I’ve been googling for the best slideshows plugin to highlight some interesting posts for my blog, and of course I went for the 0 cost first. This is actually the beauty of wordpress, you can add anything you want inside your blog template by using the plugin and don’t need to mess around with codes or hacks.

So far I’ve met five interesting and handy plugins offered by the designers for free:

1.The Featured Content Gallery Plugin V2.0

Featured Content Gallery WordPress Plugin Version 2.0 by WPelement which basically makes the entire process of configuring plugin and posting content fully automated.

SmoothGallery is a great little script developed by JonDesigns.net which just happens to be a perfect addition to any WordPress theme to display a gallery of featured articles or posts. All I did was automate the process of adding and managing the script through a handy plugin.

Interesting? can head straight to the direct download link here.

2. Featplug Plugin

Featplug is a Wordpress plugin that can mine your blog’s content and generate ‘featured content’ section for your site using the suitable stories. It can also run as a standalone script or even integerate into any other Blog/CMS/Forum software.

This one also considered best and user friendly. Try the demo or you can direct to download link here

3. Featured Category Slideshow/FCS

It is a modded version of Jason Schullers Featured Content Gallery Plugin which is based on JonDesign’s SmoothGallery, The main difference between the two plugins is, that with FCS you can use dynamic content in your slideshow. With FCS, you just write a new post, select a certain category, upload an image and the post will be put into the slideshow. It’s always the 4 newest posts that will be visible in the slideshow. Older posts will just be kicked out of the slideshow without being deleted from the blog.

Have a look at the demos site just navigate to the direct download link here.

4. D13slideshow

D13Slideshow is a simple WordPress plugin that creates animated, JavaScript slideshows with excerpts from selected WordPress posts and pages. By adding a simple tag to your template you can embed interactive adverts for your chosen featured posts and manage all of the settings instantly, using your WordPress admin pages.

Unlike other components, d13slideshow uses the prototype and scriptaculous JavaScript libraries which means that if you already use Lightbox 2 then there’s no further downloads added to your page.

The plugin page is here and direct download link for the original version goes here.

5. Featurific For Wordpress

Rich Christiansen has created an elegant and powerful Wordpress plugin for Featurific, the featured story slideshow. Installation of the plugin is automatic and easy, while still allowing the flexibility advanced users need to customize the Flash slideshow presentation.

The Featurific for Wordpress plugin automatically generates the data.xml file required to drive Featurific. Since it does this dynamically and automatically, your slideshow is consistently being updated around the clock.

Interesting? simple yet stylish, visit here for more info or just go ahead to the direct download link here.

I’ll be reviewing more plugins and scripts in the future and give my personal view about them. Please consider revisiting this blog then.

Updated 3rd Mac 2009:

6. Frontpage Slideshow

The most attractive content slideshow I’ve ever met is Frontpage Slideshow (FPSS). “Frontpage SlideShow” is a Javascript/CSS based only slideshow system combining text and images to create “slides”, as well as (slide) navigation. These “slides” are being rotated one after the other with various fade effects, while text can be displayed/integrated anywhere inside the slideshow (see the various templates showcased on the right column menus).

The slideshow’s navigation features play/pause and previous/next buttons, as well as individual slide selection buttons for full control by the user/visitor of your site.

For a time being you have to pay a small amount of $22 to receive the plugin script. User can use the “Static PHP” version for usage in any site based on Wordpress, Drupal and any other php-based CMS, blogging tool or static website.

You can see the demo site for using this FPSS with wordpress platform here.

7.  s3Slider jQuery plugin

Another cool free content slideshow plugin that I’ve discovered is s3slider jQuery. Straight forward installation and simply manageable to every average Joe users.

The advantage of this plugin which I’ve noticed was the image and text load separately with a very cool and smooth transition. You can view the demo of this plugin as well as download the script directly here.

I’ll be looking for more ‘free’ slideshow for wordpress from time to time and will be updating this page regularly.