Exploring the art, function, and future of WordPress themes in today’s web landscape.
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.
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.
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.
While the block editor absolutely leveled-up the WordPress publishing experience, building beautiful web pages is still quite a challenge. It’s like we’re handing folks the International Space Station LEGO set — without any sort of help to build it. Sure, the cleverest master builders will likely figure it out, but what about everyone else — the other 99%?
Now if that set came with four or five assembled “chunks” of the ISS, completing the build would be much simpler. Maybe even simple enough for that 99%.
Enter Gutenberg block patterns: thoughtful arrangements of blocks that deliver entire sections of a page, with just a click.
There’s been a lot of discussion around the future of WordPress themes lately due to the ongoing evolution of the block editor. Now that Gutenberg is expanding into other areas of a site (apart from post content), the definitive end of WordPress themes as we know them today is coming. But is that really so terrible? No, I don’t think so.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
In a couple months or so, Gutenberg will revolutionize WordPress publishing as we know it. It’ll finally bring a much-needed standardized content creation experience to WordPress. There’s just one small caveat. Innovation can’t happen without WordPress theme developers committing to the Gutenberg experience.
If Gutenberg will become the de facto editing experience for the average WordPress user, why not make it the best experience possible?
So after an inspiring trip to Nashville for WCUS, I decided to jump on the Gutenberg ship myself and start styling the upcoming editor within my latest WordPress theme, Tabor.
