Howdy,
WordPress 6.0 is coming to a WordPress instance near you on May 24th, 2022. The teams are all working hard to get things finished, patched and updated by April 12 before Beta 1 is release. Save the date April 5th, 2022 for a first walk-through with the release team.
Working on the release has been a great opportunity to reconnect with the WordPress documentation team. It’s a lot of work, and if you can spare a few hours before the release, there are a few pages of the End user documentation that would need updating. Connect with the #docs team via WPSlack (account required) or grab one of the Good First issues on the GitHub repo, if you want to help.
Have a great weekend!
Yours, 💕
Birgit
In his 3rd episode of the WordPress Gutenberg Block News, Jamie Marsland covers among other topics, the new pattern directory, Google’s Material Design theme and Automattic’s newest Block theme, Archeo.
Themes with blocks and Full-site Editing
In the 77th round-up posts from the Themes Team, Jason Crist posted about theme-related discussions, fixes, and developments in Gutenberg. He highlighted the new features, with links to PRs
- Webfonts API: Font Configuration via theme.json
- Included in the Zip: Global Styles and More
- Pattern Registration with theme.json
As active discussion, Crist links to the issues:
- Visual Theme Building Tracking Issue
- AppearanceTools in theme.json might not be the right idea.
- Standardization of colors, themes and typography is discussed in multiple issues from different angles.
You’ll also find General Resource links to catch up on FSE and Themes.
In the new workshop, Taking Advantage of Query Loops, Wes Theron explores how to use the Query Loop block to showcase blog posts, pages, categories, tags and more!
59 Themes
The WordPress repository now sports 59 themes made for full-site editing.
The newest Themes are
- Archeo by Automattic
- Girgora Blocks by Latracal Solutions
- Hello Gutenify by Gutenify Dev
- Ona Creative by Deo Themes
- Oscura by Alexandre Buffet
Justin Tadlock gave Archeo Theme a whirl and posted his findings: The Archeo WordPress Theme Blends Mayan History With Magazine-Style Block Patterns
The WPTavern Review of the Ona Theme is available here: DeoThemes Launches Ona Creative, Another Well-Designed WordPress Block Theme, also by Justin Tadclosk
Alexander Buffet, frontend developer from Nantes, France and translation contributor, built his first theme as an FSE theme called “Oscura” (demo) for photographers and creatives. It emphasizes white space and is visually subtle to not take attention away from the creations by its site owner. You can also look under the hood on its GitHub repository. Buffet uses well-structured code with multiple template parts, and patterns in their respective directories.
Block Building and Developing for the Block Editor
The recording of this week’s Webinar with Grzegorz Ziolkowski and Maciek Palmowski How to automate Gutenberg block development in WP projects is now available on YouTube. On Twitter, Ziolkowski shared additional resources:
- A very comprehensive tutorial in the WordPress Block Editor Handbook that explains how to create your first block.
- The tool to scaffold blocks you can run with a single `npx @wordpress/create-block` command from your terminal.
- “All the commands tailored for block development can also run with continuous integration, and they get installed when scaffolding the project. You can also install [@wordpress/scripts] without scaffolding by executing `npm install @wordpress/scripts`” Ziolkowski continued.
Lee Shadle of creator of the BlockHandbook site, answered the question many developers have: “Is there a fun/easy/lightweight way to add frontend interactivity to custom Gutenberg blocks w/o using React or jQuery?” with “Yes”, and with yet another JavaScript tool: AlpineJS. Shadle published his proof-of-concept code on GitHub. Add Alpinejs to Custom Gutenberg Blocks
Munir Kamal, creator of Gutenberg Hub and Editor Plus, published a tutorial on How to Create a WordPress Gutenberg block that displays an Unsplash image.
After you follow this tutorial, you built a block that generates a random image from Unsplash to be used in a post. It’s an easy to follow along article with code examples and explanations. Personally, I would have favored a custom block that displays media from Openverse. Maybe I find the time to rewrite it for Openverse. Wanna race me? Just kidding.
Mike Jolley, WooCommerce, updated the developer this week that the Store API is now considered stable. “It not only powers the new Block-based Cart and Checkout experience, but also the various product Blocks as well.” he wrote. The API is now available for 3rd party tools and services, and the article provides use cases and code examples.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.
Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.
Gutenberg tips for content creators and #nocde site builders
In the recording of the recent WordPress Social Learning meetup, WordPress for Writers: Launching your Writer Website, Destiny Kanno, fledgling writer and WordPress enthusiast, walked attendees through setting up a writer’s website with a literature-focused theme. By the end of this session, participants had the tools you need to
- apply a theme,
- create an engaging story publication, and
- set up your about page and a contact form
using Full Site Editing, and the Block Editor.
The writers at WPTavern, Sarah Gooding and Justin Tadlock created new articles for their “Building with Block Series”
- How To Build a Two-Column Single Post Header with the WordPress Site Editor
- How to Build a Single-Product Sales Page with Blocks
Upcoming WordPress Events
11 Social Learning Meetups
March 28, 2022, at 11 am ET / 15:00 UTC
Hello Blocks! Coding a custom block with Wes Theron and Ryan Welcher
March 29, 2022, at 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Beginner’s Guide to Full Site Editing with Sarah Snow
April 1, 2022, 11 am EDT / 15:00 UTC
Block Theme Discussions: JSON Schema with Daisy Olsen
April 6, 2022, 12 pm EDT / 16:00 UTC
Creating A Sidebar For Your Posts Using The Full Site Editing Blank Template with Bud Kraus, JoyofWP
April 6, 2022, 2pm EDT / 18:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Designing with Columns, Group, and Row Blocks (Part 2) with Nick Diego
April 8, 2022, 11 am EDT / 15:00 UTC
Block Theme Discussions: Supports in theme.json with Daisy Olsen
April 12, 2022 2pm EDT 18:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Headers and Footers in Full Site Editing w/ Nick Diego
April 13, 2022, 10 am EDT / 14:00 UTC
Create a Magazine Layout with the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor with Wes Theron
April 15, 2022, 11 am EDT / 15:00 UTC
Block Theme Discussions: Presets in theme.json with Daisy Olsen
April 19, 2022 2pm EDT / 18:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Exploring Block Layout, Alignment, and Dimensions (Part 2)
April 21, 2022 3 am EDT / 7 am UTC
Using Block Patterns with Wes Theron
WordCamps and other events
April 8, 2022 9 am – 5 pm CDT / 14:00 – 20:00 UTC
WP Career Summit conference for Careers in WordPress, organized by team at Post Status
May 16-20, 2022
WordSesh
A virtual conference. Call for Speaker is open
June 2 – 4th, 2022
WordCamp Europe
Sign up for updates to get notifications about speakers, sessions, and schedule.
June 20 – 24, 2022
Page Builder Summit will take place June 20th to June 24, 2022. The call for sponsors is still open. Sign-up for the VIP list to learn first when tickets are available and the schedule is published.
September 9 – 11, 2022
WordCamp US
in-person conference in San Diego. Call for Speakers is open, deadline April 17th, 2022
