I’m using F8 Lite on my latest site, http://www.gavinthorn.com, and came across this issue. The solution (for me) was to use a page of posts. It’s quite involved though so wouldn’t recommend it unless you know what you’re doing.
If you choose to go this route you’ll need to modify the “Page of Posts” code to use that from the index.php file, remembering to use $my_query where necessary.
You’ll then find that this wil break the slideshow and single posts although this can be easily fixed by modifying the header.php, functions.php and the single.php files…
header.php
Look for the get_template_part() call and modify the preceeding line to include a check for is_front_page()
<?php
//
// Modified theme here - owing to us showing a page as a front page
// we need to verify we're on the front page rather than the home page
//
//if ( is_home() && $paged < 1 ) {
if ( ( is_home() || is_front_page() ) && $paged < 1 ) {
get_template_part( 'slideshow' );
}
?>
functions.php
Look for this code block and change first line to include is_front_page() as shown
if(is_home() || is_front_page()) {
$doc_ready_script .= 'jQuery("#slideshow-posts").cycle({
fx: "fade",
timeout: 4000,
prev: "#prev",
next: "#next",
pager: "#slideshow-nav"
});';
single.php
Change line 16 to read
<?php get_the_image( array( 'custom_key' => array( 'slideshow' ), 'default_size' => 'full_size', 'width' => '950', 'height' => '425' ) ); ?>
Then create a category specifically for posts you wish to appear on the front page, enter this category ID into your page of posts script and change the settings for the site to use show your page as the front page.
That should be more or less it.
BTW – I’d strongly recommend making a back up of any files you’re going to change before making the changes, just in case.
