Smart Hero Slider

A production-ready WordPress plugin that creates a responsive Netflix-style hero movie slider powered by the TMDB API, using SwiperJS as the slider engine.

Features

• Netflix-inspired dark theme with cinematic full-bleed backdrop images
• Powered by The Movie Database (TMDB) v3 API
• SwiperJS slider with touch/swipe/mouse-drag support
• Fully configurable admin settings page (Settings → Smart Hero Slider)
• Transient-based caching — TMDB is never called on every page load
• Responsive breakpoints: 4 slides/desktop → 2/tablet → 1/mobile
• Test API Connection button — validates key without saving
• Refresh Movies button — clears cache and fetches fresh data
• Simple shortcode: [smart_hero_slider]
• Clean uninstall — removes all options and cached data

Requirements

Installation

From ZIP (recommended)

1. Download the smart-hero-slider.zip file.
2. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now.
4. Click Activate Plugin.

Manual upload

1. Unzip and upload the smart-hero-slider/ folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate from the Plugins menu in WordPress.

Getting a TMDB API Key

1. Create a free account at themoviedb.org.
2. Go to Settings → API in your account dashboard.
3. Click Create and choose Developer for personal / test use.
4. Complete the short form and accept the terms.
5. Copy the API Key (v3 auth) value — it is a 32-character hex string.

Configuration

1. Navigate to Settings → Smart Hero Slider in your WordPress admin.
2. Paste your TMDB API Key into the TMDB API Key field.
3. Click Test API Connection to verify the key (nothing is saved at this step).
4. Adjust the remaining settings to your preference (see table below).
5. Click Save Settings.

Settings Reference

Shortcode Usage

Place the shortcode anywhere WordPress renders content — pages, posts, or widget areas that support shortcodes:

[smart_hero_slider]

No attributes are required. All behaviour is controlled from the settings page.

Caching

The plugin stores TMDB API responses as a WordPress transient (shs_movies_cache).

Folder Structure

smart-hero-slider/
├── smart-hero-slider.php       Plugin bootstrap, constants, loader
├── uninstall.php               Removes all data on uninstall
├── README.md                   This file
├── languages/                  Translation-ready (.pot files go here)
├── includes/
│   ├── helpers.php             shs_get_setting() / shs_get_all_settings()
│   ├── class-cache.php         WordPress Transients API wrapper
│   ├── class-tmdb-api.php      TMDB API + AJAX handlers
│   ├── class-settings.php      Settings API registration + admin menu
│   └── class-shortcode.php     [smart_hero_slider] shortcode
├── admin/
│   ├── settings-page.php       Admin settings page HTML template
│   └── admin.js                AJAX for Test/Refresh tool buttons
├── public/
│   ├── frontend.php            Slider HTML template (included via ob_start)
│   ├── swiper-init.js          SwiperJS initialisation (reads data-shs attr)
│   └── style.css               Netflix-inspired frontend stylesheet
└── assets/
    └── swiper/
        ├── swiper-bundle.min.js    Bundled SwiperJS 11 (local)
        └── swiper-bundle.min.css   Bundled SwiperJS 11 styles (local)

Security

The plugin follows WordPress security best practices throughout:

• All output is escaped with esc_html(), esc_attr(), esc_url(), and esc_url_raw()
• All settings are sanitized on save via sanitize_text_field(), sanitize_key(), and absint() with whitelist validation
• AJAX endpoints verify nonces (check_ajax_referer) and capability (manage_options) on every request
• The TMDB API key is stored in the database and never exposed in HTML source
• No inline SQL; no hardcoded credentials
• Direct file access is blocked in every PHP file via defined('ABSPATH') checks

License

GPL-2.0+ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

This plugin is free software. You may redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or any later version.

This plugin uses:

• SwiperJS — MIT License
• TMDB API — subject to TMDB Terms of Use

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.