Howdy,
Today, you find additional information about contributors, known issues and new features of WordPress 6.1 below. Furthermore, plenty of educational posts, videos and first-person explorations into Block Themes. The team around Learn.WordPress scheduled a heap of awesome events on Meetup and a new free course.
Find also new plugins, themes and so much more.
If you feel the uncertainty of time, space, and being, Maria Popova wrote about Virginia Woolf‘s To the Lighthouse and how Woolf finds beauty in the those dread moments. The Marginalian is always worth visiting.
Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!
Yours, đź’•
Birgit
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
Finally, WordPress “Misha” 6.1 is here! 800 contributors from 60 countries created one of the largest WordPress releases.
If you want to dive deeper into information about contributors, Jean-Baptist Audras, core team rep and data wizard at the Whodunit agency, published Contribution Stats for WordPress 6.1 « Misha ».

- Watch a brief overview video highlighting some major features debuting in WordPress 6.1.
- The Fieldguide has been available for a couple of weeks.
- Steven Stern, team rep of the support team published a list of known issues on the forum.
- The core team is working on a quick turn-around on a minor release. Jeff Paul shared his notes for WordPress 6.1.1 Planning
Sarah Gooding reported on the release for the WP Tavern: WordPress 6.1 Introduces New Default Theme and Fluid Typography, Expands Design Tools and Template Options
🎙️ 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
And, Site Editor it is. Josepha Haden Chomphosy summarized the discussion from a few weeks ago in her clarifying post: Site Editor: a More User-Friendly Name
Last week, I got excited about the Interactive Fiction Engine and I also shared the call for submission for the Museum for Block Art. Guess what happened?
Anne McCarthy created a beautiful and interactive tour of the Museum of Block Art. Enter the museum and discover the works exhibited on the website, McCarthy highlighted for you.
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
Justin Tadlock published another single-block plugin in the plugin repository called: X3P0 Progress. It is a block that allows users to create progress bars using a straightforward interface. You can select different units to set your progress on the bar, percentage or in currency (for instance for a donation goal). For the layout, it sports plenty of choices for colors to border settings and spacing options.
Anders Noren published his sixth block theme, called Oaknut, built to help you to create Linktree-esque profile pages. It includes 23 Style Variations, 14 fonts, 8 button styles and 5 different social link styles. On his website, Noren wrote that it “include less than 150 lines of CSS and no JavaScript at all.”. On the WordPress Theme directory you can test each of the Style variations, before you make a decision. The screenshot area changes when you select one of the style variations in the little slider below.

Sarah Gooding posted on WP Tavern: Anders Norén Releases Oaknut, a New Profile Block Theme with 23 Style Variations
Over at Castos’ YouTube Channel, Matt Mederios gives a demo of the new theme, Linktree alternative for WordPress – Oaknut theme. Further, into the video, Mederios also shows site owners how to create a new template.
Anders Noren’s other block themes are:
- Beaumont,
- Björk,
- Poe,
- Davis Blocks, and
- Tove
Noren also shares his code on GitHub and you can sponsor him for his consistently brilliant open-source work.
Bud Kraus, Joy of WP conducted a webinar with the team of GoDaddyPro. The recording is now available on YouTube: Don’t Let The WordPress Query Loop Block Throw You For A Loop! “Query Loop block unlocks the potential of what an Archive page can be without knowing any PHP!”
You can watch an Intro to the Site Editor and Template Editor, created by Wes Theron, educator on Learn.WordPress, on WordPressTV. Learn more about using a block theme and how the Site Editor and Template Editor work.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
In his post, WordPress Full-Site Editing: A Deep Dive Into The New Feature, Nick Schäferhoff examines the tools of full-site editing provides for theme development, and provides a tutorial on how to use it to modify your site.
Mike McAlister explains in his post how you can spice up your WordPress content with Block Styles. “Block styles is one of those features that seems to have been lost in the rush to full-site editing. In this post, we’ll learn how to add style variations to your blocks.” he started his post.
Justin Tadlock takes you on A Walk-Through of Layout Classes in WordPress 6.1 The primary goals for this post are to provide developers with an overall view of the system and to know which classes can be targeted via CSS. The “TL;DR: just let WordPress handle the layout while you tinker with fun stuff like colors and fonts.” Tadlock tweeted.
In the video, Using block template parts in classic themes, Jonathan Bossenger shows off a new feature in WordPress 6.1, the ability to register block template parts in classic themes and allows users to modify specific parts of the theme with blocks, without affecting the rest of the site layout or design.
I was one of the early adopters of the block editor as a developer. Despite the flak that the Gutenberg plugin was catching before it was merged into core WordPress, …a post by Justin Tadlock) Read more. |
WordPress 6.1 will allow classic theme authors to begin using block-based template parts. It is one of the most exciting features of the release and one that has long been… Read more. |
The first part of the Developers Guide to Block Themes course is now available on Learn.WordPress. “If you’re used to developing WordPress themes using PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but you don’t know where to start with block themes, this course is for you.”
Brian Coords explored the intricacies of content width and layout options in his post Normal width websites in the block editor. “The best advice I can give for FSE is to start with the global styles before you start messing with the template files. Get your defaults in a good place.” Coords wrote. Start reading to learn how he arrived at the conclusion.
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Tom Finley curated a list of Modern WordPress Dev Coursework; websites with educational material for WordPress developers who want to learn more about building blocks or block themes. Many people on Twitter who were inquiring about more information especially full site editing inspired Finely to collect the best resources.
Upcoming WordPress Events
WPCampus published a call for nominations to their Board of Directors.
November 18, 2022
WordFest Live Returns – the 24-hour Festival of WordPress
February 17 – 19, 2023
WordCamp Asia 2023
Have a look at the schedule of upcoming WordCamps to find one near you.

Learn WordPress Online Meetups
November 7, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Padding, Margin and Block Spacing with Wes Theron
November 10, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Builder Basics: How to Curate the Editing Experience with Nick Diego
November 14, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Using the Navigation Block with Wes Theron
November 16, 2022 – 7 pm ET / 24:00 UTC
WordPress 6.1 Exploration with Destiny Kanno
November 17, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Exploring Block Layout, Alignment, and Dimensions with Nick Diego
November 18, 2022 – 2 pm ET / 19:00 UTC
The Creative Side of Blocks, Vol. 3 with Rich Tabor
November 21, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Intro to the Site Editor & Template Editor with Wes Theron
December 1, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Building with Columns, Groups, Rows and Stacks with Nick Diego
December 8, 2022 – 3 pm ET / 20:00 UTC
Builder Basics: Demystifying theme.json and Global Styles with Nick Diego