I really like the Featurific for WordPress plugin, so much so that I spent hours on my own and working with its designer to get it to run on a static front page (see instructions below), and now Rich Christiansen refers to my solution in his FAQ section.
When I installed the new theme a few days ago, I liked the fact that I had more screen real estate available for the Featurific plugin. I could change up the template from Skinny to something snazzier.
But I ran into a problem. First off, I changed my home page from a static front page to the blog because the new theme’s options don’t work on a static page. And then Featurific wouldn’t work properly in the sidebar; worse, I couldn’t get the template to change. Looking into it further, I felt it was conflicting with Smooth Gallery, which I also really like. I had to disable it.
Unfortunately, that means those clicking over to my site to see how Featurific works on a static page will no longer be able to see it. Bit of a bummer.
However, here’s the info for those who are looking for a solution:
First, get the Exec-PHP plugin and install it. Next upload and install the Deactivate Visual Editor plugin. Don’t do anything with Featurific until you have uploaded and installed these plugins. They were both still working for me up to version 2.7 of WordPress.
You need both plugins because the first helps you get Featurific to work on a static page and the second ensures you will always be in Code mode anytime you edit the page thereafter. That’s vitally important as the author of Exec-PHP warns:
“To successfully write PHP code in the content of an article, the WYSIWYG editor needs to be turned off through the ‘Users > Your Profile’ menu. It is not enough to simply keep the WYSIWYG editor on, switch to the ‘Code’ tab of the editor in the ‘Write’ menu and save the article. This will render all contained PHP code permanently unuseful.”
Ensure Exec-PHP is installed and running. Go to the page you wish to edit. You will see a big warning message by Exec-PHP above the page. Don’t worry about it. Follow the instructions for deactivating the visual editor or WYSIWYG editor for that page. You should now be in the HTML editing mode. Type the following code where you want Featurific to appear on your static front page:
<?php
if(function_exists(‘insert_featurific’)) //If the Featurific plugin is activated…
insert_featurific(); //Insert the HTML code to embed Featurific
?>
Publish the page, and Featurific should now appear on your home page. Enjoy!
