Credits Program Mentors

Display a filterable directory of mentors from an Airtable base, with WordPress.org profile photos and a Sponsored badge.

Description

Credits Program Mentors turns an Airtable table of mentors into a clean, filterable directory on your site. It pulls records through Airtable's official REST API, caches them for speed, and renders them as a responsive card grid or a table via the [credits_program_mentors] shortcode or the bundled block.

Features

• Shortcode and block — [credits_program_mentors], or the "Credits Program Mentors" block with a live preview and sidebar controls.
• Card grid or table layout, with the detail fields aligned across cards.
• Active mentors only — shows mentors whose Airtable Status is Active.
• Sponsored badge — mentors with a value in Sponsor Company Name get a small "Sponsored" badge.
• Profile photos — each mentor's WordPress.org profile avatar, loaded directly in the visitor's browser via WordPress.org's official avatar redirect.
• Front-end filters — visitors can narrow the list by Sponsorship, Language, and Country, entirely in the browser (works on cached pages).
• Optional country map — an interactive Leaflet map showing where mentors are based, with a marker per country sized by mentor count; enable or disable it from the plugin settings. Visitors can zoom and pan, and click a country to filter the list. Styled to match the Education Programs Map plugin.
• Caching — Airtable records are stored in transients; a "Refresh data" button and a configurable cache lifetime are provided.
• Privacy-aware, escaped output, and translation-ready.

Configuration

Records are requested with Airtable's cellFormat=string, so single-selects, multi-selects, linked records, and URL fields all render cleanly. The Base ID, Table ID, optional View, cache lifetime, and country map are all configurable from the Credits Program Mentors menu in the admin sidebar.

The optional country map is a Leaflet map with a light CARTO basemap, matching the Education Programs Map plugin. Country names and marker positions come from public-domain Natural Earth data (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/) bundled with the plugin; only the basemap tiles are loaded at runtime (see External services).

External services

This plugin connects to the following third-party services. It only does so with data you configure; it does not transmit personal data about your site visitors beyond what any embedded remote image would.

1. Airtable API (api.airtable.com) Used to fetch the mentor records that the plugin displays. When a page with the shortcode/block is rendered (and periodically in the background), the plugin sends a request to Airtable containing your configured Base ID, Table ID, optional View, and your Airtable Personal Access Token (as a Bearer credential for authentication). No site-visitor data is sent. This is required for the plugin to function. Airtable: https://airtable.com/ — Terms: https://www.airtable.com/company/tos — Privacy: https://www.airtable.com/company/privacy

2. WordPress.org avatar redirect (wordpress.org) Used to display each mentor's profile photo. The plugin outputs an <img> whose source is WordPress.org's official avatar redirect, https://wordpress.org/grav-redirect.php?user=USERNAME, which redirects to that user's Gravatar. The image is requested by the visitor's browser, so the visitor's IP address and user agent are sent to WordPress.org (and to Gravatar, below) when the image loads. The mentor's public WordPress.org username, taken from your Airtable data, appears in the URL. Photos can be disabled with photos="no". WordPress.org: https://wordpress.org/ — Privacy: https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/

3. Gravatar (secure.gravatar.com) The avatar redirect above resolves to a Gravatar image, which the visitor's browser loads directly from Gravatar (operated by Automattic). Mentors without a Gravatar get a generated identicon. Gravatar: https://gravatar.com/ — Privacy: https://automattic.com/privacy/

4. CARTO basemap tiles (basemaps.cartocdn.com) When the optional country map is enabled, the visitor's browser loads map tiles from CARTO's light "Positron" basemap (built on OpenStreetMap data). This sends the visitor's IP address and the requested tile coordinates to CARTO as the map renders. The map can be turned off in the plugin settings. CARTO: https://carto.com/ — Terms: https://carto.com/legal/ — OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Installation

1. Upload the credits-program-mentors folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install the ZIP via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen.
3. Open the Credits Program Mentors menu in the admin sidebar.
4. Create a read-only Personal Access Token at https://airtable.com/create/tokens with the data.records:read scope and access to your base, and paste it in. Set your Base ID and Table ID (the Sponsored mentors base IDs are pre-filled as a default).
5. Add [credits_program_mentors] to a page or post — or insert the Credits Program Mentors block.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need an Airtable account and token?

Yes. The plugin uses Airtable's official REST API, which always requires a Personal Access Token — even for a base that is shared publicly. Use a read-only token scoped to data.records:read.

What data leaves my site?

See the "External services" section above. In short: your configured Airtable IDs and token go to Airtable (server-side); and mentor avatar images are loaded by the visitor's browser from WordPress.org's avatar redirect, which resolves to Gravatar.

Which mentors are displayed?

Mentors whose Airtable Status field equals Active. Mentors that also have a Sponsor Company Name are marked with a "Sponsored" badge.

Where do the profile photos come from?

Each photo is the mentor's WordPress.org profile avatar. The plugin points the image at WordPress.org's official avatar redirect (grav-redirect.php?user=USERNAME), so the visitor's browser loads it directly and in parallel — there is no server-side fetching or cache to warm up. Mentors with no Gravatar get a generated identicon; mentors with no WordPress.org profile URL show their initials.

Can I show a map of where mentors are based?

Yes. Enable Country map in the plugin settings to show an interactive map above the list, with a marker per country sized by the number of mentors. Visitors can zoom and pan, and click a country's marker to filter the list to mentors from that country (click empty map to clear). It uses the same Leaflet map and CARTO basemap as the Education Programs Map plugin, for a consistent look. Override it per placement with the map="yes|no" shortcode attribute.

What shortcode attributes are available?

layout (grid|table), limit, columns, country, language, search, fields, view, photos (yes|no), photo_size, filters (yes|no), and map (yes|no; defaults to the setting). Example: [credits_program_mentors layout="grid" columns="3" map="yes"]

Screenshots

1. Mentor directory as a responsive card grid, with profile photos and the Sponsorship / Language / Country filter bar.
2. A sponsored mentor card showing the "Sponsored" badge.
3. The settings screen: Airtable connection, the Display (country map) toggle, and the Refresh data control.
4. The Credits Program Mentors block with live preview in the editor.
5. The optional country map highlighting mentor countries above the list.

Changelog

1.5.0

• Country map reworked to match the Education Programs Map plugin: it is now a Leaflet map with the CARTO light basemap and a blue circle marker per country (sized by mentor count) with popups and native zoom/pan, replacing the inline SVG choropleth. Clicking a marker still filters the list to that country.
• Adds CARTO basemap tiles as a disclosed external service (map tiles load in the browser); country names and marker positions remain bundled (Natural Earth, public domain).

1.4.1

• Increased the default profile photo size to 116px.

1.4.0

• Design: restyled the mentor cards, chips, filter bar, and map to match the Education Student Stories plugin, so both read as part of the same site design (shared palette, 14px cards with hover lift, ringed circular avatars, navy names, primary/accent pills). Default profile photo size is now 96px.

1.3.2

• Fix: clicking a country on the map did not filter the list. Country selection is now detected on pointer release (the map's pan/zoom capture had suppressed the click), so tapping a country reliably filters the mentors below it.

1.3.1

• Map: added zoom and pan controls, and click-a-country to filter the list to mentors from that country (synced with the Country filter). Country matching is now keyed by country id, so name variants (e.g. "United States" vs "United States of America") and multi-country values are handled consistently across the map, cards, and filter.

1.3.0

• New: optional country map. A self-contained SVG world map highlights the countries mentors come from (shaded by count), shown above the list. Toggle it in the plugin settings, or per placement with map="yes|no". Geometry is bundled from Natural Earth (public domain); no external requests are made.

1.2.1

• Fix: mentors who had another URL field (e.g. a personal site or social link) filled in showed an initials placeholder instead of their photo. The plugin now specifically locates each mentor's WordPress.org profile URL rather than the first link-type field, so far more photos display.
• Moved the admin screen to its own top-level "Credits Program Mentors" menu in the sidebar, instead of under Settings.

1.2.0

• Profile photos now load directly in the visitor's browser via WordPress.org's official avatar redirect (grav-redirect.php), instead of being scraped and cached server-side. This fixes photos not all loading on large mentor lists, and removes the background WP-Cron warm-up and avatar cache entirely.
• Settings: replaced "Refresh photos" with "Refresh data" (clears the Airtable records cache).

1.1.0

• Show all mentors with an active Status (not just sponsored ones); add a "Sponsored" badge for mentors that have a Sponsor Company Name.
• Add a front-end filter bar (Sponsorship / Language / Country).
• Resolve profile photos in the background (WP-Cron) instead of during page render, with initials placeholders and a "Refresh photos" button — fixes missing photos at scale.
• Align card detail fields on shared rows via CSS subgrid; stack the Languages label above its pills.
• Documented external services; hardened input sanitisation (wp_unslash).
• Set plugin author to Maciej Pilarski.

1.0.0

• Initial release: settings page, Airtable REST client with caching, the [credits_program_mentors] shortcode, and a matching editor block (with live preview) — both offering grid and table layouts.

Upgrade Notice

1.5.0

The country map is now a Leaflet/CARTO map matching the Education Programs Map plugin. The map loads basemap tiles from CARTO (see External services).

1.4.1

Larger default profile photos (116px).

1.4.0

Restyles the mentor directory to match the Education Student Stories plugin for a consistent site design.

1.3.2

Fixes clicking a country on the map not filtering the list.

1.3.1

The country map can now be zoomed, panned, and clicked to filter the list by country.

1.3.0

Adds an optional world map of mentor countries, toggleable in the plugin settings.

1.2.1

Fixes profile photos not showing for mentors who also had another link field filled in.

1.2.0

Profile photos now load directly from WordPress.org in the browser, fixing missing photos on large mentor lists and removing the background cache.

1.1.0

Shows all active mentors with a Sponsored badge, adds front-end filters, and resolves profile photos in the background to fix missing photos on large lists.