WordPress.org

Take the 2020 WordPress Annual Survey (and view the 2019 results)!

Posted October 27, 2020 by Andrea Middleton. Filed under Community, General.

For many years, WordPress enthusiasts have filled out an annual survey to share their experiences and feelings about WordPress. Interesting results from this survey have been shared in the annual State of the Word address and/or here on WordPress News. 

This survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used, and by whom. The survey also helps leaders in the WordPress open source project learn more about our contributors’ experience.  

To ensure that your WordPress experience is represented in the 2020 survey results,

You can also take the survey in French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish! The survey will be open for at least 6 weeks, and results will be posted on this blog.

2019 Survey Results

The 2019 survey included some new questions to better understand why people continue to use WordPress as their preferred CMS, as well as a section directed toward WordPress contributors. For the first time in 2019, this survey was translated into 5 different languages: French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

The first WordPress Contributor Survey was conducted in 2015, but unfortunately the results were never published. This report includes Contributor Survey results from both 2015 and 2019. 

Survey Segments

Major groups in the survey included: WordPress Professionals, WordPress Users, and Others. 

The WordPress Professionals group consists of those who: work for a company that designs/develops websites; use WordPress to build websites and/or blogs for others; design or develop themes, plugins, or other custom tools for WordPress sites; or are a designer, developer, or other web professional working with WordPress.

This WordPress Professionals group is further divided into WordPress Company Pros (those who work for a company that designs/develops websites) and WordPress Freelancers/Hobbyists (all other professional types) subgroups.

The WordPress User group consists of those who: own or run a blog that is built with WordPress; own or run a website that is built with WordPress; write for or contribute to a blog/website that is built with WordPress; use WordPress for school as a teacher; use WordPress for school as a student, or are learning to build websites using WordPress.

The Others group consists of those who did not self-identify with any of the options provided for the question, “Which of the following best describes how you use WordPress?”

2019 Survey Results Summary

WordPress remains the platform of choice for future projects among those surveyed. Overwhelmingly, the reasons cited for this are that WordPress is the CMS people already know, and that the community supporting it is valuable. Professionals and users report similar levels of frustration with updates and Gutenberg. Both groups also love the ease of use they find in WordPress.

The number of professionals who report providing a heavily customized experience to clients has increased substantially, while at the same time the amount of time reported on creating those sites has decreased. Regardless of frustrations felt with various features, this seems to indicate that ease of use has been on the rise.

More details on sentiment, usage, and other interesting topics are available in the report: check it out!

Before you go: take the 2020 Survey!

Knowing why and how people use WordPress helps those who build WordPress to keep your needs and preferences in mind. 

The survey will be open for at least 6 weeks, and results will be published on this blog. All data will be anonymized: no email addresses or IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, check out the privacy policy.

Like last year, the 2020 survey will be promoted via a banner on WordPress.org, as well as by WordPress enthusiasts. Each of the translated surveys will be promoted through banners on their associated localized-language WordPress.org sites. Please encourage your WordPress pals and social media followers to take the survey too!

To ensure your WordPress experience is represented in the 2020 survey results… don’t delay!

(Also available in French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish!)

WordPress 5.6 Beta 2

Posted by Josepha. Filed under Development, Releases.

WordPress 5.6 beta 2 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so we recommend that you run this version on a test site.

You can test the WordPress 5.6 beta in two ways:

WordPress 5.6 is slated for release on December 8, 2020, and we need your help to get there!

Thank you to all of the contributors that tested the beta 1 development release and provided feedback. Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing each release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.

Some highlights

Since beta 1, 53 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of a few changes included in beta 2:

  • 6 additional bugs have been fixed in the block editor (see #26442).
  • Unified design for search forms and results across the admin (#37353).
  • Exposed the embed Gutenberg block to Core (#51531).
  • Updated Twemoji (#51356), React (#51505), and Akismet versions (#51610).
  • Added accessibility improvements (among other things) to Application Passwords (#51580).
  • Added indicator to image details for images attached to a site option (#42063).

Developer notes

WordPress 5.6 has lots of refinements to the developer experience as well. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers’ notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.

How to Help

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you!

If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

WordPress 5.6 Beta 1

Posted October 20, 2020 by Josepha. Filed under Development, Releases.

WordPress 5.6 Beta 1 is now available for testing!

This software is still in development, so we recommend that you run this version on a test site.

You can test the WordPress 5.6 beta in two ways:

The current target for final release is December 8, 2020. This is just seven weeks away, so your help is needed to ensure this release is tested properly.

Improvements in the Editor

WordPress 5.6 includes seven Gutenberg plugin releases. Here are a few highlighted enhancements:

  • Improved support for video positioning in cover blocks.
  • Enhancements to Block Patterns including translatable strings.
  • Character counts in the information panel, improved keyboard navigation, and other adjustments to help users find their way better.
  • Improved UI for drag and drop functionality, as well as block movers.

To see all of the features for each release in detail check out the release posts: 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, 9.0, 9.1, and 9.2 (link forthcoming).

Improvements in Core

A new default theme

The default theme is making its annual return with Twenty Twenty-One. This theme features a streamlined and elegant design, which aims to be AAA ready.

Auto-update option for major releases

The much anticipated opt-in for major releases of WordPress Core will ship in this release. With this functionality, you can elect to have major releases of the WordPress software update in the background with no additional fuss for your users.

Increased support for PHP 8

The next major version release of PHP, 8.0.0, is scheduled for release just a few days prior to WordPress 5.6. The WordPress project has a long history of being compatible with new versions of PHP as soon as possible, and this release is no different.

Because PHP 8 is a major version release, changes that break backward compatibility or compatibility for various APIs are allowed. Contributors have been hard at work fixing the known incompatibilities with PHP 8 in WordPress during the 5.6 release cycle.

While all of the detectable issues in WordPress can be fixed, you will need to verify that all of your plugins and themes are also compatible with PHP 8 prior to upgrading. Keep an eye on the Making WordPress Core blog in the coming weeks for more detailed information about what to look for.

Application Passwords for REST API Authentication

Since the REST API was merged into Core, only cookie & nonce based authentication has been available (without the use of a plugin). This authentication method can be a frustrating experience for developers, often limiting how applications can interact with protected endpoints.

With the introduction of Application Password in WordPress 5.6, gone is this frustration and the need to jump through hoops to re-authenticate when cookies expire. But don’t worry, cookie and nonce authentication will remain in WordPress as-is if you’re not ready to change.

Application Passwords are user specific, making it easy to grant or revoke access to specific users or applications (individually or wholesale). Because information like “Last Used” is logged, it’s also easy to track down inactive credentials or bad actors from unexpected locations.

Better accessibility

With every release, WordPress works hard to improve accessibility. Version 5.6 is no exception and will ship with a number of accessibility fixes and enhancements. Take a look:

  • Announce block selection changes manually on windows.
  • Avoid focusing the block selection button on each render.
  • Avoid rendering the clipboard textarea inside the button
  • Fix dropdown menu focus loss when using arrow keys with Safari and Voiceover
  • Fix dragging multiple blocks downwards, which resulted in blocks inserted in wrong position.
  • Fix incorrect aria description in the Block List View.
  • Add arrow navigation in Preview menu.
  • Prevent links from being focusable inside the Disabled component.

How You Can Help

Keep your eyes on the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.6-related developer notes in the coming weeks, breaking down these and other changes in greater detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 188 tickets in WordPress 5.6, including 82 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

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.

Props to @webcommsat@yvettesonneveld@estelaris, @cguntur, @desrosj, and @marybaum for editing/proof reading this post, and @davidbaumwald for final review.

The Month in WordPress: September 2020

Posted October 2, 2020 by Hari Shanker R. Filed under Month in WordPress.

This month was characterized by some exciting announcements from the WordPress core team! Read on to catch up with all the WordPress news and updates from September. 


WordPress 5.5.1 Launch

On September 1, the  Core team released WordPress 5.5.1. This maintenance release included several bug fixes for both core and the editor, and many other enhancements. You can update to the latest version directly from your WordPress dashboard or download it directly from WordPress.org. The next major release will be version 5.6.

Want to be involved in the next release?  You can help to build WordPress Core by following the Core team blog, and joining the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

Gutenberg 9.1, 9.0, and 8.9 are out

The core team launched version 9.0 of the Gutenberg plugin on September 16, and version 9.1 on September 30. Version 9.0 features some useful enhancements — like a new look for the navigation screen (with drag and drop support in the list view) and modifications to the query block (including search, filtering by author, and support for tags). Version 9.1 adds improvements to global styles, along with improvements for the UI and several blocks. Version 8.9 of Gutenberg, which came out earlier in September, enables the block-based widgets feature (also known as block areas, and was previously available in the experiments section) by default — replacing the default WordPress widgets to the plugin. You can find out more about the Gutenberg roadmap in the What’s next in Gutenberg blog post.

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 Making WordPress Slack group.

Twenty Twenty One is the WordPress 5.6 default theme

Twenty Twenty One, the brand new default theme for WordPress 5.6, has been announced! Twenty Twenty One is designed to be a blank canvas for the block editor, and will adopt a straightforward, yet refined, design. The theme has a limited color palette: a pastel green background color, two shades of dark grey for text, and a native set of system fonts. Twenty Twenty One will use a modified version of the Seedlet theme as its base. It will have a comprehensive system of nested CSS variables to make child theming easier, a native support for global styles, and full site editing. 

Follow the Make/Core blog if you wish to contribute to Twenty Twenty One. There will be weekly meetings every Monday at 15:00 UTC and triage sessions every Friday at 15:00 UTC in the #core-themes Slack channel. Theme development will happen on GitHub


Further Reading:

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

WordPress 5.5.1 Maintenance Release

Posted September 1, 2020 by Jb Audras. Filed under Releases.

WordPress 5.5.1 is now available!

This maintenance release features 34 bug fixes, 5 enhancements, and 5 bug fixes for the block editor. These bugs affect WordPress version 5.5, so you’ll want to upgrade.

You can download WordPress 5.5.1 directly, or visit the Dashboard → Updates screen and click Update Now. If your sites support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.

WordPress 5.5.1 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.6.

To see a full list of changes, you can browse the list on Trac, read the 5.5.1 RC1 and 5.5.1 RC2 posts, or visit the 5.5.1 documentation page.

Thanks and props!

The 5.5.1 release was led by @audrasjb, @azhiyadev, @davidbaumwald, @desrosj, @johnbillion, @planningwrite, @sergeybiryukov and @whyisjake.

Thank you to everyone who helped make WordPress 5.5.1 happen:

Amit Dudhat, Andrea Fercia, Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko, Andy Fragen, Angel Hess, avixansa, bobbingwide, Brian Hogg, chunkysteveo, Clayton Collie, David Baumwald, David Herrera, dd32, demetris, Dominik Schilling, dushakov, Earle Davies, Enrique Sánchez, Frankie Jarrett, fullofcaffeine, Garrett Hyder, Gary Jones, gchtr, Hauwa, Herre Groen, Howdy_McGee, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Jb Audras, Jeremy Felt, Jeroen Rotty, Joen A., Johanna de Vos, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, Jonathan Bossenger, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonathan Stegall, Joost de Valk, Jorge Costa, Justin Ahinon, Kalpesh Akabari, Kevin Hagerty, Knut Sparhell, Kyle B. Johnson, landau, Laxman Prajapati, Lester Chan, mailnew2ster, Marius L. J., Mark Jaquith, Mark Uraine, Matt Gibson, Michael Beckwith, Mikey Arce, Mohammad Jangda, Mukesh Panchal, Nabil Moqbel, net, oakesjosh, O André, Omar Reiss, Ov3rfly, Paddy, Pascal Casier, Paul Biron, Peter Wilson, rajeshsingh520, Rami Yushuvaev, rebasaurus, riaanlom, Riad Benguella, Rodrigo Arias, rtagliento, salvoaranzulla, Sanjeev Aryal, sarahricker, Sergey Biryukov, Stephen Bernhardt, Steven Stern (sterndata), Thomas M, Timothy Jacobs, TobiasBg, tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn Fjellner), TwentyZeroTwo, Winstina, wittich, and Yoav Farhi.

The Month in WordPress: August 2020

Posted by Hari Shanker R. Filed under Month in WordPress.

August was special for WordPress lovers, as one of the most anticipated releases, WordPress 5.5, was launched. The month also saw several updates from various contributor teams, including the soft-launch of the Learn WordPress project and updates to Gutenberg. Read on to find out about the latest updates from the WordPress world.


WordPress 5.5 Launch

The team launched WordPress 5.5 on August 11. The major release comes with a host of features like automatic updates for plugins and themes, enabling updates over uploaded ZIP files, a block directory, XML sitemaps, block patterns, inline image editing, and lazy-loading images, to name a few. WordPress 5.5 is now available in 50 languages too! You can update to the latest version directly from your WordPress dashboard or download it directly from WordPress.org. Subsequent to the 5.5 release, the 5.5.1 release candidate came out on August 28, which will be followed by its official launch of the minor release on September 1.

A record 805 people contributed to WordPress 5.5, hailing from 58 different countries. @audrasjb has compiled many more stats like that and they’re well worth a read!

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

Gutenberg 8.7 and 8.8

The core team launched Gutenberg 8.7 and 8.8. Version 8.7 saw many improvements to the Post Block suite, along with other changes like adding a block example to the Buttons block, consistently autosaving edits, and updating the group block description. Version 8.8 offers updates to Global Styles, the Post Block suite, and Template management. The release significantly improves the back-compatibility of the new Widget Screen, and also includes other important accessibility and mobile improvements to user interfaces like the Toolbar, navigation menus, and Popovers. For full details on the latest versions of these Gutenberg releases, visit these posts about 8.7 and 8.8.

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 Making WordPress Slack group.

Check out the brand new Learn WordPress platform!

Learn WordPress is a brand new cross-team initiative led by the WordPress Community team, with support from the training team, the TV team, and the meta team. This platform is a learning repository on learn.wordpress.org, where WordPress learning content will be made available. Video workshops published on the site will be followed up by supplementary discussion groups based on workshop content. The first of these discussion groups have been scheduled, and you can join an upcoming discussion on the dedicated meetup group. The community team invites members to contribute to the project. You can apply to present a workshop, assist with reviewing submitted workshops, and add ideas for workshops that you would like to see on the site. You can also apply to be a discussion group leader to organize discussions directly through the learn.wordpress.org platform. We are also creating a dedicated Learn WordPress working group and have posted a call for volunteers. Meetup organizers can use Learn WordPress content for their meetup events (without applying as a discussion group leader). Simply ask your meetup group to watch one of the workshops in the weeks leading up to your scheduled event, and then host a discussion group for that content as your event.

Want to get involved with the Community team? Follow the Community blog, or join them in the #community-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack group. To organize a local WordPress community event, visit the handbook page


Further Reading:

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

WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine”

Posted August 11, 2020 by Matt Mullenweg. Filed under Releases.

Here it is! Named “Eckstine” in honor of Billy Eckstine, this latest and greatest version of WordPress is available for download or update in your dashboard.

Welcome to WordPress 5.5.

In WordPress 5.5, your site gets new power in three major areas:
speed, search, and security.

Speed

Posts and pages feel faster, thanks to lazy-loaded images.

Images give your story a lot of impact, but they can sometimes make your site seem slow.

In WordPress 5.5, images wait to load until they’re just about to scroll into view. The technical term is ‘lazy loading.’

On mobile, lazy loading can also keep browsers from loading files meant for other devices. That can save your readers money on data — and help preserve battery life.

Search

Say hello to your new sitemap.

WordPress sites work well with search engines.

Now, by default, WordPress 5.5 includes an XML sitemap that helps search engines discover your most important pages from the very minute you go live.

So more people will find your site sooner, giving you more time to engage, retain and convert them to subscribers, customers or whatever fits your definition of success.

Security

Now you can choose to update plugins and themes automatically–or pick just a few–from the screens you’ve always used.

Auto-updates for Plugins and Themes

Now you can set plugins and themes to update automatically — or not! — in the WordPress admin. So you always know your site is running the latest code available.

You can also turn auto-updates on or off for each plugin or theme you have installed — all on the same screens you’ve always used.

Update by uploading ZIP files

If updating plugins and themes manually is your thing, now that’s easier too — just upload a ZIP file.

Highlights from the block editor

Once again, the latest WordPress release packs a long list of exciting new features for the block editor. For example:

Block patterns

New block patterns make it simple and fun to create complex, beautiful layouts, using combinations of text and media that you can mix and match to fit your story.

You will also find block patterns in a wide variety of plugins and themes, with more added all the time. Pick any of them from a single place — just click and go!

The new block directory

Now it’s easier than ever to find the block you need. The new block directory is built right into the block editor, so you can install new block types to your site without ever leaving the editor.

Inline image editing

Crop, rotate, and zoom your photos right from the image block. If you spend a lot of time on images, this could save you hours!

And so much more.

The highlights above are a tiny fraction of the new block editor features you’ve just installed. Open the block editor and enjoy!

Accessibility

Every release adds improvements to the accessible publishing experience, and that remains true for WordPress 5.5.

Now you can copy links in media screens and modal dialogs with a button, instead of trying to highlight a line of text.

You can also move meta boxes with the keyboard, and edit images in WordPress with your assistive device, as it can read you the instructions in the image editor.

For developers

5.5 also brings a big box of changes just for developers.

Server-side registered blocks in the REST API

The addition of block types endpoints means that JavaScript apps (like the block editor) can retrieve definitions for any blocks registered on the server.

Defining environments

WordPress now has a standardized way to define a site’s environment type (staging, production, etc). Retrieve that type with wp_get_environment_type() and execute only the appropriate code.

Dashicons

The Dashicons library has received its final update in 5.5. It adds 39 block editor icons along with 26 others.

Passing data to template files

The template loading functions (get_header()get_template_part(), etc.) have a new $args argument. So now you can pass an entire array’s worth of data to those templates.

More changes for developers

  • The PHPMailer library just got a major update, going from version 5.2.27 to 6.1.6.
  • Now get more fine-grained control of redirect_guess_404_permalink().
  • Sites that use PHP’s OPcache will see more reliable cache invalidation, thanks to the new wp_opcache_invalidate() function during updates (including to plugins and themes).
  • Custom post types associated with the category taxonomy can now opt-in to supporting the default term.
  • Default terms can now be specified for custom taxonomies in register_taxonomy().
  • The REST API now officially supports specifying default metadata values through register_meta().
  • You will find updated versions of these bundled libraries: SimplePie, Twemoji, Masonry, imagesLoaded, getID3, Moment.js, and clipboard.js.

The Squad

Leading this release were Matt MullenwegJake Spurlock, and David Baumwald. Supporting them was this highly enthusiastic release squad:

Joining the squad throughout the release cycle were 805 generous volunteer contributors who collectively worked on over 523 tickets on Trac and over 1660 pull requests on GitHub.

Put on a Billy Eckstine playlist, click that update button (or download it directly), and check the profiles of the fine folks that helped:

A2 Hosting, a4jp . com, a6software, Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, abderrahman, Abha Thakor, Achal Jain, achbed, Achyuth Ajoy, acosmin, acsnaterse, Adam Silverstein, Addie, addyosmani, adnan.limdi, adrian, airamerica, Ajay Ghaghretiya, Ajit Bohra, akbarhusen, akbarhusen429, Akhilesh Sabharwal, Akira Tachibana, Alain Schlesser, Albert Juhé Lluveras, Alex Concha, Alex Kirk, Alex Lende, Alex Shiels, Ali Shan, ali11007, Allen Snook, amaschas, Amit Dudhat, anbumz, andfinally, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Middleton, Andrea Tarantini, Andrei Draganescu, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Nevins, Andrew Ozz, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Andrés Maneiro, Andy Fragen, Andy Meerwaldt, Andy Peatling, Angel Hess, Angela Jin, Angelika Reisiger, Anh Tran, Ankit Gade, Ankit K Gupta, Ankit Panchal, Anne McCarthy, Anthony Burchell, Anthony Hortin, Anton Timmermans, Antonis Lilis, apedog, archon810, argentite, Arpit G Shah, Arslan Ahmed, asalce, ashiagr, ashour, Atharva Dhekne, Aurélien Joahny, aussi, automaton, avixansa, Ayesh Karunaratne, BackuPs, Barry, Barry Ceelen, Bart Czyz, bartekcholewa, bartkalisz, Bastien Ho, Bastien Martinent, bcworkz, bdbch, bdcstr, Ben Dunkle, Bence Szalai, bencroskery, Benjamin Gosset, Benoit Chantre, Bernhard Reiter, BettyJJ, bgermann, bigcloudmedia, bigdawggi, Bill Erickson, Birgir Erlendsson (birgire), Birgit Pauli-Haack, BjornW, bobbingwide, bonger, Boone Gorges, Boris Brdarić, Boy Witthaya, Brandon Kraft, Brandon Payton, Brent Swisher, Brian Hogg, Brian Krogsgard, bruandet, Bunty, Burhan Nasir, caiocrcosta, Cameron Voell, cameronamcintyre, Carike, Carl Wuensche, Carlos Galarza, Carolina Nymark, Caroline Moore, Carrigan, ceyhun, Chad, Chad Butler, Charles Fulton, Chetan Prajapati, Chintan hingrajiya, Chip Snyder, Chloé Bringmann, Chouby, Chris Van Patten, chriscct7, Christian Chung, Christian Jongeneel, Christian Sabo, Christian Wach, Christoph Herr, Christopher Churchill, chunkysteveo, cklee, clayray, Clayton Collie, Clifford Paulick, codeforest, Commeuneimage, Copons, Corey McKrill, cpasqualini, Cristovao Verstraeten, Csaba (LittleBigThings), Curtis Belt, Cyrus Collier, D.PERONNE, d6, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Hüsken, Daniel James, Daniel Llewellyn, Daniel Richards, Daniel Roch, Daniele Scasciafratte, Danny, Darko G., Darren Ethier (nerrad), Dave McHale, Dave Whitley, David A. Kennedy, David Aguilera, David Anderson, David Artiss, David Baumwald, David Brumbaugh, David E. Smith, David Herrera, David Ryan, David Shanske, David Smith, david.binda, davidvee, dchymko, Debabrata Karfa, Deepak Lalwani, dekervit, Delowar Hossain, demetris, Denis Yanchevskiy, derekakelly, Derrick Hammer, Derrick Tennant, Diane Co, Dilip Bheda, Dimitris Mitsis, dingo-d, Dion Hulse, Dixita Dusara, djennez, dmenard, dmethvin, doc987, Dominik Schilling, donmhico, Dono12, Doobeedoo, Dossy Shiobara, dpacks, dratwas, Drew Jaynes, DrLightman, DrProtocols, dsifford, dudo, dushakov, Dustin Bolton, dvershinin, Dylan Kuhn, Earle Davies, ecotechie, Eddie Moya, Eddy, Edi Amin, ehtis, Eileen Violini, Ekaterina, Ella van Durpe, elmastudio, Emanuel Blagonic, Emilie LEBRUN, Emmanuel Hesry, Enej Bajgoric, Enrico Sorcinelli, Enrique Piqueras, Enrique Sánchez, Eric, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Binnion, Erik Betshammar, Erin 'Folletto' Casali, esemlabel, esoj, espiat, Estela Rueda, etoledom, etruel, Ev3rywh3re, Evan Mullins, Fabian Kägy, Fabian Todt, Faisal Ahmed, Felix Arntz, Felix Edelmann, ferdiesletering, finomeno, Florian Brinkmann, Florian TIAR, Florian Truchot, florianatwhodunit, FolioVision, Francesca Marano, Francois Thibaud, Frank Goossens, Frank Klein, Frank.Prendergast, Frankie Jarrett, Franz Armas, fullofcaffeine, Gabriel Koen, Gabriel Maldonado, Gabriel Mays, gadgetroid, Gal Baras, Garavani, garethgillman, Garrett Hyder, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, gchtr, Geert De Deckere, Gemini Labs, Gennady Kovshenin, geriux, Giorgio25b, gisselfeldt, glendaviesnz, goldsounds, Goto Hayato, Govind Kumar, Grégory Viguier, gradina, Greg Ziółkowski, gregmulhauser, grierson, Grzegorz.Janoszka, gsmumbo, Guido Scialfa, guidobras, Gunther Pilz, gwwar, H-var, hakre, Halacious, hankthetank, Hapiuc Robert, Hareesh, haukep, Hauwa, Haz, Hector Farahani, Helen Hou-Sandi, Henry Wright, Herre Groen, hlanggo, hommealone, Hoover, Howdy_McGee, Hronak Nahar, huntlyc, Ian Belanger, Ian Dunn, Ian Stewart, ianjvr, ifrins, infinum, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Isabel Brison, ishitaka, J.D. Grimes, jackfungi, jacklinkers, Jadon N, jadpm, jagirbahesh, Jake Spurlock, Jake Whiteley, James Koster, James Nylen, Jan Koch, Jan Reilink, Jan Thiel, Janvo Aldred, Jarret, Jason Adams, Jason Coleman, Jason Cosper, Jason Crouse, Jason LeMahieu (MadtownLems), Jason Rouet, JasWSInc, Javier Casares, Jayson Basanes, jbinda, jbouganim, Jean-Baptiste Audras, Jean-David Daviet, Jeff Chandler, Jeff Farthing, Jeff Ong, Jeff Paul, Jen, Jenil Kanani, Jeremy Felt, Jeremy Herve, Jeremy Yip, Jeroen Rotty, jeryj, Jesin A, Jignesh Nakrani, Jim_Panse, Jip Moors, jivanpal, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, Joe McGill, Joen Asmussen, Johanna de Vos, John Blackbourn, John Dorner, John James Jacoby, John P. Green, John Richards II, John Watkins, johnnyb, Jon Quach, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Bossenger, Jonathan Champ, Jonathan Christopher, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonathan Stegall, jonkolbert, Jonny Harris, jonnybot, Jono Alderson, Joost de Valk, Jorge Bernal, Jorge Costa, Joseph Dickson, Josepha Haden, Josh Smith, JoshuaWold, Joy, Juanfra Aldasoro, juanlopez4691, Jules Colle, julianm, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Julio Potier, Julka Grodel, Justin Ahinon, Justin de Vesine, Justin Tadlock, justlevine, justnorris, K. Adam White, kaggdesign, Kailey (trepmal), Kaira, Kaitlin Bolling, Kalpesh Akabari, KamataRyo, Kantari Samy, Kaspars, Kavya Gokul, keesiemeijer, Kelly Dwan, kennethroberson5556, Kevin Hagerty, Kharis Sulistiyono, Khokan Sardar, kinjaldalwadi, Kiril Zhelyazkov, Kirsty Burgoine, Kishan Jasani, kitchin, Kite, Kjell Reigstad, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Obenland, Konstantinos Xenos, ksoares, KT Cheung, Kukhyeon Heo, Kyle B. 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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 since the first release. These releases are more successful for their efforts!

Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 5.5. Their efforts bring WordPress fully translated to 46 languages at release time, with more on the way.

If you want to learn more about volunteering with WordPress, check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.

WordPress 5.5 Release Candidate 2

Posted August 4, 2020 by Jake Spurlock. Filed under Development, Releases.

The second release candidate for WordPress 5.5 is here!

WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11, 2020, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.5 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.5 release candidate in two ways:

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.

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.5 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.5. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so those can be figured out before the final release.

For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.5, check out the WordPress 5.5 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.5 Field Guide is also out! It’s your source for details on all 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 5.5 release schedule.

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

The Month in WordPress: July 2020

Posted August 3, 2020 by Hari Shanker R. Filed under Month in WordPress.

July was an action-packed month for the WordPress project. The month saw a lot of updates on one of the most anticipated releases – WordPress 5.5! WordCamp US 2020 was canceled and the WordPress community team started experimenting with different formats for engaging online events, in July. Read on to catch up with all the updates from the WordPress world.


WordPress 5.5 Updates

July was full of WordPress 5.5 updates! The WordPress 5.5 Beta 1 came out on July 7, followed by Beta 2 on July 14, Beta 3 on July 21, and Beta 4 on July 27. Subsequently, the team also published the first release candidate of WordPress 5.5 on July 28. 

WordPress 5.5, which is slated for release on August 11, 2020, is a major update with features like automatic updates for plugins and themes, a block directory, XML sitemaps, block patterns, and lazy-loading images, among others. To learn more about the release, check out its field guide post.

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

Gutenberg 8.5 and 8.6

The core team launched Gutenberg 8.5 and 8.6. Version 8.5 – the last plugin release will be included entirely (without experimental features) in WordPress 5.5, introduced improvements to block drag-and-drop and accessibility, easier updates for external images, and support for the block directory. Version 8.6 comes with features like Cover block video position controls and block pattern updates. For full details on the latest versions on these Gutenberg releases, visit these posts about 8.5 and 8.6.

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 Making WordPress Slack group.

Reimagining Online WordPress Events

The Community team made the difficult decision to suspend in-person WordPress events for the rest of 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team has also started working on reimagining online events. Based on feedback from the community members, the team decided to make changes to the current online WordCamp format. Key changes include wrapping up financial support for A/V vendors, ending event swag support for newer online WordCamps, and suspending the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2020. The team encourages upcoming online WordCamps to experiment with their events to facilitate an effective learning experience for attendees while avoiding online event fatigue. The team is currently working on a proposal to organize community-supported recorded workshops and synchronous discussion groups to help community members learn WordPress.

Want to get involved with the Community team? Follow the Community blog here, or join them in the #community-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack group. To organize a Meetup or WordCamp, visit the handbook page

WordCamp US 2020 is canceled

The organizers of WordCamp US 2020 have canceled the event in light of the continued pandemic and online event fatigue. The flagship event, which was originally scheduled for October 27-29 as an in-person event, had already planned to transition to an online event. Several WCUS Organizers will be working with the WordPress Community team to focus on other formats and ideas for online events, including a 24-hour contributor day, and contributing to the workshops initiative currently being discussed. Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word (which typically accompanies WordCamp US) is likely to take place in a different format later in 2020.

Plugin and theme updates are now available over zip files

After eleven years, WordPress now allows users to update plugins and themes by uploading a ZIP file, in WordPress 5.5.  The feature, which was merged on July 7, has been one of the most requested features in WordPress. Now, when a user tries to upload a plugin or theme zip file from the WordPress dashboard by clicking the “Install Now” button, WordPress will direct users to a new screen that compares the currently-installed extension with the uploaded versions. Users can then choose between continuing with the installation or canceling. WordPress 5.5 will also offer automatic plugin and theme updates


Further Reading:

  • The Block directory is coming to WordPress with the 5.5 release. Plugin authors can now submit their Block plugins to the directory.
  • The Core team has opened up the call for features in the WordPress 5.6 release. You can comment on the post with features that you’d like to be included, current UX pain points, or maintenance tickets that need to be addressed. August 20 is the deadline for feature requests. 
  • Editor features such as the new Navigation block, the navigation screen, and the widget screen that were originally planned to be merged with WordPress 5.5 have been pushed for the next release
  • The Theme team is inviting proposals on whether to allow themes to place an additional top-level menu link in the admin.
  • BuddyPress 6.2 beta is out in the wild, and the team will soon release the stable version. The update includes changes that will make BuddyPress fully compatible with WordPress 5.5.
  • WordCamp EU 2021, which was being planned as an in-person event in Porto, Portugal, is moving online. The team is considering an in-person WordCamp EU in 2022. 
  • The Polyglots team has prepared and finalized a Translation Editor & Locale Manager Vetting Criteria to provide more clarity on how global mentors assign PTE/GTE/Locale Managers and to help locale teams set their own guidelines. The document, which was finalized after a lot of discussion, is now available in the Polyglots handbook.
  • Members of the Community team are discussing whether WordCamp volunteers, WordCamp attendees, or Meetup attendees should be awarded a WordPress.org profile badge. The ongoing discussion will be open for comments until August 13.
  • The WP Notify project, which aims to create a better way to manage and deliver notifications to the relevant audience, is on to its next steps. The team has finalized the initial requirements, and is kicking off the project build.
  • The WordPress documentation team is considering a ban on links to commercial websites in a revision to its external linking policy. The policy change does not remove external links to commercial sites from WordPress.org and only applies to documentation sites. The idea is to protect documentation from being abused, and to prevent the WordPress project from being biased. Discussion on this post is still ongoing, and a decision has not yet been made. Feel free to comment on the discussion posts, if you would like to share your thoughts on the topic.

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

WordPress 5.5 Release Candidate

Posted July 28, 2020 by Jb Audras. Filed under Development, Releases.

The first release candidate for WordPress 5.5 is now available!

This is an important milestone in the community’s progress toward the final release of WordPress 5.5.

“Release Candidate” means that the new version is ready for release, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible something was missed. WordPress 5.5 is slated for release on August 11, 2020, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.5 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.5 release candidate in two ways:

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’s in WordPress 5.5?

WordPress 5.5 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, 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 5.5 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.5. 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 5.5 Field Guide, due very shortly, will give you a more detailed 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 5.5 release schedule.

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

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.

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