Nishvault / Fieldgrid / WordPress post grid guide

Build a filterable WordPress post grid with Fieldgrid

A journal landing page should help readers find a useful post and open it. Fieldgrid creates a saved collection from content already on your WordPress site, with card layouts, category filtering, search, sort and pagination. You place the collection using a shortcode.

This guide makes Workshop journal — design exercise: a quiet three-column grid with four posts per page. The title and introduction are fictional practice copy. The configuration does not include posts, media or category assignments; your own published content supplies the cards.

Use the demo to inspect the style, then install the plugin

The free six-object visual demo shows original fictional studio illustrations. It is a fixed static presentation, not a WordPress installation, configurable editor or working test of WordPress search. The free sample design JSON is a configuration example; importing it requires the plugin and a compatible WordPress site.

The plugin package is $29.00 USD, one-time. Applicable taxes calculated at checkout. It includes the installable plugin, saved collections, shortcode integration, JSON design backup, samples and documentation. It is not a hosted service. There is no required external API, social account, license server or frontend library.

Start on a staging WordPress site. This version requires WordPress 6.6 or later and PHP 8.1 or later. Product collections also require an active WooCommerce installation.
Extract the customer kit. In Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose dist/fieldgrid-plugin-1.0.0.zip from inside it. The outer customer-kit ZIP includes documentation and is not the WordPress upload file.
Install and activate, then open Fieldgrid in the administrator sidebar. Creating, importing and exporting designs requires administrator permission.

Keep the installation and usage guide with the extracted kit. Check your actual theme and server in staging; the tested WordPress runtime does not certify every theme, page builder, cache or MySQL/MariaDB setup.

Define the source and card design

Choose New collection. Set Collection name to “Workshop journal — design exercise” and Introduction to “A fictional layout exercise for existing published workshop notes.” Choose Posts as Content source and Categories as Filter taxonomy.

The taxonomy must belong to the selected public source. Categories works with Posts; product categories belongs to Products. Choose None if your source has no appropriate public taxonomy. The plugin excludes attachments and its own saved-design post type from content sources.

Setting	Practice value	Purpose
Layout	Equal grid	A regular arrangement of cards.
Skin	Quiet type	A restrained title-and-excerpt treatment.
Desktop columns	3	Three columns where the page has enough space.
Card spacing	20 px	Separation between cards.
Items per page	4	A small page size that makes pagination easy to check with more than four eligible posts.
Accent colour	#315c53	A six-digit hex accent for the collection.

Enable Show excerpts, Category filtering, Collection search and Visitor sort order, then choose Save collection. Saving commits the design. It does not edit a post or publish a WordPress page.

Use your Media Library featured images and useful post titles. Missing thumbnails receive decorative vector artwork; that fallback is not a substitute for a product photograph. Card headings are the keyboard-focusable destinations, while images avoid duplicate tab stops. The plugin uses your site's published content rather than importing a remote feed.

Place the saved shortcode on a page

After saving, copy the read-only Shortcode in Place this collection. For example, [fieldgrid id="123"] uses a saved collection with ID 123. Replace 123 with the ID WordPress actually assigned to your collection; it is not a universal sample ID.

Add a Shortcode block to a WordPress page, paste the saved code and preview the actual page. A saved collection and a published page are separate steps. Review the page before using your normal publication process.

Desktop column count should suit the content area, including any theme sidebar. The plugin's tablet layout uses two columns and its narrow layout uses one. It also offers Masonry columns and Horizontal collection; horizontal cards scroll sideways with snapping. Check the finished page at desktop and narrow widths with your actual images, titles and excerpts.

Check filtering, search, sort and page state

With more than four eligible published posts, use Next and Previous to check the second page and return. Choose a populated category from Collection, submit Search this collection, then change Order to Title A–Z. Filter and sort changes start at page 1. Reset restores the initial controls and reloads the collection.

Search submits to the same-origin WordPress endpoint; it can find eligible posts beyond the first visible page. It is not limited to text already in the browser. Category, search and sort controls can each be disabled in the saved design. The category dropdown shows up to 100 nonempty terms, requests show at most 24 cards per page, and search is limited to 100 characters.

A no-match response should show the empty-state message. A failed request should retain the previous cards and restore the last successful controls, with a retryable message. Without JavaScript, the first page remains visible and a site-browsing link is provided; interactive filtering and pagination need JavaScript.

If you place two collections on a page, search or paginate one and confirm the other's controls and results stay unchanged. Use the actual WordPress output for this check. The hosted visual demo cannot prove live queries or independent WordPress collections.

Export the design without implying a site migration

Open the saved collection and choose Export JSON design. Keep that downloaded backup. On another compatible site with the plugin active and the same public post type and taxonomy available, choose Choose JSON design → Import design.

Import creates a new collection; it does not overwrite existing designs. Copy the new shortcode after import. The JSON transfers configuration only: no posts, product data, category IDs, media, site addresses or credentials. The destination site's content is queried when the imported collection is displayed. An unavailable source or mismatched taxonomy must be resolved on that site.

This is the complete original practice configuration. Save it as workshop-journal-design.json and import it on a staging site with Posts and Categories available:

{
  "format": "fieldgrid-design-v1",
  "config": {
    "version": 1,
    "name": "Workshop journal — design exercise",
    "description": "A fictional layout exercise for existing published workshop notes.",
    "post_type": "post",
    "taxonomy": "category",
    "layout": "grid",
    "skin": "quiet",
    "columns": 3,
    "gap": 20,
    "per_page": 4,
    "accent": "#315c53",
    "excerpt": true,
    "filters": true,
    "search": true,
    "sort": true
  }
}

Open the new collection, confirm its controls, and export it again to compare the configuration. Files larger than 64 KB, unsupported versions, unknown fields and unavailable source/taxonomy combinations are rejected before a new design is created. Keep your last valid export when experimenting.

Understand product, privacy and delivery limits

Fieldgrid also supports public custom post types and WooCommerce products. Product cards use WooCommerce's formatted price and product link. Catalogue-hidden products are excluded, and out-of-stock exclusion follows the store setting. The plugin does not add items to a cart, submit payments or query customer/order data.

Draft, private, future and password-protected posts are excluded even when an administrator views the collection. The plugin makes same-origin content requests and includes no telemetry, remote imports, CDN assets or external fonts. Your host, theme and other plugins may make their own requests.

The hosted Nishvault product page and visual demo have separate anonymous diagnostics that respect Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. Those counts do not establish people, purchases or sales. Downloaded customer files contain no measurement adapter.

The purchaser terms allow using and customizing the original files in your own projects and sharing finished outputs; standalone redistribution or resale of the plugin/source package is excluded. Preserve separate third-party rights. Documentation is included; guaranteed personal support, an SLA, update schedule or business-result guarantee is not. Compare the demo, sample and paid kit on the Fieldgrid product page.