I was hoping for some help. I really like the Sparkling theme, but I would like the option to have the images in the slider link to pages other than blog posts. For example, I would like the slider image to point to a blog category page so I can feature a series of blogs instead of one particular post.
I have installed a child theme, but I am stuck there. Any ideas on how I could make this slider work for me in this way? I still want the normal Title text and blog text to overlay over the slider image, but I want a click to take me to the category page.
Thanks Movin! I actually went one further and got it to be a little more dynamic. I made a custom field called slider_link that I apply to blogs that I want in the slider and the slider uses that link. That way I can send people to multiple pages. It could be refined further and I’ll probably keep poking at it, but here is my solution for anybody that wants it.
if ( ! function_exists( 'sparkling_featured_slider' ) ) :
/**
* Featured image slider, displayed on front page for static page and blog
*/
function sparkling_featured_slider() {
if ( is_front_page() && of_get_option( 'sparkling_slider_checkbox' ) == 1 ) {
echo '<div class="flexslider">';
echo '<ul class="slides">';
$count = of_get_option( 'sparkling_slide_number' );
$slidecat =of_get_option( 'sparkling_slide_categories' );
$query = new WP_Query( array( 'cat' =>$slidecat ,'posts_per_page' =>$count ) );
if ($query->have_posts()) :
while ($query->have_posts()) : $query->the_post();
echo '<li><a href="'. get_post_meta(get_the_id(), 'slider_link', true) .'">';
if ( (function_exists( 'has_post_thumbnail' )) && ( has_post_thumbnail() ) ) :
echo get_the_post_thumbnail();
endif;
echo '<div class="flex-caption">';
if ( get_the_title() != '' ) echo '<h2 class="entry-title">'. get_the_title().'</h2>';
if ( get_the_excerpt() != '' ) echo '<div class="excerpt">' . get_the_excerpt() .'</div>';
echo '</div>';
echo '</a>';
endwhile;
endif;
echo '</li>';
echo '</ul>';
echo ' </div>';
}
}
endif;