Howdy,
WordCamp Asia will be in less than two weeks! Will I see you there? Just in case, I share my public calendar, so you could self-schedule a meeting with me. With the deliberate act to schedule an encounter, it ensures it will actually happen. Once they started, WordCamps get really busy, and then I live in the moment, try to be present in every conversation and might lose track of time. So even with the best of intentions, we could miss each other.
For those who won’t make it to the in-person WordCamp, the Livestream schedule is already published and displays date/times in your timezone. I compiled a list of eight Gutenberg related talks, mostly for my own benefit.
Yours, đź’•
Birgit
PS: You might find the Upcoming WordPress events section missing. Now that in-person events are coming back, there are too many to list in this newsletter.
Bookmark the upcoming WordPress events lists:
- WordCamp schedule on central.wordcamp.org/schedule
- The Learn WordPress online workshops and events on learn.wordpress.org/online-workshops/
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
The next Hallway Hangout will take place on February 13, 2023 at 9am ET. Felix Arntz and Anne McCarthy will discuss Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.2. This discussion will be a continuation of the conversation on performance considerations for Block Themes
Josepha Haden Chomphosy shared in her WP Briefing Episode 48 Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Means. “99% of the features we considered in scope for Phase 2 will be in core by April” she says and also adds what it doesn’t mean: “it definitely does not mean that we will stop shipping refinements to the user experience. ” If you are interested in the big picture ideas around the WordPress open-source project, subscribe to Chomphosy’s WP Briefing Podcast #worthit.
In his latest Design Share: Jan 16-Jan 27, Joen Asmussen takes into the redesigns of the WordPress Developer Blog, the “Hosting” page, the “About” page and the Job section of WordPress.org. You also find a visual discussion on the information architecture of the Global Styles feature in the Site editor, how a Custom CSS feature would look with error highlighting, how pointers of notes could be added to the sidebar.
Furthermore, you can also see some variation for Link Control and Shadow design tools. The design and meta teams working hard to get the redesigns of the WordPress.org site implemented.
The 20-year anniversary of the first WordPress release will be this year, and it deserves a 21st century look and feel. I am super-stoked about the fantastic work of the design team!
Speaking of anniversaries, Jeffrey B Paul, Director of Open Source at 10up, tweeted: Happy 6th Birthday Gutenberg! with a screenshot of the first commit by Matias Ventura to the GitHub repository.
The release of Gutenberg 15.1 has been move to a week later, and will come out on February 8th, 2023. JuanMa Garrido is the release lead. It’s the last Gutenberg plugin version that will be merged with WordPress core for the next major release 6.2. Beta for 6.2 is on February 7, 2023. If you’d like to start testing the latest features, you can use the plugin file from the release candidate.
Nick Diego and I recorded the Gutenberg Changelog #79 on Friday, and it will arrive at your favorite podcast app over the weekend. We covered a lot of ground including the high-priority features coming to a WordPress instance near you with 6.2 as well as the Gutenberg version 15.0 and 15.1. We also talked a bit about some tooling via plugins.
🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #90 – New Testing Call for the FSE Program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4 with Tammie Lister as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
In their latest post, Core Editor Improvement: Strengthening style options, Anne McCarthy lists all the great design tools that are coming to WordPress with the next major release in 6.2. “There’s something for everyone, whether you’re creating your next block theme, a designer seeking a pixel-perfect layout, or someone looking to reuse a design. Taken together, these changes create a clearer design process that is intuitive and efficient for modification and reuse.” McCarthy wrote.
Munir Kamal published a new tutorial on How to Create a Multi-Column List in WordPress Block Editor. “Due to its space-saving benefits and improved readability, multi-column formatting has been a staple in print media, such as newspapers and magazines.” Kamal explained.
Bud Kraus took the default theme Twenty-Twenty Three for a ride. You can read his review TwentyTwentyThree: A WordPress theme looking toward the future at GoDaddy Garage.
Judith Kallos, WordPress Consultant, asked in her blog post: Still Not Using WordPress Blocks? The Time is Now. She gave a brief intro into the Block Editor and had some tips to get started now.
James Koussertari, Gutenberg Market, found for you The 6 Best Gutenberg Compatible WordPress Themes in 2023 and reviewed them. They are not Block Themes using the Site Editor, though. Good Themes, that handle blocks well, and their the pros and cons.
In his latest post, Steve Burge explored the Openverse Integration of the block and site editor prior to the Gutenberg plugin release. It is also slated to come to WordPress core with the 6.2 release. Read what he found in Openverse Stock Photos Are Coming to WordPress. A Thank you also to Steve Burge for the shoutout of the Gutenberg Nightly, the daily plugin build for testing features that are not yet released. It will cross 140,000 downloads soon.
Starting February 8th, Openverse will be on its stand-alone domain at openverse.org for SEO and other purposes. All links and WordPress navigation will be redirected. Access from the block editor will keep working, too.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s trunk branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.
Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
Mark Root-Wiley published his case study: WordPress Site Editor First Use Friction Log. He live blogs his experience recreating his site with a block theme and use the Site Editor to select his Global Styles.
Recently, I saw the question more often: how to migrate a classic theme to a block theme. Sorry, I don’t remember where, though.
In the Themes handbook, I found a chapter on exactly that topic: Converting a classic theme to a block theme. Unfortunately, there is not 1:1 migration process on button click. The paradigm changes are too fundamental. The general concepts of a migration are covered in the post Gradually adopting the Site Editing features. Then you learn how to enable block features in classic themes:
- Adding theme.json
- Adding block patterns
- Enabling template editor
- Disabling template editor
- Adding block template parts
- Customizer options
In the latest WordPress Developer Blog post, Creating custom block styles in WordPress themes, Justin Tadlock explains how to create custom block styles on a quirky example: If you follow along, you get to build a cool hand-drawn border and make it available to your theme users:
In part 5 of the Starter Block Theme series, Daisy Olsen, demonstrates how how to handle custom Fonts in theme.json file. She explored adding custom fonts via theme.json in a few different ways:
- including manually registering via theme.json,
- using the Create Block Theme plugin to add Google fonts, and
- fonts from locally stored files uploaded to your site.
You can catch Daisy Olsen Twitch stream every Friday at 10:30 am live programming and discussion ins and out of Block Themes.
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor
Sarah Gooding took A Look Under the Hood at Engine Awesome, a Laravel-based SaaS App Using Gutenberg outside the WordPress ecosystem. Steve Bruner, SlipFire agency owner, said: “The front-end is a headless React application built primarily using the Gutenberg JavaScript packages. We use the Gutenberg packages directly instead of the Isolated Editor project as it affords us a higher degree of control and customization.” as quoted by Gooding.
Rae Morey reported that the WooCommerce core team is piloting a three-month program of monthly chats that will focus on WooCommerce Blocks Extensibility. Automattic Developer Advocate Stephanie Pi says the trial aims to determine the best way to speak directly and transparently with the WooCommerce developer community. (Source: The Repository)
In addition to his Twitch stream every Thursday at 10:30 am ET, Ryan Welcher also started with mobile short video format. This first recording is an introduction to custom Webpack configuration via @wordpress/scripts: A quick tip on creating a custom webpack configuration.
In this week’s episode of WPCafe, Keith Devon and Mark Wilkinson discuss the challenges of modern WordPress development for block editor and site editor. Keith Devon invites you via his tweet: “Join us for a good old moan about WordPress development” 🤣.
Ryan Welcher updated his YouTube Channel with recording from his Twitch Stream: Gutenberg 15.0 features and a Post Picker block. Welcher covered developer-focused features in Gutenberg 15.0. In the second part of the session he gave an intro to creating a post-picker block and demonstrate some hooks and components.
