Weekend Edition #154 WordPress Page Builders and Blocks

Howdy, howdy.

We had another interesting week and a lot of creativity around the block-editor.

I hope, you enjoy this eclectic collection of links from brilliant people sharing their expertise on podcasts, YouTube shows, Meetups, and in blog posts.

Let’s dive in …

Yours, 💕
Birgit

Sections

Block-editor for Content Creators

At WordPress Meetup Montclair, Laura Byrne gave the presentation: Indespensible Blocks – How to use them and where to find them.(Video). Laura showed the attendees how she, a power WordPress user, works with the Block Editor, how she teaches the block editor to clients, and how the various blocks work. If you are still on the fence, definitely a show to watch. If you are already using it, still tune in for the secrets of a power user.

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Talking about content creators: The recording of our December Live Q & A: The Making of Open-Source Story by Yoast with Blocks is now available on the Gutenberg Times including transcript and a ton of resources. Huge “Thank You” to Omar Reiss, Willemien Hallebeek and Anne McCarthy for the look behind the scenes of content creation at Yoast.

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Mukarram Hossain shows you in his blog post “How to Use each and every Gutenberg Block in WordPress”

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Corina Schedler explains in her article Why it is now worth switching from Classic Editor to the block Editor. And that is not only because the previous “Classic Editor” is officially only supported until the end of December 2021… 😘

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Block-based Theme Development for Full-Site Editing

Eric Karkovack took an Early Look at Full Site Editing in WordPress and guides you along his first impressions. If you are new to the topic this is an excellent introduction. Similar to the FSE testing group, Eric also has a few more questions for the Gutenberg developers.

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Join us for the next Gutenberg Times Live Q & A on January 29th at 11:00 am ET (16:00 UTC)

I am delighted to have these great experts on our show:

• Carolina Nymark, teacher at fullsiteediting.com & Themes team rep
• Anne McCarthy, runs Full-Site Editing outreach group and
• Ari Stathopoulos, core contributor, also Themes team

We’ll have the latest updates on Full-Site-Editing, block-based Themes and Global Styles for you. We will touch on what features will most likely land in WordPress 5.7 and as well as the Navigation and Widget screens. Join us and bring all your questions. Register on Zoom

Fränk Klein shared how he implemented the newly developed Global Styles feature into his experimental block-based Bosco Theme, available in the WordPress themes directory.. Fränk gives you a tour around the experimental themes.json file, and compares working with Styling for Full-Site-Editing with the current way themes deal with styling of headings, typography etc.

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Anne McCarthy published the summary of the first call for testing from the FSE-program. It’s an interesting read of what non-developers found when working from within the new Site Editor.

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Kjellr Reigstad posted the #34 Gutenberg + Theme Update on the Make blog – a weekly roundup of theme-related discussions, fixes, and developments in Gutenberg collected by the Themes team.

One of the highlights is the announcement that the TT1 Blocks theme is now available in the Theme Directory. That’s this year’s default theme version made ready for the Full-Site-Editing experience.

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On ThemeShaper, Jack Lenox wrote the next post in the series “Getting Started with Block Themes”. In his post you’ll learn how to create block patterns in a from-Zero-to-Hero way

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Plugins for the Block Editor

Rob Stinson wrote a tutorial on how to create a related products Custom Block for WooCommerce, using Genesis Block Pro, without using JavaScript. Rob Stinson is the co-founder of Block Lab, acquired by WP Engine last fall, and now head of product management. Beware: Not all features described in this tutorial are available with the free version of the plugin.

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In his article “Show and Hide Content via the Block Visibility WordPress Plugin”, Justin Tadlock reviewed Nick Diego‘s plugin Block Visibility. It caught my eye as I have been trying to figure out how to manage content for different audiences, myself. “Block Visibility allows you to dynamically control which blocks are visible on your website and who can see them, which includes the ability to schedule blocks.” The scheduling part got me all excited as it allows me to prepare posts that contain embargo’ed information.

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Editor Block Outline by Kalimah Apps is a plugin that has implemented what many people find missing with the Block Editor: Better outlines and identification of blocks, especially when they are tested inside other blocks like a Group blocks or column block.

WPTavern posted a review

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Gutenberg and Page Builders

Brain Jackson, tweeted: “Page builders are dead and blocks are the future of WordPress (yes, I said it.) “ And he shared his review of the plugin Generate Blocks Pro, that was release this week. “See how to build fast and lightweight WordPress sites with Generate blocks” he continued.

GenerateBlocks is a free WordPress plugin created by Tom Usborne.

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Sarah Gooding wrote an interesting article on the topic of speed. Gutenberg’s Faster Performance Is Eroding Page Builders’ Dominance. After citing blog posts by Munir Kamal, Kyle Van Deusen and others, and providing the bigger context with Google’s Web Vitals initiative, Sarah concludes:

“For the past two years, WordPress users have been asking if Gutenberg will replace page builders. It looks more and more likely if the most popular ones remain bloated alternatives and the smaller ones keep on the same trajectory of attrition. It won’t happen overnight, but it is bound to accelerate when full-site editing makes its debut in WordPress core.”.

Don’t just read the article, though. The discussion in the comments is also very enlightening.

Developing for the Block-Editor

In this interview on Highrise Digital WPCafe Episode 8, Bill Erickson discussed with Keith Devon and Mark Wilkinson his process on working with Gutenberg.

He made Block Areas work for sites was ahead of the Gutenberg team adding blocks to sidebars and footers. It was a refreshing to hear Bill talk about the rich user experiences and the joy his customers gain from seeing the editor mirror their homepage exactly as it will be on the front-end and his goal to make that experience pixel perfect.

If you are a developer or designer or agency owner this is definitely a podcast episode well worth listening to.

Upcoming WordPress Events

January 19, 2021 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM EST (23:30 UTC)
WordPress “Mega Meetup”: The “New Year, New Stuff” Episode
Four Speakers: Taco Verdonschot, David Yarde, Gary Smith, Valerie Pierce

January 21, 2021 7:00 pm ET (00:00 UTC)
Philly ‘burbs WordPress Meetup “It’s a Gutenberg World”
The local community will share their recommendations for a combined total of 10 blocks or block libraries.

January 22, 2021 – 24-hour event
The festival of WordPress – WordFest
The sessions and schedule are now posted. The format is 30 min pre-recorded w/ 15 min Q & A, so attendees can interact with the speakers live. There are 48 sessions on four stages. The Global stage runs talks for the full 24 hrs. Holy Cow!

• Daisy Olsen will talk on Extending the WordPress Editor With Block Patterns at 11 pm ET on 1/21 / 2:00 UTC –
• My talk will be on 1/22 at 4 pm ET / 21:00 UTC “Case Study: A #Nocode Contributor Journey On The WordPress Gutenberg GitHub Repo”.

January 30–February 14, 2021
WordCamp India
Yes! You read those dates right. The Organizers plan to have a WordCamp over three weekends!  It will be a fully online event.

• January 30 – 31  – Workshop Days
• February 6 – 7 – Contributor Days
• February 13 – 14 – Speaker Talks

Featured Image: Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

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