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Seasonal Effects & Notice Bar (formerly Halloween Animations)

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Seasonal Effects & Notice Bar (formerly Halloween Animations)

by Sanjay Shankar

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Description

Seasonal Effects is the ultimate toolkit for holiday marketing and seasonal decorations.

🚀 Boost Black Friday & Cyber Monday Sales
Create urgency with countdown timers, flash sale banners, and exclusive “Sale Mode” animations like falling price tags and shopping bags.

🎃 Spooky Halloween Effects – Crawling spiders, floating ghosts, flying bats, fog effects
🎄 Festive Christmas Vibes – Winter themes with falling snow, lights, and ornaments
🎆 Celebration Ready – New Year fireworks, confetti, and balloons
💝 Valentine’s Day – Floating hearts, heart confetti, and pulsating hearts
🐣 Easter – Easter eggs and hopping bunnies
🔊 Sound Effects – Optional themed sounds (witch laugh, wolf howl, jingle bells, fireworks and more)

🛍️ Black Friday & Cyber Monday Features

Maximize your Q4 revenue with dedicated tools:
* Countdown Timers: Create FOMO with urgent timers in your notice bar.
* Sale Animations: Falling “Sale” tags, shopping bags, and discount icons.
* Cyber Effects: Matrix rain and glitch effects perfect for Cyber Monday tech deals.
* Pre-built Templates: One-click setup for Black Friday (Dark/Red) and Cyber Monday (Neon/Tech).
* Scheduled Campaigns: Set start/end dates for your sales banners automatically.

✨ Key Features

6 Beautiful Animations:
* 🦇 Flying Bats – Smooth flight patterns
* 👻 Floating Ghosts – Mysterious floating
* 🎃 Running Pumpkin – Rolling across screen
* 🍂 Falling Leaves – Autumn atmosphere
* 🕷️ Crawling Spiders – Realistic crawling motion
* 🌫️ Fog Effect – Multi-layer fog drift

Smart Controls:
* Individual on/off toggles
* Count controls for each effect
* Speed variations (slow/medium/fast)
* Mobile device support
* Display location targeting

Notice Bar System:
* 🎨 Advanced Design: Gradients, background images, and custom colors
* ⏱️ Countdown Timer: 5 styles (Simple, Rounded, Square, Filled, Circle)
* 👁️ Visibility Rules: Show on specific pages (Home, Blog, Posts, CPTs)
* 🍪 Smart Closing: Session-based, time-based (1h/1d/7d), or permanent dismissal
* 📱 Responsive: Top/Bottom positioning with mobile support
* 📝 Rich Content: Full WYSIWYG editor with color and font size controls

⏱️ Countdown Timer Block & Shortcode:
* Add a live countdown anywhere: the Countdown Timer block, or the [seasonal_effects_countdown] shortcode for classic editor, widgets and page builders
* 5 styles (Simple, Rounded, Square, Filled, Circle), 3 sizes, long or short labels, custom colors
* Uses your site’s timezone, so every visitor counts down to the same moment
* Shows the real time immediately (no “00:00” flash) and swaps to your own message when it ends
* Loads its small CSS/JS only on pages that contain a timer

5 Sales Templates:
* ⚫ Black Friday: High-converting dark theme with red accents
* 💻 Cyber Monday: Modern neon/tech aesthetic
* 🎄 Christmas Sale: Festive holiday colors
* ⭐ Special Offer: High contrast attention grabber
* ⚡ Flash Sale: Urgent gradient design

🎯 Perfect For

  • Black Friday / Cyber Monday Sales
  • Holiday themed websites
  • Seasonal sales and promotions
  • Event announcements
  • Blog posts and articles
  • E-commerce stores
  • Portfolio sites

⚡ Performance

  • CSS-driven animations with a small script
  • Assets load only when an effect is enabled
  • GPU-accelerated transformations
  • Mobile-optimized
  • 60fps smooth animations

🔒 Privacy & Security

  • No external API calls from your visitors’ browsers (the optional admin newsletter sign-up and deactivation survey are described under External services)
  • No data collection
  • No tracking cookies
  • All settings stored in your own database
  • Notice bar dismissal is remembered in the visitor’s browser only

👨‍💻 Developer

Created with 🎃 by Sanjay Shankar

Connect:
* WordPress Profile
* GitHub
* LinkedIn
* Website

Support Development:
* Buy Me a Coffee ☕

External services

Used only when an admin chooses to. Visitors never trigger them.

  • Newsletter (Brevo): when an admin clicks Subscribe, their email, first name and the plugin name are sent to Brevo. Terms, Privacy
  • Deactivation survey (Google Apps Script): when an admin clicks Send & deactivate, the reason, comment, plugin, WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP versions, admin language and, if the contact box is ticked, their name and email are sent to the author’s Google Sheet. Terms, Privacy

Automatic Installation

  1. Log in to WordPress admin
  2. Go to Plugins Add New
  3. Search for “Seasonal Effects”
  4. Click Install Now
  5. Click Activate
  6. Go to Seasonal Effects Site Animations

Manual Installation

  1. Download the plugin ZIP file
  2. Go to Plugins Add New Upload Plugin
  3. Choose the ZIP file
  4. Click Install Now
  5. Click Activate

Quick Start

  1. Go to Seasonal Effects Site Animations
  2. Click Templates tab
  3. Choose a seasonal preset
  4. Click Apply Template
  5. Save settings
  6. Visit your website!
  1. Templates tab with 5+ seasonal presets

    Templates tab with 5+ seasonal presets

  2. Animations tab with individual controls

    Animations tab with individual controls

  3. Sound settings with 4 playback modes

    Sound settings with 4 playback modes

  4. Display controls for targeting

    Display controls for targeting

  5. Simple and cute animations.

    Simple and cute animations.

  6. Notice bar with countdown timer

    Notice bar with countdown timer

  7. Style countdown timer by yourself

    Style countdown timer by yourself

How do I set up a Black Friday sale banner?

Go to Seasonal Effects Notice Bar, click the Templates tab, and select the Black Friday template. You can then customize the text and countdown timer in the Settings tab.

How do I add a countdown timer to a page or post?

In the block editor, add the Countdown Timer block and pick the end date. Everywhere else (classic editor, widgets, Elementor and other page builders), use the shortcode:

[seasonal_effects_countdown end="2026-11-27 23:59" style="rounded" title="Sale ends in"]

Options: end (in your site timezone), style (simple, rounded, square, filled, circle), size (small, medium, large), labels (long, short), align (left, center, right), bg_color, text_color, show_seconds (yes, no), title, expired_text (leave empty to hide the timer when it ends). The Seasonal Effects dashboard has a copy-ready example.

Can I schedule my Cyber Monday sale in advance?

Yes! In the Notice Bar settings under the Schedule tab, you can set a Start Date and End Date. The banner will automatically appear and disappear at your specified times.

Will this slow down my website?

No. The animations are CSS-driven and GPU-accelerated, and the plugin’s files only load when at least one effect is enabled.

Can I use this with any theme?

Yes! Seasonal Effects works with any WordPress theme.

Can I customize the animations?

Absolutely! Control count, speed, and display locations for each effect.

Is this compatible with WooCommerce?

Yes! Works perfectly with WooCommerce and other popular plugins.

Can I disable effects on mobile?

Yes! There’s a mobile device toggle in the General tab.

Will my existing settings be preserved when updating?

Yes! The plugin is 100% backward compatible. All settings are automatically migrated.

How do I get support?

How can I contribute?

Can I support this plugin?

Yes! If you find this plugin helpful:
* ⭐ Rate it on WordPress.org
* ☕ Buy me a coffee
* 🐛 Report bugs on GitHub
* 💡 Share feature ideas

2.4.1 – 2026-10-22

  • New: optional newsletter sign-up from the plugin author on the Seasonal Effects dashboard and Site Animations screen. Nothing is sent unless you click Subscribe, and closing the card hides it for 30 days.
  • New: optional one-question survey when you deactivate the plugin, to help improve it. Skip & deactivate sends nothing.
  • Docs: new External services section in the readme describing both.

2.4.0 – 2026-09-29

  • New Feature: Countdown Timer block and [seasonal_effects_countdown] shortcode, with 5 styles, 3 sizes and custom colors
  • New: Countdown Timer card with a copy-ready shortcode on the Seasonal Effects dashboard
  • Tested: WordPress 7.1
  • Fixed: PHP warning (“Undefined array key default”) when saving Notice Bar settings
  • Fixed: Animations now correctly move clear of a fixed Notice Bar
  • Improved: Removed a redundant translation loader; WordPress.org loads translations automatically

2.3.0 – 2025-11-23

  • New Feature: Advanced Notice Bar Templates (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, etc.)
  • New Feature: Visibility & Targeting Rules (Show on Home, Blog, Specific Post Types)
  • New Feature: Smart Closing Behavior (Session, 1 Hour, 1 Day, Forever)
  • New Feature: Countdown Timer Styles (Simple, Rounded, Square, Filled, Circle)
  • New Feature: Background Image support for Notice Bar
  • Improved: Rich Text Editor for Notice Content with color/size controls
  • Improved: Admin UI with Visual Selectors and Template Grid
  • Improved: “Reset Visibility” tool for admins

2.2.0 – 2025-11-20

  • Major Update – Rebranded to Seasonal Effects
  • Added Templates tab with 8 quick presets
  • Improved spider crawling animation (removed web threads)
  • Fixed fog effect visibility and drift
  • Enhanced mobile performance
  • Better admin UI with clearer organization
  • One-time welcome notice for existing users
  • 100% backward compatible
  • Full details in CHANGELOG.md

2.0.0 – 2024-10-01

  • Initial public release
  • 6 Halloween animations
  • Sound effect system
  • Notice bar functionality
  • Mobile device support

1.0.0 – 2024-09-01

  • Beta release
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