One of the areas we are very focused on here at Outcome Labs is maintaining a reliable, repeatable workflow for how we develop and deliver technology solutions for our clients. We carefully evaluate how any changes to our existing set of vetted tools and processes will impact our ability to consistently deliver solutions on time, on budget, and at the quality levels our clients have been promised. At the same time, we are committed to maintaining a state-of-the-art development process to improve how and what we deliver to our clients.
One technology that has been a primary focus for us since it launched almost two years ago is the WordPress Block Editor. We are currently testing Gutenberg 9.3, the latest version of the Block Editor, which will be partially included when WordPress 5.6 is released in December 2020. We already have a completed a significant number of new projects using the Block Editor including sites for the National Kidney Foundation of Indiana, Mango Publishing Group and authors Kathy Lyons and Lily Morton. We have also converted a number of sites including this site, Outcome Labs, and our founder’s personal site, JohnCharlesFleming.com.
One area we have a key focus on is what we will use to provide page-level layouts. The current version of the Block Editor provides a Column Block and a Group Block which provide basic layout capabilities. Both have limits, but each has been improved since they were introduced. We use these in our current workflows. We also have blocks from the Stackable plugin and the Ultimate Add-ons for Gutenberg plugin that we use to meet specific design use cases.
Our hope is that these capabilities will find their way into core as the block editor evolves. Justin Tadlock wrote a great piece on this topic last April that was titles “Should the Block Editor Have a Grid System?“. Definately worth a read. The Layout Grid Block from Automatic that Justin discusses in the article gives an indication of the direction such a project would go in. It is definitely worth exploring.
What about you? Are you using the Block Editor yet or considering converting sites to it? What is your layout workflow?