The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.
If you’d like to help test Full Site Editing, please join the FSE Outreach Program. You can find current calls for testing for this program here and you can join the fun in #fse-outreach-experiment.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program.
As a reminder, there’s one week left to share your questions about FSE.
Attendance:
Thank you to everyone who took time out of their lives to attend. It’s always lovely to see your faces and have time to chat. @overclokk @karmatosed @get_dave @annezazu @asilver @fabiankaegy @kafleg @mburridge
Video Recording:
Topics Covered:
We mainly focused on three items: the Go/No Go recap, the Site Editing IA concepts, and the Navigation Editor & Block work.
For the Go/No Go, we chatted about items we were excited for, including talking through @karmatosed wonderful patternspiration.com where she’s started to make art-like creations. This spurred the idea of a virtual museum of art made from blocks that yours truly just might try to make a reality.
From there, we moved on to walk through the various early design explorations for the Site Editing IA. This led to a lively discussion alongside walking through both the current experience and the various prototypes. We talked about the changes in colors between the different interfaces, how much friction to add/remove for various pieces, and which might make the most sense for 5.9. @fabiankaegy had some great feedback around including more than just the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. and footer for the Separate exploration but in a view only manner similar to what currently is available with locking things in patterns.
Finally, we covered the latest on the Navigation Editor and BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. work. @get_dave was kind enough to talk through where the project currently stands with focus shifting to the Navigation Block in order to then lay the foundation for the Navigation Editor. A key part of this work right now is “separating the navigation’s presentation from its data in order to make navigations reusable”. This will allow both for easier block theme switching while retaining menu data and for menus to be edited in a template part without creating a local copy. If folks have time, check out these two PRs to help move this important work forward: Save Navigation Block data to a wp_navigation post type and Try using a template part in the navigation block.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. It was intended to be a casual walkthrough of the current call for testing with @sparklingrobots taking the lead sharing their screen. Big thank you for being brave enough to meander around the call for testing publicly.
As a reminder, there is still 1 week left to participate so please join in if you can.
Attendance:
Thank you to everyone who attended 🙂 @karmatosed @mkaz @shaunandrews @paaljoachim @annezazu @sparklingrobots @richtabor
Video Recording:
Feedback Overview
Throughout the session, some specific issues were noted as problem areas to follow up on, including some previous reported and some new:
Outside of specific points of feedback about the experience, there were also high level themes that became apparent as @sparklingrobots made her way:
We ended the call talking about how the future of the Query Loop block powering more user friendly variations, an integrated block pattern library, an overhaul of the IA of the various design tools, & more will help ease this current experience. For now though, we’re in an in between state where loads can still be learned to improve the default tools themselves.
Next Steps
@annezazu will follow up next week after she returns (she’s out Thurs/Fri) to replicate and open issues.
#fse-hallway-hangout, #fse-outreach-programThis post is a summary of blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. theme switching exploration for the FSE outreach program. This was the first of its kind, enabling folks to share very early feedback on something that has yet to be robustly defined. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through sharing feedback directly or sharing the exploration with others.
Shout out to @richtabor @elmastudio @anariel-design who officially got badges for responding, despite having engaged with surveys the program has done in the past.
Big thank you to @piermario for the Italian translation and @greenshady for the WP Tavern article, which both help bring the exploration to even more folks.
High level summary
Overall, the current experience proves to be frustrating and inconsistent, especially when taking into account custom block styles, keeping customized templates, etc. Thinking long term about what folks would want to be able to have across themes, there was mass consensus around being able to retain templates, template parts, and menus. There was somewhat mixed feedback around whether Global Styles should persist as some saw those as differentiating a theme. When it came to ideas for how to best manage the switching process, it quickly became clear that there’s a balance to strike between not adding too much friction to the process while also offering users options to pick and choose what can come with them when they switch. Ideally, there can be a simple and visual way to intuitively guide users and help them take advantage of the power of what block themes unlock without discouraging them with too many options.
On templates and template parts
There was mass agreement around the desire to keep customized templates and template parts across themes, with many expressing surprise and frustration at the current experience. This was previously documented and discussed here as part of an earlier call for testing.
I’m very surprised that any templates I’ve created are tied to the theme that was active when I created them. I’d expect that my custom templates should remain applied to pages when the new theme is active, instead of being disregarded. I’m not sure why templates are omitted when a theme is changed.
@richtabor in this comment.
I would like to be able to use templates and templates that I have created and saved, no matter which theme that is active. I know that I can view them under appearance templates/template parts, open them, copy the code and paste it into a new template, but I don’t think that is a good experience. It should be easier.
@poena in this comment.
On menus
Similar to templates and template parts, this was another area that folks inherently expected would persist across changing block themes.
An issue I’ve ran into now a few times when trying out different Full Site Editing themes is that losing menu data is frustrating. I think as a non-technical user it would be confusing, because you are prompted to “Add an existing menu”, which I would think would be my menu from the last theme I was using.
@timothyblynjacobs in this comment
I think it is important that navigation blocks that I have set up remains. The “Add existing menu” feature in the navigation block assumes that I have already created a menu in the navigation screen. If I only setup the navigation block as part of a headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. template part in the previous theme, then I can’t re-apply or reuse that navigation block. Perhaps navigation blocks should also work the other way around? I mean why can’t I select a name for my navigation block as I create it in the editor, save that in isolation like I can save the site blocks in isolation, and have that navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. present on the navigation screen?
@poena in this comment.
Keeping any menus created in the Site Editor available would be important, I think this is one of the biggest issues right now.
@elmastudio in this comment.
On Global Styles
Global Styles left folks a bit split with some seeing them as being theme dependent and others wanting the option to carry settings/styles across themes. There’s currently a discussion around what can and can’t be standardized which will impact how this could be implemented.
I see Global Styles tied to the theme, but it could be helpful if some common settings are taken from one theme to the next.
@elmastudio in this comment.
Understandably global styles settings would adapt when a theme is changed (just like the customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.) – and I like how my custom GS settings persist when I change back to a theme (just like the customizer as well).
@richtabor in this comment.
When you export the demo and import it to the other installation, theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. file styles are not imported. As a theme developer, I would love to develop one theme with different demos for example. When I export the demo file I would love that global and block type styles are exported too and imported to other installations.
@anariel-design in this comment
Have the option to keep Global styles modifications. Perhaps a kind of dialog box that shows up when entering the Site Editor listing adjustments I made to the previous theme, asking if I wanted to keep these adjustments or to start anew.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
One question that keeps me up at night is how cross-theme compatibility will work on the content level. Default block output should translate from one theme to the next with little or no issues. However, custom block styles, font sizes, colors, and the full range of presets are already a problem area.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
On ideas for how to manage the process
Outside of a desire for the experience to be overall easier and more seamless, the following ideas were shared with a split in terms of folks who wanted decisions upfront vs after switching:
I have experimented with one theme but figured out along the way that it does not have the patterns or finished templates or something else I had hoped for. Instead of creating the patterns and templates myself I switch themes. When I click to switch a theme I get a warning message saying that switching themes will remove the adjustments I made to the current active theme, but I have an option to save these adjustments in a kind of twilight zone between one theme and another. I select to save changes I made, and notice that these carry over to the new theme that I activate. I check and notice that the changes do carry over. I am relieved that I am able to create adjustments in one theme and have these with me to the next time…In the Site Editor I can check out what the new theme offers and when I feel ready for it I can either say yes to bringing over the changes or no because I notice that the new theme has what I need.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I actually don’t want to be prompted with having to make several decisions as soon as I activate a new theme. I would find that stressful. I want to take my time. I want to understand what the differences are between the themes, and what changes I need to make. Perhaps there would be a side-by-side comparison of common page templates like page, single post, home? Like a revision?
@poena in this comment.
It needs to be easier for the users. They already needed to deal with the domain, hosting, choosing a theme etc.
@anariel-design in this comment
It could also be awesome to pull a color palette and drop it into an existing theme. Sort of like having a Colour Lovers directory to pick color schemes from but keep all the other bits. This could be fun for people who can recognize a palette that they like but would never be able to handpick all those colors. I’ve often seen color schemes that I’d love to use from other themes but didn’t like other things about them.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
On reasons for switching and the experience
Of the various questions folks could answer, some touched on both reasons for switching and the current experience. I’ve listed each response below since only a few folks addressed this area specifically. I’m also including images from @greenshady’s post where he took a simple blog post with some custom block styles, gradient colors, and font sizes and compared the output across three different themes highlighting current problems with theme switching.
To see prebuilt template layouts (could be done in a template mosaic view to where I can choose various prebuilt layouts instead of switching themes). To have a base that I want to start from. A design that I would like to use and modify.
@paaljoachim in this comment.
I think the most common scenario is a missing functionality in one theme like WooCommerce support. Next would be outdated design and lack of updates and support from the theme author.
@elmastudio in this comment.
When I switched to the Quadrat I mostly lost everything that I set up in the Clove theme. That means, About page doesn’t look anything similar, colors, fonts are now from the Quadrat theme and button style too. From the user’s side, this is very confusing. If u ever used Elementor for example, and many are using it they are used to the similar overflow. If I create a template and change the look and styles and switch to any other theme this template will look the same and it will remain available.
@anariel-design in this comment
I am not one for switching themes. Since I learned how to design for WordPress well over a decade ago, I have never moved from one theme to the next. At least not in the same way that the average user would. Instead, every time I have added a new coat of paint on my websites, I have simply switched over the foundation to whatever I had been working on at the given moment. WordPress themes, for me, were always just an iteration upon the last project…The first thing I do when testing any theme is to load a demo post. Lately, this has been the “Welcome to the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ Editor” test post. The primary question: Can I read the content comfortably? If I do not get past this stage, I simply deactivate the theme.
@greenshady in this WP Tavern article.
What’s next?
@critterverse is exploring how to approach these flows from a design perspective and has been following along as feedback has come in. You can expect to see a more in depth design exploration shared soon enough with some of these pieces of feedback and ideas integrated in! I’ll flag this in the outreach program channel when the time comes and will see how we can explore these experiences in future calls for testing.
This is the tenth call for testing as part of the Full Site Editing Outreach Program! For more information about this outreach program, please review this FAQ for helpful details. To properly join the fun, please head to #fse-outreach-experiment in Make Slack for future testing announcements, helpful posts, and more.
As a reminder, if you’d like to suggest an idea for a call for testing, it’s very welcomed and all ideas will be weighed against current project priorities to figure out what makes the most sense to pursue. You can share ideas directly in the slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel or via DM to me (@annezazu).
Because Full Site Editing is a collection of features that allows more items to be easily edited without knowing code, new blocks needed to be created to cover more parts of your site. These blocks are generally called “Theme Blocks” as they match functionality that used to only live in themes. While a number of theme blocks were introduced in WordPress 5.8, there’s always more work to be done, including shipping even more theme blocks in future releases!
This test is focused on pushing these lovely Theme Blocks to their limits to better determine what to prioritize and what features might remain to be documented. To make the experience feel a bit more fun and practical, we’re going to approach this test from the vantage point of creating patterns for blogs using some of these blocks. If you really like what you make, remember you could even register them on your site 🙂
As a refresher, here’s a rundown of all of the theme blocks ready for testing with a note around which ones are included in WordPress 5.8 in case you’re inspired to use them on your site now:
While there’s more information below to ensure you get everything set up properly, here are the key aspects to have in place with your testing environment:
Generally speaking, please use the latest versions of each part of the setup and keep in mind that versions might have changed since this post was shared.
Setup Instructions:
General Instructions:
If you’re up for the challenge and want to take this test further, try to create your own pattern from scratch, make multiple patterns, or recreate some with your own twist from Theme designers at Automattic shown below:
Remember to share a screenshot of what you created if you’re up for it!
Please leave feedback in the comments of this post. If you’d prefer, you’re always welcome to create issues in this GitHub repo directly for Gutenberg. If you leave feedback in GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, please do still comment below with the link. If you see that someone else has already reported a problem, please still note your experience with it below, as it’ll help give those working on this experience more well-rounded insight into what to improve.
Thank you to @priethor @sparklingrobots and @welcher for reviewing this post and giving me the confidence to ship it.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. It was originally announced in this post. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance: @paulbigai @karmatosed @mkaz @get_dave @annezazu @courane01 @shaunandrews @pdclark
Video Recording:
Topics Covered:
Ideas for improvement
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance: @poena @richtabor @karmatosed @paulbigai
Video Recording:
Topics Covered:
Date: 2021-09-16 16:00 UTC
Format: Zoom (recorded). A link will be shared in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel before the meeting time. Please join that channel if you’d like to participate!
Length: 45 – 60mins. This will not run longer than an hour.
Topic: This session will focus on adoption pathways with full site editing.
Facilitator(s): @mkaz @get_dave @annezazu
Goal: To have a broader discussion about adoption pathways, what’s working, what successes folks have had, what blockers people are running into, and what might help more folks participate. Beyond just the benefits of learning from each other, this information will ideally be used to help influence future resources and to give insights to the teams working on these items.
Intended Audience: Anyone who has adopted or is interested in adopting site editing related features (theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML., template editor, theme blocks, navigation editor, etc).
Agenda
This conversation is meant to casual, collaborative, and open ended rather than prescriptive about how one should approach adoption. With that in mind, we’ll start the session asking folks who are comfortable doing so to share what they’ve tried and how it’s gone. Once everyone who wants to go has done so, we’ll talk about successes, blockers, and what resources folks have used (along with what resources folks would like to see). We’ll see where the conversation takes us from there!
With the advent of blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes in the WordPress ecosystem, new possibilities are on the horizon, from easier theme development for developers and designers to easier site creation for users. Rather than just examining the value of block themes in isolation though, it’s important to expand to think about what can be done across different block themes. For example, imagine a world where one could seamlessly take product review patterns from one theme, styling from another, and product display templates from an eCommerce focused theme to create a store. Or imagine being able to switch themes while retaining your favorite palette of colors and typography. Regardless, it’s imperative that the experience is reliable, intuitive, and expansive pushing beyond what’s been possible in the past.
As a result, the focus of this exploration is on thinking from this longer term, “wishful thinking” perspective first by guiding you through a very basic theme switching process and then by asking each of you to creatively think about what you’d like to see happen. Since this is not quite a call for testing due to the lack of flows, focus less on finding bugs (although they are still welcomed) and more on thinking through things you wish would happen or would like to occur. The aim is to gather useful insights that will help inform how we design this experience.
Note: this is intentionally just focusing on block theme switching only for now rather than, for example, switching from classic to block.
Explore what’s currently possible
The steps below are meant to be high level with the aim to have you set up initial block theme related items that you might want to keep upon switching themes. It’s not required to run through these steps for the sake of this test since many of the flows are not yet built.
If you don’t have time to create quick content, feel free to import this demo content (open the link and select “Download) created especially for this test via the WordPress importer under Tools > Import. You can also follow this lesson for how to use demo content.
Bonus: Try importing and exporting content from a current site you have to a test site to make the test feel more real and applicable, even if the site is not using a block theme. From there, switch to any theme, block or not. This is purely to get you in the headspace of thinking more about what you’d like to retain even if this is focused specifically on block themes.
Describe what you’d like to see
Comment below after reflecting on the following questions. Remember to share what you’d like to see ideally rather than focusing on what’s currently in place. Answer one, answer all, answer none! These are merely to get you thinking in the right framework rather than boxes to check:
Please share feedback by September 29th, 2021
As always, thank you for participating in this exercise. If anything is blocking you from doing so, just say so either in #fse-outreach-experiment, in the comments of this post, or over DM in slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. to @annezazu (that’s me!). Keep in mind that not everything shared here will be implemented by the nature of this exploration but know that your ideas will ultimately help shape what is possible going forward.
Thank you to @poena @kellychoffman @priethor @daisyo for reviewing!
This post is a summary of the ninth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. During this call for testing, we surpassed 400 members in the channel! I love an excuse to celebrate so please pat yourselves on the back, treat yourself to a favorite dessert, listen to your favorite song, etc to celebrate this neat milestone of community contributions. While we reached this milestone, I do want to note that contributions were lower for this last round than usual so, if you’re sitting back thinking that others have it covered, please instead jump into the next round if you can!
Special thanks to both @mimitips for the Japanese translation and @piermario for the Italian translation.
Shout out to @utz119 @wazeter @alanjacobmathew as first time contributors to a call for testing. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!
How far can one go?
Check out @greenshady’s approach (keep in mind he self admittedly “cheated” to get the final look):
@richtabor took on trying to replicate UNG’s header with the following outcome:
High Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that can help frame the following detail oriented feedback. Across all of the feedback, the desire for a lighter navigation experience as well as more advanced tools around spacing, bulk adding items, etc. stood out.
I didn’t run into too many issues getting the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. to display decently, but I also know a bunch of tricks to get the editor to do what I need it to do. The end result is ok — but the experience getting there needs a lot of refining yet.
– @richtabor in this comment.
Creating the menu was quite a hassle. Too many clicks especially when creating submenu.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
This was an interesting challenge…I didn’t make anything “beautiful,” however I did find a couple of things while I was trying to do most of this via keyboard-only navigation.
– @bjturner in this comment.
Using the Navigation blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. still seems the most troublesome area of site editing. I know how much work the development team has put behind the user experience for this feature but cannot help but wonder if there is a point where users can opt into managing its content (the links) via the traditional Nav Menus screen in WordPress. The site editor works fine for the design aspect, but I have yet to feel comfortable using it to manage links.
– @greenshady in this WPTavern post.
After delving deeply into the ins and outs of the navbar – the primary issues all revolve around responsiveness. The coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. issue came down to the navigation bar operating as a separate element (which makes sense for a block) than the rest of what you’d normally consider a complete header. This means that in order to properly size and place the navbar, you have to use a container block like group or columns – which is where alignment starts to get into trouble.
– @wazeter in this comment.
Confirmed bugs
Thanks to clear patterns in feedback due to a larger focus on the navigation block, this is a dedication section to just bugs that were found or confirmed in this test. Those that have been resolved thanks to a release mid-test have been noted below.
General Usability Feedback
At the core of this test, the feedback centered around a combination of small, specific issues and larger problems with the overall settings of different blocks. This made the experience feel less refined and intuitive leading to general confusion when trying to accomplish sometimes simple things, like changing the width of the Search block. In some cases, work is underway actively to address these concerns, as is the case with adding a gap block feature to make it easier to manage the spacing between navigation block items. Some were repeat items and are noted as such below.
I am not able to see any visual difference between Wide width or Full width. Because my browser screen is not wide enough to see the difference. When I widen the browser window then I am able to see the difference. Should the Wide width alignment be response in relation to the browser size window? So the user will be able to see a visual difference in the backend when testing Wide or Full width.
– @paaljoachim in this comment.
I wish there was some way to reduce the default spacing between blocks. For example I want to reduce the space above the 2nd Nav block.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
To add an actual link, users must first add the Page Link block. Then, they can search for a specific page. This two-step process gets me every time.
– @greenshady in this WPTavern post.
For example, adding search to the navbar, and then wanting the search bar to display differently (larger, smaller) with a potentially different background doesn’t work. Individual menu items can’t easily change the background color of a link (e.g. an active color) to align properly with the container element and there are no hover effects (extremely common use cases) without diving into CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. code.
– @wazeter in this comment.
Not quite a bug, but it doesn’t feel polished when the Block hover menu extends past the viewport.
– @bjturner in this comment.
When the first block is extremely near to the editor header, some parts of the block content gets hidden, while the viewport adjusts automatically on both left and right side, the top part remains fixed.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) feedback
Thanks to some folks focusing in on what could be done with this test using just keyboard controls, there’s a lovely list of accessibility focused items:
Trying to do keyboard only navigation for working with the navigation block. It’s pretty good, but there’s so many tabs!
– @bjturner in this comment.
Feature requests
While the experience was generally easy enough to follow, a few clear feature requests were raised to streamline the process further:
As mentioned above, an overview issue was shared during this test that explores a more scaled down version of the navigation block to make it easier for simple menus to be created. This will better cover the more common use case for most sites. Since this test explored both a simpler and more complex menu structure, the feature requests reflect each experience.
It just feels too cumbersome to add a custom link today.
– @paaljoachim in this comment.
Creating the menu was quite a hassle. Too many clicks especially when creating submenu.
– @alanjacobmathew in this comment.
On July 30th, I shared a survey to gather insights around how theme authors are exploring theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. today in order to shape what’s possible in the future with theme design. Thank you to the 31 people who took the time to share their feedback! By having concentrated feedback like this, better decisions can be made around what makes sense to include in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. What follows is a high level summary of the results.
As always, GitHub issues are welcomed for anything not covered here or that comes up in the future. Please keep sharing your feedback there and know it’s appreciated as the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. theme design system continues to evolve.
Most folks who responded to the survey have experimented with building block themes either by starting from scratch or by forking an existing theme. Of note, TT1 Blocks didn’t stand out as a base that folks relied upon with many choosing to fork their own theme or working to move a classic theme they made to a block. While most folks used color presets, there was a variety of approaches included a few mixed naming strategies showing that this is still an open ended area of exploration. Along with colors and typography, the ability to customize layout and spacing options proved to be favorites. There was a near 50/50 split in terms of those who had explored per block settings or styles, with the Button block being the most commonly referenced by those who had. From the wide variety of feedback gathered, a few suggestions emerged for how best to improve the experience going forward including expanding theme.json documentation, adding commenting and improving the structure of theme.json, and more.
If you want to read the full reports, I have included an option below. Keep in mind that I intentionally removed any personal identifying questions that listed the contact information for folks (name, email address, country, etc).
31 people participated from 17 countries with the longest time spent responding clocking in around 60 minutes and the shortest time just under 2 minutes (removed a 2d response assuming it was left open in their browser).
52% of participants said that they have built and launched block themes, which was exciting to see! For those who answered with Other Option, the responses were, for the most part, combining different responses into one:
I tried using theme.json in a classic theme and also experimented with TT1-Blocks theme and FSE. But haven’t dig in too deep to create a fully custom FSE solution.
I’ve built 5 experimental block themes and explored theme.json with classic themes.
I’m currently building a hybrid theme for a fairly large SaaS client that relies on theme.json and Block Patterns.
I have explored using theme.json with a classic theme and I have experimented with building block themes.
I have experimented with block themes and fse. I am currently building a custom block theme for a client site.
This question was intended to help get insight into what resources folks are relying on and what the process to get started looks like. The results showed that more could be done to improve this part of block theme development, whether through amplifying available resources or improving those resources themselves. For the Other Option selection, there were some insightful responses:
I converted an existing theme to a block theme.
All of the above.
Using my Genesis base child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. and implementing/testing what I have come across over several resources online.
The comment section was particularly lively for this question as it asked those who forked an existing theme to share which theme/what approach they took. All the responses aren’t included here, but here is a representative sampling:
I have used all three. I no longer use empty theme because it is too basic for me. When I fork, I copy one of my earlier themes.
I extended an existing custom theme from our agency.
We started from a classic theme, created a blocks pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (Nova Blocks) around it, and step-by-step evolve towards a block theme (Rosa2). It’s not a fully block-based theme, but the goal is to get there soon.
I have done most of my experimenting with tt1. I have been referencing and digging into the code many block themes, trying to come up with the best methodology for my custom theme which will need to be production ready at end of month. Blockbase, seedlet-blocks, astra-blocks, genesis block theme.
Across the board in the comments, these four patterns emerged: starting with an existing theme they know well, following tutorials like fullsiteediting.com, forking an existing block theme, or some combination of each option. It feels important to note that TT1 Blocks, the block version of the Twenty Twenty-One default theme, was only mentioned three times.
On the whole, most folks mentioned the following:
To get a broader sense of responses, here is a sampling:
This is an ecommerce theme using WooCommerce blocks and our custom block library. Templates: Front Page Single Post Archive Search 404 Page Several Post templates and Page templates with sidebars
Template parts: Header Footer Shop Archive-product (categories, tags, attributes) Loop and a few other templates (e.g., loop with sidebar) depending on the setup
We primarily use template parts for Header and Footer but evolving steadily to all other theme parts. Here is a list of all the templates: https://github.com/pixelgrade/rosa2/tree/main/template-parts
In particular, in that last comment, you can see a wide range of possible template parts mentioned from Pixelgrade, including site branding and meta social (shared with consent).
For the other options, the following themes emerged as a combination of feedback and approaches:
This question resulted in some lively additional comments with a sampling shared below:
Surely, this is a tricky question as there is no standard cross-theme compatible way of naming colors.
Nowadays I kind of use a mixed naming strategy:
– primary, secondary and tertiary (,…) for base theme color scheme,
– an black, white, gray, dark gray, light gray for standard grayscale colors.
All of these colors populate editor palette too. I do not set other colors if not required by the project as I feel a theme should adhere to some limited color palette (while still providing some options for basic colors of grayscale for possible tinting).
I have been adding the color names. But am keen to the idea of the primary, secondary, etc. The problem for me in doing so has always been that they are too limiting. The designs I work off of in client theming are usually pretty complex and my colors do not always neatly fall into those categories.
I use semantic names with a Tailwind-like shading system. For example, my “primary” color gets split between different shades from 100 (lightest) to 900 (darkest). So, you get primary-100, primary-200, … primary-900. These can be reduced or added to on a per-project basis. The system is based on the popular Tailwind CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. framework, but it also closely models common systems of theme authors I have surveyed. They tend to have neutral, primary, and/or secondary colors across the average project.
The !important that is added to all theme colors is DRIVING ME CRAZY.
A few folks mentioned block-specific settings likely because this question came before the one about block settings. I removed those responses from this section.
For Layout, I counted the following mentions altogether: Layout, contentSize, wideSize.
For Spacing, I counted the following mentions altogether: Spacing, Margin, Padding.
Mainly custom definitions: filling gaps that aren’t currently supported as presets, and duplicating layout definitions for contentSize and wideSize to expose these values.
Not much to date, but waiting on more to become available so I can use it more.
I think I’ve touched every piece of `{ settings: {} }`, configuring things to my liking. Some common `settings.custom` properties that I set are: – Spacing values, with the most-used being a `spacing.global` value. – Content and wide-layout values because these are not currently exposed as CSS properties via presets. – Google Fonts system. It’s a bit too early to say what I will use the most going forward though. It is still early. The biggest thing that is missing is a global spacing value as a preset. I have a feeling that will be a common use case for most theme authors.
This question was nearly split, with 16 people responding “Yes” (52%) and 15 responding “No” (48%). Those who said they do include per-block settings or styles were then given an additional question covered in the next section.
Which blocks do you tend to customize with per block settings or styles in theme.json and why?
Note that this question was only shown if someone indicated that they have included per-block settings or styles in their theme.json files. The responses were fairly split with folks either saying they tend to customize all of them or tending to mention specific blocks. The Button block was heavily mentioned with 11 out of 16 people noting it. The following specific blocks were mentioned:
Because this was an open-ended question, here is a sampling of longer form responses to help get a sense of what folks shared:
For per-block settings, I have not done much outside of enabling an option or two if it was disabled by default. However, for per-block (and per-element) styles, I am not sold on the system. Writing CSS in JSON, which is essentially what we are talking about, feels wrong on so many levels. There is the obvious issue that it is limited to merely a few styles that are actually configurable, so anything beyond that requires diving into an actual CSS file anyway. And, that is problematic. Why would I want half my CSS code in a JSON file and the other half elsewhere? From a development standpoint, it makes the codebase harder to maintain. Initially, I started down the path of configuring per-block and element styles from `theme.json`. However, I have since moved my styling back to CSS files. It feels more natural, and I have the added benefit of all the tooling I am accustomed to. Right now, I cannot imagine a scenario where I would move back.
I do customize pretty much all of them, as the default block styles rarely fit. I also remove every and all default block variations, and a lot of the patterns. Overall I’m not a fan of Core having “opinionated” styles, because that should be the theme’s job.
Individually styling a lot of blocks leads to a lot of customization when done explicitly in raw css – and potentially unnecessary bloat. Most of my customizations are set on the most used core blocks for layouting / synchronizing design aspects.
I’ve mostly enabled border support for the Button block in the past (not sure if that is enabled by default now). Adding default spacing to various blocks is another thing I’ve done. But, the biggest use case has been settings some default styles for the root/body (colors, typography, and spacing) and for other elements rather than specifically individual blocks. I’m more interested in configuring per-block settings in the long-term than per-block styles though.
This open-ended question resulted in an awesome abundance of feedback, ideas, and more help request style questions! If you’re keen to read more, I’d recommend downloading the full results. For now, here are the major themes that relate to more specific ideas than more general feedback/help requests:
Once more, since this is an open ended question, here are some of the responses:
We plan to use theme.json to *disable* all low-level controls like color pickers, padding controls, and even custom font sizes. We want to introduce some system-level controls similar to the Global Styles but couldn’t wait until that part of the project is finished.
I have to think more – but definitely have thoughts on this. MultisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. functionality with theme.json in particular is a quite powerful use case. An “import” function, similar to wordpress importer to pass settings from one theme to another or one install to another or main theme to child theme – and consequently an exporter, would be super fantastic.
The theme.json file can get super big and a bit hard to peruse. My current project’s theme.json is 350+ lines long. I’ve seen two solutions already surface to try and address this a bit: Justin Tadlock shared a webpack tool that merges multiple json files in to one, which is probably the most suitable for my needs. I’m just mentioning this as I think it’ll quickly become a common gripe for engineers that use theme.json heavily and especially in a team/agency setting.
I love, love, love using the json file! It made customizing so easy. I’m looking forward to working more with FSE and building more themes.
We need as many tools as possible in theme.json but an ability to use as few of them as we need.
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