Howdy,
How have you been after the WordPress 5.9 release? Are you waiting for things to to calm done and 5.9.1 comes out? Yeah, me, too.
When I was working with customers and their sites, I would always wait for the next point release before I upgraded theirs sites to the new version. Yes, even after I tested the Beta and RC candidates on test or staging sites.
With so many new features coming in, not all bugs can be caught in time. Behind the scenes, everyone is working already on 5.9.1 with plenty of fixes, and they aim for a Feb 16 release. We’ll have further details next week.
The contributors appreciated the time and the work of those who report the bugs. To quote Linus’ Law: “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”.
Below you’ll find a ton of links to articles, additional tools and updates. You don’t have to consume it all in one sitting. It’ll be in your inbox all week. Grab your favorite beverage and enjoy.
Yours, 💕
Birgit
The last few days, I was hearing and reading about developers’ needs to disable block editor features and make sure blocks in block templates are not removed or altered by content creators. I found quite a few resources and instead of sharing them here I put them in a separate post.
 In this post you’ll find list of documentation links and code examples for the myriad of ways to restrict access or choices for users. As WordPress 5.9 is only a… Read more. 9 May 2022 |
Gutenberg 12.5
Fabian Kägy volunteered to run this week’s Gutenberg plugin release. He also wrote the release notes: What’s new in Gutenberg 12.5? (February 2nd). And Kudos to first time contributor who joined during the last release cycle: Alan Jacob Mathew, Iman GM @imangm, Jorge Contreras and Nil Koirala
Justin Tadlock gave is a whirl is well and here is his review: Gutenberg 12.5 Introduces Global Styles Variations, Preserves Adjacent Button Styling, and Adds Alpha Transparency to Color Pickers
Yesterday, Grzegorz Ziolkowski and I welcomed Matias Ventura on our Gutenberg Changelog episode 60. We discussed restricting customization in a full-site editing world, Gutenberg 12.5 and what’s to come in WordPress 6.0 for the block editor. We had a great time and I learned a lot.
Now that WordPress 5.9 is released it is time to look into the future. Anne McCarthy published a new call for exploration for the FSE-outreach program: FSE Program Exploration: All Things Media. McCarthy had again a set on instructions to go through and listen to your comfort level and report back on bugs. Then she asked you to imagine how the new WordPress Images directory could be integrated into the Media library and the Site editor.
Justin Tadlock heeded the call, dove right in and shared his experience in his post on the WPTavern: FSE Program: The Media Experience and Its Future in WordPress
Building Themes, Custom Blocks and extending the block editor
Luis Felipe Zuguini wrote a very detailed technical walk through how block themes work. You’ll find it on the Gutenberg Times.
 gutenbergtimes.com In this post, you’ll learn more about how block themes are built. I’ll share what I learned about building a block theme while I was testing Twenty Twenty-Two, the new… 4 Feb 2022 |
Ganesh Dahal posted A Deep Introduction to WordPress Block Themes on the CSS-Tricks. Their social media team tweeted “Block themes? Full-site editing? WordPress 5.9 was a huuuuge release and Ganesh Dahal did a bang-up job explaining what it means for WordPress developers moving forward.”
We have mentioned the create-block scaffolding tool, available in the Gutenberg repo to get started on your first single block plugin. Ryan Welcher just published The Dynamic template on npm to scaffold a dynamic block.
Sal Ferrarello‘s new plugin Block x-Ray Attributes adds a section to the Document sidebar of the editor and displays the attributes for the currently selected block. This is very helpful during development.
Here is Justin Tadlock’s Look Under the Hood With the Block X-Ray WordPress Plugin
More Theme Generator Goodies: Herb Miller published an app to Generate Child Themes for any of the Block theme in the repository. Check it out!
The Gutenberg Components are available for developers that write plugins for all areas of the site. They provide a standardized interface and lower significantly the cognitive load for the user to have to learn new interfaces with every additional plugin in the Admin section. This documentation page covers Building a Custom block editor and you also find a Tutorial Building a Custom Block Editor
Converting Widgets to Block is a series of Videos, Ryan Welcher Twitchstreamed and then uploaded to YouTube
Sensei 4.0 – the learning management system (LMS) by the makers of WooCommerce and Jetpack, has been released. In his post, Ronnie Burt announce the arrival of a block-based theme ready for full-site editing. “You can use the Site Editor added in WordPress 5.9 to edit the Lesson and Quiz templates, giving you endless flexibility.” Burt wrote.
Justin Tadlock picked up the story Sensei LMS 4.0 Introduces New Block-Based Learning Mode Course Theme. He wrote: “Sensei is one of the first plugins to offer this kind of separate, in-app FSE-enabled theme.”. The plugin is available for free, and you can study the source-code, if you want.
Kjell Reigstad, lead designer of the Twenty-Twenty-Two theme, built a theme that makes your site look like Twitter. In his post Building Twitter with WordPress 5.9 he tells us how.
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.
Using the Block Editor with our without the Site Editor
Jamie Marsland tasked two of his daughters, Meg and Lily, both WordPress beginners, to build the same page – one with Elementor and one with the block editor. It’s fun to watch, and also painful. No matter which editor you use, getting started ‘intuitively’ is hard.
The video WordPress Gutenberg versus Elementor – The £20 Prize Beginners Challenge! is available on YouTube.
Learn.WordPress Resources to help you get started! Courtney Robertson shared these links on Twitter the day of the WordPress 5.9 release.
- Simple Site Design with Full Site Editing a self-pace online course
- How to use the List View
- How to Style Your Site with Global Styles
- How to Create a Menu with the Navigation Block
- Using Block Patterns
- Finding New Blocks with the Block Directory
- Using the Block Widget Editor
Dave Smith, developer at Automattic and contributor to Gutenberg, posted two videos on YouTube to teach you more about the new Navigator Block
- Migrating classic menus to block based menus in WordPress 5.9
- Use a different menu on mobile with the Navigation block in WordPress 5.9
Anne McCarthy published the answer to so many questions by Comparing Patterns, Template Parts, and Reusable Blocks. She explains the difference of the three entities a WordPress user has in the block editor toolbox to reuse content and designs in various contexts
First Look: A WordPress 5 9 + Full Site Editing Demo – Join GoDaddy Pro’s Courtney Robertson and Marcus Burnette as they chat about the new features of version 5.9 and set up a simple home page LIVE using the new FSE process.
Do you want to know what WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) and block themes are? Ellen Bauer posted a new video: WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) & Block Themes explained. She explained the concept of Full-Site Editing and the new features and block theme that arrived with WordPress 5.9.
In his newest video What’s New In WordPress 5.9, Bud Kraus of JoyofWP, walks you through the new Full -Site editing features. It’s a mix between demo and tutorial. He shows you how to get your site building tasks done.
Joe Casabona asks “Who is Full-Site Editing for?” – I prefer not to spoil anything, he does have an answer. I did chuckle at the “It’s not a Bad Beta” sub header 3/4 in his post.
If you know what to get going with block themes, Trishan Mehta lists his choice of 12 WordPress Block Themes for Full Site Editing on PassionWP’s website.
David McCan wrote a Kadence and Stackable Gutenberg Blocks Comparison, and give in-depth view in two plugins that have been available since the first version of the Block Editor arrived at WordPress Core.
Joining Classic Widgets, Classic Editor, there is now the Classic Menu Block by Jonny Harris available to easy your site’s menus into the block-based era. “The classic menu block, allows you to embed all the existing menus you have set up on your site, using the existing core function, wp_nav_menu by rendering the block’s output in PHP,” Harris wrote.
After giving you a sneak preview on the new Super List Block plugin last week, developer Aurooba Ahmed share more details in her article “Nest blocks inside lists and easily create a grid of content with the Super List Block”. She explains how the Grid Block simplifies your content creation over multiple group block and gives you also responsiveness for small screens.
Matt Medeiros posted his walkthrough using the plugin on YouTube Superlist block | WordPress plugin overview.
A new plugin arrived in the WordPress repository: Wavy Divider Plugin by Kevin Batdorf, the Project Lead Developer at Extendify. With it, you can “generate and add a simple wavy divider to anywhere on your page, giving you the ability to separate blocks of content with an impressive, professional-looking design element.” Batdorf wrote.
Justin Tadlock posted a review on WPTavern: Creating Content Dividers With the Wavy Divider WordPress Plugin
WordPress Social Learning Events (and Meetups)
Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure to participate in the WPMinute Twitter Space on Learning WordPress, hosted by Matt Medeiros and Daniel Schutzsmith and with Hauwa Abashiya from the Learn.WordPress team and Joe Casabona, who coaches site builders. Listen to the show and follow the links in the post.
February 7, 2022, 12pm (noon) ET / 17:00 UTC
Taking Control Over the Editor for Client Builds with Fabian Kägy via WordPress Social Learning Spaces
February 8th, 2022 11 am / 16:00 UTC (full)
Gutenberg Developer Hours with Birgit Pauli-Haack and expert panel via WordPress Social Learning Spaces: Tammie Lister, Nick Diego and Fabian Kägy
February 9th, 2022 5pm ET / 22:00 UTC
Using Block Patterns with Wes Theron via WordPress Social Learning Spaces
February 14, 2022 – 4 pm ET / 21:00 UTC
Exploring Theme Blocks with Wes Theron via WordPress Social Learning Spaces
February 21, 2022 – 12 pm (noon) ET / 17:00 UTC
Hello Blocks! Coding a custom block via WordPress Social Learning w/ Wes Theron and Ryan Welcher.
February 22, 2022 – 11 am ET / 16:00 UTC
Gutenberg Developer Hours with Birgit Pauli-Haack and expert panel via WordPress Social Learning Spaces
