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";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"version";s:3:"2.0";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"channel";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:61:"
	
	
	
	




















































";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"WPTavern: WP Engine Files Injunction, Hearing Set for November 26, 2024";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=178456";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-files-injunction-hearing-set-for-november-26-2024";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5462:"<p>WP Engine filed a motion on October 18, 2024 for a preliminary <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.17.0.pdf">injunction</a> in a Northern California court, seeking restored access to WordPress.org and a reversion to conditions as of September 20, 2024. The hearing is set for November 26, 2024.</p>



<p>The Injunction filed claims that Matt and Automattic have “engaged in a self-proclaimed “nuclear” war aimed at destroying WPE’s business because WPE dared to stand up and speak out against Defendants’ extortionate demand for tens of millions of dollars annually for a purported “license” WPE does not even need.” </p>



<p>It went on to say that Matt and Automattic’s action included “blocking WPE’s access to business resources including those used to service its customers, blocking WPE’s customers from accessing important security updates, making a litany of false and disparaging statements, and even expropriating one of WPE’s most popular software products as its own. Facing this onslaught of retaliatory actions, WPE had no choice but to file suit to protect its business, its employees, its customers, and the entire community in which it operates.”</p>



<p>The injunction also mentions that WP Engine has suffered losses as&nbsp; “the data show a 14% increase in cancellation requests, 333 fewer new contracts than expected from the “sales-assisted” channel, and a 29% drop in new customers from the “self-service” channel.”</p>



<p>In <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.33.0.pdf">response</a>, Automattic and Mullenweg stated, “This case is not about Plaintiff’s access to WordPress… this case instead is about WordPress.org – a website owned and run by Defendant Matt Mullenweg individually, for the benefit of the community he loves. WordPress.org is not WordPress. WordPress.org is not Automattic or the WordPress Foundation, and is not controlled by either. To the contrary, as Plaintiff itself acknowledges, WordPress.org is Mr. Mullenweg’s responsibility.”</p>



<p>It continues, “Mr. Mullenweg has no contracts, agreements, or obligation to provide WP Engine access to the network and resources of WordPress.org. WP Engine points to no terms, conditions, or permissions that entitle them to such access. Nevertheless, WP Engine, a private equity-backed company, made the unilateral decision, at its own risk, to build a multi-billion dollar business around Mr. Mullenweg’s website. In doing so, WP Engine gambled for the sake of profit that Mr.Mullenweg would continue to maintain open access to his website for free. That was their choice.”</p>



<p>On his blog, Matt <a href="https://ma.tt/2024/10/first-amendment/">published</a> this about WP Engine, “They say this is about community or some nonsense, but if you look at the core, what they’re trying to do is ask a judge to curtail my First Amendment rights.” he also said, “I will refrain from personally commenting on the WP Engine case until a judge rules on the injunction. I will continue to exercise my First Amendment rights to promote others’ speech.”</p>



<p>This has drawn much concern from the WordPress community. Jeff Chandler (WP Tavern founder) <a href="https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1849189230594908579">tweeted</a>,  “The words in this document can not be over emphasized enough to current and future WordPress builders. These statements generate shock waves to the core of what has been built and maintained over the last 21 years. Honestly, I don’t see Matt doing these things to any other plugin or business in the future. But the fact that he has done it at all means it’s a risk that has to be accounted for.”</p>



<p>AspirePress published <a href="https://aspirepress.org/if-wordpress-org-is-not-for-the-community-then-we-will-be/">If WordPress.org is not for the community, then we will be</a> while web developer Brian Coords <a href="https://x.com/briancoords/status/1849094116531126751">tweeted</a>, “WordPress/.org is not WordPress&#8221; is a good reminder that only the code is open source. When you build something online, you should treat all platforms and distribution channels as someone else&#8217;s sandbox and plan accordingly.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Andrew Palmer (entrepreneur and co-founder of Bertha AI) shared another point of view in his <a href="https://x.com/arniepalmer/status/1849370561782129073">tweet</a>, “Do you really want someone else running WordPress? If so, be careful what you wish for. Have a look at the open source projects that are no longer Open Source and let me know. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_formerly_open-source_or_free_software”">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_formerly_open-source_or_free_software”</a>. </p>



<p>Katie Keith (CEO of BARN2 Plugins) <a href="https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/1847271162977358077">tweeted</a> about the injunction, “I hope it brings some stability to the WordPress ecosystem, as people won&#8217;t be constantly wondering what will happen next <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f91e.png" alt="🤞" class="wp-smiley" />.”</p>



<p>The dispute has now attracted broader media attention, with coverage from outlets including <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2y7eyp3zpo">BBC News</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 28 Oct 2024 03:14:11 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:148:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #110 – Gutenberg 19.5, WordPress 6.7, Create Block Theme Plugin and a Thousand Block Themes at the Repository";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=30629";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:114:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-110-gutenberg-19-5-wordpress-6-7-create-block-theme-plugin/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54725:"<p>In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Joni Halabi discuss Gutenberg 19.5, WordPress 6.7, Create Block Theme Plugin and a Thousand Block Themes at the Repository</p>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-110-gutenberg-19-5-wordpress-6-7-create-block-theme-plugin/#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-110-gutenberg-19-5-wordpress-6-7-create-block-theme-plugin/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li>



<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li>



<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-larger-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Special guest: Joni Halabi</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/02/static-vs-dynamic-blocks-whats-the-difference/">Static vs. dynamic blocks: What’s the difference?</a></li>



<li>Book: <a href="https://jhalabi.com/book/">Sweet Little You by Joni Halabi</a></li>



<li>LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonihalabi/">@jonihalabi</a></li>



<li>WordPress <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/thatdevgirl/">@thatdevgirl</a></li>



<li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-97-wordpress-6-5/">Gutenberg Changelog #97 – WordPress 6.5, Gutenberg 17.8 and 17.9</a></li>



<li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-91-wordpress-6-4-gutenberg-16-8-and-whats-discussed/">Gutenberg Changelog #91 – WordPress 6.4, Gutenberg 16.8 and what’s in the works</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements</h2>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/snippets/conditionally-unregister-patterns/">Snippet: Conditionally unregister patterns</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">1000 Block Themes</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">1,000 Block Themes in the WordPress theme directory! </a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2024/10/23/celebrating-1000-block-themes-in-the-themes-repository/">Celebrate 1,000 Block Themes in the themes repository!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-community-creates-1000-block-themes-in-1000-days/">WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-repository-now-houses-1000-block-themes">WordPress Themes Repository Now Houses 1000 Block Themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/author/anlino/">Themes by Anders Noren</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s released</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/">Create Block Theme plugin 2.6</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/25/recap-hallway-hangout-theme-building-with-playground-create-block-theme-plugin-and-github/">Recap Hallway Hangout: Theme Building with Playground, Create-block-theme plugin, and GitHub</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-6-7-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 1</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/23/wordpress-6-7-field-guide/">WordPress 6.7 Field Guide</a></li>



<li><strong>November 5th, at 18:00 UTC:</strong> Live stream <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6N098ElnYU">WordPress 6.7 Highlights and Q &amp; A</a> with Jamie Marsland, Nick Diego and Rich Tabor.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/24/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-5-23-october/">What’s new in Gutenberg 19.5? (23 October)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s in the works</h2>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/">WordPress 6.7 Source of Truth</a></p>



<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>



<div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Did you like this episode? <a href="https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>



<li>Ping us on X (formerly known as Twitter) or send DMs with questions. <a href="https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/bph">@bph</a>.</li>



<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>



<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>
</ul>
</div></div>



<p class="has-large-font-size" id="transcript"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello, and welcome to our 110th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today&#8217;s episode we will talk about Gutenberg 19.5, WordPress 6.7, Create Block Theme plugin, and thousand block themes at the repository. Yay! I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress Open Source project sponsored by Automattic.</p>



<p>Today&#8217;s special guest has been on the show before and I&#8217;m thrilled to have her again, it&#8217;s the wonderfully smart Joni Halabi from Georgetown University in D.C. She was a guest on episodes 97 and 91. And she&#8217;s also the author of the article Static vs. Dynamic Blocks: What&#8217;s the difference? on the WordPress Developer blog. Welcome back, Joni. How are you today?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, thank you so much for having me. I&#8217;m doing great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Awesome. Awesome. So for our new listeners, maybe you can briefly introduce yourself and your connection to WordPress. And I know you changed responsibilities at Georgetown, so what are you working on now?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, so hi everybody. My name is Joni Halabi. I have been working at Georgetown University for the past eight and a half years. I started at Georgetown as a senior web developer with our web services group. And most of my responsibility was developing custom blocks and other post editor customizations in WordPress for our now over 500 sites that we support, which is super exciting.</p>



<p>I recently, as of about three and a half weeks ago, just switched roles and I am now the senior web manager for the office of the president. So I&#8217;ve gone from development to content. My primary role right now is to basically update the content for our president&#8217;s website and make sure that it has all of the information people need in terms of our university initiatives and other things that are important to our office.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Awesome.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>I&#8217;m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, no, absolutely. Always great to have you on the show, Joni. So 500 websites, that&#8217;s one number that I&#8217;m in awe of. Then going from custom block development to using as a content creator is probably a total different challenge because you can look back on so and so, &#8220;Oh, did we do this right?&#8221; kind of thing, yeah? And so bug reports.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, I think my old team is not going to be very happy with me because it is such a different perspective. As the developer, I never really got that 1,000 foot view of our websites in terms of how a content editor really sees these blocks. And to be on the other side of that and to be using these blocks and thinking about, &#8220;Okay, this is the story that I want to tell. How can I use these blocks,&#8221; it is such a different perspective. It&#8217;s an exciting perspective, but I already have ideas for new blocks that I want to exist.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Ok.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Sorry, services.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. So I&#8217;m not drilling down into that, but there&#8217;s certainly something to unpack for the next time you&#8217;re on the show. But it&#8217;s so great that you actually can change the perspective and kind of feel, &#8220;All right, now I get a 360 view on the whole WordPress content creation experience and block development.&#8221; So the next hurdle would be to tap your toes into block themes and kind of see how that works for your organization, for the web team, yeah?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>I would love to. I did some experimentation with block themes while I was there, and I could speak for the next 40 minutes about this, but the high level overview was I did an experiment where I created a block theme but connected it to our external patterns for different blocks in different parts of our pages because we were using KSS node for that to create a pattern library. And I&#8217;ve actually given a couple of talks on this topic. I did one at WP Campus last year. They&#8217;re all linked to you for my website, but yeah, it was a fascinating experiment. It&#8217;s complicated and not complicated. Like I said, I could talk for 40 minutes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. We&#8217;ll share the links in the show notes for our listeners to have a different perspective on things, so that&#8217;s really good. So you did get a 360 view on WordPress with all the experience that you have. Excellent, yeah.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements<strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h3>



<p>And for the show, we have a few announcements today for you, dear listeners. One is the developer blog or the contributors at the developer blog, we are starting something new, and that&#8217;s kind of a snippet library. We have one snippet online, that&#8217;s the first one because we need to iterate on the layout as well as on the editorial process for that. But it&#8217;s conditionally unregistered patterns. And Justin Tadlock put that up and he has a few use cases. One of them is, okay, you build your own custom blocks on the theme and use patterns for that, but if that block is not available on your site, you need to unregister the pattern too. So it&#8217;s not going to come in with, &#8220;Oh, this block is not available kind of thing.&#8221; So I think a lot of people who curate the editor experience for the clients can definitely use that as well to unregister some patterns from my block theme or so they haven&#8217;t built themselves. Yeah.</p>



<p>So if you have ideas about that, you can comment on that either on the Gutenberg Times on the podcast show or on Storify, where our podcast also landed and has a few listeners. So there is a little comment button on your mobile app where you can comment what other ideas you would need for snippets. I know that Nick Diego and Justin and myself and Ryan, we will probably brainstorm the first hundred snippets for that relatively fast.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Community Contributions &#8211; 1,000 Block Themes</h3>



<p>And then as from the intro, we have the announcement, a thousand block themes are now in the WordPress theme directory, yes. And it&#8217;s really amazing how fast. It took a little while. The first hundred took, I don&#8217;t know, a year, the second hundred another year, but then it kind of sped up until now. And we have three people who actually covered that this week. One is Ganga Kafle, he&#8217;s the co-team rep for the theme team, and he had statistics and that is that the first theme was done by Carolina Nymark early on. And then Automattic has 116 block themes in the repository. That&#8217;s about less than 10. Well, a little bit over 10%. And then there are other theme shops that have 20, 28, 30. Really the first 10 theme producers I think come up with about 400 or so. I haven&#8217;t ended up, maybe it might be 500. And then the rest is divided up by other people from the community. So yeah, bring your blog theme to the repository too.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, this is amazing to me because these only count the block themes that are in their repository. And I&#8217;m sure that there are so many authors and companies and organizations out there that have their own custom theme just for them that is probably a block theme. They&#8217;re just not in the theme repository. And it is so impressive that the adoption of block themes has happened this fast because it feels&#8230; I know it&#8217;s been a few years, but it feels like it&#8217;s only yesterday when block themes were introduced.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. And I think they&#8217;re only kind of viable now with the theme parts and the site editor where you can edit the templates. And then have the query loop has really emerged as a power tool for theme developers.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And there&#8217;s a lot of designers who don&#8217;t have to touch code to build themes and they use the site editor. So it&#8217;s just really amazing.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, it&#8217;s fabulous. I mean, you can start with the Twenty Twenty Four theme. I did this recently with the site. You can start with the Twenty Twenty Four theme, use that site editor and then copy. If you want to save all of your customizations, you can do everything that you want to in the site editor and then copy the HTML for your new templates, your new template parts, and paste it into a theme. And you have that saved if you need it. And it is so powerful. You don&#8217;t need the code. Somebody like me, I need the code. But somebody who&#8217;s not familiar with HTML or CSS or is intimidated by it, you don&#8217;t need to know it anymore. And it&#8217;s game changing.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s Released &#8211; Create Block Theme Plugin 2.6</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Absolutely. And the global styles and design tools that come with it, you can really say change the default look of blocks and it&#8217;s going to be saved. So the next thing that I wanted to point out here on this show is, and we talked about it before, but it seems that we talked, Joni, that you haven&#8217;t really used the Create Block Theme plugin yet. And that really helps theme developers to use the site editor to have everything that&#8217;s stored in the database, then exported into the theme files. And that is the most powerful thing that I&#8217;ve seen, that you can create a child theme, you can create or clone an existing theme on the site, or you start with a very bare bone skeleton, but then you can use the site editor to style your blocks, your sections, create patterns, and it all kind of comes together with saving the theme, exporting the theme, and have it outside.</p>



<p>Because the layer of having core styles then having theme styles, and then the user styles can only all come together in one theme if you want to reuse it. And that&#8217;s kind of the gap that the plugin really closes for that.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, that sounds amazing. I don&#8217;t know if you would know the answer to this, but has there been any talk about bringing that plugin into core because that feels like eventual core functionality?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, there is talk about it. And that plugin is pretty much like the Gutenberg plugin, kind of the beta version of what might come into core. I think it&#8217;s more the explanation while everything in core that touches the theme and the styles and the section styles and variations, those are still in active development. So the plugin is kind of following along in core and even goes a little bit further in core with the patterns, for instance, saving the patterns. But yeah, it would definitely be something that the developers kind of looking at, maybe bringing some of the features into core that are a little bit more mature once the features are kind of set in their ways, because some of that data views and some of the global styles that&#8217;s still so active in development that I think otherwise you couldn&#8217;t test the concepts if you put it in core because then it would be released and then it would be backwards compatible, and you don&#8217;t want to kind of be tied down to backwards compatibility.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>Yeah, that&#8217;s a lot of work. But I do. That&#8217;s great to hear. And I also do love this pattern of actively developing and testing something in a separate plugin with an eventual goal or a thought of bringing it to core. And it&#8217;s something that I always thought was unique to the Gutenberg plugin, but it&#8217;s nice to see that it&#8217;s also happening with other pieces, like larger pieces of functionality.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. Yeah. That happens actually also with improvements for the media library. The performance team has actually published, or Pascal from the performance team has some media experiments on his repo that are in the plugin. They&#8217;re not officially kind of WordPress. The Create Block Theme is on the WordPress organization, separate repo. But yeah, some of the contributors have done that with their own experimentation. So it&#8217;s really good to see.</p>



<p>Dave Smith has a plugin. He&#8217;s a core contributor, and he just released a plugin for the responsive navigation that&#8217;s not in core yet, but it&#8217;s kind of testing it out outside of the Gutenberg repo to get faster to feedback. And so I will share the links and also in the show notes, so you can explore those too dear listeners. But yeah, use the Create Block theme plugin to create your theme for the repository. You can then, I think there&#8217;s even some instructions on how to get it then into the repository, but that&#8217;s kind of with the SVN version control, it kind of is a different level of complexity, I would think. So having it rather than GitHub.</p>



<p>We also had a&#8230; And that might be interesting for you too. We had a hallway hangout with the designer of the Twenty Twenty Five theme, and she also works on some of the automatic themes. They have a process that uses Playground, the Create Block plugin and GitHub, to push changes to a theme from the site editor to a pull request on GitHub. And that&#8217;s just amazing. That process really amazed me and how that&#8217;s even possible, but there are magicians behind it, but it works.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> That sounds amazing. When is that hallway hangout?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> It was actually.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>Oh, was?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, yeah. I will share that in the show notes. And there&#8217;s a little video also with were Beatriz Fialho, who designed Twenty Twenty Four as well as Twenty Twenty Five, shows the process. It has one single little change, and then kind of from playground to GitHub, how that also works. Yeah, it&#8217;s really, really great to see.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi</em>: Oh, I will definitely be checking out that hangout. That sounds amazing. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So yeah, block themes. Yeah, go.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>So when I kept a close watch on the numbers throughout the last three years, and I always looked at some and also on the Gutenberg Times on the weekend edition, I sometimes said, &#8220;Okay, there are six new block themes. Who developed that?&#8221; So I looked at them. Some of them I really tried out. Carolina Nymark was one of the first theme developers. Who really embraced the process was Anders Noren from Norway. These a very successful theme developer, and he had a few quite interesting designs. But what I have noticed is that many, many block themes not only have some interesting style variations. And you can see them in the repository. You can see how the theme changes also has some of them have 30 patterns in there. It&#8217;s just amazing what creativity can do to the block themes now. So you don&#8217;t need to put one block at a time into your canvas. You can kind of take five patterns and your page is done. So it&#8217;s really good.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. I keep using the word game changer, but I mean, it&#8217;s-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it is.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> &#8230; facilitates so much creativity. I love everything about it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. I see many, many themes that are actually focused on certain verticals. So there are restaurant themes, there are for certain shops, there are for digital pieces for recipes. It&#8217;s very focused on the use case. And those make the patterns as well as the imagery that comes with it and the look and feel so much more focused to get a person from zero to hero on their own website. It&#8217;s really a great phenomenon.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, for sure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> You and I, we can talk more than 40 minutes about block themes.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I think we could. But this is not just the block theme show, we promise.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So well, two more things. The Create Block Theme plugin is in a new version, 2.6 came out this week. And it fixes two bugs, important bugs, that fix the image URL localization when you make a child theme so that the images come over from the patterns into the child theme. And the URL is the right one. The other one was that if you had in your blocks, HTML, it would escape. So when you use that pattern, you had all the HTML code in there and not the rendering from the browser, and that was fixed as well. So that was kind of an interesting bug to fix.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, those are always tricky, the encoding, encoding bugs. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, though that&#8217;s the smallest release of this week.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.7</h3>



<p>We had a bigger release that was the WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate came out. And with it, also the field guide. So if you haven&#8217;t tested 6.7 yet, now is the time you only have three weeks to test it against whatever product you have, your themes, your plugins, your maintenance processes, or just the sites that you have. And with playground, you can actually do a staging site, but there&#8217;s also InstaWP to kind of have a staging site.</p>



<p>And if you want to know the highlights from WordPress 6.7, there will be a YouTube live stream on November 5th at 18:00 UTC, and it&#8217;s with Jamie Marsland, Nick Diego and Rich Tabor kind of walk you through all the different things. We will talk a little bit later about them, the highlights that I see for 6.7 after we cover the Gutenberg 19.5 release.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Sounds good. Yeah, I&#8217;m excited for 6.7. Like you said, it&#8217;s coming November&#8230; Looks like November 12th.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yes.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> And I know especially for my previous team, it&#8217;s so important to start that testing now, especially if you have a lot of custom code on your sites. This is something that has burned our team in the past. Sometimes custom code is not backwards compatible with changes that are happening in core, like our own custom code that we write.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Right. It&#8217;s the future compatible.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, we&#8217;ve needed to make a few changes, and it&#8217;s just important to get all that testing in.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Definitely the dev notes will help you. They&#8217;re in the field guide. And there are quite a few changes, not breaking changes, but additional feature in there for developers where APIs are expanded, like the block bindings API and the interactivity API, block books, some performance tweaks as well. So definitely look at the field guide. And the links will be in the show notes. And I also will link all the block editor relevant dev notes individually in the show notes. We have space on our show notes. Anyway, yeah, well, let&#8217;s go into the Gutenberg 19.5 plugin release.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>Yes.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gutenberg 19.5</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So release-lead Hector Prieto wrote in his release post, &#8220;This release focuses on stabilizing existing features, but also brings some improvements to the general UI and the zooming, editing experience with 116 PRs from 47 contributors.&#8221;</p>



<p>So yeah, let&#8217;s get going. General interface changes. One is the right design tool. Now you can persist your user preference through the preference option on the plugin, in the plugin editor. So that&#8217;s good.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. That one I have been waiting for because I often switch between the visual editor and the code editor, and I don&#8217;t always remember that I do that. So if I go into a page and I switch into the code editor and then I have to edit another page, I expect to go into the visual editor. Sometimes I&#8217;m surprised when I am somehow in the code editor because I just forget that, &#8220;Oh yeah, right. The last page I was in, I was in the code editor.&#8221; But I always found it interesting that WordPress made the assumption that because I went into the code editor last, that is something I will continue to do. So I love that this is a setting now.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enhancements</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And I&#8217;m not quite sure it is actually the setting that you&#8217;re thinking about because the editor has now on top of the toolbar, there&#8217;s also a write and design tool. There was previously the select and edit tool where you can switch, especially for those who are traveling with a keyboard instead of the mouse, there was a difference between getting into a block to work in the block or to travel from one block to the next. So that was the select was the traveling from one block to the next. And then the writing part or the editing part was actually the block part where you can use the toolbar or you added content to a particular block.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I think I interpreted the Git, the pull request wrong then. Interesting.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And there is also a change in how those two modes behave when you are in the zoom out mode.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Wow. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> 6.7 brings us the zoom out mode, but not the editing of design switches to it, only for the pattern. So that is the next thing on our list, is that the zoom out mode in 6.7 is just with a toggle button. With a new Gutenberg release, if you have that, it will also automatically zoom out when you use the pattern tab in the inserter when you want to drag and drop a pattern over to your site and you need a little bit better of a bird&#8217;s eye view on your page instead of just having that one kind of block in front of you. It&#8217;s a much better way to add. So you can now kind of drag and drop patterns over and move them up and down without having to deal with all the blocks around it or in it.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, yeah, no, there&#8217;s a great animation of this in the pull request that it&#8217;s nice to be able&#8230; Because when you&#8217;re talking about a pattern, you are talking about more than one block that can stand a good chunk of your page depending on the pattern. So it is nice to be able to see that in context, to see your entire page as it stands. Now if you&#8217;re trying to add another pattern and it just helps you think about, &#8220;Okay, well where can this new pattern go?&#8221; with respect to the entire page.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Exactly.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> That is definitely one of the important ones. There are a number of changes to that zoom out functionality in this release, but that when you select the pattern tab, but that&#8217;s definitely one of the biggies.</p>



<p>The next, I guess, really two sets of changes have to do with the component storybook. So there are a couple of changes to note. One, adding type tokens to storybook. And the other one is just stubbing out documentation on existing colors in a theme. And I think these are so fundamental because storybook talks about design in terms of the components in the UI. And I guess it just surprised me that it wasn&#8217;t there before, but color and photography are so basic to any design for anything that it is. I think it&#8217;s a wonderful change that these both are being added into storybook now. You can see basically the colors that exist in the base styles now, and then having the type tokens, you can see all of the register of typography. So you can see semantic tokens, like what are your different heading levels, for example. What does body text look like? And these are just fundamental design elements that I&#8217;m glad they&#8217;re there now.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. You have been part of our live Q&amp;A and design systems. Now the WordPress design team is actually building out their design system through that storybook because the admin design now needs also the funds. And not only just the data views, how they&#8217;re in the site editor, but when you go to the next level and have the admin move over to the new design, you need to have standardized colors and standardized funds and all that. And that&#8217;s where the storybook comes in to have a unified system and standard for all the contributors that are either back end or front end or plugin developers to kind of figure out. So none of the developers have to make all the design decisions. Again, it speeds up the plugin development or the core development quite a bit when there is a design system there, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. That&#8217;s fabulous.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> For the global styles, contributors improved the navigation logic for the revision screen. That had quite a change in a few of the plugin releases before and how do you get to the revisions of your styles. It&#8217;s a great change to see how you can see the revisions for your styles that are a little compressed and much easier to navigate in the animation. So it talks about the global styles are in the right-hand sidebar, and that&#8217;s also where you find the revisions of your changes. I&#8217;m so happy that we have those revisions because after playing around with a theme or with a site for, I don&#8217;t know, 30 minutes, I don&#8217;t know, I reversed some of my decisions because, &#8220;Oh, that looked nice 20 minutes ago, but now I don&#8217;t like it anymore.&#8221; So reversing that through the revisions panel is really cool. The team is working on, it&#8217;s really cool.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>Yeah, no, no, no. I love that they&#8217;re working on that because I feel like a lot of our content editors don&#8217;t realize that revisions exist and it is such a powerful tool. So to be able to make improvements to the UI and maybe make it a little more obvious about how to use revisions, I think, will help our editors a lot.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And it&#8217;s not only&#8230; Well, they still have to work on the content revisions for posts and pages.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> That&#8217;s it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> They still don&#8217;t know what to do with blocks, but yeah.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I mean, that does help you then.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> But that&#8217;s coming.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. I mean, revisions, being able to work on the UI for revisions at any part of the styles or the&#8230; The styles, I feel like, is step one. So this is a great updates.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: They&#8217;re already there, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. So in black bindings, we&#8217;ve now added the ability to register binding sources in the widget screen. So block bindings, for anyone who&#8217;s not familiar with, it&#8217;s when the content of a block is tied to some sort of external data source. So you could have a paragraph that is tied to some RSS feed maybe or anything.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. Or meta fields, a custom field.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Right. Or meta field, yeah. So this particular change makes sure that a block, like a paragraph, inside a widget can also be bound to some sort of custom source, like a meta field.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And we haven&#8217;t heard about the widget screens for a long time, so I&#8217;m really happy that there are some people still thinking, &#8220;Okay, there&#8217;s another block editor that has been neglected for a bit.&#8221; But I think the unification efforts between post editor and site editor, they&#8217;re done now. And I think looking at the widget screen is one of the next steps. And having the binding sources there definitely helps because that&#8217;s what you want to put in additional information there.</p>



<p>The cover block experience, they refactor of the settings panel. It streamlined all the different features for a cover block and has some pull out. Up until now in the plugin, you had all the settings for the cover block in one sidebar. From top to bottom, you had to scroll. But now there is a three-dot menu there where you can switch off some of the features so you don&#8217;t have to scroll to them all of the time. So it&#8217;s similar to the typography settings as well as the dimension settings. Now, it&#8217;s just adopted the same philosophy there that not all the features are shown at the first time or by default.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, this is nice to see because the cover block has gotten complex for a reason. There&#8217;s a lot going on in terms of settings with the cover block, so it&#8217;s nice to see improvements there in that UI.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, absolutely.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bug Fixes</h3>



<p>So that kind of covers all the enhancements that we had, but there are a few bug fixes we wanted to talk to you about. The code block now has a left-to-right direction for right-to-left languages. Can you explain that to me?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yes. So it&#8217;s tricky to read, right? So right-to-left languages, so think Hebrew, think Arabic. When you write, the paragraphs and the headings that you write go from your right hand to your left hand. But when you&#8217;re writing code, if you&#8217;re a native speaker, if you&#8217;re writing prose in a right-to-left language, but you&#8217;re writing code, your code is still left-to-right. So this is making sure that, let&#8217;s say that you have a page, let&#8217;s say that you&#8217;re blogging in Arabic and you&#8217;re blogging about this really cool feature that you just wrote and you write your paragraph and it&#8217;s in Arabic and it&#8217;s from right to left, but you want to feature a code snippet. This is to make sure that the code on your page is still displayed left-to-right, because that is still how we write code regardless of what spoken language we are writing or reading or speaking.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> That makes so much more sense now. Thank you.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> It is. I mean, it&#8217;s a lot of letters in that headline, so I understand why.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And for someone who never knows where left and right is, it&#8217;s going to, &#8220;What?&#8221;</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I still have to do the hand trick where I make my index and my thumb form basically be at right angles of each other. And the one that makes the L is my left hand. And I still do this, so I understand.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, well that&#8217;s when my husband says, &#8220;The other left&#8221; when I go wrong.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s always fun.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And now&#8230; Go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, no, so another fix is do not&#8230; I&#8217;m just going to read this title, don&#8217;t render image when the source attribute is empty, which feels very obvious. But this was a bug fix where if you had an image, an image tag, but an empty source, that image tag was still getting rendered. And there&#8217;s no point in rendering an image tag if there&#8217;s no source. So this fixes that bug.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> It sounds like a rookie bug, but sometimes they just sneak in.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi: </em>Yep.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, I have done a lot of dumb things like that. And then one is PR is in terms of extensibility, it kind of renames the register block template from W_register_block_templatetoregister_block_template. So the WP prefix is kind of taken away because it seems to be obvious and it follows other register block kind of function. But if you have been testing things with the new register block template for the plugins, you might want to look at your code and kind of remove the prefix kind of thing. I think that was back ordered to 6.7, so it&#8217;s in the 6.7. But if you have done it up until beta 3, I think with WP you can remove it now.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah. And I think you have to, because if I&#8217;m reading that PR correctly, there is no backwards compatibility for the WP prefixed version of this function, which it didn&#8217;t seem like it was supposed to be in anyone&#8217;s code anyway like in a custom developer&#8217;s code. But please double check your code.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, well, it&#8217;s a new feature for 6.7.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, okay.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So it wasn&#8217;t backwards compatible, it just kind of wasn&#8217;t a kind of discussion now through co-op contributors. So this comes as a new function, &#8220;Can we make it uniform with the other register block kind of functions and remove the WP?&#8221; And so there is no backwards compatibility because it hasn&#8217;t been in the future, but it was in WordPress 6.7 alpha up until beta 2 or beta 3, and only for the release candidate, they take the WP out. So if somebody wrote a plugin template already to come out in 6.7, when 6.7 comes out, that&#8217;s the code to check again. Does it make sense?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> That does make sense. Thank you, yeah. I didn&#8217;t realize that was that new. That&#8217;s awesome.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it&#8217;s part of the&#8230; So now plugins can register templates for the site editor. So when you have a plugin that does a business directory or something like that, you can now register a template that then a user can modify in the site editor, which was before not possible or was a really hacky way to get it into that. And then you can, as a plugin developer, also document that. So the theme developer can also modify that template or build pattern for the template or something, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Nice.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Documentation</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, that&#8217;s nice. I like it. And I wanted to point out a couple documentation changes. There was in a previous version of the plugin and for 6.7 a method to curate the heading level through level options. And that is now documented in the block editor handbook. So you can say, &#8220;Okay, if your content editor uses the heading block, you don&#8217;t want a heading one, you don&#8217;t want a heading four or five and six. There are only two heading levels that they can use. And that&#8217;s heading two and heading three.&#8221; You can do it now and have also your patterns, follow that through a block attribute. And you can also use it for your custom blocks. It&#8217;s in the site title, post title. And for where you ever use headings, you can change that there as well. And it&#8217;s in from the toolbar, so it&#8217;s documented now.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Excellent. Yes, and I love this feature and I love that it&#8217;s now documented just from an accessibility perspective because making sure that your heading levels are in order and makes sense is part of your site accessibility. So for example, having an H1 followed by an H4 doesn&#8217;t make much sense. You want these headings to go in order. So this feature helps us enforce that. And this new addition to the documentation helps people use the feature.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, absolutely. So on the second documentation was just to announce that the components packages now produce the readme file with the documentation through an auto generator. So they&#8217;re at least standardized. And developers can, through their code, also control the documentation, but it doesn&#8217;t have to be an afterthought anymore and it&#8217;s standardized. So that&#8217;s kind of the first step to have some standardized component readmes because there are hit-and-miss to be honest. And this is kind of a part to rectify downtown.</p>



<p>Joni Halabi: Nice.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And that&#8217;s it, dear listeners. That&#8217;s Gutenberg&#8217;s 19.5 for you.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s in Active Development or Discussed &#8211; WordPress 6.7</h3>



<p>So I promise you we&#8217;re going to talk about WordPress 6.7 a bit. So there are a few high level things. There are tons of changes in there, smaller ones and big ones. Anne McCarthy publishes for the last 10 releases, I think, a Source of Truth, which is mostly for writers who want to write about the new release to get in-depth information, to also get assets that they can use in their writing. But that is now published on the Gutenberg Times. So I will link through the show notes to that. So you can also follow up on some of the details there.</p>



<p>I like to point out, well, we all know Twenty Twenty Five is the new default theme, and I have had a lot of fun with it. It was really good. I prepared a talk for German WordCamp where I was almost using up all my time with the Twenty Twenty Five standard theme, which wasn&#8217;t particularly well organized, but that&#8217;s a different story. But my excitement kind of spilled over that I got on a tangent. And so I really, really like that it has about, I think, 50 patterns for all kind of different things because it wants to be a starter theme for a personal blogger or for a photo blogger or for a magazine style site and has templates for all of them, and also different ways for the different templates. So you can have a query loop template with different ways how the post comes in. I think there are about 10 or so different ways to organize that. Then there are services, price tables, testimonials, not only in one pattern, but maybe two or three patterns of that. So that&#8217;s really cool.</p>



<p>And what the crown of it is, that there are also four different&#8230; So there were color variations for the full theme. And then there are style variations for the full theme that changes the look and feel, but it also has separate color variations. So you could just leave the style like it is, but only change the color combination. Or you can say, &#8220;Okay, I want it like it is, but I just want to change the font.&#8221; So there are font variations as well.</p>



<p>And then there are section styles. So when you have a group pricing header or a pricing section or a group block with a call to action, you can actually use four or five different styles. So when you add them to your page, you actually can change the color of each of them, but still be in a full theme variation. But it makes it much livelier to scroll through a page that has several sections that also changed the colors, but it&#8217;s really well done and they have been all tested. So it&#8217;s a really good theme. Kudos to Carolina Nymark and Juan Aldazoro. Oh, I&#8217;m butchering his name. Sorry, hang on.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I was just going to say while you&#8217;re looking that up, you talked quite a bit about the colors and a bit about the fonts, I love that these font variations include font combinations. So the font variation has these combinations of a header. They&#8217;re a set of a header and body fonts. And that is one of the most challenging things I have experienced trying to design a site, just trying to find a really good combination of a header font and text font. And this gives you eight different options that I can see that are really solid options. If you&#8217;re a bit shy about design and playing with typography, you can choose one of these eight and there are no bad choices here.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, yeah, no, the developers and designers that build out the theme, so the design comes from Beatriz Fialho, but Juan Aldazoro is his name, Juan Aldazoro and Carolina Nymark are the lead developers on the Twenty Twenty Five default theme, and they did a marvelous job also. But there are also about, I don&#8217;t know, 30 to 50 additional contributors that delivered patterns. So it&#8217;s actually a larger group of people who built this theme, and it&#8217;s really fabulous. So try it out and look at that.</p>



<p>The query loop, so that was part of it that I tried out the new features for the query loop. It is now optimized and streamlined. So you have all kinds of filter settings. You can filter by author, date, or you can say, &#8220;Okay, I want to have a post loop just for a custom post type with custom fields.&#8221; And all of that is now possible for any template you can use. Or you can just use them on the post and say, &#8220;Okay, I want from the same category or the post from there, except this one.&#8221; So you can also include post and offset post. All the features are now available. Some of them were in the toolbar and now then the sidebar complete with all the new ones. That is a really great quality of life kind of change.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh yeah, for sure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>We talked about the zoom out for the template handling. The page views and the site editor, that&#8217;s more the data views kind of how in the admin section how you can view the pages. There are some previews. There&#8217;s a list view where you have a three pane window. On the left-hand side, you have the block site editor navigation with the published kind of status. And then in the middle you have all the list, all the pages. And then when you click on them, the third pane is a preview of the page. So you don&#8217;t have to go back and forth when you just want to look at, &#8220;Okay, what&#8217;s in the page here? How does it look?&#8221; So you can also have it right there. So it&#8217;s a really improvement in navigating your pages.</p>



<p>Yeah, I wish that was available for posts, but the developers are working on it. There&#8217;s an experiment. If you use 19.5 Gutenberg plugin and there&#8217;s an experiment menu item there and you enable the post data views, then you can see how that also works for posts. But it&#8217;s a little harder to make it for posts because there are so many customizations and things to look at. So right now it&#8217;s an experiment, but always welcome for feedback. Do you have any questions about things?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> No, no. I was just going to say, as somebody who&#8217;s now less on the development side of things and more on the content side of things, I appreciate something that will make editing easier and being able to see those changes easier. Because like you were saying, having to flip between different screens, it&#8217;s not ideal. So seeing improvements, even if it&#8217;s not on posts yet, it&#8217;s coming to posts, that is something I&#8217;m looking forward to.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, they&#8217;re also experimenting with a quick edit part. So yeah, in the current admin you have the quick edit section where you change categories and rename things.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, love it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>So that also is coming to the data view section, so you can have that part as well if you missed it until now.</p>



<p>A lot of designers are really excited about having background images not only for blocks like the cover block, but now you can also do it for group block. And you can have it site wide. So there is in the global styles, in the first list of typography and layout and styles, and there&#8217;s now one for background image. So you can have your clouds there or your tiles or whatever you need from your site. And sometimes I feel we could go back to GeoCities sites.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I was just thinking GeoCities. And in my head I was wondering like, &#8220;Should I bring it up? This is still very retro &#8217;90s.&#8221; Can I just make a shout-out? Please do not put in an animated background. It&#8217;ll make everybody who works in accessibility cry.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. Yeah. I think it only&#8230; It doesn&#8217;t do animated GIFs.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, good.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> I think it&#8217;s just Gs or JPEGs. Yeah, but you&#8217;re right. Yeah, that would be really cool. Hilarious, yeah. But I&#8217;m thinking that there are some designs that can be quite unique with that. I remember one of my first backgrounds was really bright red and bright blue, and then I had white fonts on it, and you couldn&#8217;t read what you were writing or what I was writing for it, so.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, yeah. I remember when we were talking about Web 2.0 in the late &#8217;90s, and I was in an electronic arts curriculum at that point, and we were making web pages with hidden links. So you had to explore the page just by moving your mouse around to see if you happen to stumble upon a link. This will literally make everybody sad now. We know better, but this was experimentation in the late &#8217;90s.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. Unless it&#8217;s a game or something like that, but yeah.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yeah, yeah. Exactly.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So yeah, apart from the developer API changes that are there, so these are kind of my highlights for WordPress 6.7. And there are improved blocks. Most blocks now have border support that we are missing for&#8230; Only six or seven blocks at border support. And now almost every block has a border support with 6.7. So again, I will share the Source of Truth post from the Gutenberg Times, and also a link to the November 5th highlight live stream on YouTube for those who want to hear and see things beyond a podcast, which is really hard to demo things, but yeah.</p>



<p>Well, is there anything else that you want to talk about, about block themes, block editor, WordPress or your life?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, I could go on about so many of those things, but I think we&#8217;ve covered the basics. I think we&#8217;ve covered all the important things.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So let me ask you this. If you now do a lot of content, are you going to go back to some block writing or coding in your spare time, kind of rest your brain from the content editing and just do some coding?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> I might. My challenge is finding spare time. My life is very filled with just research and writing, and then also my child and raising a six-year-old, like I will have spare time in about 12 years.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Okay. We&#8217;ll talk about it. What is that? WordPress 15.6 or something like that?</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Oh, probably. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Well, this was lovely. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show. And we will hear from you sooner than in 12 years.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Yes, I certainly hope so.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> &#8230; when you come back to show. Yeah. Well, it was great that we had you again and you walked with me through all the announcements and stuff there.</p>



<p>I will share some links for Joni Halabi if you want to get in contact with her. I mentioned the Static versus Dynamic Blocks article on the developer blog. Joni also wrote a book, Sweet Little You, and that&#8217;s available. And then I&#8217;ll have the LinkedIn link as well as the WordPress profile link for you if you want to get in contact with Joni.</p>



<p>As always, the show notes will be published on <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenbergtimes.com/podcast</a>. This is show 110. And if you have questions or suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@Gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@Gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s <a href="mailto:changelog@Gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@Gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And this is it. Thank you for listening. And if you want to comment on&#8230; What is it? It&#8217;s not Storify, it&#8217;s not Shopify, it&#8217;s Spotify.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi:</em> Spotify.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Spotify. When you listen on the Comcast there, send in a comment. If you listen on Apple, do a review. If you listen on Pocket Casts also, feel free to review our show so more people can join us for the next time. Thanks for listening and goodbye.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Goodbye, Joni. Thank you.</p>



<p><em>Joni Halabi</em>: Goodbye. Thank you so much.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 27 Oct 2024 08:17:38 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"Gutenberg Times: Over 1000 Block Themes, Gutenberg 19.5, Fieldguide WordPress 6.7 — Weekend edition #309";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=30554";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:110:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/over-1000-block-themes-gutenberg-19-5-fieldguide-wordpress-6-7-weekend-edition-309/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18584:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>How are you today? It&#8217;s getting cold again in Munich. This year, I am hopefully better prepared for the Winter than last year.</p>



<p>After a few days struggling to figure out the problem, <strong>Gutenberg Nightly</strong> is now available again&nbsp;<a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">via Playground</a>&nbsp;or from the page <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Need a zip from Gutenberg trunk branch?</a>  Huge Thank You to <a href="https://x.com/jonsurrell"><strong>Jon Surrell </strong></a>for fixing the repo and the build process. </p>



<p>I hope you&#8217;ll have a restful weekend. </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/over-1000-block-themes-gutenberg-19-5-fieldguide-wordpress-6-7-weekend-edition-309/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/over-1000-block-themes-gutenberg-19-5-fieldguide-wordpress-6-7-weekend-edition-309/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/over-1000-block-themes-gutenberg-19-5-fieldguide-wordpress-6-7-weekend-edition-309/#1-000-block-themes-in-the-wordpress-theme-directory">1,000 Block Themes in the WordPress theme directory! </a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/over-1000-block-themes-gutenberg-19-5-fieldguide-wordpress-6-7-weekend-edition-309/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ol>
</div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p>ICYMI Here are the block editor related <strong>Dev Notes</strong> from the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-6-7-release-candidate-1/"><strong>WordPress 6.7 RC1 </strong></a>release and the <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/23/wordpress-6-7-field-guide/">Fieldguide for WordPress 6.7</a></strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/updates-to-block-hooks-in-wordpress-6-7/">Updates to Block Hooks in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/block-bindings-improvements-to-the-editor-experience-in-6-7/">Block Bindings: Improvements to the Editor Experience in 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/developer-notes-for-zoom-out-in-wordpress-6-7/">Developer Notes for Zoom Out in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/new-plugin-template-registration-api-in-wordpress-6-7/">New Plugin Template Registration API in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/miscellaneous-block-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-7/">Miscellaneous Block Editor Changes in WordPress 6.7</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images-in-wordpress-6-7/">Auto Sizes for Lazy Loaded Images in WordPress 6.7</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/post-editor-iframing-with-meta-boxes-in-wordpress-6-7/">Post Editor iframing with meta boxes in WordPress 6.7</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/editor-components-updates-in-wordpress-6-7/">Updates to user-interface components in WordPress 6.7</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/extending-the-preview-dropdown-menu-in-wordpress-6-7/">Extending the Preview Dropdown Menu in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/new-block-type-registration-apis-to-improve-performance-in-wordpress-6-7/">New block type registration APIs to improve performance in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/roster-of-design-tools-per-block-wordpress-6-6-edition-2/">Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.7 edition)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/updates-to-the-html-api-in-6-7/">Updates to the HTML API in 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/15/subscribe-to-changes-in-the-interactivity-api-state-and-context-on-client-side-navigation-in-6-7/">Subscribe to changes in the Interactivity API state and context on client-side navigation in 6.7</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/14/updates-to-script-modules-in-6-7/">Updates to Script Modules in 6.7</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Seizing the moment, <a href="https://x.com/webtng">David McCan</a> published a tutorial on <a href="https://www.webtng.com/how-to-use-the-wordpress-beta-tester-plugin/"><strong>How to Use the WordPress Beta Tester Plugin</strong></a>. It&#8217;s a great tool that allows you to test pre-release edition of the next WordPress version. &#8220;There are a lot of reasons why people want to test a pre-release. Maybe you’re a theme or a plugin developer, and you want to make sure that your theme or plugin is going to work with the next version of WordPress. Or maybe you’ve got some critical sites, and you want to make sure there aren’t going to be any surprises with the next version of WordPress. Or maybe you’re curious about the upcoming changes and features that will be in the next version.&#8221; he wrote. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>A reminder: <a href="https://x.com/ankitguptaindia"><strong>Ankit K Gupta</strong></a>, release co-lead for testing, provided detailed instructions on how to <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/10/01/help-test-wordpress-6-7/"><strong>Help test WordPress 6.7 </strong></a></li>



<li>ICYMI:<strong> Anne McCarthy </strong>published the<strong> <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/tag/source-of-truth/">Source of Truth</a></strong> for WordPress 6.7 last week. </li>
</ul>



<p>Save the date! <strong>November 5th, 2024 at 17:00 UTC</strong> with a live stream on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6N098ElnYU"><strong>WordPress 6.7 Highlights a Q &amp; A</strong></a> with Jamie Marsland, Rich Tabor and Nick Diego </p>


<div width="100%" class="wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block">
<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<div class="toolbelt-video-wrapper"></div>
</div>
</div>


<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Gutenberg 19.5 </strong>was released and Hector Prieto wrote in his release post <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/24/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-5-23-october/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 19.5? (23 October)</strong></a>, that the release mostly focused on stabilizing existing features but also brings some improvements to the general&nbsp;UI&nbsp;and the zooming editing experience. </p>



<p>He highlighted: </p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/24/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-5-23-october/#smoother-zoom-in-out-experience">Smoother Zoom in/out experience</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/24/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-5-23-october/#other-notable-changes">Other notable changes</a></li>
</ol>



<img width="652" height="367" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/gb-19-5-icon-update-768x432-1.png?resize=652%2C367&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30599" />



<p>It was a great pleasure to have <strong>Joni Halabi</strong>, Georgetown University, on the show again and to geek out over the block editor. We discussed, Gutenberg 19.5, Create Block theme plugin and marvel at the fact there are now 1000 Block Themes available in the WordPress repo. The episode 110  arrive at your favorite podcast app over the weekend. If you listen to the podcast on Spotify, you can now leave a comment from your phone. I would love to get connected with more listeners.</p>



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<p>🎙️ Latest episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-110-gutenberg-19-5-wordpress-6-7-create-block-theme-plugin/">Gutenberg Changelog #110 – Gutenberg 19.5, WordPress 6.7, Create Block Theme Plugin and a Thousand Block Themes at the Repository</a> with Joni Halabi </p>



<img width="652" height="184" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-25-at-17.17.35.png?resize=652%2C184&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30608" />
</div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p><strong>Elliot Richmond</strong> demos a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTMo5yy2M_I"><strong>Mobile Fix for Complex Layouts in the WordPress Block Editor (No Theme Files Needed)</strong></a>, You&#8217;ll learn how to write custom CSS using the browser inspector and style editor, then paste it into the block editor for a no-code-friendly mobile solution.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/noruzzaman/overlay/about-this-profile/"><strong>Md Noruzzaman</strong></a> just added the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/geomap-block/"><strong>Geomap Block</strong></a> to the plugin repository that allows you to add a basic Google map to your post or pages without handline API keys.</p>



<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/geomap-block/"><img width="652" height="409" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-24-at-15.37.49.png?resize=652%2C409&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30583" /></a>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Wes Theron</strong> recorded a new video for <em>Learn.WordPress</em> on how to <a href="https://wordpress.tv/2024/10/22/creating-a-portfolio-site-with-a-block-theme-and-patterns/"><strong>create a portfolio site with a block theme and&nbsp;patterns</strong></a> using a up-and-coming <strong><a href="https://2025.wordpress.net">Twenty Twenty-Five</a></strong> WordPress default theme which has an extensive pattern library. This will show you how to leverage these patterns to save time and build your site from a solid foundation.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Over at the CSS Tricks, <strong>Geoff Graham</strong> shared Justin Tadlock&#8217;s article on the Developer blog, and ruminated in <a href="https://css-tricks.com/mastering-theme-json-you-might-not-need-css/"><strong>Mastering theme.json: You might not need&nbsp;CSS</strong></a> about writing CSS in style sheets vs. CSS in JS and WordPress way. &#8220;Regardless of all that, I’m linking this up because Justin does bang-up work (no surprise, really) explaining and illustrating the ways of CSS-in-WordPress.&#8221; Graham wrote. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-000-block-themes-in-the-wordpress-theme-directory">1,000 Block Themes in the WordPress theme directory! <a href="https://x.com/bph/status/1848663985547030832/photo/1"></a></h3>



<p>Theme team rep, <strong><a href="https://x.com/TheKafleG">Ganga Kafle</a></strong>, invites you to <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2024/10/23/celebrating-1000-block-themes-in-the-themes-repository/"><strong>Celebrate 1,000 Block Themes in the themes repository!</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> also published on WordPress News: <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-community-creates-1000-block-themes-in-1000-days/"><strong>WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>Jyolsna J E </strong>also covered this major milestone for the WPTavern: <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-repository-now-houses-1000-block-themes"><strong>WordPress Themes Repository Now Houses 1000 Block Themes</strong></a></p>



<img width="652" height="341" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/blockthemes-featured-image-news-scaled-1.webp?resize=652%2C341&ssl=1" alt="1,000 Block Themes" class="wp-image-30594" />



<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2024&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />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. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/">2020</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/">2021</a></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/">2022</a></strong></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023">2023</a></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>



<p>Have you ever run into a situation where you needed to unregister a block pattern in your theme?&nbsp;<strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> has the right snippet for you. <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/snippets/conditionally-unregister-patterns/"><strong>Snippet: Conditionally unregister patterns</strong></a>. This post also starts a new section on the Developer Blog of short code snippets that any developer could use for a specific use case. For now, we still need to get some kinks out of theme and editorial process, but soon we start publishing more code snippets in CSS, PHP, JavaScript, or JSON </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his latest video tutorial, <a href="https://www.briancoords.com/add-custom-css-and-javascript-to-any-wordpress-block/"><strong>Add custom CSS and JavaScript to any WordPress block</strong></a>, <strong>Brian Coords</strong>, walks you through the process of modifying any block.json with simple PHP to load your own custom CSS and JavaScript. The post also holds the full transcript of the video for those of us who want to read along. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In this week&#8217;s live stream, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> showed <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQv9EaBbdJ8">how to turbocharge Your WordPress with Custom Blocks in WordPress 6.7</a></strong>, disseminating the information from the Dev Note <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/new-block-type-registration-apis-to-improve-performance-in-wordpress-6-7/">New block type registration APIs to improve performance in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>



<p>Now also available via <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Email me </a>with your experience</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>


<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>


<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 26 Oct 2024 02:21:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:11:"
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:36:"HeroPress: Building For Their Future";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://heropress.com/?p=7578";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"https://heropress.com/building-for-their-future/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=building-for-their-future";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2423:"<img width="800" height="532" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/kolkata_child.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Child being bathed in an alley in Kolkata" /><p>HeroPress was inspired by a photo. </p>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daverosen/">Dave</a> (who bootstrapped the project) gave me one mandate: &#8220;I&#8217;m very open to whatever you make, but whatever it is, in some way I want it to help this child&#8221;. And he sent the following photo.</p>



<a href="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/kolkata_child.jpg" class="kb-advanced-image-link"><img width="800" height="532" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/kolkata_child.jpg" alt="Child being bathed in an alley in Kolkata" class="kb-img wp-image-7579" /></a>



<p>Now that&#8217;s a stock photo, you can find it all over the web.  We&#8217;ll never know who that specific kid is, but the point was that there are millions of kids like that in India, and Dave wanted to give a boost to as many of them as we could. Ever since then, HeroPress has been deeply tied to India.</p>



<p>Recently I was telling this story to Nathan Wrigley on the <a href="https://wpbuilds.com/2024/10/24/395-heropress-what-it-is-and-why-its-so-important/">WPBuilds Podcast</a>. I was talking about my concern for the WordPress community in these days of difficulty. Many many Indians have gotten their start in computing in their early teens, on their own computer, or a borrowed one, or even on just a phone.</p>



<p>While we were talking I realized, if this kid were about 3-5 years old when the photo was taken, approximately 10 years ago when HeroPress started, it&#8217;s entirely possible he&#8217;s 13-15 years old now, and could very well be learning about WordPress.  And it&#8217;s entirely possible HeroPress has helped him.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ll never know of course, but can say for a certainty that HeroPress has helped people LIKE him.</p>



<p>Mission accomplished Dave.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to help HeroPress continue to help people of all ages, <a href="https://heropress.com/contributor-map/">everywhere in the world</a>, leave a <a href="https://heropress.com/donate/">donation</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://heropress.com/building-for-their-future/">Building For Their Future</a> appeared first on <a href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 25 Oct 2024 16:39:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"Do The Woo Community: Do the Woo Friday Shares, Starting Today";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://dothewoo.io/?post_type=blog&p=86303";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"https://dothewoo.io/blog/do-the-woo-friday-shares-starting-today/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:204:"Friday shares recap weekly highlights and content from Do the Woo community, featuring diverse resources, news, and events aimed at enhancing engagement and contributions within WordPress and WooCommerce.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 25 Oct 2024 09:23:47 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"Do The Woo Community: Around the Corner, WooSesh 2024";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86292";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:51:"https://dothewoo.io/around-the-corner-woosesh-2024/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:149:"BobWP reminds the community to register for the free WooSesh 2024 event on October 29-30, featuring valuable sessions, live chats, and Seshie voting.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:56:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"WPTavern: WordPress Themes Repository Now Houses 1000 Block Themes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=176325";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-themes-repository-now-houses-1000-block-themes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3630:"<p>The WordPress Themes Repository has hit an exciting milestone of <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">1,000 block themes</a>. As of today, the repository has over 12,000 free themes.&nbsp;</p>



<img width="3021" height="1612" tabindex="0" src="https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/image-39.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176334" />



<p>Block themes were introduced in WordPress 5.9 allowing users to create and customize all aspects of their site using the block editor. This ushered in a new era of site design, and in July 2022, the Themes Repository celebrated reaching the <a href="https://x.com/justintadlock/status/1549025125441441792">100-block-theme</a> mark. It hit the <a href="https://x.com/bph/status/1605806982446850048">200 mark</a> in December 2022.</p>



<p>The journey of block themes was not without challenges leading to the <a href="https://wptavern.com/what-arent-more-wordpress-theme-authors-creating-block-themes">community discussing</a> why more theme authors were not embracing block themes. To give block themes greater visibility, a “Block Themes” menu item was added to the filter menu on the directory homepage, helping developers and site owners discover these innovative designs more easily.</p>



<p>Ganga Kafle, a representative of the WordPress.org Themes Team, has <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2024/10/23/celebrating-1000-block-themes-in-the-themes-repository/">shared</a> more details about block themes and contributors. The very first block theme to go live was Armando, a theme crafted by Carolina Nymark. Today, Automattic leads the contributions to the block themes category with 116 themes, followed by Creta Themes with 41 themes.&nbsp;</p>



<img width="3222" height="1592" tabindex="0" src="https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/image-37.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176327" />Top 10  WordPress Theme Contributors



<p>Ganga Kafle also shared the team’s vision, “The themes team would like to see more block themes. We expect an influx of innovative designs and functionalities. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or site owner, the potential of block themes offers exciting opportunities for creativity and customization.”</p>



<p>Remkus de Vries <a href="https://x.com/remkusdevries/status/1848703764896629067">tweeted</a>, &#8220;It started out real slow, but it seems we&#8217;ve finally got some momentum for the Block Themes. Let&#8217;s see how long it takes for the next 1000!&#8221; while Jeff Chandler <a href="https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1848678432147747079">tweeted</a>, &#8220;Back in 2021, Matt&#8217;s request was for 5,000 block themes, not 1,000 lol. Still a bit shy of that number :D.&#8221;</p>



<p>Automattic Product Wrangler Anne McCarthy also published <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-community-creates-1000-block-themes-in-1000-days/">WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days</a> to mark the occassion. </p>



<p>For developers interested in getting started with block themes, Carolina Nymark’s<a href="https://fullsiteediting.com/lessons/creating-block-based-themes/"> guide to creating WordPress block themes</a> is an excellent resource. They can also explore the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/">WordPress Theme Developer Handbook</a> and <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/streamline-your-block-theme-development-with-create-block-theme/">Learn WordPress</a> for more information and join the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/community-themes">WordPress Community Themes repository</a>. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 23 Oct 2024 19:24:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"Gravatar: Upgrade Author Profiles with the Gravatar Block for WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=2326";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/10/23/upgrade-author-profiles-with-the-gravatar-block-for-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2778:"<p>Say goodbye to generic author boxes. The Gravatar Enhanced plugin for WordPress just got a major upgrade with a fully customizable Profile block. Now you can showcase your authors in style – and give your SEO a boost while you&#8217;re at it.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Complete Control Over Your Author Profiles</h2>



<p>The new Gravatar Profile block puts you in the driver&#8217;s seat. Customize:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Width and layout to match your site design </li>



<li>Background and text colors for perfect branding</li>



<li>Border styles for that extra pop</li>



<li>Which profile elements to display (or hide)</li>
</ul>



<p>Best part? Your authors can update their profiles directly through Gravatar.com – no WordPress access needed. Perfect for multi-author blogs and company websites.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Boost Your SEO with Enhanced Author Signals</h2>



<p>Google loves knowing who&#8217;s behind your content. The new Profile block helps establish E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) by:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Linking to author profiles</li>



<li>Displaying verified social accounts</li>



<li>Showcasing author credentials and expertise</li>
</ul>



<p>These reputation signals can help search engines better understand and rank your content.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Quick Setup Guide</h2>



<img tabindex="0" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/screenshot-rocks-1.png" alt="Screenshot of the Site Editor showing the Color and Dimensions controls of the Gravatar Profile block." class="wp-image-2334" />



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Install the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravatar-enhanced/">Gravatar Enhanced</a> plugin</li>



<li>Add the <em>Gravatar Profile</em> block to your single post templates</li>



<li>Customize the look and feel</li>



<li>Watch as author profiles automatically update across your site</li>
</ol>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why Switch to the New Profile Block?</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Better than the default</strong>: More features, more control, more professional</li>



<li><strong>Time-saving</strong>: Authors manage their own profiles</li>



<li><strong>SEO-friendly</strong>: Built-in support for Google&#8217;s E-E-A-T signals</li>



<li><strong>Always current</strong>: Gravatar profile updates reflect everywhere instantly</li>
</ul>



<p>Ready to upgrade your author profiles? Get the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravatar-enhanced/">Gravatar Enhanced</a> plugin today and start customizing!</p>



<p><em>Pro tip: This block can be used on any page or post, too!</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 23 Oct 2024 17:50:21 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Ronnie Burt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=18029";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-community-creates-1000-block-themes-in-1000-days/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3329:"<img width="1024" height="536" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/10/blockthemes-featured-image-news.webp?resize=1024%2C536&ssl=1" alt="Layout of numerous colorful images of block themes laid out in a grid." class="wp-image-18033" />



<p class="is-style-default has-large-font-size">In nearly 1,000 days, the WordPress community has created <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">1,000 Block themes</a>—coming together to use the full potential of the Site Editor and unleash new creative possibilities for everyone. </p>



<p class="is-style-default">First introduced in WordPress 5.9, Block themes have steadily evolved, improving flexibility and functionality for themers, users, and agencies alike. Now, design tools allow customizing almost every detail. With style variations, users can change the overall look of their site in a few clicks. You can even use <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/how-to-guides/curating-the-editor-experience/">curation options</a> to customize the editing process itself. But we’re not done! We can’t wait to keep pushing Block themes even further. Thank you to every early adopter who, by embracing early features with passion, helped shape the Block themes we love today with feedback and testing.</p>



<p>If you haven’t yet explored Block themes, check out some of the resources below to get inspired:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Use one of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">1,000 Block themes available</a> and see what you can create. For an easy way to explore, try <a href="https://wordpress.org/playground">WordPress Playground</a> to quickly get started with a temporary site.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Read the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/">Theme handbook</a> to understand types of themes, how themes work, and how to get started building.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Use the <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/create-block-theme-plugin/">Create Block Theme plugin</a> to streamline Block theme creation with a <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/streamline-your-block-theme-development-with-create-block-theme/">dedicated tutorial</a> on Learn WordPress that will help you get started.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>



<li>Get inspired by <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/community-themes">watching and joining community members building themes together</a>. This is a great way for folks new to Block themes to learn, hands-on.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<p>Let’s celebrate and share our contributions! Please comment on the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2024/10/23/celebrating-1000-block-themes-in-the-themes-repository/">Theme Team’s post dedicated to highlighting this milestone</a> to share your favorite Block theme and thank those who have contributed along the way.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Thank you to <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/kristastevens/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>kristastevens</a> for editorial help, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/beafialho/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>beafialho</a> for the featured image, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/kafleg/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>kafleg</a> for reviewing.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 23 Oct 2024 17:01:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"annezazu";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:107:"WPTavern: #142 – Miriam Schwab and Oliver Sild on Security Collaboration Between Elementor and Patchstack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=176318";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:121:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/142-miriam-schwab-and-oliver-sild-on-security-collaboration-between-elementor-and-patchstack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50099:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast, which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the recent security collaboration between Elementor, and Patchstack.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Miriam Schwab and Oliver Sild.</p>



<p>Miriam co-founded Strattic, a platform with an aim to revolutionize WordPress security and performance on the web. After Elementor aquired Strattic, Miriam continued leading the unit before becoming a head of WordPress relations.</p>



<p>Prior to that, Miriam founded and managed a prominent WordPress development agency in Israel. With over 15 years of experience, she&#8217;s a respected member of the WordPress community and a frequent speaker at WordPress events.</p>



<p>Oliver is the CEO and co-founder of Patchstack, a company dedicated to the mitigation of security vulnerabilities in WordPress and open source environments. Patchstack is now a seven year old enterprise, and they specialize in penetration testing, security process management, and protective services for developers, agencies, and major hosting companies.</p>



<p>[00:02:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oliver&#8217;s background also includes experience running an agency, and his work at Patchstack focuses on collaborating with plugin developers and hosting providers to ensure robust security measures for their clientele.</p>



<p>Miriam and Oliver joined me at WordCamp US 2024 in Portland, where they did a presentation discussing the processes needed to enhance open source plugin security, and the advantages of leveraging bug bounty partnerships.</p>



<p>Their collaboration brings to light the importance of integrating security solutions within the WordPress ecosystem, especially for companies with a footprint as large as that of We talk about the global operations of</p>



<p>Oliver&#8217;s team at Patchstack, who work across all time zones, providing round the clock threat intelligence and vulnerability monitoring.</p>



<p>We also explore the Patchstack system as a whole and how it categorizes WordPress vulnerabilities based on their exploitation likelihood, and their implementation of virtual patches to protect against high and medium priority vulnerabilities automatically, without code changes.</p>



<p>We also get into how Miriam&#8217;s team at Elementor collaborates with Patchstack to ensure rapid and professional handling of vulnerabilities, enhancing security for their 17 million installations.</p>



<p>The partnership between Elementor and Patchstack is a great example of how different companies within the WordPress community are able to work together to provide better outcomes for their users.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re curious about the intersection of page builders and security in WordPress, or the value of collaborative partnerships in maintaining the ecosystem, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Miriam Schwab and Oliver Sild</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Miriam Schwab and Oliver Sild. Hello.</p>



<p>[00:04:14] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> Hi.</p>



<p>[00:04:15] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> Hello.</p>



<p>[00:04:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;re in Portland. We&#8217;re at WordCamp US. It is 2024, and Miriam and Oliver have done a presentation, which I think happened yesterday. How did it go?</p>



<p>[00:04:26] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> I think quite well. I&#8217;ve been getting good feedback. What about you?</p>



<p>[00:04:28] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> Yeah, I think it was great. I think, after the talk, we had a lot of people coming to us, and to ask about how they can, you know, replicate that on their plugins as well and it was very good.</p>



<p>[00:04:37] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> I actually ran into someone who was like, that was the best talk I&#8217;ve heard since the start of the conference, just by the way.</p>



<p>[00:04:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The title of that presentation was Enhancing Open Source Plugin Security, Establishing Robust Processes and Leveraging Bug Bounty Partnerships. And the podcast today is going to be about a partnership between, well, in Miriam&#8217;s case, Elementor, because that&#8217;s where Miriam&#8217;s working, and in Oliver&#8217;s case, Patchstack, because that&#8217;s where he&#8217;s working.</p>



<p>Before we get into the nuts and the bolts of it though, can we start with Miriam? Can you just give us your little potted bio, like less than a minute, something like that?</p>



<p>[00:05:06] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> So, hi, I&#8217;m Miriam Schwab. I&#8217;m head of WordPress relations at Elementor. I act as a type of liaison between Elementor and the broader WordPress community. I joined Elementor about two years ago when they acquired the startup that I co-founded called Strattic, which was static hosting for WordPress. And that&#8217;s where my biggest activity around security started to happen. I basically created Strattic to solve security issues around WordPress. That was my biggest motivating factor for founding it. And then after joining Elementor I became quite involved in our security around our plugin specifically, and the processes behind it, and how we communicate with the community at large. And so that&#8217;s kind of how this all happened.</p>



<p>Okay, great. Thank you, Miriam. And if you want to hear more from Miriam, I did a podcast episode with her from WordCamp Asia earlier this year. So you can check that out as well. I&#8217;ll put a link in the show notes. And, Oliver?</p>



<p>[00:05:57] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> Yeah. I&#8217;m Oliver, I&#8217;m the CEO and co-founder of Patchstack. Actually, this month we turned seven years old, so already quite a long time. What we do is, we have just one very clear mission, it&#8217;s providing the fastest mitigation to security vulnerabilities in WordPress, and in open source. So we work with plugin developers, we do pen testing for them, manage their security processes. We also provide protection for developers and agencies for websites, to protect them from the vulnerabilities. And we work with probably most of the biggest hosting companies, in terms of helping them identify vulnerabilities in their customer&#8217;s websites, and also protect them from that.</p>



<p>Yeah, I mean, from my own background, I used to also run an agency, which I think literally everyone has done at one point of the time. I had like a very strong security focus early on, so I did like malware research, and then met my co-founder who did vulnerability research. Fun fact, we met in Reddit. That&#8217;s how we actually met. But yeah, also do a lot of community stuff, so organising capture the flag events in Estonia.</p>



<p>Right now, in WordCamp US, we also host a WordPress CTF, so everyone can go and join that. I don&#8217;t know when it&#8217;s going live, probably it&#8217;s over then. There&#8217;s a lot going on, and being very active in NGOs. I have co-founded a co-working space in Estonia, which is now a startup center and stuff. So a lot of community, open source and security stuff.</p>



<p>[00:07:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you, Oliver, that&#8217;s great.</p>



<p>So over the last few years, WordPress has been sort of replete with acquisitions, and then it felt like that dropped off the news and partnerships came along. And that became a big thing, and obviously Elementor, Patchstack partnering up. It seems like a curious thing to be partnering on. One is a page builder, that&#8217;s pretty clear, one is security. How did this come about, and what possible benefit is there with a security company partnering with a page builder company?</p>



<p>[00:07:39] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> So I&#8217;ll just start by explaining a bit about my approach to my position at Elementor, which is that, I want to find the ways that we can work together with other companies in the space, even ones that seemingly compete with us. Because there&#8217;s generally a place for us to collaborate, we have shared and common users. When we work together, things go better for everyone. I just really feel like there&#8217;s a power in two organisations, or companies coming together to achieve goals together. So I do actually quite a lot of that in general.</p>



<p>With Patchstack it&#8217;s actually a really straightforward win-win here, I think, and definitely a win for Elementor. So Elementor, the plugin, the core and the free have an active install base of over 17 million websites, right? Which is a mind-boggling number. And that means that everything that Elementor does, we have to do quite carefully, right? Because it can impact the users very positively, and then something goes wrong that&#8217;s quite a negative experience.</p>



<p>And that includes security. We need to make sure that the plugin is as secure as possible for this very broad user base. And we have a lot of very robust internal processes around ensuring that the code is secure before it&#8217;s deployed and released. But anyone who works in software will know that, no matter what you do, you can do everything and be superhuman, things still might end up having a vulnerability that needs to be dealt with after deployment. It&#8217;s just the nature of the game.</p>



<p>So were working with a bug bounty program called Bugcrowd to bring another very significant layer of security to our plugin post-deployment. I was fortunate to meet Oliver, I think it&#8217;s like almost two years ago, at least a year and a half ago or something. I had been looking at what Patchstack was doing, I was very impressed. Their specific focus on WordPress plugins, and open source, and also the clear passion that they have for open source, and making open source ecosystems more secure. That really, I think resonated with me and with Elementor.</p>



<p>And so we started to explore whether Patchstack could be a good solution for us to add another layer of security to our plugin, with that angle of expertise in WordPress. And so, you know, we start to explore that and work together, and it&#8217;s been successful from day one. And brings a lot of value, not just to Elementor, by bringing their like additional expertise to the table. But also obviously to our end users who can be confident that there&#8217;s a very thorough, and professional, and responsible process behind bug disclosure, and how we handle it, and release patches very, very quickly. Our turnaround time is quite fast.</p>



<p>[00:09:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So can I just unpack that for the audience who in many cases won&#8217;t be particularly technical. So, does the workflow go a bit like this? Elementor creates a new feature, creates an update, has something that they need to push out to the plugin, and that is then created on your side. But then somehow it gets pushed over to Patchstack, and then Patchstack inspect it, check it, make sure that it passes all the tests that maybe they&#8217;re using, and then passes it back to you and says, go, no go. Is it basically something like that?</p>



<p>[00:10:25] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> It&#8217;s something like that. I&#8217;ll explain a bit, and then I&#8217;ll let Oliver like expand on that. Basically, Patchstack receives a report from one of their security researchers that there&#8217;s an issue with Elementor. Patchstack gets more than one report, okay, in general, but the additional value that they bring to us is that they review the reports to make sure that what we&#8217;re seeing, and then dealing with, are quality reports.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s a lot of researchers that just, they&#8217;re just looking to report stuff. So they&#8217;ll repeatedly report like ridiculous things that aren&#8217;t really a problem for anyone, just wasting everyone&#8217;s time. So we get high quality reports from Patchstack. We replicate it, you know, we determine the plan of action, and the team creates a patch for it, test it on our end as thoroughly as we can.</p>



<p>Pretty early on within our work with Patchstack, we added a stage, I asked if they could do it, I think it was something like that, and they&#8217;re like, yeah, of course. And it&#8217;s possible they already did it, but we hadn&#8217;t experienced that before, that we then send it to them for review to make sure that it fully resolves the issue. That&#8217;s very value add because it&#8217;s additional pairs of eyes on it. And once they&#8217;ve confirmed, then that actually goes out to release to our users, and all that. But I&#8217;ll let Oliver just explain more about that.</p>



<p>[00:11:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So just to confirm, that is one of the things that&#8217;s happening. Once you&#8217;ve packaged it up, it gets handed over to Patchstack. Patchstack inspect it, like I said, go, no go, something along those lines. Okay, over to Oliver for the technical details.</p>



<p>[00:11:37] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So it&#8217;s important to understand that our logic is that, the only way how we can provide the fastest mitigation for security vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem is when we cover the entire life cycle of a security vulnerability.</p>



<p>That starts from the point of someone finding it, reporting it to a vendor, patching it, to users getting notified about it, and users getting mitigated, and to the point where they eventually, you know, fix it, right?</p>



<p>Which includes three different key stakeholders, right? So it&#8217;s plugin developers, website builders, or like website owners who build websites, and hosting companies who also have like a huge responsibility because they are like hosting that code and everything, right?</p>



<p>So the reason why probably we are one of those only ones that are going to validate the patches is because we need to do it anyways. That&#8217;s the very simple answer.</p>



<p>Because ultimately we have responsibility in front of our customers who are using Patchstack to protect their websites. And if we don&#8217;t validate the patches that we see, like plugins releasing fixes, then how do we actually know that it&#8217;s patched? Because there&#8217;s so many cases where vulnerabilities are getting patched by the vendors, but then you look into it and they patch the wrong thing, or they just kind of like messed something up. So for the hackers, it&#8217;s very easy to bypass it, and things like that.</p>



<p>So before we tell our customers that, hey, now you don&#8217;t have a security vulnerability anymore, we must make sure that it&#8217;s the actual case, right? So that&#8217;s really where this comes from because yeah, as I said, we cover the entire life cycle. So our customers, developers and agencies who use Patchstack to get their websites, you know, we call it virtual patching, which is like auto mitigation of vulnerabilities in real time.</p>



<p>So to get everything mitigated as soon as possible, and then plugins to fix all the vulnerabilities as soon as possible. And then hosting companies to be able to send out notifications. Everything, we need to basically combine all this into a single process. So internally we could say that we are actually doing one thing, but it just kind of like spans out in three different locations.</p>



<p>[00:13:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Where do you get your data from? Where do the data points about what&#8217;s going on in the world, for Patchstack, how does that come into you? Have you got like a, I don&#8217;t know, like a red team or something like that, or is it just your paid employees that are constantly going out looking? I genuinely have no idea how that information comes in into your inbox if you like, for want of a better word.</p>



<p>[00:13:53] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So there&#8217;s three sources really. We have internal security researchers that do a lot of pen testing, they do a lot of research in general.</p>



<p>Then what we started doing, four years ago already, was we created the first kind of like open bug bounty program for WordPress. So if you, Nathan find the security vulnerability in someone else&#8217;s like Miriam&#8217;s plugin, then we pay you if you report it.</p>



<p>So we started like incentivising security researchers to start looking for vulnerabilities in the WordPress eco system, because there was so many of them to find. And if you don&#8217;t give incentives for hackers to report them properly, then they are going to do something else with it. So that was something that we started doing, yeah, about four years ago already.</p>



<p>And we have like 1,600 people in the community, of like ethical hackers all around the world. We have like a leaderboard system, and they get rewarded. Just two weeks ago, one of the researchers got like 16.4k for a single vulnerability, which we paid out from our own money.</p>



<p>But we do all of that because we want to protect our customers, right? And also it helps to protect the plugins as well, because it gets the plugins, you know, fix the vulnerabilities before, potentially hackers have had time to kind of like do that.</p>



<p>But there&#8217;s this third one then, which is the MVDP. So we act as a security point of contact for a lot of plugins. So Elementor is one example, but we have 400 other plugins that actually pass every single vulnerability to Patchstack. So we help them validate those issues. We help them to verify that the patches are complete and everything like that. And that&#8217;s also how we basically become like the best security solution for their users, because we are able to protect them very, very fast.</p>



<p>[00:15:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we could be having the same conversation with Miriam with 400 other companies. There are 400 companies with the same kind of relationship. I&#8217;m guessing not many of them with 17 million installs. But actually that&#8217;s a serious point though. The fact that you&#8217;ve got 17 million installs kind of makes this more important than almost any other plugin out there in all honesty. Because if something goes wrong, it&#8217;s going to completely break. You know, it&#8217;s not like a minor function of your website, it probably is the entire website, the front facing website.</p>



<p>And so I guess you have a pretty big target on your back. You know, if somebody can leverage, or figure out a vulnerability in Elementor, that&#8217;s going to be worth more than, I don&#8217;t know, plugin X over there that has 24 installs on the repo, or something like that. So the security posture from your side has to be really, really serious.</p>



<p>And so, is it like a bi-directional relationship? Like, if you discover something, and I&#8217;m pointing at Oliver. If Patchstack discover something, you can then send it directly to Elementor, and forewarn them about that problem. They can fix their code. But it works in the other direction as well. You don&#8217;t know you&#8217;ve got a vulnerability, so you pass it to Patchstack, they figured that you have, and it comes back. So it&#8217;s this nice circle of virtue where you&#8217;re both helping each other out.</p>



<p>[00:16:37] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> There&#8217;s a few different directions that this security relationship works with Patchstack. So one is that they have their community of security researchers, that&#8217;s what they&#8217;re called, who are basically constantly trying to break into everyone&#8217;s stuff. That&#8217;s more or less what they&#8217;re doing.</p>



<p>Now that could be like, oh no, why are they doing that? That sounds so terrible. But like, they&#8217;re not the only ones doing it, right? They&#8217;re doing it in order to then report it, so that it can be fixed.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s other people who are just like them out there who are doing the same thing for malicious purposes, and don&#8217;t necessarily plan on reporting it, but plan on exploiting it.</p>



<p>So we want these security researchers doing what they&#8217;re doing, and then reporting it to Patchstack, and Patchstack reports it to us. And then we start this cycle of mitigating it, and releasing a patch that fully resolves it.</p>



<p>Because we&#8217;re so big, and we have such a huge code base, so definitely we&#8217;re like a target of interest because let&#8217;s say the ROI for a hacker, or a vulnerability is high for Elementor, so that&#8217;s why we take it seriously in terms of this full circle type of approach to the security before deployments and after deployment, which I described.</p>



<p>But another way that we work with Patchstack is when we get reports that aren&#8217;t from Patchstack, because that also happens. But we find a lot of value in making sure that Patchstack is in the loop even on those reports. Theoretically, we could get a report from someone else, and I&#8217;ll explain how briefly, but we could get a report from someone else, and then we could just do our own thing. But we want to be as responsible and as transparent as possible around vulnerabilities that exist in Elementor.</p>



<p>From our perspective, security&#8217;s not something to be embarrassed about because we know we&#8217;re doing everything we can. It&#8217;s something to just accept that it&#8217;s going to be a thing, but the question is not if, but how? So our how, is to be very, very responsible about it and transparent.</p>



<p>So when we get these reports, we loop Patchstack in, and we tell them that we&#8217;ve got this report so that they can be part of the process, and make sure that the loop is closed in the most secure way possible, including that they look at these reports as well, and our patches as well, to make sure that we&#8217;re fully resolving it.</p>



<p>[00:18:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you&#8217;re sort of patting each other&#8217;s backs in a way. You know, something that you get gets passed to them, that&#8217;s kind of nice free intel for them. It came to you first, but it ends up at Patchstack, so they can then act on that, and send it out to your other 400 customers if it might affect them. That&#8217;s nice.</p>



<p>[00:18:47] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> I think it helps Patchstack. I can&#8217;t speak for Patchstack, but I think it helps for Patchstack to have the full, the full vision of what&#8217;s going on with every, let&#8217;s say, all plugins that are in their MVD program, which means, by the way, MVDP is managed vulnerability disclosure program. Yes, that&#8217;s important because not everyone will know what that is.</p>



<p>To have the full visibility into what&#8217;s going on, so when we share that information with Patchstack, it helps Patchstack have more information for everyone, and also for us, Elementor going forward. So there&#8217;s like more context for everyone. And then that comes back to this approach of transparency as well.</p>



<p>Again, Oliver can speak to this, probably working with a plugin of our scale, while there&#8217;s a lot more at stake here, it brings a lot of learnings into Patchstack because there&#8217;s not that many plugins that are at the scale. I think there&#8217;s maybe five that are over 10 million active installs in the plugin repository. They recently updated the numbers so that it will show that, at least there&#8217;s that. And it&#8217;s a whole other ball game when you&#8217;re at that scale of size, reach, code base, age, right? Elementor is eight years old, so all that, but Oliver can talk to that.</p>



<p>[00:19:42] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So one of the things is that, if we look at the data from the past years. In 2023, if we look at all the security vulnerabilities being known, or made public in the WordPress ecosystem, over 76% originated from Patchstack. The number and the volume is incredibly high. And even if we talk about historic data, like all the WordPress historically, Patchstack has processed the highest amount of security vulnerabilities that are biggest amount of them, or even majority I would say.</p>



<p>So that also gives us like some level of experience in terms of how much we&#8217;ve had to already work with security researchers. We understand how they like to report things, what are the issues with the reportings, and things like that, but also like how to build processes internally, so you would be able to even like, cope with that kind of a load, right?</p>



<p>So I think there&#8217;s this kind of experience we&#8217;ve had there, which has allowed us to actually build a solution that works for Elementor, and they have a very high standards. So I think without the hard work we&#8217;ve done over the past years, it could have not been possible.</p>



<p>By the way, we provide all of this to Elementor for free, Elementor doesn&#8217;t pay anything for providing MVDP service. And we provide this for free for everyone in the WordPress ecosystem. And we built this entire MVDP program, and the platform, together with European Union because European Union is going to pass a law in Q4 that is making this actually mandatory for all commercial open source software.</p>



<p>[00:21:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Why do you do it for free? You could see my face, my eyes open thinking, hang on, wait, why?</p>



<p>[00:21:08] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So, one of the reasons is because European Union funded building it for free, for us as well, right? So we got 2.7 million euros to build it, and to build all the processes and everything around it. European Union understood that WordPress ecosystem is just so massive in scale, and they chose us to do it because of our track record.</p>



<p>And now we are very well connected with that, and as they are, you know, preparing to release this new regulation, which by the way, like even US companies need to comply with. So everyone who has European users, every software that has commercial element to it, like accepting donations, having paid support, having premium version, or even if they&#8217;re just not fully free, but like the company that owns the plugin has any commercial activity, they need to comply.</p>



<p>And the things that they need to comply is have a VDP program, which is literally what we built. You need to start releasing patches separately from functional releases. There is going to be a lot of those kind of changes, like you have to notify users about vulnerabilities. You have to notify users later on, also if the vulnerability is getting mass exploited. There&#8217;s these kind of rules, and our platform basically pre complies you for that entire regulation.</p>



<p>The reason why we do it also for free is exactly what Miriam told, it&#8217;s like we also get visibility. Because as I mentioned, we cover the entire life cycle of vulnerabilities, so our goal is to provide the fastest mitigation to vulnerabilities. And the way to do that is to know about vulnerabilities. So for our end users and to all Elementor users, for example, who are using Patchstack, they know that the fastest way to get protected is from Patchstack, because we work together with Elementor. We work together with other plugins, and that&#8217;s how they know that they are getting protected by Patchstack as well.</p>



<p>[00:22:42] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> So both of us have strange business models, Elementor and Patchstack, because if you think about it, Elementor&#8217;s 17 million active installs, the vast majority of them are using our free product, and that&#8217;s our business model. And Patchstack&#8217;s business model is based also on providing a lot of value for free that then ends up being an actual business model. I wonder if these types of business models, that bring a lot of people value for free, could exist outside of open source, and could exist outside of WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:23:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you both advertise each other&#8217;s presence then? For example, Miriam, do you on your website somewhere say, we have this relationship with Patchstack, I don&#8217;t know, protected by Patchstack or something? And again, in the opposite direction, do you say, yeah, one of our customers, Elementor? I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s anything in that.</p>



<p>[00:23:24] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> We have a page on our site that we make sure is linked to from the footer of every page on our site. It&#8217;s called our Trust Center. It&#8217;s very important for anyone who has some kind of security process, which everyone should, to have an easy way for people to find how to report issues to the company, because otherwise people might find something, not know how to report it. It ends up in some random person&#8217;s inbox, nobody pays attention, and that&#8217;s not good for anyone.</p>



<p>So we have this trust page that describes all of our security process and everything, and that links to our Bug Bounty page. It&#8217;s a page fully dedicated to just explaining our Bug Bounty program. And it clearly states there that all plugin related issues should be, and need to be reported to Patchstack. And we highly request that people respect that process because it allows Patchstack to make sure that these vulnerabilities are patched quickly, and it allows Elementor to make sure that it&#8217;s patched quickly. Which is better for everyone because we have the processes in place based around our partnership with Patchstack.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s clearly visible on our site. And we talk about in different forums, for example, the talk given yesterday, and of course this interview right now. So it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s quite publicly known.</p>



<p>[00:24:27] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So what we also have is, on Patchstack, we have a vulnerability database, which is completely free to use in public, where everyone can see what are the latest vulnerabilities. We show people like what the priorities there are and so forth. But it also has a directory of VDPs. So we actually have a directory where you see all the plugins that have VDP programs active.</p>



<p>So that also gives you, as a developer or user, an understanding of like, okay, I want to use a plugin for my website for a specific function, let&#8217;s say a page builder. I want to use something that has proper security practices in place. So that&#8217;s where we have like this directory where you can go and look into which ones actually have a VDP program.</p>



<p>We also have like a highlighting there for those plugins that are, you know, also contributing more into the community aspect as well. Actually, Elementor is featured there currently.</p>



<p>So, I think having mature security processes is a big competitive advantage for plugins as well, because developers are going to choose stuff that they feel, security is, in general, very hot topic right now. I just talked yesterday with some quite big hosts in the space, and they said that it used to be that everyone was asking about performance, and now everyone is asking about security.</p>



<p>And that also means that this kind of interest to security has, you know, reached the developers and everywhere. And when they make those decisions of, what plugs should I use, they are going to eventually choose the ones that they can trust most.</p>



<p>[00:25:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Does it muddy the water a bit? In other words, let&#8217;s say that I&#8217;m a customer, and I&#8217;m out there looking for a page builder. I come to Elementor, I&#8217;ve got my site up and running and I&#8217;m thinking, okay, I want some sort of security, I&#8217;ve heard that security&#8217;s a thing on my website. Does it muddy the water? Commercial rivals of Patchstack, for example, is the implication, okay, you must only use Patchstack. Patchstack is our preferred customer, nothing else will work. Do you ever get any intel like that?</p>



<p>And the other way around? You know, if people have got some sort of security posture, but they&#8217;re looking for a page builder, do you know what I mean? There could be some sort of misunderstanding, like we only work with Elementor, or we only work with Patchstack. Do you ever get any of that kind of intel where it&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t know, muddied the water, confused things?</p>



<p>[00:26:25] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> The way that is generally accepted that companies and products work when it comes to their security processes, and particularly with regards to their bug bounty programs, is that they will define their bug bounty programs, and it is highly requested that people respect that.</p>



<p>That isn&#8217;t always the case, and so we have had to put some processes in place where we are capable of accepting reports from other parties or individuals, who for one reason or another prefer to send it directly to us.</p>



<p>So it doesn&#8217;t mean that you have to only work with Patchstack. We want reports to go wherever they can go that will make sure that we&#8217;ll get them so that we can take care of them. Legitimate reports, right? High quality reports.</p>



<p>But then at that point we loop Patchstack in anyways. And that&#8217;s one of the great things about our relationship with Patchstack, they&#8217;re not like, oh, they didn&#8217;t send a to us so, you know, good luck to you, take care of it yourself. It comes back to this interest in having full visibility. And we want Patchstack&#8217;s input in making sure that everything is done properly. Both in terms of us patching it fully and resolving the issue.</p>



<p>But some other things that come up is that sometimes these other reporters send us reports that are not clear. Patchstack sends us reports that are quite clear, replicable, which means that we can recreate them on our end, which helps us figure out how to fix them, right? If you can&#8217;t see the problem, you can&#8217;t fix it, and well documented. Sometimes we get reports from other sources that are quite unclear. So Patchstack can even help us ask the right questions, or sometimes try to figure out what&#8217;s going on there, either we&#8217;ll do it ourselves. Basically the process is either directly to Patchstack, then to us. Or to us, and then to Patchstack, and then to us. And then that loop starts from that direction.</p>



<p>So we&#8217;re open to working with anyone. We want the reports to come to us. If for some reason people really refuse to work with Patchstack as our bug bouncy program, that&#8217;s okay. Patchstack is still part of our bug bouncy process, but we are capable of handling that as well.</p>



<p>[00:28:16] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> We actually work with other security companies. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;re not aware, but like Patchstack is powering vulnerability notification system and V Patching for Solid Security, which was previously known as iThemes Security. We do that for WPMU Defender. We do that for SecuPress. We do that for Shield Security. We do that for WP Guardian, which is a co-product with Patchstack and WebPros.</p>



<p>So I think what is very common between Patchstack and Elementor is that we actually work with everyone, together. Regardless whether they are like a competitor or not. We work with everyone who is willing to work together with us as well. Everything that we do in Patchstack is about collaboration.</p>



<p>As I&#8217;m saying, like we work with hosting companies, we work with plugins, we work with developers and agencies. I think that is literally the only way how to succeed in making the ecosystem secure.</p>



<p>In general, I think that allows us to also just make it actually as secure as it can go. And I think, from going forward from here, with all the regulations and everything also coming in, I think it&#8217;s the only way really.</p>



<p>[00:29:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Let&#8217;s take the scenario, Miriam, that you discover, or it is discovered by you, so not by Patchstack, out there in the wild somewhere there&#8217;s a serious problem in the Elementor&#8217;s code base. And it&#8217;s Friday night, and it gets reported to you. I&#8217;m just interested, what is the behind the scenes process that you have got set up between you to make things happen in a timely fashion?</p>



<p>So I&#8217;m taking the example of, you know, Friday night being the beginning of the weekend, everybody&#8217;s going off for a couple of days, this is a bad time to discover it. I&#8217;d be interesting to know, how does that get handed off, and how does it then come back? What are the backend systems that you&#8217;ve put in place that we&#8217;ll never know about, will never be discoverable to us, but I&#8217;m presuming they now exist since you&#8217;ve partnered up with each other?</p>



<p>[00:29:51] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> So there&#8217;s two types of reports. I mean, there&#8217;s a lot of types of reports, but I&#8217;m just going to divide them into two categories.</p>



<p>One report, type of report is this issue is being actively exploited. Meaning bad people know about it and are already trying to hack sites with it. Or this issue is some level of severity and needs to be taken care of, but nobody knows about it yet.</p>



<p>Okay, so in the case of the first one, it&#8217;s all hands on deck, do or die, let&#8217;s fix this. I can&#8217;t think that this has happened since we started working with Patchstack, so I&#8217;m like theorising here. But, probably we&#8217;ll reach out to them in one of our direct channels. So like we have a shared Slack channel with Patchstack, they&#8217;re very responsive there.</p>



<p>So it would be like, help, all the sirens. We&#8217;re like now dealing with this. If it&#8217;s actively exploited, we know we&#8217;ll be like, okay, we&#8217;re probably already working on it, right?</p>



<p>But, FYI, heads up, we&#8217;re going to like be releasing this as soon as possible, please be available so we can send it to you just for review before we do. So that&#8217;s one type.</p>



<p>The second type is you can breathe more. There&#8217;s different levels of severity. Meaning if between now and some point it&#8217;s discovered, if it&#8217;s a high level of severity, then oh my goodness. If it&#8217;s low level security, then it&#8217;s like it&#8217;s not going to affect all sites, only going to affect some certain types of users, like that kind of stuff. So it&#8217;s like less urgent.</p>



<p>But that probably means that we can all just continue our weekend. I&#8217;m theorising again, so nobody should take me at it and be like, what? You&#8217;re going to sleep through the weekend with this? No, that&#8217;s not what I mean. Each vulnerability is looked at for vulnerability, and if it&#8217;s super urgent or highly urgent, then it gets the attention immediately, Patchstack will be pulled in. But if not, then there&#8217;s like a pretty clear process around it in terms of internal timelines, and the timelines that Patchstack gives us.</p>



<p>So the reason that Patchstack gives a timeline is because, if they report something, a plugin, developer, or whatever has a certain amount of time within which they need to patch it. It&#8217;s better for everyone that that exists. There&#8217;s a lot of other things that you want to make a priority, so you could just kind of drag it on. But It will eventually be found.</p>



<p>If something is not patched within the timeframe, then Patchstack has a whole process, which Oliver can explain. But it does get disclosed, let&#8217;s say, to the plugin review team, and that&#8217;s a serious matter for the plugin then to have to deal with it at that point.</p>



<p>And then we create our own internal timeline in terms of how fast we have to turn around a patch, also based on the level of severity. So if it&#8217;s highest level of severity, it&#8217;s like really fast, medium, less fast. But our turnaround time, our customers keep raving about it on like bugs, but also security issues, we&#8217;re very fast. We take it seriously in all situations. Whether it happens Friday night at midnight or, you know, Sunday morning, because our work week starts a Sunday, that&#8217;s a different story.</p>



<p>[00:32:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oliver, just before you begin, I have a friend who&#8217;s a medic and he is in trauma surgery. His phone is the conduit to, like the alarms are sounding. Do you have something equivalent to like that? Do you operate a sort of 24/7? I think you said you&#8217;ve got a distributed team. So you&#8217;re able to react right now, no matter what time of the day or night, 365 days of the year. Is that the kind of thing that you do? I was saying about the weekend, do you all take the weekend off? How does it work?</p>



<p>[00:32:38] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> We do cover all time zones. So we have people in Asia, we have people in Europe, we have people in the US. This is important for us to do threat intelligence and, you know, security research in general.</p>



<p>One thing, also in terms of like a zero days, or like in vulnerabilities in general, one thing that we help the, I would say our developer to sleep over the weekend, is that we are actively monitoring whether this vulnerability is getting exploited or not.</p>



<p>So immediately when we see any kind of like signals that there is an actual exploitation attempt against this vulnerability, they would be notified immediately.</p>



<p>We also take care of this kind of like a background threat intelligence monitoring part, where we know about the vulnerability, so we have signals whether this vulnerability type is getting exploited or not.</p>



<p>[00:33:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you could tell whether a zero day is realistically a zero day, okay. In theory it&#8217;s possible, but nobody&#8217;s doing anything about it, so maybe we can step down a little bit.</p>



<p>[00:33:27] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> So there&#8217;s two things we do. One thing is that we have created what we call Patchstack Priority. And this is like a special scoring made for prioritising WordPress vulnerabilities based on the likelihood of them becoming exploited.</p>



<p>So we have high priority vulnerabilities, which is based on historic data, vulnerability types, and there&#8217;s like a lot of data around that shows that this vulnerability, basically we predict that this vulnerability is going to become exploited.</p>



<p>And then we have medium priority, which is vulnerabilities that are potentially going to be exploited in targeted attacks. Doesn&#8217;t mean that it&#8217;s mass exploited, but it&#8217;s like, you know, if you have like a e-commerce store, for example, that holds credit card details, there&#8217;s a higher potential that this is going to be used in a targeted attack.</p>



<p>And then there&#8217;s low priority, which is like, this is not going to get exploited at all.</p>



<p>Based on that, we also kind of modify our timelines and everything. And also we generate virtual patches based on that, which is the auto mitigation feature that we have for all the high and medium vulnerabilities. We immediately create virtual patches, which are like essentially vulnerability specific protection rules that get automatically deploy to our customer sites without changing any code or anything. It&#8217;s very, like a precise way of making sure that this vulnerable function can&#8217;t be used in any other way than it was originally intended.</p>



<p>So because of that, we have full visibility into the kind of like a network, whether we see where a specific vulnerabilities are being exploited or not. And that allows us to also basically notify back to the plugin developers later saying like, hey, we now have proof that this vulnerability has been exploited, here&#8217;s all the attacker&#8217;s information, all that kind of stuff. So we have a lot of data around that as well.</p>



<p>[00:35:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s amazing that WordPress as a CMS is big enough to have a page builder plugin and a security plugin at the scale that they can not only function independently, but also they can create a really meaningful partnership between the two of you. And I have really found this conversation fascinating. It&#8217;s really interesting peeling back the curtain and seeing how you&#8217;re doing things behind the scenes, if you like, so that you&#8217;re protecting all of your customers. Thank you so much, Oliver. Thank you so much, Miriam. Where can we find you online?</p>



<p>[00:35:34] <strong>Miriam Schwab:</strong> You can find me personally on Twitter at Miriam Schwab. I&#8217;m also on Make WordPress Slack, post status Slack, LinkedIn, whatever. And Elementor of course is on all the social networks. We&#8217;re active on Instagram, Twitter, our website, elementor.com.</p>



<p>[00:35:48] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> All the same places, but just Oliver Sild.</p>



<p>[00:35:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Perfect, and Patchstack.</p>



<p>[00:35:53] <strong>Oliver Sild:</strong> Yes, patchstack.com.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://x.com/miriamschwab">Miriam Schwab</a> and <a href="https://x.com/OliverSild">Oliver Sild</a>.</p>



<p>Miriam co-founded Strattic, a platform with an aim to revolutionise WordPress security and performance on the web. After <a href="https://elementor.com/">Elementor</a> acquired Strattic, Miriam continued leading the unit before becoming Head of WordPress Relations. Prior to that, Miriam founded and managed a prominent WordPress development agency in Israel. With over 15 years of experience, she&#8217;s a respected member of the WordPress community and a frequent speaker at WordPress events.</p>



<p>Oliver Sild is the CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://patchstack.com/">Patchstack</a>, a company dedicated to the mitigation of security vulnerabilities in WordPress and open-source environments. Patchstack is now a seven-year-old enterprise, and they specialise in penetration testing, security process management, and protective services for developers, agencies, and major hosting companies. Oliver&#8217;s background also includes experience running an agency, and his work at Patchstack focuses on collaborating with plugin developers and hosting providers to ensure robust security measures for their clientele.</p>



<p>Miriam and Oliver joined me at WordCamp US 2024 in Portland, where they did a presentation discussing the processes needed to enhance open source plugin security and the advantages of leveraging bug bounty partnerships. Their collaboration brings to light the importance of integrating security solutions within the WordPress ecosystem, especially for companies with a footprint as large as that of Elementor.</p>



<p>We talk about the global operations of Oliver&#8217;s team at Patchstack, who work across all time zones, providing round-the-clock threat intelligence and vulnerability monitoring. We also explore the Patchstack system as a whole and how it categorises WordPress vulnerabilities based on their exploitation likelihood, and their implementation of virtual patches to protect against high and medium-priority vulnerabilities automatically without code changes.</p>



<p>We also get into how Miriam&#8217;s team at Elementor collaborates with Patchstack to ensure rapid and professional handling of vulnerabilities, enhancing security for their 17 million installations. The partnership between Elementor and Patchstack is a great example of how different companies within the WordPress community are able to work together to provide better outcomes for their users.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re curious about the intersection of page builders and security in WordPress, or the value of collaborative partnerships in maintaining the ecosystem, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>



<p><a href="https://elementor.com/">Elementor</a></p>



<p><a href="https://patchstack.com/">Patchstack</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/112-miriam-schwab-on-balancing-wordpress-success-and-family-life">Miriam Schwab on Balancing WordPress Success and Family Life</a> &#8211; previous podcast</p>



<p><a href="https://www.bugcrowd.com/">Bugcrowd</a></p>



<p><a href="https://patchstack.com/bug-bounty/">Patchstack&#8217;s bug bounty program</a></p>



<p><a href="https://solidwp.com/security/">Solid Security</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/secupress/">SecuPress</a></p>



<p><a href="https://getshieldsecurity.com/">Shield Security</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wpmudev.com/project/wp-defender/">WPMU Dev Defender</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wpguardian.co.uk/">WP Guardian</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:100:"Do The Woo Community: From Blogs to WooCommerce Shops, Privacy Policies with Donata Stroink-Skillrud";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86264";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://dothewoo.io/from-blogs-to-ecommerce-shops-privacy-policies-with-donata-stroink-skillrud/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:194:"Emma and Adam chat with Donata on the essential nature of website policies for WooCommerce. Highlights include compliance, consequences of neglect, and the importance of clear privacy practices.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 23 Oct 2024 12:53:05 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"BuddyPress: BuddyPress 14.2.1 Maintenance &amp; Security release";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=335364";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"https://buddypress.org/2024/10/buddypress-14-2-1-maintenance-security-release/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3817:"<p><a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.14.2.1.zip">BuddyPress 14.2.1</a> is now available. This is a maintenance &amp; security release. <strong>All BuddyPress installations should be updated as soon as possible</strong>.</p>



<p>The 14.2.1 release addresses the following security issue:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The &#8220;Take Photo&#8221; feature (which uses the logged in user&#8217;s Webcam to capture their profile photo) was vulnerable to an authenticated (Subscriber+) directory traversal. Discovered by Domons from the Wordfence organization.</li>
</ul>



<p>This vulnerability was reported privately to the BuddyPress team, in accordance with <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/testing/reporting-security-vulnerabilities/">WordPress’s security policies</a>. Our thanks to the reporter for practicing coordinated disclosure.</p>



<p>14.2.1 also fixes 3 bugs introduced in 14.0.0:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Groups: move the <code>invite_status</code> group meta check out of the <code>groups_join_group()</code> function (see <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9241">#9241</a>).</li>



<li>Administration: use the components right labels into the BP site health info panel (see <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9237">#9237</a>)</li>



<li>Administration: resolve Multiple Issues with the BP constants site health info panel (see <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9245">#9245</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p>For complete details, visit the <a href="https://codex.buddypress.org/releases/version-14-2-1/">14.2.1 changelog</a>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-buttons is-horizontal is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background no-border-radius wp-element-button" href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.14.2.1.zip">Get BuddyPress 14.2.1</a></div>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<p>You can get the latest version by clicking on the above button, downloading it from the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/">WordPress.org plugin directory</a> or checking it out from our <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/branches/14.0">Subversion repository.</a></p>



<p>If for a specific reason you can&#8217;t upgrade to 14.2.1, we have also ported the security fix to BuddyPress versions going all the way back to branch 11.0. Here&#8217;s the list of the available downloads for the corresponding tags, you can also find these links on our <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/advanced/">WordPress.org Plugin Directory &#8220;Advanced&#8221; page:</a></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>If you are using BP <strong>11.x</strong> and can&#8217;t upgrade to 14.2.1, please upgrade to <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.11.4.3.zip">11.4.3</a></li>



<li>If you are using BP <strong>12.x</strong> and can&#8217;t upgrade to 14.2.1, please upgrade to <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.12.5.2.zip">12.5.2</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="many-thanks-to-11-1-0-contributors">Many thanks to 14.2.1 contributors <span class="dashicons dashicons-heart"></span></h2>



<p><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/thomaslhotta">vapvarun</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/boonebgorges/">boonebgorges</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/emaralive">emaralive</a> &amp; <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/imath/">imath</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 22 Oct 2024 22:22:16 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mathieu Viet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=18023";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-6-7-release-candidate-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10796:"<p>The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 6.7 is ready for download and testing!</p>



<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>.<strong> Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites.</strong> Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.</p>



<p>Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 6.7 is the best it can be.</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.7 RC1 in four ways:</p>



<table><tbody><tr><th>Plugin</th><td>Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</td></tr><tr><th>Direct Download</th><td>Download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.7-RC1.zip">RC1 version (zip)</a> and install it on a WordPress website.</td></tr><tr><th>Command Line</th><td>Use the following <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/">WP-CLI</a> command:<br /><code>wp core update --version=6.7-RC1</code></td></tr><tr><th>WordPress Playground</th><td>Use the <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/#%7B%20%22preferredVersions%22:%20%7B%20%22php%22:%20%228.0%22,%20%22wp%22:%20%22https://playground.wordpress.net/plugin-proxy.php?build-ref=5087acab42d5354c8766303d13b78c8a77ac331b%22%20%7D,%20%22features%22:%20%7B%20%22networking%22:%20true%20%7D,%20%22steps%22:%20%5B%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22login%22,%20%22username%22:%20%22admin%22,%20%22password%22:%20%22password%22%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wpaccessibility/a11y-theme-unit-test/master/a11y-theme-unit-test-data.xml%22%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WordPress/theme-test-data/master/themeunittestdata.wordpress.xml%22%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22query-monitor%22%20%7D,%20%22options%22:%20%7B%20%22activate%22:%20false%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22create-block-theme%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22debug-bar%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22health-check%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22test-reports%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22user-switching%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D%20%5D%20%7D">6.7 RC1 WordPress Playground instance</a> (available within 35 minutes after the release is ready) to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.</td></tr></tbody></table>You can test the RC1 version in four ways.



<p>The current target for the WordPress 6.7 release is <strong>November 12, 2024</strong>. Get an overview of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-7/">6.7 release cycle</a>, and check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-7/">6.7-related posts</a> in the coming weeks for further details.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s in WordPress 6.7 RC1?</h2>



<p>Get a recap of WordPress 6.7’s highlighted features in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-6-7-beta-1/">Beta 1 announcement</a>. For more technical information related to issues addressed since Beta 3, you can browse the following links:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.5?since=2024-10-15&until=2024-10-22">GitHub commits for 6.7</a> since October 15</li>



<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=10%2F15%2F2024..10%2F22%2F2024&milestone=6.7&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Closed Trac tickets</a> since October 15</li>
</ul>



<p>Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These recent posts cover some of the latest updates:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/new-block-type-registration-apis-to-improve-performance-in-wordpress-6-7/">New block type registration APIs to improve performance in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/08/15/automatic-conversion-of-heic-images-to-jpeg-in-wordpress-6-7/">Automatic conversion of HEIC images to JPEG in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images-in-wordpress-6-7/">Auto Sizes for Lazy Loaded Images in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/new-plugin-template-registration-api-in-wordpress-6-7/">New Plugin Template Registration API in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/developer-notes-for-zoom-out-in-wordpress-6-7/">Developer Notes for Zoom Out in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/block-bindings-improvements-to-the-editor-experience-in-6-7/">Block Bindings: Improvements to the Editor Experience in 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/i18n-improvements-6-7/">Internationalization improvements in 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/updates-to-the-html-api-in-6-7/">Updates to the HTML API in 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/miscellaneous-block-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-7/">Miscellaneous Block Editor Changes in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-notes+6-7/">All 6.7-related developer notes</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How you can contribute</h2>



<p>WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Get involved in testing</h3>



<p>Testing for issues is critical to ensuring WordPress is performant and stable. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/10/01/help-test-wordpress-6-7/">This detailed guide</a> will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.7. For those new to testing, follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/02/15/help-test-wordpress-6-5-beta-1">this general testing guide</a> for more details on getting set up.</p>



<p>If you encounter an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> of the support forums or directly to <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">WordPress Trac</a> if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<p>Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives in Make Core</a> and join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">#core-test channel</a> on <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Search for vulnerabilities</h3>



<p>From now until the final release of WordPress 6.7 (scheduled for November 12, 2024), the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/security/2024/02/12/welcoming-2024-with-wordpress-6-5-beta-1/">monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities</a> is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the <a href="https://hackerone.com/wordpress">HackerOne page</a> and in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/security/">security white paper</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Update your theme or plugin</h3>



<p>For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 6.7 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the <em>“Tested up to”</em> version in your <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/how-your-readme-txt-works/">plugin’s readme file</a> to 6.7.</p>



<p>If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">support forum</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Help translate WordPress</h3>



<p>Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本? हिन्दी? বাংলা? You can <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev/">help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages</a>. This release milestone (RC1) also marks the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/glossary/#hard-freeze">hard string freeze</a> point of the 6.7 release cycle.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Release the haiku</h2>



<p>I See An R.C.<br />You See A Chance For Testing<br />Six Seven For The Win!</p>



<p><em>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post:</em> <em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>atachibana</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>jorbin</a></em>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:42:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"David Baumwald";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"Do The Woo Community: Vote in This Year’s WooSesh Seshies";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://dothewoo.io/?post_type=blog&p=86238";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"https://dothewoo.io/blog/vote-in-this-years-woosesh-seshies/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:128:"Make sure and get your vote in for the Seshies, which will be announced on day 2 of WooSesh, end of day at the Do the Woo recap.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 22 Oct 2024 10:29:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:107:"Do The Woo Community: Showcase Day WCUS and the Future of Open Source Contribution with Tammie and Jonathan";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86209";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"https://dothewoo.io/showcase-day-wcus-and-the-future-of-open-source-contribution-with-tammie-and-jonathan/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:200:"Jonathan and Tammie discuss their experiences at WordCamp US, focusing on Showcase Day's impact, the value of diverse contributions, and how companies can align their goals with community involvement.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 22 Oct 2024 09:30:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"WPTavern: WordPress Expands Code of Conduct to Private Conversations, Community Reacts";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=175808";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-expands-code-of-conduct-to-private-conversations-community-reacts";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5182:"<p>Automattic’s Marketing Lead, Nicholas Garofalo, has <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/protect-private-conversations/">announced</a> that WordPress is adding a new element to the Community Code of Conduct: <strong>Publishing private messages without consent</strong>. This addition expands the examples of unacceptable behaviors in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/handbook/community-code-of-conduct/">Community Code of Conduct</a> to six.</p>



<p>He pointed out that “Sharing private communications without permission is a clear violation of professional integrity. This new addition ensures that private messages receive the same level of protection as personal information and that sensitive communications shared in confidence will not be disclosed without prior consent… This change encourages honest, constructive engagement across all levels of participation.”</p>



<p>He continued, “The strength of our community lies in the trust we place in one another. By clarifying and reinforcing our expectations, we are taking another step toward maintaining an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for everyone.”</p>



<p>Code of Conduct is based on the <a href="https://www.contributor-covenant.org/">Contributor Covenant</a>, version 2.1 and now includes six examples of <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/handbook/community-code-of-conduct/#our-expectations">unacceptable behavior</a>.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind.</li>



<li>Insulting or derogatory comments, taunting or baiting, and personal or political attacks.</li>



<li>Public or private harassment.</li>



<li>Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission.</li>



<li>Publishing private messages without consent.</li>



<li>Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting.</li>
</ul>



<p>The new addition takes effect immediately, with violations handled according to the existing enforcement guidelines. The sole exception is when private messages are shared to report concerns to the Incident Response Team.</p>



<p>Yoast-sponsored WordPress Core contributor <strong>Carolina Nymark</strong> shared her experience in <a href="https://x.com/carolinapoena/status/1847834584974594334">X</a>, “I am one of the people who&#8217;s private WP Slack messages have been screenshotted and made public. In my case it was a harmless joke that was shared, but it should go without saying that you don&#8217;t share private messages.” </p>



<p><strong>@gsusMad</strong> <a href="https://x.com/gsusMad/status/1847506984594977170">tweeted</a>, &#8220;Attacking transparency (leaks) with transparency (CoC) as a way to show commitment to a respectful and inclusive community doesn&#8217;t feel right. If that wasn&#8217;t obvious when making the move, it&#8217;s a sign of a spiral where truth has likely become a second-class citizen, which I&#8217;m not sure aligns well with your core values.&#8221;</p>



<p>&#8220;These sort of clauses make sense as long as they have a whistleblower clause. Public service whistleblowers are protected by law, I’d like to see these CoCs extend those capabilities to themselves and their communities personally.&#8221;, <a href="https://x.com/ngriffin_uk/status/1847557923473358909">shared </a><strong>Nicholas Griffin</strong>, a Software Engineer.</p>



<p><strong><a href="https://x.com/stedaniels/status/1847559939473977682">Steve Daniels</a> </strong>tweeted, &#8220;This is vile. WordPress is changing its code of conduct to protect those who attack others in private messages by banning them from sharing the evidence. Only an abuser would create or condone such activity.&#8221;</p>



<p>Former Incident Response Team member <strong>Megan Rose</strong> <a href="https://megabyterose.com/2024/10/code-of-conduct-confidentiality/">shared her concerns</a> about the new changes. She said, “I worry that this new rule could enable abuse to happen in private at a time when the public trust of the IRT could potentially be in flux due to turnover or other factors… I wanted to publicly encourage caution with this new rule.”</p>



<p>Megan Rose also echoed concerns shared by others regarding how this rule may intersect with whistleblower and labor laws.</p>



<p><strong>Angela Jin</strong>, who was the Head of Programs &amp; Contributor Experience at Automattic, shared her thoughts <a href="https://angelasjin.com/2024/10/21/on-community-code-of-conducts/">on Community Code of Conduct</a>, “Focusing on the WordPress Code of Conduct, this latest change is something that most people under regular circumstances, will likely readily agree to. However, it contradicts my experience with the Community and Incident Response Teams. We generally tried to avoid making very specific “don’t do this” type rules, opting instead for behaviors we wanted to encourage… The timing is also suspect, or right, given everything happening in WordPress at the moment. It depends on how you prefer to view it.”</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 21 Oct 2024 18:06:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Gravatar: 10 Game-Changing Linktree Alternatives for Content Creators in 2024";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=2269";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/10/21/linktree-alternatives/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26547:"<p>Link-in-bio tools have become essential for anyone looking to centralize, manage, and professionalize their online presence. Since its launch in 2016, Linktree has dominated this space, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1468835/linktree-global-users/#:~:text=Link%2Din%2Dbio%3A%20leading,creator%20companies%202024%2C%20by%20users&text=As%20of%20May%202024%2C%20the,counted%20approximately%2050%20million%20users.">amassing around 50 million users</a>. However, as the needs of content creators grow more complex, many are seeking alternatives that offer more versatility and advanced features.</p>



<p>Why look beyond <a href="https://linktr.ee/">Linktree</a>? For starters, its free plan can feel restrictive, lacking customization options and advanced features. Some users are on the hunt for cost-saving solutions, while others crave more solid tools to help them stand out in a crowded digital space. With Linktree&#8217;s <a href="https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/linktr.ee">4-star rating on Trustpilot</a> and some users noting that it has &#8220;<a href="https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/66b5fd2c1b7083c1ccca4137">gone downhill</a>,&#8221; it&#8217;s clear there&#8217;s room for improvement.</p>



<p>Ready to explore your options? Let&#8217;s dive into 10 interesting <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/04/12/maximize-your-instagram-bio-the-top-tools-to-consider/">link-in-bio</a> alternatives that show a different way of managing your online presence. From enhanced functionality to powerful analytics and monetization tools, these platforms might just be the upgrade you&#8217;ve been searching for.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Comparing the top 10 cutting-edge Linktree alternatives</strong></h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>1. Gravatar: The game-changing verified link solution</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="1397" height="716" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/gravatar-homepage.png" alt="Gravatar homepage" class="wp-image-2303" />



<p><a href="https://gravatar.com/">Gravatar</a> offers a fresh take on online identity management. It&#8217;s not just about avatars anymore – Gravatar has evolved into a <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/07/31/better-links-simple-messaging-developer-tools-and-more/">comprehensive link-in-bio tool</a> with some unique features:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Complete profile information:</strong> Share everything from your bio to important links, interests, and contact info.</li>
</ul>



<img tabindex="0" width="1511" height="865" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/profile-information.png" alt="Gravatar profile interests" class="wp-image-2304" />



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Monetization opportunities:</strong> Artists and entrepreneurs can include eWallets in their profiles for direct payments.</li>
</ul>



<img tabindex="0" width="1661" height="847" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ewallets-feature.png" alt="Gravatar eWallet feature" class="wp-image-2306" />



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Verified links:</strong> <a href="https://gravatar.com/profile/links">Add and verify links</a> to boost your credibility. This feature is particularly valuable for public figures like influencers, CEOs, and artists because it signals to other people that everything has been verified and deemed legitimate.</li>
</ul>



<img tabindex="0" width="1655" height="802" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/verified-links.png" alt="Gravatar verified links" class="wp-image-2307" />



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Rearrangeable sections:</strong> Easily prioritize your content by reordering the different sections on your profile. Want to show your verified links first and then your wallet? No problem!</li>



<li><strong>Profile design:</strong> Customize your profile with unique backgrounds, headers, and button styles.</li>
</ul>



<img tabindex="0" width="1653" height="801" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/profile-customization-features.png" alt="Gravatar profile customization features" class="wp-image-2309" />



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Unified digital identity:</strong> Maintain a consistent online presence across various platforms.</li>
</ul>



<p>What sets Gravatar apart is its integration across a wide range of platforms like <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a>, <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/login">Tumblr</a>, <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>, <a href="https://slack.com/">Slack</a>, <a href="https://teachable.com/">Teachable</a>, and <a href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>. This means that if you have a centralized Gravatar profile, every time you update your information there, the changes will be automatically applied to all integrated websites, and the ones we just listed are only a small part of that group.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Gravatar is also developer-friendly, offering a <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/03/profiles-as-a-service/">REST API</a> and SDKs – something Linktree is still working on. This makes it an excellent choice for developers who want to integrate user profiles into their projects.</p>



<p>Another unique feature is the ability to manage multiple identities linked to different email addresses, offering flexibility for separate personal and professional presences.</p>



<p>Gravatar is ideal for professionals, bloggers, and content creators who want a trustworthy and consistent online presence. It&#8217;s particularly useful for those who frequently comment on blogs or participate in online forums.</p>



<p>And the best part? Gravatar is free for individual users, making it an accessible option for creators at any stage of their career.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>2. Shorby</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="1999" height="1171" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/shor.by-homepage.png" alt="Shor.by homepage" class="wp-image-2310" />



<p><a href="https://dash.shor.by/smartpage">Shorby</a> specializes in creating micro-landing pages optimized for Instagram and other social platforms. It&#8217;s similar to Linktree in concept but has more advanced features, and there’s no free version.</p>



<p>Key features that set Shor.by apart include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Customizable micro-landing pages that go beyond simple link lists.</li>



<li>Smart URLs designed specifically for Instagram bios.</li>



<li>Comprehensive social media integration.</li>



<li>Messenger buttons for direct communication with your audience.</li>



<li>Detailed analytics and click tracking to measure your performance.</li>
</ul>



<p>What really makes Shorby stand out is its integration with messaging apps. This feature allows for improved customer communication, potentially boosting engagement and conversions. Another unique aspect is the ability to incorporate rich media like images or GIFs alongside your links. This visual enhancement can significantly increase the appeal and effectiveness of your landing page.</p>



<p>Shorby is an excellent choice for social influencers, marketers, content creators, and businesses serious about optimizing their social media presence and driving engagement through their bio links.</p>



<p>However, Shorby’s lack of a free version will inevitably be a drag for most users. You can test it out on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/">Instagram</a> with a <a href="https://shorby.com/instagram/">5-day free trial</a>, after which you&#8217;ll need to choose from their tiered pricing options: <a href="https://dash.shorby.com/upgrade/">Rocket, Pro, or Agency plans</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>3. Pallyy</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="306" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/pallyy-homepage.png?w=660" alt="Pallyy homepage" class="wp-image-2312" />



<p><a href="https://pallyy.com/">Pallyy</a> goes beyond just being a link-in-bio tool – it&#8217;s a comprehensive social media management platform. Here&#8217;s what it offers:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Customizable bio link pages to showcase your content and links.</li>



<li>Social media scheduling with auto-publish functionality.</li>



<li>Integrated analytics for Instagram, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://x.com">Twitter</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>.</li>



<li>Unified inbox for messages and comments across platforms.</li>
</ul>



<p>Pallyy is a tool that adopts an all-in-one approach. You can manage your link-in-bio, schedule posts, and analyze performance for multiple platforms (including the abovementioned ones, <a href="https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/business/">Google My Business</a>, and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/">TikTok</a>) all in one place. This integration can save time and help you create an organized social media workflow.</p>



<p>This is why Pallyy is ideal for social media managers who are handling multiple accounts or businesses seeking an integrated social media solution. The platform&#8217;s unified inbox feature is particularly useful for those who need to stay on top of audience interactions across various platforms.</p>



<p>They offer a free forever plan, which is great for those just starting out. <a href="https://pallyy.com/pricing">Paid options</a> start at $18/month per Social Set (up to seven social profiles). For teams, there&#8217;s an additional cost of $29/month per user. This pricing structure makes Pallyy flexible for both individual creators and larger teams managing multiple brands.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>4. Tap Bio</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="394" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/tap-bio-homepage.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-2313" />



<p><a href="https://tap.bio/">Tap Bio</a> takes a unique approach with its card-based system for organizing content. Think of it as a mini-website that feels like navigating through Instagram Stories. This innovative format allows for a more engaging and interactive user experience.</p>



<p>Key features of Tap Bio include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Multiple-card format for versatile content organization, including simple cards with a single CTA, email collection cards, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> cards to feature videos, and more.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Customizable designs and layouts to match your brand.</li>



<li>Seamless integration with major social platforms.</li>



<li>Separate detailed analytics for each card so you can track link performance.</li>



<li>Option to retarget followers with <a href="https://adsense.google.com/start/">Google AdSense</a> and other advertising platforms.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<p>Tap Bio’s multi-card system is great because it allows for more diverse content presentation than traditional link-in-bio tools, giving you the flexibility to showcase different aspects of your brand or offerings.</p>



<p>Tap Bio is great for content creators with varied offerings or brands showcasing multiple products or services. It&#8217;s particularly useful for those who want to tell a story or guide users through a specific journey.</p>



<p>They offer a free basic plan with one card, which is a good starting point for many users. For those needing advanced features, Tap Bio provides paid <a href="https://tap.bio/@tap.bio/cards/23773">Silver and Gold plans</a> that are $36 and $96 per year, respectively. The Silver plan allows for three cards, while the Gold plan lets you have unlimited cards.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>5. Lnk.Bio</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="314" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/lnk.bio-homepage.png?w=660" alt="Lnk.Bio homepage" class="wp-image-2315" />



<p><a href="https://lnk.bio/">Lnk.Bio</a>, a black-owned and woman-led business, offers advanced customization and scheduling features for link management. With over 1.1 million creators currently using it, Lnk.Bio has proven its worth in the competitive link-in-bio market.</p>



<p>Key features of Lnk.Bio include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Unlimited links and extensive customization options.</li>



<li>Link scheduling for timed appearances.</li>



<li>Video and music embedding capabilities.</li>



<li>Comprehensive analytics dashboard.</li>



<li>Multiple themes and layouts to suit various styles.</li>
</ul>



<p>What truly sets Lnk.Bio apart is its link scheduling feature. This allows for time-sensitive promotions, making it invaluable for event organizers or businesses with limited-time offers. You can set links to appear or disappear at specific times, ensuring your bio always showcases the most relevant content.</p>



<p>The platform&#8217;s focus on multimedia content integration is another standout feature. By allowing users to embed videos and music directly in their bio links, Lnk.Bio creates a more engaging and immersive experience for visitors.</p>



<p>Lnk.Bio offers a free plan with basic features, making it accessible to creators just starting out. For those needing more advanced capabilities, <a href="https://lnk.bio/#pricing">paid options</a> include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Mini monthly plan for $0.99 per month.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Mini one-time for $9.99.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Unique one-time for $24.99</li>
</ul>



<p>These unlock features like newsletters, multi Lnks, post scheduling, custom colors, and additional pages for greater brand consistency and content organization.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>6. Milkshake</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="364" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/milkshake-homepage.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-2316" />



<p><a href="https://milkshake.app/">Milkshake</a> takes a mobile-first approach to website building, designed specifically for creating mini-websites right from your smartphone. This unique focus sets it apart in the crowded link-in-bio market.</p>



<p>Key features of Milkshake include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Mobile-optimized website builder for on-the-go updates.</li>



<li>A swipeable &#8216;card&#8217; format similar to Tab Bio’s for intuitive content navigation.</li>



<li>Customizable themes and designs to match your brand.</li>



<li>Easy integration with social media and messaging apps.</li>



<li>Basic analytics with daily and monthly breakdowns for page views and link clicks.</li>
</ul>



<p>Unlike other tools, Milkshake puts an exclusive focus on mobile creation and viewing. Rather than just offering a list of links, Milkshake lets users create a cohesive mini-mobile website. This approach can lead to a more engaging and professional-looking presence, especially for audiences primarily using mobile devices.</p>



<p>Milkshake is perfect for influencers who manage their online presence primarily via mobile or small businesses wanting a quick, effective mobile site solution. Its intuitive interface makes it easy for even tech novices to create an impressive online presence.</p>



<p>The platform offers a free version with basic features. For those wanting more, <a href="https://help.milkshake.app/en/articles/9478349-milkshake-subscription-comparisons">paid upgrades to Lite and Pro versions</a> are available on app stores. These premium options allow you to remove Milkshake branding and access more advanced tools and insights, helping you to further optimize your mobile presence.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>7. Campsite.bio</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="355" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/campsite.bio-homepage.png?w=660" alt="Campsite.bio homepage" class="wp-image-2318" />



<p><a href="https://campsite.bio/">Campsite.bio</a> focuses on marketing optimization and advanced analytics for link-in-bio pages. With over 250,000 creators, agencies, and brands already using it, Campsite.bio has carved out a niche in the competitive link-in-bio market.</p>



<p>Key features include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Customizable link pages with background image or pattern options.</li>



<li>Premium integrations, such as opt-in forms, custom forms, and tracking pixels.</li>



<li>Advanced analytics and tracking capabilities.</li>



<li>Collaborator access (for an additional charge).&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<p>Overall, Campsite.bio is a tool that puts emphasis on marketing optimization tools and comprehensive analytics. These features allow users to gain deeper insights into their audience&#8217;s behavior and optimize their pages for better conversion rates.</p>



<p>Campsite.bio is ideal for digital marketers looking to fine-tune their conversions or businesses running multi-channel campaigns. Its advanced tracking capabilities can help users make data-driven decisions to improve their online presence.</p>



<p>The platform offers a free plan with basic features, making it accessible to newcomers. For those needing more advanced capabilities, Campsite.bio provides <a href="https://campsite.bio/pricing">paid Pro and Pro+ tiers</a> for $7/month and $24/month, respectively. These premium options unlock additional features like custom domains and expanded analytics, allowing for greater control and insight into your link-in-bio performance.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>8. Beacons</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="314" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/beacons-homepage.png?w=660" alt="Beacons homepage" class="wp-image-2319" />



<p><a href="https://beacons.ai/">Beacons</a> position themselves as an all-in-one platform for creator monetization and audience engagement. Besides the simple link-in-bio functionality, it also offers a suite of tools for content creators, including websites, post activity, audience manager, email marketing, and many more.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Key features of Beacons include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Customizable link pages to showcase your content.</li>



<li>Built-in monetization tools, including tipping and product sales.</li>



<li>Email capture and newsletter integration for audience building.</li>



<li>Detailed analytics dashboard to track performance.</li>



<li>Integration with major platforms and tools such as YouTube, <a href="https://www.spotify.com/int/why-not-available/">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/">Twitch</a>, <a href="https://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a>, and more.</li>
</ul>



<p>What sets Beacons apart is its strong focus on creator monetization. The platform provides various ways for creators to earn directly from their audience, from digital product sales to tipping systems. This makes Beacons particularly attractive for content creators looking to turn their following into a sustainable income stream.</p>



<p>Beacons is ideal for content creators seeking to monetize their audience or influencers selling products or services. Its comprehensive approach allows creators to manage multiple aspects of their online presence from a single platform.</p>



<p>The platform offers a free plan with basic features, making it accessible to creators just starting out. For those needing more advanced capabilities, Beacons provides paid <a href="https://beacons.ai/i/plans">Creator Pro, Store Pro, and Business Pro tiers</a> that start from $10/month up to $90/month. These unlock additional features and remove platform branding, allowing for a more professional presentation.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>9. Carrd</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="660" height="339" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/carrd-homepage.png?w=660" alt="Carrd homepage" class="wp-image-2320" />



<p><a href="https://carrd.co/">Carrd</a> is a simple, one-page website builder that can be cleverly adapted for link-in-bio purposes. Its flexibility and ease of use have made it a popular choice among creators and small businesses alike.</p>



<p>Key features of Carrd include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Easy-to-use one-page website builder with drag-and-drop functionality.</li>



<li>Responsive designs that look great on all devices.</li>



<li>Highly customizable layouts and styles to match your brand.</li>



<li>Form builders for lead capture and audience engagement.</li>



<li>Basic analytics and tracking to monitor your site&#8217;s performance.</li>
</ul>



<p>A unique part of Carrd is its flexibility in creating more complex layouts than typical link-in-bio tools. While it&#8217;s not exclusively designed for link-in-bio purposes, this versatility allows users to create a more comprehensive online presence. You can essentially build a full (albeit simple) website that functions as an enhanced link-in-bio page.</p>



<p>Carrd is ideal for creators wanting more design flexibility or small businesses needing a simple website and link-in-bio solution rolled into one. Its intuitive interface makes it accessible even to those with limited web design experience.</p>



<p><a href="https://carrd.co/pro">Carrd&#8217;s Pro plan</a> starts at just $9 per year for 3 websites, $19 for 10 sites, and $49 for up to 25 sites, making it one of the more affordable options for premium features.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>10. Link in Bio from Later</strong></h3>



<img tabindex="0" width="1264" height="759" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/link-in-bio-by-later-homepage.png" alt="Link in Bio by Later homepage" class="wp-image-2321" />



<p><a href="https://later.com/link-in-bio/">Later&#8217;s Link in Bio</a> tool is part of a larger social media management platform, with a strong focus on Instagram and TikTok integration. This tool goes beyond simple link sharing to offer a more comprehensive social media solution.</p>



<p>Key features of Later&#8217;s Link in Bio include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Customizable link pages to showcase your content.</li>



<li>Shoppable Instagram feed for easy product promotion.</li>



<li>Featured Banner to highlight your top content.</li>



<li>Ability to personalize the title tag and meta description for SEO.</li>



<li>Detailed analytics for link and post-performance tracking.</li>
</ul>



<p>One of Later&#8217;s Link in Bio’s best additions is its easy integration with Later&#8217;s broader social media management features. This allows for a more cohesive approach to your social media strategy. The tool also offers <a href="https://mailchimp.com/">Mailchimp</a> integration, enabling easy email list building.</p>



<p>Later&#8217;s Link in Bio is particularly well-suited for Instagram-focused creators and businesses, as well as eCommerce brands leveraging social media for sales. Its shoppable Instagram feed feature can significantly improve the path from post to purchase.</p>



<p>Later offers a free plan that includes basic Link in Bio features. For those needing more comprehensive tools, paid plans are available, unlocking the full potential of <a href="https://later.com/pricing/">Later&#8217;s social media management platform</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Maximizing your digital identity: Why Gravatar stands out from the crowd</strong></h2>



<p>While all these alternatives offer unique features, Gravatar stands out as a comprehensive digital identity hub that allows you to create and manage a consistent, verified online presence across the entire web. It comes with a <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/26/link-your-gravatar-profile-with-a-free-custom-domain/">free custom domain</a> and many premium features that you usually have to pay extra for.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The &#8220;update once, sync everywhere&#8221; feature saves time and ensures consistency across the web. This means your avatar and profile information automatically appear on Gravatar-enabled sites, maintaining a unified digital identity.</p>



<p>The verified links feature serves as a simpler alternative to Linktree, offering similar functionality but within the Gravatar ecosystem. This verification builds trust with profile visitors, reducing the risk of phishing or misrepresentation.</p>



<p>For those already using Gravatar, adding and rearranging links within the same profile where their avatar is hosted is convenient and ensures consistency without needing another service. Plus, the ability to manage multiple identities linked to different email addresses offers flexibility for personal and professional use.</p>



<p>Gravatar empowers users to control their online presence across the entire web, not just on social media platforms. It&#8217;s the foundation of a decentralized digital identity, giving you more control over how you&#8217;re represented online.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Beyond basic links: Set up your ideal Linktree alternative today</strong></h2>



<p>As we&#8217;ve seen, Linktree alternatives offer more than just link aggregation. They provide robust tools for managing your online presence across platforms. Whether you prioritize customization, analytics, or e-commerce integration, there&#8217;s an option tailored to your needs.</p>



<p>When choosing your ideal alternative, think about how it aligns with your long-term online strategy. Look for tools that suit your primary goal, platform, and budget, can grow with your needs, and offer flexibility in customization and integration.</p>



<p>One standout (and 100% free) solution is <a href="https://gravatar.com/">Gravatar</a>. It offers features like sharing your social media profiles, portfolio, website, and other relevant links easily, as well as multiple identity management and privacy controls, all while maintaining a consistent online presence.</p>



<p>Gravatar uniquely integrates with thousands of platforms like GitHub, Slack, and WordPress. This means your information and avatar are potentially pulled from your Gravatar profile into platforms you use every day, ensuring your identity is consistent across the web.</p>



<p>Ready to take control of your online presence? <a href="https://gravatar.com/profile">Create your Gravatar profile today</a>!</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:01:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Ronnie Burt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"Do The Woo Community: Future Investments from WooCommerce: What to Expect";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://dothewoo.io/?post_type=blog&p=86201";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://dothewoo.io/blog/future-investments-from-woocommerce-what-to-expect/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:366:"As WooCommerce continues to grow as a leading platform for online commerce, here are several key areas that Beau Lebens mentioned in a recent podcast episode about where the company is focusing its future investments. These developments are aimed at enhancing both the merchant experience and the overall ecosystem for developers and businesses alike. Here [&#8230;]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 21 Oct 2024 12:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"WPTavern: WP Fusion Lite Plugin Removed From WordPress.com Following a Cease and Desist Letter";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=175800";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:105:"https://wptavern.com/wp-fusion-lite-plugin-removed-from-wordpress-com-following-a-cease-and-desist-letter";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4846:"<p>Automattic has agreed to <a href="https://wpfusion.com/business/regarding-our-cease-and-desist-letter-to-automattic/">remove the WP Fusion Lite Plugin</a> from WordPress.com following a Cease and Desist letter filed by the plugin&#8217;s creator Jack Arturo on October 12, 2024. The letter accused Automattic and WordPress.com of unauthorized trademark usage by displaying the plugin on WordPress.com.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fusion-lite/">WP Fusion Lite</a> is a WordPress plugin that connects WordPress websites to popular CRM systems and marketing automation tools. It has over 5,000 Active Installs in the WordPress.org Repository.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Jack Arturo, founder of Very Good Plugins LLC and creator of WP Fusion plugin, <a href="https://x.com/verygoodplugins/status/1845246925886353795">filed the Cease and Desist letter</a> stating: “As the owner of the federally registered trademark WP FUSION (U.S. Registration No. 6,052,437), which was registered on May 12, 2020, and is associated with software services including website integration with customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation systems, I believe that your continued use and distribution of the plugin under the WP Fusion name is a clear infringement of my exclusive trademark rights under U.S. law.</p>



<p>The plugin you are hosting creates a likelihood of confusion, mistake, or deception regarding the source, sponsorship, or affiliation of the WP Fusion brand, which could damage the reputation and goodwill associated with my brand. Please be advised that I will vigorously defend my trademark rights to the fullest extent of the law.”</p>



<p>The letter included three key demands:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Immediately remove the &#8220;WP Fusion Lite&#8221; plugin from WordPress.com.</li>



<li>Cease any use of trademarks, logos, or names confusingly similar to WP Fusion.</li>



<li>Provide written confirmation within ten business days that these actions have been taken.</li>
</ul>



<p>He also warned that if the above requests are not met, he would “pursue all available legal remedies, including but not limited to seeking injunctive relief, damages, and attorney&#8217;s fees for trademark infringement.”&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Automattic&#8217;s Response on October 18, 2024 </h3>



<p>Automattic responded, saying they “would like to resolve this matter swiftly and amicably, and to that end WP Fusion Lite is no longer listed on WordPress.com and we have disabled its landing page. It is no longer available to WordPress.com customers nor will it appear in search results. We trust this resolves your concerns.”</p>



<p>However, Automattic disagreed with the trademark infringement claim, stating: “Automattic disagrees with your assertions that it has infringed the intellectual property rights of Very Good Plugins, LLC. The listing uses the WPFUSION trademark solely and only to the extent necessary to identify the genuine WPFUSION plugin, which constitutes nominative fair use under applicable law.”</p>



<p>Since last year, WordPress.com has displayed all WP.org plugins in a private directory for its hosting customers, a practice that has raised <a href="https://wptavern.com/developers-raise-concerns-about-wordpress-com-plugin-listings-outranking-wordpress-org-on-google">concerns among developers</a>. They worry that WordPress.com plugin listings are outranking WordPress.org on Google, causing confusion for users. Many users, unaware of the distinction between WP.com and WP.org, click the WP.com link, which prompts them to create an account and sign up for premium hosting. Jack mentioned that this confusion was affecting his customers, who had already purchased the pro version of the plugin.</p>



<p>Automattic has maintained that featuring plugins on WP.com benefits authors by increasing exposure. They responded to Jack’s complaints on <a href="https://x.com/automattic/status/1845252369174364554">X</a>, asking, “So, to clarify, you&#8217;d like us to hide your plugin from the ~248M registered users on @wordpressdotcom?” Matt had also <a href="https://x.com/photomatt/status/1701973661110915205">tweeted</a> last year, “It&#8217;s providing distribution to the plugin authors, literally millions and millions of installs.”</p>



<p>Jack <a href="https://x.com/verygoodplugins/status/1845266438539382989">clarified</a> that he has no objection to others mirroring his plugins, except for Automattic. Also, WP Fusion Pro does not require the free version to function, and they have been delivering updates to pro customers via their own servers for many years.</p>



<p>The issue has been resolved, but it remains to be seen whether more plugin authors will choose to remove their plugins from WP.com.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 21 Oct 2024 03:19:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26:"Matt: My Freedom of Speech";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=128329";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:38:"https://ma.tt/2024/10/first-amendment/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2208:"<p><a href="https://wpengine.com/">WP Engine</a> has <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273448/wp-engine-injunction-matt-mullenweg-wordpress-resources">filed hundreds pages of legal documents seeking an injunction against me and Automattic</a>. They say this is about community or some nonsense, but if you look at the core, what they&#8217;re trying to do is ask a judge to curtail my First Amendment rights.</p>



<p>The First Amendment is the basis of our democracy. It is <em>inconvenient</em> and <em>important</em>. It&#8217;s also short, so I&#8217;m going to quote the First Amendment in its entirety:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>This means that, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions">with rare exceptions</a>, the government cannot tell you not to say something.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Freedom of Speech is not Freedom of Reach</h2>



<p>The First Amendment says I should be able to state facts and my opinions about WP Engine. However, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a> is not required or compelled to publish them in their newspaper and distribute them to their subscribers.</p>



<p>WP Engine is free to publish whatever <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License">GPL code</a> they want to the world. <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress.org</a> should not be compelled to distribute it or provide it free hosting.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Quiet For A While</h2>



<p>After this post, I will refrain from personally commenting on the WP Engine case until a judge rules on the injunction. I will continue to exercise my First Amendment rights to promote others&#8217; speech. However, <strong>I hope others speak up on our battle with WP Engine, and I will boost their speech wherever I can</strong>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 20 Oct 2024 21:53:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"Matt: Cloudflare Stories";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=128322";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:41:"https://ma.tt/2024/10/cloudflare-stories/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1102:"<p>There are two great Cloudflare-related stories published this weekend.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-you-can-now-see-the-code-that-ended-apartheid/">The first is Steven Levy&#8217;s incredible story about Tim Jenkin</a>, who created a secure communication protocol for the African National Congress to overthrow the apartheid regime in South Africa. Cloudflare&#8217;s CTO, <a href="https://jgc.org/">John Graham-Cumming</a>, later helped break past the cryptography system&#8217;s lost password, which he <a href="https://blog.jgc.org/2024/09/cracking-old-zip-file-to-help-open.html">blogged about with some technical detail here</a>.</p>



<p>Second, my dear friend Om Malik <a href="https://crazystupidtech.com/archive/future-of-internet-in-the-age-of-ai/">published a great conversation with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince in his new newsletter Crazy Stupid Tech</a>. <a href="https://x.com/eastdakota">Matthew</a> and Om are influential thinkers to listen to, and their discussion contains a lot of interesting nuance about networks, censorship, and sovereignty. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 20 Oct 2024 04:57:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:120:"Gutenberg Times: Source of Truth WordPress 6.7, Mastering Theme.json, Dev Notes Galore and more — Weekend Edition #308";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=30448";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:124:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/source-of-truth-wordpress-6-7-mastering-theme-json-dev-notes-galore-and-more-weekend-edition-308/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17110:"<p>Hi there, </p>



<p>WordPress 6.7 RC1 is scheduled for October 22, 2024. That&#8217;s also the occasion to publish the Fieldguide listing the big and small changes coming with the new version. Below I listed the Devnotes that are already available. <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published the 6,450-words <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/"><strong>Source of Truth</strong></a> on this site as well. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s going to be a busy three weeks until the final release on November 12, 2024. </p>



<p>Enjoy exploring the new features and update in WordPress and have a great weekend! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/source-of-truth-wordpress-6-7-mastering-theme-json-dev-notes-galore-and-more-weekend-edition-308/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/source-of-truth-wordpress-6-7-mastering-theme-json-dev-notes-galore-and-more-weekend-edition-308/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/source-of-truth-wordpress-6-7-mastering-theme-json-dev-notes-galore-and-more-weekend-edition-308/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/source-of-truth-wordpress-6-7-mastering-theme-json-dev-notes-galore-and-more-weekend-edition-308/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</a></li></ol>
</div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wordpress-6-7-beta-3/">WordPress 6.7 Beta 3</a> has been released and the first <strong>Dev Notes</strong> are being published: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/15/subscribe-to-changes-in-the-interactivity-api-state-and-context-on-client-side-navigation-in-6-7/">Subscribe to changes in the Interactivity API state and context on client-side navigation in 6.7</a>  </li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/14/updates-to-script-modules-in-6-7/">Updates to Script Modules in 6.7</a> </li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/roster-of-design-tools-per-block-wordpress-6-6-edition-2/">Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.7 edition)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/updates-to-the-html-api-in-6-7/">Updates to the HTML API in 6.7</a></li>



<li> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/new-block-type-registration-apis-to-improve-performance-in-wordpress-6-7/">New block type registration APIs to improve performance in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images-in-wordpress-6-7/">Auto Sizes for Lazy Loaded Images in WordPress 6.7</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/post-editor-iframing-with-meta-boxes-in-wordpress-6-7/">Post Editor iframing with meta boxes&nbsp;in WordPress 6.7</a></li>
</ul>



<img width="652" height="374" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/376215782-1f8a8a02-f3fd-464d-a543-00f7a90dd1eb.png?resize=652%2C374&ssl=1" alt="Highlights Grid WordPress 6.7" class="wp-image-30498" />



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> found a <a href="https://nomad.blog/2024/10/18/new-location-for-the-6-7-source-of-truth/">new location for the 6.7 Source of&nbsp;Truth</a> on the Gutenberg Times.  The <strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/">Source of Truth</a></strong> is a tool for others who educate WordPress users on the new updates. &#8220;It’s a foundational resource but, it’s so long and detailed, it needs to be repackaged to be useful in each space.&#8221; McCarthy wrote. </p>



<a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/"><img width="652" height="365" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/6.7-Source-of-Truth-Featured-Image.png?resize=652%2C365&ssl=1" alt="White text on blue background with a paintbrush mark saying WordPress 6.7 Source of Truth" class="wp-image-30499" /></a>



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<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<p>🎙️ Latest episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-110-gutenberg-19-5-wordpress-6-7-create-block-theme-plugin/">Gutenberg Changelog #110 – Gutenberg 19.5, WordPress 6.7, Create Block Theme Plugin and a Thousand Block Themes at the Repository</a> with Joni Halabi </p>



<img width="652" height="184" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-25-at-17.17.35.png?resize=652%2C184&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30608" />
</div></div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Joen Asmussen</strong> shared a list of work done by the WordPress design team: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/10/18/design-share-66-oct-7-oct18/"><strong>Design Share #66 (Oct 7-Oct18)</strong></a>. He highlights: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Admin bar evolution</li>



<li>Unseen icon update</li>



<li>Navigation: Provide fallback when menu was deleted</li>



<li>Admin themes</li>



<li>Update component: Combobox</li>



<li>Storybook: Color</li>



<li>WordPress Photo Directory</li>



<li>5FTF. Sponsorship</li>
</ul>



<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/10/18/design-share-66-oct-7-oct18/"><img width="652" height="278" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/5FTF-Sponsorship.webp?resize=652%2C278&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30490" /></a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p>In his video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5drhUktS_0"><strong>WordPress, How to build Complex Layouts in the Block Editor </strong></a><strong>Elliot Richmond</strong> showed how easy it is now to build websites with WordPress, even if the layout seems a bit more challenging. I liked how you get to hear about the reasoning of design choices and also how Richmond decides on the tools to use. In the methods of the Speed building challenge, Richmond takes you along as he rebuilds the Blookup.com website.</p>



<img width="652" height="326" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-16-at-15.56.32.png?resize=652%2C326&ssl=1" alt="Screenshot of site building video" class="wp-image-30483" />



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<p><strong><a href="https://x.com/robinpietersen">Robin Pietersen</a> </strong>announced a few more blocks for FooEvents. In his post <a href="https://www.fooevents.com/introducing-the-new-fooevents-calendar-and-attendee-listing-blocks/?s=09"><strong>Introducing the New FooEvents Calendar and Attendee Listing Blocks</strong></a> you can take a look at the new FooEvents Calendar Block and FooEvents Attendee Listing Block, as well as updates to the FooEvents Express Check-ins plugin and FooEvents Ticket Importer.</p>



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<p><a href="https://x.com/ronaldhuereca"><strong>Ronald Huereca</strong></a> t<a href="https://x.com/MediaRonLLC/status/1847527385823900064">weeted he</a> &#8220;quietly released Photo Block earlier this week.&#8221;  An official announcement post is forthcoming. If you want to check out the new Photo Block, it&#8217;s available from the WordPress repository.  The <a href="https://docs.dlxplugins.com/photo-block">documentation page</a> is already available, showing off the plugin&#8217;s features, that enhance the image core block: Cropping, Dimension support, Image Sizing and Object Fit, Add CSS Gram Effects, multiple caption variations and overlay support. It&#8217;s definitely worth exploring if you have a wider range of image needs. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>



<p><strong>Save The date!</strong> WordPress 6.7 and the new Twenty Twenty-Five theme are just weeks away. Theme Dev Leads,<strong> <a href="https://x.com/carolinapoena">Carolina Nymark</a></strong> and <a href="https://x.com/juanfraa"><strong>Juan Aldasoro</strong></a> will join Developer Hours on <strong>Oct. 29 at 15:00 UTC </strong>for an in-depth look at the theme’s technical details and features. <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304044317/"><strong>Developer Hours: Exploring the Twenty Twenty-Five Theme</strong></a></p>



<a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304044317/"><img width="600" height="338" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DH-October-29-Carolina-Nymark-Juanfra-Aldasoro.webp?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30507" /></a>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>If you are starting out building a Block Theme, it can be a bit overwhelming with the number of details you might have to consider. In <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/10/17/mastering-theme-json-you-might-not-need-css/"><strong>Mastering theme.json: You might not need CSS</strong></a>, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> gives you a walkthrough of many tips, tricks, and techniques for using theme.json and style variations to their full extent.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Carlos Daniele</strong> created <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/twenty-twenty-five-theme/"><strong>A developer’s overview of Twenty Twenty-Five, the next default WordPress theme</strong></a>. &#8220;Twenty Twenty-Five provides an excellent example of the philosophy of democratization of design, and this article will show you its structure in detail.&#8221; he wrote. Daniele looks at the code and explains some of the concepts that were incorporated into the new default theme, especially Section styles and Template patterns. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-typography-theme-json/"><strong>Revolutionizing WordPress typography with full site editing and theme.json</strong></a> <strong>Jeremy Holcombe</strong> takes a comprehensive journey through the tools and features of the Site editor and block themes on working with typography on the web and how users can make their typography choices and add them to their site. </p>



<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2024&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />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. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/">2020</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/">2021</a></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/">2022</a></strong></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023">2023</a></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</h2>



<p>For the first time, Developer Hours were streamed from YouTube directly, and it made a difference in the numbers of people reached. If you missed it, here is the recording: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lBIkf3xNDw"><strong>How to Simplify Client Editing in WordPress</strong></a> with <strong>Nick Diego</strong>, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> and <strong>Jamie Marsland</strong>. </p>


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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrOpsePAX3c">In his Live stream</a>,<strong> Ryan Welcher</strong>, explored if he could <strong>replace custom blocks with Block Bindings</strong>. It&#8217;s a continuation of the show from last week. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIDS4PFUHBI"><strong>Looking at the Block Bindings API coming in WordPress 6.7</strong></a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://x.com/3LPU4S"><strong>Alfredo Navas-Fernandini</strong></a> found <a href="https://elpuas.com/blog/you-might-not-need-a-custom-block-the-block-variations-api/"><strong>You Might Not Need a Custom Block: The Block Variations API</strong></a> and teaches you how to create Block variations with a common examples, a Call-to-Action block, and a Team query block,  assembled from core blocks. In the same mind set, Navas posted earlier <a href="https://elpuas.com/blog/you-might-not-need-a-custom-block-the-block-styles-api/">You Might Not Need a Custom Block: The Block Styles API</a>, showing ways to create more buttons styles and a custom header block. </p>



<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>



<p>Now also available via <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Email me </a>with your experience</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>


<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>


<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Oct 2024 08:30:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WordPress.org blog: Expanding Our Code of Conduct to Protect Private Conversations";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=17994";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/protect-private-conversations/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2935:"<p>At the heart of our community is our shared pledge to create a space that is harassment-free, welcoming, and inclusive for all. Our <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/handbook/community-code-of-conduct/">Community Code of Conduct</a> already outlines a clear set of expectations, while also providing examples of unacceptable actions. Today, we are reinforcing our values by adding another element to our list of unacceptable behaviors: Publishing private messages without consent.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why This Addition Matters</h2>



<p>The relationships we build within our community often involve private discussions. These conversations may involve sensitive matters, personal experiences, or simply casual exchanges. Regardless of the content, every individual should feel confident that their private communications will remain private unless they grant explicit permission to share them.</p>



<p>Sharing private messages without consent is a breach of trust that can also lead to unintended harm, including emotional distress or misrepresentation. When members of our community feel they cannot trust others in their personal conversations, it undermines the collaborative spirit that is crucial to our collective success.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How This Change Protects the Community</h2>



<p>By explicitly addressing the publication of private messages without consent, we are reinforcing an existing unacceptable behavior in our Community Code of Conduct: Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting. Sharing private communications without permission is a clear violation of professional integrity.</p>



<p>This new addition ensures that private messages receive the same level of protection as personal information and that sensitive communications shared in confidence will not be disclosed without prior consent. An important exception to this is when sharing private messages is necessary for reporting incidents or concerns to the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/irt/">Incident Response Team</a>, as part of our commitment to maintaining a safe and respectful environment.</p>



<p>Ultimately, this change encourages honest, constructive engagement across all levels of participation.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Moving Forward Together</h2>



<p>The strength of our community lies in the trust we place in one another. By clarifying and reinforcing our expectations, we are taking another step toward maintaining an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for everyone.This new addition will take effect immediately, and violations will be handled in accordance with our existing <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/handbook/community-code-of-conduct/#enforcement">enforcement guidelines</a>. Together, we can ensure our community remains a place of collaboration, trust, and mutual respect.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Oct 2024 00:51:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17:"Nicholas Garofalo";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress Thanks Salesforce";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=18012";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/thank-you-salesforce/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2643:"<p>In the midst of our legal battles with Silver Lake and WP Engine, I wanted to take a moment to highlight something positive.</p>



<p>Because of my friendships with the co-founders of Slack, <a href="https://x.com/stewart">Stewart Butterfield</a> and <a href="https://x.com/iamcal">Cal Henderson</a>, WordPress.org has had a free version of the Pro version of Slack since they started in 2009. We switched from IRC to Slack, and it was like superpowers were unlocked for our team.</p>



<p>Over the past 10 years, <a href="https://slack.com/">Slack</a> has been our secret weapon of productivity compared to many other open source projects. Its amazing collaboration features have allowed us to scale WordPress from running just a few blogs to now powering around 43% of all websites in the world, almost 10 times the runner-up in the market.</p>



<p>As we have scaled from very small to very large, Slack has scaled right alongside us, seemingly effortlessly. WordPress.org currently has 49,286 users on its <a href="https://slack.com/pricing">Slack Business+ instance</a>, which would cost at least $8.8M/yr if we were paying. (And we may need to go to their enterprise grid, to support e-discovery in the lawsuit attacks from WP Engine, which would cost even more.) </p>



<p>This incredible generosity was continued by the enlightened leadership of Marc Benioff at Salesforce when they bought Slack in 2020. However, it has not been widely known or recognized on our <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five for the Future page</a>, which only highlights self-reported contributor hours and doesn&#8217;t mention Salesforce at all.</p>



<p>This is a grave error, and we are correcting it today. Going forward:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>I would like every business in the world to see the amazing collaboration and productivity gains Slack has enabled for our community of tens of thousands of volunteers worldwide and <a href="https://slack.com/">consider adopting it for their own business</a>.</li>



<li>Salesforce will have a complimentary top sponsor slot at our flagship WordCamp events in the <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/">United States</a>, <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/">Europe</a>, and <a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/">Asia</a>, which attract thousands of people each.</li>



<li>We will update our <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five for the Future program</a> to reflect contributions such as Salesforce&#8217;s going forward.</li>
</ul>



<p>We just want to repeat: Thank you. We hope to deepen our partnership with Salesforce in the future.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Oct 2024 20:17:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Matt Mullenweg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46:"Gutenberg Times: WordPress 6.7 Source of Truth";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=30495";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81234:"<p>After quite a few rounds of sharing the <a href="https://nomad.blog/tag/source-of-truth/">Source of Truth on my personal site</a>, Birgit Pauli-Haack, the wonderful creator and curator of Gutenberg Times, offered up this space for me to share this resource. Going forward, we&#8217;re going to experiment with it continuing to be shared here in hopes of reaching more content creators, educators, and general WordPress enthusiasts who want to know every detail of the latest &amp; greatest of WordPress.</p>



<p>As always, I’d recommend staying up to date on the&nbsp;dev notes&nbsp;as those are rolling out along with&nbsp;reviewing the Field Guide when it comes out.</p>



<p><strong>As a reminder, this is not meant to replace dev notes or the release-specific field guides, which serve important roles and are separate efforts. </strong>I mainly see it as for folks close to the WordPress release itself and educating others than I see it as something broadly helpful for the average WordPress user. It’s a foundational resource but, it’s so long and detailed, it needs to be repackaged to be useful in each space. Feedback is welcomed for improvements for this version and for future versions as I consider how best to share this information.</p>



<p>Big thank you to everyone who helped in big and small ways.</p>



<img width="652" height="374" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/376215782-1f8a8a02-f3fd-464d-a543-00f7a90dd1eb.png?resize=652%2C374&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30498" />



<ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#changelog">Changelog</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#important-note-guidelines">Important Note/Guidelines</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#overview">Overview </a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#important-links">Important links:</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#6-7-assets">6.7 assets: </a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#tags">Tags</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#priority-items-for-6-7">Priority Items for 6.7</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#new-default-theme-twenty-twenty-five">New default theme: Twenty Twenty-Five</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#refining-data-views">Refining Data Views </a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#enhancements">Enhancements</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#expanded-extensibility">Expanded extensibility </a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#consolidating-and-expanding-block-supports">Consolidating and expanding block supports</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#block-bindings-improvements-including-ui-to-connect-blocks-and-custom-fields-developer-plugin-author-enterprise">Block Bindings improvements, including UI to connect blocks and custom fields [developer] [plugin author] [enterprise]</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#ui-to-connect-blocks-and-custom-fields">UI to connect blocks and custom fields</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#new-apis-to-empower-extenders">New APIs to empower extenders</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#ux-improvements">UX improvements</a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#polishing-the-query-loop-block-with-a-focus-on-simplicity">Polishing the Query Loop block with a focus on simplicity</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#zoom-out-to-compose-with-patterns">Zoom out to compose with patterns</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#media-improvements">Media improvements</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#support-for-heic-image-uploads">Support for HEIC image uploads</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images">Auto Sizes for Lazy-loaded Images</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#expanded-and-improved-background-image-support">Expanded and improved background image support</a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#view-meta-boxes-in-the-iframed-post-editor-plugin-author-enterprise">View meta boxes in the iframed Post Editor [plugin author] [enterprise]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#font-management-updates-end-user-theme-author">Font management updates [end user] [theme author]</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#edit-and-apply-font-size-presets">Edit and apply font size presets </a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#consistent-interfaces">Consistent interfaces</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#font-library-enhancements">Font library enhancements</a></li></ol></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#additional-items-for-6-7">Additional Items for 6.7</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#template-registration-api-plugin-author-theme-author-developer">Template Registration API [plugin author] [theme author] [developer]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#preview-options-api-developer-plugin-author-enterprise">Preview Options API [developer] [plugin author] [enterprise]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#changes-to-heartbeat-api-to-lower-minimum-allowed-time-enterprise-plugin-author">Changes to Heartbeat API to lower minimum allowed time [enterprise] [plugin author] </a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#customize-heading-level-curation-developer">Customize heading level curation [developer]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#general-improvements">General improvements</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#updated-order-of-editor-actions-for-a-clearer-sidebar">Updated order of editor actions for a clearer sidebar</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#opt-out-preference-for-choose-a-pattern-modal-when-adding-a-new-page">Opt out preference for &#8216;Choose a Pattern&#8217; modal when adding a new page</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#more-robust-saving">More robust saving</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#iterating-on-pattern-shuffling">Iterating on pattern shuffling</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#writing-flow-improvements">Writing flow improvements </a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#adding-block-examples-and-previews">Adding block examples and previews</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#site-editor-focused">Site Editor focused</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#other">Other</a></li></ol></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#interactivity-api-iteration-bug-fixes-internal-refactor-and-new-apis-developer-plugin-author">Interactivity API iteration: bug fixes, internal refactor, and new APIs [developer] [plugin author]</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#new-apis-getserver-state-getservercontext">New APIs: getServer State &amp; getServerContext</a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#updates-for-the-html-api-plugin-author-developer">Updates for the HTML API [plugin author] [developer] </a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#time-input-as-a-subcomponent-of-timepicker-developer-plugin-author">Time input as a subcomponent of TimePicker [developer] [plugin author]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#define-block-variations-via-a-php-file-developer-plugin-author">Define block variations via a PHP file [developer] [plugin author]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#override-styles-dynamically-plugin-author-developer">Override styles dynamically [plugin author] [developer]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#help-text-for-radiocontrol-options-developer-plugin-author">Help text for RadioControl options [developer] [plugin author]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#clearfix-for-the-post-content-block-theme-author-end-user">Clearfix for the Post Content block [theme author] [end user]</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/6-7-source-of-truth/#continuing-to-improve-php-8-x-support">Continuing to improve PHP 8.x support</a></li></ol>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="changelog"><strong>Changelog</strong></h2>



<p>Any changes will be catalogued here as the release goes on. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Oct 21, 2024: added links to published Dev Notes</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="important-note-guidelines"><strong>Important Note/Guidelines</strong></h2>



<p><em>This is a public document so please be mindful of the fact that a wider audience than you might think can participate in what’s shared here 🙂&nbsp;</em></p>



<p><strong>Please do not copy and paste what is in this document </strong>since this will be shared with many people. This should be used to inspire your own content and to ensure that you have the best information about this release. If you do copy and paste, keep in mind that others might do the same, opening the door for some awkwardness around duplicated content out on the web.&nbsp;</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The document is shared publicly so be mindful of what you comment. The audience is large!</li>



<li>You will have Comment access but not edit access. This is intentional – please comment if you have any questions/concerns/feedback and I’ll follow up.&nbsp;</li>



<li>If there are drastic changes, this document will be updated and you will be alerted.</li>



<li>Each item has been tagged using best guesses with different high level labels so that you can more readily see at a glance who is likely to be most impacted.</li>



<li>Each item has a high-level description, visuals (if relevant), adoption strategy (if relevant), and key resources if you want to learn more.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="overview"><strong>Overview&nbsp;</strong></h2>



<p>Along with a new default theme, there are new features, like the ability to zoom out to compose content with patterns, and new APIs, like the Template Registration API. More than anything though, this release brings refinement to how everything connects together to create a more seamless WordPress experience.</p>



<p>Of note, this release includes Gutenberg 18.6 &#8211; 19.3 and, for the first time, I used AI to help offer rewrites to different sections.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="important-links">Important links:</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/09/03/roadmap-to-6-7/">Roadmap to 6.7</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-7/">6.7 Development Cycle information</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/23/wordpress-6-7-field-guide/">6.7 Field Guide</a></li>



<li>What’s new for developers: <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/07/10/whats-new-for-developers-july-2024/">July</a>, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/08/10/whats-new-for-developers-august-2024/">August</a>, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/10/whats-new-for-developers-september-2024">September</a>, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/10/10/whats-new-for-developers-october-2024/">October</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="6-7-assets">6.7 assets:&nbsp;</h3>



<p>To view all assets in this document, <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1So-c8M-H45g_zyOZ8ACefZe-F-LD-8cq?usp=sharing">please review this drive folder</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="tags"><strong>Tags</strong></h2>



<p>To make this document easier to navigate based on specific audiences, the following tags are used liberally:&nbsp;</p>



<p>[end user]: end user focus.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[theme author]: block or classic theme author.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[plugin author]: plugin author, whether block or otherwise.</p>



<p>[developer]: catch-all term for more technical folks.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[site admin]: this includes a “builder” type.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[enterprise]: specific items that would be of interest to or particularly impact enterprise-level folks</p>



<p><strong>If no tags are listed, it’s because the impact is broad enough to impact everyone equally.&nbsp;</strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="priority-items-for-6-7"><strong>Priority Items for 6.7</strong></h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="new-default-theme-twenty-twenty-five">New default theme: Twenty Twenty-Five</h3>



<p>6.7 marks the next edition of a default WordPress theme, designed to showcase the latest in WordPress and set a new standard for block themers. This year&#8217;s theme aims to cater to a wide range of bloggers. It’s designed for <strong>simple personal blogs</strong> like ma.tt, <strong>photo blogs</strong> focused on photography or portfolios, and more <strong>complex blogs</strong>, such as news sites that require a broader set of blocks and more complex content.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZM2tL4Tt9IYMbULYJHEAUcp_CWwcb0V/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> walking through the theme including style variations, template layouts, and page patterns.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):</strong> <em>Follow the </em><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfive"><em>Twenty Twenty-Five GitHub repo</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/08/15/introducing-twenty-twenty-five/"><em>read the announcement post</em></a><em> for more information.&nbsp;</em></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="refining-data-views">Refining Data Views&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Following the launch of Data Views in 6.5 and advancements in 6.6, this release is focused on refining the experience with a few new features planned. The aim is to make these views more flexible for customization and more functional to use.&nbsp;</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="enhancements">Enhancements</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/60630">Ability to set the density of information in the grid layout</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://href.li/?https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63203">Option to hide/show the filters in the user interface</a> to add more optionality and reduce clutter.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63416">Ability to customize the column order in table views</a> with the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64646">move left/right controls always available</a>, including in the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64381">new view configuration UI to manage order across all columns</a>.&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63487">Make the Grid layout aspect ratio user configurable</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64175#top">Graduate data view options out of a menu to allow more design expression</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63309">See author’s avatar next to publication status in Pages</a>.</li>



<li>Mobile responsiveness improvements, including fixes like <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63203">moving the filtering UI into a toggle-able panel to improve experience on narrow viewports/containers</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63118">make SiteHub available for Pages, Patterns, and Templates in mobile viewports</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63002">ensure Patterns and Templates can be edited</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64209">De-emphasise bulk actions on Grid layout</a> after feedback that always being able to see the bulk select option proved to be confusing.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64268">Move bulk actions menu to the Footer</a>, consolidate with the floating toolbar and total items display, to provide an easier to access pathway.&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65223">Show item count for each item in the sidebar</a> for access to quick information.&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65295">Improved UX of views for Pages</a> with filtered views, like Published and Drafts, that only shows additional filters and hides the “status” filter to prevent ending up in a confusing state.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="expanded-extensibility">Expanded extensibility&nbsp;</h4>



<p>As part of enhancing Data Views extensibility and supporting the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/">Admin Redesign</a> efforts, an API was introduced to register and unregister dataview actions. The existing post actions were also moved to globally registered actions and typed actions (see examples in <code>packages/editor/src/dataviews/actions</code>). This enables third-party developers to manage actions as needed. This includes a way to register and unregister core actions around <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64087">trashing</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64088">permanently deleting</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64134">restoring</a> posts. In staying with the idea, users of the component can also unregister actions to duplicate <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64441">posts</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64373">patterns</a>, or <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64388">template parts</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Developers can also remove the actions to view <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64467">posts</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64464">post revisions</a> or prevent users from <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64366">renaming a post</a> or <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64199">reordering pages.</a> These actions appear in both the Site Editor views and the sidebar in the Post or Site Editor.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q3_IyMrAtXe6s1gDc5kSr9qmt484GNNa/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> changing grid density, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B7DeTe6eXG6LCub2dKLLwPFE47TCmXck/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of show/hide filters option.<br /><strong>Adoption approach:</strong> updated by default if using a block theme and opt in for extending with two guides to help <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/08/27/using-data-views-to-display-and-interact-with-data-in-plugins/">Using Data Views to display and interact with data in plugins</a> &amp; <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/23/actions-from-data-views-adding-images-to-the-media-library/">Actions from Data Views: Adding images to the Media Library</a><br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):</strong> <em>Follow </em><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/63128"><em>this tracking issue</em></a><em> for more information.</em></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="consolidating-and-expanding-block-supports">Consolidating and expanding block supports</h3>



<p>Several blocks now come with expanded support options, enabling even more design possibilities. Notably, the long-requested shadow support for Group blocks has been added, which is a big win for designers and theme developers:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Buttons: Add border, color, and padding block supports. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63538">63538</a>)</li>



<li>Categories: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63950">63950</a>)</li>



<li>Column: Enable border-radius support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63924">63924</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Author Name: add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64550">64550</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Content: add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64230">64230</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Date: add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64210">64210</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Template: Add Border Block Support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64238">64238</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Edit Link: Add Border Block Support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64239">64239</a>)</li>



<li>Comment Reply Link: Add border support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64271">64271</a>)</li>



<li>File: Add border block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64509">64509</a>).</li>



<li>Gallery: Add border block support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63428">63428</a>)</li>



<li>Group: Add block support for shadow. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63295">63295</a>)</li>



<li>Heading: Add border support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63539">63539</a>)</li>



<li>Image: Adopt margin block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63546">63546</a>)</li>



<li>Latest comments: Add color block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63419">63419</a>)</li>



<li>List: add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63540">63540</a>)</li>



<li>List Item: Add color support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/59892">59892</a>), add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63541">63541</a>).</li>



<li>Media &amp; Text: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63542">63542</a>)</li>



<li>Paragraph: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63543">63543</a>)</li>



<li>Post Author Biography: Add border support&nbsp; (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64615">64615</a>)</li>



<li>Post Author Name: Add border support&nbsp; (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64530">64530</a>)</li>



<li>Post Author: Add border support&nbsp; (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64599">64599</a>)</li>



<li>Post Comments Form: Add Border Block Support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64233">64233</a>)</li>



<li>Post Content: Add background image and padding support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62499">62499</a>)</li>



<li>Post Date: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64023">64023</a>)</li>



<li>Post Excerpt: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64022">64022</a>)</li>



<li>Post Terms: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64246">64246</a>)</li>



<li>Post Title: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64024">64024</a>)</li>



<li>Preformatted: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64302">64302</a>)</li>



<li>Query Title: Add border support&nbsp; (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64581">64581</a>)</li>



<li>Quote: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63544">63544</a>), add spacing supports (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63545">63545</a>), add background image and minimum height support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62497">62497</a>), add align support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64188">64188</a>).</li>



<li>Search: Add margin support. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63547">63547</a>)</li>



<li>Site Tagline: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63778">63778</a>)</li>



<li>Site Title: Add border support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63631">63631</a>)</li>



<li>Social Links: Add border block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63629">63629</a>)</li>



<li>Tag Cloud: Add border block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63579">63579</a>)</li>



<li>Term Description: Add border block support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63630">63630</a>)</li>



<li>Verse block: Add background image and minimum height support (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62498">62498</a>)</li>



<li>Text orientation controls have been added to more blocks (site-title, site-tagline, verse, and button block.) (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62727">#62727</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z3aZYjI7kmM2Q1Gzhvq9kiEouNWzdaMR/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of shadow support in the Group block.</p>



<p>In <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/roster-of-design-tools-per-block-wordpress-6-6-edition-2/">Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.7 edition</a>, you&#8217;ll find an overview table, updated with the most recent changes. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="block-bindings-improvements-including-ui-to-connect-blocks-and-custom-fields-developer-plugin-author-enterprise">Block Bindings improvements, including UI to connect blocks and custom fields [developer] [plugin author] [enterprise]</h3>



<p>The Block Bindings API launched in 6.5 and iterated upon in 6.6 allows you to bind dynamic data to block attributes, solving many use cases for custom blocks and powering other features, like overrides in synced patterns. The work for this release centered mainly on polishing and opening the underlying APIs that were deemed stable, improving the overall UX, and adding a user interface (UI) that allows users to connect attributes with custom fields to their binding sources, making it possible to create bindings through the UI instead of the Code Editor.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="ui-to-connect-blocks-and-custom-fields">UI to connect blocks and custom fields</h4>



<p><em>A quick note here, this is specific to post meta fields as the APIs to extend this UI weren’t considered stable yet. This means that other sources can’t use it yet.</em></p>



<p>This release comes with a new user interface (UI) that allows users to connect attributes with custom fields, making it possible to create bindings through the UI instead of the Code Editor. This UI is controlled by a new editor setting reading a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/7258"><code>new edit_block_binding</code> capability</a>, which is mapped to `edit_post` (if editing a post) or <code>edit_theme_options</code> (if editing a template). This means that by default admin and editor users can create and modify bindings, but this can be overridden with <code>block_editor_settings_all</code> or <code>map_meta_cap</code> filters.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="new-apis-to-empower-extenders">New APIs to empower extenders</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65713">APIs to register sources in the client</a>: Allow extenders to show their source value and provide mechanisms to update it if wanted.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64102">Utils to update and remove bindings</a>: Open the door for plugin authors who might want to create their own UI.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/6839">PHP filter to customize the output of a block bindings source</a>: Provide flexibility for developers that just want to modify the output of a specific source.</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="ux-improvements">UX improvements</h4>



<p>In terms of UX improvements, this includes everything from warnings when a block is connected to an invalid attribute to changing the placeholder text when a block is bound. Additionally, a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/7298">new “label” property</a> has been added to register_meta to be able to consume a human-readable text, which highly improves the UX, especially for non-developer users. When combined, these all seek to improve the experience of editing and interacting with bound blocks.</p>



<p>For this release, the possibility of extending this UI hasn’t been opened because the API wasn’t considered stable, but there are plans to do so in the future.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V0OduoyRBnFNy2KUtjAvQiu7lUotfpfA/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> of UI to connect blocks and custom fields.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>opt-in by using block bindings UI with the ability to override which users have access to the UI with the `block_editor_settings_all` filter. To disable, you can use the same `block_editor_settings_all` filter and set <code>$editor_settings['canUpdateBlockBindings']</code>as false.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>To read about every change in this release, review <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/63018">this iteration issue</a><strong>.</strong></p>



<p>The Developer Note covers the details: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/block-bindings-improvements-to-the-editor-experience-in-6-7/">Block Bindings: Improvements to the Editor Experience in 6.7</a> </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="polishing-the-query-loop-block-with-a-focus-on-simplicity">Polishing the Query Loop block with a focus on simplicity</h3>



<p>WordPress 6.7 introduces significant improvements to the Query Loop block, focusing on simplicity and clarity. One of the most notable changes is the default settings, where the block now automatically inherits the query from the template, eliminating the need for users to enable this option manually. This ensures that posts display immediately both in the editor and on the front end, streamlining the process for most users who just want to see their content without extra configuration. This also applies when adding a Query Loop block to a single post or page, where the settings will be automatically configured to work in that context.</p>



<p>The Post List variation has been removed from the Inserter due to its confusing settings, which often caused posts to not appear. This change improves the overall user experience.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In terms of customization, a new toggle allows users to easily switch between default and custom queries. If opting for a custom query, another toggle lets users choose between filtering for posts, pages, or custom post types. Additionally, commonly used settings like Posts Per Page, Offset, and Max Pages to Show have been moved from the toolbar to the sidebar settings panel, consolidating all key options into one central place for easier configuration.</p>



<p>The update also includes several refinements, such as a quick preview when selecting the Query Loop block in the Inserter and more intuitive help text, particularly for sticky posts, which are now clearly labeled to always appear first. Pagination controls have been enhanced and moved to the Advanced section for better organization. Another new feature is the introduction of a &#8220;format&#8221; parameter, which allows users to filter content by post format, offering more flexibility in creating tailored queries. Combined, these updates make the Query Loop block both easier to use for beginners and more powerful for advanced users.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OPLKlFAi3c9J0JNlQlOEuygVzD70pKrd/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> of some of the query loop block changes, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/13HAuc-2EdkQ8BYCg1NViA2NyIQmy-FA3/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of post format support.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/09/23/core-editor-improvement-simplified-query-loop-block-with-smarter-defaults-intuitive-settings/">Core Editor Improvement: Simplified Query Loop block with smarter defaults &amp; intuitive settings</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="zoom-out-to-compose-with-patterns">Zoom out to compose with patterns</h3>



<p>The Zoom Out view aims to simplify the process of composing content at the pattern level, rather than focusing on lower-level, individual blocks. This new feature, accessible as a toggle in the toolbar, introduces a high-level, streamlined approach to site building with several key benefits:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>High-Level Overview of Content Structure: The Zoom Out View allows users to insert and manipulate patterns across a page or template, offering a clearer sense of the content structure.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Efficient Pattern Manipulation: While zoomed out, users can easily move, delete, shuffle between, and edit patterns, powered by the usual block toolbar.</li>



<li>Toggle On/Off: This option can be turned on and off in various ways, including clicking the option in the toolbar and double-clicking to edit patterns. All of these options provide pathways in and out of zooming as you’d like.</li>



<li>Ability to style at a high level: As part of making zoom out more robust, you will still see options to style top level container blocks and any individual blocks that don’t exist within a container. This means you can stay zoomed out and still make quick changes, like changing the background color of a Group block.</li>



<li>Additional Enhancements: Other refinements include closing the inserter automatically when switching to block-level editing, showing top-level sections in List View, visual vertical displacement when dragging patterns, and an “Add pattern” prompt for the quick inserter.</li>
</ul>



<p>This feature gives users a simplified, high-level interface to make design changes, ensuring more cohesive layouts with less granular block management.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mQFeDmNun-U_PCedpoTqWlRTYKYB2O5U/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> showing a template being built moving in and out of using zoom out.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Zoom out mode iteration issue for 6.7 for a full list of related changes (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/64197">64197</a>)&nbsp;</p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/21/developer-notes-for-zoom-out-in-wordpress-6-7/">Developer Notes for Zoom Out in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="media-improvements">Media improvements</h3>



<p>Adding and interacting with media is taking a big leap forward in this release with HEIC support, auto sizes for lazy loaded images, and more background image support at an individual block and global level:</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="support-for-heic-image-uploads">Support for HEIC image uploads</h4>



<p>“In WordPress 6.7, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format">HEIC</a> image uploads <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/53645">will be automatically converted to JPEG on the server when possible</a>. This allows you to view HEIC images in WP Admin and use them in posts and pages regardless of whether a visitor’s browser supports HEIC. Automatic conversion of HEIC images to JPEG can be disabled using the <code>image_editor_output_format</code> filter.”</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code has-small-font-size"><span><code class="hljs language-php shcb-code-table shcb-line-numbers shcb-wrap-lines"><span class="shcb-loc"><span>add_filter( <span class="hljs-string">'image_editor_output_format'</span>, <span class="hljs-function"><span class="hljs-keyword">function</span><span class="hljs-params">( $output_format )</span> </span>{
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>    <span class="hljs-keyword">unset</span>( $output_format&#91;<span class="hljs-string">'image/heic'</span>] );
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>    <span class="hljs-keyword">return</span> $output_format;
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>
</span></span><span class="shcb-loc"><span>} );
</span></span></code></span></pre>


<p>From the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/08/15/automatic-conversion-of-heic-images-to-jpeg-in-wordpress-6-7/">Automatic conversion of HEIC images to JPEG in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images">Auto Sizes for Lazy-loaded Images</h4>



<p>“This implements the HTML spec for applying auto sizes to lazy-loaded images by prepending auto to the sizes attribute generated by WordPress if the image has a loading attribute set to lazy. For browsers that support this HTML spec, the image&#8217;s size value will be set to the concrete object size of the image. For browsers that don&#8217;t support the spec, the word &#8220;auto&#8221; will be ignored when parsing the sizesizes value.”</p>



<p>From the <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61847">trac ticket</a> that implemented this feature.</p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/auto-sizes-for-lazy-loaded-images-in-wordpress-6-7/">Auto Sizes for Lazy Loaded Images in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="expanded-and-improved-background-image-support">Expanded and improved background image support</h4>



<p>Recent updates to background image support bring new customization options for content blocks like Quote, Verse, and Post Content. Previously, background image functionality was restricted to container blocks such as Cover and Group, but with expanded support across multiple blocks, users now have more flexibility in design. This enhancement eliminates the need for nesting blocks, making it easier to achieve the desired look by adding a background image to individual blocks.</p>



<p>Another key improvement is the ability to set background images globally via Styles for block themes for all blocks with background support. For example, this means you can apply a background image across all Quote or Pull Quote blocks within a site, ensuring consistency in design. Additionally, when setting a background image globally or for an individual block, you can enable a fixed background directly from the block settings in Styles. Alternatively, you can define this setting in <code>theme.json</code> using the `background.backgroundAttachment` style property. Finally, a new popover interface has been introduced for background image controls, keeping them neatly hidden when not in use.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In terms of technical updates, you can now use reference values for background images in <code>theme.json</code>, allowing for code reuse and avoiding potential bugs. For example, you can reference a background image defined via <code>styles.background.backGroundImage</code> by setting a value of <code>{ ref: 'styles.background.backgroundImage' }</code> for another background image. Overall, these enhancements greatly improve the flexibility and user experience of adding background images across a site.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong>images of <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mS1QUNCV4Qe13HHFE-5LWVcMhltgyUaa/view?usp=drive_link">Quote block</a> and <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FEfhr1-bxFiEHfOubyNb1uFr-TZcbjo3/view?usp=drive_link">Verse block</a> with background image support, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nwVqced-a7U3QxnVsUKNVcOxOGjbvSIN/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> of using background image tools in Styles.</p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach:&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p>Opt out for HEIC support via the <code>image_editor_output_format</code> hook.</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><span><code class="hljs language-php">add_filter( <span class="hljs-string">'image_editor_output_format'</span>, <span class="hljs-function"><span class="hljs-keyword">function</span><span class="hljs-params">( $output_format )</span> </span>{

    <span class="hljs-keyword">unset</span>( $output_format&#91;<span class="hljs-string">'image/heic'</span>] );

    <span class="hljs-keyword">return</span> $output_format;

} );</code></span></pre>


<p>See examples of adding reference values to `theme.json` <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64128">in the PR that implemented the feature</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>background image block support follow up tasks with a dedicated 6.7 section (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/54336">54336</a>)</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="view-meta-boxes-in-the-iframed-post-editor-plugin-author-enterprise">View meta boxes in the iframed Post Editor [plugin author] [enterprise]</h3>



<p>Previously, after an effort to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33346">iframe the post editor</a>, metaboxes prevented the editor content from loading in an iframe, causing a fair amount of disruption and workarounds. To resolve this and ensure that both metaboxes and canvas content is visible when working on content, a split view option has been added to allow you to access both while editing when the editor is iframed. This change will provide a consistent WYSIWYG experience between the Editor and frontend views.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The editor running as an iframe will affect many plugin developers and may force you to modify your code (see <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64351#issuecomment-2326301103">this comment</a>). Expect a dev note on this topic. Ideally, if you are building a plugin that extends the editor with custom data input, you would transition to one of the available <a href="https://href.li/?https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/slotfills/">SlotFills</a> in the interface, creating a more integrated user experience.</li>



<li>This work makes the post editor canvas work as an iframe when there is a meta box.</li>



<li>The meta box area is resizable, and its height is saved as a user preference. If the browser height is low, the meta box switches to a toggleable details element.</li>
</ul>



<p>For enterprise folks who often use plugins that add metaboxes, this is also a change to be aware of and plan for.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sfa0pPnlOJ8_7sxUhrctSnayHgLYfugh/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> showing before and after this work with the Yoast plugin as an example.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>Plugin developers may have to alter their code. Expect a dev note on this topic. <a href="https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo/issues/21602">Here’s an example</a> from Yoast around adjustments that had to be made.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):&nbsp; </strong>Try split content view with open metaboxes (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64351">64351</a>)</p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/post-editor-iframing-with-meta-boxes-in-wordpress-6-7/">Post Editor iframing with meta boxes&nbsp;in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="font-management-updates-end-user-theme-author">Font management updates [end user] [theme author]</h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="edit-and-apply-font-size-presets">Edit and apply font size presets&nbsp;</h4>



<p>An enhanced Styles interface allows for greater flexibility when creating, editing, removing, and applying font size presets. Users can now easily modify the presets provided by a theme or create their own custom options. A key feature is the ability to toggle fluid typography, which enables responsive font scaling, with the option to set custom fluid values for finer control over responsiveness. Of note, individual font sizes may opt out of fluid typography if it is turned on globally. Individual font size presets can opt in to fluid typography if it is not turned on globally, creating more possibilities.&nbsp;</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="consistent-interfaces">Consistent interfaces</h4>



<p>In addition to these font-related enhancements, the Styles interface has been upgraded to offer more intuitive control over font size presets. These presets, along with color presets, are now available for selection from the Styles sidebar under the &#8220;Browse styles&#8221; option, aligning with the left sidebar Styles menu. This change creates a more streamlined and consistent user experience, making navigating and applying global styles across the site easier and making &nbsp; the fonts management modal dialog more discoverable. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62129">62129</a>)</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="font-library-enhancements">Font library enhancements</h4>



<p>Fonts are now grouped by source (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63211">63211</a>) helping users understand at a glance where each font comes from. A new “Select All” option (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63531">63531</a>) allows for quick activation or deactivation of all fonts at once, streamlining font management. When no fonts are installed, a message now displays in the library tab (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63740">63740</a>), improving user awareness. Additionally, enhancements have been made to the &#8220;No fonts installed&#8221; state (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63533">63533</a>), clarifying situations when fonts are installed but not yet activated.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yOpfEc9fVustc7swG5CXTm6ivGeLBFl9/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> showing editing font preset, creating a font preset, and font library improvements.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/08/core-editor-improvement-new-features-and-flows-for-font-management/">Core Editor Improvement post dedicated to these changes</a>, efforts done across a number of PRs including add font size presets UI (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63057">63057</a>), Font Library: group fonts by source (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63211#top">63211</a>), and fluid typography: allow individual preset overrides (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64790">64790</a>).</p>



<p>Developer Notes excerpt: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/miscellaneous-block-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-7/#new-font-size-presets-ui">New Font Size Presets UI</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="additional-items-for-6-7"><strong>Additional Items for 6.7</strong></h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="template-registration-api-plugin-author-theme-author-developer">Template Registration API [plugin author] [theme author] [developer]</h3>



<p>A new API streamlines the process of registering templates and template parts for plugins, making it easier for developers to integrate custom templates. Previously, plugins had to rely on multiple filters to accomplish this, which created a barrier to entry and limited adoption. With this new API, developers now have a much simpler path to building block templates and aligning with the expectations of WordPress users.</p>



<p>One key feature of the new API is that plugin-registered templates can be overridden by themes, with fallback options that automatically revert to the plugin&#8217;s registered title and description when necessary. The API also empowers theme builders by offering customization options for these templates. Additionally, developers can unregister existing templates or create custom category templates to suit their needs.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jXL79RTt3v7UN9UW_dQ5GT9myUU-juCE/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of code showing how to register a template.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Adoption approach:</strong> Opt in. The tutorial, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/08/29/registering-block-templates-via-plugins-in-wordpress-6-7/">Registering block templates via plugins in WordPress 6.7</a>, walks you through an example of how to use the new API to provide single, archive, and custom templates for a Book custom post type. Here’s an example for now:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><span><code class="hljs language-xml">register_block_template( 'devblog-plugin-templates//example', &#91;

'title'       =&gt; __( 'Example', 'devblog-plugin-templates' ),

'description' =&gt; __( 'An example block template from a plugin.', 'devblog-plugin-templates' ),

'content'     =&gt; '

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- wp:template-part {"slug":"header","area":"header","tagName":"header"} /--&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- wp:group {"tagName":"main"} --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;<span class="hljs-name">main</span> <span class="hljs-attr">class</span>=<span class="hljs-string">"wp-block-group"</span>&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- wp:group {"layout":{"type":"constrained"}} --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;<span class="hljs-name">div</span> <span class="hljs-attr">class</span>=<span class="hljs-string">"wp-block-group"</span>&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;<span class="hljs-name">p</span>&gt;</span>This is a plugin-registered template.<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;/<span class="hljs-name">p</span>&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;/<span class="hljs-name">div</span>&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- /wp:group --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-tag">&lt;/<span class="hljs-name">main</span>&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- /wp:group --&gt;</span>

<span class="hljs-comment">&lt;!-- wp:template-part {"slug":"footer","area":"footer","tagName":"footer"} /--&gt;</span>'

] );</code></span></pre>


<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/08/29/registering-block-templates-via-plugins-in-wordpress-6-7/">Registering block templates via plugins in WordPress 6.7</a> developer blog post tutorial, Add plugin template registration API (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/61577">61577</a>).</p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/new-plugin-template-registration-api-in-wordpress-6-7/">New Plugin Template Registration API in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="preview-options-api-developer-plugin-author-enterprise">Preview Options API [developer] [plugin author] [enterprise]</h3>



<p>The latest WordPress release enhances the Preview Options in the block editor, making it easier for developers to customize how content is previewed. A new API allows plugins and themes to add custom items to the preview dropdown menu, enabling users to see content in different formats or environments. This flexibility improves the editing experience while maintaining the existing structure of the Preview dropdown:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Introduces <code>PreviewDropdownMenuItem</code> component for adding custom items to the Preview dropdown</li>



<li>Allows plugins to add menu items with custom titles and click handlers</li>



<li>Maintains the existing Preview dropdown structure while allowing for extensibility</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Axvxz-jnDHk0E341zRWF7cPelnRoLfXo/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of an example of how a plugin could use this API.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Adoption approach:</strong> opt in.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Add extensibility to PreviewOptions v2 (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64644#top">64644</a>)</p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/extending-the-preview-dropdown-menu-in-wordpress-6-7/">Extending the Preview Dropdown Menu in WordPress 6.7</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="changes-to-heartbeat-api-to-lower-minimum-allowed-time-enterprise-plugin-author">Changes to Heartbeat API to lower minimum allowed time [enterprise] [plugin author]&nbsp;</h3>



<p>The WordPress Heartbeat script (used to set post locks, show logged-out warnings in wp-admin, etc.) <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/7301">has been updated</a> to <a href="https://public-api.wordpress.com/bar/?stat=groovemails-events&bin=wpcom_email_click&redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fcore%2F2023%2F10%2F23%2Fsummary-and-insights-of-phase-3-related-conversations%2F%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DCollaborative%2520editing%2520%2526%2520asynchronous%2520collaboration&sr=1&signature=e67e40321ccefa55db4f6637890faf5e&user=64259130&_e=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&_z=z">improve the cross-user collaboration experience</a>. This update speeds up the &#8220;heartbeat&#8221; a bit, from 15 to 10 seconds, which means post locked notices (when somebody edits a post) will be set and cleared faster. It also allows extenders more flexibility in setting a precise heartbeat poll interval, rather than a fixed set of values, ranging from 1 to 3600 seconds (1 hour).</p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>opt in by making changes to <code>wp.heartbeat.interval()</code> which has been modified to allow theme and plugin authors to set the heartbeat interval to any value between one second and one hour rather than limiting them to a fixed set of values.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Heartbeat API: consider changing the min allowed time (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61960">61960</a>)</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="customize-heading-level-curation-developer">Customize heading level curation [developer]</h3>



<p>The <code>levelOptions</code> block attribute allows you to limit the available heading levels directly through block markup in patterns and templates. Additionally, you can customize the attribute using a filter for both PHP and JavaScript so the applications are broad. This attribute is now available for Core blocks that use heading elements, including <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64106">Post Title</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64107">Query Title</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64113">Site Tagline</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64111">Site Title</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64103">Comments Title</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NChG_4ZAkyPKtkLSyPLlhD0Vm_X4OkZl/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of before/after heading curation.<br /><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>Opt in via block markup or filters. For examples, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63535">please review the PR</a> that added this option to see both markup and filter examples.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):</strong> Enable heading level curation. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63535">63535</a>)</p>



<p>Developer Note excerpt: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/20/miscellaneous-block-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-7/#heading-level-curation">Heading level curation</a></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="general-improvements">General improvements</h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="updated-order-of-editor-actions-for-a-clearer-sidebar">Updated order of editor actions for a clearer sidebar</h4>



<p>The top toolbar in the editors is an important part of the publishing and saving flow, requiring careful consideration around the placement of each item. In this release, two enhancements come together to add clarity and streamline the experience of working across the editors:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Reorder the top bar actions to move Save/Publish buttons to the right of the Settings and Global Styles (pinned items) buttons.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Swap the &#8220;Cancel&#8221; and &#8220;Publish&#8221; buttons in the pre-publish check panel, allowing users to publish without additional cursor movement.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vLC8_X2APSpX_K1QmzFZHKLN5GMCcXY7/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> of streamlined pre-publish flow, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_UFOlzJ9cfVZ49UUZhU2nBmph8r2UF5l/view?usp=sharing">image</a> of before/after in the site editor of editor actions, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1plrWkmLLV7dx7jXiGQezXHsVcAx7ROAn/view?usp=drive_link">image</a> of before/after in the post editor of editor actions.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Editor topbar: Reorder the actions on the right (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65163">65163</a>), Swap position of the Pre-publish checks buttons (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65317#top">65317</a>).</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="opt-out-preference-for-choose-a-pattern-modal-when-adding-a-new-page">Opt out preference for &#8216;Choose a Pattern&#8217; modal when adding a new page</h4>



<p>Based on feedback, a new preference was added to toggle on and off “Show starter patterns” to provide the ability to control whether starter patterns appear when creating a new page.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Visuals: </strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VR5YRm9U4WbrLeknyjX5K5Wh0JihpnJ9/view?usp=drive_link">demo</a> showing turning off this option.<br /><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>Opt in by turning preference on.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Add opt out preference to the &#8216;Choose a Pattern&#8217; modal when adding a page. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65026">65026</a>)</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="more-robust-saving">More robust saving</h4>



<p>Imagine a situation where you are adding an image to your post and, before it finishes loading, you navigate away from the editor, without ever getting a warning that your image hasn’t yet been saved. In WordPress 6.7, work was done to ensure that doesn’t happen anymore with the introduction of temporary block attributes that ensure in-progress media items are eventually saved and shown:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Introduce “local” attributes and use it for the image block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63076">63076</a>)</li>



<li>Video Block: Do not persist blob urls and fix undo. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63238">63238</a>)</li>



<li>Audio Block: Do not persist blob urls and fix undo. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63257">63257</a>)</li>



<li>File block: Do not persist blob urls and fix undo. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63282">63282</a>)</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="iterating-on-pattern-shuffling">Iterating on pattern shuffling</h4>



<p>To ensure that pattern shuffling behaves as expected and to minimize the risk of losing customizations made to patterns, several adjustments were made to limit its scope:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Shuffling now applies only to patterns added by the theme or the user.</li>



<li>Shuffling is only available in the zoomed-out view, and the option has been removed from the block toolbar.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>&nbsp;Remove the Shuffle block toolbar button <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64571">(</a><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64954">64954</a>), limit pattern shuffling to theme and user patterns only (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62677">62677</a>).</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="writing-flow-improvements">Writing flow improvements&nbsp;</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Allow dropping multiple images to the image block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65030">65030</a>)</li>



<li>Drag and Drop: When dragging a mix of video, audio, and image blocks, create individual blocks as appropriate. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65144">65144</a>)</li>



<li>Inserter: When opening the block inserter, it will now stay open when interacting with the editor canvas. This makes it easier to move around the document while adding blocks. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63059">63059</a>)</li>



<li>LinkControl: Refined the display of the link preview title and URL when both are same. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/61819">61819</a>)</li>



<li>Link Editing: Automatically add tel to phone number when linking URL. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64865">64865</a>)</li>



<li>Page editor: Double-click to edit template part. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65024">65024</a>)</li>



<li>Post Title: Fix pasting in Safari. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64671">64671</a>)</li>



<li>Post Title: Move selection at the end after pasting over the text. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64665">64665</a>)</li>



<li>Restore: Move to trash button in Document settings. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65087">65087</a>)</li>



<li>Slash Inserter: Restrict block list to allowed blocks only. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64413">64413</a>)</li>



<li>Writing flow: Split heading into default block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/61891">61891</a>)</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="adding-block-examples-and-previews">Adding block examples and previews</h4>



<p>The following adds previews and examples to blocks so that, when searching in the Inserter, you can quickly see how each might be used:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Excerpt block: Add example of the block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63010">63010</a>)</li>



<li>Login/out block: Add example of the block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62937">62937</a>)</li>



<li>Post author blocks: Add example and preview. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62978">62978</a>)</li>



<li>Post content block: Add example of the block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62968">62968</a>)</li>



<li>Post title: Add example of the block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62955">62955</a>)</li>



<li>Post date block: Add a block example. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63368">63368</a>)</li>



<li>Post featured image: Add example of the block. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63011">63011</a>)</li>



<li>Post terms block: Add an example. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63369">63369</a>)</li>



<li>Query loop block and Posts list: add example (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63286">63286</a>)</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="site-editor-focused">Site Editor focused</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Add colors and typography to the browse styles section. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63173">63173</a>)</li>



<li>Allow editing of description only for custom templates. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63664">63664</a>)</li>



<li>Add a typesets section to Typography. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62539">62539</a>)</li>



<li>Apply same styles to block previews on inserter and Styles. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63177">63177</a>)</li>



<li>Document bar is now displayed when viewing the Style book and Style revisions (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62669">#62669</a>)</li>



<li>Move font directory into uploads to match WP 6.5. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/60354">60354</a>)</li>



<li>Polish create template part modal. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63617">63617</a>)</li>



<li>Template parts now show the content panel in the editor settings. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62034">#62034</a>)</li>



<li>Use four color palette colors instead of five for useStylesPreviewColors. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64700">64700</a>)</li>
</ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="other">Other</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Automatically select group variation if there is only one available. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/61871">61871</a>)</li>



<li>Categories List block: Add dropdown for taxonomies. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/65272">65272</a>)</li>



<li>Cover Block: Move Clear Media button from Inspector Controls to Block Controls. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64630">64630</a>)</li>



<li>Flex dimensions: Rename “Fill” to “Grow”. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62779">62779</a>)</li>



<li>Format Library: Add alt edit field to inline image (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64124#top">64124</a>)</li>



<li>Image lightbox: Remove duplicate image when lightbox is opened. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63381">63381</a>)</li>



<li>Image: Adds the block controls for uploading image. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64320">64320</a>)</li>



<li>Improve Social Icons setup and appending. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/64877">64877</a>)</li>



<li>Make SiteLogoReplaceFlow always available in the Site Logo block toolbar. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63499">63499</a>)</li>



<li>Move gallery link controls to the block toolbar. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62762">62762</a>)</li>



<li>Post Date &amp; Comment Date: Add relative date format. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62298">62298</a>) Both the Post Date and Comment Dates now let you <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62298">set a relative date format</a> (e.g., 00 hours ago).</li>



<li>Table Block: Add toolbar button to add a caption. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/47984">47984</a>)</li>



<li>Toolbar justification controls for Group and Content blocks The justification controls for the Group and Content blocks are now exposed in the block toolbar. This makes it easier to quickly update these blocks to be left or right-aligned, using a similar interface to text and button blocks. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62924">62924</a>)</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="interactivity-api-iteration-bug-fixes-internal-refactor-and-new-apis-developer-plugin-author">Interactivity API iteration: bug fixes, internal refactor, and new APIs [developer] [plugin author]</h2>



<p>For WordPress 6.7, internal improvements and bug fixes were done to ensure that the Interactivity API&#8217;s code is as simple and stable as possible and to make the Interactivity API resilient when used asynchronously (e.g., adding directives or stores after initialization). This paves the way for future performance improvements such as directive code splitting or lazy loading of interactive blocks.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="new-apis-getserver-state-getservercontext">New APIs: getServer State &amp; getServerContext</h3>



<p>Alongside this, two new APIs are available with <code>getServerState</code> and <code>getServerContext</code>, available from the <code>@wordpress/interactivity</code> package. These functions are required for subscribing to changes in state/context when the HTML is updated using <code>navigate()</code>. These functions return an object that is analogous to the state/context returned by <code>store()</code>/<code>getContext()</code>, with a couple of differences:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The object returned is read-only.</li>



<li>The object is updated after <code>navigate()</code> calls, using the values defined in the HTML.</li>



<li>Devs cannot directly use its properties in directives, but they can use callbacks to subscribe to changes in its properties and update the usual state/context.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>Opt in. For awareness, some new documentation is available for using the Interactivity API:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/interactivity-api/core-concepts/the-reactive-and-declarative-mindset/">The Reactive and Declarative mindset</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/interactivity-api/core-concepts/undestanding-global-state-local-context-and-derived-state/">Understanding global state, local context and derived state</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/interactivity-api/core-concepts/server-side-rendering/">Server-side rendering: Processing directives on the server</a></li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):</strong><em>Follow </em><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/63232"><em>this iteration issue</em></a><em> for more information.</em></p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/15/subscribe-to-changes-in-the-interactivity-api-state-and-context-on-client-side-navigation-in-6-7/">Subscribe to changes in the Interactivity API state and context on client-side navigation in 6.7</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="updates-for-the-html-api-plugin-author-developer">Updates for the HTML API [plugin author] [developer]&nbsp;</h2>



<p>The HTML Processor has a few upgrades and features:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Full HTML Support: HTML Processor can handle any HTML and in only the rarest situations will the HTML Processor now give up, and in none of these cases is it because the processor doesn&#8217;t know how to handle a given tag.</li>



<li>Ability to modify most text in a document: The first of a new set of modification methods has been added to the HTML API: <code>set_modifiable_text()</code>.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Full parser mode: The <code>create_full_parser()</code> mode was introduced, which allows the HTML API to process entire HTML documents from start to finish, something that wasn&#8217;t possible before.</li>



<li>CSS behavior reviewed: The Tag Processor and fragment parser in the HTML Processor will assume a document is in standards mode (no-quirks mode) unless it determines otherwise. In response to this, all CSS-adjacent code has been audited and updated to ensure that the matching of things like class names behaves just as it would in a browser.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Adoption approach:</strong> opt in by using the HTML API<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>HTML API: Plans for 6.7 (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/60396">60396</a>)&nbsp;</p>



<p>Developer Note: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/17/updates-to-the-html-api-in-6-7/">Updates to the HTML API in 6.7</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="time-input-as-a-subcomponent-of-timepicker-developer-plugin-author">Time input as a subcomponent of TimePicker [developer] [plugin author]</h2>



<p>Sometimes users only need a way to enter time separate from the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63145">date for the TimePicker.component</a>. Developers can now offer <code>separateTimePicker.TimeInput</code> fields in their plugins and apps.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach: </strong><a href="https://wordpress.github.io/gutenberg/?path=/docs/components-timepicker--docs">Documentation is available</a> via Storybook.<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>TimeInput: Expose as subcomponent of TimePicker (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63145">63145</a>).&nbsp;</p>



<p>Developer Note excerpt: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/18/editor-components-updates-in-wordpress-6-7/#timepicker-time-input-can-be-used-in-isolation">TimePicker: Time input can be used in isolation</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="define-block-variations-via-a-php-file-developer-plugin-author">Define block variations via a PHP file [developer] [plugin author]</h2>



<p>6.7 introduces <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62092">support for referencing a PHP file</a> in block.json for registering block variations. To do this, you must assign the file path as a value for the variations property:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><span><code class="hljs language-json">{

<span class="hljs-attr">"variations"</span>: <span class="hljs-string">"file:./variations.php"</span>

}</code></span></pre>


<p>Previously, you could only define a variations JSON object, but this change lets you register the variations on the server-side. The PHP file must return an array of variations to register.</p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>opt in.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>block.json: Allow passing filename as variations field (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/62092">62092</a>)&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="override-styles-dynamically-plugin-author-developer">Override styles dynamically [plugin author] [developer]</h2>



<p>The <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63656">hook `useStyleOverride` is now available for plugin developers</a> so that styles can be added to the canvas by blocks. This can be especially useful when packaging a component library with custom styles rather than instructing developers to enqueue a separate stylesheet in all the correct locations.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach: </strong>opt in.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Make useStyleOverride public (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63656">63656</a>)&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="help-text-for-radiocontrol-options-developer-plugin-author">Help text for RadioControl options [developer] [plugin author]</h2>



<p>“Developers using the Radio Control component can now add help text for each of the listed options by adding an extra `<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63751">options[].description`</a> property. This becomes even more relevant when the component is used in the context of input forms for visitors and users via the new wp-admin.” &#8211; From <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/10/whats-new-for-developers-september-2024/">What’s new for developers? (September 2024)</a></p>



<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>RadioControl: add support for option help text (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63751">63751</a>).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="clearfix-for-the-post-content-block-theme-author-end-user">Clearfix for the Post Content block [theme author] [end user]</h2>



<p>“<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63690">A “clearfix” solution</a> is now applied to the Post Content block. This is an old-school technique that ensures blocks after Post Content sit below the content itself, especially in cases where there is a right or left-aligned block at the end of the post. As this was an issue for quite a while, it’s expected that theme developers found other ways to solve this particular problem. Now that it’s solved for the core block, you might need to double-check your existing sites to make sure this doesn’t break any previous layouts. Content creators might have helped themselves by adding a spacer block after the aligned block in questions.” &#8211; From <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/10/whats-new-for-developers-september-2024/">What’s new for developers? (September 2024)</a></p>



<p><strong>Adoption approach:</strong> please double-check to ensure existing layouts continue to work.&nbsp;<br /><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s):</strong> Post content: Add clearfix (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/63690">63690</a>)</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="continuing-to-improve-php-8-x-support">Continuing to improve PHP 8.x support</h2>



<p>To continue improving support for PHP 8.x, code specific to prior PHP versions that are no longer supported have been removed.</p>



<p><strong>Key Make Posts/GitHub/Trac Issue(s): </strong>Remove PHP &lt; 7.2 code (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61574">61574</a>)&nbsp;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Oct 2024 19:54:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Anne McCarthy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WordPress Foundation: 2024 WordPress Foundation Meeting Minutes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/?p=1193851";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2024/meeting-minutes/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14358:"<h1 class="wp-block-heading">October 17, 2024 &#8211; Online</h1>



<p><strong>Present</strong>:&nbsp;</p>



<p>WordPress Foundation Directors: Mark Ghosh, Matt Mullenweg, and Chele Chiavacci Farley</p>



<p>Guests/Observers: Harmony Romo, Isotta Peira, and Sarah Glenn</p>



<p>Regrets: None</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Call to Order</strong></li>



<li><strong>Financial discussion</strong>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>WordPress Foundation financial overview and discussion&nbsp;</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>



<p>Harmony Romo spoke to the current financial position of the WordPress Foundation as of today October 17, 2024 and reported on the current cash position, which is up $44,560 compared to the prior year. She noted that after challenges with Wells Fargo earlier in the year that the foundation has switched to J.P. Morgan.</p>



<p><strong>WordPress Foundation Cash Position:</strong></p>



<table class="has-fixed-layout"><tbody><tr><td>J.P. Morgan Commercial Operating Account</td><td>$264,680</td></tr><tr><td>PayPal</td><td>$0</td></tr><tr><td>Stripe</td><td>$0</td></tr></tbody></table>



<p>She shared that, to date, in 2024 the foundation has received $41,417 in donations, up $12,952 compared to last year. It was noted that since WordCamp US in September 2024 there has been an increase in donations with 48 new recurring donations created and a total of $12,535 donated.&nbsp;<br /><br />Matt Mullenweg inquired about the sources of the increased donations to WPF. Harmony Romo shared that there are currently 174 active recurring donations, an increase of 40 over the prior year. Donations received were from a wide variety of foundation supporters, with no single donor contributing more than $5,000. This ensures that the foundation will meet the required 33.33% public support percentage.</p>



<p>The board, alongside a recommendation from Harmony Romo, identified that the foundation should maintain a balance of $150,000. There was further discussion as to how the current excess should be directed. It was suggested that donations could be made to non-profit organizations with similar missions (Foundation for Public Code, Black Girls Code, and Internet Archive) as has been done in the past. Matt Mullenweg requested that an agenda item be added to direct $100,000 to the Internet Archive as they are currently in need.</p>



<ul start="2" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Motion by Matt Mullenweg to approve a $100,000 donation to the Internet Archive&nbsp;</strong>: Seconded by Chele Chiavacci Farley and Mark Ghosh and carried&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<ul start="3" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>WordPress Community Support, PBC financial overview and discussion</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Harmony Romo spoke to the current financial position of WordPress Community Support, PBC as of today October 17, 2024 and reported on the cash position which is up $667,076 compared to this time in 2023.</p>



<p><strong>WordPress Community Support Cash Position:<br /></strong></p>



<table class="has-fixed-layout"><tbody><tr><td>J.P. Morgan Commercial Operating Account</td><td> $2,181,836</td></tr><tr><td>J.P. Morgan Commercial Deposit-Only Account&nbsp; </td><td>$0</td></tr><tr><td>PayPal</td><td>$0</td></tr><tr><td>Stripe</td><td>$0</td></tr></tbody></table>



<p>Harmony Romo noted that ~$120,000 of our current balance does represent income received for 2025 events and that we still have significant expenses from WordCamp US, held in September 2024, that have yet to be reconciled.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Matt Mullenweg inquired as to why the cash position is so much higher this year than in the past, and Harmony shared that both WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe ended up with significant surpluses. He requested that the programming team look to address this and suggested that we invest in local marketing for WordCamp US next year, and that the programming team works to reduce ticket prices if possible.</p>



<ul start="4" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Discussion of Meetup.com fees and bank strategy&nbsp;</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Harmony Romo shared that the largest overhead expense is $221,529 for Meetup.com fees per year. She shared that there has been some progress and testing of GatherPress, which if successful could reduce overhead expenses by more than 50%.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Harmony Romo shared that the foundation moved their operating account to J.P. Morgan after challenges with Wells Fargo earlier in the year.</p>



<p>The board discussed whether or not the WordPress Foundation or WordPress Community Support, PBC should alter their banking strategy. It was decided that there is low financial risk with J.P. Morgan, and opening additional accounts with different banks is not necessary at this time. The board did identify that opening money market accounts would be beneficial for WordPress Community Support, PBC and potentially for the WordPress Foundation.<br /><br />Chele Chiavacci Farley noted that interest income returns on both accounts should be 4-5% on the balances. Mark Ghosh recommended that balances be transferred to money market accounts with an option to automatically fund the operating account as needed to cover expenses. Harmony Romo will discuss this with the J.P. Morgan representatives and follow up with options and details via email.</p>



<ul start="5" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Discussion of tax returns</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Harmony Romo shared that in the filing of the 2023 WordPress Foundations Form 990 the foundation highlighted do_action and learn.wordpress.org programs. The main difference in the 2023 filing, over 2022, was an increase in donation income from $23,744 to $36,388.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As for WordPress Community Support, PBC, the 2023 filing reflected a loss of ($159,983). The loss was due to a large increase in total WordCamps, 71 in 2023 compared to 26 in 2022, and rising inflation that heavily impacted venue as well as food and beverage costs. It was noted that the majority of 2023 losses were related to the flagship events (WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US).  Some of the income for WC Asia that was received in 2020 was reported as income for that year versus being carried forward to offset the 2023 expenses, which also contributed to the loss. This 2023 tax loss will roll forward to offset future years income.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Chele Chiavacci Farley requested that moving forward all financials shared with the board include the prior years financials, and that we ensure a board meeting is held prior to when taxes are due.&nbsp;</p>



<ol start="3" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Programming discussion</strong></li>
</ol>



<p>Isotta Peira shared updates on the various WordPress Foundation and WordPress Community Support, PBC programs.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>do_action:</strong></p>



<p>By the end of 2024, the foundation will have supported 8 do_action charity hackathons that combined produced over 21 charity websites for deserving non-profits. The do_action events are close to revenue neutral and only $1,066 was paid in grants in 2024. Mark Ghosh inquired as to how this compares to last year, and it was shared that there were twice as many do_action events as in 2023, when the Foundation only supported 4. In an effort to promote do_actions, they are now displayed on events.WordPress.org alongside other events, like WordCamps.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Open source education:</strong><br /><br />So far in 2024, the WordPress training team organized one online Intro to Open Source workshop called <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/301830181/">“Shape the Future: Your Role in WordPress Open Source Contribution</a> that received 40 RSVPs. There were also 108 participants who completed the ‘<a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/open-source-basics-and-wordpress/">Open Source Basics and WordPress’</a> Learn WordPress asynchronous course, and six meetup groups that held open source-focused workshops with a combined total of 200 participants that RSVP’d. There were no direct costs associated with any of these programs as they used the Meetup.com infrastructure paid for by WordPress Community Support.</p>



<p><strong>Learn WordPress</strong><br /></p>



<p>Learn WordPress, launched in December 2020, continues to grow. There are currently 502 lessons and 24 courses with 38,000 people that have registered. So far, 8,600 learners have completed courses this year, which is an average course completion rate of 21%. There have also been 107 online workshops in 2024 with an average of 33 participants.<br /><br />Matt Mullenweg expressed some concern around the low number of learners (8,600) that completed courses, given that there are two full-time sponsored employees focusing on the program. He requested that the programming team work to increase the number of individuals that complete courses as that is much more valuable than the number of people that register.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It was also noted that Learning Pathways was launched in August 2024 as a new approach to educational content, and so far, the average learner satisfaction rate is 93%, and the video retention rate for Learning Pathway courses is 59% (this aligns with technology video benchmarks that see a 40-70% retention rate).&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Mentorship Program</strong></p>



<p>An update was shared on the new WordPress Contributor Working Group that aims to bring in new contributors to WordPress through active mentorship over a six-week period. In 2024 there were two cohorts, the first with 28 mentors supporting 52 mentees and the current cohort with 25 mentors supporting 100 mentees. Mentees in the Spring 2024 cohort had an 89% program satisfaction rate.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Matt Mullenweg shared that rtCamp has 10 developers prepared to contribute to core, but they need mentorship. He will create a WordPress.org Slack channel with a representative from rtCamp and Hari Shanker.</p>



<p><strong>Meetups<br /><br /></strong>It was shared that as of today, there are 633 WordPress chapter Meetups in 92 countries, with over 510,000 Meetup members globally, an increase of 10,000 members since last year.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>WordPress Events</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong>So far in 2024, there have been 56 WordCamps and WordPress Events held in 51 countries with 6 events held in the US, with another 22 events scheduled over the next two months for a total of 78 events in 2024 compared to 71 events in 2023. In total the events sold more than 18,500 tickets, which is an increase of 4,500 over the previous year.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The board discussed the progress here and Matt Mullenweg shared that he thinks we can do much better and would like to see a larger increase in ticket sales for next year.</p>



<p><strong>Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship:</strong></p>



<p>In 2024 the Kim Parsnell Memorial Scholarship recipient was Cynthia Norman of Ontario, Canada who was awarded $3,000. Cynthia was a member for the 2023 mentorship pilot and has since contributed to the WordPress Training Team, and created more than two dozen lessons for Learn WordPress.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The board was impressed with the impact the scholarship has had and decided to expand the program to offer scholarships for WordCamp Europe and WordCamp Asia in addition to WordCamp US.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mark Ghosh suggested that the recipient receives approximately 5 minutes of stage-time to discuss how they became involved, and Matt Mullenweg suggested that this could be built into his keynote at flagship events. Matt Mullenweg also recommended that we write blog posts about recipients and try to encourage more people to apply.&nbsp;</p>



<ol start="4" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Updates and new business</strong></li>
</ol>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>New Executive Director</li>
</ul>



<p>It was noted that Mary Hubbard will be starting as the new Executive Director of WordPress.org next week. She will also oversee educational programs in 2025 with support from teams focused on community, education, and contribution.&nbsp;</p>



<ul start="2" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>New business</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Mark Ghosh suggested that WordPress Community Supports look into offering developer badges or certification as a type of learning offering.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mark Ghosh suggested that in order to move forward more quickly with GatherPress the foundation may want to consider a hackathon type event focused on building this plugin, as the rapid iteration available at a hackathon may help move this along quicker, since a new solution would directly reduce expenses.&nbsp;</p>



<ol start="5" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Next Meeting</strong></li>
</ol>



<p>Matt Mullenweg suggested that the foundation move from one annual meeting to two meetings annually. Mark Ghosh, and Chele Chiavacci Farley agreed this would be beneficial as it would allow the new Executive Director to provide an update and opportunities to review financials prior to tax filings being due.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The board decided the next meeting will be in March, with the following one in August or September.</p>



<ol start="6" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>In-Camera Session</strong>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Matt Mullenweg called an in-camera session for the board at 9:35 AM PST, and the guests/observers departed.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>



<p>The In-Camera session was adjourned at 9:55 AM PST.</p>



<ol start="7" class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Close</strong></li>
</ol>



<p>Matt Mullenweg called the meeting to close at 9:57 AM PST.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>ADDENDUM</strong></p>



<p>After the meeting was adjourned, it was discovered that some courses on Learn.WordPress.org were deprecated during the fiscal year reported on in the board meeting, and thus the total completed number of courses was understated by 4,087. Total completed courses was actually 12,687.</p>



<p>In addition, it was suggested there be an annual blog post announcing the winner of the Kim Parsell scholarship. This is, in fact, already being done.</p>



<p>WC Asia 2024 also ended with a surplus, which has increased the cash position of WPCS.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Oct 2024 16:09:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Harmony Romo";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:115:"Do The Woo Community: WooCommerce Caching, Scaling, Plugin Optimization, Security, Headless, and AI with Andre Faca";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86155";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-caching-scaling-plugin-optimization-security-headless-and-ai-with-andre-faca/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:176:"In this episode of Woo DevChat, Marcel and Mike discuss optimizing WooCommerce sites with guest Andre Faca, covering caching, performance, scaling, and security best practices.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Oct 2024 08:25:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"WordPress Foundation: WordPress Foundation Donates $100,000 to Internet Archive";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/?p=1193835";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2024/wordpress-foundation-donation/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:768:"<p>On October 17th, 2024, the WordPress Foundation Board of Directors made the unanimous decision to make a contribution of $100,000 to the <a href="http://Archive.org">Internet Archive</a>. The WordPress Foundation has long supported the work of the Internet Archive. </p>



<p>The work this organization does to <a href="https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/23/defining-web-pages-web-sites-and-web-captures/">preserve the Internet</a>, ensures that students, researchers, journalists, librarians, and curious citizens around the globe have access to our digital cultural heritage for many years to come. </p>



<p>The Board of Directors is hopeful that this donation will make a significant impact, given the recent challenges faced by the organization.</p>



<p></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 17 Oct 2024 19:54:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Harmony Romo";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"WPTavern: Developers Remove Plugins From WordPress.org Repository After ACF Controversy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=175491";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"https://wptavern.com/developers-remove-plugins-from-wordpress-org-repository-after-acf-controversy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4525:"<p>Following the recent ban and <a href="https://wptavern.com/acf-plugin-forked-to-secure-custom-fields-plugin">ACF to Secure Custom Fields fork/takeover</a> incident, some plugin authors have announced their decision to remove their plugins from the WordPress.org repository.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gravity PDF Plugin</h3>



<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravity-forms-pdf-extended/">Gravity PDF plugin</a> with over 50k active installations and a 4.9 rating is leaving the plugin repository. Its founder Jake Jackson <a href="https://gravitypdf.com/news/installing-and-upgrading-to-the-canonical-version-of-gravity-pdf/">stated</a> that “WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has weaponized WordPress.org and appropriated the popular Advanced Custom Fields plugin from its creators. This action sets a dangerous precedent, and violates the integrity and security of the platform. To minimize the risks to ourselves and our users, the canonical (primary) version of the free and open-source Gravity PDF plugin is now being distributed directly from GravityPDF.com.”</p>



<p>The team reassured users that all existing PDF settings, custom templates, and fonts will be preserved when transitioning to the new release. Future reviews will be hosted on <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/gravity-pdf/reviews">G2.com</a>. The canonical plugin will use “gravity-pdf” for the slug and text domain, replacing the “gravity-forms-pdf-extended” used on WordPress.org. Updates for the premium version and its extensions will continue directly from GravityPDF.com.</p>



<a href="https://x.com/takisbig/status/1846542405706649856"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeBCgibxR6Q2OJ7hjcnbnSHUnt0mZul_fiN5UHGXRlnnrG9N_-wKG5tgAE1aTgOKwO7js8IsPnhs3ktfcY0GWU-aQYD8WPiC96FAkml9d58dhZIGWKz3xCQnKaW-hiC0bE_TOgtVV3WIgUg4uFongcFSfvb?key=sYM_dbehUUr6zg7NnQ_agg" alt="" /></a>



<a href="https://x.com/ajaydsouza/status/1846519982030483735"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdy92EbP5Jkcj_u3OOrDU7vxQasl9fbRrqJSOLELKPkpSIjUAUe0UnYCP4Hh5mJEfLkN2hPS3KIVfr9DZnlgDJ2M9IEJ0315cClyqVOcZZpJSbZatAhkm9Y7I6rPDC9uzPUSSKDvQW0LlosKhaq0d9ugcKq?key=sYM_dbehUUr6zg7NnQ_agg" alt="" /></a>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">BE Media from Production &amp; Display Posts Plugins&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Bill Erickson, author of <a href="https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/be-media-from-production/">BE Media from Production</a> and <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/display-posts-shortcode/">Display Posts</a>, also expressed concerns, <a href="https://displayposts.com/install/">stating</a>, “I am no longer comfortable hosting my code on WordPress.org given recent actions by Matt Mullenweg.”</p>



<p><a href="https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/be-media-from-production/">BE Media from Production</a> plugin has been closed and <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-has-moved-to-github/">Future updates</a> to this plugin will only come from the official GitHub repo.</p>



<p>He also <a href="https://x.com/BillErickson/status/1845872464296808724">tweeted</a>: “If you use my plugin BE Media from Production, it&#8217;s now hosted only on GitHub.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Paid Memberships Pro Plugin</h3>



<p>The Paid Memberships Pro team released version 3.3 and their CEO Jason Coleman <a href="https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/pmpro-update-3-3/">explained</a>, “This is the first update of the core Paid Memberships Pro plugin that will be served off our own license server instead of the wordpress.org repository. We have been serving our premium plugins and several of our free plugins from our own license server for many years. We will now be serving downloads and updates of our core plugin ourselves.”</p>



<p>He continued, “We plan to follow suit for all of our plugins that are hosted at wordpress.org, excepting a few that are co-maintained with other folks there. The core plugin is still free and users will always be able to update it for free.”</p>



<p>Version 3.2.2 will be available in the repository for a day or so and then closed. Jason said on <a href="https://x.com/jason_coleman/status/1846957738624274560">X</a> that &#8220;We&#8217;ve had this planned for over a year. Recent events motivated us to expedite things.&#8221;</p>



<p>Given the current situation, it doesn&#8217;t seem like things will settle down anytime soon. It remains to be seen if other developers too will follow suit. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 17 Oct 2024 19:43:10 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"WordPress.org blog: WP Engine Promotions &amp; Coupons";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=17996";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wp-engine-promotions/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2256:"<p>Given the egregious legal attacks by WP Engine against WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, a number of their customers have been looking for alternative hosting, and in return a number of hosts have created specials and promotions for WP Engine customers looking to migrate to a host that has great relations with WordPress.org. Here they are, in alphabetical order.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ll update this post if any new offers come online, get in touch and we&#8217;ll link it.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.bluehost.com/migrate-wordpress-website?channelid=P61C46097236S625N0B2A151D0E0000V107">Bluehost will cover migration costs, and credit back your existing contract</a>. They offer 24/7 phone support, you can call them at 844-699-3907. Their wp.cloud-powered Cloud hosting starts at $29.99/mo.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.dreamhost.com/switch-to-dreamhost/">DreamHost is offering free migrations</a>, with plans starting at $16.95/mo.</li>



<li><a href="https://hostinger.com/migrate">Hostinger offers free migration for an unlimited number of websites with a 24/7 dedicated customer success team</a>. Their relevant cloud plans start at $7.99/mo. </li>



<li><a href="https://www.nexcess.net/wp-engine-vs-nexcess/">Nexcess has plans starting at $21/mo</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://pressable.com/wpe-contract-buyout/">Pressable will credit back your current WP Engine contract and match their pricing</a>, so if you&#8217;re in the middle of a long contract with WP Engine, you don&#8217;t need to wait until your renewal time.</li>



<li><a href="https://siteground.com/free-wp-migration">SiteGround has a special with 83% off and unlimited automated WP migrations</a>, their plans start at $2.99/mo.</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.com/migrate-from-wp-engine/">WordPress.com will give you a free year of any plan they offer</a>, and donate 5% of your purchase price to the <a href="https://wordpressfoundation.org/">WordPress Foundation</a>. Their relevant plans start at $25/mo.</li>



<li>For large-scale enterprise customers, <a href="https://wpvip.com/wordpress-vip-vs-wp-engine/">WordPress VIP will cover the cost of migration</a>. Their plans generally start at $2k/mo.</li>
</ul>



<p></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:19:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"WordPress.org";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:27:"Gary: HOWTO: Fork WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://pento.net/?p=5587";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://pento.net/2024/10/17/howto-fork-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9215:"<p>Congratulations on your decision to fork WordPress! You&#8217;ve taken on a mammoth task, I&#8217;m impressed with your willingness step up to the challenge of a lifetime. I&#8217;m here to give some advice on the things you might not have thought about yet, and what you&#8217;ll need to help the long term success of your fork.</p>



<p>Forking, I&#8217;m please to share, <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/spoon/">is beautiful</a>. It continues to be an important feature of the Open Source ethos, even if it has become more involved as projects have matured. Forking is a valuable tool for Open Source communities to demonstrate that they believe a project should move in a different direction.</p>



<p>Before we get into the details, however, I do have to offer a few disclaimers. This post is <strong>not</strong>:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>An active call for people to fork WordPress. In the spirit of Open Source, I think it&#8217;s important that we publicly talk about what this process looks like, even if it can be an uncomfortable discussion.</li>



<li>An announcement that I&#8217;m forking WordPress. I don&#8217;t have the free time for that.</li>



<li>An offer to wrangle your fork of WordPress. I am happy to discuss your plans and offer advice, though.</li>
</ul>



<p>Disclaimers out of the way, let&#8217;s begin!</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Before you Announce</h2>



<p>First of all, let&#8217;s talk about that big old elephant in the room: the current level of instability in the WordPress world. I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised to learn that this the major factor in motivating your fork. Unfortunately, this approach won&#8217;t get you very far, so the first thing you need to do is take any feelings you have about it, and set them aside. You need to decide what you&#8217;re in favour of, instead. What are are the positive motivational factors that will make you jump out of bed, and push this project forward for the next decade or more? What will motivate others to join you for the long haul?</p>



<blockquote><p>Build a community, not an angry mob.</p></blockquote>



<p>Think carefully about what your fork is going to be named. I&#8217;m willing to bet that you first jumped to calling it <em>{Adjective}</em>Press, or perhaps something with &#8220;WP&#8221; in the name. That&#8217;s a great idea if you&#8217;re planning on your project being forever defined as a protest against WordPress, but you need to think beyond that. How will you define your brand to keep it relevant for decades to come?</p>



<p>Oh, and make sure you can get the domains and social media handles for your name. Having to try and get them later is just expensive and frustrating.</p>



<p>Talk to people. Not just your circle of friends and colleagues who agree with you, find people who can offer different perspectives, and decide how your fork is going to help them. Talk to WordPress core contributors (not just committers!), and learn their take on it. Can you present an argument that would convince long term contributors to switch to working on your fork?</p>



<p>Figure out funding, at least enough to bootstrap your project. As much as I&#8217;d love to be, most of us are not post-economic. You can only get so far as a volunteer project, you&#8217;re going to need at least some people to be paid to work on it. There are big, complex problems that crop up along the way, it&#8217;s hard to solve them if everyone has to context switch between their day job, and their volunteer work.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Meta Project</h2>



<p>If you&#8217;ve made it this far into starting your fork, give yourself a pat on the back. You&#8217;ve made it much further than many others do. Your next challenge is deciding the process of building it. You could stick with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life">BDFL</a> approach, which certainly has benefits, particularly when first starting out. It might be hard to sell what many folks see as a key weakness in WordPress, though. Perhaps you might like to explore a democratic governance model, or some sort of hybrid approach. Everything has a set of benefits and trade-offs, you&#8217;ll need to decide what works for you.</p>



<p>You&#8217;re going to have a bunch of technical dirty work to figure out. Where will the code be hosted? How will you track issues? Provide support? Discuss plans? Build community? Track data? Host themes, and plugins? What will you do about mobile apps?</p>



<p>At first glance, each of these are fairly straightforward to answer, but it&#8217;s very easy to get lost in the possibilities. My advice here is simple: pick something, use it until it stops being valuable. You can always switch to something different later. Switching governance models might be hard, but switching server-side tools is relatively easy.</p>



<blockquote><p>Do the dirty work, but don&#8217;t get stuck in the weeds.</p></blockquote>



<p>Start thinking about how you&#8217;ll build your in-person community. Meetups, conferences, hack days, helping people move to your project, there are countless opportunities here to build your community.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Moat</h2>



<p>WordPress has three substantial factors that have made it largely unassailable for many years.</p>



<p>First, there&#8217;s the massive community that&#8217;s built up around WordPress over the years. Regular meetups and conferences are an integral part of building a popular Open Source project. You can&#8217;t really piggy back off the work that WordPress has done over the years here, either. The only way forward is to put in the work to build and maintain a community that you&#8217;re proud to be a part of.</p>



<p>Second, there&#8217;s the vast selection of plugins and themes that are available to download for free. The quality between options vary wildly, of course, but that&#8217;s largely irrelevant. The fact that so many options exist means there really is something for everyone. You&#8217;re going to need to figure out how to either maintain long term compatibility with existing WordPress plugins and themes, or you&#8217;re going to find yourself reproducing them all.</p>



<p>Finally, you&#8217;ll need to deal with inertia. The vast majority of WordPress site owners have no need or motivation to change, so you need to make it easy (ideally, your fork would be a drop-in replacement), and beneficial. What will your fork do better to solve real problems?</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tell Your Friends!</h2>



<p>It&#8217;s around about this point that you&#8217;re probably getting ready to talk about your fork publicly. Go ahead, you&#8217;ve earned it!</p>



<p>Launch day is inevitably a mix of strong emotions. Elation if you get a huge positive response from the public, maybe discouragement if the public response is a bit more muted. Relief at having made it this far. Optimism about the future. Maybe even some doubt could creep in that you&#8217;re the right person to be wrangling such a huge endeavour. Whatever you end up experiencing, try not to stress about it too much. It&#8217;s a big day, but what really defines your project is what you do with it tomorrow. Next week. Next year.</p>



<p>Go right back to the start, and remind yourself of the positive reasons that you&#8217;re choosing to build this project. Tell the world those positive reasons, and welcome anyone who wants to join you on the journey.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Long Haul</h2>



<p>Not every day is launch day, however. Most of your days will be&#8230; kinda boring, to be honest. That&#8217;s a good thing! Too much excitement will inevitably burn out you and your community. Sustainable effort, day after day, is how you build something to last.</p>



<blockquote><p>It&#8217;s a marathon, not a sprint.</p></blockquote>



<p>Of course, there&#8217;ll be ups and downs. It&#8217;s always okay to go back to the start, and reminder yourself (and your community!) of the positive reasons that you&#8217;re all working together on this.</p>



<p>Oh, and please try to remember that one day, you&#8217;re probably not going to be the right person to lead your project any more. This isn&#8217;t something to fear, or to look forward to, really: projects, communities, and individuals all grow and change. It&#8217;s probably going to be a weird time when you get to this point, but it doesn&#8217;t have to be a time of upheaval and uncertainty. If you&#8217;ve run the project well, you should hopefully have a deep pool of talented folks who can step in to continue what you began.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Have Fun!</h2>



<p>Finally, it would be remiss of me not to remind you to have fun! It&#8217;s easy to get lost in conflict at times, but it&#8217;s important to remember that&#8230; it&#8217;s just a CMS. It&#8217;s not going to be the end of the world if you take time away from the project, it&#8217;s actively beneficial for you to have a life outside of the internet. Friends, family, pets, hobbies: make time for the things that matter in your life.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 17 Oct 2024 01:20:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Gary";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"WPTavern: #141 – Christy Nyiri and Mike Straw on Automattic’s Special Projects Team";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=175292";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/141-christy-nyiri-and-mike-straw-on-automattics-special-projects-team";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46359:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, learning about the work of the Automattic Special Projects Team.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast, player of choice. Or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcasts players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today we have Christy Nyiri and Mike Straw.</p>



<p>Christy leads the design arm of Automattic&#8217;s Special Projects Team. She taught herself to design and code 17 years ago, and has since worked with a wide range of clients, many of whom you&#8217;ll hear about later.</p>



<p>Mike is an engineer with the Special Projects Team. He&#8217;s been writing code for over four decades and has been deeply into WordPress for the last seven years.</p>



<p>Today we&#8217;re pulling back the curtain on the work done at Automattic&#8217;s Special Projects Team, a somewhat mysterious entity within Automattic. Because of its low visibility and its detachment from regular product output, many have never heard of the team or what they produce, but that is about to change.</p>



<p>Mike and Christy, tell us all about the team, what they do and who they work with and for. They clarify the unique operational model of the team, which resembles an internal agency focusing exclusively on WordPress and open source projects. Their mission isn&#8217;t driven purely by profit. They often support nonprofits and contribute back to the WordPress community.</p>



<p>We get into the team&#8217;s philosophy of learning from mistakes while striving for excellence. From there work with prominent websites, to assisting household names to more philanthropic work, Mike and Christy illustrates how their work showcases the power and versatility of WordPress. In short, they strive to show the very best that WordPress can produce.</p>



<p>This episode highlights the technical and design prowess of the Special Projects Team, but also captures the passion and dedication of its members.</p>



<p>Whether you&#8217;re a WordPress developer, a web design, enthusiastic, or someone interested in the operational intricacies of high caliber web projects, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Christy Nyiri and Mike Straw.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast by Christy Nyiri and Mike Straw. Hello both.</p>



<p>[00:03:28] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:29] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;re going to have a conversation today from WordCamp US. We are in one of the meeting rooms in Portland, Oregon. Christy and Mike have joined me today because they work on a really interesting team, which I don&#8217;t know much about. So they&#8217;re going to school me in how this all hangs together, and how it works.</p>



<p>Before we begin that though, Christy first, and then Mike afterwards, would you mind just giving us a little potted bio about yourselves. Maybe a minute, or something like that.</p>



<p>[00:03:55] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah. Hey, I&#8217;m Christy Nyiri. I&#8217;m Canadian, but I live in Brooklyn now. I&#8217;ve been with Automattic for a little over four years, and it&#8217;s the longest job I&#8217;ve ever held. So that says something about Automattic as a company.</p>



<p>[00:04:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you very much Christy. And Mike, give us your little potted bio.</p>



<p>[00:04:12] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> I&#8217;m Mike. I&#8217;m currently from Ohio, but I&#8217;m from everywhere. I traveled around a lot as a kid, and then in my adult life. But I joined Automattic about seven years ago, and I just joined the Special Projects Team two years ago. I kind of can&#8217;t hold down a job, so I keep changing places I work. I did that my whole life, changing jobs between company, or between organisations. And then in Automattic, I&#8217;ve kind of bounced around a little bit, and I&#8217;ve settled on the special projects team and I am pretty happy here.</p>



<p>[00:04:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so you&#8217;ve alluded to what we&#8217;re going to talk about today, Mike. You mentioned the Special Projects Team. It&#8217;s kind of an interesting name. It sort of feels a little bit shrouded in mystery. I don&#8217;t know, it almost feels like special forces in in the army, or something like that. You know, this is the team that we deploy when things get a little bit tricky, when things are complicated.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s the feeling that you guys get, but it does feel as if what you are working on is, let&#8217;s say, at a higher level than any of the websites I ever built. Put it that way.</p>



<p>So the first question, and either of you can tackle this. What is the Special Projects Team, and which kind of clients do you work with?</p>



<p>[00:05:18] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> So the Automattic Special Projects Team, I&#8217;ll read our little mission statement. We just help interesting people, projects, and organisations have a great experience with WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:05:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, perfect. Can you name drop? Are you allowed to name drop any of the kind of projects that you&#8217;ve worked on before?</p>



<p>[00:05:32] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> For sure. You can see a bunch of the projects on our website, which is specialprojects.automattic.com. The biggest one that I worked with personally was Print Magazine, which is like a publication that has been around since the 1940s, and it has a big history in the design community.</p>



<p>[00:05:48] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Some of the ones I really were proud of is End The Backlog. Which was about backlogs of sexual assault in the country, because they won a Webby for their work. The website won a Webby, and the work they&#8217;re doing has actually had real impact, like the numbers and the charts since they started has actually stopped this backlog that&#8217;s going on. So it was like a real social life impact. And I have some background in that field, so I&#8217;m really passionate about it. So seeing that happen was really cool.</p>



<p>Also, the site we talked about, one of the sites we talked about yesterday was Johan Ernst the explorer, his website, and just the amazing experience of the site itself. The work is pretty amazing.</p>



<p>Post Secret is another really cool one that we&#8217;ve worked on. There&#8217;s a list, we have, what is it, over 450 production sites running now that we&#8217;ve built over the years. And it&#8217;s actually a fun experience having only been here for two years to periodically go on a website and say, hey, wait a minute, that&#8217;s one of our websites. Because I still don&#8217;t know the list completely.</p>



<p>[00:06:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, thank you for that. That&#8217;s great. So we know that some of the websites that you&#8217;re building have impact. Sounds like some of them, especially meaningful to you in particular there, Mike. That&#8217;s really nice.</p>



<p>What&#8217;s the purpose of the team though? So, as an example, if I rocked up to the special projects team, and just said, I have a brochure website for a local veterinary practice in the town where I live. I&#8217;m guessing that, at some point, you&#8217;re going to filter me out, maybe I don&#8217;t qualify as special.</p>



<p>And I just wonder, is there a criteria? Is it, I don&#8217;t know, is there a criteria based upon the depth of your pockets, or the type of projects, or the industry you are in, or is it maybe just more, well, there&#8217;s a notorious company? Everybody&#8217;s heard of those, so they qualify as special. What is the criteria that gets you in?</p>



<p>[00:07:35] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Well, we&#8217;ve done projects for a huge range of people, like from very high profile projects to, honestly, there is, not a vet, but we have a site for an animal adoption agency that I think is actually just a girl. A young girl, a teenager, and we built her a website.</p>



<p>So the project has come to us through referrals from other partners that have already existed, and from other Automatticians as well. So if anyone at the company has a project they think would fit with our mission, we can work on that too.</p>



<p>[00:08:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. So yeah, there&#8217;s definitely some sort of criteria there. But it seems, I was probably missing the target a little bit. So it really isn&#8217;t necessarily to do with the depth of the pockets, or the fact that you are notorious, it really could be anything.</p>



<p>[00:08:17] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> It really can, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:08:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s fascinating. In the presentation blurb that went along with the presentation that you gave yesterday, one of the phrases that you used was, well, you said, connecting partners with the best that the WordPress community has to offer. And as soon as I hear the word WordPress community, I kind of imagine the crowd that we&#8217;re amongst here. Everybody shows up, everybody has their turn, you know, anybody can speak here, anybody can attend here.</p>



<p>But the sort of slightly exclusive nature of the word special, and the kind of projects that you deal with, how is that connection made? Do you feed back things to the WordPress community? So I&#8217;m just wondering if you could unpack that sentence for me.</p>



<p>[00:08:54] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> There&#8217;s a lot there, because we really are, we&#8217;re part of the WordPress community. We are not primarily about making money, but the way I like to word it is, we are here to make WordPress look good.</p>



<p>We bring things to our partners, we give them the best experience, with the best website we can build for them, and give them the best experience we can for using WordPress.</p>



<p>So we choose tools, we&#8217;re really big on, like right now using block editor, and all that technology. We&#8217;ve been doing a lot of even no code builds, or low code builds, only building like specific functionality that has to be coded up, but using the block editor, and using the tools so that it&#8217;s just there. And then when they&#8217;re working on their website later, they just go in the editor, and click, and it&#8217;s done. So very simple. So it&#8217;s making the WordPress experience a good experience.</p>



<p>And then we also, on the other side of it, we try to give back to the community as much as we can. If we do use a plugin, as an example, I was recently on a project where I found a bug in a plugin that we had installed on a site that was a wordpress.org plugin. I went in, I was like, this is the problem, here&#8217;s the bug. And I fixed it inside, so we could get the site going. And then I went on to their forum and said, hey, we found a bug, here&#8217;s the bug, here&#8217;s how I fixed it. And then they&#8217;re like, cool, thank you, and the next release had the fix.</p>



<p>And we do that with community plugins. We do that with our own products. You know, we&#8217;ll obviously, we&#8217;ll promote Automattic products for them to use. And if there&#8217;s a problem with the product, we&#8217;ll go to the product team and say, we found this. The dog fooding experience, that we dog food pretty much everything that Automattic has to offer. And we find a problem, and we say, we&#8217;ll go to the product team and say, here&#8217;s the bug we found. And sometimes we&#8217;ll also say, here&#8217;s the PR to fix the code.</p>



<p>[00:10:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it&#8217;s kind of like a double pronged thing, in that you are creating things, but then contributing back, maybe improvements to existing things, but also perhaps creating your own functionality and allowing the WordPress repository to get a hold of that. But also, I suppose the community piece there is that you are creating exceptional websites, exceptional experiences, which then are a kind of advert, if you like, for WordPress as a tool, like a showcase almost. You know, the things that you produce, I&#8217;m guessing are of, without blowing your own trumpets, you would probably regard them as of high quality, and good examples of what WordPress itself can do.</p>



<p>And I do feel at this moment in time, we&#8217;re recording this in 2024, that we do have, not a credibility problem, but we are competing in a marketplace where the tools that are out there, which you can pay, I don&#8217;t know, $20 a month for, we know what we&#8217;re talking about, these SaaS-based tools. They are beginning to be popular. They&#8217;ve got television adverts, they have giant marketing budgets. So one of the ways that I guess WordPress can promote itself is with exceptional websites that people can look at. So, I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve got anything you want to add to that.</p>



<p>[00:11:48] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Yeah. I think, internally, because you know we have our own internal team names. Our team is called Team 51, which sounds as mysterious and strange, and secretive as Special Projects. But really the 51 is for 51%. And that is, we want WordPress to have 51% of the internet. And we&#8217;re doing that by doing things like this because, and this is me personally editorialising a little of, before I came to WordPress, WordPress does kind of have a reputation issue sometimes, because the average external person hears of these suss hosting sites, or because anybody can extend it, anybody can write a plugin.</p>



<p>And you get a plugin in there that&#8217;s junk, and then the WordPress experience is junk, and then they&#8217;re saying WordPress is junk. And so we&#8217;re trying to highlight, no, WordPress itself is a solid tool, a solid platform, and if you develop well on it, you will have a solid site. And so we do a lot of that just to kind of build the reputation.</p>



<p>[00:12:46] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> I&#8217;d like to add that, on the design side of things, someone came up to me after the talk yesterday and said, how does WordPress compete with the other platforms out there that are really design focused? And I think that is what we&#8217;re trying to do on our team, is show that you can build really well designed websites with WordPress, and using the block editor.</p>



<p>It is a more recent thing, I will admit, the block editor only really came to maturity maybe in the last year. And up until then, like I was even very anti-block theme. As a developer I&#8217;m like, I can build it better in PHP, like I know what I&#8217;m doing. But like now that you can adjust padding, and negative margins, and all those things, it&#8217;s an actual tool that you can use to build nice looking things.</p>



<p>There is some work that needs to be done, but it&#8217;s getting there. And we&#8217;re confident that the more that we show sites that we build, that are full, non headless builds, like straight block themes, that it&#8217;ll inspire other people to do the same.</p>



<p>[00:13:39] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> One of the things I will often tell people is, I think I&#8217;m a pretty good engineer, I am a terrible designer. So you tell me what to make a website look like and do, and I will make it do it. If you look at my websites that I have put together, they are disgustingly ugly because a designer has not looked at them.</p>



<p>With the block editor, I&#8217;ve gotten better. I&#8217;m able to actually make it look pretty decent because it does a lot of that for me. But it&#8217;s that thing of, if you have something that&#8217;s only going to be built by engineers, it&#8217;s going to look like something an engineer built. If you build it like anybody would build a website on any other platform, where you have designers that design, and make the look, and the branding, and you get the marketing in there, whatever team you have, and then the engineers are building what they have said make it look like, you end up with something that&#8217;s nice and pretty.</p>



<p>And WordPress, I think, has always had that capability, although it required a lot more engineering work historically. But now, I think it&#8217;s amazing now that we now have project builds that, I think we&#8217;ve had some that just had no engineer involvement now.</p>



<p>[00:14:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh wow. Because the blocks are good enough.</p>



<p>[00:14:39] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Our designers design it, our account managers build it in the block editor, and then they&#8217;re done.</p>



<p>[00:14:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It feels a bit like Team 51 is a website building agency, buried within Automattic then. So again, just to let me understand it a little bit more, we&#8217;ve got designers, Christy&#8217;s a designer. We&#8217;ve got developers, Mike is a developer. And it sounded like you mentioned marketing as well. There&#8217;s marketing people as well? What I&#8217;m trying to get to with that question, is it almost like an agency buried inside of Automattic?</p>



<p>[00:15:09] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah, you&#8217;re hitting the nail right on the head. Our team does operate on an agency model. There&#8217;s a couple of other teams at Automattic that do as well. One being VIP, and now the other one is lost on me. Oh, The Design Core, they&#8217;re kind of like do all our internal brand stuff.</p>



<p>So Team 51, we are composed of designers, engineers, and project managers, which we call TAMS, AKA Technical Account Managers. And we also have an operations team. All of us like work together to build sites, as any traditional agency would.</p>



<p>[00:15:40] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> The marketing was an example of how a company would build a website. But yeah, for us internally, some of the partners we bring in have a marketing branch, and we will work with them to do the designing. But yeah, we don&#8217;t do marketing ourselves within the team.</p>



<p>[00:15:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. And I think I&#8217;m right in saying that the WP Tavern website, and if you are listening to this, there&#8217;s a high chance that either you&#8217;re on an RSS reader, and you&#8217;re listening to this on a podcast player, or you&#8217;re on the WP Tavern website. I think the Tavern website is one of your projects.</p>



<p>[00:16:10] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> I believe so.</p>



<p>[00:16:10] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah. Yeah, I remember working on that, or working with other people who were working on it. But yeah, we did that a few years ago, but it was before block themes. I think it&#8217;s actually probably due for a revamp to create a block theme version of it.</p>



<p>[00:16:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m going to be in your inbox.</p>



<p>Okay, let&#8217;s go in this direction. If we&#8217;re going to categorise your team as special, which is obviously the name. What is special? What do you bring to the table that any other agency out there might not? I am not trying to put you up against, or make you give me a competitive analysis statement of how you&#8217;re different. But what are some of the things that you&#8217;ve noticed in your time there, which really does separate it out as a special thing?</p>



<p>[00:16:47] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah, I think the biggest thing with our team is that we&#8217;re just like really WordPress focused, and involved in the community, and the open source nature of WordPress, which a lot of like other larger agencies, building larger sites, aren&#8217;t. They&#8217;re doing headless builds using whatever sort of build processes they are, and we&#8217;re like hardcore, a hundred percent block themes. So that&#8217;s one special thing about us.</p>



<p>[00:17:08] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> And, while we use the agency model, we don&#8217;t directly operate like an agency. An agency is a company trying to make money by building websites. So they&#8217;re going to try to do the things that are going to help them bring in good income, and that&#8217;s kind of what they&#8217;re thinking about.</p>



<p>We are more, even though we operate on that model, that&#8217;s how we interact with partners that we&#8217;re working on with websites and things like that. The things we&#8217;re doing is not to extract funding from them. Again, it&#8217;s about us making a project that shines, and does good things, and makes a site that they will be proud of and brag to their friends about. And so we don&#8217;t operate in that.</p>



<p>And we&#8217;re also just, the entire team is people that are just really, really passionate about WordPress. We want to make it look good. We want to give the best that we have to our partners, to the community. It&#8217;s not unusual, when we discover a bug or a glitch, there&#8217;s somebody within minutes saying, okay, who do we need to talk to, to make sure this works right for everybody else that&#8217;s running into this.</p>



<p>[00:18:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you end up doing sort of some philanthropic work as well? Because this is something buried within Automattic, and Automattic as we know, the three of us at least do, and dear listener, if you don&#8217;t, you can go and explore what Automattic do. They&#8217;ve got multiple revenue streams, and so a traditional agency, I&#8217;m imagining their revenue stream is client work. And the fact that Automattic has other revenue streams, does that make it possible for you to do website builds that aren&#8217;t necessarily going to be, air quotes, profitable? That perhaps you could describe as, I don&#8217;t know, philanthropic?</p>



<p>A good example may be The Tavern actually because, as far as I&#8217;m aware, it doesn&#8217;t, there&#8217;s no revenue stream coming out of The Tavern. The decision has been made to keep a news organisation for WordPress going, and it&#8217;s being kept alive by your team, but there&#8217;s no revenue stream there. So I&#8217;m wondering, do you have that? Is it possible for you to do things on a more philanthropic nature because of the funding system that you&#8217;ve got?</p>



<p>[00:19:03] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah, I think exactly what you&#8217;re saying. We are not like a profits based team. We work on just trying to showcase the best of what WordPress can do. And so we definitely have done sites for partners that are nonprofits, and we help them build their web presence online.</p>



<p>[00:19:22] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> I think End The Backlog is a great example of that. There&#8217;s a lot of ones that are just, they&#8217;re not profit making entities. They&#8217;re just groups that are trying to do better things in the world, and we&#8217;re providing some service to that. We&#8217;re not necessarily we&#8217;re not like, this is a good, although that comes into the equation, it&#8217;s not a, we&#8217;re doing this because it&#8217;s a good social justice thing or something, but it&#8217;s a good place we can work. But the outcome is definitely there of enabling these organisations to be able to do things that they might not otherwise be able to do because of financial considerations.</p>



<p>[00:19:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But it does sound then as if the overall purpose of the special projects team then, and we did allude to this a little bit ago, but we probably could go a little bit further, is to act like a bit of a showcase for WordPress, and just to sort of exemplify the very best of what it can do.</p>



<p>And I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve got like one place, one domain where we can go, and look at the work that you&#8217;ve done, or if it&#8217;s more of, no, you&#8217;ll have to be a bit inventive, and Google, and contact us, and we&#8217;ll tell you what we&#8217;ve built.</p>



<p>But it does feel like that&#8217;s the point. Here&#8217;s a big property. Here&#8217;s an important thing, whether it&#8217;s philanthropic or not, and we&#8217;re going to churn out the best that WordPress can do, and thereby, sort of vicariously let the community know, here&#8217;s WordPress. Here&#8217;s how credible it is. Here&#8217;s the kind of people with the stature that they&#8217;ve got who are using it.</p>



<p>[00:20:41] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> As of this week, you can go to specialprojects.automattic.com, which has a list of websites, showcases. It actually has some of the tools we&#8217;ve built, and some of the blocks that we&#8217;ve got out there.</p>



<p>Going back to contributing to the WordPress community, there&#8217;s a pull request to put our Accordion Block into Gutenberg Core.</p>



<p>But actually, going back to that whole showcasing idea, the actual way back origins of this team go back to when Matt was working for CNET and building WordPress. And he would build WordPress sites for his friends and say, here&#8217;s a site I made in WordPress, isn&#8217;t WordPress cool? I&#8217;m not quoting him. I don&#8217;t know what he actually said exactly, but that&#8217;s the gist of what was happening.</p>



<p>But that was kind of how, when we were starting as a team back in the day, a lot of times it was a, we&#8217;d see a site hosted on, I don&#8217;t know if it was around back then, but a Wix or a Squarespace kind of environment, and we&#8217;d be like, we could make that in WordPress.</p>



<p>The team would build a WordPress site mirroring that site, and then go to that person and say, look, we made a WordPress site, this is probably going to be a lot easier for you to work with than wherever you are. And that&#8217;s kind of the origins of, literally, let&#8217;s make WordPress look good by building good WordPress sites.</p>



<p>[00:21:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Forgive me for sort of making this assumption, but it seems like you&#8217;re both quite happy with the work that you are doing. It&#8217;s got value, there&#8217;s some credibility to the work that you&#8217;re doing. I mean, that kind of stuff going on a CV looks nice, right?</p>



<p>And I&#8217;m just wondering if somebody listening to this has the thought that, I think I&#8217;m doing good work, I think I have that caliber in me.</p>



<p>How did you end up dropping into this team? Was it that you were Automatticians already? You may have touched on this in your bio at the beginning, I can&#8217;t remember. Is there a way that you can find yourself into this team? Do you hire externally? There&#8217;s a lot in there, but just tell us what you can.</p>



<p>[00:22:27] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Can I say yes?</p>



<p>[00:22:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;ll do it.</p>



<p>[00:22:30] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Because I think we have very different experiences. You got hired into 51. So we&#8217;d had very different experiences on this, and I think from both ways of, I came in, I got hired by Automattic about seven years ago. Basically rediscovered WordPress, went to a conference, became a happiness engineer doing wordpress.com support.</p>



<p>And then, I think I said earlier, I kind of can&#8217;t hold down a job. I switched from wordpress.com support to doing WooCommerce support. And then I went through, we had an internal developer apprenticeship program that I went through, back to engineering, and worked as an engineer on the woocommerce.com website.</p>



<p>But back when I was a wordpress.com happiness engineer, one of the sites came in for support, who happens to be one of my favorite authors. So I saw her site, and actually it was a, she made a post on her blog of, I&#8217;m having a problem with my like button or something. I&#8217;m like, oh, well I have the access, I&#8217;m doing support, I can go check on it. And I went in, and I start reading, and it had this little flag on it saying, this is a Team 51 site.</p>



<p>So I went and looked. It&#8217;s like, you contact these people. I was like, okay, what is this Team 51? Are they alien secret people? I don&#8217;t know because I hadn&#8217;t, I was new enough, I didn&#8217;t know who they were. And so I messaged someone, I was like, here&#8217;s the thing. And then we got chatting, and he started talking about what they&#8217;re doing. I&#8217;m like, oh my gosh, I want to, this just sounds really cool.</p>



<p>And once an opportunity came in, after I was an engineer for a while, and then they just happened to have an internal thing saying, we&#8217;re looking for some engineers. And I was like, hello, please, yes, and contacted them and then got in. So we do some of that internal hiring kind of thing. But also, and I think Christy can talk more about getting from the outside.</p>



<p>[00:24:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. So there is internal, there&#8217;s mechanisms internally within Automattic to make your way toward the team. But Christy&#8217;s got a different story.</p>



<p>[00:24:15] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> I guess I didn&#8217;t say this earlier, but I lead the design arm of Special Projects. When I got involved with Automattic I was, like I&#8217;ve been designing and developing websites, self-taught for like, I don&#8217;t know, 17, 18 years now. And I started with WordPress about 17 years ago, when it was so young.</p>



<p>And it was like February, 2020, and I was looking for a full-time role somewhere, and I had a friend who was on the Tumblr engineering team at the time. And he&#8217;s like, why don&#8217;t you just apply at Automattic? And I was like, oh, okay.</p>



<p>And then I applied, and went through the whole trial, and the interview. And the interview was for a product designer. And I don&#8217;t really do product design. I&#8217;m a web, UI person. But I went through the trial expecting eventually like, to get an offer, it would be as the product designer. And they were like, oh, actually we have this team for you, we think you&#8217;d be good on, it&#8217;s called Team 51. And like I had the same reaction as Mike, Team 51, what is that? It sounds mysterious.</p>



<p>And I kind of like looked on the website that they had, and looked at who was on the team, and Jeffrey Zeldman was on the team at the time. Oh my God, if I get to work with Jeffrey Zeldman, like, amazing. And so I was thrilled to get hired at that time.</p>



<p>But I was the first internal designer on the team at that point. They didn&#8217;t really have anyone else. They were working with some contractors who&#8217;s, a lot of them are still with us. We&#8217;ve now grown from just me, to like three other internal designers on our team. So the benefit for my design side of the team is that having internal designers means they can work on internal projects, and they&#8217;re more closely associated with the brand. So they can do like Automattic brand things as well. Because like, in addition to the websites, sometimes we do other projects. I am involved in kind of a rebrand for Automattic. There will be something coming hopefully in the next year or so in that end.</p>



<p>[00:25:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Would it be fair to say then, if I find a website and the logo of Automattic is at the bottom of the footer, would that be something that is likely to have been done by your team?</p>



<p>[00:26:07] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Some of them, yeah. Not all of them. We do some internal builds, but there&#8217;s definitely ones we haven&#8217;t done.</p>



<p>[00:26:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. Yeah, so it&#8217;s not guaranteed, but it&#8217;s a probable. Do you find yourself involved in Automattic properties that have got nothing to do with WordPress as well? So, I don&#8217;t know, things like Pocket Casts and, dare I say it, Tumblr, things like that.</p>



<p>[00:26:25] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> We&#8217;ve built Tumblr sites as part of it. We&#8217;ve had a couple people just kind of get directly involved on building Tumblr themes. One of the ones, the first time I heard that we were doing that was actually the Jonas Brothers were going on tour, and one of the leads I&#8217;ve had, it was actually built that theme.</p>



<p>And I think that might&#8217;ve been the, was that the first one we did? I know they came back. But we built the theme for the Jonas Brothers when they went on tour. And I think there were some others that we&#8217;ve built. We&#8217;ve built Tumblrs for partners, like along with the sites, or things like that. So yeah, we&#8217;ve worked with Tumblr. I don&#8217;t know that we&#8217;ve done anything with Pocket Casts. That&#8217;s what I listen to your podcast on.</p>



<p>[00:27:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, yeah. That&#8217;s my podcast player of choice as well.</p>



<p>[00:27:05] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Oh, we built, that&#8217;s right, we did. We built the Pocket Cast Blog. We just recently moved that over.</p>



<p>[00:27:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Automattic seems like it&#8217;s on a clip of purchasing things. So in the more recent past, I can think of Beeper and Texts, and maybe they&#8217;re the kind of things that in the future will come under your purview as well. I don&#8217;t know.</p>



<p>[00:27:18] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> If there&#8217;s a website, if it&#8217;s an Automattic branded site that belongs to it, we tend to be involved in building those sites, and getting them up and running, or doing a redesign and migration of the site into the Automattic platform.</p>



<p>I&#8217;ve worked, personally spent some time on akismet.com, jetpack.com, automattic.com, I think I&#8217;ve done a little bit of work there. So like those internal sites, we do work with those. And yeah, I had forgotten, we migrated the Pocket Cast Blog.</p>



<p>[00:27:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Nice. Now, I&#8217;m guessing the fact that you&#8217;ve got, both of you, this incredible heritage, and you&#8217;re obviously surrounded by people of an equal caliber. I&#8217;m guessing that the kind of work that you put out means that it has to be of the highest quality. And if somebody was to be thinking, I&#8217;d like to work with that team, you have to have really high expectations here. Nothing can go out the door that isn&#8217;t as good as it possibly can be.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t really have a question in there, but I&#8217;m just sort of asking, is that the case? Do you feel that you are doing the best work that you can do with everything that you put out? No corners cut, go the extra mile, do the extra work, that kind of thing. I&#8217;m getting some smiles.</p>



<p>[00:28:22] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> That sounds really high stress.</p>



<p>[00:28:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, and I wondered if it was.</p>



<p>[00:28:25] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> So there&#8217;s a kind of a philosophy within Automattic of, you&#8217;re allowed to make mistakes. As a matter of fact, I said earlier, I went through an apprenticeship program to become an engineer again, because I&#8217;ve been doing some sort of coding for decades. But it was always smaller projects, and I knew when I came to Automattic, there was no way I could operate at the scale and the level that Automattic operates at.</p>



<p>So I came in as a support person, and then when they had the opportunity for me to go learn this, and when I started my apprenticeship, I actually, I was going to work on the woocommerce.com website. And as part of my apprenticeship, no pressure there, far as I know, the largest WooCommerce site on the internet, and I said something to my lead. Something about, as long as I don&#8217;t crash the site. And he says, oh no, it&#8217;s not a matter of if you&#8217;re going to crash the site, it&#8217;s when. And I fulfilled that. I only crashed it once, so that was good.</p>



<p>Yeah, and I&#8217;ve made mistakes on Team 51. I&#8217;ve made some that had some impact. I wish I hadn&#8217;t, but I did. And I learned from it, and will never do that again, and had learned things as I went. It&#8217;s definitely not a, we&#8217;re cavalier, work fast, break things, as some companies operate in. It&#8217;s, we are very careful, but we also acknowledge the fact that we are human beings that are going to make mistakes, especially because we&#8217;re operating at the cutting edge of things.</p>



<p>A new thing comes in WordPress, or is coming in WordPress, a lot of times we&#8217;ll start implementing it, and using it, and sometimes things don&#8217;t go perfectly. And we have an internal system to make sure that if something does go wrong, we&#8217;re quick to get it fixed, quick to get everything back to working well. But yeah, we do want to give the best. We do all absolutely always give the very best we have to what we&#8217;re doing. We don&#8217;t have an expectation of perfection in that. We have an expectation of, I would say an expectation of excellence, but not of perfection, if that makes sense.</p>



<p>[00:30:19] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Well, I have an expectation of perfection in design. I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s like really hard in design to get things to the level that I really want them to be. That mostly comes down to just like the really little, this finessing at the end of the build, the CSS details. That&#8217;s what I love. Like I&#8217;m a huge CSS nerd, and because I&#8217;ve built most sites, like up until working in Automattic, my background is that I would do it myself, and do those afterwards, and it&#8217;s hard for me to kind of like translate that to a developer a lot of the time.</p>



<p>But other people on my team that are younger, and have better, I guess like development handoff practices, are really good at like translating to a dev. Like, here&#8217;s the animation I want to see, here&#8217;s the details that I want on the site. And the site that Mike mentioned earlier, johanernst.com, so that&#8217;s. J-O-H-A-N-E-R-N-S-T, and I want everyone to see the site because it is, I think, the most perfect example of what we&#8217;ve built. It&#8217;s like a super high caliber, and all the little details on it. And they&#8217;re still even adding more. Like they&#8217;re going to add, on the site there&#8217;s this globe, and then we&#8217;re going to add a connector of the expeditions around the globe, so you can see the kind of like route that he&#8217;s taken. It&#8217;s such a good site, check it out.</p>



<p>[00:31:34] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Going back to the perfection idea, I&#8217;m going to amend a little bit, or with what Christy said, the perfection of the design, and the way the sites look, that is a thing. We try to give them the absolute best site. And I learned that on one website we worked on, that we got the initial site delivered, and then the QA went on for the design QA, and I was one of the people that worked on the couple of hundred issues that they found with the design.</p>



<p>A lot of it was, this is shaded a little different, this is just a couple of pixels out of alignment when you&#8217;re with this particular, like it was very, very detailed design. Making the site look perfect. Making things absolutely the best it can be. So there is that standard of the site we deliver. I was looking more from an engineering perspective of perfect code is not a thing, and sometimes there is a belief that you have to just do everything perfect, and if you make something go wrong, that&#8217;s just the end of everything. And we don&#8217;t have that mindset. We work very, very, very hard to make sure that doesn&#8217;t happen.</p>



<p>The presentation I gave yesterday about the safety net plugin we have, comes from that mindset of, we want to never risk doing something that&#8217;s going to impact our partners, or any of our websites in a negative way. WordPress is a very large code base, it&#8217;s not perfect. But our standards for what we deliver very much are very, very detailed.</p>



<p>[00:33:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> In preparation for this podcast, I actually asked a few Automatticians if they had any idea what your team does.</p>



<p>[00:33:10] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Nobody does.</p>



<p>[00:33:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, and not only did they not know, many of them didn&#8217;t know that it was a thing, the Special Projects Team. So I think the cabal like nature of it, it is interesting. There is this perception that, okay, they live in a different warehouse over there, and they&#8217;ve got chemicals boiling in test tubes, and things like that. But it&#8217;s kind of interesting, this podcast, peeling it back a little bit, and just realising sort of more human nature of it.</p>



<p>[00:33:34] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> It is kind of that way, but not by design. It just kind of happened that way, because we are so small, and we have such a small thing. So it&#8217;s just not really visible necessarily every day to things that are going on, because we&#8217;re not necessarily putting out product, and things like that.</p>



<p>So I could see where people, well, again, both of us kind of had that perception before we actually came to the team of this big, mysterious thing. And, no, it&#8217;s just really people that really love doing cool stuff.</p>



<p>[00:34:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It sounds like the caliber of work that you&#8217;re doing is of great interest to you both. You seem to enjoy the space that you&#8217;re in. And obviously, the difficulty that comes with that is understood. I will into the show notes put any of the links that we mentioned today, including the, and I&#8217;m going to call it showcase, I don&#8217;t know if that was the right word, of the kind of sites that the team have been building.</p>



<p>But really fascinating just pulling back the curtain a little bit, and hopefully, off the back of this episode, some people will reach out to wherever they need to reach out to, to see how they can become involved. You never know, you might find some job applications coming through.</p>



<p>Thank you so much for talking to me today. Honestly, really interesting just pulling back the curtain a little bit on the team that you are involved in, and hopefully making it feel a bit less cabal like, in the process. So, Christy and Mike, thank you so much for chatting to me today. I really appreciate it.</p>



<p>[00:34:48] <strong>Mike Straw:</strong> Absolutely. Thank you, this has been fun.</p>



<p>[00:34:49] <strong>Christy Nyiri:</strong> Yeah, thanks so much.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nyiriland/">Christy Nyiri</a> and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikestraw/">Mike Straw</a>.</p>



<p>Christy leads the design arm of Automattic’s Special Projects Team. She taught herself to design and code 17 years ago and has since worked with a wide range of clients, many of whom you’ll hear about later.</p>



<p>Mike is an engineer with the Special Projects Team. He’s been writing code for over four decades, and has been deeply into WordPress for the last seven years.</p>



<p>Today, we&#8217;re pulling back the curtain on the work done at <a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/">Automattic’s Special Projects Team</a>, a somewhat mysterious entity within Automattic. Because of its low visibility and its detachment from regular product output, many have never heard of the team or what they produce, but that’s about to change.</p>



<p>Mike and Christy tell us all about the team. What they do, and who they work with and for. They clarify the unique operational model of the team, which resembles an internal agency, focusing exclusively on WordPress and open-source projects. Their mission isn&#8217;t driven purely by profit; they often support nonprofits and contribute back to the WordPress community.</p>



<p>We get into the team’s philosophy of learning from mistakes while striving for excellence. From their work with prominent websites, to assisting household names, to more philanthropic work, Mike and Christy illustrate how their work showcases the power and versatility of WordPress. In short, they strive to show the very best that WordPress can produce</p>



<p>This episode highlights the technical and design prowess of the Special Projects Team, but also captures the passion and dedication of its members.</p>



<p>Whether you&#8217;re a WordPress developer, a web design enthusiast, or someone interested in the operational intricacies of high-calibre web projects, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>



<p><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/">Automattic Special Projects Team</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.printmag.com/">PRINT magazine</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.endthebacklog.org/">End The Backlog</a></p>



<p><a href="https://johanernst.com/">Johan Ernst</a></p>



<p><a href="https://postsecret.com/">Post Secret</a></p>



<p><a href="https://pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a></p>



<p><a href="https://blog.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts Blog</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 16 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"Do The Woo Community: It’s WooSesh 2024 with Brian Richards";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86126";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"https://dothewoo.io/its-woosesh-2024-with-brian-richards/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:160:"WooSesh 2024 is a free virtual conference on October 29-30, focusing on exceptional customer experience in WooCommerce, featuring keynotes and community awards.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 16 Oct 2024 12:39:16 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26:"Matt: Those Other Lawsuits";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=128223";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:37:"https://ma.tt/2024/10/other-lawsuits/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2707:"<p>It&#8217;s a heavy day, and I&#8217;m sad to write this. Not sure where to start.</p>



<p>In 2022, a lawyer recruited two people who took care of my Mom—an assistant and one of her dozen nurses—to resign and demand a million dollars each, or they would publish horrible things about her in a lawsuit. I refused. The lawsuits were filed. Luckily, the accusations are so sick, twisted, and outrageous that they refute themselves. There&#8217;s some weird sex stuff, and also claims that my Mom is racist. I am sad for whatever mind could even imagine such things. </p>



<p>I won&#8217;t link or quote them because they don&#8217;t deserve that, but the lawsuits have been part of the public record and available to anyone with a web browser since 2022. The lawyer sent them to every major media publication and gossip rag.  You&#8217;re just hearing about them now because any journalist who spent five minutes calling around easily saw how spurious the claims are and didn&#8217;t run with the story. They&#8217;ve been dredged up as part of the smear campaign against me in my battle with Silver Lake and WP Engine.</p>



<p>My advice for any other founder: As you gain wealth this may happen to you with household staff as well. Never settle. It just creates an incentive for more people to make stuff up. Even if it&#8217;s messy, fight the claims in court as I am doing. It&#8217;s the only way to deter people trying to make a quick buck. These cases are common, and the media is used to them.</p>



<p>Now for some good news! I&#8217;m happy to report that since these two people left, my Mom has had no errors in her medication (previously, she had to be hospitalized twice and almost died because of medication errors). She&#8217;s back to the weight she was in her 30s and isn&#8217;t in a wheelchair all the time anymore. She&#8217;s just moved into a new home we&#8217;ve been remodeling together for the past 5 years.  She still has 24/7 RNs, but the new nurses have been fantastic and feel like an extension of our family. We&#8217;re looking forward to celebrating the holidays together with my sister, lifelong family friends like the Ornelas family, Mom&#8217;s four dogs, and some of my fifteen godchildren who live in the area.</p>



<p>I may be wrong or dumb about many other things, but I sincerely believe in the sanctity and beauty of every human life, regardless of any background. We are all God&#8217;s creation. My Mother taught me these values, and I have done my best to uphold them in my life&#8217;s work building open source, WordPress, and Automattic. <a href="https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/">It&#8217;s part of why I give so much back</a>. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 15 Oct 2024 10:30:12 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"Matt: Response to DHH";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=128140";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://ma.tt/2024/10/on-dhh/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2388:"<p>I&#8217;ve taken this post down. I&#8217;ve been attacked so much the past few days; the most <a href="https://ma.tt/2024/10/other-lawsuits/">vicious</a>, personal, hateful words poisoned my brain, and the original version of this post was mean. I am so sorry. I shouldn&#8217;t let this stuff get to me, but it clearly did, and I took it out on DHH, who, while I disagree with him on several points, isn&#8217;t the actual villain in this story: <strong>it&#8217;s WP Engine and Silver Lake</strong>.</p>



<p>A few bullets to his core points:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The headline &#8220;Automattic is doing open source dirty&#8221; is not fair.</li>



<li>Automattic did not work on a deal with WP Engine for 18+ months because of the GPL, or them using &#8220;WP&#8221; in their name, it was because of their abuse of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. Trademarks must be protected, as evidenced by <a href="https://rubyonrails.org/trademarks">Rails trademark policy</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-engine/">Our C&amp;D</a> is about public trademark abuse; <a href="https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf">theirs</a> is about censorship, and doxxes private messages. They have since filed a <a href="https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al.pdf">kitchen sink lawsuit</a> that embroils all of WordPress.org.</li>



<li>Updating ACF to <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/advanced-custom-fields/">Secure Custom Fields in our directory</a> was to provide users of our plugin directory the best, safest, most secure code. It included a security update that still has not been merged by the ACF team.</li>



<li>We will merge any improvements ACF makes to their GPL code going forward and will also include enhanced functionality in the coming days to provide a secure and free drop-in replacement for ACF. If WP Engine didn&#8217;t want this to happen, they should not have published their code under the GPL or distributed it through WordPress.org&#8217;s directory.</li>



<li>I think it&#8217;s fantastic when businesses are built on open source, the WordPress ecosystem is at least 10B+ a year; Automattic and WP Engine are less than 5% of that.</li>
</ul>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 15 Oct 2024 09:30:02 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"Do The Woo Community: A Conversation with Beau Lebens, WooCommerce in 2024 and Beyond";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=86017";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://dothewoo.io/a-conversation-with-beau-lebens-woocommerce-in-2024-and-beyond/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55954:"Episode Transcript
<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Welcome to another episode of <em>Inside Woo</em>. I&#8217;m your host, Jonathan Wold, and with me today is Beau Lebens, the head of engineering at WooCommerce. How are you, Beau?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />I&#8217;m doing well, Jonathan. Thanks for having me on.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />It&#8217;s good to have you, and we have a lot to cover inside of WooCommerce. Before we get to that, though, for those who don&#8217;t know, would you mind giving us just a bit of background on yourself? You&#8217;ve been at Automattic for, if I&#8217;m counting right, 15 years now?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, a little like that. Yep. A little over 15 years.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />And WooCommerce, you&#8217;ve been focused on WooCommerce for over five years now at this point, and you&#8217;ve worn a lot of different hats. Can you just give us some context for your work broadly at Automattic and what you&#8217;ve been focused on at Woo for the past five-plus years?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Sure thing. Yeah, so as you mentioned, it’s been a little over 15 years with Automattic now. I came on originally as an engineer, just the one engineer person, and worked on a bunch of different parts of Automattic. I originally actually came on working, ironically, not directly on WordPress. The first few things I actually worked on were IntenseDebate and then Gravatar, but then I got deep into WordPress.com. I worked on Jetpack for a number of years and then came over to the Woo team, I guess it was five and a half years ago, and joined originally on what was then the core engineering team, with an eye towards being in this sort of engineering leadership role, helping to steer the future of WooCommerce in the WordPress space as someone who had actually worked in the WordPress world before joining Automattic as well. So, really early on in the WordPress space, and so that&#8217;s sort of always been my forte. And since coming onto Woo, I have really helped, I guess, steer Woo alongside WordPress, which is something I believe we’ll talk about. There’s something we’re still doing, which is having Woo be kind of in lockstep with the evolution of WordPress itself, but then also steering it towards this whole green space as far as the commerce world goes, and what it looks like and what it means to be not just the de facto commerce solution for WordPress, but being a real commerce ecosystem of its own.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />So, you&#8217;ve worn a lot of different hats, and with Automattic broadly—myself as a former Automattician—there&#8217;s a lot of flexibility and freedom that you have to pursue interests. So, you have a lot of autonomy in what you do. I’m a big fan of a wide-ranging experience. I think it makes you better at the work that you do. Are there any particular experiences that stand out to you from your 15 years that have especially helped shape the work, I guess the experience and the approach, that you take to the work that you do now in WooCommerce?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Definitely, yeah. So as I mentioned, I sort of was working with WordPress before I even started at Automattic. Originally, I got involved with WordPress—I guess very originally—just because it was an interesting new platform. I was in the web space already and was building websites and doing all sorts of things that WordPress looked interesting for. But then what really got me deep into it was actually attempting a startup with a friend of mine, which, as many startups do, failed miserably. But the premise there was actually leveraging what was, at the time, WordPress MU (which is now a multisite feature that is baked into core), and integrating with bbPress, which is sort of a bulletin board or forum system based on WordPress. So, it was taking those, mashing them together, and then completely changing the front-end experience, so the user didn’t actually know they were using WordPress or bbPress for that matter. So, it was this really customized WordPress-based system.</p>



<p>And when I look back, that’s actually something that has been a little bit of a thread and feels relevant now, the way that we look at WooCommerce, which is: Yes, this thing is based on WordPress. Yes, it is WordPress-powered. Yes, it brings WordPress’s ability to manipulate and manage content to the forefront, but it’s also something else. And it’s leaning into that—leveraging this operating system, if you like, and customizing it towards a specific experience, in our case commerce, and then doing everything that’s possible with that power that comes under the hood. And so, that’s still something that we’re doing today. We are leveraging all of the power of WordPress’s posts and users and settings management, all of this stuff that comes under the hood, all of that portability and flexibility that allows it to run on any web host, but we’re applying that same approach to commerce.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />I think that’s part of what I’ve always found interesting about WooCommerce in particular, is it’s such a great example of an ecosystem within WordPress. And I think it’s especially so because, for most folks who are using WooCommerce, they have this clear business intention, this clear commercial intention, but the way that they got there can vary quite a bit. They could have started out in WordPress with a blog and suddenly, like, add commerce, and then that sort of takes off. And now you have this commerce business. There are people who came in just for WooCommerce—that was something that we began to see early on in WooCommerce is people coming into the ecosystem for Woo. So, it’s always sat at this unique intersection.</p>



<p>And I think what I’m interested in hearing first is, you have this evolution of WooCommerce starting out as a plugin that gave you a lot out of the box from the outset and introduced this whole new range of capabilities to WordPress. And already, from your perspective, when did ecosystem thinking first come into WooCommerce? Was that driven by how people began to use it and what they demanded of it? What’s your perspective as an observer first, and then coming into where that thinking about WooCommerce as a plugin evolved into an ecosystem?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, that’s a great question. I want to actually just really quickly touch on that mention of these overlapping ecosystems or communities between WordPress and WooCommerce, because I think that’s the really fascinating one. There’s a couple of different ways you can look at it, and I often look at it—there are two specific ways I tend to look at it. One is, if you try and Venn diagram those worlds, right? WooCommerce has huge overlap with WordPress, obviously, as a product and as a community and an ecosystem, but it’s not 100%. So, to your point, there’s a certain slice of people, whether they’re developers or the merchants themselves, who really aren’t thinking about WordPress much at all. It’s just there, it’s the foundation of WooCommerce, but they’re thinking of it through a sort of WooCommerce-first lens. And so, that may be a merchant who just wants to set up a store…</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />…which I think is worth pointing out that that’s pretty unique. In WordPress, oftentimes there’s a lot of ecosystems, sub-ecosystems—forms are good examples—but with WooCommerce, I think you’ll have people who really aren’t thinking about the WordPress part, which is something a lot of people in WordPress, it may not be obvious unless you point it out.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It’s something that, especially if you’re sort of steeped in this WordPress background (which, I’ll be the first to say, I am myself), it’s actually kind of hard to wrap your head around that reality and accept that, no, some of these people, they just heard about WooCommerce, and they heard WooCommerce is how you put a store on the internet. And so, they go looking for that, and that’s what they want. And then, as they unpeel the onion, if you like, they see, oh, there’s this WordPress thing under here as well, and I have access to this whole other, what they think of as a whole other ecosystem of WordPress solutions and flexibility and everything else that comes.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Like, &#8220;Oh, I can have a blog as well, that’s cool.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Right. &#8220;And I can add complicated forms to it, and I can optimize my SEO,&#8221; all these other things that come along with that WordPress world. They maybe didn’t appreciate that they were getting that out of the box with WooCommerce.</p>



<p>The other lens that I look at it—so first, you’ve got that Venn diagram world. The other one is this sort of stacked platforms, if you like, where WordPress is very much a platform, it’s a whole ecosystem—it’s WordPress the solution, and then all of the plugins and themes and everything that come with it. WooCommerce is kind of like, oh, add another core platform on top of that, and then another whole ecosystem of WooCommerce-specific solutions. So we refer to them as extensions, but at a code level, they’re really just WordPress plugins that rely on WooCommerce specifically. And there’s a whole other world of them, which is sort of this next layer on this commerce solution, if you like.</p>



<p>And so, when you think about it as slices rather than a Venn diagram, we have basically everything that you have at</p>



<p>the WooCommerce level, whether that’s communities or meetups or plugins or any of the solutions that exist for WordPress. We have all of that at the WooCommerce layer as well. And so then, that’s a really interesting way of slicing it out. And then you can look at just what’s happening at the WooCommerce level, but then also how does that interact with the layer below it? So you end up in a pretty complex environment, but it’s a really interesting one to work in.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />So, if you start to take its origins as a plugin, from your perspective, how did we get there? I like the layers idea. What are the things that stand out to you?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />I actually think early on in WooCommerce’s trajectory, if you like, there was kind of this acknowledgment that you can’t build everything that you need for a commerce solution in a single plugin for WordPress. It’s hard enough to do as a complete standalone, entirely controlled SaaS service. Even in that environment, you can’t build everything that you need to cater to every commerce solution all in one native package. You have to have something of an ecosystem to provide all of the unique solutions that all of these different commerce scenarios require.</p>



<p>So from day one, I think whether it was fully acknowledged or not, WooCommerce has sort of embraced this idea that it takes an ecosystem to provide all of these solutions. And what we’ve done over the years is really lean into that. And we’ve really said, yeah, that’s core to how WooCommerce works. No matter how much we may or may not build into that core experience, you’re always going to need the flexibility that WordPress and, by extension, WooCommerce provide. You’re always going to need some extra workflow modification, or maybe you need, I don’t know, a specific shipping carrier in a region that’s not very big, whatever it may be. And so the way that we can provide that is that we as Woo—that distinction is there, the company rather than WooCommerce the product—something that’s really important to us is figuring out how to build an excellent experience but retain this flexibility and extensibility so that developers and builders can customize and tailor it.</p>



<p>And then, I think one of the other big challenges for us is making sure that interoperability is there so that once you start putting together a solution, it still feels like a meaningful, singular commerce experience. And that exists both at that WooCommerce layer and that WordPress layer. And that’s where it gets really interesting, frankly, and challenging. And where I think the direction that WordPress is going (which we can talk about if that’s interesting) is really sort of enabling a level of integration and flexibility that actually is not great at the moment in WordPress. WordPress has some, I think, almost a lack of opinion that has been great for flexibility but has resulted in some experiences that feel a bit disjointed and that aren’t as deeply integrated as they could be.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />I started writing about this concept of ecosystem plugins a number of years back, and WooCommerce was the one that really stood out to me. And when I think about this concept of an ecosystem within WordPress, there were three characteristics that stood out. First, you have to introduce a suite of functionality, which WooCommerce clearly does—a whole new category. You also have to provide an integration layer that can be extended. But the third thing—and I’ve felt from the beginning that WooCommerce, whether inadvertently or not, has done this better than most—is you also need to influence and shape that ecosystem, like taking an active role. Because I think a lot of the ecosystems we have in WordPress, up until more recently, it’s been fairly hands-off. And I think in WooCommerce, there’s a degree, at least from my perspective, to which just the demands of the growing business required active curation. The partnerships team did a lot of work to help shape and influence what came into WooCommerce.</p>



<p>But from your perspective, through your lens and the roles that you’ve played, and from an engineering perspective, how do you think about the responsibility of WooCommerce the business to shape the ecosystem, especially when it’s so large? There are people who use WooCommerce in so many different ways, and you’re already beginning to allude to the importance of opinions there. But how do you think about that responsibility?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, it’s a tricky one. It can be, as you said, it’s really broad, and so people are doing all sorts of things with WooCommerce, some of which we would never imagine. And so, it’s very difficult to plan for that. We do take backwards compatibility really seriously. Similar to one of the things that is actually sort of fundamental to WordPress’s success over the 20 years that it’s existed, is this commitment to backwards compatibility. What does that look like? What does that mean? And frankly, it’s something that, as engineers and developers, it’s easy to get really annoyed with and wish that we didn’t have to do and just wish that we could move forward, change things, build the new shiny thing, build a new system, whatever. But I think that’s fundamental to WordPress’s success and WooCommerce’s success.</p>



<p>We do need to break it sometimes—there are some unavoidable situations where maybe it’s a security fix or a specification change, or whatever it might be where we just can’t figure out how to maintain backwards compatibility or, frankly, staying backwards compatible is not in everyone’s best interest, and so we have to move things forward.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Let’s talk about that specifically because I think it’s a really good example of where the tension, especially from an engineering perspective, lies because, at least from my perspective, having worked with many engineers, you can kind of move on. You see better ways to do something. You see, okay, there’s this new set of practices that we want to bring in. This makes a lot of sense. And from an end user’s perspective, oftentimes it just doesn’t matter. And if you look at it, I feel similarly that WordPress’s and WooCommerce’s success is in large part due to the confidence and stability that comes from that. People don’t have to think about it often; it’s just not breaking. Is there an example that stands out to you of where you did the harder work—usually the much harder work—to maintain the backwards compatibility? I think for builders listening to me, this is an important part of success in the WordPress ecosystem, is internalizing why this compatibility, why the work matters. Is there any example that stands out to you?</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, I have a huge one, which is very relevant. We can talk about the past version and the future version of it, and that’s HPOS—so high-performance order storage. For anyone who’s not familiar, this is a pretty fundamental change where, historically, WooCommerce had stored all of its order information, so someone places an order on your website, you make a sale, that information was stored in the WP post table, because that was the sort of most flexible place to store that data in a WordPress install, where historically it was somewhat frowned upon to introduce your own custom tables. And so back in the day, WooCommerce was built as a plugin. It was intended to be installed on WordPress, spun up pretty quickly, and you could just go about your way, start taking orders.</p>



<p>So HPOS was this project to shift all of that data to a custom set of tables, which were optimized for storing large volumes of order data and for processing at high capacity. And the actual engineering work to just do that, if we were just changing WooCommerce core, was done in about two months max. And that’s with even sort of trying to allow for the fact that the way that we did it, the planning process, everything was very different because we were catering to an entire ecosystem. So we did this work, and then it took almost two years before that was actually the default on new WooCommerce installs.</p>



<p>And that’s because all of the work was really around the ecosystem and adoption and educating other developers and introducing systems to allow different plugins to declare compatibility or incompatibility and how we handle all of those different combinations of things that are or are not compatible. That’s where all the complexity came in. And that, frankly, is all about backwards compatibility, whether that’s at the sort of user level or the code level, it’s handling all of these different scenarios that exist in the WordPress world because you’ve got these different versions of things out there running, and you can’t just update them all at once. We can’t just go tell people, you have to update WordPress, WooCommerce, and every plugin that you’re running to X version and they’re all compatible and then you’re good. And so since we can’t do that, we have to deal with this complexity.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />That’s a great example because I think instinctively it feels to me like it was the right approach to focus on the lowest common denominator of experience, which is the merchant, and also the most important in this case. So, it takes that time, yet if you can make it available to your builders, to the agency ecosystem sooner, then there&#8217;s more winning that can happen. They&#8217;re able to successfully roll this out for their merchants, their clients, your merchants, and you can probably get a productive feedback loop that also gives confidence that makes what you ultimately roll out to everyone more effective. And if I contrast this to other ecosystems, part of the problem is that they don&#8217;t have that first focus. I don&#8217;t remember the details of it, but my sense of what happened with Magento, for instance, was this sort of big cut from one to the next. And from what I recall, there were developers who were</p>



<p>quite happy about the changes, and probably also the work that they&#8217;d have to be paid for to make the migration successful. But a lot of merchants ended up being disenfranchised and just lost in the process. So, you’ve done a good job, from my perspective, to remain merchant-centric in those decisions. And it sounds like you&#8217;ve recognized the role that your ecosystem can play in supporting that, and you can create a win for them as well in the process.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, that’s definitely a learning for us. And I think also a challenge and just something that we&#8217;re still getting better at is how to really engage with this developer ecosystem. You mentioned earlier that there are people out there building WooCommerce solutions, and we frankly just don’t even know who most of them are. That’s both the beauty and the struggle of, I think, WordPress itself, but also WooCommerce is that they&#8217;re out there in the world. The code base is available, people can go build them and deploy them anywhere, and they may not interact with us in any way. And so, it can be very difficult for us to communicate with that ecosystem of builders and developers. And it&#8217;s something that actually, I think we haven&#8217;t done as good of a job as we should have in the last few years, but I guess a few years ago, the last year plus, you may have seen we&#8217;re much more active out there in public now. That&#8217;s a really conscious and intentional shift. We really want to engage with developers through GitHub, through our Slack community, through our developer blog. We&#8217;ve been putting a ton of work into tightening up and aggregating all of the, what was disparate documentation for our platform, bringing that all into a single developer hub, and then also leaning into tooling—do we have CLI commands and all of the stuff that we know developers actually prefer to work with. They shouldn’t have to dig through the code to find out how to do something. We should have better documentation for that.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s really a foundational thing for us that we&#8217;re investing a lot in. And we really want that feedback loop with community developers who are building on top of WooCommerce or they&#8217;re building solutions for WooCommerce. Frankly, a lot of that has happened without us hearing about it. And so sometimes we get these blowups of feedback where people get frustrated and they say, &#8220;Why aren’t you doing X?&#8221; And we say, &#8220;Oh, we actually hadn&#8217;t heard that that was such a big deal to you.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />So, this is one of the things that’s standing out to me in this—some of these problems, these challenges, we&#8217;ll call them challenges—that you&#8217;re experiencing are quite unique to open source. If we contrast this to proprietary platforms, in a proprietary platform, you wouldn&#8217;t have that. Typically, you wouldn’t have that two-year period.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />You’d just do it.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />You just do it. &#8220;This approach is deprecated as of this year. We&#8217;ve upgraded everything.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Exactly.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />You take care of it for them. And you also know your constraints, who’s working in your platform more often than not. And if you don’t, you can solve that a lot more readily. I’m curious from your perspective, I guess I&#8217;m not asking about just the benefits of it in this open-source ecosystem. And I think that’s a big part of why it’s grown to where it is. It’s a key factor in all of this. But I guess, how do you think about—you grew up in the WordPress space—how do you think about the impact that the open-source nature has, the benefits, and the trade-offs to WooCommerce? Because you started from a plugin, now you have an entire ecosystem that happens to be open source. It’s quite unique and very commercial in its nature, and there are all these dynamics at play. And yeah, I think it’s worth touching on that because that&#8217;s a single characteristic that has a lot of impact on what you&#8217;re trying to work on.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Definitely. Yeah, it’s an interesting and very difficult question to answer because, as you said, it seems like a relatively narrow question…</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Right? &#8220;Oh, it’s just open source.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Yeah, it has so many implications. So I do think it is fundamental both to our previous success—I think it is what got us here—and it poses some unique challenges in going forward. There are certain things that, especially in a commerce space, would be much, much easier to do if we controlled the full stack, if all of WooCommerce was hosted in a single environment and we could just deploy updates, or we could optimize certain things. Performance is a favorite topic, which is actually an area that we are investing in more this year. We mentioned HPOS, but there are a ton of different performance characteristics that, when you control the whole system, you can just optimize for the way that system works. Whether it’s, I don’t know, adding an index in a database or optimizing a specific query or whatever it might be—adding a specific caching layer—we don’t even know what people do with most WooCommerce stores. And so, it makes it very, very difficult to optimize the performance profile of something that you don’t know what it is.</p>



<p>So that sort of thing can be really challenging. But I think what we&#8217;re seeing is, over the years, there’s a certain number of pretty consistent profiles that we see. For example, people use WooCommerce in certain ways, and it’s actually one of the beauties of being housed within Automattic, which has multiple hosting environments, is that we can just go look at real stores and see how they’re going, what they’re doing, what software they’re running, what performance bottlenecks do they ever run into, and then just working directly with them and improving it and then bringing those improvements back to the rest of the platform.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />It’s such a unique challenge. I remember when I worked at WooCommerce, one of the debates at the time was this: how does WooCommerce relate to the hosting ecosystem? And this is such a good example because someone can have really low-cost hosting on WordPress, which is great, and then wake up one day and decide to install WooCommerce and run WooCommerce and start to take orders. All of this can be happening in an environment that was not designed, intended for that, right? And that’s not necessarily going to be apparent to the user.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />They have a bad experience potentially, and they think, &#8220;Oh, it’s WooCommerce’s fault.&#8221; And I think commerce and content are really interesting when married together, but they’re also almost opposed from a performance perspective, right?</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Caching versus not caching.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Exactly.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />Right out of the gate.</p>



<p><strong>Beau:</strong><br />Right out of the gate. The fundamental strategy for content performance is just cache everything, and basically, it’s a static website, and to the moon. And it’s the opposite with commerce—you basically have to not cache everything, or there are definitely caching strategies that you can go down, but you probably can’t just static cache everything. You probably have a very different profile of users coming back to your website. And so, there are just fundamental differences there that really do require us to think about the way that we approach WooCommerce as: it’s on WordPress, but it’s also quite different from WordPress.</p>



<p><strong>Jonathan:</strong><br />So then, here comes the tension, right? Because from an engineering perspective, and especially if you didn’t come up in the WordPress space—which is part of why I think you’re in such a unique position—if you came from a proprietary ecosystem, the answer would be clear: &#8220;Well, we need to control this.&#8221; &#8220;Let&#8217;s not deal with all these hosts out here. We need to control as much of this as possible.&#8221; And you could argue, I think successfully, that from what’s best for the merchant’s perspective, that’s a fair line of reasoning. Let’s give them a great experience. And hosting is a good example of an open-source variable that can have a big impact. But yet, that’s also a big part of why WooCommerce has grown as much as it has. You have this vast ecosystem. And while it’s much harder, I’ve been really happy to see WooCommerce take an approach over the past couple of years of working with the hosts and figuring out, okay, how do we support that? So how do you think about that? And I think for the merchant in particular, ideally, they wouldn’t even have to care about this, but yet there is real-world impact to that. There’s a lot there, but how do you think about that?</p>
