Author Profile Blocks is a WordPress plugin for showcasing author profiles and team members using four Gutenberg blocks, four shortcodes, and a classic widget. It supports two data sources: standard WordPress Users and an optional Team Member custom post type (apbl_team_member).
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Four Block Types
Author Profile — Single author showcase with full control over layout order, avatar shape, typography, and social links. Four content order variants: image-content, content-image, image-top, content-top.
Author Grid — Responsive grid of multiple authors. Supports 1–4 columns with five style presets: card, minimal, bordered, shadow, mosaic.
Author List — Vertical author list with three display styles: compact (image + summary), detailed (full two-column layout), and minimal (name + position only). Supports ordered or unordered lists.
Author Carousel — Interactive slider built on Slick. Seven style presets including modern cards, classic carousel, elegant profile, and creative gradient layout. Configurable slides, autoplay, dots, and arrows.
Shortcodes
Four shortcodes are available for classic themes or page builders:
[apbl_profile]— single author card[apbl_grid]— responsive author grid[apbl_list]— author list[apbl_carousel]— author carousel with autoplay
All shortcodes accept id, source (user or team_member), style, number, and display toggle attributes.
Classic Widget
The Author Profile Widget lets you add a single author card to any widget area. Choose the author, display style, and whether to show social links and bio.
Team Member CPT
Activate the built-in apbl_team_member custom post type to manage team members separately from WordPress users. Supports title, bio, featured image, and menu order. Each team member has position and social profile meta fields. Organise members by department using the hierarchical apbl_department taxonomy.
Design System
Every block ships with a refined indigo editorial design — distinctive typography, layered shadows, smooth cubic-bezier transitions, and an indigo accent system with animated hover reveals. All visual properties are overridable via CSS custom properties.
Customization Options
- Avatar: circle, square, rounded, or custom border-radius; configurable size and border
- Typography: name size, weight, color, alignment, letter-spacing; position shown as uppercase indigo badge
- Layout presets: choose from registered style variations (card, minimal, bordered, shadow, and more) per block
- Animations: 7 entrance animation types — fadeIn, slideUp, slideDown, slideLeft, slideRight, scaleIn, bounce
- Hover effects: lift, glow, scale, rotate, shadow — applied to items or the block wrapper
- Social icons: square pill shape with indigo fill on hover; supports Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, website
- Colors: background, border, text, gradient — all configurable via the inspector
- Spacing: section spacing, padding, item spacing, container width
- Advanced: CSS filters (brightness, contrast, saturation), transform (scale, rotate), box shadow, custom CSS class, Google Font support
User Profile Extensions
The plugin adds extra fields to the standard WordPress user profile screen:
- Position / job title
- Extended bio
- Social media URLs: Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, personal website
- Custom “Member since” label
- Department
- Skills
- Location
- Phone
- Availability
- Website label
Performance
- Server-side rendering with PHP template caching
- Configurable cache duration
- Lazy loading for author avatars
- No unnecessary JavaScript on the frontend
Developer-Friendly
- Clean PHP template hierarchy — override any template from your theme
- Extensive CSS custom properties for runtime styling
- WordPress filter hooks on every rendered block and shortcode
- Modern SCSS source with
@use/@forwardmodule system andsass:colorfunctions apbl-namespaced CSS classes throughout- PSR-4 autoloaded, WordPress Coding Standards compliant
- Full developer documentation on GitHub
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Support
Screenshots
Author Grid — a team on a page, three across, with role, bio and links on each card.
Author Profile — one author, with their role, bio, email and the date they joined.
Author Carousel — the same authors as a carousel, with arrows and pagination.
Author List — contributors as rows, avatar and role each.
The Author Grid block being edited, with every option in the block sidebar.