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Starting in WordPress 5.8, a new tool — “theme.json” — is available to use in your theme. Maybe you’re hearing about it for the first time, or maybe you’re testing and developing themes with it already. Either way, I’m glad you’re here because it’s an exciting time for WordPress themes.

This post provides a quick introduction to this new framework, and describes what’s possible by sharing a few practical tips and examples.

What’s theme.json?

Technically, theme.json is just a file that lives at the top-level of a theme’s directory. 

Conceptually, it’s a major shift in how themes can be developed. Theme authors now have a centralized mechanism to tailor the WordPress experience for site authors and visitors. Theme.json provides theme authors fine-grained control over global styles, block styles, and the block editor settings.

By providing these settings and controls in a single file, theme.json provides a powerful framework that brings together many aspects of theme design and development. And as the block editor matures and adds more features, theme.json will shine as the backbone for themes and the editor to work together 💪. 

Why Use it?

It’s the future! But if you’re like me, you might need something more tangible to be convinced. Here are a few reasons why you might use theme.json today:

• Control editor settings like color, typography, spacing, and layout, and consolidate where these settings are managed.
• Guarantee that styles apply correctly to blocks and elements across your site.
• Reduce the amount of boilerplate CSS a theme used to provide. Theme.json won’t replace your stylesheet completely — there will be instances where CSS is needed to give your theme that extra flare (transitions, animations, etc.). But it can greatly reduce the base CSS needed from the theme.

How do I use it?

The rest of this post demonstrates a few theme.json configurations you can try out. The examples use the tt1-blocks theme.json — the block-based version of this year’s default theme. 

If you’re starting with an existing theme, you might try copying a theme.json from the WordPress/theme-experiments repository (for example, the fse-tutorial theme by @poena) and adding it to the root of your theme’s directory.

Change the typography settings of your site globally

"settings": {
	"typography": {
		"fontSize": "30px",
		...

Making the change above in theme.json would result in the following updates to your theme’s body typography styles (before and after):

Changing the base color settings of your site globally

"styles": {
	"color": {
		"background": "#ffc0cb",
		"text": "#6A1515"
	},
	...
}

Changing spacing / padding settings on specific blocks

"styles": {
	"blocks": {
		"core/code": {
			"spacing": {
				"padding": {
					"top": "3em",
					"bottom": "3em",
					"left": "3em",
					"right": "3em"
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Set a custom color palette in the editor for specific blocks like a button

"settings": {
    "blocks": {
		"core/button": {
			"color": {
				"palette": [ 
					{
						"name": "Maroon",
						"color": "#6A1515",
						"slug": "maroon"
					},
					{
						"name": "Strawberry Ice Cream",
						"color": "#FFC0CB",
						"slug": "strawberry-ice-cream"
					}
				]
			}
		}
	}
}

Enable and disable typography controls

In the following example, the ability to supply a custom font size and line height for all heading blocks is disabled:

	"settings": {
		"blocks": {
			"core/heading": {
				"typography": {
					"customFontSize": false,
					"customLineHeight": false
				}
			}
		}
	}

What’s Next?

I hope this gives you a sense of what’s possible and where themes are going. The above examples just scratch the surface of what kinds of theme design configurations are possible, and I’m very excited to see what theme authors create.

If you’re interested in learning more, here’s the developer note on theme.json, and here’s the documentation for theme.json in the handbook.

Thanks to @kjellr, @chanthaboune, @priethor, @annezazu for helping with and peer-reviewing this post.

Introducing 5.8 “Tatum”, our latest and greatest release now available for download or update in your dashboard. Named in honor of Art Tatum, the legendary Jazz pianist. His formidable technique and willingness to push boundaries inspired musicians and changed what people thought could be done. 

So fire up your music service of choice and enjoy Tatum’s famous recordings of ‘Tea for Two’, ‘Tiger Rag’, ‘Begin the Beguine’, and ‘Night and Day’ as you read about what the latest WordPress version brings to you.

Three Essential Powerhouses

Manage Widgets with Blocks

After months of hard work, the power of blocks has come to both the Block Widgets Editor and the Customizer. Now you can add blocks both in widget areas across your site and with live preview through the Customizer. This opens up new possibilities to create content: from no-code mini layouts to the vast library of core and third-party blocks. For our developers, you can find more details in the Widgets dev note.

Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns

The Query Loop Block makes it possible to display posts based on specified parameters; like a PHP loop without the code. Easily display posts from a specific category, to do things like create a portfolio or a page full of your favorite recipes. Think of it as a more complex and powerful Latest Posts Block! Plus, pattern suggestions make it easier than ever to create a list of posts with the design you want.

Edit the Templates Around Posts

You can use the familiar block editor to edit templates that hold your content—simply activate a block theme or a theme that has opted in for this feature. Switch from editing your posts to editing your pages and back again, all while using a familiar block editor. There are more than 20 new blocks available within compatible themes. Read more about this feature and how to experiment with it in the release notes.

Three Workflow Helpers

Overview of the Page Structure

Sometimes you need a simple landing page, but sometimes you need something a little more robust. As blocks increase, patterns emerge, and content creation gets easier, new solutions are needed to make complex content easy to navigate. List View is the best way to jump between layers of content and nested blocks. Since the List View gives you an overview of all the blocks in your content, you can now navigate quickly to the precise block you need. Ready to focus completely on your content? Toggle it on or off to suit your workflow.

Suggested Patterns for Blocks

Starting in this release the Pattern Transformations tool will suggest block patterns based on the block you are using. Right now, you can give it a try in the Query Block and Social Icon Block. As more patterns are added, you will be able to get inspiration for how to style your site without ever leaving the editor!

Style and Colorize Images

Colorize your image and cover blocks with duotone filters! Duotone can add a pop of color to your designs and style your images (or videos in the cover block) to integrate well with your themes. 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. There’s more to learn about how it works in the documentation.

For Developers to Explore

Theme.json

Introducing the Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: control the editor settings, available customization tools, and style blocks using a theme.json file in the active theme. This configuration file enables or disables features and sets default styles for both a website and blocks. If you build themes, you can experiment with this early iteration of a useful new feature. For more about what is currently available and how it works, check out this dev note.

Adding Additional Block Supports

Expanding on previously implemented block supports in WordPress 5.6 and 5.7, WordPress 5.8 introduces several new block support flags and new options to customize your registered blocks. More information is available in the block supports dev note.

Check the Field Guide for more!

Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of: WordPress 5.8 Field Guide.

The Squad

The WordPress 5.8 release was led by Matt Mullenweg, and supported by this highly enthusiastic release squad:

• Release Co-Coordinator: Jeffrey Paul (@jeffpaul)
• Release Co-Coordinator: Jonathan Desrosiers (@desrosj)
• Editor Tech Lead: Riad Benguella (@youknowriad)
• Marketing and Communications Lead: Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@chanthaboune)
• Documentation Lead: Milana Cap (@milana_cap)
• Test Lead: Piotrek Boniu (@boniu91)
• Support Lead: Mary Job (@mariaojob)

This release is the reflection of the hard work of 530 generous volunteer contributors. Collaboration occurred on over 320 tickets on Trac and over 1,500 pull requests on GitHub.

In addition to these contributors, many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time, or they’ve been around since the first release all the way back in 2003. These releases are as successful as they are because of their efforts!

Finally, thanks to all the community translators who help make WordPress available in over 200 languages for every release. 80 languages have translated 80% or more WordPress 5.8 and our community translators are hard at work ensuring more languages are on their way. If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, it’s easy to learn more. Check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.

The third release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available!

WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, and we need your help to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate 3 in any of these 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)
• Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC3

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

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 we can work to solve them in time for the final release.

For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.8, check out the WordPress 5.8 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, which is particularly useful for developers, has all the info and further links to help you get comfortable with the major changes.

How to Help

Can you speak and write in a language other than English?  Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!

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 @cbringmann, @chanthaboune, and @marybaum for peer-reviewing!

Code is poetry
Jazz is improvisation
Both are forms of art

The second release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available! 🎉

WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, and we need your help to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate 2 in any of these 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)
• Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC2

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

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 they can get ready for the final release.

For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.8, check out the WordPress 5.8 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, which is particularly useful for developers, has all the info and further links to help you get comfortable with the major changes.

How to Help

Can you speak and write in a language other than English?  Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!

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 @lukecarbis for the haiku, @webcommsat and @marybaum for peer reviewing!

Five-eight in two weeks
So test your plugins and themes
Update your readme

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. 

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.

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.

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