Post formats for block themes have been missing since Full Site Editing launched, and I finally built the solution. I’ve been contributing to WordPress training since 2014. I wrote lesson plans for Learn.WordPress.org. I teach people how to build with WordPress. I’ve spent over a decade helping others create plugins and extend WordPress.
But I’d never actually published my own plugin.
That changed last week when Post Formats for Block Themes went live on WordPress.org.
Post Formats for Block Themes: What’s Been Missing
I’ve known that post formats were missing from block themes since they launched. If you’ve been using WordPress long enough, you remember when Twenty Thirteen introduced post formats and how few themes actually supported them well. The feature always lived awkwardly between theme territory and core functionality.
Then block themes arrived with Full Site Editing, and post formats just… weren’t there. The feature that let you create beautifully formatted quotes, galleries, status updates, and chat logs got left behind.
That’s why I built Post Formats for Block Themes—to solve this gap properly.
The Feature That WordPress Forgot (And Then Kind of Remembered)
Post formats were introduced in WordPress version 3.1, back in 2011, through Trac ticket #14746. They were controversial from day one—the community accused WordPress of “chasing Tumblr” by adding nine standardized content types (aside, gallery, link, image, quote, status, video, audio, and chat) that mirrored Tumblr’s post types almost exactly.
The feature never quite worked. In 2013, WordPress 3.6 was supposed to launch a revamped Post Formats UI, but release lead Mark Jaquith pulled it during the Release Candidate stage with a remarkably candid admission: “The result just isn’t compelling, or obvious, or any of the things that it should be. It’s not just a matter of polish; it seems to be a fundamental issue with the concept.”
From Core Feature to Forgotten Functionality
Then post formats entered limbo. They stayed in core but stopped being developed. Theme support became spotty at best. When block themes launched with Full Site Editing, post formats just… weren’t there. Twenty Eighteen through Twenty Twenty-Four all dropped support completely. WordPress educator Morten Rand-Hendriksen even filed Trac ticket #32844 formally proposing the removal of post formats from core entirely.
The irony? In 2019, Automattic acquired Tumblr itself—the platform WordPress was accused of copying—for approximately $3 million (down from Yahoo’s $1.1 billion purchase). They announced plans to migrate Tumblr’s 500+ million blogs to WordPress infrastructure, then quietly shelved the project due to costs. Matt Mullenweg recently called it his “biggest failure or missed opportunity.” The feature that was supposed to make WordPress more Tumblr-like remains in core, barely used, while actual Tumblr bleeds money under Automattic’s ownership.
Then came Twenty Twenty-Five, which quietly restored support for all nine post formats using block patterns and Query Loop filtering. It was a signal that maybe—just maybe—post formats still mattered. But the implementation was incomplete. Block themes still don’t have proper format-specific templates. The old UI limitations remain. And developers who want to actually use post formats properly are left cobbling together their own solutions.
That’s the gap this plugin fills.
Why Post Formats Matter to Me
This isn’t just scratching a random itch. I wrote the first two lesson plans about post formats for Learn.WordPress.org:
I love post formats. They’re elegant. They solve a real problem: different content types need different presentations. A quote post shouldn’t look like a gallery. A status update shouldn’t have the same layout as a long-form article.
More importantly, I need this to work with the IndieWeb and Fediverse Activity Plugins I’m building with. Post formats are foundational to how I want to publish content across decentralized web protocols.
What It Actually Does
Post Formats for Block Themes brings all 10 classic post formats to modern block themes:
- Quote
- Gallery
- Status
- Chat
- Link
- Image
- Video
- Audio
- Aside
- Standard
But it’s not just a port of old functionality. It’s been rebuilt for how we use WordPress now. Here’s what makes Post Formats for Block Themes different from just enabling the old feature:
The Chat Log Block
This is the feature I’m most excited about. I wanted to include video captions, so I built a chat log parser that handles transcripts from Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and even subtitle formats like SRT and VTT.
You paste a conversation transcript:
john.doe 9:30 AM
Hey team, great job on the project!
jane.smith 9:32 AM
Thanks! Couldn't have done it without everyone's help.
And it formats it properly with semantic HTML and styling. Perfect for documenting team discussions, customer support conversations, or interview Q&As.
Auto-Detection That Doesn’t Force Your Hand
The plugin analyzes your content and automatically suggests formats. It can detect quotes with attribution, short status updates, and links. But it never forces a choice. You’re always in control.
Templates and Patterns
For developers: the plugin adds format-specific templates to the Site Editor (single-format-quote.html, etc.) and includes block patterns for each format using the modern WordPress API.
Want quote posts to have a different layout? Edit the template. Want galleries full-width? Done.
The Hard Parts
The hardest part wasn’t the code itself. It was mentally organizing how everything fits together with the new post pattern, modal, patterns, and templates. And then QA testing the chat log block to make sure it actually parsed all those different formats correctly.
The architecture took time to get right. WordPress has evolved so much in the past few years. Patterns, template parts, and the Site Editor. It all needed to work together cohesively.
Why I Open-Sourced It
The plugin is on WordPress.org and fully open source on GitHub.
This needs to remain truly open source. I want people to learn from it, contributors to improve it, and—honestly—WordPress Core to review it and consider including native post format support in block themes.
Post formats have been in WordPress since 3.1 (2011). They shouldn’t disappear just because we moved to block themes.
What I Want You to Do
If you’ve been missing post formats in block themes: install this and use it.
If you’re learning WordPress plugin development, read the code on GitHub. See how a modern plugin works with patterns, templates, and the block editor.
And if you’ve been thinking about publishing your own plugin but haven’t yet, take this as your sign. I waited 11 years. Don’t wait that long.
This is a monumental personal milestone for me. After over a decade of teaching others how to build with WordPress, I finally shipped my own plugin. It feels good.
Try It
Install from WordPress:
- Plugins > Add New
- Search “Post Formats for Block Themes”
- Install and activate
Or via WP-CLI:
wp plugin install post-formats-for-block-themes --activate
Or clone from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/courtneyr-dev/post-formats-for-block-themes.git
What’s Next
I’m already thinking about better integration with ActivityPub, POSSE, and the broader IndieWeb ecosystem. That’s where this really gets interesting for me.
But for now, I’m just happy this exists. And that I
Resources:
If this helps you, leave a review on WordPress.org or star the repo. And if you find bugs or have ideas, I want to hear about them.
That’s the story. Now it’s your turn. What are you waiting to ship?