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WordPress Canvas Types

The different WordPress canvas types and their uses in Showit

Nicholas Sinden avatar
Written by Nicholas Sinden
Updated over 8 months ago

WordPress Blog Template pages within Showit include an additional setting that helps define the type of post content that your placeholders within a canvas will get replaced with. This setting is not available for normal Showit site pages. The following WordPress Canvas types are available in Showit:

Static Content


The Static Content WordPress Canvas is the default for any new canvas placed on a blog template page. This setting is typically used for headers, footers, sidebars, pagination (next/previous), comments sections, and contact form canvases.

Note: The Static Content WordPress canvas type cannot display a featured image from a blog post.

In Post Loop & Next Post Start


In Post Loop and Next Post Start are very similar WordPress canvas types. While both are used to display previews of your blog posts, there are a few important distinctions you should know so that your blog post previews display correctly on your Blog (Post List) page.

In Post Loop

In Post Loop canvases will be the primary canvas for displaying your blog post previews. If you have only one layout design for your previews that you would like a repeating post preview layout down the page, you will only need this canvas and a pagination canvas.

Next Post Start

Next Post Start canvases are used to create an alternating post preview layout. In order for this canvas to function properly, it must be used after a In Post Loop canvas. Finally, a third empty canvas must be added that is an In Post Loop canvas to close the loop. The end result will look like this:

  1. In Post Loop

  2. Next Post Start

  3. In Post Loop

  4. Static Content (Pagination)

A Next Post Start canvas will let WordPress know when it should switch post layouts when replacing placeholders in the design. This type of canvas should always be followed by another In Post Loop canvas as shown in the screenshot above.

If done properly, your live site should look something like this:

Posts View Lookup


A Posts View Lookup canvas is most commonly used to display a Featured/Recent Posts Section, though there are many more uses for it. You can use this canvas to pull in specific posts using metrics of your choice like date, category, tag, comment count, etc.

Click on the link below to find out more information about how to use Posts View Lookup canvases and what they can do for you.

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