Opinion

  • Ask the Bartender: Where Are the WooCommerce Block Themes?

    Ask the Bartender: Where Are the WooCommerce Block Themes?

    At what point are FSE theme developers going to start integrating and considering WooCommerce for their themes? WooCommerce has almost always seemed to lag behind all other considerations. It’s a bit like it’s an afterthought to simply scramble in the elements of a solid WooCommerce store. Where is a persistent cart header? Where are the…

  • WordPress Has Never Offered an Ideal Writing Experience

    WordPress Has Never Offered an Ideal Writing Experience

    It needed to be said. I know some of you loved writing in the classic editor. I know some of you enjoy the current block editor. Some of you may have even been thrilled with the platform’s earlier attempt at a distraction-free writing mode. But, for actual writing, WordPress has always been kind of, sort…

  • Ona by DeoThemes Just Raised the Bar for WordPress Block Theme Design

    Ona by DeoThemes Just Raised the Bar for WordPress Block Theme Design

    No sooner than I said the floodgates of block theme development would be open, a couple of more FSE-capable themes landed in the WordPress.org directory. I checked the review system, and three more were queued up. It took mere days for me to find another favorite: Ona by DeoThemes. When the author mentioned it, I…

  • NaNoWriMo? NaBloPoMo? A Month of Writing Challenges

    NaNoWriMo? NaBloPoMo? A Month of Writing Challenges

    It is November, and that only means one thing. It is National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo for short. Autumn is my favorite time of year. Football is in full swing. Warm mugs of coffee replace the cold brew. Eggnog cartons line supermarket fridges. There are weekend hayrides, face paintings, corn mazes, ring-toss games, and…

  • The WordPress Block Theme Revolution Is Quietly Picking Up Momentum

    The WordPress Block Theme Revolution Is Quietly Picking Up Momentum

    It is only a matter of time before the floodgates are flung open. Many of the block themes released in the past year have been little different than your typical starter theme. However, there is a quiet momentum building that might just surprise some folks in a few months. Automattic has put out several block…

  • Create and Manage Frequently Asked Questions With the Flexible FAQs Plugin

    Create and Manage Frequently Asked Questions With the Flexible FAQs Plugin

    David Gwyer released his Flexible FAQs plugin a year ago via his WPGO Plugins site. However, after a month of updates, the project seemed to fall off the radar, at least until earlier this week when he released a massive overhaul that integrates more with the block editor. The plugin creates a custom post type…

  • Designing Block-Based WordPress Child Themes With a Single JSON File

    Designing Block-Based WordPress Child Themes With a Single JSON File

    From the moment I opened my first theme shop back in 2008 to the present day as someone who merely tinkers, my plan has always been to build a single theme in the mold of CSS Zen Garden. This was a project that Dave Shea launched in the early 2000s to show how designers could…

  • Branded Social Images, a New Plugin for Generating Per-Post Open Graph Images

    Branded Social Images, a New Plugin for Generating Per-Post Open Graph Images

    Generated social images seem to be all the rage now. Automattic scooped up Daniel Post’s Social Image Generator last month for eventual inclusion in Jetpack. There is a proposal to dynamically generate them for plugins and themes hosted on WordPress.org. And, there is a new player in town: Branded Social Images. Admittedly, I have had…

  • Tidying the Media Library With WP Ninjas’ Remove Unused Media Plugin

    Tidying the Media Library With WP Ninjas’ Remove Unused Media Plugin

    A few weeks ago, WP Ninjas announced it was stepping into the media optimization plugin market. The team released its Remove Unused Media plugin as a commercial project for tidying storage space. I received a full copy of it and put it through the ropes. With so many commercial plugins, I am accustomed to the…

  • Build Notification Banners With ElmaStudio’s Latest Block Plugin

    Build Notification Banners With ElmaStudio’s Latest Block Plugin

    A friend and I were discussing the need for more one-off block plugins earlier today. He had mentioned that WordPress has this powerful block search feature that rarely turns up anything useful. Most are part of collections that do not appear in the results. This was part of a more wide-ranging conversation that I am…

  • Ask the Bartender: What Happens to the Customizer When a Block Theme Is Active?

    Ask the Bartender: What Happens to the Customizer When a Block Theme Is Active?

    Something on my radar right now is third-party plugins that have settings in the Customizer. What I gather of friends who are the devs working on Customizer and front-end stuff within a few plugin companies, global styles and block styles are not yet on their radar. So what happens if someone installs Twenty Twenty-Two or…

  • Take the Guesswork Out of Selecting Fonts With the Adrian WordPress Plugin

    Take the Guesswork Out of Selecting Fonts With the Adrian WordPress Plugin

    As usual, I am always on the lookout for plugins that allow users to have fun with their websites. I like to mix it up from time to time here on the Tavern and not be all-business-all-the-time. And, that is where the new Adrian plugin comes in. Its goal is to take all of the…