When you have an established website, changing themes can be an adventure because sometimes things go pear-shaped. When I switched last month from an older Premium theme to a free block-editor style theme, Hever, I combed my site from start to finish looking for issues and discovered that some earlier posts had formatting problems, even though they looked perfectly normal in the Editor. Fortunately, there were very few such posts, some custom CTA buttons, reblogs and lists that were previously made in tables, and they were relatively easy to fix. I hope I got it all, but if you do come across any odd formatting on my site, please do let me know. Thanks.
- Embracing The Block
- Posts or Blog Page Alternatives
- Twenty-Twenty or Twenty Twenty-One
- Try it, you might not entirely hate it!
- What about Accessibility with Blocks?
- What Editor are you currently using? A Poll
Embracing The Block
One key factor in my decision to change themes was to use a theme that takes full advantage of the Block editor and stay accessible (more on that below). A distinct disadvantage of the current Block-Editor Style themes, i.e. those “Recommended Themes” that appear at the top of the Theme Showcase, is they don’t yet have a “Try & Customize” option like WordPress.com’s older themes. This means you can’t really see what your current content will look like in them unless you activate the new theme.
To overcome this limitation, I ended up exporting a portion of my site content to a test site.
Posts or Blog Page Alternatives
If you have an established website where your Homepage is set in your Customizer’s Homepage Settings to display “Your latest posts,” you’ll find that all the regular Posts pages of the 18 Varia child themes are very similar.
Glossary:
- Homepage: Either a Static Front Page or the Posts page (Your latest posts) that displays at your WordPress.com site’s primary address, be that mysite.wordpress.com or mysite.com, if your site has a custom domain name.
- Static Front Page: A Page of static content.
- Posts Page: A page automatically generated by the WordPress software that displays your blog posts in reverse chronological order.
Instead of the regular Posts page, try one of the new Blog Page layouts, which pulls in your blog content and displays it in unique ways on the Homepage. These Blog Page layouts also display excerpts, while the regular Posts page may display full posts (unless you’ve consistently used the “More” tag on each of your posts). You can also fine tune that Page layout by adjusting the number of visible posts by changing the default setting for the Blog Posts block and/or changing the Layout Grid block. There are also two Blog Page layouts that include a faux sidebar, but that sidebar will only appear on that page. Set it up once and you’re done.
Twenty-Twenty or Twenty Twenty-One
For those who want to use a full Block Editor style theme that has the most customization options much like the older WordPress.com themes, look no further than Twenty-Twenty (or Twenty Twenty-One). At this point, all the free WordPress.com themes and the current lot of 82 Premium themes (as of today) are Block Editor ready, but may not take full advantage of all the possible block settings like the “Recommended Themes.”
IMPORTANT NOTE: On September 1, 2021, WordPress.com retired all available Premium Themes.
Experimenting (ok-playing around) with various blocks led to the creation of both a new Featured Articles page (Post Carousel and Latest Posts blocks) since removed, that on my earlier Premium theme I had to create with Custom CSS, as well as a new Index of all articles on my site (Latest Posts block and the Display Posts shortcode). There’s a whole library of new blocks and block patterns in your Block Editor to try out. Hit the PLUS sign in the dark square in upper left corner of your Editor interface and you’ll see a tab for Blocks and another tab for Patterns. (There’s also another tab for Reusable Blocks if you have saved them.)
PRO TIP: If you want to add a background color to a block, but the block doesn’t give you that option, try grouping it with another block.
Try it, you might not entirely hate it!
I spent a lot of time rereading the entire forum feedback thread for the Block Editor and came away with the feeling that WordPress.com users (at least those who participated in that now-closed forum thread) write content in less than straightforward ways (to me, anyway) nor may not entirely understand how the software works.
It’s true that not everyone can use or wants to use the Block Editor. Many people object to the new Editor because they believe it changes the way they write. Many people also expressed that they felt the Block Editor is too complicated. Some people also admitted that they hadn’t tried the Block Editor. Well, OK, then.
If you usually write in the MySite Visual Editor, give the following a try:
- Set up a new test site or transition an older test site to the Block Editor. (Don’t want to set up a new site, don’t have an older site? I’d be happy to add you to my Private Block Editor test site as an Author, just let me know in the comments. You’ll also be able to @ me if you get stuck.) Then,
- Open a new post or page and just start writing without selecting any block. The Paragraph block is the default block.
- Add an image? Hit Enter and type /im and an entire list of available image options will come up. Select the image format you want follow the onscreen guide.
- Want to add a numbered/ordered list? Hit Enter and start your line with a number. The Editor will automatically change it to an ordered List block.
- Want a bullet/unordered list? Hit Enter and type /list, click the List block icon, then start typing. Like the numbered list, each time you hit Enter, the block will create a new line until you hit Enter twice.
- Want your list indented more? Start your line with a Space. (Tip provided in the Editor.)
- Want to add a quote? Hit Enter and type /quote, click the Quote block icon and then start typing. There’s also room for a “citation” at the end of the block.
- Want to add a link? First copy (Ctrl+C) the link you want to add to your clipboard and then highlight the relevant text in your post or page and then paste with Ctrl+V.
- Want to use Keyboard shortcuts? They all work as before in the old Visual Editor: Ctrl+B for Bold Text, Ctrl+I for Italic Text, etc. (Hitting Shift+Alt+H in the Editor will bring up the full list of available shortcuts.)
All the above Ctrl + something have Mac equivalents. I’m just iOS deprived.
Thanks, but no thanks!
Still hating it? The Classic Block emulates the experience of the older Visual Editor, including the ability to write in HTML, which is also possible in the HTML Block.
What about Accessibility with Blocks?
The only replies in that long, long forum thread and elsewhere in the forums that I found disconcerting were the ones relating to accessibility. I won’t go into the firestorm that raged over on WordPress.org about the Block Editor’s accessibility issues, but if you are programming for inclusion, accessibility must be your starting point. I made the decision a long time ago, especially after viewing this TED Talk, that any theme I use on my site must be an accessible-ready theme.
There are many valuable tips to help you make your own WordPress.com site more accessible in the WordPress.com blog post for Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
What Editor are you currently using? A Poll
And, lastly, here we are in the second week of August, still waiting to say hello to WordPress.com making the Block Editor the default editor. Looks like the transition is more involved than initially thought. Won’t you take a moment to answer the poll below?
You needn’t worry that I’ve abandoned talking about the Classic Editor, but I’ll only do so once WordPress.com makes the switch for everyone. There’s still too many open-ended questions about it that will only be answered post-implementation.
As always, the information in this post is correct as of publication date. Changes are inevitable.
WPcomMaven 
Well, I’ve just voted, but there are apparently no results – not even mine!
When I was trying the block editor, I couldn’t get the hang of the pages template thingy, all I wanted was the old, plain, blank page – eventually I found it ‘hiding’ in a link at the top left of the page.
I’ve just been trying out some themes on one of my test blogs as I want to make some changes to Colouring the Past, not quite decided on one yet, but have my eye on something…
I used to be very careful on my blogs, making them accessible for people with visual and other disabilities, but these days I’ve some disabilities myself (low eyesight, lack of energy, brain fog) that make me unable to cope with all that I’d like to do to help other people, and some of the options available via the site itself don’t actually help *me*. But there is still a lot that people can be made aware of that would help, for instance, not using grey text against a white background or very ‘thin’ fonts. Some italics are very difficult to read, too.
(Edited at Commenter’s request)
Hi Val, thanks as always for your thoughtful comments. I think I found the problem with the poll block. When I went to Crowdsignal, this poll was listed as closed so I opened it. I don’t know if it will let you “vote” again, but let me know if you succeed.
About Page Layouts, when you create a new Page, the Blank Page is the default template and is pre-selected. To continue with that layout in the Editor, you just click the blue “Use Blank Layout” button at the top right.
While we’ve been given a certain amount of color choices inside one’s theme, there are in-editor prompts if you select pairs of colors that are difficult for reading, but it really does start with picking a good theme. I personally like a more structured layout than these Varia-child themes, but I like experimenting too. If that can help someone else too, then win-win.
About features that help you as a user of the site, that’s again valuable feedback for those who make decisions. Since you are very diligent about providing specific feedback, maybe you’d consider posting in the forums about what you need to make the site work better for you? Couldn’t hurt. 🙂
Yeah, it let me vote this time. 🙂
I might post to the forums sometime about things that might help, but I’ve done this before (on the Ideas forum, usually with a modlook tag) and my suggestions have either fallen on deaf ears or I’ve been told it’s not gonna happen… (usually with a ‘WordPress is fine as it is’ sentiment added on.) That kind of puts me off.
Completely understandable. It really involves experimenting until you find what works for you. On my last two themes (not including this one) I’ve increased the font size in the Customizer to make it more readable and it really made a difference. But of course, that is on the front end of things, not the back end.
Actually, apropos reading it myself, it’s not so much the size (although very small print is difficult for me – but for that I use ctrl and + to zoom in) as the shading. A lot of bloggers use grey on white which is hellishly difficult for me to read. On sites that are too difficult for me to read, what I usually do is use my browsers’s ‘Reader’ addon which gives me a larger, bolder, font and removes any of the strange choices of background that a lot of bloggers think is wonderful! 🙂 (I love some background, but some are just abysmal for clear reading).
As for increased font size, not sure if you are aware but too large can be just as difficult to read as there is the need to visually scan too far from one side to the other and some people, myself included, find it difficult to process information that’s in too wide or too narrow a column. It’s all so damn complex, really difficult to explain – and of course, different people have different problems. But I do appreciate your caring enough to consider it all.