Description
Most popup plugins make you configure twenty things before anything shows up. PopupRoulette goes the other way. Upload an image, paste a link, flip the toggle. That’s a popup.
The twist is the roulette. Create as many popups as you like and mark them active. On every page load the plugin picks one at random, and it never shows the same popup twice in a row. Run three offers at once and your visitors see all of them over a few visits instead of the same banner forever.
What you get
- Image + link mode. One image, one link, done. Tall story-format images are shown whole, never cropped.
- Designed templates. When you want more than an image: a background photo, title, subtitle, a big highlight line and a button. Three built-in looks (Spotlight, Banner, Clean), nine bundled fonts, size sliders and an accent color picker. The live preview updates as you type.
- Polite by default. The popup closes itself after 5 seconds, with a small countdown ring on the close button so visitors see it coming. If someone hovers or taps the popup, it stays. Escape and backdrop clicks close it too.
- Scheduling for free. Set a future publish date on a popup and it goes live at that moment. No extra UI, it’s just how WordPress works.
- Tap-to-call. Put a phone number in the highlight line and mobile visitors can tap it to dial.
Boring details that matter
- The roulette runs in the visitor’s browser, so it keeps rotating correctly behind full-page caching and CDNs.
- Popup images load eagerly. You’ll never see an empty card waiting for its picture.
- Fonts ship inside the plugin (woff2, SIL Open Font License). No calls to Google Fonts or any other third party.
- Works in RTL languages out of the box. The popup follows your site’s text direction.
- Dialog semantics, keyboard close, and reduced-motion support are in.
- Uninstalling removes every popup and all of its data. Nothing left behind.
Built by Itay at itaycode.com.
Screenshots
Installation
- Install from the plugin directory, or upload the ZIP under Plugins Add New Upload Plugin.
- Activate it. A “PopupRoulette” menu shows up in the sidebar.
- Add a popup, flip the “Popup is live” toggle, hit Publish. Open your site to see it.
Creating your first popup
The editor opens in image mode: click the frame, pick an image from the media library, paste the link it should open. That’s the whole job.
Want the designed look instead? Click the “Designed template” card. Pick one of the three templates, set a background photo, write your title and offer, and watch the preview on the right while you type. The highlight line is the big one in your accent color. Put the discount or the phone number there.
Running several popups
Every popup has its own live toggle, both in the editor and straight from the popups list. Whatever is live is in the roulette. Turn a popup off and it leaves the rotation immediately; the others keep going.
FAQ
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How does the rotation decide what to show?
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Random pick on every page load, with one rule: never the same popup twice in a row. The last shown popup is remembered in the visitor’s browser, so the rotation works per visitor, even behind aggressive page caching.
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Can I schedule a popup campaign in advance?
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Yes. Use the regular “Publish on” scheduling in the popup edit screen. The popup stays hidden until the scheduled time, even if its live toggle is already on. When the date arrives, it joins the roulette on its own.
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Why does the popup close by itself?
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Because popups that sit there until dismissed are the reason people hate popups. Five seconds is enough to land the message; the countdown ring makes the timing visible; and any interaction with the popup cancels the auto close for readers who want more time.
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Does it work with RTL sites?
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Yes, fully. The plugin was born on a Hebrew news site. The popup follows the page direction, and four of the bundled fonts carry a full Hebrew alphabet.
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What language is the admin interface in?
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English, and fully translatable. Translations are handled by translate.wordpress.org: WordPress downloads and applies them on its own, so nothing needs to be bundled or configured. Contributions in any language are welcome there.
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Where do the fonts come from?
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Nine faces, all packaged as woff2 files inside the plugin under the SIL Open Font License. Heebo, Rubik, Assistant and Secular One cover Hebrew and Latin. Poppins, Montserrat, Playfair Display, Oswald and Space Grotesk are Latin only, and the editor groups them that way so you can see at a glance which is which. Pick a Latin face on a Hebrew popup and the Hebrew simply falls back to the system font, no broken boxes.
The files are served from the plugin folder. Nothing is fetched from fonts.googleapis.com or fonts.gstatic.com, so no visitor IP ever reaches a third party. Browsers download only the weights and alphabets a popup actually renders, and only when a template popup is live.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“PopupRoulette” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “PopupRoulette” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.3.0
- Five more fonts for Latin popups: Poppins, Montserrat, Playfair Display, Oswald and Space Grotesk. Bundled as woff2 like the rest, still no third-party requests.
- The font menu is now split into “Hebrew + Latin” and “Latin only” so the pick is obvious.
- The front end no longer runs a meta query on every page load. The live popup IDs are cached in a single option and refreshed when you edit, toggle, trash or delete a popup.
- Translations now come from translate.wordpress.org instead of shipping in the plugin.
1.2.1
- Hebrew translation ships with the plugin and applies automatically on Hebrew sites.
1.2.0
- English interface. RTL support stays, the popup follows the site’s text direction.
- Renamed to PopupRoulette.
1.1.1
- Popup images load eagerly, so the card never opens empty.
1.1.0
- Random rotation, never repeating the previous popup.
- Auto close after 5 seconds with a countdown ring.
- Tall images are shown whole.
1.0.0
- First release.