Include Meta Data When Updating Users via REST API
In my another tutorial about syncing users using WordPress REST API I received a question in comments, where I was asked about metadata. After googling for quite a bit I found out that there is no clear explanation out there about using user’s meta in REST API requests.
Speeding Up WooCommerce API
I’ve been working with WooCommerce REST API for quite a while now, well, I developed a couple of plugins – Simple WordPress Crossposting and Simple Inventory Sync and both of them are relying on WooCommerce REST API.
And when you develop something that is intended to be used not only on your test website with 5 products total but also on high load websites, when orders can contain more than 100 products and variations, of course you should always keep performance in mind.
In this tutorial I will share with you some simple simple yet effective tips and tricks.
Create Custom Categories for Blocks
When you create a block.json file for your custom Gutenberg block, you will need to provide a category parameter into it.
By default we can use one of the default ones:
text– Text,media– Media,design– Design,widgets– Widgets,theme– Theme,embed– Embeds.
But with the help of block_categories_all filter (block_categories in case you’re still using WordPress 5.8.0 version or below) you can create a new block category easily.
For example let’s take a look at this custom category created by Jetpack plugin:
And this is our custom category:
How to Change Core Blocks with Block Filters
In this tutorial we are about to learn how to work with WordPress block filters, blocks.registerBlockType in particular. This filter allows not only to change block attributes and their default values but also other block data like title, description etc.
Using @wordpress/create-block tool in Block Development
If you have ever used WordPress starter themes, then you will absolutely love @wordpress/create-block command line tool.
I personally rarely used starter themes for my WordPress projects and usually I don’t rely on @wordpress/create-block tool when creating blocks. But anyway I think it is a great tool and you should know how to use it.
As a result of this lesson, we will have a really simple block inside the Block Editor.
@wordpress/create-block tool.Create a Repeater Field in Block Settings (Inspector Controls)
I got some experience with repeaters when I was developing it for my Simple Fields plugin and I also have a whole tutorial about using them in Plugin Sidebars.
But recently I faced with another challenge – I needed a repeater field as a block setting inside Inspector Controls (in my Simple Carousel Block it was intended to configure multiple responsive breakpoints). Like this:
And that is when the things didn’t go as expected at all. So let me just break it down for you if you’d ever face with something like this.
How to Use @wordpress/scripts when Creating a Gutenberg Block
Let’s begin with the understanding that you can not use regular JavaScript when creating blocks for Gutenberg. Well, you could try that but the code will be hardly readable. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about because I started learning blocks in 2019 with regular JavaScript without using what I am going to show you in this tutorial.
In this lesson we are about to create a project for our custom Gutenberg block and configure the development environment using @wordpress/scripts tool. This tool is what I use personally when I create any blocks either for my plugins or for my client projects.