Gutenberg landed in WordPress in 2018. This changed the WordPress posts screen from a simple box of text to a more advanced drag-and-drop content creator.
The Gutenberg editor uses a block-based system to provide flexibility with how content is displayed. This allows you to use blocks to easily add text, images, multimedia content, code, quote, buttons, and much more.
The Gutenberg block editor makes it easy to add and edit content in WordPress.
However, sometimes you want to do just the opposite! Sometimes your content should not be updated.
It is now possible to lock blocks so that they can not be edited. This feature was introduced in WordPress 6.0.
PublishPress Blocks is one of the most popular plugins for Gutenberg blocks with over 30,000 users.
In the latest release of PublishPress Blocks Pro, you'll find some really cool new design options, including these:
In this guide, I'll give you an introduction to all these major new features in PublishPress Blocks.
The Gutenberg editor provokes a lot of debate in the WordPress world. Some people love Gutenberg – we're in that camp and built the PublishPress Blocks plugin. Some people really don't like Gutenberg and prefer to stick with the editor they've used for years.
However, most WordPress users have more mixed feelings and prefer to switch back-and-forth depending on the project. We've had several questions from PublishPress customers who want to know how to disable Gutenberg in some situations, or for some users.
In this guide, we share several different ways you can disable Gutenberg. Each option has its own methods for switching between Gutenberg and the older, classic editor.
Both the Gutenberg Editor and Elementor are excellent ways to build a WordPress website. We recently checked the numbers and found that these are the two fastest growing options for WordPress sites.
However, in most situations, you need to choose either Gutenberg or Elementor. The two systems are not very compatible with each other.
So we considered it a challenge this week when a PublishPress customer asked us if they could use the PublishPress Blocks plugin inside pages built with Elementor. After some research, we found that this is possible. I'm going to show you how to insert any Gutenberg block into Elementor layouts.
Nested blocks are a really useful feature in the Gutenberg editor. If you haven't used them yet, you almost certainly will when the new “Full-Site Editing” changes arrive in WordPress 5.8. At that point, you will be able to build complete webpages in Gutenberg and I guarantee you'll be using nested blocks.
Nested blocks makes it easy to create advanced layouts. This is because nested blocks are blocks inside other blocks. A simple example is a Column block with a text block inside. Another example is a pricing block with a “Buy Now” button block inside.
Some common uses of nested blocks are the default Columns, Cover, or Group blocks.
“Block Access” is one of the most popular features in the PublishPress Blocks plugin. This feature allows you to control which blocks are available to different user roles.
For example, if you want to prevent some user roles from adding “Table” blocks, you can block them from doing that with this feature.
In version 2.10 of Blocks, we've simplified the “Block Access” feature. The system is now based on user roles and is very similar to the PublishPress Capabilities plugin.
JetEngine is a very ambitious project that attempts to do almost everything for a WordPress website.
JetEngine is available from Crocoblock.com and supports both Gutenberg and Elementor. Their products span everything from Gutenberg blocks and themes to creating post types and options pages. This image below is taken from their website and gives you some idea of all the different features they provide:
The Gutenberg editor delivered a lot of cool improvements for WordPress users. One of these is that it's now much easier to add code your WordPress posts.
I'm going to show you two ways to add code in Gutenberg. The first option allows you to add whole blocks of code. The second option allows you to highlight code inside paragraphs.
One of the things I love about WordPress is that the project has a clearly-stated philosophy. One of the principles is to design for 80% of users and leave plugins to fill in the more advanced features.
This is happening with the Gutenberg block editor. Many developers are adding extra features on top of the default blocks.
Inside the PublishPress Blocks plugin, the Advanced List block is based on the default List block in Gutenberg.
The Gutenberg team have done the hard work. We're standing on their shoulders.
If you want to show lists in WordPress, both the List block and the Advanced List block are a great choice.
The Advanced List Block has functionality that the extra 20% of WordPress users may find helpful. If you are a WordPress power user, you'll want to check out these features, especially the custom icons for list items.
Version 5.8 brings some of the biggest changes we have seen in WordPress since the launch of the Gutenberg editor back in 2018.
The original launch gave us blocks inside posts and pages. This new version is the first step towards blocks everywhere in WordPress.
When you upgrade to 5.8, you'll see a completely new “Widgets” screen. The PublishPress plugins are ready for 5.8, but it really will be useful for you to get a quick tour of what's changed.
