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Card, Testimonial & Slide

The repeating item designs — cards, testimonials and slides — that the loop and slider widgets draw.

Some widgets draw the same shape over and over: a grid of posts, a testimonial slider, a carousel. These three block types let you design that repeating item yourself instead of choosing from fixed styles.

All three follow the same pattern: build the block, then point a widget at it.

Card #

Building a card template, and using it in a loop.

A Card is one post in a list — the thing repeated across a blog grid or a related-posts row. NovaKit Smart Loops draws them.

Five card styles ship built in: Classic, Overlay, List, Timeline, and Custom Template — the last meaning “use a Card block I designed”.

Create the blockWith Section Type set to Card.
Design one itemFeatured image, title, excerpt, date. Use Dynamic Tags so each field pulls from the post being drawn rather than being typed in.
Point a widget at itIn NovaKit Smart Loops, set the style to Custom Template and choose your block.

Use Dynamic Tags, not typed text. A card is drawn once per post. Typing a title in gives you the same title on every card. Click the dynamic icon on a field and choose Post Title, Featured Image and so on.

You can also set a card template site-wide for the blog at Theme Options → Blog Posts → Default Post Card Template.

Testimonial #

Building a testimonial template, start to finish.

Testimonials are their own content type — add them under Testimonials in the admin menu, each with a quote, author, role, photo and rating. NovaKit Testimonials then displays them.

The widget offers four skins — Card, Quote, Portrait, Review — plus Custom Template for a Testimonial block you designed.

It can arrange them four ways: Grid, Masonry, Carousel or Marquee (a continuous scroll).

Add your testimonialsUnder Testimonials in the admin menu.
Design the item, if you want toA Global Block with Section Type set to Testimonial, using the Testimonial dynamic tags for the text and photo.
Place the widgetAdd NovaKit Testimonials to a page, pick a skin and a container, and choose your template if you built one.

Slide #

Building a slide template, and adding it to a slider.

A Slide is one panel in a slider. NovaKit Carousel and NovaKit Swapper both use them — Carousel is a conventional slider, Swapper cross-fades between panels.

Create the blockWith Section Type set to Slide.
Design the panelWhatever one slide should contain.
Add it to a sliderIn NovaKit Carousel or NovaKit Swapper, add a slide and set its source to Template, then choose your block.

Both widgets can also generate slides from posts rather than a fixed list — set the source to Posts and choose one Slide template, and it is drawn once per post.

One template, many slides. Designing one Slide block and driving it from posts means adding a new slide is publishing a post, not editing a page.

How item templates get used #

Block type	Drawn by	Set where
Card	NovaKit Smart Loops	Widget style set to Custom Template, or Theme Options → Blog Posts
Testimonial	NovaKit Testimonials	Widget skin set to Custom Template
Slide	NovaKit Carousel, NovaKit Swapper	Slide source set to Template

None of the three appear on their own — they are only ever drawn by a widget that asks for them. A Card block on its own site does nothing until Smart Loops points at it.