I once said that full-page patterns were the missing link for block theme development. Theme authors have been able to include such layouts since the patterns feature was rolled out in WordPress 5.5 last year. However, core WordPress has never provided an experience built around them. This may be changing when WordPress 6.0 ships next…
WordPress developer Phi Phan has been making small splashes lately, but in a sea of 1,000s of plugins, it is increasingly tough to make a wave. Over the weekend, he released the Block Enhancements plugin, the first pass on a project that he plans to iterate on with new ideas. However, this is not his…
WordPress 6.0 will attempt to tackle comments lists via the block system. It is an area that has fallen behind other features, which have received the bulk of the work in prior releases. Last week, JuanMa Garrido called for volunteers to test the new blocks via the Make WordPress Test blog. Contributors are asked to…
On its face, Grigora Blocks by Latracal Solutions seems almost pedestrian. It feels like a theme you would use as a starting point to build your own thing. It will not have enough personality for everyone to give it a shot. However, for others, a base layout to customize is what they might be looking…
Over the past year, I have been on a mission. I have eagerly awaited each release of the Gutenberg plugin, followed tickets, and chimed in when I could. I have been holding out some sliver of hope for one feature in particular. I wanted to use featured images within a Cover block. That day has…
A couple of weeks ago, Rich Tabor announced a GitHub repository that listed all of his block plugins. These were already publicly available. However, some had yet to land in the WordPress plugin directory. As a fan of his simple approach to block design, I was quick to start tinkering with them. One of those…
Anne McCarthy announced round #13 of the FSE Outreach Program on March 31. This call for testing focuses on creating an author template via the site editor. Several of the new features used during this round were only added in Gutenberg 12.9 last week. The call asks volunteers to test and provide feedback on features…
WebMan Design owner Oliver Juhas released the first version of the Abs – Additional block styles plugin on Monday. Unlike many block-related extensions, it does not offer any blocks of its own. Instead, it registers custom styles to enhance those packaged with core WordPress. In total, the plugin adds 18 styles. Some are specific to…
Gutenberg 12.9 landed in the WordPress.org plugin directory today, and it is a beefy release, packed with a little something for everyone. Even after tinkering with new features over the last few days, I have yet to explore everything as much as I would like. Given the practical limitation of time, I will not be…
Yesterday, Ella van Durpe merged a long-awaited feature into the Gutenberg plugin that allows users to select and modify text across multiple Rich Text blocks. It should land in version 13.0 of the plugin and WordPress 6.0 in May. Users can currently select text across multiple blocks, but the editor automatically adjusts that selection to…
The WordPress pattern directory finally opened its gates to the entire community today. Anyone with a WordPress.org account can log in, go to the pattern creator, and start designing. For some of us, this has felt like an unbearably long wait. In reality, it took the development team less than a year since the directory…
The day has finally arrived when a block theme does something interesting with the featured image on single post views. One of my biggest pet peeves is when themers simply dump it at the top of the content and call it a day. I nearly always bolt straight for the site editor to remove the…
Over the weekend, web developer Marie Comet released the Lock Reusable Blocks plugin. Since then, she has published a couple of more updates that polish that initial release. The extension blocks users from directly editing reusable blocks from the post-editing screen. Reusable blocks allow users to group one or more blocks in the post editor,…
Yesterday, DeoThemes’ latest block theme, Ona Creative, landed in the WordPress directory. It is the second child of Ona, a theme I initially showcased here on the Tavern in November 2021. When I first reviewed the Ona parent theme, WordPress 5.9 had yet to be released, and users were required to install the Gutenberg plugin…
I have a new favorite WordPress development-related plugin: Theme YAML. Sascha Paukner released it a mere day ago, and it may find its place in many theme developers’ toolboxes before long. It allows themers to write theme JSON in YAML format. To use, theme authors only need to create a new theme.yaml file and begin…