The Month in WordPress – January 2023
Welcome to the first 2023 edition of The Month in WordPress! January kicked off with an overview of WordPress’ big goals for 2023 and new projects beginning to take shape. Moreover, work on the next major release, WordPress 6.2, continues with Beta 1 scheduled for next week. Read on for the latest news.
WordPress 6.2 Beta 1 is on its way
The first beta release of WordPress 6.2 is scheduled for next Tuesday, February 7, 2023.
As you may have heard, this version will wrap up work on Gutenberg Phase 2 (Customization), but what does this mean in the larger context of the WordPress project?
Tune in to Episode 48 of WP Briefing to hear Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy discuss what it means to conclude a Gutenberg phase.
What’s new in Gutenberg
Gutenberg 15.0 was released on January 18, 2023. Some highlights include a new “paste styles” feature to easily create multiple blocks with identical styling, and a “sticky” option to keep a block at the top of the page while the rest of the content scrolls.
In addition, block settings have been split into two tabs in the sidebar: Styles and Settings. This makes blocks with more controls, such as the Group block, easier to customize, and allows the interface to scale with the growing number of design tools.
The latest “Core Editor Improvement” post highlights the newest style features enhancements. Learn how they can help give your site a unique and cohesive look and feel.
Team updates: Matrix exploration, WordPress.org redesign news, and more
- WordPress and Matrix contributors published a proposal to explore the open source chat system Matrix as a possible replacement for the WordPress community’s Slack.
- Several sections of WordPress.org have been redesigned lately, including Documentation (HelpHub), Enterprise, and Mercantile (the official WordPress swag store). Learn more about the latest redesign updates.
- The implementation of the block editor in the WordPress.org forums is progressing well and the feedback so far has been very positive.
- This comprehensive post clarifies how WordPress Community Support (also known as WordCamp Central) and WordPress Foundation entities are set up and addresses some misconceptions about them.
- The bug scrub schedule for WordPress 6.2 is now published. The goal of bug scrubs is to ensure tickets move towards a resolution—anyone can join these sessions to learn, help, or even lead one.
- The Plugin Review Team is looking for your (intentionally) wrong plugins.
- The latest edition of People of WordPress features Daniel Kossmann, a software engineer from South America.
As part of the discussion on improving the contributor journey, Josepha wrote some thoughts on the Eternal September phenomenon in open source and invites you to share yours.
Feedback & testing requests
- The Community Team is gathering feedback on a proposed move to GitHub for standardizing the project’s management tools.
- To mark WordPress’ 20th anniversary milestone, Core Team contributors are organizing several bug scrub sessions to tackle long-standing Trac tickets.
- Version 21.6 of the WordPress mobile app for iOS is available for testing.
The Training Team calls all WordPress users to complete this short Individual Learner Survey by February 15, 2023. Your feedback will help identify the most high-impact resources for Learn WordPress.
WordPress events updates
- Would you like to be a speaker at WordCamp Europe 2023? Submit your application by February 5, 2023. The organizing team released the first batch of tickets and is also calling for volunteers and photographers.
- The first WordCamp to be held in Africa in 2023, WordCamp Entebbe, is well underway and set to take place on March 10-11.
- Don’t miss these other upcoming WordCamps:
WordCamp Birmingham, Alabama, USA on February 4-5, 2023
WordCamp Cebu, Philippines on February 11, 2023
WordCamp Chiclana, Spain, on March 3-4, 2023
WordCamp Asia 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand, is only two weeks away! Check out the livestream schedule if you are attending virtually.
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The following folks contributed to this edition of The Month in WordPress: @webcommsat, @rmartinezduque.