Block-based Theme Meeting Notes — June 16, 2021

You can find the full meeting transcript on Slack (login required)

Meeting coordinator: @kjellr
Notes kept by @ashiquzzaman

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/ Updates:

  1. 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. no longer fails silently if you miss a comma: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/3240
  2. On FSEFSE Short for Full Site Editing, a project for the Gutenberg plugin and the editor where a full page layout is created using only blocks. adoption and “universal” themes, this issue has gained some additional traction this week: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/31235. This filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. would allow themes with 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 to opt in or out of using the full-site editor. This would allow universal themes to support the customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. while FSE is under development (even with the Gutenberg 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 installed), and then gracefully enable the full-site editor when it’s ready.
  3. A call to attention on how block themes look in 5.8 (without the Gutenberg plugin active). Today, some block themes have implemented fallbacks or messages about requiring the plugin. But it varies per theme. From the discussion, it sounds like themes might get better built-in messaging like that for the 5.8 release. You can follow along with that or weigh in here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/53410

Open Floor/ Q&A:

@scruffian highlighted the process on how authors are using Global Styles (especially – colors) as a mechanism for customizing their site. If you have a color that is used extensively in your site and then you want to change it, the only way to do so is to update that color in every place it’s used, which is quite laborious.

@onemaggie voiced the same concern with fonts, if a theme uses two fonts through multiple blocks, the user needs to go block by block if they want to change both

@aristath highlighted an update from GutenbergLand: theme.css files now also have the ability to be “lazy-loaded” when a block gets rendered, and there’s a PR to allow adding multiple stylesheets per-block. https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32510

#block-based-meeting, #block-based-themes