I’ve been using the block editor consistently for about two weeks now. I have not tried anything too outrageous, but I thought I would share some things about the editor and WordPress in general.
- HTML – If you were familiar with changing HTML in the classic editor, just understand that the block editor adds headers and footers around each block. You are better off to edit blocks individually, rather than edit the entire post. It is just cleaner.
- Frustrations – I attempted to add a contact form to a new page. There are pre-formatted contact forms you can edit. They look nice and clean, but they may not work consistently from theme to theme. I was frustrated I could not use CSS (I do not have a paid account) to change the margins or the padding. (I did not think to try inline CSS so I may try that and report back.
- Outside the block editor, I caught a few things I wanted to talk about. The first is Gravatars. So many bloggers have emphasized the importance of having a Gravatar and I agree. Unfortunately, I clicked on a new follower‘s photo in the stats section of WordPress and it took me to a possible spam site. It immediately flashed warnings my iPad was infected with a virus which was not true, but it is maddening that this still happens. Please spend the time updating your Gravatar bio and your websites. I also received a fair number of 404 errors because websites no longer existed or they were moved and the Gravatar never updated.
- Themes. I spent some time looking at new Themes. Let me tell you, some of the color palettes used in their designs are horrendous. Also, not every function, widget, or design element transfers from one theme to another. I will be changing my theme as soon as I can find one that works for me.
- Available storage. In a self hosted world, all the revisions that WordPress creates take up storage. I contacted the Happiness Engineers and discovered that in the free WordPress plans those do not count against your available storage. If you are self hosted, there are plugins that will clean up the saved revisions if you need to delete some.
- Photos. All the photos you use do count against your storage Including photos from posts you reblog. If you select free images from Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, etc., download the smallest image that will work for you. If you are using your own photos taken with a cell phone, those images are most likely very large. Find a good editing program (there are plenty of free ones) that will allow you to modify the image resolution. Questions? Just ask!
This ended up being much longer than I anticipated, so I am going to stop for now. Have a great week everyone!
fromcavewalls.wordpress.com 