General Plugin Settings Explained
The Image Hover Effects Ultimate settings page lets you control how the plugin behaves globally across your entire site. These settings affect all your hover effect styles at once, so it’s worth understanding each option before you start creating effects. Here’s a complete explanation of every setting available.
How to Access Settings
In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Image Hover Ultimate → Settings. You’ll see all the global settings on this page.
Who Can Edit?
What it does: Restricts which WordPress user roles can access and edit the plugin’s admin panel.
Options: Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber
Recommendation: Leave this set to Administrator for most sites. If you’re building a site for a client and want them to manage their own hover effects, you can set it to Editor or Author.
Important: Setting this too low (e.g., Subscriber) could allow untrusted users to edit your hover effects. Always consider who has those user roles on your site.
Mobile or Touch Device Behaviour
What it does: Controls how hover effects work on smartphones and tablets where there’s no mouse hover.
Options:
- Yes: First tap shows the hover effect; second tap follows the link. This gives mobile users a chance to see the effect before navigating.
- No: A single tap immediately follows the link, skipping the hover animation on touch devices.
Recommendation: Set to Yes if your hover effects contain important information (like a product name or description). Set to No if the effect is purely decorative and you want a smooth click experience on mobile.
Font Awesome Support
What it does: Loads the Font Awesome icon library CSS when your hover effects are displayed.
Options: Yes / No
When to enable: Enable this if you’re using icon buttons in your hover effects (Button overlay effects, or effects with Font Awesome icons).
When to disable: If your WordPress theme or another plugin already loads Font Awesome, disable this setting to avoid loading it twice. Duplicate Font Awesome loading can cause display issues or slow down your page.
How to check: Load your site and inspect the page source (Ctrl+U). Search for “font-awesome” — if it appears more than once, you have a duplicate and should set this to No.
Waypoints Support
What it does: Loads the Waypoints JavaScript library, which triggers animations when elements scroll into the user’s viewport.
Options: Yes / No
When to enable: Enable this if you want your hover effects to animate in when the user scrolls down to them (scroll-triggered entrance animations).
When to disable: If you’re not using scroll-triggered animations, or if another plugin already loads Waypoints, disable this to avoid duplication and save a small page load overhead.
Google Font Support
What it does: Controls whether Google Fonts are loaded from Google’s servers for use in your hover effect typography.
Options: Yes / No
When to enable: Enable this if you’ve selected Google Fonts for your hover effect headings or descriptions (Pro feature).
When to disable: If you’re not using Google Fonts, or if you’re self-hosting Google Fonts for GDPR compliance (loading them locally instead of from Google’s CDN), set this to No.
GDPR note: Google Fonts loaded from Google’s servers can raise GDPR concerns in the EU because they send visitor IP addresses to Google. If this matters for your site, self-host the fonts and disable this setting.
Custom Parent Class
What it does: Adds a custom CSS class to the outer wrapper element of every hover effect shortcode on your site.
When to use:
- When your WordPress theme is overriding the plugin’s styles and effects don’t look right
- When you want to target all hover effects with your own custom CSS
- When resolving conflicts with other plugins that affect image styles
Example: Enter my-hover-effects and then write CSS rules like .my-hover-effects .oxi-image-hover { ... } in your theme’s custom CSS area.
Display Support Message
What it does: Shows or hides a support/review request message in the plugin’s admin area.
Options: Yes / No
Recommendation: Set to No if you find the message distracting. It has no effect on the plugin’s functionality.
Saving Your Settings
After changing any settings, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the settings page. Settings take effect immediately, no cache clearing needed (though clearing any caching plugin cache afterward is always a good practice).
Settings Quick Reference
| Setting | Default | Most Common Choice |
|---|---|---|
| Who Can Edit | Administrator | Administrator |
| Mobile Behaviour | Yes | Yes |
| Font Awesome Support | Yes | Yes (unless theme loads it) |
| Waypoints Support | Yes | Yes (if using scroll animations) |
| Google Font Support | Yes | Yes (if using Google Fonts) |
| Custom Parent Class | Empty | Empty (add only if needed) |
| Display Support Message | Yes | Either |