Using Components to Improve Your WordPress Development Workflow

The Complexity of Modern Websites

Modern websites are intricate endeavors, characterized by a multitude of layouts and functionalities. Ensuring a harmonious design across these elements while still offering enough diversity to captivate visitors is a formidable challenge. Moreover, websites are dynamic entities, constantly evolving over time. New templates are introduced, existing ones are altered, and occasionally, global changes sweep through, such as shifts in brand colors or modifications to typesetting. Sometimes, portions of the layout are added or removed to introduce or retire site features. Consequently, the initial design can seem overwhelming due to the multitude of features and styles that must be constructed, all while keeping maintenance and scalability in mind.

The Challenge of Managing Styles

Styles, when implemented correctly, can be easily applied and modified through a few CSS rules, propagating these changes across numerous pages. However, in complex websites, the organization of CSS selectors can become convoluted, making efficient management a daunting task.

The Rise of Component-Based Development

Component-based development has gained popularity and become an industry standard for addressing these challenges. This approach emphasizes reusability, encapsulating pieces of code or functionality into self-sufficient components. Components enable developers to break down a project into manageable parts, fostering consistency while allowing for customization.

Components in Various Tools and Technologies

The advantages of component-based development have permeated various tools and technologies across the industry. In the JavaScript ecosystem, libraries and frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular all embrace this approach. Design tools such as Figma, Adobe XD, and Penpot recognize component-based design as best practice. Low-code site builders like WebFlow, Editor X, Framer, and app builder Bubble all incorporate components into their workflows. Even WordPress is moving in this direction with Gutenberg blocks, which are themselves components.

Example of a Component-Based Pattern

Let’s illustrate a component-based pattern with a common website element: the header. Typically found at the top of a webpage, a header contains various elements like a logo, navigation links, buttons, and a search bar. Instead of designing the header as a monolithic element applied to each page, we can utilize template parts.

The Power of Template Parts

Template parts allow us to create the header once and then include it wherever needed. This means that changes made to the header structure will automatically propagate across all pages that include it. Template parts can also incorporate conditional display rules, enabling specific header elements to appear or disappear based on predefined criteria. While this approach is effective for maintainability, it lacks the flexibility needed for creating diverse layouts.

Transitioning to Components

To address this limitation, we can break down the header into individual components, such as the logo, navigation, buttons, and search form. Each component can then be used and reused across the site. For instance, the search component may appear in both the header and the sidebar, while buttons can be utilized in various sections on different pages. By adopting this componentization approach strategically, we can enhance the flexibility of the header and create dynamic, versatile layouts without sacrificing maintainability and scalability.

Making Component Decisions

When deciding whether to create a component, consider whether you’ll need to reuse the element in other contexts. If the answer is yes, creating a component is a sensible choice. If it’s a possibility for the future, leave it for now, and you can always convert it into a component later. If the answer is no, there’s no need to make it a component.

Understanding How Components Work

Components comprise two essential parts: the master and the reference. The master serves as a template, defining all aspects of the component, including the HTML structure, CSS, JavaScript assets, and dynamic data queries. In contrast, the component reference represents an instance where the component should appear, essentially pointing to the master for all display-related aspects, such as HTML and CSS. In most websites, each component has one master and multiple references across various templates. Modifications to a component are typically made by altering the master. Component variants allow developers to adjust behavior, HTML structure, or appearance based on specific conditions, adding a layer of customization.

Simplifying Development with Components

Components offer an additional advantage by simplifying the development process. Creating a dedicated component is often more straightforward than building an entire template. In component-based development, developers frequently work within a focused context, like a card, a search bar, a logo, or a post’s metadata section. Components encompass their HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making them more manageable than the entire website. Consequently, CSS management becomes more straightforward, reducing the need for complex naming conventions or frameworks, as most CSS rules and classes remain within the component’s scope.

Maintaining CSS and Enhancing Performance

Components encapsulate HTML, data, and CSS, transforming CSS classes into a component’s responsibility. While CSS class-based selectors are still used to apply styles, they hold less weight in the website’s structure as they are inherited via the component system. This approach improves performance since only the necessary CSS is loaded, eliminating the need to determine whether a CSS rule is used by an element.

Components enable websites to grow and empower developers to work more efficiently. Over time, developers can expand their component library for reuse across multiple projects.

Components in Builders

To provide a concrete example of component-based development, let’s explore how components work in Builderius site builder and their positive impact on the WordPress site-building experience.

Note: The current Gutenberg implementation of components may be more suited for content creation rather than site development, a topic for another article. Additionally, Builderius is continuously improving and may introduce new features like enhanced component variants control in the future.