The WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:
Found a bugbugA bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority.?Create a ticket in the bug tracker.
Next major releasemajor releaseA 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 discussed the plan to release WP 6.7.1 on Thursday, November 21, at 13:30 UTC, according to this schedule.
Next GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ release: 19.8
The next Gutenberg release will be 19.8, scheduled for December 4.
Discussion
@johnbillion mentioned doing some analysis of how often tickets are bumped from one major release to the next, as there are currently >200 tickets in the 6.8 milestone on Trac. @joemcgill suggested doing a scrub of the existing tickets and moving any that have been bumped more than one release to “Future Release”. We also discussed keeping an eye on how often tickets are bumped during the 6.8 cycle.
Open Floor
We started with a call for volunteers that @bph shared:
From the Developer Blogblog(versus network, site) content board we identified six approved topics that are looking for writers. Check out the issues and if you want to tackle a topic, comment on it. For questions, join us in the #core-dev-blog channel or pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.”@bph (me) .
@remy mentioned ticketticketCreated for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.#51525, which proposes adding two new functions, apply_filters_single_type() and apply_filters_ref_array_single_type():
we have a separate repo where we are doing the changes and testing them live in our plugins, but we were waiting for feedbacks before merging the changes up to coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
We discussed that it would be good to look at this soon and consider it for the 6.8 release.
Over the last year, Phase 3 of the GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ roadmap has begun to take form and with it comes a need for an update around what’s been done, how to follow along, and what to expect going forward. This post seeks to provide answers at a high level view of these questions. As a reminder Phase 3 is centered around fostering seamless collaboration, tying together the user experience, and streamlining the content management flows to improve the way creators and teams work together within WordPress. As work progresses, feedback is needed and welcomed to ensure broader adoption.
Real-time collaboration
Over the last few months, Kevin Jahns, the author of Yjs, a popular framework for building collaborative applications has been sponsored by Automattic to work on real-time collaboration, after an initial experiment landed. He kicked off his efforts with some research and dialogue in this discussion issue. More recently, he’s pulled together some prototypes ahead of sharing a full proposal for how to proceed. Right now, consider this work as being in a strong experimental stage without a final approach. The next step is to get the initial approach into a PR for folks to give feedback on and discuss openly.
Below is a demo showing syncing content only relying on HTTPHTTPHTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. APIs with the autosave interval set to 3 seconds. Because it relies on HTTP APIs, this demo would work on all WordPress instances:
Going a step further, you can see more demos in a recent update including adding y-webrtc into the experience to show how real time collaboration would work for users who can establish a peer-to-peer WebRTC connection.
An initial experiment for block-level inline comments landed with Gutenberg 19.6, breaking ground on the first of many async collaboration upgrades. At this point, another iteration on this initial feature is already planned and underway to refine the current experience further. If you’d like to help test and shape the feature further, stay tuned for a dedicated call for testing or start testing today with this WordPress Playground instance and open issues in the Gutenberg GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository. The aim is to get early feedback and quickly iterate in order to land this new feature in an upcoming major WordPress release. Below is a look at the near term design slated to be shipped next with visuals for adding a comment, leaving a comment, toggling to see resolved comments, and the resulting view when looking at resolved comments:
As a next step of the initial development of DataViews, the more recent DataForm API was later introduced in Gutenberg 18.8 with the aim to reduce expected duplication to create forms in Data Views. Work has continued progressively from there with DataViews and DataForm components influencing each other’s development. You can view each in their respective Storybook views: DataViews and DataForm.
Both of these components have been created with extensibility at the heart of everything being built! For now, pluginPluginA 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 and agency developers can already start using the DataViews component for their WordPress customizations with two different Developer Blogblog(versus network, site) tutorials to get you started: Using Data Views to display and interact with data in plugins and Actions from Data Views: Adding images to the Media Library. If you want to go on a deeper dive, watch a recent hallway hangout that goes through both of these components with folks actively working on them. Expect a continual focus on extensibility as these components evolve. Below is a look at how DataViews comes together with the DataForm work with an easy option to quick edit within one’s pages:
As a follow-up to the release calendar proposal for 2025, let’s gather interest in being part of the release squad for the next major releasemajor releaseA 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., WordPress 6.8.
Proposed WordPress 6.8 tentative schedule
Based on that calendar proposal for next year, the WordPress 6.8 tentative schedule is as follows:
Milestone
Date
Alpha (trunktrunkA directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.8 release)
October 22, 2024
BetaBetaA 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. 1
March 4 2025
Beta 2
March 11, 2025
Beta 3
March 18, 2025
Release Candidaterelease candidateOne 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
March 25, 2025
Release Candidate 2
April 1, 2025
Release Candidate 3
April 8, 2025
Dry Run
April 14, 2025
WordPress 6.8 General Release
April 15, 2025
According to the schedule above and the GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ release cadence, WordPress 6.8 would include up to Gutenberg 20.4 for a maximum of 11 releases, depending on the end-of-year Gutenberg release adjustments (according to an unaltered schedule, Gutenberg 20.0 RCrelease candidateOne 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). and stable would land on December 25th and January 1st, respectively).
Release Leads call for volunteers
Following the release squad structure from the last release, except for the default theme role, as WordPress 6.8 won’t deliver a new default theme, these are the minimum roles that need filling:
Release Coordinator(s)
CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech Lead(s)
Editor Tech Lead(s)
Core TriagetriageThe act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead(s)
All release decisions will ultimately be this release team’s to make and communicate, while gathering input from the community, including finalizing the release schedule.
If you are interested in participating in WordPress 6.8’s release squad as a lead, please show interest in the comments below, clearly specifying your desired role, by December 6th.
“What’s new in GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/…” posts (labeled with the #gutenberg-new tag) are posted following every Gutenberg release on a biweekly basis, showcasing new features included in each release. As a reminder, here’s an overview of different ways to keep up with Gutenberg and the Editor.
Global Styles available on the main site editor sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme.
The site editor sidebar is getting increasingly powerful, serving as the entry point to manage all-things your site. Up until this version, the styles panel offered limited style settings, focusing on style variations, color palettes, and typographies. Gutenberg 19.7 changes this by introducing a full-fledged Global Styles panel in its place, giving users site-wide granular control on styles at the top level.
Swifter hiding & showing the template
Switching between editing your site templates and content pages should be as smooth and seamless as possible; sometimes, you need to focus on the post content and hide the rest of the template. This was previously possible in the post settings, but now it is much easier thanks to the `Show template` toggle directly on the preview dropdown in the top toolbar.
Set image blocks as featured imageFeatured imageA featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts.
Featured images offer a nice touch in external previews, making them more attractive to potential readers. However, it can be easy to forget to set one! To help set featured images more easily, image blocks now offer a dropdown action to directly set them as the featured image of the post or page containing the blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience..
WordPress 6.7.1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is available for testing! Some ways you can help test this minor release:
Use the WordPress Beta TesterpluginPluginA 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
As this is a minor RCrelease candidateOne 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). release, select the Point Release channel and the Nightlies stream. This is the latest build including the RC and potentially any subsequent commits in trunk.
6.7.1 RC1 is a fast-follow maintenance release with a strict focus on bugs introduced in WordPress 6.7. In total, this RC features fixes for 16 bugs throughout Core and the Block Editor.
The following coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. tickets from TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. are fixed:
Customize: Slight side-scroll in sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. (#62313)
Customize: CSSCSSCascading Style Sheets. error in CustomizerCustomizerTool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. (#62335)
Editor: “Most Used” CategoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. Tabs Not Synced with “All Categories” Tab in Classic Editor (#62440)
Editor: BlockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor converting new PNG uploads to JPEG with mangled backgrounds (#62447)
Editor: Fix uncategorized pattern browsing when pattern has no categories (GB-66945)
Editor: Fix TypeError when duplicating uncategorized theme patterns (GB-66889)
Editor: Prevent HEIC and HEIF files from always being uploaded on Safari (GB-67139)
HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers.APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.: serialize should include doctype when present (#62396)
i18ni18nInternationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill.: TranslationtranslationThe process (or result) of changing text, words, and display formatting to support another language. Also see localization, internationalization. is not applied in load_theme_textdomain() function (#62337)
Interactivity API: Missing state properties and negation operator behave differently client/server (#62374)
Interactivity API: Remove redundant server state from Interactivity Router (#62465)
Login and Registration: Custom login logo CSS targets changed (#62410)
Media: Image editing in GD runs image stream functions multiple times (#62331)
Menus: Untranslatable texts in adminadmin(and super admin)nav-menu.js (#62402)
Options, MetaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. APIs: Warning in wp_salt() since 6.7 (#62424)
What’s next?
Reminder: the dev-reviewed workflow (double committer sign-off) is required when making changes to the 6.7 branchbranchA directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"..
The final release is expected on Thursday, November 21st, 2024. This date is subject to change if any issues with RC1 are discovered. Coordination will happen in the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.#6-7-release-leads channel, and releases are always packaged and tested in #core.
A special thanks to everyone who reported issues, helped test, and helped create patches. The success of 6.7.1 depends on proper testing, so please lend a helping hand
With WordPress 6.7 out the door, it’s time to plan for next year’s releases. The following dates try to account for flagship events and major international holidays:
6.8 – BetaBetaA 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. 1 on March 4, stable release on April 15 (Beta 1 ten days after WC Asia)
6.9 – Beta 1 on June 24, stable release on August 5 (WCEU in early June)
7.0 – Beta 1 on September 30, stable release on November 11 (no flagship events nearby)
The release cadence is similar to past years, with a longer initial release cycle, including the end-of-year festivities and ~4-month ones. Please leave your feedback below or through a SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. DM by November 29.
Although the 6.8 dates aren’t final yet, they are close to final enough to let contributors know their availability around that time. If you want to participate in the WordPress 6.8 release, stay tuned for an upcoming post with the call for volunteers.
Props to @jeffpaul for reviewing the proposed dates and this post.
WordPress performance TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets
Current release (6.7 released last week)
Future releases
Performance Lab pluginPluginA 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 (and other performance plugins)
@joemcgill It’s not really clear what that release schedule will be yet, but we can already start planning our priorities
@mukesh27 Tomorrow we have bugbugA bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. scrub so we can take a look tickets in 6.8 milestone
Performance Lab Plugin (and other Performance Plugins)
@westonruter The most recent Optimization Detective release from yesterday has a key change that addresses an under-collection of URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org Metrics from site visits. However, this change might result in collecting too much (or at least too many attempting to be submitted). So especially for high traffic sites, I’ve opened this issue along with @flixos90 to investigate further: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/1655 Something to monitor this month
@westonruter For Image Prioritizer, I’ve had this issue on my radar for awhile which tackles a big missing piece for optimizing the LCP element’s background image when it is not defined inline (as is very commonly the case, like in Elementor, Divi, and even older coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. themes’ headerHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. images): https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/1584
@adamsilverstein There are probably some other opportunities to optimize fonts as well, so maybe “Font Optimizer“. Thinking about web fallbacks to reduce CLS for example. eg. some of the optimizations from https://github.com/unjs/fontaine look like they could apply in WordPress
@shyamgadde Yesterday, after new versions of some plugins were released, I tried to activate and install them from the Performance Lab settings page. However, the old versions were being installed instead. The issue seems to be that the plugin data, including the version number and download link, were stored in a transient, causing older versions to be downloaded. This behavior doesn’t seem correct. Perhaps when installing or activating a plugin, we should consider bypassing or refreshing the transient to ensure the latest version is used.
@mukesh27 requested to open an issue in the performance repo
@westonruter The transient shouldn’t be related to the version being installed
WordPress performance TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets
Performance Lab pluginPluginA 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 (and other performance plugins) including:
Since WordPress 6.7 was released last week, contributors have kept a close eye on incoming reports to the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ Support Forums, TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress., and the GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ repository on GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/. Though volume has not been meaningfully higher than normal after a major releasemajor releaseA 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., most reports are describing a small set of issues that should be addressed expeditiously.
Schedule
WordPress 6.7.1 will be targeted for release on Thursday, November 21, 2024 with a very specific focus of only fixing bugs there were introduced in the 6.7 release. The goal is to deliver a small handful of high-impact bugbugA bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes for added stability prior to the busy online commerce holiday week consisting of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday.
Continued triagetriageThe act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors., testing, and committing/backporting fixes.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 13:00PM UTC
Gutenberg package updates released/pluginPluginA 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 update released (if necessary).
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 17:00PM UTC
WordPress 6.7.1 RC1
Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 13:30PM UTC
WordPress 6.7.1 General Release
Targeted Fixes
The following are the high priority items that cumulatively make a fast-follow release necessary:
sizes=auto causing images to show smaller than they should (#62413)
Patterns without categories break the editor when browsing uncategorized patterns (GB-66944/GB-66888)
Zoom in doesn’t focus on the right area of the screen based on selected item (a few PRs issues for this)
Zoom out button goes missing when plugins register toolbar items (GB-66884)
The following are bugs that should be included if ready, but as understood now are not affecting as many people or are less problematic:
Using the Upload button in image-based blocks in Safari unexpectedly converts images to HEIC with a temporary file name (#62447)
CategoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. management in the Classic Editor is broken (#62440)
CSSCSSCascading Style Sheets. targets changed on the login screen affecting custom logos (#62410)
Finally, the following are minor bug fixes introduced in 6.7 that should also be considered:
Horizontal scroll bar in the CustomizerCustomizerTool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. (#62313)
There is currently only one ticketticketCreated for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. that does not represent a bug introduced during 6.7 being considered: #62331. This is a pretty significant performance problem for sites using GD for image editing that should be considered. It was only discovered 2 weeks ago, too late to be considered for 6.7.
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