Setting up Patterns

Patterns

Patterns is the name WordPress gives to a group of blocks (like an image, heading and paragraph) that have been grouped together and saved for later use. The theme comes with a number of patterns that should allow you to quickly add the content you want to your site. We’ve previously covered header and footer patterns and now we’ll look at the patterns for adding the main content to your pages - Heroes and Sections. These can be found by going to Patterns and clicking on the relevant category in the left sidebar.

You may notice that these patterns are locked and if you try to edit them you’ll be taken to the Home page in the editor instead. That is because these patterns are part of the theme’s files and can therefore only be edited on the back end. They are basically starting points that can be inserted into a page and then edited from there. If you want to create your own variations of these patterns then you can duplicate the pattern, edit it and save them for future use. You can also create your own patterns from scratch by clicking on the plus icon next to Patterns in the left sidebar and clicking Create Pattern.

Alternatively, you can save any collection of blocks on a post/page as a pattern by clicking on the 3 vertical dots icon and selecting Create Pattern.

Synced Patterns

As previously discussed, Synced Patterns are patterns that are all linked to one another so any changes you make to one will affect all instances of that pattern used across your site. For example, you may have a sign up form that appears above your footer on multiple pages. If you save this as a synced pattern then any changes you make to the content/fonts/colours et cetera will automatically be synchronised across all instances of that sign up form on all the pages where it appears.

Site Info Synced Patterns

The site comes pre-loaded with a number of synced patterns which can be used to add information about your business such as name, phone number and email address. These can then be updated from one central location (you can find them in Patterns > About). 

For example, if you need to add your phone number in several places then you can add it using the Phone Number synced pattern. If your number changes at a later date, then you only need to edit the synced pattern in order to update it everywhere.