This video is a first look at the Advanced Query Loop Block from Cadence. The Advanced Query Loop Block is part of the pro version of Cadence Blocks. So you’ll need that in order to use this new feature. I’m taking a look at the Advanced Query Loop Block so that we have an idea of what it brings to the table and perhaps some ideas of how we can use it.
Video Version
Regular Post Blocks and Advanced Query Loop Block
Here is the Kadence Post Grid block. See how it is one monolithic block.
Here is the new Advanced Query Loop block. Note how it it is composed of a number of other Kadence blocks. This makes it very flexible because you can add custom fields, add, remove, or move blocks, and so on.
Discussion and Conclusions
Kadence has had for some time a Post Grid Block which is easy to use. The Kadence Advanced Query Loop Block has several advantages over it and other post blocks like it.
- It’s more flexible because it’s composed of a number of inner blocks and the user can add, delete, or rearrange blocks.
- You can add custom fields when using the advanced query loop block.
- The new block supports a number of front-end filter options.
We looked at button, drop-down checkbox, search, and sort filters. The filters are easy to use and are a nice feature to add to a listing or a grid. We’re able to filter on taxonomies and a few of the standard post meta fields like author and date. If Woo was installed, then the filters work with products also.
Please note that while the front-end filters are good to have, they’re not at this time on the same level as solutions like FacetWP or WP Grid Builder. Those solutions have more types of filters, allow you to filter on custom fields, and also have advanced features for developers. When preparing for the video, I noticed that the Advanced Query Loop Block does not work in Kadence template elements for archives. Also, when testing, I ran into an error where the Kadence Advanced Button Block seems to have its settings duplicated for all the rows instead of just showing for the first record. But I guess this is version one.
While there are some limitations and bugs, the Kadence team has said that version one is the foundation for building out more features. So in the future, we can expect that the block will be usable for more use cases. They have plans to continue to expand it. The Kadence Advanced Query Loop Block is a good addition to the collection. The Kadence team has kept Kadence blocks fresh and relevant by periodically updating them and continuing to add new advanced blocks. For example, they also recently released the new Repeater Block to work with ACF repeater fields. These types of of features keep Kadence in the top tier.
