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In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy talks about WordPress – In Person! The WordPress events that provide the dark matter of connection that helps sustain the open source project.

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: Beatriz Fialho

Production: Chloé Bringmann

Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

The tragedy of the commons

WordPress 5.8 Release Candidate announcement

Transcript

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:11

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  00:39

Today we’re talking about one of my favorite parts of the project – WordPress events. The in-person component of the project is the dark matter that helps us build resilience and thrive as a group. A lot of what I’m going to share applies to every WordPress event, whether it’s a meetup or workshop, a contributor day, any other sort of format. But I’ll be focused on WordCamps. It’s been a while since we had any in-person WordCamps. Our last two were WordCamp Malaga in Spain and WordCamp Greenville in the US. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from gathering people together online. Which honestly makes a lot of sense for WordPress. Because there are many reasons we gather, the main three reasons are connecting, inspiring, and contributing. It’s true. It says so right in our documentation, “paper rustling.” All WordPress events should connect WordPress users, inspire people to do more with WordPress, and contribute to the WordPress project. As an aside, I’ll tell you that some groups also get to collaborate and educate in there, but connect, inspire, contribute. Those are the big three. And that’s what I’m talking about today. And if you subscribe to this podcast for the back office deep cuts, I’ll also have a few of those for you. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:57

Alright, so first up, connect. WordCamps are generally annual-ish gatherings organized by local WordPress meetup groups. They’re not meant to be big or fancy. The definition of the minimum viable product for WordCamp is 50 people gathered all day to talk about WordPress. They are intentionally affordable to allow people from all walks of life to attend, meet, share and learn. This is made possible by donations and sponsorships from local businesses and larger businesses in the WordPress ecosystem. And this helps us get people connected to those in their community that works with or are sustained by WordPress. That connection feeds into the overall health of the global WordPress project. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:45

Next up is inspire. WordCamps do not discriminate. They are open to any WordPress users, developers, designers, or other enthusiasts, regardless of their level of experience. And because of this, sessions generally span a variety of formats. So presentations or live demos to workshops or panels, any other format you can think of. But that also means that there are a variety of skill levels represented. There’s always content about how to use WordPress. That’s a given. But you can also count on content that inspires people to do more with their own dreams and aspirations. When I was still organizing WordCamps, my favorite thing was seeing people who came back year after year, putting into practice something that they learned the year before. It is that Choose Your Own Adventure aspect to WordCamps that lets people see the edge of their ideas and then expand that just a little bit further. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:42

And finally, contribute. WordCamps often have a contribution component to them. Sometimes it’s just a talk telling you how you can get more involved in the WordPress project. But sometimes, it’s a whole contributor day. And those range in size from single focus, like everyone, will show up and learn how to review a theme or a focus from every team that we have, like at the big flagship events where we gather hundreds of people into a room just to contribute to WordPress and all of the teams that go with it. Getting started with contributing can be daunting, but it is also essential to avoid something called the Tragedy of the Commons, an economic concept. So I’ll share a link to that in the show notes below. But the most important thing, the most important thing to remember, is that WordPress is open source. And we asked people to help us keep this great tool running by giving back a little bit of their time if they have gotten any benefit from the WordPress project or CMS over the course of their careers. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:40

So that’s it. The three big things you can get from a WordCamp. I know that I can’t wait to get back to them myself because while a lot of these things can still happen online and do, it’s really hard to replace the dark matter of in-person connections for open source projects. And since we’re talking dark matter anyway, let’s dig into it a little.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:01

At the start of the section, I mentioned that WordCamps are local, locally organized, and people are encouraged to attend locally. But I am part of a group that ends up traveling to a lot of WordCamps. If you don’t know about the unseen work of WordPress, this raises eyebrows. So here is some clarification around the back office work that some of these traveling WordCampers often do. When I listed these out, there were about 20 different tasks, 20 different jobs, which was, frankly, a bit overwhelming when I listed them that way. So I’ve grouped them into kind of two genres, each with a group of current versus future types of work. So my two big buckets, big picture stuff, and then community stewardship. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:50

The big picture stuff, our first big genre here, when you’re looking at current topics, current issues kind of information, when we’re working on big picture stuff, you get the clarification of the mission or vision of WordPress, the sharing of open source methods or processes that we use in the WordPress project, and also sometimes those goal-setting conversations that you have to have both because we have a bunch of teams and team reps, that have a lot of really great ideas about what can be done in their teams to help WordPress succeed. But then also, because when you are working, when you’re contributing to a single team in the project, it can sometimes be hard to know how your work relates to the overall goals and visions of WordPress. And so that’s part of the work that gets done that I do there. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  06:43

And when you’re looking at future topics, future issues, the second part of this genre, that stuff like starting conversations or discussions around what the future holds for WordPress, and that’s the project as well as the technology or hearing from people about big things coming up for them. And any content that can support it, anything that I can provide to support those big things. It’s also a good time for me and others to identify trends based on what I see in presentations or what I hear from people at social functions. Really, it’s just a huge opportunity for information gathering to make sure that I know what everyone else in the project is trying to do and if they understand what the project is trying to do. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  07:32

And then the second big genre of things that happen in that dark matter kind of work at WordCamps is what I call community stewardship—so taking care of the community itself for the project itself. And a lot of that work is actually incident response kind of work. So conflict resolution, mediation often happens at in-person events, but also uncovering the shared foundations, the shared understanding for upcoming changes. So a lot of really, in the weeds kind of change management work. And for me, it’s certainly doing my best as a cultural liaison when I do see that there has been some miscommunication or gathering context for the latest disagreement that people are having with me so that I can clarify anything that was misunderstood from what I said. And also a little bit of policy clarification, just explaining why we do things and the way we do them. So for community stewardship, that’s kind of the current stuff that we look at. And that I do when I’m traveling for WordCamps. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  08:36

And then for the future tasks that we do with community stewardship in the project, that stuff like training, and that’s training team reps, community deputies, or new contributors like it’s, it’s not really one type of training, necessarily. But then also, all of the checking in with our organizers, team reps, volunteers, sponsors, everyone like that, to make sure that what we have in the project and what’s happening in the project, the tools that we have, the experience that contributors have while they are working here, and WordPress is good, and is what they need. We’ve got a lot of tools to get things done in WordPress, and we can always make them better. And so checking in with people to kind of see how those processes are, how the tools are making sure that I have an idea of where our holes are and what needs to be patched, and how we can patch them in the long run. So that’s all of the future planning kind of work and topic stuff, just you know, making sure that WordPress has what it needs to survive long into the future and long after I’m doing anything with it, and long after you’re doing anything with it either. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  09:56

So, lots and lots of unseen work being done at our in-person events. But folks who keep a keen eye on the online global work of WordPress will probably recognize that a lot of that work is also done routinely on make.wordpress.org and within the making WordPress Slack. There’s just, I don’t know, there’s just something different about receiving information from a human being with a face rather than an avatar with a photo. So I guess at the end of the day, that means the dark matter that keeps open source together is really an issue of communication. And you’ll get no arguments for me there.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  10:44

That brings us now to our small list of big things. And there’s really just one big thing. And that’s WordPress 5.8. We are about two weeks away from this big release; the community has been working tirelessly on it. And it’s shaping up to be one of the most tested releases that we’ve had in a long time. Myself, I’m grateful to see so much activity before the release. Since 5.8 and 5.9 releases represent such monumental shifts in our software, I’m incredibly grateful to see so much activity prior to the release, especially in the beta period. We’ve been testing everything for it feels like six or eight months, and we’re really starting to see the positive benefits of that. And I think that we, the WordPress community, should be really proud of everything that we’re going to ship in 2021. Okay, so that was less of a small list of big things and really like one big thing with a generous garnish of encouragement, but you deserve it. So thank you 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.

Once you step into contribution time, your main concern is the users of WordPress, or new contributors, or the health of the WordPress ecosystem as a whole or the WordPress project. So you get all this subject matter expertise from competitive forces, collaborating in a very “us versus the problem” way. And when you do that, you’re always going to find a great solution.

In the “WordCamp Europe 2021 in Review” episode of the WP Briefing podcast, Josepha Haden talks about the importance of collaboration, which is vital in building WordPress. This edition of The Month in WordPress covers exciting updates that exemplify this philosophy. 

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Updates on WordPress 5.8

Get excited, folks! The beta versions and the first release candidate of WordPress 5.8 are out. Beta 1 came out on June 9, followed by Beta 2 on June 15, Beta 3 on June 23, and Beta 4 on June 25. The first release candidate of WordPress 5.8 was published on June 30. You can test the beta versions and the release candidates by downloading them from WordPress.org or by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. WordPress 5.8 will be out by July 20, 2021, and is also ready to be translated.

Want to contribute to WordPress core? Check out 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. Help us promote WordPress 5.8 by organizing meetups about the release, producing social media marketing materials for 5.8, or testing the release.

Gutenberg versions 10.8 and 10.9 are out

We said hello to Gutenberg version 10.8 and version 10.9 this month. Version 10.8 adds rich URL previews, enhancements to the list view, and an updated block manager. Version 10.9 offers several performance enhancements, along with more block design tools and template editor enhancements.

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. 

WordCamp Europe 2021 concludes

One of the biggest and most exciting WordPress events, WordCamp Europe 2021, was held from June 7-9, 2021. A team of 40 members organized the event, which had 3200+ registrations, 42 speakers, and 43 sponsors. What a success! You will find more details in the event recap. One highlight was a Gutenberg demo hosted by Matías Ventura and Matt Mullenweg. You can watch the event recording on the WordCamp Europe YouTube channel, and videos are now available on WordPress.tv as well. The team has announced WordCamp Europe 2022, which is being planned as an in-person event in Porto, Portugal. Want to be a part of the 2022 WCEU organizing team? Their call for organizers is now open. Apply now!

Full Site Editing updates

Don’t miss the latest Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program testing call: “Thrive with theme.json”, which is aimed at a developer-centric audience. The deadline is July 14. Also don’t miss a hallway hangout on testing theme.json on July 7 at 5 PM UTC. The team has published a recap of the Published Portfolios testing call, which shares some interesting results. 

BuddyPress 8.0 is out!

The first major BuddyPress release of 2021, version 8.0 “Alfano,” came out on June 6. The short-cycle release offers features such as the ability to recruit new members, an improved registration experience, and profile field types. Download it from the WordPress.org plugin directory or check it out from its Subversion repository.

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Further reading

• WordCamp Japan 2021 was held from June 20- 26. The weeklong event, which had two session days followed by five contributor days, sold 1300+ tickets, with 45 speakers and 23 sponsors. Catch the event recording on YouTube!
• Josepha Haden announced a new Make site — make.wordpress.org/project — for project-wide announcements, which will no longer be posted to Make/Updates. Check out the latest post on that site on the metrics of contributions.
• The Community Team announced that in-person meetups can be organized for fully vaccinated people, in places where vaccines are freely available.
• The Core Team added block patterns and improvements to all legacy default themes. The team also shared a feature request that will allow developers to modify and extend the Site Health feature in Core.
• The Design Team shared an update on the block pattern directory; the team is continuing to review suggestions and has offered some guidelines in this post.
• The Design Team is also working on redesigning this blog (wordpress.org/news). Catch a sneak peek of the blog’s new look in this Make/Design blog post.
• The Accessibility Team shared the updated WordPress Accessibility coding standards.
• The Polyglots Team proposed a monthlong translation day celebration in September.
• The Support Team moved their IRC chat server from Freenode to Libera.
• The Documentation Team is working hard on updating our docs for WordPress 5.8. 
• The Themes Team has decided to automatically set theme updates live for old themes instead of routing them through the review queue.
• The WordPress Requests library has a new release: version 1.8.1. 
• Ujwal Thapa – co-founder of the Nepal WordPress community passed away due to COVID-19. Our community deeply mourns his loss and is thankful for his contributions.
• The latest edition of “People of WordPress” features Tijana Andrejic from Serbia.

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

The first release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available!

Please join us in celebrating this very important milestone in the community’s progress towards the final release of WordPress 5.8!

“Release Candidate” means the new version is ready for release, but with thousands of plugins and themes and differences in how the millions of people use WordPress, it is possible something was missed. WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, but your help is needed to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate in three ways:

• Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and then Beta/RC Only stream)
• Directly download the release candidate version (zip)
• Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC1

Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.

What is in WordPress 5.8?

The second release of 2021 continues to progress on the block editor towards the promised future of full site editing with these updates:

• Manage Widgets with Blocks
• Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns
• Edit Post Templates
• Overview of the Page Structure
• Suggested Patterns for Blocks
• Style and Colorize Images
• theme.json
• Dropping support for IE11
• Adding support for WebP
• Adding Additional Block Supports
• Version 10.7 of the Gutenberg plugin

WordPress 5.8 also has lots of refinements to enhance the developer experience. To learn more, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developer notes tag for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.8 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.8. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so those can be figured out before the final release.

The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, due to be published very shortly, will give you a deeper dive into the major changes.

How to Help

Do you speak a language other than English?  Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!  This release also marks the hard string freeze point of the 5.8 release schedule.

If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

Props to @audrasjb, @cbringmann, @webcommsat, and @pbiron for copy suggestions and final review.

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We are almost there,
WordPress 5.8 comes next month.
We need your help: test!

WordPress 5.8 Beta 4 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 4 in three ways:

• Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream).
• Direct download the beta version here (zip).
• Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-beta4

The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s less than four weeks away, so we need your help to make sure the final release is as good as it can be.

Some Highlights

Since Beta 3, 18 bugs have been fixed. Most tickets focused on polishing existing default themes, fixing bugs in the new block Widget screen, and squashing Editor bugs collected during beta.

How You Can Help

Watch the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.8-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will break down these and other changes in greater detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 254 tickets in WordPress 5.8, including 91 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute.

If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.

Props to @desrosj @clorith for reviews and @chanthaboune for final edits!

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Releasing software
Is complex when open source
Yet WordPressers do

WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 in three ways:

• Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream).
• Direct download the beta version here (zip).
• Using WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-beta3

The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s just four weeks away, so we need your help to make the final release is as good as it can be.

Some Highlights

Since Beta 2, 38 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes:

• Block Editor: Move caching to endpoint for unique responses. (#53435)
• Bundled Themes: Improve display of blocks in widget areas. (#53422)
• Coding Standards: Bring some consistency to HTML formatting in wp-admin/comment.php. (#52627)
• Editor: Include Cover block in the list of block types registered using metadata files. (#53440)
• Editor: Include Cover block in the list of block types registered using metadata files. (#53440)
• Media: Add new functions to return the previous/next attachment links. (#45708)
• Media: Improve upload page media item layout on smaller screens. (#51754)
• Media: Update total attachment count when media added or removed. (#53171)
• REST API: Decode single and double quote entities in widget names and descriptions. (#53407)
• Twenty Nineteen: Update margins on full- and wide-aligned blocks in the editor. (#53428)
• Widgets: Add editor styles to the widgets block editor. (#53344)

How You Can Help

Watch the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.8-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will break down these and other changes in greater detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 254 tickets in WordPress 5.8, including 91 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute.

If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.

Props to @jeffpaul @desrosj @hellofromtonya @pbiron for reviews and final edits!

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Esperanza first.
Want to know the next jazzer?
Then please test beta.

From to-do apps and day planners, to spreadsheets and full-blown subscription services, making your work trackable and visible can really help with productivity.

P2 is the tool we use at Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com), and today we’d love to share some ways you can do the same.

What sets P2 apart from other project tracking tools?

There is no shortage of project management tools out there, but the killer feature of P2 is its total flexibility.

Instead of having to adapt to a particular, fixed way of working, P2 adapts to the way you and your team work.

That’s made possible by the baked-in integration of the WordPress block editor, giving you a really flexible tool that can adapt to whatever you need to throw at it. 

P2 is your project tracking canvas

From a blank page upwards, P2 makes it easy to track and feature what’s most important to you, using any of the nearly 80 (and growing) blocks at your disposal.

In practice that means that any page can include images, Google Calendars, PDF embeds, Figma designs, checklists, and a wide spectrum of video players and social media integrations (just for starters). And of course, you can arrange them on the page any way that meets your needs.

Three project tracking blocks you can add to your P2 today

Among the options available to you on P2, three blocks in particular can be really useful for project tracking. Let’s take a look at those.

1. Task block

Tasks are the atomic unit of getting things done. 

With the Task block, you can add your team to-dos and assign whoever’s responsible for them right from the editor. Clicking the “cog” button in the top right of the editor will open up further options to set start and end dates. 

Here’s an example of a Task block in action:

2. Project Status block

Tasks often add up to a bigger project. The Project Status block does what it says on the tin by tracking a group of tasks together.

Just add it to your post, optionally set a due date and assign tasks, and then update it as tasks are in progress and are completed:

Find advanced tips on the Task and Project Status blocks here. 

3. Changelog block

A changelog is a log or record of all notable changes made to a project. If you’d like to call out those changes visually, the Changelog block lets you assign colorful preset or custom labels, with a description for each:

At Automattic, we use the Changelog block to summarize the work status for a team or product. But P2’s Changelog block can really be used for any projects that you want to keep a record of.

Find advanced tips on the Changelog block here.

How to add project tracking blocks to your P2

Once you have a P2 up and running, you can add the Task, Project Status, or Changelog blocks to your post or page by either:

• Using the “+” button on the top left of your editor and typing the first few letters of the block name
• Typing “/” anywhere in the editor itself, and searching for the block that way by starting to type the name of the block

How do you P2?

Signing up for P2 is free. Take a look around our demo P2 to see some ways we use it at Automattic.

We’d love to hear how you use P2 and its project tracking blocks in your work. Let us know in the comments.

In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy does a mini deep dive into WordCamp Europe 2021, specifically the conversation between the project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, and Brian Krogsgard formerly of PostStatus. Tune in to hear her take and for this episode’s small list of big things.

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: Beatriz Fialho

Production: Chloé Bringmann

Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

Gutenberg Highlights 

Matt Mullenweg in conversation with Brian Krogsgard 

5.8 Development Cycle

WordCamp Japan

A recap on WCEU 2021

Transcript

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10

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 insights 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 00:40

A couple of weeks ago, we hosted WordCamp Europe and had the double pleasure of a demo that showed us a bit about the future of WordPress and an interview that looked back while also looking a bit forward. If you haven’t seen the demo, it was beautiful. And I’ve included a link to it in the show notes. And if you haven’t heard the interview, there were a few specific moments that I’d like to take the time to delve into a little more. Brian Krogsgard, in his conversation with Matt Mullenweg, brought up three really interesting points. I mean, he brought up a lot of interesting points, but there were three that I would particularly like to look into today. The first was about balance. The second was about cohesion. And the third was about those we leave behind.  

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 01:24

So first is this question of balance. Brian brought this up in the context of the overall economic health of the WordPress ecosystem. And in that particular moment, he talked about companies that are coming together, companies that are merging. And in Matt’s answer, the part that I found the most interesting was when he said, “the point at which there is the most commercial opportunity is also the point at which there is the most opportunity for short-termism. He went on to talk about the importance of long-term thinking and collective thinking about what makes us, and us here means probably the WordPress project, more vibrant and vital in 10 or 20 or 30 years. One of the things that he specifically called out in that answer was the responsibility of larger companies in the ecosystem. For instance, like Automattic, to commit fully to giving back, there are many ways now that companies can give back to WordPress so that we all replenish the Commons. They can pay for volunteer contributors’ time; they can create and sponsor entire teams through the Five for the Future program. They can contribute time through our outreach program. And they can even contribute to WordPress’s ability to own our own voice by engaging their audience’s awareness of what’s next in WordPress, or whatever. And I know this balance, this particular balance of paid contributors or sponsored contributors, compared to our volunteer contributors or self-sponsored contributors; I know that this balance is one that people keep an eagle eye on. I am consistently on a tight rope to appropriately balanced those voices. But as with so many things where balance is key, keeping an eye on the middle or the long-distance can really help us get it right.  

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 03:23

The second question was one of cohesion and specifically cohesion over the competition. Brian asked how, if people feel disadvantaged, you can foster a feeling of cohesion rather than competition? And Matt’s first answer was that competition is great. Specifically, he said that competition is great as long as you consider where your collaboration fits into the mission. And he also spent some time exploring how competitors in the ecosystem can still work from a community-first mindset. I personally cannot agree enough about some of the benefits of collaboration alongside your competitors. I remind sponsored contributors from time to time, and I think it’s true for any contributor that you are an employee of your company first and a contributor to WordPress second. However, once you step into contribution time, your main concern is the users of WordPress, or new contributors, or the health of the WordPress ecosystem as a whole or the WordPress project. So you get all this subject matter expertise from competitive forces, collaborating in a very us versus the problem way. And when you do that, you’re always going to find a great solution. It may not be as fast as you want it to build things out in the open in public. And so sometimes we get it wrong and have to come back and fix it but still, given time, we’re going to come out with the best solution because we have so many skilled people working on this.  

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 05:01

And then the third question that I wanted to really touch on is the question of those we leave behind. Brian asked Matt if he thought mid-sized agencies and mid-sized consultants were being squeezed out with the block editor. Matt’s high-level answer was no, and I tend to agree with him. It’s not all mid-sized anything any more than it’s all small-sized anything. His answer continued to look at what stands to change for users with the block editor and who really can stand to benefit. It made me think back to my WordPress 5.0 listening tour. We launched WordPress 5.0, which was, in case anyone forgets, the first release with the block editor in it. I took a six-month-long tour to anywhere that WordPressers were so I could hear their main worries, what Brian is saying in there, and what Matt is saying to really came up all the time in those conversations. And basically, it was that this update takes all the power away from people who are building websites. And in these conversations, and Matt and Brian’s conversation, it was really focused on our freelancers and consultants. But at the same time, all of them heard that this update gives power back to all of the people who could build websites. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 06:28

I could not shake the feeling at the time. And honestly, I can’t shake it now that no high-end consultants, or freelancers, or any other developer or site creator sit around just longing for maintenance work. After six months of talking to people, I didn’t hear anyone say, “you know, I just love making the same author card over and over and over.” Or, “updated the footer every week, this month. And that’s why I got into this business.” And more than the feeling that there just wasn’t anyone who just loved maintenance, I got a feeling that there were real problems that needed to be solved for these clients and that they wanted to solve them. And that they also would gladly trade updating footers for the much more interesting work of creating modern and stylish business hubs based on WordPress for the clients who trust them so much. All of that, I guess, is to say that, yes, the block editor does give power back to our clients again, but not at the expense of those who have to build the sites in the first place. I think it stands to restore everyone’s sense of agency more than we truly realize. So that’s my deep dive on WordCamp Europe; I included links to the demo and the talk below, just in case you haven’t seen them yet. And you want to get a little bit of insight into the full context of the conversations that I just did a bit of a deep dive into. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 08:15

And now it’s time for our smallest of big things. All right, I have three things for you today. Number one, tomorrow, we package WordPress 5.8 beta three. If you’ve never had a chance to stop by the core channel in slack for the past packaging process, I really encourage you to stop by; we call them release parties. It’s a bunch of people who stand around and help get it done. So you can also see how it gets done. And if you’re feeling brave, you can even try your hand at testing out one of the packages as soon as it’s ready. The second thing is that a week from tomorrow, we reach our first release candidate milestone. So if you have meant to submit any bugs or patches or if you’ve been procrastinating on documentation, or dev notes, right now is the time so that we can have a chance to get everything into the release by the time we reach the release candidate milestone on the 29th. And the third thing is that we are currently right in the middle of WordCamp Japan. That is a great opportunity to meet some contributors and maybe even get started with contributions yourself. So stop by if you haven’t had a chance to check it out already. I will leave a link in the show notes. And that, my friends, is your small list of big things.

Thank you 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 next batch of exciting updates to the block editor is live on WordPress.com. Powerful duotone image editing, a persistent list view to edit your page or post, and an update for picking table colors are all ready for you to build and improve the look of your site. Let’s take a closer look.

Built-in duotone image filter

Duotone is a much anticipated feature that allows you to choose between any two colors for an image’s shadows and highlights. Think black and white photos, but in any color combo of your choosing. What was once the power of standalone image-editing software is now at your fingertips in the block editor.

Establish a consistent tone across your site’s images or draw your audience’s eye with a catchy color combo for a big post.

Try it out by adding an Image or Cover block, select “Apply duotone filter” from the floating block menu, and experiment by choosing colors.

Editor navigation via persistent List View

Level-up your editing game by selecting the List View in the top menu bar—this displays the entire block structure of your page or post. It’s essentially a Table of Contents of all the blocks currently in use. List View is now persistent, meaning it will remain expanded in the sidebar as you edit. 

This update will vastly improve the navigation of complex content and the editing of nested blocks.

And there’s a bonus! Anchors added to blocks are also shown in this List View for easy identification.

Customize your Table colors

Background and text colors are easily edited within the Table block for a more consistent feel across your site.

Keep building, keep exploring

Your feedback is crucial to expanding the block editor’s capabilities, so keep it coming. Watch here for more updates, and in the meantime, go forth and create!

At WordPress.com, part of our mission is to support and empower storytellers and publishers of all sizes. We’re thrilled to announce that the award-winning Atavist Magazine has moved to WordPress.com, joining its sister publication, Longreads, on the platform. Atavist is built on Newspack, a suite of features and plugins designed specifically for the needs of newsrooms and publishers.

For more than a decade, The Atavist Magazine has been a pioneer in digital storytelling, publishing one blockbuster story every month. Each story showcases a unique, sophisticated, immersive design. A nine-time National Magazine Award nominee and one-time winner — and the recipient of many other accolades — Atavist shines as a space on the web for thoughtful, deeply reported stories, and as an outlet eager to publish up-and-coming writers at a time when journalism opportunities are narrowing.

“We are thrilled to now be part of the WordPress.com ecosystem, with all the open source tools and support it provides,” says Atavist editor in chief Seyward Darby. “We just celebrated our 10th anniversary, and we can’t think of a better way to ring in a new decade of telling great stories and championing the people who create them than this move.”

Built on Newspack, an open source platform for news publications

Supported by Newspack, a publishing and revenue-generating solution for small- to medium-sized newsrooms built on WordPress, Atavist joins a network of 100 news publishers and counting, including Reveal, Sahan Journal, Hong Kong Free Press, The Oaklandside, Transitions Online, and other local and regional news outlets worldwide.

“WordPress.com’s block-based editor and Newspack’s built-in subscription, payment, and other news-focused features will power us into the future and help us grow,” says Darby. “We’re honored to join Longreads as a flagship WordPress.com publication, showcasing how flexible the world’s most popular CMS is for storytellers of all types.”

Is Newspack right for you as a publisher? Learn more or get in touch.

Just launched: a new Atavist podcast

If you’re a fan of podcasts, get a feel for Atavist’s storytelling on its first-ever narrative podcast, No Place Like Home, launching this week and available wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It’s about the theft of a pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz from a small museum in Minnesota, and the 13-year quest to get them back. Listen to a preview:

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Explore the redesigned Atavist Magazine and dive in to your next great read.

WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 in two ways:

• Install/activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream)
• Direct download the beta version here (zip).

The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s just five weeks away, so your help is vital to ensure that the final release is as good as it can be.

Some Highlights

Since Beta 1, 26 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes:

• Block Editor: Remove bundled block patterns and support the patterns directory. (#53246)
• Block Editor: Add a type property to allow Core to identify the source of the editor styles. (#53175)
• Build/Test Tools: Adds some tests for Quick Draft section in Dashboard. (#52905)
• Build/Test Tools: Replaced @babel/polyfill with core-js/stable. (#52941)
• Coding Standards: Further update the code for bulk menu items deletion to better follow WordPress coding standards. (#21603)
• External Libraries: Update Underscore to version 1.13.1. (#45785)
• General: A number of block editor, template mode and widget screen related fixes. (#51149)
• Login and Registration: Improve the unknown username error message. (#52915)
• Media: Restore AJAX response data shape in media library. (#50105)
• Site Health: Display a list of file formats supported by the GD library. (#53022)
• Twemoji: It’s the new one! (#52852)

How You Can Help

Watch the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.8-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will break down these and other changes in greater detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 214 tickets in WordPress 5.8, including 87 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute.

If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.

Props to @chanthaboune for revision, @webcommsat, @youknowriad, @jorbin, and @jeffpaul for proofreading, and @cbringmann for final edits!

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Install won’t you please
WordPress 5-8 Beta 2?
We need your help: test!