Mohammad Sajid Ansari

<p><strong>Idara Reading Time</strong> is a focused, single-purpose Gutenberg block that does one thing well: shows readers how long your post will take. It also offers an optional scroll progress bar — a thin bar pinned to the top or bottom of the page that fills as the visitor scrolls.</p>
<p><em>Idara (إدارة) is an Arabic word meaning “studio” or “administration” — the brand behind a growing family of carefully crafted, single-purpose Gutenberg blocks.</em></p>
<h4>Why this and not a full block suite?</h4>
<p>Most block plugins ship 30+ blocks you’ll never use, slowing your editor and your frontend. Idara plugins are deliberately small. This one is under 25 KB. CSS and JS load <strong>only on pages where the block is present</strong> — never globally.</p>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Estimated reading time, calculated server-side from your post content</li>
<li>Display as a single value (“3 min read”) or a friendly range (“2–3 min read”)</li>
<li>Adjustable words-per-minute (50–600)</li>
<li>4 icon styles: clock, timer, hourglass, or none</li>
<li>Optional scroll progress bar with color, height, and position (top/bottom)</li>
<li>Hide on short posts (e.g. don’t show on anything under 2 minutes)</li>
<li>Custom prefix and suffix text</li>
<li>Inherits theme typography and text color via block supports</li>
<li>Full Site Editing (FSE) compatible — works inside block templates and template parts</li>
<li>Block toolbar shortcuts for icon cycling and range toggle</li>
<li>Semantic, accessible markup with ARIA labels</li>
<li>No tracking, no external requests, no third-party services</li>
<li>Translation-ready</li>
</ul>
<h4>Use cases</h4>
<ul>
<li>Blog posts where readers want to gauge time investment</li>
<li>Long-form articles where the scroll progress bar improves engagement</li>
<li>Documentation sites</li>
<li>News and magazine layouts</li>
</ul>
<h3>Development</h3>
<p>Source code and build tools are available on GitHub:<br />
https://github.com/sajid-ansari-65/idara-reading-time</p>
<p>The <code>src/</code> directory contains the unminified JavaScript (ES modules, JSX) and SCSS. Run <code>npm install && npm run build</code> to compile.</p>


Idara Reading Time

Show estimated reading time with an optional scroll progress bar. A lightweight, FSE-ready Gutenberg block that loads only where used.

Alan Fuller

<p>The new generation og WordPress themes are known as Block Themes, sometime referred to as Full Site Editing (FSE) or Gurenberg Themes.</p>
<p>These themes disable the older customizer, on the presumption that all styling can be done via the editor.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this is not so, and some styles still need custom CSS if you want to perfect your designs.</p>
<p>There are several plugins that allow you to add additional CSS  however there is no need to add another plugin as the ability is still within Core WordPress, in the form of the customizer.</p>
<p>All it needs is it to be switched back on – no bloat- just a switch and you can then access the customizer and add additional CSS.</p>
<p>This is a really lightweight plugin that adds back the customizer when hidden by block themes.</p>
<p>The customizer is useful for block themes mainly because of Additional CSS.</p>
<p>Whilst it is still available for block themes, it is hidden. This plugin simply brings back the links.</p>


Add Customizer Back For Block Themes

Nice, simple, and does exactly what it says. 

It's getting the job done.

Simply adds back the hidden customizer for Block Themes such as Twenty Twenty Two and Twenty Twenty Three

Idara Reading Time vs Add Customizer Back For Block Themes