6.2 Live Product Demo Q&A

In classic WordPress tradition, this post will list and answer participant questions that were left in the queue from the live product demo held on March 2, 2023. Release squad members Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor were joined by moderator, WordPress enthusiast Nathan Wrigley, and nearly 90 live attendees. 

The demo covered a number of noteworthy highlights coming to the WordPress 6.2 Release. If you missed the recap and recording you can catch up right here.

Q1. Can you save your new styles to a library — then export the at library to another site?

A1. While not exactly the same process there is a way to achieve this. You can export all your styles as a theme, and then you can use that theme as you would any WordPress theme. This functionality was introduced with WordPress 5.9, Josephine.

Q2. As page speed is a challenge, how are we optimizing blocks for better LCP scores?

A2. Sometimes a question is an opportunity to create the change you’re seeking! Have you considered following the Performance team? Follow their activities, join their meetings, and help out with their tickets and GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues, starting with this Performance tag right here on the Core blog.

Q3. Can you show us how to trigger the focus mode to (say) view the footer on its own?

A3. There are lots of resources for just that sort of thing across the web and social media. Here’s just one item that can help you work with template parts, like footers. A great resource for you is learn.wordpress.org, which houses everything from technical documentation to engaging video courses and workshops for every kind of user and every kind of learner. Learn can show you how to do almost anything with WordPress.

Q4. Is copying and pasting styles as demonstrated just for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks? Some 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. collections have their own C&P, and I’m curious what might carry over, if anything.

A4. In a very unscientific test, one of our release-squad members just added one of the form blocks from the Jetpack 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, and the options for copying and pasting block styles were still there in the settings. So that functionality does carry over at least to Jetpack blocks.

Q5. Also, if CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. classes are assigned to a block, will applying global styles to a block be to all of the same block, e.g. H2, or (hopefully) will a custom class allow for more granular global CSS.

A5. That will vary by where that given block is. If you’re in the Style Book editing the H2 from the text page, it will be global. If you’re working in the Query block in a template, and that H2 is the post title, then the styling you apply will be specific to the post title in that template, just as if you were styling it in your CSS editor of choice. And keep in mind that WordPress editors can do a lot of things, but they have not yet repealed the laws of CSS specificity.

Check out these Learn resources on using the site editor, and these on building block themes for additional details.

Q6. Is full site editing the same thing as 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/?

A6. The answer to this is somewhat complex so breaking it into smaller parts should help create some clarity.

Gutenberg is at least two things:

1. It is the plugin that advances the state of the art in block editor development, and if you use it, you will have access to a more advanced set of tools in the block editor than in Core alone.
2. It is also the name of the long-range, four-phase project that started with the block editor and will culminate with multilanguage collaboration in real time.

So what is full site editing? 

Full site editing now known simply as the Site Editor is how project leaders have referred to Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project. It’s also been heralded as the Gutenberg project’s move beyond the post- and page-editing experience that first arrived in WordPress 5.0.

From the perspective of what designers and developers call the Document Object Model, the original block editor handles content. In the beginning, everything in that editor was a child of the post. Specifically, a child of the part of the post is often targeted in CSS as .entry-content. (Or, in markup, as <div class=”entry-content”>

(This goes back to the project’s origin as a blogging tool. Until very recently, every kind of content was in fact a post: pages, products for sale, real estate listings, and, of course, custom post types. Everything was a custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept..)

With WordPress 5.9, the Site Editor — available only when you install and activate a Block theme on your site — has expanded its reach beyond the post to other parts of the DOM—the site 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 footer, 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. areas, navigation, and more.

Q7. Currently, you can have a template that has no title on the front end, but in the editor, the page is still treated like a standard WP page, with the title at the top of the page.

A7. There have been some explorations around moving the page/post title to the sidebar, but according to Nick Diego of the Editor triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. team, there are no active plans for this.

Q8. Is there any more work planned for Pattern management in the future? WPEngine has released a plugin allowing easier management of patterns recently and it would be good to know if we should wait for core, or assume that nothing else is coming soon?

A8. Core is not currently working on a pattern manager like WP Engine’s new plugin, but you can expect more work on improving the pattern creation flow in Core and coming from plugins — it’s a rich space for creativity.

So if you find a tool that helps you build and manage patterns more easily, go ahead and use it now, even if Core might build something like it in the future.

Q9. Will the left sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. get the same width flexibility as the site editor sidebar now has? Would love that as with block nesting the view gets cut off at times in list view.

A9. According to Nick, probably not anytime soon.

Props to contributors @ndiego for answering a number of these questions and @laurlittle, and @jpantani for their help in making this post possible.