Howdy, howdy!
I found some spectacular content for the various use cases of the Block Editor, especially for Content Creators and Site Owners, also new plugins and updates from the WordPress teams.
Enjoy!
Yours, đź’•
Birgit
Block Editor for Content Creators and Site Owners
19 Gutenberg Features You Might Not Be Aware Of (But Should!)
Nick Schäferhoff collected for on the Torque Magazine a great list of block editor features, I would call the secrete features. Most end users don’t know about them. Not all featured mentioned are in core, though. You would need to use the Gutenberg plugins to, for instance, use Blocks in Widgets, the Navigation block, the query block or work with Block Themes. Probably the most current of Listicles post about the block editor.
In Core Editor Improvement: New Preferences experience, Anne McCarthy describes the new modal for preference settings of your workspace coming to WordPress 5.7. The new interface allows you in a more compact way to toggle on or off General settings, appearance settings, the block manager and remove panels in the sidebar you don’t need for instance,tags or comments.

Bud Kraus, JoyofWP, has published two video tutorials on using Block Patterns and the Block Directory. They are quick reminders on how both features work, how you can discover new blocks and how you can integrate them into your workflow as content creators.
In his post How do I use Gutenberg blocks?, Chris Lema wrote that with the plugin Blocky, “I can create what I want, place it where I want, for however long I want.” and use it for content upgrades, for upsells, for offers, for announcements and so much more! In his video Lema demos his workflow and in his post also have a few ideas how to apply it to your online business website.
Block Editor for Developers
Testing WordPress and Gutenberg
Justin Tadlock described all the different User-Friendly Methods for Testing Gutenberg Enhancements and Bug Fixes on the WPTavern and mentioned the GB Nightly.
There are times when you want to test single PRs before they are merged into the trunk code base. Paal Joachim Romdahl‘s tutorial on Testing a Gutenberg Pull Request (PR)Â that has not yet been merged into the plugins code base.
In theory each PR added to the repository will run a build process for this particular code change and other people can test a new feature or a bug fix to gauge if it’s ready to be merged.
Plugins for the Block Editor
There have been a few plugins lately that caught my attention:
Block Patterns Collection by Jyoti Shukla, a freelance WordPress and React Developer, providing – for now – two patterns: for statistics and a combine pattern with Heading, Text and Button blocks. On her blog, Jyoity Shukla writes about JavaScript and WordPress development.
Developers at Automattic released the Newspack-Newsletters plugin in the WordPress Repository. With it, you can use the block editor to build newsletters and connect them with Email Marketing Providers, Mailchimp or Constant Contact, right from your WP Admin. You will need an API Key from MJML.
WordPress Team Updates
Matt Chowning posted about Dual-Licensing Gutenberg: Next Steps on the Make Core Blog.
Gutenberg + Themes: Week of March 4, 2021: The weekly roundup by Jeffrey Pearce and the Themes Team on theme-related discussions, fixes, and developments in Gutenberg. Please weigh in on the tickets listed — your voice and feedback are welcome! In this list, I found the list of Medium projects by Matias Ventura, that shows that beyond the focus on Full-Site Editing, Global Styles and Site editor, the team is also working on refinements on the block editor especially on Cover, Image, Columns and Gallery blocks, as well as continue working on Reusable blocks.
Gutenberg 10.1 was released
- Read the release notes: What’s new in Gutenberg 10.1? (3 March) by Nik Tsekouras
- Get the skinny from Justin Tadlock: Gutenberg 10.1 Enhances Reusable Blocks, Updates Social Icons Spacing Options, and Normalizes Image Block Toolbar
- Core Editor Improvement: Need for (page/post) Speed
The new episode, number #39 of the Changelog will come to your favorite podcast app on Monday.
WordPress Events
March 8, 2021 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Philly’burbs WordPress Meetup
Bringing a WordPress Plugin to the Marketplace with Brad Williams and Corey Salzano
March 16, 2021, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM EDT
WordPress NYC Meetup Group
Fantastic Blocks and Where To Find Them with Laura Byrne
The Three Layers of WP Maintenance with Mervin Hernandez
April 16th – 18th, 2021.
WordCamp Greece 2021 Online.
The organizer published the call for speakers.
April 16th – 18th, 2021
WordCamp Northeast Ohio
Take a look at the Call for Sponsors
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.