WordPress.org

Gutenberg Highlights

Posted June 11, 2021 by Matias Ventura. Filed under Features, WordCamp.

During WordCamp Europe this past Wednesday Matt and I gathered to discuss the latest developments of Gutenberg and to share a video with some of the current and upcoming highlights. The video is wonderfully narrated by @beafialho and it was a great opportunity to celebrate all the incredible work that contributors are doing around the globe to improve the editing and customization experience of WordPress. For those that weren’t able to attend live it’s now available for watching online.

Matt also opened a thread for questions on his blog, so be sure to chime in there if you have any!

WordPress 5.8 Beta 1

Posted June 9, 2021 by Jeffrey Paul. Filed under Development, Releases.

WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Instead, we recommend that you run this on a test site to play with the new version.

You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 in two ways:

The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. This is just six weeks away, so your help is vital to ensure this release is tested properly and as good as it can be.

Keep your eyes on the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.8-related developer notes in the coming weeks, breaking down these and other changes in greater detail.

So what’s new in this 5.8? Let’s start with some highlights.

Highlights

Powerful Blocks

  • Discover several new blocks and expressive tools, including blocks for Page ListsSite TitleLogo, and Tagline. A powerful Query Loop block offers multiple ways for displaying lists of posts and comes with new block patterns that take advantage of its flexibility and creative possibilities.
  • Interacting with nested blocks has been made easier with a permanent toolbar button for selecting a parent. Block outlines are shown when hovering or focusing on the different block type buttons. Block handles are now also present for drag and drop when in “select” mode.
  • Introduces the List View, a panel that can be toggled and helps navigate complex blocks and patterns.
  • Reusable blocks have an improved creation flow and support for history revisions.
  • A cool new duotone block adds images effects which can be used in media blocks or supported in third-party blocks. Color presets can also be customized by the theme.

Handpicked Patterns

Patterns can now also be recommended and selected during block setup, offering powerful new flows. Pattern transformations are also possible and allow converting a block or a collection of blocks into different patterns.

New collection of Patterns and an initial integration with the upcoming Pattern Directory on WordPress.org.

Better Tools

  • New template editor that allows creating new custom templates for a page using blocks.
  • Themes can now control and configure styling with a theme.json file, including layout configuration, block supports, color palettes, and more.
  • New design tools and enhancements to existing blocks, including more color, typography, and spacing options, drag and drop for Cover backgrounds, additions to block transformation options, ability to embed PDFs within the File block, and more.
  • Includes improvements to how the editor is rendered to more accurately resemble the frontend.

Internet Explorer 11

Support for Internet Explorer 11 is ending in WordPress this year. In this release, most of those changes are being merged so use the Beta and RC periods to test!

Blocks in Widgets Area

Looking for a change and can’t find it? There are more improvements listed after the break.

How You Can Help

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is an important 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.

Thanks for joining us, and happy testing!

Props to @audrasjb, @cbringmann, @youknowriad, @annezazu, @matveb, and @desrosj for editing/proof reading this post, and @chanthaboune for final review.


Full Site Editing
Coming at the end of year
But first, Beta 1

Read on for more »

Episode 10: Finding the Good In Disagreement

Posted June 7, 2021 by Chloe Bringmann. Filed under Podcast.

To Agree, disagree, and everything in-between. In this episode, Josepha talks about forming opinions and decision-making in the WordPress project.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to [email protected], either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

Editor: Dustin Hartzler

Logo: Beatriz Fialho

Production: Chloé Bringmann

Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

10/10/10 Rule

The Eisenhower Matrix 

The Maximin Strategy 

WordCamp Europe

WordCamp Japan

WordPress 5.8 Development Cycle

Transcript

Read on for more »

People of WordPress: Tijana Andrejic

WordPress is open source software, maintained by a global network of contributors. There are many examples of how WordPress has changed people’s lives for the better. In this monthly series, we share some of the amazing stories.

This month to coincide with WordCamp Europe, we feature Tijana Andrejic from Belgrade, Serbia, about her journey from fitness trainer to the WordPress world, with the freelance and corporate opportunities it introduced.

Tijana - portrait picture

As a professional manager with a college degree in Organizational Science and a certified fitness instructor, Tijana is nothing if not driven and goal-oriented. 

Following her time as a fitness trainer, Tijana moved to work in IT around 2016. She first explored content creation and design before focusing on SEO and becoming an independent specialist.  

Tijana was hired as a Customer Happiness Engineer for a hosting company, where she discovered the benefits of having a team. She realized that having close working relationships with colleagues is helpful for business success and accelerates personal growth.

Tijana hopes that by sharing her story, she can help others who are either starting their career or are moving roles. She describes the opportunities she discovered in the WordPress community as ‘a huge epiphany’, especially in the world of freelancing.

She highlights 5 things that helped her to start a new freelancing career. Let’s dive into them.

What motivates me?

“Why am I doing this?” is the first question that Tijana asks herself before starting anything new. This self-review and honesty, she feels, allows her to determine her priorities. She also benchmarks options around her motivations of wanting a flexible schedule and to grow professionally. 

She lists the reasons to make a particular choice, like being a freelancer, to help her choose the right job, pathway, or identify alternatives. 

She recommends that others can take a similar approach. If freelancing is still the best solution after examining all their goals and motivations, Tijana believes a good next step would be to learn WordPress-related skills.

WordCamp Europe 2019 group picture

Develop WordPress related skills

The next question you may ask: “Why WordPress?”

WordPress is used by more than 40% of websites in some form and offers various roles, many of which are not developer-specific. Tijana highlights a few: 

  • web developer (coding websites, themes, and plugins)
  • web implementor (creating websites from existing themes without coding)
  • web designer (designing website mock-ups, editing images, or creating online infographics)
  • client support professional (helping people with their websites)
  • website maintenance (WordPress, themes, and plugins are maintained and backed up regularly)
  • WordPress trainer (helping clients with how to use the platform or teaching other web professionals)
  • content writer
  • accessibility specialist (making sure standards are met and suggesting solutions for accessibility barriers)
  • SEO consultant (improving search outcomes and understanding)
  • statistics consultant, especially for web shops
  • WordPress assistant (adding new content and editing existing posts)
  • website migration specialist (moving websites from one server to another)
  • web security specialist
WCBGD group picture

Tijana emphasized: “Another reason why WordPress is great for freelancers is the strong community that exists around this content management system (CMS).” WordCamps and Meetups are a way to get useful information and meet people from a large and very diverse community and get answers to many questions straight away. 

In the past year, these events have been primarily online. However, the contributors who run them continue to make an effort to provide an experience as close to in-person events as possible. The biggest advantage to online events is that we can attend events from across the world, even if sometimes during these difficult times, it is difficult to get enough time to deeply into this new experience. Since Tijana’s first Meetup, she has attended many WordPress community events and volunteered as a speaker.

Plan in advance

Becoming a freelancer takes time. For Tijana, success came with proper planning and following her plan to ‘acquire or improve relevant skills that will make you stand out in the freelance market.’ She strongly believes that learning and growing as a professional opens more business opportunities. 

If you are considering a freelance career, she advises improving relevant skills or developing new skills related to your hobbies as ‘there is nothing better than doing what you love.’ In cases where no previous experience and knowledge can be used, she suggests choosing ‘a job that has a shorter learning curve and builds your knowledge around that.’

Tijana started as a content creator and learned to become an SEO expert. However, she highlights many alternative paths, including starting as a web implementer and moving to train as a developer. 

She suggests to others: “It would be a good idea to analyze the market before you jump into the learning process.” She also recommends people check the latest trends and consider the future of the skills they are developing.

Visit the new Learn WordPress.org to see what topics are of interest to you. In this newly established resource, the WordPress community aggregates workshops to support those who want to start and improve their skills, provides lesson plans for professional WordPress trainers and helps you create personal learning to develop key skills. There is also material on helping you be part of and organize events for your local community.

Tijana highlights that there are many places for freelancers to find clients. For example, the WordPress Community has a place where companies and individual site owners publish their job advertisements  – Jobs.WordPress.net.

Hurray, it’s time to get a first freelancing job

As a pragmatic person, Tijana recommends: “Save money before quitting your job to become a full-time freelancer. Alternatively, try freelancing for a few hours per week to see if you like it. Although some people do benefit when taking a risk, think twice before you take any irreversible actions.” 

She shared some possible next steps: 

  • use a freelancing platform
  • triple-check your resume
  • professionally present yourself
  • fill up your portfolio with examples
  • use video material

“By using video material, your clients will not see you like a list of skills and previous experiences, but as a real person that has these skills and experiences and that provides a certain service for them.”

She adds: “Have a detailed strategy when choosing your first employer. Choose your first employer wisely, very wisely. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is”.

When Tijana took her first freelancing job, she considered the following:

  • how was the employer rated by other freelancers who worked for him previously
  • how does the employer rate other freelancers
  • how much money had they already spent on the platform
  • the number of open positions for a specific job and the number of freelancers that have already applied 

“The first job is not all about the money. Don’t get greedy on your first job. If you get good recommendations, your second job can pay two to three times more. And your third job can go up to five times more. That was my experience.”

Take responsibility as a freelancer

Tijana reminds us: “Freedom often comes with responsibility; individual responsibility is key when it comes to freelancing.”

She advises others not to take a job if you can not make a deadline and have someone reliable who can help you. 

Missing deadlines will cost your client money and affect the review the client will be willing to leave about your job, and this can have a big impact on your future opportunities or freelance jobs.

She adds: “This can start a downward spiral for your career. However, we are all humans, and unpredictable things can happen. If for some reason you are not able to complete your work in a timely manner, let your client know immediately so they can have enough time to hire someone else”.

Tijana emphasizes the importance of making expectations clear before accepting a job, both what the client is expecting and what you can expect from the client. 

Lastly, she points out that if you are working from home, your friends and family should treat you the way they would if you were in an office. She advises: “Let them know about your working schedule.”

She hopes that these basic guidelines will be useful in launching freelance careers, as they did her, even though there is no universal recipe for all.

Tijana highlights: “It’s just important to stay focused on your goals and to be open to new opportunities.” Freelancing wasn’t the only way she could have fulfilled her goals, but it was an important part of her path, and it helped her be confident in her abilities to make the next big step in her life.

As a freelancer, she was missing close relationships with colleagues and teamwork, which she has now found in her current firm. Her colleagues describe her as a: “walking-talking bundle of superpowers: sports medicine and fitness professional, SEO expert, blogger, designer and a kitty foster mum”.

Conference reception

If you are considering starting your career as a freelancer, take the courses offered at learn.wordpress.org, reach out to companies that you would be interested in working with, and remember that there are a whole host of opportunities in the WordPress project.

The WordPress.org Teams – what they do, when and where they meet

Learn WordPress resource – free to use to expand your knowledge and skills of using the platform and learning about the community around it.

The 3-day WordCamp Europe 2021 online event begins on 7 June 2021. You can discover more about being a contributor in its live sessions and section on ways to contribute to WordPress.

Contributors

Thanks to Olga Gleckler (@oglekler), Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), Chloé Bringmann (@cbringmann), Surendra Thakor (@sthakor), and Meher Bala (@meher) for working on this story. Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune) and also to Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) who created HeroPress. Thank you to Tijana Andrejic (@andtijana) for sharing her #ContributorStory

HeroPress logo

This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.

Meet more WordPress community members in our People of WordPress series.

#ContributorStory #HeroPress

A New Design is Coming to WordPress News

Posted June 3, 2021 by Josepha. Filed under General, Updates.

After many years of a tidy, white-space filled design on WordPress.org/news it’s time to bring new life to the way we present our content. So much has changed since this site was first created: the people who read it, the type and variety of what is published, even the way WordPress works has changed.

Which means it makes sense to change our theme.

Earlier this year, Matt requested a new design from Beatriz Fialho (who also created the State of the Word slides for 2020). The design keeps a clean, white-space friendly format while incorporating a more jazzy, playful feeling with a refreshed color palette.

More detail on this modern exploration have been posted on make.wordpress.org/design. I encourage you to stop by and read more about the thoughts behind the coming updates; and keep an eye out for the new look here and across WordPress.org!

The Month in WordPress: May 2021

Posted June 2, 2021 by Hari Shanker R. Filed under Month in WordPress.

It’s really fun to contribute to something larger than yourself.

Matt Mullenweg’s words in “The Commons of Images” episode of the WP Briefing podcast exemplify the core philosophy of the WordPress project,  especially as we inch closer to the next major release (version 5.8). This post covers exciting updates from the month of May.


WordPress turns 18

WordPress celebrated the 18th anniversary of its launch on May 27, 2021. To celebrate 40+ releases and WordPress’ support of 40% of the web, the team released 40 milestones to celebrate the anniversary of the software. Here’s to the next 18 and beyond! 

CC Search joins WordPress and is renamed to Openverse

Creative Commons Search has officially joined the WordPress project. Creative Commons Search (CC Search) is a CC0 image search engine with over 500 million openly licensed images. The search product, which is being renamed to Openverse, will eventually live on the URL: https://wordpress.org/openverse. Contributors working on CC Search will continue their work as part of a new dedicated Make team: https://make.wordpress.org/openverse. Check out “The Commons of Images” podcast episode for more information.

WordPress 5.7.2 released

WordPress version 5.7.2, a short-cycle security release, came out on May 13. Get the latest version directly from your WordPress dashboard or by downloading it from WordPress.org.

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. 

Gutenberg versions 10.6 and 10.7 are out

Gutenberg version 10.6 and version 10.7 were launched this month. Version 10.6 features experimental Duotone filters (which are shipping with WordPress 5.8), block pattern suggestions in placeholders, and enhancements to the table block. Version 10.7 adds a responsive navigation block, block design tools, and the ability to load block patterns from the directory.

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 latest “What’s next in Gutenberg” post offers more details on the latest updates. If you are unfamiliar with the Gutenberg plugin, learn more in this post.

Full Site Editing updates

Don’t miss the latest Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program testing call on building portfolio pages using the Template Editing feature shipping with WordPress 5.8! The deadline is June 9. The team has published a recap of the Query Quest FSE Testing call, which shares some interesting results. The answers to round two of FSE questions are also out.

Countdown starts for WordCamp Europe 2021

The countdown to one of the most anticipated WordPress events, WordCamp Europe 2021 (Online), has started! The full schedule of the event is now available, and the team has exciting plans! Don’t miss this event: get your tickets now before they run out!


Further reading

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

The following folks contributed to May’s Month in WordPress: @meher and @chaion07

WordPress at 18

Posted May 27, 2021 by Josepha. Filed under Meta.

Today marks the 18th anniversary of WordPress’ launch, a day that I fondly refer to as WordPress’ birthday, which means WordPress is 6,575 days old. To celebrate another turn around the sun, the community has had parties, we have shared data, and we have told our story.

Since our last birthday we developed our 40th release and now also support over 40% of the web. So it seems fitting that this year’s celebration should be a list of 40 milestones that have helped us get there.

Grab a slice of cake or festive beverage and give it a scroll!

Coloring Your Images With Duotone Filters

Posted May 26, 2021 by Chloe Bringmann. Filed under Features, Uncategorized.

Created by Alex Lende

Beginning with WordPress 5.8, you can colorize your image and cover blocks with duotone filters! Duotone can add a pop of color to your designs and style your images to integrate well with your themes.

Filters? Like on Instagram?

Duotone doesn’t work in quite the same way as Instagram filters. Whereas Instagram filters do color adjustments (color levels/curves and sometimes a vignette for the photo editors among us), the new duotone filters entirely replace the colors of your images.

Photo by Charles Pragnell.

You can think of the duotone effect as a black and white filter, but instead of the shadows being black and the highlights being white, you pick your own colors for the shadows and highlights.

For example, a grayscale filter can be created by selecting black and white as shadow/highlight colors, and a sepia filter by choosing brown and tan.

Analogous colors can add a subtle effect and work well for cover backgrounds where the overlaid text still needs to stand out.

Much more vibrant and interesting effects can be made with complementary colors.

How Do I Add Duotone Filter?

The duotone effect works best on high-contrast images, so start with an image with a lot of large dark and light areas. From the block toolbar, use the filter button and choose a preset:

You can also choose colors from your theme’s palette, or a custom color of your choice.

In addition to the image block, duotone can be applied to both images and video in the cover block.

Will This Overwrite Images in My Media Library?

Images and videos in your media library will remain unchanged. The duotone effect works using SVG filters and the CSS filter property, so the image or video is never modified in your library. On the one hand, this means that you can apply a filter to an image that you link to that doesn’t exist in your media library. On the other hand, this means that the filter won’t show up in RSS feeds or places that use the image URL directly.

Can I Add Duotone Colors to Blocks or Themes That I Develop?

The API for adding duotone colors to blocks is experimental in Gutenberg v10.6. Still, the documentation for using it in your own blocks can be found and will be updated under Supports Color in the Block Editor Handbook. Themes can add duotone presets with theme.json. More information can be found under Global Settings & Styles Presets in the Block Editor Handbook.

Try it Out Now Using the Gutenberg plugin

The duotone feature was released in version 10.6 of the Gutenberg plugin, so you can try it out now prior to the WordPress 5.8 release in July.


Thanks to @joen and @mkaz for assistance writing and reviewing this post.

Episode 9: The Cartography of WordPress

Posted May 24, 2021 by Chloe Bringmann. Filed under Podcast.

In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy provides a map of how to navigate WordPress teams and communication channels, along with her small list of big things.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to [email protected], either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

References

Transcript

Read on for more »

Dropping support for Internet Explorer 11

Posted May 19, 2021 by Jonathan Desrosiers. Filed under General.

Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) was released over 7 years ago and is currently used by less than 1% of all users on the Internet with usage rapidly declining. A large majority of popular websites have already stopped supporting IE11 (including Microsoft Teams in 2020), and even the Microsoft 365 apps and services will be dropping support later this year.

When WordPress 5.8 is released in July of this year, Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported.

If you are currently using IE11, it is strongly recommended that you switch to a more modern browser, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge. IE11 users have been shown a warning that IE11 is considered outdated in the WordPress dashboard for the last 17+ months.

If you are already using one of the more modern browsers above, you will only be positively impacted by this change, as there are performance benefits to dropping IE11 support. However, if any other users of your site are still using IE11, it’s possible they will be affected.

What does “dropping support” mean?

When support for a browser is removed from WordPress, new features are no longer tested on those browsers and are not guaranteed to function optimally.

Automated tools that generate parts of the WordPress Core source code are also updated to exclude unsupported browsers. This means that any feature relying on these generated files will likely have bugs or stop working for users of those browsers.

The block editor will be the area of WordPress most heavily impacted by this change because almost all of the files related to the block editor are compiled using these automated tools. Other areas of the WordPress dashboard also use CSS built with these tools and their appearance will potentially be impacted when using IE11.

All other areas of the code base that are IE11 specific will need to be identified, evaluated, and removed on a case-by-case basis as the rest are manually maintained. This process will begin in the WordPress 5.9 release, and will likely happen gradually over several major releases. Additionally, any bugs which are reported for IE11 will not be fixed.

How will this affect themes?

No changes will be made to any of the default bundled themes as a result of this plan. No code related to IE11 support (or any other browser that may have been supported when each theme was released) will be removed from default themes. However, any new features added going forward will not be tested in IE11.

If you are not using a default theme, it’s still unlikely that your theme will be affected by this change. Themes typically have their own browser support policies, and changes in WordPress Core do not affect those. It’s possible that your theme author may have removed support for IE11 already.

If IE11 support is important to you and you are unsure whether your theme supports IE11, it is recommended that you reach out to your theme’s developer to confirm.

More information on this change can be found on the Making WordPress Core blog.

Older Posts »

See Also:

Want to follow the code? There’s a development P2 blog and you can track active development in the Trac timeline that often has 20–30 updates per day.

Want to find an event near you? Check out the WordCamp schedule and find your local Meetup group!

For more WordPress news, check out the WordPress Planet or subscribe to the WP Briefing podcast.

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