WordPress 5.6 development is winding down as we begin to close out the beta testing round, inching toward the final release on December 8. That means it is time to think about what WordPress 5.7 will look like. This is one of my favorite times of the WordPress development cycle because I get to see what others want to be …
Genesis Block Theme Beta, StudioPress Pursuing a Block-First Future
On November 11, StudioPress announced an open beta for its Genesis Block Theme. This is a pivotal moment, or at least one moment in a series of significant moments, for adoption of the block editor. Feel free to call me on this in a year or two if it does not pan out. The original Genesis theme is the foundational …
Build Editor Blocks for Clients With the Genesis Custom Blocks Plugin
In early September, WP Engine announced the launch of Genesis Custom Blocks, a block-creation plugin made possible by its StudioPress team. The concept should feel familiar to developers who have made use of Advanced Custom Fields and similar plugins. However, the focus of this new plugin is entirely on blocks. The plugin is more of a framework than a plug-and-play …
WordPress To Combine Its Long-Neglected Theme Previewer With Starter Content
Six weeks ago, WordPress 5.6 release lead Helen Hou-Sandí breathed new life into two almost-forgotten features around the WordPress website and platform. The idea was to take the starter content feature, which themes can optionally add for new installs, and apply it to the WordPress.org theme preview system. It was not a new idea. However, it finally had some teeth …
Should WordPress Notify Users of Plugin Ownership Changes?
Potential idea for showing plugin ownership change. That is the question posed by Ian Atkins in a recent ticket for WordPress. “I’ve experienced a few plugins change ownership, and it’s really not clear as a user, developer, and maintainer of sites when that has happened,” he wrote in the ticket. “Whilst having a plugin continue to be developed is admirable …
Proposal to Create an Expanded View or Overlay for the Block Patterns Inserter
The “version 1.0” launch of block patterns in WordPress 5.5 was overall successful. However, it was easy to overlook the problems while waiting for this feature to land after months of anticipation. Now that we have had a couple of months of seeing the block pattern system baked into core WordPress, it is time to address issues that are becoming …
Do Not Build Theme-Specific Block Plugins for WordPress, Please
A few days ago, I came across a small library of blocks. As always, I was interested in seeing what this new plugin brought to the table. Would it surprise me with a block that has not been done before? Would it present a new take on some old ideas? Or, would it be the same old set of blocks …
Editor Plus 2.1 Overhauls Block Controls UI and Adds Lottie Animations
Yesterday, Munir Kamal released version 2.1 of the Editor Plus plugin. The biggest change is a complete overhaul of its design controls. The developer also added a new Lottie animation block. I probably sound like a broken record after covering the last several releases of the plugin, but Kamal is doing some amazing things with the block editor. He is …
Twenty Twenty-One Blocks Theme Launching as a Separate Project
Twenty Twenty-One in the Gutenberg site editor. Last Friday, Themes Team representative Carolina Nymark announced the Twenty Twenty-One Blocks theme project. It is a block-based version of the Twenty Twenty-One default theme that is shipping along with WordPress 5.6. It will work with the site editor available in the Gutenberg plugin. Developers will work on the two themes as separate …
Dragging and Dropping Meta Boxes Might Not Be So Simple in WordPress 5.6
If you have been testing the latest development version of WordPress in the past week or so, you may have noticed that the ability to drag and drop meta boxes seemingly disappeared. This is not a bug. Nine days ago, lead developer Andrew Ozz committed a change that requires end-users to click the “screen options” tab to expose the ability …