Gutenberg, Dynamic Blocks

MentoBlocks

Dynamic Blocks for Gutenberg. Always Live. Never Bloated.

Most block libraries ship static content — add a grid or a slider once, and it’s frozen until you manually rebuild it. MentoBlocks works differently: every block renders live from your WordPress database on each page load, so a Post Grid always reflects your latest posts and a Hero Slider never shows yesterday’s content. No page-builder overhead, no jQuery, no bundled UI framework shipped to every visitor. Just two focused, dependency-free blocks today — Post Grid and Hero Slider — built to grow one block at a time.

01

Four layouts. One block. Zero rebuilding.

Other grid blocks give you one fixed card layout and call it done. Post Grid gives you four — Standard, Overlay, Side-by-Side, and Reverse — each a genuinely different arrangement of image, title, and text, not just a border or shadow swap. Pair any layout with an independent hover effect — Lift & Shadow, Image Zoom, or Border Glow — and style colors, spacing, and borders without touching CSS. Query any public post type, set your order, and let it run.

02

Three ways to fill a slide. Switch anytime, lose nothing.

Hero Slider works three ways — plain images, manually written slides with a heading and button, or slides generated automatically from your posts. Switch between them from a single dropdown, and nothing you’ve already built disappears: each source keeps its own data in the background, so changing your mind costs you nothing. Fade or slide transitions, autoplay with pause-on-hover, and a responsive height setting for desktop, tablet, and mobile — all from the block’s own sidebar.

03

Every request hits your database. Not a cached snapshot.

Both blocks render server-side on every page load via WordPress’s own query engine — there’s no static cache to go stale and no “resave the page to update it” step to remember. Publish a new post, and it appears in your grid or slider the next time the page loads. Post Grid’s “Load More” button fetches additional posts straight from the REST API too, so visitors never trigger a full page reload just to see older content.

04

Built lightweight. Built accessible. On purpose.

No jQuery, no bundled carousel library, no UI framework loaded on your frontend — every interactive feature is plain, dependency-free JavaScript, written to stay small. Hero Slider ships with proper ARIA roles and labels, full keyboard navigation, and swipe support out of the box, not bolted on afterward. The result is a block that costs your page almost nothing to load and works for every visitor, not just the ones using a mouse.

USE CASES

Real problems. Real answers.

Here is what MentoBlocks solves out of the box.

SCENARIO 01  ·  STALE CONTENT PROBLEM

You published three new posts. Your grid still shows the old five.

Static blocks and page-builder grids capture their content at the moment you save them. Publish something new, and it simply doesn’t appear — until you remember to open the page again and manually rebuild the block. On a site that publishes often, that’s a recurring chore nobody has time for, and visitors end up seeing an outdated selection of content.

How MentoBlocks solves it:

  1. Add the Post Grid block
  2. Pick a post type, order, and column count
  3. Publish the page once
  4. Every new post appears automatically from then on

No resaving. No rebuilding. The grid simply stays current.

0

manual resaves

Always

up to date

Zero configuration

SCENARIO 02  ·  PAGE WEIGHT PROBLEM

Your page builder loads 400KB of JavaScript before a single slide moves.

Most slider and grid plugins bundle jQuery, a carousel library, and a chunk of their own framework — all loaded on every page whether a visitor ever interacts with the block or not. That weight adds up directly against your Core Web Vitals and your mobile load time, for features most visitors never notice are even there.

How MentoBlocks solves it:

  1. Add Hero Slider or Post Grid to any page
  2. No jQuery enqueued, no external library loaded
  3. Only the block’s own small, purpose-built script runs
  4. Nothing else ships to the page

A lighter page, by default — not by extra configuration.

0

external dependencies

Vanilla JS

frontend only

No page-builder overhead

SCENARIO 03  ·  LOST WORK PROBLEM

You switch a slider from manual content to dynamic posts — and lose every slide you wrote.

Most sliders treat their content source as a one-way decision — change your mind, and whatever you’d already typed in is simply gone. That makes experimenting with a different setup risky, especially after you’ve spent real time writing slide copy, picking images, and setting button links.

How MentoBlocks solves it:

  1. Open Hero Slider’s Slide Source dropdown
  2. Switch freely between Plain Images, Manual, and Dynamic
  3. Each source keeps its own data behind the scenes
  4. Switch back anytime — everything is still there

Try a different setup without the fear of losing your work.

3

content sources

0

data lost on switch

One dropdown to switch

SCENARIO 04  ·  ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEM

Your carousel works fine — as long as you have a mouse.

Plenty of sliders are built, tested, and shipped using nothing but a mouse, which quietly leaves keyboard users and screen reader users out entirely. Missing ARIA labels and no keyboard handling aren’t edge cases — they’re a real barrier for real visitors, and increasingly a compliance risk too.

How MentoBlocks solves it:

  1. Hero Slider ships with ARIA roles and labels by default
  2. Arrow keys move between slides
  3. Tab focus pauses autoplay automatically
  4. Touch visitors get native swipe gestures

Accessible navigation isn’t an add-on here — it’s how the block was built.

ARIA

roles & labels built in

Keyboard + swipe

navigation

Pause-on-focus autoplay