Astra’s NEW WordPress Block Theme is Amazing 🔥

I have a few projects coming up and transitioning all the way to block themes in them. Thanks for your videos – they've given me the confidence to really use block themes in production knowing I won't get stuck somewhere in the future and have to revert back to older approaches with which I'd grown so comfortable with. God bless!

One other thing which continues to be confusing: block theme and block editor. It seems there are at least four different things which are referred to by those terms at various times. Part of that is the block editor for the layout/theme of the site. The block editor for creating your post/ page actual contents. The block editor for changing page/post/site looks/layout. The block theme you use with the WP editor. The block theme you use on top of the WP editor… are you getting the idea? Someone needs to sort that out.

Once upon a time you could set a theme, make a few tweaks, and forget about it. Go on and write content and know that it would show up, be readable, and you wouldn't have to do much other than write more. Those days seem gone now. I've spent weeks just trying to get the site looking the way I would like it to and I've made slight progress.

Meanwhile, after having to fix a WordPress problem, I still have to upload and attach all my images files back to the original posts, which also have to be link checked and updated/ tidied up. That's before even considering anything like SEO, etc. I have over a thousand images and posts, each. People don't know how much there is to keeping a site going, especially a large, old site with a lot of contents. A little business site is so much less to deal with. No wonder there are so few old sites still around. Its so much easier to give up and leave it down.

Oh, then someone goes to something like the Wayback Machine and scrapes ALL your content, every last word and image. If you're really lucky you get them to take it down. There is no way, I know, to protect your content from being scraped. Nothing that really seems to work. So, dealing with this WP theme is such a minor little bug in the wood… at least it should be. I did try going back to just an HTML/CSS site but that's become bloated and overcomplicated too.

Anyway, this is an overlong comment now. Go back to your regularly scheduled video surfing/posting.

You don't mention the ZipWP thing Spectra asks people to sign up with. I don't really want to sign up for some secondary service I know nothing about. But, to get use of their library, kits, etc it seems you have to give away your information. Even then, it doesn't work for me. So far anyway. Just one more frustration to try to figure out.

Until then I thought I was getting somewhere. I understood where to change content (on the regular page editor for WP) and then the look of the page with Spectra. Doesn't sound like much maybe but it helped me understand what I needed to do, and where.

On the downside, the colour palette was not very useful. It would help a LOT if they would give a plain black and white palette which people could add their own choice of accent colours to. That took me awhile to figure out and then I left it as kind of makeshift.

I have a question. So each time you make a block, add a container and then add the contents into that. Why not skip the double step and just have block and container combined in the first place? Call them containers. Onward to watch the rest of your video.

Thank you very much Jamie. I find your WordPress videos fantastic. I have just converted to Spectra Block Theme and I love it, mush more that using Elementor. Thanks again.

I'm embracing Block Themes 100% because WordPress has been working on this since quite a long time, and it's getting better and better with each release. Spectra is an excellent plugin, and I've been using Astra for quite some time… the switch to Spectra One seems like a natural evolution!

Maybe Blocks will be good in WP 8.

Maybe I am missing the point. If one knows block editing WELL, who needs a theme since one can build a website from scratch within an hour or two?

Does Astra have built-in cookie consent banner?

Ever chapter title screen, when I hear the music, I immediately think of Diablo 3 music. It sounds a lot alike. Great video. I had avoided the block editor completely until over a year after it was out. Even when it became a part of core, I still used the classic editor. Then I finally saw how embracing the block editor could help me eliminate Thrive Architect and speed up our site so dove in. Now I'm 100% on board. Started using Astra for some client work just this spring of 2023 but I'm hooked now. As long as it all loads quickly, I'm good.

Jamie, I never comment on videos but yours was so on-target for me as I struggle with options. I'm not a web professional but prefer to build my sites for my own needs (finding that tasking developers often leads to more time and frustration, apart from the cost). I've used WordPress for ages and was confused by the emergence of block themes at first, but I was also annoyed by so many people insisting that the only way to use wordpress is through page builders like Elementor which I despise (primarily because when I click to edit a page I see no content, arghh, just an invitation to edit with E). I've been using the Astra Pro Theme with some satisfaction but I'm with you thinking that Block Themes are the future. Thanks.

I think it is time to move to Block based theme! 🎉 From Elementor 😃

The cat treat is a master stroke. I was shamed into liking this article. Only kidding, I actually found it very useful as I'm just about to start using Spectra One after a long break from WordPress. Thank you for an extremely useful primer on the new product.

Does the Astra theme support any AI Plugins, and are Plugins theme-specific?

Seeing the potential of Gutenberg awhile ago, I left Elementor and have sworn allegiance to Blocks. As you've said before Jamie, the learning curve is crazy. It never stops. With that said, I hope Gutenberg adopts some of the new Astra block features. Ty for the review.

Thanks Jaime, great conversation as usual.

I'm a little confused what's the difference between Spectra One and Spectra Pro?

Is it much easier to build a websitefor BEGINNER using Spectra OR easier to build website using by editung an Astra Starter template?

Definitely the way forward, and thankfully a few months ago I jumped in on GTB, Blocks, FSE etc. As a Beaver builder and Themer I was already pretty used to customising pages and categories etc, but this just makes it easier – and faster, with less bloat, if any. BSF are great and support is excellent, so Spectra theme and blocks is a no brainer. Also glad I went lifetime on their growth package so I get all the Pro goodies, bring it on! Shout out to Greenshift too, as others have noted, so I'm aiming to use the best of both and see what comes out top. It is still early days, but exciting.

wordpress main page template does not fall into place

Why do you think the standard wp blocks or really any and all blocks, not have responsive options for changing sizes on web, tablet and mobile? Would surely make things a lot easier. Not to mention and this is especially true on the 2023 block theme, why there isn't full options for link and bg color/ hover color etc? Seems like a no brainer to me that all these should be added.

Just excellent !

Is Spectra One still useful without installing the Plugin Spectra?

Themes
Checking "Read – Static" I choose Home
Editor I choose the main page of the template
Editor closes and Home page comes out

I can't set up the new 6.2 editor
I select the template,
Activate it
I create a Home page.
Checking "Read – Static" I choose Home
Checked "Blog".
Editor I choose the main page of the template
Everything is fine, but as soon as the editor closes and the Home page comes out, which clogs the main page of the template.
Link not to the main page, but to /chernovik

Tried it out. Problem with these new FSE/block themes is working with different fonts is a real pain unless you like fiddling with JSON, but the whole point of block editing was to eliminate the need to mess with code, so it's like going back to square one again lol