Title: Using Jetpack Blocks without a connection to WordPress.com
Author: Alex Kirk
Published: April 23, 2021
Last modified: October 26, 2023

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# Using Jetpack Blocks without a connection to WordPress.com

April 23, 2021

Recently I wanted to use a [Jetpack](https://jetpack.com) block for the WordPress
Gutenberg editor, specifically the [Slideshow Block](https://jetpack.com/support/jetpack-blocks/slideshow-block/),
which I think is very slim and elegant compared to [other Slideshow blocks on the WordPress.org plugin directory](https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/slideshow/).

The one thing I didn’t want to do, though, is to connect my site to WordPress.com.
For the most part because I didn’t intend to use any of the functionality that requires
the WordPress.com connection.

The difficulty in this: normally, you can’t actually use Jetpack until you connect
the site to your WordPress.com account. This behavior is in place so you can [enjoy a friction-less experience](https://jetpack.com/support/getting-started-with-jetpack/#why-should-i-connect-jetpack)
after the connection is established (i.e. you can activate any of its features whether
or not it needs the connection).

In my case, the connection is not needed for using the Slideshow block since it 
works with the local media library.

So, I present not a hack but an official way to use Jetpack without a WordPress.
com connection: it’s called [Offline Mode](https://jetpack.com/support/development-mode/).

You activate it by adding a constant or filter to your wp-config.php, for example:

    ```wp-block-code
    define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true );
    ```

While it is intended for local installs and actually development, it is useful if
you just want to use a single feature of Jetpack that doesn’t require the connection.

Many people say that Jetpack is slow because it’s so big. It is indeed huge from
a file size and feature perspective, but also it’s very optimized, so that it will
only load the PHP or JS code it needs. The other files lay dormant in your file 
system and don’t contribute to the loading or rendering time of your site.

[Code](https://alex.kirk.at/category/code/), [WordPress](https://alex.kirk.at/category/wordpress/)

[Jetpack](https://alex.kirk.at/tag/jetpack/)

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