FSE Program: Answers from Round Three of Questions

This post is part of a wider series that provides answers to questions gathered through the FSE Outreach Program. This round of questions was started on October 13th and ended on October 27th. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question so our knowledge can grow together! Stay tuned for future rounds and join the FSE Outreach Program if you’re keen to both learn more about these features and help shape how they evolve.

How to create a bilingual (small) website using FSE? If I could create a headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. and a footer for each language, this should be quite easy… The navigation would then be language-specific and tied to the header in that language. But can I actually create two different headers (with different navigation/menus showing the pages in that language) and decide on a per page level which header/footer is shown? This would make creating small websites in two languages much easier since currently the solution is be to use a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or a multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site installation (which are both fairly complicated for the average user). I guess I would then only need to add some hreflang code if needed. In any case a use case like this for FSE would be very welcome in most bilingual countries (at least for small websites).

This is an excellent question! Right now, there is currently a discussion about how translations might work in the future here that would be great to chime in on for anyone interested. In terms of how best to do this though, you will be able to create different headers to be used as you see fit in various templates. For a simple site, this might be enough for you to rely upon but, for a more complex site, there is still work to be done here. Long term, the last phase of Gutenberg is having multilingual support so know that this is on the horizon. 

Can classic themes have support for Full Site Editing (for those users who want to opt in for this feature) while keeping the classic structure (for those users who do not want the FSE) ? So the theme will have both .php templates and .htmlHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. (blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.-templates and block-template-parts).

Yes! Since Full Site Editing is a collection of features, classic themes can opt in and out as they’d like. For example, they can have both PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher templates and HTML as asked, since a classic theme can opt into using the template editor which will create html templates. Classic themes can also use theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML., theme blocks, the block based widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. editor, etc. Here’s more information about each: 

Is there currently a way to link my style.css to the site editor? Will there be? I am just beginning to play with full site editing (though I’ve used the Elementor site builder and customized blank themes such as Hello and Underscores). I have imported an adobe font in my style.css and I’m using it in my header. When I view my site, everything looks as intended. When I’m in the site editor, though, the text does not show up with the styles I’ve used in my style.css. It seems like the site editor should reflect the custom CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets..

You should be able to apply any stylesheet to the editor using add_theme_support( 'editor-styles' ) and add_editor_style. Here’s an example from TT1 Blocks so folks have a sense of how to approach this.

As for the part of the question around fonts, there is also work being done to make it easier to load a web font if that’s all you need, you can follow along at this PR

Will I be able to use full site editing and the customizer?

This will depend on the theme you’re using. Let me quickly go over the different types of themes to set the stage:

  • Block theme: a theme made for FSE using HTML templates and theme.json, allowing one to manage all parts of their site with blocks.  
  • Universal theme: a theme that works with both the Customizer and the Site Editor. 
  • Hybrid theme: a classic theme that adopts a feature(s) of FSE, like theme.json or the template editor.
  • Classic theme: a theme built the way we’ve been used to with PHP templates, functions.php, and more. 

With a Block theme, you will not be able to. However, with universal themes and many hybrid themes, you can! Universal themes in particular are built to work with both and preserve the experience. You can read more about them in this Theme Shaper post

I have activated the new default theme Twenty Twenty Two, and noticed the Appearance menu has drastically changed. How do I get back the customizer, widgets and menus? As I would like to have access to these areas and full site editing.

For block themes like Twenty Twenty-Two, this is intentional as editing all parts of your site (widgets, menus, etc) can now entirely take place in the site editing context. This means you can visually edit your footer while seeing what it looks like within the context of your homepage! In case anyone else wants to explore Twenty Twenty-Two, check out this post to learn more and this GitHub repository

If you do need to get to the Customizer for whatever reason, you can still access it by going directly to the respective page: yoursite.com/wp-admin/customize.php

Can I modify a single page or post directly in the same area as editing the full site?

For transparency, I want to note that two folks asked about this. Currently, in the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ plugin, there’s the option to navigate to and edit pages/posts from within the Site Editor. However, what’s in the plugin now isn’t what’s likely to be shipped with WordPress 5.9 as those flows are currently under active iteration. To get a better sense of what’s being explored, check out these two posts: Site editing IA concepts: How to surface and access new features and Site Editing iA concepts – Part 2.

What will happen with plugins that have settings in the Customizer if the customizer is removed for block themes? 

For transparency, I want to note that four folks asked a version of this question but the answer is being summarized under this more general question. Right now, this is under discussion in this GitHub issue. Expect a post on Make CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as the release gets closer and decisions are made around how to handle the approach. 

What are some possible causes for FSE not to work when permalinks are set to ‘post name’? Thank you for your response.

I tried to replicate this experience but wasn’t able to! I emailed the person who specifically asked about this to try to get more information and will follow up when they do. 

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