We are happy to announce our group has been selected to participate in the WordPress do_action program!
What is do_action?
Many of us know that the do_action(); prompt in WordPress coding initiates a function and/or launches an action. Do_action events are opportunities for WordPress developers, designers and site builders to help deserving charitable organizations while sharing information with one another about WordPress innovations and techniques. Done correctly a do_action event can serve as a miniaturized WordCamp where everyone learns something new and makes new friends and contacts with the added bonus and satisfaction of doing something tangible to improve their community.
We are planning to hold a series of events in the spring of 2024 to build a specific website for a specific organization and are hoping that this will serve as a template for many future projects to come.
Find out more about do_action: https://doaction.org/
What is our first project?
Breakthrough Karate is a program has perfected a methodology that allows people who have Parkinson’s disease to participate and practice karate. The organization was formed by a medical doctor who also has a karate dojo and was inspired by one of his patients who saw significant benefit from the practice of karate patterns in the management of the disease. The organization is compiling the necessary assets to build a website and will have text, images and video in place to display the concept of Breakthrough Karate to address the anticipated audiences of class participants, advanced Karate practitioners interested in becoming instructors and other dojos who want to include this practice in their curriculum.
We have met three times on this project and have accomplished the lion’s share of what we set out to accomplish! We have built out a completely new website using FSE and the twentytwentyfour theme as our parent theme. Many thanks to everyone who participated – and please remember to send in your logo – link to website – and short bio to be included in the contributors’ page!
We have divided into several distinct workgroups to complete the project and will be announcing the launch of the site very soon.
Can we help other organizations?
Absolutely! If you know of a not for profit that could benefit from WordPress based work we would like to hear from you. The only restriction that WordPress puts on us is that the organization cannot have an overt religious or political affiliation, so for example we could help an organization that promotes voter registration but not one that is soliciting registration for a particular race or candidate.
Who can participate?
In our opinion … anyone! However WordPress has defined these as the typical participant roles
- Project Management
- Site Design
- Theme Development
- Social Networking & Marketing
- SEO Optimization
- Testing & Quality Assurance
- Event Sponsorship
- Editor training
We need your help! Go here for an easy way to reach out to us.
What is the benefit to me?
Besides the satisfaction of seeing that your knowledge and participation will elevate a worthy organization and improve the quality of life for people in our community there is the benefit of sharing ideas with other people working with the WordPress platform that rivals what we have gotten in the past from WordCamp participation. We will also make every effort to advertise your participation to the greater WordPress community and there are rumors that this participation may soon earn badges on your WordPress.org profile similar to those displayed by WordCamp speakers and organizers!
The adjusted theme will be activated and all available content will be adjusted as per the advice of the various teams. While all sections of the site will be defined, not all will be immediately visible as the organization plans to roll out some elements at a later date. The site’s two principal administrators already have experience and exposure to using the WordPress back-end, but would appreciate guidance and advice on topics such as:
What do I do if I want to know more?
Contact Jeff McNear at jeff@plasterdog.com
We used FSE for as much of this project as possible – here is some information covering these methodologies:
Adding custom fonts without coding
Up until WordPress 6.5.4 when you wanted to add a custom font to the current theme you could do so via the Create Block Theme plugin which would place the relevant font file in the theme inside /assets/fonts folder. Core Gutenberg now has this function, and as a result the Create Block Theme plugin has dropped it from functionality.
Preventing some client over-customization
The beauty and curse of Gutenberg is that there are many controls over presentation behaviors over most blocks.
Evolution of WordPress Themes
FSE is a major break from the traditional way of theme composition, PHP coding is at a minimum, the file structure has evolved to include patterns, templates, and template parts, and practically every aspect of the site can be modified via the site editor.
Less code more database…
The introduction of the Gutenberg liberated the editing experience from the word processing paradigm providing improved ability to accomplish complicated layouts
CREATING A FSE CUSTOM THEME
Many things about building a FSE theme are contrary to the standard practice to building a traditional WordPress theme. Crucial files such as functions.php and style.css can be very minimal; folders for parts, patterns, styles, and templates while new are required; templates and template parts (includes) are expressed as HTML rather than PHP; and the complexity of the theme.json file can be intimidating.
FSE Plugin Starter Kit
These are my recommended go to plugins for most any Full Site Editing project
THE FULL SITE EDITING EXPERIENCE
FSE works within a structure that is both logical and a natural extension of the way WordPress themes have worked behind the scenes since the very beginning of the project.
WooCommerce & FSE
It would be natural to assume that the traditional process of customizing Woo php templates in a “woocommerce” folder in your theme would still apply, but that is incorrect!
WordPress Full Site Editing – presentation slides
As of version 6.0 WordPress includes full site editing as an option for those themes that support it. We will go through the advantages, pitfalls and some useful work-arounds for using the full site editing experience and how to configure a custom theme in this new environment.
The Gutenberg Query Loop Block
The Query Loop block allows you to build a query of any post type (including custom post types) using the default post fields.