Officially, I released my first WordPress block plugin today. X3P0 - Powered By is now hosted on the WordPress plugin directory. Woot! Woot! 🥳

Powered By, for short, is a simple block type for displaying a randomly-generated message, such as:

• Powered by coffee.
• Powered by crazy ideas and passion.
• Powered by heart and soul.

The goal is for it to replace the traditional “Powered by WordPress/Theme” in website footers with something a little more fun. Some of you may have noticed this same feature here on my blog in the past. Essentially, I just ripped the PHP code out and turned it into a WordPress block.

I did add an extra feature to the block to have even more fun with it. There is a setting to “emojify” the text, which turns those messages into something like the following:

• Powered by ☕.
• Powered by crazy 🤔 and passion.
• Powered by ❤️ and soul.

Yeah, this is just something a bit lighthearted, reminding us that not everything on the web needs to be so serious. Add a little something funky or strange to your website once in a while.

I’ll definitely get around to building some of those more useful blocks and releasing them. I actually have several lined up that just need some final cleanup that I think folks will enjoy. Until then, give this a spin. Or, if you’re a developer who wants to learn more about block dev, feel free to peruse the plugin’s source code on GitHub. Borrow from it and use it to build something awesome!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since I have officially announced a new WordPress plugin here on my blog. Gosh! Time flies. Of course, I’ve released a ton of plugins since then via my now-defunct business website, Theme Hybrid.

So, consider this a bit of a return to my roots. One of my favorite things to do in my early WordPress journey was to announce whatever cool thing I had built here at my own little personal home on the web.

With that in mind, I plan to add a few extra pages to the site so folks can find whatever plugins, themes, or other dev-related projects I’m working on. In the meantime, you can always follow @justintadlock (personal handle) or @x3p0-dev (WordPress projects) on GitHub.

For those unaware, the “X3P0” title prefix is just something I’m using to separate all my WordPress block-related work, both themes and plugins. I wanted something separate where I can just tinker with whatever is on my mind. Plus, it makes it far easier to name things if you can just slap a prefix on the thing and not worry about conflicting with a name that’s already chosen for another theme/plugin.