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 checked the source code to …
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 more as fall festivals and …
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 themes. However, its themes tend …
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 for managing individual FAQ sets. …
Gutenberg 11.8 Adds Dozens of Features, Including Featured Patterns and Automatically-Generated Heading Anchors
Gutenberg 11.8 was released at about 12 pm (CDT) today. However, it hit a bump in the road toward its destination, the WordPress plugin directory. A mix-up with getting the release tagged was the culprit, so it sat in limbo for around eight hours. Technically, it was available via its GitHub and SVN repositories. However, the version shown on WordPress.org …
The ‘Pattern’ Block and How It Fixes a Longstanding Issue With Dynamic Data in HTML Templates
As I was perusing the latest block themes on WordPress.org, I came across a new favorite: Bai. The typography was on point for those who tend to write long-form content. Plus, it has a built-in dark mode design that did not make me want to rip my eyes from their sockets. I had planned to review it, but I did …
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 a mild obsession lately with …
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 developers creating an entirely new …
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 sure I will tackle on …
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 another block-based theme? The left …