Tag Archives: BlockBased

Five for the Future Site Relaunched with a Block-Based Design – WP Tavern

[ad_1] After revamping the WordPress.org homepage, Theme Directory, Plugin Directory, Pattern Directory, and HelpHub, the Meta team has now updated the Five for the Future site. Members of the Meta, Design, and Community teams collaborated to redesign and launch the site in time for WordCamp US 2024. A Fresh New Look Developer Relations Advocate Nick Diego shared, “ This visual update is part of an ongoing effort to create a consistent design language across WordPress.org… This change marks the beginning of modernizing Five for the Future.” New Home page The update features a block-based child theme built on top of the shared WordPress.org parent theme, streamlining aesthetics and simplifying future updates. Key changes include: All content has been converted to blocks, making it easier to manage and update. The layout, typography, and color scheme have been standardized to align with the broader WordPress.org ecosystem. A new contributor testimonials section featured both on the homepage and as a dedicated page, showcases the experiences and contributions of community members An updated pledges directory lists organizations committed to contributing to the Five for the Future initiative.  What’s Next? Future plans include adding new features and content, such as case studies and more testimonials from participating organizations. A Five for the Future blog and newsletter are also in the pipeline.  Nick Diego added, “Forthcoming updates will aim to improve organization profiles by listing activity, automating emails, enhancing onboarding, and adding options for sponsored contributors. The goal is to showcase the strength and impact of Five for the Future with a refreshed, feature-rich website.” You can suggest improvements or report issues with the new theme by opening a ticket on GitHub. For updates on upcoming WordPress.org changes, join the #website-redesign Slack channel. [ad_2] Source link

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A Block-Based WordPress Theme by Anders Norén – WP Tavern

[ad_1] I have been secretly keeping tabs on Anders Norén over the past couple of weeks, awaiting the moment he pushed his first block theme to the WordPress directory. I first noticed it when he tweeted a screenshot two weeks ago. And, today was the day it happened. Tove landed in the review portal several hours ago, and I have been tinkering with it ever since. While it is not downloadable from the directory yet, the review system moves much faster than in times past. It should be available soon. In the meantime, anyone who wants to give it a spin can grab the ZIP file from its ticket. I called his last WordPress theme, Eksell, “the standard by which we should be judging all other” themes, and Norén has a history of releasing solid designs. Could he do for blocks what he has done for classic in years past? The truth is that going 100% blocks has limitations. Designers can experiment and test out some new things, but the underlying system is not up to par with what is possible with traditional theming. However, some feats are much easier to accomplish. Much of it depends on the creator’s goals and how well they work with the system instead of fighting it. At first glance, Tove was not any more impressive than most block themes I have installed and activated. It seemed pretty bare-bones, but I imagine this is what theming will look like far into the future. Many will be a wide-open canvas that allows users to build whatever type of site they want. Themes will primarily add personality. One area where they can and will shine is with custom block patterns. And Tove has over 40 of them. The theme is flexible enough for use with various sites, but its focus is on cafes and restaurants. Many of the patterns lean into this, such as custom menus, call-to-action-buttons, and more. Patterns are these pre-built pieces of a design that users can mix and match to lay pages out how they want. This also opens up things for theme authors by not having to make any hardline choices on how something like the front page, for example, should look. The theme is offering some suggestions and the tools to put it together. But, ultimately, the end-user gets to decide how it all comes out. With Tove, I had my homepage built in just minutes, as shown in the following screenshot. All I would need to do is fill it in with custom content. It felt empowering to simply mash up just a handful of the theme’s 40+ patterns and create a layout that I was comfortable with. This is what theming should really be all about: handing the keys over to users and letting them take the wheel. The theme’s job is just letting them drive in style. There are other things to love about Tove too. It has several custom user-selectable styles, such as horizontal separators for the Columns block. However, my favorite is the shaded style for adding a blue drop-shadow to several blocks. Shaded block style. The theme is not for everybody. The color palette is a bit on the flashier side and will not fit all sites. Few designers could pull off Tove’s scheme, which is why I think I love it so much. As Norén said in another tweet, it’s “like a plateful of macarons.” Some can work with pretty much anything. The rest of us are just fans. I would not call Tove revolutionary, but it has no need to be. It is built on top of an experimental system that still has many kinks to work out. However, it is nice to see what one of the WordPress community’s best designers can do with a limited toolset. Norén has definitely pushed the boundaries, which should elevate the block theme development space. I cannot wait until all the pieces of full site editing are in place, and we can open this thing up. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Gutenberg Contributors Get Organized to Move Block-Based Navigation Forward – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The block-based Navigation editor screen got a status check last week as part of a Hallway Hangout meeting aimed at identifying what needs to happen to bring the screen out from behind the “experimental” flag. Once the Navigation screen is available by default in the Gutenberg plugin, the team working on the feature will be able to gather more feedback. “The navigation block and navigation screen projects have been underway for quite some time and are a main target for 5.9,” Gutenberg lead developer Matias Ventura said in a post outlining the main focus items planned for the block editor in WordPress 5.9. “A large part of the remaining work is to improve the user experience, reduce complexity, and test as much as possible on themes.” Contributors participating in the meeting agreed that in order to move the Navigation screen out of the experimental stage, it will need to have UI/UX feature parity with what will soon be the classic Navigation screen (nav-menus.php). Participants came prepared with notes comparing features from the existing Navigation screen to the new block-based one. These are listed in a Google doc with a rough priority assignment. Trudging through the many discrepancies between the two Navigation editing experiences allowed the team to update the project’s tracking issue on GitHub. It is being reorganized to focus on the tasks required to move the block-based Navigation screen out of “experimental” status. Nearly two dozen issues have been designated as high priority and 32 are marked as normal. Work on the Navigation screen has stalled considerably since it was sidelined from consideration for WordPress 5.5 in July 2020. The previous tracking issue for the project became obsolete in February, forcing the creation of a new one that now aggregates all of the priority items for moving block-based Navigation forward. The recorded Hallway Hangout was a transparent discussion about what the UI is lacking and where it needs to go. It was a necessary, albeit tedious, accounting of issues that will get the project back on track. The UI is still in a very rough state. Nesting is rudimentary. It’s not possible to assign menu locations. Adding menu items between existing items is very difficult, among a number of other critical issues. At this point, it would require an extraordinary effort to extract the block-based Navigation screen from its quagmiry state in order to have it ready for prime time in WordPress 5.9. The release is expected in December 2021 – just three months away. David Smith, who facilitated the meeting, tempered expectations for the block-based Navigation screen with a few clarifications for what it will mean to take the feature out from under the “experimental” flag: We wouldn’t commit to feature parity of developer focused APIs at this stage. Removing “experimental” in the Gutenberg plugin, would not automatically make the feature ready for merging into Core (that won’t happen until WordPress 5.9 at the earliest). While the block-based Navigation screen landing in 5.9 doesn’t seem likely, contributors’ recent organizational efforts put them well on their way towards getting the project out from under the “experimental” flag. Check out the recorded meeting for a deep dive into the Navigation screen UI and a glimpse of where it’s headed. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Automattic Releases Quadrat, a Block-Based Podcasting WordPress Theme – WP Tavern

[ad_1] A few weeks ago, Automattic released Quadrat on the WordPress.org theme directory. It is now the company’s fourth block theme. Like its predecessors, it is a child of Blockbase, a project that serves as a foundation for the work of Automattic’s Theme Team. After spending a couple of months diving deep into the world of block themes, I was beginning to feel a little burned out. When I wasn’t sleeping, eating, or doing yard work in my off-duty time, I was building or exploring one project or another. Soon, it all had become a blur. I knew I needed to take a small break, and I have not touched themes for a couple of weeks since, at least not outside of work. However, Quadrat appealed to the theme developer within me. I am not sure if it was the soothing color scheme or just seeing the work the professional designers had put into it, but it offered a pathway for easing myself back into the block theme world. Outside of the work by Anariel Design with Naledi and Clove, most block themes have felt more like proof of concepts or starting points. Quadrat can now be added to the list of those with some personality. It does not push any particular boundaries, but it is a well-designed blogging and podcasting theme. Mostly, I am just a fan of the color scheme — sometimes you just need something other than black, white, and gray to get yourself out of a funk. One of the other reasons I have been following the work of the Quadrat theme was because it was the first showcase of header patterns I had seen. Kjell Reigstad shared what this system would look like in June. The goal is to include the patterns shown in the video in core WordPress, so they are not currently included in the theme. However, there is still an open ticket for header patterns in Quadrat. The only real trouble I ran into with the theme is with fully aligned blocks in the content. There is an overflow issue in version 1.1.1 that creates a horizontal scrollbar. Horizontal scrollbar appears with full-width Cover block. Quadrat includes nine custom patterns. The focus for most is on podcasting, but some are general-purpose enough for other use cases, such as “Media and text with button”: Media and text with button pattern. The development team missed a prime opportunity with its podcast-related patterns. Instead of integrating with a podcasting solution, they are simple, static blocks from core WordPress. For example, the Latest Episodes pattern is a two-column layout that features Image, Heading, and Paragraph blocks. That is acceptable as a base pattern for users without a podcasting plugin. However, it may be practically useless for those with one enabled. Or, it creates unnecessary work because users must manually update their page content anytime they publish a new episode. Latest Episodes block pattern Given Automattic’s recent bet on Castos as part of a $756K pre-seed fundraising round, it would make sense to integrate with the podcasting company’s plugin, Seriously Simple Podcasting (SSP). If the development team wanted to take the Latest Episodes pattern to the next level, they would create it with the Query Loop block and display the latest podcast episodes from the plugin. For users without SSP installed, simply fall back to the current pattern. Or, offer both. Right now, it is little more than eye candy and not nearly as useful as it could be for real-world use cases. I often talk about the need for theme authors to elevate their game. Not only would such integration be beneficial to podcasters, but it would also showcase the power and flexibility of the block system. All of this is to say: If you are going to build a podcasting theme, build a podcasting theme. Quadrat appears to be one. However, when you peek behind the curtain, it is just a well-designed blogging theme. It has the potential to be so much more. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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BuddyPress 9.0 Scheduled for Short Development Cycle to Ship Block-Based Widgets Ahead of WordPress 5.8 – WP Tavern

[ad_1] BuddyPress 8.0 was just released earlier this month on June 6, but the core development team is gearing up for a short development cycle for 9.0. The release will be specifically targeted at getting BuddyPress core widgets ready for WordPress 5.8’s new block widgets experience. Contributors are aiming to hit the following timeline to ship 9.0 before the next major WordPress release: Beta: July 8. RC: July 12. Final: July 16 BuddyPress entered the world of blocks with the release of version 6.0 in May 2020, allowing users to insert a specific Member or Group into content. Version 7.0, released six months later, introduced blocks for featuring a list of members, a list of groups, and the ability to embed a public activity post. Over the next few weeks, BuddyPress contributors will continue the process of migrating the rest of the BuddyPress component widgets to blocks. These include the following: Blogs Recent Posts Widget: A list of recently published posts from across the network BP Core Login Widget: Shows a Log In form to logged-out visitors, and a Log Out link to those who are logged in BP Core Friends Widget: A dynamic list of recently active, popular, and newest Friends of the displayed member. Widget is only shown when viewing a member profile BP Groups Widget: A dynamic list of recently active, popular, newest, or alphabetical groups BP Core Members Widget: A dynamic list of recently active, popular, and newest members BP Core Recently Active Widget: Profile photos of recently active members BP Core Who’s Online Widget: Profile photos of online users BP Messages Sitewide Notices Widget: Display Sitewide Notices posted by the site administrator BP Nouveau widgets: BP Latest Activities: Display the latest updates of your community having the types of your choice BP Nouveau Navigation Widget: Displays BuddyPress primary nav in the sidebar of the site. (Must be used as the first widget of the sidebar and only once.) In addition to building a block for every BuddyPress widget, contributors are aiming to make it possible to transform existing BP widgets into their corresponding BP block. With the new block widgets screen imminently landing in WordPress, BuddyPress has to make this move forward to keep pace with the progress of the block editor’s march beyond use in the content editor. Otherwise, BuddyPress users would need to disable block widgets with the Classic Widgets plugin in order to maintain access to BuddyPress core widgets. Contributors are also working on creating a new Follow component, a frequently requested feature which would use the now abandoned BuddyPress Follow plugin as inspiration. The feature will work similar to Twitter following or the Facebook follow button that allows users to see public activity posts for those they are following. The Follow component is being built as a plugin first and will ship with 9.0 if it is ready in time. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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