People of WordPress: Raghavendra Satish Peri

Posted by download in Software on 31-10-2022

This month, as WordPress Accessibility Day approaches, we feature Raghavendra Satish Peri, a blogger turned digital entrepreneur based in India, specializing in web accessibility and digital marketing.

The People of WordPress series shares inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global network of contributors.

Raghavendra speaking at a Blogger event, 2015.
Raghavendra speaking at a blogger event, 2015

Expressing myself through WordPress

Raghavendra Satish Peri says WordPress is more than a way to succeed online. It’s a community that has always answered his questions and helped him learn, and has enabled his voice to be heard across the world.

These are motivating benefits for Raghavendra, who has a vision impairment that introduces challenges to many of the things he wants to do. The WordPress community has helped him make some of his dreams come true. After chatting with others at WordPress events, about his wish to go trekking and running, he found he was later contacted by people in the community went with him to do just that.

Raghavendra training for a marathon in 2013.
Raghavendra training for a marathon in 2013

He also found WordPress events a way to raise the importance of accessibility issues, share tips, and connect local communities so they can collaborate on items both within and outside WordPress.

Life growing up with an enabling family

A key asset for Raghavendra has been the support of his family as he coped with his progressive blindness. His sister took charge of teaching him important social and life skills, so he could navigate his country’s rigorous education system.

Those were the early days of technology everywhere, and nobody much was thinking about using it in education and day-to-day life.

When Raghavendra got his first computer, in 2004, it was a revelation. His sister taught him to use the internet efficiently, and he taught himself a few basics of programming. Soon he was spending 10 to 12 hours a day exploring the online world and learning about the web.

Discovering WordPress and blogging

In 2006, he learned basic web design and began to sell website templates. His growing interest in search engines and content led him to WordPress. As the years progressed, his eyesight deteriorated. He had to relearn his skills and acquire new ones to compensate. When he could no longer see the computer screen, he learnt to use screen readers. 

At that point there was a gap: he had the same business skills, but he couldn’t apply them as effectively until he got comfortable with using screen readers. 

Raghavendra speaking at an event in Bangalore, India in 2014. Photo Credit: Two Feet To Fly - fLaShBuLbZz Photography
Raghavendra speaking at an event in Bengalaru, India in 2014

To help achieve that, Raghavendra moved to Bengalaru, where he got a full education in screen-reader technology and took a job as a consultant in digital accessibility.

He recalls learning from that time that, in his words: “Some things are important, but one needs to let them go so that more important things can take the new space.”

During his stay in Bengaluru, he stumbled on the idea of blogging and audiobooks. On his 23rd birthday, he had two firsts: registering a domain and publishing a blog post. At first he wrote about things happening in his daily life, which initially got low responses. But when he started attending blogging and tech meetups, he received encouragement from fellow bloggers who complimented him on his writing style.

Using WordPress to publish his story, Raghavendra found a love for writing and this made him want to learn and understand WordPress much better.

“Writing freed my mind and soul from the pain and sorrow; it takes a person into a Zen state where one can understand their soul once they see their own thoughts on paper.”

Raghavendra Satish Peri

There were still some ongoing challenges arising from his difficulties with seeing. For example, Raghavendra found coding was made more complicated. But he took it slowly, and he improved steadily. 

He started as many WordPressers do, installing themes and plugins, and making minor changes to the code. Ultimately, he moved all of his sites to WordPress, and as he learned more about WordPress, he could help his friends and family more with their projects.

After just a few years, Raghavendra had the skills and the confidence to build just about anything in WordPress, progressing from simple to complex websites.

Today Raghavendra is a successful entrepreneur. He sees his life as full of promise. WordPress still helps him grow every day, professionally and personally.

“There is always hope for tomorrow! Do not look for the light at the end of the tunnel, embrace the darkness, listen to the quietness, and feel the airflow. You will know that light is ahead even before you see it.” 

Raghavendra Satish Peri

Contribute to accessibility and WordPress

Another thing Raghavendra has in common with many WordPressers is his enthusiasm and involvement in the community. As he has learnt more about the software, he felt he needed to be involved with improving accessibility too. He started to help organize local meetups and conferences and encourages others to give time and skills to contribute too. 

2016, Raghavendra on stage speaking at WordCamp Mumbai
2016, Raghavendra speaking at WordCamp Mumbai

He follows software development closely, especially where WordPress meets accessibility.

In 2020, on learning about a global WordPress Accessibility event, he applied and became a speaker. His topic was Gutenberg Accessibility, A Screen Reader User’s Perspective. His interest continued as a result of this event, and he wanted to be part of growing its audience and impact, initially through joining its dedicated channel on Slack. Eventually, he joined the organizing team for future events.

Helping run WordPress events brought together all of Raghavendra’s existing skills. It taught him a lot about what it takes to make an event truly inclusive, from captions and sign language to media players and more. 

As his involvement has grown, Raghavendra has found it has become easier to source and use resources that make events and presentations more accessible. But knows there’s always more that can be learnt in this area, and encourages others to use understanding from events like the Accessibility Days in their conferences.

Join the global WordPress Accessibility Day 2022 online on November 2-3, 2022. It’s free to register!

WordPress Accessibility Day 2022 logo in purple and turquoise


Sharing learning on accessibility can be a motivator

In 2021, Raghavendra underwent his most challenging event to date, when he had a kidney transplant. To motivate himself, he started a website that focuses on accessibility and inclusive design. This prompted him to start an accessibility community to help fill the gaps in accessibility knowledge. Today, it is one of India’s largest online accessibility communities, educating developers and designers and training people with disabilities to build a career in accessibility testing.

Portrait photo of Raghavendra post his organ transplant, 2021.
Raghavendra after his organ transplant in 2021

Raghavendra is also a keen user of the WordPress Gutenberg editor and builds all his websites using it. Though content creation and editing can still pose him difficulties, he finds the front end of the Gutenberg blocks very accessible. He believes in participating in the software to make it a better experience for all.

“I decided to live my life to the fullest and make my mark on the world. This thought keeps me motivated.”

Raghavendra Satish Peri

After a successful transplant, he lives a disciplined life with a few restrictions. He continues to enjoy working in-depth in disability, accessibility, and inclusion spaces. Rajhavendra hopes others will join with him and the thousands of other people who collaborate to make a difference.

Share the stories

Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series.

Thank you to Raghavendra Satish Peri (@tarkham) for sharing his experiences for this latest edition.

Contributors

Thanks to Meher Bala (@meher), Abha Thakor (@webcommsat) and Surendra Thakor (@sthakor) for interviews and writing this feature, to Mary Baum (@marybaum), Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann), and Larissa Murillo (@lmurillom) for reviews.

The People of WordPress series thanks Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune) and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) for their support.

HeroPress logo

This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. #HeroPress

WP Briefing: Episode 42: Something Spooky This Way Comes

Posted by download in Software on 31-10-2022

In the forty-second episode of the WordPress Briefing podcast, Josepha Haden Chomphosy reads a WordPress Halloween story completed by contributor-submitted Mad Libs.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

Editor: Dustin Hartzler
Logo: Javier Arce
Production: Santana Inniss
Music: Spooky edit by Timothy Volpert
Mad Lib Contributors: Juan Lucha, Lauren Stein, robinwpdeveloper, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Madison Swain-Bowden, Ken Gagne, Julia Golomb, kawserz, Sé Reed, Mumtahina Faguni, Clea Mahoney

Download Mad Libs:

References

Important Note: WordPress 6.1 is released tomorrow!
Multisite registration and activation pages have new HTML and CSS
Call for Testing: WordPress for Android 21.0
New design for HelpHub in WordPress.org
WordPress.org Redesign Update
FSE Program Guiding the Gutenberg Gallery Summary

Transcript

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00] 

Howdy, Halloween nerds! And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, a podcast where I’m normally very serious, but today is Halloween! And gosh, do I love a chance to celebrate. So today, the most serious thing I have is this WordPress themed Halloween Madlib for you. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:43] 

I was so excited to learn that WordCamp would be on Halloween this year, and now it’s finally here. After a full day of workshops and mingling, I am exhausted. But I’ve got just enough time to return to the hotel and prepare for the after party. It’s a themed costume event organized by the Docs team, and I cannot wait.

Walking into my room, I give a big yawn and realize just how tired I am. The bed is looking extra comfortable right now. Surely a little nap wouldn’t hurt, right? As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out like a light, but almost immediately, my eyes snap back open, a flash of lightning lights up the room, and I hear rain pouring down outside.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:23] 

After another flash, the lights in the room start to flicker. That’s strange, I think to myself, but I have an after party to get to. There must have been a power surge because when I look back at the clock, it’s reset and flashing 12:00 am. I check my phone, but it’s dead too. I’m not quite sure how long I’ve been sleeping, so I don’t know if I have enough time to change into my full Ninja Turtles costume.

I just put the mask on and head down to the lobby to meet my WordPress friends. When the elevator dings open in the lobby, it’s completely empty. No concierge, no hotel staff, and no WordPress friends. That’s weird. The lights also seem dimmer. And, are those urgent Trac tickets on the lobby lounge chairs?

I’m wondering where everybody is, but I keep walking toward the convention hall. A shadow suddenly moves in the corner of my eye, and I spin around but only see my own face reflecting in a hallway mirror. Hmm, that’s odd. I notice that the cute Ninja Turtle mask looks a little less cute somehow. The eyes are angry red, and the teeth are now sharp-looking fangs.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:33] 

Before I can take off the mask for a closer look, I see another shadow move in the corner of the mirror. When I turn around this time, I see the faint outline of a person. It looks familiar. Could that be Matt Mullenweg? Darn it. They disappear into the convention hall before I can even call out, ‘howdy!’ And so I break into a jog to follow after them.

Walking into the hall, I can hear the musical stylings of WordPress Jazzer Duke Ellington playing on a gramophone. I bob my head to the music, super relieved to see the room full of WordPressers dressed up and dancing. I head over to some of the folks from my Make team to chat, but oddly, they won’t stop dancing. They’re smiling and dancing and cheering each other on.

Some of them are even doing the electric slide. It’s actually kind of impressive, but it’s still a little strange that no one will stop dancing to talk to me. Actually, now that I think about it, none of the party goers seem to be noticing me at all. Wondering what’s going on, I start backing up toward the door.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:32] 

I jump a little as it slams behind me with the loud sound of an old door creaking and the heavy click of a lock.

That’s when I noticed the shadowy familiar figure again. This time they’re standing by an open door on the other side of the hall. They seem to be watching me. They lift a white gloved hand and motion for me to follow before disappearing through the door again.

I run after the mysterious figure weaving between groups of dancing WordCamp goers. Could they be under a spell, I wonder while running past. I exit the convention space and enter a small hallway that seems to twist and turn. It feels a lot longer than I remember. I continue running through it and suddenly find myself back in the Contributor Day conference room.

The shadow person is nowhere to be found, and as I walk around the contributor tables, I quickly notice that the exit back to the hotel has also disappeared. Okay, so this is getting really weird. My first thought is to get my Make team involved, but since they won’t stop dancing, I know I need to devise a different plan.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:34] 

That’s when I noticed the big glass box at the center of the room. I am almost certain it wasn’t there during Contributor Day. I approach the box cautiously. Inside I see a shiny silver goblet of gently fizzing WordPress blue liquid, possibly blueberry flavored if I had to guess. Attached to the goblet stem is a ribbon with a note in EB Garamond that reads: Merge Me.

At first, I chuckle at the poor attempt at a GitHub joke until I spot another note scrolled on the glass in black marker. It says, 

Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble;
Find your escape route on the double; 
Bring back the community and one thing more; 
Merge the elixir with your core. 

As I’m trying to decode the odd poem’s meaning, a flash of lightning lurches across the room, and a clap of thunder follows behind.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:24] 

I shield my eyes before looking up to find that I am no longer alone. It’s the shadowy figure again, except in the light of this room, I can finally see that it’s not anyone familiar. It is a lumpy-looking being, and it’s wearing a witch costume. The costume-clad figure looks very unsteady on its feet like it might fall over.

And just as I’m about to ask if they’re all right, the person suddenly topples over into a heap of robes and broomsticks. I can see spots of yellow fur and a few pairs of fuzzy ears. Aha! There was a wisdom of Wapuus under that witchy costume. 

They blink cutely at me for a moment and then quickly scurry into a surprisingly organized line. I watch, totally confused, as the line of Wapuus starts moving methodically back toward the convention hall. They take three steps, and then they turn to the side, take another three steps, and then turn to the other side.

The last Wapuu in the line turns to look at me and motions with its tiny paw to follow. That’s when the words on the glass box finally click. I have to bring the community back. All the dancing WordPressers need to return to the contributor tables to break the spell. The Wapuus have started a conga line to help lead the way.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:35] 

So, off I go. Following the tiny conga line through the twisting hallway and into the convention hall. As I’m dancing behind the Wapuus, I’m happy to see all my fellow WordCamp attendees falling into step behind me. My steadily growing conga line is weaving its way through the hall, picking up WordPressers, wearing mouse costumes, and Frankensteins and penguin costumes, and that’s when the Wapuus changed their course, leading us back through the twisting hallway and into the Contributor Day conference room.

With the first part of the riddle solved, I’m glad to see that everyone has finally stopped dancing. Some folks are happy to sit down and get off their feet. Others are wondering how they ended up back in the contributor room. My Make team waves at me from across the room. I noticed there’s still no exit, but the glass box has disappeared. With the goblet free, there’s just one thing left for me to do.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:27] 

I rush toward it, dodging Wapuus and a pile of kicked-off shoes. Except that the closer I think I’m getting to the goblet, the further away it feels. I run faster, weaving through people and tables, and just when I feel close enough to reach out for the goblet, I trip over a live-streaming cable, and I wake up in my hotel room.

Sitting up quickly, I realize it was all just a very strange dream. Outside, the sun is setting in a clear sky with no storm in sight. I try to shake it off. I change into my Ninja Turtles costume, ready to do my best Monster Mash at the after party with all of my WordPress friends. As I walk out of the hotel room, I pause for a quick costume check in the mirror.

Before heading downstairs, I take a quick glance at the digital clock on the nightstand to see the time. Huh, that’s odd. Next to the digital clock sits a fuzzy plush Wapuu wearing a witch costume. That wasn’t there before, was it? And if I didn’t know any better, I almost think I see it wink. 

WordPress 6.1 Release Candidate 3 (RC3) Now Available

Posted by download in Software on 25-10-2022

Release Candidate 3 (RC3) is now available for testing! The general release is just one week away with WordPress 6.1 scheduled for release on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. 

This RC3 release is the final opportunity for you to test and help to ensure the resilience of the 6.1 release by performing a final round of reviews and checks. Since the WordPress ecosystem is vast and composed of thousands of plugins and themes the entire project benefits from the time you take to assist.

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC3 on a test server and site. 

You can test WordPress 6.1 RC3 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the RC3 version (zip).

Option 3: Use the WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=6.1-RC3

Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available here.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.

What’s in WordPress 6.1 RC3?

Since Release Candidate 2, approximately 60 items have been addressed. 

WordPress 6.1 is the third major release for 2022, following 5.9 and 6.0, released in January and May of this year, respectively.

To learn more about the highlights for both end-users and developers, you’re invited to read more about them in the RC1 announcement post and review the WordPress 6.1 Field Guide.

Plugin and theme developers

All plugin and theme developers should test their respective extensions against WordPress 6.1 RC3 and update the “Tested up to” version in their readme file to 6.1. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of November 1st.

Translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. 

Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. This detailed guide is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release.

Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – regardless of prior experience.

Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the testing initiatives that happen in Make Core. You can also join a core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack workspace.

If you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the What’s New In Gutenberg posts for 14.1, 14.0, 13.9, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.5, 13.4, 13.3, 13.2, and 13.1.


RC3, A Penultimate Haiku

The time ticks forward
Release nears ever closer
Download and review


Props to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: Dan Soschin, Jonny Harris


Hot Off the Press: New WordPress.com Themes for October 2022

Posted by download in Software on 19-10-2022

The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Below you’ll find the four newest themes that we’ve added to our library, with beautiful options for food-based businesses, podcasts, and bloggers.

To install any of the below themes, click the the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then simply click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.

Premium themes are free to use for any user on a Premium plan or above, or can be purchased individually by those with free sites or Personal plans.

You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or, just click here:


Masu

Masu is a blogging-focused theme inspired by the traditional square wooden box used to measure rice in Japan. It has a warm tone and, naturally, features a square grid alignment.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


Varese (Premium Theme)

Made for restaurants, bakeries, and other small businesses, Varese is a versatile and modern theme. It comes with a number of patterns, allowing you quickly design and build your pages and launch your website. With the support of OpenTable Block, get bookings and reservations to your business.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


Spearhead Blocks

Spearhead Blocks is a podcasting starter theme. A modernized version of the original Spearhead, this theme allows you to easily customize and scale your podcast website as needed.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


Munchies (Premium Theme)

Designed with portable business in mind, Munchies comes with patterns for food menus, a schedule for upcoming events, and more. Use this theme to share your story with your customers and to make it easier for them to connect with you.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


Stay tuned for more updates about new themes, patterns, blocks, and other exciting product updates! And be sure to click below to take a look at the entire showcase of themes we offer:

WordPress 6.1 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) Now Available

Posted by download in Software on 18-10-2022


The second release candidate (RC2) for WordPress 6.1 is now available!


“Release Candidate” means that this version of WordPress is ready for release and it is a key milestone in the 6.1 release cycle! Before the official release date, the community sets aside time to perform final reviews and help test. Since the WordPress ecosystem includes thousands of plugins and themes, it is important that everyone checks to see if anything has been missed along the way. That means the project would greatly benefit from your assistance.

WordPress 6.1 is planned for official release on November 1st, 2022, two weeks from today. 

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC2 on a test server and site. 

You can test WordPress 6.1 RC2 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the RC2 version (zip).

Option 3: Use the WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=6.1-RC2

Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available here.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.

What’s in WordPress 6.1 RC2?

Since Release Candidate 1, approximately 65 items have been addressed, bringing the total count to more than 2,000 updates since WordPress 6.0 in May of 2022. 

WordPress 6.1 is the third major release for 2022, following 5.9 and 6.0, released in January and May of this year, respectively.

To learn more about the highlights for both end-users and developers, you’re invited to read more about them in the RC1 announcement post and review the WordPress 6.1 Field Guide.

Plugin and theme developers

All plugin and theme developers should test their respective extensions against WordPress 6.1 RC2 and update the “Tested up to” version in their readme file to 6.1. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of November 1st.

Translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. 

Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. This detailed guide is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release.

Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – regardless of prior experience.

Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the testing initiatives that happen in Make Core. You can also join a core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack workspace.

If you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the What’s New In Gutenberg posts for 14.3, 14.2, 14.1, 14.0, 13.9, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.5, 13.4, 13.3, 13.2, and 13.1.


Haiku Fun for RC2

Two weeks from the launch 

Constant improvements we make 

Great outcomes await 

WordPress 6.0.3 Security Release

Posted by download in Software on 18-10-2022

WordPress 6.0.3 is now available!

This release features several security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated.

WordPress 6.0.3 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.1 planned for November 1, 2022.

If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

You can download WordPress 6.0.3 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”.

For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities, and allowing them to be fixed in this release.

  • Stored XSS via wp-mail.php (post by email) – Toshitsugu Yoneyama of Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions, Inc. via JPCERT
  • Open redirect in `wp_nonce_ays` – devrayn
  • Sender’s email address is exposed in wp-mail.php – Toshitsugu Yoneyama of Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions, Inc. via JPCERT
  • Media Library – Reflected XSS via SQLi – Ben Bidner from the WordPress security team and Marc Montpas from Automattic independently discovered this issue
  • CSRF in wp-trackback.php – Simon Scannell
  • Stored XSS via the Customizer – Alex Concha from the WordPress security team
  • Revert shared user instances introduced in 50790 – Alex Concha and Ben Bidner from the WordPress security team
  • Stored XSS in WordPress Core via Comment Editing – Third-party security audit and Alex Concha from the WordPress security team
  • Data exposure via the REST Terms/Tags Endpoint – Than Taintor
  • Content from multipart emails leaked – Thomas Kräftner
  • SQL Injection due to improper sanitization in `WP_Date_Query` – Michael Mazzolini
  • RSS Widget: Stored XSS issue – Third-party security audit
  • Stored XSS in the search block – Alex Concha of the WP Security team
  • Feature Image Block: XSS issue – Third-party security audit
  • RSS Block: Stored XSS issue – Third-party security audit
  • Fix widget block XSS – Third-party security audit

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by Alex Concha, Peter Wilson, Jb Audras, and Sergey Biryukov at mission control. Thanks to Jonathan Desrosiers, Jorge Costa, Bernie Reiter and Carlos Bravo for their help on package updates.

WordPress 6.0.3 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver several fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.

Alex Concha, Colin Stewart, Daniel Richards, David Baumwald, Dion Hulse, ehtis, Garth Mortensen, Jb Audras, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jorge Costa, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Linkon Miyan, martin.krcho, Matias Ventura, Mukesh Panchal, Paul Kevan, Peter Wilson, Robert AndersonRobin, Sergey Biryukov, Sumit Bagthariya, Teddy Patriarca, Timothy Jacobs, vortfu, and Česlav Przywara.

Thanks to @peterwilsoncc for proofreading.

Free New Course Coming Soon: Create Your Site With WordPress.com

Posted by download in Software on 17-10-2022

Are you building a website for the first time? Returning to WordPress after a break? Just looking to get caught up on the newest Gutenberg features? 

You’re in the right place.

We’re excited to announce a brand new free course called Create Your Site

If you’re searching for a solid foundation for making a WordPress.com website, look no further. This is the perfect introduction for anyone with an idea: bloggers, business owners, or creators in any medium.

Join our waitlist today, and you’ll be first in line to find out when the course officially launches in just a few weeks.

This course includes:

  • A clear roadmap for building a WordPress.com site
  • Hands-on exercises broken down into step-by-step instructions 
  • A self-paced environment so you can learn at a rate that works best for you
  • A private community to discuss, collaborate, and engage with other students to network and swap feedback
  • Additional tips, resources, ideas, and feedback provided by WordPress experts

By the end of this course, you’ll know which specific actions to take to build your site with WordPress.com, as well as your next steps after that. After all, launching your site is only the beginning of your journey.

What you’ll learn:

With a combination of short videos, step-by-step instructions, and detailed explanations (when necessary), we cover: 

  • Themes
  • Pages
  • Content 
  • Block Editor
  • Site Editor
  • Templates
  • Menus

You can move through the course as quickly as you like, or take your time to dig deeper. You can also repeat the course as many times as you like. Start with a practice site, build your very first site, or use it to build many more sites. The choice is yours!

The best part? At the risk of repeating ourselves: It’s free!

Join our waitlist for Create Your Site with WordPress.com, so you don’t miss the announcement when it opens for enrollment.

WP Briefing: Episode 41: WordPress 6.1 Sneak Peek with Special Guest Nick Diego

Posted by download in Software on 17-10-2022

In the forty-first episode of the WordPress Briefing, peek into the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release with our host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and the release’s Editor Triage Lead, Nick Diego.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

Editor: Dustin Hartzler
Logo: Javier Arce
Production: Santana Inniss
Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Guests

Nick Diego

References

Call for Testing for WordPress for Android 20.9
RC2 WordPress 6.1 link forthcoming 18 October
Multisite Improvements
Block Style Generation Tool
Editor Preferences Changes
WordPress 6.1 Walkthrough

Transcript

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00] 

Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks.

I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go. 

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:40] 

And today I have with me Nick Diego. Welcome, Nick, to the WordPress Briefing.

[Nick Diego 00:00:44] 

Thank you so much for having me.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:46] 

Yeah. Before we get started, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, just kind of your history with WordPress and then what it is that you’ve been doing with the WordPress 6.1 release squad.

[Nick Diego 00:00:56]

Yeah, so I’m actually kind of new to working with WordPress full-time. Up until about June of last year, I was in the hospitality industry for a career of 10 years. But I always loved doing WordPress on the side. And after the long pandemic, I figured it was time to kind of pursue my passion and work with WordPress full-time.

And that ultimately led to my current role as a developer advocate at WPEngine, where I focus primarily on WordPress and contribution to Core itself. And then I guess it was maybe March or April this year when Anne McCarthy, who I’ve worked with a ton, she asked me if I’d be interested in helping out on 6.0 as an Editor Triage Lead which was an awesome experience.

And now I’m back for 6.1.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:37] 

That’s excellent. I always like to hear about people who are coming to do repeat tours of duty.

[Nick Diego 00:01:43]

Yes, exactly.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:44] 

I probably shouldn’t refer to working on WordPress releases as a tour of duty. However, I find that releases are so large and complex, and there are so many people in there now that working on them takes an entirely different skill set now than it used to take when WordPress was like 1% of the web.

And so I think it’s a really big task, and I think it’s great when people were, like, that was either so good that I would do it again, or I would like a second go because I could do it better. Whichever way brings people to it. So, yeah.

[Nick Diego 00:02:18] 

No, I was just gonna say that’s a great point because the Editor Triage Lead, which is the role that I currently have, was a brand new role for 6.0. The project kind of got so big that it kind of made sense to have a triage lead focused specifically on Gutenberg. Gutenberg’s such a big part of WordPress now.

And so that’s where that role kind of came from, and now we’ve carried it over to 6.1. As the project grows, we need more people to come in and help make sure the release is as smooth as it can be. 

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:42]

Yes. Because of that promise of backward compatibility and all the things.

[Nick Diego 00:02:47]

Exactly.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:48] 

Cool. So, by the time this releases, if I recall correctly, we will have passed RC2, or RC2 is coming the next day or something like that. We’re right around the Release Candidate two. So you have been doing this for quite some time on this particular release. So far, what is the feature that you’re most excited about that’s going out in the 6.1 release?

[Nick Diego 00:03:09] 

So, this is going to sound really boring, but it’s actually incredibly exciting. So, the most exciting quote-unquote feature that I’m excited about is the improved consistency and standardization of block controls that are coming in 6.1. So things like typography and color and borders and dimensions.

These are things and tools that we’ve had in a lot of core blocks, but it hasn’t been consistent throughout. And a ton of work has been done in 6.1 to establish that consistency. We’re not a hundred percent there, but typography, I think we’re at like 85% of all core blocks now support all the typography controls, and with each release as we head to 6.2, we’ll improve on that.

But it’s really great for theme builders, theme designers, and users to be able to control the look and feel blocks consistently throughout the editor.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:58] 

I was gonna immediately answer you earlier with like, there are no boring answers, there are no boring improvements. And as you were explaining why it is that you kind of thought it might be considered boring, I think it’s fair to say that anytime that you’re increasing the consistency and you’re increasing the confidence between what you saw on the back end and what you actually shipped on the front end– anytime you’re doing that, I think that that is exciting in the prove the negative way. 

If you think about the negative excitement that occurs when you have published something, and it looks one way in the back end, and then it looks totally different on the front end, and the panic you feel when you have to fix. Not having that is a really big step up, I think. And so anything that provides more consistency for people who are using WordPress, people who are building with WordPress, I always find exciting. But also, like, I’m an office person, and so I would find office things exciting, right?

[Nick Diego 00:04:53] 

It creates a more delightful experience. I do a lot of work on the Training team, doing educational things, and we teach people how to change typography and change color. Once they learn how to do it in one block, if they can take that same skill set and apply it to any other block, it’s that light bulb moment. They understand they know how to manipulate and use WordPress to its fullest. So adding that consistency really helps to level up users.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:15] 

Yeah, I’m gonna take us off track a little bit and just ask a general question here. Like, I remember the first time that I was working with what was a site, I guess, qualified for a site at the time. And I remember the first time that I discovered that I could change the look and feel with HTML and CSS, and I did that.

Also was like, well, I accept my fate. Whatever happens, if I kill everything I’ve ever written, that is just how it’ll be. Like the sheer terror of all of that is so different now. Do you recall that first moment where you’re like, Oh, I do have some power over this? I have some control over this, and whether you also found it scary.

[Nick Diego 00:05:52]

So I came to WordPress kinda as a hobby and website development kind of as a hobby. So I was kind of always in that tinkering phase, or I wasn’t building something for anyone else. I was in a safe place to destroy whatever I was working on with my tinkering. So I never really quite had that fear, but I can definitely see it from the perspective of building something for somebody else.

But you’re right, the editor and the controls that we have, and you know, now make it a lot easier to kind of manipulate and exert your creative desires in WordPress than it was before with CSS.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:23] 

I love the phrase ‘I was safe to destroy things, ’ and if I can figure out a way to make it a tagline for something, I will.

[Nick Diego 00:06:30] 

Exactly.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:31] 

Alright. So during your second time around here on the release squad with 6.1, what have been the bright spots of that experience, and have there been any unexpected challenges of being on the release squad?

[Nick Diego 00:06:44]

Again, I come to WordPress from, you know, from a different career. It’s kind of a passion of mine to be working with WordPress. So I kinda have a unique experience than maybe some others. And when I approach WordPress, there’s always that tendency to say, ‘why doesn’t it do this?’ Or ‘why don’t they do this?’ And I’ve always been the person…, well, it’s open source. We, we, we can, we can

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:05] 

…can do it

[Nick Diego 00:07:05] 

…we can do it. And so that’s kind of how I approach things. Now, of course, you know, I have the privilege of time to do that. Not everybody does, but one of the unexpected bright spots about working in a release squad is understanding how it all works. 

How does WordPress actually get built? What is the process that it goes through? It was just eye-opening to me, and I really got a shout-out, Anne, for inviting me to be on 6.0. It brought me in. I learned so much about it, and now I’m just excited to keep working on these releases.

But a release is hard. You know, it’s a… WordPress is huge. There are a lot of moving parts, there are a lot of things going on. Right now, we’re trying to get everything ready for the first release candidate. So being on the release squad is not an easy job. But it’s exciting, it’s fun, and you really feel like you’re part of that ‘we’ really helping to build WordPress.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:53] 

One of the things that I hope that people have learned from any time that they spent working with me is that like we understand here in the WordPress open source project, and I believe that all open source projects must understand this, but like every change that you make, if there are things that are dependent on it, which is gonna be true for most of us, we’ll have intended consequences and also unexpected consequences, and unintended, unexpected consequences. 

And so I’ve always felt like the thing that really makes the biggest difference about how we do open source in WordPress is that, for the most part, we have a concept of where the most likely changes are going to happen across our entire ecosystem.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:08:40] 

We have a better understanding, at least compared to when I got here, a better understanding of how interconnected it all is. And so you’ve got this change here, and it looks small, but it’s gonna have this positive or negative impact as you kind of work your way out from it. And so I think that that is an interesting thing, and certainly, you get a really clear concept of it in the release squad, I think.

[Nick Diego 00:09:02]

Oh, absolutely. If you were to build something like the block editor without caring at all about backward compatibility, you’d be done by now, right? I mean, so much of what we do is concerning ourselves with making sure that everybody who’s on a classic theme or hybrid theme or whatever it might be that they continue to use WordPress in a safe and stable way.

This is part of being such a large content management system.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:09:24] 

So you already told us the feature that you’re most excited about, and so now I’m gonna ask you about what feature or what bug fix has the most notable improvements that are coming to 6.1. This is a little different as in, like, there’s the thing you’re excited about, which is an office thing, but like a thing that is maybe not new but has the biggest delta, the biggest change to anyone’s experience of it.

[Nick Diego 00:09:51] 

Yeah, so obviously, in 5.9, we introduced full site editing, and 6.0 was a natural progression from that with more and more features. Now it’s safe to say that there’s only a small fraction of websites that are using the whole full site editing of or block themes, all that kind of stuff. One of the hangups about that was managing templates inside of the site editor.

You could add the files to your theme, which would then show up in the site editor. But there wasn’t a direct way to add more complicated templates within the site editor itself. That is changing in 6.1. So now you actually have the functionality to install something like 2023, which is the new core theme, and build out all these very complicated templates within the UI of the site editor that you could not have done before.

[Nick Diego 00:10:38] 

I personally think that the biggest benefit of full site editing is really to empower no-code or low-code users. And the ability to add these templates directly in the UI really levels them up. Because now, you can do all that complicated stuff that you normally would need to be adding to theme files and jumping into the code. You can do that within the site editor now, which I think is fantastic.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:59] 

That’s great. And just a general caveat, anytime that we talk about anything that’s very developer-y or very no code-y, I think it’s always worth mentioning, yes, a lot of what we’re trying to do with the block editor is to just kind of give some power back to folks who cannot find the time to become a developer or don’t have the inclination. They don’t want to do that. 

But that does not mean that no code is ever involved in WordPress. It’s still a software. You can still do very complicated things with it. And if you are a developer, you should not think to yourself, ‘oh now that it’s being available to low code/no code users, that means you don’t want me.’

Like, that’s not at all what’s happening. You can do very complicated things still. 

[Nick Diego 00:11:42] 

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Absolutely.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:11:45] 

Alright, so that brings us to our final question here because we like to stay as true to the name as possible here on the WP Briefing. If someone were wanting to get involved with the next release, so WP 6.2, how would they do that?

[Nick Diego 00:12:01]

So, talk to Anne, and she’ll get you set up. No, I’m just kidding. So at the, after each release, there’s a posting that goes out that lists all the different release teams, and you can just put your name out there and ask to be, you know, for consideration to be part of the team.

However, I will say that the best thing you can do right now is help with 6.1. You don’t necessarily need to be a release lead to do that testing, helping with bug fixes. Reach out to me. Reach out to other release leads, and we’ll get you involved and engaged with the release. That will give you a really good framework to start working and become a release lead for 6.2.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:12:37] 

Yeah. I think we talked maybe two or three episodes ago, or it could be more than that, I’ll never know, about the release squad, like the group that’s doing that. In the event you think to yourself, ‘there’s no way in a million years that I’m gonna just show up tomorrow and be part of the release squad,’ I heard what they said in the first question/answer moment– that’s fine, too. 

As Nick mentioned, you can always get involved with testing, you can get involved with triage. Those are areas where any feedback at all is valuable because we can get better information about what worked and didn’t, what was expected versus what happened. And that type of information is where all of our co-creators of the WordPress software–really, we rely on what you all are pointing out to us. 

If you’re not shining spotlights on the most painful parts of your experience, sometimes we don’t necessarily know that that’s a pain point for anyone.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:13:34] 

And so yeah, that’s a great place to start. If you are more of a writer, technical or prose, there are different spaces you can go to, like keep our docs up to date or make sure that people know that changes are coming at all in WordPress because that’s a thing. If you are a backend developer, we have a million things you can do because that’s just all day, every day, for WordPress.

It’s just all the deep backend work. And so yeah.

[Nick Diego 00:13:58] 

I did want to mention that, you know, being on the release team does not necessarily mean that you’re incredibly technical. We have a documentation lead, we have a design lead, you know, a communication lead. So there’s a lot of different roles in the team that, you know, across all disciplines.

So don’t think if you’re not a hardcore developer, that precludes you from being on the team.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:14:19] 

Yeah, and if you’re really good with common sense and working fully remotely, you can be the release coordinator. I can tell you because I did that for 5.0. It was a big job. It was our, it was the first time we had a release squad as opposed to just like the release lead.

Because there was just so much that was going into that and so much riding on it. And like you said in some other answer that you gave like if you were to just be like, we’re shutting everything down and rewriting this in six months, and I hope you can come with us on it. Like a lot of open source projects do it that way.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:14:51] 

And that is a choice, and we made the opposite choice. And so we’re bringing all of our co-conspirators with us, all of our co-creators of WordPress. That’s the hope all the time. Making sure that they have enough information, that they feel safe to destroy things, enough information, and skills about how to get out of it, that they always feel some high confidence in what they’re trying to do versus what they actually did do.

So, yeah, excellent. Nick, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

[Nick Diego 00:15:20] 

Nope. I just hope everybody goes out and downloads 6.1 and enjoys it as much as I am.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:15:25] 

Yeah, go check it out. 

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:15:28] 

That brings us now to our small list of big things. And actually, it is a pretty big list today, but still pretty big things too. So first up, we have a call for testing that is out, and it is for our Android users.

There is a call for testing for WordPress for Android 20.9, and I feel like we don’t get a lot of calls for testing for Android devices. And so if you have been feeling left out or just like we don’t always have that kind of mobile testing available, this is the opportunity for you. 

The next thing is that tomorrow, we have RC2, release candidate two for WordPress 6.1.

That’s coming out on October 18th. There will be a link in the show notes, but that means if you write a plugin or a theme or have anything that kind of extends the core of WordPress, now is the time to start testing anything that might be a bug or represent a breaking change and make sure that you file those bugs so that we can get things as settled and excellent as possible.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:16:40] 

And speaking of Word points, uh, WordPress 6.1, not Word point, WordPress 6.1. I actually have three changes that I think are going to represent some pretty big changes for folks. I will have links to all of these in the show notes. If you don’t know where the show notes are, it’s on wordpress.org/news/podcast.

So the three things that I think are gonna be big, worthwhile things. The first one is multisite improvements, and the second one will be the style engine that’s block styles generation tool, which will ship in Core and I think is really important for y’all to take a look at. And then also there are some changes coming to the block editor preferences.

Like I said, links to all of those are going to be in the show notes, and so they should be pretty easy for you to find. But also, if you want to just get a general look at everything that’s coming in 6.1, we did a walkthrough that I will link to in the show notes as well, and you can get a full understanding of what is going to be coming early in November.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:17:45] 

And that, my friends, is your small list –big list– of big things. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks.

The Month in WordPress – September 2022

Posted by download in Software on 14-10-2022

September was an exciting month with the return of many in-person WordCamps, WordPress Translation Day, and preparations for WordPress 6.1. Contributors across teams continue to work hard to ensure that the last major release of the year is the best it can be for everyone. Let’s catch up on all things WordPress.


Countdown to WordPress 6.1: Coming November 1, 2022

WordPress 6.1 is scheduled for release on November 1, 2022—less than three weeks away. Following the beta releases in September, the first release candidate (RC1) is now ready for download and testing.

Members of the release squad hosted a casual walk-through of some of the expected WordPress 6.1 features last month. ​​The recording and transcript are available in this post.

This next major release focuses on increased control for a more intuitive site and content creation experience, and will be bundled with a new default block theme, Twenty Twenty-Three (TT3). This theme comes with 10 style variations designed by community members that you can easily switch between to customize the look and feel of your site.

Other exciting updates include enhanced consistency of design tools across blocks, a refined and expanded template creation experience, improved Quote and List blocks, and support for fluid typography.

Selected style variations for the Twenty Twenty-Three theme.

Want to know what else is new in WordPress 6.1? Check out these resources for more details:

Take part in this release by helping to test key features or translating WordPress 6.1.

Gutenberg versions 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3 are out

Three new versions of Gutenberg have been released since last month’s edition of The Month in WordPress:

  • Gutenberg 14.1 shipped on September 15, 2022. It adds typography and spacing support for many blocks, continuing efforts to consolidate design tools in blocks. It also includes improvements to the Navigation block and the content-locking experience. This is the last version of Gutenberg that will merge into WordPress 6.1, which will include updates from Gutenberg 13.1 to 14.1.
  • Gutenberg 14.2 comes with writing flow improvements, a more polished Calendar block, and autocompletion for links. It was released on September 28, 2022.
  • Gutenberg 14.3 is available for download as of October 12, 2022. This version makes it easier to navigate text blocks with alt + arrow keyboard combinations, and brings an improved drag-and-drop functionality for images, among other updates.

Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements.

WordPress Translation Day

On September 28, 2022, the Polyglots community celebrated WordPress Translation Day (WPTD) with some global events throughout the week, including an overview of the GlotPress feedback tool. In addition, there were 13 local events in 11 different languages and across four continents.

The Training Team joined the celebration by hosting a day-long event to help new contributors translate materials on learn.wordpress.org.

Check out this recap for more highlights from the event.

Team updates: Dropping security updates for WP 3.7 – 4.0, a new developer-focused course, and more

Want to create diverse and inclusive events that make the WordPress community stronger, but not sure where to get started? Join WPDiversity to learn more about upcoming workshops.

Feedback & testing requests

Tune in to the latest episode of WP Briefing to hear guests Anne McCarthy and Brian Alexander discuss their work on the Testing Team and how you can get involved.

Event updates & WordCamps

Curious about attending a WordCamp event? Listen to contributor stories from WordCamp US 2022 on why they use WordPress and go to WordCamps.


Have a story that we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? Fill out this quick form to let us know.

The following folks contributed to this edition of The Month in WordPress: @chaion07, @laurlittle, @rmartinezduque, @robinwpdeveloper, @santanainniss, @webcommsat.

WordPress 6.1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) Now Available

Posted by download in Software on 11-10-2022

The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 6.1 is now available!


This is an important milestone in the 6.1 release cycle. “Release Candidate” means that this version of WordPress is ready for release! Before the official release date, time is set aside for the community to perform final reviews and help test. Since the WordPress ecosystem includes thousands of plugins and themes, it is important that everyone checks to see if anything was missed along the way. That means the project would love your help.

WordPress 6.1 is planned for official release on November 1st, 2022, three weeks from today. 

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

You can test WordPress 6.1 RC1 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the RC1 version (zip).

Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=6.1-RC1

Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available here.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.

What’s in WordPress 6.1 RC1?

Since Beta 3, approximately 100 items have been addressed, bringing the total count to more than 2,000 updates since WordPress 6.0 in May of 2022. 

WordPress 6.1 is the third major release for 2022, following 5.9 and 6.0, released in January and May of this year, respectively.

WordPress 6.1 highlights for end-users

  • Default theme powered by 10 unique style variations (learn more)
  • More design tools in more blocks (learn more)
  • Expanded and refined template experience and template options
  • More intuitive document settings experience
  • Improved quote and list blocks with inner block support
  • More robust placeholders for various blocks
  • New modal interfaces and preferences improvements
  • Automatic navigation block selection with fallbacks and easier menu management
  • Apply locking settings to all inner blocks in one click
  • Improvements to the block theme discovery experience
  • Accessibility updates, with more than 60 resolved tickets
  • Performance updates, with more than 25 resolved tickets

WordPress 6.1 highlights for developers

  • Opt into appearance tools to make any theme more powerful
  • New iteration on the style system
  • Add starter patterns to any post type (learn more)
  • Evolution of layout options including a new constrained option and the ability to disable layout options
  • Content lock patterns for more curation options
  • Expanded support for query loop blocks
  • Allow the use of block-based template parts in classic themes (give feedback)
  • Filter theme.json data (learn more)
  • Fluid typography allows for more responsiveness (give feedback)
  • Ability to style elements inside blocks like buttons, headings, or captions in theme.json

Please note that all features listed in this post are subject to change before the final release.

Plugin and theme developers

All plugin and theme developers should test their respective extensions against WordPress 6.1 RC1 and update the “Tested up to” version in their readme file to 6.1. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of November 1st.

Translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 6.1 release cycle.

Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. This detailed guide is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release.

Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – regardless of prior experience.

Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the testing initiatives that happen in Make Core. You can also join a core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack workspace.

If you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the What’s New In Gutenberg posts for 14.1, 14.0, 13.9, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.5, 13.4, 13.3, 13.2, and 13.1.


Haiku Fun for RC1

Languages abound
Test today, releases soon
Freedom to publish


Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @webcommsat