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With WordPress 5.0 coming closer, there’s lots of work going on all across the project. Read on to learn about how we progressed in July.

Release of WordPress 4.9.7

On July 5, WordPress 4.9.7 was released,  fixing one security issue and 17 other bugs across the platform.

While this is a minor release, incremental fixes are essential to keep WordPress running smoothly. Everyone is encouraged to update as soon as possible and to make sure that automatic updates are switched on.

Would you like to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

The New WordPress Editor

In the upcoming minor release of WordPress, 4.9.8, a new section in the dashboard will feature Gutenberg, the upcoming content editor for WordPress.

While the official release of Gutenberg is scheduled for the coming months, you can already install it as a plugin to test it out right now. Additionally, a brand new demo page is now available — play around with the many features the editor has to offer, without installing it on your own site.

Would you like to help build or test Gutenberg? Follow the Core team blog and join the #core-editor channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

Page Design Updates on WordPress.org

Bit by bit we’re refreshing the design of WordPress.org. The latest pages to get a new treatment have been the Download page and user profiles.

The Meta and Design teams worked hard to make these new designs a reality, with notable contributions from @melchoyce, @obenland, @mapk, and @kjellr. The new designs enhance the overall look of the site and provide more relevant information to those searching.

Would you like to get involved in the design refresh? Follow the Meta and Design team blogs and join the #meta and #design channels in the Making WordPress Slack group.

The First WP-CLI Hack Day

On Friday July 20, the WP-CLI team held their first hack day — a global event encouraging people to contribute to the official command line tool for WordPress.

Run by @schlessera, the event  was a great success. Twelve pull requests were  merged and another 13 submitted. It also included a video chat to give all contributors a space to meet each other and connect directly.

Would  you like to get involved in contributing to WP-CLI? Follow the team blog and join the #cli channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

Further Reading:

• The WordPress Foundation is looking for local community organizers to run introductory open-source workshops in 2018.
• @chanthaboune compiled updates for the last quarter from the contribution teams all across the WordPress project.
• In a great move for internationalization, the WordPress Mobile Apps now support right-to-left languages.
• WordCamp events can now accept payment via Stripe — PayPal remains an alternative option.
• The WP-CLI team will soon release v2.0 of the official WordPress command line tool.
• The Fields API project in WordPress Core is looking for a new lead to drive it forward.
• In WordPress 4.9.8, it will  be possible for developers to fully register the meta fields used by their plugins and themes.
• After many years of hard work, v1.0.0 of the WordPress Coding Standards for PHP_CodeSniffer has been released.
• The Mobile team is looking for people to help test v10.6 of WordPress for iOS.

If you have a story we should consider including in the next “Month in WordPress” post, please submit it here.