Welcome to Version 1.1.0
This version is the first major update to Blox since its public release. Highlights include the ability to limit the number of position hooks that are available to users, the option to add your own custom hooks, the ability to duplicate Global blocks and the addition of two new shortcodes. Check out the video below for a brief overview.
Hook Control
By default, Blox provides over 50 Genesis hooks that you can choose from on the Position tab. However, this number of options can be overwhelming and unwieldy, especially if you are developing a site for a client. Version 1.1.0 adds a new Settings tab called Hooks. The tab provides you with complete hook control. You can easily restrict the number of hooks you want to be available, and you can also rename hooks to improve the user experience.
Finally, the Hooks page allows you to add custom hooks. Lets say you are building a custom page template, a plugin or even a child theme and you create your own action hooks (i.e. not Genesis hooks). You can now add these hooks to Blox! Tutorials on how to use Custom hooks will be coming soon.
Duplicate Global Blocks
Another feature of Version 1.1.0 is the ability to duplicate Global blocks. Duplication was previously available for Local blocks, but not for Global blocks. Now you can quickly and easily make copies!
New Shortcodes
Version 1.1.0 also comes with two new shortcodes, [ blox-categories-list] and [ blox-tags-list]. These shortcodes were a feature request, and while they are fairly basic, they can be used to great effect of post pages. They only work on singular posts and post archives, but new shortcodes that can produce similar results with custom taxonomies will be coming soon. Visit the shortcodes page for more information.
Other Enhancements
We have also included a number of additional refinements and one new filter for the plugin itself. You can now use the filter blox_disable_content_blocks to manually disable blocks. Below is example usage on how to disable all blocks added via the genesis_after_header hook on all landing pages. Note that this filter has to be added to your functions.php file. It cannot be added to template files themselves.
| <?php | |
| // Do NOT include the opening php tag shown above. Copy the code shown below. | |
| // To use this filter, it needs to be added to your functions.php file | |
| add_filter( 'blox_disable_content_blocks', 'disable_landingpage_blocks', 10, 5 ); | |
| /** | |
| * | |
| * @param bol $disable The disable test, defaults to false | |
| * @param string $postition The position hook of the block | |
| * @param string $id The id of the block | |
| * @param array $block An array of all the block's settings/content | |
| * @param bol $global Indicates whether the block is Global or Local | |
| */ | |
| function disable_landingpage_blocks( $disable, $position, $id, $block, $global ) { | |
| if ( is_page_template( 'page_landing.php' ) && $position == 'genesis_after_header' ) { | |
| return true; | |
| } | |
| } |
Conclusion
Thank you for checking out Blox. Version 1.1.0 is up and available to download/purchase. If you have any feature requests, please let us know.
