Blockstudio 6.0 has arrived! This is a landmark release, primarily focused on modernizing the core infrastructure of Blockstudio, streamlining its performance, and paving the way for exciting new capabilities in the 6.x series. We've tackled some significant under-the-hood changes, introduced powerful new features, and continued to refine the user experience with numerous enhancements and fixes.

This update brings some important breaking changes that you'll need to be aware of, alongside new functionalities designed to empower your block development even further. Let's dive into what Blockstudio 6.0 has in store!

Important License Change

After nearly five years of Blockstudio, we're making an important change to our licensing model. The lifetime license option will be discontinued for new purchases as of June 1st, 2025.

We want to assure all our valued existing lifetime license holders that you will, of course, be grandfathered in. Your current license terms remain unchanged, and you will continue to receive all updates and support as always.

This decision was made after careful consideration of Blockstudio's journey and to ensure its continued development and sustainability for the future. We believe this change will allow us to focus more effectively on delivering value and innovation to all our users.

Breaking changes

As a major version update, 6.0 includes several breaking changes aimed at improving the long-term health and efficiency of Blockstudio. Please review these carefully:

Timber no longer bundled

To provide more flexibility and reduce plugin footprint, Blockstudio will no longer bundle the Timber library. If you rely on Twig for your block templates, you will now need to explicitly install Timber via Composer in your WordPress project:

            composer require timber/timber
  
                    

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Once Timber is installed and active in your environment, Blockstudio will automatically detect its presence and enable Twig templating for any index.twig files found within your block directories. All standard Timber functionalities and context will be available as before. For more details on integrating Twig, please refer to our Twig documentation.

Overhauled context engine for InnerBlocks

One of the most significant changes in 6.0 is the completely revamped context engine for InnerBlocks. This addresses previous inconsistencies and enhances the reliability of data flow between parent and child blocks.

Previously, child blocks might not have consistently received computed values or default attribute values from their parent blocks. For instance, if a parent block attribute was populated by a query (e.g., a select field choosing a post), the child block might only receive the raw ID, whereas the parent block had access to the full post object. This could also lead to PHP warnings if a context value wasn't explicitly set on the parent, as the child wouldn't receive even a default.

With the new engine in Blockstudio 6.0:

• Child blocks now reliably inherit both computed values and default values from the parent context.
• If a parent attribute (e.g., full-width toggle) is not explicitly set, the child block will correctly receive its defined default value (e.g., false).
• When parent attributes are populated with rich data (like post objects from a query), child blocks receive the same rich data, not just raw values like IDs. This ensures data consistency and reduces the need for re-fetching or manual data massaging in child blocks.

This overhaul makes working with nested blocks and shared data significantly more predictable and robust. Here's how you'd typically access context in a child block:

Child Block Template (e.g., index.php):

            <?php $container = $context['blockstudio/container']; ?>

    <h1>
      <?php echo $container['full-width']
          ? 'is full width'
          : 'no full width'; ?>
    </h1>
  
                    

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Child block.json:

            {
      "usesContext": ["blockstudio/container"],
      "parent": ["blockstudio/container"]
      // ... other block.json properties
    }
  
                    

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Scoped matthiasmullie/minify library

To prevent potential conflicts with other plugins or themes that might bundle their own version of the matthiasmullie/minify library, we have now scoped this dependency within Blockstudio. This is an internal change that enhances stability and ensures that Blockstudio's minification processes operate without interference, regardless of other active plugins.

Scoped scssphp/scssphp library

Similar to the minification library, the scssphp/scssphp library (used for processing SCSS stylesheets) has also been scoped. This measure avoids version conflicts with other plugins or themes that might use scssphp/scssphp, guaranteeing that Blockstudio's SCSS compilation works as expected and remains stable across different WordPress environments.

Minimum PHP version now 8.2

Blockstudio 6.0 now requires PHP version 8.2 or higher. This decision allows us to leverage modern PHP features, improve performance, enhance security, and ensure that Blockstudio remains compatible with the evolving PHP ecosystem. Please ensure your hosting environment meets this new minimum requirement before upgrading.

Tailwind CSS updated to version 4

The integrated Tailwind CSS support within Blockstudio has been upgraded to version 4. Tailwind CSS v4 introduces significant changes and improvements. If you are utilizing Tailwind utility classes directly within your Blockstudio blocks or relying on Blockstudio's Tailwind features, it is crucial to consult the official Tailwind CSS v4 migration guide for any necessary adjustments to your classes and configurations.

scssphp/scssphp library updated to 2.0

The underlying SCSS processing library, scssphp/scssphp, has been updated to its version 2.0. This is a significant step as version 2.0 is a direct port of Dart Sass, the reference implementation for Sass. This ensures that SCSS compilation within Blockstudio is now highly spec-compliant, leading to much more predictable and accurate SCSS behavior, aligning perfectly with the official Sass/SCSS specifications. This update brings along various other improvements and bug fixes, enhancing its reliability and capability for processing SCSS.

Internal library templates now PHP (previously Twig)

With Timber no longer being bundled with Blockstudio, the internal rendering templates used for Blockstudio's own library components and UI elements (not user-created block templates) have been converted from Twig to standard PHP. This architectural change ensures that Blockstudio's core functionalities can operate independently without requiring Timber for its internal views. This primarily affects the plugin's internal structure and should not directly impact how you develop custom block templates.

New features

Blockstudio 6.0 isn't just about under-the-hood changes; we're also excited to introduce these new features:

Blade templating support

You can now use Blade templates for your Blockstudio blocks! Blade, known from the Laravel framework, offers an expressive and clean templating syntax, providing another powerful option alongside PHP and Twig for crafting your block views.

To enable Blade support:

• Install the jenssegers/blade package via Composer in your project:

            composer require jenssegers/blade
  
                    

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• Add a filter to your theme's functions.php file to configure Blade rendering with Blockstudio. This filter will tell Blockstudio how to locate and render your Blade templates.

Once set up, Blockstudio will automatically detect and use index.blade.php files in your block directories. For detailed setup instructions, including the necessary filter code and available variables within Blade templates, please see our new Blade documentation.

Contextual llm.txt generation for AI tools

To aid developers using AI-powered coding assistants (like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or others), Blockstudio can now automatically generate an llm.txt file at the root of your WordPress installation. This file provides structured context about all your Blockstudio blocks, including their names, descriptions, attributes (with types and defaults), and intended purposes.

This initiative aims to significantly improve how AI tools understand your Blockstudio blocks across the entire project, leading to more relevant, accurate, and helpful code suggestions and assistance when you're working on block templates or related logic. It's like giving your AI pair programmer a comprehensive cheat sheet for all your blocks!

No-fetch block preloading

Blockstudio 6.0 introduces an optimization for faster block loading in the editor. Whenever feasible, blocks are rendered directly on the client-side without an initial server call to fetch their complete preview. This approach applies to blocks whose editor appearance doesn't depend on server-side pre-rendering, such as those not utilizing extensions that dynamically alter the preview based on server data.

By minimizing these server round-trips, Blockstudio reduces latency and makes the Gutenberg editor feel more responsive. This contributes to a smoother editing experience, especially in environments with many blocks. If you encounter any inconsistent behavior with block previews that you suspect might be related to this preloading optimization, please let us know.

Enhancements

We've also made several enhancements to improve Blockstudio's performance and usability:

• Improved plugin initialization: The plugin's initialization sequence has been refined. This helps to prevent potential conflicts or issues that could arise if Blockstudio is loaded multiple times or in unconventional WordPress setups, ensuring more consistent behavior.
• Minor UI fixes: Various minor user interface adjustments have been implemented across the Blockstudio editor and admin screens. These small polishes contribute to a smoother and more intuitive overall user experience.
• Reduced zipped plugin file size by 25%: Through careful optimization of assets and code, we've significantly reduced the overall zipped file size of the Blockstudio plugin by approximately 25%. This means faster downloads, updates, and a lighter footprint on your server.
• Removed regex hacks for scssphp 1.x behaviour: With the upgrade of the scssphp/scssphp library to version 2.0, previous workarounds and regular expression hacks that were necessary to correct behaviors in older 1.x versions have been removed. This results in cleaner, more direct, and more efficient SCSS processing.
• Updated all @wordpress package dependencies: All internal @wordpress script dependencies (used for editor integration, components, etc.) have been updated to their latest stable versions. This ensures ongoing compatibility with the Gutenberg editor, access to the latest WordPress core features, and benefits from upstream improvements and bug fixes.

Fixes

This release also addresses several bugs:

• CSS files not imported in JS: An issue has been resolved where CSS files referenced in JavaScript via @import statements might not be correctly processed or bundled if the import statement did not end with a semicolon. CSS imports in JS should now work more reliably.
• Child blocks not always updating on context changes: Inconsistencies where child blocks might not always re-render or reflect changes when parent context data was updated have been addressed. This is largely reinforced by the new, more robust context engine detailed in the breaking changes.
• Truncate path properly in header: A visual bug in the Blockstudio editor, where long file paths in the header area might not be truncated correctly (potentially breaking the layout or obscuring other UI elements), has been fixed. Paths will now truncate more gracefully.

New roadmap

We're also excited to share that we have published a new public roadmap for Blockstudio! You can find it at https://blockstudio.dev/roadmap. This roadmap will give you insights into our plans for upcoming features and improvements, and we welcome your feedback on it as we continue to evolve Blockstudio.

Looking ahead

Blockstudio 6.0 is a foundational release focused on bringing our core up to date with the latest technologies and best practices. While it's packed with significant changes and improvements, it also sets the stage for more exciting feature developments in our upcoming 6.x point releases.

We encourage you to update to Blockstudio 6.0, explore the new features, and, as always, share your valuable feedback with us. Happy block building!