This week: company blog, SearchWP plugin, the difference between static and headless, Flesch index, and much more.
Guest editor:
Keith is a WordPress designer and developer based in the UK. He’s one half of Highrise Digital, who build custom, high-performance WordPress websites.
He is also co-host of the WP Café show where he chats about WordPress development with other professionals in the space.
Building WordPress themes in the Gutenberg era
WordPress theme development is changing rapidly. Gutenberg has left many in the industry worried about the future and feeling like they are falling behind.
That was me 12 months ago. Then, at Highrise Digital, we made a decision to build our next website on Gutenberg and we haven’t looked back since.
Sure, Gutenberg can be frustrating and awkward. The documentation is pretty poor and there are generally few resources out there to help. But, if you take the leap, you’ll quickly see the power of the new block editor and the ways that it can make your life as a theme developer easier.
Below, I’ve highlighted some of the resources that have really helped me in my journey so far. I hope that it encourages you to jump into the new Gutenberg world. It’s really not as scary as it seems.
Although over a year old, this blog post by Bill Erickson really helped me to get started with building Gutenberg themes. Bill creates custom themes for his clients and in this post he outlines his process and some useful Gutenberg features.
Check out the rest of Bill’s development posts for more pro tips.
In this short post Rich does a great job of introducing FSE (Full Site Editing) and some of the new concepts it will bring.
He is particularly enthusiastic about the new theme.json file coming in WP 5.8. If you’ve ever wanted a single place to declare theme styles, settings and support, you don’t have long to wait. This is a game changer.
Carolina Nymark was a lead developer on the Twenty Twenty-One theme, so she knows a thing or two about Gutenberg theme development!
She has created a website/course where she teaches the fundamentals of FSE theme development.
Unbelievably, this course is free!
I recently bought Fränk’s ‘Building block-based themes’ course and I loved it.
The short and sweet videos are perfect if you struggle to stay focused. I found myself completing the whole course in about 4 hours of a single day.
By the end, you’ll have built your own FSE theme and be able to build new page templates, headers, query blocks, etc.
I’ve been following Justin Tadlock since I started my WordPress development journey and he’s always produced really great development content.
Recently, Justin has been building themes again and his Twitter feed is full of useful advice, examples and snippets of code.
A shameless plug! WP Café is the monthly show where my business partner Mark Wilkinson and I talk to WordPress professionals about development.
It’s a ‘grass-roots’ show, for solo and small WordPress development teams and the aim is to provide practical advice and news in the space.
For WPBeginner‘s 12th birthday Syed Balkhi published a post summarizing this period. Admittedly, a lot has happened.
Jon Christopher has sold his SearchWP plugin to Awesome Motive.
I Sold SearchWP to Awesome Motive
WPScan blog released an interview with the hacker m0ze on whether WordPress is a safe CMS and how he finds vulnerabilities.
LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. Trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
An article about static WordPress has appeared on our blog. What are its benefits and how to convert your website.
Andrei from Pixelgrade has published an excellent article on the consequences of owning a corporate blog.
In Delicious Brain Waves Episode 6, Brad and Iain talk about the purchase process of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin. I highly recommend it if you are considering buying a plugin, but you don’t know how to go about it.
Chris Lema explains the difference between Static and Headless in laymen’s terms.
On its blog, majestic.com published a video from a webinar on SEO for WordPress. It’s worth listening to what the experts have to say.
The Learn Create Share website released a guide on creating a Substack-like newsletter using WP and the Newsletter Glue.
Ben from LayerWP chatted with Iain Poulsen about FlipWP, a new platform for trading plugins.
Convesio‘s blog released an article on the pros & cons of using WP as a CRM.
I appreciate when big companies try to introduce changes to the typical workweek. 10up‘s Jake Goldman describes how his company operates on Fridays.
Nida.tools looks promising – it sells itself as both an app and page builder, but for developers. I signed up for the beta waiting list.
Here’s an entertaining interview with Taylor Arndt on accessibility.
Nate Finch shared a recipe for creating a blog hosted for free.
Ahrefs released an interesting article on the impact of the Flesch Reading Ease. It is worth reading to understand how to interpret its results.
Upcoming Events:
WordCamp Santa Clarita will take place on 17th-18th July.
On July 20, Yoast hosts a webinar about Headless. The guests will be Joost de Valk and Miriam Schwab.
The second edition of WordFest Live will take place on July 23.