June 2, 2020 — The pre-Gutenberg editorial experience in WordPress leaves much to be desired. There is the ostensibly what-you-see-is-what-you-get content editor that is invariably augmented with meta-boxes to collect additional information about how the post should be displayed, including content that appears above or below the post body, or in a sidebar, or inserted into the post’s metadata. There are two primary problems with this approach—it is necessarily non-visual, and relies heavily on using post previews to understand what the published post will look like; and it is rigid, because PHP templates control what appears where outside of the free-form content editor. Gutenberg, properly utilized, solves both of these problems by bringing content into the primary editor flow as blocks which can be fully visualized and re-ordered, allowing content editors to see and understand what a post will look like and how it will behave before publishing, without needing to continually refresh a post preview.

This talk discussed how developers can support content editors and publishers by moving away from meta-boxes to custom blocks and post-level metadata. I explained how to think Gutenberg-first during design and development, and showcased examples of these approaches in practice.

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January 1, 2019 — When it comes to plugins and themes in WordPress, we’ve heard some mantras over and over: “Your custom user interfaces should feel like a native part of WordPress! Follow the admin UI! Back-compat 4 life!” So what happens when a project like Gutenberg comes along and threatens everything you thought you knew about creating and editing content in WordPress?

One of the things about extending software is that you tend to stick to familiar paradigms and patterns, often at the cost of innovation and creating the best possible experience for a given task. One of the major tensions we’ve seen in the push forward on Gutenberg is between the tradition of backwards compatibility and the forward-looking concept of a block-based editor. The hesitation is natural and understandable, but it’s important to take a step back and ask “are metaboxes really the best UI for what my user needs to do?”

In this talk, we will take a look at some creative solutions from the past that have broken outside of the bounds of metaboxes and other form-centric interfaces while still maintaining that WordPress feel, along with practical examples of where rethinking the editing experience can and has led to significantly better outcomes for both implementers and users alike.

May 17, 2017 — En la esquina azul con muchas líneas de código: el desarrollador de metaboxes de WordPress. Y en la esquina roja luchando bajo el lema “No reinventes la rueda”: el desarrollador que usa el plugin ACF. Ven a este encuentro pugilístico para ver las habilidades y debilidades de cada uno de los contrincantes y decide tú mismo quién será el ganador para tu proyecto web.

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