The WordPress Ecosystem Is Evolving — and So Are We

Hello, WordPress warriors and web creators!

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, I’m sure many of you are busy prepping your sites for the sales.

I just want to take a moment to share some important updates about where Spectra is headed. There’s a lot going on, and changes are on the horizon.

But first, I can’t wait to share the news that Spectra just passed the magical million user milestone!

That’s 1 million active users. People like you and I who are using Spectra to build amazing websites.

This is huge for us, and we’re excited to celebrate this with our Brainstorm Force family—you.

Evolving With WordPress

As you know, the WordPress landscape is constantly shifting, and that brings both opportunities and challenges.

Over the past year, we’ve seen some key changes in WordPress that have directly impacted the features we’ve been building for Spectra.

I’d like to share three examples where this evolution has shifted our path forward.

Quick Action Bar

Earlier this year, we introduced the Quick Action Bar to make building sites more efficient by keeping block panels open as you worked.

This was meant to address the issue of panels closing and content shifting when adding a block.

However, WordPress version 6.7 is set to introduce a feature that will keep block panels open—essentially solving the problem we were addressing.

While the Quick Action Bar was a helpful addition, the upcoming change renders it largely obsolete.

Title Placement

You may have also noticed that we invested time in moving titles to a designated area at the top of the page.

However, we later had to deprecate that feature because WordPress version 6.6, adopted that same area for its own changes.

As a result, the effort we put into that feature became redundant.

This experience taught us a valuable lesson: building ahead of changes can sometimes backfire, leading to the unfortunate reality that the work we’ve done may become obsolete.

It’s an example of where we’ve had to pivot based on how WordPress is evolving.

Global Block Styles

One of our most ambitious features this year was Global Block Styles.

Released in beta back in October 2023, Global Block Styles were designed to allow you to create reusable styles across your site to save time and effort.

It was an advanced feature and we were excited about the positive feedback we received.

We’ve put a lot of effort into Global Block Styles.

The idea was simple but ambitious: create a library of styles you could apply to any page, giving you greater consistency and control.

Our team worked hard to integrate it with Spectra’s core blocks, refactor complex styles, and ensure compatibility with a wide range of themes.

We spent months working on it.

But it quickly became clear that integrating Global Block Styles with non-core blocks was a major technical challenge.

Managing inner blocks, keeping default settings intact, and balancing theme compatibility added even more complexity.

We made significant progress, but there are still hurdles to overcome before the feature can be fully implemented.

Then WordPress released Sync Patterns—a feature that essentially overlaps with what we were trying to build.

It’s maturing quickly, and after evaluating the trajectory, we had to ask ourselves: Is this the best use of our time and effort?

The answer, we realized, was no. So, we decided not to invest any more effort into it.

At Spectra, our mission is to make WordPress and web creation as simple and accessible as possible.

But when it introduces features that fulfill the same need, it doesn’t make sense to continue down a parallel path.

This isn’t just about avoiding duplication—it’s about being strategic and focusing our energy on building things that truly add value.

So, after much consideration, we’ve decided to pause further development of Global Block Styles.

We won’t be removing the feature from Spectra Pro for those of you who are already using it. But we want to set the right expectation — this feature will remain in beta for the foreseeable future, and we don’t have plans to take it out of beta at this time.

We’ve also decided to remove it from our marketing to avoid any confusion moving forward.

Looking Ahead – A Focus on Useful Blocks

While it may feel like we’re stepping back, the reality is that we’re refocusing.

Moving forward, we’re going to align more closely with WordPress and focus on building new, useful blocks that make a tangible difference in how you build websites.

We already have some exciting things lined up, including developing our Loop Builder and other valuable improvements.

You’ll have the freedom to create any kind of design with drag and drop block positioning. We’re also working with Motion Effects, a smooth system that animates blocks as you scroll.

The FAQ block will get a revamp too, transforming into an accordion-style element that allows you to insert other blocks inside for added versatility.

We’re also integrating free, copyright-safe images directly into Spectra, simplifying the process of adding high-quality visuals to designs.

And that’s not all — we’re exploring even more new blocks and features for the near future!

Wrapping Up

We’re incredibly grateful for the support and feedback you’ve given us over the years.

Spectra has grown alongside the WordPress ecosystem. As we hit the milestone of 1 million active installations, we’re more committed than ever to bringing you features that add real value to your workflow.

We’re excited about what’s coming next. We’re confident that by aligning our efforts with WordPress, we’ll be able to deliver even better tools for web designers like you.

Thank you for being part of our journey.