Earlier this month, we shared our progress on the first official WooCommerce Block Theme (internally code-named “Purple”), designed to help merchants and developers unlock the full potential of block-based site building. Read the original announcement.
We’re writing today to update you on a strategic shift in how this theme project will be delivered.
Why we are shifting gears
As we finalized the new theme for WordPress.org, the team realized there was significant overlap between Purple and other emerging WordPress block themes being worked on internally. Rather than maintaining multiple, similar themes, we’ve stepped back to consider how we could best serve the Woo and broader WordPress communities for the long haul.
Our new direction focuses on providing the best commerce-building experience on top of a shared, modern WordPress theme, delivering WooCommerce specific patterns, templates, and style variations directly within WooCommerce itself. This approach:
- Reduces duplication and maintenance overhead
- Ensures WooCommerce merchants benefit from the latest improvements across the WordPress block theme ecosystem
Purple’s legacy will remain
The development of the theme drove major improvements in WooCommerce’s core blocks, templates, and extensibility, all shipping steadily to Woo users, regardless of which theme they use.
We’ll continue to ship and document new block patterns, store templates, and style variations. These will be available to all WooCommerce stores, making it easier than ever to create beautiful, modern, block-based shopfronts.
Withdrawing the theme submission
We paused and have now withdrawn the standalone Woo Block Theme submission to WordPress.org while we implement this improved, more unified strategy.
What’s next
The Purple theme repository will remain public for transparency but will not be actively maintained. Theme developers can continue to use best practices in block theme development. There is no need to change your approach based on Purple alone.
We understand this news may feel disappointing, and realize we’re unable to share many specifics about what’s ahead just yet. Still, we wanted to be transparent about our current status, while also being careful not to set expectations we may need to shift in the future.
Please expect further updates once we’ve completed internal alignment and technical exploration. In the meantime, we invite you to join the #woo-block-themes Slack channel and share questions or feedback with us.
We deeply appreciate your patience, understanding, and engagement. Your feedback is crucial as we work to build the best possible theme experience for merchants, developers, and designers, now and in the future.
Leave a Reply