--- title: Roadmap 6.5, theme handbook, Course on Data Layer, Create a Slider block – Weekend Edition 277 date: "2023-12-09" author: "Birgit Pauli-Haack" url: "https://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-6-5-theme-handbook-course-on-data-layer-create-a-slider-block-weekend-edition-277/" tags: ["Block Development", "Block Editor", "Gutenberg"] categories: ["For Developers", "Full-Site Editing", "News", "Site Editor", "Updates", "Weekend Edition"] --- Howdy, I am very excited about the State of the Word on Monday and will [watch the live stream.](https://youtu.be/1MwT9EEkguE) It will bring everyone in the WordPress space together and imagine the future, building on the fantastic work of contributors, code and no-code a like in the community. Will you watch it? If you do, please let me know what you think and what the most important takeaways were for you. What else happened in the Block editor space? Scroll down and take a look! Have a wonderful weekend and be well. Yours, 💕 *Birgit* ## Developing Gutenberg and WordPress **Anne McCarthy **unveiled [the roadmap for 6.5](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/12/07/roadmap-to-6-5/), detailing the exciting projects and enhancements that lie ahead. Set to launch in March 2023, this release promises a host of new features that will surely elevate your WordPress experience. Accompanied by handy tracking tickets, you can easily stay connected with the development progress. The Font Library takes the lead, accompanied by other design tools and features for the site editor such as Revisions enhancements, a mobile-friendly Navigation block, Patterns, and increased support for Classic Themes. Plugin developers might look forward to the new Data Views and APIs for Interactivity, Custom Fields, and Block Binding. The article also highlights developments in plugin and theme rollbacks after automatic updates, improved dependency management, enhanced PHP compatibility, and overall performance enhancements. ![](https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/FontLibrary.png?resize=652%2C367&ssl=1) --- As mentioned last week, **Anne McCarthy** and **Saxon Fletcher** invite you to join them to a [Hallway Hangout: Let’s explore WordPress 6.5](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/11/23/hallway-hangout-lets-explore-wordpress-6-5/) on **January 16 at 21:00 UTC**.   --- 🎙️ The latest episode is [Gutenberg Changelog #130 – WordPress 7.0, Gutenberg 22.9 and 23.0, WordCamp Europe, Block Themes and More](https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-130/) with Tammie Lister, Chief Product Officer at Convesio ![](https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-25-at-15.01.45.png?resize=652%2C185&ssl=1) In his [Design Share: Nov 20-Dec 1](https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/12/04/design-share-nov-20-dec-1/), **Joen Asmussen** again shares the work of the WordPress design team. He takes us along with screenshots, short descriptions and link to the GitHub issue or Figma spaces: - Events - Drag and Drop - Gallery captions and potential Lightbox behaviors - Revisiting social links - Local nav and breadcrumb - Unified toolbar button sizes - Data views: Grid layout. ( ![](https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-08-at-17.59.52.png?resize=652%2C492&ssl=1) ## Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners **Jamie Marsland**, of PootlePress, [tweeted](https://twitter.com/pootlepress/status/1731972777266028771) “As part of my recent Twenty Twenty Four YouTube video I made 5 different types of websites, and also made the designs available as Themes, using the brilliant Create Block Theme Plugin. They’ve now been downloaded 231 times” You can download **[the free WordPress themes](https://www.pootlepress.com/free-wordpress-themes/)**, from his website, for a small donation of your email address. --- [Darren Ethier](https://twitter.com/nerrad) shared what’s new with Woo and WordPress 6.4 in a [thread on X (former Twitter)](https://twitter.com/nerrad/status/1730989297791099141) and illustrates them with short videos. ![](https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-08-at-18.05.31.png?resize=533%2C435&ssl=1) --- **[Ellen Bauer](https://twitter.com/ellenbauer)**, Theme builder at Elma Studio, shows you in her YouTube tutorial [How to customize the blog template In WordPress](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riuz99A9ZA4), and customize the list of blog post to your liking. Without any developer, you can now adjust the length of the post excerpt, hide date or authors, or add categories and feature image to the listing. --- Plugin developer, [Anh Tran](https://twitter.com/rilwis), just announced that new Admin page design for [Falcon](https://wordpress.org/plugins/falcon/), a plugin that allows its users to customize the WordPress experience and provides access to settings, normally not exposed in the wp-admin space. The list is quite extensive, and you might want to consider using the plugin as part of the tool box building sites for others. There is always a need to tweak the user interface and customize which WordPress features are exposed to the end user. If you like to check out the source code of the plugin, [it’s available on GitHub](https://github.com/elightup/falcon/tree/master) ## Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks **Jonathan Desrosiers**, core contributor, sponsored by Bluehost, published a [Proposal: Default Theme Task Force for 2024](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/12/05/proposal-default-theme-task-force-for-2024/), that has its history in discussions at the Community Summit 2023. The task force is to research and implement a better way to update WordPress default themes with the latest features, especially with the site editor and Gutenberg. --- **Ganesh Dahal** posted [a walk-through tutorial on using the Create Block Theme plugin](https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/12/05/a-walk-through-tutorial-on-using-create-block-theme-plugin/). The [plugin ](https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/)is the only tool to create different variations of block themes directly from the Site Editor. Dahal explains each feature and how to use it. ** [“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2022”](https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/) ** 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](https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/) --- This was mentioned before, and maybe you just read past it.: Over the past few months, **Justin Tadlock **and other theme team members **added new chapters to the WordPress Theme Handbook**, focusing on modern block theming. - Getting Started - Core Concepts - Global Settings and Styles (theme.json) - Templates - Features The new chapters are part of a big project to update the Theme Handbook. the team still needs more people to help, and you can join by choosing a topic from the [GitHub tracking ticket.](https://github.com/WordPress/Documentation-Issue-Tracker/issues/816) ## Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. The course to Learn.WordPress, [Using the WordPress Data Layer](https://learn.wordpress.org/course/using-the-wordpress-data-layer/) is an excellent introduction to the topic with a great example if you are contemplating using the scripts and components outside the block editor for your pages. ![](https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WordPress-Data-Layer-Course-Example.jpg?resize=600%2C386&ssl=1) --- [John Blackbourn ](https://twitter.com/johnbillion)started a discussion [Interactivity API showcase](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/discussions/55642) to asked community members to show what they are already building with the Interactivity API. It’s not the direct way to learn how to use the Interactivity API, but the passion for these new standards by those taking part in the conversation can be quite motivating to learn more. To get started with the Interactivity API, you can follow along the [Getting started guide](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/packages/interactivity/docs/1-getting-started.md) or dive deep into the [API Reference. ](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/packages/interactivity/docs/2-api-reference.md) --- [Pascal Birchler](https://twitter.com/swissspidy), developer relations engineer at Google, showcased his [side project on X (former Twitter)](https://twitter.com/swissspidy/status/1733138082591912154). He shares the code of his [WordPress Media Experiments](https://github.com/swissspidy/media-experiments) on GitHub, that allows you to compress Images, auto-convert of from animated GIFs to video for accessibility or create an image preview of a PDF. There are ten more features already implemented. --- On the Builders site, **Damon Cook** wrote a tutorial on how to [create a Slider Block for WordPress with SwiperJS](https://wpengine.com/builders/create-a-slider-block/). A Slider block is not available in WordPress out of the box, so Cook closes this gap by walking developers through the various steps of building one, using the [SwiperJS library.](https://swiperjs.com/demos) **[Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?](https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/)** Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know. ![](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge) *Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don’t hesitate to send [them via email](mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com) or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph*. For questions to be answered on the [Gutenberg Changelog](http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast), send them to [changelog@gutenbergtimes.com](mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com) --- Featured Image: [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/) licensed [photo](https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/816376d5dc/) by [Vagelis](https://wordpress.org/photos/author/eboxnet/) from the [WordPress Photo Directory](https://wordpress.org/photos/). --- **Don’t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? ** Type in your Email address to subscribe.Subscribe We hate spam, too, and won’t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition Thanks for subscribing. ---