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[PROMO] I built a free WordPress block theme with 23 starter sites β€” here's how it works

31 October 2026 at 07:03

Full disclosure: I'm a developer at bPlugins, and I built bBlocks, a free GPL-licensed Full Site Editing theme. I'm sharing it because I think some of its implementation choices might be useful to people working with WordPress block themes.

The theme is built entirely around WordPress core blocks. It doesn't require a page builder or an additional plugin to function.

A few things I focused on while building it:

Starter sites and patterns

  • 23 one-click starter sites covering business, agency, restaurant, clinic, law firm, school, gym, real estate, spa, magazine, and more.
  • Two WooCommerce store designs.
  • 150+ block patterns, including hero sections, pricing, team, FAQ, and testimonials.
  • The importer uses patterns bundled with the theme rather than downloading content from external sources.
  • Re-importing a starter site updates its existing pages instead of creating duplicate pages.

Design customization

  • 22 style variations
  • 6 color palettes and 5 font pairings
  • 5 interchangeable headers and 3 footers

WooCommerce and optional features

  • Templates for shop, single product, cart, checkout, and order confirmation.
  • 9 optional modules, including dark mode, sticky header, table of contents, and reading progress.
  • Modules are disabled by default. Their CSS and JavaScript are only loaded when enabled.

I also included self-hosted fonts, keyboard navigation, reduced-motion support, and RTL/translation readiness.

Technical requirements: WordPress 6.6+ and PHP 7.4+.

Theme URL : https://wordpress.org/themes/bblocks/

I'm particularly interested in discussing two implementation decisions:

  1. For starter-site imports, would you prefer updating existing imported pages on re-import, or having an option to create a completely separate copy?
  2. With 22 style variations, does that provide useful flexibility, or would a smaller, more curated selection make the Site Editor easier to use?

I'm the developer, so technical criticism is welcome too. If you've built or maintained an FSE theme, I'd especially appreciate your perspective on the importer, pattern organization, and overall Site Editor workflow.

submitted by /u/dev-prosanta
[link] [comments]

How do you use Gutenberg?

Just pure with TT5 pre-installed or do you usually add a Theme (Kadence, Blocksy, GeneratePress, Astra, OceanWP etc.)?
If yes which would you recommend working with?
I prefer working completely free or lower Lifetime Licenses/unlimited.

I worked with Elementor and Pro Elements in the past but want to convert sites slowly to Gutenberg.

Gutenberg finally has its own Responsive Controls and ive tried rebuilding a Elementor Site with Gutenberg. Worked medium well on simple sites but not good enough to bet on this Tech Stack as my primary.

The header/navigation bar and off canvas mobile menu looks ugly and i dont know how this can be edited + in general no option to add simple slide fade animations.

If more options are needed i need to install for example Kadence or Blocksy and then my whole page immediatly looks broken because i build it while having TT5 and i have to rebuild the stuff i build with gutenberg native blocks in kadence blocks which offer the animation features and pixel perfect control like iam used to in elementor.

And now i completely depend on these Third Party companies and i heard Kadence starts to become enshitted.

And i dont know if Gutenbergs workflow is still right nowdays, in Elementor V4 we have this method like in Bricks. You can graphically build your CSS classes like btn and primary-btn and still give the elements local CSS properties if they have unique stuff.

In Gutenberg i did not see this option.

V4 can maintain a site with 100 Pages easily over the years and even create resuable components.

I know how to write html css js react etc. these are familiar concepts and i like how v4 did this.

I dont know about bricks, ive heard its more performant but i dont want to spent 700€ for a lifetime license and in 5 years i suffer from being vendor locked in.
Iam not willing to pay 15 bucks monthly to elementor pro too and do not want to locked into a extreme commercial products system.
Divi costs arround 250€ but its still risky in my opinion.

Ive heard about greenshift but dont understand what it is and how popular this is.

I can live without the CSS first approach and not having 100% pixel perfect options but i can now see if i need more basic features on my demo site i have to rebuild everything in Kadence.

In a real world project i could never tell my client sorry i cant add animations to your site or there is no way to change your navigation bar otherwise your site breaks completely. This could be a compromise in a little bakery family business but not with me receiving money from clients.

Back then Gutenberg didnt even had responsive controls, the only way arround was custom css but i do not want to outsource something like this in the custom css tab or in plugins. I want to work clean and the option to leave projects while knowing the next guy can maintain everything.

submitted by /u/onur24zn to r/Wordpress
[link] [comments]

Contact Form 7 Error Message

I get the "There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later." error message, with a red border, when trying to submit ALL forms on my website (www.rhinelanderrabbits.com). I have WP Mail SMTP set up, and the test email works fine. I'm also using Cloudflare, and everything looks good on that end. I have also tried WP Mail Logging, and it still didn't work. Any other suggestions on things I can try, please and thank you?

submitted by /u/emmer1234 to r/Wordpress
[link] [comments]

How do you use Gutenberg?

31 October 2026 at 12:46

Just pure with TT5 pre-installed or do you usually add a Theme (Kadence, Blocksy, GeneratePress, Astra, OceanWP etc.)?
If yes which would you recommend working with?
I prefer working completely free or lower Lifetime Licenses/unlimited.

I worked with Elementor and Pro Elements in the past but want to convert sites slowly to Gutenberg.

Gutenberg finally has its own Responsive Controls and ive tried rebuilding a Elementor Site with Gutenberg. Worked medium well on simple sites but not good enough to bet on this Tech Stack as my primary.

The header/navigation bar and off canvas mobile menu looks ugly and i dont know how this can be edited + in general no option to add simple slide fade animations.

If more options are needed i need to install for example Kadence or Blocksy and then my whole page immediatly looks broken because i build it while having TT5 and i have to rebuild the stuff i build with gutenberg native blocks in kadence blocks which offer the animation features and pixel perfect control like iam used to in elementor.

And now i completely depend on these Third Party companies and i heard Kadence starts to become enshitted.

And i dont know if Gutenbergs workflow is still right nowdays, in Elementor V4 we have this method like in Bricks. You can graphically build your CSS classes like btn and primary-btn and still give the elements local CSS properties if they have unique stuff.

In Gutenberg i did not see this option.

V4 can maintain a site with 100 Pages easily over the years and even create resuable components.

I know how to write html css js react etc. these are familiar concepts and i like how v4 did this.

I dont know about bricks, ive heard its more performant but i dont want to spent 700€ for a lifetime license and in 5 years i suffer from being vendor locked in.
Iam not willing to pay 15 bucks monthly to elementor pro too and do not want to locked into a extreme commercial products system.
Divi costs arround 250€ but its still risky in my opinion.

Ive heard about greenshift but dont understand what it is and how popular this is.

I can live without the CSS first approach and not having 100% pixel perfect options but i can now see if i need more basic features on my demo site i have to rebuild everything in Kadence.

In a real world project i could never tell my client sorry i cant add animations to your site or there is no way to change your navigation bar otherwise your site breaks completely. This could be a compromise in a little bakery family business but not with me receiving money from clients.

Back then Gutenberg didnt even had responsive controls, the only way arround was custom css but i do not want to outsource something like this in the custom css tab or in plugins. I want to work clean and the option to leave projects while knowing the next guy can maintain everything.

submitted by /u/onur24zn
[link] [comments]

Contact Form 7 Error Message

31 October 2026 at 12:13

I get the "There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later." error message, with a red border, when trying to submit ALL forms on my website (www.rhinelanderrabbits.com). I have WP Mail SMTP set up, and the test email works fine. I'm also using Cloudflare, and everything looks good on that end. I have also tried WP Mail Logging, and it still didn't work. Any other suggestions on things I can try, please and thank you?

submitted by /u/emmer1234
[link] [comments]

Why are comments not appearing on all pages?

Update: I finally got the comment section working, I put it in a block, I was doing it wrong previously, but figured it out.

I've been going in circles trying to enable the comment section, I've followed all the steps to add comments, tried adding a code, made sure comments were allowed on each page, and even made a few test posts for each page, the comments don't appear anywhere.

submitted by /u/illustratious to r/Wordpress
[link] [comments]

Why are comments not appearing on all pages?

31 October 2026 at 09:06

Update: I finally got the comment section working, I put it in a block, I was doing it wrong previously, but figured it out.

I've been going in circles trying to enable the comment section, I've followed all the steps to add comments, tried adding a code, made sure comments were allowed on each page, and even made a few test posts for each page, the comments don't appear anywhere.

submitted by /u/illustratious
[link] [comments]

Selling my blog in 2026, where?

31 October 2026 at 08:03

Hi all,

I’ve been running a lifestyle blog on sustainable living since 2019, and I’m thinking about selling it. My focus has moved to other things, and I don’t have the time to give it the attention it deserves anymore.

I sold my first website in 2018, but I feel things have changed a lot, and I have a few questions:

  1. Do people still buy small content sites in 2026 at all?

  2. I sold my first blog on FB. I found a buyer in one of the groups there, but I wonder where people actually sell sites nowadays? My blog is too small for big platforms that have high requirements for monthly income.

  3. Is it worth reaching out to bigger sites or brands in the same niche directly and seeing if they’d be interested in buying my blog?

Here’s some general info about the site in case anyone’s curious:

  • Niche: zero waste, slow fashion, plant-based living, conscious consumption
  • Around 7 years old, all original content written by me (225 articles)
  • Traffic around 8K sessions/month
  • Income (mainly ads, Mediavine) has been steady at around $150-200/month for the past year and a half (plus a bit of extra on top of that from Amazon)
  • Email list of ~450 subscribers
  • Two ebooks with a welcome email sequence already built
  • YouTube channel: 3.7K subs and Instagram: 5.6K, though Instagram is a bit connected to me personally, so IDK if I can untangle it

I’d really appreciate any advice! Thanks.

submitted by /u/CryptographerTop4006
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Why is WordPress so slow to find internal links?

I just learned that WordPress prioritizes the title and image title over links in the body. I was thinking maybe I had a plugin issue or something causing it, because when I search to get an internal link and I know there is a post with that word in it, it can take four to six seconds before it even finds it. It always puts images and tags first, which I found very annoying, so I didn't realize that was actually a problem with WordPress itself.

Anyhow, I fixed that with my own search mod which I have in a free plugin.

I just thought it was kind of weird. What do you guys think of some of the little quirks of WordPress that bug you? What is the most annoying thing that should have been fixed by now?

submitted by /u/andrewmurray1 to r/Wordpress
[link] [comments]

Kadence big price inrease?

Is that true, or did I miss something?

The Kadence Essential” plans, etc., are no longer available, and now there are only plans based on the number of websites.

One website costs $350. Not long ago, there were still $160 plans for Plus and $99 plans for Essentials.

Right now, I'm using Plus myself for 160 dollars, and it looks like it will be renewed for the same price.

If that's true, how do you deal with it?

submitted by /u/LaserLux_ to r/Wordpress
[link] [comments]

Why is WordPress so slow to find internal links?

31 October 2026 at 04:51

I just learned that WordPress prioritizes the title and image title over links in the body. I was thinking maybe I had a plugin issue or something causing it, because when I search to get an internal link and I know there is a post with that word in it, it can take four to six seconds before it even finds it. It always puts images and tags first, which I found very annoying, so I didn't realize that was actually a problem with WordPress itself.

Anyhow, I fixed that with my own search mod which I have in a free plugin.

I just thought it was kind of weird. What do you guys think of some of the little quirks of WordPress that bug you? What is the most annoying thing that should have been fixed by now?

submitted by /u/andrewmurray1
[link] [comments]

How do you think WordPress and its plugin ecosystem will be affected by AI assisted "vibe coded websites"?

31 October 2026 at 03:22

As above... Especially for those who have built their entire businesses around the WordPress framework and ecosystem - either as an end result user, or as a plugin developing producer.

At the same time, what can existing WordPress website users and plugin producers do to ensure that their existing and long-term efforts and plans don't get overshadowed by those who are able to create similar results using "vibe coding" (that requires only a small fraction of the time and effort)?

submitted by /u/prankster999
[link] [comments]

Kadence big price inrease?

31 October 2026 at 03:05

Is that true, or did I miss something?

The Kadence Essential” plans, etc., are no longer available, and now there are only plans based on the number of websites.

One website costs $350. Not long ago, there were still $160 plans for Plus and $99 plans for Essentials.

Right now, I'm using Plus myself for 160 dollars, and it looks like it will be renewed for the same price.

If that's true, how do you deal with it?

submitted by /u/LaserLux_
[link] [comments]
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