[ad_1] WordPress 5.8 introduced an opt-in system for themes to configure block settings, styles, templates, and more. It is done through a new theme.json file that authors can put at the root of their theme folders. Anne McCarthy, the lead of the FSE Outreach Program, announced a survey earlier today to get feedback from developers on this feature. “Since this new mechanism is an early step towards a comprehensive style system for the future of WordPress, it’s important to hear from everyone who is currently using theme.json to learn more about how folks are using this tool and what might make sense to include in Core going forward,” she wrote in the announcement. The survey is open to all theme authors who have used theme.json, giving them a chance to put in some early feedback and help steer the ship going forward. Because I have worked extensively with this system over the past few months, I had a few things to say. Plus, I just like participating in WordPress-related surveys. I also decided it would be an opportunity to share some of my unfiltered thoughts from a development perspective on the current state of theme.json. What follows are my responses to the survey’s questions — well, the tidied-up version. Note: This is a developer-centric post that might not universally appeal to all of our readers. I have attempted to explain some things in user-friendly terminology, but some prerequisite knowledge of theme development may be necessary. Experience The first question of the survey is pretty cut-and-dry. It asks what your experience is with building block themes or using theme.json. It provides four choices (and an “other” option): I have built and launched block themes. I have experimented with building block themes. I have explored using theme.json with a classic theme. I have used a block theme, but I have not built one yet. I chose the first option because I have already built two block themes for family and friends. These were simple personal sites that I already maintain for free — honestly, I need to start charging. I am also working on a theme that I hope to release publicly. How It Started and How It’s Going The second question asks how one got started with block themes and theme.json. The choices are between forking an existing theme, using the Empty Theme, or starting from scratch. Again, this is one of those things where I have experimented with each direction, but I cannot remember the exact starting point. The bulk of my work has come from forking a theme that I last worked on in 2019. I plan to release this as a new theme for free at some point. I am mostly waiting on the following: Navigation block development to settle down The Post Author block to be split into smaller blocks A robust set of comment-related blocks Post Featured Image block to have a size option I think I could realistically release a use-at-your-own-risk beta version of my theme today if those items were addressed. Templates and Template Parts The survey asked which templates and template parts themers always include in their block-based themes. There was a freeform comment field — steps upon soapbox… I have a love/hate relationship with block templates at the moment. The static nature of HTML templates reminds me of simpler times when theme development was less complicated. However, this also presents a problem in a dynamic system. I cannot remember the last time I have built a traditional, PHP-based theme with more than one top-level template: index.php. The dynamic pieces have always been the guts of the thing, which are template parts. With PHP, it is easy to set some variable or use a function call to contextually load the templates parts necessary for whichever page a visitor is currently viewing on a site. The block template system does not work like that. It essentially forces developers into breaking the Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle. For example, if a designer wanted to display a different header template part for pages and posts, they would only need to create a header-page.php or header-post.php template in traditional themes. However, because the block template system is different, they must now create two top-level templates, single.html (post) and page.html, to accomplish the same thing. This is a “bad thing” because theme authors must duplicate all the other code in each of the top-level templates. There is no way to contextually load different template parts. To answer the question: I am using almost all of the possible top-level templates out of necessity. I also answered the second part of the question and listed my most commonly used template parts (broken down by hierarchy): Header Content– Loop– Sidebar Footer The content-*.html and loop-*.html template parts are those with the most variations. Defining Colors The next section of the survey asks how theme authors define their color palette slugs in theme.json. Believe it or not, naming colors may be the most controversial topic in the theming world in years. The only two things generally agreed upon are “background” and “foreground” colors. Morten Rand-Hendriksen opened a ticket in 2018 for standardizing a theme color naming scheme. It was not the first discussion and has not been the last. The problem it was meant to address was the slugs for colors in the system, which is how themes define their palettes. Once a user makes use of a preset color, the slug is hardcoded into their content. Switch to another theme with different slugs, and the old colors disappear and do not automatically change to the new theme’s colors. I use semantic names that follow something that closely resembles the Tailwind CSS framework’s shading system. Instead of red-medium (descriptive), I would use primary-500 (semantic), for example. A semantic approach would allow theme authors to define a set of colors that are updated each time a user switches themes. Of course, there are other schools of thought, and even everyone who prefers
Continue readingMonthly Archives: July 2021
Some Emoji-Accessibility Guidance • WPShout
[ad_1] I’m not an accessibility expert, but I am a big emoji fan (as frequent readers may be aware 🤪). So I took a pretty keen interest in a story from Ryan Kan purporting to make me better at accessibility with specific regard to emojis. A lot of this advice just feels right—emoji-only button labels are harder to make sense of. But some things I’d really never thought through, like the idea that you should always put words BEFORE emojis on things like buttons. Having heard it, I get it. But I have to admit I’ve likely done that backwards at least once in the past. Live and learn 😅 Visit uxdesign.cc → [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingPublishPress Adopts Organize Series Plugin – WP Tavern
[ad_1] PublishPress, makers of the PublishPress and PublishPress Blocks plugins, have adopted the Organize Series plugin from Darren Ethier. Organize Series is a 15-year-old plugin for organizing and displaying posts in a series, useful for novel writers, educators, magazine sites, and anyone breaking their longer content up into a series. image credit: PublishPress PublishPress is also adopting seven extensions for the plugin that add features like custom post type support, shortcodes, the ability to add a post to multiple series, bulk publishing, and more. Ethier, who works as an engineer at Automattic, said he began losing interest in maintaining the plugin and knew it was time to search for a new owner. “Most of you have noticed that I haven’t been actively contributing to Organize Series or it’s extensions for some time now and it’s been bugging me,” he said. “I’ve been gradually losing interest in maintaining the plugin as I’ve expanded my developer horizons and as a result, I’ve struggled with making the time to work on it.” Ethier connected with PublishPress by describing his situation in a post on the Post Status community and agreed to transfer his plugin and extensions in exchange for a donation to a charity. “Darren asked us to make a charitable donation as part of the handover,” PublishPress founder Steve Burge said. “We chose the American Journalism Project. Over 2,100 communities in the U.S. have lost their local newspaper since 2004. The AJP is trying to reverse that trend. It is a non-profit that is investing in local news. Their goal is to help grow newsrooms that hold the powerful accountable, combat disinformation, and deepen civic participation.” Burge assured current users that the free version of Organize Series will remain free on WordPress.org with all of its current features and some improvements. The company will also keep the extensions freely available on GitHub but Burge said they plan to release a commercial version with updated versions of the extensions. With the adoption of Organize Series, PublishPress now has nine plugins available in its niche collection of publishing extensions as part of its mission to “help WordPress publishers succeed.” In the near future, Organize Series’ website content will be transferred over and the company will be changing the plugin’s name to “PublishPress Series.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWordCamp US Online Set for October 1
[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, there has been some talk within the community about returning to in-person WordPress events in limited locations. Meanwhile, the WordCamp US Online schedule is released. The free one-day conference is set for October 1, 2021. Beyond that, the first beta release of WooCommerce 5.6.0 is out with some new features for store owners, and we have some great tutorials and resources for you as always. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingResources, Week of 25 July 2021
[ad_1] Most of the resources and articles I’m sharing this week are the usual type but there are a few, such as original Kindles no longer being able to access the web via 3G, that are an interesting read mainly because I remember when the device came out and that was a specifically killer feature for me. I also started working on a series on how to use Ray to debug features in WordPress. I cover this later in the article. Week of 25 July 2021 Resources Articles PHP Utilities My Own Posts I’m planning tow work on my series on Ray a little bit more and have another article out next week. Until then. 👋🏻 [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingA Curated List of RSS Feeds for Software Engineering Blogs – WP Tavern
[ad_1] In one of the most apropos uses of a .blog domain, Refined.blog is a new website that promotes personal blogging with a curated list of software engineering blogs. It’s a simple site with an index of blogs, their Hacker News scores, tags, and a link to each blog’s RSS feed. The search function is very fast and applies to all columns in the index (with the exception of the feed URL). Columns can be ordered alphabetically, by tag, or by HN points. “Experience is gold,” Refined.blog creator Musa Ünal wrote in the site’s introduction. “There are many different social media platforms on the internet but we need personal blogs again. It’s hard to find blogs so let’s create this blog list together!” It’s true – discovering new blogs isn’t easy. If you’re not following the right people on Twitter or don’t happen to be around when a person links to their posts on social media, then you are usually out of luck. Personal blogs are often not very well optimized for search and can get lost in the haystack. Google Search doesn’t provide a way to narrow results to personal blogs. The Wiby search engine is about the closest you can get for searching these types of websites, although it seems to be limited to older style pages that are based on one subject of interest. Wiby uses Microsoft Bing’s search results combined with Wiby.me results without sending your IP and user agent to Microsoft. Wiby’s about page explains the problem that sites like Refined.blog are aiming solve: In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were personally interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercial pages that overcrowded everything else. All the personalized websites are hidden among a pile of commercial pages. Google isn’t great at finding them, its focus is on finding answers to technical questions, and it works well; but finding things you didn’t know you wanted to know, which was the real joy of web surfing, no longer happens. In addition, many pages today are created using bloated scripts that add slick cosmetic features in order to mask the lack of content available on them. Those pages contribute to the blandness of today’s web. The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. Refined.blog brings more exposure to some of these single-person curated websites. Its creator, Musa Ünal, is considering branching out from an index of software engineering blogs to separate indexes for different topics. “For example, I am big fan of history bloggers, but it’s very hard to find these kinds of blogs,” he said in response to a question on Hacker News. “If you know such of blogs, please contribute to the project. If we have enough bloggers listed, we can create subdomains like history.refined.blog or art.refined.blog.” Hacker News comments on the project range from people discovering RSS for the first time and looking for reader recommendations, to people returning to RSS to get their news after becoming jaded by news algorithms and social media platforms. Other commenters shared that they, too, maintain their own lists of curated blogs. Refined.blog used some existing Engineering and Security blog lists as sources for the index. “I love this,” one person commented on Hacker News. “I’m in the ultrarunning community and I love reading everyone’s blog posts/trip reports/race reports/adventures. But everyone stopped updating them over the past 5 years or so. Now that sort of thing is just an Instagram photo with a paragraph or two. The depth and character of those old blog posts have been lost. I wish in depth blog posts would come back, but in reality, I don’t think they are.” Another commenter echoes the sentiments of others who have given up on promoting their blogs in the age of social media: I’ve completely given up on promoting my stuff. It used to be very easy and straightforward. Like minded folks could find new stuff without a problem. Nowadays, there’s just way too much content, the vast majority of very low effort, and you get lost in the noise immediately. For example, I have an old blog post that got featured in podcasts, on dailyjs, HN, is linked to from MDN, etc. When I wrote it in 2014 I pretty much just submitted it to Reddit, that’s it. Nowadays I couldn’t recreate that exposure — or even a tiny fraction of it — if my life depended on it. Regardless of whether the site takes off or not, I think it’s important to catalog these attempts to restore the magic of that earlier era where websites offered a real window into people’s knowledge and interests. It may not look the same as many of us remember the old school “vintage” internet, but the blogosphere will continue to evolve as long as bloggers at heart keep experimenting with projects like this. So much of this style of writing has gone to email newsletters, but content that lives publicly on the web has a longer life cycle that can be rejuvenated through linked conversations. Writers can and should be able to embrace both methods of distribution. Refined.blog is hosted on GitHub and is open to feature suggestions and contributions. One person submitted an issue, suggesting the site add one or more OPML feed links so people can subscribe to all or some of the blogs at once. Ünal said he is working on making an OMPL export for selected blogs. If you’re looking to beef up your RSS reader with active software engineering blogs, Refined.blog might be a good place to search. There are no blogs referencing WordPress development yet, but the site does have several that focus on tooling, JavaScript, React, PHP, and other technologies that WordPress developers use. The index is specifically designated for personal blogs and company blogs are not permitted. Anyone can submit a blog for
Continue readingTeslaThemes Rebrands, Shifts Focus to Real Estate Market – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Earlier this month, TeslaThemes announced that it was rebranding to WPRealEstate. The company wanted to focus its efforts on a single niche in the theming market and cut back on the library of projects it was maintaining. In 2017, Imagely acquired TeslaThemes. The shop was created in 2013 and had grown its library to 68 themes. Last year, Imagely was acquired, and Nathan Singh was named CEO of the company. Eric Danzer, the founder and former CEO of Imagely, continued running TeslaThemes and its sister site ShowThemes since the acquisition. He is now ready to turn the page and jump into the next chapter of running a successful WordPress business. “I’ve decided that, as a business, we’ll do better focusing our energy on a specific niche rather than trying to be all things to all people,” he said. After several years of running a generic theme shop, the company ran into a brick wall that so many others in the industry I have talked to had hit. It is the realization that maintaining so many disparate projects puts an almost insurmountable burden on the development and support teams. “TeslaThemes has historically tried hard to serve a lot of small niches,” wrote Danzer in the announcement post. “We’ve had themes for real estate, recipes, musicians, eCommerce stores, photographers, event management, local business listings, and many other use cases. For each of those, we were embedding plugin-level functionality in each separate theme. That created a highly complicated product line that’s difficult to maintain and keep up to date.” The team had run into the Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none problem. Tightening the focus would allow the company to focus on and become one of the best in a specific niche. Thus, the shift to real estate. “As I move on from Imagely, I wanted another big project to focus on,” Danzer added in a personal note. “I wanted it to be something I’m passionate about. I’m passionate about nearly every aspect of real estate. I own multiple rental properties, and I’m working toward a real estate license.” The company had already been doing well in the real estate market with its previous Realtor theme. It was one of its most popular options. “On the market side, the real estate market is large enough to sustain a great theme shop,” wrote Danzer. “Yet, it’s also a unique niche — real estate professionals have specific, challenging, hard-to-solve needs.” Existing TeslaThemes customers will continue receiving support and have access to any products purchased in the past. They will also be able to get the new real estate plugin and theme. The legacy themes, those created before the 2017 acquisition, are no longer under active development. The company replaced those in November 2020 with the Tesla Pro framework, which Danzer said his team plans to maintain and support for at least another year. WPRealEstate Plugin and Theme Map, search, and listings blocks in a theme demo. The team built the plugin on top of the block editor. They also created it alongside the RESO Web API, a modern standard for transporting data in the real estate world. While there is no public demo of the backend or even any editor screenshots, a peek under the hood reveals several custom blocks. The theme previews showcase map, search, and listings solutions. They also seem to blend the output with the Kadence Blocks plugin. Instead of launching multiple themes, the company will focus on building a single project with several design options out of the box. Users can import prebuilt content and data as part of the onboarding process. Danzer said that the new WPRealEstate theme is still a traditional, customizer-based theme. “We’ll start working on a new FSE theme almost immediately though. Between the work needed and waiting for FSE core functionality to mature, I don’t think we’d release that until sometime in 2022.” As far as I am aware, there are few, if any, robust block-based real estate solutions for WordPress at the moment. Custom post types and metadata serve as the foundation. However, a well-designed layer of blocks on top of that system could make it far easier for agents to build their sites. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingDebugging WordPress with Ray, Part 1
[ad_1] TL;DR: This post gives a high-level overview of what kind of app Ray is and how to set it up for use in WordPress. For as long as I’ve been involved with WordPress development, I’ve consistently seen developers – myself included – consistently use print_r and var_dump whenever they need to see what’s going on within their code. And this is okay for smaller data structures like looks at objects, arrays, and so on. Then on the other end of the debugging spectrum, if you need to step through code to see what arguments are being passed into a given function from where and with what value, then using something like Xdebug is incredibly helpful. Until recently, I didn’t think there was middle ground. But then I found Ray and I’ve been using it ever since. Debugging WordPress with Ray, Part 1 What is Ray? Before talking about debugging WordPress with Ray, it’s worth understanding what Ray is and what it is not. The first being that it’s not something that’s exclusively WordPress, so if you’ve stumbled across this post as someone else in the broader PHP community it’s something that’s still work checking out. With that said, let’s assume that you’re a WordPress-based developer and you’re looking to learn more about what Ray is all about. First, though it does provide an elegant example of what your code looks like when dumped out to a screen it offers much more. Note that when you use Ray, you’ll need some additional tooling, which I’ll cover a bit more in a moment, but if you want to continue to dump information out into a format using something similar to var_dump, Ray supports that. It just makes it look nicer. 🙂 Secondly, when you invoke Ray from within your code, it will make sure that you know where the call is coming from. This way, you know exactly what file and what line at which you’re looking. This is useful especially when you have multiple calls. Third, you can actually pause your code’s execution much like you do whenever you’re using an actual debugger. This means that once it hits a certain point in your code (and this is useful if you’re hitting a switch condition or an if condition or if you’re using, say, a factory in object-oriented programming and want to know which instance of an object has been instantiated), then you can halt execution and get a better sense of what’s going on with your project. Finally, you can organize the types of output into various colors. This means that if you hit a certain branch in code and you don’t want to hit that branch, you can categorize it as red. Similarly, you can do the same with green, orange, purple, and more. It really depends on you and what you’re aiming to achieve by looking at your data. Using Ray in WordPres If you read the docs for installing Ray in WordPress, it may seem a little intimidating (especially depending on your experience with the CLI, with Git, and with must-use plugins). The nice thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead, you can grab the WordPress Ray Plugin from the plugin repo (either from the site or from within WordPress depending on your permissions). Once the plugin has been installed, you should be able to immediately be able to start dumping information into Ray. Using Git and Composer If you opt to use Git and Composer, make sure that those two tools are installed on your system, then do the following. First, clone the repository into your mu-plugins directory by issuing the following command: $ git clone git@github.com:spatie/wordpress-ray Next, navigate to that directory in your terminal and run: $ composer install Once that process has finished, open wp-config.php and add the following two lines: require_once ABSPATH . ‘wp-content/mu-plugins/wordpress-ray/wp-ray.php’; define( ‘WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE’, ‘local’ ); After that, you can start using the ray function in your code. For example, I have the following line of code running in a template that I’m using as a demo for this article: <?php ray( wp_get_current_user() ); ?> Then, whenever this page is loaded, the Ray app will display the following: This is obviously rich information – information that can still be read via other means – but in a much more elegant fashion. For Part 2 In Part 2 of the series, I’ll cover how to start debugging code using Ray and why I enjoy using the app as a middle ground in between something like var_dump and Xdebug. Further, I’ll go through some of the WordPress-specific features of Ray so that you can see how this is more than “a pretty way to dump variables.” Ultimately, I think Xdebug is still something that should be used, but Ray is a much nicer middle ground that provides a lot of solid debugging functionality without needing the full on support of a true debugger. [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingOrganize WordPress Media Library With Folders
[ad_1] If you’ve ever found yourself frantically scrolling through months’ worth of media content to find that one picture you swear you uploaded a while back, WP Media Folder may be the perfect plugin for you. Long considered to be one of the best WordPress media library plugins available, this multi-functional media management tool has recently been given yet another major update, packing in, even more, features designed to optimize your media files. As a result, you get more ways to fully take control of your pictures, videos, and other content, saving you ample time in finding the right media for the right post with zero hassle. Below, we’ll talk you through all of those new additions as well as explaining everything you need to know to decide if this is the right media library plugin for you. In a nutshell, WP Media Folder is a premium plugin that lets you organize all of your media content into folders and subfolders so that it’s easy to find. However, it’s also so much more than that. The plugin’s key features also allow you to: Upload single or bulk files directly to folders Move files between folders with drag and drop Use detailed sort/filter options to find things even more easily Search folder names to quickly navigate to the right folder Import files from FTP and sync folder structure Upload and replace existing files in your media library (helpful if you need to update an old image that you’ve used in multiple places) As if that wasn’t enough, there are also two handy add-ons that add even more functionality including: Integration with a range of cloud services including Dropbox, Google Photos, and more The ability to create fully optimized photo galleries straight from your media library. If you ask us, this second feature is especially appealing as it saves you the time, trouble, and expense of also utilizing a separate gallery plugin. How Much Does WP Media Folder Cost? We’ll dive more into those features later, but for now it’s worth mentioning that they aren’t the only thing that’s very appealing about this plugin. Article Continues Below The price is also very attractive, especially when compared to other tools of this type. The core WP Media Folder plugin costs $29 for 6 months of support/updates. You can also get 12 months of support/updates for $39. And if you want both add-ons, you’ll pay $59 for the core plugin, both add-ons, and 12 months of support/updates. No matter which plan you purchase, you can use the plugin on unlimited sites. If you’re fed up with plugins that are a chore to set up, you’ll find a lot to like about WP Media Folder. After downloading from the website and installing to your WordPress site, you’ll be taken to a handy configuration wizard which does all of the hard work for you. Environment Check Up first, the wizard checks your server environment to ensure that you’ve got the right technical infrastructure to support the plugin. Let’s face it; there’s nothing more annoying than setting everything up only to realise your PHP is outdated and nothing is going to work right, so this is a great place to start. Next, you’ll be asked to opt-in to WP Media Folder’s core features as well as additional features. While the ability to override and duplicate files is definitely handy, it’s the first two of these features that we like the most. Opting into the front-end mode allows you to use the plugin with popular front-end page builders like Visual Composer and Elementor, making it even easier to put together a high-performance WordPress site with minimal technical know-how required. Meanwhile, the ability to embed videos from third-party sources such as YouTube means you still enjoy all the benefits of sharing video content on your site without the negative impact on your site speed. Of course, you can technically do that anyway, but this simplifies the process and ensures you can always quickly find previous videos you’ve embedded if you ever need to use them again. With that done, you can go back and install the add-on plugins if you opted to use them, and then you’re ready to start using WP Media Folder. Viewing Your Folders The WP Media Folder interface has some similarities to Google Drive’s interface in how it displays subfolders inside the interface. And it also includes a traditional file tree on the left-hand side so that you can jump around as needed: One of the key differences from the last big update of this plugin is it now gives you even more options for sorting and organizing your files and folder. Along with the options to add new media from your harddrive or use a third-party video, you also have further options which include: Bulk Select While this was available in the last version of WP Media Folder, it’s still such a useful feature that it’s worth mentioning again. Bulk select allows you to pick multiple pictures at once and either delete them permanently or simply move them over to a new folder with ease. Filtering If you really do have a lot of media files to organize, Filtering is the first of two options that will help you find exactly what you’re looking for, allowing you to drill down so that you only see certain types of content or content uploaded on a particular date. You can even filter everything out so that you only see images of a certain file size which is incredibly useful if you’re looking to free-up some server space and improve your site performance. Sorting If filtering out still doesn’t help you find what you need, the Sorting Option will help you to organize either your folders or individual files by name, date, size, or file type. Creating A Folder To create a folder, you simply click on the Add New Folder button, give it a name, and you have a brand new folder: Visually Organizing Folders
Continue readingTheme Creation Will Be Easier, But We Are Not There Yet – WP Tavern
[ad_1] “The way that themes have evolved within WordPress has made creating them easier,” wrote Tammie Lister in the opening line of her article titled Theme creation is now easier. “That feels like a bold statement, but it’s true.” It is not a stretch to say that many would be asking for this secret-sauce recipe of easy theme creation. If anything, WordPress theming is at its most complex stage in history. It is a weird mix of APIs and years upon years of legacy baggage. Jumping into traditional theme development today carries with it a high barrier to entry, especially if you want to build anything grander in scope than any of the default Twenty* themes. But Lister is talking about the WordPress of the future, a platform that will render its front-end output via blocks. The thing about blocks is that they put this veil over a lot of the messy legacy stuff, creating a new standard where anyone who wants to build a theme does not have to worry about a lot of the history that got us from Point A to Point B. That is a Good Thing. Standardization of the system was long overdue, but we are still in the process of making that final leap forward. It is a tough time to be a developer. It can also be an exciting new adventure if we stop thinking about themes from a traditional mindset. Lister made sure to point out the difference between theme “creation” and “development.” In almost two decades of WordPress, we have only ever had WordPress theme developers. Only those with the minimum knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, and [sometimes] JavaScript could build a theme. And, that is absolutely still true today. However, it will not be true tomorrow. The act of front-end design does not have to be an all-or-nothing affair. Creators can build custom patterns and soon be able to submit them to the official pattern directory. WordPress 5.8 launched the template editor, so anyone can dip their toes into the shallow end of the template-creation pool. Global styles, a feature yet to be released, carries with it the promise of customizing fonts, colors, backgrounds, borders, and much more. From a developer’s perspective, some of these features can seem limiting. We dive into code and see the world around us changing. Nothing is like the WordPress of old. There are moments when things are more complicated — sometimes by magnitudes. However, for people who have never written a line of code in their lives, there is something magical brewing. WordPress is lowering the barrier to entry to almost nothing for the “regular” folks. I remember how empowering it was to create my first personal blog design on top of WordPress. It was a fork of a theme by Tung Do, the former owner of the now-defunct WP Designer blog. I knew enough HTML and CSS to hack my way through most of it and just enough PHP to break my site several dozen times. It was a life-changing experience for me that played no small part in launching my career. However, I also think about all the people who never got to build their own site designs because they did not have the prerequisite knowledge, the available time, or ran into some other blocker that disallowed their entry into the experience. WordPress is positioned to change that with new tools, building a runway that allows more people to become a part of our collective design community. It is not only about building personal blog designs. It is about allowing anyone who wants to contribute to this open-source experiment, founded on the idea that we can share with our neighbors. The pattern directory, which is only a few days old, is an early example of that. As we continue removing barriers for non-developers, it opens an entire world of possibilities and, perhaps, allows some who did not previously have the privilege of contributing an opportunity to do so. Or, it could even be the launchpad of a new business for some. There is also a two-year-old ticket on starter page templates that is picking up steam. It is a sort of companion to block patterns, tackling entire pages instead of sections. The initial goal would be for themers to bundle these in their themes, but I envision a future where users can create and share these freely with their peers via WordPress.org. But, it is rough going for theme authors today — plugin developers too, but we’ll save that for another post. Traditional themes carry all the legacy baggage mentioned earlier, and some of the new block-related tools have added to the load. The current phase often breaks classic projects or forces developers into mixing compounds and waiting to see if the amalgamation explodes. And, the promised future of easy theming with blocks is still in its infancy. The moment developers get into anything slightly more “advanced” than a simple blog, there are hurdles and pitfalls aplenty. For example, if you want to use different image sizes and orientations in various sections of a front-page template, that is impossible with the Post Featured Image block. Or, maybe you have a theme user who wants to put a dynamic profile/account link for registered users on their own site. It is not happening without building a plugin or finding one to handle the job. It can also be a tough sell when four lines of PHP code worked just fine in the past. These are merely simple examples of an array of issues that theme authors deal with on a day-to-day basis. They are problem-solvers for the masses, but they do not yet have a robust enough set of tools. Foundationally, the block system can handle most problems and even provide better solutions in some cases, but not all of the necessary blocks or options are in place yet. As we continue solving these problems and adding the missing pieces, theme creation will
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