Based on community feedback on the Unblocking WP6.5 – Font Library and Synced Pattern Overrides and Font Library follow up posts, there has been a change to the WordPress 6.5 release schedule and a final change to the Font Library.
The release of WordPress 6.5 will be delayed one week and is now scheduled for release on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024.
The delay is to accommodate the following:
- The directory for font storage will be changed to
wp-content/uploads/fonts
.
- The Editor team will work on including fixes for a select few high impact bugs that have been identified with the Font Library feature in the upcoming Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ 18.0.0 release. This ensures they will receive some testing before being considered for merge into
trunk
prior to WordPress 6.5 RC4.
- An unplanned WordPress 6.5 RC4 is now scheduled for release on 28 March 2024 at 16:00 UTC with the updated font storage location and any other related bugs deemed critical to the release. This will be a normal release candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta)., with the announcement being published on the WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ News blog (versus network, site) for extra reach.
- The 1 week delay allows for ample time for testing, acknowledging that Thursday-Monday is a major holiday for parts of the globe.
Why the change?
This approach ensures that the greatest number of sites possible can benefit from the new Font Library feature without the need to install or configure anything.
While attempting to implement the originally suggested compromise, the sentiment from the trusted contributors involved was that a solution could not be shipped with a level of confidence that meets the standards that core contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. hold themselves to in the remaining time before the originally scheduled release.
After evaluating the potential options and discussing the proposed solution, the most risk averse option was determined to be storing fonts in the wp-content/uploads/fonts
directory.
Shipping a feature that requires additional configuration or technical knowledge isn’t in line with the guiding philosophies that have helped the project mature into the successful project that exists today. Part of the original post was a call to return back to those project philosophies, and something this change attempts to adhere to.
The Dry run post will be updated to reflect the schedule for the new release date of 2 April.
Post release
Following the 6.5 release, these items detailed in the original post should still be explored:
- A roadmap will be published outlining where the project components are headed in relation to establishing new first-class concepts outside of previously established paradigms within the software (like breaking down themes into fonts, patterns, templates, etc.). Why was this such an important and impactful decision? What is the goal we are trying to accomplish? And how might it present itself again in the future?
- A means to move the canonical location of the fonts directory. Should the
wp-content
directory become writable for a site, a safe path forward should be offered for its owners.
- Explore whether additional checks should be added to Site Health.
Props to @desrosj, @davidbaumwald,@hellofromtonya, @chanthaboune, @peterwilsoncc, @priethor, @jorbin, @annezazu, @akshayar, & @courane01 for pre-publish review.
#6-5, #core, #release-process