Jellyfish Counter Widget vs Timeline Express

The Jellyfish Counter plugin provides a widget and shortcode enabling you to easily add animated counters to your WordPress site. Counters can be used as a manually updated total, an automatic counter that updates over time or just as an animated visual effect. Each counter can count upwards or downwards making them suitable for both incrementing totals or countdown situations. A great visual effect for travel blogs or any website that wants to display a running total or countdown of anything. Jellyfish Counters are highly configurable through the widget interface, and being generated using CSS and JavaScript, they require no external graphics files. You may have as many counters as you wish on a page, all can have individual settings for totals and appearance. Shortcode support allows you to generate a counter directly within any post or page content making counters no longer limited to your sidebar or other widgetable area. Advanced users will find that Jellyfish Counter objects are fully accessible via JavaScript and may be controlled and reconfigured as desired though your own custom scripting. Demo Check out the plugin homepage for demos and further information: http://strawberryjellyfish.com/wordpress-plugins/jellyfish-counter/ Usage Widget Simply drag a counter widget to your sidebar and adjust the settings to suit your needs. There are three basic modes of operation: Static – If you want the counter to simply display a non animated number just set a Start Value to the desired number for the counter and set the Counter Type to ‘static’ Animated – If you supply both start value and end value in the widget, the counter will increment upwards or downwards depending on the chosen Counter Type until it reaches the end value. Speed of the count is controlled by the Animation Speed option. Note, this counter has no memory, it will reset when a page is reloaded or changed but it is great for a visual effect where start and end values are relatively close together. Continuous – If you want to count over a long period of time and need your counter to continue to count irrespective of page loads then just select the continuous option in the widget. Then choose the interval between the counter increments, in seconds. As soon as you save the widget the counter will “start” and will continue to tick away even if nobody is viewing your blog. Changing the setting on an active continuous counter will not effect the count value and it will keep count, if you wish to reset an active continuous counter just change the start value and save the widget and the counter will restart from the new starting value. Note: In continuous mode, animation speed and display tenths have no effect. The counters are very configurable through the widget panel. You can define the digit height, width and font as well as animation speed (animated mode only) and “bustedness” (odometer style misalignment of the digits). You can further customise the appearance of an individual counter via the “Digit Style” input that will accept a valid CSS style attributes such as font-family, colour, background etc. Note: the size of the font here as is automatically calculated from the height, width and padding settings. Need a flat looking counter? “Disable 3D effect” removes the CSS shading effect. If you want to display a prefix on the counter or include separating characters, use the Format input. Just enter a string here representing your desired counter appearance, a 0 represents a counter digit, any other character will be displayed as it is. The Format option overrides the number of digits option, if a format string exists then the counter will use the total number of 0 characters as the number of digits. Example Formats: $0.00 1,000,000 0000 km Shortcode You can generate a counter directly within page or post content using the [jellyfish_counter] shortcode. The shortcode accepts a full range of parameters to provide identical functionality to the widget version. The following parameters may be used within a shortcode: digits : a number, Number of digits in the counter format : a string, representing any fancy display format tenths : true/false, display tenths digit or not digit_height : number, pixel height of digits digit_width : number, pixel width of digits digit_padding : number, pixel padding for digits digit_style : a string, custom css styles for the digits alignment : ‘left’, ‘center’, ‘right’, ‘inline’ overall counter alignment bustedness : a number, misalignment of digits flat : true/false, don’t show 3d effect, show 3d effect speed : a number, 0 – 100, animation speed start : a number, starting value for the counter end : a number, ending value for the counter direction : a, string ‘up’ or ‘down’ interval : The number of seconds between updates of a continuous counter tick_multiplier : the number of units the counter will increment every interval (defaults to 1) timestamp : false or a string representing the starting time for the counter If you don’t specify a parameter it’s default value will be used. Examples: [jellyfish_counter end=100] The above shortcode translates as: Display a counter that animates upwards from 0 to 100 [jellyfish_counter start=999 end=0 direction=”down” digit_style=”background: transparent; color: red;” flat=true; timestamp=”2014-09-28 9:20:21″ interval=300 ] The above shortcode translates as: Display a counter that starts at 999 and ends at 0, counting downwards. It has red digits on a transparent background with no 3D shading effect. It is a persistent counter that started counting at 9:20:21 on 2014-09-28 and has been decrementing by one every 300 seconds (5 minutes) since then. Styling You can modify the appearance of an individual counters text through the widget control panel or through shortcode parameters. This should be sufficient for most uses. However, if you need to globally override the default counter style or make other CSS changes to the counter digits or container, take a look at jellyfish-counter.css for the appropriate class names. You should override this in you theme rather than modifying this css file as any changes made would be lost when the plugin upgrades..

Timeline Express is the best WordPress timeline plugin, which allows you to create a beautiful animated vertical timeline on your site. Populate your site with announcements, set the date and Timeline Express will load the latest and greatest announcements in proper chronological order. Use the included shortcode ([timeline-express]) to place Timeline Express timeline anywhere on your site. If you’re looking for power, flexibility and top tier support – look no further. View the Timeline Express Demo Timeline Express Features Easy to use shortcode to place the timeline anywhere on your site ( [timeline-express] ) Responsive timelines, that look great on all devices. Cross browser tested, and mobile friendly. Hundreds of Font Awesome icons included. Specify a different icon for each announcement. Beautiful CSS3 animations. Specify the timeline announcement excerpt length. Hide the date of the announcement on the timeline. Hide the ‘read more’ link for each announcement on the timeline. Specify a custom image to display for each announcement on the timeline. Specify ‘Ascending’ vs ‘Descending’ display order for announcements on the timeline. Powerful extensions (both free and paid). Localized date formatting, for international users. i18n ready – Translated for international users. Pro Features Setup multiple timelines and assign announcements to any, or all, of the timelines. Tighter layout, less distance between each announcement on the timeline. Create and assign categories to your announcements. Timeline sorting features. Sort timelines by categories, timeline or a combination of the two. Priority support, code snippets provided when needed etc. Full Feature List Timeline Express has been successfully used on a number small and large scale sites. Our users have created a number of amazing things with our plugin. Timeline Express has been used to create: Company History Timeline Personal Achievement Timeline Product Announcement Timeline (Roadmap/Release Cycles) Event Timeline Police/Fire History Twitter Feed Timeline Post/Page/Custom Post Timeline Customer History Timeline The small list above demonstrates the flexibility and power behind Timeline Express. Check out our documentation for some helpful code snippets, Timeline Express Add-Ons We have built out some powerful add-ons that extend Timeline Express beyond it’s core capabilities. Many of the add-ons have been user requested features, which we’ve spun off into add-ons. If your looking for some advanced feature that you don’t see in the base plugin, checkout a list of our add-ons. Timeline Express – HTML Excerpts Timeline Express – No Icons Timeline Express – White Label Branding Timeline Express – Single Column Timeline Timeline Express – Timeline Post Types Timeline Express – Historical Dates Timeline Express – AJAX Limits Timeline Express – Twitter Feed Timeline Express – Toolbox View All Add-Ons Timeline Express Translations Timeline Express comes ready for translation! With all of the proper i18n functions in place, 100% of our plugin is ready for translation. If you’re multi-lingual, and interested in translating the plugin into one of the languages not yet available, we’re willing to pass a long Single Site license of Timeline Express Pro, which is good for one full year. We’re huge fans of the open source community, and believe that this plugin should be available to everyone, in their native language. If this is something you would be interested in, please get in touch with us on our Contact Page. The Timeline Express polyglot project can be found here. View the Timeline Express Demo Looking for additional documentation? Check out the knowledge base. Multi-lingual Sites & Timeline Express Timeline Express has been thoroughly tested with some of the top rated, and widely used translation plugins. Two multi-lingual plugins which we are fully, 100% compatible with are WPML and Polylang. Timeline Express may be compatible with other multi-lingual plugins, we just haven’t thoroughly tested it with otheres. If you find it’s compatible with other plugins, please get in touch and let us know and we can add it to this list. This plugin was originally inspired by the great folks at CodyHouse.io. Have an idea for a feature you want to see added to Timeline Express? We love hearing about new ideas! You can get in contact with us through the contact form on our website, WP Timeline Express. Developer Documentation Hooks + Filters Use Custom Images Instead of Font Awesome Icons (New v1.1.6.7) Users can now use the custom announcement image in place of the font awesome icons by using the following filter. Huge thanks to Pete Nelson for the pull request and making this possible and available for everyone. Filter – timeline-express-custom-icon-html Usage Example: https://gist.github.com/EvanHerman/6bbc8de82f34b4cb3c5c Use Alternate Image Size For Announcements (New v1.1.5.5) By default Timeline Express generates a custom image size to use within the timeline. If you would like to use another image size, you can use the following filter. Example: function change_timeline_express_announcement_image_size( $image_size ) { $image_size = 'full'; return $image_size; } add_filter( 'timeline-express-announcement-img-size' , 'change_timeline_express_announcement_image_size' ); Define your own custom fields to use in Announcement posts (New v1.1.5) Users can now add custom fields to Timeline Express announcement posts. This allows for greater control over the announcements and the front end display. Using this hook in conjunction with a custom single announcement template will give you the greatest control. Example: function add_custom_timeline_express_field( $custom_fields ) { $custom_fields = array( array( 'name' => __( 'Example Text Field', 'timeline-express' ), 'desc' => __( 'this is an example user defined text field.', 'timeline-express' ), 'id' => 'announcement_user_defined_text', 'type' => 'text_medium', ), array( 'name' => __( 'Example WYSIWYG', 'timeline-express' ), 'desc' => __( 'this is an example wysiwyg field.', 'timeline-express' ), 'id' => 'announcement_user_defined_wysiwyg', 'type' => 'wysiwyg', ), array( 'name' => __( 'Example Email Field', 'timeline-express' ), 'desc' => __( 'this is an example user defined email field.', 'timeline-express' ), 'id' => 'announcement_user_defined_money', 'type' => 'text_email', ) ); return $custom_fields; } add_filter( 'timeline_express_custom_fields' , 'add_custom_timeline_express_field' ); This example would add 3 new fields below the ‘Announcement Image’ field on the announcement post. The first field is a simple text field. The second field is an example WYSIWYG, and the third is an email field. Note: You can add as many fields as you would like, and display them on the front end using the get_post_meta() function. Customize the ‘announcement’ slug (New v1.1.4) Users can now define their own slug for announcement posts using the provided filter 'timeline-express-slug'. This alters the URL structure of the announcement, possibly for SEO purposes. You would enter the following code into your active themes functions.php file. After you enter the code into the functions.php file, you’ll want to refresh your permalinks. You can do so by going to ‘Settings > Permalinks’ and simply clicking save. That will prevent the 404 page you may see upon altering the slug. Example: // alter '/announcement/' to be '/event/' function timeline_express_change_announcement_slug( $slug ) { $slug = 'event'; return $slug; } add_filter('timeline-express-slug', 'timeline_express_change_announcement_slug' ); This example would change the default /announcement/ slug, to /event/. Alter the ‘Read More’ button text (New v1.1.3.1) Users can now alter the ‘Read More’ button text using the provided gettext filter and the ‘timeline-express’ text domain. Example: // alter 'Read more' to say 'View Announcement' function timeline_express_change_readmore_text( $translated_text, $untranslated_text, $domain ) { switch( $untranslated_text ) { case 'Read more': $translated_text = __( 'View Announcement','timeline-express' ); break; } return $translated_text; } add_filter('gettext', 'timeline_express_change_readmore_text', 20, 3); This example would alter ‘Read more’ to say ‘View Announcement’. Add custom classes to the ‘Read More’ button (New v1.1.3.1) Users can now add custom classes to the ‘Read More’ announcement button. This allows for greater control in fitting the Timeline into your currently active theme. Parameters : $button_classes = default button classes assigned to the ‘Read More’ button Example: // add a custom class to the Timeline Express readmore link function timeline_express_custom_readmore_class( $button_classes ) { return $button_classes . 'custom-class-name'; } add_filter( 'timeline-express-read-more-class' , 'timeline_express_custom_readmore_class' ); This example would print the following ‘Read More’ button HTML onto the page : Read more Setup a custom date format for front end display (New v1.0.9) New in version 1.0.9 is the localization of dates on the front end. The date format is now controlled by your date settings inside of ‘General > Settings’. If, for one reason or another, you’d like to specify a different date format than provided by WordPress core you can use the provided filter timeline_express_custom_date_format. The one parameter you need to pass into your function is $date_format, which is (as it sounds) the format of the date. Some formatting examples: m.d.Y – 11.19.2014 d-m-y – 11-19-14 d M y – 19 Nov 2014 D j/n/Y – Wed 11/19/2014 l jS \of\ F – Wednesday 19th of November Example: function custom_te_date_format( $date_format ) { $date_format = "M d , Y"; // will print the date as Nov 19 , 2014 return $date_format; } add_filter( 'timeline_express_custom_date_format' , 'custom_te_date_format' , 10 ); d – Numeric representation of a day, with leading zeros 01 through 31. m – Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros 01 through 12. y – Numeric representation of a year, two digits. D – Textual representation of a day, three letters Mon through Sun. j – Numeric representation of a day, without leading zeros 1 through 31. n – Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros 1 through 12. Y – Numeric representation of a year, four digits. S – English ordinal suffix for the day of the month. Consist of 2 characters st, nd, rd or th. F – Textual representation of a month, January through December. M – Textual representation of a month, three letters Jan through Dec. view more date formatting parameters Load Your Own Single Announcement Template File (New v1.0.8) By default all single announcements will try and load a single.php template file. If that can’t be found, we’ve done our best to implement a template for you. If your unhappy with the template file we’ve provided you have two options. Your first option is to copy over the single-announcement-template directory contained within the plugin into your active themes root. This will trigger the plugin to load that file instead. You can then customize this file to your hearts content without fear of losing any of your changes in the next update. Your next option is to use our new filter for loading your own custom template file. If for whatever reason you’ve designed or developed your own single.php file which you would rather use, or you just want to use your themes page.php template instead, you can use the provided filter to change the loaded template. Here is an example ( you want to drop this code into your active theme’s functions.php file ) : Example: // By default Timeline Express uses single.php for announcements // you can load page.php instead // just change page.php to whatever your template file is named // keep in mind, this is looking in your active themes root for the template function custom_timeline_express_template_file( $template_file ) { $template_file = 'page.php'; return $template_file; } add_filter( 'timeline_express_custom_template' , 'custom_timeline_express_template_file' , 10 ); Specify Font Awesome Version (New 1.1.7.8) Users can now specify which version of font awesome to load from the font awesome CDN. Alternatively, if the font awesome version is not found – the bundled fall back (version 4.6.1) will be used. Example: // use a different version of Font Awesome function timeline_express_alter_font_awesome_version( $version ) { $version = '4.4.0'; return $version; } add_filter( 'timeline_express_font_awesome_version', 'timeline_express_alter_font_awesome_version' ); The above example will load font awesome version 4.4.0 instead of the current stable version from the font awesome CDN.