If the 2020 State of the Word address was any indication, WordPress is moving full steam ahead to land full site editing in 2021. The 5.7 release cycle kicked off this week with the proposed scope centered around full site editing via Gutenberg. Matt Mullenweg will be leading the release and the rest of the team leadership is still being rounded up. Bug scrubs for early tickets that require more time or early testing are already underway.
WordPress 5.7 contributors anticipate working on the following features in the next release:
- Update WordPress Core to include current releases of the Gutenberg plugin
- Gutenberg: ship additional blocks, refine the UI, add tools for themes and design, and continue working on the widget screen
- Continue work on auto-updates and jQuery
“We might add more items in the upcoming weeks, and we will reconfirm the above-proposed list after the end-of-Gregorian year holidays,” Francesca Marano said in a planning roundup post. She said core development is not “closing up shop” for the holidays, and volunteers plan to run bug scrubs and dev chats. Those who cannot attend a meeting but want to advocate for a ticket can always comment on the dev chat agenda post to have it included in the discussion.
Matias Ventura created a GitHub issue in August for contributors to track the progress of full-site editing milestones. Some of the infrastructure and UI is already in place, as well as the ability to navigate through pages, templates, parts, and know which is area is active. Styling, theme blocks, the Query block, and the Navigation block are still in progress.
There are a lot of moving pieces to make full-site editing features cohesive and ready for prime time. In Ventura’s most recent status update on the project he reported that all of the features outlined are “in advanced stages” and can be used in the Gutenberg plugin already.
“The main hurdle to include the work in major WordPress releases are the various dependencies between each project when it comes to ensuring a great user experience,” Ventura said. “The immediate focus is then on completing the milestones, stabilizing the work, and doing as much testing with different kinds of users as possible.”
WordPress contributors are planning four releases in 2021, allowing for multiple opportunities to introduce new features.
Beta 1 for 5.7 is planned for early February and the general release is expected March 9, 2021.
I really hope they add a modern UI for automatic updates, like a toggle or something, not only text, like it is right now.