[Resolved] Easiest block layout editable by client and setting a background color on block.

[Giselle]

Hi,

I’m trying to reproduce the layout in the link below for their sister site. I need blocks with different content, but would also need the client to be able to edit the content and change the background color of blocks. I’ve added options tested below and wanted to know which is the easiest way for the client to edit them. The problem I haven’t resolved is: can they change the bg color with options 1 and 2. If not, is it worth using option 3 purely so they can do this. (If not, I can edit the CSS and should I say to the client that is just one of those things? Happy to do this, but I want to make sure I’m not missing something!)

As far as I can tell from researching it, my options are:

1. Use your Layout/Blog setting and set the Blog to columns.
– This works well, especially as the featured post takes up two columns. The only disadvantage is that I’ll need to set a height on the blocks.
– May be easier for clients to edit Posts rather than with page builder?

2. I’ve tried the Ultimate Blocks plugin, also pulling in Posts
– Works well in terms of box heights
– Doesn’t seem to have a featured post option

3. Use a page builder
– Finicky and possibly harder for client to edit content?
– Assume clients could change the bg color easily.

Thanks so much for your help!

Giselle

[Giselle]

NOTE: I’ve worked out the Featured Post for option 2, by changing the grid span.

[David]

Hi there,

have you tried GenerateBlocks ?

https://wordpress.org/plugins/generateblocks/

You can build any grid layout you like and each grid item container can have its own styles.
And its super lightweight.

[Giselle]

Thanks, I’ll have a go now!

[David]

You’re welcome

[Giselle]

Hi David,

I’m using them now. I fund it tricky, until I watched a video about using the block navigation!

I think I’ll go with these, but I wondered about your opinion on my questions above:

Which is the easiest solution for a client to use: using posts/custom/posts, or a page builder/generate blocks?

Would you have to add some programming to add a class to a particular post to change the bg color?

Thanks for your help!

Giselle

[David]

1. The easiest solution is generally Custom Post Types – as this limits the user to just the fields and content you require them to edit, and then ‘archive’ pages automatically update.

Looking at the content of your example site – the post Types they are using are Pages – which provided the hierarchy seen on some of the individual pages.

So you could simply build them with standard pages, and then create a custom page archive or use the WP Show Posts plugin to display the grids.

2. With a post type you could use their Taxonomies to style them. As each post will carry a CSS class related to its taxonomy terms. For example a Post in Category of Featured will have the category-featured CSS class attributed to it. Note: Pages don’t have Categories but that is easy enough to switch on with a few lines of PHP.

[Giselle]

Hi David,

Thanks very much!

I’ve decided to use the boxes for now as they are really just for display – no archives or posts.

But the above info is really useful for another project I’m working on.

Thanks so much for your help! I’m loving GenerateBlocks! It’s so simple and clean compared to other page builders I’ve used.

Thanks again!

Giselle

[Giselle]

PS: Also thought it wouldn’t be too hard to train the client to use GenerateBlocks for minor text changes – I’ll see how that goes!

[David]

You’re welcome. And we really appreciate the great feedback – kinda makes our day!
We tried our hardest to make sure GenerateBlocks conforms to the WP core ethos – so its really great to hear this too!

[Giselle]

Very excited about this and, although I can code, Generate Press is saving me loads of time on starting sites, but is minimalist, which I really like. Thanks for recommending GenerateBlocks. 🙂

[David]

You’re really welcome – i have goosebumps lol 🙂

[Author]

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