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WooCommerce 8.2, scheduled for October 2023, will require PHP 7.4 or newer to work. Your server is currently running an older version of PHP, so this change will impact your store. Upgrading to at least PHP 8.0 is recommended. Learn more about this change.
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.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the 6.3 live product demonstration.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Props to @richtabor and @annezazu for reviewing this post and to @cbringmann, @meher, and @dansoschin for their logistics support to run the event.
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.
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:
_get_block_template_file
bulk_edit_posts()
Browse the technical details for issues addressed since Beta 4 using these queries:
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:
For a compilation of the dev notes above and more, read the comprehensive WordPress 6.3 Field Guide.
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.
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.
You can test WordPress 6.3 RC1 in three ways:
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.
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.
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.
RC1 is hereHold your applause ‘til the endDownload, test, repeat
Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, and @JPantani.
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.
Host: Josepha Haden ChomphosyGuests: Mike SchroderEditor: Dustin HartzlerLogo: Javier ArceProduction: Nicholas GarofaloSong: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod
( 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.
[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 )
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:
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: 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.
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.
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:
Browse the technical details for issues addressed since Beta 3 using these queries:
You can test WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 in three ways:
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.
Beta ships, once moreUp next week, an RC16, 3, out the door
Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, @eidolonnight, and @JPantani.
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.
Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 16:00 UTCZoom 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.
To learn more about WordPress 6.3, please visit the following resources:
Props to our panelists and moderator, and to @jpantani, @meher, @eidolonnight, and @dansoschin for helping prepare this announcement and supporting event logistics.
WordPress 6.3 Beta 3 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, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 3 on a test server and site.
Get an overview of the 6.3 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts in the coming weeks for further details. Also, save the date for a live product demo tentatively scheduled for Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 16:00 UTC (link TBD). 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.
Thanks to the many WordPress beta testers, this release contains approximately 34 (Site Editor) and 40+ (Trac) updates since the Beta 2 release. Nice work, team!
Testers should note that the “Patterns Library” is now simply called Patterns in the UI. Additionally, pattern details now include a sync status and a lock icon is added for theme patterns.
Browse the technical details for issues addressed since Beta 2 using these queries:
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. Review the many new features in WordPress 6.3 and focus your testing efforts on those areas in particular.
Between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC), the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is double. 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.
You can test WordPress 6.3 Beta 3 in three ways:
wp core update --version=6.3-beta3
The current target for the final release is August 8, 2023, which is about five weeks away. Your help testing this version ensures everything in this release is the best.
Beta three, a peekSummer here and winter thereA fourth in one week
Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, @JPantani, @eidolonnight, @davidbaumwald, @priethor, and @DanSoschin for the Haiku.
Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy in the 59th episode of the WordPress Briefing. Today she invites guest speaker Alex Kirk to discuss Polyglots’ work to continue to help bring translation to WordPress.
Host: Josepha Haden ChomphosyGuests: Alex KirkEditor: Dustin HartzlerLogo: Javier ArceProduction: Brett McSherry and Nicholas GarofaloSong: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:10]
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.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:39]
I have with me Alex Kirk, who is a longtime WordPress contributor and who has been instrumental in recent innovations in the Polyglots’ work. Phase four of the Gutenberg project is native multilingual support, and so I see this work that is being done as instrumental, not only for our global community but in support of what’s to come in that specific roadmap.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:59]
So without further ado, Alex Kirk, welcome to the WordPress Briefing.
[Alex Kirk 00:01:03]
Hello, how are you doing?
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:05]
I’m good. I’m good. Can you, let’s, because I bet that not a lot of people know who you are, can you first start by just telling me a bit about your work with WordPress, and then let us know what GlotPress is, for those of us who don’t know yet?
[Alex Kirk 00:01:19]
All right. So, Automattic sponsors me to work in the WordPress project on the Meta team and on the Polyglots team. So I spent time on improving or helping improve the software that powers the translation on WordPress.org. But I also work on the meta team on things like Matrix and evaluating if it would be a good fit for WordPress to switch to Matrix for their chat system.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:46]
So a lot of really big projects that you work on, all of that kind of stuff that has no easy solutions anymore, is where you are right now. Huh?
[Alex Kirk 00:01:56]
Yeah, there’s no clear path, but it’s our mission to find it. So that’s part of what makes things interesting.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:05]
Cool. So for folks who don’t know too much about the Polyglots team or generally translating WordPress, the software, can you let us know a bit about what GlotPress is?
[Alex Kirk 00:02:16]
Right. So the translation system that powers WordPress.org is called GlotPress. It used to be a standalone software that was developed a couple of years ago, and it was transformed into a WordPress plugin at some point, and now powers the translation that happens on WordPress.org. So we translate WordPress core there from English to other languages, plugins, themes, block patterns, and it all happens through this software called GlotPress. There are a couple GlotPress installations around the world, but I think the WordPress.org one is one of the bigger ones.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:55]
Probably, WordPress.org is pretty, pretty massive. Also, I think it’s great that you said that GlotPress was created a couple of years ago, like that, that indicates to me that you’re working on a really different timescale than a lot of folks are in WordPress.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:10]
So Alex, tell me a little bit about what it takes to ship translated WordPress software. So, I mean, for people who don’t need translated WordPress, like obviously we don’t have a good idea of what it takes to make sure that WordPress is available in so many languages. So what goes into the work of making sure that that happens?
[Alex Kirk 00:03:32]
All right, so typically the WordPress software and plugins and themes are primarily created in English. And for it to be available in other languages, it needs to be translated. And for that to be able to happen, the programmers need to make the software translatable. Basically, they’re providing each English string for the translation software to be available to be transformed, so to speak, into another language and to what it’s being transformed to. This is what the translators do. So they go into the GlotPress software and see the list of texts that need to be translated and translate it to their language that they speak. Typically there is a process around this.
So, we’ve got people who have lots of experience in translation. And specifically in translating WordPress or WordPress plugins. And they’re kind of the, the people who help ensure good quality of translation. So anybody who’s working the WordPress project, so basically who has a WordPress.org account, can come in and address the translation. And that translation enters the system, so to speak, in a waiting state. And then somebody who we promoted to be a Translation Editor will come along and take a look at your translation and will approve it or will give you suggestions how to do the translation in a better way, or come up with maybe even a better translation.
[Alex Kirk 00:05:03]
You know, when you have like a small thing that’s just not right, like a missing full stop or something like that. They might just add it for you. And well, as soon as the plugin or software is translated to a certain level of translations those translations will be shipped out to the WordPress installs.
[Alex Kirk 00:05:20]
So, for example, for a plugin, you would reach 90% of translated strings. Those translations will then be basically packed up into zip file, a language pack and delivered to each WordPress so that you can have the translations available there.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:35]
And is 90% the threshold for plugins only, or is that also the threshold for like themes and the CMS itself?
[Alex Kirk 00:05:34]
Well. We strive for 100%, I would say.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:47]
Good. ( laughs )
[Alex Kirk 00:05:48]
And, 90% more of a motivational point. To be actually honest, I’m not sure if the threshold is 90% for every project or even if it’s actually 90%. It’s different between different GlotPress installations and it’s basically something that is made as a setting that can be changed. There’s, it’s an arbitrary number. Typically you’d actually want to make sure that the most important strings are translated first. So the ones like, if you look at the whole picture, software usually consists of many parts, many of whom are not encountered by people on a regular basis. For example, error messages that could be like obscure error messages, and you could argue that those might be not as important. Or even sometimes you could even say like, do they need to be translated? Because if you encounter an error message and you search the internet, wouldn’t you probably want everybody to search for the English one to find the solution? But that set-aside, it’s important to have like the headline of the plugin or like the most important strings translated, and typically translating those most important strings will take you to a pretty high percentage so that we can then say it’s good enough to be shipped.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:02]
Gotcha. I see, I see. Okay. Well, we talked a bit earlier about GlotPress’s timeline. It has been around for a bit, I know. But with that kind of in mind, have there been any notable changes to GlotPress recently?
[Alex Kirk 00:07:19]
Yeah, so I think for GlotPress there’s been a bit of an up and down over time in terms of engagement and progress on the software. But in, in the recent year, I think we’ve added a couple of things that have been very helpful for translators. So one of them was adding the commenting functionality, so yeah.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:35]
Super helpful. Shocked it wasn’t there before. Sorry, translators. Sorry, all of our polyglots.
[Alex Kirk 00:07:40]
Well, it can be like there was when GlotPress was created there, there is like the, a big part of GlotPress are these states, like the waiting state when you enter translation, and then there’s approved state, which basically a translation we say it’s set to current, and there’s all sorts of process around it. So if the software is updated or translation might get fuzzy. But also like, if somebody submits a translation that doesn’t fully conform to what’s the translation editors, or like what the standards of the translation community have been set to, then you would have to need to reject it.
[Alex Kirk 00:08:16]
And that has been something that we felt wasn’t a very good and enticing way of telling people like, we appreciate your work. It wasn’t just quite right, but it’s more of a rejection. So this is how we came up with this like, let’s give people the option to say what was wrong and give them a chance to try again without making them feel rejected.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:08:38]
Yeah. Sort of a “No, but…” as opposed to a, just refusal to receive it.
[Alex Kirk 00:08:45]
And other things that we’ve worked on is, like, with the recent search of AI, like getting help from AI on translation and also on reviews. So, there’s some interesting things that you can do with AI in that regard; that one important aspect of translations, it’s also that we’ve got glossaries for each language where people, basically the translation community, identifies certain words they want to translate them the same way every time. And with the AI, you can basically add to the prompt, like, please translate those words to those translations when you give me a translation for that. And as it can change over time, you can always adapt this to the prompt, and that has been proven quite helpful.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:09:25]
That is great. That’s one of those things I know that AI has been like a really popular thing to talk about. And AI, specifically for translations, I think has caused some concern that maybe we’ll just like translate it all and hope that computers get it right when we know pretty certainly that computers don’t always get the translations right. But that’s not what you’re talking about, right? What you’re suggesting is that AI would suggest what could be translated and what it could be translated to, and then human beings have to confirm that that’s correct, right?
[Alex Kirk 00:09:59]
That’s exactly it. So basically, we give suggestions to the translators, and then they can modify a translation before they press save. It’s more of a, like supporting them in getting the translations, like looking up words more quickly and all of that.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:16]
That’s wonderful. So is that the major sort of next step that is coming for GlotPress, or are there other things that we should keep an eye out for in that software?
[Alex Kirk 00:10:27]
So one direction that we’ve been taking GlotPress is basically making use of the fact that GlotPress is WordPress plugin now. And you know, typically, you would just use a GlotPress install. So on WordPress.Org, there’s like GlotPress installed, there’s translation projects created, something that we call “translation sets”. So for languages, you want to translate it to, it’s all pre-configured, and if you would install GlotPress to plugin on your own WordPress, it would be empty and not very useful. So what we’ve added is a way for you to basically be able to translate the plugins and themes that you’ve got installed in your WordPress into the language that you’re interested in.
[Alex Kirk 00:11:07]
So you might have a non-English website that you want to use certain plugins with, and they might not be fully translated at this point, so obviously, you could go to WordPress.org and help translate them, and that’s the way to, that’s preferred. But you could also now go install GlotPress on your own website and translate there. And then you have the translations there right when you enter them. And you can then contribute those translations back to WordPress.org.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:11:35]
So that’s with local GlotPress?
[Alex Kirk 00:11:37]
That’s something that we call local GlotPress. And you know, since we then have all these translations in the local database, it means we can do even more with those translations. So typically, language packs would be delivered to WordPress, but with local GlotPress, you’ve got like all the GlotPress software there.
[Alex Kirk 00:11:56]
So we can do things like inline translation. So, on your own WordPress and wp-admin, for example, we can highlight all the strings that can be translated, and those strings just have to right-click them and enter your translation, and that way, you can basically go about and translate the whole ui, seeing your progress, as you’re making, basically turning the screen from red to green.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:12:20]
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s something now that you can do in your local WordPress installation.
[Alex Kirk 00:12:26]
Basically, it’s completely independent of WordPress.org. We would ask you to contribute the translations back when you have them, but being independent also allows you to translate like premium plugins, which could not be hosted on WordPress.org or doing something like that we call like hyper-local translation. So, for example, I speak Austrian German natively, but even inside Austria, we’ve got different dialects or like special words that we use. And if I wanted to create a website that’s targeted at the Viennese market, for example, I might want to use those specific terms. And this is something I would have to argue for those translations to be accepted on WordPress.org because it’s a, it’s like a very targeted market. But if I have a local GlotPress, I can do those translations there.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:13:11]
That seems awfully beneficial, especially as dialects. I’ve been having these conversations. I have, in my extended family, many children, and they are all learning languages and one of them has been having kind of thoughts about, like, dialects and how dialects are almost another language. And if so, like how do you know what everybody’s saying when you’re speaking all the same thing, but it’s kind of a little bit it sounds a little bit different.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:13:37]
That’s certainly a thing in the US, the distinct dialects across our country. And so I imagine that that’s gonna be a really beneficial sort of implementation for countries that have a lot of different regional variations and certainly smaller countries that have technically the same language as somebody else, but a lot of regional differences, regional specific things.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:14:01]
Is that the same or different as the live translations, Translate Live, that we talked about at the WordCamp Europe a couple weeks back?
[Alex Kirk 00:14:12]
Right. So, Translate Live is kind of the next step after local GlotPress. It’s like this happy marriage between the WordPress Playground and local GlotPress. So the WordPress Playground is also something that has come up a lot. It’s basically a way for you to run WordPress inside a browser window, so in JavaScript. And at first, it seems like mildly interesting, I would say. But when you combine it with other things like local GlotPress, it can lead to really interesting opportunities. So with inline translation, for example, on WordPress.org, you would typically find for every plugin, the UI would look the same. You would have a table of strings, and all that makes you realize you’re translating this certain plugin is that in the header of the page, it says this name of the plugin, but other than that, it can look really all the same.
[Alex Kirk 00:15:07]
And now, with WordPress Playground, you can put up a WordPress and run this plugin inside that Playground. And now, if you add local GlotPress to the picture, you can also do the inline translation of that plugin inside the WordPress Playground. So you’ve got inline translation. We add the glossary so they do make sure that you translate things the same way that they’re expected, and you don’t have to install the plugin.
[Alex Kirk 00:15:33]
And still, you can see what the translations will look like. You can see the strings next to each other, and what I think is most important, you will start with the strings that you see first, which are the most important ones. When you’re in the table view, those strings might be somewhere buried in the middle, and yeah, it’s really hard to see progress if you start with kind of obscure error messages, for example, versus just starting with the things that you see first.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:16:02]
Yeah. So, moving translations away from table-based translations where you kind of have to know what you’re looking for. So the Translate Live, along with local GlotPress, along with WP Playground, is going to make it so that it’s easier to see visually what needs to be translated, where, what’s most valuable to translate for your mid users and your end users, basically.
Yeah?
[Alex Kirk 00:16:30]
That, and also like for plug-in authors, it can be really good to see, you know, you can switch the languages in the Playground to another language, and you can quickly see like what’s the state of the translation in this language or in that language. And even things like, you know, Arabic as an RTL language rights to left language. The sidebar will change to the right, and you can also just switch language and see like, what’s my plugin like in this environment. I mean, this is not technically something that’s related to local GlotPress, but in this translation live ui, it’s very easy to change languages and see your plugin in another language.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:17:06]
I mean, it’s not specifically related to, to Translations Live, but also, I think that if we’re saying that WordPress not necessarily is going to lead the way with translations and native multilingual support in our CMS because, of course, it’s still a little bit far out on our roadmap. We certainly have an opportunity to have the best implementation of that.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:17:27]
And even if like that specific use case that you’re talking about isn’t related directly to what it is that you are working on for Polyglots and inside GlotPress and all of that, I do see that having more streamlined, more easy to see and access opportunities to like test the way that our software looks across varying environments, especially those that change it substantially from what we typically work in day-to-day for any individual developer or any individual WordPress site implementer.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:18:00]
Like, I think that that is a big step forward for all of us and certainly for anyone who is having to use WordPress as not a native English speaker. And so you say it’s not related, but it still is a big, a big benefit for WordPress overall, I think, to have this kind of work happening so that we can have those benefits to the folks who are using our software.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:18:22]
So there were a couple of different things that you mentioned over the course of our conversation. We’re gonna put some links to the show notes for all of those. But one thing that you mentioned that just kind of went by, and we never really had an opportunity to talk about it. You talked about the, I think it was GTEs, Global Translation Editors, the folks that are like approved as final approvers of translations. If there is someone who’s listening to this podcast who wants to become a GTE someday, where would they go to do that?
[Alex Kirk 00:18:54]
So the path to GTE is a PTE. ( laughs )
[Alex Kirk 00:18:59]
So, we’ve got different levels of translation editors. Basically, you start, you could say you start off as a translator, and this is how you can kind of show that you can do good translations or that you’re very firm in your language. And this might make you be noticed in the community.
[Alex Kirk 00:19:16]
So we’re always looking for people who like to help with translations. And you might be then promoted to be a Project Translation Editor. Basically, it means that for a single language in a project, you’ll be able to approve translations. So, you’ll be the one who says, like, this translation is a good one and this conforms to the to the rules that we have stated as a translation community.
[Alex Kirk 00:19:42]
And further down the path then is the GTE, where you basically are allowed to approve translations across any project on translate.WordPress.org in your language. And that’s, usually you’ll be in, in that position with other GTEs.
[Alex Kirk 00:20:04]
So there is, like, in each community, there is like, we’re people based. We talk about what might be a good translation. We talk to each other, try to find rules that maybe prevent common mistranslations, or set the standards for how we want the software to be translated. And this is something where you get a voice as a translator, but as a GTE, you get into a position where you can actually make the changes or find consensus on how the software should be translated in your language.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:20:35]
And if folks are not familiar where the Polyglots team works and meets, where would they find you all?
[Alex Kirk 00:20:41]
At make.WordPress.org/polyglots.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:20:45]
Perfect. Alex, this has been such a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today.
[Alex Kirk 00:20:50]
Thank you very much.
( Intermission music )
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:20:59]
So that brings us now to our small list of big things. First, WP Campus 2023 is taking place July 12th through the 14th. That’s a nonprofit three-day conference with topics that focus on the growth of higher education, accessibility, WordPress, and anyone who works in higher education.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:21:17]
It’s a hybrid event. There is an in-person component on the beautiful campus of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ll add information about that in our show notes for anyone who would like to join in person or online.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:21:32]
The second thing is that the mentorship program pilot that I have been talking about a little bit over the last few months has been formally launched.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:21:39]
If you are interested in contributing more to the project but not sure where to begin, take a look at this comprehensive onboarding experience. It’s cohort-based. It has some personalized one-to-one mentorship. There are guided courses, live workshops, all of that. So read more about it in our show notes and sign up for one-on-one team mentorship.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:21:59]
And then, finally, Matt mentioned at WordCamp Europe an idea that he had been thinking of for some time a Make team dashboard that would sort of help define team metrics and help identify for individual contributors what should indicate team health and where they can find the most impactful projects to work on.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:22:20]
A post has since been published on make.WordPress.org/meta calling for additional feedback on that idea, so that we have an understanding of what this could be, how the dashboard can kind of come to be. And so stop by and add your thoughts there in the comments.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:22:38]
And that, my friends, is your small list of big things.
[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:22:42]
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.
( Outro music )
A way to escape chronic pain and give a sense of independence, is what using WordPress means for Italian-American Allison Dye. Now as a project manager and social media content manager living in North Carolina, USA, she uses the software in her work and in disability-advocacy.
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.
Allison was first introduced to WordPress when she was 13 years old. Her parents gave her own WordPress website to use, play, test, and try whatever she wanted with it. Her health issues had started when she was eight years old, and being able to express who she was and learn new skills provided an escape she needed.
Allison said: “While the technical aspects of my new WordPress website intrigued me, I was more interested in the space it made for me to write. All throughout my childhood I had struggled with chronic pain, fatigue, and other unexplained symptoms. Having a private world I could call my own, I was able to write my story.”
\n“There is something truly amazing about having a place to tell your story.”\nAllison Dye
“There is something truly amazing about having a place to tell your story.”
Her family faced many doctors, nurse, specialists and hospital visits, but could not get an answer to the difficulties faced by Allison. She said: “I felt like my life and world were out of control. But logging onto my little website and typing away on the computer keys gave me a sense of control. I couldn’t always do things that other kids had the energy to do. But I could get lost in writing for hours. I couldn’t control my life story, but I could write about it.”
She felt it was like writing letters to her future self and would act as a reminder of how strong she had become. Even now when Allison writes on her website, she feels it is writing letters to her past self, expressing reassurance and pride. The practice of writing online continues to help her reflect on how she coped and made it through the difficulties.
Allison hoped her early experiences with hospitals and being unwell was just part of being a child, and that in adulthood she would be healthy. She longed for this time.
Growing up did not bring her this dream of a healthier life and an end to chronic pain. In fact, her condition worsened as she went through her teens and at 18 she finally received a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.
This changed what had been conventional job choices, as she was not able to handle a 9 to 5 work schedule. She could not drive herself to work on some days and relied on her mother to help with transport. She knew that she would have to find another way to work and she was determined to find it.
She began writing music and book reviews online, and then moved onto writing blog posts. As they were published she started to receive payment and a sense of power over her life. She said: “WordPress felt familiar, typing on the computer keys felt comfortable, and sharing my words with the world felt surreal.”
Allison’s sense of ownership of the software became part of her strength. “I think I believed WordPress was mine somehow. I was learning that WordPress is something that belongs to everyone in some way. And I loved it.”
The confidence using the platform gave Allison led her to find more about what it could do and meet other people who used it. She said: “The thing I love about WordPress is that it’s not just for developers or bloggers or SEO experts. I began to meet more people in the community and was delighted to find people like me, who didn’t know the technical stuff, but were a part of WordPress.”
This global community orbiting around the software gave her an opportunity to meet social media managers, designers, and people from many different areas. She found that ‘there was a place for everyone’. The guiding strength and fascination Allison found and still finds today is in that community. Allison said: “The community felt as important as the rest of everything that makes WordPress what it is. It felt like it was about people and relationships as well as codes and databases.”
In 2020, she was hired by a WordPress company. She said: “I like being a part of a WordPress company, and I love that I contribute to a team that helps people with their websites. I understand the importance of having a space that’s yours. Whether it’s a business or personal site, having a website gives you the power of telling your own story.”
WordPress gave Allison a freedom and an independence. She did not have to work a 9 to 5 job, rely on others to drive her on bad days with her MS, nor worry about days when she wanted to stay in her sweatshirts rather than go into an office to work. She said: “I have a 100% remote job which I can do despite the plot twists in my story, thanks to WordPress and the people in it.”
WordPress took Allison into the world of project management for a small agency, and this experience was to help guide her path, skills and confidence into the future. She went on to work in content management in WordPress, building pages for awareness campaigns for non profit organizations and small businesses as a contractor. She helps people update their websites, add and edit content, perform basic updates and help them to learn how to use their sites.
\n“I tell all my clients to use WordPress because there is really no other solution that can scale as easily for growing organizations and small businesses. I love how WordPress allows them to tell their stories, share their passion, and have a place to call their own on the internet.”\nAllison Dye
“I tell all my clients to use WordPress because there is really no other solution that can scale as easily for growing organizations and small businesses. I love how WordPress allows them to tell their stories, share their passion, and have a place to call their own on the internet.”
As a fluent English and Italian speaker, Allison is able to support clients in different countries from where she lives. “I love that with WordPress I’m able to support clients remotely. This is thanks to all of the many WordPress contributors, developers, project managers, content writers, and many, many volunteers that work tirelessly to enable people around the world to use WordPress.”
Allison also became a certified as an English As A Second Language (ESL) teacher. “My affinity for words and languages allows me to teach passionately and creatively. I’m Italian-American and am fluent in English and Italian. Teaching English allows me to share my passion for communication with others.”
Allison attributes mentors and supporters in the WordPress community for helping her appreciate she really is part of it. Allison recalled: “It felt unreal. I wasn’t a dev, I don’t know how to code, and yet I got to be a part of it all? I felt like I was a fake. But Kimberly continues to remind me that I’m real, I get to be here, I get to stay, I have a place.”
She was later encouraged to contribute by a WordPress community member to the Big Orange Heart, which aims to support and promote positive well-being and mental health within remote working communities. She said she felt ‘honored typing my words, pieces of my story, and sharing them with a community of people’.
She also joined the WordCamp US 2021 online organizing team.
Allison enjoys the fact that in the WordPress community, ‘everyone here is constantly working to be better and do better’.
Allison was later diagnosed with two additional neurological conditions: Functional Neurological Disorder and Migraine. She said: “If it were not for WordPress I would really be unable to work. But WordPress and its community continue to be a part of my life and I am grateful to everyone who’s helped me along my way. I don’t know where I would even be without it.”
She strives to raise awareness of dynamic disabilities and invisible illnesses like her own through podcasts and social media. She feels that her WordPress friends have helped her both in her professional life and in her wish to be an advocate for others with disabilities too.Allison hopes reading of her experience will help others who are worried about not progressing in a WordPress career due to health concerns.
\n“I hope that it will remind anyone reading this that WordPress is a space for everyone. Healthy or not, developer or not, blogger or not — WordPress belongs to you too.”\nAllison Dye
“I hope that it will remind anyone reading this that WordPress is a space for everyone. Healthy or not, developer or not, blogger or not — WordPress belongs to you too.”
Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series.
Thanks to Allie Dye (@allisondye) for sharing about her adventures in WordPress.
Props to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat) and the late Surendra Thakor (@sthakor) for interviews and writing the feature, Meher Bala (@meher) for work on images, and to Meher, Maja Loncan (@mloncar) and Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann) for reviews.
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
WordPress 6.3 Beta 2 is ready for download and testing. This is the first release of the 6.3 cycle, as there was no Beta 1 due to technical issues with packaging the release. Rather than further delaying a beta release, the release squad has decided to package and ship Beta 2.
This 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, the release squad recommends you evaluate Beta 2 on a test server and site.
WordPress 6.3 demonstrates incredible progress toward achieving the goals outlined in the WordPress roadmap and is the final major release of Phase 2. Phase 2 has focused mainly on the Site Editor, enabling site creators to build websites, design compelling layouts, and manage content without toggling between multiple configuration areas or editing code.
Learn more about Gutenberg updates debuting since WordPress 6.2 by reviewing prior editions of What’s New in Gutenberg posts for 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.6, 15.7, 15.8, 15.9, 16.0, and 16.1.
WordPress is the result of contributions by users, developers, and extenders across the globe. As this community seeks new features, the platform will continue to evolve, including the site editing features and beyond. Get an overview of the 6.3 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.3-related posts in the coming weeks for further details.
This latest WordPress release includes many updates spanning all platform areas, emphasizing the editing experience and polishing usability. This release contains more than 500 new features and enhancements and 400+ bug fixes.
Following the incredible performance improvements introduced in 6.2, the release includes more than 170 performance-related updates, including adding defer and async support to the WP Scripts API and fetchpriority support for images. Optimizations were made to block template resolution, image lazy-loading, and the emoji loader, all of which benefit LCP performance. Support for PHP versions 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 has been improved.
The Site Editor expands to include navigating and editing pages, styles, templates, and content. The unified site editing experience will include a distraction-free mode, enhanced navigation, and an improved loading experience. Additionally, you can use the Site Editor to preview a block theme and adjust your site before activating the new theme. This release includes style revisions so you can toggle between and preview different saved styles. Rounding out the changes, 6.3 ushers in a new Command Palette, enabling users to context switch and perform actions quickly across different sections of the site editing experience.
New blocks for details and footnotes debut in this release, along with updates for better handling of image aspect ratios and improved fallback states. Spacer blocks now include presets, and the cover block gets updates for managing text colors and layout support.
Reusable blocks have been renamed to synced patterns. This change reflects the unification of reusable blocks and traditional block patterns (unsynced patterns) within the Editor. A new option allows you to assign patterns to templates, adding the ability to have starter patterns to speed up the creation process. Site creators can now easily create, save, and manage custom synced and unsynced patterns, as well as browse a directory of curated patterns. Additionally, the duotone filter and captions can now be edited in the Styles interface.
Some key usability highlights include toolbar updates, updated template descriptions, enhanced list view drag-and-drop, improved padding and margin controls, and a new area for managing patterns (including reusable blocks, now called synced patterns.) Link control receives some updates, rounding out high-level usability enhancements in 6.3.
WordPress remains steadfast in making the site-building experience accessible to everyone. 6.3 incorporates over 50 accessibility improvements across the platform. Improved labeling, optimized tab and arrow-key navigation, revised heading hierarchy, and new controls in the admin image editor allow those using screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technology to navigate more easily. The login form, installation steps, and list tables (for sorting and selection) have all been updated. Additional accessibility tickets are viewable in the WordPress Trac.
This release includes auto-rollback for failed manual updates of themes and plugins.
Please note that the features in this list may change before the final release.
While testing the upgrade process is essential, testing new features is too. Review the many new features listed above and focus your testing efforts on those areas in particular.
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.
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.
Between the Beta 2 release 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.
You can test WordPress 6.3 Beta 2 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 2 version (zip).
Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=6.3-beta2
The current target for the final release is August 8, 2023, which is about six weeks away. Your help testing this version ensures everything in this release is the best.
A chapter closesExcitement yet much newnessPhase 2 finale
Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @DanSoschin, @Meher, @JPantani, @CBringmann, @AudrasJB, @annezazu, @ndiego, @davidbaumwald, @desrosj, @priethor, @flixos90, @wildworks, and @JPantani for authoring the haiku.
Howdy,
WordPress 6.3 release candidate has been published and with it the Fieldguide with the array of changes for developers is now available. It’s a lot to digest, so we’ll keep this newsletter short. Or rather focused on the upcoming major release. Pick and choose, depending on what’s important to your work with WordPress.
If you have something on your Wishlist for WordPress 6.4, submit a comment: WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist? (until Aug. 15)
Be well and have a fantastic weekend!
Yours, 💕Birgit
Table of Contents
This week’s product walk through with Anne McCarthy, Rich Tabor and Nathan Wrigley is now available: WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo – Highlights & Recording.
Jonathan Patani also published the Q & A from the Project Walk through on the Make Core blog: 6.3 Live Product Demo Q&A. You’ll learn that to add a footnote to a paragraph you just place the cursor where the number should go and use the drop-down menu from the block toolbar. Safe yourself the highlight step. Furthermore, “The revisions show changes for all styles, including changes made when viewing the stylebook.” Those are only two of the 14 questions and answers. You can also find a ton of resources that were shared during the walk-through.
Femy Praseeth, release squad member on the docs team, published a Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation. The best advice, I received when starting out in technology was: “If you want to learn anything in technology deeply, you try to explain it to others.” Here is your chance to do both. It’s also a high-impact contribution to the open-source project! As of this writing, there are still 42 tasks in the to-do-column of the project board, waiting for you!
On the WP Briefing Episode 60: Mike Schroder gave a sneak a peek at WordPress 6.3 together with Josepha Haden Chomphosy. All links and transcript are shared on the post.
Carlo Daniele at Kinsta did again a wonderful job reporting on the upcoming major WordPress release. What’s New in WordPress 6.3: A Revamped Site Editor, a New Command Palette, Style Revisions, New Blocks, and Much More!
Doc Pop at Torque Magazine, invited me to speak with him about WordPress 6.3 and what’s coming to WordPress Phase 3 and WordPress 6.4. Torque Social Hour: Understanding WordPress 6.3 with Birgit Pauli-Haack. We discussed and demoed the new footnotes, Details block, Style Variation revisions, Site Editor updates, Stylebook and more.
Anne McCarthy highlights all the accessibility improvements that will come with WordPress 6.3 in this post: WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements,they co-authored with Joe Dolson and Alex Stine, members of the WordPress Accessibility Team
Jamie Marsland explains WordPress 6.3 explained in 240 seconds, He covers the two new blocks, Footnotes and Details, many of the Pattern changes, aspect ratio for image blocks, enhancements to the Site Editor, Style revision and more.
For all the WordPress News outlets, Anne McCarthy provided a Source of Truth for WordPress 6.3 document, actually it’s more like a book with over 8,000 words. In it, they list every single feature and update that went into the WordPress 6.3 release, so journalists and bloggers can dig deeper into things and obtain the history, discussions, and overall genesis of a change. It’s a mammoth of a post.
Dave Smith published a video on the upcoming release: WordPress 6.3 features in 6 mins – the power of the Site Editor is finally unleashed! Smith also shared a ton of links to details for the features, if you’d like to take a deeper dive.
The release doc team assembled a huge Fieldguide with all the Dev Notes covering the big and small changes to WordPress. Here is the list of Block editor related Dev Notes:
But wait, there is more, quoted from the Fieldguide.
source
Themes REST API
is_block_theme
wp/v2/themes
/wp/v2/global-styles/revisions
WP_REST_Templates_Controller
modified
wp_get_remote_theme_patterns()
patterns
theme.json
🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #86 – WordPress 6.3, Gutenberg 16.2 and Phase 3 Collaboration with Sarah Norris as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack
Sarah Gooding wrote about the latest Gutenberg release: Gutenberg 16.2 Brings Improvements to Pattern Management, Introduces Vertical Text Orientation and highlighted, among other things, the vertical text orientation, illustrated by my tweet. To enable the controls in the typography section, you need to turn it on via the theme.json settings.
\"typography\":{\n \"dropCap\": false,\n \"fluid\": true,\n \"writingMode\":true,\n}\nCode language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)
\"typography\":{\n \"dropCap\": false,\n \"fluid\": true,\n \"writingMode\":true,\n}\n
Emily Shiola also checked out the latest Gutenberg version in her article: What’s New in Gutenberg: The Latest Version (July 2023) and updated her collection of highlights from every Gutenberg release back to Gutenberg 7.0. in November 2019. I bookmarked the post for later to walk down memory lane.
Nick Diego held a workshop on Builder Basics: Goodbye Reusable Blocks—Hello Synced Patterns (and more) and the recording is now available on WordPress.TV. Reusable blocks are a powerful way to save and reuse content across your site. In WordPress 6.3, reusable blocks will be renamed to “synced patterns.” In this online workshop, Diego explored the new functionality for creating custom patterns and managing them in the Site Editor.
In her article: Ollie Theme Previews New Onboarding Wizard in Development, Sarah Gooding reported on Mike McAlister‘s newest work developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site. “McAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool.” she wrote.
Mike McAlister posted about the new onboarding Wizard on hit blog as well: In pursuit of a more intuitive onboarding experience.
With LocalWP it is a straightforward tool to set up a new development site for testing or other purposes on your computer. With blueprints, you and configure a standard set-up with a set of plugins and themes. This week, Brian Gardner Introduced the Frost Blueprint for Local. “A Local Blueprint that draws inspiration from Frost, our open-source WordPress block theme. This Blueprint showcases the power and extensibility of Full Site Editing.” he wrote.
Justin Tadlock published the first part of his upcoming Beyond Block Styles series: Using the WordPress scripts package with themes. He walks you through the details of setting up your local development space to get ready for block development. “In Part 2, you’ll learn to design a set of custom block styles. Part 3 will bring it all together into a beautiful and functional editor control. From there, well, you’ll be building some amazing features.” Tadlock wrote.
Yesterday’s Live Q & A: Design Systems and theme.json with David Bowman, Alec Geatches and Joni Halabi was recorded and is available on YouTube. Shared resources
“Keeping up with Gutenberg” A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2023 on. Updated by yours truly. The index 2022 is here
In last week’s Twitch stream, Ryan Welcher explored the existing SlotFills for extending WordPress. It’s an longer version of a previous talk at Developer Hours a few weeks ago . He walks you through all the Slotfill existing in the post editor as well as the Site editor. Welcher e also wrote about on the topic on WordPress Developer blog: How to extend WordPress via the SlotFill system and presented at WCUS 2022.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.
Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don’t hesitate to send them via email or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog, send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com
Featured Image: Plants growing out of the blocks at the Acropolis by Courtney Robertson found on WordPress Photos
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Unless you are some kind of wizard with the block editor, starting a WordPress website from a blank slate can be overwhelming and ultimately defeating. Mike McAlister, maker of the free Ollie theme, is developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site.
“I suspect we’re cutting out a half hour or more of finagling a new WordPress site,” McAlister said. “No more wrestling with a blank canvas.”
The Ollie Onboarding Wizard creates a guided setup experience that allows users to add basic site settings, select a color palette, input their brand colors, add a logo and site icon, and move on to creating pages. It eliminates the necessity of hunting all these settings down inside blocks and the Site Editor.
Instead of having to create pages individually and assign them the correct template or place the right full-page pattern, Ollie onboarding makes it possible for users to simply check which pages they want automatically created.
“The goal of this wizard is to help WordPress users zoom through a site setup with the Ollie theme and abstract away those annoying and disconnected setup steps we have to do for every site,” McAlister said.
“The wizard is also a way to educate users along the way. WordPress is going through a much-needed evolution, but as expected, users are having a tough time with the transition. Change is tough, especially when you power half of the internet. Workflows like this can help.”
The onboarding interface leans heavily towards the design of the Site Editor to make it seem naturally at home inside WordPress. It demonstrates just how nice plugins and themes can look in the admin with a more modern interface, which could soon be a reality once the ambitious admin UI revamp plans are complete.
“Months ago, Patrick Posner and I agreed that the future of WordPress is in the new Site Editor view, so that’s where we built this wizard,” McAlister said. “That assumption has since been validated, and because of that, our interface blends in seamlessly with native WordPress.”
“This is just a v1, but we’re already planning on how to seamlessly integrate choosing a vertical with curated plugins (eCommerce, landing page, email marketing, etc.) and surfacing pro features to really bring this experience together. This isn’t just a WordPress theme.”
McAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool.
After previewing the onboarding wizard, some people have asked if it will be available as a standalone product. McAlister confirmed that he doesn’t have any plans of productizing it but if there is enough demand he is willing to entertain the idea. Others have asked if there is an API for developers to add their own sections.
“No API yet, although with the announcements of the admin overhaul initiative, perhaps one is coming,” McAlister said. “Right now, this is just a custom React layer that mimics the site editor view. It’s built to be flexible though, so if a core solution opens up, we can migrate to that.”
McAlister previewed the wizard on Twitter and in his newsletter, but it’s still in development and not yet available for testing. He plans to launch the Ollie theme on WordPress.org once the wizard is ready for public use.
In this YouTube Live Q & A, participants learned how Gutenberg components and scripts can be used outside the block editor to revamp a plugin’s code base. Jason Adams, Director of Development and Jon Waldstein, Lead Developer from GiveWP walked us through their approach to rebuilding their highly popular Donations plugin using WordPress native interface components and scripts and then also discussed how their code fits into the ecosystem. Lena Morita, a JavaScript developer on the components team.
Lena Morita
Jon Waldstein
Jason Adams
Transcript:
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So welcome to our 34th Gutenberg Times Live Q&A. My name is Birgit Pauli-Haack, and I’m your host and the publisher of the Gutenberg Times. Thank you all for attending the show and it’s so great to have you. So today as announced, we will discuss how a product company can leverage WordPress built in Gutenberg architecture to take plugin development to new levels.
The team of GiveWP went all in on the approach and discovered new ways to build the new version of GiveWP Plugin. And we have the pleasure to meet two members of the technical team on the show and hear the genesis of the path and you can ask them questions. Before I introduce a panel, a few housekeeping notes. Speaking of questions, for those watching on YouTube, you can use the chat box next to the livestream and pose your questions and also chat with us or include where you’re watching from.
I might not go over that very often, but we’ll definitely will look through the questions. And then here on Zoom, use the Q&A bubble on the bottom of the screen or the jet bubble to share your thoughts and questions. Please be kind even if you disagree. This is a family friendly endeavor. If you might be wondering or your internet connection is not stable or you don’t have the time to sit through all of it, the recording will be available on YouTube later today after it’s fully rendered. Then the summary posts will be shared with the shared resources, will be on the Gutenberg Times within the next couple of weeks.
So allow me to introduce our panel for today. Say hello, and let us know where you’re located tonight. I have the feeling that between the panel and the attendees, we span quite a bit of the globe. So I present to you, Jason Adams, director of development of GiveWP.
Jason Adams: Hi, I’m Jason. It’s good to meet y’all. I am from sunny San Diego, California.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right. Yeah. I’ll also present to you Jon Waldstein, the lead developer of GiveWP, and it’s all his fault. Oh, sorry. And then last but not least, my co-host, Lena Morita, who is a JavaScript developer and core contributor to the Gutenberg components and sponsored by Automattic. Hi, Lena.
Lena Morita: Hi, I’m Lena. I am based in Tokyo, Japan. It’s 2:00 AM right now.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right. So good morning, Lena. Good morning, everybody else? Yeah, Jason and Jon, yeah, are both on the West Coast.
Jon Waldstein: I’m on the East Coast, Rhode Island.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: East Coast, yeah. Rhode Island. Yes, sorry.
Jon Waldstein: Happy to be here.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, geography can be always a bit tricky for me.
So let’s start at the beginning. Jason and I met at the post status get together at WordCamp US last year and you just had announced, GiveWP just had announced the start of the revamp of the GiveWP plugin, version 3.0. Widely distributed plugin for nonprofits and others to collect donations on website with various add-ons. Then you mentioned that you are building the new version on top of Gutenberg components and WordPress scripts and I found that fascinating. So before we dive in head first, let’s get everyone on the same plate. In short, Jason, what is GiveWP?
Jason Adams: Yeah, so GiveWP number one donation plugin for WordPress. We have coming up on about 200,000 folks that use GiveWP to connect donations directly from their website, manage their donors and keep their nonprofits, which is largely our audience, running. Doing their day-to-day thing and not having to work too hard to bring in donations on there to keep their work going.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Awesome. Yeah, GiveWP, I used it quite a bit when I was working for the agency, but what made you rethink the current architecture of your plugin?
Jason Adams: Yeah, so first Give still works very much kind of, you remember the classic editor experience of WordPress where it was it kind of data entry, right? You didn’t design or build your pages, you entered data about your pages, the content and tags and all this other stuff, and then you click publish and then you view on the front end, what did I get? We know that that worked great for decades, but now we’re moving more to a visual era of building things. People want to be able to visualize and have that kind of full more immersed experience. That was our motivator, was wanting to go down that route. We had a lot of ideas for how we wanted to do that, but we had technical debt building as all products do that was making it more and more difficult to go down that path. Yeah, we started to weigh our options of how are we going to go about taking GiveWP to the next level.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Interesting. Yeah, the drag and drop, the visual editing, I think that’s kind of really where Gutenberg shines and having a plugin follow that path. How did you figure out the path forward? Because a revamp normally is really a big project and it’s a multi-year development project, so how did you go about it?
Jason Adams: Yeah, and we didn’t want to do a start from scratch kind of a thing. We wanted to iteratively build it out. So what’s been nice is that our underlying architecture for donations, donors, none of that’s changing. It’s just our forms. We first explored four years ago just building something proprietary and the reality was, it was not up to the standard that you see in Gutenberg and other sorts of things today. It’s a lot of work. It’s so easy to take for granted just the idea of a block, a thing that you can move up and down. It’s a fluid user interface, inner blocks, blocks inside a block. There’s so many things that are easy to take for granted when you go to set out to build something like this. We were like, “Well, it’s right there in Gutenberg.” And so we started to kind of peel it back and we knew that Gutenberg is not… Gutenberg is in WordPress, WordPress isn’t Gutenberg. You can go to the Gutenberg repository and it’s broken out into tons of packages.
We just started installing stuff and we did what we call spiking, where we’re just trying out an idea for a fixed length of time. I think we gave one of our developers, might have been Jon or our other senior developer on the project, shout out to him, Kyle Johnson, one of them had a week to see what they could do. We were really surprised how much we were able to get up and running. Have the list view of blocks, have the block editor itself, have our own blocks loading, the inspector.
It’s like you have so much that you can get up and running in such a short time that would’ve taken us months to achieve and it’s already so battle tested all of these packages. It’s hard to appreciate how much that’s worth by itself. Of course this is where WordPress is going. We didn’t want to have to reimagine an entirely new user experience and then train our users on how to use that. We wanted somebody to be able to go from working on a page or a post to a form and not have to relearn the whole journey, but to be like, this feels immediately familiar. It’s a little different, but it feels inherently familiar. Reducing that user friction from changing from context to context within WordPress, which I think is really important.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yes, it sounds right, a good path, but there are definitely some hurdles. So what were the first wins that you kind of say when your developer kind of set out, get a week, and then what was it exactly that they set out to do, but then found, “Oh, that is going to be fast to develop that in a week.” Normally development takes about four weeks or five weeks or something like that. Yeah. What are your first wins?
Jason Adams: Like I said, even the concept of a block, because for us, we have, and I’ll demo this in a moment here, but we have our sections and then our fields go in our sections, like name amount. To just have everything visually there and to have, “I want this field to be down there,” and making that as fluid user experience is not as easy as it sounds. Or we also have sections and fields inside of sections. So this inner block concept and then being able to select which blocks are visible based on what context you’re in. Or I click on a block and that block contextually shows up in the inspector. We achieved all of that within a week and I was like, “We have a lot of work to do.” But just the fact that we could get that far in such a short amount of time, those were the wins that were like, “Well, we don’t want to go reinvent this,” and it already is a familiar user experience, so it would be silly not to do this in short.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So I think that I find it fascinating and when you tried to describe it, I think it would be really helpful for us to have a short demo of the current state of your development so we can actually look at things and then I can see that we might have the first round of audience questions. What will you show us tonight?
Jason Adams: All right, let’s share my screen and show some stuff. All right. Can y’all see my screen?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yes, now we can.
Jason Adams: All right, cool. So this is GiveWP very similar to how it is now, but I have a plugin, what we’re calling our feature plugin right now installed, called NextGen that anybody can actually go test out themselves. We have a landing page for this that we can share the link for that you can just go click spin up a site and it will just spin you up a site and you can be playing with it literally in 15 seconds.
Lena Morita: I tried this and it was really easy.
Jason Adams: Yeah, thank you. So let’s see here. So I’ll add a new V3 form as we’re calling it. I won’t get into why it’s V3, but it is. So here you go. It’s funny, when we first showed this to people, it almost had an anticlimactic effect to it where they were like, “Well, what else would it look like?” Because it just fits right within WordPress. It’s like, “Oh, okay.” So you can see we’ve got the list view like you would normally have. We have our various sections, you can see everything within those sections. We’ve got the form itself. So a lot of this is very similar. Now you don’t have the fluid typing interface where you can just add paragraphs and paragraphs. You can’t just click somewhere and start typing. But that’s really neat is that you’re able to constrain how the block editor works, because for us, we don’t want people just typing in the forms. It doesn’t make sense for a form.
Instead, people want to do something, like add a text field, and so we can just click on a section and we can add a text field, favorite color, we can mark it required. So I mean, as you see, it’s just Gutenberg. It’s the exact experience somebody would normally expect, but it’s tailored to how our forms work. And for us, we also wanted to do things like, if I come down here, I can only add a section. We wanted all fields to be within sections. So that’s a really subtle thing, that’s really powerful actually, because this is root level blocks here, and a root level block can only be a section. But then when I’m in a section and I want to add fields, well now Gutenberg knows what blocks can go in there and that’s not something we had to build. Gutenberg already has a concept of all of that kind of stuff.
So I can come in here, you can click in and you can have that same… Gutenberg comes with a lot of what they call controls out of the box. So things like, I want to have inline text editing or something like that. That’s not something that you have to build. One other thing that I’ll point out here, is that if I go to add our blocks here, you can see that you have only our blocks. So we didn’t want to open up the form to every block that exists in WordPress. We thought about that, but we had very specific reasons why we didn’t. That’s another thing that’s really neat, is you can think of Gutenberg as creating your own sandbox environment for what you want to build. So you don’t have to think to yourselves like, “Oh my goodness, we have to…” So every block is open to this? No, you can make it limited to only your own fixed list of blocks.
The other thing that is really neat that we’re able to do is add an additional tab over here that we call design. So this is breaking out a bit from what Gutenberg natively does. We wanted folks to have the ability to, in this view, we call it the builder view, which is where you’re focusing on the structure of your form. So it’s kind of a very vanilla, very plain looking, it’s just meant to be very clear. You can see with our donation summary here, it’s not really showing you anything real. It’s purely so that you can do things like I just want to position things where I want to have them in my form. So then you can switch over to the design tab and now we can actually view our form and this is the exact form as it’s going to render in the front end, and you can play around with secondary colors.
So my secondary color in this form design is being used here. I can make this a nice little purple color, I can change the header, I can hide it, show it. You can do all sorts of fun things in here. But I mean that was pretty powerful of just the ability to add an entirely new type of experience within Gutenberg and giving people the ability to preview. For us, because Give forms are fairly widgety, right? We’re not trying to preview the entire page, just one thing, it worked out really nicely to be able to do it right within here.
I’m trying to think what else. So the last thing that I’ll point out here, let me publish this. Let’s go to our form. Let’s take a look at it on the front end. Okay, so we’ve got our form here on the front end. I’m going to dive deep into the weeds here, it’s a dev audience, so just track with me. Okay, so typically when you’re working in Gutenberg, the way that we typically think of it saving is it saves as a string version to the post content. So you think of the Gutenberg HTML comments where it includes attributes and stuff about the block. You can load it dynamically and so on and so forth, but it saves to the post content column of the database. Then when you’re rendering the page, you grab that post content and you stick it on your page.
Now for us, we didn’t want to just do that. We had to do a heck of a lot more. So if I fill this out, green for anybody who’s wondering. Then let’s throw on our test card, let’s say for five, donate. So I just made a real donation to my Stripe account. So a lot just happened there. That was obviously a lot more than just, “Oh, it looks like a form.” No, it has to actually work like a form. Forms submit data, forms store data. You can see here it’s referring to my favorite color that was stored in the donation meta. So has a lot that it needs to actually do and validate and all of this different stuff. What we did differently, is that when our forms save, so coming back here, so when I click update, it’s actually saving as JSON.
So before Gutenberg turns into the big string that we know it to be, that saved content, it actually first stores as a JSON object. A bunch of blocks, block attributes, and then child blocks and so on and so forth. It’s a very simple structure actually. We’re doing nothing with the string content, we’re using just that JSON, and we built what we’re calling our field API and we’re converting the JSON structure into the field API. So this email address field, here it’s a block and then it gets converted into an email field on the front end, which is meaningful within GiveWP. So in other words, this is purely presentational so to speak and structural and we can convert it in any context we want. That’s a really powerful thing when you think about it, that you can take something like this, structurally speaking, and just convert it into your own API. So the block JSON, it’s focused on how is this all laid out within Gutenberg.
When we load this page, literally all we’re doing is we’re grabbing that JSON that we save and we’re handing it back to Gutenberg and we say, “Here’s the form,” and that’s it. It just works. Then when we go to save it, we do the conversion and you can actually see that at play. If I just add another text field here, maybe. If I go to design, like that’s showing up here, because just as we’re working within, so even though I didn’t save it, that’s the kind of thing I’m showing there. Even though we didn’t save it, we’re still just grabbing that JSON object and converting it to our field API and rendering it that way.
So I think for a lot of plugin developers and whatnot, I really want them to grasp the concept of Gutenberg is not just a way of being able to lay things out and then you just have to take whatever it gives you and slap it on the page and there you go. It’s like, no, you can use it as a tool for interacting with your user and then you can convert it into whatever context you can imagine. And that’s a pretty powerful thing.
I think that’s it for what I had in mind for demo. Anything that anybody wants me to show a little more or poke into here?
Lena Morita: I have a question. So on the front end, on the actual front end form, how are you adding interactivity? Like the JavaScript parts?
Jason Adams: Yeah, so the way this works is that, so it takes the Gutenberg JSON, converts it into the field API, and then that is serialized and this is an iframe. Inside the iframe is a React application that’s just running independently. The React application takes in the form and then it connects to things like gateways, other add add-ons, that sort of a thing. But yeah, that’s where it’s coming from. This is just a React application of our own design, built specifically for Give forms.
Lena Morita: So basically field API converts all that JSON data into actual React components and stuff?
Jason Adams: The field API is a PHP layer.
Lena Morita: Oh.
Jason Adams: It’s pure just PHP objects, but it’s focused. Whereas the Gutenberg API is focused on blocks and child blocks, attributes, that sort of thing. Our field API is focused on how does a form work. So for example, is this a field? Is this field required? What are the validation rules for this field? Does it have any sanitization that needs to happen? So things that you would typically think about from a field or field form perspective, that’s what the field API thinks about.
It was also really important to us that developers could programmatically… So if I want to programmatically move a field, add a field, add a section, do anything, you can do it using our field API in PHP. So you can kind of add a middleman layer between Gutenberg, a programmatic layer to be able to make more adjustments to your form. Then that’ll just show up here. For example, when I submitted this form down here, how does it know that this is a required field and what does that even mean, right? Because it has to validate on the other side. So when we submit this form on the server, it’s grabbing the form again in the structure of the field API, it’s finding the favorite color field, and then it’s checking the validation rules such as, “Hey, this is required,” or “It can only be up to 255 characters,” or whatever else. Does that make sense?
Lena Morita: Yeah. So wait, the initial render of this form is not in PHP, I think you said this was initially rendered in React, or is it actually a PHP rendered page?
Jason Adams: I know there’s so many layers.
Lena Morita: It’s so interesting.
Jason Adams: It’s no worries. The field API lives in memory and PHP. That can be used both for rendering a form or validating a form or doing any number of things. This form represented in memory and PHP and it knows all the responsibilities of that form. Then we say, “Hey, I want to render that. That’s what I want to do this time.” And so then what it does is it, I think it’ll show you, it serializes everything. I thought it would show here. That’s fine. But anyway, it takes the whole field API structure, the form, all of its internal fields, elements and so on and so forth, serializes that, passes that to the front end, which is received by a React application.
Lena Morita: Oh, that’s how you hydrate it.
Jason Adams: Exactly. Yep. The React application is ready to receive a form in the structure of the field API JSON.
Lena Morita: Yeah, I’m not sure if everybody’s aware, but the interactivity API is kind of an experimental phase in Gutenberg right now. And this is a very hot topic. I feel like it’s on everybody’s minds. How do we hydrate interactive components on the front end? So it’s very intriguing how people have done this before any kind of ready-made abstraction layer.
Jason Adams: Right. There’s also the difference between, for example, I’m making a page, on my page I’m adding a component. This component is an accordion. It’s presentational, but there is a JavaScript element to it of, I want to be able to make interactivity happen on a presentational level versus what I’m describing here. It’s pretty complex, because there’s both a front end validation and server side validation, and we want them to be the same. There’s a lot of complexity around a form and what the form even does. So for us, our forms don’t just save and entry, our forms actually output into a donation and donor. So trying to capture the lightning in a bottle of boiling this down to interactivities, it’s like, well, it’s doing a lot more than just being interactive. It’s also validating and doing a whole bunch of other stuff.
Actually, one thing I’ll show here if I switch to our multi-step design, so let’s just update this. Okay, we’ve got a completely different experience here. So now in this one, every single step, so when I do that, you notice there it kind of loaded for a moment in between steps? It’s validating with the server. So every single step is now validated against the server to make sure that everything here is in fact correct.
Well, actually I have that differently set. Anyway, so if I were to try to continue, I’m going to get immediate validation feedback from the server. Even if you try to trick the JavaScript and make it not work and validate in the front end, it’s still going to validate on the server. So yeah, it’s a complex piece. So I think the interactivity API and stuff like that is really, really great for a lot of simpler forms of interactivity. But when you’re building what is in effect a small application, I think something like that is still a ways away from covering everything that we need this to do. Does that make sense?
Lena Morita: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Totally sense for me too. Especially the other pieces, not only the validation of the form, but it’s also the connection with the external services like Stripe and the databases and all of that. Those need to be abstracted too and then kind of come back through the server API I would think, to then push it again to the front end in some other places.
Jason Adams: Exactly, because we don’t have a fixed list of gateways here. That’s injected. We also have our own add-ons, like fee recovery, form field manager, those add additional blocks and fields and those are injected at different points. It’s a highly customizable system, so there’s a lot going on.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Super. Yeah. Well, do you have any other questions, Lena, to get them to show you something or shall we talk a little bit higher level now?
Lena Morita: Yeah, we can go higher level.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, thank you so much, Jason, for the demo. It’s fascinating, especially how the difference between before and now, because I only know the current version or the version three years ago and what you do now. So it’s a total different beast, I would say, as complexity, but also easy to use.
So just a ballpark, would you say from the code base, how much is actually based on the WordPress components and scripts and how much of that app do you have to rebuild kind of thing? So I would think the field API on PHP, that’s kind of the interface between those two as we saw.
Jason Adams: Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Maybe it’s kind of an odd question. Yeah, I get that.
Jason Adams: Twenty-five percent. I mean a lot. Gutenberg definitely attributes to quite a bit.
Jon Waldstein: I could take that one.
Jason Adams: Yeah, go for it, Jon.
Jon Waldstein: We built the donation form, the new one that you were seeing on the front end, completely from scratch. That whole thing with React serializing or hydrating data from the server, we did that from scratch, because our old forms were just using post types. So everything is server rendered, and it’s a little difficult to add that level of interactivity with React using the old system. So we really built it, the front end, from the ground up. The form builder that Jason was demoing is mostly things you can get from the Gutenberg package. We had to customize a couple things that we had to fork and call our own, mainly the sidebar that you saw where we have that design tab, that’s not something that’s available to us. So we had to create that and implement it on our own. But for the most part, what you’re seeing on the form builder can be achieved from Gutenberg packages.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So the sidebar, when you say that, I saw the controls that were there, they looked like Gutenberg components, the color, bigger, and the different kind of… Yeah. So that definitely might have come through that. Yeah.
Jason Adams: We barely invented anything in the inspector.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.
Jon Waldstein: Yeah, and that’s the beautiful thing about using Gutenberg is if you want to create a block in our form builder, there’s nothing different about it than building a WordPress Gutenberg block. And we really wanted to make sure that was the case so that there’s nothing, no crazy documentation that you have to relearn. So we do have a community of developers that interact with GiveWP, external developers, and we want to preserve the customization of the plugin. So if you know how to build a block in WordPress, you’re going to know how to build a block for us as well.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, this is all talking about the good sides, but were there any surprises or challenges that you encountered while you were building that, or are you still encountering? What are the biggest surprises that you’ve found?
Jon Waldstein: Yeah. Well, we mentioned we had to customize some components like the sidebar. But I think the one I want to mention is GiveWP is not just one plugin. We have a lot of add-ons that extend the functionality of GiveWP, whether it be gateways and different ways to customize your form. We have a lot of things that interact with our main plugin. One of the bigger challenges recently was figuring out how to open up our customized Gutenberg form builder with our add-ons. Now, another shout out to Kyle Johnson, who is a developer on our team who built the first iteration of the form builder. To get things up and running we used just React, Create React App, which ends up bundling all the scripts together into one JavaScript file. So when you load the form builder, you’re just loading a page and it’s just loading that one JavaScript file.
What we found out later is that in order to load external blocks from our add-ons and other things that are interacting with the form builder, all of these different things are always reacting with certain dependencies like React. They can’t all load Gutenberg at the same time. It’s just not going to work, which is how the post editor works and why WordPress Scripts package came out is that you can extract all the dependencies from your script and let WordPress load those for you. So that was a big kind of structural change we had to make so that we are now relying on WordPress to provide us with Gutenberg, which is actually something we didn’t want to do. We wanted to have full access to the latest version of Gutenberg, but it wasn’t possible for us, because we have add-ons that also need to interact with Gutenberg and React, and they can’t all just be loading their scripts at the same time. It’s just not going to work.
Like most of us know, wp_enqueue_scripts, you add an array of dependencies that you want your script to use, and WordPress will load those for you. And that’s how we had to go about loading our form builder and then having add-ons come in and give us a block or give us something to customize the form builder and just let WordPress handle loading external scripts. That was the big one.
Jason Adams: I’ll add to that.
Lena Morita: I’m curious.
Jason Adams: It’s easy to take for granted that the Gutenberg team had to tackle this issue of we’re creating a single React tree. We don’t want everybody to load their own version of React, and it has to all end up in the same place. So I remember when Gutenberg first came out and there’s the Gutenberg elements, they tucked React inside of Gutenberg, why’d they do that? And why did they come out with WP-Scripts that just swaps out for you’re doing at WordPress/components? What actually that does, is it grab it from WP.components. It’s like why is it doing all this? Well, the reality is, they went through all of the hard work of figuring out how to have everybody using the same version of React and loading everything to the same React tree all at the same time from 1,000 different places.
That’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Once we ran into that, we were like, “Okay.” We just had to switch everything to using WP-Scripts, because we’re like, “It’s just not worth it for us to try to solve the same problem of extensibility that Gutenberg itself has already solved so well.” It has some trade-offs, but it really, as a whole, it actually works quite well. So huge shout out to the Gutenberg team, because originally we actually had the first version of this loading in GitHub pages. It was literally totally standalone, but then we tried to extend it and we’re like, “This is a lot harder than we thought it would be.” Yeah.
Lena Morita: So speaking of trade-offs, I’m also sympathetic with the major downside of this. As a plug-in developer, you cannot rely on any version being in action at any moment. It’s very hard. Upstream changes can break your app at any moment. You don’t know what versions running. What are some things you’re doing to mitigate this risk I guess?
Jon Waldstein: We have to manually test it now. Before, if we were loading the latest version of Gutenberg, well, there’s only one instance of that. But since we’re loading Gutenberg from WordPress now, we actually had to bump up our minimum version of WordPress to whatever the version of Gutenberg that we support that comes with WordPress. That’s a major change for us, but it’s necessary.
Jason Adams: We previously supported back to WordPress 5.0. So this whole thing actually made us come up with an entirely new policy around which versions of WordPress do we support. Before it was like we would support a version of WordPress until we were like, “I guess there’s something that we really need,” then we would bump it up to… We were talking about bumping it up to 5.5 or something like that, but we saw no reason to cut backwards compatibility until we had a specific reason to do so. This whole thing made us realize like, “Oh, we’re really tightly coupled now.” We’re really on the WordPress bandwagon and it’s really important what versions we support.
We didn’t invent this, other plugins are doing this, but we said, “Okay, we’re only going to officially, moving forward, support the latest released version of WordPress and the previous two.” That’s how we’re going to keep ourselves from getting into compatibility hell as new changes roll in that we have to become compatible for. Then that makes it harder and harder to be compatible with older versions. So we’re having to really kind of tighten in on that window. Fortunately, I will say, according to our telemetry, people are actually pretty darn good at staying within the latest or a few most late recent latest versions of WordPress. We don’t have a lot.
Lena Morita: That’s good to know.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I was thinking so, what is your customer servicing to that? Yeah, because I can see that there are quite a few nonprofits that have not updated their WordPress for a while. But they could stay on your older version of GiveWP because it’s still supported, and you’re not going to cut it out right there.
Jason Adams: So a good product question there. So our support team is actually very much in support of it. What we’ve found is that typically people fall into one of two camps. One, they’re set it and forget it. They set up their website five years ago, and it works, so don’t touch it, right? And that’s perfectly fine. Or you have people that keep things fairly up to date. You don’t have many people that are in this weird middle space where they update some stuff and not others. And if somebody does reach out to our support team and is having an issue or something, our team is trained. One of the first things they do is they say, “Are you updated?” So it’s not like they’re going to have to suddenly change their tune, because of this new policy. It’s something we’ve already recommended to people for years is, if you’re having a problem, you should start by updating what you have to make sure that… because the problem might be fixed already and you’re just not updated.
So yeah, we’re really not anticipating, and others like the events calendar and others have had this policy for a while, and so I did ask around within the product space, “Hey, was this a pain point for you? Did you notice a decrease in sales or higher churn rate?” The answer was unanimously, “No. No, actually, it’s a very healthy policy to have and it hasn’t caused us problems.”
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So we have one more question from Anton, and I think it goes back quite a few minutes, he was asking about the sidebar if that is accomplished through slot fills.
Jon Waldstein: That one, no, we actually had to fork that. But I wanted to bring up the isolated block editor, which Lena works on or has worked on, because we’ve been following that project for a little while now. I think at its inception we were also building ours, which our form builder is very similar to how the isolated block editor works. One of the biggest problems was the sidebar customization, which to answer Anton’s previous question, if you were to use isolated block editor now, you can accomplish that with technically a slot fill, because we submitted a feature request to do that, and it was actually added just recently.
It makes it a little bit more feasible to actually switch over to the isolated block editor shortly, because we’re really not doing anything crazy. That was kind of the main thing about using WordPress as dependencies. It’s like we’re really not customizing anything that crazy. We’re just using Gutenberg. We’re not like forking every single thing. We’re loading a bunch of blocks into it and maybe doing some style changes. So it should be pretty reliable. But we are looking at the block editor, the isolated block editor, as a way forward for this. I would suggest it for anyone else looking at this project or looking at something similar to this, because it’s a really easy way to get started.
Lena Morita: Yeah, I agree.
Jason Adams: Played around using it and realize like, oh, it has things like undo, redo. We don’t have that right now, but if you use the isolated block editor, you just have it. So yeah, part of our post 3.0 launch roadmap is to switch the isolated block editor, which will also take a lot of complexity off of our plate.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Excellent. So I have another question. I’m so happy that I’m privileged to run this show so I can ask all the questions that I want.
Jason Adams: Go for it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: You started kind of three, four years ago thinking about it and maybe a year and a half or two years ago, really doing proof of concepts and all that. So put yourself back into the shoes you would start out now, because that would be something that plugin developers might think about. What is it that you would ask of the Gutenberg team to improve or to build on the components or on the scripts so that work is a little easier? Or much easier, not just a little easier.
Jon Waldstein: Documentation has been a little bit of a struggle for us, especially being like… And we understand we’re no experts at documentation. It’s tough work.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Can you specify a little bit on the documentation? Which piece?
Jon Waldstein: Well, if you know are going down the path of building your own block editor, there’s very little documentation on there. If there is, it’s a little outdated. We had to do a lot of digging through reading code and finding how to actually pull this thing off that didn’t quite match up with some of the documentation out there. So that was one of the biggest hurdles. Then also some components in Gutenberg are not accessible that we wanted to pull out and use ourselves. So some of those were just not exported. Maybe they’re just internal components. We found ourselves really wanting to, and we did use some of these components, but once we switched over to relying on WordPress to provide us the scripts, we lost some of those, because they’re not available. I would have to come up with a list to give you…
Lena Morita: With the block editor package? In the block editor package, you mean?
Jon Waldstein: Yeah, block editor. Maybe some more. We would have to define the path to the actual build component to grab, and sometimes those were missing from the exports. We would often have to fork the whole file, which causes side effects, because it’s relying on some things. So limiting that was tough at first, but we kind of worked around it. I would’ve to come up with a list to figure out which ones are really important to people like us.
Lena Morita: Yeah, please send me that list. I’m interested. There is something about it.
Jon Waldstein: Yeah. Some of these would be documented like, “Hey, they’re available,” and then you’d go to use them and they’re just not.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I know that Ryan Welchers is actually on the path to put example code into the read me files and all that, and he found quite a few that if you want to use that code snippet, you couldn’t, because it didn’t export. So he actually goes through it and while he is updating the documentation to also add the export feature to it. So I didn’t find it yet now quickly, that little issue or the tracking issue of that, but I can certainly share that with you and in the show notes and also with you personally, so you can add to the list so you don’t have to start from scratch. Have you, speaking of documentation, there’s also a separate documentation site that’s called The Storybook for the components. How did that help you?
Jon Waldstein: That was helpful. I’m not sure how complete it is or how up to date it actually is.
Lena Morita: It’s getting more complete by the minute.
Jon Waldstein: Yeah, there were some things on there that were very helpful.
Lena Morita: It’s really nice right now. We spent a lot of time on it this past year.
Jon Waldstein: Yeah, I love the idea of that. There’s different documentation sites. We’re not really sure which ones are up-to-date. So maybe add a version to what thing was added, that would be helpful.
Jason Adams: That’s a really important note, I think. If you go to some documentation sites out there, I think React does this or Stripe does this, where the docs themselves are versioned. That’s really helpful, because otherwise that’s been a part of our struggles. We’ll find some piece of documentation on Gutenberg and we’re like, “Is this old? Is this current?” We just don’t know how to trust it. So we always end up going back to the source code anyway to validate the documentation that we found to make sure that it is in fact still recent.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, totally get that. Especially because the documentation is actually built on top. The automation of the references is actually built on top of the Gutenberg plugin, but it doesn’t tell you that when you look at it. You are looking for something and you find it and then you try it out on WordPress without the plugin and the feature isn’t there yet, because it’s coming. It’s one of the upcoming kind of things. So I totally get this. Yeah.
Lena Morita: This is on our radar, definitely.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Lena Morita: We’ll try to push for this.
Jason Adams: One other minor thing on the original question I’ll add is, there are still some things in Gutenberg that are hard coded that you can’t really do anything about. One that we’re kind of just hoping nobody notices is if you click on a block and then there’s little header piece of the block there and there’s a contextual menu and options that drops down where you have things like copy styles or paste styles or that sort of a thing, we can’t get rid of that. Copying and pasting styles makes no sense in our context. We looked into it. That’s just hard coded. You can’t get rid of that. It’s just there. I was like, “Oh.” So there are still little pieces like that that you’re just like, “Well, hopefully nobody will notice that.” And then the last thing with Gutenberg that we ran into that is like, “This is interesting,” is well, not the last, another is…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I’m sure it’s not the last, yeah.
Jason Adams: … locked blocks. So that’s kind of an interesting concept where, for example, you have to have an amount field for us. You can’t take that out and still have your form work. So you can lock the block, but then they can go unlock the block. So locking something, it’s more like a pinky promise with the user, like please don’t get rid of this. I think it used to be that locking was like it was done. There was no way to unlock something, and then the UI was added in the list view to be able to unlock things. That was kind of an interesting one of like, “Oh, well, how do you actually enforce that something can’t be removed? You should not be able to delete this.”
Then the other thing that we found that was interesting with locked blocks, is that if you have a locked block in one as a child block, so we have our two sections, if I have my amount block up here, when it’s locked, I can’t move it. So you can’t take it out of this section and move it into this section. If you drag and drop, it just will do nothing. So there’s just little itty-bitty things like that that kind of pop up. So the concept of what locked means in Gutenberg is a little bit, you kind of just got to play with it to find out what does lock even mean?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Adams: It’s not clear and consistent, I would say.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. So in the last few versions of WordPress, there were server-side filters as well as client-side filters to customize your blocks and to curate the experience and switch off interfaces and all that through PHP filters or server side or JavaScript filters. Have you been able to mitigate some of the problems that you saw before?
Jason Adams: With the locked stuff that we talked about?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So Nick Diego just posted on the developer blog a new… So how to modify theme.json data, which is kind of part of it. Yeah, that’s the style part, but it’s also block styling. Oh, I can share it here. Whoops.
Jon Waldstein: Oh, I’ll mention one. I’ll shout out to one filter that we just found extremely useful is the JavaScript filters for registering a block type, which really was amazing because now we can have core blocks. Let’s take the amount field or something, and we can have an add-on come in and add more settings or attributes to that block using the register block type. There’s a couple other filters for doing that where you can add things to a block that wasn’t there before. That’s new to me that you could do that natively, but for us, that was huge.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s a little late in the game. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry, but we are getting to the end of our show. It was only scheduled for an hour. I think we could talk another two hours. I feel that way. And I don’t know, Lena probably has even more questions for you.
Lena Morita: Definitely. So many questions.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: But it was such a great experience to have you on the show and to share some of the secrets that you encountered and how you made it all work for yourself. We will have some resources in the show notes.
At this point, I only have two more questions for you all three. So do you have any announcement that you wouldn’t get in before or you want people to keep in mind? We can go around Jason, Jon, and Lena. The second question is, if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way? So you can answer one of the questions, both questions or none.
Jason Adams: Yeah, so keep an eye out for Give 3.0 that will be landing at the beginning of Q3 is what we’re aiming for right now. You can go to the landing page, I provided the link for that and go spin it up and test it out yourself. We’re updating that. So as we roll out new internal versions of what we’re calling next gen, which is our 3.0, we’re updating that and we actually have it all set up. So if you do have that installed locally and we roll out a version, you can update it just like you would any other plugin and continue to test out, provide feedback. So we love getting feedback from folks on this. You can also reach out to me personally at jason.adams@givewp.com, or you can find me on Twitter as Jason.Adams.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Yeah. Thank you, Jon?
Jon Waldstein: Yeah, and I’ll mention for any other developers that are interested, what we’ve demoed and what we’re showing is completely public. You could go on GitHub and look at all of this code that we wrote. It took us over a year. I think we’re coming up on a year and a half or something, maybe a little less than that, but a lot of work has gone into it. If you want to see actually what we’re doing, come on to GitHub and if you want to ask some questions, you could start a discussion on GiveWP, or we have a Canny board for additional feedback. If you were to go to the landing page and actually play around with this thing, you can actually provide feedback and we’ll take all the feedback into consideration for the future of GiveWP. And if you want to get in touch with me, I’m on Twitter, Jon Waldstein and jon@givewp.com if you want to send me an email.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. And Lena?
Lena Morita: Yeah, I guess for me, I mentioned I work on the work path components package and me and the team that works on it, we really, really are always looking for new contributors. So if anyone’s interested in contributing back, we love working with new contributors. We are highly engaging and we collaborate a lot. So if anybody’s interested, just pick up an issue or I don’t know, ping me and we’ll help you find a fun, good issue to work on. You can find me on Twitter at Mirka, M-I-R-K-A. Same ID on GitHub.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Yeah. And so my link or my answer is that we will do another live Q&A in two weeks actually, but on Friday, on Friday, July 21st. We’ll talk about design systems and theme.json. I know that there are large agencies and large entities like universities, and so they all have a design system. They have corporate design, and they need all the websites kind of to follow that. The WordPress VIPs team built a bridge between Figma and theme.json. I hope I get the people who created that on the show. We will have some demos there, of course. We also will talk with Joni Halabi, who is the web developer at Georgetown University, and she also has, as a university, big design systems and how she works with patterns. So it’s a great show and I hope you will join us again there.
So a big thank you to our viewers and to Anton for the great questions. If you have more questions, you can always send them to me via email. That’s pauli@gutenbergtimes.com. P-A-U-L-I at gutenbergtimes.com. Recording, as I mentioned, will be available in a few minutes on the YouTube channel, and we’ll publish a transcript in a couple of weeks on gutenbergtimes.com.
Thanks again to Jason, Jon, and Lena for being here. It’s been a privilege to have you on the show, and it was a great joy talking to you. Be well and goodbye and good luck. Take care.
Jason Adams: Thank you.
Lena Morita: Thank you.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Thank you.
Jon Waldstein: Bye.
Lena Morita: Bye.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Bye, everyone.
WordPress’ Recommended Hosting page is a hotly contested piece of online real estate, and has recently come into focus again following the removal of SiteGround from the listings. When the change was highlighted during a recent Meta team meeting, Audrey Capital-sponsored contributor Samuel “Otto” Wood said, “Matt asked me to remove SiteGround because that page is getting revamped. I know no more than that.” Bluehost and Dreamhost are the only two hosts remaining on the page at this time.
The process for being listed on the Recommended Hosting page has historically been shrouded in secrecy, causing contributors to speculate that large sums of money were required. Although the current criteria is posted on the page, the process of getting listed and de-listed is not transparent. It’s not clear if and how the criteria is being applied, as it states that listings are “completely arbitrary:”
\nWe’ll be looking at this list several times a year, so keep an eye out for us re-opening the survey for hosts to submit themselves for inclusion. Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.\n
We’ll be looking at this list several times a year, so keep an eye out for us re-opening the survey for hosts to submit themselves for inclusion. Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.
WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has recently hinted at the possibility of re-opening the survey, inviting contributors in WordPress’ Hosting Slack channel to weigh in on questions or data the survey should collect “to help us discern who we recommend.” He linked to questions from the survey used in 2016 when the page was updated to include Bluehost, DreamHost, Flywheel, and SiteGround.
The new draft for the survey states: “It’s time to loop back and give every host an opportunity to be on the recommended page, and also make it international because we never really got recommended hosts in non-English countries right.”
The WordPress Hosting team has been working on a related effort called “Project Bedrock” that aims to create a directory in which any hosting company that meets a series of predefined requirements can appear as recommended hosting or compatible with the WordPress CMS.
“Yes, project bedrock is a goal,” Hosting team rep Javier Casares said. “Some months ago we left the project in stand-by to create a pre-version of the project, creating a list of hosting companies inside the Make/Hosting, a ‘everyone can be on the list’ (if criteria) as a complement for the /hosting), but the idea is that /hosting, this pre-project or the project should have the same criteria (the base).
“We know Matt is the responsible for the /hosting, our idea is creating a ‘longer list’ for the Hosting Handbook / page at Make/hosting. The idea is having the same criteria. So, both are complementary.”
Although contributors to the project view it as complementary to the official recommendations, it may be confusing for WordPress to have multiple similar hosting resources with the same criteria but different listings. These appear to be conflicting efforts that have a lot of overlap but may ultimately be at odds with the goal of simplifying the host selection process for new WordPress users who don’t know which ones to consider.
Casares suggested a few technical criteria that the survey should focus on, including PHP versions, database versions, SSH access, automatic updates, one-click WordPress installation, free TLS certificates, backup, and more.
The 2023 survey is still in the early stages in draft form. WordPress Hosting team contributors suggested that requirements for revamping the page would be a good topic for discussion at WordCamp US’ upcoming Community Summit next month.
In the Post Status hosting channel, Namecheap co-founder Matt Russell suggested Mullenweg leverage WPHostingBenchmarks performance data.
“[WPHostingBenchmarks is] probably the most open, fairest, and long-term performance evaluation in the WP space,” Russell said. He also recommended Mullenweg revamp the page as more of a directory with options to select budget, regions/country, and more.
Review Signal founder Kevin Ohashi, who publishes the WPHostingBenchmarks site, shared concerns about transparency that he has had since the last time the page was updated:
\nWho is reviewing this information? What criteria will be used in evaluating them? I know last time you said you were involved, as were other folks from Automattic. Automattic is a competitor in the hosting space, and no matter the hat being worn, there is some concern over sharing sensitive business info with a competitor.\n\n\n\nGetting listed on that page is likely worth millions of dollars to any company in terms of business generated. I think the process and criteria should be transparent and clear from the beginning. I also think who is involved with evaluating should be known beforehand as well. At least give companies, and consumers, the information they deserve to evaluate participating and the outcome.\n
Who is reviewing this information? What criteria will be used in evaluating them? I know last time you said you were involved, as were other folks from Automattic. Automattic is a competitor in the hosting space, and no matter the hat being worn, there is some concern over sharing sensitive business info with a competitor.
Getting listed on that page is likely worth millions of dollars to any company in terms of business generated. I think the process and criteria should be transparent and clear from the beginning. I also think who is involved with evaluating should be known beforehand as well. At least give companies, and consumers, the information they deserve to evaluate participating and the outcome.
Ohashi recommends that no person employed by a hosting company should be involved in the evaluation of submissions. This would eliminate bias from competitors in the space trying to suppress those they deem to be a threat.
“I’d like to see more ethics and accountability, a code of ethics for any company getting listed would be a positive in my mind,” Ohashi said. “Companies should be competing on quality and product, not on astroturfing, deceptive billing practices and other shady behavior we often see in the space. In my benchmarks, I push measuring default performance because I believe that benefits the greatest number of customers. I think there’s an opportunity to push for a better ecosystem here and would love to see you take it.”
Do the Woo podcast has grown into a hybrid of a podcast, community and network. A podcast for the community, by the community.
>> The post The Friday Show, What Makes the Do the Woo Podcast Unique appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Transcript ↓
In this episode, Cory Miller interviews J.J. Toothman, owner of Lone Rock Point, a WordPress agency based in Sudbury, Massachusetts. J.J. shares his agency journey, discussing the growth of his agency and its remote-first approach.
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Cory Miller (00:00:02) – Hey everybody. Welcome back to Post Status Draft. Got another great interview in our agency Journey series and I’m talking with JJ Toothman, a member of Post Status and JJ, Hey, thanks for coming on post this draft and talking about your agency journey story.
J.J. Toothman (00:00:18) – Hey, thanks for having me. Cory. It’s great to be here. Um, really appreciate everything you do for post status and for the community. So I’m happy to be, um, you know, a member of both. So.
Cory Miller (00:00:32) – Awesome. Well, we’ve gotten to get to know each other over the last, like, I’d say, what, eight months and hear about some of the work that your agency does. It’s super, super exciting. But can you tell me about the agency where it is now? Team clients kind of work. You kind of do.
J.J. Toothman (00:00:50) – There’s my dog and wife.
Cory Miller (00:00:54) – Great introduction.
J.J. Toothman (00:00:55) – Yeah. Um, so the. So my company is Lone Rock Point and I am located outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in a town called Sudbury.
J.J. Toothman (00:01:09) – Um, if you know the Revolutionary War history, you remember the Battle of Lexington and Concord and Sudbury borders. Concord. I live about five miles from where Paul Revere was captured at the end of his famous ride to tell everybody the British were coming. Oh, wow. Lone Rock Point. We have grown it to 16 people. You know, 12 of those people are full time. And there’s a handful of of, of part timers. Um, the were distributed all over the place. Uh, I’ve got, you know, some of us are in California, Texas. Uh, Michigan. There’s a few people in around Grand Rapids. There’s people in Florida, a few people around Asheville, North Carolina. And we definitely, you know, adopted a remote first, you know, virtual kind of organization, organizational structure from the very beginning. You know, when when the pandemic happened in 2020, we didn’t miss a beat. You know, our the people that we were working with, you know, just it just continued.
J.J. Toothman (00:02:29) – It’s weird to look back on that time and think about the, you know, ways that we were able to grow during that time in a period where so many small businesses were were, you know, struggling. But, you know, look back on that time and think about like we, you know, we were, you know, going remote, being virtual. That wasn’t a problem for us. We were ready to do that for the very beginning. And the people we were worked with, like just we just kept working on it, kept asking for more from us. It was actually a period of growth for us. We probably went from, you know, at the beginning of. You know, spring 2020, we were around four people and 4 or 5, and now we’re 16. We became a WordPress agency approximately 15, 16 months ago. Um, and we joined WordPress is kind of a continuation of our work with the public sector when I started my company in 2016. Um, you know that we can talk about the genesis of that, but it was, you know, I was had come from a federal government contracting world and I’ve been working for big companies like Raytheon, um, Perot Systems, Dell and, you know, decided that, you know, I wanted to start my own company, you know, had this, you know, the proverbial entrepreneurial itch that most entrepreneurs feel and just kind of wanted to try that out.
J.J. Toothman (00:04:02) – So I started to serve this company and wanted to start working. There were two customers that I wanted to work with from the very beginning, and one of those was NASA, which is it’s hard for me to talk about my own journey and the work that we’re doing without connecting to the long history I have working with with NASA. So I use that relationship and that relationship capital that I’ve built, you know, from starting working with them back in as early as 2001. Well, one of my first clients and then one of my second clients, big clients was Automattic. Some people over there that had built relationships over the years came to me and said, Hey, you know a lot about, you know, this public sector world, you know, federal government contracting. Can you help us, you know, with kind of get into that vertical and so help them with some some business strategy around that? I helped them with some security compliance, things they needed to be aware of. And then that relation, you know, that work kind of matured a little bit and kind of ran its course a little bit.
J.J. Toothman (00:05:15) – And then, you know, as they as WordPress VIP, you know, kind of solidified its it’s standing and it’s got themselves into what’s called the Fedramp marketplace. You know, they came to me and said, Hey, you should, you know, your company, you should we should continue working together. You should join the WordPress Agency partnership program. And that’s something I did, you know, specifically because of our shared interest in working together on public sector opportunities. And, um, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s really what my company is doing right now is, you know, Lone Rock Point. We are, we’re definitely exploring that intersection of WordPress and public SpaC, public sector, predominantly the federal level of that. You know, there’s a lot of state and municipal stuff opportunities there as well. Um, but we’re, you know, the, the kind of the, when you think of like WordPress and public sector, what I want people to come out of that connection with is is Lone Rock point and so that’s you know that’s work we’re doing with and and work we’re doing with NASA and it’s going we’ve been working on some projects from NASA for the past few years.
J.J. Toothman (00:06:31) – And it’s it’s really rewarding work. It’s good to feel like you’re contributing to. You know, we’re not civil servants, but we’re definitely kind of contributing to. You know, putting the taxpayer dollars to work, being good stewards of taxpayer money. And we think WordPress has a a role in that.
Cory Miller (00:06:54) – Excellent. Well, there’s a lot here I want to unpack, but it’s so compelling. Congratulations on your success. Congratulations on what you’ve done in the public sector to take WordPress there. I love hearing stories like yours and our other members doing good work in our world. And I get to I think I’ve told you, I get to brag, Hey, I know the people working on these projects, you know, which is pretty fantastic, and taking WordPress to the Enterprise, but Public sector Spaces is really fantastic as WordPress grows. So okay, I want to I want to thank you for telling us kind of what Lone Lone Rock Point does today. So I heard in there 2016. So I, I had assumed, as we had talked for because of the kind of work you’re doing, you had been doing this particular agency type work for a long time.
Cory Miller (00:07:49) – But wow, that’s why I say congrats one, Congratulations on your success. But like it’s pretty fast timeline to be able to get to doing an agency to doing this kind of work, I think. But can you take me back like before 2016, you said you were doing enterprise or. Yeah, public sector government, government contracting work. What were you doing before the agency?
J.J. Toothman (00:08:10) – Before. Before I founded my agency. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was a software developer, web application developer. I got hired by Raytheon to work on a contract they had with NASA Ames Research Center. And back in 2001, actually, the thing that the opportunity that kind of brought me into that world was that’s when they first started thinking about like, what do they have to do about website accessibility? So they brought me in there to kind of help, you know, help, you know, mature what they were doing around all that kind of stuff. And it’s been interesting to see what the what where was thinking about this over the last couple of weeks.
J.J. Toothman (00:08:57) – You know, when I first started working at NASA Ames and started talking about website accessibility and looking at all the various websites and web applications that was that were running at Ames Research Center, which is one of the, you know, field centers that’s part of the the NASA enterprise. Um, there was people were really just they were really resistant to it. They were trying to. They were trying to check the box on it quite a bit. You know, they were just like, What’s the minimum I have to do to, like, just check the box on this and so I can move on. Like it really the the optics of how important that was and just it just being the generally the right thing to do, forget the whole legal requirements of it all that really just wasn’t cemented. And here we are, you know, 20 plus years later where, you know, that’s that’s kind of like at the core of what is happening definitely in the public sector, but in the web in general, just like this, this strong emphasis on making it accessible and available to everybody.
J.J. Toothman (00:10:00) – You know, I saw how that started, you know, 20 years ago. And it’s it was not the same temperature, both from various from developers, designers, project managers, you know, that whole thing is shifted in very positive ways over the last couple of decades. So I was a software developer there working on various, um, you know, web applications, internal business process type applications, looking at accessibility improvements. Um, and then just kind of grew things over the years, you know, you know, started, you know, started rising the ranks a little bit, like getting opportunities to understand how government projects actually work, how it works, which is a pretty thing. I started participating in proposals that big companies like Dell were doing and responding to government RFPs, which are massive undertakings unto themselves, um, understanding compliance and security regulations that exist in government, in government, and really just kind of understanding how these governments, these government agencies and, you know, as individual as they kind of have their own ecosystems unto themselves, that’s probably not, you know, unique to all various massive, you know, corporate enterprises.
J.J. Toothman (00:11:29) – You know, we talk a little bit about the WordPress ecosystem now, but these these federal government agencies, they all have their own ecosystems around it. And then they’re also operating in this big federal thing where there’s kind of like this. Um, Jennifer Palka just wrote this great book called Recoding America, and she calls this term friendly fire. So where there’s like things where like the Office of Management, the OMB and General Services Administrations and other offices and agencies within the executive branch and other parts of government are putting together governance and policy around it and how the web should work. Um, and it creates all this types of, you know, these, this guidance and guardrails that you have to adhere to. So that becomes like kind of a larger ecosystem unto itself. So, you know, starting to understand how to work within that type of, um, you know, those types of scenarios and guardrails and boundaries and knowing how to interoperate it all just became, you know, something that started gaining more experience with and more exposure to with and, you know, think it’s been a big, you know, that knowledge is a big part of like why, you know, my company’s positioned and why we’ve achieved some success.
J.J. Toothman (00:12:44) – You know, working and and gaining some credibility in parts of the public sector and procuring our relationship with with WordPress VIP and, you know, expanding our own opportunities within itself. Yeah, it’s exciting. It’s challenging. Exhausting at times, but it’s also exciting and rewarding.
Cory Miller (00:13:04) – Yeah. Yeah. I can’t imagine. So just just for clarity. So you’re working full time at Raytheon or were you contract as a software?
J.J. Toothman (00:13:12) – So a contract means you’re you’re you’re like you’re kind of embedded, so you’re a full time employee and you’re your government contractor working on a contract that, you know, a company like Raytheon or Dell or Booz Allen or Lockheed Martin has with the federal government to deliver services abilities that are part of their requirements.
Cory Miller (00:13:39) – Okay. Okay. That totally makes sense. So what was that catalytic moment when you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do this for myself, I’m gonna start my agency?
J.J. Toothman (00:13:46) – Yeah.
Cory Miller (00:13:47) – So prompted that. Um.
J.J. Toothman (00:13:50) – A couple of things. So I left NASA for a while and I went and worked for a company, a music ticketing startup called Ticket Fly.
J.J. Toothman (00:13:58) – I helped them, like, basically create a network of websites for small independent music venues, um, and help those music venues talk about, you know, what shows were coming, how to buy tickets, you know, when the on sale dates were and all the other, you know, all that content that is basically all about converting into ticket sales. And so I was with was, you know, with them when they were really small. And, you know, it was definitely the startup world and that was really exciting. It was also a bad time for my life. I just had like my my second child and like my work life balance was it was it was pretty bad. Um, you know, working at a small startup like that. So ended up going back to NASA. Um, you know, and just trying to, like, find my footing a little bit. I also wanted to leave California and move relocate back to the East Coast. And I knew that was, you know, being in a place, a large organization like that would offer some flexibility like that.
J.J. Toothman (00:15:05) – Um, but then, you know, I would say around a decade, you know, ten years ago. I started having this, you know, I started having that entrepreneurial itch again. I started thinking about, like, how fun it was to, you know, move fast at ticket fly and wanted that that feeling again. And so I started, you know, I explored a couple of like side hustles, you know, some small little independent web projects. One of them was like a newsletter to help families spend more time outdoors. And they didn’t really take off. They didn’t really get get some traction. And what I mean by that, it wasn’t necessarily traction from a, you know, where we’re making revenue or gaining customers. We were just like just the balance of of, you know, trying to do do that type of initiative while, you know, having a full time job and also like, you know, having a growing family and all that kind of stuff. And then in but was it was clear that.
J.J. Toothman (00:16:06) – You know, I was exploring something. And, you know, again, that desire to to like be in more, you know, control of of of my destiny, so to speak, and be entrepreneurial is something I just couldn’t I couldn’t get rid of completely. And it wasn’t happening within big companies like Dell in the way that I wanted to know. I really wanted to be, you know, in control of a lot of decisions that wasn’t in control of, um, and, you know, that’s why people start their own things and, you know, be founders of companies. And, you know, I had dinner with a friend of mine who was also in the government contracting space. He’s like, you know, you’ve been thinking about. And he told me he’s like, You’ve been thinking about all these little product ideas, these digital product ideas, like, you know, just just start a services business, you know, like and that will satisfy your need or the desire. You have to be entrepreneurial and, you know, like, you know, look at balance sheets and think about marketing and, you know, attracting talent and retaining talent and stuff like that.
J.J. Toothman (00:17:12) – And he was right. He was like, You know what? That’s a really good idea. And within 120 days, I’d like set the wheels in motion to, you know, start Lone Rock Point. Um, and, you know, we, we went from there. So it started in the fall of I started the company in the fall of 2016. It was just me for, you know, a year. And then it was like me and a virtual assistant for like another year. And I, you know, I started under this like this umbrella of like, digital transformation consulting. At the time, I was doing a lot of work with the public sector around cloud transformations. So people were were operating applications and on premise data centers and starting to make that migration into things like Amazon Web Services. And so working out a lot of change management type type projects associated with that. And it all kind of just fit under this like big umbrella of digital and cloud transformation, which, to be totally honest with you, is, is is too vague and too broad and borderline meaningless.
J.J. Toothman (00:18:25) – You know, if you ask ten different people what digital transformation is, you’re probably going to get ten different definitions of it. Yeah. And so it’s really hard to like, you know, grow a services business out that way is really just like me being a consultant at that point. Um, and it wasn’t until like started niching down into, you know what, like let’s just do this WordPress thing, you know, was I was delivering, um, you know, whitepapers and providing analysis of like how what people should do with like their, their inventory of web applications and advising them on what is and what platforms they should be using. And a lot of times ended up started like you know, making recommendations around WordPress oriented applications, sometimes just building WordPress sites, sometimes using WordPress as an application framework. Um, in over the, in the time I’ve been with NASA. I’ve used WordPress with them and a lot of different ways. We’ve done it in a WordPress network multi-site kind of way for allowing smaller NASA missions and programs and projects to, you know, have their own websites where they all communicate what they’re up to and what their findings are and share what they learned with, you know, with, with interested stakeholders and visitors to their sites.
J.J. Toothman (00:19:55) – Um, there, there’s been some internal things where needed to like communicate various services as it had to various corners of the agency. So we did like a WooCommerce thing where people can go to a web application, a website and just pick what, what services they want. Like I need, I need some Amazon cloud storage or processing or, you know, EC2 units. And they could apply, they could add all those things to a cart and then say, check out and, you know, check, you know, do a checkout with that and just start getting services provided to them that way. So um, and then, you know, over time it just became clear that like, this is, I keep recommending this, like there’s growth opportunity for me here and then, you know, niching down to being like, we’re going to be a WordPress, a more traditional WordPress agency is really when, you know, the growth started happening and the opportunity started becoming a little bit. And it isn’t just like strategic consulting, it became the execution part of it as well.
J.J. Toothman (00:21:00) – And the tactics part of it too, and the tactics and execution. We’re all oriented for the most of the time.
Cory Miller (00:21:06) – Yeah, I’d love to hear these stories because you got, you know, a big career in enterprise and public sector, you know, with your Raytheon and NASA days and then entrepreneurial hit. Okay, want to do this and then seeing you know when you say NASA and WordPress, it just seems like those things should always go together, you know, and that’s what really compelling to me is seeing WordPress more on the public sector enterprise. And now there’s really big institutions in in the US federal government anyway, probably around the world too, but that are starting to use WordPress more and more and leverage it and see that opportunity. Um, so I love kind of how those intersection of things happen. So that lone rock point would kind of exist and grow and then you hit your I was going to ask the question when the WordPress come into play, but you pretty much answered it. So like your 2 or 3 or so, it seems like, hey, we’re going to drill down.
Cory Miller (00:22:04) – And then when you mention WooCommerce that like that use case for an internal tool within a big organization like that to procure and get resources and things, that’s so compelling. You know, most of my.
J.J. Toothman (00:22:17) – Career that like, people just wanted that checkout expert, They wanted that. They wanted that experience of like, I want X, Y and Z, I want to add it to the cart and I want to tell you that I want it. And we just, you know, WooCommerce has that option to, you know, just do check payments, right? Which removes the credit card processing out of it. And so we kind of adapted that to, all right, we’re going to send this order to somebody who can fulfill that order via this WooCommerce WordPress system. Um, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s using the WordPress ecosystem at its best, like using it almost kind of as Legos and want this part of it. I want that part of it. I want to, I want to glue them together in this way.
J.J. Toothman (00:22:58) – And it’s, you know, kind of a no code kind of way around WordPress to solve some, you know, some very simple, narrow use cases. But, you know, my, my journey with WordPress, you know, starts way back in 2007 at my first stint with at Ames Research Center. Um, you know, I was working with all these various scientists and researchers and they just like need a place to like publish my, my research findings and publish my data and, and they, they all one, they all had the same, um. You know, requirements and needs. At the highest level, it’s like I just need a place to put it. And I want to I want to be able to manage it myself in a way. And I don’t know. I don’t know how to don’t know how to code. I don’t know. I don’t have anybody on my team who knows HTML. And so that, you know, that basically introduced the concept of like content management systems into all this back in 2007.
J.J. Toothman (00:24:03) – And, you know, we were looking at things like wikis at the time and, and then discovered WordPress and around that and just the user experience of someone just, you know, managing their content with that type of, you know, WordPress, CMS, this is like version 2.0 of WordPress, you know, back when they added pages in addition to posts was the real thing. That’s like, oh, this is what this satisfies what everyone’s looking for. They want an easy place just to log into. And you know, they all some of them wanted to start blogging. Some of them wanted to start blogging without knowing that they wanted to start blogging. They just want to share what they know and tell their stories. Um, and then back in 2007, I created this is also the Web 2.0 era where, you know, your blogging was, was kind of heavy in the lexicon back then. And I was I did one of NASA’s first official public blogs on WordPress and, and kind of grew with WordPress, you know, from there that led to the ticket fly work.
J.J. Toothman (00:25:13) – And so WordPress was kind of always in my DNA, even when wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like a defined part of what I was, you know, of my, my role description. But my role was in some cases to be strategic and provide advice and provide some roadmaps. And, you know, how do we do things? Give us some give us some guidance here. And a lot of times just said like, well, you don’t have to create a custom bespoke application for this. Just use a content management system like WordPress, you know, teach your users how to how to how to manage using WordPress themselves. And and you go from there. So and the WordPress ecosystem is what makes all that happen mean there’s all these different, you know, there’s all these different plugins and themes and you just kind of integrate it all together, um, you know, in a unique way. And you have a great solution architecture, depending on how you put it together.
Cory Miller (00:26:08) – What you’re talking kind of way back.
Cory Miller (00:26:11) – But you know, remember a lot of the solutions that we have now didn’t exist. So, you know, big organizations were having to do like the the internal resourcing that you’re talking about. They’d have to custom code those things or build them because they didn’t exist off the shelf. Then you fast forward and you go, you could take WooCommerce save. I can’t even imagine how much time to kind of do git to feature like, you know, par with that and then take that open source solution and then utilize it and just customize with a with a great agency like you all to figure out what their exact needs are. So it’s it’s great to see how everything has fast forward to. Well, we touched on this. I know we’re going to have more conversations down the road. And and I want to talk more about the public sector and enterprise. And I know we’re talking and we’re going to have some great conversations in the next couple of months about this, because I know you’re passionate about it, about the public sector and bringing WordPress to the public sector, but we’ll save that for another time.
Cory Miller (00:27:07) – I don’t want to spoil too much of that, but I appreciate so much the journey and what you’re doing. So thank you for telling us that. That’s, that’s that’s incredible. Um, okay. What are you excited about today? What are you excited about today and the future going forward and what you’re doing with the agency and your team and the work you’re doing?
J.J. Toothman (00:27:27) – Yeah. So a few years ago, the government, Pervez passed a Congress passed an act called the Integrated Digital Experience Act. And within that act is basically it tells all these federal agencies how to modernize their website. So, you know. Obvious things like improve accessibility. They have to be accessible. They have to work on mobile. They. They. You have to have like good search. They should. People should be able to find content there. They also need to be based on user research and user needs. So they’re all logical things within. You know, public sector and it’s all so I’m really excited about that. Be something that initiates or triggers a lot of the work that I’ve been doing for the last couple of years.
J.J. Toothman (00:28:26) – And so for the last few years I’ve been working on a web modernization project with NASA. It exists for a couple of reasons. It exists. One, because of that idea act. It also exists because NASA has a couple of thousand websites and they don’t want there to be a couple of thousand websites. They want all that information in one website. So we’ve been doing a lot of work with them. You know, that started back in kind of mid 2000, late 2000, and it started with, hey, what should be using for its main, you know, web source, major web properties. And so I spent a year taking a look at the landscape of you know, of all the available CMS’s that are out there, you know, Drupal source site, Adobe Experience manager and then some new newer ones like Wagtail. And then there’s even we even took a look at, you know, some of the software as a service type solutions like Contentful and just trying to understand the pros and cons of Elda.
J.J. Toothman (00:29:38) – And so we spent a year taking a look at the CMS landscape and acquiring data for it, acquiring evidence of it. And while in my heart, you know, being a WordPress guy, I knew like, you know, WordPress makes a lot of sense here. You know, we it’s still there was a lot of benefit for me to kind of like take a look at like what, you know, all the driving factors for making a decision like that were, um, and you know at the end of it WordPress like was the, the solution, the CMS that NASA wanted to invest in for the future. And that’s what we’ve been working on for the last couple of years. So for the last couple of years we’ve been working on a couple of big. Uh, NASA WordPress projects. And a lot of, you know, I talked a lot about how I’ve been using WordPress and a no code kind of way. This is not a no code kind of way. There was a lot of Gutenberg custom development here.
J.J. Toothman (00:30:34) – It’s the, it’s, it’s the project that has everything like, you know, an emphasis on SEO, an emphasis on accessibility. There’s a new atomic design system that was created for this. And so the seeing the marriage of an atomic design system and Gutenberg, you know, come to bring all that stuff to life has been really, really exciting. And I’m excited to like for, for, you know, people, you know, interested in what NASA is up to and people interested in WordPress to see the fruits of all this labor that we’ve been working on for the last couple of years and it’s all coming in the next few months. And yeah, so I’m really excited to share that with you and share that with other people in the community.
Cory Miller (00:31:19) – Yeah, that’s excellent. So I want to take just a minute in sidebar because you did this whole year, you know, one of seeing what’s out there, seeing what the options are. And I love that you’ve done some deep, deep research for big organizations trying to make a big, important decision on it.
Cory Miller (00:31:36) – Um, I’m just curious what we’re couple takeaways. As you just surveyed the landscape. You know, we love WordPress. We understand, you know, we, we support WordPress, but, but we know that there’s a lot of stuff out there. Um, but I’m curious, what, what did the landscape look like? Where were some of the things you saw when you looked at the other platforms you mentioned like Wagtail? I hadn’t heard that one before. I’ve heard of Contentful for instance, and of course Drupal. But what, what were a couple of the takeaways on that year of investigation out there?
J.J. Toothman (00:32:08) – So the I, I would say that there are two major, maybe three major differentiators that separated WordPress from the rest from the rest of the pack. If you will. Um, you know, there’s a lot of great content management systems out there. You know, they all do the same thing or try to do people the same. They try to make it easy for people to publish information onto the web and make it easy for others to consume it.
J.J. Toothman (00:32:35) – But the differentiators from WordPress versus the other CMS that we were looking at were number one. A lot of again, it had a lot of it had to do with the ecosystem. WordPress was the only CMS that had real time analysis tools around SEO. So and accessibility to kind of try to improve those situations before the point of publishing. So Yoast is the obvious example. So Yoast, you know, we’ve all been exposed to Yoast. Yoast allows you to allows the content creator user to be authoring and editing content and getting some real time analysis about how friendly or compatible, whatever the term you want to use it is before the point of publish. There’s accessibility tools out there that do the same things that are kind of integrated within the WordPress Admin WordPress dashboard that allow that content creator user to like, you know, when it’s in draft format to analyze. Do I have accessibly accessible content that I’m about to publish in here and make live other CMS didn’t have that baked in. You know, there’s WordPress plugins that do these things.
J.J. Toothman (00:33:51) – Um, we could even, we even have the ability to prevent publishing until certain excessively thresholds and SEO optimization thresholds are met. That was really, really attractive. All the most of the majority of the other solutions are you publish it first it’s live and then you can go back and check it and then you kind of have to retrofit it. I’ve been working in enterprises enough to know that that doesn’t happen once it’s published, Once it’s out there, people are generally going to move on. They’re not going to do the analysis of like, All right, how do I go back and improve this thing? So you really got to you really got to catch those things early and often. Um, you know, up front in the, in the content publishing lifecycle. So that was one of the big differentiators was that and that again, that’s all a product of the WordPress ecosystem and the innovation that comes out of that ecosystem. The other one was just kind of like the resources around this. So we all, you know, you can take for a grain of salt like, you know, the the whole thing about, you know, WordPress powers, 40% of the web, you know, that kind of stuff.
J.J. Toothman (00:34:57) – But there is some byproduct of that. And that is there’s a lot of people using it. There’s a lot of people building it. There’s a lot of people developing on it. There’s a lot of people extending on. There’s a lot of knowledge being shared around that. One of the things I did was I went in the stack overflow and compared WordPress with other CMS’s and just being like, How many conversations are happening around this thing, you know, that we’re looking at? And it was, you know, what you expected, the ability for, you know, to be able to. Try to solve a problem by getting by by, you know, interfacing or sponging up knowledge that was already contributed back in some way, you know, via via StackOverflow or, you know, other places on the Web, other groups, Slack channels, etcetera, that exists in WordPress in a way that it doesn’t exist in these other, you know, CMS products. You know, the if you want to if you want to get developer knowledge around Adobe Experience Manager, you for for the most part there are some Adobe experience manager specialists out there, but for the most part you got to go to Adobe for it.
J.J. Toothman (00:36:02) – Um. Uh, you know, same thing with sorts. There’s not there’s not a huge community of sort site developers out there. So for a place like NASA, you know, resource acquisition becomes a problem. Like, where are they going to find talent for that? Yeah. And you know, again, WordPress, you know, kind of is head and shoulders above the rest in that area. Um, and then, you know, this whole concept of WordPress is for everyone to like that. That rang true in all this research too. Like it’s more than just developer community. There’s user communities out there that are also sharing their knowledge here. Um, you know, there’s all these kinds of like, there’s, there’s solutions for learning WordPress that are provided by the communities and multiple companies with the community that add a lot of value within the equals. So it’s not just like the software ecosystem, but it’s like, you know, the kind of service ecosystem to that exist within WordPress. Um, and then honestly, like, you know, portability matters to, um, you know, there’s, for the most part, like I really just wanted public sector to adopt open source.
J.J. Toothman (00:37:11) – You know, that’s the first decision I want, I want them to do is just, just, you know, make an open source decision. And then you’ve done that. You know, you’re in a good you’re in a better place than picking a commercial, you know, bespoke solution. You know, And then, you know, once you get past that hurdle now, you know, the obvious open source can cannot exist. And you know, the user experience of WordPress and that whole concept of WordPress being for everyone and being considering everyone, depending on who you are, really rings true and is a differentiator as well.
Cory Miller (00:37:50) – Well, that’s excellent. And that rings true. You know, I’m curious because as I talked to more enterprise agencies, all of you out there in the world interfacing with clients, with their needs, what they actually are trying to get done. That’s really, really great to hear and it’s reflective of the community. I think sometimes they’ve been in the community like you as long as we have.
Cory Miller (00:38:10) – I take some of those things for granted. So I think that’s that’s excellent. Well, JJ, thanks so much for the time today. I know you just got back from a big trip and you’ve got work to pile out, but I appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your agency journey, and I look forward to our next conversation, sharing the good work you’re doing with WordPress in our world. That too.
J.J. Toothman (00:38:31) – Corey Thanks for having me.
Cory Miller (00:38:34) – All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here today. And we’ll talk to you. We’ll see. We’ll talk to you. We’ll hear from you. They’ll listen to us soon.
This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.
WordPress 6.3 will arrive on August 8, so there isn’t much time left for testing compatibility. Whether you are a plugin or theme maintainer or managing clients’ websites, now is the time to test the latest features. Mike Schroder shares their most anticipated feature with auto-rollbacks coming.Collaborative editing is coming to WordPress, but what might that look like? A much-needed refresh of the Admin dashboard will also arrive as we expand Gutenberg from posts and pages through themes and now to additional parts of WordPress. Rather than voicing your opinions after such large overhauls ship, now is the time to read through the Phase 3 ideas and provide insights.
WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1 Sneak a Peek at WP 6.3 with Mike Schroder Help Test WordPress 6.33⃣ Gutenberg Phase 3 WordPress 6.3 Field Guide>>
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Judd from Bright Vessel and Carlos from Britecode have a conversation around WooCommerce agency life.
>> The post Woo AgencyChat Live with Judd Dunagan and Carlos Caneja appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Kenn Kelly from Never Settle joins us as he shares his story of his agency, their passion for supporting a cause and so much Woo.
>> The post WooCommerce Agency Growth and the Power of Subscriptions with Kenn Kelly appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.
Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case a history of WordPress’s important moments.
If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.
So on the podcast today we have Aaron Reimann. Aaron is a PHP developer who started working with WordPress in 2008. He’s currently running ClockworkWP, a design, development and hosting shop. He’s built sites for companies of all shapes and sizes ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies.
He’s been an organizer for WordCamp Atlanta and the Atlanta WordPress meetup, and he also speaks regularly at events throughout the WordPress community, including WordCamp Europe, 2023 which is where this podcast was recorded.
Aaron gave a presentation at the event called ‘where did we come from?’ In that session, he spoke about something which we don’t often dwell upon, WordPress’ history. In the technology space we’re always looking towards the future. What new features are being worked on? What’s in the latest version of WordPress. So this is an opportunity to gaze back over the previous 20 years and see just how far WordPress has come.
We do this by looking at some of the more important milestones in the WordPress landscape. Which features were added that allowed the CMS to become the success that it now is.
Back in the early days, WordPress’ success was anything but certain. There were a set of rival CMS platforms all vying for the attention of developers and website builders. Joomla and Drupal may be familiar names, but there were many others as well. All of these platforms, WordPress included, had their strengths and weaknesses. And at the time it seemed like any of them could become the dominant CMS.
We discuss what might have been the key things which set WordPress apart, and made it the pick for many people who needed an online presence. The fact that WordPress was easy to install, and easy on the eye, were certainly important.
Then there’s the advent of the plugin architecture within WordPress. It’s fair to say that a vanilla version of WordPress will get you many of the features you need to get a website up and running. But if you want to do more then it’s likely that you’ll be relying on plugins. The fact that you could install and update from a growing range of plugins made WordPress indispensable. Able to create websites for almost any purpose.
Then there’s themes. It’s nice to have a functioning website, but it’s nicer still to have a functioning website which looks great. Themes enabled non-designers to make an impact online and made an entire industry for those who could turn their hand to theme creation.
Another pivotal moment was when custom fields were added into core, you were no longer bound by simply adding content to your posts and, later, pages. You could now create complex websites in which all sorts of data could be manipulated and displayed. WordPress now had all the hallmarks of a fully fledged CMS.
Then there’s Gutenberg in WordPress’ more recent past. Aaron is not yet completely sold on Gutenberg, still preferring the page builder that he’s grown accustomed to. But no discussion of WordPress’ first 20 years would be complete without a mention of this important change.
Then there’s the community of people who made and continue to make the software. Without the people there would be no WordPress.
We round off the discussion, talking about the fact that there appears to be a very high chance that WordPress will still be around in another 20 years. Will it still be the popular choice for website building? Who knows, but it’ll be fun to see what the future holds.
If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. Where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.
And so without further delay, I bring you Aaron Reimann.
I am joined on the podcast by Aaron Reimann.
[00:05:30] Aaron Reimann: Correct.
[00:05:30] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you. Very nice to have you with us. How you doing?
[00:05:33] Aaron Reimann: Well actually, I guess that just by default I want to say, yeah I’m doing great. I am doing great, but I am jet lagged. We landed from, came from Atlanta to Athens. Landed on Monday, and I’m, I think I’m just now getting back to normal, but I’m still just a little, little tired.
[00:05:46] Nathan Wrigley: Well, you’re very brave if you are suffering from jet lag. You’ve just had the bit of WordCamp Europe, which for you at least anyway, was going to be the most challenging.
[00:05:53] Aaron Reimann: Right.
[00:05:53] Nathan Wrigley: You had a presentation, workshop?
[00:05:56] Aaron Reimann: Presentation.
[00:05:56] Nathan Wrigley: Presentation, and it was all about, well, the subject that we’re going to talk about. Tell us how that went.
[00:06:01] Aaron Reimann: I think it went well. Of course, I’m biased and I was a little blinded by the lights while I was talking on stage. But I think it went well. Some people had some good questions at the end, and then some of the people that weren’t exactly willing to ask the questions in front of everyone, I had a few people ask questions afterwards and two of them you know, said this was great. I wanted to know the history of WordPress and I’m new. I thought that was really good.
[00:06:25] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s perfect. Great introduction. So we’re going to talk about the history of WordPress, but just before we do that, probably to give us a bit of orientation and information about you, just tell us a little bit about your background, your relationship with WordPress.
[00:06:36] Aaron Reimann: Okay. I’ve been a web developer since 1996, which I know dates me quite a bit. I started using WordPress in 2005, I think it was version 1.5.5 or something like that. And I only used it for a blog and I just kind of dumped my brain on the blog. Ran it for about three years, and it wasn’t until 2008, until I really started digging into WordPress. But in 2008 I quit my job. I was an IT guy, maintaining servers and computers and stuff like that and quit my job.
Started an agency with a friend of mine. Didn’t know what I was doing. But I had to figure out what platform do I want to use, and we’ll probably get into that. But ever since 2008 I’ve been using WordPress, and I’ve been running an agency. I sold, my business partner sold our agency in 2019, and then started a new company. I used basically the same contracts and things like that. When I started my business in 2008, I didn’t know what I was doing. Doing the reset in 2019. I had a process and a and knew how to run an agency. So it was much easier the second go round.
[00:07:49] Nathan Wrigley: So anybody that’s been using WordPress from one point anything, you really have been there from pretty early on.
[00:07:56] Aaron Reimann: Pretty early on.
[00:07:56] Nathan Wrigley: And used it a lot with, presumably with different clients for different applications. So the purpose of this conversation is to talk around the history of WordPress. This is kind of perfect because we are right up against the 20th anniversary. Software has managed to keep going for 20 years, which is pretty amazing. Just that is pretty amazing.
[00:08:13] Aaron Reimann: I’m sure we could probably sit there and just list them. This project died. This one died. This one died. I mean it’s common.
[00:08:19] Nathan Wrigley: But for some reason WordPress kept going. I’m going to begin the podcast interview with whole history of CMSs around the time that you began. Because it wasn’t really clear that WordPress was going to take the spot that it did. I think it’s fair to say now, if you were describing this as a race, it would be fair to say that WordPress won the CMS race?
[00:08:42] Aaron Reimann: Absolutely.
[00:08:43] Nathan Wrigley: But back then, back in the early 20 somethings, there was quite a few rivals. There was a few projects that could easily have taken off. They had the same open source ethos in many cases, some of them not so. Some of them you had to pay for and so on. So I just wondered if you’ve got any stories to tell or information about projects that you’ve used with other CMSs, like Drupal or Joomla, or Expression Engine, whatever it may be.
[00:09:04] Aaron Reimann: Yeah. So in 2008, I actually started using CMS Made Simple, because I saw it as easier than WordPress and more featured than WordPress. But WordPress is one of those things where once you get the ball rolling WordPress became unstoppable because it had so many more people joining and adding to the community. Which means more plugins, more features, more everything.
And so I dropped CMS Made Simple after building about three websites I think. I wound up dropping that to use WordPress. And I also had a business partner that wasn’t technical at all, and he really liked the fact that he could, I don’t know if it was cPanel or some kind of hosting platform. Gave him a one button push to install WordPress, and so he could start working on a website and he didn’t have to do anything technical. And I think that probably has had a big effect on WordPress because it just became so easy to install.
[00:10:05] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I genuinely thought that at the time, at least I was using different platforms. I came to WordPress in probably about 2015. So a long time after you and I played with all these other ones. And in many cases I felt that the features that they offered were superior. But the one thing that separated them from WordPress, the one thing that I should probably say, the one thing that separated WordPress from them, was the UI.
I felt that the UI was much more straightforward to use. It was actually quite beautiful. It hasn’t changed much in those years. It was just easier on the eye. It was much more straightforward. Dare I say it, there were less options, which might be a good thing or a bad thing.
[00:10:43] Aaron Reimann: I would agree with you. I think things like anytime I had to work on Joomla, I think it was around 2008 or so, Mambo I don’t know what the argument was, but all the developers dropped and started Joomla and Joomla became the thing, and Mambo died. Or Mamba, I don’t remember how to pronounce it.
But any time I had to log into a Joomla site, it was a mess. I looked at it and I didn’t know exactly where to go. WordPress, even with version as I demonstrated today in my talk, version 7, 0.7.1, it was really simple. You log in there, there actually wasn’t even a dashboard at the beginning. You just log in and boom, you are right in the editor to create a post.
People don’t have to sit there and think, how do I use this? It’s one of those things where like my mom could write a blog post. It was that simple. Whereas Joomla or Drupal, there’s a few more layers before you get into what you’re trying to get into.
[00:11:40] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it’s interesting. A lot of the rival platforms, they decided for more complexity. So they could, in effect, they could probably out of the box achieve more complicated things. But it turns out that plugins, as well probably come onto a bit later, plugins kind of stepped in and fixed that problem for us anyway.
[00:11:55] Aaron Reimann: Absolutely.
[00:11:56] Nathan Wrigley: So WordPress is 20 years old. The next thing that we’ve written down on our shared show notes is the milestones, if you like, during those past 20 years. There are certain things which happened in that past 20 years, which are probably more significant. I mean, there’s probably literally thousands of things that we could talk about, little tiny things. Some of them are much bigger bumps in the road. Things that really changed WordPress.
[00:12:15] Aaron Reimann: There’s probably a ton of them too, that I am not even aware of. Even though I’ve been in the community for so long. I’m focused on my use case of WordPress where I build marketing sites basically. I mean we write some plugins and do that, but mostly we focus on marketing sites. And I’m sure there’s a ton of things that I’m not even aware of that has happened that it doesn’t affect me, so I didn’t pay attention to it.
[00:12:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, but there certainly have been some big bumps. We’ve listed out a few here that between us, I think we think are significant. The first one, now we may not get this in the right order, it may be very well that some of these came prior to other ones.
[00:12:52] Aaron Reimann: It’s fresh in my head, so I probably will get it right. I think.
[00:12:55] Nathan Wrigley: You lead off then.
[00:12:56] Aaron Reimann: Well, if I remember correctly, going from 0.7.1 to 1.0, the only thing that really was added. They cleaned it up a little bit. It had less references to b2. If you look at the first version, all the files started with b2.
[00:13:11] Nathan Wrigley: We should say what b2 is.
[00:13:13] Aaron Reimann: That, might be helpful. So WordPress is a fork of b2/cafelog. I think I’m saying that correctly.
[00:13:21] Nathan Wrigley: That’s correct, yeah.
[00:13:23] Aaron Reimann: Okay, and so everything was prefixed with b2, in the first version of WordPress and 1.0, there’s only three files that were prefixed with b2, and they were, I think XML-RPC files, or XML feeds or something like that.
But everything got a lot cleaner. And so with 1.0 is where it, to me it looks more like WordPress. And then with 1.2 is when we got the plugin framework. And then in 1.5 is when we got themes. And those to me, I think we could probably talk the rest of the show about those two things. Probably shouldn’t, but we could.
[00:14:01] Nathan Wrigley: I think themes and plugins, plugins in particular, I think are where, for me at least, a lot of the magic has lay. A lot of the success is down to third party developers and the plugin architecture of WordPress. WordPress’s mission to democratize publishing is laudable, and it would be lovely, but a bare bones version of WordPress, a vanilla version of WordPress will only get you so far if you want something complicated. So the ability to open up WordPress to plugin developers was pretty seismic, I think.
[00:14:30] Aaron Reimann: Yeah, I agree. With plugins also comes with bloat, which is the thing that I run into, and I mentioned it on my talk. Someone asked me a plugin question and I said the worst site I ever worked on, I logged in once and I said, I’m not going to work on this site because there were 104 active plugins, active. There were some inactive ones there. I said I’m afraid to edit anything. So plugins are a blessing. And if you don’t know enough about what that can do to your site, it becomes a curse.
[00:15:06] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I’ve had similar experiences where, there’s just simply too much on there. And for WordPress’s promise to make it possible for almost anybody to create a website, maintain a website, update a website, that can be difficult. Because there is no indication anywhere that if you’re adding more plugins, you’re adding more bloat. You’re adding more time for pages to load because there’s things going on in the background.
[00:15:24] Aaron Reimann: It’s creating more tables in the database, and that is one of the things that you’ll see. People will have a live website and they’ll try a bunch of plugins and they’ll try five or six plugins, and it’s leaving these little imprints mostly, maybe in the files, but mostly in the database.
It creates tables, but there’s no cleanup. That’s a problem. And then when, five years later when you’re trying to migrate the site, you see all these tables and you’re like, why are these tables, do they, are they in use? Can I delete ’em? Stuff like that. It’s just, it just comes with lack of knowledge.
[00:15:57] Nathan Wrigley: I guess, if you had to have a seesaw of whether plugins were a good thing or a bad thing. I think for me, definitely it’s heavily weighted on the side of they’re a good thing. You’re right, they can be overused and what have you may be put in functionality that really you don’t actually need just because you want to play with it.
But the ability to turn a pretty basic blogging platform as it was, into something which could do literally anything that the internet allows is pretty compelling. And that, for me, the plugin and theme, more plugin in my mind.
[00:16:30] Aaron Reimann: Yeah.
[00:16:30] Nathan Wrigley: But the plugin and theme architecture is one of the key pieces for its popularity and success.
[00:16:36] Aaron Reimann: Yeah. I think that theming though is super important. As much as I don’t like some of the theming shops that are out there. I’m not naming names or anything like that. But a lot of those themes that people would purchase, they were bloated. They would come in with five custom post types that they don’t need, but people would see my website can look this pretty. I like what that screenshot of that theme looks like and people would buy it. It’s eye candy, and I don’t know if Drupal and Joomla, they don’t have anything like that.
[00:17:09] Nathan Wrigley: Certainly not on the same scale. There are theming engines in there, but no. And it became very commercial, didn’t it as well. You were able to purchase themes for really quite extraordinarily cheap prices.
[00:17:21] Aaron Reimann: Right.
[00:17:21] Nathan Wrigley: And again, sometimes I think a blessing and a curse because I tried all of these things, guilty as charged. Tried downloading themes, and then realized that I had to take out more than I, I’d see something and think, oh, that’s exactly what I want. I would download the theme, use the theme, and then figure out. It was more work to remove the bits that I didn’t need, but it still worked. And for me, it drew me into the WordPress ecosystem.
Then I learned that’s not for me. I’d like something more bare bones. So that’s the way I went, but it got me into it, which was the important part. So, yeah, themes as well then. Okay, what else? After themes and plugins, what else have we got?
[00:17:56] Aaron Reimann: Themes and plugins. And then I think it was in 2.9, the functionality was in 2.9, but it wasn’t documented and it came out in 3.0, were the custom post types. And the custom post types were a game changer for me because before, let’s take press releases. A client wants to have their press releases separate from their blog. The only way you could do that before was to create a category in your blog and make it not show up with the blog, but show up over here. And you feel like you’re just trying to hack something together, to make it fit.
And then when custom post types came out, it was amazing to me because it allowed us where, yeah, we can do that. You know, a client say I need to have this type of content show. Like, we can do that. It wasn’t trying to rig something that was impossible anymore.
And we use custom post types almost every site that we build. It’s just a, it’s a no-brainer. They say we need a way to do X and we’re like, okay, custom post type. We use that more than anything else probably.
[00:19:02] Nathan Wrigley: It’s interesting because we were talking earlier about things like Joomla and Drupal. I can’t speak to Joomla because I didn’t really use it, but Drupal even inversions significantly before the era that we’re now talking about, that kind of functionality was built into the core of the platform.
And because I was a user of Drupal when I came to WordPress, and it wasn’t immediately obvious in any part of the UI how to create a custom post type, and I know that you can do that. I had to figure out how to do it. In many cases, I think people will install some plugin, which takes care of that, but you can obviously do that in different ways.
[00:19:33] Aaron Reimann: Like, three different ways to do it.
[00:19:35] Nathan Wrigley: I do remember scratching my head thinking, where’s the button? Where’s the button for the, whatever it’s called. And it turns out it was custom post type. But then figuring out, okay, you can do this and you can create metadata around those and you can separate your website up. Like you said, this is the portfolio aspect of the website. And these are the, these are the other bits of the website.
Yeah, that’s really important. And it essentially, it turned it from a blogging platform into more of a, well, a fully featured CMS. In fact, I’d say you can’t really talk about it being a CMS until custom post types.
[00:20:03] Aaron Reimann: I say that made it a platform. It’s a platform. Where In 2006 and 2007, I was learning Ruby on Rails. And I realized every time I was creating something in Ruby on Rails, I needed to create, I had to figure out a way for people to log in. So that’s a module basically, that you’d have to install, and all these little pieces. And then I looked at WordPress and I’m like, oh, WordPress has all these things. And so to me, WordPress became in 3.0, just became a platform where if you’re smart enough, if you know how to develop plugins, you can make it do anything you want it to do. Which is awesome.
[00:20:40] Nathan Wrigley: Anybody who’s been using WordPress for a small amount, well not even a small amount of time, a fairly long amount of time. But certainly when you began using it, this feature didn’t exist. And it strikes me as so bizarre that you couldn’t create pages at at the beginning.
[00:20:54] Aaron Reimann: Oh, right, right.
[00:20:56] Nathan Wrigley: I mean, it was a blog roll, it was a blogging platform, so everything was a post.
But tell us about that, because that also is a fairly significant thing. You could create pieces of static content, which are not in some sort of hierarchy with other pieces of content, and that, again, crucial, important step.
[00:21:09] Aaron Reimann: Yeah, and to be honest, I’m kind of going in the back of my head. I probably, maybe 15% of the websites that we build use the blog. That’s probably a high number for us. Most of our clients don’t want a blog. They don’t see the value. And sometimes I think, you probably should have a blog, and try to push them. It’s a way to create content. If it’s a marketing site and their goal is for someone to push the button, fill out this form, and that’s the call to action. You don’t need a blog, but what would you do without pages?
So, that really, that kind of predates me. I always had pages with 1.5. I used it, All I had for my blog was I had one page that was a contact page. I mean, that’s it. But I needed that. I couldn’t have a blog post about my contact information because it’ll get lost in the shuffle.
[00:22:01] Nathan Wrigley: It’s kind of interesting that, well, I’ve read a post recently, I can’t remember where, if I can summon up where it was, I will add it into the show notes. But I read a piece recently, which describes what you’ve just been talking about, this 15% or less. The person writing the post essentially said, can we make it so that the blog, the posts are an option? So it’s toggleable. So you download WordPress and you enable or disable all of the blogging functionality. So the posts menu disappears, and actually would clean up a lot of the interface.
And in the sites that you are describing, building where it’s page, page, page, page, custom post type, whatever. That might be quite a neat feature, but it’s curious that it is totally the opposite of how the thing began. It began that way, and yet it has morphed. My use is the same as your use. It’s all about the pages. And quite often clients will say, I will create a blog, and you know, it never gets beyond the first post.
[00:22:55] Aaron Reimann: They’ll write one or two and then it just, it disappears. I try to always try to tell them, if you’re going to start this, you can’t stop. It just makes you look bad when you, your most recent blog post was five years ago. At least go in and change the date, do something. It is interesting that we don’t have much of a use case for blogs and I don’t think I host a single web, I also do hosting. I host probably about 300 websites and I don’t think any of them are just a blog. All of them are WordPress installs that’s page focussed, that maybe, maybe has a blog. So it is interesting how it completely shifted and that’s probably true for the majority.
[00:23:37] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think so. That seems to fit. I’m not suggesting that we get rid of that functionality. It’s crucial, but it’s kind of interesting. Just that blog post, it was interesting to me that you could switch that off. And they also showed what the UI might look like when all of the different things that are attached to WordPress’ post functionality. If you remove those from the UI, it does become a little bit easier for a novice who’s got no intention of using a blog to manage.
[00:24:00] Aaron Reimann: I remember when I was first trying to theme, I was trying to figure out what are the differences between pages and posts. I just couldn’t figure it out for a little, I kept getting confused. Should this be a post or should this be a page? Then I just realized, okay, so posts are chronological, it’s date based, and pages are not. And I’m like, okay, that makes sense. Have you’ve looked at the hierarchy graphic?
[00:24:24] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
[00:24:24] Aaron Reimann: If you’re listening to this and you don’t, you’re not familiar with that and you make themes, you’re missing a big golden nugget of information because the hierarchy page, it’s awesome. It’s really cool and it’s gotten more complex as things progressed.
[00:24:38] Nathan Wrigley: So we have pages, we’ve done custom post types. We’ve done the beginning of the platform, with its rivals there. One other thing which we haven’t touched on, which I think we should is Gutenberg. That’s been a very, very big push for WordPress over the last three or four years?
[00:24:53] Aaron Reimann: Five.
[00:24:53] Nathan Wrigley: Five.
[00:24:54] Aaron Reimann: It’s been five years. It was released, sound like a know-it-all. It’s just, I only know this stuff because I just did a, did a talk about it. 2018, 5.0, is when it came out. It seems like it would’ve been just a couple years ago.
[00:25:07] Nathan Wrigley: Right, it really does.
[00:25:08] Aaron Reimann: We’re coming up on, I think five years of Gutenberg.
[00:25:11] Nathan Wrigley: It was a radical change. It really did upend the way that you create content. For some people it’s highly desirable. It allows them to do all sorts of things that they were not able to do. And it puts the, if you like, page building type functionality in front of people without the need to download any kind of plugin.
But from the shared show notes that we’ve got, it’s one of the things in the last 20 years roadmap, which you are not entirely sold on.
[00:25:38] Aaron Reimann: Not yet. So I’ve got a project, we’re going to be starting in the fall where I’m going to be using Gutenberg. The reason why we’re going to be using Gutenberg for pages and posts is I’m going to need this website to last me 10 or 15 years with content. Most websites that we build, it’s a marketing site. It’s going to get rebuilt, redesigned or whatever in three or four years, where if the page builder goes kaputs, you know, and disappears, no big deal, we’ll just, when we rebuild the site, we’ll just pick a better page builder.
In this case, this is going to be, this is for a state project and it’s going to be, the content needs to last 10 years or so. And to me, at that point, that’s where, okay, I’ve gotta use Gutenberg because I know Gutenberg, because that was the chosen way to do it. I’m going to stick with that, and that’s going to be good for my client for this specific case.
In the day-to-day stuff, simple marketing websites, it would be hard for me to go to a client and say, here’s Gutenberg and you can edit the pages using this. It’s a lot more overwhelming than, I’m a big Beaver Builder fan. And every client that we hand over the site, we give them these little videos. Here’s how you edit this. We record it and give it to ’em. So they’re able to see how to do it. They’ve got a video on how to do it, and it’s, to me, just Beaver Builder is, it’s so easy.
And so that’s why I’ve, still haven’t jumped, you know, on that bandwagon yet. I know I’m going to have to you know, at some point. So, it’s a hard shift for me.
[00:27:12] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. I can well understand when it’s shipped in version five, the UI looks broadly the same as it does today, but the things that you could do with it then.
[00:27:22] Aaron Reimann: A lot more.
[00:27:24] Nathan Wrigley: Well, you can really do a lot more now, but it also felt that it was extremely limiting at the time it was released. I wonder if we could rewind history and replay that moment in time, I do wonder if perhaps more features should have been added so that the experience was much more obvious.
In other words, maybe it should have been an opt-in thing for a period of time, rather than, here’s Word Press 5.0, it’s now the default, and I wonder what your thoughts are on that. That it should be some kind of toggleable on, off thing?
[00:27:53] Aaron Reimann: I have no problem with, I like diversity when it comes, just options with things. I love the fact that the Elementor people that are here. Obviously that’s a plugin that’s very, very popular, but no one’s forced to use it. You know, you can use whichever one you want and, knock on wood, right, and hope that that will continue. Where WordPress doesn’t get so Gutenberg focussed where Beaver Builder and Elementor and Divi and all those, can’t work on WordPress. At that point then there’ll probably be some forking of some projects, which would be kind of interesting.
But I think it probably came out a little too early, in the aspect of it was the chosen choice, but I don’t think people had much of a choice. I mean it seems like it was decided, and you kind of had to start using it. And then you have the Classic Editor plugin becomes extremely popular. All of a sudden there’s what, 6 million? I don’t know, it seemed like it was five or 6 million active installs for that, because that was a big, we’re not interested in Gutenberg. We tried it. We didn’t like it.
It’s different now. If it were released today, you know, where it has a lot more features, we wouldn’t have had so much of a, should I use the word backlash? I mean it, I don’t know if it was a backlash. I know in my WordPress community in Atlanta, Georgia, nobody embraced it. It was too abrupt.
[00:29:20] Nathan Wrigley: I think it’s fair to say that in the time that I’ve been a user of WordPress, the stories that got generated, the amount of time that was given over to talking about it. It’s like nothing else. It was really, kind of bifurcated the community. There were those that loved it, and there were those that didn’t like it. And I think you’re right, it’s definitely matured and it’s got to the point now where I think a lot of people have just, they’ve gotten on with it and they’re using it.
But interestingly, like you, you’re still able to use the tools that you liked and trusted prior to that as well anyway.
[00:29:49] Aaron Reimann: Right. And I tell people, when you’re editing a page, you’re going to be using Beaver Builder, and when you are blogging, you’ll be using this new thing called Gutenberg. And they’re okay with that, because they’re not trying to, it’s a post, right? So I mean, it’s going to have text and pictures and not much else.
We’re not trying to build functionality like a slider or anything crazy in there. I don’t even know, is that even in, I hope that’s not in Gutenberg. I think using it just for a blog, you’re not going to push the limits of Gutenberg. Like I’ve said, I’m going to have to start doing it, because I know it is the future.
[00:30:27] Nathan Wrigley: So far we’ve talked entirely really about WordPress as a piece of software, but yet here we are at WordCamp in Europe, Athens in particular. You’ve just presented in front of a bunch of people, so you probably have a much greater idea of the magnitude of this event. If you just walk downstairs, I know this is going to be hard to get across in the audio, but it really is a giant event. It’s truly enormous.
So I wanted to get into the community side of things, and whether or not, when you think the word WordPress, do you generally think of just software, the piece of software that you download from the internet? Or do you also have the community of WordPress in your head when you are thinking about that over the last 20 years?
[00:31:03] Aaron Reimann: I started using WordPress in 2008 and I went to my first WordCamp, I don’t know if it was 2012 or 13. I think it was 12, in Nashville. And that is where I just fell in love with the community, because nowhere else in the world have I been able to just ask people, the people are just so willing to help.
So if you’re a newbie or you need someone, you’re trying to figure out how do you fix this plugin, or add this functionality and you’re at a WordCamp. People are, they’ll jump in and just start, oh, maybe you should do this. I mean people are extremely helpful. That’s where I started falling in love with WordPress as far as the community.
And since then I’ve spoken at 20 plus WordCamps. Mostly in the southeast, US. It’s something that I don’t think is replicated anywhere else. For a little while I was in the Rails, Ruby on Rails world. They don’t have a community like that. The PHP community in Atlanta at least is it’s good, but it’s still not, and in Atlanta pre covid, we had 14 active meetups in the Atlanta area. It was extremely popular, and our WordCamp that we used to have every year, we would have 650 people there. And the only reason why it was 650, limited at 650 is because the venue that we used, that’s all we could do.
The community, at least in Atlanta, it’s been incredible. I’ve made friends there. Now we’re planning WordCamp Atlanta, and, you know, every Friday we’re on a call. Talking to these people that have become my friends over the past 10 years, which is really cool.
[00:32:45] Nathan Wrigley: I can’t disassociate the piece of software from the community now. In my head when I say WordPress, those two things are inextricably linked. And I think the fact that WordPress is able to be used by a whole different swathe of people. So you’ve obviously got the really technical people who enjoy the code, there’s all of that.
And then there’s the people who are into their SEO and marketing, and who knows what. There’s a million different pathways. And the fact that they can all combine in an event like this. The talks are not limited to one subject. There really is a broad spectrum of things on offer.
I think it is pretty special. I don’t know, I don’t quite know what the secret sauce was there that made that happen. But it did happen, and it is pretty unique. I think you hit the nail on the head. I’ve yet to encounter another community that’s loosely based around software that is quite as welcoming. It’s amazing.
[00:33:32] Aaron Reimann: Where these people become your friends, that’s weird. And this being at WordCamp Europe, I haven’t seen people since 2019, and I’m running into people and it’s great. I’m remembering people’s names, you know, which sometimes I don’t do great at, but it’s awesome. And it sounds kind of cheesy, but you have friends and brothers and sisters, you know, it’s a really cool thing.
[00:33:56] Nathan Wrigley: If you’re listening to this podcast episode and you never have attended any kind of WordPress event, I would say give one a try. It is definitely worth it. And if the first one doesn’t hit your expectations, give a few more a try, and see what happens. Because I can absolutely identify with what you’ve said. It’s embedded in my life. Lots of long-term friendships. And with people that I definitely, definitely would never have met. And who now I consider to be my good friends.
So over the last 20 years, WordPress, if you look at the graph, so on the one hand we’ve got the years running, and then on the other we’ve got the usage data. The line just keeps going up. 2011 is higher than 2010. 2013 is higher than 2012. We keep talking about this figure of roughly 40 something, 43, 42, it hovers around there, percent of the web. So it’s seemingly experienced more or less unstoppable growth.
What do we think about the next 20 years? Do you think there’s a plateau at which one platform like WordPress can reach, and then we just have to meter our expectations and say, well, that’s as far as one can expect it to go? Or are we after, I don’t know, 86%, double?
[00:35:02] Aaron Reimann: Has it not plateaued? I feel like it has plateaued, and I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why it’s plateaued. I can just give you general ideas. There’s still some people that will never use WordPress. They’ll say, oh, I see it in the news. It’s hacked all the time. And it’s like, it’s not hacked. It’s WordPress core is secure. It’s hosting issues, not updating things, or a plugin that’s not updated.
But there’s always going to be, you’re going to get the stigma from certain groups of people, that are never going to want to use that. And then there’s people that are going to want to use different, they don’t want to use PHP. If they’re going to build, they’re not going to until WordPress is no longer PHP based, you know. I think it’s not going to be able to surpass that, because of the fact that there are other technologies out there that aren’t compatible with that stack.
[00:35:55] Nathan Wrigley: I guess it’s impossible for something to keep growing exponentially, because at some point there’s just a natural limit. There’s other people who will be interested in other things. It’s amazing that it got, even if it did stay where it is or possibly decline, it’s pretty remarkable that it got where it did in 20 years. So I think we can all be content with where it is right now anyway.
[00:36:14] Aaron Reimann: Yeah, well I ended my talk telling people that chances are, even if WordPress were to stop today, I don’t know what would, cause, you know, where everyone’s like, we don’t want to build on WordPress anymore. I probably will still retire fixing WordPress sites because there are so many millions of sites that are out there that are going to linger for years on end.
I’ll be able to make a little money off of maintaining WordPress sites 20 years from now. Which is pretty cool. And I think about like Cold Fusion. I know Cold Fusion, I think they got an update a couple years ago or maybe a year ago or something like that.
There’s still Cole Fusion sites, which Cold Fusion to me died in 2007 or, or something like that. But it’s still lingering. And I think if WordPress stopped today, we’d have a very similar thing. Where I could still make a living off of WordPress. Which is a cool feeling, I guess.
[00:37:05] Nathan Wrigley: The rise of WordPress, if you drill down into the statistics, you just look over the last, let’s say eight years. It’s risen remarkably quickly. It’s got faster and faster towards this 43 or whatever it may be, percent. It feels like if you drill down into the data that page builders were a big part of that. And I do wonder, we were talking a moment ago about Gutenberg, and I wonder if in the future, I wonder what that dynamic will do? If the page builders all get consumed or Gutenberg eats their launch.
I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but I thought that was a curious thing to tease out of this. That the growth that we’ve had recently, probably in large part can be attributed to page builders, and the ability to create pages, and all of that relatively easily inside the UI. I don’t really have any thoughts on how that will carry on?
[00:37:53] Aaron Reimann: I would definitely agree with you. I kind of went down the path of, I first used Visual Composer, probably like 2015 or so. I was like, that’s a cool idea. It seemed buggy to me, but once I tried Beaver Builder, I was sold. And I think once people realize, for example, a couple weeks ago I built a website for my brother. And he just needed something pretty simple, but I showed him using a page builder. I said, I built the header and footer, and I said, here’s how you put content in. And he built the other pages. He did, change it, upload the images and stuff like that. He knows nothing about computers.
So the page builders have definitely made it where you don’t need a developer. I mean, obviously for something more complex, if you need some kind of functionality to talk to some third party API, yeah you’re going to need a developer. But I mean, if all you’re trying to do is display content, the page builders have just made it so easy. Beyond easy.
[00:38:52] Nathan Wrigley: I do wonder in the future, it seems like every podcast that I record at the minute ends up at this question, what AI will do to WordPress. And I know that we didn’t discuss this in our show notes, but it’s interesting, Page builders made it fairly straightforward for non-technical people to, what you see is what you get. And it truly did that. It literally almost pixel for pixel. It was exactly what you were looking at before you click publish.
And I wonder what’s going to happen to WordPress with AI, and whether or not the job in the future will be entirely different for people like you. Whether it will be more talking to an interface and telling it, no move left. Make that red. Get me a picture of a cat over there.
[00:39:33] Aaron Reimann: I don’t know man. I watched Terminator 2, when I was 15 and I’m not interested. And I think people are going to be using it to write their term papers and, you know, all that. It’s interesting, I think, I don’t know, have me back in five years. We’ll figure out was this a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not using, ChatGPT much. I’ve tinkered with it, but I can’t, I haven’t put it into my, day-to-day yet.
I’m talking to a developer friend of mine. He is, at his company, they’re making them learn how to use it because it’s going to, not replace them, but it’s going to make them more powerful and make them quicker and be able to build things faster. And I think that’s where we get to look forward to. You know, until the robots take over. We’ll see.
[00:40:19] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. We’ll have you back in five years and we’ll see. We’ve really gone around the whole subject, but I was wondering over the last 20 years, if you had any wishlist things that you wish had gone into WordPress. If you could rewind and say, wouldn’t it have been good to put that in, to slot that in, in year five or seven. Honestly you can make anything you like up here. Really interesting just to get your insight.
[00:40:41] Aaron Reimann: Yeah. I don’t, because of the fact that I’ve always been a, I shouldn’t say always because I don’t write code anymore, but I, you know, I had 15 years of writing code and I now have people that write code for me at my company. And anything that WordPress couldn’t do, we just built it. So I needed WordPress to be stable and be a core where it gives us a login. Something that gives us pages and posts, just the real basics and everything else we can build, which is pretty awesome. I love it.
[00:41:13] Nathan Wrigley: That’s a perfect place to end it, I think. Aaron, If there’s a URL you want to drop or a Twitter handle or someplace that people can get in touch with you to talk about this, what would we do?
[00:41:22] Aaron Reimann: My company is clockworkwp.com, and then my Twitter handle is @reimann, so A R E I M A N N.
[00:41:32] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you very much for talking to us on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
[00:41:35] Aaron Reimann: All right. Thank you.
On the podcast today we have Aaron Reimann.
Aaron is a PHP developer who started working with WordPress in 2008. He is currently running ClockworkWP, a design, development and hosting shop. He’s built sites for companies of all shapes and sizes, ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. He’s been an organiser for WordCamp Atlanta and the Atlanta WordPress Meetup. He also speaks regularly at events throughout the WordPress community, including WordCamp Europe 2023 where this podcast was recorded.
Aaron gave a presentation at the event called ‘Where did we come from?’ In that session he spoke about something which we don’t often dwell upon, WordPress’ history. In the technology space we’re always looking towards the future. What new features are being worked on? What’s in the latest version of WordPress? So this is an opportunity to gaze back over the previous twenty years and see just how far WordPress has come.
Back in the early days WordPress’ success was anything but certain. There were a set of rival CMS platforms all vying for the attention of developers and website builders. Joomla and Drupal may be familiar names, but there were many others as well. All of these platforms, WordPress included, had their strengths and weaknesses, and at that time it seemed like any of them could become the dominant CMS.
We discuss what might have been the key things which set WordPress apart, and made it the pick for many people who needed an online presence. The fact that WordPress was easy to install, and easy on the eye were certainly important.
Then there’s the advent of the plugin architecture within WordPress. It’s fair to say that a vanilla version of WordPress will get you many of the features you need to get a website up and running, but if you want to do more, then it’s likely that you’ll be relying on plugins. The fact that you could install and update from a growing range of plugins made WordPress indispensable; able to create websites for almost any purpose.
Then there’s themes. It’s nice to have a functioning website, but it’s nicer still to have a functioning website which looks great. Themes enabled non-designers to make an impact online, and made an entire industry for those who could turn their hand to theme creation.
Another pivotal moment was when custom fields were added into Core. You were no longer bound by simply adding content to your posts and, later, pages. You could now create complex websites in which all sorts of data could be manipulated and displayed. WordPress now had all the hallmarks of a fully fledged CMS.
Then there’s Gutenberg in WordPress’ more recent past. Aaron is not yet completely sold on Gutenberg, still preferring the page builder that he’s grown accustomed to, but no discussion of WordPress’ first twenty years would be complete without a mention of this important change.
Then there’s the community of people who made, and continue to make, the software. Without the people, there would be no WordPress.
We round off the discussion talking about the fact that there appears to be a very high chance that WordPress will still be around in another twenty years. Will it still be the popular choice for website building? Who knows, but it’ll be fun to see what the future holds.
Aaron’s talk at WordCamp Europe 2023
Drupal
Joomla
Expression Engine
CMS Made Simple
cPanel
Mambo
b2
Custom Post Type WordPress release 3.0
Ruby on Rails
Beaver Builder
Elementor
Divi
Classic Editor plugin
Cold Fusion
Visual Composer
ClockworkWP website
Aaron’s Twitter
Dan Walmsley shares when contemplating how to shape a feature, there\'s at least three major considerations
>> The post Three Major Considerations on Shaping an AI Feature appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
I woke up this morning to a lot of people sending me the link to today’s Axios story reporting that Vox Media (which includes The Verge, New York Magazine, Polygon, and many other outlets) is moving from its proprietary CMS, Chorus, to WordPress VIP, Automattic’s open source solution for large publishers.
This is very exciting—not just for the obvious reasons, but because I’ve been a fan and reader of Vox since they started. As a tool-maker, one of the greatest honors is when fantastic people choose your tools to practice their craft. I’m also sure their feedback will make WordPress better! Vox Media folks, if there were any Chorus features you loved, drop them in the comments and we’ll make sure they can become a plugin or get baked into WP core. And if anyone has built amazing features in other CMSes you’d like to see in WordPress, we’re hiring!
As I said in my recent conversation with Dries Buytaert and Mike Little celebrating WordPress’ 20th anniversary, and with a hat tip to Fight Club, I believe that on a long enough timeline, the survival rate of proprietary software drops to zero. I don’t fault anyone for starting a CMS—I’ve been guilty of that myself a half-dozen times, not counting WordPress—but while something custom-built may seem better for your needs in the beginning, that never lasts. Unless you invest heavily in engineering (like tens of millions per year), the steady improvement of a healthy open source community, like the tens of thousands of developers working on WordPress every day, will eventually catch and surpass any proprietary system.
Not all open source projects achieve the famed positive flywheel; it takes decades, and most will fail in the process. The ones that reach exit velocity, though, become part of the fabric of civilization. At that point, it makes more sense to build on top of them rather than recreate the wheel. You’ll still get where you’re going, it’ll just be a smoother, faster ride.
(Midjourney prompt: A chorus of people using WordPress.)
In 2009, I announced the release of my first breadcrumbs plugin. It was a one-file PHP script that I’d been using in my themes for around a year, and I wanted to contribute it to the larger WordPress community in the form of a plugin. Over the past 14 years, this original script has changed multiple times.
Today, I am happy to announce a new version of it. This time as a block plugin: X3P0: Breadcrumbs.
I submitted it to the official WordPress plugin directory last week, and it should eventually make it there. There’s currently around a two-month waiting period for plugin reviews, and I wanted to get this into the community’s hands a bit sooner than that. You can snag a copy from the Releases page on the plugin’s GitHub repository.
The goal for this block was to offer a simple interface that anyone could use instead of having to interact with a complex PHP script.
Aside from the standard design tools (e.g., colors, dimensions, border, etc.), the block offers a handful of custom options in version 1.0. The first is the ability to customize how the home “crumb” works:
The icon picker lets you choose from a range of home icons and emoji. You can also show/hide the “Home” label.
Next to it in the toolbar is a separator picker, which lets you choose the icon or symbol that sits between each breadcrumb:
The block boasts a couple of extra options for conditionally hiding the breadcrumbs on the site homepage and whether the last breadcrumb item should be visible.
I’d love for you to give the plugin a spin and let me know what you think. There are many ways that I believe the plugin could be even better, but I’d rather get your feedback first.
One early version of this block did dynamically populate the breadcrumbs in the Post Editor. But this block is primarily meant to be used in templates in the Site Editor. Like other template-specific blocks, there’s no way to populate the data (which is dynamic) until the block is rendered on the front end. So placeholders make sense.
I opted to keep the output the same between the Post Editor and Site Editor so that the experience would be consistent regardless of where the block was inserted. Plus, this keeps the code lighter, which is always a win in my book.
Absolutely. The block is just a wrapper around a PHP class, and you can call it directly from your classic theme’s PHP templates:
<?php if ( class_exists( \'X3P0\\Breadcrumbs\\Trail\' ) ) {\n \\X3P0\\Breadcrumbs\\Trail::display();\n} ?>Code language: PHP (php)
<?php if ( class_exists( \'X3P0\\Breadcrumbs\\Trail\' ) ) {\n \\X3P0\\Breadcrumbs\\Trail::display();\n} ?>
Alternatively, you can parse and output the block:
<?php echo do_blocks( \'<!-- wp:x3p0/breadcrumbs /-->\' ); ?>Code language: PHP (php)
<?php echo do_blocks( \'<!-- wp:x3p0/breadcrumbs /-->\' ); ?>
The PHP under the hood of the plugin is highly configurable. There’s around two dozen options and a few filter hooks that allow developers to change how nearly every aspect of the breadcrumb trail is output.
But just dumping each of those options into the interface would likely make a terrible user experience.
For version 1.0, at least, I took the less is more approach to block settings. This will give me time to both listen to feedback on what’s actually needed and to evaluate how those options would be best integrated into the UI in the future.
Yes…Probably.
Breadcrumb trail structures can range from fairly simple to extremely complex. The plugin tries to handle each scenario it comes across as gracefully as possible by default.
Again, as I introduce more of the plugin settings from the PHP side into the block itself, this will open it up for more editor-based customization.
There is a three-year-old ticket requesting a breadcrumbs block in core WordPress, and there is also some early work in a pull request. I feel like we’ll eventually have a core block, but there is no guarantee on when that will happen.
A core block could take a while since it would need to consider extensibility before becoming a feature-complete implementation. There are several breadcrumb solutions, and each have their own take on what the resulting output should be.
If/When it happens, I’ll reevaluate what this means for this plugin. It may be better to migrate it as a variation on the core block or for it to continue being a standalone implementation. As they say, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I’m also happy for core to borrow any (or all) code needed from my plugin—the great thing about the GPL is that we can do cool things like share code.
In this show, Tammy Lister return and joins Jonathan as they talk about their own builder experience and where their monthly show is headed.
>> The post Welcome Tammie Lister Back to the Do the Woo Host Team appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
WordCamp US 2023 is happening next month in National Harbor, Maryland. The Contributor Day will kick off the event on Thursday, August 24, preceding the conference days. It is open to any attendee, including those who have never contributed before and seasoned contributors alike. There are many technical and non-technical ways to contribute to WordPress.
Those who are not able to attend WordCamp US are also welcome to join the event virtually via the the #contributor-day Slack channel. New contributors attending in person will begin at 8:30 AM EST and returning contributors will join at 9:30. A guide will be present in the Slack channel at 10 AM EST to help virtual contributors.
Recommendations for preparing for Contributor Day are on the event page, along with a list and description of all the Make WordPress teams that contributors can elect to join.
The sign up form is now open for everyone who plans to attend the event in person. It includes the opportunity to give feedback on anticipated accessibility needs and meal preferences for the lunch provided during the event. Contributors will also be asked to select their preferred contributor team(s) during sign up so organizers can be prepared with team leads available.
Gutenberg 16.2 was released with a number of important changes to pattern management. Most notably, Reusable blocks have been renamed to Patterns, and the Library section of the Site Editor has been renamed to Patterns.
This release also introduces a sync status on the pattern details screen to give more information to site owners when managing patterns. The custom patterns label has been changed to “My Patterns” in the Patterns sidebar. A new lock icon designates theme patterns as unable to be edited or modified. All of these changes were cherry-picked from this version of Gutenberg and are included in the upcoming WordPress 6.3 major release, as of Beta 3.
Gutenberg 16.2 introduces a vertical text orientation, which can be applied using a block’s typography settings. At this time the feature is only available when the theme author opts in for the theme to support it, but it may be expanded in the feature.
“This new feature is a first step towards full support of vertically written languages as well as for decorative purposes in website design,” Automattic-sponsored Gutenberg contributor Bernie Reiter said in the release post.
Just tested: Vertical text alignment with Gutenberg 16.2 Pretty Cool. https://t.co/kEawp89Y9o pic.twitter.com/IVLhgXJhcN— Birgit Pauli-Haack (@bph) July 13, 2023
Just tested: Vertical text alignment with Gutenberg 16.2 Pretty Cool. https://t.co/kEawp89Y9o pic.twitter.com/IVLhgXJhcN
Footnotes, which were introduced in Gutenberg 16.1, received several usability improvements in this release. The first iteration was bare bones with the footnotes created automatically and then inserted at the bottom of the content. This update makes a Footnotes block available in the block inserter, so users can place it again in case it gets deleted.
Other notable improvements in Gutenberg 16.2 include the following:
It also appears the Gutenberg team is preparing for the eventual deprecation of TinyMCE.
“We’ve added a new Gutenberg Experiment to explore a potential path towards the deprecation of TinyMCE,” Reiter said. “When enabled, it prevents loading TinyMCE assets and Classic blocks by default, only enabling them if usage is detected. The update also handles scenarios where posts contain Classic blocks or users input raw HTML, offering conversion options or reloading to use the Classic block.”
Check out the Gutenberg 16.2 release post for more details on the enhancements and bug fixes included in this release.
If you are attending this year\'s WordCamp US, let our listeners know what you are most looking forward to.
>> The post WCUS 2023, What Are You Looking Forward To? appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Sarah Norris, JavaScript developer and 6.4 editor tech co-lead joined Birgit Pauli-Haack on the Gutenberg Changelog for the first time. They discussed WordPress 6.3, Gutenberg 16.2 and Phase 3 Collaboration
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JavaScript Developer 6.4 editor tech co-lead
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Transcript
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Hello and welcome to our 86th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. And today’s episode will talk about Beta 4 6.3, Gutenberg 16.2, and the first posts about what to expect for phase three on Gutenberg. And I’m your host Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and WordPress developer advocate, also full-time co-contributor to the WordPress Opensource Project. And I’m here with my friend and colleague, Sarah Norris, JavaScript developer on the themes team, core contributor and co-tech lead for the release in 6.4. So that’s in November, but we are starting now. Sarah and I danced a good two hours at the Pride Party in Athens, and we had great fun. I haven’t danced that long for decades, so thank you so much for joining me on the show today, Sarah. So, how are you?
Sarah Norris: I’m good, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. That pride party was super fun. It’s a beautiful setting on a rooftop bar in Athens. Yeah, beautiful weather and I got so many steps in, I tripled my step goal.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I did too, but not as much as I did the first day I was in Athens when I went up the Acropolis twice.
Sarah Norris: Twice, yes. That’s a big hill to climb twice.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So, if you do it twice, you get a lot of steps in. I think that was the day I had 17,000 or so.
So, you’re working on the Gutenberg Project. And so, when you think about 6.3, what excites you the most about what’s coming up next month?
Sarah Norris: Yeah. There’s so many exciting updates, especially around enhancing the UX of the site editor in particular, which is super exciting. So, one of my favorites is the command palette, because it allows people to search for different parts of the site, like navigation, pages, style variations, templates, and it’s similar to Spotlight on a Mac or using Alfred. So, it’s a really quick way to access different areas of the site without you having to search through different menus. That’s a really cool update.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that’s a cool feature. Yeah, I like it too because now I don’t have to figure out which of the different editors I have to use to do stuff, so I cannot just ask that command palette. Yeah, open my page, or open a post, or edit a template, or something like that. Yeah, it’s really cool.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Another thing I’m excited about is the updates to the site editor sidebar. So, currently in 6.2 we’ve only got a list of templates and template parts, but 6.3, it’s going to look a lot different. Oh, well, it’s going to look similar, but there’s going to be a lot more items. So we’re introducing… there’s navigation styles, pages, patterns as well. So, I guess similar to the command palette, it gives you a lot more options to access those other features quickly. So, if you are already in the site editor context, you’ve got more options to get to other areas a lot quickly.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah, I like that too. Especially the part where I can edit my page content together with my page templates, so I can just switch that and say, “Oh, that’s a template, I want to do for…” Yeah and, “Oh, and now I need to fix something on one of the pages,” and I can do it all from the site editor. I wish I could also do posts from there, but I guess maybe that’s coming, maybe not. Yeah.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, maybe it’s coming.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Anything else?
Sarah Norris: Yes, so I guess specifically on the pattern section, this is now where template parts are going to live. So, sometimes I guess if people are already using the editor and the following along with updates, this can be a little bit maybe confusing or it’s just like, “Oh, I’ve just got used to template parts. Now they’re patterns.” But I think it’s a really good change for new users because it’s less terms to use templates to template, and then there’s patterns. And especially with this refocus on patterns, it’s a single word we can now use. So, maybe we had a few other words before. And so yeah, any reduction in terms is a win.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, that’s in line with also renaming reusable blocks to pattern. They’re sync patterns now. And then template parts are patterns. They are reused, but they’re reused in the templates. So, I think what will round it all up later on is when we have partial sync patterns. So, when you use a pattern on a page and you want to change the styling or the color that it kind of changes overall the patterns of all the time that you use that pattern, but with different content. So yeah, that is still a piece that’s missing, but I think the foundation needed to be there with kind of figuring out it’s all the same, just a little bit different. Reusable blocks and patterns and template parts, they’re all the same soup. It’s just different flavors. Yeah.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Exactly. Yes.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And I think you’re right. For a new person coming to WordPress, it’s much easier to figure out.
Sarah Norris: Yeah. And anything we can do to speed up that understanding as well, it really helps gives you a boost to understanding how to use the site editor. I think it also… that this refocus on patterns helps building block themes much easier as well. And it highlights how we can create a variety of different layouts across themes. So, patterns they can be just part of one theme, but other patterns can be part of any number of themes as well. And it really highlights how themes are a collective of different aspects rather than just a single topic asset as they might have been in the past. And yeah, I love that. I’m really looking forward to different people trying that out.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And having certain parts of your site being your site, not depending on the theme, I think that’s the next level that wasn’t before possible in WordPress. Yeah. So, it’s an interesting… that templates can be different from the theme, and that kind of blows my mind right there.
Sarah Norris: Yes. It’s a whole new layer.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Whole new layer and whole new complexity. But yeah, I like it because for a user, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a theme-related pattern or their own pattern. But they will be surprised when all of a sudden it goes away.
Sarah Norris: Yes, exactly.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: The theme, yeah.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, now that’s different. Yeah, it won’t go away. Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Anything else that excites you?
Sarah Norris: Yes, there is something actually that I really wanted to mention. So, for Beta 4 that’s just been released, there’s some major performance boosts. So, they’re all going to come out with 6.3. So, there’s some major performance boosts, both classic and block themes. And for both client side and service side, it means a significant boost for the largest content for Paint or the LCP metric, which is basically when the page’s main content has likely been loaded. So with 6.3, there’s going to be a reduced LCP of 26% for block themes and 19% classic themes. Yeah, so that’s massive.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, that’s pretty big.
Sarah Norris: Exactly. Yeah. But it matters so much as well, because it’s so many websites this will roll out to. Yeah, I really wanted to highlight it because it’s something to really shout about and celebrate.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So, when you upgrade to 6.3, all of a sudden your sites are faster, almost 20%, even if you’re on a classic theme. So yeah, that’s definitely a boost. And you don’t have to do anything. It’s all for free.
Sarah Norris: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s automatic, automatically performance boost.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Depending, of course, what plugins you use and what the theme does, but yeah.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, yeah, base level, base level performance.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Base level. Base level, yeah. There are always edge cases and we need to be aware of those and that they might happen. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that’s a lot of things to come. I really like that the footnotes block made it into 6.3. It was a little late on that, but it definitely comes, and there is a certain corner in our community that actually has been waiting for that for many, many years. So, now it’s here.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Yeah. That will be major for certain aspects of certain different types of articles that people use WordPress for. Yeah, footnotes, I can imagine people have been waiting for that for such a long time. So yes, it’s great.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Some of them are still kind of hand-coding all the pieces together.
Sarah Norris: Right.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So, in a similar way, and I wanted to highlight a community contribution from Justin Tadlock. He has had a plugin in the repo for a long, long time that deals with breadcrumbs, and he migrated that into that it’s block-based now. So, you can have a breadcrumb block for your pages and archives, and it automatically will pick up the hierarchy of the nested pages, and you can change text color background, link color, and including the hover state, and also adjust the padding on the margins. And it has been submitted to the plugin repo. But yeah, there appears to be a two-month waiting time for new plugins to get approved. So, we will share it in the show notes the link to the GitHub repo, where you can just download the ZIP file from there. But I tested it, and I really like it. It helps me organize some of my test sites quite a bit.
And Justin Tadlock has been in the community for many, many years, so his code is solid. Yeah. So, I share that with you. I wish there was something similar in core, but this is the next best thing. So, let us know what you think about it.
Beta 4 of WordPress 6.3
So, that brings us to our section, What’s Released, and as you mentioned, Sarah… Sarah, mentioned it before, the WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 was released this week, and it’s really coming down to the wire. So, if you haven’t tested your plugins, themes, and other customizations of your website, you should start testing now, because you have less than a month to fix things if they break. The final release is August 8th, and today we are recording on July 14th. Oh, by the way, happy Bastille Day in France. Yeah, so get on the testing part, and I have been saying this for now for weeks, but the more you test, the more we can find the bugs now and we can release a better product. Yeah. So, have you been testing WordPress 6.3 Beta 4?
Sarah Norris: Yes, I have. Yes. Yeah, I’ve got the Beta plugin installed, and yeah, I make sure I’m up-to-date default testing.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I have websites, one website that is actually using nightly, and when it’s release time, the Beta and release candidates in production. So, I know immediately when something doesn’t work as I do with the Gutenberg nightly that I use in production on certain sites.
Sarah Norris: Living on the edge.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Welcome to the life on the edge. But I actually hear that Matt Mullenweg is using the WordPress nightly on his blog as well, so in production.
Sarah Norris: Yes.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So yeah, there’s a lot of trust coming out of the team, and it’s well warranted. The team that is releasing 6.3 has been stellar, like all the other ones. And there was a little hiccup for Beta 1, but Beta 4 was smooth. It was done in 58 minutes. That, I think, is a record. Well, it’s definitely very, very fast. Sometimes it takes about 90 minutes, so it comes really down to the wire. So, if you find something, say something.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, definitely. Well, I think what’s really impressive, when you’re doing the Beta parties and with the testing, usually the bugs are found… And I’m touching wood as well, because I don’t want to tempt fate to any large… but the bugs that are found, they’re either hard to replicate or hard to find. So, they’re small bugs, and I think that’s a kudos to the team that are involved in that the bugs aren’t that visible. There’s rare cases, but generally speaking… So, I think if you’re helping to test as well, even if you find a bug that you think maybe it doesn’t matter too much, just mention it because that’s what the team is looking for. They’re usually the bugs that are… Like I’m looking at the change hub for Gutenberg, and the bug fixes. They’re all the little edge cases to make sure it’s really polished. Yeah, I’m always impressed with that. There’s no really major visible bugs. It’s always the little ones.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it’s always the little one. And then, it’s also what kind of gets it done. Well, it’s like everything else in life. It’s the little things that make you happy and that make you aggravated.
Sarah Norris: Exactly.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And that brings us to Gutenberg 16.2 release that happened this week. There were a hundred, again, 184 PRs committed by 47 contributors. That’s a lot of change coming in in two weeks period, given that 16.1 had 255 PRs to go through. So Sarah, you’re in luck; you only got two-thirds of what we did last year.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, that’s true. I should be grateful.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Do you want to start, get us in there?
Sarah Norris: Yes. Yeah, so the first one we’re looking at, so this is rename reusable blocks to patterns. Yes. So, this is renaming reusable blocks to sync patterns. So, this is to align with the new editor terminology that I guess we’ve just touched on. So yeah, so a sync pattern is any change made to one pattern that gets deployed to all instances of that pattern across your site. And then the opposite would be an unsync pattern. And so, they’re included in the inserter with all your other patterns, but changes to these patterns will not be reflected throughout the site. And then, that means you can customize each instance of that pattern. Yeah, again, it’s a wording, a terminology update, but I think it really aids the UX of the site editor in general.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, but what it also brings, and I’m very delighted to say, is that you now can actually create patterns on your site. Up until now, you were reliant on themes or on the community patterns from the pattern directory to get patterns, or you had to write them in PHP and then upload it to your site. But now you have the same interface or the same workflow with which you created reusable blocks or now sync patterns you can now also use to create unsync patterns. So, you have much more… the user has much more freedom to create some reusable blocks and some reusable sections of the site that can then be further customized or not. Yeah so, I think there were a lot of people waiting for that part because not everybody touches code or has somebody around that can touch code. So, doing it in the interface is really… that’s actually the big win from the name change.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. And yeah, anything that helps the low-code or no-code ability around the site editor is fantastic. It really opens up WordPress to so many new users, and I’m really looking forward to seeing hopefully just personally more designers using WordPress as well, because there’s so many beautiful designs out there already. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to beautiful design patterns increasing as well.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, me too. And I saw in the theme directory just as a side, quite a few new themes, block themes, that were done by contributors that haven’t done a theme before or that haven’t even contributed before. And that is such a great development with that. I really love that to see, even if it’s simple or to get the feet wet and get through the whole process of getting into the theme directory. I think that’s another hurdle by itself, but once they made it, it’s much easier to get the second, third, and fourth theme into the directory. But that was just a side note. So the next feature from 16.2, I’m doing it again, 16.2 is the rename of command center to command palette. It’s not a new feature, but it’s kind of the name change is really following what…
There was a big discussion on GitHub, and I think that is where the most consensus came around, that command palette is something that is translatable, is relatable, even for non-native English speakers. And we talked about it, how excited we are about it, both the renaming of the reusable block to patterns and the rename of the command palette. It all will be in 6.3. So, when people ask me what features from Gutenberg will be in 6.3, I would say 15.2 release to 16.1, but I think that’s a lie. I think it’s 16.2 beta sections from 16.2 Gutenberg release that all actually made it into 6.3, especially the whole thing around the site editor library, and the sync, and all that. Yeah.
Sarah Norris: Right. Yeah, I think it’s a good name change as well. I think it’s a term that should be localized fairly easily. It’s important. Okay. So, this is the library adding sync status to the pattern details screen, and so this is really cool that can be expanded on in the future to include more details as well. So, this shows the sync status of a pattern on the pattern details screen. So, it’s either going to say not sync or fully synced currently at the moment. But this can be expanded to include further details about the pattern, things like the author who made the pattern, maybe where the pattern’s being used across the site, so things like template names or pages or posts. So yeah, I’m really excited about the potential here, but also the feature that’s being added in 6.3, it’s super helpful, just the information being there so easily. It’s great. Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, so there was for a while, the last item on the menu in the site editor on the left-hand side was called Library, and had template parts and had patterns. And that has also been changed to patterns, because everything that’s in there is actually, per se, a pattern and Library was too big. There were thoughts that maybe they put the fonts in there or some styles or something like that, but that didn’t pan out. It kind of is all… It’s the second shoulder for the patterns, and everything else will be in a different heading there. So it’s the reusable blocks, the sync patterns, the template parts as well as the unsync patterns. Yes.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And there will be a section in that menu item called My Patterns. So, these are the customized patterns that you did that were created with the UI and on site. They’re not coming from scenes, they’re not coming from plugins, they’re not coming from code. They come from your interaction with the interface, and you build them all yourself. So, it’s all yours. It says My Patterns, but it’s yours. It’s kind of funny.
Sarah Norris: Yeah. Again, that’s another really good UX terminology update that I think helps, but I guess primarily new users, because unfortunately if you’ve been used to the terms, you get reuse to the terms, but that’s all good. It’s part of working in an open project with lots of different iterations all the time. And new users, they get the benefit.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. With a 20-year-old project, how long does it take until you are not a new user anymore, or how many new users does it take to take over the majority, but then longer than… Well anyway, so any user will have an advantage about it. For some of us, we need to relearn things, but we have an active mind, and we can relearn things because these are small changes. It’s just a little vocabulary kind of thing.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Speaking of which, we are not done with the name changes, are we?
Sarah Norris: No, no. There’s another one, but another really good one as well. So yes, there’s been a change, changing the Home template name to Blog Home. So, this one is for templates and touches on something that’s been around a little bit longer than patterns, I suppose. So, the name Home suggests that the template will display the site homepage. So, this is true when the reading settings of the site are configured to display the latest posts on the front page, but if there’s a static front page, then the home template will display the post page, not the homepage. So, this is where the confusion lies and has for a long time as well. But for block themes, it’s more easily surfaced, especially to people who aren’t deep in the code.
So, the renaming of the home template in the site to Blog Home is a lot more descriptive what it’s actually being used for, whilst the template file name is still home.html. So, that still is a parallel of home.php. And so, it’s still exactly the same in the template hierarchy. It’s just the visual name that’s been changed. But again, I think it’s particularly useful for low-code or no-code users. It’s much easier to understand, and it just reemphasizes that it’s going to be used for the blog and not always the homepage. We’re not completely fixing anything here, but it’s certainly the start of hopefully addressing this issue that’s been resurfaced to no-code is basically… So yeah, I’m really excited to see if this does help and see what journey it takes us down into addressing the homepage confusion. It existed for a while.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And the way you explained it, I actually understood.
Sarah Norris: Cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And I finally got the trigger that, “Oh, okay, now I got it.” But now the question for you, if I use the setting that I want a static page, then it just displays the page, right, from the page template that I designate as the front page, as the homepage.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you just have to be aware that that’s changing a template. And again, we could probably add some additional helper functionality in the site editor to help people understand that, because currently you have to jump out into the WP Admin, into the settings section, yeah, into the settings. So yes, I think we could maybe surface that in different areas, but then when I start to think about it, it also gets more confusing. But I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to make it make sense, because there’s additional confusion as well with the existence of the frontpage.html template, and that takes precedence over any other template to be the front page.
And so, obviously you can use that to your advantage if you want to be a really opinionated theme and say, “This is always going to be the front page. This is definitely the prettiest version of the patterns I can put together.” But then, because it’s so opinionated, always is the front page, it can be confusing to users who are trying to not make it the front page. So, there’s just additional legwork or additional click to get around it not being that template.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. And then there is a front-page.html.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Yes. That’s the one I’m talking about. But yes, there’s also index. So, there’s home.html, which is the one that’s been visually renamed. There’s front-page.html, which is the one you just mentioned, and then there’s also index.html, which to anyone who’s worked with the web before, it’s hopefully the most easy to understand because it’s the index. But again, to non-coders, it’s just a third thing that could also be your front page, and that’s always the default. If nothing else exists, it’s index. But yeah, I understand how it can be really confusing. I mean, if you’ve ever looked at the WordPress template hierarchy page in the documentation, I think it’s fantastic because a really good visual map, but then the first time I saw it, I was like, “Oh, wow, there’s a lot of mapping going on here. There’s a lot of different options to choose from.”
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, indeed. Indeed.
Sarah Norris: It’s a good challenge to have, I think, in the site editor. Yeah, I think we can fix it in many different ways. And yeah, we’ll get there.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and you just reminded me, we have on the developer blog, one of the early posts was about the template hierarchy.
Sarah Norris: Oh yes, I remember. Yes.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yes.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, it was a really good post.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … demystifying home and post templates in WordPress theme development. And I’m kind of putting that link into the show notes fully knowing that it was before the name change.
Sarah Norris: Yes. I think that’s okay.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: We need to review the post, so we can make sure that that’s the same with a new name change there. Cool. Yeah, that was an excellent article by Daisy Olsen, and had some great examples and screenshots there. Yeah. Excellent. So, what else?
Sarah Norris: I think the next thing was introducing more welcome guides. So again, I think this is a really good UX update. So, this is adding welcome guides to the page content focus and template focus, so the little well-designed models that pop up when you jump into different areas of the site editor. I think it’s easy for you users to be confused on… what you mentioned before… new users to be confused on whether they’re editing a page, editing a template, how the template influences the page, and vice versa, and which context they’re used in. So yes, so this is a great way to introduce people to the differences.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it’s also a good way for those of us who are new to this new site editor experience, and that’s also a new user, but for the first four years we were kind of trained to just click away the welcome guides because it hasn’t had anything new and it didn’t remember our choices. So it will come back, but it’s coming back with new content. So, read it a little bit because it helps you get over that hurdle, “Where am I and what am I doing,” quite easily and has some nice animations in there. I really like them, and they are hidden under the acronym NUX, and yeah, that’s new user experience. I always thought there was something like NPM and NPX and NUX. It’s all the same JavaScript library kind of thing. No, it isn’t. It’s new user experience.
So, I read over it quite fast until I saw the words “welcome guide,” and I said, “Oh, there’s new content there.” And I checked it out and I really like it. And I learned a bit. If you want to get started quickly and not have to read through all the changelog and all the posts that are coming out, use the welcome guides. But we hopped over off something on themes, like add border and theme support, border theme support and link color theme support. That is a new thing that, actually, it was fixed in WordPress core, but needed to be synced up with the Gutenberg plugin. And you said you worked on it. What exactly had happened?
Sarah Norris: Yeah, I’m not sure what you’d call it, if it’s not a back foot. It’s like a forward foot.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s a sync. It’s a sync.
Sarah Norris: A sync.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: A kitchen sink. It’s a sink.
Sarah Norris: Yes, sink. Yes. So, this is previously the border and link theme support. They were named experimental. So, this update basically takes out the experimental. Yeah, that’s essentially it. But yeah, it’s a really good update because I think the word experimental can be scary to anyone who’s included APIs in new plugins or themes. So yeah, just the fact that it’s not there anymore is brilliant.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and that’s the support you said in theme.json for link color and that quite a bit. So, you have a UI for link color and border theme, border radios, border size, and border of the sides. So, you could have a left side and a bottom side border, but you don’t have a border on the left side or a right side and a top side or something like that. Yeah, so it’s really cool. The next thing is really cool and it’s not coming to 6.3. You need 16.2 to get it, and that’s that the typography, you can get some text orientation in a paragraph to go vertical.
Of course, you’re not going to do this for whole full paragraphs with multiple lines. You probably do this for a header or for a subheader or something like that. It’s not going to be in the heading block, but it’s in the paragraph block. But you need to enable it in the theme.json at all. And then it’s only available for paragraph blocks, so it’s still the early iteration, but I find it really cool. So, because it’s not in the heading, you could just change the font size of it to be a little bit bigger. You make it vertical, and then you can place it next to a paragraph in a group block row, and then you have some interesting layouts that you can play with. I find it really fascinating.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, it is a really cool change. I remember a site I made years ago, probably 20 years ago, where I was playing around with text being vertical instead of horizontal, and it makes for some really interesting design capabilities. Yeah, it’s a really cool update. It’s also enabled on post navigation links as well, as well as the paragraph block, so the next and previous post, because we can maybe…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, cool.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, lots of design flexibility with those, because I guess they’re usually on the sides. So yeah, that aids going vertical as well as horizontal.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, nice. Yes. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, must have missed it when I read the PR. Yeah, you could also do it next to an image or something like that. And you have full control over background, margins, color, so it really puts it to use in your designs and makes something amazing.
Sarah Norris: Yes. Next up is the range control, so adding support for large 40-pixel number input size. So, I think this is a really nice visual update to the range control component in the editor, which helps land the UI for all components, because I think quite a lot of other components have been using this size. So yeah, it brings the range control into line and it affects the visual spacing around the number input for the range control. So, it’s much easier to read and use, and especially if it’s scanning to lots of components and settings, then yeah, it’s much more easier to read now.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And plugin developers can use it in their plugins as well. These are components that are available to any developer who uses the components, and now it’s an additional attribute for there to have some bigger numbers in there.
So, the next thing is a new API and it makes the new “register, insert a media” category API extensible, so other plugin developers can use it to organize the media categories. So, this is probably one of the things that people waited for almost 20 years about, that there is a hook to insert media categories into WordPress. Have you played around with it? Do you know how it works?
Sarah Norris: I haven’t played around with it, but I’ve read the updates though. I think it’s a great update, especially for plugin developers, because it allows them to register their own media categories. Then they’ll be displayed in the inserter, so it’s perfect for plugins that are adding custom blocks. Extensibility is at the heart of WordPress as well, so I think this is a really good example of that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Yeah, so that brings us to one of the major changes, to TinyMCE deprecation. But don’t get scared; you still can use it. This change sets the path for the TinyMCE deprecation to update the experiments with a strategy to get the TinyMCE and the classic block not loaded automatically, but only when it needs to load. That definitely has a performance improvement. And right now it’s an experiment and needs to be tested, especially with the extensibility that is around TinyMCE that has been in WordPress for almost 20 years. But it’s also contained in classic blocks, and so the question is how it’s going to behave with whatever’s in the classic blocks and for Gutenberg. So, it’s not quite clear to me what the end goal is, but I think that is pretty much the end goal, to have TinyMCE not load automatically, but load only when it really needs to be loaded.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, I think that’s the end goal to fully deprecated TinyMCE, which would be a massive boost to the performance of the editor, which is really great to hear. I was playing with this before… Plus, a common use case for the classic editor was to insert HTML using the code editor rather than the visual editor, so how you can switch between the code and the visual editor. So this is still possible, but if you use the code editor to do this with this experiment enabled, you’ll see a warning that says you’re trying to use a deprecated classic block.
But what’s really cool is that it gives you the choice to convert the HTML to a custom HTML block, so using the new editor, or you can refresh the page to use the classic block if you prefer to do that. So, it gives you the option to do both, but converting to the custom HTML block is so quick. You just click the button, and it’s immediately there, and it just works as it was before. I think that’s really impressive, and I think it’ll help aid the transition to using the block editor as well.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think we all need a little help once in a while to see how the good things are. To make it totally clear, WordPress is not abandoning TinyMCE. If you’re using the classic editor, you will still have access to it. It will be backwards compatible, and it’s just that the classic block in Gutenberg is maybe on the way out with a TinyMCE. But it’s a start of an experiment. So, it could be another year or two, or maybe only half a year depending on how the experiments go. But yeah, try it out and see what you think about it. In the changelog, there’s the PR, but if you want to write it down on the podcast, it’s 50387. That’s the PR that deals with it. And there was a lot of discussion there as well, but I found it important that we talk about it. I am pretty sure it’s not the last time that we will talk about it.
Sarah Norris: It’s the beginning.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of an experiment. What else was in 16.2 that we wanted to talk about? There’s a lot of bug fixes. There’s quite a few. Also, just a polish of copy and icons and all that. Global Stars Revision API. That is all for 6.3. I think we’re done. Are we?
Sarah Norris: Yes, I think so. Yeah, there are a lot of bug fixes though. I noticed there’s quite a lot of things like spacing updates to get a lot of the editor components in line, which it sounds like really tiny updates, but when you add them all together, I think it really aids the experience of the editor and it really makes a big difference, a good update.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. If you get more clarity and more consistency in the design, that definitely makes a difference.
Yeah. So, I’m stopping just for a little bit at the documentation for the developers. There has been a push from Ryan Welcher to update some of the package documentation and add examples to the packages, so you know how they can be used and get started on using them without having to go through the source course and figure it out how you’re actually going to do the API there. And in this release, there was examples to the rich text package, to the keyboard shortcut package, and to the customized widget package. And I’m sure he’s working on more. There is a tracking issue in Gutenberg repo for these kind of updates. Another push on documentation is to add READMEs to some of the components that don’t have them because the examples and the README are automatically added to the handbook of the block editor. And if it’s in code, then automatically it will show up in the documentation.
So, that’s definitely a great developer experience update, and it can only do one at a time, but sooner or later we all get through that.
All right, and the last thing I wanted to mention is there will be revisions of your style variations or your global styles. 6.3, the revisions for styles will be in there or are already in there. So, when you change some of your styles and you say, “Okay, the one that I did yesterday, I would like better,” you will be able to go back to that particular moment in time in your revisions and make that the current one. The team was also working on giving the same revision treatment to template customization, but that didn’t work well enough to get into 6.3. So, that is something that will be in 6.4. Template revisions are not yet; they’re still experimental. You can get them in 16.2 and work with them, but they did not make it into 6.3.
Sarah Norris: I think the style revisions are a really neat update, and actually the whole way you can view the style book now as well.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh yeah, that’s a real cool thing. Yeah.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, it’s very cool, how fast you can preview the styles. But I really love how you can just switch the style book, and I don’t often hear it talked about that much. I think it’s a perfect way to test your theme. If you just open the style book, you can test so many aspects of a theme. And I think 6.3 is really highlighting how you can do this.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And there’s one other thing, it’s that you can preview themes. So, if you have downloaded a theme, a block theme, but you haven’t activated yet, you can actually preview that and also see it in the style book, so you see how your blocks behave with a new theme. I think that’s really cool. You can also see how your pages behave if you have certain designs on some pages or posts. Yeah, so the preview, that’s kind of getting feature parity almost with a customizer that was for classic themes where you also could do previews of themes with your own content. I think for many, many years that was really missing here in Gutenberg, and I really love that that’s coming to 6.3.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, it’s very cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And that is the changelog of 16.2.
We have a big section in the What’s Active Development and Discussed because Matias Ventura has started thinking very deeply about the Gutenberg phase three. He published in March a more global high-level kind of approach on that, and now he published seven or five or six… Six. Six posts on certain aspects of it. So, he covers real time collaboration, outlines the concurrent collaboration and shares edits that he envisions or that it’s not only him, it’s the whole team, kind of what they’re going to work on. And then the workflows, he discussed requirements for full publishing workflow that’s async in comparison to sync where both… where sync means two people can edit the same thing at the same time and the system is handling all the edits and async workflows means, “Okay, I go in today. Tomorrow my editor has some comments and I go in back and kind of work through the comments,” similar like Google Drive, but the whole content team.
So in most of the bigger sites, it’s not just one person publishing, it’s not just the writers publishing. It’s a whole team of media people, of video people, and they all need access to certain things and be part of the workflow and connect with each other. Right now, they do it outside of WordPress and somebody brings it all together, but we all hope so much to do this in WordPress. So, that’s the section of the workflows.
And then we talked about it already with the styles and templates, the whole system of revisions, which is a little bit archaic right now. It helps you, but it doesn’t know anything about blocks, and that will get a full overhaul of the current system making blocks aware and having all the data layers available for revision so editors and admins can see things.
And the fourth one was something that a lot of people really want is an overhaul of the media library with media management capabilities and unifying the interface between the block editor, and the media library, and then also of course improve the overall media workflows. So, dive into those. We have links for all of them in the show notes. Then there are two more that came out this week. Those four were last week, and this week came two more. One is about block libraries and then one about the admin design. So, I did not get into reading all of it. I skimmed a lot, but how are you doing with catching up with the new things?
Sarah Norris: Yeah, I’m trying to stay up-to-date. I’m also skimming a lot. The new admin design really caught my eye though, because again, I think it really helps to bring everything in line into the same design using the same design system. It just really makes everything look polished. I’m so proud to work on such a good product like this when it’s all coming together, and I’m really looking forward to the admin update. I’m sure so many people are as well looking forward to another redesign.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Apart from that, it really looks dated like 15 years ago. So, when you look at the designs… And I will also share an article by Sarah Gooding from the WP Tavern, where she actually captures a part of the conversation that happens on the post. So, each one of those posts, it’s not only reading through the post that Matias did, each one of them has between 15 and 25 or 40 comments where the whole contributors come together and have an input there. And you can too. And Sarah Gooding did a great job in summarizing the main points of the support that an admin support will get from the developer community, especially the screenshot that… Well, for me it means I saw a screenshot from a plugin settings page, and you come from something like the site editor where it says plugins or the list of plugins, and then you click on it.
And then the plugin has its own space with menu on the left menu on tabs on top, and so it feels like its own app, but with the same interfaces that Gutenberg is using or the block editor is using, or by that point, when that comes out, WordPress is using. So, it all will be more polished as you said. It will be more modern, but it will also be more contained, keeping the cognitive load that you have when you have too many things that you can click on that kind of overwhelms you. You can focus on that plugin settings and that plugins app, and it will be a similar experience than the block editors now.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, that’s exactly it. I think it really helps with the user experience. It’s perfect. I’m really looking forward to it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, me too. And we had a live Q&A with the developers from Give WP; that’s a very strong plugin with millions of users that allows nonprofits to collect donations on their website. And they are coming out with a revamp of their plugin using WordPress components and scripts and making it the same interface like the block editor, but you’re creating your own forms. So they have no additional… There’s no additional training necessary to get what each interface items does. You have the dropdowns that you know from the sidebar from the block editor, you have the inserter from the block editor, and you have the design tools that you need from the block editor. And they did a great job.
And Jason Adams and John Waldstein, they did a great demo about the stage of their revamp right now. And we have a great discussion with also Lena Morita who was on the show. She is actually a developer on the components team. It was a great conversation. So, I’ll leave a link in the show notes for you if you missed it, and you shouldn’t have missed it, of course, so you can get a record… We recorded it and the post with all the additional links there in the YouTube description. So, you can follow up along that.
Sarah Norris: Around the realtime collaboration as well, Riyad posted a really good post on the core blog as well. But yeah, maybe it’d be good to look to that as well if you’re more interested in the technical detail around realtime.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. He just posted it yesterday, I think, where he dives really into the architecture of the real time collaboration, because two years ago actually he did some experiments with a site called sblocks.com, where you could have two versions of the same post and then with different browsers, you could kind of edit it, and it was all there. And you could actually share it. I don’t know what happened with that, but so he has some great insights in how that’s going to work and we’ll leave that also in the show notes.
And then, this is just an announcement. If you are listening to this on the weekend and early next week, there will be another live Q&A on July 21st, and that’s with David Bowman and Alex Geatches and Joni Halabig. And we are talking about design systems and how they work with the theme.json.
So, David and Alex, they are working on the WordPress VIP side of automatic, and they have built a bridge between Figma design system, token system, and the theme.json. And so, as a site manager or designer, you can keep in sync those two systems and don’t have to recreate things in theme.json, because there’s a rich plugin that does all the settings and the variables and all that for you for your next WordPress theme. So, spinning up a new site within the design system shouldn’t be too hard. So, check it in, check in with us on July 21st, 1700 UTC. The link is on the front page of the Gutenberg Times homepage. Of course, we have it also in the show notes. And if you listen to that after July 21st, it will be on YouTube under livestreams, so you can watch the recording there as well.
Well, this was a lot of announcements, so do you have anything that you want to announce? Well, you will be a 6.4 editor co-lead, tech lead for the editor.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: But you also work on themes, right?
Sarah Norris: Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So, there is also a new default theme coming. Do you know anything about that? Do we have some rumors or some secrets we can share?
Sarah Norris: Yes. Well, I know it was really exciting. I think we’re going to be looking at how we handle post formats. There are ways to do it at the moment, but I don’t think they’re obvious. They’re not easy. So, I think maybe a focus of the new default theme will be to focus on post formats to help things… Podcast websites would be a good example. Yeah, that’s really exciting, because I imagine a lot of people have probably waited for that functionality as well.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. That has been a little bit neglected a bit.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … over all the Gutenberg excitement. Yes, of course. Yeah. All right, so when people want to get in contact with you, Sarah, where can they connect with you or best connect with you?
Sarah Norris: Yes, so mikachan is my username on most formats, or mikachan_ where mikachan’s already been taken. And I’m on LinkedIn and all the usual places. So yeah, you can find me easily.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, so mikachan, what is that?
Sarah Norris: Oh, it’s a really old username I’ve heard since I was a kid, basically. It’s just an anime reference. I was an anime fan. I used to build fan sites using WordPress actually when I was a kid.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So, you stopped building fan sites now?
Sarah Norris: Yeah. So yeah, it’s a little disappointing, isn’t it? Fan sites aren’t really a thing anymore. Maybe they should be. I think we should bring fan sites back.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It was great fun to have you on the show, and I’m looking forward to working with you also on the 6.4 release, because we will probably connect quite a bit because Anne and I will be on the editor triage team.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So, we’ll give you other things to shovel through.
Sarah Norris: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to working with you too. Thank you so much for having me.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, Sarah. All right. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Sarah Norris: Bye.
There is so much going on in the WordPress space: The next major release is less than four weeks away, Community Summit and WordCamp US will happen next month, the 6.4 release is getting started and while contributors are polishing, fixing and cleaning up the Site Editor, others are already working on Phase 3.
And next month I will be on vacation starting August 5th, 2023. Yes, for the first time in six years, I will miss WordCamp US, and seeing my WordPress friends. Lots of FOMO will come my way.
Thursday, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, release lead of WordPress 6.4, kicked off the first Zoom meeting of the all-underrepresented-gender release squad to work on the next major release.
It was lovely to see all the faces of the wonderful people. 6.4 Beta 1 is scheduled for September 26, 2023. It’s not that long until a ton of great new features will come to WordPress in November. It will bring a bit of Phase 3, a lot of polish for Phase 2, the Interactivity API, the fonts API and the interface to manage fonts for the site. I’ll watch the Make Core blog for Chomphosy’s ‘official’ Roadmap for 6.4.
Alright, that’s about the future. The first Dev Notes for WordPress 6.3 have already been published. And I hope to see you all at the Live Q & A next Friday! It’s going to be mind-blowing! Really.
Have a wonderful weekend and start into the next week!
PS: If you are new to Gutenberg Times and are interested in how it all began and became what it is now, Nadia Maya Ardiani interviewed me for Hostinger’s WordPress Experts blog.
Next Live Q & A: Design Systems and Theme.json on July 21, 2023
David Bowman and and Alec Geatches from WordPress VIP will show off how they keep design systems developed in Figma and themes in WordPress in synch and their workflows streamlined. Joni Halabi, senior developer from Georgetown University will join me as co-host.
WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 came out this week. It’s really coming down to the wire. If you haven’t tested your plugins, themes and other customization of your website, you should start now. You got less than a month to fix if something breaks.
Next week, the squad will release WordPress 6.3 RC 1, and with it the Fieldguide with the accompanying Dev Notes.
Anne McCarthy published three videos to show off great features coming to WordPress with the next version.
This is also a reminder on the WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo on July 20th, 2023 at 16:00 UTC (12 pm EDT / 18:00 CEST) with Rich Tabor and Anne McCarthy. There will be a Q&A session, and you may submit questions in advance via the #walkthrough channel on WordPress Make Slack.
Leonardus Nugraha, co-lead on the docs release team published WordPress 6.3: What’s Coming In the Next Major Update for Hostinger’s blog.
Paul Taylor of Big Bite also What’s new in WordPress 6.3 and sized up the second major release of 2023, which includes key improvements across page speeds, accessibility, and the editing experience.
Gutenberg 16.2 was released and release manager Bernie Reiter highlighted in the release post What’s new in Gutenberg 16.2? (12 July)
Sarah Norris, JavaScript developer and 6.4 editor tech co-lead joined me on the Gutenberg Changelog for the first time, and we discussed Gutenberg 16.2, WordPress 6.3, also 6.4 and Phase 3. It was a great joy and we had great fun recording and chatting. The episode 86 will arrive at our favorite podcast app over the weekend.
Last week, Matias Ventura published four posts covering various aspects that will be considered for Phase 3 of the Gutenberg Project. This week, the series continued with one article on Block Library and the other one about the Admin Design.
Riad Benguella did a deeper dive into the architecture of developing for Real Collaboration in content creation. To accomplish this, Benguella proposes a Data synch engine, so developers on the project and those extending WordPress with plugins don’t need to know much about where the date is coming from or going. The technical solution for this is a “conflict-free replicated data type” (CRDT) and the most promising open-source framework to implement it in a web application is YJS.
The six posts about Gutenberg Phase 3 have been out for a few days. The most excitement gathered Matias post on the new Admin Design. Sarah Gooding followed the discussion and summarized it in her article: WordPress Plans Ambitious Admin UI Revamp with Design System, Galvanizing Broad Support from the Developer Community.
Nick Schäferhoff reported about the Real-time collaboration aspect for Gutenberg Phase 3: Real-Time Collaboration in WordPress: Here’s What to Expect. He not only gives you an overview from last week’s posts, he also help us understand why it’s important to expand WordPress in this way: “Seeing as many websites and content strategies are run by teams, giving people tools to collaborate directly in the environment they are working in would go a long way in making the creation process more seamless.” Schäfterhoff wrote. Towards the end of his post, he shared links to project where you can start experiencing a collaborative approach, starting with Asblocks by Riad Benguella.
The video Designed with WordPress “is an ode to the editing and customization phases of our roadmap, and the beauty they can bring to your designs. It celebrates the tools and the possibilities they create. It encapsulates the exciting steps made in the past that propel the vibrant future of WordPress” It is so beautiful! Take a few moments and enjoy the sheer beauty.
We discussed the Block Editor and WordPress 6.3 on the 260th episode of This Week in WordPress. It was a great pleasure and joy to talk again to Nathan Wrigley, and Michelle Frechette and to meet Katie Keith. “How many times can we say patterns?” Answer: A lot.
… and when you read Anne McCarthy’s post below, you also will know why!
In their latest post, Core Editor Improvement: Advancing the power of Patterns, Anne McCarthy covers new features, big and small, coming to WordPress 6.3 that impact the experience of creating and using patterns. You can explore these features if you’re using Gutenberg 16.2 except the ability to rename and duplicate custom patterns coming to 16.3.
In the latest Learn WordPress workshop, Bud Kraus Demystified the Navigation Block and showed you how to set up your site’s navigation now and in the future. How you build menus for your website had changed considerably and this is a great workshop to learn, what you have to relearn and unlearn 🙂
Justin Tadlock migrated one of his long-time plugins to also work with the site editor as a block: Breadcrumbs. You can now add a breadcrumb block to your pages and posts and archives, and it will automatically pick up the hierarchy and nested pages. You can change text color, background, and link color, including the hover state and adjust the padding and the margins. The plugin, I hear, has been submitted to the plugin repository, but there appears to be a 2-months waiting time to get approved. You can use it now by grabbing it from the GitHub repository.
Isabel Brison, co Editor Tech lead on the 6.3 release, published the first Dev Note from the Gutenberg project: Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3. You learn more about the changes to layout support, CSS specificity, the new Grid type, to post template and spacer block of the Site editor.
“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2022” A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly. The index 2020 is here
Mary Baum posted her the first post on the WordPress Developer Blog. Make your site’s typography make a statement is the first post of a series of six tackling the ins and outs of typography in general and specifically for designers using WordPress and its site editor as a design tool. As the new #nocode site editor also attracts new designers and those without a long career in design, this series will help everyone to level up and build attractive, readable and fast websites.
On the WordPress Developer Blog, Justin Tadlock published What’s new for developers? (July 2023). The sixth edition of a monthly roundup that showcases features that are specific to theme and plugin developers. The latest updates are focused on the upcoming WordPress 6.3 release.
Eric Karkovack interviewed Riad Benguella about the Command Palette coming to WordPress 6.3 next month: A Closer Look at the WordPress Command Palette. “It opens up a world of possibilities. Imagine being able to change the price of a WooCommerce product without having to edit its post. Or you might display the latest entries from your contact form. The potential time savings could add up. Suddenly, what used to require dozens of clicks could be reduced to a few keywords.” Karkowack wrote.
Asked about the next steps for the feature, Benguella answered: “Right now, the Command Palette is available in the Site Editor and the post editor. But we need to add it to more pages and more contexts to take advantage of its capabilities. For instance, when a block is selected, we may offer contextual commands to manipulate and interact with that block.”
The next WordPress Developer Hours will take place on July 26, 2023, at 11 am EDT / 15:00 UTC and will cover the topic of Styling Blocks. It will have two presentations: Two demos/presentation:
Featured Image: Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany exhibits art by Hamid Zenati. Photo by Birgit Pauli-Haack
As the dev notes for the upcoming WordPress 6.3 release are rolling out, there are so many exciting features that have not yet been highlighted. The new development mode, initiated by declaring the WP_DEVELOPMENT_MODE constant, is one that will be particularly useful for theme developers initially.
WP_DEVELOPMENT_MODE
“The development mode configured on a site defines the kind of development work that the site is being used for,” Google-sponsored WordPress Core Committer Felix Arntz said. This mode is not recommended for production sites.
The possible values for the WP_DEVELOPMENT_MODE constant include core, plugin, theme, all, or an empty string (which is the default). The “all” value is applicable to sites where all three aspects may be modified, such as a client website in progress.
“There are currently only a few use-cases in WordPress core which are determined by the development mode, but this will likely increase in the future,” Arntz said. “Most usage today relates to theme.json caching.”
Since the cache is usually only invalidated when the theme is updated, it can become cumbersome to developers who are actively modifying theme.json and have to manually invalidate it to see their changes. This caching functionality is bypassed when the value is set to “theme.”
Although the WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE constant seems similar to the new developer mode, it specifically denotes whether the environment is development, staging, or production but does not specify what type of development is being done.
“It is likely that you will only use the WP_DEVELOPMENT_MODE constant on a site where WP_DEBUG is enabled and WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE is either ‘development’ or ‘local,’ since it is not advised for development to occur directly against staging or production environments,” Arntz said.
WP_DEBUG
WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE
For more details on when and how to use Developer Mode, and code samples for checking if development mode is active on a site, developers can refer to the dev note published to the make.wordpress.org/core blog.
Bluehost launched its new WonderSuite product this week, which introduces a setup and site creation experience guided by AI. In September 2022, the hosting company debuted its managed WooCommerce packages after acquiring YITH, a WordPress plugin company with more than 100 WooCommerce extensions. The new WonderSuite product is included in all Bluehost WordPress hosting plans and is not specific to online stores.
WonderSuite brings together solutions from YITH and Yoast and integrates them into a new unified design that is based on Yoast’s open source React component library. This interface was introduced as an update in Yoast 20.0 with mixed feedback. Although many users reacted positively to the modern design, some are not keen on plugins building their own UI in the admin. Bluehost is using this component library to streamline and unify the UI for its various products inside the admin.
WonderSuite is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, agencies, and freelancers who are just getting online. The major update here is the WonderStart onboarding experience that asks the user specific questions and then populates other parts of the website building process with their answers. For example, social media handles will automatically sent to SEO optimization and added to the social buttons block.
Bluehost also pulls the WonderStart data into the WonderBlocks, which are used to create a library of block patterns and page templates using images and suggested text based on the user’s entries during onboarding. All of this works with the block-based YITH Wonder Theme, which is free on WordPress.org and active on more than 10,000 sites.
Wonder theme users have access to some patterns and templates but Bluehost customers have more designs available to them in combination with WonderBlocks. Those hosting with Bluehost who don’t want to use the default Wonder Theme will can still use the WonderBlocks pattern library with any block-based theme.
Bluehost is one example of a host that is putting AI to use inside the admin. The new WonderHelp section is an AI-powered guide that users can tap into during the site-building process. Users can ask it to create a blog and the feature will provide a guide inside the site builder with instructions for what to do on each page.
The company is working on a feature called WonderAssist that is anticipated later in 2023. It will provide AI-powered content generation with relevant copy, product descriptions, and SEO-friendly excerpts integrated with the other parts of WonderSuite.
Bluehost’s e-commerce customers also have access to WonderCart, which provides a collection of cross-sell and upsell features, along with promotional and discount options inside a single, unified interface, instead of spread across multiple plugins and tools.
Existing Bluehost customers can find the updated plugin in their WordPress sites with the new products available. Onboarding is currently only available for users starting new websites but a representative said they are working on creating a path that allows existing customers to re-route through the onboarding experience.
In today\'s show Vova Feldman co-hosts as we chat about all things when it comes to WordPress and WooCommerce builders comfort zone.
>> The post The Do the Woo Friday Show with Vova Feldman appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
WordPress’ admin is on deck for a long-awaited makeover after Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura published plans for a revamped admin design as part of the Phase 3: Collaboration road map.
“As WordPress turns twenty years old, the overall aim of this work is to improve upon this experience at a foundational design level, giving plugins and users more control over the navigation while ensuring each WordPress experience is recognizable, intuitive, accessible, and delightful,” Ventura said.
His post is a follow-up to some earlier admin concepts he published a year ago which evolves the admin towards more fluid browsing and editing flows. This is similar to the block editor design that positions the admin frame as a shell that wraps around a canvas that contains the content in a zoomed state. Instead of users clicking back to access navigation tools, the tools remain present but outside of the canvas view.
Although contributors have not yet officially produced any designs for the project, Ventura shared a light version of an admin concept.
One aspect of the proposed plans that has energized the developer community is the prospect of the admin getting rebuilt with an extensible design system.
“This effort is also an opportunity to formalize the design primitives and interaction paradigms that are part of the UI component system begun in wordpress/components,” Ventura said.
wordpress/components
“A crucial aspect is to ensure WordPress itself is built with the same pieces and APIs that plugin authors can use. Aside from color themes, our set of primitive components also need to work in dense environments like the editor, as well as environments that need more breathing room and focus like admin sections. Density, clarity, usability, and accessibility are paramount.”
The admin design concepts have renewed developers’ excitement about the future of WordPress, but they are also hoping this revamp will solve several long-standing problems with the interface.
One recurring theme in the feedback was the need to find a way to curb the pollution of top-level menus and the out of control admin notices, which are hijacked by plugin developers in the absence of a standard notification system.
“It’s really about aligning APIs, ensuring we have semantic descriptions of capabilities, and offering the right levels of controls for both plugins and users,” Ventura said.
“I know it’s a fairly limited example, but there’s a nice balance in the ability to pin or unpin plugin sidebars on the editor, from the perspective that plugins can be opinionated, and users can still interact with those opinions.”
Another challenge that concerns developers is ensuring the new design adequately accommodates WordPress sites with large numbers of posts, pages, categories, menus, comments, and other things that can easily overwhelm a UI that was intended to be simplified.
“As part of leveraging the components across the admin interface, we need to address functional gaps (like table and list views, bulk editing operations, etc) and assist plugin needs for anything that might not be already addressed that should be addressed,” Ventura said. “Ultimately, the design library needs to be showcased in the wordpress.org website as a clear resource for people building upon WordPress.”
Developers who participated in the comments were optimistic about the project and reacted positively to the concepts Ventura shared.
“I often say, white space is where the magic happens,” WordPress designer and developer Brian Gardner said.
“The light admin concept is breathtaking and gets me even more excited than I am now about the future of WordPress.”
Several developers commented on how eagerly they are awaiting an update to a modern UI that reduces the number of page refreshes.
“Wow! It’s gonna be amazing!” WPMarmite founder Alex Borto said. “A complete admin fluid browsing experience is much needed. I dream of navigating through the admin area without any page loads!”
For years, WordPress developers have been expected to try to match WordPress’ dated admin UI on their settings pages and the Yoast SEO plugin drew criticism when it released version 20.0 with a new modern interface. Many users are not keen on plugins building their own UI in the admin, as it can make things more confusing. Having a standard set of UI components would make things easier for developers who are extending WordPress.
“This gives me great optimism about securing the next 20 years of WordPress’s success,” WordPress developer Mike McAlister said. “The fact that you can do anything with WordPress is incredible, it’s probably our biggest strength.
“But without standardized design patterns for the admin, we’ve seen that devolve into a UI/UX headache with plugin and theme developers baking their own experiences inside WordPress. Reining this in and creating a unified experience for everyone to buy into will not only make it easier on product creators, it will also be a huge win for users.”
Ventura said this document is just an outline of the admin design project and that it will be followed up with more in-depth design explorations further down the road.
WordPress 6.3 is less than one month away. Get started testing now and tune in for the live product demo. As we head into WordPress 6.4’s kickoff, it’s time to set our sights on Gutenberg Phase 3: Collaborative Editing. Your feedback to the ideas presented is important. The first cohort of New Contributor Mentorship Program has also begun. There is clearly more interest than capacity to staff in this first group, which is a very encouraging sight.
β WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 6.3 Live Product Demo Help Test WordPress 6.33⃣ Gutenberg Phase 3 Contributor Mentorship Program!>>
In this episode, Cory Miller, CEO of Post Status, and Rob Cairns, Founder, CEO, and Chief Creator of Amazing Ideas at Stunning Digital Marketing, discuss the importance of website security, client communication, and managing client expectations. They also talk about the need for businesses to treat their websites as valuable assets and allocate budgets for their maintenance and security. Websites have become an integral part of modern business operations, especially with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Top Takeaways:
Cory Miller (00:00:00) – All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Post Edits Draft. We’ve got another interview in our series on agency journeys. And I’m talking to a long time friend of mine, Rob Carnes, who has been very active in post. It’s been to a bunch of our meetups and I’m really excited to share his story today. So Rob, thanks for being on The Post podcast.
Rob Cairns (00:00:21) – My pleasure, Corey. Glad to be here.
Cory Miller (00:00:24) – Well, Rob, let’s dive in. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency today. Name and what you do. What kind of work primarily you do for your clients.
Rob Cairns (00:00:34) – Okay, So my name is Rob Cairns. I’m in the greater Toronto area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I should tell you, before I got into running an agency, I have a very tech heavy background which a lot of agency owners don’t have. So I come out of an enterprise healthcare environment, doing servers, doing all kinds of cool stuff to support one of Toronto’s biggest hospitals.
Rob Cairns (00:00:58) – Before that I was actually an old time COBOL programmer. There’s probably a word that you haven’t heard in a long, long time, and I spent some time in the financial industry, so I’ve got a bit of a business background. And then I jumped into agency life because, you know, I always tell the story. I never planned to be in marketing because I had a marketing professor in school back in the 80s who came in the class, and her whole thing was, Oh, I’m good. I’m here because I want my summers off. And I said, I swore then in there I’d never be a marketer if you paid me money to. Well, I lied. So, yeah. And I run I run an agency that’s WordPress focused. A lot of it is WordPress security stuff right now and some builds and then a lot of email marketing and consulting these days. That’s kind of where I’m at.
Cory Miller (00:01:50) – Yeah. And what’s your agency name?
Rob Cairns (00:01:53) – Stunning digital marketing.
Cory Miller (00:01:55) – And what’s the website for your.
Rob Cairns (00:01:58) – Digital marketing is the agency site and digital marketing.info is like my Linktree site. It’s got links to everything I do on the web and where you can find me.
Cory Miller (00:02:09) – Excellent. Excellent. Well, I know as I’ve gotten to know you through some of the meetups, too, I hear more and more about the work you do, and it always impresses me. You’re like, Hey, is anybody worried about this particular update? And and I know you managed quite a few sites and it always I always like lean in when you talk about that because it’s at the heart of what a lot of agency work, particularly at post is that our agencies do is that beast of maintaining WordPress across multiple WordPress client sites. Well, great. Thank you for that. So tell me a little bit about how you got there. I heard a little preface of that, but I wanted to start out with where you are today. Um, and then talk about how you got there. That’s always the compelling part of these Journey series to me is what happened before.
Cory Miller (00:02:59) – So this is today and then what? What’s a little snippet of how what led up to where you are today?
Rob Cairns (00:03:06) – So where I am today was kind of how I got there was us working in healthcare. I wasn’t happy, I’ll tell you that now. I was working probably 60 to 70 hours a week at the time. So this is going back 14 years ago was when we started and I was extremely unhappy and somebody said to me, So why don’t you just go? And I said, Well, I’ve been here 21 years, so if they want to get rid of me, it’s going to cost some lots of money to get rid of me. So let’s force the hand and see where it goes. Well, 14 years ago, my dad was sick with pancreatic cancer at the time he actually passed away July 8th, the anniversary that’s coming up. And they decided, knowing I was going to be taking some time off, they decided we need to we’re going to make some changes and you can go away.
Rob Cairns (00:03:56) – And at that point, I was already building WordPress websites on the side. So I just kind of transitioned to what I was doing on the side full time. Now here’s where it got interesting. I decided really quickly only building the website, it’s only part of getting it out there. You still got a market that site and you got to do it properly. So I made a decision then and there. I was going to build a full stack marketing agency. I’ve taken some courses, a lot of courses. One of my mentors in this space is a gentleman by the name of Paul Tobey, who I’m founder of. Paul. Toby’s actually the father of Adrian Toby, the founder of Groundhog, who you know. So that’s.
Cory Miller (00:04:40) – Love.
Rob Cairns (00:04:40) – Adrian Yeah, love Adrian, Love. His dad saw his dad in January, actually, and we sat in his house and listened to him play some jazz tunes for us where we were visiting and and then transitioned in and at one time was offering all kinds of services and then just realized some of these are just don’t want to do so I just kind of niche down and got out of what I didn’t want to do so.
Cory Miller (00:05:10) – Got you. So how long ago did you go? Full time with the business?
Rob Cairns (00:05:16) – 14 years ago.
Cory Miller (00:05:18) – 14 years ago. Okay. That’s awesome. We were going strong about the same time.
Rob Cairns (00:05:22) – Yeah, about same time. And you. And you and I connected, I think the first time about 14 years ago when I was in the headway community. And you were running the items community. And you’d be proud to know two of the products in my security stack back up by the in 19 security are still there to this day so.
Cory Miller (00:05:40) – Oh that’s fantastic to hear. Well, okay, So I’m really curious. Was there a point when you were like, doing this on the side? What was that juncture when you’re like, okay, I’m going to do this full time? A lot of the stories we hear, I hear in It’s My Own is some event. Something helped kind of catalyze the process to become a full time entrepreneur. And so I’m curious. So not happy, of course. And then, hey, I think you might have mentioned this just a second ago, but I want to make sure I’m clear on it.
Cory Miller (00:06:13) – So was there event that kind of like, okay, I’m doing this full time, this is the only thing I’m doing.
Rob Cairns (00:06:18) – So my as I say, my dad was battling pancreatic cancer at the time. Oh, right. Yeah. I went on three weeks vacation after I was on the corporate project, number one, and amassing overtime like nothing. And I walked back in on a Monday morning. I got a call from the director’s secretary at 10 a.m. and say, Director won’t see you in a boardroom at 3:00. And the boardroom was not the normal boardroom for meetings. So I just kind of put my feet up and said, okay, I know how this day’s going to play out. Welcome back from vacation for me. And believe it or not, I actually shipped everything personal home from work at lunchtime in a cab because I saw the writing on the wall. I’d seen it on the wall for a while. Yeah. Then I get, um, I get called in and the director says, Do you know why you’re here? I said, So you’re going to let me go, so let’s just get it over with.
Rob Cairns (00:07:16) – And the h.r. Manager turned to me and said, how do you how do you feel about all this? And my response at the time was, my lawyer will tell you at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Now you’re like no other comment.
Cory Miller (00:07:27) – Now at this time, you were already doing things on the side, though, right? Yeah, I think that’s important to note in the story because, you know, some of these events that happen, but you were already kind of testing the waters, building some kind of side hustle side gig on the side. So you didn’t just, you know, jump out into the ether. You had something kind of built up. Were you doing work for like client? I mean, friends? How did the the side gig kind of start parallel to that side gig?
Rob Cairns (00:07:59) – Actually, it’s really interesting you ask that question. Being in tech, I’m like a resource in my family and you can appreciate that. So I did go to the let’s send an email to let’s ask the question.
Rob Cairns (00:08:13) – And I actually got fed up with family, believe it or not, and I wrote a website at that time was HTML and said, by the way, here’s all the family pictures from the event last week because I was also the manager of all that digital stuff. And by the way, here’s links to all the questions you guys asked me and nobody’s allowed to ask me a question until you go to these links and and actually do your own homework. So that was my start into domains and all of that and web stuff. And the other thing that started it was this is going back to the days of dial and dialing Internet providers, if we remember those days. Yep. And trauma, they were a dime a dozen. So I used to switch providers, i.e. email services more than most people because I get fed up with one dial in provider and I cancel. I go to another one, I cancel, I go to another one, I cancel. So I finally said, Forget this, I’m going to register a domain which I still have to this day.
Rob Cairns (00:09:15) – And then that was kind of my foray in. And then after doing static sites, I realized WordPress was the way to go and that’s what kind of opened the door.
Cory Miller (00:09:24) – So what was your introduction to WordPress? What kind of time period did you start using?
Rob Cairns (00:09:28) – WordPress would have been about 16, 15 years ago. 16 years ago?
Cory Miller (00:09:32) – Yeah, right. Right. In its first early heyday for sure. That’s about the same time I got started with WordPress, this cool platform that you didn’t have to manage with all these HTML top software and updated 100 pages you could do with one click. Essentially this concept of content management system was really, really crazy and awesome.
Rob Cairns (00:09:53) – We all remember the famous five minute WordPress install where our our hosting providers didn’t have a one click installer like stop flashes or any of them. We had to do it ourselves, right?
Cory Miller (00:10:05) – And yeah, we did it. I mean, I’m trying to remember when I did that, if it was FTP, you know, putting it on the server.
Cory Miller (00:10:14) – Yeah, I’m trying to think back about that. I use soft tactless quite a bit in the early days, but that was magical back then. If you think about it, it’s like I want the ability to do build a website and I don’t have to learn too many technical logistics. I remember googling. What does FTP mean? That was one of our first post that I themes because I was like, if I have this question, I bet you a bunch of other people have this question. But yeah, WordPress made it easy.
Rob Cairns (00:10:40) – Yeah. I have to tell you a funny story. You appreciate being over it. I think so. I had a client years ago. It was Australian, one of my first big clients, and he didn’t see the spending the money on something like backup buddy. So the silly client came back to me and said, So write me the documentation process of tobacco and restore a website menu and document it out. And the story goes that the cost to him paying for that documentation at the time would have cost him more than a yearly license for backup money.
Rob Cairns (00:11:12) – Well, even or not. So needless to say, he became a backup buddy. Pretty convert pretty quickly. Corey.
Cory Miller (00:11:20) – So. Well, okay, so you go full time with the agency starting to do on work. I know somewhere in there was like, Hey, there’s more to just the actual website build. There’s marketing different parts around the website. Um, as you look back, you know, 15 years now, what were some of the catalytic events that help you in your agency, personal professional, WordPress, all these things. If you look back where like 3 or 4 of the things that really made the difference in your agency to where you’re now, I know you’ve been doing this a long time. I know you’ve been able to have freedom of life to do different things in your life as part of the business part of WordPress, which is always the magic, I think, WordPress. But if you look back, what are those couple of things that kind of stand out?
Rob Cairns (00:12:06) – Um, a couple of things.
Rob Cairns (00:12:07) – One is I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so my mother is 78 years old, still alive and still selling houses, believe it or not. As a real estate agent, my aunt who passed away at 92, was one of the top real estate brokers for Century 21 in the Farmington, Detroit area for many, many years. First successful. I come from a family who’s done business on their own, so that helps. My father was a CFO for an insurance broker, so that helps. That helped install some money sense into me and some business sense into me. I’m also a lifelong learner. So you and I have talked over the years about how much reading I do or how much listening to other podcasts. I do believe it or not, my own podcast is not on my podcast player backdrop. I’m busy listening to everybody else’s because think you got to get a variety of point. And then kind of just people along the way. People like yourself. People like Paul. Toby Paul was a big catalyst for giving me credit and saying, you know, more than like 75% of the world.
Rob Cairns (00:13:21) – Just go after it. So Paul was really good for me around mindset more than just technical stuff, so that was good. And then things like in my life recognizing and you and I have had this conversation about mental health challenges and the whole pearls around that. You’ve been through it. I’ve been through it. We’ve talked about it very candidly together over the years. That has helped. Am probably. 200% more mental health. Healthy today in my 50s and was in my 30s. I would say that, you know.
Cory Miller (00:13:58) – I think I want to say ditto. I think I think so.
Rob Cairns (00:14:02) – And then surrounding yourself with the right people and people like yourself, people like post others group people like, you know, people outside of the post group, people you can go to and say, Hey, I just need an ear or, Hey, I’m stuck on something technical. I should know doing that. And then kind of. A big part of all this was deciding a number of years ago that I’m such a security junkie and I always was, even when I was in health care, and I need to dive into the security space and put my time and money there.
Rob Cairns (00:14:38) – And that was a big part of it, too. And that’s how that came to birth. You mentioned, I imagine, websites as of yesterday’s count 418, believe it or not, just from an update in security perspective and growing by the day. So.
Cory Miller (00:14:53) – It’s it’s for sure become a thing in a good part of our industry and community that there’s agencies like yours and I’ve talked to a lot that that are recognized WordPress is awesome. There’s a lot of things that go into it as far as keeping those things updated. So somebody goes, Oh, I built it, you know, I built the baseball field, Field of Dreams. It’s there. Cool. Everybody’s going to come to it. There’s two sides of the coin that’s really interesting with your story. One is that updates security. Part of it got to keep the field maintained. The other side is the marketing part. I found this fascinating because you’ve got this to blend of marketing and the really the maintenance said that includes this big topic called security.
Rob Cairns (00:15:37) – Yep, it’s true. And like one of the biggest things I think agency owners don’t do well is they don’t manage their own mailing lists, let alone their client mailing lists. And email marketing has become one of my strengths over the years and think that is a big deal because the only thing you really own is your website. In your mailing list. Everything is kind of what we call rented land or other people’s land in the rules change by the day and it gets to be awful.
Cory Miller (00:16:07) – So yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. I’ve talked to a lot of people. I think a lot of the WordPress community saw one thing from my work at things, but I go, you know, one want to know the key to what we built. There’s a lot of keys, right? But one of the big keys, especially marketing, was email marketing. And I love how you said website, what you really own, the website and email address. You don’t even own the rankings. You got to keep working on those things.
Cory Miller (00:16:32) – You got to you don’t even necessarily on the traffic. You got to keep working on those things. But when you have the what click for me with email marketing, was this old school, now old school concept of direct marketing when people used to go door to door and still do of course, to sell something to that person directly. And I think that was when it clicked for me is email is direct marketing where I don’t control the algorithms and whatever tech billionaire is going to buy another of the social media platforms. But if I consistently build I was actually talking to entrepreneur last week about this, just she’s just getting started with the physical product. And I said, Hey, you know, all the jazz and the sexiness is out on the social media platforms. However, it’s a great way to get started, push them, funnel them into an email where you can still to date in 2023, directly market. It still works, but so many are adverse to it or don’t do the work to keep up their keep up, grow, maintain their email lists and use them properly.
Rob Cairns (00:17:37) – And to segment them properly. Mean the big issue is. So I’ll give you an example. I have an email list that’s running about 7500 active right now. I’ve probably got, if you count people have an open stuff in like the last 60 days and probably closer to 1200. So the key is not to send emails to your host, send them to the 7500 that are active and then every six months touch base with the other people once in a while, like because honestly, that’s waste of time and money. Like don’t put your emphasis there, but you segment your list and figure out what people want from you and who’s going to open stuff. And as a result, on that 7500, I run an open rate of about listeners about 62% on a regular basis. Which is incredible.
Cory Miller (00:18:29) – Yeah, indeed. And it all takes work. Websites, take work, emails take a work to properly do it well. So. So you know, a couple of the things I’m interested in. The last 15 years or so you’ve been doing, this is what you’ve seen kind of transition the evolution of WordPress you know, from and websites within that.
Cory Miller (00:18:53) – So you know how WordPress has gone in the last 15 years. Where do you think it is now? Where do you think it’s going in the future, what your clients are seeing and value in as part of having a great web presence? And I’m curious your thoughts on those two things. So the underlying technology has grown 15 years. We just celebrated 20th anniversary of WordPress, which is just fascinating to me. Um, and then, you know, this, this changing perception, I think growing, valuing perception of websites, the value of having a WordPress type website.
Rob Cairns (00:19:29) – So there’s a couple of things. When we all started with WordPress, you and I, it was basically a blogging platform and now we’re building these whole robust membership sites, e-commerce sites, we’re building all this stuff and it’s incredible. And people say, Oh, why don’t you go to an e-commerce platform? Well, I have to tell you, I picked up the paper today, this morning before we jumped on this call. Corey and Shopify, who we all know is one of the big e-commerce products, is in trouble with the Canadian government because they refuse to hand over shopping records to the tax people so they can go after individuals.
Rob Cairns (00:20:10) – And the cool thing about WordPress is that’s all self contained. So as we get into this privacy era, everything’s within your dashboard and you can even buy marketing solutions like Groundhog Adrian, Toby or Fluent CRM, another one that resides right inside that dashboard which protects your privacy and puts you in control. And I think that’s the whole thing about WordPress. The other big thing I’ve seen is a big change in the hosting space. And you’ll agree with me, um, what’s old is good and what hosting companies have reinvented themselves in the last while. And two I like to point out to is one over at New fold and we both of us have a mutual friend there in the name of Dave Ryan at Neufeld. So Dave and his team, I’ve had many dealings with them. They were the old endurance and they came out of that. And they’re trying to reinvent themselves by running around and buying plug ins like they bought Yoast and they bought it and doing things like that. And then important for new fold, they’ve become more community aware than they’ve ever become before.
Rob Cairns (00:21:19) – So this was not the idea of eight years ago or nine years ago. I can guarantee that. And they’ve changed. And then you take somebody like her friends up at GoDaddy and, you know, I know that team pretty well for work I’ve done, and they’ve reinvented themselves. They’ve come out of the ashes of the Danica Patrick ads, as we call them. Remember those? Could you see a sexist ad like that flying in today’s society? I don’t think so.
Cory Miller (00:21:50) – No. We’ve evolved past that for sure for for better.
Rob Cairns (00:21:55) – But they’ve also reinvented themselves. And then even in a hosting space, you got companies like Liquid Web and WP Engine and Cloud, and then you’ve got companies that were leaders that have kind of dropped off. And a company I throw into a group like that is Siteground think, you know. Ten years. Five years ago, they were great. And then somethings kind of happened. So things go cyclical. Um, in terms of the technology more, it’s worth mentioning where we’ve gone.
Rob Cairns (00:22:25) – So we’ve gone from coding and WordPress with plugins to page builders and your team and I think this is one of the first with, with your builder product, right? And themes to, to build sites. And then we got into things like headway, which we all know the story of what happened there and they were part of their problems. They were miles ahead of their time and just not adapted. And then we got into the traditional page builders like the Beaver Builders, the Yeah, Elementor, the bricks, that kind of stuff, which is prominent now. And now we’re headed to this magical thing called blocks. And you know, there’s a couple block ecosystems. The one I use is cadence. I’ve been all in with Cadence for a couple of years now. So there’s evolution, that spot. And I think we’re we’re starting to see more is WordPress is becoming more than just a publishing platform. Automattic owns Tumblr, Automattic owns pocket casts, one of the biggest pocket podcast players out there. They own the day One journal, which is a journaling app, um, would encourage anybody out there who needs a journaling product to go get it.
Rob Cairns (00:23:45) – It’s worth every penny of it, like honestly. So they’re trying to democratize that whole, the whole solution. So, so a lot that’s gone on in 20. Um.
Cory Miller (00:23:59) – Yeah, there’s a whole history there and everything you talked about. I think what stands out was the hosting industry. It’s definitely evolved, grown and a lot of money has come into WordPress hosting space in particular. You talk about new Fold in Endurance, for instance, like it’s turned over, been sold and bought so many acquisitions in the space and for good reason, because WordPress is a great platform for millions of people to build their website on. So but you know, there’s a trend there too, which is you talked about the reinvention and kind of coming out of stuff. What I’ve seen in 15 years plus years or so is. Yeah, it starts out good. Trying to claim her to get new customers. New clients, show them, you know, help them with their stuff. And it seems a lot of cyclical ness of like, okay, they reached this point where now they’re trying to really all the hosting companies, I would say, should make a profit.
Cory Miller (00:25:02) – But then there’s a swath that like, okay, increasingly trying to make it more profitable to understand part of business. However, then you see customer service and support start to kind of fade with some of that and then you get this whole, okay, they’re going down and then going up. And I’ve I’m not going to name the names, but there’s a lot there where you see the cyclical up and down of that hosting side, which isn’t always healthy for WordPress either. I get it as a business part. What they need to do for their shareholders, partners, all that kind of stuff. But it’s definitely changed from like 2008 when I think this was on a shared hosting plan for like, I don’t know, $5 a month or $10 a month at like HostGator. And it’s I’ve kind of bemoaned it some because what the effect now is the experience for the WordPress user, those people that are your clients that are using their website and there’s that up and down. They’ve had to ride some of that and it’s always not good thing for the health of the ecosystem.
Rob Cairns (00:26:06) – It’s true. And the other thing I should add to to this discussion is I think the team up at Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, has been much more receptive to comments, suggestions than ever before. And I know some people don’t feel that way, but I think we’re in really good hands with Josepha being the executive director of the WordPress project, you know, and things like that. And I know on the Gutenberg side I’ve gotten to know Matthias Venture, The Gutenberg lead a little bit and, and people like our friends Polly Hack or people like Jessica Frick over at Percival, which is an automatic company. People like that have put us in pretty good hands, frankly.
Cory Miller (00:26:52) – Yeah, my personal opinion is automatic has long term commitment to the industry and I’m really proud to have them as sponsors a lot of automatic and post status and for good reason. But you know a long term commitment to like they have had the opportunity for many years to really really monetize what WordPress is and have held back. I think this is only my personal opinion.
Cory Miller (00:27:18) – No facts really share other’s leadership there. But get go have had a long term commitment because they believe in open source, they believe in the open web and the ecosystem is healthy. When you have a diverse set of people offering services and products to that, so you get great performance. Obviously they know WordPress inside and out and then the support and those are the things that have that kind of wane over time. In any hosting company that I’ve been, that I’ve been around, I’ve had I’ve been a customer at many of the ones you talked about had clients and friends at many of the ones that you talked about. And but the consistency, I think, is what matters overall. So I agree with you. Agree. Um, okay. So we’ve talked about a whole lot of stuff. Now I want to talk I want to ask this specific question related to your clients. What are you hearing from your clients about WordPress, how they’re using their websites? Because I love talking to our agency owners because tip of the spear for me is the people out there doing the work.
Cory Miller (00:28:20) – For those people using WordPress, they might not even know or care that there’s this open source platform underneath it all. But what are you hearing from your clients about what WordPress and working with the websites?
Rob Cairns (00:28:32) – Yeah, there’s a couple things. I don’t think my clients care what’s under the hood. So by that mean they don’t care if it’s a WordPress site, if it’s a custom site, if it’s something else, as long as it gives them the results they want. So one of the things I’ve been pushing in the community for the last ten years is don’t sell the solution. Sell what it brings you. I’m a big one. Outcome or something, not how you get there. And if anybody doesn’t believe that, I suggest you go look up a guy by the name of Simon Sinek. Start with why is his book and find his Ted talk and watch it and watch it again. So sell the the what you get out of it. So that’s the first one. I also think clients hate to say are dropping the security ball big time right now.
Rob Cairns (00:29:21) – I’m working on a site right now where the client couldn’t find their backup that they were sending to a cloud drive for six days and they took them six days to find out where they put that backup. So one of the things I find with my clients is you have to help them manage their digital assets or their digital stuff, and even more so in small businesses. What happens if the business owner gets run over by a truck tomorrow? What happens if he dies tomorrow? Do you have a succession plan for your business? Do you know how to handle that? Most people don’t. So that’s a problem. And then the other thing is, I think a lot of people flock to WordPress because frankly, what are we powering now? 45% in the Internet, 50% somewhere in there. And I think that alone is a selling thing. That’s attraction. Thing is WordPress is open source. It can’t be secure the security holes every month. Well, guess what? Microsoft Windows plugs security holes on the first Tuesday every month called Patch Tuesday.
Rob Cairns (00:30:27) – And the whole business world runs on Windows more than that. Right. And they’re still plugging holes. Security is a trust factor, not a it happened or it didn’t happen.
Cory Miller (00:30:37) – So I like that because security is a non-essential part of the digital our digital world, particularly our Internet, it’s a part of it. The real question is how are the people or companies behind that making sure it’s always secure. I remember talking to a security expert. I don’t know, it’s been eight years now and they said it’s not a matter this is one that just all they do is security and they go, it’s not a matter of if we’ll get hacked, it’s when and what we’re doing continually. And I go, that’s part of the digital age. That’s where we’re at. So I love that emphasis from your point. It’s just not when it’s if. And what are you doing in the meantime to help proactively do that?
Rob Cairns (00:31:19) – And I’ll take that one more. Corey I have a saying in my business that’s not if you’ll be hacked, it’s when you’ll be hacked.
Rob Cairns (00:31:25) – And how do you recover where I take it? So I kind of look at this mess I’ve been dealing with, and a big part of the problem was the client didn’t have a site updated, the client didn’t have the PHP version updated, the client couldn’t find the backup. You see where this is going? Yep. And it’s we got to take care of those assets and we got to treat them like the they’re important. So that’s that.
Cory Miller (00:31:52) – Just like you would lock your car or your house at night or your car if you’re driving into the supermarket or the grocery store, whatever that is, you’d lock your car because, you know, you do those things. We don’t even think about those things. They’re so embedded now and we need to be doing that. I love this message. We need to be doing that with our digital assets.
Rob Cairns (00:32:11) – We’re a mutual friend of ours. You know, Kathy’s N over at K very well. And I turned to Cathy in January and said, I’m going to make you a prediction.
Rob Cairns (00:32:20) – And she said, Oh, I don’t like your predictions are usually right. And I said, I’m going to declare 2023 as a year of the vulnerability, the first week of January. And that was coming out of the whole LastPass debacle that happened. And we all know about that one. And sure enough, and I think it’s partially awareness, but I think there’s a multitude of factors and it’s kind of played out that way. The other thing I’m hearing from clients is clients don’t realize that websites have to have a budget attached to them for their business. So marketing budget and they say, Oh, we do it in house. And I say, okay, so what’s your hourly rate worth? Oh, it’s worth $40 an hour. How many hours a month do you do? Oh five. So your marketing budget is 40 times five. So that’s the other thing. Business has got to take this stuff seriously and start to budget for.
Cory Miller (00:33:17) – I love that Social Security and then budget, and that’s the mindset.
Cory Miller (00:33:21) – So, you know, a lot of the conversations I’ve been having is the recognition from clients that their website is not just valuable, it’s an integral part of how they do business. Covid accelerated a lot of that. I think it’s like, Hey, we got so many physical location, bricks and mortar type businesses realizing when you can’t actually see a person face to face. So I have two way of a way to be able to do business. So I love that it’s integral. So security, part of life budgeting, you need to budget for it just like you would any other part of your businesses in the essential part of your business. And so many of the agency owners have talked to here at Post Status, they the clients are recognizing that it’s in some of the instances, I would say more like a B2B. They see it’s at a very, very valuable part of their overall sales strategy and they value it deeply. Some run their whole operations or half operations, you know, and items and post those two, we run our whole operation through online space so it feels foreign.
Cory Miller (00:34:26) – But that’s not the way business is traditionally. It’s, you know, you go to a store, you travel, you walk, you ride in a horse and buggy or a car to get to. Things have changed. And that seems like what I’m hearing, too, is that mindset needs a change of like this is all a part of business domains, websites, all the platforms you might be on, all as important as that door that opens up into your business.
Rob Cairns (00:34:51) – 100% and then look at the criticality of it. So, for example, if you’re an e-commerce site that’s making 30,000 US a day profit, then you need a different level of support than somebody that’s got a brochure site that is out there just to be the face of their business. So you got to think about things like that, too. Very much so.
Cory Miller (00:35:12) – Okay, so security and budget. Anything else on your mind about when you when you’re working with clients and how they’re valuing their websites? Any perspectives you have to share there too.
Rob Cairns (00:35:22) – I think a lot of clients in this day and age are unrealistic and think that’s the world we live in. So it’s a very much an I want it now world. It’s I want it yesterday. There’s no patience out there like to tell you I don’t think clients are any different.
Cory Miller (00:35:39) – So. Yeah. So it’s the physical part of business, which I have a friend that has a restaurant supply business and I understand how like when you’re, you know, stove or cooktop is down, they can’t sell. And then now that okay, got to have it now. And that service side is pretty intense for them. I can see that now being applied to the business is where they see it as essential. I want to say that’s a good part, but when it comes with some mindset change of okay, we need to be able to budget for that and pay for that and, and knowing like in the middle of the night or whatever it is to have that kind of service turnaround is not always possible or realistic.
Rob Cairns (00:36:27) – And communication is a big part of it too. I don’t think some clients communicate well, don’t think some agencies communicate well. Like, for example, I’m going on vacation next Wednesday. Yay me, I’ve already sent out an email to my entire client was saying, By the way, the only thing I’ll deal with while I’m away is a website down issue. Everything else sits till I get home and just tell them upfront. Now, they might not like to hear it, but that’s you’re allowed to take time off. You’re allowed to recharge.
Cory Miller (00:36:58) – The good communication, getting ahead of it to manage those expectations? Yeah, absolutely vital. All right, Rob. Well, anything else you want to share that you’re excited about, that you’re working on or doing?
Rob Cairns (00:37:10) – I think the big thing is the security side of it. Think, think. We just got to be aware and and make sure you’re aware and if and if anybody needs help agencies otherwise reach out, be glad to help them and be involved in the community.
Rob Cairns (00:37:25) – That’s a big part of what you and I do. You do not repost status. As you know, I co-manage a large LinkedIn group with Courtney Robertson. I’ve got a podcast that’s, you know, it’s good for business awareness, but it’s also good for the community too. So get involved. The community. Somebody if you can go to a word camp, go says the guy who’s got no time to go to work. Camps right now have not been to a five check by I missed word camp Buffalo Oh boy did I take stuff for not being on that one because that was a that’s an hour and a half away. I didn’t go to Montclair this weekend because, again, I’ve got conflicts. And the other thing is, look after you and your family and look after how you feel. Look after your health. Because if you don’t do that, you can’t run your business. So keep that.
Cory Miller (00:38:14) – Absolutely. Well, thanks, Rob, for being on post staff. Appreciate your work in the community and what you do with WordPress out in the world to our story.
Rob Cairns (00:38:22) – Thanks for having me.
AI is here to stay so I asked the community about the impact on eCommerce. Listen in to Patrick Rauland, Remkus de Vries, Katie Keith, Kelly Muro and Scott Bowler.
>> The post What Impact Will AI Have on eCommerce? appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
All-In-One Security (AIOS), a plugin active on more than a million WordPress sites, was found to be logging plaintext passwords from login attempts in the database and has patched the security issue in version 5.2.0.
In a post titled “Cleartext passwords written to aiowps_audit_log” published to the plugin’s support forum two weeks and five days ago, @c0ntr07 reported the issue:
\nI was absolutely shocked that a security plugin is making such a basic security 101 error (not to mention being out of compliance with NIST 800-63-3, ISO27000, CIS, HIPAA, GDPR, ….)\n\n\n\nHow can I stop the logging of clear text passwords?\n\n\n\nHow can this be fixed so we don’t fail the upcoming security review and audit by our third-party compliance auditors?\n
I was absolutely shocked that a security plugin is making such a basic security 101 error (not to mention being out of compliance with NIST 800-63-3, ISO27000, CIS, HIPAA, GDPR, ….)
How can I stop the logging of clear text passwords?
How can this be fixed so we don’t fail the upcoming security review and audit by our third-party compliance auditors?
A support representative from AIOS confirmed that it was a known bug in the last release and offered a development copy of a zip file with a fix. It took more than two weeks for the patch to be published.
In version 5.2.0, released on July 10, 2023, AIOS included the following security updates in the plugin’s changelog:
Users are advised to update to version 5.2.0+ immediately in order to secure their sites. At the time of publishing, almost no users have updated to 5.2.0+, leaving hundreds of thousands of users who are running 5.1.9 still vulnerable.
“So far the developer haven’t even told the users to change all passwords,” Patchstack CEO Oliver Sild said in response to the issue on Twitter. “Due to the scale, we will 100% see hackers harvest the credentials from the logs of compromised sites that run (or has run) this plugin.
“We have also sent out vulnerability alert to all Patchstack users. Hopefully the Updraft team will do the same and will tell their security plugin users to clean those logs ASAP and ask all the site users to change the passwords where ever they used the same combinations.”
While you can try your best to answer every visitor’s question directly on your site, some will inevitably have questions and need to reach out for help. Or maybe a member of the press wants to set up an interview. Perhaps qualified job candidates want to get in touch.
Whatever the reason, it’s usually a good idea to have a means of contact through your site.
Luckily, you can add a contact form in WordPress to make it a quick and easy process for visitors to reach out. And you can even include special fields to help identify the purpose of each inquiry and respond quickly and effectively.
In this post, we’ll discuss nine simple steps to add a contact form in WordPress. And we’ll tell you about the best ways to prevent fake spam submissions from clogging your inbox. Then, we’ll address the most frequently asked questions concerning contact forms.
The easiest way to add a contact form to your website is to use a WordPress plugin that simplifies the process. You can find tons of free (and paid) options that offer a similar type of service. But, most premium plugins come not only with a simple contact form template, but additional options and advanced features.
Contact Form 7 is a popular choice. While it comes with a steep learning curve for beginners, the tool is free and can be installed on an unlimited number of sites. In addition, it’s important to note that this plugin doesn’t store or save contact form submissions unless you add a second tool called Flamingo.
You can also accept file uploads, display a confirmation message upon submission, and extend the plugin with several add-ons.
But, if you’re looking for a straightforward WordPress contact form plugin that’s quick to learn, Jetpack’s an excellent choice.
It’s a super beginner-friendly tool, since it enables you to add the Form block to your page in the same way that you’d use any other WordPress block. Even better, you get tons of configuration options.
For instance, you’re able to change the confirmation message and redirect users after submission. Additionally, you can continue to edit and reorder the layout of your form even after you’ve added fields to your page.
Plus, Jetpack also has a WordPress comment feature and integrates seamlessly with anti-spam tools like Akismet, enabling you to protect your site from any illegitimate or malicious form submissions.
Since Jetpack is a free plugin, you can install and activate it right within the WordPress dashboard. Simply head to Plugins → Add New. Then, search for “Jetpack”.
Here, it’s the first option that you can see, so go ahead and click on Install Now. This may take a few seconds. Then, select Activate.
At this point, you’re able to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account. If you don’t have a WordPress.com account, it’s quick (and free) to set one up. Then, you can unlock the full potential of the Jetpack tool on your website.
Now that you have Jetpack installed on your site, you’re ready to create a new contact form. You can open an existing page to edit or, if you want to create a dedicated contact page, create a new page by going to Pages → Add New within your WordPress dashboard.
Now, just as you normally would, add a WordPress block to your page by clicking on the + icon. Search for “form” and choose the green Form block.
You’ll then be able to select a template for your form. Jetpack currently supports contact forms, registration forms, feedback forms, and more. For this tutorial, we’ll use the Contact Form.
This will create a basic contact form. Your contact form template will be visible on your page, with Name, Email, and Message fields, along with a submission button.
Now, click on Save or Publish to update your page.
As we mentioned above, the default Jetpack contact form fields include Name, Email, and Message. But, you can customize the form fields if you’d like.
To do so, simply click on the specific form field that you want to change. Then, select the field icon in the toolbar above.
For example, if you’re changing the Name field, this icon will be labeled Name Field.
At this point, you’ll see a whole list of Jetpack fields that you can replace your Name field with.
You might like to swap the default fields for a website URL field, date picker, phone number field, checkboxes, dropdowns, etc.
To make the change, simply click on the new field that you want to add to your form. Then, edit the field label by typing a new name in the text area.
Now, you can also make certain fields a requirement for your visitors to complete. To do this, select your field and click on the asterisk icon in the toolbar.
Or, you can disable this feature by clicking on it a second time. This will make the field optional, and you’ll see that the (required) text beside the Name field has disappeared.
To add an extra field to your form, access the WordPress blocks by clicking on the blue + icon to the left of your screen. Then, search for “Jetpack” to view all the Jetpack form fields.
Now, simply drag your new field into position.
If you want to reorder your existing fields, use the arrows in the toolbar to move fields up or down.
Now, click on Publish or Save to update your contact form.
Now that you’ve customized the fields of your contact form, it’s time to configure the form settings. This way, you can determine the email address where form submissions should be sent. Additionally, you can display a thank you message to visitors that complete your form.
To access your form settings, click on your Form block. It’s important to make sure that you’ve selected the entire form and not just one of your form fields. Now, in the Block settings to your right, you should find the configuration options.
At the very top of your menu, you’ll see Manage Responses. Since you’re just building your form now, you won’t need this yet. But in the future, you can simply click on View Form Responses to view and filter form submissions in your dashboard.
Now, let’s move on to your Submission Settings. Here, you’ll be able to change your form display message. Simply use the On Submission dropdown box to choose Show a custom text message.
Then, in the Message Text box, you can type your thank you message.
Alternatively, you can use the On Submission dropdown menu to choose Redirect to another website. Then, paste the URL in the Redirect Address box.
You can also set the email address where form submissions should be sent in the Email Connection tab.
Here, simply add your email address to receive submissions in your inbox. You can also choose a custom email subject line for these messages. When you’re ready, click on Publish to update your form.
At this point, you’ve created a new contact form, configured your form settings, and customized your field selections. Now you’re all set to style your form by adjusting elements like colors, fonts, sizing, and more.
To access the stylistic settings, select one of your form fields. Then, navigate to the Block settings. Starting out in the Field Settings, you can adjust the specific field width using the available options.
For example, you might want the name and email field to appear on the same line. In which case, you can change each fields’ width to 50% so that both fit on a single line.
Keep in mind that you can use the Sync fields style toggle to make sure that all fields update with the stylistic changes that you make in this section. This enables you to easily create a cohesive look.
Now, under Color, you can set new colors for the field background, field text, label text, and border. It’s important to maintain a contrast between the background and text so that users can clearly see what they type.
But, you can get creative with the combinations, or match the form colors to the rest of your website’s branding.
It’s also easy to change the text size and line height of your fields under Input Field Styles. Meanwhile, Label Styles is where you can make the same changes to your field labels.
If you scroll down to Advanced, you’re able to add custom CSS to apply greater stylistic changes to your form. Again, select Publish to update the form with the styles.
Implementing a contact form on your WordPress website has tons of worthwhile benefits. Still, it does open up your website to one major risk — spam. Not only can spammers and bots interact with your form, they can also target the email addresses that visitors supply in your form fields.
That’s why it’s a good idea to install an anti-spam plugin to prevent spam on your form. Akismet Anti-Spam is an excellent option, developed by Automattic (the team behind WordPress.com).
It integrates seamlessly with the platform as well as plenty of plugins like Jetpack. The Akismet features work automatically, blocking spam with a 99.99 percent accuracy rate.
To get started with Akismet, you’ll need an API key. You can get a free API key if you’re running a personal blog, but for business and commercial sites, you’ll need a paid subscription.
Or, you can get access to Akismet with some of Jetpack’s plans like Jetpack Security, Jetpack Complete, or Jetpack Starter. Once you’ve purchased your package, all you need to do is connect your WordPress site to Jetpack.
Akismet will be activated immediately, but you can check that the plugin is enabled by going to Settings → Akismet Anti-spam from your WordPress admin area.
Here, you can see whether the plugin is active and view the number of spam comments that the tool has blocked. Additionally, you can configure your Akismet settings to display a privacy notice and manage spam more effectively.
Protecting your forms from spammers and bots using Akismet is ideal because it enables you to do so without impacting the user experience.
While some sites try using CAPTCHAs as an alternative, this should be avoided. That’s because this adds unnecessary steps to the process and can deter visitors from filling out your form (more on this later).
Now that you’ve got your contact form ready, let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can add it to your website. For instance, you can add your form to a page. Or, you can add it to your header, footer, or sidebar.
The easiest way to add your contact form to your website is to add it to one of your pages. As we’ve discussed, this is super simple to do with Jetpack, since you can add a form as a WordPress block.
All you need to do is add a new page to your site or open an existing one to edit. Then, click on the + icon to add a new block and search for “form”.
Now, add the Form block to your website and select the Contact Form template. Here, you’ll see the default Jetpack form fields including Name, Email, and Message.
Then, you can configure your form settings to display a thank you message to visitors and specify the email address where you want to receive form submissions. Plus, you can apply styles to the layout to change the color and size of the form.
You can check out how to do this in the main section of the tutorial in steps 4, 5, and 6. But at this point, click on Publish to save your contact form to your page.
The easiest way to add a contact form to your header, footer, or sidebar is to use the Site Editor. In the past, you’d only be able to unlock this level of functionality using custom code, or with plugins.
But for some time now, the Site Editor has made it easy to get your site looking exactly the way you want. The one caveat is that to use the Site Editor, you’ll need to activate a block theme. These themes are composed entirely of WordPress blocks, enabling greater flexibility.
Once you’ve activated a block theme, you can open the Site Editor by heading to Appearance → Editor in your dashboard. Then, click on Template Parts.
Here, you can click on any template part, but we’re going to select Header.
Next, click on the pencil icon to launch your header in the editor.
Now, click on the + icon to add a new block to your header. Select the Jetpack Form block.
Then, choose Contact Form. Now, you should see the WordPress contact form template appear in your theme’s header.
To the right of the editor, you can configure and customize your form using the instructions in steps 4, 5, and 6 of the main tutorial in this article. Meanwhile, you can edit and add fields via the toolbar.
For example, since you have limited space, you might make your form super simple, getting rid of unnecessary fields.
Additionally, you can reduce the size of fields so that you can make your contact form fit nicely within your website header.
As mentioned above, the easiest way to add a WordPress contact form to your header, footer, or sidebar is to use the Site Editor. This is recommended since the Site Editor enables you to edit templates and template parts without code (or additional plugins).
But, if you don’t want to make the switch to a block theme, you can still add a contact form to your header, footer, or sidebar.
First, you’ll need to open the WordPress Customizer, so navigate to Appearance → Customize in your dashboard. Now, click on Widgets.
The widget areas that you can edit depends on the theme you’re using. For instance, some themes might give you access to your header while others only let you tweak your sidebar or footer.
Click on your preferred widget area (like your footer) and then select the + icon to add a new block.
Here, find the Jetpack Form block and add it to the footer. You should now see the default form layout appear in your footer.
To the left of your screen, select the Contact Form template and your footer will update instantly.
Then, you can change or add fields and mark fields as required using the toolbar. Plus, if you select the entire form block, you can select Show more settings.
Here, you can configure a thank you message, manage form submissions, and apply stylistic settings to your form. For full details, check out sections 4, 5, and 6 of the main tutorial.
At this stage, it’s important to test your form to make sure that it’s working properly. To do this, first make sure to save your latest changes. Then, click on Publish to make your form accessible to users online.
Now, you’ll need to log out of WordPress and view your website on the front end. Once you’ve logged out successfully, open a new browser window and enter your site’s URL.
If you’ve added your form to a page, you’ll need to enter the specific page URL. But, if you’ve added a contact form to your header or footer, just type your general web address.
Now, locate your contact form on your site.
This will show how your form currently appears to visitors. To test it thoroughly, enter your own details and click on the Contact Us button.
Now, you should be able to see the custom thank you message that you set up in step 5 of the tutorial.
You can log back into WordPress to view the form submission. As discussed, you’ll find this information by clicking on the View Form Responses button within the editor where you created the form.
Alternatively, you can also access form submissions by going to Feedback → Form Responses in your dashboard.
Here, you should see the test response that you submitted.
Although we’ve tried to show you a highly comprehensive guide to adding a contact form in WordPress, you might still have some questions. So, let’s take a look at some of the most frequently asked questions (and answers) regarding this topic.
Yes. There are plenty of free contact form plugins for WordPress including Contact Form 7 and Jetpack. While Contact Form 7 is a great choice for more experienced users to create advanced forms, Jetpack is the best content form plugin for beginners. It’s super simple to install and configure your forms. Plus, you can enable Akismet spam protection to prevent spam submissions on your form.
By far, the easiest way to create a contact form in WordPress is with a plugin like Jetpack. This is because a dedicated WordPress form plugin gives you access to an intuitive form builder. This way, you can design your form visually, dragging fields where they need to sit on your page.
But, if you don’t want to use a contact form plugin, you can do it yourself using WordPress core functionality. This method is only suitable for advanced users that have some knowledge of CSS, HTML and PHP.
Additionally, you’ll be required to code all the error handling and form field validation if you decide to create a contact form without a plugin. This makes the manual route far more complex and time-consuming than the alternative.
There are tons of ways to optimize your WordPress contact form conversion rate. For example, you can limit the number of form fields. Then, when visitors see that your form is super quick and easy to complete, they may be more likely to convert.
Additionally, it’s important to make your form layout simple and clear. Plus, it’s a good idea to check that your forms are mobile-friendly. This is especially vital since over 60 percent of the global population uses a mobile device to go online.
The easiest way to prevent spam submissions on your contact forms is to use an AI-powered solution like Akismet. Not only does Akismet block spam with 99.99 percent accuracy, it also enables you to maintain a smooth user experience (as opposed to alternatives like CAPTCHA).
While Akismet works seamlessly with Jetpack Forms, you can install the plugin on any website (regardless of your preferred contact form plugin). All you need to do is head to Plugins → Add New.
Then, search for “Akismet”. Once you find Akismet Anti-Spam: Spam Protection, simply click on Install Now → Activate.
If you decide to add a contact form in WordPress using Jetpack, you’ll see the Akismet Anti-Spam link appear beneath the Jetpack tab of your WordPress dashboard.
Then, you can set up your Akismet account, or enter the API supplied with your Jetpack plan.
Some website owners like to implement CAPTCHA to protect against bots. This involves adding extra steps to prevent spammers and bots from completing your forms. For instance, users might need to complete tasks, solve equations, or answer questions.
But, there are some reasons why you should avoid CAPTCHA, and instead, opt for a more user-friendly alternative. For starters, these additional steps create greater friction since they require more time and effort from legitimate visitors who want to complete your form.
This can explain why Moz found that CAPTCHA can lead to a notable drop in conversions. Meanwhile, ConvertKit discovered that you can preserve a positive user experience (UX) by using Akismet.
Akismet is developed by Automattic (the same team behind WordPress.com). This AI-powered solution offers a non-intrusive way to block spam on your contact forms.
Akismet is an easy-to-use complete solution for spam detection and prevention. Not only will the plugin block spam on your contact forms, but it will also detect and block spam from all the comment forms on your site.
Akismet is developed by the same team that created WordPress.com. Therefore, it works seamlessly with the platform. Better yet, rather than disrupt the UX, Akismet is a spam solution that works automatically, in the background of your site.
If you aren’t using Akismet, you’ll likely rely on solutions like CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA. These protocols can hinder your form conversion rate since they demand more time and effort from your visitors.
What’s more, Akismet blocks spam with a 99.99 percent accuracy rate.
As you can see, over a hundred million websites actively use Akismet. It’s one of the most popular anti-spam solutions out there.
Plus, Akismet is trusted by some of the biggest companies in the world, including Microsoft, ConvertKit, Bluehost, and WordPress.com. What’s more, there are plenty of plans to choose from, so you’re sure to find an ideal solution for your website needs.
Without a contact form, your website visitors might have to go through a lengthy, complex process to ask you a simple question. This can be frustrating and lead to a negative user experience.
Fortunately, you can improve your WordPress website by adding a simple contact form. The easiest way to get started is with a contact form plugin like Jetpack.
Using the Jetpack Form block, you can easily customize your form’s appearance, generate a thank you page, or redirect users upon submission. Plus, you can protect your business and your customers by using an anti-spam plugin like Akismet.
Akismet enables you to prevent spam in your comments and forms, without interfering with the user experience. Better yet, it’s super simple to install and configure, since it works automatically. You’ll also get access to a feature that outright blocks spam, saving you disk space and speeding up your site. Check out our Enterprise solution today!
WordPress’ Community Team kicked off its experimental mentorship program this week, announcing that the inaugural cohort has been assigned to a group of mentors who will guide them forward on project contribution across various teams.
“Our mentors offer 1:1 support to each contributor in our cohort,” Automattic-sponsored Community Team contributor Hari Shanker R said. “These mentors check-in with mentees each week to offer them support and guidance on the program and to answer any questions that they may have.”
Mentees graduate from the program after completing self-directed courses, participating in “learn-up” sessions, selecting a contributor team, and making an initial contribution to the team. Optionally, mentors may guide their mentees through a three-month contribution plan. The goal is to create new ongoing contributors through the program.
A group of 13 mentees have been selected from 50 applications and will participate across eight teams, including Core, Training, Community, Documentation, Photos, Test, Polyglots, and Support.
“While our group is not in a position to assign mentors to everyone, the activities and tasks of our cohort will be shared in the newly-formed #contributor-mentorship channel of the Make/WordPress Slack, where interested folks can join most of our contributing sessions and onboarding sessions which will also be shared widely with our community.”
Other open source projects, such as Drupal, have supported mentoring programs that have been used to successfully engage new contributors at events, inspire more collaboration, and foster a learning environment.
Earlier this year the Linux Foundation published a report from a recent study on Mentorship in Open Source. It surveyed more than 100 mentees from the LFX Mentorship graduating class of 2020 and 2021, and 99% reported the program was beneficial. Nearly half of the graduates (47%) said it helped them get a job.
The report explores the additional benefits of mentorship programs beyond increasing contribution to the open source project itself. Quality mentorship programs can have an economic and career impact on mentees, as well as increase diversity across the project and help new contributors get more connected to the community.
WordPress’ Community team has already invested time from 22 facilitators and 13 mentors in getting the program launched. The structure offers a somewhat more formal experience similar to a short internship, but it’s still in the early stages and may change based on feedback from participants.
“This program is an experiment—our hope is to learn as much as possible from the same to improve mentorship in the WordPress project and to support and empower more contributors,” Shanker said.
Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case how to internationalize your WordPress code.
If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the form there.
So on the podcast today we have Carrie Dils. Carrie is a WordPress loving freelance developer with modern 20 years experience in web development and full scope WordPress projects. She teaches WordPress and front-end development courses for LinkedIn learning and blogs regularly about WordPress, and the business of freelancing.
This is another of the podcast interviews, which were recorded at WordCamp Europe in Athens. It took place soon after Carrie had completed her workshop at the event. This workshop was entitled international appeal, making your themes and plugins translatable.
WordCamp workshops are practical hands-on sessions. Carrie’s intention here was to make the audience aware of ways in which they could translate their code into other languages. Specifically it was to assist developers in localising their themes and plugins so that they could be consumed and understood by a wider audience. It covered translation functions for PHP and JavaScript, and a foundational understanding of how the process of localization works.
We started the podcast with some orientation, getting to grips with what internationalisation is in the context of WordPress. Carrie explains that there are workflows already available for developers to use to translate their plugins and themes. This enables their clients or customers to switch between languages in the admin interface so that they can understand more about what they’re doing.
Carrie talks about the fact that, although she’s not aware of any legal compulsion to carry out this internationalisation work, it’s very useful for consumers of your code. They will be able to rely on a language that’s familiar to them, and not always have to fall back on English. We get into the weeds a little as Carrie explains the foundations of how the translations actually work, and how developers can tap into this.
The fact that WordPress is so popular means that it’s in a great position to make the internet a more inclusive space. Part of that is making people from all over the world. Understand how WordPress, and the tools built on top of it, works.
Carrie says that it’s not about trying to translate every part of your plugin into the 200 plus languages which WordPress supports. It’s more about doing what you can, when you can, for those people who can benefit from it.
Carrie’s talk will at some point make it onto wordpress.tv, so you can see it there for yourself, but until that’s available she lays out some of the places where you can go to get support around this subject. The plugin and theme handbooks are an ideal place to start that journey.
We get into a chat about which languages are spoken most widely and how Carrie thinks about which languages to pick. If your resources are limited. She points out that as a developer, you’re building in the capability to have your code translated, and the actual work of making those translations can be handled by others if your code is created correctly.
Given that AI is always a hot topic, we digress a little towards the end about how the work of translations is likely to become more automated as large language models take on the burden of translating content and assisting in the writing of code.
If you’re a developer who is curious about making your code available to a wider audience through internationalisation, this podcast is for you.
If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.
And so without further delay, I bring you Carrie Dils.
I am joined on the podcast today by Carrie Dils. Hello, Carrie.
[00:05:12] Carrie Dils: Howdy, howdy.
[00:05:13] Nathan Wrigley: We are in Athens at the WordCamp EU celebration, 2023. Carrie’s just walked into the room and told me that she’s finished her workshop. How did it go?
[00:05:24] Carrie Dils: It went well. The rooms are kind of set up classroom style, well with desk like these that we’ve got sitting in front of us, so attendees could bust out their laptops and get on the wifi and participate. And it was small enough that acoustically, if they had questions and weren’t miced, it was okay.
[00:05:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. What’s the difference between a workshop and a presentation?
[00:05:42] Carrie Dils: Well, so in theory a workshop is meant to be more hands-on, practical. Whereas a presentation is just sort of receiving information, a workshop might be actually doing something with the information that you’re getting. Workshops came in two flavors, a fifty minute and a, I guess roughly two times that, so a two hour workshop.
I was in a 50 minute slot and it’s a little difficult to do anything truly interactive, and I wasn’t sure how many attendees there would be. So mine was probably closer to presentation and workshop, but I tried to throw in some interactive elements.
[00:06:20] Nathan Wrigley: You were one of the early ones as well, so at least you’ve got it out the way. You can now enjoy the rest of the conference.
[00:06:26] Carrie Dils: Right, right.
[00:06:27] Nathan Wrigley: What was the subject?
[00:06:28] Carrie Dils: Internationalization in WordPress. So making your plugins and your themes translatable. So basically from a coding perspective, there are functions that you can use so that if someone wanted to take all of the text strings from a theme or a plugin, and translate them into another language, they could do that.
[00:06:51] Nathan Wrigley: So this was a talk specifically aimed at theme developers and plugin developers, as opposed to sort of end users who might use a plugin to translate their own site.
[00:06:59] Carrie Dils: Right. So the internationalization, which you might commonly hear that, with the word localization. So think of internationalization is the piece that a developer does when creating a theme or plugin. Localization is the process of then translating it into other languages.
Not to be confused with multilingual websites, where the actual content of a website is translated into other language. That’s actually a different process.
[00:07:26] Nathan Wrigley: So is this then a process of assisting developers to ensure that their products are usable by people all over the world?
[00:07:36] Carrie Dils: Exactly. So imagine, when I first started using WordPress. I didn’t know any better and you needed to do something and you just edited files directly, like edit the core files directly, edit the theme file directly. And I very quickly learned the first time I pushed that update button that it’s not meant to do that.
But if you want to think about translating the software into other languages, it’s impractical to go make a duplicate code base just to change, forget your password as an English phrase into say a Spanish or a German translation of that. You don’t need to copy all of WordPress just to change that one bit of text. So the way it is written with these translation functions enables others to then go in and grab those strings without touching the original code base.
[00:08:24] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Do you know if there’s any jurisdictional, legal requirements to do this? So if you’re launching a product into the WordPress space, you are basically launching a product throughout the planet. Anybody can buy it anywhere. And the only two examples that cropped up into my head were, for example, in Canada where I believe everything has to be translated into French and English. If you are selling something there, if you put up signage or what have you.
And also in the UK, if you’re in Wales, Welsh and English would be another example. I didn’t know if there were guidelines around that. If you are a plugin developer, theme developer, whatever you are doing in the WordPress space where you potentially might be breaking law in different parts of the world?
[00:09:05] Carrie Dils: That’s a great question. To my knowledge the answer is no. There are no legal requirements. It’s not like accessibility where there are laws around site accessibility. Really because we’re not necessarily talking in the case, the examples you’re giving, that’s the end user. End user facing copy. Whereas this is more behind the scenes. So imagine what you would see in WP admin, that sort of thing.
[00:09:30] Nathan Wrigley: So I guess you had to get into the thick of the code, and put coding examples up to demonstrate. And I’m also guessing that most of this is built into WordPress. You are just leveraging things that are already there, or maybe not. Maybe you are extending the functionality that ships with WordPress.
[00:09:45] Carrie Dils: No, and it actually goes beyond WordPress. I’m going to get real nerdy on you. There is something called gettext and it is open source. It’s licensed under, GNU. I can’t say GNU without thinking of Gary Gnu that does the news from Giggle Snort Hotel. Now I’m showing my age. If you’re listening to this and are not familiar with that, this was children’s programming in the seventies.
So anyways Gary Gnu has the news, and there is something called gettext. And this is a sort of universally recognized system for writing translatable code. WordPress uses gettext and has its own kind of wrapper functions around that. So what we’re talking about is not, while there are functions that are unique to the WordPress ecosystem, the concept of internationalizing your code goes well beyond WordPress, and WordPress uses gettext, which is what most software languages use.
[00:10:41] Nathan Wrigley: I’m guessing the fact that you’ve done a talk about it indicates that you think it’s not being used as often as it perhaps should be?
[00:10:49] Carrie Dils: So I’m always going to come at things from a education, knowledge is power perspective. It’s quite possible that people may be listening to this and have already used, seen translation functions, and just didn’t know what they were.
For instance, if you see a double underscore, parenthesis and then some string of text in there, well, that double underscore parenthesis is a translation function. So it’s less about trying to convince people to use it, more educating that it exists and what are the reasons that it’s important to use it.
So WordPress powers over 40% of the web, I think around 43% at last count. Interestingly, if you go to wordpress.org/stats, s t a t s, there’s lots of details there about WordPress installs, and one of those is what language is WordPress, what locale is being used. And I think it’s around 55% are not in English.
So WordPress is global software. It’s used all around the world. And I love especially talking about this topic at WordCamp Europe, where we have so many languages, and cultures represented. And making WordPress available in around 200 different locales. And that’s the job of the Polyglots team. So if you go to make.wordpress.org, the Polyglots team is who’s in charge for making WordPress translatable.
And it’s of course volunteers from all of these different locales that are bringing it to life in their language. But if you’ve ever gone to say the settings page of your WordPress admin, there’s a little box that says what language would you like your site in? If you were to choose another language, one of those 200 languages that exist, then everything in the admin will be displayed in that locale.
The education piece is that it is global. It is used around the world and the process of internationalizing your code is what makes it possible to have your code exist in other languages.
[00:12:55] Nathan Wrigley: I think it’s really easy to think about the fact that, well you and I both obviously native English speakers. More or less everything that I’ve ever endeavored to do with WordPress has been in English. If a plugin comes, or a theme comes and everything is displayed in English, I’m entirely happy. That’s fine by me. But I guess we are excluding a bunch of people for whom that obstacle is simply too high.
You’ll be presented with a bunch of options. Some of it probably in quite technical language, and if the developer hasn’t made the effort to translate it into some additional languages, I’m guessing in most cases, you’re not advocating while it’s 200 or nothing.
[00:13:33] Carrie Dils: Right.
[00:13:33] Nathan Wrigley: Maybe pick some low hanging fruit if you like. That’s just part of the job of WordPress. If we are going to endeavor to be truly international, that work has to be done. But how did you get interested in this? How come you are doing a presentation about this particular subject given the panoply of things that you could have picked?
[00:13:50] Carrie Dils: So I’ve been working with WordPress for over a decade now, and early into that I was introduced at, it was WordCamp Austin, actually, I think 2013 or 14. I was introduced to the idea of web accessibility, and specifically what accessibility looks like in WordPress. And if somebody’s listening and they’re not familiar, accessibility is basically writing both from a code perspective and from a design and presentation, really soup to nuts, your website. Making it accessible for anyone to use regardless of what kind of device they’re on, if they’re on a laptop, a mobile phone or a screen reader.
So making the web accessible and I was just so glad somebody told me that that was something that was important, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
So extend that idea that the mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing. Well, how do you democratize publishing to someone who doesn’t speak English and sees software, to your point, we’re happy when it’s, when it’s in English. But if you’re seeing all these technical words or, you know, whatever it is. You’re walking through the WP admin experience and it’s not in a language that you’re comfortable navigating, well then your power to publish is diminished.
So I think of it in terms of, or I guess that’s where I got interested in it, is sort of, I don’t know that most people would consider it a branch of accessibility, but in my mind it’s related.
[00:15:23] Nathan Wrigley: So let’s imagine that I’ve been listening to this and found it persuasive. Okay, I’ve got a plugin, I’ve got a theme, what have you. But I’ve made no effort to translate anything. And I think, okay, I should. I should begin this journey. How straightforward is it? Does WordPress provide the tools and the infrastructure and the file types and whatever else is going on? Is it fairly easy to drop into this? Is there documentation which is up to date to make it straightforward? Or is this one of those impossibly difficult to find pieces of documentation? And if it’s easy to find, where is it?
[00:15:53] Carrie Dils: That’s a great question, and it’s easy to find. So if you go toward wordpress.org, there’s the plugin handbook, and there’s also the theme handbook. And both of those handbooks have sections on how to internationalize your code.
So I’m going to take your question a step further. As someone who is creating products to be distributed maybe for, you know, you’re selling your theme or your plugin. Writing your code in a way that it can be translated into other languages, increases your user base. It makes it accessible to people in other places, right?
So as the plugin or theme developer, I don’t necessarily have to go, my job is to write my code in a way that it can be translated. Other people can do their translations. I don’t have to necessarily ship my code with a ton of translations.
[00:16:45] Nathan Wrigley: So you are not suggesting that the burden to get these 200 languages out there is always going to be on the shoulders of the developer. You could ship something and let the community take it over. If this was an important plugin that you developed, which it turns out 40% of all WordPress websites wish to use, it could be a community effort to do that?
[00:17:02] Carrie Dils: Absolutely. If your customer base is international, then you might want to ship it, you know, with language packs, or the translations for, the locales where your customers live. That would just be common sense.
[00:17:15] Nathan Wrigley: It’s a little bit off piste, which languages would you say, matter is the wrong word, but do you know what I mean? So obviously English has become the lingua franca of WordPress. By default Most things happen in English. And we come to this event, and although we are in Athens, everything’s largely in English.
What are the languages which seem to dominate internationally that you would say, okay, if you’re a developer and you wish to get your things translated, do these ones first, because you’ll have the biggest reach. Now obviously if your product is designed for Hungarian users, probably Hungarian’s the first one to go for. But broadly speaking, if you’re just trying to open it up to the world, English, and then where do we go from there?
[00:17:55] Carrie Dils: Well, as I was doing some research for my session, I was looking statistically, I think about 13% and please, anybody listening to this that says she is very wrong right now. I acknowledge that I am probably very wrong right now. But I’m going to say it’s maybe 13% of the world’s population speaks English. Making it one of the largest, but not the largest. And again, I’m sure I’m about to say something wrong, I think Chinese, specifically Cantonese.
To your question, I’m not entirely sure. I think it would be more about what market are you trying to go after. I had the experience, maybe seven or eight years ago, of releasing a commercial theme. One of the goals I was trying to accomplish was, one, to create a theme that was accessible, and two, to create a theme that was translation ready.
And it was a learning experience for me, and I was able to collaborate. I put out a call to my network, to friends that don’t speak English natively, and asked them for translations. So I ended up shipping my theme with, I want to say eight to ten different translations ready to roll. And some of those, this was the particularly interesting bit for me, some of those are scripts that read right to left, versus read left to right, like English.
So depending on, I’m about to blow your mind, Nathan. Depending on the language, you may need to make layout changes to the front end of the site. So imagine you’ve got a content right sidebar for a site. Well, if you are switching to a right to left script like Hebrew, or Arabic. You would then detect if the language was loaded in one of these RTL scripts and reverse the layout accordingly. So there’s like a separate CSS file for rTL scripts. Isn’t that kind of fascinating?
[00:19:55] Nathan Wrigley: That is really fascinating actually, and also probably quite a bit of additional work. That’s my next question actually. We live in a very commercial WordPress now. I think if you and I were having this conversation 10 years ago, the whole commercial side of WordPress was far less significant. There’s now a lot of money tied up in WordPress. And you alluded earlier to this, you said that you could, you can open up your plugin, theme, whatever it may be, to a wider audience.
So I guess somebody listening to this might want to know, okay, how much work is this and what’s the payback? Is it easy to do this? If I pick these two or three popular languages, will I be able to achieve this in a matter of days? Do I need to employ professional transcribers or translators. And will I receive a return on by investment? Like I said, this question probably wouldn’t have occurred 10 years ago. Do you understand the motivation for this might be quite low on the pecking order?
[00:20:44] Carrie Dils: Yes. So it’s relatively low effort, Nathan. So think of, as developers, there are best practices for the way that we write code. Maybe it’s the way that we structure our comment. I mean, there are actually WordPress coding standards for how things should be formatted and all of that.
So using translation functions in your code is really just the best practice. It’s low effort to do as a developer. It’s very approachable. And again, the burden of doing the translations into other languages, you don’t necessarily have to do that piece, but of course that, if you know that you have a user base in a particular locale, it would probably behoove you to provide those translations out of the gate with your product.
But in terms of what’s the return, I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have any statistics that speak to that. But certainly from a goodwill aspect, that is there. And also, take away some of the arrogance factor, acknowledging that there are users that may be using your product that are not native English speakers.
So just providing that as part of your code base is a pretty, I don’t want to say easy, because that’s an overused word. It depends on who you are if it’s easy. But if you are already a WordPress developer used to writing code, chances are you’ve copy and pasted a translation function, or a texturing that was wrapped in a translation function and maybe you didn’t know that’s what it was.
[00:22:14] Nathan Wrigley: It is June in 2023, so it’s impossible to have a conversation without the words AI. Will there be a place for AI in this? Because it does seem, the burden may not be the coding side. It may literally be, well we haven’t got the finances to get the text translated. We don’t have any expertise in that area, and we don’t know people who can speak Hebrew, Arabic, whatever.
So there’s a cost to that. I’m just wondering if that might well be brought down by things like AI. I’m thinking, you know, you can throw things into Google Translate and out it comes with the correct answer. I just wonder what your thoughts are on that. Whether that’s going to assist this endeavor.
I mean, I can imagine, I can really imagine a future in which we go to ChatGPT, or some variant thereof, and say translate my site’s admin area into Hungarian, for example. And it will wrap all the functions correctly and do it all for you. That sounds like a, possible future.
[00:23:08] Carrie Dils: I think so I have done zero experimentation in that regard, but I don’t see why it couldn’t. Because you can train AI, right? So if you’re training it on specifically what these functions are, and how you use them. I don’t know why it couldn’t take and theoretically generate both the code. And then on the translation side, to your point, Google Translate already exists. I think the issue right now at least at this stage with AI translations, you lose context.
So imagine, I gave this example in my workshop, so the word lead, L E A D in English has multiple meanings. I could be leading a presentation. I could get a sales lead for my product. I could have my dog on a leash, and it’s called a lead. So if you were just to tell Google Translate, hey translate the word lead into these 10 languages, who knows. There’s a reason for the phrase lost in translation. So I think probably that’s the first shortcoming I could see with the current state of affairs. Obviously, I think that could be addressed and would be really interesting to see what the applications are with AI.
[00:24:24] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it just feels like a fairly decent shortcut. In that, given everything that we’ve said before about how it would be, well, I’m going to use the word honorable. It would be an honorable thing to do to translate your plugin into the 200 plus languages that WordPress can accept.
Now, I realize in most cases that’s probably off the table. But if technology could assist in that effort, and you did have the time to double check to make sure that lead meant lead and not lead, if you know what I mean. Then that seems like a win-win because there’s just no downside to that.
[00:24:53] Carrie Dils: Exactly. Nobody ever cried because your site was faster or more accessible. Yeah, so it’s doing that. There’s not really a downside to it.
[00:25:02] Nathan Wrigley: Where would you direct us? I’m a plugin developer, a theme developer. You have mentioned the handbook, but I wonder if there’s other things out there. So there might be, I don’t know, YouTube channels or other documentation, maybe some books or something that you’ve written. I don’t know. Is there anything else that you would point people towards? And I will include whatever you say into the show notes so people can just click.
[00:25:21] Carrie Dils: I can provide you with a handful of articles on my site that I’ve written. I also have a class if I, just shameless plug, a course on LinkedIn learning on this topic, where I’m teaching more specifically exactly what these translation functions are. When you would use them, et cetera.
And I also met a gentleman this morning, Toby, whose last name I didn’t catch, but he’s presenting tomorrow on the same topic. And then of course in theory the workshop will end up on TV?
[00:25:51] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. So by the time this podcast episode airs, typically, the WordPress TV won’t have caught up to that, but should it change at some point in the future, I will make the effort to update the show notes.
Another thing which people have in mind when we talk about translations in WordPress is Gutenberg’s stage four. Now, I realize there’s not a perfect overlap here because that’s more about changing the, well, my understanding, at least anyway, is that’s more about changing the content.
[00:26:16] Carrie Dils: Yes.
[00:26:16] Nathan Wrigley: How do you feel more broadly, the WordPress project more generally, in terms of accessibility and being able to read it in different languages? I know that’s a way off. It feels like three, phase three that we’re in at the moment could take decade or more to actually finish. I mean, it’s quite complicated, the concurrent editing, I think.
But are you fairly bullish that WordPress is going to be at the vanguard of this in the future? I know that we’ve been talking about the internals, the plugins and what have you, but broadly speaking, on the front end, how do you feel about phase four?
[00:26:46] Carrie Dils: I won’t overstep my bounds and pretend like I know more than I do about it. That said, when Matt laid out the four phases of Gutenberg, however many years ago that was. The project has continued to follow that roadmap, albeit maybe not at the quickest clip. So I have faith that will happen.
[00:27:04] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
[00:27:04] Carrie Dils: At some point in the future. And that that works towards the WordPress mission of democratizing publishing. I don’t know exactly what, practically speaking, what shape that takes.
Oh, here’s a resource for you, and people who would know. Polyglots, I mentioned them earlier, the Make WordPress team. They have a Slack channel. They have weekly meetings. If you were to go to the Polyglot section on wordpress.org, that would probably be the place to tune in and, they would have much better information than me.
[00:27:34] Nathan Wrigley: Carrie, you’ve been very helpful. You’ve provided me with a question. I know that you wanted to mention that there’s been some updates recently. Well not recently, fairly long time ago, five years I think you mentioned, in the way that you can actually implement these things. You mentioned that it was only possible in PHP until five years ago, something like that. But now you can do this in JavaScript if that’s your thing. Talk to us about that.
[00:27:55] Carrie Dils: Yes. So earlier I mentioned the gettext library, sort of the standard for writing translation functions. And that’s common across many programming languages. WordPress is written primarily in PHP and JavaScript. And up until WordPress 5.0, there was no mechanism for translating JavaScript, only for translating strings that were included in PHP files.
So now, behold. If you love JavaScript and you love to learn JavaScript deeply, now you can also learn to translate, or include translatable strings in, your JavaScript. And they’re actually, it’s a subset of the functions that are available in PHP, but they work identically.
[00:28:37] Nathan Wrigley: And so all of that’s again, in the documentation. If we go to the resources in the show notes, we’ll be able to find all of that.
[00:28:42] Carrie Dils: Absolutely, yes. The handbooks are really, it might take you a little bit of digging around or jumping, jumping around pages, but yes.
[00:28:51] Nathan Wrigley: Carrie, thank you so much for talking to us today. Before we part ways, if somebody has listened to this, is interested, wants to find out more, but wants to come directly to you, how do they do that?
[00:29:01] Carrie Dils: Twitter is probably where I hang out the most, and my handle is super simple, c d i l s.
[00:29:09] Nathan Wrigley: You got in early.
[00:29:10] Carrie Dils: Yes, I’ve been on for quite a while. And then I’m also on Mastodon, on the wpbuilds.social @cdils.
[00:29:18] Nathan Wrigley: Carrie Dils, really appreciate you talking to us today. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
[00:29:24] Carrie Dils: Thank you, Nathan. Great chatting with you.
On the podcast today we have Carrie Dils.
Carrie is a WordPress-loving freelance developer with more than twenty years experience in web development, and full-scope WordPress projects. She teaches WordPress and front-end development courses for LinkedIn Learning, and blogs regularly about WordPress and the business of freelancing.
This is another of the podcast interviews which were recorded at WordCamp Europe in Athens. It took place soon after Carrie had completed her workshop at the event. This workshop was entitled ‘International Appeal: Making Your Themes and Plugins Translatable’.
WordCamp workshops are practical, hands-on, sessions. Carrie’s intention here was to make the audience aware of ways in which they could translate their code into other languages. Specifically it was to assist developers in localising their themes and plugins so that they could be consumed and understood by a wider audience. It covered translation functions for PHP and JavaScript, and a foundational understanding of how the process of localisation works.
We started the podcast with some orientation; getting to grips with what internationalisation is in the context of WordPress. Carrie explains that there are workflows already available for developers to use to translate their plugins and themes. This enables their clients or customers to switch between languages in the admin interface so that they can understand more about what they’re doing.
The fact that WordPress is so popular means that it’s in a great position to make the internet a more inclusive space. Part of that is making people from all over the world understand how WordPress, and the tools built on top of it, works. Carrie says that it’s not about trying to translate every part of your plugin into the two hundred plus languages which WordPress supports, it’s more about doing what you can, when you can, for those people who can benefit from it.
Carrie’s talk will at some point make it onto WordPress.tv so you can see it for yourself, but until that’s available she lays out some of the places where you can go to get support around this subject. The plugin and theme handbooks are an ideal place to start that journey.
We get into a chat about which languages are spoken most widely, and how Carrie thinks about which languages to pick if your resources are limited. She points out that as a developer you’re building in the capability to have your code translated, and the actual work of making those translations can be handled by others if your code is created correctly.
Carrie’s Twitter
Carrie’s Mastodon
Carrie’s website
gettext project
WordPress stats
LinkedIn Learning course by Carrie
Tor-Björn Fjellner’s WCEU presentation
WordPress plugin handbook
WordPress theme handbook
Polyglots team
If you are sponsoring either WordCamp Europe, US or Asia we can help you get the word out pre-, post- and during the event.
>> The post New Sponsorship Opportunity, WordCamp Media Friend appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
The State of Digital Publishing, a startup market research publisher focused on digital media, is hosting an online event called WordPress Publishers Performance Summit (WPPS) on July 27, starting at 2PM EST. The organization’s mission is to help publishers develop sustainable business models through education, guides, online courses, and other resources. They have partnered with Multidots, a WordPress development agency and WordPress.com VIP Gold Partner, who is sponsoring the event.
WPPS will feature 10 panelists speaking on best practices for managing and optimizing the performance of WordPress publishing sites. Panelists have been selected from high performance teams at The Boston Globe, Forbes, Multidots, WordPress.com VIP, Parse.ly, and other publishers.
The schedule includes four 40-minute sessions over the span of four hours:
These sessions will be aimed at editorial and content strategists, SEO specialists, ad tech and integration professionals, and others working in the publishing industry.
WPPS is free and attendees can register on the event’s website. Unlike many other virtual events, the organizers do not plan to record the sessions so those who are interested will need to watch them live. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered by the panel. Those who are unable to attend live can sign up on the website to receive an ebook with the panelists’ recommended WordPress best practices that were shared at the event.
WordPress 6.3 will make site editing several clicks faster for users who are moving from the frontend to edit the corresponding template. When you click the “Edit Site” link in the admin bar from a category page, for example, you currently get dumped out into the Site Editor on the home page. From here it’s several clicks more to get to the template you intended to edit. The upcoming release changes it so that the “Edit Site” link is aware of the current template.
WordPress developer Brian Coords pointed out the fix on Twitter today. It’s a delightful bit of good news for anyone who works regularly with the Site Editor and becomes annoyed by how long it takes to click through to the applicable template. WordPress is now more context aware, delivering site editors to the correct template directly from the admin bar.
Excited about this feature coming in #WordPress 6.3: The \"Edit Site\" link will now send you to edit the actual template you\'re looking at instead of always going to the home page. https://t.co/ztwMrDkSZC— Brian Coords (@briancoords) July 11, 2023
Excited about this feature coming in #WordPress 6.3: The \"Edit Site\" link will now send you to edit the actual template you\'re looking at instead of always going to the home page. https://t.co/ztwMrDkSZC
The update applies to posts, pages, archives, 404 templates, front page, and anywhere the user happens to be on the frontend. Check out the Gutenberg issue and the related WordPress Trac ticket for more technical details on how contributors arrived at this implementation.
This small fix is important because it removes the requirement for the user to have to know the name of the template they intend to edit. It’s now as easy as clicking directly from the frontend. The more WordPress can reduce friction and the need to have special knowledge in order to edit templates, the more accessible it becomes as a design tool for someone who is just starting out and has no framework for the idea of underlying templates.
WordPress 6.3 is on track to be released with this fix on August 8, 2023. Beta 4 landed today with 40+ (Editor) and 60+ (Trac) updates since Beta 3, and RC 1 is expected next week.
Dave and Dan takes you inside of Automattic and their own thoughts around WordPress, WooCommerce and AI.
>> The post Pulling the Curtain Back on WordPress, Woo and AI with Dave Lockie and Dan Walmsley appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Snicco, a WordPress security services provider, has published an advisory on a vulnerability in the MalCare plugin, which is active on more than 300,000 sites.
“MalCare uses broken cryptography to authenticate API requests from its remote servers to connected WordPress sites,” WordPress security researcher Calvin Alkan said.
“Requests are authentication by comparing a shared secret stored as plaintext in the WordPress database to the one provided by MalCare’s remote application.
“This can allow attackers to completely take over the site because they can impersonate MalCare’s remote application and perform any implemented action.”
These potential malicious actions include creating rogue admin users, uploading random files to the site, and installing and removing plugins.
Exploitation requires a pre-condition to be met, such as a site with a SQL injection vulnerability in a plugin, theme, or WordPress core, or a database compromised at the hosting level, or subject to another vulnerability that allows the attacker to read or update WordPress options.
“MalCare has received the full details of this vulnerability three months before this public release, and despite us offering (free) help, they subtly dismissed it because ‘supposedly’ this is the industry standard for API authentication,” Alkan said.“Furthermore, concerns were raised, because the vulnerability requires a pre-condition that on its own, would be a vulnerability.”
Two days after Snicco published the security advisory with the proof of concept, MalCare pushed a patch in version 5.16 on July 8, 2023, along with a notice on the plugin’s blog:
\nIn the rare situation, where a site has a pre-existing, high severity SQL injection vulnerability, an attacker might be able to read the MalCare key. To address such issues, we are further strengthening our authentication systems.\n\n\n\nAuthentication is a critical system and any improvements must be done in a careful manner. We have reviewed various plugins and best practices in our ecosystem to come up with our solution.\n\n\n\nIn light of the current public discourse, we are expediting the update of our plugin. We will initiate a rollout by EOD.\n
In the rare situation, where a site has a pre-existing, high severity SQL injection vulnerability, an attacker might be able to read the MalCare key. To address such issues, we are further strengthening our authentication systems.
Authentication is a critical system and any improvements must be done in a careful manner. We have reviewed various plugins and best practices in our ecosystem to come up with our solution.
In light of the current public discourse, we are expediting the update of our plugin. We will initiate a rollout by EOD.
MalCare reports that its users have seen no evidence of the vulnerability being exploited.
Snicco noted that the same vulnerability also exists in WPRemote (20k installs) and Blogvault (100k installs) plugins, as they share the same code. Users of either of these plugins or the MalCare plugin should update to the latest versions as soon as possible now that the vulnerability advisory and proof of concept have been published.
If you have an existing WordPress focused podcast, consider introducing it to our audience at Do the Woo.
>> The post Bring Your Podcast to Do the Woo appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
WordCamp Dhaka 2023 has been cancelled and the official announcement has been published on the event website. There were no tickets or sponsorship packages sold, therefore there are no tickets or sponsorships to be refunded.
To ensure the success of future WordCamps, we encourage the Dhaka community to participate in collaboration and contribute to creating a more diverse, inclusive and open community. Any members of the community, regardless their gender, company affiliations, and background, can apply and collaborate as co-organizers.
Here are the basics of our Meetup Program and the application to become a Meetup organizer.
The Community Team believes that the Dhaka WordPress Community can build a stronger community with opportunities for everyone interested in WordPress.
If you have any questions, you can reach out to us by sending an email to support@wordcamp.org.
Thank you,
WordPress Community Team
WordPress 6.3 is scheduled to be released one month from today on August 8, 2023. The live product demo date and time has now been set for Thursday, July 20, at at 16:00 UTC. Participants can join live via this Zoom link.
Automattic-sponsored Gutenberg contributors Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor will be hosting the event, moderated by Nathan Wrigley. They will highlight upcoming changes and take questions from participants during a Q&A session at the end.
WordPress 6.3 is set to introduce an exciting array of new features – the Command Palette, content editing and distraction-free mode in the Site Editor, pattern creation, and much more. There have also been significant changes to pattern management UI as late as Beta 3. The live product demo is a good opportunity to get up to speed with a guided tour of everything new that will be landing in 6.3.
The event will be recorded and those who cannot attend live can catch it later when it is published on WordPress.tv.
Wow. This weekend edition holds a lot of date/times of upcoming online events for all WordPress users, developers, designers, site builders, and content creators.
The most important might be the the WordPress 6.3 Product Demo on July 20th, (16:00 UTC) roughly 14 days before the final release, filled to the brink with new and enhanced features. Watching the Product Demo gets you up to speed quickly. Yes, there will be a recording, too.
Don’t forget to consult the workshop schedule of the training team on the Learn WordPress site.
Have a wonderful weekend! Mine will be dominated by unpacking boxes and eating delicious food and chatting with long-distance friends.
Be well.
Joen Asmussen published for the WordPress design team the Design Share: Jun 19–Jun 30, recounting all the great UI and UX work the design team contributed during the past two weeks.
Reminder: Anne McCarthy and Emily Clark will co-host a Hallway Hangout to discussion WordPress 6.3 performance improvements on July 27, 2023, at 15:00 UTC to discuss WordPress 6.3 performance improvements led by performance reps Emily Clark and Felix Arntz and also look ahead to WordPress 6.4.
Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor will present at the WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo on July 20th, 2023 at 16:00 UTC (12 pm EDT / 18:00 CEST). “Join the WordPress community for a first look at 6.3 in action during a live product demonstration.” Attendees will learn about recent improvements to the Site Editor, Patterns, Command Palette, and Navigation. There will be a Q&A session, and you may submit questions in advance via the #walkthrough channel on WordPress Make Slack.
Sarah Gooding reports on WordPress 6.3 Beta 3 Released, Introduces UI Changes to Pattern Management. “A last-minute PR has renamed Library to Patterns in the Site Editor and was cherry-picked to get it included in Beta 3.” she wrote, and then continues with the reasons.
Only tangentially related to the Block editor, I still want you to have this overall change on your radar: In his post on the Make Blog, John Blackburn informed the WordPress community that the project is Dropping support for PHP 5 .
\n“The minimum supported version was last adjusted in WordPress 5.2 in 2019, and since then, usage of PHP 5.6 has dropped to 3.9% of monitored WordPress installations as of July 2023,” \nJohn Blackbourn, WordPress core developer
“The minimum supported version was last adjusted in WordPress 5.2 in 2019, and since then, usage of PHP 5.6 has dropped to 3.9% of monitored WordPress installations as of July 2023,”
Sarah Gooding also has the skinny for you in WordPress 6.3 to Drop Support for PHP 5
Following his March 2023 Gutenberg Phase 3 post, Matias Ventura, architect on the Gutenberg project, published a series of posts to go deeper on all the aspects of the next phase and outline the requirements.
There might be more posts coming and, of course, I’ll keep you in the loop.
Sarah Gooding summarized it all in WordPress Unveils Plans for Real-Time Collaboration with Major Improvements to Revisions and the Media Library
In his post, What Collaborative Features Will Bring to WordPress, Eric Karkovack explored a few scenarios that demonstrate how new collaborative features can streamline working together in a team responsible for publishing content on a larger site.
“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2022” A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly. The index 2020 is here
Nick Diego announced a new season of his “Builder Basics” series. The next event is scheduled for July 17th 7pm UTC ( 3 pm EDT) Goodbye Reusable Blocks—Hello Synced Patterns (and more). He’ll review the updates coming in WordPress 6.3 for reusable blocks and explore the improved editing flows for patterns and template parts.
In another event, Bud Kraus will demystify the Navigation Block for you on July 11 at 19:00 UTC / 3 pm EDT. You will learn how to set your site’s navigation using only blocks and not the classic menu system.
Bijay Yadav, long-time contributor to the open-source WordPress project, published his first theme in the Theme directory. Geum is block themes allowing the user to take full advantage of the new site editor to customize their site.
Jamie Marsland posted a tutorial on How to Choose the perfect WordPress Block Theme. He started out summarizing the advantages of a block theme over a classic theme, and listed all the considerations to take into account when comparing block themes from the repository or other theme directories. He also mentioned his favorites: Basti by Ana Segota, Ollie WP by Mike McAlister and Spectra One by the Astra team.
Anne McCarthy published the Summary of feedback from the latest FSE Program Momery Makeover Summary. “Since this call for testing took place during the early stages of an iterative process, several aspects of the feedback provided have already been swiftly addressed, thanks to ongoing development for WordPress 6.3. The relatively limited amount of bugs received and feedback aligning with feature development reflects a level of solidness in the direction of recent improvements.” she wrote.
On WPTavern, Sarah Gooding reviewed the latest block theme for blogging – Hey, built by Automattic in here article Hey: An Elegantly Simple WordPress Block Theme for Blogging.
In his article for the Torque Magazine, How to Modify WordPress Block Themes (JSON Beginner’s Guide), Nick Schäferhoff explored ways on how you can customize a block theme’s theme.json file for those of us, who are used to tinker around via functions.php and style.css.
Jonathan Bossenger published his series for live streams on Developing Sendig a Block theme on YouTube. The goal is to create a theme following the designs by Emily Rapport. (See Weekend Edition 253 for details).
You can take Wes Theron‘s tutorial on Designing with row and stack blocks on Learn WordPress. “Using the Group block is one of the cornerstones of mastering the block editor. When you select a Group block, you have the variations of the Group block, the standard group, rows, and stacks. In this video tutorial, you learn how you can use rows and stacks to achieve various designs.
Ronald Huereca published a tutorial on Adding Commands to the WordPress Command Palette can be accomplished, ahead of the official WordPress 6.3 Dev Notes. He explained what the Command Palette is, what it can be used for, and step-by-step how you can add your custom commands to it via a plugin.
A new post on the WordPress Developer Blog covers how to modify theme.json data using server-side filters. Discover, with Nick Diego as your guide, the possibilities of theme.json server-side filters. Learn how to modify color palettes dynamically or restrict block controls based on user permissions.
The recording of this week’s Live Q & A is now available on YouTube: Leveraging Gutenberg’s architecture to take plugin development to new levels. Learn how Gutenberg components and scripts can be used outside the block editor to revamp a plugin’s code base in this Case Study of GiveWP 3.0 with Jason Adams, Director of Development, Jon Waldstein, Lead Developer of GiveWP and co-host Lena Morita, JavaScript Developer on the Components team. The list of resources is available in the description of the video.
Ryan Welcher announced the topics for the next Twitch streams:
Recordings of previous streams can be viewed on his YouTube Channel.
Featured Image: Victoria Pickering “Old Type”, found on Openverse.org
In a series of four posts, Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura has outlined the project’s phase 3 plans for Real-Time Collaboration, Workflows, Revisions, and the Media Library. WordPress 6.3 is set to be the final major release of Phase 2, which focused on Customization.
Phase 3 will shift focus from the editors and move into other parts of the admin in an effort to bring seamless collaboration to WordPress.
“The primary aim of real-time collaboration is to build functionality into the block editors so that concurrent collaboration, shared edits, and online presence of peers are possible,” Ventura said. “Supporting these workflows is not just about concurrency, though, but also about lifting restrictions that have been present in WordPress for a long time, such as locking a post when two people try to edit at the same time.”
The technical challenges here are in making this available to all WordPress users, even those on the most economical hosting environments. Ventura shared a quick preview of what that might look like, along with the scope of the tasks that would be part of this effort.
In the Workflows document, Ventura details collaborative features that will be part of this phase, including allowing users to add comments, suggest edits, and tag other users for peer review. These enhancements would apply to both content creation and design changes on block themes.
There are some interesting projects listed within the scope of this section, including a publishing checklist, sharing draft links with permission controls, and exploring hook points for version control systems to take over internal revision systems if desired.
Users can expect that Revisions will also be getting some major improvements as part of the Collaboration phase of the project.
“As part of improving the overall experience, we should also go beyond document level history and explore how the interface could let users browse through single block changes and offer the ability to restore them individually rather than requiring full post restores,” Ventura said. “For global styles, we should evolve the revisions panel to allow comparing two revisions side by side. For synced patterns, we could allow browsing edit history with side by side and overlay comparison tools.”
Long-awaited improvements to WordPress’ Media Library are also considered part of this phase.
“The main goals are to expand the media management capabilities, unify the block edit and single media interfaces, and improve upon the major media flows,” Ventura said. He highlighted a few major areas that may get some enhancements, such as categorization and tagging, better handling of attached media, and design improvements to the library view.
Other Media Library projects may include a revamp of the image editing interface, which remains somewhat unintuitive at this time. Ventura proposes these tools, such as cropping and thumbnail browsing, be updated to align more with the current block editor tools.
Contributors may also be exploring contribution to the commons from WordPress, along with improvements to attribution.
“As we look into expanding the presence and touch points of Openverse, it’d be interesting to see how contributions to the commons could work directly from a user’s WordPress install,” Ventura said. “Another area to look at is improving handling and presentation of other media types (audio, video, files) and their connection with blocks and the block APIs. We should resurface work on a native Playlist block, ideally powered by the Interactivity API.”
Reactions to the outlined vision and scope for the Collaboration phase have so far been positive, as users and contributors are eager to see a strong focus come to some of the other parts of WordPress that have not had much attention for years. The newer real-time collaboration features that will take WordPress beyond the days of locking posts while another person is editing, have the potential to speed up content creation and editing for groups working on the same website.
“Very much looking forward to this phase. I think it will really enable larger teams to work on posts much easier,” WordPress developer Rich Holman commented. “I’ve mentioned this before but the ability to continue working on a published draft without the front-end updating seems important especially with more editors working on something, especially if doing more experimental edits.”
For more details on the features being considered for this phase, check out the Phase 3 overview post, along with Ventura’s more recent write-ups on how contributors will improve and expand WordPress’ collaboration architecture with updates to Real-Time Collaboration, Workflows, Revisions, and the Media Library.
On Saturday, September 30, 2023, Rochester will again (for the sixth time) host the region’s WordCamp for bloggers and web designers of all skill levels.
Registration opens at 8:00am. Sessions begin at 9 a.m. and continue to 5 p.m. This year’s WordCamp will be held at the Rochester School of the Arts, 45 Prince Street, Rochester, NY 146017. Tickets are required in advance.
The $25 ticket cost covers WordCamp Rochester swag, morning coffee, lunch, and the evenings’s after-party food. Participants are strongly encouraged to bring their laptop or tablet computers. Ticket purchase and program details are available at www.rochester.wordcamp.org/2023. The capacity for this event is about 120 people, so getting tickets early is advised.
WordCamps are held worldwide, locally run and purposely provided at a low cost for accessibility to all. WordCamp Rochester is dedicated to WordPress, blogging and web facility. WordCamps are sponsored by WordPress, the open-source, free platform for individuals, groups and businesses to build their own blogs and websites. WordPress.org began in 2003. Its administrators call it the “largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.”
Similar to previous years, Rochester’s 2023 WordCamp will divide its workshops along two tracks, with sessions for every ability and level of use.
Speakers will include WordPress users from Rochester, Buffalo, and beyond, with experience ranging from user/blogger to advanced developer.
WordCamp San José 2023 will take place on November 4-5, 2023 at Fidélitas University. That means we are currently looking for speakers who want to take the stage and share their knowledge, and sponsors who can help make this event unforgettable.
Costa Rica is known as a country that stands out for its natural beauty, commitment to environmental sustainability, and quality of life, so we are looking for a great and diverse group of speakers to reflect our local community. Both new and experienced WordCamp speakers are welcome. If you would like to propose multiple topics, please submit the form multiple times, once for each topic.
Our deadline for submitting proposals is midnight EST on August 26, 2023.
Apply at https://sanjose.wordcamp.org/2023/llamado-a-ponentes/WordCamp San Jose is also looking for sponsors who can help with expenses. We are the largest WordCamp in Latin America. Be part of the fun and help us by bringing a great experience in terms of food, networking opportunities, and some fun contests!
Call for Sponsors: https://sanjose.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-sponsors/
Buy your ticket here: https://sanjose.wordcamp.org/2023/tickets/
If you have just started a business, or moving an existing one into this unique open source community, there is a lot to learn.
>> The post Navigating the WooCommerce and WordPress Community appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Hey is a block theme designed by Automattic for users on WordPress.com and also released for free in the WordPress.org Themes Directory. It’s the kind of simple theme that enables you to quickly get started writing online, without having to configure a bunch of design elements. The homepage features a profile image (Site Logo), site title, and recent posts with dates.
Single posts display with the feature image at the top of the post, although this template can easily be edited if this is an undesirable feature. Previous and Next post navigation appears under the post. Users can add menu items to display at the top, but clicking the site logo brings the visitor back home in the absence of a navigation menu.
The Hey theme comes in two different styles – the default and a serif variation. Colors can be adjusted to create a more vibrant palette for the site design.
One major drawback to this theme, which may not be immediately evident by looking at the demo, is that if users want to display more than the three most recent posts, they will need to add the pagination block inside the query loop block. It will also need to be styled to match the theme better. The query loop can be edited to show more posts on the homepage.
Although Hey is a simple personal blog theme, it also comes packaged with templates for WooCommerce compatibility. This is likely for the benefit of WordPress.com users who may want to quickly fire up a store. Self-hosted users who want to sell products with WooCommerce will be able to easily display things like the mini-cart, customer account block, product archive, product search results, and more.
Overall, Hey is an elegantly simple block theme with a clean design and plentiful white space. It’s suitable for the person who wants an almost blank slate to get started, or just a theme that enables writing without any distraction for the reader. Check out the live demo on WordPress.com and download Hey from WordPress.org.
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.
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.
\nDownload WordPress 6.3.1.\n
Download WordPress 6.3.1.
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.
\nCheck out the 6.4 roadmap post for a tentative preview of expected features.\n
Check out the 6.4 roadmap post for a tentative preview of expected features.
Two new versions of Gutenberg shipped in the last month:
\nFollow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements.\n
Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements.
\nKeen to see new WordPress event formats happening in your local community? Get inspired by these creative concepts and share your ideas!\n
Keen to see new WordPress event formats happening in your local community? Get inspired by these creative concepts and share your ideas!
\nThe Training team seeks feedback on the first learning pathways outlined to improve the Learn WordPress educational experience. Share your thoughts by September 15, 2023.\n
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.
\nJoin Josepha Haden Chomphosy in Episode 61 of WP Briefing as she discusses her takeaways from the Community Summit.\n
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.
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.
Host: Josepha Haden ChomphosyEditor: Dustin HartzlerLogo: Javier ArceProduction: Brett McSherrySong: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod
[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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On WordPress turning 20, and the Audrey Scholars program: https://t.co/Etwh8H6xh4— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) May 27, 2023
On WordPress turning 20, and the Audrey Scholars program: https://t.co/Etwh8H6xh4
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
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
Look at this cute #WP20 cake from @RicksBakery! pic.twitter.com/f88H3usR5R— Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@JosephaHaden) May 27, 2023
Look at this cute #WP20 cake from @RicksBakery! pic.twitter.com/f88H3usR5R
Tenemos regalitos para los que vengáis esta tarde a la Meetup.#WP20 pic.twitter.com/PSPsbWluv7— Meetup WordPress Torrelodones (@WPTorrelodones) June 22, 2023
Tenemos regalitos para los que vengáis esta tarde a la Meetup.#WP20 pic.twitter.com/PSPsbWluv7
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
#WCEU #WCEU2023 #WP20 pic.twitter.com/Uodqd2OotM— Osom Studio WordPress & WooCommerce Agency (@OSOM_STUDIO) June 10, 2023
#WCEU #WCEU2023 #WP20 pic.twitter.com/Uodqd2OotM
Celebrating #WP20 at #WCEU with @photomatt @JosephaHaden @matias_ventura pic.twitter.com/9LM9HnEfYn— Felix Arntz (@felixarntz) June 10, 2023
Celebrating #WP20 at #WCEU with @photomatt @JosephaHaden @matias_ventura pic.twitter.com/9LM9HnEfYn
Want to see more tweets? Check out the tweet wall here.
Want more social media for WordPress? Check out the official accounts here:
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.
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
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
We had lots of digital goodies too! From 3D desktop wallpaper, to selfie-props for the celebrations, and more. You can download them here.
It’s not too late to order your WP20 commemorative items. Find shirts, stickers, and more, while supplies last!
Sign up here to stay in the “know”!
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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.
\n“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!\nMatías Ventura, WordPress 6.3 Release Lead
“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!
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.
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.
Experience block themes before you switch and preview the Site Editor, with options to customize directly before committing to a new theme.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Footnotes add convenient annotations throughout your content. Now you can add and link footnotes for any paragraph.
Use the Details block to avoid spoiling a surprise, create an interactive Q&A section, or hide a long paragraph under a heading.
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.
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.
Specify your aspect ratios and ensure design integrity, especially when using images in patterns.
Distraction-free designing is now available in the Site Editor.
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.
Drag and drop to every content layer and delete any block you would like in the updated List View.
Create unique patterns to jumpstart template creation with a new modal enabling access to pattern selection.
Support for PHP 5 is discontinued. The new minimum supported version of PHP is 7.0.0.
WordPress will now auto-restore the previously installed version of plugins or themes if something goes wrong during a failed manual update.
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.
To accompany this release, a new web experience has been created to provide a more visual way of getting acquainted with the many improvements and new features of WordPress 6.3.
Seeing WordPress 6.3 in action doesn’t stop there! Be sure to watch this brief overview video to get a taste of the many things “Lionel” has to offer.
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.
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.
\nOur 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!\nJosepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director, WordPress.org
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!
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 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.
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. 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Many thanks to the community volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.
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.
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.
A capstone releaseShips tools for building great sitesCollaboration
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.
\nWhile 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. \n
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You can test WordPress 6.3 RC3 in three ways:
wp core update --version=6.3-RC3
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.
Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.
Phase two, soon completeA monumental releaseThen onto six-four.
Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: @Meher, @DanSoschin, and @jpantani
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.
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.’
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 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.
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 the community. He has been involved in developing plugins and themes for the platform, 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. Now, with this group of friends he is fulfilling another dream of traveling widely across the country. 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!”
To help you discover more about how to use the WordPress software, there is a free resource from the community, Learn.WordPress.org
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), Mark Smallman (@marks99), and Mary Baum (@marybaum) for reviews. Thanks to the late Surendra Thakor (@sthakor), Maja Loncar (@majaloncar), Maedah Bahtool (@maedahbatool) and other members of the Marketing and Polyglots Team for their contributions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Earlier this year, the WordPress Training Team published the results from the Individual Learner Survey completed in 2022. The goal of the survey was to identify the most useful and high-impact resources and content for Learn.WordPress.org and guide the future development of this community learning tool.
One of the main takeaways of this survey was the need for a clear, structured, and user-friendly approach to presenting Learn WordPress content. This need was also confirmed by feedback from WordCamp Europe Contributor Day attendees.
As a result, the training team launched the Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress project in July of this year. The objective of this project is to create and launch progressive user-friendly learning pathways tailored to different types of Learners on Learn WordPress. The training team anticipates that this project will be a year-long effort, working collaboratively with multiple different teams, including the Meta and Marketing teams.
Since WordCamp Europe, the Training Team has started the process of drafting rough outlines for learning pathways intended for Users, Designers, and Developers.
In August, Automattic-sponsored training team contributor Wes Theron published a post on the training team blog, asking for community feedback on the proposed learning pathways.
I asked Theron why he feels this project is so important, and what feedback he would like from the community:
\nThe Learning Pathways project focuses on improving the educational experience on Learn WordPress by creating personalized learning journeys for various learner profiles. These tailored pathways aim to enhance the Learn WordPress platform’s effectiveness and user-friendliness.\n\n\n\nWe have drafted the rough outlines for learning pathways intended for Users, Designers, and Developers. We’re excited to get the community’s thoughts and ideas to help shape them further before moving forward.\n
The Learning Pathways project focuses on improving the educational experience on Learn WordPress by creating personalized learning journeys for various learner profiles. These tailored pathways aim to enhance the Learn WordPress platform’s effectiveness and user-friendliness.
We have drafted the rough outlines for learning pathways intended for Users, Designers, and Developers. We’re excited to get the community’s thoughts and ideas to help shape them further before moving forward.
The Training Team has set the deadline for feedback for the 15th of September 2023. If you would like to review the proposed learning pathways and provide your feedback, you can do so from the Looking for feedback: Learning pathway outlines post on the Training Team blog.
10up, a leading development agency and contributor to the WordPress project, has merged with Fueled, a technology consultancy that specializes in mobile and web application development. Together, the companies now employ more than 400 full time team members, forming a digital powerhouse with expanded market reach across mobile and publishing sectors.
“Fueled has built stand out iOS and Android apps – several of which I’ve personally used – for clients like Warby Parker, Verizon, the United Nations, and even Apple themselves,” 10up President Jake Goldman said. “Just as 10up has built some great mobile applications, Fueled has executed notable works in the web application space for clients like Wall Street Journal and The New York Times – but content management systems and editorial experience has never been a core focus and strength. Until now.”
The merger transaction was made possible by investment from Insignia Capital, a firm that previously invested in Fueled. Insignia has made Fueled’s merger with 10up its first major growth investment, paying to restructure the companies’ ownership model. All parties invested in the merger hold meaningful shares, with none of them holding a majority share.
Goldman said 10up owners rolled over meaningful equity into the joint business, “but there was also a very healthy purchase of 10up equity to make this possible.”
10up’s announcement hinted at more acquisitions in the newly combined companies’ future.
“Insignia brings a whole new class of financial and investment capabilities to 10up and Fueled, with an appetite for responsibly paced growth through acquisition,” Goldman said. “They don’t just bring capital – they also bring expertise and impressive connections.”
He further elaborated on their acquisition strategy as seeking to expand their combined capabilities “to compete with the biggest digital transformation agencies:”
\nIn the broadest of terms, I think that we’re pretty open minded to what we find in the market, but opportunities that meaningfully expand what we can offer – shoring up weaker spots in our capabilities – are going to be the most attractive. As examples, while we’ve each done CRM and CDP integration work and strategy, I’d imagine a first rate CRM and/or CDP consultancy with some great case studies and clients would be the kind of opportunity that would be particularly interesting.\n
In the broadest of terms, I think that we’re pretty open minded to what we find in the market, but opportunities that meaningfully expand what we can offer – shoring up weaker spots in our capabilities – are going to be the most attractive. As examples, while we’ve each done CRM and CDP integration work and strategy, I’d imagine a first rate CRM and/or CDP consultancy with some great case studies and clients would be the kind of opportunity that would be particularly interesting.
Nearly 12 years after Goldman started 10up with what he said was “a small personal savings account and the sweat equity of more than a decade making websites and other media,” he is no longer the sole leader of the organization and will take on the role of Partner in the merged companies. Integral to the success of 10up, which Goldman has scaled to $40M+ in annual revenue, is its consistent commitment to supporting the open source ecosystem from which it has derived millions of dollars in value. Fueled acknowledged this in its announcement about the merger:
\n10up has long held a commitment to the open web, and open source contributions as a core value. This will remain a priority, especially towards the WordPress community, and will be further strengthened by the additional market reach gained from the merger.\n
10up has long held a commitment to the open web, and open source contributions as a core value. This will remain a priority, especially towards the WordPress community, and will be further strengthened by the additional market reach gained from the merger.
Fueled shares this same ethos, which they intend to continue cultivating following the merger.
“Fueled has always been supportive of open source, even if their part of the market (mobile apps) hasn’t embraced that model in the way web CMS has,” Goldman said. “They have open sourced projects (in fact, we incidentally found that we were using one!), and, like 10up, have fully embraced and focused on open technology solutions like NodeJS and React for web applications.”
For the most recent WordPress 6.3 release, 10up had the second most contributions by company, with 290 contributions from 16 people, superseded only by Automattic, which boasts 83 contributors.
10up has consistently been among the top contributors to the software, which has been essential to the world-class publishing experiences the company has built for its clients.
“That commitment to giving back to the web, making sure there’s a ladder for the next generation of developers to climb, and helping open technologies thrive remains with us,” Goldman said. “Our new business partners understand that this is deeply intertwined with 10up’s identity, and perhaps more importantly, our success. It’s not just a generosity thing – it’s also good business.
“Merging with and investing in 10up would be pretty foolish if you aren’t comfortable with the tools and platforms we use and prefer, most especially the web’s most popular open source CMS, and you can bet that being comfortable with that, and researching that question, was essential to their comfort with merging. In many ways, that’s a validation for WordPress.”
10up and Fueled will largely operate as two companies and close partners for the time being, sharing leads and pursuing customer growth together. Goldman said the vision is not to simply have web publishing/WordPress customers and separate mobile app customers but rather to go after large scale digital transformation projects.
“That means having a fully integrated way to deliver everything from the mobile apps, to the website and CMS, to advanced e-commerce and CRM integrations (even if we may only provide one of those services to some clients),” he said. “That means we’re not just operating as separate companies in the future, but truly merging and unifying our companies from leadership and sales on down through project and product management, user research and design, and engineering delivery.”
Given that both brands hold considerable weight and influence in their respective markets, Goldman said they agreed “it would be incredibly foolish to discount that and rush to a single brand.” Instead, they plan to explore how the companies can work together.
“We honestly don’t know where we’ll land on the external brand question, and didn’t think it was fundamental to the question of merging,” Goldman said. “We’ll be exploring and researching that question together, and any change would, again, be gradual and planned.
“We all similarly agree that when we think out into the future, whether that’s 12 or 24 months from now (probably something in between), that we probably don’t want two separate, external, top line company brands competing for attention and oxygen in the space, to say nothing of competing for internal focus and resources.”
He said that could play out in a number of ways, and may be a data driven decision. For example, 10up could evolve to be the brand name for the WordPress engineering services team or the company’s open source and productized solutions. Nothing has been predetermined about the branding.
In the meantime, it appears to that the combination of companies will be a more gradual merging of services and administration.
“In the mid term, maybe the next year, we want to focus on building a highly collaborative world class sales and growth operation, unifying back office (benefits management, financial operations, recruiting ops, etc), and looking at where some of our smaller capabilities and disciplines that aren’t very specific to 10up or Fueled delivery might benefit from joining forces and achieving some economy of scale,” Goldman said.
Adam joins me for a candid conversation about WCUS and some reflections from being both an attendee and a sponsor.
>> The post Wearing Attendee and Sponsor Hats at WCUS with Adam Warner appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Nadia Maya Ardiani and Birgit Pauli-Haack discuss Gutenberg 16.6, the new default theme Twenty-Twenty-Four, the Font Library and other upcoming features.
contributor on the training team and WordCamp Asia, and content writer in Hostinger.
Hostinger Experts series:
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, hello and welcome to our 89th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. In today’s episode, we will talk about Gutenberg’s 16.6 and some community contributions as well as features that are still in the works, that we wanted to highlight today. I’m your host Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and WordPress developer advocate, and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project. A special guest today is Nadia Maya Ardiani, contributor on the training team and WordCamp Asia, and that’s where we met for a chat at dinner, a lunch, and we did… Yeah, it was just fabulous to meet Maya and we always found a topic to talk about and to laugh as well. I’m so happy you join me today to review the Gutenberg plugin release and connect about WordPress. So greetings to Indonesia. How are you today?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Thank you, Birgit, for having me. It’s so good to be here, and thank you as well for being the first WordPresser ever to be featured in Hostinger’s WordPress Expert Article Series.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, it was a fun interview.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Because it’s only fitting to start the series with one of the people who have been doing such significant contribution to the platform, and that’s you.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Thank you. So what else do you contribute to on WordPress?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Okay. So yeah, I’m a contributor on the training team and in the team I’m also a translator coordinator for Indonesian locale. And yeah, I love contributing for the training team because I enjoy sharing complex information in a more accessible way, making the knowledge more accessible for a wider audience, which is also related to my day job as a content writer in Hostinger. And yeah, in my day job, I write WordPress tutorials in the form of WordPress website articles and script for YouTube videos. And I also write about WordPress community activities like Word camps and about WordPress journeys of awesome WordPress community members, that’s like you.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, thank you. Thank you. I know that another interview was with Michelle Frechette on the Experts Series. Yeah, great job there as well. It’s really fabulous to kind of follow up on that. Yeah, I’m so glad we stayed in touch after WordCamp Asia and you just returned from WordCamp US. So how was it and what are your takeaways for that?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So yeah, it’s my first word WordCamp US, so it’s very new to me. And I also volunteered this time, and I didn’t get to attend a lot of sessions, but it always awesome to meet and have a chat with fellow WordPress enthusiasts because you don’t get to meet them every day. And I think it’s one of the WordCamp’s struggle to decide between attending the session or talking and catching up with everyone.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I know I have this every time that I have my sessions checked off to say, “This I want to do,” and I put them in my calendar and then I stay in the moment with talking with somebody and then whoosh, the time is gone and I have to catch the livestream. Totally get it. And for WordCamp US, there is a lot of FOMO that I had to endure.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Yeah, yeah. There are actually lots of interesting sessions, but as we know, we can just catch up with the sessions in WordPress YouTube channel or WordPress.tv. But yeah, I actually really want to see the one with NASA and the White House because we get to see WordPress implementation in those two websites. Because for me, it’s the most interesting thing about the session is we can see how WordPress is really for everyone because many of us in the end users, we think WordPress is only for hobbyists, but it’s actually can be for big organizations like this that require fairly customized website and high level security.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So true, so true. Yeah, the bandwidth is really broad. I’m glad you got to see that.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: And I also really love about the contributors day because as always, it’s the time for us to work together with other contributors who we usually only meet on screen. And so far the WordCamp US is kind of unique because usually we all gather in one big room, all of the teams are gathering in the same place. But this time teams which works closely related, were spread in multiple rooms. I actually love the comradery of being in the same room as all contributors, but this time I also love it because there was no confusion about which table belongs to which team, and also more space or creating breakout room. For example, in training team, after onboarding the new team members, we can split into this is the people who are interested to be content insider. This is for people who are interested to be content creator. And also since the training team is in the same room with the Docs team, there we can discuss more about cross collaboration effort regarding how to better work together with the backlink material and each other.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I can see that there’s some overlap between the Docs team and the training team, and the more we can streamline the processes between the two, I think the better it is for WordPress users to find the right material at the right time. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for this report back from WordCamp US and how you found it from a contributor point of view. Yeah.
Dear listeners, we have one announcement that we wanted to share with you is about WordPress 6.4. So WordPress 6.4 is in less than three weeks away. WordPress 6.4 beta is only three weeks away. Don’t get scared. The last Gutenberg version for features will be 16.7. Today we are talking about 16.6, so there’s only one more Gutenberg plugin release to go and release candidate for 16.7 is scheduled for September 20th.
That’s one week longer than the usual two-week schedule. And so all the new features will need to be merged by that time. And after that, only bug fixes and fixes for blast features can be added to the WordPress release. So it’s the time to test all the Gutenberg plugins versions that go into, it will be 16.2 all the way to 16.7 and whatever bug fixes come in 16.8 and nine.
The final release or the release for 6.4 is scheduled for November 7th, and so that’s still about a month and a half away, two months away. So just so you’ll get the timeline a little bit, we will repeat this on the next shows as well when we… Next time is with Tammy Lister. She’s on the editor tech lead, so we will have some more information about 16.4.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: It’s my first time to see how many improvements that come with one version of Gutenberg. So it’s like, “Oh my God.” So every time we release one version of WordPress, that must be a huge improvement. So by seeing the rundown, that’s the first time I realized that how much is the improvements.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that’s a change log and that can be overwhelming indeed. And the last five versions kind of go into WordPress. So yes, so 16.2 and three had major jumps in improvements to the site editor and to the block editor. Especially because 6.3 and 6.4 wrap up the phase two of site editing. But 6.4 also will ship with the new default theme and amply named 2024, and it’s also expected to be in early November together with the 6.4 release, the designs are already available and you can follow up on the introduction post on the Make WordPress core website. We mentioned it on one of the previous episodes as well, but I really like to talk to you about, Maya, you looked at it and what do you think about the new theme?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: As an end-user, I’m really excited to use this theme because this one is aimed to be a multi-purpose team, right? I sold three use cases in the Make WordPress website, one specifically tailored for entrepreneurs and small business, one for photographers and artists, and one for writers and bloggers. So it provide a better look into how the theme would look like when it is used to display lots of images, when it’s used to show multiple chunks of text and how it may look like as a landing page, which is so cool because I can instantly imagine, “Oh, this is the stuff that I can do with this theme.” Since it’s a collection of templates and patterns which combine into a theme, it’s even cooler because the patterns include in it, it has various home templates or different use cases such as out page and then project overview are SVPs. So yeah, it’s basically very handy for no-code people because we can just… Yeah, I want to make this, I want to make this.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I think that’s exactly what you’re saying is that it gives you a vision or an inspiration of what your website could look like when you use that theme and then gives you all the tools. I like that it also thinks about… Or the creators think about the full page templates so you don’t have to assemble all the things.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Yeah, it’s very nice to not have to create everything from scratch because sometimes it can be intimidating to start from a pure blank slate like that. At least that’s for no code people like me. But this one is the default color and typography style are already versatile and very timeless. It gives professional and elegant flare in general with the understated color and the sunset of point variation. So it can be used for any, many needs.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And with the site editor providing all the design tools, you can really make it your own in terms of the look and feel. And I really like that. I think it’s the first default theme that’s not very opinionated about the design that is only for a niche or for a certain topic or so. It’s more really that is actually the purpose that you just said is that many people can see themselves building with that theme, and I am really happy that comes out of it also for you. Yeah, there is the Figma I can share in the show notes. I’ll share also the link to the Figma file where you can kind of browse the designs. It’s right now in development, the report from the leads of Jessica Lishick and Maggie Cabrera and they both were at WordPress US Contributor Day and they had about 31 contributors at the theme table who wanted to work on the theme.
So there is some rapid development going on, and I will also share the GitHub report link where it’s all happening with the issues and the PRs and everything, and where you can see all the discussions. The GitHub report will closer to release candidate, it will disappear and then it will be on track because that’s just for development. Default themes are then housed with the core files on a track. Yes, in the repo, yes. Another community contribution gets you all the way from that no-code site builder, single site builder, private person to all the way to the enterprise level of using WordPress. And there is a new guide for WordPress for Enterprise Together.
So where the major WordPress agencies that deal with enterprise clients and there are Big Bite and 10Up and Alley, Human made Inpsyde and XWP and they got together and in WordCamp Europe as well to think about can WordPress be advertised or shape the conversation with enterprise IT people and CEOs about using WordPress for content management system on their large scale organizations. And they came together and created a free guide for WordPress for enterprise. It highlights all the high profile companies like CNN, Vogue, Google, Spotify, the White House, and many more, now NASA and also responds to some of the misconceptions that are still out there. Mainly the one that it’s not secure that it’s only for blogging and all that kind of thing. So it’s a really good guide that you as a small agency can certainly also use in parts for talking to your clients and to your customers about things.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: I like it that this guide is easy to read because sometimes people from big enterprises are not really tech-savvy. So having it with layman’s term, it can deliver the knowledge better to a wider audience about the possibilities for creating a customized platform to fit any organization. And yeah, I checked the chapters in good discussion about platform security, scalability, internationalization, solution, cost and value. Those are the stuff that enterprise really cares about. I think it shows one of the beauty of the WordPress community, everyone’s coming together for it, but to constantly improve the platform and to share to others that this is a solution you can use. And it’s really nice to see how these agencies provide insights related to aspects that are important for enterprises.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And I also like that they kind of highlight the open source part, which scares enterprise, but the open source part that there are hundreds of contributors that are actually maintaining the code and doing all the performance testing. We have this awesome performance team that has brought down the load times of WordPress out of the box just for 6.3, around 20%, which is huge when you think of the millions and millions of websites that use WordPress. And I saw a statistic that already 50% of WordPress is now 6.3 installations. So the community has really reacted fast to the new versions and that will also be for 6.4. So we will share of course the article from WP Tavern that talks about it. We also share the blog post about it and with a link to download it. You don’t need an email address to download it, so it’s all free out there for you to use and to contemplate. Yes.
Which brings us to the section what’s released and right now, we’re talking about Gutenberg 16.6 that was released earlier this week and Vincente Canales was the release manager for this. And in his release post he shared the change log and as well as some highlighted things. And we follow suit of course, and the first thing that we wanted… Most of it, there’s not really some big stuff coming in 16.6, but it was some great quality of life changes that make working in it much smoother and less confusing and more consistent together. But there are few highlights that we wanted you to know about.
So the first one is it says I needed to read through the PRs and look at the videos to try it out myself to actually actually know what it means. So it says, “Capture toolbars,” in the quote block or navigation block. What it means is that the toolbars for child blocks or inner blocks are now seamless attached to their parent block and offering a more intuitive and organized editing experience. They don’t jump around that much, which is sometimes a little disconcerting and distracts you from the work that you actually wanted to do. Right now they are in place for the navigation block, the list block, and the quote block.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Yeah, I think this one makes the publishing experience way more enjoyable. Because sometimes you just move a little and the block will follow through like, “Oh my god, can you just stay right there?” And I publish articles in daily basis, but it’s only recently that I discovered the top toolbar feature that we can activate by clicking, what’s the name?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: The options.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: In the right panel. Yeah, the block tool work can be annoying sometimes. So having this improvement capture toolbars, this will be… And making the toolbar staying at the same nearby spot like this, I will definitely prefer this one than the following.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, me too. I found that some users are actually struggling with the concept that depending on which block is focused, that they have a different toolbar from the parent block. And to get to the parent block, you have to know that you need to click on the leftmost kind of button to get to the parent block again. And I think I haven’t found a better way to get to it to kind of imagine a better UI for that. But I think with tying both toolbars together and just switch in place and not also move it, it’s a much better experience. Yes, definitely. Another one is that for the query pagination block, it was that you only had one or two… The pagination block is the block that you have underneath your loop block or the query loop where it says, “Okay, get me next pages,” from that query from that loop of next pages of articles.
And when you look at it, there were only two… You only saw the first two ones, and then the last two ones. But you couldn’t click to, if you say, the third one or the fourth page because you knew it was things on there you had to click on next, next, next to… You didn’t find a… And now a user can determine how those numbers in the pagination block are actually organized. You can say, “Okay, give me four numbers in between.” That’s a really good improvement considering that that was possible before in the classic theme very much so. But this is kind of getting it all feature priority and it really is a good improvement. It’s such a small thing, you would think, but navigating a list of posts deeper into it, they’re not just the first page, sometimes is really needs some support, some better support there.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Sometimes more like things that at the front end it seems like a very simple change, but I believe that under the hood that there must be many things going on, right?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And then now you have in the sidebar, you have additional fields where you can put in numbers and some more explanation, if my explanation wasn’t helpful at all. And the next part is that the list view now has a keyboard shortcut for duplicating blocks. So if you are working through a list view by keyboard and you now don’t need to change controls to duplicate a block, you can just use command shift and D, and then that block that was just focused is duplicated. This definitely helps with rapid content creation and laying out some articles.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: As a content writer, I definitely agree with this one. This will be very time-saving.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Super, yeah. 16.6 Gutenberg also adds a custom taxonomy for user created patterns. So WordPress 6.3 came with the feature that you now could create synced and unsynced patterns, but if you have three or four or 15 of those, it was hard to sort through them. So now you can use some taxonomy labels for your creative patterns. So you can give other editors on your site a little bit more help with what are those patterns that Birgit created and now you can help them to be a little bit more organized here.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So this can be for the synced and unsynced patterns?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Yeah, this will be… Having a feature to organize it, it definitely will be beneficial for the content creators also because we can easily choose which one we want to use.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and you can drill down because I can see that an organization has created at least 10, 20 patterns depending on how the different content they provide. And the beauty of it is, it’s actually based on the default taxonomy patterns, not patterns, API that comes with WordPress because the patterns are custom post type. So the built-in taxonomy is now just surfacing on the editor. There was not a whole lot of… There was development being done just to make it into the site editor, but the underlying backend was already there. So it’s good to have a fallback like that.
So now we are coming to the bug fixes and there’s just a few that we wanted to point out. Maybe just one, no, maybe two or so. Do you want to take that?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Okay. So for the bug fixes, I like this one about the post notification link, which is the remove unnecessary space between rows and label. I think for some end users this might look like a very simple improvement that almost unseen, but I believe for those who work around design a lot will be happy with this. “Finally, I already feel it sometime ago.” Because it’s only a very tiny character, isn’t it like the space between the arrows and labels? But once it removes it, it’s like, “Yeah, this is how it should look.”
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it gives you a consistent look and don’t really get that. That’s fixed now. And then also for the block styles, there’s the preview of the popover is now working also with right to left sites.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Yeah, I think this is also one of the great examples of a form of striving for inclusivity and equality in WordPress because it makes a site building experience equal for everyone, whatever language you use, including the right to left languages like this. So when your site using the right to left languages, you will have the exact same experience as everyone in the world.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And sometimes that kind of falls a little bit through the cracks. So some head bubble for those who record those issues on the GitHub report so they can be fixed if they are not working right. In the site editor, there’s one bug fix.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: About the unified delete button style in the dropdown menu and making it red. So I think it’s also a nice improvement, especially for end users who still learn to use WordPress for the first time because it’s easier to tell the effect of clicking this button. When you see it previously it’s blue. So people might just, “Okay, I will just try to delete this,” and turns out it delete all the stuff that they actually don’t want to delete. But by making it red, it’s making… I think it’s related to psychology of color, people can be more considerate when they offer this button. This one will do a significant effect to my content.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s kind of, “Stop. Think what you’re doing.”
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Oh, what is it? What is it? It’s red. I will avoid doing something with this because it can avoid accidental deletion.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And that’s part of really the small changes that have big outcomes. So the Gutenberg 16.6 also brings a new feature, new API and that’s called lock hooks. It was introduced one or two Gutenberg versions earlier and labeled as order inserting blocks. And the PRs that are accompanying it are still referring to that, but it’s on activation plugins now can have the capability to order insert blocks, enhancing the integration and automation between the plugins and the Gutenberg editor. So the examples that you see in the PRs… And I would recommend to look through the PRs to kind of see how it all works. And the change log has the list of the PRs in there. So what is it useful… And I think we talked with Ellen about it, Ellen Bauer on the previous episode about it. So you can add a like button to a comment section or a card icon to the header with this API and any other thing that you want to add to a block that’s automatically added for the user.
The user now also has with the… They created now the block inspector panel and have a plugin section there. So it identifies the plugin that added a block and you can toggle the appearance or disappearance of it on your templates and on your posts. So depending on what the use case is for this plugin that you installed on your site. So this very much expands the capabilities of the block editor for plugin developers outside of adding custom blocks or adding additional features in the sidebar. Now you can add a few content as well. So this is a really good new feature and it will come to 6.4. It definitely needs some major testing. So if you are having a test site and you want to check it out and yeah, please report back on what your findings are and if you tripped up by things.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So here in the PR, the example is log in logout, card and checkout, but it’ll be different for each plugin? For different plugins?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, so there’s an API where a plugin developer can say, “Okay, I want this content or this particular feature added to a columns block.” Or to a paragraph block. For instance, just an anchor link to every paragraph. You can write a plugin and say, “Okay, for each paragraph add this anchor link on the right-hand side.” And then a user can install that plugin and then automatically has that on their blog and can now reference certain paragraphs. So some people do blogging more like a diary where they have all the sorts of a day in little paragraphs or in a cluster of paragraphs and say, “Okay, today I wrote also about my adventure of riding the bike down the hill on a certain hill,” and then want to link to that through Twitter or through Instagram because there’s also a picture to it.
So you can go back to the blog and read a little bit about it. So that’s one tiny use case. Another one is, as I said, the like button for comments. Normally comments don’t come with like buttons. But you can build a plugin that says, “Okay, every comment gets a like button for me and I want it at the top of it or on the bottom of it.” And that’s all in the API controls. And then when it’s installed and the user wants to use it can also say, “For this paragraph, I want to toggle in and off. I want to disable that particular added block for this particular paragraph. And then for the next block I want it again.” So it’s kind of a beginning of a new interface or a new way to customize the block editor.
Speaking of development, 6.3 brought a few pickups to the surface that with the… Enqueuing of assets in the editor and the CSS and Nick Diego updated the documentation and how to guide to and queue assets in the editor and best practice or how it’s actually supposed to work, especially now with the iFrame editor in the post editor as well. There were some early adopters of the block editor created a few workarounds, the early restrictions that were there. And now with 6.3 or the iFraming of the post editor, some of those don’t work anymore as one would hope. So here’s a how to guide on how to enqueue assets in the editor after 6.3.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So this how to guide is targeted for developers? Or for everyone who wants to learn about Gutenberg in general can also try to learn this?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh yeah, sure, sure. It’s a website, so the website doesn’t know who’s coming in. So it’s on the developer… The link goes right now to the Gutenberg repo where the pages, but I will share the link in the show notes where the actual documentation page was created. So it’s in the realm of the other documentation of the block editor. Yeah, it’s definitely helpful when you start out thinking about your theme development or your plugin development and you have additional assets like JavaScript files, CSS files to go with those entities and how to do it to control your iFrame editor. There has also been an update on the block variations API, and that has been… Block variations have been around since the beginning of the block editor where you can modify in a core block that then add additional feature sets or styles or just kind of different behavior to it.
And the block variations FPI had been updated, but this goes well with a new article on the developer blog called An Introduction to Block Variations where Nick Diego walks you through certain use cases on how to use it. So how to create a block variation, how to unregister. So you could use the block variation. So if a simple example is you have a button, you want the button to have a certain style, you can certainly do this through the theme.
But you can also say, “Okay, I want to unregister the core button and I want my block variations for the core button to be the default.” So it shows up in the inserter as a core button, but it will always have the right color on the border or the background or the right font size that you have decided on the design of it. And the user doesn’t have to select between the two they just have one. Same could be with a code block or a verse block. You can really have quite a few methods and attributes that you can use to create those lock variations. Yeah, I learned quite a bit from the article.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: No, I just wanted to say that this resource is pretty comprehensive. We can learn many stuff about the block variations from the basic to the putting it all together and everything. We can check it here. So yeah, it’s great.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it also helps you how to control the icons for it or how the sidebar is behaving. So yes, it’s a really good article. All the articles on the developer blog, that’s actually a very rather new entity on the wordpress.org site. It only has been around for eight months, give or take. Official launch was actually March, so it’s only been around for five months officially, but we started in November with it. And there are quite a few blog posts now that are tutorials and go a little bit deeper on then documentation help you picks up the developer from a different place, from a beginner place and go all the way to advanced. Or say, “Okay, this is your use case.” There are a series of blog posts as well as standalone posts. And you can also learn about the slot fields. What’s slot fields? Well, it’s the spaces in the sidebar of a block where you can add additional features, fields and all that.
So the developer block is definitely something to check out if you are a developer and extending the block editor. And yeah, this concludes the change log for 16.6. We are through that.
And as I said at the beginning, we also wanted to discuss a few things, or two things. No, actually three that are in active development. And the first one is a big feature that is announced slated for 6.4. The contributors have been working on it for quite a while, almost a whole year to get font management into WordPress. Meaning upload funds, make them available for blocks, make them available for templates, and then also delete funds, and have them across themes. So you are not depending on a theme developer to provide you with the right fonts. You can as a site owner also make different choices there. And I will share with you a link to a PR that kind of puts it all together, how it all works.
And Jeffrey Pearce also just made a call for testing on Twitter where he provided a link to a WordPress playground site with the configuration to test this successfully already in place. Because you need to make changes to the WP-config file and then you need to enable the plugin for it, the experiment for it and all that. So there’s kind of a set-up manually to be done, but this link to the WordPress playground gives you the PR, or the version of Gutenberg that has the PR in it as well as the right setup. And then you can test it, you can upload fonts, you make them available through the interface. You can use them on pages, on posts and on templates and see if the font on front end and editor actually would display correctly. And anything that you find that’s not working right, report that back to the PR so they can go and fix it.
Once it’s merged, so right now the PRs are still in the works and a lot of people are testing it, but it could use some more testing. If you listen to this and the PR has already been merged, it will be available through the Gutenberg nightly plugin version that you get on the Gutenberg Times, and then you can start testing it on your normal, like any Gutenberg plugin version on your test site. And my favorite tool for testing is actually local WP from the WP Engine and Flywheel folks. That has been a tremendous help to go through all those testing. So font library is a big, big step forward for WordPress and any help you can give to testing it would be really appreciated.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So we can also use font library in playground?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: With the link that… The link is a Bitly link. It’s shortened because it’s actually 15 lines long. It’s bit.ly/text-font-library, and then it gives you a new WordPress site and then you can use it and test it. You cannot install other plugins there. You cannot install themes. So you would have to test it with the default theme Twenty Twenty Three. And the second part… It’s only two things, is a lot of people, especially content creators were really waiting for this, it’s the adding a background image to a group block. It’s coming, it’s already available in the Gutenberg nightly because the feature has already been merged with trunk. It’ll be released with 16.7 Gutenberg plugin. And if you can provide user feedback, that will be really great. And if the provided user feedback doesn’t reveal any big issues with that new feature, it will also arrive in WordPress 6.4 with the next upgrade on November 7th, 2023. How do you like that, Maya?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: I will definitely use this. I can see myself using this, I don’t know, for my company, for my day job, I don’t know about that. But so I have a website that is just to play around, my test site. I really like it. So I think I will definitely use this because it’s like, yeah, adding more creativity fuel to my toolkit.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I can see that there are some very, very subtle backgrounds that could happen on different paragraphs, like wallpaper in a house or something like that where you can change that for a different group of posts or for… If you wrap a quote post into a group block, then you can add a background image to it, and that background image could have a photo of the person who gives the quote. So you don’t have to use backgrounds and fiddle around with all the blocks, you can just put it on the background image and then upload that to the quote block. And yeah, I really like it.
So we are at the end of the show. I just wanted to make sure people, when they want to connect with you, what would be a good place to meet you online, Maya?
Nadia Maya Ardiani: So I’m on Twitter and also I’m on Instagram. So yeah, I think I will… And on LinkedIn also, so in three places. So yeah, I will share the link to you so we can put it in the show notes.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much. As always, the show notes will be published on Gutenbergtimes.com/podcast and this is the episode 89. And if you have questions, suggestions, or news that you want us to include, send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com. That’s changelog@gutenbergtimes.com. And there was a time when we had quite a few people add reviews about the podcast on different podcast websites like Stitcher or Apple or Google. It would be time to do another round of reviews. If you like what you hear and get value out of this podcast, please submit a review to Apple, that’s probably the most prominent one, to iTunes or podcast, and that would be really lovely. And as a bonus, we will read them in our next show. So yeah, come on then.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Give a little shout-out.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Give a little shout-out. Yeah. So Maya, thank you so much for joining me today. It was lovely to have you on the show and give your input and have opinions will travel that’s always beneficial at WordPress. Yeah, and I thank you all for listening and I’ll hear you in two weeks. We won’t have a 16.7 then, but we will have Tammy Lister on the show and we will talk about WordPress 6.4 and the whole process. And I wish you all well, take care and goodbye.
Nadia Maya Ardiani: Thank you, Birgit. Forget the pleasure is all mine.
The WordPress 6.4 release is fast approaching. This week I tested two new features. I am excited about that content creators and designers will be able to add a background image to group blocks. I see a few more decorative, wall paper like backgrounds for quotes, or call out paragraphs in our future. Furthermore, site owners and theme builders can look forward to a new Font library with font management capabilities via the Global Styles sidebar.
You can upload fonts and server them to visitors locally and keep within privacy guidelines. Jeffrey Pearce posted A call for testing on X (formerly Twitter). For more information, I added some details in this post on this site.
For novices to the intricacies of Typography, Mary Baum started an exciting series on the Developer Blog.
Hope all is well. Cu you on the Interwebs.
Last Monday, I was part of This Week in WordPress #266 – “Weirdy bespoke CMS” with Katie Keith and Bob Dunn, hosted by the fabulous Nathan Wrigley. We talked about last week’s news around the WordPress space. Gutenberg updates, about LMS Working group, and Automattic’s One Hundy (100-year plan) Bob’s booth take-over and Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt joining Post Status, Enterprise Guide to WordPress and a lot more. It was great fun and quite enlightening.
Joen Asmussen again shared the work of the WordPress design team in his post Design Share: Aug 14-Aug 25. You’ll find illustrations and links on
After nearly 3.5 years of feedback loops, knowledge sharing, and community building and WordPress 6.3 concluding the Phase 2, Anne McCarthy outlines in her blog post Evolving the FSE Outreach Program, what will happen next. Details on the timeline, the shift from new feature to adoption and the hand-off of future calls for testing to the WordPress test team, are all explained in the post. Anne McCarthy has been a fantastic community builder and communicator running this first of a kind outreach program. Their work was groundbreaking and provided a blueprint future outreach programs can build on.
In his release post, What’s new in Gutenberg 16.6? (06 September), Vicente Canales highlighted the new Block hooks, formerly known as Auto-inserted blocks, and improvements to the block toolbars by tieing the toolbars of child blocks to the parent block’s toolbar.
Sarah Gooding also reported on the Gutenberg 16.7 release in her article Gutenberg 16.6 Introduces Block Hooks, Improvements to Toolbars on Nested Blocks
For this week’s Gutenberg Changelog episode 89, I had the great pleasure of welcoming Nadia Maya Ardiani and my special guest. Ardiani is a content creator at Hostinger and contributor on training and documentation teams working on translations. We have been in touch since we met in person at WordCamp Asia. In this new episode, we tackled the Gutenberg 16.6 release and talked about more features in the works. The episode will drop into your favorite podcast app over the weekend.
TIL: The diner in Maya’s background is called warkop/warmindo, which is the short for warung kopi (coffee tavern) or warung indomie (instant noodle diner)
🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #89 – Gutenberg 16.6, default theme and Font Library with Nadia Maya Ardiani as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack
JR Tashjian, senior developer at GoDaddy, has been working on OmniForm for a while, and he just released it in the WordPress plugins directory. OmniForm specializes in essential form types, such as contact and feedback forms. The feature list includes:
Patricia Hillebrandt, code wrangler at WooCommerce, published the release notes for WooCommerce Blocks version 11.0.0 With the latest release of WooCommerce Blocks, users can leverage the Product Collection Block and the improved interactivity of the Product Button to create appealing product displays and enhance the shopping experience on their websites.
Sarah Gooding reported on the new release for the WPTavern: WooCommerce Blocks 11.0.0 Adds Product Collection Block in Beta, 10.9.0 Integrates Product Button with the Interactivity API
The Torque Magazine published Nick Schäferhoff‘s post about Mastodon and WordPress: 8 Ways to Make Them Work Together. From site verification and social icons over displaying your feed on your site or your client’s sites, to automatically posting from WordPress to Mastodon, Schäferhoff gives comprehensive instructions and illustrations for a complete integration of WordPress and Mastodon.
On Learn.WordPress you can now watch the new tutorial: Intro to the Site Editor. You can create and launch your entire site within the Site Editor. In this video tutorial, Wes Theron, provides you with an overview of accessing and using the Site Editor and you learn about all the tools you need.
Steve Burge published for KinshiPress the tutorial on how to use a Time to Read Block in WordPress, via the Gutenberg plugin.
Anton Plauche has published a detailed tutorial for responsive design implementation by extending the core columns block. In How to Build Responsive Designs in the WordPress Editor by Extending the Core Columns Block, Plauche shares example code to add our additional breakpoint functionality.
With Gutenberg 16.6, Nick Diego updated the documentation for Block Variations to clarify different properties and to add notes regarding implementation. He also merged the new page on enqueuing assets in the Editor
Featured Image: Ekodesign: Creatif Building block found in WordPress photo directory
The Font Library is a new WordPress feature that will come to WordPress 6.4. Your help is needed to test the feature that allows you to manage fonts and their variants for your website. You can find the PR on GitHub Font Library: Frontend [Stage 1] #53884
You can use the WordPress playground tool that is already prepped for your test just follow this link Test Font Library. Unfortunately, you cannot upload other plugins or themes to the playground space yet.
If you need to use your own test site setup with LocalWP or any other tools because you are curious how the font library works with your set of plugins, themes or custom blocks, you would have to do a bit of a set-up.
define( \'FONT_LIBRARY_ENABLE\', true );
The package could not be installed. No valid plugins were found.
wp-content/plugins
wp-admin/plugins
If you read to this at a later date, and you’ll find that the PR was already merged, you can always use the Gutenberg Nightly version and start testing on your test site.
No matter the tool you use, testing an undocumented feature is like jumping into the deep end of the pool and try to learn how to swim.
Here are the steps.
Below is a short video how you can find the Font Manager.
Note re: Display in Editor or FrontendI have yet to find a way to make the uploaded fonts show up display in the editor or the frontend. I am in the process of finding out why and I’ll update these instructions when I do. If you already figured out how to do it feel free to share your findings in the comment section.
Report all finding in a comment on the PR on GitHub Font Library: Frontend [Stage 1] #53884, or comment below.
WP Includes is a new initiative that launched this week with the goal of improving equal representation of women at global WordPress companies. It was founded by Human Made COO Siobhan McKeown and XWP Director of Engineering Francesco Marano.
“I’ve been in WordPress a long time and I’ve met a lot of talented women but not enough in leadership roles. It’s time to change that,” McKeown said.
The website states the founders’ mission in launching the initiative:
\nDisappointed by the lack of representation of women in leadership roles at companies in the WordPress ecosystem we’ve decided to do something about it.\n\n\n\nWe want to drastically increase representation of women in leadership roles at WordPress companies. We will do this by mentoring and supporting women to take the next step in their careers.\n
Disappointed by the lack of representation of women in leadership roles at companies in the WordPress ecosystem we’ve decided to do something about it.
We want to drastically increase representation of women in leadership roles at WordPress companies. We will do this by mentoring and supporting women to take the next step in their careers.
WP Includes is recruiting women leaders who are C-Level or Directors at a WordPress company to volunteer as mentors and build a supportive network of mentees.
The mentorship program lasts five months and calls for mentees/mentors goes out twice a year in September and March. Mentors commit to meet with mentees for a 1:1 on a regular basis and support them in achieving their goals. Mentee applicants are required to be working at a business in the WordPress ecosystem and actively developing their careers.
WP Includes is accepting sponsorships from companies with some rigorous requirements:
Supporting organizations can also contribute by sharing open roles within the network and by providing mentorship to future leaders who may potentially be considered for leadership roles in the sponsoring organizations. This is effectively changing representation from the inside out with cooperating organizations contributing to the cultivation of the leaders they need in order to purse more diverse leadership teams.
Prospective mentees, mentors, and sponsors can apply on the WP Includes website.
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), one of the plugins WP Engine acquired from Delicious Brains in 2022, has published the results if its first annual survey. Although ACF reports more than 4.5 million active users, including PRO site installs, the survey only gathered feedback from 2,031 respondents.
These results are more representative of the plugin’s developer community, as 81% of respondents are developers who maintain between 11-50 websites. 63% use version control for their codebase, and 27% manage dependencies with Composer.
The survey showed that ACF is still an important tool for its early adopters, as 50% said they have been using it since its early days and 70% of all respondents use the plugin on all the websites they build.
When asked what type of sites they are building, respondents had the option to choose multiple answers. Sites using Classic WordPress themes are the most popular followed by Hybrid themes, Block themes, and page builders. Surveying those who use the block editor, 56% report that they build blocks using ACF blocks.
“It was cool to see the strong representation of hybrid and block themes,” WP Engine Product Marketing Manager Rob Stinson said. “It shows us that there is growing adoption of the modern WP editor experience amongst the PHP friendly crowd that is the ACF user base.
“We had this scoped for upcoming releases anyway, but it reinforces our focus on improving the block building experience in ACF.”
Among those ACF users building sites with page builders, the most popular selections include Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and WPBakery Page Builder. Naturally, ACF Extended is the most popular extension used with ACF, followed by Gravity Forms, Yoast SEO, and ACF Better Search.
Respondents demonstrated high confidence in those maintaining the plugin, as 98% of them are comfortable updating ACF to the latest version. They are also confident in continuing to build on top of WordPress, as 91% of survey participants said they are likely to continue with the platform. For a more detailed look at the questions and responses, check out the 2023 annual survey results on the ACF website.
In WooBits this week, recapping WCUS, launch of WP Includes, WordPress for Enterprise, future of swag and Avalara Next virtual event.
>> The post WooBits About WordCampUS, WP Includes, WP for Enterprise, Swag and Avalara Next appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Gutenberg 16.6 is available with progress on a feature that was formerly called auto-inserting blocks but has now been renamed to block hooks.
In a previous release (16.4), Gutenberg introduced auto-inserting blocks as an experimental feature that allows plugin developers to specify a location in which the block will be automatically inserted, such as before or after a template. Users can then reposition the blocks after insertion using the editor tools.
Gutenberg lead architect Matias Ventura proposed renaming the feature to block hooks to help developers understand how they work.
“I’ve seen anecdotal feedback that autoInsert is not the clearest of descriptions,” Ventura said. “I’d like to propose renaming to the more familiar hooks terminology—and ‘block hooks’ in more general terms—to help folks understand the mechanics and purpose more rapidly.”
autoInsert
hooks
This release also adds an inspector panel for block hooks, tentatively named “Plugins,” that displays blocks available for auto-insertion. It includes toggles to insert or remove them. The updated version of the feature also includes block icons (not shown below) to help differentiate the toggles.
Gutenberg 16.6 brings improvements to toolbars on nested blocks, where the toolbar now stays attached to the parent block. This change is part of a broader effort to improve nested block experiences. Previously, the toolbar would move around when clicking inside the nested blocks, but this change makes it stay in place for a less chaotic editing experience. The updated toolbar behavior has been rolled out to Navigation, List, and Quote blocks so far.
This release includes a new keyboard shortcut for duplicating blocks within the List View: (CMD+Shift+d). It enables users to do more from the keyboard while navigating around the List View, instead of having to jump back into the block settings menu or editor canvas. Users can now click twice on the selected (or focused) block or multiple blocks to quickly duplicate them all in one go.
CMD+Shift+d
These highlighted features and more will be landing in the upcoming WordPress 6.4 release. Check out the Gutenberg 16.6 release post for the full list of new features, enhancements, bug fixes, and improvements to performance and code quality.
Hello BuddyPress contributors!
If you haven’t tested our first 12.0.0 beta release ( please read this post), here’s another opportunity to help us make sure it will fit perfectly into your WordPress / BuddyPress specific configuration. Beta testing is very important and more then any other BuddyPress major release, we need you all, whether you’re a regular or advanced user, a theme designer or a plugin author: please contribute!
We’ve been working on improving documentation about 12.0.0 changes and giving advanced users some more customization options about the coming visibility feature.
We’ve fixed 8 bugs, the most important one was about the BuddyPress menu items we are making available in the WP Nav Menu management interfaces (Administration screen and customizer). We took this opportunity to document how BuddyPress is dealing with these interfaces.
The final release is slated to October 30 and we need you to get there: do test this beta release of BuddyPress .
You can test BuddyPress 12.0.0-beta2 in 4 ways :
svn co https://buddypress.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/
git clone git://buddypress.git.wordpress.org/
If you find something weird, please report it on BuddyPress Trac, post a reply to this support topic or get in touch with us on our WordPress.org Slack channel.
Thanks in advance for your contributions
From tools they use, a bit of AI, remote work and lots of insights into their teams and their companies.
>> The post Woo AgencyChat Live with Mitch Callahan and Ash Shaw appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Media Temple (MT) is closing its doors after 24 years in the hosting industry, with the brand now retired and customers fully migrated to GoDaddy. In 2013, GoDaddy acquired MT “to win the hearts and minds of developers,” as then-CEO Blake Irving told VentureBeat at the time. When it was purchased, the highly regarded brand was focusing on advanced technical services that GoDaddy had not yet adapted, and the plan was to have MT operate independently with no changes for employees or customers.
Thanks for allowing us to serve you for 24 years. The time has come to say goodbye. We will miss you. Keep building amazing things!— Media Temple (@mediatemple) September 5, 2023
Thanks for allowing us to serve you for 24 years. The time has come to say goodbye. We will miss you. Keep building amazing things!
The year following the acquisition, Media Temple launched its managed WordPress hosting product, joining the ranks of Flywheel, Page.ly, WordPress.com, WP Engine, and a handful of other companies that were working to elevate the hosting experience for WordPress users.
In December 2022, MT announced it would be retiring the Media Temple brand and transitioning accounts to GoDaddy, while subtly acknowledging the sentimental place MT holds in many of its customers’ hearts:
\nSince joining GoDaddy, we worked hand-in-hand with them to incorporate the best of Media Temple into offerings, including improving GoDaddy’s customer experience and leveraging Media Temple’s unique expertise on what it truly means to run a world-class hosting organization. If you closely examine GoDaddy’s hosting offerings, you will find Media Temple’s fingerprints all around. From specialized teams who deal with complex hosting issues to programs like GoDaddy Pro specifically targeting creatives, Media Temple made its mark on GoDaddy.\n
Since joining GoDaddy, we worked hand-in-hand with them to incorporate the best of Media Temple into offerings, including improving GoDaddy’s customer experience and leveraging Media Temple’s unique expertise on what it truly means to run a world-class hosting organization. If you closely examine GoDaddy’s hosting offerings, you will find Media Temple’s fingerprints all around. From specialized teams who deal with complex hosting issues to programs like GoDaddy Pro specifically targeting creatives, Media Temple made its mark on GoDaddy.
Fans bid the brand farewell on Twitter, as its retirement marks the end of a chapter in web hosting history.
Basically the entire design community was sponsored by Media Temple back in the day.I can’t imagine a more omnipresent brand at the time. https://t.co/mmhdxEIHVy— Josh Pigford (@Shpigford) September 6, 2023
Basically the entire design community was sponsored by Media Temple back in the day.I can’t imagine a more omnipresent brand at the time. https://t.co/mmhdxEIHVy
When I got started circa 2003, it felt like every respected web designer was hosted by Media Temple.They made being hosted by them feel cooler (really) than anywhere else. Geniuses.I was a (mt) customer from 2007–2020 until @laravelforge made deploying magnitudes easier. https://t.co/HyhBxz5PZs— Brendan Falkowski (@Falkowski) September 6, 2023
When I got started circa 2003, it felt like every respected web designer was hosted by Media Temple.They made being hosted by them feel cooler (really) than anywhere else. Geniuses.I was a (mt) customer from 2007–2020 until @laravelforge made deploying magnitudes easier. https://t.co/HyhBxz5PZs
Woah. Somehow Media Temple always seemed so cool, the first “aspirational” software in a way, where you’d move when your blog was successful.End of an era. https://t.co/tJobBqEPQf— Matthew Guay (@maguay) September 6, 2023
Woah. Somehow Media Temple always seemed so cool, the first “aspirational” software in a way, where you’d move when your blog was successful.End of an era. https://t.co/tJobBqEPQf
In February 2023, Media Temple began migrating accounts to GoDaddy, with no action required from customers. Many of the products and services were already fulfilled through GoDaddy, decreasing the number needing to be migrated.
Now that the process is complete, the brand will discontinue operations and move current resources into supporting customers inside GoDaddy. The company assured former MT customers that they will retain their current products and pricing for equivalent products with access to more tools.
Discover the latest from the WordPress community. From the future of WordPress & Gutenberg’s next steps to intriguing discussions at the Community Summit. Plus, get a sneak peek into WordPress 6.4’s development cycle. Stay updated, stay involved!
Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, why the time might be right for the Fields API.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the form there.
So on the podcast today, we have Scott Kingsley, Clark.
Scott is a WordPress developer who has been working with WordPress since 2007. He’s well-known for his work on the Pods Framework, a popular content and custom fields plugin.
Scott’s goal is to find ways to enhance the WordPress experience, particularly in terms of working with different types of data. He’s currently involved in the WordPress Fields API project, which aims to provide a better solution for developers looking to wrangle their data. And that is the focus of the podcast today. As you’ll hear, Scott is determined to contribute to the continual growth and improvement of WordPress, and to make the Fields API a reality.
Scott came from a background using Drupal, which is an alternative CMS. When he first ventured into WordPress, he found certain features were lacking. Things which were baked into Drupal Core were not available in WordPress, a notable example being custom fields.
We know that WordPress has a myriad of plugins, which can take on the burden of creating custom fields, but Scott has concerns about the interoperability of these plugins, and he wants to create a more solid structure within WordPress itself. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were ways for developers to create custom field plugins so that you weren’t locked into one or the other. Scott imagines a future in which you could move from ACF, Metabox Toolset and more. A future built on top of the Fields API.
Throughout the conversation, scott talks about his passion for incorporating the block editor, React and other technologies into WordPress. He shares insights on controlling block settings, making them extensible through PHP.
You might know Scott from his work on the popular Pods Framework plugin. This plugin allows users to create custom content types and fields in WordPress, and certainly speaks to his credentials in trying to push the Fields API project forward.
We talk about what the Fields API might become. The aim is to simplify the process of working with custom fields and content types in WordPress. With the Fields API, Scott hopes to unify the different methods and APIs for managing custom fields, making it easier for developers and non-developers alike to add their fields to different screens within WordPress.
It’s a complicated undertaking and we get into some of the areas of WordPress, which might benefit from his work. Scott sheds light on the challenges faced during the development of the Fields API, the need for shared storage standards among plugins, and the potential for better integration with the WordPress Admin UI.
Towards the end of the podcast we talk about the future of the Fields API project, and how gaining support from people in the WordPress community will be crucial to its success.
If you’re interested in how WordPress can be used as a fully featured CMS, this podcast is for you.
If you want to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.
And so without further delay, I bring you Scott Kingsley Clark.
I am joined on the podcast today by Scott Kingsley Clark. Hello Scott.
[00:04:53] Scott Kingsley Clark: Hey Nathan, how’s it going?
[00:04:55] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah really good. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today. We’re going to get into the weeds a little bit with WordPress code and all sorts of things. We haven’t had one of these episodes for a little while so this will be nice and refreshing.
Scott, given that we’re going to be talking about something technical I suppose it would be a good thing right at the beginning to learn about your technical expertise. The various different projects that you’ve touched in the WordPress space during the time that you’ve been in that. So just yeah a little moment for you to offer up your bio really. So over to you.
[00:05:24] Scott Kingsley Clark: Well sure. I started working with WordPress in about 2007 or 8. I used it briefly once before with a one click install from cPanel before that, but I didn’t really like it at the time. And I was doing many other things.
But ever since that point I have been really involved with trying to make WordPress the best that it can be. And that has evolved through plugin development. One of the plugins I’m more known for is the Pods Framework. And that is a content type, a custom field plugin for WordPress. But I’ve also tried to find ways to make it easier for other developers to build things without needing a plugin. Because a plugin like Pods existed before custom post types had a real API.
But now that it has a real API you don’t really need a plugin like Pods to just make a custom post type. And the goal for me is, I’d love to see a better way to work with those types of objects inside of WordPress that have very different APIs, or in some cases no API at all. You just have to output your own markup and hook into some hooks. And it’s not really great.
Especially in this day where we have everything exposed to the Rest APIs. And you want to build really cool blocks, but you can’t leverage some data from different structures that don’t exist. So that’s where I’d love to find ways for WordPress to level up.
In this particular project of mine, is the WordPress Fields API. There is a group of us who have kind of rebooted it, but it existed in 2000 and, I want to say 14, 15, 16, 2017, all through those years. And we had made some progress, made a few different proposals and it just got stuck up in the process of getting the block editor and Rest API.
And there was just so many more bigger features that were getting the priority, and it kind of burned me out. And I didn’t find anyone else to carry the torch so it just went away. And just the start of this year we started up again.
[00:07:30] Nathan Wrigley: What was the reason that it went away? You mentioned there that there were a whole variety of different things going on at the same time. So was it that the community’s focus just seemed to be more interested on other things? And so despite the fact that you were putting in the time, and you obviously just described that it burnt you out a little bit. There just wasn’t enough interest because attention was being put elsewhere.
[00:07:53] Scott Kingsley Clark: Right. Well Fields API owes so much to WebDevStudios and 10up who offered a lot of my time on the clock. They donated my time towards developing the Fields API and pushing it forward. And at 10up we were really, really close. We got the closest we had been at that point because at 10up we had a really awesome contributor for WordPress. A core committer, Helen Hou-Sandi.
And that got us really close, but I think it just was that I was practically speaking for Fields API and saying, we should do this, we should do that, and it just wasn’t hitting. It wasn’t hitting right for them. Or the people who were involved in making decisions on what was going to make it, or what was going to get the attention or whatever, just didn’t feel it yet.
And I can understand that. I mean there’s so much that everyone is trying to do for each release. And I kind of assumed that if I built as much as possible and showed it as a really thoroughly working prototype with tests and everything else. And I just handed it to them and said hey here it is. Can you help me make this part of WordPress Core? Do you have any feedback? And when I did that I guess the biggest problem was I hadn’t really involved all those same voices at that point prior to actually doing the development of it.
So I had some input from a few different core contributors and committers and such. But as soon as I pushed out that final proposal in 2017 we got so many detractors and people saying, oh we should have done this differently or, why is it like this? And I would have done it this way. And it kind of did not get the consensus that I was needing for it to gain further traction. So we’ve kind of approached it differently in this reboot.
[00:09:42] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, right. So you did a lot of the work, you put it out there but the feedback that came back didn’t exactly encourage you, let’s put it that way. There were people who just would rather it had been done in their way. I’m guessing that that’s because there are loads of different ways that this type of problem has been tackled I guess on a more or less on a per plugin basis. There’s probably hundreds of plugins out there that do something similar. They do it their way. And so they presumably think that their way is the way that it should be done.
[00:10:15] Scott Kingsley Clark: Right. I mean there’s so many plugins like ACF and Pods and Toolset, so many more at comparewp.org slash cck. Which is like a really cool comparison list of all these different types of plugins. But there’s so many that each one has their own baked in API for managing fields in WordPress.
And it’s just bonkers that everyone has to build all these APIs, and in the end they’re almost it’s forcing the need of having to build their own APIs because they won’t accept anything else other than the one that they built. And I think that it’s tricky with developers and egos and everything else. We all have to kind of find a way to, you know, what is the minimum bare essentials API that we could build for this and find a consensus on that.
[00:11:01] Nathan Wrigley: So I guess this time around the community involvement is going to be there. You’re going to do this much more in the open. So that as you are going along presumably ideas are chipped in, rather than it just being one great big release at the end where everybody gets to either agree or disagree.
[00:11:18] Scott Kingsley Clark: Right yeah. We tried to do that before but I think the challenge was we moved so quickly. I built so much code and I had made a specification ahead of time. But really the time wasn’t spent in the research specification side to get a consensus at that point, with not just the people who were involved but everyone else. Making sure everyone else had a moment to do that.
I guess when people just look at a specification like oh, I’ll just look at it later on when he has something for me to look at. And so it just gets delayed. And I’m hoping that this time I can find ways to intuitively make it so people will actively and proactively be part of that process and give feedback
[00:12:01] Nathan Wrigley: So given that you’ve restarted it, what reinvigorated it for you? Where did your curiosity for something that has been dormant for quite a number of years now. What on earth was it that brought you back to seeing this as a worthwhile use of your time?
[00:12:16] Scott Kingsley Clark: Since 2017 I’ve had kind of dark years in my contributing to WordPress Core, and just feeling like, well I can’t get anything big done so maybe I shouldn’t spend my time on it. And just the amount of time I’d spent on it had taken away from my full time work and my side projects.
I’m just like, well if I’m going to do this I really need it to be something I believe in. And up until the start of the year I just didn’t really feel like it was going to be possible. And then Joe Dolson, from the accessibility team was talking about how their team was looking at trying to revitalize the settings screens.
And one of the biggest challenges were their setting screens are hard coded in a lot of ways. And there’s not really an easy way to just like, here let’s try out this different interface. Let’s try this interface, this markup. We’ll change this markup here. And it’s very difficult to produce different markup inside of WordPress Core right now for a lot of screens really.
And more importantly for them, it’s not even using the Settings API the same way as most people are building things with the Settings API. And they hooked up with me because Courtney Robertson, a really awesome Dev Rel person, has just connected me with Joe at the end of last year I believe. And we just started talking about it, like hey this would be really cool if we had this Fields API stuff that you were thinking about before.
And I was like well I don’t know. And then as they discussed it with really the focus on accessibility I was like, you know what accessibility is such a big priority to me that I think it kind of overrides my initial thoughts about well I don’t know if I can get this into Core. Because I thoroughly believe in spending more time on accessibility for lots of different plugins. Especially for WordPress Core and the block editor. And if I can help push that forward I feel like I’ve done something better with my time.
And at that point I was like yeah I’m in. We’ll focus on the Settings API, just on that. And we’re not going to like build all the different screens and API prototype that we had done before. Until we get the Settings API, let’s focus all of our energy on doing that for the Settings API itself.
[00:14:26] Nathan Wrigley: So that all kicked off again at the beginning of this year, 2023. And I’m staring at a page on the Make WordPress Core blog, which you wrote right at the beginning of the year, january the 9th. You’ve posted a video there of you, and I think the four other people on the call. So right at the very start of this year, five people involved at the very least.
How has the project been growing? Has it caught the attention in the way that you’d hoped? Have there been people coming along to assist? One of the enterprises of this podcast episode is obviously to swell the number of people, but it would be quite nice to know how it’s going just prior to that.
[00:15:04] Scott Kingsley Clark: So as with a lot of these kinds of initiatives it all depends on the time you put in, as someone who has the vision and leads it. And my time on the Fields API had been kind of reduced, just right after this. The economy started having some challenges in the tech space, and job security was a concern in a lot of areas for a lot of people, especially me.
And so I didn’t have as much free time to focus on that. I was focused on my work, keeping my head down and making sure I was doing all my things. And I just didn’t have enough headspace for it. But I knew that if I could really spend a great deal of time this summer on the Fields API, getting it prepared, getting it to the next phase, so that we have something solid. By the time it is time for Community Summit contributor day for WordCamp US we have a solid chance.
And then something came out of nowhere. On the Make WordPress dot org core, blog I saw a post come through. And I’ve been watching posts there all the time and sometimes I’ll provide feedback. But this one was unique. This one was talking about revamping the Admin UI. And now I’m getting all sorts of excited and I’m thinking to myself, oh this is my time.
Like, if I can get the Admin UI perspective on the Fields API, I think this could even help us further, pushing this forward. Because if you want to approach redoing the Admin UI you have to expose these kinds of fields and forms and screens in a way that is more dynamic than it is right now. And that is a sweet spot for the Fields API.
So I posted on that blog post. I asked Matias, hey can we have Fields API? Please, please, please be part of this conversation. I would love to talk to you more about it. And so we’re probably going to talk about it at WordCamp US, some time during that week. And my hope is we’ll get this really pushed further. Because it takes buy in from the vocal people in WordPress. And I think I’m beginning to see more buy in. And that is really a positive thing for me.
[00:17:12] Nathan Wrigley: Sounds like a really nice bit of serendipity there. Couple of things happened, and the chance of the Admin UI being overhauled kind of sits perfectly doesn’t it. That really would be the moment.
It is a dramatic change that’s being proposed. And so I guess if you’re going to go all in on changing the Admin UI, well now would be the time to get all of the fields work done as well.
It just occurs to me that given the audience that listen to this podcast, there’s a fair smattering of developers no doubt. But also there’s people who are just into WordPress. You know, it’s a hobby. They perhaps do it as a side gig or something.
So maybe we should rewind and do some explanations about what on earth an API for fields would even do. Why is it even needed? I’m suspecting that many people log in to their WordPress website, certainly since the advent of Gutenberg. And more or less everything that they want to do, publish posts, schedule posts, that’s possibly the extent of it all. It functions.
So I’m imagining there’s a proportion of people listening to this going, well, what even would this be needed for? Describe a scenario where this would be useful. So, let’s cover that out. What is the Fields API? How would it change what WordPress does?
[00:18:25] Scott Kingsley Clark: Sure. So let me preface my answer with, there’s a reason why there’s so many plugins out there doing content types and custom fields. There’s a reason why Advanced Custom Fields has millions of active installs. And tons of people have paid for the pro premium versions of these kinds of plugins.
Now I’ll get into the real answer. This is an incredibly complicated dance. Whenever you want to go add a custom field to a post, or let’s say you’re building a site, a hobby site. I use the book analogy a lot, but let’s talk about music, because I love music too.
So you’re setting up a site for your music and maybe you’re an artist, a solo artist or a band. And you’re trying to set up a list of albums. And so you’re like well, how do I add albums? You could add that in the block editor. No problem, no issues there. But then what if you wanted to make it more data oriented.
So if you wanted to do that you’d have to go register a custom post type for album, for instance. Maybe a custom post type for tracks, if you want to relate them to albums in some way. And maybe a custom post type for other things. Maybe custom taxonomies for other items that you want. But the challenge there is not really in the content type. It’s in the custom fields you want to add to that.
Inside of WordPress, I counted it up recently, there’s somewhere between 16 to 17 different APIs and hooks that are totally different from each other, to add custom fields or settings to different areas on all the different screens, and different objects inside of WordPress. That is a lot. So adding a custom field means you have to go add an action inside of PHP.
First of all you have to know PHP and kind of know where to put it. Second of all you have to then go add action to add a meta box. Then you have to add your code to render all of your fields markup. So you have to add your HTML in there and have it do that. Then you have to add an action to handle the saving.
And then at that point you’re probably going to be looking at doing more things for taxonomies possibly. So you have to work with another action there. You have to add things there and it doesn’t look great. So then you have to add more markup. And it’s a lot for someone who just wants to build.
So you just mentioned that there’s a number of developers listening to this right now. But there’s a lot of people who aren’t really considering themselves developers. They’re just people building sites and they don’t really have time to dig into the code. Or they don’t want to tell their client they can do this if they can’t build it custom, they would have to pay someone else to do that. And they want to avoid that cost. So they’re going to use one of these off the shelf plugins, like Advanced Custom Fields.
Why would you spend five hours building your albums and tracks and things like that in PHP? The trial and error and figuring out the markup and, why is this not working? And then coming back to it later on and spending another few hours trying to debug something that happens. And then displaying it all on the front end. Why spend all that time when you can just install a plugin and just click a few buttons? And boom, you have another post type and then you have your fields already displayed. And by the way they look really nice. Why would you spend that time?
So this is more of a feature, or more of a project geared towards developers so that it makes them spend less time on their side of things. And it unifies all 16, 17 of these methods and APIs to work with all these different screens.
But what the end result would be is anyone using WordPress could then be using a plugin, or potentially use code snippets very easily without having to have a whole lot of knowledge. And be able to add a field to different screens without a whole lot of code, or whole lot of PHP experience. And these types of plugins like ACF, and Pods, and Toolset and various others, they could then leverage the Fields API if they’re supporting that WordPress version that includes it. They could leverage this Fields API in a way that reduces the code that they actually have to have inside their own plugins.
And at the same time that makes it so WordPress itself, the REST APIs, everything that talks with the Fields API, then knows about the structures you’re registering.
It’s a hand in hand, win-win scenario for end users who benefit from the stability, and the flexibility, and extensibility of those APIs in place. And developers who want to be able to utilize those things.
[00:22:54] Nathan Wrigley: Have you any experience with other CMSs? We could probably list off half a dozen or more other CMSs. But certainly some that I have used in the past, a lot of these kind of features are baked into the core product. So the ability to add custom fields to, well it may not be called a custom post type over on that particular platform but you get the idea. It is already built in, if you like.
You mentioned that you want to have this pushed to Core. Do you see that other CMSs are potentially stealing a march on WordPress? WordPress has traditionally been very good at giving 80% of the people what they want. So there is some argument as to whether or not some things should be added or some shouldn’t. But do you feel its been lacking this? And really a lot of other rival CMSs have been doing this for years.
[00:23:42] Scott Kingsley Clark: That’s a very good point. The plugin Pods was one of the first ones that did custom content types and custom fields for WordPress in a way that mimicked, and this is in 2008, the end of 2008. It mimicked Drupal at the time.
Drupal has a major feature called, what they called CCK, which was Content Construction Kit. I think that was what it was.
And so what value that API had for Drupal was that it would let you do the kinds of things you’re seeing be possible with plugins like Metabox or whatever else, you can use code, and ACF to register your groups and fields, and you can use code to register custom post types.
So you don’t have to use the UIs. You don’t have to provide a bunch of JSON. You can just register those things through PHP. And Drupal has had this for many, many years. It’s coming up on almost 20 years now that it’s had a feature like CCK. And that is not really that Drupal is ahead of WordPress, it’s that WordPress is severely behind. Because it hasn’t really prioritized these kinds of unifying APIs for its screens. I mean obviously WordPress hasn’t.
If you look at it, it really hasn’t changed a whole lot until block editor. The interfaces and screens really kind of have been what they are. The structure of where things are has been mostly the same outside the block editor.
Multisite was a big thing, but the screens themselves they really haven’t changed a whole lot. And I think that is just because we’ve been focused as a project on building features and not looking back at what we’ve done, and finding a better way to represent that. A project like the Admin UI revamp, or even accessibility revamp, could give us that time to kind of be introspective. What are we doing with these screens, and how do we make these things better?
And backward compatibility doesn’t have to be a hindrance in the Fields API because it can be backward compatible too. It’s just if you want to register the new way you can do that and that is the officially the way that we recommend you do it. It’s just, it works. I really hope that more people see things like Drupal, and there’s so many other plugins, or so many other CMSs out there that have their own kind of CCK situations.
Because it’s just, you’re building a CMS? Well you’re not going to want to do that the way the WordPress did it way back when. No one’s going to want to do that on purpose. And I think that they all already have their own forms and Fields API processing abilities, because that’s the bare minimum. As a developer, when you’re building something like this you build that. You don’t build all the markup and everything hard coded anymore.
[00:26:24] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah I was a big fan of Drupal, and I used Drupal exclusively more or less for many years. My first interaction with WordPress was an endeavor to move away from Drupal for a variety of different reasons. And I do remember opening up WordPress and almost being incredulous that I couldn’t achieve some of the things that I was simply able to achieve with a vanilla install of Drupal.
So custom fields was just trivially easy. It was there, it was baked in. And so I had this expectation, well everybody’s using WordPress it must have, you know, a similar feature set. And so, just flabbergasted that it didn’t exist.
Of course very quickly found out exactly what you just said. That commercial and also free, there’s plenty of free options as well, Pods being one. That you had to go and find a solution for that. So rather than it being baked into core you’d go out and you’d purchase ACF or you would download Pods or whatever it may be.
But this sort of feeling that well that’s interesting because I wonder how they’re doing that and if they’re doing it differently than the other one, so if ACF is doing it differently to how Pods is doing it, you could make that spaghetti go in any direction. How am I going to be stuck in the future? You know things that I create with Pods, is that interoperable? Could I start using ACF at a future date on the same website?
So there’s all of that thrown into it as well. And I guess the endeavor here is to create that basic structure so that everybody can approach it and everybody can start creating these things without the reliance necessarily on a third party plugin.
[00:28:03] Scott Kingsley Clark: Right. Like if you’re using a plugin like that and the Fields API comes out, there could be a migration thing, or exporting plugin created that exports from Pods or ACF or whatever into the Fields API structure. Much like ACF and some of these other plugins have the ability to kind of export. Maybe the biggest one is Custom Post Type UI. Where it’s just simple. Add custom post types, you add custom taxonomies and you can export that to code.
And that code works without the plugin. So it just tells it, here is what you tell WordPress to do what you want to do here. That kind of ability to export into just a Fields API code would take your code, your plugin usage of ACF or Pods or whatever, and you could easily switch out into just pure WordPress.
But also because if it has that ability to use the Fields API at that point you have more interoperability. So you can go between these different plugins more easily because there’s a similar structure we’re all using. And when you’re registering through Fields API you can potentially set like a source, like this is coming from ACF, or whatever you want.
And then a Pods plugin could say oh hey I recognize you had these ACF fields, do you want to bring them over? The Fields API opens up the door because everyone’s talking the same talk. And we can all talk about things in the same conversation instead of like I need to know the ACF APIs to work with getting the fields out, and I need to know this and then that. And there’s that side.
But there’s also the storage side. So we’re talking about the way that ACF stores their content. For repeatable fields that can be quite tricky. Flexible content, anything that has to do with data that’s not just a simple single value gets a little bit tricky depending on how you choose to store it in ACF.
So those sorts of things are more based off of the plugin developers preference. So ACF was developed in a specific kind of point of view, for how they should store the storage. Pods is the same way, we have a specific point of view where it should be stored a certain way. Every plugin will have their own points of view. But if we can settle on the structure of the content fields, the custom fields for each of these objects, and how they’re going to be specified to WordPress, that’s really half the battle.
Then we can start talking about, okay now that we have this common language let’s work on bringing everyone to the same storage, so anyone can switch between these different plugins and they won’t have to deal with any extra work. We could all agree on a shared set of storage, kind of specification standards really.
[00:30:35] Nathan Wrigley: The breadth of this project feels like it could be truly enormous because there are fields in all sorts of unexpected places in WordPress. I mean you may not be thinking about them all the time but you know we’ve got post types, and terms, and comments, and settings, and users, and navigation, and the media library and all sorts of different places.
How are you breaking it down? Is there an order in which you’re going to knock those dominoes over? Are you going for, I don’t know, probably the low hanging fruit of custom post types first, or is the intention to try and get everything done all at once? You did mention accessibility. Perhaps that’s come first because of Joe Dolson’s interactions with you.
[00:31:17] Scott Kingsley Clark: Yeah. So accessibility is going to be the main driving point for us right now. So we’re focused on the Settings API. If we can get this right and potentially the goal is to get it to the point where we can actually merge it just for the Settings API. Just for the Settings API.
We have an inside person now, inside of WordPress itself. So now we can start expanding it, and say okay now here’s the proposal to add this to the post types, and to the terms and everywhere else to be powered by the Fields API. And once you have those things powered by the Fields API, the full Admin UI revamp is becoming much more approachable for people who want to switch out the markup there.
They don’t have to modify core as much to make it happen. They don’t have to duplicate all the code and deal with merge conflicts. It’s just so much more easier when you’re working with data structures that are defined as data structures, and not purely as markup and save handlers like they are in many areas of WordPress.
[00:32:13] Nathan Wrigley: You’ve been doing this kind of work for years with Pods. So you know you’re incredibly familiar with this. Is there anything during your time working with Pods where you thought, I wish WordPress had this?
So I’m just wondering if you might try to smuggle into this some unique new feature, not something which we’re already familiar with. You know post types and comments and users. Really that question might go nowhere but I just wondered if there was something innovative that you’ve got. Really I’d love to try this.
[00:32:40] Scott Kingsley Clark: So I do have something but it’s going to be interesting to see if we can make it happen. So the way that this has been focused on has been replacing existing screens that are kind of hard coded and all that. But we haven’t really talked about, what about the block editor? What about React and all those things?
And the cool part about that is that if you look at the screen, if you go to the block editor right now, you’re looking at editing a post and you insert a block, like let’s talk about the paragraph block or even a group block. On the right hand side, if you have it open, the inspector control sidebar there. That allows you to control what the block settings are, on margins and adding extra classes if you want to add them to the block.
And many different blocks have many different settings. And then also you can click over and if you’re looking at the post type, or page post type you’ll see the word post or page up there and there’s a little kind of a tab, and you click that and then you are looking at the object controls.
So this controls what is going on with the page or post like attributes for the parent, or maybe the date, or the many different things like slug and all that. So both of these areas are areas I would love, not really to sneak in, but I want to get buy in from people. I want to find a way to build these screens, these sets of fields and have them extensible through PHP.
If we can do this in a way with the Fields API where you could register new sections and controls inside of React, it’s possible. We’re doing this right now. Pods is doing this, ACF, many other block builders are doing this with their blocks, their own blocks APIs. The way that we’re doing it right now is too much. It’s going down the same road of we’re locking ourselves in.
I want these sections and these controls to be extensible. I want someone to be able to override stuff. I want someone to be able to add new things to them. I want to add something ahead of it or after it. I don’t want to have to know any JavaScript to be able to do the bare minimum for basic controls.
You can still, with the Fields API even, you could still at that point do all the JavaScript or React stuff you want to build up your own custom controls, and the ways that you want them to display, and special handling for how to work with the blocks and all that. But really the bare minimum ought to be the way that we lower the bar towards developers, new people, new developers.
But especially at this point, PHP is not getting the love it needs as an API source for WordPress, especially with a block editor. We need to expand that. I think there’s so much potential.
[00:35:27] Nathan Wrigley: Given everything that you’ve just said, and we’ve now got a real nice full round picture of what it is that you’re trying to achieve, are there any significant roadblocks? I mean obviously hours and coding, the amount of time that it’s going to take you to do all these things, and the amount of people who jump on board the project, that’s a given. Are there any technical obstacles that are in the way that you foresee being problematic?
[00:35:52] Scott Kingsley Clark: So before, when we built all this stuff in the earlier versions, and I just read, we actually started working on the kind of Fields API idea in 2013. That’s even earlier than I remember. That was back in Freenode, Freenode IRC stuff.
I think one of the challenges was when we built all the different screens we had to modify WordPress Core files and override them. And as new versions of WordPress would be released we’d have to merge those changes into ours. It’s a headache to keep it up, and keep it updated for every release. And for even maintenance releases to make sure that you’re not breaking something that was changed or fixed inside of WordPress release, and having it so that my prototype should always work with latest WordPress.
Well that’s difficult because latest WordPress is always changing. I think that’s the challenge is trying to focus not on, like we did before, we had posts, we had terms, we had settings, we had users, we had comments, we had media, we had the customizer. All those different areas were covered.
We already had those things covered inside of the Fields API code we had before. You could use the Fields API actively to add things to those screens. But that was a lot. That was a lot to deal with. So if we focus on settings, that’s why I’m hoping this reduced focus on setting screens will reduce the amount of pain we have to deal with. Because when we’re merging things we only have to worry about just those settings screens that we’re overriding for WordPress Core. That’s it. And we don’t have to worry about all the different screens and all the different files that we’ve been overriding.
[00:37:16] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah thank you for that. I mean obviously you would be very warmly welcoming anybody who has listened to this and is intrigued by what you’ve said and thinks, okay I’ve got some technical expertise that I could apply to this project. If that’s the case, where are you hanging out most with this? I’m guessing the Slack channel is probably a good place to start. But maybe there’s some other places too.
[00:37:39] Scott Kingsley Clark: I really deeply would love to have more contributors. Anyone who can think about things in different points of view for how a Fields API should be built. Things like someone who’s involved with other plugins that do this type of thing. It’s a big plus if you’ve built a Fields API yourself for one of these plugins.
It’s also a big thing to think about you know just someone who’s not been building those things but maybe someone coming from outside of WordPress, or someone with heavier PHP structure experience. How do we structure the Fields API? And how is that going to look?
There’s also plenty of room for people who can help write tutorials, or help us write. I think one of my big deficiencies is having time to write up all the great text that we’re going to need for make.wordpress.org core posts about how do we describe what we’re building here, and get people involved and excited?
What is the proposal going to look like? And how do we lay this out nicely? And those types of things would be also very helpful to have. And you can find all of our efforts inside of Slack right now. So if you go into the WordPress Slack you’ll find us in the core dash fields channel.
We also have a GitHub that has been totally revamped from the old ones. We now have two different archive repos from the past versions that we had. And now we have this third repo that we’re using that is refreshed and ready to go. It already has some more research already in it and we’re going to start working from that repo now.
[00:39:03] Nathan Wrigley: That’s perfect. I will make sure to link to those in the show notes. Everything that you’ve mentioned I’ll make sure that it gets a link. But it sounds like not just technical people. There’s also room for people who have skills in, I don’t know, documentation or something that you’ve described. So the door is wide open. This feels like really important work. It would be lovely to get this over the wire. To get some more buy in, and more thoughts from different community members.
So yeah we’ll round it off there. Scott Kingsley Clark. Thank you so much for chatting to me today. I wish you all the best in getting this into Core in the, well, let’s say near future.
[00:39:35] Scott Kingsley Clark: I really appreciate you including me and this project in your efforts here to get the word out. I can’t say how much I’m excited. I’m just extremely excited to get this finally pushed up and hopefully emerged into Core. And I am working my behind off this entire month, just to make sure that we can try to get that traction and get it across that finish line.
[00:39:58] Nathan Wrigley: Well very much appreciated, because everything that you do and achieve will certainly make our WordPress lives a lot better. So thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it.
[00:40:07] Scott Kingsley Clark: No problem.
On the podcast today we have Scott Kingsley Clark.
Scott is a WordPress developer who has been working with WordPress since 2007. He is well-known for his work on the Pods Framework, a popular content and custom fields plugin. Scott’s goal is to find ways to enhance the WordPress experience, particularly in terms of working with different types of data. He is currently involved in the WordPress Fields API project, which aims to provide a better solution for developers looking to wrangle their data, and that is the focus of the podcast today. As you’ll hear Scott is determined to contribute to the continual growth and improvement of WordPress and try to make the Fields API a reality.
We know that WordPress has a myriad of plugins which can take on the burden of creating custom fields, but Scott has concerns about the interoperability of these plugins, and he wants to create a more solid structure within WordPress itself. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were ways for developers to create custom field plugins so that you weren’t locked into one or the other? Scott imagines a future in which you could move from ACF, Metabox, Toolset and more; a future built on top of the Fields API.
Throughout the conversation, Scott talks about his passion for incorporating the block editor, React, and other technologies into WordPress. He shares insights on controlling block settings, making them extensible through PHP.
We talk about what the Fields API might become. The aim is to simplify the process of working with custom fields and content types in WordPress. With the Fields API, Scott hopes to unify the different methods and APIs for managing custom fields, making it easier for developers and non-developers alike to add fields to different screens within WordPress. It’s a complicated undertaking and we get into some of the areas of WordPress which might benefit from this work.
Scott sheds light on the challenges faced during the development of Fields API, the need for shared storage standards among plugins, and the potential for better integration with the WordPress Admin UI.
Towards the end of the podcast we talk about the future of the Fields API project and how gaining support from people in the WordPress community will be crucial to its success.
Pods Framework
REST API documentation
Compare WP – Plugin Comparison – Content Types / Custom Fields
WordPress Community Summit 2023
ACF
Meta Box
Toolset
Custom Post Type UI
Running a successful website is no small feat. It requires a great deal of hard work, dedication, and knowledge from a team of experts all working symbiotically toward a common goal. There are so many different aspects to consider — from designing the perfect user experience to maintaining an effective web hosting infrastructure.
But one of the most critical aspects that can make or break success is the conversion rate of your forms. Your form conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who successfully complete a form on your website. The higher this rate, the more successful your site will be at generating new leads, sales, and other desired outcomes.
Whether it’s a contact form, a sign-up form, or a checkout form, the ease and convenience of these for users directly impact business.
That’s why, today, we’ll explore 25 ways to increase your online form conversion rates and, in turn, boost the effectiveness of your website.
The first rule of thumb, when it comes to increasing your form conversion rate, is to keep your forms short and simple. The less time and effort it takes for a user to complete a form, the more likely they are to do so.
According to the Contentsquare 2023 Digital Experience Benchmark report, the average internet user spends less than 5.6 minutes on a website they’re actively engaged with. Think reading a blog post or trying to make a purchase.
At first glance, that seems like a decent amount of time, but when you consider session duration has decreased by 7.5% since 2021, it’s clear that user behavior indicates less patience.
And that’s not a lot of time to capture their attention and get them to fill out a form. By keeping your forms short and straightforward, you’re making it as easy as possible for users to engage with your site and, ultimately, convert.
Consider only asking for the most essential information. If you’re collecting leads from potential event sponsors, you really only need the representative’s name and email. Your sales team may also want you to ask for a phone number, company name, and budget information, but each of these questions will reduce the number of top-of-funnel submissions you receive. So, you’ll have to consider this balance and optimize your forms accordingly.
“Above the fold” is a term borrowed from the newspaper industry that refers to the upper half of the front page. The term “above the fold” in web design is the part of a webpage that’s visible without the need to scroll. Placing your lead generation forms above the fold on their landing page makes them immediately visible to visitors, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be filled out.
A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that user attention drops dramatically below the fold. By placing your form above, you’re ensuring that it’s one of the first things a user sees when they land on your page.
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to convert. By strategically placing your web forms, you’re removing one more barrier between the user and a conversion.
CAPTCHAs, those little tests that ask you to identify traffic lights or crosswalks in a series of images, are a common method of preventing form spam. However, they can also be a significant barrier to web form completion.
CAPTCHAs can be frustrating and time-consuming for users, especially if they’re difficult to solve. And they can also pose accessibility issues for those with impairments. While CAPTCHAs can be effective at preventing bots from submitting forms, they can also deter legitimate users.
Instead of relying on CAPTCHAs, consider other methods of spam prevention that are less intrusive and more user-friendly…
Non-intrusive spam protection methods can be a great alternative to CAPTCHAs. These methods work behind the scenes to prevent spam without disrupting the user’s experience.
For example, the Akismet anti-spam plugin for WordPress sites offers powerful spam protection without the need for CAPTCHAs. It automatically checks and filters out spam submissions, allowing you to focus on managing your site.
Through prioritizing non-intrusive spam protection methods, you can improve the user experience and accessibility of your forms, leading to higher conversion rates.
Organization is key when it comes to designing user-friendly forms. Grouping related fields together can make your forms easier to navigate and understand, leading to higher completion rates.
You might wish to group contact information fields (like name, email, and phone number) together, separate from billing information fields (like credit card number, expiration date, and CVV).
This not only makes your form more visually organized, but it also helps users understand what kind of information is expected in each section.
Clear and descriptive field labels are crucial for ensuring that people know exactly what information they need to provide. Ambiguous or confusing labels can lead to errors, frustration, and ultimately, form abandonment.
For instance, if you’re asking for a user’s phone number, specify whether it’s a home, work, or mobile number.
If you’re asking for a date, indicate the format you want it in (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY).
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for users to complete your form. Clear, descriptive labels go a long way towards achieving this and improving your form conversions.
With more than half of all web traffic now coming from mobile devices, it’s more important than ever to ensure your forms are mobile-friendly.
This means performing a series of form optimization tasks, including:
Mobile users are on the go, so they are even less patient than desktop users. By optimizing your forms for mobile, you can make it easier for users to convert and boost your conversion rate.
If your form is long or divided into multiple sections, using progress indicators can be a great way to keep site visitors engaged. Progress indicators show people how far they’ve come and how much further they have to go to complete the form.
This can be particularly useful for complex forms, like multistep checkout processes or lengthy surveys. When you show users their progress, you’re giving them a sense of accomplishment and encouraging them to go all the way.
Autofill and auto-suggest features can significantly speed up the form completion process and improve the user experience. These features automatically populate fields with relevant information, saving users time and effort.
For example, an autofill feature might populate a user’s address based on their IP location, while an auto-suggest feature might suggest relevant options as someone begins typing into a field.
When you reduce the amount of typing and decision-making required, these features can make your forms quicker and easier to complete, leading to higher conversion rates.
Inline validation involves checking each field for errors as the user fills out the form, rather than waiting until they hit the “submit” button. If a user makes a mistake, they’re immediately alerted and can correct the error on the spot.
This can prevent frustration and confusion that can occur when a user completes a form, only to be told they’ve made multiple errors. It also helps users learn as they go, improving the overall experience.
Conditional logic, also known as “if-this-then-that” logic, can make your forms more interactive and user-friendly. It involves showing or hiding fields based on the user’s previous responses.
So, if someone indicates that they’re from the United States, you might show a field asking for their state. If they indicate they’re from another country, that field would be hidden.
By tailoring your form to each user’s responses, you can make the form-filling process more relevant and less overwhelming, leading to higher conversion rates.
While it’s important to gather as much relevant information as possible, too many form fields can deter people from completing your form. Try to make fewer form fields mandatory and only require the most essential information.
If a field isn’t absolutely necessary, consider making it optional. Users who are in a hurry or who value their privacy will appreciate the option to skip non-essential fields.
Smart defaults involve pre-populating form fields with the most likely response. This can save users time and effort, making your form quicker and easier to complete.
For example, if most of your site visitors are from the United States, you might set “United States” as the default option in the “Country” field. Users from other countries can still select their country from the dropdown menu, but U.S. users won’t have to.
Long forms can be overwhelming and may deter users from starting. By breaking these forms into smaller, more manageable steps, you can make the form-filling process less daunting and more user-friendly.
Multipage forms also give users a sense of progress, which can motivate them to complete the form. Just remember to include a progress indicator, as we already mentioned, so users know how far they’ve come and how much further they have to go.
Accessibility should be a priority when designing your forms. This means ensuring that all users, including those with impairments or disabilities, can easily navigate and complete your web forms.
This might involve using larger text sizes, providing alternative text for images, and ensuring your forms are compatible with screen readers. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) offers all the details about making web content more accessible.
By making your forms accessible, you’re not only complying with legal requirements and ethical best practices, but you’re also expanding your user base and increasing your potential conversion rates.
The design of your forms can have a significant impact on their usability and, consequently, your conversion rates. Using contrasting colors can make your forms more visually appealing and easier to read.
Similarly, clear typography can improve readability and reduce the likelihood of errors. Choose fonts that are easy to read and large enough to be seen on all devices.
When a user is filling out a form, you want their focus to be on the form and nothing else. This means eliminating any unnecessary distractions, like pop-ups, excessive text, or irrelevant images.
The simpler and more focused your form page is, the more likely people are to complete the form. Remember, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for users to convert.
Trust signals and social proof can significantly increase your form conversion rates by building trust with your potential customers and site visitors. This might involve displaying security badges, testimonials, or the number of satisfied customers you have.
For example, if you’re asking for sensitive information like credit card details, displaying a security badge can reassure users that their information will be safe.
Similarly, testimonials can show people that others have had positive experiences with your company.
On the Akismet homepage, there’s a prominent display of how many pieces of spam have been blocked, how many websites have been protected, and the spam detection accuracy.
In an era where data privacy is a major concern, you need to clearly state your privacy policy on your forms. Let visitors know exactly how their information will be used and stored. This transparency can build trust and increase the likelihood of people completing your form.
Consider adding a link to your full privacy policy for those who want more detailed information. Also, reassure users that their information will not be shared with third parties without their consent.
While your form should be intuitive and easy to understand, providing additional instructions and help text can guide users through the process and prevent errors. This can be particularly useful for complex fields that require specific formats or information.
Help text should be concise and clearly visible, ideally placed directly under the field it refers to. Providing this extra guidance can improve the user experience and increase form completion rates.
Offering live chat assistance can provide immediate help to users who are having trouble with your form. This real-time support can resolve issues quickly, preventing them from abandoning the form out of frustration.
Live chat can also provide valuable insights into common issues or obstacles, allowing you to continually improve your form based on feedback.
The text on your submit button can influence whether users complete your form. Just as you work to refine your call to action copy in other areas, you should pay careful attention to the language used on form buttons. Instead of using a generic term like “Submit,” consider a more action-oriented and specific term that tells users what they’re accomplishing by clicking the button.
For instance, if your form is for a newsletter sign-up, your button call to action might say “Join our community.”
Or, if it’s a purchase form, it might say “Complete my purchase.” This small tweak can make your form more engaging and motivate users to take action.
Another example is on the Akismet checkout form, which confirms how much a customer will pay:
The design of your submit button can significantly increase conversions on your forms. Your button should stand out from the rest of the form, making it clear where someone needs to click to submit the form.
Consider using a contrasting color for your button and placing it in a prominent location. The size of the button also matters — it should be large enough to be easily tapped on a mobile device, but not so large that it overwhelms the rest of the form.
Error messages matter a great deal in form design as well. They guide users in correcting mistakes, but if they’re not handled well, they can frustrate users and lead to form abandonment.
Ensure that your error messages are friendly, descriptive, and helpful. Instead of simply saying “Invalid input,” explain what the error is and how to fix it.
For example, “The email address you entered is not in the correct format. Please enter a valid email address.”
Finally, one of the most effective ways to increase your form conversion rates is to continually test and optimize your forms. A/B testing involves creating two versions of your form, each with a different element, and seeing which one performs better.
You can A/B test almost any aspect of your form, from the color of your submission button to the wording of your field labels. There are several WordPress plugins that can help you A/B test your forms easily, like Nelio A/B Testing.
Increasing the conversion rates of your sign up form, lead generation forms or other web forms is a multifaceted process that involves thoughtful design, user-friendly features, and continuous optimization. By implementing the strategies discussed in this article, you can create a web form that not only provides a seamless user experience but also effectively drives conversions.
One key aspect of this process is ensuring your forms are protected from spam in a non-intrusive way. That’s where Akismet has a role to play. With its robust, conversion-friendly spam protection, Akismet allows you to maintain the integrity of your forms and protect the user experience — without the need for CAPTCHA.
So, as you work on optimizing all the forms on your site, consider Akismet as your partner in creating a more secure, user-friendly, and conversion-optimized form experience.
Let’s now turn our attention to some frequently asked questions about form design and conversion rate optimization.
Deciding which form fields are essential depends on the purpose of your web form. While it’s best to limit required fields, If it’s a contact form conversion rate you’re working on, for example, you’ll likely still need fields for the user’s name, email address, and message .
Any additional fields should be carefully considered. Ask yourself if the information is necessary to achieve the purpose of the form. If not, it might be best to remove the field to keep the form short and simple.
While CAPTCHA can be effective at preventing spam, it can also deter legitimate users. CAPTCHAs can be frustrating and time-consuming, especially if they’re difficult to solve. They can also pose accessibility issues for users with impairments. Instead, consider using non-intrusive spam protection methods, like Akismet, that provide a better user experience.
Akismet is an anti-spam plugin for WordPress sites. It automatically checks and filters out spam comments, allowing you to focus on managing your site. By preventing spam without the need for CAPTCHAs or other intrusive methods, Akismet can improve the user experience and increase form conversion rates.
Akismet is used by a wide range of companies, from small businesses to large enterprises. It’s particularly popular among companies that rely heavily on their online presence, such as ecommerce businesses and content creators.
With over 100 million sites using Akismet, it’s clear that this tool is trusted by many. Notable enterprise brands such as Microsoft, ConvertKit, and Bluehost rely on Akismet to protect their sites from spam and improve their user experience.
It\'s filled with laughs, insights and simply good times when co-hosts Robbie and Robert take over the mics at WCUS 2023.
>> The post Live From WCUS, It’s the Robbie and Robert Show appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
This month marks the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacked on the World Trade Center in the United States. I can still remember exactly where I was that morning, as I had an argument with my girlfriend the night before, and was sleeping on the couch of someone with whom I used drugs.
It had only been four months since graduating high school, but I was already an addict. As a matter of fact, I was using drugs heavily at the end of my senior year, and the first summer after high school is when my life really started to spiral out of control.
By the end of 2001 I was selling any drug I could get my hands on to make some money and feed my addiction (except heroin — that is always were I drew the line). Within a couple years I was the goto person for many substances, but primarily methamphetamine.
Then I got caught, arrested, and thrown in jail. The prosecutor wanted to throw the book at me, recommending a 15 year sentence. But with my family supporting me in the courtroom and my lawyer fighting for me, the judge recognized that with this support, I did not deserve the full 15, and gave me 7 years, with 8 years probation instead. With good behavior, I did just under 3 years in prison.
While in prison, I focused on my restoration. Learning new things, studying for certification in motor vehicle mechanics, and even starting work with accredited college courses funded by my tribe (Comanche Nation).
\n I knew I had let down my family, and had something to prove.\n
I knew I had let down my family, and had something to prove.
Through it all, my addiction, prison, and restoration, my family was always there for me. They knew the real me, not the person addicted to drugs and not the dealer feeding his addiction by providing for other addicts. That’s the person I know I needed to be again, for both myself and for them.
Right after my release in January 2008, I immediately started working in a warehouse and attending college. At the company where I worked, the CEO gave me some excellent advice that I needed to control my narrative on the web (e.g. Google), so I built my first website using WordPress.
At a young age, I was always fascinated by technology. I remember dabbling with computers in grade school, and tinkering on the internet in my teens. While I never did any kind of coding back then, the marketing aspect of web technologies did pique my interest. Then, drugs pulled me away from all that and sent me down a different path.
When I found WordPress around April of 2008, all of that excitement started to come back. I would work my warehouse job during the day, drive to University of Central Oklahoma in the evening for a couple of college courses, then play around with WordPress themes (HTML, CSS, and some PHP) well into the night all that summer.
\nThis was the beginning of my love for WordPress. I was instantly addicted, and simply could not put down my computer, often getting little sleep before the next day (that’s okay, I was in my early 20s ).\n
This was the beginning of my love for WordPress. I was instantly addicted, and simply could not put down my computer, often getting little sleep before the next day (that’s okay, I was in my early 20s ).
By late 2010, I was taking on WordPress side projects, building websites, and even making online tutorials about WordPress. All this despite still working in the warehouse and taking night courses at college.
In 2011, my work caught the eye of Cory Miller, who I had previously met at a marketing event in Oklahoma City. Cory owned and operated iThemes, a WordPress theme and plugin product company based out of Edmond Oklahoma. Although I was still working in the warehouse and taking college courses, Cory offered me a job working at iThemes as a web developer for WordPress themes and plugins. My major in college was marketing, and I still has a few more courses to complete before graduating, but I took the offer anyway and little did I know it was the beginning of a career in software development that led me where I am today.
My first WordCamp to both attend and speak was Fayetteville in 2011. That’s actually when I first met Josepha Haden Chomphosy (along with her mother and sister too). Of course, we went different ways in life but it is a marker that I like to remember as it helps me understand the different paths each of us take in this world. While I only spoke at a few other WordCamps, I attended many more over the years. The WordPress community, and its inclusiveness, was simply impossible for me to ignore.
\nI know my experiences are different, and to understand this I also have to mention that I joined a few other communities through the years, but none ever fully accepted me, and one even did not let me keep coming when they found out I was a former convict.\n
I know my experiences are different, and to understand this I also have to mention that I joined a few other communities through the years, but none ever fully accepted me, and one even did not let me keep coming when they found out I was a former convict.
Although most people in the WordPress community never knew about my past, I never felt they would kick me out even if they did find out. Actually, I felt the community leaders honestly didn’t care at all about your past, culture, identity, etc., but rather just wanted you to love (or at least like) WordPress.
And I did love WordPress. Still do.
WordPress unexpectedly led me down a path of redemption and acceptance. For a long time I was angry at the world (especially corporate America) for not accepting me, and in those times of anger I would seek out WordPress people. No one even knew, but they were helping me nonetheless, always there when I needed, always a shiny light in the darkness.
I’ve traveled the world with WordPress. Making WordPress friends in Asia, Australia, Europe, North & South America and beyond. I love the WordPress community, and want to continue watching it flourish and grow. Every time I visit a WordCamp, I get to make new friends, see new faces, and meet awesome people of WordPress. I was able to build meaningful business and personal relationships, joining WordPress communities, attending and hosting WordPress events, and even speaking at several WordCamps across the World.
Most of the WordPress companies for which I have worked had such amazing leaders, knowing about my past yet still giving me the opportunity to continue to demonstrate my new self. Two of which deserve an honorable mention: Cory Miller of Post Status (formerly iThemes) and Jake Goldman of 10up. Both of these leaders embraced me wholly, and the things Jake said to when I mentioned my criminal past before my background check continue to give me confidence in knowing there are amazing leaders working in WordPress.
The WordPress Community has proven itself to be more than just a platform for a tool. In my personal journey, I discovered that it represents a beacon of hope, a testament to what can be achieved when diverse minds come together under the banner of openness and collaboration.
\nAlbeit unknowingly, this community handed me a new lease on life, providing me with opportunities to learn, grow, and reinvent myself.\n
Albeit unknowingly, this community handed me a new lease on life, providing me with opportunities to learn, grow, and reinvent myself.
Its core values of openness and inclusiveness aren’t just buzzwords but are deeply rooted in the ethos of every member who contributes, either by writing code, designing themes, or even just by sharing experiences. It’s a reminder that every individual, irrespective of their background or skillset, has the potential to add value to this thriving ecosystem. As beneficiaries of this incredible community, it falls upon us to ensure that we not only appreciate these values but also embody them. We must commit to fostering an environment where every decision we make, every action we undertake, further deepens the culture of inclusivity and collaboration.
Thank you WordPress, and the WordPress Community.
The post WordPress Is My Ball And Chain appeared first on HeroPress.
WooCommerce is experimenting with improving the store experience through the addition of the Interactivity API to the WooCommerce Blocks plugin. The new API, which was announced earlier this year, will allow developers to build interactive blocks that support frontend experiences where visitors can interact with content without having to refresh the page. The WordPress contributors working on the API are encouraging developers to test it with their own blocks.
WooCommerce Blocks 10.9.0, released in mid-August, integrated the Product Button with the Interactivity API to support real-time counter updates for the mini-cart, smoother animations, and better transitions from ‘Add to Cart’ to ‘Loading’ status to show the quantity in the cart when a product is added.
The difference is subtle but creates a much smoother shopping experience with nearly instantaneous feedback for the user. Contributors are also exploring how the Interactivity API can be used to improve frontend filters, including the rating, price, stock, and attributes filters. The API will eventually land in Gutenberg and WordPress in the future, but in the meantime WooCommerce is experimenting to see how the plugin’s blocks can benefit from it.
Version 11.0.0 was released last week introducing the new Product Collection block in beta:
\nLike the Products block, you can choose what criteria affect the list of blocks displayed to shoppers and control the product layout in the list/grid by the various element blocks.\n\n\n\nUnlike the Products block, which is a Query loop block variation, this block is a standalone block, enabling us to tailor the block further to better meet the merchant’s needs.\n
Like the Products block, you can choose what criteria affect the list of blocks displayed to shoppers and control the product layout in the list/grid by the various element blocks.
Unlike the Products block, which is a Query loop block variation, this block is a standalone block, enabling us to tailor the block further to better meet the merchant’s needs.
The Product Collection block is very similar to the Products block from which it was forked, except it is not built as a variation of the Query Loop. It comes with improvements around Inspector controls as compared to the current Products block, as well as a basic set of patterns. The block already has the Interactivity API integrated for the same improved frontend performance.
Version 11.0.0 also enables manual migration of Products to Product Collection. An upgrade notice will appear in the Inspector Controls, informing users that they will get more features with the Product Collection block:
As the Product Collection block is still in beta, WooCommerce Blocks has not yet changed existing templates that have Product blocks. The development team is looking for more feedback on this block before moving it out of beta. Check out the release post for more enhancements and bug fixes.
Human Made, a leading enterprise WordPress agency, is organizing a followup event to the community’s first ever AI for WordPress virtual conference that it hosted in May 2023. The second edition is called “AI: The Next Chapter” and will take place online on September 14, 2023, at 10AM EST.
The first event had 13 speakers and drew more than 600 attendees. It focused on WordPress and AI tools that people are building with the emerging technology. (Videos of all the sessions are available on YouTube.) This next edition will explore some of the wider societal, ethical, and tech issues related to the subject.
The keynote and intro will feature Matt Mullenweg on “AI and the future of WordPress,” along with Human Made CEO Tom Willmot. Dr. Eleanor Drage, a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge and co-host of The Good Robot podcast, will be speaking about AI and gender. Open source LLM researchers from Georgian will also join for a panel discussion on why they believe open source AI is the best way for companies to leverage this technology.
Registration is free and participants can sign up on the event’s website. A confirmation email is sent out to registrants and more information will follow via email.
Human Made has developed a keen interest in fostering exploratory dialogue through these events, as the company is working on AI products and custom implementations for clients. At the first event, the agency showcased some early work in the Altis Accelerate plugin and have been working with clients to determine how AI can augment existing marketing and editorial workflows.
“The progress and innovation we’re seeing in AI is so rapid at the moment that it kind of demands you stay close to it, keep following what’s happening, and keep learning,” Human Made Marketing Director Alex Aspinall said. “AI is one of our core areas of focus, across all parts of the business, so we’ll definitely be building, sharing, and hosting more in the space in the months to come. Doing all this in the open is really important to us, so the events are a great platform.”
During the first event, Aspinall reports that Human Made saw registrations and participation across a wide range of business verticals and role disciplines, with conversations continuing months after the first event. “While there are a few businesses and individuals building things, experimenting, and commercializing their work in the area, the vast majority are still finding their way through, figuring out how best to implement AI to deliver tangible benefit to their companies, their clients, their teams, and their day-to-day lives,” Aspinall said.“Despite the level of advancement we’ve already seen, we’re still right at the start of this thing, which is really exciting. There’s a lot to learn, and considerable edge available for those experimenting and putting things in place. Imagine what we’ll be talking about this time next year!”
BobWP and some attendees share a few highlights of WordCamp US 2023 as well as some WordPress origin stories.
>> The post WordCamp US, the First Recap appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
Jamie Marsland has this great YouTube video where he rebuilds TechCrunch.com just using core blocks in WordPress 6.3 in 30 minutes. Worth checking out!
Zeynep Tufekci has a great article, One Thing Not to Fear at Burning Man, that covers well what I have experienced as well growing up in Houston through hurricanes and other natural disasters—that in times of need people help each other in ingenious ways.
Apart from The Future of WordPress & What’s Next for Gutenberg with the keynotes by Josepha Haden Chomphosy and Matt Mullenweg, including Q & A, I still haven’t caught up with the videos from WordCamp US. Below is a list with links to the talks I want to see and hopefully catch up over this weekend.
Then the Community Summit discussion notes are also posted, I haven’t digested any of them yet. This part of my todo-list is also below.
And I hear you say: Who has time for all this? Well, that is a good question. The project has some great teams, that do outstanding work! And that’s the underlying reason why I only curate news about the block editor. No one can keep track of it all. 🤣
And I leave you to the rest of the newsletter. Enjoy, learn and share!
The full playlist of recorded talks is available on YouTube: WordCamp US 2023
🎥 The Independent Theme Developer’s Field Guide to Modern WordPress with Michelle Schlup Hunt (Session description, slides)
🎥 Building a thoughtful block editing experience with Aurooba Ahmed (Session description)
🎥 For All Userkind: NASA Web Modernization and WordPress with Abby BowmanJ.J. Toothman (Session description)
🎥 Hands on with NASA’s new digital platform NASA Workshop with Abby Bowman and J.J. Toothman (Session description)
🎥 Ford Foundation: Audio Described Video Plugin with Vajaah E ParkerKurtis Shaner (Session description)
🎥 All the President’s Websites with Andrew Nacin, Helen Hou-Sandí
🎥 Anatomy of an Accessible Navigation Menu with Steve Jones (session description)
🎥 The Headless Block Editor with Sean Blakeley (session description)
🎥 The Future of WordPress with Josepha Haden Chomphosy (Session description)
🎥 Gutenberg Next with Matt Mullenweg
Gutenberg 16.6 RC is available now for testing, and the stable release is scheduled for September 6th, 2023. I took a peak at the changelog to prepare for the next episode of the Gutenberg Changelog #89 with Nadia Maya Ardiani as a special guest.
Below you find a short list of discussion notes from the Community Summit directly connected with contributing to core and Gutenberg. When you read notes on the Make Summit blog, keep in mind that two important guidelines governed the Community Summit: no attribution and no decisions.
Jamie Marsland recreated TechCrunch’s Website in 30 minutes and shows you in this 15-minute video how he did it. WOW! I rebuilt TechCrunch.com in only 30 mins with WordPress. You’ll also learn a few things: How to have a sticky header, how to create pro-post layouts, how to change your Global style, how image ratio features work and how to use templates.
Jacob Martella posted his Wishlist for the WordPress Site Editor as it Heads to Phase 3. He explains a few missing items in broad strokes: better responsive controls, more inline options, continued improvement on accessibility and more of the Block Visibility plugin features. The latter is a nice shoutout to Nick Diego’s plugin that has been available in the plugin repo for three years, and shows 10,000 + active installations.
Tammie Lister, co-tech lead for WordPress 6.4 had thoughts and published them: Reflections on the admin design proposal. On the way from old to new, it needs opinions, listening, documenting, and considering accessibility and extensibility. Implementation of the proposal requires all WordPress teams to become part of the revamp.
Niels Lange published the WooCommerce Blocks 10.9.0 Release Notes. He listed as notable that the team uses the Interactivity API together with the Product Button block and Pagination, which improves user experience considerably. In this version, the team continued making performance improvement to the plugin. You can also find improvements to patterns for footer and features products, and with every release fixed a few bugs. The WooCommerce Blocks plugin is available in the WordPress repository
Matt Medeiros took a peak at the early version of the new default theme and shared his thoughts in Previewing the Upcoming Twenty Twenty-Four Theme for WordPress. “With a focus on versatility, ease of use, and multiple website types, Twenty Twenty-Four is shaping up to be one of the best and most flexible default starter themes WordPress has released in years” he wrote.
Eric Karkovack asked Brian Gardner in his interview “Will There Ever Be a Market for Commercial Block Themes?” Tl:DR: “I’m incredibly optimistic. Having been instrumental in molding the premium WordPress theme market in the late 2000s, we stand at the precipice of a new renaissance, much like before.” was Brian Gardner’s answer. Read more about the challenges and opportunities of Block Themes in WordPress.
Justin Tadlock‘s latest tutorial covers Adding and using custom settings in theme.json. Custom settings are “one of the most powerful ways to build on top of the block system but is often underutilized by the theming community.” he wrote.
Aurooba Ahmed and Brian Coords created a couple of tools for block development and made them publically available:
Both worth a browser bookmark 🙂 Ahmed and Coords also finished their first season of their ViewSource podcast. If you want to give it a binge listen, just search for View Source on your favorite podcast app or download it from the website.
If you missed last week’s Developer Hours, the recording is now available on WordPressTV: Developer Hours: Introduction to the HTML API with Michael Burridge and Dennis Snell. The show started with some quick demos of using the new HTML APIs, then briefly discussed the limits of the new systems, and finished with a time for questions and discussion with participants.
Angel De Miguel, staff engineer at VM ware working on the WebAssembly, his colleague Rafael Fernández López and Automattic’s Adam Zieliński co-authored this post for the WordPress Developer blog: Exploring the future of web development with WebAssembly and PHP. “Imagine that you can now run PHP code in a new set of environments like a browser, serverless, edge, and even embedded in a different application. That opens a new set of possibilities for PHP. At this point is when PHP meets WebAssembly.” the wrote. You’ll learn what WebAssembly is, how it makes PHP portable like JavaScript, how it is the foundation of WordPress Playground, about sharing libraries across languages and so much more.
Gobinda Tarafdar started a new project, CSS Crafter – a CSS Library for Gutenberg Blocks with premade CSS-styled blocks. Select the style and copy/paste the CSS + Block code for patterns or your custom blocks. Some of them also include pure CSS animations. It’s a fun project, that might shorten the creation time considerably.
You don’t have to create custom blocks to customize the editor for your clients. Nick Diego posted an introduction to block variations, and you will learn how to create block variations effectively and discover ways to incorporate them into your workflows.
Featured Image: Roof of the Stefan’s Cathedral in Vienna 2023 – Photo by Birgit Pauli-Haack
Immediately available is BP Attachments 1.1.0. This BuddyPress Add-on maintenance release main goal is to make it ready for the next BuddyPress major release (12.0). If you haven’t read about the important change BuddyPress 12.0.0 will introduce, please read this post about its first beta version.
The BP Attachments 1.1.0 maintenance release is the opportunity the BuddyPress development team chose to demonstrate how third party BuddyPress Plugins/Add-ons can adapt their code to be compatible with BuddyPress 12.0.0 as well as with previous versions of BuddyPress. It’s very important to us, as a community, we all take a few actions – during the next 2 months – to prepare the BuddyPress next major version release (slated to October 30).
In addition to documentation resources Third party BuddyPress Plugin/Add-on authors can read, they can now learn from a real use case thanks to this BP Attachments new maintenance release.
add_filter( \'bp_attachments_use_experimental_features\', \'__return_true\' );
* ICYMI: since BuddyPress 11.0.0, as you can opt-in to use Blocks inside BP Activity content using the filter below, BP Attachments is enjoying this feature and use it to attach Media to Activity updates.
*
add_filter( \'bp_is_activity_blocks_active\', \'__return_true\' );
BP Attachments
Andrew Wikel shares thoughts and insights working on WooCommerce support specifically for builders and developers of Woo shops.
>> The post A DevChat on WooCommerce Support with Andrew Wikel appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
After an accumulation of undisclosed and unpatched vulnerabilities in plugins hosted on WordPress.org, Patchstack has reported 404 plugins to WordPress’ Plugin Review Team.
“This situation creates a significant risk for the WordPress community, and we decided to take action,” Patchstack researcher Darius Sveikauskas said. “Since these developers have been unreachable, we sent the full list of those 404 vulnerabilities to the plugins review team for processing.”
Ordinarily, reporting plugins to WordPress.org is a last resort for challenging cases after Patchstack fails to find a way to contact the vendors. In this case, many of these plugin authors have included zero contact information in their extensions or are not responding to communication attempts. Patchstack has characterized it as a “zombie plugins pandemic” due to the overwhelming number of abandoned plugins affecting more than 1.6 million sites.
The WordPress.org Plugins Team has acted on the report by closing more than 70% of the plugins. In June, the team added six new sponsored volunteers and opened applications for more team members but have struggled with managing a formidable backlog of plugins waiting to be reviews. The backlog is climbing higher and is now over 1,119 plugins with a 71-day wait time.
Adding plugin vulnerability issues, where hundreds have to be closed, only adds to how long developers have to wait to get new plugins reviewed.
As of August 31, 2023, Patchstack reports the following stats associated with these reports to WordPress.org:
Patchstack is urging developers to add their contact details to their plugins’ readme.txt and/or SECURITY.md files. To streamline security issue management, the company has created the Patchstack mVDP (managed vulnerability disclosure program) project, which is free for developers to join. Patchstack validates the reports that come through, rewards the researchers, and passes them to the vendor to be addressed.
The company is also advocating for a dashboard alert when a plugin or theme is removed due to security reasons, as WordPress does not currently give the user this information. Their researchers will soon be submitting more reports that may result in closed extensions.
“We are preparing more similar lists for the WordPress.org themes repository and repositories focused on premium products,” Sveikauskas said. “We are currently processing about extra 200+ similar vulnerabilities.”
Kevin Ohashi from Review Signal has published his 2023 WordPress and WooCommerce hosting performance benchmarks. This is his 10th round of capturing performance data from hosting companies that opt into the testing. Ohashi’s methodology tests two metrics through a variety of methods: peak performance and consistency.
The benchmarks include a LoadStorm test designed to simulate real users visiting the site, logging in, and browsing (uncached performance). They also test cached performance, SSL, WP queries per second, performance on some computational and database operations, and a WebPageTest that fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world. As part of the consistency testing, Ohashi also measures uptime using HetrixTools and Uptime Robot for a minimum of three months.
Participants pay a standard, publicly documented fee, based on the price tier of the product being tested, to cover the costs. Ohashi does not accept sponsorships for the tests, and has become one of the most trusted sources for unbiased performance reviews of WordPress hosting plans.
In 2023, Ohashi tested 31 companies across 72 plans and seven pricing tiers, with tests nearly identical to previous years. He made minimal adjustments to the LoadStorm test script to improve performance and make it compatible with newer versions of k6.
The website makes it easy to review results at a glance by using a star system. Hosts that achieve “Top Tier” status receive a full star:
\nThis is awarded to companies who maintain 99.9% uptime throughout the entire testing and show little to no performance degradation during load testing, primarily focused on error rate and consistent response times. Error rates above 0.1% and response times above 1000ms* will keep a company away from achieving Top Tier marks.\n
This is awarded to companies who maintain 99.9% uptime throughout the entire testing and show little to no performance degradation during load testing, primarily focused on error rate and consistent response times. Error rates above 0.1% and response times above 1000ms* will keep a company away from achieving Top Tier marks.
The half star indicates “Honorable Mention” status, which is given to companies that came close to Top Tier but fell just short, such as struggling slightly on a load test.
Among budget hosts in the <$25/month category, the majority of hosts (16/21) rang in at the Top Tier level. Those who did not earn Top Tier status were held back by inferior performance on the the LoadStorm test for the most part, even though several still took top scores in other aspects of the testing.
There are fewer participants at the $25-50 plan (and other more expensive plans) but the results are similar to the budget hosts, with A2 Hosting, Cloudways, and Stromonic edged out of contention for Top Tier. All three failed to achieve Top Tier for any of the plans tested this year.
In the Enterprise tier ($500+), the majority of participants handled the LoadStorm test without issue. When testing cached performance, Ohashi found that the overall field of participants is getting faster:
\nExcluding Seravo, every company was 33ms average or below and 43ms p95 or below. Compared to last year where the fastest average was 6.4 ms and p95 was 20ms. There are four companies this year below both of those levels. The performance at the Enterprise tier is mind bogglingly fast and getting even faster which is hard to comprehend when last year’s 6.4ms was beaten by 4 plans this year.\n
Excluding Seravo, every company was 33ms average or below and 43ms p95 or below. Compared to last year where the fastest average was 6.4 ms and p95 was 20ms. There are four companies this year below both of those levels. The performance at the Enterprise tier is mind bogglingly fast and getting even faster which is hard to comprehend when last year’s 6.4ms was beaten by 4 plans this year.
Most of the entrants in the WooCommerce category earned Top Tier status, with the exception of Blallo and Cloudways, both of which stumbled on the LoadStorm test. The hosting plans tested range from $25.95/month – $99/month. The WooCommerce-specific tests collect average response times, total requests, errors, and other metrics across four different profiles:
A more detailed breakdown is available on the WooCommerce benchmarks results page.
It’s important to note that the tests do not clearly identify a winner or top performer. They also don’t take into account other aspects of the WordPress hosting experience, like reviews, support, and features. Ohashi tests the defaults for all of these plans, but if there are more optimization features that can be customized for sites (which are not clearly outlined in the initial setup) then those are also not taken into account. The methodology simply focuses on performance, so it’s just one factor of hosting, albeit a very important one.
“As far as surprising results, I keep thinking ‘Are we nearing the point that we won’t see much improvement?’ and each year the whole field gets faster and faster,” Ohashi said. “Even improving on sub 10ms times between years. For example, in the <$25/month tier, in 2022 there were 3 companies with <50ms average response time on the Static k6 test. This year there are 10. I also saw 100ms+ improvements from the other (slower) side bringing up the whole field a meaningful amount. Everyone is getting faster and faster.”
There are many leading WordPress managed hosts that are notably absent from Ohashi’s benchmarks, whose inclusion would be helpful for a deeper understanding of market. I asked him about a handful of them and he reported that WP Engine, DreamHost, and Kinsta declined to participate this year, to name a few. GoDaddy took a year off but may be back next year.
The major reasons for hosts not wanting to participate fall into a few categories, and bad performance is chief among them.
“Some companies perform poorly or poorly relative to price and don’t want to participate anymore,” Ohashi said. “They usually talk about other ‘intangible’ values that you can’t measure. I think good performance should be a default for every hosting company, and good companies shouldn’t be afraid of bad results – if they actually plan on improving their services.
“But some would probably rather spend fortunes on marketing instead of better engineering, and bad results aren’t going to help their marketing. I personally love seeing companies who participate year after year despite mixed results. I respect the companies who consistently earn Top Tier are doing a great job. But there’s something special about companies willing to put themselves out there regardless of the results, because it’s a public and open commitment to improving.”
Ohashi said that occasionally the timing doesn’t work out where a host is going through a major engineering overhaul during the testing and doesn’t want the platform benchmarked when they are about to release a new one. In this case some opt to skip a year.
The costs of the benchmarking can also be prohibitive for some smaller hosting companies. Ohashi raised prices by $250 across all tiers this year (eg. $100->$350, $500->$750) to cover his costs. Although this doesn’t seem like much for a hosting company, they also have to pay for the servers for four months, and have the staff/resources available to work with Ohashi on organizing, executing, and debugging issues. 20i, Krystal Hosting, Nexcess, and Pressable agreed to sponsor upstart companies in the space for 2023.
Another reason some hosts don’t participate is a lack of interest or value. They don’t see how they can use the benchmark results to their advantage.
“Some companies don’t get as much value from the benchmarks as others,” Ohashi said. “Performance across the board has gone way up. It’s harder and harder to stand out.
“I think some companies may view it as an instant validation and reason for customers to come busting down the doors. But there are a lot of great companies offering great performance. Earning Top Tier status means you’ve got a performant hosting platform. It’s great, and it can help validate some customer needs/desires in the decision making funnel, but it won’t magically generate tons of sales.”
Ohashi said he has put together notes for hosting companies that earned Top Tier status to help them leverage more value this year from a marketing perspective, based on what he has seen some companies do with their results. Creating more value for participating companies is something he is actively working to improve upon.
Although Review Signal had approximately 35,000 people visit in the past year, Ohashi doesn’t think the traffic captures the full value of the benchmarks very well. The people who dig into these metrics are those who have a large impact on where their WordPress clients host their websites.
“The people who care about the benchmarks are seriously into WordPress / hosting / performance,” Ohashi said. “It’s a lot of agencies, developers, large website owners and hosting people. One way I’ve measured impact is by going to the major WordCamps (EU/Asia/US) and talking to people. The number of folks who are aware of the benchmarks there was surprisingly high to me. The people who are interested enough to spend time at WordCamps are the same folks interested in reading the benchmarks. It’s not the largest number of people who read them, but it is the largest impact people who read and value them.”
WooBits takes another twist and turn and introducing Global Community Friends.
>> The post WooBits Hits the Air Waves, Again appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
For an upcoming show, tell us what your takeaway was from WordCamp US or why did you attend Contributor Day.
>> The post What Was Your Takeaway from WordCamp US? appeared first on Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community .
After an in-depth performance analysis earlier this year revealed that translations can impact server response times, WordPress contributors proposed half a dozen technical solutions for consideration to improve performance for the ~56% of sites that use translations.
Performant Translations, a feature project by the core Performance Team, is now available as a plugin on WordPress.org. It incorporates some of the proposed solutions and speeds up translations by converting .mo files to .php files, allowing them to be parsed faster and stored in OPcache.
.mo
.php
It supports multiple file formats (.mo, .php, and .json) and multiple text domains and locales loaded at the same time. Existing .mo files get converted to .php files which are then loaded by WordPress.
.json
A chart included on the plugin’s details page shows a significant page load time reduction when using the plugin, as compared to sites with translations that don’t use the plugin. The plugin brings translations very close to the same page load times as English (non-translated) sites.
“With enough testing and feedback, we hope to eventually merge this plugin into WordPress core,” Performance Team contributor Pascal Birchler said when announcing the plugin on X.
“In the coming weeks and months we will share more testing instructions and continue to improve the plugin. This will be made available via Performance Lab, too.”
Users who are testing the plugin can report issues on the support forum or create an issue on the GitHub repository.
Performant Translations is considered to be a beta testing plugin but can be tested and used in production at your own risk. It doesn’t require any changes to settings or configuration after installation. The plugin can be safely removed after testing, because it essentially cleans up after itself. All .php files it generates will be removed by the server once the plugin is deactivated and uninstalled.
A collection of leading WordPress agencies have launched a collaborative project to promote the platform to large-scale organizations. Big Bite, in partnership with 10up, Alley, Human Made, Inpsyde, and XWP, have published a free WordPress for Enterprise guide that includes contributions from Google and WordPress VIP.
The guide highlights many high profile companies and organizations using WordPress, including CNN, Vogue, Google, The Wall Street Journal, Spotify, Harvard University, the White House, Meta, PlayStation, and many more.
Even after 20 years of unprecedented growth and adoption across major brands, the misconception that WordPress is just a blogging platform persists among many who don’t keep up to date with open source software.
“Despite being the number one CMS, many people still associate WordPress solely with bloggers and small businesses, and are surprised to learn that it powers sites for some of the biggest brands on the planet,” Big Bite CEO Iain McPherson said. “By coming together to create this guide, we’re aiming to change that perception and highlight the many advantages it offers to enterprise organizations that have lots of contributors, lots of content, and lots of challenges.”
The guide offers an easy-to-read overview of how well-suited WordPress is for the enterprise market and the possibilities for creating a customized platform to fit any organization. It includes short chapters on the following topics:
“While smaller brands are able to switch CMS platforms fairly easily, for large-scale enterprises it’s often a major undertaking, so we hope this guide makes the decision process much easier for those exploring open source options,” WordPress VIP Director of Product Marketing Michael Khalili said.
The guide is a useful resource for large organizations examining WordPress as a platform or for small agencies looking to pitch WordPress to larger clients. It’s free and does not require you to enter your email address or other contact information to download it.
WordPress.com is now selling a 100-year plan, one of the longest available in the industry, for a one-time payment of $38,000. It includes managed WordPress hosting (whatever that looks like in 100 years), multiple backups across geographically distributed data centers, submission to the Internet Archive if the site is public, 24/7 dedicated support, and a domain that doesn’t need to be renewed by the customer for a century.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, limits domain registration to a maximum of 10 years. Auto-renewing after this time requires the customer to renew on time and keep their payment method updated. A 100-year plan removes these uncertainties but still hinges on the registrar staying in business into the next century.
Customers who buy into the plan will need to have superior confidence in WordPress.com, coupled with the belief that domain names will still be important to the fundamental architecture of the web decades from now.
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg commented on the difficulties in pricing the 100-year plan during his presentation at WordCamp US 2023, while simultaneously discouraging WordPress product owners from offering lifetime licenses. The distinction here is that the 100-year plan has a finite length of time, even if its future support seems unfathomable at the moment.
“It also got me thinking about lifetime licenses, which I think we should stop doing in the WordPress world,” Mullenweg said.
“If you’ve ever worked with an accountant or an acquirer they don’t like when you have those because it’s essentially an open ended commitment, including often with support. How do you recognize that revenue? Offer a 20 year plan or something. I think when you’re saying ‘lifetime,’ it sort of cheapens the word. If we’re really thinking long-term, what promises we’re making to our customers, I think we should re-examine those practices.”
Mullenweg also said he was inspired by the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit established to foster long term thinking. The organization’s first project is the “Clock of the Long Now,” a mechanical monument designed to keep accurate time for the next 10,000 years:
\nIt is still being assembled deep inside a mountain in west Texas. The Clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the timescale of civilization. It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.\nThe Long Now website
It is still being assembled deep inside a mountain in west Texas. The Clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the timescale of civilization. It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.
WordPress.com is building something parallel to this in the digital world, enabling people to create their own virtual, lasting monuments and preserve their homes on the web.
Embedded in the new offering is also a poignant reminder that WordPress.com is a domain registrar, as the company recently made a bid to capture Google Domain customers ahead of their domains being sold off to Squarespace. Even if the new 100-year hosting plan is too expensive for 99.9% of prospective customers, it gives the impression that the company is capable of hosting entrusted domains for the long term.
Nobody, not even WordPress.com, knows what that will look like in 50 years, but it’s an ambitious, thought-provoking offering. What resources will a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) point to 50 years from now? Or will URLs be discarded into the scrap pile of obsolete building blocks as soon as there’s a better, more efficient way to identify web addresses? What does longevity look like in the digital world?
WordCamp US concluded this weekend after gathering nearly 2,000 attendees in National Harbor, Maryland, for the Community Summit, Contributor Day, and main conference days. For the majority of people in the WordPress world who were unable to attend, the recordings of the presentations from project leadership will give you an idea of what to expect in the near future and beyond. These videos were published right away and are embedded below.
WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomposy spoke on “The Future of WordPress,” with an emphasis on how the project can continue to thrive, build resilience, and outlast its current contributors. She encouraged the community to be proactive about expanding their learning and connections. She also reaffirmed the importance of the project’s mission to democratize publishing and the impact that can have in the world.
WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg capped off the event with a presentation titled “What’s Next for Gutenberg,” followed by a Q&A. He highlighted a few features coming in 6.4, including font management, an image lightbox, and the new Twenty Twenty Four default theme.
As WordPress is moving into the Collaboration phase of the Gutenberg project, which will enable multiple authors to edit simultaneously, Mullenweg highlighted the importance of redesigning the admin. This will be the first major redesign since MP6 and is also aimed at improving workflows for administrators.
Mullenweg announced that WordPress has launched a new LMS (Learning Management System) working group. He commented on the benefits and drawbacks of having multiple plugins in the ecosystem that do the same thing. Although the competition can encourage more innovation, it can also lock users into one solution if they aren’t built to be interoperable.
Representatives from Tutor LMS, Learndash, LifterLMS, and Sensei met to discuss using common data models so users can easily switch between solutions. They are working in a new #LMS slack channel to establish industry standards that will preserve user freedom and choice through practical interoperability changes to their products.
Mullenweg also said he would like to see more plugins, such as those handling SEO or site builders, to agree on some data models so that products can operate in a more standardized and performant way, serving users better in the long term.
Check out the presentation below, along with the Q&A that followed. There were more than 80 questions submitted, and those that were missed during Q&A will have answers published to in a future post on WordPress.org.
Ellen Bauer and Birgit Pauli-Haack discuss WordPress 6.4 and Gutenberg 16.4 and 16.5 and proposed wp-admin changes.
Admin Design Kickoff
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Hello and welcome to our 88th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today’s episode, we will talk about the releases of WordPress 6.3 and 6.4, Gutenberg 16.3 and 16.4, and I’m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress Open Source project on the Automattic Five for the Future Program. And it’s a great pleasure for me to have with me today, Ellen Bauer. She’s a theme developer and 6.4 co-design lead on the release board. She’s also a co-founder of Elma Studio, a theme development shop and AinoBlocks is one of their products. Ellen has been a very early adopter of blocks and block themes and provided a ton of feedback to the core team. Thank you for joining me today, Ellen. Good evening to New Zealand. How are you?
Ellen Bauer: Thank you very much, Birgit. I’m very good. Yeah, I’m just excited to be here. And actually, coming on here has helped me a lot to catch up with all the things that are happening and it’s so exciting to see it all coming together. Yeah, I’m just really, really excited for 6.4 and to be part of it and all the things that are coming to WordPress. It’s really, really cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent, excellent. So how is AinoBlocks doing? Do you have a theme and separate blocks for it?
Ellen Bauer: So yeah, yeah, we do have blocks like block collection or single blocks. It was mainly we started that AinoBlocks to experiment with building blocks and bring blocks into our workflow and to make things happen that weren’t possible for a long time with just the default blocks. That’s just how it started, just to build the designs out that we wanted. And we still love to use a lot of the blocks there, especially we have an advanced grid block and things like that. We need to catch up on the spacing and things like that that came into default.
I’m planning to do that within the next one or two months to have a bigger update because what we’ve also been doing is building more block themes, coming back to our roots and back to themes because yeah, it’s now possible to build block themes and bring the two worlds together and just designing. We missed that with all just block building, we missed doing cool designs, but we didn’t want to build classic themes, too. So yeah, we were on hold for a long time. And now, we are really, really excited to get back into designing and we have a few cool new designs in the works and it’s just a lot of fun now to bring the worlds together and really create advanced and modern designs at WordPress. It’s really cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I’m looking forward to your new designs and what you and Manu will come up with. So for our listeners, the last Changelog was a little bit was about four weeks ago, and a lot has happened in those four weeks. We will not cover it all and we hope you can catch up on the other news outlets on those 6.3 came out and 6.3.1, the release candidate was just released this week, will come out next week. We are recording this on August 25th, 2023, and 6.3.1 is scheduled to come out on August 29th. So for those who are binge listening to this at a later date, if you haven’t upgraded yet, do that now. 6.3.1 is coming out with some bug fixes for some of the features that surface quite late in the release cycle.
Speaking of 6.3 or WordPress release, the roadmap for 6.4 was also just published this week.
It’s a tight release cycle with the first beta scheduled just four weeks from now, September 26 I think, and this makes it an ambitious list of features and updates. The release is set to be scheduled for November 7th, so there’s always the two months between beta or six weeks. No, it’s only five weeks, six weeks, five weeks between beta one and final release. So this one is quite special because the release was, is all about underrepresented gender people that lead the release in all release categories. And you are on design team, Ellen, I’m on the editor triage team with Anne McCarthy together, each of the release teams of two or three people deep. So what is the design team going to do in this release?
Ellen Bauer: So yeah, I’m just starting to get really into the work and kindly, Anne has, we have created a side channel in the Slack community for the design team and Estella did actually take the initiative on that. And kindly, Anne has posted and put together a list of tickets and things we are going to get into and some more people shared tickets and issues there. And then of course, the about page and yeah, we’re just getting started on that. It’s really exciting, I’m excited to be on the design team again and it’s really cool. Tammie Lister also is helping out and Rich put together a to-do list in the beginning, which was cool because last time, I joined for 5.6. Also for the underrepresented gender release, I was struggling at some points like what I’m supposed to do and when.
So yeah, this is way more organized now and yeah, it’s really cool to do it a second time and have a group of people who have also done it before and let’s just know more what is happening. And I’m really excited about the new default theme, too. That’s really cool that this is going to be added for 6.4 because we also had a new default theme released with 5.6 back then. I can’t believe it’s already two or three, I think last podcast, you said it’s three years ago. I was like, what? It’s crazy, but I guess it is. Yeah, so that’s really exciting and-
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So the default theme leads are Jessica Lyschik and Maggie Cabrera.
Ellen Bauer: Maggie. Yep.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And they just introduced the designs for the theme on a separate post and we will certainly share that in the show notes as well, as well with the roadmap, but that’s only one thing on the roadmap. The others are that there are two new features coming in. Well, at least one of them is the font library.
Ellen Bauer: Yes. So excited for that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that independent from themes, you can now have fonts on your site and manage them, or that’s the goal for it. So you’re not tied to a theme with the font, how your site looks and how your text is displayed independent from the theme. And there will be the backend is already working for that. That comes in in Gutenberg 16.5, so that is one of them. And Anne McCarthy’s post, she also had some designs already added to it, some pictures of it. Another part is the revisions for the styles were new in 16.3, but there were no revisions for templates and template parts and those will come with 16.4 there on the list.
We will have new blocks where a table of contents block has been long time in experimental, but it’s slated now to be released into core. There’s still a discussion about the time to read block because there is some, well, if you say okay, you have 30 minutes to read, that’s a normal, it normalizes how the reading capabilities, but if you are dyslexic or in other ways have accessibility issues, it’s ableism to give you how long you can read about this, that you’re not normal.
And that is definitely a discussion to have if we want to have that in core. So the discussion is ongoing. Another block would be the scrolling key block, which it comes out of the ’90s and will never leave us scrolling.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, I actually felt, I mean, we’ve seen that a lot in designs being trendy, but I was also surprised to see that as a core block in discussion. I mean, it’s cool that we don’t have to have custom solutions, but yeah, I’m most excited about the table of contents block. I remember last year, I was about to like, okay, should I have a custom block? Should I do that? And then I read, okay, it’s being done. So it’s cool to finally see that being added. Can’t wait for it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And I was playing around with it or testing it, playing around equals testing and I always found it in the previous versions limiting because if I have a table of contents, I want to style it, I want to have some maybe different fonts, maybe different backgrounds, maybe different titles, a control over which heading goes in or out. I’m not sure that all my expectations will come in. So there is definitely room for a custom table of contents block, but I really don’t like when a table of contents that’s only 10 or 15 items long that has all the numbers and the indenting numbers in addition, that’s not additional information, any distracts, is this a priority or not. So I wasn’t really able to make it a bullet list, but I think that those things will be fixed definitely.
Then there’s also the image lightbox or each image block will have a feature that you can, with light box, zoom in on it or have a larger version on it on your screen. If you click on the image, that has been experimental in the Gutenberg for a while. I’m very excited about the order insert blocks because that is a piece that has been missing for since the beginning. I think that you can add something to a block that is not in the interface, like what would it be?
So the example is a like button to add it to a comment, or another heading link or maybe just a citation or anything that you can put in dynamically that the user doesn’t have to control it. So I was thinking sometimes for the click to tweet, can we do this on a block? And it doesn’t have to be in a separate block, you can just put it in a paragraph or in a heading, or have an additional anchor on a heading without having to do a table of contents to get them automatically built. All these, they’re all different. I’m sure there are a lot of use cases for that, too, but I’m really excited that that is coming to the editor.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, I think so too. It’s, like you said, been missing for forever, just like you said, a like button or tweet button that yeah, it just makes it more attractive and easy to use blocks if you have these things auto inserted. Yeah, you don’t want to tweak around with these little items. I think that’s pretty cool. And I was surprised about the next one, the post formats. That’s pretty cool to come back to these ones. We have an old theme that’s like a post format Tumblr-style theme and it’s been ongoing popular with post formats, so it’s cool. We can maybe do a block version redesign for that theme, that would be amazing.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and post formats weren’t really tended to in the block editor at all.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, not at all.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So bringing that in, it’s definitely there has been some feedback that this is missing and some theme developers actually didn’t switch because it wasn’t available. So that is a good thing for adaptability, but it’s also with all the insecurities around the social networks and the fragmentation of it that many content creators are thinking about maybe building their own and just giving them post formats. And one of them is actually the non-title post that you just like a tweet, you get just 280 characters and put it in a post and you don’t need a title for it, and you have it on your website and then you can share it via an ActivityPub process with any of the social networks that you wanted to do. And you don’t have to go out and go directly to the social networks.
Ellen Bauer: I always love that so much and I’m already excited to actually build a theme for these kind of purposes. And yeah, like you said, with Twitter not being there anymore, it’s sad. I feel for the first time actually really excited to start blogging again, and I think it will do that, just like a private blog because I don’t feel there’s the right home anymore on any social platform. And yeah, I really miss something and I’m really excited to use WordPress as not only for business websites and things like that, but actually for blogging again, which is funny and cool to come back to that.
Ellen Bauer: I haven’t felt the urge to just blog for such a long time and now, I want to blog again. So yeah, that’s really exciting to see that. And I’m already seeing some new block themes come out of that project as well, which is pretty cool and creative.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And it’s certainly for writers and blogging, but it’s also for if you cherish Instagram just to share one photo and be done with it from your mobile phone and now you could do this with your own website, I think it would be just as well, but people who are interested in would follow your blog and your pictures on the blog. And if it has a nice theme that highlights that similar to Instagram or something like that, then and people can follow with a Jetpack or wordpress.com account, they can follow any blog they want. And I know that the ActivityPub plugin is now sponsored by Automattic and so we can create WordPress so it can actually push things into those social networks and even people following on the social networks, but you don’t have to create on those social networks, you are in control of your own posts and pages and pictures. And so I’m really, I think this is the most important thing for the web, for the independent web in the future.
Ellen Bauer: I think so, too. I think so, too.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I’m really, really great.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. Seeing what can happen to these network, it just doesn’t feel right to just post your… Yeah, I feel exactly the same. I was like yeah, even Instagram, it doesn’t really feel good to post your content there. I was like, “I want to do it on my own website and still share there”, but yeah, I think yeah, we really make these experiences now and it’s cool. Yeah, it’s really exciting.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, yeah. And then also 6.4, the writing experience will have a focus on that. So the content creation flow on the writing part, like the distraction-free writing, list items, quotes and navigation items, getting additional capture toolbars and all this nice things. Then interfaces and tools like list view, top toolbars, command palette, they’re all getting additional enhancements or expansions. Site editing will get definitely additional UX polish and quality of life and also additional features.
Ellen Bauer: I love the list view.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh yeah.
Ellen Bauer: It’s my favorite thing. So having the group locks, custom naming is like yeah, I mean, we have been asking for that for quite a while and it’s coming up. And now having that, it will be so cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah, and then this…
Ellen Bauer: I mean for designing, the list view is just… We need to be in control.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right, right, right. And if it’s just a group, group, group group, you don’t know where you are.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, it’s awful and it will be cool. And for page patterns, having them like the sections ready with naming and stuff to get out to your customers and theme users, that will be just improving the whole experience because at the moment, it doesn’t look great, but I still love to use the list view.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, there will be an expansion on the box shadow component, which is in the Gutenberg plugin. It’s also I think for one or two blocks available, but now it will be available for more blocks, of course. And then custom CSS enhancements are coming, more support for elements for individual blocks, and all these little but important things will get a refinement and enhancements. The same for the global styles, the style book especially, which is such a great help in previewing themes in designing, seeing how the style variations change your sites and all that.
Ellen Bauer: I love that, too.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that’s actually one of the big features in 6.2 and 6.3. 6.2 only was a little bit hidden in the global styles, but it brought forefront in 6.3 for the site editor in the site editor so you can directly access it. And another focus for 6.4 is the pattern, realm of patterns like the ability to set categories to update the inserter experience to improve the compatibility with non-block themes, which is still an issue. And another idea might not work with 6.4, but there’s definitely a stretch goal there to have partially synced patterns. Right now, we have either sync patterns or unsynced patterns, but sometimes you want to have update the style of a pattern and that replicate through previous posts or pages, but not the content. So you couldn’t do that right now, but there’s an effort to do that. Depending on how the testing goes and how easy it is to work with, it might make it into 6.4, it might not make it, but that is still… So there’s quite more navigation creation and management. Now that there’s the base is done, there’s some additional…
Ellen Bauer: It’s like never ending. It’s so cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: No ending, no.
Ellen Bauer: I saw the poster, I was like, “What is happening? This is so cool.”
Ellen Bauer: I mean, it’s a lot of work. We will see how much we can get into with not a lot of time, but it’s exciting. I mean, at one point, these things will get added to the core, so very exciting to see that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So when you go, dear listeners, to look at that roadmap post that will be linked in the show notes, you’ll also see links to the current GitHub issue or PR that is in the works about the certain items and you can then gauge how far it is along, how long it is, and also chime in and help with the testing. That would be really good. Another way of it is we will have a separate, there is a separate project board for 6.4 with quite a few items on it. More will be added to it of course, from this and from some of the tracking issues, and there you can follow along on the progress of in the next five weeks until we get to Beta 1. So all new enhancements, new things need to be in the release that are supposed to be in the release by Beta 1.
Then it’s new feature freeze. And then after that, there’s only bug fixing in the beta cycle to release candidate one. There’s even possible to do some bug fixing afterwards, but then there’s also release candidate one string-free. So if there’s anything, user interfaces or something like that won’t get into the release after that because the translators are working on the translation of the new release. And so yes, it’s a long list for such a short turnaround time, but well, we don’t know where the boundaries are until we get to them. So we will report of course on the progress on things. We mentioned already the introducing of 2024, we will share the link in the show notes as well. What do you think?
Ellen Bauer: So I read the post that was posted yesterday by Jessica and maybe I think what we didn’t mention yet is so Maggie and Jessica are leading the theme development, but Beatriz actually did the design work for it. And yeah, I checked out the Figma file today this morning and I think it’s really, really amazing. I’m really excited. It seems like a lot of work, but I think a lot of people are already helping out with creating patterns and stuff. I hope maybe I have the chance to do one or two patterns as well if I find the time, or style variations I think is a topic that people can help out with creating and contributing like we did with the last default theme. But yeah, I think it’s beautiful, it’s very sophisticated, and I like that they’re working on different user cases. So I think there’s a blogger writer category and business, small business portfolio type or small business and yeah, and portfolio.
I think the three are the main topics they want to cover with that theme and yeah, it looks beautiful. It makes me really excited and I think it fits to WordPress and the new WordPress we see. It’s really, really beautiful, I love it. And I think yeah, it’s really exciting to see all the patterns and page templates and all the things you can do because the last team had style variations, but not a lot of a layout building included so that’s going to be exciting. And that, combined with the free font library and the options there, really, really cool to see that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I think we’re getting to a place where when you install WordPress for the first time and you use the default theme out of the box there that you have a headstart on getting your website finished just with the tools that come from the default theme. So there are two things that are not possible now, but that they’re working on for the 2024 that is that you can have templates, more than one template for a homepage. Right now, you can only have one. Well, the front page and yeah. And then if you create another one, it overrides that and it doesn’t give you a choice.
So that’s one thing, that would cover all the three use cases that you mentioned. And the other part is to actually also provide designs for the various post formats. And when you look into the post, there is one section there that shows you, or in the Figma file, there’s one section there that shows you just a mason gallery how the posts are, the different post formats are displayed. And I think that’s what you mentioned with your older theme, Ellen, that it’s still very attractive for people and I’m glad that we might have that out of the box.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, it’s really, really exciting. Yeah, and you can do so much with this theme. And I think, yeah, we never had that before, that default theme was really that flexible and people can really… Very usable, it looks very usable for the first time. I’m really, really excited. And the design is I think really fits to what WordPress has to offer. I think it’s a really great work, very exciting.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And I’m looking forward to also seeing the page patterns. So when you create a new page that you can have a series of right now, you have to assemble the page yourself with various different patterns that might fit together or not. And with the page patterns, you have a single page fully created and you just need to change your content, the pictures and the content, but that it already gives you a blueprint for single pages, be it a service page or be it an about page or even the homepage. So I think that gives any user a head start with a new site or with an existing site that decides to have that theme.
Ellen Bauer: So true. And yeah, I remember really advocating for… We need page templates, page patterns, whatever we call it, but ready-to-go pages pre-designed for users to choose and have multiple options. We can imagine three or five about pages and they can choose because yeah, putting the patterns together is for, like a lot of users, still like a daunting idea and it’s overwhelming and why not provide it? We have patterns, we can do that. And yeah, we’ve also been doing that with our themes quite a lot and I think it’s really, really attractive to have that come together.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I have to say that, yeah, you have the feedback loop directly with your customers, so I’m glad that WordPress is on the right track there.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, I think so because patterns just in general, it’s still, I mean, people getting more used to it but it’s really hard to understand for a lot of people, like what is that? It’s just a section? I want a page, and providing ready-to-go pages is just so much easier. It’s really, really cool to see that and have more themes, have that available. Maybe even, I remember saying that last year, even already discussing that, that we have next to a pattern library, like pattern directory, have a page pattern or maybe even there’s a new word that needs to be created for these patterns. Maybe not, maybe they can live in the pattern preview but they could be too long maybe for preview, I don’t know. But you have a library for that to theme independent available. I think that’s really, would be really attractive.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and that’s I think where the pattern category work comes in where you can categorize those patterns and also the browsing the previews. So if you have a bigger screen, you get a two-column preview of patterns that are under a certain category so you get a thumbnail view, how they’re big, and that works nicely, but those underpinnings had to first be built. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really comes together and I love what I see, yeah. It’s so funny that things, like I said last year, it felt like so much struggle to get people excited about block themes and site editing and now it’s coming together. I think with a little bit more practice, users will really just love it and forget about what we had before. It’s really cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well, it also comes in handy that the navigation block editor has gotten a lot of improvements in 6.2 and 6.3.
Ellen Bauer: So true.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And Dave Smith, a core Gutenberg contributor, posted an update on it so you can read up about it, how it’s going to work, but because to be honest, I personally struggled after the first year trying to make navigation work beyond a simple navigation with pages to add a site logo to it or to add a search bar to it or something like that. It was definitely a struggle and it was not thought through, and I wanted to have multiple menus and now, that all came together in 6.3 with the site editor where you have multiple places where you can tap into the navigation and make adjustments, be it providing navigation places and just switch out the menu for that, that was not possible. Before, you had to remove the navigation block and add it again and then yeah, it was yeah, the…
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, yeah, it was the biggest blocker I think for users to get into, they’re like, “It’s not working”. And yeah, like you said, very simple sites and then it ended. Yeah, very, very exciting to see that. I think now, yeah, just with that, people can really start building entire websites, block themes and stuff, it’s really tremendous work. And I can imagine it was difficult to get that right, or it’s still an ongoing process. But yeah, I’m really happy to see that, too.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and that is, we’re just, it’s all I wanted to point out from hosts, from the themes and then now, we get into what is actually happening in the Gutenberg plugin.
So Gutenberg 16.4 was released on August 9th, so right after 6.3 was released, and certain items from the Gutenberg 6.4 release actually made it into 6.3. There were actually quite a few, I think 20 to 25 items. I have not identified them, but you will see it in the PR if you follow through the Changelog and click on one of the PRs and you want to know, it had a back port to WordPress release candidate labor that was added and then once it was back ported removed, you see that in the history of the PR. So Sarah Norris was the lead manager for the release manager for 16.4 and she wrote that it introduces exciting new features, including both a new experimental feature and a new component, and we will talk about what those are alongside many enhancement and bug fixes.
Bug fix highlights include many improvements to the recently added footnotes block and enhancements to patterns. The footnotes block, most of the bug fixes actually made it into 6.3 major release, WordPress release and some of the enhancement for patterns, too. Those were the two areas where there were last minute bug fixes that made it into the release. There were in total 184 pull requests authored by 60 contributors, including two new contributors, and the release has a list of all of them.
One of the features that she mentioned, the new component was a basic progress bar component and in the release note, she also, Sarah also has some notes to that.
And it’s a horizontal progress bar component that can be used in various places and it replaces the spinner component for the site editor loading experience. Of course, these are public components that can also be used in third party or custom blocks or custom plugins, so there was that. It also gets some design tools with it as well. And it can be tested in the Storybook, which is other, it’s a different thing than the Style Book. The Storybook is for developers and on the WordPress GitHub repo, you can see the Storybook of all the components with all the attributes and you can test around just in isolation and then grab the code and add it to your own code base.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, I’ve just looked at that the other day with the progress bar and yeah, I think it’s definitely an improvement. And I’ve actually just opened the Storybook for the first time.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, really?
Ellen Bauer: It’s pretty cool to have.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. I’ve never seen that. But I used lots of these items for our blocks before, but I’ve never seen that. That’s great to know. It’s new to me.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I think we need to…
Ellen Bauer: Was it? Yeah, no.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It has been there since a long time.
Ellen Bauer: I think it’s a long time, yeah. Maybe I have been there, I forgot about it. Maybe I have seen it, but pretty cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: If you click on the introduction, it says how the site works and the resources to learn more. And also, it has the code that you can add. It shows you different variables on things, attributes and how they look, so and so, and it also has, there is a section there for components experimental. If you go there, just be aware that it might, and progress bar is one of them, just it might change slightly of the course of development. We definitely need to promote that more that people can go through the Storybook and test some of the components and see how they work, what the documentation is about.
So the next item on the Changelog is that now the keyboard shortcut for the command palette is now visible in the side view, it’s command K or control K, but I never remember keyboard shortcuts, so I’m glad that it’s now displayed in the header section of the site editor and so you can know it, too.
Ellen Bauer: I actually love shortcuts, but I also tend to forget them. So that’s handy because there are some cool ones and you can really speed up your workflow, especially if you’re really designing in WordPress, so that’s really cool. Yeah, I love to have the shortcut. Okay.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I think you would really love to use the command palette for these quick steps things because you don’t have to click through all the menus to get there. So the command palette is a open page or add page and then you get a … or open page and then you get a list of the pages that are on the site and then you can select them without going to out of the site editor into the pages or from wherever you are and go to pages and then go down the menu items. So I really like the command palette, and that will definitely speed up content creation.
Ellen Bauer: Oh, true. Yeah, it’s really powerful.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: What also comes with enhancement on the site editor, there are quite a few, but I’m only pointing out to that one. The pattern library, it switches to a three-column layout on use screen, so that is definitely…
Ellen Bauer: I love that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: That fills it all up. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: Yes, I love that because we are building a lot of patterns and I was always like, can we just preview more?
Ellen Bauer: One thing I noticed with the pattern, like the explore all patterns view, I feel weird and I wonder if it’s just temporary or so because the two-column layout is like a light gray background because most of the patterns are most likely with a white background, in most themes at least. And then explore all patterns is a white background and it doesn’t look great. Have you noticed that? And I wonder, is that an error or is it just…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I think it would be something to make an issue out of on GitHub, but what you are referring to is the inserter.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And the switch to three-column layout on your screen, that’s on the site editor.
Ellen Bauer: In the site editor, okay, I get it. I get it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: In the patterns section of the site editor where you have the menu on the left-hand side.
Ellen Bauer: Okay, okay. Yeah, of course, where on the site editor. Oh, yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: In the site editor, yeah.
Ellen Bauer: But yeah, in the site editor, I have the dark background as I can see here.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I have to test that out again.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, but it’s definitely worth I think creating an issue for the inserter to maybe also recognize some of the dark light contrast there.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. I haven’t checked if there’s an issue and it’s also not consistent, why I have this light gray and then switch to white? Yeah, I will check it out if there maybe is an issue already or what’s going on there because yeah, it doesn’t really make sense.
Ellen Bauer: And I tested a few themes just to see if it was me, if I had it, but they all had the same issue. Maybe it’s temporary.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And it might be even a good way to say that the browse all patterns goes to the site editor if it’s a block theme. With the classic theme, that wouldn’t work, but yeah. But to have that, that would go site editor. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: That makes sense, yeah. So true. Yeah, I mean, we just want to stay in the site there because it looks so nice and polished. That is true. It would be cool. I will test that out, maybe I can create an issue.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I’m just making a note there.
Ellen Bauer: So now, we go into the post editing.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, we are now here at the post editor. There are new commands available now to show or hide the block breadcrumbs. That’s I think on the bottom of things to get into switching off settings. So enable pre-published checklist or disable the pre-published checklist or change into, or just make a preview in the new tab. Those new commands for the power users there to switch off, on and off the settings so you don’t have to go through the menu items to go to the options bar and then change the settings for certain things. Even if you just want to toggle on and off and not have it permanently done, changed for your session.
Ellen Bauer: I love all the fine-tuning we are now at. It’s incredible to see that. Oh my god, all these little things happening that do make a difference, it’s so cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Speaking of, there’s the footnotes received in 16.4, add link background and text color support. So now, you can not only create the footnotes and they take on any styling from the theme, but now you can as a user also change the text color background and all that for your footnotes. That’s actually a very interesting new block, I really love it and I’m glad that it’s now in core to test it further on various use cases.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And then also, the…
Ellen Bauer: And then you have the pre-formatted.
Ellen Bauer: Get spacing support.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. In 16.4, there were more additional enhancements to the blocks performance, you got the spacing support you said, yeah. And then in the words block, you can have now and even the line breaks so you can, instead of paragraph, you also can have line breaks there. Social links get the threads icon so you can have in your list of social profiles that you point people to also go to the new Threads environment of Facebook.
Ellen Bauer: That is good to have. I’ve yet to check out Threads. I mean, it’s good to have it. I think especially that since we don’t have Twitter anymore really, I’m excited. I want to try it. Have you tried it yet?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: No, and I’m also hesitant. It’s not rolled out to all Instagram users. So you need to have an Instagram account and what I saw…
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, that’s true.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … on certain platforms when people tried it was if you wanted to delete it again, you actually needed to delete your Instagram account…
Ellen Bauer: Oh, wow.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … and I wouldn’t want to go there.
Ellen Bauer: That’s not nice. Oh yeah, that’s not nice.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I wouldn’t going to go there.
Ellen Bauer: That’s true.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, but on the other hand, yeah, maybe I should delete my Instagram account already.
Ellen Bauer: You can delete everything. Yeah, I mean, we don’t need more social platforms to be honest, I feel. But I’m always keen to check something new out.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, we do. Me, too.
Ellen Bauer: It looks nice, it looks nice and simple and while you’re already at Instagram, but yeah, I think it’s weird that it’s connected with Instagram because I know how they… Maybe.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I didn’t get it offered yet, so maybe because I’m not on Facebook, I’m only on Instagram, so I don’t know.
Ellen Bauer: Oh well, was it that maybe or could it be that this had something to do with European Union holding back with it? I think I have no clue. I didn’t follow it, but I think Manu mentioned something like that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yes. Yes, you’re right.
Ellen Bauer: So I think that’s it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s only for US Americans and not for EU people. So that’s another reason.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. New Zealand somehow, we got lucky. We can use it, but I just didn’t have time yet.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. I think that’s the problem, which is actually good that they… But yeah, I don’t know where that will go, but it’s good to have the icon at least.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah, so true. Yeah. I just started being on Bluesky, I just got my invite so I just set it up. So I’m wondering if there’s actually a Bluesky icon already, so we’ll see. If not, I’m going to create an issue about it.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. Historically, I think I remember WordPress being always super late to add icons, so it’s cool that they’re faster now.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So next thing on our list is that unsync patterns didn’t come into the quick inserter. So if you started slash and started typing, you didn’t get a selection of your patterns. That is now… You can now do that. You find your patterns in there if you use the quick inserter. So that is… Also, if you search for it, you find them in the quick inserter. So I think that’s a really good enhancement. I was always wondering why I needed to go to the big blue button to get to my patterns.
Ellen Bauer: That’s another big improvement with the sync patterns, unsync.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Definitely quality of life improvement. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: It’s so helpful for a user.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, absolutely. So we are almost at the end of what I wanted to point out as enhancements. Go and read the post release. I wanted to point out also that with this release, the plugin minimum supported PHP version is 7.0. I don’t think that anybody who uses a Gutenberg plugin is actually on 5.6, but just so if you are, now is the time and you want to be in touch with all the future releases, make sure that you upgrade your site to at least a 7.x version of PHP. That coincides with the WordPress 6.3 release that also bumps the minimum supported PHP version for WordPress to a 7.x PHP version. So 6.3 is the first version that does not support 5.6 anymore, PHP 5.5 versions, 5.x versions.
In the bug fixes, I found a few things that I wanted to point out because there were bugs that we had to deal with and we don’t, or maybe not.
So the cover block ContrastChecker, or the ContrastChecker that is in the sidebar to give a hint when your contrast between the foreground and the background color was not accessible or not high enough to be accessible, that algorithm didn’t work well with the cover block because of the combination between text, image, alpha overlay color and all that, that was way too much for the algorithm. So they disabled it for the cover block. They didn’t disable it for the InnerBlocks. So if you have InnerBlock a paragraph and you change the background color there and the text color of that doesn’t match, it still works. But for the cover block itself, it’s disabled because it had too many false positives and it was just the algorithm doesn’t go far enough. And then it’s better to not have it than having false positives in there. There’s, in the release in the PR, there’s also some discussion in there on why the team came to that decision.
Ellen Bauer: It could be that it’s maybe temporary or…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I don’t know if there’s a focus on improving the ContrastChecker because that was an external tool, but it’s definitely just the nature of the cover block just has too many variables in there. So the image block finally got a fix on the image sides for the all wide and full width alignments. Sometimes that wouldn’t fill it all up or grab the wrong size, so this is now fixed. It has multiple variations there and it’s definitely a better feel for the image block when you add alignments there. And then the last one is that the video block got a fix for the styling. For the vertical alignment of the video, there was always a little gap on top of it. That was hard coded and they removed it. So if you fix it locally on your own theme or in your own site, you might need to look at it.
Ellen Bauer: I think I saw that. Oh, I have to check that out. I haven’t used the video block quite often, but I mean, it is handy. I have to test it. I think I saw that once that it has this gap. I remember, I think.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Any spacing is now with the space. So from the beginning, the spacer block was one of the most used blocks amongst the top five most used blocks.
Ellen Bauer: Oh my god, I never liked it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, but it helps. So made it easy for content creators to…
Ellen Bauer: That is true.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … just adjust things, yeah. And now with dimensions controls, with padding and margin, it still is probably easier to use than figuring out, okay, what is padding and what is margin again? Is it inside or outside or what? Yeah, but it’s not that necessary anymore, especially when you have patterns and theme templates that actually took care and all of them put together. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: I’m not sure, but the problem was also that it was fixed, like a hundred pixels stayed a hundred pixels. Is it still like that? I don’t even know why.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: The spacer block? No, no.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, the spacer block.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It can say four, four pixels, 15 pixels, 150 pixels. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: No, I mean, does it responsive? The spacing, is it like fluid?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Is it fluid? I’m not quite sure. That’s a good question. I think it is.
Ellen Bauer: Because that was the main reason why I never used it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Because it wasn’t fluid, yeah. Yeah, I think it is.
Ellen Bauer: I haven’t checked that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … it’s definitely a good question.
Ellen Bauer: Maybe we can… Now, we have spacing way better.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: And that’s fluid. So then on the post editor, you can allow styles to be changed dynamically through the editor settings. That is a PR that refers to the theme JSON. So you can I think, or to block extenders. Yeah, that’s for the extenders to update editor settings. Now you can make them dynamically. So you can have theme styles and then react to that, have through the editor provider. That’s highly technical and there is in the PR some example code for the experiments, but it helps theme developers or plugin developers to also change some of the styling dynamically, CSS or any other means. I think I’ll put that on the list of what’s new for developers on the developer blog. Where else? I think that we are on the end of 16.4 except for one more. There is an experiment for auto inserting blocks on the front end and the editor wire REST API. And the release post has an unusual amount of information about that, which is actually almost a… but it’s really cool how you can auto insert the… We talked about it, right?
We talked about it here at the… It’s the experimental auto insert on the block JSON file where you can then say, okay, on the core common template for instance, add as last. And you have before, you can add blocks before, after the block you added to or as a first child or last child through the block on the front end. So yeah, definitely try that out, test it. And definitely, there’s a tracking issue also linked in the release post so you can see what other plans are there for this feature because it’s still, as I said, experimental.
The documentation had a ton of changes, updates, and if you are struggling with some of the things because the documentation is not going far enough or deep enough, I would think that going through the release Changelog and look at the documentation issues to see what all changed.
So there is an API reference documentation for the interactivity API, which still is, it’s probably not coming for 6.4, but it’s definitely already in the Gutenberg plugin as a private API right now so core blocks can use it. There’s an update on the Gutenberg release process documentation. So if you are a contributor and you think about, “Oh, maybe I want to lead one of those Gutenberg plugin releases”, it’s definitely worth looking into it because it made it more fluid for new people that have had an experience with GitHub and Gutenberg, but they haven’t done a release yet. There’s also a getting startup guide for the interactivity API, started the block API version three has been documented now, and the create block package received support, for example, property and template defaults. So the scaffolding tool create-block is now a little bit more comprehensive in what it offers as a tool. I think that’s it. Any comments on those last three, four things that we talked about, I talked about?
Ellen Bauer: Not too much. I need to check out the… That’s exciting that you mentioned the create-block tool because I love to use that. I haven’t used it for a while. Now, I need to come up with a new block idea.
Ellen Bauer: Maybe not. I was so excited to do more design and theming again. I’m holding off with new block ideas.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, you mentioned that you… Yeah, after creating so many custom blocks.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, it’s a little bit… I loved it, but just working with customers that people, I think maybe because for us, knowing that we come from design and theme worlds, they get just way more excited about design and themes and patterns compared to blocks, the people who follow us in our work.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, definitely, because you see something…
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, yeah, visually.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s haptical, yeah. I think the barrier for entry for custom blocks is sometimes a little harder. I can see that.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, it was really good for me to get into it and having that skill and I enjoyed it, but it’s a lot of work with you really have to put a lot of effort into your block to make them work and make them competitive. And yeah, at the moment, I don’t know if we want to do that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: We don’t do it because it’s easy, we do it because it’s hard, right?
Ellen Bauer: It is true, but it needs to make sense too. We just started building blocks because there was so much missing. And at the moment, we are fine with what we have. I mean, there are a few ideas we have maybe for blocks, but at the moment, we can build the designs we want to build with the blocks available and with our custom blocks so it works. And yeah, if we ever run into something we can’t do, then we will just create a block. Actually, if you get into it, it’s not, like for most of the blocks, for most things, it’s not so hard, it’s actually pretty easy now. It’s cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and the create-block scaffolding tool has been worked on quite a lot in the last year and a half or so.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. Yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah. In the beginning, I used to not like, I didn’t even have that available. Since we have that available, it’s really easy to, actually, it’s really easy to build custom blocks.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And now, it’s a little bit more flexible as well because sometimes you, especially for agency developers who roll out just one plugin with all the blocks, you can now tell the scaffolding tool to just not create the whole plugin to just create a directory for one block and have the rest of it there. You can also distinguish between static block and dynamic block just with a command there or a flag respectively, and you can create your own templates. So if you have a process for creating blocks, you can make the tool work with your process as well with creating templates.
So Gutenberg 16.5 was released this week, actually yesterday, and the release was done by Sioban Bamber and her release post is also online. And this version is again, bug fixes and had a focus on enriching the command palette even more and customized some more of the blocks that had it featured 219 pull requests by 63 contributors, including five new.
So we are not talking through 219 line items with you, we only pick a few and that is the command. And that is getting to through the features. There was added new block related commands again to the palette, which was the add block selection, block transforms, block duplicate, copy, remove, edit commands like that. So when you highlight something, you can then have a command that transform to, and then it gives you a list of blocks that you can. So it’s quite an interesting push on those command, creating new commands for that. If you want to follow along and you have plugins that use the block editor and the site editor, there is some documentation in the dev notes for 6.3 on how to create new commands that you can then add to your plugin. So definitely something to look into. There were also fixes to make it render well in smaller view ports and support the commands without icons and make it update the preview in new tab command to reuse the right module for that.
Yeah, and so those were some of the items that enhances the command palette. It also, in 16.5, there were some components updates and one of them is, we talked in 16.4 about the progress bar that also get additional update with this release 16.5, but there’s also an update to the modal component that it adds now a header action prompt to enable buttons or other elements to be injected into the header, which is pretty cool. And then enhances the overlay into action as well. So that is of course so much more interesting for developers, but it also is developers for blocks as well as for plugin developers because they can reuse the WordPress components.
The column block received two enhancements. One is a stretch option for the blocks vertical alignment options, meaning that if a two-stretch through the full column, even if the others were longer. So if you have a three-column block, then one column can be shorter or longer than the other columns. And that was hard to correct with a spacer block, we talked about it, but that of course what a spacer block was good for. And now, you have a vertical alignment option where you say, okay, just stretch this to the full space. And then especially when you have backgrounds on them, it looks much nicer when the backgrounds are all in the same length of that.
Ellen Bauer: That’s very helpful. I haven’t actually tested that, but it sounds very helpful. I have to retest it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well, anybody should test it to see it actually does what you want it to do.
Ellen Bauer: That sounds really helpful.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I’ve struggled with that every time when I use a columns block that my columns are not lined up and then I fiddle 90% there and then the last 10%, I fiddle a half an hour with a spacer block to get it all matching up in that, yeah. And the second enhancement I wanted to mention is that now, if you press enter on an empty paragraph at the end, then you get exit out of the columns block. There was no way to, with a keyboard, to get out of the columns block. Now you can when you’re done writing and then you hit enter on an empty paragraph at the end of the block that you get out of it.
Ellen Bauer: That also makes a lot of sense.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. I haven’t used the columns like that much, to be honest, myself. I have to check it out again.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it’s much more versatile now, especially with the different backgrounds for each column, different… You can do all kind of different… The single column has now so many design tools that it’s really helpful for your designs. There was some lacking design tools. They were only available for the full, for the columns block.
Ellen Bauer: For the main.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, for the main column and now, it’s all you get…
Ellen Bauer: For the…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … yeah, for the single column. Yeah, we always have to distinguish between the columns block and the column block. Yeah, and then other block updates like the file block got spacing options, the image block got aspect ratio support for the light box, the post content block got color controls. And this is the last one I wanted to mention is that the block titles have been changed to remove posts from it. So those are the ones like post author, post title, post content, post… Yeah. So because they’re pretty redundant, if it’s a title.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, there were a lot.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … can be a post title and a page title and then it’s the author, but it’s the post author block on a page, why would I do that? So it makes more sense, but it also changes the alphabetical list of things. So if you wanted to look for titles, you always put title in and it gave you in the inserter the post title, but now it just says title. So some people are all very tuned in into what they see in the inserter and this makes the visual inserter a little bit different when it doesn’t have posts in it, yeah. They might not recognize it.
Yeah. So the global styles now got a feature to reset to the default global styles revision thing, and then also reduce the visibility check on two to one revision. So you don’t… Yeah, if you only have one revision, there is no visibility check there. That’s just one of the refinements of things. On the block editor, there’s now a…
Ellen Bauer: That is the… I haven’t actually looked into that, allow the layout controls to be disabled per block from theme JSON, but that sounds very helpful. But the next one, the fluid typography at minimum and maximum view port for that, like the theme JSON we can, in a theme, can configurate that ourselves. That’s what it means, right?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right, right. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, that’s so helpful because yeah, that’s something that didn’t really work for now, like creating designs with especially a larger typography sometimes. You only want that obviously in larger screens and you couldn’t really control it. That’s really, really helpful to have. I love that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. There was also a bug fix in an earlier version, I don’t know it was 16.2 or 16.1 where you could also, it changed the progression from screen size, a big font down to smaller screen sizes, it now has a different algorithm to do that, so it actually works. So it actually goes smaller on a smaller screen. Sometimes when you have, I don’t know, 160 big letters, even if you scroll them down to a minimum size, it wouldn’t scroll down. But now, you can also hard code those minimum and maximum with the theme JSON. So it’s even more control now than you just rely on the algorithm to do that.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, and also the layout controls. I mean, from my perspective, anything that we can get control of where theme JSON is amazing because yeah, it just makes it so much more flexible to have everything there. So to disable the layout controls per block basis I think is also pretty neat. I love to see that. Yeah, it’s really cool to see that there’s just more fine control and yeah, things just start to work way better.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So what else is in there? I’m scrolling, scrolling through that what I wanted to do. But in the block editor, there’s also one PR that didn’t get any notice anywhere else except here in the Gutenberg Changelog, but also in Gutenberg Changelog podcast that there’s now support for container queries in editor CSS. Container queries means okay, if the container is something, the CSS changes in opposed to view port or media queries. And what happened was when if you enqueued a CSS file that used container queries, there would be an error message on the block editor. And that has been fixed and now, theme developers and designers can now use container queries in their CSS files without any problems with the block editor. I think that’s a step in the right direction because container queries are the new thing with CSS for, well, I don’t know how long, but I think it’s a better way to make a website or design flexible on screen size or container size rather than… The browser size rather than the screen size.
So that is definitely a step in the right direction to be a little bit updated with the modern CSS. For developers, again, interesting that the style engine now includes namespace in layout class names for non-core blocks. So it’s a very slight change, but it makes it so much more controllable that you now can use a theme slugs namespace on your class names for your core blocks and it’s still for your blocks, your custom blocks, and it will be in the style engine and you can use your CSS. It’s consistent, you don’t have to… It’s not so arbitrary anymore. And you can override your other people’s stuff when you can add your namespace there. It looks a little bit unwieldy when you look at the CSS class name, but it’s definitely like so before, it only said my block, my test block is layout-constrained and now, my block, create-block, my test block is layout-constrained. So it adds the namespace just after the WP block in your CSS automatically.
Ellen Bauer: Wow. Yeah, that makes sense. It just gives you more control.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Gives you more control and isolate certain CSS in class names. Yeah. All right.
There are two, no three experiments now in Gutenberg. One is the backend for the fonts library is now in the plugin, and then there is also a feature to connect a paragraph to a meta custom field. So there is an effort to have a user interface to connect certain blocks attributes to a custom field, and this is the first test. It’s very early, there is a little UI with it, but that is definitely something for extensibility for plugin developers to test out that you can, when you register your meta field, that you also can add them to the sidebar and allow connections to certain blocks with it. I think that’s a terrific idea and it fills a gap that is missing, and it helps with implementers when they use something like ACF to create meta fields and then they can just add them to a decent blocks, but it’s very early stages so it needs people to be testing but also to discuss that with the core developers.
And then the last one is a bootstrap minimal sync package. Well, it doesn’t, the name of the PR doesn’t really tell you what it actually is, but it’s part of the real-time collaboration efforts for phase three. Riad has put in little experiments and it’s really just a prototype or a proof of concept where you can have multiple people work on posts at the same time and see how that works. It uses the team has decided or thinks that the best external library to use is the Yjs library that uses web sockets and other in the pipeline tools. And yeah, it’s just the beginning of that little piece of it. And if you read through the PR, you hear a lot that’s not working, but the things, the main thing should be working. So test it out, try it out and just see how it feels.
Ellen Bauer: I mean, that’s exciting to be able to start looking into it. I want to try it out.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, I think Riad did two years ago, already had a site that’s called asblocks.com where he tested some of that already. So this is bringing it into the Gutenberg repo and see how it works with actually a real implementation, yeah. So I’m just looking also at the fonts library. There is in the PR, it’s a backend test, but in the PR, there is a video where you can see how it would fit into front end view as well. I don’t think there’s UI yet in there, but the experiment is you need to turn it on so you as a developer can use the REST endpoints to figure out how you can include it into your plugin. If you are a plugin developer that works with fonts and has some of the functionality in there, it’s probably good to start working with it.
And then there we are again, a ton of updates in the documentation, especially I just want to point out one page and that’s the page curating the editor experience because it also now includes how to include the starter patterns for templates and that it’s documented now, but that page is something I point many people to when they say, “Well, I don’t want our users to have access to this, that and other” and I said, “Well, you have tools to make them disappear, to disable things or to curate that a little bit further” and that’s the page that I point people to when they need to explore how they can switch off some of the functionality or some of the features of the design controls and global styles as well. Do you have any… Oh no, no, one more. I’m sorry, one more for the benefits and…
Ellen Bauer: It’s a lot, I mean…
Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s a lot, yeah.
Ellen Bauer: It’s a lot.
Ellen Bauer: For Node and NPM, no?
Ellen Bauer: For the building tool update, get update?
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. The Gutenberg repo now update the minimum node version to 16 and NPM version to eight. Up until now, I was still working on minimum version 14 and I think six for NPM, but now you need at least be on 16 and on eight for NPM to build with Gutenberg and to, in some of the packages, require now the higher versions. It was mainly updated for I think the fund’s API, well, I’m not quite sure, I’m sorry. I might be misleading. There was a reason why it was happening now because one of the features, either the interactivity API or the fonts API or something like that, required a higher version of it. And so now, yeah, all the build processes now. So on the repo, you might want to rebase them and update your node install. Yeah, other external libraries also got updates like the Storybook or Learner or TypeScript Storybook is now on version 7, Learners on 7.14 and Typescript on 5.1, but that’s all for now. Now, we are at the end of it. Did you see anything that you wanted to explore that we overlooked?
Ellen Bauer: No, I got a bit more quiet to the end of it. I’m sorry. It’s like I’m sliding into bed time time-wise, sadly.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: So what time is it there?
Ellen Bauer: My energy level goes a little bit down. Yeah, it’s not that late. It’s just like toddler mom late. It’s 10:00.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, yeah. No, it’s getting close to my bedtime too. So I only have one more thing on the agenda for today and that is the admin design kickoff post that was posted by section. And we only can, our listeners certainly need to go there and read it themselves, but yeah, dear listeners but also go there especially…
Ellen Bauer: Very exciting.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … it’s very exciting and it shows you where the site editor design can merge into WP admin in various different ways. And which part of it excites you most? You read through it?
Ellen Bauer: The merge part because yeah, this side editor, it just looks like yeah, so it’s more modern and I can’t wait for it to merge as much as possible, as fast as possible. Just yeah, because it just represents what WordPress has to offer way more, like coming from a design background myself too. Yeah, we just want to see, see it more clean and modern and just more exciting to work in it, I think, and just more attractive, to make it more attractive to new users and it’s just beautiful.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And I like…
Ellen Bauer: And I love the site editing.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Design?
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, the design of the site editing. So I can’t wait to have all of WordPress look like that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, I think you need to have some patience because…
Ellen Bauer: I know.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … it’s going to take many, many major releases.
Ellen Bauer: I know. Yeah, sadly. If it would be up to me, we would do tomorrow.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, you and me both. I know. But what I like about it is that it’s more contained. So when you have a plugin right now, a plugin can put itself into the menus on the left-hand side and it.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, yeah, that surround it. Yeah.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: But now, you have a plugin section and then a plugin, and then whenever you click on it, the plugin takes over your screen, but it’s all plugin-oriented. So you have your tabs, you have your everything. And if you want to get out of the setting, you just do the back button and you’re back to the WordPress part. I really like those.
Ellen Bauer: That’s true. Yeah. I mean, that’s the biggest complaint too. We hear from people that it’s like if a plugin can take over WordPress, it looks wild and it’s sad for WordPress when that happens. And all the promotions and whatever some people put in there, we don’t want to have that. And also finding plugin settings because some put them there and others there, and I think it just grew organically and we have to now improve that.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And I think it’s also…
Ellen Bauer: Just for users, I mean, it’s for the users. We do it not to punish people, but to make it a better user experience because at the moment, it’s just suffering.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: But I also can see that it’s so much helpful for the plugin developers to have a coherent WordPress design system that they can rely on and don’t have to come up with all the interfaces themselves because that code needs to be managed and maintained.
Ellen Bauer: I like that you say that. And probably at the moment, a lot of people won’t agree, but I think too, you have to control that experience. I like it.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well, then the control of the experience you still have, just the design. So the user sees the same components over and over again and knows what to do with them. And what they do is the plugins definitely have a freedom on there, but I think if some of the plugins that are really big plugins can rely. And we had a live Q&A on the Gutenberg Times about that with the people from the developers from GiveWP, they do their whole revamp of their plugin based on the WordPress packages and components so that the open source project is actually maintaining their code. And they did additional of course customization on that, but they only have to maintain those instead of the whole plugin.
Ellen Bauer: Makes their life easier. Yeah, makes everyone’s lives easier.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, and also the…
Ellen Bauer: I think so, too.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: … and also the feedback loop is now about WordPress’ core elements and not about what the plugin can do and the bug fixes can be in core. It’s fixed upstream instead of just in the plugin, if there is something there that needs to be fixed.
Ellen Bauer: That makes sense. Yeah, I love that. I can’t wait.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Dear listeners, I don’t know if I shared that post with you, but I will post it again in the show notes with the live Q&A with the GiveWP developers, Jason Adams and John Weinstein probably yeah, it was the beginning of July. We had that live Q&A and we have the transcript and the video and all the resources there, so you can follow up on that. Anyway, well, it was so great to walk with you through those Changelog items.
Ellen, thank you so much. And before we come to the end, do you have any announcements or comments that you will like our listeners know? And if people want to get in touch with you, where is a good spot to find you?
Ellen Bauer: So first of all, thank you for having me. Yeah, I hope I could contribute a little bit to this episode.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: A lot, a lot. Yes, no.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah, so getting in contact with… So we have our website, ElmaStudio on AinoBlocks both work. And yeah, I’m still on, I still call it Twitter, I don’t care. Instagram and YouTube. I actually just about to get into creating a few new YouTube videos, so it’s all Elma Studio there on all the socials, except Twitter is my name, Ellen Bauer. Yeah, just on our website. And news is just that we are about to finish a new free theme and it’s inspired by the statement I made earlier that I just wanted to blog again. So we’re going to do a little blog theme that was just a design idea we had, Manu and I had and we are like, “Just, let’s do it.”
And I’m actually excited to create a little private blog on this design and we have it almost ready, I think. I hope it will land in the WordPress arc repository within the next four weeks or so, depending on what we still need to do. And then there’s a second one in the works as well that is just a wrap up of a redesign we did, and we had all these materials and patterns and templates ready and we’re like, “Let’s do a theme out of that”. So that’s going to be another free theme coming as well. Yeah, just fun projects we did over the last month.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: I’m looking so much forward to that. Yeah.
Ellen Bauer: Yeah. We just wanted to create something simple for a change and we’re like, “Let’s do that, just simple block themes or easy smaller themes, make them free themes”. So that’s what we did just out of fun, which is cool to do that too. Yeah, so that’s coming from us. Others, I don’t have anything else to say except thank you for having me. It was really exciting and it helped me a lot to catch up on things actually, which is so cool.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, good.
Ellen Bauer: And yeah, I’m just amazed and excited about all the changes coming and all the fine-tuning. It’s really so, so cool to see WordPress coming together in that way. Like you said, with the admin and stuff, it’s still a way to go, but I mean, we can see the first glimpses of that and really beautiful to see WordPress going into that direction. I’m really excited.
Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well, I’m glad to be working with you on the 6.4 release. And dear listeners, before we end the show, I want to remind everyone the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com/podcast. This is episode 88. And if you have questions or suggestions or news that you want us to include in the next show, send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com, that’s changelog@gutenbergtimes.com. Thank you all for listening. And in two weeks, we have Nadia Maya from Hostinger. She’s a content creator on Hostinger and she will go with us through the Changelog. Thank you so much, Ellen, and hope all will be well. Until the next time, bye-bye.
Ellen Bauer: Thank you. Bye.
I had a fabulous time on our Danube River Cruise. We walked the capitals of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava, learned about the long history of the region and had excellent food and wine tastings.
In the past three weeks, a lot has happened in many corners of the Gutenberg project. It will take us more than one weekend edition to catch up.
For this edition, I kept it mostly within WordPress team posts and articles. In the next edition, I will also include content and updated from the community again.
Glad to be back. I missed you.
Justin Tadlock curated What’s new for developers? (August 2023). The seventh edition of a monthly series that cuts through all the noise, bringing you the latest features, updates, and fixes you need to know about to build on top of WordPress.
Anne McCarthy announced Introducing WordPress.org/blocks “To better tell the story of blocks, both within WordPress and as a broader framework for folks to consider with their next project, a new page has been created on WordPress.org that attempts to pull together the ease and power of blocks into a single source”.
In his Design Share: Jul 31-Aug 11, Joen Asmussen, reports on work by members of the WordPress design time. You’ll find listed various prototypes for the redesign of the Documentation and Learn WordPress site, the Showcase section of the WordPress site, and the already published design assets for the WordPress “Lionel:” 6.3 release and its new microsite and some early mock-up so of list views for the WordPress Admin section.
Saxon Fletcher, contributor on the design team, published the first design mockups for the Admin Design Kickoff. You can review videos, and screenshots with a ton of explanation of challenges and considerations. The overall look feels like an enhanced version of the Site Editor screens and concepts.
It’s probably just me, who feels that WordPress “Lionel” 6.3 was released a long time ago, instead of just two weeks and a half. It’s been a massive release and there is still additional information published, i.e., about the considerable performance improvements and the update to the Navigation blocks and features.
Sarah Gooding reported on the created release assets: WordPress Publishes 6.3 Release Video and Landing Page Demo.
Anne McCarthy published the Roadmap to 6.4, the next major release of WordPress, led by an all underrepresented gender release squad scheduled for November 7th, 2023. A tight release cycle with the first beta scheduled for September 26th, makes this an ambitious list of features and updates.
Part of the next WordPress release is also a new default them. Jessica Lyschik published the article Introducing Twenty Twenty-Four. “The idea behind Twenty Twenty-Four is to make a default theme that can be used on any type of site, with any topic.” she wrote.
Sarah Gooding wrote about the roadmap, too: WordPress 6.4 Roadmap Includes Typography Management Features, New Blocks, and Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme
Release lead, Sarah Norris published What’s new in Gutenberg 16.4? (9 August) and highlighted
Sarah Gooding’s post on the release: Gutenberg 16.4 Introduces Experimental Auto-Inserting Blocks
This week, Siobhan Bamber, contributor on WordPress mobile app, handled the Gutenberg plugins release and published the release post What’s new in Gutenberg 16.5? (23 August). She highlighted the new commands and enhancements to the Command Palette and additional block support for multiple blocks including Details and Post Content blocks.
Ellen Bauer and I had a great time catching up since we met in person at WordCamp Asia. I was delighted that Ellen came on the Gutenberg changelog show to discuss the latest happening in WordPress and. The Gutenberg Changelog 88 episode will arrive at your favorite podcast app within a couple of days.
Although the deadline to post feedback for the latest call for testing from the FSE Program #25: Let’s start from the beginning has passed, it’s still a great set of instructions to test WordPress 6.3 and all the new features that come with it.
The WordPress Theme team rep Ganga Kafle announced that Blue Note: The second community theme is released. “It is an elegant and fun block theme inspired by jazz and the record label “Blue Note Records”, he wrote.
Anne McCarthy invites you to the next Hallway Hangout about Improving accessibility in the Site Editor on September 14 at 15:00 UTC. WordPress Accessibility team members Alex Stine and Joe Dolson will demo current of pain points and open a discussion about ways to resolve/address current, known issues.
Mary Baum published The anatomy of a letterform, part 2 of the six-part series, “Make your site’s typography make a statement’ on the WordPress Developer Blog. Personally, I enjoy the primer typeface, the deep dive into the terminology and genesis of a typeface and the role it plays on the web and for readers. It’s a great preparation for the new features coming to WordPress the Font Library, a way to select, store and manage fonts on your website.
ICYMI: The 3-part series on Beyond Block Styles by Justin Tadlock is now available on the WordPress Developer Blog:
Tadlock wrote: “The goal of this series is to teach you how to work with the APIs that block developers get to play with every day. Only, you’ll use those features in a theme, instead of a block. And you’ll use code and techniques that conform to the guidelines for the WordPress theme directory.”
If you had trouble getting definitive answers on how to handle assets with the iframe post editor after the WordPress 6.3,release, Nick Diego added a new page to the documentation that should answer all questions: Enqueuing assets in the Editor
Michael Burridge wrote a tutorial on Styling blocks: empowering users with CSS custom properties describing a way how you can offer more styling options to used of your blocks beyond the settings via block.json. The post is available on the WordPress Developer Blog.
Juan Ma Garrido posted a status update on the Interactivity API, that includes the links to the GitHub spaces for discussion and code, and a getting started guide.
Ryan Welcher and Nick Diego invite you to a Hallway Hangout To explore the power of block variations on September 14, 2023, at 18:00 UTC . An often overlooked feature, you learn how you can use block variations to extend existing blocks and can be as simple or complex as you like.
Dennis Snell published a Progress Report: HTML API on the WordPress Make blog. It’s a longer post as he explains why and how the HTML API came to pass and what the future will hold.
On August 30th, 2023, Dennis Snell, is also scheduled to be on the Developer Hours with Michael Burridge for an Introduction to the HTML API. The session will take place at 15:00 UTC.
Featured Image: Weissenkirchen, Austria – Active school building since 1316, next to the church. Photo by Birgit Pauli-Haack
WordPress.com just announced its hundred year plan. This was very fun to create and plan for, and I hope it gets people and other companies thinking about the long term. Very inspired by The Long Now Foundation and The Internet Archive. See also: Derek Siver’s Hundred Year Host.
Gutenberg 16.5 was released this week with the biggest changes landing in the Command Palette. Users now have access to more block-related commands for block transforms and block actions, including the following:
“Together, these new commands not only enrich the command palette’s functionality but also improve the distraction-free mode by offering immediate access to basic functions,” Automattic-sponsored Gutenberg contributor Siobhan Bamber said in the release post.
Improving the discovery of these new commands may prove challenging. Contributors are exploring displaying the contextual actions as suggestions immediately after opening the command palette, to scale with the increasing index of available commands.
“Since the aim of this PR is to add so many commands, let’s not surface any suggestions yet,” Automattic-sponsored designer James Koster said. “We can explore that in a follow-up with a thought-out design which considers how to scale the display of so many commands, if necessary.”
The Command Palette design was also updated in this latest round of version 16.5. Users with a keen eye may notice a new search icon aligned to the right, a reduced width, darker icon color, and more subtle changes.
Gutenberg 16.5 adds more block supports to the Details block, Post Content block, and File block to make them more customizable with controls for colors, block spacing, and padding.
This update includes many more small enhancements and bug fixes, including improvements to the writing flow, build tooling, fluid typography, existing Command Palette commands, Snackbar component, and Global Styles. Check out the 16.5 release post for the full changelog.
WordCamp US 2023 kicked off Wednesday with the Community Summit and the Contributor Day on Thursday. The main conference days begin this morning and will be broadcast via high-definition livestreams throughout the event.
Both the Woodrow Wilson and Cherry Blossom tracks will be streaming on separate links. First up on Friday is they keynote titled “For All Userkind: NASA Web Modernization and WordPress,” presented by Abby Bowman and J.J. Toothman.
In-person attendees will have live captions on the screen in the Woodrow Wilson and Cherry Blossom tracks. The captions are also available on personal devices with livestreaming captions. Organizers have set up Woodrow Wilson StreamText and Cherry Blossom StreamText, which are also available to those watching remotely.
Sessions will run through 5:30 PM EST today and Saturday as well. The conference will be capped off with a presentation from WordPress’ Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy, on the future of WordPress, followed by Gutenberg: Next with Matt Mullenweg and a live Q&A.
Livestream viewers can watch for free with no tickets required. Check the schedule for specific times. Presentations you are interested in can be starred and emailed to yourself or printed for easy access.
This year Post Status is celebrating a decade of serving WordPress professionals with its member-supported community. The site was founded by Brian Krogsgard in 2013, and now runs an active Slack community with 2,083 members, a weekly newsletter with 4,300 subscribers, and a job board.
As a testament to the community’s continued growth, Post Status announced it has added WordPress veterans Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt as equity partners who have invested cash in the business. They will also be taking on active roles in leading the Post Status community – de Valk as CTO and van de Rakt as an advisor and editorial contributor.
“Post Status has created the most important networking possibilities for us in the past and helped us grow our WordPress businesses,” van de Rakt said. “It seems only fit to contribute and to take on an active role in the Post Status community at this point.”
Post Status CEO Cory Miller said the organization will be moving forward with “the same vision and values – supporting the business of WordPress, with an emphasis on agency owners.” Co-owner Lindsey Miller will be taking on a new role as CMO.
Although maintaining the professional community remains their first priority, Post Status will be expanding with two new initiatives this year that will benefit both partners and members. The team has soft launched the new poststatus.com, featuring a new Partner Directory that showcases WordPress businesses.
“I believe a healthy growing business ecosystem inside of WordPress is absolutely key to WP continued growth and success,” Cory Miller said.
“We want to get a little more organized, professional as an industry, and that means cooperating, communicating, working together, with Post Status being that collective brand, showcasing the agencies, software and professionals of WordPress better.
“The next step is our directory. We want to say, here’s our professional industry for those looking at WordPress for their web projects.”
In addition to ramping up editorial commentary and analysis on industry trends, with the depth of expertise of new partners de Valk and van de Rakt, Post Status is in the early stages of planning an annual summit. It will be similar to WordPress’ contributor summit but for businesses and individuals who are making their way in the marketplace.
“The second step is to gather together, talk business and what are we seeing, what are the issues, challenges, and opportunities as an industry,” Miller said. “That naturally gives us focus and initiatives to cooperate on together.
“Most industries have this already.
“Doctors, lawyers, big businesses have these kinds of venues and platforms for conversations about the state of their industry. We need that for WordPress and Post Status is taking next steps to do so.”
These two initiatives are next on the organization’s roadmap, and with the new partnership they now have the resources to execute on them.
“Showcase the collective, that’s our directory,” Miller said. “And gather us together to have the key conversations we need about where we’re going as an industry and community. That’s our summit.”
Sponsors are what keeps the lights on at Post Status. The organization has historically been focused on driving individual membership for WordPress professionals but is shifting its focus on businesses as members now.
“We want every WP pro in Post Status, this is their home, their trade association,” Miller said. “Those who work at WP companies or with WP as part of their gig, we always want to welcome them in to PS.”
Post Status is one of the few WordPress organizations that has been operating for longer than a decade. Now that the Pressnomics event has been retired for four years, the WordPress community is sorely in need of an event where the business-focused community can connect and help each other grow WordPress’ success in the wider industry. Post Status is the organization best-suited to step into this role. To stay on top of the their efforts and plans and to support the business community, join as a member and/or subscribe to the weekly newsletter.
BuddyPress 11.3.1 is now available. This is a security and maintenance release. All BuddyPress installations should be updated as soon as possible.
The 11.3.1 release addresses the following security issue:
BP_XProfile_Query->find_compatible_table_alias()
This vulnerability was reported privately to the BuddyPress team, in accordance with WordPress’s security policies. Our thanks to the reporter for practicing coordinated disclosure.
BuddyPress 11.3.1 also fixes 3 bugs. For complete details, visit the 11.3.1 changelog.
You can get the latest version by clicking on the above button, downloading it from the WordPress.org plugin directory or checking it out from our Subversion repository.
If for a specific reason you can’t upgrade to 11.3.1, we have also ported the security fix to BuddyPress versions going all the way back to 5.0. Here’s the list of the available downloads for the corresponding tags, you can also find these links on our WordPress.org Plugin Directory “Advanced” page:
WordPress 6.4 will be shipping with a new default theme, expected in early November. The theme’s project leaders unveiled the designs and concept for Twenty Twenty-Four in an announcement on WordPress.org today.
For those who have complained that past default themes have been too niche or too narrowly focused in design, this theme will take the reverse approach. Contributors are attempting to build the ultimate multi-purpose theme that can be used for nearly any kind of website, highlighting the unmatched flexibility of building with blocks.
“The idea behind Twenty Twenty-Four is to make a default theme that can be used on any type of site, with any topic,” core contributorJessica Lyschik said. “Because of that, and contrary to past years, it has no single topic. Instead, three use cases were explored: one more tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, one tailored for photographers and artists and one specifically tailored for writers and bloggers.”
Last year’s default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, was a stripped-back and minimal version of Twenty Twenty-Two, with a strong focus on community-submitted style variations. Like its predecessor, Twenty Twenty-Four will put the spotlight on some of the latest WordPress design features.
“Twenty Twenty-Four will be a block theme fully compatible with all the site editor tooling and it will surface new design tools like the details block or vertical text,” Lyschik said. “Another key intent for the theme is to properly present whole page patterns and template variations so that users don’t need to assemble whole pages themselves, thus easing up their site building process.”
Whole page patterns are a critical feature that all of the best block themes provide, as most people feel daunted when starting from a blank slate. If a whole page pattern is already pre-inserted on a new website install, users are light years ahead in their site building efforts.
Twenty Twenty-Four features the Cardo font for headings and a sans-serif system font for paragraph text. Cardo is an Old Style serif typeface designed by David J. Perry in 2002 for “classicists, biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists.” It grounds the design with a bit of sophistication but should be easy to swap out with the typography management features coming in 6.4.
The initial previews of the theme don’t stray far from many of the traditional website designs you might see browsing businesses or portfolios. It leans more towards providing an invisible framework for the user’s own creations, instead of pushing a single, opinionated design. This design lets the Site Editor and design controls shine as tools that can unlock human creativity on the screen. So far it has received positive feedback on the WordPress.org announcement. Check out the post for more images/video, and information on how contribute to Twenty Twenty-Four’s development.
Organic Themes, one of the oldest WordPress theme shops, was founded in 2009 in the town of Lahaina on the island of Maui, which was ground zero for the recent devastating wildfires. Until recently, Lahaina was home to Organic Themes co-founder David Morgan, who hosted the Maui WordPress meetups for years, and co-organized WordCamp Maui in 2015.
Morgan and his co-founder Jeff Milone have been best friends since high school. In 2007, Morgan sold everything and moved to Oahu, working as a freelance designer while living out of his car after arriving.
“While living on Oahu, Jeff and I began working long-distance on freelance WordPress projects,” Morgan said. “This led to the idea of starting a theme business together, and I invited Jeff to Hawaii in 2009. While he was visiting me on Oahu, we flew to Maui and fell in love with the island. We decided to start our business there.”
Organic Themes operated out of Lahaina for ten years before Morgan eventually returned to the mainland to start his family in Sarasota, Florida. Milone still resides in Maui part-time.
“We have friends that have lost their homes,” Morgan said. “We’ve been in touch with old neighbors and friends, and it’s been beyond shocking for us to see what has happened.”
The company recently created the Kokua Lahaina website and apparel products as a way to give back to their community. The site is built on WordPress and WooCommerce and uses the STAX block theme. Organic Themes is donating all profits to the Maui Strong Fund, which provides shelter, food, financial assistance, and other services to those impacted by the wildfires.
Jon Weeks from the Evening Standard interviewed me for their How to Be a CEO podcast about Tumblr, and as I often do we mostly talked about open source.
If you can’t listen Techcrunch’s Sarah Perez posted a really nice summary of the interview.
Work on WordPress 6.4 is kicking off with a post from Editor Triage Co-Lead Anne McCarthy that highlights everything the team has planned for the release. This will be the third major release of 2023, and is unique in that it’s being led by an underrepresented gender release squad.
Although WordPress is moving into Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which focuses on collaboration, 6.4 will primarily extend existing features in the block and site editors.
“Initial explorations for phase 3 will continue in the Gutenberg plugin, and any early wins will be added alongside the foundational work already planned in this major release,” McCarthy said.
WordPress 6.4 is anticipated to introduce typography management features, including a Font Library and server-side @font-face CSS generation and printing. This means users will be able to browse a library of fonts in the admin, similar to how they manage media. It will not be dependent on the theme that is activated but will be a library that is extensible for plugin developers.
Other new functionality planned for 6.4 includes the following:
WordPress 6.4 will also ship with a new Twenty Twenty-Four default theme that will showcase the latest capabilities of block themes.
McCarthy emphasized that the features published in the roadmap are “being actively pursued” but may not represent what actually lands in the final release.
WordPress 6.4 is anticipated to be released on November 7, 2023, with Beta 1 expected on September 26.
[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the state of the WordPress community in Australia.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox and use the form there.
So on the podcast today, we have Jo Minney.
Jo is the founder of a small business that specialises in building websites for organisations, mainly nonprofits and the tech industry. With a background in engineering, Jo decided to shift her focus to website development using WordPress. She was excited about the WordPress community and joined her local meetup, eventually becoming an organizer.
Jo is keen for the WordPress community in Australia to grow, and has been making significant contributions to that growth.
In this episode, Jo shares her insights on the challenges of organizing WordCamps and meetups in Australia, where the large size of the country, and small population presents some unique obstacles. If you’re used to a European or north American setting, it’s really interesting how the geography of the country presents challenges not seen elsewhere.
We discussed the importance of paying speakers and covering their travel expenses to create equal opportunities for freelancers and small businesses, as well as to give the Australian community a stronger voice.
We talk about her journey with WordPress, starting from her early days as a coder in a different field, and navigating the community online. Jo highlights the need for in-person opportunities to learn and connect with others. Especially in a global community where the time zone differences and online platforms can be limiting.
We chat about the challenges faced by the Australian WordPress community from limited resources and burnout, to the struggle of attracting new organizers and attendees. Jo share some exciting success stories, such as organizing WordPress events and hosting a successful do_action event.
We briefly get into the need for more diverse voices and the importance of fostering, a supportive and inclusive environment. If you’re interested in hearing about how the WordPress community is doing in Australia, this episode is for you.
You can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. Where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.
And so without further delay, I bring you Jo Minney.
I am joined on the podcast today by Jo Minney. Hello Jo.
[00:03:40] Jo Minney: Nice to be here.
[00:03:41] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah thank you for joining me. Jo is in Western Australia which means that the collision of the time zones is pretty severe on this one. It’s the middle of the afternoon for me which means it’s very, very late in the evening for Jo. So first up Jo, thank you very much for staying the course and being with us.
I guess my first question, as always, it’s a pretty banal one but it’s worth asking anyway. Given that we’re on a WordPress podcast, we’re going to be talking about the WordPress community in Australia in particular. Would you mind just spending a moment just telling us who you are? What your relationship is with WordPress? Perhaps a little bit about the kind of job that you have, and the role that you have and all of that good stuff.
[00:04:22] Jo Minney: Sure I can absolutely do that. So I am a small business founder like a lot of people that work with WordPress. I run I guess what you’d call a micro business. I have a grand total of three people in my team, and we build websites for mainly organizations. We work a lot with nonprofits and also a bit with the tech industry. So my background is actually engineering, and I threw in the towel and decided I didn’t want to do engineering anymore and started building websites instead.
So in a nutshell what I do now, and how I use WordPress. And when I first started using it I got really excited when I found out about the community that was behind it and things like meetups and WordCamps. And that was yes, this is so exciting and went and joined our local meetup and none had been running for the last year and a half. So that was a bit sad. And then I reached out to the organizer who had previously run them and was like, hey, what’s going on? And she’s like here you go. And so I became lead organizer and the rest, I guess, is as they say history.
[00:05:27] Nathan Wrigley: Did you find the community more or less as soon as you found WordPress? Did you have a nice bit of serendipity there? Because when I discovered WordPress it was many years before I realized that there was any kind of community. I purely viewed it as a piece of freely available software. And whilst I understood that the freely available nature of it meant that there was community involvement in building the software, I had no conception there was a community of people who would be meeting up in the real world or getting into the kind of discourse that they do, in all sorts of different directions. So yeah, to paraphrase that question, did you find the community right away?
[00:06:07] Jo Minney: I wouldn’t say right away, but fairly soon after I started using WordPress. So I had done a little bit of coding before I started using WordPress but in a very different environment, working as I said in engineering. I was really lucky that my husband, who’s also my business partner now, also works in development.
And when I first said I want to learn how to use WordPress and I’m going to use it to create my website for my consulting business, which back then was still in engineering, he was like no you can’t use WordPress. WordPress is the devil. He’s come around since then. He’s actually speaking at WordCamp US. We do a lot of collaboration projects now. So he builds custom web applications and my team do WordPress websites. And we do a lot of merging the two together and integrating them.
When I first started using it I felt like a lot of the time the people that I was asking were a lot more superior at using it to me, and had a lot more experience. So reaching out online was a little bit intimidating. So I actually started looking quite early on in my journey for something that was in person, because it would enable me to kind of go and learn from other people without having to actively start asking questions on online forums, where often I was the only woman there, or I didn’t know if I was the only woman there, but I kind of had assumed in that space.
[00:07:30] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah thank you. So in terms of the timeline of all of this, you may have mentioned it but forgive me I didn’t pick up on it. How far back are we going in history? What year? 2015, 2016, or later than that? Did you reach out and find these events?
[00:07:48] Jo Minney: Yeah, so I think I started using WordPress in 2017, quite recently compared to a lot of people that are in the WordPress community. And I took over the meetup as lead organizer I think in 2019. I could be wrong it could have been 2018, but it was either 2018 or 2019. So it was only a year or so into the first time that I had actually touched the platform.
[00:08:12] Nathan Wrigley: Okay so pre pandemic you discovered the real world community. So paint a picture of what it’s like in Australia. Now clearly you’re going to be able to paint that picture better describing where you live. But if you’re able to give us more information about Australia more broadly that would be excellent as well. And maybe during the course of the next few minutes we can map out how things may have changed since 2017, 2018, 2019, to where they are now.
[00:08:42] Jo Minney: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I have a question for you in return, cause I know that you’ve been to Australia before. We talked about that earlier. Australia is pretty big. So do you want to have a stab at how big Australia is?
[00:08:57] Nathan Wrigley: In terms of square miles, or just multiples of the UK.
[00:09:01] Jo Minney: Either’s fine.
[00:09:02] Nathan Wrigley: Okay so I would imagine that you could fit the UK into Australia, I’m going to pluck a number out of thin air, 35 times.
[00:09:09] Jo Minney: I actually have no idea how many times you can fit the UK into Australia but I do know that it is about the same size as the lower 48 in the US. So it’s like 7. 6 million square kilometers, versus 8 million square kilometers for the US. So they’re pretty comparable size wise.
Do you want to have a stab at what the population of Australia is compared to the population of the US?
[00:09:34] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so I’m going to guess Australia has 22 or 23 million people in it.
[00:09:40] Jo Minney: It’s a little bit higher than that. It’s 26 and a half, thereabouts, million. Which is less than Texas. So think it’s really important to understand that one of the biggest challenges that we face here, and you would know this from having driven across the Nullarbor, is there’s nothing in the middle of Australia.
We only live around the outside. So if you imagine the entire US but only having people live around the coastal cities and having the entire population of that whole continent being less than Texas.
[00:10:13] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah that’s fascinating. So I guess if you’re listening to this and you’re a North American, the distance that you would have to go from east to west is comparable from say going, I don’t know, from Virginia to California. They’re on the same kind of scale but the population is significantly smaller. I guess what you’re trying to say is we’re spread out.
[00:10:35] Jo Minney: Yeah, we really are. And I think if you’re in Europe, again, to travel the length of Australia or the width of Australia you’re traveling through multiple countries. Each of which probably has a higher population than what we do. So the challenge that we’ve got there is that our communities to start with, and I don’t just mean our WordPress communities, I mean our cities, the people that we have living here, are very small in comparison to a lot of other places in the world. So because our population is so spread out, it makes it really hard for us to hold in person events in the first place.
So that’s a challenge that we’ve always faced here in Australia in building our community. And it’s something we were slowly starting to overcome. And we did before the pandemic have meetups happening in, I think, five different cities around Australia. And then obviously the pandemic happened and all of that stopped.
But even before the pandemic started, in the city where I live, I mean it’s only 2 million odd people here, but we had never had a WordCamp in the whole time that WordCamps had started running.
So if you think about someone who’s just coming into the WordPress community for the first time, and they learn about all of this stuff and then they find out actually we’ve got no meetups running. We’ve got no WordCamps running. We don’t actually have a community here. It can be really sad, and really soul crushing I guess.
That’s kind of where I was at. So I got it in my head, I was like that’s it, I’m going to be the person that organizes the first WordCamp here in Perth. And to do that I reached out to a lot of the other organizers from around Australia, who are fantastic people. And some of them have been doing that for a really long time.
And that’s probably the second challenge that we have which is burnout. And I know that this is not something unique to Australia. I know this happens everywhere. When you’ve got meetup organizers that are volunteers it’s not just rocking up for the time of the meetup and ordering some pizza. It’s organising speakers, it’s growing the community and actually making sure that people come along to it. There’s a lot that’s involved with it.
And often it falls on one, maybe two, people to do that. And we really struggled to get more organizers, to get attendees, to get speakers. And when you look at that compounded with the fact that we have such a small population compared to the space we have, you can see how very quickly it becomes a challenge.
[00:13:04] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. I guess in Europe, as an example, the population density is extremely high. I’m guessing per square kilometre it probably is even higher than in the US. I don’t actually know if that’s true or not, but I’m imagining it is.
The point being there’s lots of people. So the reservoir of people who may stumble into the community within a hundred miles of where I live there are likely to be a dozen, two dozen, a hundred, whatever that number may be. Whereas where you are, that number is going to be significantly lower. And so if somebody steps into the community but then gets that burnt out, or just gets fed up, or moves on, or just doesn’t wish to contribute to those events, there really isn’t that pool of people that you can dip into which would be present in North America or other parts of the world, Europe and so on.
So if somebody moves on there’s often somebody that will take that role on again. And I know that in the recent past there have been discussions about whether or not, even in Europe and other places, the burnout and the replacement of people is more and more challenging. But I guess where you are it’s really acute.
[00:14:13] Jo Minney: Yeah absolutely. And I think another thing that became a challenge for us is, you mentioned earlier a mutual acquaintance of ours, Cameron. And he moved to the UK. He wasn’t the only one. We actually had two of our other organising committee who we had spent the last couple of years trying to build up that community, and they also moved either interstate or international.
So I am back to being the only organizer now for our local meetup. And we’ve now got three meetups around Australia running. So Sydney is definitely the most recovered. And a big part of that is because it’s got Will spearheading it who is phenomenal. Who mentors WordCamps and stuff like that, and has a lot of contacts. And also just because Sydney has the biggest population of any of our cities in Australia.
Brisbane started up again. For anyone who doesn’t know Australia which is most people in the world, they’re in the the top right. So in the northeast of Australia. And our biggest WordCamp that we’ve ever had before the pandemic so it was November 2019 I think or maybe a bit earlier than that, it was in 2019 anyway. That was our biggest WordCamp we’ve ever had in Australia and that was 450 people.
[00:15:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah that’s really interesting as a contrast, the last WordCamp London that I attended, which I think was in 2019. So that’s a subset of the events which go on in the UK. I think that event was about 600, something like that. WordCamp Europe is usually touching about 3,000. WordCamp US, although the numbers have been much smaller recently due to pandemic restrictions, you know eclipses 2,000 as well. So the magnitude, given everything that you’ve said, I guess we’re expecting the numbers to be lower.
Were you saying 400 as the big flagship event in Australia, the Sydney one? Were you saying 400 because you thought that was a small number, or were you just saying it because that is the number?
[00:16:11] Jo Minney: A little of both. 450 was actually in Brisbane. So I think actually a lot of the speakers at that had come from interstate, and that’s something that definitely we’ve noticed. Every WordCamp that we have in Australia people travel to it, because they’re so rare here. Even though it costs us an absolute fortune, we still have people flying to Brisbane, flying to Sydney, flying to Port Macquarie.
And an interesting thing that I noticed was that a lot of the speakers were the same across multiple WordCamps in Australia because again, it comes down to that not having a huge population and we struggle to find speakers for our meetups. So you can imagine it’s equally hard to find speakers for WordCamps.
So that’s a challenge there. Since post pandemic it’s become even harder. I know I’ve had the same conversation with the Brisbane organisers and the Sydney organisers. And I don’t know if this is something that other communities have experienced, but all three of us have found that our communities are essentially started from scratch again.
So the number of people that have come back from pre pandemic communities is basically zero. So we had one person at our first meetup when we restarted that had attended a meetup before, ever. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s still a thing. And it’s something that I think has also become a challenge because it means that there aren’t people who are experienced with running events and that sort of thing. And how to put the word out, and what’s involved in organising them, and speaking with who is around to help out with that load.
[00:17:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It’s interesting. In the UK there’s several factors which are making it more difficult to get that community engagement back up to the levels that it was pre pandemic. The first one is obviously just related to people’s desire to go out. They may have dropped out of the community. So there’s the process of, as you’ve just described, starting from scratch. So that’s one thing.
But also the cost of ever so many aspects of life has gone much, much higher than it was prior to the pandemic. Particularly the cost of venue hire. Venue hire over here has become significantly more expensive, orders of magnitude more expensive. And so something that may have cost X 5 years ago, or 3 years ago is now possibly 3 or 4 or 5 X for the exact same building, for the exact same duration. So there’s all sorts of circumstances contriving to make it as hard as possible I think. And if you’re starting from scratch, that is even more of an obstacle.
[00:18:48] Jo Minney: Yeah absolutely. And I am sure that London is probably about as expensive, maybe even more expensive, than Australia. So one of the things that I think is very different here, so those WordCamps that I talked about, even our biggest ones have always historically been at educational venues. So we’ve always used universities.
And the one that we were planning locally here was at a TAFE, which is a technical institute. I don’t know what you would call that in places that are not Australia. That’s sort of always the kind of places that we’re looking at and we’re not talking about flashy hotels and things with 2000 people or conference centers. We’re talking about a university during their down times. So even trying to keep those costs really low, it was actually a real struggle for us to be able to fund. And I say us, I wasn’t actually involved in the organising committee for the last one, because I was still fairly new to the community at the time.
But speaking to Will and some of the other previous organizers about it, A they have to wait until the end of the year to find out the availability for those venues. So it makes planning kind of a challenge. And B, one of the things that WordCamp limited us to, or really pushed for, was for us to keep the ticket prices down at 50 Australian. Which is like 30 Euro or 30 US. So trying to do that and then cover the rest of it, even using a really comparatively cheap venue like a university, was really a struggle still to meet the budget.
And on top of that, in 2019 that was the first year that we’d had three WordCamps in Australia in the same year. So before that the most that we’d ever had was two. And I think that had only happened once. And what we found is that the organizers for those WordCamps were actually competing for funding. So the sponsors were like, oh I don’t want to fund WordCamp Sydney because we just funded WordCamp Brisbane, and it’s all the same people that are attending.
So that’s something that has really been something that we’ve noticed, and it’s something that we’re keeping in mind when we go into the future planning WordCamps. While we know that they are historically encouraged to be very local events, that’s something that we’ve got to keep in mind. We are potentially competing against other cities for that attention where we don’t want to be. We want to be helping each other grow because there’s not enough of us to be in competition. We’ve got to be helping each other out.
[00:21:15] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It speaks to coordinating at a higher level doesn’t it? The idea that, let’s say there’s three or five, that they were A spread out geographically, B spread out over time so that you weren’t trying to compete in the same month for a WordPress event. And that obviously, you’ve got to go a little bit higher up the pecking order to figure out all of that stuff.
But from everything that you’ve said you sound fairly, I’m going to use an English colloquialism, you sound fairly chipper. Which means you sound fairly upbeat.
[00:21:47] Jo Minney: Optimistic. Hopeful.
[00:21:49] Nathan Wrigley: Exactly. But I want to probe into this, if you’re willing. How do you really feel about this? Because I can imagine that with all these setbacks and no shows, people coming in smaller numbers, the feeling that the community is dwindling. Do you get moments where you just think, oh this is really hardly worth my time anymore? Do you ever get those moments where you just want to throw in the towel?
And if that is the case, I wonder if that is another problem which has to be dealt with, you know, people just getting fed up and moving on.
[00:22:17] Jo Minney: Yeah. I won’t lie. There’s definitely been times where I’ve been like, is it really worth it? I am the only volunteer contributor that I’m aware of, other than my husband who is fairly new to it, in my entire state.
We have one other contributor who’s full time at Automattic. So when it comes to the WordPress community everyone that I know is online. And that in itself can be really depressing. But it can also be really challenging for me to have a conversation with someone. And I do think that in person conversations are important, and you don’t communicate the same way online and over text and via Slack and things like that. Commenting on blog posts is what you do when you’re having a face to face conversation.
And while decisions in the WordPress community aren’t made at WordCamps and meetups and things like that, conversations are started there. And those conversations help to drive future decisions. And that is really important. And it’s sad to me that Australia isn’t part of that conversation, and hasn’t been since definitely since pre Covid, but even before then we were struggling.
So I think for me that’s one of the most disappointing things. For example, WordCamp Asia was earlier this year which was super exciting for us. There were some Australian people that attended that. There were no Australian speakers as far as I’m aware, which I don’t think is a bad thing because I think it was important for WordCamp Asia to really push for representation from Asian speakers, because that was the purpose of it. And I know if we were to ever have a WordCamp Australia in the future that we would be pushing to try and have as many local speakers as possible as well.
But then if we look at some of the bigger flagship camps there were two speakers at WordCamp Europe that were from Australia, that I’m aware of. So I did stalk and go through every single speaker to check, because what else am I going to do with my spare time that I don’t have?
So both of the speakers from Australia that were at WordCamp Europe were executives from companies that are very big. And I’m not going to name names. You can go find them yourself if you’re really interested, but they work for the Googles and the eBays and the News Corps.
And, my concern is that globally the voices that are coming out of Australia are not the ones that are doing the work of rebuilding the community. They represent big interests, not most interests. And to me that’s the most concerning thing about the lack of community here in Australia.
[00:24:51] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. There is this phrase which sometimes gets brought out that the people that can contribute to the project, there’s sometimes a feeling that it’s those that can afford to contribute to the project. So in the scenario that you just described, if your very successful company are willing to send you, then you are now sitting at the table where potentially some of those decisions are being made.
I realize that it’s far more complicated than that, but you have a voice because you’re able to go and prior success for the company that you work for, you know, it’s no reflection on that company. We want the companies to be successful but that’s just how it works. And it’s difficult for people, well such as yourself, to sort of feel like your voice is rising to the top and being heard, I guess.
[00:25:34] Jo Minney: A hundred percent. And you look at the cost of flights, for example. So it’s easy enough to say we’ll just go to some of these. Get more people and fund them to go over. But flights are like 65% more expensive now than they were pre pandemic, for international flights from Australia. That’s bonkers.
I certainly can’t afford to pay out of my own money to go over there. And even getting sponsorship, there’s nothing really in it. There is things in it for people, but it is a challenge to communicate them.
I like stats, you might’ve noticed that already Nathan. One of my favorite stats about why I think it’s important for people to start paying attention to the WordPress community in Australia? So we have the 14th largest market for eCommerce in the world. Which is cool sure. Do you know how much of the web or how much eCommerce on the web is powered by WooCommerce overall globally?
[00:26:30] Nathan Wrigley: Oh no. I know it’s a significant amount, but don’t know exact number. Yeah I realize it’s very high.
[00:26:37] Jo Minney: Yeah like everyone knows the WordPress number, right? But nobody knows the WooCommerce number. I like this because I feel like it’s a better, accurate representation of websites that are being used. Whereas the WordPress number still takes into account a lot of sort of dormant sites and that sort of thing. So with WooCommerce it powers about 24% of eCommerce sites on the web globally.
In Australia however, it’s less than 15%, and Shopify leads with over 20%. So what that tells me, and this is obviously just my interpretation of that data, but it tells me that in Australia we don’t have the same recognition and understanding of WordPress and WordPress tools as what there is globally.
And that’s an opportunity for people who are earning lots of money from WordPress. For the Automattic’s and the Yoasts and these other big companies that have combined collectively an economy that’s like bigger than Tesla. It tells me that there is value in them paying more attention to Australia and helping us to rebuild the community because I don’t think that we can continue to do it the way that we’re trying at the moment.
[00:27:45] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah that’s really interesting. That was a really interestingly presented fact because makes it, well it lays bare the opportunity that is maybe being left. The old adage of money being left on the table it kind of fits under that umbrella, doesn’t it?
It sounds like you are A, you’re very committed to the community. I guess you wouldn’t be on a podcast like this if you weren’t. But B, you’ve identified that there’s a problem. So C, I guess, is what do we do about the problem? Do you have any endeavors? Do you have any thoughts? Do you have any intuitions as to how these challenges might be overcome? How you might reinvigorate the community?
[00:28:24] Jo Minney: Yeah look I think a lot of people who are much smarter and more engaged and well versed in the WordPress community than me have already suggested a lot of the things that I look at and go that would really help us. Even though we’re not specifically the target audience for those things that are being championed.
And one of those big ones is, and I know it’s probably a drum that’s been beaten to death, but paying speakers or at least covering their travel. Because as I said, I think a lot of those conversations happen at WordCamps. And even if you’re not paying people to attend them or that sort of thing, by paying speakers you’re giving the same opportunities to the freelancers and those small businesses as you are to those companies that are working for Google and eBay.
So I think that’s one thing that would go a long way towards evening the playing field, and allowing the Australian community to have a little bit more of a voice. And I know that there’s a huge amount of work that’s being done to push for that in the WordPress community by loads of different, amazing people.
And there are sponsorship options and stuff out there for people who are underrepresented in tech. But you know they have their challenges. I think that would go a long way towards helping.
[00:29:39] Nathan Wrigley: I just want to just interject there again and inject the geographical piece again. Because it’s so easy to forget that for where I live, really I can hop into a car and I can be at a local event within an hour, less. You know and typically more or less everybody in the UK could probably drive in one of the directions of the compass and find an event fairly quickly. May not be all that frequent, but at some point during the calendar year, it really is different isn’t it where you are? You know you may just drive off in the same compass direction as I do but you end up in the middle of the desert.
[00:30:13] Jo Minney: Or the ocean depending on which way you go.
[00:30:15] Nathan Wrigley: So there really aren’t those opportunities and the fact that you have to travel further, as you’ve described, the cost of airline transportation has gone through the roof. So it may be that you simply are nowhere near something. And so just having a little bit of an offset for the cost, the remuneration as you’ve said for speaking. Simply that may be enough to propel some people to have a different opinion of it, and to make the effort to go.
[00:30:40] Jo Minney: And I think the same thing goes, and it’s a similar argument, but for the volunteers who are organising. Maybe not all WordCamps but certainly flagship ones. When I was talking to Will about his experience with organising WordCamp Sydney back in 2019, he actually logged his hours for it and he logged 1,200 hours of volunteer work.
[00:31:03] Nathan Wrigley: Wow.
[00:31:03] Jo Minney: And I spoke to one of the organizers, not even the lead organizer, just one of the organizers for WordCamp Europe, on a call for the training team last week. We have like a coffee hour every Friday. Only for me it’s wine hour because I have a 12 hour difference from everyone else. And he was saying that doesn’t surprise him at all. And he definitely feels like he logged at least that much as a volunteer for WordCamp Europe.
So I think there’s something to be said at least for flagship WordCamps and for that sort of core organising committee who are essentially taking on a second full time job to give them some kind of reason to keep doing that. Otherwise we are just going to keep losing volunteers to people that want to pay them.
[00:31:47] Nathan Wrigley: It’s interesting as well because, suddenly into my head I’m thinking, I wonder if there just needs to be a different approach based upon different parts of the world. This is probably going to sound controversial. If anybody’s listening to this I’m just throwing it out there. Given what you’ve described in Australia, I do wonder if the Australian WordPress community needs a different set of parameters applied for a period of time.
Because there are different constraints, there are different problems, than say you might have in Europe. And it might be that one size doesn’t fit all, and those considerations could be different for Australia. They could be different for, well pick any part of the world, any country. They might to be judged differently. I don’t know if that would ever happen, but it’s certainly an interesting idea.
[00:32:35] Jo Minney: Yeah a hundred percent. And if you’ve got Matt’s ear, when we do manage to have our first WordCamp again after the pandemic, we’d love for him to come visit. Maybe that will help get some more people there. So we do want to make it a primarily Australian event with as many Australian speakers as we can get. But I think having the support and the ear of the global WordPress community would be important.
[00:32:57] Nathan Wrigley: Okay so you’ve given us one possible way of reinvigorating things. The idea of financial help for, for example, speakers. If there’s any other ideas you want to just float, go for it.
[00:33:09] Jo Minney: Yeah. So I think something that for me is really hopeful and something that I think is amazing, and I’m really excited about seeing it happen in the near future. And I’m not sure how much of this I am meant to be talking about but I’m going to anyway. And that is the idea that we’re going to have sort of a contributor tab in the latest WordPress release. Sort of about page.
And a little bit more information about that because something that has really been a challenge is that, because again, as you said, you don’t just bump into other contributors here, you have to actually seek that out. And a lot of people don’t realize that that is something that they can do. That you don’t need to be able to code to be a contributor.
And I think that the two things go hand in hand. So by contributing to something you’re feeling like you’re part of the community and you feel like you’re not just giving back to it, but also receiving from it, because you get to be a part of that conversation and the direction of where everything is going.
And if we can broaden the people who know about that and make sure that they’re informed. So your average WordPress user or developer has that information sort of plonked in front of them with, hey, did you know that these are a whole bunch of things that you can do that don’t require you to be an absolute guru at PHP?
Then I think that that’s something that’s going to be really exciting, and hopefully attract more people who historically haven’t been involved in that community.
[00:34:36] Nathan Wrigley: Great. Any other suggestions or we can move on?
[00:34:39] Jo Minney: I think they’re the main ones for me. Just trying to increase the representation in any way that we can. I like the idea of the new WordCamps but I’m not sure that anything has really come up that is the new format for WordCamps. I’m not sure that anything has really come up that has sounded like it’s going to be a super fit for us. So if anyone’s got ideas we’d love to hear them.
[00:34:59] Nathan Wrigley: Can we just dwell on that for a minute? So I spoke to Angela Jin who is the Automattician who, broadly speaking, she steers in many ways the different bits and pieces. And one of the things that we talked about on a recent podcast episode was about this new idea of WordCamp’s having a different flavor. Perhaps more localized, perhaps localized around a specific theme.
So it may be that there would be an SEO one. Or there might be something about blocks. The idea being though that rather than having an event in which everything goes, you would lock it down a little bit and encourage people to attend if they are into that particular niche, if you like. So having looked at those proposals, none of that’s jumped out. That’s curious.
[00:35:46] Jo Minney: I think one of the reasons on that for me is that there still seems like there’s going to be, maybe not 1,200 hours worth of volunteer work, but a significant amount of volunteer work to make it happen. And we’re struggling to get 20 people at a meetup. So I personally don’t have the time to put in even 400 hours of volunteer work, or even 50 hours of volunteer work to have eight people show up to an event, and be the only person who is organising and running it.
[00:36:17] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah that does make sense. Obviously you are operating in a completely different system. I think the endeavor of these new WordCamps is to try and shake it up, because I think although the Australian example that you’ve just described seems to be more severe, I think the feeling has been that over the whole of the international community the numbers have perhaps dwindled a little bit and there are challenges in getting people to come back.
And so trying new things out, the hope would be that some of it sticks and some good ideas would rise to the surface. But I do like the fact that you’re open to new ideas. And it may be that somebody in the next year puts on an event which isn’t an absolute runaway success. And it’s just quirky in some way that people like, and you may be able to borrow that example.
[00:37:06] Jo Minney: Yeah absolutely. I think two things that I would love to see happen more of in the community in general is local contributor days. So that’s something that we’ve tossed around and we’re fortunate we do have one full time Automattician that lives in my state.
So he works on Gutenberg, and while he doesn’t super love public speaking he does get up and do it anyway because he knows that there’s not really anyone else with the same level of experience and expertise as what he’s got. So super grateful for that. Tell Dan thank you. But I think having a contributor day locally would be a great way of driving more sort of enthusiasm around the community.
But to do that we need to have enough people that can help run it. And I’ve never even been to a contributor day myself, so that’s not something that I really feel comfortable running. And hopefully that will change after WordCamp US. So I will be going to my first contributor day. I’m super excited about that. So that’s something that we’re hoping to do.
And another thing that we actually did in 2020 right before the pandemic hit, that I would encourage any other struggling communities to consider as a way to, I guess reinvigorate, but also bring the community closer together. And again, it’s a huge amount of work, but it is so rewarding. And that’s the do_action events. So I’m not sure if you’ve heard of these before Nathan.
So we ran a do_action event back in January of 2020, and it was so fun. So much chaos. We built eight charities websites, theoretically in a day. I ended up finishing off most of them over the following six months. But just for the rewarding experience of bringing that community together and seeing a hundred volunteers in a room, trying to use WordPress to help these charities was phenomenal. And I think it’s probably, when I look at what’s happening and I’m like, oh, is it really worth it? I think back to that. And that’s the thing that keeps me going.
[00:39:08] Nathan Wrigley: During the last few years, has the community, I know that the real world events have been on hold, but have you got a thriving online event set up? Are there things that are going on in these cities which are online and regular and what have you? Or is it really just that even the online stuff has gone away as well?
[00:39:30] Jo Minney: Will did run some online stuff. There’s a two and a half hour difference between Sydney and Perth, so our community didn’t attend a lot of that stuff, but I know that he did have some good attendance for a while. I think post pandemic, a lot of people got burned out with Zoom. They just didn’t want to Zoom all the time. And I get that, a hundred percent get that. I’m on video calls pretty much all day, every day with my clients. And I think it’s great that this technology opens up so many doors, but I can also understand that it can be exhausting.
In terms of things like Slack, we have really struggled to get our local community to use Slack. We actually have a WP Australia workspace, so that has started to bounce back. But it was essentially dead for a couple of years. And there was basically no conversations happening on there.
Locally, what I’ve found, we tried a bunch of different platforms. People don’t go to Meetup. We struggle even to get people that come to our meetups to use Meetup. So, the one that we’ve had the most success with, which is, sucks for me because I don’t use it, is Facebook. So we’ve actually got a local community group on Facebook, and I log in like once or twice a week to check for comments on there, and that’s the only time I use Facebook, so if that’s where people are, then that’s where I’ll go to try and get them along. But yeah, online not great either, so.
[00:40:58] Nathan Wrigley: Well, I think probably we’re just approaching the amount of time that we’ve got. So I will just ask that if anybody is listening to this who feels that they could help, obviously if you’re in Australia, that would be, I guess, an added bonus. But you know, even if not, if there’s some way that you feel that you could help. Jo, where would we contact you? Is there an email address or a social handle that you use?
[00:41:24] Jo Minney: I’m Jo Minney on most socials. I am recently on Mastodon, because I got mad at it being rebranded on the bird, that’s no longer a bird. And if people want to email me all of my stuff, all of my contact details are on my website. So jominney.com is my personal blog, and always happy to have a chat.
[00:41:45] Nathan Wrigley: Jo Minney, I really appreciate you chatting to me today about the state of the WordPress community in Australia. Thank you so much.
[00:41:52] Jo Minney: Thanks Nathan. It’s been very fun.
On the podcast today we have Jo Minney.
Jo is the founder of a small business that specialises in building websites for organisations, mainly nonprofits and the tech industry. With a background in engineering, Jo decided to shift her focus to website development using WordPress. She was excited about the WordPress community, and joined her local meetup, eventually becoming an organiser. Jo is keen for the WordPress community in Australia to grow, and has been making significant contributions to that growth.
In this episode, Jo shares her insights on the challenges of organising WordCamps and meetups in Australia, where the large size of the country and small population present some unique obstacles. If you’re used to a European or North American setting, it’s really interesting how the geography of the country presents challenges not seen elsewhere.
We discuss the importance of paying speakers and covering their travel expenses to create equal opportunities for freelancers and small businesses, as well as to give the Australian community a stronger voice.
We talk about her journey with WordPress, starting from her early days as a coder in a different field, and navigating the community online. Jo highlights the need for in-person opportunities to learn and connect with others, especially in a global community where time zone differences and online platforms can be limiting.
We chat about the challenges faced by the Australian WordPress community, from limited resources and burnout, to the struggle of attracting new organisers and attendees. Jo shares some exciting success stories, such as organising WordPress events and hosting a successful do_action event.
We briefly get into the need for more diverse voices, and the importance of fostering a supportive and inclusive environment
If you’re interested in hearing about how the WordPress community is doing in Australia, this episode is for you.
WordPress Perth Meetup
WP Australia website
WordCamp Brisbane
WordCamp Asia
do_action events
WP Australia Slack
WP Australia on Facebook
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
This is an example page. It\'s different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this:
Hi there! I\'m a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my website. I live in Los Angeles, have a great dog named Jack, and I like piña coladas. (And gettin\' caught in the rain.)
...or something like this:
The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, and has been providing quality doohickeys to the public ever since. Located in Gotham City, XYZ employs over 2,000 people and does all kinds of awesome things for the Gotham community.
As a new WordPress user, you should go to your dashboard to delete this page and create new pages for your content. Have fun!
Suggested text: Our website address is: https://shoppingfeed-for-woocommerce.lndo.site.
Suggested text: When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Suggested text: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Suggested text: If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Suggested text: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Suggested text: If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
Suggested text: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Suggested text: If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Suggested text: Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
This is a sample page.
Our refund and returns policy lasts 30 days. If 30 days have passed since your purchase, we can’t offer you a full refund or exchange.
To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.
Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.
Additional non-returnable items:
To complete your return, we require a receipt or proof of purchase.
Please do not send your purchase back to the manufacturer.
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted:
Once your return is received and inspected, we will send you an email to notify you that we have received your returned item. We will also notify you of the approval or rejection of your refund.
If you are approved, then your refund will be processed, and a credit will automatically be applied to your credit card or original method of payment, within a certain amount of days.
If you haven’t received a refund yet, first check your bank account again.
Then contact your credit card company, it may take some time before your refund is officially posted.
Next contact your bank. There is often some processing time before a refund is posted.
If you’ve done all of this and you still have not received your refund yet, please contact us at {email address}.
Only regular priced items may be refunded. Sale items cannot be refunded.
We only replace items if they are defective or damaged. If you need to exchange it for the same item, send us an email at {email address} and send your item to: {physical address}.
If the item was marked as a gift when purchased and shipped directly to you, you’ll receive a gift credit for the value of your return. Once the returned item is received, a gift certificate will be mailed to you.
If the item wasn’t marked as a gift when purchased, or the gift giver had the order shipped to themselves to give to you later, we will send a refund to the gift giver and they will find out about your return.
To return your product, you should mail your product to: {physical address}.
You will be responsible for paying for your own shipping costs for returning your item. Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of return shipping will be deducted from your refund.
Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you may vary.
If you are returning more expensive items, you may consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don’t guarantee that we will receive your returned item.
Contact us at {email} for questions related to refunds and returns.