WordPress Block Themes: Don't make this BEGINNERS mistake!

[@jamiewp]

Hi Everyone - some of you are understandably still a little confused after watching this video, so I made a quick guide starter video that should give you a great foundation kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqfHZ5uVh9V5gK8si=-PaJytmOg-jZqlOi

[@Glow_Machine]

Used Ollie and FSE for the first time this week and made all of these mistakes.

[@thefallinglink]

Note for anyone making a landing page with some full-width elements: you're going to want to set your Post Content block to full width, make sure "Inner blocks use full content width" is NOT toggled, set the top+bottom padding and margin to 0 and leave side padding at Default (not 0). You want to remove the padding and margins on top and bottom because those are already set within the page. If you look closely and compare the header at 2:35 to 5:56, the header looks bigger because of the margin and color match. If you change the color of the header or background or use something like a cover block at the top of your content, you'll see a gap.

[@MarkFaamaoni]

DOH! I jumped back into Wordpress after a couple of years away (I use Webflow primarily now) and experimented with the block editor using the available documentation...and it left me flummoxed, and frustrated, and this video explains EXACTLY where I was going wrong. Thank you! And the official documentation around block themes, full site editing and Wordpress in general REALLY needs to be improved. Being away for a while and coming back to it, it the fact that there are still legacy editors, gutenberg, full site editing, all kinda doing their own thing and it makes it horribly confusing.

[@TheOfficialABHS]

I also left and tried Drupal and Joomla. Lack of support drove me back to WordPress. Still not sure I like the changes. Give me a month to decide.

[@frequencymanipulator]

OMG, can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact this video gets straight to the point. Bravo. I shall subscribe.

[@jamiewp]

Great to have you here 👍

[@cwhyles]

Jamie, you are quite correct in the importance of separating content from the templates, and I am not at all naive in that concept, but I got very confused trying to implement it after watching your video. I could not understand how the template wrapped itself round the page content. Eventually I realised that there are certain ‘magic’ blocks that make this happen. Obviously there are blocks for inserting content such as text, images, etc onto a page. Then there is this other class of ‘magic’ blocks that insert content from other pages. We see them in action on archive pages in particular. So for the front page template, the most important thing is to put the Page Content block where you wish the main content to appear. When you create the front page content and tell it to use the front page template the magic happens. This is the inverse of the usual use of the content blocks, where you might use one to insert a video, for example. You publish the front page URL, but the link to the template puts the whole thing together, as long as the template contains the Page Content block. All a bit muddling!

[@cherialmond8807]

You sir are a life-saver!! I'm sitting here giving WordPress a go without any outside learnings...and I'm like...Why are all of the pages changing??..I knew it was something with the template, just couldn't put my hand on it..a quick search on the trusty KZbin and BAM! Just like that you are here to my rescue and earned yourself a new subscriber!! Thanks a million!

[@jamiewp]

Thank you Cheri ❤ Great to have you as a new subscriber.

[@alanbrewis7488]

I'm new to WP and met this problem straight away using v6.2. This video explains why so thanks very much for that. You cover the material so fast, jumping around screens, etc, that, as a beginner, I'm still confused but at least know what to focus on.

[@jamiewp]

Thanks Alan - did you see in youtube you can change the playback speed e.g half as fast

[@alanbrewis7488]

Thanks for the tip. Will try that, as well as playing it again and simply stopping when stuck! You mentioned the theme Ollie. I need to get a (chess) website up in about two weeks and would get by if it just had a few simple pages. Would develop it further after the deadline. Is Ollie suitable for beginners?

[@jamiewp]

Yup 👍@@alanbrewis7488

[@michieltieleman9462]

I found this confusing as well, and your video helped, although I had some trouble following it. Some feedback if I may: you explain the difference between page and template clearly, but for the showing you dart around alot between editing templates and pages without being too clear which one you're editing and why. The "quick recap" image(page) at the end basically says everything you're trying to explain. It would help if they called the "Home" template, the "Blog" template instead, because that's what it really is. And the frontpage template that is optional, is what I imagine most people would understand as the home page. The frontpage template should contain only the header, post content block, and footer. BUT!!! I think I found a bug, a pretty nasty one at that if you go the "correct" way of putting content in pages and design in templates. It involves cover blocks. When you put a cover block in a "Home" template and set the background to "fixed" you can scroll smoothly through that "template live on site" and the cover image will be fixed. But when you put a cover block in a page (that you use as your homepage) which uses the "frontpage" template, which should be the correct way to do it, and set that cover image to "fixed", when scrolling through that page the cover image moves very jerky, not smooth at all. Did you ever encounter this?

[@karenisherwood3089]

Thank you. As a beginner, I was banging my head against the wall - I even reinstalled the whole thing! And you hit the nil on the head. A thousand thanks :)

[@jamiewp]

Fantastic - glad it helped Karen 👍

[@grkongjie]

Liked, because this video, even though a little fast and confusing, has actual content and useful knowledge on WP, unlike a lot of those out there. Will be looking at the starter video for more info.

[@jamiewp]

Hi, tks, here's a great starter video kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqfHZ5uVh9V5gK8si=TREIzuxl4FDHQcOG

[@KevinFoulds]

Excellent. I spent 3 or 4 days, 2 hours a day and could NOT get my head around this exact thing. Thanks so much for a good explanation of how this works. I will now attempt my first full content editor website..

[@jamiewp]

That's great to hear Kevin 😀

[@dustboii]

To say im confused would be an abysmal understatement. This is the most convoluted system I have ever dealt with.

[@magnuskallas]

In my honest opinion without proper MediaQuery support Block Themes are in fact a step back in semantics.

[@kadimgultekin]

I use the "index" template for the blog and the "front-page" template for the homepage. It is not necessary to use the "home" template. Changing the homepage design from the page editor is an old habit from classic themes. Users can change the homepage design directly from the site editor. I think block themes should work this way. And theme developers should offer several homepage patterns in their block themes. So users can easily change their homepage pattern from the site editor.

[@charlesluck8921]

Brilliant!! The entire WordPress ecosystem is riddled with snafus, just like this one. In five years, this is the first time I ran across an explanation, a simple concept of, a mistake to avoid. Thank you.

[@jamiewp]

thank you Charles - and thank you for using Snafus in a comment 👍

[@donaldmanalla992]

Just started a month ago with FSE. I’ve been struggling with this exact issue! Thanks so much for this video and helping me realize I wasn’t losing my mind. This video should be required viewing before beginning your first FSE project, but the concepts are so confusing, it would probably just scare everyone away from using this brilliant new way of life. Haha. Thanks again!!! Thumbs upped and new subscriber.

[@neilsmith9220]

Thank god I watched this before getting to grips with Spectra One, it saved me from a complete meltdown and potentially hours of wasted time. A really great video post. Thank you.

[@jamiewp]

Thanks Neil - glad it helped !

[@persmultimediadesigntutori1293]

This is one of the most usefull videos on WordPress. Thanx! Often beginners don't understand the difference between a template and the actual content. To them it's one and the same thing. However, when we say "separate content from templates" - and go into standard themes like TT3 or TT4 there is a lot of static content, that should be removed - for instance "book recommendations" and so on in the templates. IMHO the desigers in the WP crews should have a serious talk with the programmers about separating content from templates. We should take our own medicine here. To me it seems that often the theme frontend designers don't understand this basic CMS concept. In this way you can say that the standard theme TT4 is kind of a confusion contributor. That being said - TT4 is a fantastic theme, one of the most versatile ever in WP.

[@jamiewp]

thanks for your great comment - 100% agree, the separation of design from content is one of the reasons i love WordPress

[@dontrez8412]

I went through this when going back and forth between Elementor's Templates and Wordpress pages/blogs for a minute. The only thing I'm dealing with now is the terminology. When everyone has different terms for things, I question whether I'm dyslexic or not. The main reason I dropped Econ 10 as a Bio major.

[@josuevivas]

No body talks about this!!! Thankyou for this video. :)

[@jamiewp]

that's why I'm here 😀

[@josuevivas]

@@jamiewp I'm coming back here to let you know that after implementing what you showed in the video, the score in GTmetrix improved significantly: specifically the CLS dropped and now GoogleSiteKit is happier with the speed score. :D many thanks

[@WaynosSales]

Nice one Jamie. Legendary. A nicer way to close this video out might have been for all those floundering beginners that DID make the beginners mistake and trucked all of their page templates by thinking they were supposed to edit them. I don't know how to fix this other than starting from scratch.

[@jamiewp]

I'll have a think...atm that is the only way to fix things 🤔

[@therealchrisboggs]

Great video and very approachable presentation style, thanks! Question: Where do Child-Themes fit into FSE? Should I still do it even though the theme modifications are stored in the database as JSON? Tough to find a straight answer on this so I imagine the answer is "It depends!".

[@gollopini]

Yeah I'm subscribing! Dude you got straight to the point with the bit about why builders add these templates from the get go. I was totally flummoxed

[@jamiewp]

Welcome onboard!

[@nikikinz-nik]

Thanks, really simply cleared up a lot of my confusion. I think the whole thing s far more confusing than it has to be because of the page names that have been allotted. Great and useful video.

[@jamiewp]

thanks Niki :)

[@dzemalduric]

I watched two times :-) and came to the following step-by-step conclusion: • PAGES STRUCTURE LEVEL: Create new pages Home and Blog • Settings/Reading: HOMEPAGE: Home and POSTS PAGE: Blog • TEMPLATES LEVEL: Create new template Front Page (no content), and edit template HOME with blog posts layout • CONTENT LEVEL: Assign Front Page template to Home page and edit content, and Assign Home template to Blog page and edit posts layout Is that a right way? Regards. Dzemal

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@XxQuidanxX]

@@jamiewp I have done the same, but I have a doubt. To edit the Blog page I must go to the site editor to edit the old home template?

[@NaukaPoProstu]

For casual user this is still too confusing. The sentence 'Don't put your content into site editor' provides very little vocabulary differentiation for someone who doesn't use Wordpress daily like for example you. Could they not name it Template Editor? Would that not be super clear that you are actually inside a TEMPLATE? 'Site editor' phrase does not rule out editing content.

[@akrapovic09]

Hi Jamie, I'm quite confused at what happens at 5:36 in the video, the frame suddenly changes and you suddenly have a pattern, there was no explanation of why. I went and chose a pattern like you did and it appeared on the page but then when I went to view the site all I had was my header and footer which is in my template. What might I be doing wrong? I still don't understand why its so so so much easier to add content to the template than the page and why whatever you create on the template doesn't really appear on the page. Also, if you go to all that trouble of adding these blocks to the page and then just insert a pattern what is actually happening, it looks like its just replacing it all. So confused.

[@haegarNL]

Thanks for the hints and also the further explanation. What is most confusing for me is the concept of (apparently) two edit menues for pages: 1.on Dashboard->Pages and 2. on Dashboard->Themes-Editor. In the end its always the same (block) editor!? But you can edit the "content" block only from one menue point? Maybe you can elaborate on these confusing menue options?

[@inezgrey1000]

Brilliant video, thanks! It took me a few listens aaand I had to watch some of the beginner WordPress tutorials ((the "What Is the Difference between the Block Editor and the Site Editor?" video in particular)) but Now I can finally say I GET IT. I knew Nothing of WordPress or site building two weeks ago, but I'm finally getting it. Hooray!

[@jamiewp]

That’s lovely to hear - thanks for taking the time to comment Inez 🙏

[@opusprime6]

So... how do you link the various templates back to the Pages? Front Page == Home, Blog Home == Blog, what template does everything else use? Still confused.

[@jamiewp]

Hi Bob , I’ll try to make a tutorial about that 👍

[@opusprime6]

@@jamiewp Fair is fair, you make the tutorial, I'll sign up for a class... love your vids!!

[@geraldheagney6322]

Great explanation for something that could be confusing to some developers/designers. Thank you for all your great videos, always useful.

[@jamiewp]

thanks Gerald 👍

[@BrainstormForce]

This is interesting. Glad that you talked about it.

[@christopherrimplington3643]

By default, you always put blocks into a group like you did with Post Content > Group in the site editor?

[@jamiewp]

That's a great question. I put the Post Content Block in a group block because the Spectra One theme uses the Group Block to set width and spacing. Most themes i've been testing do this. It's just like a container block (infact that would be a better name for it imo). But great question Christopher 👍

[@dannefrazier]

@@jamiewp never did understand why I was using the group block beyond making list view more organized. Fantastic to know it's really a container block! I'm with you on naming it container block--makes so much more sense to a designer mind imo! Thanks, Jamie for sorting this. I remember scratching my head over this "home" page confusion a few months ago and wrestling with it awhile.

[@MrGivesuccess]

What if you want to add a pages loop instead of post loop on home page? I try to make a static front page but it is not easy to figure out. Where do i manually edit the page to be home with the grids w buttons to the full page. NOT post.

[@hansschuijff]

Separating content from templating/theming isn't as easy in the new situation. You can do the frontpage thing you did here and at least solve that part, but if that is how to do is, then theme's should offer it like that. But then still the sidebars are a problem, since they are now only available for update in the site editor. It seems that the site editor isn't just a theme replacement and the separation of content vs styling is a bit less clear in the new situation. The block and site editing approach has a lot to offer and solves some problems easily, so I like to go there, but the transition is not that easy depending on the level of custimazations and plugins you have. Also it would be nice if the editor offers a frontend version of what it is doing with styles, so we could easily offer style variations that can be selected by end users (like the ability of light and dark themes). If build-in style variations is there, a website should be able to offer them to visitors too. Having that buildin gutenber themes, would probably be more efficient and give better results than having plugins translate the colorscheme and that kind of functionality would be something that is purely theme-related. But it is still work in progress, so who knows where it ends. Thanks

[@jamiewp]

Great points Hans - especially about sidebars

[@hansschuijff]

@@jamiewp Thanks. One of the subject I think gutenberg has to become clear in is if it still wants themes at all. Because having themes means having design and the goal of design is to make it easier for content to be created without too much thought about how it will fit in the whole. It is meant to create a uniform look and feel or experience for the end user. Having all these design options without too much limitation, gives much of the design decisions to the content creator and that means that if I have a company with many content editors, it is more difficult to limit them to a specific design. That may seem a good thing from the perspective of the editor, but it means the content editor has to and can make much more decisions and than before, and if you're a company you perhaps want to centralize much of those decisions. Themes had the role of offering design and limit the content creation mostly to the actual content part. So we need that separation when en where we want to separate design from content so editors can focus on content. But if we want that, then all kinds of options and freedoms need to be limited by the theme and also the blocks that can be used should perhaps be limitable to a fixed set, but that seems no longer the mainstream way of doing things and that would be a problem for companies that want to separate concerns. It's not good when one block has a designed button look by default and another starts with a completely other default that may or may not be changed to the house style of the website. The style guide can solve that in themes, but when an editor is able to ad new blocks from f.i. a block library, how can a site owner be certain the style guide is then still be applied. Each block library brings it own design with it and if that is not part of the theme... whell. Right now, it seems that most value of themes in the gutenberg world is offering patterns and a starting point for all the rest. Legacy themes where often more facilitating then just that and while I think it is nice that the way things are done and blocks offer a lot, I'm not a fan of losing the separation between design and content. The main value of themes is bringing design and simplifying the proces of adding content to the website. In the new block themes, that is still less developed. Devs that need strict separation of design, still seem to favor legacy or hybrid themes, for that reason. We will need to see where gutenberg ends up going and if it will support those needs enough to bring everyone into block themes.

[@joukenienhuis6888]

It is still confusing, because in the settings you set the Homepage to a page called Home and the Blogpage to a page called Blog! Then why is it that the template called Home is used for the page called Blog ? And there is a confusion if the KZbin viewer doesn’t use subtitles, Blog and Block sound the same

[@jamiewp]

Those page titles can be called anything by the end-user, those are just the names I chose. Agree with you about the subtitles, I'll get those added today

[@michelehunter7086]

I agree. I completely lost the thread at that point.

[@strongerartist]

Great video, Jamie, with important points about building in the site editor. I’m curious why you didn’t use the index template for the blog page and the home template for the home (landing) page? Is it just a matter of preference?

[@DevinGonzales]

I've been using the Ollie theme and the creator there advised a different approach, which was to simply create a page using the page template and assign it as the home page. This seems a lot easier and I wonder if this video is a bit outdated because when I edit that home content in the site editor I'm editing the page itself, not the template.

[@jamiewp]

Could you explain ' create a page using the page template' ?

[@DevinGonzales]

​@@jamiewp I was making a distinction because I noticed you selected the frontpage template in your video. I didn't create a frontpage template (following the advice of the theme author). Instead there is a full width page template, essentially a blank page, and I assign the page I created as home in the settings. It seems to be a more user friendly approach to use the settings instead of relying on the template hierarchy to assign a frontpage. Also, a recent update brings access to all the pages within the site editor.

[@jamiewp]

@@DevinGonzales thanks for clarifying - that full width page template is specific to the Ollie theme so is a good approach for users of Ollie but not for users of other themes.

[@susanpearson-creativefibro]

I wish I watched this two days ago. I spent all day yesterday building my front page in the site editor and couldn’t work out what I did wrong. It will be much quicker today though now I know what I did wrong.

[@jamiewp]

Glad it was helpful Susan

[@krishneide]

Hello, I am absolutely a Wordpress beginner and until this video I was creating my pages in the site editor. Thank you for teaching me the right way, honestly. I am working on fixing all my pages (luckily they are not too many), but I got into a little problem. The content block does not seem to be displaying anything. I made sure to link the right template to the page but had no luck. Do you possibly have an idea why is that? Or can you maybe suggest where I might find advice? Thank you so much

[@jamiewp]

Is there content in the page ? Sorry for asking 😬

[@krishneide]

@@jamiewp It's a very understandable question :D Yes, I have content in the page, but I've also just realised that I have this problem only with the template Page No Title, while the Pages template seems to be working fine.

[@krishneide]

@@jamiewp It's a very understandable question :D Yes, I have content in the page, but I've also just realised that I have this problem only with the template Page No Title, while the Pages template seems to be working fine.

[@fishinginsussex8499]

very well clear spoken video and explains perfectly 👍

[@WordPress]

thank you

[@harri00413]

Started with Wordpress again after about 8 years.. Made exactly that mistake to put all my content in the page that came up under the button "Edit your site" (Blockscape theme). Seemed the logical thing to do. I also think some of the confusion may be caused by the dutch translation. Now I can hardly go back, because too much has been adapted and the site has to go live soon. Would love some advise on how to revert to the way it is supposed to go.

[@markus8658-s2d]

It tooks weeks fo rme how to handle these wp block themes now I love them! Esay to build your page with. But I have a stubbron problem with any header, Logo and site title are not aligned in height , the logo sits higher than the site title, no matter if I change header pattern, the site title font size or logo size, pattern, margin, all that not works, in all tblock themes I can only use site title without logo. Do you have a tip how I can make them both aligned?

[@jamiewp]

Have you tried putting in a row and then centre aligning that row ?

[@markus8658-s2d]

@@jamiewp Hi Jamie ! No not, but tonight in my dream I got an idea, my canva logo had too much space around, I cut it aout, above, below left and right side and now voila ! Logo and site title are aligned ! What makes me confusing is that most theme snot have category description showing on frontend, all big online guy shave that with their vip wordpress plan, but most themes with free wordpress not. I tried adding a category description hook in functions.php (with the standard gutenberg themes) not works no success with that. Thank you so much and have nice day ! 👍😄

[@chezhugos2779]

So for a new set up (I bought theme Breek) and did load all the sample page, post etc. If I understand correctly, you create a page called home, but do nothing in it, and choose a blog layout. Then what happens with menu? Do I create a page for lets say Contact, another page for about and the rest as blog posts i.e. adding content, like things I do and a FAQ or is FAQ also a page. Since I watch your video on Gutenberg, I can feel that there's something in this new wordpress set-up. So basically I like to start of on the right foot. Thanks for your teachings.

[@FlickeringBytes]

Thanks for this. It was a huge help. 🎉

[@BitWizCoder]

Thank you very much man. it was very helpful. coming back to wordpress after quite some time. i'm really loving this way of working with worpderss natively. i have a figma design and choose the spectra one theme from your recomendation. i was confused how i should setup the homoepage. this video was what i needed right now. again thank you so much. loving your content subscribed looking forward to learning more from you.

[@jamiewp]

That's great to hear - welcome to the channel :)

[@LordLeviticus286]

I need an assitance, Im using site editor as well but what if I don't have the "Home" like I can't find it on my page, post or reading settings. I'm a beginner and I'm trying to search multiple videos that could give me the answer but so far I got nothing.

[@jamiewp]

Hi - I think you need to create and publish that page first and then you’ll be able to select it in reading settings

[@waxmaster-c]

So if I want to design a static one page site, I should not use the site editor? I'm confused.

[@jamiewp]

For a one pager you could (if it’s just you that needs to edit it)

[@adwordsandinternetmarketin4024]

if you had to chose between the wordpress block themes and the spectra block theme which one would you use?I just want a homepage with blog posts and a header above it.

[@veebxl]

Hah! This clarified a few things that i was always fretting about when customizing child themes - weher to put the media and do i need to create an extra template like in the classic child theme days... Thank you!

[@jamiewp]

My pleasure :)

[@dariocroes]

I lost months dealing with FSE themes like Greenshift or BlockPress and Greenshift Bloc Editor and it's incredibly confusing. So I choose to return to Astra and Spectra and I feel renovated-all the frustration is gone. For me Is not worth the time an FSE theme needs to create a production site. I prefer to wait indefinitely until they really improve to be a better option!

[@wherezthebeef]

You're not alone. Let's hope the situation with FSE improves soon, we should not need to have to have an expert explain all of the snags and gotchas, and hacks (but thank you, Jamie, for your efforts) just in order to make FSE usable and not quit in frustration.

[@abgportal]

I watched this video a few times and thought I understood. Then did the editor thing hahaha. It all makes sense now. Your videos are great for where I am right now in my business journey. Opening a digital marketing business and going through many things for the first time. Hiy Hiy.

[@jamiewp]

Great 👍 Good luck with the business

[@SantaDuane17]

Hi Jamie. Did they change this in Twenty Twenty-Five? The front page in Pages is not connected to the front page in the editor? Or did I get it wrong? :)

[@jamiewp]

Yup - it's changed - this is the way i do the set up in 2025 kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2GUn3-egJmXhs0si=77hGaktO7IdAdhTE

[@SantaDuane17]

@@jamiewp Ah, thank you so much.

[@peternilsson2372]

I would be very happy to see more content about how you are using templates and themes and whatsnot on an existing webpage not only how you use for example block themes on a new web page. I accidentally clicked on one of the templates just to see what happened to my existing startpage and that have made a mess of it and I don't even understand how to get rid of the template.

[@jamiewp]

Great idea 💡

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

Great video, but this is why block themes have a long way to go. In a world of slick UX the block themes have gone back to Mototrola phones. I love the blocks/patterns abut full site editors are not there yet!

[@jamiewp]

Yup agree - it certainly needs some polish

[@22271748]

I am trying to use the Home Services Blocks theme and think your solution may be the way forward. I made the mistake of adding content to the site editor. Using your method, would I be likely not to be able to use the slide features that came in the site editor? They don't seem to port over to my pages.

[@jamiewp]

Hi, i haven't used that theme, but it's better to have functionality like sliders and carousels separate . Did you see this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/oV6TXpaGl9d5ptUsi=grtZwH0g9guj7hdB

[@trevorsbass]

This is solid advice. However, there is a MAJOR flaw in creating templates for your post pages. That is that WordPress does not allow the same customization options in the template as it does in the page/post pages. I am working on a site that has a very distinct - yet universal - look to the post pages, using the "title": and "featured image" blocks. However, I cannot create that look in the template - using the SAME blocks - because all the options for what you can do with the blocks are not the same, depending on if you use them on a page/post or in a template. It's a frustrating flaw in WordPress.

[@jamiewp]

What theme are you using?

[@trevorsbass]

@@jamiewp Twenty Twenty-Four

[@jamiewp]

@@trevorsbass i'm a bit confused then. What is the design you are trying to recreate? The options should be the same. Can you share a link to a screenshot of the design?

[@trevorsbass]

@@jamiewp It's very easy to replicate. Open any page or post, insert the "Title" block. In the "Block" column on the right, you will see all of the standard default block Settings: Typography, Frame, Dimensions, etc. However, if you go into the Editor, open a template, and add the "Title" block, the only Settings options you get in the Block column are "Make title a link" and "Advanced." All of the creative options are gone.

[@jamiewp]

@@trevorsbass it sounds like you have the settings tab selected, if you click on the styles tab you'll see this www.pootlepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screely-1713892736617.png

[@JosefRapaport]

Thanks so much for the explanation, Jamie. I am still confused about how to seperate the design and the structure..I have downloaded a block theme by the name of natural Coffee Beans as an initial layout but got confused as to why should i delete all the content of that theme's disign? I know you must be busy so is there a place where i can follow this at a slower pace on your website? Thanks in advance josef

[@PaulGillard-English-Artist]

You can change the playback speed (of the video) by clicking onto the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the frame. 0.75 speed was good, I thought.

[@JosefRapaport]

@@PaulGillard-English-Artist thanks a lot Paul..will try what you suggest

[@michieltieleman9462]

The reason you want to delete that content is because you want to separate the design/layout of your site from the content of your site. Content is not supposed to be inside templates. Instead you should have blocks like post content blocks and query loop blocks, that pull content from your posts and pages. Think of templates as an empty box with dividers which are carefully organized into compartments. And your pages and/or posts provide the content that fill the compartments in that empty box.

[@JosefRapaport]

@@michieltieleman9462 thank you very much Michiel .. In my great heist to fill in the blocks I have indeed ran into this mess of not knowing what is what so I hope to be able to fix it. Thanks for your help

[@fineasfrogshair]

This Templates versus Pages in WordPress 6.4 is a bit buggy. When you select Templates --> All Archives --> Edit pencil the All Archives template changes to the home page. I then must back out and try it again making sure I am changing the All Archives template and not the home page. Be careful when selecting Templates and editing them that you actually see the correct template name in the center top of the screen.

[@paulroos8517]

Thanks so much. You "answered" so many questions that hovered in the back of my mind. Well done!

[@jamiewp]

Great 👍

[@tylerdealactor]

Using the upsidedown block theme, I’ve set my homepage to display my latest post. I created content in my header and footer from this homepage, but unfortunately when I click on specific pages or posts, it hasn’t updated the header and footer content on these pages or post pages. Would you know how to correct this?

[@dennis_woo]

Thanks for making this video. It totally cleared up my confusion.

[@jamiewp]

Cool 👍

[@OinkmooSkills]

I actually ditched WP on half my sites because of things like this...I got fed up sad to say...but maybe, just maybe watching your content will help me sort it out..thanks

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@StartThenProfitINC]

Four months later I finally understand this hahah. Thanks. Have you had any issue with spectra one now displaying elements. On a few sites lately the css disappeared. on some of my designs. It made me not want to rely on it as im now sure what is causing the issue.

[@jamiewp]

Glad it was helpful. I have seen that spectra one issue before - have you contacted support?

[@StartThenProfitINC]

@@jamiewp I was told to go to funnel setting. Select asset generation then select file generate. That has seemed to fix the issue

[@jamiewp]

ok cool@@StartThenProfitINC

[@bsh_korea]

i am newbie here and after few viewing your explanation i have pool understand so forgive me questions i made... then where have i put contents?

[@jamiewp]

You should put content in Pages and Posts, not in templates.

[@bsh_korea]

@@jamiewp ah! now i understand! despite of my lousy english you answer me very kindly! thanks a lot :)

[@HarlandGartley]

Hey I've just discovered your channel and lovin' it.

[@jamiewp]

Great to have you here Harland 👍

[@TonyGirling]

I have a use case where I do add content to an archive page that has a query loop for a custom post type. I want a section to describe that the 'list' of posts is all about. I could create a custom block that gets content from an ACF option field, but that seems clunky. I'm not sure my best option to add content to an archive page. Ideas?

[@jamiewp]

For that use case Tony, that sounds fine, as the text is pretty static im guessing?

[@tomradford2318]

Well, i think this is the root of my problem. It's gonna take some time to actually figure out this workflow but yeah, I think basically I've got some bits in the page editor and some in the site editor etc. Thanks very much...deep sigh...okay off we go!

[@jamiewp]

Good luck 🤞

[@SorensonStudio]

I've spent more time on this than I care to admit in trying to understand how this is to work but thanks to your video and watching it about 10x I think I'm grasping concept. Issue I have now is after the Header where you add the group for the post content block I have this white space between the header and the group that I can't figure out how to remove. I've looked at padding and nothing seems to fix. When I hover over that white space a Add pattern plus mark shows up. I'm wondering if I created the group wrong?

[@michieltieleman9462]

Not sure if it will help, but you could look at margin. Padding is about the whitespace inside a block, margin is about the whitespace outside a block. You could set the margin of the group block to zero. Either slide the bar back and forth from 1 to zero to get it registered as zero, or change the input style (little icons on the right side above the slider) and put in 0 px. Block distance could also be a culprit but again this would normally be for blocks INSIDE the group block.

[@wherezthebeef]

So even with Jamie's plain English, clear explanation of the problem, I too had to watch his video multiple times and read through all of the comments... until it made sense. To me, this just points to an epic fail of FSE, it's not ready for prime time if most people have no chance of being able to figure it out from either clear documentation or their own intuition.

[@leopard6554]

Hi Jamie, My home page appears in every page... Can you help please? 🙏 😢 😭

[@jamiewp]

It sounds like you have put content in the template?

[@leopard6554]

I guess so! Could you please guide me how to fix that?🙏

[@martinenriquemartinezgil]

Great explanation. But I have a problem. When I create the Front End template I don't have header and footer. What I'm doing wrong?

[@jamiewp]

It might be your theme - but you can just add a header and footer (use template parts)

[@aksfintech]

where to use additional css in full site editing theme wordpress?

[@ron_wayne]

Which one do you prefer between Block builder or Page Builder based theme for Blogging specifically?

[@jamiewp]

Gutenberg for me

[@Elsteck]

Need to watch a few more times 😵‍💫🤭 Thank you 🔦

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@bradburyrobinson]

I'm far from a developer but consider myself somewhat more than a beginner, guess what mistake I just recently made? 😂 I was so confused trying to work out what was going on. The worst thing is that I'm more used to working with Oxygen and Bricks, where the templates are a key component in building a site.

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

Has this changed now? As the editor now has pages section?

[@jamiewp]

There are pages but this doesn’t change the principle of keeping content out of templates

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

@@jamiewp but then what are the pages section in fse for? Not the template pages just pages?

[@jamiewp]

@@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK that's a good question,. It's an attempt to start to unify the interface of WordPress.

[@darinjohnson3671]

I love the Spectra One and Spectra Blocks 🙂

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@mohdom6]

the ollie theme already has a front page following this leaves me with a non-full-width home page got too complicated.

[@txgspice]

Thank you for posting this video in the Post Status Slack group! Very useful as I wrap my head around fully editable block themes.

[@jamiewp]

Thank you for watching 😀

[@chrismalone617]

Very helpful. I'm actually really enjoying getting to know the Site Editor. (I know, I'm weird.)

[@jamiewp]

Me too Chris 😀

[@richardpadgett585]

I'm experimenting with the Create Block Theme plugin. A blank theme comes with only the Index template. Am I right to think this is the equivalent of the Home template?

[@jamiewp]

Yes pretty much - in the Wordpress template hierarchy the index template is the fallback template if no other templates are available 👍

[@christopherwells7295]

Sorry Jamie, you rushed this one too much, were you trying to create a shorts video? I do get what you trying to say though as I think a few of us have been doing this exact thing, thinking where should we place out content when the template is mostly loaded - lol. Well done on trying to explain it but think you might want to follow it up with another slightly longer video of a process.

[@jamiewp]

Tks - which bits for you are still unclear ?

[@christopherwells7295]

@@jamiewp, the bits of taking away the content and adding only the blocks in the templates

[@jamiewp]

@@christopherwells7295 roger that 👍 did you understand why it's a bad idea to put page content into a template ?

[@christopherwells7295]

@@jamiewp, definitely

[@paulhackermd]

I'm a beginner and I agree that I find your videos great but this one was just hard to follow. I would suggest demonstrating the problem with the "beginners' mistake" and both (a) how to rectify it if I did it wrong, and (b) a slower, more concrete example of what to do right! Thanks for your great channel and all the work you do!

[@abhaykesari2403]

It's so confusing. I am banging my head with different theme and not able to design my website. It's been 3-4 days. Is there any website or video where I can read/learn about it in the details.

[@StartThenProfitINC]

I created home page and blog page. I click customize and edit the first page that shows.. Still shows the blog on the top level domain. I think there were a few edits or cuts that made this confusing. Like which pages you are actually editing.

[@jamiewp]

Download a free step by step guide mailchi.mp/pootlepress.com/block-theme-mistakes

[@Terry-Adams]

This sent a confirmation, but not an actual link.

[@jamiewp]

thanks for the heads up@@Terry-Adams I'll take a look

[@Terry-Adams]

Amazing quick reponse@@jamiewp! As usual I am impressed by your ability to manage so many spinning plates.

[@mohammedtjr9236]

No download came thru. Just an email confirmation

[@justadozencows4365]

I have to watch this again. I understand your point of separating the data and the template but are you saying the data for the homepage is stored in what is effectively a post?

[@jamiewp]

Yes ideally the site editor should display content that is in posts or pages, but that content shouldn't really be put in the site editor directly

[@CMSAssociation]

Thank you Jamie! You hit a painful nerve here, while teaching a valuable lesson. LOL! You call it a "beginner mistake," but I bet many seasoned sitebuilders & devs make this mistake. Appreciate you teaching this old dog proper new tricks - convoluted as it is!

[@jamiewp]

Yes, i've seen seasoned Pro's do this. It's such an easy mistake to make.

[@CMSAssociation]

@@jamiewp I use Kadence theme, which, when activated, disables visibility of the native WP site editor. IOW, on the left admin menu, Appearance/Editor is impossible. I wonder if this is the case with other themes as well. I imagine so. So to create Kadence templates, I go to Appearance/Kadence/Elements, and "Hooked Elements" must be activated (pro version).

[@phatnguyen255]

this is what makes me frustrating, don't know why the same content keeps running all over my pages lol. Thanks a lot

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@campaignpaintball]

Still confusing, I'm never quite sure if I'm on the site editor or on an editable page?

[@stevehorn-ib5wu]

Simply look at the bottom left hand side. There will be either "Template", "Page" or "Post". You get to "Templates" via the backend / admin area using "Editor" under "Appearance>Editor". After starting "Editor", also called "site editor", you can adjust the various Templates. Yes there are many Templates. Important: there is a second Editor which does look very similar, this is the Block-Editor or also called Gutenberg-Editor, only used to edit Pages or Posts from the admin area under Pages and Posts. The whole video of Jamie is mainly about editing the right Template and not putting content in Templates. That said, Jamie's video is more confusing than the situation actually is. All Jamie is trying to say is that the Template "Home" should have been named "Blog Articles (formerly Home)" and the Template "Page" should have been named "Home (formerly Page)". Period! It's extremely confusing terminology within the user interface of WordPress which makes learning WordPress much harder than it could be. Prerequisite to working with Templates is of course knowledge about the various functions in the backend/admin area and the various settings, differences between Pages and Posts, and most importantly how the "Block-Editor" really works. Otherwise, one will get totally lost watching this video.

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@campaignpaintball]

@@stevehorn-ib5wu Thanks Steve, very helpful, I will try again.

[@jdccool]

Lol. Gonna have to review this one a few times. But thanks, Jamie. I've definitely made some of these mistakes.

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@moinuddinmunna3460]

Great video and informative

[@jamiewp]

thank you :)

[@magnuskallas]

In my honest opinion without proper MediaQuery support Block Themes are in fact a step back in fine duned design department. I seriously can't imagine anyone using block themes for a larger than blog or startup portolio business theme. The amount of confusion jumping around page, theme, style etc... EDIT: That said some functions in block themes (allowing padding, margins etc) have been all but welcome for ages - and I know some can be turned on via Functions file in classic themes.

[@jamiewp]

Here's a few :) (with thanks to Frank Klein for compiling this list) 1) The Harvard Gazette is the official news source for Harvard University (Cambridge, USA). news.harvard.edu/gazette/ 2) Felicia Day is an American actress, singer, writer, and web series creator. felicia.day/ 3) Eloomi is a company selling a learning management system to Enterprise clients. eloomi.com/ 4) The Optin Monster website is built with blocks. optinmonster.com/ 5) The Smart Passive Income website was built by 8px.studio, which is run by long-term WordPress designer Rafal Tomal. www.smartpassiveincome.com/ 6) The Leaflet Lion website is a creation of Mike Hindle, the company founder. leafletlion.uk/ 7) The NASA website was built by Lone Rock Point, an agency specializing in the public sector. www.nasa.gov/

[@chrisder1814]

Hello, I ask artificial intelligences to create a template for my site and then I could you tell me how I should integrate it? Should I ask this artificial intelligence to create the corresponding code and then integrate it into each of my WordPress pages?

[@bealers]

I've been a PHP dev for 20 years and still got horrendously confused playing with the new block theme stuff when redeveloping my blog. I made all the mistakes that this video rectifies. Thanks for saving me a ton of time. DON'T PUT CONTENT IN TEMPLATES.

[@jamiewp]

Thanks Darren - great to hear it was helpful

[@tim78723]

Love your content! Great explanation of getting started. Thanks Jamie!

[@jamiewp]

thanks Tim 😀

[@umenegdesmond]

Thanks so much sir

[@jamiewp]

You're welcome

[@Lema-l1h]

I am currently facing this problem. Unfortunately. I can't understand this video.

[@jamiewp]

this might help kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4TFi2uoe7mWr9ksi=1BWfH7urrkpTWjzq

[@Lema-l1h]

@@jamiewp Appreciate your response. Finally got it. Two thumbs up... thanks so much!

[@jamiewp]

@@Lema-l1h fab, great to hear

[@srenbanghansen8746]

This video makes me think I should avoid block themes completely. Same as the test you did with your daughter (great idea). Seems like I’m not alone on this (the other comments), so maybe you could make another video (much slower - for us morons) to persuade us this is somehow understandable? I’m currently planning a magazine site - and wonder if I should use Astra or Spectra One? Should both be combined with the Spectra builder? And could/should these be combined with the PostX plug-in currently available on Appsumo ?

[@wherezthebeef]

So developers and experienced WordPress web designers can sort of figure this mess out but for the average bloke who knows just enough WordPress to be dangerous.. maybe has customized a theme or two in the past.. this sort has Zero chance of being able to navigate the confusing mine field of fse and the confusing terminology. I'd stick to something like Kadence or Blocksy for the best alternatives that are actually fast and easy to use. For now.

[@tiage3378]

Eventually what to do if I am beginner and did this mistake putting content to the design.

[@tiage3378]

How to put in content dynamically like you say

[@jamiewp]

Can you let me know where you have put content ?

[@tiage3378]

@@jamiewp unfortunatly in the template

[@tiage3378]

@@jamiewp I deleted this template now and now I guess I need to redo the page. But how shall I link the new content from my site to the empty template ? Like you say dynamically .

[@tiage3378]

@@jamiewp which video shows this procedure ;)

[@realfingertrouble]

Sort of related about content of sorts in templates - but you might want to know that WP 6.2.1 update just killed ALL shortcodes (yes including the standard Shortcode blocks and a lot of 3rd party ones using that functionality) in FSE templates overnight. This broke Smart Slider 3 - which they've now fixed in a beta version, and the Insert PHP Snippets plugin I use. It's apparently cos of a zero day vulnerability found by someone over at WPEngine, but a LOT of people aren't happy that a part of the functionality just disappeared overnight, and the only fix is to open up that security hole or hope that plugin devs to scramble to fix it. Just like the bad old days! Amazed that Automattic allow WP devs to just push out an update like that that takes away basic functionality of a supposedly mature platform with no oversight? The WP devs response was 'that's intentional, won't fix it' on the Trac, which went down as well as you could imagine... I understand security holes need to be plugged, but I spent ages trying to work out why shortcodes weren't working despite them previewing fine in the FSE editor! Whereas a message in the editor - or even just next to the non-working shortcode would have let me know what was going on, wasn't expecting a minor update to nuke major functionality. That's something that used to happen in v1 or v2, where things were constantly changing and breaking and I dreaded every update. I thought we moved on from that...

[@juniornxumalo3225]

i wanted the cats to get two treats so i hit the like button twice

[@jamiewp]

🤣