WordPress Block Themes are FASTER! New GRID Block, 2 new Ai Writers 🔥

[@WPTuts]

I like the look of the Interactive API. That looks super exciting.

[@jamiewp]

Very!

[@securityranger773]

All the energy has been going to Gutenberg in the WordPress space and fanboys of the various page builder communities are resisting that change having invested heavily in money and time in them. Change is always difficult, but that’s a big part of technology.

[@Gearyco]

Has nothing to do with time or money invested in page builders. Has everything to do with the fact that Gutenberg is a literal code quality and UX trash can.

[@jimnech5066]

@@Gearyco It has everything to do with the money. Look at the theme builders that sit on top of Gutenberg. Do you think they build a layer on top of Gutenberg just for the antiquated WP user interface? Well, I can tell you, they don't, they do it to keep you locked into their proprietary systems and to keep you paying for upgrades and addons on a regular basis.

[@Gearyco]

@@jimnech5066 what are you even talking about? This makes zero sense.

[@jimnech5066]

@@Gearyco Obviously something different than what you are talking about.

[@Perchpole]

I've done the complete circuit of page builders - from Visual Composer, through Divi, Beaver Builder and Elementor. I've used them all. And yet I am now absolutely set on continuing into the future with Gutenberg. It does everything you need to do without any of the fluff. Sure there are a few areas where it isn't as "wizzy" as Elementor - but that's where you make up the shortfall with proper, targeted coding - hooks and actions - not more and more fancy widgets!

[@jamiewp]

That’s a great summary

[@jeroen1177]

@@jamiewp Couldn't agree more, I'm using Kadence Blocks Pro in combination with Gutenberg, and for me, this compensates the "negative" issues with Gutenberg quite well

[@realfingertrouble]

I remember the horror of WP Bakery. I used to have to use that for a site...clunky, tries to plug in default content which is annoying cos you have to delete all the extra images, buggy. Gutenberg is way beyond that. Sure it can be improved, I think the UI can be a bit clunky - like it can be hard to drag and drop to a column or across things, and copy/paste doesn't always work for blocks. But I think compared to some 'page builders' it's a lot more reliable and consistent. WP Bakery used to break EVERY update. Had stuff change in Gutenberg -the galleries, sigh...but it just affected new posts and updates. Old stuff was fine.

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

We really like the way you create these videos, well done.

[@jamiewp]

thank you 😀

[@kerawelt2008]

Many many thanks ! I must say I'm a bit in love with Elementor its bells end whistles and it's wide ecosystem. I acknowledge the fact that vanilla Gutenberg and its Block plugins have gone a long way towards building sophisticaded websites but still it's diffcukt to take the plunge. Anyway I opted for the Blocksy theme so eveything is possible.

[@KarenLKlink]

My non-techie friends say Gutenberg is too difficult to learn. As a teacher myself, I think it's because WordPress does a poor job of teaching with its videos and scattered information. You, on the other hand, do a terrific job with your Beginner's Video. It is important to have a visual layout while learning and to learn what is important about each section of that layout BEFORE trying to learn all the tools or blocks. EX: The area applies to content; this area applies to each individual block, etc. Begin here and proceed: 1, 2, 3, 4. Many people attempting to learn this are not "techies." I found this difficult until your Gutenberg Beginner's video, which I will recommend to my friends who are confused, and they are many of them.

[@jamiewp]

Thank you so much Karen - that's so great to hear 😀

[@jdccool]

Hi Jamie. Great, as always. Having been out of pocket for awhile, I'm playing "catch up" with your videos over this Independence Day holiday here in the States. Anyway, I'll opine that the negative WP reviews are about one word: "change". A lot of people do not like change. And of course, with Gutenberg and now AI being incorporated into it at lightning speed, that represents change...BIG CHANGE. Such is the human condition, I guess. I'm off to watch more wonderful Marsland Magic. TY again.

[@jamiewp]

💯

[@Jaydawg1250]

I love your content. Thanks mate.

[@jamiewp]

thank you for watching 😀

[@Jaydawg1250]

@@jamiewp My football club is imploding this season. At least I have Wordpress learning to heal my ails. LOL

[@vaughanprint]

Good question about the 1 star reviews. I always think that you will get a broad range of reaction to a tool, based on the range of skills possessed by those who are reviewing it. For anyone new to Wordpress or web design, WP, its editors and dashboard might be a very intimidating place to be. At the other end of the spectrum you might have a developer that is very proficient and immersed in full stack development. You might find that for these users Wordpress may not cut the mustard. My own view as Wordpress user is that it is not perfect but it’s good enough to mould to most use cases, with some workarounds. I really like using the block editor for news posts with free form content, any way you want it; not so much for certain custom post types where I just want a pure data entry UI of custom fields where a template is used on the front end. I see the block editor picking up some of the features I would like to see in the future as other area of the WP backend get updated. UI/UX design and coding is complex and takes time to mature.

[@jamiewp]

That's a great summary - thanks for posting 👍

[@tjsayers5428]

Grid block appears interesting. Looking forward to your review of it! And the AI!

[@comartse]

Thank you for gathering the news and presenting them. They are much appreciated. When you ask about people's attitude towards Gutenberg, it is partly from the introduction, where people were unprepared for the changes. And partly, it's a UI issue. Different page builders work in the front end, while Gutenberg works in the back end. Pagebuidlers are close to the outcome. In Gutenberg, it's not WYSIWYG, as the layout changes depending on which menus you open. As the width changes, you have to view the page in a smaller zoom setting in the browser to maintain the impression of the layout. I think people experiences it as challenging. The WP developers have discussed floating the sidebar and other menus, like the Toggle Block Inserter and the Document Overview above the page content. If that comes, it will be hard to argue for using page builders.

[@jamiewp]

tks that's great feedback 👍

[@jupa8712]

Gutenberg es lo mejor. Desde hace un año lo vengo usando y ya aprendi a hacer mis propios bloques. Los reviews negativos se dan a que las personas no son capaces de reaprender y cuando la herramienta cambia solo se quejan y lo que deben hacer es invertir tiempo para aprender a usarla. Yo he tenido que invertir muchas horas de mi tiempo libre para aprender a usarlo. Pero ahora gasto menos tiempo trabajando lo que se traduce en más dinero para mi porque ahora soy mas rapido haciendo sitio web

[@podmirror]

Thank you Jamie for making such wonderful, useful videos. You gave me the confidence to build one , my first website. I will launch it shortly. I hope you continue this and reach out to many like me. Thank you once again

[@jamiewp]

that's amazing to hear - thank you for taking the time to comment, it means a great deal

[@TheBeeOBee]

Lots of good news, thanks!

[@paulroos8517]

Thanks for the "Block News video. Your video has really good information. I love Gutenberg blocks. I think if I didn't follow your KZbin channel, I would not be able to see its potential. You still have to have some HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript knowledge to use Gutenberg effectively. That could be the reason for one-star reviews.

[@jamiewp]

Yes, it's a shame the reviews aren't more helpful really

[@kristinaus4634]

As you well know, the block editor is awesome. My theory about the one star reviews is they are trying to get on your show. ;-)

[@jamiewp]

😬

[@visualmodo]

Truly good video!

[@jonbloor8661]

Any thoughts or examples on a "blog" based site with a FSE theme? My efforts look kind of 1990s (and not in a good way!)

[@jamiewp]

Can you share me a link of one you like and i'll build it :)

[@jonbloor8661]

@@jamiewp I couldn't find any using 2023 - I guess one of the things I should take away from your fantastic channel is the ability to with with FSE to create anything. Thanks!

[@jamiewp]

@@jonbloor8661 exactly 😀

[@jamiewp]

@@jonbloor8661 great to hear :) and thank you

[@RichardMullin1]

Stray cat hair floating around at 6:34

[@darrellvanzyl6630]

What do you consider the best WP block themes for an affiliate site?

[@jamiewp]

It depends if you need any specific functionality or just want to be able to customize the design?

[@darrellvanzyl6630]

@@jamiewp I really just want to move some existing sites from Thrive Themes to block themes. Really looking for a theme that will allow me to move existing content across with a minimum of fuss. The existing sites are completely standard - home page, content pages, silo structure.

[@jamiewp]

@@darrellvanzyl6630 I'd probably taking a look at the twenty twenty three theme and my rapid recreation videos show you what's possible. Also the team behind Astra have just released a FSE theme that is worthing looking at - i'll be reviewing soon hopefully.

[@darrellvanzyl6630]

@@jamiewp Thank you

[@unknownGods88]

thanks J!

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@고재영-f1g]

Which new ai write do you use? What plug-in is it?

[@jamiewp]

At the moment i generally use ChatGPT 4 , but I'm waiting for the perfect gutenberg integration

[@realfingertrouble]

Why so many negatives? Other plugins clashing with it. I found this recently with Smart Slider 3, but the dev team there were amazing and fixed it overnight and gave us a beta version that fixed the issue....but stuff like that gets blamed on Gutenberg itself, when I think it's more other stuff clashing.

[@jamiewp]

Yup 100% agree 👍

[@jason-m]

I've explored a lot of UI, page builders, gutenberg + block addons, I've used dreamweaver, webflow in the past... if you're an experienced web designer/developer that makes anything but basic blogs or image and text brochure websites, then gutenberg is simply not a viable tool to build with unless you consider Cwicly or pro themes and addons. To put it more bluntly, the block builder is like a colouring book for kids. When you need the full set of web design tools, they're not there. I watched your "build the Nike website in 30 mins" video which was interesting, but really it was a cheat; the Nike website (on the surface) is a very basic site in layout terms. I'd like to see the same done with another more challenging site that's not built with a few squares and rectangles. I think a billion 1* reviews speaks for itself. (this is not aimed at you, I enjoy your channel and content 😉)

[@jamiewp]

Tks so much for the detailed feedback - really interesting. Two questions 1) What specifically does gutenberg need? 2) What site would you like to see recreated?

[@jamiewp]

Just to let you know that it looks like youtube has deleted your last comment (which was great btw) . I wasn't me 😱

[@jason-m]

right

[@ColouringStix]

I saw your 2nd reply to jamie ystrdy, came here today looking for the response. No way youtube deleted that!

[@jamiewp]

@@ColouringStix I promise they did - there's no way i would have deleted it, because it was a great comment. KZbin sometimes randomly deletes comments (sometimes they are held for review , but this one was just deleted). It's really really annoying as a content creator because we have no control over it whatsoever.

[@379rale]

I really gave Gutenberg a go about a year ago. The query loop was new. Most blocks seemed unfinished, moving blocks around was clucky, what you see in the editor, is not what you see on the frontend, there was no convenient way to add CSS (which you absolutely need to) Trying it again for the past week to build a simple blog. Not one of these issues has been solved! Really disappointed and confused. I don't miss any of your videos. I was expecting something revolutionary I will have to go back, update my review, and give it one star. Elementor has improved more in a year than Gutenberg has

[@alan-muscat]

Same experience here. I'm waiting for it's to be able to be fully usable, then I'm all in... I think.

[@379rale]

​@@alan-muscat Actually, I think I'm kinda getting the hang of it. Again came across some solutions today, that are quite annoying / stupid. But, I guess I'll learn to use it Still, if you want any advanced function, like a list of related posts in a specific category, you're gonna have to pay for it Luckily, I can code it, and stick it in a shortcode ;)

[@vaughanprint]

@@379rale but your not supposed to use shortcodes any more 😮…I guess whatever works is the main thing at the end of the day.

[@379rale]

@@vaughanprint It's a way to inject my PHP ;)

[@realfingertrouble]

@@vaughanprint you can still use shortcodes? There's a shottcode block now for starters....that suggests shortcodes are not going away!

[@maxziebell4013]

AI Writer his great!

[@jamiewp]

yes, review on it's way soon

[@LMLewis]

You're getting negative reviews about the blocks, I think because a) some people are just resistant to change and b) because a LOT of people on the internet are marketing products based on classic Wordpress, and some of them would be quite capable of launching negative robot reviews.