Howdy,
250 newsletter editions. WOW. It feels like a nice round number and worth a celebration. The weekend edition of the Gutenberg Times officially became a newsletter, sent via Mailchimp, on Feb. 3rd, 2018 with 12 subscribers. It has much evolved since then.
It’s been a stable of my life to connect with you weekly and report on Gutenberg. After all these years (cue in Paul Simon‘s Still Crazy), I am still infinitely curious about what people create with the block editor. Thank you for your great support and trust. It’s been a great privilege.
WordCamp Europe is around the corner, and I would like to meet as may subscribers as possible there. My public calendar is open. This method worked very well, and I met an incredible mix of people at WordCamp Asia this way. Making a deliberate effort and scheduling an appointment, adds certainty to an otherwise chance encounter in the Hallway track. I will be in town before the WordCamp, so the calendar is also open for the 7th of June, if that fits your schedule better, too.
I also hope to see you at the Contributor Day on 8th of June. Registration is open for those who already have a WordCamp Europe ticket. The organizer team of WCEU also announced that there will be free child care are and a Kids track.
As a side note, we signed the lease for our Munich flat and my husband and I will have a new permanent address starting May 1, 2023.
I hope, you have a fabulous weekend!
Yours, 💕
Birgit
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
Gutenberg 15.5 was released last week, and it was a great pleasure for me to discuss it all with Leonardus Nugraha for the Gutenberg Changelog podcast.
🎙️ 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
Hector Prieto proposed the release schedule for WordPress 6.3 and opened the call for volunteers for the release squad.
It comes on the heals of Josepha Haden Chomphosy‘s invitation to the all-women release squad for 6.4. Preparing for the Next Women & Nonbinary Release Squad. Raise your hands in the comments if you want to get involved in the WordPress major release process.
Sarah Gooding reported on the release for the WP Tavern. Read Gutenberg 15.5 Introduces Experimental Grid Layout Support.
With all the releases last week, you might have missed the current call for testing from the FSE Outreach Program by Anne McCarthy: FSE Program Exploration: Build a block theme. She wrote: “If you’ve never built a block theme, consider this an invitation to give it a try. Tooling has come a long way and the power of what’s being built is that it allows more folks to dive into the future (and present) of WordPress. For this experience, you’ll use the Create Block Theme plugin to facilitate the creation and export process, so you can keep what you create!” To leave your feedback and share your observations, use the comment section of the post.
Justin Tadlock published the What’s new for Developer April 2023 round-up post on the WordPress Developer Blog. With byte-sized news, Tadlock invites you to dive deeper into certain topics, or let you know about new features and updated APIs. The post is for plugin and theme developers alike. It might be worth bookmarking each of the post, so you can quickly skim editions, when looking for a specific feature or update.
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
With this recording on WordPressTV, let Kathryn Presner and Wes Theron take you on a tour exploring some of the new 6.2 WordPress features. The guide for the exploration is the release post of WordPress “Dolphy” 6.2.
In another video on WordPressTV, Wes Theron shows you how to add a sticky header or banner with the new 6.2 sticky feature. The new sticky option is available when wrapping a header or banner in a Group block. It ensures the block remains within the viewport and is stuck to the top of the page when the content is scrolled.
Sarah Gooding reported on the new WooCommerce release: WooCommerce 7.6 Introduces Single Product Details Block and “Add to Cart” Form Block. “Along with the button, the “Add to Cart” form block will automatically display additional options, depending on if the product has a set available quantity or variations.” she wrote. Together with the Single Product Details block, store owners can now assemble their unique Single product template together with the block themes.
Rae Morey, editor of The Repository, wrote in the latest edition of the newsletter (#165) : “The team behind Multicollab, a tool that enables Google Docs-style collaboration in WordPress, are working on a prototype for real-time collaboration. It’s still in beta, but the team is inviting folks to preview it in action.” The video explains how the feature works in the demo. Once you leave your email address, on the beta sign-up you are invited to the demo.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
Justin Tadlock unlocks for you how to use template patterns to build multiple homepage designs. Tadlock tweeted: “I’m a block pattern fanatic. So, when Gutenberg 15.5 released with UI integration of “template type” patterns, I couldn’t wait to dive in.” This tutorial focuses on creating multiple front-page designs that your users can choose from. Specifically, you will learn to build patterns that are tied to the Front Page template in WordPress.”
Brian Gardner explained How (and Why) to Build a Base WordPress Theme, in taking you behind-the-scenes of an agency that forked a WordPress theme to create a tailored version that caters to client needs. “Here’s an example of how building a boilerplate can help an agency thrive.” Gardner wrote
The WordPress themes team requests your input on the proposal for a revamp of the Themes Handbook. In his post, Justin Tadlock wrote: “The problem with handbooks for ever-changing software is that they need a large re-tuning from time to time. The Theme Handbook has reached that point in its lifespan.” There will also be a dedicated meeting on April 18, 2023 at 13:00 UTC via the #themereview channel on Slack. Everyone is welcome to join and discuss this proposal in detail.
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
A reminder: The team who put together the Proposal for the Interactivity API will hold two Developer Hours on April 17th, 2023 one at 8 am UTC and one at 17:00 UTC to cover as many timezones as possible.
Ryan Welcher posted the recording of his Twitch stream session from March 30, 2023: Reviewing Gutenberg 15.4 Features | Bring Me Your Issues #2. In this session, Ryan took a look at at some features released in Gutenberg 15.4. He continued working through viewer-submitted issues by continuing with the post-picker block from the first of the “Bring me Your Issues” session.
In his post, WordPress AI: Generative Content & Blocks, Joe Hoyle shared the initial results from his team’s the experiments on integrating generative AI into WordPress. They worked on a “WordPress CoPilot” that can “speak” Gutenberg/block editor. The video gives you a glimpse into the power of the tools and how they can speed up content creation. “Going through this project has convinced me that LLMs have much more potential than I was giving them credit for. It feels like there’s still a lot to discover what the models are capable of.” Hoyle tweeted. Joe Hoyle is co-founder the Chief Technical officer at Human Made
Inspired by Joy Hoyle’s post, Sarah Gooding, WordPress Developers Are Experimenting With Gutenberg-Native AI Block and Content Assistants. She also included Munir Kamal’s venture into tools powered by AI.
Fabian Kägy, lead developer at 10up, was a guest on the Supper Club episode of the Syntax podcast and co-hosts Wes Bos and Scott Tolinsky discussed with him, modern WordPress development, local dev experience, changes to the block editor, how version control is handled, and more!
Munir Kamal posted a How to Add Block Styles in WordPress – A Step-by-Step Guide. Why build a new block when you can change the appearance of a core block by adding block styles. With little PHP code and accompanying CSS a new design is applied. No JavaScript required. Kamal also shows you how to find out the name of the block you’d like to target with the new styles.
Brian Coords and Aurooba Ahmed discuss on this episode of the ViewSource podcast: Getting started with React inside WordPress You learn what React is and how it works with WordPress. It’s the start of a series of episodes to build an accordion block for the WordPress block editor.
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Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don’t hesitate to send them via email or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
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