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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: #36 – Sean Blakeley on Transitioning a Large Agency Over to Gutenberg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=136608";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/36-sean-blakeley-on-transitioning-a-large-agency-over-to-gutenberg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:38711:"<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/sean-blakeley/">Sean Blakeley</a>.</p>



<p>Sean works for a large agency called <a href="https://www.americaneagle.com/">American Eagle</a>, a platform agnostic organisation working with enterprise clients on a wide variety of projects.</p>



<p>After years of experiments with different approaches and collaborations between designers and developers, their team has begun to rely heavily on block patterns, and they’ve found it is greatly increasing their productivity. It’s fair to say that block patterns have revolutionised the team&#8217;s approach to the entire design process.</p>



<p>In case you’ve not explored block patterns, they are collections of blocks which can be built by anyone. With thoughtful design, these blocks can be repurposed across pages and even different websites. Build once, deploy everywhere.</p>



<p>We talk about how and why Sean’s team decided to jump in early with block patterns. When they did, this was a somewhat risky strategy. There was no guarantee that patterns would begin to be widely adopted, but this strategy is now starting to bear fruit. It’s allowing their team to work with their clients in new and unexpected ways.</p>



<p>Clients are now working more closely with the American Eagle team in what Sean describes as less ‘impress us’ and more ‘collaborate with us’. It’s fostering a closer relationship with clients which encourages them to use the block editor and patterns and have some ownership in the process.</p>



<p>It’s an interesting episode, and if you’re curious about how you can start to use blocks and patterns with your clients, there’s sure to be something here for you.</p>



<p>Typically, when we record the podcast, there’s not a lot of background noise, but that’s not always the case with these WordCamp Europe interviews. We were competing against crowds and the air-conditioning. Whilst the podcasts are more than listenable, I hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world were at play.</p>



<h2>Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/patterns/">Block Patterns Directory</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/patterns/new-pattern/">Create a new pattern</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/">Openverse</a></p>



Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the adoption of block patterns.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast, player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy and paste that URL into most podcast players. If there&#8217;s anything you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;d love to hear from you, and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the contact form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Sean Blakeley. Sean works for a large agency called American Eagle. A platform agnostic organization working with enterprise clients on a wide variety of projects. After years of experiments with different approaches and collaborations between designers and developers, their team has begun to rely heavily on block patterns. And they found it&#8217;s greatly increasing their productivity. It&#8217;s fair to say that block patterns have revolutionized the team&#8217;s approach to the entire design process.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve not explored block patterns, they&#8217;re collections of blocks, which can be built by anyone. With thoughtful design, these blocks can be repurposed across pages and even different websites. Build once deploy everywhere.</p>



<p>We talk about how and why Sean&#8217;s team decided to jump in early with block patterns. When they did, this was a somewhat risky strategy. There was no guarantee that patterns would begin to be widely adopted. But this strategy is now starting to bear fruit. It&#8217;s allowing their team to work with their clients in new and unexpected ways.</p>



<p>Clients and are working more closely with the American Eagle team, in what Sean describes as, less impress us and more collaborate with us. It&#8217;s fostering a closer relationship with clients, which encourages them to use the block editor and patterns and have some ownership in the process.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s an interesting episode. And if you&#8217;re curious about how you can start to use blocks and patterns with your clients, there&#8217;s sure to be something here for you.</p>



<p>Typically when we record the podcast, there&#8217;s not a lot of background noise, but that&#8217;s not always the case with these WordCamp Europeans have use. We were competing against crowds and the air conditioning. And whilst the podcasts are more than listenable, I hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world we&#8217;re at play.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. And you&#8217;ll find all of the other episodes there as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you. Sean Blakeley.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Sean Blakeley. How are you doing Sean?</p>



<p>[00:03:48] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> I&#8217;m doing very well. Thank you, Nathan.</p>



<p>[00:03:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Sean and I have just been chatting for a few minutes and I think we&#8217;re going to be good friends.</p>



<p>[00:03:53] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> I think you&#8217;re right.</p>



<p>[00:03:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you&#8217;re at WordCamp Europe. We&#8217;re currently sitting in the basement having a chat, but you did a presentation, which you are now very relieved to have done. It&#8217;s behind you now. What was it about?</p>



<p>[00:04:05] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> I mean, it was a wonderful, it&#8217;s a wonderful feeling to have been the post talk feeling. Uh, it was about block patterns. The block pattern revolution. I was talking about how we&#8217;re using block patterns in our creative process. How we are evolving and adapting our creative process. Bringing together the designers and the developers, and we&#8217;re finding that block patterns is opening up all sorts of opportunities. Explore and adapt the collaborative space between designers and developers. So, I was really talking about those exciting opportunities that we see today.</p>



<p>[00:04:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You&#8217;re working at the helm, maybe the helm&#8217;s the wrong word, but you&#8217;re near the helm of a very large agency. So I guess making that transition to block patterns was, is a big deal. You got a lot riding on that. Tell us a little bit about the company that you work for.</p>



<p>[00:04:54] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> So I work for a company called American Eagle. American Eagle are 700 strong. It&#8217;s a large organization. It&#8217;s platform agnostic. Obviously there are dedicated teams to a number of sort of key platforms, including Sitecore and Sitefinity, but also of course WordPress. And that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s really reached that scale. What it tends to focus on is those big enterprise engagements and it, it&#8217;s able to address those kind of cross platform, those big digital transformation pieces, those big integrations.</p>



<p>And so you&#8217;re quite right that, you know, as we talk about transitions in organizations of that size, it can very challenging. But because we are, as we are building the WordPress enterprise team, we&#8217;re able to explore some of these different technologies and keep pushing at the boundaries of what we&#8217;re doing.</p>



<p>We have this incredible opportunity to keep exploring. Exploring WordPress at scale, and I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll talk in a minute about the sort of headness and composable kind of paradigm, but it enables us to keep exploring, to keep pushing these boundaries, and block patterns increasingly feel like they&#8217;re part of that journey and are beginning to become an important part of that journey.</p>



<p>[00:06:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I would imagine that if we asked a typical WordPress user, how do you build your website? I think there&#8217;s gonna be a significant proportion who, maybe do it the old fashioned way, but I feel that&#8217;s dwindling. Template files and all that.</p>



<p>And then there&#8217;ll be a proportion of people probably still I&#8217;m guessing the majority who are using page builders, the commercial page builders. There does seem to be, especially very recently, by that, I mean maybe in the last six months, it does feel like there&#8217;s a lot more chatter about blocks and patterns and almost like, okay, this is a thing now. The time has come, we&#8217;re gonna shift over in that direction.</p>



<p>But, what would you say are the key benefits? The things that you identified in your business which made you say, oh, actually this is worthwhile now. We&#8217;ll stop doing it the way we used to do it, and we&#8217;re gonna start doing it with blocks. What were the key metrics that you judged that worthwhile against?</p>



<p>[00:06:52] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> So, the commercial metrics is a kind of separate piece. And we&#8217;ll come back to that, because it is an interesting question. But from a technical or an implementation sort of perspective, it always felt jarring when we were bringing software, proprietary software, be it a page builder or some other service into the WordPress platform.</p>



<p>It always felt like we were introducing something that we would either have to be pulling out of WordPress at a later date, or we&#8217;re then tying our clients to this particular tool that we had chosen, or, or maybe us as an agency, you know, we preferred a particular page builder. And so that&#8217;s the one that our clients got because that was our preferred approach. And that always felt jarring.</p>



<p>It felt like there wasn&#8217;t, you know, we weren&#8217;t developing for the longevity. That we were slightly tunnel vision and, and narrow focused in terms of our needs as the agency, And so it always felt like we should be coming as close to core as we can. Moving our dependency to WordPress itself, rather than this sort of separate proprietary software. And it&#8217;s been a challenging journey at times as we&#8217;ve, we were early adopters for Gutenberg and, you know, we felt some of the pain that, that all of us, or many of us in the community have felt. Some of the challenges around creating custom blocks back in the day.</p>



<p>But it was very clear that this felt like the right journey, and it was the right journey to go on. And as we thought about, and talked to our clients about their experience, and their experience for creating content, That goal to move from shortcodes and the abstraction of dropdowns and filling in an input box. And then that leap of faith, as you hope something has changed on the front of your website, and it&#8217;s gonna work in the way that you hoped it would.</p>



<p>Well, that WYSIWYG experience has been something that we&#8217;ve been asked for for years, and of course that&#8217;s where the page builder space came from. But to be able to fulfill that in a drag and drop within the WordPress editor itself is, it&#8217;s a great thing to be able to provide our clients with that experience, that true WYSIWYG experience. And so the goals are so clear as we&#8217;re on this journey together.</p>



<p>And so, and we&#8217;ll come back to that final point around the commercial decision in terms of investing our, our efforts as a technical team. I mean, it was very clear that this is, this is the longevity. This is where we are empowering our clients to own their UI, their UI components. They can start to build out some of their own UI components as well as custom blocks that we might build. And there isn&#8217;t a dependency. If they wanna move to, you know, they wanna change their implementations. They can keep WordPress exactly the same.</p>



<p>And that, that notion of switching a theme, and a theme should be easy to change. Your styling, you know, re styling, making small design changes should be relatively easy. Yeah, that&#8217;s becoming true within the Gutenberg paradigm. That we can offer that longevity of, of architecture of platform. And that they can iterate in terms of a design on top of that.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s been a hugely empowering journey, that incidentally that we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re still on. But we&#8217;re thoroughly enjoying the journey and it&#8217;s, you know, every step that we take can be daunting at times. But, we&#8217;ve found the value in each and every of those steps that we&#8217;ve been on so far as the community, working with Gutenberg.</p>



<p>[00:10:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So at the point where you made the decision to hop on, presumably you&#8217;ve not just said, okay, everything from now on will be based upon Gutenberg. Maybe some clients are embedded in something in the WordPress space, like a proprietary page builder. Maybe you&#8217;re gonna carry that on, maybe not, I don&#8217;t know. But there must have been a lot of retraining, process changes, every which way for your staff. Just talk us through what that was, because obviously if you&#8217;re working within your company and building websites, you want to know, what&#8217;s the education piece? How am I gonna learn all of this stuff? What&#8217;s my company gonna provide for me to make sure that I&#8217;m skilled? Was there a lot of that, that had to be put into place?</p>



<p>[00:10:39] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> There was a huge amount. There&#8217;s a kind of duality here that the first challenge was to enable developers to feel confident within React. And so feeling confident within a modern JavaScript framework. And we found that that was a hugely valuable first step to sort of, you know, allow them to ease them into familiarity with React.</p>



<p>Once we did that, we then moved into Gutenberg specifically and sort of eased our developers into Gutenberg. And we did it some ways from the interface. So getting familiarity with the interface, but of course, things, and we&#8217;re talking maybe two or three years ago now, things were moving so quickly that actually, it was, it was often easier to actually go from the backend forward.</p>



<p>And so look at, the anatomy of a block. How a block fits together and, we had some really curious developers and developers that were often looking under the bonnet and seeing how these things were constructed and it added to that sense, less of intimidation and more of awe that we&#8217;re on a journey together. And actually, you know, we can be part of this dialogue.</p>



<p>We can be part of this journey and, exploring the how we can evolve our processes. And I think that early, understanding the value that Gutenberg, this journey was gonna provide. Even when we were hesitant to put it into production, but it always felt like this was the direction we wanted to go in. We wanted to provide that extraordinary editorial, content creation experience. And then of course, you know, the value that we can give to end users as well.</p>



<p>[00:12:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m imagining that if you had clients that were on the classic editor, There&#8217;s just no downside to that. One thing is nothing like the other, so a big boost. But I&#8217;m wondering about the clients who may be, were on those page builders. How are they coping, regardless of all that, how are they coping with the UI? Because even though it is a WYSIWYG, it&#8217;s kind of got some quirk still hasn&#8217;t it?</p>



<p>The UI is a bit funky in places and things don&#8217;t quite match up on the back as they do in the front. I&#8217;m just wondering how your clients and, you&#8217;re a big agency, there must be a lot of feedback coming in. How are they adopting it? Are they welcoming of it?</p>



<p>[00:12:48] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> Yes, so they are in&#8230;</p>



<p>[00:12:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That sounded like aqualified yes.</p>



<p>[00:12:52] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> Well, it is a qualified yes. There is hesitation there at times, because as you&#8217;re quite right to point out, there are some rough edges in the implementation. We try and make sure that we are very transparent. That this is an exciting yet evolving part of the WordPress ecosystem. You know, don&#8217;t consider this as fully finished. It&#8217;s still evolving and adapting. But what we&#8217;re increasingly doing is focusing on a opt in approach.</p>



<p>So, the dashboard of blocks can be very intimidating. You know, there is a huge list, particularly if you include the embed options as well. That&#8217;s a huge list. If you happen to be running plugins on your site that are also introducing blocks, you can be talking about many dozens in that interface and you, and I might know the difference with a, a media and text block, but our clients aren&#8217;t going to know that unless we take them on that journey, unless we educate them.</p>



<p>So what we find ourselves doing increasingly is, is white listing blocks. So actually removing, and, and increasingly this is, this is often a principle in enterprise when you&#8217;re working with large scale projects that, it&#8217;s actually putting the guardrails in place, you know. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s having your brand library or implementation, maybe your UI components. But you are limiting the ability of the editorial team to kind of work within those guidelines, that framework. And that&#8217;s how we treat Gutenberg, is that we provide those atomic building blocks, you know, those core blocks, and maybe a few custom blocks as well. We then put limitations in.</p>



<p>So those are your design system, essentially. Those are the UI, the library of UI components that our clients can use. And that&#8217;s really attractive then, because becomes very clear what the tools are that they can use to tell their stories, to tell their narratives to their users.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s not this self serve mentality where you are kind of building from the atoms and trying to build everything from scratch. Actually they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re sort of pre-baked for you, and you are just going down and, and selecting the ones that you want.</p>



<p>[00:14:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> In WordPress 6.0, we&#8217;ve got, maybe it&#8217;s not the most fleshed out of block locking features, but does something, it puts a padlock icon there anyway, and you can unlock it. That feels like that would be a, a nice direction to go in as well. That particular feature, you know, the client can access this bit, but not that bit. And they can edit this bit, which our team have built. And if they don&#8217;t like the text, they can just go in and do it themselves. And it&#8217;s kind of empowering people to edit their own stuff, but not edit this piece.</p>



<p>[00:15:18] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> We absolutely love this feature. And interestingly, we&#8217;re actually on a huge project at the moment, a huge headless project. And we were looking at our own custom solution for doing exactly this. So what we&#8217;re doing is, we&#8217;re bringing in quarter of a million programmatically generated pages, that we&#8217;re injecting into Gutenberg blocks.</p>



<p>So we&#8217;re kind of generating these Gutenberg blocks. We&#8217;re creating these slot in between the blocks to enable them to insert custom content. But essentially we&#8217;re programmatically generating that content. And then we&#8217;re locking down certain aspects. It&#8217;s almost like a, it&#8217;s a programmatically generated templated page, if you like, which is locked. And then they can add in between these sort of sections or indeed update some of the images. And there are certain areas that we allow them to update and some not so. And so that feature of locking blocks has been already incredibly valuable for us.</p>



<p>And exactly, as you say, it chimes with that notion of guidelines, of having a brand language. Of having that visual rhythm, your design system, and then you are working within those confines of your visual language.</p>



<p>[00:16:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The reason I was talking about it being fairly basic is it can be unlocked by anybody. Doesn&#8217;t matter who you are, you just click the button and you&#8217;ve unlocked it, but, maybe in the future there&#8217;ll be a more granular permissions model that, it doesn&#8217;t matter how many times you click the button, you&#8217;re not unlocking it. That will be nice, you know, so the editor can edit this, and the subscriber could edit this, and the administrator can obviously edit everything. That was a much needed feature, I think.</p>



<p>[00:16:54] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> And I think you&#8217;re right. And incidentally, as we talk about maybe block patterns forming that kind of notion of templates that maybe you and I are gonna create a custom post type. And as we click into that custom post type, we&#8217;ve got these pre-baked templates that we can select from and using block patterns to do that.</p>



<p>You&#8217;re exactly right that actually we can even allow editors to edit those templates, but we do have the challenge of permissions. And so we need to think about who has that meta level, almost like the super admin we could think of in terms of multisite. You know, who has that top level, that they can edit the template? And then who are the editorial level can just edit implementations of reflections of that.</p>



<p>[00:17:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Really interesting. So let&#8217;s get into the whole block pattern thing. I would be staggered if anybody listening to this, hadn&#8217;t heard of them at least. But nevertheless, there&#8217;s probably some who haven&#8217;t. So let&#8217;s just address that. Tell us about block patterns. What are they? They&#8217;re in use, I think more and more. As each day goes by, there&#8217;s gonna be more and more use of them. But just tell us what they are briefly.</p>



<p>[00:17:54] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> In the simplest terms, block patterns are a contain for blocks. They&#8217;re a kind of vessel, that contain these, whichever blocks you want to allow to be within this pattern. But that&#8217;s deceptively simple. And what I talk about, the analogy that I like to use is that there are a finite number of musical notes, and so whatever your piece of music, your chosen interest is, be it Pixie&#8217;s Debasser, or Mozart or Beethoven, they&#8217;re still utilizing that finite number of notes. And yet they can create truly extraordinary, original compositions from those finite number of notes.</p>



<p>And I think for us Gutenberg are our notes, and the patterns are our favorite songs. Are those extraordinary compositions that we can create.</p>



<p>[00:18:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Here&#8217;s an interesting thought. If you have a Spotify account, there&#8217;s more songs than you can ever listen to. Block patterns, so in the same way, we&#8217;ve got plugins 50,000, 60,000, whatever the number is. There&#8217;s loads of plugins. If you want a form plugin, go and pick out of the 40 over there.</p>



<p>Is there gonna be overload? If everybody&#8217;s got hundreds and thousands and possibly millions in the future, of patterns. The impediment to creating patterns is so low. The impediment to creating a plugin is quite high. So it&#8217;s contained at roughly 50,000. But if block patterns are gonna be really, really easy to create, which they are, especially with things like the pattern creator tool. Then the library, the way that we download these is, presumably at some point gonna be deluged. Your clients may be faced with this atrophy of, I have no idea where to begin. There are 748,000 in there. And I do not even know where to start.</p>



<p>[00:19:33] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> I think you&#8217;re quite right. That sort of paralysis, choice paralysis will undoubtedly be an issue that we need to deal with, but less like limiting the ability of people to create these block patterns. And really what we need to do is, is have a way of rating those block patterns or seeing those patterns, the popularity of those patterns. The one that seemed to be solving problems that maybe are achieving conversions in a greater way in your particular sector or your area.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s having that validation. I think right now are in the, the wild west of we&#8217;re just so excited, and as you say, the friction is so low for creating block patterns. But that in and of itself, isn&#8217;t the goal. You know, and that&#8217;s not where we want to be. Where we want to be is creating truly original and amazing patterns that we can then validate against the use cases for our clients. The way that they want to introduce them into their sites. But yes, we will have a huge number of block patterns very soon.</p>



<p>[00:20:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> There is some editorial on the back of that. It&#8217;s not like you submit a block pattern and it&#8217;s just immediately in the library. There will be a team there looking and inspecting, and hopefully if your block pattern, I can&#8217;t remember what the exact reasons for dismissal were, but it was things along the lines of, if it&#8217;s not really using more than one block, if it&#8217;s not doing something innovative, for example, something along those lines. But given all of that, there could be this problem of just too many things to pick from.</p>



<p>[00:20:58] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> I think you&#8217;re absolutely right. And then, trying to decide which patterns solve which problems and which to use. That choice paralysis will undoubtedly be an issue that as a community, we then need to start thinking about what&#8217;s the value, what&#8217;s the added value that block patterns are bringing and find a way of communicating that. Both to us as technologists, but also to our clients.</p>



<p>[00:21:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> One of the interesting ancillary bits of block patterns or blocks or WordPress in general. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve followed this thing, but the Openverse. The idea that you can submit block patterns that have all of the images already in, they&#8217;re probably placeholders. You probably won&#8217;t end up using them, but I do find that&#8217;s quite an interesting piece. For the first time you&#8217;ll be able to download these block patterns and you can actually stick with it. You can use that thing forever and a day, and there&#8217;ll be no license that you are treading on.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s totally usable. And I think that&#8217;s really interesting. I&#8217;ve actually been taking tons of photos this week with the intention of, as soon as I get home and I&#8217;ve got a reliable internet, it&#8217;s just to stick them onto Openverse, then people can see pictures of Porto for free.</p>



<p>[00:22:02] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> Beautiful. Definitely, and I think it then raises an interesting question about reusable blocks and how block patterns interact with reusable blocks. And if we have these that you can really just drop in and they&#8217;re instantly displaying those images or instantly sort of showing that you really, you don&#8217;t change, you just drop those in. Whether that&#8217;s more the direction that reusable blocks will go in. Those kind of global blocks. So global entities that we use repeatedly. Or whether block patterns will actually evolve into a version of that. That rather than just being templates, UI components that we reuse, maybe they will evolve into something equally like an opportunity to be global. So, there&#8217;s definitely areas to explore there.</p>



<p>[00:22:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When you agreed to have a podcast with me, it sounds subtle, but when I was thinking about it, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, actually, this is fairly seismic. You said that your design process in your agency, as a result of using patterns and the block editor had moved away, I&#8217;ll quote, you said it has moved the expectation, and I&#8217;m guessing we&#8217;re talking about the clients expectation.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s moved the expectation from impress us, to collaborate with us. And I think that&#8217;s really interesting because that is a big change. But it sounds like a really subtle one on the face of it. But so you are now it&#8217;s almost like do it, it&#8217;s not DIY, it&#8217;s more like do it with us.</p>



<p>[00:23:23] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> It&#8217;s a profound change. You&#8217;re absolutely right .From being a passive consumer of that process.</p>



<p>[00:23:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Taking it off the shelf, the website&#8217;s off the shelf. There it is. It&#8217;s a commodity.</p>



<p>[00:23:37] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> Exactly that, but also, when we&#8217;ve struggled through a design process and we present that design and we&#8217;ve often got that big gamble moment when it&#8217;s sort of Tada, and hoping fingers cross the client likes the designs that we&#8217;ve created.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to address is, want to move away from these big gamble moments. These big, almost waterfall by designers. We&#8217;re doing big design stages and then big build processes. And so Bringing the clients in closer. Often I feel that we solve thousands of micro problems in the course of the design process and the course of the development process, but we kind of hide that away.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re not very good at being communicative and transparent about all of those problems that we&#8217;ve solved on that journey. And as we try and bring clients in closer, we want them to own the outcomes. We want them to be on that journey of, here&#8217;s some problems, like framing the problem and, and helping them to go on that journey of, okay, there&#8217;s some compromises here and there&#8217;s some reasoning here that maybe we need to be more mindful of.</p>



<p>And so when they&#8217;ve been part of that process, when they reach the outcomes, when we present that design, it&#8217;s no longer a Tada moment where there&#8217;s surprise, actually they become champions of that design because they have a sense of ownership. That they&#8217;ve bought into it, because they&#8217;ve been part of that ideation session and part of those sessions.</p>



<p>And so, they go into their organizations and they defend those designs. They can answer any questions about what&#8217;s the reasoning behind this? Or, or why is this like this? Well, well they know, they&#8217;ve been part of those processes.</p>



<p>Now, that&#8217;s when it works beautifully, and I&#8217;m not gonna pretend for one moment that we&#8217;ve found the unicorn, that we can all rest happy in our beds, that we&#8217;ve solved design and development, project builds. But with the right client and that right collaboration spirit, we are seeing huge value from this approach to design and development.</p>



<p>[00:25:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m really curious as to what that actually looks like on the ground. In other words, presumably there was a transition over to this during the pandemic. Was this, like okay, we&#8217;re gonna screen share on Zoom, and we&#8217;re gonna show you what we&#8217;re doing and you are gonna interrupt us and tell us what you want us to do. Is it literally that? That they are contributing as they watch you do things and learning the process? Or is there more kind of instructional things that you are sending out to them and they approve one as opposed to the other? I&#8217;m just curious what the process really, really looks like.</p>



<p>[00:26:09] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> So there&#8217;s no one size fits all. We tend to kind of move with the needs of the client and some clients are more collaborative than others. It sort of bubbled up to two approaches. So one might be that we are providing more regular feedback and regular check-ins. It&#8217;s worth mentioning because it&#8217;s, often designers work in sort of isolation and they, they don&#8217;t like to show their workings out. They don&#8217;t like to show the rough edges. They want to show something that&#8217;s beautiful that they&#8217;ve, worked very hard to create.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s often quite hard to get them to actually be more transparent in terms of that process. In terms of their building up of ideas and their iterative, internal iterative approach. And so we&#8217;re increasingly encouraging that. And sometimes that might be the collaboration is that they&#8217;re seeing things much earlier.</p>



<p>But, with the right type of client, we can go much deeper. And so what we do is, and I think Nathan, you were kind of alluding to, this is actually we create collaboration sessions. We jump on zoom or equivalent, and we get the designers, we get the developers there, we open up Codepen or something similar.</p>



<p>And really we start like through the conduit, we kind of play what Dan Mall calls the kind of hot potato process where, you know, maybe the designer is center stage for a moment as we are looking at some typography and maybe some color elements, maybe we&#8217;ve already got a palette established from the guidelines from a brand existing brand guidelines.</p>



<p>And then the developer using Tailwind, or again, something similar, you know, there&#8217;s that friction to getting something on the screen is very low. We can start to explore and collaborate together. And, and this is where the client&#8217;s opinion can start to come in, you know? Well, well, what do you think about the use of, this color in, in this formation. Or, what do you feel about the interplay of these different elements?</p>



<p>And so what we&#8217;ve found is that trying to do that at the meta level, trying to do that in a kind more old fashioned template driven design. That&#8217;s really challenging. Because that, that doesn&#8217;t really work until you see the whole, and the interplay of all of those components. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s hard to kind of break it down.</p>



<p>If you are truly component driven. Well then you can break off, let&#8217;s work on the hero component. And what&#8217;s incredibly valuable about these sessions is the client can tell you instantly that, oh no, we can&#8217;t do that because the marketing team must have a dot, dot dot. Or actually we sell a bit of, we get some, a revenue stream from one of those. It has to be a carousel because we get a revenue stream from one of their slides.</p>



<p>Now that minutiae insight is very hard to unfold in a discovery and definition process. That complexity emerges over time. But if you are in that space, if you are collaborating in real time, you get those insights. You get the business objective insights, coming right into the design and development process.</p>



<p>[00:28:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How do you feel about, I&#8217;m pretty sure that I know that you don&#8217;t use any of these, but just as a sort of short circuit. How do you feel about these pattern libraries, which have popped up in the last year or so. Where you can go and you can discover template libraries and block pattern libraries. And so these are not the free open source ones that you can get through WordPress, but the proprietary ones.</p>



<p>Have you embedded and explored any of those and decided to use them. A minute ago, you were talking about the fact that you were free of all of that with Gutenberg. And I just wondered if you&#8217;d strayed into any of that or had any thoughts.</p>



<p>[00:29:32] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> So I felt a for a long time that I don&#8217;t like to bring proprietary software into WordPress. As we should all be very mindful of creating dependencies. And that was always true of page builders. It was always a concern that we&#8217;re creating a dependency, a future dependency for our clients, you know, whatever our choice of page builder may have been.</p>



<p>And so the exact principle, the same principle applies here, that we are really creating a dependency. And exactly, as you say, Nathan, this is a young and evolving and adapting area, and maybe we back the wrong horse. You know, maybe the one that we choose is the one that just deprecates into GitHub.</p>



<p>And then we&#8217;ve suddenly got this dependency in one or two of our sites that we have to maintain. And, you know, the support desk need to learn this particular implementation. So, you know, it&#8217;s always interesting to explore. It&#8217;s always interesting to see what the community are creating both in terms of commercial offerings as well as open source.</p>



<p>But I&#8217;m very mindful that we are, it&#8217;s an infinite game. We&#8217;re not looking for those quick shortcuts in terms of implementing something today. And then we are thinking about that partnership with our clients, that life cycle of a platform, you know, of a, a true solution to their needs.</p>



<p>And that almost invariably means trying to stay as close to core as we can. We&#8217;re trying to reduce dependencies. We&#8217;re trying to reduce any sort of proprietary dependencies. With those sort of parameters in mind, it&#8217;s not really been part of our journey and I don&#8217;t, as yet, you know, we haven&#8217;t seen something that has bubbled up that has, has seemingly been so good that we feel like it&#8217;s worthy, worth taking in that compromise.</p>



<p>[00:31:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Sean Blakeley, thank you for joining me on the podcast.</p>



<p>[00:31:16] <strong>Sean Blakeley:</strong> Thank you.</p>
</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"Do The Woo Community: What Storytelling Means to a WooCommerce Product Builder";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72465";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"https://dothewoo.io/storytelling-for-woocommerce-product-builders/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:433:"<p>A story, to be effective, has to have certain components to help people understand that story and to reach and to be moved that story.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/storytelling-for-woocommerce-product-builders/">What Storytelling Means to a WooCommerce Product Builder</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:09:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"Gutenberg Times: Conditionally Registering Patterns in Themes with Third-Party Blocks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=21723";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/conditionally-registering-patterns-in-themes-with-third-party-blocks/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8608:"<p><em>What happens when a theme registers a pattern with a third-party block?</em> If the user has the block plugin installed, it appears as it should. WordPress also does a good job at handling the flipside of this scenario:  the user does not have the block installed.</p>



<p>When users attempt to use such a pattern in the editor, they will see an error like the following for self-closing blocks:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Your site doesn&#8217;t include support for the &#8220;pluginslug/test&#8221; block. You can leave this block intact or remove it entirely.</p></blockquote>



<p>If the block encompasses some HTML, the user will see a different message sitting above the HTML output:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Your site doesn&#8217;t include support for the &#8220;pluginslug/test&#8221; block. You can leave this block intact, convert its content to a Custom HTML block, or remove it entirely.</p></blockquote>



<p>On the front end, self-closing blocks are simply not shown. However, if the block has HTML, its output will appear. This system is better than something like a fatal PHP error on the front end. However, it is often not ideal.</p>



<p>Last week, WordPress.org <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/07/21/pattern-previews-for-themes-in-the-directory-beta/">began showing pattern previews</a> in the theme directory, as shown in the following screenshot from the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/bright-mode/">Bright Mode</a> theme page:</p>



<img />



<p>This change is a huge win in showing off a theme&#8217;s design.  In the past, users could not see the patterns without manually installing and testing. </p>



<p>However, it brought back that original question about dealing with third-party blocks in patterns. WordPress.org&#8217;s preview system does not have these blocks installed, so it has no way of showing them. There is currently an <a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6420">open Meta ticket</a> to address this issue, and the ideal solution would be for the theme directory to simply not attempt to preview patterns for unsupported blocks.</p>



<p>Regardless of how things are handled in the theme directory, WordPress theme authors have control over whether their patterns appear. Plus, it is generally good practice to not clutter the UI with patterns that do not work.</p>



<p>The easiest way to disable a pattern, keeping it from showing in the UI, is by checking if a particular plugin is active. All you need to know is a function or class name from the plugin.</p>



<p>Themes can register patterns either via the <code>register_block_pattern()</code> function or by placing headered files into the <code>/patterns</code> subfolder.  I will cover each scenario in this tutorial. Then, I will offer a couple of alternative solutions that may work, depending on the scenario.</p>



<h2>When Registered via register_block_pattern()</h2>



<p>If registering a pattern via the <code>register_block_pattern()</code> function, you should only need to check if a plugin is active before calling the function. The simplest way to do this is to conditionally check for the plugin via <code>function_exists()</code> or <code>class_exists()</code>.</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><div><code class="hljs language-php">add_action( <span class="hljs-string">'init'</span>, <span class="hljs-function"><span class="hljs-keyword">function</span><span class="hljs-params">()</span> </span>{
    <span class="hljs-keyword">if</span> ( function_exists( <span class="hljs-string">'pluginslug_some_function'</span> ) ) {
        register_block_pattern( <span class="hljs-string">'themeslug/pattern-abc'</span> );
    }
} );</code></div><small class="shcb-language" id="shcb-language-1"><span class="shcb-language__label">Code language:</span> <span class="shcb-language__name">PHP</span> <span class="shcb-language__paren">(</span><span class="shcb-language__slug">php</span><span class="shcb-language__paren">)</span></small></pre>


<p>This method is no different from classic PHP-based themes when calling a function or class from a third-party plugin.</p>



<h2>When Registered via the /patterns Folder</h2>



<p>Patterns housed in the <code>/patterns</code> folder are auto-registered by WordPress on the <code>init</code> action hook. There is currently no filter to short-circuit this process. This method requires unregistering the pattern instead.</p>



<p>Once again, you must conditionally check if a function or class exists. If not, unregister the pattern:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><div><code class="hljs language-php">add_action( <span class="hljs-string">'init'</span>, <span class="hljs-function"><span class="hljs-keyword">function</span><span class="hljs-params">()</span> </span>{
    <span class="hljs-keyword">if</span> ( ! function_exists( <span class="hljs-string">'pluginslug_some_function'</span> ) ) {
        unregister_block_pattern( <span class="hljs-string">'themeslug/pattern-abc'</span> );
    }
} );</code></div><small class="shcb-language" id="shcb-language-2"><span class="shcb-language__label">Code language:</span> <span class="shcb-language__name">PHP</span> <span class="shcb-language__paren">(</span><span class="shcb-language__slug">php</span><span class="shcb-language__paren">)</span></small></pre>


<h2>An Alternative: Conditionally Adding Blocks to Patterns</h2>



<p>It is possible to register a pattern while conditionally supporting a particular block. For example, suppose your theme supports a contact form block named <code>pluginslug/contact</code> that you want to display in a &#8220;Contact&#8221; pattern. Further suppose that the contact form only makes up one section of the pattern but isn&#8217;t necessarily a requirement for the layout to work.</p>



<p>This method allows all users to make use of the pattern but does not require the third-party block to be installed. It will simply not be a part of the pattern if the user doesn&#8217;t have it.</p>



<p>Since we have access to PHP when building patterns, we can do the same conditional check within the pattern itself. The following is an example of a such a pattern:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><div><code class="hljs language-php"><span class="hljs-meta">&lt;?php</span>
<span class="hljs-comment">/*
 * Title: Contact
 * Slug: themeslug/contact
 */</span>
<span class="hljs-meta">?&gt;</span>
&lt;!-- some core WordPress blocks --&gt;

<span class="hljs-meta">&lt;?php</span> <span class="hljs-keyword">if</span> ( function_exists( <span class="hljs-string">'pluginslug_some_function'</span> ) ) : <span class="hljs-meta">?&gt;</span>
	&lt;!-- wp:pluginslug/contact /--&gt;
<span class="hljs-meta">&lt;?php</span> <span class="hljs-keyword">endif</span> <span class="hljs-meta">?&gt;</span>

&lt;!-- some other core WordPress blocks --&gt;</code></div><small class="shcb-language" id="shcb-language-3"><span class="shcb-language__label">Code language:</span> <span class="shcb-language__name">PHP</span> <span class="shcb-language__paren">(</span><span class="shcb-language__slug">php</span><span class="shcb-language__paren">)</span></small></pre>


<p>This method can grow complex quickly for themes that require multiple third-party blocks in a pattern or need to perform checks in dozens of pattern files. It is more suited to simple or one-off uses. Otherwise, it may become a management headache.</p>



<h2>Alternative to function/class_exists()</h2>



<p>It is also possible to check if a specific block is registered instead of relying on a plugin function/class name. However, this only works if the block is registered on the server-side.</p>



<p>WordPress does not have a dedicated <code>is_block_type()</code> or <code>is_registered_block_type()</code> helper function, but the <code>WP_Block_Type_Registry</code> class does have a public <code>is_registered()</code> method that you can use to check if a block exists:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><div><code class="hljs language-php"><span class="hljs-keyword">if</span> ( WP_Block_Type_Registry::get_instance()-&gt;is_registered( <span class="hljs-string">'pluginslug/test'</span> ) ) {
    register_block_pattern( <span class="hljs-string">'themeslug/pattern-abc'</span> );
}</code></div><small class="shcb-language" id="shcb-language-4"><span class="shcb-language__label">Code language:</span> <span class="shcb-language__name">PHP</span> <span class="shcb-language__paren">(</span><span class="shcb-language__slug">php</span><span class="shcb-language__paren">)</span></small></pre>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:01:28 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"HeroPress: Finding My Place In The World";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=4641";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:132:"https://heropress.com/essays/finding-my-place-in-the-world/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=finding-my-place-in-the-world";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22222:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/072622-min.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: The experience was so great and the community so warm, that it pulled me all the way in." />
<p><a href="https://heropress.com/feed/#finnish">Tämä kirjoitus on luettavissa myös suomeksi.</a></p>



Here is Timi reading his own story aloud.



<p>From a young age, I’ve been interested in computers. That probably comes from our family tree, as my grandad was a home appliance repairer and father has had a career related to the Internet since the early 2000s dot-com boom.</p>



<p>I remember looking at schematics of different household appliances at our grandad’s repair shop. Thinking how on earth the television game shows, where you could send a text message to “throw” a ball towards the goal on the virtual background behind the host, do work. Spending time at the computer, going thru different websites and being impressed by those. Father being head of e-commerce for a hairdressing industry chain and seeing the growth of e-commerce during the mid-2000s.</p>



<p>At that time I was in primary school and didn’t understand much of what all that was about. And surely wouldn’t have even guessed that someday I would have a career in IT.</p>



<h2 id="h-getting-familiar-with-the-internet">Getting familiar with the Internet</h2>



<p>Sure, back in the days, you had MySpace, virtual horse stables, guestbooks, IRC-Galleria, and different “website builders”… everyone explored the possibilities of these tools and technologies. You almost weren’t cool if you didn’t. So of course I built a few websites mainly just for fun, like almost everyone else of my age at that time. I also purchased my first domains and made a few sites public. One of those, for a scout group, was “coded” with excel. That’s how I started learning HTML and CSS.</p>



<p>When secondary school started, I did get really interested in sewing, and light-and-audio equipment for live productions. And politics.</p>



<blockquote><p>Copyright, patent law, freedom of information and net neutrality were hot topics around that time in Finland. </p></blockquote>



<p>I felt that the Internet I had grown with, was threatened. The Pirate Party movement had just landed in Finland and they were defending everything I believed in: open access to information and people’s online rights. Despite my young age, they welcomed me, so I got involved with registering the party for elections and in general.</p>



<p>They used IRC for all the communications, and soon I became frustrated because of missed conversations due to shutting off the computer and thus signing off from IRC as well. That led me to assemble, install and run my first home server so I would always have IRC on. Of course, the new server intrigued me and almost invited to try out hosting the websites myself. That way I learned the basics about Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL. My interest in these things was understood by only a few classmates and for everyone else, I was a bit of a weirdo. Because of that, I didn’t make many friends from the same age group with me – and that stays true to this day.</p>



<h2 id="h-finding-wordpress">Finding WordPress</h2>



<p>At some point in all this, I found WordPress. It was around 2009 and version 2.8 when I installed WordPress for the first time. I immediately started looking for ways to modify and extend the website. One thing lead to another. Soon I had installed WordPress quite a few more times, and even helped one of my friends to set up a website for their parliamentary election campaign. For getting the timeline right in this post, I looked up my old websites and found out that in 2010 I had published a guide on how to translate WordPress into Finnish and even offered some theme translations to download.</p>



<p>And yet I still didn’t think that IT, servers, websites or WordPress could be my career. When secondary school ended, I applied to study live production. Like audio and lights in concerts and all that stuff. Didn’t get selected for that school, because of the low numbers on the diploma. That was devastating.</p>



<p>But little did I know. The third school I applied to, selected me and there I was, going to study multimedia for three years. Photography, video editing, design and a little bit of web development.</p>



<h2 id="h-the-most-inspiring-and-toughest-times-of-life-at-the-same-time">The most inspiring and toughest times of life at the same time</h2>



<p>Looking back, this was one of the most pivotal points in my life. Three years in that school taught me how to be creative with design and boosted my self-confidence in coding skills. Starting almost from the first web development classes, teachers saw my skills and encouraged me to continue coding. I started helping other students during the classes, as most of the web development stuff was already familiar to me. I really enjoyed the print design classes, photography and school in general after a long time.</p>



<p>I had also become active in running one of the few Internet cafes in Helsinki that were left in the early 2010s. At the time, we were one of the few places which served only vegetarian food, had open wifi and laptops available for customers. As I was interested in tech and some knowledge, the natural thing was to be involved with maintaining those laptops and the website for the cafe.</p>



<p>Some same founders of that cafe cooperative had founded another cooperative in the early 2000s, to offer reasonably priced hosting and email services for associations and other NGOs. After some time, they invited me to join and soon I started helping with server upkeep and customer service. I would also make a number of websites with WordPress for our clients. </p>



<blockquote><p>For the first time in my life, I was getting some money from doing things on the Internet.</p></blockquote>



<p>I started to feel that I had found what I want to do in my life.</p>



<p>Then my partner at the time did get severely ill mentally. That started to affect me as well, and the last year of school with one half at on-the-job training and another half at school doing a bigger final project was very emotional and filled with deep worry. During that year we broke up and that led to depression.</p>



<p>I didn’t go to school. I didn’t answer the emails or phone calls from my teachers. For a good few months, my life was filled with going out to nightclubs and doing the cooperative work for which I felt a responsibility.</p>



<p>One day, when one of the teachers was calling yet again, I gathered myself and picked up the phone. It was only a month before graduation and I had some courses and a final project to complete before that. Somehow we managed to arrange everything and with the support of all my teachers, the last course was accepted as completed two days before the graduation ceremony.</p>



<h2 id="h-not-finding-a-job-in-the-industry">Not finding a job in the industry</h2>



<p>Right after graduation, I started looking for a job in the web industry. Tens of applications lead to few interviews, but nobody wanted to hire a newly graduated 18-year-old. I had some experience working in the kitchen from summer jobs, so I started applying to those types of openings, from fast-food chains to being a dishwasher at restaurants in need of income. </p>



<blockquote><p>Finally, one small school kitchen hired me to do the salads and desserts and help with dishwashing.</p></blockquote>



<p>A few months passed, and even though the school kitchen work was nice, I knew that it was something I didn’t want to do for too long. Finland has mandatory military or civil service for all adult males, so I started planning to complete my service soon with the hopes of finding a job in web development after that.</p>



<p>Only a few weeks before my civil service was due to start, one of the companies I had applied to reached out to me and offered a job. Being thrilled about finally getting a job offer in the industry, I did take that offer right away to learn that I would be a sole developer. At the age of 19. At a company with multiple seriously big clients and custom systems written in PHP.</p>



<h2 id="h-finding-wordpress-community">Finding WordPress community</h2>



<p>During that time, I also learned about the WordPress community in Finland and attended a few very early unofficial meetups. A bit earlier, I had met <a href="https://rolle.design/">Rolle</a> online, who happened to found a WordPress agency around the same time we started offering WordPress websites, on my initiative, at the company I was working for. At its best, we chatted daily and helped each other with our work.</p>



<p>Fast-forward a year. I was hired by a newly founded digital agency whose owners previously used me as a freelancer. It was really inspiring. I learned a lot and submitted my first patch to WordPress core during that employment. But something was missing. The owners didn’t really see the value in the community and, in fact, denied me from attending the first WordCamp in Finland.</p>



<p>Being very stubborn at that age and really interested in the community based on meetups, I cheated a little and booked train tickets to WordCamp Finland 2015. Ignoring the fact that my bosses haven’t allowed using one workday for that.</p>



<p>It was worth it and a second pivotal point in my life. I finally met Rolle in person and many other Finnish WordPress’ers I looked up to. Including Daniel, who was responsible for Finnish translations for years and Mikko, who was considered a WordPress guru.</p>



<h2 id="h-growing-in-the-wordpress-community">Growing in the WordPress community</h2>



<p>The experience was so great and the community so warm, that it pulled me all the way in. I started attending official meetups and over the years first became a volunteer at WordCamp, then organiser and lead the organiser. I also moved to another city and was the first hire in Rolle’s company.</p>



<p>Nowadays, multiple years later, I’m a partner in the very same company called <a href="https://www.dude.fi/">Dude</a>. A Community Deputy and a WordCamp mentor. Our company sponsors my time partially for the WordPress project. I’ve built WordPress websites for Finnish government agencies and big corporates. Mentored WordCamp Europe. Helped numerous WordPress’ers around the world in various ways.</p>



<p>And found my place in the world. From an industry and community, I could not have predicted, but to which the journey is quite obvious when looking back. A community that does not only share the same ideology that is still important to me, the freedom of information, but helps to make it true. A community whose members I consider close friends, some even as an extended family.</p>



<p>For those who are interested in my journey in WordPress Community, there’s a post titled “<a href="https://sipp.is/12-years-with-wordpress/">12 years with WordPress</a>” in my personal blog waiting for you.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p>&nbsp;</p>



<h1>Miten löysin paikkani maailmassa</h1>



Timi lukee tässä tarinansa ääneen.



<p>Olin kiinnostunut tietokoneista ja nuoresta iästä lähtien. Sukurasite todennäköisesti, vaari kun oli kodinkonekorjaaja ja isä luonut uraa Internetin parissa 2000-luvun huumasta lähtien.</p>



<p>Muistan ihmetelleeni eri kodinkoneiden korjauskaavioita vaarin pajalla. Miettineeni miten television peliohjelmat, joissa pystyit “heittämään” palloa tekstarilla virtuaalisen taustan edessä kekkuloivan juontajan iloksi, voi toimia. Kuluttaneeni aikaa tietokoneella selaten läpi Internetiä. Näheeni valtakunnallisen kampaamoketjun verkkokauppapäällikön, isäni, kautta verkkokaupan kasvun 2000-luvun puolivälissä.</p>



<p>Tuohon aikaan olin ala-asteella enkä ymmärtänyt isommassa mittakaavassa mitä ympärilläni tapahtui. Enkä olisi koskaan osannut edes arvata, että joku päivä olisin IT-alalla.</p>



<h2 id="h-tutustuminen-internetiin-alkaa">Tutustuminen Internetiin alkaa</h2>



<p>Toki MySpace, virtuaalitallit, erilaiset vieraskirjat, IRC-Galleria, Suntuubi ja vastaavat oli tuohon aikaan pienimuotoinen juttu. Kaikki kokeilkivat ja testailivat näitä uusia työkaluja sekä tekniikoita. Et lähestulkoon ollut cool, jos et testaillut. Niinpä minkäkin rakensin ensimmäisiä verkkosivujani, kuten moni oman ikäiseni noihin aikoihin. Hankin myös muutaman ensimmäisen verkkotunnukseni ja laitoin sivuja julkiseksi. Yksi noista oli partiolippukunnalle excelillä “koodattu” sivusto. Tällä tavoin aloin oppimaan HTML:ää sekä CSS:ää.</p>



<p>Ylä-asteen alkaessa kiinnostuin todella ompelusta sekä livetuotantojen ääni- ja valotekniikasta. Ja politiikasta.</p>



<p>Noihin aikoihin tekijänoikeusasiat, patenttilaki, tiedon vapaus ja nettineutraliteetti olivat tapetilla suomessa. Tunsin, että Internet jonka kanssa olin kasvanut oli uhattuna. Piraattiliike oli juuri saapunut suomeen ja he puolustivat kaikkea mihin uskoin: vapaata pääsyä tietoon sekä ihmisten oikeuksia Internetissä. Nuoresta iästäni huolimatta minut toivotettiin tervetulleeki ja näin osallistuin Piraattipuolueen puoluerekisteriin saamiseen.</p>



<p>Piraattipuolueessa käytettiin IRC:iä kaikkeen kommunikointiin, ja pian turhauduinkin kun menetin chattilokeja tietokoneen sammuttamisen takia. Näin päädyin rakentamaan, asentamaan ja pyörittämään ensimmäistä kotipalvelintani – jotta voisin pitää IRC:iä päällä koko ajan. Luonnollisesti tämä houkutti ja lähes kutsui minua testaamaan nettisivujen hostaamista itsekkin. Näin aloin oppimaan perusteita Linuxista, Apachesta, PHP:sta aj MySQL:ästä. Ainoastaan muutama luokkakaverini ymmärsi kiinnostukseni näihin asioihin, muille olin hieman outolintu. Ehkä siksi en saanutkaan kovin montaa ystävää oman ikäisistäni – asia joka muuten pätee edelleen.</p>



<h2 id="h-wordpressin-loytamisen-hetki">WordPressin löytämisen hetki</h2>



<p>Jossain kohtaa kaikkea tätä löysin WordPressin. Se oli joskus vuonna 2009 ja version 2.8 paikkeilla, kun asensin WordPressin ensimmäistä kertaa. Välittömästi aloin tutkia tapoja muokata sekä laajentaa luomaani nettisivua. Yksi asia johti toiseen. Pian olinkin asentanut WordPressin jo useampaan kertaan ja jopa auttanut ystävääni luomalla hänen eduskuntavaalikampanjasivuston. Tutkistekin tätä kirjoitusta varten vanhoja sivustojani, ja huomasin että 2010 olen julkaissut ohjeen miten saada WordPress suomeksi ja tarjosin jopa muutaman teeman käännöstä ladattavaksi.</p>



<p>Silti en vieläkään uskonut, että IT, palvelimet, nettisivut tai WordPress voisi olla joskus ura minulle. Peruskoulun lähestyessä loppuaan, hain opiskelemaan livetuotantojen tekniikkaa. En tullut valituksi päättötodistuksen huonojen arvosanojen takia. Olin lannistunut.</p>



<p>Mutta vähänpä tiesin. Pääsin kolmanteen hakuvaihtoehtooni ja siinä minä olin, aloittamassa media-assistentin opinnot. Valokuvausta, videoiden editointia, suunnittelua ja vähän nettisivujen tekemistä.</p>



<h2 id="h-elamani-inspiroivimmat-ja-haastavimmat-ajat-samaan-aikaan">Elämäni inspiroivimmat ja haastavimmat ajat samaan aikaan</h2>



<p>Taaksepäin katsoen tämä oli yksi elämäni käännekohdista. Kolme vuotta ammattikoulussa opetti minulle luovuutta ja vahvisti itsetuntoani koodaustaidoistani. Melkein ensimmäisistä tunneista lähtien, opettajat huomasivat kykyni ja kannustivat jatkamaan. Aloin auttamaan muita oppilaita verkkoviestinnän tunneilla, koska lähes kaikki mitä opiskelimme koodaamiseen liittyen oli jo tuttua minulle. Nautin printtimateriaalien suunnittelusta, valokuvauksesta ja pitkästä aikaa koulusta.</p>



<p>Noihin aikoihin olin myös ryhtynyt aktiiviseksi yhdessä Helsingin ainoista jäljellä olevista internetkahviloista. Tuohon aikaan osuuskuntamme oli yksi harvoista, joilla oli täysin lihaton valikoima, vapaasti käytettävissä oleva langaton verkko sekä läppäreitä lainaan asiakkaille. Luonnollisesti, koska olin kiinnostunut teknologiasta ja jonkin verran kokenut, päädyin auttamaan näiden läppäreiden sekä kahvilan nettisivujen ylläpitämisessä.</p>



<p>Samat perustajat olivat perustaneet toisen osuuskunnan 2000-luvun alussa, tarjotakseen järkevästi hinnoiteltuja verkkopalveluita yhdistyksille sekä yhteisöille. Tulin kutsutuksi mukaan tuohon osuuskuntaan ja pian aloin auttamaan palvelinten ylläpidossa sekä asiakaspalvelussa. Tein myös jonkin verran WordPress-sivustoja asiakkaillemme. Ensimmäistä kertaa elämässäni sain rahaa siitä, että tein asioita Internetissä.</p>



<p>Alkoi tuntumaan, että olen löytänyt sen mitä haluan tehdä elämässäni.</p>



<p>Sitten silloinen kumppanini sairastui mielenterveydeltään vakavasti. Se alkoi vaikuttaa myös minuun ja viimeinen vuosi koulussa, toinen puolisko työssäoppimassa ja toinen lopputyön parissa, täyttyi vahvoilla tunteilla sekä syvällä huolella. Erosimme tuon vuoden aikana, ja masennuin.</p>



<p>En mennyt kouluun. En vastannut opettajien puheluihin tai sähköposteihin. Muutaman kuukauden ajan elämäni täyttyi yökerhoissa käymisellä sekä osuuskunnan töillä, joihin koin velvollisuutta.</p>



<p>Eräs päivä, kun yksi opettajista soitti jälleen, keräsin itseni ja vastasin. Oli noin kuukausi valmistumiseen ja minulla oli muutama kurssi suoritettavana sekä lopputyö kesken. Jollain tavalla saimme asiat järjestynään opettajieni tuella, ja viimeinen kurssi merkittiin suoritetuksi kaksi päivää ennen valmistujaisia.</p>



<p>Välittömästi valmistumisen jälkeen aloin etsimään töitä. Kymmenet hekmukset johtivat muutamaan haastatteluun, mutta kukaan ei halunnut palkata 18 vuotiasta vastavalmistunutta. Olin saanut kesätöistä jonkin verran koemusta keittiössä työskentelemisestä, joten rahan tarpeessa aloin hakemaan työpaikkoja mistä tahansa ravintola-alalta, pikaruokaketjuista aina ravintoloiden tiskariksi. Lopulta eräs pienempi koulukeittiö palkkasi minut auttamaan salaattien, jälkiruokien sekä tiskien kanssa.</p>



<p>Jokunen kuukausi kului ja vaikka työ oli mukavaa, tiesin etten halua tehdä sitä turhan pitkään. Niinpä aloin suunnittelemaan siviilipalvelukseen astumista ja toivoin, että löytäisin sen jälkeen oman alan töitä.</p>



<p>Vain muutama viikko ennen palvelukseen astumista, eräs yrityksistä joihin olin hakenut palasi asiaan ja tarjosi töitä. Olin innoissani, eikä tarvinnut miettiä pitkään paikan vastaanottamista. Pian kuitenkin opin, että tulisin olemaan yrityksen ainoa koodari. 19 vuoden ikäisenä. Yrityksessä jolla oli isoja asiakkuuksia ja lukuisia itse kehitettyjä PHP-sovelluksia.</p>



<h2 id="h-wordpress-yhteison-loytaminen">WordPress-yhteisön löytäminen</h2>



<p>Noihin aikoihin tulin myös tietoiseksi suomen WordPress-yhteisöstä ja osallistuin muutamaan ensimmäisistä epävirallisista tapaamisista. Hieman aiemmin, olin tustunut netissä <a href="https://rolle.design/">Rolleen</a>, joka sattui perustamaan WordPress-toimiston samoihin aikoihin kuin meidän yritys alkoi tarjoamaan WordPress-sivustoja aloitteestani. Parhaimmillaan juttelimme päivittäin ja autoimme toisiamme työssämme.</p>



<p>Pikakelataan vuosi. Olin palkattu vastaperustettuun digitoimistoon, joiden omistajille olin tehnyt joitain vuosia aiemmin hommia freelancerina. Tuo aika oli todella inspiroivaa. Opin paljon uutta ja lähetin jopa ensimmäisen pienen korjaukseni WordPressin ytimeen. Mutta jotain puuttui. Omistajat eivät oikein nähneet arvoa yhteisössä, ja itseasiassa kielsivät osallistumasta suomen enimmäiseen WordCamp-tapahtumaan.</p>



<p>Jääräpäinen kun olin, ja erittäin kiinnostunut yhteisöstä, huijasin hieman ja varasin junaliput osallistuaakseni WordCamp Finland 2015 -tapahtumaan. Huolimatta siitä, että minua oli kielletty kuluttamasta työpäivää siihen.</p>



<p>Osallistuminen oli sen arvoista ja toinen käännekohdista elämässäni. Tapasin vihdoin Rollen ensimmäistä kertaa livenä, sekä muita suomen WordPress-maailman hahmoja joita ihailin. Mukaanlukien Daniel joka vastasi suomenkielisistä käännöksistä pitkään sekä Mikon, jota pidettiin lähes WordPress-guruna.</p>



<h2 id="h-wordpress-yhteisossa-kasvaminen">WordPress-yhteisössä kasvaminen</h2>



<p>Kokemus oli niin mahtava ja yhteisö niin lämmin, että se veti heti mukaansa. Aloin osallistumaan virallisiin WordPress meetuppeihin säännöllisesti ja vuosien aikana ilmoittauduin ensin vapaaehtoiseksi WordCamppiin, sitten järjestäjäksi ja lopulta pääjärjestäjäksi. Muutin toiseen kaupunkiin ja olin Rollen perustaman firman ensimmäinen palkkaus.</p>



<p>Nykyään, vuosia myöhemmin, olen osakas tuossa samassa firmassa nimeltään Dude. Osa kansainvälistä yhteisötiimiä ja mentoroin WordCamppeja. Firma sponsoroi osan työajastani WordPress yhteisön hyväksi. Olen ollut mukana tekemässä nettisivuja valtionhallionhallinnolle ja isoille korporaatioille. Mentoroinut maailmans suurinta WordCampia. Auttanut lukuisia WordPressin käyttäjiä ympäri maailman.</p>



<p>Ja löytänyt paikkani maailmassa. Alalta ja yhteisöstä jota en olisi voinut koskaan ennustaa, mutta johon matka on selkeästi nähtävissä kun katsoo taaksepäin. Yhteisössä, joka ei ainoastaan jaa kanssani samaa ideologiaa joka on edelleen minulle tärkeä, tiedon vapaus, vaan myös auttaa tekemään siitä totta. Yhteisössä, jonka jäsenet ovat tärkeitä ystäviä ja osa jopa melkein kuin perhettä.</p>



<p>Matkastani WordPress-yhteisössä kiinnostuneille, henkilökohtaisesta blogistani löytyy kirjoitus “<a href="https://sipp.is/12-years-with-wordpress/">12 years with WordPress</a>”.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/finding-my-place-in-the-world/">Finding My Place In The World</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:00:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Timi Wahalahti";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"WPTavern: Akismet 5.0 Adds New Spam Detection Feature That Analyzes How Comments Are Posted";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136573";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"https://wptavern.com/akismet-5-0-adds-new-spam-detection-feature-that-analyzes-how-comments-are-posted";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2157:"<p>For years, the vast majority of Akismet releases have been centered around bug fixes and improving compatibility with various plugins. <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/version-5-0-of-the-akismet-wordpress-plugin-is-now-available/">Version 5.0</a> was released today, following 4.2.5 earlier this month, with a <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/spambots-theyre-not-just-like-us-introducing-akismets-newest-spam-fighting-feature/">new feature</a> that should improve Askismet&#8217;s ability to detect spam comments.</p>



<p>Akismet engineer Christopher Finke explained how the plugin will now analyze how a comment is posted, in addition to analyzing what is posted:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>A typical human commenter on the Web takes about 40 seconds to read a blog post and another 40 seconds to write and submit a comment. Their typing speed varies significantly throughout the creation of their comment, and they regularly use their mouse to click around the page. An automated spambot (even one programmed to act like a person) doesn’t act so human-like: its typing speed and mouseclick speed are superhumanly consistent. It doesn’t spend time “reading” blog posts. Its mouse usage is sparse.</p></blockquote>



<p>This new feature can detect spam that is posted in a machine-like fashion, even if the spambot is attempting to post a comment with content identical to one that has already been approved. </p>



<p>&#8220;The Akismet plugin will begin observing these behaviors so that they can be used as part of the spam-checking process,&#8221; Finke said. &#8220;None of this data is personally identifiable, and it won’t be used for any purpose other than identifying spam.&#8221;</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet">Akismet</a> is bundled with WordPress and is active on more than 5 million sites. More than 62% of users are running on 4.2.x and ~38% are on version 4.1 or older. WordPress users who are having a lot of spam breaking through Akismet&#8217;s protection will want to upgrade to take advantage of the new spambot detection features in version 5.0. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Jul 2022 18:26:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"Akismet: Version 5.0 of the Akismet WordPress Plugin is Now Available";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://blog.akismet.com/?p=2408";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/version-5-0-of-the-akismet-wordpress-plugin-is-now-available/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:614:"<p>Version 5.0 of <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/">the Akismet plugin for WordPress</a> is now available. This update contains one main improvement: <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/?p=2398">a new feature that helps stop spambots</a> by observing how they interact with the page, not just what content they submit.</p>



<p>To upgrade, visit the Updates page of your WordPress dashboard and follow the instructions. If you need to download the plugin zip file directly, links to all versions are available in <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/">the WordPress plugins directory</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:16:15 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17:"Christopher Finke";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"Akismet: Spambots: They’re (Not) Just Like Us. Introducing Akismet’s Newest Spam-fighting Feature.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://blog.akismet.com/?p=2398";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:119:"https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/spambots-theyre-not-just-like-us-introducing-akismets-newest-spam-fighting-feature/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2153:"<p>For years, Akismet has improved life on the Web by analyzing comment form and contact form submissions and comparing them against millions of pieces of real-time content to catch and stop spam. This has gone well (533,000,000,000 times and counting), but it could be going even better.</p>



<p>Starting with <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/version-5-0-of-the-akismet-wordpress-plugin-is-now-available/">version 5.0 of the Akismet plugin for WordPress</a>, Akismet will begin analyzing <strong><em>how</em></strong> the content was posted in addition to <strong><em>what</em></strong> content is posted. What does this mean?</p>



<p>A typical human commenter on the Web takes about 40 seconds to read a blog post and another 40 seconds to write and submit a comment. Their typing speed varies significantly throughout the creation of their comment, and they regularly use their mouse to click around the page. An automated spambot (even one programmed to act like a person) doesn&#8217;t act so human-like: its typing speed and mouseclick speed are superhumanly consistent. It doesn&#8217;t spend time &#8220;reading&#8221; blog posts. Its mouse usage is sparse. </p>



<p>The differences in these behaviors between people and people-impersonating bots can be used to stop spam &#8212; even if <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/2007/11/27/it-really-is-spam/">a spambot is posting a comment identical to that of a real person</a>, the way it does it is uniquely machine-like.  The Akismet plugin will begin observing these behaviors so that they can be used as part of the spam-checking process. (None of this data is personally identifiable, and it won&#8217;t be used for any purpose other than identifying spam.)</p>



<p>To ensure that this latest anti-spam technology is being used to protect your website, upgrade to <a href="https://blog.akismet.com/2022/07/26/version-5-0-of-the-akismet-wordpress-plugin-is-now-available/">Akismet 5.0</a> by visiting the Updates page of your WordPress admin dashboard or by downloading it directly from <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/">the WordPress plugins directory</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:15:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17:"Christopher Finke";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"Do The Woo Community: The Twists and Turns to Becoming a Developer with Carmen Maymo";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72529";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"https://dothewoo.io/the-developer-journey-that-twists-and-turns/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:420:"<p>Carmen Maymo started out as an artist, and following a twisted path, ended up a WordPress and WooCommerce developer. </p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/the-developer-journey-that-twists-and-turns/">The Twists and Turns to Becoming a Developer with Carmen Maymo</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:59:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: Review Signal Publishes 2022 WordPress and WooCommerce Hosting Performance Benchmarks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136533";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"https://wptavern.com/review-signal-publishes-2022-wordpress-and-woocommerce-hosting-performance-benchmarks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7716:"<p>Kevin Ohashi from Review Signal has published the <a href="https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/">2022 WordPress and WooCommerce hosting performance benchmarks</a>. These benchmarks are some of the most trusted review sources in the hosting industry due to Ohashi&#8217;s transparent <a href="https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/methodology/">methodology</a>. No hosting company sponsors the work. Instead, Ohashi charges a standard, publicly documented fee for participation that covers the cost of the tests.</p>



<p>In 2022, Ohashi tested 33 companies with 79 different plans across seven different price tiers, including the WooCommerce tier.</p>



<p>If speed is one of your chief concerns when selecting a hosting company, these performance reviews may be of interest. The benchmarks include a Load Storm test designed to simulate real users visiting the site, logging in, and browsing (uncached performance). They also test cached performance, SSL, WP queries per second, performance on some computational and database operations, and a WebPageTest that fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world.</p>



<p>The results are easy to examine at a glance. Top Tier (Full Star) status is given to hosts that perform well under the battery of tests:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Top Tier WordPress Hosting (Full Star)</strong></p><p>This is awarded to companies who maintain 99.9% uptime throughout the entire testing and show little to no performance degradation during load testing, primarily focused on error rate and consistent response times. Error rates above 0.1% and response times above 1000ms* will keep a company away from achieving Top Tier marks.</p></blockquote>



<p>In the budget &lt;$25/Month category, the 2022 Top Tier winners included 20i, 34SP, EasyWP by Namecheap, Eco Web Hosting, GreenGeeks, HostXNow, ICDSoft, LightningBase, MechanicWeb, Pressable, SiteGround, and WPX.</p>



<img />



<p>On the other end of the spectrum, in the <a href="https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/benchmark/2022-enterprise-wordpress/">Enterprise tier ($500+/month)</a>, there were far fewer participants but the majority of them achieved Top Tier status, including Performant Websites, Presslabs, Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo, Servebolt (Scale + ACD), Servebolt, and WordPress VIP.</p>



<img />



<p>This is the second year Ohashi has performed WooCommerce hosting reviews. The tests are performed on a WooCommerce dummy website with Storefront set as the theme and <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/master/sample-data/sample_products.xml">sample products</a> loaded.</p>



<p>Top Tier winners for WooCommerce hosting include GreenGeeks, Pressable, Servebolt, and WordPress.com.  Two others achieved Honorable Mentions &#8211; ICDSoft and SiteGround. </p>



<img />



<p>Clicking on &#8220;View full results&#8221; for any of the tiers will show a detailed breakdown of all the tests with comparison charts and summaries for each host participating.</p>



<h3>WordPress Hosting Is Getting Faster</h3>



<p>&#8220;I think the most remarkable trend is how fast things are getting,&#8221; Ohashi said. &#8220;For example if we look at the enterprise tier from 2021 vs 2022, the fastest average response time (Static test) was 9ms and 6.4ms and p95 was 41ms to 20ms. The 3rd fastest p95 last year was 65ms which would be 7th (out of 9) fastest this year if you moved it.</p>



<p>&#8220;Despite the numbers already being staggeringly fast already, the whole cohort accelerated even faster.</p>



<p>&#8220;And it&#8217;s not just at the high end, at the &lt;25 tier, on the Static test there was 1 company with under 100ms p95 last year (CynderHost &#8211; 61ms). This year you have three &#8211; Pressable (18ms), SiteGround (67ms), WPX (89ms).</p>



<p>&#8220;At the slow end, the slowest &lt;25 Static average response time was 267ms, last year there were 5 companies with equal or slower averages (max being over 1200ms).&#8221;</p>



<p>Ohashi said there may be some selection bias as companies who do badly may not want to participate again and filter themselves out. </p>



<p>&#8220;But some of those companies improved quite a bit like GoDaddy was 295ms to 234ms which is a 61ms improvement,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I want to call out the companies who have sometimes struggled on these tests, and keep participating. I respect them and it makes me happy to see them making continuous improvements. </p>



<p>&#8220;While I do give awards for companies who do well, I think it&#8217;s important to recognize that not doing as well isn&#8217;t a failure, it&#8217;s about what the companies do with that information and how they improve their services. Overall, it seems everyone is improving and that&#8217;s a win for hosts and consumers alike.&#8221;</p>



<p>Ohashi said one of his goals for 2022 is talking with the companies to explain the value of participating. Beyond the value of the benchmarks themselves, these reviews help the ecosystem push for better performance. One of Ohashi&#8217;s testing policies is a big driver for this: </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>&#8220;The hosting packages are as close to default as possible. In some circumstances where turning on performance enhancements is very simple, e.g. clicking an option to turn on caching, this will be done. These changes must be obvious or communicated clearly in the welcome email so that every user is guaranteed to at least be presented the option. Otherwise everything is as-is for new customers upon sign up to avoid, as much as possible, the extra benefit of companies knowing they are being tested.&#8221;</p></blockquote>



<p>Companies that do well in these tests are those that have embraced performance by default, so that any performance improving technology is already turned on or presented proactively to customers. </p>



<p>&#8220;One of the things I got a degree in is economics and we talk about opt-in vs opt-out policies like organ donation and how defaults can drastically influence outcomes,&#8221; Ohashi said. &#8220;By forcing opt-in performance improvements, I don&#8217;t know how many thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of sites have been positively impacted by these benchmarks without ever being aware because hosting companies are forced to enable better defaults.&#8221;</p>



<p>Ohashi also works with the companies on things that do not make it into the benchmarks, such as pointing out issues with onboarding/UI/UX experience and reporting bugs.</p>



<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve probably used more different WordPress hosting companies than anyone else in the world at this point (I have to be in the top 10 doing these benchmarks for a decade right?),&#8221; he said. &#8220;If I cannot figure out how to do something in your system, it&#8217;s probably your system, not me. I truly want to see everyone do better, because everyone wins in that scenario and I will try to help as much as I can to make that happen.&#8221;</p>



<p>Check out the <a href="https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/">2022 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks</a> for a more detailed breakdown of all the different pricing tiers and a full explanation of the testing methodology. Past years&#8217; benchmarks are also available on the website. This year Load Storm went out of business, so Ohashi replicated the tests into k6. All of his load testing scripts are open source and <a href="https://github.com/ReviewSignal/k6-WordPress-benchmarks">available on GitHub</a>, so others are welcome to use them for testing their own sites or building their own testing suites.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Jul 2022 02:40:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"WPTavern: SiteCare Acquires Maintainn from WebDevStudios";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136520";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"https://wptavern.com/sitecare-acquires-maintainn-from-webdevstudios";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2720:"<p>More consolidation is happening in the WordPress maintenance services space, as SiteCare <a href="https://sitecare.com/blog/sitecare-acquires-maintainn/">announced</a> it has acquired <a href="https://maintainn.com/">Maintainn</a>, a long-time competitor, from WebDevStudios.</p>



<p>&#8220;As we’ve grown and our clientele has grown [with] definitely more of a focus on the enterprise and big business, we’ve simply kind of grown away where that side of the house wasn’t really in line with the web dev side of the house in terms of the clients we&#8217;re working with,&#8221; WebDevStudios CEO Brad Williams said in an interview with <a href="https://thewpminute.com/wordpress-support-company-sitecare-acquires-maintainn-from-webdevstudios/">The WP Minute</a>.</p>



<p>&#8220;So it’s been a bit of a, struggle in terms of how best to support those clients, because of course we want to take care of our clients and they are a big reason why we’re here. That’s why, Lisa, my partner, and myself, kind of took a step back and said, maybe this doesn&#8217;t make sense for WebDev, where we&#8217;re at, where we&#8217;re continuing to go.&#8221;</p>



<p>As WebDevStudios began focusing more on taking on larger, more technical projects that run WordPress at scale for clients like The Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, Microsoft, Viacom, and the NBA, the company struggled to effectively market Maintainn with messaging that conveyed its distinction from WebDevStudios&#8217; enterprise development offerings.</p>



<p>&#8220;Struggle of the message, the marketing message to say, hey, we can support, blogs, SMB all the way up to, enterprise and Microsoft is a hard message to get across,&#8221; Williams said. </p>



<p>&#8220;We knew that the marketing of that would be almost impossible for us to, to nail. It really just came from the separation of where WebDev was kind of growing more towards the enterprise and Maintainn was primarily supporting more of that SMB to to mid-tier.&#8221;</p>



<p>Maintainn&#8217;s current maintenance plan customers, which range from $49-$249/month, will remain at the same pricing for one year. SiteCare may reevaluate these pricing tiers in the future. Customers are promised the same level of service as their current plan but may also receive some enhanced benefits that they had not received before. In addition to maintenance services, SiteCare also offers its customers a range of digital marketing services.</p>



<p>This is SiteCare&#8217;s second acquisition of a WordPress site management company after acquiring WP Site Care in 2018. The company will take on all of Maintainn&#8217;s assets but the employees will remain with WebDevStudios.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 25 Jul 2022 18:47:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"Gutenberg Times: Live Q &amp; A: Block-First Approach at Pew Research Center";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=21696";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/live-q-a-block-first-approach-at-pew-research-center/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67879:"<p>On July 22, 2022, Michael Piccorossi, Head of Digital Strategy and Seth Rubenstein, Lead Developer at Pew Research Center talked to co-hosts Anne McCarthy, WordPress Product Liason and Birgit Pauli-Haack, WordPress Developer advocate and curater at Gutenberg Times, on they use a mixture of Core and Custom Blocks to streamline their publishing process, and to create powerful charts and quizzes for the Pew Research Center.</p>



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<h2>Resources</h2>



<p><a href="https://github.com/sethrubenstein/gutenberg-times-livestream-examples">Seth Rubenstein&#8217;s Example Code Repo</a> (GitHub) </p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/37943">Issue: Allow usage of block based &#8220;template parts&#8221; without using block based &#8220;templates&#8221;</a>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbGFDbmN0Y3ViaFFBU1RHM0xtYkZ4cVV5RGgyZ3xBQ3Jtc0tsSGRKTzhCRGJQc3Bpd3kzc1A5cVo0dmM4WThacVJyLXhCa1NDSllzckwtLUNxSTlKajZDTmtKUFhfN3h2TXdNb29ESkh5MVczNVZGNE03WnlldDdDM09uNUlxZ3BEZTlBYTNPTGNNWlFEMHJyV3cwVQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3aWn55a&v=bvQYPa5vxVk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://bit.ly/3aWn55a</a> (GitHub) </p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/comparing-patterns-template-parts-and-reusable-blocks/">Comparing Patterns, Template Parts, and Reusable Blocks</a> (WordPress Support) </p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/24934">Tracking issue: Missing Query block functionality</a> (GitHub) </p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/11/fse-program-testing-call-15-category-customization/">FSE Program Testing Call #15: Category Customization</a> (WordPress Make Blog)</p>



<p>Connect on Twitter </p>



<ul><li>Michael Piccorossi <a href="https://twitter.com/mpiccorossi">@mpiccorossi</a></li><li>Seth Rubenstein <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbFYwNDRSQ2gzdEtDNUhYcFhLY0F5QmtrQlZEQXxBQ3Jtc0trVEdjY25XR1dFOWNWY3BvYS1vX0I0elcwbjlWeVhLaVFMRkM2T3hzWk1yV1g5QUxWeHlKbHMwX1R4bjR3Sm5lLUpEQlVaaUVqRno2TnpkcEJTbG9hUUdzaXJ6VWg1ckptSHRCTUtKTVJDNzVrZ3Jjcw&q=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FSethRubenstein&v=bvQYPa5vxVk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@SethRubenstein</a></li><li>Pew Research <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbVBuZ09tWjB1Nms5OVEyRUlsS3J5eEdfQVZNZ3xBQ3Jtc0tubXkzMkUxTDBsQ2FyQ2xma3dsYmRydkxldzlmUTZSMVJSZjZSSVZMdGMzbXVKbnNpdXhDeXVqQ2tQM3E4MU1kQzMyVi1tNmNxU3QteHg2VTNmMkc1ckJNOXZNVS1OUkJtLVJhRFJ6aWhVbWJTX2VMZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fpewresearch&v=bvQYPa5vxVk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@pewresearch</a></li></ul>



<h2>Speaker information</h2>



<div class="wp-container-7 is-nowrap wp-block-group alignwide">
<div class="wp-container-5 is-vertical wp-block-group">
<img /><strong>Michael Pioccorossi, Director of Digital Strategy</strong>



<p>Michael Piccorossi is the Director of Digital Strategy at the Pew Research Center where he leads a multidisciplinary team that includes web development, design, product, user experience, analytics, social media and video. He has extensive experience with all phases of digital product and audience development. Before Pew Research, he was Director of Online Operations at U.S. News &amp; World Report. </p>
</div>



<div class="wp-container-6 is-vertical wp-block-group">
<img /><strong>Seth Rubenstein, Lead Develope</strong>r



<p>Seth Rubenstein is the Lead Developer at the Pew Research Center, where he leads a team of 3 developers. He has 12 years of experience in developing enterprise level WordPress applications. Before joining Pew Research, he was the Senior WordPress Developer at the Center for American Progress.</p>
</div>
</div>



<h2>Transcript of Live Q &amp; A</h2>



<p> </p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Welcome to our 32nd live Q&amp;A on Gutenberg Times. It&#8217;s a great way to connect with people who are using Gutenberg and we have an excellent show today for you. My name is Birgit Pauli-Haack, and I&#8217;m the host of and the publisher of Gutenberg Times. Thanks for joining everybody. With me is a co-host, Anne McCarthy, who&#8217;s the WordPress Product Liaison. Howdy, Anne, thank you for being here.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Thanks for having me. I&#8217;m very excited to introduce how we&#8217;re going to talk to folks in the Pew Research Center about how they use a mixture of core and custom blocks to streamline their publishing process and to create a lot of the stuff that you know and love from them, with their charts and quizzes and all that good stuff. So with me here today, Seth Rubenstein, lead developer&#8230; Rubenstein. Apologies, lead developer and Michael Piccorossi Director of Digital Strategy. Thank you both so much for coming Seth and Michael apologies if I completely ruined both your last names and thank you so much for taking the time to just talk about all the cool stuff you&#8217;re doing at the WordPress block editor. I know it&#8217;s going to inspire a lot of folks. How are you both doing today? We&#8217;ll start with Seth.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Oh, I&#8217;m doing fine. I&#8217;m living in the middle of a post-home renovation construction zone, but other than that I&#8217;m doing great.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Amazing. Minor details, Michael, how are you doing?</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: I&#8217;m doing great. Thanks. Thanks for having us. We&#8217;re really excited to talk about the work that we&#8217;re doing and how we might help other people with what they&#8217;re trying to do. So, thanks.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So I&#8217;m so happy. Totally thrilled. I couldn&#8217;t wait because we were talking about this since end of May and now it&#8217;s end of June. I had to wait two months, but we do proper introduction in less than a minute, but I have a few housekeeping notes. So please use the chat feature to let us know where you are watching from.</p>



<p>Then for the question process, for those who are watching on YouTube livestream, use the chat bot next to the video player for your questions. Here on Zoom, use the Q&amp;A button on the bottom of the screen for your questions and the chat bubble to share your thoughts and comments.</p>



<p>A little reminder, yes, please be kind even if you disagree. This is a family-friendly endeavor.</p>



<p>So before we head first into the behind-the-scenes tour we are going to get, I want to ask both of you to tell us briefly about your WordPress story and how long have you been using it. Seth first, and then Michael.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure. I&#8217;ll go first. I mean, I&#8217;ve been using WordPress for, I don&#8217;t know, 18 years or something like that now? I started using WordPress in college. I was responsible for all the school&#8217;s clubs and newspaper, websites and all that stuff. So that&#8217;s when I started to learn WordPress.</p>



<p>Then I just went successively from one job to the next, building out different WordPress products. I think I built one of the first learning management systems in WordPress many, many years ago, in my first job. Then I started at Pew in 2015 and they were doing some interesting stuff with WordPress and WordPress Multisite and we just went from there. I&#8217;m excited to show you what we have built over the last couple of years.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, that&#8217;s a great career and a lot of nonprofit and going from Drupal to WordPress must have been a major switch of culture as well. So, Michael, how about you? What is your story?</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;ve been doing digital stuff for more than 20 years, more years than I like to admit sometimes. Prior to Pew Research, I managed a team at U.S. News &amp; World Report. We built a custom-based, a Python-based CMS and e-commerce system. That was back like in 2006. So I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of different content management things.</p>



<p>I started at Pew Research in 2009. When I got here, we had four different CMSs, none of them WordPress, 2 DotNet, Drupal, custom PHP so it was really kind of a mess. One of my first hires after I got here was another person you may know from the WordPress community, Russ Heimlick. He was our first web developer and he and I talked about where we should take this organization and we decided that WordPress was the right way to go.</p>



<p>So we ran a custom-hosted version out of a data center in Virginia for a while and then Seth joined us, as he said in 2015. For a couple of years, we were managing on our own AWS infrastructure and then we moved over to WordPress VIP in 2018, and we&#8217;ve been really happy working in that environment ever since. So we&#8217;ve really never been happier and we&#8217;re really committed to the platform.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I love this. This is very cool. I&#8217;m going to later have a question so just tuck this away for now, around why you chose WordPress, especially with what seems to be more of an emphasis on the data side of things. I&#8217;ve read books about how for humanity&#8217;s sake, we need to find ways to preserve data for the long term. So I&#8217;m curious, that played into part of, for human knowledge sake of, what platform can we choose that will have the most longevity and sustainability into the future? So I&#8217;m fascinated by that entire concept when it comes to this kind of work and research, but just tuck that away for later. I just had to mention it for now.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Sure.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh, Birgit, you&#8217;re muted. Sorry.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; to type some things. I apologize, our chat was disabled for a few minutes here and now you can all tell us where you&#8217;re watching from. I&#8217;m sorry about that, but it seems to be that Zoom is changing the default settings all the time, and I had this set up. Well anyway, so Michael, so what do you exactly do at the Pew Research Center?</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Sure, sure. So me personally, I&#8217;m the director of Digital Strategy. It&#8217;s really product and strategy and like I said, I&#8217;ve been here for 13 years now. So I oversee a larger team of 20 people. In addition to the web dev, I also oversee the design team, video products, social, email, user experience, and audience measurement. So basically I&#8217;m the chief cat hurder.</p>



<p>I think we&#8217;re similar to a lot of news organizations. So I really describe us as, we&#8217;re news adjacent. So, the work of the center is, if you&#8217;re not familiar with it, we are a nonpartisan, non-advocacy, public opinion polling, demographic analysis and a variety of other social science research. Historically, the roots of the center is in survey research and polling, but in the last five years, we&#8217;ve really made a strategic shift to seek new ways of measuring public opinion and that facilitated us starting our data labs team. They&#8217;re doing data science and computational social science so that&#8217;s a new area of research for us.</p>



<p>Our core product, as is baked into our name is, nonpartisan, non-advocacy research. So these authoritative, data-driven reports, they&#8217;re big things, they&#8217;re multi chapter, and those are still really in many ways, one of our core products, but we also do shorter but equally rigorous and authoritative data-rich blog posts and things like that.</p>



<p>But the digital team here also, in addition to doing all of the regular day-to-day publishing, we&#8217;ll publish in a given year maybe 40 or 50 data-driven features based on center research. And they run the gamut from D3 visualizations to interactive maps, data lookup tools, essays, and quizzes. And I don&#8217;t want to overlook the fact that we&#8217;ll publish about 2,500 static charts in a given year and it&#8217;s really an important part of how we get our information out there. So shout out to our design team, I think they&#8217;re the best in the business and I think they do great stuff. So it just doesn&#8217;t have to be interactive to be important to us.</p>



<p>I think in general, one of our real special sauce for these features that we do is, allowing users to see themselves in our data. So Anne mentioned some of our quizzes and things like that. That&#8217;s really in terms of broad reach, we know that for the public, that&#8217;s what they want to see. So that&#8217;s it.</p>



<p>So, like I said, we are really similar to a news organization and we&#8217;re involved in a lot of the same communities as news orgs, Online News Association, NYCAR, the News Product Alliance, those are sort of the people we hang out with.</p>



<p>In addition to being a pointing head and middle manager, I&#8217;m really a product guy at heart so I really do spend a lot of time in WordPress. So that&#8217;s my story.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right. Well, thank you, Michael. I had no idea about the full scope of the Pew Research Center. I only have been an avid reader of the internet research since the early 90s, I think because that was the one research where you knew who&#8217;s online and who&#8217;s online where, and especially then with the advent of user-generated content, social media, it was really nice. Yeah. It was the one authority about internet usage, especially in America. So I&#8217;m really happy that I know now more about it. So Seth, what do you do at Pew Research Center?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Well, I am the lead developer. So when I started at Pew, there were a few developers, but there wasn&#8217;t a defined dev team and there wasn&#8217;t modern dev team practices. So a lot of the challenge was getting that spun up in the first couple of years.</p>



<p>Now, we have three other developers beside myself. We have two developers that focus on these digital features that Michael alluded to maps, interactives, we call them scrolly teleinteractives. You scroll through and different things happen. Then another developer and myself, we manage the majority of the WordPress app and especially now, the Gutenberg infrastructure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. I just want to go through the chat. Hi to Washington DC. Heimlich is here. No. Nice, wonderful. Bud is here. Hi Bud. Henrietta, Matt and well, yeah, Ann is online the chat and thank you for greeting everybody.</p>



<p>So the Genesis of this live Q&amp;A is actually that I, around the Web 6.0 release, Seth tweeted the following, &#8220;For all its naysayers, Gutenberg is a gamechanger for digital and news apps. It&#8217;s a force multiplier for your team and we&#8217;ve spent about the last three years going all-in, in block development.&#8221; Then in the thread, you shared quite a few videos of examples and it was really interesting. I jumped at it and DMed you if you and your team come on the show. So what is it that you&#8217;re going to show us today?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure. So I have a couple of examples from that kind of thread. I think we&#8217;ll dive in and I&#8217;ll show you how we can build out homepages, that&#8217;s one thing, how we are using Gutenberg in a quasi full-site editing method to edit taxonomy archive pages, as well as a couple examples of how we build out digital features like quizzes, like charts and interactives now, some of these scrolly tele things I&#8217;ve told you about.</p>



<p>We also have this other concept of a quote sorter, where we get quotes from the public and we sort them into different groups and things so you can browse that information. We&#8217;ve just created the ability for this, and it&#8217;s not launched yet, to build those out in Gutenberg. So let me share my screen here.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that would be lovely. Well to the audience, if you have questions, just put it in the chat and after the demo, well, Anne and I get the privilege of first questions and then we&#8217;ll go through your questions and have Seth and Michael answer them.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Go ahead, Seth.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; So the first thing that you see when you hit pewresearch.org is this page here. In the past, this might have been something built out with God knows how many short codes, if that was even possible at all. So now, and I&#8217;ll just kind of, I have a couple tabs lined up here, now, it&#8217;s very simple for an editor to come in and build out a homepage, especially with things like block patterns. We&#8217;ve established some of these basic sections of the homepage that you can just drag and drop in.</p>



<p>So let&#8217;s see, I&#8217;ll just throw one together real quick and maybe we&#8217;ll do that. So the first block that we built in our journey on Gutenberg was what we call story item block. It&#8217;s definitely our most used block. It&#8217;s our most custom, the most developed out block. With it, you can just drop in a story and we have a couple of different variations. We&#8217;re using block variations throughout our block library for quick shortcuts to…</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: It&#8217;s so cool you&#8217;re using variations for this, I just have to say. I&#8217;m like&#8230; I&#8217;m already seeing the pieces and like this is amazing.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah. And using WordPress REST API and all of the WordPress components to build these things out. So let me just type in a post. I&#8217;m running this on my local dev so it will be a little bit slower. An editor can just search for a post or they can drop in either a live link or another feature that they requested, which I think has come in handy is the edit URL for like an article that&#8217;s not been published yet, so we can go try to grab some information about that.</p>



<p>Then once in here, this block is using block context as well. We have found block context to be extremely important to our efforts, to guide producers into how things should be set up and set restrictions on how things should work. So for example, we have our own grid block as well. If I were redoing it today, I probably would stick with the core column blocks, but this was years ago and there were some features and stuff and we didn&#8217;t know how to tap into core blocks the way we do now. So we just went through and made our own grid block.</p>



<p>The column block passes down through block context, the width of the column so that, for example, a story item block, when you&#8217;re choosing the image position can say, &#8220;Oh, you can&#8217;t do left or right position because this column is not large enough.&#8221; So this is great because this makes sure that, once again, I go back to shortcuts because this is how it used to be. With shortcuts, you really could place those restrictions on the interface that maybe had to happen on the back end and an editor would go and drop in a short code and they will, &#8220;This doesn&#8217;t look the way I wanted it to look. I didn&#8217;t know about these restrictions.&#8221;</p>



<p>So now an editor can come in here and do all this visually. They could set an image size, enable different features, like bulleted items underneath here. They can include links in here, whatever.</p>



<p>Then we are also using the query block. This is one of our more recent core block modifications. I&#8217;ll actually get rid of this to show you how that works. So you can drop in a query block and we are registering through the block API, our own variation here. We&#8217;ve got all the basic query block things, but we&#8217;ve added our own thing, which will drop in the default settings for the story item block.</p>



<p>This, I think also alludes to what I was describing in that thread of our block first approach. Everything is a block in the site, or at least everything&#8217;s moving in that direction, to be a block in the site. To give you an idea of what that looks like, lets just save this real quick.</p>



<p>Another important thing and probably the most important thing about Gutenberg is the fact that what you build here, hopefully is how it&#8217;s going to look on the front end. We&#8217;re still dealing with some typography stuff. I think when we go in all-in a full-site editing, that&#8217;ll be more one-to-one. But now if I come over to our new homepage&#8230; Come on. What I&#8217;ve built out here is exactly as you&#8217;re going to see it on the front so there should be no mistakes, there should be no, this doesn&#8217;t look how I thought it was going to look like, all that stuff is visible in the back end.</p>



<p>On the front end here, in the query block, obviously, I&#8217;m sure most people aren&#8217;t aware the nuts and bolts on how the query block works, but on the back end, obviously there&#8217;s a block called post template block and that is rendering out your blocks using PHP on the backend. This is a story in a block, basically being rendered out in PHP on the backend. These aren&#8217;t actually static blocks. These are dynamic. So the query block gets the information. It says, &#8220;There&#8217;s a post type we want a query,&#8221; then it outputs all that using the story item block as a template. So that&#8217;s homepages.</p>



<p>I think the other thing I wanted to dive into was the taxonomy pages. Where do I have that? So this is an example of a taxonomy page for us, our most important taxonomy topic.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Sorry, but so what I&#8217;m hearing is, that you are actually way ahead of the Gutenberg team. You have build query blocks and templates all before it actually went to the plugin.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; We did build out our own query block originally, because when we first started looking at doing query blocks in places, the query block did not have taxonomy support, or at least very, very minimal taxonomy support. That&#8217;s since changed so we have now moved over to the core query block, but there were a lot of cases where we had to build out stuff before it was ready in Gutenberg, and then come back later and figure out if we were going to use the core block that Gutenberg had built out. In the most cases we do, we do end up going with whatever the core block is.</p>



<p>So this is, I think, our best example of our approach to full-site editing before we got full-site editing. So this is your standard taxonomy archive page, but we have two positions, one we call menu and the other we&#8217;re called top. Actually, we have another one at the bottom called bottom. These link up to a post type that we&#8217;re calling taxonomy block area, which is not super creative, but it describes what it does. There&#8217;s a taxonomy for that for location, menu, top, bottom. So you can go into here and you can say, edit the menu, edit the top, whatever and just like on the homepage, you can build out these featured content areas in Gutenberg using whatever block you want, in this case story item. We also have a promo block we built out on our own MailChimp block and that&#8217;s what you get.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi:</em> Yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Then&#8230; Yeah, go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: I just wanted to add, yes. So last summer we launched a site redesign with a whole new information architecture and a multi-level content taxonomy. As Seth pointed out, these topic pages were really the central component of that entire redesign. Being able to manage these in the ways that he&#8217;s discussing has really been transformational for us. One of the things I like is, you can create one of these topic blocks and assign it to multiple pages if they&#8217;re the same. We can also create these pages in a very short period of time, literally in minutes. Usually, it&#8217;s more the editorial decisions that take longer than any of the actual production stuff.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; So yeah. Yeah. The other nice thing is that you can schedule these, because we are ostensibly, a news site. We, I think we, Mike alluded to, like to think of ourselves as being a resource for the news rather than being an actual news service, but we post things that are on the topics of the day and so we can change these. We can schedule changes out. We can schedule tomorrow&#8217;s homepage, we can schedule next week&#8217;s big release of some report we have, we can schedule the topic page changes that&#8217;ll happen for that, because this is just a post-type. So we just create a new post, slot it into this topic in the top location and schedule it for next Wednesday to publish at 10:00 AM. This will change at 10:00 AM. So that&#8217;s also, I think been a really great feature and that of course applies to homepages and any of these full-site editing things that we&#8217;re doing.</p>



<p>Then the other thing is that we&#8230; This is one of the things that we&#8217;re going to have to struggle with in the next couple months is, we also built out our own navigation block. When I say we built out, we forked the early efforts of the Gutenberg team&#8217;s navigation block and we went a little bit further with how we needed it to work. So a lot of that change was making these different menu links that would point to topic pages specifically, and stuff like this and the ability to have a sub menu and that would follow our CSS and stuff like that. So that&#8217;s taxonomy pages, that&#8217;s full-site editing.</p>



<p>The other thing I wanted to show was quizzes. We might not have enough time to show us some of these other interactive, but the quizzes stuff, this we launched last fall in order to support what is by far, our most popular product. I mean, it blows our analytics out of the water every year. That is our political typology quiz. It&#8217;s definitely one of our complex interactives too. If you haven&#8217;t taken this, you should, it&#8217;s pretty fun. People will enjoy it.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;ve taken this with friends, like at a bar years ago. We&#8217;re like, &#8220;Let&#8217;s all take the quiz and we can talk about it.&#8221; Yes. This is really fun.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; And we have a group feature too. So if you sign up for an account on our website, you get a little login and you can go create your own little community group. So you can say, here&#8217;s how this group of people is responding to this, which is fun. So here&#8217;s what it looks like. Go through, ask questions, to answer them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.</p>



<p>Before, we were using Gravity Forms for this. Before that, there was a completely homegrown system. That was, we were finding, kind of taking down the site under load. So we switched to Gravity Forms pretty quickly when I started just to get things stable. We could have stayed there, right? We could have kept iterating on that Gravity Forms built system that we had, but we want everything to be a block, we want everything to be under Gutenberg. So we built our quiz builder in Gutenberg.</p>



<p>To give you an idea of how that works, this is a framework that we&#8217;ve played around with, to great success. I&#8217;m just calling it the controller block paradigm. So here we have one parent level block, the controller. All it does is, it stores some attributes. It doesn&#8217;t really do anything, at least on the back end here and it&#8217;s just a way for us to contain inside blocks or inner blocks.</p>



<p>Then within that, we have a pages block that controls the pages and a results block that controls the results. Then in each of these, you can insert any of the core blocks, headings, images, whatever, but we also have a question block and then an answer block. As you go through here, you just type out what the answer is or what the question is. You can set an image, question type, all these sort things. This is way more visual than we had, and what you build out here is what you see.</p>



<p>I have a smaller example that I can show you a little bit more of what&#8217;s going on in the back end. For example, this quiz. This is a pretty simple quiz for us. This is what we call it knowledge quiz, as opposed to typology quiz, meaning there are correct answers here. So as you go through, you just click the little smiley face to determine that&#8217;s the correct answer, not correct answer. But then when we get down to the bottom here, I think this is the most exciting part, or the best example of block context, is, the results block. So here, an editor can drop in all the different things that you might see in a results page, &#8220;You scored X out of whatever, share your score.&#8221; You can build out some horizontal bar chart blocks that we&#8217;ve built out, all this sort of stuff.</p>



<p>Then we have a general response table block. Let me just run through this quiz real quick and show you how that works. So when you hit the quiz, at first, what we do is, on the back end in PHP, we&#8217;re pulling out all of the question and the answer blocks and we&#8217;re formatting it out so that you get the correct layout. None of these are going to be right. I&#8217;m going to get a terrible score, but just click through some of these.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: We&#8217;re not here to judge.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; No. Might have missed one. That&#8217;s okay.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: You won&#8217;t be graded.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Okay. So then you submit your quiz. When you submit the quiz, we store your results as an archetype rather than each individual entry. So we say, &#8220;Here&#8217;s all the possible combinations of answers. Here&#8217;s what you gave. Let&#8217;s store that.&#8221; That way, the next person that gives that possible combination of answers, we&#8217;re not duplicating database space for no reason. We just store that archetype of answers.</p>



<p>When you hit the quiz page again, with URL rewrite here for this archetype query bar, we go to the database, we grab that. Then through block context, we pass that through the controller block as your score. So that means that all of the blocks put in the results block, grab that context from the controller block, what the score is, and they can change accordingly. Maybe the bar chart changes to match what your score is. This thing changes to whatever your score is. Then of course the table response goes through and it gets the database entry and returns all this stuff through block context to the table block.</p>



<p>So that was really exciting for us. That proved out the concept that we could do interactive things. We could build out little mini web apps, basically, for users and they could interact with them and we could construct a data model around that. So that&#8217;s our quizzes. What else do I have for you?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Those are pretty neat, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Chart builder. This is definitely one of the more exciting things we&#8217;ve been working on lately. We launched this in the spring and it&#8217;s a twofold project for us. One there&#8217;s the backend charting library and then there is the WordPress plugin part of it.</p>



<p>Let me get this load again. As I mentioned, we have three developers on our team. One other developer is working with me on all this stuff. This is from one of our other developers, Ben Wormald. He spearheaded this project and it came out just fantastic. Not only did we gain the ability for editors to come in and make charts, but using the Gutenberg PHP API, we are using this in a more static database, which I&#8217;ll show you in a moment, to generate charts for that. So it provides us one endpoint for accessing charts and creating charts.</p>



<p>So it starts off with a table. This one has a lot of data, just an example I threw together. We&#8217;re using block transforms here, so we can target the table block and say-</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: You are using everything, you have the you have the transforms, you have-</p>



<p>Seth Rubenstein:&nbsp; We&#8217;re using the whole kitchen sink. Yes.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s amazing. This is really, really cool.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; So you can start off with the chart builder block and that&#8217;ll have a table in there and you can fill that information, or you can just start out with a table and convert that to a chart. So I&#8217;ll do that now.</p>



<p>So once again, the concept here is, you have a controller block, the builder controller, you have your table for your data. Then if we come down to the bottom here, you&#8217;ve got your chart. As you edit data, let me just see if I can change this, you&#8217;ll see that this stuff updates in real time, which is fantastic.</p>



<p>Then in the chart itself&#8230; Oops, I think this data&#8217;s not formatted for that, you can customize pretty much all the visual aspects, spacing, what type of chart it is, colors, et cetera, et cetera. Let me let this load again one more time.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: So fond of live demos.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Isn&#8217;t it? Isn&#8217;t it great.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I was doing some the other day where I was like, &#8220;Let me make this really dramatic,&#8221; and then it broke and I was like, &#8220;Got it. Okay, cool. I found the edge.&#8221;</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Seth, this is independent of whatever charting library you want to use, correct?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; That&#8217;s correct. Yeah. I spoke about this in the thread that I posted to Twitter. Some people were asking questions about it. And that we do intend to open source the block at some point so you&#8217;ll gain the ability to convert tables to charts and then pick all your different settings that you might have, but it will be up to you to create the middleware to link that to your own charting library. We won&#8217;t be open sourcing our charting library.</p>



<p>So let me just see. I mean, we have a lot of options here. I&#8217;m not going to go through all of these. Let me just tweak some of the visual stuff for better effect. So you can tweak this however you want. We&#8217;re also using the resizing component so that you could do that visually in real time if you&#8217;d like. You can go in and give this title, test charts or a subtitle, whatever you want. So best chart builder, there&#8217;s a lot more complex things you can do with it. This is a very simple chart. To give you an idea of once again, our whole block process, let me just go to this page real quick.</p>



<p>This is a database that we run. It&#8217;s very exhaustive, called the religious landscape study. It has a lot of information about all the various religious groups in the United States, populations, things like this. In those, we have a lot of charts. Maps are not part of it yet, but all of these charts, all the bar charts, pie charts, and things like that, you might see that in this product are actually rendering out a block via PHP. So this is just the chart builder block being manually rendered through PHP on the back end. That way, any updates we make to chart builder for editors also get applied here to this product.</p>



<p>I think that&#8217;s another important part to make about Gutenberg is that it&#8217;s not just in the Gutenberg editor, anything you make there, any block you make there you can also do in PHP. I think that&#8217;s important for maybe the PHP-only developers in the WordPress community to know is that, this doesn&#8217;t have to be just a JavaScript-only thing. You can utilize this using PHP as well. So that&#8217;s chart builder.</p>



<p>I think that&#8217;s all the demos I have for right now. I do have a repo I was going to share of some of the modifications that we&#8217;ve done to core blocks. So like I walk through those real quick. Let me just pull open a post, because I think that&#8217;s probably the best example of this.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: I would just one add one thing on chart builder. Since we do so many charts, it&#8217;s unlikely that we&#8217;re going to do all of our charts using chart builder, but for really custom-lead charts, or these data-driven acts like Seth just showed it, it&#8217;s really fantastic and we&#8217;d like to be able to use more of it when it&#8217;s appropriate for the content.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah. No not every chart will be this, so it&#8217;s right. Yeah. Sometimes it&#8217;s just the fidelity that you go with a static chart that we just can&#8217;t achieve. I don&#8217;t know that we&#8217;d ever be able to achieve in Wizzy Wig drag-and-drop builder.</p>



<p>So this is an example of a post for us. Once again, what you see here is what you get. This is another block that we built out, the collapsible block. We use these at the top of all of our posts. What else was I going to show about that? Let this load.</p>



<p>One of the other things that we had to build out with Gutenberg, one of the other things that Gutenberg gives you is, I think a great UI library that we&#8217;ve never really had in WordPress, with WordPress components and with inspector controls and advanced panels and stuff like this.</p>



<p>So another part of our Gutenberg journey was not just the blocks, but how are we going to utilize this editor to its fullest extent for our publishing platform? Part of that is, we&#8217;ve built out some controls for the stuff that you might see here in the sidebar. So the report PDF, top line promo, you can change these things around, you can drag and drop them just in a more visual way than you were able to before.</p>



<p>In the past, we used advanced custom fields for all this stuff, and that was great and all, but once again, there was only so much you could do to customize how that looked, how it worked. It had to fit in that ACF framework, but here, we&#8217;re given all those tools by Gutenberg through components to build out exactly what we want.</p>



<p>One of the things here is, this is a block. The table contents is a block that&#8217;s being rendered out in PHP on the back end. What that also means is, that if you build out an essay or something and you want to throw a table of contents in, you can. You can just throw the table of contents block in the editor. But one of the core customizations that we had to do, we&#8217;ve done a number, is, add support to the heading block to support our table of contents block. So when you&#8217;re going through here, let&#8217;s go to&#8230; Well, actually this is using an older version of that block, not a good example, but I&#8217;ll change it out.</p>



<p>When you&#8217;re going through here, you can type in a heading block, right? Just, and we&#8217;ve added a little icon. Not much is going on here. We&#8217;ve added one attribute called is chapter, and then we&#8217;ve added an icon to toggle that on or off. So I&#8217;m going to toggle that on. Then this might freak out because of the variety of blocks from this older post and it didn&#8217;t show up, but each of these is one of our older blocks called the chapter block, another thing we had to build out before we could figure out how we were going to book into core blocks.</p>



<p>The way that works is&#8230; This is a high level, I&#8217;ll share this link in the chat so people can take a look at these examples. I&#8217;ve got two examples here. One is how we&#8217;ve added chapter support to headings and how we&#8217;ve added an alternate mobile background for the cover block. So that when you&#8217;re on mobile, maybe you get a different sized image for your cover block than you might get on desktop.</p>



<p>So the heading block is comprised of two things obviously. One is using the PHP API that Gutenberg affords is adding an attribute in. It can be very easy to do. You can just use the block type metadata filter to change a lot of things, but specifically you can splice in new attributes in this case this chapter, which is just a bullion yes or no. Then you can affect the rendering of it using the render block filter. We&#8217;re doing this in a lot of places with the core blocks. We say if you do have the chapter attribute and it&#8217;s true, then we just add a little data attribute to the H element. So that&#8217;s a very simple example. People can take a look at this and use this.</p>



<p>Another part of that obviously is the actual little toolbar icon itself. Once again, this is pretty simple too, using the filters, the JavaScript filters in Gutenberg. So you intercept the editing block. You say, Hey, if this isn&#8217;t the heading block, just give what was already there. Otherwise, we put in a little toolbar button and click it. Sets the attribute or unsets it. Then also have a variation which I alluded to. We use variations a lot as shortcuts. So you could just type in slash chapter if you wanted to and that would insert a heading with the chapter already selected. So it&#8217;s pretty easy to actually take a core block and give it completely new functionality that it didn&#8217;t have before, which I think is great. We&#8217;re trying to get more of our stuff into using core blocks.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t have any examples of this, but probably our most modified core block is the group block. We&#8217;ve added the ability to make it sticky, so that a group will stick to the top of the pages you scroll. We&#8217;ve added the ability to set a responsive threshold. When you reach set threshold, then it will move itself to this div or this idea or something that so that editors can change things around the page based on whether you&#8217;re on mobile or not.</p>



<p>The other example is, in the cover block, we are adding another media field, or actually I guess, more of an ID field so that you can associate an image ID so that when you go to mobile, the cover block, we use a different version of the image. Same thing here. Intercept the block edit. You say, if you&#8217;re not the cover, just go ahead and return to what you&#8217;re doing.</p>



<p>Otherwise, we have a little panel that we insert into the editor and a component that we&#8217;ve written. It&#8217;s a riff on a variety of different things in core for a drop zone for media. That&#8217;s also in this example if people want to use it. On the back end, it&#8217;s pretty simple here too. We&#8217;re using jetpack_is_mobile to detect if someone&#8217;s on mobile. If so, we get the image ID and splice it in, replace the image with that. So these are pretty easy, simple core block customizations, but I think if people dive in here, they might get a feel for what is possible for taking core blocks and making your own block library out of that basically.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Thanks so much for putting that in GitHub too.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah, no problem. No problem.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah. That&#8217;s awesome.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; But also just one last thing, this is a story in a block being rendered out in PHP. This is actually one of those full-site editing template block areas I told you about before. So we&#8217;re going to have something at the end of our sidebar. We have a little block area there that people can go into Gutenberg and drop this stuff out. Michael manages this most popular list using every usable block so that I can show up on the homepage or the sidebar anywhere else and we added it in one place and it edits everywhere. Yeah. So I think that&#8217;s all of my demos today.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Yeah. We use reusable blocks in a couple of different contexts so, there&#8217;s&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. We use them at the end of posts as well for various promos, newsletter signups, this sort of things.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: This was an awesome demonstration. Thank you so much. I&#8217;m totally thrilled that you brought some code examples that we can share with the developers that are watching and also maybe come back to in the recorded version and want to follow up on, on some of the things.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure. No problem. Sure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So what are our first questions here?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;ll just say I&#8217;m itching to ask a bunch of questions.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah. Can I jump in?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I want to just drop this GitHub issue in that I think will be of interest. This is like hyper practical, but just around allowing usage of block-based template parts without actually accessing the whole template. A lot of what you&#8217;re describing with the taxonomy pages fuels very similar to that, where you can create template areas and then have access to just edit those. So that&#8217;s something I really look forward to and I see as a huge way&#8230; I&#8217;ve heard from a lot of different page agencies and organizations that&#8217;s what they&#8217;d love to have access to. It&#8217;s like we can define a template area and just allow people to edit that, that would be huge rather than opening up the whole gamut.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: So I wanted to put that out there. And I definitely think you could have some really cool insights in helping shape this going forward so I want to encourage, be like, bring all your insights and all your experience of maybe what has tripped up users or what features you&#8217;d want to see.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: &#8230; all that good stuff. Yeah. I&#8217;d love to go back to the original, why WordPress? Was it part of wanting to rely on the open web? Was it what made you want to adopt Gutenberg? Is that also related to data consistency over time and not in the migrate stuff? I&#8217;m very curious with all the work that you do and the value brand.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure. I think I could touch on the why Gutenberg stuff real quick and I think maybe Michael can touch on the why word WordPress stuff. I&#8217;m sure that the audience here knows why WordPress. It&#8217;s, we&#8217;re all fans of it, but at the why Gutenberg front, I think that it was just kind of, I don&#8217;t know, kismet that we were looking to redo these topic pages. We were looking to make all these big editorial changes to the site and the question was, how are we going to manage all this? How are people going to slot in these different stories to these templates and so on and so forth? I think I had gone to a word camp for publishers in Chicago-</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh yeah.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; &#8230; a couple years back, and I really didn&#8217;t know much about Gutenberg. I knew it was coming and I really hadn&#8217;t tried it out. I think I was resistant to it. I think a lot of WordPress devs were and part of the reason I made the thread is, because I think some people still are, because it really is a complete sea change for WordPress. I&#8217;m a self-taught WordPress developer and I&#8217;m only a self-taught WordPress developer because when I started in WordPress, there were frameworks, there were guidelines, coding standards, there was the WordPress way to do things so that made it easy to get in.</p>



<p>Now, we&#8217;re dealing with something entirely new and a completely new paradigm with blocks. So the guidelines aren&#8217;t there yet, the frameworks aren&#8217;t there yet, the Gutenberg way isn&#8217;t really well defined yet. I&#8217;m hoping that what we show here and what we give back to the community in the next couple of months as we open source more of this stuff and review more code is, we can help shape what is the Gutenberg way of doing things.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi:</em> Yeah, and if-</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; &#8230; yeah, it was just fortuitous that we stumbled upon it at the right time.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Yeah. Going back to the earlier times, as I mentioned, when I got here, we were running every different type of CMS except for WordPress. And actually Russell and I at the time, did an analysis. And kudos to Russell too, because he really sort of pushed me in this direction, but it was open web, was part of it. We liked the open source ethos. We liked the fact that we weren&#8217;t getting charged a per user license or anything like that. So, a lot of it was commitment to opensource and it really was I think a really smart decision for us and it got us into the WordPress ecosystem. Then when Russell moved on and I was looking for a new developer, the community was really strong and we were able to find Seth and it just has always been a really good, a good fit for us.</p>



<p>One thing on the Gutenberg thing, I think Seth has been really great about, we don&#8217;t try to swallow the ocean at one time. As you pointed out, we dealt with the topic pages first and we roll out one little component of this thing to this one little portion of our site. As he mentioned, we&#8217;re about to bring a medium blog in-house and I think that&#8217;s going to be the first time we take our next big step with this full-site editing. So, really doing it incrementally is, I think, a really smart product ethos for us so that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s worked great for us.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: That&#8217;s really neat. It&#8217;s amazing to hear about both historically and just at the right time and working for publishers, folks should definitely check them out. I think two years ago went and talked to them about full siting, in the early, early, early days. So it&#8217;s neat to hear them mentioned as a way in.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m curious too, because I know some folks have, I was talking to someone else this week who&#8217;s from Agencyland and how much the workflow has changed as people have adopted Gutenberg. I&#8217;m curious if that is the case with editors or people you&#8217;re working with, or it&#8217;s both a technology change and a workflow change. That&#8217;s the piece that I think often gets overlooked as people just talk about the technological change and mean to do things like learn JavaScript deeply or dig into blocks. But then I think there&#8217;s also a very real organizational way of how do you train people up in this new way or potentially have design look at things after the fact or before, and switching around the workflow. So I&#8217;d be curious to know what that&#8217;s been like.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: I was&#8230; Do you mind?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Go ahead definitely.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: One thing, I actually think to be candid, I think that&#8217;s an area we&#8217;re making sure that everybody&#8217;s on the same page, it&#8217;s an area where we&#8217;re always striving to do better. There is this tension between innovation and making sure that your editors understand what&#8217;s going on. I&#8217;m sure they would probably plus one on this. So I would say that it&#8217;s not something that we&#8217;ve really solved the problem. I think it&#8217;s common in most organizations like, so I think-</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: You&#8217;re definitely not alone there.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: Yeah. I think it&#8217;s one thing I think we&#8217;re aspire to is doing a better job at making sure that everybody&#8217;s up to speed as we roll stuff out, but I think we do what we can. So Seth, do you want to add to that or?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; I think that that is still a struggle for us, for anyone. I was listening to a Gutenberg podcast, it might have been Gutenberg Changelog or something like that a while back. There was some guest on. I think he&#8217;s the head of Florida&#8217;s state&#8217;s web properties or something. He had mentioned that what they did when they brought on Gutenberg was, they recorded a bunch of videos and snuck it into the help menu. I thought that was really clever. That&#8217;s something that we&#8217;re going to look to do by the end of the year, too.</p>



<p>It has been a struggle to get people to understand Gutenberg and not just the editor interface, but the concept of blocks and inner blocks and how they&#8217;ll nest together and stuff like that. We have a lot of blocks and we&#8217;ve tried a bunch of different ideas as far as interface and how you interact with these things. I think we&#8217;re finally settling on a good practice. We try to keep things in the block toolbar if you need them a lot, otherwise we hide them away in panels. There&#8217;s a fine line of when to use a block style, when should that just be a toggle on an attribute or something. That stuff&#8217;s hard to figure out and I don&#8217;t know that anyone has the right answer yet, but we&#8217;re trying.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So we have one question from Matt Redford and I think it touches on that. &#8220;How do you find content editors with reusable blocks? When I&#8217;ve exposed them,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;to users before the idea that it was a global element they were inserting and changing rather than something they thought they would be duplicating, caused issues.&#8221;</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah. It has caused issues. We had&#8230; I think there&#8217;s a lot of confusion about the difference between a reusable block and a block pattern. I know there&#8217;s a ticket. It&#8217;s been pretty active the last couple days, actually on-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Actually yeah.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; &#8230; exploring the interface for that. I think it looks like it&#8217;s heading in the right direction to me. I&#8217;m pretty excited to see if this makes it into the plugin soon, but it&#8217;s been a problem because someone will drop in a reusable block thinking that this is like a template, a block template, and they&#8217;ll edit something. Maybe that something was a post ID attribute that told that block specific information about that post and now, every single post that was using that block is referencing that one thing. That has been a problem for us. So getting people to use block patterns I think has been harder to do. People instinctively go to the reusable blocks. I&#8217;m not sure why. Maybe it&#8217;s a little bit easier to surface, but it has been a problem.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. It was also the first concept for two, for almost three years before pattern.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Oh, right, right. We didn&#8217;t have patterns. Yeah, exactly.</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi:</em> Yeah. I think it&#8217;s a UX issue right on the admin side and communicating to the end user what you&#8217;re&#8230; Yeah. I agree with Seth. It&#8217;s something where we haven&#8217;t really looked and so, and yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;ll note&#8230; Oh, sorry.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I was going to say, one of the things that I&#8217;m really looking forward to tied to this is, block locking and adding the ability to disable editing and block locking specifically for the reusable block. This was actually looked into for 6.0 and did not make the cut, but it is something that is on the line because this is something that has come up a lot in the community is, the reasonable block, being able to edit in a way that is more intuitive.</p>



<p>This is also where I think I saw you all using some block locking whenever you&#8217;re going through the demos, which is very neat. So I&#8217;m excited to see that system expand, but we have to make it intuitive for editors too. So if you limit options, it needs to make sense. I liked how you were doing that, where some of the options with the custom blocks that you have going already pick different headers and different image sizes. There&#8217;s a lot of interesting work being done there.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah. We&#8217;re using block locking in some situations. We&#8217;re also&#8230; I have found, it&#8217;s useful if you&#8217;re making a custom block that has a lot of inner blocks is, you can set the template, lock that, but unlock maybe some of the inner blocks that you want people to edit. I think that&#8217;s worked out pretty well actually to funnel people into how you want people to use this block. They click and say, &#8220;Oh, I can&#8217;t change that,&#8221; you know?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. There&#8217;s something that&#8230; Just with the 13.7 version of Gutenberg plugin, you can now with one toggle actually lock all the inner blocks as well. So you don&#8217;t have to go from block to block to block, but I&#8217;m now thinking about reversing a test for that to say, &#8220;Okay, what happens if I want to edit just one block? What do I have to do?&#8221; and if that block works. It&#8217;s kind of the QA person in me, that is saying, let&#8217;s see if we can go back to the original idea.</p>



<p>So, but I wanted to go back to two things. Well, it&#8217;s actually one thing. So there is this whole 10 years big, great plugins that helped out a lot of people, millions of developers. One is Gravity Forms and the other one is ACF, advanced custom fields. You said you were using them, but then moved away from it. Can you dive in that a little bit more?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Sure. No shade to those plugs. I mean, Gravity Forms is phenomenal as is Advanced Custom Fields. I mean, I don&#8217;t know where we would&#8217;ve been without ACF years ago, honestly, because I think the broader, Hey, WordPress needs a field&#8217;s API stuff, stuttered out after a while and there really no movement happened there because Gutenberg was coming and ACF was great. So mad props to Eliot Condon and I guess Delicious Brains now owns them. I don&#8217;t know.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: They&#8217;re sold to WP Engine now.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah. So we stuck with ACF for a while into our Gutenberg transition. I think we have a few locations where it&#8217;s still being used, taxonomy term, edit page, we&#8217;re still using ACF for some fields there, but it just made sense that for all of the stuff that was in the editor screen when you&#8217;re actually editing a post or something, to go all-in on Gutenberg. That&#8217;s the whole point of what we&#8217;re doing. We are going all-in on Gutenberg.</p>



<p>We have this UI library with WordPress components and it felt like a shame not to use it. So almost all the stuff that originally was in ACF report materials, I showed you that in the block side bar, table of contents, child posts&#8230; We do a lot of reports, so we have one post and we&#8217;ll associate other posts as a child of that so they appear in the information architecture correctly. That&#8217;s now all happening using WordPress components and REST API and stuff like that.</p>



<p>So, there was no reason not to use ACF. There was no reason not to use Gravity Forms. It was just a matter of long term, we have to maintain these things. Everything you have to maintain, and it&#8217;s better, I think if we&#8217;re all-in on Gutenberg and the concept of blocks, to handle all that stuff.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, thank you. So with ACF, moving away from just kind of thinking about, you would need to build a block about that. Then with the block, came the interfaces, well, the inspector control on the right hand side of the side bar?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Mm-hmm. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. All right. Do we have any more questions from the audience? And do you have more questions?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I mean, I feel like I always have more questions. I&#8217;m curious, what&#8217;s your wish? It looks like-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, we&#8217;ve got another two minutes.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I know. Sure. It&#8217;s like, do you have anything that&#8217;s on your mind where maybe it&#8217;s really out there, but either current pain points or wishlist items far into the future? I&#8217;d be curious.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; I think a lot of them center around full-site editing and I haven&#8217;t gone deep into full site editing yet. That&#8217;s happening next month. As Michael said, we have a new sub-site we&#8217;re launching, so that we&#8217;re going to use that as an opportunity to learn about block themes and full-site editing.</p>



<p>I think if there&#8217;s one wish that I would have it is, that on the PHP side of things, of core blocks, there were more filters. The query block is a good example of this. You have to intercept the whole thing. If you want to modify it, you have to intercept the whole post template block and the WP query there, which we are doing unfortunately. I would love it if you could just tap into the query arguments before they&#8217;re sent to WP query in the query loop block and modify things. So I think probably even more PHP APIs and more endpoints that we can access through PHP would be my top wish list. I think on the JavaScript side thing, I mean, whatever you want to change is there, it&#8217;s pretty easy to do. That&#8217;s probably my biggest thing.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I dropped in an issue if you want to. I think it&#8217;s related to what you&#8217;re talking about, because this is also&#8230; I&#8217;ve heard from a lot of agency folks that they tend to hack apart the query block and extend it for their own purposes. So it&#8217;d be neat to gather what those main requests are, see what&#8217;s going on and see what can evolve from there, what&#8217;s missing. So that&#8217;s a great one. It&#8217;s a good call out.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So there is JavaScript is one change coming. I don&#8217;t know if it will really affect you, but it is on the components. They are all now refactored with TypeScript and I think it&#8217;s a big project.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah, it is.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So to increase the developer experience because TypeScript, then your IDE taps into that and helps you with the types of the parameters and everything. So, yeah, I just wanted to tell you, this is coming.</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; That&#8217;ll be great. We use, many years ago now, we settled on Semantic UI as a way to bootstrap our theme redevelopment efforts. We were standardizing everything under one parent theme and we went with Semantic QI. They have a great react set of components. I actually think Microsoft hired the guy who made that to lead their TypeScript team, because they&#8217;re so good. So yeah, getting all those hints and stuff while you&#8217;re typing out those components is great so I look forward to that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Okay. So I think that&#8217;s all the time we had. It has been very, very interesting and totally inspiring to think a little bit beyond what normal websites do, especially in the news side. So at this point, I only have two more questions to all three of you. So are there any announcements that you have and couldn&#8217;t get into, because we were talking other things? The other thing is, when people want to get in touch with you, how could they? What&#8217;s the best way? Michael, did you want to start?</p>



<p><em>Michael Piccorossi</em>: I would just say I don&#8217;t really have any announcements, but if you want to get in touch with me, you can email me <a href="mailto:mpiccorossi@pewresearch.org">mpiccorossi@pewresearch.org</a>. You can hit me up on Twitter. Those are the two ways to do it. If you can figure out how to spell my name from Twitter, then you can M that my last name @pewresearch, you can get to me. So thank you for having us. It&#8217;s really been enjoyable.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Wonderful, wonderful. Seth?</p>



<p><em>Seth Rubenstein</em>:&nbsp; Yeah, you can get ahold of me on Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever I have links or might get a profile. If you&#8217;re interested in getting in touch with me, that link for that repo is in the chat so you can find that there. And yeah, thank you for having us. It&#8217;s great to show what we&#8217;ve built. We&#8217;re very proud of it. We think we&#8217;ve built a pretty rocksolid Gutenberg news publishing system and it&#8217;s cool to show it off.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Anne?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;ll close this off. I&#8217;m just going to plug the latest call for testing the cool setting outreach program I have too. So if you&#8217;re interested in the staff and whatever stage you were in, whether you&#8217;re deep in the customizations and Gutenberg first, like these folks are, or if you&#8217;re scared to adopt feedback on all this stuff and what would make it easier is really helpful, there&#8217;s a whole outreach program designed to bring that stuff in and I would love to hear about the blockers. So I just want to nudge that.</p>



<p>Otherwise, I am not really on social media. So LinkedIn, I don&#8217;t know if that counts as social media, but I&#8217;m on LinkedIn and you can also find me at nomad.blog. There&#8217;s a contact form and I welcome people to use it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And for those who are on the WordPress Slack, it&#8217;s on the WordPress Slack and my name, Birgit Pauli-Haack, bph on Twitter, on Slack and also <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">pauli@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. So I don&#8217;t have an announcement either, but just my brain is really full of these great demos. I&#8217;m going to watch this probably quite a few times again.</p>



<p>Speaking about recording, after YouTube is through the rendering, it will be on YouTube, on our Gutenberg Times channel and a big thank you to the viewers and to our panelists. It was fabulous. It&#8217;s wonderful to see that. I know there are quite a few developers on the Gutenberg team or around that are going to look for that, especially also digital strategists like Michael, to what is really possible. I think you&#8217;re really, really on the forefront on the&#8230; I&#8217;m not allowed to say that so I&#8217;m saying the leading edge of the Gutenberg development. So thank you so much.If you have questions or so, send me to <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">pauli@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. Thanks everybody and bye-bye. Let&#8217;s get out of here. Thank you. Bye-bye.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 25 Jul 2022 13:18:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 36: Beginner’s Guide to Contributions 2.0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=13162";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/07/episode-36-beginners-guide-to-contributions-2-0/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16313:"<p>In the thirty-sixth episode of the WordPress Briefing, Josepha Haden Chomphosy revisits the Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Contributions to the WordPress open source project. </p>



<p><em><strong>Have a question you&#8217;d like answered? You can submit them to <a href="mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em></p>



<h2>Credits</h2>



<p>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a><br />Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/beafialho/">Beatriz Fialho</a><br />Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/santanainniss/">Santana Inniss</a><br />Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</p>



<h2>References</h2>



<ol><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance">Performance Team Information</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2022/07/07/wcus2022-contributor-team-signup/">WordCamp US Contributor Day Table Lead Info</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/11/fse-program-testing-call-15-category-customization/">Call for Testing #15: Category Customization </a></li><li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2019/contributor-orientation-tool/">Contributor Quizlet</a></li></ol>



<h2>Transcript</h2>



<span id="more-13162"></span>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:10]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing. The podcast where you can catch quick explanations of some of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project and the community around it, as well as get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I&#8217;m your host Josepha Haden Chomphosy.</p>



<p>Here we go.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:40]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>WordPress is an open source software project and, like many other open source software projects, has an entire community of people who show up to help improve it however they can. Most of you probably use WordPress every day in some way. And I&#8217;m going to assume that since you listen to this podcast, you&#8217;re also interested in how this all works.</p>



<p>One of the things I mention practically every episode is that WordPress works and continues to work because of generous contributions from people all around the world. I consider my work with WordPress to be my way of giving back for everything that this software enabled me and my family to do. But I once was a first-time contributor, and I remember what it felt like before I knew everything.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I felt like it moved at the speed of light and that I could never tell what to do now, let alone what to do next. And that everyone around me basically already knew everything. And if you are feeling that way right now, I encourage you to take a big deep breath [breathe] and let me help you get started.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:43]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>I&#8217;m a roadmap sort of person. So I&#8217;m going to start by sharing the stages I&#8217;ve observed for folks who are contributing to open source. That way, you can tell where you are right now, which spoiler alert is probably a bit further along than you realize. Then I&#8217;ll give you some questions you can ask yourself for each stage to figure out what is a good fit for you. Think of it as a guided exploration.&nbsp;</p>



<p>All right, the five stages. So these are they:&nbsp;</p>



<ol><li><strong>Connecting</strong>. That&#8217;s when you&#8217;re first learning about the community. You know WordPress exists, but now you&#8217;ve just discovered that the community exists. That&#8217;s where you are.&nbsp;</li><li>The second phase is <strong>Understanding</strong>. It&#8217;s when you are researching the community, like, you know it exists, you think you want to give back, and so you&#8217;re trying to figure out where everything is.&nbsp;</li><li>The third phase is what I call <strong>Engaging</strong>. It&#8217;s when you&#8217;re first interacting, you&#8217;ve downloaded the CMS, you have figured out which team you think you&#8217;re interested in, and you&#8217;re headed to events or meetings or whatever.&nbsp;</li><li>The fourth stage is one that I refer to as <strong>Performing</strong>. And that&#8217;s when you&#8217;ve decided that you&#8217;re gonna volunteer and you&#8217;re gonna take some action. You&#8217;re going to like a contributor day or running a release or whatever. I think that&#8217;s probably not the first place you land, running a release is probably a lot, but, you know, coordinating work on the release or something like that.&nbsp;</li><li>And then phase five, which is the <strong>Leading</strong> phase. That&#8217;s when you&#8217;re taking responsibility for things getting done.&nbsp;</li></ol>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:08]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Before we get any further, there are four important things to remember about those stages.</p>



<p>The first thing to remember is that there is no set time between any of those stages. You can start in one and then three years later go to the next one, or you can start in one and go into the next stage tomorrow. The next thing to know is that each stage builds on the one before it. In my observation, anytime I have seen a contributor who feels like they&#8217;re really struggling, it&#8217;s because they skipped a stage in there, which really causes some trouble for them.</p>



<p>The next thing to remember is that not everyone will make it through these stages, which is okay. The majority of the community stops at three. Most contributors stop at four. And that is perfectly fine. That is expected. That is normal and completely in line with what we expect from contribution.</p>



<p>Uh, and the final thing to remember about that list of the phases is that very few people make it into that leadership stage. If we assume, like I do, that 1% of the people who are using WordPress also show up and contribute back to WordPress, then it&#8217;s kind of safe to assume also that about 1% of those people who have shown up to contribute to WordPress are moving into a space where they feel like they&#8217;re willing to take responsibility for making sure things get done in WordPress.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:31]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Like we all collectively feel responsible for WordPress&#8217;s success, but in that leadership area, you&#8217;re kind of taking responsibility for 40% of the web or whatever&#8217;s going on there. And not a lot of people make it there, and that is completely fine, too. So that&#8217;s our basic terminology today. Those are the caveats that go with our basic terminology.</p>



<p>Most difficulties that arise for new contributors happen because a stage got skipped somewhere along the way. It&#8217;s almost never intentional, but from what I&#8217;ve observed, that&#8217;s what makes it really difficult to get started and what makes it difficult to keep going once you&#8217;ve kind of already gotten in there.</p>



<p>So, all right. Big breath, folks with me again [breathe]. Alright, it&#8217;s guided exploration time.&nbsp;</p>



<p>First phase, the connecting phase. Remember, this is where you&#8217;ve just learned the community exists, people are talking about it, you don&#8217;t know much more. The first step for you is asking yourself what it is you could do. Or if there&#8217;s a project out there that looks particularly interesting.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:36]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>So you can ask yourself questions, like, am I a writer? And if I am a writer, do I write technical or prose. The other thing you can ask is, am I a PHP developer, a JavaScript developer, Python, Go; which language am I writing in because I find it most beautiful. Another thing you can ask yourself is, am I a teacher or a mentor, or do I just generally like to be a mighty helper? And I like to make sure that things keep running.&nbsp;</p>



<p>So once you&#8217;ve asked yourself those things, it&#8217;s on to phase two, the understanding phase. This is when you&#8217;re looking around at this new-to-you community to see what is happening where. So you take a look at the teams that are around, you think about whatever it was you said you were good at in the last question and you look at which teams might be a good fit.&nbsp;</p>



<p>So if you said that you&#8217;re a good technical writer, then Docs probably is for you. Have you been training others to use WordPress for years? Then you might wanna look into Training. There are a lot of other things, obviously, like if you think you&#8217;re good at working with code PHP or JavaScript, you&#8217;re probably gonna end up in Core.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:46]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you are particularly good at any of the other tech stacks that we have around in our Trac area or an Openverse, then that&#8217;s where you&#8217;ll land over there. You have design options. Like if design is really your thing, we have a Design team, but we also have a Themes team. There are plenty of places that you can land depending on what it is that you feel like you are the best at and could really help the WordPress project. And so that&#8217;s your phase two.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Now that you have gotten a good guess at a team, we&#8217;re gonna swing through to phase three, which is the engaging phase. This is the phase that is the scariest for most people, but it&#8217;s okay. I am here for you. I am here for you in this podcast. So you have figured out what you want to do in order to contribute, and you&#8217;ve got a sense for the team that looks right. There are two things that you do next.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:34]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>One is that you can go to a meeting. There are many kinds of meetings. There are team meetings, bug scrubs, and testing sessions, but they&#8217;re all in Slack, which means that you can attend one from anywhere. When they kick off, you wave, you introduce yourself, you let everybody know that you&#8217;re there and you&#8217;re observing. Folks will welcome you and just kind of give you some concept of what they&#8217;re working on. Easy as that. You&#8217;ve done your first time meeting attendance.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Another good option is to keep an eye out for specific events. Some of those events happen online, like Global Translation Day. But also some of them happen in person like, Meetups or WordCamps. And there again, you show up, you wave, you introduce yourself, see if you can make a connection or two, let people know that you&#8217;re new and you&#8217;re just trying to figure out where you are and what you wanna do.&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve made it now, all the way to phase four, the performing phase, then give yourself a little pat on the back! Figuring out where you want to go and who your friendly faces are is the biggest challenge when you get started. So congratulations!&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:08:37]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Phase four is the phase where you&#8217;ve decided you&#8217;re brave enough to volunteer &#8211; to do some contribution. You&#8217;re volunteering your time. That&#8217;s where you are now. So oddly enough, you start this phase by assigning yourself something, assigning yourself, a task. This seems counterintuitive.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s this feeling that you can&#8217;t say that you&#8217;re gonna do something. That you can&#8217;t just assign something to yourself and say that you&#8217;re gonna do it. But in open source projects, you always can. You find a task where you&#8217;re comfortable, and you just mention that you would like to give it a try while the team is having their weekly meeting. And it&#8217;s simple as that. And not big things either. Like organizing an event or maintaining a component, those are probably too big for your first time around.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m talking things like, &#8216;I will test that patch that you mentioned in the meeting.&#8217; Or &#8216;I will review the docs and make sure that they&#8217;re up to date with the most recent release.&#8217; Or &#8216;I can help run meetings for the next release.&#8217;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:09:40]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>And then you have phase five, where you just repeat phase four until you are leading something! And I don&#8217;t mean leading in the 1950s sort of way, where you have like a corner office and you&#8217;re ordering people around. I mean, in the warm, inviting millennial way where you&#8217;re leading by inspiring people to do something or you&#8217;re leading because you make sure that the meeting happens every single week.</p>



<p>Or you&#8217;re leading because you added screenshots to tickets that needed testing and so you moved something forward in a way that was helpful. Easy peasy. You can go to your first contributor today or a WordPress Slack meeting and just be a contributor by the time you leave, right? You might feel like ‘easy as that isn&#8217;t quite the right set of words right there. And as a matter of fact, you might be thinking to yourself, this woman is just plain wrong. It could not possibly be that easy. And I agree. It really isn&#8217;t literally quote-unquote just that easy. Just like handing someone a notebook and a pen will not instantly make them an award-winning novelist, handing someone a wordpress.org profile and credentials to Slack won&#8217;t instantly make them a contributor.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:46]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>For both of those examples, what makes someone good is the ability to try and fail and still be encouraged to try again. So if it&#8217;s been a while since you contributed and you&#8217;re thinking about returning, or if you&#8217;ve been listening to me for a while and you&#8217;re ready to give this contribution thing a try, I hope this helps you to feel brave enough to try and brave enough to fail.</p>



<p>And I encourage you to be brave enough to try again.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:11:20]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at our small list of big things. My friends, we have a Performance team. This team has been a working group for a long time and is focused on some deep, inner workings of WordPress and its surrounding ecosystem to make sure that we are as fast and slick as possible. You can check them out on make.wordpress.org/performance, their brand new site, and see when they&#8217;re meeting, what they&#8217;re aiming to get into the WordPress 6.1 release, and if that&#8217;s something that you would like to contribute to.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The second thing is that there&#8217;s a brand new call out for testing. This time it&#8217;s focused on templates and retroactively applying them to an entire category of posts. So it&#8217;s a little bit workflow testing, a little bit technology testing, and we could really use your help in bug hunting for both of those things.</p>



<p>And the final thing is that you know since contribution is obviously the focus of today&#8217;s podcast, we are looking for table leads for WordCamp US’ contributor day that&#8217;s coming up in September. There&#8217;s a whole blog post about it, I&#8217;ll link to it in the show notes so that you&#8217;ll have all the info and can raise your hand if you want.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:12:25]&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>And speaking of things that I&#8217;ll have in the show notes, I also am going to put like a contributor quizlet guide thing. If the guided, figuring out of the teams in the phase two section, if that didn&#8217;t make any sense to you and you just need something to direct you specifically to potential teams, I&#8217;m gonna link to the contributor kind of sorting hat quiz that came out with WordCamp Europe. And that should help you work your way through phase two and get ready for phase three if that is where the spirit takes you.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. And I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 25 Jul 2022 11:05:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Santana Inniss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"Do The Woo Community: dev_life snippet: One of My Greatest Crushes is WP-CLI";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72458";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://dothewoo.io/love-wp-cli/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:425:"<p>WP-CLI has a tab completions, which means you can start typing commands and after three characters, just hit tab and the terminal will complete that word for you.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/love-wp-cli/">dev_life snippet: One of My Greatest Crushes is WP-CLI</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 25 Jul 2022 09:53:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:154:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #70 – Gutenberg 13.7, Template Creation Enhancements and First Full-Site Editing Themes in Woo Commerce Marketplace";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=21683";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-70-gutenberg-13-7-woo-commerce-marketplace/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60236:"<p></p>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<ul><li>Music:&nbsp;<a href="https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox">Homer Gaines</a></li><li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li><li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li><li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li></ul>



<p class="has-larger-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>



<p><a href="https://jinja.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Jinja, Uganda</a>  / <a href="https://jinja.wordcamp.org/2022/call-for-speakers/">Call for speakers</a></p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ryanwelcher"><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong></a></p>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.twitch.tv/ryanwelchercodes">on Twitch </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/ryanwelchercodes">on YouTube</a></li></ul>



<p>Announcements</p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/07/21/pattern-previews-for-themes-in-the-directory-beta/">Pattern Previews are now available in the theme directory</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/21/request-for-feedback-feature-notifications-proof-of-concept/">Call for Comments on a Feature plugin for Notifications</a></p>



<h2><strong>First Block Themes on WooCommerce Marketplace</strong></h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/bonum/">Bonum by ThemesKingdom</a></li><li><a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/basti/">Basti by Ana Segota of Anariel Design</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFqdHZco1Cg">The most beautiful WordPress Gutenberg Block Theme</a></li></ul>



<h2>Gutenberg 13.7</h2>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/">What’s new in Gutenberg 13.7? (20 July)</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-7-expands-custom-template-capabilities-adds-estimated-reading-time-to-info-panel">Gutenberg 13.7 Expands Custom Template Capabilities, Adds Estimated Reading Time to Info Panel</a></p>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/how-to-guides/curating-the-editor-experience/">Curating the editor experience</a></p>



<h2>What&#8217;s in the discussed or worked on</h2>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/42125">Add code examples for actions/selectors in Data Module packages</a></p>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/filters/">Hooks Reference</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/39529">Block supports: add fluid typography</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/42605">Experimental: Custom labelling/naming of blocks in List View</a></p>



<p>/</p>



<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>



<div class="wp-container-8 wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<ul><li>Did you like this episode? <a href="https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li><li>Ping us on Twitter or send DMs with questions. <a href="https://twitter.com/maryojob">@maryojob </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/bph">@bph</a>.</li><li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li><li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li></ul>
</div></div>



<h2>Transcript</h2>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello, and welcome to our 17th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. Today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about the latest Gutenberg plugin release 13.7, more template creation enhancements, full side editing themes in WooCommerce, and a lot more.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m Birgit Pauli-Haack, Curator at the Gutenberg Times and WordPress Developer Advocate. And I&#8217;m here with my co-host, Mary Job, WordPress Community Organizer at wpafrica.org and Support Engineer at Paid Membership Pro.</p>



<p>So glad you&#8217;re here again with me, Mary. How are you today?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, I&#8217;m doing very okay. Thank you, Birgit. I&#8217;m also looking forward to my first WordCamp post-COVID. I believe this is also a good time to mention that a call for speakers for WordCamp Ginger is out, so if you&#8217;re interested, I look forward to meeting you there. Please apply to speak. WordCamp, again, Ginger will take place on the 2nd and 3rd of September 2022.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Well, thank you. And I&#8217;m also so happy to welcome from Canada core team contributor and Twitch streamer, Ryan Welcher. He&#8217;s on the second time on the show.</p>



<p>So, how are you today, Ryan? Thanks for joining us.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I&#8217;m good, Birgit. Thanks for having me again. It&#8217;s always a pleasure. It was a great time last time, and I&#8217;m looking forward to diving into all the new features.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Excellent. You just finished this week&#8217;s live stream on Twitch. How did it go? And what did you talk about?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: It went well. It was a smattering of topics. I have been working on a lot of documentation around some data store stuff, and I learned something new about useSelect, which is a hook that we use to retrieve data from Gutenberg and from the data stores. And I kind of poked around it into Gutenberg 13.7 a little bit. But we kind of ad hoc jumped into this really, this concept of one block being able to refer to another block to get its attributes and talking together and having them update and everything. And that was a lot of fun, but it was pretty in the weeds, as far as working with blocks go. But, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, that sounds really interesting.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, it was fun.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, excellent. Excellent. So. Go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, yeah. I was going to say that sounds like a lot of fun.</p>



<p>Welcome again, Ryan, and thank you for joining us on the second time here.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Glad to be here. Very, very much so. Thanks for having me.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: All right. So, let&#8217;s get this show on the road. We have a couple of announcements.</p>



<h3><strong>Announcements</strong></h3>



<p>First off, I&#8217;m glad to announce that Pattern Previews are now available in the Team Directory. Now, the Meta Team has released a better version of this new future in a team directory.</p>



<p>What this does is, it allows you to see the patterns that are available within a team. The patterns at the space are thumbnails on the team stage. And when you click on them, you can see a larger version, which is what you would also see when you click on a page on your website.</p>



<p>This is a first iteration, and in the release post on the Meta Team blog, Steven Dufresne different as asks for feedback. So, if you&#8217;re testing this and you see something that is not working right, please, please do give them a feedback so that they can improve more on this future.</p>



<p>Do you have any thoughts on this, Ryan or Birgit?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, I find it&#8217;s really fantastic that it&#8217;s out there. And yeah, because I suspect that patterns will become so much more important on WordPress than they are now. And this is another example of how patterns will get a much bigger exposure.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Awesome. Okay. All right. Still on announcements, next up, there is a call for comments on a feature plugin for notifications.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m actually excited about this one. I don&#8217;t know if I have OCD or something, but it freaks me out when I enter into a WordPress site and I&#8217;m seeing all this notifications there and there I&#8217;m just clicking X and X, and then I come back and I see them. It&#8217;s really upsetting. So, actually, this is not block- or editor-related, but the group of contributors working on this review for the API, for the BP admins just published this in their current approach.</p>



<p>So, the problem this seeks to address is actually simple. Imagine you log into your WebPress site. You haven&#8217;t been there for weeks. And the moment you do, you&#8217;re bombarded with update notifications, premium plugin advertisements. I think the one that gets me is the premium plugin advertisements that come on the main dashboard instead of on the plugin itself dashboard. I mean, when I see them, like, &#8220;What are you doing here?&#8221; So this is what the team around the WP notification project tries to change.</p>



<p>Cutting from the post by Brian Coords, it says, &#8220;This project is focused on building a new framework for notifications from the ground up, and potentially providing a tool that encourages consistency in presentation, follows best practices in standards and accessibility, and discourages disruptive interactions in the WordPress admin screen.&#8221;</p>



<p>Do you have thoughts on this, Ryan?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I love it. I love the idea of it. I know it&#8217;s the bane of most site owners&#8217; existence to deal with the&#8230; Every plugin handles notifications differently. I mean, when people are left to sort of roll their own solution to a problem, then we get 100,000 different solutions, so having something that&#8217;s standard, and it&#8217;s thoughtful, and built from the ground up, it&#8217;s going to be great. Because I just think we can&#8230; Well, even the most obtrusive notifications with a system like that will still not be that obtrusive, and not be that glaring. It won&#8217;t be bright orange or whatever it is, all those sort of horrible UX decisions that get made.</p>



<p>Yeah, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything really bad that can come out of a proposal like this, in my opinion.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Sorry. Go on-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; totally. I agree totally. After 19 years, I think it would be really&#8230; It&#8217;s good to have a team looking at it, and the team has been working on this for a few years now, on and off, because&#8230; Yeah, some of us have life outside of WordPress. But, yeah. I&#8217;m glad they got to the next step in showing the world what they&#8217;re up to. And that is always good because now feedback comes in.</p>



<p>Especially also, for the planning developers, because admin notices are important. Yeah, but what are the importance of this, and how would you work it if you&#8217;re a plug-in developer as well? So, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Awesome. I look forward to testing it and giving you my own feedback on how it works. So, yeah. Okay.</p>



<h3><strong>Community Contributions</strong></h3>



<p>So, moving forward to our section on community contributions. First up, I&#8217;m happy to let you know that the first block teams are now available in the WooCommerce marketplace. This is exciting.</p>



<p>So, if you&#8217;re building Woocom masters, Bonum by Themes Kingdom was the first. This particular one favors a great set of patterns for all kinds of sellers.</p>



<p>The second one also just landed, and it&#8217;s called Basti by Ana Segota of Honorary Design. As always, this one shows off a beautiful design, and it has great attention to detail. It also provides wonderful patterns, and also some great style variations for your buttons, columns, and other books. It also has some great overall style variations that would let you change the character of the theme. On installation, you would find a set of four design variations, depending on the nature of your business.</p>



<p>Jamie Marsland is a review of this particular team. So if you&#8217;re building newcomer sites often, you should also take a look and explore this block teams.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, Jamie Marsland did a review, an eight-minute review of it, and really did a deep dive into it. And I was always wondering, yeah, with the block themes, what would make a theme, the value that of cost? Yeah, what would I pay for when I buy a theme that is full-site editing, and it&#8217;s definitely the style variations for my buttons, or for every block, or/and it&#8217;s also the style variations for the global styles.</p>



<p>And, of course, the nature of the patterns, and how they fit into the versatility of the theme. So, I think this is very well, both themes, the Basti theme, as well as the Bonum theme in the Bonum marketplace. It pretty much says it all in the marketplace announced there are free themes in there, but those two are not free themes. There are both premium things, just to do a little caveat there.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: All right.</p>



<h3><strong>What’s Released &#8211; Gutenberg 13.7</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So, that brings us to our what&#8217;s releases section, and we released yesterday or the Gutenberg team released yesterday, on Wednesday 20th, the Gutenberg 13.7. Yeah, Gutenberg 13.7 brings an updated model design. And we&#8217;ll talk about the features later.</p>



<p>So, this release comes 167 PRs with 58 contributors, including four first-time contributors. So, excellent. Kudos to all the contributors who helped with the release.</p>



<p>Go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Sorry. I just want to say that it&#8217;s been fairly recently, I think, in the release post that we&#8217;ve been specifically calling out first-time contributors. I think it&#8217;s probably not that recent, but I think that&#8217;s phenomenal. I know when I was first trying to get my first core props, it&#8217;s just such a win. It&#8217;s such a huge win, and you feel so good. And it&#8217;s great that people are calling, that they&#8217;re getting mentioned every two weeks, as opposed to every six months, or three months, I guess, when the next version of WordPress comes out. I just think it&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s such a good way of thanking people that are putting in their time to get this done.</p>



<p>Anyways, sorry. Continue.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: If you want to know who the new contributors are, check out the release post because, on the low end, after the Changelog, you&#8217;ll see who they are and what did they contribute? So, you can see also, is it something that you would want to do? Or just thank them personally when you know them, or when you see them in Slack.</p>



<h3><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>



<p>So, there are a few enhancements in that release. One is the update of the model design and it&#8217;s subtle, but it&#8217;s very, very helpful because it provides you focus on what you might want to accomplish because it blurs the background. It kind of comes up on top of the page, and then blurs the background a little bit. It also reduces visual noise in the corners. So, it&#8217;s definitely a quality-of-life enhancements, as we call it. But it&#8217;s definitely something that will replicate through all the models. So, it&#8217;s the preferences, it&#8217;s the keyboard shortcut, it&#8217;s the&#8230; Or any other model that&#8217;s kind of in use.</p>



<p>For the theme developers, the next one is&#8230; You will really find that helpful, but now there&#8217;s text decoration support for the post title block, which was still missing, especially when you do for query blocks or something like that.</p>



<p>And then, there&#8217;s also now a change in the featured image. No, in the media placeholder. Now, if you use an image block or a cover block in a post, you can actually say you want to use the featured image, so you don&#8217;t have to reload it up again into the post, if it&#8217;s a featured image, and if your theme doesn&#8217;t show it already with your single post. And in the query blocks, you now can use them in your templates and you just have one click where you can select the featured image. You could do it before, but you had to click twice in the toolbar to actually attach the featured image to that block.</p>



<p>Yeah, Mary, Ryan, if you have anything, yeah? Feel free to comment.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, I think that kind of changed just to make it easier to do something, like two clicks doesn&#8217;t seem like a lot, but if you&#8217;re building out hundreds of pages, two clicks ends up being a lot of time, right? So, being able to reduce even down one click, it&#8217;s nice. I think it&#8217;s great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, it&#8217;s half the time, right? And it&#8217;s not always two clicks. It&#8217;s also that you have to move them out to find the click, yeah. So now, that is all much nicer.</p>



<p>A similar redesign was made also for the document settings. That&#8217;s on the sidebar, not the block settings, but the post settings for post or page settings for the page. So, in the previous releases, the post settings panel in the side bar was already redesigned. And in this release, it all becomes a little bit more refined. So, the fields for post format, slug, template, and authors are now aligned, and they all have the same width.</p>



<p>And then, the template displays the default template string instead of none, so it opens up the dropdown box to select the new one, or edit the existing one.</p>



<p>Also, the perma link opens now. If you want to change it into a pop-over to edit it, and it&#8217;s a much nicer experience than trying to fit it into the small screen there when you want to re-edit the slug. So, the result is cleaner. It&#8217;s more organized, and should help to readily access the important information about the post and page at a glance.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I&#8217;m just going to say, again, these kind of changes just make&#8230; They&#8217;re all quality-of-life changes, right? It doesn&#8217;t really matter to your website if all those things align, but it&#8217;s some visual dissonance, and stuff like that. So, yeah. It&#8217;s nice to be able to….</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; to refine these things as we move forward, as the project move forward.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Totally agree. And when you look at the release post, and there is&#8230; The design team put two images together, and the web episode org side has a compare block where you can have before-and-after pictures. And then you have a slider in the middle of it, and you can slide along. That&#8217;s in there, but for this one, you just see the two sidebars next to each other. And it&#8217;s so weird, yeah? I&#8217;ve never noticed how disjointed it actually was before than it is. And now that it&#8217;s in order, yeah, it&#8217;s so much nicer to look at. Yeah.</p>



<p>Yeah, and now we come to the bigger feature. The biggest feature that&#8217;s actually in the release is that you now can create templates for all kinds of different post types, different taxonomies, specific terms, specific categories on tags for authors. You can even create a custom general template.</p>



<p>So, when you add or edit a template for custom post types and taxonomies, you can do it for a single post. So, you get a list, for the single custom post-type pages that you can select and then edit or create a new one, if your theme hasn&#8217;t provided them, because you just created your own custom post type with a plugin or something like that. You see it in the Add New Template for it. So, that&#8217;s pretty cool.</p>



<p>So, you can, for instance, have a different template on your blog. You can have it for personal blogs. Blog post, you have a different template than for a developer-related blog post, or a third one for travel posts. So, you can do a lot more creativity here. And if you have custom post types, as I said, it&#8217;s already automatically in there.</p>



<p>I already got a question on Twitter after I tweeted out the new features about the new plugin. And there was a question, &#8220;So, how do I get an archive post type? So, is there an archive for my books? If my post type is books, can I have an archive?&#8221; You can, but not with the template engine yet. You can certainly do a new page and pull in the query block, which already covers the custom post types. But that is the only template that has not been yet created. It&#8217;s in the works. I saw the tracking issue for all the different templates that developers want to create, and that one is the only one that doesn&#8217;t have a checkbox. It was pretty interesting.</p>



<p>So I think that&#8217;s pretty big because without….</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: It&#8217;s huge.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; access&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. I didn&#8217;t mean to&#8230; For theme developers or anyone, really, who&#8217;s building block themes, this is massive. Because one of the things that I&#8217;ve heard is the&#8230; When it first came out, we couldn&#8217;t do&#8230; We can&#8217;t create the theme templating system that WordPress has had since, I don&#8217;t know, Version 1 on the PHP side, in the full-site editing experience, until now, basically. Right? So it&#8217;s huge because there are so many times where just having that specific template that you want to have for a very specific thing meant that you had to go and create a new file in your theme, upload that to your server, or whatever. And then, you could work with it. But now, I mean, it&#8217;s going to put a bunch of developers out of work. I mean, it&#8217;s not. I&#8217;m kidding. But a lot of that, it&#8217;s not completely in the hands of the admin, which is great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right, right. And yeah, for those who design themes, it&#8217;s definitely, you don&#8217;t need to have access to the final theme file system anymore. Yeah?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And you don&#8217;t need to know about the template hierarchy that WordPress has because it kind of gives you a clear jumping point for the next block template that you want to create. So, it definitely expands the reach of the creativity or template editing beyond just the developer. Yeah, I really love that.</p>



<p>So, the next step for that would be custom fields, right? How to-</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; surface custom fields and custom post templates. Yeah. So, it&#8217;s going to be interesting to see what will be next for WordPress and the block editor.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I don&#8217;t know if this is in the works, but I just recently built a site for a friend of mine. And there was a lot of&#8230; It would be great if you could create a template that was inherited from an existing template. Maybe there&#8217;s a way of doing it. I haven&#8217;t really dived into it that far, but I can see that being something that people want to do. Like I create a new template for a very specific tag. I don&#8217;t want to have to go and set my header in my footer again. I just want to inherit that from whatever, from a template. So, if anyone&#8217;s listening.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: That&#8217;s what you should do.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And it&#8217;s geniuses all kind of think alike. So, there is actually an issue in the GitHub repo, or at least it&#8217;s talked about that those templates shouldn&#8217;t start from scratch on a blank page. They should have some default, be it the header and footer in there so it kind of starts out like a page on my site and not so much, &#8220;Okay. What is missing here?&#8221; Yeah, kind of thing. Because the surprise would be that if it&#8217;s a white blank page, and you just put the things in that you want, it won&#8217;t have a header and footer right now, but that is definitely in the works. Yeah, you&#8217;re absolutely…</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; right.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Which I think would be great, yeah. Because I think the path of least resistance is where 90% of the people are&#8230; That&#8217;s 90% of the use cases. I just want a new tag template, so I don&#8217;t want to have to go and reset up my whole page. If I want all that, then I probably wouldn&#8217;t have any problem saying, &#8220;Copy this template,&#8221; and then changing the things that I need, as opposed to brand new template. And I got to rebuild all things, and maybe I have to match settings and stuff. Anyways. It sounds like it&#8217;s definitely on the radar, which is awesome.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It is, yeah. I don&#8217;t know how the implementation will look, but there&#8217;s definitely, yeah , the GitHub space. You listeners, if you want to do some input, there&#8217;s always great discussions on GitHub on how to approach a feature like that, that hasn&#8217;t been done before. And that&#8217;s actually the beauty of community, yeah, that more people have better ideas, and it comes out of better product.</p>



<p>All right. Another quality-of-life, so to speak, or a start of a new feature is in the Information Panel on the Editor. That&#8217;s the little eye circle. Now has received a new number, and that&#8217;s the estimated time to read in the Table of Contents in the Editor. So, next to the numbers of words and characters and numbers of blocks, numbers of headings, numbers of paragraphs, the sixth one is now estimated time to read for whatever this asset is.</p>



<p>And I really like that because then you can kind of gauge, &#8220;Am I too long now?&#8221; Or, &#8220;Do I need to put a TLDR on top of it because it&#8217;s now longer than two minutes?&#8221; Or something like that. Yeah, you can kind of build your own rules around this. Not rules, but kind of think about your own rules, yeah. Yeah?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yeah. You can also copy that instead of using a plugin, add a plugin to your site to do that. You can just copy and put Estimated reading time at the top of all your posts.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, of course, it would also be better. So, it&#8217;s only displayed in the Editor right now, and it cannot be used on the front end without additional feature. But I put in a feature request for a new post, Time to Read block in GitHub. So chime in, if you want to, and kind of have a bubble up. It would be one of the new blocks for a post, and that you can use in a query block or even on a single a post template, yeah.</p>



<p>So, that&#8217;s kind of for the enhancements. We&#8217;re quite a few&#8230; Not the big swings, but they are apart from the huge amount of templates that you can create now.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: There&#8217;s one that we skipped over from full-site editing, Birgit, that I just wanted to call out.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, please.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; Apply to the block locking that applies to air blocks.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh. Yes, yes.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I think that&#8217;s fantastic. Was it 5.9 that released that block locking came out? Or was it 6.0. I can&#8217;t remember. But the ability to go in and lock a block, and now you can apply that to any of its children blocks, which I think it&#8217;s a huge quality-of-life thing, which is so nice.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Because that&#8217;s a lot of work, especially if you have nested blocks and nested blocks and nested blocks, you have to go in to every single one and mark them and lock them, which is great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Now you have just a little toggle switch on the bottom of-</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; the module, and where you say, &#8220;Apply to all blocks in this container.&#8221;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Which is great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: So, that could extend the patterns, which would be great, because you could probably have your patterns start out as locked. And there&#8217;s a lot of options here. Block locking&#8217;s a really powerful tool, especially when you get into user-based block locking where, as a administrator, I have access to all the blocks, but as, say an editor, I can&#8217;t move two or three of those blocks. When you get into that level of editorial control, especially across a team, it gets super, super powerful.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And we will later on also talk a little bit about the new handbook page about that. Yeah.</p>



<h3><strong>APIs&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h3>



<p>So, bug fixes. Oh, we had one new API, which I find quite interesting. From my perspective, it&#8217;s JavaScript arrow tracking, and it allows a custom error reporting logic to be called. And then, the error boundaries kind of&#8230; It kind of bubbles up to the front end or to wherever you want it, but it is not suppressed by the block editor. So it definitely very helpful when you&#8217;re debugging things.</p>



<p>Do you know anything more about that? Or any comments?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, I think it&#8217;s super powerful. I think one thing that, as a block developer, errors are problematic because they&#8217;re hard to track. They&#8217;re hard to track down. So, if you&#8217;ve ever seen this sort of Cannot Display Block and An Error Occurred, that&#8217;s the error boundary. So basically, the way the react works is it&#8217;s wrapping every error, and it catches it all and says An Error Happened.</p>



<p>So what this API allows you to do is, when that error happens, you can actually do something with the error message. One of the examples in the pull request is, if you were going to Century, Century I/O, I think it is. It&#8217;s an error logging tool, right? So if you had a block that was, say, hitting an API that you wrote or whatever, and you wanted to log errors back to Century to be able to see what happened, this enables that. This allows you to do really complicated things.</p>



<p>Or even if you just wanted to, say, fire a notice, and say, &#8220;Hey, you didn&#8217;t input your API key. That&#8217;s why this failed,&#8221; that helps to give your user a better indication of why their block failed. Now, hopefully, you shouldn&#8217;t be having a block fail in the wild, sort of thing. But sometimes we need certain things to be in place before these blocks will work. But I&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p>So I think it&#8217;s the beginning of a lot more developer experience, style of quality-of-life changes, things that allow the developers building these blocks to be able to handle things more gracefully, specifically errors. Especially&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p>So, I don&#8217;t know. I think it&#8217;s really, really good. It&#8217;s super interesting to me, but I&#8217;m a big developer nerd, so I think it&#8217;s&#8230; I don&#8217;t know a lot of use cases for it right now, but I can definitely see it growing. As it matures, it&#8217;ll be more and more useful.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, there were quite a few bug fixes coming out of it, but I think that there was none that actually jumped out at me and said, &#8220;Oh, thank God that it&#8217;s fixed now,&#8221; kind of thing. But, of course it&#8217;s also&#8230; Yeah. It&#8217;s in the&#8230; Yeah, it&#8217;s every personal experience is a little bit different.</p>



<h3><strong>Documentation</strong></h3>



<p>But we come to the documentation settings. And Ryan, you have done quite some work there to enhance or make the documentation better through the Generation Tool.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah. It&#8217;s always been a bit of a pet peeve of mine that the Block Editor Handbook has got a lot of information, and it&#8217;s great. And it&#8217;s all generated dynamically directly from the Gutenberg repository. But there&#8217;s not a lot of code examples. And, specifically in the data store realm, there&#8217;s a lot of&#8230; You can see what is available to you, but using it is sometimes a lot more complicated than just, say, making a call to a function.</p>



<p>Part of what I&#8217;ve been working on is the ability to&#8230; Well, adding all examples for as many packages as I can. We have examples now for the Get Notices package, so you can use those. The other part that I&#8217;m working on is removing things from the documentation that probably shouldn&#8217;t be there for an end user.</p>



<p>For example, this is a bit in the weeds, but when you&#8217;re dealing with data stores specifically Redux-based data stores, which is what Gutenberg is basing its data stores on, you have these functions called Actions, and some are only dispatched or run internally to the store. So the store says, &#8220;Get me a thing,&#8221; and then that thing gets returned. And then the store internally says, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ve got that thing. Now I could do something else with it.&#8221; So those actions aren&#8217;t ever going to be used by a developer using a public API.</p>



<p>So, one of the things that I&#8217;ve been working on is adding a support for a doc block tag that will basically exclude things from the documentation. And so, that&#8217;s a big win, I think for us, because it&#8217;s already complicated and the functions don&#8217;t really explain what they do, and they shouldn&#8217;t be used at all because you would never call them. It wouldn&#8217;t make any sense. And if you did call them, it&#8217;d probably just break the data store. So that&#8217;s one thing.</p>



<p>And so, another thing that I&#8217;ve been working on is&#8230; Actually, I guess that&#8217;s it. They ignore stuff. Getting examples in, I just literally merged half an hour ago a PR that gets rid of all of the internal actions for the data package, which is great. So it&#8217;s going to reduce the amount of documentation, but make it more concise. But, yeah. It&#8217;s a long process. There&#8217;s like 10 packages and there&#8217;s a lot of selectors and actions that I have to document.</p>



<p>So, if anyone wants to help, there&#8217;s a tracking ticket in Gutenberg.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, awesome.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; all of our sections, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;ll find that for you. And we&#8217;ll share the tracking issue link in the show notes, so you can jump on board. It could also be quite interesting too, because that gets you a little bit into the weeds, but not deep enough.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I will tell you this; you will know the package inside out and backwards, because you have to write documents. You have to write examples that work. You have to figure out how they work, and then you have to figure out a real reason to use it. I know lots about this now, way more than I ever thought I would, but…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: So, it was a great way to get right into the API.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I wanted to also&#8230; So, thank you for doing that, picking up on that.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: No problem.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And going through with it. What I also found on the documentation, how it&#8217;s also part of the documentation revamp, or more people looking at documentation from a point of developer experience, or is that we might reorganize things. Yeah, so having a different header or a different pass to a certain document, or even the document URLs changes. But we need to have a redirect directly attached to it, so we can say, &#8220;Okay, this old page now needs to redirect to the new page,&#8221; so we don&#8217;t lose people that have been in that documentation for a long time.</p>



<p>And yeah, I connected with the Mater Team and figure out how can this be done on the Gutenberg manifest, the JSON repo. Yeah, to also add the redirect later on, so when they import it to, when the importer, into the webpress.org pages, then also can take care of those redirects directly, and not have a second step to it.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I think that&#8217;s great. I think that&#8217;s going to allow us&#8230; Us, the Royal us. Is that a thing to-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; to be more fluid with the docs because I know that&#8217;s been&#8230; Our docs&#8230; If you look at some of these pages, they&#8217;re massive. They&#8217;re just super long, and there&#8217;s that there&#8217;s that zero to expert problem that we sort of have in the documentation realm where, &#8220;Here&#8217;s a basic example, and now here&#8217;s all the information you&#8217;ll ever need to know about it ever.&#8221; And it&#8217;s all kind of on the same page. And so, if by being able to be more dynamic with how often we change pages, and we can set redirects and things, it&#8217;ll allow us to kind of play with the documentation format, and maybe we can be a bit more. We can play a bit more fast and loose with it and try things. And it&#8217;s not a huge undertaking, and people don&#8217;t lose all their bookmarks, and it&#8217;s bad times. So I think it&#8217;s great, being able to do that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I wanted to bring it back to what you talked about before, the locking experience for&#8230; There is a new page in the Block Editor Developer Handbook, and that is called Curating the Editor Experience. And you&#8217;ll find it under the How To Guides. And it talks about the locking API, what the user can do, and how you can suppress that, and how you lock patterns or templates, how you can set the permissions, change the permissions to the control-locking ability with code examples. Very well done. And providing default controls and options in the theme JSON file, and how to find how to work that.</p>



<p>And then also, to limit the interface options to the Theme JSON. That&#8217;s the global styles kind of on the right-hand side. Yeah, you don&#8217;t&#8230; not necessarily want somebody to use the custom color or to use the custom doer tone links because you want to stay on design color, on brand color, all that.</p>



<p>There was a make blog post about it, but now it&#8217;s in the handbook and it&#8217;s&#8230; If I look through it, I find it really comprehensive. And it has some nice section adders, and additional resources that are also on the Learn. So there is one video on the WP space from the Learn Worker space. It&#8217;s working with templates and full-set editing. And, yeah.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s a great page, and that is new. And yeah, I love that it&#8217;s now all in one place and not distributed over the whole web universe, because somebody found something and shared it. But then, yeah, I can do that, but I also want to lock down this, so now you have it all on one page.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: That&#8217;s great.</p>



<h3><strong>Experiments</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. There are a few experiments that are called, globally, the style engine, and there were some updates there. I will share the style engine tracking issue. And there&#8217;s also a block layout tracking issue for that. So you can stay up to date in what it&#8217;s all about. It&#8217;s pretty much how styles are treated from theme to block, to elements, and back again, in terms of how you can change things, yeah. Because, for some of the things you have UI, and for some of them, it&#8217;s only in Theme Jason. Some of them, you need to still do with CSS. So, there&#8217;s quite a big work to be done to standardize that.</p>



<p>I think that&#8217;s it. Do have anything else that you&#8230; Oh, yeah! That was the first idea that I had when I thought about getting Ryan on the show. There&#8217;s a section in the grade block about the grade block script. And that is that you get a prompt for minimum system requirements, if they are not met. And also, careful prompts to, yeah, how to continue with that. And it also fixes a regression from the size, underscore size refactoring.</p>



<p>So, great block. Ryan, you have done quite a few demos, and quite some work on it. What does it do for those who haven&#8217;t heard about it?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Well, it&#8217;s my favorite package in all WordPress, first of all. What it does is…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And now, we get into the second hour of our podcast.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; easier a bit.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Do you have a minute?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Do you have an hour and a half?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I have a minute.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Okay. Sit down. Let me tell you about Create Block.</p>



<p>It is, basically, the TLDR is that it is the tool that allows you to quickly scaffold blocks. So it will create a plugin, and it will create for you a block, a scaffolded, simple block that you can then do whatever you want with. So it&#8217;s very, very powerful.</p>



<p>It can accept custom templates. You can write your own templates and publish them. The NPM, you can use local templates. So if you have a very specific way that you like to build your blocks, or work for an agency, and your agency&#8217;s got a very specific way, you can create a template and have the Create Block package just refer to that template, and it&#8217;ll build blocks out for you however you like. It&#8217;s super powerful.</p>



<p>So, the two pull requests that are in there around a prompting, there are some edge cases when it comes to, I think it&#8217;s Linux, and maybe a bit of Windows, that for where we were getting some false positives. When you run Create Block, what it does behind the scenes is it checks to make sure you have the right version of, know the right version of all these things installed.</p>



<p>And sometimes, depending on the platform, it would say, &#8220;That&#8217;s not right. You&#8217;re missing,&#8221; and whatever, and it would just stop, so you couldn&#8217;t use it. So, what this is allowing you to do is it&#8217;ll say, &#8220;Hey, I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ve got the right things. Do you want to still go?&#8221; And if you know that you do indeed have everything you need, you can continue the process. It makes it a lot easier, because it&#8217;s a huge blocker for someone that&#8217;s not maybe working on the most sort of standard system set-up, that they can&#8217;t use this tool, even though they know they&#8217;ve got it set up the way they want it, and that it&#8217;s set up correctly and it will work, that the tool fails.</p>



<p>So, that&#8217;s what this is all about. Just allowing us&#8230; Well, it just drives adoption. It just allows more people to use the tool. The last one, the fixing the regression from size, there was a internal effort to move away from Lodash, I believe.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Yeah. _.size is a Lodash function. So this, it was moved away from using Lodash, but then they found that there was a regression, so they fixed it, and that&#8217;s all that was. But-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it is, actually…</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; dependencies.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; a huge effort to move away from Lodash for performance reasons. And if you count in the change lock all the PRs together that are listed, you will not get to 167. You will only get to 120 or 30 because there were about 40 different PRs that touched quite a few files to move away from Lodash.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah. Which I think makes sense. I mean, if we don&#8217;t need it. I don&#8217;t know if Lodash&#8230; I don&#8217;t know which&#8230; There&#8217;s a Lodash that sort of allows tree-shaking and one that does not, and I don&#8217;t know which one we&#8217;re using. And so, leads to large bundle sizes, and all sorts of bad times in the JavaScript world.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I wanted to&#8230; Create Block is also my favorite tool, and I just wanted…</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, me too.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; to add many people tried it out before, and they were only kind of fixated on single blocks. But now you can have&#8230; I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s already implemented. I know you were working on it to allow for multi blocks?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Multi blocks? Yeah.</p>



<p>That is actually built into the Scripts package, so you don&#8217;t need to have a special template. And so, originally, you needed to have a special template and a special Webpack file that would allow you to build a multiple blocks using a single-build process.</p>



<p>So, myself and Greg, who&#8217;s an alumni of Gutenberg changelog. We worked really hard on working on scripts and Create Block to allow scripts by default to handle multiple blocks. It wasn&#8217;t just us. There was a lot of people, and Greg did all the heavy lifting. I&#8217;m just taking credit for it.</p>



<p>So now, if you, if you structure your setup in a certain way, basically putting a block that JSON file inside of a directory inside of your source files, your source directory, the Scripts Package will see it and it will create a block for each one of those that it finds. So we don&#8217;t need anything custom to do that.</p>



<p>What we are doing with Create Block, and this is hopefully going to get in soon, is we are trying to make it so you can just scaffold the block, so when you run Create Block now it will scaffold an entire plugin, and then put a block inside that plugin.</p>



<p>What we want to be able to do is have it scaffold the plugin, and then if you run it a second time with a flag, it&#8217;ll only just add another plugin to your existing one. And that&#8217;s-</p>



<p>That&#8217;s something that&#8217;s going to add a lot of power to it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: And we&#8217;re sort of working on that now. And we&#8217;re also working on the ability to of, within this, we could do a whole nother podcast on this, so I&#8217;ll stop.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Maybe we should.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; a lot of cool&#8230; Yeah, there&#8217;s a lot of really cool things coming for both scripts and Create Block.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I also know there is a flag that you can set when you create it that it&#8217;s going to be a dynamic block.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah, sure. That&#8217;s not merged yet, but that is-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; the other one. Because we are working on making that as simple as possible, there has been talk of, instead of it being dynamic block, it would be like dash dash variation. And then you can tell it&#8217;s static or dynamic, or if there&#8217;s another type that gets introduced along the way. We can do that as well. So, we&#8217;re still working on that. It&#8217;s definitely something that I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s could going to say no to. It&#8217;s just a matter of making sure that we get it right before it launches, because it&#8217;s really hard to change something after it&#8217;s out in the world. So, yeah. So, there&#8217;s a few things that Greg and I have been working on, that I think is going to hopefully make Create Block the defacto package for building blocks.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That&#8217;s awesome, yeah. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: That&#8217;s my pitch. That&#8217;s my elevator pitch.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Very good. And this was a great segue into our What&#8217;s an Active Development were discussed. And one is that I mentioned about documentation be restructuring. And we mentioned Greg. So Greg has gone in and has looked at the hooks references for the Block Editor and found that the documentation is using the term hook filters differently than the rest of the WordPress documentation. Because there are hooks with actions and filters, not just filters. So, he wanted to restructure the reference for that. And he has. The only thing, he hasn&#8217;t changed the name on the titles yet. He has changed the page title, but not the slugs because we discovered we needed a redirect thing. So this was merged. It&#8217;s in the handbook now, but the slug does not match the title of the page, which sometimes a little unfortunate. But that&#8217;s definitely updated. It will come, and it&#8217;s already in the handbook because the handbook updates are not tied to the release. Yeah, they are listed in the release notes just to have them, give them a place, but they are, pretty much as soon as the PR is merged into Gutenberg, within 15 minutes, the documentation page is updated. So, that&#8217;s actually a great process here.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: It&#8217;s great. But it can also be a little bit&#8230; And this is probably something that we can talk about. But because it&#8217;s built from Trunk. Trunk is the bleeding edge of everything that&#8217;s in Gutenberg. And since, sometimes, things end up in documentation that aren&#8217;t released in Core and aren&#8217;t released in any plugin versions. And there&#8217;s no sort of simple way right now of indicating that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; But it is awesome that when documentation gets up&#8230; Like I merged my poll request just before we started, and it&#8217;s already live.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That&#8217;s awesome.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: The doc changes are already there, and that&#8217;s great. But, yeah. So that&#8217;s something to keep in mind.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Keep in mind that it&#8217;s not a version control. It&#8217;s just a bleeding edge and it also doesn&#8217;t disseminate between what&#8217;s in WordPress and what&#8217;s just available in plugin and future WordPress. So, yeah. It&#8217;s sometimes we need to kind of read it a little bit carefully, especially when you are an early adopter of things and love that life on the bleeding edge. Yeah, sometimes it gets you there bloody, yeah. Oh, leading edge. Not that, yeah.</p>



<p>Another thing that&#8217;s in the works is, and a lot of people definitely have been waiting for it. It&#8217;s the fluid typography. So, the first iteration is already merged, and will come to 13.8. It&#8217;s still experimental, but for theme developers only in theme JSON to have the settings for the fluid typography. So, they set minimum and maximum sizes for the font, and then it automatically expands and&#8230; Or is it expands and&#8230;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Contracts.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: What&#8217;s the other one, word?</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Contracts.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Contracts. Yeah, not a D. It was of long wrong. Yeah.</p>



<p>And if all is good, you can test it with Gutenberg Nightly already. Or you wait for the Gutenberg 13.8 coming out on August 3rd.</p>



<p>Dave Smith, who was, I guess, here on the Episode 68, he is experimenting with a feature to actually attach custom labeling to blocks in the list view. And that has come up quite repeatedly in the call for on the FSE program, and also in the user testing that when you have more group blocks in your page, that it&#8217;s hard to kind of find the one that you actually want to work on. And because they&#8217;re all called group blocks, and you have six or seven of them, or three of them, you hit them no say, &#8220;No, that&#8217;s not it. That&#8217;s not it,&#8221; yeah. But if you can give them a name, then you can identify them.</p>



<p>The same is with headings or even with paragraphs, yeah. You can kind of, each of them. It&#8217;s not merged yet. It&#8217;s a PR that you can&#8230; And I&#8217;ll link it in the show notes that you can maybe even test out there. And it just gives you&#8230; You click into the block row where the block is mentioned, and then it opens up an editing field that you can write in, yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I think this feature&#8230; I think it&#8217;s very cool. First of all, it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s needed to be able to&#8230; If you&#8217;re in the list view and you&#8217;ve got 20 blocks, and it&#8217;s hard to know what&#8217;s what. But a side effect of this, which is something that actually just came up in my livestream today, when we were trying&#8230; I think I said this earlier&#8230; But we were trying to have one block refer to another block, and get its attributes, and then do something with those attributes in the first block. And the issue that we were running into was, there&#8217;s no unique identifier for blocks that are persistent. So, they&#8217;re in the bowels of the code. There is a Client ID that you can get access to, but that Client ID is refreshed every page load.</p>



<p>So having something like this, a really cool side effect is that now we&#8217;ve got a unique identifier for a block. So you can give the block a name, and then that&#8230; Because in the implementation, I believe they&#8217;re saving it as a block attribute, so it gets saved with the block. So now, other blocks can get that block by getting the list of blocks and filtering by that attribute for the thing that they want.</p>



<p>So I think that that&#8230; I mean, this is a perfect case of we built for one thing, but now there&#8217;s a whole nother use case that people can really use it for. And I&#8217;m super excited about that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I will-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; I will help Dave with it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; And it probably would be helpful to keep that in mind when the first iteration comes out. Yeah, how that can be used in plugins or in&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Yeah. Yeah, I&#8217;ve already-</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: Or because it&#8217;s…</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; left a comment on the PRs. Yeah, it&#8217;s so powerful.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: But it&#8217;s-</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: The user…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, but it&#8217;s user controlled, so the plugin doesn&#8217;t know what the user going to do. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: That&#8217;s true. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So, it&#8217;s-</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: I mean, in the use case that I&#8217;m talking about, it&#8217;s sort of you would need to have that user level to connect those two things anyways. But it solves the development problem of, &#8220;How do I make a connection between two blocks when I have no unique identifier anywhere to save as a reference?&#8221; There&#8217;s no Block ID that&#8217;s persistent. It&#8217;s always new every page load. But this could potentially solve a problem like that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; cases around the same name. What do you do with the same name? But that sort of stuff.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah. All of that. Yeah, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: And it&#8217;s very cool, though.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So, it&#8217;s not because it&#8217;s experimental and it&#8217;s relatively new. We don&#8217;t know when it&#8217;s going to be merged or when it&#8217;s coming through the Gutenberg Nightly, but that&#8217;s kind of that a little PR bleeding edge or leading edge, sorry. I need to kind of get the bleeding out of it.</p>



<p>And that is pretty much the end of our Changelog today. So, Mary and Ryan, is there anything that you want the community to know or remind them of, before we end the show so they can kind of look out for it, or see you, or&#8230;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Well, I&#8217;m going to shamelessly self-promote. You can watch me every Thursday at 10:30 Eastern at on Twitch. My handle&#8217;s Ryan Welcher Codes. I&#8217;ve also got the YouTube channel with the same name, Ryan Welcher Codes. So, anything on my stream, that&#8217;s anything that&#8217;s decent, I usually put on YouTube. And, yeah.</p>



<p>But yeah, we do all kinds of coding stuff, usually block-related. So, that&#8217;s my shameless.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: &#8230; self-promotion.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, super. And we&#8217;ll put, of course, the links in the show notes.</p>



<p>Mary?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Well, on my end, I&#8217;m good. I&#8217;m good. And I like what Ryan did. You know what they say. They say, &#8220;If you don&#8217;t promote yourself, nobody&#8217;s going to do it for you.&#8221;</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Awesome.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Thank you.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah. So&#8230; And before we end the show, I just wanted to remind you, dear listener, that if you like the change of podcast and of&#8230; Write us a review, either on Stitcher or on Apple or on Google. It helps us promote it and kind of get more people interested in it, and they know that it&#8217;s around.</p>



<p>And then, as always, the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com/podcast.</p>



<p>This is episode 70. And if you have questions, suggestions or news you want us to talk about, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s the email address at <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. Or you can always ping me on Twitter, BPH, or Gutenberg Times. All the DMs are open, so I&#8217;ll also look at them.</p>



<p>Well, a huge thank you to Ryan to join us today for this hour, and bring so much new interesting stuff there.</p>



<p>Thank you so much, Mary. It was great to see you again, and talk to you.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;ll see you next time in two weeks.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Thank you, sir.</p>



<p><em>Ryan Welcher</em>: Thank you for having me. It&#8217;s always fun.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 24 Jul 2022 12:38:54 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:19:"Gutenberg Changelog";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:124:"Gutenberg Times: New kind of default theme, pattern preview in the theme directory  and so much more – Weekend Edition 224";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=21640";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:129:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/new-kind-of-default-theme-pattern-preview-in-the-theme-directory-and-so-much-more-weekend-edition-224/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23141:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>This week, there was a lot going on. It started with a great conversation on the DoTheWoo podcast, and ended on a high note again, with the the Live Q &amp; A on how Pew Research Center use blocks for everything on their sites. The recording is on the YouTube channel, post will transcript will follow. </p>



<p>Those shows were the bookends to my work as release lead for the latest Gutenberg plugin 13.7 version. I learned lot and thanks to the help by seasoned contributors, I pushed the release over the finish line. I learned a ton about all the moving parts that need to come together and also lot about what I don&#8217;t know. </p>



<p>There was much so much more going on in the WordPress space, and I am so happy to share some of it below. </p>



<p>Stay cool this summer! 🍨 🧊</p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>



<p>PS: <a href="https://dothewoo.io/future-woocommerce-wordpress-blocks/"><strong>DoTheWoo Vision Podcast: The Future of Blocks</strong></a> is now available in your favorite podcast app. </p>





<p> </p>




<div class="wp-container-9 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing and extending the block editor</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-g">Gutenberg 13.7 </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Building Block Themes and Patterns</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-plugins-and-other">Plugins and other NoCode tools for site owners and builders</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">WordCamp Europe Talks on WordPress TV (Part 3) </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-s">Upcoming WordPress Events</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-word-camps-around-the-world">WordCamps around the World</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-social-learning-spaces">Learn WordPress Online Workshop</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#9-meetups">Virtual WordPress Meetups</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing and extending the block editor</h2>



<p>Video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvQYPa5vxVk"><strong>Gutenberg Times Live Q &amp; A: Block First Approach at the Pew Research Center</strong></a>. Anne McCarthy and I discussed with Seth Rubenstein, Lead Developer, and Michael Piccorossi, Director of Digital Strategy, how they use a mixture of Core and Custom Blocks to streamline their publishing process, and to create powerful charts and quizzes.for the Pew Research Center.</p>



<p>Matt Ratford <a href="https://twitter.com/mattradford/status/1550580599286636547">tweeted:</a> &#8220;I highly recommend watching this live-stream with a presentation on <a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch">@pewresearch</a>&#8216;s superb Block Editor implementation. Lots there that I previously only thought I would do with <a href="https://twitter.com/wp_acf">@wp_acf</a> in making WP work for their editors.&#8221;</p>



<h3 id="1-g">Gutenberg 13.7 </h3>



<p>On Wednesday, the plugin version 13.7 was released and is now available as 13.7.2 with a fast turn around fixing two bugs. Gutenberg 13.7 brings an updated modal design, the ability to apply&nbsp;block&nbsp;locking to inner blocks with a click of a button, a myriad of new template types, and plenty of improvements to existing features based on feedback from the community.&nbsp;Here are the highlights from the release post: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 13.7? (20 July)</strong></a></p>



<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/#lock">Lock inside container block with one click</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/#modal">Updated and unified modal design</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/#templates">Create templates now for specific categories, pages and more</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/#notable">Other notable highlights</a></li></ul>



<img />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Thursday, we recorded <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-70-gutenberg-13-7-woo-commerce-marketplace/"><strong>Gutenberg Changelog #70</strong>.</a> We had great fun talking about the block editor, Gutenberg 13.7 release and what&#8217;s in the works. Huge Thank you to our special guest Ryan Welcher and  my co-host Mary Job. </p>



<a href="bhttps://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-70-gutenberg-13-7-woo-commerce-marketplace/"><img /></a>



<div class="wp-container-10 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-70-gutenberg-13-7-woo-commerce-marketplace/">Gutenberg Changelog #70 – Gutenberg 13.7, Template Creation Enhancements and First Full-Site Editing Themes in Woo Commerce Marketplace</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job, and special guest: <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong></p>
</div></div>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> went into further details on some new features in her article <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-7-expands-custom-template-capabilities-adds-estimated-reading-time-to-info-panel"><strong>Gutenberg 13.7 Expands Custom Template Capabilities, Adds Estimated Reading Time to Info Panel</strong></a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/pootlepress">Jamie Marsland</a></strong> is back with <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIY9nkqF2mI">WordPress Block News</a>.</strong> This week he demos how to use the new templates for single post type pages and single category pages that are in Gutenberg 13.7. Marsland also highlight three new block themes from the directory.</p>



<p>For a considerably deeper dive into the matters of creating templates for FSE, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> published <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/21/core-editor-improvement-deeper-customization-with-more-template-options/"><strong>Deeper customization with more template options</strong></a>. He outlines various use cases, how you can spruce up your website, online magazine or blog. The how-to section describes the steps to successfully create custom page templates</p>




<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>




<h3 id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Building Block Themes and Patterns</h3>



<p>Last week we introduced the first Bock Theme in the <em>WooCommerce marketplace</em>. The second Block Theme, called <a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/basti/">Basti by Ana Segota of Anariel Design</a> landed this week. It shows off beautiful designs, shows great attention to detail by the designer, provides some wonderful patterns and also some great block styles for your buttons, columns other blocks. From a selection of elaborate style variations, you change the character of your site without changing your theme. On installation, you’ll find a set of four designs depending on the nature or industry of your business. </p>



<p>In his video, Jamie Marsland gives you a detailed tour of the theme and shine a light on all the little details that make this theme so great. Marsland called it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFqdHZco1Cg"><strong>The most beautiful WordPress Gutenberg Block Theme</strong></a>.</p>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/bgardner/status/1550556360064081920">Brian Gardner</a></strong> tweeted: &#8220;Without question, Basti by <a href="https://twitter.com/Ana_Segota">@Ana_Segota</a> + <a href="https://twitter.com/AnarielDesign">@AnarielDesign</a> is one of the most beautiful FSE <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WordPress?src=hashtag_click">#WordPress</a> themes. (Easily better than anything I have designed.)&#8221; </p>



<p><strong>Ana Segota</strong> published the <a href="https://www.anarieldesign.com/demos/?theme=Basti">demo site </a>for your perusal. Give it whirl. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Steve Dufresne</strong> announced the new beta feature: <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/07/21/pattern-previews-for-themes-in-the-directory-beta/">Pattern Previews for Themes&nbsp;in the Directory</a>.</strong> Users can now browse the pattern via the thumbnails on the single Theme page. The first feedback reveals that only patterns using core blocks will be displayed. Patterns that include references to 3rd party blocks won&#8217;t be visible in the Theme Directory in this first version. It&#8217;s also unlikely that they ever will. It would require for the meta time to install  all the possible 3rd party block plugins on the Theme Directory site. That is very unlikely. </p>



<a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/archeo/"><img /></a><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/archeo/">Pattern display for the Theme: Archeo</a>



<p>In her post on the Make Design blog: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2022/07/19/proposal-a-new-kind-of-default-theme/">Proposal: A new kind of default theme</a>, <strong>Channing Ritter</strong> suggests a more collaborative approach to building the next WordPress default theme Twenty-Twenty-Three. The design and theme team will work together on a base theme,  and once it&#8217;s available for further development, community designers will be able to submit Style variations. The teams will then select some to be included into the default theme. The process is not quite refined. </p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/raemoreywrites"><strong>Rae Morey</strong></a> of <em>The Repository</em> wrote in <a href="https://www.therepository.email/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzE1NCwiOTBjZDMxZDFmYWU3Iiw1NTYsIjFqb2g0ZGtiNnZmbzh3NG9vb3dnNG9zODhnazA0czR3IiwzNTYsMF0">Issue 132</a>:  &#8220;Responses to Ritter&#8217;s proposal have been overwhelmingly positive with designers and developers—including&nbsp;Brian Gardner&nbsp;(designer and Principal Developer Advocate at&nbsp;WP Engine),&nbsp;Rich Tabor&nbsp;(Product Manager at&nbsp;Extendify), and&nbsp;Anariel Design—indicating their eagerness to participate.&#8221; </p>



<p>In his article, <strong><a href="https://speckyboy.com/create-block-theme-within-wordpress/">You Can Now Create Your Own Block Theme Within WordPress</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/karks88">Eric Karkovack</a></strong> walks you through the features of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/">WordPress Create a Block Theme plugin</a>, developed by the WordPress themes team. &#8220;The ability to create a block theme from within WordPress and then use it anywhere could be a&nbsp;<a href="https://speckyboy.com/how-wordpress-full-site-editing-could-impact-the-design-process/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">game-changer</a>&nbsp;for your workflow. It potentially cuts out a lot of time spent dealing with code and makes for a complete visual design experience.&#8221; Karkovack wrote. </p>



<p><strong>Brian Gardner</strong>&#8216;s new block theme <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/bright-mode/"><strong>Bright Mode</strong></a> is now available in the Theme Directory. It is &#8220;for those who love modern design and vibrant colors.&#8221; reads the theme description.  </p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> posted a review on WPTavern: <a href="https://wptavern.com/bright-mode-a-new-block-theme-with-vibrant-colors-patterns-and-custom-block-styles"><strong>Bright Mode: A New Block Theme with Vibrant Colors, Patterns, and Custom Block Styles</strong></a>. &#8220;If you look closely, you can see subtle hints of Gardner’s trademark style. It’s forthright and minimalist with meticulous attention to typography and spacing. The colors are bright but harmonious and balanced, so it doesn’t preclude Bright Mode from use in professional contexts.&#8221; Gooding wrote. </p>



<h2 id="3-plugins-and-other">Plugins and other NoCode tools for site owners and builders</h2>



<p><strong>Nick Diego</strong> also gave a talk at West Orlando WordPress Meetup: Here is the recording. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQEeOb0qcEo"><strong>Introduction to WordPress Full Site Editing</strong></a>. &#8220;In this presentation, Nick provided a thorough overview of FSE and discussed how you can leverage these changes to build better websites. FSE is the future of modern theming in WordPress Core, and we could not be more excited!&#8221; </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>The team of <strong>GenerateBlocks </strong>changed the name of ‘Template Library’ to <a href="https://generateblocks.com/library/"><strong>‘Patterns Library&#8217;</strong></a> and provide 218 patterns (69 free and 149 paid) to their users </p>



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<p>The team of <strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/stackable-ultimate-gutenberg-blocks/">Stackable</a></strong> added a <a href="https://wpstackable.com/blog/introducing-map-block/">new Map Block</a> for displaying the map with the location marker. It comes with customization options for height and size and zoom level as well as choice to display additional buttons for Street View, full-size view or to offer different map types. </p>



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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Free_LanceTools"><strong>Ivica Delic</strong></a> just released the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-detector-finder/"><strong>Blocks Detector Finder</strong></a> plugin, and it joins the league of other block finder tools. It analyses your website to find all the Gutenberg Blocks that are in use. It also detects the blocks that don&#8217;t work any more because plugins were removed. </p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/find-my-blocks/"><strong>Find my Blocks</strong></a> by <strong>Eddy Sims</strong> offers similar insights in the usage of blocks around your site. </p>



<h2 id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">WordCamp Europe Talks on WordPress TV (Part 3) </h2>



<p>This is the last part of the 3-part series of listing WordPress Europe talks that were uploaded to WordPressTV. More recordings are listed in  <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/classic-widgets-in-fse-3d-cut-out-image-open-source-theme-designs-and-more-weekend-edition-221/#wceutv">Part 1</a> and <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/99-block-themes-block-templates-and-gutenberg-nightly-at-120k-downloads-weekend-edition-223/#4-word-camp-europe-talks-and-workshops">Part 2</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/21/ryan-welcher-creating-a-pre-publish-checklist-for-gutenberg/"><strong>Ryan Welcher: Creating a pre-publish checklist for Gutenberg</strong></a> (Workshop)<br />In this workshop, geared towards developers, participants created a custom plugin that will define a configurable pre-publish checklist that must be met before content can be published.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/21/tammie-lister-growing-the-wordpress-design-system/"><strong>Tammie Lister: Growing the WordPress design&nbsp;system</strong></a><br />In this talk, Lister showed why one needs the system and how important it is for the project, why if one doesn’t build on those foundations, it&#8217;ll make an unstable base. Lister dreams beyond today at what could be, where could we go, and what can we learn from the existing design systems? She covered processes and tools to look at possible solutions to our problems today.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/22/paul-halfpenny-imran-sayed-evan-mullins-ryan-welcher-juanma-garrido-lightning-talks/">Paul Halfpenny, Imran Sayed, Evan Mullins, Ryan Welcher, JuanMa Garrido: <strong>Lightning talks</strong></a></p>



<ul><li>Creating interactive blocks: old, new, and good ways, JuanMa Garrido</li><li>Extending Gutenberg with SlotFill, Ryan Welcher</li><li>Blockity McBlock Blocks, Oh My! w/ Evan Mullins</li><li>Block Themes – The Future of FSE, Imran Sayed</li><li>Delivering Personalised Experiences using WordPress, Paul Halfpenny</li></ul>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/17/matt-mullenweg-josepha-haden-in-conversation/"><strong>Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden: In Conversation</strong></a> &#8211; a Town hall style Q &amp; A with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and Josepha Haden Chomphosy, executive directory of the WordPress open-source project. </p>



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<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<h2 id="5-s">Upcoming WordPress Events</h2>



<p>July 27 , 2022 &#8211; 3 pm EDT / 19:00 pm UTC <br />Webinar: <strong><a href="https://events.godaddy.com/events/details/godaddy-events-godaddy-pro-online-presents-call-for-testing-wordpress-full-site-editing-category-customization/?utm_source=therepositorynewsletter_2022_sponsorship&utm_medium=events&utm_campaign=en-us_events_prg_awa_partners_part_open_001">Call for Testing WordPress Full Site Editing: Category Customization</a></strong> with Courtney Robertson, presented by GoDaddy Pro</p>



<p><strong>November 18, 2022</strong><br /><a href="https://www.wordfest.live/2022/november/"><strong>WordFest Live 2022</strong></a> <br />Call for speakers ends August 15, 2022</p>



<h3 id="6-word-camps-around-the-world">WordCamps around the World</h3>



<p>September 2 + 3, 2022<br /><strong><a href="https://jinja.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Jinja 2022</a></strong>, about 2 hrs West of Kampala, Uganda. Calls for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers are open now.</p>



<p>September 3 + 4, 2022<br /><a href="https://kathmandu.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Kathmandu</strong></a>, Nepal</p>



<p>September 9 – 11, 2022<br /><strong><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp US</a></strong>&nbsp;in San Diego</p>



<p>September 15 + 16, 2022<br /><a href="https://netherlands.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Netherlands</strong></a>&nbsp;at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.burgerszoo.com/">Royal Burger’s Zoo</a>&nbsp;in Arnhem</p>



<p>September 24 + 25, 2022<br /><a href="https://pontevedra.wordcamp.org/2022"><strong>WordCamp Pontevedra</strong></a></p>



<p>February 17 – 19, 2023<br /><strong><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Asia</a></strong>, Bangkok, Thailand<br /><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/">Call for speaker was just published</a>. Deadline: September 15th, 2022 (UTC +7)<br />Contributor Day is planned for February 17, 2023 (Day 1)</p>



<h3 id="6-social-learning-spaces">Learn WordPress Online Workshop</h3>



<p>July 26, 2022 – 12 pm EDT / 16:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287148930/">The ABCs of Blogging: Advanced Blogging (Part Two)</a></strong>&nbsp;with Bud Kraus</p>



<p>July 26, 2022 5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287048356/">Styling your site with global styles</a></strong>&nbsp;with Wes Theron and Alycia</p>



<p>July 28th, 2022 &#8211; 3 pm EDT / 19:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287169611/"><strong>Builder Basics: Let’s Build a Custom Theme (No Coding Required) – Part 2</strong></a> with Nick Diego</p>



<p>July 28, 2022 5 pm EDT / 21:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287308585/"><strong>Theme Development Workflows for Different Types of Developers</strong></a> with Daisy Olsen</p>



<h3 id="9-meetups">Virtual WordPress Meetups</h3>



<p><strong>July 26 at 6:00 PM EDT / 22:00 UTC</strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/sf-wordpress-users/events/287163862/"><strong>“Mega Meetup” – Block Intro &amp; Project Frameworks</strong></a>&nbsp;with Vito Peleg showing off Atarim.io and with Anne Katzeff providing a Beginner’s Guide to Gutenberg Blocks.</p>



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<p><em>Featured Image: New York &#8211; View from The Highline 2015 by Birgit Pauli-Haack</em></p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 23 Jul 2022 15:09:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"Post Status: Putting it together, together";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102519";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://cdn.poststatus.com/putting-it-together-together/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:342:"Today Cory took the lead on the Post Status newsletter release and joined Dan in co-authoring the introduction to it, which we usually share here. Some thoughts on newsletter integration, Newsletter Glue, Newspack, and the challenges facing plugin owners at WordPress.org in trying to determine the true size of their potential customer base.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:55:26 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"WPTavern: WordPress Accessibility Day 2022 Opens Call for Speakers and Sponsors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136391";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-accessibility-day-2022-opens-call-for-speakers-and-sponsors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2461:"<img />



<p><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/">WordPress Accessibility Day</a>, a free, 24-hour virtual event, is set for November 2-3, 2022. The event was first founded in 2020 and will continue this year led by Joe Dolson and Amber Hinds. It was previously run by the WordPress core Accessibility Team through the WordPress Foundation but organizers are running it independently this year for ease of planning.</p>



<p>Sessions will be focused on promoting and learning website accessibility best practices for WordPress websites.</p>



<p>&#8220;We aim to enhance the collective knowledge of accessibility for all WordPressers<strong> </strong>and provide advice and tools that will allow more and more accessible WordPress websites to be created (or remediated),&#8221; organizer Isla Waite said.</p>



<p>The call for speakers is open and it offers a great opportunity for sharing your accessibility knowledge with a global community of WordPress enthusiasts. Organizers are aiming for a single track of 26-28 presentations.</p>



<p>Talks will be 40 minutes with 10-minute Q&amp;A at the end. A few hours will be dedicated to Lightning Talks, which are under 15 minutes long. Organizers are also open to people submitting panels with multiple speakers for a 50-minute session.</p>



<p>The event plans to compensate speakers with &#8220;a modest honorarium,&#8221; with the final amount dependent on fundraising. Speaker applications will remain open until August 8th, 2022, and applicants will be notified by September 15, 2022.</p>



<p>Organizers have also opened the <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/call-for-sponsors/">call for sponsors</a> so they have the opportunity to reach as many people as possible and pay speakers for their time.</p>



<p>&#8220;This year, in addition to providing live captioning, we’re hoping to also have American Sign Language Interpretation during presentations, and budget for post-event transcription to ensure all videos on the WP Accessibility Day YouTube channel have accurate captions,&#8221; organizer Amber Hinds said.</p>



<p>Sponsor packages range from $500 to $3,000 so organizations of all sizes can be a part of supporting the event. Individuals can also <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/participate/volunteer/">volunteer</a> or <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/consider-donating-to-support-wp-accessibility-day/">donate</a> to help the event reach its financial goals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 17:42:13 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 13.7 Expands Custom Template Capabilities, Adds Estimated Reading Time to Info Panel";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136412";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:114:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-7-expands-custom-template-capabilities-adds-estimated-reading-time-to-info-panel";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4195:"<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/">Gutenberg 13.7</a> was released this week with major updates to full-site editing (FSE) capabilities that <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41875">expand custom template creation</a>. Users can now create templates for custom taxonomies, specific terms, and single categories and tags. The update also includes the ability to create templates for specific pages.</p>



<p>Clicking on &#8220;Add New&#8221; template and selecting Category will launch a new modal where users can select a specific category: </p>



<img />



<p>In a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/21/core-editor-improvement-deeper-customization-with-more-template-options/">separate writeup</a> about the expanded custom template capabilities, Automattic-sponsored contributor Justin Tadlock  gave a walkthrough of the template creation process and summarized the continued work on this arm of FSE features.</p>



<p>&#8220;There are tons of use cases for these types of templates, only limited by what their creators want to build,&#8221; Tadlock said. &#8220;For example, a user might want to show a grid of posts for a specific &#8216;photography&#8217; category but not change the default list style for others. A restaurant owner might remove the site’s default sidebar on the &#8216;menu&#8217; page to let photos of the dishes take center stage.&#8221;</p>



<p>All of these additions put more control of the CMS into users&#8217; hands than they have ever had in the earlier days of WordPress. Creating a custom template for a taxonomy or for a specific page would have been a task for which most users would have needed to hire a developer. Now anyone can create custom templates with just a few clicks inside the Site Editor.</p>



<p>Category customization is also the subject of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/11/fse-program-testing-call-15-category-customization/">latest round of the FSE Program&#8217;s testing</a>, closing on August 1. The test focuses on guiding users through exploration of the general Category template and the new template picker design introduced in Gutenberg 13.6. Each testing call comes with a structured way to explore beta features along with specific questions to answer during the process.  It&#8217;s essentially a guided way to contribute to WordPress that allows people of all abilities to shape the user experience with their feedback.</p>



<p>Gutenberg 13.7 also introduces a new &#8220;<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41611">Time to read</a>&#8221; count that users will find in the information panel at the top of the editor. It estimates the time to read for pages, posts, and custom post types.</p>



<img />



<p>Gutenberg&#8217;s block locking feature already offers quite a bit of granular control, but this release <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41876">expands these capabilities</a> to allow for locking all the blocks inside a container (Group, Cover, and Column blocks) with one click. </p>



<img />source: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/">Gutenberg 13.7 release post</a>



<p>Other notable improvements in 13.7 include the following:</p>



<ul><li>Updates modal design for Preferences screen and other screens to reduce noise, add background blur, and make design more consistent &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/40781">PR #40781</a></li><li>Adds &#8220;Use featured image&#8221; to Upload and Media Library options in the placeholder for a new Cover block &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41722">PR #41722</a></li><li>Adds text decoration support to post title block &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/42328">PR #42328</a></li></ul>



<p>This release includes 167 PRs thanks to contributions from 58 people. For a full breakdown of all the changes and bug fixes, check out the full changelog in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/">release post</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 16:55:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits: Do the Woo is Heading to WordCampUS in San Diego + Hosts + Guests";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72521";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://dothewoo.io/do-the-woo-heads-to-wordcampus-2022/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:434:"<p>As I head to San Diego, I will find several hosts and even more past guests attending and ready to take on the next WordCampUS.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/do-the-woo-heads-to-wordcampus-2022/">WooBits: Do the Woo is Heading to WordCampUS in San Diego + Hosts + Guests</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 09:48:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordPress.com Ends Recent Pricing Experiment, Reverts to Previous Model";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136414";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-ends-recent-pricing-experiment-reverts-to-previous-model";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2538:"<p>WordPress.com has ended the pricing experiment it began at the beginning of April. The company announced today that it is rolling back its <a href="https://wordpress.com/pricing/">pricing</a> structure to the previous model, which offered five plans, including the free tier. </p>



<img />WordPress.com&#8217;s updated pricing table &#8211; July 21, 2022



<p>A few months ago, WordPress.com pared back its pricing table from five to just two plans (Free and a $15/month Pro plan) as <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-makes-major-unannounced-pricing-changes-slashes-free-storage-limits">a major unannounced change</a>, slashing free storage limits and imposing a traffic ceiling. After nearly two months of <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-increases-traffic-and-storage-limits-on-new-plans-after-overwhelmingly-negative-feedback-on-initial-rollout">overwhelmingly negative feedback</a>, the company added a new $5/month Starter plan to bridge the gap between Free and Pro, but even this entry level plan didn&#8217;t remove ads. </p>



<p>The changes were not clicking with users and many of them announced plans to move away from WordPress.com to new platforms. The company claims it was responding to feedback in reverting to the previous pricing model, but after 15 weeks of running the experiment, they likely had enough data to force the decision.</p>



<p>&#8220;As we began to roll out our new pricing plans a couple of months back, we took note of the feedback you shared,&#8221; Automattic VP of Content Michael Pick said in the new pricing <a href="https://wordpress.com/blog/2022/07/21/changes-to-our-pricing-plans/">announcement</a>. &#8220;What we heard is that some of you missed the more granular flexibility of our previous plans. Additionally, the features you needed and pricing of the new plans didn’t always align for you.&#8221;</p>



<p>WordPress.com also emailed its customs about the availability of add-ons for à la carte upgrades for features like access to premium themes, removal of ads, and custom CSS. Notably missing was an add-on for storage upgrades, which multiple customers expressed in the comments that they are eager to have.</p>



<img />



<p>Customers reacted positively to announcement of the pricing reverting back and several thanked the company for taking their feedback seriously. WordPress.com confirmed that customers who switched to the previous Starter and Pro plans will be able to remain on those plans indefinitely with auto-renew if they choose.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 02:44:26 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"WPTavern: WordPress Themes Directory Launches Pattern Previews in Beta";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136410";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-directory-launches-pattern-previews-in-beta";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3179:"<p>Meta contributors have turned on a new feature in WordPress.org theme listings that allows visitors to preview themes&#8217; bundled patterns. A grid displaying the patterns is now shown underneath a theme&#8217;s description and tags. These are automatically fetched from any theme that registers patterns and works for both block and classic themes.</p>



<img />Patterns included in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/zeever/">Zeever</a> theme



<p>Clicking on a pattern will launch it within the theme preview. Visitors can see what it looks like within the context of the theme but cannot manipulate it or customize it.</p>



<img />



<p>Automattic-sponsored Meta Team contributor Steve Dufresne published a short <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/07/21/pattern-previews-for-themes-in-the-directory-beta/">announcement</a> of the pattern previews moving into beta, with a request for feedback from theme authors.</p>



<p>&#8220;From a technical standpoint, the pattern preview screenshots are generated by adding patterns into whichever template handles &#8216;page&#8217; rendering,&#8221; Dufresne said. &#8220;If you think the pattern preview isn’t rendering properly, try adding the pattern to a page in your theme (as a user would). If the screenshot differs significantly from what you see, please open a&nbsp;<a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">meta ticket</a>&nbsp;so we can take a look.&#8221;</p>



<p>Elma Studio co-founder Ellen Bauer noted that the preview does not render third-party blocks and opened a <a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6420">ticket</a> to track this issue. Patterns that require WooCommerce or another plugin will not display correctly. Bauer said the patterns for their <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/aino/">Aino theme</a> do look as intended, because they use the <a href="https://ainoblocks.io/">AinoBlocks</a> plugin.  Unless this can be resolved, relying on a plugin to provide a theme&#8217;s patterns may be a drawback for theme authors whose primary distribution channel is WordPress.org.</p>



<p>Another quirk at the moment is that patterns designed to be full-width or wide width may not be displaying as intended due to being restricted to the narrower default content size. This issue is in progress and should be resolved soon.</p>



<p>Pattern previews help users get a better picture of what patterns a theme offers and how they might look inside the theme. Feedback has been positive so far, as it gives theme authors another way to showcase the possibilities their themes enable. Themes without patterns are not necessarily disadvantaged by this new preview section, as the Pattern Directory has grown considerably since its launch to host more than 800 block patterns.</p>



<p>This early beta for pattern previews is the result of work on a <a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5995">ticket</a> opened seven months ago requesting a demo for patterns when browsing themes in the directory. The Meta Team requests feedback and bug reports to be filed as a new ticket on <a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">Meta trac</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:17:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"Post Status: Strattic, WordCamps, and Growing through Relationships — Post Status Draft 120";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102273";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://poststatus.com/strattic-wordcamps-and-growing-through-relationships/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:174:"In this episode of Post Status Draft, Miriam talks with Post Status Editor Dan Knauss about her WordPress journey as a WordCamp organizer, agency owner, and web host founder.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Jul 2022 18:37:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Olivia Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46:"Post Status: The Decline of Speed Booster Pack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102241";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"https://poststatus.com/the-decline-of-speed-booster-pack/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:195:"WordPress success stories are great, but this time, you’re going to read about a failure. It’s about the Speed Booster Pack plugin and the depressing, constant decline of its active installs.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Jul 2022 15:30:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Barış Ünver";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"Do The Woo Community: The Future of Blocks with Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72504";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://dothewoo.io/future-woocommerce-wordpress-blocks/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:399:"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack, a Gutenberg advocate, shares her insights into where blocks are headed with WordPress and WooCommerce.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/future-woocommerce-wordpress-blocks/">The Future of Blocks with Birgit Pauli-Haack</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Jul 2022 09:36:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:133:"Post Status: A New Kind of Default Theme, the Performance Team Gets Its Own Site, and the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship Recipients";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102263";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:51:"https://poststatus.com/a-new-kind-of-default-theme/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:224:"A new approach to creating the next default theme has been proposed. • Cache Audit and Site Health Checks • Full-Site Editing Program Calls for Testing Category Customization • Parsell Scholarship recipients announced.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Jul 2022 05:22:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"Post Status: The Unsung Hero of Indie Journalism";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102256";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://poststatus.com/the-unsung-hero-of-indie-journalism/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:352:"Since its arrival in 2019, Automattic's Newspack hasn't attracted much attention within the WordPress community, despite a decent amount of coverage by WP Tavern and some from Post Status. It's been largely unreported on beyond its role as a flashpoint in the recent Twitter drama between Matt Mullenweg and GoDaddy. Even after Matt's explanation in...";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 23:45:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17:"Blake Bertuccelli";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"Post Status: Post Status Picks for the Week of July 18";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102269";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"https://poststatus.com/post-status-picks-july-18-2022/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:581:"Your <strong>Post Status Podcast Picks</strong> of the week include <strong>Seeking Satisfaction</strong> with <strong>Victor Ramirez</strong> on the importance of networking, managing anxiety, and rethinking the way websites are built. <strong>WP Coffee Talk</strong> features the woman with the best personal Wapuu, <strong>Michelle Frechette</strong>, <a href="https://wpcoffeetalk.com/mark-westguard/">talking with</a> <strong>Mark Westguard,</strong> founder of the <strong>WS Form</strong> plugin about his work, the love and opportunity in the WordPress community, and more.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 21:47:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: Bright Mode: A New Block Theme with Vibrant Colors, Patterns, and Custom Block Styles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136338";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://wptavern.com/bright-mode-a-new-block-theme-with-vibrant-colors-patterns-and-custom-block-styles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7687:"<p><a href="https://briangardner.com/">Brian Gardner</a>, founder of StudioPress and co-creator of the Genesis Framework, has a new block theme in the directory called <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/bright-mode/">Bright Mode</a>. The theme features a vibrant color palette with tasteful gradients, 14 beautifully designed block patterns, and so many fun variations tucked into custom block styles. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s difficult to nail down a niche for many block themes, as patterns and templates make them flexible enough to serve just about any use case. Bright Mode falls into this category. It could easily be used as a business or personal website, blog, or portfolio.</p>



<p>If you look closely, you can see subtle hints of Gardner&#8217;s trademark style. It&#8217;s forthright and minimalist with meticulous attention to typography and spacing. The colors are bright but harmonious and balanced, so it doesn&#8217;t preclude Bright Mode from use in professional contexts.  </p>



<img />



<p>Gardner has a unique perspective as one of the OG theme authors from the early days of WordPress theming when everything was just getting started. He helped kick off the commercial theme ecosystem with his Revolution theme and continues to bring that same trailblazing spirit to the new world of block themes.</p>



<p>&#8220;Last summer, I read an article written by Justin Tadlock about block patterns and the pattern directory (which was in beta at the time,)&#8221; Gardner said. &#8220;He linked to it, and I spent a few minutes clicking around. Finally, I saw a pattern I thought was cool and clicked the &#8216;copy pattern&#8217; button. I wanted to see how this all worked, so I opened up a post on my blog and pasted the code. Voila, there it was. At that moment, I knew—the potential of modern WordPress flashed before me.&#8221;</p>



<p>Gardner&#8217;s new theme makes use of patterns to define every section you see in the <a href="https://bg.design/bright-mode/">demo</a>. Bright Mode offers a colorful array of patterns that users can insert into their sites, including a cover image with heading, text, and buttons, multiple testimonials, different query layouts, and multiple footer and header designs. <a href="https://bg.design/bright-mode/">View the demo</a> to see them all in action with sample content.</p>



<img />



<p>Gardner is currently building more patterns to add to Bright Mode&#8217;s collection. He said the ones likely to come next are hero sections, featured boxes, call-to-actions, a link page, and portfolio patterns.</p>



<p>&#8220;I had spent several months iterating on the design for Bright Mode, so I felt the need to accomplish two things: Ship it and leave the door open to adding more,&#8221; Gardner said. </p>



<p>When you first install Bright Mode and click on Customize, it doesn&#8217;t look like the demo. Users would have to insert patterns to make it look closer to the screenshots. I asked Gardner about having patterns inserted in the home page by default to match the demo and he said it&#8217;s a possibility for a future update.</p>



<p>&#8220;As for inserting patterns by default, the only instance that might be useful is the Bright Mode home page, which is merely a welcome pattern, and then the grid loop below,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Of course, as I add more patterns, this could be part of an update.&#8221;</p>



<p>One of the unique features in this theme is the Headings block has a set of fun block styles that create a variety of color gradients for the text.</p>



<img />



<p>&#8220;Accessibility and color contrast were paramount with the design of this theme, so much that I even created the <a href="https://bg.design/bright-mode/colors/">Colors page</a>,&#8221; Gardner said. He aims to inspire more theme authors to make colors a consideration, given that many newly released FSE themes do not have any sort of intentional approach to colors. Gardner has identified a set of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors that are used in different block styles throughout the theme.</p>



<img />



<p>&#8220;The primary, secondary, and tertiary colors pass both WCAG 2.0 level AA and WCAG Level AAA&nbsp;contrast tests for the following: Normal Text, Large Text, Graphical Objects and User Interface Components,&#8221; Gardner said. </p>



<p>Viewing the <a href="https://bg.design/bright-mode/styles/">Style Guide</a>, you can see the colors applied to buttons, quotes, and social icons.</p>



<img />



<p>Bright Mode offers multiple different style options within the Quotes block. They can be plain or have a colored background or a gradient background. Quotes with no background can also have a color gradient underline applied. The nice thing about this is that this can be changed on a per-quote basis and does not have to be the same for each blockquote. Users can have a lot of fun customizing their quotes with different designs.  A few of them are pictured below. When used sparingly throughout the site they are quite striking. </p>




<img />



<img />




<p>One of the aspects of Bright Mode that Gardner said he loves most about the theme is the way the Cover Block is used on <a href="https://bg.design/bright-mode/showcase/">single pages</a>. It pulls the featured image into the Cover block and also offers custom block styles for shadows and full-height options. (The fallback is just a black header with the title). &#8220;I feel as though this really presents what&#8217;s possible with modern WordPress.,&#8221; Gardner said.</p>



<img />



<p>After testing the theme, I was surprised by how many hidden gems there are to uncover in the block styles, and how much creative control users have over every aspect. The only thing I would change is ensuring the home page looks similar to the demo so users feel that they have a solid starting place without having to hunt down the patterns to reproduce the demo. Gardner has a talent for creating aesthetically pleasing patterns and in this case the more diverse set he is planning (portfolio, call-to-action, etc) would enable Bright  Mode to be used in more contexts.</p>



<p>Although many traditional theme authors still have some <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-team-contributors-get-pushback-on-proposal-to-improve-block-themes-visibility-in-the-directory">resistance to block themes gaining more visibility</a> in the Themes Directory, Gardner is privileged to have a day job as a Developer Advocate at WP Engine where he is paid to engage with the community and help users transition to the block editor and full-site editing. </p>



<p>&#8220;Essentially, keeping pace with Gutenberg development and what’s new with WordPress is what I get paid to do,&#8221; Gardner said. &#8220;So naturally, this makes it easy to experiment with themes (like we do with <a href="https://frostwp.com/">Frost</a>) and give back with resources such as our newly launched site for <a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/">Builders</a>. On top of that, I spend my free time at night and on weekends digging deep to see how far I can take things creatively.&#8221;</p>



<p>Bright Mode is the result of his personal explorations into what is possible with block theming. It&#8217;s <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/bright-mode/">available for free on WordPress.org</a> or via the Themes install screen inside the admin. More patterns, templates, and variations will be on the way in future updates to the theme. Bright Mode is among the first <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">100 block themes</a> in the directory, a milestone WordPress.org passed today.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 18:56:36 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:129:"WordPress Foundation: 2022 Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship Recipients: Margherita Pelonara, Simona Simionato, and Pooja Derashri";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:41:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/?p=278971";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:147:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2022/2022-kim-parsell-memorial-scholarship-recipients-margherita-pelonara-simona-simionato-and-pooja-derashri/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1409:"<p><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/2022-kim-parsell-memorial-scholarship-recipients/">This year’s Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship recipients</a> are <strong>Margherita Pelonara, Simona Simionato, </strong>and<strong> Pooja Derashri</strong>, enthusiastic WordPress developers, Meetup and WordCamp organizers, and contributors to the open source project and WordPress community. </p>



<p>These contributors share the passion of empowering people with WordPress. Whether helping women freelancers succeed in business (Margherita), contributing to the Diversity Speaker Training project (Simona), or being the Team Rep for the Training Team (Pooja), these women succeed in their community goals, and it’s an honor to award the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship to them.</p>



<p>The WordPress Foundation created this memorial scholarship in 2015, to honor the memory of longtime WordPress contributor Kim Parsell.</p>



<p>This scholarship provides financial support to a woman who contributes to the WordPress open source project, who would not otherwise be able to attend WordCamp US. <a href="http://wordpressfoundation.org/projects/kim-parsell-memorial-scholarship/">More information on the scholarship, including past recipients, is available here</a>. </p>



<p><em>Thank you to WordCamp US organizer, <a href="https://meetmichelle.online/">Michelle Frechette</a>, for this post.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 16:38:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Cate DeRosia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"WPTavern: #35 – Akshat Choudhary on the State of WordPress Security";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=136255";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/35-akshat-choudhary-on-the-state-of-wordpress-security";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34757:"<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://twitter.com/akshatc">Akshat Choudhary</a>.</p>



<p>Akshat is the Founder and CEO of BlogVault, MalCare, WP Remote and Airlift. These WordPress plugins allow their customers to build, manage and maintain their WordPress websites.</p>



<p>He’s based in Bangalore, India and we begin the podcast talking about the state of the WordPress community there. We know that there’s a lot of WordPress products and services coming out of India, but are there events and meetups like we find elsewhere? We also talk about why Akshat sees it as useful to bring himself and other members of his team so far to attend WordCamp Europe. What’s in it for them and what’s their approach to the return on this investment?</p>



<p>We then move on to talk about Akshat’s journey creating products in the WordPress space. It’s interesting to note that whilst Akshat is clearly great at creating products people wish to use, he’s also willing to admit that much of his success can be attributed to serendipity.</p>



<p>We then get into a discussion of the security landscape and how the products that Akshat and his team make enable site owners to rest more easily. It’s all about backups, site monitoring and firewalls. We go into some of the technical details of how the products work and how they fit neatly into an agency wishing to sell care plans to their website clients.</p>



<p>Are there any downsides to adding additional plugins to WordPress websites and do we run the risk of thinking that if we’ve installed some security and backup plugins, then there’s nothing to worry about? Is this a sensible position to take?</p>



<p>It’s an educational episode with a warm and very amiable guest.</p>



<h2>Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://wpremote.com/">WP Remote</a></p>



<p><a href="https://blogvault.net/">BlogVault</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.malcare.com/">Malcare</a></p>



<p><a href="https://airlift.net/">Airlift</a></p>



Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the state of WordPress security.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast, player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m very keen to hear from you. And hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox and use the contact form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today we have Akshat Choudary. Akshat is the founder and CEO of BlogVault, Malcare, WP Remote and Airlift. These WordPress plugins allow their customers to build, manage and maintain their WordPress websites.</p>



<p>He&#8217;s based in Bangalore India, and we begin the podcast talking about the state of the WordPress community there. We know that there&#8217;s a lot of WordPress products and services coming out of India, but are there events and meetups, like we find elsewhere. We also talk about why Akshat sees it as useful to bring himself and other members of his team so far to attend WordCamp Europe. What&#8217;s in it for them, and what&#8217;s their approach to the return on this investment?</p>



<p>We then move on to talk about Akshat&#8217;s journey creating products in the WordPress space. It&#8217;s interesting to note that whilst Akshat is clearly great at creating products people wish to use, he&#8217;s also willing to admit that much of his success can be attributed to serendipity.</p>



<p>We then get into a discussion of the security landscape and how the products that Akshat and his team make enable site owners to rest more easily. It&#8217;s all about backups, site monitoring and firewalls. We go into some of the technical details of how the products work and how they fit neatly into an agency, wishing to sell care plans to their website clients.</p>



<p>Are there any downsides to adding additional plugins to WordPress websites? And do we run the risk of thinking that if we&#8217;ve installed some security and backup plugins, then there&#8217;s nothing to worry about. Is this a sensible position to take?</p>



<p>It&#8217;s an educational episode with a warm and very amiable guest.</p>



<p>Typically when we record the podcast, there&#8217;s not a lot of background noise. But that&#8217;s not always the case with these WordCamp Europe interviews. We were competing against the crowds and the air conditioning. And whilst the podcasts are more than listable, I hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world we&#8217;re at play.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Akshat Choudary.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Akshat Choudary.</p>



<p>[00:03:52] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Hi, Nathan. Thank you for having me here.</p>



<p>[00:03:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You are so welcome. We&#8217;re sitting in the Super Bock Arena, in a cavernous space underneath the arena. And we&#8217;re gonna talk today a little bit about Akshat, his products, why he&#8217;s turned up to WordCamp EU. First of all though Akshat just give us a little bit of a background. Who are you? Which company, companies I should say, do you represent?</p>



<p>[00:04:11] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Hi, I&#8217;m Akshat, I&#8217;m the founder of BlogVault, actually that&#8217;s the main company. And then we have multiple products. Some of you might have heard of BlogVault is our original product. And then we since then built Malcare. We are also associated with WP Remote, which is for agency, and we have a brand new product coming out called Airlift.</p>



<p>[00:04:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, okay. Tell us what Airlift is.</p>



<p>[00:04:33] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> So, you know, speed is such an important aspect of a website and making a website fast is, it&#8217;s a time consuming and often difficult task. So, we are using technology to make a website really fast with the click of a button.</p>



<p>[00:04:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That sounds amazing. So there&#8217;s four products that you&#8217;ve got. Presumably you&#8217;ve come to WordCamp Europe to find customers, mix, network and all of those kind of things. So I&#8217;m gonna ask you a series of questions about that. Really, it boils down to this. What is the purpose? Why have you come all the way to WordCamp Europe?</p>



<p>[00:05:02] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> It&#8217;s interesting that you mentioned that you&#8217;ve come for customers and acquire customers. And I remember the very first WordCamp I attended so many years ago, and I was in this mode of trying to acquire customers and it was miserable, like the worst possible experience. then I had to step back because WordPress and WordCamps are not, are not suitable.</p>



<p>The community, the event is not, it&#8217;s not your traditional trade conference. When you attend it to just be a part of the community and try and meet people, and over time you can connect the dots, looking back that it has worked out well. So today I&#8217;m here actually, to reconnect with all the friends that I have, after three years.</p>



<p>[00:05:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It is very much a social experience for you?</p>



<p>[00:05:43] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Absolutely. Yeah. And that&#8217;s the most important aspect of it.</p>



<p>[00:05:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What is the main thing that you find yourself doing? So do you attend the talks and sit and chat with colleagues, or do you tend to find yourself on the hallway track, just chatting to random strangers?</p>



<p>[00:05:57] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yeah. Hallway track, I wouldn&#8217;t even say chatting to random strangers because now so many of the folks are just such good friends. Yeah, we go back so many years, so. It&#8217;s mostly about just meeting them again and, hopefully finally in person.</p>



<p>[00:06:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you bring many people from your team or teams I should say? Or is it just you? Is that a difficult decision? Who gets on the plane and who doesn&#8217;t?</p>



<p>[00:06:19] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> We try and have a couple of people join me. In fact, a few times I have also not gone and people from the team have come, so we do it on a, on a round robin basis. So we try and get the entire team to participate in the community and meet the different folks here. Because just again, sitting in India, it&#8217;s very difficult to understand what the community is about. Coming here and interacting and volunteering. Those experiences really give you a sense of what WordPress is about.</p>



<p>[00:06:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just before we pushed the record button, I mentioned some of the things that we may be talking about, and one of them was the community where you are based. So, first of all, where are you based?</p>



<p>[00:06:56] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> So I&#8217;m based in Bangalore in India.</p>



<p>[00:06:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And tell us about the community that may or may not exist there.</p>



<p>[00:07:03] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> So we do have a small community, but it&#8217;s not a very, very active community. And it also makes you realize that while Bangalore is the tech hub of India, you know, it&#8217;s called the Silicon Valley of India. And there are so many people doing tech and I&#8217;m sure there are a lot of people doing WordPress. But we&#8217;ve never really been able to kickstart a healthy community there.</p>



<p>[00:07:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you have any insight into why that is? Is it just that it just never took off or nobody took the responsibility to organize it?</p>



<p>[00:07:28] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> It makes you appreciate the work that the folks who are building these communities are doing, because it&#8217;s a commitment. I think people spend a part of their lives to make this thing happen at each of these local chapters.</p>



<p>I guess, somebody needs to come up with that passion to make it happen.</p>



<p>[00:07:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it is a different experience here than it would be over there?</p>



<p>[00:07:49] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yeah. Significantly different.</p>



<p>[00:07:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> In terms of the event itself, what do you make of this venue? I mean, when I showed up and saw it, I mean I&#8217;d seen pictures, and I thought that looks pretty large.</p>



<p>That looks pretty impressive. And then when I actually got here, this is beyond anything I imagined. It&#8217;s truly enormous.</p>



<p>[00:08:06] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yeah, it is an extremely large, really large venue. And I actually still didn&#8217;t know what to expect until I entered, and the organization is, the way they have organized it with one section going to sponsors another with the tracks, with the actual talks. It&#8217;s a very, very large venue and with a lot of space all around to meet people and to talk with people.</p>



<p>[00:08:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I was looking at a WordCamp and I can&#8217;t actually summon up which one it was, but it was a State of the Word address from. I&#8217;m gonna say it was about 10 years ago. I was watching the video recently and it looked like a cottage industry. It looked as if they were basically in a theater and the signage was all very thrown together. And you compare that to what there is out there, a few yards away from us, it&#8217;s Incredible how WordPress has grown.</p>



<p>And at the moment, as of recording this we&#8217;re in the low forties. So 42, 43% of all websites. You&#8217;ve obviously strapped yourself to the bandwagon of WordPress, which historically has been an amazing decision. I mean, I&#8217;m guessing that you&#8217;re just jubilant about that.</p>



<p>[00:09:08] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yes, no, I&#8217;d consider myself extremely lucky. I wouldn&#8217;t say it was a, it was a well thought out decision as to, yes, I&#8217;m going to get onto this rocket ship. We are extremely fortunate to be a part of the success story that WordPress is.</p>



<p>[00:09:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Very recently, and I don&#8217;t know what your thoughts are on this, because it feels a bit like a Chicken Little story. Recently some statistics came out to show that for the first time ever, the market share for WordPress had actually taken a teeny tiny, nevertheless, a teeny tiny decline had occurred.</p>



<p>And there was lots of people writing commentary about this and saying, well, that&#8217;s interesting. Maybe the growth of a WordPress is over. What&#8217;s your thoughts on all of that?</p>



<p>[00:09:45] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yeah, I think numbers, you know, they can be very confusing and especially the number around market share. It&#8217;s a lot of marketing more than anything else. So, when it&#8217;s going up, it sounds really nice and you know, 45%, but the way you calculate it. I think if you are today creating a business website, or if you&#8217;re creating a personal website, WordPress is the go to place.</p>



<p>You do have a lot of other technologies coming up. So you will see and you&#8217;ll see different things take off. Honestly, I tend to ignore it. I don&#8217;t worry too much about it. And also, I don&#8217;t worry too much about what&#8217;s going to happen with WordPress. So I think every technology has its own cycle it has to follow. And my favorite examples are like Nokia and Blackberry. Those were iconic, massive companies and they disappeared in five years. So when the time comes, it&#8217;ll come, and you can&#8217;t do really do much about it, but until then, yeah, until then let&#8217;s do the most of it.</p>



<p>[00:10:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I think you&#8217;ve probably hit the nail on the head. Nothing is imutable. Everything in its time will cease to be as popular as it once was. Like you said, certain companies like Nokia, I don&#8217;t even know if you can buy a Nokia phone anymore, but certainly in the day they were the only things that you could buy.</p>



<p>Your businesses, the ones that you mentioned earlier, they fit into the sort of client side, client management piece, a little bit. So you&#8217;ve got the ability with BlogVault to be able to migrate your sites. And you&#8217;ve also got the ability to back them up and do security, and all of that Is that the bit where you&#8217;ve pitched your business? Are you sort of aiming them at agencies who are then selling that services, perhaps packaged up in a care plan or something like that? Is that where you are pitching?</p>



<p>[00:11:18] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yes. So we actually have two segments of customers. And in fact, we are sponsoring this WordCamp under WP Remote brand, and that&#8217;s the brand which is targeted towards agencies. Where we take all our products, we are selling that product to agencies. And agencies then who have, which again, is something we have seen over the past few years, the concept of maintenance plans. So agencies manage WordPress sites for the clients, and then they, they use our products to manage large number of sites. And we make it really easy with the backup security, updates and more.</p>



<p>And our job really is to make that job easier. So if you&#8217;re running a business critical website, we make it easy to run that website and make the most out of it. And, we sell to two customer segments. You have agencies who are buying large number of sites, and then you have individual site owners, like small businesses or en enthusiast, so marketing teams. And they are buying it for small number of websites. So yeah, there are two customer segments essentially that we target.</p>



<p>[00:12:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You mentioned security there. Since the last time I met you, which is probably three or four years ago, I think it was probably in WordCamp London or like that. Yeah. It seems like an age ago now. The amount of security news has been truly stratospheric. Every single week there seems to be something. Now whether or not that&#8217;s hype, or it&#8217;s written about because people are interested in, I don&#8217;t really know. I don&#8217;t really have any insight into that.</p>



<p>Obviously the market share of WordPress paints, a bigger target, you know, 42, 43% of the web people are gonna invest time into figuring out what&#8217;s vulnerable there. Have you noticed that? Is that a trend? Do we need to be more concerned this year than we were last year about the security of WordPress? And do we need to have things to mitigate? Obviously I&#8217;m sure you would say yes, because you&#8217;ve got all the solutions provided for that, but what&#8217;s your thoughts of the state of security in WordPress?</p>



<p>[00:13:03] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yes. So, I think the security is obviously a moving thing and there&#8217;s never, there&#8217;s no such thing as absolute security. Right. So it will never be in a state where we&#8217;ll be like, okay, fine. Everything is secure. Everything is good. You&#8217;ll always need to be wary of it. And especially when you look at something like WordPress, which has such a thriving ecosystem around it. So then security is not limited to one small thing, but it&#8217;s spread all over the ecosystem, right?</p>



<p>So every aspect of it needs to be secure, and which becomes so much more difficult to do. As you have more plugin, more themes, and as this ecosystem also expands it adds a lot more complexity to the whole WordPress security concept. So that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s very, very important to understand.</p>



<p>In fact, if you go back to Windows, days when Windows was considered extremely insecure and while Windows also had its own challenges, a lot of the security challenges came from drivers and all the stuff that you were built using on top of Windows. That&#8217;s a similar concept or we can draw similar analogy to WordPress.</p>



<p>So while WordPress, the core itself gets more and more secure over time, and we have seen that evolve, and I think there&#8217;s so much noise around, you know, like people get offended like, oh yeah, WordPress is insecure. No, no WordPress is actually secure, but then the plugins are insecure. But you open a website, you go into the WP admin and you see they have 20 plugins and there&#8217;s somebody willing to add a 21st plugin because you need to get something done.</p>



<p>So at the end of it, when you&#8217;re using WordPress with all these plugins and yeah, I would venture to guess that what, some of the reasons why some of the biggest websites use WordPress is also because of the plugins. Because it gives you that flexibility. So there&#8217;s always going to be more plugins added to websites, more complexity added there. And that means security is always going to be a challenge. You can&#8217;t take it for granted.</p>



<p>[00:14:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What with 50,000 plus plugins in the repository, plus all of the commercial ones, which are countless, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s a number equal to that, possibly bigger. How do you even begin to keep on top of that? Is this just a case of your reading other blog posts about security and your getting information from databases? How do you on the BlogVault side of things and the Malcare side of things, how do you know what needs to be patched and when it needs to be patched?</p>



<p>[00:15:09] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> So we do keep a close eye on what&#8217;s happening in the security space. Our approach to security is not to be on top of everything that&#8217;s happening in the security. We look at it from a first principle perspective. As to how do sites really get hacked? What happens when they get hacked? What causes them to be hacked? What do vulnerabilities look like? So not specific vulnerability, because there are so many plugins.</p>



<p>And you&#8217;ll see this so often, you know, you&#8217;ll see a vulnerability getting declared. Suppose a vulnerability gets declared today. You&#8217;ll see that it&#8217;s been exploited for years before that or months before that. So declaring vulnerability versus where with announcement is made was the actual exploit. So that, that we believe is not the right way of securing. So we don&#8217;t really try and be on top of every single news. Obviously we do it out of interest, but not as a mechanism to secure websites. So we take a more fundamental approach as to why do websites get hacked? What happens when they get hacked and then try and patch it or try and secure it from that principle.</p>



<p>[00:16:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, let&#8217;s drill down into that a little bit more then. So what does that mean? Because, it may be confusing to people listening. So if you&#8217;re not finding the vulnerabilities and setting up. I presume there&#8217;s like a firewall piece in all of this. So tell us about that, how it works, how does it stop traffic getting into the website?</p>



<p>[00:16:21] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> This is actually a very, very fascinating topic and this is something which is close to our heart. And, I would venture to say, I mean, like we know that things can be improved significantly, and we are far from reaching the final vision. We can always, we can see month by month we are moving towards this final vision.</p>



<p>So WordPress security, again, there&#8217;s so much noise out there, you know, and I may dare to say there&#8217;s a lot of snake oil being sold also. And that just makes it so much more difficult because you will find some of the most credible people out there, unfortunately spreading misinformation, not willfully. Just because the whole space is so noisy, and so confusing..</p>



<p>Having said that, we believe firewall is one of the best ways of protecting a site. Let&#8217;s look at like different ways sites get hacked and there are numerous. I&#8217;ll just take a few examples to show you what happens. For example, one type of exploit, and this is actually happens much more often than you would think, is it lets you change the URL within the database of the site.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s actually a very simple operation. One way you can block it is you look at any request that caused that specific operation to get updated and just block it out. If it is not done with appropriate privileges. And that&#8217;s one example of how you can mitigate an attack type. So that just shows you that that&#8217;s one way.</p>



<p>There are others. Like we, we know the famous OS SQL injection attacks, which try and exploit vulnerabilities while accessing the database. There&#8217;s a whole amount of literature out there as to how to block SQL injection attacks and we can tap into those rules to block out SQL injection attacks. So as soon as you do that, you have saved yourself from a whole bunch of vulnerabilities that affect a lot of websites.</p>



<p>[00:18:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just before we keep going, I&#8217;m curious because a lot of people who listen to this may have only a glimer of an understanding of how WordPress works. So, how does a firewall in fact work? How do you get in front of things before it hits the website and sniff it and say, okay, this is clearly not supposed to happen. Let&#8217;s just drop this. Let&#8217;s make this not happen. How does that even work? What&#8217;s the process that you are interrupting that would normally happen if there isn&#8217;t a firewall there?</p>



<p>[00:18:26] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> All right. So firewall again, there are multiple types of firewalls and multiple levels at which firewalls get deployed. You have cloud based firewall, something like Cloudflare or a Sucuri, which is a very popular WordPress plugin, WordPress security. solution. They have, basically they have a cloud based solution where when someone visits your website, it reaches their servers first. And then it passes through their firewall servers.</p>



<p>Ours is more of a plugin based solution. So, we attach yourself inside your website through a plugin. And what we do is we, and there are multiple ways of doing it, but, depending on the type of hosting you in, we&#8217;ll be the very first set of, scripts or code to load even before WordPress loads. What we are doing is common with, Wordfence does also a similar takes, a similar approach.</p>



<p>Right, so every request is then parsed. Identified. We classify the request as to look at all the parameters that happens in the request. We classify, what looks like a good request versus a bad request based on rules. And we have a whole number of rules, which evaluate, and we see, okay, that looks funny. That should not happen. That looks like a SQL injection attack. That looks like a XSS attack. And we identify using patterns. And then we block them.</p>



<p>There are some more complex ones. Like the one I spoke about where a URL gets updated. There we actually sit deep inside WordPress and we let WordPress load. But in case an operation to modify WordPress takes place, which it should not happen normally, then this piece of code will kick in. And that&#8217;s the advantage of having a plug-in based solution because, you now understand how WordPress functions and then tap into that knowledge.</p>



<p>There are other solutions, maybe like a Cloudflare where they don&#8217;t really understand WordPress and they have taken a more of a generic, good, best practices of blocking attacks. And they&#8217;re also effective. But I think when you understand WordPress, when you understand this application so well, you can do things in a manner which, yeah which can improve the security of a WordPress website.</p>



<p>[00:20:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You mentioned that you&#8217;re getting in the way sometimes, you&#8217;re the first thing that&#8217;s happening and so on. People, again, listening may thinking, oh, okay, that sounds like an extra step. And if there&#8217;s an extra step, is that gonna slow things down? Because there&#8217;s something that&#8217;s got to be inspected before it&#8217;s passed through the firewall and allowed to happen. Typically, are you pretty confident about if you put these things in place, you&#8217;re not really gonna see a significant drop in the amount of time it takes to get the first bite or whatever.</p>



<p>[00:20:57] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Right, we take a great deal of care to make sure that it doesn&#8217;t really slow it down. But again, you need to go deeper into how WordPress functions and you realize that there are so many layers to what causes a WordPress site, what impacts the performance of a WordPress site. And you will see that the PHP pieces and especially the kind of operations we deal with is multiple order of magnitudes faster than the slowest operation, which might be a database query. And while a WordPress request is served. There are numerous database queries being made.</p>



<p>So in comparison to that, this might be, so if that takes a thousand milliseconds, let&#8217;s assume, this operation might take one millisecond, two milliseconds. So it just dwarves in front of everything else that&#8217;s happening. Obviously we need to always make sure that this thing does not exceed one or two milliseconds or a few milliseconds, but the difference is so large that you will never notice the impact of it.</p>



<p>And again, there&#8217;s so much confusion around it. That having a working model around this is not straightforward, and it&#8217;s very easy to be like, oh, this will slow down my website, but how will it slow down what&#8217;s happening? And that complexity is, I think the communication around that has not been great.</p>



<p>[00:22:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Another concern that people may have is because you said, your setup, it has to make judgments about whether this should be passed through or not. This is malicious, or this is not malicious. How easy is it for that system to fail and throw false positives and to erroneously apply the ban hammer to things which should be allowed to pass through. Typically, I&#8217;m guessing that, you get better at that over time.</p>



<p>[00:22:29] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> It does happen, but it&#8217;s fairly rare. So again, pattern matching is not an exact science, right? It&#8217;s like finding, you know, on a street finding a, a rogue character or a thief by looking at typical characteristics. Yeah, that does happen, but it&#8217;s fairly rare and we try and take a lot of steps to always improve our rules around it. And it&#8217;s a work in progress. I wouldn&#8217;t say it never happens. I almost think that nobody should promise it that way.</p>



<p>[00:22:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So four products in the suite. You&#8217;ve got WP Remote, Malcare, BlogVault, and&#8230;</p>



<p>[00:23:00] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Airlift.</p>



<p>[00:23:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Airlift the brand new one that you mentioned at the beginning. All kind of representing security and client management and what have you. Tell us about what you&#8217;ve got planned? If we were to come back, WordCamp Europe, what may we see? What exciting new things have you got up your sleeve?</p>



<p>[00:23:16] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> First we are heads down focused on these four things and they&#8217;re each actually very big products just by themselves. Our overall aim is to keep doubling down on these and spend a lot of energy making them perfect. When I started BlogVault a few years ago, I thought it was like a six week project. And even today I&#8217;m finding ways of improving it. So at least we want to make sure that we are focused on these four things and making it work seamlessly and just keep improving it, because it&#8217;s a very time consuming process to build a great product.</p>



<p>[00:23:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So the roadmap is more about getting it more refined rather than adding feature upon feature upon feature?</p>



<p>[00:23:52] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yes, it&#8217;s always about, and that&#8217;s my learning over time, that you need to focus on just improving the functionality, existing functionality instead of adding new things. And it&#8217;s so easy to, you know, as builders, it&#8217;s so easy to get distracted and be like, oh, well there&#8217;s this nice little shiny thing a customer&#8217;s asking for it. Let&#8217;s just build it out. Which is almost how Airlift got started, because we also had so much to do on Malcare and WP Remote, BlogVault. But we are like, okay, that looks like an interesting problem, which we can solve. But hopefully we are going to be focused only on these four things.</p>



<p>[00:24:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it does feel as if there is quite a lot of that. What I mean by that is that features get added year on year. That seems to be the email that comes through is that we&#8217;ve got this great new feature. That&#8217;s why you need to check us out. It&#8217;s quite an interesting and different approach for you to reject that and say, actually the product that we&#8217;ve got is pretty solid. We just wanna make it more solid and there probably won&#8217;t be a great deal of new features going in, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:24:43] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Yes, and you know, customers, the best customers, really value quality over the number of features. So the, the best website they want, like, okay, fine. I need it to be as reliable as it gets. And that&#8217;s actually been the biggest selling point for us. And, it&#8217;s easy for me to talk about it like this. The thing is the monkey in the head is always like, let&#8217;s chase this new feature. But the learning is that you need to keep improving it. And the best customers, the people who pay us the most people who, who we want to put on the website, you know, on our marketing site, like the logos, they want the most reliable, the most efficient, the best product out there.</p>



<p>[00:25:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just before we wrap it up, a few minutes ago, you said something about the fact that you thought that, maybe it was BlogVault, I don&#8217;t know which one you were working on, was gonna be a six week project. So let&#8217;s rewind. Akshat, your life to that moment where you thought you were gonna build it and to where you are now and how life has changed. It must be quite an exciting thing to look back on. You&#8217;ve had a really remarkable journey from building a product that you had no particular expectation would take off. And then it really, really did take off and, and here we are now sat in a room in WordCamp Europe in Portugal, 2022. It&#8217;s been a very good journey.</p>



<p>[00:25:53] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Absolutely. Like I just look it, I consider again, and I have mentioned this so many times to different people, is I consider myself extremely, extremely fortunate. Especially like we spoke earlier, the WordPress bandwagon, the, and if I may call it that, but the success story of WordPress. I was so lucky to latch onto it at that point of time and just grow with it. And I&#8217;ve grown as a person also through this journey. Because the person I was then versus the person I am now are vastly, vastly different.</p>



<p>[00:26:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Mmm. Akshat Choudary we&#8217;re gonna end it there. Thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate it.</p>



<p>[00:26:28] <strong>Akshat Choudary:</strong> Thank you, Nathan.</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"HeroPress: Success Looks Different On Everyone, I Guess";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=4621";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:160:"https://heropress.com/essays/success-looks-different-on-everyone-i-guess/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=success-looks-different-on-everyone-i-guess";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16681:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/071922-min.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: In every way, WordPress is at the heart of my newfound success, regardless of how or when it happened." />

Here is Donna reading her own story aloud.




<p>At the age of 62, I finally feel like I’ve found success, and I hope I wear it well. It doesn’t wrap me in the look I’d imagined, however. It feels like quality material, sure, but not ostentatious or high-falutin’ or fancy-pants. (Well, maybe there’s the occasional fancy-pants aspect of it, which I’ll be sure to mention at the end of the story). </p>



<h2 id="h-what-is-success">What is Success?</h2>



<p>One of the definitions that Merriam-Webster presents for the word “success” is “<em>the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence</em>.”</p>



<p>My definition of success has always been to live free of poverty. I don’t ask much of success. Just the vision of a life without the constant weight of poverty wrapped around a person’s neck is enough for me to define that life as successful. But of course, there are many ways to define success, and I suppose that makes a big difference in how people view their own lives.</p>



<p>I’m a late bloomer to my version of success, although most people would have assumed I’d been this successful for decades. </p>




<blockquote>
<p>But in every way, WordPress is at the heart of my newfound success, regardless of how or when it happened. </p>
</blockquote>




<p><a href="https://donnacavalier.com/one-womans-journey-towards-wordpress/">I’ve told parts of my story before</a>. In that telling of my tale, what you won’t find is any indication that I was poor &#8211; miserably poor &#8211; throughout most of it. For years, I’ve joked to my family that I’m great at becoming “industry famous” but terrible at earning money at it. At one time, I was one of the premier Cold Fusion developers in the world, though I doubt CF’ers would remember me all these years later. After that, I was a well-known SEO, although I went by a “forum name” at the time, so my name now isn’t recognizable except to those I’m still friends with. And while I wasn’t necessarily ever WordPress-famous, I wasn’t invisible in the community either. </p>



<p>The main reason I was industry famous each of those times was that I spent a lot of my time in the forums or communities where everyone hung out. In my time there, I gave back every chance I got. I’d generally learned my craft from those same types of communities, so once I had obtained valuable knowledge, I answered questions and helped people learn there. Eventually, I would end up being a moderator in most of those communities.</p>



<p>So if success is defined by <em>eminence</em>, as Merriam-Webster suggests, or the level of recognition you get from your peers, or the amount of respect you earn from those you mentor, then I was very successful throughout much of my adult life. </p>



<h3 id="h-eminence-does-not-equal-wealth">Eminence Does Not Equal Wealth</h3>



<p>Despite that version of success or what I called “industry fame,” I could never afford to use any “pro” plugins or tools that weren’t free. </p>



<p>I’ve never owned a copy of Photoshop in my life. (I take that back. A friend gave me a nulled version once &#8211; a really old version &#8211; but I was too paranoid and “law-abiding” to ever use it). Even though my job as a web designer pretty much required the use of Photoshop, I had to settle for <a href="https://gimp.org">Gimp</a>. Priced at somewhere around $600 (if I remember right), Photoshop was about $599 too expensive for me. If a client handed me a .psd file, I’d ask industry friends who owned Photoshop to turn it into a format I could import into Gimp. Of course, that meant there were many Photoshop files I couldn’t work with at all if I needed to access some aspect of the file that Gimp didn’t support. In those cases, I had to turn the job down.</p>



<p>SEO was made more difficult without money to spend. Paying even $20 for an SEO tool that would make my work easier was never an option. If it wasn’t free, it didn’t happen. Occasionally, I’d get lucky and win the use of a tool during an online giveaway. You have no idea how excited I’d get when that happened. It always felt like I’d won the lottery.</p>



<p>I did attend as many SEO conferences as I could over the years. Industry acquaintances who believed I needed to be there generously paid for some of those conferences. I am forever grateful to those people. Some I managed to scrape up enough money to attend, especially if they were reasonably close to where I lived. </p>



<h3 id="h-where-did-i-go-wrong">Where Did I Go Wrong?</h3>



<p>So why was I so poor? Why did my version of success elude me for so long? I’m not sure I know all the reasons for that, but I’d like to share some of the reasons that I do know. Some may be helpful to anyone in the same situation; others were personal and unique to me (perhaps).</p>



<p>Let’s start with the most obvious.</p>



<p><strong>Imposter Syndrome</strong>. I did graduate from college with a B.S. in English Education. Back in my day, women were expected to do “women’s type of work,” such as teaching. I really wanted to study Computer Science, but the head of the CS department told my mom that it would probably be too hard for me, so Mom convinced me not to do that. (My mom loved me very much, and I’m sure she thought she was saving me from failure or something, but she was wrong to not trust in me). I graduated and never worked as a teacher a day in my life. (At least not in a formal school situation. Most of my life has been dedicated to teaching others how to do things, however). So instead of teaching, I moved to California, worked as a data entry person for years, and slowly began to teach myself how to code. In those days, we didn’t have an internet filled with free courses to learn from. I would occasionally find an old “How to code in Fortran” book, or something similar,  in someone’s garage sale. But no matter how much I learned, I was always missing some sort of fundamental knowledge that I assumed had been taught in formal education. And I always knew I wasn’t as good as all those people who had that education. That prevented me from ever trying to apply for “real jobs” in the IT or future web-related industries. </p>



<p>Why else did I take so long to get to this level of success? A few reasons:</p>



<ul>
<li><strong>Under-charging</strong>. Hand-in-hand with imposter syndrome, not charging enough money for services provided was very typical for me. </li>
<li><strong>Only Serving Poor People</strong>. Just like under-charging, I rarely tried to acquire big, well-paying clients. Of course, my imposter syndrome drove that decision to a large extent, but my own keen understanding of how difficult it was to find success also caused me to have an overwhelming desire to help others do better than me. I jumped on the chance to help someone make their dreams come true, even if they only had $100 to start their business (or less). I would work for peanuts if it meant I could help someone else that didn’t have the means to get help elsewhere. So while imposter syndrome primarily drove those decisions, my desire to help others drove the rest of the way. I had all the knowledge needed to help them learn what they needed to know to succeed, even if I wasn’t succeeding myself.</li>
<li><strong>Relationship mistakes</strong>. When a personal relationship would go bad, I would leave with pretty much the clothes on my back, just to get out of a bad situation without any hassle. Instead of taking the few “valuable” things I might own with me, I would let the abusive partner keep it all. That would mean starting over every time—new furniture, new TV, etc. I could never get ahead because I was always losing it all.</li>
</ul>



<p>There were a few short, successful moments in all those years. Occasionally, I would land a decent client that would pay the bills for a couple of months, and each of those rare occasions would give me the incentive I needed to continue on. I also managed to create a few decent blogs and affiliate sites that I sold for BIG MONEY ($10,000 or so). That was huge and definitely worthy of the “success” label. But that money didn’t lead to more success. Those sales just allowed me to climb out of the abyss of debt I’d gotten into by then.</p>



<p>And here’s the irony of it all. I had a few clients that I helped make LOTS OF MONEY. Millions, even. And while one of those clients paid me well for about a year (and by well, I’m talking about $2,000/month), most of the time, I got paid a few hundred dollars for my time and advice. </p>



<p>So there were ups and downs in the money-earning game. The ups encouraged me to continue, the downs were the day-to-day reality.</p>



<h2 id="h-and-then-came-wordpress">And Then Came WordPress</h2>



<p>My journey with WordPress didn’t immediately bring success, but it made my life of poverty incrementally better with each passing year. Although WordPress initially made my own sites easier to manage and much more engaging, I quickly realized that WordPress was the key to me being able to create websites for others &#8211; and charging for it! I soon realized that I could make a better and steadier income by designing WordPress websites than I could at trying to get SEO clients. Of course, WordPress and SEO were co-partners in my career for quite a few years. I could design a site, add in some SEO services, and offer a nice bundle to clients. </p>



<p>I STILL had the problem of under-charging. That didn’t magically go away overnight, unfortunately. But instead of having maybe 3 or 4 clients a year, I began to get maybe 1 client a month. Small job or not, my income was becoming steadier, and that made a difference. I was poor still &#8211; but less desperately poor.</p>



<h3 id="h-as-an-aside">As an aside: </h3>



<p>In the midst of one particular bad relationship, I decided to &#8211; finally &#8211; utilize my writing skills and write a novel. I imagined this would be the ultimate residual income, right? Write something once, and then live off the sales forever. That might work for the Anne Rices or Stephen Kings of the world, but the reality for people like me is that each book sold nets me around $2, so selling a few hundred (which is typical) means I’d still be poor.</p>



<h3 id="h-back-to-the-wordpress-story">Back to the WordPress story…</h3>



<p>With WordPress, I was able to lose my imposter syndrome. I had the same level of WordPress education as everyone else who dived into learning it. They didn’t get “formal education” in WP either. I was playing on the same field, and that gave me the confidence I needed to excel. To be fair, I didn’t need a formal education for either Cold Fusion development or SEO. And yet, for whatever reason, WordPress helped me see that I belonged in a way that those other platforms did not. I don’t know why.</p>



<p>All of my other issues took longer to shed. I still felt the need to work with mostly poor clients. I still felt scared to seek out the large clients. But gradually, very, very gradually, those issues started to fall away, like shedding bits of old skin. </p>



<p>And to make everything better, I LOVED working with WordPress. I LOVED letting my creativity flow when designing a site. WordPress made my work fun, so even if I wasn’t making a lot of money, I was at least enjoying what I was doing.</p>



<p>Over time, some of that “fame” began to translate into money. I finally allowed myself to take some risks and actually apply for jobs that I would never have applied for in the past. </p>



<p>If you take nothing else from this story, I hope some of you at least take this to heart.</p>



<p><strong>TAKE THE RISK</strong>. Apply for the job or attempt to get the bigger client. Of course, don’t apply for something you know absolutely nothing about. For a job position, don’t assume that you won’t get the job, even though you have the skills and knowledge needed. Instead, give it all you’ve got. Create a kick-ass resume that you edit and refine until it’s perfect. Write a cover letter that showcases why you’d be right for them. Go into interviews prepared. Anticipate questions you’ll likely be asked, and plan out your answers. Be prepared, and take.the.risk. The worst that happens is you’ll not get the job, but you won’t be any worse off than you are right now.</p>



<p>I mention this specifically because taking the risk (twice) is what led me to finally be able to say, “I’ve made it.” I’m a success. </p>



<p>The first time, I noticed a job opening mentioned in a Facebook group for the WordPress plugin I used for every site I designed. I knew the ins and outs of this plugin better than most. The job description sounded perfect for me (documenting the plugin). My first thought: “Wow, this would be perfect for me.” My second thought: “I’ll never get the job.” My third thought: “Oh hell, Donna, just apply for it. Why the hell not?”. I applied. I got the job. My life suddenly changed. I was no longer living in poverty, but I was still very low middle class, I’d say. Everything was still paycheck to paycheck, with nothing left over to either save or spend. But stability had been achieved.</p>



<p>The second time, I received a LinkedIn message from someone who worked at Automattic, suggesting I apply for a job with them. I. WAS. FLOORED. What??? Automattic? THE Automattic? My first thought: “This would be a dream come true.” My second thought: “There’s no way in hell they’d hire me.” My third thought: “Oh hell, Donna, just apply for it. Why the hell not?”. I applied. I got the job. I AM NOW SUCCESSFUL. Bonus: I get to work with amazing people.</p>



<p>My journey to success took way too long. I hope yours is much, much shorter. Hopefully, something in this story might give someone the push they need to shed some of their old skin, let some of the issues holding them back fall away, leaving them with a tiny bit of confidence to take a risk. To trust just a little more in their own abilities and help them realize they have something valuable to offer. To get the bigger client. To charge a little (or a lot) more. To apply for the job.</p>



<ul>
<li>WordPress doesn’t force you to go to college.</li>
<li>WordPress doesn’t require previous experience.</li>
<li>WordPress opens doors for everyone.</li>
<li>WordPress is fun.</li>
<li>WordPress can be your ticket to success.</li>
<li>WordPress was my ticket to success.</li>
</ul>



<p>So I promised I would share some of the fancy-pants bits of success that I’ve obtained. I’ve acquired a lovely home and a nice car. Those are definitely signs of success, but there is one thing that I would truly consider to be “fancy-pants,” and I allowed myself to indulge in it. It was tough to consider myself worthy of spending money on such an item, but I did it.</p>



<p>I used to say that the first thing I’d get if I ever won the lottery would be a live-in, full-time masseuse. I didn’t win the lottery, but I am successful, so I did the next best thing.</p>



<p>I bought myself an expensive massage chair. Yeah, the kind you see in malls? Only this one is even fancier and pantsier than most of those! Specifically, I got the Real Relax Massage Chair, Full Body Zero Gravity SL-Track Shiatsu Massage Chair Recliner with Heat Body Scan Foot Roller from Amazon. It cost me $1600 at the time, though it’s now listed at $1799. I use this daily to relax, de-stress, and work some soreness out of my muscles. </p>



<a href="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image.png"><img /></a>



<p>I still wear jeans or leggings, and mostly conference swag t-shirts, so the way I “wear my success” doesn’t look much different than the way I wore my poverty. But there are signs that I’ve made it. My house. My car. My massage chair. That’s fancy-pants. That’s my version of success. And WordPress is the reason it all happened.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/success-looks-different-on-everyone-i-guess/">Success Looks Different On Everyone, I Guess</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 13:00:24 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Donna Cavalier";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"Do The Woo Community: dev_life snippet: A WooCommerce Project Delivery Process Tip";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72446";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-project-delivery-process-tip/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:394:"<p>To optimize the WooCommerce site project process, consider two to five days frames. Here is why.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-project-delivery-process-tip/">dev_life snippet: A WooCommerce Project Delivery Process Tip</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 09:37:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:121:"WPTavern: WordPress Design Contributors Propose Shipping a Curated Set of Style Variations Instead of a New Default Theme";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136292";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:132:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-design-contributors-propose-shipping-a-curated-set-of-style-variations-instead-of-a-new-default-theme";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3920:"<p>WordPress design contributors are cooking up <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2022/07/19/proposal-a-new-kind-of-default-theme/">a new idea for this year&#8217;s default theme</a> release that would put the spotlight on style variations instead of the theme itself. The idea is rooted in comments that Twenty Twenty-Two designer Kjell Reigstad made last year when introducing the theme:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Themes are in a transition period today, and it seems like this may be a reasonable time to step back and to re-evaluate the annual cadence with which we build default themes.</p><p>Innovations like theme.json, block templates, and block patterns are making theme development far simpler, and are providing new ways for users to customize their sites. There’s reason to believe that the community can leverage all this to build more frequent and diverse theme and customization solutions for our users in the coming years. </p></blockquote>



<p>Instead of creating a new default theme this year, design contributors are proposing creating a curated set of style variations from community submissions. The styles would be applied to a pared back version of Twenty Twenty-Two.</p>



<p>&#8220;What if, instead of emphasizing the theme itself, we highlighted an opinionated set of style variations designed by members of the community?&#8221; Automattic-sponsored design contributor Channing Ritter said. &#8220;We could use Twenty Twenty-Two as the basis for a new theme that’s stripped back and minimal — a blank canvas to let a diverse range of style variations shine.&#8221; </p>



<p>Style variations were <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/03/global-styles-variations-in-wordpress-6-0/">introduced in WordPress 6.0</a> as a way for theme authors to offer some preset design options capable of skinning the site with different colors, typography, borders, spacing, and more, with just one click on a card representing the variation. Reigstad first floated the idea for Twenty Twenty-Two&#8217;s style variations in November 2021.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Last week I built a handful of Twenty Twenty-Two's color + font variations into super-simple child themes. They're really lightweight, and I love the idea of offering folks a drastically different site with one click.<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f389.png" alt="🎉" class="wp-smiley" /><a href="https://t.co/dItIkvvhK9">https://t.co/dItIkvvhK9</a> <a href="https://t.co/rB4CcTfW0A">pic.twitter.com/rB4CcTfW0A</a></p>&mdash; kjellr (@kjellr) <a href="https://twitter.com/kjellr/status/1460270505513082881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>&#8220;It would be interesting to experiment with how opinionated we could make each of the variations,&#8221; Ritter said. &#8220;Maybe one variation makes all typography on the site use a single type size in a monospaced font, while another variation uses <em>many</em> different fonts paired together. I think that pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the style variation format should be the goal — and we can have fun seeing what kinds of things we can come up with in the process.&#8221;</p>



<p>The idea is that the best community-submitted style variations would be selected for a curated collection that would be bundled with the new blank canvas version of Twenty Twenty-Two.</p>



<p>Responses so far in the comments have been overwhelmingly positive and designers and developers have been eager to raise their hands to participate. The discussion has just started in the comments of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2022/07/19/proposal-a-new-kind-of-default-theme/">proposal</a> and contributors are soliciting feedback on the creation of the next default theme.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Jul 2022 03:41:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"WPTavern: Poe: A Bold New Portfolio Theme with 30+ Block Patterns and 10 Style Variations";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136294";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"https://wptavern.com/poe-a-bold-new-portfolio-theme-with-30-block-patterns-and-10-style-variations";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2551:"<p>The WordPress Themes Directory is sitting at <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">99 block themes today</a> and will soon cross a major milestone. This momentum has been driven in part by independent designers like Brian Gardner, Anders Norén, and Rich Tabor, to name a few, who have fully embraced the new era of block themes and are leading the way with a seemingly never-ending supply of inspiration. </p>



<p>Fresh on the heels of <a href="https://wptavern.com/anders-noren-remakes-davis-theme-as-davis-blocks-with-full-site-editing-support">remaking his Davis theme</a> to support full-site editing, Anders Norén has released another free WordPress theme with an opinionated, bold vibe, designed for portfolios and blogs. <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/poe/">Poe</a>, named for American writer and poet Edgar Allen Poe, features bright color combinations and a chunky layout.</p>



<img />



<p>Poe uses Davis Blocks as its foundation and  Norén plans to continue using it as a starting point for future themes, as the theme is lightweight and doesn&#8217;t include any patterns.</p>



<p>&#8220;The new Full Site Editing features in WordPress allow block themes to be really small, and really fast,&#8221; Norén said. &#8220;Poe is no exception. It includes no JavaScript and less than 450 lines of CSS.&#8221;</p>



<p>Poe boasts a large collection of more than 30 patterns that users can mix and match when building layouts. These include unique designs like a work process description with multiple steps, a logo grid with title and description, portfolio filtration formatted as a row of buttons, various hero cover image patterns with buttons and header, call-to-action sections, different blog layouts, various footer designs, and more. With just a few customizations, a site using Poe can look very different from the <a href="https://andersnoren.se/themes/poe/">demo&#8217;s default look</a>.</p>



<img />



<p>Poe also offers 10 different style variations that instantly transform the design with artfully curated color combinations. The typography and spacing are also customized to complement the different styles.</p>



<img />



<p>Although the design is geared towards portfolios with several patterns for featuring past work and clients, the theme can easily be customized to be a blog, agency, or business website.  <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/poe/">Poe</a> is available for free on WordPress.org or it can be added through the admin in the Themes install screen. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 19 Jul 2022 21:33:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"Do The Woo Community: Insights and Tips from Long-Time Woo Product Builder Beka Rice";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72271";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://dothewoo.io/insights-tips-woocommerce-product-builder/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:437:"<p>Beka has been building products for WooCommerce for several years and brings retrospect and perspective to the show about the ecosystem.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/insights-tips-woocommerce-product-builder/">Insights and Tips from Long-Time Woo Product Builder Beka Rice</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 19 Jul 2022 09:58:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:75:"WPTavern: WordPress Performance Team Is Working on a Module for SVG Uploads";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136263";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-performance-team-is-working-on-a-module-for-svg-uploads";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3056:"<p>If you have ever tried to upload an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file for a logo or favicon in WordPress, you may have been astonished to find that it doesn&#8217;t work. There is no core support so users rely on plugins like <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/svg-support/">SVG Support</a> (900K+ installs) or <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/safe-svg/">Safe SVG</a> (600k+ installs) to upload SVG files to the media library and use them like any other image file.</p>



<p>The main advantage of SVG files is they can scale to any dimension without losing quality. They are also compact and SEO-friendly because they are stored in XML text files that can be crawled and indexed.</p>



<p>WordPress contributors have been <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/24251">discussing adding SVG support</a> for more than nine years. It was talked to death with various proofs of concept and no clear path forward, and the ticket eventually became a place where people periodically stop by and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/24251#comment:93">comment</a> that it&#8217;s &#8220;a goddamn tragedy that WordPress doesn&#8217;t support this yet.&#8221; </p>



<p>Despite the format having <a href="https://caniuse.com/?search=svg">nearly universal support across the web</a>, there are security concerns associated with scripted SVGs, where files might contain a malicious script. Without an SVG sanitizer library, users would be uploading SVG files at their own risk. </p>



<p>In the most <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/12/performance-team-meeting-summary-12-july-2022/">recent Performance Team meeting</a>, contributors <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/410">proposed</a> the idea of working on a new SVG uploads module. They are first aiming to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/357">allow users to upload SVG files without scripts</a> and provide an SVG preview in the Media Library.</p>



<p>Although more than a million WordPress users have installed a plugin to add SVG uploads to their sites, none of these plugins are feature plugins. This is why the Performance Team has opted to create a module within the Performance Lab plugin. It allows the team to better test the feature in the wild before proposing it for WordPress core.</p>



<p>Looking at current implementations in plugins, the team found many of them offer more features than the scope of this module would include. The most popular plugins all currently use the <a href="https://github.com/darylldoyle/svg-sanitizer">SVG Sanitizer</a> library, as does <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/svg_sanitizer">a Drupal module</a> and an integration for <a href="https://github.com/TYPO3GmbH/svg_sanitizer">TYPO3 CMS</a>.</p>



<p>Performance team contributors have identified WordPress 6.2 as a realistic goal for proposing the module for core. Anyone who wants to contribute can <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/427">join their efforts on GitHub</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 19 Jul 2022 03:19:41 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"Post Status: It’s not the size that matters…";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=102213";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://poststatus.com/its-not-the-size-that-matters/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:467:"Can WordPress’s heavy reliance on volunteerism be offset or better supported by those most able to subsidize the work of others and their access to events? Do the largest WordCamps serve well, in their current form, as signature industry events that developers, product owners, and investors outside WordPress can recognize as such? Can the upper, middle, and lower markets within the WordPress ecosystem find mutual benefit through the things they share in common?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Jul 2022 23:38:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:75:"Do The Woo Community: Locking Down the Security of a WooCommerce Site Build";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72438";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://dothewoo.io/locking-down-the-security-of-a-woocommerce-site-build/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:409:"<p>What developers should think about when they're building a Woo site in terms of security to lock it down.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/locking-down-the-security-of-a-woocommerce-site-build/">Locking Down the Security of a WooCommerce Site Build</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Jul 2022 11:33:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"Post Status: Maddy Osman on Writing for Humans and Robots — Post Status Draft 119";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=101455";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://poststatus.com/maddy-osman-on-writing-for-humans-and-robots/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:396:"In this episode of Post Draft, Post Status Editor Dan Knauss is joined by Maddy Osman. Maddy is the founder of The Blogsmith, a well-known brand in the WordPress space for quality writing that appeals to your target audience and search engines. Maddy has a new book out that can teach you some of her finely-honed skills. It's called Writing for Humans and Robots: The New Rules of Content Style.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Jul 2022 03:45:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"Gutenberg Times: 99 Block Themes, Block Templates and Gutenberg Nightly at 120k downloads — Weekend Edition 223";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=21583";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:119:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/99-block-themes-block-templates-and-gutenberg-nightly-at-120k-downloads-weekend-edition-223/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24352:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>Next week will be an exciting week, and somehow, I have quite a few events on my calendar. Most exciting is, of course, our next Live Q &amp; A with the team from Pew Research Center! If you registered, I am excited to see you online. </p>



<p>This week brought a few Themes related news,  new themes and also new tutorials on WordPressTV. </p>



<p>Gutenberg 13.7 will be released next week. As release lead, I  made the RC 1 version <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v13.7.0-rc.1">available for testing</a>.  The <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Gutenberg Nightly</a> version  gives you a daily trunk version of the plugin, and it has now crossed the 120k download threshold.  </p>



<p>Enjoy! Be safe over the summer! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>






<div class="wp-container-11 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information">Full-site editing and Themes building</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Themes for Site owners and site builders. </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Block building for Developers</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-new-videos-on-word-press-tv">New videos on WordPress TV </a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-word-camp-europe-talks-and-workshops">WordCamp Europe talks and workshops</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-learn-word-press-videos">Learn WordPress videos</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-s">Upcoming WordPress Events</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-word-camps-around-the-world">WordCamps around the World</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-social-learning-spaces">Learn WordPress Online Workshops</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#9-meetups">Virtual WordPress Meetups</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="0-word-press-release-information">Full-site editing and Themes building</h2>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/3LPU4S"><strong>Alfredo Navas</strong></a> of WebDevStudios invites you: <a href="https://webdevstudios.com/2022/07/05/create-fse-theme/"><strong>Let’s Create an FSE Theme</strong></a> In his tutorial he walks you through all the parts that make a theme ready for Full-site Editing: theme.json, styling blocks, block patterns, and the query loop block. In the second part of the post, you learn how to create a template and how to export the theme. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Anne McCarthy posted the outcome from the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/12/fse-program-pattern-and-template-part-usability-testing-summary/"> </a><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/12/fse-program-pattern-and-template-part-usability-testing-summary/">Pattern and Template Part Usability Testing.</a></strong>, for which Designers were paired with folks from the outreach program. Together they recorded a 15-m<strong>i</strong>nute Zoom call going through one of two tasks: creating &amp; applying a new&nbsp;header or using and customizing patterns.&nbsp; In the summary post,  McCarthy lists the takeaways, the bugs reported and Feature requests. You then can watch the eight videos recorded by teams working on the header and five videos people customizing patterns. </p>



<div class="wp-container-12 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-70-gutenberg-13-7-woo-commerce-marketplace/">Gutenberg Changelog #70 – Gutenberg 13.7, Template Creation Enhancements and First Full-Site Editing Themes in Woo Commerce Marketplace</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job, and special guest: <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong></p>
</div></div>



<h2 id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Themes for Site owners and site builders. </h2>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> has published the 15th call for testing coming out of the FSE-outreach experiments. <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/07/11/fse-program-testing-call-15-category-customization/">FSE Program Testing Call #15: Category Customization</a> </strong></p>



<p>If you want to know what&#8217;s to come next in the WordPress 6.1 release, participating in these calls for testing is the fastest way to learn about the new features and how to use them. This one is especially intriguing as it cuts through the process of setting up a testing environment thanks to the InstaWP tool. Added bonus, experiencing InstaWP in a live scenario 🙂 Big Thank you to <a href="https://twitter.com/vikasprogrammer">Vikas Singhal</a> for providing the space for this call. </p>



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<p>The first WooCommerce Full-Site Editing theme arrived at the marketplace. It&#8217;s call <a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/bonum/">Bonum by ThemesKingdom</a>, a long-time independent theme author. It&#8217;s one of three Block Themes. The other two are <a href="https://themeskingdom.com/premium/noctua-ecommerce-wordpress-theme/">Noctua</a> and <a href="https://themeskingdom.com/premium/aspicio-ecommerce-wordpress-theme/">Aspicio</a>. These are Premium Themes built with ecommerce first in mind. </p>



<p>On their blog, ThemesKingdom published <a href="https://themeskingdom.com/blog/wordpress-block-patterns/"><strong>WordPress block patterns: What they are and why we use them in our themes</strong></a>. </p>



<img /><em>Screenshot: <a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/bonum/">Bonum by ThemesKingdom</a></em>




<div class="wp-container-13 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-image">
<a href="https://dothewoo.io/"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/dothewoo.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Do-the-Woo-horizontal-logo-225x64.png?resize=225%2C64&ssl=1" alt="" /></a></div>


<p>If you are interested in WooCommerce and ecommerce with WordPress, a shout-out to <strong>Bob Dunn</strong> and his team at <a href="https://dothewoo.io/"><strong>DoTheWoo &#8211; a Community of WooCommerce Builders</strong></a> and the eight different Podcast series. </p>



<ul><li>Woo Builders Building</li><li>WooCommerce &amp; WordPress</li><li>Woo Visions </li><li>Woo BizChat</li><li>Woo BuilderBytes</li><li>Woo Roundtable</li><li>Woo Builder Stories</li><li>Woo DevChat</li></ul>



<p><em>Check them all out from the <a href="https://dothewoo.io/series/woocommerce/">Podcast Series page</a></em></p>
</div></div>




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<p>Speaking of the <strong>WordPress Theme Directory</strong>: Any minute how the number of Block themes supporting full-site editing will cross over into three digits, 99 are available at the time of writing this post.  Earlier this week the Meta  and the Theme teams collaborated to add new link to the header of the list of themes. </p>



<p>When you click on the <strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">Block Themes</a></strong> link next to <em>Popular</em> and <em>Latest</em>, you come directly jump to the list of themes which work with all Full-site Editing features. </p>



<p>Sarah Gooding at WPTavern has more about the new link: <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-directory-adds-block-themes-to-filter-menu">WordPress Themes Directory Adds Block Themes to Filter Menu</a></p>



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<p><strong>Anders Noren</strong> published his third Block theme in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/poe/">WordPress Theme directory: Poe,</a> honoring the author Edgar Allen Poe. In his post, <a href="https://andersnoren.se/introducing-poe/"><strong>Introducing Poe</strong></a>, Noren wrote: &#8220;Part of the larger footprint in Poe are the 30+ block patterns, which make it easier for users to quickly create complex site and page layouts. That includes seven different designs for the site header, and five for the footer. Poe also comes with ten different Global Styles variations – a feature introduced in WordPress 6.0 that allow you to change between different theme styles (colors, fonts, spacing) with the click of a button in the Global Styles panel.&#8221; It is Noren&#8217;s third block theme and the 96th Block theme in the directory. </p>



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<p>Another new theme in that list is <strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/axton/">Axton</a> </strong>by the theme shop <em>Catch Themes</em>. <strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> reviewed the theme for the WPTavern in the article: <a href="https://wptavern.com/axton-a-free-block-based-portfolio-theme-with-full-site-editing-support"><strong>Axton: A Free Block-based Portfolio Theme with Full-Site Editing Support</strong></a>. &#8220;The theme boasts more than 15 block patterns, 17 full-site editing (FSE) templates, and nine template parts. Users can showcase their work with Header media, Hero Content, and Featured Content patterns anywhere on the site.&#8221; Gooding wrote. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s also not the first FSE theme by Catch Theme. Last month, they also released <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/catch-fse/">Catch FSE</a> into the directory. <a href="https://twitter.com/sakinshrestha"><strong>Sakin Shrestha</strong></a> posted about its update <a href="https://catchthemes.com/news/catch-fse-1-2-now-comes-with-light-color-style/"><strong>Catch FSE 1.2 Now comes with Light Color Style</strong></a></p>




<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<h2 id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Block building for Developers</h2>



<p>On the newly opened <a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/"><em>Builder Resources site by WPEngine</em></a>, <strong>Nick Diego</strong> wrote an <a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/block-templates/"><strong>Introduction to Block Templates</strong></a>. No, that&#8217;s not a theme term, but  for plugin developers, who provide Block templates to populate a Custom Post Type by default, every time. Block Templates help to standardize content creation. To teach you how to create those  Block Templates is the purpose of this post. For a deep dive, consult the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/block-api/block-templates/"><em>WordPress documentation</em></a>. </p>



<p>Other posts on Builder Resources site cover: </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/colors-gradients-duotones/">Colors, Gradients, and Duotones in Themes</a> by Brian Gardner</li><li><a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/self-hosting-fonts/">Self-Hosting Google Fonts in a Block Theme</a> by Damon Cook</li><li><a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/per-block-stylesheets/">Exploring Per-Block Stylesheets in Block Themes</a> by Nick Diego</li></ul>



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<h2 id="3-new-videos-on-word-press-tv">New videos on WordPress TV </h2>



<h3 id="4-word-camp-europe-talks-and-workshops">WordCamp Europe talks and workshops</h3>



<p>The organizers at WordCamp Europe are chipping away on the <a href="https://wordpress.tv/event/wordcamp-europe-2022/">long list of talks to be uploaded to WordPressTV</a>. FOMO reducer for sure. Although I was right there in Porto, I missed quite a few talks. </p>



<p>Here, I continue the series of Block editor related talks that started in <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/classic-widgets-in-fse-3d-cut-out-image-open-source-theme-designs-and-more-weekend-edition-221/#wceutv">Weekend Edition 221</a> </p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/14/darren-ethier-the-future-of-commerce-in-wordpress-with-full-site-editing/"><strong>Darren Ethier: The future of commerce in WordPress with Full Site&nbsp;Editing</strong></a> This talk focused on the future of commerce and what it could look like with Full Site Editing (FSE). Ethier gave an overview of the commerce landscape as it stands today and explored the impact that FSE could have on commerce in WordPress. The talk included the importance of personalization and customization, what is unlocked by FSE, how the approach to developing solutions for stores changed with the advent of FSE, and the great transition (the road from here to there).</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/13/daisy-olsen-build-your-first-block-theme/"><strong>Daisy Olsen: Build your first block&nbsp;theme</strong></a> </p>



<p>In this 2-hour hands-on workshop you will learn about the files used in a block theme and even create a simple but fully functional theme. Olsen walks you through  the theme.json, Templates, Template Parts and more as you build a simple Block Theme that can be developed further after the conclusion of the Workshop.</p>



<p>Whether you are a seasoned theme developer, a designer, or a WordPress enthusiast that would like to build a theme in a guided environment this workshop will get you started.</p>



<p><strong>BTW </strong>And if you want rather learn more about <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287186211/"><strong>Theme Development Workflows for Different Types of Developers</strong></a>, Olsen is scheduled for an online workshop on Wednesday evening (6pm EDT / 22:00 UTC)</p>



<h2 id="5-learn-word-press-videos">Learn WordPress videos</h2>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/15/nick-diego-builder-basics-designing-advanced-layouts-with-core-blocks/"><strong>Nick Diego: Builder Basics – Designing Advanced Layouts with Core&nbsp;Blocks</strong></a> WordPress is changing rapidly and with each release of Core and Gutenberg, blocks become more and more powerful. Many of the layouts that you can design today were not even possible a few months ago!</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/15/writing-content-with-the-10-text-blocks/"><strong>Writing content with the 10 Text&nbsp;blocks</strong></a> Come join <strong>Ben Evans </strong>as he walks you through the 10 Text blocks in WordPress, and explains why it is important to use different blocks for different types of content.</p>



<p><strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/07/15/explore-the-block-directory/">Explore the Block Directory</a></strong> with Wes Theron. The WordPress Block Directory is a category of free WordPress plugins that provide third-party WordPress blocks for use within the WordPress block editor.</p>




<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>




<h2 id="5-s">Upcoming WordPress Events</h2>



<p><strong>Don’t miss it!&nbsp;<a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">A Block-First Approach at Pew Research Center</a></strong>&nbsp;with lead developer Seth Rubenstein, head of digital strategy, Michael Piccorossi and co-host Anne McCarthy on&nbsp;<strong>July 22, at 11am EDT / 15:00 UTC</strong></p>



<a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw"><img /></a>



<p>November 2 + 3, 2022<br /><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/"><strong>WordPress Accessibility Day</strong></a> &#8211; a free, 24-hour virtual conference focused on building accessible websites in WordPress.<br /><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/participate/speaking-at-wp-accessibility-day/">Call for Speakers opened this week</a>. Deadline August 8, 2022</p>



<p>October 10 – 14, 2022<br /><strong><a href="https://woosesh.com/">WooSesh&nbsp;</a></strong>is a ‘virtual conference for WooCommerce store builders that will help grow your business.’ Event host, Brain Richards, is currently looking for speakers for pre-recorded 25-minutes sessions.</p>



<h3 id="6-word-camps-around-the-world">WordCamps around the World</h3>



<p>September 2 + 3, 2022<br /><strong><a href="https://jinja.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Jinja 2022</a></strong>, about 2 hrs West of Kampala, Uganda. Calls for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers are open now.</p>



<p>September 3 + 4, 2022<br /><a href="https://kathmandu.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Kathmandu</strong></a>, Nepal</p>



<p>September 9 – 11, 2022<br /><strong><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp US</a></strong>&nbsp;in San Diego</p>



<p>September 15 + 16, 2022<br /><a href="https://netherlands.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Netherlands</strong></a>&nbsp;at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.burgerszoo.com/">Royal Burger’s Zoo</a>&nbsp;in Arnhem</p>



<p>September 24 + 25, 2022<br /><a href="https://pontevedra.wordcamp.org/2022"><strong>WordCamp Pontevedra</strong></a></p>



<p>February 17 &#8211; 19, 2022 <br /><strong><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Asia</a></strong>, Bangkok, Thailand<br /><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/">Call for speaker was just published</a>. Deadline: September 15th, 2022 (UTC +7)<br />Contributor Day is planned for February 17, 2023 (Day 1)</p>



<h3 id="6-social-learning-spaces">Learn WordPress Online Workshops</h3>



<p>📢 This week, on Meetup.com the group <em><strong>WordPress Social Learning</strong></em> was renamed to&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://meet.meetup.com/ls/click?upn=SDNnya-2FgLI6CfUa8do8ZdxwmMZo1X4-2FJAciKk82hM7JmMPMy9ZFVnACzeZhvtYvHh5V-2BXxven9dKTYn0RonflvWAgielyGCPTkKxI9vu8VY-3DVfSn_J40Cm482JAfcu64pauD5epBU-2Bh0Rd-2FPWHzdxWXz1rewkAa1qNT6zJlNeHNYZFAj0LnD-2Bb1AhQQSz4XVimu5ikDC6cX-2FUmbVF8AnYG9dIzEgXDCdfBiEgG4Xqt5YhNGo2QdFFYjy-2BsnFMQEGrcARqAUMzfG3H1DBWvJUKAagJnq74HBiTddvHOcxAM93WO7Cp29LikN5IXPSVswD64kaN4RcpMPfdZTvEElD3ej5nClCLV0nUCo2Vni-2F4NgWyt2zMmabHssqepiMaKRNBhH6CBtlto314QdqiveVKWdbBTjTKni0Q-2BHz-2Ff-2F-2BLDMll9pRcUVQfv0iJKaPg4b6EmeNFn5aMKh2VJDAxWwiUzHSw6ju95s8T-2B-2BsoOWDIFXMFsNuqgUcaIuF9t-2BaLvVwHwEXuEP-2BgdloUT3NnXGC2kE9PfaTpZKzvNuTX-2FWrIrheCZ3GsRKbvHKN-2FxVDE6xWkLr38MvwY7ENK92NaTc33A29ibiOAZwl4C-2FTxss2WfqdrIdf3zOBEHJhd41Urt9s3ziG1Gs6DJIzHvaehtMxBz-2Ba5n0S3qi64e1oWOjcagEjum3ZcrC1UFeoSrMwlYnNCsWp1P0k8a6-2B7BB3PrlqgQDXLZeues4Mr1cN16krcnZ-2FIAZMDS5IyNqx1F9-2FsaLbLyKfvjQ-3D-3D" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Learn WordPress Online Workshops</a></strong>. That&#8217;s such an improvement. &nbsp;</p>



<p>However, Meetup doesn&#8217;t do any redirects to all links to upcoming events go stale. So if you followed older links from this site and landed nowhere, I am sorry about it. The list below is updated. </p>



<p>July 18, 2022 4pm EDT / 20:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287072722/">Building With Free Wireframe Templates And Advanced Blocks</a></strong>&nbsp;with Kadence blocks and Maestro Stevens</p>



<p>July 19, 2022 &#8211; 12  pm EDT 16:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287148824/"><strong>The ABCs of Blogging: Basic Blogging (Part One)</strong></a> with Bud Kraus </p>



<p>July 19, 2022 5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/286862262/">Explore the Template Editor</a></strong>&nbsp;with Wes Theron</p>



<p>July 20, 2022 &#8211; 6pm EDT / 22:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287186211/"><strong>Theme Development Workflows for Different Types of Developers</strong></a> with Daisy Olsen</p>



<p>July 21, 2022  &#8211;  9 am EDT / 13:00 UTC<br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287207117/"><strong>Let&#8217;s code! Creating your first WordPress Plugin</strong></a> with Jonathan Bossenger</p>



<p>July 21, 2022 &#8211; 3 pm EDT / 19:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287167244/"><strong>Curating the Editor Experience</strong></a> with Nick Diego &#8211; a walk through the Block Editor Handbook article&nbsp;<em><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/how-to-guides/curating-the-editor-experience/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Curating the Editor Experience</a></em>&nbsp;in a live environment.</p>



<p>July 26, 2022 &#8211; 12 pm EDT / 16:00 UTC <br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287148930/">The ABCs of Blogging: Advanced Blogging (Part Two)</a></strong> with Bud Kraus</p>



<p>July 26, 2022 5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/287048356/">Styling your site with global styles</a></strong>&nbsp;with Wes Theron and Alycia</p>



<h3 id="9-meetups">Virtual WordPress Meetups</h3>



<p><strong>July 20, 2022 7pm EDT / 23:00 UTC</strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/the-ottawa-wordpress-group/events/282146170/"><strong>Gutenberg Blocks for Devs – Part 2</strong></a>&nbsp;with Rick Radko Ottawa Meetup</p>



<p><strong>July 21, 2022 6 pm EDT / 22:00</strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/west-orlando-wordpress-meetup/events/286850309/"><strong>What’s in WordPress 6.0 and in the works for WordPress 6.1</strong></a>&nbsp;with Birgit Pauli-Haack at West Orlando WordPress meetup</p>



<p><strong>July 26 at 6:00 PM EDT / 22:00 UTC</strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/sf-wordpress-users/events/287163862/"><strong>&#8220;Mega Meetup&#8221; &#8211; Block Intro &amp; Project Frameworks</strong></a> with Vito Peleg showing off Atarim.io and with Anne Katzeff providing a Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Gutenberg Blocks.</p>



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<p>Featured Image: Skyline of Nürnberg, Germany in June 2022 by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 16 Jul 2022 16:37:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"WPTavern: WordCamp Asia 2023 Opens Call for Speakers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136241";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-asia-2023-opens-call-for-speakers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1925:"<p>After years of planning and <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-asia-2020-canceled-over-covid-19-concerns">one canceled event</a>, WordCamp Asia 2023 is just seven months away. The event is gaining momentum as organizers were selected earlier this year and the call for sponsors opened last month. </p>



<p>Asia&#8217;s inaugural flagship WordCamp will be hosted February 17-19, at IconSiam in Bangkok Thailand with 1,500 attendees expected. It kicks off with a contributor day followed by two conference days.</p>



<p>Organizers have now <a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/">opened the call for speakers</a> and are looking for &#8220;diverse topics and inspirational stories.&#8221; Prospective speakers who need some inspiration may browse suggested topics, which include everything from development to careers and marketing. </p>



<p>Like many other WordCamps, this event will include long talks (30 minutes plus Q&amp;A) and lightning talks (10 minutes and no Q&amp;A). The schedule will have each long talk in its own hour slot with a 15-minute break between sessions for networking. All sessions will be conducted in English this year.</p>



<p>WordCamp Asia&#8217;s organizers made it clear that they do not intend to approve first-time or inexperienced speakers. A demonstration of prior speaking experience is required. Speakers will need to include at least one video link to a previous talk in their applications. For those who have never spoken at a WordPress event, the organizers recommend applicants get some practice at a local meetup or an <a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/schedule/">upcoming WordCamp</a>.</p>



<p>Organizers are not planning to host any workshops at this time but may open a separate call for workshops if the situation changes. The speaker application deadline is September 15, 2022, and selection announcements will begin November 15, 2022.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 16 Jul 2022 02:45:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"Post Status: Market Size and Market Shares: Thinking Bigger About the WordPress Economy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=101579";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://poststatus.com/market-size-and-market-shares/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:326:"$635.5 billion…That’s "billion," with a “B.” Let's look at the size of the universe inhabited by our market of markets of cathedrals and bazaars: the WordPress ecosystem. How should we think about WordPress's market share or, maybe more accurately, its <em>shares</em>? Are we selling them short and dampening growth?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:02:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"WPTavern: WordPress Themes Directory Adds Block Themes to Filter Menu";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136190";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-directory-adds-block-themes-to-filter-menu";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2378:"<p>This week has been heavy with theme news, as the discussion around <a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6330">improving block themes’ visibility</a> in the directory became heated before the Themes Team landed on a course of action. Meta contributors added a new &#8220;<a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">Block Themes</a>&#8221; menu item to the filter menu on the directory homepage, a solution that some classic theme developers <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-team-contributors-get-pushback-on-proposal-to-improve-block-themes-visibility-in-the-directory">fought tooth and nail to discourage</a> in the ticket over the course of seven weeks.</p>



<p>Clicking on Block Themes displays themes that have the <code>full-site-editing</code>&nbsp;feature tag. Previously, block themes were buried three clicks deep and users had to know how to find them through the feature filter. They are now easily accessible from the directory landing page. </p>



<img />



<p>Although most WordPress themes support blocks in the content editor, the &#8220;block themes&#8221; identifier refers to themes that allow users to edit templates with blocks through the Site Editor.</p>



<p>As the landscape of themes is changing, contributors have been working towards building a shared lexicon for how they refer to themes that support full-site editing. When the team updated the Theme Handbook prior to the WordPress 5.9 release, they settled on using the term &#8220;classic&#8221; for PHP-based themes and &#8220;block&#8221; for those that support full-site editing.</p>



<p>Block themes are about to cross a major milestone in the directory. At the time of publishing there are 99 block themes available, representing roughly 1% of the directory&#8217;s total number of themes. As part of the project’s <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2022/01/21/big-picture-goals-2022/">big picture goals for 2022</a>, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy set 500 block themes as a goal for the community. The number is not even halfway there but the newly released <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-team-releases-new-plugin-for-creating-block-themes">Create Block Theme</a> plugin should give it a boost, as it allows anyone to design a theme in the editor and export it for others to use.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Jul 2022 20:18:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:142:"Post Status: WordPress Certifications, SVG Uploads, FSE Category Testing, Fortnightly NPM updates, Persistent Object Cache and Full Page Cache";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=101531";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-certifications/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:107:"What are your thoughts about WordPress certification? Join the call for testing FSE Category Customization.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Jul 2022 18:42:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits: The Enigma of WordPress and WooCommerce Partnerships";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72423";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"https://dothewoo.io/the-enigma-of-wordpress-and-woocommerce-partnerships/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:448:"<p>A partnership can be misunderstood or simply a mystery. I talk about my experiences while breaking it down into four partnership models. </p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/the-enigma-of-wordpress-and-woocommerce-partnerships/">WooBits: The Enigma of WordPress and WooCommerce Partnerships</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Jul 2022 09:10:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"Post Status: Post Status Picks for the Week of July 11";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=101522";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://poststatus.com/podcast-picks-july-11-2022/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:354:"From WP Tavern's Jukebox, it’s Felix Arntz on WordPress performance and what can be done now and in the future about it. Seeking Satisfaction has Tony Perez sharing his journey building, growing, and exiting Sucuri. The Shop Talk Show hosts a discussion about headless CMS platforms, including WordPress, and a little on WordPress and web components...";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Jul 2022 02:13:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"WPTavern: WordPress Seeks User Input on Homepage and Download Page Redesign Project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136203";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-seeks-user-input-on-homepage-and-download-page-redesign-project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4831:"<p>WordPress.org hasn&#8217;t seen a redesign <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-launches-homepage-redesign">since 2016</a>, when it went from sketches to prototype to live in a matter of a couple weeks. In six years, the software has undergone a metamorphosis by adopting a new block paradigm that should be reflected in its website. Contributors are now looking at giving the <a href="https://wordpress.org/">homepage</a> and <a href="https://wordpress.org/download/">download page</a> a design overhaul that showcases its new capabilities. </p>



<p>&#8220;Since then, WordPress has seen a lot of changes, including the Gutenberg editor, Full Site Editor, block themes, and more,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored marketing team rep Nicholas Garofalo said. &#8220;All of these have revolutionized WordPress in the past few years, and the brand is starting to modernize and evolve as well.&#8221;</p>



<p>Earlier this year WordPress.org <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-news-gets-a-new-design">launched design updates for the news</a> and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2021/10/29/redesign-of-the-gutenberg-page/">Gutenberg</a> pages. &#8220;There’s a ton of room to expand and evolve this look as we turn our attention to other parts of the site,&#8221; Garofalo said.</p>



<p>The designers working on the project are particularly interested in hearing from WordPress.org users about what they want to see on the homepage, which means everyday users are welcome to contribute their thoughts and suggestions.</p>



<p>The Download page <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210106091723/https://wordpress.org/download/">used to prominently feature the download button at the top of the page</a>, but sometime in mid-January 2021, it was pushed further down below recommended hosts. This was presumably to help people who want to set up a self-hosted site but don’t know where to get started but doesn&#8217;t make sense for those who came there to download the software. A transparent approach to redesigning this page would be appreciated, as changes like this are not always publicly documented. </p>



<p>So far, only a handful of full-time contributors have weighed in on the upcoming redesign in the comments of the post.</p>



<p>&#8220;I’d love to see the design showcase the modernization of the site editor and layout capabilities – even going so far as to do things many haven’t seen before, while also taking a moment to use words to describe why WordPress is so important in site-building,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored marketing contributor Dan Soschin said. &#8220;It provides freedom, empowerment, and democracy in publishing. And what’s more, you can be technical or not technical, and still achieve all your goals.&#8221;</p>



<p>Soschin also suggested that the Download page offer more of an explanation on what it takes to self-host WordPress by either posting steps or directing visitors to guides and resources. </p>



<p>Automattic-sponsored design team contributor Javier Arce had a unique idea of making the page with patterns in sections that users can copy and paste into their own websites.</p>



<p>&#8220;Since the website is made using WordPress and it’ll have a refreshed and modern look, I think it would be very cool not only to advertise that fact (&#8216;hey, so this fantastic site you are on right now was made entirely with the software you came here to download!&#8217;)… but also to allow people to grab the patterns used for each section… maybe even from the page itself, in a sort of self-referential nod to the platform,&#8221; Arce said.</p>



<p>Several contributors commented requesting the homepage highlight the community, &#8220;since the vibrant, active WP community is such a huge differentiator,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored marketing contributor Jonathan Pantani said.</p>



<p>&#8220;Aside from the power of the software itself and what it can do, there’s the whole community of people that have been coming together regularly to share in a movement,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored marketing contributor Lauren Stein said. &#8220;This currently feels like it’s downplayed. I think it would be wonderful if it were highlighted more.&#8221;</p>



<p>This project needs more diverse input from contributors across the ecosystem and regular WordPress users who visit the website. If you have thoughts or suggestions, you can<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2022/07/08/project-kickoff-wordpress-org-homepage-and-download-page-redesign/"> comment directly on the post</a> and watch for future discussions on WordPress&#8217; <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/">design</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/">marketing</a>, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/">meta</a> blogs.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Jul 2022 20:07:13 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:118:"WPTavern: WordPress Performance Team Proposes Adding Persistent Object Cache and Full Page Cache to Site Health Checks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136193";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:129:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-performance-team-proposes-adding-persistent-object-cache-and-full-page-cache-to-site-health-checks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1678:"<p>In the near future, WordPress may be able to provide better caching recommendations for site owners. Performance team contributors are <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/13/proposal-persistent-object-cache-and-full-page-cache-site-health-checks/">proposing</a> two new Site Health checks for Persistent Object Cache and Full Page Cache. The modules have been tested inside the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/performance-lab/">Performance Lab plugin</a> and version 1.2.0 has them both in a state the team says is ready for merging into core.</p>



<p>Here is an example of what users might see on the Site Health screen if page caching is not detected:</p>



<img />



<p>The modules are extensible so hosting companies and developers can further customize the output that users see. Performance team contributor Manuel Rodriguez detailed a few ways to use the filters:</p>



<ul><li>Hosts may want to replace the notes to recommend their preferred object caching solution.</li><li>Hosts may want to replace the original link to WordPress documentation with a link to  their own guide.</li><li>Hosts or site owners may want to bypass thresholds and force suggestions, or filter them to determine whether to suggest the use of a persistent object cache.</li><li>Developers can filter the threshold below which a response time is considered good.</li></ul>



<p>The team is targeting WordPress 6.1 for merging the modules into core. The proposed modules are just two of many more planned enhancements and improvements to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/labels/%5BFocus%5D%20Site%20Health">Site Health audits and reports</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:42:16 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"Do The Woo Community: A WooCommerce Migration and Multisite Case Study with Multidots";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=72408";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://dothewoo.io/a-woocommerce-migration-case-study-with-multidots/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:424:"<p>Multiple sites and over 3k users, Aslam, Ajay and Chirag walk us through this challenging project with RHRSwag.com</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/a-woocommerce-migration-case-study-with-multidots/">A WooCommerce Migration and Multisite Case Study with Multidots</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:32:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: Axton: A Free Block-based Portfolio Theme with Full-Site Editing Support";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=136100";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"https://wptavern.com/axton-a-free-block-based-portfolio-theme-with-full-site-editing-support";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3017:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/axton/">Axton</a> is a beautiful new addition to the WordPress Themes Directory from the team at <a href="https://catchthemes.com/">Catch Themes</a>. Those who have been waiting for more full-site editing-enabled themes that go beyond a simple blogging layout should have a look at Axton, as it  is suitable for a portfolio, photography showcase, or even a business website. </p>



<p>The theme boasts more than 15 block patterns, 17 full-site editing (FSE) templates, and nine template parts. Users can showcase their work with Header media, Hero Content, and Featured Content patterns anywhere on the site. </p>



<img />



<p>The entirety of the <a href="https://fse.catchthemes.com/axton/">theme&#8217;s demo</a> site is available in pieces as patterns, so users can drag and drop and mix and match them to suit their needs. Even the style guide can be placed in the content via a pattern. Axton&#8217;s header is also available as the &#8220;Header with Search Bar&#8221; pattern that places the blocks in a pre-designed arrangement that is perfectly responsive on different device sizes.</p>



<p>After activating the theme, the Customize button launches the Site Editor with a homepage that nearly matches the demo so that users don&#8217;t have to start from a blank slate. </p>



<p>Some layout options that users might previously have implemented via a page template prior to FSE, are now available as customizable patterns. For example, Axton offers &#8220;Blog Sidebar on Left&#8221; and &#8220;Blog Sidebar on Right&#8221; patterns that can be placed within a template and users can easily manipulate the alignments, background color, typography, and more </p>



<img />



<p>The &#8220;Contact Us&#8221; pattern works with the Contact Form 7 plugin. Users are prompted to install it after placing the pattern.</p>



<img />



<p>Axton includes 17 full-site editing templates and nine template parts that enable users to quickly make changes to the layouts of the front page, single posts, the blog page, search results, and more. It also includes a Blank template for a clean slate when creating completely custom pages.</p>



<img />



<p>Overall, Axton is a beautifully designed theme that gives users a strong starting point for launching a portfolio or business website with more flexibility and template options than most sites will ever need. Catch Themes also has a Pro plugin that includes custom blocks for a Case Study, Popup Video, Tabs, Masonry, Header Search, and a Skills Bar, along with advanced patterns like pricing tables, logo display, and testimonials.</p>



<p>Check out the <a href="https://catchthemes.com/themes/axton/#theme-instructions">documentation</a> on the Catch Themes website for a tour of how to use the theme&#8217;s features. <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/axton/">Axton</a> is available for free from the WordPress Themes Directory. Its release brings the directory&#8217;s count of block themes to 94.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Jul 2022 03:21:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:42:"Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 15:02:24 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Wed, 27 Jul 2022 14:45:12 GMT";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 1";s:16:"content-encoding";s:4:"gzip";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}