Video Slider for YouTube (Lite)

Description

Video Slider for YouTube (Lite) lets you create unlimited, fully responsive YouTube video sliders — no coding required.

✨ Key Features

  • Unlimited slider sets — create as many sliders as you need
  • Normal (16:9) & Shorts (9:16) — each slider can be a different format
  • Thumbnail lazy-load — shows a clickable thumbnail instead of an iframe, dramatically reducing page load time and improving Core Web Vitals
  • Per-slider arrow & dot colors — match your brand with a color picker
  • Autoplay & loop control — toggle via shortcode attributes
  • Swiper-powered — smooth, touch-friendly sliding on all devices
  • Works everywhere — Gutenberg, Elementor, Classic Editor, and any page builder that supports shortcodes

🚀 How to Use

  1. Go to YouTube Sliders Add New
  2. Give your slider a title
  3. Paste YouTube URLs (one per line) — supports watch, shorts, and youtu.be links
  4. Choose slider type, colors, and thumbnail mode
  5. Copy the shortcode shown in the editor
  6. Paste [youtube_slider id="123"] anywhere on your site

⚙️ Shortcode Options

[youtube_slider id="123"]
[youtube_slider id="123" type="shorts"]
[youtube_slider id="123" autoplay="false" loop="false"]

Attribute
Values
Default
Description

id
post ID

Required. The slider post ID

type
normal, shorts
(saved setting)
Override the slider type

autoplay
true, false
true
Auto-advance slides

loop
true, false
true
Loop back to the first slide

🎬 Thumbnail Mode

When enabled, each slide shows a YouTube thumbnail image. The iframe loads only when the user clicks Play — this means zero YouTube scripts are loaded until needed, improving page speed significantly.

🌍 Translations

The plugin is fully translation-ready (.pot file included). If you’d like to help translate it into your language, click here.

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin folder to /wp-content/plugins/
  2. Activate through the Plugins menu in WordPress
  3. Navigate to YouTube Sliders in the admin sidebar
  4. Create your first slider and embed it with the shortcode

FAQ

How do I add a slider to my page?

After creating a slider, copy the shortcode shown in the editor (e.g. [youtube_slider id="42"]) and paste it into any post, page, or widget.

Can I use Shorts videos?

Yes! Set the slider type to Shorts (9:16) in the slider settings, or override per-shortcode with type="shorts".

How many videos can I add?

Up to 100 URLs per slider.

Does it work with Elementor?

Yes. Use the Shortcode widget in Elementor and paste your [youtube_slider id="..."] shortcode.

Does it work with Gutenberg?

Yes. Use the Shortcode block.

What is Thumbnail Mode?

Instead of loading a YouTube iframe for every slide on page load, Thumbnail Mode shows a lightweight image preview. The full video iframe is loaded only when the visitor clicks Play. This reduces HTTP requests and improves page speed scores.

Can I turn off autoplay?

Yes: [youtube_slider id="123" autoplay="false"]

Can I turn off the loop?

Yes: [youtube_slider id="123" loop="false"]

Where do I find the post ID for the shortcode?

The shortcode is displayed automatically inside the slider editor. Just copy it.

Is the plugin translation-ready?

Yes, a .pot template file is included in the /languages folder.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Video Slider for YouTube (Lite)” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Change log

2.4.0

  • New: Thumbnail lazy-load mode — shows a clickable thumbnail; iframe loads only on click (improves Core Web Vitals)
  • New: Admin preview panel — preview video thumbnails directly inside the slider editor
  • New: Full i18n support — all strings are now translatable; .pot file included
  • Fix: Swiper 10 lazy option updated from object to boolean
  • Fix: Loop mode now safely disabled when slider has only one video (prevents Swiper 10 error)
  • Fix: Arrow buttons now use isolation: isolate to prevent z-index conflicts with iframes
  • Improvement: Shortcode now shows both basic and advanced usage examples
  • Improvement: Admin UI redesigned for clarity

2.3.2

  • Security hardening: added wp_unslash() before all sanitization functions
  • Fixed nonce verification order

2.3.1

  • Added YouTube Iframe API integration for automatic pause on slide change
  • Added autoplay stop when user interacts with a video

2.3.0

  • Added per-slider arrow and dot color pickers
  • Added Shorts (9:16) support

2.2.0

  • Initial public release with multiple slider sets and shortcode support