Hi there,
This turned out to be a slow news week in WordPress, apart from four days of WordCamp US. You can read the recap here.
I miss my US WordPress friends, I haven’t seen since 2022. To give you a head start on watching the fantastic programming, I added four video links in this edition. I held back the newsletter for the fourth video: Matt Mullenweg’s In-Person Q & A, which was uploaded in the wee hours of this Saturday.
WCUS 2025 will take place in Portland again, August 26 – 29, 2025, and I added it in my calendar to take the long journey to the West coast in Summer once more. Will I see you there?
Have a splendid weekend ahead!
Yours, 💕
Birgit
Join JuanMa Garrido, André Maniero, and Nick Diego on September 24th, 2023 at 15:00 UTC for the Developer Hours: An Introduction to Data Views. Data Views offer a flexible way to display data as tables, grids, or lists, with options for filtering, sorting, and more. Even though it’s still being improved, you can already use the DataViews component in your projects and plugins. In this Developer Hours session, you will explore:
- How to display a custom dataset using Data Views
- The fundamentals of the DataViews component
- How to add a React app to a custom WordPress admin page
Q&A will follow the presentation. As a reminder, JuanMa Garrido recently published Using Data Views to display and interact with data in plugins on the WordPress Developer Blog.
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
Riad Benguella‘s post on the WordPress Core blog shares critical insights into Gutenberg development practices and pitfalls like inefficient code patterns and the importance of adhering to coding standards. Emphasis is placed on thorough testing and clear documentation to ensure smoother development and collaboration. The post is a handy guide for current and aspiring Gutenberg developers, helping them to avoid mistakes and streamline their workflow for better results. Worth a read if you’re diving into Gutenberg or looking to polish your skills!
The second update on DataViews made it on the Make Design Blog. Here are the highlights:
- Ensure primary filter visibility 🚀
- Re-order table columns in view options 🚀
- Re-balance header area in List layout 🚀
- Combine Featured Image and Title field display ⚙️
- Pin table columns and rows 🎨
- Advanced filtering 🎨
🎙️ The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #131 – Gutenberg Plugin Releases 23.1 – 23.3, Calls for Testing for 7.1 and more
Matt Walker, designer at Automattic, shared his thoughts on Design Systems: Storybook Improvements. First, he references other design systems based on the Storybook. Then he reviewed the current space and suggests a broader architecture review. Walker is at the start of the exploration and request feedback along the way to find out if he is on the right track with his ideas. At the end of the post, you can also locate previous discussions regarding a future design system on color scales, corner radius, elevation, and typography.
Plugins, Themes, and tools for #nocode site builders and owners
In case you are keen to learn how the Speed building battle with Jamie Marsland went at WordCamp US, here is the direct link to the recording from the Live stream.: Brian Coords and Amber Hinds rebuilt the home page of a site from the WordPress Showcase: Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco. Tracy Levesque commented on X: “This is one of the best things I’ve ever seen at a WordCamp. It was as riveting as watching a sporting event. Good job, everyone!!”
Rich Tabor, product manager at Automattic, wants you to Meet Kanso, my best blogging theme yet. He wrote: “In Japanese, ‘kanso’ means simplicity or plainness, embodying a minimalist aesthetic that emphasizes clarity and the elimination of the unnecessary. I wanted to create a WordPress theme that reflects this philosophy in the design, writing, publishing, and reading.” The theme comes with 16 color palettes, and offers various patterns to lay out your post list. The source code is available on GitHub and the theme is also available in the WordPress repository.
Big Bite shared a case study about their work with The Times & Sunday Times. “When it comes to breaking news, every second counts. Discover how we transformed digital publishing for one of the UK’s largest publishers, resulting in record-time content creation.” You’ll find a video and impressive numbers. To read the full story, you need to give an email address, though.
Automattic’s special projects team published a list of their open-source tools and plugins. You’ll find five plugins and two blocks, the Accordion and the Stretchy Type Blocks. The plugins are
- Pause Renewal Actions,
- Auto Flickr Importer,
- Query Loop Load More
- Safety Net
- Plugin Autoupdate Filter
Theme development for full site editing and blocks
Anne Katzeff continues on her quest to create her first block theme. She shares in her 4th post of a series: Building My First WordPress Block Theme – part 4: Child Themes, how she saves changes to a child theme and syncs it to a GitHub repo for version control.
In his video, Fränk Klein answered Theme.json V3: Common questions, among them: “What did version 3 change? and How to migrate from v2 to v3?”
Building Blocks and tools for the Block Editor
Mike Davey, Senior editor at Delicious Brain, highlighted a few Golden Guides and Hidden Gems From the WordPress Developer Blog. “The WordPress Developer Blog is a treasure trove of valuable resources that can help you stay ahead of the curve” he wrote. And he wrote about the What’s new for developers roundup posts: “If you can only manage one post a month, make sure it’s this one. We have to warn you, though: there’s a very good chance it’ll lead you down at least one rabbit hole, and you’ll end up spending more time (and learning much more) than you intended.”
📣 Never miss a Developer Blog post again: Subscribe!
Speaking of which, if you haven’t read the What’s new for developers? (September 2024) edition, it was my turn to put it all together.
Troy Chaplin, long-time WordPress developer and designer from Ottawa, Canada, published his first article on the WordPress Developer Blog. In his tutorial How to build a multi-block plugin, you’ll learn how to build a multi-block plugin by registering several static and dynamic blocks all in one plugin while optimizing its structure along the way.
In his talk at WCUS, Damon Cook unleashed the power of the Interactivity API. He explored with the audience what this API is all about, why it matters, and how to get started with it. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Interactivity API and be ready to implement it in your projects. You’ll see some great examples, too.
During his WCUS talk, The Power of Extending the WordPress Editor: A Block Visibility Showcase on Showcase day, Nick Diego gave people a peek behind the curtains of his Block Visibility plugin and showed how to make the most out of WordPress Core components. He shared some really useful tips and tricks that help you level up your own projects by extending the WordPress Editor and boosting block functionality. You can follow along his slidedeck here.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.
Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience
Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com