If you’ve been building client sites with GenerateBlocks, you already know the tension: you spend hours crafting a beautiful, tightly structured layout, then hand it off. Within a week something has gone sideways because a well-meaning editor changed a font size, deleted a spacing value, or wandered into a panel they had no business being in.
The alpha release of GenerateBlocks 2.4 and GenerateBlocks Pro 2.7 introduces Editor Access, a feature designed to solve exactly this problem. And it goes a lot further than you might expect.
What Is Editor Access?
Editor Access is a new feature within GenerateBlocks (found in your WordPress admin sidebar under GenerateBlocks > Editor Access) that gives you control over what the block editor looks like, and does, for the people using your sites after handoff.
It’s built around two concepts: Access Profiles and Control Sets.
Access Profiles
An Access Profile is a named set of rules that binds one or more user roles to specific editing behavior in the post editor. Each profile defines:
- Which user roles it applies to. Authors, Editors, Shop Managers, or any custom role.
- Which post types are in scope.
- Which blocks are targeted.
- A fallback mode for any block that doesn’t match a specific rule: Read-only (block is locked), Content-only (edit text and media), or Unchanged (standard editor behavior).
- Insertable blocks. Whether that role can insert all blocks, only selected blocks, or no new blocks at all.
Rules within a profile are evaluated top-down. The first matching rule wins. If nothing matches, the fallback mode applies. You can drag rules to reorder them.
To get started quickly, GenerateBlocks ships with three starter profiles:
- Client review (read-only) — Lock everything; allow comments
- Blog authors — Content-only, Text + Headline
- Shop managers — Constrained controls on products
These give you a working starting point you can customize, or you can build a profile from scratch.
Control Sets
Control Sets are reusable groups of block inspector controls that you attach to rules inside an Access Profile. This is where the custom UI capability lives.
Instead of a client seeing your full block inspector, they see exactly what you’ve put in a Control Set and nothing more. You can start from a preset or build custom Control Sets. The preset options are:
- Typography (4 controls)
- Spacing (2 controls)
- Colors (2 controls)
- Layout (4 controls)
- Borders (4 controls)
Or choose Build Custom and define the controls from scratch. Control Sets are reusable across profiles, so once you’ve built a set, you can attach it to any profile that needs it.
Why This Matters for Agency and Freelance Work
Client controls have been a long-requested feature in the WordPress block ecosystem. What makes Editor Access worth paying attention to is the scope of what’s possible.
Most solutions in this space operate at the plugin or global level, allowing hidden panels or locks on page elements site-wide. GenerateBlocks Editor Access operates at the intersection of block + location + user role, which means the rules you write can be highly specific. A homepage hero block can have different editor behavior than a blog post content block. An administrator sees everything; an author or contributor sees exactly what they need.
The Control Sets capability is where this gets genuinely powerful. Instead of just restricting access to existing controls, you can replace them with something purpose-built for how your client actually works. The editing experience becomes part of the deliverable.
What You Need
Editor Access requires both:
- GenerateBlocks 2.4.0-alpha.1
- GenerateBlocks Pro 2.7.0-alpha.1
Both must be installed and active. This is an alpha release, feature complete enough to explore and test, but currently not ready for production.
How to Get It
- Log in to your GenerateBlocks account.
- Head to the Downloads section.
- Download both the GenerateBlocks and GenerateBlocks Pro alpha builds.
- Install and activate them on a staging environment.
Alpha software is for testing and feedback. Try it, build out a profile or two, stress test the rule logic, and share what you find.
What’s Next
We’ll have full documentation ready shortly. If you’re the kind of builder who thinks carefully about what clients should and shouldn’t be able to touch, this is worth getting hands-on with early.
I’ve been looking for this feature for a long time and it’s great that it’s part of the GB family and there’s no need for additional plugins. Editing a website by the client is a nightmare, this feature really makes me happy. thank you
Insane update! I cannot wait to give it a first try and will provide some feedback once I get to it.