Block Options was the first visibility control plugin for the Gutenberg Editor I created right before I collaborated for CoBlocks. The inspiration for creating Block Options came from Widget Options, which you may have probably heard about. It’s the plugin that lets you manage widgets’ visibility on posts, pages, and devices, among other functions. Block Options, on the other hand, controls visibility of blocks per device type and user-state. It also allows block visibility control using PHP conditional tags.
As much as I love the name “Block Options”, it has started to become too generic and has been used a lot on the Gutenberg editor itself. So, I have decided to change the name to something that stands out and fits the purpose more – page building block options for the new editor.
EditorsKit: Page Building Block Options for Gutenberg Editor
The name EditorsKit came from “Editor’s Toolkit”. I’ve been progressively moving towards building set of tools that will help users navigate through the editor more conveniently besides giving them visibility control.
I know it’s really challenging to move to Gutenberg editor and I want to ease this transition as much as possible for every type of users.
What’s New
Plugin name isn’t the only one that’s been changed. Below are all of the changes and brand new features. 👇
Brand new Logo
Needless to say, a brand has to have its unique logo. I wanted to make the EditorsKit logo somewhat close to the look and feel of the Gutenberg’s — gothic, thus I used the “ink pen” to complement it. But of course, I made sure that there’s more to it with all the features I added.
New Brand, New Website
It’s a long way to go before I can settle with the final improvements of EditorsKit, I’m sure. So, housing it into this new website, editorskit.com, means a lot of new features to come, which I hope will make everyone’s content building experience better. From the website, you can find tutorials and download the latest version of the plugin but of course, it’s available for free from WordPress.org.
Better User Experience
I’ve made a distinctive improvement to the user interface for better experience. Specifically, I have divided the visibility options into a few parts. Furthermore, in this new interface, the Devices and User State visibility options are now under the advanced block panel. It is I think a perfect design that takes lesser space but is more noticeable to users.
New Visibility Settings
Under the Block Settings menu, I have added the “Visibility Settings” so users can manage all visibilities from one place. Moreover, these visibility settings options are tabbed to separate each feature category. Also, I’ve added Default for the same features accessible under the Advanced Block Panel. In addition, I’ve placed “Advanced” for more complicated features that mostly developers are using, like custom Display Logic and ACF visibility support.
Block Guide Lines
Another EditorsKit’s new feature is the Block Guide Lines. It lets you turn on/off visible editor guide lines. With this tool, checking element boundaries is easy. Just toggle visible guide lines on titles and editor blocks and it’s done. It’s also more convenient to handle nested blocks by using this feature. Look at the preview below. 🎬
What’s Next
Today marks the new chapter for EditorsKit and I’m already building out the next set of tools which is gearing towards helping developers. Coming up next will be managing Auto Save and adding theme support for page template body classes.
Here’s a preview and I really can’t wait to show more! If you’d like you can follow me on Twitter to stay up to date.
Download EditorsKit today
The brand new EditorsKit and Block Guide Lines features are all available today. Download EditorsKit on WordPress.org and start building better contents with the new Gutenberg block editor.
If you have any suggestions let me know on the comments below. Happy building!
Leave a Reply