Build your own blocks

At the risk of stating the obvious, Tangible Blocks allows you to build blocks for WordPress. What makes it unique from other block tools is that it allows developers of any skill level to build Gutenberg blocks, Elementor widgets, and Beaver Builder modules using just a few lines of our HTML-like templating language, L&L.

Curious about how to build blocks without needing to touch a single line of PHP? Check out the video below to see Tangible Blocks in action.

If you’re ready to experience Tangible Blocks for yourself, click here to join the waitlist for the beta!

We’ve been using Tangible Blocks to speed up and improve our development workflow in our agency for over a year and we’re excited to share its superpowers with the broader WordPress community. Tangible Blocks—and the L&L language on which it’s built—are pretty radical departures from the time-consuming and PHP-laden block-building processes that most agencies are familiar with, so we’ve had some explaining to do. Here’s a little FAQ:

What is Tangible Blocks?

The Tangible Blocks plugin and its Editor add-on allow anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML to build custom, dynamic blocks that work with many of the major WordPress page builders. Blocks are created by writing Loops & Logic (L&L) markup. If you haven’t already, be sure to watch the video above to see the process of creating a block using Tangible Blocks.

What is L&L?

L&L is a templating language that uses simple syntax based on HTML to allow you to unlock what’s in your database. L&L uses dynamic tags that look and work just like standard HTML tags, but give you the ability to reference, compare, manipulate, and display posts and fields in your database. The best part? You’re not just limited to interacting with default WordPress data, you can also display content created by plenty of popular WordPress plugins, like WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields, WP Fusion, and many more. If you’re just dipping your toes into the world of L&L, take a look at our absolute beginner’s guide to Loops & Logic or check out this list of all the cool things you can do with L&L tags.

How can Loops & Logic improve my WordPress workflow?

Spending a few hours learning to write L&L markup can essentially turn you or your agency’s front-end developers into full-stack developers. Anyone with knowledge of HTML syntax can now build custom themes and layouts using dynamic data without needing to make PHP modifications to the site’s theme. Loops & Logic also makes it faster and easier to:

  • Use SASS, the popular CSS extension language, without a compile step
  • Build custom shortcodes to display your L&L template
  • Create customized or restricted pages based on a user’s WP Fusion tags
  • Work with variables in CSS and JS
  • Display content from WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, Easy Digital Downloads, LearnDash, Lifter LMS, and The Events Calendar

What can Tangible Blocks do beyond what’s possible in Loops & Logic?

Tangible Blocks allows you to instantly turn your L&L templates into blocks. Beyond being able to build custom blocks in just a few minutes, Tangible Blocks can be a core piece of your development workflow and a source of revenue growth.

  • Give clients only the block controls they need. By building blocks specifically for your client, you can give them access to all the controls they need to manage their site without any of the controls they could use to break your beautiful design.
  • Build blocks that are simpler and less risky for clients to use. While most block plugins give users tons of controls to cover every possible use case, Tangible Blocks makes it easy to build narrow-use-case blocks that won’t overwhelm your clients with too many options.
  • Let clients use your block without accessing its markup. Tangible Blocks makes client hand-off a breeze since once you’ve built your block, you can uninstall the Tangible Blocks Editor add-on, leaving your client with the block you’ve made but no ability to modify or break it.
  • Reuse your blocks across your clients’ sites. You can of course reuse the blocks you’ve built effortlessly on multiple sites with the import/export feature.
  • Sell your work, not just your services. Our upcoming Block Cloud marketplace will allow you to share or sell your blocks, opening up new sources of revenue for front-end developers.