Home page disappears when widget added; simple slider suggestion?

[OctaneMatt]

I'm new to Genesis and relatively new to WP. I purchased and installed the Genesis Magazine template and have been busy customizing the appearance/functionality.

For now I want a standard blog homepage but with a widget (slider) at the top of the latest blog posts. As soon as I place any widget in the Home area, all of the posts disappear.

After some digging I realized that this is 'expected behavior' but it's not what I want. [BTW The "How Home Pages Work" in the Genesis manual is pretty generic and there was no specific information about the Magazine template.]

How do I maintain a standard blog format but add widgets to the page? My goal was to insert a widget above the first blog post so I could have a slider at the top of the page. I tried using the Genesis - Featured Posts widget and doesn't appear to have all the functionality of the standard blog format (e.g. pagination is missing).

Also I'm looking to add a very simple carousel where I can attach photos, create a caption, and specify external URL's. Most sliders seem to be focused on promoting on-site content. Does anyone have any good suggestions? I'm looking for something similar to what can be seen at the bottom of http://themify.me/demo/themes/elemin/

 

Cheers!

Matt

[AnitaC]

What is the URL of the website you are working on so we can take a look?

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Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.

[OctaneMatt]

The site is live at OctaneNation but the 'blank' homepage is (sometimes) on my staging environment while I figure out how to proceed.

Is what I'm experiencing abnormal?

[Author]

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