[00:00:00] Se Reed: 8 7 6, 5, 3, 10.
[00:00:11] Jason Tucker: WPwatercooler building custom blocks with ACF. I’m Jason Tucker. You find me at Jason Tucker on Twitter.
[00:00:25] Steve Zehngut: I’m Steve Zehngut. I’m the founder of Zeek interacting with what is up with the birds. Oh my God.
[00:00:31] Jason Cosper: Um,
[00:00:32] Se Reed: Hi, I’m Sé Reed, I make buy, do stuff. Sereedmedia. I do a lot of parent tweeting now. It’s true.
[00:00:39] Jason Cosper: Yall in the hood. Is this your boy? Jason Cosper, AKA Fat Mullenweg, back at it again on the world’s most influential WordPress podcast.
[00:00:47] Se Reed: You
[00:00:47] Jason Tucker: And go and subscribe to that podcast over on apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, and maybe not Spotify, maybe that might, might go away. We’ll see. Um, but yeah. Good, good. Take a look at that, Steve. I just want to let you know the reason why the birds were still on there for yours is that you didn’t get to experience the birds that happened last episode.
[00:01:04] Jason Tucker: And I know you’re a huge fan of those built-in birds.
[00:01:08] Jason Tucker: Um, I was going to make a boat go by, but I couldn’t cut the boat out. So I was like, ah, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna leave it.
[00:01:14] Se Reed: the boats for me, the birds for Steve. Let’s be real.
[00:01:18] Jason Cosper: I mean, Steve should have also gotten a pastel duo tone applied to his
[00:01:23] Jason Tucker: Oh, I should have did that.
[00:01:24] Se Reed: No Tucker gets the pastel dual tone. I get the boat. Steve gets the bird and you can have some
[00:01:31] Steve Zehngut: I’ll give you the bird.
[00:01:32] Se Reed: uh, uh, you know what I want to give the bird to. And then your y’all I got, I know we’re talking about ACF specifically today and that’s great. Cause I love me to make CF, but, um,
[00:01:50] Steve Zehngut: Um,
[00:01:50] Se Reed: I really sat down with a clean install to do this.
[00:01:53] Jason Tucker: Uh huh.
[00:01:54] Se Reed: candidate for ACF.
[00:01:57] Steve Zehngut: okay.
[00:01:58] Se Reed: Um, I mean, I could sit there and figure it out, but I don’t know. This is in no way, none, zero zero way. Uh, for the lay person, like, no, it’s not, it’s just is not,
[00:02:11] Steve Zehngut: is slightly developed.
[00:02:13] Se Reed: it got harder. I don’t understand why we’re making things harder. I mean, and that it’s not ACS fault, obviously.
[00:02:21] Se Reed: But anyway, that’s what I want to say. Maybe it is ACS.
[00:02:25] Steve Zehngut: Well, so let’s start that. What, what, what, what were you trying to do?
[00:02:29] Se Reed: Oh. So I was just running the simplest test. There ever could be. All I did was make a few, um, uh,
[00:02:39] Steve Zehngut: Okay.
[00:02:39] Se Reed: I checkbox field or radio backfield called, you know, your mom, your face. I made them for you to show them to you. You’re welcome. I wanted to, and I was like, this is so simple. All I want to do. I was like, I was stoked.
[00:02:51] Se Reed: I was like, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be able to put, so I put the fields into the post. No problem. Maybe field group. So I go to, uh, put the date out using 2022, which, you know, And the, and the full-sized editor and I’m like, Hmm. So I’m going to have to, this is what I really want to clarify.
[00:03:12] Jason Cosper: Yeah.
[00:03:12] Se Reed: I am going to have to open my, um, my, my, my web editor, like my, my HTML editor, my, whatever the hell you call it.
[00:03:22] Steve Zehngut: Well, I think what we’re talking about today is an ACF block and to create a block, you have to add some PHP to your theme.
[00:03:29] Se Reed: Yeah. There’s like, I was like, I really thought the point here was not having to do that. So I was looking in every little corner to try to find, I was like,
[00:03:41] Steve Zehngut: like the make block button, the
[00:03:44] Se Reed: No, the glove button or the ability to do anything in the template editor that resembled anything. And you can’t, there’s nothing.
[00:03:52] Se Reed: I’m like, there’s nothing here. This isn’t different. I’m super confused. So basically you’re
[00:03:58] Jason Tucker: There’s videos of me being very frustrated on, on Facebook and YouTube that you can watch of me, literally just cursing at a stupid FSE.
[00:04:07] Steve Zehngut: Okay. So, so let’s, let’s let’s before we get into full set and let’s discuss what this let’s discuss what this is first.
[00:04:14] Se Reed: Yeah, there’s multiple problems. Talk about which one we’re talking about.
[00:04:18] Steve Zehngut: Let’s discuss what an ACF block is and what they were trying to solve first. Okay.
[00:04:23] Jason Tucker: Perfect.
[00:04:25] Steve Zehngut: so, so when Gutenberg was introduced, right, we had a Gutenberg blocks and the ability for developers to create their own custom blocks for the, for Gutenberg. Right? So a block that would show up in the Gutenberg editor that you can use as part of your, part of your page or your content, um, to do that, to create a block
[00:04:48] Se Reed: Part of your template, let’s use the terminology, correct? Let’s let’s anyway, go ahead.
[00:04:54] Jason Tucker: Oh, God, you broke Steve.
[00:04:57] Steve Zehngut: I just get out by the internet funny today. Um, so two yeah, two. So to create a block, a Gutenberg block, you have to have knowledge of PHP. You have to have knowledge of react. Um, there’s a lot of different skill sets. You, you had to have to be able to create your own block. And so what ACF was trying to solve was a much easier way to do that with just some simple PHP skills.
[00:05:21] Steve Zehngut: And so
[00:05:22] Se Reed: Basically, they tried to keep their, their basic function structure intact so that people didn’t have to completely like, like, like didn’t have to completely learn a new language in order to use the tool they were already.
[00:05:39] Steve Zehngut: So I, I pasted, uh, something in the, in the chat. So all you have to do is basically take the little snippet of PHP putting in your theme, and then you have, now you have an ACF block, which is basically an encapsulated. The thing that you can install within Guten that basically shows up in Gutenberg and then you in ACF have control over all the fields that appear within that block.
[00:06:03] Se Reed: Right. Yeah, I guess.
[00:06:06] Steve Zehngut: what an ETF block
[00:06:08] Se Reed: And that’s great. And it’s obviously needed really my, uh, what I was thinking I was getting was just the block and I’m, I’m not quite sure why we have to go make a block in order for there to be a block,
[00:06:20] Steve Zehngut: I’ll I’ll tell you why. Um, that’s a great question. So the first part of that, so go back, actually go back to the screen, share Jason. So the first part in the one piece there is, is the registering of a block. Um, and so, so the register of block is pretty straightforward. All you’re doing is basically saying, okay, I now have a new block.
[00:06:39] Steve Zehngut: Um, it’s it’s on, this is the link I sent.
[00:06:42] Jason Tucker: Yeah.
[00:06:43] Steve Zehngut: it’s down down the page a little bit. It’s number, it’s just number one, registered block. Um, there it is. So, so that, that code is pretty straight forward. You really just copy and paste it, but then you add your ACF fields, number three, which is further down, that’s the, that’s the part that you, that you need to really do?
[00:07:01] Steve Zehngut: That’s the, basically the, all the CSS and the front end, uh, rendering. That’s that’s what you, that’s where the developer part comes in, because however, the blocks going to display is up to you. And so you, you have to go in here and create the, the front end piece of the block here. So they’re giving you an example, but that’s the hard part of this.
[00:07:21] Jason Tucker: Yeah. Here’s where you’re getting all your fields and
[00:07:23] Jason Tucker: defining them as desirables.
[00:07:26] Se Reed: The real problem here is that, uh, because there are really good builders out there that are already pulling dynamic data from ACF. Um, I essentially forgot that you had to build your own. I mean, and that’s, I didn’t totally forget because last week I was, I was building my own, uh, uh, repeater field, display code, whatever.
[00:07:47] Se Reed: So I, you know, I’ve been building also. Again, I just really expected this to be like ready for the next step. But ACF is still very much not
[00:07:57] Jason Tucker: I ran into when
[00:07:58] Jason Tucker: I was, when I was resting.
[00:08:00] Steve Zehngut: refresh my memory for this, for this episode, just because I forgot. And so it’s not, yeah, this is not plug and play.
[00:08:10] Se Reed: Yeah.
[00:08:10] Steve Zehngut: kind of a solution.
[00:08:11] Se Reed: I think this, the, the ACF blocks is basically just keeping things at par, like keeping things that you can still use your stuff. So my question then to
[00:08:23] Jason Tucker: Only for
[00:08:23] Jason Tucker: new blocks that
[00:08:24] Se Reed: and the general, you know, blogosphere out there, uh, is what are you guys doing with your block? Is there anything super cool that is happening with these ACF blocks?
[00:08:34] Se Reed: That was not happening previously?
[00:08:36] Steve Zehngut: So what’s happened. So the news and the reason we’re talking about this now is because before in, in ACF five 11, which is the current stable version of ACF, you can use these blocks within the. New the release candidate. That’s about to come out for ACF. Is it six or five 12 or whatever the next,
[00:08:58] Jason Tucker: I have 12.
[00:08:59] Steve Zehngut: yeah. So five, 12, so five 12. They, they now have extended that into full site editing. So those blocks that you create now get show up in the full site editor. That’s the difference?
[00:09:13] Se Reed: Yeah, I, uh, I, I feel, um, I, I feel for ACF
[00:09:19] Steve Zehngut: I feel
[00:09:19] Se Reed: what I do, I feel for them.
[00:09:21] Steve Zehngut: for any, any WordPress plugin at this point.
[00:09:24] Se Reed: Yeah. I it’s like working so hard to just keep things usable as opposed to working hard, to create innovation.
[00:09:33] Jason Tucker: Yeah, I
[00:09:34] Jason Tucker: think the ACF thing they see of things good because it’s going to, it’s going to make it so people who are making new blocks will be able to make new blocks. The problem I was having is that if I didn’t want to use ACF blocks their own blocks, there’s you can’t use ACF in anything in Gutenberg.
[00:09:49] Jason Tucker: Like you, there there’s just no functionality. There’s no place to be like, Hey, give me a field, make a display in this thing. But let me use a color picker.
[00:09:57] Jason Tucker: Throw that in there.
[00:09:58] Steve Zehngut: You can. Well, I’ll tell you why you can’t. You actually can, it just shows up in a very weird spot. Right? So where it showed up in classic editor in a very inline, right. And it was, it was a panel that you could move around and it was part of the system. And now in Gutenberg, it shows up at the bottom, in that little,
[00:10:17] Jason Tucker: No. I know that.
[00:10:20] Se Reed: displaying the
[00:10:20] Jason Tucker: a block of like text. I want to make a header, take a header, grab it in there and drop it in there and then assign that to a field and then be done.
[00:10:28] Steve Zehngut: we’re not there
[00:10:29] Jason Tucker: Devi, Gutenberg or divvy. And BeaverBuilder both could do that.
[00:10:33] Steve Zehngut: Yeah. You need to use Squarespace.
[00:10:34] Se Reed: This is what I’m saying. So I think I’m freaking
[00:10:40] Jason Tucker: All right. I think, I think we need to definitely talk about more ACF stuff. I, I w we can bitch a lot about.
[00:10:46] Steve Zehngut: no, it’s a good competition because, because I read, I read the same press releases that you all read and we got excited cause like, oh cool. It’s now easy.
[00:10:56] Jason Tucker: no.
[00:10:57] Steve Zehngut: not.
[00:10:58] Se Reed: It’s not, and this is what, okay. I’m not making it about full site editing. I think maybe there’s like an infection happening where everyone’s like, oh, this is like, it’s honestly, it’s got web, like it’s not web three. Right. But it’s web three style hype where it’s like, like, oh, this is so cool. This is so.
[00:11:20] Steve Zehngut: you know, on the blockchain, I don’t understand.
[00:11:23] Se Reed: The other blocks, the blocks of the hip is blocks. No, but like the web three is all like, yeah, this is a change in the world, whatever. And if she’s, and then you go there and you’re like, there’s a lot of, there’s not a lot here. You know what I mean? Like there’s, there’s not, it’s like, it like disappears into ephemera.
[00:11:38] Se Reed: Right. And that’s the same
[00:11:40] Jason Cosper: Oh hat, no cattle.
[00:11:42] Se Reed: exactly. Exactly, exactly. And that’s the same thing that’s happening with full site editing. They’re like done, ah, here’s five, nine. You can do whatever. And it’s like, just kidding only in like 30 themes and also not really very well at all. And then ACF blocks is like, or ACF is like, you can do blocks here.
[00:11:58] Se Reed: It is, except for you have to edit your PHP template files, and it’s actually more complicated and it’s not straightforward at all. And you have to be more of a developer, but you don’t have to use.
[00:12:07] Steve Zehngut: this two voice thing you got going on
[00:12:10] Jason Cosper: Yeah.
[00:12:11] Steve Zehngut: cost let’s give costs for the floor. He was going to say.
[00:12:17] Jason Cosper: Well, it’s funny because I was going to spin into let’s hear what Tucker has had to go through because he’s been working on rebuilding. Uh, the WPwatercooler site in Gutenberg.
[00:12:31] Se Reed: has well, so the water cooler site is a good, uh, a good example because it has a lot of custom field data in the form of, you know, show information. Like who’s been on the show, you know, topics.
[00:12:46] Jason Tucker: Well, yeah, I have all sorts of stuff, but none of them, none of it’s working the way that I would love it to work. I I’m going with you just where you are now going through right now say is what I’m going through,
[00:12:57] Jason Tucker: where I’m just like,
[00:12:57] Se Reed: through anything. This was, I
[00:12:59] Jason Tucker: going to make a block. All right. Let’s make a block. And then we’re.
[00:13:02] Jason Tucker: And so we, you know, it’s funny, I’m watching you guys through our text messages throughout the week. Um, you guys are talking about various like, uh,
[00:13:11] Jason Tucker: uh,
[00:13:11] Steve Zehngut: various keys. He hasn’t been on the show in a long time.
[00:13:15] Jason Tucker: but you guys are, you, you guys are talking about these different, these different types of, um, plugins that will make an ACF block type of thing that would show up on the screen. None of them were working. None of them are there yet. And a lot of them don’t have the capabilities, for instance, like a color picker, the color picker still doesn’t work.
[00:13:34] Jason Tucker: Right. Cause it has to run in an I-frame and you end up with like all this like, um, issues with shadow Dom and whatnot. And it just, it becomes like a whole thing. So JavaScript sucks, dude is so difficult for somebody to try to pull off what they’re trying to pull off. And, um, I’m hopeful that we’ll get there.
[00:13:50] Se Reed: guys, the color
[00:13:51] Jason Cosper: during a
[00:13:51] Se Reed: aren’t working though. This is like some basic stuff. This is like not, this is like a word document level functionality. And.
[00:14:02] Steve Zehngut: this is the problem. This is the problem with the WordPress ecosystem, right? They don’t control the ecosystem. It’s a platform with a whole bunch of third-party technologies. Matt and team are trying to move the platform forward as quick as possible. Right. But those, all those third parties can’t, can’t move that fast.
[00:14:20] Steve Zehngut: And the problem with something like an ACF is they’re going to, they’re going to get this all ready for full site editing. And then the next thing is going to be available. Right. Right. They’re gonna, it’s going to be ready to go. And the hearing is for full set editing, and now here’s the next new thing is going to be announced.
[00:14:34] Steve Zehngut: And we’re just going to keep cycling, like.
[00:14:36] Se Reed: Well, because I actually, I feel like ACF just like, kind of cut up its own meta boxes and on the Gutenberg side, like, you know, from the original, the original block editor conversion, not let alone full site editing. So like, um, I, I think that the
[00:14:54] Steve Zehngut: the cadences. Is it cadences? What’s the portal cadence Kane
[00:14:58] Se Reed: condensed.
[00:14:59] Steve Zehngut: they don’t match.
[00:15:01] Jason Cosper: I was going to say, um, really I had to invoke a friend of the program, Scott Kingsley clerk, uh, like if only the fields API had happened when he was pushing for it, what five years ago? Longer, um, that we wouldn’t be running into some of these problems right now. Uh, we would maybe have something a little more robust, uh, maybe Gutenberg or the full site editing wouldn’t have shipped yet because everything wasn’t baked, uh, you know, because there was also, there would be a field as API to contend with, but we might be in a better position.
[00:15:40] Steve Zehngut: But they’re also, um, shipping, th th th the, the sh the, um, the versions of WordPress are coming out so fast and they’re shipping these half-baked ideas right. In, in versions of WordPress. So I was thinking you’d be better to, to completely develop. Release it, let it sit for awhile. Right. And then, and then you can work on fixes, but let, let the plugins catch up to what are the third-parties catch up to what was just released?
[00:16:10] Se Reed: they’re they’re relentless. I wanna, I wanna talk real quick about the, um, the, I just put this, I don’t know how you can get that on the screen, this quote, I just pulled it from the ACF documentation, not to like keep branding.
[00:16:23] Steve Zehngut: We can just read it.
[00:16:24] Se Reed: want to read it in your voice? Read it in your voice, Steve.
[00:16:27] Steve Zehngut: No, you’re doing the two voices, but WordPress saves block data as HTML comments in the post content posts. Oh, there we go. Jason, ACF blocks follow suit and save their data as a JSON object. Would that HTML comment?
[00:16:43] Se Reed: First of all, let’s parse the sentence. No, let’s love perse the sentence, my point. Uh, so I already like back in the day, I had problems with ACF data because I used to, again, back in the day, just like pull. Right. Like when you would make before ACF, you could just make manual custom fields and then you just like pull the data and it was like, the value was there.
[00:17:04] Se Reed: Right. And then ACF has their, um, what would you call it? Serialized data, like an decoupled data, right. Where it’s like
[00:17:14] Steve Zehngut: That’s a double negative, but sure.
[00:17:16] Se Reed: yeah, like. So and you couldn’t just pull it anymore. Right. You had to have the, kind of the translator that of ACF. Right. And then this is essentially now that level of, of serialization inside one, one table, one column, Y. One column one thing. So like, I know that we’ve talked about, um, how ugly, let’s just say even ugly B uh, the block editor, um, data looks right. It’s got these it’s like HTML, but like with
[00:17:59] Jason Tucker: That’s a markup.
[00:18:02] Se Reed: like extra, extra stuff going on and really like reading like comments in, in straight code. Right. I haven’t looked at this and this is probably I, sorry, I’m just kind of putting it out there, but like, is that, is the serialized data still inside the now inside the post content table, like separately?
[00:18:22] Se Reed: Is that what’s happening?
[00:18:24] Steve Zehngut: Your ACF data.
[00:18:26] Se Reed: Yeah, because now it’s saying the ACF is saving their data as JSON object in the HTML comment.
[00:18:32] Steve Zehngut: I’ll have to look.
[00:18:33] Se Reed: the theory data in that thing. And it’s like, Two things removed some what’s happening.
[00:18:39] Steve Zehngut: I will have to look.
[00:18:40] Se Reed: Will you look, I don’t know. I don’t really know where to look for that, honestly, I guess in a database, but I don’t have
[00:18:46] Jason Tucker: Yeah. You’d want to look in the database with where a block is being used. And then if it has an ACF block, how is it storing in that comment? It’s probably like a big blob in that comment of just stuff.
[00:19:00] Se Reed: Like, does anyone feel bad about the data tangles we are creating? Like everyone’s like, oh,
[00:19:08] Jason Tucker: From day one.
[00:19:09] Se Reed: worst thing that ever existed.
[00:19:11] Steve Zehngut: You talking about the technical debt we’re incurring.
[00:19:13] Se Reed: I mean, we’re like the technical debt of web three is nothing to a post in WordPress now. Like what is happening? I don’t understand. I thought we were all upset for a long time about the fact that like, everything was using shortcodes and then the shortcodes wouldn’t degrade properly.
[00:19:31] Se Reed: And now we’ve got like short codes, like steroids,
[00:19:35] Jason Tucker: Well,
[00:19:35] Se Reed: you
[00:19:35] Jason Tucker: it gets, it gets worse
[00:19:36] Jason Tucker: because
[00:19:38] Se Reed: and
[00:19:38] Jason Tucker: go and try to, if you go and try to copy texts, that’s in the, that’s in not full site editor, but just in a block editor, copy that and then go to a sin. Like just send it to somebody as an email. Like, oh, look here, here’s the text. And I’m going to say.
[00:19:53] Steve Zehngut: no, you need, you need that old
[00:19:55] Jason Tucker: I have to preview the page first, highlight all the texts and then send it.
[00:19:59] Steve Zehngut: What’s that what’s that filter in tiny MCE, where they strip out all the, all the word data
[00:20:04] Jason Tucker: to be the opposite.
[00:20:05] Steve Zehngut: you basically need that.
[00:20:07] Jason Tucker: Yeah.
[00:20:08] Se Reed: this is what, but, okay. So there is, I know I’ve heard a lot of people like kind of ringing this bell and saying, this is bad, but like, why is it good? Like, I don’t get why it’s good. Like, how is this good? How is this building for the future? Anything.
[00:20:25] Jason Tucker: Yeah.
[00:20:26] Jason Tucker: It’s because early on they thought it was a good idea to make these block patterns that you could copy and then paste and you guys were super excited about it. And the whole time I’m, I’m listening to you guys talk about these block patterns that you could copy and paste in there.
[00:20:38] Jason Tucker: I’m like, why are you. Like, why are you copied a bunch of like literally comments and then piecing them into the, into the page so that you can get a column and say was stoked about columns or like a big, I call it the thing and it’s, and it’s,
[00:20:53] Jason Tucker: and I’m like,
[00:20:53] Se Reed: that is
[00:20:54] Jason Tucker: yeah, you are, you were, I,
[00:20:56] Jason Tucker: if I find the video,
[00:20:57] Se Reed: the tape. There’s never been a time. I was excited about block pattern
[00:21:01] Jason Tucker: you were stoked about BDO the PACOM columns in there as block patterns.
[00:21:07] Se Reed: However, I do think columns are important. I think there a fundamental layout tool, um, that like was invented when the newspaper and books like there’s like in actual the Gutenberg Bible, there are columns. So I am not really sure how.
[00:21:23] Jason Tucker: But what happened when they looked at it in the pocket edition? That’s what I want to know.
[00:21:27] Se Reed: Like I don’t
[00:21:29] Jason Tucker: Did they, did they make it one column in the pocket edition or did they, or did they do.
[00:21:33] Steve Zehngut: The pocket additions. I’ll short codes.
[00:21:35] Se Reed: the pocket of the Gutenberg Bible
[00:21:38] Steve Zehngut: It’s just all short
[00:21:38] Se Reed: just wanted to be clear about what we were talking about now is just that we’ve, uh, a look gym thing. Shortcodes are cool. Well, look, I am, uh, now I think short codes look tidy. That’s what
[00:21:49] Jason Tucker: Oh, heck yeah.
[00:21:51] Se Reed: like what, how are we not going back? Like ACF, didn’t get easier.
[00:21:58] Steve Zehngut: We are going, we are going, God,
[00:22:00] Se Reed: is getting messier.
[00:22:02] Jason Tucker: we are going backwards. Not what
[00:22:05] Jason Tucker: onstage
[00:22:06] Steve Zehngut: I’m proud of you expecting us to learn from our past mistakes. That’s ridiculous.
[00:22:10] Se Reed: I’m just so confused as to how like, and like everyone’s like is the future and I’m like, the future is gunky.
[00:22:18] Steve Zehngut: Now the future is the metaverse.
[00:22:22] Se Reed: Break my brain, I believe very strongly in
[00:22:27] Steve Zehngut: what did mark
[00:22:28] Se Reed: whole
[00:22:29] Steve Zehngut: mark on this team this week? What did he named his team members that like the, the meta, the meta people or something
[00:22:35] Se Reed: who did
[00:22:35] Steve Zehngut: lines, mark? Uh,
[00:22:37] Jason Tucker: remember. I just, I heard this
[00:22:38] Steve Zehngut: yeah, I’ll think of it.
[00:22:40] Se Reed: I’ve stopped listening to any news about that, because that is my dog’s name. And until she passes away, which will be sometime in the near future. Uh, I, I refuse to acknowledge it so he can just talk all he wants. I was trying.
[00:22:59] Steve Zehngut: Hi, there met a mates, met a mate.
[00:23:04] Jason Tucker: And people that work for Coinbase are Coinbase,
[00:23:07] Steve Zehngut: Oh God.
[00:23:09] Jason Tucker: H E S
[00:23:10] Se Reed: All right. Did I I’ve I think I’ve said this on the show before I went on a tour of Facebook’s offices one time, a couple years ago, and they had all these, you know, inspirational posters on the wall and the one, uh, and the postcards you could take. And I, the one I remember, and I think about all the time, it like haunt me is one that was just really big red with block lettering.
[00:23:30] Se Reed: And it said every day feels like a week.
[00:23:34] Steve Zehngut: That’s not good.
[00:23:35] Se Reed: And I was like, well, this sounds like torture, actually. It
[00:23:39] Jason Cosper: No, ma’am.
[00:23:40] Steve Zehngut: Yeah, that’s what I said all the, all the time during the lockdown. It’s like, God, this week has been a long year.
[00:23:46] Se Reed: Yeah. But anyway, that’s, that’s what Facebook’s up to.
[00:23:50] Jason Tucker: I love that. I love that. We, we, um, we realized that ACF and blocks and block editor and all that stuff is kind of screwed up. Like it’s trying to live in a space that’s just not built correctly. Like, you know, ACF is trying to get things to work in this weird
[00:24:08] Se Reed: They’re doing their best.
[00:24:09] Steve Zehngut: By the way, by the way, nothing,
[00:24:11] Jason Tucker: fault ACF.
[00:24:13] Steve Zehngut: we’re not faulting ACF in NYC. They’re doing everything right.
[00:24:19] Jason Tucker: I mean, I’ve been sending them emails nonstop saying, Hey, can you add this feature? He had this feature. And they’re like, that’s not really part of what we do. Like
[00:24:27] Steve Zehngut: Yeah.
[00:24:27] Se Reed: I
[00:24:27] Jason Tucker: but, but who’s going to put it in there.
[00:24:29] Se Reed: for their work. And I apologize to them on behalf of whatever the hell it is word breasts is doing right now. That’s all I have to say because they’re making everyone ACF is not, but full-size like, they’re, they’re trying to bridge the gap to make this, the tools that we’ve come to rely on to create sites that are not just the basic run of the mill, or even basic run of the mill because you know, fields are pretty essential, but they’re trying to make that.
[00:24:57] Se Reed: Doable and I appreciate their work. So thanks ACF peeps for
[00:25:01] Jason Tucker: at
[00:25:01] Se Reed: fighting the good fight out
[00:25:03] Steve Zehngut: Yeah, in the metaverse.
[00:25:04] Se Reed: It over with the men of eights. It’ll be real cool.
[00:25:08] Jason Tucker: at what point in your, in your pipeline of work that you have going on here, are you going to then say we are now going to start building sites using full site?
[00:25:18] Steve Zehngut: Not anytime soon,
[00:25:20] Jason Tucker: I would you, if you had to like guess is this five years, is this three years? Is this
[00:25:26] Steve Zehngut: you know, we, I have no idea because we, we build all of our themes from scratch. So full-size editor doesn’t even enter into our conversation.
[00:25:35] Se Reed: Why would you give, why would anyone give their. This is the PR this is probably the fundamental problem with full site editing and ACF compatibility. If you’re using ACF, you’re probably building a site for someone else. Just probably, you might use it for yourself, but that’s only like a couple of sites that lacks, right?
[00:25:53] Se Reed: So like, if you are building a site for someone else and. You don’t need full site editing. Cause you’re not going to give them control of that site because the whole reason you’re there is to build the site. So they don’t have to worry about template parts and query
[00:26:10] Jason Tucker: they’re adding WooCommerce
[00:26:11] Jason Tucker: support. That’s going to be awesome.
[00:26:13] Steve Zehngut: that’s what ACF is for it’s for it’s for custom content to match your client’s workflow. That’s what it’s, that’s what it’s meant for.
[00:26:21] Se Reed: So I don’t know, maybe, maybe. This is the problem that we’re all just marching down the full site, editing train. Well, we’re not, I’m not either, but like, okay. But like why, how does this feed her? How does it square? Like who’s using full site editing and ACF blocks, like, and like editing template parts and whatever.
[00:26:48] Se Reed: Like, who is this? Who is this unicorn of a person.
[00:26:51] Steve Zehngut: you do it yourself?
[00:26:53] Se Reed: Yeah,
[00:26:54] Jason Tucker: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Se Reed: I mean, I, and I, this has nothing to do with ACF, but I keep going back to the fact that full site editing is for wordpress.com and that’s it. But, um,
[00:27:05] Jason Tucker: Well, and there’s plenty of other, there’s plenty of other like, um, um, custom field plugins that are not ACF that are ACS competitors that are also having to deal with this stuff as
[00:27:15] Steve Zehngut: Yeah.
[00:27:16] Se Reed: That’s
[00:27:17] Jason Tucker: all of them.
[00:27:17] Se Reed: Is there any, like I haven’t, because it just ACF is such a
[00:27:21] Steve Zehngut: What is the other one that it’s actually mentioned the article? Let’s see. Um, um, I forget.
[00:27:29] Jason Tucker: Yeah, I use what I use.
[00:27:31] Steve Zehngut: Yeah,
[00:27:32] Jason Tucker: Yeah.
[00:27:33] Se Reed: or you forget.
[00:27:34] Steve Zehngut: the other, the ACF competitor, um, it’ll come to me right after, right after the episode ends, it’ll pop in my head.
[00:27:42] Se Reed: Well, you can treat it, but, so, so I actually, and so that’s a good point, cause I have not looked at other custom field, um, options that are out there and maybe they’re doing something that is simpler where you can just display a few. And a block like this is what I want. Right. All I’m ex all I, if I were actually trying to just make this easy for a user, I would want to be able to pull in.
[00:28:09] Se Reed: And this is what I was looking for a block that says custom fields. And then it says you got a little drop down and then it just gives you
[00:28:18] Steve Zehngut: The
[00:28:19] Se Reed: a list of the custom fields you want to pull.
[00:28:21] Jason Tucker: I, I love,
[00:28:22] Se Reed: if you want the value or the label or both.
[00:28:23] Steve Zehngut: limitation.
[00:28:24] Jason Tucker: that say is
[00:28:25] Steve Zehngut: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Jason Tucker: up that say is going down the same rabbit hole that I was going down and I’m just
[00:28:29] Jason Tucker: watching her go further and further down it. And I’m like, I’m sorry, you’re
[00:28:33] Steve Zehngut: not what teaching is. The limitation is not in ACF. It’s in the metabolic structure. It’s in the metal. It’s in the it’s in the post-master’s structure.
[00:28:41] Se Reed: right. Cause you can’t pull it out. Right. You can’t pull out that data. Look, Cassper found all the, all the, uh, other tools were looking for. And
[00:28:53] Jason Tucker: Yeah. So there’s jet engine pods, toolset
[00:28:57] Se Reed: check out some of them and see if things square with the editor and see if that works. But, um, I’m still in my, in my belief that the full site editor is a confused function and I didn’t feel that way about Gutenberg.
[00:29:11] Se Reed: I thought Gutenberg was poorly released, but I thought it had potential. It had,
[00:29:16] Jason Tucker: since I’ve read this book already, say, since I’ve read this book, since I bet read this book already, I’ll give you a headstart. So, um, go, go download cadence, um, the cadence plugin, and then pay for the pro version of it. And then they will give you the smallest amount of functionality that you can actually select an ACL. And then you’re like, why is there bales doing this?
[00:29:42] Se Reed: Yeah. No. And that’s it. So you can pull a custom field and just display a value
[00:29:47] Jason Tucker: and only their blocks.
[00:29:49] Se Reed: right. Well, thanks cadence.
[00:29:51] Jason Tucker: Yeah. I mean, it’s great for them. I mean, I love that they built it and it was a lot of work for them to build it, but it’s that, that’s, it
[00:29:58] Se Reed: Why is it ACS
[00:29:59] Jason Tucker: as you can go, I asked the same day. Look up at six seconds after
[00:30:08] Se Reed: We’re in such
[00:30:08] Jason Tucker: Steve, Steve has a golf date.
[00:30:11] Jason Tucker: He needs to go. So,
[00:30:14] Se Reed: I love you all. I love you all out there listening. I love you all in here. I feel
[00:30:19] Jason Tucker: oh boy,
[00:30:20] Se Reed: for being, being part of it and listened to.
[00:30:23] Jason Tucker: our outro. that ultra you can go to debut water Corp com slash subscribe, go to apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher. Take a look at them. Talk to y’all later. You have a good one. Bye bye.
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