Howdy,
Greetings from Berlin with a view of The Cube near the main station of Berlin. My husband and I connected with family and did some sightseeing of the German capital. I also visited the Museum Barbarini in Potsdam and thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition: The Shape of Freedom. International Abstraction after 1945. Interestingly, enough, ‘Abstraction’ is also a topic for software makers. And that’s enough distraction. Let’s catch up together on two weeks of WordPress and Gutenberg news.
As mentioned before, you don’t have to read it all in one sitting. You can always come back gain to read more. It’s summer time in the Northern hemisphere. Hope you can stay cool.
Yours, 💕
Birgit
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
Various team published new initiatives and updates.
Always seeing the bigger picture, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, executive directory of the WordPress open-source project, ask for you help to Giving FSE a More User Friendly Name. Not all commenters are convinced that there needs to be a name change. I also wasn’t thrilled by the outlook to update lots of post, documentation etc, after discussion Full-Site Editing for over 2.5 years, but I must admit, it’s more the resistance to let go of something I am used to, then a good reason to not try for a more user-friendly name. Some commenters are delighted because they feel it doesn’t translate well into other languages and they already started shortening it to something like site editor or layout editor. I favor something that ends in ‘designer’, like Layout designer, or template designer. The comments are still open. Chime in with your opinion.
Hector Prieto published WordPress 6.1 Planning Roundup v2 with the updated release schedule and the release squad. Feature Freeze and Beta 1 are scheduled for September 20, 2022, Release Candidate 1 for October 11, 2022 and final release will make WordPress 6.1 available on November 1, 2022.
For the WordPress design team, Channing Ritter posted Project Update: WordPress.org Homepage and Download page mockups. I am excited about this new look of the WordPress open-source project on the Internet. What do you think? Share your comment on the post.
James Koster, also on the WordPress Design team published about his Design Exploration: Encourage editor configuration during on-boarding. It shows a bigger Welcome guide that also help the user make decisions on several settings and features when they first start using the block editor.
Ben Dwyer outlines in his post Moving Core block styling to JSON the reasoning behind an effort to enable styling of block via the block.json file rather then via css styling. This will have to standardize and streamline ways themes can override 3rd party plugins styling. It will also enable the user to modify the look and feel withouth the need to dive into CSS syntax and language.
In her article, Gutenberg Contributors Experiment with Custom Labeling of Blocks in List View, Sarah Gooding explains the exploratory efforts by developers to allow users to name sections of their page/site to better find them in the List View. Dave Smith create the PR ready for review. If you haven’t tested a PR before the merge, I would recommend following Paal Joachim Romdahl‘s Testing a Gutenberg Pull Request (PR)
Gutenberg 13.8 is now available
George Mamadashvili was the release lead for the Gutenberg plugin v 13.8 release. In his post What’s new in Gutenberg 13.8? (3 August), he highlighted:
- Fluid typography support
- Revamped Quote block leveraging inner blocks
- Template part UX improvements
- Border controls for Image blocks
- Accessibility enhancements
Fluid typography has been requested by theme developers for quite some time. It’s only available to theme developers/designer via the theme.json for now. Before the settings can be made available via the Global Styles interface, this first iteration could use some thorough testing.
This week, Grzegorz Ziolkowski and I discussed the Gutenberg 13.8 release, changes to the Block API and so much more for the next episode of the Gutenberg Changelog (episode 71). It will arrive at your favorite podcast player over the weekend.
🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #98 – WordPress 6.5, Gutenberg 18.0 Community Theme Project and the Contributor Mentorship Program with special guest Maggie Cabrera
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
Carolina Nymark updates instructions on how to implement Fluid Typography via Theme.json that are now available via 13.8. It’s part of the Typography lesson on of her Theme builder course for developers.
Daisy Olsen held a workshop on Learn. WordPress that is now available on WordPressTV: Theme Development Workflows For Different Types of Developers. During this workshop, Daisy Olsen discussed the different workflows that someone might use in the creation of block themes. Discover the best development workflow that is right for you.
Anne McCarty published FSE Program Category Customization Summary of the 15th call for testing. It’s an interesting read to learn what people struggle with and also what they appreciate when creating category templates and interact with patterns for custom post types.
Ari Stathopoulos, from the WordPress Themes team, details how themes submitted to teh themes directory are to Use locally-hosted Google fonts in themes and answer frequently asked questions.
Shout-out for the theme.json feature of block themes by Daniel Schutzsmith via The Repository under A concept worth understanding he wrote. “As a developer, I’ve been playing with the new theme.json concept and I can easily say it is something we all should be adopting as we create new websites. The concept of using a JSON file to set up the common styles used throughout WordPress core works well, especially in a traditional version control workflow on a team. It’s worth digging into fullsiteediting.com and learn.wordpress.org. Both of these resources provide some terrific materials to make it all easier to understand.”
Sean Blakeley was a guest on the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast and talked with Nathan Wrigley on Transitioning a Large Agency Over to Gutenberg. “After years of experiments with different approaches and collaborations between designers and developers, their team has begun to rely heavily on block patterns, and they’ve found it is greatly increasing their productivity. It’s fair to say that block patterns have revolutionised the team’s approach to the entire design process.” Wrigley sumarizes.
Sean Blakeley also talked about Block Pattern Revolution at WordCamp Europe. The talk is available on WordPressTV.
Site owners and nocode site builders using the Block editor
In his post and video , I’m Switching to Gutenberg For WordPress | And YOU SHOULD Too (Probably!), Paul Charlton of WPTutz talks about his reason, why he sticks with WordPress’ core block editor, plus 3rd party plugins to extend the features set to his needs, mostly more controlas for animation and grid block layouts. What are some of the tools you are using to augment the WordPress block editor?
Vikas Singhal announced a new plugin Newsletter Block and Jamie Marsland reviewd it on his YouTube Channel and called it The Best WordPress Gutenberg Block for Mailchimp
In his video on WordPressTV, Ben Evans introduces you to Nine Design Blocks. He shows you how these blocks behave differently on different screen sizes and let’s you take part on how he experiments making different layouts using these blocks.
Wes Theron shows you the steps necessary to Create a landing page with a block theme. You’ll learn how to create a custom template and build two landing pages using different methods.
Nick Diego‘s part 2 of Let’s Build a Custom Theme (No Coding Required) is now available on WordPress TV. Part 1 is also online
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Berhard Kau helps fellow developers to creata A first simple block with some ES6 code – it’s not as scary as it sounds. It’s a follow-up post on creating a block via React. Kau suggests relying on the official scaffolding tool for block creation, tool called ‘create block’ that is available from the Gutenberg repository.
Nick Diego helps you to Unlock the Power of the Block Locking API. In this article, Diego explored the block locking API, how to implement locking in a real-world example, and discussed ways to extend this functionality by restricting who can lock and unlock blocks. Coincidently, Core contributores also update the documentation with a new page in the handbook: Curating the Editor Experience
Jonathan Bossenger‘s session on Let’s Code: An Introduction to Block Development is now available on WordPressTV. In this session, Bossenger walks you through the software required to develop blocks, and how to set it all up. Then he shows a tool called create-block to create our first block, and then looks at the code that this generates and what each piece does.
Block editor and block themes at WordCamp US
The organizer at WordCamp US published the schedule of talks. it’s a great line-up of speakers. Below list might make it onto your calendar. The WordCamp will livetstream the sessions.
Friday, Septemberg 9, 2022
A series of 15-minute talks:
4 pm EDT / 20:00 UTC
Customizing Core Blocks for Clients with Alex Ball
5 pm EDT/ 21:00 UTC
Let’s Build a Custom Block in 15 Minutes with Nick Diego
5:15 pm EDT / 21:15 UTC
FSE For the Win with Evan Mullins
Saturday, September 10, 2022
12:15 PM EDT / 16:15 UTC
Build Your First Block Theme with Daisy Olsen, a 2 hrs Workshop
4 pm EDT / 20:00 UTC
A New Era of WordPress Themes is Here: Block Themes wtih Rich Tabor (45 min)
5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC
The Future Of Themes: Designing for the Block Editor and Beyond with Michelle Schlup (45 min)
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.
Upcoming WordPress events
November 18, 2022
WordFest Live 2022
Call for speakers ends August 15, 2022
WordCamps around the World
September 2 + 3, 2022
WordCamp Jinja 2022, about 2 hrs West of Kampala, Uganda. Calls for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers are open now.
September 3 + 4, 2022
WordCamp Kathmandu, Nepal
September 9 – 11, 2022
WordCamp US in San Diego
September 15 + 16, 2022
WordCamp Netherlands at the Royal Burger’s Zoo in Arnhem
September 24 + 25, 2022
WordCamp Pontevedra
February 17 – 19, 2023
WordCamp Asia, Bangkok, Thailand
Call for speaker was just published. Deadline: September 15th, 2022 (UTC +7)
Contributor Day is planned for February 17, 2023 (Day 1)
Learn WordPress Online Meetups
August 10, 2022 – 3 pm EDT / 19:00 UTC
Block Theme Builders: Design With Figma w/ Damon Cook & Sarah Snow
August 16, 2022 – 5 pm EDT / 21:00 UTC
Showcasing Content with Query Loops with Wes Theron
2 Comments
Dear Birgit,
I read your good news week by week and it is everytime a great curation and my first source for the weekend. I also like your personal and welcoming tone within your writing.
Thank you very, very much for your contributions, especially when you’re on holiday yourself. Enjoy my homecountry and if you anytime wish to visit Halle (Saale) – the self-called capital of hearts, contact me!
Best for you, your family and your team
Carsten
Dear Carsten, Thank you so much for your comments and your kind words. They are certainly appreciated. Most of our family and friends are in Southern Germany. That makes Halle a perfect destination for more exploration of our home country, especially because we all grew up in West-Germany and still have knowledge gaps about East Germany. I’ll keep it in mind for future trips.
And let me know, if there are any questions or ideas around the block editor you might want to discuss.
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