Creating Custom Image Carousels in WordPress Themes

Posted on 20th June 2023

Creating Custom Image Carousels in WordPress Themes

WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that helps you easily create and manage a website. One of the great things about WordPress is that it’s very customizable. You can change the look and feel of your WordPress site by choosing a new theme or by creating a custom theme.

If you’re a theme developer, you may want to add an image carousel to your themes. An image carousel is a great way to showcase images in a rotating fashion. In this article, we will show you how to create a custom image carousel in WordPress themes.

Why Add an Image Carousel in WordPress Themes?

An image carousel is a rotating banner that displays multiple images. They are also sometimes called image sliders or image galleries.

Image carousels are a great way to showcase images in a visually appealing way. They can also be used to display testimonials, featured products, or any other type of content.

Image carousels are usually added to the homepage of a WordPress site. However, you can also add them to other pages and posts.

When adding an image carousel to your WordPress site, you can choose to use a plugin or to add the carousel to your theme’s code.

If you’re a theme developer, then you may want to add an image carousel to your themes. In this article, we will show you how to create a custom image carousel in WordPress themes.

Why Add an Image Carousel in WordPress Themes?

An image carousel is a rotating banner that displays multiple images. They are also sometimes called image sliders or image galleries.

Image carousels are a great way to showcase images in a visually appealing way. They can also be used to display testimonials, featured products, or any other type of content.

Image carousels are usually added to the homepage of a WordPress site. However, you can also add them to other pages and posts.

When adding an image carousel to your WordPress site, you can choose to use a plugin or to add the carousel to your theme’s code.

Adding an Image Carousel in WordPress Themes Using a Plugin

The easiest way to add an image carousel to your WordPress site is by using a plugin. We recommend using the Soliloquy slider plugin. It is the best WordPress slider plugin in the market and it’s very easy to use.

First, you need to install and activate the Soliloquy plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Soliloquy » Add New page to create your first image slider. Enter a title for your slider and click on the ‘Create New Slider’ button.

This will take you to the configuration page where you will need to add images to your slider. First, you need to click on the ‘Upload Images’ button to select images from your computer.

Once you have selected the images, you need to click on the ‘Insert into Slider’ button.

Soliloquy will now show you a preview of your image slider. You can add captions and links to each image by clicking on them and then entering the required information.

When you are satisfied with your image slider, you need to click on the ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.

Now that your slider is ready, it’s time to add it to your WordPress site. Soliloquy allows you to add your sliders anywhere on your WordPress site using a shortcode, template tag, or widget.

To add your slider using a shortcode, simply edit the post or page where you want to add the slider. On the post editor screen, click on the ‘Soliloquy’ button.

This will bring up a popup with all your available Soliloquy sliders. Select the slider you want to insert and then click on the ‘Insert Slider’ button.

Save your changes and preview your post or page to see the slider in action.

If you want to add your slider to a template file, then you need to use the Soliloquy_Slider() function. You will need to pass the slider ID to this function.

Replace SLIDER-ID with the actual slider ID. You can find the slider ID by going to Soliloquy » All Sliders page and then hovering your mouse over the slider. The slider ID will be displayed in the URL field of your browser.

Don’t forget to save your changes and preview your website to see the slider in action.

You can also add your slider using a widget. Simply go to Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Soliloquy’ widget to a sidebar.

After that, you need to select the slider you want to display and then click on the ‘Save’ button.

You can now visit your website to see the slider in action in the sidebar.

Creating a Custom Image Carousel in WordPress Themes

If you don’t want to use a plugin, then you can also add an image carousel to your WordPress site by adding code to your theme.

The first thing you need to do is to create a new file and name it carousel.php. You can add this file to your theme’s folder by using an FTP client or by using the cPanel file manager.

Once the file is added, you need to edit it and add the following code:

This code will create a basic template for your image carousel page. The next thing you need to do is to add images to your carousel.

You can do that by creating a new post and then adding the images to the post content. You need to make sure that you select the ‘Image Carousel’ template for that post.

After that, you can visit your website to see the image carousel in action.

Adding a Custom Image Carousel in WordPress Themes

If you want to add a custom image carousel to your WordPress themes, then you need to edit your theme’s functions.php file and add the following code to it.

function my_theme_scripts() { wp_enqueue_script( ‘jquery’ ); wp_register_script( ‘jquery-cycle’, get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/js/jquery.cycle.all.js’, array( ‘jquery’ ), ‘3.0.3’, true ); wp_enqueue_script( ‘jquery-cycle’ ); } add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘my_theme_scripts’ );

This code will load the jQuery cycle library which will power our image carousel.

Next, you need to edit the carousel.php file that we created earlier and add the following code to it.

This code will create a basic template for your image carousel page. The next thing you need to do is to add images to your carousel.

You can do that by creating a