Tag Archives: WordPress

The blocks I use in WordPress

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 18 2020

I have been reviewing blocks from different block collections and plugins (default blocks, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons) and choosing the ones I like while deactivating the rest. It’s weird doing the reviews as normally you would say “Here’s block X and Y” and compare the visual features in the post as well as some of the back-end options.

Except that once I deactivate block X because I liked block Y better, block X disappears from the display. In WordPress, there is something called graceful degradation for plugins which is the idea that if I use a plugin to insert an image, for example, with custom styling and then later remove the plugin, the page should still load perfectly fine.

But blocks do NOT degrade gracefully; it is an on/off switch. Once I finish the review post and deactivate the ones I don’t like, the post won’t display properly except for the blocks I kept activated.  » Read the rest

The three page-divider blocks that I use in WordPress

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 17 2020

I’m considering a bunch of different blocks across eight collections (default ones, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons) and next on my list are the spacer / divider / separator blocks. These are blocks that allow you a visible or invisible gap between two blocks. It could be a horizontal line, or just extra white space, but something that separates two other blocks visually.

The default collection has nothing but I found six different ones in four other collections.

First up is Kadence, with a combination spacer/divider. It starts with the assumption I want a solid horizontal line as my divider and the block allows me to specify the height of the spacer (different heights for desktop, tablet and phone), whether there is a line or not, whether any line is solid / dashed / dotted / striped, its colour, and its width. Pretty functional, with the only limitation really being that the only choice is a line.  » Read the rest

Feature blocks, quote blocks and product pricing blocks, oh my!

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 17 2020

The next area in my review of block options is pretty huge. There are 25 different types of blocks to handle some sort of “highlight” feature — quotes, blockquotes, testimonials, author boxes, team boxes, etc. Some have photos in them, some are just text, but every one of the eight WordPress collections (default Gutenberg, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons) has some form of these blocks.

I generally have two specific needs I’m trying to fill. First, I do put up quotes as individual posts. What I would LOVE is some way to have a set of 100 photos ready to go as backgrounds, merge one with the quote of the moment that I’m adding, and have it be both indexed as text and shareable as an image/meme. I don’t think that is even possible, so what I’m really looking for is an easy way to post an image and to include text over top of it.  » Read the rest

Why I don’t use any of the file or audio blocks in WordPress

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 17 2020

I’ve been going through the block options for eight WordPress collections (default Gutenberg, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons) and I’ve already reviewed The three text blocks and the six media blocks. However, that “media” title was a bit misleading because there are two other areas I didn’t include in my “media” list.

File blocks

The default WordPress blocks include one called “File”, and it allows you an easy way to upload files of different types, store them in your media library, and add a DOWNLOAD button to your page so people can download it. I already have a Download Manager that does essentially the same thing but, of course, that requires a shortcode to show up in modern blocks. I use my Download Manager primarily for my HR guide, which is great as it keeps track of download stats too. If it wasn’t for the stats, I would ditch DLM’s overhead and just go with this block.  » Read the rest

The six media-related blocks that I use in WordPress

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 16 2020

After working through a series of blocks that help me style various text blocks, I reviewed all the various media blocks to handle images and video that are available in the eight collections that I’m reviewing (default ones, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons).

Image-related blocks

I am obviously going to keep the default image block. It is the simplest and easiest way to insert a photo from the media library OR an external URL. I am trying to control my media library a little bit more aggressively so that random photos just don’t get added there during an embed, and since I have the NextGen Gallery installed, it’s easy to upload my photos to various NGG galleries and hotlink to them. I wish NGG Image Chooser had a block associated with it and I may actually pay someone to develop one, but for now, I’ll stick with the image block plus the NGG Gallery block.  » Read the rest