Blocks & Widgets Overview

The Blocks & Widgets Library puts Benecaster on any page of your site with point-and-click settings instead of typed shortcodes. It adds a Benecaster group to WordPress’s block editor and to Elementor: an episode player, a subscribe prompt, a pricing table, a QR code, subscriber and episode counts, and more. See Available Blocks for the full list and what each one offers.

It is free with every Benecaster account, Launch included, and runs across your whole site: its card on Settings → Add-ons has no per-show switch. Install it like any other Benecaster add-on — see Installing Add-ons.

Adding a Block

In the block editor, click + and search Benecaster, or open the Benecaster category. Each block’s settings are in the sidebar on the right.

• Choose a show. Most blocks ask which show they are for. On a site with one show you can leave it; on a site with several, the block needs one.
• Choose an episode where it applies. Episode Player and Episode Card show your latest episode when you leave it empty. Episode Navigation, Related Episodes and Episode Share use the episode being viewed, so they belong on episode pages — choose an episode to place them anywhere else.
• The preview is you. The block shows what you would see: your own feed address, your own plan, every episode you can play. A visitor who cannot play an episode sees it locked, even though your preview does not.
• Previews look and work like the published page. They use the same styles, QR codes draw and download, and copy buttons work. Reset in a preview is real: the RSS Feed URL Display’s Reset changes your own private feed address, exactly as on the published page. Previewing a player counts no plays.
• Scheduled episodes are marked. In every episode picker, an episode that has not been published yet reads “(scheduled)” after its title. Episode Card and Episode Navigation show nothing for one until it is published.

The first time you open the block editor after installing, a short guide shows where the blocks are. Administrators also get a link to a full tour of the add-on.

In Elementor

The same blocks are Elementor widgets, under a Benecaster category in Elementor’s panel, with the same settings. Choosing an episode works slightly differently: a list of the show’s 100 most recent episodes, plus a box for typing the ID of an older one.

Widgets appear only when Elementor is active.

If You Remove the Add-on

Block-editor pages keep working. Each block saves the shortcode it stands for, so with the add-on deactivated or removed, the page renders exactly as before — you just edit those parts as shortcodes instead of blocks.

Elementor pages do not. Elementor stores a widget’s settings rather than a shortcode, so with the add-on deactivated, Benecaster widgets on Elementor pages show nothing. Keep the add-on active if you build with Elementor.

Styling

The blocks use Benecaster’s own shortcodes underneath, so they look like the shortcodes do on your theme, in the editor as well as on the page. That includes Benecaster’s base styles for its shortcodes, which a theme can adjust or turn off — see Styling the Shortcodes. Turning them off turns them off in previews too. There are no style options beyond each block’s display settings.