What’s New

in

Fox Valley Computing Professionals, April 2022

Clare Parkinson, clare@greenbee-web.com

WordPress basics

• Initial release: 2003 as a blogging platform
• Last stable release: 5.9.3, April 5 2022
• Last major release: 5.9, January 25 2022

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WordPress is used by 42.8% of the top 10 million websites as of October 2021.

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WordPress components

• PHP
• MySQL database

Theme: PHP template control layout and behavior of the site, determines design

Child theme or custom theme (optional): customization or additional functionality

Plugins: additional functionality, e.g. E-commerce, e.g. easy custom field GUI, Events Calendar, easy SEO GUI, upload SVGs and XLS, Disable Comments, extra user roles and permissions…

What WordPress wants

WordPress wants to be a blog.

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“What we do isn’t that complicated. We take text, we put it in a database, we spit it back out, there are some glorified widgets.”

• Matt Mullenweg

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Everything is a post

Default Post Types:

• Posts
• Pages
• Attachments (uploaded media files)
• Revisions (saved versions of posts)
• Navigation Menus
• Custom CSS - in Customizer
• Changesets - in Customizer

Custom post types can be added easily, e.g. Events, Products, Person…

https://wordpress.org/support/article/post-types/

Custom fields can be added to posts

Post custom fields are stored in wp_postmeta table. Ok for just fetching and displaying per post, bad for relating posts to each other.

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WordPress can’t do complicated data relationships easily. Any many-to-many relationship between posts or fields is cumbersome.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description

WordPress is really good at…

• A basic site is very easy to set up - no coding required
• The Admin Panel is easy for non-technical editors to use
• Huge ecosystem of free and low-cost plugins adds all kinds of functionality
• Frequent updates for security and new functionality
• Backwards compatibility - all old WP core code always works
• Long lifespan for content and for website infrastructure

2009 content on a 2020 website: https://journalistsresource.org/2009/

WordPress Gutenberg Roadmap

• Phase 1: Block editor – late 2018
• Phase 2: Full Site Editing – January 2022 *we are here
• Phase 3: Multi-author collaboration “starting in 2022”
• Phase 4: Multilingual support “beyond 2022”

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WordPress Gutenberg Roadmap: https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/

What’s old in WordPress

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Before late 2018 “Gutenberg” Block Editor release:

• Classic editor: MS Word-style GUI. Backend view and front-end appearance are different.
• Widgets
• Header and footer controlled by theme or widgets
• Menus

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Blog post on a 2014 site: https://dev-searac.pantheonsite.io/our-voices/staff-blog/creating-a-culture-of-community-care/

What’s new: the Block Editor

Introduced in 2018 as “Gutenberg”, this is intended to move WordPress toward full-site editing, like Wix or Squarespace.

Blocks allow content editors more control over a page’s content layout. The Editor view and front-end view are more similar.

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A homepage built with blocks: https://dev-sici-2021.pantheonsite.io/wp-login.php

Types of Blocks

For design and layout:

• Columns
• Sections with different widths
• Background colors

For navigation:

• Navigation: replaces Menus, sort of
• Query Loop: replaces archives, sort of

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A homepage built with blocks: https://dev-sici-2021.pantheonsite.io/wp-login.php

What’s new lately: WP 5.8, 5.9

• Block Patterns: pre-designed content
• Reusable Blocks: create once, use everywhere
• Block Templates: configure page layout for editors
• Full site editing

A homepage built with blocks: https://dev-sici-2021.pantheonsite.io/wp-login.php

Block Patterns

• Copy/paste complex layouts into your site
• Available in the “Browse all” block menu
• Or at the Block Pattern Directory: https://wordpress.org/patterns/
• Can be copy/pasted into a theme or plugin for re-use: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/block-api/block-patterns/

Block Patterns demo: https://dev-wordpress-naperville.pantheonsite.io/patterns/

Reusable Blocks

• Save a block or group of blocks for re-use anywhere
• Edit once to update all instances
• Like a DIY sitewide widget

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Reusable blocks demo: https://dev-wordpress-naperville.pantheonsite.io/2022/02/16/im-just-kitten-around/

Block Templates

• Predefine the layout of a post type so editors don’t have to configure complicated blocks
• Can be locked down so editors can’t change page layout
• Requires custom code in theme or plugin: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/block-api/block-templates/

Demo block template: https://dev-fairbank-center.pantheonsite.io/person/william-alford/

Full Site Editing

• Since WP 5.9
• Blocks everywhere! Headers, footers, sidebars, etc
• Only in themes tagged “Full Site Editing”
• In Admin Panel > Editor, edit a Template and insert a Template Part as if it were a Block

Demo (with FSE theme enabled): https://dev-wordpress-naperville.pantheonsite.io/

What’s next for WordPress

Phase 3: Multi-author collaboration “starting in 2022”

• Google Drive-style collaboration on posts
• Currently possible with plugins, e.g. https://publishpress.com/capabilities/

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Phase 4: Multilingual support “beyond 2022”

• Bring multilingual support into WordPress core
• Currently possible with plugins, e.g. https://wpml.org/

References

• Gutenberg Roadmap: https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/
• Block Editor tutorial: https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/
• Block pattern library: https://wordpress.org/patterns/
• Creating block templates: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/block-api/block-templates/
• What’s new in WP 5.9: https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-5-9/

Thank you!

Any questions?

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