The most flexible and feature-rich Gallery & Post loop plugin/block

  • Gutenberg blocks to display post loops are, in my mind, the Holy Grial of blocks and Visual Portfolio is the best one I have found so far.

    Ever since Gutenberg was released, I have reviewing third-party blocks on my gu10.blog site and there are a few I like out there but all of them were lacking some aspect:

    – Not enough layout and/or customization options.
    – Too few Querying/filtering options.
    – No CPT or custom taxonomy support.
    – No carousel option.

    I was taken aback by the amount of detail you have put into your plugin and how it covers pretty much every single conceivable scenario. Other things that set your plugin apart from other plugins are:

    – Allowing for 100% custom queries (e.g. post_type=post&category_name=branding&year=2012&order=ASC). This is unique, incredibly flexible, and surprisingly simple since it uses the default parameters in WordPress core
    – Recycling its UI and layout/customization options so that they can work as post loops, as galleries and as social media feeds. I am not aware of any plugin out there which “recycles” features this way. The practical effect of this is that Visual Portfolio can replace several blocks (Post Loops, Galleries, Slideshows, Social media feeds).
    – Offering the option to register its own “Portfolio” custom post type. Advanced users will take this for granted but having this option available out of the box can make a huge difference for a beginner. I was also very impressed with the degree of personalization provided for this new “Portfolio” CPT archive.
    – Last, but not least, the shortcode provided by the “Saved layouts” option is a very smart way to make the block compatible with popular builders such as Elementor.

    If I had to suggest areas to improve, I would point at two things:

    – I miss a little more direction when I activate the plugin for the first time. The welcome screen is very informative but I feel some users will not know what to do next.
    – The UI for the block is complex and can be confusing to use at first. This is inevitable to some extent given the sheer number of options the plugin has, but I believe there is room to simplify it.

    Thanks again for creating an outstanding plugin!

    I have not had the chance to try the Pro version of the plugin, but I am extremely curious as to how it works. If you were to include an option to “pull” the display data from social media and store it directly on the WP site, this would be a killer.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Plugin Author nK

    (@nko)

    Hey.

    Thank you for your review. I really appreciate your opinion and details.

    – Yes, I think we will need to add a step-by step getting started instructions. As well as video guides.

    – Personally, I don’t quite understand how to simplify the block settings UI, we are adding more and more features and UI looks more and more heavy. We have plans to add a predefined set of templates which user can select from once insert block in the content. The user will see screenshots of these templates and will better understand how the block works. I think it will solve most problems with block settings, and settings will be provided for power users, if they really need to change something.

    – We will think about inserting social feeds as WordPress posts. I know there are plugins, which already work in this way, but I don’t know will we need this feature in our plugin or not. We have never got requests for this feature, yours – first one ??

    You can test the Pro plugin for 2 weeks and if it will not suit your needs, request a refund.

    Some of your suggestions added to our issue tracker.

    Regards, nK.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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