What are Patterns?

Patterns in WordPress are pre-designed block layouts that users can quickly insert into their pages or posts to streamline content creation. These patterns can be synced, meaning changes made to one instance update all instances of the pattern, or unsynced, where each instance can be customized independently without affecting other copies. Patterns make it easy to maintain consistent design elements across a website while allowing for flexibility. For more details, visit the WordPress Patterns documentation.

How it Works

WordPress Patterns are reusable, pre-designed layouts made of blocks that can be inserted into your pages or posts. Refoundry is built on WordPress, so site owners can create custom Patterns using all Refoundry blocks (including Reuseable Component Blocks for Pro users). These Patterns help maintain design consistency while making content creation faster and more efficient.

Synced Patterns: Synced Patterns ensure that any change made to one instance of the pattern is reflected across every instance on the site. This is ideal for global elements like banners or CTAs with content needs to stay consistent everywhere. Synced Patterns allow you to “sync” the content throughout the site and ensure any customizations to the contained blocks are also synced throughout the site. When added to a page, they appear in the list view as a special block identified with the double purple diamond icon and purple text. They can’t be edited locally.

Unsynced Patterns: Unsynced Patterns allow for easy insertion of blocks onto a page or post. When added to page they appear as unsynced regular blocks ready for you to add content or customize.

Creating Patterns with Refoundry Blocks

You can create custom Patterns using Refoundry blocks, including containers and columns:

1. Build your layout using the necessary blocks.
2. Select the blocks you want to save as a pattern.
3. From the block toolbar, click the Options Menu (three dots) and select Create Pattern.
4. Name the pattern and save it. It will now be available in the Patterns section of the block inserter for easy reuse.

You can also save Reuseable Component Blocks as unsynced Patterns for easy insertion into pages, making them more accessible for production work flows.

Component Blocks vs. Synced Patterns

Both Reusable Component Blocks and Synced Patterns both allow for the creation of reusable content across your site, but they differ in how updates are applied and their ideal use cases.

Synced Patterns enable you to reuse layouts across multiple posts and pages, with any changes made to one instance automatically reflected or synced in all other instances. This makes Synced Patterns ideal for global design elements like callouts, promotional banners, or sections that need consistent updates across the site. They provide an efficient way to maintain uniformity across your content.

Reusable Component Blocks, available to Pro users, function similarly to Patterns but with added flexibility. Reusable Component Blocks can contain any Refoundry blocks (like Patterns) and are saved for reuse across the site. Changes made to the original Reusable Component Block are reflected globally across all instances. However, you can enter unique content wherever you placed the Reusable Component Blocks while maintaining all the global styles, layouts and settings – no ‘unsyncing’ required. Furthermore, you can override any of the settings of the contained blocks independently to customize parts, but not all, of the Reusable Component Blocks.

This is ideal for situations where you want to adjust only the colors of a Reusable Component Blocks, like on a Callout, or you want to adjust the layout of just one use of a Reusable Component Blocks to allow adjustments for different amounts of content. These modifications can all be reset to the global value with the handy reset buttons, unlike Synced Patterns where changes are committed permanently.