UCSC Custom Functionality

A WordPress plugin that provides theme-independent custom functionality for UC Santa Cruz websites. By keeping features like custom post types, blocks, shortcodes, and admin customizations separate from the UCSC theme, future theme changes won't affect site functionality.

All Sites

These features are active on every UCSC WordPress site using the plugin.

Admin Customizations

• Removes the deprecated Link Manager from the dashboard sidebar
• Hides the Customizer from the admin bar for users without theme editing capabilities

Analytics & Security

• Google Tag Manager integration for site analytics
• SiteImprove analytics and accessibility check script

Shortcodes

• [site-search] — Embeds a Google Site Search results page with context-aware domain detection
• [copyright] — Displays a copyright symbol with the current year
• [last-modified] — Shows a post's last modified date (or creation date as a fallback)

Settings Page

An admin settings page under Settings > UCSC Custom Functionality provides plugin version and feature overview

News Block

The News block is available on all sites. It displays news articles with configurable layout, taxonomy filtering, and visibility toggles for image, date, excerpt, author, and tags. Built with Advanced Custom Fields and registered via block.json.

News Sites Only

The following features require the UCSC_NEWS_SITE constant to be defined as true. They provide content management tools tailored to the UCSC news site.

Custom Blocks (ACF)

Query-based blocks support three query modes: latest posts, automatic (pull from a taxonomy), or manual (select posts individually). Results are cached with 20-minute transients.

Custom Post Types

• Photo of the Week (photo-of-the-week) — A post type with custom fields for photographer credit and image, with a public archive and REST API support

Custom Templates

• Post Single — Custom single post template
• Photo of the Week Archive — Custom archive template for the Photo of the Week post type

Integrations

• Yoast SEO — Registers primary term support for UCSC-specific taxonomies (academics, administration, person, section, kind)
• Co-Authors Plus — Adjusts the author block to support multiple authors
• ACF — Registers a simplified WYSIWYG toolbar (bold, italic, link) used by block fields

Requirements

• WordPress 5.5+
• Advanced Custom Fields PRO
• Define UCSC_NEWS_SITE as true to enable news-specific blocks, post types, templates, and integrations

Project Structure

lib/functions/      Legacy procedural functionality (admin menus, scripts, settings, shortcodes)
src/
  Blocks/           ACF block field group definitions
  Components/       Block rendering controllers (data preparation for views)
  Hooks/            ACF field hooks for dynamic taxonomy/term loading
  Integrations/     Third-party plugin integrations (Yoast, ACF toolbars)
  Object_Meta/      Custom post meta field definitions
  Post_Types/       Custom post type registrations
  Query/            Query modifications
  Template/         Custom block template registrations and render filters
  views/            Block view templates and block.json files
  Core.php          Plugin bootstrap and service registration