{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1", "user_comment": "This feed allows you to read the posts from this site in any feed reader that supports the JSON Feed format. To add this feed to your reader, copy the following URL -- https://wptavern.com/category/themes/feed/json -- and add it your reader.", "next_url": "https://wptavern.com/category/themes/feed/json?paged=2", "home_page_url": "https://wptavern.com/category/themes", "feed_url": "https://wptavern.com/category/themes/feed/json", "language": "en-US", "title": "Themes – WP Tavern", "description": "WordPress News \u2014 Free as in Beer.", "icon": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cropped-tavern-favicon.png", "items": [ { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=149624", "url": "https://wptavern.com/ollie-theme-faces-pushback-from-wordpress-theme-review-team", "title": "Ollie Theme Faces Pushback from WordPress Theme Review Team", "content_html": "\n

Mike McAlister, creator of the\u00a0free Ollie theme,\u00a0has been working towards getting his theme approved for hosting on WordPress.org. Ollie went into public beta in April 2023 and gained momentum over the next few months when McAlister previewed the theme’s new onboarding wizard.

\n\n\n\n

WordPress users have been slow to adopt the block editor and block themes by extension. In 2022, only 54% of respondents to WordPress’ annual survey have used the block editor, four years after it was introduced. Block themes have trickled into the official directory, far behind the lofty goals set for their expansion. The sluggish movement towards block-based sites has led some to speculate on whether there will ever be a market for commercial block themes.

\n\n\n\n

Ollie was designed to make onboarding to a block theme easier and the Site Editor more approachable, so that users don’t have to start from a blank canvas. The theme’s demo boasts “a 40-hr head start” on setting up a new WordPress website, thanks in part to dozens of patterns for fast page building. Ollie’s built-in onboarding experience aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend getting started.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

After receiving significant pushback from the Theme Review team during Ollie’s three weeks in the queue, McAlister has put up a poll requesting feedback on how he should proceed.

\n\n\n\n
\n

After a very rocky (and downright combative) theme review process at https://t.co/SPJ2MEtIlL, I'm not sure if it's the right place for our @BuildWithOllie project.

I'm torn and would love your input. More context below and a poll at the end.

— Mike McAlister \"\ud83e\uddd1\u200d\ud83d\ude80\" (@mikemcalister) September 28, 2023
\n
\n\n\n\n

Although provisionally approved by veteran theme reviewer Justin Tadlock, who said the onboarding functionality should be allowed until WordPress core offers a standard solution, Ollie was met with heavy criticism from other members of the team.

\n\n\n\n

“The setup wizard is plugin territory,” UXL Themes founder and theme reviewer Andrew Starr\u00a0said. “Why not make this as a plugin that would work with any block theme? A plugin could be inspiration or a nudge to improve the core experience.”

\n\n\n\n

McAlister responded to this question in the Trac ticket for the review and in posts on X. He maintains that a plugin is a “far worse experience for the end user” and for his team as the maintainers of the product. Also, since the plugin review queue has 1,249\u00a0plugins awaiting review with developers waiting an average of 98 days for an initial review, a plugin for Ollie’s onboarding experience would likely not be live until next year.

\n\n\n\n

“As a compromise and show of good faith, I’ve chopped down the onboarding wizard to a fraction of what it was,” he said. “No dice. Still, it continues to be a highly contentious issue that is causing folks to publicly question my intentions and integrity. Disheartening to say the least.”

\n\n\n\n

Automattic-sponsored contributor Justin Tadlock, who helped author the guidelines in question many years ago and who has historically been widely esteemed for his impeccable judgment in regards to the grey areas of content creation in themes and the necessity of preserving data portability, weighed in on the ticket after performing the initial review:

\n\n\n\n
\n

As someone who co-wrote the original guideline for settings to use the customizer, I can say with 100% certainty that we never meant that to be a hard line drawn in the sand. The team reps can and have always had the capability to mark a theme as a “special case” (there’s even a tag for this in the backend, or there was when I was a rep). And there are themes where we felt like the functionality was unique enough to give it a bit of wiggle room. That was a position that we took when we wrote the “settings must be in the customizer” guideline. While I’m no longer one of the team reps, I feel like this settings page feature is unique enough to mark as a “special case.”

\n\n\n\n

With block themes, some things must be reevaluated because the customizer is not available by default and is not an expected part of the block theme experience. In fact, this guideline is very specific to classic themes. Nothing has been written yet for block themes. Whether that’s a good thing, I don’t know. This could be a good moment for experimentation.

\n\n\n\n

I disagree that the settings page should be packaged as a companion plugin. That defeats the purpose of its inclusion in the theme, and it would create an additional hurdle for the users who would benefit the most from this feature.

\n
\n\n\n\n

Yoast-sponsored contributor Carolina Nymark contends that allowing this onboarding experience will set a precedent that erodes the standard the team is trying to uphold for the ecosystem of themes hosted on WordPress.org and gives Ollie an unfair commercial advantage:

\n\n\n\n
\n

“That settings pages are not allowed is in many ways unrelated to the customizer. And if we really want to angle it that way, it would be way easier to re-enable the customizer link in the theme.

\n\n\n\n

It is about having a standard that is easy for all theme authors to use and easy to review.
It is about not opening up the reviews to another situation with incredibly difficult and time consuming reviews of code that the theme developers themselves don’t understand because they copy-pasted it and managed to cause all sorts of errors and security issues.
Where that feature “lives”, in the customizer or on another page, is not the issue.

\n\n\n\n

I would like everyone to also consider that the Site Editor is not at all far away from solving the problem with the initial template selection. It does not solve all onboarding steps, like getting to the Site Editor, but it is improving.

\n\n\n\n

Compare it with the use of TGMPA. There is a problem that needs solving and a solution has been agreed upon where the theme author and reviewers only need to adjust a few variables and text strings.

\n\n\n\n

If something similar could be reached here I would support it.

\n\n\n\n

This is not about a special case, because it is an unfair commercial advantage over other theme developers.

\n
\n\n\n\n

Ollie is a beautifully-designed multipurpose theme of the highest caliber, the likes of which WordPress.org doesn’t see very often. If expanding block theme adoption is an important goal, these are the kinds of experiences you want people building for WordPress users. It may be time to redefine theme guidelines based on the possibilities that the block editor enables, instead of saddling block themes with antiquated constraints for the sake of maintaining a more expedient review process.

\n\n\n\n

“Just because there are problems with onboarding it doesn’t mean that a theme, any theme, is the right tool just because one can put code in it,” Nymark said. “Plugins extend features, themes display content.”

\n\n\n\n

Given the amount of pushback from the Theme Review team, McAlister is now torn about removing everything “extra” to get Ollie in the directory for better distribution, or to keep the innovations in place and forego the directory in favor of independent distribution. So far, the results of his poll are overwhelmingly in favor of McAlister distributing the theme himself.

\n\n\n\n

“I\u2019m passionate about innovation and getting the most out of all the possibilities that modern WordPress affords us,” McAlister told the Tavern. “We were tasked to ‘Learn JavaScript Deeply’ not to remain where we\u2019ve been for so long, but to push the boundaries and scope out the future of WordPress and what\u2019s possible.

\n\n\n\n

“So we designed and developed Ollie\u2019s educational dashboard and onboarding wizard to help users get over some of the hurdles they\u2019ve been plagued with for so long when setting up a new site or switching to a new theme. We even designed it in a very core-inspired way to match the site editor to create a very cohesive experience. The feedback has been inspiring!”

\n\n\n\n

After posting about his experience with the Theme Review team, which McAlister characterized as “rocky (and downright combative),” the community following his work on Ollie over the past year has rallied around him with advice and support.

\n\n\n\n

“I am torn about this,” Joost de Valk commented on McAlister’s poll on X. “I feel WordPress needs these onboarding experiences. Very very much. Should it be in themes? Not sure. Should the theme repository block this stuff? I don\u2019t think so\u2026 we should be open to experimenting with this a bit more.”

\n\n\n\n

McAlister said that even as the theme’s creator, he is torn about the decision as well.

\n\n\n\n

“I built this as a good faith attempt to help people onboard into block themes and hopefully even help drive adoption,” he said. “My intentions are pure and steeped in 15 years of doing it ‘the WP way.’ It\u2019s an attempt to move the needle, worth a shot anyway.”

\n\n\n\n

“I always felt that onboarding like this should be part of Core,” Yoast-sponsored contributor Ari Stathopoulos commented. “The current experience for a newcomer to WP is not a good one. We have to start somewhere\u2026 if it\u2019s in themes, then so be it.”

\n\n\n\n

WordPress’ Theme Review team has a critical choice here, whether to stifle innovation and throw the book at one of the most highly anticipated block themes, or identify this as a special case where the author has the users’ best interests at heart.

\n\n\n\n

Many participants in the discussion on X encouraged McAlister to distribute his work independently, citing examples of other WordPress products that have found success in doing so. This would be an unfortunate loss for WordPress.org where the project is essentially shooting itself in the foot by clinging to outmoded guidelines in order to deny high quality block themes that are innovating to create a better user experience. In pursuit of a more robust offering of block themes, the last thing WordPress needs to do is chase away its trailblazers.

\n\n\n\n
\n

Generally speaking, given the amount of pure sh*t available in the .org repo, the fact that they wont welcome you with open arms just stinks.

Self distribute.

You've got something incredible here.

— Anthony (@ant_thedesigner) September 28, 2023
\n
\n\n\n\n

“Since this morning, there has been an overwhelming amount of feedback telling me to avoid the WordPress.org directory,” McAlister said. “I\u2019m kind of bummed by this because I think it says something about the directory that a lot of folks think but few want to say out loud.

\n\n\n\n

“Personally, I want the directory to succeed and be an inspiring and resourceful jump-off point for new WordPress users! It\u2019s the front page of our open source project, of our community. It should be a showcase of the finest our community has to offer. But today, I\u2019m disheartened and not sure if it\u2019s the place where I want to put some of my best work to date.”

\n", "content_text": "Mike McAlister, creator of the\u00a0free Ollie theme,\u00a0has been working towards getting his theme approved for hosting on WordPress.org. Ollie went into public beta in April 2023 and gained momentum over the next few months when McAlister previewed the theme’s new onboarding wizard.\n\n\n\nWordPress users have been slow to adopt the block editor and block themes by extension. In 2022, only 54% of respondents to WordPress’ annual survey have used the block editor, four years after it was introduced. Block themes have trickled into the official directory, far behind the lofty goals set for their expansion. The sluggish movement towards block-based sites has led some to speculate on whether there will ever be a market for commercial block themes.\n\n\n\nOllie was designed to make onboarding to a block theme easier and the Site Editor more approachable, so that users don’t have to start from a blank canvas. The theme’s demo boasts “a 40-hr head start” on setting up a new WordPress website, thanks in part to dozens of patterns for fast page building. Ollie’s built-in onboarding experience aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend getting started.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAfter receiving significant pushback from the Theme Review team during Ollie’s three weeks in the queue, McAlister has put up a poll requesting feedback on how he should proceed.\n\n\n\n\nAfter a very rocky (and downright combative) theme review process at https://t.co/SPJ2MEtIlL, I'm not sure if it's the right place for our @BuildWithOllie project. I'm torn and would love your input. More context below and a poll at the end.— Mike McAlister (@mikemcalister) September 28, 2023\n\n\n\n\nAlthough provisionally approved by veteran theme reviewer Justin Tadlock, who said the onboarding functionality should be allowed until WordPress core offers a standard solution, Ollie was met with heavy criticism from other members of the team.\n\n\n\n“The setup wizard is plugin territory,” UXL Themes founder and theme reviewer Andrew Starr\u00a0said. “Why not make this as a plugin that would work with any block theme? A plugin could be inspiration or a nudge to improve the core experience.”\n\n\n\nMcAlister responded to this question in the Trac ticket for the review and in posts on X. He maintains that a plugin is a “far worse experience for the end user” and for his team as the maintainers of the product. Also, since the plugin review queue has 1,249\u00a0plugins awaiting review with developers waiting an average of 98 days for an initial review, a plugin for Ollie’s onboarding experience would likely not be live until next year.\n\n\n\n“As a compromise and show of good faith, I’ve chopped down the onboarding wizard to a fraction of what it was,” he said. “No dice. Still, it continues to be a highly contentious issue that is causing folks to publicly question my intentions and integrity. Disheartening to say the least.”\n\n\n\nAutomattic-sponsored contributor Justin Tadlock, who helped author the guidelines in question many years ago and who has historically been widely esteemed for his impeccable judgment in regards to the grey areas of content creation in themes and the necessity of preserving data portability, weighed in on the ticket after performing the initial review:\n\n\n\n\nAs someone who co-wrote the original guideline for settings to use the customizer, I can say with 100% certainty that we never meant that to be a hard line drawn in the sand. The team reps can and have always had the capability to mark a theme as a “special case” (there’s even a tag for this in the backend, or there was when I was a rep). And there are themes where we felt like the functionality was unique enough to give it a bit of wiggle room. That was a position that we took when we wrote the “settings must be in the customizer” guideline. While I’m no longer one of the team reps, I feel like this settings page feature is unique enough to mark as a “special case.”\n\n\n\nWith block themes, some things must be reevaluated because the customizer is not available by default and is not an expected part of the block theme experience. In fact, this guideline is very specific to classic themes. Nothing has been written yet for block themes. Whether that’s a good thing, I don’t know. This could be a good moment for experimentation.\n\n\n\nI disagree that the settings page should be packaged as a companion plugin. That defeats the purpose of its inclusion in the theme, and it would create an additional hurdle for the users who would benefit the most from this feature.\n\n\n\n\nYoast-sponsored contributor Carolina Nymark contends that allowing this onboarding experience will set a precedent that erodes the standard the team is trying to uphold for the ecosystem of themes hosted on WordPress.org and gives Ollie an unfair commercial advantage:\n\n\n\n\n“That settings pages are not allowed is in many ways unrelated to the customizer. And if we really want to angle it that way, it would be way easier to re-enable the customizer link in the theme.\n\n\n\nIt is about having a standard that is easy for all theme authors to use and easy to review.It is about not opening up the reviews to another situation with incredibly difficult and time consuming reviews of code that the theme developers themselves don’t understand because they copy-pasted it and managed to cause all sorts of errors and security issues.Where that feature “lives”, in the customizer or on another page, is not the issue.\n\n\n\nI would like everyone to also consider that the Site Editor is not at all far away from solving the problem with the initial template selection. It does not solve all onboarding steps, like getting to the Site Editor, but it is improving.\n\n\n\nCompare it with the use of TGMPA. There is a problem that needs solving and a solution has been agreed upon where the theme author and reviewers only need to adjust a few variables and text strings.\n\n\n\nIf something similar could be reached here I would support it.\n\n\n\nThis is not about a special case, because it is an unfair commercial advantage over other theme developers.\n\n\n\n\nOllie is a beautifully-designed multipurpose theme of the highest caliber, the likes of which WordPress.org doesn’t see very often. If expanding block theme adoption is an important goal, these are the kinds of experiences you want people building for WordPress users. It may be time to redefine theme guidelines based on the possibilities that the block editor enables, instead of saddling block themes with antiquated constraints for the sake of maintaining a more expedient review process.\n\n\n\n“Just because there are problems with onboarding it doesn’t mean that a theme, any theme, is the right tool just because one can put code in it,” Nymark said. “Plugins extend features, themes display content.”\n\n\n\nGiven the amount of pushback from the Theme Review team, McAlister is now torn about removing everything “extra” to get Ollie in the directory for better distribution, or to keep the innovations in place and forego the directory in favor of independent distribution. So far, the results of his poll are overwhelmingly in favor of McAlister distributing the theme himself. \n\n\n\n“I\u2019m passionate about innovation and getting the most out of all the possibilities that modern WordPress affords us,” McAlister told the Tavern. “We were tasked to ‘Learn JavaScript Deeply’ not to remain where we\u2019ve been for so long, but to push the boundaries and scope out the future of WordPress and what\u2019s possible. \n\n\n\n“So we designed and developed Ollie\u2019s educational dashboard and onboarding wizard to help users get over some of the hurdles they\u2019ve been plagued with for so long when setting up a new site or switching to a new theme. We even designed it in a very core-inspired way to match the site editor to create a very cohesive experience. The feedback has been inspiring!” \n\n\n\nAfter posting about his experience with the Theme Review team, which McAlister characterized as “rocky (and downright combative),” the community following his work on Ollie over the past year has rallied around him with advice and support.\n\n\n\n“I am torn about this,” Joost de Valk commented on McAlister’s poll on X. “I feel WordPress needs these onboarding experiences. Very very much. Should it be in themes? Not sure. Should the theme repository block this stuff? I don\u2019t think so\u2026 we should be open to experimenting with this a bit more.”\n\n\n\nMcAlister said that even as the theme’s creator, he is torn about the decision as well.\n\n\n\n“I built this as a good faith attempt to help people onboard into block themes and hopefully even help drive adoption,” he said. “My intentions are pure and steeped in 15 years of doing it ‘the WP way.’ It\u2019s an attempt to move the needle, worth a shot anyway.”\n\n\n\n“I always felt that onboarding like this should be part of Core,” Yoast-sponsored contributor Ari Stathopoulos commented. “The current experience for a newcomer to WP is not a good one. We have to start somewhere\u2026 if it\u2019s in themes, then so be it.”\n\n\n\nWordPress’ Theme Review team has a critical choice here, whether to stifle innovation and throw the book at one of the most highly anticipated block themes, or identify this as a special case where the author has the users’ best interests at heart. \n\n\n\nMany participants in the discussion on X encouraged McAlister to distribute his work independently, citing examples of other WordPress products that have found success in doing so. This would be an unfortunate loss for WordPress.org where the project is essentially shooting itself in the foot by clinging to outmoded guidelines in order to deny high quality block themes that are innovating to create a better user experience. In pursuit of a more robust offering of block themes, the last thing WordPress needs to do is chase away its trailblazers.\n\n\n\n\nGenerally speaking, given the amount of pure sh*t available in the .org repo, the fact that they wont welcome you with open arms just stinks.Self distribute.You've got something incredible here.— Anthony (@ant_thedesigner) September 28, 2023\n\n\n\n\n“Since this morning, there has been an overwhelming amount of feedback telling me to avoid the WordPress.org directory,” McAlister said. “I\u2019m kind of bummed by this because I think it says something about the directory that a lot of folks think but few want to say out loud. \n\n\n\n“Personally, I want the directory to succeed and be an inspiring and resourceful jump-off point for new WordPress users! It\u2019s the front page of our open source project, of our community. It should be a showcase of the finest our community has to offer. But today, I\u2019m disheartened and not sure if it\u2019s the place where I want to put some of my best work to date.”", "date_published": "2023-09-29T01:07:07-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-09-29T01:21:05-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/screenshot.png", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=148167", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-unveils-design-for-upcoming-twenty-twenty-four-default-theme", "title": "WordPress Unveils Design for Upcoming Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme", "content_html": "\n

WordPress 6.4 will be shipping with a new default theme, expected in early November. The theme’s project leaders unveiled the designs and concept for Twenty Twenty-Four in an announcement on WordPress.org today.

\n\n\n\n

For those who have complained that past default themes have been too niche or too narrowly focused in design, this theme will take the reverse approach. Contributors are attempting to build the ultimate multi-purpose theme that can be used for nearly any kind of website, highlighting the unmatched flexibility of building with blocks.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
image credit: Introducing Twenty Twenty-Four
\n\n\n\n

“The idea behind Twenty Twenty-Four is to make a default theme that can be used on any type of site, with any topic,” core contributorJessica Lyschik said. “Because of that, and contrary to past years, it has no single topic. Instead, three use cases were explored: one more tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, one tailored for photographers and artists and one specifically tailored for writers and bloggers.”

\n\n\n\n

Last year’s default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, was a stripped-back and minimal version of Twenty Twenty-Two, with a strong focus on community-submitted style variations. Like its predecessor, Twenty Twenty-Four will put the spotlight on some of the latest WordPress design features.

\n\n\n\n

“Twenty Twenty-Four will be a\u00a0block\u00a0theme fully compatible with all the site editor tooling and it will surface new design tools like the details block or vertical text,” Lyschik said. “Another key intent for the theme is to properly present whole page patterns and template variations so that users don\u2019t need to assemble whole pages themselves, thus easing up their site building process.”

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Whole page patterns are a critical feature that all of the best block themes provide, as most people feel daunted when starting from a blank slate. If a whole page pattern is already pre-inserted on a new website install, users are light years ahead in their site building efforts.

\n\n\n\n

Twenty Twenty-Four features the Cardo font for headings and a sans-serif system font for paragraph text. Cardo is an Old Style serif typeface designed by David J. Perry in 2002 for \u201cclassicists, biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists.\u201d It grounds the design with a bit of sophistication but should be easy to swap out with the typography management features coming in 6.4.

\n\n\n\n

The initial previews of the theme don’t stray far from many of the traditional website designs you might see browsing businesses or portfolios. It leans more towards providing an invisible framework for the user’s own creations, instead of pushing a single, opinionated design. This design lets the Site Editor and design controls shine as tools that can unlock human creativity on the screen. So far it has received positive feedback on the WordPress.org announcement. Check out the post for more images/video, and information on how contribute to Twenty Twenty-Four’s development.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress 6.4 will be shipping with a new default theme, expected in early November. The theme’s project leaders unveiled the designs and concept for Twenty Twenty-Four in an announcement on WordPress.org today.\n\n\n\nFor those who have complained that past default themes have been too niche or too narrowly focused in design, this theme will take the reverse approach. Contributors are attempting to build the ultimate multi-purpose theme that can be used for nearly any kind of website, highlighting the unmatched flexibility of building with blocks.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nimage credit: Introducing Twenty Twenty-Four\n\n\n\n“The idea behind Twenty Twenty-Four is to make a default theme that can be used on any type of site, with any topic,” core contributorJessica Lyschik said. “Because of that, and contrary to past years, it has no single topic. Instead, three use cases were explored: one more tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, one tailored for photographers and artists and one specifically tailored for writers and bloggers.”\n\n\n\nLast year’s default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, was a stripped-back and minimal version of Twenty Twenty-Two, with a strong focus on community-submitted style variations. Like its predecessor, Twenty Twenty-Four will put the spotlight on some of the latest WordPress design features.\n\n\n\n“Twenty Twenty-Four will be a\u00a0block\u00a0theme fully compatible with all the site editor tooling and it will surface new design tools like the details block or vertical text,” Lyschik said. “Another key intent for the theme is to properly present whole page patterns and template variations so that users don\u2019t need to assemble whole pages themselves, thus easing up their site building process.”\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWhole page patterns are a critical feature that all of the best block themes provide, as most people feel daunted when starting from a blank slate. If a whole page pattern is already pre-inserted on a new website install, users are light years ahead in their site building efforts.\n\n\n\nTwenty Twenty-Four features the Cardo font for headings and a sans-serif system font for paragraph text. Cardo is an Old Style serif typeface designed by David J. Perry in 2002 for \u201cclassicists, biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists.\u201d It grounds the design with a bit of sophistication but should be easy to swap out with the typography management features coming in 6.4.\n\n\n\nThe initial previews of the theme don’t stray far from many of the traditional website designs you might see browsing businesses or portfolios. It leans more towards providing an invisible framework for the user’s own creations, instead of pushing a single, opinionated design. This design lets the Site Editor and design controls shine as tools that can unlock human creativity on the screen. So far it has received positive feedback on the WordPress.org announcement. Check out the post for more images/video, and information on how contribute to Twenty Twenty-Four’s development.", "date_published": "2023-08-24T16:36:14-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-24T16:36:16-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/TT4.jpeg", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=147997", "url": "https://wptavern.com/new-chrome-browser-extension-enables-one-click-plugin-and-theme-testing-with-wordpress-playground", "title": "New Chrome Browser Extension Enables One-Click Plugin and Theme Testing with WordPress Playground", "content_html": "\n

WordPress Playground, an experimental project that uses WebAssembly (WASM) to run WordPress in the browser, makes it possible for users to quickly test plugins and themes without having to set up a local development environment.

\n\n\n\n

Ordinarily, testing a plugin or theme with Playground requires visiting playground.wordpress.net, which will instantly create a real WordPress instance with admin access without having to install PHP, MySQL, or Apache. It runs inside the browser using a SQLite database. Adding a plugin or theme to the instance is as easy as appending the slug to the URL when creating the test site:

\n\n\n\n

https://playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=gutenberg

\n\n\n\n

https://playground.wordpress.net/?theme=lemmony-agency

\n\n\n\n

A new Chrome browser extension, created by LUBUS, a development agency, makes this even easier by adding a “Playground” button to theme and plugin pages on WordPress.org. Users can fire up a sandbox instance to test drive a theme or plugin in just one click.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

I tested the extension and it works as advertised. It’s a neat little shortcut for launching a Playground instance without having to remember the URL or get the plugin/theme’s slug to append to it. The video below shows a site created with a selected plugin installed in under 20 seconds.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

“We have been using Playground internally a lot for testing out plugins, and quick demos for internal or client meetings,” LUBUS founder Ajit Bohra said. “We often find a plugin or theme which we would like to test drive. It involves copying the slug of the theme or plugin and using them in the URL. To make this quick we thought of building and quick browser extension to add a button on wordpress.org to quickly launch a plugin or theme in the Playground.”

\n\n\n\n

Bohra posted his process of creating the extension in a thread on X. He used the Plasmo framework, which offers a dedicated runtime for building browser extensions, taking the project from idea to built in approximately 30 minutes.

\n\n\n\n
\n

For POC code wise all we need to get the required button on the plugin page. pic.twitter.com/2lEV2H4q0K

— Ajit Bohra (@ajitbohra) August 18, 2023
\n
\n\n\n\n

Bohra said the browser extension is currently a proof of concept that he would like to further extend with more settings based on feedback from users. He also hopes to collaborate with the Meta team in the future to see something like this added to the plugin and theme pages on WordPress.org so that users don’t have to rely on a browser extension.

\n\n\n\n

The Chrome extension is called “Open in WordPress Playground” and is available to the public for free on the Chrome Web Store. The code is open source on GitHub and open for contribution.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress Playground, an experimental project that uses WebAssembly (WASM) to run WordPress in the browser, makes it possible for users to quickly test plugins and themes without having to set up a local development environment.\n\n\n\nOrdinarily, testing a plugin or theme with Playground requires visiting playground.wordpress.net, which will instantly create a real WordPress instance with admin access without having to install PHP, MySQL, or Apache. It runs inside the browser using a SQLite database. Adding a plugin or theme to the instance is as easy as appending the slug to the URL when creating the test site: \n\n\n\nhttps://playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=gutenberg\n\n\n\nhttps://playground.wordpress.net/?theme=lemmony-agency\n\n\n\nA new Chrome browser extension, created by LUBUS, a development agency, makes this even easier by adding a “Playground” button to theme and plugin pages on WordPress.org. Users can fire up a sandbox instance to test drive a theme or plugin in just one click. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI tested the extension and it works as advertised. It’s a neat little shortcut for launching a Playground instance without having to remember the URL or get the plugin/theme’s slug to append to it. The video below shows a site created with a selected plugin installed in under 20 seconds.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“We have been using Playground internally a lot for testing out plugins, and quick demos for internal or client meetings,” LUBUS founder Ajit Bohra said. “We often find a plugin or theme which we would like to test drive. It involves copying the slug of the theme or plugin and using them in the URL. To make this quick we thought of building and quick browser extension to add a button on wordpress.org to quickly launch a plugin or theme in the Playground.”\n\n\n\nBohra posted his process of creating the extension in a thread on X. He used the Plasmo framework, which offers a dedicated runtime for building browser extensions, taking the project from idea to built in approximately 30 minutes.\n\n\n\n\nFor POC code wise all we need to get the required button on the plugin page. pic.twitter.com/2lEV2H4q0K— Ajit Bohra (@ajitbohra) August 18, 2023\n\n\n\n\nBohra said the browser extension is currently a proof of concept that he would like to further extend with more settings based on feedback from users. He also hopes to collaborate with the Meta team in the future to see something like this added to the plugin and theme pages on WordPress.org so that users don’t have to rely on a browser extension.\n\n\n\nThe Chrome extension is called “Open in WordPress Playground” and is available to the public for free on the Chrome Web Store. The code is open source on GitHub and open for contribution.", "date_published": "2023-08-21T20:56:50-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-21T20:56:52-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cHJpdmF0ZS9zdGF0aWMvaW1hZ2Uvd2Vic2l0ZS8yMDIyLTA0L2xyL3B4MTEzMjUzMy1pbWFnZS1rd3Z5Njh4MS5qcGc.jpg", "tags": [ "wordpress playground", "News", "Plugins", "Themes" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/playground-chrome-extension.mp4", "mime_type": "video/mp4", "size_in_bytes": 1444281 } ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=147784", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-team-releases-blue-note-a-community-supported-theme-for-bloggers", "title": "WordPress Themes Team Releases Blue Note, A Community-Supported Theme for Bloggers", "content_html": "\n

WordPress’ Themes team launched its Community Themes initiative earlier this year with the goal of bringing together contributors to build block themes year round, the same way that default themes are built and officially supported. Their first theme release was Stacks, a single-purpose theme for creating slide decks that can be used for a presentation.

\n\n\n\n

The team has now released its second community theme called Blue Note, inspired by American jazz record label \u201cBlue Note Records.” It’s more versatile than Stacks, as it can be used for writing/blogging, a personal website, portfolio, nonprofit, memorial, event, or other types of landing pages.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Although Blue Note does not package any style variations, it comes with 14 beautifully designed patterns inspired by jazz record covers. The patterns enable users to quickly add images with text or quotes with multiple designs for each. There are also patterns with striped images, an artful way to break up a single image, paired with text. Users can select from multiple headers and footers, among seven page templates and four template parts.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Blue Note was designed by Automattic-sponsored contributor Beatriz Fialho, inspired by her work on the State of the Word slides in 2020. It was developed during the WCEU contributor day with the help of more than a dozen contributors. \u00a0The\u00a0Community Themes GitHub repository has other themes they are working on which are in various stages of development.

\n\n\n\n

Check out Blue Note on WordPress.org and download it for free via the Themes browser inside the admin.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress’ Themes team launched its Community Themes initiative earlier this year with the goal of bringing together contributors to build block themes year round, the same way that default themes are built and officially supported. Their first theme release was Stacks, a single-purpose theme for creating slide decks that can be used for a presentation.\n\n\n\nThe team has now released its second community theme called Blue Note, inspired by American jazz record label \u201cBlue Note Records.” It’s more versatile than Stacks, as it can be used for writing/blogging, a personal website, portfolio, nonprofit, memorial, event, or other types of landing pages.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlthough Blue Note does not package any style variations, it comes with 14 beautifully designed patterns inspired by jazz record covers. The patterns enable users to quickly add images with text or quotes with multiple designs for each. There are also patterns with striped images, an artful way to break up a single image, paired with text. Users can select from multiple headers and footers, among seven page templates and four template parts.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBlue Note was designed by Automattic-sponsored contributor Beatriz Fialho, inspired by her work on the State of the Word slides in 2020. It was developed during the WCEU contributor day with the help of more than a dozen contributors. \u00a0The\u00a0Community Themes GitHub repository has other themes they are working on which are in various stages of development. \n\n\n\nCheck out Blue Note on WordPress.org and download it for free via the Themes browser inside the admin.", "date_published": "2023-08-14T17:09:04-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-14T17:09:45-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/blue-note-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=147007", "url": "https://wptavern.com/ollie-theme-previews-new-onboarding-wizard-in-development", "title": "Ollie Theme Previews New Onboarding Wizard in Development", "content_html": "\n

Unless you are some kind of wizard with the block editor, starting a WordPress website from a blank slate can be overwhelming and ultimately defeating. Mike McAlister, maker of the free Ollie theme, is developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site.

\n\n\n\n

“I suspect we\u2019re cutting out a half hour or more of finagling a new WordPress site,” McAlister said. “No more wrestling with a blank canvas.”

\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Ollie\u00a0Onboarding Wizard creates a guided setup experience that allows users to add basic site settings, select a color palette, input their brand colors, add a logo and site icon, and move on to creating pages. It eliminates the necessity of hunting all these settings down inside blocks and the Site Editor.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Instead of having to create pages individually and assign them the correct template or place the right full-page pattern, Ollie onboarding makes it possible for users to simply check which pages they want automatically created.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

“The goal of this wizard is to help WordPress users zoom through a site setup with the Ollie theme and abstract away those annoying and disconnected setup steps we have to do for every site,” McAlister said.

\n\n\n\n

“The wizard is also a way to educate users along the way. WordPress is going through a much-needed evolution, but as expected, users are having a tough time with the transition. Change is tough, especially when you power half of the internet. Workflows like this can help.”

\n\n\n\n

The onboarding interface leans heavily towards the design of the Site Editor to make it seem naturally at home inside WordPress. It demonstrates just how nice plugins and themes can look in the admin with a more modern interface, which could soon be a reality once the ambitious admin UI revamp plans are complete.

\n\n\n\n

“Months ago, Patrick Posner and I agreed that the future of WordPress is in the new Site Editor view, so that\u2019s where we built this wizard,” McAlister said. “That assumption has since been validated, and because of that, our interface blends in seamlessly with native WordPress.”

\n\n\n\n

“This is just a v1, but we\u2019re already planning on how to seamlessly integrate choosing a vertical with curated plugins (eCommerce, landing page, email marketing, etc.) and surfacing pro features to really bring this experience together. This isn\u2019t just a WordPress theme.”

\n\n\n\n

McAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool.

\n\n\n\n

After previewing the onboarding wizard, some people have asked if it will be available as a standalone product. McAlister confirmed that he doesn’t have any plans of productizing it but if there is enough demand he is willing to entertain the idea. Others have asked if there is an API for developers to add their own sections.

\n\n\n\n

“No API yet, although with the announcements of the admin overhaul initiative, perhaps one is coming,” McAlister said. “Right now, this is just a custom React layer that mimics the site editor view. It\u2019s built to be flexible though, so if a core solution opens up, we can migrate to that.”

\n\n\n\n

McAlister previewed the wizard on Twitter and in his newsletter, but it’s still in development and not yet available for testing. He plans to launch the Ollie theme on WordPress.org once the wizard is ready for public use.

\n", "content_text": "Unless you are some kind of wizard with the block editor, starting a WordPress website from a blank slate can be overwhelming and ultimately defeating. Mike McAlister, maker of the free Ollie theme, is developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site.\n\n\n\n“I suspect we\u2019re cutting out a half hour or more of finagling a new WordPress site,” McAlister said. “No more wrestling with a blank canvas.”\n\n\n\nThe\u00a0Ollie\u00a0Onboarding Wizard creates a guided setup experience that allows users to add basic site settings, select a color palette, input their brand colors, add a logo and site icon, and move on to creating pages. It eliminates the necessity of hunting all these settings down inside blocks and the Site Editor.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nInstead of having to create pages individually and assign them the correct template or place the right full-page pattern, Ollie onboarding makes it possible for users to simply check which pages they want automatically created.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“The goal of this wizard is to help WordPress users zoom through a site setup with the Ollie theme and abstract away those annoying and disconnected setup steps we have to do for every site,” McAlister said.\n\n\n\n“The wizard is also a way to educate users along the way. WordPress is going through a much-needed evolution, but as expected, users are having a tough time with the transition. Change is tough, especially when you power half of the internet. Workflows like this can help.”\n\n\n\nThe onboarding interface leans heavily towards the design of the Site Editor to make it seem naturally at home inside WordPress. It demonstrates just how nice plugins and themes can look in the admin with a more modern interface, which could soon be a reality once the ambitious admin UI revamp plans are complete.\n\n\n\n“Months ago, Patrick Posner and I agreed that the future of WordPress is in the new Site Editor view, so that\u2019s where we built this wizard,” McAlister said. “That assumption has since been validated, and because of that, our interface blends in seamlessly with native WordPress.”\n\n\n\n“This is just a v1, but we\u2019re already planning on how to seamlessly integrate choosing a vertical with curated plugins (eCommerce, landing page, email marketing, etc.) and surfacing pro features to really bring this experience together. This isn\u2019t just a WordPress theme.”\n\n\n\nMcAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool. \n\n\n\nAfter previewing the onboarding wizard, some people have asked if it will be available as a standalone product. McAlister confirmed that he doesn’t have any plans of productizing it but if there is enough demand he is willing to entertain the idea. Others have asked if there is an API for developers to add their own sections.\n\n\n\n“No API yet, although with the announcements of the admin overhaul initiative, perhaps one is coming,” McAlister said. “Right now, this is just a custom React layer that mimics the site editor view. It\u2019s built to be flexible though, so if a core solution opens up, we can migrate to that.”\n\n\n\nMcAlister previewed the wizard on Twitter and in his newsletter, but it’s still in development and not yet available for testing. He plans to launch the Ollie theme on WordPress.org once the wizard is ready for public use.", "date_published": "2023-07-21T21:03:26-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-07-21T21:03:28-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ollie-wizard.jpeg", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=144855", "url": "https://wptavern.com/hey-an-elegantly-simple-wordpress-block-theme-for-blogging", "title": "Hey: An Elegantly Simple WordPress Block Theme for Blogging", "content_html": "\n

Hey is a block theme designed by Automattic for users on WordPress.com and also released for free in the WordPress.org Themes Directory. It’s the kind of simple theme that enables you to quickly get started writing online, without having to configure a bunch of design elements. The homepage features a profile image (Site Logo), site title, and recent posts with dates.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Single posts display with the feature image at the top of the post, although this template can easily be edited if this is an undesirable feature. Previous and Next post navigation appears under the post. Users can add menu items to display at the top, but clicking the site logo brings the visitor back home in the absence of a navigation menu.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The Hey theme comes in two different styles – the default and a serif variation. Colors can be adjusted to create a more vibrant palette for the site design.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

One major drawback to this theme, which may not be immediately evident by looking at the demo, is that if users want to display more than the three most recent posts, they will need to add the pagination block inside the query loop block. It will also need to be styled to match the theme better. The query loop can be edited to show more posts on the homepage.

\n\n\n\n

Although Hey is a simple personal blog theme, it also comes packaged with templates for WooCommerce compatibility. This is likely for the benefit of WordPress.com users who may want to quickly fire up a store. Self-hosted users who want to sell products with WooCommerce will be able to easily display things like the mini-cart, customer account block, product archive, product search results, and more.

\n\n\n\n

Overall, Hey is an elegantly simple block theme with a clean design and plentiful white space. It’s suitable for the person who wants an almost blank slate to get started, or just a theme that enables writing without any distraction for the reader. Check out the live demo on WordPress.com and download Hey from WordPress.org.

\n", "content_text": "Hey is a block theme designed by Automattic for users on WordPress.com and also released for free in the WordPress.org Themes Directory. It’s the kind of simple theme that enables you to quickly get started writing online, without having to configure a bunch of design elements. The homepage features a profile image (Site Logo), site title, and recent posts with dates.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSingle posts display with the feature image at the top of the post, although this template can easily be edited if this is an undesirable feature. Previous and Next post navigation appears under the post. Users can add menu items to display at the top, but clicking the site logo brings the visitor back home in the absence of a navigation menu.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Hey theme comes in two different styles – the default and a serif variation. Colors can be adjusted to create a more vibrant palette for the site design.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne major drawback to this theme, which may not be immediately evident by looking at the demo, is that if users want to display more than the three most recent posts, they will need to add the pagination block inside the query loop block. It will also need to be styled to match the theme better. The query loop can be edited to show more posts on the homepage.\n\n\n\nAlthough Hey is a simple personal blog theme, it also comes packaged with templates for WooCommerce compatibility. This is likely for the benefit of WordPress.com users who may want to quickly fire up a store. Self-hosted users who want to sell products with WooCommerce will be able to easily display things like the mini-cart, customer account block, product archive, product search results, and more.\n\n\n\nOverall, Hey is an elegantly simple block theme with a clean design and plentiful white space. It’s suitable for the person who wants an almost blank slate to get started, or just a theme that enables writing without any distraction for the reader. Check out the live demo on WordPress.com and download Hey from WordPress.org.", "date_published": "2023-07-06T17:02:08-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-07-06T17:02:10-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/hey-theme-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=145792", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-enables-commercial-and-community-filters-on-plugin-and-theme-directories", "title": "WordPress.org Enables Commercial and Community Filters on Plugin and Theme Directories", "content_html": "\n

During the 2022 State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg announced a plan to add new “Community” and “Commercial” taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories that would help users more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering. Shortly after the announcement, instructions were published for theme and plugin authors to opt into the new taxonomies.

\n\n\n\n

The new filters are now enabled on both the theme and plugin directories, giving users the ability to quickly sort between free community extensions and those with commercial upgrades. Anything with a “pro version” should be designated as Commercial. These usually come with some upsells for more features than are offered in the free version. So far, the number of themes identified as commercial vastly exceed the number of community themes.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

In the Plugin directory, extensions designated as free are nearly equal those designated as commercial. Many of the most widely used plugins have already been identified as commercial, including Yoast SEO, Jetpack, Akismet, Elementor, WooCommerce, All-in-One WP Migration, and more. Examples of community plugins include the WordPress Importer, Classic Editor, Classic Widgets, Gutenberg, Performance Lab, and Debug Bar.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

In both directories it appears only a small percentage of authors have designated their extensions using the commercial or community taxonomies. At this time, use of the taxonomies is not required. This gave rise to some questions in the comments of the announcement.

\n\n\n\n

“Would a better classification system would be to just have either no label for the majority, and then something closer to ‘includes paid upgrades’ that just implies they also offer additional services on top of their free (and often fully functional) version?” WordPress developer Kevin Batdorf said.

\n\n\n\n

“All plugins are\u00a0open source\u00a0regardless of whether they sell something, and that doesn\u2019t make those developers any less passionate about open-source. Nor does it imply non-commercial plugins have any less features, or that the level of dedication to support is any less dedicated.”

\n\n\n\n

Batdorf also asked if use of the taxonomies would be a requirement in the future, because, at the moment, their low usage could give some plugins an advantage under these new classifications.

\n\n\n\n

“Should it also be a requirement?” he said. “Otherwise this also seems like something to be gamed for visibility. Do Community or Commercial (or neither) plugins show higher install growth? I guarantee you people are tracking this already.”

\n\n\n\n

WordPress’ Meta team is seeking feedback on the current implementation. Automattic-sponsored contributor Steve Dufresne said “work is continuously underway to improve the browsing experience and refine the visual aspects of the Theme and Plugin Directory as part of the site redesign.” The new filters will be incorporated into the upcoming redesign changes that have been slowly rolling out across WordPress.org.

\n\n\n\n

These filters will also be making their way into the admin theme and plugin browsers, so users can access them from wherever they search for extensions. In the meantime, users and theme and plugin developers can leave feedback via Meta Trac on the specific tickets outlined in the announcement, as the team continues to iterate on the project.

\n", "content_text": "During the 2022 State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg announced a plan to add new “Community” and “Commercial” taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories that would help users more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering. Shortly after the announcement, instructions were published for theme and plugin authors to opt into the new taxonomies. \n\n\n\nThe new filters are now enabled on both the theme and plugin directories, giving users the ability to quickly sort between free community extensions and those with commercial upgrades. Anything with a “pro version” should be designated as Commercial. These usually come with some upsells for more features than are offered in the free version. So far, the number of themes identified as commercial vastly exceed the number of community themes. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn the Plugin directory, extensions designated as free are nearly equal those designated as commercial. Many of the most widely used plugins have already been identified as commercial, including Yoast SEO, Jetpack, Akismet, Elementor, WooCommerce, All-in-One WP Migration, and more. Examples of community plugins include the WordPress Importer, Classic Editor, Classic Widgets, Gutenberg, Performance Lab, and Debug Bar.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn both directories it appears only a small percentage of authors have designated their extensions using the commercial or community taxonomies. At this time, use of the taxonomies is not required. This gave rise to some questions in the comments of the announcement.\n\n\n\n“Would a better classification system would be to just have either no label for the majority, and then something closer to ‘includes paid upgrades’ that just implies they also offer additional services on top of their free (and often fully functional) version?” WordPress developer Kevin Batdorf said.\n\n\n\n“All plugins are\u00a0open source\u00a0regardless of whether they sell something, and that doesn\u2019t make those developers any less passionate about open-source. Nor does it imply non-commercial plugins have any less features, or that the level of dedication to support is any less dedicated.”\n\n\n\nBatdorf also asked if use of the taxonomies would be a requirement in the future, because, at the moment, their low usage could give some plugins an advantage under these new classifications.\n\n\n\n“Should it also be a requirement?” he said. “Otherwise this also seems like something to be gamed for visibility. Do Community or Commercial (or neither) plugins show higher install growth? I guarantee you people are tracking this already.”\n\n\n\nWordPress’ Meta team is seeking feedback on the current implementation. Automattic-sponsored contributor Steve Dufresne said “work is continuously underway to improve the browsing experience and refine the visual aspects of the Theme and Plugin Directory as part of the site redesign.” The new filters will be incorporated into the upcoming redesign changes that have been slowly rolling out across WordPress.org.\n\n\n\nThese filters will also be making their way into the admin theme and plugin browsers, so users can access them from wherever they search for extensions. In the meantime, users and theme and plugin developers can leave feedback via Meta Trac on the specific tickets outlined in the announcement, as the team continues to iterate on the project.", "date_published": "2023-06-13T00:11:36-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-06-13T00:11:38-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Screen-Shot-2023-06-12-at-11.25.04-PM.png", "tags": [ "News", "Plugins", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=145111", "url": "https://wptavern.com/shufflehound-releases-free-lemmony-child-theme-for-agencies", "title": "Shufflehound Releases Free Lemmony Child Theme for Agencies", "content_html": "\n

Shufflehound made a big splash in March when it released Lemmony, a free WordPress block theme with more than 30 patterns. This was the company’s first block theme on WordPress.org and it is already active on more than 1,000 websites. Building on the success of this theme, Shufflehound has created a child theme for agencies.

\n\n\n\n

Lemmony Agency bears a strong resemblance to its parent theme but with more agency-specific patterns. This theme ships with 25 new custom block patterns, on top of the ones already included in Lemmony, for a total of more than 50 patterns.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The patterns unique to this theme suit agencies but would also work well for non-profits, advocacy, portfolios, or businesses of any kind. These include a hero with services, accordions for things like FAQ, counters, more pricing tables, services with icons or images, a blockified sidebar, testimonials, and more.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The theme’s creators have done an excellent job in organizing all the patterns available to users. Inside the pattern explorer/inserter, they have been separated into different panels for the patterns specific to the Lemmony Agency theme, the Lemmony patterns, and the Lemmony full-page patterns. This makes it easier to build pages, since users won’t have to hunt through all the patterns lumped together.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The Lemmony Companion plugin, recommended when users install the theme, adds a handful of custom blocks that some of the patterns rely on to work. It includes blocks for a counter, icon, post featured image caption, typing text, hero auto-slider, and accordion.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

This might be the best way to ensure these features are styled exactly to match the theme and give users more creative control inside these particular blocks. Sometimes using third-party plugins to add sliders or icons can look like it’s bolted onto the design in an unsightly way. A companion plugin designated specifically for this theme makes sense in this instance.

\n\n\n\n

Shufflehound made an interesting choice creating Lemmony Agency as a child theme of what is already a very flexible multi-purpose theme. This certainly could have been shipped as full-page pattern but it would have also greatly expanded the patterns packaged with the parent theme. In these early days of block theming, it’s not yet clear what users might consider “pattern bloat” or too many patterns, especially since they can easily be categorized under various panels inside the explorer.

\n\n\n\n

Lemmony Agency is a solid option for building websites that need to showcase their services, display pricing, or simply maintain an informational web presence. It’s available for free from WordPress.org and will auto-install the parent theme at the same time.

\n", "content_text": "Shufflehound made a big splash in March when it released Lemmony, a free WordPress block theme with more than 30 patterns. This was the company’s first block theme on WordPress.org and it is already active on more than 1,000 websites. Building on the success of this theme, Shufflehound has created a child theme for agencies.\n\n\n\nLemmony Agency bears a strong resemblance to its parent theme but with more agency-specific patterns. This theme ships with 25 new custom block patterns, on top of the ones already included in Lemmony, for a total of more than 50 patterns.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe patterns unique to this theme suit agencies but would also work well for non-profits, advocacy, portfolios, or businesses of any kind. These include a hero with services, accordions for things like FAQ, counters, more pricing tables, services with icons or images, a blockified sidebar, testimonials, and more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe theme’s creators have done an excellent job in organizing all the patterns available to users. Inside the pattern explorer/inserter, they have been separated into different panels for the patterns specific to the Lemmony Agency theme, the Lemmony patterns, and the Lemmony full-page patterns. This makes it easier to build pages, since users won’t have to hunt through all the patterns lumped together.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Lemmony Companion plugin, recommended when users install the theme, adds a handful of custom blocks that some of the patterns rely on to work. It includes blocks for a counter, icon, post featured image caption, typing text, hero auto-slider, and accordion. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis might be the best way to ensure these features are styled exactly to match the theme and give users more creative control inside these particular blocks. Sometimes using third-party plugins to add sliders or icons can look like it’s bolted onto the design in an unsightly way. A companion plugin designated specifically for this theme makes sense in this instance.\n\n\n\nShufflehound made an interesting choice creating Lemmony Agency as a child theme of what is already a very flexible multi-purpose theme. This certainly could have been shipped as full-page pattern but it would have also greatly expanded the patterns packaged with the parent theme. In these early days of block theming, it’s not yet clear what users might consider “pattern bloat” or too many patterns, especially since they can easily be categorized under various panels inside the explorer. \n\n\n\nLemmony Agency is a solid option for building websites that need to showcase their services, display pricing, or simply maintain an informational web presence. It’s available for free from WordPress.org and will auto-install the parent theme at the same time.", "date_published": "2023-05-22T16:35:03-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-05-22T16:35:05-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/lemmony-agency-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=145067", "url": "https://wptavern.com/new-proposal-looks-to-retire-older-wordpress-default-themes", "title": "New Proposal Looks to Retire Older WordPress Default Themes", "content_html": "\n

WordPress is approaching its 20th anniversary, and for the majority of those years, contributors have cranked out a new default theme. Even though the structure and supported features of default themes have drastically changed over the years, contributors are still actively maintaining all 13 of the “Twenty” themes.

\n\n\n\n

A new proposal on WordPress.org recommends winding down active maintenance on older themes and implementing a new system of requirements for retiring them.

\n\n\n\n

“The level of effort to support 13 themes is not insignificant, especially in the times of the rapidly evolving\u00a0block\u00a0editor,” Bluehost-sponsored core contributor Jonathan Desrosiers said. “The burden of maintaining these themes has historically fallen on the\u00a0Core\u00a0team to ensure they continue to receive any needed updates.” These tasks include things like ensuring compatibility with newer PHP versions, fixing bugs, updates and deprecations of dependencies, security updates, and much more.

\n\n\n\n

“Because there are so many, it\u2019s not uncommon for it to take several months before older default themes properly support newer features added in WordPress Core,” Desrosiers said. “Additionally, themes created prior to the existence of certain APIs are often unable to fully take advantage of these new features (global styles, block patterns, etc.).”

\n\n\n\n

Desrosiers contends that reducing the support burden on contributors will allow them to focus on ensuring the most modern block-based themes deliver the best experience.

\n\n\n\n

“It also helps clear the path for work on new block theme-focused experiments and initiatives (such as the\u00a0Community Themes Initiative) attempting to refine the role that themes will have in the block editor era,” he said.

\n\n\n\n

Themes released through the WordPress.org account via the Community Themes Initiative, like the recent Stacks slide deck theme, will be officially supported, adding to the load. These themes, however, have the benefit of working with the Site Editor and all the latest features WordPress offers. When dealing with limited volunteer resources, supporting older default themes doesn’t have as much upside as spending these efforts the more modern themes.

\n\n\n\n

WordPress bundles the three most recent default themes in the latest download. This proposal seeks to retire older themes after a minimum of five years of support and when usage falls to less than 1% of all WordPress sites as determined by WordPress.org data. Using this criteria the default themes Twenty Ten through Twenty Sixteen would be retired and only receive security updates. Desrosiers suggests a yearly assessment of usage data to determine which themes would be retired.

\n\n\n\n

The three most recent WordPress default themes would be actively maintained and contributors would continue maintaining the following themes with bug fixes, compatibility updates, and security fixes:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The proposal has multiple benefits, in addition to reducing the number of actively supported themes from 13 to 6, but also has the drawback of affecting an estimated 730,000 users who will no longer receive maintenance on their themes.

\n\n\n\n

General reception to the proposal has been positive, as those using very old themes are usually looking for as few changes to their website as possible. With security updates still available to retired themes, these users would not be forced to update to a newer theme.

\n\n\n\n

The proposal was developed based on feedback and recommendations from a group of contributors. It is now awaiting feedback from the larger community. Unless the proposal needs to be significantly modified, contributors will soon move on to the practical tasks associated with retiring themes.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress is approaching its 20th anniversary, and for the majority of those years, contributors have cranked out a new default theme. Even though the structure and supported features of default themes have drastically changed over the years, contributors are still actively maintaining all 13 of the “Twenty” themes.\n\n\n\nA new proposal on WordPress.org recommends winding down active maintenance on older themes and implementing a new system of requirements for retiring them.\n\n\n\n“The level of effort to support 13 themes is not insignificant, especially in the times of the rapidly evolving\u00a0block\u00a0editor,” Bluehost-sponsored core contributor Jonathan Desrosiers said. “The burden of maintaining these themes has historically fallen on the\u00a0Core\u00a0team to ensure they continue to receive any needed updates.” These tasks include things like ensuring compatibility with newer PHP versions, fixing bugs, updates and deprecations of dependencies, security updates, and much more.\n\n\n\n“Because there are so many, it\u2019s not uncommon for it to take several months before older default themes properly support newer features added in WordPress Core,” Desrosiers said. “Additionally, themes created prior to the existence of certain APIs are often unable to fully take advantage of these new features (global styles, block patterns, etc.).”\n\n\n\nDesrosiers contends that reducing the support burden on contributors will allow them to focus on ensuring the most modern block-based themes deliver the best experience.\n\n\n\n“It also helps clear the path for work on new block theme-focused experiments and initiatives (such as the\u00a0Community Themes Initiative) attempting to refine the role that themes will have in the block editor era,” he said.\n\n\n\nThemes released through the WordPress.org account via the Community Themes Initiative, like the recent Stacks slide deck theme, will be officially supported, adding to the load. These themes, however, have the benefit of working with the Site Editor and all the latest features WordPress offers. When dealing with limited volunteer resources, supporting older default themes doesn’t have as much upside as spending these efforts the more modern themes.\n\n\n\nWordPress bundles the three most recent default themes in the latest download. This proposal seeks to retire older themes after a minimum of five years of support and when usage falls to less than 1% of all WordPress sites as determined by WordPress.org data. Using this criteria the default themes Twenty Ten through Twenty Sixteen would be retired and only receive security updates. Desrosiers suggests a yearly assessment of usage data to determine which themes would be retired.\n\n\n\nThe three most recent WordPress default themes would be actively maintained and contributors would continue maintaining the following themes with bug fixes, compatibility updates, and security fixes:\n\n\n\n\nTwenty Seventeen\n\n\n\nTwenty Nineteen\n\n\n\nTwenty Twenty\n\n\n\n\nThe proposal has multiple benefits, in addition to reducing the number of actively supported themes from 13 to 6, but also has the drawback of affecting an estimated 730,000 users who will no longer receive maintenance on their themes.\n\n\n\nGeneral reception to the proposal has been positive, as those using very old themes are usually looking for as few changes to their website as possible. With security updates still available to retired themes, these users would not be forced to update to a newer theme.\n\n\n\nThe proposal was developed based on feedback and recommendations from a group of contributors. It is now awaiting feedback from the larger community. Unless the proposal needs to be significantly modified, contributors will soon move on to the practical tasks associated with retiring themes.", "date_published": "2023-05-16T16:56:36-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-05-16T16:56:38-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/old-building.jpeg", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=144600", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-releases-frost-a-free-block-theme-for-website-builders", "title": "WP Engine Releases Frost, A Free Block Theme for Website Builders", "content_html": "\n

The WordPress Themes Directory is now hosting more than 300 block themes, a milestone for the dedicated theme developers who have persevered through the growing pains and evolution of block theming. WP Engine is one of the newest theme authors who helped put the directory over the 300 mark with its submission of Frost.

\n\n\n\n

With its clean, minimal design, 36 patterns, and impeccable attention to detail on block styles, Frost is positioned to quickly become another blockbuster multipurpose theme. It already has more than 1,000 users as it has been in testing for awhile before landing in the official directory.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Frost’s typography features Outfit, a geometric sans-serif font, for both header and paragraph text.

\n\n\n\n

The default color scheme is black and white with a vibrant blue accent color but Frost comes with eight different style variations. Frost designer Brian Gardner showcases a few in the tweet below, with Gutenberg’s full-screen previews for styles.

\n\n\n\n
\n

Feast your eyes on the latest Style Variations setting in the Site Editor, now with full-screen previews. It's currently in Gutenberg and will likely make its grand entrance in #WordPress 6.3! \"\ud83d\ude80\"\"\u2728\" pic.twitter.com/r7r20GjcdS

— Brian Gardner (@bgardner) May 5, 2023
\n
\n\n\n\n

When first installing the theme on a new WordPress site, clicking Customize takes the user to the Site Editor with the homepage template pre-filled so there’s no guesswork involved. Users can immediately start customizing any of the included templates. Frost packages all the usual ones – 404, archive, home, index, page, search, and single,\u00a0but also includes a blank template and a “no title” template to help users with content that works better without the requirement of a title.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Frost includes 36 patterns for building everything from pricing tables to portfolios, calls-to-action, testimonials, a grid of team members, various heroes, feature boxes, and more. Many of them have dark and light variations.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

There are also four full-page layouts that users can insert to build pages and launch websites faster, including About, Pricing, Home, and Links pages.

\n\n\n\n

Frost could easily be used for building agency websites, portfolios, business sites, and more. It’s easy to see developers using it as a starter for multiple projects given its minimal design. If website builders are looking for an even more minimalist starting point, Gardner’s Powder theme is a stripped down fork of Frost.

\n\n\n\n

Check out the Frost theme on its own website at frostwp.com, which includes examples of all the patterns, layouts, styles, documentation, and more. Frost is available to download for free from WordPress.org.

\n", "content_text": "The WordPress Themes Directory is now hosting more than 300 block themes, a milestone for the dedicated theme developers who have persevered through the growing pains and evolution of block theming. WP Engine is one of the newest theme authors who helped put the directory over the 300 mark with its submission of Frost.\n\n\n\nWith its clean, minimal design, 36 patterns, and impeccable attention to detail on block styles, Frost is positioned to quickly become another blockbuster multipurpose theme. It already has more than 1,000 users as it has been in testing for awhile before landing in the official directory.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFrost’s typography features Outfit, a geometric sans-serif font, for both header and paragraph text.\n\n\n\nThe default color scheme is black and white with a vibrant blue accent color but Frost comes with eight different style variations. Frost designer Brian Gardner showcases a few in the tweet below, with Gutenberg’s full-screen previews for styles.\n\n\n\n\nFeast your eyes on the latest Style Variations setting in the Site Editor, now with full-screen previews. It's currently in Gutenberg and will likely make its grand entrance in #WordPress 6.3! pic.twitter.com/r7r20GjcdS— Brian Gardner (@bgardner) May 5, 2023\n\n\n\n\nWhen first installing the theme on a new WordPress site, clicking Customize takes the user to the Site Editor with the homepage template pre-filled so there’s no guesswork involved. Users can immediately start customizing any of the included templates. Frost packages all the usual ones – 404, archive, home, index, page, search, and single,\u00a0but also includes a blank template and a “no title” template to help users with content that works better without the requirement of a title.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFrost includes 36 patterns for building everything from pricing tables to portfolios, calls-to-action, testimonials, a grid of team members, various heroes, feature boxes, and more. Many of them have dark and light variations. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThere are also four full-page layouts that users can insert to build pages and launch websites faster, including About, Pricing, Home, and Links pages. \n\n\n\nFrost could easily be used for building agency websites, portfolios, business sites, and more. It’s easy to see developers using it as a starter for multiple projects given its minimal design. If website builders are looking for an even more minimalist starting point, Gardner’s Powder theme is a stripped down fork of Frost.\n\n\n\nCheck out the Frost theme on its own website at frostwp.com, which includes examples of all the patterns, layouts, styles, documentation, and more. Frost is available to download for free from WordPress.org.", "date_published": "2023-05-10T22:30:22-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-05-11T09:34:18-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/frost-featured-image.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=144665", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-team-releases-stacks-a-community-theme-for-building-slide-decks", "title": "WordPress Themes Team Releases Stacks: A Community Theme for Building Slide Decks", "content_html": "\n

WordPress’ Themes Team has released a new block theme called Stacks as part of the Community Themes initiative proposed earlier this year. The goal is to bring together representatives of the team to build block themes year round, the same way that default themes are built and officially supported.

\n\n\n\n

Stacks was designed for one purpose – to create slide decks that can be used for a presentation. It was designed and built by Saxon Fletcher with help from Automattic-sponsored contributor Ben Dwyer.

\n\n\n\n

The theme includes a simple setup flow. After installing Stacks and clicking ‘Customize,’ the user is taken to the Site Editor where a set of five slides is already pre-filled on the home page in a warm and inviting color palette.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Slides can also be created on any post or page using the “Stacks” pattern. After creating a new page, the user is presented with the option to start the page by inserting the Stacks pattern. This loads the same five sample slides that are included on the home page by default. They can be easily edited so that any page or post contains its own unique slide deck.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The Stacks theme looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktop, making it easy to follow along from different devices.

\n\n\n\n

The theme was built for a small niche use case – people who want to host their own slides – and is not likely to be widely adopted but presents an interesting use of the block editor for creating slides. Some users may find this to be more user friendly than working with a third-party application to build their presentations.

\n\n\n\n

Since a different deck can be hosted on each page or post, someone who wants to create a website devoted entirely to hosting their own slide presentations could easily save them all in the same place, share links to the different decks, and avoid having to use a hosted service that may not be around forever.

\n\n\n\n

Stacks is available for free on WordPress.org and users can expect these Community Themes to have some level of support as they are being hosted by the official WordPress.org account.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress’ Themes Team has released a new block theme called Stacks as part of the Community Themes initiative proposed earlier this year. The goal is to bring together representatives of the team to build block themes year round, the same way that default themes are built and officially supported.\n\n\n\nStacks was designed for one purpose – to create slide decks that can be used for a presentation. It was designed and built by Saxon Fletcher with help from Automattic-sponsored contributor Ben Dwyer. \n\n\n\nThe theme includes a simple setup flow. After installing Stacks and clicking ‘Customize,’ the user is taken to the Site Editor where a set of five slides is already pre-filled on the home page in a warm and inviting color palette.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSlides can also be created on any post or page using the “Stacks” pattern. After creating a new page, the user is presented with the option to start the page by inserting the Stacks pattern. This loads the same five sample slides that are included on the home page by default. They can be easily edited so that any page or post contains its own unique slide deck.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Stacks theme looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktop, making it easy to follow along from different devices.\n\n\n\nThe theme was built for a small niche use case – people who want to host their own slides – and is not likely to be widely adopted but presents an interesting use of the block editor for creating slides. Some users may find this to be more user friendly than working with a third-party application to build their presentations.\n\n\n\nSince a different deck can be hosted on each page or post, someone who wants to create a website devoted entirely to hosting their own slide presentations could easily save them all in the same place, share links to the different decks, and avoid having to use a hosted service that may not be around forever. \n\n\n\nStacks is available for free on WordPress.org and users can expect these Community Themes to have some level of support as they are being hosted by the official WordPress.org account.", "date_published": "2023-05-04T13:09:13-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-05-04T13:09:15-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screen-Shot-2023-05-04-at-1.00.20-PM.png", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Stacks-demo.mp4", "mime_type": "video/mp4", "size_in_bytes": 1134551 } ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=143977", "url": "https://wptavern.com/ollie-block-theme-now-in-public-beta", "title": "Ollie Block Theme Now in Public Beta", "content_html": "\n

WordPress developer Mike McAlister has launched Ollie, his first block theme, into public beta. McAlister, whose theme company Array Themes was acquired by WP Engine in 2018, along with the Atomic Blocks plugin, recently departed from his role at the company to pursue other projects.

\n\n\n\n

Ollie supports all the latest Site Editor features, including global styles, patterns, templates, and template parts. It is a beautiful, multipurpose theme of the high caliber one might expect from McAlister, a veteran developer whose past products were well known for their minimalist and clean design.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Ollie includes an impressive set of more than 50 custom block patterns, making page building a delight. There are page sections for testimonials, company logos, multiple hero designs, pricing tables, various headers and footers, calls to action, and more. Ollie includes six different full-page patterns for the homepage, about, profile, features, pricing, and a download page. They are featured on the theme’s live demo under the Patterns menu item.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Ollie includes seven style variations, with blue, green, orange, pink, red, and teal accent color palettes in addition to the default.

\n\n\n\n

Like many other block themes, Ollie is speedy, getting top scores on Google\u2019s Pagespeed Insights.

\n\n\n\n

“One of the most powerful performance features is the selective loading of assets,” McAlister said. “Instead of loading a large stylesheet on every page, Ollie only loads the styles needed on the page. This results in a much smaller page size, far less page requests, and an instantly-loading page, which search engines love.”

\n\n\n\n

After testing Ollie, I found the user experience to be friendly and an accurate representation of one of the taglines for the theme: “Get a 40 hour head start.” As soon as users install the theme and click “Customize,” they are taken directly to the Site Editor with the front page template pre-populated to match the demo site. This, combined with all the improvements in the Site Editor in WordPress 6.2, creates a smooth editing experience.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Although it hasn’t been officially released yet, Ollie could be one of the next majorly successful block themes, with its sheer number of patterns and flexibility for so many different use cases.

\n\n\n\n

Ollie is currently on GitHub during the public beta but McAlister plans to get it approved for WordPress.org after more testing. He is not yet sure whether he will be jumping back into the commercial theme market.

\n\n\n\n

“With this first block theme, my goal is simply to learn as much as possible about block themes, how users are using them, and what kind of potential there is for a premium offering,” McAlister told the Tavern. “This flagship theme will remain as an educational tool and will be free for all to use. Although I have some ideas for monetization, the reality is that we don\u2019t know much about how users will take to block themes or what kind of premium features they\u2019re willing to pay for yet.

\n\n\n\n

“We\u2019re very early in this new paradigm, so I\u2019m taking the opportunity to ask lots of questions learn about the problems users are facing. What I do know is that any modern commercial WordPress product needs a supreme customer experience and a wealth of quality education to help users navigate all of these new features and drive adoption.”

\n\n\n\n

WordPress.org has 286 block themes available and even the best ones have just a few thousand active installs. Building block themes that people will want to use is a new frontier, even for McAlister whose former company was a war-horse in the Classic Themes era.

\n\n\n\n

“Block themes are going to be a game changer for many different personas of WordPress users,” McAlister said. “Being able to customize virtually every aspect of your site is super powerful, but it means that block themes have a lot more moving parts than classic themes. Theme.json, global styles, patterns, templates, template parts \u2014 all of these have to be accounted for and they all have to work together seamlessly for an excellent block theme experience.”

\n\n\n\n

WordPress theme developers are still getting a handle on these changes but the Themes Team is putting a stake in the ground by making block theming the focus of the Theme Handbook overhaul. Although Classic Themes will still have a chapter in the handbook, the Themes Team has made it clear that block themes are “the present and future of WordPress.”

\n\n\n\n

“Since a lot of the block theme building is done in the editor, it requires a new mastery of the editor that few are intimately familiar with yet,” McAlister said. “To build patterns or layouts, you need to know which blocks to use, how to structure them effectively, how to leverage your design system in theme.json, and you need a good design sense to pull it all together.

\n\n\n\n

“However, when it all finally comes together, block themes provide an unmatched site building and editing experience in comparison to classic themes. I\u2019m very optimistic about the opportunity to revitalize the WordPress theme space, but it\u2019s going to take a lot of work and collective education to get there.”

\n", "content_text": "WordPress developer Mike McAlister has launched Ollie, his first block theme, into public beta. McAlister, whose theme company Array Themes was acquired by WP Engine in 2018, along with the Atomic Blocks plugin, recently departed from his role at the company to pursue other projects.\n\n\n\nOllie supports all the latest Site Editor features, including global styles, patterns, templates, and template parts. It is a beautiful, multipurpose theme of the high caliber one might expect from McAlister, a veteran developer whose past products were well known for their minimalist and clean design.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOllie includes an impressive set of more than 50 custom block patterns, making page building a delight. There are page sections for testimonials, company logos, multiple hero designs, pricing tables, various headers and footers, calls to action, and more. Ollie includes six different full-page patterns for the homepage, about, profile, features, pricing, and a download page. They are featured on the theme’s live demo under the Patterns menu item.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOllie includes seven style variations, with blue, green, orange, pink, red, and teal accent color palettes in addition to the default. \n\n\n\nLike many other block themes, Ollie is speedy, getting top scores on Google\u2019s Pagespeed Insights.\n\n\n\n“One of the most powerful performance features is the selective loading of assets,” McAlister said. “Instead of loading a large stylesheet on every page, Ollie only loads the styles needed on the page. This results in a much smaller page size, far less page requests, and an instantly-loading page, which search engines love.”\n\n\n\nAfter testing Ollie, I found the user experience to be friendly and an accurate representation of one of the taglines for the theme: “Get a 40 hour head start.” As soon as users install the theme and click “Customize,” they are taken directly to the Site Editor with the front page template pre-populated to match the demo site. This, combined with all the improvements in the Site Editor in WordPress 6.2, creates a smooth editing experience.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlthough it hasn’t been officially released yet, Ollie could be one of the next majorly successful block themes, with its sheer number of patterns and flexibility for so many different use cases.\n\n\n\nOllie is currently on GitHub during the public beta but McAlister plans to get it approved for WordPress.org after more testing. He is not yet sure whether he will be jumping back into the commercial theme market.\n\n\n\n“With this first block theme, my goal is simply to learn as much as possible about block themes, how users are using them, and what kind of potential there is for a premium offering,” McAlister told the Tavern. “This flagship theme will remain as an educational tool and will be free for all to use. Although I have some ideas for monetization, the reality is that we don\u2019t know much about how users will take to block themes or what kind of premium features they\u2019re willing to pay for yet.\n\n\n\n“We\u2019re very early in this new paradigm, so I\u2019m taking the opportunity to ask lots of questions learn about the problems users are facing. What I do know is that any modern commercial WordPress product needs a supreme customer experience and a wealth of quality education to help users navigate all of these new features and drive adoption.”\n\n\n\nWordPress.org has 286 block themes available and even the best ones have just a few thousand active installs. Building block themes that people will want to use is a new frontier, even for McAlister whose former company was a war-horse in the Classic Themes era.\n\n\n\n“Block themes are going to be a game changer for many different personas of WordPress users,” McAlister said. “Being able to customize virtually every aspect of your site is super powerful, but it means that block themes have a lot more moving parts than classic themes. Theme.json, global styles, patterns, templates, template parts \u2014 all of these have to be accounted for and they all have to work together seamlessly for an excellent block theme experience.”\n\n\n\n WordPress theme developers are still getting a handle on these changes but the Themes Team is putting a stake in the ground by making block theming the focus of the Theme Handbook overhaul. Although Classic Themes will still have a chapter in the handbook, the Themes Team has made it clear that block themes are “the present and future of WordPress.” \n\n\n\n“Since a lot of the block theme building is done in the editor, it requires a new mastery of the editor that few are intimately familiar with yet,” McAlister said. “To build patterns or layouts, you need to know which blocks to use, how to structure them effectively, how to leverage your design system in theme.json, and you need a good design sense to pull it all together. \n\n\n\n“However, when it all finally comes together, block themes provide an unmatched site building and editing experience in comparison to classic themes. I\u2019m very optimistic about the opportunity to revitalize the WordPress theme space, but it\u2019s going to take a lot of work and collective education to get there.”", "date_published": "2023-04-26T00:20:16-04:00", "date_modified": "2023-04-26T08:28:31-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ollie-screenshot.jpeg", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/pattern-previews.mp4", "mime_type": "video/mp4", "size_in_bytes": 7480617 } ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=142506", "url": "https://wptavern.com/lemmony-a-free-wordpress-block-theme-with-30-patterns", "title": "Lemmony: A Free WordPress Block Theme with 30+ Patterns", "content_html": "\n

Lemmony is a new WordPress block theme designed by the team at Shufflehound, a theme development company based in Europe with commercial products on Themeforest. This is the team’s first block theme on WordPress.org and it is a strong debut.

\n\n\n\n

Lemmony is a beautifully-designed multipurpose theme that would work well for businesses, agencies, and portfolio websites. It features the Plus Jakarta Sans font face for both headings and paragraph text, a geometric sans serif style, designed by Gumpita Rahayu from Tokotype.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The homepage includes bold, full-width immersive images offset with calls-to-action and blocks featuring a variety of different ways to present information. Scrolling the page reveals tasteful (and optional) animation that brings the content to life.

\n\n\n\n

Lemmony packages more than 30 custom block patterns to help users design and build pages. These include multiple heroes with lists and calls-to-action, heroes with images and titles, partner logos, query with a sidebar, services grid, services with video, team members, and more – nearly every kind of pattern that a business website might require.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Lemmony also packages five full-page patterns for services, gallery, contact, about, and the front page, making it easy to simply drop the pattern in place for the most common pages found on a brochure website.

\n\n\n\n

This theme offers a solid user experience for those who are just getting started building their websites. After installing and activating Lemmony on a fresh site, it will look nearly exactly like the live demo. Everything on the front page is in place with placeholder content, including different menu items, just waiting for the user to add, remove, or edit the blocks. The user doesn’t have to start from scratch do any guesswork about where things go in the design. This is the kind of experience that all block themes should provide.

\n\n\n\n

Lemmony comes with a companion plugin that includes additional customer blocks and other features, such as the custom icons seen in the demo. It will prompt the user after installing the theme to install the plugin as well to get more features. If the user is editing a page and inserts a pattern that includes icons, the theme will allow users to install the plugin directly from the editor. It’s a very smooth experience for including features that require an additional plugin. The plugin is optional and most of the designs seen in the demo work without it installed.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

In the future, Lemmony’s creators plan to include more website templates, which would make it easier and faster to set up different kinds of sites. Overall, the theme feels snappy, has an unusually large variety of patterns, and is responsive and looks great on mobile. The installation experience is user-friendly and provides a good starting point for jumping into full-site editing. Check out the live demo and download Lemmony for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.

\n", "content_text": "Lemmony is a new WordPress block theme designed by the team at Shufflehound, a theme development company based in Europe with commercial products on Themeforest. This is the team’s first block theme on WordPress.org and it is a strong debut.\n\n\n\nLemmony is a beautifully-designed multipurpose theme that would work well for businesses, agencies, and portfolio websites. It features the Plus Jakarta Sans font face for both headings and paragraph text, a geometric sans serif style, designed by Gumpita Rahayu from Tokotype.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe homepage includes bold, full-width immersive images offset with calls-to-action and blocks featuring a variety of different ways to present information. Scrolling the page reveals tasteful (and optional) animation that brings the content to life. \n\n\n\nLemmony packages more than 30 custom block patterns to help users design and build pages. These include multiple heroes with lists and calls-to-action, heroes with images and titles, partner logos, query with a sidebar, services grid, services with video, team members, and more – nearly every kind of pattern that a business website might require.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLemmony also packages five full-page patterns for services, gallery, contact, about, and the front page, making it easy to simply drop the pattern in place for the most common pages found on a brochure website. \n\n\n\nThis theme offers a solid user experience for those who are just getting started building their websites. After installing and activating Lemmony on a fresh site, it will look nearly exactly like the live demo. Everything on the front page is in place with placeholder content, including different menu items, just waiting for the user to add, remove, or edit the blocks. The user doesn’t have to start from scratch do any guesswork about where things go in the design. This is the kind of experience that all block themes should provide.\n\n\n\nLemmony comes with a companion plugin that includes additional customer blocks and other features, such as the custom icons seen in the demo. It will prompt the user after installing the theme to install the plugin as well to get more features. If the user is editing a page and inserts a pattern that includes icons, the theme will allow users to install the plugin directly from the editor. It’s a very smooth experience for including features that require an additional plugin. The plugin is optional and most of the designs seen in the demo work without it installed. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn the future, Lemmony’s creators plan to include more website templates, which would make it easier and faster to set up different kinds of sites. Overall, the theme feels snappy, has an unusually large variety of patterns, and is responsive and looks great on mobile. The installation experience is user-friendly and provides a good starting point for jumping into full-site editing. Check out the live demo and download Lemmony for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.", "date_published": "2023-03-08T23:20:14-05:00", "date_modified": "2023-03-08T23:20:15-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/lemonny.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=142491", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-legacy-default-themes-updated-to-bundle-google-fonts-locally", "title": "WordPress\u2019 Legacy Default Themes Updated to Bundle Google Fonts Locally", "content_html": "\n

WordPress contributors have updated the legacy default themes to bundle Google Fonts locally in the theme folder, instead of loading them from Google’s servers. In years past, loading fonts from the the Google CDN was the recommended practice for performance reasons, but new privacy concerns have emerged following a German court case, which\u00a0fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts,\u00a0

\n\n\n\n

All of the default themes from Twenty Twelve to Twenty Seventeen have been updated. The process began nine month ago but the approach took some time for contributors to refine. Updates to default themes are usually done in coordination with major and minor releases of WordPress, as core contributor Jonathan Desrosiers explained in the ticket.

\n\n\n\n

“The reason the updates are usually coordinated is that the themes are usually updated to be compatible with new versions of WordPress, so releasing at the same time makes a lot of sense,” Desrosiers said. “Also, the number of contributors that focus on the tickets within the Bundled Themes component is usually very low unless these compatibility issues are being addressed.”

\n\n\n\n

A dev note to accompany these updates to the legacy default themes was published to WordPress.org. It contains code examples for serving a new stylesheet from the theme directory, fixing the editor style within a custom theme-setup function, removing the font stylesheet, and including a custom set of fonts in a child theme. This change particularly impacts those who have edited or removed the font stylesheet in a child theme of these default themes or a plugin.

\n\n\n\n

WordPress’ Themes Team has strongly urged theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, and is expected to officially ban remotely hosted fonts following WordPress’ legacy default themes getting updated.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress contributors have updated the legacy default themes to bundle Google Fonts locally in the theme folder, instead of loading them from Google’s servers. In years past, loading fonts from the the Google CDN was the recommended practice for performance reasons, but new privacy concerns have emerged following a German court case, which\u00a0fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts,\u00a0\n\n\n\nAll of the default themes from Twenty Twelve to Twenty Seventeen have been updated. The process began nine month ago but the approach took some time for contributors to refine. Updates to default themes are usually done in coordination with major and minor releases of WordPress, as core contributor Jonathan Desrosiers explained in the ticket.\n\n\n\n“The reason the updates are usually coordinated is that the themes are usually updated to be compatible with new versions of WordPress, so releasing at the same time makes a lot of sense,” Desrosiers said. “Also, the number of contributors that focus on the tickets within the Bundled Themes component is usually very low unless these compatibility issues are being addressed.”\n\n\n\nA dev note to accompany these updates to the legacy default themes was published to WordPress.org. It contains code examples for serving a new stylesheet from the theme directory, fixing the editor style within a custom theme-setup function, removing the font stylesheet, and including a custom set of fonts in a child theme. This change particularly impacts those who have edited or removed the font stylesheet in a child theme of these default themes or a plugin. \n\n\n\nWordPress’ Themes Team has strongly urged theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, and is expected to officially ban remotely hosted fonts following WordPress’ legacy default themes getting updated.", "date_published": "2023-03-06T22:19:52-05:00", "date_modified": "2023-03-06T22:19:53-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/soft-letters.jpg", "tags": [ "google fonts", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=141076", "url": "https://wptavern.com/lettre-newsletter-theme-now-available-on-wordpress-org", "title": "Lettre Newsletter Theme Now Available on WordPress.org", "content_html": "\n

Automattic has published its Lettre theme to WordPress.org. The company launched its newsletter product at the end of December 2022 using Lettre as the default theme. The self-hosted version of this block theme is for those who want to publish a newsletter using Jetpack.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The theme puts the focus on the subscription form, which is the most important thing a newsletter landing page can do – make it easy for people to sign up. Beneath the form there is a link to read all the posts, followed by another subscription form. All of these elements in the home page design are blocks, making it easy for them to be removed or rearranged.

\n\n\n\n

Lettre comes with 15 block patterns for building different pages and designs, including about the author(s), a bold color signup, a two-column signup, various designs for the newsletter intro with light and dark background images, newsletter signup with media on the left, newsletter signup with logos for the background, a list of posts, an in-post article promo, three columns of text, and more.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

A live demo of the theme is available on WordPress.com. The menu items on the demo give a few examples of the different signup patterns in action.

\n\n\n\n

Lettre is designed to be used with Jetpack’s Subscription block, which uses WordPress.com’s infrastructure to manage emails and subscribers. If you like the design but are already using another newsletter service, the Jetpack Subscribe block can be replaced with any other block, including the shortcode block for newsletter services that haven’t yet made their subscription forms available via a block. Be advised, you may need to write some custom CSS to ensure that the subscribe form matches the original design.

\n\n\n\n

Lettre is one of the only themes in the WordPress Themes Directory that was made to be a newsletter landing page and certainly the only block theme dedicated to this purpose. Combined with Jetpack’s subscription feature, this is one of the most seamless ways to distribute a newsletter without all the extra steps of copying the content into a newsletter service’s editor. Lettre is available for free download from WordPress.org. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more themes like this pop up now that WordPress.com has launched its newsletter service.

\n", "content_text": "Automattic has published its Lettre theme to WordPress.org. The company launched its newsletter product at the end of December 2022 using Lettre as the default theme. The self-hosted version of this block theme is for those who want to publish a newsletter using Jetpack.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe theme puts the focus on the subscription form, which is the most important thing a newsletter landing page can do – make it easy for people to sign up. Beneath the form there is a link to read all the posts, followed by another subscription form. All of these elements in the home page design are blocks, making it easy for them to be removed or rearranged.\n\n\n\nLettre comes with 15 block patterns for building different pages and designs, including about the author(s), a bold color signup, a two-column signup, various designs for the newsletter intro with light and dark background images, newsletter signup with media on the left, newsletter signup with logos for the background, a list of posts, an in-post article promo, three columns of text, and more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA live demo of the theme is available on WordPress.com. The menu items on the demo give a few examples of the different signup patterns in action.\n\n\n\nLettre is designed to be used with Jetpack’s Subscription block, which uses WordPress.com’s infrastructure to manage emails and subscribers. If you like the design but are already using another newsletter service, the Jetpack Subscribe block can be replaced with any other block, including the shortcode block for newsletter services that haven’t yet made their subscription forms available via a block. Be advised, you may need to write some custom CSS to ensure that the subscribe form matches the original design.\n\n\n\nLettre is one of the only themes in the WordPress Themes Directory that was made to be a newsletter landing page and certainly the only block theme dedicated to this purpose. Combined with Jetpack’s subscription feature, this is one of the most seamless ways to distribute a newsletter without all the extra steps of copying the content into a newsletter service’s editor. Lettre is available for free download from WordPress.org. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more themes like this pop up now that WordPress.com has launched its newsletter service.", "date_published": "2023-01-13T21:50:40-05:00", "date_modified": "2023-01-13T21:50:41-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/lettre-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=140559", "url": "https://wptavern.com/commercial-and-community-categorization-is-live-on-wordpress-org-theme-and-plugin-directories", "title": "Commercial and Community Categorization Is Live on WordPress.org Theme and Plugin Directories", "content_html": "\n

One of Matt Mullenweg’s announcements at the 2022 State of the Word was the addition of new taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories that will help users more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering.

\n\n\n\n

With nearly 60,000 free plugins available and more than 10,000 free themes, it’s not always immediately evident which extensions are officially supported by the community and which have commercial upgrades and support available.

\n\n\n\n

The new “Community” and “Commercial” designations were created to demystify the selection process and empower users to find plugins and themes that suit their needs. They were live on WordPress.org last week and plugin and theme authors were invited to opt into the categorization. The categories are visible in the sidebar of the listings.

\n\n\n\n

In the example below, Akismet, Automattic’s commercial spam plugin that is bundled with WordPress, has the new Commercial category applied, indicating it is free but offers additional paid commercial upgrades or support.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The categories do not yet seem to be as widely applied to themes, but one example is all the default themes fall under the “Community Theme” designation, indicating that they are developed and supported by a community as opposed to being a part of a commercial endeavor.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

There are currently just two categories, but meta contributor Samuel (Otto) Wood said this effort is “the start of a broader categorization of plugins and themes.” He outlined how plugin and theme authors can opt into the new categorization feature:

\n\n\n\n
\n

To opt in a plugin or theme, email plugins@wordpress.org, or themes@wordpress.org, and simply ask to opt into it. This is a manual process for now. In the future, we will be adding a method for plugins and themes to do it themselves.

\n\n\n\n

Once your plugin or theme is added, you will get a new feature (on the advanced tab for plugins, or at the bottom of the listing page for themes). For both cases, it\u2019s a simple URL entry.

\n
\n\n\n\n

For Commercial extensions the URL is a support link. Community extension URLs will be labeled as a contribute link.

\n\n\n\n

Several participants in the comments of the announcement suggested that commercial-tagged plugins and themes should also have the option to include a “contribute” link since they are open source software. Wood’s response seems to indicate the URL is more about where to direct support.

\n\n\n\n

“This is a matter of categorization,” he said. “Community plugins are those that are mainly supported by a community of users. Commercial plugins are those primarily supported by a commercial profit-seeking entity.”

\n\n\n\n

Once these categorizations are more widely adopted, it will be interesting to see if the theme and plugin directories will add the ability to filter search results using these tags. This would allow users to narrow down the results to be in line with their expectations for support.

\n", "content_text": "One of Matt Mullenweg’s announcements at the 2022 State of the Word was the addition of new taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories that will help users more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering. \n\n\n\nWith nearly 60,000 free plugins available and more than 10,000 free themes, it’s not always immediately evident which extensions are officially supported by the community and which have commercial upgrades and support available.\n\n\n\nThe new “Community” and “Commercial” designations were created to demystify the selection process and empower users to find plugins and themes that suit their needs. They were live on WordPress.org last week and plugin and theme authors were invited to opt into the categorization. The categories are visible in the sidebar of the listings. \n\n\n\nIn the example below, Akismet, Automattic’s commercial spam plugin that is bundled with WordPress, has the new Commercial category applied, indicating it is free but offers additional paid commercial upgrades or support. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe categories do not yet seem to be as widely applied to themes, but one example is all the default themes fall under the “Community Theme” designation, indicating that they are developed and supported by a community as opposed to being a part of a commercial endeavor.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThere are currently just two categories, but meta contributor Samuel (Otto) Wood said this effort is “the start of a broader categorization of plugins and themes.” He outlined how plugin and theme authors can opt into the new categorization feature:\n\n\n\n\nTo opt in a plugin or theme, email plugins@wordpress.org, or themes@wordpress.org, and simply ask to opt into it. This is a manual process for now. In the future, we will be adding a method for plugins and themes to do it themselves.\n\n\n\nOnce your plugin or theme is added, you will get a new feature (on the advanced tab for plugins, or at the bottom of the listing page for themes). For both cases, it\u2019s a simple URL entry.\n\n\n\n\nFor Commercial extensions the URL is a support link. Community extension URLs will be labeled as a contribute link.\n\n\n\nSeveral participants in the comments of the announcement suggested that commercial-tagged plugins and themes should also have the option to include a “contribute” link since they are open source software. Wood’s response seems to indicate the URL is more about where to direct support.\n\n\n\n“This is a matter of categorization,” he said. “Community plugins are those that are mainly supported by a community of users. Commercial plugins are those primarily supported by a commercial profit-seeking entity.”\n\n\n\nOnce these categorizations are more widely adopted, it will be interesting to see if the theme and plugin directories will add the ability to filter search results using these tags. This would allow users to narrow down the results to be in line with their expectations for support.", "date_published": "2022-12-22T23:46:22-05:00", "date_modified": "2022-12-22T23:46:23-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/tag.jpeg", "tags": [ "wordpress.org", "News", "Plugins", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=140201", "url": "https://wptavern.com/course-a-new-free-block-theme-compatible-with-sensei-lms", "title": "Course: A New Free Block Theme Compatible with Sensei LMS", "content_html": "\n

Sensei LMS, Automattic’s teaching and learning management plugin, has released a new free block theme called Course. In February 2022, version 4.0 of the plugin introduced support for full-site editing with its bundled “Learning Mode” theme. Course features a new bold design made to be customized in the Site Editor.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Although Sensei works with neaerly any WordPress theme, the plugin looks its best with themes designed specifically for Sensei compatibility. Course includes styles for Sensei functionality to perfectly display course lists, sales pages, and the “Learning Mode” course templates. It integrates with the free Sensei LMS plugin as well as the pro version. Sensei’s\u00a0new Course List\u00a0block will also inherit all the theme’s styles seamlessly.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

If green is not your jam, Course includes four style variations suitable as a starting point with blue, dark, and gold as the accent colors and multiple font combinations.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

In addition to the various styles, Course brings all the power of the Site Editor for customizing for Sensei templates, as seen in the Lesson template below.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Although Course is ideal for website owners who are selling courses, the theme is also flexible to be used without Sensei for other purposes like blogging, coaching, and small businesses. Course isn’t easy to find if you’re hunting for block themes, as it doesn’t seem to be tagged as a block theme on WordPress.org. It’s free to download in the official Themes Directory or via the Sensei LMS website.

\n", "content_text": "Sensei LMS, Automattic’s teaching and learning management plugin, has released a new free block theme called Course. In February 2022, version 4.0 of the plugin introduced support for full-site editing with its bundled “Learning Mode” theme. Course features a new bold design made to be customized in the Site Editor.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlthough Sensei works with neaerly any WordPress theme, the plugin looks its best with themes designed specifically for Sensei compatibility. Course includes styles for Sensei functionality to perfectly display course lists, sales pages, and the “Learning Mode” course templates. It integrates with the free Sensei LMS plugin as well as the pro version. Sensei’s\u00a0new Course List\u00a0block will also inherit all the theme’s styles seamlessly.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIf green is not your jam, Course includes four style variations suitable as a starting point with blue, dark, and gold as the accent colors and multiple font combinations.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn addition to the various styles, Course brings all the power of the Site Editor for customizing for Sensei templates, as seen in the Lesson template below.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlthough Course is ideal for website owners who are selling courses, the theme is also flexible to be used without Sensei for other purposes like blogging, coaching, and small businesses. Course isn’t easy to find if you’re hunting for block themes, as it doesn’t seem to be tagged as a block theme on WordPress.org. It’s free to download in the official Themes Directory or via the Sensei LMS website.", "date_published": "2022-12-08T15:44:37-05:00", "date_modified": "2022-12-08T15:44:38-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/course-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "lms", "Sensei", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=139629", "url": "https://wptavern.com/divi-5-0-aims-to-bring-greater-compatibility-with-gutenberg", "title": "Divi 5.0 Aims to Bring Greater Compatibility with Gutenberg", "content_html": "\n

Divi, the popular commercial WordPress theme and page builder created by Elegant Themes, has announced major changes coming in version 5.0 that constitute a complete rewrite of Divi\u2019s core technologies. The update, which is expected to be released in beta next year, will focus on performance, stability, scalability, and extendability, but it will not introduce any new features.

\n\n\n\n

“We are recreating Divi\u2019s backend framework, cleaning up years of technical debt, changing Divi\u2019s storage format and improving its rendering mechanism,” Elegant Themes CEO Nick Roach said. “This new version of Divi will be able to processes design settings much more quickly.”

\n\n\n\n

One of the most notable changes coming in 5.0 is that Divi will be migrating away from shortcodes.

\n\n\n\n

“This change will bring Divi into alignment with the future of WordPress, which is evolving in a new direction,” Roach said.

\n\n\n\n

Divi will migrate to a new JSON format that is similar to the way Gutenberg stores data. The legacy shortcodes will continue to work and for a time Divi will lazy load in the old framework as necessary.

\n\n\n\n

“If you are using Divi shortcodes outside of your post content, it will be highly recommended to replace these shortcodes with our new json-based elements,” Roach said. “Otherwise, you are going to take a performance hit.”

\n\n\n\n

As part of the 5.0 update, Divi’s developers plan to include a button to perform the migration away from shortcodes, which will automatically change posts to use the new system.

\n\n\n\n

Divi 5.0 will also introduce a new Builder API, which Roach said “may also open up opportunities for Divi/Gutenberg cross-compatibility:”

\n\n\n\n
\n

Developers familiar with creating blocks for WordPress will find a lot of similarities in the Divi 5.0 module API. WordPress blocks will be more easily adapted to Divi and WordPress developers will be able to jump head first into building things for our community. We are building this new version of Divi to work in harmony with WordPress.

\n
\n\n\n\n

News of the coming update was well-received by Divi users who posted additional questions and concerns in the comments. A few users were skeptical about the new direction but willing to see how it pans out.

\n\n\n\n

Peter R, a current user who said he appreciates Divi’s “nicer and smoother UX,” along with the collections of design settings, indicated that Divi seems to be falling behind what the block editor offers for building pages with dynamic data:

\n\n\n\n
\n

As nice as Divi 5.0 sounds, it\u2019s just sooo far away\u2026 especially since it won\u2019t have the features I\u2019m looking for at launch which will then take even longer if those features appear at all. I was really hoping Divi 5.0 would move more towards the Gutenberg block builder (other than back-end data storage etc).

\n\n\n\n

There seems to be a real arms race going on with block builders right now. Many are adding features that Divi simply can\u2019t compete with now and will probably take years to match if at all. Far more flexible layouts especially when it comes to making your own post loops etc, more powerful features for displaying dynamic data or for collecting and storing data, and the ability to mix-and-match blocks from different creators so you don\u2019t depend on a single provider like Divi.

\n
\n\n\n\n

More than 2,425,411 live websites\u00a0are currently using Divi and an an additional 1,486,812 sites that used the product historically, according to BuiltWith. The nearly 10-year-old product has grown steadily for years but seems to have plateaued beginning in 2020.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Embracing the way WordPress is going will be important for the page builder’s continued success, and Elegant Themes seems to be acknowledging this with the planned update.

\n\n\n\n

“On the block theme front, as a part of Divi 5.0, we are also transitioning into a Block Based theme, and since Divi 5.0 is actually internally built using the same ‘packages’ that Gutenberg itself is composed of, Divi 5.0 has a lot of compatibility built in from the core,” Elegant Themes developer Josh Ronk said.

\n\n\n\n

“We are working diligently to push Divi 5.0 for maximum Gutenberg block compatibility, with the goal being that you would be able to use Gutenberg blocks inside of your Divi built pages, and then apply all of the Divi design options you love to the otherwise plain Gutenberg blocks you have installed. This means you won\u2019t have to choose between Divi or Gutenberg, and rather you get Divi AND Gutenberg.”

\n\n\n\n

Divi’s developers plan to ensure the old Divi modules built with the current Divi API are backwards-compatible, working on the front end but with a more limited capacity in the Visual Builder. They will be encouraging developers to move to the new API to take advantage of the performance benefits.

\n\n\n\n

Divi 5.0 will not introduce new features or changes to Divi’s design, but the underlying architecture will be moving closer to Gutenberg compatibility.

\n\n\n\n

“Divi 5.0 will use React and it will leverage more of the native Gutenberg packages,” Roach said. “At some point we hope that Divi and Gutenberg will work in harmony. We don\u2019t want to fight against the direction that WordPress is heading.”

\n", "content_text": "Divi, the popular commercial WordPress theme and page builder created by Elegant Themes, has announced major changes coming in version 5.0 that constitute a complete rewrite of Divi\u2019s core technologies. The update, which is expected to be released in beta next year, will focus on performance, stability, scalability, and extendability, but it will not introduce any new features.\n\n\n\n“We are recreating Divi\u2019s backend framework, cleaning up years of technical debt, changing Divi\u2019s storage format and improving its rendering mechanism,” Elegant Themes CEO Nick Roach said. “This new version of Divi will be able to processes design settings much more quickly.”\n\n\n\nOne of the most notable changes coming in 5.0 is that Divi will be migrating away from shortcodes.\n\n\n\n“This change will bring Divi into alignment with the future of WordPress, which is evolving in a new direction,” Roach said.\n\n\n\nDivi will migrate to a new JSON format that is similar to the way Gutenberg stores data. The legacy shortcodes will continue to work and for a time Divi will lazy load in the old framework as necessary.\n\n\n\n“If you are using Divi shortcodes outside of your post content, it will be highly recommended to replace these shortcodes with our new json-based elements,” Roach said. “Otherwise, you are going to take a performance hit.”\n\n\n\nAs part of the 5.0 update, Divi’s developers plan to include a button to perform the migration away from shortcodes, which will automatically change posts to use the new system.\n\n\n\nDivi 5.0 will also introduce a new Builder API, which Roach said “may also open up opportunities for Divi/Gutenberg cross-compatibility:”\n\n\n\n\nDevelopers familiar with creating blocks for WordPress will find a lot of similarities in the Divi 5.0 module API. WordPress blocks will be more easily adapted to Divi and WordPress developers will be able to jump head first into building things for our community. We are building this new version of Divi to work in harmony with WordPress.\n\n\n\n\nNews of the coming update was well-received by Divi users who posted additional questions and concerns in the comments. A few users were skeptical about the new direction but willing to see how it pans out.\n\n\n\nPeter R, a current user who said he appreciates Divi’s “nicer and smoother UX,” along with the collections of design settings, indicated that Divi seems to be falling behind what the block editor offers for building pages with dynamic data: \n\n\n\n\nAs nice as Divi 5.0 sounds, it\u2019s just sooo far away\u2026 especially since it won\u2019t have the features I\u2019m looking for at launch which will then take even longer if those features appear at all. I was really hoping Divi 5.0 would move more towards the Gutenberg block builder (other than back-end data storage etc). \n\n\n\nThere seems to be a real arms race going on with block builders right now. Many are adding features that Divi simply can\u2019t compete with now and will probably take years to match if at all. Far more flexible layouts especially when it comes to making your own post loops etc, more powerful features for displaying dynamic data or for collecting and storing data, and the ability to mix-and-match blocks from different creators so you don\u2019t depend on a single provider like Divi.\n\n\n\n\nMore than 2,425,411 live websites\u00a0are currently using Divi and an an additional 1,486,812 sites that used the product historically, according to BuiltWith. The nearly 10-year-old product has grown steadily for years but seems to have plateaued beginning in 2020.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEmbracing the way WordPress is going will be important for the page builder’s continued success, and Elegant Themes seems to be acknowledging this with the planned update.\n\n\n\n“On the block theme front, as a part of Divi 5.0, we are also transitioning into a Block Based theme, and since Divi 5.0 is actually internally built using the same ‘packages’ that Gutenberg itself is composed of, Divi 5.0 has a lot of compatibility built in from the core,” Elegant Themes developer Josh Ronk said. \n\n\n\n“We are working diligently to push Divi 5.0 for maximum Gutenberg block compatibility, with the goal being that you would be able to use Gutenberg blocks inside of your Divi built pages, and then apply all of the Divi design options you love to the otherwise plain Gutenberg blocks you have installed. This means you won\u2019t have to choose between Divi or Gutenberg, and rather you get Divi AND Gutenberg.”\n\n\n\nDivi’s developers plan to ensure the old Divi modules built with the current Divi API are backwards-compatible, working on the front end but with a more limited capacity in the Visual Builder. They will be encouraging developers to move to the new API to take advantage of the performance benefits. \n\n\n\nDivi 5.0 will not introduce new features or changes to Divi’s design, but the underlying architecture will be moving closer to Gutenberg compatibility. \n\n\n\n“Divi 5.0 will use React and it will leverage more of the native Gutenberg packages,” Roach said. “At some point we hope that Divi and Gutenberg will work in harmony. We don\u2019t want to fight against the direction that WordPress is heading.”", "date_published": "2022-11-18T19:07:08-05:00", "date_modified": "2022-11-18T19:07:09-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-18-at-6.51.12-PM.png", "tags": [ "divi", "elegant themes", "News", "Plugins", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=139475", "url": "https://wptavern.com/loudness-a-new-block-theme-from-automattic", "title": "Loudness: A New Block Theme from Automattic", "content_html": "\n

Automattic has released a new block theme called Loudness that is available on both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. It’s an artistic and opinionated theme based on the company’s Block Canvas\u00a0starter theme. Although Loudness’ brief description suggests the theme was created for “music and learning,” the design and custom patterns lend themselves to a variety of different use cases. It could easily be used to whip up a quick event website with ticketing, an artist’s portfolio, or even a personal blog.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Loudness’ typography features the energetic combination of the sans-serif Rubik font for headers and DM Mono for paragraph text. The type design and font development for DM Mono was commissioned from Colophon Foundry, an award-winning type foundry based in London.

\n\n\n\n

Installing and activating the theme on a fresh website offers users a good experience, as it automatically puts everything in the design in place exactly like the live demo on WordPress.com. Users don’t have to figure out which patterns to add in order to get it looking like the demo.

\n\n\n\n

Loudness packages 12 custom block patterns, which can be previewed on WordPress.org. The pattern organization in this theme could be improved, as Loudness’ patterns are intermixed with selections from the pattern directory. It’s not easy to differentiate which ones belong to the theme. For purists who like to use only the patterns included in the theme to keep the design tight, it’s much easier when a theme creates a custom label in the pattern explorer for its own patterns.

\n\n\n\n

Not pictured in the demo is a full-width FAQ pattern with a dark color scheme, which matches the other quirky design elements in the theme.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

In addition to the instructors pattern and pricing table shown in the demo, Loudness includes artistic designs for a pullquote pattern and a section of large text.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Two illustrations are included for use in the header area or to break up the design. They can easily be swapped out for a photo or a custom illustration from another source.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Loudness doesn’t include any style variations, likely because most of the patterns are highly dependent on the established color palette. Although users are free to alter it in the Site Editor, the results may not be as harmonious as expected when using the illustrations in the site design.

\n\n\n\n

Loudness is a unique block theme that makes a strong impression and can be creatively applied to many different types of websites – from events to blogs to businesses and agencies. The theme is available for free from WordPress.org and is also available to users on WordPress.com.

\n", "content_text": "Automattic has released a new block theme called Loudness that is available on both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. It’s an artistic and opinionated theme based on the company’s Block Canvas\u00a0starter theme. Although Loudness’ brief description suggests the theme was created for “music and learning,” the design and custom patterns lend themselves to a variety of different use cases. It could easily be used to whip up a quick event website with ticketing, an artist’s portfolio, or even a personal blog.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLoudness’ typography features the energetic combination of the sans-serif Rubik font for headers and DM Mono for paragraph text. The type design and font development for DM Mono was commissioned from Colophon Foundry, an award-winning type foundry based in London.\n\n\n\nInstalling and activating the theme on a fresh website offers users a good experience, as it automatically puts everything in the design in place exactly like the live demo on WordPress.com. Users don’t have to figure out which patterns to add in order to get it looking like the demo. \n\n\n\nLoudness packages 12 custom block patterns, which can be previewed on WordPress.org. The pattern organization in this theme could be improved, as Loudness’ patterns are intermixed with selections from the pattern directory. It’s not easy to differentiate which ones belong to the theme. For purists who like to use only the patterns included in the theme to keep the design tight, it’s much easier when a theme creates a custom label in the pattern explorer for its own patterns.\n\n\n\nNot pictured in the demo is a full-width FAQ pattern with a dark color scheme, which matches the other quirky design elements in the theme.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn addition to the instructors pattern and pricing table shown in the demo, Loudness includes artistic designs for a pullquote pattern and a section of large text.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTwo illustrations are included for use in the header area or to break up the design. They can easily be swapped out for a photo or a custom illustration from another source.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLoudness doesn’t include any style variations, likely because most of the patterns are highly dependent on the established color palette. Although users are free to alter it in the Site Editor, the results may not be as harmonious as expected when using the illustrations in the site design.\n\n\n\nLoudness is a unique block theme that makes a strong impression and can be creatively applied to many different types of websites – from events to blogs to businesses and agencies. The theme is available for free from WordPress.org and is also available to users on WordPress.com.", "date_published": "2022-11-16T20:47:03-05:00", "date_modified": "2022-11-16T20:47:04-05:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/loudness-featured-image.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=139197", "url": "https://wptavern.com/anders-noren-releases-oaknut-a-new-profile-block-theme-with-23-style-variations", "title": "Anders Nor\u00e9n Releases Oaknut, a New Profile Block Theme with 23 Style Variations", "content_html": "\n

Anders Nor\u00e9n, a Swedish designer and prolific WordPress theme developer, has released Oaknut, a new profile block theme reminiscent of services like Linktree and Carrd. The theme is for users who want a simple profile landing page with relevant social and work links, but it could also be easily expanded to capture email addresses for a newsletter, add a blog, or serve as a placeholder for a coming soon website.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Oaknut includes just three templates: Home (displays posts on the homepage, or on the Posts page if a static homepage is set), Index (displays posts), and 404 (displays when no content is found). Users who want to expand the theme beyond the basic use case can add more templates through the Site Editor or even create their own custom templates.

\n\n\n\n

The demo looks just like the screenshot, and there are no other pages to view. After installing and activating the theme, clicking on Customize will go to the Site Editor where everything you see in the demo is already in place, ready to be replaced with your own profile data and links.

\n\n\n\n

If the bright mustard color is too much for your taste, you’re in luck with Oaknut, because it packages a whopping 23 different style variations. Nor\u00e9n has also included 14 font families, eight button styles, and five styles for social links.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

As one of the pioneers in the block themes category Nor\u00e9n ensured Oaknut was ready to showcase new features released in WordPress 6.1. The theme supports fluid typography, spacing sizes, root padding aware elements, pseudo selector styles in theme.json, and theme.json styling for elements like buttons, captions, and headings.

\n\n\n\n

“This enables Oaknut to have a really small CSS file,” Nor\u00e9n said. “It comes in at less than 150 lines, and 120 of those lines are for the custom block styles included in the theme. Combine that with locally hosted variable fonts and the complete lack of JavaScript in the theme, and you end up with some pretty speedy profile pages.”

\n\n\n\n

Nor\u00e9n shared a screenshot of a website using the theme with a Lighthouse performance score of 100.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Oaknut is a good choice for WordPress users who want a simple, attractive theme that shows how people can connect with them. It is also great for those who are just starting out with a web presence or domains that need a nicely- designed placeholder.

\n\n\n\n

The theme is available on WordPress.org to download for free. Nor\u00e9n has also created a GitHub Sponsors account for anyone who wants to support the continued development of his 26 free WordPress themes and future theme releases.

\n", "content_text": "Anders Nor\u00e9n, a Swedish designer and prolific WordPress theme developer, has released Oaknut, a new profile block theme reminiscent of services like Linktree and Carrd. The theme is for users who want a simple profile landing page with relevant social and work links, but it could also be easily expanded to capture email addresses for a newsletter, add a blog, or serve as a placeholder for a coming soon website.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOaknut includes just three templates: Home (displays posts on the homepage, or on the Posts page if a static homepage is set), Index (displays posts), and 404 (displays when no content is found). Users who want to expand the theme beyond the basic use case can add more templates through the Site Editor or even create their own custom templates.\n\n\n\nThe demo looks just like the screenshot, and there are no other pages to view. After installing and activating the theme, clicking on Customize will go to the Site Editor where everything you see in the demo is already in place, ready to be replaced with your own profile data and links.\n\n\n\nIf the bright mustard color is too much for your taste, you’re in luck with Oaknut, because it packages a whopping 23 different style variations. Nor\u00e9n has also included 14 font families, eight button styles, and five styles for social links.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs one of the pioneers in the block themes category Nor\u00e9n ensured Oaknut was ready to showcase new features released in WordPress 6.1. The theme supports fluid typography, spacing sizes, root padding aware elements, pseudo selector styles in theme.json, and theme.json styling for elements like buttons, captions, and headings.\n\n\n\n“This enables Oaknut to have a really small CSS file,” Nor\u00e9n said. “It comes in at less than 150 lines, and 120 of those lines are for the custom block styles included in the theme. Combine that with locally hosted variable fonts and the complete lack of JavaScript in the theme, and you end up with some pretty speedy profile pages.”\n\n\n\nNor\u00e9n shared a screenshot of a website using the theme with a Lighthouse performance score of 100.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOaknut is a good choice for WordPress users who want a simple, attractive theme that shows how people can connect with them. It is also great for those who are just starting out with a web presence or domains that need a nicely- designed placeholder. \n\n\n\nThe theme is available on WordPress.org to download for free. Nor\u00e9n has also created a GitHub Sponsors account for anyone who wants to support the continued development of his 26 free WordPress themes and future theme releases.", "date_published": "2022-11-04T16:42:27-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-11-04T16:42:28-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/oaknut-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138817", "url": "https://wptavern.com/arc-fse-a-new-multipurpose-block-theme-for-wordpress", "title": "Arc FSE: A New Multipurpose Block Theme for WordPress", "content_html": "\n

Olive Themes, a relatively new independent theme shop, has released its third block theme on the WordPress.org directory. Arc FSE is a high contrast, multipurpose theme, designed to enable a broad range of flexibility through support for full-site editing features.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The theme features the open source and exceptionally readable Poppins web font in various weights and sizes. The color palette is dark with a bright lemon-yellow accent color. It’s bold without being overly splashy, making it suitable for professional use cases.

\n\n\n\n

Arc FSE does not come with any style variations, but users can easily change the accent colors for buttons, headings, and anything else by editing the templates.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The theme comes with 20 custom patterns, which make up different sections of the design. They are all conveniently grouped together under “Arc FSE” in the Patterns explorer, so you don’t have to hunt for the ones that belong to the theme. It includes full-page patterns for the home, about, services, and portfolio pages. There are also section patterns for things like the default footer, 404 page, a promotional video, sidebar, search cover block, services, and more.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

When first installing Arc FSE, the home page is set up to be nearly identical to the demo, making it easy for users to get started customizing. It would be helpful to have a style guide for the theme, but for the most part you get what you see with the demo for the free version. Olive Themes also makes a pro version, which includes additional features, WooCommerce support, and more blocks for things like testimonials and star ratings.

\n\n\n\n

Arc FSE is good option for businesses, agencies, foundations, or artists with portfolios. After less than a week, it’s already being used on more than 100 sites. The theme is available to download for free on WordPress.org.

\n", "content_text": "Olive Themes, a relatively new independent theme shop, has released its third block theme on the WordPress.org directory. Arc FSE is a high contrast, multipurpose theme, designed to enable a broad range of flexibility through support for full-site editing features.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe theme features the open source and exceptionally readable Poppins web font in various weights and sizes. The color palette is dark with a bright lemon-yellow accent color. It’s bold without being overly splashy, making it suitable for professional use cases.\n\n\n\nArc FSE does not come with any style variations, but users can easily change the accent colors for buttons, headings, and anything else by editing the templates.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe theme comes with 20 custom patterns, which make up different sections of the design. They are all conveniently grouped together under “Arc FSE” in the Patterns explorer, so you don’t have to hunt for the ones that belong to the theme. It includes full-page patterns for the home, about, services, and portfolio pages. There are also section patterns for things like the default footer, 404 page, a promotional video, sidebar, search cover block, services, and more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen first installing Arc FSE, the home page is set up to be nearly identical to the demo, making it easy for users to get started customizing. It would be helpful to have a style guide for the theme, but for the most part you get what you see with the demo for the free version. Olive Themes also makes a pro version, which includes additional features, WooCommerce support, and more blocks for things like testimonials and star ratings.\n\n\n\nArc FSE is good option for businesses, agencies, foundations, or artists with portfolios. After less than a week, it’s already being used on more than 100 sites. The theme is available to download for free on WordPress.org.", "date_published": "2022-10-25T22:55:01-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-10-25T22:55:02-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/arc-fse.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138816", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-directory-adds-style-variation-previews", "title": "WordPress Themes Directory Adds Style Variation Previews", "content_html": "\n

WordPress.org theme previews just got a major improvement this week with the addition of Style Variation previews. The previews now appear on block themes that include style variations.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Themes that have more variations than what fits in the space beneath the preview pane will display all variations in a carousel with little arrows to navigate to the next ones. Here’s an example with the Pixl theme from Automattic that contains seven brightly colored variations:

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

It’s also possible to see a selected style variation loaded into the theme preview now. Clicking the ‘Preview’ button will allow users to scroll and explore the theme with their selected style variation applied.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

“These style variations, designed by theme authors and packaged in\u00a0block\u00a0themes, help users have a diverse set of approaches to their site design allowing them to find one that aligns with their goals,” Automattic-sponsored Meta team contributor Steve Dufresne said. “This feature helps to highlight the flexibility of modern WordPress themes and it\u2019s time to have it baked into the theme directory experience.”

\n\n\n\n

The new style variation previews are fetched from the themes’ /styles/{variation_name}.json files, so theme authors do not have to do anything to make the previews work. They will automatically display for any theme that includes style variations.

\n\n\n\n

Meta team contributors are also working on adding the ability to filter the directory for themes with style variations. Dufresne proposed creating a new style-variations theme tag as the simplest route towards implementing this.

\n\n\n\n

“Doing so will allow the active filtering of these themes without needing to make many if any code changes,” he said in the ticket‘s description.

\n\n\n\n

“A longer-term solution should look at exposing these features visibly somehow without needing to find the obscured filters that we currently have. This feature should be judged equally with others and therefore, this type of implementation should be better debated and falls out of the scope of this ticket and the immediate need to see themes with style variations.”

\n\n\n\n

This is a good observation, as not all WordPress users hunting for themes will know that a tag exists in the Feature Filter. That list is already quite lengthy and not the best user experience for discovering themes with specific features, especially if users don’t understand what the terms mean. Theme authors will want to watch this ticket. If the shorter term solution of creating a new style-variations tag is committed, they will need to update their themes with the tag to be included in the filtering.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress.org theme previews just got a major improvement this week with the addition of Style Variation previews. The previews now appear on block themes that include style variations. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThemes that have more variations than what fits in the space beneath the preview pane will display all variations in a carousel with little arrows to navigate to the next ones. Here’s an example with the Pixl theme from Automattic that contains seven brightly colored variations:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIt’s also possible to see a selected style variation loaded into the theme preview now. Clicking the ‘Preview’ button will allow users to scroll and explore the theme with their selected style variation applied.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“These style variations, designed by theme authors and packaged in\u00a0block\u00a0themes, help users have a diverse set of approaches to their site design allowing them to find one that aligns with their goals,” Automattic-sponsored Meta team contributor Steve Dufresne said. “This feature helps to highlight the flexibility of modern WordPress themes and it\u2019s time to have it baked into the theme directory experience.”\n\n\n\nThe new style variation previews are fetched from the themes’ /styles/{variation_name}.json files, so theme authors do not have to do anything to make the previews work. They will automatically display for any theme that includes style variations.\n\n\n\nMeta team contributors are also working on adding the ability to filter the directory for themes with style variations. Dufresne proposed creating a new style-variations theme tag as the simplest route towards implementing this.\n\n\n\n“Doing so will allow the active filtering of these themes without needing to make many if any code changes,” he said in the ticket‘s description.\n\n\n\n“A longer-term solution should look at exposing these features visibly somehow without needing to find the obscured filters that we currently have. This feature should be judged equally with others and therefore, this type of implementation should be better debated and falls out of the scope of this ticket and the immediate need to see themes with style variations.”\n\n\n\nThis is a good observation, as not all WordPress users hunting for themes will know that a tag exists in the Feature Filter. That list is already quite lengthy and not the best user experience for discovering themes with specific features, especially if users don’t understand what the terms mean. Theme authors will want to watch this ticket. If the shorter term solution of creating a new style-variations tag is committed, they will need to update their themes with the tag to be included in the filtering.", "date_published": "2022-10-21T11:31:32-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-10-21T11:31:34-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screen-Shot-2022-10-21-at-11.26.22-AM.png", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138471", "url": "https://wptavern.com/uniblock-a-free-business-block-theme-for-wordpress", "title": "UniBlock: A Free Business Block Theme for WordPress", "content_html": "\n

WPZOOM is coming in strong with its first block theme approved for the WordPress Themes Directory. UniBlock is a beautifully designed theme that is well-suited for businesses and freelancers. The company plans to adopt the concept of full-site editing in other WPZOOM themes as well, following the release of UniBlock.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

UniBlock’s default look is sporting a darker color palette in the navigation and above the fold, with a lighter background for the rest of the website. The video on the sample homepage uses the free WPZOOM Video Popup Block plugin, which supports Vimeo and YouTube. It’s a simple, lightweight block that allows users to customize the play button and play icon.

\n\n\n\n

After activating the theme, clicking on ‘Customize’ will prompt the user to install the video plugin. It can also be converted to a Custom HTML block or removed entirely at the user’s discretion.

\n\n\n\n

UniBlock’s 19 custom block patterns include everything one might expect from a business theme but, most impressively, it ships with five full-page patterns:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, users can assign the page template in the post settings to get the same effect.

\n\n\n\n

These full-page patterns are convenient for speedy page building. They make it possible to get a basic business website up in a matter of minutes. Here’s an example of the Services full-page pattern that will instantly embed when selected. Users can delete any sections they don’t need, add more blocks and patterns, and quickly fill in all their own information.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Separately there are patterns for a footer with text, links, multiple arrangements of featured boxes with text and button, multiple designs for call-to-action sections, pricing tables, team members with social icons, testimonials, header cover, sidebar, 404 page, and more.

\n\n\n\n

Users can delve even further into customizing the templates with the site editor, as UniBlock is packaged with nearly two dozen templates and template parts. Here they can also edit the menu and adjust global styles.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

WPZOOM is developing a Pro version of the theme to release in a few weeks with support for importing the whole demo, multiple color schemes, multiple demos, premium block patterns, and additional header and footer layouts.

\n\n\n\n

Check out the demo on the WPZOOM website to see the theme in action. WPZOOM has also written documentation for UniBlock, which covers general topics like how to use block patterns, how to set up the front and blog pages, and how to create a menu in the site editor. Since the company’s most popular themes are what would be considered classic themes, UniBlock is new territory for most of their customers. It is so far the only block theme among WPZOOM’s collection of 31 themes.

\n\n\n\n

Block theme adoption is slowly making its way across WordPress’ major theme shops and the official directory is now hosting 160 themes tagged for full-site editing. As more longtime theme companies make their block theme debuts and develop a base for future themes, WordPress users may start to see a rapid acceleration of the number and variety of block themes available. UniBlock is so far one of the few block themes in the directory with a singular focus on business websites. It is available to download for free from WordPress.org or via the admin themes panel.

\n", "content_text": "WPZOOM is coming in strong with its first block theme approved for the WordPress Themes Directory. UniBlock is a beautifully designed theme that is well-suited for businesses and freelancers. The company plans to adopt the concept of full-site editing in other WPZOOM themes as well, following the release of UniBlock.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUniBlock’s default look is sporting a darker color palette in the navigation and above the fold, with a lighter background for the rest of the website. The video on the sample homepage uses the free WPZOOM Video Popup Block plugin, which supports Vimeo and YouTube. It’s a simple, lightweight block that allows users to customize the play button and play icon.\n\n\n\nAfter activating the theme, clicking on ‘Customize’ will prompt the user to install the video plugin. It can also be converted to a Custom HTML block or removed entirely at the user’s discretion.\n\n\n\nUniBlock’s 19 custom block patterns include everything one might expect from a business theme but, most impressively, it ships with five full-page patterns:\n\n\n\n\nFront Page\n\n\n\nAbout\n\n\n\nServices\n\n\n\nBlog\n\n\n\nContact\n\n\n\n\nAlternatively, users can assign the page template in the post settings to get the same effect.\n\n\n\nThese full-page patterns are convenient for speedy page building. They make it possible to get a basic business website up in a matter of minutes. Here’s an example of the Services full-page pattern that will instantly embed when selected. Users can delete any sections they don’t need, add more blocks and patterns, and quickly fill in all their own information.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSeparately there are patterns for a footer with text, links, multiple arrangements of featured boxes with text and button, multiple designs for call-to-action sections, pricing tables, team members with social icons, testimonials, header cover, sidebar, 404 page, and more.\n\n\n\nUsers can delve even further into customizing the templates with the site editor, as UniBlock is packaged with nearly two dozen templates and template parts. Here they can also edit the menu and adjust global styles.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWPZOOM is developing a Pro version of the theme to release in a few weeks with support for importing the whole demo, multiple color schemes, multiple demos, premium block patterns, and additional header and footer layouts. \n\n\n\nCheck out the demo on the WPZOOM website to see the theme in action. WPZOOM has also written documentation for UniBlock, which covers general topics like how to use block patterns, how to set up the front and blog pages, and how to create a menu in the site editor. Since the company’s most popular themes are what would be considered classic themes, UniBlock is new territory for most of their customers. It is so far the only block theme among WPZOOM’s collection of 31 themes. \n\n\n\nBlock theme adoption is slowly making its way across WordPress’ major theme shops and the official directory is now hosting 160 themes tagged for full-site editing. As more longtime theme companies make their block theme debuts and develop a base for future themes, WordPress users may start to see a rapid acceleration of the number and variety of block themes available. UniBlock is so far one of the few block themes in the directory with a singular focus on business websites. It is available to download for free from WordPress.org or via the admin themes panel.", "date_published": "2022-10-14T21:00:05-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-10-14T21:00:05-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/uniblock-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138390", "url": "https://wptavern.com/raft-a-new-multipurpose-block-theme-for-wordpress", "title": "Raft: A New Multipurpose Block Theme for WordPress", "content_html": "\n

Themeisle, longtime masters of the multipurpose WordPress theme, has launched its first block-based theme with the same trademark style and flexibility of its previous products. The shop currently distributes its Hestia (100K+ installs) and Neve (300K+ installs) themes on WordPress.org, commercializing pro versions with upgrades and support. Raft is the latest addition to the lineup.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

When it comes to full-site editing support, the WordPress directory still leans a little heavy on blog themes, but Raft was designed to suit a wide-ranging variety of use cases, as stated in the theme’s description:

\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s perfect for blogs, small business, startups, agencies, firms, e-commerce shops (WooCommerce storefront) as well as personal portfolio sites and most types of projects.”

\n\n\n\n

Although the default homepage looks simple, it’s the block patterns that make this theme ready for anything. Raft includes patterns for creating a cover image with title and background, image galleries with a title, post query loop, two columns for features or services, three columns of features, call to action, FAQ, inverted background, and a hero section.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

When users first install the theme, it prompts them to install the free Otter Blocks plugin, which adds more page building blocks and customization options. Raft also has compatibility with Elementor, Brizy, and Beaver Builder, in addition to Gutenberg, and support for WooCommerce. The Pro version of Otter Blocks contains more advanced WooCommerce blocks for building complex store layouts.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

After activating the theme on a new install, clicking “Customize” takes the user to the Site Editor where it will be pre-filled to look nearly identical to the demo. There’s not much to the demo – it keeps the pages fairly simple and showcases the patterns on a separate page. Raft isn’t quite a blank slate but it does leave some room for the imagination, as it’s not stuffed full of content and animations.

\n\n\n\n

The theme comes with eight beautifully designed style variations, each with harmonious color combinations that create a different vibe for the website.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
image source: Themeisle
\n\n\n\n

Rift packages full-site-editing templates that users can edit to further customize the main pages like 404, single blog posts, the front page, archives, and more. It also includes a blank page template.

\n\n\n\n

Themeisle markets its popular classic themes on WordPress.org with pro versions that include starter templates, additional header and footer options, custom layouts, WooCommerce layouts, and other features. The company has not created a pro version for Raft. They may still be developing upgrade options but the world of blocks changes the game, since custom layouts are much easier to create with the block editor. User expectations are different. It will be interesting to see how Themeisle markets its first block theme compared to its classic products.

\n\n\n\n

Rift is a good option if you need a lightweight theme that isn’t too opinionated but still provides the basic design as a starting place for building pages and customizing them with more advanced tools as necessary. If you are already one of the 100k+ Otter Blocks users, this theme integrates seamlessly. Raft is available to download for free on WordPress.org.

\n", "content_text": "Themeisle, longtime masters of the multipurpose WordPress theme, has launched its first block-based theme with the same trademark style and flexibility of its previous products. The shop currently distributes its Hestia (100K+ installs) and Neve (300K+ installs) themes on WordPress.org, commercializing pro versions with upgrades and support. Raft is the latest addition to the lineup.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen it comes to full-site editing support, the WordPress directory still leans a little heavy on blog themes, but Raft was designed to suit a wide-ranging variety of use cases, as stated in the theme’s description:\n\n\n\n“It\u2019s perfect for blogs, small business, startups, agencies, firms, e-commerce shops (WooCommerce storefront) as well as personal portfolio sites and most types of projects.”\n\n\n\nAlthough the default homepage looks simple, it’s the block patterns that make this theme ready for anything. Raft includes patterns for creating a cover image with title and background, image galleries with a title, post query loop, two columns for features or services, three columns of features, call to action, FAQ, inverted background, and a hero section. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen users first install the theme, it prompts them to install the free Otter Blocks plugin, which adds more page building blocks and customization options. Raft also has compatibility with Elementor, Brizy, and Beaver Builder, in addition to Gutenberg, and support for WooCommerce. The Pro version of Otter Blocks contains more advanced WooCommerce blocks for building complex store layouts.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAfter activating the theme on a new install, clicking “Customize” takes the user to the Site Editor where it will be pre-filled to look nearly identical to the demo. There’s not much to the demo – it keeps the pages fairly simple and showcases the patterns on a separate page. Raft isn’t quite a blank slate but it does leave some room for the imagination, as it’s not stuffed full of content and animations. \n\n\n\nThe theme comes with eight beautifully designed style variations, each with harmonious color combinations that create a different vibe for the website.\n\n\n\nimage source: Themeisle\n\n\n\nRift packages full-site-editing templates that users can edit to further customize the main pages like 404, single blog posts, the front page, archives, and more. It also includes a blank page template.\n\n\n\nThemeisle markets its popular classic themes on WordPress.org with pro versions that include starter templates, additional header and footer options, custom layouts, WooCommerce layouts, and other features. The company has not created a pro version for Raft. They may still be developing upgrade options but the world of blocks changes the game, since custom layouts are much easier to create with the block editor. User expectations are different. It will be interesting to see how Themeisle markets its first block theme compared to its classic products.\n\n\n\nRift is a good option if you need a lightweight theme that isn’t too opinionated but still provides the basic design as a starting place for building pages and customizing them with more advanced tools as necessary. If you are already one of the 100k+ Otter Blocks users, this theme integrates seamlessly. Raft is available to download for free on WordPress.org.", "date_published": "2022-10-10T23:53:58-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-10-10T23:54:00-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/raft-screenshot.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138249", "url": "https://wptavern.com/wordpress-punts-locally-hosted-fonts-for-legacy-default-themes-to-6-2-release", "title": "WordPress Punts Locally Hosted Fonts for Legacy Default Themes to 6.2 Release", "content_html": "\n

In June 2022, WordPress.org’s Themes Team began strongly urging theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, following a German court case, which\u00a0fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts. For years, theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors\u2019 IP addresses.

\n\n\n\n

The Themes Team warned that guidelines regarding locally hosting fonts will be changing imminently and many theme authors moved to comply before it becomes a requirement.

\n\n\n\n

A ticket for bundling Google fonts with WordPress’ legacy default themes had patches and was on track to be included in WordPress 6.1 in November. WordPress contributor Hendrik Luehrsen requested more eyes on the ticket, saying it “directly affects the core WordPress audience in Germany.” He reported that users in Germany were still getting emails threatening fines for using fonts loaded from Google.

\n\n\n\n

WordPress core committer Tonya Mork suggested exploring releasing the updated version of each theme separately from WordPress 6.1.

\n\n\n\n

“When each theme is ready, release it to wp.org’s theme repo,” Mork said. “Users can then update to get locally hosted fonts ahead of when WP 6.1 is released.”

\n\n\n\n

This changed the direction of the ticket and with more scrutiny, contributors found the patches could use some more work.

\n\n\n\n

“Creating new theme versions for this specific change could be good\u00a0when they are ready,” Stephen Bernhardt\u00a0said. “Using locally hosted fonts\u00a0is already recommended, but we need to fix our own themes before we can make this a requirement for others.” He submitted a list of problems and potential improvements after reviewing the patches, and contributors are working on a better approach.

\n\n\n\n

WordPress core committer David Baumwald changed the milestone to 6.2, as Beta 2 for 6.1 was released yesterday and the ticket still needs a final direction and patch.

\n\n\n\n

“While I understand the issue, this is nonetheless sad to see,” Luehrsen said. “This is still a serious issue in Germany (and other GDPR territories), as users with active Google Fonts are currently getting targeted by people exploiting the law.”

\n\n\n\n

Luehrsen took to Twitter to comment on his disappointment with the ticket missing the window for 6.1.

\n\n\n\n

“This is the reason why WordPress will probably lose relevance,” he said. “Real users get hurt here, but they are in GDPR territories and this does not seem to be important.

\n\n\n\n

“Could I have done more? Probably. But it is somewhat sad to see how quickly the momentum on that ticket fizzled out. If Squarespace, Wix and sorts start marketing privacy against WordPress, we’re screwed in GDPR countries.”

\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, those who are using WordPress’ default themes can use a plugin like Local Google Fonts or OMGF | GDPR/DSVGO Compliant, Faster Google Fonts to host fonts locally.

\n\n\n\n

Users can also switch to Bunny Fonts, an open-source, privacy-first web font platform with no tracking or logging that is fully GDPR compliant. Bunny Fonts is compatible with the Google Fonts CSS v1 API so it can function as a drop-in replacement. The Replace Google Fonts with Bunny Fonts plugin makes it easy for users to do that without editing any theme code.

\n\n\n\n

Contributors are working on having fully GDPR-compliant WordPress default themes ready for WordPress 6.2, expected in early 2023.

\n", "content_text": "In June 2022, WordPress.org’s Themes Team began strongly urging theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, following a German court case, which\u00a0fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts. For years, theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors\u2019 IP addresses. \n\n\n\nThe Themes Team warned that guidelines regarding locally hosting fonts will be changing imminently and many theme authors moved to comply before it becomes a requirement. \n\n\n\nA ticket for bundling Google fonts with WordPress’ legacy default themes had patches and was on track to be included in WordPress 6.1 in November. WordPress contributor Hendrik Luehrsen requested more eyes on the ticket, saying it “directly affects the core WordPress audience in Germany.” He reported that users in Germany were still getting emails threatening fines for using fonts loaded from Google.\n\n\n\nWordPress core committer Tonya Mork suggested exploring releasing the updated version of each theme separately from WordPress 6.1.\n\n\n\n“When each theme is ready, release it to wp.org’s theme repo,” Mork said. “Users can then update to get locally hosted fonts ahead of when WP 6.1 is released.”\n\n\n\nThis changed the direction of the ticket and with more scrutiny, contributors found the patches could use some more work.\n\n\n\n“Creating new theme versions for this specific change could be good\u00a0when they are ready,” Stephen Bernhardt\u00a0said. “Using locally hosted fonts\u00a0is already recommended, but we need to fix our own themes before we can make this a requirement for others.” He submitted a list of problems and potential improvements after reviewing the patches, and contributors are working on a better approach.\n\n\n\nWordPress core committer David Baumwald changed the milestone to 6.2, as Beta 2 for 6.1 was released yesterday and the ticket still needs a final direction and patch. \n\n\n\n“While I understand the issue, this is nonetheless sad to see,” Luehrsen said. “This is still a serious issue in Germany (and other GDPR territories), as users with active Google Fonts are currently getting targeted by people exploiting the law.”\n\n\n\n Luehrsen took to Twitter to comment on his disappointment with the ticket missing the window for 6.1.\n\n\n\n“This is the reason why WordPress will probably lose relevance,” he said. “Real users get hurt here, but they are in GDPR territories and this does not seem to be important.\n\n\n\n“Could I have done more? Probably. But it is somewhat sad to see how quickly the momentum on that ticket fizzled out. If Squarespace, Wix and sorts start marketing privacy against WordPress, we’re screwed in GDPR countries.”\n\n\n\nIn the meantime, those who are using WordPress’ default themes can use a plugin like Local Google Fonts or OMGF | GDPR/DSVGO Compliant, Faster Google Fonts to host fonts locally. \n\n\n\nUsers can also switch to Bunny Fonts, an open-source, privacy-first web font platform with no tracking or logging that is fully GDPR compliant. Bunny Fonts is compatible with the Google Fonts CSS v1 API so it can function as a drop-in replacement. The Replace Google Fonts with Bunny Fonts plugin makes it easy for users to do that without editing any theme code. \n\n\n\nContributors are working on having fully GDPR-compliant WordPress default themes ready for WordPress 6.2, expected in early 2023.", "date_published": "2022-09-28T14:31:31-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-28T14:43:57-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/soft-letters.jpg", "tags": [ "bunny fonts", "google fonts", "News", "Themes", "WordPress" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138169", "url": "https://wptavern.com/molten-a-free-wordpress-block-theme-for-restaurants", "title": "Molten: A Free WordPress Block Theme for Restaurants", "content_html": "\n

Molten is a new block theme from first-time WordPress.org theme author Paul Truong, designed for chefs and restaurateurs to showcase their work. The theme puts the spotlight on food photography offset with bold typography featuring the Playfair Display font for headings and Source Sans Pro for paragraph text.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Truong is working on setting up a marketing site for the theme so there is no demo at this time. One drawback is that it does not include any full-page patterns where you can quickly build a homepage or menu page without having to think about how the design should go together. You will have to rely on your own sense of design but Molten comes packaged with ample patterns for building pages.

\n\n\n\n

Molten has four different hero patterns, three “coming soon” patterns, and six “call to action” patterns in various layouts (media and text, full width cover with text and button, and three columns with images and content). The theme also comes with a large gallery block pattern and multiple location pattern designs.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

There’s almost nothing worse than a restaurant website that makes you download a PDF menu. It’s not mobile or SEO-friendly, and downloading a separate file is a terrible user experience. Restaurateurs have traditionally used PDFs because it’s easier to update it by uploading and replacing the old files. It’s also easier to design it to approximate the printed menu. Blocks can make it easier for restaurants to abandon this practice of using PDFs. A block-based menu can be quickly edited and expanded as necessary without messing with uploading any files.

\n\n\n\n

Molten includes four Menu block patterns with different layouts for wine lists, dishes, and pricing.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Molten packages nine templates and five template parts for users who want to dig into full-site editing. There are multiple light and dark footer and header designs, search, archive, a completely blank template, and more. It includes four style variations which can significantly change the mood of the website.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Overall, the theme has just about anything a restaurant or “coming soon” establishment may need in terms of layout and design. The default color palette has a simple black and white typography-forward design that puts the emphasis on the food. Molten is available for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.

\n", "content_text": "Molten is a new block theme from first-time WordPress.org theme author Paul Truong, designed for chefs and restaurateurs to showcase their work. The theme puts the spotlight on food photography offset with bold typography featuring the Playfair Display font for headings and Source Sans Pro for paragraph text. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTruong is working on setting up a marketing site for the theme so there is no demo at this time. One drawback is that it does not include any full-page patterns where you can quickly build a homepage or menu page without having to think about how the design should go together. You will have to rely on your own sense of design but Molten comes packaged with ample patterns for building pages. \n\n\n\nMolten has four different hero patterns, three “coming soon” patterns, and six “call to action” patterns in various layouts (media and text, full width cover with text and button, and three columns with images and content). The theme also comes with a large gallery block pattern and multiple location pattern designs. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThere’s almost nothing worse than a restaurant website that makes you download a PDF menu. It’s not mobile or SEO-friendly, and downloading a separate file is a terrible user experience. Restaurateurs have traditionally used PDFs because it’s easier to update it by uploading and replacing the old files. It’s also easier to design it to approximate the printed menu. Blocks can make it easier for restaurants to abandon this practice of using PDFs. A block-based menu can be quickly edited and expanded as necessary without messing with uploading any files.\n\n\n\nMolten includes four Menu block patterns with different layouts for wine lists, dishes, and pricing.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Molten packages nine templates and five template parts for users who want to dig into full-site editing. There are multiple light and dark footer and header designs, search, archive, a completely blank template, and more. It includes four style variations which can significantly change the mood of the website.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOverall, the theme has just about anything a restaurant or “coming soon” establishment may need in terms of layout and design. The default color palette has a simple black and white typography-forward design that puts the emphasis on the food. Molten is available for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.", "date_published": "2022-09-27T00:03:32-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-27T00:03:34-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/molten-screenshot.jpg", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=138133", "url": "https://wptavern.com/twenty-twenty-two-is-the-first-default-block-theme-to-get-tagged-as-accessibility-ready", "title": "Twenty Twenty-Two Is the First Default Block Theme to Get Tagged as Accessibility-Ready", "content_html": "\n

After a seven-month long effort across multiple contributor teams, the Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) default theme will be tagged as “Accessibility-Ready” when WordPress 6.1 ships in November. It is the first block theme to meet the requirements for gaining this distinction. During its development the theme was also tested and found to meet WCAG AA level accessibility requirements.

\n\n\n\n

The accessibility-ready tag can be applied to themes in the directory that have successfully completed an accessibility audit for the minimum requirements established by the Themes team. Theme authors are encouraged to exceed those requirements, which are laid out in a tiered set of required and recommended guidelines.

\n\n\n\n

It is important to note that themes tagged as accessibility-ready do not necessarily meet any level of formal accessibility requirements, as those measurements apply to content and cannot be applied to a theme.

\n\n\n\n

Getting the tag added to Twenty Twenty-Two was delayed due to a few issues that required collaboration across teams. One of the important ones was the theme having multiple H1 headings per page. Although WCAG guidelines do not prohibit more than one H1 on a page, the accessibility-ready\u00a0guidelines required no more than one H1 per page. Some participants in the discussion suggested that the requirements needed to change.

\n\n\n\n

“The reason the theme accessibility-ready guidelines are stricter than WCAG is mostly for clarity: the guidelines were written to be easily testable and explicit,” Accessibility Team contributor Joe Dolson commented on the ticket.

\n\n\n\n

“The point being that we couldn’t provide extensive accessibility training to theme reviewers, so we needed the rules to be as narrow as possible. As long as we update the guidelines in a way that still meets that criteria, I think it would be fine.”

\n\n\n\n

The Themes and Accessibility teams\u00a0reached a consensus on how the accessibility-ready tag will apply to block themes so contributors could move forward with adding the tag.

\n\n\n\n

“We should keep in mind that a breakage to the accessibility of WordPress block output will impact all block themes, so those failures are quite serious, but as it stands now the theme meets all expected criteria,” Dolson said.

\n\n\n\n

The WordPress Themes Directory currently has just 94 themes tagged as “accessibility-ready” and only two of them also have support for full-site editing – Jace by Themes Team contributor Carolina Nymark, and W3CSSPress by Matteo Marchiori. Twenty Twenty-Two will be joining them on November 1, 2022, the anticipated release date of of WordPress 6.1.

\n", "content_text": "After a seven-month long effort across multiple contributor teams, the Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) default theme will be tagged as “Accessibility-Ready” when WordPress 6.1 ships in November. It is the first block theme to meet the requirements for gaining this distinction. During its development the theme was also tested and found to meet WCAG AA level accessibility requirements.\n\n\n\nThe accessibility-ready tag can be applied to themes in the directory that have successfully completed an accessibility audit for the minimum requirements established by the Themes team. Theme authors are encouraged to exceed those requirements, which are laid out in a tiered set of required and recommended guidelines. \n\n\n\nIt is important to note that themes tagged as accessibility-ready do not necessarily meet any level of formal accessibility requirements, as those measurements apply to content and cannot be applied to a theme.\n\n\n\nGetting the tag added to Twenty Twenty-Two was delayed due to a few issues that required collaboration across teams. One of the important ones was the theme having multiple H1 headings per page. Although WCAG guidelines do not prohibit more than one H1 on a page, the accessibility-ready\u00a0guidelines required no more than one H1 per page. Some participants in the discussion suggested that the requirements needed to change.\n\n\n\n“The reason the theme accessibility-ready guidelines are stricter than WCAG is mostly for clarity: the guidelines were written to be easily testable and explicit,” Accessibility Team contributor Joe Dolson commented on the ticket.\n\n\n\n“The point being that we couldn’t provide extensive accessibility training to theme reviewers, so we needed the rules to be as narrow as possible. As long as we update the guidelines in a way that still meets that criteria, I think it would be fine.”\n\n\n\nThe Themes and Accessibility teams\u00a0reached a consensus on how the accessibility-ready tag will apply to block themes so contributors could move forward with adding the tag.\n\n\n\n“We should keep in mind that a breakage to the accessibility of WordPress block output will impact all block themes, so those failures are quite serious, but as it stands now the theme meets all expected criteria,” Dolson said.\n\n\n\nThe WordPress Themes Directory currently has just 94 themes tagged as “accessibility-ready” and only two of them also have support for full-site editing – Jace by Themes Team contributor Carolina Nymark, and W3CSSPress by Matteo Marchiori. Twenty Twenty-Two will be joining them on November 1, 2022, the anticipated release date of of WordPress 6.1.", "date_published": "2022-09-23T17:45:46-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-23T17:45:48-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Twenty-Twenty-Two.jpeg", "tags": [ "accessibility", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=137950", "url": "https://wptavern.com/design-mode-a-free-portfolio-block-theme-designed-for-freelancers-and-agencies", "title": "Design Mode: A Free Portfolio Block Theme Designed for Freelancers and Agencies", "content_html": "\n

The count for WordPress block themes has reached 137. It’s a far cry from the 500 block themes WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy set as a goal for 2022, but the number is steadily climbing as theme authors find their footing and discover how quickly block themes can be created.

\n\n\n\n

Brian Gardner is throwing his hat into the ring again with his latest release. Design Mode is a new block theme created for freelancers and agencies to showcase their services and work. After its release, several of Gardener’s contemporaries, fellow theme designers, remarked on how refreshing it is to see a block theme with “real world use cases,” as so many seem to be geared at bloggers.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Design Mode features Outfit, a geometric sans serif Google font, designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida, a Venezuelan type designer based in Santiago de Chile. It is used for both headings and paragraph text throughout the theme.

\n\n\n\n

The demo gives the best idea of what the theme looks like with a curated set of images, titles, captions, menus, and buttons all filled with content. Once installed and activated on a new site, the theme looks very similar to the demo but has a placeholder image instead of the photos used in the demo. This is because the photos did not have the right licensing for distribution on WordPress.org, but the way it ships has the advantage of giving users a visual blank slate for those featured sections.

\n\n\n\n

Design Mode includes 10 different patterns, which are essentially all aspects of the design deconstructed into parts. There are multiple patterns for sections with cover, heading, text, and button, a query grid with three columns, a section with text and separators, a footer, and a header with site title and navigation perfectly spaced. The theme also conveniently includes a whole page pattern that will instantly reproduce the homepage in the demo.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Design Mode is an opinionated theme. Users can adjust colors for background, text, and links, and adjust various templates via full-site editing, but it does not come with additional style variations. Personal blogs may benefit from a kaleidoscope of style variations but a well-designed portfolio theme does not usually lend itself well to wide variations in style. In this case fewer options is a good thing that should preserve the simple palette the theme packages.

\n\n\n\n

This is a very fast theme by itself. Gardner reports that Design Mode scores 99 and 100 on Google page speed for mobile/desktop. Depending on what plugins and optimizations a user has active, this theme could be a good choice for performance-conscious WordPress users.

\n\n\n\n

Design Mode is Gardner’s third block theme in the directory. It bears some similarities to his black and white minimalist Avant-Garde theme but has more of a friendly showcase vibe that is suitable for personal portfolios, agencies, and any kind of service business that would benefit from an elegant, structured design.

\n\n\n\n

Design Mode is available for free on WordPress.org or inside WordPress via the admin themes browser.

\n", "content_text": "The count for WordPress block themes has reached 137. It’s a far cry from the 500 block themes WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy set as a goal for 2022, but the number is steadily climbing as theme authors find their footing and discover how quickly block themes can be created. \n\n\n\nBrian Gardner is throwing his hat into the ring again with his latest release. Design Mode is a new block theme created for freelancers and agencies to showcase their services and work. After its release, several of Gardener’s contemporaries, fellow theme designers, remarked on how refreshing it is to see a block theme with “real world use cases,” as so many seem to be geared at bloggers.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDesign Mode features Outfit, a geometric sans serif Google font, designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida, a Venezuelan type designer based in Santiago de Chile. It is used for both headings and paragraph text throughout the theme.\n\n\n\nThe demo gives the best idea of what the theme looks like with a curated set of images, titles, captions, menus, and buttons all filled with content. Once installed and activated on a new site, the theme looks very similar to the demo but has a placeholder image instead of the photos used in the demo. This is because the photos did not have the right licensing for distribution on WordPress.org, but the way it ships has the advantage of giving users a visual blank slate for those featured sections.\n\n\n\nDesign Mode includes 10 different patterns, which are essentially all aspects of the design deconstructed into parts. There are multiple patterns for sections with cover, heading, text, and button, a query grid with three columns, a section with text and separators, a footer, and a header with site title and navigation perfectly spaced. The theme also conveniently includes a whole page pattern that will instantly reproduce the homepage in the demo.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDesign Mode is an opinionated theme. Users can adjust colors for background, text, and links, and adjust various templates via full-site editing, but it does not come with additional style variations. Personal blogs may benefit from a kaleidoscope of style variations but a well-designed portfolio theme does not usually lend itself well to wide variations in style. In this case fewer options is a good thing that should preserve the simple palette the theme packages. \n\n\n\nThis is a very fast theme by itself. Gardner reports that Design Mode scores 99 and 100 on Google page speed for mobile/desktop. Depending on what plugins and optimizations a user has active, this theme could be a good choice for performance-conscious WordPress users.\n\n\n\nDesign Mode is Gardner’s third block theme in the directory. It bears some similarities to his black and white minimalist Avant-Garde theme but has more of a friendly showcase vibe that is suitable for personal portfolios, agencies, and any kind of service business that would benefit from an elegant, structured design.\n\n\n\nDesign Mode is available for free on WordPress.org or inside WordPress via the admin themes browser.", "date_published": "2022-09-20T18:06:11-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-20T18:06:12-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/design-mode-screenshot.jpg", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=137886", "url": "https://wptavern.com/beaumont-a-new-wordpress-block-theme-with-a-focus-on-longform-writing", "title": "Beaumont: A New WordPress Block Theme with a Focus on Longform Writing", "content_html": "\n

WordPress users looking for a block theme for blogging will have no shortage of options while Anders Nor\u00e9n is on a run with back-to-back theme submissions. Beaumont, his second theme release this month, is another one designed for personal sites and blogs but with an emphasis on longform content. It was named for Thaddeus Beaumont, a character in Stephen King’s The Dark Half.

\n\n\n\n

The new theme features the same Albert Sans typeface used in Bj\u00f6rk, his previous release, supported by\u00a0STIX Two Text in text content. Beaumont was inspired by the design he is using on his personal website, which Nor\u00e9n said people have requested he make into a theme. It has that faded paper look that instantly puts the focus on text content.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The demo of the single post template has an elegant design with drop caps, pullquotes, a custom “Preamble with a separator” pattern, and a minimal previous/next post navigation at the bottom. The spacing and typography are exquisite in this theme and lend themselves to a bit more of a formal presentation for longform content.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Beaumont comes with nine block patterns, which writers will enjoy, as most of them are dedicated to text presentation. The patterns include a long author bio, short author bio, paragraph with drop cap, paragraph with pullquote aligned left, paragraph with pullquote aligned right, large pullquote, preamble with a separator, wide quote with diamond separators, and a resume full page pattern.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

If you notice a discrepancy in how post content appears in the editor, this is a bug in WordPress, not a problem with the theme.

\n\n\n\n

“Currently, text will be set in Albert Sans when you edit your content in the Post Editor, despite it being set in STIX Two Text on the front-end,” Nor\u00e9n said. “This is because WordPress currently doesn\u2019t apply the core/post-content theme.json settings to the Post Editor preview. This\u00a0should\u00a0be fixed in WordPress 6.1, which is scheduled for November 1.”

\n\n\n\n

Beaumont packages 11 different style variations in the Styles panel that can totally change the look of a website – a couple of different yellows, multiple dark variations, and several subtle variations on the default. Users can select one and further customize the background, text, links, and more.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Since this theme is geared towards writers, it includes seven different layouts for blog archives, which means users can opt for a more visual display using featured images or keep it simple displaying just titles. These different loops are packaged as Template Parts and can be further edited using the Site Editor.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

View the demo to see how all the pieces work together or check out the Matt Report, an early adopter, to see how a podcast is using the theme.

\n\n\n\n

Beaumont would work well as a blog, a writing portfolio, or a resume site, but, thanks to the wide world of blocks, it could also be used as a base for nearly any other type of website. Anders Nor\u00e9n has hit another home run with this theme. It is simple and elegant with just 16K of CSS and no JavaScript, visually distinct from his other themes, and designed for readability. Download it for free from WordPress.org.

\n", "content_text": "WordPress users looking for a block theme for blogging will have no shortage of options while Anders Nor\u00e9n is on a run with back-to-back theme submissions. Beaumont, his second theme release this month, is another one designed for personal sites and blogs but with an emphasis on longform content. It was named for Thaddeus Beaumont, a character in Stephen King’s The Dark Half.\n\n\n\nThe new theme features the same Albert Sans typeface used in Bj\u00f6rk, his previous release, supported by\u00a0STIX Two Text in text content. Beaumont was inspired by the design he is using on his personal website, which Nor\u00e9n said people have requested he make into a theme. It has that faded paper look that instantly puts the focus on text content.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe demo of the single post template has an elegant design with drop caps, pullquotes, a custom “Preamble with a separator” pattern, and a minimal previous/next post navigation at the bottom. The spacing and typography are exquisite in this theme and lend themselves to a bit more of a formal presentation for longform content.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBeaumont comes with nine block patterns, which writers will enjoy, as most of them are dedicated to text presentation. The patterns include a long author bio, short author bio, paragraph with drop cap, paragraph with pullquote aligned left, paragraph with pullquote aligned right, large pullquote, preamble with a separator, wide quote with diamond separators, and a resume full page pattern.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIf you notice a discrepancy in how post content appears in the editor, this is a bug in WordPress, not a problem with the theme.\n\n\n\n“Currently, text will be set in Albert Sans when you edit your content in the Post Editor, despite it being set in STIX Two Text on the front-end,” Nor\u00e9n said. “This is because WordPress currently doesn\u2019t apply the core/post-content theme.json settings to the Post Editor preview. This\u00a0should\u00a0be fixed in WordPress 6.1, which is scheduled for November 1.” \n\n\n\nBeaumont packages 11 different style variations in the Styles panel that can totally change the look of a website – a couple of different yellows, multiple dark variations, and several subtle variations on the default. Users can select one and further customize the background, text, links, and more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSince this theme is geared towards writers, it includes seven different layouts for blog archives, which means users can opt for a more visual display using featured images or keep it simple displaying just titles. These different loops are packaged as Template Parts and can be further edited using the Site Editor.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nView the demo to see how all the pieces work together or check out the Matt Report, an early adopter, to see how a podcast is using the theme.\n\n\n\nBeaumont would work well as a blog, a writing portfolio, or a resume site, but, thanks to the wide world of blocks, it could also be used as a base for nearly any other type of website. Anders Nor\u00e9n has hit another home run with this theme. It is simple and elegant with just 16K of CSS and no JavaScript, visually distinct from his other themes, and designed for readability. Download it for free from WordPress.org.", "date_published": "2022-09-16T18:14:47-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-16T18:14:48-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/beaumont-blog-desktop-scaled.webp", "tags": [ "free wordpress themes", "News", "Themes" ] }, { "id": "https://wptavern.com/?p=137803", "url": "https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-contributors-call-on-theme-authors-to-test-using-block-based-template-parts-in-classic-themes", "title": "Gutenberg Contributors Call on Theme Authors to Test Using Block-Based Template Parts in Classic Themes", "content_html": "\n

If you watched Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A session at WordCamp US last weekend, it’s evident that there are significant parts of the community still clinging to the Classic Editor who would be happy for it to be supported indefinitely. For whatever reason, millions users are not ready to switch – some prefer the old editor, don’t like blocks, don’t want to learn a new system, or simply find the newer versions of WordPress too confusing.

\n\n\n\n

In recognition that some users may need a transitional bridge over to the block editor, with an opportunity to dip their toes into it without breaking their whole site design, Gutenberg 14.1 will introduce the ability for theme authors to use block-based template parts in classic and hybrid themes.

\n\n\n\n

Anne McCarthy, who coordinates the FSE outreach program and Gutenberg testing, posted to the Make Themes blog, calling on theme authors to test it out.

\n\n\n\n

“Gradual adoption options remains a focus for the project and, increasingly, there are more ways to adopt parts rather than the whole of a feature coming to the latest version of WordPress,” McCarthy said. “The aim is to allow folks to adopt what they need as they are ready in a way that is still future forward.”

\n\n\n\n

Theme authors will need to specify block-template-parts theme support and use Gutenberg trunk or Gutenberg 14.1 when it\u2019s released on September 15th, 2022. Then they can add block-based template parts as HTML files placed into the parts directory inside the root of the theme. These can then be output inside the theme’s PHP templates using the block_template_part function.

\n\n\n\n

“Users will see a new ‘Template Parts’ menu visible under ‘Appearance,’ which displays a list of template parts,” McCarthy said. “From there, all theme blocks are available, but the environment is inherently limited compared to block themes. For example, users can edit existing template parts but not delete them or create new ones.”

\n\n\n\n

McCarthy suggested a few use cases for adding block-based template parts to classic themes – enabling authors to offer a header template part that allows users to set a video or image background, adjust the focal point, move blocks around, or offer a footer with design blocks locked but content that is easy to edit.

\n\n\n\n

“While this feature is currently aimed at providing options for themes, plugins can also explore extending this functionality to enable the same\u00a0UI\u00a0for users,” McCarthy said.

\n\n\n\n

Block themes represent just 2.5% of WordPress themes in the directory, so this new capability is applicable to the majority of themes. Motivating classic theme authors to support this in their themes is another challenge if they don’t see the benefit to users or determine that the different editing experience would be too confusing. It may have an easier entry point through plugins, as users may be more likely to embrace a different editing UI for plugin functionality.

\n\n\n\n

For more technical details and code examples for adding theme support, check out the post outlining how to test using block-based template parts in classic themes.

\n", "content_text": "If you watched Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A session at WordCamp US last weekend, it’s evident that there are significant parts of the community still clinging to the Classic Editor who would be happy for it to be supported indefinitely. For whatever reason, millions users are not ready to switch – some prefer the old editor, don’t like blocks, don’t want to learn a new system, or simply find the newer versions of WordPress too confusing. \n\n\n\nIn recognition that some users may need a transitional bridge over to the block editor, with an opportunity to dip their toes into it without breaking their whole site design, Gutenberg 14.1 will introduce the ability for theme authors to use block-based template parts in classic and hybrid themes.\n\n\n\nAnne McCarthy, who coordinates the FSE outreach program and Gutenberg testing, posted to the Make Themes blog, calling on theme authors to test it out.\n\n\n\n“Gradual adoption options remains a focus for the project and, increasingly, there are more ways to adopt parts rather than the whole of a feature coming to the latest version of WordPress,” McCarthy said. “The aim is to allow folks to adopt what they need as they are ready in a way that is still future forward.”\n\n\n\nTheme authors will need to specify block-template-parts theme support and use Gutenberg trunk or Gutenberg 14.1 when it\u2019s released on September 15th, 2022. Then they can add block-based template parts as HTML files placed into the parts directory inside the root of the theme. These can then be output inside the theme’s PHP templates using the block_template_part function.\n\n\n\n“Users will see a new ‘Template Parts’ menu visible under ‘Appearance,’ which displays a list of template parts,” McCarthy said. “From there, all theme blocks are available, but the environment is inherently limited compared to block themes. For example, users can edit existing template parts but not delete them or create new ones.”\n\n\n\nMcCarthy suggested a few use cases for adding block-based template parts to classic themes – enabling authors to offer a header template part that allows users to set a video or image background, adjust the focal point, move blocks around, or offer a footer with design blocks locked but content that is easy to edit.\n\n\n\n“While this feature is currently aimed at providing options for themes, plugins can also explore extending this functionality to enable the same\u00a0UI\u00a0for users,” McCarthy said. \n\n\n\nBlock themes represent just 2.5% of WordPress themes in the directory, so this new capability is applicable to the majority of themes. Motivating classic theme authors to support this in their themes is another challenge if they don’t see the benefit to users or determine that the different editing experience would be too confusing. It may have an easier entry point through plugins, as users may be more likely to embrace a different editing UI for plugin functionality.\n\n\n\nFor more technical details and code examples for adding theme support, check out the post outlining how to test using block-based template parts in classic themes.", "date_published": "2022-09-13T23:46:56-04:00", "date_modified": "2022-09-13T23:46:57-04:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" } ], "author": { "name": "Sarah Gooding", "url": "https://wptavern.com/author/sarah", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d12f506a8f9afba443178608fc9e2232?s=512&d=retro&r=r" }, "image": "https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/lego.jpg", "tags": [ "News", "Themes" ] } ] }