iePlexus Becomes New Developers of the Featured Content Gallery WordPress Plugin

January 21, 2009 · Written by Kris Themstrup

I’m happy to announce that iePlexus is now part of the WordPress development community. As of today, the Featured Content Gallery plugin, a popular WordPress plugin originally developed by Jason Schuller of Revolution Two, has changed hands and will now be hosted, maintained, supported, and developed by iePlexus. Along with this transition comes a significant update to the plugin, a new plugin website and support forum, and a fresh take on where the plugin can be taken in the future. Here at iePlexus we are very proud to be chosen for this responsibility, and we’re excited to positively contribute to the WordPress and Revolution community. We look forward to providing an excellent plugin and support system, as well as a smooth transition between Revolution Two and iePlexus.

About the Featured Content Gallery Plugin:
The Featured Content Gallery is a WordPress plugin that creates a customizable rotating image gallery anywhere within a WordPress site. The plugin has the ability to display either post or pages, and automatically rotates images associated with these in a gallery that includes a thumbnail carousel and text overlay. The gallery is completely customizable, allowing the user to specify the size, color and pages or posts included in the gallery, as well as custom thumbnail images and custom overlay text. Originally transformed into a WordPress plugin by Jason Schuller of Revolution Two, the Featured Content Gallery was developed from SmoothGallery, a javascript gallery created by JonDesign. The plugin is frequently included in some of the best premium WordPress themes available today, namely those found on the Revolution Two site managed by Brian Gardner.

iePlexus and the Featured Content Gallery:
After making some edits to the plugin on our own, we contacted Brian Gardner with the changes we made and he encouraged us to release the enhanced version to the Revolution and WordPress community. Because we have used Revolution themes in the past, we were familiar with the plugin and it only made sense to take over the hosting, development, and support to ensure everyone had the opportunity to benefit from the upgrades. We gladly accepted this responsibility and are excited to showcase our work.

In an effort to improve the Featured Content Gallery, we’ve added some significant functionality to the plugin and set some goals for the future. Updates to version 3.0 of the plugin include the ability to display either posts or pages, the option to include custom thumbnail images or custom overlay text, and the ability to change the color of the gallery elements. Plans for the future include adding more advanced features, resolving some known conflicts, and creating the best WordPress gallery plugin available.

In addition, the Featured Content Gallery has a new home online: FeaturedContentGallery.com. This site has a demo of the plugin in action, download links, detailed installation and setup instructions, a website showcase gallery and support forum. The site and forum is managed by iePlexus and will be the place to find all information relating to the plugin.

Thanks:
All credit for the new plugin goes to the original developer, Jason Schuller, for creating a great plugin to begin with, and Yelena Khamidullina for making our ideas happen in code. I also want to thank Brian Gardner for his help and support through the transition process.

The Featured Content Gallery WordPress plugin is offered for free under a GPL License. You can download the plugin and find more information on installation, upgrading, setup and support at FeaturedContentGallery.com.

8 Comments For This Post

donnacha | WordSkill (January 21st, 2009 at 7:12 pm)

Congratulations – this is one of my favorite plugins and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves under your stewardship.
Kris Themstrup (January 22nd, 2009 at 9:56 am)

Thanks!

We’ve got some great plans for the plugin and where it can go.
Chris (January 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 pm)

Is Revolutions II no more? Just curious. All of their domains are dead. Glad you are taking over. What about their theme repository?
tkoc (January 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 am)

Gz guys, I feel really grateful towards you picking up the FCG mantle. Will forumize my first impressions during the weekend when I have tried out your first release.
Kris Themstrup (January 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 am)

Chris-

RevTwo is alive and well. Brian had some server issues and is back online.

tokoc-

We’re happy to continue the FCG. Looking forward to your review, and you’ll want to stayed tuned for some updates.
Renny (April 1st, 2009 at 8:38 pm)

There is a conflict between Featured content gallery and google map. if both installed any of one will work, most probably google map. is der any solution?
Kris Themstrup (April 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am)

Please post your questions relating to the Featured Content Gallery Plugin over at the support forum: http://www.featuredcontentgallery.com/forum/

Thanks!
boylogik (April 2nd, 2009 at 10:21 am)

Kris, good to hear your team will continue to evolve this awesome FCG. Here are a few suggestions for the next version:
a) It would be great if you could include ‘pagination’ into the gallery – ideally, the options admin panel can be used to set the # of posts / images to include, and that would automatically configure the # of pages in bottom right.
b) include various style options for the text bar – can be done via admin options. For example, I have been trying to figure out how to make the text bar static under the post pics, rather than over the pic as it is currently.
c) automatically grab the 1st image from the post(s) whether media gallery uploads are used or not, and without using custom fields. I think Mimbo 3.0 does this so that may be a good reference.

Best and looking forward to the creative evolution of this feature.
Boylogik