The advent of block themes delivers more creative power into the hands of users, but there are times when theme authors may want to lock down key elements of a design and its designated content areas. First introduced in Gutenberg 11.6, the upcoming WordPress 5.9 release will include a new API for locking blocks. Template…
Nine years ago, the customizer had a rocky start among theme authors and users. Despite this, it has become the standard for modifying the look and feel of a website. Developers have become comfortable with the API. Users have grown accustomed to adjusting colors, fonts, and even internal WordPress options through it. However, it will…
WordPress sites may soon see a slight performance improvement on page loads, thanks to a fix for a performance regression in the core lazy loading feature. An analysis published in July 2021 showed that lazy loading applied too aggressively can have a negative impact on performance and that it’s better to eagerly load the images…
WordPress 5.9 beta 4 was released this week with fixes for 20 bugs since beta 3. There are a few important changes to note in this release regarding how the WordPress admin will direct users who are exploring block themes. Prior to a fix in beta 4, it was possible for users to switch to…
Last week, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy opened a discussion on how many releases the project will aim for in 2022. “Given that we have a release in January already, I wonder if we might be able to use 2022 to attempt four releases,” Haden Chomphosy said. She proposed three different release schedules: Quarterly…
More than half of all WordPress sites (50.5%) are using translations for non-English speaking locales. It’s only natural that these users would want the ability to register, log in, and reset their passwords in their own languages. A new language switcher on the login screen has finally made its way into core, four years after…
Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of the Word address yesterday before a live studio audience in New York City. The majority of WordPress enthusiasts joined the event through the livestream on YouTube. More than 25 meetups gathered for in-person and online watch parties around the world – from Detroit, Singapore, Pakistan, and Medellín, to…
The Creative Commons search engine has been rebranded to Openverse and now redirects to its new home at wordpress.org/openverse. Users will find the revamped interface maintains the ability to search the same collections, narrowing results by use case, license type, image type, file type, aspect ratio, and more. The Openverse search engine is also now…
Last month, Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced the annual WordPress survey. If you have not gotten around to participating, it is still open for the rest of 2021, leaving everyone another 30 days to answer. The survey is relatively short. I finished it in 16 minutes, but I also took screenshots in case I needed to…
Last week WordPress 5.9’s release leads found a consensus for delaying the release after missing the deadlines for Beta 1 due to significant blockers. At that time they proposed a schedule for moving forward, and that is now confirmed. Beta 1 is planned for November 30, 2021, with subsequent betas in December. RC 1 is…
WordPress 5.9 has been delayed due to significant blockers that could not be resolved in time for Beta 1, which was previously scheduled to be released November 16. The 5.9 release team came to the decision after a lengthy deliberation on the impact a delay will have on users and contributors. Robert Anderson, Editor Tech…
Some new data from a recent Core Web Vitals (CWV) technology report produced by the HTTP Archive shows WordPress sites running newer versions have lower CWV pass rates. The original report was published in July by Rick Viscomi, one of the maintainers of the HTTP Archive. The site provides a permanent repository of web performance…
WordPress executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced today that the 2021 State of the Word will be held on December 14, between 5 and 7 pm ET/10 – 12 am (December 15) UTC. For those who are new to the WordPress community, this event is where Matt Mullenweg reviews the milestones and progress of the…
After what seemed like a shoo-in for WordPress 5.9, a proposed web font API was put on hold. The feature would standardize how theme and plugin developers load fonts and lay the groundwork for future user-facing features. Jono Alderson opened a ticket for the feature in February 2019. In recent months, the proposal picked up…
It has been a long year since Paal Joachim Romdahl’s proposed an alternative block pattern experience. In November 2020, he opened a ticket on the Gutenberg GitHub repository to explore an overlay-based approach to viewing, searching, and inserting patterns into the content canvas. Late last week, a pull request for the long-awaited feature landed in…