WordCamp US 2022 is underway in San Diego, California, following last night’s welcome party for speakers, sponsors, organizers, and volunteers. For many attendees, this is their first in-person WordPress event since 2019, before the pandemic began shutting down conferences.
Good times tonight at the Sponsors / Speakers / Volunteers / Organizers welcoming party. Took the time to practice some photography for this week. #WCUSpic.twitter.com/g8fJPtz3Mi
— Daniel Schutzsmith (At #WCUS WordCamp US) (@schutzsmith) September 9, 2022
Unlike previous events, where attendees numbered in the thousands, this year tickets were capped at 650. They were sold out the first day they went on sale. A smaller crowd should make for a more intimate event where attendees have a higher chance of bumping into the people they hoped to meet.
Opening remarks are expected at 9am PDT. WordCamp US’ schedule includes 41 sessions over the span of two days. Those who are not able to attend in person can still catch the livestream for both tracks, without any special ticket required. Access is free and presentations will be shown live as they are happening on the two tracks:
Virtual participants can use the #WCUS hashtag on Twitter to join in the global conversation.
On Saturday, September 10, Matt Mullenweg will deliver an address at 4:45 pm -5:30 pm PDT and answer live questions from WordCamp US attendees. This will also be streamed live as the last session of the event.
WordPress’ design team has announced the winners of the challenge to create a style variation for the upcoming Twenty Twenty-Three (TT3) default theme. Organizers received 38 submissions from 19 contributors (some submitted multiple variations) hailing from eight countries.
Given the wide range of colors and typography combinations, TT3 is gearing up to be a vehicle for a diverse set of styles from WordPress’ community of designers. Submissions included creative variations for all kinds of design moods – dark with high contrast, bright yellow with a smaller universal type size, a gradient aubergine background, and many more.
Automattic design director Channing Ritter published the selections that made the cut to be shipped with Twenty Twenty-Three:
“These variations were selected in an effort to feature the most drastically different set of variations possible — so in many ways, we were looking at what would work best as a collection versus selecting our favorite standalone submissions,” Ritter said.
The selections are not in their final form. Contributors will continue iterating on them, under the direction of design team leaders, until the WordPress 6.1 beta period begins on September 20.
“Some of the changes suggested may be a bit aspirational, but let’s continue pushing to see how opinionated we can make each of these variations,” Ritter said.
Submissions that were not chosen to ship with TT3 may still have a path towards inclusion via an official child theme of the default theme. Contributors discussed how this might work and have closed the issue in favor of creating a separate project for it after TT3 has launched.
“I particularly like the idea of continuing to create style variations beyond those that are bundled with TT3,” Automattic-sponsored contributor Sarah Norris said. “I think this is a great opportunity to introduce people to block themes and building variations, with the help of the community and experienced block-themers. It also provides a space to test Gutenberg PRs, in a similar way to how emptytheme is currently used, but with more opinionated settings enabled.
“I’m not sure about this being part of the current TT3 project, and in my opinion, it would be best to start this initiative soon after TT3 has launched.”
In the meantime, contributors plan to refine the selected variations, and the child theme project can proceed without affecting the theme’s current timeline.
Check out the announcement to see each of the selected variations in more detail.
BackupBuddy, a commercial plugin from iThemes that performs scheduled backups with remote storage options, has patched a vulnerability that allowed for arbitrary file download by unauthenticated users. iThemes published an advisory for its users, indicating that the vulnerability affects versions 8.5.8.0 through 8.7.4.1 and is being actively exploited.
Wordfence reviewed its data and found that attackers began targeting this vulnerability on August 26, 2022. The company has blocked nearly 5 million attacks targeting the vulnerability since that time.
Wordfence found that the method BackupBuddy used to download locally stored files was insecurely implemented, making it possible for unauthenticated users to download any file stored on the server.
“Due to this vulnerability being actively exploited, and its ease of exploitation, we are sharing minimal details about this vulnerability,” Wordfence threat analyst Chloe Chamberland said.
Wordfence found the majority of the attacks are attempting to read sensitive files, including the following:
/etc/passwd
/wp-config.php
.my.cnf
.accesshash
iThemes published specific indicators of compromise and detailed steps to detect if a site was attacked. The company outlined additional steps for sites that have been compromised.
All BackupBuddy users are advised to update to the patched version 8.7.5. iThemes made it available to all users, regardless of their current BackupBuddy licensing status, due to the severity of the vulnerability.
WordPress’ official policy is that the security team only provides support for the most recent version, but as a courtesy has extended backporting security fixes to older versions that are able to receive automatic updates.
“Until now, these courtesy backports have included all versions of WordPress supporting automatic updates,” 10up-sponsored Security Team member Peter Wilson said. “Versions WordPress 3.7 – 4.0 have reached levels of usage, namely less than 1% of total installs, where the benefit of providing these updates is outweighed by the effort involved.”
More than half of all WordPress sites are on the latest version – 6.0+ (54.3%), and security updates will still be available to more than 99% of sites on older versions after this change. Wilson said the decision to drop support for 3.7 through 4.0 was based off the information reported on the statistics page.
“The effect of this imbalance means that the Security team spends most of the time preparing backports for the vast minority of WordPress installations,” Wilson said. “By dropping support for these older versions, the newer versions of WordPress will become more secure as more time can be focused on their needs.”
Over the next three months, versions 4.0 and older will receive their final updates and will also display a non-dismissible notice in the dashboard, advising users to upgrade to the latest version as their sites will no longer receive security updates.
Automattic-sponsored designer James Koster has a vision for taking WordPress’ Site Editor from its beta awkwardness and transforming it to become a more visual and user-friendly design tool. In a recent post titled Revising the presentation of key Site Editor features, Koster identifies unbalanced feature weighting as a critical design flaw that is negatively impacting users’ experience with the editor:
The Site Editor is a powerful tool, but the user experience lacks some coherence and a sense of hierarchy.
Template management and editing has central focus, despite the fact that it’s a product area that has proven difficult for some users to interpret.
Impactful features like style and menu management are hierarchically relegated, and consequently deliver a sub-optimal UX.
This week I’ve been ideating on how we might present site editor features with more appropriate weighting, so that the overall experience feels more like a design tool.
Instead of dropping users directly into editing the homepage, Koster contends that the Site Editor’s design should be updated to become a “navigable frame” where users can select from a menu of features and styles on the left. This is a radical improvement over the current experience, which feels like walking into a room with all the lights on and multiple features competing for attention.
“The combination of the site frame (Browse mode) and one-click editing helps to obfuscate some of the aforementioned confusion around template editing,” Koster said. “Now you simply browse to the page you want to update, and click ‘Edit’.”
Another idea Koster explored is a view that makes it easier to understand the interaction of styles and templates. The UI is much cleaner and drastically reduces the cognitive load for users who are struggling to grasp the concept of templates in the first place.
Identity and homepage configuration options haven’t found a place in the site editor yet. Koster proposed bringing them into the editor in a similar fashion to how it was previously presented in the Customizer, with live previews.
Koster also proposes organizing features like templates, template parts, reusable blocks, and patterns in a “Design Library” section, presented via a grid of thumbnails that would open the edit view. This would bring a new level of organization to a set of tools that are currently scattered throughout the site editor interface.
These are just a few highlights from his explorations. Although Koster articulates many of the Site Editor’s current pain points, his designs present an elegant solution for each. Check out the full post to see all the videos and other ideas for organizing features in the site editor.
The disparity between the current experience and Koster’s mockups is like a night and day Cinderella style transformation. It’s a powerful example of how thoughtful design can really solve problems. His explorations received positive feedback from those eager to see these designs implemented in Gutenberg. Koster said his next step is to prepare some simpler prototypes for collaboration on GitHub.
“The ideas are still formative, but with some pruning we can get things into a shippable state,” Koster said. “My next step is to refine and prototype a more stripped-back version, and take that to GitHub for wider thoughts and feedback.”
In July, WordPress’ Themes and Meta teams collaborated to add a new “Block Themes” menu item to the filter menu on the directory homepage in an effort to improve block themes’ visibility. Block themes currently account for less than 2% of the directory’s 9,900 themes but activating one is the only way users can take advantage of WordPress’ full-site editing capabilities.
Not all users hunt for their next theme directly on WordPress.org. One reason is that browsing themes inside the admin allows for using the Live Preview feature to see how the theme might look with a site’s particular content. Four weeks ago, WordPress contributor Jessica Lyschik opened a ticket proposing to add the same Block Themes filter menu to the theme browsing experience inside the admin.
The code to add this menu item was committed and users will be able to filter for block themes in WordPress 6.1, expected on October 25, 2022. This change also introduces two new action hooks: install_themes_pre_block-themes (fires before the tab is rendered) and install_themes_block-themes (fires at the top the tab).
The creators of Newsletter Glue have removed their free plugin from WordPress.org in favor of focusing on the commercial version. The plugin streamlines the publishing workflow for newsletter authors who also publish to their WordPress sites. It includes blocks and patterns for email templates and subscriber forms. Five months ago the plugin’s authors warned users that they would be closing the free version and would no longer be updating it as of May 1, but the process of removing it was delayed until today.
Co-founder Lesley Sim announced the plugin’s closure on Twitter and shared a few valuable lessons for WordPress product businesses looking to use WordPress.org as a their primary distribution channel.
“We made a bunch of noob mistakes in the way we set up free vs paid,” Sim said. “Which made the customer upgrade flow kind of weird. I think it could’ve worked. We just didn’t set it up right, and it just doesn’t make sense to fix it.”
At the time of closure, the free Newsletter Glue plugin had approximately 200 active installations, which seems low for a growing commercial plugin. This is because the free version got uninstalled when a user upgraded to pro, so it was never a good representation of how many people were using the product. Sim said Newsletter Glue wasn’t growing the free user base and “it was just sitting there like a dead tree stump.” The company had not updated it in over a year.
“We stupidly set it such that when a user upgrades, they install the pro version and the free version automatically uninstalls,” Sim said. “So we lost free active users as a ‘reward’ for new conversions.”
This architectural choice meant that WordPress.org wasn’t bringing the product a significant flow of traffic and prospective upgrades.
“A year ago, we simply didn’t have enough features to make good decisions on what to put in the free versus pro,” Sim said. “So we went from having all our integrations on the free plugin to gating some integrations instead. I think this was a poor decision and led to our install count instantly stagnating. This could have been reversed, so I don’t think this was a key reason. But it was an instigating reason to begin considering removing the plugin from the repo since it was no longer bringing us traffic and installs.”
Despite not finding WordPress.org a good source of traffic for the product, Sim said the decision to close was not easy.
“Here are some things we lost out on:” Sim said. “1) Biggest distribution channel in WP. 2) Easy way for reviewers to check out the plugin for free without having to contact me. 3) Source of credibility (reviews).”
Current users can still use the free plugin but it will not be getting updates anymore. In lieu of a free plugin, Newsletter Glue is offering a test drive option where users can try it on a demo site before purchasing. The company has taken a unique path to becoming a commercial plugin that is fully independently distributed.
“I hate the free to paid user experience on the WP directory with a passion,” Sim said. “We had a full standalone pro plugin so the upgrade flow was really clunky. We’d get users using the free version emailing us saying, ‘I’ve just upgraded, but I don’t see any pro features on my site. What’s wrong?’ I also had some wonderful customers who would upgrade then continue using the free version for over a year, not even realizing they were on the free version.”
By focusing focusing exclusively on promoting the commercial product, the Newsletter Glue team is now free of the burden of supporting customers transitioning from the free version. The trade-off is missing out on exposure on WordPress.org. It’s an approach that works for the company at this stage but may not be suitable to other new products without strong marketing in place.
“Unless you already have experience marketing a plugin from scratch AND you have a good go to market plan, I think the default choice should be to be on the [WordPress] repo,” Sim said. “Just make sure you set up the commercial part of your plugin correctly so that it makes sense.”
WooCommerce is making a strong push towards getting the Customizer menu out of the admin for those who are using a block theme. In an effort to clean up the admin and eliminate confusion, the plugin will stop registering Customizer options when a block theme is active beginning with version 6.9. This will go into effect with WooCommerce 6.9, which is expected to be released in September 2022.
The problem is that site owners can get confused by having both the “Edit site” and “Customize” menu links in the admin.
This change is an important one for WooCommerce developers to acknowledge if they are still registering settings within the WooCommerce panel in the Customizer. Developers can opt to use the customize_register action to include Customizer menu items, but continuing to offer Customizer options is not an ideal user experience.
“Subpanels or sections registered within the WooCommerce panel on the Customizer will no longer be accessible since the Customizer links will be removed,” WooCommerce engineer Alba Rincón said in the announcement. “If you’re the developer of a theme or extension that relies on the presence of these you will need to make changes to ensure a smooth transition.”
WooCommerce core developers recommend plugin authors update their products to relocate any Customizer settings to a block, pattern, or the Global Styles menu.
Community developers are also invited to weigh in on a change that may impact developers’ debugging workflows. It is a proposal designed to address the problem of the growing size of the WooCommerce zip archive, which is rapidly approaching a size where it is difficult for some users to update with out timing out. The core team is considering removing JavaScript and CSS source files from releases, but this major change requires community feedback. The discussion will be open on GitHub until August 26th, 2022.
WordCamp US (WCUS) kicks off one month from today in San Diego, CA, and organizers have published the full schedule for all sessions. The three-day event will feature three tracks with a combination of lightning talks (15 min), standard talks (45 min), and workshops (1 hr+).
Block themes and plugins aren’t the only things on the menu for WCUS attendees. The event will include a diverse range of topics, including WordPress and the creator economy, accessibility, multichannel e-commerce, performance, community, and creating editorial experiences.
The sessions begin on September 9, and continue through the next day, capped off with a chat with Matt Mullenweg, who will also answer live questions from the audience. Contributor Day is scheduled for Sunday, September 11.
Unfortunately, for many hoping to attend, all 650 of the available tickets sold out within the first day. Everyone else across the world of WordPress will need to tune into the livestream, which organizers expect will be fairly popular this year due to the limited in-person tickets. The sessions in Sun track and Palm track will be live streamed, but the Surf track workshops will not. The livestream page is already published and no special tickets will be required.
For years, the vast majority of Akismet releases have been centered around bug fixes and improving compatibility with various plugins. Version 5.0 was released today, following 4.2.5 earlier this month, with a new feature that should improve Askismet’s ability to detect spam comments.
Akismet engineer Christopher Finke explained how the plugin will now analyze how a comment is posted, in addition to analyzing what is posted:
A typical human commenter on the Web takes about 40 seconds to read a blog post and another 40 seconds to write and submit a comment. Their typing speed varies significantly throughout the creation of their comment, and they regularly use their mouse to click around the page. An automated spambot (even one programmed to act like a person) doesn’t act so human-like: its typing speed and mouseclick speed are superhumanly consistent. It doesn’t spend time “reading” blog posts. Its mouse usage is sparse.
This new feature can detect spam that is posted in a machine-like fashion, even if the spambot is attempting to post a comment with content identical to one that has already been approved.
“The Akismet plugin will begin observing these behaviors so that they can be used as part of the spam-checking process,” Finke said. “None of this data is personally identifiable, and it won’t be used for any purpose other than identifying spam.”
Akismet is bundled with WordPress and is active on more than 5 million sites. More than 62% of users are running on 4.2.x and ~38% are on version 4.1 or older. WordPress users who are having a lot of spam breaking through Akismet’s protection will want to upgrade to take advantage of the new spambot detection features in version 5.0.
WordPress.com has ended the pricing experiment it began at the beginning of April. The company announced today that it is rolling back its pricing structure to the previous model, which offered five plans, including the free tier.
WordPress.com’s updated pricing table – July 21, 2022
A few months ago, WordPress.com pared back its pricing table from five to just two plans (Free and a $15/month Pro plan) as a major unannounced change, slashing free storage limits and imposing a traffic ceiling. After nearly two months of overwhelmingly negative feedback, the company added a new $5/month Starter plan to bridge the gap between Free and Pro, but even this entry level plan didn’t remove ads.
The changes were not clicking with users and many of them announced plans to move away from WordPress.com to new platforms. The company claims it was responding to feedback in reverting to the previous pricing model, but after 15 weeks of running the experiment, they likely had enough data to force the decision.
“As we began to roll out our new pricing plans a couple of months back, we took note of the feedback you shared,” Automattic VP of Content Michael Pick said in the new pricing announcement. “What we heard is that some of you missed the more granular flexibility of our previous plans. Additionally, the features you needed and pricing of the new plans didn’t always align for you.”
WordPress.com also emailed its customs about the availability of add-ons for à la carte upgrades for features like access to premium themes, removal of ads, and custom CSS. Notably missing was an add-on for storage upgrades, which multiple customers expressed in the comments that they are eager to have.
Customers reacted positively to announcement of the pricing reverting back and several thanked the company for taking their feedback seriously. WordPress.com confirmed that customers who switched to the previous Starter and Pro plans will be able to remain on those plans indefinitely with auto-renew if they choose.
This week has been heavy with theme news, as the discussion around improving block themes’ visibility in the directory became heated before the Themes Team landed on a course of action. Meta contributors added a new “Block Themes” menu item to the filter menu on the directory homepage, a solution that some classic theme developers fought tooth and nail to discourage in the ticket over the course of seven weeks.
Clicking on Block Themes displays themes that have the full-site-editing feature tag. Previously, block themes were buried three clicks deep and users had to know how to find them through the feature filter. They are now easily accessible from the directory landing page.
Although most WordPress themes support blocks in the content editor, the “block themes” identifier refers to themes that allow users to edit templates with blocks through the Site Editor.
As the landscape of themes is changing, contributors have been working towards building a shared lexicon for how they refer to themes that support full-site editing. When the team updated the Theme Handbook prior to the WordPress 5.9 release, they settled on using the term “classic” for PHP-based themes and “block” for those that support full-site editing.
Block themes are about to cross a major milestone in the directory. At the time of publishing there are 99 block themes available, representing roughly 1% of the directory’s total number of themes. As part of the project’s big picture goals for 2022, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy set 500 block themes as a goal for the community. The number is not even halfway there but the newly released Create Block Theme plugin should give it a boost, as it allows anyone to design a theme in the editor and export it for others to use.
Last month WPZOOM released a free plugin called Block Patterns for Food Bloggers that I finally got the chance to test. Food blogs commonly have a strong focus on category and tag-driven grid layouts with big featured images and multiple sections showcasing different types of recipes. Prior to the block editor, customizing these types of layouts would be beyond reach for most WordPress users. They would have to rely on the theme to provide the right layout or enough user-friendly options to change it.
This plugin offers 19 beautifully designed patterns that are fully customizable, making it easy for food bloggers to create complex layouts. Once installed, users will find a little icon at the top of the editor, which launches the patterns in a modal.
The modal displays a grid view of the patterns, a list view with larger images, and allows users to preview the patterns with a mobile, tablet, and desktop view.
Patterns look exactly like the preview when you select and insert them. They include all the images and text so users don’t have to guess how it all fits together. Most patterns simply require replacing the content with your own but can also be used as a starting point for additional customizations. For example, users can drop in this set of featured categories and edit the links to their own categories.
Some of the patterns, such as the different post grids, will require users to make some edits to the block settings for the Query Loop to get it to display the specific categories, author, post type, etc.
The plugin also includes two different “About Me” style Hero sections for introducing the food blogger, as well as an Instagram profile pattern with a small grid of images, and a book feature. There are patterns for a newsletter signup design, and a search form design with a browse section and quick search categories.
Check out the demo on WPZOOM to see all the food blogger patterns in action and an example homepage created with only the patterns in the plugin.
Block Patterns for Food Bloggers is a fun plugin to play with because all the patterns are harmonious to each other, so it doesn’t look like they were all mixed and matched from different plugins. They should drop seamlessly into any WordPress theme or can be used on a blank canvas style theme without an issue.
If you are food blogger who is eager to build your own website but have not found a theme that works for you, this plugin could be all you need to make your own layouts. It covers everything from recipe index pages to featured sections that you would find on any food blogger’s homepage.
WPZOOM published a few helpful tips on the plugin page for customizing the patterns:
Use the Group block to control spacing and color for more than one block at a time.
Use the Cover block to control your pattern’s height, including min-height and full-viewport designs.
If your pattern contains numerous root-level blocks it can be helpful to Group them all together. This makes it easier to move your pattern around once inserted.
Although these patterns are presented with food pictures and placeholder text, they could easily be used for any other type of website. If you have a custom post type for movies, books, portfolios, team members, or any other kind of content, these patterns may be just as relevant.
Although some might contend all these patterns should be uploaded to WordPress’ official pattern directory, I can see the value of offering them as a unified collection in a plugin. Patterns mashed together from the Patterns Directory do not always have a unified design. There are already a few plugins that offer general pattern collections but it would be great to see more niche pattern collections like this one with a unified focus and design. It makes page building much easier than simply relying on core blocks and block collections.
Block Patterns for Food Bloggers is available for free from the WordPress Plugin Directory. It works just as advertised and does not include annoying upgrade advertising in the admin.
Two weeks ago, WordPress theme author Rich Tabor tweeted, “Even with my theme developer hat on, I’m finding it easier and easier to create block themes ~ within ~ WordPress. I’m positive one day (soon) this will be the norm.”
It looks like that day has arrived sooner than expected, as Automattic has had a team working on this capability for awhile. Today, a group of eight full-time sponsored Themes Team contributors released a plugin called Create Block Theme that can create standalone block themes and child themes inside the WordPress admin.
The idea is that users can design their own themes using full-site editing features and then export their finished creation as a theme that can be installed on any other WordPress site. Ben Dwyer shared a video called Designing a theme in the WordPress Editor where designer Beatriz Fialho demonstrated the possibilities. She created a unique new theme using full-site editing features in just a couple of hours.
The plugin offers a variety of exports for different use cases. Users can export their work in the following ways:
Export the active theme with user changes included
Export a child theme with the active theme as the parent theme
Export a clone a new theme based on the active theme with user changes
Overwrite the theme files to include the user changes as part of the theme
Export a blank theme into the site’s themes directory
All of these export options are available under Appearance >> Create Block Theme.
“This plugin is aimed at theme builders – both designers and developers,” Dwyer said in the announcement. “It is useful for sharing your designs between multiple sites or users. If you’re just building a site for yourself you probably don’t need it.”
I tested the plugin with the child theme option and it worked as expected. I was able to install it on another site with its unique name and template changes instantly applied. The export screen allows users to give the theme a name, description, and author information, which is saved to the new theme’s style.css file.
“At the moment the UI of this plugin is totally separate from Gutenberg,” Dwyer said. “In time we expect more integration with the Site Editor UI, to make it easier to access these features.
It would be helpful if the theme creation options allowed users to upload a unique screenshot that would be packaged with the theme download. I added this as an issue on the plugin’s GitHub repository, where anyone is welcome to contribute.
The Create Block Theme plugin makes designing and authoring a WordPress theme more approachable than ever before. It has the potential to rapidly increase the number of block themes available, if designers understand how to use it and submit their works to the Themes Directory. The Training Team is currently working on a course for Learn WordPress that will teach people how to create block themes using this plugin.
Create Block Theme was released under the WordPress.org plugins account and can be installed by searching for the plugin’s name in quotes.
WordCamp Europe 2022 concluded last weekend in Porto, Portugal. The event sold 2,746 tickets and had 2,304 people attend. It kicked off with a record-setting Contributor Day that coordinated the efforts of 800 participants giving back to WordPress and its related projects.
WCEU featured 70 speakers across 26 sessions and 18 workshops, made possible by the efforts of 65 sponsors, 91 organizers, and 164 volunteers.
Attendees and organizers were thrilled to be back together in person after two years of not hosting the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remkus de Vries, one of the founders of WCEU, joined our recent WP Jukebox podcast and commented on the importance of being back in person with fellow WordPress enthusiasts. He characterized WordCamps as the “glue” that keeps the community together.
“I think the glue part is way more important than people thought that it was,” de Vries said. “I think you can say the same thing for what we’re seeing here. Yes, you can be connected. You can have great relationships online and everything, but the real deal is in real life. That’s where you make the actual connections.
“You have things you say that you then in real life have time to correct if that wasn’t the intent that you actually had. All of these little things make up what that glue actually consists of, so not having that for two years creates a like a vacuum of things that are not seen, not communicated, not spoken about, not processed.
“There have been companies started from WordCamps. There have been mergers started. There have been friends made there have been marriages come from WordCamps. Everything happens when you’re together.”
In 2023, the project that is democratizing publishing will be hosting its European conference in the birthplace of democracy, Athens, Greece. The date is set for June 8-10, and the call for organizers has already been published. Check out the intro video below for a taste of what’s to come next year.
Gutenberg 13.3 was released this week with support for an experimental new Table of Contents block. It is perfect for longform content that is organized by multiple headings within the document. The block automatically detects Heading blocks within the content and will display them with anchor links that jump to each section.
Users may select the block without knowing how it works with headings. If the post or page doesn’t contain any headings, the block inserts a message prompting users to start adding Heading blocks in order to display a Table of Contents.
For sites that have registered custom taxonomies, Gutenberg’s Post Terms Block now automatically generates a block variation for each term. That means users can select a block to display all the terms associated with that custom taxonomy.
Other notable additions in 13.3 include the following:
Query block now supports a “parent” filter that will display content of children from the defined parent
Heading block now supports Font Family controls
Save Block List default view preference – allowes users to set a preference for having the Blost Lick view open or closed by default
New transforms between the Cover and Media & Text blocks
The latest release also brings dozens of enhancements and bug fixes to preferences, border controls, error messages, tooling, accessiblity, and performance. Check out the release post for the full list of changes.
Do you remember what it was like to use WordPress 5.0? Three years and ten major releases have radically changed the site building experience, but it’s not always easy to see recognize when focused on some of the smaller, iterative changes that slowly add up. Anne McCarthy, WordPress product liaison at Automattic and co-release coordinator for 6.0, has created a short 13-minute video that shows the immense amount of progress contributors have made on site building features.
McCarthy takes viewers back in time to WordPress 5.0, released in December 2018, which introduced the block editor and the Twenty Nineteen default theme through the work of 400+ contributors. She demonstrates using the Customizer with the default theme. These were simpler days and it’s clear now how limited the Customizer was for implementing the most basic changes.
The video contrasts that experience with the upcoming 6.0 release, which features the work of 500+ contributors on features that didn’t exist three years ago.
McCarthy quickly demonstrates the 6.0 site editing experience, swapping out template parts, and showcasing the breadth of the customization available for images, colors, typography, controlling the posts that are displayed, style variations, and the impressive array of design tools available.
Ten major versions later, nearly every Aspect of a WordPress site is customizable through the site editor. For those who have not yet made the leap into full-site editing – it’s essentially like the old Customizer but with super powers, better instant previews, and the interface is a panel on the right. At this point, I don’t think the usability is at a level where someone can just get in there and immediately know what they are doing. It takes a little bit of exploring, but it’s moving in the right direction.
While WordPress remains the uncontested market leader among CMS’s, some say this small percentage of a decline is inconsequential. Matt Mullenweg has stated in previous interviews that he views market share stats as a “trailing indicator” in the quest to create the best possible experience for users and developers. A growing market share, in that sense, is a signal of user satisfaction.
WordPress jumped into the block paradigm at the right time, just as many other apps began adopting the concept of composable blocks for creating content and designs. Full-site editing is the extension of that vision but it takes time to make it something polished and delightful to use. McCarthy’s video is a good reminder of the limitations that users previously labored under while trying to edit their sites, and the “why” behind all the effort going into FSE.
“As someone who’s currently on the WordPress 6.0 Release Team, I can attest that the project needs more contributors,” WordPress contributor Nick Diego said in response to the recent market share discussion. “The fact that FSE has taken so long is not a lack of effort. There are many contributors pouring their hearts and souls into the project. We just need more help.”
Gutenberg 13.2 was released earlier today. While much of the developer community is gearing up for the WordPress 6.0 release in two weeks, work continues steadily on the plugin, driving future updates. The latest release is not as hefty on enhancements as previous updates but includes around four dozen bug fixes.
Despite a heavy focus on squashing bugs, there are several welcome improvements in the plugin update. Persistent user preferences will make for fewer surprises when opening the editor. New visual updates for block spacing and the Post Comments Form block make it easier to design layouts.
Developers should look at the early work on a new settings hook. This represents one step toward creating the concept of “sections” that can house settings and styles for block instances and descendants. Patterns are a prime example of the necessity of sections. Matias Ventura covered the various uses in a separate open ticket.
The latest release also removes spotlight mode for template parts, and I say, good riddance. The editor already has such a mode for all blocks, and users who prefer it can enable it.
Persistent Editor Preferences
Welcome to the editor popup.
Have you ever visited the WordPress editor and noticed the “welcome” popup, despite dismissing it ages ago? Or, logged in with a new browser only to reconfigure settings, such as enabling top toolbar support and turning off fullscreen mode? Annoying, right?
This has been a long-standing issue caused by WordPress storing user preferences in the browser. In Gutenberg 13.2, these preferences are now saved as user metadata in the database and should no longer pose an issue.
Landing in the pretty-neat-and-nice-to-have category is a new “visualizer” feature for block margin and padding. Essentially, it displays a colored box, representing the space when one of the two options is adjusted. It quickly fades out and returns the canvas to its default look.
I am a fan of this change. It draws the eyes back to the canvas and allows users to visualize how the block spacing is applied.
Comments Form in the Editor
Comments Form Block in the site editor.
The Post Comments Form block was simply a placeholder in the editor in past releases. This did not allow end-users to see how it would look on the front end of their sites.
Gutenberg 13.2 updates this to show something closer to what it will look like on the front end, at least for logged-in users. This also lets the user see how color and typography customizations will be displayed.
This is a two-part change. The Comments Query Loop block now outputs the form within its default template. This way, users and creators will not need to build out each part of the overall comments area.
There is still much work to do for the Post Comments Form block in the long term. It needs a broader selection of design tools for starters. However, it could also use a revamp that provides fine-grain control over the various elements shown for logged-in and logged-out users. That may even mean splitting the form into multiple blocks. For now, the additional visualization will have to suffice.
Margin Support for Separators
Adding top and bottom margin to a Separator block.
It is a small change but a welcome one. Users could previously increase the space between a Separator and sibling block through other means, such as setting the margin on the sibling or using a Spacer. However, those were often unintuitive solutions. And decreasing the space sometimes seemed an impossible task.
