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.
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.
Want to know what else is new in WordPress 6.1? Check out these resources for more details:
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 + arrowkeyboard combinations, and brings an improved drag-and-drop functionality for images, among other updates.
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.
Team updates: Dropping security updates for WP 3.7 – 4.0, a new developer-focused course, and more
Feedback & testing requests
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:
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.
