The Month in WordPress: April 2021

As WordPress grows, both in usage as a CMS and in participation as a community, it’s important for us to shed the idea that software creation is only about what literally can be done to code or what literally can be done to core or what literally can be done to the CMS. 

That was Josepha Haden Chomphosy on the “Your Opinion is Our Opportunity” episode of the WP Briefing Podcast, speaking about the importance of co-development and testing for the continued growth and maintenance of WordPress. This month’s updates align closely with these ideas. Read on and see for yourself. 

WordPress 5.7.1 is launched

WordPress security and maintenance release – 5.7.1 came out in April. The release fixes two major security issues and includes 26 bug fixes. You can update to the latest version directly from your WordPress dashboard or by downloading it from WordPress.org.

Want to contribute to WordPress 5.8? Check out the 5.8 Development Cycle. To contribute to core, head over to Trac, and pick a 5.8 ticket –– more info in the Core Contributor Handbook. Don’t forget to join the WordPress #core channel in the Make WordPress Slack and follow the Core Team blog. The Core Team hosts weekly chats on Wednesdays at 5 AM and 8 PM UTC. 

Gutenberg Version 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 are out

Contributor teams released Gutenberg version 10.3 on April 2, version 10.4 on April 14, and version 10.5 on April 30! Version 10.3 improves the block toolbar and the navigation editor, whereas version 10.4 adds block widgets to the customizer and improvements to the site editor list view. In version 10.5, you will find a set of new block patterns and enhancements to the template editing mode, along with the ability to embed PDFs. 

Want to get involved in building Gutenberg? Follow the Core Team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Make WordPress Slack. The “What’s next in Gutenberg” post offers more details on the latest updates. If you are unfamiliar with the Gutenberg plugin, learn more in this post.

Full Site Editing updates

Following the Full Site Editing (FSE) feature demo hosted by Mattias Ventura, the project leadership decided that WordPress 5.8 will only include some FSE features, such as a template editor for pages/blank templates, a widget editor screen, and the theme.json mechanism. Other features like the Global Styles interface and Site Editor (managing all templates) will be made available later. The team has started working on the next steps in shipping these chosen FSE features with version 5.8.

New to FSE? Check out this blog post for a high-level overview of the project. You can help test FSE by participating in the latest FSE Outreach Program testing call –– leave your feedback by May 5th. Want to participate in future testing calls? Stay updated by following the FSE outreach schedule. You can also submit your questions around FSE right now.

WordCamp Europe 2021 is on the calendar

One of the most exciting WordPress events,  WordCamp Europe 2021, will be held online on June 7-9, 2021! Event organizers have opened up calls for sponsors and media partners. Free tickets for the event will be available soon — sign up for email updates to be notified when they are out!

Further Reading

• WordPress now powers 41% of the web!
• Q1 2021 updates from the WordPress project have been published.
• The Core Team discussed a proposal to treat Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a Google Chrome feature, as a security concern. The team eventually decided to track the status of the FLoC trial/implementation in a Trac ticket and monitor periodically. 
• The Core Team will remove Internet Explorer 11 support in WordPress version 5.8. 
• The Community Team has opened up a discussion on the path to in-person WordCamps and is requesting feedback from community members.
• The Community Team is also requesting feedback on whether companies who run competitive ads against WordPress can apply to sponsor WordCamps. 
• WordCamp Centroamérica 2021 and WordCamp Greece 2021 were held successfully in April. Videos of WordCamp Centroamérica are now available on WordPress.tv! While you are at it, don’t miss this excellent recap of WordCamp Prague 2021 on the WordCamp Central blog.
• Contributor teams are actively working on building the Block Pattern Directory. You can read about work updates on this project from the Meta Team and the Design Team.
• Check out the blog post on getting started with the Figma WordPress Design Library. You can use the library to create design prototypes for the WordPress UI in Figma.
• The Polyglots Team is making significant progress on the Polyglots Training course.
• The Training Team has proposed a contributor ladder as a resource for team contributors to understand ways to participate and find growth opportunities. 
• The Requests library has moved to the WordPress GitHub organization and has a new release: version 1.8.0. 
• The Docs Team is working on redesigning HelpHub by reviewing its content and design.
• The Themes Team has shared a proposal on fixing upload issues for block themes.
• Tyler Lau from the U.S. was featured in April’s People of WordPress.

Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it using this form.

The following folks contributed to April’s Month in WordPress: @andreamiddleton @cbringmann @chaion07 @hlashbrooke and @jrf