README

Aludra

A page builder made of real blocks.

Description

Aludra is a page builder for the WordPress block editor — not a separate editing app bolted on top of it. 30 native blocks, 21 ready-made sections and 8 whole page layouts, built and edited in the editor you already have. No shortcodes, no proprietary markup, and nothing that turns into a wall of broken tags the day you switch it off.

A theme gives you the palette, the type, the header and the footer; Aludra gives you everything between them — the bands a page is actually made of: heroes, stat rails, trust bars, feature grids, pricing tiers, comparison tables, FAQs, reviews, contact sections and CTA bands.

That holds whatever the site is for. The same sections build a portfolio, a services site, a one-page launch, or a straightforward online presence for a business — the bands are the same, the copy is not.

You rarely start from an empty block. You pick a section — a hero that already has its eyebrow, heading, lead and buttons, in the right style variation — drop it in, and replace the copy. Or you pick a whole page pattern and delete the parts you don't need. Everything is grouped into six categories (Heroes, Proof, Features & Services, Layout, Convert, Navigation) that follow the order a page gets built in, so both the block inserter and the Patterns tab read as a sequence rather than an inventory.

Building a site with Aludra

The division above is the whole idea, and Aviendha is the theme built to that division — a starter FSE theme developed alongside this plugin, which ships no blocks or patterns of its own and composes its pages entirely from aludra/*:

composer require imagewize/aviendha imagewize/aludra

Then activate Aviendha, activate Aludra, and create a page — the eight page patterns are offered in the Site Editor's pattern picker, and the twenty-one section patterns are in the inserter's Patterns tab.

None of this is required. Aludra is theme-neutral: blocks resolve colours from the active theme's palette with fallbacks, so they render correctly on Elayne, on Ixian, or on any other FSE, block, or classic theme. Blocks are individually enable/disable-able under Settings → Aludra.

The plugin exists in the first place because WordPress.org Theme Review prohibits themes from registering custom blocks. Many blocks were originally ported from the Nynaeve theme's native block library, generalised for theme neutrality.

Lineage: Aludra is the direct continuation of the Elayne Blocks plugin (versions ≤ 2.7.1). It was renamed to a builder-themed name (Aludra — the inventor/engineer of the dragons in The Wheel of Time) and generalised into a shared library, since it now serves multiple themes rather than Elayne alone. See CHANGELOG.md for the migration notes.

Included Blocks

About Section Block (aludra/about) - Content section with heading, lead paragraph, offer list, and closing copy
Carousel Block (aludra/carousel) - Responsive image/content carousel with Slick Carousel integration, thumbnails, and arrow customization
Comparison Table Block (aludra/comparison-table) - Filterable spec-sheet comparison: a centred eyebrow/heading/lead, pill filters, and a bordered table with your column highlighted against up to three competitors; composed of Comparison Row and Comparison Cell children
Contact Section Block (aludra/contact-section) - Dark contact section with info column and Contact Form 7 form card
CTA Banner Block (aludra/cta-banner) - Full-width call-to-action band with heading, lead text, and button
CTA Columns Block (aludra/cta-columns) - Dual call-to-action cards with headings, descriptions, and buttons
FAQ Tab Answer Block (aludra/faq-tab-answer) - Individual answer child block for FAQ Tabs
FAQ Tabs Block (aludra/faq-tabs) - Interactive FAQ with vertical tab navigation and dynamic content display
Feature Cards Block (aludra/feature-cards) - Responsive grid of feature highlight cards with icons
Feature List Grid Block (aludra/feature-list-grid) - Two-column grid of features with checkmarks and hover effects
Hero Banner Block (aludra/hero-banner) - Dark full-width hero with an eyebrow badge, heading, lead text, and dual CTA buttons
Hero Split Block (aludra/hero-split) - Split-pane hero with heading, lead text, CTA button, and a desktop/mobile image pair
Icon Grid Block (aludra/icon-grid) - Auto-fit grid of icon + text items with a section header
Load Waterfall Block (aludra/load-waterfall) - Animated network load-time waterfall panel with an LCP marker, for hero sections
Mega Menu Block (aludra/mega-menu) - Advanced navigation menu with mega menu functionality (works best with FSE/block themes)
Pricing Tiers Block (aludra/pricing-tiers) - Three-column pricing comparison table with featured tier highlighting
Review Profiles Block (aludra/review-profiles) - Heading plus a row of round avatar photos with client quotes
Search Overlay Trigger Block (aludra/search-overlay-trigger) - Search icon that opens a full-screen search overlay
Service Detail Cards Block (aludra/service-blocks) - Stacked, numbered service cards with a heading, description, and checklist
Service Intro Block (aludra/service-intro) - Introductory text section for service pages with constrained-width editable paragraphs
Services Block (aludra/services-block) - Section header with a two-per-row grid of icon, heading, and text service cards
Slide Block (aludra/slide) - Individual carousel slides with InnerBlocks support
Spine Section Block (aludra/spine-section) - Page section with a sticky label/heading column beside its content, collapsing to one column on narrow screens
Split Section Block (aludra/split-section) - Page section with a centred header above two panes, media on one side and content on the other, collapsing to one column on narrow screens
Stat Item Block (aludra/stat-item) - Single big-number stat with a caption, used inside Stat Rail; number and caption colours are set independently, and the number can render as a heading
Stat Rail Block (aludra/stat-rail) - Full-width band of big-number stats, for the seam between a hero and the rest of the page, in a dark or light band style
Testimonial Grid Block (aludra/testimonial-grid) - Customer testimonial grid with metrics, using Slick Carousel on larger sets
Trust Bar Block (aludra/trust-bar) - Inline bar of trust-signal items that wraps on mobile

Patterns

Blocks are the raw components; patterns are what you actually build a page from. Both appear in the editor's Patterns tab as live previews of the real blocks.

Section patterns (patterns/section-*.php) — the single bands a page is made of, each pre-filled with plausible copy, the right style variation, and its layout host already in place. Grouped into the same categories as the blocks:

Category	Sections
Heroes	Split Hero, Hero Banner
Proof	Stat Rail, Trust Bar, Client Reviews, Comparison Table, Testimonial Grid
Features & Services	Capability Cards, Services Grid, Feature List, Service Detail Cards, Before and After Icon Grids
Layout	About, Client Carousel, Split with Steps, Service Intro
Convert	Pricing Tiers, FAQ, CTA Banner, Contact, CTA Columns

Every content block is reachable as one of these. The two that are not — Mega Menu and Search Overlay Trigger — belong to a navigation template part rather than to a page; Mega Menu has its own eight template-part patterns below.

Page patterns (patterns/page-*.php) — eight full layouts assembled from those sections, offered when you create a new page:

Page	Composition
Homepage	Split hero, about, client carousel, CTA, pricing, services, reviews, FAQ
Landing	Split hero, stat rail, capabilities, pricing, reviews, FAQ, CTA
Service	Hero, trust bar, capabilities, why-us, pricing, FAQ, CTA
Services Overview	Hero, trust bar, intro, services grid, capabilities, FAQ, CTA
Pricing	Hero, pricing tiers, what's included, FAQ, CTA
About	Hero, trust bar, studio story, capabilities, client types, reviews, CTA
Team	Hero, trust bar, studio story, the people, how we work, CTA
Contact	Contact details + Contact Form 7 card

Carousel patterns — five pre-configured carousel setups (hero, testimonials, product gallery, portfolio, team), plus eight mega menu patterns for building menu template parts.

Requirements

WordPress 6.9 or higher
PHP 7.4 or higher
Works with any WordPress theme (FSE, block, or classic)

Installation

Upload the aludra folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
The blocks will be available in the block editor

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development workflow and build instructions.

License

GPL v3 or later - https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

Credits

Based on blocks originally developed for the Imagewize block themes
Feature Cards, Icon Grid, Trust Bar, Pricing Tiers, Testimonial Grid, CTA Columns, Feature List Grid, Contact Section, Hero Banner, About Section, Services Block, Review Profiles, CTA Banner, Service Intro, and Service Detail Cards blocks ported from the Nynaeve theme and generalised for theme neutrality
Logo: Lucide flower icon via Blade UI Kit (MIT License), drawn in a flat ember orange that holds up on both light and dark backgrounds. The earlier Forkawesome sun mark and the original "nightflower" mark — a nod to the fireworks ("Nightflowers") made by the Guild of Illuminators in The Wheel of Time, Aludra's namesake — remain in assets/logos/ as alternates.
Homepage pattern "Our Clients" carousel: the bike and noodle-bowl icons are Tabler and Maki icons via Blade UI Kit (MIT License). The five client-site mockups themselves live in assets/clients/.
Mega Menu block originally inspired by Human Made's HM Mega Menu Block and substantially enhanced with multiple layout modes, advanced positioning, focus management, and accessibility features
Carousel block originally inspired by the Carousel Block Plugin by Virgiliu Diaconu, but completely reimplemented using Slick Carousel with a different feature set, extensive customization options, and distinct functionality
Built with @wordpress/scripts
Uses Slick Carousel library for carousel functionality

Support

For issues and feature requests, please visit: https://github.com/imagewize/aludra

Author

Jasper Frumau - https://github.com/imagewize

imagewize / aludra

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