February Toolbox: Site Audits, protecting videos, a Block Theme Creator and new blocks

Every month we go looking for tools that might be helpful to Web Care Consultants. In today’s toolbox, we look at a WP Site Audit tool, a Block Theme Generator, a plugin to protect your videos and a new block from Kadence Blocks.

Get ready to add new tools to your toolbox!

WP Audit Site

Sometimes I don’t think we give QA (Quality Assurance) enough credit. It is extremely tempting to get a project launched and onto the next one. You know, we have bills to pay and all.

Web consultants should absolutely include QA in their process and charge appropriately.

I have seen checklists over the years and they have also changed as various needs have changed.

Aurooba Ahmed developed the WP Audit checklist. You can see it live on the website.

The application is available at the GitHub repository.

I am one who often did QA when I worked for an agency and having a tool that you can deploy quickly to handle the tasks is a critical part of a launch.

She licensed the application through GPLv3 so credit is much appreciated, and GPLv3 must be retained.

Block Theme Generator

Full Site Editing (FSE) is something that is being discussed across the greater WordPress community since the launch of WordPress 5.9. To work with FSE, you need to have an FSE enabled theme. We have discussed places to find those previously, but our next tool may also be of some help to you.

Carolina Nymark, a developer, a WordPress contributor from Yoast, created this nifty little tool to get your FSE exploring started.

The tool helps you create your own Block theme that you can download and start using.

Nymark has put together an entire site dedicated to helping developers get up to speed with block-based themes and Full Site Editing. She has a blog and a free course.

So, if you wanted a way to get started exploring Full Site Editing, this might be a great option for you!

Protected Videos

The Protected Video plugin popped up in a couple of my WordPress emails this past week. At first glance, it looks like a fantastic feature!

To be fair, sometimes we want to create a very simple membership course without all the bells and whistles and this plugin will help you do that.

So it allows you to embed and protect unlisted YouTube or Vimeo videos in a membership area (think something like Restrict Content Pro).

You can see the demo here.

Alec Rust, a Front End Developer, added the plugin to the WordPress repository and is an open-source project which you can find on GitHub.

Rust noted in his plugin entry that the plugin has a “basic level of protection” and more technical users may be able to find your original video URL.

Now I can see other uses such as a free course you want to put on the page but not want to use a full membership setup. Further, this helps with issues of video hosting allowing one to use Youtube or Vimeo, hide them from the average user and use them in your course.

Even if you just want to provide regular support requests for your customers and put them in a Knowledge Base, this could really help that.

Lottie Block from Kadence

Kadence Blocks have added a new block to their portfolio. Kadence now offers Lottie Blocks, allowing users to implement animation files known as LottieFiles.

What are LottieFiles?

“Developers at Airbnb created a new technology, called Lottie, that offers high quality animations without the overhead of high bandwidth. After development, these developers open sourced their creation. Not only are Lottie files open source, extremely small in size, and high quality, but they are also interactive and can be manipulated at runtime. According to LottieFiles, ‘the top 500 apps on the iOS App Store now use Lottie to engage users and enhance conversions.’” Source.

I did not know that Airbnb created a new file. To me, this has lots of fantastic opportunities for more engaging content.

And Kadence has added it to their portfolio of blocks, allowing us to take advantage of this new technology, straight from the block editor.

I tried it out with this LottieFile, and it was an amazing experience!

https://lottiefiles.com/96576-flying-plane

To use LottieFiles, you will need a free account. You can create your own files too and you can download your animations in one of the various types of formats.

Wrapping it Up

I have to admit, the LottieFiles are impressive. I love the opportunity to add something even more engaging to an article. It just adds to the value that the file size is small.

Let’s just say, I am looking at how I can use these tools in the future.

I have also been wanting to take a turn at trying to Full Site Editing and the generator may be very helpful in me exploring the new block themes.

Frankly, I can see a use for every one of these tools in my business, even as a content creator.

Have you tried any of these tools? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.