Starter Templates – Website Templates & Demo Import for Block Editor

Starter Templates is a WordPress website template library for the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg), with a guided demo importer. Browse starter sites, preview their pages, choose colors and fonts, then import the content and settings you need. The current templates use the Customify theme and Blocksify. Review each design's plugin requirements before importing. Browse Website Templates to explore the available designs and open their live demos. To import a starter site, open Customify → Starter Templates in your WordPress dashboard. Find and preview a starter template

• Search by template name or keywords, and filter by category and license.
• Open a live demo inside your admin dashboard.
• Switch between desktop, tablet and mobile preview widths, or expand the preview area.
• Preview premium designs before choosing a package.

Choose colors and typography Select a color palette and a heading/body font pair before importing. The available choices include template palettes and typography where provided, plus choices supplied by Customify. Supported demos show your style choices in the live preview. The importer applies those choices to Customify and installs the selected fonts through the WordPress Font Library when available. Review and import The setup panel shows required and recommended plugins, including their installed and active status. You can select recommended plugins and choose whether to import demo content, widgets and Customizer settings. During import, the plugin:

• Attempts to install and activate required free plugins from WordPress.org, including Blocksify.
• Imports the template's pages, posts, media and menus when demo content is selected.
• Applies the selected widgets and Customify settings, including the template's header, footer and layout options where supplied.
• Runs a background import job and displays progress, completion or an error message in the setup panel.
• Checks declared plugins after import and attempts to activate installed plugins that are still inactive, respecting your skip choices.

Install any required premium plugins from your PressMaximum account before importing. The importer cannot download those plugins from WordPress.org. If a dependency is unavailable, the import can continue with a warning; features may be missing, and content for an unavailable plugin can be skipped. Use a new or staging site for your first import. Importing can replace settings and menu items, and re-importing can replace previously imported content. Back up an existing site before proceeding. Free starter templates and premium designs The plugin is free. Templates marked Free do not require a premium template license. Check each template's plugin requirements as well: a template's license and the licenses for its required plugins are separate. A Press Studio license key is required to import premium templates. A standalone Customify Pro or Blocksify Pro license does not include premium template access. Use the license filter to browse Free or Press Studio templates. You can still view a premium demo without access to import it. When a package is required, the setup sidebar names that package and links to PressMaximum pricing. A configured license is checked when you open a premium preview and again when you start an import. Customify compatibility These starter sites are intended for the Customify theme. The plugin integrates with its Starter Templates dashboard and applies Customify's settings, palettes and typography. Activate Customify, or a child theme based on Customify, to use this integration. Each design may require additional plugins for its blocks, shop or other content. Keep those plugins active after importing so the features used by your site remain available.

1.0.5

• FIXED: A "shop by category" or similar row that lists specific product categories could show the wrong items (or none) after import. Category and product IDs pinned in a block are now remapped separately to the newly imported ones, so both product rows and category rows display their intended items.

1.0.4

• UPDATED: Rename the plugin to Starter Templates – Website Templates & Demo Import for Block Editor.
• UPDATED: Refresh the WordPress.org description, tags, installation instructions and FAQs, with a direct link to browse website templates.
• CLARIFIED: Templates marked Free can be imported without a license key; premium template access is described separately.
• UPDATED: Add a new Starter Templates logo, rounded icons and banners featuring six real website designs on a light gray background.

1.0.3

• FIXED: Sections that show hand-picked products or posts (for example a "bestsellers" or featured row) rendered "No posts found" after import. The importer now remaps the pinned item IDs to the newly imported ones, so these sections display their intended products and posts.

1.0.2

• NEW: After an import finishes, verify every plugin the template declares is active — a declared plugin that was installed but inactive (e.g. Blocksify Pro) is now switched on so the template renders faithfully.
• IMPROVED: The plugins step activates the required Pro plugins (Customify Pro / Blocksify Pro) before checking your license, so a licensed site is no longer wrongly told to enter a key.
• IMPROVED: Any Customify Pro / Blocksify Pro or bundle (Press Studio / Press Suites) license — including a child key from a bundle — now unlocks premium templates; accepted products are configured in one place.
• FIXED: Blocksify is activated before Blocksify Pro, which requires it, so activation no longer fails.

1.0.1

• Import premium templates with a Press Studio license key, checked before import.

1.0.0

• NEW: Rebuilt starter-site importer — templates now import in the background with a live progress UI, so large sites no longer time out.
• NEW: Live template preview and a guided wizard for choosing plugins, fonts, and options before importing.
• NEW: Bundled plugins (including Blocksify) are installed and activated as part of the import; Pro templates prompt for the required Pro plugins.
• NEW: Fonts install through the WordPress Font Library (WordPress 6.5+).
• IMPROVED: Fully integrated into the Customify dashboard under the Starter Templates tab.

0.0.22

• Verify escaping and nonce checks directly in code instead of suppressing them, and remove the file-level PHPCS disable from the exporter.
• Add capability- and nonce-checked export links to the Starter Sites screen and drop the old developer query-string links.

0.0.21

• Escape all WXR export output with the core esc_xml() function instead of a custom helper.
• Remove raw.githubusercontent.com from the download allowlist; starter files are served only by the Customify Starter Sites service.
• Read and write core widget instances through a documented helper so the core widget_{id_base} option namespace is not mistaken for a plugin prefix.
• Raise the minimum WordPress version to 7.0.

0.0.20

• Replace the admin starter-site preview iframe with a link that opens the public demo in a new browser tab, so no external site is embedded in the dashboard.
• Serve the import placeholder image from the plugin instead of a remote URL.
• Use require_once when conditionally loading core admin files for media side-loading.
• Escape all values echoed into the WXR export document.
• Add unique prefixes to AJAX actions, importer hooks, and helper functions to avoid collisions with other plugins and themes.
• Use wp_is_valid_utf8() with a fallback when preparing export data, avoiding the deprecated seems_utf8() on newer WordPress.

0.0.19

• Show the Customify requirement notice directly on the Starter Sites page when the theme is inactive.
• Replace deprecated legacy text encoding with a WordPress 5.0 and PHP 7.4 compatible implementation.
• Write release archives to the Git-ignored dist directory.

0.0.18

• Address WordPress.org review feedback for output escaping, plugin headers, core widget option documentation, and bundled Owl Carousel assets.
• Fix Starter Sites button alignment with current WordPress admin styles.
• Place Starter Sites under the Customify menu when the theme is active, with a standalone menu otherwise.
• Harden remote downloads, imported configuration, WXR parsing, and iframe messaging.
• Escape and validate starter-site API data before rendering it in the admin.
• Add external-service disclosure and synchronize release metadata.

0.0.17

• Maintenance release.

0.0.16

• Maintenance and tooling updates.