Madeo Featured Case Study

A small WordPress plugin that registers a custom ACF Gutenberg block called Featured Case Study.

Goal

The block allows an editor to select a case study or post, choose a layout variant, optionally override the heading, and render the selected item on the frontend with its latest title, featured image, excerpt, and link.

Setup

1. Install and activate WordPress.
2. Install and activate ACF Pro.
3. Activate this plugin: Madeo Featured Case Study.
4. Create at least one Case Study or Post with a title, excerpt, featured image, and published status.
5. Add the Featured Case Study block to a page.
6. Select a case study or post, choose a layout, and optionally add a custom heading.

Running locally with WordPress Playground CLI

From the WordPress site root:

cd "/Users/carlosrios/Work/STX Web Design/Sites/madeo"
npx @wp-playground/cli@latest start --port=9400 --skip-browser

Then open:

• Frontend: http://127.0.0.1:9400/
• Admin: http://127.0.0.1:9400/wp-admin/

Technical Decisions

• Built as a small plugin so the block is portable and not tied to a specific theme.
• Registers a simple case_study custom post type in PHP instead of relying on ACF for the post type.
• Uses ACF Pro for block fields and editor controls.
• Uses dynamic rendering so selected content stays current when the case study or post changes.
• Stores editor choices in ACF fields instead of duplicating post data in block markup.
• Handles missing, unpublished, or deleted content gracefully.
• Escapes frontend output and validates selected post data before rendering.
• Separates block registration, render template, frontend CSS, editor CSS, and small rendering helpers.

Block Fields

• Case Study or Post: required post object field limited to published case_study and post content.
• Layout: button group with Image left and Image top variants.
• Custom Heading: optional text override. If empty, the selected item's title is used.

Assumptions

• ACF Pro is available, as provided for the exercise.
• The plugin treats ACF Pro as a dependency, but fails gracefully with an admin notice if ACF Pro is inactive.
• A simple case_study custom post type is registered by the plugin because the environment does not already provide one.
• ACF fields are registered in PHP so the field group is version-controlled, portable, and easy for another developer to review without relying on database state.
• Visual styling is intentionally lightweight because the focus is architecture, maintainability, security, and editor experience.

Development checks

Run lightweight helper tests from the plugin root:

php tests/rendering-test.php

Run PHP syntax checks:

find . -name '*.php' -not -path './.git/*' -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 php -l