Outlook) and is compatible with top services like MailChimp, StampReady (which allows you to export your customized template) and Campaign Monitor.

Kappa

Kappa is a collection of 12 responsive email templates and also includes access to a drag-and-drop builder. Templates are built for a wide range of industries and contain several well-designed modules. Each element of the template is fully editable and a layered PSD file is also included. You’ll be able to easily integrate the template with MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, iContact and AWeber services. It has been Litmus tested for compatibility with email clients.

AMO

AMO features compatibility with the StampReady builder, MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and the MyMail WordPress plugin. With a maximum of 3 columns and a plethora of included modules, the responsive layout is clean and designed with business in mind. The template has been Litmus tested with major email clients and web browsers.

Stella

Stella aims for flexibility. Choose from a light or dark skin and find the perfect colors to match your brand. It also includes over 80 modules to help you customize the layout and content to a perfect match. You’ll also find StampReady builder access, compatibility with MailChimp, iContact, Campaign Monitor and more. A PSD file is included for extra tweaking. The template has been Litmus tested.

RECT

RECT utilizes subtle graphical elements and strong typography to help content stand out. Under the hood you’ll find well-commented HTML – helping to guide you in making changes manually. It also supports StampReady builder, Campaign Monitor, MyMail for WordPress and MailChimp. The template is Litmus tested and will work with major email clients and web browsers.

Farbe

Farbe sports a unique design that makes great use of tinted photo backgrounds. They’re not overwhelming – just simple images that create a layered look. Customizations can be made through the StampReady builder and you’ll also find that the template is compatible with a long list of service providers. It also supports the native mobile apps for Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo.

Jackie Mail

Jackie Mail comes off as a bit more minimal than many templates out there. That makes for great readability. Since it’s responsive, those properties also transfer nicely to mobile devices. The theme is ready for use with Campaign Monitor, iContact and MailChimp. You can also do some drag-and-drop editing via StampReady. A PSD file is included.

Astral

Astral carries a beautiful simplicity in its design, but it packs options galore. With 200 readymade modules and 15 different layouts (each with its own included PSD file) – you have a lot of freedom to experiment. The template is Litmus tested and works with both Campaign Monitor and MailChimp. Drag and drop your way to customization with the Kbuilder WYSIWYG app.

Vera

Vera features a clean, uncluttered layout with 20 modules you can use with the StampReady builder. It is Litmus tested with all the major mail clients and is compatible with both MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. Background images are supported in Outlook – which not every template can boast. That’s a good thing, because this template makes great use of them. A PSD file is included with the package.

Magazine

Magazine works with the Kbuilder WYSIWYG app and includes attractive modules – including a nifty grid layout to help your blog’s content stand out. You’ll find four layouts and respective PSD files. The template is Litmus tested and compatible with both Campaign Monitor and MailChimp.

Emails Made Easier

There’s definitely a subtle science to creating great email newsletters. It takes a combination of compelling content and a look that helps to get a user’s attention. Without that balance, you’ll find it difficult to improve conversion rates.

The templates above can be a great help in striking that delicate balance. The fact that they can be easily customized and include readymade content modules simplify the whole process. From there, it’s just a matter of adding in your own top-notch content.

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/angular-wordpress-wp-api-angular/

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to work with the wp-api-angular library that allows you to interact with the WordPress API from Angular 2+ applications. This library supports all major WP resources including users, posts, comments, media, taxonomies etc. It’s also quite simple to use, so you’ll get the idea in no time.

To see the library in action, we’re going to code the following features:

Authentication using JWT
Listing the users
Listing the posts
Creating and editing the posts
Deleting the posts

By the end of the article, you’ll become familiar with this library and will be ready to use it on your own.

The source code for this tutorial is available on GitHub.

I’ll assume you’re using Angular 5, but all explained concepts should be valid for Angular 2 as well.

Laying Foundations
Setting Up WordPress

Before we proceed to writing the code, there are a couple of things to take care of. First of all, note that the API we’re going to utilize works only with the self-hosted version of WordPress. For the web version (which can be configured via the WordPress site), there’s a separate API that has many similar concepts, though it’s still quite different.

You also have to enable permalinks — which is required for the API client to work correctly. For Nginx, you’ll need to add the following line to the nginx.conf file:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

More detailed information and explanations on how to enable permalinks can be found in this WordPress Codex guide.

Lastly, we should take care of WordPress security which, as they say, is above all. For that, a special plugin called JWT Authentication is required. We’re going to use it in order to authenticate our API client with the help of special tokens (an approach that’s quite common these days).

That’s pretty much it. If you’d like to learn more about the WordPress API in general, skim through this article. When you’re ready, proceed to the next step and let’s see the Angular WordPress client in action!

Bootstrapping an Angular Application

Now that we have WordPress prepared, create a new Angular application by running:

ng new wp-api

This is going to create a skeleton for the application. We’re not going to discuss its structure thoroughly, but you may find more information in our Angular series.

Next, cd into the directory and install the library itself:

cd wp-api
npm install -g typings
npm install wp-api-angular –save

Now we need to import the proper components inside the src/app/app.module.ts file:

// … other imports
import { Http } from ‘@angular/http’;
import { HttpClientModule, HttpClient } from ‘@angular/common/http’;
import {
WpApiModule,
WpApiLoader,
WpApiStaticLoader
} from ‘wp-api-angular’;

WpApiModule should also be added to the imports block. Note that we must use an exported factory for AoT compilation or Ionic:

// … imports

@NgModule({
declarations: [
// … omitted
],
imports: [
BrowserModule,
FormsModule,
HttpClientModule, // <—
WpApiModule.forRoot({ // <—
provide: WpApiLoader,
useFactory: (WpApiLoaderFactory),
deps: [Http]
})

]
// …
})

Here’s the factory itself:

export function WpApiLoaderFactory(http: Http) {
return new WpApiStaticLoader(http, ‘http://YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE/wp-json/wp/v2/’, ”);
}

Don’t forget to provide your own domain name here!

Lastly, let’s also add some imports to the app.components.ts file:

import { Component } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { Observable } from ‘rxjs’;
import { NgForm } from ‘@angular/forms’;
import { HttpClientModule, HttpClient } from ‘@angular/common/http’;
import { Headers } from ‘@angular/http’;

// …

We’ll need NgForm to craft forms, HTTP modules to interact with the API and Headers to authenticate the client.

The initial setup is done and we can proceed to the next section.

Authentication

Before interacting with the API, we need to introduce an authentication mechanism. As I already mentioned above, a token-based authentication will be employed, so let’s add a token variable to the app.components.ts:

export class AppComponent {
token = null;
// …
}

Also, tweak the app.component.html file by adding a new block:

<div>
<app-authentication [(token)]=’token’></app-authentication>
</div>

In order for this to work, a separate component is required so generate it now:

ng generate component authentication

Import the necessary modules inside the src/app/authentication/authentication.component.ts file:

import { Component, OnInit, Input, Output, EventEmitter } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { HttpClientModule, HttpClient } from ‘@angular/common/http’;
// …

The authentication process is going to be very simple: a user should enter their login and password, submit the form, and a special token will be returned if the credentials are correct. This token will then be utilized to perform API requests. Therefore, let’s draft a user and add input and ouput for the AuthenticationComponent:

// …
export class AuthenticationComponent implements OnInit {
user = {
login: ”,
password: ”
}
@Input() token;
@Output() tokenChange = new EventEmitter<string>();

// …
}

Of course, you may define the user as a model, but for the purposes of this demo it’s not mandatory. As for the constructor, pass the HttpClient to it:

// …
constructor( private http: HttpClient ) { }

Next code the auth method. It’s as simple as sending a POST request to the proper URL with the credentials and waiting for the response:

// …
auth() {
this.http.post(‘http://YOUR_DOMAIN/wp-json/jwt-auth/v1/token’, {
username: this.user.login,
password: this.user.password
}).subscribe((data) => {
if (data[‘token’]) { // if token is returned
this.token = data[‘token’];
this.tokenChange.emit(this.token);
}
});
}

Once again, don’t forget to insert your domain name into the URL.

The component is ready, and the last thing to do in this section is create the corresponding form. It should be displayed only if the token is null. When the form is submitted, the auth method should be called:

<form *ngIf=’token == null’ (ngSubmit)=’auth()’>
</form>

Flesh the form out by adding two fields and a Submit button:

<form *ngIf=’token == null’ (ngSubmit)=’auth()’>
<div class=’form-group’>
<label for=’login’>Login</label>
<input type=’text’ class=’form-control’ [(ngModel)]=’user.login’ name=’login’ id=’login’ required>
</div>

<div class=’form-group’>
<label for=’password’>Password</label>
<input type=’password’ class=’form-control’ [(ngModel)]=’user.password’ name=’password’ id=’password’ required>
</div>

<button type=”submit” class=”btn btn-success”>Submit</button>
</form>

That’s it! The authentication feature is finished, and we may start playing with the API itself.

Continue reading %Connecting Angular and the WordPress API with wp-api-angular%

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/es6-let-const/

In this tutorial, I’ll introduce let and const, two new keywords added to JavaScript with the arrival of ES6. They enhance JavaScript by providing a way to define block-scope variables and constants.

This article is one of many covering new features of JavaScript introduced with ES6, including Map and WeakMap, Set and WeakSet, new methods available for String, Number, and Array, and the new syntax available for functions.

let

Up to ES5, JavaScript had only two types of scope, function scope and global scope. This caused a lot of frustration and unexpected behaviors for developers coming from other languages such as C, C++ or Java. JavaScript lacked block scope, meaning that a variable is only accessible within the block in which it’s defined. A block is everything inside an opening and closing curly bracket. Let’s take a look at the following example:

function foo() {
var par = 1;
if (par >= 0) {
var bar = 2;
console.log(par); // prints 1
console.log(bar); // prints 2
}
console.log(par); // prints 1
console.log(bar); // prints 2
}
foo();

After running this code, you’ll see the following output in the console:

1
2
1
2

What most developers coming from the languages mentioned above would expect, is that outside the if block you can’t access the bar variable. For example, running the equivalent code in C results in the error ‘bar’ undeclared at line … which refers to the use of bar outside the if.

This situation changed in ES6 with the availability of block scope. The ECMA organization members knew that they could not change the behavior of the keyword var, as that would break backward compatibility. So they decided to introduce a new keyword called let. The latter can be used to define variables limiting their scope to the block in which they are declared. In addition, unlike var, variables declared using let aren’t hoisted. If you reference a variable in a block before the let declaration for that variable is encountered, this results in a ReferenceError. But what does this mean in practice? Is it only good for newbies? Not at all!

To explain you why you’ll love let, consider the following code taken from my article 5 More JavaScript Interview Exercises:

var nodes = document.getElementsByTagName(‘button’);
for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
nodes[i].addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
console.log(‘You clicked element #’ + i);
});
}

Here you can recognize a well-known issue that comes from variable declaration, their scope, and event handlers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check the article I mentioned and than come back.

Thanks to ES6, we can easily solve this issue by declaring the i variable in the for loop using let:

var nodes = document.getElementsByTagName(‘button’);
for (let i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
nodes[i].addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
console.log(‘You clicked element #’ + i);
});
}

The let statement is supported in Node and all modern browsers. There are, however, a couple of gotchas in Internet Explorer 11 which you can read about in the ES6 compatability table.

A live demo that shows the difference between var and let is shown below and is also available at JSBin:

ES6 in Action: let and const on jsbin.com

Continue reading %ES6 in Action: let and const%