Summary, Dev Chat, Mar 12, 2025

Announcements 📢

WordPress 6.8 | BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 2 is now available 🥳

The Beta 2 release of WordPress 6.8 is now available! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined the Release Party. We appreciate your testing and feedback.

Help Test 6.8 Beta version 🧪

The Test-Team has written two helpful guides for people interested in testing:

• How to Contribute to WP 6.8 Release Party
• Help Test WordPress 6.8

Thanks @ankit-k-gupt and @krupajnanda for your contribution!

Forthcoming releases 🚀

Next GutenbergGutenberg 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/ version: 20.5

Gutenberg 20.5 is scheduled for release on Wednesday, March 19th.
This will be the first version of Gutenberg to be merged into WordPress 6.9.

Next Beta 3 of 6.8: March 18th

The Beta 3 release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, March 18th.

A detailed overview of the release schedule for WordPress 6.8 can be found here. The article also includes information about the individuals assigned to each release party.

Next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope.: 6.8

We are currently in the WordPress 6.8 release cycle. Read more about the release squad, timeline and focus for this release.

Reminder

We have only two weeks until RCrelease 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). 1. Dev notes should be in progress. Please check @jeffpaul‘s message on Slack for details.

Editor Updates 🔄

Stay tuned for weekly updates to keep you informed about the latest in WordPress editor development. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or content creator, these updates will keep you in the loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. on all the key changes.

Don’t miss out — check out the weekly update and get ready for more!

Discussion 🤔

Finalizing the About Page for WordPress 6.8

• Jeff Paul requested help reviewing and finalizing the About page text.
• Deadline: March 25 (RC1), but earlier completion is preferred.

“Source of Truth” Document

@poena asked for updates on the “Source of Truth” document, which provides extenders with details about the WordPress 6.8 release. Currently, no one is actively working on it due to limited capacity. @joemcgill suggested prioritizing the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. instead, as it serves a similar purpose and is officially published. Stevenlinx may have a draft of the Field Guide, and a request was made to share it for collaboration. If no one takes on the “Source of Truth” document, it will likely not be created for this release.

Unused Code in WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

@zodiac1978 reported unused constants in WordPress Core and created TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #63017 to address the issue. He asked whether their deprecation had been officially documented. @joemcgill suggested verifying if their removal was intentional or if they are still needed. @desrosj pointed out that some plugins might still rely on these constants, making their removal risky. @joedolson agreed, emphasizing that plugins could use them in ways not immediately visible in Core. @zodiac1978 plans to investigate further in the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party directory and update the ticket with his findings.

Open Floor 💬

There were no further topics to discuss today.