Category: Wordpress

I’m a firm believer on not relying on WordPress plugins for web development. They can slow the down the site, conflict with themes and other plugins or can be discontinued. Most times, a better approach is available, however, here are my three go-to plugins.

WordPress Plugin #1: Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms calls itself the “Best Form Builder Plugin”. I’ve tried many other form tools in the past, this one is worth the money. The forms look professional and clean. In addition, form entries are accessible within the CMS. It is a powerhouse full of features, others are:

• Accessible and Compliant
• Responsive and easy to implement CSS
• Conditional Logic for fields
• Import and Export forms and entries
• Security: Anti-Spam honeypot as well as integration with Akismet
• Extensive Documentation

WordPress Plugin #2: Advanced Custom Fields Pro

Advanced Custom Fields Pro is the best plugin for making WordPress websites completely editable. I really like the ability to add Options pages as well as completely customize the experience. With the latest WordPress update, I’m learning right now on how to adjust my approach with this tool. For instance, I see that I can register blocks via the functions file. Come back for a future blog post on this topic!

WordPress Plugin #3: Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a fantastic SEO tool. The analysis function is helpful as I’m not the best writer, nor do I want to remember all the requirements for Google. I haven’t gotten into all of the features that this tool provides, nor have I upgraded to a paid subscription, but it’s that useful as it is. I know there will be a future blog post on my learnings for this one as well.

In conclusion, these are my favorite WordPress plugins. Want to discuss any of these in particular? Do you have a recommendation on one I’ve missed? Contact me today or comment below.

With the new WordPress Block Themes, a different scope of thought comes with their development. I was used to child theming, editing what I needed in the php files. But with block themes, everything I know is completely different. Gone are the days of many files in your repo. And that now everything can change within the CMS. Below are the couple takeaways I gained from my first block theme development.

Note: One of the first places I found with great information was this course. It goes through step-by-step on theme development.

Using the Editor in the CMS for Block Theme Development

Previously, it was extremely frowned upon to edit anything that affected the “theme” in the CMS. Headers, footers, etc. When I saw under Appearance that they added a new tool called Editor, I froze. Now, the Editor is simply a continuation of the blocks you see on pages, I can set up headers, footers, page templates all with blocks! And as many as I desire.

Now you say, do you code anything? Yes, you can! I’ll go into deeper details in future post, but you can create these in your favorite code editor as HTML files using WordPress’ code blocks.

Theme.json File

This file is just plain cool. I am all about organization and this fits the bill. You can set colors, gradients, fonts, template parts for the theme blocks. It completely customizes the CMS Editor for the brand that you need and when it needs to change, it’s in one file. Again, I’ll go into this in a later post, because it does deserve special attention. I also like the idea that styles are editable in the CMS. My goal is to keep sites editable without touching code.

I am only just beginning to understand all the new things available with the new WordPress Block Theme development. Have you discovered anything cool in your latest project? Reach out to me by contacting me or commenting below.