Over the last few weeks, we've been working on a large number of improvements to PublishPress Blocks Pro.
In the latest version, you'll see dozens of new design, layout, and alignment options, plus lots of other improvements. Almost all of the ideas for improvements have come from PublishPress users.
Here's a rundown of the new features in the Pro version of PublishPress Blocks.
PublishPress Blocks 2.8.2 is out now with several improvements. The headline feature allows users to login and see a list of posts that they have written. You can create this list using the “Content Display” block in Gutenberg. This will very useful if you have a lot of authors because they can quickly find their own content via the front your WordPress site.
WordPress has a useful block called “Gallery” which allows you show to multiple images together.
With the PublishPress Blocks plugin, you can improve the gallery block and show WordPress images inside a lightbox modal. This feature is not available in the normal WordPress image block.
Earlier this week, I was writing a post with the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress.
I wanted to add several GIFS to the post. However, it was a really frustrating process.
First, there is no “GIF” block in Gutenberg, so that wasn't an option.
An accordion layout allows you to pĺace large quantities of text on a reduced space.
Your site's visitors can get overwhelmed when presented with too much text to read at once. If you use an accordion layout, your visitors can scan and look for the information they need. An accordion is perfect for Frequently Asked Questions, or show specific details in a product you're selling.
The “upload_files” capability is one of the most important in WordPress.
If users don’t have the “upload_files” capability, they completely lose access to the Media Library. They can’t upload files or even browse media on your site.
If users do not have the “upload_files” capability, this image below shows what they will see when they use an image block in Gutenberg. They will see the message, “Given your current role, you can only link an image, you cannot upload.”
Matt Mullenweg introduced the Gutenberg project at WordCamp US in late 2016.
If you want a big picture overview of why Gutenberg was built, I recommend Matt's post, “We Called it Gutenberg for a Reason“.
We are nearly 4 years into the project now, and are not yet half-way through. The Gutenberg project is split into 4 phases and we're currently in Phase 2.
Earlier this week, I was optimizing a post with the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress, trying to improve the search engine optimization.
I added alt text to the image blocks. To my surprise, the alt text automatically appeared as a caption under the images:
Here at PublishPress, we're focused on the publishing experience in WordPress. And there's interesting news on the horizon for WordPress publishers.
Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress team want to bring Google Docs-style editing to the new editor in Gutenberg Phase 3. This means that multiple people can be updating the same document at the same time.