I was recently asked by a customer of our Design Upgrade Pro for LearnDash plugin if there was a way to improve the view of the course grid output on mobile. She wasn’t pleased with how everything just stacked on top of each other on smaller screens.
Enter the LearnDash course grid carousel 🎉! With a little CSS, we can create a beautiful, scrolling carousel in LearnDash.
I have answered this question so many times in the LearnDash Facebook group, and now it’s time to answer it here one final time.
What is the best image size to use for the LearnDash course grid images?
Is your LearnDash course grid CSS not loading? Perhaps your courses are only being displayed in one column, instead of 3 or 4 columns. This is a common issue when using the course grid with Elementor, Divi & other page builders.
Let’s fix this problem and make sure your course grid is displaying exactly the number of columns you told it to (using the col="X" parameter).
When using LearnDash course grid parameters to customize the output of the grid, some users or instances might return no results. By default, when the course grid doesn’t show any courses, the area is left blank. But what if you want to display a custom message in place of your grid when no courses are available?
This article will show you how to do that.
In LearnDash’s course grid, only the featured image & “see more…” button are clickable by default. If you click on the course title, or the short description, nothing happens. Many people expect the course title to take them to the course page, so let’s see how we can make that happen.
For a lot of LearnDash users, the course grid add-on is an essential component to designing the learning experience. You can filter & sort the course grid in a myriad of ways. This article will focus on one of the key components of the course grid—the short description.
Update: 8 Feb 2021 (version 1.7 of course grid plugin)
Short descriptions now support most HTML tags.
We’ll explore:
Some creative ideas include:
You’ve decided to use LearnDash for your LMS (great choice 👌). And you realized that the default courses archive page looks pretty terrible. But thankfully, you’ve discovered the LearnDash Course Grid add-on. And now you want to take it to the next level.
This post will cover many of the various ways you can customize the LearnDash course grid. There are around 20 different parameters you can use to make your course grid just right, along with various ways to improve your grid’s design. Follow along as I walk you through each one, along with code samples.
🎉 UPDATED for Course Grid 2.0+
On Nov 17, 2021, LearnDash released version 2.0 of the Course Grid add-on. This completely changed how the course grid works. We’ve included information for both versions below. If you see 1.x, that means the old course grid using version 1.7 or below and the [ld_course_list] shortcode. 2.x means version 2.0 or higher and using the “LearnDash Course Grid” block or [learndash_course_grid] shortcode.
Table of Contents
Make sure you have installed & activated the course grid add-on.
Once you’ve activated the course grid add-on, there are a few additional pieces of information you can add to each course. This info can be displayed when viewing your course grid.
The first option under “Courses” will be “Short Description.” This only appears when you have the Course Grid add-on active. It’s completely optional, but allows you to add a short description (just like an excerpt) to explain what the course is about.
The only place this will be displayed is in the course grid.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a section for LearnDash Course Grid Settings. Here you’ll find a few more options:
By default, the course grid will display the featured image you have set for your course. You have the option of showing a video instead.
First, you’ll need to check the Enable Video Preview.
Then, you’ll insert a link to your video in the Video URL or Embed Code box. Simply grab the URL from the address bar of the video you’d like to use.
For YouTube, it would look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLCkDWc8iLIFor Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/275112402NOTE: Currently, course grid video supports YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia & native videos that you upload through the Media Library. It might also work with Spotlightr (formerly vooPlayer), Amazon S3 & Presto Player, but the official documentation is unclear. See here for officially supported video players.
Each course can have it’s own custom button text displayed in the course grid. Keep in mind, however, that if you add custom button text here, it will always be displayed in your grid, regardless of whether your student has completed the course, the course is free, etc.
Just like the button text, if you add custom ribbon text in this field, it will be displayed in your course grid. Again, even if a student has completed the course, or you set the course as free, the custom ribbon text will always be displayed.
Simply leave these fields blank if you wish to use the default LearnDash language for your course grid buttons & ribbons.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more LearnDash tutorials.
The following information is for Course Grid version 2.0 or higher, and assumes you are using either the “LearnDash Course Grid” block in the block editor, or the [learndash_course_grid] shortcode.
There are two ways to use the new course grid:
[learndash_course_grid] shortcode. This allows you to use the course grid with Elementor, another page builder, in a custom template file, or anywhere else on your site.When using the block, you’ll have a set of block options in the right sidebar, just like all other blocks in WordPress.
When using the shortcode, you have a ton of parameters (or options) available to you as well. We’ll explain what these are below, and show you how to use them.
You can display more than just courses with the new LearnDash Course Grid. You can display any post type, which includes but is not limited to:
LearnDash has done a pretty good job of documenting the course grid block options so I won’t repeat them all here. But I’ll try to make a video soon that walks you through them more visually.
As of April 2022, these are not documented by LearnDash, so I will show you all of the parameters that you can use with the [learndash_course_grid] shortcode. There are actually even more options available when using the shortcode vs. using the block.
Here’s a quick example of using the shortcode to display a grid with the Skin 2 card, a large thumbnail, and hiding the meta info.
[learndash_course_grid skin="grid" card="grid-2" thumbnail_size="large" post_meta="false"]Now let’s get into all the parameters:
NOTE
There have been reports that many of the parameters for Styles do not work.
| Feature | Description | Parameter & Default | Possible Values |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post Type | What elements to display in the grid | post_type="sfwd-courses" | sfwd-coursessfwd-lessonssfwd-topicsfwd-quizpagepostor any other custom post type |
| Per Page | Number of elements to display before pagination | per_page="9" | any integer (try 0 to show all) |
| Course Sorting | How to sort the elements in your grid. | orderby="ID" | titleIDdatemodifiedmenu_orderrand…and more |
| Order of Sorting | The sort order for the “orderby” parameter. | order="DESC" | ASCDESC |
| Taxonomies | Categories, tags, and custom taxonomies (separate multiple with commas) | taxonomies="" | any registered taxonomyld_course_categoryld_course_tagcategorypost_tag |
| Enrollment Status | Enrolled or not | enrollment_status="" | enrollednot-enrolled |
| Progress Status | Not started, completed, or in progress | progress_status="" | not_started, completed, in_progress |
| Thumbnail | Show thumbnail? | thumbnail="true" | truefalse |
| Thumbnail Size | Thumbnail image size | thumbnail_size="thumbnail" | thumbnailmediumlargefullany custom image size |
| Ribbon | Show ribbon? | ribbon="true" | truefalse |
| Video | Show video preview? | video="false" | truefalse |
| Content | Show content? (includes title, desc, button) | content="true" | truefalse |
| Title | Show title? | title="true" | truefalse |
| Clickable Title | Make title clickable? | title_clickable="true" | truefalse |
| Description | Show description? | description="true" | truefalse |
| Description Character Limit | Max characters to show for description | description_char_max="120" | any integer |
| Button | Show button? | button="true" | truefalse |
| Filter | Show filter options? | filter="true" | truefalse |
| Pagination | Pagination type | pagination="button" | buttoninfinitepagesfalse |
| Equal Height | Equal height grid items | grid_height_equal="false" | truefalse |
| Progress Bar | Show progress bar? | progress_bar="false" | truefalse |
| Post Meta | Show post meta? | post_meta="true" | truefalse |
| Skin | Type of skin | skin="grid" | gridmasonrylist |
| Card | Type of card | card="grid-1" | grid-1grid-2grid-3list-2list-2 |
| Columns | Number of columns (only in grid & masonry, not list) | columns="3" | any integer, but recommend 1-6 |
| Min Column Width (px) | Set a minimum width for every column | min_column_width="250" | any integer |
| Styles | |||
| Title Font Family | font_family_title="" | any available font family | |
| Description Font Family | font_family_description="" | any available font family | |
| Title Font Size | font_size_title="" | any available font size value | |
| Description Font Size | font_size_description="" | any available font size value | |
| Title Font Color | font_color_title="" | any available color value | |
| Description Font Color | font_color_description="" | any available color value | |
| Title Background Color | background_color_title="" | any available color value | |
| Description Background Color | background_color_description="" | any available color value | |
| Ribbon Background Color | background_color_ribbon="" | any available color value | |
| Ribbon Font Color | font_color_ribbon="" | any available color value | |
| Icon Background Color | background_color_icon="" | any available color value | |
| Icon Font Color | font_color_icon="" | any available color value | |
| Button Background Color | background_color_button="" | any available color value | |
| Button Font Color | font_color_button="" | any available color value | |
| Class | Add a custom class for CSS styling | class_name="" | any valid HTML class |
| ID | Add a custom ID | id="" | any valid HTML ID |
| Filter | |||
| Search | Shows only courses in the specified WordPress category. Use the category ID. | filter_search="true" | truefalse |
| Taxonomies | Show taxonomies in filter? | filter_taxonomies="category, post_tag" | any registered taxonomyld_course_categoryld_course_tagcategorypost_tag |
| Price | Show price in filter? | filter_price="true" | truefalse |
| Min Price | Set a minimum value for the price filter | filter_price_min="0" | any integer |
| Max Price | Set a maximum value for the price filter | filter_price_max="1000" | any integer |
This section will cover how to use the old course grid found in versions 1.7 and below of the LearnDash Course Grid add-on. We’ll cover all the various options you have for customizing your LearnDash course grid with the old [ld_course_list] shortcode.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more LearnDash tutorials.
Here’s what the basic shortcode looks like for inserting the course grid on your site:
[ld_course_list]The default options for the course grid will display your courses in 3 columns, and include:
If that’s all you need, great. But we can do a lot more.
The following options are enabled by using parameters that modify the shortcode. You can combine as many parameters as you’d like in one shortcode.
You can choose any number of columns from 1 to 7. Simply add col="4" to your shortcode. Change the “4” to the number of columns you’d like to display.
Now I’ll share a handful of CSS snippets that you can use to customize the course grid in various ways. These only work with the legacy course grid output (1.x), using the [ld_course_list] shortcode for “LearnDash Course List” block.
All of the following code should be placed in the Additional CSS area of the Customizer (Appearance > Customize).
BuddyBoss / Social Learner
Most of these snippets WILL NOT work with the BuddyBoss platform or theme. They customized the HTML output for the course grid, so the class & ID names are different. Sorry 🙁.
Center-align the course title in your grid using the following CSS:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
text-align: center;
}If you made the course title part of your image, and want to hide the title, you can use this instead:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
display: none;
}You can adjust the font size of the title in the LearnDash course grid using the following CSS:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
font-size: 20px;
}NOTE: If you want to make multiple changes to the course title, you should combine them all into one declaration, like this:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
font-size: 20px;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
}You can adjust the font size of the course grid description using the following CSS.
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-content {
font-size: 20px;
}PRO TIP
We’ve got an entire article dedicated to short descriptions in the course grid →
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course, .ld_course_grid .thumbnail {
background: #113263;
}.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-title,
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
color: #fec300;
}You can also change the color of the course grid description.
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-content {
color: #000;
}[ld_course_list col="4"]The progress bar is not shown by default. If enabled, it will be shown for current students only, and display a student’s progress in that course. To show the progress bar, add progress_bar="true" to your shortcode.
[ld_course_list progress_bar="true"]You can specify exactly how many courses you want to be displayed in your grid. Use the num parameter. As far as I’m aware, there is no limit here. Any integer should work. If you have more courses than the number used, pagination will be shown at the bottom of your grid.
[ld_course_list num="12"]By default, your course grid will be ordered based on the date your courses were published. You can change this with a handful of different options. Use the orderby parameter to change your grid’s sort order.
[ld_course_list orderby="menu_order"]orderby should be used in conjunction with the next option, order, to specify ascending or descending.
You can set orderby to any of the following options:
title – uses the course titleID – uses the course IDdate – uses the original publish datemodified – uses the date the course was modified/updatedmenu_order – uses the specified menu order that you providedrand – displays your courses at randomThe order parameter will only take effect when used with the orderby parameter. order tells your grid whether to sort courses by ascending (lowest to highest) or descending (highest to lowest) values.
orderby="title", your courses would be displayed in alphabetical order from A-Z.date & modified), ascending will show the oldest content first, while descending will show the most recent content first.ID & menu_order, ascending will show the lowest number first (i.e. 1), while descending will show the highest number first.[ld_course_list orderby="title" order="ASC"]By default, your course grid will display the course title, a short description (if you’ve entered one), and a button that links to the course. You can hide all of these things, and just show the thumbnail, using the show_content parameter.
[ld_course_list show_content="false"]By default, your grid will display the course thumbnail image. You can hide the image by using the show_thumbnail parameter.
[ld_course_list show_thumbnail="false"]NOTE: Do not use both show_content="false" and show_thumbnail="false" as it will cause your course grid to display empty boxes with nothing inside.
If you want to use the course grid on a student’s profile page, you can use the mycourses parameter to only display the courses that the current user is enrolled in.
[ld_course_list mycourses="true"]You can also choose to show only those courses in which a student is NOT enrolled:
[ld_course_list mycourses="not-enrolled"]You can also choose to show only courses that fall within a particular course status for the user. Of all the courses that a user is enrolled in, you can show only those that they have completed, or only the ones that are still in progress (started but not yet completed).
Use the following to only show a user’s completed courses:
[ld_course_list mycourses="true" status="completed"]Use the following to show only those courses in which a user has started but not yet completed:
[ld_course_list mycourses="true" status="in_progress"]Use the following to show only the courses that a user is enrolled in and has not started:
[ld_course_list mycourses="true" status="not_started"]In a recent version of LearnDash (~3.4), a new parameter was added for price_type. It allows you to only show courses that have been assigned a specific access mode in the course settings.
There are 5 access modes:
open)free)paynow)subscribe)closed)Here’s an example showing 4 of the 5 access modes, excluding “open” courses:
[ld_course_list price_type="free,paynow,subscribe,closed"]LearnDash courses have their own built-in category & tag system, just like WordPress itself. If you use LearnDash categories & tags to further organize your courses, you can filter your course grid by using the following parameters:
course_cat="10" – Only show courses assigned to the category with ID of 10course_category_name="math" – Only show courses whose category slug is mathcourse_tag_id="10" – Only show courses assigned to the tag with ID of 10course_tag="math" – Only show courses whose tag slug is mathNOTE: You can only use one category or tag per shortcode. Using multiple categories/tags will not work. This is invalid: [ld_course_list course_cat="1,2"]. It will show courses in the first category, 1, and ignore the 2.
You can allow the user to filter the course grid by adding a dropdown menu to the top of your grid.
To allow filtering by LearnDash categories…
[ld_course_list course_categoryselector="true"]To allow filtering by WordPress categories…
[ld_course_list categoryselector="true"]At this time, the dropdown menu filter only works for categories, not tags.
This works in the same way as the LearnDash categories & tags, only the parameters are different:
cat="10" – Only show courses assigned to the category with ID of 10category_name="math" – Only show courses whose category slug is mathtag_id="10" – Only show courses assigned to the tag with ID of 10tag="math" – Only show courses whose tag slug is mathIf you have the Course Grid add-on installed, but want to disable grid for a single instance of the course list, you can do so with the course_grid parameter:
[ld_course_list course_grid="false"]
The design won’t be pretty, but this might be an option if you’re writing your own custom CSS.
Here’s a complete list of all the options available for the old version of the LearnDash course grid. You can use as many parameters as you’d like. Here’s an example of how to use multiple parameters with the [ld_course_list] shortcode:
[ld_course_list col="4" progress_bar="true" num="12" orderby="title" order="ASC"]| Feature | Description | Parameter | Possible Values |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disable Grid | This will disable the grid layout for this particular instance. | course_grid="false" | false |
| Grid Columns | Number of columns your grid will have on large screens. | col="4" | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
| Progress Bar | A visual indicator of a student’s current progress in each course. | progress_bar="true" | true |
| Number of Courses | How many courses will be displayed in your grid. | num="10" | any integer |
| Course Sorting | How to sort the courses in your grid. | orderby="title" | titleIDdatemodifiedmenu_orderrand…and more |
| Order of Sorting | The sort order for the “orderby” parameter. | order="ASC" | ASCDESC |
| Hide Content | Hide the title, description & button. | show_content="false" | false |
| Hide Thumbnail | Hide the thumbnail image. | show_thumbnail="false" | false |
| My Courses | Shows only the courses in which the current user is enrolled. | mycourses="true" | true |
| Not-Enrolled Courses | Shows only the courses in which the current user is NOT enrolled. | mycourses="not-enrolled" | not-enrolled |
| Course Status | Shows only the courses that correspond to the current user’s status in their enrolled courses. You must set mycourses="true" to use this parameter. | status="completed" | completed in_progress not_started |
| Course Access Mode | Shows only the courses that have been assigned a specific access mode in the course settings. Separate multiple values with commas. | price_type="free,closed" | open free paynow subscribe closed |
| If using LearnDash categories & tags… | |||
| Course Category ID | Shows only courses in the specified LearnDash category. Use the category ID. | course_cat="10" | any course category ID |
| Course Category Name/Slug | Shows only courses in the specified LearnDash category. Use the category slug. | course_category_name="math" | any course category slug |
| Course Tag ID | Shows only courses tagged with the specified LearnDash tag. Use the tag ID. | course_tag_id="10" | any course tag ID |
| Course Tag Name/Slug | Shows only courses tagged with the specified LearnDash tag. Use the tag slug. | course_tag="math" | any course tag slug |
| Course Category Selector | Adds a dropdown menu to filter the course grid by course category. | course_categoryselector="true" | true |
| If using WordPress categories & tags… | |||
| WordPress Category ID | Shows only courses in the specified WordPress category. Use the category ID. | cat="10" | any WordPress category ID |
| WordPress Category Name/Slug | Shows only courses in the specified WordPress category. Use the category slug. | category_name="math" | any WordPress category slug |
| WordPress Tag ID | Shows only courses tagged with the specified WordPress tag. Use the tag ID. | tag_id="10" | any WordPress tag ID |
| WordPress Tag Name/Slug | Shows only courses tagged with the specified WordPress tag. Use the tag slug. | tag="math" | any WordPress tag slug |
| WordPress Category Selector | Adds a dropdown menu to filter the course grid by WordPress category. | categoryselector="true" | true |
The default LearnDash course grid just doesn’t look that great. The rows are not all equal heights. The spacing is off. And if you use a theme that also uses the Bootstrap framework, your grid might look really wonky.
The best solution to fix all these issues, as well as bring an updated set of styles to your course grid, is to install the free Design Upgrade for LearnDash plugin. This will not only improve your course grid design, but all the other areas of LearnDash will benefit from improved styles.
Disclaimer: This plugin was developed by our team.
If you want even more design control over your LearnDash course grid, check out the pro version. In addition to 20+ specific course grid options, you’ll get over 80 more design options to customize the look & feel of other LearnDash elements on your site. Here’s a quick preview of the course grid features:
The Design Upgrade Pro for LearnDash plugin is great for…
Now I’ll share a handful of CSS snippets that you can use to customize the course grid in various ways. These only work with the legacy course grid output (1.x), using the [ld_course_list] shortcode for “LearnDash Course List” block.
All of the following code should be placed in the Additional CSS area of the Customizer (Appearance > Customize).
BuddyBoss / Social Learner
Most of these snippets WILL NOT work with the BuddyBoss platform or theme. They customized the HTML output for the course grid, so the class & ID names are different. Sorry 🙁.
Center-align the course title in your grid using the following CSS:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
text-align: center;
}If you made the course title part of your image, and want to hide the title, you can use this instead:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
display: none;
}You can adjust the font size of the title in the LearnDash course grid using the following CSS:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
font-size: 20px;
}NOTE: If you want to make multiple changes to the course title, you should combine them all into one declaration, like this:
.ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
font-size: 20px;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
}You can adjust the font size of the course grid description using the following CSS.
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-content {
font-size: 20px;
}PRO TIP
We’ve got an entire article dedicated to short descriptions in the course grid →
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course, .ld_course_grid .thumbnail {
background: #113263;
}.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-title, .ld_course_grid .thumbnail .caption .entry-title {
color: #fec300;
}You can also change the color of the course grid description.
.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption .entry-content {
color: #000;
}.ld_course_grid_button {
display: none;
}body div.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course a.btn-primary {
background: #fff;
color: #000;
}
body div.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course a.btn-primary:hover {
background: #fec300;
color: #000;
}If you’d like to change the course grid buttons to have squared corners, or change the default border radius (24px), you can use the following CSS. Use 0 for squared corners or change the value for your desired roundedness.
body div.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course a.btn-primary {
border-radius: 0;
}There are several different types of ribbons, and the code to style each type is a little different. For the styles I’m going to provide, see the code below for how to structure the CSS.
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon {body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ld_course_grid_price.free {body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon.enrolled {body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ld_course_grid_price.custom {Now that you know which type of ribbon you need to target, here are some styles you can use for various effects.
NOTE
Everything that starts with /* and ends with */ is just for commenting purposes. When you add these examples to your CSS, you can omit those lines. Use as little or as much of these lines as you’d like, and feel free to add more of your own if you know CSS.
/* Change ribbon styles */
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon {
/* background color */
background: #ffa500;
/* text color */
color: #000;
/* add curved edges to inside of ribbon */
border-radius: 0 5px 5px 0;
/* remove text shadow */
text-shadow: none;
/* change font size */
font-size: 18px;
/* remove ribbon shadow */
box-shadow: none;
}
/* Change color of the ribbon's shadow. Colors should match. */
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon::before,
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon.enrolled::before {
border-top-color: #d68b02;
border-right-color: #d68b02;
}
/* Remove ribbon shadow */
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon::before {
display: none;
}This will hide every type of ribbon on the course grid. It could be updated slightly to target only “enrolled” ribbons. See the section above.
body .ld-course-list-items .ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .ribbon {
display: none;
}A handful of common questions & answers about the course grid.
Yes. Make sure you have the course grid add-on plugin installed, and use this shortcode: [ld_group_list]. There is also a Group List block.
There is no documentation on this yet so we’re not sure what options or parameters are available, if any. (updated July 30, 2020)
Yes. Make sure you have the course grid add-on plugin installed, and use this shortcode: [ld_lesson_list course_id="123"]. Replace the course_id with your own.
There is also a Lesson List block.
Yes. Make sure you have the course grid add-on plugin installed, and use this shortcode: [ld_topic_list course_id="123"]. Replace the course_id with your own.
There is also a Topic List block.
Yes. Make sure you have the course grid add-on plugin installed, and use this shortcode: [ld_quiz_list].
There is also a Quiz List block.
Absolutely. Use it on as many pages as you’d like. You can use different parameters each time. Some examples include:
[ld_course_list mycourses="true"] on an account pageshow_content="false" to just show an image gallery of coursescourse_cat="10" or cat="12"Sure. There is no limit to the number of times it can be used on a page.
Here are a few things I do to improve the look of my course grid.