Guide to Home and Archive page options in SWIFT

Featured post sliders

SWIFT wordpress 3.0 theme slider options

SWIFT WordPress theme slider options

You have an option to choose between two different slider styles in SWIFT, “Lite” and “Large Image“.

Select the slider of your choice.
Select the featured posts category.
Select the number of featured posts to be shown in slider.
There is a check box saying “Skip posts shown in the slider from WordPress loop”. check this if you don’t want the posts shown in the slider to be displayed again below it. It is advised to check this option to avoid duplicate content issues on search engines.

Large Image Slider

Slider with small image "LITE"

DISABLE thumbnails in slider
Check this option if you do not want to show thumbnails in LITE slider. Without thumbnails it looks like this.

"LITE" slider without thumbnails.

DISABLE thumbnails on home page
When you are using blog layout with excerpts enabled on home page, you have an option to disable thumbnails.

Homepage blog layout with thumbnails enabled.

Home page with thumbnails disabled

Display excerpts on home page

Check this box if you would like to display excerpts rather than full posts on the home page. Excerpts are summaries or descriptions of a post. This option doesn’t affect the more WordPress function, and it has no effect while you select magazine layout for home page.

Display excerpts on archive pages

This is same as the above option, except this applies to category,tag, archives and search results pages.

Number of full length posts

When you are using blog layout with excerpts enabled or the magazine layout and want to show some posts in full length, use this option.

Selecting the number of full length posts

When your are using blog layout on home page, you have an option to show your popular posts as shown in the screenshot below. Popularity of the post is calculated based on the number of comments it gets. If you don’t have comments on any of your posts, it will not show any posts.

Popular posts are picked based on the number comments a post has. If none of your posts have any comments, then no popular posts will be shown.

About me..

When using full page magazine layout, there will be a blank space next to slider. You can add content to that blank space here. Can be used to add a short bio of your self or a 300*250px advert.

FAQ’s

1. Slider works only with Recent Posts?

2. Cant change featured posts category ?

goto includes/featured-slider-1.php, or includes/featured-slider-2.php depending on the slider you are using and change these lines to

if($opt['swift_featured_category']&&$opt['swift_featured_category']!='Show recent posts')
$query='category_name=&quot;'.$opt['swift_featured_category'].'&quot;&showposts='.$opt['swift_featured_posts_number'];
else
$query='&showposts='.$opt['swift_featured_posts_number'];

if($opt['swift_featured_category']&&$opt['swift_featured_category']!='Show recent posts')

$query='category_name="'.$opt['swift_featured_category'].'"&showposts='.$opt['swift_featured_posts_number'];

else

$query='&showposts='.$opt['swift_featured_posts_number'];

//5 is the id of the category you want to show in featured slider, and seven is the number of featured posts.
$query='cat=5&showposts=7';
//You can show posts from multiple categories in the slider by replacing  5 with 5,8,9

//5 is the id of the category you want to show in featured slider, and seven is the number of featured posts.

$query='cat=5&showposts=7';

//You can show posts from multiple categories in the slider by replacing 5 with 5,8,9

37 thoughts on “Guide to Home and Archive page options in SWIFT”

September 23, 2011 at 5:54 AM
Claire says:

Hello, I love your theme so far as I'm working in a sandbox to develop my site's new look. I was wondering if there is any shortcode to put the slider on a page using the WP GUI? I want a static page as my home page, and then my actual blog page is elsewhere. I'd like the slider to show on BOTH pages, not only the Blog page. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Reply
July 1, 2011 at 6:36 PM
Suzena says:

I am using large image slider at homepage that contains recent posts ! Problem is, The slider tends to show full images at beginning 562*280 and after sometime it comes back to normal size of images which i have set in my post images ! It tooks few more secs for page to load and also the whole page just flows out, any solution for that ? My website is www.vfashiontrends.com Thanks.

Reply
- July 11, 2011 at 10:57 AM
  Satish says:
  
  If you are using large image slider, then your featured image should be at least 940px wide.
  
  Reply
June 16, 2011 at 1:07 PM
Adam says:

Did you answer this FAQ : 1. Slider works only with Recent Posts?

Reply
June 11, 2011 at 3:14 AM
Amar says:

Hello, Thank you for a wonderful theme. I have enabled the slider on my blog. Please take a look at it. The slider either comes out empty, or if I choose to display, say, three posts, only one will show. How can I change this or fix it? I have the version 5.72 Thank You

Reply
June 3, 2011 at 12:42 AM
Mandy says:

I selected 'excerpts' option on home page. Why is it it still shows entire posts? And the images in the slider wont occupy the whole space. What's the best thing to do?

Reply
May 30, 2011 at 7:58 PM
Norm says:

I've recently changed over to your free theme and testing it before upgrading to the premium theme. I have a quick question, is it possible to show more than three posts on the home page? At the moment I have 2 RSS widgets running in the side bar which will show 3 post feeds each with content. At the moment the page looks weird as the posts don't run to the bottom. I know I have the option of full content but would prefer not to use it as it has additional images on the post. The website in question is this one http://pickoffers.com. Any help in regards to adding 3 more posts to the home page for extra length would be appreciated. Thanks Norm

Reply
May 5, 2011 at 8:22 AM
Bill Davis says:

One of my clients bought your theme and she really likes it; however, she sent me your instructions from your forum on how to slow down the slider speed and I don't know where to "regenerate" the .js file. Is that an option or setting in the Swift options?

Reply
- May 5, 2011 at 10:04 AM
  Satish says:
  
  goto the options page, and save the changes and your js file will be regenerated.
  
  Reply
  - May 5, 2011 at 4:55 PM
    Bill Davis says:
    
    Yes, that does work. Weird that I had done the *exact* thing you prescribe on another computer and it seemed NOT to work, even though I was clearing my cached (using CCleaner) after each change...but then I tried on another computer and it worked right away (as one would expect). Thanks!!! Your theme and support ROCK!
    
    Reply
    - May 15, 2011 at 10:27 AM
      Bill Davis says:
      
      Okay, for Swift premium, what is file needs updating for the slider speed?
      
      Reply
April 29, 2011 at 5:51 PM
Vaibhav says:

i want to increase the width of content and decrease the width of right sidebar so that i can put 728*90 leather board advertisement just below the title.Is there any way to do this????

Reply
April 22, 2011 at 11:59 PM
zedez says:

hi there, first of all, thanks for the wonderful work done. I have a query. How to make the slider picture having to be the full width of the homepage? Hope to have some advice soon thanks!

Reply
April 22, 2011 at 3:08 AM
Ana says:

Its great theme but i have some problem. When Im using Popular post for home page it shows popular posts but without pictures (thumbnails). Im not using magazine layout only blog stile so it shuld work. If any suggestion pls write.

Reply
- May 25, 2011 at 1:07 AM
  Ana says:
  
  Anyone willing to give advice about my question? Or how can it show only Post title when using Popular Posts option, without snippet and without thumbnail?
  
  Reply
April 14, 2011 at 3:18 PM
strosdegoz says:

Like many users here, I am trying to set up the thumbnails, only the default comes up. All of the thumbnails for my other posts were also replaced by the default one.

Reply
- April 15, 2011 at 2:36 AM
  Satish says:
  
  Install "Auto post thumbnails" plugin and goto settings->auto post thumbnail and generate post thumbnails.
  
  Reply
April 7, 2011 at 10:30 PM
Raghunath Pillai says:

hi Satish My website is www.rakethemoolah.com . I have issues with regards to the 'featured posts' and I still get default.jpg in the featured post instead of the image I have uploaded in my first post. Pls help. I went the comments' trail but still not able to take care of the issue. Regards, Raghu

Reply
March 31, 2011 at 6:59 PM
andrew says:

I think you're theme is preventing me from setting up a pretty permalink structure. Is that possible? Thank you! the theme is amazing by the way

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- March 31, 2011 at 7:17 PM
  Satish says:
  
  Thats not possible. Are you hosting on yahoo?
  
  Reply
  - March 31, 2011 at 7:32 PM
    andrew says:
    
    i don't know what i'm hosting on. all i know is i have apache server, the configurations have been set up according to the requirements specified in the codex. I found a comment somewhere that said their archive plugin was messing up the permalink structure. i have no such plugin but since i'm out of ideas i just wanted to be sure the theme isn't the cause. Thanks for the flash-answer by the way! I'll keep digging elsewhere.
    
    Reply
    - March 31, 2011 at 8:35 PM
      Satish says:
      
      Contact your hosting support, they will have it solved in a minute.
      
      Reply
February 14, 2011 at 5:43 PM
holly says:

Hello! Great Theme! However, is it possible to turn the slider into picture navigation for throughout my website, for example, if we have five pages, each with a picture at the top of the pages, can we make these images the slider images, with links to the appropriate pages? Also, is there a way to remove the slider in sub pages? Thanks! Once again, fantastic theme!!

Reply
January 18, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Peter says:

Another way of achieving this is given at globinch.com . Read How to Create WordPress Thumbnail Based Post Archives http://www.globinch.com/2010/11/01/how-to-create-wordpress-thumbnail-based-post-archives/

Reply
January 12, 2011 at 8:56 PM
Kelley says:

Just upgraded to the 5.73. Of course I can not get the pictures to show up in the slider, just the default.jpg. This is starting to turn into to much to configure!

Reply
- January 12, 2011 at 10:10 PM
  Satish says:
  
  read the instructions here http://swiftthemes.com/2010/11/wordpress-themes/free-themes/swift/update-version-5-70-of-swift-says-goodbye-timthumb/
  
  Reply
  - January 13, 2011 at 1:30 AM
    Kelley says:
    
    Thanks Satish. Wordpress is starting to get to me! :)
    
    Reply
January 11, 2011 at 4:39 AM
BJohnM says:

I can think of very few things you have forgotten, and think this is a great theme. I have one issue and one question. My issue, when setting the colors for the "Tabber" (which I assume governs the appearance of the Tab Widget), I keep getting "white" text for the tabs. I've set everything in the tabber section, and all the other components are the expected color, and I have nothing set to white. I see settings for "Tabs Navigation Text Color"; "Tabs Navigation Hoover Text Color"; "Tabs Text Color." I have all of these set to a very dark color #330000. Yet the text in the tabs themselves remains white, no matter the state. Any suggestions. My other question is the same as Darryl's. Even if it involved editing PHP, is there a way to change timing on the slider rotation? (I'd like to suggest that as a configuration feature in a future release.)

Reply
- January 11, 2011 at 7:59 AM
  Satish says:
  
  upgrade to latest version. http://swiftthemes.com/download/
  
  Reply
  - January 13, 2011 at 12:07 AM
    BJohnM says:
    
    Thanks for the quick resonse, unfortunately I'd just started testing with Swift, which is a great theme, so I had version 5.73. In the event there were some tweaks, I did download the file again, and re-installed. I still have the same behavior with the tab text colors. http://deepsand.mastersfamily.org Also, is there a way to change the speed of the slider. I've searched your site, and I've looked through all the options (I don't think I've missed anything) I even looked in the PHP file I thought might control it, but I'm no programmer, so nothing was obvious to me.
    
    Reply
January 5, 2011 at 11:51 AM
Laura Silva says:

Hello ... I am in full configuration of the theme and I follow the instructions but I can not make it: 1 - shows the images when using Lite 2 - in the Featured post slider style appear in the incomplete images, the image is cut down What I do in the two cases? Thanks in advance Laura Silva

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- January 5, 2011 at 12:27 PM
  Satish says:
  
  if the images are not in the 2:1 aspect ratio, they will be cropped.
  
  Reply
  - January 6, 2011 at 11:43 AM
    Laura Silva says:
    
    And where is defined this aspect ratio? I mention that already make the adjustment you mention in section Ideal media settings for SWIFT Thanks in advance Laura Silva
    
    Reply
  - January 11, 2011 at 7:38 PM
    Evgeniy Bastrakov says:
    
    Hi Satish, great theme, thank you. I've got the same question: is here any way to modify the aspect ratio within the large image slider to _avoid_ cropping? The slider is the prominent feature, and automatic cropping is not necessarily "optimal" or nice.
    
    Reply
November 9, 2010 at 4:41 AM
Heather Ordover says:

Timing! Yes! And I couldn't find this in the user guide--does the "number of full-length posts" option work with Stickies? I'd like to have a specific post under my slider (still can't get thumbnails to work in small slider, but have successfully upgraded so that's a little better) then the magazine layout under that. I can get it to look right, but can't get the right post to show up. This is a great theme, by the way. Thank you so much. Sorry we're all so demanding. Heather

Reply
November 8, 2010 at 9:58 AM
Darryl says:

Is there anyway to change the timing of the feature post slider rotation?

Reply
- April 24, 2011 at 7:38 AM
  Oliver says:
  
  same question
  
  Reply