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A SHORT overview of the advances in WordPress: Gutenberg (the block editor) & full site editing (block themes) + a Drupal extra

I’m writing this because I haven’t been following WordPress development closely for the last 3 years (hello 2020 pandemic & aftermath.) There is so much content out there for the classic templates & theme builders like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder etc. that it’s REALLY hard to get a grip on the new direction that WordPress is headed especially since it’s still in the midst of development.

I initially couldn’t even find a good CLEAR & simple breakdown of the terminology I needed to know so writing this was partially in order for me to process and better understand what I was consuming and pull out some key things. My own Quickstart guide if you will but for the folks who have been using WordPress for over a decade.

Keep in mind that this is still evolving and the date I’m writing this is June 20, 2023. WordPress is currently 6.2.2. Things will likely change again for WordPress 6.3 which will likely be August 2023 based on the linked video & WordPress roadmap.


WordPress Editor

Gutenberg is the block editor for pages and posts. It is apparently no longer exclusive to WordPress and is also available for Drupal.

This link has the visual breakdown & screenshots: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/

And this is the deeper dive: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/explanations/faq/

But why is there a Gutenberg Plugin if it’s now built into WordPress?
The Gutenberg plugin is now early access to what’s coming to block and full site editing. Current version of the plugin is 16.0.0. Do not use this if you aren’t ok with beta testing.


WordPress Theme

Full site editor (FSE) is another name for WordPress block themes in WordPress. “Full Site Editing” is sometimes used as a verb.

Handy chart for Classic Theme vs Block Theme if you’re transitioning: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/#differences-and-similarities-between-classic-themes-and-block-themes

And crash course if you’re switching from a Classic Theme to Block Theme: https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-switch-from-a-classic-to-a-block-theme/

Good screen shot breakdowns of the full site editor (FSE) from Oct 17, 2022: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/10/wordpress-full-site-editing/

I highly recommend just diving in on a sandboxed / staging environment or demo site using Automattic’s blockbase so you familiarize yourself using a theme created as WordPress / Automattic intended:

And/or one of Automattic’s Blockbase child themes:
Linked them because they are harder to search for.

When do I need to create my own child themes?
(if I’m not building a theme from scratch)

An excellent short summary from https://fullsiteediting.com/lessons/child-themes/

“If you change theme.json, HTML, CSS, PHP, or JavaScript files directly, you still need to create a child theme because these files are not protected when you install a theme update. There are also settings and styles in theme.json that you can not remove through the global styles interface. In this case, you also want to create a child theme and add your custom theme.json.”

But really when might I change these files? This video is about theme creation HOWEVER it’s the shortest video I found that helped me understand how themes are now being built:

Reusable Blocks, Block Patterns, Templates and Template Parts & Synced Patterns:

Except this appears to be in flux & currently changing:

Query loop blocks!

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/wordpress/wordpress-query-loop-block

What if I want to create my own WordPress Block Theme that can be used with the Full Site Editor … OR learn more?

These are some of the best resources I came across (this is also about where it becomes overkill):


And now for something completely different: Gutenberg block editor for Drupal

https://drupalgutenberg.org/https://www.drupal.org/project/gutenberg

WordPress.org account problem & lack of appeals process

It started because I had the personal account I had recently created restricted and I couldn’t log into it.

So I reached out to see why it said it was restricted as I hadn’t been sent any kind of email or notification. I had three accounts (one was an older mistake) but only the most recent one had been restricted and wouldn’t let me log in.

Created in 2008 and had forgotten it until recently. I think I stumbled on it trying to use the same email address for the personal account (and I wasn’t trying to keep this one but I’m disclosing that it existed and that it was a mistake account with nothing on it):
https://profiles.wordpress.org/fascination-design/

Correct business account (created 2010):
https://profiles.wordpress.org/fascinationdesign

Personal account (created 2023 – this is the one I reached out about being restricted):
https://wordpress.org/support/users/hilarybaumann/

I created the personal account because I wanted to get more involved in the WordPress community and wanted to access the WordPress Slack account as myself.

But I wanted to keep my main business brand account in case I ever created any plugins and wanted my business to support that and have more flexibility to scale.

The response to asking why the personal account was restricted was: https://wordpress.org/support/guidelines/#do-not-create-multiple-accounts

I was then point blank told I wasn’t allowed to have both a business and personal account.

Screen shot of an email that says:
"> Seeing as it looks like personal accounts and business accounts are
allowed,
No, they are not. There is a very limited use case for that and this case does not qualify. Just pick one account and we will unban that account.
Going forward just use the one."

And things did not get better from here.

What this has made me very aware of is that:

There is also no obvious appeals process in this type of situation.

It appears to allow judge and jury by one volunteer. Which made me kinda do a rundown of absolutely everything I could see that could go wrong.

IF a WordPress.org volunteer deleted my account entirely…

The Good:

Deletion of my WordPress.org account would not prevent me from using WordPress or the plugins for my site or client sites. Which is good and really vital for an open-source project in my opinion.

The Bad:

IF I had plugins or themes on WordPress.org I would however lose something if I were banned. Anyone using those would lose the ability to autoupdate via the normal methods. THIS is deeply troubling.

Get on the wrong person’s side while you have a plugin or theme on the wordpress.org directory and it could look like you’ve abandoned a project.

I really do not like single points of failure and I see the lack of appeals process as a single point of failure with regards to the WordPress.org plugins and theme directories.

This is a serious flaw in WordPress.org in my opinion and needs to be looked into.

Summary of where my account stands if you don’t want to read the lengthy timeline:

  • I was initially told I could not have a company account. The pick one and only one.
  • I deleted all other accounts in order to prevent the volunteer from deleting the one that was important to me (because they were indicating they wanted to delete my oldest one.)
  • As of Feb 18 2024 the anonymous volunteer has now just contradicted what they said claiming my accounts were personal accounts and told me that what I have left IS a company account. I’m not allowed to post as a company in the forums (not what I was requesting in the email but apparently they didn’t want to read what I wrote.)
  • So I’m going to attempt to set up a new personal account since my company account is not allowed to post in the forums. I’m not up for that tonight (maybe not even soon) but I will update here if more changes happen.

Key points from the WordPress.org website that I brought up repeatedly:

https://wordpress.org/support/guidelines/#do-not-create-multiple-accounts
“A company may register a brand account with a verifiable company email.”

https://wordpress.org/support/forum-user-guide/faq/#can-i-have-multiple-accounts
“Individuals are not permitted to have and use more than one account on WordPress.org, in order to maintain accountability for actions and to prevent anonymous abuse.

Companies are permitted to have a separate account to own and manage their plugins and/or themes.”

Past this point my formatting needs some work but it’s a full timeline of what happened AND the thoughts I had as this nightmare correspondence unfolded

Read the full thing after the break…

Continue reading WordPress.org account problem & lack of appeals process

Hilary Knittel is NOT my name but you may be here because you’re looking for me

This is a post for those who don’t know my last name but might be looking for me.

Yes, I’m married to Tim Knittel but my name is Hilary Baumann. Some of this about SEO, I’m not going to chew you out for getting it wrong but I will correct you. Just like I politely correct people on how to pronounce my last name.

Baumann is my last name, always has been and always will be legally and personal brand. I have never considered for even a moment changing it. Never seemed right or equal to me. And this is not a comment about your choice if you wanted to change your last name either.

  • If you call me Mrs. Knittel I definitely won’t respond (that’s Tim’s mother not me.)
  • In fact I probably won’t respond if you call me Mrs. Baumann (I equate that with my mother, not me.)

I’m Hilary Baumann and I don’t really like titles like Mrs. or Ms. even because I’m a human being that’s not interested in spending time on focusing on my gender or marital status. Again, I’m typing this much more for the search engines more than anything else.

So if you go looking for Hilary Knittel or Hillary Knittle / Nittle if you spell it wrong you may still be in the right place.

Hilary one L.
Baumann two Ns.
And you’ve found me.

7 Levels of Facebook Friends – aka how to keep some of your sanity on Facebook

This is how I keep some level of sanity on Facebook. See the end of the article for some additional references on cleaning up your feed even more.

1) we’re friends & I follow you & show your posts first (subtle settings difference)

Identifying close friends will increase the number of posts you will see from them:

The Facebook “Close friends”, “Acquaintances”, “Restricted” breakdown:https://www.facebook.com/help/200538509990389?helpref=faq_content 

See “Q&A” at the bottom of this article on how to batch add or remove people from various lists quickly.

2) we’re friends & I follow you

This is the bulk of most people’s facebook friends. You make a friend request to someone and they accept. It defaults to “following” anyone you friend.

3) We’re friends & I have 30 day snoozed you after a few too many negative or political posts

To snooze (or maybe you made a mistake and want to un-snooze someone before the 30 days is over) follow these instructions: https://www.howtogeek.com/338526/how-to-snooze-someone-for-30-days-on-facebook/
You can also do this to pages and groups you follow or are a member of as well:  https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/14/facebook-snooze/

The person or group you snooze will NOT be notified of your decision to snooze them.

4) we’re friends & I unfollowed you because you ONLY post super negative or political posts but aren’t so bad I should unfriend you.

Unlike snooze, unfollow is not a temporary 30 days. It lasts until you decide to follow someone again. But again, the person you are friends with will not know that you are not seeing their posts. And like snooze, this can also be done on pages you’ve liked as well.
For people and pages:  https://www.facebook.com/help/276458109035418

5) we’re friends but I added you to the restricted list so you don’t see non-public/friends only posts. (See also “Acquaintances” list.) 

Often this is the result of someone being argumentative without listening or regularly being condescending. 75-100% of their comments are this way. And and sometimes the behavior is online only and they are very different IRL. And occasionally these are people worthy of unfriending but too integrated into friends groups to go this far.

See “Q&A” at the bottom of this post for instructions on adding people to the restricted list.

6) we used to be friends but I unfriended you. This is rare. I think under 10 times total.

Examples:
a) someone has made a blatantly unquestionably racist post (and I realized don’t have their phone number and did not know them well enough to have a proper personal conversation about it)
b) someone regularly argues in a condescending manner and has no substantial ties to friends groups – aka doesn’t listen and brings no value to the “friendship.”
c) the person broke up with someone and got engaged to someone else so I know they aren’t getting back together with someone in my friends group (and honestly I found this person way creepy to begin with but didn’t want to unfriend them if they were going to keep showing up to parties or get back together with a certain someone.)
d) discussions aren’t possible without self manufactured drama.

How to unfriend someone (again, they won’t be notified): 
https://www.facebook.com/help/172936839431357?helpref=faq_content

7) blocked someone completely.

I ‘ve done this to only a few people but would consider doing it if someone who regularly says mean and condescending things were to persist in doing so regularly on my public and business posts even after being unfriended. Snots, trolls, bullies. (For business I would recommend inviting them into a DM to discuss and exhaust all options before resorting to this measure. Some people just need to be heard.)

How to block someone: 
https://www.facebook.com/help/168009843260943?helpref=faq_content


Turn down the Facebook noise:

Additional Reference material for possibly cleaning up your feed.

These two posts from Robert Scoble may still have some useful info despite their age:

Groups – turn off (or adjust) notifications:
https://www.facebook.com/help/187225274663021/

Keyword snooze: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/inside-feed-keyword-snooze-people-turn-down-the-noise/


Q&A:

How do I quickly label a lot of people as acquaintances [or Restricted] on facebook?

Setting someone as an acquaintance will have them see fewer of your facebook posts. Not none, just fewer. Again, here’s the The Facebook “Close friends”, “Acquaintances”, “Restricted” breakdown: 
https://www.facebook.com/help/200538509990389?helpref=faq_content 

From a computer go to: 
– https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists/
– Find the Acquaintances link and click it.
– Top right you’ll now see a manage list button. Click that and it will say “edit list” – click that. 
– Then you’ll get a screen that shows you who is currently on the list. 
– If you want to add people, top left of that screen will have a drop down and you should select “friends” from that and then you can add more people to the Acquaintances list. 

IF you want certain people to only see your posts that are public, you’ll want to put a lot of people on the Restricted list instead of the Acquaintances list. Acquaintances only reduces the number of posts that people see unless you use the “Friends except acquaintances” option. You can follow the same process to batch add people to the restricted list as well.

Additionally you can also add ONE OR TWO PEOPLE QUICKLY to the acquaintance or restricted lists…

Via computer or iphone app:

  • go to the person’s profile and look for “Friends” with the down arrow.
  • On the computer hover, on a smartphone, tap. You will get a dropdown from that.
  • From the dropdown either select “Add to another list” on the computer or “Edit Friends List” on the smartphone.
  • Select the list(s) that you want to add people to.

Southland Association resignation – December 21, 2017

I am writing to inform you all of my decision to resign from my position as President of the Southland Association effective immediately.

I have proudly served on the board since 2005 and served as President since 2011. During that time, I have maintained my business and overseen, with the Board’s help, the development of bike lanes (with some sidewalks), “Welcome to Southland” sign, Southland Street Fair’s first 3 years, the annual meeting planning, 10 years of Tree Lightings, neighborhood relations for various construction projects and so much more.

I’m glad to have served this community with all of you. I am proud of our collective achievements and the significant progress and initiative made toward improving the Southland area.

Melissa Gayheart is interim VP and becomes interim president until someone else is elected. I have hopes that the board will come together with a plan to elect someone quickly but thoughtfully who is willing, eager and able to continue to carry out the mission statement of the Southland Association:

“Making the Southland Area a safe, attractive and welcoming place to shop, eat, do business and live.”

I will assist in transitioning the board with any existing paperwork and account information needed. A more detailed email will be going to the current board members as well.

Hilary Baumann
FascinationDesign.com

EDIT: Apparently it’s been so long even I got the dates slightly wrong on something with the Southland Association. I went back over my notes and I joined as a member in 2005 and became a board member in 2006 and president 2011 it looks like … oops…


Kind words regarding my resignation: