Fwd: Shaping WordPress — Section styles, interoperable theme variations, and the most intriguing theme I’ve seen to date

Hi friend,

I’m pivoting my newsletter a bit to give it a bit more substance and meaning. I’m calling it Shaping WordPress, where I share every two weeks on what’s top of my mind and what's shaping up for WordPress.

I won’t do news, or aggregate content, but you will get what’s coming next for WordPress and what far out ideas are making the rounds. It’ll be relatively short, to-the-point, and hopefully interesting.

No fluff. No spam. Just meaningful content for folks who are as passionate about WordPress as I am.

If this is not something you’re interested in, please unsubscribe; no harm done. But do let me know what you think of this first issue either way. Thanks.

Rich

Read on rich.blog

What I’m working on

I’ve been clearing the path forward on applying styles to all blocks within a group at once. These are fundamentally block styles that can be established by the theme and assigned to multiple blocks at a time, like the group, columns, and column blocks.

You can think of these as basically “mini-themes” to be applied throughout your site. You may recognize the concept, as I wrote about it while back.

I can see builders and agencies using this to create branded styles that can be applied throughout a site with one click, while also having those styles maintained at the site level, not on individual blocks. So when make a change to one of these styles, those changes are applied throughout your entire site.

An added benefit is that these styles will map to any other block theme that defines the same variations, similar to how the outline button style maps across themes.

It’s a bit of a sleeper, but I’m thinking these section styles will be a big hit when it lands, potentially in the next release of WordPress. What do you think?

Big idea I’m thinking about

With the recent progress on composing themes with variations of color and typography, I keep wondering: What if any WordPress website, or blog, could run any combination of colors or typography styles?

I don’t see why not. If a theme is composed properly, with blocks styled with Global Styles rather than applied individually within patterns and templates, it should be able to run most color-only theme style variations.

WordPress theme I’m digging

Anders Norén crafts some of the most intriguing themes, which are not only beautiful but also practical. His latest WordPress theme, Vermeer, is exceptionally creative and appealing—I vibe with it.

That’s all for now.

If you’re enjoying this, can you do me a favor and forward it to a friend? And as always, please do give me feedback on X/Twitter. Is there anything you want to read more, or less, of? Thanks.

Rich