Insights, thoughts, and tips on product, design, and development. Pick a topic and start exploring.
Do you publish online? If so, this one is for you.
I’ll show you how I created a publishing checklist that is automatically added to the top of every post I draft, to ensure I follow my publishing workflow. This way, before I hit that ominous blue publish button, I know if each publishing task is properly accounted for.
This is part one, of three, in a series on standardizing how we build this next generation of WordPress block themes to accompany the Full Site Editing effort. If you like this, read on about standardizing font sizes, and standardizing site spacing. Each of these are what I would consider design foundations of a website, of which should be functionally standardized.
This is part two, of three, in a series on standardizing how we build this next generation of WordPress block themes to accompany the Full Site Editing effort.
If you like this article on font sizes, read on about standardizing color slugs, and standardizing site spacing. Each of these are what I would consider core design tenets of a website, of which should be functionally standardized. By standardizing a few entries within a WordPress theme’s theme.json file, we can finally create a class of themes that truly are interchangeable. Interchangeable in function, while remaining distinct in style.
Here’s a take on why this is important, and how weget there.
This is part three, of three, in a series on standardizing how we build this next generation of WordPress block themes to accompany the Full Site Editing effort.
I’m currently full on in the process of building a full site editing Block Theme to replace my blog’s current theme, Tabor. While diving into this project I’ve explored a few areas where I can improve my personal publishing flow.
The first was bringing editor comments into Gutenberg with my Markdown Comment block, and today I am releasing a second in that same vein: the Todo List block.
Extending the editor with block styles is a quick way to add, or remove, styling defaults to any Gutenberg block.
Among adding block patterns and variations, block styles are a clever way to standardize creative elements of a site running on Gutenberg. I suspect that in time, block styles will become a core component of block themes, alongside block patterns, as they both enable creativity and flare.
And while it is relatively simple to add block styles using PHP, removing them is not quite as easy—especially block styles added by WordPress core (or any added client-side).
Enter Javascript… and I promise, it’s not as daunting as you might think. This article is one of a series of posts I’ve shared since I’ve started diving into building a full site editing block theme for my blog.
In this era of WordPress Block Themes, there are a number of familiar—yet very new—areas of theming that we need to get up to date with. One of those is the concept of block templates.
I know I’ve said this before, but building Gutenberg blocks has honestly never been easier. Better tools, more detailed documentation, and clearer examples are finally here – paving the way for developers to quickly dive into the art of block building, and in particular, building block plugins.
So what’s the big deal about block plugins?
While I’ve long been a fan of block collections, most notably with CoBlocks, I do see immense value in block plugins for use within the WordPress Block Directory. Quickly searching for and installing a block right from within the Block Library is quite a clever and empowering experience — one that I believe will eventually become the de facto way to discover blocks.
So let’s jump into what makes a Gutenberg block plugin different, and how they will change the landscape of WordPress editing as we know it today.
I made a new block plugin for adding markdown comments that only display while editing a post with Gutenberg. Last week, while editing an upcoming article all about block plugins and the WordPress block directory, I wanted to add persistent notes and reminders within my post content – but didn’t find a proper solution. So naturally, I hit the ground running and pushed out a new block to the WordPress Block Directory to do just that—aptly called the Markdown Comment block.
The next big shift for WordPress, nearly as monumental as the block editor itself, is a concept known as full site editing.
Full site editing (FSE) is very much still experimental, but the concepts are clearly in view. Imagine being able to change your site’s header, footer, single, and even archive templates, with minimal effort-all within the block editor. That’s the promise behind full site editing.
Diving in a bit deeper you’ll see the nature of a WordPress theme changes quite significantly with the introduction of full site editing. Let’s jump in and uncover everything you need to know about full site editing.
There’s no doubt that Gutenberg block styles and transforms are quite interesting and fun.
I like that you may change the look and feel of a block with a click or two. And on the engineering side, it’s remarkably easy to extend any block with both styles and transforms. However, what I’m not particularly fond of, is the user experience surrounding both block styles and transforms.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, gradients are here to stay. Especially now, as the WordPress block editor has a default mechanism to apply gradient styles throughout the editing experience.
Out of the box, I don’t find the default gradient application experience particularly meaningful, as these presets are an assortment of trendy gradient styles presets. But with some finesse, block editor gradients could be much more purposeful by using the editor’s color palette instead.
Let’s dive in and explore how it’s done.
If you’re a theme or plugin developer in the page building ecosystem, now is a better time than ever to start capitalizing on arguably the most exciting addition to Gutenberg, since Gutenberg: patterns.
Let’s dive in and discover how to leverage the new Patterns API and build beautiful patterns.
I’d like to finally share with you a project I’ve been working on to make writing in WordPress fun again.
Introducing Iceberg.
The WordPress block editor is making considerable strides towards better enabling folks to build beautiful websites. But as a consequence to adding more controls, settings, and even blocks, the experience of writing and publishing content within WordPress has taken a hit.
That’s not to say I don’t love the direction WordPress is heading–I absolutely do. But rather that I feel there’s room for a tool to improve the writing experience within the block editor.
