Block-based Themes Meeting Notes: January 5, 2022

These are the meeting notes from the 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.-based themes meeting on January 5, 2022. 

The meeting agenda can be found here. Thank you @jeffikus for preparing the agenda. The meeting was facilitated by @danieldudzic, and the notes were taken by @mikachan. You can read the full transcript on our #themereview channel.

Block-based themes issues for WordPress 5.9

There are no critical issues remaining relating to block themes for WordPress 5.9. Here’s a link to the WordPress 5.9 Must-Haves.

@kjellr confirmed that just about all of the critical issues Twenty Twenty-Two encountered have made it in already.

There was one issue around site padding that we were unable to find a good solution for in 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/, but for now, we have included a solution in the theme that works pretty well until we find a way to handle it in Gutenberg.

This issue is still a little up in the air and is a common issue to all block themes. If folks have any thoughts on that, it would be great to get some perspective on the issue. Please join in the discussion over on 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/.

The future of block theming

There have been a lot of discussions happening around the topic of theme developers and the next stage of block theming.

We discussed the future of block theming, covering the following ideas, thoughts, and questions:

• What would a premium block theme look like? The biggest value from the premium space is in custom patterns, global style variations, block styles, templates, and support.
• Themes are going back to being just ‘themes’, i.e. only incorporating the styling, rather than needing to include further functionality that should really be provided by 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. 
• Themes will be easier to switch between, as there will be less to configure, move, or potentially lose during the switching process.
• If a theme only includes styling, does the word ‘theme’ cause any legacy problems?
• Are base theme files still important if they are becoming more and more similar?
• The next stage of block theming involves figuring out ways to improve the integration process of themes into Gutenberg coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and developing tools that allow for better management of this process.

We don’t have many answers yet, but it’s great to start thinking about these things now. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion!

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