Blocks in Menu’s and new Block Bindings

It’s been a week! Sure, lots going on in the world of WordPress, but I’ve moved house and office this week. We wrapped up the big move yesterday evening and it fubared me so much that I was an hour early this morning for my weekly Scanfully standup with Barry.

It’s also the reason today’s Within WordPress comes at you a couple of hours later as well 😅

Either way, I hope you enjoy it

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🗞️ Within WordPress News

Here’s what I saw happening this past week:

• Brian Coords published a post on X that sparked a lot of debate. In it, he’s summarizing the state of the WordPress Site Editor.

I have very little to say about his other than, I agree, and you should read the various comments and help figure out how to can improve.

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• Ron Huereca shared a wealth of information about everything he knows about .org plugins. And it’s a lot lot. From what to expect when publishing to how to do readme’s, how to get positive ratings and so much more.

It truly is a treasure trove full of information.

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• One of the most clicked on resources in the last couple of Within WordPress edition was how to add and use grid support in WordPress themes. If you haven’t seen it yet…

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• Theme test data recently was updated to include XML data for blocks.

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• Block Bindings, which will be introduced in WordPress 6.5, are a wonderful new option we have available to us soon. Justin Tadlock published the first Block Bindings tutorial on how to use them on the Developer Blog.

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• Be honest, {{ subscriber.first_name | strip | default: “my friend” }}, are you a Swifty? Well, if you are and you’re reading this newsletter, you probably already know Taylor Swift’s site is built with WordPress. There’s been quite the buzz about it lately as it saw a new design. Even Matt Mullenweg mentioned it on X.

The reason I am mentioning in today’s is because Alexander von Freeden wrote a very detailed teardown about the site. I like these kinds of teardowns.

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• Nick Diego is experimenting with block-based mega menus. And I’m in love with this option in core. Truly I am.

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🚀 Performance & Security

• Paul Calvano shared insights about performance benefits of fonts loaded with font subsetting.

Good one. I learned a few things I didn’t know yet. That’s always a good thing.

My favorite performance optimizing tools in WordPress:

• The best Front-end optimization plugin
• Cleaning up WordPress + script manager
• Cloud based performance optimizations

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🔆 Within WordPress Highlight

• Aurooba Ahmed announced her JS Essentials for WordPress Devs today. And given the volume of JavaScript we find in WordPress these days, it’s good to focus on learning how to work with this. In a little over a week Aurooba will publish the first lesson, but you can already sign up.

Some of my favorite WordPress tools:

• The most versatile and accessible form solution for WordPress
• LocalWP, the easiest to use local dev solution

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💡 Interesting Finds

• Jason Cohen, whom many of you will recall from my Within WordPress podcast, or possibly from WP Engine, has updated an article about A/B testing. I highly encourage you to read it, as it shares information that’s not widely known.
• LearningSEO.io is well worth your time to dive into if you want to be properly educated on all things SEO. It’s a resource made available by Aleyda Solis and it includes free resources, tools in Google Sheets. Pretty cool resource site.

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🎁 Bonus

🎙️New podcast alert! I’ve started recording podcasts again this year and the first one I’m releasing is with Jamie Marsland. WordPress veteran and YouTube educator. We talk a LOT about the state of blocks, block themes, the problems ahead, and the opportunities.

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That’s it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!