Howdy, my friends!
Hope you are all well. This week was a little less hectic, nevertheless again lots of information to digest about the block-editor and the upcoming WordPress 5.8 release.
Today, you’ll find some great actionable tutorial, articles and tools. Again, I marvel at the extraordinary generosity of the people in the WordPress community from around the World. If you find something that’s useful to you, please let the authors. Most of them have a Twitter account that’s linked with the link to their contribution.
Be well, be safe!
Yours, đź’•
Birgit
Updates from the Gutenberg and Core Teams
Anne McCarthy posted the summary of finding of the Query Quest. This time, a 3 or so dozen user from Japan took part in this call for testing. Members on the Italian Polyglott team translated the call, too. The circle of people testing has expanded quite a bit.
McCarthy also had two reminders for you:
- The second round Call for questions is still open – send in your FSE question and concerns. Deadline is May 12, 2021
- The next call for testing will be published on May 12, 2021 on the Make blog of the Test team, so clear out an afternoon in your week and reserve it for the next WordPress testing round. You’d be helping improve software, used by many, many millions of users.
Hector Pietro, technical lead on the Gutenberg project Phase 2, published the focus post for the team for May 2021. There are no particular surprises listed, as the focus is getting a few projects ready to be merged with Core, but this post also aims beyond the feature Freeze on May 19 for block-editor features, RC 10.7. For Theme builders and developers, he also has a section on what particularly we all need to be aware of.
In anticipation, that the Widget block editor will land in WordPress Core, contributors Tonya Mork and Andrew Ozz published the Classic Widget Screen plugin, that allows you to opt-out of the new feature. Plugin and Theme developers can opt-out via this code snippet remove_theme_support('widgets-block-editor'). Connect via GitHub for issues and contributions. Justin Tadlock took the plugin for a spin and wrote a review: Classic Widgets Plugin Disables WordPress 5.8’s Upcoming Block-Based Widgets System.
🎙️ Episode #43 is now available with Show notes and transcript Greg and I discussed Gutenberg 10.5, the Block Patterns Directory and a Call for Testing for WordPress 5.8 Release.
Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog via your favorite podcast apps!
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If you have been a listener, please write a review on iTunes, Stitcher, Podchaser or Castbox. We would love to read from you, and more reviews help with the distributions.
Speaking of podcasts: Grzegorz (Greg) Ziokowski and I talked with Maciek Palmowski of WP Owl, about Contributing to WordPress, the inaugural episode for the new podcast WP Owlcast. We talked about the ins and outs of contributing to WordPress – about the various teams, how to get started, how to pace yourself, Five For the Future and so much more.
Building block-based Themes
Adelina Tuca of Themeisle interviewed Tammie Lister, design co-lead of Phase 1 of the block editor, now design lead at Extendify. “We Made Themes Become Plugins by Forcing Them to Have Functionality That Shouldn’t Be There“, Lister is quoted. It’s a great discussion around the reset on how themes are developed with the block-editor and how it will not only change the creativity and productivity, but also user experience for content creators.
Riad Benguella posted an Introduction to WordPress’s Global Styles and Global Settings. You can learn more about the thoughts behind the theme.json implementation for connecting your theme with all the block-editor features. For the first time in WordPress there is now a standard way for plugin block builders to be considerate about the theme developers design decisions and tap into its settings and styles. Be aware, although the theme.json implementation with come to WordPress core with 5.8, the Global Styles will still be experimental, so if you use them, they might change.
Carolina Nymark turned her block markup snippets into VS Code extension with it, you can add blocks to your full site editing templates faster by typing the name of the block and have VS Code auto-complete it for you.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s main (trunk) branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.
Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.
Block Editor for Content Creators
If you are just now evaluating if the block editor is mature enough for your future client projects, or the right tool for your content production processes, Sam Wendland for WordPress VIP has some more in depth information: “How the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor Empowers Enterprise Content Creators”.
Block building for Developers
Mark Wilkinson of Highrise Digital share the 10 lessons he learned from developing WordPress sites with the block editor in this video. He also posted a Thread on Twitter
Kaspars Dambis from XWP describes how to manage dependencies when creating your Gutenberg blocks in his post: Managing Javascript Dependencies for WordPress Blocks
In his tutorial Convert Shortcodes into blocks Milan Petrovic explains how to reuse shortcodes code and develop blocks for the block editor with support for sidebar settings
Upcoming WordPress Events
10 – 14 May 2021
Page Builder Summit 2021
Gutenberg is part of it with the following sessions:
- How to turn Gutenberg into a Page Builder with Stackable w/ Benjamin Intal
- Don’t Compete with Gutenberg – Embrace It w/ Danielle Zarcaro
- Google’s Core Web Vitals – Get Green With Gutenberg w/ Jake Pfohl
- Creating newsletters in the Gutenberg block editor w/ Lesley Sim
- Building Fast, Block-Based Landing Pages w/ Mike Oliver
- Panel – Preparing for the future of WordPress – Supported by WordPress.com – Marjorie Asturias, Anne McCarthy and Donna Cavalier
May 22-23, 2021
WordCamp Northeast Ohio Region
Two sessions and a Lighting talk about Gutenberg are on the schedule
- Anatomy of a Block Theme for Full Site Editing w/ Daisy Olson
- Web Components in WP, Gutenberg and as HTML plugins w/ Craig West
- Lightning Talk: The power of reusable blocks w/ Daisy Olson
May 24-28, 2021
WordSesh 2021
The session schedule is now available, too. Here is the list of Gutenberg talks:
- Blazing Fast Block Development w/ Lee Shadle
- Building Custom Blocks w/ Rob Stinson
- Block-Based Themes – The Future Of Full Site Editing In WordPress w/
- How the Block Editor Makes It Easier to Build Custom Websites w/ Danielle Zarcaro
- Build your own Block-Based Theme w/ Daisy Olsen (Workshop)
June 7 – 9th, 2021
WordCamp Europe
A virtual event and contributor day. Call for sponsors is open.
June 20 – 26
WordCamp Japan
The schedule has been posted. Most sessions will be in Japanese, with exceptions, I think…
July 17 + 18th, 2021
WordCamp Santa Clarita
Calls for speakers (May 30th), sponsors, volunteers and organizers are open.
June 24 – 26, 2021
WordCamp Cochabama (Colombia)
July 23, 2021
WordFest Live – The festival of WordPress
Call for Speakers is now open and submissions are due on May 24th, 2021
September 21 + 22, 2021
WPCampus 2021 Online
“A free online conference for web accessibility and WordPress in higher education.” Call for Proposal is up and proposal are due May 26, 2021
On the Calendar for WordPress Online Events you can browse a list of the upcoming WordPress Meetups, around the world, including WooCommerce, Elementor, Divi Builder and Beaver Builder meetups.
