About this plugin
Note: Pattern Manager is currently in beta.
When you design beautiful block patterns for your theme, Pattern Manager by WP Engine will automatically push them into PHP files for you, every time you save. With a dedicated studio to design and build block patterns you can 10x your ability to work effectively with theme patterns.
Who should use Pattern Manager by WP Engine
Pattern Manager is designed to be used by theme developers and is not intended to create patterns on production sites. Please review our FAQ below.
Key Features of Pattern Manager by WP Engine
- A dedicated place to build and design Block Patterns.
- Save (and generate) pattern files directly to disk in your theme (no exporting needed).
- Patterns available come from your theme on the disk, allowing for easy collaboration with git.
- Images used in patterns are auto-copied into your theme and referenced in the PHP pattern file.
- No more copying and pasting code to files.
- No more copying and pasting images to your theme.
- Browse all your patterns by their preview thumbnails.
- Create patterns and edit them later.
- Easy discovery and use of hidden WordPress core pattern features.
Things you can do with Pattern Manager:
- Create a pattern with a click.
- Duplicate a pattern.
- Delete a pattern.
- Rename a pattern.
- Utilize hidden WordPress core pattern features.
- Save a pattern to a php file in your theme.
Hidden WP core pattern features you can unlock with Pattern Manager:
- When a user makes a new page or post, auto-show a modal with your patterns, available to be used.
- Make your pattern available in the block inserter, or choose to hide it from the inserter.
- Allow users to transform any block into your pattern.
Upon every “save” of a pattern, Pattern Manager will do the following:
- Create/update the pattern PHP file on your disk, in your theme.
- Find and replace all local image urls with the correct PHP tag.
- Find and copy all image files used into your theme.
Additional Features
The Pattern Block: Put patterns inside patterns.
Once you’ve built a lot of patterns, it makes sense to quickly combine them in various ways to make full-page patterns. An example of this might be a “Home Page” or “Landing Page” pattern that includes a call-to-action area, features area, testimonials, links, and more. Instead of re-creating each of those patterns inside your “Home Page” pattern, you can simply re-use them with the “Pattern Block”.
Here’s an example of how you’d make that “Full Page” pattern:
* Step 1: In Pattern Manager, click “Create New Pattern”.
* Step 2: Add the “Pattern Block” (note: this block is exclusively available in the Pattern Manager editor).
* Step 3: Choose a pattern you’ve already made (like testimonials, features, call-to-actions, etc).
* Step 4. Once inserted, repeat steps 2-3 until you have a “Full Page” pattern you like.
The best part about using the “Pattern Block” is maintaining your patterns. If you ever need to make a change to a pattern, you can update it in one place and it will be updated anywhere you used the Pattern Block, dynamically.
When one of your theme’s users inserts that “Full Page” pattern, because it’s using WordPress core’s pattern block, WordPress will automatically pull the separate patterns together into the Block Editor, ready for them to modify, just like any other pattern.
Docs & Repo
- User and developer docs
- GitHub repo