Creating a digital signage project with WordPress means you will need to face a choice from hundred of paid-for or free modules, plugins and themes. In this choice overload , the very real risk is to waste time and money buying a component that later they would turn out worthlessness.
In this article you will find the 5 tools that in our opinion are must-haves for any (or most) of digital signage projects. We’ve chosen a small selection of those plugins that will make your work stand out as more polished, professional and more attractive to your audience.
1) Time plugins
How many times a day do you ask what time it is? A time widget is essential in every worthy project. In WordPress there are a few options to choose from, depending on your preference.
LocalTimeClock
LocalTimeClock is probably one of the most used plugins, because of its simplicity and a good range of typologies, sizes, colors and fonts among which to choose. Main features are:
- A wide range of analog and digital clocks
- Choice of size, colors of text, border and background
- HTML5 responsive plugin, detects device and serves flash, html5, javascript progressively
- Easy addition of multiple clocks
Easy Clock Widget
EasyClockWidget, as the very name implies, is a basic exclusively digital clock widget with 10 choices of color available. Here’s the features:
- Widget or Shortcode support
- Local Timezone Display
- 10 Colors to choose from
- Time format 12/24 hours
CoolClock
Vintage is always in trend, so we thought about including an analog element to the list. The plugin is called CoolClock and it offers a wide range of analog clocks to insert in your project. If you don’t like any of them, you have the possibility to personalize them. It has:
- 22 different skins to choose from
- Custom skin option to create your own skin style
- Linear or logarithmic time scale
2) Weather plugins
Can’t wait for the spring to come? Maybe, your client is like-minded. While you’re waiting for the new season, keep daily temperatures under control with a weather plugin.
WPCloudy
WPCloudy is powerful plugin with an attractive and flat design and a large set of widget customization tools, which works with OpenWeatherMap; the pro version has the price of $19, but it really fits all your possible needs. Main features are:
- 200 000 cities
- Hours forecast
- 16-day forecast
- Metric/Imperial
- 12/24 format
- Custom datas: current weather, hour forecast, 14-day forecast, min-max temperatures, cloudiness, average temperature, sunrise-sunset…
- Cache system
- Open Weather Map API
- Dashboard Weather
- Flat and retina design : CSS3, SVG…
- Global Options panel
- No ads
- Weather map with layers: current weather, stations, clouds, precipitation, snow, wind, temperature, pressure
Simple Weather WordPress Plugin
SimpleWeatherWordPressPlugin is a “stylish plugin” with a really beautiful and clean design. It offers many features to customize your work and uses two API weather feed providers: Open Weather and Dark Ski. It cost $16, but the eye will thank you. The plugin features are:
- Easy to use
- Unlimited Color Options
- Three Shortcode Styles
- Custom Date Format
- Use Metric or Imperial Units
- Current Weather
- 7 Days Forecast Options
- Multilanguage Support
- Text Alignment & Display Style
- Show Day / Night Temperature/ Location / GSP Coordinates
3) Animation plugins
Display the most relevant contents of your site is certainly the best way to catch the attention of your customers. To create and manage a functional slideshow, you will need one of the following modules.
Layer Slider
LayerSlider offers a wide range of customization, stunning effects and more than 200 pre-defined slide transitions. Oh, and it’s SEO friendly, because optimization is never excessive. It costs $20, but it’s worth. Most relevant features are:
- Smart and intuitive slider editor, with drag&drop functionality
- Premium slider templates released and updated regularly
- Dynamic content from WP posts and pages
- Responsive design
Slider Revolution
The best-seller image carousel is without any doubt SliderRevolution: the new release (version 5.4) provide with a large set of features that improve usability and creative potential:
- Free object library with background images, icons and transparent PNG’s objects
- Free add-ons library
- 3D parallax effects
- Front page designer which you can build a one-page web presence with no coding knowledge required
- Drag&drop visual slider building
- Responsive design
- Multi-media contents integration
- Navigation design with lots of ready-to-use styles included
- SEO optimization
4) Events management plugins
Organization is essential when you (and your business) have to run a series of events such as meetings, classes, conferences and others. An events management module could be useful to better control them.
EventsManager
EventsManager is probably the most popular WordPress events management plugin: it provides you with everything you might need to create and publish calendars. Free version offers a basic set of features, the premium one will cost you $75 for a single site device. Here’s a few features it has:
- Custom post types
- Flexible calendars
- Event categories and tags
- Front end submission and management
- Custom event fields
- Event images and thumbnails
- Create&edit locations
- Event bookings tools
- Widget&shortcode provided
EventOn
EventOn has all the functionality you might need to create and manage your events calendar, a lot of personalization possibilities, and it also has a really minimal but captivating design. All of it comes at an accessible cost of $25. Main features are:
- Multi-day Events
- Easy month navigation
- Ton of options&customization
How to manage them all together: the ultimate plugin for digital signage
Wallaboard is the indispensable plugin to make your digital signage project work. It’s easy and ready to use, because it turns any WordPress installation into a digital signage platform, and stands out for its user-friendliness and flexibility. It perfectly fits the needs of those small business that believe in innovation and want to develop a professional digital signage project on their own.
With at least one module from each category from the list, rest assured that your digital signage project will appeal to your audience as polished and functional.
After all these precious suggestions, all that is left to do is wish you good job and good luck with your digital signage project.