Not very smart at all. Don’t waste your time.
-
This slider is completely useless. I have no idea how it has so many good reviews.
It is completely impossible to have a slider that’s height resizes relative to the browser width. I don’t want a slider 800 px high on a 320 wide mobile phone.
I even tried one of their pre-made themes for this in the hopes that it would just work and be quick and simple. I have 25 years of web development experience. That means any simple slider should never take me more than about 30 to 60 minutes to do. I now have over 3 hours in to this and I have not even come close to having something that will just work. I could have just built a javascript slider from scratch in this amount of time that worked.
-
Hi @sgumby!
Our slider has a rule, that a slide’s height is at least as big as the height of your layers, margins and paddings are and your entire slider is as big as the highest slide is:
https://smartslider.helpscoutdocs.com/article/2033-what-affects-slider-size#content-in-a-slide
Probably this caused your problem.So if you don’t have too much texts, buttons, etc. on slides, your slider’s height would go smaller on smaller screens:
https://smartslider.helpscoutdocs.com/article/2103-how-to-keep-the-sliders-size-ratio-at-any-screenThat was not the problem and your answer really didn’t acknowledge that I’ve been doing this for 25 years. You are pointing out basic stuff that would never be a problem in my world because I know what I’m doing.
In a nutshell the problem is that you have too many options that are not well labeled so we can’t make intuitive guesses on what settings are needed. I’m sure you have documentation that explains to the nth detail how this works but I don’t have time to read a whole book to create a simple slider.
Size > Slider Size: Width and height should allow 100% width and auto for height. When I am forced to set a height here it seems like that will be a fixed height. Somehow, you need to make it clear that’s not how it works.
Size > Limit slide width: While on I would assume it would limit to the width I set just above but it doesn’t. I have this on and when I set by browser resolution beyond this point it stretches to fill.
Size > Force full width: Should not be needed if I can just set width with 100%. BUT this is the setting that when turned on is what solved the problem. But by this point I had tried EVERY SINGLE SETTING COMBINATION that I could think of….including turning this on and off a few times. It was completely by accident that I turned this back on and it fixed my problem.
Background image fill…..this seems to be set at globally or for each slide. However this should be the standard css options and behavior otherwise its hard to know exactly what your options do.
https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_background-size.phpAnd editing a slide did not have a “what you see is what you get” because the fill options didn’t work…it had the background showing in completely weird and unpredictable ways. The width resized properly while the rendered version that was actually on the page did not.
In the “Free Full-Width” theme I downloaded there was a border under the top line of text even though the border setting was at 0. I could not find this border and so I just had to make a guess that if I set a css property manually it would effect this element.And when I download something called “Free Full Width” I’d assume that this resizing problem would be solved by the default settings…. It was not.
The bottom line which I said initially. I’ve been doing web development for over 25 years. I’m self-taught which means I’m GOOD at jumping in to new programming languages, systems, plugins, etc and figuring them out quickly. A task to add a simple 3 slide slider with 2 headers and button should not take me more than an hour. It took me closer to 4 to 5 hours to figure this out. I could have built a slider from scratch in this amount of time. And I actually have but unfortunately it only works with elementor and this site uses divi.
This is NOT a solution that is for someone looking for a quick, easy solution. I’m sure it doesn’t all kinds of fancy stuff if you want to stick around to be an expert…..I don’t have that kind of time.I really wish someone would build a simple slider that just works for all sites that doesn’t use an actual background image that we can’t set alt tags for.
Hi @sgumby
Sure, Smart Slider 3 has a lot of settings, which means there is a bit of a learning curve. That is also what makes it so powerful.
We are always happy to help, but in this case you did not try to contact us for support first. Instead, you submitted a 1 star review right away, clearly out of frustration. That is not fair, and it could have been avoided if you had reached out to us before leaving the review.
Based on what you described, the main issue seems to be that you are not willing to invest time in learning the plugin you are trying to use. If you choose to use a plugin instead of building a custom solution from scratch, you normally need to start with the tutorials. This applies to Smart Slider 3 just as much as to any other slider plugin. Jumping in and building without understanding the core concepts will usually take more time, not less. Spending a little time on the basics makes everything much easier later.
( It is similar to buying a car. If you start driving without learning how to drive, you will run into problems. If you learn the basics first, things become much simpler. )
As for the problems you mentioned:
Slider sizing
The “Width” and “Height” values under- Slider Settings > Size > Slider Size
are normally used as an aspect ratio.
If your slider does not have much content, these values define how the slider scales. The slider will keep the original aspect ratio while scaling up or down.
For example:
If you set the slider size to 1200 x 600 (a 2:1 aspect ratio) and view it on a 400px wide screen, the slider will be 400px wide and 200px high, assuming there are no container limits or sidebars.Limit slide width
As the name suggests, this setting limits the width of the slide content, not the width of the slider itself. The video in our documentation explains this clearly:Force full width
In CSS, width: 100% means the element will be as wide as its container. In our case, that is already the default behavior.The purpose of the “Force full width” setting is different. It allows the slider to extend beyond its container and match the width of another parent element, defined by the selector in the “Adjust slider width to” field (by default, the body element). This requires JavaScript, which is why it is a separate option.
If your container is already full width, you do not need this setting and can leave it turned off or use the Boxed layout instead. If your container is not full width and you want the slider to span the entire screen, then this setting should be enabled. Since we can not know what layout you want to build, this needs to be configured based on your needs.
Background image fill
These images are not CSS background images. They are regular image elements, so CSS background properties do not apply here.Smart Slider 3 uses properties such as object-fit, as well as non-CSS solutions like “Blur fit”. Since many users do not have CSS knowledge, the setting names are designed to clearly describe what they do.
Each option is documented with explanations and examples here:
If you are unsure about a setting, the documentation search works well. Enter the setting name and you will find the relevant article quickly.
Editor behavior
The editor always shows the slider using the size defined under- Slider Settings > Size
On the frontend, there are multiple factors that will affect the actual size of the slider, e.g. the slider scales based on the container and the screen size. When using the Full Page layout, the slider fills the screen both horizontally and vertically. Using screen dimensions directly in the editor would make editing much harder.
So it is also not possible for the editor to fully emulate the environment where the slider is published. That is why we provide a preview button, which lets you check the result at different widths.
Bottom border in the “Free Full Width” template
Unfortunately, we do not have side-specific border setting, but it can be achieved with some CSS.
So the border you see comes from the custom CSS field, which is available under the “More” option. This section is intended for advanced users and is hidden by default because it requires CSS knowledge.
See the screenshot:“Free Full Width” template name
As the name suggests, this template uses the Full Width layout.But by default, we disable the “Force full width” setting in all of our importable templates. This setting relies on JavaScript to pull the slider out of its parent container, which requires more processing than a standard CSS solution.
Our general recommendation is to make the container itself full width and use “Force full width” only as a last resort, when the container can not be made full width.
Experience
Having 25 years of web development experience does not automatically translate to knowing how to use a specific plugin. To use any plugin efficiently, you need experience with that plugin. You can gain this either by using it over time or by going through the tutorials and learning the basics.For example, if you had watched at least the first 8 short tutorial videos of our Getting Started playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PPtkRU7D74&list=PLSawiBnEUNfvVeY7M8Yx7UdyOpBEmoH7Zyou could have built the simple 3 slide slider you mentioned in about 3 minutes, or 5 minutes if you wanted to style it further.
Background images
As mentioned earlier, Smart Slider 3 does not use CSS background images. We use a picture element with source and img tags inside.Final notes
As mentioned at the beginning, we are always happy to help. So next time you run into questions or issues, please contact us through our support system first:and give us a chance to help before you bash us with a negative review.
Best regards,
LaszloI don’t have time to pick through all of this.
Slider Settings > Size > Slider Size – This being a ratio but having NOTHING about it right there or in a tool tip is what lead to my rating. Ease of use is a big deal to me. I can give a response to all of the rest of your settings because nothing you’ve said is indicated by what I see next to the setting or in a tool tip. Its just not an intuitive plugin and I’ve used enough to be a good judge of this.
You must be logged in to reply to this review.
