Fancy effects, smooth transitions, various fade modes, simple navigation, responsiveness, gracious fallbacks, cross-browser compatibility – all these characterize one of the most essential and commonly used component of the website the slider. Coming with the myriad of configuration options, it is responsible for carrying out only one function – vividly demonstrate your content. Whether it is a set of simple images or dynamic HTML/jQuery box with links and buttons, the slider should clearly highlight it, grabbing as much attention as possible.
Surprisingly, a primitive frame with a couple of arrows and extra bullet-style navigation spiced up with some nice effects serves its purpose quite well.
Today we want to familiarize our readers with our top picks of free responsive jQuery image sliders and galleries that are quite easy to incorporate into a project and configure.
Responsive Sliders and Image Galleries
Simple jQuery Image Slider
In today’s tutorial we’ll create a simple jquery image slider.
Create a Responsive Image Slider
Those who seek an easy way of mastering skills of creating a simple yet quite elegant jQuery image slider we offer to take a look at this helpful tutorial that hits the basics of this topic. Though the article is quite old, yet it is still really useful especially for beginners. It doesn’t cover some advanced techniques; on the contrary it concentrates on the fundamentals that will always be relevant. The tutorial unveils essential jQuery techniques that are intertwined with CSS3 principles for providing users with gracious and sleek presentation. It is wisely divided into several “bite-sized” sections that mostly touch upon style and jQuery issues.
However, if you are only up to a component, you can simply download and use it in your projects.
unslider
This is another flexible jQuery slider that skillfully responds to a bunch of devices. Its minimalistic and refined appearance that is nicely impregnated with flat style aesthetics sets the mood and makes your images centerpieces of the design. If you are looking for such features as:
- keyboard arrow support;
- stylish transitions;
- full screen width;
- smooth fallbacks for outdated browser versions.
Then you should opt for this component. It will blend into any modern website design and won’t overload it.
FSVS: Full-Screen Vertical Slider
FSVS is a simple full-screen vertical slider that uses CSS3 transitions followed up by a jQuery fallback.
bxSlider
bxSlider is an excellent choice for showing off your multimedia content in a compelling manner. Coming with tons of configuration options that allow you to control such aspects as speed, slidemargin, infinite loop etc. and supplied with basic features such as
- swipe support for touch screens;
- browser support, including a salvatory function for an elegant fallback;
- CSS transitions;
- several modes for fade effects;
- full adaptiveness.
You just doomed to success by putting the slider into practice.
SilverTrack: jQuery Sliding Carousel
SilverTrack is a smart jQuery sliding carousel. It is often used as part of another set of plugins to increase functionality.
SlidesJS
If you are up to creating a modern and neat website design inspired by flat style then this lightweight jQuery slider (and a part-time slideshow) won’t certainly disappoint you. It doesn’t have any motley decorations only subtle contour-style bullet navigation and ordinary frame for displaying content.
The official website closely familiarizes you with its advantages. The full documentation as well as some typical examples helps to take a full control of it. As usual, the selection of features comprises such fundamental aspects as:
- responsiveness;
- touch screen support;
- CSS3 transitions.
OwlCarousel
Thanks to outstanding support and constant updates, this jquery-based slider will always stay up-to-date and provide users with an excellent experience. Taking a more traditional route of showcasing images, the carousel unobtrusively displays any static and dynamic content. The official website has lots of helpful information both for beginners and professionals; you can check out various examples, clever demos, list of options for customization and much more. So that, you just can’t go wrong with this component.
How to Create an Image Slider using jQuery and CSS3
As the nameplate implies, we are going to learn how to skillfully leverage jQuery and CSS3 in order to create a dynamic frame for pleasantly displaying a set of images. This is an optimal solution for widgets and sidebars. Though at first it looks quite primitive, in fact it has definitely something to offer.
First of all, it was built with a help of free Nivo Slider jQuery Script that has numerous features, so you will discover how to build your own component “on top” of existing one.
Secondly, you will understand the markup hierarchy.
Finally, you will transform a simple plain box with an unordered list of images into a properly-working “logical unit” that will have an appearance according to your preferences.
So if you want to borrow some functionality from free components and quickly implement them into your project, then you should certainly read this article.
Diapo
This is a simple yet well-crafted slider with an option of slideshow that will ideally blend into your corporate website design and will showily demonstrate not only static pictures but also multimedia content such as videos, audio tracks and others. As befits, it is tested on all popular browsers, so you don’t have to worry about the correct display, of course, except for iExplorer that constantly brings some visual inconsistencies. As for functionality, it embraces a wide range of it, including
- several methods for controlling slideshow by means of setting parameters such as time delay or orientation;
- a bunch of options for those who like a thorough configuration;
- numerous parameters for mobile devices.
The slider chiefly brings advantages for those who create commercial products such as websites or CMS themes, since the author lets you almost freely use it as a part of any commercial project. Of course, under “the almost free” the author implies a small donation.
Slicebox – A fresh 3D image slider with graceful fallback
Slicebox is a catchy image slider from Codrops, which main visual driving force is produced by various 3d effects that establish a pleasant atmosphere. The script either delicately slices your images into even parts and forces them to rotate or simply alters images with an accompanying 3d transition. Moreover, the team took care about browser compatibility. So, for example, if iExplorer does not reflect effects correctly, the slider will switch to a fallback.
Though such visual effects seem to be a bit out-of-date, yet there are still lots of creative projects that can easily derive benefits from such type of presentation. The non-static websites are coming back, so do 3d transitions, especially when the whole impact is achieved by means of CSS3 that is always held in high esteem.
One Response