Adding new blocks to WordPress can feel like a tradeoff. We either get useful design options, or we get extra weight, extra settings, and a new way of doing things that doesn’t match WordPress.
In this first look, we spent time with Midnay Block Suite, a WordPress plugin that adds Block Editor-native blocks and pre-designed patterns. The focus is clear: give us more layout and content tools without burying us in bloat.
Midnay Block Suite is built to extend the WordPress block editor with a set of content and layout blocks, plus patterns that act as starting points for pages and sections. The plugin positions itself around a few themes that matter to WordPress site owners and agencies: speed, modular control, and a clean Block Editor experience.
How to Get the Best Deal on Midnay Block Suite
InfluenceWP has an exclusive Midnay Block Suite deal.
Midnay Block Suite—First Look Video
What We Noticed About Midnay Website Before Installing It
We started on the Midnay Block Suite product page with the top navigation, looking for the pages that help people make a fast and confident decision: clear feature lists, real screenshots, documentation, and trust signals like changelogs and team details.
The Features page does a good job of stating the core promises of their plugin in plain language.
- Lightweight, powerful, and flexible
- Easy documentation and support (setup guides and responsive support)
- Block Editor native (works directly inside the block editor)
- Modular control (enable only the blocks you need)
- Fully responsive (blocks adapt across devices)
- Speed optimized (no bloat, clean code built for performance)
The feature list also calls out the main blocks and tools included, and the list matters because it sets expectations for what we should find in the editor. It also helps agencies decide if the plugin covers real client needs (content grids, filters, sliders, and calls to action) without requiring a page builder.
- Post grid
- Post grid layouts
- Post filters
- URL snippets
- Post highlights
- Slider
- Parallax
- Countdown
- Button
- Icon
- Post ticker
Where the Plugin “Settings” Live, and How We Found the Blocks
Inside the WordPress admin, we went to Settings and found the Midnay Block Suite area. To add Midnay blocks in a post, we used two common Block Editor workflows:
- The slash command in the editor (the forward slash that leans to the right), then typing “midnight” to filter blocks
- The block inserter (the plus icon), then searching and browsing blocks and patterns
When we typed “midnight,” we saw the Midnay blocks appear as expected, and we could insert them like any other block. This is the experience we want from a Block Editor-native plugin: no separate builder UI, no custom editor, and no fighting WordPress.
Post Grid Block Deep Dive: What We Could Control Without Touching Code
We spent the most time on the Post Grid block because it’s one of the clearest indicators of how much control the plugin gives us and how clean the settings UI feels.
Once inserted, Post Grid settings appear in the right sidebar. The controls are extensive, but they follow a pattern we saw across the plugin: a mix of toggles for visibility, typography controls, layout controls, and styling controls.
Here are some of the Post Grid options we used and verified:
Title and structure controls
- Hide the main title section (the “Post Grid” heading displayed by the block)
- Choose a heading level (it starts at H2 by default, and we can change it for SEO and page structure)
Link behavior and appearance
- Set title font size and colors
- Adjust link settings, including hiding links and controlling link styling
Content selection
- Choose which post type to pull from (posts by default)
- Hide terms, exclude terms, and filter by taxonomy
- Exclude specific posts (we tested this by searching for a post and excluding it)
Layout and spacing
- Flex direction, wrapping, alignment, justification
- Column gap and row gap (we increased the gap to confirm the spacing changed)
- Padding and margins
Backgrounds and overlays
- Background color
- Background image
- Overlay color with adjustable opacity (useful when placing text over images)
What stood out is how much of this is achievable without extra plugins. Agencies often install one plugin for grids, another for sliders, and another for buttons. Midnay is trying to cover a lot of those basics in one consistent block set.
Styling Individual Post Cards, Featured Images, and Hover Effects
Post Grid also separates “container styling” from “post styling,” which is important. We can style the overall grid area and then style each post card inside the grid.
We tested:
- Setting a background color on the grid container
- Setting a different background color on the post cards
- Featured image controls, including the ability to hide the featured image
- Hover effects (we tested grayscale and then viewed the post on the front end to confirm the effect)
Once we added a featured image to a post, we could see the hover behavior work on the live page. This kind of front-end confirmation matters, because some hover settings won’t always be obvious inside the editor.
We also noticed quality-of-life controls that help during real client work:
- Reset options exist at the overall level, and also inside individual sections
- There’s a field for additional CSS classes, which is helpful for agencies that keep small styling rules in a theme or custom CSS plugin
Taken together, Post Grid felt like a serious block, not a demo block. It offers real controls for filtering, layout, and styling, and it stays inside the Block Editor workflow.
Quick tour: the other Midnay blocks we tested and what they’re for
After the deep Post Grid review, we moved faster through other blocks to see what they do out of the box and how the settings are organized.
Post Grid Layouts
This block focuses on pre-built layout styles. We saw options like layout one, layout two, layout three, and more. The idea is simple: we can pick a layout style first, then adjust details with the usual sidebar controls.
Post Ticker
A post ticker is meant for scrolling or rotating post titles. It’s a common UI for news, announcements, or “latest posts” areas.
Post Filter
This block is designed to let visitors refine content by taxonomy and terms. The description in the editor calls out that it “enables users to refine posts by chosen taxonomies and terms,” which is the core of category and tag filtering.
URL Snippet
This one creates a share-style popup. We could change the icon, set a popup title, and adjust popup styles like background and text color. On the front end, it appeared to pull share options from the operating system, rather than providing a full social share menu inside the plugin.
If you need a full social share plugin with networks and counts, this may not replace that. If you want a simple “share this page” style UI tied to OS sharing, it fits.
Advanced Button
We saw pre-built button styles, plus controls for text, links, opening in a new tab, and icon selection. We also tested background color, text color, font weight, padding, and border settings. Border behavior took some tinkering depending on the chosen pre-built style, which is worth remembering if a button doesn’t respond the way we expect right away.
Icons
Icons can pull from Dashicons and Font Awesome. We tested changing the icon, scaling it up, rotating it, changing colors, setting hover colors, and adding hover border width and border color. It’s a flexible icon block with the common controls we use in real layouts.
Slider
The slider supports settings like loop vs fade, pagination with arrows, and autoplay. We also used List View to select the right block when the editor got busy, which is a practical tip for any block editor-heavy page.
We ran into a moment of confusion getting multiple slides to behave as expected, and we noted it could be user error. Still, it’s an area we would retest on a real page build before using it for a client hero section.
Post Highlights
This block is for selecting and displaying specific posts with more emphasis. We could select post types, set posts per page, pick specific posts, and control what metadata appears (terms, author, date). Styling controls covered background, borders, radiuses, featured image behavior, and layout alignment.
Countdown and Parallax: Two Specialty Blocks With Different Setup Expectations
Two blocks stood out because they require a slightly different mental model than the usual “insert block, configure settings” flow.
Countdown Block: Multiple Styles and Full Control Over the Parts
The Countdown block includes several display styles:
- Default
- Flip clock
- Vertical
- Grid
- Circular
To make it work, we set a future date. Once the date was set, the design controls made more sense. We could style the title, the countdown items, and each part of the counter.
Some of the options we saw:
- Item background color (for each unit)
- Value styling (font size, weight, color)
- Label styling (for the unit labels)
- Animation settings, including scroll animation
- Expiry behavior (show a message or hide the counter)
If you choose Flip Clock, you also get a block of flip-specific settings that stays visible even when switching styles.
Parallax Block: It Needs at Least Two Sections
At first, parallax didn’t appear to do anything special. The missing piece was structure. The documentation clarified that we need at least two single parallax sections for the animation to show.
The working setup looked like this:
- Add the Parallax block.
- Add an image inside a single parallax section.
- Duplicate the single parallax section so there are at least two.
- Update and view on the front end to see the motion effect.
We didn’t see a long list of parallax-specific settings, so this seems intended to be a simple “drop in sections and go” parallax effect.
Using Midnay Patterns: Where to Find Them and What to Expect
Patterns are often the fastest way to judge a block suite, because they show how the blocks work together in real layouts.
We opened the block inserter (plus icon), switched to Patterns, and then searched for Midnay. The key detail is that patterns are grouped under MBS. The patterns area stated that we should see five categories of MBS patterns.
We tested a few:
- MBS Call to Action: This dropped in a ready-to-edit CTA section, including a button that uses the Advanced Button block. From there, we could click into any element and adjust it like normal Block Editor content.
- MBS Home: This inserted a fuller homepage-style layout. It’s a strong example of what patterns should do: give us a starting point that we can edit, move, and break apart.
Patterns aren’t meant to be perfect on day one. Most of the time, we drop them in, then adjust spacing, colors, typography, and content to match the site. The value is speed and structure, not a final design that fits every brand.
Final Thoughts
Midnay Block Suite gives us a strong set of Block Editor-native blocks with real controls for layout, styling, and content display. Post Grid and Post Highlights show the depth of the settings, and the patterns give a quick way to assemble sections without starting from a blank page.