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I’m trying to dig my way around to insert custom functionality. I’ve seen pieces and parts in the past, WP API calls and such. I’m not down for installing anything remotely related to node.js. Been there; done that, not worth the squeeze. Can someone guide me to customizing WP without having node installed? Consequently, it seems that node.js only required in the dev env, and has no connection with the actual running WP? And this is straight from wordpress.org.
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If you’re looking to build Gutenberg blocks, you will need nodejs installed. Gutenberg is meant to be solely client driven and it requires React now.
Take a look at ACF blocks if you want non-JS/non-native block builds.
I for one applaud WP for leaning towards more client-side development, but only wished that they had chosen Vue.js or Svelte as the client-side framework instead of Reactjs.
You can still build old-style plugins that implement shortcodes, widgets, and all that. That you can do with php, css, and any js you need, the same as you’ve been able to do for many years. And those plugins still work fine.
The WordPress.org-furnished stuff that builds Gutenberg blocks uses nodejs as a build tool, only, to create js bundles, turn jsx into js, turn into scss into native css, and all that. For what it’s worth the scaffold setup stuff installs the build environment hassle-free, once you have nodejs installed on your machine.
No nodejs web servers to see here.
I’m curious as to what your experience with node.js was that made it so bad. I’m not really a node.js expert myself but I learned enough to take advantage of it’s uses on the dev side that I incorporate it into every front-end job, WordPress or otherwise.
What happened, OP?
If you are looking to build custom Gutenberg blocks without react or node. Checkout Blockstudio, it’s an alternative to ACF blocks but more streamline.