Hello! This is the 78th roundup of theme-related discussions, fixes, and developments in Gutenberg coinciding with the 12.9 release.
The block locking UI
The new block locking UI gives themes the ability to lock some blocks. When a block is locked, users are either unable to move it, remove it, or both. This is particularly useful for site level blocks like which are necessary for themes to work as expected, for example Post Content and Query blocks.
New template types
Theme builders are now you are able to create a templates for many different types of pages on their site including Category, Author, Taxonomy Date, Tag and Attachment pages. This brings more aspects of the template hierarchy to the UI, so that theme builders can create their designs with writing code.
Theme exporting
The exporting features in the Site Editor now includes all theme files alongside the modified templates and parts. This means you can now build a theme in the Site Editor, and export it for use elsewhere, with your edits included.
Patterns
Patterns can now be shipped with your theme without needing any PHP. Create a new directory called patterns at the root of the theme, and add your patterns as HTML files. You can create patterns in the block editor, switch to the code editor and copy the code into a new HTML file.