Reference Articles

Mar 5, 2026

Mega Menu

A mega menu is an expanded navigation panel that displays multiple categories and links in a single, organized dropdown. Unlike a standard menu, it reveals a broad overview of a website’s structure at once. It employs columns, headings, and grouped links, to help users quickly scan options and navigate your site with efficiency.

Sep 17, 2025

Featured People Block

Use Cases The Featured People block is a great way to spotlight individuals. You can display a headshot, name, title, and even link to an external resource. While it’s often used to highlight a single person, the block also supports multiple profiles. This makes the block useful for showcasing an entire team, or group of…

Sep 17, 2025

Post Summary Block

Use Cases The Post Summary block gives readers a summary of a post’s contents. This makes the post easier to skim and understand at a glance. By offering context beyond the headline, it provides clarity which can spark greater interest from readers. This in turn can help improve reader retention. Features Unlike other blocks, the…

Jun 14, 2025

Pages vs Posts: Understanding Content Types in the NC State Theme

WordPress Pages: The Foundation of Your Site Pages are the building blocks of your website’s permanent structure. Think of them as the “rooms” in your digital house that visitors will navigate to find specific types of information. Characteristics of Pages: When to Use Pages: Page Header Options in NC State Theme: The NC State Theme…

Jun 12, 2025

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices

Built-in Metadata Fields Every page and post in the NC State Theme includes dedicated fields for search engine and social media metadata. These fields appear at the very bottom of the back-end editing page and provide crucial information that helps search engines and social platforms understand and display your content. What is Metadata? Metadata is…

Apr 29, 2025

Synced Patterns: Strategic Implementation Guide

Synced patterns are reusable block collections in WordPress that maintain consistency across multiple pages. Unlike regular patterns that simply provide a starting template, synced patterns update automatically across your entire site when edited in one location. This powerful functionality helps maintain design consistency and significantly reduces content maintenance time. Creating a Synced Pattern Creating a…

Dec 11, 2024

Vertical Video Block

Use Cases This block is perfect for embedding a YouTube video that has a vertical orientation. Unlike a standard video embed, this block is optimized for sharing short-form video content created for YouTube Shorts. The block also allows you to introduce your video with a title and teaser copy, and features a myriad of colors…

Aug 8, 2024

Compact Masthead Option

The Compact Masthead is a shorter and more streamlined masthead and menu option for sites within the premium tier of the NC State Theme. Multiple color options are available — all white, red/white, and all red. The masthead can be enabled by going to NC State Settings -> Premium Add On -> Navigation and toggling…

Jun 6, 2024

Slate Form Embed Block

The Slate Form Embed block makes it easier to embed Slate form code within pages. In some cases directly copying and pasting the embed code can be unsuccessful because of code sanitization functionality within WordPress, but this block allows you to embed a Slate form without that concern. When working with different admissions groups at…

Mar 22, 2024

Split Content Block

This special homepage blocks sit within a container known as a Split Content block. Two of of the blocks can be put in the Split Content block because each block has a width of only 50% of the page. You will need to make sure your page has been adjusted from the “Default Template” to…

Feb 20, 2024

Localist Calendar Widgets

Keeping one’s audience up-to-date about campus events on the web can be a challenge. And building web content that displays this information in a clear and concise manner can be a big time sink. The Localist Calendar Widget builder aims to address both of these issues. Posting relevant campus event information in a thoughtful manner…

Jan 30, 2024

Patterns

With patterns, you can save sets of blocks to use later on any page or post on your site. This can mitigate the repetition of adding the same groups of blocks to new pages. Creating a Pattern In most cases patterns consist of a group of blocks, but patterns can also be a single block.…

Dec 6, 2023

Fancy Paragraph Block

Use Cases The Fancy Paragraph block supports basic text content and supplemental information in a two column format. The Fancy Paragraph block highlights content inline with your copy and ensures that this content displays correctly across all devices. Benefits of the Fancy Paragraph’s two column layout include: Benefit Concept Highlighting Content Perfect for highlighting important…

Dec 15, 2022

Newswire Feed Block

Use Cases The Newswire Feed block allows content maintainers to more easily set up a feed of posts from Newswire directly on their web pages. Similar to the Posts Feed block, the Newswire Feed block automates the process of pulling in numerous stories at once instead of sharing them each individually. Unlike the Automated Posts…

Apr 14, 2021

Audio Player Block

This block allows content maintainers to embed audio content directly into their posts. This block is ideal for sharing a speech, a piece of music, or a conversation captured on a podcast. Not only does it allow for the upload of audio, this block also includes a custom header, title, teaser, and thumbnail along with…

Mar 22, 2021

Gravity Forms

Introduction This page provides a quick introduction to Gravity Forms, a powerful tool for creating professional looking forms embedded directly into a WordPress page or post. The easy to use form building platform helps to save time while also allowing users to preview their forms before taking them live on their site. Through its configuration…

Mar 18, 2021

Alt Text

Introduction: What is Alt Text? Alternative text (alt text) provides a written description of content for visually impaired users who may use a screen reader. Adding alt text for images is a foundational principle of web accessibility. It can be challenging to implement alt text correctly and in a way that most benefits end users.…

Oct 27, 2020

Icon Links Block

Use Cases The Icon Links block can be a useful alternative to the Link List block, Featured Content block, and Button block when trying to display an assortment of various resources. The Icon Links block allows content maintainers to build out a grid of related links that help catch a reader’s attention via a spot…

Sep 2, 2020

Sandwich Narrative Block

While the main post content sets the stage and gives full details on a particular topic, the Sandwich Narrative block allows users to present a secondary, short-but-relevant story embedded directly within the original narrative that can add additional context, emphasize a point, or simply add more interest to the current story. Longer content may be…

May 27, 2020

Spotlight Block

Use Cases The Spotlight block provides content creators another visually interesting way to breakup long bodies of text while pointing their users to additional relevant content. The Spotlight also affords site maintainers the opportunity to showcase unique photography while promoting another page or story. Features In Gutenberg, adding a Spotlight block to a page is…

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