Flat Blocks WordPress Theme Updates Through v1.3

We have been hard at work on enhancements and fixes to the Flat Blocks WordPress theme. We have recently released 15 updates to it since originally posted to the WordPress.org Theme Directory.

Here is a summary of the most important updates through version 1.3:

• Added Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Block Pattern that uses the new WordPress v6.3 Details Block.
• Pull Quote Block separator lines now use the theme style’s primary color (light green by default).
• Added a new Theme Style for auto dark mode! When using this theme style, the site will automatically switch to a dark background based on the user’s device (computer, iPhone, etc.).
• Added a Home Page Top Template Part that now shows on the font page of your website regardless of whether that is a static page or your posts list.
• Added the Roboto Mono font and set it as the default monospace font for code and preformatted blocks.
• Enhanced navigation menus to have the link color on hover and highlight the current page in the menu to give the user visual feedback to where they are on your site.
• Additional Block Template Parts so users only need to edit smaller pieces of the theme. For example, the 3 default footer blocks each have their own Template Part and changes to those blocks will be reflected in all Footer Template Parts that use them.
• Enhancements to better style legacy page and post content created prior to the release of the WordPress Block Editor. Buttons, form fields, and images should reflect styling more consistent with newer content.
• Updates to better show off theme features when previewing the theme in the WordPress.org Theme Directory.
• Numerous additional bug fixes and enhancements to improve the look and usability of the theme.

Release Notes

Here is the full set of release notes since version 1.2.1:

= 1.3 =
August 20, 2023

• Updates and enhancements specifically for WordPress v6.3:
  • Added Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Block Pattern now that WordPress v6.3 includes a “Details” block. This block can hide detailed text and display it when the user clicks on the “Summary” (title).
  • Added the FAQ Block Pattern to the Services Page template.
  • Now that WordPress core block styles are pretty complete as of v6.3, we no longer include the “extra” block styles. i.e. loaded through add_theme_support( ‘wp-block-styles’ ). Those were conflicting with the theme and user global style settings as WordPress v6.3 for some reason places them later in the generated CSS style sheet.
  • Dashicons (icon font) now display properly when editing pages or posts in the new Block Editor. This refers to the calendar, comments, scroll down arrow, etc. Changed the way these Dashicons are loaded now that the Block Editor uses iframes.
• Additional updates and enhancements:
  • Separator and pull quote blocks now defaults to the theme style’s primary color to match reqular quotes (by default this is light green).
  • Styled the Table with Stripes style.
  • Optimized all included image assets to reduce their size while retaining good quality for the web.
  • Added section in this readme.txt file about how to create a child theme of Flat Blocks

= 1.2.14 =
August 3, 2023

• Added the Roboto Mono font and set it to the default for code and preformatted blocks.
• Enhanced the smooth scrolling to factor in whether the site is displaying the Admin Bar or not. This is most beneficial for cover blocks with scroll to content sections.
• The Fixed Mobile Nav Menu can now be centered in addition to positioned left or right.
• Adjusted the CSS for navigation menu colors and highlights to better handle when the user selects colors for the navigation menu and/or it’s drop-down menus.
• Fixed issue with Menu Never Mobile where it was going mobile on small screens. Also added a group to it so there is margin between it and the site title.
• Added custom page list styles for checkmarks and plain lists, so you can now choose those styles for them just like on regular lists.
• Made some code optimizations to the fixed header javascript.
• Moved the theme’s pattern-related functions into its own ‘pattern-functions.php’ file in the /inc directory. Added inclusion of that file into the PHP-based patterns that use it. This is to help when admins are using the WP-CLI command line utilities.

= 1.2.13 =
July 24, 2023

• Added logic to the sample page Patterns to make sure the necessary theme functions have been properly loaded. Specifically flatblocks_get_block_pattern().
• Added one more Template Part Area called “Menu”. This should be useful in a future version of WordPress.

= 1.2.12 =
July 18, 2023

• Added some sample navigation links to the various Footer Menu template parts. This is to prevent WordPress from displaying a complete list of the sites pages in the footer. Of course once the user specifies an actual footer menu, the sample links get overridden. Note that for the header menu, the default behavior of displaying the full pages list is still in place as it makes sense there.
• For Site Title, remove link hover color from theme.json so it defaults from the general link hover color or a custom link color if the user specifies one. This was done to the various global theme styles that set the Site Title link hover as well.
• Adjusted mobile nav menu padding to better match site header padding.
• On Author Page Template, fix alignment of the author name.
• Fix input select box font color when previewing theme on WordPress.org. Specifically, set the font to the Foreground color.
• On the global theme style Default Drop Shadow, fix the drop-shadow on buttons.
• Added some sections to categorize Template Parts. This will be useful in a future version of WordPress. Added Title, Sidebar, Query, Comments, Menu, and Content (for everything else). WordPress already has Header and Footer.

= 1.2.11 =
July 17, 2023

• Enhancement to Auto Dark Mode global theme style to also darken the drop-down menus and mobile menu.
• Fix issue with global theme style: Purple, Yellow, & Midnight Blue causing it to not show up as an available style in the Editor.
• For fixed mobile nav, allow positioning left, center, or right by adjusting it’s group container.
• Remove theme name from the header template parts. This should allow child themes to override them.
• Remove menu reference# from the various menu template parts. This should help with WordPress navigation fallback logic. That means it should do a better job at finding an appropriate menu from your site.

= 1.2.10 =
July 11, 2023

• Added global theme style for auto dark mode! This is the second style right afer the default one. It will automatically change to a dark background with light text when the operating system gets set to dark mode. For example in Windows, iOS, etc.
• Added two new colors: Light Blue and Light Yellow. Updated the theme gradient colors to use them to provide a wider range of color. Also updated the Orange, Yellow, & Midnight Blue global theme style to use the new light yellow color. Updated the Yellow, Orange, & Midnight Blue global theme style to bold links in Post and Page content so they stand out more.
• Refine CSS for images with hard-coded widths, mainly for the WordPress.org theme preview which uses older (non-block) markup.

= 1.2.9 =
July 7, 2023

• Refine CSS for buttons to reduce unintentional styling of buttons in 3rd-party plugins.
• Refine CSS for images with hard-coded widths to reduce the chance of breaking the page layout.
• Update minimum PHP required to v7.4, which is the minimum that WordPress itself recommends. Note that PHP v8.1 is preferred, but this theme doesn’t require anything beyond what WordPress itself does.

= 1.2.8 =
July 5, 2023

• Adjust logic for blog on home page so that it shows the extra “Content Top” Template Part only on the first page.
• Remove large padding in all Header Template Parts, so now defaults to Small spacing.
• Along with Header padding changes, remove Header Compact since its no longer any different than Header Default.
• Add template parts for footer block 1, block 2, and about block. Update the footer templates that use them. This way when the component blocks are edited, the updates will be reflected in all the footer templates that use them.
• In conjunction with adding the footer blocks, revise the CSS for vertical margin on template parts.
• Only display Post Comment Count on blog if Gutenberg plugin is enabled. This Block isn’t part of standard WordPress. This was done with a new hidden pattern (hidden-post-date.php).
• Adjust font-size on Site Map page template to match the others (“larger” font size).
• For global theme style with drop-shadow buttons and link underlines, remove underline from nav menus
• Set Post/Page Excerpt length to 25 words if used in Post Title or Page Title Template Part. However, it still uses the default 55 words on the blog.

= 1.2.7 =
June 30, 2023

• Clean up CSS for input fields and buttons
• Updated readme.txt to discuss setting the blog or a page as the site home page.

= 1.2.6 =
June 28, 2023

• Update icon color to be white for social media icon patterns, both 3-column and 4-column. This looks better on all colored-backgrounds.
• To better support user’s older post and page content and older plubins, added CSS to style non-block buttons, forms, and input fields to better match the block-based ones styled in theme.json.
• For Comments template part, keep avatar and user name on the same line (don’t collapse on mobile)
• Added bottom padding on sidebar
• Add filter for child themes to be able to specify whether to remove core WordPress block patterns or not. The filter name is ‘flatblocks_remove_core_patterns’. The default is true.

= 1.2.5 =
June 27, 2023

• Fix issue with CSS for images with hard-coded dimensions

= 1.2.4 =
June 26, 2023

• Update theme screenshot to show primary, secondary, and tertiary color for a better theme preview on WordPress.org.
• Update the CSS for images to prevent older block editor markup that uses wp-block-caption from breaking the layout.

= 1.2.3 =
June 26, 2023

• Fix font color on post meta box when using dark theme style.
• Darken link color on Purple global theme style.
• Change Title and Text block pattern to have secondary background color so its different than the cover image which uses the primary color.
• Fix WordPress bug where columns block doesn’t have gap in the Block Editor.
• Added feature to functions.php to load child theme’s /assets/css/custom-styles.css file if it exists.

= 1.2.2 =
June 23, 2023

• Updates for more accurate theme previews on WordPress.org Theme Directory:
  • Remove bottom margin on columns block
  • On blog, put date and comment count on the same line to take up less space
  • Renumbered global theme styles so more colorful options are at the beginning.
• When Gutenburg plugin active, allow user to set various menus in the Customizer. This is an easy way to assign menus without having to edit the menu Template Parts themselves.
• Cleaned up some CSS for the included Dashicon font icons, image block top margins, featured image top margin, post content bottom margin, heading bottom margin, post title line height, and image captions on dark backgrounds.
• Change font color to foreground-alt on pricing tables and social icons to look better on theme styles with dark backgrounds.