First block theme released

Yesterday I released my first Full Site Editing block theme. Charta is a very simple blog theme without many features, but a clean and modern design. It will soon be available on WordPress.org as well.

What is Full Site Editing?

Since WordPress 5.9, themes can now be built completely with blocks. The WordPress Core update introduced a new Site Editor and a bunch of new layout blocks to display the site logo, navigation menu or post title. These features are only available if you choose a block-based theme instead of a classic theme with PHP templates.

A block theme does not use the Customizer anymore and has no registered widget areas or navigation menus. Instead, everything is edited and configured with blocks, block templates and block patterns.

About Charta

Charta features a two-column layout with a right sidebar. I did not see many block themes with this traditional setup yet and wanted to explore it, since many of my themes use sidebars. You will notice that I did not really come up with a new and original design but combined some of my existing ones and rebuilt them into a block theme.

The theme mainly exists to gain first experience with Full Site Editing and to try out all the new features. Both for me and for you. It is a steep learning curve for everyone. The Site Editor is still in an early beta release and there are many bugs, so I recommend to not use block themes for very important websites.

You can see the demo and download the theme on themezee.com/themes/charta/.

Charta Screenshot

More block themes to come

Charta was just the beginning. I plan to release a bunch of block themes this year. After learning the basics the next themes will have a more complex layout and more block patterns to build all kinds of post and magazine layouts. It is time to experiment.