The Month in WordPress – June 2022

With WordPress 6.1 already in the works, a lot of updates happened during June. Here’s a summary to catch up on the ones you may have missed. 

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WordPress 6.1 is Slated for Release on October 25, 2022

Planning for WordPress 6.1 kicked off a few weeks ago with a proposed schedule and a call for contributors to the release team. This will be the third major release in 2022 and will include up to Gutenberg 14.1 for a total of 11 Gutenberg releases.

Matías Ventura published the preliminary roadmap for version 6.1, which is expected to refine the full site editing experience introduced in the last two major releases. Stay tuned for a companion post with more details on what’s to come.

Tune in to the latest episode of WP Briefing to hear WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden discuss planning for major releases and how you can get involved.

New in Gutenberg: Versions 13.4 and 13.5

There are two new versions of Gutenberg since last month’s edition of the Month in WordPress:

• Gutenberg 13.4 includes 25 enhancements and nearly 30 bug fixes. This version adds support for button elements in theme.json and introduces axial spacing in Gallery Block, among other new features.
• Gutenberg 13.5 was released on June 22, 2022. It comes with an improved featured image UX, expanded design tools for the Post Navigation Link block, and solid accessibility fixes.

Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay up to date with the latest updates.

Team Updates: Gutenberg Page Redesign, Meetup Venue Support Funds, and More

• The Gutenberg page got a new redesign! You can rearrange the page content the way you want and experience the flexibility that blocks allow. Learn more about the inspiration behind the new look in this post.
• WordPress Community Support (WPCS) restarted its meetup venue support funds for community organizers.
• The Themes Team ??released a new plugin called Create Block Theme that makes it easier for theme builders to create block themes.
• Matías Ventura, the lead architect of the Gutenberg project, shared some early thoughts on the future of the WordPress admin interface.
• Each month, the Training Team publishes a list of new resources available on the Learn WordPress platform. Check out what’s new.
• The Polyglots Team kicked off conversations for planning the next WordPress Translation Day.
• The Documentation Team posted a series of onboarding sessions to get started with documentation.
• After reviewing feedback raised by the community, the Performance Team proposed a new approach to add WebP and MIME support for images.
• The Themes Team updated its recommendations for hosting webfonts to follow Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• In a step towards open sourcing theme designs, the Design Team made some themes authored by WordPress core and other theme developers available in a Figma file.
• The Marketing Team started a discussion to gather feedback on promoting WordCamps with the official www.remarpro.com social accounts.
• The Openverse Team released version 2.5.5 of the Openverse API, which brings an important change regarding anonymous API requests.
• The Plugin Review Team shared a comprehensive post on invalid plugin reviews.
• The June edition of the Meetup Organizer Newsletter is now live with a list of ideas on reactivating meetups.
• Check out the Polyglots Monthly Newsletter: June 2022 to stay up to date with the latest updates from the Polyglots community.
• The latest edition of People of WordPress features the story of web developer Leo Gopal.
• The Museum of Block Art (MOBA), a virtual initiative that showcases creative uses of the WordPress block editor, is now open for submissions.
• Last month the WordPress community was saddened to hear of the passing of Wolly (Paolo Valenti). Wolly was a long-time WordPress contributor and one of the founding members of the vibrant Italian community. He will be missed.

The BlackPress community is a great place to connect with black African descent people in the WordPress space, access tech resources, and advance your career skills. Join the BlackPress Community.

Feedback/Testing Requests

• The Core Team is looking for help in testing a rollback functionality for failed plugin and theme updates.
• There’s an open call for feedback on a proposal to make building features and plugins on top of the WordPress REST API easier. Share your thoughts by July 18, 2022.
• The Training Team suggested a public content roadmap for Learn WordPress development. Comments are welcome until July 15, 2022.
• Version 20.2 of WordPress for Android and iOS is now available for testing.
• Some members of the Meta Team did some experiments with hypothetical changes to the WordPress Developer Docs. They welcome feedback on the next steps.

Want to get involved in testing WordPress? Follow the “Week in Test” posts to find a handy list of links and opportunities.

WordCamp Asia 2023 is Calling for Sponsors

• WordCamp Asia 2023, the first flagship WordCamp event in Asia, recently opened its Call for Sponsors.
• WordCamp US 2022 is sold out. General Admission tickets went on sale on June 30, 2022, and were quickly claimed the same day. If you couldn’t get yours, the organizing team recommends checking this page periodically to see if any become available.
• Curious about why WordCamp US is hosting fewer people this year? The WordCamp US team explained why in this post.
• WordCamp Europe 2022 was successfully held in Porto, Portugal, from June 2 to 4, 2022. The event saw 2,300 in-person attendees and a record 800 participants at Contributor Day. All the sessions will be available on WordPress.tv soon.
• In 2023, WordCamp Europe will be hosted in the city of Athens, Greece. The Call for Organizers is now open.
• Josepha Haden covered some important questions from WordCamp Europe on a special episode of WP Briefing. Be sure to give it a listen!

The #WPDiversity group has organized a free, online speaker workshop for Indian women in the WordPress community. The event will take place on September 24-25, 2022. Registration is now open.

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The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: @mysweetcate, @dansoschin, @lmurillom, @webcommsat, @chaion07, @rmartinezduque.