Live content reference guide

Live content keeps pages built with Uncanny Page Builder current on their own: a footer whose copyright year is always right, a “latest posts” section that updates itself, a welcome message that greets logged-in members by name. This reference explains how live content works, then lists every live element with a short description of each.

For a practical introduction with examples, see Adding live elements to your pages.

How live content works: data bindings

Every live element is powered by a data binding: a declared link between an element on your page and a piece of WordPress data.

Static text copies today’s value into the page. A binding instead stores which data it’s bound to, such as “the site title”, “the current user’s name” or “the three most recent posts”. When a visitor requests the page, Page Builder resolves each binding on the server and writes the current value into the page’s HTML. No extra scripts are sent to the browser for the data; the visitor receives finished HTML and CSS.

Each of the 91 built-in bindings declares three things:

1. What data it connects to: a site setting, the current post, the visitor, a list of posts, a menu, and so on.
2. How it renders: as text, an image, a link, a form, a card grid, or a wrapper that shows or hides its contents.
3. How it behaves without the plugin: its offline snapshot behavior, described below.

Bindings render inside your design like any other element, so you can style them per device and per state, exactly like static content. You add them the same way you build everything else: ask Uncanny Agent (“add a section showing my three latest posts”) or work in the Manual editor.

Offline snapshots vs. live-only bindings

Bindings come in two classes. The difference matters if Uncanny Automator is ever deactivated:

• Snapshot-capable bindings (marked ✓ in the tables below) are included when you download the page as HTML (Downloading, exporting, and moving your pages), with the values they have at the time of the download.
• Live-only bindings depend on data available only when the page is requested, most often who is viewing it, so they are left out of a downloaded HTML file. On the live site both classes need Uncanny Automator active: if the plugin is deactivated, every live element is removed from the page until it is active again.

Privacy and governance by design

Two safety properties are built into the binding system:

• Visitor-specific data is never stored. Bindings such as Current User Name are always resolved when the page is requested, so personal details are never saved into your page content.
• Open-ended bindings are governed. Bindings that could reach arbitrary data (WP Option, Post Meta, User Meta, WordPress Shortcode, and WP Embed) only expose allowlisted or governed values and approved providers, so a page can’t leak site internals.

The full catalog

Reading the “Offline snapshot” column: ✓ means the element is included, with its value at the time of the download, in a downloaded HTML copy of the page. Live-only means the element is left out of the download. On the live site, every element needs the plugin active.

Site identity and branding (12)

Visitor-aware and membership (13)

Conditional sections: show or hide by audience or context (18)

Each of these wraps other content and shows it only when its condition is met.

Current page and post details (17)

Post-to-post navigation (5)

Post and content lists: repeating card grids (11)

WordPress Post Query can list any content type on the site. Courses or products appear as generic cards (title, image, and link), without plugin-specific data such as prices or course progress.

Navigation and site-structure lists (5)

Forms and embeds (3)

Social sharing (4)

Site statistics (3)

Related: Adding live elements to your pages, Downloading, exporting, and moving your pages, Troubleshooting Uncanny Page Builder