As WordPress 5.8 release is nearing, WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) outreach lead Anne McCarthy has prepared an excellent Full Site Editing Resources with full of helpful guides. This resourceful resource post is intended to both the speakers and theme authors as well including some answers to FAQ. FSE is collection of block features that add value to users as well as theme developers.
If you’re presenting to theme authors, you can use this to get a sense at a glance of what might be relevant from what to demo, what resources to share, what GitHub issues to highlight, and more.
Anne McCarthy
Anne writes that the forthcoming WordPress 5.8 release “is focused mainly on bringing tools to extenders with limited changes to the user experience. This includes theme.json, new theme blocks, design tools, and template editing mode.”
During recent 2021 WordCamp Europe Automattic engineer Matias Ventura and Matt Mulenweg discussed about about the latest development of Gutenberg block editor and presented the following video highlighting current and ongoing features.
The video is narrated by @beafialho highlights ongoing efforts to improve the editing and customization experience of WordPress.
Additional Helpful Resources
In preparation for lunching of WordPress 5.8 with optional new FSE features including template editing mode, global styling with theme.json and experimental navigation features, Anne McCarthy has put together helpful resources for block theme development.
The following lists of resources adapted from Anne’s post in ThemeShaper:
Quick Snapshot of WordPress 5.8 and Block Theme Development
- Review the Make Themes summary of theme features in 5.8.
- Read the Dev Notes on introducing theme.json and layout and content width for more specifics about block theme updates.
- Check out an updated scope of remaining site editing projects to get a sense of what’s to come beyond 5.8.
- Block Theme Documentation is currently outlined with a Learn WordPress course planned and a discussion underway about future documentation.
- Carolina Nymark created fullsiteediting.com that walks you through how to set up a block theme.
- Review the current posts on this very site focused on all things block theme building.
Learning from Others
- Check out the Theme Experiments Repo to see what others are building/doing to get started. You can even quickly create a blank theme to get started using resources within that repo.
- Review previous demos/walk throughs: Marcus has some great block theme videos to check out that show him learning as he goes & Helen has a 3-hour long video of her doing the same.
- There was a recent hallway hangout around the concept of Universal themes that might be of interest to view, especially if you’re a theme shop. Here’s a write up about the concept as well.
- If you’re keen to help explore and give feedback on theme.json, there’s a call for testing with the FSE Outreach Program that you can follow along with a recording of a great hallway hangout about theme.json and the test itself.
This post was Updated on July 16, 2021 and will be updated in future.