This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and make a purchase, the product owner may pay us a commission. Affiliate links are identified by “(affiliate link)” placed immediately after the link.
May 20, 2020 Update
Since the Block Editor is relatively new, things change all the time. On May 18, 2020, the developers behind GeneratePress released a block plugin called GenerateBlocks. I’ve been playing with it while it was in alpha and beta.
Their philosophy in developing this block plugin is exactly what I wanted in a block plugin — a few basic blocks which are highly customizable. GenerateBlocks only has four blocks: Container, Grid, Headline, and Button. These basic blocks are easy to combine and the plugin offers fine-grained controls over every aspect of the blocks. For each block, you have the ability to have different settings for desktop, mobile, and tablet.
My new stack for layout is: GeneratePress Premium (affiliate link) plus GenerateBlocks plus WP Show Posts (also by the GeneratePress developers). I also have Editorskit, a free plugin which adds additional controls to the native WordPress blocks. This combination is everything I need, and is lightweight compared to using a page builder. It is what I will be using on all my sites going forward, and as time allows I will work my way through existing posts to update them with these tools.
January 28, 2020 Presentation
On January 28, 2020, I gave this presentation at the WordPress Orlando Meetup. I was the second of two speakers. The first speaker gave an overview of Block Editor basics, so I focused on Block Plugins. This presentation was not recorded.
February 20, 2020 Presentation
On February 20, 2020 I gave this presentation at the WordPress West Orlando Meetup. I was the only speaker, so I did cover some of the basics of the block editor. This presentation was recorded. I’ve embedded the YouTube video below.