Howdy, my friends!
WordPress 5.8 will be release next week. Are you ready? Well, if you didn’t get any chance to test things, you should still be alright. If you know your customers will be fiddling with their site’s widget section, do yourself a favor and install the Classic Widget plugin, so there are no surprises.
For last-minute testing, use the Release Candidate number 4. The final release is scheduled for Tuesday, July 20, 2021. The Field Guide covers all changes.
Wishing you all the best for the upgrade! Holler if you need any help!
Yours, đź’•
Birgit
Gutenberg and the Future of WordPress
In this week’s Jukebox episode, host Nathan Wrigley discussed with Robert Jacobi the Future of WordPress in the era of Gutenberg. Jacobi explained why he is persuing a Gutenberg first approach. You can listen on WordPress Tavern or your favorite podcast app.
From the section “Neither Gutenberg nor WordPress News”: I am excited about the acquisition of Pocket Casts by Automattic. I tested many other podcast apps, but Pocket Casts has been my favorite for many, many years.
Nathan da Silva, founder of Silva Web Designs, wrote about the Future of Page Builders and concludes, there are still pieces missing before Gutenberg makes 3rd Party page builders obsolete. Da Silva mentions, Full-Site Editing is not there yet and there are not as many add-on available as Elementor or Beaver Builder provide for their site builders workflow.
Episode #47 is now available with transcript.
Next recording July 23, 2021
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Block-editor for Content Creators
On July 29th, 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. UTC. WordPress VIP will hold a webinar with the title Gutenberg Full-Site Editing: Unlocking Agility for Enterprise WordPress. James Proctor will share lessons from the cutting edge of implementation. “By taking Gutenberg blocks beyond the post editor, these new features allow content creators unprecedented agility and control over the entire site experience. “ Any site owner and agency will be able to take advantage of the knowledge shared at scale.
Deborah Edwards-Onoro posted a great tutorial on how to Manage your Block Editor preferences and increase productivity and comfort.
WordPress 5.8 brings Duotone Filters to images of the block editor. Justin Tadlock takes you on a tour of this fabulous new feature: Duotone Filters: WordPress 5.8 Puts a Powerful Image-Editing Tool Into Users’ Hands‘.
Developing Plugins for the Block Editor
After the Primer last week, Rich Tabor posted How to Build & Publish Gutenberg Block Plugins to the WordPress Block Directory. Tabor guides you through the process from create block scaffolding and running the block plugin checker to uploading your block to WordPress repository and get it approved for the Block Directory.
Marcus Kazmierczak wrote a series of posts on how to Conditionally Load Block Assets when building block plugins. There are quite a few different ways to skin that proverbial cat. Start at the latest post, explaining the new WordPress 5.8 way to handle this. Kazmierczak also provides a video walk through.
This helped me to understand the feature Ari Stathopoulos worked on and described in his Dev Note: Block-styles loading enhancements in WordPress 5.8
Riad Benguella has a few more Miscellaneous block editor API additions in WordPress 5.8 – it covers:
- Contextual patterns for easier creation and block transformations
- Pattern Registration API
- BlockControls group prop
Gutenberg and Themes
Jason Crist published this week’s Gutenberg + Themes roundup. Two issues caught my eye:
- Should it be possible to overwrite properties via PHP or should the properties in the theme.json come after PHP properties are set. What do you think?
- Is there a case for dynamic template parts? Discuss!
There is of course, much more going on. Another great round-up post from the Theme Team!
Anne McCarthy shared Resources for block theme development on ThemeShaper. She wrote: “Whether you’re just starting out or already deep in the block theme world, the following resources should help you be aware of what’s to come and how to get involved in shaping the future.”
Tammie Lister published here process on how to create a theme and what she encountered. She wrote: “I am still like many discovering how I create themes using site editing, but I wanted to share my current process and some observations I’ve made along the way. “
Nick Diego collected three small fixes to his theme to change the breakpoint for the column block to become responsive, how to change the order of the mobile columns and how to disable responsive columns completely. For the latter, Diego uses a solution by Andy Serong, that is already merged to Gutenberg and will be released with the plugin version 11.2 on July 21st, 2021. Details in Disable Responsive Columns in Gutenberg and Other Tips
Rob Stinson posted about WordPress 5.8 Widgets Changes and How they Impact the Genesis Framework. He wrote: “To help navigate this for the 100,000’s of sites that run on the Genesis Framework we have implemented an opt-in experience in version 3.3.4 for whenever anyone updates to WordPress 5.8.”
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.
