What will full site editing mean for site creators?

Level: ,

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Last updated

More freedom to adjust the look and feel of the website

With full site editing (FSE), you can change parts of a website that you previously could not change without using code.

You can make changes directly in a template by using a block theme. You are no longer limited to the content areas and widget areas that the theme developer has added.
For example, you can move the navigation menu, add social icons, or add a header image even if the theme did not initially have a header image. Or, you could use different site footers for different pages.

You can create your own color palette and save default styles for blocks using the new Styles settings:

To add a custom color palette, open the Styles sidebar, select Colors, and then Custom.

You can do more with the new blocks

Create custom landing pages and homepages where you can combine a blog with other types of content, with full control of the placement and design.

One of the most interesting new blocks is the post template block that displays a list of posts. You can use this to change a blog design without touching any code. Add, move or remove blocks for featured images, post title, category, date, post author, read more text, and more.

You can save, customize and reuse menus and submenus with the navigation block. You can also place social icons, search forms, or the site logo directly in the menu:

Better preview of the design while you are editing

Some themes have all the Customizer options you need for changing font sizes and colors.
-But you can’t edit your content in the Customizer preview.
With the new editors, you can decide if you want to view and edit the content area, the whole page, or a single part like a header or footer:

To edit a template part in isolation, select the block, open the options menu in the block toolbar, and choose Edit.

Choose from more premade designs with patterns

Patterns will become more valuable to site creators with full site editing. You can choose from premade designs made by the theme developer and from the WordPress.org pattern directory.

To preview the block patterns in the new pattern explorer, select the block inserter at the top of the editor,
open the Patterns tab, and select “Explore”. The pattern explorer lists patterns by category.