The Month in WordPress – September 2022

[Wordpress]

September was an exciting month with the return of many in-person WordCamps, WordPress Translation Day, and preparations for WordPress 6.1. Contributors across teams continue to work hard to ensure that the last major release of the year is the best it can be for everyone. Let’s catch up on all things WordPress.

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Countdown to WordPress 6.1: Coming November 1, 2022

WordPress 6.1 is scheduled for release on November 1, 2022—less than three weeks away. Following the beta releases in September, the first release candidate (RC1) is now ready for download and testing.

Members of the release squad hosted a casual walk-through of some of the expected WordPress 6.1 features last month. ​​The recording and transcript are available in this post.

This next major release focuses on increased control for a more intuitive site and content creation experience, and will be bundled with a new default block theme, Twenty Twenty-Three (TT3). This theme comes with 10 style variations designed by community members that you can easily switch between to customize the look and feel of your site.

Other exciting updates include enhanced consistency of design tools across blocks, a refined and expanded template creation experience, improved Quote and List blocks, and support for fluid typography.

Selected style variations for the Twenty Twenty-Three theme.

Want to know what else is new in WordPress 6.1? Check out these resources for more details:

• Roadmap to 6.1: Core Companion
• WordPress 6.1 Field Guide
• ​​WordPress 6.1 Accessibility Improvements
• Performance Field Guide for WordPress 6.1

Take part in this release by helping to test key features or translating WordPress 6.1.

Gutenberg versions 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3 are out

Three new versions of Gutenberg have been released since last month’s edition of The Month in WordPress:

• Gutenberg 14.1 shipped on September 15, 2022. It adds typography and spacing support for many blocks, continuing efforts to consolidate design tools in blocks. It also includes improvements to the Navigation block and the content-locking experience. This is the last version of Gutenberg that will merge into WordPress 6.1, which will include updates from Gutenberg 13.1 to 14.1.
• Gutenberg 14.2 comes with writing flow improvements, a more polished Calendar block, and autocompletion for links. It was released on September 28, 2022.
• Gutenberg 14.3 is available for download as of October 12, 2022. This version makes it easier to navigate text blocks with alt + arrow keyboard combinations, and brings an improved drag-and-drop functionality for images, among other updates.

Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements.

WordPress Translation Day

On September 28, 2022, the Polyglots community celebrated WordPress Translation Day (WPTD) with some global events throughout the week, including an overview of the GlotPress feedback tool. In addition, there were 13 local events in 11 different languages and across four continents.

The Training Team joined the celebration by hosting a day-long event to help new contributors translate materials on learn.wordpress.org.

Check out this recap for more highlights from the event.

Team updates: Dropping security updates for WP 3.7 – 4.0, a new developer-focused course, and more

• The WordPress Security Team will no longer provide security updates for WordPress versions 3.7 through 4.0 as of December 2022.
• The first developer-focused course, Using the WordPress Data Layer, is live on Learn WordPress.
• The Global Meetup Reactivation project gathered 39 supporters worldwide so far. As a result of their efforts, 117 meetup groups have reactivated or plan to reactivate in 2022! 
• Learn more about do_action’s charity hackathons and how to host one in the latest edition of the Meetup Organizer Newsletter.
• Would you like to help create content for the Learn WordPress platform? The Training Team shared a post on how to become an online workshop facilitator or tutorial presenter.
• The WebP proposal was pulled from the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release in response to this post and subsequent discussions. Users can still get this feature using the Performance Lab plugin.
• WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg suggested revisiting canonical plugins and adopting a plugin-first approach when developing new features for core.
• The Plugin Team reminds plugin authors using Heroku’s free services to update their services after the company announced the removal of their free plans.
• The Openverse Team removed the ‘beta’ status from audio support. Also, the index now includes iNaturalist, making it easy to discover CC-licensed images of flora, fauna, and nature contributed by this community of scientists and naturalists.
• The Hosting and Documentation Teams are collaborating on the creation of a new WordPress Advanced Administration Handbook.

Want to create diverse and inclusive events that make the WordPress community stronger, but not sure where to get started? Join WPDiversity to learn more about upcoming workshops.

Feedback & testing requests

• Last call to complete the Meetup Annual Survey! Help strengthen this global WordPress program by sharing your feedback by October 15, 2022.
• The Core Team is seeking proposals for Interop 2023. Interop is an effort to improve interoperability across the three major web browser engines (Chromium, WebKit, and Gecko). You can submit yours until October 15, 2022.
• Don’t miss this call for testing on using block-based template parts in classic themes.
• The Community Team is gathering feedback on onboarding experiences at Contributor Days.
• Version 20.9 of WordPress for Android and iOS is available for testing.

Tune in to the latest episode of WP Briefing to hear guests Anne McCarthy and Brian Alexander discuss their work on the Testing Team and how you can get involved.

Event updates & WordCamps

• The last batch of WordCamp Asia 2023 tickets will be released on October 19, 2022. The organizing team is also calling for contributors’ stories.
• WordCamp US (WCUS) 2022 was successfully held last month in San Diego, California. Following two days of presentations, workshops, and a Q&A session with Matt Mullenweg, more than 300 attendees participated in the Contributor Day. National Harbor, Maryland, will host next year’s WordCamp US and a Community Summit on August 23-25, 2023.
• In addition to WCUS, four in-person WordCamps took place in September in Jinja (Uganda), Kathmandu (Nepal), The Netherlands, and Pontevedra (Spain). And more WordPress events are on the schedule for the rest of October:
  • WordCamp Valencia, Spain on October 21-22, 2022
  • WordCamp Brno, Czech Republic on October 22, 2022
  • WordCamp Lyon, France on October 28, 2022

Curious about attending a WordCamp event? Listen to contributor stories from WordCamp US 2022 on why they use WordPress and go to WordCamps.

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Have a story that we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? Fill out this quick form to let us know.

The following folks contributed to this edition of The Month in WordPress: @chaion07, @laurlittle, @rmartinezduque, @robinwpdeveloper, @santanainniss, @webcommsat.

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