Random thoughts about Gutenizer Phase 2

Some early (and early morning šŸ™‚ ) thoughts about Phase 2.

I’m still a bit confused about what will go into earlier updates, and what will go into phase two. I mean there was a ton of block ideas that got postponed, will these blocks or some of them be added in phase 2?

Simplicity is important. Having a lot of visible elements (and in different colors) on the same page editor can be stressful.

Iā€™m finding it difficult to picture if -or what part of, the current customizer sidebar will be visible at the same time as the new editor toolbar/inspector.

I think that having both the customizer sidebar with the panels and settings visible, and also have visible toolbars for selected blocks; and on top of that, the customizer shortcuts, could be too distracting. The visible panels and settings has to be carefully selected.

How will the customizer shortcuts be used, when many but probably not all elements will be editable directly? If we don’t use the customizer shortcuts, how do we show the user which elements that are editable?

This might not work…

Would the customizer only be used to edit the front page, or would we be able to edit the search results page, 404, archives, single pages, shop pages etc?

Because when we talk about layouts and in an extension, block page templates, all these inner pages are likely to look different from the front page and from each other. For example, a header image and large site title and tagline might be a visible editable area for a front page, but might not be visible in a single post view.

Currently, the customizer panels can have unlimited options. It would not make much sense, to have a panel with a setting that selects the sidebar position for my single posts, if I am currently viewing and editing blocks for the front page.

Perhaps the theme would declare support for different views which can be edited?

It would be nice to have a simple option where we can choose whether we want to show the full content, excerpts, or even just the titles on the blog, archives and search result pages.

I sometimes receive support requests from users who are asking why the full content is showing, even when they set the feed to only display the summary.

No, this setting is not for the blog.

I want to be able to create reusable block templates, and not only for custom post types.

We might need several different kind of templates:

  • Layouts where we select the position of our widget areas, header images, adverts, menus etc.
  • Layouts for individual content blocks, recommending a specific order of blocks for individual content.

In phase 2, will we really need both pages and posts? If we are able to change the visibility of the meta information like the post date etc, the difference between the two types will continue to be blurred out.


If I want a front page of ten posts, then I don’t want to manually have to drag and drop ten individual post blocks and order them in the customizer.

I want to be able to add the latest ten posts in one go, but maybe I don’t want to use the current latest posts widget either. That block has a different purpose.

Then again, if I added post block(s) to my front page that I am editing in the customizer, and I spotted a typo, then I would want to be able to edit it directly in the customizer and save it, instead of having to leave my view and open the individual post.

I want to be able to edit everything in the post. Like title, permalink, images…


I want to be able to add a simple one page menu. A menu that checks what posts or pages that I have added to the current page view, and automatically creates the links for me.


I think adverts is something that have been forgotten. Today you might install a plugin, or a few plugins, or add a code to a theme setting (!) in order to include your ad code, but displaying the adverts correctly on the page is still not that easy. We could greatly improve this and help users optimize their adverts.


Social media links with icons is something that nearly every theme adds, either as link options in the customizer, or as a menu. There should be one simple, recognizable way to include social media links. If a menu system is used, I still think it needs to be a lot simpler than it is now.

It should not be more difficult than adding any other type of link, and the visual feedback must be better. The icon should be visible immediately, not only on the front.