rranz said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no official documentation yet, but a the team is working towards creating a bare-bones version first which will be used as the base for the official docs further down the road. The documentation efforts are being led by Automattic-sponsored contributor <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/juanmaguitar/\">JuanMa Garrido</a> and anyone willing to collaborate is invited to <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/discussions/51928\">join the conversation on GitHub</a>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 31 Jul 2023 21:38:47 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"WordPress.org blog: People of WordPress: Ihtisham Zahoor\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15589\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:71:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/people-of-wordpress-ihtisham-zahoor/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:10231:\"<p>From administrator to web developer thanks to the supportive WordPress community. Through learning from other software users in Pakistan, Ihtisham Zahoor knew that his life would change. He moved cities and careers to make his life through open source.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The&nbsp;<em>People of WordPress</em>&nbsp;series shares inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global community of contributors.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/07/ihtisham-2.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\" alt=\"Ihtisham Zahoor in the moutains.\" class=\"wp-image-15478\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Ihtisham, from Haripur, a city in northern Pakistan, said: “The WordPress community made me a firm believer in the power of open source software. This is why I am an enthusiast and one who enjoys contributing back to the community via writing, speaking, and helping organize meetups.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Ihtisham discovered WordPress, his fascination for working with computing grew. He knew he did not want to just work in administration his entire career.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ihitsham describes himself as an ‘introvert’ and therefore the idea of remote work appealed as he could still add value to others through technology. He was intrigued by the thought of the freedom to choose his work hours. However, without access to others who had already transformed their careers and lives through web development, he felt he ‘had no path to follow to turn my dream into a reality.’</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Challenges become opportunities to learn when there is an active community&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"675\" height=\"900\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/07/ihtisham-4.jpg?resize=675%2C900&ssl=1\" alt=\"Ihtisham Zahoor wearing a sweatshirt with the London tube sign \'Mind the Gap\'.\" class=\"wp-image-15480\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Lacking any kind of informed support network to advise or guide him, Ihtisham devoted time to online research to find the next steps he could take. Looking back, he believes that for those who are not in a network with others with similar interests, it can be hard to keep learning and experimenting with new things. Isolation can be a barrier to working in web development.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: “I think it is not easy to stay motivated when there aren’t immediate rewards for the hard work we do. Sometimes, weeks would go by when my only focus would be to stay motivated rather than give up.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After another two years of combining learning and work, Ihtisham took up using WordPress as a full-time career. He moved to the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. It was not easy at first. He recalls: “After many failed attempts at getting hired and desperate moments, I finally received an offer from a digital agency as a web developer focused on the WordPress platform.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added: “Moving to work with a bigger agency was one of the best decisions of my life as it helped me with my professional growth by becoming familiar with the whole WordPress ecosystem in a supportive environment. I was valued for my opinions in the web projects in which I was involved. I was also appreciated and encouraged for the open source work I did for the company.” He summarized his enthusiasm for WordPress like this: “It is really interesting figuring out what is happening in the backends. I like problem-solving and finding solutions which you can do with WordPress.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ihtisham moved to join a start-up based in his hometown which provides web development services to international clients. He works as a developer and has the opportunity to learn more about client communication and project management. “WordPress has opened up so many opportunities for me. It has been an exciting journey for me with lots of learning every day,” he said. In particular, he has discovered an interest in APIs and regularly uses his spare time to follow tickets in the hope of one day contributing even more to topics, such as, third-party app integration through APIs on WordPress sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Give back through WordPress community</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"800\" height=\"599\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/07/ihtisham-1.jpeg?resize=800%2C599&ssl=1\" alt=\"Ihtisham Zahoor speaking at a meetup.\" class=\"wp-image-15477\" />\n\n\n\n<p>It was not just software that made a difference in Ihtisham’s life. Joining a welcoming and sharing community was transforming for him. Recalling those early days of isolation, he values the WordPress community and is wholly committed to the power of open-source software. He now enjoys writing, speaking, and organizing meetups to give back to both to the community. He has written software for the platform and contributes to the Core work, which he describes as a ‘humbling’ experience. He is fond of <a href=\"https://islamabad.wordcamp.org/\">WordCamp Islamabad</a> and in 2023 is on the organizing team to help bring both WordPress and its community to others in Pakistan.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>“My first experience,” he said, “was that everyone was so friendly and open to sharing what they have learned, even though they were all busy working. This really had an impact on me. It really helped me and gave me the confidence that I could work with WordPress…. It was a real step forward for me joining this community.” </p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/07/ihtisham-WC-Karachi.jpg?resize=1024%2C512&ssl=1\" alt=\"Ihtisham visited WordCamp Karachi.\" class=\"wp-image-15482\" />\n\n\n\n<p>A particular meeting in 2018 led to new friendships through the WordPress community. Ihtisham was on a train to Karachi for the first ever Pakistani WordCamp in 2018 and met a group of fellow attendees he now regards as close friends. What impressed him most about the camp was that although he met many people with considerable expertise, they also had a generosity of spirit and humbleness in their willingness to share this knowledge. in sharing it. Now, he and this group of friends make a point to taking trains across the country, which allows him to fulfil another dream of traveling widely. He says these things and other ‘side benefits’ have been made possible by the WordPress community, and for that, he is &#8216;forever grateful&#8217;.<br /><br />Ihtisham particularly wanted to share his story through this People of WordPress article to encourage those starting with little or no support to remain persistent. He knows from experience breaking into the tech world can be hard, especially when you may be switching from doing something else and have no ‘track record’ to offer. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>He feels he is a living example of how perseverance can lead to success. He offers these words to anyone thinking of making a move into development using the WordPress platform: “I attribute my success (financial and mental well-being) to the open-source nature of WordPress and its amazing community. It would not be possible to learn and use the plethora of free tools WordPress provides if it weren’t an open-source platform. It is for that reason I feel obligated to contribute back to this platform to the best of my abilities.” To those who are finding getting going difficult, as he did, he adds: “Get yourself a clear learning path and just dive in doing WordPress, and things will get better for you over time as they were for me, I promise. Good Luck!”</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Share the stories</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community.&nbsp;Meet more WordPressers in the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/category/newsletter/interviews/\">People of WordPress series</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To help you discover more about how to use the WordPress software, there is a free resource from the community, <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/\">Learn.WordPress.org</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contributors</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Ihtisham Zahoor (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shaampk1/\">@shaampk1</a>) for sharing about his adventures in WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you to Abha Thakor (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/\">@webcommsat</a>), Nalini Thakor (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nalininonstopnewsuk/\">@nalininonstopnewsuk</a>), and Meher Bala (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/\">@meher</a>) for interviews, the feature and collaborating on images. To Chloe Bringmann (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/\">@cbringmann</a>), Mark Smallman (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marks99/\">@marks99</a>), and Mary Baum (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marybaum/\">@marybaum</a>) for reviews. Thanks to the late Surendra Thakor (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sthakor/\">@sthakor</a>), Maja Loncar (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/majaloncar/\">@majaloncar</a>), Maedah Bahtool (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maedahbatool/\">@maedahbatool</a>) and other members of the Marketing and Polyglots Team for their contributions.</p>\n\n\n<p>The People of WordPress series thanks Josepha Haden (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/\">@chanthaboune</a>) and Topher DeRosia (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/topher1kenobe/\">@topher1kenobe</a>) for their support.</p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-center\"><img width=\"180\" height=\"135\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2020/03/heropress_logo_180.png?resize=180%2C135&ssl=1\" alt=\"HeroPress logo\" class=\"wp-image-8409 size-full\" /><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on </em><a href=\"https://heropress.com/\"><em>HeroPress.com</em></a><em>, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. </em>#HeroPress </p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n<p></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:22:31 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"Abha Thakor\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"WPTavern: WordPress Performance Analysis Finds Translations May Significantly Slow Down Sites\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147322\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:104:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-performance-analysis-finds-translations-may-significantly-slow-down-sites\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3110:\"<p>After a recent in-depth performance analysis earlier this year showed that translations can have an impact on server response times, WordPress contributors are <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/24/i18n-performance-analysis/\">proposing</a> half a dozen technical solutions for consideration to improve performance for the ~56% of WordPress sites that use translations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Initial benchmarks showed that the median loading time for a localized site can be <strong>up to 50% slower</strong> than for non-localized sites, depending on which themes and plugins are being used,&#8221; Google-sponsored WordPress core committer Pascal Birchler said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/171\">recent discussions</a> on GitHub, the Performance team has whittled it down to an updated list of six possible top contenders for speeding up sites with translations, including the advantages and disadvantages of each:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Solution A: Use different file format</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution B: Native gettext extension</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution C: Cache translations</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution D: Lazily evaluated translation calls</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution E: Optimize/Rewrite existing MO parser</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution F: Splitting up translation files</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Localized WordPress sites currently download <code>.po</code> and <code>.mo</code> files that contain the translations, but the first suggested solution proposes storing translations in <code>.php</code> files and using the <code>.mo</code> file as a fallback, as Birchler proposes that PHP loading and executing another PHP file would be a faster approach. He has a proof of concept on GitHub at at <a href=\"https://github.com/swissspidy/wp-php-translation-files\">swissspidy/wp-php-translation-files</a> and <a href=\"https://github.com/swissspidy/ginger-mo/\">swissspidy/ginger-mo</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When looking at all these factors, it appears that a <strong>revamped translations parser</strong> (<strong>solution E</strong>) could bring the most significant improvements to all localized WordPress sites,&#8221; Birchler said. &#8220;Especially when combined with a <strong>new PHP translation file format </strong>(solution A), which Ginger MO supports, the i18n overhead becomes negligible. Of course the same risks associated with introducing a new format apply.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;On top of that, a revamped i18n library like Ginger MO could also be combined with other solutions such as caching or dynamic MO loading to potentially gain further improvements. However, those routes have yet to be explored.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Performance team plans to test these ideas further on a wider scale through its <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/performance-lab/\">Performance Lab</a> feature project after gathering feedback from the broader community. August 6, 2023, is the deadline for leaving feedback on the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/24/i18n-performance-analysis/\">proposal</a>, which includes benchmarks and more details from the analysis.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 31 Jul 2023 19:29:02 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"BuddyPress: BP Classic 1.0.0\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://buddypress.org/?p=330594\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://buddypress.org/2023/07/bp-classic-1-0-0/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8040:\"<p>Dear end-users, site owners,</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-classic/\">BP Classic BuddyPress Add-on</a> has been built to provide <strong>backwards compatibility</strong> for sites that will not be ready yet for <strong>the important changes we will introduce in BuddyPress&#8217;s next major release, 12.0.0</strong>. As we will soon publish the first pre-release version (beta1) of BuddyPress 12.0.0, we thought it was a good idea to have this compatibility add-on available right away in the WordPress Plugin Directory.</p>\n\n\n\n<span id=\"more-330594\"></span>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https://buddypress.org/2023/01/buddypress-11-0-0-la-scala/\"><img width=\"879\" height=\"747\" src=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/hello-buddypress-12-0.png\" alt=\"11.0.0 Hello Screen\" class=\"wp-image-330595\" /></a></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the <a href=\"https://buddypress.org/2023/01/buddypress-11-0-0-la-scala/\">11.0.0 “hello screen”</a> that is shown when you activate BuddyPress or that you can reach from the “Hello, BuddyPress!” link of the BuddyPress plugin row of your Installed Plugins Administration, we explained our plan for this move, today we’re making the orange highlighted text concrete.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will my site be affected / do I need to install BP Classic <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f631.png\" alt=\"😱\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> ?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There’s no easy answer to these questions: it depends on how you use BuddyPress on your WordPress site. Let’s take some examples.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I use the BP Default theme:</h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/bp-default-moves-to-bp-classic.png\"><img width=\"845\" height=\"531\" src=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/bp-default-moves-to-bp-classic.png\" alt=\"BP Activities in BP Default theme\" class=\"wp-image-330596\" /></a></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;You absolutely need BP Classic &nbsp;</strong> because we <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/13490\" target=\"_blank\">removed this theme from the BuddyPress plugin</a> as we deprecated it almost 10 years ago.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>PS</strong>: If you’d copy the <code>bp-default</code> directory inside your <code>/wp-content/themes</code> directory, you’d still need BP Classic as BP Default uses functions we will deprecate in BuddyPress 12.0.0.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I want to keep using BP Legacy Widgets:</h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/legacy-widgets-bp-classic.png\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"474\" src=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/legacy-widgets-bp-classic-1024x474.png\" alt=\"The Widgets WP Admin screen\" class=\"wp-image-330597\" /></a></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong>You absolutely need BP Classic</strong>  because after having migrated these to Block Widgets in 9.0.0, we decided to <a href=\"https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8869\">move them into the BP Classic Add-on</a>. 3 major versions later, we believe we&#8217;ve offered enough time to migrate your Legacy Widgets to the new Block versions.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I’m using a 3rd party BuddyPress theme and/or 3rd party BuddyPress plugins:</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It’s too early to say/predict <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f52e.png\" alt=\"🔮\" class=\"wp-smiley\" />.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We really hope that authors will update their code during the BuddyPress 12.0.0 beta period. We decided to make it last a least 3 months and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://github.com/buddypress/buddypress/tree/master/docs/developer#buddypress-add-ons-handbook\" target=\"_blank\">started to document the changes</a> for our 2 most used APIs. You can help us by contacting their support team to draw their attention on the importance of beta testing BuddyPress 12.0.0 with their plugins/themes to check their compatibility and eventually adapt their code.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>NB</strong>: in BP Classic &amp; BuddyPress 12.0.0 we’ve tried to consider all scenarios, including the possibility that no plugin/theme authors would update their code. If you don’t want to take any risk, you can already activate BP&nbsp;Classic in anticipation of <strong>the 12.0.0 upgrade which should happen on October 30</strong>.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is BP Classic doing, exactly?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from becoming the new home for the BP Default theme and the BP Legacy widgets, BP Classic mainly neutralizes the important change we are introducing in version 12.0.0 about the way BuddyPress will build, parse &amp; analyze URLs from now on. In other words, it preserves the BP Legacy URL parser and disables the new BP&nbsp;Rewrites&nbsp;API.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/bp-classic-friendly-reminder.png\"><img width=\"879\" height=\"607\" src=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/bp-classic-friendly-reminder.png\" alt=\"BP Classic warning message\" class=\"wp-image-330598\" /></a></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p>Above is a screenshot of what happens if you activate BP Classic in concert with a BuddyPress version <strong>&lt;</strong> 12.0.0, for example the current stable version 11.2.0. A warning notice is displayed every week to remind you this activated plugin is in <strong>sleep mode</strong> and will wake up once BuddyPress will be upgraded to 12.0.0. You can decide to deactivate it and reactivate a bit before October 30, or leave it active in anticipation of this date.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/screenshot-1.png\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"706\" src=\"https://buddypress.org/wp-content/uploads/1/2023/07/screenshot-1-1024x706.png\" alt=\"BP Classic setting tab\" class=\"wp-image-330599\" /></a></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p>Once BuddyPress has been upgraded to 12.0.0, the most visible part of it in your WordPress Administration will be the BuddyPress settings pane. 12.0.0 will replace the “Pages” tab with a new “URLs” tab to allow full customization of every possible BuddyPress URL, BP Classic will carry on using WordPress pages for component directories and will keep this “Pages” tab in place.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-classic/\">BP Classic</a></blockquote>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>We’re aware such a big change may worry you, we have until October 30 to prepare it, let’s all work together to make it a successful first step of the <a href=\"https://buddypress.org/tag/feedback/\">BuddyPress reboot</a> we told you about in reply to your feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have questions about this change, we invite you to share them with us as replies to <a href=\"https://buddypress.org/support/topic/lets-prepare-the-buddypress-12-0-0-next-major-release/\">this forum topic</a>. We’ll take the time to give you answers.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p>Many thanks to <a href=\"https://buddypress.org/members/dcavins/\">@dcavins</a> for his review <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f60d.png\" alt=\"😍\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:08:50 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:12:\"Mathieu Viet\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:88:\"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #87 – Patterns, Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=25089\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:58:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:57711:\"<p>Anne McCarthy and Birgit Pauli-Haack chat about patterns, Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87shownotes\">Show Notes</a> / <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87/#transcript\">Transcript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Music:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox\">Homer Gaines</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/\">Sandy Reed</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://markuraine.com/\">Mark Uraine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://icodeforapurpose.com\">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-larger-font-size\" id=\"shownotes\"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/\">WordPress profile</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneguionmccarthy/\">LInkedIn</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>WPSlack channel <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C015GUFFC00\">#FSE-outreach-experiments</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WordPress 6.3</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/registering-scripts-with-async-and-defer-attributes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/04/25/the-benefits-of-prioritizing-and-measuring-performance-in-wordpress-6-2/\">The benefits of prioritizing and measuring performance in WordPress 6.2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/\">Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks</a>. </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gutenberg 16.3 </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 16.3? (26 July)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-16-3-adds-new-tools-for-patterns\">Gutenberg 16.3 Adds New Tools for Patterns</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Stay in Touch</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<ul>\n<li>Did you like this episode? <a href=\"https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog\"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ping us on Twitter or send DMs with questions. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes\">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bph\">@bph</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/\">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\" id=\"transcript\"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, hello and welcome to our 87th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3. I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project. And today, I have the special pleasure of welcoming Anne McCarthy on the podcast with me. Anne is a product manager in Automattic and also a sponsored contributor on the Automattic&#8217;s Five for the Future program. I&#8217;m thrilled to have you on, Anne, how are you today?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;m thrilled to be here, so thank you for having me. I&#8217;m doing pretty well, I&#8217;m talking all about WordPress all day, which is a wonderful day in my book, so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: In mine too. Yeah, so that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re good on this podcast together. So, you are just coming from the latest Hallway Hangout with the performance team. I know it&#8217;s only a half an hour ago or so, is there anything on the takeaways that you want to share right here with the listeners?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, so one of the things that stood out to me on the call, and beyond just the performance improvements that will be out of the box when you&#8217;re using WordPress, is a resolution to a 14-year-old track ticket, which blew my mind, where WordPress 6.3 will actually introduce support for registering scripts with async and defer attributes. And the reason I bring this up, it&#8217;s all part of the script API, is that people have to adopt it to see the impact. So, this is something that&#8217;s bundled under performance improvements and something that actually wasn&#8217;t on my radar in the same way, but I wanted to call it out for plugin authors because it&#8217;s one of those things that we need people to adopt in order to see the benefits.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there&#8217;s also great backwards compatibility. One of the things Felix called out was, let&#8217;s say you have a really large plugin and you have your own extensions within that plugin sphere, if those extensions haven&#8217;t adopted these changes, it will default to a more conservative approach. Meaning, there&#8217;s backwards compatibility, and if they&#8217;re&#8230; All of your extensions have it, your major plugin has it, and anything dependent on that major plugin that has that script in place and has the defer async attributes in place, will then upgrade automatically to use the new and improved stuff. So, I just wanted to call that out, I think it&#8217;s a great thing to have in place and we just need folks to adopt it. So, that was a big takeaway for me, beyond just the many improvements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the last thing I&#8217;ll say is we did a data deep dive live on the call, looking at graphs and all this nerdy stuff, which was awesome, showing that basically after releases came out, seeing improvements in things like Core Web Vitals and actually in the data, which proves things from the lab. They talk about, &#8220;The lab shows this,&#8221; so meaning the confined environment versus in the field, so what you actually see in the real world, and what&#8217;s being shown in the lab ahead of WordPress releases is being proven in the field on live sites that are being indexed. So, that was really exciting to see. I don&#8217;t fully understand every aspect of the data but it was cool to go through with people who do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, thank you so much for this just-in-time note about the Hallway Hangout. I know your process is that the Hangouts were recorded and you will make a post on the Make Blog in the next few days, where you summarize it and then have all the resources linked up on the post. I also will dig into a little earlier this year, I don&#8217;t know if it was April or May, Felix Arntz, from the performance team, also posted a blog post about the changes and how the improvements were with block themes and these kinds of things. But I think there was one on the Make Blog but they were also on his personal blog.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I&#8217;m going to link that up just to recall that, it was also in the weekend edition but not everybody reads that, or remembers that. I don&#8217;t always remember things, but I know it was in there. Yeah, so performance has been a big, big improvement on WordPress, I saw something like 17% with classic themes and about 20% with block themes, right out of the box, if you don&#8217;t slow your site down with very old plugins, of course. But that&#8217;s another story and outside the scope of this Changelog podcast episode. So, thank you so much. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, thanks for giving us space to talk about that, it&#8217;s exciting.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Listener Questions</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So, I got an email from a listener, thank you so much, an accessibility advocate, and she wanted to know about the best practices to build sites with sidebars on the block themes, and those are read through assistive technology. So, screen readers, when they come to a website, they use the script to content link that comes out automatically with WordPress, but that skip the content also needs a target where to stop.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, content needs to be tagged with main to actually have that work. If people are creating sites or layouts with column blocks and each column doesn&#8217;t have any tag, but one is a sidebar that&#8217;s a reusable block, or it&#8217;s a template part, it will read through that every single time on every page, if it&#8217;s not tagged non-content, or a sidebar, or side, or something like that, or the main content is not tagged. Now, you couldn&#8217;t do that with a classic theme from a user interface, but you can do it actually with a group block that has these HTML elements that you can designate your content being either a main or a side. But the most important part is that you wrap whatever sidebar you have into a group block and then select those HTML elements. They&#8217;re also not very prominent, they&#8217;re in the advanced section.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I just wanted to, those who are creating themes through the site editor or helping others to create templates, to be aware of these accessibility ramifications, or to make it known what people who are not visually impaired can see, that that&#8217;s repeated content, but the screen readers that help those that are impaired to go through the internet websites need a little help from the content creators or from the template creators. So, I&#8217;m sure there will be some more information about that, I just wanted you to be aware, and thank you for the listener to pick up on that and point that out. Accessibility is such an important part of web design and web building, that we need to make sure that if we use just the interfaces that we have those tools in place.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I couldn&#8217;t agree more. Thanks for going through that too, it&#8217;s always good to learn about this stuff and to make sure that the default implementation ideally, can be done well. And this is where folks can create patterns into the parts to have this set up automatically in their themes with the right stuff in place. So I also encourage blocking authors to think about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I think it&#8217;s sometimes really hard on the user documentation to point out the higher ramification. If you just point out this little piece on the sidebar that is a new interface, what is the bigger objective for that?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Announcements</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I&#8217;m really glad that the listener sent me that email and let me know about that, that&#8217;s a good question. So, Anne, you just published a post on the news site, speaking of changes for wordpress.org and it&#8217;s titled, Synced Patterns: the Evolution of Reusable Blocks. On the Podcast, we talked a little bit about the upcoming changes, so what is this post all about?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, so this builds on work that&#8217;s done in 6.3, to bring the creation of patterns to the experience, and that&#8217;s part of that you can sync or unsync patterns, which basically consolidates the concept of reusable block into the new concept of synced patterns. So this post is just trying to flag the change for people because reusable blocks is a known concept in the WordPress community, and retiring such a known concept deserves a lot of attention. And as part of this, there will be documentation updated, I am keeping an eye on that there, but this is just one of many efforts, including nudges in the interface to help communicate this change to folks. So, just see this as part of a larger effort to make sure that we&#8217;re bringing folks along as things evolve. I&#8217;m personally really excited because I think compared to the concept of reusable blocks, which sounds almost more technical than it should be, I think patterns is a much more approachable concept for folks to get behind and to use.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I&#8217;m really excited and I hope it helps surface this more for folks, whenever they&#8217;re working with WordPress. But yeah, it&#8217;s pretty exciting. So, unseen patterns are essentially what you know and love as patterns today, you can put them in your post or page or template and customize it as you&#8217;d like, it&#8217;s not synced across the entire system. Sync patterns are just exactly how our usable blocks worked. They&#8217;re synced across things, you can have a way to convert to blocks if you want to edit it individually and turn it into an unsynced pattern. But yeah, there&#8217;ll be a whole interface to manage all your patterns, if you&#8217;re using a block theme, if you&#8217;re using a classic theme, we basically just reuse what&#8217;s in place for the reusable block screen. So, honestly, it&#8217;s a lot of just interface changes for, if you&#8217;re using a classic theme and for a block theme it unlocks a lot of functionality in terms of being able to manage all your patterns across themes and plugins and all sorts of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, yeah, it&#8217;s a huge, huge step forward and a big change, so hopefully this helps get you prepared, and if you have questions or things that you want answered, yeah, I&#8217;m @annezazu, Let me know what we&#8217;re not thinking about because I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s a lot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and I had some conversations before in the last two months, once I saw that this change is going to come, and I was really excited that finally we have the feature to grade your own patterns in your own site. I think there were quite a few plugins out there that had very high installs and it&#8217;s now coming to core. I think the design team and the developers did a great job in just changing the name but leave everything else in place, for those who use reusable block or created reusable block, everything will be familiar, just the names are going to change. The concept itself is not necessarily retired, it&#8217;s just going to build into the pattern metaphor more. Because really, the only difference between a pattern and a reusable block was the synchronization over the instances. Yeah, definitely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, so we talked about it here at the podcast before and it brings us a leap forward, it also opens up the doors to additional changes. Because what I hear also, and you probably hear it even more, is what&#8217;s missing is that if you have a pattern and that&#8217;s used around the website, but all of a sudden you want to change styles, you&#8217;re not catching every pattern because you need to open up that, switch it out, you have to work around that. And so, partial synced patterns are now possible because we have an interface now, and it&#8217;s certainly further down the roadmap to find a way for the canvas to remember this was an unsynced pattern, but it can be partially synced. Because that is certainly missing in between where you don&#8217;t want to update content but you want to update the styling here, and the content stays the same that it was there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it&#8217;s all a little bit&#8230; But bringing it all together is reducing the cognitive load on things and have it all in one metaphor rather than have different ways on doing things. And you&#8217;ll find it just the same way you found it before. The icons are the same and the color is the same and the list views&#8230; I think you&#8217;ll find that the switch over to the new thing from reusable block to sync pattern is relatively&#8230; I wanted to say harmless, but smooth. Painless is, I think, the one that I was looking for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What’s Released &#8211; WordPress 6.3</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So, that brings us to our section on what&#8217;s released. WordPress 6.3 is coming fast, Release Candidate 2 is out, has been out since the beginning of the week, and is ready for testing. The final release is scheduled for August 8th, and that&#8217;s less than two weeks to go. So, what&#8217;s the latest information about 6.3? Is everything on track? The dev notes have been out, your post is out about the sync patterns, you also published a post about the accessibility improvements and there have been a ton of dev notes also for the performance improvements. Is there anything else that has been new or what are the features that you are most excited about?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh man, that&#8217;s a great question.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Can you pick?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, can I pick? I will say, actually, I&#8217;m very excited&#8230; I did a YouTube video on this. There&#8217;s some hidden features and one of them, that&#8217;s not really hidden, but I think it can be taken for granted, it&#8217;s really the block theme previews. That has been something, that people have been unable to preview a block theme. So to even try to explore a required setting up a test site required, or just fully activating it without knowing how it might impact your site, and the ability to preview&#8230; And the preview uses the site editor, so you&#8217;re both getting a sense of what the theme will do, how it might impact your site, what bells and whistles it has, and it allows you to actually dive into the site editor itself and get a feel for it. And I&#8217;m just completely excited about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think that will be a huge thing with adoption that will be the unsung hero of this release in my mind. It&#8217;s been something that&#8217;s been a pain point for a long time and a lot of work went in to make it smooth, and yeah, it&#8217;s something I&#8217;m very excited to play around with and to see how it impacts things and helps folks step into that world. The only other thing&#8230; Thank you for calling out the accessibility improvements as well, so much work has gone into that with a lot of these features and more work remains to be done. But I&#8217;m in particular excited about some of the improvements to List View, which I know Alex Stein spent a lot of time doing, and so I want to call that out in particular as something that I&#8217;m quite excited about. I think the only other thing on my mind relates to, right now, there is some conversation around footnotes and how footnotes are being stored, and there&#8217;s some interesting dialogue there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think we&#8217;ll end up seeing fixes get in place for it, but it&#8217;s just neat how these tiny blocks that are packed full of power are continuing to be iterated on at this point and getting bug fixes. So thank you to everyone who&#8217;s testing, because a lot of that has come from testing and feedback. And I know it might seem like, oh, we&#8217;re in the RC, things are smooth sailing, but you never know. We&#8217;ve had to remove stuff, we had to remove something in 6.2, so we still have time for the final release and we want it to be as polished and bug-free as possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s a very high impact time to be testing WordPress 6.3. This is actually my favorite time, because if you find something now, it&#8217;s also not great, but if you find something now, you prevent it for millions of people, so I think it&#8217;s a really exciting and important time. But there&#8217;s nothing, I&#8217;m trying to think of anything else in my mind that&#8217;s super&#8230; Beyond all this pattern stuff and all the other stuff that we&#8217;ve been talking about, but the blocking previews really does stand out to me personally, as something as I&#8217;m particularly excited about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I really like how the style book is happening around the site editor, that you can really see all the&#8230; Even if you change something on the style variation and then propagate it, you see how it changes all the blocks, or if it doesn&#8217;t change the blocks. So, is the theme preview actually also using the style book? If you go into a preview and then you see the site editor, can you access the style book to see how the…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes. Yeah, that&#8217;s what I thought.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yes, you can. Yeah, the entire site editor is using the preview, it&#8217;s amazing. The main thing that&#8217;s missing right now that some folks have brought up is the ability to schedule and save this draft, those different things. So that is work that needs to be done, that got brought up in the product demo, that needs to be done still, but we&#8217;ll get there. I think that&#8217;s part of the fun about iterating on this stuff, is like, yeah, yeah, totally, that is part of the roadmap, that&#8217;s something we&#8217;ll get to.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I still remember the excitement, when the customers got that feature to schedule updates.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Really?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, where people got ready for Christmas changes or for special sales on their website and then they could put it in the customizer and schedule it and then go on vacation or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Which is very cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, which is really cool. And it wasn&#8217;t so long ago, so that&#8217;s why people are still, come from that excitement and find it missing. But yeah, getting the previous in is really big. Yeah, absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Now, also…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm, go ahead.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Revisions is the only other one that just came to mind, as we&#8217;re talking about revisions and saving and all that sort of stuff. The visual nature of the star revisions is so cool. Template and template part revisions didn&#8217;t make it for 6.3, but I&#8217;m hoping to see that in 6.4, and I think when that completion happens, I&#8217;m curious to see what kind of confusion might come up around if you have multiple different&#8230; I&#8217;ve already noticed that, some calls for testing, where people are like, oh, I made a change to the title of this, whatever, and then try to roll back with star revisions, and it&#8217;s like, oh no, you actually need do that with template revisions. So, having an intelligent system that works and makes sense, you know where to roll back, but there&#8217;s been so much good feedback about how visual and easy and beautiful the star revisions are. So, that&#8217;s another hidden feature that I like to talk about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s great. The hidden features of 6.3, with Anne McCarthy. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Could be here for two hours if I do that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, we have an open-ended thing here. Sooner or later I need to go to bed though. So, Anne and I, we are nine hours apart. So, Anne just got up and I&#8217;m at the end of the day, so.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Gutenberg 16.3</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, Gutenberg 16.3, last time I looked it was about 180 PRs…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Ooh.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230;it&#8217;s one of the larger Gutenberg releases from 54 contributors. Two of them were first timers, and I think it was a lot of polishing and bug fixes, but there were also a few enhancements that made it into 6.3, and some of them don&#8217;t, probably, but let&#8217;s talk about them. So, the first one that I see was that you can have more intuitive archive titles for your query title block, there&#8217;s quite a few changes around that. Those don&#8217;t make it into 6.3 though, but it&#8217;s because it&#8217;s the first time it&#8217;s in there I think. So you can change the titles of your archive pages, remove the archive type, and what else is in there?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I think this is hugely helpful because this is definitely something where we&#8217;ve gotten feedback from folks, where it was too generic before, it just showed archive title or whatever. It would not say specifically what you&#8217;re looking at, and when you&#8217;re creating a new template and you&#8217;re a first time user you might delete it, because you don&#8217;t know what it is. So knowing what it powers, knowing what it does, it&#8217;s a huge step up and I&#8217;m quite excited about this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah. And then the whole change the title of your archive pages is such an improvement towards the classic experience, because you always needed a developer to remove something or to change the title and now you can do it by yourself and you can create any kind of different templates with a query block, or the post template block. Yeah. So, yeah, next up is the add, renaming, duplication, and deletion option to patterns. That&#8217;s certainly coming into 6.3, patterns now have a dropdown menu, you can assess the three dots and then allow you to rename, duplicate and delete patterns easily. It wasn&#8217;t easy to do that before, especially the removal of patterns from your my patterns kind of thing. Yeah, it was a little bit convoluted because it wasn&#8217;t through the editor, now you can do it all through the editor. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;ll also note, one of the reasons why this is also so important to get in and why it was backported in my opinion, is that when you are setting&#8230; You create a pattern and you set the sync status, so synced or unsynced, you cannot change that status after the fact. So, let&#8217;s say you make a mistake, you create an unsync and you&#8217;re like, wait, actually, I want this to be synced. Before you&#8217;d have to go in and copy/paste, this whole convoluted process, now, with the duplication you can duplicate, and when you duplicate you can basically decide the sync status. So that&#8217;s one of the things that came up, was we wanted a way to make it easy to give people control without having the option to change the sync status back and forth because that will create some muddiness.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s say you synced a pattern and then you randomly unsynced it two months later, imagine how that might create some chaos across your site. So, to limit that, we just basically said you cannot change the sync status after it&#8217;s created, but we&#8217;ll add in options to make it easy to manage those things. And things like, renaming and deleting are also just important basics to have, so yeah, I&#8217;m glad to see this in, and I think not being able to set the sync status might cause some confusion, so I&#8217;m curious how that lands with 6.3 and how we can integrate it for 6.4.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, I had some questions that were around that before, but the duplication feature, yeah, one click duplication, it&#8217;s pretty much, your work is not wasted, you just can replicate it and move forward with that. Yeah. The next piece is enable focus mode editing patterns. It was available for template parts before the focus modals, but now it&#8217;s also available for patterns, and it is then also backport it to 6.3&#8230; I&#8217;m just going to double check.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: I&#8217;m nearly positive, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, me too, but…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Potentially not. Let&#8217;s see if it works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Potentially not, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Maybe we should consider it. It might be because a new feature, but I&#8217;m like&#8230; We&#8217;re both on the corridor triage team here, it&#8217;s like, thoughts on backporting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Maybe we should put it on the 6.3 editor task.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah. Yeah, let&#8217;s drop it into the triage session we&#8217;re doing today. Nice, I love it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, and the next part is that&#8230; Well, it&#8217;s the copy, to make sure that reusable is removed from menus and all that, for the reusable block. The next part is the sticky header and pagination for pattern page. That is really cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah. I love seeing that. And that basically takes the patterns section of the block editor and ensures that when you&#8217;re scrolling down, unless you have a ton of patterns, that top heading that you can filter with will still appear, and it&#8217;s a quality of life improvement and definitely something that, if you have lots of patterns, which a lot of sites do with block themes, it&#8217;s pretty critical to be able to switch between and see what you&#8217;re actually seeing. So, I was pretty excited to see that in there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I like the filter part, that you can just show me the synced patterns, just show me the unsynced patterns, so that&#8217;s really cool. The next one is, I wanted to mention it because that&#8217;s one of the changes, so the links that go to manage reusable blocks and manage patterns go to different places now. So, they go now to this site editor, where all the other interfaces are, to interact with patterns synced and unsynced patterns. There is that place, the WP admin looking place, still there, but now you can use all the site editor for the editing part. So, I think we will have that quite a bit in the next few releases, that we have a new managed thing, and then we can go back to the old thing, just because it might not be feature parity or so. I think that&#8217;s the first place where we can train ourselves with that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I like the site editor very much, but I&#8217;m still often going back to the WP admin and see a few things there. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about the sync status separation on the filter control already, but that&#8217;s coming also to 6.3, and it was backported to Beta 4. The components have been updated to support defined IDs for the text control component, that means that you can target them with CSS and also with JavaScript, and directly with the IDs, and identify…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Very cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230;particular instances of the text control component, which is really important for a lot of extensibility usage there. There were some changes for the Interactivity API, and that&#8217;s only on the Gutenberg plugin. That, of course, every time we have a new thing in WordPress, we need to think about turning it off. What is necessary to turn things off? And so, the same with Interactivity API, it has been merged into 16.2, but not for 6.3, not for the WordPress, it&#8217;s coming in 6.4. But even with the Gutenberg plugin enabled, some people still want to turn off the Interactivity API because it interferes with their extensions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, there&#8217;s now a filter to do this, and there&#8217;s also a runtime support to the WP style directive, so you can, on the fly, change the style for some of the Interactivity API entities. So, that&#8217;s these two things of Interactivity API. I&#8217;m sure there will be, very soon, a little bit more, a higher level, but also a more strategic announcement or strategic documentation about the Interactivity API. I know a few of our coworkers are working on that, to get this out, but with all the documentation it&#8217;s always a little bit behind the features there. So, go into the PRs to learn more about it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;ll note too on that front. I got some really good feedback from someone saying, &#8220;Hey, this project&#8217;s been hard to keep on top of.&#8221; And so that was feedback that&#8217;s been brought back to the folks working on that. So, I think, last I can remember, from a conversation, my brain&#8217;s a bit mushy in the last couple of weeks, but I think they&#8217;re going to try and experiment with using discussion issues as a way to keep track of things, which is a bit of a departure from using overview or tracking issue labels in GitHub, but I think it&#8217;s going to be interesting and we can learn from that. But it is, as you said, anytime you add something, we need to think about removing it, and I know the Interactivity API is likely slated for 6.4, so it&#8217;s definitely something you can keep on top of and this was a great thing to call out. I could see folks skimming over this and not realizing how important it is. So, it&#8217;s a good one to keep in mind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. In WordCamp Europe, I talked with quite a few people&#8230; Well, there were 2000 people there and I probably talked to 200 or so. So, I couldn&#8217;t talk to everybody. But there were quite a few people who were a little bit hesitant with a block editor because they&#8217;re PHP developers, and JavaScript is not really their thing, and they were really excited about the Interactivity API and the bigger emphasis on the dynamic blocks rather than the static JavaScript block. Because they can use the render that they did in shortcuts and then in widgets or something like that, all the render code, they can now use for blocks and then put the Interactivity API just in the directives in there to, to make it replicate some of the features that they had before. Which seems to be easier than the JavaScript, jumping all in on the JavaScript side. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, well, from the block library section, there&#8217;s one component, the range control, that now has an additional attribute for the default size of 40 pixels. I think it does a few other sizes, but you can now use it if you use it in your own plugin settings pages or your own sidebar items, you can have a different size as a default size managed there. So that&#8217;s pretty cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: My understanding of that one was that it was updating the component to use the 40 pixel size and the design, but I could be wrong about that. I know Rich was working on that. So, I think it&#8217;s less having a default set and more having consistency across the settings. It&#8217;s a design quality of life. Because right now I think that settings page has been shifted around, but yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s what I get from the PR too, but it&#8217;s an additional attribute or a different component for the range control, because they need to keep it backwards compatible. So, what goes for the core range controls, the previous attributes and range control sizes are still in there, so it&#8217;s practically an enhancement there. But the core view is the new default, 40 pixel thing there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That&#8217;s what I understood. But I might be wrong, I&#8217;ve been wrong before, so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Same. Same. Been looking at too much stuff anyway.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>New API</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, sometimes you make it up as you go along, right? So, the next item is about the nested inner blocks. There&#8217;s a new API, or at least stabilizing existing API for default block, direct insert, and get direct insert block selectors, that were previously experimental, and it was hard to build on top of them. And one of the panelists that were on our past live Q&amp;A, Seth Rubenstein, stabilized those, as a first time contributor, stabilize those APIs. So he can also work on a separate PR, that he shared some code from their Pew Research work on quizzes with the core developers, with core. So, that&#8217;s really good that community developers also stabilize some of the APIs so they can continue on their quest of making the plug editor more versatile.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, I love seeing this, and Seth has been awesome to be driving stuff forward, with really practical use cases, and I think it&#8217;s a great example of using and extending Gutenberg and the core editor, and then also contributing back in a way that furthers it and is in line with the goals of this project. So, I think it&#8217;s really exciting and cool to see this moving along.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And they want to make some of the quiz code available as plugins, but you&#8217;re not supposed to put in plugins in the repo when you have experimental APIs in there. So yeah, that&#8217;s where this work also comes in, so it&#8217;s really important to make this all work in stable conditions.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Bug Fixes</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The next part is for patterns and alternative grid layout to improve keyboard accessibility. That&#8217;s one of the accessibility improvements that you were talking about before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, as we&#8217;ve talked about just generally adding new features, accessibility does need to keep up and we need to have it accessible for all folks. And so, this just makes a change to using a standard UL, with keyboard tab indexes, to try and improve keyboard accessibility in particular. And I&#8217;m nearly positive&#8230; Scroll down. Yeah, I was going to say, AFercia who is, that&#8217;s the GitHub username, he is sponsored by Yoast, did a great job reviewing this, and to the point that Alex Stein was like, &#8220;This looks good to me.&#8221; And so, it&#8217;s another great example of showing the back and forth between the teams, but I also would love to get to the point where this is done by default and not caught later. So, it&#8217;s great to see the collaboration and to see this being done. And I know the accessibility team is always looking for more help, so it&#8217;s just great to see the back and forth and it is back forwarded to the release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: To 6.3, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I&#8217;m really glad to see Andrea coming back to the accessibility team. He did take a break from working on the accessibility team, but I think he found quite a few contributors now really digging into Gutenberg. So he felt a little lonely about three or four years ago, before the pandemic definitely, and so I&#8217;m glad he&#8217;s contributing back again on the team. And sponsored by Yoast, just to mention that once in a while. Great. The next part, yeah, so there is a fix to apply text color selection to link color if link color isn&#8217;t active. That has been a long-standing issue with the block editor, that people who changed the text color on the paragraph didn&#8217;t get the same color also for the link color and needed to change that separately.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And some people, because it&#8217;s not a default control on the paragraph, just didn&#8217;t know about the link color and how to change it, and it really wanted to not make the changes and couldn&#8217;t dream up the new design. So, I&#8217;m really glad that that is now by default. Well, of course if you want to change the link color you can, but if you just change the text color in a paragraph, it automatically also changes the link color.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: And I want to call out, that that was part of an effort on a project board, which is a bit in the weeds, but the UX and Polish project board is a board within the Gutenberg project that is specifically for just super actionable issues, that are typically, quality of life, as the name suggest with Polish. And then user experience, so how can we make it just super intuitive? So, I just want to point that out, is the more you can write really targeted contained requests that are like, this is just a pain in the butt, I run through this a couple of times a week or something like that, it&#8217;s a great consideration for the UX and Polish board.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think there&#8217;s been maybe 80 items completed as a part of the UX and Polish board, which is kind of wild. And it&#8217;s something that I know a lot of folks keep an eye on, and it&#8217;s a great, if you&#8217;re a new developer and you want to get started, it&#8217;s also a great place to go and look at ways you can improve the project. So, I was excited to see that done as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Does it make sense to share the link to the project board in our show notes?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, let&#8217;s do it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; so all the developers can grab things on what they&#8217;re interested in, and see the progress on it? Or even just test some of the PRs that are available and see if they are doing what they&#8217;re supposed to do.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Performance</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. So, the next thing is add client-side pagination to the panel list, client-side means in your browser, so you don&#8217;t go back to the server to get the next pages of patterns. I think that&#8217;s definitely a quality of life improvement. And this also has been ported back.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: This is the fun time with Gutenberg releases, where it&#8217;s like, what&#8217;s backported?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: What&#8217;s not? It was cherry-picked for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s synced with the core WordPress. Yeah, it doesn&#8217;t work. What&#8217;s backported? Yeah. What else? Do you want to talk about the work that&#8217;s done with the TinyMCE compatibility and the classic editor? Or the classic block in bigger projects?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah. So, one of the things that&#8217;s fun about Gutenberg is there&#8217;s actually experiments you can turn on and off. And so right now, from what I&#8217;m seeing, is there&#8217;s an experiment for TinyMCE removal, basically to help with compatibility with the classic editor plugin, and other plugins that disable the block editor. So, previously an experiment was introduced to help with TinyMCE removal, and so they&#8217;re just trying to polish this to make sure that there aren&#8217;t any regressions or just weird edge cases, and make sure that it&#8217;s using the same filter for classic editor plugin is using.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it&#8217;s not for a lot of folks who are, Gutenberg change log, who are Gutenberg forward, but I think it is important to consider when we think about broader adoption and folks still using the classic editor, work and thought is still put in there. I know sometimes that feedback bubbles up, but there are efforts underway to ensure that people who do want to disable it, it still works. But yeah, I would encourage folks to also just use blocks. But yeah, I would call this a maintenance task, something that is really to just plug in interoperability and make sure things still work as expected. And so, it&#8217;s something that might be not as glamorous and shiny, but it&#8217;s still important work to do as part of the wider WordPress ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And definitely, because there is this backwards compatibility promise for WordPress, and not only for the classic editor, but also for the classic theme. So, keeping that in mind, when you move forward in a different direction that people are still using the current stuff quite extensively and successfully, so they&#8217;re not impaired by any changes that are done. But sometimes these things are strategic and need to have a broader attention span on it and just not that one single feature. Excellent. So, I&#8217;m really glad that there is somebody on it. Yeah.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Documentation</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The next thing is mostly just to say that the documentation has been updated for the layout architecture after some of the APIs were stabilized. So, they are now showing up in the documentation and they&#8217;re not labeled as private or as experimental. So, that is definitely also a good thing, because a lot of people are a little bit hesitant to use experimental APIs or features.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, every time you can stabilize them and update the documentation so people know about it, is a good thing, it&#8217;s a good day. What else do we find? Oh yeah, there is an interactive template for talking about the Interactivity API.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Tools</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we have this scaffolding tool called Create Block, which speeds up your block development quite a bit when you start out with a new one or with putting additional blocks into a plugin. And now, there is also a template to use the Interactivity API on the next block that you are trying to build, that you&#8217;re working on, so you don&#8217;t have to include all the Interactivity stuff, for lack of a better technical term. And hook it up to all your other files, so there&#8217;s a template there. And it&#8217;s available now with a command line command, so that is certainly something for those people that want to dive into the Interactivity API.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: And when we make stuff like that easier, it&#8217;s so exciting, so great to call out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, I think the great block scaffolding tool actually has not gotten enough exposure into the developers, because it was so late when it came out, people tried to build blocks and then gave up quite a bit. But now, every course, every tutorial that comes out of WordPress education or for the developer block uses a great block scaffolding. We hope to get more people building blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So, I think we are through with the change log, that&#8217;s what we wanted to point out for 16.3.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What’s in Active Development or Discussed</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, in active development, I think everybody, we talked about, just briefly about the phase three collaboration phase and all the posts that are there, we didn&#8217;t talk too much about it because WordPress 6.3 is such a big thing in front of us, the collaboration, we don&#8217;t know yet what&#8217;s going to be, but everyone&#8217;s excited, I think about the admin changes as well as the media library. And then, of course, the real time collaboration and the async collaboration, there&#8217;s a lot to come out. So, what are the next steps that we are going to see when people say, okay, some of us are still working on the Polish and UI changes for the site editor, and some of us are going to start and move over to the collaboration?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, I will say, I don&#8217;t anticipate to see any sort of real time collaboration added into 6.4. I think it&#8217;s such a short release cycle, so I just want to put that out there. I&#8217;m not seeing headwinds about that or momentum in that direction. But I do think that&#8217;ll give us lots of time to experiment, and I know Riad posted on Make Core about the realtime architecture, which is totally worth reading. And there&#8217;s also a GitHub issue, of course, it is a GitHub issue. But right now, the feedback that I&#8217;ve gotten and questions that I&#8217;ve gotten, since I run basically the phase two outreach program, the full site outreach program is, it&#8217;s, what outreach are we doing? What&#8217;s going to happen with that? Are you going to run one for that? There&#8217;s a lot of questions bubbling up, of what&#8217;s next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And right now, I will say, the focus remains on 6.3, but I would expect to see a lot of experimentation, a lot of stuff starting up. I have done some outreach to plugin authors, I&#8217;ve done related functionality like that. I&#8217;ve started talking to folks in a larger to medium to small publishing space and agencies and all that sort of stuff. But I encourage folks to stay tuned and as soon as something is ready, I planned, and I&#8217;m sure you planned, to shout it from the rooftops, try and get folks involved and figure out exactly how best to organize stuff. Because I think that is a big question is, these are such related but yet disparate initiatives, and I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s necessarily an overarching, here is the next thing we&#8217;re doing. I think some folks, some individual contributors, are just kind of trying to explore and pave the path for now and see what we can learn, ahead of a more collective push, once 6.3 is out the door.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But yeah, I expect things to be more experimental in the Gutenberg plugin, by the time 6.4 is released. And then 6.5 is when I am more anxious about what are we going to have in place and how can people help test. And so, right now, I encourage folks to comment on the post that Matias wrote, share your feedback, share your experiences. Are you a writer? Are you a journalist who&#8217;s had to work in collaborative situations? Talk about it, write your comments, what do you want to see? What do you like about other tools that have those kinds of features in place? What workflows does your team have?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, I think there&#8217;s a plugin author who commented recently on a workflows post, after we had exchanged some emails, who works on a calendar. So, you have a calendar post coming up and you have workflows related to that. And he took the time to very kindly share his feedback. So, anything you can do there is super helpful, whether it&#8217;s your plugin or you&#8217;re a writer or you&#8217;re an organizational leader who has to manage this kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s going to be real interesting. So, any feedback is really helpful in that. I just wanted to go back to what you said, okay, there&#8217;s not going to be a whole lot in 6.4 for phase three. I know there&#8217;s also quite a few things that are residual from phase two, contributors are aiming to get the funds API and the fund library into core, together with the typography management system. We talked about the Interactivity API, there&#8217;s certainly some front fund hydration kind of tools. We&#8217;re still waiting for the table of content block to be stabilized, and the time to read block, is something that is definitely on the list. And I&#8217;m really excited to see what&#8217;s coming as a default theme for 2024. And of course, all the publishing that goes into phase two interfaces and workflows for the site editor. Yeah, the default theme. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: There&#8217;s so much already slated for 6.4.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And then your central…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Provisions and templates and template parts, yeah, we could rattle off a bunch of stuff, let&#8217;s leave it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And we already know there&#8217;s stuff in there, so Beta 1 is September 26th, that&#8217;s just eight weeks away. And that&#8217;s kind of interesting to see how short of a cycle we are going to have, but we won&#8217;t hit US big holidays, like Thanksgiving, it will be out before Thanksgiving, it will be out before Christmas, and nobody goes into a Christmas year-end sale with a changed WordPress. So, I think it&#8217;s a good thing for the community, but it&#8217;s going to be hard to make it a splashy new feature kind of thing, when you only have eight weeks to develop. And it&#8217;s-</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: It&#8217;s tight.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. But then Josepha started a wishlist post. We got quite a few comments there, and it&#8217;s still open until August 15th. She also made clear that it&#8217;s a wishlist, it&#8217;s not everything that&#8217;s going to be on there. It&#8217;s going to come into 6.4, but I think the jury is still out which part will be. If there is already a track ticket or a Gutenberg PR or issue, the chances might be going in, but a global, yeah, this is my wishlist kind of thing, it probably won&#8217;t get that attention. So, August 15th, that&#8217;s just before the community summit and WordCamp US. We will hopefully have, after WordCamp US, have a roadmap post, like you did for 6.3. Are you planning to doing something like that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yes, I am. It is on my to-do list, I think for the week after, maybe August 14th or something like that, to start compiling stuff and figuring out what we can write up. Because yeah, that is an important thing to get out, especially with a shorter release cycle.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And it&#8217;s going to be interesting to see, it&#8217;s the underrepresented gender lead release. The last one was 5.6 and now we are 6.4, two years later, three years later. So, there are some awesome people on the release team, so I&#8217;m really looking forward to working with you and so many other, 40 on the direct release team or on the cohort, so it&#8217;s a great group of women/non-binary people working on the release.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we are at the end of the show, Anne, it was wonderful to talk to you and you sharing all your knowledge&#8230; Not all your knowledge, we would be here another 10 hours.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: The highlights.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: The highlights of the most immediate thoughts in the show. It was wonderful to have you, is there anything that you want our listeners to be aware of beyond what we talked about today, that we didn&#8217;t touch upon yet?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh, gosh. No, I don&#8217;t think so. I think the only thing that I&#8217;m noodling on is the next call for testing for the outreach program, and how we can get some feedback and get it going for 6.4, and just how 6.3 lands. So, stay tuned for that, if you&#8217;re not part of the FSE Outreach Program, it is still kicking, it&#8217;s still going over three years on.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That&#8217;s wonderful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. I really love that, how that turned out. And together, more people involved in testing themes, and no code and code people as well. So, is there a chance that you&#8217;re going to remove the experiment on that particular channel too?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh, gosh. I know, it&#8217;s so funny, I think it&#8217;s called FSE Outreach Experiment. Yeah, which is funny, because it&#8217;s like, how long can the experiment go for? We&#8217;re on very scientific terms right now, but yeah, no, we should remove it. I think I just referenced it everywhere, as FSE Outreach Experiment, so I&#8217;ve been nervous about getting rid of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: And FSE is also an old term&#8230; It&#8217;s just kind of a weird snapshot in time. But yeah, we&#8217;ll see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, well, it was wonderful to have you. If people want to get in touch with you, would be through the channel FSE Outreach Experiments?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s probably the easiest. I&#8217;m @annezazu on Make Slack, and then I have a site, <a href=\"https://nomad.blog/\">Nomad.blog</a>. I&#8217;m on LinkedIn, but otherwise, not really typically on any social media. So not on X, or whatever they&#8217;re calling it, the kids are calling it these days. I don&#8217;t know how you even refer to that anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s now a Boomers network, right? All right, well, thank you so much for being here, and we are going on holiday, the next recording will be August 25th and we will have Ellen Bauer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Oh, amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230;lead for design, or co-lead, on the design release team for 6.4. And we&#8217;re going to talk about their work on block themes, and of course the next two Gutenberg releases, Gutenberg 16.4 and 16.5. So, stay tuned for the next one. And there&#8217;s always, dear listeners, the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com/podcast, and if you have questions as suggestions or news you want us to cover, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And that&#8217;s it for me, I wish everybody a great summer, and I will be back end of August. Take care.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Amazing. Thank you for having me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, bye-bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Bye.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 29 Jul 2023 20:28:20 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:76:\"Gutenberg Times: Patterns, Block Styles and Slotfills—Weekend Edition #263\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=25029\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/patterns-block-styles-and-slotfills-weekend-edition-263/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14894:\"<p>Howdy, </p>\n\n\n\n<p>One more week, and I will start my Summer vacation. It&#8217;ll be a mixture between, pursuing neglected passing projects, giving family support, birthday celebrations and home improvement projects. My husband and I will join my in-laws  (MIL + SIL) on a river-cruise on the Danube and visit new places and revisit familiar places. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last touches on the WordPress 6.3 release are happening. If you haven&#8217;t yet, check out all the information that&#8217;s out there, and you find in the last two weekend editions. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost\"><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-word-press-6-3\">WordPress 6.3</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-gutenberg-16-3\">Gutenberg 16.3 </a></li></ul></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ul></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-word-press-6-3\">WordPress 6.3</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>On the WordPress News site, <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/\"><strong>Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks</strong></a>. You&#8217;ll learn everything there is to know about how the term &#8220;Synced patterns&#8221; is replacing the term &#8220;Reusable blocks&#8221;, and how this brings a unified creation experience for new pattern to your WordPress site with the new version. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many users have been applying reusable blocks to CTA, bios and compliance copy on their sites. Those will stay intact. Nothing changes here. The same mechanism you used to create reusable blocks, is also used to create synced patterns. It&#8217;s now also expanded to create standard patterns. A feature many site owners and designers have been waiting for. McCarthy and I also talked about this during our podcast recording. </p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-accent-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-accent-background-color has-background is-style-wide gt-separator\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt Medeiros,</strong> publisher of WPMinute, asked in his latest episode: <br /><a href=\"https://thewpminute.com/will-wordpress-6-3-be-the-best-ever/\"><strong>Will WordPress 6.3 be the best ever?</strong></a> &#8220;There are a lot of exciting features coming to WordPress 6.3 which will set the tone for the next few years of our favorite CMS.&#8221; he wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-accent-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-accent-background-color has-background is-style-wide gt-separator\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jonathan Bossenger </strong>provides a recording of his <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/07/28/testing-wordpress-6-3-developer-edition/\"><strong>Testing WordPress 6.3 – Developer Edition</strong></a> session. You&#8217;ll learn how to install the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/\"><em>WordPress Beta Tester plugin</em></a>, convert a local installation to 6.3 RC  for testing. Then use this setup to test it against a theme that is in active development, and then revert it back to WordPress 6.2.2. With WordPress 6.3 due on August 8, 2023, now would be a great time to help test the release candidate, as well as confirm that your plugins and themes are ready for the 6.3 release.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-gutenberg-16-3\">Gutenberg 16.3 </h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://twitter.com/michaelburridge\">Michael Burridge</a></strong> led the latest Gutenberg release. It was mainly a maintenance release and comprised of a myriad of bug fixes for features slated for WordPress 6.3. Burridge highlighted in his release post <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 16.3? (26 July)</a>&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/#focus-mode-editing-for-patterns\">‘Focus mode’ editing for patterns</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/#sticky-header-bar-on-patterns-page\">Sticky header bar on Patterns page</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/#rename-duplicate-and-delete-patterns\">Rename, duplicate, and delete patterns</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-accent-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-accent-background-color has-background is-style-wide gt-separator\" />\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p class=\"is-style-no-vertical-margin\"><strong>🎙️ </strong> Latest episode: <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87/\">Gutenberg Changelog #87 – Patterns, Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3.</a> with Anne McCarthy as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>\n</div></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> and I talked about this release and, of course, also about WordPress 6.3 while recording the <strong>Gutenberg Changelog 87</strong>. It&#8217;s always a great joy to listen to Anne and take a deep dive into the Site editor with her. The episode is still at the editor, but will be available via your favorite podcast app over the weekend. My favorite Podcast app is <a href=\"https://pocketcasts.com/\">Pocket Casts</a> and I have been a paying subscriber for many years.</p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> reported on the release as well in her article: <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-16-3-adds-new-tools-for-patterns\"><strong>Gutenberg 16.3 Adds New Tools for Patterns</strong></a>. &#8220;Most notably, custom user patterns now have a dropdown menu for renaming, duplicating and deleting them. Patterns and template parts that come with themes will only have the “duplicate” option available since they cannot be deleted or renamed.&#8221; she wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jamie Marsland </strong>released a new video with a <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckq0Wfu2xvs\"><strong>tons of WordPress News that you probably missed</strong></a> with a demo of the <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/introducing-the-breadcrumbs-wordpress-block-plugin/\">Justin Tadlock&#8217;s Breadcrumbs Block</a>, the time to read block, and vertical text feature, and finally short appearances from Mike McAlister and Kevin Geary, with strong opinions on block themes specifically and Gutenberg as a whole. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>When users are new to WordPress, taxonomy is one of the concepts, that is harder to explain. <strong>Sarah Snow</strong> published a tutorial: <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/categories-vs-tags-whats-the-difference/\"><strong>Categories vs. Tags: What’s the difference?</strong></a> on the Learn.WordPress site. She shows you how to use them and that they are good for SEO juice and enhances content discovery for your readers. And  never have posts &#8220;uncategorized&#8221; again. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> published <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/\">part 1</a> of his Beyond Block Styles series. In part 2 he walks you through how to build custom styles for the core Separator Block.  <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-2-building-a-custom-style-for-the-separator-block/\"><strong>Beyond block styles, part 2: building a custom style for the Separator block</strong></a>. It&#8217;s a deep dive into the inner workings of creating block styles for core blocks. You would need to have a certain set-up in place to follow along, and Tadlock takes you by the hand on <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/\">using the WordPress scripts package with themes</a>. I can hardly wait for the third part. I probably see first drafts next week. </p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-light-background-background-color has-background\">Oh, and while I have you: Are you a developer with a topic idea that you would like to share with the community? How about publishing it <strong>WordPress Developer Blog?</strong> Read the&nbsp;<a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/tips-and-guidelines-for-writers/\">tips and guidelines</a>&nbsp;and find out&nbsp;<a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/how-to-contribute/\">how you can contribute</a>. Our next monthly meeting will be on August 3rd, 2023 at 13:00 UTC in the WP Slack <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C03RL47B3S8\">#core-dev-blog</a> channel. Or just DM me on Slack @bph and we&#8217;ll set up a talk. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are a novice to working with NodeJS or npm, <strong>Jonathan Bossenger </strong>has a tutorial for you on Learn.WordPress: <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/installing-node-js-and-npm-for-local-wordpress-development/\"><strong>Installing Node.js and npm for local WordPress development</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his live coding session on twitch, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> covered &#8211;  it seems &#8211; his most favorite topic: <strong><a href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1883051136\">Using custom SlotFill to extend a codebase</a>,</strong> using is ever evolving Advanced Query Loop plugin and adding more settings to the plugin&#8217;s sidebar. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Michael Burridge</strong> and <strong>Justin Tadlock </strong>presented at this month&#8217;s <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/07/26/wordpress-developer-hours-styling-blocks-july-2023/\"><strong>Developer Hours about Styling Blocks.</strong></a> The recording is available on WordPress TV. The panel talked about CSS custom properties (also known as CSS variables). You learn how to leverage them in custom blocks to give users more control over the styling and presentation of their sites.</p>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">them via email</a> or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\">For questions to be answered on the <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast\">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/\">CCO</a>&nbsp;licensed&nbsp;<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/382642d6b2/\">photo</a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/author/lanche86/\">lanche86</a>&nbsp;from the&nbsp;<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/\">WordPress Photo Directory</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<form class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input type=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" name=\"ngl_email\" id=\"ngl_email\" /></div></div><button type=\"submit\" class=\"ngl-form-button\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" id=\"ngl_list_id\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" id=\"ngl_double_optin\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 29 Jul 2023 09:34:30 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:92:\"WPTavern: Ninja Forms Version 3.6.26 Patches Multiple High Severity Security Vulnerabilities\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147292\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:103:\"https://wptavern.com/ninja-forms-version-3-6-26-patches-multiple-high-severity-security-vulnerabilities\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:1893:\"<p>If you use the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/ninja-forms\">Ninja Forms</a> plugin and your sites aren&#8217;t set to get automatic plugin updates, add a round of updates to your weekend plans. Patchstack is <a href=\"https://patchstack.com/articles/multiple-high-severity-vulnerabilities-in-ninja-forms-plugin/\">reporting multiple high severity security vulnerabilities</a> in the plugin, including the following:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>a POST-based reflected XSS (7.6 CVSS 3.1 score)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>a broken access control on form submissions export feature that allows Subscriber and Contributor role users to export all of the Ninja Forms submissions on a WordPress site (7.6 CVSS 3.1 score)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Patchstack researchers discovered the vulnerabilities on June 22, 2023, and Ninja Forms patched them on July 4, 2023. The security advisory was publicly released on July 27, 2023. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plugin&#8217;s changelog for version 3.6.26 transparently identifies the security fixes included in the release:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>Security Enhancements:</em><br />* Prevent unauthorized download of submission<br />* Prevent scripts in dashboard field labels; responsibly reported by Sayandeep Dutta<br />* Prevent front-facing label scripts; responsibly reported by Jonathon Zamora &amp; WordPress.org<br />* Prevent excess extra data through automated form submission<br />* Prevent override access where not permitted</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Ninja Forms is used on more than 800,000 WordPress sites. The majority of the plugin&#8217;s users are on version 3.6.x (73.6%) but WordPress.org doesn&#8217;t offer a more detailed breakdown of minor versions, so it&#8217;s not clear how many are still vulnerable. Ninja Forms users are recommended to patch their sites immediately. At this time, the vulnerabilities are not known to have been exploited.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 28 Jul 2023 22:11:38 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"WPTavern: WordPress Launches Slack/Matrix Bridge\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147271\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:59:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-launches-slack-matrix-bridge\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3093:\"<p>WordPress meta contributors have just logged an important milestone in their efforts to <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-project-to-evaluate-replacing-slack-with-matrix-open-source-chat\">explore replacing Slack communication with Matrix</a>, an open source federated chat system. The team hosted a meeting on the Meta Slack channel and the corresponding #meta:community.wordpress.org Matrix room simultaneously, enabled by the project&#8217;s <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/07/20/matrix-chat-summary-july-20-2023/\">new Slack/Matrix bridge</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bridge allows users to follow the chat and participate from either Matrix or Slack, with messages showing up in real-time. It&#8217;s a tool that will make the transition easier as the WordPress project moves towards replacing Slack. The team is still in the process of importing the history for channels but the bridges are already in place for all public Slack channels/Matrix rooms. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>DM&#8217;s do not work over the bridge, although they work between Matrix users. The bridge doesn&#8217;t have access to anything that is private, and the historic data import into Matrix will only apply to public Slack channels. DMs and private channel history will not be ported over.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />Meta contributor meeting inside Chatrix instance with room switcher disabled \n\n\n\n<p>The Matrix team has created a Gutenberg block that embeds a Matrix client called <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/chatrix/\">Chatrix</a>, which can be added to any WordPress page/post or P2 blog, as shown in the screenshot above. This example can be accessed at <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/chat/\">https://make.wordpress.org/meta/chat/</a>. WordPress.org users can sign in with SSO inside the block and authorize their accounts to connect:</p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>Now that the Matrix server is live at <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://community.wordpress.org/\" target=\"_blank\">community.wordpress.org</a>, WordPress users who want to attend team meetings or join rooms via Matrix can now do so using their choice of Matrix clients that support SSO. Logging in uses the same credentials as the WordPress.org account.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Compared to Slack this means a vastly simplified onboarding process,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored contributor Alex Kirk said. &#8220;Instead of waiting for an e-mail arriving at a special e-mail address, you set the server in your Matrix client to <code>community.wordpress.org</code> and click &#8216;Login with WordPress.org&#8217; (the name of that button might vary by client).&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the channels&#8217; history gets migrated over, Kirk said WordPress users will be automatically invited to rooms on Matrix that they have already joined from the Slack side. The team is planning to make more wide-scale public announcements after the Slack/Matrix bridge has demonstrated that it is running stable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://app.slack.com/services/B05A8FX9LBD\"></a></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 28 Jul 2023 21:31:35 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:25:\"Matt: Ottawa Can Bring It\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:22:\"https://ma.tt/?p=92586\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:42:\"https://ma.tt/2023/07/ottawa-can-bring-it/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:470:\"<p>Ottawa reminds me a lot of Houston. A city that is a microcosm of Canada&#8217;s diversity and vibrance.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you visit Ottawa, I&#8217;d recommend checking out <a href=\"https://aiana.ca/\">Aiana Restaurant Collective</a> (powered by WordPress, natch!) and <a href=\"https://www.stolengoodscocktailbar.com/\">Stolen Goods Cocktail Bar</a> to see craftspeople operating at the top of their game. <a href=\"https://dineriviera.com/\">Riviera</a> was also nice.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 28 Jul 2023 02:52:40 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4:\"Matt\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:89:\"WPTavern: ClassicPress Community Considers Re-forking WooCommerce for Classic Commerce v2\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147238\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:100:\"https://wptavern.com/classicpress-community-considers-re-forking-woocommerce-for-classic-commerce-v2\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4802:\"<p><a href=\"https://www.classicpress.net/\">ClassicPress</a>, the fork that has been keeping WordPress 4.9 on life support for those who don&#8217;t want to use the block editor, will soon be moving into version 2.0 after the community <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/classicpress-community-votes-to-re-fork-wordpress\">voted to re-fork a newer version of WordPress</a> (6.x) to keep moving forward. <a href=\"https://www.classicpress.net/classicpress-v1-6-0-is-out/\">Version 1.6.0</a> was released a few weeks ago as the last minor release before version 2.0.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>ClassicPress contributors are <a href=\"https://forums.classicpress.net/t/classiccommerce-v2/4860\">discussing the future of Classic Commerce</a>, which is a <a href=\"https://classiccommerce.cc/\">fork of WooCommerce 3.5.3</a> created to provide a reliable e-commerce solution for ClassicPress users. The community is now bracing for the inevitable compatibility issues introduced by version 2.0 that will require a massive undertaking to resolve. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a forum thread seeking community input, @shimmy, an IT solutions business owner with an interest in supporting a long term e-commerce solution, proposed the following options for Classic Commerce&#8217;s future: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Re-Fork Woo-Current</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Re-Fork Woo-Previous</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fork a different eCommerce solution</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Migrate CCv1 to current</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Complete Rewrite</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We can talk about re-forking, using something that works or asking ourselves: are we ready to really fork and support it on our own developing it in a way it works in ClassicPress or do we fork it and continue to patch it every time it doesn’t work because blocks or just keep it frozen?&#8221; Elisabetta Carrara said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After some discussion multiple participants in the conversation were in agreement that forking the latest version of WooCommerce to make it work with ClassicPress is not a viable option.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>ClassicPress director Viktor Nagornyy suggested exploring a refork similar to the method used for ClassicPress 2.0.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With CP v2.0, we didn’t take WP v6.2 and rip out blocks, FSE, and React,&#8221; he said. &#8220;<a href=\"https://forums.classicpress.net/u/mattyrob\">@MattyRob</a> merged <code>develop</code> branch with CP v1, and worked his way through all the files to resolve merge conflicts. That was a lot of work, and he did a great job. WooCommerce and Classic Commerce are plugins, so I assume they have fewer files than WP/CP core.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This type of &#8216;merge-fork&#8217; could be a viable option for CC to save time and effort.&#8221; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>@shimmy, who would be leading this effort, said he is leaning toward this approach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think this provides a more natural upgrade path and to some degree backwards compatibility,&#8221; he said. &#8220;At some point in the course of merge-fork WC plugins will no longer be compatible with CC; which is fine because I think that CC should have it’s own plugin &#8216;bazaar.&#8217; This ensures compatibility with CC; if you need a feature then it should be a filtered result with what you already have in place.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nagornyy also encouraged a nascent plugin ecosystem to grow up around these forks to provide additional features. Although the WooCommerce plugin ecosystem has thousands of options for extending stores, they are not guaranteed to be compatible with forks built on older versions of WordPress and WooCommerce.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;While the core CC is free, I encourage plugin developers to consider developing paid plugins for CC to ensure they get paid for their time and effort,&#8221;  Nagornyy said. &#8220;It only strengthens CP and CC knowing premium, supported plugins are available. For e-commerce, the two profitable (and critically important) categories of plugins are payment gateways and shipping integrations.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the major <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-plans-ambitious-admin-ui-revamp-with-design-system-galvanizing-broad-support-from-the-developer-community\">changes coming to the WordPress admin in Phase 3</a> of the Gutenberg project, maintaining these forks will continue to be an uphill slog, as fewer plugins from the wider ecosystem will remain compatible with ClassicPress. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maintaining payment gateways and shipping integrations for compatibility with these forks is also going to be challenging, as this discussion indicates that the community doesn&#8217;t have many experienced e-commerce developers who are eager to step up and donate their time to this project.  If Classic Commerce cannot deliver on the ambitious &#8216;merge-fork&#8217; option, users may need to look towards integrating external e-commerce solutions. </p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 27 Jul 2023 22:16:18 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:97:\"Post Status: WordPress 6.3 RC2 • Synced Patterns • Internationalization • Gutenberg Phase 3\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=150017\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:96:\"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-rc2-synced-patterns-internationalization-gutenberg-phase-3/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:25140:\"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023\">This Week at WordPress.org (July 25, 2023)</h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\">We&#8217;re under two weeks away from WordPress 6.3 release. Have you started testing? <br /><br />Big changes are envisioned for the Media Library, Admin Dashboard, and more. You have an opportunity NOW to share ideas. What considerations do we need to account for? Read the Phase 3 post from Matías and share your feedback in the comments. <br /><br />No longer will you find Reusable Blocks. In WordPress 6.3, you&#8217;ll now find Synched Patterns. Read on to learn why the name has been changed. </p></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media-container\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container\"><span class=\"kb-svg-icon-wrap kb-svg-icon-fe_gitMerge kt-info-svg-icon\"></span></div></div></div></div><div class=\"kt-infobox-textcontent\"><h2 class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-title\"> WP 6.3, Reusable Blocks, Phase 3, i18N</h2><p class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-text\"><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f680.png\" alt=\"🚀\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2</a><br /><br />3&#x20e3; <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/phase-3/\">Gutenberg Phase 3</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f310.png\" alt=\"🌐\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/24/i18n-performance-analysis/\">I18N Performance Analysis</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f501.png\" alt=\"🔁\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/\">Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks</a></p></div></div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_b57166-6e\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" /></div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-news\"><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news\">News</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/\">Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\">WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo – Highlights &amp; Recording</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" /></div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-15\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.3</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/\">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/\">WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-phase-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate Phase</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/\">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/\">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/\">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/\">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/\">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.4</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/\">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/\">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide and Dev-Notes</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-block-selectors-api/\">Introducing the Block Selectors API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/\">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/social-icons-block-applied-colors-now-dynamically-update-based-on-theme-json-and-global-styles/\">Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/bundled-themes-dropping-internet-explorer-scripts-and-styles/\">Bundled themes dropping Internet Explorer scripts and styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/improvements-to-the-cache-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/configuring-development-mode-in-6-3/\">Configuring development mode in 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/\">I18N Improvements in 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/image-performance-enhancements-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/wp_query-used-internally-in-get_pages/\">WP_Query used internally in get_pages()</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/registering-scripts-with-async-and-defer-attributes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/\">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/improved-caching-for-database-queries-in-wp_user_query/\">Improved Caching for Database Queries in WP_User_Query</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-developer-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Miscellaneous developer changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-20\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-18\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-community\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community\">Community</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-july-12-2023/\">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on July 12, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/new-handbook-page-for-wordcamp-organizers-wordcamp-speaker-selection-for-content-and-diversity/\">New handbook page for WordCamp Organizers: WordCamp Speaker Selection (for content AND diversity)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/summary-of-the-q2-community-team-role-updates/\">Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-core\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core\">Core</a> </h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/a-week-in-core-july-24-2023/\">A Week in Core – July 24, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 16.3? (26 July)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/24/i18n-performance-analysis/\">I18N Performance Analysis</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Phase 3 Ideations</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Real-Time Collaboration</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/04/workflows/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Workflows</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/revisions/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Revisions</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/07/media-library/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Media Library</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/10/block-library/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Block Library</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Admin Design</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-developer-blog\"><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/\">Developer Blog</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/\">Beyond block styles, part 1: using the WordPress scripts package with themes</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/make-your-sites-typography-make-a-statement/\">Make your site’s typography make a statement</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/whats-new-for-developers-july-2023/\">What’s new for developers? (July 2023)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/how-to-modify-theme-json-data-using-server-side-filters/\">How to modify theme.json data using server-side filters</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-meetings\">Meetings</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/core-editor-chat-summary-26th-july-2023/\">Core Editor chat summary: 26th July 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/dev-chat-agenda-july-26-2023/\">Dev Chat agenda, July 26, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs\">Docs</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/24/online-monthly-docs-team-contributor-day-july-25-2023/\">Online monthly Docs Team Contributor Day July 25, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-end-user-documentation/\">Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/documentation-team-update-july-24-2023/\">Documentation Team Update – July 24, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-hosting\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting\">Hosting</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/26/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-07-26/\">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-07-26</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/26/wordpress-hosting-survey/\">WordPress Hosting Survey</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta\">Meta</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/07/20/matrix-chat-summary-july-20-2023/\">Matrix chat Summary – July 20, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/\">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/\">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/\">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-mobile\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/mobile\">Mobile</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/26/mobile-team-update-july-25th/\">Mobile Team Update – July 25th</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-openverse\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse\">Openverse</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/25/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-25/\">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-25)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/24/last-week-openverse-2023-07-17-2023-07-24/\">A week in Openverse: 2023-07-17 – 2023-07-24</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-performance\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/performance/\">Performance</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/performance-chat-summary-25-july-2023/\">Performance Chat Summary: 25 July 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-plugins\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins\">Plugins</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/07/24/tackling-team-challenges-together/\">Tackling team challenges together</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/\">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/plugin-review-team-24-jul-2023/\">Plugin Review Team: 24 Jul 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-polyglots\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots\">Polyglots</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/26/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-july-26-2023-0700-utc/\">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – July 26, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/\">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-project\">Project</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/07/13/proposal-for-establishing-a-make-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-deib-team-within-the-wordpress-community/\">Proposal for Establishing a Make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (“DEIB”) Team within the WordPress Community</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Support</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/07/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-onboarding-meeting/\">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support Team Onboarding Meeting</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/07/agenda-for-july-27th-support-meeting-2/\">Agenda for July 27th Support Meeting</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability\">Sustainability</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/07/27/sustainability-chat-agenda-july-28-2023/\">Sustainability Chat Agenda, July 28, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-test\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test\">Test</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/\">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/test-team-update-24-july-2023/\">Test Team Update: 24 July 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-theme\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/theme\">Theme</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/07/26/themes-team-meeting-notes-july-25-2023/\">Themes Team Meeting Notes – July 25, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/25/themes-team-update-july-25-2023/\">Themes team update July 25, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-training\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training\">Training</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/26/training-team-meeting-recap-25th-july-2023/\">Training Team Meeting Recap – 25th July 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/25/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-learn-wordpress-updates/\">Call for Volunteers to help with 6.3 Learn WordPress updates</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tutorials\"><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials\">Tutorials</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/improving-website-performance-with-caching/\">Improving website performance with caching</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/installing-node-js-and-npm-for-local-wordpress-development/\">Installing Node.js and npm for local WordPress development</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-online-workshops\">Online Workshops</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=apac-exploring-some-of-the-new-6-3-wordpress-features\">APAC: Exploring some of the new 6.3 WordPress features</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=exploring-some-of-the-new-6-3-wordpress-features\">Exploring some of the new 6.3 WordPress features</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=onboarding-to-test-team\">Onboarding to Test Team</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=testing-wordpress-6-3-developer-edition\">Testing WordPress 6.3 – Developer edition</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-3\">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-2\">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=mentorship-program-introduction-to-the-wordpress-open-source-project\">Mentorship Program: Introduction to the WordPress Open Source Project</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=what-is-the-domain-name-system-4\">What is the Domain Name System?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=what-is-the-domain-name-system-3\">What is the Domain Name System?</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-courses\"><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/courses\">Courses</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/course/developing-with-the-wordpress-rest-api/\">Introduction to developing with the WordPress REST API</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/tv\">WordPress TV</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/tv/2023/06/15/enhancing-slide-management-for-video-publications/\">Enhancing Slide Management for Video Publications</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordCamp Central</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-malaysia-2023-is-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/\">WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is Looking for Speakers and Sponsors</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-masaka-2023-celebrating-inclusion-diversity-and-innovation-with-wordpress-in-ugandas-pearl-of-africa/\">WordCamp Masaka 2023: Celebrating Inclusion, Diversity, and Innovation with WordPress in Uganda’s Pearl of Africa!</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-wptv\">WPTV</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/\">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-related-news\">Related News:</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/\">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0\">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-1\">PHP 8.3.0 Alpha 3 available for testing</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1\"></a><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-2\">PHP 8.2.8 Released!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-3\">PHP 8.1.21 Released!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.8.0\">PHPMailer 6.8.0</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://262.ecma-international.org/\">TC39</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.8\">Composer 2.5.8</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background\">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/\">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/\">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter\">our newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f48c.png\" alt=\"💌\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background\"><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/\"><img src=\"https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png\" alt=\"Post Status\" class=\"wp-image-85823 size-full\" /></a><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size\" id=\"h-get-ready-for-remote-work\">You — and <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#Agency\">your whole team</a> can <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#choose-membership\">Join Post Status</a> too!</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-small-font-size\"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter/\">newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png\" alt=\"✉\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Listen to <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/podcasts/\">podcasts</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png\" alt=\"🎙\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Follow <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status/\">@Post_Status</a> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> and <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/\">LinkedIn</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png\" alt=\"💼\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 27 Jul 2023 22:03:25 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Courtney Robertson\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:69:\"WordPress.org blog: Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15541\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:84:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4355:\"<p>Synced patterns are replacing Reusable blocks, offering a unified creation experience for new pattern functionality coming to WordPress 6.3. Patterns, first introduced in WordPress 5.5, are a collection of blocks that make it simple to add complex layouts and designs to any WordPress site without starting from scratch. With WordPress 6.3, set to be released on August 8th, you will be able to arrange blocks in unlimited ways and save them as patterns for use throughout your site, directly within the editing experience. You can also specify whether to sync your patterns, so that one change applies to all parts of your site, or to keep them unsynced, so you can customize each instance.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Create your own patterns</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The ability to create your own patterns, on top of using the ones bundled into each WordPress release, opens up a world of possibilities. Need to repeat the same contact information across your site and keep it up to date? Create a synced pattern with all the details, and say goodbye to repeating yourself, with the ability to quickly insert the synced pattern wherever you need it. If you find yourself creating various banners for your site and want them to have the same layout with unique content, creating an unsynced pattern speeds up your workflow and ensures a level of consistency in approach. While themes and plugins have been able to offer patterns to users and <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/how-to-guides/curating-the-editor-experience/#utilizing-patterns\">curate the experience</a>, this update allows agencies and site builders to do the same for their clients, directly in the site building process.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dig into the details</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Any previously made Reusable blocks will continue to function as they do now, just under the new Synced pattern name. To help adjust to these changes, a few contextual notices will be placed throughout the interface. Specifically, the menu item in the creation flow will show as “Create pattern/reusable block” until the prompt describing the switch is dismissed in one of the various locations, including the naming and syncing modal:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>For folks using block themes, all patterns will be listed alongside template parts in the Site Editor &gt; Patterns section, where you can enter a focused editing mode to make changes. For Classic themes, the prior reusable block management page will now house patterns in a list, similar to the Posts &gt; All Posts view.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"590\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/07/Site-Editor-_-All-Patterns-View.png?resize=1024%2C590&ssl=1\" alt=\"Patterns section of the WordPress Site Editor with My Patterns selected\" class=\"wp-image-15569\" />\n\n\n\n<p>For a complete overview of patterns on your site, all patterns provided by themes and plugins will be shown in this section but without the option to edit directly.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Go further</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With the ability to create your own patterns baked into the creation experience, remember that you can copy the patterns available in the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/patterns/\">Pattern Directory</a> and <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/patterns/about/\">contribute back</a>, an excellent way to democratize design for every WordPress user and the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For more exciting features coming to patterns in WordPress 6.3, </em><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/core-editor-improvement-advancing-the-power-of-patterns/\"><em>read on in the Advancing the Power of Patterns post</em></a><em>. Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/\"><em>Chloé Bringmann</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jpantani/\"><em>Jonathan Pantani</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/\"><em>Josepha</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kristastevens/\"><em>Krista Stevens</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/eidolonnight/\"><em>Nicholas Garofalo</em></a><em>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/provenself/\">Peter Rubin</a></em>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:45:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"annezazu\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:84:\"Do The Woo Community: Building Your Agency Stack with Judd Dunagan and Carlos Caneja\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75733\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"https://dothewoo.io/building-your-agency-stack-with-judd-dunagan-and-carlos-caneja/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:445:\"<p>Judd from Bright Vessel and Carlos from Britecode share insights and experience in building their WooCommerce Agency stack.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/building-your-agency-stack-with-judd-dunagan-and-carlos-caneja/\">Building Your Agency Stack with Judd Dunagan and Carlos Caneja</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 27 Jul 2023 08:44:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:52:\"WPTavern: Gutenberg 16.3 Adds New Tools for Patterns\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147209\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:63:\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-16-3-adds-new-tools-for-patterns\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2222:\"<p><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">Gutenberg 16.3</a> was released today as a maintenance release but includes several new tools that make pattern management smoother and easier for users. Most notably, custom user patterns now have a dropdown menu for renaming, duplicating and deleting them. Patterns and template parts that come with themes will only have the &#8220;duplicate&#8221; option available since they cannot be deleted or renamed. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\nvideo credit: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">Gutenberg 16.3 release post</a>\n\n\n\n<p>Gutenberg 16.3 adds a sticky header bar on the Patterns page. It also brings the &#8220;focus mode&#8221; to patterns, which is already available for template parts in the Site Editor but not available when editing patterns. Users may not notice but it provides more a consistent editing interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those who have been keenly following the evolution of the Patterns page will notice that the &#8220;Theme patterns&#8221; heading has been <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52570\">removed</a> and the pattern categories rearranged. Theme and plugin patterns now appear above template parts.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />image credit: <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52570\">Gutenberg PR #52570</a>\n\n\n\n<p>The icon for synced patterns isn&#8217;t self evident and some users may need more context. <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52458\">A new tooltip</a> identifies synced patterns as those for which edits will apply anywhere the pattern is used.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gutenberg 16.3 includes more than two dozen pattern interface-related fixes, among other editor bug fixes. If you are using and managing patterns frequently, having the Gutenberg plugin installed will enable a better experience with this interface until these updates make their way into core WordPress. Check out the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/\">release post</a> for a full list of all the changes and fixes in 16.3.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 27 Jul 2023 02:49:22 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:65:\"WPTavern: WordPress 6.3 RC2 Released, Watch the Live Product Demo\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147173\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:75:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-3-rc2-released-watch-the-live-product-demo\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4061:\"<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/\">WordPress 6.3 RC2</a> has been released and is ready for community testing. Since RC1 landed a week ago, 15 changes have come in from the <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.3\">Editor</a> and <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=closed&changetime=07%2F18%2F2023..07%2F25%2F2023&milestone=6.3&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id\">Trac</a>, including bug fixes for footnotes, internationalization fixes, a missing command for opening the distraction free in the Site Editor, and a few other issues. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This release also brings in <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58067\">work completing the About page</a> and adds a &#8220;Get Involved&#8221; section, closing a 10-year old <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23348\">ticket</a> that suggested adding a &#8220;Contribute&#8221; tab to the About page.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>The new Get Involved page features both code-based and no-code contribution opportunities with a link to WordPress&#8217; contributor teams.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The video of the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\">WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo</a> has been published so anyone who was not able to attend can get a preview of what is coming in the next release. Automattic-sponsored contributors <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/\">Anne McCarthy</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/richtabor/\">Rich Tabor</a> hosted the demo, showing users how to use the new command palette to zip around the editor and manage settings views. They also guide viewers through browsing and editing pages within the Site Editor, managing synced patterns (formerly called Reusable Blocks), and showcased various new blocks and design tools.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\">highlights post</a> for all the links to features referenced in the demo and the Q&amp;A portion of the broadcast.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those interested in performance improvements coming in 6.3, an upcoming <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/\">hallway hangout</a> is happening tomorrow <strong><strong><a href=\"https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20230727T1500\"><abbr title=\"2023-07-27T15:00:00+00:00\">Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 11:00 AM EDT</abbr></a>. </strong></strong>Participants can check the <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02KGN5K076\">#core-performance</a> Slack channel for the Zoom link before the event. Team leads will cover highlights from the 170+ performance improvements included in 6.3 and will discuss future improvements for 6.4. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress&#8217; Training team is <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/25/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-learn-wordpress-updates/\">calling for volunteers</a> to help with updating and revising existing Learn WordPress resources ahead of the 6.3 release. The team has created a <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/Learn/labels/6.3\">board</a> on their GitHub repository which highlights high priority tasks. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.3 RC3 is expected to be released on August 1, and the general release is scheduled for August 8, less than two weeks away. There is still time to find and report some bugs. One easy way is to install the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/\">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin on a local testing site or use a quick throwaway site from services like InstaWP or TasteWP. <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket\">Bugs can be reported on Trac</a> or via the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/\">Alpha/Beta section</a> of the support forums.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:19:54 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:79:\"WPTavern: #85 – Giulia Laco on the Importance of Typography for Your Websites\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=147116\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/85-giulia-laco-on-the-importance-of-typography-for-your-websites\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:51871:\"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case the importance of typography for your websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash Jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Giulia Laco. Giulia is a web designer and developer who has been working on the web since the mid 1990s. Her primary interests are web typography and font design. In addition to project development, she&#8217;s a consultant and a trainer, mostly working with CSS, web fonts and web typography.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the last of our podcasts from WordCamp Europe, 2023. I spoke to Giulia in Athens because she had just finished her presentation entitled &#8220;typographic readability in theme design and development&#8221;.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this session, she explored how designers can assist with the readability of websites through careful consideration of the fonts they choose and why they choose them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It turns out there&#8217;s quite a lot to consider. And if you&#8217;ve not given this topic much thought in the past, you&#8217;ll perhaps learn something new. I certainly did.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We begin the podcast talking through how, at the start of the web, we were making do with a limited range of tools to help us make typographic choices. There were no web fonts available, but that started to change around 2010. Now we have access to hundreds of fonts and need to be mindful that some fonts can pose readability challenges for some users of your website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia talks about the fact that the manner in which we read has changed since the dawn of the internet. Many people now mostly consume small passages of text, which need to be considered in a different way to longer writing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Concentrating upon the letters in the Latin alphabet, we talk about the ways in which readers typically break up words into smaller units, and the fact that the way letters are shaped can make them easier to parse. There&#8217;s some technical language here, ligatures X-height, apertures, and more. Which tell us about the shaping and spacing of letters. Giulia explains the current state of research into how these characteristics of fonts can affect readability.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We talk about whether or not there are fonts which are more readable than others. Is there a collection of fonts, which you can use and be confident that you&#8217;re going to make it easy for all users of your websites?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia talks about how designs need to consider the spaces into which the text is put. Most people have a proclivity for the order in which they view a page. And knowing about this path across the page can help your readers access the text.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The width of the text is also important. You want people to be able to read from side to side without having to move their head. How does this work across different device sizes and what can be said about text, which runs right to left, or top to bottom?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We round off the conversation with Giulia telling us where we can find out more, as well as some of the thought leaders in this space.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a fascinating conversation about a subject that often gets overlooked. Web designers, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Giulia Laco.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast by Giulia Laco. Hello Giulia.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:43] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Hello.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s very nice to have you on. Giulia is joining me at WordCamp EU in Athens. It&#8217;s the last conversation that I&#8217;m recording, so very nice to have you on. You are going to be talking to us today about something that I genuinely didn&#8217;t know about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was a really interesting topic to research from my point of view. You&#8217;re going to be talking to us a little bit about typography. That&#8217;s based upon a workshop that you did yesterday. How did it go?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:12] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I&#8217;m happy about that. I&#8217;m happy to hear that you are interested in typography as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Was it well attended? Did you get your information across? Did people engage with the topic?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:22] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I think so. I divided people in two groups, developers and designers. So to let them think about typography with the mentality of the others. So that was the point I was trying to have.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, the reason I wanted to talk to you was because when I was looking through the list of presentations and workshops, yours was really different, a topic that I genuinely hadn&#8217;t thought about in the way that you&#8217;ve made me think about it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because whenever I think about typography, I am really just thinking about whether I like a font. So if I go to a website, I just make a quick judgment. Do I like that font? Do I not like that font? But there&#8217;s a lot more to it than that, which we&#8217;re going to get into. But can you just tell us why you&#8217;re interested in this? Do you have a history with working with type? Why are you so fascinated by typography?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:17] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Okay, well, maybe it&#8217;s because I&#8217;ve started making websites at the very beginning of the internet era. It was around, mid nineties. And we didn&#8217;t have the possibility to use web fonts of any kind on the web. We did what we could with very few tools. Whereas later on in 2009 or 10, we had this great possibility of using web fonts, and I started to get engaged with, with the typography. And that was the time when I was starting typography for the first time actually.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Are you interested in typography away from the internet? Are you interested in the way that type is presented in books and on paper?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:00] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes, everywhere. On menus as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, because when you actually turn your attention to typography, which is what I did after we booked this interview. Text is everywhere, and it&#8217;s really, really different wherever you look. So we are sitting in a room. There&#8217;s almost no text, but there&#8217;s a little bit of text behind you. It has a particular font.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:22] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Montserrat.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Montserrat probably, yeah. I&#8217;m looking at my computer. It has a font on it. I&#8217;ve just been downstairs, looked at a menu. It had three or four fonts on it. Wherever you look, there is text, and usually the typography has been thought about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you were talking about typography from the point of view of how can be done better. How can be a problem for some people, and that I didn&#8217;t really realize. I knew that people would perhaps struggle to read text because it was too small, or there was a background color, which clashed with the color of the text. But I didn&#8217;t realize that the font itself could be a problem. So tell us how it can be a problem. How can some people struggle to read one font but not another?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:08] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well, it&#8217;s a big question, because, there&#8217;s a lot of research about that, recent research on readability. Because very few people read a lot nowadays in each country. So a lot of countries are worried about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are movements to let people read better by making some tools. And big companies like Adobe, Google are on this concern. They&#8217;re concerned about that. So they&#8217;re trying to study that subject. The Readability Consortium, a consortium from between these big companies and universities in America.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s working interdisciplinary. So with psychologists, typographers, graphic designers. And started to focus on what makes text legible. And what they are, as far as I know, they&#8217;re saying is that it&#8217;s different for everybody. So you test it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so that&#8217;s why you need to make tools that help people adjust their texts when they read for long form reading, of course. Not for just a menu or, very few words you are going to read. And they&#8217;re trying to do those tools. And maybe it&#8217;s difficult for a user to know what they need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:30] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> So, they are working also with AI. Trying to have some patterns and, have some themes, let&#8217;s say. So that can adapt to very different kind of people. But they&#8217;re trying to reach that patterns by research, not by guessing. So that&#8217;s very intereting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, really interesting. I mean, again, when I was researching this, it suddenly occurred to me that, I have children, they&#8217;re grown up largely now. But I remember when they came home from school, at the beginning, their homework was in child-friendly fonts. Let&#8217;s put it that way. Often it was something along the lines of comic sans something like that. And it didn&#8217;t occur to me at all at the time, I just thought, oh, well it&#8217;s a child-friendly font. It&#8217;s kind of round and it&#8217;s got, you know, there&#8217;s no hard edges.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just thought it&#8217;s just a pleasant thing to look at. But now that I&#8217;m thinking about it, it was probably an easier font for the child to begin to learn to read with. Because all of the letters were clear. There was no confusion between one letter and the other. You know, you couldn&#8217;t mistake the L for the I, for example. And I did wonder, you were saying that there&#8217;s less people reading than ever. If the typography is a, quotes, difficult font, it may be more difficult to begin learning to read. I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s something that you were trying to say there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:59] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well actually, when a child start reading has a very tough task. And helping that process is important. I remember seeing books in upper case letters only, it was meant to be simpler. But they started only to recognize only one kind of letters. In the Latin alphabet, we have upper case and lower case, and they&#8217;re very different because of their history.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uppercase letters comes from the engraved Latin letters. Whereas the small, lowercase, comes from calligraphy. So they&#8217;re very different origins,. And it&#8217;s not the same to learn lowercase a and a lowercase a. Recognizing them as the same letter, the same sound.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And with sound is also difficult, especially in English, you have so much problem with sounds and letters.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I think we have 44 sounds, but only 26 letters.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:02] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> And the combination. When you use a letter and a sound, other languages are much more simpler on that respect.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah again, remarkable. I&#8217;d never really given any thought to how different uppercase and lowercase are. But they don&#8217;t bear, in some cases they&#8217;re quite similar.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:17] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So an l and a capital L, broadly the same. But something like an a, the capital letter A and the lowercase letter. They&#8217;re just utterly different, aren&#8217;t they? They&#8217;re really, really remarkably different. Oh, that&#8217;s fascinating. I hadn&#8217;t given any thought. So what makes text legible to a lot of people, or not legible to a lot of people? Are there any kind of guidelines around that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:41] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Okay, I will distinguish between legibility and readability. Because, you have this distinction in English and it&#8217;s great. We don&#8217;t have it in Italian. I guess the legibility comes from lighting as we have for legibilita in Italian. And it&#8217;s something that has to do with decoding. So that&#8217;s something that has to do with the typeface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas readability is something you want to read, you like to read something, you want to read. And not you&#8217;re just trying to decode things. So that&#8217;s a big difference, when you start to understand why a text is readable or not. I would say that trying to take a legible font means to have a font with certain characteristics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, it&#8217;s let&#8217;s say proved that a font with a higher X-height is more legible. I&#8217;m talking about running text, the body text for long reading experience. So X-height is basically the medium height of the lower case letters, based on the letter x, that&#8217;s why X-height, you see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so for example, I don&#8217;t Helvetica has a higher X-height than Times New Roman, for example, if you compare it. And having a higher X-height is a typeface, be more readable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And another very important thing is with apertures. Apertures, how can I say, the white space inside the part of the letters that are open. Take a lowercase e in the lower part of the letter. You have this room. If it&#8217;s more closed, it&#8217;s less legible because it can be taken for an o for example, you see. So Helvetica, for example, is very well used, but it&#8217;s not legible as a body copy. Helvetica is wonderful for display type for titles, but not so well for body text.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you are saying, so this X-height? So is typically the height of the letter x. So if I put an x next to the letter h, for example, it&#8217;s the height of the rounded bit of the letter h? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:55] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes, exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Or it would be the height of the letter a? Or the rounded bit of the letter p? The more tall that bit is, the more legible it is for most people to read. I had no idea.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:09] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well, it&#8217;s just one thing because, not only that, because it&#8217;s also how you set type. For example, if you have a large X-height, typeface and you set it with a very small space between the lines, the line height, the leading, they say in typography. You don&#8217;t take advantage of that highness, you see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. So if letters are squashed. If one line of letters is compressed, so line height.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:37] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Mm-hmm.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is compressed up against another line of letters beneath it, that makes it more difficult to read because there&#8217;s just no room for the letters to breathe, There&#8217;s no gap. They&#8217;re all just squished together. Okay?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:48] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> But you have to pay attention not to put too much line height. Otherwise you lose the next line when you jump from one line to the other, it&#8217;s too far and you can&#8217;t find it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So this is the eyes ability to go from the end of one line and track, and immediately find the beginning the next line.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:46] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes exactlly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I confess I have experienced that problem before, and I hadn&#8217;t noticed, until just now, that that was because of that. I&#8217;ve definitely had books that I&#8217;ve been reading where I&#8217;ve struggled to begin the next line, and sometimes repeated the line that I was supposed to be on. Or I&#8217;ve skipped a line and missed a line out and only halfway through thought, actually that doesn&#8217;t make any sense. Let me go back. I had no idea. But also you are saying that the amount of, what did you call it, the space?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:30] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Oh, typographers call it leading because it&#8217;s comes from lead, lead, lead, I don&#8217;t know, of the metal types. With metal types they used to put some space between the lines with some lead. So the lead bars.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, okay. So they spaced them out with a physical object.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:30] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes, exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And it was a bar of lead, and the wider the bar of lead, the more space. This is fascinating. But you also mentioned in the letter e for example, the lowercase e, forgive me if I misunderstood. So the bottom half of the letter e, there&#8217;s a gap, a little gap, and the amount of gap, if the gap is bigger.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:07] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> That&#8217;s the aperture, yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The bigger the gap is, the more you are likely to be able to read it, typically?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:13] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes, because you&#8217;re likely to distinguish it from an o.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Of course.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:17] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> You decode it easiest.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You keep mentioning Helvetica. Is that a font which has lots of problems? Is that why you mention it, because it&#8217;s full of things you can identify?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:26] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> It&#8217;s very well known. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m mentioning. And very much used. But it&#8217;s better to use it as a display type.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The only thing that I&#8217;ve ever had a problem reading, was the thing that I&#8217;ve just described where I have skipped a line or gone back and reread the other line. But I&#8217;m imagining that you&#8217;ve done this talk because there are problems which people experience, which I fortunately, don&#8217;t appear to have a problem with. What trips people up? If you were somebody that, I don&#8217;t know how to say this correctly. If you are somebody who struggles to read, what are the trip wires, if you know what I mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What are the things in a font could be wrong that make you unable to read it? So you mentioned that the line height, you mentioned the X-height. Is there more to it than that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:14] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well, there might be a lot. One thing that I can think of are ambiguous forms of letters. Let&#8217;s take lowercase letters, p and q or b and d. So for these four letters in a sans serif font, for example, are usually with the same shape, just flipped or rotated. That&#8217;s said to be a problem with people that experience dyslexia. But it&#8217;s actually opinionated because we don&#8217;t know exactly how it works. Actually for everybody can be a problem to distinguish between similar shapes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, as you said before, a child who is starting to read, or to write as well, may experience the same problem. No matter if it&#8217;s, if there&#8217;s a problem of dyslexia or not. So if you are going to avoid these kind of things, you can pick a font, a serif font that generally has different letters, different forms. The four letters I mentioned, typically with small serfis in different parts of the letters so they can be distinguished, for sure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Can you, I know it&#8217;s probably obvious to most people, but will you just tell people what a serif font is and what it isn&#8217;t? You know, if you&#8217;ve got a non serif font or serif font, what&#8217;s the difference?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:39] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Let&#8217;s take the example of Helvetica and Times New Roman. So maybe it&#8217;s easier for people to visualize the difference. Helvetica has straight lines, nothing at the termination of the strokes. Whereas Times New Roman has some small shapes that derive from the calligraphic or the, in that case, for the upper case, the engraving, the instrument that we use to engrave. And so they had this little [feet?] let&#8217;s say so, that distinguish the kind of font.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the font has a different mood, very different mood. And a lot of other characteristics. There are, well, history of typography is based on that more or less.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It always feels to me as if a font, a serif font, which has these, I think you use the word where the letter terminates. I&#8217;ve never really</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:31] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> thought about that. They always look as if they&#8217;re more, I don&#8217;t know, maybe in a legal document or something like that. They have this feeling of something more powerful or more important or something. It&#8217;s quirky that, isn&#8217;t it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m looking at a Google Doc where I&#8217;ve written my show notes and, I don&#8217;t see any that. I can&#8217;t tell you that either of those fonts are a serif font or a non serif font. I find them both equally easy to read. It doesn&#8217;t trip me up at all. But typically, is there a problem for some people with a serif font or a non serif font? Is there one, to catch everybody would it be better to not deploy a serif font or is there just no difference in people&#8217;s ability to cope with either?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each font is maybe very different. Most people at the first level, when they start talking about topography, they started to see this difference. But that&#8217;s not the main point. Maybe the main point in readability is the rhythm of letters. The rhythm where the white space and the black space, meaning when you have black text on white. They alternate each other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Try to figure out this word, minimum. You&#8217;ll have a lot of rhythm. Minimum in, written in lower case letters. You see? So, the rhythm is very, very different. And maybe that&#8217;s important in typography, in reading. And is very important for people who struggle with reading, because you don&#8217;t interrupt the rhythm. The rhythm helps reading.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It just sort of bounces along, doesn&#8217;t it? If you look at the word minimum, it genuinely has a, it&#8217;s almost like a little wave pattern going up and down, isn&#8217;t it? That&#8217;s fascinating. So what did you call it? Your ability to read it. There was a word you just said. Rhythm, rhythm. So words can have rhythm, and the more rhythm there is, the easier it is to read. So if a font provides rhythm, that&#8217;s a good thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:24] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I think so. But it depends also on the purpose. Long reading. I think that&#8217;s important. Otherwise it&#8217;s different. It&#8217;s totally different. I mean concepts with display types because they have a different purpose, you know, text and function. The titles have different purpose. They have to catch the attention. Whereas the long, the body text has to be read, so needs a different kind of attention.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right. And are there any guidelines which kind of fonts catch the attention more, and which kind of fonts work better with the body content? You know, where you&#8217;re reading long paragraphs and so on? Does it matter or is there one kind of font that you would recommend in each case?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:08] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Generally, when you buy a font, you&#8217;ll have a font that is meant for body text and some other for display type. So if you rely on what the designer, the type designer, has done, you are safe. Otherwise you have to. try. But also if you go on a repository like Google fonts for example, you have this distinction among display types and other kind of types. So it&#8217;s quite a common mistake at the beginning to take display type and use it as a body text. And that&#8217;s a typographic crime.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I like it. Typographic crime. That&#8217;s great. We&#8217;re all of us using our devices more and more. It&#8217;s funny that you said that reading is becoming less and less, because it feels like we have text in front of us all the time now. So we&#8217;re constantly staring at our mobile phones, and our computers. But when I was a child, if I wasn&#8217;t holding book, I probably wasn&#8217;t reading.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, maybe there was a poster somewhere or something, but I&#8217;m surprised that reading is, there&#8217;s less desire to read, because it feels like every day I&#8217;m reading more or less constantly, you know, I&#8217;m scanning Twitter or Facebook or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:26] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> It&#8217;s a new kind of reading, Because we had long form reading for books. Then we have glanceable reading for, I don&#8217;t know, street signs. Or maybe a manual in a website. And then we have this, they call it interlude reading. You read when you&#8217;ve time, you&#8217;re doing, you don&#8217;t have a lot of attention, you scroll. And then you have also that the way we read on the web is very different from what we read, elsewhere.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, we have this shape, F shaped reading. When we, in a website, eye tracking has shown it quite a lot. You start from the top left where the logo generally is. Then you go on the right, then you go on the left, but a bit bottom, and then a bit, you are just drawing an F more or less, when you read.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So that&#8217;s what the eye typically does when it lands on a webpage.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:20] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What was that? Top left, top right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:23] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Bottom.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Bottom.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:24] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> A bit in the middle, right. And then bottom again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it makes an, if you were to draw on top of that screen, it coincidentally looks a bit like a capital F.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:32] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes, exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s fascinating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:34] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Capital F reading.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Capital F reading. Presumably that&#8217;s on a desktop. On this, I&#8217;m not doing that am I? I&#8217;m holding up my phone. If I&#8217;m looking at a webpage, presumably it&#8217;s a different experience. It&#8217;s just left to right, left to right, left to right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:49] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Also because you are hiding some part of the text with your thumbs. Are you right-handed? Left-handed? It depends what you do. And it change a lot. For example, in the UX design, we generally change some patterns with smartphones because we put some menus at the bottom because the area near the thumb, for example.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if it changes where you put your fingers, your changes also where you put your eyes. Focusing in which part of the screen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s interesting. My experience of the internet is that usually the menu on a mobile device comes at top right. There&#8217;s usually some icon.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:28] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> But that&#8217;s for convention.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But what you&#8217;ve just described is much more sensible, having the menu the bottom because.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:33] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I hope it will change soon.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Because my thumb can just go right to it. It&#8217;s just there. Yeah, that&#8217;s fascinating. It does matter what device you&#8217;re on. But are you using the same? I know that you&#8217;ve said that you reposition things like the menu or what have you, but are you using the same font on a desktop as you would be on a mobile device? Is it broadly the same? You don&#8217;t need to worry about the view port of a mobile device in terms of the CSS for setting the font. It&#8217;s just the same desktop, mobile, tablet, same fonts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:03] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> From the readability point of view, I would say yes. And it&#8217;s for branding. I guess it&#8217;s better to have different environments recognizable. Whereas you have to pay attention to licensing. If you buy a font, for example, you put it on an app, you might need a different license. If you&#8217;re using open type, open source phones, you are not going to have a problem. But if you buy, if you rent, web fonts, yeah, you might have some problem or you have to check if you can put that web front on an app. You might need a different license.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I hadn&#8217;t really thought about that. It&#8217;s always quite common in the circle of friends that I have, comic sans is a font, which most of my friends ridicule. They think it&#8217;s a childish font. Nobody would put it on a professional website. Are there some fonts like that, which you would just always avoid? Not because they look childish, but because they are largely unreadable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:00] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> There might be some, for example, well comic sans has a very big history of love and hate, basically of hate actually. But remember the case and presentation of the Higgs Boson?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yes. Was that done in comic sans?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:18] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes. There was a Twitter storm. Okay, you couldn&#8217;t use that informal font on a formal presentation, and that raised the topic actually. You have to use the font that is proper to the situation. It&#8217;s like clothing. The clothes you wear, it&#8217;s like the font you use. It depends on the situation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I can understand the feeling that people have when they choose comic sans. And maybe I can suggest something similar, but a bit more proper, or a bit more interesting in that context.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s one font. I am on Google fonts repository. That&#8217;s called Amantic Small Caps, and it&#8217;s a small caps, so it&#8217;s a more, it&#8217;s not lowercase. But it&#8217;s, I think has a similar mood and I would dare it&#8217;s quite a new comic sans in the mood. I mean, it has the same mood, in my opinion. I say in my opinion, it&#8217;s also because it&#8217;s in my culture, it&#8217;s very culture dependent. Because it&#8217;s based on what you saw, what you associate to those fonts for example.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s really interesting when I travel to the US. The US have a really different set of fonts which they use, especially on government documents, than we have in the UK. And wherever I look, so I don&#8217;t know, I buy some sun cream or something like that. The font choice is utterly different from how it would typically look in the UK. And it&#8217;s kind of curious, that it&#8217;s so obvious to me that that&#8217;s an American box. And yet it&#8217;s merely a font that tells me that. But I can see it all the time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what you&#8217;re saying though is you&#8217;ve got to use your intuition. There&#8217;s no rule for this is a good font, that&#8217;s a bad font. It&#8217;s really where are you putting it and your own personal preference. There are no fonts which are out of the question because they&#8217;re just literally unreadable by a subset of the people, no, you look like you&#8217;re about to say something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:18] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well, there might be some fonts that are really illegible, but there are some really nice experiment by a very talented type designers, David Jonathan Ross. He tried to push the boundaries of readability, making good fonts, but making how long you can go to draw a very new kind of letter and still have it readable. So that&#8217;s interesting to see. But made by people who know what they do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas if you start, if you look at the, I don&#8217;t know, fonts that you can have on a lot of websites, just experiments by people who start. But if you, look at experiments by very good designers, oh, you know what they do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You make client websites still. Do you get into this conversation quite a lot with your clients? Is typography something that you bang the drum of?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:14] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I try to listen as for everything else, to the client and understand what they need. And then I&#8217;ll try to suggest what I think is proper. It&#8217;s like also for the colour of a website for example. I ask and I give an advice maybe.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Are there any kind of hard and faster rules for where you, really, it would be unwise to put typography. In our show notes, I was talking about things like is it a bad idea to put, I don&#8217;t know, fonts into images.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you&#8217;re overlaying fonts on images. In other words, is it better always to have fonts on a plain background rather than on, let&#8217;s say you&#8217;ve got a mountain scene or something and you want to write something, you put it onto the image. Is it better to keep the text away from the images? That was just one thought.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:02] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> That&#8217;s definitely better. But you have to distinguish between titles and body copy. A title might be, how can I say? It would be okay anyway. It&#8217;s only a word. You might have some tricks, for example, reducing the contest of the underground image. As long as you stick with accessibility guidelines, you&#8217;re safe for that regard.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are very good starting point for readability. I mean, I generally say that it&#8217;s better to start from accessibility and there are a lot of accessibility guidelines that help with the text. And then you go on and if you have some tools, like a very powerful web font, you can do more. And then you go with type setting and start type setting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, for example, you have to stop the line length. That&#8217;s very, very important. You don&#8217;t have to let your user go through all the screen, a very huge screen to go to the other line, to the second line.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is there any guidance about how wide the text line should be? So maybe that&#8217;s a, I don&#8217;t know, you said using a number pixels is not always the best idea. But is there a character limit, or a word limit typically where the eye can cope with scanning from left to right and then beginning again. Because I&#8217;m staring at a Google Doc at the moment and it&#8217;s kind of interesting that the Google Doc looks like a piece of paper.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they&#8217;ve obviously deliberately taken it in. The Google doc could consume the whole width of my monitor, but it doesn&#8217;t. They&#8217;ve confined it to what looks like a piece of paper, and I presume that&#8217;s a convention, just so that my eye doesn&#8217;t have to go far left, far right, far left, far right. I could keep my nose pointed at the document and just let my eye do the work, whereas if it went from left to right, I would be moving my neck all the time as well. So is there a guidance of how wide text should be?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:56] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Typographers, for a long time, had recommended a line length of between 45 and 65 characters per line. It depends for Latin alphabets. The Web Accessibility Guidelines says, I think at the level Triple A. They say that they need 80 characters maximum per line for Latin, I think 40 for languages with ideograms. So they say something about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s very interesting to see that there&#8217;s a correlation between this line length and the way we read. The way we read is basically with eye and brain because, it&#8217;s a really complex process. But when we read with the eye, we just focus on few letters at the time, maybe six, seven characters. Then we jump to another area of fixation. And so you can do some math. A very good typographer Bruno Maag made that math.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And he discovered that calculating the number of characters you see in each fixation has a relationship with what typographers said for years, for decades, for centuries actually. So they arrived at the same conclusions. So let&#8217;s say 55, 65 characters per line is a good measure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:18] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> On the other hand, all these factors are correlated. And especially font size, line height, and line length. Some typographers says that it&#8217;s like a triangle of these three elements have to be on balance. So if you change one, you have to change the others. Adapt the others.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we&#8217;ve just been talking about the left to rightness, the line length. Is there anything about the length of the paragraphs that you use as well? I mean, I&#8217;m just used to reading books and obviously they&#8217;re confined by the width. The line length is taken account of. But I&#8217;m conscious that everything&#8217;s broken up into paragraphs and those chunks of meaning have often got little gaps between them. I&#8217;m imagining in many cases, paragraphs could go on for pages, but it&#8217;s better to break it up and it helps the brain to associate that this is a body of meaning and here&#8217;s another body of meaning and so on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:10] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes. I think absolutely. The basic of our work as web designers actually. So it&#8217;s different from what we do on paper, because on screens we have to catch the attention. And so we need to make things very easy for the reader. That&#8217;s the purpose. Maybe it&#8217;s not always the case that that&#8217;s the purpose, but on web design generally, that&#8217;s the purpose.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s better to split a paragraph in a few small chunks, let&#8217;s say so, and give different, styling and introduce hierarchy as well. So that helps a lot in reading.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So headings and paragraphs and other headings and so on. You mentioned in the show notes that when you did your workshop, were going to give some helpful CSS to break up the text. Can you just tell us what that was? What helpful CSS did you have?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:02] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Basically, I would say that&#8217;s very important not to use an absolute unit when you set the font size. Where font size is what is more relevant in readability? Because if it&#8217;s too small, you can&#8217;t read at all. If it&#8217;s too big, also so you can&#8217;t read it well. So font size is very important and after the responsive web design, we&#8217;ve had the responsive web typography. It didn&#8217;t come at the same time. Because with responsive web design, we started to make things different for different devices. But we didn&#8217;t touch the font size.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, it was just the same. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:42] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> But it was really important to change the font size. At the beginning I thought that it was important to make smaller font size on smartphones. Because you had a very smaller screen, but that was not the reason I realized later on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the reason is the distance of reading. So when you read something that is near, you don&#8217;t need a big font size. You generally keep an iPhone at 20, 30 centimeters of distance from your eye. Whereas if you read to a computer you are 70 centimeter, 80, 1 meter, I don&#8217;t know. If you read to a screen in a room, for example, yeah, it&#8217;s very, very different.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, yesterday I had this at the workshop. I had this CSS Codepen. I realized I had some minimum and maximum font size in my slider. It was perfect for desktop reading. As soon as I was in the room, I said, oh no, I have to change, and I changed it to a different values because of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So, the presentation looked good on your computer, but as soon as it went on the big screen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:52] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Okay, the presentation was okay because I knew it in advance. I mean, it was a presentation, but it was in the playground, I realized, yes. And because I had all those values, I was guessing what was reasonable values. But I didn&#8217;t test it before on such a big room.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So I&#8217;m guessing that at some point soon we&#8217;ll be able to make a link to WordPress TV. It occurs to me that the whole time we&#8217;ve been talking about typography, but we&#8217;ve probably been concentrating on English. Although it&#8217;s a common language, it&#8217;s by no means what everybody reads.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we&#8217;re going from top to bottom, left to right. But other parts of the world, let&#8217;s say people that read Arabic or Hebrew or Korean or Japanese or Chinese, whatever it is. They&#8217;re going in completely different directions, left to right, bottom to top and so on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do they have similar concerns with their characters? Or is it just uniquely the Latin set of characters which has these problems?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:54] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> I&#8217;m sure they have. Also maybe different problems. I&#8217;ll distinguish between Arabic to the other languages you mentioned, like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, for example. They have ideograms. With Arabic it&#8217;s quite a calligraphic origin of the way of writing. And they make a lot of use of ligatures. It means it changes the shape of letters according to their combination.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have ligatures in Latin as well. For example, if you think of f and i, small lowercase letters f and y. Sometimes you have one glyph that put the dot of the i inside the f. And that&#8217;s coded inside the file, the font file.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in Arabic they have a lot of ligatures. And lately I&#8217;ve discovered that they also use color for accent. And Google fonts has some new fonts with this characteristic. Color fonts. Do you know color fonts?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> No.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:54] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> They&#8217;re very, very new. They&#8217;re coming.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How do you deploy color to. What? You&#8217;re going to have to explain that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:00] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Well, they have color coded inside the typeface. It&#8217;s a new format we can use. And, it&#8217;s linked to CSS. It&#8217;s not so much ready, but it&#8217;s coming. It&#8217;s a new technology after variable fonts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So certain aspects, certain portions of the letter receive different colors?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:22] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And it provides, I have to just ask why? Why would you want to have a different portion of the letter in a different color?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:30] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Apart from Arabic, why not?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, so it is, it&#8217;s just style. It&#8217;s not from the point of view of readability or legibility?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:37] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> No. New frontiers of typography.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, that is interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:40] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> But that was one point, but for Arabic might be for readability purpose. That&#8217;s why I mentioned it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Honestly, this is such a fascinating subject. Unfortunately, we&#8217;re running out of time. Where would we go if we&#8217;ve been inspired by the talk that you&#8217;ve given today to me? Have you got any tips or places, websites to go to? If people are curious, where would you send them?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:42:03] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Okay. There are plenty of places and topography has been receiving quite an attention lately on the web. I&#8217;m always talking about on the web. But you can start with books from the tradition of typography. There are, I don&#8217;t know, from the sacred book of yypography, Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style. That&#8217;s a really nice starting point. Well, it&#8217;s not only a starting point.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Erik Spiekermann&#8217;s, Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works. It&#8217;s very funny name. It has a history. I won&#8217;t spoiler it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or I really, really liked the book by Richard Rutter, that is more on the web. It&#8217;s called Web Typography. It&#8217;s a manual on that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or otherwise you can follow Jason Parmental that has been making a lot of experiments. It depends which part are you interested in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:42:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You&#8217;ve given three or four things there. There&#8217;s probably something to get teeth into. And what about you? Where would we find you if people have listened to this and quite fancy having a chat with you about all this. Where do you hang out online?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:09] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Quite everyone. Maybe on LinkedIn, maybe you can reach me there so it&#8217;s better.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I will find your LinkedIn profile and I will link to that in the show notes. So let&#8217;s wrap it up there. Giulia, thank you so much for chatting to me today. Honestly, a real eye-opener. I&#8217;ve enjoyed that a lot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:24] <strong>Giulia Laco:</strong> Thank you. Me too.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/giulialaco/\">Giulia Laco</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia is a web designer and developer who has been working on the web since the mid 1990s. Her primary interests are web typography &amp; font design. In addition to project development, she is a consultant and a trainer, mostly working with CSS, web fonts and web typography.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the last of our podcasts from WordCamp Europe 2023. I spoke to Giulia in Athens because she had just finished her presentation entitled “Typographic readability in theme design &amp; development”.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this session she explored how designers can assist with the readability of websites through careful consideration of the fonts they choose, and why they choose them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It turns out there’s quite a lot to consider, and if you’ve not given this topic much thought in the past, you’ll perhaps learn something new.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We begin the podcast talking through how, at the start of the web, we were making do with a limited range of tools to help us make typographic choices. There were no web fonts available, but that started to change around 2010. Now we have access to hundreds of fonts and need to be mindful that some fonts can pose readability challenges for some users of your website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia talks about the fact that the manner in which we read has changed since the dawn of the internet. Many people now mostly consume small passages of text, which need to be considered in a different way to longer writing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Concentrating upon the letters in the Latin alphabet, we talk about the ways in which readers typically break up words into smaller units, and the fact that the way letters are shaped can make them easier to parse. There’s some technical language here, ligatures, X-height, apertures, and more, which tell us about the shaping and spacing of letters. Giulia explains the current state of research into how these characteristics of fonts can affect readability.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We talk about whether or not there are fonts which are more readable than others. Is there a collection of fonts which you can use and be confident that you’re going to make it easy for all users of your websites?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia talks about how designs need to consider the spaces into which text is put. Most people have a proclivity for the order in which they view a page, and knowing about this path across the page can help your readers access the text. The width of the text is also important; you want people to be able to read from side to side without having to move their head. How does this work across different device sizes, and what can be said about text which runs from right to left, or top to bottom?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We round off the conversation with Giulia telling us where we can find out more, as well as some of the thought leaders in this space.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It’s a fascinating conversation about a subject that often gets overlooked. Website designers, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Giulia&#8217;s WordCamp Europe 2023 Session &#8220;<a href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/session/typographic-readability-in-theme-design-development/\">Typographic readability in theme design &amp; development</a>&#8220;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://thereadabilityconsortium.org/\">The Readability Consortium</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Amatic+SC\">Amantic Small Caps font</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://djr.com/\">David Jonathan Ross&#8217; website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/\">Web Accessibility Guidelines website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Maag\">Bruno Maag Wikipedia page</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://fonts.google.com/\">Google fonts</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/details/elementsoftypogr0000brin\">Robert Bringhurst&#8217;s The Elements of Typographic Style</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/stop-stealing-sheep/9780133441147/\">Erik Spiekermann&#8217;s Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://book.webtypography.net/\">Richard Rutter&#8217;s Web Typography</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://rwt.io/\">Jason Parmental&#8217;s website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/giulialaco/\">Giulia&#8217;s LinkedIn page</a></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 26 Jul 2023 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15460\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:69:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7320:\"<p>WordPress 6.3 RC2 is ready for download and testing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development.</strong> <strong>Please do not install, or run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites.</strong> Instead, you should evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While release candidates are considered ready for final release, additional testing and use by the community can only make it better.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.3 is scheduled for release on August 8, 2023 – just two weeks from today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get an overview of the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-3/\">6.3 release cycle</a>, check the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/\">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-3/\">6.3-related posts</a>, review <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/\">new features in WordPress 6.3</a>, or <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\">watch a recorded demo</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developers and extenders should review the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">comprehensive WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a> for detailed technical notes regarding new features and improvements.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">RC2 Highlights</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the RC1 release on July 18, 2023, there have been approximately 15 issues resolved in <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.3\">Editor</a> and <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=closed&changetime=07%2F18%2F2023..07%2F25%2F2023&milestone=6.3&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id\">Trac</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notable updates for this release include:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Footnotes will be reverted or restored with post revisions (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52686\">#52686</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Distraction free adds a missing command in the site editor (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52868\">#52868</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Global styles revisions will display text if no revisions are found (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52865\">#52865</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The About Page has been completed (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58067\">#58067</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The About Page now includes a “Get Involved” section (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23348\">#23348</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The dark mode option has been restored in the block editor iframe for Twenty Twenty-One (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58835\">#58835</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Max height value was fixed in the image scaling in the Edit Media screen (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/50523\">#50523</a>).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Additionally, some issues regarding internationalization were addressed (<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58879\" target=\"_blank\">#58879</a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58067\" target=\"_blank\">#58067</a> and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58864\" target=\"_blank\">#58864</a>).</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Test features in WordPress 6.3</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is too.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Encountered an issue? Please report it to the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/\">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket\">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major\">known bugs</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>New to testing? This <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/\">detailed guide</a> is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta/RC release.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Want to know more about testing releases in general? Follow along with the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/\">testing initiatives in Make Core</a> and join the <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/\">#core-test channel</a> in <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/\">Making WordPress Slack</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Vulnerability bounty doubles during the Beta/RC phases</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled between the Beta 1 release and the final release candidate (RC). Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the <a href=\"https://hackerone.com/wordpress\">HackerOne page</a> and in the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/about/security/\">security white paper</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Get WordPress 6.3 RC2</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You can test WordPress 6.3 RC2 in three ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Option 1:</strong> Install and activate the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/\">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Option 2: </strong>Direct download the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.3-RC2.zip\">RC2 version (zip)</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Option 3:</strong> Use the following WP-CLI command:<br /><code>wp core update --version=6.3-RC2</code></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thanks to WordPress plugin and theme developers</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you build plugins and themes? Your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for users of all types worldwide.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hopefully, you have already tested your themes and plugins with WordPress 6.3 betas by now. With RC2, you will want to continue your testing and update the “<em>Tested up to”</em> version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.3.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/\">support forums</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Help translate WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? <a href=\"https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev\">Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Haiku for RC2</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Time is nearly here<br />WordPress shines thanks to you all<br />Let’s get testing, dear</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Thank you to the contributors who collaborated on this post: <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/priethor/\">@Priethor</a></em>,<em> <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/\">@AudrasJb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/\">@DavidBaumwald</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/\">@DanSoschin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jpantani/\">@JPantani</a></em> and <em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/\">@Meher</a></em>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:43:13 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:10:\"Meher Bala\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:77:\"WordCamp Central: WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is Looking for Speakers and Sponsors\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:39:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=3240139\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:102:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-malaysia-2023-is-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2991:\"<img src=\"https://malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/files/2023/06/WCMY-2023-Feature-Image-fb.png\" alt=\"\" />\n\n\n\n<p>WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is set to take place on 8-9 September 2023 at the Cheras North International Convention Centre (CNICC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The first ever WordCamp Malaysia promises to be an unforgettable gathering, offering a platform for knowledge sharing, networking, and community building.</p>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/files/2023/06/CNICC-Cheras-North-International-Convention-Centre-edited.jpg?resize=680%2C382&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Situated near the city center, CNICC provides convenient access to major transportation hubs, allowing attendees to make the most of their time in Kuala Lumpur. With a plethora of nearby amenities and attractions, visitors can immerse themselves in the city’s rich cultural experiences, explore its iconic landmarks, indulge in its diverse culinary scene, and even venture into the nearby natural parks.</p>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/files/2023/06/IMG_0612.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-990\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The organizing team behind WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is actively seeking speakers who can share their valuable insights, expertise, experiences, and inspiring stories with the WordPress community. If you have a passion for WordPress and a desire to contribute to its growth, this is your chance to shine. Interested individuals can&nbsp;<a href=\"https://malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/\">submit speaker proposals now</a>. Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of this prestigious event and make an impact on the WordPress community in Malaysia.</p>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/files/2023/06/HRX00555.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-989\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to speakers, WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is also actively seeking sponsors to showcase and elevate their brands and products to the WordPress community in Malaysia. This is an exceptional opportunity for businesses and organizations to gain exposure, connect with a highly engaged audience, and demonstrate their commitment to supporting the WordPress ecosystem. To explore the various sponsorship packages available and learn more about the benefits of becoming a sponsor, interested parties can visit&nbsp;<a href=\"https://malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-sponsors/\">the call for sponsors page</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To stay updated and learn more about WordCamp Malaysia 2023, visit the official website at&nbsp;<a href=\"https://malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/\">https://malaysia.wordcamp.org/2023/</a>&nbsp;. The website will serve as your go-to resource for event details, schedules, ticketing information, speaker profiles, and other important announcements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don’t miss your chance to be part of WordCamp Malaysia 2023. Submit your speaker proposal or explore sponsorship opportunities today!</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 25 Jul 2023 12:53:17 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:10:\"Sam Suresh\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:134:\"WordCamp Central: WordCamp Masaka 2023: Celebrating Inclusion, Diversity, and Innovation with WordPress in Uganda’s Pearl of Africa!\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:39:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=3166793\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:152:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-masaka-2023-celebrating-inclusion-diversity-and-innovation-with-wordpress-in-ugandas-pearl-of-africa/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3351:\"<p><a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Masaka 2023</a> is the inaugural WordCamp event in Uganda&#8217;s Greater Masaka region. It will be held on <strong>October 6 and 7, 2023</strong>, at <a href=\"https://equsat.ac.ug/\">Equator University of Science and Technology</a> in Masaka City, Uganda. The event is dedicated to celebrating inclusion, diversity and fostering innovation within Uganda&#8217;s WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordCamp Masaka 2023 will offer a wide range of engaging workshops, informative talks, and student WordPress project showcases designed to cater to attendees of different skill levels. The workshops will provide hands-on learning experiences and practical knowledge to help both beginners and advanced users enhance their WordPress skills. The informative talks will cover a diverse range of topics, providing valuable insights and inspiring discussions. The student WordPress project showcases will offer a platform for attendees to share their WordPress projects, regardless of their skill level, and gain inspiration from the creativity within the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the diverse range of activities, WordCamp Masaka 2023 will include a contributor session dedicated to translating WordPress from English to Luganda. This session will actively engage participants of all skill levels in the translation process, fostering collaboration and empowering Luganda (the most spoken language in Uganda) speakers to access WordPress in their native language.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Get Involved</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2023/tickets/\">Purchase Attendee Tickets</a>: Secure your tickets to join the WordPress community in celebrating this inaugural event in the Greater Masaka region, Uganda. Tickets are available for purchase, offering a unique opportunity to engage with like-minded individuals and expand your WordPress knowledge.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-sponsors/\">Call for Sponsors</a>: Support the first-ever WordCamp Masaka and gain visibility for your company. Explore available sponsorship options to contribute to the success of this event and demonstrate your commitment to the WordPress community.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/\">Call for Speakers</a>: Share your expertise, experiences, and insights by applying to be a speaker at WordCamp Masaka 2023. The call for speaker applications welcomes submissions, allowing you to contribute to a diverse range of topics during the event.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-volunteers/\">Call for volunteers</a>: Apply to be a volunteer and actively participate in the organization of WordCamp Masaka 2023. Volunteering offers a unique opportunity to contribute behind the scenes and play an integral role in the success of this inaugural event.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The full list of speakers, session descriptions, and schedule will be published in early September 2023. Be sure to follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/WordPressMasaka\">Twitter</a> and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WordCampMasaka\">Facebook</a> to get the latest updates.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please don&#8217;t forget to post about this event on your social media handles using the hashtag <strong>#WCMasaka</strong>. </p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 25 Jul 2023 08:50:19 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:15:\"Ssebuwufu Moses\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:47:\"WPTavern: Learn How to Use WordPress Playground\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147137\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:58:\"https://wptavern.com/learn-how-to-use-wordpress-playground\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3188:\"<p>WordPress Playground, an experimental project that uses WebAssembly (WASM) to <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/new-prototype-runs-wordpress-in-the-browser-with-no-php-server\">run WordPress in the browser</a>, was <a href=\"https://twitter.com/dbchhbr/status/1679949344315936769\">number 1 on Hacker News</a> recently and was also <a href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/18/wordpress-playground-lets-you-run-wordpress-entirely-in-your-browser/\">featured on TechCrunch</a>. Word is getting around about how easy it is to fire up a sandbox environment in just a few seconds for testing plugins and themes and even different versions of WordPress and PHP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Visiting <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/\" target=\"_blank\"><code>playground.wordpress.net</code></a> instantly creates a real WordPress instance with admin access and everything without having to install PHP, MySQL, or Apache. Instead, it runs inside the browser using a SQLite database.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Playground isn&#8217;t just for developers. It also makes it easy for users who would not ordinarily maintain a local development environment to quickly test plugins or themes they find on WordPress.org, or to just explore new WordPress features in a safe place where you can&#8217;t break anything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have found it difficult to wrap your head around WordPress Playground, Learn WordPress has published a timely new tutorial called <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-start-using-wordpress-playground/\">How to start using WordPress Playground</a>. In this 10-minute video, WordPress Playground creator Adam Zieliński offers a quick demonstration of how to install plugins and themes and customize a site, and how to export design work from a customized theme. He also covers how to download the entire site and import it into a new WordPress instance, and guides users through basic compatibility testing of a theme, by switching the WordPress version on the playground site.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />Learn WordPress Tutorial: <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-start-using-wordpress-playground/\">How to start using WordPress Playground</a>\n\n\n\n<p>Developers who want try some more complicated things with this tool can check out the <a href=\"https://wordpress.github.io/wordpress-playground/docs/apis-overview\">Playground API</a> and learn <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/playground/\">how to integrate it with an app</a> in five minutes. It&#8217;s also useful for <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://wordpress.github.io/wordpress-playground/docs/build-your-first-app#preview-pull-requests-from-your-repository\" target=\"_blank\">previewing pull requests from a repository</a> or setting up a local WordPress development environment using the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WordPressPlayground.wordpress-playground\" target=\"_blank\">VisualStudio Code plugin</a> or <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/playground-tools/tree/trunk/packages/wp-now\" target=\"_blank\">a CLI tool called <code>wp-now</code></a>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 24 Jul 2023 22:09:30 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:74:\"WPTavern: Mojeek Search Engine Adds WordPress’ Openverse to Image Search\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147123\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"https://wptavern.com/mojeek-search-engine-adds-wordpress-openverse-to-image-search\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2089:\"<img />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.mojeek.com/\">Mojeek</a>, a UK-based privacy-oriented search engine, has <a href=\"https://blog.mojeek.com/2023/07/expanding-mojeeks-image-search-with-openverse.html\">added Openverse to its image search</a>. For more than 15 years, Mojeek has provided independent, unbiased search without tracking or building profiles on users. It is one of just a handful of genuine search engines that uses its own technology and algorithms, unlike the metasearch engines that syndicate Bing, Google, and Yandex. In October 2022, Mojeek passed a major milestone of having <a href=\"https://blog.mojeek.com/2022/10/mojeek-now-six-billion-pages.html\">indexed more than 6 billion pages</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The search engine had previously provided Pixabay as the default for its image search with the option to use Bing as an alternative.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We have always wanted to eventually get rid of Bing,&#8221; Mojeek Head of Marketing Joshua Long said. &#8220;Due to both Microsoft&#8217;s API pricing decisions, and informed comments by people using Mojeek to search the web, we recently took that step.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Openverse&#8217;s openly-licensed media was a natural fit for the independent search engine. In 2021, Creative Commons Search was <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/creative-commons-search-is-now-openverse\">rebranded to Openverse</a> when it came under the umbrella of the WordPress open source project. With more than 700 million Creative Commons licensed and public domain image and audio files, Openverse exceeds Pixabay&#8217;s 4 million+ royalty-free and stock images, greatly expanding users&#8217; abilities to search deeper on more topics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Pixabay is still Mojeek&#8217;s default image search provider, users can change their <a href=\"https://www.mojeek.com/preferences\">preferences</a>, which are set using a local cookie and contain no personal data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This addition is a testament to the utility that Openverse brings, as well as the ease and extensibility when it comes to using its API,&#8221; Long said.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 24 Jul 2023 20:30:07 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:115:\"Do The Woo Community: A Deep Dive into Sales Tax for Agencies and Freelancers with Kate Bacholzky and Roger Walker\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75724\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:66:\"https://dothewoo.io/deep-dive-into-sales-tax-agencies-freelancers/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:464:\"<p>Kate Bacholzky from Avalara and Roger Walker from americaneagle.com take you deep into sales tax for yourself and your clients.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/deep-dive-into-sales-tax-agencies-freelancers/\">A Deep Dive into Sales Tax for Agencies and Freelancers with Kate Bacholzky and Roger Walker</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 24 Jul 2023 09:08:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:126:\"Gutenberg Times: All about WordPress 6.3, a breadcrumbs block, design systems and an onboarding wizard – Weekend Edition 262\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=24897\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:131:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/all-about-wordpress-6-3-a-breadcrumbs-block-design-systems-and-an-onboarding-wizard-weekend-edition-262/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:24302:\"<p>Howdy, </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/\">WordPress 6.3 release candidate</a> has been published and with it the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">Fieldguide</a> with the array of changes for developers is now available. It&#8217;s a lot to digest, so we&#8217;ll keep this newsletter short. Or rather focused on the upcoming major release. Pick and choose, depending on what&#8217;s important to your work with WordPress. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have something on your Wishlist for WordPress 6.4, submit a comment: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/\">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a> (until Aug. 15)</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be well and have a fantastic weekend! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost\"><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information\">All about WordPress 6.3</a><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-word-press-6-3\">Fieldguide Dev Notes WordPress 6.3 </a></li></ul></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-g\">Gutenberg 16.2</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ul></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">All about WordPress 6.3</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This week&#8217;s product walk through with <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong>, <strong>Rich Tabor</strong> and Nathan Wrigley is now available:  <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\"><strong>WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo – Highlights &amp; Recording</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jonathan Patani</strong> also published the Q &amp; A from the Project Walk through on the Make Core blog: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/21/6-3-live-product-demo-qa/\"><strong>6.3 Live Product Demo Q&amp;A</strong></a>. You&#8217;ll learn that to add a footnote to a paragraph you just place the cursor where the number should go and use the drop-down menu from the block toolbar. Safe yourself the highlight step. Furthermore, &#8220;The revisions show changes for all styles, including changes made when viewing the stylebook.&#8221; Those are only two of the 14 questions and answers. You can also find a ton of resources that were shared during the walk-through. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Femy Praseeth</strong>, release squad member on the docs team, published a <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-end-user-documentation/\">Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation</a>. </strong>The best advice, I received when starting out in technology was: &#8220;If you want to learn anything in technology deeply, you try to explain it to others.&#8221; Here is your chance to do both. It&#8217;s also a high-impact contribution to the open-source project! As of this writing, there are still 42 tasks in the to-do-column of <a href=\"https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/108/views/9\">the project board</a>, waiting for you! </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>On the WP Briefing <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/\"><strong>Episode 60: Mike Schroder gave a sneak a peek at WordPress 6.3 </strong></a>together with <strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy</strong>. All links and transcript are shared on the post. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Carlo Daniele</strong> at Kinsta did again a wonderful job reporting on the upcoming major WordPress release. <strong><a href=\"https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-6-3/\">What’s New in WordPress 6.3: A Revamped Site Editor, a New Command Palette, Style Revisions, New Blocks, and Much More!</a></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Doc Pop </strong>at Torque Magazine<strong>, </strong>invited me to speak with him about WordPress 6.3 and what&#8217;s coming to WordPress Phase 3 and WordPress 6.4. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxEUmifzGlM\"><strong>Torque Social Hour: Understanding WordPress 6.3 with Birgit Pauli-Haack</strong></a>. We discussed and demoed the new footnotes, Details block, Style Variation revisions, Site Editor updates, Stylebook and more. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong>  highlights all the accessibility improvements that will come with WordPress 6.3 in this post: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/\"><strong>WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</strong></a>,they co-authored with <strong>Joe Dolson</strong> and <strong>Alex Stine</strong>, members of the WordPress Accessibility Team </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jamie Marsland </strong>explains <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTq8v2EjG_I\"><strong>WordPress 6.3 explained in 240 seconds</strong></a>, He covers the two new blocks, Footnotes and Details, many of the Pattern changes, aspect ratio for image blocks, enhancements to the Site Editor, Style revision and more. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>For all the WordPress News outlets, <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> provided a <a href=\"https://nomad.blog/2023/07/17/wordpress-6-3-source-of-truth/\"><strong>Source of Truth for WordPress 6.3 </strong></a>document, actually it&#8217;s more like a book with over 8,000 words. In it, they list  every single feature and update that went into the WordPress 6.3 release, so journalists and bloggers can dig deeper into things and obtain the history, discussions, and overall genesis of a change. It&#8217;s a mammoth of a post. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dave Smith</strong> published a video on the upcoming release: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKcMhSgBt40\"><strong>WordPress 6.3 features in 6 mins &#8211; the power of the Site Editor is finally unleashed!</strong></a> Smith also shared a ton of links to details for the features, if you&#8217;d like to take a deeper dive. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-word-press-6-3\">Fieldguide Dev Notes WordPress 6.3 </h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The release doc team assembled a huge <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">Fieldguide</a> with all the Dev Notes covering the big and small changes to WordPress. Here is the list of Block editor related Dev Notes: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-block-selectors-api/\">Introducing the Block Selectors API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/\">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/social-icons-block-applied-colors-now-dynamically-update-based-on-theme-json-and-global-styles/\">Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But wait, there is more</strong>, quoted from the Fieldguide. </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Anghami has been added as a trusted oEmbed provider. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/49850\">#49850</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Support for TikTok creator profiles has been added. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55784\">#55784</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A new&nbsp;<code>source</code>&nbsp;attribute is added to Block patterns allowing them to be filtered by that source. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58622\">#58622</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The&nbsp;<code>Themes REST API</code>&nbsp;can now indicate whether a theme supports the Site Editor by adding an&nbsp;<code>is_block_theme&nbsp;</code>property to each theme in the&nbsp;<code>wp/v2/themes</code>&nbsp;API response. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58123\">#58123</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A&nbsp;revisions&nbsp;endpoint for global styles,&nbsp;<code>/wp/v2/global-styles/revisions</code>, has been added to the REST API. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58524\">#58524</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><code>WP_REST_Templates_Controller</code>&nbsp;has a new&nbsp;<code>modified</code>&nbsp;field for template and template part objects that returns post modified datetime for Templates. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58540\">#58540</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A new public function&nbsp;<code>wp_get_remote_theme_patterns()</code>&nbsp;has been added to query the&nbsp;<code>patterns</code>&nbsp;datum from&nbsp;<code>theme.json</code>&nbsp;and substitutes current usage of private APIs. (<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58460\">#58460</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-g\">Gutenberg 16.2</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p class=\"is-style-no-vertical-margin\"><strong>🎙️ </strong> Latest episode: <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87/\">Gutenberg Changelog #87 – Patterns, Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3.</a> with Anne McCarthy as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>\n</div></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> wrote about the latest Gutenberg release: <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-16-2-brings-improvements-to-pattern-management-introduces-vertical-text-orientation\"><strong>Gutenberg 16.2 Brings Improvements to Pattern Management, Introduces Vertical Text Orientation</strong></a> and highlighted, among other things, the vertical text orientation, illustrated by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bph/status/1679464594283155458\">my tweet</a>. To enable the controls in the typography section, you need to turn it on via  the theme.json settings. </p>\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code has-primary-color has-border-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><span><code class=\"hljs language-json shcb-code-table shcb-line-numbers\"><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-string\">\"typography\"</span>:{\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>      <span class=\"hljs-attr\">\"dropCap\"</span>: <span class=\"hljs-literal\">false</span>,\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>      <span class=\"hljs-attr\">\"fluid\"</span>: <span class=\"hljs-literal\">true</span>,\n</span></span><span>      <span class=\"hljs-attr\">\"writingMode\"</span>:<span class=\"hljs-literal\">true</span>,\n</span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>}\n</span></span></code></span><small class=\"shcb-language\" id=\"shcb-language-11\"><span class=\"shcb-language__label\">Code language:</span> <span class=\"shcb-language__name\">JSON / JSON with Comments</span> <span class=\"shcb-language__paren\">(</span><span class=\"shcb-language__slug\">json</span><span class=\"shcb-language__paren\">)</span></small></pre>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Emily Shiola</strong> also checked out the latest Gutenberg version in her article: <a href=\"https://torquemag.io/2023/07/whats-new-in-gutenberg-the-latest-version/\"><strong>What’s New in Gutenberg: The Latest Version (July 2023)</strong></a> and updated her collection of highlights from every Gutenberg release back to Gutenberg 7.0. in November 2019. I bookmarked the post for later to walk down memory lane. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nick Diego</strong> held a workshop on <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/07/18/builder-basics-goodbye-reusable-blocks-hello-synced-patterns-and-more/\"><strong>Builder Basics: Goodbye Reusable Blocks—Hello Synced Patterns (and more) </strong></a>and the recording is now available on WordPress.TV. Reusable blocks are a powerful way to save and reuse content across your site. In WordPress 6.3, reusable blocks will be renamed to “synced patterns.” In this online workshop, Diego explored the new functionality for creating custom patterns and managing them in the Site Editor.</p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"ngl-articles colored ngl-articles-50_50 ngl-articles-frontend\">\n\n	\n	<div class=\"ngl-articles-wrap ngl-articles-webview\">\n	\n						\n			<div class=\"ngl-article-mobile\">\n				<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n					<tr>\n						<td valign=\"top\">\n							<div class=\"ngl-article-mob-wrap\">\n							<div class=\"ngl-article-featured\"><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/introducing-the-breadcrumbs-wordpress-block-plugin/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/breadcrumbs-block.jpg?w=652&ssl=1\" /></a></div><div class=\"ngl-article-title\"><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/introducing-the-breadcrumbs-wordpress-block-plugin/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\"><span>Introducing the Breadcrumbs WordPress Block Plugin</span></a></div><div class=\"ngl-article-excerpt\">In 2009, I announced the release of my first breadcrumbs plugin. It was a one-file PHP script that I&rsquo;d been using in my themes for around a year, and I&hellip; <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/introducing-the-breadcrumbs-wordpress-block-plugin/\" class=\"ngl-article-read-more\" target=\"_self\">Check it out</a></div>							</div>\n						</td>\n					</tr>\n				</table>\n			</div>\n			\n			\n			\n\n		\n		\n		</div>\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>In her article: <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/ollie-theme-previews-new-onboarding-wizard-in-development\"><strong>Ollie Theme Previews New Onboarding Wizard in Development</strong></a>, <strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> reported on <strong>Mike McAlister</strong>&#8216;s newest work developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site. &#8220;McAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool.&#8221; she wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike McAlister</strong> posted about the new onboarding Wizard on hit blog as well:<strong> I<a href=\"https://olliewp.com/in-pursuit-of-a-more-intuitive-onboarding-experience/\">n </a></strong><a href=\"https://olliewp.com/in-pursuit-of-a-more-intuitive-onboarding-experience/\"><strong>pursuit of a more intuitive onboarding experience</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>With LocalWP it is a straightforward tool to set up a new development site for testing or other purposes on your computer. With blueprints, you and configure a standard set-up with a set of plugins and themes. This week, <strong>Brian Gardner</strong><a href=\"https://wpengine.com/builders/frost-blueprint-local/\"> <strong>Introduced the Frost Blueprint for Local</strong></a>. &#8220;A Local Blueprint that draws inspiration from <a href=\"https://frostwp.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Frost</a>, our <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/frost/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">open-source</a> WordPress block theme. This Blueprint showcases the power and extensibility of Full Site Editing.&#8221; he wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> published the first part of his upcoming <em>Beyond Block Styles</em> series: <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/\"><strong>Using the WordPress scripts package with themes</strong></a>. He walks you through the details of setting up your local development space to get ready for block development. &#8220;In Part 2, you’ll learn to design a set of custom block styles. Part 3 will bring it all together into a beautiful and functional editor control. From there, well, you’ll be building some amazing features.&#8221; Tadlock wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Yesterday&#8217;s Live Q &amp; A: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/live/6-Epjq3FYSs?feature=share\"><strong>Design Systems and theme.json</strong></a> with <strong>David Bowman</strong>, <strong>Alec Geatches</strong> and <strong>Joni Halabi</strong> was recorded and is available on YouTube. Shared resources</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/vip-design-system-bridge\">Repository for the design bridge</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/vip-design-system-bridge/blob/trunk/docs/design-tokens-example/README.md\">Tutorial</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/course/develop-your-first-low-code-block-theme/\">Develop Your First Low-Code Block Theme</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/courses/#using-the-site-editor\">Using the Site Editor Courses: </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/\">Plugin Create-Block-Theme</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41547\">Governing block settings and interactions</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/vip-block-data-api/\">VIP Block Data API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/vip-governance-plugin\">VIP Governance plugin</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2023 on. Updated by yours truly.  <em><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/\">The index 2022 is here</a></em></p>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In last week&#8217;s Twitch stream, Ryan Welcher <strong><a href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1870840777\">explored the existing SlotFills for extending WordPress</a>.</strong>  It&#8217;s an longer version of a <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/06/30/developer-hours-exploring-editor-extensibility/\">previous talk at Developer Hours</a> a few weeks ago . He walks you through all the Slotfill existing in the post editor as well as the Site editor.  Welcher e also wrote about on the topic on WordPress Developer blog: <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2022/11/how-to-extend-wordpress-via-the-slotfill-system/\">How to extend WordPress via the SlotFill system</a> and presented<a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2022/11/18/extending-wordpress-using-slotfill/\"> at WCUS 2022. </a></p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"ngl-articles colored ngl-articles-50_50 ngl-articles-frontend\">\n\n	\n	<div class=\"ngl-articles-wrap ngl-articles-webview\">\n	\n						\n			<div class=\"ngl-article-mobile\">\n				<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n					<tr>\n						<td valign=\"top\">\n							<div class=\"ngl-article-mob-wrap\">\n							<div class=\"ngl-article-featured\"><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/live-q-a-leveraging-gutenbergs-architecture-to-take-plugin-development-to-new-levels/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Gutenberg-LiveQA-Adams-Waldstein-Morita-Pauli-Haack.jpg?w=652&ssl=1\" /></a></div><div class=\"ngl-article-title\"><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/live-q-a-leveraging-gutenbergs-architecture-to-take-plugin-development-to-new-levels/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\"><span>Live Q &#038; A: Leveraging Gutenberg&#8217;s architecture to take plugin development to new levels</span></a></div><div class=\"ngl-article-excerpt\">In this YouTube Live Q &amp; A, participants learned how Gutenberg components and scripts can be used outside the block editor to revamp a plugin&#8217;s code base. Jason Adams, Director&hellip;</div>							</div>\n						</td>\n					</tr>\n				</table>\n			</div>\n			\n			\n			\n\n		\n		\n		</div>\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">them via email</a> or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\">For questions to be answered on the <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast\">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/690647f4cf/\">Plants growing out of the blocks at the Acropolis by Courtney Robertson found on WordPress Photos</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<form class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input type=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" name=\"ngl_email\" id=\"ngl_email\" /></div></div><button type=\"submit\" class=\"ngl-form-button\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" id=\"ngl_list_id\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" id=\"ngl_double_optin\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 22 Jul 2023 08:49:19 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:67:\"WPTavern: Ollie Theme Previews New Onboarding Wizard in Development\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147007\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:78:\"https://wptavern.com/ollie-theme-previews-new-onboarding-wizard-in-development\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3997:\"<p>Unless you are some kind of wizard with the block editor, starting a WordPress website from a blank slate can be overwhelming and ultimately defeating. Mike McAlister, maker of the <a href=\"https://olliewp.com/\">free Ollie theme</a>, is developing an onboarding experience that aims to drastically reduce the amount of time users spend setting up a new site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I suspect we’re cutting out a half hour or more of finagling a new WordPress site,&#8221; McAlister <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mikemcalister/status/1681038694239576064\">said</a>. &#8220;No more wrestling with a blank canvas.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ollie Onboarding Wizard creates a guided setup experience that allows users to add basic site settings, select a color palette, input their brand colors, add a logo and site icon, and move on to creating pages. It eliminates the necessity of hunting all these settings down inside blocks and the Site Editor.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of having to create pages individually and assign them the correct template or place the right full-page pattern, Ollie onboarding makes it possible for users to simply check which pages they want automatically created.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The goal of this wizard is to help WordPress users zoom through a site setup with the Ollie theme and abstract away those annoying and disconnected setup steps we have to do for every site,&#8221; McAlister said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The wizard is also a way to educate users along the way. WordPress is going through a much-needed evolution, but as expected, users are having a tough time with the transition. Change is tough, especially when you power half of the internet. Workflows like this can help.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The onboarding interface leans heavily towards the design of the Site Editor to make it seem naturally at home inside WordPress. It demonstrates just how nice plugins and themes can look in the admin with a more modern interface, which could soon be a reality once the ambitious <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-plans-ambitious-admin-ui-revamp-with-design-system-galvanizing-broad-support-from-the-developer-community\">admin UI revamp plans</a> are complete.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Months ago, Patrick Posner and I agreed that the future of WordPress is in the new Site Editor view, so that’s where we built this wizard,&#8221; McAlister said. &#8220;That assumption has since been validated, and because of that, our interface blends in seamlessly with native WordPress.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This is just a v1, but we’re already planning on how to seamlessly integrate choosing a vertical with curated plugins (eCommerce, landing page, email marketing, etc.) and surfacing pro features to really bring this experience together. This isn’t just a WordPress theme.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>McAlister said the interface is all React with largely native WordPress components and a few custom components sprinkled in to handle some of the more unique aspects of the tool. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>After previewing the onboarding wizard, some people have asked if it will be available as a standalone product. McAlister confirmed that he doesn&#8217;t have any plans of productizing it but if there is enough demand he is willing to entertain the idea. Others have asked if there is an API for developers to add their own sections.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;No API yet, although with the announcements of the admin overhaul initiative, perhaps one is coming,&#8221; McAlister said. &#8220;Right now, this is just a custom React layer that mimics the site editor view. It’s built to be flexible though, so if a core solution opens up, we can migrate to that.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>McAlister previewed the wizard on Twitter and in his newsletter, but it&#8217;s still in development and not yet available for testing. He plans to launch the Ollie theme on WordPress.org once the wizard is ready for public use.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 22 Jul 2023 01:03:26 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:111:\"Gutenberg Times: Live Q &amp; A: Leveraging Gutenberg’s architecture to take plugin development to new levels\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=24919\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:112:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/live-q-a-leveraging-gutenbergs-architecture-to-take-plugin-development-to-new-levels/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:61388:\"<p>In this YouTube Live Q &amp; A,  participants learned how Gutenberg components and scripts can be used outside the block editor to revamp a plugin&#8217;s code base.  Jason Adams, Director of Development and Jon Waldstein, Lead Developer from GiveWP walked us through their approach to rebuilding their highly popular Donations plugin using WordPress native interface components and scripts and then also discussed how their code fits into the ecosystem. Lena Morita, a JavaScript developer on the components team. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p class=\"has-normal-font-size\"><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost\"><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-connect-with-the-panelists\">Connect with the Panelists: </a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-resources\">Resources</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-strong-introduction-strong\">Introduction</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-strong-give-wp-plugin-architecture-strong\">Plugin architecture</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-strong-give-wp-plugin-revamp-strong\">Plugin revamp</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-strong-give-wp-demo-strong\">Demo</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-strong-adding-interactivity-how-a-form-works-strong\">Adding interactivity &#8211; how a form works</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#7-strong-rendering-strong\">Rendering</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#8-strong-validation-strong\">Validation</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#9-strong-how-its-built-strong\">How it’s built</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#10-strong-give-wp-challenges-strong\">Challenges</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#11-strong-incorporating-react-strong\">Incorporating ReactJS</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#12-strong-trade-offs-and-compatibility-strong\">Trade-offs and compatibility</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#13-strong-support-team-strong\">Support team</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#14-strong-sidebar-customization-isolated-block-editor-strong\">Sidebar customization &#8211; isolated Block Editor</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#15-strong-making-it-easier-with-documentation-and-components-strong\">Making it easier with documentation and components</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#16-strong-some-hard-codes-strong\">Some things are hard-coded</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#17-strong-locked-blocks-strong\">Locked blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#18-strong-filters-and-blocks-strong\">Filters and blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#19-strong-announcements-and-contact-info-strong\">Announcements and contact Info</a></li></ul></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-connect-with-the-panelists\">Connect with the Panelists: </h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-18 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-content-justification-space-between is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-16 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Lena Morita</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/0mirka00/\">WordPress profile</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/mirka\">Twitter @mirka</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Jon Waldstein</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"mailto:jon@givewp.com\">jon@givewp.com</a>&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/jonwaldstein\">Twitter @jonwaldstein</a>&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Jason Adams</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"mailto:jason.adams@givewp.com\">jason.adams@givewp.com</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/jasontheadams\">Twitter @jasontheadams</a>&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-resources\">Resources</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/the-future-of-givewp-and-the-block-editor/\">Post Status: The Future of GiveWP and the Block Editor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCN_M5xvPNY\">Video Walk-through</a> (9 months old, so it has improved since then)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://givewp.com/lps/next-generation-donation-forms/\">GiveWP Next Gen Landing Page</a> (with ability to demo)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/impress-org/givewp-next-gen/\">GiveWP Next Gen GitHub repository</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Blog post by Jason Adams: <a href=\"https://givewp.com/join-us-to-build-the-next-generation-of-wordpress-donation-forms/\">Join Us to Build the Next Generation of WordPress Donation Forms</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/isolated-block-editor\">Isolated Block Editor </a>(GitHub)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Transcript: </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So welcome to our 34th Gutenberg Times Live Q&amp;A. My name is Birgit Pauli-Haack, and I&#8217;m your host and the publisher of the Gutenberg Times. Thank you all for attending the show and it&#8217;s so great to have you. So today as announced, we will discuss how a product company can leverage WordPress built in Gutenberg architecture to take plugin development to new levels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team of GiveWP went all in on the approach and discovered new ways to build the new version of GiveWP Plugin. And we have the pleasure to meet two members of the technical team on the show and hear the genesis of the path and you can ask them questions. Before I introduce a panel, a few housekeeping notes. Speaking of questions, for those watching on YouTube, you can use the chat box next to the livestream and pose your questions and also chat with us or include where you&#8217;re watching from.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I might not go over that very often, but we&#8217;ll definitely will look through the questions. And then here on Zoom, use the Q&amp;A bubble on the bottom of the screen or the jet bubble to share your thoughts and questions. Please be kind even if you disagree. This is a family friendly endeavor. If you might be wondering or your internet connection is not stable or you don&#8217;t have the time to sit through all of it, the recording will be available on YouTube later today after it&#8217;s fully rendered. Then the summary posts will be shared with the shared resources, will be on the Gutenberg Times within the next couple of weeks.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-strong-introduction-strong\">Introduction</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So allow me to introduce our panel for today. Say hello, and let us know where you&#8217;re located tonight. I have the feeling that between the panel and the attendees, we span quite a bit of the globe. So I present to you, Jason Adams, director of development of GiveWP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Hi, I&#8217;m Jason. It&#8217;s good to meet y&#8217;all. I am from sunny San Diego, California.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Yeah. I&#8217;ll also present to you Jon Waldstein, the lead developer of GiveWP, and it&#8217;s all his fault. Oh, sorry. And then last but not least, my co-host, Lena Morita, who is a JavaScript developer and core contributor to the Gutenberg components and sponsored by Automattic. Hi, Lena.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Hi, I&#8217;m Lena. I am based in Tokyo, Japan. It&#8217;s 2:00 AM right now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. So good morning, Lena. Good morning, everybody else? Yeah, Jason and Jon, yeah, are both on the West Coast.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: I&#8217;m on the East Coast, Rhode Island.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: East Coast, yeah. Rhode Island. Yes, sorry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Happy to be here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, geography can be always a bit tricky for me.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-strong-give-wp-plugin-architecture-strong\">Plugin architecture</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So let&#8217;s start at the beginning. Jason and I met at the post status get together at WordCamp US last year and you just had announced, GiveWP just had announced the start of the revamp of the GiveWP plugin, version 3.0. Widely distributed plugin for nonprofits and others to collect donations on website with various add-ons. Then you mentioned that you are building the new version on top of Gutenberg components and WordPress scripts and I found that fascinating. So before we dive in head first, let&#8217;s get everyone on the same plate. In short, Jason, what is GiveWP?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, so GiveWP number one donation plugin for WordPress. We have coming up on about 200,000 folks that use GiveWP to connect donations directly from their website, manage their donors and keep their nonprofits, which is largely our audience, running. Doing their day-to-day thing and not having to work too hard to bring in donations on there to keep their work going.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Awesome. Yeah, GiveWP, I used it quite a bit when I was working for the agency, but what made you rethink the current architecture of your plugin?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, so first Give still works very much kind of, you remember the classic editor experience of WordPress where it was it kind of data entry, right? You didn&#8217;t design or build your pages, you entered data about your pages, the content and tags and all this other stuff, and then you click publish and then you view on the front end, what did I get? We know that that worked great for decades, but now we&#8217;re moving more to a visual era of building things. People want to be able to visualize and have that kind of full more immersed experience. That was our motivator, was wanting to go down that route. We had a lot of ideas for how we wanted to do that, but we had technical debt building as all products do that was making it more and more difficult to go down that path. Yeah, we started to weigh our options of how are we going to go about taking GiveWP to the next level.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Interesting. Yeah, the drag and drop, the visual editing, I think that&#8217;s kind of really where Gutenberg shines and having a plugin follow that path. How did you figure out the path forward? Because a revamp normally is really a big project and it&#8217;s a multi-year development project, so how did you go about it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, and we didn&#8217;t want to do a start from scratch kind of a thing. We wanted to iteratively build it out. So what&#8217;s been nice is that our underlying architecture for donations, donors, none of that&#8217;s changing. It&#8217;s just our forms. We first explored four years ago just building something proprietary and the reality was, it was not up to the standard that you see in Gutenberg and other sorts of things today. It&#8217;s a lot of work. It&#8217;s so easy to take for granted just the idea of a block, a thing that you can move up and down. It&#8217;s a fluid user interface, inner blocks, blocks inside a block. There&#8217;s so many things that are easy to take for granted when you go to set out to build something like this. We were like, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s right there in Gutenberg.&#8221; And so we started to kind of peel it back and we knew that Gutenberg is not&#8230; Gutenberg is in WordPress, WordPress isn&#8217;t Gutenberg. You can go to the Gutenberg repository and it&#8217;s broken out into tons of packages.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We just started installing stuff and we did what we call spiking, where we&#8217;re just trying out an idea for a fixed length of time. I think we gave one of our developers, might have been Jon or our other senior developer on the project, shout out to him, Kyle Johnson, one of them had a week to see what they could do. We were really surprised how much we were able to get up and running. Have the list view of blocks, have the block editor itself, have our own blocks loading, the inspector.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s like you have so much that you can get up and running in such a short time that would&#8217;ve taken us months to achieve and it&#8217;s already so battle tested all of these packages. It&#8217;s hard to appreciate how much that&#8217;s worth by itself. Of course this is where WordPress is going. We didn&#8217;t want to have to reimagine an entirely new user experience and then train our users on how to use that. We wanted somebody to be able to go from working on a page or a post to a form and not have to relearn the whole journey, but to be like, this feels immediately familiar. It&#8217;s a little different, but it feels inherently familiar. Reducing that user friction from changing from context to context within WordPress, which I think is really important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes, it sounds right, a good path, but there are definitely some hurdles. So what were the first wins that you kind of say when your developer kind of set out, get a week, and then what was it exactly that they set out to do, but then found, &#8220;Oh, that is going to be fast to develop that in a week.&#8221; Normally development takes about four weeks or five weeks or something like that. Yeah. What are your first wins?</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"4-strong-give-wp-plugin-revamp-strong\">Plugin revamp</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Like I said, even the concept of a block, because for us, we have, and I&#8217;ll demo this in a moment here, but we have our sections and then our fields go in our sections, like name amount. To just have everything visually there and to have, &#8220;I want this field to be down there,&#8221; and making that as fluid user experience is not as easy as it sounds. Or we also have sections and fields inside of sections. So this inner block concept and then being able to select which blocks are visible based on what context you&#8217;re in. Or I click on a block and that block contextually shows up in the inspector. We achieved all of that within a week and I was like, &#8220;We have a lot of work to do.&#8221; But just the fact that we could get that far in such a short amount of time, those were the wins that were like, &#8220;Well, we don&#8217;t want to go reinvent this,&#8221; and it already is a familiar user experience, so it would be silly not to do this in short.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So I think that I find it fascinating and when you tried to describe it, I think it would be really helpful for us to have a short demo of the current state of your development so we can actually look at things and then I can see that we might have the first round of audience questions. What will you show us tonight?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: All right, let&#8217;s share my screen and show some stuff. All right. Can y&#8217;all see my screen?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes, now we can.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"5-strong-give-wp-demo-strong\">Demo</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: All right, cool. So this is GiveWP very similar to how it is now, but I have a plugin, what we&#8217;re calling our feature plugin right now installed, called NextGen that anybody can actually go test out themselves. We have a landing page for this that we can share the link for that you can just go click spin up a site and it will just spin you up a site and you can be playing with it literally in 15 seconds.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: I tried this and it was really easy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, thank you. So let&#8217;s see here. So I&#8217;ll add a new V3 form as we&#8217;re calling it. I won&#8217;t get into why it&#8217;s V3, but it is. So here you go. It&#8217;s funny, when we first showed this to people, it almost had an anticlimactic effect to it where they were like, &#8220;Well, what else would it look like?&#8221; Because it just fits right within WordPress. It&#8217;s like, &#8220;Oh, okay.&#8221; So you can see we&#8217;ve got the list view like you would normally have. We have our various sections, you can see everything within those sections. We&#8217;ve got the form itself. So a lot of this is very similar. Now you don&#8217;t have the fluid typing interface where you can just add paragraphs and paragraphs. You can&#8217;t just click somewhere and start typing. But that&#8217;s really neat is that you&#8217;re able to constrain how the block editor works, because for us, we don&#8217;t want people just typing in the forms. It doesn&#8217;t make sense for a form.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, people want to do something, like add a text field, and so we can just click on a section and we can add a text field, favorite color, we can mark it required. So I mean, as you see, it&#8217;s just Gutenberg. It&#8217;s the exact experience somebody would normally expect, but it&#8217;s tailored to how our forms work. And for us, we also wanted to do things like, if I come down here, I can only add a section. We wanted all fields to be within sections. So that&#8217;s a really subtle thing, that&#8217;s really powerful actually, because this is root level blocks here, and a root level block can only be a section. But then when I&#8217;m in a section and I want to add fields, well now Gutenberg knows what blocks can go in there and that&#8217;s not something we had to build. Gutenberg already has a concept of all of that kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I can come in here, you can click in and you can have that same&#8230; Gutenberg comes with a lot of what they call controls out of the box. So things like, I want to have inline text editing or something like that. That&#8217;s not something that you have to build. One other thing that I&#8217;ll point out here, is that if I go to add our blocks here, you can see that you have only our blocks. So we didn&#8217;t want to open up the form to every block that exists in WordPress. We thought about that, but we had very specific reasons why we didn&#8217;t. That&#8217;s another thing that&#8217;s really neat, is you can think of Gutenberg as creating your own sandbox environment for what you want to build. So you don&#8217;t have to think to yourselves like, &#8220;Oh my goodness, we have to&#8230;&#8221; So every block is open to this? No, you can make it limited to only your own fixed list of blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other thing that is really neat that we&#8217;re able to do is add an additional tab over here that we call design. So this is breaking out a bit from what Gutenberg natively does. We wanted folks to have the ability to, in this view, we call it the builder view, which is where you&#8217;re focusing on the structure of your form. So it&#8217;s kind of a very vanilla, very plain looking, it&#8217;s just meant to be very clear. You can see with our donation summary here, it&#8217;s not really showing you anything real. It&#8217;s purely so that you can do things like I just want to position things where I want to have them in my form. So then you can switch over to the design tab and now we can actually view our form and this is the exact form as it&#8217;s going to render in the front end, and you can play around with secondary colors.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So my secondary color in this form design is being used here. I can make this a nice little purple color, I can change the header, I can hide it, show it. You can do all sorts of fun things in here. But I mean that was pretty powerful of just the ability to add an entirely new type of experience within Gutenberg and giving people the ability to preview. For us, because Give forms are fairly widgety, right? We&#8217;re not trying to preview the entire page, just one thing, it worked out really nicely to be able to do it right within here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m trying to think what else. So the last thing that I&#8217;ll point out here, let me publish this. Let&#8217;s go to our form. Let&#8217;s take a look at it on the front end. Okay, so we&#8217;ve got our form here on the front end. I&#8217;m going to dive deep into the weeds here, it&#8217;s a dev audience, so just track with me. Okay, so typically when you&#8217;re working in Gutenberg, the way that we typically think of it saving is it saves as a string version to the post content. So you think of the Gutenberg HTML comments where it includes attributes and stuff about the block. You can load it dynamically and so on and so forth, but it saves to the post content column of the database. Then when you&#8217;re rendering the page, you grab that post content and you stick it on your page.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now for us, we didn&#8217;t want to just do that. We had to do a heck of a lot more. So if I fill this out, green for anybody who&#8217;s wondering. Then let&#8217;s throw on our test card, let&#8217;s say for five, donate. So I just made a real donation to my Stripe account. So a lot just happened there. That was obviously a lot more than just, &#8220;Oh, it looks like a form.&#8221; No, it has to actually work like a form. Forms submit data, forms store data. You can see here it&#8217;s referring to my favorite color that was stored in the donation meta. So has a lot that it needs to actually do and validate and all of this different stuff. What we did differently, is that when our forms save, so coming back here, so when I click update, it&#8217;s actually saving as JSON.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So before Gutenberg turns into the big string that we know it to be, that saved content, it actually first stores as a JSON object. A bunch of blocks, block attributes, and then child blocks and so on and so forth. It&#8217;s a very simple structure actually. We&#8217;re doing nothing with the string content, we&#8217;re using just that JSON, and we built what we&#8217;re calling our field API and we&#8217;re converting the JSON structure into the field API. So this email address field, here it&#8217;s a block and then it gets converted into an email field on the front end, which is meaningful within GiveWP. So in other words, this is purely presentational so to speak and structural and we can convert it in any context we want. That&#8217;s a really powerful thing when you think about it, that you can take something like this, structurally speaking, and just convert it into your own API. So the block JSON, it&#8217;s focused on how is this all laid out within Gutenberg.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we load this page, literally all we&#8217;re doing is we&#8217;re grabbing that JSON that we save and we&#8217;re handing it back to Gutenberg and we say, &#8220;Here&#8217;s the form,&#8221; and that&#8217;s it. It just works. Then when we go to save it, we do the conversion and you can actually see that at play. If I just add another text field here, maybe. If I go to design, like that&#8217;s showing up here, because just as we&#8217;re working within, so even though I didn&#8217;t save it, that&#8217;s the kind of thing I&#8217;m showing there. Even though we didn&#8217;t save it, we&#8217;re still just grabbing that JSON object and converting it to our field API and rendering it that way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think for a lot of plugin developers and whatnot, I really want them to grasp the concept of Gutenberg is not just a way of being able to lay things out and then you just have to take whatever it gives you and slap it on the page and there you go. It&#8217;s like, no, you can use it as a tool for interacting with your user and then you can convert it into whatever context you can imagine. And that&#8217;s a pretty powerful thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think that&#8217;s it for what I had in mind for demo. Anything that anybody wants me to show a little more or poke into here?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: I have a question. So on the front end, on the actual front end form, how are you adding interactivity? Like the JavaScript parts?</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"6-strong-adding-interactivity-how-a-form-works-strong\">Adding interactivity &#8211; how a form works</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, so the way this works is that, so it takes the Gutenberg JSON, converts it into the field API, and then that is serialized and this is an iframe. Inside the iframe is a React application that&#8217;s just running independently. The React application takes in the form and then it connects to things like gateways, other add add-ons, that sort of a thing. But yeah, that&#8217;s where it&#8217;s coming from. This is just a React application of our own design, built specifically for Give forms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: So basically field API converts all that JSON data into actual React components and stuff?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: The field API is a PHP layer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Oh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: It&#8217;s pure just PHP objects, but it&#8217;s focused. Whereas the Gutenberg API is focused on blocks and child blocks, attributes, that sort of thing. Our field API is focused on how does a form work. So for example, is this a field? Is this field required? What are the validation rules for this field? Does it have any sanitization that needs to happen? So things that you would typically think about from a field or field form perspective, that&#8217;s what the field API thinks about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was also really important to us that developers could programmatically&#8230; So if I want to programmatically move a field, add a field, add a section, do anything, you can do it using our field API in PHP. So you can kind of add a middleman layer between Gutenberg, a programmatic layer to be able to make more adjustments to your form. Then that&#8217;ll just show up here. For example, when I submitted this form down here, how does it know that this is a required field and what does that even mean, right? Because it has to validate on the other side. So when we submit this form on the server, it&#8217;s grabbing the form again in the structure of the field API, it&#8217;s finding the favorite color field, and then it&#8217;s checking the validation rules such as, &#8220;Hey, this is required,&#8221; or &#8220;It can only be up to 255 characters,&#8221; or whatever else. Does that make sense?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah. So wait, the initial render of this form is not in PHP, I think you said this was initially rendered in React, or is it actually a PHP rendered page?</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"7-strong-rendering-strong\">Rendering</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: I know there&#8217;s so many layers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: It&#8217;s so interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: It&#8217;s no worries. The field API lives in memory and PHP. That can be used both for rendering a form or validating a form or doing any number of things. This form represented in memory and PHP and it knows all the responsibilities of that form. Then we say, &#8220;Hey, I want to render that. That&#8217;s what I want to do this time.&#8221; And so then what it does is it, I think it&#8217;ll show you, it serializes everything. I thought it would show here. That&#8217;s fine. But anyway, it takes the whole field API structure, the form, all of its internal fields, elements and so on and so forth, serializes that, passes that to the front end, which is received by a React application.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Oh, that&#8217;s how you hydrate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Exactly. Yep. The React application is ready to receive a form in the structure of the field API JSON.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;m not sure if everybody&#8217;s aware, but the interactivity API is kind of an experimental phase in Gutenberg right now. And this is a very hot topic. I feel like it&#8217;s on everybody&#8217;s minds. How do we hydrate interactive components on the front end? So it&#8217;s very intriguing how people have done this before any kind of ready-made abstraction layer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Right. There&#8217;s also the difference between, for example, I&#8217;m making a page, on my page I&#8217;m adding a component. This component is an accordion. It&#8217;s presentational, but there is a JavaScript element to it of, I want to be able to make interactivity happen on a presentational level versus what I&#8217;m describing here. It&#8217;s pretty complex, because there&#8217;s both a front end validation and server side validation, and we want them to be the same. There&#8217;s a lot of complexity around a form and what the form even does. So for us, our forms don&#8217;t just save and entry, our forms actually output into a donation and donor. So trying to capture the lightning in a bottle of boiling this down to interactivities, it&#8217;s like, well, it&#8217;s doing a lot more than just being interactive. It&#8217;s also validating and doing a whole bunch of other stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"8-strong-validation-strong\">Validation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Actually, one thing I&#8217;ll show here if I switch to our multi-step design, so let&#8217;s just update this. Okay, we&#8217;ve got a completely different experience here. So now in this one, every single step, so when I do that, you notice there it kind of loaded for a moment in between steps? It&#8217;s validating with the server. So every single step is now validated against the server to make sure that everything here is in fact correct.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, actually I have that differently set. Anyway, so if I were to try to continue, I&#8217;m going to get immediate validation feedback from the server. Even if you try to trick the JavaScript and make it not work and validate in the front end, it&#8217;s still going to validate on the server. So yeah, it&#8217;s a complex piece. So I think the interactivity API and stuff like that is really, really great for a lot of simpler forms of interactivity. But when you&#8217;re building what is in effect a small application, I think something like that is still a ways away from covering everything that we need this to do. Does that make sense?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Totally sense for me too. Especially the other pieces, not only the validation of the form, but it&#8217;s also the connection with the external services like Stripe and the databases and all of that. Those need to be abstracted too and then kind of come back through the server API I would think, to then push it again to the front end in some other places.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Exactly, because we don&#8217;t have a fixed list of gateways here. That&#8217;s injected. We also have our own add-ons, like fee recovery, form field manager, those add additional blocks and fields and those are injected at different points. It&#8217;s a highly customizable system, so there&#8217;s a lot going on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Super. Yeah. Well, do you have any other questions, Lena, to get them to show you something or shall we talk a little bit higher level now?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, we can go higher level.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, thank you so much, Jason, for the demo. It&#8217;s fascinating, especially how the difference between before and now, because I only know the current version or the version three years ago and what you do now. So it&#8217;s a total different beast, I would say, as complexity, but also easy to use.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"9-strong-how-its-built-strong\">How it’s built</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So just a ballpark, would you say from the code base, how much is actually based on the WordPress components and scripts and how much of that app do you have to rebuild kind of thing? So I would think the field API on PHP, that&#8217;s kind of the interface between those two as we saw.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Maybe it&#8217;s kind of an odd question. Yeah, I get that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Twenty-five percent. I mean a lot. Gutenberg definitely attributes to quite a bit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: I could take that one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, go for it, Jon.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: We built the donation form, the new one that you were seeing on the front end, completely from scratch. That whole thing with React serializing or hydrating data from the server, we did that from scratch, because our old forms were just using post types. So everything is server rendered, and it&#8217;s a little difficult to add that level of interactivity with React using the old system. So we really built it, the front end, from the ground up. The form builder that Jason was demoing is mostly things you can get from the Gutenberg package. We had to customize a couple things that we had to fork and call our own, mainly the sidebar that you saw where we have that design tab, that&#8217;s not something that&#8217;s available to us. So we had to create that and implement it on our own. But for the most part, what you&#8217;re seeing on the form builder can be achieved from Gutenberg packages.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So the sidebar, when you say that, I saw the controls that were there, they looked like Gutenberg components, the color, bigger, and the different kind of&#8230; Yeah. So that definitely might have come through that. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: We barely invented anything in the inspector.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah, and that&#8217;s the beautiful thing about using Gutenberg is if you want to create a block in our form builder, there&#8217;s nothing different about it than building a WordPress Gutenberg block. And we really wanted to make sure that was the case so that there&#8217;s nothing, no crazy documentation that you have to relearn. So we do have a community of developers that interact with GiveWP, external developers, and we want to preserve the customization of the plugin. So if you know how to build a block in WordPress, you&#8217;re going to know how to build a block for us as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, that&#8217;s awesome. Yeah. Well, this is all talking about the good sides, but were there any surprises or challenges that you encountered while you were building that, or are you still encountering? What are the biggest surprises that you&#8217;ve found?</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"10-strong-give-wp-challenges-strong\">Challenges</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah. Well, we mentioned we had to customize some components like the sidebar. But I think the one I want to mention is GiveWP is not just one plugin. We have a lot of add-ons that extend the functionality of GiveWP, whether it be gateways and different ways to customize your form. We have a lot of things that interact with our main plugin. One of the bigger challenges recently was figuring out how to open up our customized Gutenberg form builder with our add-ons. Now, another shout out to Kyle Johnson, who is a developer on our team who built the first iteration of the form builder. To get things up and running we used just React, Create React App, which ends up bundling all the scripts together into one JavaScript file. So when you load the form builder, you&#8217;re just loading a page and it&#8217;s just loading that one JavaScript file.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we found out later is that in order to load external blocks from our add-ons and other things that are interacting with the form builder, all of these different things are always reacting with certain dependencies like React. They can&#8217;t all load Gutenberg at the same time. It&#8217;s just not going to work, which is how the post editor works and why WordPress Scripts package came out is that you can extract all the dependencies from your script and let WordPress load those for you. So that was a big kind of structural change we had to make so that we are now relying on WordPress to provide us with Gutenberg, which is actually something we didn&#8217;t want to do. We wanted to have full access to the latest version of Gutenberg, but it wasn&#8217;t possible for us, because we have add-ons that also need to interact with Gutenberg and React, and they can&#8217;t all just be loading their scripts at the same time. It&#8217;s just not going to work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like most of us know, wp_enqueue_scripts, you add an array of dependencies that you want your script to use, and WordPress will load those for you. And that&#8217;s how we had to go about loading our form builder and then having add-ons come in and give us a block or give us something to customize the form builder and just let WordPress handle loading external scripts. That was the big one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: I&#8217;ll add to that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: I&#8217;m curious.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"11-strong-incorporating-react-strong\">Incorporating ReactJS</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: It&#8217;s easy to take for granted that the Gutenberg team had to tackle this issue of we&#8217;re creating a single React tree. We don&#8217;t want everybody to load their own version of React, and it has to all end up in the same place. So I remember when Gutenberg first came out and there&#8217;s the Gutenberg elements, they tucked React inside of Gutenberg, why&#8217;d they do that? And why did they come out with WP-Scripts that just swaps out for you&#8217;re doing at WordPress/components? What actually that does, is it grab it from WP.components. It&#8217;s like why is it doing all this? Well, the reality is, they went through all of the hard work of figuring out how to have everybody using the same version of React and loading everything to the same React tree all at the same time from 1,000 different places.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Once we ran into that, we were like, &#8220;Okay.&#8221; We just had to switch everything to using WP-Scripts, because we&#8217;re like, &#8220;It&#8217;s just not worth it for us to try to solve the same problem of extensibility that Gutenberg itself has already solved so well.&#8221; It has some trade-offs, but it really, as a whole, it actually works quite well. So huge shout out to the Gutenberg team, because originally we actually had the first version of this loading in GitHub pages. It was literally totally standalone, but then we tried to extend it and we&#8217;re like, &#8220;This is a lot harder than we thought it would be.&#8221; Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"12-strong-trade-offs-and-compatibility-strong\">Trade-offs and compatibility</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: So speaking of trade-offs, I&#8217;m also sympathetic with the major downside of this. As a plug-in developer, you cannot rely on any version being in action at any moment. It&#8217;s very hard. Upstream changes can break your app at any moment. You don&#8217;t know what versions running. What are some things you&#8217;re doing to mitigate this risk I guess?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: We have to manually test it now. Before, if we were loading the latest version of Gutenberg, well, there&#8217;s only one instance of that. But since we&#8217;re loading Gutenberg from WordPress now, we actually had to bump up our minimum version of WordPress to whatever the version of Gutenberg that we support that comes with WordPress. That&#8217;s a major change for us, but it&#8217;s necessary.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: We previously supported back to WordPress 5.0. So this whole thing actually made us come up with an entirely new policy around which versions of WordPress do we support. Before it was like we would support a version of WordPress until we were like, &#8220;I guess there&#8217;s something that we really need,&#8221; then we would bump it up to&#8230; We were talking about bumping it up to 5.5 or something like that, but we saw no reason to cut backwards compatibility until we had a specific reason to do so. This whole thing made us realize like, &#8220;Oh, we&#8217;re really tightly coupled now.&#8221; We&#8217;re really on the WordPress bandwagon and it&#8217;s really important what versions we support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We didn&#8217;t invent this, other plugins are doing this, but we said, &#8220;Okay, we&#8217;re only going to officially, moving forward, support the latest released version of WordPress and the previous two.&#8221; That&#8217;s how we&#8217;re going to keep ourselves from getting into compatibility hell as new changes roll in that we have to become compatible for. Then that makes it harder and harder to be compatible with older versions. So we&#8217;re having to really kind of tighten in on that window. Fortunately, I will say, according to our telemetry, people are actually pretty darn good at staying within the latest or a few most late recent latest versions of WordPress. We don&#8217;t have a lot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: That&#8217;s good to know.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"13-strong-support-team-strong\">Support team</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I was thinking so, what is your customer servicing to that? Yeah, because I can see that there are quite a few nonprofits that have not updated their WordPress for a while. But they could stay on your older version of GiveWP because it&#8217;s still supported, and you&#8217;re not going to cut it out right there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: So a good product question there. So our support team is actually very much in support of it. What we&#8217;ve found is that typically people fall into one of two camps. One, they&#8217;re set it and forget it. They set up their website five years ago, and it works, so don&#8217;t touch it, right? And that&#8217;s perfectly fine. Or you have people that keep things fairly up to date. You don&#8217;t have many people that are in this weird middle space where they update some stuff and not others. And if somebody does reach out to our support team and is having an issue or something, our team is trained. One of the first things they do is they say, &#8220;Are you updated?&#8221; So it&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re going to have to suddenly change their tune, because of this new policy. It&#8217;s something we&#8217;ve already recommended to people for years is, if you&#8217;re having a problem, you should start by updating what you have to make sure that&#8230; because the problem might be fixed already and you&#8217;re just not updated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, we&#8217;re really not anticipating, and others like the events calendar and others have had this policy for a while, and so I did ask around within the product space, &#8220;Hey, was this a pain point for you? Did you notice a decrease in sales or higher churn rate?&#8221; The answer was unanimously, &#8220;No. No, actually, it&#8217;s a very healthy policy to have and it hasn&#8217;t caused us problems.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So we have one more question from Anton, and I think it goes back quite a few minutes, he was asking about the sidebar if that is accomplished through slot fills.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"14-strong-sidebar-customization-isolated-block-editor-strong\">Sidebar customization &#8211; isolated Block Editor</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: That one, no, we actually had to fork that. But I wanted to bring up the isolated block editor, which Lena works on or has worked on, because we&#8217;ve been following that project for a little while now. I think at its inception we were also building ours, which our form builder is very similar to how the isolated block editor works. One of the biggest problems was the sidebar customization, which to answer Anton&#8217;s previous question, if you were to use isolated block editor now, you can accomplish that with technically a slot fill, because we submitted a feature request to do that, and it was actually added just recently.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It makes it a little bit more feasible to actually switch over to the isolated block editor shortly, because we&#8217;re really not doing anything crazy. That was kind of the main thing about using WordPress as dependencies. It&#8217;s like we&#8217;re really not customizing anything that crazy. We&#8217;re just using Gutenberg. We&#8217;re not like forking every single thing. We&#8217;re loading a bunch of blocks into it and maybe doing some style changes. So it should be pretty reliable. But we are looking at the block editor, the isolated block editor, as a way forward for this. I would suggest it for anyone else looking at this project or looking at something similar to this, because it&#8217;s a really easy way to get started.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, I agree.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Played around using it and realize like, oh, it has things like undo, redo. We don&#8217;t have that right now, but if you use the isolated block editor, you just have it. So yeah, part of our post 3.0 launch roadmap is to switch the isolated block editor, which will also take a lot of complexity off of our plate.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. Excellent. So I have another question. I&#8217;m so happy that I&#8217;m privileged to run this show so I can ask all the questions that I want.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Go for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"15-strong-making-it-easier-with-documentation-and-components-strong\">Making it easier with documentation and components</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: You started kind of three, four years ago thinking about it and maybe a year and a half or two years ago, really doing proof of concepts and all that. So put yourself back into the shoes you would start out now, because that would be something that plugin developers might think about. What is it that you would ask of the Gutenberg team to improve or to build on the components or on the scripts so that work is a little easier? Or much easier, not just a little easier.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Documentation has been a little bit of a struggle for us, especially being like&#8230; And we understand we&#8217;re no experts at documentation. It&#8217;s tough work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Can you specify a little bit on the documentation? Which piece?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Well, if you know are going down the path of building your own block editor, there&#8217;s very little documentation on there. If there is, it&#8217;s a little outdated. We had to do a lot of digging through reading code and finding how to actually pull this thing off that didn&#8217;t quite match up with some of the documentation out there. So that was one of the biggest hurdles. Then also some components in Gutenberg are not accessible that we wanted to pull out and use ourselves. So some of those were just not exported. Maybe they&#8217;re just internal components. We found ourselves really wanting to, and we did use some of these components, but once we switched over to relying on WordPress to provide us the scripts, we lost some of those, because they&#8217;re not available. I would have to come up with a list to give you…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: With the block editor package? In the block editor package, you mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah, block editor. Maybe some more. We would have to define the path to the actual build component to grab, and sometimes those were missing from the exports. We would often have to fork the whole file, which causes side effects, because it&#8217;s relying on some things. So limiting that was tough at first, but we kind of worked around it. I would&#8217;ve to come up with a list to figure out which ones are really important to people like us.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, please send me that list. I&#8217;m interested. There is something about it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah. Some of these would be documented like, &#8220;Hey, they&#8217;re available,&#8221; and then you&#8217;d go to use them and they&#8217;re just not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I know that Ryan Welchers is actually on the path to put example code into the read me files and all that, and he found quite a few that if you want to use that code snippet, you couldn&#8217;t, because it didn&#8217;t export. So he actually goes through it and while he is updating the documentation to also add the export feature to it. So I didn&#8217;t find it yet now quickly, that little issue or the tracking issue of that, but I can certainly share that with you and in the show notes and also with you personally, so you can add to the list so you don&#8217;t have to start from scratch. Have you, speaking of documentation, there&#8217;s also a separate documentation site that&#8217;s called The Storybook for the components. How did that help you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: That was helpful. I&#8217;m not sure how complete it is or how up to date it actually is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: It&#8217;s getting more complete by the minute.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah, there were some things on there that were very helpful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: It&#8217;s really nice right now. We spent a lot of time on it this past year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah, I love the idea of that. There&#8217;s different documentation sites. We&#8217;re not really sure which ones are up-to-date. So maybe add a version to what thing was added, that would be helpful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: That&#8217;s a really important note, I think. If you go to some documentation sites out there, I think React does this or Stripe does this, where the docs themselves are versioned. That&#8217;s really helpful, because otherwise that&#8217;s been a part of our struggles. We&#8217;ll find some piece of documentation on Gutenberg and we&#8217;re like, &#8220;Is this old? Is this current?&#8221; We just don&#8217;t know how to trust it. So we always end up going back to the source code anyway to validate the documentation that we found to make sure that it is in fact still recent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, totally get that. Especially because the documentation is actually built on top. The automation of the references is actually built on top of the Gutenberg plugin, but it doesn&#8217;t tell you that when you look at it. You are looking for something and you find it and then you try it out on WordPress without the plugin and the feature isn&#8217;t there yet, because it&#8217;s coming. It&#8217;s one of the upcoming kind of things. So I totally get this. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: This is on our radar, definitely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: We&#8217;ll try to push for this.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"16-strong-some-hard-codes-strong\">Some things are hard-coded</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: One other minor thing on the original question I&#8217;ll add is, there are still some things in Gutenberg that are hard coded that you can&#8217;t really do anything about. One that we&#8217;re kind of just hoping nobody notices is if you click on a block and then there&#8217;s little header piece of the block there and there&#8217;s a contextual menu and options that drops down where you have things like copy styles or paste styles or that sort of a thing, we can&#8217;t get rid of that. Copying and pasting styles makes no sense in our context. We looked into it. That&#8217;s just hard coded. You can&#8217;t get rid of that. It&#8217;s just there. I was like, &#8220;Oh.&#8221; So there are still little pieces like that that you&#8217;re just like, &#8220;Well, hopefully nobody will notice that.&#8221; And then the last thing with Gutenberg that we ran into that is like, &#8220;This is interesting,&#8221; is well, not the last, another is…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s not the last, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"17-strong-locked-blocks-strong\">Locked blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: &#8230; locked blocks. So that&#8217;s kind of an interesting concept where, for example, you have to have an amount field for us. You can&#8217;t take that out and still have your form work. So you can lock the block, but then they can go unlock the block. So locking something, it&#8217;s more like a pinky promise with the user, like please don&#8217;t get rid of this. I think it used to be that locking was like it was done. There was no way to unlock something, and then the UI was added in the list view to be able to unlock things. That was kind of an interesting one of like, &#8220;Oh, well, how do you actually enforce that something can&#8217;t be removed? You should not be able to delete this.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the other thing that we found that was interesting with locked blocks, is that if you have a locked block in one as a child block, so we have our two sections, if I have my amount block up here, when it&#8217;s locked, I can&#8217;t move it. So you can&#8217;t take it out of this section and move it into this section. If you drag and drop, it just will do nothing. So there&#8217;s just little itty-bitty things like that that kind of pop up. So the concept of what locked means in Gutenberg is a little bit, you kind of just got to play with it to find out what does lock even mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: It&#8217;s not clear and consistent, I would say.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"18-strong-filters-and-blocks-strong\">Filters and blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah. So in the last few versions of WordPress, there were server-side filters as well as client-side filters to customize your blocks and to curate the experience and switch off interfaces and all that through PHP filters or server side or JavaScript filters. Have you been able to mitigate some of the problems that you saw before?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: With the locked stuff that we talked about?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So Nick Diego just posted on the developer blog a new&#8230; So how to modify theme.json data, which is kind of part of it. Yeah, that&#8217;s the style part, but it&#8217;s also block styling. Oh, I can share it here. Whoops.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Oh, I&#8217;ll mention one. I&#8217;ll shout out to one filter that we just found extremely useful is the JavaScript filters for registering a block type, which really was amazing because now we can have core blocks. Let&#8217;s take the amount field or something, and we can have an add-on come in and add more settings or attributes to that block using the register block type. There&#8217;s a couple other filters for doing that where you can add things to a block that wasn&#8217;t there before. That&#8217;s new to me that you could do that natively, but for us, that was huge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It&#8217;s a little late in the game. Yeah. Yeah, I&#8217;m sorry, but we are getting to the end of our show. It was only scheduled for an hour. I think we could talk another two hours. I feel that way. And I don&#8217;t know, Lena probably has even more questions for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Definitely. So many questions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: But it was such a great experience to have you on the show and to share some of the secrets that you encountered and how you made it all work for yourself. We will have some resources in the show notes.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"19-strong-announcements-and-contact-info-strong\">Announcements and contact Info</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At this point, I only have two more questions for you all three. So do you have any announcement that you wouldn&#8217;t get in before or you want people to keep in mind? We can go around Jason, Jon, and Lena. The second question is, if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way? So you can answer one of the questions, both questions or none.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Yeah, so keep an eye out for Give 3.0 that will be landing at the beginning of Q3 is what we&#8217;re aiming for right now. You can go to the landing page, I provided the link for that and go spin it up and test it out yourself. We&#8217;re updating that. So as we roll out new internal versions of what we&#8217;re calling next gen, which is our 3.0, we&#8217;re updating that and we actually have it all set up. So if you do have that installed locally and we roll out a version, you can update it just like you would any other plugin and continue to test out, provide feedback. So we love getting feedback from folks on this. You can also reach out to me personally at <a href=\"mailto:jason.adams@givewp.com\">jason.adams@givewp.com</a>, or you can find me on Twitter as Jason.Adams.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. Yeah. Thank you, Jon?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Yeah, and I&#8217;ll mention for any other developers that are interested, what we&#8217;ve demoed and what we&#8217;re showing is completely public. You could go on GitHub and look at all of this code that we wrote. It took us over a year. I think we&#8217;re coming up on a year and a half or something, maybe a little less than that, but a lot of work has gone into it. If you want to see actually what we&#8217;re doing, come on to GitHub and if you want to ask some questions, you could start a discussion on GiveWP, or we have a Canny board for additional feedback. If you were to go to the landing page and actually play around with this thing, you can actually provide feedback and we&#8217;ll take all the feedback into consideration for the future of GiveWP. And if you want to get in touch with me, I&#8217;m on Twitter, Jon Waldstein and <a href=\"mailto:jon@givewp.com\">jon@givewp.com</a> if you want to send me an email.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. And Lena?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Yeah, I guess for me, I mentioned I work on the work path components package and me and the team that works on it, we really, really are always looking for new contributors. So if anyone&#8217;s interested in contributing back, we love working with new contributors. We are highly engaging and we collaborate a lot. So if anybody&#8217;s interested, just pick up an issue or I don&#8217;t know, ping me and we&#8217;ll help you find a fun, good issue to work on. You can find me on Twitter at Mirka, M-I-R-K-A. Same ID on GitHub.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. Yeah. And so my link or my answer is that we will do another live Q&amp;A in two weeks actually, but on Friday, on Friday, July 21st. We&#8217;ll talk about design systems and theme.json. I know that there are large agencies and large entities like universities, and so they all have a design system. They have corporate design, and they need all the websites kind of to follow that. The WordPress VIPs team built a bridge between Figma and theme.json. I hope I get the people who created that on the show. We will have some demos there, of course. We also will talk with Joni Halabi, who is the web developer at Georgetown University, and she also has, as a university, big design systems and how she works with patterns. So it&#8217;s a great show and I hope you will join us again there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So a big thank you to our viewers and to Anton for the great questions. If you have more questions, you can always send them to me via email. That&#8217;s <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">pauli@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. P-A-U-L-I at gutenbergtimes.com. Recording, as I mentioned, will be available in a few minutes on the YouTube channel, and we&#8217;ll publish a transcript in a couple of weeks on gutenbergtimes.com.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks again to Jason, Jon, and Lena for being here. It&#8217;s been a privilege to have you on the show, and it was a great joy talking to you. Be well and goodbye and good luck. Take care.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jason Adams</em>: Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jon Waldstein</em>: Bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lena Morita</em>: Bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Bye, everyone.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 21 Jul 2023 23:50:52 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:118:\"WPTavern: WordPress Contributors Demand Transparency and Objective Guidelines for Listings on Recommended Hosting Page\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=147073\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:129:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-contributors-demand-transparency-and-objective-guidelines-for-listings-on-recommended-hosting-page\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:6958:\"<p>WordPress&#8217; <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/hosting/\">Recommended Hosting</a> page is a hotly contested piece of online real estate, and has recently come into focus again following the<a href=\"https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/12718\"> removal of SiteGround</a> from the listings. When the change was highlighted during a recent Meta team meeting, Audrey Capital-sponsored contributor Samuel &#8220;Otto&#8221; Wood <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02QB8GMM/p1689199290876499\">said</a>, &#8220;Matt asked me to remove SiteGround because that page is getting revamped. I know no more than that.&#8221; Bluehost and Dreamhost are the only two hosts remaining on the page at this time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The process for being listed on the Recommended Hosting page has historically been <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/the-recommended-hosting-page-on-wordpress-org-starts-over-from-scratch\">shrouded in secrecy</a>, causing contributors to speculate that large sums of money were required. Although the current criteria is posted on the page, the process of getting listed and de-listed is not transparent. It&#8217;s not clear if and how the criteria is being applied, as it states that listings are &#8220;completely arbitrary:&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>We’ll be looking at this list several times a year, so keep an eye out for us re-opening the survey for hosts to submit themselves for inclusion. Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has recently hinted at the possibility of re-opening the survey, inviting contributors in WordPress&#8217; Hosting Slack channel to weigh in on questions or data the survey should collect &#8220;to help us discern who we recommend.&#8221; He linked to questions from the <a href=\"https://mcm.survey.fm/2023-wordpress-hosting-survey\">survey used in 2016</a> when the page was <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/the-wordpress-org-recommended-hosting-page-is-revamped-features-flywheel-for-the-first-time\">updated</a> to include Bluehost, DreamHost, Flywheel, and SiteGround.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new draft for the survey states: &#8220;It&#8217;s time to loop back and give every host an opportunity to be on the recommended page, and also make it international because we never really got recommended hosts in non-English countries right.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The WordPress Hosting team has been working on a related effort called &#8220;<a href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FhjFjY9I6gn6uqz4oBsHvYzxnrUg0RfAYuRhlLjdWec/edit\">Project Bedrock</a>&#8221; that aims to create a directory in which any hosting company that meets a series of predefined requirements can appear as recommended hosting or compatible with the WordPress CMS. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes, project bedrock is a goal,&#8221; Hosting team rep Javier Casares said. &#8220;Some months ago we left the project in stand-by to create a pre-version of the project, creating a list of hosting companies inside the Make/Hosting, a &#8216;everyone can be on the list&#8217; (if criteria) as a complement for the /hosting), but the idea is that /hosting, this pre-project or the project should have the same criteria (the base).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We know Matt is the responsible for the /hosting, our idea is creating a &#8216;longer list&#8217; for the Hosting Handbook / page at Make/hosting. The idea is having the same criteria. So, both are complementary.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although contributors to the project view it as complementary to the official recommendations, it may be confusing for WordPress to have multiple similar hosting resources with the same criteria but different listings. These appear to be conflicting efforts that have a lot of overlap but may ultimately be at odds with the goal of simplifying the host selection process for new WordPress users who don&#8217;t know which ones to consider.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Casares suggested a few technical criteria that the survey should focus on, including PHP versions, database versions, SSH access, automatic updates, one-click WordPress installation, free TLS certificates, backup, and more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2023 survey is still in the early stages in draft form. WordPress Hosting team contributors suggested that requirements for revamping the page would be a good topic for discussion at WordCamp US&#8217; upcoming Community Summit next month.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Post Status hosting channel, Namecheap co-founder Matt Russell suggested Mullenweg leverage <a href=\"https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/\">WPHostingBenchmarks</a> performance data. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;[WPHostingBenchmarks is] probably the most open, fairest, and long-term performance evaluation in the WP space,&#8221; Russell said. He also recommended Mullenweg revamp the page as more of a directory with options to select budget, regions/country, and more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Review Signal founder Kevin Ohashi, who publishes the WPHostingBenchmarks site, shared concerns about transparency that he has had since the last time the page was updated:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Who is reviewing this information? What criteria will be used in evaluating them? I know last time you said you were involved, as were other folks from Automattic. Automattic is a competitor in the hosting space, and no matter the hat being worn, there is some concern over sharing sensitive business info with a competitor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting listed on that page is likely worth millions of dollars to any company in terms of business generated. I think the process and criteria should be transparent and clear from the beginning. I also think who is involved with evaluating should be known beforehand as well. At least give companies, and consumers, the information they deserve to evaluate participating and the outcome.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Ohashi recommends that no person employed by a hosting company should be involved in the evaluation of submissions. This would eliminate bias from competitors in the space trying to suppress those they deem to be a threat.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see more ethics and accountability, a code of ethics for any company getting listed would be a positive in my mind,&#8221; Ohashi said. &#8220;Companies should be competing on quality and product, not on astroturfing, deceptive billing practices and other shady behavior we often see in the space. In my benchmarks, I push measuring default performance because I believe that benefits the greatest number of customers. I think there&#8217;s an opportunity to push for a better ecosystem here and would love to see you take it.&#8221;</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 21 Jul 2023 21:42:22 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo – Highlights &amp; Recording\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15445\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:88:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7537:\"<p>WordPress 6.3 ships on August 8th! For a sneak peek of what&#8217;s to come, members of the 6.3 release squad, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/\">Anne McCarthy</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/richtabor/\">Rich Tabor</a>, held a live demo moderated by <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/njwrigley/\">Nathan Wrigley</a>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 100 attendees watched as some of the most anticipated product features were demonstrated, from the brand-new Command Palette to new design tools and more.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>6.3 Live Product Demo\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some of the key takeaways from the 6.3 live product demonstration.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Command Palette’s big debut</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most anticipated features of 6.3 is the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/\">Command Palette</a>. It lets you quickly navigate and open different WordPress functions within the post and Site Editor. Access it using a shortcut command (Command + K or Control + K).</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Page creation gets easier in the Site Editor</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now you can browse and edit pages within the Site Editor, providing a more cohesive WordPress experience. A new drafting flow debuts, allowing you to create and publish pages directly within the editor.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Synced Patterns set to replace Reusable Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You can create and manage all your patterns directly in the Site Editor. Once edited, all synced patterns (previously called Reusable Blocks) will change across a site—a huge time saver when making changes.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stay on top of design changes with Style Revisions</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This enhancement offers a visual timeline of your site so you can see all the revisions in your site’s history and restore a previous style with just a click.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New design tools and blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Controls for specifying aspect ratios to ensure design integrity, especially when using images in Patterns debut in 6.3, along with new blocks for Footnotes and Details. Easily add footnotes to your content and have them automatically linked to the corresponding text. With the Details block, hide or display content to create spoilers or accordions.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Performance</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress is getting faster with 6.3 as content with images will see speedier load times. Both theme types (Classic and Block) will also benefit from performance improvements. The upcoming <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/\">hallway hangout</a> is an excellent opportunity to learn more about performance enhancements directly from the WordPress Performance team.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More from Core</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Revert to previously installed versions when <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/\">manual updates for themes and plugins fail</a>.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/dropping-support-for-php-5/\">Dropping support</a> for PHP 5. The new minimum supported version of PHP will be 7.0.0. The recommended version of PHP remains at 7.4 or greater.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/\">Accessibility updates</a>, especially for List View and the broader Site Editor experience.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Improvements to internationalization <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/\">just-in-time translation loading</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These new features and more await you as Phase 2 of the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/\">WordPress Roadmap</a> comes to a close with the 6.3 release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/21/6-3-live-product-demo-qa/\">question and answer session</a> followed the demo, with attendees asking plenty of great questions. The panelists shared links for additional reading regarding many new features—all conveniently added to the end of this post.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A big thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress. Contributors power every WordPress release. Without the hundreds of contributors worldwide who help build WordPress, this live product demo wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you for all of your hard work.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">References from the Live Demo</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/\">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/core-editor-improvement-advancing-the-power-of-patterns/\">Core Editor Improvement: Advancing the Power of Patterns</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/comparing-patterns-template-parts-and-reusable-blocks/\">Comparing Patterns, Template Parts, and Reusable Blocks</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/image-performance-enhancements-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">The 6.3 Field Guide</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/\">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/dropping-support-for-php-5/\">Dropping support for PHP 5</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/\">WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/\">Internationalization Improvements in 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/30496\">#30496 Site Editor: MVP Customizer Compatibility/Integration</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/52128\">#52128 Customization Ongoing Roadmap</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/building-sidebars-with-the-site-editor/\">Building sidebars with the Site Editor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/\">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Props to <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/richtabor/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>richtabor</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>annezazu</a> for reviewing this post and to <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>cbringmann</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>meher</a>, and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>dansoschin</a> for their logistics support to run the event.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 21 Jul 2023 19:26:26 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:16:\"Jonathan Pantani\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:79:\"Do The Woo Community: The Friday Show, What Makes the Do the Woo Podcast Unique\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75699\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:57:\"https://dothewoo.io/what-makes-do-the-woo-podcast-unique/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:417:\"<p>Do the Woo podcast has grown into a hybrid of a podcast, community and network. A podcast for the community, by the community.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/what-makes-do-the-woo-podcast-unique/\">The Friday Show, What Makes the Do the Woo Podcast Unique</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 21 Jul 2023 08:52:47 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:72:\"Post Status: The WP Agency Journey with J.J. Toothman of Lone Rock Point\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=149945\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"https://poststatus.com/the-wp-agency-journey-with-j-j-toothman-of-lone-rock-point/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:47363:\"<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript\">Transcript</a> ↓</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">In this episode, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/corymiller303\">Cory Miller</a> interviews <a href=\"https://twitter.com/jjtoothman\">J.J. Toothman</a>, owner of <a href=\"https://lonerockpoint.com/\">Lone Rock Point</a>, a WordPress agency based in Sudbury, Massachusetts. J.J. shares his agency journey, discussing the growth of his agency and its remote-first approach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><strong>Episode Highlights:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul type=\"video\" class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<li><strong>The Growth of Lone Rock Point</strong> [00:00:32] JJ discusses the growth of his agency, Lone Rock Point, from 4-5 people in spring 2020 to 16 people now.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Remote-first Approach</strong> [00:02:29] JJ talks about adopting a remote-first organizational structure from the beginning and how they didn&#8217;t miss a beat when the pandemic hit in 2020.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Focus on Public Sector and NASA</strong> [00:04:02] JJ explains his background in government contracting and how his agency focuses on working with the public sector, particularly in the federal level, including clients like NASA.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The federal government ecosystem</strong> [00:11:29] Discussion on the ecosystem and governance of federal government agencies, including guidance and policies.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Starting Lone Rock Point</strong> [00:13:39] JJ&#8217;s decision to start his own agency after exploring side hustles and feeling the desire to be more entrepreneurial.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Niching down to WordPress</strong> [00:18:25] The growth and success of Lone Rock Point after focusing on WordPress as their main service offering.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Topic 1: Using WordPress as a Content Management System</strong> [00:22:17] Discussion on using WordPress as a content management system and adapting WooCommerce for check payments.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Topic 2: WordPress and the Public Sector</strong> [00:22:58] Exploration of using WordPress in the public sector, particularly in government agencies like NASA, for managing and publishing content.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Topic 3: Web Modernization Project with NASA</strong> [00:28:26] Overview of a web modernization project with NASA, including evaluating different CMS options and deciding to invest in WordPress.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The SEO and Accessibility Tools in WordPress </strong>[00:32:35] Discusses the real-time analysis tools in WordPress for SEO and accessibility, such as Yoast, and how they differentiate it from other CMS platforms.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Resources and Knowledge Sharing in the WordPress Community </strong>[00:34:57] Explains the abundance of resources, knowledge sharing, and community support available in the WordPress ecosystem compared to other CMS platforms.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Importance of Open Source and User Experience in WordPress</strong> [00:37:11] Highlights the significance of open source adoption in the public sector and how WordPress&#8217;s user experience and inclusivity differentiate it from commercial solutions.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-25\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Sponsor: <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/wordpressdotcom\">WordPress.com</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Build and manage professional sites with secure managed hosting on <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/wordpressdotcom\">WordPress.com.</a> </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beautiful themes, built-in SEO, and payment tools, and access to over 50,000 plugins. Everything you need for your business, plus 24/7 support from WordPress experts.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n\n<a href=\"https://poststatus.com/wordpressdotcom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img width=\"752\" height=\"752\" src=\"https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/wpcom-wmark-black_sponsor23-752x752.png\" alt=\"WordPress.com\" class=\"wp-image-149724\" /></a>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-mentioned-in-the-show\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png\" alt=\"🔗\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Mentioned in the show<strong>:</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://lonerockpoint.com/\">Lone Rock Point</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.com/\">WordPress&nbsp;</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/\">NASA</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://automattic.com/\">Automattic</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wpvip.com/\">WordPress VIP</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.fedramp.gov/\">FedRAMP</a>&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wpvip.com/partners/\">WordPress Agency Partnership Program</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.rtx.com/\">Raytheon</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/ames\">Nasa Ames Research Center</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.recodingamerica.us/\">&#8220;Recoding America&#8221;</a> by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/pahlkadot?lang=bn\">Jennifer Palka</a>&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://woocommerce.com/\">WooCommerce</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page\">Wikis</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/\">Ticketfly</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://digital.gov/resources/21st-century-integrated-digital-experience-act/\">Integrated Digital Experience Act</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.drupal.org/\">Drupal</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/sites/aem-sites.html\">Adobe Experience Manager</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wagtail.org/\">Wagtail</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.contentful.com/\">Contentful</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/\">Gutenberg</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com/chapter-2/\">Atomic Design System</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://yoast.com/\">Yoast</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/\">WordPress plugins</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/\">Stack Overflow</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"eplus-wrapper\">\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/jjtoothman\">JJ Toothman</a> (Owner, <a href=\"https://lonerockpoint.com/\">Lone Rock Point</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/corymiller303\">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/lemonadecode\">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"eplus-wrapper has-background\">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png\" alt=\"📝\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /><br /><br /><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes</a>, <a href=\"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube</a>, <a href=\"http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stitcher</a>, <a href=\"https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Simplecast</a>, or <a href=\"https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P\">RSS</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png\" alt=\"🎧\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:00:02) &#8211; Hey everybody. Welcome back to Post Status Draft. Got another great interview in our agency Journey series and I&#8217;m talking with JJ Toothman, a member of Post Status and JJ, Hey, thanks for coming on post this draft and talking about your agency journey story.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:18) &#8211; Hey, thanks for having me. Cory. It&#8217;s great to be here. Um, really appreciate everything you do for post status and for the community. So I&#8217;m happy to be, um, you know, a member of both. So.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:00:32) &#8211; Awesome. Well, we&#8217;ve gotten to get to know each other over the last, like, I&#8217;d say, what, eight months and hear about some of the work that your agency does. It&#8217;s super, super exciting. But can you tell me about the agency where it is now? Team clients kind of work. You kind of do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:50) &#8211; There&#8217;s my dog and wife.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:00:54) &#8211; Great introduction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:55) &#8211; Yeah. Um, so the. So my company is Lone Rock Point and I am located outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in a town called Sudbury.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:01:09) &#8211; Um, if you know the Revolutionary War history, you remember the Battle of Lexington and Concord and Sudbury borders. Concord. I live about five miles from where Paul Revere was captured at the end of his famous ride to tell everybody the British were coming. Oh, wow. Lone Rock Point. We have grown it to 16 people. You know, 12 of those people are full time. And there&#8217;s a handful of of, of part timers. Um, the were distributed all over the place. Uh, I&#8217;ve got, you know, some of us are in California, Texas. Uh, Michigan. There&#8217;s a few people in around Grand Rapids. There&#8217;s people in Florida, a few people around Asheville, North Carolina. And we definitely, you know, adopted a remote first, you know, virtual kind of organization, organizational structure from the very beginning. You know, when when the pandemic happened in 2020, we didn&#8217;t miss a beat. You know, our the people that we were working with, you know, just it just continued.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:02:29) &#8211; It&#8217;s weird to look back on that time and think about the, you know, ways that we were able to grow during that time in a period where so many small businesses were were, you know, struggling. But, you know, look back on that time and think about like we, you know, we were, you know, going remote, being virtual. That wasn&#8217;t a problem for us. We were ready to do that for the very beginning. And the people we were worked with, like just we just kept working on it, kept asking for more from us. It was actually a period of growth for us. We probably went from, you know, at the beginning of. You know, spring 2020, we were around four people and 4 or 5, and now we&#8217;re 16. We became a WordPress agency approximately 15, 16 months ago. Um, and we joined WordPress is kind of a continuation of our work with the public sector when I started my company in 2016. Um, you know that we can talk about the genesis of that, but it was, you know, I was had come from a federal government contracting world and I&#8217;ve been working for big companies like Raytheon, um, Perot Systems, Dell and, you know, decided that, you know, I wanted to start my own company, you know, had this, you know, the proverbial entrepreneurial itch that most entrepreneurs feel and just kind of wanted to try that out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:04:02) &#8211; So I started to serve this company and wanted to start working. There were two customers that I wanted to work with from the very beginning, and one of those was NASA, which is it&#8217;s hard for me to talk about my own journey and the work that we&#8217;re doing without connecting to the long history I have working with with NASA. So I use that relationship and that relationship capital that I&#8217;ve built, you know, from starting working with them back in as early as 2001. Well, one of my first clients and then one of my second clients, big clients was Automattic. Some people over there that had built relationships over the years came to me and said, Hey, you know a lot about, you know, this public sector world, you know, federal government contracting. Can you help us, you know, with kind of get into that vertical and so help them with some some business strategy around that? I helped them with some security compliance, things they needed to be aware of. And then that relation, you know, that work kind of matured a little bit and kind of ran its course a little bit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:05:15) &#8211; And then, you know, as they as WordPress VIP, you know, kind of solidified its it&#8217;s standing and it&#8217;s got themselves into what&#8217;s called the Fedramp marketplace. You know, they came to me and said, Hey, you should, you know, your company, you should we should continue working together. You should join the WordPress Agency partnership program. And that&#8217;s something I did, you know, specifically because of our shared interest in working together on public sector opportunities. And, um, you know, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s really what my company is doing right now is, you know, Lone Rock Point. We are, we&#8217;re definitely exploring that intersection of WordPress and public SpaC, public sector, predominantly the federal level of that. You know, there&#8217;s a lot of state and municipal stuff opportunities there as well. Um, but we&#8217;re, you know, the, the kind of the, when you think of like WordPress and public sector, what I want people to come out of that connection with is is Lone Rock point and so that&#8217;s you know that&#8217;s work we&#8217;re doing with and and work we&#8217;re doing with NASA and it&#8217;s going we&#8217;ve been working on some projects from NASA for the past few years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:06:31) &#8211; And it&#8217;s it&#8217;s really rewarding work. It&#8217;s good to feel like you&#8217;re contributing to. You know, we&#8217;re not civil servants, but we&#8217;re definitely kind of contributing to. You know, putting the taxpayer dollars to work, being good stewards of taxpayer money. And we think WordPress has a a role in that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:06:54) &#8211; Excellent. Well, there&#8217;s a lot here I want to unpack, but it&#8217;s so compelling. Congratulations on your success. Congratulations on what you&#8217;ve done in the public sector to take WordPress there. I love hearing stories like yours and our other members doing good work in our world. And I get to I think I&#8217;ve told you, I get to brag, Hey, I know the people working on these projects, you know, which is pretty fantastic, and taking WordPress to the Enterprise, but Public sector Spaces is really fantastic as WordPress grows. So okay, I want to I want to thank you for telling us kind of what Lone Lone Rock Point does today. So I heard in there 2016. So I, I had assumed, as we had talked for because of the kind of work you&#8217;re doing, you had been doing this particular agency type work for a long time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:07:49) &#8211; But wow, that&#8217;s why I say congrats one, Congratulations on your success. But like it&#8217;s pretty fast timeline to be able to get to doing an agency to doing this kind of work, I think. But can you take me back like before 2016, you said you were doing enterprise or. Yeah, public sector government, government contracting work. What were you doing before the agency?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:08:10) &#8211; Before. Before I founded my agency. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was a software developer, web application developer. I got hired by Raytheon to work on a contract they had with NASA Ames Research Center. And back in 2001, actually, the thing that the opportunity that kind of brought me into that world was that&#8217;s when they first started thinking about like, what do they have to do about website accessibility? So they brought me in there to kind of help, you know, help, you know, mature what they were doing around all that kind of stuff. And it&#8217;s been interesting to see what the what where was thinking about this over the last couple of weeks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:08:57) &#8211; You know, when I first started working at NASA Ames and started talking about website accessibility and looking at all the various websites and web applications that was that were running at Ames Research Center, which is one of the, you know, field centers that&#8217;s part of the the NASA enterprise. Um, there was people were really just they were really resistant to it. They were trying to. They were trying to check the box on it quite a bit. You know, they were just like, What&#8217;s the minimum I have to do to, like, just check the box on this and so I can move on. Like it really the the optics of how important that was and just it just being the generally the right thing to do, forget the whole legal requirements of it all that really just wasn&#8217;t cemented. And here we are, you know, 20 plus years later where, you know, that&#8217;s that&#8217;s kind of like at the core of what is happening definitely in the public sector, but in the web in general, just like this, this strong emphasis on making it accessible and available to everybody.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:10:00) &#8211; You know, I saw how that started, you know, 20 years ago. And it&#8217;s it was not the same temperature, both from various from developers, designers, project managers, you know, that whole thing is shifted in very positive ways over the last couple of decades. So I was a software developer there working on various, um, you know, web applications, internal business process type applications, looking at accessibility improvements. Um, and then just kind of grew things over the years, you know, you know, started, you know, started rising the ranks a little bit, like getting opportunities to understand how government projects actually work, how it works, which is a pretty thing. I started participating in proposals that big companies like Dell were doing and responding to government RFPs, which are massive undertakings unto themselves, um, understanding compliance and security regulations that exist in government, in government, and really just kind of understanding how these governments, these government agencies and, you know, as individual as they kind of have their own ecosystems unto themselves, that&#8217;s probably not, you know, unique to all various massive, you know, corporate enterprises.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:11:29) &#8211; You know, we talk a little bit about the WordPress ecosystem now, but these these federal government agencies, they all have their own ecosystems around it. And then they&#8217;re also operating in this big federal thing where there&#8217;s kind of like this. Um, Jennifer Palka just wrote this great book called Recoding America, and she calls this term friendly fire. So where there&#8217;s like things where like the Office of Management, the OMB and General Services Administrations and other offices and agencies within the executive branch and other parts of government are putting together governance and policy around it and how the web should work. Um, and it creates all this types of, you know, these, this guidance and guardrails that you have to adhere to. So that becomes like kind of a larger ecosystem unto itself. So, you know, starting to understand how to work within that type of, um, you know, those types of scenarios and guardrails and boundaries and knowing how to interoperate it all just became, you know, something that started gaining more experience with and more exposure to with and, you know, think it&#8217;s been a big, you know, that knowledge is a big part of like why, you know, my company&#8217;s positioned and why we&#8217;ve achieved some success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:12:44) &#8211; You know, working and and gaining some credibility in parts of the public sector and procuring our relationship with with WordPress VIP and, you know, expanding our own opportunities within itself. Yeah, it&#8217;s exciting. It&#8217;s challenging. Exhausting at times, but it&#8217;s also exciting and rewarding.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:13:04) &#8211; Yeah. Yeah. I can&#8217;t imagine. So just just for clarity. So you&#8217;re working full time at Raytheon or were you contract as a software?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:12) &#8211; So a contract means you&#8217;re you&#8217;re you&#8217;re like you&#8217;re kind of embedded, so you&#8217;re a full time employee and you&#8217;re your government contractor working on a contract that, you know, a company like Raytheon or Dell or Booz Allen or Lockheed Martin has with the federal government to deliver services abilities that are part of their requirements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:13:39) &#8211; Okay. Okay. That totally makes sense. So what was that catalytic moment when you&#8217;re like, Hey, I&#8217;m gonna do this for myself, I&#8217;m gonna start my agency?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:46) &#8211; Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:13:47) &#8211; So prompted that. Um.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:50) &#8211; A couple of things. So I left NASA for a while and I went and worked for a company, a music ticketing startup called Ticket Fly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:58) &#8211; I helped them, like, basically create a network of websites for small independent music venues, um, and help those music venues talk about, you know, what shows were coming, how to buy tickets, you know, when the on sale dates were and all the other, you know, all that content that is basically all about converting into ticket sales. And so I was with was, you know, with them when they were really small. And, you know, it was definitely the startup world and that was really exciting. It was also a bad time for my life. I just had like my my second child and like my work life balance was it was it was pretty bad. Um, you know, working at a small startup like that. So ended up going back to NASA. Um, you know, and just trying to, like, find my footing a little bit. I also wanted to leave California and move relocate back to the East Coast. And I knew that was, you know, being in a place, a large organization like that would offer some flexibility like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:15:05) &#8211; Um, but then, you know, I would say around a decade, you know, ten years ago. I started having this, you know, I started having that entrepreneurial itch again. I started thinking about, like, how fun it was to, you know, move fast at ticket fly and wanted that that feeling again. And so I started, you know, I explored a couple of like side hustles, you know, some small little independent web projects. One of them was like a newsletter to help families spend more time outdoors. And they didn&#8217;t really take off. They didn&#8217;t really get get some traction. And what I mean by that, it wasn&#8217;t necessarily traction from a, you know, where we&#8217;re making revenue or gaining customers. We were just like just the balance of of, you know, trying to do do that type of initiative while, you know, having a full time job and also like, you know, having a growing family and all that kind of stuff. And then in but was it was clear that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:16:06) &#8211; You know, I was exploring something. And, you know, again, that desire to to like be in more, you know, control of of of my destiny, so to speak, and be entrepreneurial is something I just couldn&#8217;t I couldn&#8217;t get rid of completely. And it wasn&#8217;t happening within big companies like Dell in the way that I wanted to know. I really wanted to be, you know, in control of a lot of decisions that wasn&#8217;t in control of, um, and, you know, that&#8217;s why people start their own things and, you know, be founders of companies. And, you know, I had dinner with a friend of mine who was also in the government contracting space. He&#8217;s like, you know, you&#8217;ve been thinking about. And he told me he&#8217;s like, You&#8217;ve been thinking about all these little product ideas, these digital product ideas, like, you know, just just start a services business, you know, like and that will satisfy your need or the desire. You have to be entrepreneurial and, you know, like, you know, look at balance sheets and think about marketing and, you know, attracting talent and retaining talent and stuff like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:17:12) &#8211; And he was right. He was like, You know what? That&#8217;s a really good idea. And within 120 days, I&#8217;d like set the wheels in motion to, you know, start Lone Rock Point. Um, and, you know, we, we went from there. So it started in the fall of I started the company in the fall of 2016. It was just me for, you know, a year. And then it was like me and a virtual assistant for like another year. And I, you know, I started under this like this umbrella of like, digital transformation consulting. At the time, I was doing a lot of work with the public sector around cloud transformations. So people were were operating applications and on premise data centers and starting to make that migration into things like Amazon Web Services. And so working out a lot of change management type type projects associated with that. And it all kind of just fit under this like big umbrella of digital and cloud transformation, which, to be totally honest with you, is, is is too vague and too broad and borderline meaningless.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:18:25) &#8211; You know, if you ask ten different people what digital transformation is, you&#8217;re probably going to get ten different definitions of it. Yeah. And so it&#8217;s really hard to like, you know, grow a services business out that way is really just like me being a consultant at that point. Um, and it wasn&#8217;t until like started niching down into, you know what, like let&#8217;s just do this WordPress thing, you know, was I was delivering, um, you know, whitepapers and providing analysis of like how what people should do with like their, their inventory of web applications and advising them on what is and what platforms they should be using. And a lot of times ended up started like you know, making recommendations around WordPress oriented applications, sometimes just building WordPress sites, sometimes using WordPress as an application framework. Um, in over the, in the time I&#8217;ve been with NASA. I&#8217;ve used WordPress with them and a lot of different ways. We&#8217;ve done it in a WordPress network multi-site kind of way for allowing smaller NASA missions and programs and projects to, you know, have their own websites where they all communicate what they&#8217;re up to and what their findings are and share what they learned with, you know, with, with interested stakeholders and visitors to their sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:19:55) &#8211; Um, there, there&#8217;s been some internal things where needed to like communicate various services as it had to various corners of the agency. So we did like a WooCommerce thing where people can go to a web application, a website and just pick what, what services they want. Like I need, I need some Amazon cloud storage or processing or, you know, EC2 units. And they could apply, they could add all those things to a cart and then say, check out and, you know, check, you know, do a checkout with that and just start getting services provided to them that way. So um, and then, you know, over time it just became clear that like, this is, I keep recommending this, like there&#8217;s growth opportunity for me here and then, you know, niching down to being like, we&#8217;re going to be a WordPress, a more traditional WordPress agency is really when, you know, the growth started happening and the opportunity started becoming a little bit. And it isn&#8217;t just like strategic consulting, it became the execution part of it as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:21:00) &#8211; And the tactics part of it too, and the tactics and execution. We&#8217;re all oriented for the most of the time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:21:06) &#8211; Yeah, I&#8217;d love to hear these stories because you got, you know, a big career in enterprise and public sector, you know, with your Raytheon and NASA days and then entrepreneurial hit. Okay, want to do this and then seeing you know when you say NASA and WordPress, it just seems like those things should always go together, you know, and that&#8217;s what really compelling to me is seeing WordPress more on the public sector enterprise. And now there&#8217;s really big institutions in in the US federal government anyway, probably around the world too, but that are starting to use WordPress more and more and leverage it and see that opportunity. Um, so I love kind of how those intersection of things happen. So that lone rock point would kind of exist and grow and then you hit your I was going to ask the question when the WordPress come into play, but you pretty much answered it. So like your 2 or 3 or so, it seems like, hey, we&#8217;re going to drill down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:22:04) &#8211; And then when you mention WooCommerce that like that use case for an internal tool within a big organization like that to procure and get resources and things, that&#8217;s so compelling. You know, most of my.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:22:17) &#8211; Career that like, people just wanted that checkout expert, They wanted that. They wanted that experience of like, I want X, Y and Z, I want to add it to the cart and I want to tell you that I want it. And we just, you know, WooCommerce has that option to, you know, just do check payments, right? Which removes the credit card processing out of it. And so we kind of adapted that to, all right, we&#8217;re going to send this order to somebody who can fulfill that order via this WooCommerce WordPress system. Um, and, you know, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s using the WordPress ecosystem at its best, like using it almost kind of as Legos and want this part of it. I want that part of it. I want to, I want to glue them together in this way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:22:58) &#8211; And it&#8217;s, you know, kind of a no code kind of way around WordPress to solve some, you know, some very simple, narrow use cases. But, you know, my, my journey with WordPress, you know, starts way back in 2007 at my first stint with at Ames Research Center. Um, you know, I was working with all these various scientists and researchers and they just like need a place to like publish my, my research findings and publish my data and, and they, they all one, they all had the same, um. You know, requirements and needs. At the highest level, it&#8217;s like I just need a place to put it. And I want to I want to be able to manage it myself in a way. And I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t know how to don&#8217;t know how to code. I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t have anybody on my team who knows HTML. And so that, you know, that basically introduced the concept of like content management systems into all this back in 2007.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:24:03) &#8211; And, you know, we were looking at things like wikis at the time and, and then discovered WordPress and around that and just the user experience of someone just, you know, managing their content with that type of, you know, WordPress, CMS, this is like version 2.0 of WordPress, you know, back when they added pages in addition to posts was the real thing. That&#8217;s like, oh, this is what this satisfies what everyone&#8217;s looking for. They want an easy place just to log into. And you know, they all some of them wanted to start blogging. Some of them wanted to start blogging without knowing that they wanted to start blogging. They just want to share what they know and tell their stories. Um, and then back in 2007, I created this is also the Web 2.0 era where, you know, your blogging was, was kind of heavy in the lexicon back then. And I was I did one of NASA&#8217;s first official public blogs on WordPress and, and kind of grew with WordPress, you know, from there that led to the ticket fly work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:25:13) &#8211; And so WordPress was kind of always in my DNA, even when wasn&#8217;t, you know, it wasn&#8217;t like a defined part of what I was, you know, of my, my role description. But my role was in some cases to be strategic and provide advice and provide some roadmaps. And, you know, how do we do things? Give us some give us some guidance here. And a lot of times just said like, well, you don&#8217;t have to create a custom bespoke application for this. Just use a content management system like WordPress, you know, teach your users how to how to how to manage using WordPress themselves. And and you go from there. So and the WordPress ecosystem is what makes all that happen mean there&#8217;s all these different, you know, there&#8217;s all these different plugins and themes and you just kind of integrate it all together, um, you know, in a unique way. And you have a great solution architecture, depending on how you put it together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:26:08) &#8211; What you&#8217;re talking kind of way back.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:26:11) &#8211; But you know, remember a lot of the solutions that we have now didn&#8217;t exist. So, you know, big organizations were having to do like the the internal resourcing that you&#8217;re talking about. They&#8217;d have to custom code those things or build them because they didn&#8217;t exist off the shelf. Then you fast forward and you go, you could take WooCommerce save. I can&#8217;t even imagine how much time to kind of do git to feature like, you know, par with that and then take that open source solution and then utilize it and just customize with a with a great agency like you all to figure out what their exact needs are. So it&#8217;s it&#8217;s great to see how everything has fast forward to. Well, we touched on this. I know we&#8217;re going to have more conversations down the road. And and I want to talk more about the public sector and enterprise. And I know we&#8217;re talking and we&#8217;re going to have some great conversations in the next couple of months about this, because I know you&#8217;re passionate about it, about the public sector and bringing WordPress to the public sector, but we&#8217;ll save that for another time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:27:07) &#8211; I don&#8217;t want to spoil too much of that, but I appreciate so much the journey and what you&#8217;re doing. So thank you for telling us that. That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s that&#8217;s incredible. Um, okay. What are you excited about today? What are you excited about today and the future going forward and what you&#8217;re doing with the agency and your team and the work you&#8217;re doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:27:27) &#8211; Yeah. So a few years ago, the government, Pervez passed a Congress passed an act called the Integrated Digital Experience Act. And within that act is basically it tells all these federal agencies how to modernize their website. So, you know. Obvious things like improve accessibility. They have to be accessible. They have to work on mobile. They. They. You have to have like good search. They should. People should be able to find content there. They also need to be based on user research and user needs. So they&#8217;re all logical things within. You know, public sector and it&#8217;s all so I&#8217;m really excited about that. Be something that initiates or triggers a lot of the work that I&#8217;ve been doing for the last couple of years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:28:26) &#8211; And so for the last few years I&#8217;ve been working on a web modernization project with NASA. It exists for a couple of reasons. It exists. One, because of that idea act. It also exists because NASA has a couple of thousand websites and they don&#8217;t want there to be a couple of thousand websites. They want all that information in one website. So we&#8217;ve been doing a lot of work with them. You know, that started back in kind of mid 2000, late 2000, and it started with, hey, what should be using for its main, you know, web source, major web properties. And so I spent a year taking a look at the landscape of you know, of all the available CMS&#8217;s that are out there, you know, Drupal source site, Adobe Experience manager and then some new newer ones like Wagtail. And then there&#8217;s even we even took a look at, you know, some of the software as a service type solutions like Contentful and just trying to understand the pros and cons of Elda.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:29:38) &#8211; And so we spent a year taking a look at the CMS landscape and acquiring data for it, acquiring evidence of it. And while in my heart, you know, being a WordPress guy, I knew like, you know, WordPress makes a lot of sense here. You know, we it&#8217;s still there was a lot of benefit for me to kind of like take a look at like what, you know, all the driving factors for making a decision like that were, um, and you know at the end of it WordPress like was the, the solution, the CMS that NASA wanted to invest in for the future. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve been working on for the last couple of years. So for the last couple of years we&#8217;ve been working on a couple of big. Uh, NASA WordPress projects. And a lot of, you know, I talked a lot about how I&#8217;ve been using WordPress and a no code kind of way. This is not a no code kind of way. There was a lot of Gutenberg custom development here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:30:34) &#8211; It&#8217;s the, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s the project that has everything like, you know, an emphasis on SEO, an emphasis on accessibility. There&#8217;s a new atomic design system that was created for this. And so the seeing the marriage of an atomic design system and Gutenberg, you know, come to bring all that stuff to life has been really, really exciting. And I&#8217;m excited to like for, for, you know, people, you know, interested in what NASA is up to and people interested in WordPress to see the fruits of all this labor that we&#8217;ve been working on for the last couple of years and it&#8217;s all coming in the next few months. And yeah, so I&#8217;m really excited to share that with you and share that with other people in the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:31:19) &#8211; Yeah, that&#8217;s excellent. So I want to take just a minute in sidebar because you did this whole year, you know, one of seeing what&#8217;s out there, seeing what the options are. And I love that you&#8217;ve done some deep, deep research for big organizations trying to make a big, important decision on it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:31:36) &#8211; Um, I&#8217;m just curious what we&#8217;re couple takeaways. As you just surveyed the landscape. You know, we love WordPress. We understand, you know, we, we support WordPress, but, but we know that there&#8217;s a lot of stuff out there. Um, but I&#8217;m curious, what, what did the landscape look like? Where were some of the things you saw when you looked at the other platforms you mentioned like Wagtail? I hadn&#8217;t heard that one before. I&#8217;ve heard of Contentful for instance, and of course Drupal. But what, what were a couple of the takeaways on that year of investigation out there?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:32:08) &#8211; So the I, I would say that there are two major, maybe three major differentiators that separated WordPress from the rest from the rest of the pack. If you will. Um, you know, there&#8217;s a lot of great content management systems out there. You know, they all do the same thing or try to do people the same. They try to make it easy for people to publish information onto the web and make it easy for others to consume it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:32:35) &#8211; But the differentiators from WordPress versus the other CMS that we were looking at were number one. A lot of again, it had a lot of it had to do with the ecosystem. WordPress was the only CMS that had real time analysis tools around SEO. So and accessibility to kind of try to improve those situations before the point of publishing. So Yoast is the obvious example. So Yoast, you know, we&#8217;ve all been exposed to Yoast. Yoast allows you to allows the content creator user to be authoring and editing content and getting some real time analysis about how friendly or compatible, whatever the term you want to use it is before the point of publish. There&#8217;s accessibility tools out there that do the same things that are kind of integrated within the WordPress Admin WordPress dashboard that allow that content creator user to like, you know, when it&#8217;s in draft format to analyze. Do I have accessibly accessible content that I&#8217;m about to publish in here and make live other CMS didn&#8217;t have that baked in. You know, there&#8217;s WordPress plugins that do these things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:33:51) &#8211; Um, we could even, we even have the ability to prevent publishing until certain excessively thresholds and SEO optimization thresholds are met. That was really, really attractive. All the most of the majority of the other solutions are you publish it first it&#8217;s live and then you can go back and check it and then you kind of have to retrofit it. I&#8217;ve been working in enterprises enough to know that that doesn&#8217;t happen once it&#8217;s published, Once it&#8217;s out there, people are generally going to move on. They&#8217;re not going to do the analysis of like, All right, how do I go back and improve this thing? So you really got to you really got to catch those things early and often. Um, you know, up front in the, in the content publishing lifecycle. So that was one of the big differentiators was that and that again, that&#8217;s all a product of the WordPress ecosystem and the innovation that comes out of that ecosystem. The other one was just kind of like the resources around this. So we all, you know, you can take for a grain of salt like, you know, the the whole thing about, you know, WordPress powers, 40% of the web, you know, that kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:34:57) &#8211; But there is some byproduct of that. And that is there&#8217;s a lot of people using it. There&#8217;s a lot of people building it. There&#8217;s a lot of people developing on it. There&#8217;s a lot of people extending on. There&#8217;s a lot of knowledge being shared around that. One of the things I did was I went in the stack overflow and compared WordPress with other CMS&#8217;s and just being like, How many conversations are happening around this thing, you know, that we&#8217;re looking at? And it was, you know, what you expected, the ability for, you know, to be able to. Try to solve a problem by getting by by, you know, interfacing or sponging up knowledge that was already contributed back in some way, you know, via via StackOverflow or, you know, other places on the Web, other groups, Slack channels, etcetera, that exists in WordPress in a way that it doesn&#8217;t exist in these other, you know, CMS products. You know, the if you want to if you want to get developer knowledge around Adobe Experience Manager, you for for the most part there are some Adobe experience manager specialists out there, but for the most part you got to go to Adobe for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:36:02) &#8211; Um. Uh, you know, same thing with sorts. There&#8217;s not there&#8217;s not a huge community of sort site developers out there. So for a place like NASA, you know, resource acquisition becomes a problem. Like, where are they going to find talent for that? Yeah. And you know, again, WordPress, you know, kind of is head and shoulders above the rest in that area. Um, and then, you know, this whole concept of WordPress is for everyone to like that. That rang true in all this research too. Like it&#8217;s more than just developer community. There&#8217;s user communities out there that are also sharing their knowledge here. Um, you know, there&#8217;s all these kinds of like, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s solutions for learning WordPress that are provided by the communities and multiple companies with the community that add a lot of value within the equals. So it&#8217;s not just like the software ecosystem, but it&#8217;s like, you know, the kind of service ecosystem to that exist within WordPress. Um, and then honestly, like, you know, portability matters to, um, you know, there&#8217;s, for the most part, like I really just wanted public sector to adopt open source.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:37:11) &#8211; You know, that&#8217;s the first decision I want, I want them to do is just, just, you know, make an open source decision. And then you&#8217;ve done that. You know, you&#8217;re in a good you&#8217;re in a better place than picking a commercial, you know, bespoke solution. You know, And then, you know, once you get past that hurdle now, you know, the obvious open source can cannot exist. And you know, the user experience of WordPress and that whole concept of WordPress being for everyone and being considering everyone, depending on who you are, really rings true and is a differentiator as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:37:50) &#8211; Well, that&#8217;s excellent. And that rings true. You know, I&#8217;m curious because as I talked to more enterprise agencies, all of you out there in the world interfacing with clients, with their needs, what they actually are trying to get done. That&#8217;s really, really great to hear and it&#8217;s reflective of the community. I think sometimes they&#8217;ve been in the community like you as long as we have.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:38:10) &#8211; I take some of those things for granted. So I think that&#8217;s that&#8217;s excellent. Well, JJ, thanks so much for the time today. I know you just got back from a big trip and you&#8217;ve got work to pile out, but I appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your agency journey, and I look forward to our next conversation, sharing the good work you&#8217;re doing with WordPress in our world. That too.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.J. Toothman (00:38:31) &#8211; Corey Thanks for having me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller (00:38:34) &#8211; All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here today. And we&#8217;ll talk to you. We&#8217;ll see. We&#8217;ll talk to you. We&#8217;ll hear from you. They&#8217;ll listen to us soon.</p>\n<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 20 Jul 2023 18:47:02 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"Cory Miller\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:68:\"Post Status: WordPress 6.3 RC1 • Field Guide • Gutenberg Phase 3\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=149937\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:71:\"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-rc1-field-guide-gutenberg-phase-3/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:26528:\"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023\">This Week at WordPress.org (July 17, 2023)</h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\">WordPress 6.3 will arrive on August 8, so there isn&#8217;t much time left for testing compatibility. Whether you are a plugin or theme maintainer or managing clients&#8217; websites, <strong>now is the time to test the latest features</strong>. Mike Schroder shares their most anticipated feature with auto-rollbacks coming.<br /><br />Collaborative editing is coming to WordPress, but what might that look like? A much-needed refresh of the Admin dashboard will also arrive as we expand Gutenberg from posts and pages through themes and now to additional parts of WordPress. <strong>Rather than voicing your opinions after such large overhauls ship, now is the time to read through the Phase 3 ideas and provide insights. </strong> </p></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media-container\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container\"><span class=\"kb-svg-icon-wrap kb-svg-icon-fe_gitMerge kt-info-svg-icon\"></span></div></div></div></div><div class=\"kt-infobox-textcontent\"><h2 class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-title\"> WP 6.3, Field Guide, Phase 3</h2><p class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-text\"><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f680.png\" alt=\"🚀\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png\" alt=\"🎧\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/\">Sneak a Peek at WP</a><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/\"> 6.3 with Mike Schroder</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f9d1-1f3fd-200d-1f4bb.png\" alt=\"🧑🏽‍💻\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/\">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a><br /><br />3&#x20e3; <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/phase-3/\">Gutenberg Phase 3</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4da.png\" alt=\"📚\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a><br />><br /></a><br /><br />><br /></a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_b57166-6e\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" /></div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-news\"><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news\">News</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/\">WP Briefing: Episode 60: Sneak a Peek at WordPress 6.3 with Special Guest Mike Schroder</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/designed-with-wordpress/\">Designed with WordPress</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" /></div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-28\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.3</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/\">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/\">WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-phase-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate Phase</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/\">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/\">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/\">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/\">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/\">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/\">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.4</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/\">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/\">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide and Dev-Notes</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/\">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-block-selectors-api/\">Introducing the Block Selectors API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/\">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/social-icons-block-applied-colors-now-dynamically-update-based-on-theme-json-and-global-styles/\">Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/bundled-themes-dropping-internet-explorer-scripts-and-styles/\">Bundled themes dropping Internet Explorer scripts and styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/improvements-to-the-cache-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/configuring-development-mode-in-6-3/\">Configuring development mode in 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/\">I18N Improvements in 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/image-performance-enhancements-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/wp_query-used-internally-in-get_pages/\">WP_Query used internally in get_pages()</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/registering-scripts-with-async-and-defer-attributes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/\">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/improved-caching-for-database-queries-in-wp_user_query/\">Improved Caching for Database Queries in WP_User_Query</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-developer-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/\">Miscellaneous developer changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-33\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-31\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility\">Accessibility</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/07/17/accessibility-team-meeting-agenda-july-21-2023/\">Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: July 21, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-community\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community\">Community</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-july-12-2023/\">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on July 12, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/new-handbook-page-for-wordcamp-organizers-wordcamp-speaker-selection-for-content-and-diversity/\">New handbook page for WordCamp Organizers: WordCamp Speaker Selection (for content AND diversity)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/summary-of-the-q2-community-team-role-updates/\">Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-core\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core\">Core</a> </h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/\">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/a-week-in-core-july-17-2023/\">A Week in Core – July 17, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Phase 3 Ideations</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Real-Time Collaboration</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/04/workflows/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Workflows</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/revisions/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Revisions</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/07/media-library/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Media Library</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/10/block-library/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Block Library</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Admin Design</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-developer-blog\"><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/\">Developer Blog</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/\">Beyond block styles, part 1: using the WordPress scripts package with themes</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/make-your-sites-typography-make-a-statement/\">Make your site’s typography make a statement</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/whats-new-for-developers-july-2023/\">What’s new for developers? (July 2023)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/how-to-modify-theme-json-data-using-server-side-filters/\">How to modify theme.json data using server-side filters</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-meetings\">Meetings</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/editor-chat-agenda-july-19th-2023/\">Editor Chat Agenda: July 19th, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/dev-chat-agenda-july-19-2023/\">Dev Chat agenda, July 19, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Design</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/07/03/design-share-jun-19-jun-30/\">Design Share: Jun 19–Jun&nbsp;30</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs\">Docs</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-end-user-documentation/\">Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/agenda-for-docs-team-bi-weekly-meeting-july-18-2023/\">Agenda for Docs Team bi-weekly meeting July 18, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/17/documentation-team-update-july-17-2023/\">Documentation Team Update – July 17, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-hosting\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting\">Hosting</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/11/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-07-12/\">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-07-12</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/\">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/marketing\">Marketing</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/06/26/notes-global-marketing-team-meeting-20-june-2023/\">Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 20 June 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/06/19/notes-global-marketing-team-meeting-13-june-2023/\">Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 13 June 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta\">Meta</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/\">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/\">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/13/new-filter-controls-discover-commercial-and-community-in-the-theme-and-plugin-directory/\">New Filter Controls: Discover “Commercial” and “Community” in the Theme and Plugin Directory</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/\">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/09/new-curation-filter-in-pattern-directory/\">New curation filter in Pattern Directory</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-mobile\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/mobile\">Mobile</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/mobile-team-update-july-12th/\">Mobile Team Update – July 12th</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/\">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/mobile-team-update-july-12th/\">Mobile Team Update – July 12th</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-openverse\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse\">Openverse</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/18/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-18/\">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-18)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/17/last-week-openverse-2023-07-10-2023-07-17/\">A week in Openverse: 2023-07-10 – 2023-07-17</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-performance\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/performance/\">Performance</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/performance-chat-summary-18-july-2023/\">Performance Chat Summary: 11 July 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-plugins\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins\">Plugins</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/\">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/17/plugin-review-team-17-jul-2023/\">Plugin Review Team: 17 Jul 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-polyglots\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots\">Polyglots</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/19/weekly-polyglots-chat-july-19-2023-1300-utc/\">Weekly Polyglots Chat – July 19, 2023 (13:00 UTC)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/\">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-project\">Project</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/07/13/proposal-for-establishing-a-make-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-deib-team-within-the-wordpress-community/\">Proposal for Establishing a Make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (“DEIB”) Team within the WordPress Community</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Support</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/06/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-edition/\">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support team edition</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability\">Sustainability</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/07/14/sustainability-chat-summary-july-14-2023/\">Sustainability Chat Summary, July 14, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-test\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test\">Test</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/\">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-theme\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/theme\">Theme</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/themes-team-update-july-12-2023/\">Themes team update July 12, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/07/13/themes-team-meeting-notes-july-11-2023/\">Themes Team Meeting Notes –&nbsp;July 11, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-training\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training\">Training</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/learn-wordpress-july-2023-newsletter/\">Learn WordPress July 2023 Newsletter</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/10/training-team-2023-half-year-review/\">Training Team 2023 Half Year Review</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/next-steps-for-github-updates/\">Next steps for GitHub updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/announcement-updates-to-team-meeting-times/\">Announcement: Updates to team meeting times</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/07/project-thread-learning-pathways-on-learn-wordpress/\">Project Thread: Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tutorials\"><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials\">Tutorials</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/it-choosing-and-installing-a-theme/\">Scegliere e installare un tema</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/7-tips-to-improve-website-security/\">7 Tips to improve website security</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-online-workshops\">Online Workshops</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=testing-wordpress-6-3\">Testing WordPress 6.3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=come-join-the-wordpress-training-team-4\">Come join the WordPress Training Team!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-3\">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-2\">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=mentorship-program-introduction-to-the-wordpress-open-source-project\">Mentorship Program: Introduction to the WordPress Open Source Project</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-courses\"><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/courses\">Courses</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/course/developing-with-the-wordpress-rest-api/\">Introduction to developing with the WordPress REST API</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/tv\">WordPress TV</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/tv/2023/06/15/enhancing-slide-management-for-video-publications/\">Enhancing Slide Management for Video Publications</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordCamp Central</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-dhaka-2023-has-been-cancelled/\">WordCamp Dhaka 2023 Has Been Cancelled</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-rochester-is-back/\">WordCamp Rochester is Back!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-san-jose-2023-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/\">WordCamp San José 2023: Looking For Speakers And Sponsors!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/06/wordcamp-finland-back-to-tampere-with-educational-insightful-and-thought-provoking-talks/\">WordCamp Finland: back to Tampere with educational, insightful and thought-provoking talks</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-wptv\">WPTV</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/\">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-related-news\">Related News:</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/\">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0\">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-1\">PHP 8.3.0 Alpha 3 available for testing</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1\"></a><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-2\">PHP 8.2.8 Released!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-3\">PHP 8.1.21 Released!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.8.0\">PHPMailer 6.8.0</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://262.ecma-international.org/\">TC39</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.8\">Composer 2.5.8</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background\">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/\">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/\">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter\">our newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f48c.png\" alt=\"💌\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background\"><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/\"><img src=\"https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png\" alt=\"Post Status\" class=\"wp-image-85823 size-full\" /></a><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size\" id=\"h-get-ready-for-remote-work\">You — and <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#Agency\">your whole team</a> can <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#choose-membership\">Join Post Status</a> too!</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-small-font-size\"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter/\">newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png\" alt=\"✉\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Listen to <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/podcasts/\">podcasts</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png\" alt=\"🎙\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Follow <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status/\">@Post_Status</a> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> and <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/\">LinkedIn</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png\" alt=\"💼\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 20 Jul 2023 12:50:44 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Courtney Robertson\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:77:\"Do The Woo Community: Woo AgencyChat Live with Judd Dunagan and Carlos Caneja\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75689\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:76:\"https://dothewoo.io/woo-agencychat-live-with-judd-dunagan-and-carlos-caneja/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:410:\"<p>Judd from Bright Vessel and Carlos from Britecode have a conversation around WooCommerce agency life. </p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/woo-agencychat-live-with-judd-dunagan-and-carlos-caneja/\">Woo AgencyChat Live with Judd Dunagan and Carlos Caneja</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 20 Jul 2023 09:56:47 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:94:\"Do The Woo Community: WooCommerce Agency Growth and the Power of Subscriptions with Kenn Kelly\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75674\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-agency-growth-and-the-power-of-subscriptions-with-kenn-kelly/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:471:\"<p>Kenn Kelly from Never Settle joins us as he shares his story of his agency, their passion for supporting a cause and so much Woo.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-agency-growth-and-the-power-of-subscriptions-with-kenn-kelly/\">WooCommerce Agency Growth and the Power of Subscriptions with Kenn Kelly</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 20 Jul 2023 08:50:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:66:\"WPTavern: #84 – Aaron Reimann on WordPress’ First Twenty Years\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=147025\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:77:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/84-aaron-reimann-on-wordpress-first-twenty-years\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:54997:\"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case a history of WordPress&#8217;s important moments.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today we have Aaron Reimann. Aaron is a PHP developer who started working with WordPress in 2008. He&#8217;s currently running ClockworkWP, a design, development and hosting shop. He&#8217;s built sites for companies of all shapes and sizes ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&#8217;s been an organizer for WordCamp Atlanta and the Atlanta WordPress meetup, and he also speaks regularly at events throughout the WordPress community, including WordCamp Europe, 2023 which is where this podcast was recorded.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aaron gave a presentation at the event called &#8216;where did we come from?&#8217; In that session, he spoke about something which we don&#8217;t often dwell upon, WordPress&#8217; history. In the technology space we&#8217;re always looking towards the future. What new features are being worked on? What&#8217;s in the latest version of WordPress. So this is an opportunity to gaze back over the previous 20 years and see just how far WordPress has come.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We do this by looking at some of the more important milestones in the WordPress landscape. Which features were added that allowed the CMS to become the success that it now is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in the early days, WordPress&#8217; success was anything but certain. There were a set of rival CMS platforms all vying for the attention of developers and website builders. Joomla and Drupal may be familiar names, but there were many others as well. All of these platforms, WordPress included, had their strengths and weaknesses. And at the time it seemed like any of them could become the dominant CMS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss what might have been the key things which set WordPress apart, and made it the pick for many people who needed an online presence. The fact that WordPress was easy to install, and easy on the eye, were certainly important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there&#8217;s the advent of the plugin architecture within WordPress. It&#8217;s fair to say that a vanilla version of WordPress will get you many of the features you need to get a website up and running. But if you want to do more then it&#8217;s likely that you&#8217;ll be relying on plugins. The fact that you could install and update from a growing range of plugins made WordPress indispensable. Able to create websites for almost any purpose.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there&#8217;s themes. It&#8217;s nice to have a functioning website, but it&#8217;s nicer still to have a functioning website which looks great. Themes enabled non-designers to make an impact online and made an entire industry for those who could turn their hand to theme creation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another pivotal moment was when custom fields were added into core, you were no longer bound by simply adding content to your posts and, later, pages. You could now create complex websites in which all sorts of data could be manipulated and displayed. WordPress now had all the hallmarks of a fully fledged CMS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there&#8217;s Gutenberg in WordPress&#8217; more recent past. Aaron is not yet completely sold on Gutenberg, still preferring the page builder that he&#8217;s grown accustomed to. But no discussion of WordPress&#8217; first 20 years would be complete without a mention of this important change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there&#8217;s the community of people who made and continue to make the software. Without the people there would be no WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We round off the discussion, talking about the fact that there appears to be a very high chance that WordPress will still be around in another 20 years. Will it still be the popular choice for website building? Who knows, but it&#8217;ll be fun to see what the future holds.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. Where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Aaron Reimann.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast by Aaron Reimann.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:30] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Correct.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you. Very nice to have you with us. How you doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:33] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Well actually, I guess that just by default I want to say, yeah I&#8217;m doing great. I am doing great, but I am jet lagged. We landed from, came from Atlanta to Athens. Landed on Monday, and I&#8217;m, I think I&#8217;m just now getting back to normal, but I&#8217;m still just a little, little tired.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, you&#8217;re very brave if you are suffering from jet lag. You&#8217;ve just had the bit of WordCamp Europe, which for you at least anyway, was going to be the most challenging.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:53] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You had a presentation, workshop?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:56] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Presentation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Presentation, and it was all about, well, the subject that we&#8217;re going to talk about. Tell us how that went.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:01] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I think it went well. Of course, I&#8217;m biased and I was a little blinded by the lights while I was talking on stage. But I think it went well. Some people had some good questions at the end, and then some of the people that weren&#8217;t exactly willing to ask the questions in front of everyone, I had a few people ask questions afterwards and two of them you know, said this was great. I wanted to know the history of WordPress and I&#8217;m new. I thought that was really good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s perfect. Great introduction. So we&#8217;re going to talk about the history of WordPress, but just before we do that, probably to give us a bit of orientation and information about you, just tell us a little bit about your background, your relationship with WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:36] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Okay. I&#8217;ve been a web developer since 1996, which I know dates me quite a bit. I started using WordPress in 2005, I think it was version 1.5.5 or something like that. And I only used it for a blog and I just kind of dumped my brain on the blog. Ran it for about three years, and it wasn&#8217;t until 2008, until I really started digging into WordPress. But in 2008 I quit my job. I was an IT guy, maintaining servers and computers and stuff like that and quit my job.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Started an agency with a friend of mine. Didn&#8217;t know what I was doing. But I had to figure out what platform do I want to use, and we&#8217;ll probably get into that. But ever since 2008 I&#8217;ve been using WordPress, and I&#8217;ve been running an agency. I sold, my business partner sold our agency in 2019, and then started a new company. I used basically the same contracts and things like that. When I started my business in 2008, I didn&#8217;t know what I was doing. Doing the reset in 2019. I had a process and a and knew how to run an agency. So it was much easier the second go round.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So anybody that&#8217;s been using WordPress from one point anything, you really have been there from pretty early on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:56] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Pretty early on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And used it a lot with, presumably with different clients for different applications. So the purpose of this conversation is to talk around the history of WordPress. This is kind of perfect because we are right up against the 20th anniversary. Software has managed to keep going for 20 years, which is pretty amazing. Just that is pretty amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:13] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I&#8217;m sure we could probably sit there and just list them. This project died. This one died. This one died. I mean it&#8217;s common.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But for some reason WordPress kept going. I&#8217;m going to begin the podcast interview with whole history of CMSs around the time that you began. Because it wasn&#8217;t really clear that WordPress was going to take the spot that it did. I think it&#8217;s fair to say now, if you were describing this as a race, it would be fair to say that WordPress won the CMS race? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:42] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But back then, back in the early 20 somethings, there was quite a few rivals. There was a few projects that could easily have taken off. They had the same open source ethos in many cases, some of them not so. Some of them you had to pay for and so on. So I just wondered if you&#8217;ve got any stories to tell or information about projects that you&#8217;ve used with other CMSs, like Drupal or Joomla, or Expression Engine, whatever it may be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:04] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah. So in 2008, I actually started using CMS Made Simple, because I saw it as easier than WordPress and more featured than WordPress. But WordPress is one of those things where once you get the ball rolling WordPress became unstoppable because it had so many more people joining and adding to the community. Which means more plugins, more features, more everything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I dropped CMS Made Simple after building about three websites I think. I wound up dropping that to use WordPress. And I also had a business partner that wasn&#8217;t technical at all, and he really liked the fact that he could, I don&#8217;t know if it was cPanel or some kind of hosting platform. Gave him a one button push to install WordPress, and so he could start working on a website and he didn&#8217;t have to do anything technical. And I think that probably has had a big effect on WordPress because it just became so easy to install.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I genuinely thought that at the time, at least I was using different platforms. I came to WordPress in probably about 2015. So a long time after you and I played with all these other ones. And in many cases I felt that the features that they offered were superior. But the one thing that separated them from WordPress, the one thing that I should probably say, the one thing that separated WordPress from them, was the UI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I felt that the UI was much more straightforward to use. It was actually quite beautiful. It hasn&#8217;t changed much in those years. It was just easier on the eye. It was much more straightforward. Dare I say it, there were less options, which might be a good thing or a bad thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:43] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I would agree with you. I think things like anytime I had to work on Joomla, I think it was around 2008 or so, Mambo I don&#8217;t know what the argument was, but all the developers dropped and started Joomla and Joomla became the thing, and Mambo died. Or Mamba, I don&#8217;t remember how to pronounce it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But any time I had to log into a Joomla site, it was a mess. I looked at it and I didn&#8217;t know exactly where to go. WordPress, even with version as I demonstrated today in my talk, version 7, 0.7.1, it was really simple. You log in there, there actually wasn&#8217;t even a dashboard at the beginning. You just log in and boom, you are right in the editor to create a post.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>People don&#8217;t have to sit there and think, how do I use this? It&#8217;s one of those things where like my mom could write a blog post. It was that simple. Whereas Joomla or Drupal, there&#8217;s a few more layers before you get into what you&#8217;re trying to get into.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s interesting. A lot of the rival platforms, they decided for more complexity. So they could, in effect, they could probably out of the box achieve more complicated things. But it turns out that plugins, as well probably come onto a bit later, plugins kind of stepped in and fixed that problem for us anyway. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:55] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So WordPress is 20 years old. The next thing that we&#8217;ve written down on our shared show notes is the milestones, if you like, during those past 20 years. There are certain things which happened in that past 20 years, which are probably more significant. I mean, there&#8217;s probably literally thousands of things that we could talk about, little tiny things. Some of them are much bigger bumps in the road. Things that really changed WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:15] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> There&#8217;s probably a ton of them too, that I am not even aware of. Even though I&#8217;ve been in the community for so long. I&#8217;m focused on my use case of WordPress where I build marketing sites basically. I mean we write some plugins and do that, but mostly we focus on marketing sites. And I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s a ton of things that I&#8217;m not even aware of that has happened that it doesn&#8217;t affect me, so I didn&#8217;t pay attention to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, but there certainly have been some big bumps. We&#8217;ve listed out a few here that between us, I think we think are significant. The first one, now we may not get this in the right order, it may be very well that some of these came prior to other ones.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:52] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> It&#8217;s fresh in my head, so I probably will get it right. I think. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You lead off then.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:56] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Well, if I remember correctly, going from 0.7.1 to 1.0, the only thing that really was added. They cleaned it up a little bit. It had less references to b2. If you look at the first version, all the files started with b2.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We should say what b2 is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:13] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> That, might be helpful. So WordPress is a fork of b2/cafelog. I think I&#8217;m saying that correctly. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s correct, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:23] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Okay, and so everything was prefixed with b2, in the first version of WordPress and 1.0, there&#8217;s only three files that were prefixed with b2, and they were, I think XML-RPC files, or XML feeds or something like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But everything got a lot cleaner. And so with 1.0 is where it, to me it looks more like WordPress. And then with 1.2 is when we got the plugin framework. And then in 1.5 is when we got themes. And those to me, I think we could probably talk the rest of the show about those two things. Probably shouldn&#8217;t, but we could.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think themes and plugins, plugins in particular, I think are where, for me at least, a lot of the magic has lay. A lot of the success is down to third party developers and the plugin architecture of WordPress. WordPress&#8217;s mission to democratize publishing is laudable, and it would be lovely, but a bare bones version of WordPress, a vanilla version of WordPress will only get you so far if you want something complicated. So the ability to open up WordPress to plugin developers was pretty seismic, I think.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:30] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah, I agree. With plugins also comes with bloat, which is the thing that I run into, and I mentioned it on my talk. Someone asked me a plugin question and I said the worst site I ever worked on, I logged in once and I said, I&#8217;m not going to work on this site because there were 104 active plugins, active. There were some inactive ones there. I said I&#8217;m afraid to edit anything. So plugins are a blessing. And if you don&#8217;t know enough about what that can do to your site, it becomes a curse.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I&#8217;ve had similar experiences where, there&#8217;s just simply too much on there. And for WordPress&#8217;s promise to make it possible for almost anybody to create a website, maintain a website, update a website, that can be difficult. Because there is no indication anywhere that if you&#8217;re adding more plugins, you&#8217;re adding more bloat. You&#8217;re adding more time for pages to load because there&#8217;s things going on in the background.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:24] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> It&#8217;s creating more tables in the database, and that is one of the things that you&#8217;ll see. People will have a live website and they&#8217;ll try a bunch of plugins and they&#8217;ll try five or six plugins, and it&#8217;s leaving these little imprints mostly, maybe in the files, but mostly in the database.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It creates tables, but there&#8217;s no cleanup. That&#8217;s a problem. And then when, five years later when you&#8217;re trying to migrate the site, you see all these tables and you&#8217;re like, why are these tables, do they, are they in use? Can I delete &#8217;em? Stuff like that. It&#8217;s just, it just comes with lack of knowledge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess, if you had to have a seesaw of whether plugins were a good thing or a bad thing. I think for me, definitely it&#8217;s heavily weighted on the side of they&#8217;re a good thing. You&#8217;re right, they can be overused and what have you may be put in functionality that really you don&#8217;t actually need just because you want to play with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the ability to turn a pretty basic blogging platform as it was, into something which could do literally anything that the internet allows is pretty compelling. And that, for me, the plugin and theme, more plugin in my mind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:30] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But the plugin and theme architecture is one of the key pieces for its popularity and success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:36] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah. I think that theming though is super important. As much as I don&#8217;t like some of the theming shops that are out there. I&#8217;m not naming names or anything like that. But a lot of those themes that people would purchase, they were bloated. They would come in with five custom post types that they don&#8217;t need, but people would see my website can look this pretty. I like what that screenshot of that theme looks like and people would buy it. It&#8217;s eye candy, and I don&#8217;t know if Drupal and Joomla, they don&#8217;t have anything like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Certainly not on the same scale. There are theming engines in there, but no. And it became very commercial, didn&#8217;t it as well. You were able to purchase themes for really quite extraordinarily cheap prices.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:21] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And again, sometimes I think a blessing and a curse because I tried all of these things, guilty as charged. Tried downloading themes, and then realized that I had to take out more than I, I&#8217;d see something and think, oh, that&#8217;s exactly what I want. I would download the theme, use the theme, and then figure out. It was more work to remove the bits that I didn&#8217;t need, but it still worked. And for me, it drew me into the WordPress ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I learned that&#8217;s not for me. I&#8217;d like something more bare bones. So that&#8217;s the way I went, but it got me into it, which was the important part. So, yeah, themes as well then. Okay, what else? After themes and plugins, what else have we got?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:56] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Themes and plugins. And then I think it was in 2.9, the functionality was in 2.9, but it wasn&#8217;t documented and it came out in 3.0, were the custom post types. And the custom post types were a game changer for me because before, let&#8217;s take press releases. A client wants to have their press releases separate from their blog. The only way you could do that before was to create a category in your blog and make it not show up with the blog, but show up over here. And you feel like you&#8217;re just trying to hack something together, to make it fit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then when custom post types came out, it was amazing to me because it allowed us where, yeah, we can do that. You know, a client say I need to have this type of content show. Like, we can do that. It wasn&#8217;t trying to rig something that was impossible anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we use custom post types almost every site that we build. It&#8217;s just a, it&#8217;s a no-brainer. They say we need a way to do X and we&#8217;re like, okay, custom post type. We use that more than anything else probably.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s interesting because we were talking earlier about things like Joomla and Drupal. I can&#8217;t speak to Joomla because I didn&#8217;t really use it, but Drupal even inversions significantly before the era that we&#8217;re now talking about, that kind of functionality was built into the core of the platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And because I was a user of Drupal when I came to WordPress, and it wasn&#8217;t immediately obvious in any part of the UI how to create a custom post type, and I know that you can do that. I had to figure out how to do it. In many cases, I think people will install some plugin, which takes care of that, but you can obviously do that in different ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:33] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Like, three different ways to do it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I do remember scratching my head thinking, where&#8217;s the button? Where&#8217;s the button for the, whatever it&#8217;s called. And it turns out it was custom post type. But then figuring out, okay, you can do this and you can create metadata around those and you can separate your website up. Like you said, this is the portfolio aspect of the website. And these are the, these are the other bits of the website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, that&#8217;s really important. And it essentially, it turned it from a blogging platform into more of a, well, a fully featured CMS. In fact, I&#8217;d say you can&#8217;t really talk about it being a CMS until custom post types.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:03] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I say that made it a platform. It&#8217;s a platform. Where In 2006 and 2007, I was learning Ruby on Rails. And I realized every time I was creating something in Ruby on Rails, I needed to create, I had to figure out a way for people to log in. So that&#8217;s a module basically, that you&#8217;d have to install, and all these little pieces. And then I looked at WordPress and I&#8217;m like, oh, WordPress has all these things. And so to me, WordPress became in 3.0, just became a platform where if you&#8217;re smart enough, if you know how to develop plugins, you can make it do anything you want it to do. Which is awesome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Anybody who&#8217;s been using WordPress for a small amount, well not even a small amount of time, a fairly long amount of time. But certainly when you began using it, this feature didn&#8217;t exist. And it strikes me as so bizarre that you couldn&#8217;t create pages at at the beginning. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:54] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Oh, right, right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I mean, it was a blog roll, it was a blogging platform, so everything was a post.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But tell us about that, because that also is a fairly significant thing. You could create pieces of static content, which are not in some sort of hierarchy with other pieces of content, and that, again, crucial, important step.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:09] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah, and to be honest, I&#8217;m kind of going in the back of my head. I probably, maybe 15% of the websites that we build use the blog. That&#8217;s probably a high number for us. Most of our clients don&#8217;t want a blog. They don&#8217;t see the value. And sometimes I think, you probably should have a blog, and try to push them. It&#8217;s a way to create content. If it&#8217;s a marketing site and their goal is for someone to push the button, fill out this form, and that&#8217;s the call to action. You don&#8217;t need a blog, but what would you do without pages?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, that really, that kind of predates me. I always had pages with 1.5. I used it, All I had for my blog was I had one page that was a contact page. I mean, that&#8217;s it. But I needed that. I couldn&#8217;t have a blog post about my contact information because it&#8217;ll get lost in the shuffle.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of interesting that, well, I&#8217;ve read a post recently, I can&#8217;t remember where, if I can summon up where it was, I will add it into the show notes. But I read a piece recently, which describes what you&#8217;ve just been talking about, this 15% or less. The person writing the post essentially said, can we make it so that the blog, the posts are an option? So it&#8217;s toggleable. So you download WordPress and you enable or disable all of the blogging functionality. So the posts menu disappears, and actually would clean up a lot of the interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in the sites that you are describing, building where it&#8217;s page, page, page, page, custom post type, whatever. That might be quite a neat feature, but it&#8217;s curious that it is totally the opposite of how the thing began. It began that way, and yet it has morphed. My use is the same as your use. It&#8217;s all about the pages. And quite often clients will say, I will create a blog, and you know, it never gets beyond the first post.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:55] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> They&#8217;ll write one or two and then it just, it disappears. I try to always try to tell them, if you&#8217;re going to start this, you can&#8217;t stop. It just makes you look bad when you, your most recent blog post was five years ago. At least go in and change the date, do something. It is interesting that we don&#8217;t have much of a use case for blogs and I don&#8217;t think I host a single web, I also do hosting. I host probably about 300 websites and I don&#8217;t think any of them are just a blog. All of them are WordPress installs that&#8217;s page focussed, that maybe, maybe has a blog. So it is interesting how it completely shifted and that&#8217;s probably true for the majority.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I think so. That seems to fit. I&#8217;m not suggesting that we get rid of that functionality. It&#8217;s crucial, but it&#8217;s kind of interesting. Just that blog post, it was interesting to me that you could switch that off. And they also showed what the UI might look like when all of the different things that are attached to WordPress&#8217; post functionality. If you remove those from the UI, it does become a little bit easier for a novice who&#8217;s got no intention of using a blog to manage.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:00] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I remember when I was first trying to theme, I was trying to figure out what are the differences between pages and posts. I just couldn&#8217;t figure it out for a little, I kept getting confused. Should this be a post or should this be a page? Then I just realized, okay, so posts are chronological, it&#8217;s date based, and pages are not. And I&#8217;m like, okay, that makes sense. Have you&#8217;ve looked at the hierarchy graphic?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:24] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> If you&#8217;re listening to this and you don&#8217;t, you&#8217;re not familiar with that and you make themes, you&#8217;re missing a big golden nugget of information because the hierarchy page, it&#8217;s awesome. It&#8217;s really cool and it&#8217;s gotten more complex as things progressed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we have pages, we&#8217;ve done custom post types. We&#8217;ve done the beginning of the platform, with its rivals there. One other thing which we haven&#8217;t touched on, which I think we should is Gutenberg. That&#8217;s been a very, very big push for WordPress over the last three or four years?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:53] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Five.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Five.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:54] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> It&#8217;s been five years. It was released, sound like a know-it-all. It&#8217;s just, I only know this stuff because I just did a, did a talk about it. 2018, 5.0, is when it came out. It seems like it would&#8217;ve been just a couple years ago.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, it really does.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:08] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> We&#8217;re coming up on, I think five years of Gutenberg.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It was a radical change. It really did upend the way that you create content. For some people it&#8217;s highly desirable. It allows them to do all sorts of things that they were not able to do. And it puts the, if you like, page building type functionality in front of people without the need to download any kind of plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But from the shared show notes that we&#8217;ve got, it&#8217;s one of the things in the last 20 years roadmap, which you are not entirely sold on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:38] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Not yet. So I&#8217;ve got a project, we&#8217;re going to be starting in the fall where I&#8217;m going to be using Gutenberg. The reason why we&#8217;re going to be using Gutenberg for pages and posts is I&#8217;m going to need this website to last me 10 or 15 years with content. Most websites that we build, it&#8217;s a marketing site. It&#8217;s going to get rebuilt, redesigned or whatever in three or four years, where if the page builder goes kaputs, you know, and disappears, no big deal, we&#8217;ll just, when we rebuild the site, we&#8217;ll just pick a better page builder.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this case, this is going to be, this is for a state project and it&#8217;s going to be, the content needs to last 10 years or so. And to me, at that point, that&#8217;s where, okay, I&#8217;ve gotta use Gutenberg because I know Gutenberg, because that was the chosen way to do it. I&#8217;m going to stick with that, and that&#8217;s going to be good for my client for this specific case.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the day-to-day stuff, simple marketing websites, it would be hard for me to go to a client and say, here&#8217;s Gutenberg and you can edit the pages using this. It&#8217;s a lot more overwhelming than, I&#8217;m a big Beaver Builder fan. And every client that we hand over the site, we give them these little videos. Here&#8217;s how you edit this. We record it and give it to &#8217;em. So they&#8217;re able to see how to do it. They&#8217;ve got a video on how to do it, and it&#8217;s, to me, just Beaver Builder is, it&#8217;s so easy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so that&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve, still haven&#8217;t jumped, you know, on that bandwagon yet. I know I&#8217;m going to have to you know, at some point. So, it&#8217;s a hard shift for me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I can well understand when it&#8217;s shipped in version five, the UI looks broadly the same as it does today, but the things that you could do with it then. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:22] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> A lot more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, you can really do a lot more now, but it also felt that it was extremely limiting at the time it was released. I wonder if we could rewind history and replay that moment in time, I do wonder if perhaps more features should have been added so that the experience was much more obvious.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, maybe it should have been an opt-in thing for a period of time, rather than, here&#8217;s Word Press 5.0, it&#8217;s now the default, and I wonder what your thoughts are on that. That it should be some kind of toggleable on, off thing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:53] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I have no problem with, I like diversity when it comes, just options with things. I love the fact that the Elementor people that are here. Obviously that&#8217;s a plugin that&#8217;s very, very popular, but no one&#8217;s forced to use it. You know, you can use whichever one you want and, knock on wood, right, and hope that that will continue. Where WordPress doesn&#8217;t get so Gutenberg focussed where Beaver Builder and Elementor and Divi and all those, can&#8217;t work on WordPress. At that point then there&#8217;ll probably be some forking of some projects, which would be kind of interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think it probably came out a little too early, in the aspect of it was the chosen choice, but I don&#8217;t think people had much of a choice. I mean it seems like it was decided, and you kind of had to start using it. And then you have the Classic Editor plugin becomes extremely popular. All of a sudden there&#8217;s what, 6 million? I don&#8217;t know, it seemed like it was five or 6 million active installs for that, because that was a big, we&#8217;re not interested in Gutenberg. We tried it. We didn&#8217;t like it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s different now. If it were released today, you know, where it has a lot more features, we wouldn&#8217;t have had so much of a, should I use the word backlash? I mean it, I don&#8217;t know if it was a backlash. I know in my WordPress community in Atlanta, Georgia, nobody embraced it. It was too abrupt.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s fair to say that in the time that I&#8217;ve been a user of WordPress, the stories that got generated, the amount of time that was given over to talking about it. It&#8217;s like nothing else. It was really, kind of bifurcated the community. There were those that loved it, and there were those that didn&#8217;t like it. And I think you&#8217;re right, it&#8217;s definitely matured and it&#8217;s got to the point now where I think a lot of people have just, they&#8217;ve gotten on with it and they&#8217;re using it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But interestingly, like you, you&#8217;re still able to use the tools that you liked and trusted prior to that as well anyway.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:49] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Right. And I tell people, when you&#8217;re editing a page, you&#8217;re going to be using Beaver Builder, and when you are blogging, you&#8217;ll be using this new thing called Gutenberg. And they&#8217;re okay with that, because they&#8217;re not trying to, it&#8217;s a post, right? So I mean, it&#8217;s going to have text and pictures and not much else.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re not trying to build functionality like a slider or anything crazy in there. I don&#8217;t even know, is that even in, I hope that&#8217;s not in Gutenberg. I think using it just for a blog, you&#8217;re not going to push the limits of Gutenberg. Like I&#8217;ve said, I&#8217;m going to have to start doing it, because I know it is the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So far we&#8217;ve talked entirely really about WordPress as a piece of software, but yet here we are at WordCamp in Europe, Athens in particular. You&#8217;ve just presented in front of a bunch of people, so you probably have a much greater idea of the magnitude of this event. If you just walk downstairs, I know this is going to be hard to get across in the audio, but it really is a giant event. It&#8217;s truly enormous.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I wanted to get into the community side of things, and whether or not, when you think the word WordPress, do you generally think of just software, the piece of software that you download from the internet? Or do you also have the community of WordPress in your head when you are thinking about that over the last 20 years?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:03] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I started using WordPress in 2008 and I went to my first WordCamp, I don&#8217;t know if it was 2012 or 13. I think it was 12, in Nashville. And that is where I just fell in love with the community, because nowhere else in the world have I been able to just ask people, the people are just so willing to help.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you&#8217;re a newbie or you need someone, you&#8217;re trying to figure out how do you fix this plugin, or add this functionality and you&#8217;re at a WordCamp. People are, they&#8217;ll jump in and just start, oh, maybe you should do this. I mean people are extremely helpful. That&#8217;s where I started falling in love with WordPress as far as the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And since then I&#8217;ve spoken at 20 plus WordCamps. Mostly in the southeast, US. It&#8217;s something that I don&#8217;t think is replicated anywhere else. For a little while I was in the Rails, Ruby on Rails world. They don&#8217;t have a community like that. The PHP community in Atlanta at least is it&#8217;s good, but it&#8217;s still not, and in Atlanta pre covid, we had 14 active meetups in the Atlanta area. It was extremely popular, and our WordCamp that we used to have every year, we would have 650 people there. And the only reason why it was 650, limited at 650 is because the venue that we used, that&#8217;s all we could do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The community, at least in Atlanta, it&#8217;s been incredible. I&#8217;ve made friends there. Now we&#8217;re planning WordCamp Atlanta, and, you know, every Friday we&#8217;re on a call. Talking to these people that have become my friends over the past 10 years, which is really cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I can&#8217;t disassociate the piece of software from the community now. In my head when I say WordPress, those two things are inextricably linked. And I think the fact that WordPress is able to be used by a whole different swathe of people. So you&#8217;ve obviously got the really technical people who enjoy the code, there&#8217;s all of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there&#8217;s the people who are into their SEO and marketing, and who knows what. There&#8217;s a million different pathways. And the fact that they can all combine in an event like this. The talks are not limited to one subject. There really is a broad spectrum of things on offer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it is pretty special. I don&#8217;t know, I don&#8217;t quite know what the secret sauce was there that made that happen. But it did happen, and it is pretty unique. I think you hit the nail on the head. I&#8217;ve yet to encounter another community that&#8217;s loosely based around software that is quite as welcoming. It&#8217;s amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:32] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Where these people become your friends, that&#8217;s weird. And this being at WordCamp Europe, I haven&#8217;t seen people since 2019, and I&#8217;m running into people and it&#8217;s great. I&#8217;m remembering people&#8217;s names, you know, which sometimes I don&#8217;t do great at, but it&#8217;s awesome. And it sounds kind of cheesy, but you have friends and brothers and sisters, you know, it&#8217;s a really cool thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If you&#8217;re listening to this podcast episode and you never have attended any kind of WordPress event, I would say give one a try. It is definitely worth it. And if the first one doesn&#8217;t hit your expectations, give a few more a try, and see what happens. Because I can absolutely identify with what you&#8217;ve said. It&#8217;s embedded in my life. Lots of long-term friendships. And with people that I definitely, definitely would never have met. And who now I consider to be my good friends.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So over the last 20 years, WordPress, if you look at the graph, so on the one hand we&#8217;ve got the years running, and then on the other we&#8217;ve got the usage data. The line just keeps going up. 2011 is higher than 2010. 2013 is higher than 2012. We keep talking about this figure of roughly 40 something, 43, 42, it hovers around there, percent of the web. So it&#8217;s seemingly experienced more or less unstoppable growth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do we think about the next 20 years? Do you think there&#8217;s a plateau at which one platform like WordPress can reach, and then we just have to meter our expectations and say, well, that&#8217;s as far as one can expect it to go? Or are we after, I don&#8217;t know, 86%, double?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:02] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Has it not plateaued? I feel like it has plateaued, and I can&#8217;t tell you why. I don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s plateaued. I can just give you general ideas. There&#8217;s still some people that will never use WordPress. They&#8217;ll say, oh, I see it in the news. It&#8217;s hacked all the time. And it&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s not hacked. It&#8217;s WordPress core is secure. It&#8217;s hosting issues, not updating things, or a plugin that&#8217;s not updated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there&#8217;s always going to be, you&#8217;re going to get the stigma from certain groups of people, that are never going to want to use that. And then there&#8217;s people that are going to want to use different, they don&#8217;t want to use PHP. If they&#8217;re going to build, they&#8217;re not going to until WordPress is no longer PHP based, you know. I think it&#8217;s not going to be able to surpass that, because of the fact that there are other technologies out there that aren&#8217;t compatible with that stack.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess it&#8217;s impossible for something to keep growing exponentially, because at some point there&#8217;s just a natural limit. There&#8217;s other people who will be interested in other things. It&#8217;s amazing that it got, even if it did stay where it is or possibly decline, it&#8217;s pretty remarkable that it got where it did in 20 years. So I think we can all be content with where it is right now anyway.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:14] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah, well I ended my talk telling people that chances are, even if WordPress were to stop today, I don&#8217;t know what would, cause, you know, where everyone&#8217;s like, we don&#8217;t want to build on WordPress anymore. I probably will still retire fixing WordPress sites because there are so many millions of sites that are out there that are going to linger for years on end.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll be able to make a little money off of maintaining WordPress sites 20 years from now. Which is pretty cool. And I think about like Cold Fusion. I know Cold Fusion, I think they got an update a couple years ago or maybe a year ago or something like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s still Cole Fusion sites, which Cold Fusion to me died in 2007 or, or something like that. But it&#8217;s still lingering. And I think if WordPress stopped today, we&#8217;d have a very similar thing. Where I could still make a living off of WordPress. Which is a cool feeling, I guess.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The rise of WordPress, if you drill down into the statistics, you just look over the last, let&#8217;s say eight years. It&#8217;s risen remarkably quickly. It&#8217;s got faster and faster towards this 43 or whatever it may be, percent. It feels like if you drill down into the data that page builders were a big part of that. And I do wonder, we were talking a moment ago about Gutenberg, and I wonder if in the future, I wonder what that dynamic will do? If the page builders all get consumed or Gutenberg eats their launch.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen there, but I thought that was a curious thing to tease out of this. That the growth that we&#8217;ve had recently, probably in large part can be attributed to page builders, and the ability to create pages, and all of that relatively easily inside the UI. I don&#8217;t really have any thoughts on how that will carry on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:53] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I would definitely agree with you. I kind of went down the path of, I first used Visual Composer, probably like 2015 or so. I was like, that&#8217;s a cool idea. It seemed buggy to me, but once I tried Beaver Builder, I was sold. And I think once people realize, for example, a couple weeks ago I built a website for my brother. And he just needed something pretty simple, but I showed him using a page builder. I said, I built the header and footer, and I said, here&#8217;s how you put content in. And he built the other pages. He did, change it, upload the images and stuff like that. He knows nothing about computers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the page builders have definitely made it where you don&#8217;t need a developer. I mean, obviously for something more complex, if you need some kind of functionality to talk to some third party API, yeah you&#8217;re going to need a developer. But I mean, if all you&#8217;re trying to do is display content, the page builders have just made it so easy. Beyond easy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I do wonder in the future, it seems like every podcast that I record at the minute ends up at this question, what AI will do to WordPress. And I know that we didn&#8217;t discuss this in our show notes, but it&#8217;s interesting, Page builders made it fairly straightforward for non-technical people to, what you see is what you get. And it truly did that. It literally almost pixel for pixel. It was exactly what you were looking at before you click publish.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I wonder what&#8217;s going to happen to WordPress with AI, and whether or not the job in the future will be entirely different for people like you. Whether it will be more talking to an interface and telling it, no move left. Make that red. Get me a picture of a cat over there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:33] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> I don&#8217;t know man. I watched Terminator 2, when I was 15 and I&#8217;m not interested. And I think people are going to be using it to write their term papers and, you know, all that. It&#8217;s interesting, I think, I don&#8217;t know, have me back in five years. We&#8217;ll figure out was this a good thing or a bad thing? I&#8217;m not using, ChatGPT much. I&#8217;ve tinkered with it, but I can&#8217;t, I haven&#8217;t put it into my, day-to-day yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m talking to a developer friend of mine. He is, at his company, they&#8217;re making them learn how to use it because it&#8217;s going to, not replace them, but it&#8217;s going to make them more powerful and make them quicker and be able to build things faster. And I think that&#8217;s where we get to look forward to. You know, until the robots take over. We&#8217;ll see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. We&#8217;ll have you back in five years and we&#8217;ll see. We&#8217;ve really gone around the whole subject, but I was wondering over the last 20 years, if you had any wishlist things that you wish had gone into WordPress. If you could rewind and say, wouldn&#8217;t it have been good to put that in, to slot that in, in year five or seven. Honestly you can make anything you like up here. Really interesting just to get your insight.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:41] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> Yeah. I don&#8217;t, because of the fact that I&#8217;ve always been a, I shouldn&#8217;t say always because I don&#8217;t write code anymore, but I, you know, I had 15 years of writing code and I now have people that write code for me at my company. And anything that WordPress couldn&#8217;t do, we just built it. So I needed WordPress to be stable and be a core where it gives us a login. Something that gives us pages and posts, just the real basics and everything else we can build, which is pretty awesome. I love it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s a perfect place to end it, I think. Aaron, If there&#8217;s a URL you want to drop or a Twitter handle or someplace that people can get in touch with you to talk about this, what would we do?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:22] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> My company is clockworkwp.com, and then my Twitter handle is @reimann, so A R E I M A N N.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you very much for talking to us on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:35] <strong>Aaron Reimann:</strong> All right. Thank you.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://twitter.com/areimann\">Aaron Reimann</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aaron is a PHP developer who started working with WordPress in 2008. He is currently running <a href=\"https://clockworkwp.com/\">ClockworkWP</a>, a design, development and hosting shop. He’s built sites for companies of all shapes and sizes, ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. He’s been an organiser for WordCamp Atlanta and the Atlanta WordPress Meetup. He also speaks regularly at events throughout the WordPress community, including WordCamp Europe 2023 where this podcast was recorded.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aaron gave a presentation at the event called ‘Where did we come from?’ In that session he spoke about something which we don’t often dwell upon, WordPress’ history. In the technology space we’re always looking towards the future. What new features are being worked on? What’s in the latest version of WordPress? So this is an opportunity to gaze back over the previous twenty years and see just how far WordPress has come.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We do this by looking at some of the more important milestones in the WordPress landscape. Which features were added that allowed the CMS to become the success that it now is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in the early days WordPress’ success was anything but certain. There were a set of rival CMS platforms all vying for the attention of developers and website builders. Joomla and Drupal may be familiar names, but there were many others as well. All of these platforms, WordPress included, had their strengths and weaknesses, and at that time it seemed like any of them could become the dominant CMS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss what might have been the key things which set WordPress apart, and made it the pick for many people who needed an online presence. The fact that WordPress was easy to install, and easy on the eye were certainly important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there’s the advent of the plugin architecture within WordPress. It’s fair to say that a vanilla version of WordPress will get you many of the features you need to get a website up and running, but if you want to do more, then it’s likely that you’ll be relying on plugins. The fact that you could install and update from a growing range of plugins made WordPress indispensable; able to create websites for almost any purpose.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there’s themes. It’s nice to have a functioning website, but it’s nicer still to have a functioning website which looks great. Themes enabled non-designers to make an impact online, and made an entire industry for those who could turn their hand to theme creation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another pivotal moment was when custom fields were added into Core. You were no longer bound by simply adding content to your posts and, later, pages. You could now create complex websites in which all sorts of data could be manipulated and displayed. WordPress now had all the hallmarks of a fully fledged CMS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there’s Gutenberg in WordPress&#8217; more recent past. Aaron is not yet completely sold on Gutenberg, still preferring the page builder that he’s grown accustomed to, but no discussion of WordPress’ first twenty years would be complete without a mention of this important change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there’s the community of people who made, and continue to make, the software. Without the people, there would be no WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We round off the discussion talking about the fact that there appears to be a very high chance that WordPress will still be around in another twenty years. Will it still be the popular choice for website building? Who knows, but it’ll be fun to see what the future holds.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/session/where-did-we-come-from/\">Aaron&#8217;s talk at WordCamp Europe 2023</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.drupal.org/\">Drupal</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.joomla.org/\">Joomla</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://expressionengine.com/\">Expression Engine</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.cmsmadesimple.org/\">CMS Made Simple</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.cpanel.net/\">cPanel</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambo_%28software%29\">Mambo</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#Release_history\">b2</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://konstantin.blog/2010/custom-post-types-in-wordpress-3-0/\">Custom Post Type WordPress release 3.0</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://rubyonrails.org/\">Ruby on Rails</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/\">Beaver Builder</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://elementor.com/\">Elementor</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/\">Divi</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/\">Classic Editor plugin</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion\">Cold Fusion</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://visualcomposer.com/\">Visual Composer</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://clockworkwp.com/\">ClockworkWP website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/areimann\">Aaron&#8217;s Twitter</a></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:73:\"Do The Woo Community: Three Major Considerations on Shaping an AI Feature\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75656\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:72:\"https://dothewoo.io/three-major-considerations-on-shaping-an-ai-feature/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:406:\"<p>Dan Walmsley shares when contemplating how to shape a feature, there\'s at least three major considerations</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/three-major-considerations-on-shaping-an-ai-feature/\">Three Major Considerations on Shaping an AI Feature</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 19 Jul 2023 08:41:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:\"type\";i:128;s:7:\"headers\";O:48:\"WpOrg\\Requests\\Utility\\CaseInsensitiveDictionary\":1:{s:7:\"\0*\0data\";a:8:{s:6:\"server\";s:5:\"nginx\";s:4:\"date\";s:29:\"Sat, 05 Aug 2023 18:42:40 GMT\";s:12:\"content-type\";s:8:\"text/xml\";s:13:\"last-modified\";s:29:\"Sat, 05 Aug 2023 18:30:30 GMT\";s:4:\"vary\";s:15:\"Accept-Encoding\";s:15:\"x-frame-options\";s:10:\"SAMEORIGIN\";s:16:\"content-encoding\";s:4:\"gzip\";s:4:\"x-nc\";s:9:\"HIT ord 3\";}}s:5:\"build\";s:14:\"20230731110319\";}', 'no');
