Blockify the WordPress Dashboard with the Mission Ctrl Plugin

Nick Hamze makes it no secret that he loves the WordPress block system. He has spearheaded several unique blocks on the fun side of things as well as made more practical blocks through his Sorta Brilliant brand. It is his website for funding ideas for the block editor. For his most recent project, he has taken blocks outside of the post-editing screen, and this project is, well, sorta brilliant too.

Mission Ctrl is a WordPress plugin that blockifies the WordPress dashboard screen. The plugin allows users, developers, agencies, or even hosts set up the dashboard with custom widgets (called boards) that are built through the block editor.

It is just brilliant enough to make me ask myself why I did not think of the idea first.

It is also low-hanging fruit that took little code to accomplish. Hamze said his mission is to get blocks everywhere in WordPress. The dashboard was a logical place to begin. “When I start a new site, I change my permalinks and hide all the dashboard widgets, which is sad, and I knew blocks could fix it,” he said.

I would wager that many other WordPress users are in the same boat. The dashboard is essentially a dead-end screen that we all have to live with. Few developers have put much time and effort into revitalizing this admin screen that all WordPress users visit upon logging in.

Mission Ctrl is priced at $29 for version 1.x updates on an unlimited number of sites. While it is not explicitly stated on the site at this time, it appears Sorta Brilliant is taking a more traditional software pricing approach by selling based on major version releases rather than the yearly subscription model that is common in the WordPress ecosystem.

The marketing pitch for the plugin is simple: if the WordPress dashboard screen is useless for you, Mission Ctrl is the solution.

There is huge potential for this plugin. Have a client you want to easily expose training videos to? Create a new board and drop a video in. Want to leave yourself a note? Drop a paragraph block with a bright yellow background to get your attention via another board.

“For me, it’s the perfect place for documentation,” said Hamze. “Either for products you use on your site or for things you want you or your users to remember. Since I’m just a single user who makes regular sites I probably don’t have a wide enough experience to think of all the ideas. This is one product where its future is going to be driven by users.”

Mission Ctrl also serves as a framework for others to build on. Block developers can create dashboard-specific blocks that expose useful information to users. However, it is unlikely that this idea will catch on with the broader development community until core WordPress supports blocks on the dashboard out of the box. At the very least, this plugin can provide inspiration to the Gutenberg team. It is a project worth supporting.

How Mission Ctrl Works

Customized dashboard screen via the Mission Ctrl WordPress plugin. — Custom boards added to the dashboard screen.

The plugin adds a new screen titled “Boards” under the normal dashboard menu item in the WordPress admin. It is a custom post type, which works the same as any other post or page. Whenever you add a new board, the plugin essentially translates this into a dashboard widget. Users can add as many boards as they want. Boards can also be enabled or disabled on a per-user basis via the screen options tab like any other dashboard widget.

One important caveat is that Mission Ctrl disables all existing dashboard widgets, regardless of whether they come from WordPress or a third-party plugin. The idea is to provide users with a clean slate to build a dashboard screen to their liking.

Adding boards is as simple as inserting your preferred block and publishing it. If you need some inspiration, how about dropping an RSS block into the editor and linking it to the WP Tavern feed?

Adding a video to the Mission Ctrl add new board screen. — Creating a custom video board for training clients.

By default, the plugin registers a single block. It provides a recreation of the WordPress “At a Glance” dashboard widget in block form. For now, the rest is left to the user.

However, Hamze does not plan to stop there. He has other blocks under development that will be useful on the dashboard:

World Time Block
Dictionary/Thesaurus Block
Notes Block
Weather Block

Mission Ctrl is a product early in its lifecycle. It has huge potential, particularly in helping the development community move forward with adding blocks to other areas in the WordPress admin interface.

However, it is not without its faults, which is expected with a plugin on its version 1.x branch. Currently, there is a question on how to deal with theme styles applied to the block editor but not applied to the dashboard screen, which can make for some inconsistencies with block design. It is not an insurmountable issue, but it will need to be addressed in the long term.

On the whole, Mission Ctrl actually makes the dashboard screen useful. For far too long, the screen has sat in limbo, awaiting someone to actually do something — anything — with it.

March 12, 2020

The Wacky World of Sorta Brilliant’s Sorta Fun Block Plugins

You could say that I am a bit of a fanboy of the late 1990s and early 2000s web. I loved the funkiness of GeoCities. I enjoyed the random midi file that began playing when a new web page opened. I am nostalgic about an early web that felt like an explosion of weird creativity that was driven by the passion of the people who were using this newfangled toy and were not quite sure what to do with it. Visiting a web page was like diving into a shameless, bottomless pit of geekdom.

When I see a new block editor plugin pushed out by Nick Hamze, I perk up. It is sure to be something interesting.

Hamze is the mind behind Sorta Brilliant, a website that is dedicated to sharing unique blocks mostly for the fun of it. In a web development world that is seemingly pushing another business or eCommerce tool every day, it is easy to sit back with blinders on. Yawn. Hamze is asking, where has all the creativity gone? He is putting his ideas and cash behind the development of features that harken to those early, fun days of the web. His projects will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he is filling in a particular void that has been widening for years. And he’s doing it in style.

“I have at least 10 new block ideas a day,” said Hamze. “They just pop in there, and I have them made as fast as I can.”

Part of the problem is finding enough developers to help push out these projects at the pace that he can draw them up. Hamze is the creative force behind the projects, but he is not a programmer.

Discoverability of these plugins can be also an issue. They are not exactly the types of plugins that are in fashion at the moment and can fly under the radar. “I waffle back and forth between wanting to make stuff to make WordPress fun and get lots of installs,” he said. “Every time I ask someone how to get more installs, they tell me to make more boring stuff, but I don’t want to do that.” Hamze is speaking about the ecosystem’s drive toward more minimalist and business-oriented trends.

Hamze said many of his plugin ideas come from building his Zune fansite, Hello From Seattle. It is a passion project for a long-dead MP3 player, but it fuels his brand of creativity.

“I see zero passion, especially in the WordPress space,” Hamze said. “It seems like everyone is just going through the motions lately. I’m trying my best but I don’t see anyone else who wants to bring back the old days. Fun doesn’t seem like something WordPress is supposed to be used for. It makes me kind of sad. WordPress is supposed to be used for large corporations and business; it shouldn’t be used for silly things like I’m doing.“

He has at least one fan. Hello. I am just here to bring the rest of you along for the revival of the weird and wacky web experienced during the golden age of website creation.

One such throwback plugin is his Peculiar Pointers block. It is a container that allows users to upload an image to use as a custom cursor while moving the mouse over anything within the block. May the modern web development gods strike me down, but custom cursor images were really fun back in the day. I said it. No shame here.

For users who do not have a custom cursor image in mind, Hamze provides some inspiration via his new WeirdPress website, an early venture into his weirder WordPress ideas. “I love making things but also really want to get people to actually use them,” he said. “With Block Garden and Sorta Brilliant, I try to stay a bit between fun and business because of this. With WeirdPress, I just wanted to make things that were really dumb but made me happy. Plugins, that if I’m the only user, it’s OK. People don’t do things for fun anymore.”

Hamze wants more plugin developers to use their skills to be creative with block development. “I’ve asked all my ex-coworkers or people that I know in the WP world, if you have the ability to make blocks, why don’t you? I can’t code, so I end up paying a ton of money every month to developers. If I had the ability, I’d be coding fun plugins all day long. But, to most people, WordPress is a business, a job, not something they do for fun.”

A Collection of Block Editor Plugins

Screenshot of using the Altered Reality image filter plugin in the block editor. — VHS filter from the Altered Reality plugin.

Last week, Hamze released the Altered Reality plugin, which allows users to select from over two dozen filters to apply over images. Aside from simply having a cool name for a plugin, end-users can enjoy everything from the funky Acid Trip filter to something more professional like the cool, blue tones of the Brooklyn filter. Most of the filters come from the CSS Gram project, but there are a few extras thrown in for fun, such as the throwback VHS style.

Hamze laments about the shortage of unique designs in the WordPress theme design world. “It’s like an afterthought,” he said. “All the themes look basically the same. They are minimalist and boring and have no personality. One of the main things I want to do is introduce fun design to WordPress. I can’t do anything about boring themes, but I can make them a bit more fun.”

Because of the complexities of building out a fully-fledged WordPress theme, it is not cost-effective to fund such development at the moment. Hamze is sticking with smaller, one-off plugins that bring something unique to the block editor.

Screenshot of the Meme Me WordPress plugin in action.

Last month, Hamze released Meme Me, a plugin that allows users to generate a meme-style image directly via the block editor. The plugin is simple. It creates a custom image block style. When chosen, the image caption becomes the meme text. The plugin also offers a few design settings, such as the location of the text. A useful feature for the future would be to make the entire meme downloadable for sharing on social media. That’s what half of Facebook and Instagram are these days, right?

It is not all fun and games. Hamze, through his Sorta Brilliant brand, has several block-related plugins that fit into the more sensible side of the web. Blockshots allows end-users to snap a screenshot of individual blocks from the editor. Lazy Lists is ideal for people who need to sort their list block alphabetically or numerically at the click of the button. Dapper Desktop is useful for turning large images into multiple, downloadable image sizes for visitors to use as wallpapers.

On the wackier side of things, Hamze released a plugin called Vital Information yesterday. It displays messages from a segment titled Vital Information for Your Everyday Life from the 1990s sketch-comedy All That across the top of the block editor. It is the modern-day Hello Dolly plugin with useful information like, “If you’re drinking apple juice, and it feels warm, odds are that ain’t apple juice.”

We are barreling toward the point where there is truly a plugin for everything.

Hamze said he does not plan far in advance when it comes to plugin ideas. “Most of my projects go like this,” he began. “I think of an idea in the morning and two days later it’s launched.” He is currently working on a plugin that will blockify the WordPress dashboard. He also has a budding project for fun button styles. Followers of the Sorta Brilliant GitHub account can keep track of his projects as they are born.

Recently, Hamze has felt discouraged by the seeming lack of interest from leaders within the core and inner WordPress community. He feels like there is not enough of a push to bring unique flavors to design in general to the WordPress ecosystem. “One thing that I really believe is that we need fresh blood in the WordPress world,” he said. “There are some amazing designers out there that could make WordPress fun if we just made them feel welcome.”

I, for one, am ready see a scrolling-text block plugin. Because the old <marquee> HTML tag is obsolete, we need a replacement to bring back some of the fun from those long-lost days of my early foray into the web.

January 28, 2020

Emoji Conbini and the Case for a Block Enhancements Directory

In December of 2019, Nick Hamze, the owner of Sorta Brilliant, quietly launched Block Garden with a proposal for plugin authors to build block-based plugins off concepts, called seeds, from his site. He has since written extensively on the block editor and has shared a multitude of ideas, many of which are sorta brilliant.

It is easy to be drawn in by Hamze’s unabashed love for blocks. In a post titled “You aren’t busy, you’re just not excited,” Hamze challenges developers to build something, anything and not worry about it being perfect or becoming an earth-shattering product. “The purpose of Block Garden is to get you excited about blocks,” he wrote in the post. “To make you so excited about blocks that you’ll make the time to bring them to life. The community needs you more than you realize. I honestly believe that every person has at least one block in them. If I can get you to create that first block, I know you’ll be hooked for life.”

He has created a space for those who genuinely love the block editor. Block Garden is reminiscent of some of the early WordPress blogs where normal, everyday end-users shared their love of the platform. It is refreshingly optimistic. It is block geekdom at its finest. And, I kind of love it.

Hamze put out a job posting for block developers earlier this month. Several developers answered the call. “I can’t code but I have ideas and cash that I’m investing into blocks, mostly to keep the boredom at bay that is slowly killing me,” he said. “We are making some really fun blocks together. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

In a few short weeks, Hamze and his co-authors have released multiple block-related plugins through his Sorta Brilliant brand that are now available on the WordPress plugin directory:

P.S. – A container block for grouping blocks into a popover.
StreamShare for Twitch – Embed Twitch content into the block editor.
Ghostwriter – Adds a heading block style that types out the text on the front end, Ghostwriter style (for you fans of the ’90s TV series).
Ubiquitous Blocks – Exposes the Reusable Blocks admin screen and allows users to automatically add them to posts.

Emoji Conbini

In collaboration with George Mamadashvili, Hamze’s latest release is the Emoji Conbini plugin. It adds an emoji inserter to the block editor toolbar.

Emoji Conbini utilizes the Emoji Mart library, which offers a Slack-like emoji picker. When the picker is open, the user merely needs to choose their preferred emoji. Users can also search for a specific emoji.

Hamze was aware of the Emoji Autocomplete Gutenberg plugin before commissioning his emoji plugin for the block editor. “I loved how easy it made adding emoji but I didn’t like the UI,” he said. “It seemed like you had to know what emoji you wanted to add and relied on keyboard shortcuts, which I don’t think everyone is comfortable with.”

The problem with both emoji plugins is that they insert the WordPress-based emoji image directly into the editor instead of the emoji character. By default, WordPress will automatically convert emoji characters to images on the front end. For the average user, this is likely a non-issue. However, some users prefer to use the browser-based emoji and disable the images that core outputs. Both emoji plugins remove this possibility. They also remove the possibility of using a different emoji image library.

“To be honest, I’m not really a fan of the browser versions, but I’m willing to consider anything if there is a demand for it,” said Hamze of the possibility of simply inserting the emoji character. “To me, getting version 1 out there is the most important, and if anything needs to be changed, people will let me know.”

The term “conbini” initially drew me to the plugin, which is the name given to Japanese convenient stores 🏪. If you have never been to one, they are like stepping into another world (almost everything in Japan seems otherworldly to this smalltown guy from the southern U.S.).

“I love everything from Japan,” said Hamze. “The music, anime, the tech. I bid on items on Yahoo Japan daily as I love surrounding myself with cool stuff from Japan. I’ve only been to Japan once, but it was magical. I especially loved going to conbini. My favorite thing to get there was rice balls from Lawsons.”

The plugin name also plays into Hamze’s goals with Sorta Brilliant and Block Garden. While many other plugins are offering full packages for blocks, he is dropping smaller, convenient extensions to the block editor. Emoji Conbini shows that there is perhaps a market for add-ons that are block-related but not necessarily blocks, or at least some people are thinking about it.

Discovering Block Extensions

In his post “The block directory needs more than just blocks,” Hamze argues that one of the largest hurdles for block-related plugins is discoverability. He further argues the block directory is too tightly focused on individual blocks, proposing a “block enhancements” category as a solution.

For Emoji Conbini, 10up’s Insert Special Characters, ThemeIsle’s Blocks CSS, and other plugins that extend the block editor, there is no way for users to discover these plugins without specifically searching for them. These are useful plugins that could help sell the block editor to users who are on the fence.

There is an unknown number of possibilities for enhancements to the block editor. This sub-category of block-editor plugins does not seem to get the attention that is going toward blocks. However, in some cases, they can be far more useful for everyday writing than the numerous blocks in development.

Hamze’s initial idea proposes an enhancements category for the upcoming block directory, but that has problems. For one, the block directory will be directly tied to the block inserter in a future version of WordPress. Plus, these types of plugins are not actual blocks. However, the concept of making block enhancements more visible to users is a necessary part of the puzzle. For the block editor’s continued success, WordPress needs to expose its users to a wider world of possibilities than simply installing another block.

Now is the time to start thinking about exposure for plugins that enhance the block editor. Eventually, these types of plugins may need to be further grouped into editor toolbar (e.g., character inserters), block options (e.g., extra settings for existing blocks), and other categories. I suspect that we are only now glimpsing a future where users will be asking how to find not just blocks but block editor extensions.