The Block Protocol

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Posted by Luhmann
Feb 6, 2022 at 02:06 AM

This is an interesting idea:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2022/01/27/making-the-web-better-with-blocks/

“As a result of the non-standardization of blocks, our end-users suffer. If someone is using my blog engine, they can only use those blocks that I had time to implement. Those blocks may be pretty basic or incomplete. Users might want to use a fancier block that they saw in WordPress or Medium or Notion, but my editor doesn’t have it. Blocks can’t be shared or moved around very easily, and our users are limited to the features and capabilities that we had time to re-implement.

To fix this, we’re going to create a protocol called the Block Protocol.

It’s open, free, non-proprietary, we want it to be everywhere on the web.

It’s just a protocol that embedding applications can use to embed blocks. Any block can be used in any embedding application if they all follow the protocol.”

Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 8, 2022 at 03:42 PM

I think it’s a great idea. There is a plethora of (in many cases, excellent) software predicated on blocks – not least WordPress’s latest version of their editor in 5.9.

For block tweaking, I currently use Nicepage, which is amazing (and apart from complete websites, can also be used to generate WordPress and Joomla templates). There are some good block-oriented themes about, too (especially GeneratePress and its ancillaries), but I’ve yet to find a really, really friendly WordPress theme that’s doesn’t involve an amazing amount of scampering to and fro from one settings screen to another. Hence Nicepage!

For general drafting and layout, I use the brilliant Sparkle (macOS only, I’m afraid, although an iOS version is planned). But it’s very much a graphical layout app, although the recent addition of Layout Blocks has made it slightly more block-focused. It’s the only (more or less) WYSIWYG macOS web editor that automatically installs a (fully indexed) search engine, supports blog posts and allows you to password-protect pages (complete with smart fields that only appear to logged-in users).

But there are some other good ones out there too, like Blocs and Mobirise (both block-based), as well as some entertaining graphical ones like Wolf.

Cheers!
Bill

Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 10, 2022 at 05:16 PM

Sorry, I realise I didn’t really finish my musing here: yes, I think this is a great idea, but there are a number of different “block” models (compare e.g. the Divi WordPress theme with GeneratePress – both hugely popular, both very different). So I’m hoping this initiative will take a long, hard, critical look at the many block-based editing concepts out there and come up with something really flexible but also easy to use.

No pressure ;-)

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