Wordpress

This security and maintenance release features 19 bug fixes on Core, 22 bug fixes for the Block Editor, and 8 security fixes. WordPress 6.3.2 is a short-cycle release. You can review a summary of the maintenance updates in this release by reading the Release Candidate announcement. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. Backports are also available for other major WordPress releases, 4.1 and later. The next major release will be version 6.4 planned for 7 November 2023. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically. You can download WordPress 6.3.2 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site. Security updates included in this release The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities, and allowing them to be fixed in this release: Marc Montpas of Automattic for finding a potential disclosure of user email addresses. Marc Montpas of Automattic for finding an RCE POP Chains vulnerability. Rafie Muhammad and Edouard L of Patchstack along with a WordPress commissioned third-party audit for each independently identifying a XSS issue in the post link navigation block. Jb Audras of the WordPress Security Team and Rafie Muhammad of Patchstack for each independently discovering an issue where comments on private posts could be leaked to other users. John Blackbourn (WordPress Security Team), James Golovich, J.D Grimes, Numan Turle, WhiteCyberSec for each independently identifying a way for logged in user to execute any shortcode. mascara7784 and a third-party security audit for identifying a XSS vulnerability in the application password screen. Jorge Costa of the WordPress Core Team for identifying XSS vulnerability in the footnotes block. s5s and raouf_maklouf for independently identifying a cache poisoning DoS vulnerability. Thank you to these WordPress contributors This release was led by Joe McGill, Aaron Jorbin and Jb Audras, with the help of David Baumwald on mission control. WordPress 6.3.2 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver maintenance and security fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community. Aaron Jorbin, Aki Hamano, Akihiro Harai, Alex Concha, Andrew Ozz, Andy Fragen, Anthony Burchell, Aurooba Ahmed, Ben Dwyer, Carolina Nymark, Colin Stewart, Corey Worrell, Damon Cook, David Biňovec, David E. Smith, Dean Sas, Dennis Snell, Dhruvi Shah, Dion Hulse, Ehtisham S., Felix Arntz, George Mamadashvili, Greg Ziółkowski, Huzaifa Al Mesbah, Isabel Brison, Jb Audras, Joe Hoyle, Joe McGill, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonny Harris, Jorge Costa, Justin Tadlock, K. Adam White, Kim Coleman, LarryWEB, Liam Gladdy, Mehedi Hassan, Miguel Fonseca, Mukesh Panchal, Nicole Furlan, Paul Biron, Paul Kevan, Peter Wilson, Pooja N Muchandikar, Rajin Sharwar, Ryan McCue, Sal Ferrarello, Sergey Biryukov, Shail Mehta, Stephen Bernhardt, Teddy Patriarca, Timothy Jacobs, Weston Ruter, Zunaid Amin, ahardyjpl, beryldlg, floydwilde, jastos, martin.krcho, masteradhoc, petitphp, ramonopoly, vortfu, zieladam How to contribute To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core and #6-4-release-leads channels. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook. Already testing WordPress 6.4? The fourth beta is now available (zip) and it contains these security fixes. For more on 6.4, see the beta 3 announcement post. Thanks to @jeffpaul, @chanthaboune, @peterwilsoncc and @rawrly for proofreading. View the full article

WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 is now available for testing! This beta version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you evaluate Beta 3 on a test server and site. You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 in three ways: Plugin: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Direct download: Download the Beta 3 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website. Command line: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.4-beta3 The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is November 7, 2023. Get an overview of the 6.4 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.4-related posts in the coming weeks for more information. The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an underrepresented gender release squad to welcome the participation and partnership of those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project. Want to know what’s new in WordPress 6.4? Read the Beta 1 announcement for details. Get involved in testing Your help testing WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 is key to ensuring its quality. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.4. If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. Learn more about Gutenberg updates debuting in WordPress 6.4 by reviewing prior editions of What’s New in Gutenberg posts for 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, and 16.7. Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack. Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 3 Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Update on the Font Library The Font Library feature, initially planned for WordPress 6.4, is now set to release in 6.5. WordPress is committed to delivering the best possible experience. This decision allows time to address enhancement opportunities, test, and get enough feedback to meet WordPress’s quality standards. Thanks for your support as contributors work towards an exceptional Font Library experience. Beta 3 highlights WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 contains more than 60 updates since the Beta 2 release, including 29 tickets for WordPress core. Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes; more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 2 using these links: GitHub commits for 6.4 Closed Trac tickets since Beta 2 GitHub commits for Twenty Twenty-Four A Beta 3 haiku Beta 3 arrives Testing where progress derives Iterate, it thrives Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @meher, @rmartinezduque, @cbringmann, @sereedmedia and @michelleames View the full article

WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 is now available for testing! This beta version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 2 on a test server and site. You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 in three ways: Plugin: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Direct download: Download the Beta 2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website. Command line: Use the following WP-CLI command wp core update --version=6.4-beta2 Local environment: Use wp-now to set up a Node.js-based WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 install locally by running the command wp-now start --wp=6.4-beta2 The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is November 7, 2023. Get an overview of the 6.4 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.4-related posts in the coming weeks for more information. The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an underrepresented gender release squad to increase participation and partnership with those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project. Want to know what’s new in WordPress 6.4? Read the Beta 1 announcement and tune into Episode 63 of the WP Briefing podcast for details. How to get involved with testing Your help testing the WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.4. The Font Library feature, currently available in Gutenberg 16.7, requires more testing and feedback to ensure it is ready for inclusion in the upcoming 6.4 release. Check out this guide for further instructions on how to test it. If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. Learn more about Gutenberg updates debuting in WordPress 6.4 by reviewing prior editions of What’s New in Gutenberg posts for 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, and 16.7. Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack. Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 2 Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Beta 2 highlights WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 contains more than 50 updates since the Beta 1 release, including 18 tickets for WordPress core. Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes; more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 1 using these links: GitHub commits for 6.4 Closed Trac tickets since Beta 1 GitHub commits for Twenty Twenty-Four Note on Twenty Twenty-Four Please note that some images in Twenty Twenty-Four may not load correctly. A fix is in the works! Learn more on this Trac ticket. Note on pattern management improvements in non-block themes While WordPress 6.4 will bring several exciting pattern advancements, improvements to pattern management in non-block themes will eventually be addressed in WordPress 6.5. The Beta 1 announcement has been updated to reflect this change accordingly. A Beta 2 haiku Not the first, nor last A second space to reflect Both new and not new Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @meher, @sereedmedia, @rmartinezduque, @cbringmann, @priethor, @annezazu. View the full article

Join WordPress Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, as she offers an exclusive preview of the upcoming WordPress 6.4 release, accompanied by special guest Sarah Norris, one of the Editor Tech leads for this release. Don’t miss this opportunity for an insider’s look! Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Guest: Sarah Norris Editor: Dustin Hartzler Logo: Javier Arce Production: Brett McSherry Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod Show Notes TwentyTwentyFour Theme Repo Figma File Font Library Image Lightbox Github Block Hooks Upcoming WordPress Meetings for Contributors Small List of Big Things Find announcements for WordPress 6.4 Beta at: #Core Slack Channel WordPress.org/news/ Proposal: Documentation translation/localization Seeking proposals for Interop 2024 – Interop 2024 is happening! WordPress developers, please contribute your proposals for 2024 on GitHub or as a comment on this post. WordCamp US 2023 Q&A – With a successful WCUS in the books, an extensive list of post-event questions and answers are available and inspired by the event’s community and Q&A. Accessibility Office Hours – In an effort to improve accessibility knowledge in the WordPress project, the accessibility team will hold Office Hours every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC Transcript [00:00:00] Josepha: Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project some insight into the community that supports it. And get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go! [00:00:28] (Intro Music) [00:00:39] Josepha: I have with me today, Sarah Norris. She is the Core Tech Editor in the WordPress 6.4 release. Welcome, Sarah. [00:00:47] Sarah: Oh, hi, and thanks for having me. [00:00:50] Josepha: First, I should give everyone kind of a concept of what we’re doing. So this is the WordPress 6.4 sneak peek episode of our podcast, which means that we’re going to talk a little bit about like the stuff that we are excited to get into the release stuff that we’re hoping is actually going to make it into the final release. But also, we’re going to talk a little bit about like stuff that we wish people knew. That we were working on. Things that are going to be really cool for users or developers or plugin authors, theme authors, things like that, that otherwise people would miss because it’s just hard to see. And so before we get started on all of that, is this your first release where you’re part of a squad like this? [00:01:31] Sarah: Ah, so, it’s actually my second. I was part of 6.1 as well. I led the default theme of 2023. But I am finding that the experience is a little bit different. So I’m still learning probably just as much. [00:01:42] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and in 6.1 versus 6.4, for one, the themes are very different. Like the default themes are very different, but also the tasks involved with leading a default theme are very different from like leading things happening in the core editor in that Gutenberg plugin. [00:02:01] Sarah: Yeah, there’s so many different tasks. Yeah, like, I guess maybe there’s such, there’s maybe just like a set of tasks for every part of the release squad. But they’re so different. And much more involved. [00:02:12] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. And as of the time of this recording, we’re recording this on September 27th. It comes out a little bit later. But as of the time of this recording, like we just wrapped up beta 1 for WordPress 6.4 yesterday. But I understand that, like an hour ago, you wrapped up a final release of the Gutenberg plugin as well. So you’re just kind of everywhere with us right now. [00:02:36] Sarah: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah, we tried to make the beta 1 for 6.4 and the latest release of Gutenberg quite close together to make it easier to, to merge those latest changes for beta 1 of 6.4. So yes, that’s why it’s so close together, and fingers crossed, they both went really smoothly, so I’m really happy about that. [00:02:53] Josepha: Now we all sit around and watch the support queues and hope. That part, the sitting around and watching the support queues, is both my most favorite and least favorite sometimes part of releases. Like, it’s a little bit my most favorite because I get to talk to our support folks. I’m like, hey, is anything happening? But also, it’s my least favorite because it’s like the Schrödinger’s cat of releases. You’re like, as long as I don’t look at it, it could be all well or all bad, and I just don’t know. [00:03:23] Sarah: I hear you. I’ve just been doing something similar with watching test releases. [00:03:27] Josepha: Yeah. Just waiting and waiting and waiting. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let’s talk a little bit about 6.4. So WordPress 6.4 is our third major release of 2023, which is kind of a big deal for one because, like, three major releases a year is always exciting. But this particular one is, on the one hand, much larger from a feature standpoint than we kind of expected it to be, or so far, it looks like it’s going to be a bit larger than we expected. But also, it is our second iteration of an underrepresented gender release squad. Which I am very excited about. It’s a way for us to kind of bring in a lot of voices that otherwise we don’t see in the space. And so we’re going to just kind of talk through both of those things today. But let’s start with first: what are the things that are going into the release that you personally are most excited about, that you are most interested in making sure that we get all the way to the end of the release cycle? [00:04:27] Sarah: So, ones that I am particularly excited for. So, the first one on my list is the Font Library. This is looking really good to include as well. So it’s gonna do your way for users to manage fonts across their site regardless of their active themes. So similar how to how their media library works at the moment for images and other media. [00:04:44] Josepha: And if I recall correctly when I was looking at the prototypes for that, like the early demos of it, that has a lot of local font management as well, which helps us with GDPR concerns that we have had with font management in the CMS for a while. One, is that still correct? And two, does it look like it’s going to make it into the release? [00:05:04] Sarah: Yes. Yeah. Both correct. Yes. Yeah. Very easy. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So yeah, all the fonts will be managed locally. So, including things like Google Fonts. And any of the popular libraries and the way it’s been built, as it calls its files like this, it’s been built with extensibility in mind. So yeah, hopefully, the possibility should be endless for any number of font collections to be added. [00:05:23] Josepha: Yeah. Yeah. I, I know, for folks who are listening to this later, hopefully not much later, but if you are listening to this between when beta 1 came out and between and beta 2 is coming out, we didn’t get as much of that into beta 1 as we expected, but beta 2 should have a good chunk of it in there. So get out there and test that. [00:05:43] Sarah: It’s also just been released with Gutenberg 16.7 as well. So, I guess for anyone that you just mentioned listening in between. [00:05:51] Josepha: I’m one of those folks that has not; I don’t run trunk because I’m not that good with like preventing WordPress from falling apart. I’m not a developer, but I do run the nightlies and for the major releases for Core, and I run also the beta of Gutenberg. And so, I got both updates done this morning and started going in and looking at everything because I don’t run trunk. I didn’t have some of the weird edge cases that I saw reported over the last few weeks, which is probably good. [00:06:21] Josepha: But also, if anyone’s running trunk and is running all of the nightlies of anything, let us know where the problems are because there are not a lot of you. It feels like, like, a thousand people in the particular combination. What else is in there that you are very excited to see? [00:06:37] Sarah: I’m also looking forward to, so we have a new feature called Block Hook, and for anyone who follows Gutenberg, you might have heard it’s called Auto Inserting Blocks, but we’ve renamed it to Block Hook. And yes, this is another powerful feature that expands the extensibility of block themes. And so it allows plugins to automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block. And so, a good example that we’ve been using is automatically adding a like button to the post content block. And so yeah, I think it’s a, it’s maybe a more developer-centric feature. [00:07:09] Josepha: So, like, it detects what block you have and suggests bits and pieces that otherwise would make sense there that other people are usually using in those blocks. [00:07:20] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So you can add all through JSON as well. You can add a block that will automatically be added. [00:07:25] Josepha: All right. Excellent. That was part of the Interactivity API, or is, is early parts of it rather, I guess. [00:07:35] Sarah: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s the start. [00:07:39] Josepha: Another thing that is a part of the Interactivity API, which we’ve been working on, folks. I think everybody knows for like a year or two. The other part that is shipping in 6.4 is, I think, the Lightbox for images. Is that right? [00:07:55] Sarah: Yes, that’s right. Yes. And yeah, that’s due to be included with 6.4 as well. [00:07:59] Josepha: I’m going to just tell us all a weird story. So, for maybe my entire life, like I understand what a lightbox is from a image and photography standpoint, but for the majority of my life, I thought that lightbox referred to those like big initial letters in old manuscripts. I don’t actually know what those are called if not lightboxes, but in my mind, that’s what they were. [00:08:22] Josepha: And so when we first started talking about this, I was like, that’s what we’re shipping is like the drop capital letter, like the big one, but it’s not. In case anyone else also was confused about what a lightbox is, it’s the image-based concept of a lightbox. [00:08:37] Sarah: I think it’s an important one because previously you would have to install, maybe a third-party plugin or, or build lightbox yourself so. It may sound like a, oh, it’s a tiny feature that’s been included, but it’s actually pretty awesome. You don’t have to include even more extra code. [00:08:51] Josepha: Speaking of things that we have been working on for two years or so, I think that every sneak peek for the last year, the folks of WordPress have heard me say that I was super excited about navigation and how we’re managing it, but it turns out that is a very complicated thing. Like we know that, managing menus, managing navigation on a site is complicated from just like a philosophical standpoint. When our users of WordPress, when consumers of WordPress like go through that process, that is the hardest one to explain. And therefore, very hard to manage as well. We have had like a requirement that you know three different admins in order to manage your menu, manage your navigation on your site, but we shipped some early components for it in 6.3 and in 6.4. I believe that we are planning; I’m crossing my fingers no one can see it, crossing my fingers. We’re planning on getting an updated treatment for the toolbar out. Is that correct? [00:09:53] Sarah: Yes, yeah, I was a little bit worried because I didn’t know too much in detail, but I did know about the toolbar. So, yes, yes, I believe that is planned to get into 6.4. [00:10:01] Josepha: Yeah. So, and the point of that, because for folks who have not tried this out yet, the point of that is that the navigation is kind of, when you look at it, individual components, it’s like a bunch of little blocks together, and then we wrap it as like a collection that shows up as the navigation block, but because it’s a bunch of little blocks and each of the little blocks has their own like toolbar that goes with it, it took a lot of work to kind of figure out how to get all of those toolbars to have a primary expression with the navigation. Versus like every single thing that you put into your navigation has its own toolbar, and good luck to you. [00:10:44] Sarah: Yeah, it’s a really, really complicated problem, and I guess maybe it always has been, and hopefully we just keep improving and all the time, and we probably never will stop improving because it’s, yeah, it’s just such a complicated thing to edit, and I think particularly in an editor without using any code. [00:11:00] Josepha: Yes. [00:11:01] Sarah: We’re getting there, it always, it always is getting better. [00:11:04] Josepha: Yeah. Before we move into the question of like things that you wish people knew about the release that maybe they’re not going to know, I do want to stop and talk about the default theme a little bit. Everyone loves the default theme at the end of the year. But every year, Matt and I talk about, like, what would it look like if we didn’t have a default theme. What if we just were like, all themes are great. Just do whatever you want, which seems too difficult, frankly. But the way that this default theme is envisioned is so different. It’s got basically three different focuses. Do you know much about this year’s default theme? [00:11:41] Sarah: Yeah, a little bit, so I, yeah, I know, I don’t know, I think it’s shaping up to be a really good starting point for so many different types of projects. So, I know that that is maybe the aim of every default theme. But we usually show off a lot of the features that are going into the release, like via the default theme. I know we did that last time as well, but this time, we’re doing that stealth. But we’re also creating like a great baseline for so many different types of projects. And I think maybe in the past, we’ve maybe only hit like one type of project. And, like, this is a good example for this one very specific thing. But yeah, this time, I know that that’s always like, especially working with other themers, they’re like, what’s the best base theme for this type of thing? And I’m hoping Twenty Twenty-Four is going to be the new answer for so many people. [00:12:23] Josepha: Yeah, yeah, I looked at the early designs for that with the, because what it has, and these, we’ll put a link to this in the show notes to the repo about it and the Figma file and all those things. But what it has is like a really robust set of default patterns for anyone who’s wanting to have like a big commercial site with a lot of things that are required, a really complicated site. Then we have a suite of default patterns that are shipping so that artists and people who are focused primarily on visual assets on their site have the specific patterns and blocks and things required for that and then one that is specific to people who focus on the content in their site. I am one of the people who specifically focuses on the content in the site. I was delighted to see that, but it kind of has three different levels of varying complexity based on what it is that people might, might want to have to, oh, not want to have to, might want to be able to do on their sites. And I think that’s kind of cool. [00:13:31] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It’s super cool. And I think while we’re still in the development cycle as well, for 6.4, this is a; the default theme is a great way to jump into contributing if people are looking for good ways to jump in. [00:13:44] Josepha: Yeah, it runs in a separate repo. And so it has a little bit of a different process, but also it feels like a little bit of a faster process. It kind of runs independently of the release cycle that we have for either the plugin or core. And so it kind of goes a bit faster. [00:14:03] Sarah: Yes. [00:14:05] Josepha: Yeah. Excellent. So, then, obvious next question. What Is happening in this release that you wish people knew about? [00:14:15] Sarah: Yep. Okay. So, I think maybe things that are difficult to fit into the bigger categories that will be easy to shout about when we talk about the release when it’s been released. There’s a lot of accessibility enhancement that are going to be included. So there’s things like better button placements and upgraded spoken messages, especially in site health. There’s also so many performance improvements that are scheduled to be included, so I know there was many performance improvements included in 6.3. We are continuing that for 6.4. There’s many more improvements to block themes and classic themes in the way the templates are loaded. And we’ve also got a we’re including a usage of the new defer and async loading strategies as well for script. So these are sort of like, nitty-gritty detail sort of things that will be included that don’t sound too exciting but are actually really, really cool. [00:15:07] Josepha: Yeah. I understand the whole like, this is not very exciting. This doesn’t sound interesting but trust me, it is like, sometimes it feels like half of my job is that I’m like, I know that nothing I’m about to say sounds cool, but trust me, it’s amazing. We’ve been working on it for a long time, and it’s cool. That’s great. That’s great. And so. For those things, it sounds like a lot, this is going to particularly be of interest to folks who are developing for other people using WordPress. But also obviously a little bit of, of benefit, maybe invisible benefit, but still benefit for our end users as we go. [00:15:46] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, that’s right, exactly. [00:15:48] Josepha: So those are kind of the sneak peek items that we’ve got going into the release. As always, with this particular episode, we’re not promising that any of those things will 100 percent for sure get in there. There is part of being a release squad that kind of doesn’t really get talked about outside of WordPress but is probably worth mentioning, which is that the release squad has the really unpleasant job of saying no at the last second for things that are breaking something, things that are not actually a better user experience. Like we have the uncomfortable job of saying like, no, it wasn’t good enough. Sorry, thank you. Come again in the next release cycle. And so, like, all of these things are things that are currently in and being tested, but in the event that we discover it breaks 10 percent of the sites that we have on WordPress, like, we’re gonna, we’re gonna pull it. So, right now, that’s all in there, we hope, and if listening to me for a whole year get excited about the changes in navigation, and then also not getting them in didn’t teach you anything, just because I want it in doesn’t mean that I get to have it in either. So, but yeah, so that’s exciting. The other exciting thing about this release, we mentioned it a bit at the top of the discussion, is that it is a gender-upresented, gender-underrepresented release squad. Not upresented, because that is a, not a word. And so this is the second one. Did you participate in the first one? [00:17:22] Sarah: No, I didn’t no. Yeah, but I have read all about it, especially in prep to this release as well. [00:17:28] Josepha: Oh, did you learn anything from it that you brought into this one, or was it just like, I need to know what I’m getting into kind of reading a lot about it? [00:17:36] Sarah: Yeah, basically, yeah, I was trying to prep myself, ever since I was involved in 6.1, I’ve tried to be, I’ve tried to follow along closely with the releases. But sometimes, there’s just so much going on all the time. Sometimes it’s a little bit much. But yeah, I just wanted to see if there was any, any big differences. There shouldn’t be, right? So yeah, it’s all good. [00:17:54] Josepha: I think all of the differences were in that boring part where people don’t, they’re like, that sounds so un-fun, we’re going to just stop listening. But it was like, in the planning and preparation for it, and the way that we did all the training, like the initial one had like an 18 month period between like, we’re gonna do it, and now it’s done, where we did a lot of additional work to get everybody in there. [00:18:18] Josepha: And this time, we were like, get in here! That’s all we did. So, how has your experience been on the release squad? I know that you did one before. You did one in 6.1, but is this particular squad any different compared to your last experience of it, or what you expected? [00:18:35] Sarah: So, I would say everyone is equally as amazing as every release and, including the resource they’re involved with. I think that the biggest difference for me, and maybe this links to something you just said, is that I, I knew I was going to be involved in the release squad a lot earlier, especially compared to me for 6.1, but I think I’ve heard other people say that as well. So, I think that’s a great thing for this release. We all have had some time ahead of the release and including during this 6.3 release as well, so I was able to watch particular people in, not in a non-creepy way, and make sure I knew which, like what the processes were. Yes, to try and get my head around when when I’d be doing it. And, and obviously, the big help was that I’d be doing it immediately after they’d just done it as well. And the previous release squad has been a massive help as well when I’ve come across either very, very complicated issues or like super silly issues; I can write them and answer your questions so that I think if we could carry that forward with the future releases as well. [00:19:28] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. So this time around, we had almost 50 percent new folks that that, like, let us know that they were participating, probably quite a few more than that. But, like, of the people who let us know that they wanted to participate in this release, we had like 28 out of 50 people, something like that, who are brand new to contributing to WordPress in some cases, but certainly, all of them are brand new to contributing to a major release like this. Have you, cause this is not your first time doing this, but it is your first time in this type of release. Have you found that, like, you’re feeling able to help new people see what’s happening also, like, do you feel seasoned enough for that? Or are you just like, nope, I’m also new. [00:20:17] Sarah: Maybe a little bit of both. I guess I, yeah, I’m fortunate to have at least experienced, maybe, like how the deadlines roll. Actually, especially the point we’re at at the moment, where the weekly beta cycles happened. Last time, it took me by surprise. I was like, oh wow, okay, we have a week. Until the next one, and then a week, and so yeah, I feel a bit more psyched up for that this time around. And hopefully, I can tap that on you to the new folks as well. But yeah, I also noticed we have a lot of new people. We have, especially from a core editor tech lead; I think we have nearly 30 people who are sort of officially following us along or shadowing us. So yeah, yeah, but it’s really cool. I hope we can teach so many more people if they want to get involved with the next release or even just contributing in general. Yeah, it’d be amazing. [00:21:00] Josepha: Yeah. If you are listening to our podcast, and you think to yourself, well, I’m here. And I wonder if anyone knows because I’m just watching everyone in a non-creepy way, like feel free at the next meeting that you’re watching to, to raise your hand and say, I’m new. We want to know that you’re there. Not because we feel creepy otherwise. But also because we just want to celebrate that you exist new folks that are scared of us. Don’t be scared of us. Oh, man, I feel compelled now to tell everybody about the first time that I led a core chat. So the core chat, I watched that without telling anyone I was watching it for like a year before I had to actually lead it, and I just didn’t tell anybody I was there like I didn’t even participate in the waving part at the start where it’s just like, Hey, everyone, I exist, like, when I was just silently watching it all go by and so when I got announced as part of a release squad. It was shocking for everyone, I think. And there is a public record of a moment where I was panicking. I felt like everyone was asking me a thousand questions, and I didn’t know the answers to any of them. And I just told all of them, like, there are a million of you and one of me, and you’re kind of scaring me, so would you stop? And so there’s a public record of me calling out every developer that existed in WordPress at the time. I felt bad about it in the moment, but also like, whew, that was, I don’t think we have experiences like that for new contributors anymore, but it was, it was quite a moment. I remember distinctly, so Jeffrey Paul, he’s like one of our, I think we have three or four like self-declared project managing people. He is a project manager person in WordPress that I really rely on, and I was DM’ing him in the background in a full panic. I was like, I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. What am I supposed to do? And he was like no is also an answer. So, like, just tell them no. Tell them you don’t know. That’s fine. And I was like, Oh, God! So, I think that we maybe don’t have too much of that happening anymore, but I also understand that I wouldn’t see it if it were happening. No one’s coming to me to be like, is this normal? Should I panic? They’re probably coming to you with that. [00:23:21] Sarah: I think it’s a sort of good, I’m not good for you, maybe, but good for observers especially. You know, to see you go through that as well. I can really relate to, like, not even showing, like, a wave emoji because I’ve totally been in that situation. I think maybe we’re similar in that regard, like, it, sometimes I just feel really nervous even just showing an emoji. And I think, again, shouting out about that and to, to those people who also feel like that, who are watching yeah, yeah, wave if you, if you feel like you want to, and don’t wave, it’s also fine just to watch. [00:23:48] Josepha: Once you’ve been to 52 meetings, then you can wave. Oh, it’s so hardworking in open source that way because, like, there is a lot of, like, basically faith in other people because trust comes with, like experiencing things together. But initially, you do just kind of have to have faith that no one’s going to laugh you out of the room or say that your ideas are stupid or that you are like even remotely understanding the problem, and so that’s a, it’s a part of the new contributor experience that I always find so interesting I used to routinely give presentations about like this is how you get started first get ready to be uncomfortable I don’t give those presentations very often anymore but probably probably I should ask someone to get out there and be like, It’s scary for everyone, including you! Come be scared together! Cause I think that’s important to normalize. Fear’s normal. When you first started contributing to WordPress in general, let alone like being on a release squad, what is the team that you first joined through? [00:25:02] Sarah: So, I guess, full-time contribution, it was themes. I was very involved with themes, and I still am as well; I really love themes, especially block themes. And also with the editor. But, like, years and years ago, I guess it was still themes. I used to build themes. But that was very much; I was a forum user, and well, actually, I guess it goes back to me being very nervous and not wanting to admit the question that I wanted to ask, so I would hunt the forums, but afterwards just so helpful. Like, yeah, I know this is a lot of people’s story, but yeah, the forums and just chatting amongst other community members is so, so helpful. So yeah, when I became a full-time contributor, I really, I love talking to other people who are trying to get help or, yeah, reaching out any way they can because I was like, I feel that I was you and still am you as well. [00:25:50] Josepha: I mean, the good thing about it, like, we will always feel like we’re learning something because we are, but in my experience of folks in WordPress, and I haven’t been new in a long time, obviously been doing this for like eight years now which is ancient by technology standards, but like my favorite thing about folks in WordPress is that they are wanting to like learn enough to probably not break it forever. Like it’s the probably is in there, and the forever is in there like I want to. I want to know just enough to be mildly dangerous and then bring everybody with me. Let’s go be dangerous together. And I think that is really charming in a way because it’s like we know enough to sort of break it. But not break it a lot. So let’s go see how we break it a little bit to make it better. I think that’s such a charming attitude for some reason because then we all just get to kind of learn and be a little bit messy together, which is the nature of openly collaborating on a half-written software—all the time. But yeah, I think it’s kind of neat. [00:27:05] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s exciting too, like if you’re staying, you’ve got that enough red push and edge that you’re just like, Ooh, I might break something. But then there’s so many people that help you out that, you know, just before you could actually break something important. [00:27:18] Josepha: Exactly. The one time when I did a very breaking thing because I didn’t know to ask about it and fixed it immediately was that I mentioned in the middle of a core chat that we were about to have a security release. But it wasn’t about it wasn’t like in the next 15 minutes, it was like three weeks away, which is not what you’re allowed to do like you are not allowed to mention that you have a security release coming in three weeks, and then hope that nobody figures out what it’s patching. Yeah, I got so many messages in such a short amount of time from it felt like every lead developer of WordPress. That was my, my worst moment. And I fixed it immediately. So that was good. But also, I don’t remember if we had to like move up the, the timeline for that release or what. I don’t; I have no idea what the outcome was because I was just in an outright panic about what I had done incorrectly. Anyway, so that’s the; I’m just going to tell everybody my most embarrassing early contribution stories today. That’s what I’m doing. Excellent. Well, Sarah, before we head out of here, is there a final thought that you would like to share with either our listeners here or future potential contributors to WordPress? [00:28:37] Sarah: Please help test 6.4, especially through the next few cycles of beta. It would be amazing to have everyone and anyone who would like to help. That is one of the best ways you can help is to test. And then, yeah, if you want to get involved a little bit further, then yeah, I guess, please reach out wherever you think you fit, which I know sounds a bit fake, but there are a lot of different places, and I’m sure there will be somewhere you fit as well. 00:28:59] Josepha: I will leave in the show notes a link to the page that has all of the upcoming meetings on it. You can probably go to almost any meeting and say, I think this is where I would like to contribute, but also, this is the kind of thing I can contribute, and they will be able to head you in the right direction if you’re not already in the right direction. But also, like, sometimes your skills that you have are going to be applicable in places where you’re not aware of yet. And so, go to any meeting—wave to the friendly WordPressers that are around, the Sarah Norrises that exist in the project. [00:29:36] Josepha: Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today. This was a delight. [00:29:39] Sarah: Thanks so much for having me on; I really enjoyed it. [00:29:42] (Music interlude) [00:29:42] Josepha: That brings us now to our small list of big things. First thing to know is that tomorrow we have Beta 2 for WordPress 6.4. This is our final release of the year, as you know because we’ve been talking about it for the entire episode. But, just like Sarah said at the end of our conversation, we absolutely need people to help us test it, make sure that it is working in as many places as possible so that we can have the best release possible. So keep an eye out on the core channel in the Making WordPress Slack, and of course, keep an eye on WordPress.org/news as those releases get packaged and ready to go. So the second thing is a proposal for documentation translation localization process update. This is an initial step to consolidate all of that documentation into a single easy-to-reach location. So we need some feedback on it. Head on over there, leave a comment to share your feedback about where that should possibly go, where is most useful and valuable for you. The second proposal that I have is actually sort of a tangentially related one, but so it’s not specific to WordPress but does need some WordPress input. There is a call for proposal for Interop 2024. There’s a post that has a lot more information about it than I do, but we would like for any WordPress developer who’s interested to head over there and submit a proposal for what they could speak about at Interop, I believe. You can leave your thoughts on the post itself as a comment, or there’s also a GitHub repo where you can interact as well. The next thing on our small list of big things is that the WordCamp US Q&A, the questions that we didn’t get to because there were something like 87 or something in the queue. The questions that we didn’t get to, the answers have been posted. They’re over on make.WordPress.org/project, but I’ll include a link to those to that post in the show notes. And the final thing on the small list of big things, I’m actually quite excited about. We are hosting now accessibility office hours. In an effort to improve accessibility knowledge in the WordPress project in general, the accessibility team will be holding office hours every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC. That started on September 20th. And so it’s been going for a couple of weeks now. And the purpose is to make sure that we have a dedicated space and time to discuss accessibility principles and best practices as we go through those things. [00:32:29] Josepha: And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Hayden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. [00:32:38] (Music interlude) View the full article

Each year, the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provides valuable feedback through an annual survey. The results can influence the direction of the WordPress project by identifying areas that need attention. Annual surveying can also help track trends over time, with data points often finding their way into the yearly State of the Word address. This survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used and by whom. The survey also allows WordPress open source project leaders to learn more about our contributors’ experiences. To ensure your WordPress experience gets represented in the 2023 survey results, take the survey now (link). Take the 2023 Survey You may also take the survey in other languages by using the link above and switching to another language, thanks to the efforts of WordPress polyglot contributors. The survey will be open for five weeks. Results will be published on the News blog in early December. This year, like last year, the survey has undergone some improvements to the flow and question set. A new platform is also being piloted, offering an updated interface, enhanced multi-lingual support, expanded analysis and visualization tools for the results, and more. The new platform also has built-in accessibility and privacy controls, ensuring the survey meets the diverse needs of the WordPress community. Spread the word Please help spread the word about the survey by sharing it with your network, through Slack, or within your social media accounts. The more people who complete the survey and share their experience with WordPress, the more the project will benefit. Security and privacy Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses or IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the privacy policy. Thank you Thank you to the following WordPress contributors for assisting with the annual survey project, including question creation, strategy, survey build-out, and translation: adamsilverstein, adurasjb, alvarogóis, atachibana, bjmcsherry, chanthaboune, dansoschin, eidolonnight, fierevereu, fxbénard, hassantafreshi, juliagasparyan, kittmedia, manudavidos, nao, nilovelez, rmartinezduque, and tobifjellner. Thanks to Hostinger, JetPack, and WordPress.com, for assisting with promoting the survey to their respective clients. Take the 2023 Survey View the full article

WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing! This beta version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 1 on a test server and site. You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 in three ways: Plugin: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Direct download: Download the Beta 1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website. Command line: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.4-beta1 The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is November 7, 2023. Your help testing this version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an underrepresented gender release squad to increase participation of and partnership with those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project. Get an overview of the 6.4 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.4-related posts in the coming weeks for further details. How you can help: Testing Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. This detailed guide will walk you through testing key features in WordPress 6.4. If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack. Learn more about Gutenberg updates that have debuted since WordPress 6.3 by reviewing prior editions of What’s New in Gutenberg posts for 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, and 16.7 (release pending). WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 contains over 400 enhancements and 370 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 190 tickets for WordPress 6.4 core. Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 1 Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. A first look at WordPress 6.4 WordPress 6.4 will introduce a versatile default theme, new features, and numerous updates designed to enhance your WordPress experience across multiple areas—from writing and design to workflow efficiency. All while the foundational work continues for Phase 3 of the WordPress roadmap. Read on for some highlights. Meet the Twenty Twenty-Four theme Twenty Twenty-Four is a new default theme that will launch with 6.4. With a versatile collection of templates and patterns, this theme covers a diverse range of use cases, from entrepreneurs to small businesses to artists and writers. Twenty Twenty-Four also emphasizes the latest design tooling and site editing features, enabling you to leverage the flexibility of blocks and unlock numerous creative possibilities with just a few tweaks. Follow the theme’s progress and report any issues on this GitHub repo. Manage fonts across your site WordPress 6.4 will introduce new font management features: The Font Library enables you to handle fonts across your site, regardless of your active theme—just like you manage assets in the Media Library. Easily install local and Google Fonts and choose which to activate for each theme. This new font manager is a powerful way to control a fundamental piece of your site’s design and branding without coding. Thanks to its extensibility, custom typographic collections can expand your font choices. On the other hand, Font Face provides server-side @font-face style generation and printing support. It introduces a new global function called wp_print_font_faces(), which processes font data received from styles set in the editor or by the active theme. Please note: The Font Library is slated for inclusion in upcoming 6.4 beta releases. Add lightbox functionality to your images Showcase your images in an interactive fashion with lightbox functionality. This new core feature will be available for Image blocks, allowing visual assets to be opened and enlarged on top of the existing content. Enjoy new writing improvements Many enhancements in 6.4 will ensure that your WordPress writing experience remains smooth and enjoyable, from new keyboard shortcuts to more reliable pasting from other sources. Moreover, a fresh toolbar experience will be available for the Navigation, List, and Quote blocks, making working with their tooling options more efficient and intuitive. More design tools, greater creativity New design tools will improve the overall creation experience with WordPress while providing greater layout control and flexibility. Some updates include: Background images for Group blocks, allowing for creative and customized layouts. Aspect ratios for image placeholders—a new feature that’s particularly useful when creating and using patterns. After setting a placeholder’s desired aspect ratio, you can drag and drop an image, and it will adjust to maintain the design consistency. Button and heading color customization in Group and Columns blocks, enabling you to define the appearance of these elements when placed within these container blocks. This feature takes a step towards allowing section-specific styling, which will continue to develop in upcoming releases. Alignment settings in synced patterns. When creating and converting a synced pattern with wide, full-width, left or right-aligned blocks, this improvement ensures alignment attributes remain intact for a seamless site editing and pattern creation experience. Upgrades for smoother workflows As the Site Editor continues to evolve and expand its capabilities, so do the interface and tools that support it. First introduced in WordPress 6.3, the Command Palette helps you perform actions, search, and quickly navigate your site’s content and settings. It will receive significant updates in 6.4, featuring an updated design, new commands to accomplish block-specific actions, and better command language and action consistency. List View provides a great way to browse and work with the blocks that make up your site. This release will introduce enhancements to its interface and usability, making it even more powerful. You can rename Group blocks, view media previews for Gallery and Image blocks, and duplicate blocks with a keyboard shortcut. Pattern advancements Patterns play an essential role in site editing, and its importance remains prominent in the upcoming release. 6.4 will allow you to better organize your synced and unsynced patterns with categories as part of the creation process. These categories are available for sorting within the insertion flow to make discovering and adding patterns easier. In addition, you can conveniently access all your custom patterns from the same place—the Patterns section of the Block Inserter, which removes the separate tab for synced patterns. Other improvements include importing and exporting patterns as JSON files, ensuring backward compatibility with Reusable blocks, and enabling pattern transfer across sites. Lastly, this release will improve compatibility with Classic Themes, building on the groundwork laid in WordPress 6.3 for pattern creation and management. A new Patterns tab under the Appearance menu of your dashboard will grant access to the pattern interface available in the Site Editor. Introducing Block Hooks Block Hooks is a new powerful feature that enriches the extensibility of block themes, drawing inspiration from the familiar WordPress Hooks concept. Upon activation, plugins can automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block. For example, a “Like” button block can automatically be inserted after the Post Content block. While developer-centric, Block Hooks enhances the user experience by making block usage more intuitive and allowing for further customization and control over where and how the auto-inserted blocks appear. A new block inspector panel named “Plugins” is designed to respect creators’ preferences, ensuring you can add, dismiss, or relocate Block Hooks as desired. Accessibility WordPress 6.4 has 70 accessibility improvements slated for inclusion, 60 of those are included in Beta 1. Notable updates focused on enhancing the user interface (UI) experience include better button placements, improved context for “Add New” admin menu items, and upgraded spoken messages in Site Health. Additionally, fixes for image editing in the Media Library, error reporting on the login screen, and “no motion” settings for GIFs have been implemented. The cause of some false positives in automated UI tests has been corrected, and users without JavaScript now see a direct link to install the Classic Editor plugin. Learn more about these changes and other accessibility improvements for 6.4 on WordPress Trac. Performance WordPress 6.4 will include more than 100 performance-related updates, including improvements to template loading performance for Block Themes and Classic Themes, usage of the new script loading strategies “defer” and “async” in core, blocks, and themes, and new functions to optimize the use of autoloaded options. Please note that features in this list are subject to change before final release. A haiku for 6.4 Inline fonts, lightbox Command blocks like CLI Almost to 6-4 Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @meher, @sereedmedia, @meaganhanes, @rmartinezduque, @annezazu, @cbringmann, @flixos90, @richtabor, @francina, @joedolson, @priethor, @davidbaumwald, @chanthaboune, @luminuu. View the full article

Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy as she discusses the role WordPress Enterprise plays along with the WordPress community. Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Editor: Dustin Hartzler Logo: Javier Arce Production: Brett McSherry Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod Show Notes The 2023 Community Summit in Washington, DC WordPress Enterprise NASA Website (beta) A small list of big things (SLBT) Evolving the FSE Outreach Program – With WordPress 6.3 bringing Phase 2 to completion, it’s time for the FSE Outreach Program to evolve alongside the broader WordPress project and needs. Proposal: An update to the Field Guide – This proposal is one step, but not necessarily the only step, at improving communication around WordPress releases and making it easier for WordPress updates to instill confidence. We are still looking to receive more ideas on the future of WordPress events – We have brought this up in the past, but there is still time to submit ideas. Proposal for updated support guidelines – As these result from work during WordCamp Us 2023, if you are at the venue and wish to discuss something, please feel free to reach out. Call for Testing: Performant Translations – Provide your feedback; if you encounter any issues or have questions about the plugin, please comment or open a new support topic. In addition to that, contributions can be made on GitHub. WordPress Diversity Training – This is a 2-day workshop for women in India (other countries are welcome to join us, too) who are considering speaking at a WordPress Meetup or WordCamp. Let’s talk about WordPress! – The WordPress Community team is looking for some folks to take the lead in hands-on organizing your Meetups WP Includes WordPress Insights: WCUS Recap and WCEU Vision with Ruth Kalinka Transcript [00:00:00] Josepha: Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it. And get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go! (Intro Music) [00:00:29] Josepha: In our last episode, we talked about the Community Summit and some trends that I was seeing. I’ve spent a lot of time since then summarizing the notes from each session, and I was processing notes from the session about aligning WordPress Enterprise and WordPress Community, which is a session that explored the various strengths and weaknesses of WordPress from an enterprise perspective, but especially when it comes to contributing to or communicating about WordPress. Now, my vantage point on analyses like these is generally pretty different. Since I work mainly in an operations space for the project, I’m almost always looking at the health and safety of our ecosystem, product excellence, funding, things like that. So, I especially like to attend sessions that are from the vantage point of people who are much closer to the work than I am. [00:01:15] Josepha: When I looked at the brainstormed list of things from the session, my first inclination was to catalog the relationships between what we saw as a positive or a negative and the things that we saw as intrinsic to us versus part of the environment. But the more I look at it, the more I see that there’s confirmation of what I have always known to be true. That WordPress is a valuable starting point for web-based solutions of all sizes and any purpose. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest themes that shine through from that session. I was able to distill them down to about nine primary themes, but I especially want to focus on some that come up year after year in talking with our community. [00:01:57] Josepha: The first, of course, is the community and ecosystem. If you’ve listened to this podcast 62 times, then you’ve heard me say at least like 60 times that the community is what sets us apart from other open source projects. But, I would encourage you to expand that understanding to include the ecosystem that the community provides. The community not only helps to plan and create WordPress, our primary software, but it also makes it distributable through the Polyglots team and Accessibility and Docs and Training. It also makes it extendable through plugins and themes and all of the work that goes into reviewing plugins and themes and the support that’s provided to people who come to the WordPress.org site, trying to figure out how to make this thing work for them. And we also, this community, make it knowable, not only through the community part with our event series but also in marketing and the videos that we provide on WordPress TV and all of the training and learning cohorts that we provide on learn.WordPress.org, all of those teams make WordPress learnable and knowable and easy to use and usable to more people and available across the world, regardless of whether you speak English or not. And so yeah, the community and the ecosystem are some of the things that makes WordPress valuable for enterprise, but also WordPress valuable in general. [00:03:24] Josepha: The second is the software’s usability and flexibility. I said at WordCamp US that we exist for as long as people want to use our software, and that’s a funny little two-sided coin for us. WordPress remains very usable for folks who come to it in the same way that I came to it, which is as a user who is trying to accomplish a goal unrelated to WordPress. I didn’t start using WordPress because I wanted to figure out how WordPress worked or because I wanted to figure out how to contribute to WordPress. I came to WordPress because I was trying to market something, and WordPress was the best choice for that. But it’s also flexible for our brilliant developers out there who are doing things like building a suite of sites for NASA or creating bespoke social networks. So, our usability and flexibility, both of those things working together, are certainly one of the things that make me know that WordPress is incredibly valuable for anyone who needs to use it. [00:04:22] Josepha: But the final thing is WordPress’s longevity or our resilience. So, I used to work at a marketing agency that served enterprise-level clients. And any time we pitched a new site build to a client, one of the main elements of discussion during decision-making was how long the decision would last. Do you want a page that you can launch in a day, run a six-week campaign through, and then abandon it forever? Or do you want a site that can take up to six weeks to build but can be yours to refine and hone for years after that? I know this seems like a silly example, but when you’re looking at the potential for a long-term bet, what you’re worried about, what you’re asking is, is this a software trusted in my industry? Is it time-tested by those companies I aspire to be? Is the available workforce composed of seasoned professionals or flash-in-the-pan peddlers of the latest craze? And of that workforce, how many will still be doing this in five years? The question of how long we’ve been doing this and why it matters that WordPress has been here for 20 years and has no intention of going anywhere should be so much higher on everyone’s list of reasons to use this software. Yes, the WordPress software is powerful enough to be everything you might want it to be someday, but the WordPress ecosystem brought to us by this community has shown resilience through major breaking changes in 2008, 2016, 2018, 2020, and probably a lot of things between there that we have forgotten. So, if I were hoping to hedge my bets on a long-term solution, I would absolutely place those bets on this community, this ecosystem, and this software. (Music interlude) [00:06:17] Josepha: And now, it’s time for our small list of big things. I actually have a very big list today, so I’m just gonna break it out into two chunks. The first chunk is that we actually have a lot of calls for feedback and testing right now. We have six calls for feedback and testing that I really could use your input on. The first one is that we still are having that discussion about how to evolve the FSE outreach program. That program started as a way to get faster, more fluid user feedback, specifically about full site editing inside Gutenberg. But there is a question now about where it needs to exist, how it’s serving current project needs, and what the future project needs will be. And so stop by that one. That should be a good, lively discussion. [00:07:06] Josepha: Speaking of discussions that are lively, we also have an update to the field guide. We have a proposed update to the field guide. This is not something that we’re looking to put in place for WordPress 6.4, just because that is coming so quickly. But it is something that we want to look at for future iterations of the field guide that come out with every major release. We want to make sure that we’re getting valuable information to the right people at the right time without having so much that it’s overwhelming but also without having so little that we miss really important things. [00:07:47] Josepha: There is another request for feedback, which is about additional ideas on the future of WordPress events. I brought this up in the past. I think I mentioned it on one other small list of big things, but there’s still time. So, if you’ve been shy about sharing your ideas, let this be your sign to get brave. Go share your thoughts on what events of the future should be for us. [00:08:03] Josepha: There’s also a proposal for updated support guidelines. This proposal comes out of a discussion that was had at WordCamp US, and so there is a summary of the discussion and then also the proposal that’s out there. I think that for all guidelines like this, support guidelines, and probably all things that require some review from ourselves, we always could stand to take a look at where those are, what brought us to where we are today, and what we can use to be better and more current in our client’s needs and our customers needs users needs as we are looking through those guidelines I think that the deadline for feedback on that is around the middle of September as well. [00:08:47] Josepha: And then the final bit of feedback/call for testing is on performant translations. That is a testing call for feedback. Contributions to that can be made on GitHub as well if that’s something where you test it and you immediately know how to offer some patches to make things better. That’s great, but you can always just leave your feedback in a comment or a new support topic. [00:09:19] Josepha: Okay, so that was the first chunk of the small list of big things. We have the second chunk of the small list of big things, which is to say that if all of that was new to you and sounds a little bit daunting and, you need some support to get started. There are also a couple of kind of group things that you can do in the coming weeks to get you started on that. There is a new WordPress diversity training session that’s happening. It’s a two-day workshop for women, specifically in India, but other countries are welcome to join us, too. We’ll be thinking about how to pull together your first presentation proposal, I believe. The next one is that the WordPress community team is looking for folks to learn more about organizing meetups. And so, I’ll include a link to that in the show notes as well, but if you’ve never done this before and that did not sound like a getting started thing, trust me, organizing meetups not only is something that is easy to do because it’s kind of casual, you can get people together like in a coffee shop to talk about WordPress, but also the team over there has excellent onboarding. And so give it a try; at the very least, give it a read. The third thing on that set of things is that there’s a new group called WP Includes working to pair women in the WordPress community with one another for support and advice along their career paths. I will include a link to that in the show notes as well. And then the final thing is that there is a meetup event that’s focused on flagship events coming up on September 21st. It will recap WordCamp US and host an open discussion for ideas for WordCamp Europe as well. Like I said, that’s going to take place on September 21st. I will include a link to that in the show notes as well. [00:11:04] Josepha: If you don’t know where the show notes are, if you, sorry, if you’re listening to this on, like, Pocketcasts or Spotify or any other thingy, and you don’t know what I mean when I say the show notes, and you’ve literally never seen them in your life. You can go to WordPress.org/news/podcast, and there are transcripts and show notes with every podcast I put up, and that’s what I mean when I say that. WordPress.org/news/podcast, and then you get a bunch of links. It’ll be great. That, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. (Outro music) View the full article

WordPress is excited to announce that Openverse has been awarded the 2023 Open Education Award for Excellence in the Open Infrastructure category! The Open Education Awards for Excellence, organized by the non-profit organization Open Education Global (OEG), celebrate people, resources, and initiatives that have significantly contributed to the open education field and community. This year, they received 172 nominations across 16 award categories, representing individuals and projects from 38 countries. This award honors Openverse’s work to make it easy for everyone to discover and use open educational resources. The award reviewers were particularly impressed by Openverse’s one-click attribution feature. Moreover, they highlighted the tool’s ability to filter searches by source collections and other parameters, such as image orientation and specific license, which they noted “provides seekers of open content important affordances to find clearly licensed media they can reuse.” “This is an exceptional search engine for the open education community. The one click attribution copy for images makes attribution very straight-forward and easy, even for novice users. The design is excellent; the results are returned fast.” Award reviewer for the 2023 OEG Award for Open Infrastructure This recognition not only underscores Openverse and WordPress’s commitment to open content but also celebrates the work of their dedicated contributors, community, and partners in advancing open education and creative works. Learn more about this Openverse award on the OEG page. Congratulations, Openverse! View the full article

August 2023 marked another exciting chapter in WordPress, with the Community Summit and WordCamp US bringing the community together for meaningful discussions, knowledge sharing, and learning. This month also welcomed the long-awaited WordPress 6.3 release and offered a glimpse of what’s to come. Let’s dive into it. Meet WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” was released on August 8, 2023, and named after the acclaimed vibraphonist, pianist, and jazz percussionist Lionel Hampton. This major update makes bringing your vision to life with blocks more intuitive and efficient. Your content, templates, and patterns are now seamlessly integrated into the Site Editor, enabling you to craft every aspect of your online presence within a single location. You can sharpen your designs with new tools, enjoy fine-tuned control over navigation menus, and work faster with the Command Palette. Explore what’s new. WordPress 6.3 features over 500 features and enhancements with a continued emphasis on performance and accessibility. This release was made possible by more than 650 contributors from 52 countries. While the Site Editor will continue to be enhanced, this release means a significant milestone as it marks the conclusion of Gutenberg Phase 2. Take a moment to watch “Designed with WordPress”—an ode to this remarkable journey worth celebrating. Download WordPress 6.3.1. Roadmap to 6.4 Contributors are already working on WordPress 6.4, expected to be released on November 7, 2023. This release, led by an underrepresented gender release squad, will focus on enhancing different aspects of the WordPress experience while continuing the foundational work for Gutenberg Phase 3. Users can anticipate features like font management and a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four. Twenty Twenty-Four aims to be a versatile theme, featuring a range of templates and patterns specifically designed for three use cases: entrepreneurs and small businesses, photographers and artists, and writers and bloggers. Check out the 6.4 roadmap post for a tentative preview of expected features. New in the Gutenberg plugin Two new versions of Gutenberg shipped in the last month: Gutenberg 16.4 was released on August 9, 2023. It introduced a new “auto-inserting blocks” experimental feature, a progress bar component that can be used throughout the interface, and block supports for the Footnotes block. Gutenberg 16.5 shipped on August 23, 2023, and focused on enhancements to the Command Palette and enabling further customization of blocks. Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements. Team updates: Next generation of WordPress events, WP Admin redesign, and more The Community team has been busy ushering in the next generation of WordPress events. Four pilot events were successfully held in July and August, with another five planned before the end of the year. The Admin Design Kickoff post elaborates on the concepts explored so far to revitalize the WordPress admin experience. In response to Europe’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), leaders from Drupal, Joomla!, TYPO3, and WordPress co-authored an open letter addressing concerns about the current CRA definitions and terms and the implications for open source projects. Check out WordPress.org/blocks—A new page that explores the power of blocks within WordPress and as a broader framework. WordPressCS 3.0.0 is now available. This update to the WordPress Coding Standards introduces improvements in accuracy, performance, stability, and compatibility with modern PHP versions. The first cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, which aims to help new contributors onboard to Make teams, successfully concluded last month. WordPress Remembers went live in August to honor contributors who left a lasting impact on the project and have since passed away. Core team members proposed to sync Gutenberg code with core earlier in the release cycle to streamline the integration of new features and reduce risks and delays in major release milestones. Blue Note, the second block theme born from the Community Themes initiative, is live on the Theme Directory. Every month, the Training team works to expand the Learn WordPress catalog with new courses, tutorials, online workshops, and more. See what’s new. Openverse maintainers met in Copenhagen for an exciting exchange with Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), Denmark’s largest art museum. Learn about their discussions and collaboration efforts to advance openly licensed works. Keen to see new WordPress event formats happening in your local community? Get inspired by these creative concepts and share your ideas! Feedback & testing requests Core team members suggested updating the WordPress Field Guide by publishing it earlier in the development cycle and introducing a simplified Field Guide on the WordPress Developer Blog. Feedback is open until September 15, 2023. Help test the new Performant Translations plugin, which aims to make localized WordPress sites faster. A new proposal aims to refine and update WordPress’ support guidelines. You can provide your input by October 1, 2023. Version 23.2 of the WordPress mobile app for iOS and Android is ready for testing. The Training team seeks feedback on the first learning pathways outlined to improve the Learn WordPress educational experience. Share your thoughts by September 15, 2023. WordPress events updates On August 22-23, a group of WordPress contributors gathered at the Community Summit to discuss key topics concerning the project. Read the notes from each session and join the conversations at make.wordpress.org/summit. Following the Summit, Washington, D.C. hosted WordCamp US 2023 from August 24-26. This event brought together nearly 2,000 attendees for a Contributor Day and two conference days filled with engaging sessions, conversations, and open source art. Saturday’s agenda concluded with keynotes by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy and a subsequent Q&A session. Check out the event recap for highlights. Join #WPDiversity with a free online speaker workshop for Indian women in the WordPress Community. The event will take place on September 23-24, 2023. The WordCamp Asia 2024 organizing team opened calls for speakers, volunteers, sponsors, and media partners. Be sure to visit WordCamp Central to find out about upcoming WordCamps. Join Josepha Haden Chomphosy in Episode 61 of WP Briefing as she discusses her takeaways from the Community Summit. Have a story we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? Fill out this quick form to let us know. The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: @rmartinezduque, @laurlittle. View the full article

Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy as she discusses the latest from the Community Summit and her takeaways from the 2023 event in Washington, D.C. Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Editor: Dustin Hartzler Logo: Javier Arc Production: Brett McSherry Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod Show Notes The 2023 Community Summit in Washington, DC WP Briefing Episode 49: Everything You Need to Know About the Community Summit! The Next Generation of WordCamps Idea generation: Next Gen WordCamps! PressNomics LoopConf WordPress Community Summit A small list of big things Call for ideas: new features for our NexGen WP events central page – Open call for ideas to find the most desirable features for a future homepage that would host a list of all NextGen WordPress events. Introducing Twenty Twenty-Four – Announced at Contributor Day, this new theme will be part of the 6.4 release. With the release of 6.3 behind us, we are working hard on bringing 6.4 to the community. You can get involved with the development of this important release. A successful WCUS is behind us, and if you missed the event, we have you covered. Here is a recap of the event. Transcript [00:00:00] Josepha: Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go. [00:00:28] (Intro Music) [00:00:39] Josepha: We are back and catching up from our midyear break. And in true WordPress fashion, we’re just going to start off running. The WordPress Community Summit happened a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been talking about it on this podcast for a few months now, but if you’ve missed it and you want a refresher, go ahead and give episode 49 a listen. At the Community Summit, there were 125 people, if I remember correctly. And we covered a wide array of topics that were brought to us directly from the community itself. While the event is small, it is specifically designed for gathering and sharing information. So, I’ve got some top-level trends that I noticed that I’m going to share with you all today, as well as just like a reminder of what happens after a Community Summit. [00:01:27] Josepha: So there are three, maybe four, big trends that I noticed. The first one that I noticed is that we have a lot of discussions right now about contributor acknowledgment. That also, for what it’s worth, came with an unresolved question around whether acknowledgment and recognition are the same. I don’t think they are the same. But it also was part of a conversation around whether we treat those two things the same. And if they are not the same, should we treat them differently? And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For folks who’ve been around for a bit, you know, that we spent a lot of time working on our contributor recognition a few years back and had really made quite a bit of difference in just reported feelings about how the community felt they were being recognized for their contributions. And so a lot of the conversations that we ended up having were around whether or not the project as a whole has changed the way that we provide that recognition or acknowledgment. Or, as an alternative, if the community that is supporting WordPress has changed how they would like to be recognized. [00:02:32] Josepha: There were also some questions about whether or not making sure that contributors can see their impact. Like they can say, I contributed 10 hours last month, and these are the two things that I got accomplished over there, and that everyone else can see those things too. So, how we can do that more easily while also not having so many metrics and making the metrics so prevalent that we start to close out the people who are truly just doing this for fun. Like many of the problems that we have at the Community Summit, this is a bunch of pretty much unsolved mysteries at the moment. But it did; it came up across probably five or six different sessions that I heard about, quite a few that I went to myself, and so contributor acknowledgment and recognition is on our minds again. A second thing that I noticed across multiple sessions, and this one honestly is not a surprise at all, is that there were a lot of questions about what the next big thing is after Gutenberg. I always love when people are asking big questions about what comes next because it means that we all still believe that there will be a next. [00:03:43] Josepha: And so I never hesitate when I hear these questions to give some ideas about what I think might be coming. But a lot of the discussions that we were having were around, we think this is coming, but now that we think this is coming, what should we do now to make sure that we are ready for it? One of the biggest assumptions that we all had is that for the CMS, for the software itself, probably our next big area after Gutenberg is going to be something about artificial intelligence. Matt pointed out in his presentation that he has told us twice to learn something deeply. One was in 2016 when he said, learn JavaScript Deeply. And then one was in 2022 when he said to learn AI deeply. And so we all kind of are guessing that that is our future area. And so that’s an area for everyone to spend some time in. Make sure you understand it. Make sure you know it a bit. The second thing that came up as like a future, where are we going here? It was kind of on the business-y side. It was on a lot of questions about enterprise and are we selling properly to enterprise. Can we sell, can we appeal to enterprise? Whose job is it to sell any of these things? Questions like that. So, lots of business questions again. This is not something that I have any concerns about. I’m very excited to see that people are talking about it. That’s been a topic of conversation since, I want to say, February of this year. And so it also wasn’t a surprise inclusion today. And, and I was excited to see, am excited to see what we get out of those conversations over time. [00:05:17] Josepha: As far as like questions around what’s next for the community, I’m going to address that separately because it was a huge question for everyone. So I’m going to discuss that as soon as we get finished with this chunk about like the big thing that, that is coming after Gutenberg. But, from an ecosystem perspective. Like a WordPress project operations perspective, this came up a couple of times. Never in as clear a word, a set of words as that, but the question about, like, what are we doing with our tools? Are we making sure that we are keeping the tools that our contributors use maintained and still in an excellent space with features that are useful and, necessary, and requested? And so that is a big question. I do have a lot of questions about that. Also, there are so many tools that I have wanted in order to make organizing the WordPress community better and easier, but also making contributing better and easier. And hopefully, here soon, we have an opportunity to get to some of those. [00:06:16] Josepha: So, the third big trend that I kept seeing at the Community Summit is actually about the community itself, specifically about events. So I was part of or listened to many, many, many conversations over the course of the week that were specifically focused on what we’re going to do with the future of our events. Like are meetups still sustainable? Are WordCamps still sustainable? And that’s from not only the idea of sustainability that we all tend to know from like an ecological standpoint but also, you know, checking in on the resources. So the kinds of questions that folks had were, is it time to continue having many small events, or is it time to move to a few giant events? Should we bring back midsized, WP-adjacent events like PressNomics or LoopConf? And if we are bringing those back, do we want to have them be part of a semi-official thing along with a clearly WordPress event and like do joint sales in there? Try to figure out how to get people from one to the other, so that it’s not just WordPress people that we’re talking to, but also business people and advanced developers, things like that. There was also a lot of discussion about whether or not we have gotten too big, should we double down on our grassroots efforts? Just go all the way back to, like, BarCamp style, WordPress in a forest kind of thing. [00:07:46] Josepha: And yeah, and among all of these conversations, there were questions about the resources that we need. Do we have what we need now? Do we have plans for how to maintain those resources in the future? Do we have enough time? Do we have enough money? Do we have an expertise? The people? So many questions, so many questions. And on the community side of things, we also had a lot of questions that are routine in open source. Like, do we have a pipeline for future maintainers, for future team reps, for future leaders in the project? All of the questions. So, those are the three slash four, depending on how you break it out, really big trends that I saw across the conversation at the Community Summit. And I don’t necessarily know the answers to all of these things. Like, I know what my gut tells me, I know what I believe the answer to be. From my own perspective, but as you’ve been told many times with many eyes, all bugs are shallow. And so here is what happens next with a Community Summit. So we’ve gathered all of these things together. We’ve had these conversations, and now all of the notes from every conversation that we had will be put on make.wordpress.org/summit. [00:09:10] Josepha: There, you can do any of the following three things, but at least do one before we get any further. I think it’s important to remind everyone that no decisions were made at the Community Summit. There are a few things that will come out of the Community Summit where the answer the way forward is really obvious. And so those probably will get done quickly thereafter because it’s just an obvious thing to do. It makes sense for everyone in the project. It makes sense for everyone who’s using WordPress. Whatever reason. So those things will probably move quickly, but mostly not even mostly there were no decisions made. And so if it looks like something is moving quickly there, it is because it makes sense after the fact. So there’s that. But the three things that you can do in order to take part in this information gathering and sharing that happened at the Community Summit. Number one, head over to make.wordpress.org/summit and just read the notes. There are a lot of them you can pick and choose based on the teams you contribute to or the topics that are specifically interesting. Or if you have been assigned to read one of these things, obviously, go ahead and read that. But find the notes read them. Take a look at the discussion as far as you can tell it happened and get a sense for what the essential question is. The second thing that you can do while you’re there is that you can join in that discussion right there in the comments if you would like to. You can, if you feel like your perspective is not quite accounted for in that, obviously leave some comments and let folks know. But also, if you feel like your perspective was accounted for, but there’s also a very specific question that was not necessarily answered or not even brought up, share those as well. That’s stuff that we would like to know as we are working through this. And then the third thing that you can do is you can take those conversations, and if there’s anything that looks like it’s particularly relevant to your local WordPress community, absolutely take those there and have those conversations with them. [00:11:23] Josepha: And once you’ve had those conversations, let us know what you thought also in those comments, or take it directly into your weekly teams’ chat, either way. We want to hear what you think about the questions that were brought because you brought them to us. And so you should have an opportunity to tell us what you think. [00:11:39] (Music Interlude) [00:11:48] Josepha: That brings us now to our small list of big things. My friends, there’s nothing but big things left for the rest of the year. And so here we go. Number one, uh, I mentioned it quite a bit. There’s a conversation, an ongoing conversation about the future of events for our community. Right now, there is an open call for ideas, new features for our NextGen WordPress events, especially on the page that exists on WordCamp Central. So, we want to find the most useful and desirable features for a future homepage on central.wordcamp.org that would host a list of all of our upcoming WordPress events. And so we want your opinion there. Please let us know what would be especially useful to you as you are looking for WordPress events to attend. The second thing is that we introduced 2024, the default theme that is coming with WordPress 6.4, was announced. We have had, I think, 32 contributors to it at the time of this recording. And yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s got a lot of different implementation options, a lot of default patterns, and curated patterns so that you can get exactly what you want out of that theme. I think it’s going to make a great default theme, a great starter theme for our final release of the year. And then, speaking of 6.4, with the release of 6.3 behind us, we are working hard on bringing 6.4 to the community. You can get involved with the development of that. There is a core chat every Wednesday. It happens. I want to say at 21:00 UTC, but I don’t actually know off the top of my head. I just go when my calendar tells me to go, and I live in the central time zone. And so, my UTC conversion is not the best, but we will leave the actual information about that in the show notes so that you can see it. But you can also go over to make.wordpress.org, and then there’s a little card on that homepage that tells you exactly when those core meetings are, including the new contributor meeting, which happens every two weeks. And then the fourth thing is that there is a successful WordCamp US behind us. That is our final flagship event of the year, which is always exciting. If you missed it, for one, we missed you. And for two, we have you covered. We’ve got a recap of the event. There is a link to that in the show notes as well. [00:14:05] Josepha: And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. [00:14:15] (Music Outro) View the full article

WordPress 6.3.1 is now available! This minor release features 4 bug fixes in Core and 6 bug fixes for the block editor. You can review a summary of the maintenance updates in this release by reading the Release Candidate announcement. WordPress 6.3.1 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.4 planned for November 2023. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically. You can download WordPress 6.3.1 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site. Thank you to these WordPress contributors This release was led by Jb Audras and Andrew Ozz, with the help of Sergey Biryukov on mission control, and Isabel Brison who worked on Gutenberg backports. WordPress 6.3.1 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver maintenance fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community. @antonvlasenko, @audrasjb, @austinginder, @azaozz, @dd32, @dlh, @frankit, @get_dave, @hellofromTonya, @khokansardar, @mathsgrinds, @mukesh27, @peterwilsoncc, @Presskopp, @rajinsharwar, @RavanH, @sergeybiryukov, and @tmatsuur. How to contribute To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core and #6-4-release-leads channels. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook. Thanks to @jeffpaul for proofreading. View the full article

Nearly 2,000 attendees gathered for two days of keynotes, sessions, and community-building conversations at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in the largest attended WordCamp US ever. Saturday’s sessions concluded with back-to-back keynotes by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy. What’s Next for WordPress Josepha launched her keynote by celebrating 20 years of WordPress and reflecting on its journey from a blogging tool to the world’s most popular community-driven web platform. On WordPress as a platform for empowerment and change, Josepha shared, “The more people that know about WordPress, the more people can access the incredible opportunities that WordPress can provide.” And that sustaining the platform for future generations ensures these opportunities will persist. She added, “We exist for as long as people want to use our software.” The community is the key to sustaining WordPress, and Josepha touched on the importance of WordCamps, workshops, and events that create value, promote inclusivity, and spark inspiration. WordPress can be a catalyst for positive change in the life of a contributor, end user, or site builder. Concluding her keynote, Josepha asked the audience to think about the story they’d want to tell about themselves and their time in WordPress; and the story they would want WordPress to tell the world. What’s Next for Gutenberg Matt began his keynote with a touch of nostalgia, referring to a comment on his personal blog in 2003 by WordPress Co-founder Mike Little, and then looked ahead to the most recent release, WordPress 6.3. As this year’s largest release, it includes new features such as the Command Palette, a quick way (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows) to search your site and access common commands. Matt continued, “WordPress never rests, so right around the corner is WordPress 6.4 on Nov 7… with some cool new features.” He shared that 6.4, like 5.6, will be an underrepresented gender-led release. A new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four, is tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, photographers and artists, and writers and bloggers. Additionally, 6.4 will feature integrated font management and Image block options to expand single images for optimal viewing. Looking further into the future, Matt highlighted Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which will focus on workflows and collaboration, “moving WordPress from a single-player to a multi-player tool.” In that spirit of collaboration, a new #LMS working group will also bring WordPress learning management systems together to improve the web standards for courses and learning content. Beyond Phase 3, Matt shared thoughts about what it means to support WordPress many years from now. A new 100-Year Plan from WordPress.com is an exploration into long-term planning for your online presence. He encouraged attendees to be inspired by the region’s history, reflecting on what it would mean to honor the past while anticipating and planning for the future. Q&A A Q&A session followed the keynotes, with questions submitted by the in-person audience and live stream viewers. Additional questions will be answered in a future post on make.WordPress.org/project/. Join the global community making WordPress and be part of our journey toward a brighter future! Thank you to @angelasjin, @bmcsherry, @cbringmann, @dansoschin, and @eidolonnight for collaborating on this post. View the full article

Earlier this year, WordPressers around the globe united to celebrate 20 years of community and innovation. There were parties, blogs, videos, and social media posts aplenty. And, of course, the trending hashtag, “#WP20”. Throughout April and May, community members reflected on their journeys – what brought them to WordPress and its personal meaning. The stories, tweets, and videos were inspiring, nostalgic, and even humorous at times. There was swag, and the cakes were epic. Let’s take a look! On WordPress turning 20, and the Audrey Scholars program: https://t.co/Etwh8H6xh4 — Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) May 27, 2023 WordPress celebrates 20 years tomorrow. It's grown from a comment on a blog post to a web spanning phenomenon. Thanks to an outstanding community and the freedoms of Open Source. Happy Birthday, WordPress! #WP20 #WordPress pic.twitter.com/fght4XMJXb — Mike Little (@mikelittlezed1) May 26, 2023 Look at this cute #WP20 cake from @RicksBakery! pic.twitter.com/f88H3usR5R — Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@JosephaHaden) May 27, 2023 Tenemos regalitos para los que vengáis esta tarde a la Meetup.#WP20 pic.twitter.com/PSPsbWluv7 — Meetup WordPress Torrelodones (@WPTorrelodones) June 22, 2023 So @WordPress is turning 20 years old today! #WP20 Happy birthday to WordPress and its entire community! from me and @MariekeRakt pic.twitter.com/9N9T0SnsdL — Joost de Valk (@jdevalk) May 27, 2023 Happy 20th birthday, @WordPress! Our Cebu meetup was a success! …and our community is growing. Thanks to #enspaceCebu for hosting our party! #WP20 #WordPressCebu #WPCebu pic.twitter.com/TUFoKjuoxq — Cebu WordPress Meetup (@WPCebu) June 3, 2023 I'm sure you've seen by now, but today is WordPress' 20th birthday! Thank you to @photomatt and @mikelittlezed1 for following through with a seemingly wild idea. I don't think anyone could have predicted we'd end up where we are today. Happy birthday @WordPress! #WP20 pic.twitter.com/tAZRlYThuS — Jon Desrosiers (@desrosj) May 28, 2023 Hier ist der Recap vom letzten Zürcher #WordPress #Meetup im @westhive inkl. Audioaufzeichnungen und Slides der Präsentationen, sowie ein paar visuellen Eindrücken des Abends. #BBQ #WP20 https://t.co/IycEcb4DQL — WordPress Zürich (@wpzurich) June 30, 2023 #WCEU #WCEU2023 #WP20 pic.twitter.com/Uodqd2OotM — Osom Studio WordPress & WooCommerce Agency (@OSOM_STUDIO) June 10, 2023 Celebrating #WP20 at #WCEU with @photomatt @JosephaHaden @matias_ventura pic.twitter.com/9LM9HnEfYn — Felix Arntz (@felixarntz) June 10, 2023 Want to see more tweets? Check out the tweet wall here. Bits & Bytes Official website for WP20 The #WP20 hashtag was used at least 18,000 times between March 1 and June 8, 2023 on social peaking on May 27 with at least 2,700+ metions 165+ meetups took place to celebrate WP20 At least 4,661 people attended a meetup across six continents 100+ kits of swag were shipped to meetup organizers Want more social media for WordPress? Check out the official accounts here: Twitter Instagram Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Pinterest Tumblr Snapshots from WP20 Celebrations Props WP20 celebrations, swag, websites, social media, graphics, and so much more could not have happened without the wonderful contributions of so many. Beyond the organizers of the 165+ events, there were many people working behind the scenes to ensure WordPress got the recognition it deserved. Thank you to everyone who worked behind the scenes to organize the meetups, create swag, and to spread the word. Some of these hardworking folks include: Mark Andrew, Joen Asmussen, Tino Barreiro, Chloe Bringmann, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Cate DeRosia, Em DeRosia, Beatriz Fialho, Nicholas Garofalo, Nyasha Green, Nick Hamze, Meagan Hanes, Kelly Hoffman, Pablo Honey, Santana Inniss, Marko Ivanovic, Angela Jin, Winston Koone, Megan Marcel, Jenni McKinnon, Brett McSherry, Jonathan Pantani, Se Reed, Lauren Stein, Francisco Vera, Andrew Wikel, and Adam Wood. Some More Fun A WordPress event is not complete without a Wapuu, and not only was there one, but there was a whole campaign to color it in! Thanks to Em DeRosia for creating the commemorative Wapuu! The Marketing team ran an interactive campaign, From Blogs to Blocks, a series of prompts across 20 days for WordPress enthusiasts to celebrate all-things WordPress. Additional campaigns took place on social media and included prompting folks to share their favorite WordPress memory and most cherished WordPress swag item, to highlight the 21 contributing teams, and even to share a birthday greeting. My fav #WordPress swag, which I use daily! This was the speaker swag from #WCBos 2019. @melchoyce, I think you designed this stunning logo? #WP20 https://t.co/1sEIEMGzM9 pic.twitter.com/F0ufF9msqP — Angela Jin (@AngelaSJin) April 25, 2023 We had lots of digital goodies too! From 3D desktop wallpaper, to selfie-props for the celebrations, and more. You can download them here. Got Swag? Need Swag? It’s not too late to order your WP20 commemorative items. Find shirts, stickers, and more, while supplies last! See you in five years for the 25th! Sign up here to stay in the “know”! Type your email… Subscribe View the full article

Say hello to WordPress 6.3 “Lionel,” named after Lionel Hampton, the celebrated American jazz artist. A prolific jazz vibraphonist, pianist, and percussionist, Hampton gained notoriety working in harmony with greats from Charles Mingus to Quincy Jones and as bandleader of the eponymous Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His artistry and charitable work have been recognized with a Grammy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the National Medal of Arts. Be sure to turn up the volume of the musical stylings of Lionel Hampton as you discover all “Lionel” has to offer. With “Lionel” you can create beautiful and compelling websites more efficiently than ever. Whether you want to build an entire site without coding or are a developer looking to customize every detail, WordPress 6.3 has something to pique your interest. As you unpack and explore this latest release, you will discover updated functions and navigation designed to help you work and create with less effort, design tools that give you more control over layout, and added functionality enriching the site-building experience. “Lionel” marks a major chapter in the evolution of WordPress as a tool for expression. It’s the culmination of years of work from hundreds of contributors, bringing a more powerful and cohesive editing experience for crafting websites with blocks. It continues the quest of making web publishing approachable for everyone—so it’s also just a new beginning! Matías Ventura, WordPress 6.3 Release Lead Download WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” today What’s inside This momentous release opens new possibilities for the creative expression of designers, creators, and builders. Powerful tools and refined controls give users confidence and allow them to easily manage their sites. Do everything in the Site Editor WordPress 6.3 brings your content, templates, and patterns together in the Site Editor for the first time. Add pages, browse style variations, create synced patterns, and enjoy fine-tuned control over navigation menus. Spend less time switching across different site areas—so you can focus on what matters most. Creation to completion, all in one place. Do everything with the Site Editor Preview Block themes Experience block themes before you switch and preview the Site Editor, with options to customize directly before committing to a new theme. Preview a new block theme before you switch and commit Create and sync patterns Arrange blocks and save them to the ‘My Patterns’ section for use throughout your site. You can even specify whether to sync your patterns (previously referred to as “Reusable blocks”) so that one change applies to all parts of your site. Or, utilize patterns as a starting point with the ability to customize each instance. My patterns: All your patterns in one place Work faster with the Command Palette Switch to a specific template or open your editor preferences with a new tool that helps you quickly access expanded functionality. With simple keyboard shortcuts (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows), clicking the sidebar search icon in Site View, or clicking the Title Bar, get where you need to go and do what you need to do in seconds. Get to know the new Command Palette Sharpen your designs with new tools New design controls bring more versatility for fine-tuning, starting with the ability to customize your captions from the Styles interface without coding. You can manage your duotone filters in Styles for supported blocks and pick from the options provided by your theme or disable them entirely. The Cover block gets added settings for text color, layout controls, and border options, making this powerful block even more handy. New design tools Track design changes with Style revisions With a new audit trail, you can now see how your site looked at a specific time. Visualize these revisions in a timeline and access a one-click option to restore prior styles. Style revisions: See your style revision history Annotate with the Footnotes block Footnotes add convenient annotations throughout your content. Now you can add and link footnotes for any paragraph. Add footnotes effortlessly with the new Footnotes Block Show or hide content with the Details block Use the Details block to avoid spoiling a surprise, create an interactive Q&A section, or hide a long paragraph under a heading. Display or hide content with the new Details Block Performance gets a boost WordPress 6.3 has 170+ performance updates, including defer and async support for the Scripts API and fetchpriority support for images. These improvements, along with block template resolution, image lazy-loading, and the emoji loader, can dramatically improve your website’s perceived load time. Accessibility remains a core focus Incorporating more than 50 accessibility improvements across the platform, WordPress 6.3 is more accessible than ever. Improved labeling, optimized tab and arrow-key navigation, revised heading hierarchy, and new controls in the admin image editor allow those using assistive technologies to navigate more easily. Other highlights Set aspect ratio on images Specify your aspect ratios and ensure design integrity, especially when using images in patterns. Build your site distraction-free Distraction-free designing is now available in the Site Editor. Rediscover the Top Toolbar A revamped Top Toolbar offers parent selectors for nested blocks, options when selecting multiple blocks, and an interface embedded into the title bar with new functionality in mind. List View improvements Drag and drop to every content layer and delete any block you would like in the updated List View. Build templates with Patterns Create unique patterns to jumpstart template creation with a new modal enabling access to pattern selection. Changes in PHP support Support for PHP 5 is discontinued. The new minimum supported version of PHP is 7.0.0. Failed update safeguards WordPress will now auto-restore the previously installed version of plugins or themes if something goes wrong during a failed manual update. Learn more about WordPress and 6.3 Explore Learn WordPress for quick how-to videos, online workshops, and other resources to level up your knowledge of the latest features in WordPress. Check out the WordPress 6.3 Field Guide for detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress and get the most out of the latest release. Read the 6.3 release notes for additional technical details about this release, including feature recaps, installation information, file changes, fixes, and updates. Read and subscribe to the Developer Blog for even more helpful WordPress content. WordPress is a global software platform 61 locales have translated 90 percent or more of WordPress 6.3 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you, gracias, ありがとう, धन्यवाद, and ευχαριστώ to everyone who helps to make WordPress available in 200 languages. Contributing to WordPress WordPress believes in democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source. Supporting this idea is a large community of people collaborating to strengthen the software. A big thank you to everyone who makes WordPress. Our community of contributors has always been what makes WordPress wonderful. You are what makes sure our project continues to thrive, and our software remains secure, usable, and impactful. Thank you so much for joining together to make the web (and the world) a better place! Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director, WordPress.org WordPress 6.3 arrives thanks to more than 650 contributors’ collective passion and effort in at least 52 countries. This release also includes over 205 first-time contributors! The 6.3 release squad The 6.3 release was led from start to launch by an active set of contributors from across many disciplines. Over several weeks, they kept the release on track and moving forward by connecting ideas, resolving issues, and removing roadblocks. Release Lead: Matías Ventura Release Coordinators: Francesca Marano, Héctor Prieto Core Tech Leads: Andrew Ozz, Mike Schroder, David Baumwald Editor Tech Leads: Isabel Brison, Ramon Dodd Core Triage Leads: Jb Audras, Ahmed Kabir Chaion, Mukesh Panchal, Olga Glecker Editor Triage Leads: Anne McCarthy, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Firoz Sabaliya, Nick Diego Documentation Leads: Femy Praseeth, Steven Lin, Leonardus Nugraha, Mushrit Shabnam Marketing & Communications Leads: Dan Soschin, Jonathan Pantani, Meher Bala Test Leads: Brian Alexander, Pooja Derashri, Chris Malone, Piotrek Boniu Design Leads: Tammie Lister, Rich Tabor Performance Leads: Felix Arntz, Emily Clarke 6.3 contributors Complimenting the release squad is a diverse group of contributors whose global collaboration delivered hundreds of enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all—a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community. Özgür KARALAR · 6adminit · Aaron Jorbin · Aaron Robertshaw · Abha Thakor · abhi3315 · Abhishek Sharma · Abir · abitofmind · Adam Silverstein · Adam W. Warner · Adarsh Akshat · Adel Tahri · Aditya Jain · Ahmed Chaion · Ahsan Chowdhury · Aki Hamano · akmelias · Akramul Hasan · Alex Concha · Alex Dimitrov · Alex Kozack · Alex Lende · Alex Stine · Alexandre Lara · allancole · Alvaro Gómez · Alvi Tazwar · Amaan Khan · amansurov · amin · Amy Hendrix (sabreuse) · Anatoliy · Anatoliy Dovgun · Andrea Fercia · Andrei Draganescu · Andrew Nacin · Andrew Ozz · Andrew Serong · Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko · André Maneiro · Andy · Andy Fragen · Andy Peatling · Anil Vaza · Ankit K Gupta · Ankit Panchal · Ankur Chotai · Anna · Anne McCarthy · Anne-Mieke Bovelett · annziel · Anthony Burchell · Anton Timmermans · Anton Vlasenko · Antony Agrios · anver · Anveshika Srivastava · Arafat Jamil · Ari Stathopoulos · Artemio Morales · Arthur Chu · Arunas Liuiza · Asad Polash · Ashar Irfan · Ashikur Rahman · Atanas Antonov · Aurooba Ahmed · Austin Matzko · Ayesh Karunaratne · azizantoun · Aznadesign · bangank36 · bartkalisz · Ben Dunkle · Ben Dwyer · Benjamin Grolleau · benjibee · benlk · Bernie Reiter · Bhavik Kalpesh · Bhrugesh Bavishi · Bijay Yadav · Birgit Pauli-Haack · bitnissen · bonger · Boone Gorges · Boro Sitnikovski · Brandon DuRette · Brandon Kraft · Brandon Payton · brasofilo · Brennan Goewert · Brian Alexander · Brian Coords · Brian Fischer · Brian Gardner · Bridget Willard · Bronson Quick · Brooke Kaminski · Brooke. · caraffande · Carlos Bravo · Carlos Garcia · Carolina Nymark · Cathi Bosco · ceer · Chad Chadbourne · Chintan hingrajiya · Chirag Rathod · Chloe Bringmann · Chouby · Chris Flannagan · Chris Lubkert · Chris Malone · chriscct7 · Christoph Daum · ckoerner · Code Amp · Colin Stewart · corentingautier · Courtney Robertson · Crixu · crs1138 · crstauf · cshark · Daisy Olsen · Dan Bernardic · Dan Soschin · Daniel Bachhuber · Daniel Richards · Daniele Scasciafratte · danyk4 · darerodz · Darshit Rajyaguru · Dave Whitley · David Baumwald · David Biňovec · David Calhoun · David Herrera · David Smith · davidmusnik · davidwebca · Dean Sas · Deepak Vijayan · Delete My Account · Denis de Bernardy · Denis Žoljom · Dennis Snell · Dennys Dionigi · densityapps · Derek Ashauer · Derek Blank · devshagor · Dharmesh Patel · Dhrumil Kumbhani · Dhruvi Shah · DigTek · Dilip Bheda · dimijazz · Dion Hulse · doems · Dominik Schilling · Drew Jaynes · dsar · dustyreagan · ebai4 · ecorica · Ed Beck · eduwass · Edward · Edwin Takahashi · ehsanakhgari · Ehtisham S. · Ella van Durpe · Emily Clarke · emirpprime · Enrique Sánchez · eric.7186 · Erik Betshammar · Ernest Behinov · Estela Rueda · Fabian Kägy · Fabian Todt · Faisal Ahammad · Falguni Desai · Farhan Ahmed · Felipe Elia · Felix Arntz · Femy Praseeth · Firoz Sabaliya · Florian TIAR · Francesca Marano · Frank Klein · franrosa · gaeldenysiak · Gal Baras · Gan (a11n) · Garth Mortensen · Gary Cao · Gary Jones · Gary Pendergast · Gennady Kovshenin · George · George Mamadashvili · Gerardo Pacheco · gilles66 · Gio Lodi · Glen Davies · GrandSlambert · Grant M. Kinney · Greg Ziółkowski · Gudmundur Haraldsson · Guillaume TURPIN · gvgvgvijayan · Hanzala Taifun · Hardik Thakkar · Hareesh S · Harit Panchal · Harsh Gajipara · Hasan Misbah · Hasanuzzaman · Haz · hbhalodia · Heiko Mamerow · Helen Hou-Sandi · HelgaTheViking · Hendrik Luehrsen · Hilay Trivedi · Himani Panchal · hrdelwar · Hridoy Mozumder · Hugo Baeta · hugod · Huseyin Berberoglu · Huzaifa Al Mesbah · Héctor Prieto · Iain Poulson · Ian Belanger · Ian Dunn · Ibrahim Khalil · Ibrahim Sharif · Ignat Georgiev · imanish003 · intoxination · Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) · Isabel Brison · jacknotman · Jahid Hasan · Jakaria Istauk · James Koster · James Roberts · james0r · Jan Boddez · jane · jankyz · janpaulkleijn · Jarda Snajdr · Jason Crist · Jason Johnston · Jason LeMahieu (MadtownLems) · Javier Casares · jbcouton · Jean-Baptiste Audras · Jeff Ong · jeffmora · Jeffrey Paul · Jen · Jenil Kanani · Jeremy Felt · Jeroen Rotty · Jerry Jones · jhnstn · jigar bhanushali · Joe Dolson · Joe McGill · Joen Asmussen · John Blackbourn · John Hooks · John James Jacoby · jomonthomaslobo1 · Jon Bourne · Jonathan Desrosiers · Jonathan Pantani · Joni Erkkilä · Jonny Harris · Joost de Valk · jordesign · Jorge Costa · Jos Klever · Josep Morán · Joseph G. · Josepha · Josh Habdas · Josh Pollock · Joy · jqz · Juan Aldasoro · JuanMa Garrido · Juliette Reinders Folmer · Juzar · K. Adam White · KafleG · Kai Hao · Kailey (trepmal) · Kajal Gohel · Kantari Samy · Kapil Paul · Karol Manijak · Karthik Thayyil · Kathryn P. · Kausar Al Mamun · Kausar Alam · Kelly Choyce-Dwan · kenwins · Kevin Behrens · Khoi Pro · Kjell Reigstad · Knut Sparhell · koenschipper · Konstantinos Xenos · Krishna Neupane · Krunal Bhimajiyani · Krupa Nanda · Krupal Panchal · kutsu · KZeni · Léa McAleese · Lachezar Gadzhev · Lana Codes · laurelfulford · Lauren Stein · laurentmagnin · Lena Morita · Leonardus Nugraha · lessbloat · Levdbas · Linda van Tol · Linkon Miyan · lowlydev · lphk · Luigi · luisherranz · Luke Cavanagh · madejackson · Madhu Dollu · Madhu Dollu · Maggie Cabrera · Mahdi Hasan · Mai · Maja Loncar · Malae · Malav Vasita · manfcarlo · maniu · Marc · Marcelo de Moraes Serpa · MarcGuay · Marco Ciampini · Marek Dědič · margolisj · marianne38 · Marin Atanasov · Marine EVAIN · Mario Santos · Marius L. J. · Mark Jaquith · Mark Parnell · markdoliner · Marko Heijnen · Marko Ivanovic · Markus · Markus Kosmal · martin.krcho · marybaum · masteradhoc · mastrup · Mat Lipe · Matias Benedetto · Matias Ventura · matmoe · Matt Mullenweg · Matt Watson · Matt Wiebe · matt_fw · Matteo Enna · Matthew Boynes · Mauriac AZOUA · maurodf · Max Lyuchin · maxcgparis · maysi · Mayur Prajapati · McAlyster · mcliwanow · Md Mahamudur Rahaman · Md Monir Hossain · MD Shakibul Islam · megane9988 · Meher Bala · Mel Choyce-Dwan · Menaka S. · mensmaximus · mgol · Michael Adams (mdawaffe) · Michael Burridge · Michael Day · MichaelH · Michal Czaplinski · Miguel Fonseca · Mike Schinkel · Mike Schroder · mikecho · mikeyzm · Mikin Chauhan · Milana Cap · Milen Petrinski - Gonzo · Mitch Canter · mitchellaustin · mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) · Moe · Mohammad Jangda · Mohan Raj · Mohip Patel · Mohiuddin Omran · Monique Dubbelman · Monzur Alam · Morten Rand-Hendriksen · Mrinal Haque · mtxz · Muhammad Yeasin · mujuonly · Mukesh Panchal · Mushrit Shabnam · nadimcse · Naeem Haque · Nahid Hasan · Narthur · nataliat2004 · Nate Allen · Nazgul · Nazmul Hosen · Nazmul Huda · nendeb · Neycho Kalaydzhiev · Nicholas Garofalo · Nick Diego · nickpap · nidhidhandhukiya · Nihar Ranjan Das · Nik Tsekouras · Nilo Velez · Niluthpal Purkayastha · Nithin John · Nithin SreeRaj · njsamsatli · nkeller15 · Noah Allen · obliviousharmony · Okamoto Hidetaka · Olga Gleckler · OllieJones · opr18 · Orestis Samaras · Ov3rfly · owi · Paal Joachim Romdahl · Pamela Ribeiro · Paragon Initiative Enterprises · Pascal Birchler · Patel Jaymin · patriciahillebrandt · Paul Biron · Paul Kevan · Paul Von Schrottky · Paulo Trentin · Pavan Patil · Pedro Mendonça · Peter Westwood · Peter Wilson · Petter Walbø Johnsgård · Philipp Bammes · Phill · Pierre Sylvestre · Pieterjan Deneys · Piotrek Boniu · Pitam Dey · Piyush Tekwani · pkbhatt · Platon Kristinin · Pooja Derashri · Pooja N Muchandikar · pouicpouic · Prashant · Prashant Singh · Pravin Parmar · Presskopp · Priyanka Adhikari · Przemek Hernik · Rachel Baker · Rafa Poveda · Rafael Fischmann · Rajan Panchal · Rajin Sharwar · Ramon Ahnert · Ramon James · Ratnesh Sonar · Rehan Ali · rembem · ren · Riad Benguella · Rian Rietveld · Rich Tabor · richards1052 · Richie Carey · rjasdfiii · rob1n · Robert Anderson · Robert O'Rourke · Robin · Rolf Allard van Hagen · Ronak Ganatra · Ruman Ahmed · Rutvik Savsani · Ryan Boren · Ryan Fredlund · Ryan Kienstra · Ryan McCue · Ryan Welcher · Sé Reed · Sébastien SERRE · Sérgio Gomes · Süleyman Kenar · Sahil B. · Sajjad Hossain Sagor · Sakib Mohammed · salvoaranzulla · Sam Fullalove · samiamnot · SamNajian · Samuel Wood (Otto) · Sarah Norris · Sarequl Basar · Saxon Fletcher · Scott Reilly · Scott Taylor · scribu · Sean Davis · Sergey Biryukov · Shail Mehta · Shalin Shah · Shannon Little · Shipon Karmakar · Shreyas Ikhar · shubhamsedani · shuvo586 · shvv · Shweta Bathani · Siddhant Wadhwani · siddharth ravikumar · Siddharth Thevaril · Simon Dowdles · Simone · Siobhan · Sirajum Mahdi · Sjoerd Boerrigter · Sjoerd Linders · skorasaurus · Smit Rathod · Soren Wrede · Spencer · sque · srikanthmeenakshi · Stanimir Stoyanov · Stefano Minoia · Stephan Nijman · Stephen Bernhardt · Steven Lin · Subrata Sarkar · Sudip Dadhaniya · Sumit Bagthariya · Sumit Singh · sunyatasattva (a11n) · Suvro · Suzette Franck · Suzette Franck · syamraj24 · Sybre Waaijer · Syed Nuhel · Synchro · Taco Verdonschot · Tahmina Jahan · Takashi Kitajima · Tammie Lister · Tanner Moushey · Thakor Darshil · thomask · thunder rumbles · Tijmen Smit · Till Krüss · Tim Brathärig · Timothy Jacobs · tmatsuur · TobiasBg · tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn Fjellner) · Tom de Visser · Tom J Nowell · Tomoki Shimomura · Toni Viemerö · Tonya Mork · tonythomas01 · Toro_Unit (Hiroshi Urabe) · Torsten Landsiedel · Towhidul I Chowdhury · Tryon · twstokes · TyB · Ugyen Dorji · Umesh Gupta · Umesh Patel · Upadala Vipul · Utsav tilava · uxtremist · Vagelis · valterlorran · Vasilis Manthos · victoranto · Viktor Szépe · vivekawsm · Vlad T · Weston Ruter · whaze · williampatton · wlindley · Wojtek Szkutnik · wplmillet · xerpa43 · xmarcos · Yani Iliev · Yui · Zdrobau · Zeba Afia Shama · Zebulan Stanphill · Zenaul Islam · zieladam · Zunaid Amin WordPress support forums Many thanks to the community volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide. Get involved today If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and explore the product roadmap on the core development blog. You can also use this interactive tool to help you decide which team is right for you. Looking toward the future 20 years ago this past May, WordPress shipped the very first version, 0.7. What started with a blog post from co-founder Matt Mullenweg and a subsequent comment by co-founder Mike Little eventually evolved into the world’s most popular web publishing platform. WordPress software continues to evolve and iterate based on the needs and desires of its robust and diverse user community. This release is the capstone of Phase 2 along the WordPress development roadmap. As the community looks to the future, all efforts turn to 6.4 and, subsequently, the transition into Phase 3, which is expected to introduce powerful collaboration tools to the website creation and management experience. 6.3 Haiku A capstone release Ships tools for building great sites Collaboration View the full article

As the world’s most popular open source content management system, WordPress acknowledges the European Union’s initiative to bolster the cybersecurity of digital hardware and software products with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The Act’s effort to counter the increasing threat of cyberattacks and promote informed usage of digital products with increased security updates and transparency is commendable. While we wholly endorse the objectives of the CRA, we are apprehensive about the Act’s implications on open source software due to unclear terms and definitions. Specifically, the Act’s prohibition on “unfinished software” and ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could inadvertently inhibit innovation and economic participation in the European digital landscape. Open source projects, like WordPress, often rely on continual updates and improvements—a process that may technically fall under the label of “unfinished.” Furthermore, the ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could unintentionally encompass open source projects that are largely driven by communities and operate on a not-for-profit basis. Our letter to the EU Commission We have jointly authored an open letter addressing these concerns alongside fellow open source projects Drupal, Joomla!, and TYPO31. The letter emphasizes the significant contribution of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to the EU’s economy and how the proposed regulations might undermine these efforts. Our shared goal is to further bolster the security of digital products without compromising the values of freedom, democracy, and innovation inherent to both the open source community and the EU’s Aims and Values. The letter invites the EU Commission and interested parties to participate in a seminar in Brussels to discuss how we can align the objectives of the CRA with the realities and needs of the FOSS community. We are optimistic that, with mutual understanding and cooperation, we can achieve secure digital products without limiting the vital contributions of open source projects. Read the letter Drupal, Joomla!, TYPO3, and WordPress are the most popular FOSS content management systems on the web today. While all are based on the PHP programming language and distributed under the GPL open source license, each platform takes a different approach to website publishing. With strength in diversity, they form the Inter-CMS Working Group, promoting the values and benefits of free and open source software. ︎ View the full article

WordPress 6.3 RC3 is ready for download and testing. This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate RC3 on a test server and site. The WordPress 6.3 release is scheduled for August 8, 2023—just one week away. Now is your last opportunity to test it before the general release. For a deeper look into this release, read this overview of the 6.3 release cycle, check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts, review new features in WordPress 6.3, or watch a recorded demo. What’s new since RC2 Since the RC2 release on July 25, 2023, there have been approximately 14 issues resolved in Github and Trac. To prepare for 6.3 general availability, RC3 also addresses several bugs and adds fixes for retrieving templates (#4940) and resolving child theme issues (#53138). Thank you for testing, WordPressers! Developers and extenders should review the comprehensive WordPress 6.3 Field Guide for detailed technical notes regarding new features and improvements. Ways to contribute WordPress is open source software made possible by the community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline a variety of ways you can help, regardless of your technical expertise. Download RC3 for testing You can test WordPress 6.3 RC3 in three ways: Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Option 2: Direct download the RC3 version (zip). Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.3-RC3 Keep WordPress bug-free—help with testing Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too. Encountered an issue? Please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. New to testing? This detailed guide is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta/RC release. Want to know more about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel in Making WordPress Slack. Search for vulnerabilities The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Update your theme or plugin Do you build themes or plugins? Your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for users of all types worldwide. This is your final opportunity to test your latest versions against RC3. You will want to continue your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.3. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums. Help translate WordPress Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. Release the haiku Phase two, soon complete A monumental release Then onto six-four. Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @Meher, @DanSoschin, and @jpantani View the full article

From administrator to web developer thanks to the supportive WordPress community. Through learning from other software users in Pakistan, Ihtisham Zahoor knew that his life would change. He moved cities and careers to make his life through open source. The People of WordPress series shares inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global community of contributors. Ihtisham, from Haripur, a city in northern Pakistan, said: “The WordPress community made me a firm believer in the power of open source software. This is why I am an enthusiast and one who enjoys contributing back to the community via writing, speaking, and helping organize meetups.” When Ihtisham discovered WordPress, his fascination for working with computing grew. He knew he did not want to just work in administration his entire career. Ihitsham describes himself as an ‘introvert’ and therefore the idea of remote work appealed as he could still add value to others through technology. He was intrigued by the thought of the freedom to choose his work hours. However, without access to others who had already transformed their careers and lives through web development, he felt he ‘had no path to follow to turn my dream into a reality.’ Challenges become opportunities to learn when there is an active community Lacking any kind of informed support network to advise or guide him, Ihtisham devoted time to online research to find the next steps he could take. Looking back, he believes that for those who are not in a network with others with similar interests, it can be hard to keep learning and experimenting with new things. Isolation can be a barrier to working in web development. He said: “I think it is not easy to stay motivated when there aren’t immediate rewards for the hard work we do. Sometimes, weeks would go by when my only focus would be to stay motivated rather than give up.” After another two years of combining learning and work, Ihtisham took up using WordPress as a full-time career. He moved to the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. It was not easy at first. He recalls: “After many failed attempts at getting hired and desperate moments, I finally received an offer from a digital agency as a web developer focused on the WordPress platform.” He added: “Moving to work with a bigger agency was one of the best decisions of my life as it helped me with my professional growth by becoming familiar with the whole WordPress ecosystem in a supportive environment. I was valued for my opinions in the web projects in which I was involved. I was also appreciated and encouraged for the open source work I did for the company.” He summarized his enthusiasm for WordPress like this: “It is really interesting figuring out what is happening in the backends. I like problem-solving and finding solutions which you can do with WordPress.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ihtisham moved to join a start-up based in his hometown which provides web development services to international clients. He works as a developer and has the opportunity to learn more about client communication and project management. “WordPress has opened up so many opportunities for me. It has been an exciting journey for me with lots of learning every day,” he said. In particular, he has discovered an interest in APIs and regularly uses his spare time to follow tickets in the hope of one day contributing even more to topics, such as, third-party app integration through APIs on WordPress sites. Give back through WordPress community It was not just software that made a difference in Ihtisham’s life. Joining a welcoming and sharing community was transforming for him. Recalling those early days of isolation, he values the WordPress community and is wholly committed to the power of open-source software. He now enjoys writing, speaking, and organizing meetups to give back to both to the community. He has written software for the platform and contributes to the Core work, which he describes as a ‘humbling’ experience. He is fond of WordCamp Islamabad and in 2023 is on the organizing team to help bring both WordPress and its community to others in Pakistan. “My first experience,” he said, “was that everyone was so friendly and open to sharing what they have learned, even though they were all busy working. This really had an impact on me. It really helped me and gave me the confidence that I could work with WordPress…. It was a real step forward for me joining this community.” A particular meeting in 2018 led to new friendships through the WordPress community. Ihtisham was on a train to Karachi for the first ever Pakistani WordCamp in 2018 and met a group of fellow attendees he now regards as close friends. What impressed him most about the camp was that although he met many people with considerable expertise, they also had a generosity of spirit and humbleness in their willingness to share this knowledge. in sharing it. Now, he and this group of friends make a point to taking trains across the country, which allows him to fulfil another dream of traveling widely. He says these things and other ‘side benefits’ have been made possible by the WordPress community, and for that, he is ‘forever grateful’. Ihtisham particularly wanted to share his story through this People of WordPress article to encourage those starting with little or no support to remain persistent. He knows from experience breaking into the tech world can be hard, especially when you may be switching from doing something else and have no ‘track record’ to offer. He feels he is a living example of how perseverance can lead to success. He offers these words to anyone thinking of making a move into development using the WordPress platform: “I attribute my success (financial and mental well-being) to the open-source nature of WordPress and its amazing community. It would not be possible to learn and use the plethora of free tools WordPress provides if it weren’t an open-source platform. It is for that reason I feel obligated to contribute back to this platform to the best of my abilities.” To those who are finding getting going difficult, as he did, he adds: “Get yourself a clear learning path and just dive in doing WordPress, and things will get better for you over time as they were for me, I promise. Good Luck!” Share the stories Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series. To help you discover more about how to use the WordPress software, there is a free resource from the community, Learn.WordPress.org Contributors Thanks to Ihtisham Zahoor (@shaampk1 ) for sharing about his adventures in WordPress. Thank you to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat ), Nalini Thakor (@nalininonstopnewsuk ), and Meher Bala (@meher ) for interviews, the feature and collaborating on images, to Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann ), Mary Baum (@marybaum ), Mark Smallman (@marks99 ) and Maja Loncar (@majaloncar) for help with reviews. Thanks to the late Surendra Thakor (@sthakor ), Maedah Bahtool (@maedahbahtool ) and other members of the Marketing and Polyglots Team for their contributions. The People of WordPress series thanks Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune ) and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe ) for their support. This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. #HeroPress View the full article

Synced patterns are replacing Reusable blocks, offering a unified creation experience for new pattern functionality coming to WordPress 6.3. Patterns, first introduced in WordPress 5.5, are a collection of blocks that make it simple to add complex layouts and designs to any WordPress site without starting from scratch. With WordPress 6.3, set to be released on August 8th, you will be able to arrange blocks in unlimited ways and save them as patterns for use throughout your site, directly within the editing experience. You can also specify whether to sync your patterns, so that one change applies to all parts of your site, or to keep them unsynced, so you can customize each instance. Create your own patterns The ability to create your own patterns, on top of using the ones bundled into each WordPress release, opens up a world of possibilities. Need to repeat the same contact information across your site and keep it up to date? Create a synced pattern with all the details, and say goodbye to repeating yourself, with the ability to quickly insert the synced pattern wherever you need it. If you find yourself creating various banners for your site and want them to have the same layout with unique content, creating an unsynced pattern speeds up your workflow and ensures a level of consistency in approach. While themes and plugins have been able to offer patterns to users and curate the experience, this update allows agencies and site builders to do the same for their clients, directly in the site building process. Dig into the details Any previously made Reusable blocks will continue to function as they do now, just under the new Synced pattern name. To help adjust to these changes, a few contextual notices will be placed throughout the interface. Specifically, the menu item in the creation flow will show as “Create pattern/reusable block” until the prompt describing the switch is dismissed in one of the various locations, including the naming and syncing modal: For folks using block themes, all patterns will be listed alongside template parts in the Site Editor > Patterns section, where you can enter a focused editing mode to make changes. For Classic themes, the prior reusable block management page will now house patterns in a list, similar to the Posts > All Posts view. For a complete overview of patterns on your site, all patterns provided by themes and plugins will be shown in this section but without the option to edit directly. Go further With the ability to create your own patterns baked into the creation experience, remember that you can copy the patterns available in the Pattern Directory and contribute back, an excellent way to democratize design for every WordPress user and the web. For more exciting features coming to patterns in WordPress 6.3, read on in the Advancing the Power of Patterns post. Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: Chloé Bringmann, Jonathan Pantani, Josepha, Krista Stevens, Nicholas Garofalo, Peter Rubin. View the full article

WordPress 6.3 RC2 is ready for download and testing. This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, or run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate RC2 on a test server and site. While release candidates are considered ready for final release, additional testing and use by the community can only make it better. WordPress 6.3 is scheduled for release on August 8, 2023 – just two weeks from today. Get an overview of the 6.3 release cycle, check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts, review new features in WordPress 6.3, or watch a recorded demo. Developers and extenders should review the comprehensive WordPress 6.3 Field Guide for detailed technical notes regarding new features and improvements. RC2 Highlights Since the RC1 release on July 18, 2023, there have been approximately 15 issues resolved in Editor and Trac. Notable updates for this release include: Footnotes will be reverted or restored with post revisions (#52686). Distraction free adds a missing command in the site editor (#52868). Global styles revisions will display text if no revisions are found (#52865). The About Page has been completed (#58067). The About Page now includes a “Get Involved” section (#23348). The dark mode option has been restored in the block editor iframe for Twenty Twenty-One (#58835). Max height value was fixed in the image scaling in the Edit Media screen (#50523). Additionally, some issues regarding internationalization were addressed. Test features in WordPress 6.3 Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too. Encountered an issue? Please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. New to testing? This detailed guide is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta/RC release. Want to know more about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel in Making WordPress Slack. Vulnerability bounty doubles during the Beta/RC phases The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Get WordPress 6.3 RC2 You can test WordPress 6.3 RC2 in three ways: Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Option 2: Direct download the RC2 version (zip). Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.3-RC2 Thanks to WordPress plugin and theme developers Do you build plugins and themes? Your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for users of all types worldwide. Hopefully, you have already tested your themes and plugins with WordPress 6.3 betas by now. With RC2, you will want to continue your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.3. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums. Help translate WordPress Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 6.3 release cycle. Haiku for RC2 Time is nearly here WordPress shines thanks to you all Let’s get testing, dear Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @Priethor, @AudrasJb, @DavidBaumwald, @DanSoschin, @JPantani and @Meher. View the full article

WordPress 6.3 ships on August 8th! For a sneak peek of what’s to come, members of the 6.3 release squad, Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor, held a live demo moderated by Nathan Wrigley. More than 100 attendees watched as some of the most anticipated product features were demonstrated, from the brand-new Command Palette to new design tools and more. 6.3 Live Product Demo Here are some of the key takeaways from the 6.3 live product demonstration. Command Palette’s big debut One of the most anticipated features of 6.3 is the Command Palette. It lets you quickly navigate and open different WordPress functions within the post and Site Editor. Access it using a shortcut command (Command + K or Control + K). Page creation gets easier in the Site Editor Now you can browse and edit pages within the Site Editor, providing a more cohesive WordPress experience. A new drafting flow debuts, allowing you to create and publish pages directly within the editor. Synced Patterns set to replace Reusable Blocks You can create and manage all your patterns directly in the Site Editor. Once edited, all synced patterns (previously called Reusable Blocks) will change across a site—a huge time saver when making changes. Stay on top of design changes with Style Revisions This enhancement offers a visual timeline of your site so you can see all the revisions in your site’s history and restore a previous style with just a click. New design tools and blocks Controls for specifying aspect ratios to ensure design integrity, especially when using images in Patterns debut in 6.3, along with new blocks for Footnotes and Details. Easily add footnotes to your content and have them automatically linked to the corresponding text. With the Details block, hide or display content to create spoilers or accordions. Performance WordPress is getting faster with 6.3 as content with images will see speedier load times. Both theme types (Classic and Block) will also benefit from performance improvements. The upcoming hallway hangout is an excellent opportunity to learn more about performance enhancements directly from the WordPress Performance team. More from Core Revert to previously installed versions when manual updates for themes and plugins fail. Dropping support for PHP 5. The new minimum supported version of PHP will be 7.0.0. The recommended version of PHP remains at 7.4 or greater. Accessibility updates, especially for List View and the broader Site Editor experience. Improvements to internationalization just-in-time translation loading. These new features and more await you as Phase 2 of the WordPress Roadmap comes to a close with the 6.3 release. A question and answer session followed the demo, with attendees asking plenty of great questions. The panelists shared links for additional reading regarding many new features—all conveniently added to the end of this post. A big thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress. Contributors power every WordPress release. Without the hundreds of contributors worldwide who help build WordPress, this live product demo wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you for all of your hard work. References from the Live Demo Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API Core Editor Improvement: Advancing the Power of Patterns Comparing Patterns, Template Parts, and Reusable Blocks Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3 The 6.3 Field Guide New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates Dropping support for PHP 5 WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements Internationalization Improvements in 6.3 #30496 Site Editor: MVP Customizer Compatibility/Integration #52128 Customization Ongoing Roadmap Building sidebars with the Site Editor New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3 Props to @richtabor and @annezazu for reviewing this post and to @cbringmann, @meher, and @dansoschin for their logistics support to run the event. View the full article

WordPress 6.3 RC1 is ready for download and testing. This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate RC1 on a test server and site. Reaching this part of the release cycle is a key milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for final release, additional testing and use by the community can only make it better. Get an overview of the 6.3 release cycle, check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts, and review the new features in WordPress 6.3. Save the date for a live product demo scheduled for Thursday, July 20, 2023, at 16:00 UTC (Zoom link). This live demo will be a great opportunity to join the WordPress community to celebrate the accomplishments of 6.3 and this final chapter of Phase 2. RC1 highlights Thanks to the many WordPress beta testers, this release contains 40+ (Editor) and 80+ (Trac) updates since the Beta 4 release. Keep it up WordPressers! Notable updates for this release include: WordPress database error when installing PHPUnit tests (#58673) Use _get_block_template_file function and set $area variable (#52708) Indicate when a theme supports the Site editor in the Themes REST API response (#58123) bulk_edit_posts() function needs an action hook (#28112) Allow editing existing footnote from formats toolbar (#52506) Patterns: Add client side pagination to patterns list (#52538) Trim footnote anchors from excerpts (#52518) Browse the technical details for issues addressed since Beta 4 using these queries: GitHub commits for 6.3 Closed Trac tickets since July 11 For a recap of what’s coming in 6.3, please refer to the Beta 2 post, which summarizes key features. You can also dig into technical information about various components in 6.3: Core Editor Improvement: Advancing the Power of Patterns Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3 Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3 Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3 New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3 I18N Improvements in 6.3 New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates Configuring development mode in 6.3 Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3 WP_Query used internally in get_pages() Improved Caching for Database Queries in WP_User_Query Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles Introducing the Block Selectors API Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3 Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3 Bundled themes dropping Internet Explorer scripts and styles Miscellaneous developer changes in WordPress 6.3 For a compilation of the dev notes above and more, read the comprehensive WordPress 6.3 Field Guide. Test the new features in WordPress 6.3 Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too. Encountered an issue? Please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. New to testing? This detailed guide is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta/RC release. Want to know more about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel in the Making WordPress Slack. Vulnerability bounty doubles during the Beta/RC phases The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Get WordPress 6.3 RC1 You can test WordPress 6.3 RC1 in three ways: Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Option 2: Direct download the RC1 version (zip). Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.3-RC1 The current target for the final release is August 8, 2023, about three weeks away. Your help testing this version ensures everything in this release is the best. Thanks to WordPress plugin and theme developers Do you build plugins and themes? Your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for users of all types worldwide. Chances are, you have already been testing your latest themes and plugins with WordPress 6.3 betas. With RC1, you will want to complete your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.3. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums. Help translate WordPress Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 6.3 release cycle. Haiku for RC1 RC1 is here Hold your applause ‘til the end Download, test, repeat Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, and @JPantani. View the full article

Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy and Core Tech Lead Mike Schroder as they discuss their favorite new features and enhancements coming in WordPress 6.3. Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Guests: Mike Schroder Editor: Dustin Hartzler Logo: Javier Arce Production: Nicholas Garofalo Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod Show Notes WordPress 6.3 Development Cycle and Release Team New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates Core Editor Improvement: Advancing the power of Patterns Core Editor Improvement: Smoother Site Editing Text blocks: now with footnotes The Details block is now stable Help Test WordPress 6.3 A small list of big things WCUS 2023 Contributor Day: Help Needed! – The WordCamp US Contributor Team is asking for help with their new approach to organizing this year’s Contributor Day. Watch the WCUS News page for a call for open-source-related art, poetry, and music. WordPress Releases – Find WordPress 6.3 RC1 and other releases. Celebrating the Completion of the Meetup Reactivation Project WP Diversity Workshop for WordPress event organizers – Join this 2.5-hour interactive watch party online on July 20, 2023, to learn how to create welcoming and diverse WordPress Meetups and WordCamps for your WordPress community. 6.3 Live Product Demo Transcript ( Intro music ) [00:00:00] Josepha: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go. ( Intro music continues ) [00:00:39] Josepha: We have with us Mike Schroder. They are on the WordPress 6.3 release squad, and I believe, Mike, that your role there is the Core Tech Lead. Is that right? [00:00:50] Mike: Yeah, that’s correct. I’m one of the tech leads along with Andrew Ozz and David Baumwald. [00:00:56] Josepha: Thank you so much for being able to join me today. [00:00:58] Mike: Thanks for inviting me. [00:01:00] Josepha: This is our 6.3 sneak peek, and so it has a little bit of a “What do you wish people knew about the upcoming release?” aspect to it, but it also has like a “What do we find most interesting about the work that we’ve been doing in this release so far?” As the Core Tech Lead, what currently is like your favorite thing that y’all are getting into the release or the thing that’s the most interesting or happiest to finally be done with it? [00:01:27] Mike: Yeah, I think there are a couple of things. So I was playing around with the release in anticipation for this, and one of the favorite sort of user-facing features that I played with was the live preview for Block themes. And it just makes it feel so intuitive to open up a new Block theme and play around with Styles and different designs and see how it looks. I really enjoyed it, opened it up on my personal site and started messing around with different color palettes and things like that, and it was a lot of fun. [00:01:55] Josepha: Like it’s a live preview, but also with all of the content they already have on your site. [00:01:59] Mike: It does use the templates and so it, it shows some of the live content from the from the homepage, for instance, and some of those blocks, and some of the other areas are editing the templates rather than the live content. But yes, it was neat to play around with it and see my blog content in the background and yeah, some real-time design. That was really fun. [00:02:20] Josepha: And has that been a big focus of the release? Was it something that you and the other Tech Leads both for the Core side and the Editor side just had to focus a lot on in this round of the release? [00:02:33] Mike: So I was not a part of a lot of that work. So I’m not gonna take credit for it. I think that is the culmination, all of those different things together of a lot of the things that the Editor team has been working on for some time. And it was just, it was really refreshing to see it. The other feature that I had in my head, if it’s okay for me to talk about a second one, is something that has been trying to get landed in Core for quite some time, and that has to do with automatic rollbacks. If plugin updates or theme updates start to happen and then they fail in the middle of that update, then it will automatically restore the previous version of the plugin or theme. And that’s a pretty big improvement over the previous behavior, which could result not as well. [00:03:16] Josepha: Right. Where you would just have a site that was like, “Best of luck to you,” and emails that told you what kind of probably was broken. I shouldn’t be sassy about that. The WSOD protection that we put in really was a huge leap forward for the way that we handled that in the past, but this is great news. [00:03:34] Mike: Yes, I was so excited when that landed, and this is I guess the next part of that. And it’s been, yeah, it’s been in the works for a long time, through testing and there was an entire team that did a lot of work on it in a future plugin. And I’m very excited to see it land. [00:03:49] Josepha: That’s great. That’s one of those things that we hope a WordPress user never has to know exists. Like it’s always our hope that the plugins work perfectly and the themes work perfectly. And so unless something is going really wrong you won’t know that’s a feature. Surely it tells you like, “This didn’t update by the way. Go figure that out.” [00:04:08] Mike: Yeah, the whole idea of this particular feature is to make it feel more like everything is smooth and one site continues to work, and the underpinning of it has been going in for a couple of releases. The whole idea is to make the experience more smooth for users. [00:04:21] Josepha: Cool. That auto rollback actually was not on my radar as a thing to keep an eye out for in this release, so that’s really neat. One of the things that I saw as I was doing, I don’t do any complicated testing. I mostly do like testing of what users would expect with the workflow with my eyeballs and a mouse. [00:04:40] Mike: Well, that’s, that’s wonderful. [00:04:42] Josepha: I’m not doing any of the fancy testing with like code, but one of the things that I saw as I was working through my general, just regular test, my spot check click around test was that it looks like there’s some consolidation, some consolidation of the navigation in the Editor. So, it had I think maybe Pages and Templates in there before, and now there are five things in there. Do you have a bit of a concept of what went into that, what we’re hoping everybody’s gonna be able to accomplish there now? [00:05:13] Mike: So I, I was not involved as much in the later stages of this, but I was in a couple of the first couple iterations of this particular feature, and I think this is, I don’t want to guess the exact amount of times that this has been sort of reworked so the experience is good for users, there been so much effort that’s gone into helping navigation be a comfortable experience for people to work with within the site editor. And what I have heard is that everyone that’s worked on it is very excited that it’s landing and that users will be able to experience it and more easily work with navigation. [00:05:46] Josepha: Yeah, I think that navigation is one of those things, both like creating good navigation as a software designer, but then also as somebody who’s like putting together a website. Good navigation is hard to do. And it’s design where everyone’s, “Good design is invisible,” and we don’t actually mean that. We don’t mean it’s invisible. We mean it’s not intrusive, it doesn’t get in your way, it acts in the way you think it’s going to act, and it knows or has a good guess about where you’re trying to be, what you’re trying to do in that particular moment on a site. And so like the fact that we’ve had probably hundreds of people working on navigation inside the software is no surprise to me, but I bet it’s gonna be a surprise to a lot of people. They’ll be like, “It’s like folders, right?” Turns out it’s not. [00:06:33] Mike: Yes, it was, incredibly, incredibly difficult to design. I know there was, the couple instances that I was most involved with, I know there was so much discussion about how folks are used to working with navigation within WordPress and sort of what expectations are for menus and what expectations are for, you know, users both that have been using WordPress for a long time and users who, who are new to WordPress, and the Site Editor. And having all of those considerations from the various stakeholders just makes it a really difficult design problem. [00:07:03] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, not for nothing like the WP Admin itself, that dashboard inside the WordPress software, like that’s been due for an update for quite some time. This is the same one that I think we’ve had since 2008, which was also very disruptive in its way. And so like it was a good disruption, but we really haven’t made any substantial changes to it since then. And part of it is because there are so many use cases for WordPress, and we don’t have a good concept of that because we don’t have a lot of tracking in the software. We don’t take anyone’s like data about what field they work in. We don’t do any of that. And so it’s hard for us to account for all of the use cases and get a really excellent design for a majority of the people that are gonna be using it. Because like we don’t actually build software for robots around here. Not yet. [00:07:54] Mike: ( laughs ) Yeah. [00:07:55] Josepha: No, I don’t think we’ll ever be robot-building software. [00:07:57] Mike: I doubt it, but I also don’t wanna predict the future. No, I agree. And I think that is absolutely one of the super tricky things about building WordPress. I’m really glad that WordPress doesn’t collect any of that data. And it makes it so that the sort of testing that, that you were talking about, in user studies and things like that, are incredibly helpful for figuring out what the best approaches are. [00:08:21] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. Since we’re just in the zone of like things that Josepha likes and that she saw, I’m gonna also do this other thing. In one of the last couple of releases, the Style Book came out, which was such an exciting thing for me. It’s great to be able to see whether or not all of the style choices you’ve made in various parts of the admin or in the code, depending on how you’re doing things. It’s nice to make sure, in one big set, that like everything is coherent. Everything that you thought you changed did get changed and it looks the way that you wanted it to look in concert with everything else in there. And it looked like we now have revisions specific to styles, like styling things across the site, have revisions. Is that right? [00:09:06] Mike: That’s correct. [00:09:07] Josepha: I think that’s a super big deal because as somebody who is just, I’m filled with techno joy. I don’t always want to look at a manual. I just want to do stuff until it breaks and then hope I can fix it. The hoping you can fix it part ( laughs ) can sometimes be really nerve-wracking if what you’re doing is creating a site for a client or you are working on your first big theme and you wanna make sure that’s all together. And so style revisions to go along with some of the Editor revisions I think is a great change. [00:09:39] Mike: Same. Absolutely. This is not a feature I have, done too much particular playing with, at this point. [00:09:44] Josepha: You’re a very skilled developer. [00:09:46] Mike: I appreciate that. That’s very kind. I think that adding revisions to anything that folks regularly change in posts or pages is, really important. And making it very easy to get to both make forward changes and also to realize, “Oh, there was this other change that was, you know, there was three clicks ago that I really loved. How do I get back to that? How do I see the history?” And that’s what I love about that sort of feature. Being able to really easily see, “Okay, when did this happen? In what series? How can I jump back and get to that spot that felt right.” [00:10:19] Josepha: Yes. Anytime that we can have that kind of historical layering of things, I think is good. I went to a meetup. I like to go to meetups that are 101 content, because that’s like the folks that really need new refined processes the most. But I went to a 101 meetup a couple years back, and I remember that the presenter was saying like, take a theme that you pretty much like and make some changes until you have a theme that you love. And people kept saying like, “Yeah, but what if I break everything?” And he said in the middle of that to everyone, not knowing who I was because who cares? He was like, “Yeah, WordPress is not gonna let you do anything that will completely destroy a theme or completely destroy your site. There’s an undo button and you can just undo it. It’ll be fine.” And I was like, “Yeah, that is true now.” [00:11:15] Mike: I love that. Gosh. I mean, I remember when I was playing with my first WordPress site, and even to make really small changes with navigation or with menus, I had to go in and make changes to the PHP code, and none of that was protected. [00:11:31] Josepha: You’re like, “This is free-range me out here.” [00:11:34] Mike: I love, absolutely. I love that is just no longer the case anymore and it’s super easy to go in and play with a theme and make changes without worrying about any of that. And, I mean, I may be a developer, but that’s the way I would prefer. That’s the way I go in and edit my sites now too. If I wanna mess with a theme, go in, and it was the Customizer and now it’s the Site Editor, and it’s great. [00:11:58] Josepha: Yeah, it’s a leap forward, I think, leap forward. So another thing that I ran into, I guess it’s two things that I ran into while I was wandering around in there recently, and it’s possible that I ran into these two things because I just personally love them the most, but the Footnotes block looks like it is potentially going to land. I have been so excited about this block for no reason. I have dreams about it. I wish that were not a true statement. I did recently have a dream about it. I dreamt that it didn’t land in the release, and that I went to talk to Ella about it and she was like, “Oh, yeah, publishers have given up on footnotes and they’re just doing end notes now, and so I decided not to ship it.” Like this is a dream I had. And so I’m a little worried, but tomorrow I’m gonna be like, “Hey, Ella, friend, what’s happening?” And she’s gonna be like, “Yeah, end notes are where it’s at.” And then the other block that I’m personally very excited about is what I like to call the “Spoilers block.” I know it is not “Spoilers”, it’s the called “Details,” but anytime I’ve ever used that after like early, early times in my career, early in my career, I used to call them accordions and I don’t know why, but now I call them “Spoiler blocks.” But I know it’s actually called the “Details block,” where you can put in a piece of information at the top, essentially a title, and then expand it to get more information in there. So are both of those actually gonna land or am I gonna be heartbroken? [00:13:24] Mike: As far as I’m aware, yes. I know that I haven’t checked recently on the latter, but I was just playing with the Footnotes block, and it’s really cool. I really like the interface. I think that it makes it really simple to add quick footnotes to, anywhere in the site, and everything feels very automated and simple. [00:13:46] Josepha: As someone who every, almost everything that I’ve ever written, I want to have an aside in it, which essentially just becomes a footnote. One of the weirdest parts about Gutenberg at first is that like, the asterisk way of doing it, where you just put one after the word and then put one at the start. The asterisk makes it into a list block, and for a long time you also couldn’t escape it, and so I had to do a lot of fancy footwork to get my footnotes to work for a while, and so I’m excited for that. [00:14:15] Mike: I think I had similar discouraging moments with lists and I was really encouraged by the way the footnotes select, and I’m sure there are other ways to do it too, but select, right-click, footnote, and they all automatically go to the bottom order, all of it. It’s a really smooth process. [00:14:31] Josepha: Yeah. I’m really excited about it. I know that like for the last two or three major releases, a bulk of what we’ve been offering to folks is like, design stuff, and we’re just like, “It’s a bunch of design things,” but this release actually has over 500 different tickets that were marked as features or enhancements that are going into it. And so, you and I have talked about seven things so far, but I also understand that there are literally 500 tickets or so that were marked as “feature” or “enhancement.” And so we are definitely not gonna catch everything that goes in there, but there is kind of a group of another group of enhancements to the design tools because of course this wraps up the bulk of phase two so that we can all move into the collaborative editing phase. And so like, do you have a sense for, like is this just mostly polish for those design and like image media management kinds of things? Or are there big features that are coming in those also? [00:15:29] Mike: My understanding is that it’s all of the above. I think that there are a lot of new features being added along with polish to those features. And I think the neatest thing is that there are also a lot of enhancements that are focused on bringing all of those things together and making it feel like more of a connected experience. And so I think that’s my favorite part so far in testing that I’ve been doing of, the many, as you mentioned, so many additional new features that, that we’re added this time. And, I have a huge amount of respect for, you know, everyone that works, for the huge amount of folks that work on it across the project. [00:16:07] Josepha: Yeah. Yeah, you’ve given a couple of answers where you were like, “I wasn’t personally involved in that,” but on the one hand, I was like, “Everyone knows that we’re not all personally involved in it,” but on the other hand, not everybody knows how many people touch all of these tickets and features and bugs and tests as we get them ready to be put into the release. Last year, I was super worried that like, post active fear of Covid, and now everyone just like deciding that they’ve done their best and they’re going back out there. Like I was really worried that everyone was gonna be having so much fun out of the house, that they would stop contributing. [00:16:43] Mike: ( laughs ) [00:16:44] Josepha: I know, but we actually had one of our most active years for contributors last year, which means that especially for the releases that are coming this year, the people who worked all the way through last year, like almost 2000, I think, contributors, just to code, that’s not even like the contributors who worked on reigniting the community and putting together events, all of those things like all of the other things that we do. It’s, it is remarkable to me that when we look at any feature it is definitely been looked at or worked on, or at least passed through desks of easily a hundred people, even for small little things. And I just love that, the depth of the work we do. [00:17:29] Mike: Absolutely. Same. I remember wondering about that too, about your same sort of concerns. And it’s been really great to be a part of the community as it’s essentially, as it’s grown together again, I think is maybe the best way I can think of to say it. That’s been quite wonderful. [00:17:46] Josepha: Yeah, absolutely. Mike, this has been an absolutely delightful conversation. Is there anything you would like to leave us with before we move on to our small list of big things today? [00:17:58] Mike: The release candidate for 6.3 comes out tomorrow, and what I would love the most is if anyone in interested in testing, anyone, whether it’s testing exactly like this sort of testing that you were just talking about, with loading the RC and clicking around and seeing what works the best and what doesn’t work and what feels good and what doesn’t, or if it’s testing, if you’re like a plugin or a theme developer, testing with those things to see how things work and looking for backwards compatibility breaks that are unexpected so we can fix them before release. If you work at a hosting company or you make sites for folks, helping test that to see that it works really well on your platforms for folks that you work with. I think all of those would be super helpful, and there are testing instructions that can be found on the release candidate announcement page. [00:18:43] Josepha: Perfect. Wonderful. Mike, thank you so much for joining me today. [00:18:47] Mike: Thank you so much. I’ve really appreciated the time. ( Musical interlude ) [00:18:49] Josepha: That brings us now to our small list of big things. It’s actually kind of a big list of big things today. So first on the list is that WordCamp US has a Contributor Day and we need your help. So the WordCamp US Contributor Team has contacted all of the team reps asking for help with a new approach to organizing this year’s Contributor Day. The hope is to make the initial steps to contribution easier. And so they’re asking teams who will be present to help participate with that process. I will have a link in the show notes to the post that has more information. Also second thing related also to WordCamp US is that I would like to put out a call for art and music, especially that is related to open source and the freedoms that it brings. So one of the things that makes WordPress so fantastic in the world is not only that like we’re creating opportunities for folks, we’re offering economic, and I don’t know, philosophical freedoms to people, but we frequently do think about that in the vein of, you know, commerce and work and the economy, and we rarely think about it in the obviously related subset of arts and music. And so I also would like to put out a call for any open source related arts or poetry or music that you all have created. I would love to be able to display some of that at WordCamp US this year. I don’t think I have a link quite yet for a call for that, but as soon as I do, I’ll send it out on social media and other places. The third thing on our small list of big things is that, as Mike mentioned, tomorrow is the RC1 release date for WordPress 6. 3, and you can help us to test that. It’s always good for us to test any release as it’s working its way through the process, but certainly by the time it gets to RC, that’s when we are pretty sure it’s going to be as stable as possible. We’ve done some soft string freezes and feature freezes-ish. And so that’s about as stable as it’s going to get. And so I encourage everyone to get out and test that as much as possible. And in all the ways that Mike shared. Item number four, we are also reaching a milestone. So, a couple weeks ago, we reached the one year milestone for the start of the Meetup Reactivation Project. We have about 50% of our Meetup groups reactivated. If you are listening to this and you are a Meetup organizer and you haven’t heard from anyone from WordCamp Central or the community team, I’m going to put a link to the notes, or rather, a link to the post in the notes so that you can also learn more about that. You don’t have to hear from us in order to get your meetup group going again. But, if you are interested to know what has gone into that process, or always just want to know what’s going on in the community side of things, that’s a good place to start. So there will be a link to that in the show notes as well. Number five, WordPress event organizers in general, but also anyone. So there are two different events coming up on Thursday, on July 20th. First, there is the WP Diversity Workshop. This is added workshop for us to help promote the ideas of building diverse and inclusive WordPress events. And so, this is not necessarily one of those events for people who want to increase their skills in speaking so that they are able to, to speak confidently at a WordPress event. These are for people who are organizing WordPress events and want to make them more inclusive and more diverse from the start. I encourage any organizer to go to it, regardless of whether you’re doing WordPress events or not, but certainly for WordPress events that is something that we care about and want to have included in our entire event series. The other thing that’s happening on Thursday, because like I said, two things happening on Thursday, is that we have a WordPress 6. 3 live product demo. We’ve been doing these for the last few releases, and you get a couple of people from either the release squad, or like folks who do that kind of developer relations work in WordPress, who sit down and just do a general click-through, a general run through, a public demo of what we expect to land in the release. And so that also is on Thursday. I will also have a link for you in the show notes. If you are listening to this not on WordPress.org and you don’t know where the show notes are, don’t worry. The show notes are on WordPress.org. You go to WordPress.org/news/podcast and in the transcript there are show notes that have links to all of these things. And that, my friends, is your big, small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. Thank you again for my guest, Mike’s, time. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. ( Outtro music ) View the full article

The Gutenberg project has aimed to revolutionize how we manage web content as much as Johannes Gutenberg did the printed word. The project’s roadmap is comprised of four unique phases: Easier Editing — Already available in WordPress, with ongoing improvements Customization — Full site editing, block patterns, block directory, block themes Collaboration — A more intuitive way to co-author content Multilingual — Core implementation for Multilingual sites With the upcoming release of WordPress 6.3, Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project is coming to a close; a journey worth celebrating. This video is an ode to Gutenberg’s editing and customization phases, celebrating the new design tools and the possibilities they create. The piece encapsulates the exciting steps made in the past that propel the vibrant future of WordPress. Everything showcased in the video is built entirely with the WordPress Editor, using currently available blocks, patterns, and themes. This new era has opened the ability for the design community to contribute to the project directly without depending on developers to translate their ideas into designs. Consider this an invitation for designers to join a new generation that embraces the diverse and expressive capabilities of WordPress. The work that goes into Gutenberg is a powerful testament to the collaboration of coders, developers, and designers in our community. United, we strive to build WordPress into a realm of significance and lasting impact. Video credits Video credits: Tino Barreiro, Beatriz Fialho, Takashi Irie, Henrique Lamarino, Rich Tabor, Pablo Honey, Matías Ventura, and Holographik. Thank you to the post authors Tino Barreiro, Nicholas Garofalo, Dan Soschin, Rich Tabor, and Chloé Bringmann. View the full article

WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 is ready for download and testing. This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate Beta 4 on a test server and site. Get an overview of the 6.3 release cycle, check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts, and review the new features in WordPress 6.3. Also, save the date for a live product demo scheduled for Thursday, July 20, 2023, at 16:00 UTC (Zoom link). This will be a great opportunity to join the WordPress community to celebrate the accomplishments of 6.3 and this final chapter of Phase 2. Beta 4 highlights Thanks to the many WordPress beta testers, this release contains 40+ (Editor) and 60+ (Trac) updates since the Beta 3 release. Excellent work, team! Notable updates for this beta release include: Discontinuing support for PHP 5. 4 tickets closed regarding fetchpriority and lazy-loading features related to performance (58680, 58635, 58704, 58681.) Browse the technical details for issues addressed since Beta 3 using these queries: GitHub commits for 6.3 Closed Trac tickets since July 3 Test the new features in WordPress 6.3 Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too. Encountered an issue? Please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. New to testing? This detailed guide is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta release. Want to know more about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack. Vulnerability bounty doubles during the Beta/RC phases The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper. Get WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 You can test WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 in three ways: Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream). Option 2: Direct download the Beta 4 version (zip). Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=6.3-beta4 The current target for the final release is August 8, 2023, about four weeks away. Your help testing this version ensures everything in this release is the best. A Beta 4 Haiku Beta ships, once more Up next week, an RC1 6, 3, out the door Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, @eidolonnight, and @JPantani. View the full article

Want to learn more about WordPress 6.3, planned for release on August 8, 2023? Join the WordPress community for a first look at 6.3 in action during a live product demonstration. 6.3 release squad members, Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor, will team up with moderator, Nathan Wrigley, to guide attendees through the anticipated highlights of the upcoming release. This event will follow a similar format to the live demo for 6.2. Attendees will see recent improvements to the Site Editor, Patterns, Command Palette, and more. Following the demo, there will be a Q&A session, and you may submit questions in advance via Slack. Date, Time, and Location Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 16:00 UTC Zoom Link | Save this link and use it on July 20 to join the event. The event will be recorded, archived for on-demand viewing on WordPress.tv, and shared in a recap post shortly afterward. About WordPress 6.3 To learn more about WordPress 6.3, please visit the following resources: WordPress 6.3 Beta 2 Announcement Overview of the 6.3 release cycle A detailed guide for testing 6.3 Props to our panelists and moderator, and to @jpantani, @meher, @eidolonnight, and @dansoschin for helping prepare this announcement and supporting event logistics. View the full article