Like many others, I often have pinned tabs of all sorts of things in my browser. Some of them linger there for months. Others for years, I shamefully admit. Of the handful of Gutenberg-related browser tabs I have had pinned since late 2020, one of them finally had the sort of movement I have been…
Yesterday, version 10.2 of the Gutenberg WordPress plugin landed. Users can now add a Spacer block between Navigation items, categorize custom template parts, and pick between patterns when inserting the Query block. The user experience continues to improve in some areas. The Media & Text block, one of the few holdouts, can now be transformed…
[The Eksell theme] does such a great job of selling a block editor-driven WordPress. It was a missed opportunity to not pair something of this quality with the block editor when WordPress 5.0 was released. It’s responsive! I’m amazed this stands out as a highlight for me, but, as the official theme, Twenty Twenty-One breaks…
Earlier today, core WordPress contributor Nick Halsey released Full Screen Galleries, a plugin that automatically creates a full-screen slideshow when site visitors click on an image. The plugin works with all images, regardless of whether they are in a gallery block. It also supports both the classic and block editors. Lightbox-type plugins are a dime…
It is easy to become jaded after reading the same old keyword-stuffed theme descriptions. After viewing the same hero-plus-three-boxes theme designs. After seeing another theme with “block editor styles” that utterly fails to deliver on its promise. As I peruse the demo of Anders Norén’s latest WordPress theme, Eksell, I am reminded that artists still…
Yesterday, Happy Prime owner and engineer Jeremy Felt released Shortnotes, a plugin for writing notes from the WordPress editor. The intention is for users to create short pieces of content, such as that found on Twitter, Instagram, and similar social networks. However, it does not come with a front-end posting interface, at least not in…
It was 2003. I was just getting my first taste of blogging and similar experiments on the world wide web. Seemingly every blog I toured showcased a long list of the owner’s friends. These were all the other cool kids jumping onto this blogging bandwagon — the blogroll was almost a status symbol. You had…
Automattic-owned WordPress.com launched its new Story-publishing feature today. Currently, only users with the WordPress for Android or iOS apps can add stories. Self-hosted users with Jetpack-connected sites can publish via the mobile apps too. The development team previewed the Story feature in January, launching a public beta on the Android app. Stories are essentially media…
Gutenberg 10.1 landed yesterday with several new features, many of which focused on improvements to the interface and user experience. Users can now control the justification of items in the Social Icons block. The new release also enhances the UX for creating reusable blocks, groups the Image block toolbar controls, and introduces categorized template parts…
One of my favorite activities each week is to peruse the latest themes to land in the WordPress theme directory. Often, there are intriguing design concepts. However, much of the time, I am disappointed to learn that homepage designs of many rely on theme options instead of the block editor. While the editor has several…
I’m a developer that has started developing with Gutenberg recently. There are a bunch of amazing benefits and features, but there are also a ton of drawbacks, inconsistencies, as well as absolutely awful and outdated documentation. One of the worst aspects of Gutenberg from a developer perspective has been block validation. Consider the following scenario.…
What was once likely viewed as plugin territory is now a reality as part of the Gutenberg project. Yesterday, the team merged a pull request for a Table of Contents (TOC) block into the plugin’s codebase. It was a contribution driven by developer Zebulan Stanphill, starting nearly a year ago. The TOC block may feel…
Earlier today, the WordPress theme directory welcomed its fourth block-based theme. Built by UXL Themes, Hansen is one of the more stylish projects capable of working with the site editor in the Gutenberg plugin. The theme author also stepped it up a notch and included several block patterns. I have written about how patterns will…
Anne McCarthy announced the second round of testing for the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program. The call for testing asks that users build a homepage from the Gutenberg plugin’s site editor. Feedback is open until March 5. The first round of testing began in December 2020 and ended last month. Testers were able to…
Today, GT Basic became the second theme from GermanThemes to go live in the WordPress theme directory. Like the company’s previous theme, GT Ambition, it is built around the block editor. It also introduces several custom block patterns. The theme will not knock anyone’s socks off with its artistic merit. GT Basic is very much…