Building a multi-block plugin

[troychaplin]

Create block is a fantastic to help get you up and running with a new block rather quickly. but what if you plan to build multiple blocks and want to keep them all contained within one plugin?

I was faced with this challenge in a recent project and think sharing my experience and configuration would benefit other developers. This post would include plenty of code examples as well as a repo with a multi-block starter project that I would build during the process of writing the post.

[troychaplin]

This post would take a different approach that what was written here, which would be linked up in my post in reference to setting it up as a parent with a single innerblock.

[bph]

Hi @troychaplin! Thank you for submitting yet another topic idea for the Develop Blog. So glad to have you. 🎉

Would you mind outlining the "different approach" some more? A fat outline would certainly help. Doesn't have to be all too detailed. It should answer the question, what specific challenges you faced, how you overcame them and what a reader would learn.

[troychaplin]

Gladly. Just gotta make a bit of time to put that outline together.

[troychaplin]

Hey @bph, finally getting some time to think this out more. Here's what my initial idea was for this post:

Introduction

• Brief overview of the concept and what a multi-block plugin is
• Provide idea of what reader will build by the end

Benefits

• Less maintenance, easier dependency management
• Increase shared code, reduce duplication across pugins
• Potential improvements to security response time (I'm no expert but a hole in a key dependency is easier to address and contain in 1 plugin than 10, thinking of posing a question to readers to encourage commenting and not making a factual statement about this one)

Basic Setup

• Brief overview of using @wordpress/create-block
• Refactor default folder structure
• How to add a second block

Configuration Improvements

• Handling multiple block registrations in one function
• Add webpack to output all blocks in one js file
• Example of adding javascript for other purposes (such as slot fills, block variation, more)

Wrap Up

• Summary of key points
• Provide links to related WP maintained docs

Bonus Section: Integrating TailwindCSS

• Overview of what Tailwind is and it's benefits
• Setting up Tailwind in your multi-block plugin
• Using Tailwind in your blocks

[zzap]

@troychaplin please ping me when draft is ready for the first review. Thanks

[bph]

This topic was approved. Please continue conversation on the issue:

• Building a multi-block plugin #292

[troychaplin]

Article has been published https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/17/how-to-build-a-multi-block-plugin/