7/11/2022
How To Remove All Blocks-Related Stuff From WordPress
With each new version of WordPress, it becomes more obvious that the future of the platform is in Gutenberg/its blocks metaphor.
I really don’t like blocks, and this poses a problem to me. The most promising alternative to WordPress, ClassicPress, is far from the desired level of maturity for more demanding scenarios, such as my Portuguese blog, Manual do Usuário.
For now, it is still possible to suppress all blocks-related stuff from up to date WordPress installations. I have gathered in this post all the hacks needed for this purpose. They have been tested up to the brand new WordPress 6.1 and, as far as I know, completely eliminate the block-related assets and calls.
There are only three steps:
Friendly plugins
Two plugins are essential for removing the blocks from the “back-end”, the administrative/restricted part of WordPress: Classic Editor and Classic Widgets.
Just install them to get back the classic editor and the classic widgets. (In the latest versions, the classic widgets have been replaced by… blocks.)
“Duotone” SVGs
Starting with WordPress 5.8, it became possible to edit images with two color tones from block editing. It’s a nice effect, but even if you don’t use it WordPress loads some SVG files at the beginning of the code, right after the <body> tag.
To remove them, you need to create a theme.json file inside your theme directory and paste this small piece of code into it:
"version": 1,
"settings": {
"color": {
"duotone": null
}
}
}
functions.php changes
WordPress automatically loads various CSS files related to the blocks, even if you don’t use them. The best way to remove them is via functions.php, a file that your theme probably already has. (If not, just create it in the root of your theme directory.)
Add the following lines to remove files related to the blocks:
add_filter( 'use_block_editor_for_post', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'use_widgets_blog_editor', '__return_false' );
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', function() {
wp_dequeue_style( 'wp-block-library' );
wp_dequeue_style( 'wp-block-library-theme' );
wp_dequeue_style( 'global-styles' );
wp_dequeue_style( 'classic-theme-styles-css' );
}, 20 );
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