News & Blog Layout Builder

Description

News & Blog Layout Builder displays WordPress posts in six layout types: Grid, Slider, Carousel, List, Masonry, and Gridbox. Each layout has two designs. You can output layouts with a shortcode, a saved custom layout, or a sidebar widget.

Getting started

1. Activate the plugin and open Layout Builder in the admin menu.
2. Go to Shortcode Generator, choose a layout and design, then adjust query and display options.
3. Use the live preview to check the result, then click Copy Shortcode.
4. Paste the shortcode into a page, post, Shortcode block, or widget area.
5. Optionally open All Layouts → Add New to save a reusable layout and embed it with [nwblb_posts layout_id="123"].
6. Use Style Manager for global card style, spacing, colors, and image defaults. Use Settings for featured image fallbacks and related options.

Layouts

• Grid – Multi-column post cards (Design 1 and Design 2)
• Slider – One post per slide with autoplay, arrows, and dots (Design 1 and Design 2)
• Carousel – Multiple slides visible at once (Design 1 and Design 2)
• List – Vertical list of posts (Design 1 and Design 2)
• Masonry – Variable-height masonry arrangement (Design 1 and Design 2)
• Gridbox – Featured post with supporting posts beside it (Design 1 and Design 2)

Admin screens

• Dashboard – Overview and shortcuts to the main tools
• Shortcode Generator – Build a layout with live preview and copy the shortcode
• Layout Builder (All Layouts) – Create and edit saved layouts
• Style Manager – Set global defaults for card style, gap, radius, accent colors, and images
• Settings – Featured image fallbacks and plugin options
• How to Use – In-admin examples and guidance

Widget

Add the News & Blog Posts widget under Appearance → Widgets.

• Design 1: image, date, and title
• Design 2: image, category, title, and date
• Optional category filter and post count

Shortcode

Default shortcode (uses Style Manager defaults where applicable):

[nwblb_posts]

Saved layout:

[nwblb_posts layout_id="123"]

Custom example:

[nwblb_posts layout="grid" design="1" category="news" limit="6" columns="3" pagination="yes"]

Common shortcode parameters

• Layout
  layout=”grid” (Values: grid, slider, carousel, list, masonry, gridbox)

• Design
  design=”1″ (Values: 1 or 2)

• Saved layout
  layout_id=”123″ (Use a layout created under Layout Builder → All Layouts)

• Post limit
  limit=”6″ (Number of posts. Use -1 to show all posts within the max limit)

• Offset
  offset=”0″ (Number of posts to skip from the start of the query)

• Category
  category=”news” OR category=”news,sports” (Filter by category slug or comma-separated slugs)

• Columns (Grid & Masonry)
  columns=”3″ (Values: 1 to 12)

• Order
  order=”DESC” (Values: DESC or ASC)

• Order by
  orderby=”date” (Values: date, title, comment_count, rand, modified)

• Pagination
  pagination=”yes” (Values: yes or no. Not used for Slider and Carousel layouts)

• Show featured image
  show_image=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show date
  show_date=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show author
  show_author=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show category
  show_category=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show excerpt
  show_excerpt=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Excerpt length
  excerpt_length=”20″ (Number of words)

• Show read more
  show_read_more=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Read more text
  read_more_text=”Read More” (Custom button label)

• Show icons
  show_icons=”yes” (Values: yes or no. Uses WordPress Dashicons)

• Link category
  link_category=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Link author
  link_author=”no” (Values: yes or no)

• Link date
  link_date=”no” (Values: yes or no)

• Card style
  card_style=”bordered” (Values: bordered, shadow, flat)

• Gap
  gap=”24″ (Spacing between cards in pixels)

• Border radius
  border_radius=”4″ (Corner radius in pixels)

• Accent color
  accent_color=”#c62828″ (Hex color for links and accents)

• Accent hover color
  accent_hover_color=”#9a1e1e” (Hex hover color)

• Image mode
  image_mode=”ratio” (Values: ratio or size)

• Image ratio
  image_ratio=”auto” (Values: auto, 16-9, 4-3, 1-1. Used when image_mode is ratio)

• Image size
  image_size=”medium” (WordPress image size slug. Used when image_mode is size)

• Custom CSS class
  class=”my-custom-class” (Additional CSS classes on the layout wrapper)

Slider shortcode parameters

[nwblb_posts layout="slider"]

• Autoplay
  autoplay=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Autoplay interval
  autoplay_interval=”5000″ (Milliseconds between slides)

• Show arrows
  show_arrows=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show dots
  show_dots=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

Carousel shortcode parameters

[nwblb_posts layout="carousel"]

• Slides to show
  slides_to_show=”3″ (Values: 1 to 6)

• Slides to scroll
  slides_to_scroll=”1″ (Values: 1 to 6)

• Autoplay
  autoplay=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Autoplay interval
  autoplay_interval=”5000″ (Milliseconds between slides)

• Show arrows
  show_arrows=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

• Show dots
  show_dots=”yes” (Values: yes or no)

Pagination

Numeric pagination is available for Grid, List, Masonry, and Gridbox. It uses WordPress paginate_links() and works with /page/2/ permalinks (or ?paged=2 when pretty permalinks are off).

Slider and Carousel do not use pagination.

Featured image fallbacks

If a post has no featured image, you can enable these options under Layout Builder → Settings:

• Use the first image from the post content
• Use a default image from the media library

Developer hooks

• nwblb_query_args – Filter the main post query arguments
• nwblb_public_post_types – Add post types to admin selectors
• nwblb_template_path – Override layout template file paths

• nwblb_paginate_links_args – Customize pagination output

  custom_param_1 and custom_param_2 can pass URL query values into custom filtering through the nwblb_query_args hook.

Third-party libraries

• Swiper 11.2.10 (MIT License) – Bundled in assets/vendor/swiper/ for Slider and Carousel. No CDN is used at runtime.

The plugin does not collect, store, or send personal data to remote services.