Advanced Gutenberg

Gutenberg Blocks – PublishPress Blocks Gutenberg Editor Plugin

This one’s a bit confusing, as there is already another plugin called Advanced Gutenberg Blocks.

This plugin offers a balanced list of blocks, including some not too common, such as the “Advanced list” and the “Summary” blocks.

Global settings

It also has an interesting setup page. I do not particularly like the design they used but this is just me. I get that the functionality they are using make perfect sense. You can select which blocks you want to see and their basic settings:

Managing blocks

Users and permissions

This one is pretty powerful, as it allows to restrict which blocks user can see and use based on their roles and even by specific usernames.

Forms and form responses

As I said before, I see the merit in being able to also manage forms and newsletter subscriptions from a single place, but to me it feels out of scope.

Editing translations

This option is also pretty rare. Again, I am not too sure how I feel about this.

The Blocks

It has a reasonable amount of basic blocks. I am not too convinced by the fact that some of these blocks could be offering “too much” functionality for a block (biting more than they can swallow, so to speak). I am referring to the Contact Form and Newsletter forms, specifically,

I quite like the fact that there is a direct link to this settings from the block properties panel:

Recent posts

This block lets you display a list, grid or slider with recent posts, but it is pretty basic.

• It only works with posts (no pages or CPTs)
• You cannot choose different image sizes
• Ordering is limited

It does allow for some excerpt and post-mete visibility control, but for this type of block I would favour Custom Post Type Blocks, Guten Post Layout or Kioken Blocks instead

Here is the block in action:

Woo Products

This is a good block to have as part of any collection but the settings and option are all rather basic

• Category
• Status
• Order
• Columns
• Rows

Here is the grid:

Here is the carousel:

There is nothing wrong with this block but if you are Building a WooCommerce site or need something a little bit more complex I would recommend using Product Blocks for WooCommerce or Guten Post Layout instead.

Advanced List

Lists can be very useful, specially on site that offer products and services. We have here a nicely balanced block with jus the right amount of settings and options:

And here is the Advanced list block in action:

Columns Manager

This block offers a preview of the layout, which I feel helps a lot:

I also really like the detail that it shows a dotted border around each column at all times, I feel it is a helpful visual aid:

It also offers more detailed control on column width, margin, padding, border and alignment.

Finally, the block offers a couple of extra inline settings for height control and vertical alignment:

Summary Block

The Summary Block creates a navigation menu based on the posts heading structure, this can be very helpful for longer posts:

• Global settings
• Managing blocks
• Users and permissions
• Forms and form responses
• Editing translations
• The Blocks
• Recent posts
• Woo Products
• Advanced List
• Columns Manager
• Summary Block
• Accordion
• Tabs

The block has a few basic settings such as link color and wether the summary should be open or collapsed when the posts is first loaded:

Accordion

I will say this block offers a reasonable amount of customization, without becoming too complex to manage. I already reviewed this block, along with some similar blocks from other collections on my “Accordions” post, here.

Tabs

Again, this block offer a few basic styling option, you can read a comprehensive comparison of tab blocks, including this one here.