What is the Block Theme?
The Newspack Block Theme is a modern, flexible WordPress theme built to leverage the site editor. It allows publishers to customize nearly every aspect of their layout directly in the WordPress editor, using blocks and patterns instead of custom code or CSS. This approach simplifies site management, enhances flexibility, and empowers publishers to create visually appealing, high-performing sites without developer know-how.
Key Features
- Enhanced flexibility
- The Block Theme evolves alongside WordPress, offering publishers access to new features and updates as they’re released. Classic themes no longer benefit from some of the same advancements.
- It includes an updated design built with current best practices, addressing the limitations of the Classic Themes, which are now over five years old.
- Edit headers, footers, templates, and styles directly in the Site Editor, reducing reliance on CSS and developers.
- Multiple single post templates, including wide image and sidebar layouts, with the ability to adjust post headers, meta styles, and archive designs.
- Use patterns to quickly create reusable sections for headers, footers, and content, with more built-in options for flexibility.
- Improved efficiency
- Global styles allow for management of site-wide typography, colors, and other design elements without the need for CSS.
- Overall better typography scale that improves consistency in font sizes and spacing.
- Simplified editing for posts and pages, empowering publishers to reorder elements and make visual changes without developer support.
Want to see the Block Theme in action? Here are a few video walkthroughs:
What the Block Theme is not
- A one-click magic solution. While the Block Theme provides tools for customization, it still requires considerable setup, especially when migrating from one of the Classic Themes.
- Feature-complete (yet). Some functionality, and most Newspack plugin compatibility (e.g., Ads, Sponsors, My Account pages), have yet to begin development.
- Entirely hands-off. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Migrating all publishers will be tedious and will likely take about a year to completely migrate all currently live sites. Publishers will have access to powerful tools, but will need training to use them effectively.
- An exact replica of the current theme. The Block theme has a different layout, design, and set of features than the Classic theme. Though we’ll work to make them appear similar, sites ported over to the Block theme will not look identical to how they looked with the Classic theme, and won’t use its custom CSS as is.
- A perfect fit for everyone. While more flexible, it may not completely replace highly customized setups or meet every unique edge case out of the box.
While the Block Theme introduces new levels of flexibility and customization, it’s important to recognize that the Classic Themes remain a powerful and flexible option. Publishers can still achieve a high degree of design flexibility with the Classic Themes, including customized layouts, styles, and functionality.
Bottom line: Publishers shouldn’t feel pressured to switch to (or launch with) the Block Theme due to concerns about the Classic Theme’s capabilities. Both themes offer substantial flexibility.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Classic Themes | Block Theme |
|---|---|---|
| Fonts | Supports basic customizations (two slots for header and body fonts). Supports Google Fonts, Typekit and system fonts. Custom fonts require SFTP/CSS and aren’t shown in-editor.The editor can be used to change font styles in the content, but not typefaces. | Upload custom fonts directly via the UI, preview them in the editor. Supports Google Fonts natively. The editor can be used to change both typefaces and styles. |
| Colors | Two slots (primary/secondary); can extend further with the Block Editor Colors plugin but doesn’t apply to existing elements. | Unlimited slots in the color palette via the Site Editor, applied as block defaults and available in the content editor. |
| Styles | Choose between child themes with slightly different visual accents. | Pick from pre-defined style variations combining fonts and colors for quick setup. |
| Blocks | Modify individual blocks with CSS. | Modify block defaults (colors, fonts, spacing) via the Site Editor. |
| Header | Modify via theme options (toggle between fixed layouts). | Switch between pre-made template parts or create custom headers using blocks. |
| Footer | Modify with blocks. | Switch between pre-made template parts or create custom footers using blocks. |
| Templates | Fixed post/page templates and featured image layouts. Site-wide content areas – like sidebars or after-post content – rely on widgets. | Pre-made templates can be customized with blocks. Add new templates directly in the Site Editor. Site-wide content areas are part of the templates and are built with blocks. |
| Content editing | Broadly, the content editing experience will be the same across both themes. The same blocks and options will be available when you’re editing content in a block theme or with the classic theme. | Additional block options: background images, spacing, rounded corners, and box shadows. Improved WYSIWYG experience due to less reliance on Custom CSS. |
| Plugin functionality | Works with most plugins, relying on custom hooks. | Plugins using custom hooks may need rewriting to integrate with blocks. |