Gutenberg Times will be hosting a live Q&A webinar titled “Layout, Layout, Layout” on January 11, 2023, at 05:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) via Zoom. This event is open to WordPress users of all experience levels who are interested to learn more about how to use WordPress’ layout features when building sites with blocks.
Host Birgit Pauli-Haack will be joined by WordPress veterans Isabel Brison, Andrew Serong, and Justin Tadlock. Brison will be demonstrating different layout scenarios during the presentation, and attendees will be able to participate with questions.
Any user who has attempted to layout a design in WordPress has likely tried out container blocks that offer layout settings. These blocks include Columns, the Cover block, and the generic Group block.
The event will cover how to manipulate layouts by defining the width of post content, arranging blocks horizontally or vertically, right or left aligned, and inside container blocks.
“In terms of block styling, Layout is a complex feature because it affects child blocks in ways that go beyond CSS inheritance,” Pauli-Haack said.
WordPress 6.1 introduced more layout controls and flexibility in the block editor, but Pauli-Haack said the dev note on updated layout support was written more for developers.
“Feedback from users through the FSE program and other connections revealed that handling the layout settings for container blocks is not particularly intuitive and takes some trial and error to find the right combination,” she said. “The Live Q & A will bring a better understanding to users and #nocode site builders.”
When Pauli-Haack started the Live Q & A’s in 2018, she routinely brought in guests who were building the block editor, with the intention of having users meet them and discuss features like full-site editing, block themes, case studies, and discuss challenges.
“Since then, quite a few initiatives of the official WordPress project have come to life,” she said. “There is the highly successful Full Site Editing outreach program, spearheaded by Anne McCarthy, who now holds regular Hallway Hangouts with community members and contributors.”
People are also learning the ins and outs of site editing through the efforts of the training team, which began creating courses and lesson plans and hosting workshops on Meetup.com in 2021. These are also recorded and uploaded to WordPress.tv and YouTube. WordPress.org also launched a blog for developers in November 2022. With all these new learning opportunities, Pauli-Haack is changing the focus for her live events.
“For the Gutenberg Times Live Q & As, I am now looking at topics and discussions about more complex concepts, more case studies, and technology on the cutting edge,” she said. Most recently, the show featured the developers and digital strategies of the Pew Research Center, a high profile site that was built with a block-first approach.
“We are also in planning phase to hold a Live Q & A with the developers of GiveWP who are using Gutenberg as a framework to build the next generation of their popular donations plugin with the components and scripts that Gutenberg uses, but outside the post or site editor,” Pauli-Haack said.
She also has another Live Q & A planned with the WordPress VIP design team that works on design systems for companies that need a streamlined way to stay within their design standards. Pauli-Haack intends to talk with them about a plugin they created that lets designers automatically create a website’s theme.json file with all the styling pulled directly from Figma designs.
The upcoming Layouts webinar is free but attendees need to register to get the zoom link. An archive of all the past Live Q & A events is available on the Gutenberg Times website. The best way to stay informed about future events is to subscribe to Gutenberg Times’ Weekend Edition, as subscribers get an early invitation for the next Live Q & A’s.