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Hey all,
Here’s my dilemma. If you’re building a site and theme that someone else will maintain and likely build on in the future, would you build your page templates on php files, or have some generic starters and then build out page templates in the template UI? I still haven’t taken a deep dive into building block templates so building the php templates would be quicker, but if they can’t rely on or might not have the same technical knowledge, dragging and dropping in the UI *could* be easier on them– but wasn’t sure what other people are doing or how you’d approach it.
Thanks in advance!
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I work for an agency, and our approach combines both. We design custom themes with custom reusable blocks, and we use fixed page templates for pages that are likely never to change the layout (like a contact page, for example).
We always ensure the default page template looks good with any of the blocks so they can create pages without dev involvement. We prefer to give the client minimal control (i.e. absolutely no full site editing) as users will find a way to use blocks in unexpected ways. We lock down the colour palette and CMS options with theme.json, so they can’t use colours that are not part of the theme (accessibility concerns).
Whatever you choose, you must have training sessions with your client to ensure they know how to use their custom theme. I recommend installing the [WP Help](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-help/) plugin and writing documentation for your custom theme.