Howdy,
Greetings from the US again. After some moody weather in Germany, I am glad to be back in warm and sunny Florida. ☀️ 🏝
In our latest Gutenberg Changelog episode, we had an extraordinary conversation with Dennis Snell about the early decision in Gutenberg development, about Typescript and Shortcode version 2.0. It’s now available with transcript and show notes.
WordPress Beta 2 was releases. In this Make blog post you’ll find instructions and features, that could use your help to test.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Yours, 💕
Birgit
Theme Building for block editor and Full-site editing
Ellen Bauer wrote The 5 most important WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) terms explained in which she describes what Block Themes are, how the term Editor has evolved to a site editing tool, what templates an template parts are, and how the Styles section can be used to configure the design and layout of your site.
Rich Tabor was a guest on Post Status Comments podcast. David Bisset talked to him about his plugins, the early Gutenberg developer experience and what Tabor sees as the future of Themes Post Status Excerpt (No. 55) —A New Era of WordPress Themes
Anne McCarthy posted about a similar topic on GT and picks up on the question: Who is FSE for? Reaching the Future of Full Site Editing. “As you’ve likely heard, full site editing (FSE) officially landed in the WordPress world with 5.9, with more planned for 6.0 and beyond. If you’ve tried it out, you’ll notice that it was released with a beta label on its menu to indicate it’s in an early stage and that it needs feedback from people like you to evolve it. As people have begun exploring, though, questions abound: Who is full site editing for? Why is it missing XYZ feature? Will it meet my needs? Why was it released now when it isn’t yet fully formed? This post seeks to clear up some of these questions and provide a wider context for this current stage of WordPress. ” she wrote.
Just landed in Core: Allow registration of blocks containing scripts / styles that need to get enqueued from within a Theme – After an interesting discussion during Developer Hours in March, Fabian Kägy and Grzegorz Ziółkowski collaborated to make it possible to register blocks in themes. It’s not the recommended way, as it leads to content lock in or content loss when themes are switched. Many agencies have advocated for the fix, so they can continue to provide all-in-one services, and reduce maintenance costs for themselves and their clients. It seems to be slated for WordPress 6.0. Milana Cap tweeted about it and the reactions were mixed. Found on Post Status newsletter 495.
Webfonts API
The Style Variations for Themes is a signature feature coming with WordPress 6.0. One of the supporting APIs is the Webfonts API. Contributors have been working on for quite some time, but the API was not merged for Beta 2. To get the Style Variations working in their intended from, the core team, is now working on a version to make the Webfonts API available as a private API, so it will only work in the context of theme.json.
Plugin developers will need to wait to use hooks and actions, until contributors feel comfortable to release it with the promise of stability and backwards compatibility.
Anne McCarthy, co-coordinator for WordPress 6.0 has all the salient details in her post: Status of Webfonts API for WordPress 6.0 Inclusion.
Justin Tadlock posted A Pared Back Web Fonts API May Land in WordPress 6.0 or Not at All
How to disable theme features and Lock Block Templates for Full-Site Editing in WordPress on Gutenberg Times
Developing Custom Blocks
In Failure and Learning: My Experience Building 4 Block Plugins in a Week Justin Tadlock shares his experience on developing Custom Blocks for the Block editor. There are a few wins listed: “The components system has grown into a robust and flexible tool set for developers over these last few years. Plus, the component-level documentation is well-rounded at this point, especially when pairing it with usage in the core code.”
In his post “How to create block visibility extension for Gutenberg”, Munir Kamal walked his readers through how to control the visibility of Custom Blocks by screen size, metadata, user roles or based on a URL query.
In the latest episode of the Matt Report, Matt Mederios interviewed Plugin Developer and core contributor Aurooba Ahmed. They discussed the WordPress community and how to deal with the challenges of being a product developer, a WordPress open-source contributor and the work at a day job. Listen in on Wrangling clients, plugins, and content with Aurooba Ahmed
Creating a custom WordPress admin screen using Gutenberg packages
A few weeks ago, Ryan Welcher started a new series of Twitch Streams, and live coded in multiple parts: Creating a custom WordPress admin screen using Gutenberg packages. Part 1, Part 2 are available on YouTube. Part 3 and Part 4 can be watched on Twitch.
In Part 1: Welcher started the process of creating a custom WordPress settings screen for a Pre-Publish Checklist. He registered a new page in the WordPress admin, set up the build process using the @wordpress/scripts package, rendered the React application into the new page. Eventually, he registered a site option that can be accessed via the application using useEntityProp.
In Part 2: Welcher continues the work on the settings screen by removing the TabPanel, creating a custom data store using @wordpress/data, and creating a much better UI.
We’ll update the list when Part 3 and 4 make their way to the YouTube channel/
🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #98 – WordPress 6.5, Gutenberg 18.0 Community Theme Project and the Contributor Mentorship Program with special guest Maggie Cabrera
Gutenberg for #nocode site builders and content creators
Daniel Schutzsmith was special guest on the Jukebox podcast and discussed with host Nathan Wrigley, how he prepared his team to use the Block Editor
In this week’s WordPress Gutenberg Block News on Youtube, Jamie Marsland of PootlePress demos the new feature of using a cover block with a features image in the Single Post template. This is already possible with the Gutenberg plugin, and will arrive at a WordPress instance near you with the 6.0 version. Also in the news: WooCommerce’s plans for the Single Product Page and demo of the new Stack block in Gutenberg.
The WordPress Accessibility team worked together with the Gutenberg team to bring accessibility improvements to WordPress 6.0. Anne McCarthy collected over 50 PRs and categorized them into Media, List View, Block and General Interface improvements. It’s an impressive list.
A fairly new podcast appeared in the WordPress space back in February 2022. It’s called Kadence Beat and is hosted by Kathy Zant together with Hanna and Ben Ritner, founders of the Kadence Theme. “The Kadence Beat covers WordPress, blocks, and strategies for effective websites.” The 8th episode with the title Effectively Using Popups as a Part of the Customer Journey is now available.
New on WordPress TV
- Using Block Patterns – Explore how to use Block Patterns to create new or update existing content.
- Understanding the Page Editor vs. Site Editor – What is the Site Editor? How does it differ from the page and post editor you are used to? How can you use templates in the Site Editor to create your overall site structure? Get answers to your questions!
- Creating a Magazine Layout with the Block Editor – First you see a few examples of newspaper website and how they display lists of articles and images. In the second part you learn how to create various list of articles with the block editor and the Query Loop and its built in patterns.
This week in WPTavern
- Munir Kamal Updates and Overhauls the Block Slider Plugin by Justin Tadlock
- Phi Phan Launches a Separator Block With an Icon Option by Justin Tadlock
- WooCommerce Plans to Bring Full-Site Editing Support to Single Product Templates by Sarah Gooding
- Gutenberg Contributors Begin Early Exploration of a New Distraction Free Mode by Sarah Gooding
- How to Align a Nested, Partial-Width Group Block via the WordPress Editor by Justin Tadlock
Upcoming WordPress Events
Social Learning Meetups
April 25, 2022 noon EDT / 16:00 UTC
Hello Blocks! Coding a custom block with Ryan Welcher and Wes Theron
May 4, 2022 -11am EDT / 15:00 UTC
Creating a Restaurant Website with the Block Editor w/ Wes Theron
May 9, 2022 3am EDT/ 7am UTC
Showcasing Content with Query Loops w/ Wes Theron
May 19, 2022 5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC
Using the Navigation Block w/ Wes Theron
WordCamps and other events
More and more WordCamps are being scheduled! On WordCamp Central you can view the whole calendar.
May 16-20, 2022
WordSesh
A virtual conference. Call for Speaker is open
June 2 – 4th, 2022
WordCamp Europe
You can start planning, the schedule is now available
June 25, 2022
WordCamp Montclair, NJ
The call for speakers is open only until April 15th, 2022
June 20 – 24, 2022
Page Builder Summit will take place June 20th to June 24, 2022. The call for sponsors is still open. Sign-up for the VIP list to learn first when tickets are available and the schedule is published.
June 25, 2022
WordCamp Montclair, NJ
The call for speakers is open only until April 15th, 2022
September 9 – 11, 2022
WordCamp US, San Diego, California
in-person conference in San Diego. Call for Speakers is open, deadline April 25th, 2022
February 17-19 2023 (tent)
WordCamp Asia, Bangkok, Thailand
Naoko Takano posted a call for organizers
On the Calendar for WordPress Online Events site, you can browse a list of the upcoming WordPress Events, around the world, including WordCamps, WooCommerce, Elementor, Divi Builder and Beaver Builder meetups.
