Next, we will introduce our new block-based theme for the Full Site Editor early this year. Although the STAX theme is currently under development, the demo links below showcase each block within the new theme. As a result, it provides a preview of the upcoming STAX theme and beautiful examples of Organic Blocks in action.

In this article we provide an overview of the plugin updates, with demo links to examples for each block. So, let’s dive in!

9 New WordPress Blocks

Organic Blocks 2.0 introduces 9 new blocks. The plugin now contains 20 premium blocks for the Gutenberg editor. Each new block is described in detail below.

The Pricing Table Block displays a highly customizable pricing table. It’s a great starting point for creating beautiful pricing sections on your WordPress website. Showcase product subscriptions, services, and memberships using the block.

The Hero Block displays a featured content banner with a custom background image or video. By default, the block displays the page title, excerpt, and featured image as the background. It’s a flexible and powerful block designed to grab the attention of your viewers. In particular, the background video options are perfect for creating stunning website banners.

The Callout Block displays featured content within a customizable container. It’s an excellent tool for highlighting specific information on your site — like a featured service, download link, or limited offer.

The Featured Content Block displays a cover image and custom content within a customizable container. It’s perfect for calling attention to services or related content on your site. Additionally, the block may be scaled to overlap the surrounding content — making it a great tool for designing outside-the-box pages.

The Icon Box Block displays an icon and featured content within a customizable container. The position of the icon and style of the box may be modified in the options. It’s an excellent tool for highlighting product features or a suite of services.

The Position Container Block features options to scale and move the position of any content within the container. It’s a useful design tool for breaking the grid, and designing outside the box. Any combination of moving, scaling, and pulling can be used together. Additionally, the position can be optionally be reset in mobile, so it does not break the layout on mobile devices.

The Link Container Block wraps any block, or group of blocks in a clickable link. It’s an incredibly useful block for converting complex patterns into custom links. The examples in the demo link utilize the Link Container Block to wrap a link around other Organic Blocks.

The Max-Width Container Block is a simple block for defining a specific width for the contents within the container. It’s a simple, but often necessary block when creating custom layouts. Although many themes provide default, wide, and full width options, there are often design scenarios where a custom width needs to be defined.

The Copy To Clipboard Block provides a button or link in which custom content may be copied to a user’s clipboard. It’s used throughout the STAX theme demo for the purpose of copying blocks and patterns that may be pasted into the WordPress block editor. Additionally, the block is a great tool for copying coupon codes or other code snippets for developer websites.

Updates To Existing Blocks

In addition to the new blocks added in version 2.0, several improvements were made to existing blocks in the plugin. We’ll review the major updates:

The Header Block is an essential block for block-based themes, including the upcoming STAX theme. The block provides options for displaying your site logo, existing Custom Menus, social media links, and other header information. It’s a crucial block for anybody that wishes to transfer from a traditional PHP theme to a new block-based theme.

As a result, we poured a lot of energy into making sure the Header Block was packed full of options for changing the header layout, colors, fonts, sizes, position, and more. Viewing the variations in the block demo will really give you an idea of its flexibility.

In short, we added new font and typography options for changing navigation menu text sizes, letter spacing, link spacing, and more. We added options to change the the header position, so it can overlay above images, cover blocks, and other content — or even remain fixed at the top of the page as you scroll down the website. We added new layouts, including an option to display your logo in the middle with navigation menus on each side. We added a new customizable mobile menu, and much more!

The Portfolio Block and Posts Block have been updated with the option to display category and search filters for the post content. As a result, you can add a filterable menu to virtually any post type on your website. This is extremely useful for portfolios, case studies, documentation, or any other information in which viewers may need to refine their results. The filter works in real time, so the results are immediately displayed without refreshing the page or linking to another page. You can see the new option in action within the demo.

While updating the plugin and testing the blocks in several use-case scenarios, it became apparent that there was no need for the Posts Block and Pages Block to be separate blocks. The options in each each block were virtually the same. And since the Posts Block provides the option to select any post type, we just included pages as a post type option in the block.

As a result, the Pages Block no longer exists in the plugin. Instead, its functionality has been moved to the Posts Block. So, in the event that you were using the Pages Block prior to the release of version 2.0, you will just need to replace the block with the Posts Block. Then, select your pages to display within the setup options.

Until recently, adding gradients, borders, and shadows to blocks was still in the experimental phase. The latest plugin update adds these options to Organic Blocks. As a result, the colors and styles for each block can be highly customized for creating beautiful and bold content.

Blocks Update Summary

2022 will be an exciting year for WordPress and Organic Themes. For the first time in a couple years, we feel hope for the future of our industry and the world. This major update to Organic Blocks is the first of several upcoming changes, and we’re stoked to share these improvements with our customers!

Our new products will change the way websites are constructed in WordPress. Building websites with WordPress will become fun and easier than ever before, without the need for any code or builder plugins. The future is bright!

First, let’s talk about the changes happening within WordPress. Then, we’ll get to the changes coming to Organic Themes.

Full Site Editing

The next evolution of WordPress introduces Full-Site Editing (FSE).

When using the Full-Site Editor, you can customize every element of your WordPress website directly within the editor. And I mean everything. Your website header, footer, page templates, layouts, global styles, and more — it can all be customized. Pretty cool.

In short, WordPress is finally becoming a complete website builder — like Divi or Elementor, but without the need for such plugins.

In order to take full advantage of the new Full-Site Editor, a block-based theme is required. The above example showcases our STAX block-based theme, which is currently under development. We’ll get to that, but first let’s talk about block-based themes.

Block-Based Themes

Traditional WordPress themes have always been somewhat rigid. While many traditional themes have Customizer options for changing global styles, there are still several limitations to the Customizer. As the name suggests, you can “customize” an existing design, but you can’t change it completely.

For instance, changing the layout of a traditional WordPress theme often involves editing PHP code within theme files. Making granular changes to website elements often requires custom HTML and CSS. Such changes require development skills beyond the average WordPress user.

Full-Site Editing and block-based themes resolve this issue of limited customization. Block themes will not need Customizer options or robust page-builder plugins to change every element of your website design.

Of course, in order to take advantage of the new Full-Site Editor, you will need a good block-based theme. And, since Full-Site Editing is still in the experimental phase, there are only a handful of block-based themes currently available for testing, all of which require the Gutenberg plugin to use, and all of which are likely to change in the coming months.

Knowing this future will soon be upon us, Organic Themes was at a crossroads — continue developing rigid, traditional WordPress themes, or begin working on block-based themes. We opted for the latter.

With our eye to the future, we are currently deep in the development of a new block-based theme called STAX. Which brings us to our first major Organic Themes update:

The Upcoming STAX Theme

Below is the first glimpse of our upcoming block-based theme — STAX.

Unlike traditional WordPress themes, block-based themes are created using mostly HTML files, with a little bit of PHP and JavaScript sprinkled into the mix. But what you really need to know is that it’s an entirely different type of WordPress theme altogether. Consequently, an entirely new approach is required to develop such a theme. At first, that scared the pants off of me.

However, as I’ve been working with the new technology and methodology of building block-based themes, I have found myself enjoying WordPress all over again. In truth, building a traditional WordPress theme is a long and cumbersome process. Despite knowing the process thoroughly, it’s hard to find the motivation to build yet “another” theme. Through the process of building STAX, I find myself excited to build themes once again.

I’ve been deep in the development of this theme for quite some time, and I can say with certainty — it’s awesome! STAX will provide users with ultimate flexibility over their design. We know what a painful process building a website can be. Our goal has always been to remove the frustration of web design, and make the process fast and easy. STAX goes a step further, and makes it fun! It’s a huge step forward for Organic Themes and WordPress, and we’re very anxious to get this theme into your (virtual) hands — when it’s ready.

Block-based themes and the Full-Site Editor are still under development. WordPress 5.9 aims to improve the FSE experience and block-based theme integration, and it’s currently slated for release in mid-December. Our goal is to release STAX shortly afterwards, when the editor and framework is stable. So, expect a release by late December or January.

Additionally, Organic Themes is making other major changes within this time-frame as well. Which brings us to our next major product update.

Organic Blocks Plugin 2.0

The STAX development process has revealed that a great block-based theme requires great blocks. Fortunately, the Organic Blocks plugin provides a fantastic collection of blocks. However, it’s about to get much better.

We have been thoroughly testing Organic Blocks within the Full-Site Editor and the STAX theme. Throughout the development process, we have been vastly improving our existing blocks, and adding several new blocks.

Some of the new blocks being added to the plugin include:

• Hero Block – Featured banner content with background media, including background videos.
• Callout Block – Quickly add emphasis to your content with bold colors, gradients, and shadows.
• Icon Box Block – Create feature lists with icons and descriptions.
• Featured Content Block – Display featured content in a customizable container.
• Pricing Table Block – Quickly create beautiful pricing tables.
• Link Container Block – Wrap any group of blocks in a clickable link.
• Max Width Container Block – Define the width of content within the container.
• Position Container Block – Move the position of a group of blocks.

Additionally, the existing collection of blocks have all undergone significant improvements.

The updates are almost complete, and the launch will likely coincide with the STAX theme and the new Organic Themes website. Yes, you heard that right. The Organic Themes website and brand are also making a bold change.

The New Organic Themes Website

I’ve been designing and developing websites for a long time — at least 15 years. When I started designing websites I was passionate. I strived to create bold, beautiful designs that were still approachable and user friendly.

Over the years, I watched design trends come and go. Some have been great, some not-so-great. Feeling the pressure, I jumped on the minimal and flat design bandwagons. However, ultimately I felt those design trends lacked soul. They lacked a human touch. Frankly, websites just got boring. And my passion faded.

For the new Organic Themes website design I wanted to feel inspired again. I wanted to design something that I would like to see. I didn’t want the trends of the day bearing major influence over my design decisions. Since Organic Themes is undergoing such major changes in our product development, the site and brand should reflect those changes. As a result, I went back to my roots, and designed something bold again.

The new site won’t look like any other WordPress product company’s website — for good reason. Organic Themes isn’t like any other WordPress company. When we’re at our best, we march to the beat of our own drum.

I was trained in the corporate design industry, but Organic Themes wasn’t born of that world. Instead, our company was born of the desire to escape the corporate world. That’s why we moved to Maui with nothing but our cars, a couple months of survival savings, and a dream of a different life. It’s why we founded our business in Hawaii. It’s why we kept our business small. And it’s why we love helping other people create their own websites, and free themselves from the chains of the corporate world.

When we entered the WordPress industry, it was full of people like us — nerdy tech rebels. People that didn’t want to be another cog in the machine. However, over the years, the industry became more and more corporate. WordPress companies grew and swallowed up smaller companies and the people that built the platform. It’s a natural evolution of any successful industry. But it became the very thing we worked to escape.

The world has changed over the past 2 years. It’s my belief that people are craving authenticity and a human touch again. Not only in their personal lives, but in the products and businesses they use. As a result, I think the WordPress industry needs Organic Themes again.

The new site is our way of letting people know we’re still here, and we’re still the same people, but with much more experience. When you contact Organic Themes, you engage in communication with real humans — my wife, myself, and my best friend. And we just want to help.

The site will launch with the release of the new STAX theme. We’re very excited about these upcoming changes, and what it means for our customers. We’re also excited to put ourselves out there again, and let you get to know us as more than just a WordPress business, but as real people.