Lots of people are gadget geeks, always wanting the latest toy. My wife probably even thinks of me as suffering from the same ailment, as I do have a lot of gadgets. However, my disease is a little more narrow than “gadgets in general”. I have two strains of the virus running through my blood.
First, if it is a gadget that will let me do something I’ve always wanted to do but had challenges to get going, like maybe baking bread, yep, I’m likely to try it. Because I know if it works the way I want it to work, the way I hope it will work, I’ll use it repeatedly. While most people think of this in terms of physical gadgets, this website that you’re reading is probably the best example. I tried lots of options, and there are even more options out there now. But WordPress is free and it works well for me. Since I committed to it, I’m closing in on 1400 posts and 1.5M words, with 150 hits a day and almost 150,000 visitors since I started keeping track. I wanted a gadget that would let me blog easily and stay with it, and WordPress is that gadget. It works the way it should.
Second, I like utilitarian gadgets to work properly AND make my life easier. It isn’t just about the functionality, it’s about the time I spend dealing with it. I know a guy who is ultra cheap (as he describes it), and he wants to spend a lot of time upfront optimizing a purchase, figuring out the best option before he ever buys. Almost to the point of analysis paralysis or getting labelled anal-retentive by others. I appreciate the thrust, I admire the commitment, but at some point, my brain says, “So I can do 12 extra things to save $2? Are you f***ing nuts?”. About two weeks ago, I saw that some phone chargers were on sale. I was looking for one anyway, but the ones that sit upright were on sale, and so instead of taking up space on the desk to have a lay-flat wireless charger, and that I regularly am trying to put my phone on it in the right position to start charging, I opted for the one that the phone sits in and angles it towards you.
Do I have enough chargers to plug in every phone known to man in the neighbourhood? Yes, with spare cables left over probably. But this one solves a problem I regularly am annoyed by so I ordered the on-sale but slightly more expensive one that cost me an extra $2. However, the bigger example was that on my desk in the basement, I need to charge my work phone and my personal phone every night. I am almost always charging my personal phone every night, and there are lots of times where I don’t have room for the work phone. So I make do, eke out a few minutes here or there so I can keep it “on” when I need to, and generally annoy myself. Is there a solution? Sure, I can run another cable and plug it in manually. Yeah, cuz that won’t get annoying. Screw it, it’s $20, I’m ordering a second one so my brain isn’t worrying about piddly ass crap that doesn’t matter enough to do to avoid spending $20.
Earlier today, I was organizing a couple of areas where I need to setup some electronics. One is in my basement, I’ve moved the main TV upstairs, and the remaining TV will be more about me watching TV at night, a monitor for some exercise videos, and a video game centre. The first two are simple plugs, but I don’t like plugging electronics directly into walls. I much prefer to use powerbars. And with all of the gadgets I have around the house, and that I’ve had over the years, I have a plethora of powerbars.
But over the last few months, as I’ve reorganized things, simplified setups, rewired and reconnected various devices, I’ve stopped using my old powerbars and swapped in any of my newer power bars designed for digital devices. Usually this means three things:
It has built-in power spike protection and radio-frequency limiters so that in the event of a power surge, it doesn’t fry the devices, it just fries the power bar, and it isn’t interfering with the devices’ operations;
It has more than six plugs, since most console areas that use these types of hubs have multiple devices that need to be plugged in, but they don’t all run at the same time. Kind of like having multiple video games plugged in, but you can only play one at a time anyway; and,
They come with USB ports so you can plug in your mobile devices to charge. The chargers I have all run off a USB cable that plugs either into a charging plug or directly into a power bar with USB hubs.
Sounds simple enough, right? Except I’m out of the more advanced power bars that I had been using (which only had the first two options above anyway). But I need to set Jacob up with a good charging station in his bedroom AND I need a powerbar for the video game console. I’m also struggling a bit with a stereo setup that I decided to keep, and I may use one there.
Hence the dilemma of choice. I have old powerbars that work just fine. They only meet the first bullet above, power surge protection, but not much else. They’re pretty basic. Great if you’re plugging in a lamp, a clock radio and a white noise machine or something, but once you start attaching e-devices that run $1000+ each, you kind of want to ensure the breaker in the power bar doesn’t save itself and let a surge make its way to your devices.
Do I need new power bars? No. Do I want new power bars? Not really. Couldn’t care less. It’s functional, utilitarian, not a fun gadget. Do I have an eavestrough on my house? Yes, but it isn’t like I’m excited to have one. I need to funnel water to specific places, that tool does it. Great. This is a tool. And if I can set it up so that it is behind the desk, couch, or bureau and I never see it again or think about it again, all the better.
So I went to Canadian Tire and picked up three of the newer powerbars on sale this week. And it will mean when I’m done all the wiring and reconfiguring, I’ll have a bunch of the old powerbars left over to donate for something or somewhere.
But today I choose the right electrical gadget that makes my life just a little bit easier. Not very exciting, it’s just a powerbar, but it’s a choice, not something I must do.
I’ve been testing all the big block collections, and it’s time for Ultimate Blocks. Not to be confused with Ultimate Addons, a different block collection.
Ultimate Blocks comes with 20 different blocks, let’s see if I want any of them in my personal collection:
Button — It says “improved” but since I didn’t see the original, hard to say. It has four different sizes, flex/fixed/full width, colours or transparent, rounded or square, etc. What doesn’t work for me is that it is just one button…if you wanted to put several side-by-side (like a horizontal menu), you’d have to wrap it in some other kind of box/container.
Call to Action — Title, text and a button, nothing unusual, but I do like the button is set up so that it overlaps the container (i.e. half-in, half-out). Not bad.
Click to Tweet — I suppose if you were trying to get a campaign going, you could write a default tweet and then click the button to share. But not something I would ever do — too close to a chain letter to me. If you want to re-tweet on Twitter, go crazy; pre-writing your tweet so it looks original? Not going to happen.
Content Filter — This is sort of a strange block, and uber powerful. You know how sometimes you go to a site and you click on a page, it gives you a whole bunch of categories, and as you click on them, the selection gets narrower and narrower? Like COMPUTERS, DESKTOPS, ALLINONES, etc.? Most sites do that with query lookups and results. This allows you to do it all in one page. So you can enter your categories, lots of content blocks that you assign to various categories, and voila(!), semi-instant sortable page with content that changes as you choose which categories/tags apply. Interesting, but I have no real need for it. Pretty impressive though for all that content in a single page if you didn’t have query functions available easily.
Content Toggle — Basically a single accordion, and with not much styling.
Countdown — I am really surprised almost no blocks have this. Sure, there are widgets available easily, but a simple countdown block would seem a no-brainer. You have Count-Up blocks? Why not Countdown ones for dates, times, etc.? You set the final date and time, add in your choice of largest and smallest units of time (weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds), and choose a look/style of regular text, within circles or more like an odometer. All of them are pretty useful, to be honest. The only thing that surprises me is that I can’t style the text or the background or the numbers or the typography in general. You have a choice of black text on a standard background. I could wrap it inside something else, sure, but on its own? Bland. Functional, but bland. Oh, and you can enter text to appear when the magic time arrives! Nice.
Divider — A single line that I can control colour, thickness and a bit of spacing? Yawn.
Expand — Very similar to an accordion function, or as they call it, a content toggle, but with text that toggles the change, rather than an arrow.
How To — This is one that interested me, although I confess I want to adapt them to do recipes. It offers a title area, basic introduction, options for a video tutorial, duration (i.e., cooking time/prep time), required supplies (i.e., ingredients), required tools (i.e., pans, pots, etc.), separate steps with images / descriptions / tips, and even a final result option with a picture. It’s quite decent. But TBH, it is more about giving me ideas for what I want in my own recipe block layout than making me want to adapt this one.
Image Slider — It works okay, but as noted earlier, I have no need for such a block, since I use the NextGen Gallery, not the media library, to store my photos.
Post Grid — I have consistently said I have no need for such a block, and that holds, but this one has some nice simple options to let me choose which aspects of the preview shows (FI, title, date, author, excerpt, read more) and lets me put it in a vertical list if I want. I just don’t have a use for it.
Progress Bar — Holy snicker-doodles. Whoever designed this block is a relative genius. It is the simplest way to enter a progress bar that I have ever seen. Literally you add your “description” with basic styling if needed (although you could just put a paragraph block above it with full styling), choose whether you want a dial or a slide bar, adjust widths and colour of the bar, and then, wait for it, you literally just move a slider left and right for the percentage complete. It’s basic, but it is REALLY well done. I’m super-impressed.
Review — Well, this is another block that is quite unique. It has the option for a title of the review, you can add multiple features and rate them separately (1-5). And when you’re done, it will add an overall summary at the bottom! Sweet. It’s not the style of review I do, but it’s a nice format. And back some time ago, when I was reviewing individual episodes of TV shows and looking for a way to showcase them, this could have worked. My only complaint is the lack of more “descriptive” space to tell a story as part of the review. While each mini-block allows you as many lines as you want, the ability to style them is quite limited.
Social Share — The block, such as it is, is decent, with round or square buttons, and options for FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit and Tumblr. I don’t have need for any of them, as I already have tools for the site, but if I was looking, I like the ability to change the size of the icons here. If you want, you can even colorize all of them to match your theme, which is, umm, interesting.
Star Rating — This is a pretty basic block … you choose how many stars and their colour, that’s about it.
Styled Box — Again, they take a unique approach to the boxes, giving you a sub-choice of a Notification box, a Feature box (with images), a number box, or simply a box with a border. None are spectacular, but the number box isn’t very common, so nice to see an alternate version.
Styled List — I had hoped for something funky for bullets and numbers, but it’s really just an icon list.
Tabbed Content — Yep, they’re tabs all right. Nothing exciting.
Table of Contents — As I only had a couple of other ones to try, I was happy to see another possibility. Alas, it’s only real feature was the ability to have multiple columns.
Testimonial — Pretty basic setup, picture to the left (rounded), testimonial text and a name + company, with basic styling for colour.
Wow, this is a really tough call to make for retention or deactivation. There are 20 blocks, and for 18 of them, I can easily pass. The Countdown one though is pretty sweet, and the Progress Bar is excellent. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I’m keeping them.
I’ve already worked through a bunch of major block collections, and chosen which ones make the grade and which ones don’t. So I had seen the recommendations for Orbit Fox and thought I would give them a try. Except I already tried Otter’s collection by itself.
When I opened up the one called Orbit Fox, I got the exact same block options as Otter. They’re identical, and I’ve already reviewed them (Trying-out-otter-blocks-for-my-wordpress-site/). Well that was a waste of time.
But, while I’m here, I can check out the plugin’s other features I guess.
Social Sharing Module — This allows you to create sticky buttons on the left side of your screen for your content, making your share buttons always visible. Umm, how about no? It totally doesn’t integrate with your theme in any way, shape, or literally, form.
Gutenberg Blocks — Pass, as I said above.
Uptime Monitor — I already have that in Jetpack.
Analytics Integration — Integrate Google Analytics? Already have it, thanks.
Template Directory — This is one of the few options I see in the plugin worth considering. They have pre-designed templates for pages and, once imported, they operate as “all-in-one” landing pages with an interactive header, FAQs, etc. If you can fit it all in one page, this is a good option. Except, btw, you have to install Elementor for it to work. I didn’t see that ANYWHERE until I got to the preview page. Major pass not only on content but on marketing approach that basically advertises you can simply import them.
MyStock Import — The ability to directly import from mystock.photos…with a whopping 1200 or so photos. Umm, I have clipart collections with 10x that number, plus there are sites with free clipart and images with literally 1000s of images. Why would I want this?
Policy Notice — a simple notice bar to “inform users about your website policy”. Umm, which website policy? User policy? My policy on Covid distancing? Privacy policy? Yawn.
I jumped over one of their modules in there, mostly because my snark was on a roll and I didn’t want to kill the bad buzz. But they have an option called Menu Icons. A lot of the button blocks you see in the collections gave options to add icons to the buttons, right beside the text. This one lets you do the same thing, but to every item in your navigation menu. Your text remains, but beside Home, you could have an icon of a home button. It’s a nice feature and one I haven’t implemented well in other plugins without a lot of overhead. Nicely done.
Overall, I admit I’m beyond disappointed. The site that reviewed the plugin and collection said nothing about Elementor nor the repetition of Otter’s collection (the same company). So I was pretty jaded, pretty fast. But I’ll admit the menu icons option is decent, if I needed it. Which I don’t. Hard pass.
I’ve already gone through and reviewed the blocks from various collections — Default+Jetpack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, QodeBlocks, Ultimate Addons and Stackable. Stackable was the clear winner for me, and I kept a handful from Kadence + Ultimate Addons + Advanced Gutenberg, plus the defaults. I ditched all of the Atomic Blocks and Qodeblocks — there were just better options available or I didn’t need the blocks they had to offer.
I’m going to do a quick test of 13 blocks from Otter to see if any are worth keeping. One of their “big” offerings is built-in animation like bouncing or fades, none of which I have much use/need for…some great transitions, just not for anything I’m doing. And I’m a little disturbed it adds animations to EVERY block, not just the Otter ones.
About Author — A simple bio block that pulls data from WordPress admin about the author of the current post. Since I’m the only author on the site, that would be ME, and it would be highly repetitive in posts.
Advanced Heading — Nothing fancy, just the animation options.
Button Group — Up to five options, basic styling, heavy on the animations but otherwise yawn. And I already have such a block.
Font Awesome Icons — There is a very large list of icons, but of what use the block is, I have no real guess. Most of those icons could be simply pasted into the text. Oh, wait, now I see it. They do a whole bunch of other “grouped” blocks that use that as the replacement for services or products. Meh.
Google Map — Same problem as other plugins, if I can’t get the Maps API key to work, this doesn’t work at all.
Plugin Card — This is a fairly unique need — to post a profile of a specific plugin you want to talk about?
Posts — Same as other blocks by other collections, to show a series of recent posts on the site, and something I have no need for at all.
Pricing — This is a pretty basic pricing box, with a title, price, some features and a button. Nothing exciting.
Section — Apparently this is the strong point of the plugin, and particularly good for pages, as pseudo-page design, but it is highly misnamed. It’s basically a columns-and-grid tool with relatively basic options, although the width controls for each of the columns is pretty granular.
Service — The same as the pricing block, with minor styling tweaks. Meh.
Sharing Icons — I can insert Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Reddit. Nothing exciting about any of it, and I already have tools to do that. It could be interesting for a fast load page combined with animation, but I’m not really feeling it.
Slider — I got so excited using this, because when I clicked on the media library, it showed me a link to NextGen galleries, and I thought for a moment it was going to let me pull from them. It didn’t. And that is the only source I would want/need, so no dice.
Testimonials — A basic block that doesn’t look much different from the pricing box. You have an image, a name, title, and description. All of which I can do a hundred different ways without this block.
And just like that, another block collection bites the dust.
Across the eight-block collections that I’m reviewing (default Gutenberg, JetPack, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons), there are a bunch of blocks that perform special functions. A couple show up in multiple collections; others in only one. Let’s run through them quickly.
Table of Contents
Ultimate has a fantastic block called “table of contents”. Just like in Word or other word processing programs, the page generates the ToC all by itself by recognizing where else in the page / post you have used headings. I frequently use H4, so I limit it to only grabbing those. I can style the background, width, texts, etc., even make the contents collapsible. Heck, I can even change the colour of the bullets…what’s not to love?
Advanced Gutenberg has a similar block called Summary but it takes all headings, with no real styling options. It works, but I have much more power with the Ultimate Addons one, so I’ll stick with it.
Notices, calls to action
Atomic Blocks has a block called Notice; Qodeblock has Inline Notice; and Stackable has Notification. The first two are virtually identical with a large block with a box around it, a bright colour for a heading, and some notice text to go under it. It is designed to stand out on a page, and frequently is used by companies right now for things like Covid notices or shipping delays or even specials. They can be “permanent” or you can make them so the viewer can dismiss them, almost like a popup.
Stackable, as always, has a different approach. They put the whole block in colour (not just the heading), and in addition to the title/heading and the description, they give you an option for a button.
They’re all okay, but honestly, I have a dozen different ways to do exactly the same thing. Pass. But interestingly, they all have a similar block called “call to action” blocks. What are they? Basically large text on a colour background, some description, and a button. Hmmm, sounds familiar.
Atomic Blocks lets me adjust fonts, colours, and the button. Qodeblock is the same. Ultimate goes in a slightly different direction by putting the button over to the side, and allowing it to stack on tablets and phones, but otherwise the same.
Stackable goes a bit crazy, as usual. They have six different layouts — two typical vertical ones, three different horizontal ones changing the relationship between the title and the description, and one called split centred which goes for a big title to the left and button and description stacked to the right. If you have the premium subscription, they have 33 different stylings all with unique backgrounds and colour schemes. Yep, they work. And while I confess I feel like I have almost no need for this type of block, I’m going to leave it active anyway. Just in case I want it in the future. Oh, and by the way? If you turn off the button, you basically have the same functional block as the notice ones. 🙂
Social blocks
I use the plugin AddToAny and it lets me include social icons at the end of each post. I also have a widget that lets me put it in my side bar. But some people want to put them in the middle of their page, which can be useful on a Contact Page for example, and so there are five separate blocks available in the collections to let you put in the social icons for people to click on. Some people use them for their own links, as well as giving people easy to click on “buttons” to get to a YouTube video or someone else’s Twitter feed. I have almost no use for any of these functions.
The Default collection includes Social Links and has options for not only icons but widgets too. The three choices ar medium-sized rounds, the logos only, or a flattened pill size button. Advanced Gutenberg has 16 presets in the Social Links block or you can upload any logo you want, as well as change the size and colour of the basic backgrounds. Atomic Blocks has a Sharing block, but limited to only six choices and none of the proper logos for each one (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Email), along with REALLY odd colouring. Qodeblock has Sharing Icons, and they too follow the AB model of not using the real logos, with the only difference being that the colour is better and they add Google. Last but not least, Ultimate adds one called Social Share, and it expands your choices to 12 sites — it adds Digg, Blogger, StumbleUpon, Tumblr and, wait for it, MySpace??? What is this, 1998? And just to be weird, they give you what looks like the real icon/logo, and only available in black and white? What the heck. NONE of the other blocks adds hardly anything to the default one as far as I can see, except perhaps styling the colours. I’ll leave the default, and disable the rest.
Tools for embedding
I’ve mentioned in other posts that there is a Default “embed” tool for a ton of different sites, almost none of which I use or would embed things from into my site. Sure, in theory, I could, but just as with the social sites, many of them are just of no interest or utility for me. So I disabled the blocks created for embedding from their sites too.
Three collections have a unique option for embedding a map. The Default collection uses a block called Embed: Map, and it links to a site called Mapbox.com. To embed from it, you need an Access Token, which you can get from creating a free account…which I did, and then it stopped working. I couldn’t figure out how to even tell it an address to show by default. Advanced Gutenberg wants a Google API key, and to be honest, I struggled to get a Google Map API for something else I was doing online. I’ve filled out the forms for three different types of APIs, and all of them fail at the OAuth stage, with no explanation as to why nor can I find any examples online that are any different from what I did. Ultimate has a block specifically for Google Map too, with the same results. It’s easier to just post a link that will open Google Maps itself, I guess, on the rare occasion I might actually need it.
As I mentioned, there is a LONG list of other embed options and I disabled most of them. A few that are more relevant to me are:
Twitter … It lets me insert an individual tweet by someone, all I need is the URL. Note that Twitter lets you do it too, by giving you an embed code for every tweet, but it has extra code with it and requires a custom HTML block to insert it. The default block works better.
Facebook … It seems like it would be the same as Twitter, you have to paste a URL. Except there’s a catch. You can only do it IF the entire timeline of the account is public. Not just THAT post even, the ENTIRE timeline. Kind of defeats the purpose, but when I think about it, it makes sense. Only people who are logged in can see various posts. Unlike Twitter where you can see anything whether you’re logged in or not. Dang, I was hoping to keep a few. Oh well, bye-bye FB block.
WordPress … So here’s another weird thing. The auto-WordPress embed works with my own URLs too. For this same site. Which means I have no use for any of the big fancy Posts blocks that show dozens of other posts at once.
Google Calendar … I thought there were actually two calendar blocks, just slightly different nomenclature but they are actually quite different. One of the default ones, called Calendar, is actually a calendar of all my posts that I’ve done i.e., for each day where I’ve posted something, it’s clickable to give the archives list of posts for that day. Definitely not something I would ever use. There is also an Embed: Google Calendar option, but after my experience with FB, I wasn’t surprised to find out that the Google Calendar you’re embedding has to be totally public. Not that helpful if you wanted to share a single event and make IT public somehow.
So I’m keeping the Twitter one, disabling the rest.
Formatted prose
In previous posts, I talked about all the different text blocks for various things. But I intentionally left out five that are pseudo-related, and all come from Default/Jetpack collections.
First and foremost, there is one called Verse. This is for the poets among us, or at least the ones who need control of spacing in their poetry. The block has a small mono font, and the block won’t adjust spacing no matter what. Indent three spaces? You’ll see three equal spaces. Type three dots? Same distance. So if you’re into writing poetry, and the visual wrapping points on the page are important, you can style them in the block. I don’t do poetry, but having a way to totally control spacing and blocks isn’t a bad tool to have from time to time. I’ll keep it.
A second block is called Code, and it meets a similar need for not messing with spacing and fonts. If you are into showing computer code, like CSS or HTML, the code block lets you paste it in, control relative monospacing, and have the webpage ignore it so it doesn’t think it is actual code that it should execute. But I don’t need two blocks doin the same thing, so I’ll keep verse and disable code (code tends to highlight its text a bit).
The third block is called Preformatted and does the exact same thing as the first two. So I can disable it too.
The fourth and fifth were mistakes I made in looking at them. I thought “custom HTML” was to allow you, like Code, to be able to type in HTML that people could see to learn HTML. Nope, it’s a block to actually let you manually enter HTML code and execute it in the page. Same with Markdown, but it actually executes Markdown language. I don’t need Markdown, but I’ll keep Custom HTML for some occasional uses, although I could always switch any block like a paragraph block to an HTML view and type it there. This is just easier and cleaner. It even has a preview built-in to the block.
Totally unique blocks
As I have gone through all the different posts in the last few days about different types of blocks, most of them I could group together. A bit arbitrarily at times, but often they had clones in other collections. The last five blocks are a bit more unique although the first one has a clone.
Both Advanced Gutenberg and Stackable have a block called “Count Up”. The intent for this block is often related to things like fund-raising or some sort of web-state or a stat in general that you want to show off. Let’s say, for example, you’re trying to raise $500,000 for a charity, and you want to show that you’re at $222,312 so far. If you put that number in a block, it’s kind of flat. Boring even. But the count-up block allows you to enter the number ($222K) and when it is on the screen, it will show the numbers count from 0 all the way to $222,312 really quickly. Advanced Gutenberg counts up slower than Stackable, but Stackable has a lot more styling options. But to be honest, I have absolutely no need for either, really. Cool, interesting even, but useful? Not for me.
Default+Jetpack adds a Star Rating block and I wish I had found it years ago, even if I’m not going to use it. Let me explain. I have book reviews, TV reviews, movie reviews, even recipes. Lots of things I *could* use a ratings block for, and probably should. But the image is that of a star. And while I can increase it up to a scale of 10, and even colour it dark green to fit in my overall theme, I can’t change the icon. And some time ago, I came across the frog emoji that fits in with my PolyWogg theme. So I use that. It’s manual, I’m not thrilled by it, but it works. And so I’ll stick with that, cuz I like me my frogs. 🙂
Ultimate includes one called Timeline, and I almost missed it because there is another “posts” block in one of the collections that lets you see all your posts in a timeline diagram. I have no use for it, so I was going to pass on this one as well. Except it isn’t about posts. Honestly, it’s kind of a weird inclusion in any collection, as it is more like a plugin option for those wanting graphs and things. You can create a vertical timeline with it, with “blocks” / “tabs” hanging off either side. You enter descriptions in blocks with a Heading and a description, and opposite it, you insert a date (actually, you put dates in the block options). And it will let you create, wait for it, up to 100 things in the timeline. Honestly, most people doing this on a website would use a graphic editor to create an infographic of some sort, and then just share it as a photo. But this one lets you create it like a Powerpoint tool in your website, and you can totally enter text and links in the description boxes. The default is alternating left and right (called centred), but you can have it all go left or right with stacking above each one. Equally, there is a default connector that looks like a calendar, but you can have any one of 1200 other icons for the “hub” of the timeline bar, and turn dates off if you want. As I said, it’s totally unique, nobody else has anything like it. I can’t think of ANY reason why I would want it, but I have to keep it. It’s just too cool not to keep it.
And finally, the last block is from the Default+Jetpack collection and is a simple Contact Info block. While lots of other blocks had ways to show off contacts for team members, or bios, this is more of a website tool.
You can enter an email, phone number, street address, City, Province, Postal Code, Country, and link to a Google Map. I initially was of the mind, I have ZERO use for this. It was more for businesses, for example. Except, any of the rows that you don’t enter, it just ignores them and collapses the info. So if I wanted to give an address to, I don’t know, the place I was doing some astronomy, I could put in the info, and it would show up as an address that was clickable to a link. Now that I see it, I can see some of the allure. But if it is just a link, I have way better ways to do that. I could even make it a button, for example, that jumps to a Google Map. I can see the appeal, but not interested.
Update – Another special block
Shortly after I was nearing the end of my review of these blocks, Ultimate Addons included two “new” blocks that are “schema” friendly, but I don’t need that functionality per se. One is a “how-to” format for a page, but it’s pretty rough, and I have no real use for it. I can create my own headings just as easily. However, they have a second one to create a FAQ page, and it is pretty decent. Another “unique” one, although you could do the same with collapsible accordions just as easily. This just formats easily. I’ll keep it around.
Update: To see my current collection of blocks, check out the blocks I use.
