Installing is easy. In the free version download the zip file then go to plugins >> add new >> upload >> then select the zip file and click install. Once the plugin has been installed click activate.
If installing from the WordPress repository search for scheduled notification bar and click install followed by activate
- After installation look on the sidebar menu for notification bar. It should be below settings. Hover over it and select add new notification bar
- Give the notification bar a title. This is for reference only and will not be visible
- In message enter the message you want to appear on the bar
- If you want the message to be bold check bold message
- If you want to add a button check the checkbox
- Enter the button text
- Enter the button url
- Enter the button text color
- Enter the button background color
- Align the button to the right if you want it right aligned. This will appear 50px from the right edge ut centered on mobile devices
- Font color is the color of the text on the notification bar
- Background color is the background color of the notification bar
- Set the position of the notification bar. You can set either top of bottom
- Make sticky will fix it into position at either the top or bottom of the screen
- Dismissable will add a close notification bar option
- On the right sidebar above publish is the schedule options is the scheduled end date. Enter a date the notification bar should end. You can only set dates in the free version
- Set your timezone
- You can now schedule this for a future posting or publish it immediately. If you wish to schedule click edit next to publish immediately and set a date in the future to publish the notification bar. Once set click schedule.
Your notification bar will now be either scheduled or published. Ensure your cache settings are set to purge on publishing or removing a post
Free version limitations
The free version will allow you to create and schedule a notification bar to be published and expire by date. It is limited to the following functionality but will provide enough functionality to be fully operational.
You can only schedule by date. If you have a sale that ends at 5pm this will stay visible until the end of the day. To end at 5pm you will need the pro version
You can only publish and schedule 1 notification bar at a time. If one is in draft or scheduled you will not be able to schedule or publish another one until it has been deleted. The free version will allow you to re-use the same bar and edit it, but you can not schedule multiple notification bars. The pro version will allow you to schedule and publish an unlimited number of bars. You can have multiple mars at once. If you create 5 fixed bars at the top of the screen the oldest one will appear over top of the rest. Once dismissed the next newest will appear under it and so on.
You can also use a mix of fixed, not fixed, top and bottom allowing you to add several bars on a screen at a time
The pro version also allows you to create a full schedule of notification bars. You may want to display a message for an upcoming sale then went he sale ends a different sale starts, so a new bar can be created to run during that sale. The multiple notification bar scheduling option allows you the flexibility to plan the notification bars
Pro settings
In the notification bar ending time you can schedule a time for the end of the notification bar. To do this simply select the end time for the bar
Premium Addons
Set a countdown timer to create urgency. This will appear next to the message. You will need to set the countdown timer again as this will allow you to set a different time to the notification bar expiry time. For example, you may want to offer a special upsell until 10pm but expire the bar at midnight
- Check the enable timer checkbox
- Set expiry date
- Set exiry time
- Set timezone
- Set expired message. When the countdown hits zero this message will display
- Hide bar when expired to enable the notification bar to be removed. If the timer date and time is the same as the scheduled date and time this is not necessary. One benefit is that it will expire immediately but the notification bar global expiry will only expire at the 5 minute cron interval.
This option will enable you to add custom HTML or a shortcode. This can be handy if you want to add code from a signup form to the notification bar. You can also add your own code such as an image.
The shortcode option will allow you to embed shortcodes as well. A use example may be a custom newsletter or form shortcode.
Ensure you select custom HTML or shortcode from the select to ensure it processes correctly.
This extension will allow you to integrate directly with Mailchimp. It will add a simple form containing an email address field and submit button to ensure limited use of available space.
Head to Mailchimp and get your API key. You can find it
here
Copy the API key and enter it in the API key field
Mailchimp list ID. Copy the list ID to the list ID field. This is not the name. It is a series of letters and numbers
Enter a success message. This will display when the form has been successfully submitted
Check the hide bar on success checkbox if you want to remove the bar on successful form submission
