External Content Block

External Content Block is a WordPress Gutenberg block plugin that fetches and displays content from any external URL. Simply add the block, enter a URL, and the content will be loaded server-side and displayed on your site.

Key Features:

• Easy-to-use block interface with real-time URL validation
• Configurable HTML sanitization (strict by default, or raw HTML output)
• Customizable timeout (1-60 seconds) and WordPress transients caching support
• Enhanced security with URL validation and error handling
• Works with any WordPress theme

Important: Content is loaded server-side using PHP, which means the source URL is not visible to end users, requests originate from your WordPress server's IP address (useful for IP-based authentication), and currently only GET requests are supported.

Installation

1. Download or clone this repository
2. Upload the external-content-block folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
3. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
4. Start using the "URL Block" in the Gutenberg editor

Usage

1. In the Gutenberg editor, click the "+" button to add a new block
2. Search for "URL Block" or find it in the "Widgets" category
3. Enter the URL you want to load content from
4. Configure the block settings:
   • URL: The full URL of the content you want to display (e.g., https://example.com/content)
   • Sanitize HTML (default: enabled): When enabled, HTML is sanitized using wp_kses_post() for security. When disabled, content is injected exactly as received (including scripts and all HTML tags). ⚠️ Warning: Only disable if you trust the source URL.
   • Timeout (seconds) (default: 5, range: 1-60): Maximum time to wait for the request to complete. If exceeded, an error will be displayed.
   • Cache TTL (seconds) (default: 0, range: 0-86400): When set to a value greater than 0, content is cached using WordPress transients. Set to 0 to disable caching. Examples: 3600 = 1 hour, 86400 = 24 hours.
5. The content will be displayed on the frontend of your site

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher (Gutenberg editor)
• PHP 7.0 or higher

Author

Matías Roldán

• GitHub: @roldan

License

This plugin is licensed under the GPLv2 or later.

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page.