What is full site editing?
Full site editing is a set of new WordPress features that helps us edit all parts of our website: Block themes, template editing, site blocks, and global styles.
Full Site Editing (FSE) is a significant development in WordPress that aims to provide users with more control and flexibility over the design and layout of their entire websites, not just individual posts and pages. It represents a shift from the traditional block-based editing system to a more comprehensive approach where you can edit the entire site’s structure and appearance within the WordPress editor.
Here are some key aspects of Full Site Editing in WordPress:
- Global Templates: FSE allows you to create and edit global templates for various parts of your site, such as the header, footer, sidebar, and more. These templates can be customized using blocks, just like individual posts or pages.
- Block-Based Editing: FSE builds upon the block editor introduced in WordPress with the Gutenberg project. It extends the block editor’s capabilities to handle site-wide elements, like headers and footers, with a wide range of blocks for different content types.
- Theme Blocks: FSE includes theme blocks, which are specialized blocks that integrate with the theme’s design. These blocks provide design consistency and enable you to create complex layouts without coding.
- Customization: You can use FSE to customize your site’s layout, typography, colors, and other design elements from within the WordPress editor, reducing the need to switch between the editor and theme settings.
- Responsive Design: FSE encourages the creation of responsive designs, ensuring that your site looks great on various devices and screen sizes.
- Theme Compatibility: Not all WordPress themes support Full Site Editing out of the box. Theme developers need to update their themes to be compatible with FSE, so you might need to choose a theme designed for it or customize an existing theme.
- Experimental Feature: As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, Full Site Editing in WordPress was still in the experimental phase and was expected to be gradually integrated into the WordPress core. It’s possible that there have been significant developments and improvements since then.
In essence, Full Site Editing in WordPress is a feature that empowers users to have more control over the design and layout of their entire websites directly from the WordPress editor, using a block-based approach. It’s a step toward making WordPress more intuitive and user-friendly for creating custom website designs without the need for extensive coding or third-party page builders.