WPCalibrate Knowledge Base

A modern, production-grade WordPress documentation, help center, and knowledge base plugin. Build structured customer documentation, publish an instant-searchable help portal, collect article feedback, and view privacy-friendly analytics without relying on expensive SaaS platforms.

📖 About WPCalibrate Knowledge Base

WPCalibrate Knowledge Base empowers businesses and creators to offer fast, organized self-service documentation directly inside their WordPress sites. Built from the ground up with clean PSR-4 namespaced PHP, strict typing, native Custom Post Types, and accessible frontend templates, it delivers high-performance self-resolution to reduce customer support ticket volumes.

Whether you run software documentation, product user manuals, company FAQs, developer tutorials, or customer onboarding guides, WPCalibrate Knowledge Base gives you complete control over your content and design right inside WordPress.

✨ Key Features

1. Instant Live Search Engine

• REST API Live Search: High-performance endpoint (/wp-json/wpcalibrate-kb/v1/search) delivering debounced real-time suggestions as visitors type.
• Relevance & Title-Weighting: Intelligent ranking algorithm matching titles, content snippets, and taxonomy terms with query term highlighting.
• Accessible Keyboard Navigation: Full keyboard control (Arrow Down, Arrow Up, Enter to open, Escape to close).
• Non-JavaScript Fallback: Standard HTML form submission gracefully routes to a dedicated /help/?wpcb_s=... search results page.
• Customizable Pill Submit Button: Beautiful modern rounded pill button with centered search icon and matching text.

2. Hierarchical Documentation Architecture

• Dedicated Custom Post Type (wpcb_article): Native WordPress CPT with full block editor (Gutenberg), revisions, excerpts, author meta, and cover image support.
• Hierarchical Categories (wpcb_category): Organize topics into unlimited category depths with custom sort ordering, Dashicons, or custom uploaded image icons.
• Non-Hierarchical Tags (wpcb_tag): Tag articles across topics for cross-cutting search and discovery.
• Cover Image Support: Hero cover images on articles and listings when present, falling back to clean text layouts without blank placeholders.

3. Automated Reader Tools

• Dynamic Table of Contents (TOC): Automatically extracts <h2> and <h3> headings to generate accessible anchors with smooth scrolling and collapsible state.
• Smart Breadcrumbs Navigation: Accessible breadcrumb trails (Home > Help Center > Category > Article) with JSON-LD Schema.org structured data.
• Contextual Sibling Sidebar: Displays all articles belonging to the active category in a clean sidebar (configurable left, right, or none).
• Related Articles Recommendations: Automatically suggests related articles based on shared categories and tags, with optional manual article pinning.
• Previous / Next Article Navigation: Linear browsing buttons with category context.

4. Interactive Feedback & Search Analytics

• Helpfulness Voting Widget: Non-intrusive "Was this article helpful? Yes / No" feedback box with rate limiting to prevent vote manipulation.
• Privacy-First Search Analytics: Records popular search queries and zero-result search terms without capturing IP addresses, cookies, or personal identifiers.
• Article Engagement Tracking: Aggregate view counts and helpfulness ratios visible in the admin analytics dashboard.

5. Content Authoring & Admin Tools

• One-Click Article Duplicator: Clone any article into draft status with all taxonomy terms, custom order, and metadata intact.
• Visual Drag-and-Drop Ordering: Reorder articles and categories visually without manually editing page attributes.
• Admin Settings Portal: Modern single-line tabbed configuration covering Overview, General, Layout, Search, Articles, Feedback, Analytics, Tools, and Support.
• WPCalibrate Unified Menu: Integrates cleanly into the shared parent menu with high-contrast white menu icon.

6. Gutenberg Blocks & Shortcodes

• Includes 5 dynamic Gutenberg blocks and 5 corresponding shortcodes for embedding anywhere:
  • [wpcb_knowledge_base] - Complete Help Center portal
  • [wpcb_search] - Standalone live search bar
  • [wpcb_categories] - Category cards grid
  • [wpcb_articles] - Filterable articles list
  • [wpcb_breadcrumbs] - Contextual breadcrumbs trail

📋 System Requirements

🚀 Installation

Option 1: WordPress Dashboard Upload (Recommended)

1. Download wpcalibrate-knowledge-base-1.0.0.zip from the Releases page.
2. In your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now.
4. Click Activate Plugin.

Option 2: Manual Installation via FTP

1. Extract wpcalibrate-knowledge-base-1.0.0.zip.
2. Upload the wpcalibrate-knowledge-base folder to your server's /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
3. In WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and activate WPCalibrate Knowledge Base.

📖 Setup & Documentation Guide

1. Initial Configuration

1. Navigate to WPCalibrate > Knowledge Base > Settings.
2. General Tab: Customize your Help Center Title, Subtitle, and Root URL Slug (default: help).
3. Layout & Display Tab: Set your brand accent color, category grid columns (2, 3, or 4), article sidebar position, and display elements.
4. Search Tab: Configure minimum characters for live search suggestions and results limits.

2. Organizing Categories & Writing Articles

1. Navigate to WPCalibrate > Knowledge Base > Categories.
2. Create topic categories (e.g. Getting Started, Billing & Payments, API Reference). Assign a Dashicon or custom cover image.
3. Click Add New Article to write your first guide in the WordPress Block Editor.
4. Set an Article Cover Image in the document sidebar if desired.
5. Publish your article. It will immediately appear on your Help Center portal and in live search!

🛠️ Shortcodes Reference

🔌 REST API Endpoints

All endpoints are registered under the /wp-json/wpcalibrate-kb/v1/ namespace:

🎣 Developer Hooks & Filters

// Filter live search query arguments
add_filter( 'wpcb_search_query_args', function( array $args, string $query ) {
    $args['posts_per_page'] = 12;
    return $args;
}, 10, 2 );

// Filter the primary accent color programmatically
add_filter( 'wpcb_primary_color', function( string $color ) {
    return '#2563eb';
} );

// Hook after helpfulness feedback is submitted
add_action( 'wpcb_feedback_recorded', function( int $article_id, bool $helpful ) {
    // Custom analytics or notification logic
}, 10, 2 );

📝 Changelog

1.0.4 (2026-10-19)

• Feature: Added conditional featured cover image for single articles with responsive banner styling.
• Feature: Added cover thumbnails to Featured Articles cards with text-only clean fallback.
• Feature: Added 44×44px thumbnails to Recently Updated and Popular article lists with flush text fallback when no image exists.
• Feature: Added global show_featured_image toggle in Layout & Display settings.
• UI: Added solo expansion for dual column sections when only one list has active content.

1.0.3 (2026-10-19)

• UI: Overhauled frontend search submit button into a sleek rounded pill with centered search icon and white text.
• UI: Enforced flexbox centering on all button labels and icons across admin panels.
• Fix: Guaranteed pure white sidebar menu icon via high-contrast filters against dark admin menus.

1.0.2 (2026-10-19)

• UI: Standardized settings navigation to strictly single-line horizontal tabs with smooth horizontal scrolling.
• UI: Enhanced admin header banner with live status badge and quick action shortcuts.

1.0.1 (2026-10-19)

• Feature: Added dedicated Overview & How to Use tab with architecture breakdown and shortcodes table.
• Fix: Restored missing License tab lock icon.

1.0.0 (2026-10-19)

• Initial production release.
• Custom Post Type wpcb_article with Gutenberg, revisions, and thumbnail support.
• Hierarchical categories wpcb_category and non-hierarchical tags wpcb_tag.
• Live REST search engine with keyboard navigation and accessible fallback.
• Helpfulness voting widget and privacy-friendly search analytics.
• Automated Table of Contents and breadcrumbs with Schema.org JSON-LD.
• Gutenberg blocks and shortcode engine.
• One-click article duplicator and visual order manager.

📄 License & Author

• Author: WPCalibrate
• Support: support@wpcalibrate.com | Hotline/WhatsApp: +447474795976
• Marketplace: marketplace.wpcalibrate.com
• License: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later (GPL-2.0-or-later)