by Johan van der Wijk 4.9 (80 reviews)

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget)

Name: Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget)
Rating: 4.9 (80 reviews)
Author: Johan van der Wijk

This plugin enables you to edit and display Content Blocks in a sidebar widget or using a shortcode.

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) ranks #1,518 among WordPress.org plugins with 10,000+ active installations, is #251 of 8,543 in the Customization category, a 4.9/5 rating from 80 reviews, and was last updated Jul 22, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 7.0.4 (Current: 7.1)

v3.4.3 Current Version v3.4.3

Updated 1 month ago Last Update on 22 Jul, 2026

Refreshed 8 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#251 of 8,543 in Customization Top 5% by installs Downloads -29.9% this week

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#1,518

-1 this week

Active Installs

10K+

-47.1%

KW Avg Position

70.6

0.2 better

Downloads

754.9K

+14 today

Support Resolved

— No change

Rating

98%

Review 4.9 out of 5

4.9 (80 reviews)

Next Milestone 20K

Total Progress 87.9%

10K+ 20K+

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

Pro

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Need 1,211 more installs to reach 20K+

Rank Changes

Current #1,518

Change

Best #

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

4.9

80 reviews

Overall 98%

75 (94%)

4 (5%)

0 (0%)

1 (1%)

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

6 known vulnerabilities on record · 2 in the last 24 months · checked 1 week ago

Apr 17, 2026

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.4.1

CVE-2026-0894 · Fixed in v3.4.1
Feb 19, 2025

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.3.6

CVE-2024-6432 · Fixed in v3.3.6
Sep 5, 2024

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.3.6

CVE-2024-44051 · Fixed in v3.3.6
May 31, 2024

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.3.1

CVE-2024-3565 · Fixed in v3.3.1
May 31, 2024

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.3.1

CVE-2024-3564 · Fixed in v3.3.1
May 7, 2024

Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget) [custom-post-widget] < 3.3.1

CVE-2024-34566 · Fixed in v3.3.1

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Plugin Details

Version: 3.4.3
Last Updated: Jul 22, 2026
Requires WP: 4.6+
Tested Up To: 7.0.4
PHP Version: N/A
Author: Johan van der Wijk

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.9
Reviews: 80
Support Threads: 0
Resolved: 0%

Keywords

block content block custom post shortcode widget

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners who want to let non-administrator users edit reusable content blocks displayed in widgets or via shortcode. It solves the problem of standard text widgets being editable only by administrators by using a WYSIWYG-editable custom post type that can be assigned widget access to other users.

WYSIWYG editor for widget content
Shortcode support in posts/pages
Featured image support in widgets
WPML Multi-Language compatibility
Non-administrator editing access
Custom 'content_block' post type
Sidebar widget display

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Content Blocks (Custom Post Widget)

Of course you can always use the default text widget, but if you prefer to use the WYSIWYG editor or if you have multiple editors and you don't want to give them administrator rights, it is recommended to use this plugin.

It is recommended to install the Widget Logic plugin, this will give you complete flexibility on widget placement.

This plugin has built-in support for the featured image functionality on the edit screen. Note that featured image will not be resized, so you will have to make sure it is the right size when uploading or restrict the image size via the stylesheet. My social sharing plugin adds buttons to all the Content Block areas If your social media sharing plugin adds buttons to the widget areas you could check the 'Do not apply content filters' checkbox. Note that when this is done, WordPress will also stop adding paragraph tags to your text, so use this setting with caution. It is much better to ask the developer of the social media sharing buttons plugin to correctly use the content filters (see http://pippinsplugins.com/playing-nice-with-the-content-filter/ for more information on this). If you are embedding your content block with the shortcode, add the following: suppress_content_filters="yes" The featured image is not displayed when using the shortcode Currently the shortcode function only outputs the post content and title of the content block, future support for displaying the attached featured image is being considered.

Yes, you can create your own template for the content blocks, you can do so by adding a file named custom-post-widget.php to your theme folder. More information about this can be found in this support topic In these Gists you can find examples of templates for shortcodes and for widgets I have a feature request Please post your feature request on the support forum These new features are on the to-do list: Display the content block featured image when using the shortcode Front-end editing of the content blocks Visual Composer integration Show the shortcode on the "View all Content Blocks" list view

You can create your own widget template and upload this to your theme folder. See this support topic for more information about this feature.

You can make the post type public by adding the following code to your theme's functions.php file: function filter_content_block_init() { $content_block_public = true; return $content_block_public; } add_filter('content_block_post_type','filter_content_block_init'); Alternatively you can use this third-party plugin.

Yes, v2.6 now gives you the option to use the content block's url slug in the shortcode. Use the following syntax for doing this: [content_block slug=my-content-block]. Note that if you ever change the slug of a content block, the embedding no longer works. Therefore I recommend using the post ID instead (which never changes).

By default the shortcode adds a div around the content block with the class content_block. If you like, you can change this class by adding it to the shortcode: [content_block id=198 slug=our-wordpress-plugins class=my-class]

You can use the do_shortcode function for this: echo do_shortcode('[content_block id= ]'); See http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/do_shortcode for more information on this function. The plugin is not working for me Please create a support topic in the forum: http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-post-widget

Creating and supporting this plugin takes up a lot of my free time, therefore I would highly appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to write a review. This will help other WordPress users to start using this plugin and keep me motivated to maintain and support it. Also, if you have a twitter, Facebook or Google+ account, it would be fantastic if you could share the link to this plugin!