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manifest / utilities / beautiful-maintenance-mode

Beautiful Maintenance Mode

A stunning WordPress maintenance mode plugin — full-screen rotating landscape photography with Ken Burns effect and live countdown timer.

by Ahmad Baig · github.com/ahmadbaig1/beautiful-maintenance-mode · website

★ 0stars

Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/ahmadbaig1/beautiful-maintenance-mode/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.
Readme github.com/ahmadbaig1/beautiful-maintenance-mode ↗

A WordPress plugin that turns maintenance downtime into a visual experience — full-screen rotating landscape photography with Ken Burns motion, a live countdown timer, and a frosted-glass content card.

Features

  • Full-screen slideshow — rotating landscape photos with smooth Ken Burns (pan/zoom) effect
  • Live countdown timer — days, hours, minutes, seconds ticking down to your return date
  • Frosted-glass card — legible over any background with backdrop blur
  • Online images via Pixabay — stream fresh landscape photos automatically with a free API key (no bundled images needed)
  • Admin/editor bypass — logged-in admins see the live site with an admin bar notice
  • SEO-safe — sends 503 Service Unavailable + Retry-After: 3600 headers
  • Accessible — ARIA labels, keyboard navigation (← →), prefers-reduced-motion support
  • Simple settings page — headline, subtext, countdown date, enable/disable toggle
  • Responsive — looks great on mobile

Requirements

  • WordPress 6.4+
  • PHP 8.1+

Installation

Option A — Upload zip (recommended)

  1. Download the latest zip from the Releases page or clone this repo and zip the folder
  2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
  3. Upload the zip and click Install Now
  4. Activate the plugin

Option B — Manual

  1. Clone or download this repo
  2. Upload the beautiful-maintenance-mode folder to /wp-content/plugins/
  3. Activate in Plugins → Installed Plugins

Usage

  1. Go to Settings → Maintenance Mode
  2. Set your headline, subtext, and countdown date
  3. Check Enable Maintenance Mode and save
  4. Visitors immediately see the maintenance page — you (admin) browse normally

Pixabay Integration

Stream fresh landscape photos instead of using bundled images:

  1. Get a free API key at pixabay.com/api
  2. Go to Settings → Maintenance Mode → Online Images (Pixabay)
  3. Paste your API key and set a search query (e.g. mountain sunset)
  4. Save — photos are fetched and cached for 24 hours automatically

If no API key is set, or if the API call fails, the plugin falls back to the 5 bundled landscape photos.

Photo Credits

Bundled landscape photography via Pexels — free to use under the Pexels License. Online photos streamed via the Pixabay API.

Author

Ahmad Baig — linkedin.com/in/ahmad-baig-4b425ba8 · github.com/ahmadbaig1

License

GPL v2 or later.