In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haacj and Mary Job introduce Ryan Welcher and discuss Gutenberg release 13.7, more template creation enhancements, first full-site editing themes in the Woo Commerce marketplace and more. Show Notes / Transcript Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes WordCamp Jinja, Uganda / Call for speakers Ryan Welcher on […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack, and Mary Job talk with this week’s special guest Jorge Costa about Gutenberg Releases, WordPress 6.0.1, the Create Block Theme plugin and much more. Show Notes / Transcript Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes Why You Should Try Out Block Themes Don’t miss it! A Block-First Approach at Pew Research […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack, and Mary Job talk with this week’s special guest Dave Smith about WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.1 and Gutenberg 13.4. You also learn what in the works via the GitHub repo. Show Notes / Transcript Show Notes Special Guest: Dave Smith, JavaScript Engineer and full-time Core Contributor on the Gutenberg project, sponsored by Automattic […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and special guest, Grzegorz Ziolkowski talk about WordPress 6.0 release, Gutenberg 13.2 and 13.3 and interesting discussions happening on the Gutenberg Repo Show Notes / Transcript Show Notes WordPress 6.0 Community Contributions What’s Released Gutenberg 13.2 Gutenberg 13.3 What’s being worked on or discussed Transcript Birgit Pauli-Haack: Hello, and welcome to our 67th […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job discuss with their guest, Glen Davies, Gutenberg 13.1, New Zealand, InnerBlocks and more so much more. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Show Notes Glen Davies on Twitter GlenDavisNZ.blog FSE Program Rallying Recipe Reviewers Play the Piano and Other Instruments via the WordPress Block […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job discuss with their guest, Dennis Snell, Gutenberg 13.0, WordPress 6.0, an Inline Token Proposal and so much more. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Show Notes Special guest: Dennis Snell, WordPress core contributor and JavaScript wrangler at Automattic. Dennis Snell’s post on WordPress and […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job talked about Gutenberg 12.9 new features and enhancements, updates to the Gutenberg Example Repo and share a post on how to implement inline tokens for Rich Text. And so much more. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Show Notes Announcements WPAfrica Community Call for […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job discuss Block Pattern Directory, WebFonts API and Gutenberg 12.8. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Announcements FSE Program: Bring your questions – Round Three Coming soon: Block Pattern Directory Submissions Community […]
In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job discuss Gutenberg 12.7, a new call for testing and the web fonts API arrival. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes FSE Program Testing Call #12: Hyping Headers Gutenberg […]
When building block themes there is often more than one way to achieve the same thing. It’s often not clear which of these options is preferable. Below I outline some tips and guidelines that I find helpful. The guiding principle here is to remove as much complexity as possible from the theme; instead block themes should be using the affordances provided by Gutenberg.
1. Avoid using CSS
As much as possible, block themes should avoid providing CSS. Gutenberg increasingly offers design tools which allow theme builder to control the design of the theme without using CSS. If it is not possible to achieve a particular design without CSS please create an issue for it on Gutenberg so we can consider adding a design tool to achieve the design.
2. Reuse patterns rather than implementing custom templates
As the number of block themes we build grows we will have an ever increasing number of templates and template parts in each theme. In practice there are a small number of patterns which can be reused on many themes. We should be aiming to reuse existing patterns rather than implementing new templates. This means we need clever patterns which are able to reuse settings from theme.json.
3. Prefer theme.json to block settings
Connected to the point above, when we want to change the appearance of a block in a template or a pattern it is usually better to do so in the theme.json file than in the block template. This means that the design will be used for all instances of the block, not just the edited instance. It also keeps templates design agnostic, so that they be reused (see above).
What other tips do you have for building block themes?
Grzegorz Ziolkowski and Birgit Pauli-Haack introduce Mary Job as the new co-host and discuss Gutenberg 12.6, Planning for WordPress 6.0 and Universal Blocks. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes New co-host: Mary Job Mary Job’s Profile […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss with their guest Matias Ventura restricting customization in a full-site editing world, Gutenberg 12.5 and Gutenberg changes coming with WordPress 6.0. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Twitch Stream session […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss with their guest, Fabian Kägy Gutenberg 12.4, Developer Hours, and how to best implement extensibility of the block editor Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Developer Hours – Register for […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski talk about WordPress 5.9 release and DevNotes for Full-site Editing and block themes, and Gutenberg 12.2 and 12.3. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Listener Questions Jessica Lyschik (Question tweeted) [Paragraph […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss Gutenberg 12.1, Block Theme.json Builder, WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 and Twitter Spaces Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes David Gwyer has been working on a Block Theme Generator Ryan Welcher […]
Co-hosts, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss with Ryan Welcher the Gutenberg 12.0 release, the updated WordPress 5.9 Release Schedule and a lot more. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Ryan Welcher, Developer advocate, sponsored by […]
We have been working on a plugin to help you create a Blockbase child theme. The idea is that you can use the existing tools to make changes to a Blockbase theme, and then export a bundle of templates and theme.json as a new child theme.
I tried to create a new theme called “Typewriter” using these tools.
Make changes to your site using the Global Styles editor. First I chose some new colors:
You can also use the Global Styles editor to update Typography and Layout settings:
Then I changed the fonts, using the Customizer:
I made all my changes using the Global Styles editor and the Customizer, but you might want to make more changes directly to the theme.json file after the theme is created.
Step 3 – Templates
Edit your templates using the Site Editor:
I managed to achieve everything I needed to in this theme using the Site Editor, but for some things you might need to edit the template files directly once the theme is created.
Step 4 – Export
Under Appearance there will be a new page called “Create Blockbase Theme”:
You can add the details for the theme here. These will be used in the style.css file. When you click the “Create Blockbase Theme” button, a zip file will be downloaded, which contains all the files for your theme. Here’s mine:
At this point you should have a zip file containing a working theme. You can upload this to your WordPress and activate it.
The theme contains an screenshot file, which you will need to update manually.
Now when you look at the frontend of your site it should look the same as it did before you activated the new theme. Here’s my new theme:
Further changes
Once the theme has been created you can unzip the theme zip file and make further changes to the theme files. This might be necessary to make more advanced changes to the theme. You can:
Modify and add configuration in the theme.json file.
Update the html template files in block-templates and block-template-parts
Add custom CSS to the file in assets/theme.css
Feedback
We’d love you to try this new tool and let us know how you get on in the comments!
Birgit Pauli-Haack, Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss Gutenberg 11.9, WordPress 5.9 and Navigation Block. Surprise Guest: Riad Benguella Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Announcements Nov 22, 2021 7pm EST / 0:00 UTC JerseyPress: What is Full-Site Editing?WordPress […]
Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz (Greg) Ziolkowski discuss this week’s Gutenberg 11.8 release, WordPress 5.9, the Navigation Block, Full-site Editing and the Plugin Machine. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Announcements Theme.json and block.json now available through […]
In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziółkowski discuss WordPress 5.9 Go/No-Go Decision, Gutenberg Releases 11.6 and 11.7, and ongoing discussions about Themes and Styles for the Editor. Music: Homer Gaines Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Pauli Systems Show Notes / Transcript Subscribe to the Gutenberg Changelog podcast via your favorite podcast apps!🎙️ Spotify | Google | iTunes | PocketCasts | Stitcher |🎙️ Pod Bean | CastBox | Podchaser | RSS Feed Show Notes Announcements Review […]
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