Gutenberg Times: Block commenting, fun with Telex, from classic to block theme—Weekend Edition 341
Hi there,
A month before Beta, is the time I get excited about a major release. Many new features—I see it all coming together via GitHub and Trac. The Source of Truth is in the works, but it will take a few more weeks to be published, as only when Release candidate 2 comes out I can be sure about what actually made it into the release.
Until then, check out Automattic Telex for your personal block-building needs. Below you learn from others who went before you.
Today the 190th Oktoberfest 2025 started in Munich. Should you be in town, give serendipity a chance and let me know. We could meet up.
Enjoy the weekend regardless of where you are.
Yours, 
Birgit
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog 120—WordCamp US, Automattic Telex, Gutenberg 21.4 and 21.5, and the need for more blocks with special guest Sarah Norris.
If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It’ll help with the distribution.
Block-level commenting is Gutenberg Phase 3 feature and in very active development. Although still experimental, it is worth testing now, as it heads to WordPress 6.9.
Aki Hamano, core contributor to Gutenberg, has created the Block Commenting Data generator plugin to help him streamline his testing process for this feature. The plugin is available on GitHub, and it is not for use in a production environment. On activation it creates users, comments, and other data.
Gutenberg 21.7 Release candidate is now available for testing. It’ll be released on September 23, 2025. Block Commenting is a big part, as are DataForms improvements and write mode updates.
As a side note: You don’t have to wait for the next Gutenberg release to test things. You can use the Gutenberg Nightly with Playground
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
Check out Wes Theron’s latest video where he shows you how to build one-of-a-kind page layouts in WordPress. He dives into crafting a clean, distraction-free landing page, promoting a special event, and even how to give a specific page its own unique header and footer. Custom templates are totally where it’s at!
Justin Tadlock updated his Progress Bar Block plugin to v 2.0. It now supports Core features like drop shadow, blockGap and layout controls. It’s a feature-rich block that feels at home in the block editor, using the known interface components in the sidebar.
Dennis Buchwald, founder of the dbw-media agency in Germany, released his first plugin into the WordPress plugin directory, an infinite logo carousel block. You upload all the logos into the media library and into the block editor, and it displays a logo carousel with customizable speed, spacing, and hover-pause. A great way to display client, partner, or sponsor logos scrolling over your website. You can even control the overlay at the two sides. This one is a slight pink. It’s also on brand for dbw-media.
Welcome to the open-source community of WordPress plugin developers, Dennis Buchwald at dbw-media.de 
Building blocks with Telex
Automattic Telex is like the next big thing in block building, all thanks to natural language! Just tell it what you’re dreaming up, and Telex will whip up the code, package it as a plugin, and you can test it out right away. It’s still experimental, but honestly, there’s no better time to start making your ideas into real WordPress blocks!
Not everyone who’s tried and shared their journey has hit the jackpot. Jamie Marsland totally had a blast, as he shared over on X (formerly Twitter)!
Jeff Paul also gave it whirl and shared his experience in Pong Block: A Fun New WordPress Plugin (and a Nod to Telex). He wrote, “That simplicity is why I’d recommend Telex to anyone curious about experimenting with block plugin creation. It feels like a fast way to explore an idea and get it live.” His plugin already landed in the WordPress repository, and you can add some playfulness to your site.
JuanMa Garrido, developer advocate at Automattic, also took Telex for a spin. You can read about this journey in his post Playing with Telex: Building a Mermaid Diagram Block in Just a Few Prompts. Mermaid Diagrams can be created via Markdown notation and then displayed on the front end.
Marco Ivanovic, designer at Automattic, built a plugin called Space Dots with Telex. A fun block to display a bunch of moving dots that will react to your mouse movements.
Nick Hamze shared his Telex creations on X (formerly known as Twitter), like this flash card block. He also promised to submit his best 10 creations to the WordPress repository.
Are you ready to try it too? In his post on wp-content.co, Automattic Launches Telex: An AI Tool That Turns Prompts into Custom WordPress Blocks, Nithin Sreeraj shares some more voices around the community and then walks you through what to expect when engaging with the AI interface and what happens when the first version is available in the Playground-based interface. It’s well described.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
Mary Ann Aschenbrenner, first-time speaker at WCUS 2025, was interviewed by Nathan Wrigley for the WPTavern podcast. #185 – Mary Ann Aschenbrenner on Switching Clients From Classic to Block Themes. They discussed the differences between classic and block themes, with Mary Ann offering practical advice for switching to modern block-based themes. She shared why to make the switch, potential challenges, and client conversion stories. Perfect for anyone wanting to understand how block themes make site building more accessible.
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Ryan Welcher has been on the quest to build the Core Icon block, inspired by Nick Diego’s Icon Block plugin and has been livestreaming his adventures with all kinds of tribulations. He dedicated two live stream sessions to this task.
- Building the new Icon Block for WordPress core
- Building the new Icon Block for WordPress core: Part 2
Brian Coords, developer advocate with WooCommerce, asked, Are you down with MCP? because he initially didn’t get the hype—why waste AI tokens on simple tasks you could do faster manually? But after building a custom WordPress plugin for his wife’s bakery to track ingredient costs, he realized MCP’s power isn’t just data connection; it’s combining that with AI’s natural language interface to replace clunky forms with conversational commands.
This week, JuanMa Garrido tackled in his livestream REST API Authentication. Together with ChatGPT, he took a deep dive into WordPress REST API authentication methods, starting with the basics of how REST APIs work and setting up WordPress with proper permalinks. Then Garrido walked through WordPress’s core authentication systems, showing how cookie authentication works in the block editor by examining network requests and cookie headers. He explained WordPress’s built-in CSRF protection using nonces and demonstrated creating custom REST endpoints with permission callbacks. The tutorial also covers application passwords as an alternative to cookies, comparing them to JSON Web Tokens and discussing security considerations for token storage. Finally, Garrido explored more advanced topics like implementing JWT workflows with proxy servers and OAuth2 authentication for third-party apps.
Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to [email protected]