This post is the twenty-third call for testing as part of the Full Site Editing Outreach Program. For more information about this experimental program, please review this FAQ for helpful details. To properly join the fun, please head to #fse-outreach-experiment in Make Slack for future testing announcements, helpful posts, and more will be shared there.
Overview
With the roadmap to 6.3 published and another version of Gutenberg out in the wild, it’s time to test some of the upcoming features that are in the works to upgrade and polish the experience of using the Site Editor:
- Styles in Site View displaying style variations and improving discoverability of the more granular Style interface.
- Pages in Site View, rendering the last 10 pages with a link to the wp admin page list at the bottom.
- Revision history for Styles, allowing you to roll back as you’d like.
- Command center, offering a quick way to switch between parts of your site.
- Add previewing for block themes unlocking the ability to check out a block theme before activating in the same Site Editor experience.
- Navigation block using the Interactivity API as a way to test the new, in-progress API. This is just a technical change and the aim here is to ensure the experience is the same.
- Details block, adding a new way to hide and reveal information.
- List View: Allow dragging to all levels of the block hierarchy.
Much of the above is in an iterative state with more to come, like improved Detail pages with additional functionality, so this is a great chance to provide early feedback on important features. As always, the steps here are mean to guide you through the high level view of the features but you’re welcome to take the experience further by customizing more.
Framing
Like the last call for testing, you run a site that captures “Daily Delights” about the power of everyday moments to create joy. When you first put the site together, you didn’t have a full vision of what you wanted and, after a recent post went viral, you want to make some quick changes to better reflect what you’re accomplishing. As part of this, you preview a block theme to get a sense of whether you want to switch, create a new “Work with me” page, and update your “About” page while making high level changes to your templates and Styles. Streamlining and supporting this experience are the new command center tool and revision history for styles.
Testing Instructions
To use a prebuilt test site:
- Open this link only once: https://app.instawp.io/launch?t=fse-call-for-testing-23&d=v1
- Please do not repeatedly open this link as it creates a new site each time and there’s a limit of 50 sites that can be created.
- This will launch a site for you to use for up to 24 hours. Select “Magic Login” to log in to the wp-admin dashboard.
- Save the link to your site so you can access it again during the test.
To set up your own test site:
- Have a test site using the latest version of WordPress. It’s important this is not a production/live site.
- Install and activate the Twenty Twenty Three One by going to Appearances > Themes.
- Install and activate Gutenberg 15.8+. From there, head to Gutenberg > Experiments and turn on the Command Center, Details block, Block Theme Previews, and Navigation block experiments.
- Head to Tools > Import and import this file to have access to the same content as above. From there, create a simple menu.
If you have any issues with manual setup, just comment on the post or ping me (@annezazu) in WordPress.org slack.
Preview block themes
Note: If you want to explore other block themes, you’re free to do so! You will have to install them first for the preview to work due to this bug. Please just ensure that you end up using “Twenty Twenty-Three”.
- Head to Appearance > Themes where you’ll see a few block themes installed. Select the option to Live Preview the “Twenty Twenty-Three” theme.
- This will take you to a new preview option using the Site Editor where you can explore the theme.
- Select the Style section and choose a style variation you like. Click “Activate and Save”. This will keep you in the Site Editor with the new theme in place.
Rely on revisions
- Click the pencil icon next to Styles to open up more granular style options. Make whatever changes you’d like: add a custom color to your palette (Colors > Palette > Custom) or change the details of individual heading levels (Typography > Headings). Save your changes.
- After making and saving a few changes, click the three dot menu in the Styles panel and select the last option for revisions. Here’s a visual.
- View different revisions by clicking on them and roll back to a prior version of your choosing by selecting “Apply”.
- Make more changes to Styles either to the overall site or to individual blocks. Once more, view the revisions and decide whether to roll back.
Content and template editing
- Click the W icon to return to the Site View and use the back arrows to return to the main Design section before selecting the Pages section. From there, choose “About” and click on the canvas to edit it or click the pencil icon next to About in the sidebar.
- Add a details block and shorten the About page by writing a one line summary where it says “Write summary”. Take the remaining About page content, cut it, and add it to the section where it says “Type / to add a hidden block”. Feel free to customize this as much as you’d like.
- Add a featured image to the page by clicking the upload icon when hovering over the block and, using List View, move it closer to the top of the template. Make any additional changes to the block order that you’d like using List View.
- Save your changes.
Using the command tool
- Click the W icon to return to the Site View and use the back arrows to return to the main Design section before selecting the Template section. From there, choose the “Home” template and click on the canvas to edit it or click the pencil icon next to the template name in the sidebar.
- Select the Navigation block and add a new item to the menu by clicking the + button in the editor itself (not in the settings sidebar).
- Instead of adding a current page, search for “Work with me” and notice the option to create a draft page with that title. Select that option.
- Press cmd + k (or ctrl + k on Windows and Linux) shortcut to open the command center and type in “About” to quickly switch to the About page.
- Add in a brief note about being open to working with others in the About page content before using the same cmd + k (or ctrl + k on Windows and Linux) shortcut to switch back to the homepage template by typing “home”.
- Select the overall Navigation block and make a few style or settings changes, like changing the color options or the overlay display.
- Click the W icon to return to the Site View and notice you have a few changes to save. Click Save and complete the save process.
Publish and view
- Use the back arrows to return to the main Design section before selecting the Pages section once more.
- Select “Manage all pages” where you will be brought to the Pages section of the WordPress admin.
- Publish the “Work with me” page before viewing your site and exploring it to ensure all of the changes you want look as you want. Be sure to click on navigation items!
What to notice:
- Did the experience crash at any point?
- Did the saving experience work properly?
- What did you find particularly confusing or frustrating about the experience?
- What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience?
- What would have made this experience easier?
- Did you find that what you created matched what you saw on your site?
- Did it work using Keyboard only?
- Did it work using a screen reader?
- Did it work while using just a mobile device? Shout out to @nomadskateboarding for this addition!