Block theme or classic? How to tell

The check: Editor or Customize

Here's the check. Open your WP dashboard: the screens you log in to at yoursite.com/wp-admin. In the menu on the left, click Appearance. If the list under it has Editor, you have a block theme: the newer kind of WP theme. If it has Customize and no Editor, you have an older (classic) theme.

Two things can fool you. The Customize button on your theme's card, under Appearance › Themes, shows on both kinds of theme. On a block theme it opens the Site Editor. And some plugins put Customize back in the menu of a block theme. So look for Editor. If it's there, your theme is a block theme.

Patterns and Fonts don't settle it either: in WP 7.1 an older theme shows both in that menu, and a block theme keeps Patterns inside the Editor. We checked both kinds of theme on WP 7.1 on Oct 11, 2026: Twenty Twenty-Four, a block theme, and a classic one.

What WordPress full site editing is

Full site editing is the name this way of working had when it arrived in WP 5.9, in January 2022. Today WP calls it the Site Editor. On a block theme, the header, the footer and each page template are built from blocks, the same blocks you write pages with. You change them in Appearance › Editor, and the change shows on every page that uses that piece.

Your header and footer are under Patterns in that menu. Header and Footer sit near the top of the list. Footers, further down, holds ready-made footer designs, not the one your site shows. Click Footer, then its picture, and you're editing the footer your pages share.

On an older (classic) theme, the header and footer live in the theme's own files. You change what the theme allows in Appearance › Customize, in widgets, or on the theme's own settings page. A page builder is different again: a plugin such as Elementor or Divi that lays out pages its own way, whatever your theme. A header made with one belongs to the builder, and CMSHands can't change it.

What CMSHands does on each kind of theme

CMSHands is a free plugin that adds a chat to your WP dashboard. On a block theme, it changes the words and blocks in your header and footer when you ask. It can take out the theme's footer credit and add a button or a line to a page. It can also add CSS (the rules that set how your site looks) for one thing you name, like a form.

On an older theme it still does the jobs that don't depend on the theme. That's the words on your pages and posts, installing and updating free plugins from wordpress.org, and answering questions about your site. It can't change a classic theme's header or footer yet. For styling, it writes the CSS and tells you where to paste it: Appearance › Customize › Additional CSS.

On either kind, each change comes as a card: a box in the chat that shows exactly what would change. Nothing changes until you press its button. Most changes undo in one click, and the card says when one can't. To start it's free: 3 changes with no account, then 10 a month once you add your email.