felix-arntz.me

Category: Open-Source

  • Measuring website performance using WebPageTest (with WordPress 6.2)

    Measuring website performance using WebPageTest (with WordPress 6.2)

    In my post from last month, I am sharing my experience from rebuilding my WordPress website using a block theme, including a performance comparison. As part of that post, I included a spreadsheet with a detailed performance breakdown from before and after the changes. I only provided a bit of context for how I conducted the performance comparison in that post, however as promised, in this post I am sharing the concrete methodology that I used and how you can use it to measure performance of websites yourself.

    In order to better explain the methodology, I thought I might just do another similar kind of analysis that I would go over in this post. Last week, WordPress 6.2 was released, so no better opportunity than to measure how updating my website from WordPress 6.1 to 6.2 affects its performance!

    I created a spreadsheet with the full data for this new analysis, and in this post we’ll go over the process for how I got that data in detail.

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  • Rebuilding my website using a block theme

    Rebuilding my website using a block theme

    It’s been a while since I have posted on my blog. In fact almost 2 years now. But it’s been even longer since I have significantly touched the foundation of my website; other than the regular updates, adding a small plugin here or there, my website had been using the same infrastructure and theme since 2019. A lot of it even already existed the same way in 2018. My website had gotten really out of date, in terms of both content and technology. Some of the blocks I had implemented years ago were no longer working, so part of me was even afraid to open the block editor.

    A few weeks ago, I finally decided to change that and modernize my website. But it didn’t just came out of nowhere. Specifically, I wanted to update my website to use a block theme. I had been excited about them since they were in the exploration stage already in 2019, pretty much as far back as when I was rebuilding my website, “the old way”. The opportunities for enhancing performance due to the new block theme paradigm seemed extremely promising to me.

    Now that we’ve already had 3 major WordPress releases to establish and refine the new infrastructure, I decided to really give it a try. In this post I’ll share my experiences with you as well as the outcome and how it is impacting performance.

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  • Exploring Sitewide Gutenberg Usage Today

    Exploring Sitewide Gutenberg Usage Today

    Phase 2 of Gutenberg is all about taking the compelling capabilities of the block editor to the site level. WordPress 5.0 introduced it as the new editor for post content, but that was only the beginning. Blocks are a powerful tool and inspired by the learnings of various other formats of editing that WordPress and other platforms have been using over the years, so it makes sense for them to provide a unified approach to reusable content. The difference between shortcodes and widgets for example has pretty much been non-existent, and it felt weird to create a certain UI component only for one of the two, or having to write some duplicate code to address both layers. With Gutenberg being expanded to become the editor for your entire WordPress site, beyond the post content bubble, this problem will be solved. Furthermore, it will bring the new editor much closer to being able to fully compete with existing layout builders.

    Each of the steps to get there (e.g. migrating widgets, menus, and possibly even other elements fully controlled by the theme today) poses several challenges, so it might still be some time until we get to experience all this functionality in its proper implementation. Therefore, inspired by a conversation with Morten at WordCamp Europe a few weeks ago, I wrote a tiny experimental plugin that allows you to use blocks on a sitewide level and explore what the theming of tomorrow could look like already today.

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  • Vier

    Vier

    Last weekend I participated in WordCamp Europe 2019, my fifth one of these annual events for the European (and beyond!) WordPress communities to meet, exchange knowledge and celebrate themselves. This fifth WordCamp Europe also marks my fourth anniversary as part of the WordPress community, as the 2015 event in Sevilla was my very first interaction with the community. Hence, it is time for my annual personal recap of what has happened in the past 12 months.

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  • Tres

    Tres

    I have a relatively good memory for dates, so I noticed that it was exactly today three years ago that I joined the WordPress community. While I have drastically failed in blogging more over the past year (and I guess I intend to continue that “streak”), I thought it would be a good time for a recap of what happened in the past year since I wrote my last such recap.

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  • Thoughts on Gutenberg

    Several people have already posted their thoughts and impressions about the new Gutenberg editor for WordPress, to highlight pros, cons and everything in between. Here is my perspective on it.

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  • Inklusivität, Komfortzone und die deutsche Blase

    As you may recognize from the title, this post is written in German. That is because its target audience is the German community in particular. It will probably be the only German post on my blog, so please forgive me for doing that. I’m sorry, and I hope you don’t feel left out.

    Wenn eine nicht-deutschsprachige Person die Einführung oben gelesen hat, werden meine Entschuldigungen wohl nicht darüber hinweg helfen, dass sie sich möglicherweise von diesem Beitrag ausgeschlossen fühlen. Ich halte dies also für eine gute Einleitung für diesen Beitrag, den ich explizit an die deutsche Community richten möchte: Viele von uns tendieren nämlich dazu, in unserer Komfortzone zu bleiben (#GermanBubble) – was an sich natürlich jedem selbst überlassen ist, aber teilweise ein recht exklusives Gefühl an WordPress Community-Mitglieder aus anderen Ländern vermittelt. In diesem Beitrag möchte ich näher darauf eingehen. Der Beitrag mag an einigen Stellen überaus kritisch erscheinen, doch ich möchte nicht, dass sich jemand vor den Kopf gestoßen fühlt. Ich mag euch sehr und viele von euch sind mir gute Freunde geworden, trotzdem ist es für mich an der Zeit, ein unbehagliches Phänomen, das ich seit längerem sehe, mal öffentlich auszusprechen. Mein Ziel ist es vor allem, ein Nachdenken über die Thematik zu fördern und das eigene Verhalten zu reflektieren.

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  • Deux

    Deux

    Today is a special one for me: It marks my second anniversary as part of the WordPress community. It was this day two years ago that I was on a plane to Sevilla, excited to attend my first ever WordCamp, WordCamp Europe 2015. It has been an incredible journey for me since then, and I’d like to process and share my experience of what has happened in the past year (I also have posts up for that very first WordCamp and for the recap of my first year).

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  • WordPress Users vs Developers

    This morning I read a very good discussion on the usability of WordPress Core on the Post Status Slack, primarily focussed on the comparison with platforms like Wix (if you’re a member, I highly encourage you to read it). One thing that, once again, struck me was how we have the issue where developer expectations of WordPress vastly differ from user expectations – let me address this in just a bit. For the beginning I would like to quote something Helen Hou-Sandí said during the discussion:

    WP does not currently exist as a good piece of software for “building a site”. It’s getting there, and I think the vision’s been there for quite some time, just that this particular dev-oriented audience gets lost in what we want to do with WP and pushes back against features that would move toward said vision in the first place, just because it’s not what we need to do client stuff.

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  • WordCamp Europe 2016 Recap – Good times with friends

    WordCamp Europe 2016 Recap – Good times with friends

    WordCamp Europe 2016 is over – well, not quite for me, according to a saying that says it’s not over until you blog about it. A year after my first WordCamp, it was coming back to the continental WordCamp which certainly raised the bar for those to come.

    WordCamp Europe (a.k.a. WCEU) this year was held in Vienna, Austria from June 24-26, with an announced attendance count of about 2400 people – the largest WordCamp yet. It also had Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, both co-founders of WordPress, attend their first WordCamp together in years. And it also had all the six lead developers of the project as well. It was held only a few days before the first beta of WordPress 4.6. It also had Wiener Schnitzel and other Vienna gourmet food per the location. A lot of perks here, so the expectations were high, and they were certainly met, maybe even more.

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