One of the new features in Meteor Slide 1.4 that needs covering in more detail is support for the Members plugin. Using Members, you can control which roles can create and edit slides and slideshows, and which can change the slides settings.

By default slide posts use the same capabilities as blog posts and only admins can change the slide settings. So admins, editors, and authors can create new slides, and contributors can create slide post drafts. This is straightforward, but not exactly ideal.

Most of the time I only want the admin and editor to create and edit slides. And what if you want to give an editor access to the settings? This is where Members comes in handy.

Customizing roles with Members

When you activate the Members plugin it creates the custom capabilities for the slides post type. None of the roles have these custom capabilities, so the slides menu disappears for all the roles.

Now you can go to Users -> Roles and edit the roles you want to add the slides capabilities to. Typically I will add all the capabilities to the admin role, and add all the capabilities aside from meteorslides_manage_options to the editor role. With this setup, both the admin and editor can manage slides, but only the admin can manage the slideshow settings.

Changing the Members Settings

One thing to note, the Members plugin has several features that are activated separately. Two of these are active when you install the plugin, the Role Manager and Content Permissions. Content Permissions adds an extra metabox to the slide, post, and page editors, so if you aren’t planning to use that, I would suggest going to Settings -> Members and deactivating the Content Permissions feature.

Other awesome things you can do with Members

I install Members on every site I build so that I can create a streamlined experience for the end user. None of the default roles are ever quite right for the client. I want them to be able to edit all the content on their site including slides, forms, and widgets, but I don’t want to make them an admin and give them access to the WordPress settings or the ability to install new themes and plugins.

So to create the perfect role for the client, I make them an editor and customize the capabilities of this role to include just what the user needs to manage their site.

One example is removing the links menu. This feature is almost never used, so I avoid a lot of confusion by just removing the manage_links capability, which completely hides the Links menu from that role. An example of something I always add is the edit_theme_options capability. This allows editors to manage theme options, menus, and widgets, but won’t let them switch themes or install new ones.

If you aren’t already using Members, go try it out and be sure to leave a good rating for this awesome plugin!

Category:
Meteor Slides, Tutorials, WordPress
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Join the conversation! 15 Comments

  1. how to order meteor slider in home page??

    thx before

    • Hi Glen, the slides are sorted by the published date, just like blog posts, so you can edit the date of the slide posts to sort them.

  2. i m using meteor sliders. also use ecwid for ecommerce. i would like to update ecwid product description for page tabs. then it requires jquery. i updated with jquery 1.7. once finish, page tabs appeared but sliders not appeared. please advise me. tq

  3. Had it working. Then deleted 1 image and added another.

    Now even tho’ I have 12 images in the slide show and they appear in the “slides” area and checked for a specific slideshow only 5 appear. Not the 12. I did change the # to 12 in the settings but no go.
    http://organichorsesupplements.com/hazard/

    Suggestions please?

    thanks!
    John

    • Hi John, I would check to make sure you have all the slides added to the correct slideshow. But the most common cause of this problem is a theme conflict, what theme are you using?

  4. Hi, Josh. I have a quick question. I am using Capabilities Manager for my site. I need Editors to be able to view the Slideshow submenu, so they can add new Slideshows.

    The link for my Editors’ capabilities screen is here: .

    Thanks in advance.

    • Meteor Slides only has custom capability support for Members, I’d recommend using that plugin if you can. Otherwise if you aren’t using Members, the permissions should be the same as regular posts, if a user can manage categories, they should be able to manage slideshows.

  5. im trying to use meteor slides to my home page using the black bird theme is that possible because its telling me i have to upload a link im not sure how to do it ive tried everything? please help me

    • Hi Alen you can add a slideshow to your homepage, but how you do that depends on where you want the slideshow to go. Where is it asking you to add a link, in your theme options, or in the slides admin?

  6. One thing I’ve noticed is that the left arrow in Meteor Slides does the same thing as the right arrow. Can’t figure out how to address this. I’m seeing it here, for example:

    http://www.competecaribbean.org/

    • This is because you are using the “scrollLeft” transition, if you use “scrollHorz” instead, it will scroll left or right depending on the direction of the slide in the slideshow.

  7. hi
    I installed the plugin on the site http://www.mairacamargo.com.br but when I put more than one slide do not appear as they should.
    In my other site (www.glamforall.com.br) it works normally.
    What can it be?
    Thank you and congratulations, the plugin is great!

    • Hi Carol, when you only have one slide, the slideshow displays it as a static image, when you use multiple slides, it loads them in a slideshow using jQuery. I see some JavaScript errors on that site, so there is probably a conflict with your theme or another plugin.

      Try adding more slides and deactivating your other plugins to see if you can figure out which one is causing the conflict.

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