Block Gallery, my Gutenberg block project for building beautiful galleries with WordPress 5.0, was announced as this year’s winner in the Best Solution category of the Automattic Design Awards.
2018
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Better onboarding for WordPress themes
You have no idea how awesome it feels to finally have the first official version of Merlin WP released. After many months of development, Merlin WP 1.0 is finally here. I first wrote about improving the onboarding experience of WordPress themes late last year, and since publishing the initial beta, Merlin WP has received quite a lot of attention.
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Introducing Block Gallery
It’s no secret that I’m a huge proponent of Gutenberg, the new block editor to be released next month in WordPress 5.0. Ever since WordCamp US last year, I’ve been deep into all things Gutenberg, wrapping my head around block development and working on supporting the new editor in all my themes.
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Block Unit Test
There’s no better time to start exploring how each of our WordPress themes will interface with Gutenberg. So to help folks level-up their themes to support the new WordPress block editor, I built the Block Unit Test WordPress plugin.
Testing every core block within Gutenberg — and every variation of every block — is no small task. As a founder of a pretty awesome WordPress theme shop with over 20 active themes, I needed to employ a fast-paced methodology to testing, preparing my WordPress themes for Gutenberg. The Block Unit Test WordPress Plugin is built just for that purpose: to easily prepare WordPress themes for Gutenberg.
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CoBlocks 1.0
As you’ve probably been well aware of, I’ve been living and breathing all things Gutenberg since attending WordCamp US last year. And while I have a few irons in the fire, with a change as profound as the new block editor, there’s not a better time to dive in and continue exploring… cue CoBlocks!
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The ultimate guide to WordPress color palettes
While there is no shortage of articles published about adding general support for a theme’s color palette within the Gutenberg editor, I’m going to focus on the color class changes deployed in Gutenberg 2.8.
Gutenberg includes a default color palette component for blocks to utilize, although it’s relatively easy for a WordPress theme to provide a more suitable palette to empower users.
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The Future of WordPress Themes
A couple weeks ago, I took the plunge and activated Gutenberg on my personal blog. There were a few quirks here and there, but for the most part, migrating to the new Gutenberg block editor has been a pleasant experience. Want to try out Gutenberg my theme + my theme?
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Deploying the Block Editor
This morning I deployed the Gutenberg block editor, the upcoming block-based editor for WordPress core, on this blog — and guess what? My website didn’t implode and disappear into the abyss! While the migration was not completely clean cut, the operation was pretty smooth.
Here’s what went down on my journey migrating richtabor.com to use the Gutenberg block editor.
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WordCamp Atlanta, 2018
Believe it or not, this year was my first WordCamp Atlanta experience ever. While I have lived in Georgia for a number of years, I’ve never been able to make it.
Let me tell you, I sure am glad I made it this year. In short, WordCamp Atlanta was great. It was a weekend full of thoughtful talks, bright folks from all over the world, awesome parties, and a lot of what makes the WordPress community so vibrant — diversity.
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Running a Successful Product
Seven years ago, I started my excursion into the WordPress product space by building and selling WordPress themes at ThemeBeans.
Since then, there have been many ups and downs, but through it all, I have learned countless valuable lessons, shaping who I’ve become as a person and an entrepreneur. Here are a few crucial lessons I’ve personally digested while running a successful WordPress product shop.
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Merlin WP, a release candidate
Merlin WP, the WordPress theme setup wizard that I started working on a number of months ago, has finally neared its first stable release (GitHub). Click here to view the release notes, detailed by Primož Cigler.
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Ulysses & Tabor
Ulysses is a fantastic writing app. In fact, the app has been my go-to writing companion for a couple years now, and I honestly couldn’t be happier with it. The minimally beautiful app is a pleasant writing experience that few competitors have come close to copying.
While Ulysses has a number of built-in themes and styles, I wanted to build a custom style based on Tabor, my popular WordPress theme for content marketers and writers.
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A space for blocks
As I mentioned last week in my 2017 Year in Review post, I’ve been learning quite a lot about how WordPress themes will interface with Gutenberg and developing Gutenberg blocks myself. Sure, there are a number of unknowns surrounding the project, but if you’re still worried about the pending release of WordPress 5.0 and Gutenberg, now is a better time than ever to start educating yourself.
I had the idea for a content spacer block as I was having a tough time creating ample spacing between even the simplest Gutenberg blocks. So I built the GutenKit Spacer Block, a nifty block plugin for Gutenberg that lets you easily add white space between content blocks.
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My first WordPress.org theme
After months of waiting in the WordPress theme review queue, I’m stoked to finally release my first WordPress theme on the WordPress.org Theme Directory. Introducing York Lite, a lovely WordPress theme for bloggers and photographers.
