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";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:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";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:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";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:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";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:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";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:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:54:"WPTavern: Awesome Motive Acquires WP Charitable Plugin";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=135506";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:65:"https://wptavern.com/awesome-motive-acquires-wp-charitable-plugin";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:4458:"<p>Awesome Motive, makers of popular plugins like OptinMonster, WPForms, and MonsterInsights, <a href="https://www.wpbeginner.com/news/welcome-wp-charitable-to-the-wpbeginner-family-of-products/">acquired WP Charitable</a> this week. The<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/charitable/"> plugin</a> is used by more than 10,000 non-profits for creating fundraising campaigns and collecting online donations. It does not charge any transaction fees and currently has a 4.9/5-star average rating on WordPress.org.</p>



<p>&#8220;Wes and I launched Charitable in 2015 because we were tired of seeing non-profits use hosted fundraising platforms that charge hefty fees and strip them of the ability to brand and control their donation pages,&#8221; WP Charitable co-founder Eric Daams said in his <a href="https://www.wpcharitable.com/charitable-is-joining-the-awesome-motive-family/">farewell post</a>.</p>



<p>&#8220;After being a small team splitting our time on the product as well as our agency business for the last 7 years, we are ready to pass the reins to someone who shares the same passion and has the resources to make Charitable even better than it is today.&#8221;</p>



<p>Awesome Motive CEO Syed Balkhi said the company&#8217;s non-profit users had long been requesting a beginner-friendly donations plugin. They could either acquire one or build one from scratch. WP Charitable&#8217;s timing to sell coincided with Awesome Motive&#8217;s next move on expanding tools for non-profit customers.</p>



<p>&#8220;As you know, at Awesome Motive, our mission is to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys,&#8221; Balkhi said. &#8220;Our software today powers over 20 million websites and helps shape the web for billions worldwide.</p>



<p>&#8220;Along with our core mission, we believe that companies should be forces for good.</p>



<p>&#8220;The WP Charitable plugin allows us to use our knowledge, experience, and resources to empower those who are changing the world for good.&#8221;</p>



<p>WP Charitable&#8217;s chief competitor is <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/give/">GiveWP</a>, a donation plugin and fundraising platform with more than 100,00 users. While WP Charitable doesn&#8217;t collect any transaction fees whatsoever, one of the big differences with GiveWP is that it collects a 2% fee on Stripe donations taken via the company&#8217;s free Stripe integration with GiveWP core. There are no fees for GiveWP&#8217;s commercial Stripe add-on.</p>



<p> Demonstrating one of the more endearing aspects of the WordPress ecosystem where competitors often support each other, GiveWP co-founder Matt Cromwell congratulated WP Charitable on the acquisition. </p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">6 years ago I gave a shout-out to the makers of <a href="https://twitter.com/wpcharitable?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wpcharitable</a> for their 1st year of success. <br /><br />Today <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f389.png" alt="🎉" class="wp-smiley" /> on the acquisition by <a href="https://twitter.com/wpbeginner?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wpbeginner</a>!<br /><br />BONUS: I have a new nemesis for GOOD in <a href="https://twitter.com/dimensionmedia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dimensionmedia</a> <br /><br />Here's to doing more GOOD than we can accomplish alone. <a href="https://t.co/dYtTLunq3P">https://t.co/dYtTLunq3P</a> <a href="https://t.co/GFNdt4oejO">pic.twitter.com/GFNdt4oejO</a></p>&mdash; :Cromwell: <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/262e.png" alt="☮" class="wp-smiley" /> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f6b8.png" alt="🚸" class="wp-smiley" />Do Something (@learnwithmattc) <a href="https://twitter.com/learnwithmattc/status/1539611643012939777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>WP Charitable co-founders said current users can expect &#8220;business as usual&#8221; without any interruptions. They will be helping the transition process but moving on to their own new endeavors. David Bisset will be leading product development moving forward with Awesome Motive. Balkhi said he has an &#8220;an extensive list of ideas and a feature roadmap&#8221; that the company will begin working on with the plugin&#8217;s new team.</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, 24 Jun 2022 15:48:19 +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: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:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits: Pondering a WooCommerce Conference IRL";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=72057";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:50:"https://dothewoo.io/future-woocommerce-conference/";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:414:"<p>It's been several years since WooCommerce had their last WooConf, aside from the fact of Covid. Is it time again? What would that look like?</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/future-woocommerce-conference/">WooBits: Pondering a WooCommerce Conference IRL</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, 24 Jun 2022 09:24:00 +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:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:70:"Post Status: WordPress Podcast and Video Picks for the Week of June 19";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99453";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:85:"https://cdn.poststatus.com/wordpress-podcast-and-video-picks-for-the-week-of-june-19/";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:189:"A chat with Matt at WCEU • Glam That Plugin • BlackPress Slack meetup • SSG vs. WordPress for landing pages • The Web Designer's Tech Stack • A Medeiros rant on the WordPress vibe";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, 24 Jun 2022 05:52:31 +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:12:"David Bisset";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:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:127:"WPTavern: Matt Mullenweg Identifies GoDaddy as a “Parasitic Company” and an “Existential Threat to WordPress’ Future”";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=135548";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:123:"https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future";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:4959:"<p>On Thursday Matt Mullenweg responded to an inquiry on Twitter from Jeff Matson, a Pagely employee, about whether Automattic&#8217;s <a href="https://newspack.pub/">Newspack</a> platform had all open open source components or some proprietary elements. In his response, he formally identified GoDaddy as &#8220;an existential threat to WordPress&#8217; future.&#8221; </p>



<img />



<p>The response raised more than a few eyebrows on Twitter as it seemed unrelated to the topic of discussion, which was Amazon&#8217;s expansion of its proprietary digital publishing technology. </p>



<p>The conversation following this statement grew more heated and escalated, as GoDaddy employees felt this statement <a href="https://twitter.com/scottkclark/status/1540048404683931650">disparaged their contributions</a> and careers dedicated to WordPress.</p>



<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Working for a company where I'm trying to do good and advocate for open source &#8212; that is actively getting hostility from prominent people in WP who I really respect and have supported me in the past is really hard. <a href="https://t.co/cRFR3bNBkM">https://t.co/cRFR3bNBkM</a></p>&mdash; SKC <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3f3-fe0f-200d-1f308.png" alt="🏳️‍🌈" class="wp-smiley" /> (@scottkclark) <a href="https://twitter.com/scottkclark/status/1540048402737774593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<p>Mullenweg elaborated on why he sees GoDaddy as an existential threat in a series of tweets that have now been deleted but were preserved in screenshots below. He urged GoDaddy employees to examine how many people are contributing to WordPress and WooCommerce, two open source projects from which the company makes what he estimates to be hundreds of millions of dollars, versus  the company&#8217;s investment in proprietary website and store products. &#8220;How much did GoDaddy put back into .org vs spend on cPanel licenses?&#8221; he asked. </p>




<img />



<img />




<p>In response to a <a href="https://twitter.com/allie_nimmons/status/1540050387759239169">tweet</a> from WordPress digital producer Allie Nimmons, Mullenweg said that although GoDaddy employs some great people, they are &#8220;unfortunately overshadowed by massive corporate actions made many levels above them.&#8221; </p>



<p>&#8220;Those who care about the future of WordPress should spend their dollars with less parasitic companies,&#8221; Mullenweg said.</p>



<p>He commended Bluehost for its support of WordPress and its ecosystem since 2003.</p>



<p>Citing GoDaddy&#8217;s market dominance, revenue estimates, and 25% of its commerce customers using GoDaddy Payments, the concern seemed more strongly aimed at  preserving WooCommerce and the its ability to benefit the rest of the ecosystem. </p>



<p>Some speculated that GoDaddy is more likely an existential threat to WooCommerce and WordPress.com than it is to the WordPress project. </p>



<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Would WooCommerce cease to exist? No. Would it damage it if GoDaddy managed to have 100% of all WooCommerce sites on its platform using their payment solution that circumvents Woo’s deals with Stripe/PayPal/etc.? Absolutely.</p>&mdash; Carl Hancock <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f680.png" alt="🚀" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1e8-1f1f7.png" alt="🇨🇷" class="wp-smiley" /> (@carlhancock) <a href="https://twitter.com/carlhancock/status/1540109413083582464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>&#8220;What I&#8217;m worried about is the future of WordPress if GoDaddy succeeds and suffocates the rest of the ecosystem,&#8221; Mullenweg said.</p>




<img />



<img />




<p>In a strange turn of events that would have been unimaginable years ago, many in the WordPress community took to Twitter to defend GoDaddy, even though the company has historically been criticized for its poor performance and predatory sales practices. GoDaddy has been working to improve its tarnished reputation  by sponsoring open source contributors and events. Representatives from GoDaddy have not yet responded to a request for comment.</p>



<p>&#8220;People have contributed some really great work to the WordPress ecosystem over the years while employed by Godaddy,&#8221; Mullenweg told the Tavern. &#8220;I wish the company great success and many happy returns.&#8221;</p>



<p>Although the tweets were ultimately deleted, fragmenting the resulting conversation, it is clear that Mullenweg perceives GoDaddy as lacking support for the WordPress project and WooCommerce, relative to how much the hosting company is benefiting in revenue. He also sees GoDaddy&#8217;s support for proprietary solutions at grave odds with its purported support for WordPress. </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, 24 Jun 2022 04:57:30 +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:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:44:"Post Status: An Operating System for the Web";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98871";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:55:"https://poststatus.com/an-operating-system-for-the-web/";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:285:"What if WordPress, growing as an operating system for the web, spawns distributions and spins, like Linux? What do nine years of Jetpack teach us about Automattic and WordPress — the project and the dot-com? Rethinking how we think about SaaS, hosting, and the WordPress ecosystem...";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, 24 Jun 2022 03:00:08 +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:"Dan Knauss";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:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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: WooCommerce Function of the Week: woocommerce_wp_text_input";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99025";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/woocommerce-function-of-the-week-woocommerce_wp_text_input/";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:147:"Learn how to add custom fields to settings in WooCommerce meta boxes — and give back to WooCommerce when you find some code that can be improved.";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, 24 Jun 2022 02:30:07 +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:15:"Rodolfo Melogli";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:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 13.5 Adds Featured Image Placeholder Support for Cover Block, Cleaner Pasting to Other Apps";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=135515";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:121:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-5-adds-featured-image-placeholder-support-for-cover-block-cleaner-pasting-to-other-apps";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:4048:"<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-5-22-june/">Gutenberg 13.5</a> is now available. The release comes two weeks after the plugin introduced support for button elements in theme.json, axial spacing in the Gallery block, and a redesigned Publish popover in <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/">13.4.</a> The latest release includes 12 enhancements and 15&nbsp;bug&nbsp;fixes with the most notable changes landing in the Cover block. </p>



<p>Prior to 13.5, the Cover block&#8217;s support for using a featured image had a more confusing UI with&nbsp;a separate button in the block toolbar. The featured image toggle has now been <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41476">relocated to the media replace flow</a>. The Cover block has also been updated to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41460">display a placeholder</a> when the featured image in use.</p>



<img />image source: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-5-22-june/">Gutenberg 13.5 release post</a>



<p>The Cover block&#8217;s overlay color and opacity controls have been <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41102">moved into the inspector controls sidebar&#8217;s Color panel</a> for consistency to match the UI for other blocks.</p>



<p>Gutenberg 13.5 also expands the design tools available to the Post Navigation block. Users can now set the link color and font family. This is one of those situations where contributors <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41378">discussed</a> how much design control makes sense for users in this context. Automattic-sponsored contributor Jeff Ong made the case for instances where users may want to have post navigation use the heading font, instead of the body font.</p>



<img />image credit: Jeff Ong &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41378">Gutenberg PR #41378</a>



<p>One small update to the Publish date picker is that it now highlights today&#8217;s date, expanding on the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41097">popover design update</a> introduced in 13.4. </p>



<p>Gutenberg users who frequently copy and paste between other writing apps may be pleased to learn that version 13.5 introduces a change that <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41366">strips the HTML from copied block markup</a> for the text/plain version of the clipboard. Gutenberg engineer Andrei Draganescu explained the reasoning behind the change:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Pasting into plain text editors should only paste the text we see on screen not the whole underlying markup.</p><p>This is an improvement in the experience of writing in a different app rather than in the WordPress editor itself, and then bringing over the content. Since one could move text content back and forth a few times, pasting block markup is annoying if not even prone to introducing problems.</p></blockquote>



<p>Prior to this change, pasting from Gutenberg into another app looked something like this:</p>



<img />



<p>Stripping the HTML out of serialized data in the copy handler before placing it in the&nbsp;<code>text/plain</code>&nbsp;version results in a cleaner paste, as Draganescu demonstrated in a video:</p>



Video Source: <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41366">Gutenberg PR #41366</a>



<p>Check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-5-22-june/">release post</a> for a full list of changes in 13.5. If you don&#8217;t have the Gutenberg plugin installed, you will have to wait until the next major WordPress release to take advantage of these fixes and enhancements. WordPress 6.1&#8217;s release date was <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/23/wordpress-6-1-planning-roundup/">announced</a> today as October 25, 2022, following a long alpha and two short beta periods.</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, 23 Jun 2022 20:36:07 +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:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:90:"Do The Woo Community: Woo BizChat Hits WordCamp Europe with Vito Peleg and Robert Windisch";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=72050";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:52:"https://dothewoo.io/wceu-vito-peleg-robert-windisch/";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:424:"<p>Another in the series of recordings we did at WordCamp Europe. A great conversation that brings you IRL to the camp experience.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/wceu-vito-peleg-robert-windisch/">Woo BizChat Hits WordCamp Europe with Vito Peleg and Robert Windisch</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, 23 Jun 2022 09:04:00 +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:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:44:"WPTavern: WordPress Appears In NYT Crossword";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=135473";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:55:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-appears-in-nyt-crossword";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:4627:"<p>At the risk of spoiling the answer to a clue included in the image below, WordPress made an appearance in the New York Times crossword puzzle today. Likely nobody reading this post would struggle to answer the clue &#8220;popular blogging platform&#8221; with nine letters. New York-based digital consultant and media co-founder Matt DeSiena <a href="https://twitter.com/theinstantwin/status/1539635386741399552">tweeted</a> a screenshot with the caption, &#8220;You know it&#8217;s a good day when WordPress makes an appearance in the NYT Crossword.&#8221;</p>



<img />



<p>Despite the software powering <a href="https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress">43% of websites</a>, many of us working in the world of WordPress still cannot adequately explain what we do to some of our friends and family. The rare pop culture reference still gives an exciting and affirming jolt of recognition to WordPress&#8217; fondest fans. </p>



<p>One of the more obscure and unforgettable WordPress references happened 12 years ago when the code was used to guide missiles. WordPress lead developer Dion Hulse spotted the project&#8217;s <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/wp-admin/js/post.dev.js?rev=15239">post.js</a> code in episode 5 of the British mini-series <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Back_%28TV_series%29" target="_blank">Strike Back</a> as part of a weapons guidance system. Mark Jaquith then <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/15239" target="_blank">ported those changes back to core</a>, giving props to Left Bank Pictures.</p>



<img />photo credit: Alex Mills <a href="http://www.viper007bond.com/2010/06/12/so-apparently-wordpress-can-guide-missiles/">&#8220;So Apparently WordPress Can Guide Missiles&#8221;</a>



<p>The software was also mentioned in Lily Allen’s “<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDlofPAOZy0" target="_blank">URL Badman</a>” released in 2014, and briefly mentioned on the popular Netflix original series <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.netflix.com/title/70242311" target="_blank">Orange is the New Black</a> in 2015.</p>



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">pahahaha, I captured <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WordPress?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WordPress</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/oitnb?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#oitnb</a>. too real, if I had a nickel for every time I got an inquiry like this&#8230; <a href="http://t.co/XCfo5jtpZU">pic.twitter.com/XCfo5jtpZU</a></p>&mdash; Megan Gray (@HouseofGrays) <a href="https://twitter.com/HouseofGrays/status/610669209144721408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<p>WordPress.com has also twice been featured on Jeopardy, an American television game show. In 2014, the platform was included in a clue under the category &#8220;dot-com&#8221; with the answer &#8220;What are blogs?&#8221;</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/wordpressdotcom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wordpressdotcom</a> was featured on today's episode of <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeopardy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jeopardy</a>! So cool! Photo by my co-worker Brian. <a href="http://t.co/cYwSKRlBbB">pic.twitter.com/cYwSKRlBbB</a></p>&mdash; Alex Mills (@Viper007Bond) <a href="https://twitter.com/Viper007Bond/status/440625114803994625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2014</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>More recently, in 2020, WordPress.com was featured in a Jeopardy clue that read like an advertisement. The  answer, &#8220;What are blogs?&#8221;, echoed the previous Jeopardy reference. </p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Good question. What ARE blogs in 2020? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/whatareblogs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#whatareblogs</a><br /><br />Thanks for featuring us on tonight's episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeopardy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jeopardy</a>! <a href="https://t.co/XR9th5bt2r">pic.twitter.com/XR9th5bt2r</a></p>&mdash; WordPress.com (@wordpressdotcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/wordpressdotcom/status/1223044290386907137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>There are probably many more references that have gone unnoticed, as WordPress is becoming more of a household name these days. Where have you seen it mentioned in the wild recently?</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, 22 Jun 2022 21:31:36 +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:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:123:"WPTavern: GitHub Makes Copilot Available to the Public for $10/month, Free for Students and Open Source Project Maintainers";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=135448";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:132:"https://wptavern.com/github-makes-copilot-available-to-the-public-for-10-month-free-for-students-and-open-source-project-maintainers";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:3577:"<p>GitHub has <a href="https://github.blog/2022-06-21-github-copilot-is-generally-available-to-all-developers/">announced</a> that Copilot, its new AI pair programming assistant, is now available to developers for $10/month or $100/year. Verified students and maintainers of open source projects will have free access to Copilot. The assistant is available as an extension for popular code editors, including Neovim, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Code.</p>



<p>Copilot was trained on billions of lines of public code in order to offer real-time code suggestions inside the editor. GitHub claims it is capable of suggesting complete methods, boilerplate code, whole unit tests, and complex algorithms. </p>



<p>&#8220;With GitHub Copilot, for the first time in the history of software, AI can be broadly harnessed by developers to write and complete code,&#8221; GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke said. &#8220;Just like the rise of compilers and open source, we believe AI-assisted coding will fundamentally change the nature of software development, giving developers a new tool to write code easier and faster so they can be happier in their lives.&#8221;</p>



<p>Despite its many claims to improve developer efficiency, Copilot is still a controversial tool. Opponents object to the tool&#8217;s creators training the AI on open source code hosted on GitHub, generating code without attribution, and then charging users monthly to use Copilot. It has also been criticized for <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.09293.pdf">producing insecure code</a> and <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287">copying large chunks of code</a> <a href="https://www.theinsaneapp.com/2021/07/github-copilot-ai-facing-criticism.html">verbatim</a>.</p>



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">GitHub charging $10/month for an A.I. feature trained on open source code hosted on their service is the software developer version of if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product.<a href="https://t.co/pdHcZPJauk">https://t.co/pdHcZPJauk</a></p>&mdash; Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) <a href="https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1539330297057095680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">github copilot is incredible. it just sells code other people wrote, but because it's an "AI" it is apparently allowed to launder that code without it being a "derivative work". lol. lmao. what an amazing grift.</p>&mdash; Senior Oops Engineer (@ReinH) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReinH/status/1539626662274269185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Evan after 12 months in technical preview, Copilot <a href="https://twitter.com/wesbos/status/1539614060236443649">remains generally polarizing</a> at its public launch. Developers either seem to be impressed by its capabilities or offended by its ethical ambiguities. GitHub had more than 1.2 million developers in its technical preview and reports that those who started using Copilot quickly found it &#8220;an indispensable part of their daily workflows.&#8221;</p>



<p>&#8220;In files where it’s enabled, nearly 40% of code is being written by GitHub Copilot in popular coding languages, like Python—and we expect that to increase,&#8221; Dohmke said. &#8220;That’s creating more time and space for developers to focus on solving bigger problems and building even better software.&#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:"Wed, 22 Jun 2022 19:42:50 +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: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:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"Post Status: Post Status Comments (No. 11) — WordPress 19th Anniversary Meetup Celebration";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98838";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://poststatus.com/wordpress-19th-anniversary-meetup-celebration/";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:189:"A 19th birthday celebration for #WordPress with Mary Job, Nathan Wrigley, Naoko Takano, Carrie Dils, David Yarde, Joe Simpson Jr., Pat Ramsey, John Jacoby, Yvette Sonneveld, and Taco Verdo.";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, 22 Jun 2022 18:45:07 +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:12:"David Bisset";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:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:96:"Post Status: Promoting WordCamps, GDPR and Google Fonts, Invalid Reviews, 5FTF, and the Admin UX";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99475";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://poststatus.com/make-wordpress-6-22-2022/";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:312:"How should WordCamps be promoted on official WordPress channels? • How to comply with the GDPR when you're using Google Fonts. • What's the deal with invalid plugin/theme reviews? Mika Epstein explains. • Important decisions in The Five for the Future GitHub repo. • Thinking through the Admin UX. <br />";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, 22 Jun 2022 18:13:28 +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:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:78:"WPTavern: #31 – Milan Ivanovic on the Importance of Real World Versus Online";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=135351";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:92:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/31-milan-ivanovic-on-the-importance-of-real-world-versus-online";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:35995:"<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://twitter.com/lanche86">Milan Ivanovic</a>.</p>



<p>Milan is a WordPress Developer at <a href="https://www.valet.io/">Valet.io</a>, and is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer.</p>



<p>He’s the WordPress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni.</p>



<p>As if that weren’t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress Academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress Workshops. He’s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Get Involved Teams.</p>



<p>It’s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan’s life, and that’s what this podcast is about.</p>



<p>We’re drilling down on why the community which surrounds WordPress is a key part in the success of the whole project.</p>



<p>The recent hiatus of in-person events has meant that all the events moved online. Whilst this was a good stop gap, Milan, as you will hear, is pleased that real world events are back.</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan’s home country of Serbia.</p>



<p>We discuss how Milan got started as a community member and the different roles that events like WordCamps can offer people wishing to dip their toes in the community waters.</p>



<p>We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.</p>



<p>Milan is an enthusiastic speaker and I’m sure that you’ll get a fresh perspective from listening to the podcast.</p>



Transcription<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. 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 real world WordPress events.</p>



<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. If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, well, I&#8217;m more than keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea featured on the show. Head over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the contact form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Milan Ivanovic. Milan is a WordPress developer at valet.io. And is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer. He&#8217;s the wordpress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni. As if that weren&#8217;t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress workshops. He&#8217;s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Gets Involved teams.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan&#8217;s life. And that&#8217;s what this podcast is about. We&#8217;re drilling down on why the community which surrounds WordPress is a key part in the success of the whole project.</p>



<p>The recent hiatus of in-person events has meant that all the events moved online. Whilst this was a good stop gap, Milan, as you will hear, is pleased that real world events are back.</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan&#8217;s home country of Serbia.</p>



<p>We discussed how Milan got started as a community member, and the different roles that events like WordCamp offer people wishing to dip their toes in the WordPress waters.</p>



<p>We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.</p>



<p>Milan is an enthusiastic speaker. And I&#8217;m sure that you&#8217;ll get some new perspectives from listening to the podcast.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll also find all the other episodes.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Milan Ivanovic.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Milan Ivanovic. Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:34] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Very nice to have you with us. We&#8217;re gonna be talking about WordCamp Europe, and WordCamps and community in general. First of all, Milan, would you like to just spend a moment introducing yourself? What&#8217;s your background in WordPress?</p>



<p>[00:03:45] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah, would love to. I started really early with WordPress and just like looking for community back in Serbia. We, I didn&#8217;t know that if you are looking for community there isn&#8217;t one, like maybe you can start it. So 2013, I moved to Norway and then all of a sudden they already had the meetups in place. So I helped organize those meetups. You know, just being there as a speaker, as one of the organizers. So I moved back to Serbia in 2014 and I was like, you know what? They already had one meetup and nothing happened from it. And then I just started a little bit with no expectations, like how many people would show up, how many people will jump in.</p>



<p>Just like start it and see how it goes. 2014 was the first official WordPress Serbia meetup. And now we have 16 different cities with meetups across Serbia.</p>



<p>[00:04:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Wow. That&#8217;s that is really impressive. From everything that I&#8217;ve seen, and obviously I don&#8217;t really know intimate details about your life, but from everything I&#8217;ve seen, you are really committed to the community. Like more so than almost anybody, it feels like.</p>



<p>[00:04:47] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Pretty much. I got hooked up, like the first WordCamp for me was WorkCamp Europe, in Leiden 2013. I immediately knew that I need to help organize. I need, I saw volunteers dedicating their time. They&#8217;re passionate. I&#8217;m like, yeah. How can I help?</p>



<p>So they explained next year, follow the website, we are gonna open the call for volunteers, and then you can sign up. I think that it passed like one millisecond before I saw it. I&#8217;m like, yep, yep. Filling in the form already. So my first volunteering, official volunteering experience was 2014 already, just like, yeah. I was at the registration desk letters A and B. The happiest person at the registration, that&#8217;s me just like smiling all over the face. Like, hello, welcome WordCamp Europe.</p>



<p>[00:05:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But you&#8217;ve really taken it to heart. And you&#8217;ve committed an awful lot of time and been involved in some of the biggest events that WordCamp, in particular has to offer. WordCamp Europes, and you were really influential in all of that taking off.</p>



<p>[00:05:41] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> I like bringing people. Like, I, believe in like that all of us, together we could like push mountains. And when you see these guys, like they come to the conference and all of a sudden you have like bunch of amateurs, like in organizing the event, but they give it all.</p>



<p>Organizing doing like all of a sudden, you see someone, you know, in charge for TVs, like, workshops, pushing tables and stuff. Everyone is giving what they have. But if you collect hundred of those, like different people willing to make this event happen, the best way possible, that was like heart touching for me, like in the beginning.</p>



<p>So yeah, I&#8217;ve been involved like into organizing. Started really slow, and low, you know, just like being the foot soldier. Working at the doors, or like happened with the registration. Then, you know, my involvement grew over the years. So in 2015 was in charge like for a small registration desk.</p>



<p>And then immediately we knew that we need to make this happen. In 2015, we had the first WordCamp in Serbia, WordCamp Belgrade, almost 200 people. And they were like, yeah, wow, this can really be a thing. Then we started with more meetups, more people got involved, more people willing to help, in Serbia. Expressly we had the growth, like in WordCamp Europe. You see the Seville, Vienna when Vienna happened in 2016, we had like 2000 people. I&#8217;m like, whoa, this was a big thing.</p>



<p>[00:07:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The listenership, for the podcast is pretty broad because there&#8217;s so many people, of all different walks of life consuming WP Tavern content. Just give us an insight into the kind of things that you could do if you volunteered. And the reason I ask that is I know for a fact that many of the people that I now have as very good friends in the WordPress community, they tell the story of, I didn&#8217;t know. I didn&#8217;t know there was a thing.</p>



<p>I used the software because it was free and I enjoyed it. But no way. What, how could there be a community about software? That&#8217;s just not normal and yet here it is. I mean maybe some of the top 10 things that you&#8217;ve enjoyed or the jobs that you might find yourself in, if you come to an event like WordCamp Europe, and get involved.</p>



<p>[00:07:45] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> So I heard I&#8217;m not a hundred percent sure about the data, but looks like that we have like around 60% of first timers at this WordCamp Europe. Uh, we haven&#8217;t had like in person events three years now for WordCamp Europe. The last one was in Berlin, 2019. I think the power of this whole thing is our community. Just like people being here, being present, and then the networking simply happens.</p>



<p>Uh, you will see because of that diversity and knowledge and background, different backgrounds. The more diverse we are, the stronger we are. That&#8217;s why you end up with, someone sitting next to and chatting with someone who actually put the code in the core of WordPress. And then you see someone who just like installed it and they are simply using it. Not having a clue what&#8217;s behind it. Like who put up the code what&#8217;s there and then you see those two, the person&#8217;s just chatting.</p>



<p>Hey, what would you like to improve? Like, I think that&#8217;s the power of this whole mess that we are into. Yeah. So, uh, networking and just like being present. That&#8217;s what I think is the power of our community. If you do see like all those after movies or short interviews, when just someone goes, takes a camera and goes around and say like, Hey, what is the only thing that you, that you like here?</p>



<p>I think nine out of 10, we say community, community because of community, we are here because of community, and we are so supportive. We are highly opinionated community about everything, but we are so supportive.</p>



<p>[00:09:15] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I strongly get that impression as well. That&#8217;s lovely. This particular event, everybody&#8217;s wearing a black t-shirt. And there are black t-shirts everywhere. I mean really everywhere, just in the corridor outside, where we&#8217;re recording this, I think there&#8217;s three people wearing black t-shirts. These are the people who volunteered their time for free. So there&#8217;s people assisting you to find me so that we can have this interview.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s people publishing the little lanyards that we wear around our neck. There&#8217;s people that are putting up signage. There&#8217;s basically people doing all sorts of hidden roles. You know all of this stuff intimately. There must be hundreds of different things, and if I was somebody that had never come across the community, I think there&#8217;s a chance that I would think, I don&#8217;t code, I shouldn&#8217;t go. But that&#8217;s not the case. There&#8217;s a job for everybody. So give us some of the, sort of the things that you might encourage people to do if they volunteer for a WordCamp, that first time.</p>



<p>[00:10:05] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> I got involved into volunteering because I want to make this event happen. when you see that your small role doesn&#8217;t matter, like how small it is, makes a difference. It&#8217;s amazing. Even if you&#8217;re a mic runner. Imagine that someone is expecting that mic and you like, feel so powerful, I brought that mic, like here is the mic. You can ask your question. Those small bits that we had, like in Seville I think we had around 70 to 80 volunteers plus the organizing team.</p>



<p>In Vienna we had 160. It&#8217;s an army of people wearing the same coloured t-shirts, This year we, I think they have, 70 to 80 organizers, and then 200 volunteers. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s as many black t-shirts because everyone is having their shifts. Everyone is, you know, have a purpose. Everyone is just like enjoying the event and you see that all like happy or smiling, everyone willing to help.</p>



<p>I think like in the beginning, when we started the whole army of volunteers. You get to the event, and you don&#8217;t know where the registration is. You don&#8217;t know what to do after registration. You get the lanyard, like, how is it going? Like, should I just say my name? You say your name and you get a lanyard, you get a small goodie bag.</p>



<p>Everyone is happy, but all the volunteers like guiding you, like, Hey, welcome to event. Here&#8217;s the coffee. Here are some sessions, and there is something for everyone, if they&#8217;re willing to help. If you say that, I want to help with, I wanna be in a room or I would like to be at the registration, or I would like to help carrying boxes, there is job for everyone.</p>



<p>[00:11:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:11:42] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> And that&#8217;s a good thing.</p>



<p>[00:11:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You basically don&#8217;t need to be into the code. You can, like you said, you can carry boxes, you can print lanyards, you can guide people, you can put up signage. There&#8217;s just so many things. If I was on the organizing team at the level that you were in Berlin in 2019, in other words, you were really responsible for that event.</p>



<p>How long before the door opened on the first day, how long before did you begin that planning process? And I&#8217;m just trying to get a measure of how many hours go into that, and how it trickles down and you know, how you disseminate that and discover the volunteers and basically how does it all fit together?</p>



<p>[00:12:13] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Oh, it&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a long process. It&#8217;s a long process because, selecting the future city, every year WordCamp Europe changes country. For WordCamp Europe 2018 in Belgrade, me and the local team, we worked on it from September 2015. To make it happen in June 2018. Because it&#8217;s a long process. You need to prepare your local team because it&#8217;s was a team around 10 of us. You are just investing so much time. The first thing you need to work on is the application, because we have that application process where you submit your application and it&#8217;s usually like three to four cities, you know, fully prepared to organize the event.</p>



<p>Then, previous organizers, foundation WordPress foundation. Uh, we go on a meeting and then we talk about, we&#8217;ll look at those applications and then we decide which city is that going to be? So, for Belgrade, it was a long, long period because we had to prepare our local community as well, to start with local meetups and just to educate people what actually WordCamp Europe is.</p>



<p>We had the same, like everywhere else. Like people haven&#8217;t had idea that you can, all of a sudden, you can have a conference with like 2, 3000 people. That&#8217;s creme de la creme of WordPress communities going to be there. we had to like go educate people, do the meetups, do the all kinds of stuff just to prepare it.</p>



<p>For Berlin, their team, like I&#8217;m talking about the local team for Berlin. It was again long process for them as well, because they worked on the application. Then they submitted application, they got approved. And then you want that team, future team to be on this year&#8217;s team. Because you want them to see how it goes, And yeah, just to educate them by watching and just like being involved. You need to have them in, involved, like you need to educate them. So, is a long process.</p>



<p>[00:14:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And presumably you mentioned that you worked a lot. That&#8217;s gotta be something that if you volunteer you have to allocate time. It&#8217;s not a just show up and do a little bit here and there, maybe depending on where you step into that hierarchy.</p>



<p>[00:14:24] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> All the WordCamps where we are going, or I&#8217;m talking about the WordCamp Europe, wherever you&#8217;re going, like the local team is the basically most important team. I knew that in Belgrade, like the last, I call like photo finish, last couple of weeks, or like couple of months, just like where all the work kept on piling up.</p>



<p>I was getting up like super early, to make it like through all the meetings with the venue. To go through all the notes. Connect all the bits and pieces. And then because all of us, we have the day jobs. Some of us being supported by the companies, some are not. So involvement of the people change through time, and because it&#8217;s a long process and specifically for WordCamp Europe, you don&#8217;t have all the teams.</p>



<p>All the different teams. We had like 10 different teams working all together. Like at the same time, like the, the high level. You&#8217;ll see, like in the beginning you have a huge impact on sponsors because they need to put up a call for sponsors. They need to sell all those packages. They need to see with the venue, how big is going to be expo area.</p>



<p>There are just like so many things, yeah. Volunteers that they are coming into late, like volunteers, team. Communications. Communications team. It&#8217;s one that has been hit hardest. And the longest, because they like keep on putting all the things to the event because yeah, we had to like increase the number of organizers, but it is challenging.</p>



<p>[00:15:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:15:52] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah, as I said many times already, like it&#8217;s a long process, but it&#8217;s an amazing process.</p>



<p>[00:15:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;ve had a really interesting slight window into what is involved at this event, just because of the location of where we&#8217;re at and seeing all the sort of backstage stuff. Really fascinating, and just as an example, the attention to detail to allow us to be in this room at this exact moment. The coordination that goes on there, you know, great big spreadsheets. And, and although I knew that on some level that was happening, that&#8217;s a tiny part of a tiny part of a tiny part of the bigger event. And yet, somebody&#8217;s had to deal with that and take care of it. And it&#8217;s absolutely amazing.</p>



<p>[00:16:27] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Through the years we learned, we from our mistakes. I&#8217;ll call it mistakes. I&#8217;m doing the air quotes Because how the number of attendees grew, our problems grew as well. In Seville all of a sudden we had an amazing, amazing thing. People bringing their kids. We&#8217;re like, oh, we need to provide childcare service for the event. So we have, since 2016, we have the free childcare service for every WordCamp Europe. Then all of a sudden you have like more volunteers.</p>



<p>You want more bigger exposure like in media. So you need to organize one room. Then all of a sudden that room is too small, then organized two rooms. Then you need to be like, Hey, the venue is quite big. We need someone guiding. It&#8217;s like, okay. So we need dedicated volunteer who will take speaker or whoever to the stage. Will take to media room and how the number of attendees grew, our problems went.</p>



<p>[00:17:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Genuinely in awe of the amount of things that are going on. Really remarkable. We&#8217;re very lucky though to be back. 2022, we&#8217;ve had a couple of years where, well, that hasn&#8217;t been the case for the reason that everybody knows. We&#8217;re all delighted that we&#8217;re back, but we&#8217;ve had a real moment where everything got a bit shaky, the community, every community, not just WordPress, but every community forced online.</p>



<p>And I just wondered what your thoughts were about the impact of that. Fatigue of zoom calls and whether or not local events have kind of taken a hit in numbers. Certainly I think where I live, the interest in turning up monthly or whatever it might be to these meetups, when it&#8217;s been online month after month after month, it seems like the interest is sort of slowly waning.</p>



<p>So maybe we&#8217;re an inflection point where it will begin to pick up again. But yeah, just interested in your thoughts on that.</p>



<p>[00:18:12] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Oh yeah. When we started, I was so glad when we switched to online. I was in Bangkok, waiting on the WordCamp Asia. And it was like, Hey, it&#8217;s gonna happen. And then the team made the best decision ever that will turn out to be like the best decision ever not to have it. Even though everyone, we like super sad. We were like in Thailand, you know, just like waiting for that conference, and it&#8217;s been in the making for so long and the local team and everyone involved wanted so badly that conference to happen.</p>



<p>And then when we were there and someone said like, well maybe, maybe just, maybe we are not going to have it. And then they canceled. I&#8217;m like, yeah, what are we gonna do? So we stayed in Thailand, came back. Then when online happened, every day I have two meetings. It&#8217;s a Zoom meetings, I&#8217;m like, I&#8217;m not doing this.</p>



<p>Again, like a conference. I can&#8217;t do it. And then I was so happy, like, when it happened that I, again get to see all the people involved. I was amazed by the number of people who signed up. Like, I think 2020, 8, 9,000 people signed up. The good thing is that you have way more people being able to attend.</p>



<p>To just join the event. But I was super sad after it ended.</p>



<p>[00:19:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:19:28] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Because, being involved so many years back, to see all those people hug everyone, talk to everyone. When it ended, I was like, whoa, no. It felt so empty. I&#8217;m like, no, no, this is not happening.</p>



<p>Yeah. I was glad that this was happening online, also for, for us in Serbia. Couple of guys decided like, Hey, we are not gonna go with online, but couple did. And I was so glad that it did because it kept something happening throughout the years. We are now in the limbo between those online events, someone wants to, someone is waiting on the in person events, like to start happening all over again, meetups with the restrictions over.</p>



<p>But yeah, in Serbia as well, you are going to a few now online, but yesterday on contributors day, as a part of the community team, we formed a plan that we gonna contact all the meetup organizers asking how their involvement is now, because it&#8217;s been so long, two or three years that, no in person meetup happened.</p>



<p>So we&#8217;re just gonna remind them, ask them about the help, how we, as a community can help them. People change jobs, a lot of things happen. In the meantime during COVID I got married, I got kid, but I&#8217;m still gonna be involved and see how we can help. So now the focus is on community to revamp and to see just like, Hey, how we can do with the meetups in person.</p>



<p>Is it possible? Are those organizers who are like organizing those meetups, they gonna do it, or we need to look for someone else from that meetup group?</p>



<p>[00:21:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s a kind of reevaluation, where you&#8217;re gonna start again and see where we&#8217;re at right now? Yeah, it does feel like the involvement has gone down, but curiously, as you said at the top, 60% of the people who showed up to this event are new to the community. So there&#8217;s clearly some hanking for it. And so maybe when those events get rebooted with whoever they are, then maybe it&#8217;ll be the same, you know, 60% in the meetups will be new people, and that&#8217;s very encouraging.</p>



<p>[00:21:27] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> starting the day after tomorrow, we are gonna see so many new meetups and like so interested.</p>



<p>[00:21:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. We&#8217;ll see, see where we are next year. Let&#8217;s just change focus a little bit. You mentioned a, a moment ago about the fact that you&#8217;re based in Serbia. And Europe is a, is an interesting continent. Lots and lots of countries, some big, some very small. Lots and lots of languages, so that the barrier literally may be impenetrable. For example, if you are in Serbia, that may be the only way that you can engage.</p>



<p>A few months ago, there was some sort of coverage about diversity and whether or not the community organizing the team for WordCamp Europe had addressed that well enough. We actually did a podcast episode in which we aired those thoughts. So there is that to listen to. But the whole diversity debate, isn&#8217;t quite as straightforward, is it in Europe as it may be elsewhere, because, it&#8217;s not about the same things. Diversity might be language diversity, or it might be which country you&#8217;ve come from, or what have you. So, let&#8217;s just get into that.</p>



<p>[00:22:21] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Europe is a strange place. Europe is a strange place. Every year we try so hard. I know even when I was involved, and we as a community, we just need to keep on, keeping on about diversity.</p>



<p>We need to educate people. I know that I had to educate myself first. I had to go for all the meetups. So when we start the meetup I&#8217;m doing, the first talk I&#8217;m doing, is about diversity. Is about code of conduct . And then yet again, people need to be reminded about it. I&#8217;m sure like this year as well, organizing team did a great job.</p>



<p>But there&#8217;s always, like every year, there&#8217;s a, just a little bit of that sense that we could do a bit more, every year. And I&#8217;ve been haunted, you know, when you are like selecting teams, you&#8217;ve been involved in some decisions.</p>



<p>I always had, just a a little bit like, maybe we could do more. When you see the organizing team, when you see event happening, I was like, yeah, well just maybe if we started early or maybe if we change this, or maybe if we put up a blog post, or maybe if we did something, something will be better.</p>



<p>But what we are not noticing that is getting better, it&#8217;s never going to be perfect. But as long as we are talking and we are constantly repeating and like wanting to change, sooner or later, like we gonna be so close to that perfect. So yeah, I know the difficulties. I heard about. Uh, wasn&#8217;t involved, but heard about difficulties, this year organizing team, and like, just that limbo of that is it going to happen? You know, so they organized like local team for Portugal. They organized in 2019, for 2020 and then like, yeah, it&#8217;s not happening. Online.</p>



<p>Then should we do like this year? Then, you know, some, some people from organizing team dropped off because life happened the meantime. So 2021, you kind of lost the momentum. Like 2022, you need to just like, Hey, this year is actually happening. You know, when you do like two tries and you fail, I&#8217;m doing the air quotes again. You fail, like you just need to pick everyone up. You need to form a team because as I said, like, this is a long event.</p>



<p>Now we need someone ready who will dedicate a time. Who will dedicate a passion. Who will be willing to help. But yeah, I&#8217;m totally supporting the organized team and all the decisions they made. So happy for them. Again, we are not gonna reach that perfect, but as long as we are like longing for that, we&#8217;ll be good.</p>



<p>[00:24:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> A couple of follow up questions from that. The first one is, do you, on a personal level, when you sort of hear these, criticisms from people, does it get you on a personal level or can you differentiate? Okay, that&#8217;s what somebody thinks over there. That&#8217;s fine. Okay. We&#8217;ll try our best next time. You&#8217;re giving up a lot of free time here.</p>



<p>[00:25:08] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah. So in the beginning it was harder. You know, in the beginning it was harder because, you know how much you give yourself into, you know, organizing and, you know that we all have different backgrounds. And you know the what&#8217;s the backstory of organizer being, or the organizing team.</p>



<p>And you know that people are sacrificing their time, sacrificing their families, relationship with friends. They can&#8217;t be with their friends, families. And then you hear that someone says like, Hey, well, maybe that. team, they could change this, and you&#8217;ll be like, because you know the both sides of the story. You can&#8217;t be like, no, like that&#8217;s not, but yet you can&#8217;t get into argue.</p>



<p>I was couple times being part of the WP drama. And I realized that because of the language barrier, because we all different that, defending yourself, you&#8217;re only going deeper. Like deeper into the problem. So I always try to talk to that person. Hey, there are things that you are not aware something. But, yeah, as I said, like highly opinionated community about everything. That&#8217;s what I love about, and that&#8217;s what I hate a little bit.</p>



<p>[00:26:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When this event is over, presumably there&#8217;s a process of going, okay, let&#8217;s figure out what we did. What we did well. What could have been improved.</p>



<p>Is there a thing like that? And can people like attendees, somebody like me, for example, can I put my opinion forward about, okay, next time, less of this and more of this.</p>



<p>[00:26:36] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:26:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. There&#8217;s a process for that?</p>



<p>[00:26:38] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. That&#8217;s a process in place that you put up the form. Hey, give us the feedback. My personal opinion is that like you are not reading the, you know, the worst possible things. Luckily, we never had those and you&#8217;re not reading all those, the best things ever, like best WordCamp ever. You are looking, at least I am looking, for something that was constructive criticism. Yeah. You go through there and you know that you failed. I don&#8217;t know with food could be better or something could be better.</p>



<p>You are aware, but you&#8217;re looking for the constructive criticism. And we always like, till now, like waited for about two weeks because two weeks is, um, a period of time that people need to just think about everything. Because if you give like today, if you give that form to attendees and be like, oh my God, it&#8217;s so crazy.</p>



<p>If you give that form to me, I just won the hat on the claw machine, but is going to be like the best WordCamp ever, because I just won. We are waiting about two weeks just for people to breathe in, decompress, you know, sell their thoughts and then you&#8217;ll give the attendees a survey to fill in.</p>



<p>We did that every year and it turned out to be an amazing thing for the future reference. Team will also put up the handbook. They will put up the handbook of all the things that they&#8217;ve learned, challenges that they faced. What could be better, what could be improved? Because we have the internal P2 for organizers, for teams to communicate. So yeah, that&#8217;s their life, probably at next month. They would just like decompress and just all the thoughts put together in one place for the future organisers.</p>



<p>[00:28:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Are you here as an attendee this year? Or do you have any?</p>



<p>[00:28:25] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Yeah, well, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m speaking, I&#8217;m speaking because, we started that and I love that rule actually. Whoever was like the global lead for the previous year, you&#8217;ll be like the keynote, speaker for the next WordCamp Europe. Like on track one, you&#8217;ll do the talk. My talk was about community and I knew that it&#8217;s going to be emotional.</p>



<p>But I never knew it&#8217;s going to be this emotional. Yeah. So yeah, I had, I had tears, but I&#8217;m proud of those. It was emotional talk because those are all the things that I&#8217;m super passionate about. I&#8217;m super passionate about diversity. I&#8217;m super passionate about community in general. I&#8217;m super passionate about changing myself first and then helping change community for better.</p>



<p>So many times, so many stories that I&#8217;ve heard about people just like attending one single meetup, and then they realize that, you know what, this is good. This is a solid foundation for the career change or changing life. I had one guy in Serbia attended our meetups. He was a hairdresser and I knew his face.</p>



<p>He was constantly attending our meetups, but he was always super silent. He&#8217;s like, no, no, no. All good. I&#8217;m just like listening to talks. But he&#8217;s a good guy. So after two years he switched roles and he said like, finally, I&#8217;m doing the front end work. I got my first job. Thank you so much.</p>



<p>Thanks to community. It changed me in so many levels. So I did this talk and I completely stopped because all those images flashed in front of my eyes. I have slide that how many, uh, how much this community and being involved, this whole involvement changed me as a person. I had all these images just like flashing because I&#8217;ve been through some like tough times, like everyone.</p>



<p>And then I knew how much this whole community&#8217;s been listening and helping, supportive. And I basically stopped just like froze at the stage. I&#8217;m like, oh my God, I&#8217;m gonna cry. You&#8217;re not gonna cry. You&#8217;re gonna continue. I got the applause and just like, and that&#8217;s the support I&#8217;m talking about, and I continued, but really personal talk for me and I loved it. I loved the subject that I was sharing and, people say that I&#8217;m quite passionate and that can, I can make something happen.</p>



<p>[00:30:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Final question. And it&#8217;s a quick one. Will you be back next year?</p>



<p>[00:30:52] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Oh yeah. Oh yeah.</p>



<p>[00:30:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Milan. Thank you for chatting to me today.</p>



<p>[00:30:56] <strong>Milan Ivanovic:</strong> Thanks so much Nathan for having me.</p>
</div>";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, 22 Jun 2022 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:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:61:"Do The Woo Community: Meet Silvana Pop, First-Time WordCamper";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=72037";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://dothewoo.io/meet-silvana-pop-first-time-wordcamper/";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:392:"<p>There is always that first WordCamp experience. In this short BuilderByte, meet Silvana who attended WordCamp Europe.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/meet-silvana-pop-first-time-wordcamper/">Meet Silvana Pop, First-Time WordCamper</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, 22 Jun 2022 10:45:00 +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: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:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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 Data Driven Content Personas for WooCommerce Builders";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=72015";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://dothewoo.io/building-data-driven-content-personas/";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:390:"<p>Even developers, freelancers and agencies need to create their content persona the right way.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/building-data-driven-content-personas/">Building Data Driven Content Personas for WooCommerce Builders</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, 22 Jun 2022 09:15:00 +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:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WPTavern: Elementor Lays Off 15% of Workforce, Citing Rising Inflation and Impending Recession";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=135347";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/elementor-lays-off-15-of-workforce-citing-rising-inflation-and-impending-recession";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:4320:"<p>With inflation rising and the unemployment rate falling, economic forecasters are <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/04/09/why-wall-street-predicting-recession-2023-federal-reserve-inflation-unemployment-yield-curve-carl-icahn/">predicting an impending recession</a> in 2023. A few major WordPress companies are tightening their belts ahead of what many believe will be an unavoidable economic downturn.  </p>



<p>Elementor announced that it is laying off 60 employees, 15% of its workforce, in a tightly controlled release of information to <a href="https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-elementor-begins-laying-off-15-of-workforce-1001415176">Globes</a>, an Israeli business newspaper. Co-founder and CEO Yoni Luksenberg gave the following statement: </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p> “Today, we make the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our colleagues. We are in a changing global situation with rising inflation and a pending recession. To ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of our business, we are restructuring and optimizing our workforce, becoming more efficient in certain areas and continuing to grow our product offerings, to secure the company’s long-term success, growth and business goals as we plan for 2023 and beyond.&#8221;</p></blockquote>



<p>The Globes article states that &#8220;most of the layoff will be in the company&#8217;s marketing department and will apparently not effect engineers and development staff.&#8221; Elementor has raised a total of $65M across three funding rounds since 2017, but the Globes&#8217; statement fueled speculation about why their marketing department had such a large number of employees available to be cut.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The other way around probably. Less money spent on people means more money to spend on ads <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f926-200d-2642-fe0f.png" alt="🤦‍♂️" class="wp-smiley" /></p>&mdash; Robert DeVore (@deviorobert) <a href="https://twitter.com/deviorobert/status/1537185187133411328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Earlier this month, <a href="https://wptavern.com/elementor-acquires-strattic">Elementor acquired Strattic</a>, a static and headless WordPress hosting company. A representative from Elementor confirmed that no Strattic team employees were affected by the layoffs. The company declined to answer specific questions about whether all the discharged employees belonged to the marketing department or if developers were included among them. </p>



<p>Elementor&#8217;s former VP of Marketing, Yam Regev was not one of those cut from the company during the layoffs. Regev resigned a few weeks ahead of a large swath of the marketing team getting cut. He declined to comment on the layoffs but <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6942403165312925696/">posted</a> on LinkedIn that &#8220;the decision to move on is pragmatic and ego-less on such a level that I feel it is purely professional.&#8221;</p>



<p>Envato, the Australia-based digital assets company that sells thousands of WordPress products, has also recently <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/rich-listers-envato-lays-off-100-staff-and-rejigs-product-focus-20220605-p5ar5o">laid off 100 of its 700 employees</a>, roughly the same percentage as Elementor. </p>



<p>“We were spread too thin across all of these products we’d established,” Envato CEO Hichame Assi told told&nbsp;The Australian Financial Review.</p>



<p>“They’re all creative products, but some are older with legacy platforms, whereas some are newer and going really well. We wanted to sharpen focus on our future products that are going really well.”</p>



<p>Assi also cited global conflicts and inflation as factors affecting the company.</p>



<p>“There’s been flow on effects in markets like Europe and the US, and there has also been a pull down from inflation that has not helped as well,” Assi said.</p>



<p>These WordPress product companies join Netflix, Tesla, Coinbase, Zumper, Wealthsimple, Notarize, and many others in <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/17/layoffs-crypto-real-estate-tech-june/">widespread tech layoffs</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:"Tue, 21 Jun 2022 20:28:48 +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:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:91:"Do The Woo Community: Bringing Multilingual to WordPress and WooCommerce with Augustin Prot";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=72025";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:90:"https://dothewoo.io/bringing-multilingual-to-wordpress-and-woocommerce-with-augustin-prot/";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>Augustin Prot from Weglot joined us at WordCamp Europe to talk about community and multilingual WordPress and WooCommerce sites.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/bringing-multilingual-to-wordpress-and-woocommerce-with-augustin-prot/">Bringing Multilingual to WordPress and WooCommerce with Augustin Prot</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:"Tue, 21 Jun 2022 09:10:00 +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:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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: WordPress.org Strongly Urges Theme Authors to Switch to Locally Hosted Webfonts";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=134958";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/wordpress-org-strongly-urges-theme-authors-to-switch-to-locally-hosted-webfonts";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:4633:"<p>In light of a recent German court case, which <a href="https://wptavern.com/german-court-fines-website-owner-for-violating-the-gdpr-by-using-google-hosted-fonts">fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts</a>, WordPress.org&#8217;s themes team is updating its recommendations for hosting webfonts. Most theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors&#8217; IP addresses.</p>



<p>&#8220;The themes team strongly encourages the theme authors to update their themes,&#8221; Themes Team representative @benachi said in a recent <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2022/06/18/complying-with-gdpr-when-using-google-fonts/">announcement</a>. &#8220;We recommend updating by switching to locally hosted webfonts. Luckily Google Fonts can be downloaded and bundled in a theme. Bundled font files allow users to host webfonts locally and comply with GDPR.&#8221;</p>



<p>The Themes Team is also considering banning remotely hosted fonts moving forward and will discuss at the next meeting. </p>



<p>Core contributors are now working on <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55985">updating all the default themes</a> from Twenty Twelve through Twenty Seventeen to use locally hosted webfonts. The task had previously been discussed but was renewed by <a href="https://de.wordpress.org/support/topic/google-fonts-werde-hier-abgemahnt-twentyseventeen-fonts/">a recent topic in the German support forums</a>. A user created a small website using the Twenty Seventeen theme and said he has been threatened by a site visitor who cited the German court ruling. The ruling threatens a fine of €250,000.00 for each case of infringement or, alternatively, six months imprisonment, if the site owner does not comply and continues to provide Google with IP addresses through their use of Google Fonts.</p>



<p>&#8220;While in the newer default themes fonts got added as an asset, the older default themes remained untouched,&#8221; WordPress contributor Jessica Lyschik said. &#8220;This can cause issues with users not being aware of both the legal stuff and the fact that Google Fonts are directly used in default themes.</p>



<p>&#8220;We think while it is still widely among plugins and other themes to use Google Fonts directly, the default themes of WordPress should be able to used risk-free and compliant with the GDPR.&#8221;</p>



<p>The Themes Team recommends authors refer to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/twentytwentytwo/">Twenty Twenty-Two</a> theme to learn how to bundle locally hosted webfont files using&nbsp;<code>theme.json</code>. Another option, for those using functions.php, is to follow the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/09/28/implementing-a-webfonts-api-in-wordpress-core/" target="_blank">Implementing a Webfonts API in WordPress Core</a>&nbsp;tutorial.</p>



<p>Many theme authors may not update their themes until forced to by a ban from WordPress.org. In the meantime, users might consider adding a plugin to host webfonts locally. WordPress developer Xaver Birsak has created a small single-purpose plugin called <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/local-google-fonts/">Local Google Fonts</a> that automatically detects Google font sources and gives users the option to download them and use them locally.</p>



<img />Local Google Fonts admin screen



<p>This plugin checks for fonts embedded via <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_enqueue_style/"><code>wp_enqueue_style</code></a>. Users who are embedding Google fonts via <code>@import</code> will need to change that before using the plugin. It currently auto downloads new font versions if available. Birsak has created it as a set-it-and-forget it kind of plugin. This may be a good option for non-technical users who have a theme that hasn&#8217;t yet been updated by the author. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/local-google-fonts/">Local Google Fonts</a> is available for free on WordPress.org. </p>



<p>Another free plugin option on WordPress.org is the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/host-webfonts-local/">OMGF | Host Google Fonts Locally</a> plugin, which has a few additional features. It preloads fonts to reduce Cumulative Layout Shift above the fold, unloads fonts that are not used by the theme or plugins, allows users to set a fallback font stack, and will replace font-families with system fonts to speed up loading times. A commercial version offers multisite support and more advanced features.</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, 20 Jun 2022 22:45:16 +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:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:85:"WPTavern: WordPress.org Forces Security Update for Critical Ninja Forms Vulnerability";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=135341";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://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-forces-security-update-for-critical-ninja-forms-vulnerability";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:3390:"<p>Late last week, Ninja Forms users received a forced security update from WordPress.org for a critical  PHP Object Injection vulnerability. This particular vulnerability can be exploited remotely without any authentication. It was publicly disclosed last week and patched in the latest version, 3.6.11. Patches were also backported to versions 3.0.34.2, 3.1.10, 3.2.28, 3.3.21.4, 3.4.34.2, and 3.5.8.4.</p>



<p>Wordfence noticed a back-ported security update in the form builder plugin, which has more than a million active installs. Threat analyst Chloe Chamberland explained the vulnerability in an <a href="https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2022/06/psa-critical-vulnerability-patched-in-ninja-forms-wordpress-plugin/">advisory</a> alerting the company&#8217;s users:  </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>We uncovered a code injection vulnerability that made it possible for unauthenticated attackers to call a limited number of methods in various Ninja Forms classes, including a method that unserialized user-supplied content, resulting in Object Injection. This could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or delete arbitrary files on sites where a separate POP chain was present.</p></blockquote>



<p>The vulnerability affects Ninja Forms&#8217; &#8220;Merge Tags&#8221; feature that auto-populates values from Post IDs and usernames, for example. Wordfence threat analyst Ramuel Gall reverse engineered the vulnerability&#8217;s patches to create a working proof of concept. He found that it is possible to call various Ninja Forms classes that could be used for a wide range of exploits, including complete site takeover. Chamberland reports there is evidence to suggest the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.</p>



<p>WordPress.org&#8217;s forced security updates are a mitigation effort used in rare instances where the vulnerability is particularly severe and affects a large number of users. More than 680,000 sites were updated on June 14. This PHP object injection vulnerability scores 9.8 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, but it has not yet been given a CVE ID. </p>



<img />



<p>Reviewing <a href="https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-15289/product_id-31215/Ninjaforms-Ninja-Forms.html">previous CVE ID&#8217;s</a> for Ninja Forms, this is the most severe vulnerability in the plugin&#8217;s history. Ninja Forms&#8217; changelog doesn&#8217;t communicate the severity of the threat, categorizing it as a &#8220;security enhancement:&#8221;</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>3.6.11 (14 JUNE 2022)</p><p><em>Security Enhancements</em><br />* Apply more strict sanitization to merge tag values</p></blockquote>



<p>Ninja Forms did not post about the security update on its blog or social media accounts.  Wordfence plans to update the text of its <a href="https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2022/06/psa-critical-vulnerability-patched-in-ninja-forms-wordpress-plugin/">advisory</a> as the company learns more about how attackers are exploiting the vulnerability.  Ninja Forms users should check their sites to ensure the automatic security update went through. This update comes just one week after Ninja Forms <a href="https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/795acab2-f621-4662-834b-ebb6205ef7de">patched</a> a less severe, authenticated stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on June 7. </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, 20 Jun 2022 19:35:41 +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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:78:"Do The Woo Community: devlife-snippet: Writing as a Developer, the Soft Skills";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=71893";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://dothewoo.io/devlife-snippet-writing-as-a-developer-the-soft-skills/";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:465:"<p>Developers who have learned and grown their writing skills may question themselves whether those writing skills have a direct impact for them as a developer.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/devlife-snippet-writing-as-a-developer-the-soft-skills/">devlife-snippet: Writing as a Developer, the Soft Skills</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, 20 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +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: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:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:101:"Gutenberg Times: 84 Block Themes, Reusable Blocks, Create-Block-Theme-Plugin – Weekend Edition #219";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=21360";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:105:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/84-block-themes-reusable-blocks-create-block-theme-plugin-weekend-edition-219/";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:18225:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>Summer is almost here! I love the warmer days, but the heat wave making its way through Europe is brutal. Stay safe and keep cool, please. </p>



<p>This week, the usual business set in again and we have ton of great articles and products to link to. </p>



<p>Have a great weekend! </p>



<p><br />Yours, 💕<br />Birgit</p>



<p>PS: Don&#8217;t miss it: </p>



<p>July 22 at 11 am EDT / 15:00 UTC Gutenberg Times Live Q &amp; A:  <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw"><strong>Block First Approach at the Pew Research Center</strong>,</a> we will discuss with <strong>Seth Rubinstein</strong>, Lead Developer, and <strong>Michael Piccorossi</strong>, Director of Digital Strategy, how they use a mixture of Core and Custom Blocks to streamline their publishing process, and to create powerful charts and quizzes for the Pew Research Center. <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">Join us!</a></p>



<a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw"><img /></a>




<div class="wp-container-1 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-team-updates-around-the-block-editor">WordPress team updates around the Block editor</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-content-creators-and-site-builders">NoCode Site builders and Content Creators using Gutenberg</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-d">Developing with Gutenberg and building blocks</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-theme-building-for-blocks-and-full-site-editing">Theme Building for Blocks and Full-site Editing. </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-events">WordPress Events</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-s">Social Learning Spaces</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-page-builder-summit-start-monday">Page Builder Summit starts Monday! </a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="0-word-press-team-updates-around-the-block-editor">WordPress team updates around the Block editor</h2>



<p>In his latest video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn-tjjnyvYk"><strong>Core Developer reviews WordPress 6.0 &#8211; see his top 3 feature picks,</strong></a> <strong>Dave Smith</strong> talked to Adam Zielinski, Editor release lead for, to get the low down on the latest release of the software. They covered features of WordPress 6.0, and discussed the the responsibilities and challenges of being release lead. Smith and Zielinski also touched on the project wide discussion around experimental APIs in Gutenberg.</p>



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<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/"><strong>Gutenberg Landing Page</strong></a> received a major overhaul. <strong>Steven Dufrensne</strong> just <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/06/16/gutenberg-landing-page-launched/">announced taking the site live</a>. Designer Beatriz Fialho started working on the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2021/10/29/redesign-of-the-gutenberg-page/">Redesign</a> back in October 2021. &#8220;Now that&nbsp;Gutenberg&nbsp;has been a part of WordPress for a few years, it makes sense to update it, shifting the message from what used to be the new post editor to the editor that can power all parts of your site.&#8221; Fialho wrote in her earlier post. </p>



<p>Such an undertaking takes a whole team. It also needs maintenance and if you want to contribute, the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-gutenberg">theme repo is available on GitHub</a>. What do you think about the new Gutenberg Landing page? Please share in the comments on the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/06/16/gutenberg-landing-page-launched/">post</a>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Matias Ventura</strong> published his <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2022/06/13/thinking-through-the-wordpress-admin-experience/"><strong>thinking through the WordPress Admin experience</strong></a> following some lessons learned from the Site editor menu designs and behavior. <br />&#8220;Given the&nbsp;<a href="https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/">third phase of the current WordPress roadmap</a>&nbsp;has a focus around workflows and multiplayer, considerations around the various admin flows become all the more important.&#8221; he explained. The post takes a look at the various aspects: </p>



<p><strong>Shell and Canvas</strong> &#8211; a full-screen view as the default experience with sub-menus sliding in and out of the screen. That way the admin can also give access to out of context information or configurations. The&nbsp;<strong>shell</strong>&nbsp;as awayfinder with drill-down panels and the&nbsp;<strong>canvas</strong>&nbsp;as the place to browse, manage, edit, customize.</p>



<p><strong>The Home Button</strong> as it is now in the Dashboard or the Site editor has different targets, and it&#8217;s a place for confusion with many users. It&#8217;s meant to be a place to espace the inner most focus, and go one level higher. Hopefully with some breadcrumps to show the location clearly. &#8220;The aim of this interface element is to both give control and build familiarity to navigate away from any context.&#8221; Ventura wrote. </p>



<p><strong>Make it&nbsp;Extensible</strong> is the headline of the next section. Given the nature of WordPress as extensible plattform for website, and its promise of backwards compatibility,  this seems like a given. I</p>



<p>I am particularily intrigued by the contemplations around <strong>&#8220;Make it Personal&#8221;.</strong> Customization of the Admin menu has long been plugin territory, and it would be great if that can become built-in functionality as it would also come with standards and guard rails for plugins and themes. Each user should be able to hide/show specific menu items they need. I would love the &#8220;recently visited areas as some sort of stack&#8221; feature. Most of the time, i only do a few things on certain web sites, and if those activities could be available as Quick links that would be fabulous. </p>



<p>There are more sections in these early sharing of creative thinking about the future WPAdmin. There is certainly nothing set in stone or even remotely concrete available, but it&#8217;s worth reading and also sharing your opinion on the post. </p>



<div class="wp-container-2 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-68-wordcamp-europe-gutenberg-13-4-and-wordpress-6-1/">Gutenberg Changelog #68 –  WordCamp Europe, Gutenberg 13.4 and WordPress 6.1</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job, and special guest: Dave Smith </p>
</div></div>




<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>




<h2 id="1-content-creators-and-site-builders">NoCode Site builders and Content Creators using Gutenberg</h2>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/dumitru">Dumitru Brînzan</a></strong> published a post on how <a href="https://www.ilovewp.com/wordpress-reusable-blocks-detailed-guide/"><strong>Reusable Blocks will change the way you create WordPress websites</strong></a>. It not a quick mention of this powerful feature, but a step-by-step tutorial that will help you streamline your creation processes and speed up your idea to publish time. Brînzan&#8217;s biggest give away is a list of use cases and how to accomplish those with Reusable block. The 11 minute-video add great demos to the written guide. </p>



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<p>Speaking of Guide, <a href="https://twitter.com/karks88"><strong>Eric Karkovack</strong></a>&nbsp;published <a href="https://speckyboy.com/choosing-the-right-wordpress-block-plugins/"><strong>A Guide to Choosing the Right WordPress Block Plugins</strong></a>. Many Block collections plugins were published in the early years of the Block editor, as core blocks were lacking basic customizations features. Now that the block editor matured, Karkovack walk you through the decision making process on how to select the right extensions for your site. </p>



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<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we reported on new <strong>Themes in the WordPress.org repository featuring Full-Site Editing.</strong> Today&#8217;s count is 84. </p>



<p>Among the newest addition are two themes from the team at Extendify. </p>



<p>The first one is called <strong>Extendable</strong>,  &#8220;a distinct, dynamic block theme designed as a canvas for your next online venture. Sporting multiple style variations, Extendable is the most expressive block theme yet. Go fresh, bold, bohemaian or minimal.&#8221; Or so they say. It does have 12 Style variations some of them quite intriguing with great harmony of fonts and color, some are less engaging.  </p>



<p>The second theme is called Wei and it comes from the experience block and theme builder <strong>Rich Tabor</strong>, head of product at Extendify. He writes about his theme &#8221;&nbsp;a minimal block theme inspired by entirely by simplicity. Embracing clean type, beautifully bold color schemes, and color-matched featured images&#8221;. Tabor goes into more detail in his post: <a href="https://richtabor.com/wei/"><strong>Introducing Wei, a minimalistic block theme with gobs of creativity</strong></a>. Or you can check out this <a href="https://twitter.com/richard_tabor/status/1537397184118890503">Twitter thread</a></p>



<img />



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<p>On WordPress.tv, you can find the newests recording of the WordPress Social Learning event with <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/nickmdiego">Nick Diego</a> </strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/06/16/nick-diego-builder-basics-lets-build-a-custom-theme-no-coding-required/"><strong>Builder Basics – Let’s Build a Custom Theme (No Coding Required)</strong></a>. Diego took the Twenty Twenty-Two theme and fully customized it using the Site Editor and Global Styles. He make template chnages, updated the color pallete and the layout. The he exported these changes into a complete new theme. </p>



<h2 id="2-d">Developing with Gutenberg and building blocks</h2>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/kathyzant">Kathy Zant</a></strong> explains in her post <a href="https://www.zant.com/why-wordpress-in-2022-full-site-editing-vs-dynamic-templating/"><strong>Full Site Editing vs. Dynamic Templating</strong></a>, when she prefers to use the block editor and when ACF and template for the custom fields are better for her needs. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen</strong>, a full-stack LAMP developer from California, dives into the details of his decision making process on <strong><a href="https://www.webdevelopertuan.com/gutenberg-block-editor-when-to-use-editor-versus-css-styles/">When to Use Editor Versus CSS Styles</a></strong>. Nguyen walks you through the various aspects on styling blocks, how to override the Global Styles for core blocks, how to adjust styling for Custom HTML Blocks or how apply mobile styles via Media queries. It&#8217;s a great introduction. </p>




<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>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<h2 id="3-theme-building-for-blocks-and-full-site-editing">Theme Building for Blocks and Full-site Editing. </h2>



<p>If you want to learn more about Style Variations, that came to WordPress 6.0 check out Rich Tabor&#8217;s article: <a href="https://richtabor.com/wordpress-style-variations/"><strong>How to add style variations to WordPress Block Themes</strong></a>. &#8220;Just because a method of defining a theme style is standardized, doesn’t mean the styles themselves are.&#8221;.</p>



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<p>About four weeks ago, in Weekend Edition 215, I shared <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/three-block-theme-generators-gutenberg-13-2-coupons-with-blocks-and-more-weekend-edition-215/#0-block-theme-generators">three block theme generator</a> provided by members of the larger WordPress Community. Today, a new plugin from WordPress contributors went live the plugin repository: the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/"><strong>Create-Block Theme</strong></a> plugin. This plugin provides tools to enable theme builders to create block themes. There are four different ways of using it: </p>



<ol><li><strong>Export</strong>: The current theme gets exported as a zip file, along with the user’s changes. This is essentially the same as the export option in the Site Editor</li><li><strong>Create a child theme</strong><br />Creates a new child theme with the currently activated theme as a parent.</li><li><strong>Clone the current theme</strong><br />Creates a new theme by cloning the activated theme. The resulting theme will have all of the assets of the activated theme combined with the user’s changes.</li><li><strong>Overwrite theme files</strong><br />Saves user’s changes to the theme files and deletes the user’s changes.</li></ol>



<p>It&#8217;s in its first version. The team would appreciate some more testing and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/create-block-theme">start discussions on GitHub issues</a> or send in your PRs. </p>



<h2 id="2-word-press-events">WordPress Events</h2>



<h3 id="5-s">Social Learning Spaces</h3>



<p>June 27, 2022 &#8211; 1 pm EDT /  17:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286560368/">Hello Blocks! Coding a custom block</a></strong> with Ryan Welcher</p>



<p>July 4, 2022 5 pm EDT / 21:00 UTC <br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286558681/"><strong>Using Block Patterns</strong></a> with Wes Theron</p>



<p>July 12, 2022, 5 pm EDT / 21:00 UTC<br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286603818/">Explore the Block Directory</a></strong> with Wes Theron</p>



<h3 id="3-page-builder-summit-start-monday">Page Builder Summit starts Monday! </h3>



<p>Here is a selection from <a href="https://pagebuildersummit.com/">the schedule</a> of Gutenberg talks. </p>



<ul><li>Jun 20 &#8211; 8 am EDT / 12:00 UTC &#8211; <strong>Gutenberg, Full Site Editing and WooCommerce</strong> with Jamie Marsland </li><li>Jun 20 &#8211; 2 pm EDT / 18:00 UTC <strong>Creating Effective WooCommerce Sites with Kadence Blocks Template</strong> w/ Ben Ritner</li><li>Jun 22- 10 am EDT / 14:00 UTC <strong>It’s Time to Get Serious About Full Site Editing</strong> w/ Nick Diego </li><li>Jun 23 &#8211; 11 EDT 15:00 UTC <strong>Creating Dynamic Content with Kadence Blocks</strong> w/ Kathy Zant </li><li>Jun 24 8am EDT / 12:00 UTC <strong>Pagebuilders in a world of Full Site Editing and Block</strong>s w/ Jakob Trost </li><li>Jun 24 &#8211; 10 am EDT / 14:00 UTC <strong>The Full Site Editor and the Cwicly Toolkit </strong>with David McCan </li></ul>



<p></p>




<p>Featured Image: &#8220;<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00/2475349116" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pablo&#8217;s cubism period began at three</a>&#8221; by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">woodleywonderworks</a>&nbsp;is licensed under&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CC BY 2.0</a>.</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



<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>



<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, 18 Jun 2022 11:17:00 +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: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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:30:"Post Status: Flooding the zone";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99358";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:41:"https://poststatus.com/flooding-the-zone/";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:55:"<strong>Why not take a nice long bath instead?</strong>";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, 17 Jun 2022 23:35:58 +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:"Dan Knauss";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:38:"Post Status: Today in WordCamp History";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99352";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:49:"https://poststatus.com/today-in-wordcamp-history/";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:254:"Starting today and every day for the next year, I’ll be sharing 1-4 photos that appear on that day from the WP events I was at. I’ll tag the location and people there as well as I can. You can follow on Twitter @KitchensinkWP or at kitchensinkwp.com.";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, 17 Jun 2022 22:34:29 +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:"Adam Silver";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:44:"Post Status: Not Dead Yet! Just Mostly Dead?";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98849";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:53:"https://poststatus.com/not-dead-yet-just-mostly-dead/";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:411:"Gutenberg 13.4 • Learning FSE sooner rather than later • Gutenberg in Tumblr and Day One • WordCamps and the vitality of the WordPress community • AUS WordPress community only mostly dead? • Get SEO Schema graphs • Web font loading geek out • PHP is 28! • PHP namespaces and autoloaders • You can work anywhere... why not Cleveland? • North Commerce — faster than the rest? • and more...";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, 17 Jun 2022 20:00:06 +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:"David Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:71:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits: WordCamp Europe Before, During and After";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=71996";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:60:"https://dothewoo.io/wordcamp-europe-before-during-and-after/";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:399:"<p>I had an amazing time at WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal. Here are some highlight around and during the event.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/wordcamp-europe-before-during-and-after/">WooBits: WordCamp Europe Before, During and After</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, 17 Jun 2022 16:58:29 +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:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:95:"Post Status: Richard Midson on WordPress and the Future of Podcasting — Post Status Draft 116";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99125";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://poststatus.com/richard-midson-wordpress-future-of-podcasting/";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:118:"Richard Midson of Automattic on the future of podcasting and the opportunities for WordPress as a podcasting platform.";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, 17 Jun 2022 14:11:13 +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:13:"Olivia Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:43:"Post Status: How Do We Get There From Here?";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99139";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:53:"https://poststatus.com/how-do-we-get-there-from-here/";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:360:"Our WordPress Podcast and Video Picks for the Week of June 13 🎙️ JavaScript development journeys • Questions coming out of WCEU • The WordPress toolkit for podcasters • How newcomers and outsiders view WordPress • Are WordPress developers "real developers?" • Gutenber changes • Dave Martin on WP.com • A Gutenberg roadmap for WordPress 6.1.";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, 17 Jun 2022 06:57:47 +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:12:"David Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:55:"Post Status: This Week at WordPress.org (June 13, 2022)";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=99202";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://poststatus.com/this-week-at-wordpress-org-june-13-2022/";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:319:"Each week we are highlighting the news from WordPress.org that you don't want to miss. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, we've got the news you need to know. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. Are you interested in giving back and contributing...";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, 15 Jun 2022 14:30:08 +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:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WPTavern: #30 – Matt Mullenweg on the Future of Technology and Where WordPress Fits In";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=135311";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://wptavern.com/podcast/30-matt-mullenweg-on-the-future-of-technology-and-where-wordpress-fits-in";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:49712:"<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://ma.tt/">Matt Mullenweg</a>.</p>



<p>Matt is the co-founder of WordPress, and as a result, he has been a user for as long as anyone.</p>



<p>We recorded this podcast whilst at WordCamp Europe in Portugal a couple of weeks ago. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, covering a lot of ground.&nbsp;</p>



<p>We start out with Matt’s reflections of WordPress at 19 years old. Which aspects of the project would he change if he had his time over, and which parts is he proud of?</p>



<p>Did Covid, and the restrictions around community events, have an impact upon the project, given that much of the time dedicated to WordPress is done by volunteers? What lessons have we learned about events like WordCamp Europe?</p>



<p>In recent news, and for the first time, there’s some data pointing to the fact that WordPress’ market share might have flattened out. Is this a cause for concern?</p>



<p>Where are we at with WordPress right now, given that it’s changing the scope of what non-technical users can do with it out of the box?</p>



<p>We then get into some more personal matters, including how Matt manages his time over the variety of projects he’s involved with, and does he regard advances in artificial intelligence as always positive?</p>



<p>You might notice that the sound is a little patchy in places. This was a function of the environment we were in. There’s a few booms on the mic here and there, but it’s certainly listenable.</p>



<h2>Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five for the future</a></p>



<p><a href="https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/">DALL·E: Creating Images from Text</a></p>



<p><a href="https://openai.com/api/">OpenAI</a></p>



Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. 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 place of WordPress in the technology landscape.</p>



<p>[00:00:38] 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 go to WP Tavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players as well. If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast well I&#8217;m very keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea featured on the show. Head to WP Tavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the contact form there.</p>



<p>[00:01:13] So on the podcast today. We have Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the co-founder of WordPress. And as a result, he&#8217;s been a user of WordPress for as long as anybody. We recorded this podcast while at WordCamp Europe in Portugal, a couple of weeks ago. It&#8217;s a wide ranging discussion, covering a lot of ground.</p>



<p>[00:01:41] We start out with Matt&#8217;s reflections of WordPress at 19 years old. Which aspects of the project would he change if he had his time over and which parts is he proud of? Did Covid, and the restrictions around community events, have an impact upon the project, given that much of the time dedicated to WordPress is done by volunteers? What lessons have we learned about events like WordCamp Europe?</p>



<p>[00:02:08] In recent news, and for the first time, there&#8217;s been some data pointing to the fact that WordPress&#8217; market share might have flattened out. Is this a cause for concern?</p>



<p>[00:02:20] Where are we at with WordPress right now, given that it&#8217;s changing the scope of what non-technical users can do with it out of the box.</p>



<p>[00:02:30] We then get into some more personal matters, including how Matt manages his time over the variety of projects he&#8217;s involved with. And does he regard advances in artificial intelligence as always positive?</p>



<p>[00:02:43] You might notice that the sound is a bit patchy in places. This was a function of the environment we were in. There&#8217;s a few booms on the mic here and there, but it&#8217;s certainly listenable. If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all the links in the show notes by heading over to WP tavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>[00:03:07] And so without further delay, I bring you Matt Mullenweg.</p>



<p>[00:03:17] I am joined on the podcast today by Matt Mullenweg. Hello Matt.</p>



<p>[00:03:22] Howdy, good to see you.</p>



<p>[00:03:23] Yeah. They&#8217;re really nice to see you.</p>



<p>[00:03:25] As far as I&#8217;m aware, you&#8217;re one of two people who can claim to go all the way back with WordPress. And it&#8217;s been just last week, 19 years, I think.</p>



<p>[00:03:35] Yeah, that was a pretty exciting anniversary.</p>



<p>[00:03:37] Yeah, does that kind of stuff fill you with nostalgia? Do you sort of look back and think, wow, what a journey this has been? Or are always focusing on the future?</p>



<p>[00:03:45] You know, I am very future-focused personally, but it&#8217;s partially because I have a terrible memory. No really. It&#8217;s one of the reasons I started blogging. I learned a lot from the archives of my blog that I forgot. It&#8217;s also why I&#8217;m not too attached to like, arguing about the past. It&#8217;s like, you remember it differently. It&#8217;s fine. I&#8217;ll even go with your version, but what&#8217;s happening next? What are we doing in the future? And I try to live my life primarily oriented towards moving forward.</p>



<p>[00:04:12] The reason I laughed is because I&#8217;m exactly the same. I more or less everything that happened 30 minutes ago. But looking back over those 19 years, what would be some of the highlights? So I&#8217;m forcing you to be nostalgic.</p>



<p>[00:04:25] Hm. You know to me, it&#8217;s all about the people. Like we created lots of great stuff together, and still are. And so there&#8217;s definitely things like the first plugins, the first themes, the first international versions of WordPress with the Wiziwig coming in, which was quite controversial. And then Gutenberg coming in, which is quite controversial.</p>



<p>[00:04:46] That&#8217;s part of why I dipped back into more active WordPress stuff day to day for a while there. But, I really think of the people. From the early folks like Mike Little, some who&#8217;ve passed away like Alex King. To the incredible array of people we have here today.</p>



<p>[00:05:00] And my favorite part about WordCamps, what I miss the most was just meeting folks. Reconnecting with people who I&#8217;ve seen before, or just meeting people who, lives have been touched by WordPress in some way. And I&#8217;ve never, we&#8217;ve never run into each other before. I really enjoy that side of it. I learn a lot too. So it actually is very helpful for me in terms of thinking about the roadmap for WordPress. Just the stories. I hear, the things I see in the booths, the talks that happen. I definitely learn a ton from it.</p>



<p>[00:05:29] Staying on nostalgic thing, are there any bits which you think, I wish it had played out differently, bits where you look back and you think, oh, WordPress could have gone in that direction, or there was a moment in time where we could have done this, and we we didn&#8217;t do that?</p>



<p>[00:05:40] Hmm. Probably would have left the Rest API as a plugin, or maybe skipped straight to GraphQL or something. We did need to support all the feeds other than RSS2. We probably didn&#8217;t need all the others. Gosh, what else? I definitely, if I could go back to the very early days, we&#8217;ve always been really big on backwards compatibility.</p>



<p>[00:06:00] And so there&#8217;s a few database tables that are just inconsistent in their namings, you know, as capital ID or something like that. Going all the way back to the B2 days, even before WordPress. So I kind of wish we had just renamed some of those early, actually it might be easier to do it now because no one accesses those tables directly anymore, but some of those minor things kinda.</p>



<p>[00:06:18] I&#8217;d say broadly on the whole year you got it fairly right? I&#8217;m staying on the nostalgic bit, but this is the last couple of years. I mean, everybody knows what I mean by that sentence. The last couple of years, Covid and so on. How&#8217;s that been for WordPress in general? Everybody started staring at screens and looking at Zoom and, I feel that we were as prepared as an industry, as any. We got the zoom calls. We knew how to get the computer to do all those things. We had the mics, we had the cameras, but yet it wore pretty thin, after a period of time. And I wonder if the community, was sort of slowly leached away a little bit and I if there&#8217;s any of that.</p>



<p>[00:06:56] I don&#8217;t think in a way that was unique to WordPress. Like you said, we&#8217;re fortunate that we&#8217;ve always connected online. It&#8217;s a fairly positive community. People are very supportive of each other. Competitors grabbed dinner together. What we miss was definitely these events like what&#8217;s happening right now.</p>



<p>[00:07:11] It&#8217;s always been part of our magic sauce, secret sauce, if you will. Like we work remotely, but then when we get together, it makes it that much more special. And then more broadly, I think it&#8217;s just, you can&#8217;t ignore the impact all this has just had in people&#8217;s lives. And if there&#8217;s something going on in your life, you&#8217;re gonna have less energy for work or volunteering or other things.</p>



<p>[00:07:32] And certainly if it&#8217;s anything health related, right. All the priorities melt away, right? When you, or a loved one facing a health challenge. So I think that, so many parts of the world are back to normal or like nothing happened, but it&#8217;s easy to forget, like the vast human costs of what we&#8217;ve been through. And it&#8217;s still ongoing for many people.</p>



<p>[00:07:49] In terms of the contributions to the project, did that wick away? Is there the same engagement today, well, maybe let&#8217;s say three months ago, as there was two years ago, to core and all the other bits and pieces, or was that a struggle to keep going?</p>



<p>[00:08:07] I don&#8217;t have the numbers in front of me, but if I recall there was a boost at the beginning, when we&#8217;re stuck at home. And I think like, as people started returning, to normal life, it dipped a bit, which makes sense, right there probably like have saved up. I know I&#8217;ve been going to like a thousand weddings. It feels like everyone in the world is doing their wedding. So I think there&#8217;s just some natural time that goes back to life, which by the way is great, because then we&#8217;ll return to equilibrium there. If you looked at 6.0 though, amazing number of contributors, contributor day yesterday was way over populated.</p>



<p>[00:08:42] Yeah, it was so overpopulated, there was a struggle with food.</p>



<p>[00:08:44] We literally ran out of food and we always over half that. So I think that&#8217;s showing that there is a, um, to say WordPress can continue to serve the needs of the world and our community. There&#8217;s no reason for it to, uh, not continue to grow and get more involved. That flywheels, it gets more users, some percentage of those contribute. And then of course we have programs like five for the future. That I feel like every open source project should have, but it&#8217;s very mature in WordPress where it&#8217;s just a cultural mores of people, for whom they get a lot from WordPress, take a little bit of time to give back. And that again is part of it. It&#8217;s all the people at the end. I think I&#8217;m going to say that 10 times.</p>



<p>[00:09:22] No, it&#8217;s okay. I don&#8217;t know if you know, but apparently the two thousand seven hundred people who are registered, apparently 1,700 are brand new. Never been any WordPress event. About 60% of the people who are in this building have never been. So it feels if that was the thing it&#8217;s back in reverse.</p>



<p>[00:09:41] It makes me wonder what the 2022 WordCamp Europe would be without a global pandemic we are just are coming out of and like, kind of in, in many places still. So yeah, 2,700 that&#8217;s amazing.</p>



<p>[00:09:54] What do you think about events like this? It&#8217;s a generic question, but what are your thoughts? I mean, you&#8217;ve got such a different perspective, I guess, than somebody like me who turns up, attend events and go to people speaking and go to various different bits and pieces. What is this for you? Is it an enjoyable experience?</p>



<p>[00:10:11] I mean, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s what I do too. You know, I&#8217;ll drop it in the back and check out talks. If for whatever reason not in the room often I&#8217;m live streaming them. I would say the difference for me is like, I leave a pretty under the radar life generally. It&#8217;s not like people recognize me or anything like that. But at WordCamps, definitely. So I go stopped sometimes every five feet, to take a picture or talk to people, but you know what, that&#8217;s kind of why I&#8217;m here too.</p>



<p>[00:10:40] Like if that&#8217;s a any way I can be of service to the community, sign me up for it.</p>



<p>[00:10:44] Maybe that was the target of the question. Is it a strange thing to drop into for a period of time where life generally is normal and then it&#8217;s extraordinary for a bit, and then it goes back to whatever the normal is.</p>



<p>[00:10:57] You know, I also just love talking about WordPress and technology. So I&#8217;m doing that for fun anyway. I&#8217;d say the main difference from my normal life is being recognized, which is just kind of a bizarre human experience. I never want to be actual, famous. Keep me out of the Daily Mail or The Post or whatever it is like. I&#8217;m happy to be well known among a community creating things like we do in WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:11:20] So yeah, that&#8217;s kind of fun. And also the to and from, because like all the restaurants around. The planes to and from the event. You&#8217;ll just run into people and, you know, I could take a hundred flights without anyone ever stopping me. Yeah, my backpack actually has the WordPress logo embroided on it, but it&#8217;s black on black, so it&#8217;s a little subtle.</p>



<p>[00:11:36] Normally no one recognizes. But often to or from a WordCamp, people will be like, oh, hey. But even I can go to WordCamps. I remember, often before WordCamp US, I&#8217;ll go to a bunch of the smaller ones. Just to kind of test out my material, like a comedian, playing smaller clubs before the big ones.</p>



<p>[00:11:51] I remember going to working at Scranton, I think it was. Uh, Pennsylvania. I forget where Scranton is, someplace, um, and smaller WordCamp, maybe 110 people, which are some of my favorites, but, you know, we sat down at the lunch. No one knows who I am. They&#8217;re like, what do you do? And then after my talk, they were like, oh wow.</p>



<p>[00:12:08] You&#8217;re like, you did that. And so it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s also fun to just kind of be like a secret shopper, if you will. Like often I&#8217;ll just sit down at random tables or go over to people. And, uh, again, like I said, I learn a ton, and sometimes when people don&#8217;t know who I am, I&#8217;m able to learn even more because they are more unguarded and more relaxed.</p>



<p>[00:12:26] These kinds of events feel to me almost like the glue that binds so much more together. These are three days where all sorts of new relationships are forged and old relationships are rekindled, and it feels like there&#8217;s been a great, big chasm. They&#8217;ve been missing. And, I&#8217;m just really glad they&#8217;re back.</p>



<p>[00:12:45] It&#8217;s funny, one of the things I&#8217;ve said that gets quoted the most, like on Instagram posts and stuff, is technology is best when it brings people together. And that really came out of the WordCamp experience. It&#8217;s a tremendous amount of work, and this is where I&#8217;d actually like to call out and thank the WordCamp Europe team.</p>



<p>[00:13:00] They really push the bar every year and raise it. Right. I have a little more involved with US. Every time Europe happens I&#8217;m like, man, we got to up our game. And I know it&#8217;s exhausting. Everyone like, you know, needs a break at the end. But wow. Really is one of the, I think one of the best contributions to the WordPress community.</p>



<p>[00:13:18] They&#8217;re all wearing black t-shirts and there&#8217;s black T-shirts everywhere. You know, there&#8217;s hundreds and hundreds of people who are giving up their time. And It&#8217;s amazing, you know, they&#8217;re doing it because they want to do it. There&#8217;s no coercion there. They&#8217;re really keen on the community and it&#8217;s this lovely.</p>



<p>[00:13:33] It&#8217;s a lot of fun too. Often my sister, she&#8217;s been to, I think, WordCamp US and Europe until this one. Unfortunately she tested positive before the flight, so she ended up staying home, wasn&#8217;t feeling well. But often she&#8217;ll volunteer at like the check-in stage or something like that. But she now loves it for the people, you know, like she&#8217;s a fan of mine obviously. We&#8217;re brother and sister for a long time, she has so many friends here now.</p>



<p>[00:13:56] I know for a fact that there&#8217;s people here just in the few people that I know who&#8217;ve brought their husband or wife and they&#8217;d just in, cause it&#8217;s a nice thing to do. Staring into the future, forever, it seems, the numbers for WordPress up, up, up, up, up, 25%, 40%, 43%, whatever it is. I think, you know where this is going.</p>



<p>[00:14:15] Recently, I don&#8217;t know how dubious the statistics are. There&#8217;s this possible leveling off. Is any of that of interest to you? Is growth the thing, or is it, is there something else? Are you thinking about that at any point? Does it worry you or give you pause for thought?</p>



<p>[00:14:31] I think growth is the result. So if we create something that&#8217;s accessible, well designed, solves people&#8217;s problems, we should grow. And so, yeah, it&#8217;s concerning to me when we don&#8217;t grow. That number is going to be a little wonky over the next year, year and a half, because as you&#8217;re probably aware, Alexa, the toolbar is shut down.</p>



<p>[00:14:51] So even though they&#8217;re still providing data, the W3Techs, that data is more stale than it used to be and will, I think degrade over time and eventually W3Techs are switching to a different data set. I forget which one it&#8217;s called. So I don&#8217;t know that off the top of my head, sorry, my computer&#8217;s over there, but on Built With, Built With is something else that indexes the whole web and says how many it is. We&#8217;ve generally talked about the W3Techs number, which I think got up to like 42 or 43% before it started to wobble a little bit. Built With had us at like 30 something percent. I think the answer is somewhere in between there.</p>



<p>[00:15:23] So I can see the W3Techs number coming down, maybe even 15 or 20%, uh, regardless of the actual underlying fundamentals of WordPress. And luckily we have some other of data that we get back, and the wordpress.org plugin directory from the update pings, things like that, that show the health of WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:15:40] Uh, so those are always what I look at as the leading metrics. So we keep an eye on those. If there were to see a big migration, we would definitely take a look at the why, and see if there&#8217;s something we can improve in the software. And then finally, I&#8217;m a little less worried least at the moment because I&#8217;d really like to switch Tumblr over to WordPress, which is, well half a billion blogs. There&#8217;s a lot of Tumblrs out there.</p>



<p>[00:16:03] And of course not all active, so it won&#8217;t move the number that much, but, yeah, a good amount. I&#8217;m very excited to bring that part of the web, which is so vibrant, has such a strong community and has a demographic, you know, younger, more female, than we might normally have at a WordPress event. Having it be like an on-ramp to the WordPress world.</p>



<p>[00:16:20] Some of the commentary around that, whatever that was, this leveling off, was around things like, well maybe WordPress, there&#8217;s a lot of work to do in terms of performance and things like that. And I know that there&#8217;s initiatives in place and things are being done. I just wondered if there was anything you had on that.</p>



<p>[00:16:38] I think we need to improve every single part of WordPress. And there was some performance data. I think is it, Alaine talked about today in his presentation? That shows that some WordPress sites are not as performant as some others. Now, the tough thing is I think you need to adjust to that per dollar.</p>



<p>[00:16:57] So, you know, comparing it to essentially a hosted platform, like Squarespace that people might be paying $25 a month. To a web host you might be paying like $4 a month for is not an apples to apples comparison. There&#8217;s going to be some performance differential there. And of course, one reason why so many people use WordPress, especially globally is the accessibility.</p>



<p>[00:17:16] The job that the web hosts do, making it extremely affordable. You know, the average Shopify subscriber spends $1,200 per year. Average WordPress subscriber, it&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t know cause it&#8217;s across so many hosts, it would be closer to like a hundred dollars a year, maybe even less when you look at like how reasonable a lot of these hosting plans are, but definitely anything we could do in Core is helpful.</p>



<p>[00:17:39] And it&#8217;s also part of why, I think part of the story of the past 10 years of WordPress has been our really close partnerships with all the hosts. So the auto upgrade almost every well, every major host upgrades by default. Getting them on the new PHP versions, which actually have huge performance increases. PHP seven doubles performance essentially. So helping them be on the edge of the technology adoption curve.</p>



<p>[00:18:01] But it&#8217;s not true, I&#8217;d strongly disagree that WordPress is slow. In fact, WordPress sites can be some of the fastest ones out there, but when you think of 40% of the web, a lot of them on less expensive hosting providers, it&#8217;s going to pull our overall numbers down. If you&#8217;re looking at all sites, not just the fastest ones.</p>



<p>[00:18:20] Gutenberg WordPress 5.0. At seminal moment, everything changed.</p>



<p>[00:18:25] Yeah. It was a good one.</p>



<p>[00:18:27] There&#8217;s been a lot, there&#8217;s been a lot that&#8217;s changed since then. I&#8217;m just wondering over the course of those, what is that? Three years, some, three years.</p>



<p>[00:18:34] Yeah, right about.</p>



<p>[00:18:35] How you feel that&#8217;s gone. was a messaging thing at the beginning, you know, how, how did it get rolled out. But it feels to me as if the people who are developing on top of it more and more and more. Are getting excited and the talk is more and more and more about the possibilities and what&#8217;s going to be possible. So just that really. Are you pleased with the direction it&#8217;s going in? Where we&#8217;re at now, full site editing, all of those, block themes.</p>



<p>[00:18:59] I&#8217;m pretty thrilled with it. Of course, I&#8217;m an impatient person. So I would love to move faster. But the truth is in 2022, if you&#8217;re not building a site on Gutenberg by default, you&#8217;re kind of setting it up for obsolescence or really expensive upgrade paths in the future. It is so capable. I think people underestimate how much you can do with Core blocks</p>



<p>[00:19:21] Like without adding any of these block ad-ons or anything. And yet also, that&#8217;s such a clear roadmap, so many improvements are coming in every release. It was just at 6.0. I&#8217;d like to move us to be more releases per year. You know, maybe we can get to four per year instead of three, but it&#8217;s coming along. I&#8217;m thrilled with it.</p>



<p>[00:19:37] And other CMSs are starting to copy it, and we&#8217;re getting Gutenberg and a lot more places too, which is also exciting. Um, Gutenberg is live for Tumblr by the way.</p>



<p>[00:19:47] Is the intention that it&#8217;s the editor for the web, basically.</p>



<p>[00:19:49] A hundred percent. It&#8217;s bigger than WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:19:51] It&#8217;ll be everywhere and ubiquitous. So on the phone and on the, whatever CMS that you&#8217;re using and the whole thing.</p>



<p>[00:19:58] Yeah. And there was this announcement for something called the block protocol, which I think, if you look at it, it&#8217;s exactly what we&#8217;ve been doing with Gutenberg and they probably should just adopt a Gutenberg and then like build from there.</p>



<p>[00:20:07] Yeah. That was a really interesting project. The idea that it&#8217;s completely interoperable across everything. Yeah. Really, really, really interesting.</p>



<p>[00:20:14] That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re doing. We have the mobile versions for iOS and Android. I believe we&#8217;re relicensing those right now to be even more open. So they&#8217;re easier to embed in commercial apps. And then of course the web version is getting pretty robust. And it&#8217;s just, it&#8217;s weird edge cases that you start to deal with.</p>



<p>[00:20:29] There was one I found the other day actually through a friend. This is why I love doing tech support and people talking to me about the problems with WordPress. I think it was copying and pasting from Facebook images. So they had a lot of their photos on Facebook and they would right click to click copy and paste and in Gutenberg, what it was doing was making that a link to the image, versus actually uploading the image. And so, because it was to like a private URL, it would break for other people. But it would look normal to that person.</p>



<p>[00:20:59] This was just a workflow no one has pointed out to us. It was like pretty easy to fix once we knew about it. But, it was interesting because one thing we do when something like that comes up is we look at other editors and see which other editors support that use case. Actually Google docs did. So at some point, Google docs figured this out, but a bunch of other editors did. Google docs is actually one of the software projects I repect the most.</p>



<p>[00:21:22] I entirely agree. I&#8217;m waiting for the day when, um, we can do the concurrent editing, that will be.</p>



<p>[00:21:26] Oh my goodness.</p>



<p>[00:21:27] It&#8217;s almost as if that&#8217;s the minimum requirement now. I&#8217;ve got so used to using Google docs and seeing the other people contributing at the same time. I remember the experience of seeing that for the first time and thinking what that&#8217;s voodoo.</p>



<p>[00:21:39] How, did that happen? But you you&#8217;re happy. You&#8217;re pleased with the development and you&#8217;re pleased with the way it&#8217;s looking?</p>



<p>[00:21:45] No, I&#8217;m impatient. I&#8217;m really proud of what we&#8217;ve done, but there&#8217;s so much more to do. And especially if we&#8217;re trying to make the editor for the entire web, it&#8217;s even bigger than WordPress. I think that&#8217;s going to have such a benefit, to both developments, like speed of development. It&#8217;s not unlike web components or other things like we&#8217;ll have these standard things everyone can use.</p>



<p>[00:22:06] And then there&#8217;s also usability because users will be able to learn how blocks work, once, and then create almost anything. Like how cool is that? It&#8217;s like a fundamental, literally fundamental building block of the web, almost like the DNA.</p>



<p>[00:22:17] I&#8217;m going to phrase this in a way which I suspect you&#8217;ll push back on, but let&#8217;s see where we go. The five for the future initiative. That would be so great if everybody was a part of that. And I wonder if you would like more people to be a part of that? Whether or not there&#8217;s some inertia.</p>



<p>[00:22:36] I&#8217;m struggling to find the words. The speed of everything could go more rapidly. Everything could happen more quickly. And that speaks to your impatience. If more people were able and willing to step up for that initiative.</p>



<p>[00:22:49] You know, I value even if people just have one hour, once a month. You know, five for the future isn&#8217;t meant to say you need to do 5% or nothing. It&#8217;s just meant to say that, Hey, if enough people do the 5%, WordPress will really thrive. But if not everyone does it, that&#8217;s okay too. In fact, you know, not everyone does it and doing pretty well.</p>



<p>[00:23:12] It&#8217;s funny cause contributing, it&#8217;s kind of hard to start and maybe it&#8217;s intimidating to think like, oh, do I take like two hours a week to be part of WordPress. 5% of a 40 hour week or something. But it&#8217;s hard to stop too. Once get involved, it&#8217;s infectious because it&#8217;s such a great way to learn.</p>



<p>[00:23:28] It&#8217;s really great to be connected to something larger than yourself. Do some work and then see the ripples throughout the web or throughout WordCamps. It&#8217;s really fun to like overhear someone talking about something at a WordCamp that you were involved in building or contributing to or documenting or translating.</p>



<p>[00:23:44] I dunno, it&#8217;s just like a source of pride. It&#8217;s kind of how I got involved. Like I contributed some code to B2 at the time and I just got such a high. From knowing that, you know, hundreds of websites were running my code, and I&#8217;ve just been chasing that ever since. Like it&#8217;s still compelling, even if it&#8217;s a plugin that only like 10 people use to like, you know, obviously any changes the Core go to a lot of the web. At any point it&#8217;s just kinda like leaving a dent in the universe, leaving the world a little bit better than you found it.</p>



<p>[00:24:10] It&#8217;s funny, you said the word proud, well you said pride and my question contains the word proud, and it is follows. What are the things, and you&#8217;ve covered this a little bit. But this doesn&#8217;t have to be the code, it doesn&#8217;t have to be the community, although maybe that is the bit. What are the bits that you&#8217;re most proud of? The bits that you look back and think I am so pleased that bit happened. And it could be a big thing, could be a tiny thing, but the bit that makes you internally smile.</p>



<p>[00:24:36] I&#8217;m really proud, to the extent WordPress, it can be a very welcoming place. We really strive to be inclusive, to bring folks from all over the world, all backgrounds. Now I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s mistakes. I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s things that happen at WordCamps sometimes, but like we correct that and the norm of the community is expecting to make someone feel welcome. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I mean you look around WordCamp, could not be a more different group of folks.</p>



<p>[00:25:03] Yeah, that&#8217;s true. They&#8217;re an interesting, there&#8217;s an eclectic mix of people up there.</p>



<p>[00:25:08] Oh my goodness, even it just like fashion styles or like you know, like hairstyles, styles, ages, colors, everything. And how beautiful that? That we can come together with a shared passion, communicate with each other as humans. Every person is unique. You&#8217;re not what it says on your badge or where you work. It&#8217;s really about connecting as humans and that&#8217;s, to me, what&#8217;s great about blogging. It&#8217;s about, what&#8217;s great about the open web. It&#8217;s recognizing the beauty, brilliance and uniqueness of every person.</p>



<p>[00:25:37] How do you manage your time? Because I know that you&#8217;ve got more things than I&#8217;m doing. Let&#8217;s put it that way. You&#8217;ve got Tumblr, you&#8217;ve got WordPress. Where does it all fit in? Do you like a run a regular week? Are you a 40 hour a week person? Do you tend to work late into the evening or?</p>



<p>[00:25:53] I guess there&#8217;s multiple levels to answer that. Where I&#8217;m spending my time in terms of all the projects that are going on, is kinda like rotations. Like often I&#8217;ll move into something, spend a lot of time there and then I&#8217;ll drift back out once, you know, whatever I was coming in for has changed. Probably a good example of that recently was Gutenberg.</p>



<p>[00:26:16] So that&#8217;s one took a more active role and kind of release lead, the driving, the getting that happening. Even like the product itself. And then as that really got great you know, 5.1, 5.2, able to step back and allow others to like take a more active role and leading that or driving that. Tumblr&#8217;s is a good example.</p>



<p>[00:26:38] Like, you know, stepping into it for a bit. I hope to be able to pass it to someone in the future and say like, take this, keep it going. It&#8217;s going great. And so that&#8217;s kind of how the projects do. And then personally, I just try to manage my energy, to match that to the tasks that are happening.</p>



<p>[00:26:53] Unfortunately, I work very strange hours sometimes, and, I just try to capture, like, if I get a burst of inspiration late at night to write something or, feeling really engaged, we&#8217;re in the mood for like doing communication stuff versus like I&#8217;m in the mood for reading, whatever that is, and run with it. Versus trying to say like, every morning I&#8217;m going to do this. Some mornings I&#8217;m tired. Some mornings, you know, maybe I&#8217;m feeling a little more burnt out. And so, like, I don&#8217;t feel that sort of creative spark to, to write a thousand words, but it might be easier to catch up on some P2 posts. Catch up on the Slacks.</p>



<p>[00:27:26] It sounds like you take care of yourself. You take time to step away and, I came in here you were listening to jazz music, which was quite nice sort of background. But, you know, you take time to do all of that. And have you always coped with pressure well, because I&#8217;m guessing there&#8217;s a fair amount of pressure your life, yet you always have this fairly serene composure to you.</p>



<p>[00:27:46] I guess what a lot of people think is pressure doesn&#8217;t bother me very much, because you know, I feel like you should worry about the things you can change. So if you know, we got to note your biggest client is leaving you, they&#8217;ve already made up their mind. You can&#8217;t do anything. It&#8217;s like okay. Like learn from it, but don&#8217;t beat yourself up over it. Like suffer once. Like so often we suffer more, this is a quote, we suffer more in our heads than we do in reality, either for imagined things which is anxiety. Reliving the past, or just kind of beating ourselves up for something. And so it&#8217;s better to just recognize reality. Acknowledge it, learn from it, get as much information as possible, but then what&#8217;s next?</p>



<p>[00:28:27] Where it definitely hits me harder is when there&#8217;s something you can&#8217;t change, with a loved one, you know, like someone passing, getting sick, those things hit me really hard. That&#8217;s probably the place where, when that happens, I have to step away for a bit. Just kind of recharge or get in nature, hydrate, make sure I&#8217;m sleeping well. Those things are tough for, I think everyone, but the calmness that happens in normal, like code or business or whatever it is that normally would stress me out. Those are bigger.</p>



<p>[00:28:59] There&#8217;s this phrase, I&#8217;ve written it down here. Benevolent dictator for life. Benevolent is such a nice word. It&#8217;s great. Everybody loves benevolent. Dictator, maybe that&#8217;s a different thing.</p>



<p>[00:29:10] I feel like that branding&#8217;s a little less good recently.</p>



<p>[00:29:13] But, we all know what that means? Do you plan to be here in several years time? Would you love still to be at the helm of WordPress? Is this going to be the life for Matt Mullenweg for the foreseeable future?</p>



<p>[00:29:26] Yeah, three out of those four words are millions to. I hope to be of service to the WordPress community, benevolently. That&#8217;s always something I will do my best. I always say I&#8217;m human. I&#8217;m going to make mistakes. We&#8217;re going to mess up That&#8217;s the only thing I can a hundred percent promise. But we&#8217;ll try to learn from them.</p>



<p>[00:29:41] Try to course correct and be right more often than not. And then the, for life. Yeah, a hundred percent. Like it&#8217;s been 19 years. I think because WordPress changes so much, I&#8217;m never bored of it. You know, it&#8217;s like one of these things that you know when WordPress launched, javascript was called DHTML. It wasn&#8217;t really common. There was no iPhone. like that. Everything has changed so much and it still is. You know, it&#8217;s hard to imagine looking from 2003 to now, how much things have changed looking forward another 19 years to that would be 2041 or something. Like what will be enabled? And in technology, and don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve seen things like the open AI projects, like GPT3 or DALL-E, like utterly astounding,</p>



<p>[00:30:25] I find it a bit scary. Aspects of that worry me. The aspects I think that worry me are the loss of control and that, at some point we&#8217;re going to just be creating 10,000 word articles. So the bot creates the article, which is then read by the Google bot. The cyclical creation of things.</p>



<p>[00:30:44] And also the destabilization of the belief in what your eyes tell you. You know, you see a picture of some famous person allegedly doing something, which they never did, but somebody created it with a click of a button. Those pieces worry me. So you sound much more sanguine about it.</p>



<p>[00:30:59] I&#8217;m pretty excited. The text side is interesting, but I&#8217;m actually really excited by the image creation, not the deep fakes, but more like DALL-E, you can give a prompt. Like I want to see a spaceship cat eating ice cream, while riding a bike.</p>



<p>[00:31:17] That&#8217;s the one everybody&#8217;s going to say.</p>



<p>[00:31:18] And this image has never existed humanity. Yet you can speak your words and it will be created. And it will create like 15 of them. And some of them are weird, but some of them are incredible. And you can say, do it in the style of Salvador Dali, or do it like a Monet painting. Or do it like an illustration. Like that is unlocking that kind of co-creation of art, I find so compelling because that&#8217;s essentially, when technology creates things we can&#8217;t expect that hypercharged creativity.</p>



<p>[00:31:50] So even when you imagine, when we moved from drumming and using our voices instruments to having, the creation of the first instruments, whether they were stringed instruments, lutes, organs where the most sophisticated technology at a time. Today, the way we can use synthesizers and remix things and multiple tracks. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s certain points, and I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s examples of this creating bad art. You have to make a lot of terrible art to get to the good art.</p>



<p>[00:32:13] The boundary comes down, doesn&#8217;t it? You don&#8217;t need to have that dexterity with the pencil or the pen, the paint brush or whatever it is. You have to have the vocabulary to describe it.</p>



<p>[00:32:22] There&#8217;s an art to that too, like. I feel like there&#8217;s a skill to doing a good Google searches, like crafting the search term in a way that helps you find what you want. And we kind of co-learn with it. There&#8217;s a feedback loop. You put in a search, you don&#8217;t find what you want, and you start to tweak it and you learn.</p>



<p>[00:32:38] I think that the sort of generative art tools like a Dali are the same way. I think Mind Journey is another one. You can go through and feed in some texts and then see what happens. And then like keep going. I mean, how cool would that be. Actually for Tavern, I would love for you to see you all use it more, like, make some, more like Mine Journey or DALL-E type images?</p>



<p>[00:32:56] that then leads me to the question about AI creation of websites. So, do you want a future where you build the website with that kind of an interface? So I would like a website that&#8217;s to do with volcanoes and I would like a picture of a volcano at the top. No, not that one. Slightly more fiery. And can we have a button, but no, no red, not blue. Wider. Yeah, no stop there. So that kind of an interface. So we drop the mouse and we describe the website and move the components with our voice, or whatever we&#8217;re using, maybe we&#8217;re plugged point.</p>



<p>[00:33:28] And how powerful are blocks for that? Right, so we&#8217;re creating the sort of raw ingredients that could be used. I used to not believe this stuff would happen. But it&#8217;s gotten so great. If you&#8217;ve seen Codepilot, Codepilot on Github, or some of the stuff that GPT3 can do around like interface creation or even app creation. It&#8217;s fairly powerful.</p>



<p>[00:33:49] We&#8217;re going to have much better machine learning models around translation of languages. I think we&#8217;ll get to a point, you know, we&#8217;ve always joked, like will WordPress ever be written in something other than PHP? I think we&#8217;ll have translators over the next five to 10 years, that could take something as complex as a WordPress and translate the code to another language and it&#8217;ll work.</p>



<p>[00:34:08] Right, because essentially that&#8217;s, what&#8217;s happening. All these languages go to a bytecode or some sort of something much closer to the wire. So once a computer can truly deeply understand what&#8217;s happening in the code and find the equivalents in another language, right?</p>



<p>[00:34:22] You&#8217;re close to just thinking a website into creation at that point, aren&#8217;t you? The boundary is, can you imagine, and if you can imagine an elucidate it, then you&#8217;ve done it.</p>



<p>[00:34:32] And think how much creativity has been unlocked by things like Photoshop or Illustrator or the pen for the iPad anything. Like you put these things in front of a child, they just start producing.</p>



<p>[00:34:42] Oh, immediately. That&#8217;s interesting.</p>



<p>[00:34:44] And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s cool, right? And so it kind of comes back to what&#8217;s what&#8217;s the limits of human imagination and a little bit, our limits are what we&#8217;ve experienced so far. So there&#8217;s this idea of adjacent possibilities. That whatever&#8217;s going on in the world, people consume, and then that gives them the ideas for what&#8217;s next. But you need the previous stuff to exist first. Right? We build on the, we stand on the shoulders of giants and every generation that&#8217;s come before. And now with global communication, everything, a cycle of that feedback loop of new things happening and then spreading throughout the culture.</p>



<p>[00:35:19] I mean, used to take hundreds of years. There&#8217;s examples where they knew that scurvy was caused by lack of vitamin C like hundreds of years before it was kind of widely known knowledge. And. You know, they can sequence a novel coronavirus, create the vaccine, literally within like a day, the sequencing being available. What was it, a year and a half later? Like there&#8217;s a billion doses in people&#8217;s arms.</p>



<p>[00:35:45] The impediment was the testing, not the creation.</p>



<p>[00:35:47] Wow. Even making a billion of something in like a little over a year is kinda wild as well. So that is, think of it both a faster kind of clock speed for the evolution of culture and thought and knowledge that&#8217;s enabled, and also hopefully faster antibodies, both literal and societal to things that can cause harm.</p>



<p>[00:36:11] You know, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a stretch to think of misinformation, disinformation, you know, sort of the information wars that are happening right now, both hot and cold throughout, um, authoritarian and more democratic regimes as a type of pathogen. Almost like a novel mean virus or idea virus, which right now we&#8217;re not very strong against, but we&#8217;re starting to develop the antibodies too, including things like detecting bots and coordinated inauthentic behavior.</p>



<p>[00:36:37] That right now I think is causing a lot of problems throughout society. but we&#8217;ll get better at figuring that out.</p>



<p>[00:36:44] It&#8217;s fascinating because I think technology can take you in one of two directions, you know, the, the apocalyptic version and then the sort of, desirable, let&#8217;s say that. And it feels to me that you are ,firmly on the desirable side. You&#8217;ve got a very positive approach that the technology in the future doesn&#8217;t worry you.</p>



<p>[00:37:03] It&#8217;s not that it doesn&#8217;t worry me. It&#8217;s just I&#8217;m a builder. So I need to choose that I&#8217;m going to work on.</p>



<p>[00:37:07] Yeah, sadly, my</p>



<p>[00:37:08] work on the things that things better.</p>



<p>[00:37:10] My vocabulary left me at that point.</p>



<p>[00:37:12] Techno optimist, maybe. Yes. Like, uh, I would say that I tend towards optimism and the thing that gives me that optimism is often deeply engaging with a criticism of it.</p>



<p>[00:37:23] So I want to really strongly understand, be able to make the argument for why all the things I just talked about are going to destroy society. But then once you understand that, how can we build it or how can we do it in a way that&#8217;s going to be more positive. And also how can we check our assumptions? Like if we look back, to what we thought was going to ruin society before, did it?</p>



<p>[00:37:43] It&#8217;s funny, there&#8217;s a, gosh, I forget the name of the account, but it just pulls up old criticisms of the technology. And there was one that showed a subway, and everyone&#8217;s, um, reading a newspaper? They&#8217;re like, oh, what&#8217;s happened to society, people used to talk on the subway, they used to engage with each other. Now just the heads are all buried.</p>



<p>[00:38:00] Of course Gutenberg, you know, the original, uh, needs to read it&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s dangerous.</p>



<p>[00:38:08] And it turns out that it was dangerous, like wow. Protestant, like, how much change that kicked off, but it was really about knowledge is power. It was about the distribution of a more wider distribution of knowledge and opportunity. And that shook up society. But you know what? I needed to be shooken up.</p>



<p>[00:38:25] It&#8217;s the message. Maybe this is the perfect point to end?</p>



<p>[00:38:27] That&#8217;s what WordPress shakes up, you know? So we take things that, by the way, equivalent to what WordPress does for free, 10 years ago, you&#8217;d pay like millions of dollars a site core or Magento or something like that to do it, which now like you can download WooCommerce and it does everything that did and way more.</p>



<p>[00:38:45] So we&#8217;re kind of taking, I sometimes make the analogy that we have a promethean task, climb mountain, take the fire from the gods and then bring it to the people. As we do that, sometimes it generates a lot of blow back. You know, if you recall a really big criticism of Gutenberg early on was that it was going to destroy agencies and web builders.</p>



<p>[00:39:05] People would just be able to build their sites themselves. They would lose all their business, everything like that. As you walk around WordCamp ask anyone who&#8217;s building websites, like, do you have more business or less business? How&#8217;s it going? I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s some exceptions, but by and large, the businesses are larger than ever.</p>



<p>[00:39:19] They&#8217;re growing faster. Site builders doing fine, the themes that are like, you know, there&#8217;s going to be some changes, right? Some of us might be making horse buggies, and those might not be as in demand in the future, but you can also like shift and it&#8217;s kind of cool. I have people tell me that they&#8217;re way more profitable now because they can build things in Gutenberg that they used to have to code custom. So even though they could code a custom, they can just click some buttons and build a site and be done so they can now do more of them. How cool is that?</p>



<p>[00:39:45] So the change definitely disrupts things. It can definitely be sometimes rocky, but ultimately, if you embrace the change and you sort of work from your principles and your morals to be on the right side of history, it can be incredibly empowering. Matt Mullenweg, thank you for talking to me today. Thank you. Thanks for coming.</p>
</div>";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, 15 Jun 2022 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:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"Do The Woo Community: devlife_snippet: From Sprints to Managed WooCommerce";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=71725";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:56:"https://dothewoo.io/from-sprints-to-managed-woocommerce/";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:398:"<p>A sprint is a nice change of pace when you start a WooCommerce web agency but not always recommended. Here's why.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/from-sprints-to-managed-woocommerce/">devlife_snippet: From Sprints to Managed WooCommerce</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, 15 Jun 2022 11:43:45 +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:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 33: Some Important Questions from WCEU";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://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=13005";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:81:"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/06/episode-33-some-important-questions-from-wceu/";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:12737:"<p>In the thirty-third episode of the WordPress Briefing, hear Josepha Haden Chomphosy recap important questions from WordCamp Europe, and a selection of Contributor Day interviews. </p>



<p><em><strong>Have a question you&#8217;d like answered? You can submit them to <a href="mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em><br /></p>



<h2 id="credits">Credits</h2>



<ul><li>Editor: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a></li><li>Logo: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/beafialho/">Beatriz Fialho</a></li><li>Production: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/santanainniss/">Santana Inniss</a></li><li>Production Assistance: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/priethor/">Héctor Prieto</a></li><li>Special Guests: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/">Milana Cap</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/daugis/">Daugirdas Jankus</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj/">Jonathan Desrosiers</a></li><li>Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</li></ul>



<h2>References</h2>



<ul><li><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier">L&#8217;esprit de l&#8217;escalier</a></em></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/20/core-editor-improvement-creating-containing-containers/">Flexbox Layout Blocks</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/03/10/recap-of-training-team-meetings-march-8-and-10-2022/">Translating Content on Learn WordPress</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/workshops/workshop-subtitles-and-transcripts/translating-subtitles/">Translating Subtitles</a></li><li><a href="https://josepha.blog/2020/01/15/fostering-collaboration-across-cultures/">Collaboration Across Cultures</a> (Blog)</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MzJCT2BVV0">Collaboration Across Cultures</a> (YouTube Video)</li><li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-organisers/">WordCamp Europe Athens: Call for Organizers</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602705456480260">6.1 Release Planning Twitter Thread</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/">6.1 Release Planning Roadmap Post</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/">Make WordPress Meetings Calendar</a></li></ul>



<h2>Transcript</h2>



<span id="more-13005"></span>



<p>[<strong>Daugirdas Jankus </strong>00:00:04]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Honestly, it&#8217;s not a secret. It&#8217;s a big part of our business. And I think it&#8217;s like WordPress is a big part of all the hosting company, company’s, businesses, you know? So for us, it is like, we want to make it better. We want to give back. We want to understand, you know, where we can contribute the most. And we see it as a, you know, win, win, win situation for everyone, for clients, for the whole ecosystem.</p>



<p>And for us as a business, of course!</p>



<p>[<strong>Milana Cap </strong>00:00:32]&nbsp;</p>



<p>My favorite WordPress component is WP CLI. That&#8217;s my crush, haha, because I love terminal. I love doing it. I&#8217;m not a really UI type of person, I get lost in UI. But in terminal, you just type command and it does what you want. And a WP CLI is much more powerful than WordPress dashboard. You can do so many things there and you can have fun.</p>



<p>Uh, so that&#8217;s my go-to tool!</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:01:10]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing– the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy.</p>



<p>Here we go!</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:01:36]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Many, many people were at WordCamp Europe a couple of weeks ago. And at the end, Matt and I closed out the event sessions with a little question and answer time from the community. I was excited to see everyone and excited to answer their questions. But as with all spur of the moment answers, I experienced this <em>l&#8217;esprit de l&#8217;escalier </em>and I found that there were a few things that I would have answered a little more completely if I had taken more than two seconds to think about them.</p>



<p>So today I&#8217;m going to augment some of the answers from that session with a little more context and clarity. There was a question from Laura Byrne about favorite blocks in recent WordPress releases. And given that I was exclusively holding WordCamp Europe information in my brain at the time, I couldn&#8217;t think of which block was my favorite. While I was sitting there on that stage,</p>



<p>I realized that one of my favorite things about WordPress’s 6.0 release, like Matt, wasn&#8217;t really a block, but it was a functional workflow sort of thing. So my favorite thing was the ability to lock blocks, but I mean, the question was about favorite blocks. And so I do know that some of the most anticipated blocks are the Flexbox layout blocks. Whew. What a sentence!</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:02:46]</p>



<p>Try to say that three times fast! Those blocks are the Flexbox layout blocks, they are sort of shortcuts that show up when you&#8217;re selecting multiple blocks and allow for easy side-by-side layouts. I&#8217;m not explaining it in a way that does it much justice, but I will share a link in the show notes that has more information and you can kind of see how empowering that particular block is in the block editor.</p>



<p>The next question I wanted to give a little more context to came from Courtney Robertson. She asked about how to make translated content more readily available on learn.wordpress.org. My answer was pretty far ranging and talked about why it&#8217;s harder to commit to prioritizing that over, for my example, translating WordPress core.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But I also understand that there are people who want to help and just need someone to point them in the right direction. And so I want to be clear that it is possible to have workshops in any language on learn.wordpress.org right now. We just don&#8217;t have a lot of people contributing those translations.</p>



<p>So there are conversations going on right now in the training team about using Glotpress on learn.wordpress.org, and also how to translate subtitles. So, if you are looking for ways to give back through translation and training is an important kind of area of your focus. I will have links to both of those things in the show notes as well.</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:04:11]</p>



<p>I also gave a quick answer, uh, after this question about how hard it is to recognize contributions that are separate from a major event or major release. In this case, when I say recognize, that&#8217;s recognized as in thank, not recognize as in, know it exists. In case it&#8217;s not clear why that was connected, why that answer was connected to the question, training materials are self-serve and not always specific to individual releases of WordPress.</p>



<p>So that means the maintenance of any content around training happens routinely over the course of time, rather than because of a specific release or a WordCamp. What sometimes can make it a little harder to entice people to join us in that work.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And now the third question I&#8217;d like to tackle is the one that came from Megan Rose. She asked how we can encourage better diversity as we go back to in-person events. My answer was more about the big picture, program-wide work that has been done and specific awarenesses that I, as a leader, have been keeping top of mind. That answer is still true and is still important, but again, it doesn&#8217;t really help anyone who&#8217;s wondering how they can show up today in their own communities, and do the hard work of fostering an inclusive space there so that we can confidently welcome more diverse voices together.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:05:27]</p>



<p>A great place to start is to have conversations with people who aren&#8217;t like you and really listen. Also recognizing that we all come from different backgrounds that give us more or less opportunity and always be asking yourself, who is missing from this conversation and why, how can I find them and invite them into our own WordPress spaces?</p>



<p>If that all kind of feels right up your alley, I would check out the show notes. I&#8217;ll have some links in there to the community team’s site, as well as a few posts that will help you to explore that a bit further as well.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There were also a couple of questions about market share slash usage of WordPress, and Five for the Future that I really do want to answer, but as I was writing up the context and just kind of exploring the questions that people were raising, it turned out to really be quite a big set of answers.</p>



<p>So I will do those in either two separate episodes of their own or one surprisingly long, for me, episode. And so there you have it, a lightning round, deep dive on a few questions from WordCamp Europe.</p>



<p>[<strong>Jonathan Desrosiers </strong>00:06:41]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Yeah, it&#8217;s definitely great to be back in person. Um, it&#8217;s been a long two years, two or three years for a lot of people and it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s great that we&#8217;re such an asynchronous community and we can all stay connected online through Slack and different means. Um, but there are some things that you can&#8217;t replace, like making friends with people and learning people&#8217;s demeanors and having some discussions in person that you can&#8217;t replace.</p>



<p>And so, uh, I&#8217;m really excited to see people I haven&#8217;t seen in a long time. Meet new people and, um, you know, have some of those discussions here today in Portugal.</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:07:21]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Which then brings us to our small list of big things.&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you missed the announcement, WordCamp Europe will be in Athens next year. And the call for organizers is open already. It&#8217;s an experience that is absolutely irreplaceable. So I&#8217;ll link to that in the show notes, in case you&#8217;ve always wanted to give back to WordPress that way.</p>



<p>The second thing on my list is that work on the next major release of WordPress is already underway. There is a post with roadmap info that was published recently, as well as a slightly more casual thread on Twitter. I&#8217;ve linked both of those in the show notes, so that you have some concept of what it is that we are aiming for in 6.1, and also a concept of where to go to get started working on it if that&#8217;s what you feel like doing, uh, for the next three to four months– 120 days, roughly.</p>



<p>Uh, and finally. This is less of like a thing to be aware of in the next two weeks and kind of a little WordPress project tool tip. Did you know that we have a calendar that shows all meetings for all teams all week long? It will make you feel tired by the amount of work that gets done in the WordPress project every week, but it&#8217;s right there on make.wordpress.org/meetings.</p>



<p>So you never have to wonder where folks are meeting to talk about things ever again. And that my friends is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.</p>



<p>[<strong>Santana Inniss &amp; Héctor Prieto </strong>00:09:11]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Hello! Mic test. One, two, one, two.&nbsp;</p>



<p>We are testing the USB microphone. Let&#8217;s hope we&#8217;re using it actually.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I think so. I think so.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Yes. Because now I am far, and now I am much closer to the microphone. Yes.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And I am sitting in the same spot.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Good. Hello?&nbsp;</p>



<p>Hello!&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mic test one, two.</p>



<p>Mic test one, two.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[record scratching sound effect]</p>



<p>[laughter]</p>



<p>And, close.</p>



<p>Mic check.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mic check.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[record scratching sound effect]</p>



<p>I&#8217;m close to the mic. I&#8217;m far from the mic.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I&#8217;m far from the mic. Wow.</p>



<p>Not so far.</p>



<p>[laughter]</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, 13 Jun 2022 11:01:44 +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:14:"Santana Inniss";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:95:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #68 –  WordCamp Europe, Gutenberg 13.4 and WordPress 6.1";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=21307";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:107:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-68-wordcamp-europe-gutenberg-13-4-and-wordpress-6-1/";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:66424:"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack, and Mary Job talk with this week&#8217;s special guest Dave Smith about WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.1 and Gutenberg 13.4. You also learn what in the works via the GitHub repo. </p>



<ul><li>Music:&nbsp;<a href="https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox">Homer Gaines</a></li><li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li><li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li><li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li></ul>



<span id="more-21307"></span>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-67-wordpress-6-0#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-67-wordpress-6-0/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<p class="has-large-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>



<p>Special Guest: <strong>Dave Smith</strong>, JavaScript Engineer and full-time Core Contributor on the Gutenberg project, sponsored by Automattic as part of the Five for the Future program.</p>



<ul><li><a href="http://youtube.com/daveonwp">Dave on WP</a> YouTube Channel </li><li>WP Profile: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/get_dave/">get_dave</a></li></ul>



<h2>WordCamp Europe</h2>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-0-wordcamp-europe-and-roadmap-for-6-1-weekend-edition-217/">WordPress 6.0, WordCamp Europe and Roadmap for 6.1 –Weekend Edition 217</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/blockmeister/">BlockMeister – Block Pattern Builder</a></p>



<h2>WordPress 6.1</h2>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/">Roadmap to 6.1</a> for Gutenberg Phase 2</p>



<p>Video by Dave Smith: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vj_Oh6jMHw">Gutenberg Roadmap for WordPress 6.1 &#8211; amazing new features planned!</a></p>



<p>Matias Ventura: <a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602705456480260">Twitter Thread on WCEU and  WordPress 6.1</a> </p>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-1-to-focus-on-refining-full-site-editing-next-phase-collaboration-and-multilingual-features-anticipated-in-2023-2025">WordPress 6.1 to Focus On Refining Full-Site Editing, Next Phase Collaboration and Multilingual Features Anticipated in 2023-2025</a> (WPTavern)</p>



<h2>Community Contributions</h2>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/lottiefiles-releases-official-wordpress-plugin">LottieFiles Releases Official WordPress Plugin</a></p>



<p><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7616548519194/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">Gutenberg Times Live Q &amp; A: <strong>Block First Approach at the Pew Research Center</strong> </a>&#8211; Using a mixture of Core and Custom Blocks for a streamlined publishing process, and to create powerful charts and quizzes with Seth Rubinstein, lead developer and Michael Piccorossi, Director of Digital Strategy. (<a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7616548519194/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">Register now</a>)</p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SethRubenstein/status/1529294274751348736">Twitter Thread by Seth Rubinstein</a> that inspired the Live Q &amp; A </p>



<h2>Gutenberg 13.4 </h2>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v13.4.0">Gutenberg 13.4 </a>(Changelog on GitHub)</p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/">What’s new in Gutenberg 13.4? (8 June)</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/03/23/migrating-wordpress-e2e-tests-to-playwright/">Migrating</a><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/?p=94139">&nbsp;WordPress E2E tests to Playwright</a></p>



<h2>What&#8217;s discussed or in the works</h2>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38277">Nav block: Add design controls for interactive states (:hover, :focus .etc)</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/create-block-theme">Create a Block Theme</a> plugin</p>



<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>



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<p class="has-large-font-size" id="transcript"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello, and welcome to our 68th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about WordCamp Europe. Gutenberg 13.4 and WordPress 6.1, and a lot of other things. I&#8217;m Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and WordPress developer advocate. And I&#8217;m here with my co-host, Mary Job, WordPress advocate, support engineer at Paid Memberships Pro, and community organizer at wpafrica.org.</p>



<p>Good evening, Mary. How are you today?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, I&#8217;m doing absolutely great, Birgit. Thank you for that. Yeah, I&#8217;m doing wonderful. I just recovered from malaria, but I&#8217;m doing great.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, wow. Yeah, glad you recovered. Yes.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Hi, everyone. I&#8217;m Mary and today I have the honor to present also our special guest tonight. Welcome to Dave Smith, JavaScript engineer, and full-time co contributor on the Gutenberg Project, sponsored by Automattic as part of the Five for the Future program. Thank you so much for joining us tonight, Dave. We&#8217;re happy to have you here, and I&#8217;m sure our listeners are looking forward to listening to you on this episode.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Well, thank you. And hello Mary and hello Birgit. It&#8217;s a real pleasure to join you here today. I&#8217;m actually a long-time fan of the show. I had a look back at my podcast episodes and I think I&#8217;ve been listening since some of the very earliest, I think. So yeah, it&#8217;s a fantastic resource. In all the time I&#8217;ve been listening, it&#8217;s really helped me keep up-to-date with the latest happenings with the block editor and with WordPress beyond. So yeah, thank you from me for such a great resource, and it&#8217;s a pleasure to be here.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, thank you for these kind words. And I told him to say that. You listeners, you know me.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Not at all. Not at all.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: No, glad to have you, and it&#8217;s going to be a great show with you here.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yes, it is.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: I can already feel it&#8217;s going to be a great show. So before we add into the changelog and the rest of the show, Dave, would you briefly tell us what your WordPress origin story is and what your focus is on the Gutenberg project?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I&#8217;ve been working on the web since I think about 2013, although I&#8217;ve started to lose count now. And back in those days, the company I worked for had a proprietary PHP based CMS system, but the thing is, I kept getting asked to do freelance work on the side and I didn&#8217;t have a way to provide my clients with a ability to administer their own sites. And so I found WordPress and that was it, I never looked back.</p>



<p>And so prior to joining Automattic, I was a technical lead at an agency that was based in Bristol, which is here in the south of the UK, where I live. And we use WordPress on everything, from small business websites to very large enterprise builds as well. In fact, at one point I think myself and a colleague, we even developed a sort of pseudo pattern system using advanced custom fields to allow our clients to sort of make their own pages. So we&#8217;ve really done everything, and it&#8217;s quite cool now to see some of this technology being available natively within the editor.</p>



<p>But I joined Automattic four years ago, and during that time I&#8217;ve been consistently involved in the Gutenberg Project. I&#8217;ve contributed to various features, probably the most well known would be the Navigation Block and the link creation user interface. So right now I&#8217;m part of a team that&#8217;s focused on improving the theme authoring and development experience. And as part of that, most recently I&#8217;ve started my own YouTube channel where I&#8217;m posting my firsthand insights into what&#8217;s coming next in the WordPress block editor project.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s awesome. It&#8217;s interesting that you also tried to build your own, to work on a CMS and that&#8217;s a proprietary, and I think that&#8217;s what a lot of developers did before they joined WordPress. Interesting. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: It did work out well, that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: I think it was definitely a good move moving to WordPress.</p>



<h3><strong>Announcements</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you for being here, and that&#8217;s great. So the first part of the announcement was WordCamp Europe, it was absolutely the best. It has been three years, and I was meeting so many friends and made new ones, it&#8217;s a wonderful thing. And I&#8217;m so glad that I actually met you Dave in person for the first time. Did you get home all right? And I know it was your first WordCamp, so what are your takeaways?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. It was a real pleasure to meet you finally, Birgit, after so long that we&#8217;ve been unable to do that. But yeah, I had a fantastic time. It was, as you said, my first WordCamp of any kind actually, not just WordCamp Europe.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Cool.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. So for me, it was just really good to see the community in person, in evidence of what amazing community we have, and it was just fantastic to sort of meet all these people for the first time. Yes, I did have some travel disruption from the UK, there was a lot of problems in the UK with getting to Europe at this time. So I did, in fact, miss the contributor day, which I was hoping to go to, which was a shame. But on the other side, I did get there for the main conference and I saw lots of talks and I got to meet lots of contributors. So it was a really, really good experience. And how about you both? I mean, I&#8217;m guessing this wasn&#8217;t the first WordCamp for either of you, right?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, for me, I wasn&#8217;t at this year&#8217;s WordCamp Europe. I&#8217;ve been trying to get to WordCamp here probably for how long now, but I wasn&#8217;t able to get to it, but definitely not my first WordCamp.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So you must have felt quite some FOMO fear of missing out when you saw all the tweets coming through and all the pictures.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: No, I intentionally didn&#8217;t follow the news because I didn&#8217;t want to cry this time.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah and I would&#8217;ve loved to meet you.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Another time.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. We need to work on the WordCamp Africa there, definitely.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, yes.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yes. I&#8217;ve been getting a lot of people asking about it, but we&#8217;re still working on it. We need to get to know each other in the community for us, that&#8217;s what I always say, and then we can have a WordCamp.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, because you can&#8217;t do it alone. When I looked at the last pictures that I took for WordCamp Europe, there were about 200 organizers and volunteers, or 250, to make it all happen. And it&#8217;s a huge effort and they planned it all for a year almost. Yeah, Dave, you were right, I haven&#8217;t counted yet, but it was probably my 20th WordCamp also.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Right.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Or close to it. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, wow. I want to be like you.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, no, you don&#8217;t want to be like me. It&#8217;s hard being me. Yeah, and I was blown away by the community&#8217;s ability to show up. So at contributor today it was the biggest contributor day ever in the history of WordCamps, with over 800 people. And normally they&#8217;re between 200 and 400, but 800 people were really great.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Wow.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And that was the first part, and the other part was that, it was a real hug fest with meeting all the friends we haven&#8217;t seen for three years. It was such a great atmosphere, there was a great energy, everybody was nice and excited. There were also quite a few block editor-related talks and dear listeners you will find links to the times spans of the livestream recording in our weekend edition, number 217.</p>



<p>And of course we link it in the show notes, but there were a great mix between code examples, high-level strategy and future exploration. And then the workshops were recorded, but not live streamed, so we don&#8217;t have links yet, but they will be uploaded soon to WordPress TV, and we&#8217;ll let you know in a future episode. So Dave, did you get to see any talks at the WordCamp Europe?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, I certainly did. Yeah, I agree with you, there was a really good mix of talks and I thought that was great to see because there was probably something in there for everyone. And I enjoyed listening to a number of them, including one by someone you might know, your excellent ex co-host, Grezgorz, who&#8217;s obviously a colleague of mine at Automattic, but I really enjoyed his talk. But as someone who&#8217;s a full-time contributor to the project, for me, I was just mainly curious to see the sort of topics that folks were interested in having presentations about, and also to sort of listening to the Q&amp;A, because that can often be very revealing as I&#8217;m sure you know.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: But of all the talks that I saw, I think the one that really stood out to me was the block pattern revolution, which was by Sean Blakely, I think was his name. And in this talk, he covered how his, he works for a very large agency, and in the talk he sort of was just describing how the agency&#8217;s actually using Gutenberg patterns to improve the website creation process as a whole. So it just really resonated with me, because I don&#8217;t know if I said, but worked in agencies for about 10 years prior to joining Automattic, so it&#8217;s a really tough environment to create something, and as you would know, Birgit, of course.</p>



<p>And I was just really fascinated to learn how they were using the editor itself as a designer developer collaboration tool. And that was just fascinating to me, that actually using WordPress that as part of the design experience and before that. And one of the tools they did a shout out for was something called the BlockMeister plugin. And what it does is, it gives you a custom post type for patterns, or at least that&#8217;s what I understand. So you can sort of build the patterns themselves within the editor, and they do that sort of collaboratively, not only with the designers and the developers, but also with the client.</p>



<p>So the client&#8217;s kind of kept in the loop and they see the design evolving in the browser via WordPress, via patterns. And all of this work helps avoid, what we call in the industry, the big reveal, where the big reveal was always where someone went away and Photoshopped, designed the site and went, &#8220;Ta-da,&#8221; and the client said, &#8220;I hate it, I want the logo bigger,&#8221; that kind of thing. And by doing it in WordPress like that, they avoid that, and I just thought that was fascinating.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And doing it in WordPress also adds another layer of experience to it, because it&#8217;s clickable.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Kind of people, the client can see what happens when I click on it, and all that. So they also start thinking about that quite a bit.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. And it&#8217;s super easy to prototype, change those layouts and change things around. So yeah, definitely.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. It was a kind of a complimentary talk to Tammie Lister&#8217;s lightning talk. No, it wasn&#8217;t a lightning talk, it was a full talk on design systems in future WordPress and how to kind of use all the tools, all the units of the block editor to build a design system that can be reused. And I think that was a great example of that, what Sean lately showed.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. And these are topics that have been going around in the web community for a long time, but it&#8217;s just really good that we&#8217;re now seeing the editor as a way to deliver some of these things that have been talked about for so long.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: So yeah, and I think it was really inspiring.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Excellent. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: But I didn&#8217;t get to make it to any of the workshops, I&#8217;m afraid though. I heard there was a lot of good things about a number of them, but there was one about the block themes by Daisy Olsen, did either of you, well, of course, Birgit, you were there. So did you manage to attend that one?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: No. It was fully booked fast, early in the morning.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I&#8217;m not an early riser, so I didn&#8217;t get in. But I heard great comments about it and it was recorded, and it will be published on the WordPress TV. And there was a lot of people there, I think it was full by 100 people also, it was a really great interest on block themes. And I had some conversations with people about propagating updates of block patterns, and that was kind of an interesting, near the reveal, but that&#8217;s a new word that I learned from you.</p>



<p>It was an interesting aspect of it, that there are quite a few entities like the block patterns, the theme when it was used, when it already was edited by a user and the blocks that are not dynamic blocks, when you change them, you only change them for a new, but never go back to propagate those changes to the former instances of patterns or blocks or even a theme. Because if a user touched it, the new design on the template part or template will not come into that install when you update the theme.</p>



<p>So for that part, I know you could always do an additional block part, a block pattern and make that an upgrade. But it&#8217;s interesting that some of the mechanisms that worked before are hard to come by now. So I&#8217;m sure that we will kind of see some updates there and discussions in the community even more, but that was kind of what came out there.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: I definitely hear the conversation around block patterns, particularly, and there&#8217;s a desire somewhere there, I think to be able to have a central source of truth for block patterns, and be able to put them into lots of different posts, but then come back and be able to say, &#8220;Oh, I want to change the border color and add this block,&#8221; and have that propagate to all the previous instances of patterns.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: But of course, as you know, patterns are supposed to be a one-time thing. Once they&#8217;re in the editor, that&#8217;s it, they&#8217;re not tied back to anything, they&#8217;re just blocks again. So it&#8217;s not something we can do now, but it seems to be something that people want. So whether this is a workflow thing that we just need to do better at describing to people how the different options they got, or whether this is a new sort of, a new desire for a whole new paradigm of something that&#8217;s sort of halfway between a reusable block and a pattern and a template part. It&#8217;s all a bit muddy at the moment.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And the reusable block actually does that. So if you change a reusable block, it propagates the other instances. So I think that, I don&#8217;t know if that can be duplicated or maybe the transformation API can help with that, but these are all conversations for GitHub. And later on, speaking of what&#8217;s next for WordPress Gutenberg Phase 2.</p>



<p>So for the keynote, there was the AMA town old style, interact with Matt Mullenweg at the end of WordCamp Europe. Matias Ventura was supposed to be on stage, he couldn&#8217;t make it, but he had prepared a few things. But what also happened was that day, he also published the roadmap for 6.1 for the Gutenberg Phase 2, which is the customization part.</p>



<p>And Ventura, he wrote the tune of the release will be to refine the experiences introduced, 5.9 and 6.0, weave the various flows into more coherent and fulfilling experiences for users, maintainers and extenders and close some gaps in functionality.</p>



<p>As we start to look towards Phase 3 of the Gutenberg roadmap, Phase 3, just as a note, that was the end of the quote. But Phase 3 for Gutenberg is collaborative editing, like Google style collaborative editing. So Dave, you created a short video introducing your top five features, you are excited about coming to WordPress 6.1, what were they?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, I did. And it&#8217;s on my channel, which will be in the show notes. But I based my video largely around the GitHub tracking issue that Matias has been updating after WordPress 6.0 was launched. And obviously now he&#8217;s come out and subsequently posted the high-level overview on make blog. But the video just aims to be a really quick and easily digestible overview of everything that&#8217;s sort of planned for 6.1, for anyone who wants to get up to speed quickly and what&#8217;s coming next.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s not really canonical, I think Matias has posted it as the place you want to look, that said, I mean, my video does seem to sync with what Matias said quite well, which is mainly there&#8217;s site editing and template changes. There&#8217;s going to be a lot of focus on patterns. There&#8217;s going to be upgrades to the whole styling, the way we deal with styling and editor, and then obviously upgrades to key blocks like nav block and comments block. And then we&#8217;ve also got theming improvements coming. And we can talk about those in a little bit more detail if you&#8217;d like.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well, talking about the template editor, there are a few more additional stages there, like a browse stage or a view of that is to come. And then the unifying kind of, like you can zoom out of a template and see the full page, and then you can zoom in again to make those changes. And one goal is also to provide more clarity. And that&#8217;s definitely good news for the community and the theme developers, more clarity between the global elements like templates, template parts and styles.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And then the improvement of navigation block that had a few iterations and could do some more.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, the navigation block is a really tough one, and that&#8217;s definitely due some work in this release. I mean, some of the key things for me having worked on it is the ability to carry menus when you&#8217;re switching themes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p>Dave Smith: And also, there needs to be an improved integration with global styles. And then a lot of people have been asking for things like, &#8220;Can we use different menus on different screen sizes?&#8221; We may be able to look into that. But one of the interesting things that Matias highlighted in his post was the effort that&#8217;s currently actually underway. And we have a prototype already in the plugin, which you may have come across, but to have a way to show the navigation structure outside of the navigation block.</p>



<p>So at the moment in the Gutenberg editor, there&#8217;s a prototype of a sidebar that will come in and you can manage the structure, the data of your navigation, and that&#8217;s kind of separate from the block, which if you think about the block, it also ties together visual aspects as well, so that&#8217;s something that I&#8217;m definitely going to be focused on as part of my work.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: And in terms of patterns, we&#8217;ve got the aerial view, which is, I don&#8217;t know if anyone&#8217;s seen this yet, but it&#8217;s like a zoomed out view of the editor canvas, and that&#8217;s going to be really exciting because it means we&#8217;ll be able to think about patterns more as sections of a website. And instead of having to deal with all the sort of low level, fine grain blocks and it can get a bit confusing and too many options, we might be able to give our clients a, &#8220;Go into this section editor view, and you&#8217;ll be able to just pick the block patterns and quickly build out a site.&#8221; And it sort of resonates quite well again with what we are discussing from the talk by Sean earlier, then you can imagine how those two things would play together very, very nicely.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I see that Matias Ventura also mentioned that managing safe patterns would also be part of the roadmap or at least the goal is on it. So that kind of probably comes back to the discussion about safe patterns and kind of get back to it when you transform it and also kind of maybe even propagated through the updates through that. Mary, do you see anything in there that excites you for 6.1 that you want to talk about?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, for me, I think it&#8217;ll be the patterns. I&#8217;m liking the fact that people can actually contribute patterns. Like you literally have, you don&#8217;t need to be a programmer to contribute to that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s really, really important.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Pen and directory. Yeah, it&#8217;s open for submissions. Yes. Yeah, it&#8217;s awesome. And there are probably, I saw a number, like 10,000 patterns that are in the directory, but they are also translated in multiple languages. So it could be a thousand translated into 10 languages, so that made quite a few.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: So-</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So&#8230; Yeah, go ahead.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: No, I was going to say, it might seem like a small feature, but I think it&#8217;s going to make WordPress more accessible.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: For sure. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: More accessible to more people in far corners of the globe, because then literally it means that you don&#8217;t have to be actively into the ecosystem for you to be able to use WordPress.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: For sure. Yeah. Good point. So what else is in the 6.1? Yeah, we have this great discussion about responsive and intrinsic design, where I see some people in the community kind of missing the view points, kind of the break points for the tablet, mobile and desktop view. And I think there are some philosophy, or there&#8217;s the more modern way to do it is with intrinsic design, because all the break points are pretty arbitrary and you have different sizes even beyond those.</p>



<p>And it also has to do with the components because you can use a column or a cover block over the full website or width of the website, or you can put it into a column, in a two-column website, and it still needs to behave and be adapted to it. So I think the same with the fluid typography system and managing web fonts that is in the works. And so we&#8217;ll see quite a few things changing here.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Definitely. I think we&#8217;ve seen with the way CSS works and it&#8217;s evolved towards things like using CSS grid for layout. I mean, that&#8217;s intrinsic by nature, we don&#8217;t have to give all the individual break points and say, &#8220;At this size, you should do this, at this size you should do that,&#8221; you just tell the algorithm how you want it to behave, and it just does the layout for you.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: And I think it&#8217;s been something that, as you say, people have been asking for media queries in Gutenberg for some time, but if we can avoid having to do that, for the majority of users it&#8217;s going to provide a much better experience, because whilst we are all intimately familiar with media queries and having to change break points, the majority of our users are not going to be, and nor would they want to be.</p>



<p>So we want it to be so it just works, I&#8217;ll be interested to see how far we can take that, I mean, whether at some point we&#8217;ll end up having a medic, a break point interface in Gutenberg is a bigger question that I&#8217;m not qualified to answer, but it certainly will be interesting. But you mentioned fluid typography, I mean, we&#8217;ve already got, I&#8217;ve seen a PR for that very recently, and so that is on the way, I mean, we&#8217;re going to have this system where the font size will adapt appropriately based on the size of your view port, and it&#8217;s a hot topic the in CSS world right now, and bringing it already into the editors is a big win.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think the page fillers that have been in business for five to seven years, there wasn&#8217;t anything about intrinsic design available, it was just the way to adapt to different screen sizes was through media queries. I think Jen Simmons, who kind of coined the word, intrinsic design, only talked about it since 2019 or something like that, or &#8217;18, but it&#8217;s already four years old. I always think that the two years of COVID, it&#8217;s kind of half a year, but it has been two years. I&#8217;m kind of getting my history a little bit bogged down. Yeah. A sense of time is skewed.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: It feels like it was for four years or five.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. At one point it&#8217;s just yesterday and then one point it&#8217;s five years. Yeah. Yeah, and the last part or sections that Matias Ventura mentioned was the theming improvements with a theme building plugin that&#8217;s in the works and will come to the repo pretty soon, to the WordPress plugins repo. So you could export it or you can create a new block theme, or you can have all the user settings that you put into the theme exported to have it in the theme. So it sounds like a really good plugin to come and then also have templates and parts put between themes. Yeah, that&#8217;s another paradigm shift a little bit, it kind of makes it interesting. Yeah, it&#8217;s not only the template parts of&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. Well, if you&#8217;re working on a template or a part, you&#8217;ve crafted that in one theme and there&#8217;s no reason why you wouldn&#8217;t expect that to be taken over to a new theme if you switch. And I think that&#8217;s really the goal is to make the content, not so tightly coupled to your theme, and we&#8217;ve already sort of broken the design away from the theme to some extent, and it&#8217;s just that doing the same with the content and templates and parts is definitely a goal that we should be looking to achieve.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And that&#8217;s where also it comes in, that blocks are separate from the theme. Yeah, because if you have a site title tag, it doesn&#8217;t matter what the header is, if the site title block is in it, it will show up right, and that&#8217;s really great. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. I&#8217;m also looking forward to the comments form block coming, maybe in 6.1, because we&#8217;ve had the comments query loop land in 6.0. But I think the form is still using a Pitch P server side rendering, there&#8217;s like a legacy form of the block, an initial form of it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: But to have a fully block based comments form block is going to be quite something, I think. It&#8217;s my understanding of it, I&#8217;ve been speaking to some of the people working on it, is that it&#8217;s pretty complex to realize, but if we do realize it&#8217;s going to be a bit like the navigation block in that it will provide a lot of knock-on benefits to the wider block ecosystem. So I&#8217;m excited to see how that develops in this release cycle.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it also could be kind of a prototype on how forms handling can be done in block fashion. So yeah, it&#8217;s definitely something to look forward to. And one of the goals for the 6.1 is also to allow for gradual adoption of the full-site editing features and see if one or other features can be modified to be available for the classic themes. For instance, calling a full-site editing template part and headers and footers, but the rest of it is still a classic theme.</p>



<p>I saw a few PRs there, it was also the conversation that, so Matias was on the show after he published a roadmap for 6.0, and in that conversation, he also talked about that FSE or block themes, not necessarily need to replace classic themes, it just adds a few layers of user interactions that can be switched on and off with the block locking features and theme JSON, for the theme builder. But it enhances actually classic themes, and they can all be used side by side, and it&#8217;s just an evolving of the whole template, and then the interaction with the global styles.</p>



<p>And maybe we can get that to be a little bit more cohesive with the classic themes and not have that. Our language is like, there is a break, there&#8217;s going to be a break one time we do that, and then the next time we are doing something totally different, and the old one is not good anymore, which isn&#8217;t the case because it&#8217;s all WordPress and it&#8217;s all feasible. And why should a theme developer need to change if the market doesn&#8217;t really value that.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So I think we need to really be conscious about that. We are not kind of before and after, and as well as kind of put it together with that.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: I like the way Matias thinks about these things, because I know that there&#8217;s been quite a few people exploring sort of hybrid or universal themes where I think my colleague, Ben Dwyer posted on ThemeShaper blog, which is a blog all about, surprisingly, about theming. And he had a couple of explorations where they were sort of, it was like a halfway house between a classic theme, but it was also consuming blocks in a different way, and I think that&#8217;s a really healthy way of thinking about things rather than this sort of hard dividing line. You either are on the classic theme or you&#8217;re on a block theme, it&#8217;s like there is a middle ground there somewhere for people to explore, and I think that&#8217;s really healthy.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: I think it&#8217;s really good for the ecosystem.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, and WordPress has the promise of the backwards compatibility, everything that the classic themes do is in rapid score and it will stay there.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Indeed.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I haven&#8217;t seen any talk or any effort at all yet to kind of make that obsolete or something like that.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Right.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It&#8217;s just, I know it&#8217;s a fear in the community, but I think there&#8217;s just, trust the system. You trusted it before the last 19 years there, now we go into the next 25 years or so. So yeah, all right, that&#8217;s all about the philosophies.&nbsp;</p>



<h3><strong>Community Contributions</strong></h3>



<p>So for community contributions, I only have two things in there. So Lottie has created an official plugin for the WordPress repository to bring animations to the block editor and the interface to control the settings for the animation.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s a single block plugin, and this is really cool, if you are not a fan of gradients and if you&#8217;re not a fan of dual tone, you&#8217;re probably also not a fan of animations, but for those who play around with all of the things, it&#8217;s really cool that you have additional interfaces there and additional interaction pretty much. So WordPress Tavern has an article about it, and we also shared it of course, in the show notes, and there are other plugins who offer that, but this is the official LottieFiles plugin.</p>



<p>And so if you are into that and want this to offer some of your client site, check it out. All right. And the second thing that I wanted to let our users know, or our listeners know, we just scheduled the next Gutenberg Times live Q&amp;A. We haven&#8217;t had one for quite a while, I think the last one was in October, and the title is, Blocked First Approach, at the Pew Research Center, using a mixture of core and custom blocks for a streamlined publishing process, and to create powerful charge and quizzes.</p>



<p>Guests will be Seth Rubenstein, the lead developer of Pew Research website and Michael Piccorossi, who&#8217;s the head of digital, it&#8217;s the content creators. And right now I only have save-the-date, it&#8217;s July 22nd 2022 at 11 Eastern Daylight 1500 UTC. And it was inspired by this Twitter thread that he started out with saying for all its naysayers, &#8220;Gutenberg is a game changer for digital news apps. It&#8217;s a force multiplier for your team, we&#8217;ve spent the last three years going all in on block development.&#8221; And then he followed up with a thread that we definitely will discuss in that show. So save-the-date, July 22nd 11:00 AM Eastern 1500 UTC.</p>



<h3><strong>What’s Released</strong></h3>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Moving on to what&#8217;s released, this brings us to the latest Gutenberg plugin release, 13.4 246 contributors match PRs for this release and among them are five new contributors.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yay, five new contributors. Excellent. Congratulations. Yeah, so there are quite a few enhancements in this release.&nbsp;</p>



<h3><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>



<p>We have, one is, the gallery block now has an opt-in axial block spacing control. So you can control separately the columns, gata, as well as the rogue gata. So you can have interesting layouts for your gallery.</p>



<p>That is really great, I saw some of the designs that are in the PR, it&#8217;s 41175. Yeah, it&#8217;s definitely great. Another enhancement is that the search block has now the ability to specify additional search query variables, so you can add additional parameters to the URL and share that, so that is like a post type product, or a post type book or any of the other variables there, it could be a date, it could be a category as well.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s really powerful that, especially if you&#8217;re using WooCommerce or another eCommerce system, like to be able to just say to the search block, &#8220;I want to search my products.&#8221; That&#8217;s definitely something that&#8217;s been missing for quite a while, so I was pleased to see that land.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Another one is that a color picker finally strips out the hash sign from the pasted hex values, when you come in from a color style guide or something like that, and you just want to add the color to a block entity and you didn&#8217;t know if you use the hash or not the hash, and it now strips out the hash and you don&#8217;t have to worry about it anymore. There were also some design updates to the published pop over time, daytime picker, so that&#8217;s definitely also a quality of life kind of change. It&#8217;s a bit better to navigate that.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, we&#8217;ve seen a number of upgrades to that in recent times. It&#8217;s getting better and better. I definitely appreciate Rob&#8217;s work on this one, especially, he&#8217;s been looking really hard at sort of making it work in different scripts and different languages, which is obviously really important because we don&#8217;t all speak English.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well actually the majority of installations are not in English, so definitely a good….</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Important work.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Totally. Yeah. And all the people that use WordPress actually benefit from that quite a bit.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, I was also interested in another one, another PR that came, landed in this release, which was the adding support for button elements to theme JSON. So this is something that&#8217;s part of a wider effort that&#8217;s really to allow themes to better target specific HTML elements within blocks, without requiring custom CSS. So currently you can kind of say, &#8220;Within the editor globally or within this block, I want to target all link elements or H3 elements, or whatever.</p>



<p>And I want to make them a certain color, or I want to add certain spacing.&#8221; But it&#8217;s fairly limited. And so there&#8217;s an effort underway to sort of expand that range of elements that you&#8217;ll be able to target. And the real key here is it&#8217;s going to be able to sort of reduce the amount of sort of specificity wars that we have with CSS, where we&#8217;re trying to overload core styles with custom CSS, if you&#8217;re looking to extend your block.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: The best thing about this feature is I can see is that it&#8217;s actually going to allow these elements to be exposed by global styles, so if you&#8217;re going to the global styles UI as a normal user and be able to say, &#8220;I want all my links to be this color,&#8221; or &#8220;I want all my links within the paragraph block to be slightly another color,&#8221; or &#8220;I want to have an underline,&#8221; or whatever.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s really powerful because it means we&#8217;re removing the need for our users to have to understand CSS, which has always been a problem, and we still hear that, &#8220;Please we need the custom CSS field back in the editor.&#8221; But by moving these things and inter-theme JSON, we do allow this to be exposed in a much more intuitive way via UI, so that&#8217;s an important thing to do.</p>



<p>And if we think about into the future, we&#8217;re going to have this rolled out towards all sorts of form elements. So imagine you can say, &#8220;Oh, I want all input type elements, including sort of text areas and things like that to have this color border,&#8221; and you can just do that in one go, without having to know all the relatively complex CSX CSS selectors that you&#8217;d need to know to target all form elements. And if you&#8217;ve ever tried to style a form using CSS, you know exactly what I&#8217;m talking about, it&#8217;s not the simplest of things after this many years of CSS, it&#8217;s still quite tricky.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It&#8217;s still quite tricky, yes that&#8217;s true. And there are quite a few PRs that support those button elements in theme JSON, like also the fire blocks and the search blocks have a button that now is an element button, so it follow that design that you will have in theme JSON as well. And also in the post comments, the buttons there as well. So I think the buttons are moving forward with that and that informs on the designers and developers on how well it&#8217;s going.</p>



<h3><strong>APIs&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h3>



<p>And if there is some need for adjustments there, how to do that. And then we had a few, for developers there&#8217;s a new API available now that moves the visible block state into the block editor store, so that means that anybody who can tap into the store API can see if a block is visible or not, so you have some conditional handling in any of the, be it a plugin or in additional blocks. So that is definitely an improvement for extensibility.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. And as we move forward with patterns, I think that&#8217;s going to be important because we&#8217;re going to be able to detect whether the block is actually currently shown on the current screen, like it might be off the screen, it might be below the scroll fold, so that&#8217;s going to be an important thing, previously it was sort of hidden in the react context and you couldn&#8217;t get a hold of it, but now they&#8217;re exposing it, and I think it&#8217;s part of the work to do what we talked about earlier with this sort of aerial exploded view of the block patterns, the sort of blocks as sections that Matias has mentioned in this post, so this is work towards that roadmap already?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. We also had some three PRs that are very influential on the performance of the websites or the block editor, and one is that the auto completer performance is improved. And then also the external library react spring was upgraded, actually two versions, two full versions from 2.4 to 4.5, and it&#8217;s a better handling of the downtime of the block editor. Before it was always something kind of pinging something in the background and it was slowing down the block editor, and now that has been fixed and react spring and now it comes to the block editor as well.</p>



<p>And the biggest part is that CSS is conditionally loaded per block, so if a block is not on canvas, it will not load the CSS, or on the front end, if it&#8217;s not used, it will also not load the CSS into the file when it&#8217;s rendered. So those are great improvements. We have not seen a make blog yet, I think it&#8217;s coming out tomorrow or later today where also the performance numbers are going to be published, but I think we&#8217;re going to see some improvements there. And I had one other thing, did I jump over some of it?</p>



<p>So for the developers who are using the create block script, there have been some improvements to the block templates. One is about the dynamic blocks and then also additional template variables in there to make sure that it fixes some of the issues that people run into. And it also remove the wrapping of the diff, so there are no usability issue anymore on, what was it? The edit JSS.</p>



<p>So what else? Create block always gets some nice additional features to improve the developer experience. We&#8217;re starting out with block development, so I love to highlight that in this changelog that&#8217;s kind of taken over from Grzegorz who is working on it. I really appreciate the work on that because I learned quite a bit through that.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, that script is a big time saver. If you ever want to create a block and it&#8217;s gone through so many iterations in the past year, it&#8217;s come on leaps and bounds and anyone who creates a block today should be very thankful to the likes of Grzegorz and other people have been working on that consistently. It&#8217;s a great tool.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Ryan Welcher has also been working on that quite a bit because he uses it every time he does a live twitch stream, he starts out with a create block command line. And he also found, &#8220;Okay, if I want to do a dynamic block, I need a different template. If I want to do instead of a single block plugin, I want to do a multi block plugin, what does the template need to change?&#8221; And he was very instrumental to get those two templates into the grade block and then also talked about it on his twitch theme. So if you ever, I could share some of his videos also on YouTube, in the show notes. So if you wanted to get started, I think it&#8217;s a great way to see how that&#8217;s going to work.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, that sounds really good. I was using it to extend a block recently. I wonder if there&#8217;s a template for that, that&#8217;d be interesting to see. So yeah, I&#8217;ll look out for those show notes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Another thing that went into this release was the navigation editor screen has been removed from the experiments page. As I did this PI I&#8217;ve had quite a few questions about it, So I just wanted to talk briefly.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: And just to clarify, it&#8217;s not necessarily a formal deprecation of the navigation editor screen or the project, but what we were finding is that with the run up to 6.0, and that there weren&#8217;t any contributors who were actively working on that screen, but we still kept getting quite a few bug reports saying it no longer works with the new navigation block entity system, and this thing is out-of-date.</p>



<p>And we took the decision, that rather than confusing contributors or people are coming to the Gutenberg plugin, we would just hide it for now, and therefore we wouldn&#8217;t have so many bug reports from people spending time in basing those when they didn&#8217;t need to. But it is something that we will, no doubt, utilize some of the technology for, to build things like exposing the navigation structure in the sidebar, which we talked about earlier on. So no doubt it will be harvested for all useful things that happened.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mary, is there anything that you wanted to point out from that changelog that we kind of skipped over it?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: No.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay. Yeah. Tell me, Dave, about the switch over from Puppeteer to Playwright in the testing suite. What&#8217;s the nature of that?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Well, our fellow contributor, Kai Hai, and also Isabelle Brison, they&#8217;ve both been working quite a while now on migrating these tests to a new system called Playwright, away from the existing system called Puppeteer. For those who don&#8217;t know, what we&#8217;re talking about is that Gutenberg has a set of automated tests, which run in a real browser and run against a real WordPress install, but everything&#8217;s kind of thrown away, so it doesn&#8217;t necessarily start if the tests are run.</p>



<p>But it&#8217;s just asserting that the way the software behaves is correct, and it gives you confidence when you&#8217;re doing release that you haven&#8217;t broken everything. I mean, obviously it can&#8217;t catch every single bug, but it definitely helps to improve things. But what we&#8217;ve been finding is that the software that&#8217;s been underused is called Puppeteer, that controls these tests.</p>



<p>And we are finding there&#8217;s been a lot of what we call, flaky tests, and these are actually automatically flagged up now in the repo that if a test fails several times, it&#8217;s marked as flaky and then someone&#8217;s supposed to come and deal with it, but they&#8217;ve been building up and building up and there&#8217;s been more and more of them. And Kai actually looked into seeing if there&#8217;s other systems that could help us offer more stable tests.</p>



<p>And in fact, he concluded and he wrote on make blog at length about moving over to this new system called, Playwright. It&#8217;s much better maintained, there&#8217;s a lot more people working on it, it offers better debugging. But also I think most interestingly it encourages testing of the actual interface that our users experience rather than, there&#8217;s a temptation when you&#8217;re writing these tests to sort of say, &#8220;Get me this element by class name or a ID,&#8221; and then do something with it.</p>



<p>But of course, normal users can&#8217;t see class names or IDs, so you&#8217;re kind of circumventing, the tests aren&#8217;t testing the real software. So with Playwright, it makes it a lot easier, let&#8217;s say, to test in a way that is more akin to our users. And in the future, we may also be able to test on other browsers. Currently we can only test on Chromium, but we may also in the future be able to run these tests against the likes of Firefox and Safari.</p>



<p>And hopefully these tests will become faster, more stable and more reliable as a result of this. So I think it&#8217;s really good work and Kai and Isabelle are making good headway on it, and I&#8217;d encourage anyone who&#8217;s looking to contribute and who&#8217;s got experience of testing to come and help them with their effort, because they&#8217;ve got a lot of tests to migrate, but yes, it&#8217;s a very worthwhile project, in my opinion.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, no, it really sounds like it. Well, I&#8217;m always kind of thinking about who else can use that, is that recommended for plugin developers who built their own custom blocks to also kind of look into the testing suite, the Playwright and kind of reuse some of those tests for their own purpose?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. Well, I can&#8217;t say that I personally have done that yet and explored that, but I know that the software itself is designed to be used in any context. I can&#8217;t see why there would be a reason why you couldn&#8217;t do that. I mean, again, it&#8217;s going to be the same process, which is you&#8217;re going to spin up a WordPress install. You&#8217;re going to activate your block plugin and then you are going to create a post, put your block into the post and then interact with it programmatically to determine if it works. So I would imagine that there&#8217;ll be things that we can do to reuse some of the technology we&#8217;ve got in Gutenberg when you&#8217;re building a custom block, so I&#8217;ll be interested to hear if anyone&#8217;s explored that already, and yeah, please do reach out to me or Kai, or Isabelle to discuss that, as I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;d be very interested.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Awesome. Awesome. All right. I think that concludes our changelog of 13.4. It has a few quality of life things, great enhancements for some of the pieces and then also for developers. So yeah, test it out. It&#8217;s now available in the repo, and that brings us to the section of what&#8217;s an active development or discuss and needs some input.</p>



<h3><strong>What’s in Active Development or Discussed</strong></h3>



<p>If you had something that you wanted to talk about, like the ability to control interactivity states in the editor, that, that&#8217;s in the works, and I saw that, is that the java state or the visited state or what else, do you talk about that?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you&#8217;ve covered it pretty well there. I mean, there&#8217;s been a request for quite a while to be able to change the way that things look based on how you interact with an element. I think probably the classic example is if you&#8217;ve got a navigation menu, and sometimes when you hover over one of the items in that menu, it changes visually, doesn&#8217;t it, perhaps the color changes or there&#8217;s a background or there&#8217;s an underlying, and that isn&#8217;t possible currently in the editor, which is obviously quite a big failing at the moment and something we need to address.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s work underway to allow the ability to target these things, and it&#8217;s actually a much more complex thing than you&#8217;d imagine to achieve in a robust manner, because we need to consider things like, it should be only limited to specific elements and specific properties because it&#8217;s not good to have, if you&#8217;re rolling over a heading, you don&#8217;t want that suddenly changing link color, I mean that would be a very bad thing for accessibility, for some people that will really throw them off.</p>



<p>So it should only be things like anchors and things that you can interact with or focus. So we&#8217;re going to be starting rolling this out. It&#8217;s going to be, starting with a technical implementation first, so it&#8217;ll land first in theme JSON, so developers will be able to take use of it. But ultimately, it will be rolled out to the global sales interface. So in the future one day, hopefully by 6.1, we will see, you might be able to go into your navigation block, set the color of the text to be blue, for example, but then say, &#8220;Oh, but when the text is hovered or your mouse rolls over it, I want it to go to yellow.</p>



<p>And if someone focuses it with a keyboard, I want to have a blue underline underneath it.&#8221; And you&#8217;ll be able to do that all through the editor. So again, another way that we&#8217;re removing the need for users to necessarily to understand the ins and outs of CSS, pseudo selectors and things like that. So yeah, a shout out to Andre Draganescu for his work on this feature. And if you want to follow up, it&#8217;s Gutenberg issue number 38277.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes. And of course we will have the link to that issue in the show notes. Now does it also cover in the navigation bar when I am on the page, does it also trigger the active kind of state of&#8230; So I&#8217;m on my about page, does that about page, is there a possibility to give that a different color when I&#8217;m on the about page, so kind of help with the navigation and kind of&#8230; Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah. So there is an active pseudo selector in CSS that we could include in this and that might help a bit, but I think in terms of styling something based on what page you are on, if it&#8217;s the current page, for example, then I think there is a known bug again that, that is something that we&#8217;d need to add programmatically in CSS and in PHP to determine, are you on that page and which nav item represents that page and then add the appropriate class name.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s kind of two ways that could be tackled. But I mean, ultimately it should be open to any CSS, pseudo selector, but just probably on a limited number of elements, and we&#8217;ve got to liaise with the community and especially the accessibility team to determine what is the most appropriate. So there&#8217;s some really, really good designs that are already out in the wild about this, on that issue.</p>



<p>And I definitely encourage people to check that out because it shows how the interactions will work, and if you think there should be certain things that it&#8217;s able to do or it&#8217;s not able to do then now is the time to input because it&#8217;s under active development right now and being designed as we speak, so it&#8217;d be great to hear from people if they&#8217;ve got thoughts on it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. And then I think I mentioned it briefly before. So in the Gutenberg Times weekend edition of 215, I listed three block theme JSON generator or theme generators. And now we have a fourth one to come that&#8217;s the great block theme plugin that will be&#8230; We have a link in the show notes to the getup repo, but it will be a community plugin. What do you know more about it?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, this is a plugin that&#8217;s kind of spun out of work that my team would be doing. I mentioned earlier that we&#8217;ve been working on improving the developer and theme or theme authoring experience. And what we found is that there are some things we wanted to do that aren&#8217;t necessarily that appropriate to land in court, it could add additional complexity that everyday users don&#8217;t want to have.</p>



<p>For example, the much requested feature, which is when you are editing templates in the site editor people often say, &#8220;I want those changes to be persisted back to the file system as pattern files or template part files,&#8221; sorry, &#8220;Templates or template part files.&#8221; But for a normal user, that&#8217;s not something that you&#8217;d probably want to do, but if you&#8217;re creating a theme from scratch, it very much is. So what has been born out of this is this create block theme plugin, create block theme, being the operative word there, theme.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Mm-hmm.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: And it used to be owned by Automattic, but we decided that it was something that would be beneficial to the wider community. So it&#8217;s now been open sourced and it&#8217;s now the property of the WordPress project. And it&#8217;s very much targeted at theme builders. So if you&#8217;re someone who wants to create a theme from scratch, then this plugin is likely to be something you want to at least take a look at.</p>



<p>And as I said, things like saving to file system and giving you extra export controls are there, it&#8217;s far from perfect at this point, and I mean, a lot of it has to be accessed from its own dedicated setting screen. It&#8217;s not fully integrated with the editor much as we would like, but it&#8217;s definitely showing promise, and we&#8217;re hoping that it&#8217;ll become the sort of, almost like a standard plugin for the WordPress ecosystem for crafting block themes from scratch.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I like that it also offers a possibility to create a child theme of the current activity theme, and that you can also clone themes. So it&#8217;s quite powerful in the idea and has already quite a few options in there. And you install it on your site, right, if I understand that correctly.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And then you have an additional menu item under appearance with a new page that&#8217;s called, create block theme, and then you have all the options that are in there, like set up, style, customization, templates and the save part. And of course you can always use the export theme from the site editor or from the plugin to download the theme. So it&#8217;s quite an interesting plugin and I know that the community has been waiting for that. All right.</p>



<p>Well, this is the end of the show. It&#8217;s marvelous. And thank you very much for your great contributions here, Dave, you&#8217;ve given us a lot of insights into the background of some of the features and some of the work. So I want to remind everyone again on save-the-date of July 22nd, 11:00 AM Eastern to 1500 UTC with a live Q&amp;A, with the Pew Research Team who builds sites with a block editor, first approach. Also, Dave, when people want to connect with you, how can they find you, and what&#8217;s the URL of your YouTube channel?</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>: Yeah, absolutely. So I usually appear as, getdave or sometimes get_dave on various websites around the internet. And if you want to get in touch with me, you can find me on WordPress Slack. But also be sure to check out my YouTube channel and you can access that with a link that&#8217;s going to be published in the show notes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Fabulous. So, Mary, do you have anything that you didn&#8217;t get in before? So now is your chance.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: No, I think we covered everything we wanted to.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. How can people reach you?</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Oh, me, I&#8217;m maryjob on Twitter. I like spending my time on the streets of Twitter.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. And as always, the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com for this podcast. This is episode 68, and 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>. That&#8217;s <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. So thank you, Mary, for being with us. Thank you, Dave. And thank you everybody for listening. This is it for me, I say goodbye. And until the next time.</p>



<p><em>Dave Smith</em>:&nbsp; Thank you for having me. See you next time. Bye.</p>



<p><em>Mary Job</em>: Thank you, Dave.</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:"Sun, 12 Jun 2022 08:57:38 +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:19:"Gutenberg Changelog";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:98:"Gutenberg Times: Block First Approach, Gutenberg 13.4, Page vs Site Editor – Weekend Edition 218";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=21309";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://gutenbergtimes.com/block-first-approach-gutenberg-13-4-page-vs-site-editor-weekend-edition-218/";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, howdy, </p>



<p>Hopefully, with this edition, I am back curating the Weekend Edition for Saturdays&#8230; </p>



<p>At WordCamp Europe, I connected with many members of the German WordPress community and I joined the German WordPress Slack space to learn more about the efforts to organize a WordCamp Deutschland. After meeting sooo many Community Deputies and friends in the WordPress community, it seems I got my motivation back as community organizer. </p>



<p>As mentioned earlier this week, we also have a new <strong>Gutenberg Times Live Q &amp; A</strong> on our schedule and <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">registration is open now.</a> In &#8220;<strong>Block First Approach at the Pew Research Center</strong>, we will discuss with Seth Rubinstein, Lead Developer, and Michael Piccorossi, Director of Digital Strategy, how they use a mixture of Core and Custom Blocks to streamline their publishing process, and to create powerful charts and quizzes for the Pew Research Center. <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7216548519021/WN_Af50AS7VQbuyCrUdQnormw">Join us!</a> </p>



<p>I am already looking forward to my next WordCamp: <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp US in September</a> in San Diego. The team is getting ready to update the website and soon will announce the first round of speakers. </p>





<p>Have a great weekend, <br />Yours, 💕<br />Birgit</p>




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<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-gutenberg-13-4">Gutenberg 13.4</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-g">General  News</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-t">Block Theme building with code</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-s">NoCode Site building</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-word-press-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning Events</a></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="0-gutenberg-13-4">Gutenberg 13.4</h2>



<p>Héctor Prieto lead this week&#8217;s Gutenberg plugin release and published <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/">What’s new in Gutenberg 13.4? (8 June)</a>. The highlights: </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/#support-for-button-elements-in-theme-json">Support for button elements in theme.json</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/#axial-spacing-in-gallery-block">Axial spacing in Gallery Block</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/#sidebar-design-updates">Sidebar design updates</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/#search-block-variations-now-support-query-vars">Search Block variations now support query vars</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/#performance-improvements">Performance Improvements</a></li></ul>



<p>On the Changelog, Mary and I, had a great conversation with <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-68-wordcamp-europe-gutenberg-13-4-and-wordpress-6-1/">Dave Smith around Gutenberg 13.4, WordPress 6.1 and WordCamp Europe.</a></p>



<a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-68-wordcamp-europe-gutenberg-13-4-and-wordpress-6-1/"><img /></a>



<div class="wp-container-4 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-68-wordcamp-europe-gutenberg-13-4-and-wordpress-6-1/">Gutenberg Changelog #68 –  WordCamp Europe, Gutenberg 13.4 and WordPress 6.1</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and Mary Job, and special guest: Dave Smith </p>
</div></div>




<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>




<h2 id="1-g">General  News</h2>



<p><strong>David Bisset</strong> list in his Post Status post the <a href="https://poststatus.com/9-things-i-learned-from-wordcamp-europe-2022/"><strong>9 Things I Learned from WordCamp Europe 2022</strong></a>, mostly reporting from the Townhall Q &amp; A with Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden Chomphosy, but also from talks by Pablo Postigo on the future of frontend development in WordPress and by Feliz Arndt on WordPress performance, among others. </p>



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<p>After the release of WordPress 6.0, <a href="https://twitter.com/martinibuster"><strong>Roger Montti </strong></a>curated voices from the Advanced WordPress Group on Facebook and on Reddit for the Search Engine Journal. In his article <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-community-reacts-to-6-0-arturo/453174/#close"><strong>WordPress Community Reacts To 6.0 Arturo</strong></a> he quotes a variety of WordPress users from both communities. </p>



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<p><strong>Matias Ventura</strong>, couldn&#8217;t make it to the Keynote session, Matias couldn’t make it to WordCamp Europe&#8217;s Saturday’s keynote. He had prepared some cool things for it and he<a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602705456480260"> tweeted about the earlier this week</a>. Some of it he also listed in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/">Roadmap for 6.1 of the Gutenberg Plugin Phase 2 </a> post. </p>



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<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> in her post <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-editor-now-in-testing-on-tumblr-and-day-one-web-apps">Gutenberg Editor Now In Testing On Tumblr and Day One Web Apps</a> picked up on Ventura&#8217;s tweet that the Gutenberg editor is now also used outside the WordPress context. Tumblr, the microblogging site <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20804894/tumblr-acquisition-matt-mullenweg-ceo-automattic-wordpress-verizon-changes-vergecast">Automattic rescued from Verizon&#8217;s chopping block in 2019</a>, offers it to its users as the new shiny post editor in a Beta version. The developer team at <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/14/wordpress-com-owner-automattic-acquires-journaling-app-day-one/">Day One, an Automattic aquisition from last year,</a> is also experimenting offering Gutenberg editor to the journaling app users. </p>



<img />



<p>From Gooding&#8217;s post, I also learned that the company working on an overall Block Protocol, Hash is looking for a developer to buil a WordPress plugin for the Block Protocol. She wrote: &#8220;When the Block Protocol project was announced, it didn’t seem likely that it would use Gutenberg as the basis for its spec. However, the wide usage of Gutenberg across the web cannot be ignored. This forthcoming plugin appears to be more like a bridge or connector that ensures Gutenberg is still relevant in the Block Protocol ecosystem.&#8221; There might be big things a foot. </p>



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<h2 id="2-t">Block Theme building with code</h2>



<p>If you wanted to get started with Block Patterns, <strong>Ganesh Dahal</strong> wrote a Tutorial on CSS-Tricks for you: <a href="https://css-tricks.com/how-to-create-block-theme-patterns-in-wordpress-6-0/">How to Create Block Theme Patterns in WordPress&nbsp;6.0</a>. Dahal takes you through the code examples from the WordPress default theme, Twenty-Twenty-Two, that came out with the WordPress 5.9 release earlier this year. You learn how to register patterns and pattern cateogries and how to best organize your theme folders. </p>



<p>In the second part of the post, you learn how to offer patterns without the registration steps with features introduced with WordPress 6.0, the autodetect mechanism from a patterns folder in your theme, or refering to the slug of a pattern from the WordPress Pattern Directory. Dahal also covers the newest feature to add context to the pattern and offer Page Patterns during the page creation process to a user. </p>



<p>Ganash Dahal also wrote the following tutorials on CSS-Tricks: </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://css-tricks.com/creating-style-variations-in-wordpress-block-themes/">How to Create Style Variations in WordPress 6.0 Block&nbsp;Themes</a></li><li><a href="https://css-tricks.com/a-deep-introduction-to-wordpress-block-themes/">A Deep Introduction to WordPress Block&nbsp;Themes</a></li></ul>



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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/jeffikus"><strong>Jeffrey Pearce</strong></a>, reminisced about  his WordPress journey in <a href="https://jeffikus.com/blog/2022/06/11/fifteen-years-of-wordpress-themes/">Fifteen Years of Building WordPress Themes</a>. He now leads Automattic&#8217;s Theme development team. </p>



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<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> wrote a recap on the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/06/02/hallway-hangout-discussion-on-full-site-editing-issues-prs-designs-1-june/">Hallway Hangout: Discussion on Full Site Editing Issues/PRs/Designs (1 June)</a> a discussion among Theme builders on what’s missing and what’s stopping people from switching to&nbsp;block&nbsp;themes. Participants also talked about the progress of implementing fluid typography for themes. </p>



<p></p>




<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>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<h2 id="3-s">NoCode Site building</h2>



<p>On learn.WordPress.org <strong>Sarah Snow</strong> recently published a video on <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/workshop/creating-a-front-page-for-a-block-theme/"><strong>Creating a Front Page for a Block Theme</strong></a>. Her short tutorial walks you through the process to set a page as the front page of your site, instead of the latest posts, and then design the particular page with the Site Editor. </p>



<p>You might also be interested in the upcoming WordPress Social Learning event with Wes Theron, who invites you to <a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286028824/"><strong>Let&#8217;s build a homepage together</strong></a>. </p>



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<p>If you are just getting the hang of working with the block theme, you might also be interested in another Workshop on Learn.WordPress.org: <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/workshop/understanding-the-page-editor-vs-site-editor/"><strong>Understanding the Page Editor vs. Site Editor</strong></a> with <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/GeorginaReeder">Georgina Reeder</a></strong>. It takes your understanding from editing a single page on your site to editing a template that is applied to all pages of your site and figure out what stay&#8217;s the same and what is different. Knowing the difference between the page editor and the Site editor, takes you page creatioin process to the next level and you get the tools to act upon your site in a more strategic mind set. </p>



<p><strong>Munir Kamal</strong> published a new tutorial on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu9qgEqABu4"><strong>Responsive Product Card Hover Effect in WordPress Gutenberg.</strong></a> The purpose teach you how to create the creative content design in Gutenberg using default blocks without a 3rd party block plugin.</p>



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<h2 id="5-word-press-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning Events</h2>



<p>The training team scheduled new Social Learning Events covering the Block editor. </p>



<p><strong>June 14, 2022 2 pm EDT / 18:00 UTC<br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286256957/">Builder Basics: Let’s Build a Custom Theme (No Coding Required)</a></strong> w/ Nick Diego </p>



<p><strong>June 16, 2022 &#8211; 3 pm EDT / 19:00 UTC </strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286028824/">Let&#8217;s build a homepage together</a></strong> w/ Wes Theron. </p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/2317505c-075f-4d45-bd43-891eba815b63"><em>Features image: Ian Shane &#8211; City Blocks, found via Openverse</em></a></p>



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";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:45:"WPTavern: Athens to Host WordCamp Europe 2023";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=135284";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:56:"https://wptavern.com/athens-to-host-wordcamp-europe-2023";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:3195:"<img />photo credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:City_of_Athens,_Greece_%2826488103637%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Europe 2022</a> concluded last weekend in Porto, Portugal. The event sold 2,746 tickets and had 2,304 people attend. It kicked off with a record-setting Contributor Day that coordinated the efforts of 800 participants giving back to WordPress and its related projects.</p>



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<p>WCEU featured 70 speakers across 26 sessions and 18 workshops, made possible by the efforts of 65 sponsors, 91 organizers, and 164 volunteers.</p>



<p>Attendees and organizers were thrilled to be back together in person after two years of not hosting the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Remkus de Vries, one of the founders of WCEU, joined our recent <a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/29-remkus-de-vries-on-how-wordcamp-europe-got-started">WP Jukebox podcast</a> and commented on the importance of being back in person with fellow WordPress enthusiasts. He characterized WordCamps as the &#8220;glue&#8221; that keeps the community together.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think the glue part is way more important than people thought that it was,&#8221; de Vries said. &#8220;I think you can say the same thing for what we’re seeing here. Yes, you can be connected. You can have great relationships online and everything, but the real deal is in real life. That’s where you make the actual connections. </p>



<p>&#8220;You have things you say that you then in real life have time to correct if that wasn’t the intent that you actually had. All of these little things make up what that glue actually consists of, so not having that for two years creates a like a vacuum of things that are not seen, not communicated, not spoken about, not processed.</p>



<p>&#8220;There have been companies started from WordCamps. There have been mergers started. There have been friends made there have been marriages come from WordCamps. Everything happens when you’re together.&#8221;</p>



<p>In 2023, the project that is democratizing publishing will be hosting its European conference in the birthplace of democracy, Athens, Greece. The date is set for June 8-10, and the <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-organisers/">call for organizers</a> has already been published. Check out the intro video below for a taste of what&#8217;s to come next year.</p>



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</div>";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, 10 Jun 2022 21:32:16 +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:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WPTavern: Gutenberg Editor Now In Testing On Tumblr and Day One Web Apps";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=135231";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://wptavern.com/gutenberg-editor-now-in-testing-on-tumblr-and-day-one-web-apps";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:6400:"<p>One of the most thought-provoking statements to come out of WordCamp Europe 2022, was when Matt Mullenweg said, &#8220;I believe that Gutenberg can be a bigger contribution to the world than WordPress itself.&#8221; </p>



<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time Mullenweg has cast this vision of Gutenberg&#8217;s preeminence as an open source project. In the Q&amp;A following his <a href="https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2021-wordpress-passes-43-market-share-looks-to-expand-the-commons-through-openverse">2021 State of the Word</a> address, he said, &#8220;Gutenberg is something even bigger than WordPress, which is basically saying how do we edit and create the web? And how can we get as many people, both proprietary and open source collaborating on that as possible?&#8221; </p>



<p>Making Gutenberg available to the broader web was part of the reasoning behind <a href="https://wptavern.com/proposal-and-steps-to-dual-license-gutenberg-under-the-gpl-and-mpl">dual-licensing the project</a> under the GPL and MIT. Proprietary, and particularly mobile application use (where the GPL is not common), is better supported by the MIT license. </p>



<p>Gutenberg is already finding a destiny of its own outside of WordPress. Projects like <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/gutenberg">Drupal Gutenberg</a> and <a href="https://wptavern.com/laraberg-a-gutenberg-implementation-for-laravel-is-now-in-beta">Laraberg</a> were some the early seeds of the wider Gutenberg ecosystem, demonstrating that communities other than WordPress find value in the project and can adapt it for use with their applications. At WordCamp Europe, Mullenweg announced that both <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a> and <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/">Day One</a> are now testing Gutenberg in their web apps. </p>



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Day One web, currently in internal alpha, is following soon. We hope that these reference points help illustrate the flexibility of the block editor beyond WordPress. <a href="https://t.co/VLTwgfdi2v">pic.twitter.com/VLTwgfdi2v</a></p>&mdash; Matías Ventura (@matias_ventura) <a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602884196753411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Tumblr users who want to access the <a href="https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/4965854988695-Updates-to-the-Beta-Post-Editor">new beta post editor</a>, which was code named &#8220;Gutenblr,&#8221; can click on the prompt at the top of the page to  switch. It&#8217;s opt-in for now while it&#8217;s still being tested. </p>



<img />



<p>Activating the beta unlocks the new Gutenberg-powered editor with redesigned buttons and icons. Users can post a series of multiple blocks in what feels like a mini, pared-back post editor. Certain blocks can be dragged and dropped into a different order on the draft, but this is still a little buggy. Tumblr&#8217;s editor is fun to use compared to WordPress&#8217; version of Gutenberg which does a lot more but at the expense of having to support many more settings and controls. </p>



<img />



<p>When <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-acquires-tumblr-plans-to-rebuild-the-backend-powered-by-wordpress">Automattic acquired Tumblr</a> in 2019,  Mullenweg was forthright about his intention to replace the Tumblr backend with WordPress.  </p>



<p>“WordPress is an open source web operating system that can power pretty much anything, including Tumblr.com, but it’s also a large property so will take a bit to figure out and migrate,” Mullenweg said.</p>



<p>Two years later, in November 2021, the Tumblr changelog <a href="https://changes.tumblr.com/post/668673552865804288/tuesday-november-23rd-2021">noted</a> that the development team was working on a new major version of the beta post editor on web, leveraging parts of Gutenberg. In a Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1530212971150028801">conversation</a> discussing Tumblr&#8217;s architecture, Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura said its implementation of Gutenberg stores everything as JSON, whereas WordPress serializes HTML as the default experience because it needs to work with the ecosystem. In both cases, blocks are created as structured data.</p>



<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m personally looking forward to when you could just copy and paste blocks between platforms like you do with patterns!&#8221; Matías Ventura said when tweeting out the screenshots of Gutenberg on Tumblr and Day One. </p>



<p>This sort of interoperability across apps is similar to the idea behind the <a href="https://wptavern.com/block-protocol-project-aims-to-create-universal-block-system-may-collaborate-with-gutenberg">Block Protocol</a> project. It aims to build a block system for embedding interactive blocks in any web application. As more of the web embraces the block paradigm, it would be helpful to be able to share blocks across a standardized protocol.  </p>



<p>The Block Protocol spec is being developed by the team at <a href="https://hash.ai/blog/announcing-the-block-protocol">HASH</a>, which is currently <a href="https://hash.ai/careers/wordpress-plugin-developer">hiring a WordPress developer</a> to create a Block Protocol Gutenberg plugin. The goal of the plugin is to &#8220;unlock the entire Block Protocol ecosystem of blocks for all users of WordPress (both technical and not),&#8221; which would extend the range of blocks available to Gutenberg users. </p>



<p>When the Block Protocol project was announced, it didn&#8217;t seem likely that it would use Gutenberg as the basis for its spec. However, the wide usage of Gutenberg across the web cannot be ignored. This forthcoming plugin appears to be more like a bridge or connector that ensures Gutenberg is still relevant in the Block Protocol ecosystem. </p>



<p>WordPress is an important player in the creation of both blocks and an intuitive editor for publishing them, as the primary incubator for Gutenberg&#8217;s initial development and essentially its first adopter. The block editor making its way to more apps like Tumblr and Day One is a major milestone, and it&#8217;s inspiring to see collaboration on an initiative connecting Gutenberg users with another global registry of blocks designed to move across apps on the web.</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, 10 Jun 2022 19:40:35 +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:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:139:"WPTavern: WordPress 6.1 to Focus On Refining Full-Site Editing, Next Phase Collaboration and Multilingual Features Anticipated in 2023-2025";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=135186";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:149:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-1-to-focus-on-refining-full-site-editing-next-phase-collaboration-and-multilingual-features-anticipated-in-2023-2025";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:7918:"<p>Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura has identified refinements to experiences introduced in 5.9 and 6.0 as the main goal for the upcoming 6.1 release. He published the  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/">roadmap for 6.1</a> ahead of the closing session at WordCamp Europe in Porto, where he was scheduled to join Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden Chomphosy for a demo. Ventura wasn&#8217;t able to make it but he tweeted a <a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602705456480260?t=C2rmnIxHX8gaYkWk8TKkZA&s=09">thread</a> with video demos of some exciting interface updates that Gutenberg contributors are working on.</p>



<p>One of the main thrusts is making site navigation a smoother experience through a new &#8220;browse mode&#8221; that will allow site editors to zoom in and out while working. </p>



<p>Patterns are another major focus that Ventura has identified as &#8220;a central piece of the creative experience.&#8221; Contributors are working on making it easier to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38529">build with patterns</a>, with plans to improve the discovery and insertion process. WordPress 6.1 will bring better support for pattern usage in <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41398">custom post types</a>, block types, and a more intuitive experience locking patterns and managing saved patterns.</p>



<img />image credit: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/">WordPress 6.1 Roadmap</a>



<p>Contributors are also exploring a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/39281">new aerial view and other ideas</a> for making it easier to interact with patterns as sections of a page, as Ventura demonstrated in his thread.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Patterns were a big focus at the conference in Porto and with 6.1 we'll be trying ti elevate them further. A new aerial view is being explored to allow focusing on the top level sections of a page or template. <a href="https://t.co/7JSeQQANt7">pic.twitter.com/7JSeQQANt7</a></p>&mdash; Matías Ventura (@matias_ventura) <a href="https://twitter.com/matias_ventura/status/1534602854446637056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Ventura said another goal for WordPress 6.1 is to improve the global styles interface with better support for restrictions, privileges, and curated presets. Design tools will also be updated to support responsive typography and allow managing webfonts.</p>



<p>&#8220;The tune of the release will be to refine the experiences introduced in 5.9 and 6.0, weave the various flows into more coherent and fulfilling experiences for users, maintainers, and extenders, and close some gaps in functionality as we start to look towards Phase 3 of the Gutenberg roadmap,&#8221; Ventura said.</p>



<h3>Beyond WordPress 6.1: Collaboration Phase 3 Will Precede Multilingual Phase 4 to Establish Core Architecture</h3>



<p>Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden Chomphosy addressed several questions regarding WordPress&#8217; long term roadmap during their Q&amp;A session at WordCamp Europe. (The video from the livestream is embedded below.)</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>



<p>WordPress core contributors plan to close out the Customization phase before beginning on the Collaboration phase in 2023. During the Q&amp;A session, one of the polyglot contributors asked why WordPress is waiting until Phase 4 to begin working on multilingual features in core. </p>



<p>&#8220;Part of the reason we don&#8217;t want to set data now and then work on the feature later is that we have learned every time that it&#8217;s hard to create the architecture for something without creating the user experience,&#8221; Mullwenweg said. &#8220;When we try to do one without the other, for example with the REST API we got into the REST API before we were fully using it ourselves. As we started to do first-party usage of the REST API with Gutenberg, we found a bunch of gaps. I would feel particularly bad if those gaps meant plugins had been building on the wrong architecture for a few years.&#8221;</p>



<p>Mullenweg also explained why he believes it&#8217;s important to prioritize Phase 3, which he referred to as &#8220;workflow,&#8221; before the multilingual features:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Phase 3 is Workflow. This is basically where we&#8217;re going to take real-time co-editing into WordPress, much like Google docs or something else. When you log in to edit a page or your sites or a template or something, if someone else is in there at the same time, you&#8217;ll be able to see them moving around. Of course, we want to make sure we have version control built in like we do for posts and pages, into as many parts of WP as possible, so if someone makes a mistake or an edit to the site, you will be able to roll it back easily, which I think is really key for giving people confidence.</p></blockquote>



<p>He emphasized the importance of establishing the collaboration architecture before introducing multilingual support into core.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think that the workflows around multilingual are important,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;So where is the content being canonically created, how do changes flow from one language to another, maybe even bi-directionally, depending on the people editing the site, and how that affects the rest of the templates &#8211; things that are outside the post and page content.&#8221;</p>



<p>He also noted the many third-party multilingual solutions that already exist will have a transition period as core integrates these features.</p>



<p>&#8220;I expect that much like has happened with page builders, once there&#8217;s something in core, they will either have a data migration path or integrate with whatever foundation we put into core,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;But I would like to set expectations that it&#8217;s probably more of a 2024 or 2025 initiative for WordPress. And we want to get these other phases done really well first. Why do we have to go in order? We can only do so much at once.&#8221;</p>



<p>When the person who had asked the question pressed for a reason why a contingency work group could not begin now, Mullenweg encouraged any eager contributors to put their work into a plugin. He referenced Gutenberg, which began as a plugin and was tested for years before bringing it into core. </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>I would say when we look at phase 4, the first thing we&#8217;re going to look at is how all the plugins are doing it. Perhaps one of those plugins could even become the basis for what comes into core. It&#8217;s OK if the plugins take different architectural approaches, because we want to see pluses and minuses of those. Remember people use WordPress with millions and millions of posts and pages, sometimes tens of millions. We want this to scale, we want this to be performant, we want it to be accessible. Take all the things people know and trust about WordPress. and bring it to this functionality.</p></blockquote>



<p>Mullenweg said he thinks multilingual is &#8220;probably going to be one of the most complex things we bring into core, even more so than blocks.&#8221; The reason behind this is because blocks took what WordPress did before and gave it a new interface on top of HTML.</p>



<p>&#8220;Multilingual is taking every single thing inside of WordPress &#8211; tags, categories, pages, templates, and making it multi-factorial so it&#8217;s like a factorial amount of complexity on top of what right now is more of a one-to-one relationship,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If you have some ideas for how to do it, get involved with one of the existing plugins or start your own.&#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:"Thu, 09 Jun 2022 20:14:30 +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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:104:"Do The Woo Community: Extending Your WordPress Plugin for WooCommerce with Mark Westguard and Lesley Sim";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=71684";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:50:"https://dothewoo.io/extending-plugins-woocommerce/";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:443:"<p>Lesley wants to add WooCommerce functionality to her WordPress plugin. Mark has done it. A unique conversation between two developers.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/extending-plugins-woocommerce/">Extending Your WordPress Plugin for WooCommerce with Mark Westguard and Lesley Sim</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, 09 Jun 2022 09:20:00 +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:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:54:"Post Status: This Week at WordPress.org (June 6, 2022)";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98964";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:62:"https://poststatus.com/this-week-at-wordpress-org-june-6-2022/";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:319:"Each week we are highlighting the news from WordPress.org that you don't want to miss. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, we've got the news you need to know. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. Are you interested in giving back and contributing...";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, 08 Jun 2022 23:00:09 +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:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:37:"WPTavern: Elementor Acquires Strattic";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=135146";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://wptavern.com/elementor-acquires-strattic";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:4715:"<p><a href="https://elementor.com/blog/elementor-acquires-strattic/">Elementor</a>, a popular website builder <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/">plugin</a> that is active on more than five million websites, has acquired <a href="https://www.strattic.com/strattic-acquired-by-elementor/">Strattic</a>, a static and headless WordPress hosting company.  Strattic will continue operating as &#8220;Strattic by Elementor&#8221; and the team will remain as its own unit within the company.</p>



<p>Elementor founders Yoni Luksenberg and Ariel Klikstein met Strattic founder and CEO Miriam Schwab 10 years ago when they attended a WordCamp she organized in Jerusalem. The following year Elementor sponsored the WordCamp she organized the in Tel Aviv.  In 2020, <a href="https://wptavern.com/elementor-raises-15-million-plans-to-invest-in-the-team-product-and-community">Elementor raised $15M</a> its first round of funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, after passing four million users.</p>



<p>Schwab founded Strattic in 2018 as the first WordPress hosting company to streamline the creation of static files managed via a headless install. </p>



<p>&#8220;Very early on it became clear to us at Strattic that we had better make sure we support Elementor in the static versions of our sites,&#8221; Schwab said. &#8220;More and more users were coming to us with sites built on Elementor, which was a strong indication of the plugin’s growing adoption and popularity. We prioritized supporting it in general, including rolling out support for their forms, and most recently adding a Strattic publish button from the Elementor editor.&#8221;</p>



<p>Over the past year, Elementor has been working to capture the market for the entire website creation process by offering hosting alongside its commercial website builder. Earlier this year, the company launched a Google Cloud-based website hosting service that includes Elementor Pro for $99/year. Elementor will promote the new static hosting service alongside its existing cloud service.</p>



<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t speak exactly to what Elementor&#8217;s strategy is in terms of Strattic vis a vis their cloud offering, but Strattic will be a parallel offering, at least for the foreseeable future,&#8221; Schwab said.</p>



<p>Elementor has often been <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenbergs-faster-performance-is-eroding-page-builders-dominance">criticized for making WordPress sites sluggish</a> so it&#8217;s easy to see the appeal that static hosting brings. Having more customers on Strattic might lessen the urgency of fixing Elementor&#8217;s well-documented speed issues. </p>



<p>&#8220;This acquisition will allow us to leverage Strattic’s technology to build static websites, helping to solve stability, speed, and security issues in the dynamic sites space,&#8221; Elementor founder Yoni Luksenberg said.</p>



<p>&#8220;With static hosting, users can deploy their dynamic WordPress websites as static HTML/CSS replicas to global CDN networks, which drastically improves the performance of their sites and eliminates potential security vulnerabilities and site breakdowns during updates. With a dramatically reduced attack surface, WordPress vulnerabilities become irrelevant as security is no longer a defensive endeavor.&#8221;</p>



<p>Elementor users who sign on for Strattic&#8217;s static hosting approach will have a more stable and secure experience, as the plugin and related third-party add-ons are <a href="https://wptavern.com/elementor-3-6-3-patches-critical-remote-code-execution-vulnerability">frequently</a> <a href="https://wptavern.com/elementor-patches-xss-vulnerabilities-affecting-7-million-wordpress-sites">patching</a> <a href="https://wptavern.com/essential-addons-for-elementor-patches-critical-security-vulnerability">critical</a> <a href="https://wptavern.com/attackers-continue-to-exploit-vulnerabilities-in-the-plus-addons-for-elementor-plugin">vulnerabilities</a>. </p>



<p>Strattic and Elementor customers can expect deeper integration across these products in the future.</p>



<p>&#8220;We already have great support for Elementor on our static sites, but of course there&#8217;s always room for improvement so we will be working with Elementor&#8217;s team to make the integration even better,&#8221; Schwab said. She also confirmed there are no pricing changes on the horizon for Strattic customers.</p>



<p>&#8220;Right now everything will stay pretty much the same for Strattic users. We hope they&#8217;ll soon start to feel the benefit of us joining Elementor in terms of faster release cycles of amazing new features that will make the product even better.&#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:"Wed, 08 Jun 2022 19:26:20 +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: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:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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: WooCommerce Announces Functionality for Card Reader";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=71917";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/woocommerce-announces-functionality-for-card-reader/";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:419:"<p>The press release, received today, announces the features that allow fast transactions and automatic inventory syncing.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-announces-functionality-for-card-reader/">WooCommerce Announces Functionality for Card Reader</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, 08 Jun 2022 15:25:43 +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:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:"WPTavern: #29 – Remkus de Vries on How WordCamp Europe Got Started";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=135131";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/podcast/29-remkus-de-vries-on-how-wordcamp-europe-got-started";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:34790:"<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://remkus.devries.frl">Remkus de Vries</a>.</p>



<p>Remkus is kicking off what might be described as a&nbsp; mini series on the Jukebox podcast.</p>



<p>Last week almost 3,000 WordPressers from all over the world gathered together in Porto, Portugal for the first in-person <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Europe</a> since 2019.</p>



<p>Expectations were high, and the event did not disappoint. It really was excellent.</p>



<p>I went along with some recording equipment and tried to find a quiet spot. I sat down with some of the speakers, organisers and attendees to talk about all manner of subjects, and that’s what this mini series is all about.</p>



<p>Over the next fews months, I’ll be releasing those conversations as Jukebox podcast episodes.</p>



<p>Usually, when we record the podcast, there’s typically not a lot of background noise, but that’s not always the case with these interviews. We were competing against crowds and air-conditioning fans. Whilst the podcasts are certainly more than listenable, I hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world were at play.</p>



<p>Okay, so back to Remkus. Remkus is one of the founders of WordCamp Europe, just over 10 years ago. I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about how the community&#8217;s largest WordCamp got started. I also wanted to find out how the current event compares in terms of size and organisation. What&#8217;s changed over the years?</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of events like WordCamps for the community, and how over the last few years the lack of in-person events altered the community.</p>



<p>Remkus is a colourful character and full of interesting insights, which are always worth listening to.</p>



Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the themes, the blocks, and in this case WordCamp Europe.</p>



<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. If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, well I&#8217;m very keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the contact form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today we have Remkus de Vries. Remkus is kicking off what might be described as a mini series on the Jukebox podcast. Last week almost 3000 wordPressers from all over the world, gathered together in Porto, Portugal for the first in-person WordCamp Europe since 2019.</p>



<p>Expectations were high. And the event did not disappoint. It was really excellent. I went along with some recording equipment and tried to find a quiet spot. I sat down with some of the speakers, organizers, and attendees. To talk about all manner of subjects. And that&#8217;s what this mini series is all about.</p>



<p>Over the next few months, I&#8217;ll be releasing those conversations as Jukebox podcast episodes. Usually when we record the podcast, there&#8217;s typically not a lot of background noise. But that&#8217;s not always the case with these interviews. We were competing against crowds and air conditioning fans. And whilst the podcasts are more than listable. I hope that you understand that the vagaries of real life were at play.</p>



<p>Okay, so back to Remkus. Remkus is one of the founders of WordCamp Europe, just over 10 years ago. I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about how the community&#8217;s largest WordCamp got started. I also wanted to find out how the current event compares in terms of size and organization. What has changed over the years?</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of events like WordCamps for the community and how over the last few years, the lack of in-person events has altered the community. Remkus is a colorful character and full of interesting insights, which are always worth listening to.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. And you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes there as well. And so without further delay, I bring you, Remkus de Vries.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Remkus de Vries. Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:31] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Hello Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Remkus Remkus and I go back, not a really long way, but we&#8217;re going to talk about a journey which takes him back a long way. Tell us about yourself, your relationship with WordPress. Ignore all the WordCamp Europe bits. If you cannot, otherwise, we&#8217;ll have nothing left to say.</p>



<p>[00:03:44] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Ah, okay, okay. My relationship with WordPress. Wow, that is taking me a ways back. So I think the first time I, so I played with WordPress the first time for a couple of months before I did anything serious with it, but this is 2004. I had a bunch of clients at the time, which, we&#8217;re either on Mambo or Joomla, and the ones on Mambo, I was in the process of moving them over. Really didn&#8217;t like the process, but you do what you gotta do with the tools that you have. And at the end of 2005, if I remember correctly, WordPress introduced pages, which then made me switch every single client that I have, which was about 20. I ported their Joomla or Mambo theme over to WordPress because now we have static pages, and I haven&#8217;t looked back.</p>



<p>[00:04:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Been going strong ever since.</p>



<p>[00:04:32] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah. Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:04:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;re here to talk about WordCamp Europe because, well we&#8217;re at WordCamp Europe. Let&#8217;s talk about this one just specifically how much you&#8217;ve enjoyed it. When did you arrive?</p>



<p>[00:04:44] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Monday.</p>



<p>[00:04:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So that was one, no two days before the contributor day. On none of the podcasts that we&#8217;ve recorded before have we talked about Porto the place or anything like that? So let&#8217;s do a little bit of that. I think this location is pretty spectacular. How are you enjoying Porto?</p>



<p>[00:04:59] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Porto is very nice. It&#8217;s a little bit like home in terms of the weather. And it&#8217;s a lot not like home because there is elevation. For us, it&#8217;s a 35 minute walk to get here and we&#8217;ve tried quite a few different routes getting here. And whatever you pick, you always end up walking uphill. Which I found interesting, but it highlights the things I like about Porto, because there is nooks and crannies and corners and things you constantly find. Sure there&#8217;s architecture, but if I&#8217;m really honest, I&#8217;ve seen so many European cities, that is roughly the same everywhere. Yeah, the play with the hills and the twisty roads and things like that. I really enjoy it. Plus we&#8217;re close to the sea, as someone who grew up around water, I like that.</p>



<p>[00:05:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, it&#8217;s absolutely brilliant. I completely share your comment about the hills. So far, I&#8217;ve only walked up.</p>



<p>[00:05:48] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> So I&#8217;m here with my son and he keeps saying, uh, you&#8217;re getting old. And, and the last couple of days I take the Uber getting here and he&#8217;s said, I&#8217;m going to walk. I&#8217;m like, fine. I&#8217;m okay with that. I like the Uber now, cause I walked so much.</p>



<p>[00:06:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;ve got to ask about your son. Is he into WordPress?</p>



<p>[00:06:05] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Kinda, sort of. His number one passion, and that is in not just a capital P, but the whole word is in capitals is music. He is doing a Dutch version of Juilliard&#8217;s, if that rings a bell. So it&#8217;s a school that is essentially on the performance arts. I think the official name is the Academy of Pop Culture, and he does music. So that consumes his life. There have been periods where I have used him when we had client migrations. So he&#8217;s done content management mostly. So he understands WordPress. It just hasn&#8217;t built anything in it himself. So we drove up here, so it&#8217;s a father and son road trip, have fun together. and that sort of thing.</p>



<p>[00:06:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How long did it take to get here?</p>



<p>[00:06:41] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> We had a short break in a Bilbao. We spent the night there, so I think all in total 21 hours.</p>



<p>[00:06:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I didn&#8217;t know you brought your son. But he&#8217;s not here in the venue?</p>



<p>[00:06:51] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> He is.</p>



<p>[00:06:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So he&#8217;s taking part, he&#8217;s not just enjoying Porto?</p>



<p>[00:06:54] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> He likes to hang out with people I like to hang out with. So we were, we&#8217;re all good.</p>



<p>[00:06:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Ah, nice. And have you&#8217;ve been enjoying, again, we haven&#8217;t discussed this so far, a large proportion of the excitement about WordPress events, WordCamps in particular is the sort of stuff that goes on around the edges. You know, the hallway track. The after parties and all that. We haven&#8217;t had the after-party yet, but there&#8217;s been lots of social events organized in the evenings. Has that side been enriching and fun?</p>



<p>[00:07:17] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Very much.</p>



<p>[00:07:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You enjoy that bit as much as anybody?</p>



<p>[00:07:20] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Absolutely.</p>



<p>[00:07:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Because I think one of the key components for people who want to be at these events, but maybe don&#8217;t want to be at these events if you know what I mean? You&#8217;re nervous. It&#8217;s all going to be about code. I don&#8217;t write code.</p>



<p>[00:07:31] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> No.</p>



<p>[00:07:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> There&#8217;s a load of social stuff going on.</p>



<p>[00:07:34] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> So, that whole chain of thought needs to stop anyway, because it is not about code. at one point I&#8217;ve I&#8217;ve been, quoted saying, I came for the software. I came home with family. So, if you keep that in mind, it means there&#8217;s a lot more going on than just this is the code we work with.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s a CMS we work with and the CMS allows us to do things. And there are many other people that have the similar experience. Like it facilitates them, it empowers them. It&#8217;s not just the content creators themselves democratizing publishing. It&#8217;s not just that. There&#8217;s a whole ecosystem around of people being empowered to use a particular piece of software.</p>



<p>And the fun thing about WordPress is, as it so happens that the large majority of people enjoying the software turn out also to like each other in real life. So the community part, and then the social component of that gets highlighted at WordCamps.</p>



<p>[00:08:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So is it true to say that you, I know that you just said it and it sounded like a trope, but hand on heart, you&#8217;ve got real life friends, in the strictest sense of the word that you never would have known.</p>



<p>[00:08:37] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Absolutely.</p>



<p>[00:08:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. That&#8217;s really fascinating.</p>



<p>[00:08:39] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah, and not a few.</p>



<p>[00:08:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. You are quite gregarious, I think. You are very good at, being out there.</p>



<p>[00:08:45] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I&#8217;m not necessarily an extrovert but, among friends, among like-minded it doesn&#8217;t cost me energy. So I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m a very comfortable semi introvert.</p>



<p>[00:08:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Let&#8217;s talk to the people out there though who may be introverted. Who think, you know what? There&#8217;s no way I&#8217;m going to a WordPress event. There&#8217;s no way I&#8217;m going to a WordCamp, big one, like WordCamp Europe, or a smaller one that may be in a particular country. Just tell us a little bit about the stuff which is on hand to help them get through it. Cause I know there&#8217;s a lot of preparation and a lot of thought has been put in to make this as accessible as possible well, basically to quieten any nerves for anybody who may be just thinking, okay, this is not for me.</p>



<p>[00:09:20] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> So the only thing overwhelming that we cannot take away is the number of people, right? So if a small WordCamp for 200 people is a trigger for you, we can&#8217;t solve that. WordCamp Europe in the 2000 plus, is not going to solve that either, but what we can do is provide an open environment.</p>



<p>Right? So what we do is we make sure that all the angles that we can cover, meaning if you&#8217;d like to sit aside in the corner, you can. There is space to do that, from within the rooms where the presentations are, to what you mentioned earlier, hallway tracks, right? There&#8217;s spaces, there&#8217;s hallways, there&#8217;s various places where you can hang out where you can sit where you can relax a bit, collect your thoughts if that&#8217;s needed, whatever.</p>



<p>So, the other thing you will find is, like I mentioned earlier, there&#8217;s a lot of like-minded people. And if you are, I think suffering is too big of a word, but if you are in need of anything, you will be spotted and someone will come and, uh, ask are you okay? Is there something I can do to help? So, the whole environment we have is to facilitate the most diverse audience you can think of. That includes the accessibility type of stuff. We have captioning for the live talks. We take into account that if someone creates a presentation, color contrast is correct. So color blinds. You know, I&#8217;m just giving random examples of things that think of in order to facilitate everyone as much as possible.</p>



<p>So if you&#8217;re an introvert, it&#8217;s going to cost you some energy, sure, but it&#8217;s also going to give you a lot. And at the very least it&#8217;s people you somewhat maybe already know from online interactions and stuff, especially Twitter is good at that. It&#8217;s going to help you cement that sort of relationship into a more, I&#8217;m sitting across from you now, uh, Nathan, and we&#8217;ve spoken quite a few times already, but this is the first time we&#8217;re properly sitting across each other. It&#8217;s different in real life than it is when you&#8217;re, through the digital world are connecting. So the advantage of that is tremendous.</p>



<p>[00:11:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m sitting across from you, as you just said, and you&#8217;ve got the lanyard around your neck and it&#8217;s got your name on it. And so if you wish to wear that, everybody can figure out what your name is. Actually, that really does prevent a lot of awkward moments because it&#8217;s totally okay to stare at that. I&#8217;ve done that so many times, hello, and you don&#8217;t have to say, what&#8217;s your name? You just go, oh, hi Remkus and so on.</p>



<p>But also curiously, and I think I&#8217;ve not seen this before. Well, I&#8217;ve not seen it at other events. Your lanyard yard has a green sticker. Why has it got a green sticker?</p>



<p>[00:11:43] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> So we&#8217;ve added, we&#8217;ve had this for a few additions now. So on your lanyard, like you said, it says your name and the sticker, that we have some sticker options and one of them has to indicate I&#8217;m okay with you if you approach me..</p>



<p>I&#8217;m okay. if, if you want to start talking to me. And I am. But there&#8217;s also a sticker that indicates I&#8217;d rather keep my distance. And if, if I want to talk I&#8217;ll approach you instead of you me. So, you know, for those in need, it&#8217;s a great mechanism to help you be as comfortable as can be.</p>



<p>[00:12:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. It&#8217;s because there are all sorts of people here. There are some fairly gregarious people, and if you have, if you&#8217;re just wandering around, there is a chance that you may be just spoken to by random people, cause that happens quite a lot. If you&#8217;re wearing the red one, so I&#8217;m guessing there&#8217;s red, yellow, amber and green, red basically indicates look, I&#8217;m happy to be in this environment, but I would rather it that you just left me to it. I&#8217;m wandering about, to stay wandering about by myself.</p>



<p>[00:12:37] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah. I don&#8217;t think the percentage that is using a red one is particularly that high, but it&#8217;s a mechanism that&#8217;s very easy to implement. It&#8217;s very easy if for those who actually need it to use it.</p>



<p>[00:12:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> There&#8217;s loads of other things, there&#8217;s quiet spaces, there&#8217;s places where you can go and just be quiet. There&#8217;s childcare for, from really early ages, right up 16. If you to take, take that on board, you know, so if the impediment to coming is that you&#8217;ve got children, well it need not be, I can&#8217;t speak for the other events elsewhere, but this one, that&#8217;s happening. There&#8217;s also a ton of nice food, and there&#8217;s a ton of space outside. And we&#8217;re lucky enough that in Porto, we&#8217;ve really managed to avoid the poor weather which was predicted to land.</p>



<p>[00:13:17] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Well, we had a bit of the rain yesterday, but you know, it&#8217;s fine.</p>



<p>[00:13:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But there&#8217;s tons of outdoor space, so there&#8217;s lots of opportunities to just go and hang out. Yeah, there&#8217;s absolutely loads put on. Right, but the question remains is why are you here talking about this? And the reason you&#8217;re here talking about this is because you were one of the founders of the whole enterprise.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re at year 10 and there&#8217;s badges and posters all over the place saying happy birthday. Ten years old. You&#8217;re like the father of this along with other mothers and fathers.</p>



<p>[00:13:49] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yes. Yes. So the very first WordCamp I went to was WordCamp Netherlands, and it was also the very first WordCamp I organized. So, what that did is introduced a lot of people from the European continent came to the first WordCamp Netherlands. Through that I got to meet other people that I enjoyed spending time with. One of them was uh, Zé Fontainhas from Portugal. Over the next two years, we found each other at various WordCamps in Europe.</p>



<p>We both quite quick landed on the idea together that, wouldn&#8217;t it be great if we would have one event in Europe uniting all of Europe as a community? Because we looked at the United States and they have, at that time they had WordPress San Francisco, which is now moving around and called WordCamp US. So we saw there is no European equivalent of it. Fast forward another year, we were in January 2012. We were with a bunch of friends, we were in what we call WP on tour. We rented an incredibly nice and a very, very interesting villa, ask me later. Yeah, so we introduced the idea to other folks there. We got a lot of excitement about it. And then as it so happens, Zé and I, and some other friends were invited for the inaugural WordPress community summit in 2012, October, where Matt and the representative of WordPress Central was also going to be. So we pitched the idea there.</p>



<p>We had to do some convincing and explaining like, why? Because the rule at the time was you cannot do regional WordCamps. It has to be city-based. Especially this large of a region, Europe sounds like one thing, but it most certainly is not, depending on whichever definition you look up. We eventually got the go ahead, and with, with the slight contingent if I remember correctly, like, we&#8217;ll see how it goes, if it works ,out great, and if it doesn&#8217;t, you know, we tried. that&#8217;s essentially how this whole thing started becoming a thing.</p>



<p>[00:15:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Where was the first actual one?</p>



<p>[00:15:46] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> In Leiden, the Netherlands.</p>



<p>[00:15:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Let&#8217;s just draw out over those 10 years where we&#8217;ve got, but let&#8217;s just quickly paint the picture where we are today. WordCamp Europe, 2022. I think correct me if I&#8217;m wrong. 2,700 attendees. I don&#8217;t know how many volunteers, but many, many hundreds, I think because there are, yeah, there&#8217;s t-shirts everywhere. So we&#8217;re definitely I would imagine over 3000 people involved. So let&#8217;s go back 10 years. What did that look like?</p>



<p>[00:16:16] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I think we sold 832 tickets and we had about 780 people actually showing up. So the actual turnout percentage was extremely high, but we were already happy we were past 500. Cause we had no idea where it was going to land. Right, so at the time, we started organizing it, with selling tickets early 2013. And we had kind of an idea of how many we should be able to get in terms of attendees, we didn&#8217;t know.</p>



<p>So at that time countries like France had a small but upcoming WordPress community. Spain was very active. The Netherlands, I was quite active. Portugal as well. But, Italy for instance was fragmented. Serbia close to non-existent, and I think you see where I&#8217;m going with. The whole goal was for us to unite, to be in the same room, talk to each other, learn about each other and see that we are, we have a common goal.</p>



<p>That was the purpose of working in Europe. But we didn&#8217;t know how many people see the same purpose. See the same benefit. So we had initially said, you know, 500, we&#8217;re good, we&#8217;re good. Nice.</p>



<p>[00:17:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So in what ways was it different? The reason I asked that question is because, I&#8217;ve only been to two WordCamp Europes. I went to the previous one in Berlin, which was actually now three years ago. Paint a picture of the difference between what it was like in the first one and what it&#8217;s like now. And the reason I&#8217;m asking that is because here it really, really feels incredibly slick and professional. They both had that feel about them. Was it always thus, or were the first ones a bit more cottage industry? Just tell us what was different.</p>



<p>[00:17:56] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I&#8217;d like to think that from the experience of those who were attending, it has been a good experience from the early beginning. Having said that there is a lot of room for improvement as we were doing the first one, we quickly realized there was a lot of things we could do better, should do better. All that. But I think the challenge more has been, as we grew, the amount of effort you have to put in is not, in my experience. is not a linear one. It&#8217;s more of a, what do you call that in English?</p>



<p>[00:18:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Parabola.</p>



<p>[00:18:28] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Parabola, there you go. So, as you mentioned, there was a lot of volunteers here because the amount of that is just vastly increased. So Yes, there&#8217;s a lot of things that have been much smoother and better taken care of. At the end of WordCamp Europe in Leiden, all of us on the organizing team were absolutely exhausted. Like full on. I&#8217;m not saying they&#8217;re not exhausted now here, but I&#8217;m also telling you it&#8217;s quite different to the level of stress that we had that first time, because nobody knew.</p>



<p>Every single person there had organized WordCamps before. So we picked that. Some had less experience or maybe just a meetup type of stuff but everybody had some type of experience. So we leaned on each other mostly. But the size is the quantifier there, that determines how much more you have to do. At every single WordCamp after, I get stopped by people all the time, saying hi, some will say, how much they&#8217;ve enjoyed every single one since the first one and all that.</p>



<p>And uh, some will start reminding me of things happened during the first one or the second one, even. I go like, yeah, I don&#8217;t know. Cos it&#8217;s been a blur. I don&#8217;t know how many kilometers I walked that first one, but it&#8217;s been a lot just in the venue. Cause I was running back and forth constantly because there&#8217;s all these little things we need to take care of in the moment. Now, we know all those things. So we do take care of that before it actually happens. So it&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s most certainly has done way more professional.</p>



<p>Media coverage is one, but, the video recording is another. The captioning. You know, everything we can do to make it better, that has happened continuously. So yes, I think it was quite all right, the first organization. But it&#8217;s gotten way better.</p>



<p>[00:20:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It really does feel like Google IO or something like that, you know, incredibly professional and incredibly well managed.</p>



<p>[00:20:17] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> That&#8217;s a great compliment.</p>



<p>[00:20:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you see events like this as, they&#8217;re a nice thing to do. You know, you turn up your watch speakers, you hang out and you make friends and all of that kind of stuff. Is it, is it more? Is it more the glue that binds the community together?</p>



<p>[00:20:32] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> It&#8217;s both.</p>



<p>[00:20:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, because the reason I&#8217;m asking that is because in the last, everybody knows what happened over the last two years. I don&#8217;t need to spell it out, but we had a hiatus, a couple of years. Kind of feels to me, as if things went off the rails a bit with the community. Not like it felt a pieces, but it just had to adapt and feels like there&#8217;s this collective sigh of relief and almost every conversation that I had in the first day for the first few hours until everybody got out of their system was, oh, it&#8217;s so nice to be back.</p>



<p>[00:21:00] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah, and it is, it is. I think the glue part is way more important than people thought that it was. You have the same thing happening. So you and I meet over, you know, when I join your podcast, you and I, we do it over a digital connection. It&#8217;s a small screen. It shows a part of your body and it has a diminished version of you. And that&#8217;s vice versa. So there&#8217;s a layer of information I&#8217;m not getting.</p>



<p>And I think you can say the same thing for what we&#8217;re seeing here. Yes, you can be connected. You can have great relationships online and everything, but the real deal is in real life. That&#8217;s where you make the actual connections. As you mentioned before we started the podcast, you said, I can&#8217;t believe how big you are. So that&#8217;s the thing I keep hearing, right. but you see that in real life. That&#8217;s an example of information you don&#8217;t get when you look at me, cause you have no idea what my surrounding and what. the proportions is. And that&#8217;s such a simple example, but there&#8217;s like, I look you straight in the eyes, that&#8217;s already different.</p>



<p>You have things you say that you then in real life have time to correct If that wasn&#8217;t the intent that you actually had. All of these little things make up what that glue actually exists of so, not having that for two years creates a like a vacuum of things that are not seen, not communicated, not spoken about, not processed.</p>



<p>So, there&#8217;ve been companies started from WordCamps. There have been mergers started. There have been friends made there have been marriages come from WordCamps. Everything happens when you&#8217;re together,. Uh, which is one of the prime goals that we had. So I know the theme here is the 10th edition. If I&#8217;m really honest, it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s the eighth.</p>



<p>[00:22:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s a good point. Ten years separated the first and the last.</p>



<p>[00:22:43] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah, So online costs me energy. So I barely, barely put any time and effort into that. In real life, gives me energy. As much energy as it costs. So you&#8217;re absorbing information all day. You talk to people all day, which you normally don&#8217;t do. You go out, have drinks, have fun, whatever. That costs energy, but the net result is I have energy. I get energized. Maybe that&#8217;s the better way. Online sucks the life out of me.</p>



<p>[00:23:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s really interesting. And I think, from the core team, the message, I could be misrepresenting this, but I think that the message was that contributions dropped off a bit. People seem to be.</p>



<p>[00:23:24] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I&#8217;m sure it has. I&#8217;m sure it has, but I think that&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s necessarily something that&#8217;s attributed to not meeting in real life per se. I think that&#8217;s more attributed to stuff going on.</p>



<p>[00:23:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Would it be fair to say that during the last couple of years, you&#8217;ve sort of stepped away from WordPress a bit? You&#8217;ve a little bit less, less fired up about it. And, and are you back, are you back where you were a couple of, three years ago?</p>



<p>[00:23:47] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I&#8217;m going to quote LL Cool J. LL Cool J said don&#8217;t call it a comeback, I&#8217;ve been here for years. So I&#8217;ve never really left, but I&#8217;ve most certainly moved to more lurking, on the side. Life and work was too busy to be as engaged as I was previously.</p>



<p>[00:24:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If people want to get involved, they&#8217;ve got to commit a long time in advance to being a volunteer or an organizer.</p>



<p>[00:24:11] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Not that long.</p>



<p>[00:24:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How do they do it? Where do they go? What kind of channels do they need to be visiting?</p>



<p>[00:24:16] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> So, inside your WordPress dashboard, there&#8217;s a little widget and that tells you where there are meetups relative, close to your location. So that&#8217;s the first thing to check out. They don&#8217;t necessarily need volunteers yet, but it gives you, a, an idea to check out what&#8217;s going on.</p>



<p>What are all those people are raving about, right? Why should I even bother going? Once you find one that you like, you&#8217;ll start meeting people, and maybe you want to use a WordCamp in, I live in the Netherlands. so maybe you want to use a WordCamp in Germany as a, as a nice excuse to get out. So you go to Germany, maybe from there you go like, hmm, interesting, I kind of want to see this grow further. I want to give this my a devotion and time. Every single WordCamp that is up and coming is on central.wordcamp.org. Check them out. Find one you like and see if they are looking for volunteers.</p>



<p>So maybe the call for volunteers hasn&#8217;t gone out yet. Maybe you would even like to speak. Maybe even you&#8217;d like to organize. Everything is possible. It&#8217;s open. And in some cases you need experienced organizers. In some cases there&#8217;s plenty of room for new people to learn. So we always include new people to learn. and that can be you. That can even be you Nathan.</p>



<p>[00:25:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yes, yes. I think I&#8217;ve found my niche. Sitting on a chair talking into a microphone.</p>



<p>[00:25:32] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> But you&#8217;re jokingly saying this, but that is actually part of what is contributing. It&#8217;s not a predefined thing, like you need to write code or you need to do translations or you need to help this or this or that. It is whatever helps the project. This is helping the project.</p>



<p>[00:25:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> There are literally hundreds of roles. I&#8217;ve been quite surprised by the different things I&#8217;ve seen people doing. Obviously there&#8217;s people standing, handing out microphones, there&#8217;s people, moving boxes. There&#8217;s people printing tickets. There&#8217;s people showing time. Yeah. You know, there&#8217;s people making sure that. Well there&#8217;s, yeah, yet, already done it?</p>



<p>[00:26:04] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:26:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How did it go?</p>



<p>[00:26:05] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yesterday morning? I think fine. I forgot a few things, but that was to be expected.</p>



<p>[00:26:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Remkus de Vries. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today.</p>



<p>[00:26:12] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Happy to have been here.</p>



<p>[00:26:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> One final question just before we end. 2023, are you going to be there?</p>



<p>[00:26:18] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:26:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Where is it?</p>



<p>[00:26:22] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> Europe.</p>



<p>[00:26:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You know, don&#8217;t you?</p>



<p>[00:26:23] <strong>Remkus de Vries:</strong> I do.</p>
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";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:104:"Post Status: Post Status Comments (No. 10) — Nineteen Years of WordPress: A Look Back and a Look Ahead";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98836";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:45:"https://poststatus.com/19-years-of-wordpress/";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:138:"Mary Job, Nathan Wrigley, Naoko Takano, Olivia Bisset, Yvette Sonneveld, Taco Verdo, and Nyasha Green talk about WordPress as it turns 19.";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, 07 Jun 2022 21:21:08 +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:"David Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:57:"Post Status: 9 Things I Learned from WordCamp Europe 2022";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98828";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:68:"https://poststatus.com/9-things-i-learned-from-wordcamp-europe-2022/";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:205:"A lot of interesting things surfaced in the open conversations with Matt and Josepha at WCEU. I also learned a lot from Pablo Postigo, Feliz Arntz, Shane Pearlman, Jonathan Wold, Nora Ferrerio, Milana Cap.";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, 07 Jun 2022 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:12:"David Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:90:"Gutenberg Times: WordPress 6.0, WordCamp Europe and Roadmap for 6.1 –Weekend Edition 217";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=21250";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:97:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-0-wordcamp-europe-and-roadmap-for-6-1-weekend-edition-217/";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:18886:"<p>Howdy, howdy! </p>



<p>I hoped to get this edition published before the <a href="https://blog.bigorangeheart.org/2019/11/post-wordcamp-emotions/">After-WordCamp Europe slump</a> would hit me, but I ran out of energy. Nevertheless, I wanted you to have all of below links, so here it is the Weekend Edition on a Tuesday 🙂  </p>



<p>The first regional in-person WordCamp was a great start into the next phase of Community events.  Approx 800 people worked on the open-source project on Contributor Day and approx 1,500 more attendees joined in for talks, workshops, conversations at the WP Cafe, populated the Sponsor Hall and run into each other on the Hallway Track.  It was not without its challenges, though. Enforcing the in-door mask mandate was surprisingly difficult for an supposedly adult population. </p>



<p>Nevertheless, the organizers and volunteers with the help of the venue staff, sponsors and speaker produced a high-level extra-ordinary WordCamp together. </p>



<p>I will have more insights from WordCamp Europe in following editions.  For now I leave you with an impression of the fabulous branding of <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/organisers/#design-team">WordCamp Europe design team</a>. Below you&#8217;ll find the links to the Live-streamed talks on YouTube. </p>



<a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/"><img /></a>



<p>The last two weeks were filled with lot of WordPress news, not all Block editor related, though. Enjoy the catch-up. </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>



<p>PS: More numbers: Five years ago, I started curating news about Gutenberg, after watching the first release video at WordCamp Europe, that took place in Paris in 2017. This year, WordCamp Europe celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Last week, Saturday was the 20-year anniversary of Pauli Systems, the web development company I founded in 2002 and closed earlier this year. Just saying. </p>






<div class="wp-container-5 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-camp-europe">WordCamp Europe</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0">WordPress 6.0 </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-gutenberg-13-3">Gutenberg 13.3 </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-word-press-6-1">WordPress 6.1 </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-b">Miscellenous Block Editor news</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-word-press-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning Events</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-other-word-press-events">Other WordPress Events</a></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="0-word-camp-europe">WordCamp Europe</h2>



<p>If you didn&#8217;t get a chance to watch them on the live stream or want to follow-up on them, here are the links to YouTube for the Block-editor related talks Track 1. Lightning talks were around 7 min (click on the title for the recording). Full talks were around 30 min with some Q &amp; A. (click on <em>Recording</em> link). Workshops were recorded but not live streamed and will be uploaded to WordPress.tv soon. </p>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/the-block-pattern-revolution/"><strong>The block pattern revolution</strong></a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanBlakeley">Sean Blakeley</a><br />-&gt; <a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=8717"></a><a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=8717"><strong>Recording</strong></a></p>



<p>Workshop: <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/build-your-first-block-theme/">Build your first block theme</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/DaisyOlsen">Daisy Olsen</a> &#8211; will be published later on WordPress.tv</p>



<p> <a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=15891"><strong>Creating interactive blocks: old, new, and good ways</strong></a> (Lightning Talk) with JuanMa Garrido</p>



<ul><li><a href="https://github.com/wordpress-juanmaguitar/interactive-blocks-demos">Demo Repo</a></li><li>Request for Comments: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/04/27/exploration-to-enable-better-developer-and-visitor-experiences-with-blocks/">Exploration to enable better Developer and Visitor Experiences with blocks</a></li></ul>



<p><a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=16392"><strong>Extending Gutenberg with SlotFill</strong></a> (Lightning Talk)with <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanwelcher">Ryan Welcher</a></p>



<ul><li>More Examples on <a href="https://github.com/ryanwelcher/gutenberg-slot-fill-system">this GitHub Repo</a></li></ul>



<p><a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=16864"><strong>Block Themes – The Future of FSE</strong></a> (Lightning Talk) with <a href="https://twitter.com/imranhsayed">Imran Sayed</a></p>



<p><strong><a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=17338">Blockity McBlock Blocks, Oh My!</a> </strong>(Lightning Talk) with <a href="https://twitter.com/circlecube">Evan Mullins</a></p>



<ul><li><a href="https://github.com/circlecube/evans-block-theme">Evan&#8217;s Block Theme on GitHub</a></li></ul>



<p><a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=17892"><strong>Delivering Personalised Experiences using WordPress</strong></a> (Lightning Talk) with <a href="https://twitter.com/paulfhalfpenny">Paul Halfpenny</a></p>



<ul><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-dxp/">WPDXP Plugin</a> at WordPress.org Rule-based block handling. </li></ul>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/level-up-block-building-skills/"><strong>Level Up Block Building Skill</strong>s</a>&nbsp;with <a href="https://twitter.com/gziolo">Greg Ziolkowski</a> <br />-&gt; <a href="https://youtu.be/91anxAgQGJw?t=23073"><strong>Recording</strong></a></p>



<p>Workshop:&nbsp;<a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/creating-a-pre-publish-checklist-for-gutenberg/">Creating a pre-publish checklist for Gutenberg</a> with Ryan Welcher &#8211; will be published later on WordPress.tv</p>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/the-future-of-commerce-in-wordpress-with-full-site-editing/"><strong>The future of commerce in WordPress with Full Site Editin</strong>g</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/nerrad">Darren Ethier</a> <br />-&gt; <a href="https://youtu.be/Qq1SBFzByDw?t=7476"><strong>Recording</strong></a></p>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/a-glimpse-into-the-future-of-wordpress-from-a-frontend-point-of-view/"><strong>A glimpse into the future of WordPress from a frontend point of view</strong></a>&nbsp;with <a href="https://twitter.com/iamposti">Pablo Postigo</a> <br />-&gt; <a href="https://youtu.be/Qq1SBFzByDw?t=18602"><strong>Recording</strong></a></p>



<p><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/session/growing-the-wordpress-design-system/"><strong>Growing the WordPress design system</strong>&nbsp;</a>with <a href="https://twitter.com/karmatosed">Tammie Lister</a> <br />-&gt; <a href="https://youtu.be/Qq1SBFzByDw?t=21988"><strong>Recording</strong></a></p>



<p><a href="https://youtu.be/Qq1SBFzByDw?t=25934"><strong>Townhall Q &amp; A</strong></a> with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic and Josepha Haden Chomphosy, executive directory of the WordPress open-source project. </p>



<p>If you want to look for any of the other talks, and also view the fabulous live interviews with Attendess, here are the YouTube links for all live streamed talks and live interviews. </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91anxAgQGJw">Day 1 &#8211; Track 1</a>  | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GiB99rkivI">Day 1 &#8211; Track 2</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1SBFzByDw">Day 2 &#8211; Track 1</a> | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1Jmi7wgCY">Day 2 &#8211; Track 2</a></li></ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />




<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>




<h2 id="2-word-press-6-0">WordPress 6.0 </h2>



<p>You might have already read and watched most of the official communication. Just in case you need to catch up, I post them here again. </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2022/05/arturo/wordpress-6-0-release-candidate-2-rc2-now-available-for-testing/">WordPress 6.0 </a>“Arturo” Release post</li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/03/wordpress-6-0-field-guide/">WordPress 6.0 Field Guilde</a> with all DevNotes and changes</li><li>Video: <a href="https://youtu.be/oe452WcY7fA">Release announcement</a></li><li><a href="https://wptavern.com/new-video-explores-site-building-progress-from-wordpress-5-0-to-6-0">New Video Explores Site Building Progress From WordPress 5.0 to 6.0</a></li></ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Just in time for the WordPress 6.0 release, Pantheon published my article on <a href="https://pantheon.io/blog/what-expect-wordpress-6"><strong>What To Expect from WordPress 6</strong>.</a> Apart from the enhancements of the writing experience, the article is more developer oriented with code examples for the new pattern features, Block locking examples and Style variations in theme.json.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Celebrating the occasion of WordPress 6.0 and 10 releases after the first introduction of the block editor to WordPress core with the 5.0 version, <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published the video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjDhfW7FpAc">site building progress between WordPress 5.0 and 6.0</a> showing us just how far the Block Editor has progressed since the 2018 version.  </p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> posted a review of the video: <a href="https://wptavern.com/new-video-explores-site-building-progress-from-wordpress-5-0-to-6-0"><strong>New Video Explores Site Building Progress From WordPress 5.0 to 6.0</strong></a>. &#8220;Ten major versions later, nearly every aspect of a WordPress site is customizable through the site editor. For those who have not yet made the leap into full-site editing – it’s essentially like the old Customizer but with super powers, better instant previews, and the interface is a panel on the right.&#8221; Gooding wrote. </p>



<h2 id="3-gutenberg-13-3">Gutenberg 13.3 </h2>



<p>Two weeks ago, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> led the release of Gutenberg 13.3 and shared <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-3-0-may-25/"><strong>What’s New in Gutenberg 13.3.0 ( May 25 )</strong></a>. He highlighted the following features: </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-3-0-may-25/#toc-block">New Table Of Contents Block</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-3-0-may-25/#post-terms-block">Post Terms Block variations to display custom taxonomy terms</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-3-0-may-25/#query-loop-parent-filter">Query Loop Block now supports a “parent” filter</a></li></ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> of WPTavern covered the latest plugin release in her article: <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-3-introduces-experimental-table-of-contents-block"><strong>Gutenberg 13.3 Introduces Experimental Table of Contents Block</strong></a>&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In the <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-67-wordpress-6-0/"><strong>67th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog</strong></a>, <strong>Grzegorz Ziolkowski,</strong> subing for Mary Job, and I talk through the latest two plugin releases. We also covered in more details, what the Gutenberg developers and designers are working on and what discussions are could use your input. </p>



<p class="has-border-background-color has-background"><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/how-to-disable-theme-features-and-lock-block-templates-for-full-site-editing-in-wordpress/"><strong>How to disable theme features and Lock Block Templates for Full-Site Editing in WordPress</strong></a> on Gutenberg Times</p>



<h2 id="4-word-press-6-1">WordPress 6.1 </h2>



<p>The release cycle for 6.1 already started with some early Bug Scrubs and <strong>Matias Ventura </strong>published the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/04/roadmap-to-6-1/"><strong>Roadmap to 6.1 for the Gutenberg Project Phase 2</strong></a>. He wrote: &#8220;The tune of the release will be to refine the experiences introduced in 5.9 and 6.0, weave the various flows into more coherent and fulfilling experiences for users, maintainers, and extenders, and close some gaps in functionality as we start to look towards Phase 3 of the&nbsp;Gutenberg&nbsp;roadmap.&#8221; Ventura also updated the tracking issues on GitHub for the various features: </p>



<ul><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41241">Template Editor</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41549">Improving the navigation block</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38529">Building With Patterns</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41232">Global Styles&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33447">Blocks &amp; Design Tools&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/39324">Theme switching flows</a>&nbsp;</li></ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Need a the short version? <strong>Dave Smith</strong> created a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vj_Oh6jMHw"><strong>short video showing off his Top five features </strong></a>and interfaces in the works that are on the roadmap for  WordPress 6.1. </p>




<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>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<h2 id="4-b">Miscellenous Block Editor news</h2>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy </strong>announced that <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/museum-of-block-art-is-open-for-submissions/">The Museum of Block art is now open for submissions</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Nathan Wrigley</strong> spoke with <a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/28-mark-root-wiley-on-creating-standards-for-css-in-wordpress">Mark Root-Wiley on creating standards for CSS in WordPress</a> in the 28th episode of the WP Tavern JukeBox podcast. It&#8217;s a  very timely discussion as contributors are working on various aspects of the Style Engine for the block editor. Earlier this year Root-Wiley published a proposal: <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38998">Standardized block markup, theme.json design tokens, and CSS classes to improve interoperability</a></p>



<h2 id="5-word-press-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning Events</h2>



<p>The training team scheduled new Social Learning Events covering the Block editor.  </p>



<p><strong>June 9, 2022 &#8211; 2 pm EDT  /  18:00 UTC<br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286256895/">Builder Basics: Everything You Need to Know About Patterns</a></strong> w/ Nick Diego</p>



<p><strong>June 16, 2022 &#8211; 3 pm EDT / 19:00 UTC </strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/286028824/">Let&#8217;s build a homepage together</a></strong> w/ Wes Theron. </p>



<h2 id="6-other-word-press-events">Other WordPress Events</h2>



<p><strong>June 11 + 12, 2022 </strong> <br /><a href="https://warsaw.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Warsaw</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>June 20 &#8211; 24, 2022</strong> <br /><strong><a href="https://pagebuildersummit.com/">Page Builder Summit </a></strong></p>



<p><strong>June 25, 2022 </strong><br /><strong><a href="https://montclair.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Montclair, NJ</a></strong></p>



<p><strong>September 9 &#8211; 11, 2022</strong><br /><strong><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp US</a></strong>, San Diego, California</p>



<p><strong>September 15 + 16, 2022</strong> <br /><a href="https://netherlands.wordcamp.org/2022/"><strong>WordCamp Netherlands</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>February 17-19 2023</strong> (tent)<br /><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/"><strong>WordCamp Asia</strong></a>, Bangkok, Thailand</p>




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<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>



<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:"Tue, 07 Jun 2022 12:13:48 +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:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:81:"Do The Woo Community: WooCommerce Alternatives? Zach, Topher and Luke Take it On.";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=71702";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:45:"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-alternatives/";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:424:"<p>Are there any direct WooCommerce alternatives that are plugins and not SaaS? Zach Stepek, Topher DeRosia and Luke Carbis take on that question.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-alternatives/">WooCommerce Alternatives? Zach, Topher and Luke Take it On.</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:"Tue, 07 Jun 2022 09:01:00 +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:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:58:"WPTavern: rtCamp Launches WordPress Plugin Compare Project";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=135089";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://wptavern.com/rtcamp-launches-wordpress-plugin-compare-project";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:4302:"<p>If you have been navigating the WordPress plugin ecosystem for years, you may instinctively know how to examine and compare two or more plugins&#8217; details pages to select the right solution for your needs. This task can be a big hurdle for newcomers to the platform. The prospect of narrowing down the right plugin from a directory of <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/">more than 59,000</a> can be daunting.</p>



<p>The team behind <a href="https://rtcamp.com/">rtCamp</a>, a 125-person agency and a WordPress VIP Gold agency partner, has launched a new tool called <a href="https://wpplugincompare.com/">WordPress Plugin Compare Project</a> (WPPC) to help users extend WordPress with the right plugins for their needs. WPPC lets users search for plugins to compare and customize each selection displayed on the chart:</p>



<img />



<p>The chart displays the age of the plugin, when it was last updated, author, current version, required WP version, required PHP version, and tested up to WP version. It also shows important stats for ratings, total downloads, active installs, support requests and support score. Plugin data is refreshed twice per day, so it&#8217;s always up to date.</p>



<p>Several major plugin categories where multiple plugins are competing against one another are good candidates for comparison using the WPPC tool, including e-commerce, SEO, analytics, social sharing, performance, block libraries, forms, and security, to name a few. Plug in a few of the top contenders and it&#8217;s easier to see at a glance how they compare in terms of popularity, maintenance, and support. </p>



<img />



<p>The comparisons can also be linked. For example, the <a href="https://wpplugincompare.com/compare?plugins=genesis-blocks,coblocks,kadence-blocks,otter-blocks">block collection plugin comparison</a> above and the <a href="https://wpplugincompare.com/compare?plugins=contact-form-7,ninja-forms,formidable,wpforms-lite">forms plugin comparison</a> below is available on the WPPC website. The comparison URL includes each of the four plugin slugs and the tool pulls up the chart on demand. That makes it easy to text or email someone who needs help selecting a plugin for a project. </p>



<img />



<p>rtCamp plans to expand the capabilities of the WPPC tool to include the following:</p>



<ul><li>Additional parameters in the comparison table (e.g. supported languages, performance data, code quality, etc.)</li><li>Single plugin page with all the data laid out in a presentable manner</li><li>“Other plugins by the same author” page</li><li>A dedicated page with filters where one can filter across all 55K+ plugins</li></ul>



<p>After testing the tool, I found the search to be a little buggy. Searching plugins by  name or slug sometimes doesn&#8217;t work correctly. Overall, it&#8217;s very easy to use and amazing how it pulls in all the plugins&#8217; details into the comparison table automatically. Additional columns could be helpful in certain categories where there are more than four decent plugin options.</p>



<p>One feature that would be useful is the ability to filter the search to only show plugins that offer blocks or support the block editor. This could also work as one of the parameters in the comparison table. One of the most frustrating things about searching the WordPress Plugin Directory is sorting through to see which results support blocks. While you can browse <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/blocks/">block-enabled plugins</a>, there&#8217;s no easy way to search for block-enabled plugins only. </p>



<p>rtCamp is aiming to raise the bar for free plugins hosted on WordPress.org with the WPPC tool. If it becomes more popular, plugin authors may feel more pressure to compete in their listings by providing more active maintenance and support. It also quickly identifies which plugins have been around the longest. Since WordPress.org is the primary distribution channel for many plugin businesses, a tool like this can quickly highlight any glaring deficiency in a product if its creators are not consistent with updates and support. These are important considerations when selecting a mission-critical tool, like forms or e-commerce, in a business or non-profit&#8217;s suite of plugins.</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, 06 Jun 2022 20:35:53 +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:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:35:"Post Status: Post Status Notes #501";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98546";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:45:"https://poststatus.com/post-status-notes-501/";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:1185:"<strong>Elementor</strong> acquires <strong>Strattic</strong> • <strong>WP Engine</strong> acquires <strong>Delicious Brains</strong>' plugins 🧠 • <em>When the Cathedrals own the Bazaars and Shopping Centers and you're in a strip mall with a fruit stand...</em> • <strong>Jetpack</strong> decouples • <strong>InstaWP</strong> gets seed funding from <strong>Automattic</strong> 🌱 • <strong>Automattic</strong> hire #2000 • World-class <strong>FSE</strong>, how? 🌐 • <strong>WCEU</strong> by the numbers • <strong>Weglot</strong> gives back • <strong>RoleUp</strong> rolls out • <strong>Tadlock</strong> exits <strong>WP Tavern</strong> 🍺 • Why 'why' matters most • The Big 2-0 next year • All there is to know about core WordPress email notifications, documented ✉️ • System font stack check • Do not follow by default • <strong>Museum of Block Art</strong> opens 🎨 • Meet <strong>Yvonne Doll</strong> • Mostly modest WordPress wishlists • <strong>WooCommerce Experts</strong> to go global • How to do well in a downturn 📉 • Some things we don't — but ought to — talk about. 🐘 Silent no longer about Sustainability.";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, 03 Jun 2022 22:33:31 +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:12:"David Bisset";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:100:"WPTavern: Five for the Future Program Set To Adopt Official Definition for Pledges and Contributions";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=135063";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:111:"https://wptavern.com/five-for-the-future-program-set-to-adopt-official-definition-for-pledges-and-contributions";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:4824:"<img />photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/seed-tree-01MVFCVHOD">Christian Joudrey</a>



<p>WordPress&#8217; <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five for the Future</a> program, an initiative that encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to WordPress development, is poised to adopt an official definition for what constitutes pledges and contributions. Two weeks ago, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2022/05/20/defining-five-for-the-future-pledges-contributions/">proposed</a> the program make a clear distinction between ecosystem contributions and core project contributions:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Participation in Five for the Future means consistent effort by an individual or a company via a Make WordPress team to directly support the WordPress open source project and the project’s current </strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2022/01/21/our-three-big-ideas-for-2022/"><strong>big ideas</strong></a><strong>, rather than the sole benefit of a company or individual.</strong> Simply put, Five for the Future exists to collaboratively invest in the health of the WordPress project, ensuring its long-term sustainability and success.</p></blockquote>



<p>Haden Chomphosy further clarified that certain contributions fall within a grey area but still fit within this definition, such as mataining WordPress.org, WordCamp.org, Rosetta networks, documentation, training, or speaking at meetups. She also specified another grey area that does not fit within the official definition. This includes things like creating WordPress sites, themes, plugins, or blocks, and providing support.  </p>



<p>&#8220;These activities are critical to extending the reach and utility of the WordPress project, but they are not considered part of making Five for the Future commitments,&#8221; Haden Chomphosy said.</p>



<p>&#8220;There are many important efforts and lots of incredible work performed outside of WordPress.org and Make Teams. While these are indispensable activities that further the WordPress ecosystem, Five for the Future is about ensuring that the WordPress project continues to be a fertile foundation for WordPress extenders and users.&#8221;</p>



<p>This was always the unspoken understanding of the Five for the Future program but this proposal formalizes it ahead of building out official tracking efforts.</p>



<p>The general consensus in the resulting discussion was agreement on the first part of the definition, that the contribution must move the open source project forward. A few participants were not convinced that themes and plugins would not qualify as a contribution towards this goal.</p>



<p>&#8220;I can’t help but wonder about the argument to be made that the creation of themes, plugins and blocks that are made freely available are also contributions that move WordPress forward,&#8221; GoDaddy-sponsored contributor Adam Warner said.</p>



<p>Yoast-sponsored contributor Yvette Sonneveld said the term &#8220;grey area&#8221; has a negative connotation and that &#8220;all the activities are essential to keep the software and community healthy and thriving.&#8221;</p>



<p>&#8220;I fully understand that these are harder to quantify,&#8221; Sonneveld said.</p>



<p>&#8220;Personally, I agree that themes and plugins brought out under creative commons licenses also help the software and the community thrive, and should be included in the efforts that help the project move forward.&#8221;</p>



<p>The definition did not receive much pushback and appears to be already confirmed, as Automattic-sponsored community organizer Angela Jin <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2022/05/23/request-for-feedback-recording-five-for-the-future-contributions/">posted</a> three days later, asking for feedback on how to identify and record contirbutions. </p>



<p>&#8220;Based on the definition we now have of 5ftF contributions, what other activity, specific to a Make Team or across multiple teams, should be recognized and recorded?&#8221; Jin said. </p>



<p>The program&#8217;s activity is <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/five-for-the-future/issues">tracked on GitHub</a>, where discussions are open on everything from stats to badges to tracking meetup attendance. Many of these are technical issues that will require building charts and dashboards. It will be interesting to see how  the community and meta teams tackle these challenges to track contributions across teams. Feedback on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2022/05/23/request-for-feedback-recording-five-for-the-future-contributions/">contributions tracking</a> is still open in the comments of the post.</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, 03 Jun 2022 21:24:38 +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:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:71:"Post Status: WooCommerce Function of the Week: wc_current_user_has_role";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:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=98538";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:81:"https://poststatus.com/woocommerce-function-of-the-week-wc_current_user_has_role/";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:166:"What if you want to show hidden information only to "administrators" or "shop managers?" What about displaying a custom "My Account" tab just for logged-in customers?";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, 03 Jun 2022 17:57:48 +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:"Rodolfo Melogli";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:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";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:51:"WPTavern: InstaWP Gets Seed Funding From Automattic";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=135047";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:62:"https://wptavern.com/instawp-gets-seed-funding-from-automattic";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:2996:"<p><a href="https://instawp.com/">InstaWP</a> has received an undisclosed amount of <a href="https://instawp.com/story-of-instawp-and-investment-by-automattic/?1vt">seed funding from Automattic</a>. The service <a href="https://wptavern.com/instawp-launches-new-service-for-disposable-wordpress-testing-sites">launched in July 2021</a> as a quick way to set up testing or disposable WordPress sites and users frequently commented on remarkable speed of the tool, which spins up a site in less than a second.</p>



<p>Founder Vikas Singhal said the investment gives Automattic a percentage of future equity under a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) arrangement. In order to receive the investment, Singhal was required to register InstaWP Inc. as an independent US-based organization.</p>



<p>&#8220;InstaWP has a vision of making it easy to get started with WordPress,&#8221; Singhal said.</p>



<p>&#8220;Initally I thought InstaWP was just a disposable WP tool but fast forward eight months, it&#8217;s much more than that. It&#8217;s a workflow tool now, which makes working with WP 10x easier.&#8221;</p>



<p>InstaWP provided an Agency plan for LearnWP to use during Social Learning Spaces, Calls for Testing, and similar uses. The fact that it&#8217;s being used in WordPress education, where some users are brand new to the platform, speaks to how user-friendly it is to fire up a new WordPress testing site.</p>



<p>&#8220;Lots of plugin and theme authors use it for showcasing their product sandboxes,&#8221; Singhal said. &#8220;Agencies are using it to build and deliver websites for their clients. Many developers are using it for end to end testing as well.&#8221;</p>



<p>Singhal reports more than 23,000 sites have been created with InstaWP. The service currently has 1,600 free users and 50+ paid users. It offers paid plans from $9/month to $59/month and custom pricing for enterprise customers.</p>



<p>Singhal said the seed funding &#8220;should last for about next 18-24 months,&#8221; as InstaWP has ramped up hiring and marketing. He anticipates the company will be profitable by the end of the year and is open to more investors. </p>



<p>InstaWP is working on developing native integrations for hosting providers, which would allow users to connect their accounts, see a list of existing sites or create new ones, and select a production site to &#8220;push&#8221; to from InstaWP. The company is currently working with Runcloud and GoDaddy.</p>



<p>&#8220;We have come a long from being a disposable WP tool,&#8221; Singhal said. &#8220;InstaWP will become a great gateway to WordPress, covering all the use cases such as build, dev, test, showcase, and educate. We will be connecting hosting providers, product vendors and agencies/freelancers alike in a single platform.</p>



<p>&#8220;We want to become the AWS for the WordPress world, providing an easy way for people to build sites without thinking about the underlying platform.&#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, 03 Jun 2022 17:30:43 +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:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:42:"Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:21:54 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:00:12 GMT";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";s:16:"content-encoding";s:2:"br";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}