The Month in WordPress – February 2023

[Wordpress]

February has been an exciting month for the WordPress community, with the celebration of the first-ever WordCamp Asia bringing friends and contributors back together in person. But that’s not all; read on for the latest project updates.

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Get ready for WordPress 6.2

WordPress 6.2 Beta 4 arrived earlier this week and is ready for download and testing. Work continues on track, with the first release candidate (RC1) due next week and the target for the final release on March 28, 2023—less than four weeks away!

WordPress 6.2 is one of the last major releases planned for Phase 2 of Gutenberg, taking the Site Editor out of beta with a more polished user experience and refreshed interface.

On March 2, members of the release squad hosted the 6.2 live product demo. The recording and transcript will be available soon. In the meantime, these resources will give you a taste of what’s to come:

• Roadmap to 6.2
• Phase 2, Finale
• WordPress 6.2 Accessibility Improvements

Help test WordPress 6.2. Your feedback is key to ensuring everything in this release is the best it can be.

Join WordPress 20th anniversary celebrations

WordPress is turning 20, and the community is getting ready to celebrate!

As part of the festivities, the project has released a 20th anniversary Wapuu, a set of commemorative logos, and a special playlist with 46 tracks from the jazz artists selected to represent WordPress releases. Official WP20 swag will also be available soon.

In addition, the Museum of Block Art (MOBA) is calling all artists to submit block art themed on “20 years of WordPress.”

Find out how to organize and participate in the WP20 celebrations.

What’s new in Gutenberg

Two new versions of Gutenberg have shipped in the last month:

• Gutenberg 15.1 was released on February 8, 2023, with access to the Openverse library of openly-licensed media from the Editor. Other highlights include the ability to add custom CSS on a per-block basis and support for shadow presets in Global Styles. This is the last version of Gutenberg that will be included in WordPress 6.2.
• Gutenberg 15.2 is available for download as of February 22, 2023. Besides continued accessibility improvements, this release adds support for revisions when editing templates and template parts, and refines the navigation experience in the Site Editor.

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

Team updates: Global community sponsors for 2023, contributor mentorship program, and more

• The Community Team announced the global sponsors that will support the WordPress community programs in 2023.
• A few months ago, Meetup.com removed an accessibility overlay in response to some concerns from the WordPress community. A recent update reports that the company has conducted an assessment and plans to address the issues identified.
• The Training Team launched a new onboarding program for contributors. In addition, they worked on numerous lesson plans, online workshops, and tutorials last month. Check out what’s new on Learn WordPress.
• The Documentation Team shared future plans for HelpHub.
• Openverse moved to a standalone domain, openverse.org, with improvements to the site’s homepage, header, and footer.
• The Plugin Review Team posted a notice to inform about the latest Twitter API changes and the types of plugins that might be affected.
• The February edition of the Polyglots monthly newsletter highlights some recent enhancements to GlotPress’ functionality and the translate.wordpress.org platform.
• The latest Meetup Organizer newsletter shares tips on how to help your meetup group stay connected and engaged between events.
• Check out What’s new for developers? (February 2023), the first edition of a new monthly series with features and resources developers should know about.
• The latest edition of People of WordPress features Hauwa Abashiya.

Following discussions on improving the contributor journey, a new WordPress contributor mentorship program has been proposed to roll out this year.

Feedback & testing requests

• A new proposal from the Community Team seeks to modify the Events and News dashboard widget to show topic-based meetups worldwide.
• Members of the Core Team suggested some updates to the WordPress release cycle.
• Version 21.8 of the WordPress mobile app for iOS and Android is available for testing.

Redesign work is well underway on the WordPress Theme Directory. Contributors can follow along on the GitHub repository.

WordPress events updates

• Bangkok, Thailand, hosted a successful inaugural WordCamp Asia on February 17-19. The event welcomed 1,299 attendees, and more than 600 participants joined the Contributor Day. At the event’s closure, organizers announced that WordCamp Asia 2024 will take place in Taipei, Taiwan!
• The application to attend the 2023 Community Summit is now open to WordPress contributors. Learn more about the ins and outs of this working event in Episode 49 of WP Briefing.
• WordCamp Europe 2023 is looking for media partners and supporters.
• Want to create diverse and inclusive WordPress events? Don’t miss this free #WPDiversity workshop happening March 16, 2023.
• Many WordCamps are coming up in the next weeks:
  • WordCamp Entebbe, Uganda, on March 10-11, 2023
  • WordCamp Torrelodones, Madrid, Spain, on March 11-12, 2023
  • WordCamp Phoenix, Arizona, USA, on March 24-25, 2023
  • WordCamp Kerala, India, on March 25, 2023
  • WordCamp Bogotá, Colombia, on March 31-April 1, 2023 (Online)
  • WordCamp Switzerland on April 1, 2023

Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy as she explores three interesting trends from WordCamp Asia.

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The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: @ninianepress, @jpantani, @rmartinezduque.

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