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WordPress 5.0: The Gutenberg Editor and the Promise of A New Way to Edit

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By now you’ve likely heard about WordPress Gutenberg, the new post editor that will be rolled out with the 5.0 release of WordPress (scheduled for tomorrow 12/6). The new editor has been under development for almost two years!

“Gutenberg is more than an editor. While the editor is the focus right now, the project will ultimately impact the entire publishing experience including customization.”
The Gutenberg Team

That’s pretty exciting news. There have been some rumblings (both positive and negative) around Gutenberg, though, and I’d like to address a few.

WordPress Gutenberg + Existing Themes = Oh no?

As far as we can see, there’s no need for alarm. Gutenberg appears to be solid, and most themes will “just work” with it. The sky won’t fall, and it’s doubtful that things will “just break” for anyone upon upgrading. But the caveat is that — like with any new application — there are no hard and fast guarantees with Gutenberg.

We have tested all our actively supported themes on WordPress 5.0.  As far as your 9seeds Genesis Child theme is concerned you can safely update to WordPress 5.0 and start using the fancy new block-based editor.

If you want to stay locked into the old editor, there’s a plugin called Classic Editor for that too.  Install that plugin first, then update to WordPress 5.0 and you won’t even see the new editor.

Gutenberg Uncertainties

If it seems like most people are hedging where Gutenberg support is concerned. That is because there’s still a lot of grey area when it comes to plugins.

Most major plugins have updated, like WordPress SEO and Advacned Custom Fields. However, it’s up to you to find out if all your plugins are compatible, most will be, it’s just those that modify or augment the editor screen you really need to check on.

Where Things Stand Right Now

The good news is that Gutenberg is a much better writing experience than the old TinyMCE based editor.  Further, the possibility for new even more amazing customizations to the editor are now possible. The new editor is the foundation of a dynamic change to the way that WordPress websites get built.

You might have seen a lot of negative reviews of Gutenberg early on: our team was simultaneously critical of and excited by it in the early days. The Gutenberg editor has turned the corner and reached the first handoff in what is an existing relay race.

“The editor will create a new page- and post-building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or ‘mystery meat’ embed discovery.”
Matt Mullenweg

So Where Does That Leave 9seeds Theme Support?

The most important thing to keep in mind is that Gutenberg isn’t going to break our existing themes.

There are things we can do to enhance our themes to work better with WordPress Gutenberg, but the list of those things still isn’t definitive. We have already begun to update the latest and most popular of our child themes with this level of enhancement, and there is much more to come.

Rest assured we are actively working with Gutenberg and not just adding basic support to existing themes, but building exciting new themes with the new functionality. 

WP Engine Summit

WP Engine Summit 2018 and the future of StudioPress

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For the third year in a row, we were graciously invited to the WP Engine Summit in Austin, Texas to talk WordPress, learn about industry trends, and spend time with other digital agencies. Over the past three years, the summit has grown from a single day of talks with 50 attendees, to a three day conference with over 300 attendees!

Every year we look forward to attending because we get an awesome opportunity to chat with much larger agencies like RG/A and GSD&M (these are agencies with clients like Nike and Volkswagen).  However, this year because of WP Engine’s recent acquisition of StudioPress, we attended with excited curiosity as to what the future of StudioPress’s Genesis framework might be.

A short history of StudioPress and why we’ve been building sites on Genesis since 2009.

Brian Gardner founded StudioPress in 2007. In 2010 StudioPress merged with Copy Blogger Media, the combined entity heavily focusing on value-added products and SASS based services like Premise, Scribe, Rainmaker, Synthesis and more. Over intervening years, the Genesis Framework remained the most popular framework for WordPress themes, and still is today.  As Brian and Nathan Rice (Genesis lead developer) split their attention across many projects, they focused on mostly maintenance updates that kept the Genesis platform stable without introducing many new features. While we’ve evaluated other frameworks like Hybrid/Mythic and Roots (and others), we’ve continued to build Genesis sites every day because of how reliable the maintenance release cycle has been, and how solid the framework continues to be.

Genesis today

Moving up the timeline to late 2018, StudioPress, including much of it’s talent (Brian Gardner and Nathan Rice), was un-bundled from CopyBlogger Media and acquired by WP Engine, a company we love. We’ve been a customer of WP Engine since their founding in 2010, and an Agency Partner since 2015.

That’s why we were excited by WP Engine’s promise to invest in StudioPress and the Genesis Framework. Of course, we were watching this acquisition carefully considering that the majority of our clients and products rely on the platform.

Over the 3 days of the summit, we spent a lot of time talking with the new product team behind StudioPress and Genesis within WP Engine. Here’s what we learned from the c-suite, engineers, and everyone in between.

More development resources for Genesis

Post acquisition, there is a lot more dev talent focused on Genesis than has been in a long time.  Nathan Rice has been freed from the competing priorities of CopyBlogger to focus exclusively on Genesis. Anthony Burchell (release lead for WP 4.9.9 and author of the Gutenberg’s Playlist Block), Mike McAlister and John Parris (both from Array Themes and authors of the most popular Gutenberg block library in the .org plugin repository, Atomic Blocks) have also joined the StudioPress team so we expect a lot of awesomeness going forward.

StudioPress brand and marketplace

We also learned during our time at the WP Engine Summit that the StudioPress brand and marketplace are staying around for the foreseeable future. The WP Engine partnership team is also working on making the StudioPress theme marketplace an even better place for 3rd party theme developers like 9seeds.  

The big takeaway

The biggest takeaway from the WP Engine Summit this year was that the future is bright for both StudioPress and WP Engine. Genesis themes are by far the most popular themes on WP Engine for both small and enterprise sites, and the dependence of both brands on each other creates a symbiotic relationship that will only benefit the greater ecosystem, companies like 9seeds, and the clients we serve.

WP Engine and StudioPress logos

WP Engine Acquires StudioPress: The Future of Genesis Themes Is Stronger Than Ever

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There’s big news in the WordPress ecosystem this week! Our favorite WordPress web host has acquired our favorite WordPress theme shop — besides us, of course — and its cornerstone framework Genesis.

“If a company with greater resources than ours could demonstrate that they understand the multi-faceted value and go-forward potential of StudioPress and Genesis, it was worth considering. More importantly, any suitable successor to the brands needed to grasp the worth of the people within the vibrant community of designers and developers who have built businesses around Genesis, the broader StudioPress customer base, and our StudioPress team.”
Brian Gardner, StudioPress founder

That’s right, WP Engine, “the WordPress digital experience platform,” purchased StudioPress and their “themes and tools that make WordPress easier.” VP of Web Strategy David Vogelpohl says WP Engine is “investing heavily in Nathan [Rice] and the engineering team, and they’re excited for the next evolution of Genesis and the SP themes.”

That means the de facto community of businesses and sites who have built on and around Genesis aren’t going anywhere, 9seeds included.

We all go way back

To give you an idea of how far, we started this agency almost a decade ago. For that entire time, the Genesis framework has ridden shotgun on our journey. It’s been a core component of a vast majority of the bespoke custom sites we’ve built.

We benefit by bringing back what we learn from other frameworks and integrating it into our build process. So along the way we’ve dabbled with other frameworks, from _s to the latest compelling framework WP Rig. In the end, however, we always return to Genesis. We’re wiser for having taken the detour but get pulled back by the simple fact that Genesis is the hands-down fastest and most powerful framework for doing what we do.

9seeds hasn’t just been WP Engine customers since their inception. We’ve also been WP Engine agency partners since the very beginning. Over the years that program has given us a lot of inside access to WP Engine. It also offers insight into what’s coming and the ability to help shape some of that. I’ve been sincerely impressed by the resources WP Engine pumps into engineering and development.

While I occasionally drop the “I remember when WP Engine had five employees and I knew them all personally” line, when I visited their Austin offices last September it was hard to find someone I recognized to show me around. At that point, I think they were over 300 people occupying three floors. These days it’s 500+. That growth didn’t come at the cost of their service, either. We’ve interacted with WP Engine support hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times over the years, and they’re consistently great.

“There are many founding moments in a company.”

Two of 9seeds’ best friends getting hitched is awesome news. This is a landmark “founding moment,” and we look forward to seeing what it gives rise to.

Genesis has long been the much-favored and most robust framework for building WordPress sites. In recent years, there have been conversations within the WP Genesis community regarding the slow pace of Genesis development. Our team has often been appreciative of the deliberate, keep-it-simple methodology StudioPress practices. But there’s some legitimate concern about keeping pace with increasingly critical features like web accessibility guidelines, Google AMP, and that hot topic everyone’s talking about: Gutenberg.

So what now, then?

Brian Gardner addressed ongoing Genesis development, saying, “WP Engine has committed time, resources, and money toward the development of the framework and those who build around it.”

WP Engine leadership has been quick to assure the public that Genesis development and support will continue well into the future. They’ve also made it clear via social media channels that they’ll be honoring all existing customer commitments. Continued lifetime support, documentation, and upgrades for Genesis and StudioPress child themes were specifically mentioned. Pro Plus users will still have access to the full StudioPress catalog.

“I would characterize our attitude as ‘Genesis Community First.'”
Jason Cohen, WP Engine founder

As many of you know, we sell the Jessica theme both in our shop and via the StudioPress marketplace. WP Engine has confirmed that there’s no plan to change any existing third-party Genesis developer agreements, so Jessica will remain available in both places. You can also rest assured that (just like Genesis) we’ll continue supporting Jessica for a long time to come.

Happy 15th Birthday, WordPress

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This past weekend people all over the world joined together to celebrate WordPress’ 15th anniversary. That’s a mighty impressive life for an open source software project whose mission statement is “democratizing publishing” and which now powers a third of the internet. And the WordPress meetup has become a staple of our community.

To celebrate this auspicious date, I attended a WordPress meetup group in Bucharest, Romania. (I’m here before moving next door to Belgrade, Serbia for WordCamp Europe next month!) Big thanks to the Bucharest crew for their hospitality, and for the cake. Mmmmm, cake.

I’ve been to a lot of meetups around the world, and they never fail to impress me. They’re one of the most dynamic things about the community around WordPress. Universally, I find them to be places web professionals and hobbyists come together to share knowledge.

Meetups Create Relationships and Grow Your Skills

We say it a lot, but the spirit of WordPress community has run strong and deep here at 9seeds since we were founded as an agency nine years ago. Do yourself a favor: find the nearest WordPress meetup — even one of the smaller ones — then go check it out. Gather up your skills and your questions and take them there. Then keep doing that.

You can start your search for a WordPress meetup here. And if you ever spot any of the 9seeds gang at one, please come over and say hi.

4 of the Best WordPress Themes for Genesis

We’re Genesis Child Theme Champions in the WP Arena

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Part of WP Arena’s stated mission is to elevate WordPress by providing valuable resources. Toward that end, they recently published a list of over 30 themes that they’ve dubbed “the best Genesis child themes ever created for WordPress.”

The 9seeds team is feeling the love because four of our themes made the cut:

  • Jessica, a super-flexible e-commerce theme
  • Lisa Marie, a theme for hairdressers, salons, and spas
  • Patricia, our theme for non-profits
  • Sarah Ellen, a feminine theme for bloggers and other digital professionals

 

Here’s how they each shook out in the lineup

Patricia is our theme built specifically for non-profits. Loaded with useful tools, it grabbed the #2 spot.

Lisa Marie was created for salons, independent hair professionals, and spas. It came in at #7, described as “…perfect for the beauty industry.”

Sarah Ellen, the #31 pick, has always been billed as a blog theme with a feminine flair. But WP Arena dubbed it a ‘great choice’ for a professional website, saying “It’s not only for feminine blogs; the theme is actually versatile with its clean and modern design.”

Jessica is our e-commerce theme and rounds out the list at #36. “Jessica is one of the most robust Genesis child themes for building online stores.”

It’s a great compliment to have even a single one of our themes considered a valuable Genesis resource, much less four. And 9seeds being listed alongside some of the best theme shops in the WordPress community is gratifying.

Thanks to WP Arena and Ben Shepardson for the hat tip in our direction!