The Stallion Featured Post Slideshow was introduced in Stallion 6.1 and allows Stallion WordPress SEO Theme and Stallion Responsive theme users to feature posts on the Home and Archive pages (Categories, Tags etc…) via a WP image slideshow with an associated excerpt of the post with fancy javascript features like zooming and fading of the images (you can generate some cool effects).

The Stallion Responsive theme version is also mobile responsive, the WP image slider resizes to fit the screen width.

The tutorial below is for Stallion Responsive which has a few extra options over Stallion WordPress SEO (have tried to cover both themes, but the images are from Stallion Responsive).

WordPress Slideshow Setup

How to use the Stallion Featured Post Slideshow

If the Timthumb.php thumbnail feature (caches thumbnails) is working skip number one below.

1. Change the Stallion Theme Cache folder permissions so the Timthumb.php feature works. This makes smaller thumbnail images, on some servers you might have to change the cache folder permissions to 777 (writable, try 755 first).

Stallion WordPress SEO Cache folder:
“/wp-content/themes/stallion-seo-theme/cache/”

Stallion Responsive Cache folder:
“/wp-content/themes/stallion-responsive/cache/”

or Stallion Responsive Child Theme Cache folder:
“/wp-content/themes/stallion-responsive-child/cache/”

2. Under the “Stallion theme” >> “Colour Options” page turn on the “Featured Posts Slideshow” by setting either “Home Page Only”, “Home Page and All Archives” or “Sitewide”. Note Sitewide not an option is Stallion WordPress SEO.

To start with leave the other settings as they are, the Effects and Extra Effects settings gives you some interesting results, best way to find out what they are is try them after you’ve added a few Featured Posts since there are way too many combinations to describe here.

WordPress Slideshow

3. Edit a post you want to use as a WordPress Featured Slideshow Post.

4. Under the “Stallion Featured Thumbnail Options” box upload or select an image you want to use. The image will be resized by Timthumb.php (which is built into Stallion) so the image should either be bigger than the image size that will be shown on the slideshow or the exact size. If it’s bigger it will be cropped/zoomed using the center of the image as the starting point (so it crops the top/bottom and sides of the image leaving the center). For the best results I suggest uploading an image of the exact size. The image size depends on the Stallion Layout you are using:

Stallion Slideshow Image Sizes

You will have selected a Stallion Sidebar Layout under the Stallion Layout Options page. The default is a 200px wide sidebar layout.

310px sidebar layouts – Slideshow image size 660px by 300px
255px and 165px layouts – Slideshow image size 560px by 300px
200px wide sidebars – Slideshow image size 550px by 300px
No Sidebars layout – Slideshow image size 970px by 300px.

BTW made a typo on the above information on the “Stallion Theme” >> “Colour Options” page in Stallion 6.1, the 310px should be 660px not 560px. Will fix the typo in Stallion 6.1.1.

Images 660px by 300px will work with all the Stallion layouts except the No sidebars layout. If you have no intentions of ever changing the layout try to use the slideshow image sizes above, if you might change the layout and don’t want the images to be increased in size which can degrade an image use one of the larger image sizes.

5. Tick the “Use in Featured Slideshow” box and “Update” the post.

This post will now be used in the Featured Slideshow using the image you uploaded on the home page and archive pages if you set all archives. A cropped version of this image will also be used by the Stallion thumbnail feature (option under Stallion SEO Advanced).

Repeat the above with other posts you wish to use as features slideshow posts until you’ve added the number of posts you want in the slideshow.

If you find the slideshow image isn’t working the most likely issue will be the permissions of the cache folder within the /stallion-seo-theme/ folder. Some servers it will work with permissions 755, others 775 and others you’ll need 777 (full write access).

Timthumb.php Security Breach

Little information about Timthumb.php for those who keep on top of WordPress security issues.

The week I decided to add Timthumb.php to Stallion there was a security alert on WordPress themes using Timthumb.php, basically there was a security hole in the script and many WordPress sites were hacked. A new version (was wrote from scratch apparently) of Timthumb.php (version 2) was quickly released which fixed the security flaw, Stallion 6.1 is using the new version (first version released with Stallion was Timthumb 2.8 in Stallion 6.1), so Stallion users never used the security flawed version of Timthumb.php.

I also turned OFF the Timthumb feature that had been compromised (it was fixed, but we don’t need it to generate thumbnails), the security flaw was in the ability to access external sites like Flickr and Youtube for acquiring external thumbnails. This means Timthumb.php that’s packaged with Stallion 6.1+ will only generate thumbnails from images on your domain, this removes any serious security threats (if there was another security issue with Timthumb in the same feature, you never know what some smart hacker will come up with next!): if someone has managed to upload something to your site they don’t need Timthumb.php to compromise your site!

David Law

David Law > AKA SEO Dave
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: 20+ Years Experience as a Freelance SEO Consultant, WordPress SEO Expert, Internet Marketer, Developer of Multiple WordPress SEO Plugins/SEO Themes Including the Stallion Responsive Theme.

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