LayerSlider - Kreatura Slider Plugin for WordPress 7.14.0

This release focuses on efficiency and bringing you meaningful improvements and bug fixes.

EFFICIENCY

• LayerSlider now uses a slightly more compact and efficient source code out of the box.
• Disabling the 'Use srcset attribute' option now completely removes the srcset and sizes attributes from the generated source code instead of just disregarding them in the plugin internals. This can drastically reduce the generated source code size.
• Dropdown select boxes under layer styles now include an 'Inherit from theme' option. This new and now default value means that you have no preference for a given option and your WP theme is free to apply its own styles (if any). This makes possible to generate a much cleaner and more efficient source code, but you can still apply any styling settings you want in order to match the appearance with the front-end.
• Added Enhanced lazy load option to Slider Settings -> Misc in Advanced Mode. Please read the option description on the admin interface to learn more.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• The Template Store now shows a warning message in all cases when it encounters a server issue.
• Some minor changes that make using the Slider Builder interface more convenient.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed all known issues with the new linking fields that was introduced in the previous update.
• Fixed displaying the most recent snapshot in Revisions.
• Fixed a PHP debug message displayed in rare cases.

IMPROVED LINKING

• Page/Post chooser: Linking fields now offer an option to choose a Page, Post or Attachment on your site. With built-in search, you can easily and quickly select any content you want to link to.
• Auto-generated URLs: When you use this new Page/Post chooser option, WordPress will automatically generate the appropriate URLs to make sure they follow your permalink settings and play nice with other plugins like WPML.
• Link bindings: The Page, Post or Attachment you choose with this new option will be tied to the chosen item, which allows LayerSlider to track changes on your site. No more broken links due to permalink changes or anything else.
• Formatted URL fields: Linking fields also received some UI changes to better reflect your settings. When you use the built-in features, they will show descriptive messages like "Linked to WP Post: Hello world!" or "LayerSlider Action: Switch to the next slide" instead of displaying arbitrary URLs, which aren't that helpful in most cases.
• Attachments: When you choose an attachment, the link will directly point to the file instead of the attachment page. This is helpful when you want to use 3rd party items like a Lightbox/Fancybox plugin.
• Compatibility: Your sliders will continue to work the same. The linking field is there as it was, you are free to manually enter whatever URL you would like to use. However, the above described advantages are only available if you use the newly introduced options.

IMPROVED MEDIA HANDLING

• Modal window: Media layers now have a dedicated modal window where you can easily add video / audio. A preview feature has been added to see the results prior making the changes.
• Insert from URL: Added option to insert videos from YouTube or Vimeo URL.
• Inline editing: Similarly to other layer types, you can now double click on media layers in the Preview to bring up the "Insert Media" modal window.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved Preview selection.
• FontAwesome is a popular icon font to display icons. Since several 3rd party items also use it, it was possible that some icons did not appear in your front-end sliders because another theme or plugin loaded an older version. LayerSlider now makes sure to always load its own built-in version that is up-to-date.

BUG FIXES

• Links now correctly follow hover transitions.
• The WP Media Library now properly displays uploaded video and audio files.
• Fixed a PHP notice, which occurred in case of embedding an empty slider without layers on your front-end pages with WP Debug Mode enabled.

This release focuses on improving the Slider Builder. It brings long awaited and highly requested editing capabilities as well as new new features that will enhance your content in many ways.

NEW EDITOR FEATURES

• Import slides: With just a couple of clicks, you can import any slide from any slider you have on your site. You don't even have to navigate away, it will be added right into the editor where you want it.
• Import layers: Similarly to slides, a nice UI will help you to import any layer from any slider quickly and super easily.
• New Context Menu: Right clicking in the Preview area will open the new context menu. It allows you to select common tasks like adding/removing/duplicating layers as well as to perform copy/paste operations, aligning layers and many more. The old behavior to list and select overlapping layers is also integrated into this new solution.

NEW LAYER & CONTENT TYPES

• Button layer: Buttons now have a dedicated layer type. They also received some presets you can easily apply to have different types of buttons with different styles.
• Icon layer: There's also a new Icon layer type. You can choose from 675 pictographs to easily include them in your sliders.
• Icon support: Icons can also be used in combination with other layer types like Buttons, Text or HTML layers.

EDITOR CHANGES

• Choose before adding: The Add New button now acts as a drop down to choose the type of layer you want to use. Certain layer types (Image & Icon) now immediately prompts you to select the content you want to add. For example, in case of an Image layer, this would be the WordPress Media Library where you can immediately select or upload an image.
• Layer placeholders: No more invisible "contentless" layers. Now every layer type has a placeholder that visually represents it within the editor.
• Inline editing: Double clicking on layers to edit them right in the Preview area now works with non-textual contents as well like Icon or Image layers. In those cases the modal window to add/replace an icon or image will open.
• Align layer options: besides the grid view, now you can also align layers along the horizontal or vertical axis separately.
• Layer-less slides: Slides no longer have an included empty layer by default.

OTHER NEW FEATURES

• Added "Skip Slide Breaks" option for Play By Scroll sliders to eliminate the stop between slide changes.

IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved compatibility with image preloaders.
• Special effects like the Origami transition can now be mixed with regular slide transitions.
• Prevent re-initializing sliders on the same element multiple times.
• Improved compatibility with GSAP sandboxing enabled.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed rewinding video / audio layers after changing slides.
• Fixed Play By Scroll starting position detection.
• Fixed global background size option not always working as expected.
• Fixed an issue that could break layer styles in rare cases.
• Many more under the hood fixes and improvements.
• Fixes for developers:
  • Fixed an issue with the destroy API method.
  • Fixes for overriding default settings like skins that not always worked as expected.
  • Fixes in the LS_Sources class that affected externally loaded skins and other materials.