Blocks For Sermon Manager

Blocks for Sermon Manager allows you to display sermons from the WordPress

Plugin Sermon Manager or Mattytap Sermons within the block builder of

your website without resorting to using the normal shortcodes.

This plugin provides three kinds of Blocks:

-

Blocks that bring the existing shortcodes to the Block editor

These blocks bring the shortcode attributes to the block so that you

can edit the attributes in the block editor and see the effect immediately.

The block will call through to the existing shortcode code in the background

when the page or post it is included in is displayed. With these blocks

you can replace the existing shortcodes with blocks and see

the same output as before. We provide blocks for the following

Sermon Manager shortcodes:

-

sermons … to display a list or grid of sermons, with many

filters to focus in on a specific set of sermons if needed. This is

in the block called “Display Sermons”

-

sermon_images … to display the images of each series, (not

sermons, despite the name) optionally with the series title and/or

description extract. This is in the block called “Sermon Images”

despite the obvious misnomer of the original short-code.

-

sermon_sort_fields … to display the filter bar that allows

the user to ‘drill down’ the list of sermons displayed. This is

in the block called “Display Filters” because that makes more sense!

-

list_sermons … to display a simple text list of series,

preachers, service types, bible books or topics from the sermon

taxonomies. This is in the block called “List Sermons”, again

despite the obvious misnomer of the original shortcode.

-

list_podcasts … to display a clickable list of podcast sources

for the site’s sermons, as set up in the Sermon Manager / Mattytap Sermons

settings. This is in the block called “List Sermon Podcasts”, which

despite the name only lists the podcast sources, not the actual

podcasts of the sermons.

-

Blocks that provide sermon grids and lists without dependence on the

existing shortcodes.

These have less configuration and give a predefined

output that should be suitable for most uses. Currently we provide:

-

Sermon grid … where each sermon is displayed in a ‘card’

with the sermon image and details and a link to the fuller single

sermon page.

-

Single sermon … to display one sermon with the sermon image,

all its details and a media player.

These blocks can also be put into Block Theme templates for Sermon

Manager Sermons / Series / Book / Author / Service Type template pages

-

Field blocks

These blocks allow each field of Sermon Manager data to be included

within a bespoke ‘Query Loop’ block so that you can create your own

lists of sermons with bespoke look and feel from within the block

editor without having to do any coding.

The plugin also provides some example Query Loop patterns that use these

fields to output Sermon Grids, Sermon Lists and Single Sermons.

Support

If you have a problem or a feature request, please send a message to the

author using the ‘Support’ tab.

Demo

org church website.

-

org/resources/latest-sermons/

The shortcode block Display Sermons is used for the Recent Sermons

at the top of the page, and the Sermon Images block is used for the

image grid of the past sermon series.

-

org/sermons

The Sermon Grid block, preceded by the Sermon Filter

block are used to display the list of all sermons.

Contributions

This plugin relies on the Sermon Manager or MattyTap Sermons plugin being

already installed and sermons already entered into the website. It is

purely to enable the display of sermons to be more ‘block friendly’ and

does not replace or change any of the functionality of these plugins.

Usage

Using the Block Replacements for Shortcodes

• Add one of the blocks in the place where you wish to use them, as you

would have previously added a shortcode.

• Use the attributes to choose those attribute values you would have

previously put into the shortcode.

• The default attribute values provided in the attributes respect the

default values in the shortcodes – you only need to set values you

want to be changed.

• The display of sermons in the block editor will change to reflect

the attribute choices you make. The output should be very similar

to what you will see on the front end, but always check the front

end to be sure of how it appears.

• As with the shortcodes, the appearance of the output of these

blocks can be changed via css style sheets. If you want to only

change the appearance for the output of the block and not the

original shortcodes, then precede each css style with the class

b4sm. The same classes are used for styling as for the shortcodes.

Using the new non-shortcode Sermon Display Blocks

• Add one of the blocks in the place where you wish to use it.

• If you are adding the block within a Block Template, then the block

will pick up the correct sermons in the front end, but in the back

end it will say that it can’t find any sermons. This is because it is

only a Template and does not have a sermon query for that page until

the Template is rendered on the front end.

• Use the attributes to choose what to display of the available sermon

meta data.

• The block output on the front-end can be styled using css style sheets.

The blocks use the same css classes as Sermon Manager for the various

elements of each Sermon. If you want to only change the appearance for

the output of the block and not other Sermon Manager output, then

b4sm.

Using the Blocks for the Sermon Manager Fields to create custom output

The following allows you to re-create a sermon grid layout. This is just

an example – you can create whatever output look you want!

• Add an outer container (such as a Group or similar) to contain the output

In the advanced block attributes, set the class to wpfc-sermons-container

if you want the internals to pick up Sermon Manager styles.

• Within this outer container add a Query Loop Block.

• In the attributes pane of the Query Loop block, choose to do a Custom

Query

• In the Custom Query, choose Sermons (or whatever of the taxonomies you

want. You can also use the other taxonomies to ‘drill down’ to only

display the particular sermons you want on that page.

• In the Query add a container block (such as a Group). If you want to pick

up the predefined Sermon Manager styles, in the ‘Advanced’ attributes

section add a class wpfc-sermon (if it is a sermon you are rendering.

• Optionally, if you want to separately style an outer and inner block,

add a container block within the previous block and set it’s class

to wpfc-sermon-inner.

• In the container block add a Sermon Image block (if wanted)

• If you are adding sermon details, add a container block and set it’s

class to wpfc-sermon-main if you want to pick up Sermon Manager styles

• In this container add main sermon items like the title, the preacher,

the description, the bible passage or the series. If you are going to

not have the user click through to the sermon page to get the media,

add a sermon media block. You do not need to set any classes – we

automatically add the predefined Sermon Manager classes for styling.

• If you want other sermon meta data, why not add another container to

group your less prominent meta data, and potentially use the container

styling to give it a different background.

• You can then also add meta data fields, like date, topic, bible book

• You can use the prefix and suffix fields in each attribute to add in

labels for the fields, if you wish. Click in the prefix or suffix text

you add and use the floating menu to set to bold or italic or whatever.

• You can then style each container or field as you wish to get the

results you want.

Providing these blocks gives you infinite flexibility in the layout of the

lists of sermons you want to produce – just lay it out yourself! The

suggestion above for containers is only a helpful suggestion!

We also provide a number of Block Patterns for commonly used sermon

layouts – just drag and drop one in, change what details you want, and

it gives you a great shortcut to produce bespoke sermon list layouts.

The Query Loop container will automatically add pagination as needed.

If you want to provide the sermon filter bar, just add the filter bar

block before or after the container holding the query loop.

License

The plugin is released under the GNU General Public License. A

copy of this license can be found at the license homepage or in the top

php file.