One of the great things about WordPress is that it comes with a variety of great, free, community-built plugins. WordPress Popup Scheduler is one such plugin. It is considered one of the most widely used open-source WordPress pop-up plugins, and here we’ll take a look at what makes it a worthy alternative.

Ease of Use and Installation

Installing is as easy as upload and activate, no further steps needed. You are then presented with a plugin option panel on the Dashboard where you can set up everything. No theme modification is required at all. You only need to play around with the options to get the pop-up working. The options are clearly labeled and there’s also a nifty preview function where you can test how your pop-up looks.

Support and Documentation

Being a plugin that’s included on the official WordPress Plugin Directory, you can make use of WordPress.org’s own forum to ask specific questions about this plugin and get help from volunteers. Furthermore, the plugin author can also be contacted via a contact form on his website, providing what I assume is a free support.

I find this page to be quite a good, clear documentation for the plugin. It explains everything from installation, customization, plus a frequently asked questions section.

Custom Pop-up Contents

WordPress Popup Scheduler only supports custom HTML content. Theoretically you can include forms and other advanced contents on it, but it might not be easy for beginners. If custom HTML is all you need though, this plugin comes with a nice WYSIWYG HTML editor:

Multimedia Support

You can show basic multimedia content supported by the plugin’s WYSIWYG editor. More advanced content like videos or streamed music should be possible, but you will have to know your way with HTML for that.

Types of Pop-up

This plugin allows for:

• Entry pop-ups (those that show up when you first visit a page),
• Delayed pop-ups (after a certain time passes),
• Return visit pop-ups (shows up after a visitor have visited your website a certain amount of time),
• Scheduled pop-ups (you pick a start date and have it appear for some days or every certain days)

Stylability and Placements

The plugin options panel allows you to set the plugin’s width, headline text, and background color. Further stylings can be done with CSS, but there’s no documentation for it so you will have to experiment on your own. You can display the pop-up on the center of the screen or you can specify a certain coordinate.

Additionally, you can also show the content of your pop-op not on a pop-up window, but simply added before or after the first post on your blog. Like any good plugin, you can set the pop-up to show up only on the front page of your website, on wherever your visitor visits first, or on any other URL you can specify.

Lightbox and other Effects

The plugin does support lightbox effect, and it also comes with drop down, fade in or simple pop-up effect. All these can be previewed easily on the plugin’s option panel, making testing faster.

How it Deals with Pop-up Blockers

The plugin requires cookies and JavaScript to be activated on a visitor’s browser. This means it can easily be blocked with most blockers, and it also won’t show up if the visitor has cookies and/or JavaScript deactivated on their browser.

Pricing and Licensing

The plugin comes under GPL license, so it’s free and you can use it anywhere, anytime you want at no cost.

Missing Features

• No opt-in e-mail list support and compatibility. This is probably a deal-breaker for most, except for more advanced users who know how include an opt-in form into the plugin’s WYSIWYG editor. In short, it’s possible, but the plugin doesn’t make it easy for beginners to do.
• Design Templates.