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(2860, '_transient_feed_d117b5738fbd35bd8c0391cda1f2b5d9', 'a:4:{s:5:\"child\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:3:\"rss\";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:3:\"\n\n\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:7:\"version\";s:3:\"2.0\";}}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:7:\"channel\";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:61:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:16:\"WordPress Planet\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"http://planet.wordpress.org/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:8:\"language\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2:\"en\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:47:\"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"item\";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:72:\"Gutenberg Times: Quick Tip: Creating a custom webpack configuration file\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=23317\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/quick-tip-creating-a-custom-webpack-configuration-file/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4831:\"<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VgK_Y9wAGXw\">Ryan Welcher on YouTube Shorts. </a>&#8211; <a href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanwelchercodes/video/7195978911073717510\">Also available on TikTok </a>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Ryan Welcher </strong>started a recording YouTube Shorts also available on TikTok.  Here is a transcript and code example of his first one. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@RyanWelcherCodes/\">Subscribe to his YouTube channel </a>so you won&#8217;t miss any new streams or shorts. </em>For TikTokers, follow his account: <a href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanwelchercodes\">@ryanwelchercodes</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>There have been many times when I wanted to have my build process compile my blocks, but also add something custom, for example registering a slot fill or a block variation.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Configuring webpack can be difficult, but thankfully the WordPress scripts package makes customizing the build process pretty straightforward.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Step 1:</strong> add a <code>webpack.config.js</code> file into the root directory of our plugin.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Step 2:</strong> require the <code>defaultConfig</code> that comes with the package.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Step 3:</strong> require the <code>getWebpackEntryPoints</code> function. This ensures that the scripts package can detect and compile our blocks.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Step 4:</strong> In the <code>module.exports</code> object,\n<ul>\n<li>add the <code>defaultConfig</code> using the spread operator.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add an <code>entry</code> object,&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>spread the results of <code>getWebpackEntryPoints</code>, and then&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>add any custom entry points as needed.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Code Example from the video </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Example that adds a <code>variation-icon.js</code> file to the build process.</p>\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><div><code class=\"hljs language-javascript shcb-code-table shcb-line-numbers shcb-wrap-lines\"><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-comment\">// Import the original config from the @wordpress/scripts package.</span>\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">const</span> defaultConfig = <span class=\"hljs-built_in\">require</span>(<span class=\"hljs-string\">\'@wordpress/scripts/config/webpack.config\'</span>);\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-comment\">// Import the helper to find and generate the entry points in the src directory</span>\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">const</span> { getWebpackEntryPoints } = <span class=\"hljs-built_in\">require</span>(<span class=\"hljs-string\">\'@wordpress/scripts/utils/config\'</span>);\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-comment\">// Add any a new entry point by extending the webpack config.</span>\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span><span class=\"hljs-built_in\">module</span>.exports = {\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>	...defaultConfig,\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>	<span class=\"hljs-attr\">entry</span>: {\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>		...getWebpackEntryPoints(),\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>		<span class=\"hljs-string\">\'variation-icon\'</span>: <span class=\"hljs-string\">\'./src/variation-icon.js\'</span>,\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>	},\n</span></span><span class=\"shcb-loc\"><span>};\n</span></span></code></div><small class=\"shcb-language\" id=\"shcb-language-1\"><span class=\"shcb-language__label\">Code language:</span> <span class=\"shcb-language__name\">JavaScript</span> <span class=\"shcb-language__paren\">(</span><span class=\"shcb-language__slug\">javascript</span><span class=\"shcb-language__paren\">)</span></small></pre>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\"><em><a href=\"https://github.com/ryanwelcher/twitch/blob/trunk/plugins/gb-14-9-review/webpack.config.js\">The code example is also available on GitHub</a></em></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Resources to learn more</strong>: </h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/packages/packages-scripts/\">@wordpress/scripts package reference</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://webpack.js.org/concepts/entry-points/\">Webpack Documentation: Entry Points</a> </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/ryanwelchercodes\">Ryan Welcher live streams on Twitch</a> every Thursday at 10:30 ET / 15:30 UTC. </li>\n\n\n\n<li>Previous streams recordings are <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@RyanWelcherCodes/\">available on YouTube </a></li>\n</ul>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 08 Feb 2023 10:50:46 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:12:\"Ryan Welcher\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"HeroPress: I am built on WordPress.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=5174\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:120:\"https://heropress.com/essays/i-am-built-on-wordpress/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-am-built-on-wordpress\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:9486:\"<img width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/020723-min.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Pull Quote: WordPress has helped me find the best version of me.\" />\nHere is Samantha reading her own story aloud.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>The first time I put my hands on a computer was in kindergarten. Once a week we’d go up to the top floor where no other regular classes were held. Inside, there were dozens of giant computers (a bit later, shiny new Macintosh Classics) in three long rows. We learned BASIC at 5 years old. We played Oregon Trail and Gertrude’s Secrets. I loved my computer class, and not just because it was always ice cold in the room. That was the only place I got to use computers for years.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My great-grandmother, not really a fan of <em>anyone</em>, had always liked me. Around this time, she pulled me aside and told me, “Stick with the computers.” She was convinced that was the way to make money. I smiled and nodded. I don’t think she’d ever seen one in person.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My dad took me to a store in Marine Park when I was in 6th grade. I walked around the store in awe of what was available — and the prices. He bought a Packard Bell computer that had fewer megahertz than our home phone — but it was glorious. I begged for a game not included in the bundle — Myst, which I’d seen my best friend’s mom play. I became glued to my computer. We didn’t even have the internet yet. I’d spend hours on Myst and then printing pictures and articles from Grolier’s Encyclopedia about stealth planes (don’t ask).&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading_b899ae-51 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">Getting Online</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time I was in high school, everyone had AOL. Using AOL Hometown web hosting to “expand” your profile was what all the cool kids did. We’d fill it with webrings, poor resolution photos, glittery animations, song lyrics — all a manifestation of our personalities.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>The “cool kid” Samantha wanted to be a writer. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>When LiveJournal came on to the scene I started blogging and making online friends — but somehow it still didn’t feel like “my” space (zero pun intended). When I first heard about WordPress, I was jazzed about it. It felt like the grownup version of LiveJournal — and blew past AOL Hometown. But, nobody else I knew was using it. Of course there were others I didn’t know that were, but for me it felt special and unique because my little sphere of the world wasn’t catching on to the “new hotness” yet. It also felt more “me” than anything else I’d dabbled with. I have had <em>many</em> accounts over the years.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had taught myself basic HTML to edit my early “sites” and MySpace profile. I’d go through phases. I’d post religiously, hate my work, and then nuke the whole thing. I’d forget I had one for a while. I’d start all over and make something beautiful — only to fall out of love with it. What I didn’t realize is that I kept learning a valuable skill.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading_f97dc7-19 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">Finding My Path</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time I was in college, I had all but abandoned the creative bursts of poetry, prose, and short stories. I was going to major in psychology. That lasted as long as the guy who registered me for my first classes told me it would. I fell in love with English. I took as many courses as I could with the professors that encapsulated what I wanted to be — and created another WordPress blog.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This time I bought a domain, something no one I knew had done at the time. I did a bit of searching and figured out how to point CNAME records to A records. Now I had my own site, and I was going hard on content creation.&nbsp; I decided I wouldn’t just teach English. </p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>I’d be a poet, and people would come across my site and my words would change them, like the authors I had read changed me.&nbsp;</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And then eventually I deleted that too. Periodically I’d also get dumb ideas that I found very funny, buy a domain, and create a single-use site (I think my favorite was “GeraldoRiverasMustache.com” where the only thing on the page was a cropped picture of his mustache). Deleted. At one point, friends and I started a blog where we actually got to interview a couple of celebrities as part of a larger plan that didn’t come to fruition. Deleted.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I got certified to teach and began tutoring at another college, eventually getting a position as an adjunct lecturer. There, I also wanted to change people — and my students and I organized a small concert in Coney Island. I made a site, posted updates, and pictures after the event. Deleted.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading_bde166-28 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">Finding WordPress In The Wild</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I decided to leave teaching at some point and found a job at an online conference company. One of the requirements was knowing WordPress — lucky, lucky. I was hired. It wasn’t the bulk of the job. I was a glorified assistant that helped edit audio and video, help with online conferences, whatever was needed. But, since I knew WordPress, I could go in and update copy, change settings as needed, make new landing pages for events, and so on. Learning, still — not ever expecting to do more with it.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later, I moved halfway across the country to live with my now-husband. We’d known each other for many years from a video game related social blogging site (not WordPress, but the UI was very similar so I was in my element). Now years later, I needed a job.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>I leveraged my experience with computers, education, and WordPress to get a job at a nonprofit. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>When they migrated their outdated site — an incredibly long and problematic process — the person who was in charge of that was fired partway through. I was brought in to help. I took a look at the CMS and said to myself … “Is this just WordPress?” It pretty much was, with some membership management component. It was as intuitive and easy to navigate, so I was able to help.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A couple of jobs (and blogs)&nbsp; later, I found myself miserable in the midst of a pandemic. Besides not having a creative outlet, my talent as an employee wasn’t really being fully utilized. It wore on me the longer I was there. I could be doing so much more. I threw myself into a digital marketing certification program — knowing all my work is always on computers, I’m comfortable with computers, and my last job was essentially marketing anyway. And then I found a job in WordPress hosting.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading_bb8cde-28 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">Coming Home</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I knew WordPress. Not the dev side, but I could get a lot further than someone who’d never used it before. This was opening a new but familiar door. The certification course helped me learn more about what I wanted to do, but not nearly as much as working in WordPress hosting itself did.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I’m in content, so I get to read, research, and write about WordPress and adjacent topics. I’m going on two years in this position. I love working in the WordPress space. It’s far less stressful than any other job I’ve worked because it’s familiar and comfortable. Tech was the right space for my skills and my personality.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing up on the internet, I didn’t think about how what I was learning would end up having such a profound impact on my day-to-day life. I was simply trying to fit in and, at times, one-up everyone else’s skills. I never thought the place I used to post crappy poetry would eventually pay my bills.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The work I do doesn’t just help customers learn and become inspired — working in this space keeps me “updated.” For as many versions of WordPress there have been, there’s as many versions of Samantha. That malleability is innate to WordPress. You can reinvent yourself over and over, and their developers have only made that easier to accomplish over the years.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Now that I’ve found my comfort zone, something that would have been impossible had I never used WordPress — I’ve also addressed my creative zone again. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>My main WordPress site is a satire news blog that brings me joy even if it doesn’t have the traffic that The Onion gets. WordPress has more or less helped me find the best version of me, even if I’m named after Bewitched and not a famous jazz artist.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Topher put out the request for essays that depicted how WordPress made my life better, I knew he wasn’t going to get a couple of paragraphs from me. I’m still the same blogger that is going type up a Tolstoy and want to delete it. I won’t this time, but, I can also sum it up quickly. <strong><em>I</em></strong> was built on WordPress.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yes, Great-grandma. I stuck with the computers.</p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://heropress.com/essays/i-am-built-on-wordpress/\">I am built on WordPress.</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://heropress.com\">HeroPress</a>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 08 Feb 2023 08:00:12 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:16:\"Samantha Mueller\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:64:\"WPTavern: WordPress Opens Applications for 2023 Community Summit\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141745\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:75:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-opens-applications-for-2023-community-summit\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2386:\"<p>The WordPress open source project will be <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/08/apply-to-attend-the-2023-community-summit/#comment-30688\">hosting a Community Summit</a> as part of WordCamp US this year. 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A few proposed topics include streamlining contributions to components of Gutenberg that are already part of WordPress core, the importance of performance, strengthening the contributor pipeline, improving cross-team communication, modernizing and simplifying WordPress settings pages, to name a few.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Our goal is to have a diverse and inclusive summit that provides a safe and encouraging space for our dedicated contributors to work on the WordPress project and the problems we encounter within it,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored Community Team contributor Julia Golomb said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We iterated this year by holding the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2022/12/08/suggest-topics-for-the-2023-wordpress-community-summit/\" target=\"_blank\">call for topics</a> before asking people to apply to participate. By identifying the topics that are relevant right now, we are positioned to build the invited participants list in a new way, mixing in the long-time contributors we need and including newer contributors who haven’t yet had the opportunity to contribute in this way in the past.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/08/apply-to-attend-the-2023-community-summit/#comment-30688\">application to attend is open</a> to any contributor, regardless of how long they have been involved in the project. Golomb also said the event may include  a travel assistance program so that no selected attendee is left out due to financial reasons. Applicants will be selected on a rolling basis to ensure enough time for those who need visas to acquire them. 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Although the remaining <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/39293\">required items</a> for removal, namely a ticket for <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/35503\">refining the Site Editor loading state</a>, remains open, Editor Triage co-lead Anne McCarthy confirmed that work has &#8220;quickly progressed over the last few weeks to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/46467#issuecomment-1408522571\" target=\"_blank\">to get some items in place for 6.2</a> and to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/47612\" target=\"_blank\">start a new PR for improving the loading state further</a>,&#8221; beyond the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/47182\" target=\"_blank\">initial effort</a> from Gutenberg engineer Riad Benguella.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.2 contributors have published a detailed <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/\">testing guide</a>, with information on setting up a testing environment and key features to test with videos, screenshots, and information on what features should do and how they can be tested.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the major highlights in this release includes the new distraction-free mode, which offers a more focused writing experience that hides unnecessary interface elements from the editor. The testing guide demonstrates how it can be enabled and disabled.</p>\n\n\n\nvideo credit: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/\">WordPress 6.2 Testing Guide</a>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.2 also makes major strides towards improving the Navigation experience, which has proven to be one of the more complicated problems to solve on the full-site editing journey. The testing guide offers a quick tour of the updated Navigation Block UI, which now contains an editable view in the block settings sidebar, along with inline editing for menu items.</p>\n\n\n\nvideo credit: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/\">WordPress 6.2 Testing Guide</a>\n\n\n\n<p>A few other highlights of the upcoming 6.2 release include the completely revamped Site Editor interface, block settings with split controls for Styles and Settings, improved Pattern insertion, a new Style Book for previewing block styles, custom CSS for specific blocks, and Openverse integration with the WordPress media library.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following a few more beta releases, RC 1 is expected on March 7, and the final release is scheduled for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-2/\">March 28, 2023</a>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 07 Feb 2023 22:50:10 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:40:\"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.2 Beta 1\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=14375\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/02/wordpress-6-2-beta-1/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7689:\"<p>WordPress 6.2 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing!</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development.</strong> Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should test Beta 1 on a test server and site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can test WordPress 6.2 Beta 1 in three ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Option 1:</strong> Install and activate the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/\">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Option 2: </strong>Direct download the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.2-beta1.zip\">Beta 1 version (zip)</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Option 3:</strong> Use the following WP-CLI command:</p>\n\n\n\n<p><code>wp core update --version=6.2-beta1</code></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The current target for the final release is <strong>March 28, 2023</strong>, which is seven weeks away. Your help testing this version is vital to ensuring everything in this release is the best it can be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get an overview of the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-2/\">6.2 release cycle</a>, and check the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/\">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-2/\">6.2-related posts</a> in the coming weeks for further details.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How you can help: testing!</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. This <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/\">detailed guide</a> is a great place to start if you’ve never tested a beta release. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you build products for WordPress, you probably realize that the sooner you can test this release with your themes, plugins, and patterns, the easier it will be for you to offer a seamless experience to your users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to know more about testing releases in general? You can follow along with the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/\">testing initiatives</a> that happen in Make Core. You can also join the <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/\">#core-test channel</a> on the <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/\">Making WordPress Slack workspace</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you think you may have run into an issue, please report it to the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/\">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket\">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major\">known bugs</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interested in Gutenberg features? Find out what’s been included since WordPress 6.1 (the last major release of WordPress). You will find more details in the currently available <em>What’s new in Gutenberg</em> posts for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/\">15.0</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-9-4-january/\">14.9</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/12/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-8-21-december/\">14.8</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/12/09/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-7-7-december/\">14.7</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/11/23/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-6-23-november/\">14.6</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/11/09/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-5-9-november/\">14.5</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/\">14.4</a>, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/13/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-3-12-october/\">14.3</a>, and <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-2-28-september/\">14.2</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This release contains more than 292 enhancements and 354 bug fixes for the editor, including more than <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&milestone=6.2&group=component&max=500&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority\">195 tickets for the WordPress 6.2 core</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A major release for a major project milestone</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.2 is one of the last planned major releases of Phase 2 on the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/\">Gutenberg project’s roadmap</a>. The platform has come a long way in the past few years. The 6.2 release both celebrates that progress and looks toward a future of publishing that puts ever more powerful tools in your hands.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next stop: collaboration tools and more, in <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/letter-from-wordpress-executive-director-2022/\">Phase 3</a>!</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Notable highlights</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Want to know what’s new in WordPress version 6.2? Read on for a taste of what’s coming.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Beta label is gone—signaling that the Site Editor is stable and ready for anyone to explore, create, and experiment!</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Distraction-free mode for a clear, focused writing experience.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A new Site Editor interface shows you previews of your templates and Template Parts first, so you can choose exactly where you want to start editing.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scaled block settings with split controls organize your Styles and Settings options to easily find what you need—and clearly see everything a block can do.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Color-coded labels help you find your Template Parts and Reusable Blocks fast, everywhere you look: in the List View, the Block toolbar, even on the Canvas.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>An improved Navigation experience makes menus simple to create and manage—right from the block settings sidebar.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Patterns are easier to find and insert—with even more categories to choose from like headers and footers!&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A new Style Book offers one place to see all your Styles across every block, for a complete overview of your site’s design details.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Custom CSS support for specific blocks, or your whole site, for another level of control over how you want things to look.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Openverse integration lets you pull free, openly-licensed media directly into your content as you work—along with a quicker way to insert media from your existing library.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Widgets become Template Parts when you switch from a Classic to a Block Theme—making the transition that much smoother.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Please note that the features in this list may change before the final release.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A haiku for 6.2</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Last of Phase 2 now<br />Let’s get the party started<br />WordPress turns 20</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marybaum/\"><em>@marybaum</em></a><em> </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/laurlittle/\"><em>@laurlittle</em></a><em> </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/\"><em>@cbringmann</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/\"><em>@webcommsat</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/\"><em>@audrasjb</em></a><em>, </em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/\"><em>@annezazu</em></a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bph/\"><em>@bhp</em></a></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 07 Feb 2023 19:32:46 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:16:\"Jonathan Pantani\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:85:\"Do The Woo Community: From a Hackathon to Accepting Web3 Payments with Sebastian Pape\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=74428\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:64:\"https://dothewoo.io/from-a-hackathon-to-accepting-web3-payments/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:411:\"<p>From a hackathon to Web3 payments,   Sebastian has quite the story and some fantastic insights into crypto.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/from-a-hackathon-to-accepting-web3-payments/\">From a Hackathon to Accepting Web3 Payments with Sebastian Pape</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 07 Feb 2023 10:40:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:113:\"WPTavern: BuddyPress 12.0 to Focus on Merging BP Rewrites Into Core, Moving Legacy Widgets Into BP Classic Plugin\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141704\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:123:\"https://wptavern.com/buddypress-12-0-to-focus-on-merging-bp-rewrites-into-core-moving-legacy-widgets-into-bp-classic-plugin\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3280:\"<p>During the most recent BuddyPress development meeting, contributors <a href=\"https://bpdevel.wordpress.com/2023/02/04/bp-dev-chat-summary-january-30-2023/\">decided</a> to focus the upcoming 12.0 release on merging the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-rewrites/\">BP Rewrites feature plugin</a> into core. This plugin is the result of a ten-year-old effort to migrate BuddyPress’ custom URI parser to use WordPress’ Rewrite API.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One year ago, <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/bp-rewrites-feature-plugin-now-in-beta\">BP Rewrites went into beta</a>. It&#8217;s not certain how the change will interact with different plugins, so BP developers recommended it be tested for at least two major BuddyPress core releases before considering a merge. Early testers <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/bp-rewrites/\">uncovered many incompatibilities</a> and conflicts with various BuddyPress features.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In order to move forward confidently with support for users who may experience plugin conflicts, BP Rewrites&#8217; maintainers have decided to create a new plugin that will provide backward compatibility. This new plugin will be called <a href=\"https://github.com/buddypress/bp-classic\">BP Classic</a> and will also contain BuddyPress&#8217; legacy widgets, a change that BuddyPress core developer Mathieu Viet said &#8220;will be our first move towards progressively rebooting BuddyPress.&#8221; <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/buddypress-9-0-0-transforms-legacy-widgets-into-blocks\">BP 9.0.0</a> (released July 2021) gave users the ability to transform legacy widgets into a block with two clicks. Moving these widgets out into BP Classic will be a significant step towards their eventual retirement.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://github.com/buddypress/bp-attachments\">BP Attachments</a> Add-on, a new component for managing BuddyPress attachments, is ready to move into beta testing. Viet has updated the plugin&#8217;s README file to include the features it will launch with in the plugin on WordPress.org:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Front-end and back-end Media library for all your members</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Administrators can moderate Members media from the back-end Media library</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Members can upload public or private media into their personal Media Library as well as organize them creating file directories, photo albums, movie or music playlists</li>\n\n\n\n<li>User media blocks for all your site&#8217;s content contributors</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Members can upload and attach public media to their activity updates (Needs the BP Activity component to be active)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Members can upload and attach private media to their private messages (Needs the BP Messages component to be active)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>All members public media can be browsed from the Community Media directory.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>(beta) A new avatar Upload UI<a href=\"https://github.com/buddypress/bp-attachments#future-features\"></a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Future versions of the feature plugin will include a new cover image upload UI, and the ability to share media with friends and between group members.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>BuddyPress contributors anticipate bumping the required WordPress version to 5.8 in the 12.0 release. Beta 1 is planned for April 15, with the official release landing May 31.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 07 Feb 2023 03:50:23 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:58:\"Do The Woo Community: New Sponsor Level: Community Friends\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=74417\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"https://dothewoo.io/new-sponsor-level-community-friends/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:391:\"<p>If you are a business looking to brand yourself in the WooCommerce space, here is a new opportunity for you at Do the Woo.</p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io/new-sponsor-level-community-friends/\">New Sponsor Level: Community Friends</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://dothewoo.io\">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 06 Feb 2023 15:29:33 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:55:\"Gutenberg Times: Live Q &amp; A: Layout. Layout. Layout\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=23280\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:57:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/live-q-a-layout-layout-layout/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:61904:\"<p>Layouts are a fundamental part of how block themes work: Layout allows us to define the width of our post content, and arrange blocks horizontally or vertically, right or left aligned, inside container blocks. In terms of block styling, Layout is a complex feature because it affects child blocks in ways that go beyond CSS inheritance. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this show, Isabel Brison, Andrew Serong and Justin Tadlock discussed the opportunities and challenges of the Layout features for site builders, and answered questions from the audience. The transcript is posted below the shared resources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Isabel Brison&#8217;s demo starts a 11:00 timestamp. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/01/11/a-walk-through-of-layout-classes-in-wordpress-6-1/\">A walk-through of layout classes in WordPress 6.1 </a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Resources to learn more</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/34641\"><em>Responsive blocks &amp; intrinsic web design</em></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33447\"><em>Design Tools Overview</em></a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/30121\">Fixed position header issue</a> in GitHub: </li>\n\n\n\n<li>The PR that implemented <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/46142\">sticky position support:</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47043\">Issue for sticky position follow-up tasks: </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/30121#issuecomment-1378124394\">Screengrab of wrapping a header in a sticky group block: </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22%5BFeature%5D+Layout%22\">[Feature Layout]</a> label (all issues in the Gutenberg repo in GitHub that are currently flagged as being to do with the layout block support): </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/44720\">Tracking issue for layout follow-ups</a> (updated intermittently as there&#8217;s progress to share): <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/44720\">https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/44720</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Transcript </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I know that people are coming in here already. We have a few participants here. Hi there, welcome to our 33rd Gutenberg Times Live Q&amp;A. My name is Birgit Pauli-Haack and I&#8217;m your host, curator of the Gutenberg Times and developer advocate for WordPress. It&#8217;s wonderful to have you all here. Happy New Year, welcome, and today&#8217;s show, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of the layout features for site builders with the experts, the parents, so to speak, mom and dad of the layout features. And I&#8217;m extremely honored to have Isabel Brison, designer, developer, JavaScript engineer and core contributor on the show. Also Andrew Serong, also full-time developer, contributor to the Gutenberg Project, goes by the title Block Mechanic, and also sponsored by Automattic on the Open Source Project. And last but not least, Justin Tadlock, developer advocate, theme and plugin developer, member of the core team and former writer of the WP Tavern, now working for Automattic and prolific educator on the developer blog and Hallway Hangouts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll do some proper introduction in just less than a minute. Just a few housekeeping notes. For those of you watching this on the YouTube livestream, use the chat box next to the video player to post your questions. And you can test it by letting us know where you&#8217;re watching from. The same goes for the Zoom place, but there are two places. One is the chat bubble for all your comments and your greetings and thoughts, and then the Q&amp;A section bubbles for your questions that we then answer in a bit. And please be kind, even if you disagree. This is a family-friendly endeavor. So, what&#8217;s the show about? Layout is a fundamental part of block themes. Layout features allow you to define the widths of your post content and the range blocks horizontally, vertically, right, left, and all sides in container blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in terms of block styling, layout is a complex feature because it affects child blocks in ways that go beyond the CSS, cascading style sheets inheritance. It&#8217;s probably part of the complexity that leaves some users a bit confused on how to deal with the various layout features and how to combine sections to a good page layout, and how this all fits into the block theme building process on template parts and the theme JSON. Before we answer your question, what is a container block, and more, allow me to introduce our expert. Then Isabel will give us a demonstration of the various layout features. And by that time, we probably have an array of questions that we can then tackle here as a panel. Isabel, you have been working for Gutenberg Project for a few years now. Lately, you worked together with Andrew on the layout features. What other parts of Gutenberg did you work on before that, and how long have you been at Automattic?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Oh, yeah. Before this, I think the major thing that I worked on before layouts was the navigation block. That was over a year ago now. And a feature that actually didn&#8217;t make it, which was a navigation screen that was meant to replace the classic menu screen. And yeah, that unfortunately got canned. And before that, we had this whole push to try and get bits of block editing in place for classic themes. We also did the Block Widgets Editor, that was another one I worked on. And yeah, I sort of float around and try to tackle accessibility issues when I have a bit of time between the major projects too. That&#8217;s sort of a passion of mine, and there&#8217;s a lot to do in that regard, always.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, always. Yeah, that&#8217;s true. Yeah. Well, where you&#8217;re located and what do you do when you&#8217;re not working?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: I am in Sydney, Australia. And oh, I don&#8217;t think I answered the bit of the question about how long I&#8217;ve been at Automattic. I&#8217;ve been at Automattic for, it&#8217;s going to be four years this year. I joined mid-2019. It has been a while, but it feels like it has gone really quickly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, but in Gutenberg years, it&#8217;s kind of three quarters. No, 80% of the Gutenberg development time, you have been part of it.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, it feels weird to think I joined kind of at the start of the thing, when it was already in core, but it hadn&#8217;t been in core for very long and so I&#8217;ve seen it grow and yeah, it kind of feels like my baby now. Like, oh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. What do you do for fun when you&#8217;re not working on a computer, or how you get away from the computer?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Oh, all sorts of things. I get away art, gardening. I like to go outside. No actually, you shut the computer down and go outside and get fresh air. I do a lot of gardening. I like growing herbs and veggies. I like going for walks, healthy stuff. And yeah, no, I do a bit of artwork on the side too, those, all sorts of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Awesome. Yeah. Well, I&#8217;m so glad you&#8217;re here. Andrew, what have you been working on in Gutenberg and before you worked on the layout features, and what made you select the title of Block Mechanic?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Ah, that&#8217;s a good question. Yes, I think I started contributing to Gutenberg more actively surrounding how to interact with patterns and block patterns. That kind of quickly led on to contributing to design tools, because to have really great patterns, you need to have a lot of flexibility in design tools. And then I naively picked up what I thought was going to be a really easy issue to implement, of adding gaps between child blocks. And I thought, &#8220;Oh, that won&#8217;t take too long.&#8221; And like a lot of things, the first prototype only took a couple of weeks or whatever to put up, but then very quickly when you start digging into it, it then turns out there&#8217;s a whole load of complexity to wrangle, and that was both exciting and also a really big challenge. And so I figured, &#8220;Oh look, I&#8217;ll just put up my hand and give this a shot.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so then quickly found that there&#8217;s a difference between setting gaps on flex blocks versus things that have flown, and having vertical margins and things. Hopefully, we&#8217;ll get into that on the call, but it sort of led to picking the name Block Mechanic. My job title is officially JavaScript engineer, but engineering often sort of sounds a bit highfalutin or whatever, like you&#8217;re going to do big systems design and everything. But I think a lot of our job really is fixing the nuts and bolts and taking something apart and putting it back together. And so I don&#8217;t really consider myself an expert. I&#8217;m really more a generalist that is very keen to jump in and see if I can help move things forward. I kind of like a pragmatic title like that, personally.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent, yeah. And where are you located?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: I&#8217;m also in Australia. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I lived in Melbourne, so Melbourne, Victoria, the second biggest city in Australia, but I just recently moved to the country about an hour and a half away. So, getting adjusted to a different quality of life, but it does make me very much appreciate working remotely because pretty much my whole life has changed, but work is exactly the same, which is really, really very nice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Justin, and you have been in the same space for almost as long as WordPress has been in existence. Recently, you switched from writing for WP Tavern to working for Automattic as a full-time contributor. And recently, you wrote a few tutorials on the official WordPress developer blog, and just today, we published your post about the layouts. Yeah, do you want to briefly talk about what you are doing and where you&#8217;re from and what you do?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yes. I&#8217;m a developer advocate with Automattic since last May. Now, I don&#8217;t know how to define what I do sometimes. I kind of bounce around, but mostly my goal is to teach, to carry other people along this WordPress journey as best I can. And I&#8217;m glad we have the developer blog up and running, even though it&#8217;s still in beta. I&#8217;m hoping to be a big contributor there and write about layouts and everything else WordPress related. I&#8217;m from Alabama, in the United States, that&#8217;s the Southeast region. And I live not in the city, but a little bit outside of the capital of my state.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Are you going to Wordcamp in Birmingham?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Somebody just asked me that today. Not as of right now, but I could be convinced to still go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, let&#8217;s start at the beginning. I&#8217;m thrilled you all three all agreed to come here and be part of this Q&amp;A. I&#8217;m really sorry, listener and watchers or viewers, yes, I saw that the chat is disabled, but somehow I tried every little button there and I can&#8217;t enable it without probably going into the settings of the webinar and stop it. Yeah, feel free to just put your chat in the Q&amp;A and we kind of sort it out. Sorry about that. All right, so container blocks are group blocks to answer that question, column blocks, button blocks, social link blocks, cover block. Yeah. And now as promised, Isabel, are you ready to start us off with a demo?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah. I&#8217;ll share my screen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent, yes.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Share screens.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Share the screen and I&#8217;ll try to figure things out with the chat thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison:</em> Okay. Can you see my screen?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: There should be a cat picture on it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: There is. That&#8217;s a cute cat.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, okay, that&#8217;s the correct screen. Right, so layouts are a feature that came in with site editing pretty much because in classic themes, you used to just the theme also used to just figure out the layout themselves, writing CSS to space blocks and create columns and things like that. But with site editing, we have to provide mechanisms, that is the block editor has to provide mechanisms that allow people to do that layout work themselves. This is what the feature is meant to do and I&#8217;m going to showcase it. If you see my screen, I have actually the post editor open because all of these features that can be used in the site editor can also be used in the post editor. And if you&#8217;re showcasing single blocks, I feel like it&#8217;s easier to showcase them in the post editor because it&#8217;s a simpler interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here we have a group block and you can see the outline here. This group, it has got a few blocks inside it. And if you go into the block settings, that&#8217;s actually not selected. So now I&#8217;ve selected my group block, and if you go into the sidebar where the block settings are, you&#8217;ll see that there is a tab called layout. And this has a bunch of controls. In the group block, you basically have two states where you can have the state. This most basic state of layout is it doesn&#8217;t do anything except provide a bit of spacing between each block. So, there&#8217;ll be a bit of a margin between each of the blocks inside the group. And then the further to that, the other, so it&#8217;s actually a different type of layout that you get when you toggle this toggle on is the same, a few spacing between the blocks, but you get content with two.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your theme defines a content width, that content width will be applied and the blocks will go no further than that particular width. Here, this is the theme. The theme, this is 2023, I should have said, that I&#8217;m doing the demo on, and the content with &#8230; You can see it in the site editor, if you go into the styles tab and into layout. This is global styles and in layout, here we can see that the default content width for this theme is 650 pixels. That&#8217;s the width that these blocks should be respecting when that content width inside the layout is toggled on. But these, the sort of vanilla and the content width aren&#8217;t the only kinds of layout that we have. And the group block is pretty handy to showcase different types because it actually works with all different types of layout.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might not realize that at first sight, but group block, roadblock and stack block are essentially all the same block. And you can actually toggle, so if you have a group in this up here at the top in the sidebar, you can actually toggle between the different types of block that group can be, so row, stack and group, and they all have slight differences. So group, as we&#8217;ve seen, deals with the content width, roadblock has a flex layout. And what this means is that all of the elements inside the block will be side by side as long as there&#8217;s space to contain them. You can actually force them to always be side by side even if there&#8217;s not a lot of space. So, you can get the blocks go really, really small and narrow, and all try to fit on the same line. And that is also a layout setting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we select the row here and we go and look at the layout tab once more in the sidebar, we&#8217;ll see that these controls are completely different from the group controls. And because it&#8217;s a flex block, we have a bunch of different options where we can justify here. You actually, let me close this. Okay, now we have a bit more space and we can see what these justification options do. With the row, you can justify all the content to the left or to the right or center, or you can add space between the blocks. And if you change the orientation, it becomes a stack block, essentially, because stack blocks are also flex layout blocks, but instead of being laid out horizontally, they&#8217;re laid out vertically. Now the only other control, going back to the row that I haven&#8217;t actually showed, is this toggle that tells you that you can wrap to multiple lines. And what happens if you toggle that on? Actually, do we have the row blocks selected? If we toggle that on, it should do something it&#8217;s not doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: You might need some more content on that line.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s what I was thinking. Yes. If you have enough content or there is not enough space, that toggle will enable the content of that row to break into multiple lines, but you don&#8217;t have to do that. If the toggle is turned off by default, and that means that everything in that row is going to sit on the same line forever and there&#8217;s no changing that, even on a phone. Okay, but what can we do with these layouts? It&#8217;s all fine to look at blocks and add random content in them. Let&#8217;s go into the site editor and actually see, in terms of laying out your website, what are the practical effects of these controls? Okay, so here we have, here in the site editor, the list view is super handy for navigating because you tend to have a lot of wrappers. In order to create an elaborate layout, you almost always have to nest groups and rows and stacks inside each other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that means that the layout and selecting the blocks can get pretty complicated. So, I do recommend that you use the list view to navigate through all your blocks in the site editor. And it&#8217;s also the most accessible way of block navigation currently. Here we have a header, it has a group in a row, and you have the body which also is wrapped in a group. And actually, let&#8217;s go into the settings because we were in the global site tab. This group block that wraps the whole content has a content with the way layout. And let me just zoom out for a bit, and let&#8217;s make this small so that we actually see, so now this is tiny and you can actually see that there&#8217;s this block of, this is the group block and all its contents is sitting sort of inside in the middle, and it&#8217;s respecting that content width. And what I want to do, maybe I should zoom back in a little bit.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wanted to show these justification controls that you can see when you have this group layout and you can choose to justify. By default, your quantity is going to be centered if it has a content width, but using these controls you can push it right to the right or to the left. And what that does is just reposition the whole block of content to one side or the other. And that&#8217;s kind of different from the similar controls that we have in the flex layout because this just repositions the whole block. It&#8217;s not looking at individual child items inside it. And it definitely is not justifying your text, in case you might wonder. If you have a block of content that has text in it and you decide to justify it right or left with these controls, your text is going to stay in exactly the same place, as you can see here. It&#8217;s only the block that&#8217;s going to be moved, the whole block of content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, what else can we look at here in the header? Let&#8217;s go in and see some flex blocks in action. In the header, we have a group that is basically the only thing that this group is doing here is allowing the content width to be defined on its children. In this case, it has a single child, which is a row block. And the row block, what it&#8217;s doing is positioning. It&#8217;s allowing us to position the site title and the navigation on opposite sides of the block. So what we have in the row, we have a space between justification selected. That&#8217;s what it does. It just pushes all the elements inside the row in a way that they will have exactly the same space between them. So, we can see if we add another block in here inside our row, I&#8217;m going to add a site logo because that&#8217;s something that you might also want in the header.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m actually going to push it, these text buttons, so the horizontal move aren&#8217;t doing too well. We need to fix that. Okay, now I&#8217;ve pushed the site logo to the far left, and now I have the site title sort of in the middle and the navigation at the end. But what I really want is for the site logo and the title to be side by side. Now we actually, as of last month, in the plugin, we have a way to do that. And so what we added was the ability to manipulate the size of the children of flex containers. In this case, the row is our flex container and the site title is a direct child of that container. And so in the site title settings, I hope this is not too small to see. If you go in here under dimensions, you have a width control, which may or may not be visible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might have to go into the dimensions menu and actually select it if it&#8217;s not visible. And this width control, I&#8217;ll zoom back in because this is practically invisible. This width control has three options. Fit is the default, it basically does nothing. But if you select fill, then that block is now going to occupy the maximum space it can in its container. And as you might see, that has in fact pushed the site title to sit next to the logo because now it takes up all the remaining space. So, you have that nice space between site title and logo and navigation, which is what we wanted. There&#8217;s also another option in here that you can play with is the fixed width, which allows you to set a fixed width. I don&#8217;t know, I could go 800 pixels, and suddenly this is really big and it doesn&#8217;t fit in a single line, but we don&#8217;t want to do that, do we?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, what else do we have? Oh, there&#8217;s a really, really exciting feature that has just, just been merged. I don&#8217;t think I mentioned this, but what you&#8217;re seeing now, this demo, is the latest Trunk. If you go into the Gutenberg repo and check out Trunk and build a local development environment, this is what you&#8217;re going to see. And only yesterday, a very exciting piece of work was merged that allows us to position blocks. And currently, the only way that we can position them is sticky. But that is actually super useful if you want to create a sticky header. And I&#8217;m going to show how you can do it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, due to the way that sticky position works in CSS, we have to make sure that the element that we want to make sticky is inside a container that&#8217;s scrollable. And because of how our template parts work, you&#8217;re not really able to add stars to template parts themselves. If we want to make our header sticky, we actually have to wrap it in a group block. Fortunately, that&#8217;s pretty easy to do because in the header controls, you can just click group and that will wrap our header in a group block, as you can see. And now with the group block, if we scroll straight down &#8230; Oh, wait a minute, I don&#8217;t see the position. Let me reload my site. Is it possible that I&#8217;m not on the latest version of Trunk?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Quite possibly. It was just merged yesterday.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Quite possibly. Yes, it was just merged yesterday, but I was pretty sure that I had built it and I was on the latest version of Trunk, but oops. Oops. Where has my demo gone? Yes. Okay, let&#8217;s check that again. I&#8217;ve just reloaded, I need to redo the header. Come on, group and position. Indeed, I had not reloaded the page since I rebuilt Trunk.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: There it is, saved.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Okay, now the position control has a dropdown, which currently only allows us to select one option apart from default. And that option is sticky. If we select sticky, hopefully now we scroll and as we are scrolling, we see that that header is sticking to the top. Now, this is not super visible because the header&#8217;s background is actually transparent. So, this feels a bit confusing. Let&#8217;s add a bit of background. Let&#8217;s say let&#8217;s just add a little gray background color, and now we can see. Now, that&#8217;s a lot more visible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, this is the new thing that we can do, which is super exciting. Of course, we can position any kind of block, but currently the control only works with group blocks, or groups, rows or stacks, which are essentially all a group block. And we have enabled that in the group block because it&#8217;s a new feature. To start with, this is the most obvious block to do it in. That doesn&#8217;t mean that it might not later be applied to other types of blocks, so that depends on the usage, that depends on the feedback that comes in. It depends on a lot of basically, how are people going to use it? How useful is it going to be? I think it&#8217;s going to be pretty useful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Yeah, me too. Probably an interesting thing to mention about position support as well was that when we started working on it, we were thinking of it as just another part of layout. Because we&#8217;re laying out a website, you kind of think, &#8220;Oh, these are all layout tools.&#8221; But through the discussion, we determined that one of the unique things about layout is that it applies to container blocks, so a block that can contain other blocks. And so a lot of the controls are surrounding how do you arrange children of a container? Whereas with position, within, I think one of the designers mentioned, wouldn&#8217;t it be cool to be able to move an image block, like just have it moved to the left slightly or have some sort of asymmetrical layouts? And so that then made us think, &#8220;Oh, well maybe position is actually its own block support, so it has its own panel.&#8221; And so we borrowed a lot of the code from layout and it sort of sits adjacent to the layout. It&#8217;s technically separate from the layout block support, but it still shares a lot of the same code.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah. Yeah, that is true. I think we&#8217;re pretty much done. I just wanted to show another thing, another little gotcha. Particularly with the recent ability of adding spacing or adding sizing to child blocks of flex, so we saw that in row, in a row block, if you want to create spacing between, if you want to push a block to one place &#8230; Say if I want this block to be next to the first one, and if I want there to be more space here, then I can go in into the dimensions and fiddle with the width of that block. But in stack, which is the vertical equivalent of the flex layout, that won&#8217;t actually work because stack has as its height, it always takes up the content height. Again, this is a reflection of how height works in CSS, whereas usually the maximum width of something is the width of the screen, the height is the height of the content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s something that can actually be pretty confusing, especially if you don&#8217;t know CSS. In the stack block, you couldn&#8217;t just go in and select this block in the middle and give it, if you make it fill the available space. Well, the available space is just the space that those blocks occupy, so you can&#8217;t actually push it down. I guess you could give it a fixed height and then that would work. But if you wanted it to just fill the remaining space, your container block would need to have a fixed height. And now, we have that possibility because we can add to container blocks under dimensions, we can add a minimum height to them. And so I could say I want this whole stack block to be 900 pixels, and now I have a bit of extra space and I can choose to maybe make or maybe create a space between the first paragraph of text and the photograph, for instance.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can play around a bit more, but remember that for stack blocks, if we want to have a bit of extra space in them, then we actually have to give them a defined height. And that is pretty much everything that I wanted to show. So, questions?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, well, wonderful. The privilege of a panelist is that you can have the first questions to demos. So Andrew or Justin, you have a comment or a note or a question for Isabel, go right ahead before we take the audience questions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, actually, are we going to see grid layouts at some point, like we have with flex?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: That is a great question. Yes, definitely. And that is something that I would very much like to see done, and will probably be working on sometime this year. Grid is interesting. It is super useful because although pretty much at the moment we are using flex to create two dimensional layouts, and that&#8217;s not quite the right way to use flex. In my mind, flex should be used more for the detail, for small elements and not for whole layouts, because it becomes quite difficult to manipulate it with precision in larger, full-page layouts. And that&#8217;s why we see bits, you have flex in your header, you might not have &#8230; You won&#8217;t have the whole page wrapped in a flex block, but grid is super useful for creating full page layout. The difficulty with grid, the challenge is going to be because grid in CSS, the CSS grid spec is super complex, and there&#8217;s millions of things that you can do with it. So how can this be best translated into a UI?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s, I think, and that is one of the biggest challenges in creating design tools for Gutenberg, is exactly that problem of translation of essentially the underlying implementation is CSS, and what is the most useful, what are the most useful controls that we can provide that reflect the abilities and the plasticity of CSS but are a usable and are intuitive to understand? You don&#8217;t want to just grab the whole CSS spec and translate it into UI, because that would be chaos. I mean it would be fun and interesting, but it probably wouldn&#8217;t be very usable. So yeah, that&#8217;s going to be a very interesting challenge to tackle in the coming year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, I figured I&#8217;d just throw the hardest question out to start with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well, let me go through the questions and Glenn Martin has been waiting for quite a while to answer his question, and it&#8217;s hopefully an easy one to answer. &#8220;In the site editor, is there a way to create a menu with the images instead of text?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: With images, a menu? Oh, I see. Oh that, interesting. I think, am I still screen sharing? I&#8217;m still screen sharing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, you&#8217;re screen sharing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Let me try something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: On the fly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: In the navigation block we have links. I&#8217;m assuming that what you want to do is to, instead of having the text, have an image link. Because this is rich text, we should be able to add inline images. If I want to add…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: As an aside, I love your image gallery. More cats.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: More cats, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, technically you could do that. This is a page list. With the page list, actually, it just gives you a list of all the pages that you have. You can tell this is a test site because the only page I have is a sample page, but we can actually make the page list editable, and that converts it into a bunch of links. And so technically, because this is now a link, we could actually go and do the same and add an inline image. Now, no guarantees how accessible this is going to be because the inline image is fairly limited. You would be able to add a label, a description title.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, if I were to do this, I would give it a run through a screen reader just to double-check that your text content in the links is actually being read at, and do add text content because otherwise, screen reader user goes in there and clicks on the image or focuses on the image. And the only thing that&#8217;s read out is the image, either the file name or the URL. So, that will be very confusing. But yeah, I mean technically it is possible to do that now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well, that&#8217;s interesting. I have found that the inline menu, even for the paragraph, has a lot of great surprises for me. I was interested to see the inline image available for the block. Now Dana Rogers has this question, so group is just an understanding. &#8220;Group is a block element in row and stack are flex elements?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Mm-hmm. Yeah, essentially. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That was an easy question then.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, I was going to say the group block uses the default flow layout of the web, if you want to describe it like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah. Yeah, I was taking block to mean as in display block, which yes, that&#8217;s correct. The group displays is block. But yeah, it is a flow layout. It&#8217;s as close to vanilla HTML as you can get in its default state.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah and &#8230; Go ahead.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: I was just going to say the one thing that&#8217;s in addition to vanilla HTML is that it sets a margin top on everything except for the first child. And that&#8217;s how the gap is controlled between the spacing of each element within that group block. So, it&#8217;s a little bit opinionated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay, yeah. Peter Goodsword, I hope I didn&#8217;t butcher too much your last name, &#8220;Is this a preview version? I don&#8217;t have a header in my list view, neither do I see settings, styles or options in my top right bar, even though everything is selected in my preferences.&#8221; There might be. Did you enable, Isabel, some experiments on that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison:</em> I have a setting enabled, which has actually been in there for quite a while. If you go to the top right button and you get a menu and way down, you click preferences, you have this toggle which says show button text labels. The default state of the site editor, you have icons for all the buttons.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, no. I think the question was more about in the list view, you have a header item. Yeah. And that should be actually in WordPress, or is that recently in the &#8230; I&#8217;m not quite sure if you don&#8217;t have it. Yeah, this is definitely in the Gutenberg plugin, Peter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: I think so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: My main question would be, are they in the site editor instead of the post editor?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Oh, this. Oh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That could be, yeah. Yeah. There is the list view.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: I mean in here, we do have list view in the post editor. And we do have-</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: But not the header section?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Well, there&#8217;s list view and outline. I mean, what do we mean by header section?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: The header, the header template part that you see, the list view. Yeah.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Oh, the header template part. Yeah. Oh yeah, no. Template parts. I think template parts are specific to the site editor. Let me see. Can I actually…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It&#8217;s to the site editor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It&#8217;s not. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: No, no, you can&#8217;t actually add a template part in the post editor.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Peter, does it make sense to you that it&#8217;s the difference between being in the post editor and site editor to what you see in the list here? Okay, so yeah, that answers that question. Thank you, Peter. It&#8217;s always important to figure out which, yeah, editor we&#8217;re actually looking at. Now M has a question. &#8220;How can you make a header sticky but not take up the entire screen when zoomed in?&#8221; I&#8217;m not quite sure I understand that. Maybe Isabel and Andrew or Justin understand it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: You mean…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: I&#8217;ll let you go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Not take up as in if we zoom in. Okay, if we zoom in past some point. Okay. Yeah. How not to have this happen if you have a big header and you&#8217;ll zoom way in? We do not have a…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: If you had a fixed dimension of 900 pixels, how would that work on mobile?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: One of the things that might be useful is when you&#8217;re adjusting settings, if you&#8217;re using minimum height or something like that, when you&#8217;re selecting the unit, you can switch to using viewport relative units. There&#8217;s a VH option. You can set something to be proportional to the height of the viewport. If you&#8217;re setting the height of your header area, that&#8217;s one way to do it. But another thing is if you&#8217;re setting an element to be sticky, it is kind of being mindful of how many blocks you&#8217;re putting into it. When Isabel was zooming in just then, you could see that in the navigation block, it was switching over to using the hamburger menu. That&#8217;s kind of nice so that way, when it goes to those small viewports, it shrinks like that. But at the moment in the initial implementation, we don&#8217;t really have any settings that are doing things differently in desktop versus mobile, or based on the screen width. It&#8217;s sort of up to how much content you are putting into your header to make sure that it plays nicely at different viewport sizes, I think.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. There were a few more questions. Darren Davis has the question, &#8220;Can you have more than one sticky position group on a page?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Yes, you can. Interestingly, because we chose to go with sticky first as opposed to fixed, what sticky does is on the block that you&#8217;ve put, you&#8217;ve set it to be sticky, it will then scroll to the next container up, so just its direct parent. In Isabel&#8217;s example, it&#8217;s at the very root of the document where we&#8217;ve set sticky, so that&#8217;s the entire page. But if you were to go a little bit further within your nesting and set it into quite a nested group area, it would only stick to that particular area that you&#8217;re scrolling past, and it would then scroll off the page. It means that you can have as many sticky elements as you want. Probably a good example would be some websites that might have a glossary that have the alphabet, and as you scroll past each letter, then that letter sticks to the top of the screen before it then scrolls off the page.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, that&#8217;s pretty cool. Yeah, you can do all kinds of little things. Yeah, yeah, excellent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: But also, it&#8217;s a new feature. One of the things we&#8217;ll be keen to see with feedback, like when we&#8217;re developing things, I think one of the challenges working in Gutenberg is trying to &#8230; The initial issue might be this really great idea, really fleshed out and then we go, &#8220;Well, what&#8217;s the smallest version of that we can implement and code and get it into the plugin and then get some feedback and see what people can build with it?&#8221; If you are playing with it and have some ideas, feel free to open up GitHub issues and discuss what do you think we should do next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And from YouTube we have a question about are you working on &#8230; Oh, we already answered that. &#8220;What happens to my custom additional CSS if moving to the new WordPress block themes?&#8221; And she was just getting used to the recent customizer things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, there&#8217;s actually a ticket. There&#8217;s some of the feedback I left as that we need to &#8230; The additional custom CSS needs to be ported over no matter where you originally set it in the customizer or in the global style section. Yeah, I don&#8217;t think it works like that yet, but I&#8217;m pushing for it. I hope. Yeah, we don&#8217;t want to lose that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, good, good. That answers the question there. And then I think Don Fisher has the next question and it&#8217;s, &#8220;Will there be any breakpoint-specific layout adjustments coming for any of the blocks?&#8221; I think that goes back to that question about intrinsic design versus media query-based design. Andrew, is that a question for you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Oh yeah, I&#8217;m happy to talk about it. Yeah, there has been a lot of discussion across a number of different issues about people wanting to put in breakpoints and have that level of control, &#8217;cause they see it in a lot of page builders. But I think probably one of the areas of caution in Gutenberg is that once things wind up in core, we then have to support it in perpetuity. And it&#8217;s very easy for managing breakpoints to become really complex and not quite work properly in patterns. Let&#8217;s say we had something that was having a different layout on mobile versus desktop, but then you put that pattern into a really nested area and then it doesn&#8217;t quite work properly. The idea with intrinsic design is instead of using breakpoints, if we can use viewport-relative units or if we can use calculations or things like that. The recent fluid typography is probably a good example of a feature that doesn&#8217;t use breakpoints, but is kind of relative to the viewport.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think probably, &#8217;cause I&#8217;m not a designer, I sort of focus on what are the areas of consensus that we currently have in the GitHub repo, and how can we build to those things while giving designers a little bit more room to explore all the options before we try and commit that in code?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. Yeah, thank you. M has another question. &#8220;For any image icon in the nav menu, do you ensure that there&#8217;s alt text?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: As in what I was showing earlier?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All text as in your image context.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, your inline images, and please, someone correct me if I&#8217;m wrong, which I don&#8217;t believe that we have a way of adding alt text to inline images. And this is why I was saying, I mean technically it&#8217;s possible to create a navigation with just images, but I would run that through a screen reader first to ensure it&#8217;s accessible because I&#8217;m not 100% sure. If you add a link title, I&#8217;m guessing that that would be the best option to add meaningful text to the image as a link. But yeah, I would definitely double-check that and make sure it&#8217;s accessible because it&#8217;s not guaranteed. I mean, it wasn&#8217;t meant to be used in this way. So, I guess that what I was showcasing is more of a hack because the inline images are more &#8230; The main use case for inline images would be if you wanted to add an icon at the beginning of the text. It wouldn&#8217;t be to replace the text with an image.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is something that we could look into doing. It would be an interesting experiment, to enable a way of creating a navigation with images that was fully accessible. But I think we would need to do a bit of work on that to make sure it is fully accessible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: I will just say when you&#8217;re actually in the media library, you can add the alt text in the modal overlay that&#8217;s popped up, and it will get inserted into the block editor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Oh, if you add the alt text in the media library, you can actually have it pop up in the inline image?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, yeah. I was just running a test on it real quick.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Nice, okay, then that works, yes.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: On image, yeah, nice. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Corner Shop Creative person has a question or two, actually. The first one is, &#8220;Will negative margins be added to Gutenberg? Right now, you don&#8217;t have the ability to add a negative margin to any element, but they are highly useful for achieving some layouts.&#8221; You chuckled there, Andrew.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: That&#8217;s a really good question. I think that I&#8217;ve seen a couple of PRs that have attempted to implement it before, and I think the main issue is that it then makes it really hard to select the blocks in the block editor. It&#8217;d be very easy to accidentally slip a block underneath another block and then be unable to select it. I think it&#8217;s absolutely a great feature, but I don&#8217;t think the UI part of it has been figured out to how do you do that without losing the blocks altogether?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, list view comes really handy in that one. Yeah. And then the second question was, &#8220;Will absolute or relative positioning ever come to Gutenberg?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Yes, that&#8217;s the hope. One of the reasons why sticky position took quite a while to figure out, the issue for it I think was open in 2021, and there were a few different experiments last year, was really figuring out the direction with designers to make sure that the way we&#8217;ve set it up allows us to explore future experiments where we might set a block to relative, and then a block beneath it to absolute, and then be able to move things around in an intuitive way. I think it&#8217;d be a really fun area to experiment with. And we&#8217;ve got sort of the initial foundation in place, so we can probably start doing some experiments this year and see if it&#8217;s one of those easy things or if it&#8217;s one of those gigantic rabbit hole, takes a long time things, which I suspect it might be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Does it answer your question? Corner Shop Creative? Yes. Good, good, good. And then Stefan Mandel has a question and he writes, &#8220;The header and footer are also a kind of container block, so shouldn&#8217;t they have most of the controls of the group block? Is it kind of unintuitive to have that you first have to put the header within a group and then get the sticky functionality?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s one of the things we were discussing before we landed on that initial approach. One of the challenges, that the way that template parts work in the site editor is that they&#8217;re kind of a placeholder for another chunk of post content, of a bunch of blocks. And because it&#8217;s that sort of placeholder, there&#8217;s currently no ability to add styling directly to it. There&#8217;s a few technical reasons why that&#8217;s the case. The interventions we need to work out are how do we get the document to control how position works and then make it intuitive in the UI. I think sticky will probably always still need to be set either on the direct parent or the direct child, that it&#8217;s probably a UI problem to solve as to how to make that intuitive.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay. There were a few questions in the chat that didn&#8217;t come over to the Q&amp;A. One was, &#8220;Will we in the future way to edit the names of the items in the list view?&#8221; There was a PR, but I don&#8217;t think it got merged or had any additional work on. So, we don&#8217;t know. And thank you for Corners Shop Creative to answer that question in the chat. And then the other question was just by Dale again, &#8220;Do all the settings in Gutenberg eventually resolve to CSS?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Oh, that&#8217;s an interesting one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: I mean, in all the design settings, all the settings that allow you to manipulate the appearance of your content do eventually resolve to CSS because that&#8217;s the language of visual presentation in web browsers. So yes, I think. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Probably one of the interesting things is where we have a one-to-one relationship between setting and CSS, and where we sort of deviate a bit. Things like marginal padding, the direct to CSS properties of margin and padding are applied, but something like block gap or block spacing, that&#8217;s sort of a concept in WordPress land. And then depending on the layout type, we then interpret that as that&#8217;s either a margin top, or if it&#8217;s a flex block, then that&#8217;s CSS gap.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Is it possible that we ran out of questions? Max Zeable on YouTube has a comment that, &#8220;That is an interesting point, meaning the intrinsic design approach, this should be communicated much more specifically to the page builder people,&#8221; because, so that he wrote, and I totally agree with him. There is not a whole lot of information out there, and I know there is a post in the works about that, but we definitely can use any additional help with that. The, I think, intrinsic design was only come out 2019 or something like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Yeah, it seems to be quite a recent trend. And I think with a lot of the new newer CSS functions like minmax and calc and things like that, and also the promise of container queries and that sort of thing. But yeah, I think there is a fairly old issue, I&#8217;m not sure where it is right now, maybe someone can find it on discussing intrinsic web design with a bunch of the designers. For anyone interested in that, it might be useful to have a dive in to the Gutenberg repo and join the discussion.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;m going to share it in the chat window. Hang on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Sure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I think that&#8217;s the issue. It&#8217;s called Responsive Blocks Versus Intrinsic Web Design. It seems to be in the title there. And I also saw recently a YouTube video where the person says, &#8220;Okay, it&#8217;s the browser and the media queries can&#8217;t actually cover all the different sizes anymore because there&#8217;s so many different sizes on devices that you always hit the wrong parts.&#8221; So, you could end up with not three viewports, but with 12. And I saw a plugin actually that had six different viewports for which you can create different designs. And I think that is a little bit too much cognitive load for my brain to tackle when I want to build a website. Some people can probably do that, but it&#8217;s definitely not for a user who wants to just publish content and do that. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: And it&#8217;s probably a good point that part of the beauty of plugins is that they can really go in some sort of wild directions and try that out in a way that we probably wouldn&#8217;t really want to do in core.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: I would say as a designer, it takes a little bit of getting used to, but I&#8217;ve kind of embraced intrinsic design over the last couple of years. I can&#8217;t remember the last time I&#8217;ve written a media query. Even outside of block-themed development, I want to use fluid values for font sizes, spacing, everything. I think it simplifies how we build for the web. And I also think most of our users, everyday users are going to be on mobile devices. So these really complex layouts where we have horizontal layouts and things are not how most people view the web. It&#8217;s mostly just top-down. And so I think intrinsic design is going to be the direction that&#8217;s best. It takes a little change of mindset and just if you haven&#8217;t moved beyond media queries, definitely try it out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: One of the useful things, one of &#8230; Sorry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Sorry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: I was going to say one of the useful tools for that is CSS Grid because it has a bunch of auto placement features that will just resize and reflow the content depending on the screen size. And it&#8217;s great but yes, I agree with Justin, it does require a change of mindset because essentially what you&#8217;re doing is giving up control. You don&#8217;t get to decide whether your layout has two columns or three. It will be decided based on the size of the content and the size of the screen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I can see that media queries are important when you want to hide content. Yeah, that&#8217;s not just stacking, but then you say, okay, if it&#8217;s just on mobile, I don&#8217;t want to have these additional columns just go on the bottom of it. I just want to hide them. And I think that functionality is more with the visibility, comes with the visibility of blocks and in core there is no feature right now for controlling visibility of blocks. I think there&#8217;s a great plugin out there that covers quite a bit of the visibility ideas, but it&#8217;s not yet in core. I always hope that it will come into core, but who knows? Corner Creative has one more question, &#8220;Will block guides be added to the Gutenberg block and core example? It&#8217;s hard to know when one block ends and another one begins without borders around the block.&#8221; Any comments on that?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, there has been a lot of design thought on how to best present the block editor. And the thing with the borders is that at some point, it sort of becomes very noisy and the UI can become harder to understand if you have borders around all the blocks. The hope currently is that the list view will do the heavy listing in terms of being able to understand the structure of the page and navigate it more easily. But yeah, that&#8217;s another point where &#8230; I mean yeah, there&#8217;s always going to be discussion around that and I think always going to be striving to sort of an ideal place. But it is a very complex interface and the more features there are and the more things you can do with it, the harder it is to find a UI that&#8217;s easy and intuitive to understand because you have to pack a whole lot of stuff into it. Yeah, that&#8217;s an interesting problem that I don&#8217;t think is going to be ever fully solved to everyone&#8217;s satisfaction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: No.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Definitely something to keep working on.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, and there are plenty of plugins that handle just borders around blocks if you want to search those out. There may even be a browser extension I&#8217;ve seen at one point. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and I think the list view has come a long way that when you click on a block in the list view, you get the borders around the block in the canvas or on the, yeah. I think that has come a way. And if it&#8217;s about teaching clients on how to use that, I think that would be the route that I would go. Say, &#8220;Okay, here is your friend, list view is your friend. And you have trouble, go to the list view.&#8221; It&#8217;s kind of that mantra that I would probably implement there to figure out, yeah, teach that, which are the blocks. All right, well we are coming &#8230; We are a little bit over, so I&#8217;m sorry about that, but we covered a lot of ground. Can you briefly, Andrew and Isabel talk about what&#8217;s next in layouts?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Oh, great question. I think since we&#8217;ve gotten a lot of foundational work, the main thing is jumping into a lot of these experiments. So like Isabel was saying before, trying out how might a grid layout work, or some of those other ideas for position support. I think probably there&#8217;s a lot of experimenting before we get to things that seem stable enough to put into the plugin. I think probably be diving into a lot of that after 6.2 comes out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, yeah, stabilizing the layout feature also so that extenders can use it. And that will be my number one priority at the moment. And adding layout to a few blocks that don&#8217;t have it yet, such as cover. And then there&#8217;s the bigger features such as grid, for instance, layout, maybe other types of layouts. We&#8217;ll see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, I just look forward to teaching all the stuff that y&#8217;all are working on. Teaching other people. Birgit, you&#8217;re muted.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: On mute. Last thing I wanted to share with a group is also the post that Justin just published on the developer blog, and it&#8217;s a walkthrough on the layout classes that came with WordPress 6.1. I think it&#8217;s a really a good post to slow walk you through all the things that you can do. Well, one last question, sorry about that. “Will it be possible to limit the use of some blocks based on user role?” Yes, is the short answer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Most likely plugin territory, right? Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And there are some capabilities where you, for instance, the custom CSS, you actually need to have the file editing privileges on your website to actually use that, before that too. So, not every user is able to do custom CSS, for instance, and then the block-locking features there can be attributed to in any role on the site. I think that&#8217;s…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, there&#8217;s great documentation on just locking down things per role in the &#8230; It&#8217;s a document on Curating the Editor and the Block Editor Handbook. I don&#8217;t know the link offhand, but I think there should be an actual user role or something related to permissions setting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I just shared the link in the chat, and I will also share that in the show notes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Okay.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, I think we&#8217;re &#8230; Yeah, it&#8217;s all right. Okay. Well, this was a great show and thank you very much for being here. It was very interesting and I learned so much from you all. Thank you. If people want to get in contact with you, just let us know how that would be possible for Andrew, Isabel and Justin. Andrew, do you want to start?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Oh yeah, I&#8217;ll probably say, yeah, open up an issue on the GitHub repo and feel free to ping any of us. There&#8217;s also the label feature layout, which is a good way to make sure that anything related to layout is seen by any of us, so it&#8217;s probably a good way to do it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, excellent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Yeah, GitHub is a good place. I am Tell The Machines on GitHub. I don&#8217;t use my real name, but you can also find me in the make core Slack.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay, cool. Cool. Justin?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Yeah, Twitter, just JustinTadlock, or GitHub too, or Green Shady on WP Slack.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Excellent. And if you have more questions, those who are in attendance today will get an email tomorrow with a link to a survey. Tell us how you found it and what other topics you would like to see. And well, I want to just say thank you all for coming and have these great questions. It has been a privilege to have the panelists and the audience here, and we will have two more live Q&amp;As to come. One is about the design system that comes from Figma, bridge to the theme Jason automatically created out of our design system. And the other one is using Gutenberg as a framework to create plugins that are not using the block editor, but using the block editor components and the scripts to build their own app in WordPress and outside. All right, that is it. Thank you all for coming and be well. Talk to you later.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andrew Serong</em>: Thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Isabel Brison</em>: Thank you, bye-bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Bye-bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Justin Tadlock</em>: Bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Bye.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sun, 05 Feb 2023 10:39:29 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:99:\"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #79 – WordPress 6.2, Gutenberg plugin versions 15.0 and 15.1\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=23356\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:112:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-79-wordpress-6-2-gutenberg-plugin-versions-15-0-and-15-1/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:65281:\"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack and Nick Diego discuss the high-priority items for WordPress 6.2, and the releases of the latest Gutenberg plugin versions 15.0 and 15.1. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#shownotes\">Show Notes</a> / <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#transcript\">Transcript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Music:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox\">Homer Gaines</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/\">Sandy Reed</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://markuraine.com/\">Mark Uraine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://icodeforapurpose.com\">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-larger-font-size\"></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Nick Diego</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>developer advocate at WP Engine, plugin developer and themes builder. He is also a core contributor. Running Triage sessions in the core editor channel and is on the WordPress 6.1 release squad</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Follow him on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://twitter.com/nickmdiego\">@nickmdiego</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress Profile:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ndiego/\">@ndiego</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.2</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/17/wordpress-6-2-planning-roundup/\">WordPress 6.2 Planning Roundup</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>GitHub Tracking issue: <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33094#issuecomment-1409268227\">Phase 2: Customization, comment of January 30, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community Contributions</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-query-loop/\">Advanced Query Loop plugin</a> by Ryan Welcher</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Video:<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiTqT1Ta3mY\"> Advanced Query Loop plugin and release process</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Video:  <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xZgpngqslc\">Gutenberg 14.9 | Advanced Query Loop</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Video: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWFSRLdVSlY&t=90s\">Building an Advanced Query Loop plugin for WordPress Pt. 2 </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Video: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGsAfBMZzhw\">Building an Advanced Query Loop plugin for WordPress Pt. 1</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More Block Plugins</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/\">Create Block Theme Plugin</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-visibility/\">Block Visibility — Conditional Visibility Control for the Block Editor by Nick Diego</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/icon-block/\">Icon Block </a>by Nick Diego</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-sharing-block/\">Social Sharing Block</a> by Nick Diego</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 15.0</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 15.0? (18 January)</a>&nbsp; by Michael Burridge</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-15-0-introduces-sticky-position-block-support-adds-paste-styles-option\">Gutenberg 15.0 Introduces “Sticky” Position Block Support, Adds “Paste Styles” Option</a> by Sarah Gooding</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW3W1eZorHg&t=3s\">Live Stream: Jan 26, 2023 | Gutenberg 15.0 features and a Post Picker block</a> with Ryan Welcher</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/01/using-the-box-shadow-feature-for-themes/\">Using the box shadow feature for themes</a> by Justin Tadlock</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 15.1</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time of recording the Gutenberg 15.1 version was only available as release candidate. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v15.1.0-rc.1\"><strong>15.1.0 RC1</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/41479#issuecomment-1412161043\">Fonts API won’t make it into 6.2</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Stay in Touch</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<ul>\n<li>Did you like this episode? <a href=\"https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog\"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ping us on Twitter or send DMs with questions. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes\">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bph\">@bph</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/\">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Transcript</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello and welcome to our 79th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast, recording February 3rd, 2023. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about Gutenberg 15.0, 15.1, as well as the upcoming major release of WordPress 6.2 and a little bit more. Not much more. Special guest today is Nick Diego, developer advocate at WP Engine, Block Editor Triage Squad, and On the Block Editor Triage Squad for WordPress 6.2. I am your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Good Work Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress Opensource Project, sponsored by Automattic. Howdy, howdy, Nick. How are you doing? Thanks for joining me today as a co-host on the show, as it&#8217;s always a treat to geek out over Gutenberg with you. So how are you today?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: I&#8217;m doing great. Thank you so much for having me back on the show.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh yeah, it&#8217;s great pleasure. Yeah, thanks for coming back on. So we have a great show for you dear listeners, as mentioned, but we will take the WordPress 6.2 section at the beginning, so you all are up-to-date on that.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>WordPress 6.2</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Hector Prieto published the WordPress 6.2 planning roundup with the schedule and the squad, and that has pretty much followed the earlier proposal. We talked about the schedule is Beta 1, scheduled for February 7th. That&#8217;s coming up fast, 2023. The release Candidate 1 will escape into the world on March 7th, that&#8217;s a month later. And the final release is scheduled for March 28th, 2023. Release Candidate 1 is also the time when the developer notes will be published, so they come out at the beginning of March.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The squad release lead is Matt Mullenweg. There are two release coordinators with Francesca Marano and Hector Prieto. So glad that Francesca is back in the saddle of coordinating with Core. Core tech leads are Tanya Morgan and John Baptiste Audras, and the editor tech colleagues are George Mamadashvili and Nik Tsekouras. I think I got this right. Core triage co-leads, Colin Stewart and Mukesh Panchal, and then editor co-leads, as mentioned, Nick Diego and Anne McCarthy. Design lead is Rich Tabor and Documentation co-leads, now we are a group of four with Femy Praseet, Milana Cap, and Apha Thakor. And then there are marketing community co-leads with Jonathan Patani, Lauren Stein and Mary Baum. Test co-leads are Robin Nasmore Hasan, and Adel Tahri. This time new on the WordPress, the release squad is a performance lead, and the first one is Felix Arntz from the performance team. So yeah. Nick, how are you doing with being on the editor triage co-leads?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Oh, it&#8217;s been fun. So first this role was new in WordPress 6.0 and then we continued it for 6.1 and now 6.2 and I think we have a bit more method to the madness now. Things are a bit more organized, think we&#8217;re the most organized we&#8217;ve ever been before beta one has even come out. So I&#8217;m feeling pretty good right now as we head towards 6.2.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, so what does it exactly entail? If people don&#8217;t know what a triage co-lead is, what do you do there?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: It&#8217;s mainly organization, so there&#8217;s a lot of issues and PRs that need to get included in 6.2. We do our best to make sure that any issue or feature that&#8217;s related to 6.2 appropriately has eyes on it, is appropriately getting handled and done. And we also are responsible for helping determine whether an issue maybe is important but maybe isn&#8217;t a blocker to the release, so maybe that can get moved to the next version of Gutenberg or the next 6.3. So it&#8217;s kind of managing all the pieces that are coming together at the end as we head into the final release. We also work with the editor tech co-leads on Backport. So once we get past beta, any new feature will need to get backed into the release and so we help handle that. So it&#8217;s really kind of a bit like an organizational role to make sure that the release goes as smoothly as possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That&#8217;s awesome. Yeah, I know that&#8217;s definitely worth having and you do awesome work. It&#8217;s also kind of managing some of the personalities at some point and also kind of what gets priority or not. It&#8217;s really interesting. Thanks for doing it. Again, it&#8217;s the third time that you are on the editor triage leads, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, it is. And thank you for all the documentation work that you guys do, so it&#8217;s a lot of people in the process and to make the release go as smoothly as possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and I can only repeat what you said. Thereafter, the first two, we all are kind of getting really organized on documentation. We now have, as a new feature, no, not feature, a person on the release team. We also have end user documentation person, Femy Praseet on the release squad. She can also be part of the release team and organize themselves pretty easily. And she gets all the information because that really wasn&#8217;t happening before and there was always, yeah, what is unnecessary for end user documentation versus developer notes and they&#8217;re still behind with end user documentation. They&#8217;re still working on 6.1, but knowing, okay, this is coming into 6.2 and getting the issues done. I also know that both the organization from Milana and Femy, the documentation team has increased in contributors and many of those are actually working on end user documentation. So I&#8217;m really glad that we have that now on the WordPress release team.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. And the documentation page on the website got a new redesign recently, which looks very cool. So if you haven&#8217;t seen that yet, go check out the documentation page on wordpress.org.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, is it live now?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: I believe it is, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay, cool, cool, cool. Because yeah, we have been waiting for on the developer blog, designed to actually follow the documentation design, so we&#8217;ll see how that&#8217;s going to work because the developer news blog is still out in beta. We haven&#8217;t officially released it, so we hope to get to that point quickly. Hopefully before WordCamp in Asia. Are you going to WordCamp in Asia?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: I am not, unfortunately. I&#8217;ll be jealous of everybody else who gets to go, but no, not this time unfortunately.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay. All right. So yeah, with the Gutenberg plugins released, we talk quite a bit on the Gutenberg podcast about all the new features that come in. So I wanted, but still go over the high priority items that are in that one issue that Anne keeps updating and McCarthy keeps updating in the status of it. There are quite a few improvements or massive improvements and new features coming in with 6.2. So I think it can&#8217;t hurt if we look at those high visible items or important items together. They&#8217;re all cataloged by features. So it starts out with patterns and there are two things that come in. One is the pattern inserter next, that means inserter is starting with a list of categories for core as well as the third-party categories.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, with a click on the category, a panel opens with the patterns for that particular category in a thumbnail view. And I really like that. So you have to kind of, it makes necessary that the categories are very well defined, but it also kind of keeps the focus of the creator, the content creator on what they actually want to do and not distracted on all the other cool patterns. So that is definitely, and that has been in the Gutenberg plugin since the Gutenberg 14.4 release, so it should been quite refined.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. And I think it&#8217;s one of those things where it may seem minor to folks, but once you start using it, it&#8217;s like, wow, this is so much better than what it was before. I think it was a dropdown menu where you can select the different categories. So it&#8217;s great to see. And one of the other things that is included with patterns is kind of a re-envisioning of query patterns. So query loop patterns for end users specifically are not really familiar with the term query. It&#8217;s kind of a foreign term if you&#8217;re not deeply entrenched in WordPress. And so, that&#8217;s been changed to be posts, so it displays post summaries in lists or grids and other layouts. So I think it&#8217;s a little bit more user-friendly, and there was also some work to make sure that category descriptions are part of the rest API, which just make the pattern panel a little bit more interactive, a little bit more intuitive. So really great to see the direction that this went and hopefully will just make inserting patterns using patterns more usable for folks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and it&#8217;s definitely also for when you have patterns for your plugins or something like that, you can add a description. It&#8217;s so much better than just have a title there to help the user figure out what they&#8217;re going to do with it. So there are six major items for the global styles. One is the way to document containing all blocks and styles. That&#8217;s the so-called style book, and that is really cool. We talked about it on the podcast before of course, but I really like that you can now see all the blocks that you use and that are in the theme in one overview, and also the third-party blocks. So if you make a change in the style editor in the global styles, you can see what the implication would be, especially for the blocks that you not use so often, but when you make a change, you can see the ramifications there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And also when you make a change and you would think that it would go to another block because it uses the same block in a cover block or something like that, you see those things as well and are not surprised. Yeah, that has been missing for quite a while. I remember when I started at the agency, when we were starting with using blocks for post content, that we were always kind of trying to figure out, okay, does this seem style all the blocks well enough with the display? So we had one post that every single block was in there with different variations and then had to install it or copy paste it over to the sites to do unit testing. And that, of course, goes away now. And now we also have the third party blocks to view them in the Style book.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. It works really well. And to your point, I think a lot of folks were building out default pages with every block on it or multiple pages to try and do those testing and this just makes it so much easier. Kind of going hand in hand with that, there was also some improvement to when you edit block settings in global styles, they&#8217;ll now generate a little preview, which is handy. So before you edit the block, and let&#8217;s say that the block wasn&#8217;t actually on the page you were on in the site editor, now it will give you a little preview so you can see what you&#8217;re actually changing, which coupled with the style book really helps you get a better understanding of what you&#8217;re changing, how it&#8217;s changing, and how it&#8217;s going to affect your site. So those two together I think really help refine the global styles interface. And there&#8217;s still improvements to come, so a lot of good stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes, and one of the other improvements that is coming with 6.2 is that you actually, and that goes hand in hand with the other two, is that you can now copy the style variations for block types. So if you added a style variation, there is a button block that is rounded, but you also want to change the background and then every button block should, with a rounded variation, should follow that design. You can make that happen by pushing that to the global block styles and have a style variation update on that as well. Yeah, it&#8217;s getting really, really sophisticated in terms of what you can manage as a site editor or site user, a site owner in terms of styling and being very deliberate in, okay, this my overall style and this is just for this post, and make sure that those were a tier two in a kind of quasi design system for the editor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, and I think that you kind of look at it in two ways, and we&#8217;ll talk about this later in this episode, the create block theme plugin, but you have the global styles. So if you&#8217;re the owner of a website and you want to make changes to your site, that&#8217;s great for you. But I&#8217;ve also loved using the site editor to build themes, to build themes for yourself or clients or whatever. It&#8217;s a great building platform. And these tools that allow you to design a block style and then push it globally really speed up that development process when you&#8217;re building out a theme.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then you can use something like the create block theme plugin, which we&#8217;ll talk about later again, where you can just export that as a complete package. And on top of that, one of the things that we&#8217;ve heard a lot about is, if you remember the customizer had an option where you could add custom CSS, right inside of the customizer, and I think people use that a lot for quick fixes or small little CSS snippets that you would want that you wouldn&#8217;t want to have to put into the style sheet of the theme.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, that&#8217;s actually coming now to Global Styles as well. There&#8217;ll be an input now for custom CSS that you can apply directly within the Global Styles panel to your theme, and there&#8217;s now going to be per block custom CSS as well, which is really cool. So if you want custom CSS specifically for a specific block, you can do that too. So, so many cool enhancements to global styles that really allow you, whether you&#8217;re an end user and you&#8217;re just managing your own site or you&#8217;re building block-based themes for others, so many cool features that really increase the power of the site editor in global styles.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, especially the custom styles. Custom CSS was a feature that kept also developers or theme developers to not adopt that much on block themes, but with that little feature to be very much in control of little fixes that don&#8217;t have to go back to the theme JSON and wherever for that one. That is really powerful. And yeah, it will come in, I think it came in with 15.1 to the Gutenberg, no, it came into 14.8, but it was refined later on. You don&#8217;t find it in the left menu, it will be in the styles menu. So it&#8217;s a little bit further away than before, but I think it&#8217;s also more focused to what it actually does.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, you&#8217;re not getting distracted when you don&#8217;t use it. So for the editor, there is one information that the documentation information and the outline of the list view is now together. So the information about how many words or how much time to read is now in the list view panel in a separate tab, and just recently it was actually changed that it comes from the bottom is again up on top so it&#8217;s not covered by the view post when you save it. And it&#8217;s a very nice design that came in now with, I think, 15.1.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, and we are starting to see, and we&#8217;ll see this more as we talk, but a more tab based design within the interface. So instead of having an icon that you click on to get that information, it&#8217;s now kind of part of the insertion tab and it goes hand in hand with some of the other things that we&#8217;ve seen, one of them being a new media tab. So when you go to insert blocks and patterns, you&#8217;ll now have a media tab where you can have direct access to your media library, which is really cool. It just kind of speeds up that flow. You can of course always add image block and then navigate to your media library and do the same thing, but this really just makes it a lot easier to add media to a page, which is neat. And then, oh sorry, go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: No, no, sorry. Yeah, the media tab is really helpful, especially when you just want to reuse some of the media that you just uploaded. Yeah, it kind of gives you direct access to it without having to have that modal come up. But what it also does is that gives you a basic open verse integration that is now available. So you can search the open verse. Open verse is the Creative Comments image library that is available at wordpress.org/openverse, and so you see images that are free to use on a website. And Steve Burge, actually, he reviewed the feature through the Gutenberg plugin before it even was out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we put the link in the show note, he wrote about it, about the open verse integration, and it&#8217;s so much easier to handle when you&#8217;re looking for pictures and you don&#8217;t have to go out on a new website. You don&#8217;t have to go out to the new place for your image and download it. It&#8217;s right there. You can access it. It will link to the open verse CDN, but there is a button in the image block where you can say download to media library so you have it again next time when you use it, when I use it again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: And it&#8217;s such a cool thing and especially as open verse continues to grow, a good resource there. One other thing in regards to the editor that was introduced was it&#8217;s really kind of hard for a user to differentiate between just a static lock and those that are what we call sync, so template parts and reusable blocks. So while this is not the be all, end all solution, one thing that was added was to colorize synced blocks. Again, temple parts are your reusable blocks. So at first glance, it&#8217;s just easier to differentiate, oh, I&#8217;m editing something that impacts that could change things elsewhere on the site. So those synced blocks are now purple. So if you see purple when 6.2 comes out, that&#8217;s what that means.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right. Yeah, reusable block have the same content everywhere, and when you change them, it will be changed everywhere, and template parts, it&#8217;s just the styling of things. But yeah, it&#8217;s really interesting how different modals and how they&#8217;re so similar but then have a total different impact when you change it on your site. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s definitely worth going over the user documentation for that to just get it really figured out for your daily routine. Yeah. Another feedback was from the full site editing outreach program was that the people have a hard time between what are they editing and what are they looking at, and it now is now introduced in a browse mode that gives you, you can go through all your templates but not add anything. You have to click edit so you know that you are working on that particular template part. Before, when you clicked on the appearance site editor, you jump in right into your homepage for editing and that was kind of confusing because you that might not be what you wanted to edit, and it was also confusing that it only changed on the homepage but not everywhere else when you were doing something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are some really good quality of life, so to speak, changes in 6.2 as well, but also to make the workflow a little bit more intuitive, a little bit more separated kind of separation of concerns. So the user is absolutely clear what they&#8217;re doing in terms of editing or viewing or adding. So there are a few changes that come through the tools section. That one is that the group block now has a setup state, so you can pick the variant.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Up until now, you&#8217;ve selected the group block, and then on the right hand side in the sidebar, you selected if it&#8217;s a row, a default, or a stacked block, and now you can do this right when you add it to your canvas, which is pretty cool. With it comes the feature to set a width for the blocks in a row. That means that you can really say, okay, these have the same distance, or you need to fill it up with the whole wording or something like that. It definitely helps controlling that. And there&#8217;s also one, you mentioned that in 15.1 that there&#8217;s now minimum height for the stack block group block.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, yeah. Minimum height seems like an innocuous change, but it is incredibly useful in various designs. And what we&#8217;re seeing in 6.2 is a lot of improvements to tools that we&#8217;ve had for a long time. So the stack block in particular has been one that it&#8217;s hard for people who don&#8217;t understand, who aren&#8217;t familiar with flex layouts, it&#8217;s like, well, what is this thing? Isn&#8217;t it kind of similar to just a group? It just vertically presents my content, right? Well, it&#8217;s actually much more tricky than that, but we&#8217;ve been missing some of the tools within the UI that allow you to do some cool things with stacks and rows. So, we&#8217;re at a point now with 15.1 and soon to be 6.2, WordPress 6.2, where we have a lot of these tools in the UI. And another one of those tools is fixed position or sticky position because one of the things that people have wanted a lot is the ability to have a header, which you see on a lot of websites, that sticks to the top of the browser window as you scroll down the page.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this has been introduced in 15.0 where you can now set the position on blocks to be sticky. Now, this is an initial implementation of sticky and position in general. It&#8217;s going to be iterated on for 6.2. You will only be allowed to apply sticky to blocks that are at the root of the page. So that would be things like sticky headers, mainly because there&#8217;s some UX concern. People understanding how sticky&#8217;s kind of a complicated CSS property. So making sure that it&#8217;s really clear to folks when they apply sticky, how it&#8217;s going to impact the page. So there&#8217;s some UX issues there in terms of expanding sticky and other positioning elements throughout the interface, but this is a good first step and it does allow for sticky headers and footers, which is awesome. So a lot of fun things to play with for theme developers specifically that can reduce the amount of custom CSS you need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and I know we all talked quite a bit about the sticky headers, but I also find sticky footers even more important because that&#8217;s where my thumb is when I look at the mobile version of a website. So don&#8217;t discount the sticky photos.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Absolutely. Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And yeah, that could be next pages navigation or new features or get totally out of the website with something else, but that can be all done from the footer. Yeah, there were some updates on the blocks as well that are coming to 6.2. There are many, many more, but as I said, these are all the priority items. These are the things that are worked on to actually come to 6.2 period. And one of them is that they fixed the layout jumps selecting an image. That was actually very early in the release cycle in 14.4 plugin release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now, and the second one is also the split block toolbar in the sidebar, what you mentioned that there&#8217;s more tabbing going on. The team separated the settings from the appearance in the block sidebar and it was completed in 14.7 and there are certainly some updates later on. And I don&#8217;t know exactly, I have this question since I saw it, and I have not researched it. But do you know if there&#8217;s a way for third-party developers to decide where their settings are going or is that still all coming into settings?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: So yes, I was a big part of making sure that that was possible. Well, I didn&#8217;t do it, but I was advocating for that because one of the good examples is color. Color is clearly an appearance type thing style, but a lot of third-party plugins, or even some core plugins, register their own color pickers. So because that&#8217;s not generated by block support, it&#8217;s a custom implementation, it would by default land in settings. So there would need to be a way to move your custom color panel to styles, especially for user experience because someone&#8217;s, okay, we now have the style tab, wait, colors in settings? So that has been done. So there&#8217;s now a way to define a group on your panels. So if you can say group style and it will end up in the style panel, if you say group setting, it will end up in the settings panel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By default, if you don&#8217;t define a group, and this is something that we&#8217;ll need to put together in a dev note and especially for the field guide for 6.2, if you don&#8217;t define a group, it&#8217;s going to default to settings just because WordPress doesn&#8217;t know what it is. But you can easily update your third-party block or whatever to define what side you want to be on, which is fantastic. I think the tab situation is really good for user experience because I think we&#8217;ve all seen sidebars that you got to scroll forever to see all the different functionality there. So separating that into styles and settings is great. We just now need to make sure that third-party folks can put stuff where they want it and we have the documentation on showing how to do that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah, I think the next step for the sidebar would be that a user can actually move things around. So yeah, if you want to, but that is, well, a girl can dream, right? And then there is a change or an update and make it easy to copy and paste block styles. So when you have two paragraphs and you change the first one, the styling, like the background of the color, you can say there&#8217;s another menu item in the ellipse menu on the block where say copy styles and then you can go to the next paragraph and you can then paste the style with the same menu item. And that is definitely very powerful. We had reuse of the styles when you create buttons, a row of buttons. Every time you had them styles and then you add a new button, it took over the style from the previous button. That was automatically done, but we didn&#8217;t have that for the single blocks, like for instance, a paragraph block. So this is definitely quite powerful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. And I want to stress here that when you are copying and pasting styles, what it&#8217;s doing is it&#8217;s copying and pasting styles provided by block supports. So things like dimensions and color, things that are when a block opts into native block supports. So I think that as we move forward, third-party blocks have an incentive to opt into native WordPress controls more than ever, because one, when you opt into native WordPress controls, it&#8217;s very easy. You get all those controls there for you with a single line of code. And two, now we have some additional functionality like copy and paste that supports those native block supports.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think this is a very subtle change, but it is really going to start helping hopefully standardize third-party blocks to use core block supports as much as possible, which in the end really improves that user experience. Because if you&#8217;re a new user to WordPress, you just learned how to apply dimension controls or order or whatever, and then you go to a third-party block that doesn&#8217;t have those controls or has a complete custom set of controls, it&#8217;s quite jarring. So I think little changes like this will start incentivizing third-party block developers to standardize around core block supports, which in the end will just improve WordPress across the board. So very excited for this one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s great. Very good point. And there are quite a few plugin developers that now, amongst you, that provide additional functionality for it. And if they get additional features that they can use that are maintained by core committers, instead of themselves, it definitely makes the updates easier to propagate. And in the list of 6.2 high priority items, the last one is providing a pathway to migrate widgets to block themes. So what that means is if you are using a classic theme and you switch over to a block theme, it will make it available for you to have the same widgets can now be added to a footer or to a sidebar that&#8217;s in the block theme and you don&#8217;t have to recreate them again as you had to do before. So this is always also a good pathway for adoption of block themes when the migration from a classic theme to a block theme is a little bit easier now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, this is a great thing. I mean, it&#8217;s just one step to make that transition process easier, which we all know it&#8217;s not seamless. I mean, it takes some work to go from classic to block based, but this goes a long way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I see sometimes some questions on Twitter and other places where, how do I convert my classic theme to a block theme? And I don&#8217;t think that that&#8217;s really possible. I think because they both have so different paradigms to think of, what is the same is the template hierarchy, but I think the block-based approach is so much richer feature set for the user that it&#8217;s not possible to do this one to one transition. There are certainly ways to do that in particular parts. So you could have template parts that are block based on your classic theme, or here, like the migrate the widgets over to block themes, but there is not a one-to-one translation possible because of the different based architecture and paradigms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, so these were the major points of 6.2. I know there are many, many other smaller changes or that came across without being the high priority, but they&#8217;re still very helpful for 6.2.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Community Contributions</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, I wanted to point out some community contributions and then we get into the release of Gutenberg 15.0 and 15.1. And so, I wanted to point out the advanced query loop plugin by Ryan Welcher. He adds variations for that post loop that we talked about. He calls it a query loop because that&#8217;s what he builds his variation on, but also for date filtering, you can now also, if you use that plugin, you can also have pages that are just per author or for custom post types or custom fields. So he has really expanded that query loop or the post loop in the block editor, so you get a lot of variety and variations that you can use for the more expanded block themes. Because those are still the idea out there that it&#8217;s for simple websites, block themes are good, but not for complex ones.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this is definitely helping. This advanced query loop plugin is definitely helping expanding that. You can certainly learn more about it as he builds out his Ryan live streams, all his work live on Twitch every Thursday from 10:30 PM Eastern AM, PM right? No, I&#8217;m sorry. He live streams his work live on Twitch every Thursday, 10:30 AM, and then after a week or so he also updates the recording to YouTube and that&#8217;s where you&#8217;ll find his work on the advanced query loop plugin. And of course. We share those all in the show notes. Well, if you ping him on Slack or on Twitter or on his Discord, you can certainly also make requests to what to show in the Twitch stream. So this is really cool. Yeah, Ryan has done this now for a year and he has quite the following on there, but it&#8217;s definitely hands-on programming with blocks and plugins and additional custom fields. There&#8217;s quite a variety there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: And it&#8217;s a fantastic resource for learning, especially for folks who want to build very advanced things. Whether you&#8217;re going to use his plugin, advanced query loop, or not, watching him build it will give you tons of resources and tools to build your own custom blocks. It shows how sophisticated block-based development can be. It&#8217;s not just your simple paragraph block and image. I mean, you can do some really powerful things with blocks and create some really sophisticated interfaces for users. So even if you don&#8217;t need advanced query loop, check out his stream because you&#8217;ll learn a lot of good tips and tricks on how to build your own custom stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haac</em>k: Yeah, and for me, what&#8217;s also a good value is when I watch Ryan do his work, sometimes he runs into something where he says, I didn&#8217;t know where to do that, or there was a mistake and just his workflow on how to debug things and where to look up things. Yeah, it&#8217;s such helpful to watch for your own research and how to handle all the difference, be it the console on the browser or be it the arrow debug log or all the tools that you have. He uses them and he uses them as an expert, but also, when he starts out with something and said, how does this work? Or why doesn&#8217;t it work? It&#8217;s definitely good. Yeah, it also helps me with my imposter syndrome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. We all make mistakes, we all make mistakes, and he does a good job showing you how to dig out from them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: If we all make mistakes, what happens next is the clue for fixing it. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: I mean, half of development is Googling things, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And there&#8217;s another plugin, and you mentioned it before, Nick, when we were going through the 6.2 thing was the create theme plugin. And that is created by developers from WordPress and as a tool for theme developers that are not touching code. So you could export a current block theme with the changes you made in templates, template parts, and global styles. That&#8217;s so powerful. And it also has other features. You can create a new child theme from the activated theme and then the activated theme becomes the parent theme. You can also create a completely new theme cloning the activated theme, and the result theme has all the assets of the activated theme and all the user changes. So that is also quite powerful and it saves the user changes as theme changes and deletes the user changes. So they&#8217;re saved in the theme in the folder and the theme JSON is updated and all that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You could also use that plugin to actually create an empty theme, which sometimes you want to just start out fresh. And just recently there&#8217;s a new feature that came in that&#8217;s saves your user changes as a style variation. Remember, the 2023 theme was built with community support on the style variations. They had 38 submissions of style variations and then 10 of those came into theme 2023. But now you can actually create those style variations with the site editor and have your own personal theme 2023 style variation. So Daisy Olsen has started also a weekly live stream on Twitch and for Friday 10:30.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And she has been demoing how to use it and all she talks about is block themes, but also how to then use all the tools that are available. She posts also her recordings on YouTube. I know that Twitch removes videos after 14 days, so all the Twitch streamers are moving recordings over to YouTube when it&#8217;s appropriate. So those are two plugins that you definitely want to check out when you are new to two block themes. But Nick, you also have some great plugins in the repository. And do you have an update on them? I know it&#8217;s the block visibility plugin. What does that do? And then the icon block.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, so I built block visibility thinking a year and a half ago now as a way to teach myself some of these new techniques. How do blocks work? I taught myself React to build this block, to build this plugin. And the plugin does something very simple. It was something that I used to have in classic WordPress where you could show, or dynamically show or hide content. Usually you do that with a short code or something like that. I was very popular with widgets. There were tons of plugins that would allow you to only show this widget on pages with certain categories or whatever. And so, in a block-based world where everything on a website is a block, well you then have a consistent type of content that if you can interact with it, if you can do something for a block, then you can basically dynamically show any part of your website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s where the genesis of block visibility came about as my own fun little project. It&#8217;s grown considerably. It&#8217;s now at 8,000 active users, which kind of surprises me. And the interesting thing about it is not really the plugin itself, but more so that I am personally anecdotally starting to see a decent uptick in people activating and using block plugins. The icon block is super simple. It&#8217;s literally a way to show SVG icons in a block format. And I tried to build it in a way that is as close to core as possible. It&#8217;s functionality that probably would never be in core because working with SVGs is not really something probably core wants to deal with, but it uses as many block supports as possible, which I try to make it as much like core as possible just for a fun side project. That also just reached 8,000 active users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if people are looking to build plugins, I&#8217;ve historically been a plugins developer. I have built themes before, but I like building plugins more. I&#8217;ve built widgets, I&#8217;ve built short codes, I&#8217;ve built all sorts of different plugins. But building blocks is really fun. And we now have tools like the Create Block Package that I know Ryan has put a lot of time and effort into supporting. It&#8217;s so much easier to build with blocks now than it used to be. And if you&#8217;re kind of on the fence about building custom blocks, I encourage you to do so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One, there&#8217;s seemingly the market for them, and two, it&#8217;s such a fun ecosystem to play in. So I really enjoyed my two plugins. They&#8217;re doing quite well, which I&#8217;m proud of and thankful to the community for supporting. And I think that we really need, in this new block-based world, we need a rich ecosystem of third-party plugins to do niche functionality that core might not support. So I&#8217;m the biggest champion of folks building custom blocks, whether they&#8217;re on the repo or for yourself. And if you need help, let Ryan or myself know and we&#8217;ll help you with it. But yeah, start building blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And also to kind of just trail blaze a little bit more, you were ahead of the curve there as well. And how did that turn out? Yeah, I think the last time you were on the show, we were talking about your build a block in 15 minutes talk for WordCamp US, and it was quite interesting to see. I was in the show and yeah, what were the comments afterwards? Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Tons of positive feedback. I think that, and honestly, more of that kind of thing we need to do. I know that there&#8217;s a lot of folks who build websites for clients and they&#8217;re on time constraints. They don&#8217;t have time necessarily to completely learn something new. Whatever it might be is maybe holding them back from working with blocks. Maybe they don&#8217;t even need to work with blocks because their workflow doesn&#8217;t require it. That being said, I think there&#8217;s a lot of opportunity, especially after 6.2. I think back to this time last year where WordPress was. We have introduced so much functionality. It&#8217;s so much easier to build a block theme. It&#8217;s so much easier to build a custom block. I look at 2023 as the age of maturity for block-based WordPress. I mean, we&#8217;re at a point now where you can do so much and build so many sophisticated interfaces. And I&#8217;m starting to see more and more people picking up blocks, exploring blocks. So yeah, it&#8217;s an exciting time to be in WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for being such an advocate for block development and all that.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Gutenberg 15.0</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So, that brings us to the Gutenberg plugin releases. We have two to cover. The main things we already kind of talked about in the 6.2 thing, but the Gutenberg 15.0 was released on January 18th. It had 109 merch PRs by 42 contributors. Seven of them were first time contributors. Yay, first time contributors, congratulations.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And we had a few enhancements. One was allowing the resource of the sidebar frame for the side editor. So the side editor has on the left hand side the menu where template parts and templates and other things, forgot what it was. There are more menus there. And now you can change the frame, the space that the sidebar takes from your canvas, which is really cool. You never had that before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. Also, if you slide it all the way, you can also see what the site looks like in mobile view, because it also resizes the site editor itself. So that&#8217;s a really cool one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it does it only in browse mode. When you click on the edit button, the blue edit button, you kind of get the full editor again, full screen editor, but that&#8217;s for the menu item. Yeah. And then your big W or side icon gets you back to the menu out of the editor. So that&#8217;s kind of the workflow from browse mode to edit mode. Yeah. Then yeah, go ahead.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: So I was going to say, one of the cool things that was kind of frustrating for folks, that if you were in a certain mode in the editor and you refresh it, sometimes that mode won&#8217;t stick. So now that&#8217;s synchronized. So if you were to edit a mode and then refresh your page, it will go back to the same state that you were just in. So small little like quality of life improvements, but big ones if you&#8217;re in the site editor all the time. And another quality improvement was copy and paste, the shortcuts for copy and paste, now work in the site editor, which obviously is seemingly small, but a very important fix that we&#8217;re seeing there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And you only notice it when they don&#8217;t work. But yeah, when you try to do control C, control X and control V or command V for the paste and in which you use on any other editor around the world, be it your email, be it your Word or your Google Docs or even and all of a sudden in the editor it doesn&#8217;t work. So yeah, it definitely has been updated there. Now it comes to you. We talked about paste style to the block settings. Yeah, we talked about that. And then it&#8217;s now in 15.0, so if you upgrade your plugin to 15.1, 15.0 is still out. Yeah, 15.1 hasn&#8217;t been out yet. It&#8217;s only going to be released on February 8th, but you will be able to use those paste styles. And the next one is prevent an image from being resized larger than its container. Yeah, that was one of the things that really mixed up your layouts when that was not handled, but now it is and that&#8217;s a very good thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah. Working with image sometimes in the editor is tricky, and I think that this really makes it much more intuitive in the editor, between the editor view and the front end view. So that was a really good improvement to see there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And you see the borders now, so you know when you kind of go into outside the container and then it doesn&#8217;t let you, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Next up we have some improvements to navigation. There&#8217;s a lot of improvements to navigation between 5.0 and 5.1. For longtime observers of the Gutenberg project, navigation is probably one of the hardest things to get right and there&#8217;s so many moving parts in managing there. So, little improvements like add an icon, add a sub menu item option. There was a Phantom ghost inserter little artifact that was there that was confusing. Improving loading indicators and replacing setting menus when custom. This is going to sound too complicated, but lots of improvements to navigation that make it more intuitive and make the workflows better. And we&#8217;ll actually see some more of those as we continue into 15.1.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right, right. Yeah, the navigation block actually got a complete redesign or thinking of the process of creating menus in the block editor and it became the page list block got kind of a rejuvenation and a repurposing for that. So it&#8217;s in the sidebar, you can use the page list block, or the sidebar uses the page list block to actually create the menus. So there are some noise additional features in that particular block as well. Then the sidebar tabs, we talked about the block inspector tabs experiment with the split controls for the tabs. It will not see an additional tab whenever you use the navigation block and then it kind of uses the off canvas kind of navigation editor for that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, so back to we were talking about tabs, so more tabs in the interface. And I think that once you get, it&#8217;s a little jarring, from before, but once you get used to it, it&#8217;s such an improvement. So now instead of having to manage the navigation menu all the way in the actual block, you can do it right on that sidebar off canvas functionality within the tab. So yeah, you&#8217;ll start to see a lot of tabs, but it&#8217;s a good thing. It will really make editing easier.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Especially for the navigation block where you never had enough space to do something like that or you never hit the right block or right border or right inserter. That was quite some confusion going on and this is definitely coming to 6.2, the total rethinking about the navigation block. And there are little things there. We talked about the next item is the edit the block style variations for global styles. We talked about that. That is now in Gutenberg 15.0 available. So try it out and see how that&#8217;s going to work. And those were the highlights from 15.0.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, there was one more, which was the sticky support for position, which we talked about. So that will be coming in 6.2 specifically for blocks that are not in containers. So that will enable sticky headers and footers. Again, this is kind of a first implementation, and as we move forward with Gutenberg and WordPress 6.3, there&#8217;ll be more position functionality, but this is a good first step.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And if you want to help testing that, use the Gutenberg 15.0 plugin a version and just play around with it. And the more feedback you get in before beta, then the core contributors can fix some of the things that they haven&#8217;t found before, because they haven&#8217;t used it as much as you would. So yeah, that definitely will help how that&#8217;s going to turn out in 6.1, 6.2, sorry. Good. So that was 15.0. I haven&#8217;t seen anything else come in there.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Gutenberg 15.1</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Then let&#8217;s get right into 15.1 with the caveat that we are looking at the change log from 15.1 release candidate one, which was released on February 1st. The final release will be February 7th and everything that comes in before on Monday, no, on Tuesday will be in beta one from that particular release. So that is actually feature freeze from main features. All right. Do you want to take it on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, yeah. So the first thing going back to navigation was, in the site editor, there&#8217;s now in the browse mode, there&#8217;s now a navigation section where you can move around and manipulate the navigation menu. This is kind of an initial implementation and we&#8217;ll see in the future how much more gets built out, but it&#8217;s kind of neat. You can, in browse mode, you can modify your main navigation easily. The initial implementation is starting to look a lot like that, the classic menu management screen where it&#8217;s kind of an abstracted view of the menu and you can move things around and adjust things. So it&#8217;s a really interesting start. Personally, I would love to see in that browse menu sidebar being able to edit your templates, your template parts and your navigation and see all your menus there. A first step, but a really good one, and I think it&#8217;s really intuitive and it will be helpful for users to edit navigation menus.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, the next big feature that is coming with 15.1 is the add shadow presets and UI tools and global styles. The box shadow was already in there, but now it comes with a UI for users to change the drop shadows in the global styles. It&#8217;s a first iteration. Oh no, there won&#8217;t be any. It&#8217;s only going to be for button. And there is on the developer news blog, Justin Tadlock, who has quite a nice tutorial on how the block shadow feature is going to work for themes. So yeah, it&#8217;s definitely something that was missing before. Yeah, any thoughts on that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, so the shadow functionality and what Justin wrote about is you can add drop shadows via manually adding the attributes to a block. So if you&#8217;re a theme developer, you&#8217;re designing a template and you can manually add that to the template file. We were just really missing that UI and the preset functionality. Similar to sticky UI for shadow and user experience for the shadow control is a little tricky, which is why the first implementation was get the functionality there from a template builder from a code perspective and now we&#8217;re starting to see the presets and the UI tools. So right now, there&#8217;s UI in global styles for button to add a global button styles with Shadow. First implementation, assuming that all works well and is intuitive, it will then be rolled out to additional blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the next one, I just wanted, it&#8217;s pretty minor, but I think it&#8217;s one that&#8217;s been sitting around since early last year. So a lot of blocks now you can add HTML anchors to or ID tags to. And dynamic blocks did not have this functionality. So things like post lists and I&#8217;m not remembering off the top of my head all the dynamic blocks that we have, but now it does. So anchor block is now supported across dynamic blocks. Pretty small change, but one that was needed because navigation and navigation items are dynamic blocks and so they did not have HTML anchor support. So a small little thing that people have been asking for a long time. It&#8217;s good to see that that&#8217;s been included.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s really hard to target multiple things that don&#8217;t have at ease and could be really good. Yeah. And yeah, 15.1 comes with a ton of changes to the navigation block. Part of it is the off-camera navigation as a default experience. Then adding manage menu buttons for the menu selector dropdown. So, if you switch from one theme to the next, menus are persistent. And also, if you change from the classic to your block theme, you will find your classic themes menu available through the navigation block. That&#8217;s also very seamless now. And there are also custom labels for the navigation block view through the list view appender so you can name things quite a bit. We talked about copy and pasting styles menu items to separate menu group? No, we didn&#8217;t. That&#8217;s also navigation enhancement where you can copy and paste styles menu items to a separate menu group so it shows up in different places where you use that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, little enhancements that go a long way. As we move down the list here, we also saw a lot of improvements to the custom CSS, the ability to add that custom CSS right in global styles, some refinements to descriptions, refinements to what we&#8217;re calling it. Also, the custom CSS used to be just a panel that you would see immediately when you went into Global Styles. It&#8217;s been a little bit more hidden. The main reason, once you know where it is, very easy to find, but for new users to the site editor, it&#8217;s a little overwhelming to be presented with all those options. So now that is a bit hidden within the global styles.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and it also comes with a validation kind of process. So when you add your customer CSS to make sure that that&#8217;s actually valid code, it gives you a little message there and checks it out. So it&#8217;s really good. There&#8217;s also the per block custom CSS. We talked about it earlier. It comes with 15.1. It&#8217;s very late in the process to be tested quite a lot in the Gutenberg plugin. But check it out and see how that works for you. I&#8217;m really interested on the use case for that. I also saw a use case or request for use case for getting post single post custom CSS panel, but that is, I think, will stay plugins territory.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a plugin in the Repo where you can do that, but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s going to come to core because it&#8217;s not block-based anymore. It&#8217;s kind of content based and that&#8217;s a little bit tricky to do. Yeah, and you mentioned it before, 15.1 also adds some of the missing controls to the flex layouts, the vertical alignment for the stack blocks, and also the ability for minimum height in the stacks and make the flex layouts now really powerful for theme developers as well as site owners.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, really excited for this one. This is going to reduce the amount of custom CSS themed developers need to build some sophisticated layouts. Really a cool one. One of those little minor things on the list here, but actually is super impactful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I see we also highlighted, for the sticky position, you mentioned it before. It&#8217;s a block that&#8217;s not on a root block. Kind of being on the canvas will not be able to be sticky for now because the user experience concerns are a little bit not yet worked out. So it will be a limited functionality. And then the last part is renaming. So web fonts has been around, talked about since 6.0, was supposed to get in 6.0. There was a big flag raised from Core Committers and since then the core team has worked on that. 15.1 comes with a rename of the font&#8217;s API, but I also saw in our release channel on the Mac block that Tanya Mork announced that the fund&#8217;s API won&#8217;t make it into 6.2. She posted it on February 1st in the release channel. That is actually public. You can anytime kind of go into the six dash two dash release dash leads channel on the Make WordPress Slack and see what the discussion is about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it will not make it. It&#8217;s slated for the Gutenberg plugin in 15.1, but it comes out only a day after beta one for 6.1. So 6.2 and it won&#8217;t make it the API. She finds it needs several Gutenberg releases to stabilize. And after they did a complete rewrite on it and renamed it and the last rewrites happened for Gutenberg 15.1, but that&#8217;s just too close to the beta release. The next focus will be to getting the API stabilized, assessing and improving the performance of it, and then adding automatic font and queuing for all fonts in clover styles. And then developers upgrading to use a new API with a backwards compatibility layer. And that is temporary. So all those seem to be doable to target very early for the 6.3 release alpha. That kind of starts after 6.2 is released, which is in May. So they&#8217;ll find things in the core nightly and goodnight nightly after the 6.2 release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s one of those things where it&#8217;s taken a while, but it needs to take a while to make sure everything is in the right shape. And we just got to wait a little bit longer, but very soon we&#8217;ll be able to test it in the Gutenberg plugin, which is awesome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And then we have one last item, I think, from 15.1 that we talk about. Make child themes inherit parents style variation, which is pretty cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, block themes is one of those things where people are familiar with child themes and block themes obviously want to support child themes as well. And if you have a parent with a bunch of style variations like 2023 and you want to make a few changes in a child theme, you want to also pull those style variations over. So a nice intuitive improvement to child theming in a block based world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Well, and that, dear listeners, concludes our Gutenberg plugin 15.1 release change log. And we are pretty much at the end of the show. And it&#8217;s been quite the long show, but it&#8217;s also important to talk about what&#8217;s going to buoy you in 6.2. So thank you so much, Nick, on walking us through or going with me as a co-host through all those different changes and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of many, many things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Diego</em>: Yeah, thank you again for having me. I cannot wait for the 6.2 release. I think we&#8217;re going to get so many new functionality that will empower block builders, block theme builders, end users, so on and so forth. So very much looking forward to it. And thanks again for having me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes, and that&#8217;s wonderful. So, as always, the show notes will be published. At gutenbergtimes.com/podcast. This is the episode 79, and if you have questions or suggestions or news you want to include, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And I also want to have, I will share the last WP Briefing episode by Josepha Hayden Chomphosy, where she talks about now if Gutenberg part two is kind of coming to an end, what does that mean? We still will add refinements to the plugin into the editors, even if the collaboration phase kind of starts soon in 2023. But I will share that so you can hear it from the executive director of the open source project. I also am really excited for the 6.2 release, and I hope people hear you with the episode 80 of the Gutenberg change log in about two to four weeks. I have not yet scheduled it, but I&#8217;m also traveling, so I&#8217;m kind of be patient. It will arrive in your inbox in your podcast. All right, that&#8217;s it. Thank you for listening and goodbye and have a wonderful time with testing 6.2. Bye bye.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sun, 05 Feb 2023 07:19:37 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:19:\"Gutenberg Changelog\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:110:\"Gutenberg Times: WordCamp Asia, Block Styles, Friction logging and WooCommerce Blocks – Weekend Edition #243\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=23290\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:114:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-asia-block-styles-friction-logging-and-woocommerce-blocks-weekend-edition-243/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:19652:\"<p>Howdy, </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WordCamp Asia</strong> will be in less than two weeks! Will I see you there? Just in case, I share my <a href=\"https://calendly.com/pauli-haack/wcasia?month=2023-02\">public calendar, so you could self-schedule </a>a meeting with me. With the deliberate act to schedule an encounter, it ensures it will actually happen.  Once they started, WordCamps get really busy, and then I live in the moment, try to be present in every conversation and might lose track of time. So even with the best of intentions, we could miss each other. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those who won&#8217;t make it to the in-person WordCamp, <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/livestream/\"><strong>the Livestream schedule </strong></a>is already published and displays date/times in your timezone. I compiled <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-asia-2023-eight-gutenberg-related-talks/\">a list of eight Gutenberg related talks</a>, mostly for my own benefit.  </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>PS: You might find the <em>Upcoming WordPress events</em> section missing. Now that in-person events are coming back, there are too many to list in this newsletter. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bookmark the upcoming WordPress events lists: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>WordCamp schedule on <a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/schedule/\"><strong>central.wordcamp.org/schedule</strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Learn WordPress online workshops and events  on <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/online-workshops/\"><strong>learn.wordpress.org/online-workshops/</strong></a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost\"><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</a></li></ul></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The next Hallway Hangout will take place on February 13, 2023 at 9am ET.  Felix Arntz and Anne McCarthy will discuss <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/03/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-2/\"><strong>Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.2</strong></a>. This discussion will be a continuation of the conversation on <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/12/16/hallway-hangout-performance-considerations-for-block-themes/\">performance considerations for Block Themes</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy</strong> shared in her WP Briefing Episode 48 <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\"><strong>Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Means</strong></a>. &#8220;99% of the features we considered in scope for Phase 2 will be in core by April&#8221; she says and also adds what it doesn&#8217;t mean: &#8220;it definitely does not mean that we will stop shipping refinements to the user experience.&nbsp;&#8221; If you are interested in the big picture ideas around the WordPress open-source project, subscribe to Chomphosy&#8217;s WP Briefing Podcast #worthit. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/01/30/design-share-jan-16-jan-27/\"><strong>Design Share: Jan 16-Jan 27</strong></a>, <strong>Joen Asmussen</strong> takes into the redesigns of the WordPress Developer Blog, the &#8220;Hosting&#8221; page, the &#8220;About&#8221; page and the Job section of WordPress.org. You also find a visual discussion on the information architecture of the Global Styles feature in the Site editor, how a Custom&nbsp;CSS&nbsp;feature would look with error highlighting, how pointers of notes could be added to the sidebar. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, you can also see some variation for Link Control and Shadow design tools. The design and meta teams working hard to get the redesigns of the WordPress.org site implemented. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 20-year anniversary of the first WordPress release will be this year, and it deserves a 21st century look and feel. I am super-stoked about the fantastic work of the design team! </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of anniversaries, <strong>Jeffrey B Paul</strong>, Director of Open Source at 10up, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/jeffpaul/status/1621546372838080512\">tweeted</a>: <strong>Happy 6th Birthday Gutenberg</strong>! with a screenshot of the first commit by Matias Ventura to the GitHub repository. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The release of <strong>Gutenberg 15.1</strong> has been move to a week later, and will come out on February 8th, 2023. JuanMa Garrido is the release lead. It&#8217;s the last Gutenberg plugin version that will be merged with WordPress core for the next major release 6.2. Beta for 6.2 is on February 7, 2023. If you&#8217;d like to start testing the latest features, you can use the <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v15.1.0-rc.1\">plugin file from the release candidate.</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nick Diego</strong> and I recorded the Gutenberg Changelog #79 on Friday, and it will arrive at your favorite podcast app over the weekend. We covered a lot of ground including the high-priority features coming to a WordPress instance near you with 6.2 as well as the Gutenberg version 15.0 and 15.1. We also talked a bit about some tooling via plugins. </p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode:  <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-79-wordpress-6-2-gutenberg-plugin-versions-15-0-and-15-1/\">Gutenberg Changelog #79 – WordPress 6.2, Gutenberg plugin versions 15.0 and 15.1</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and special guest Nick Diego </p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In their latest post, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/01/core-editor-improvement-strengthening-style-options/\"><strong>Core Editor Improvement: Strengthening style options</strong></a>, <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> lists all the great design tools that are coming to WordPress with the next major release in 6.2. &#8220;There’s something for everyone, whether you’re creating your next&nbsp;block&nbsp;theme, a designer seeking a pixel-perfect layout, or someone looking to reuse a design. Taken together, these changes create a clearer design process that is intuitive and efficient for modification and reuse.&#8221; McCarthy wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Munir Kamal</strong> published a new tutorial on <strong><a href=\"https://gutenberghub.com/how-to-create-a-multi-column-list-in-wordpress-block-editor/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How to Create a Multi-Column List in WordPress Block Editor</a>.</strong> &#8220;Due to its space-saving benefits and improved readability, multi-column formatting has been a staple in print media, such as newspapers and magazines.&#8221; Kamal explained. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bud Kraus</strong> took the default theme Twenty-Twenty Three for a ride.  You can read his review <a href=\"https://www.godaddy.com/garage/twentytwentythree-a-wordpress-theme/\"><strong>TwentyTwentyThree: A WordPress theme looking toward the future</strong></a> at GoDaddy Garage. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/istudio\"><strong>Judith Kallos</strong></a>, WordPress Consultant,  asked in her blog post:  <a href=\"https://www.theistudio.com/gutenberg-editor-what-you-need-to-know-now/\"><strong>Still Not Using WordPress Blocks? The Time is Now.</strong></a> She gave a brief intro into the Block Editor and had some tips to get started now. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>James Koussertari</strong>, Gutenberg Market, found for you  <a href=\"https://gutenbergmarket.com/news/the-6-best-gutenberg-compatible-wordpress-themes-in-2023\"><strong>The 6 Best Gutenberg Compatible WordPress Themes in 2023</strong></a> and reviewed them. They are not Block Themes using the Site Editor, though. Good Themes, that handle blocks well, and their the pros and cons. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest post, <strong>Steve Burge</strong> explored the Openverse Integration of the block and site editor prior to the Gutenberg plugin release. It is also slated to come to WordPress core with the 6.2 release. Read what he found in <strong><a href=\"https://www.metaslider.com/openverse-integration/\">Openverse Stock Photos Are Coming to WordPress</a></strong>. A Thank you also to Steve Burge <a href=\"https://twitter.com/SteveJBurge/status/1620885151512416258\">for the shoutout</a> of the Gutenberg Nightly, the daily plugin build for testing features that are not yet released. It will cross 140,000 downloads soon. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting February 8th, Openverse will be on its stand-alone domain at openverse.org for SEO and other purposes. All links and WordPress navigation will be redirected. Access from the block editor will keep working, too. </p>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s trunk branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mark Root-Wiley</strong> published his case study: <a href=\"https://mrwweb.com/wordpress-site-editor-friction-log/\"><strong>WordPress Site Editor First Use Friction Log</strong></a>. He live blogs his experience recreating his site with a block theme and use the Site Editor to select his Global Styles. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, I saw the question more often: how to migrate a classic theme to a block theme. Sorry, I don&#8217;t remember where, though. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Themes handbook, I found a chapter on exactly that topic:  <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/\"><strong>Converting a classic theme to a block theme</strong></a>. Unfortunately, there is not 1:1 migration process on button click. The paradigm changes are too fundamental. The general concepts of a migration are covered in the post <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#gradually-adopting-the-full-site-editing\">Gradually adopting the Site Editing features</a>. Then you learn how to enable block features in classic themes: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#adding-theme-json-in-classic-themes\">Adding theme.json</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#adding-block-patterns-in-classic-themes\">Adding block patterns</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#enabling-template-editor\">Enabling template editor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#disabling-template-editor\">Disabling template editor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#adding-block-template-parts-in-classic-themes\">Adding block template parts</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/converting-a-classic-theme-to-a-block-theme/#customizer-options\">Customizer options</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>In the latest WordPress Developer Blog post, <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/02/creating-custom-block-styles-in-wordpress-themes/\"><strong>Creating custom block styles in WordPress themes</strong></a>, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> explains how to create custom block styles on a quirky example: If you follow along, you get to build a cool hand-drawn border and make it available to your theme users:</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/02/creating-custom-block-styles-in-wordpress-themes/\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>In part 5 of the Starter Block Theme series, <strong>Daisy Olsen</strong>, demonstrates how how to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbBBOy8Ngbs\"><strong>handle custom Fonts in theme.json file</strong></a>. She explored adding custom fonts via theme.json in a few different ways:  </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>including manually registering via theme.json, </li>\n\n\n\n<li>using the Create Block Theme plugin to add Google fonts, and </li>\n\n\n\n<li>fonts from locally stored files uploaded to your site.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You can catch<a href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/daisyonwp\"><em> Daisy Olsen Twitch stream every Friday at 10:30</em></a> am live programming and discussion ins and out of Block Themes.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> took <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/a-look-under-the-hood-at-engine-awesome-a-laravel-based-saas-app-using-gutenberg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>A Look Under the Hood at Engine Awesome, a Laravel-based SaaS App Using Gutenberg</strong></a> outside the WordPress ecosystem. Steve Bruner, SlipFire agency owner, said: &#8220;The front-end is a headless React application built primarily using the Gutenberg JavaScript packages. We use the Gutenberg packages directly instead of the Isolated Editor project as it affords us a higher degree of control and customization.” as quoted by Gooding. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://twitter.com/raemoreywrites\">Rae Morey</a></strong> reported that the WooCommerce core team is piloting a three-month program of monthly chats that will focus on <strong>WooCommerce Blocks Extensibility</strong>. Automattic Developer Advocate Stephanie Pi says <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/2023/01/30/announcing-wc-blocks-extensibility-monthly-chat/\">the trial aims to determine the best way to speak directly and transparently</a> with the WooCommerce developer community. (Source: <a href=\"https://www.therepository.email/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzE4MCwiMWRkZDRmNGE2OGYwIiw1NTYsIjFqb2g0ZGtiNnZmbzh3NG9vb3dnNG9zODhnazA0czR3Iiw1MDksMF0\"><em>The Repository</em></a>)</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to his Twitch stream every Thursday at 10:30 am ET, <strong>Ryan Welcher </strong>also started with mobile short video format. This first recording is an introduction to custom Webpack configuration via @wordpress/scripts:  <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VgK_Y9wAGXw\"><strong>A quick tip on creating a custom webpack configuration</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In this week&#8217;s episode of WPCafe, <strong>Keith Devon</strong> and <strong>Mark Wilkinson</strong> discuss <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxrLumRpSl8\"><strong>the challenges of modern WordPress development</strong></a> for block editor and site editor. Keith Devon invites you via his <a href=\"https://twitter.com/keithdevon/status/1621490596631220225\">tweet:</a> &#8220;Join us for a good old moan about WordPress development&#8221; 🤣. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> updated his YouTube Channel with recording from his Twitch Stream: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW3W1eZorHg\"><strong>Gutenberg 15.0 features and a Post Picker block</strong></a>. Welcher covered  developer-focused features in Gutenberg 15.0. In the second part of the session he gave an intro to creating a post-picker block and demonstrate some hooks and components.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: Jim Choate:  Taped glass block window in an alley in The Dalles, Oregon</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<form class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input type=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" name=\"ngl_email\" id=\"ngl_email\" /></div></div><button type=\"submit\" class=\"ngl-form-button\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" id=\"ngl_list_id\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" id=\"ngl_double_optin\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 04 Feb 2023 17:00:28 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:74:\"WPTavern: WordPress Plugin Developers Alerted Ahead of Twitter API Changes\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141667\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:85:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-plugin-developers-alerted-ahead-of-twitter-api-changes\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5917:\"<p>Beginning February 9, 2023, Twitter will turn off free access to its APIs. The company announced yesterday that it will be offering &#8220;a paid basic tier&#8221; with more details coming next week.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f9f5.png\" alt=\"🧵\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>&mdash; Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1621026986784337922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 2, 2023</a></blockquote>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>In response to a user who conjectured that this move is more about raising the friction to making bots, Elon Musk <a href=\"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1621259936524300289\">responded</a>, saying that this is one factor motivating the change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, free API is being abused badly right now by bot scammers and opinion manipulators,&#8221; Musk said. &#8220;There’s no verification process or cost, so easy to spin up 100k bots to do bad things. Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not yet clear how this will effect the Twitter ecosystem, whether it will impact bots that auto-tweet links from blogs and other useful tools. So far it is already <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@Tibor/109800904950500383\">affecting some migration tools</a> like <a href=\"https://movetodon.org/\">Movetodon</a> that rely on the Twitter API to help users find their contacts on Mastodon. Movetodon&#8217;s creator said his app&#8217;s access was shut down today. According to Twitter, the app “has violated Twitter Rules and policies.” <a href=\"https://fedifinder.glitch.me/\">Fedifinder</a>, a tool that helps users find the Fediverse accounts of their Twitter contacts, is still up and running at the time of publishing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>NetNewsWire, an open source news aggregator, has already <a href=\"https://nnw.ranchero.com/2023/02/02/twitter-integration-to.html\">announced</a> it will be removing Twitter integration in its next release:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>You might think we’re reading RSS feeds from Twitter, but Twitter removed RSS feeds from the service something like ten years ago. We rely completely on the Twitter API.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress&#8217; Plugins team published a <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/02/03/twitter-api-changes/\">notice</a>, alerting developers and site owners of Twitter&#8217;s upcoming API change. The team warned that the following types of Twitter plugins might be affected:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Auto-posting</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Login with Twitter</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Analytics</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Management Tools</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scripted Interactions (auto-blocking etc)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;If your plugin (or the related service) does any of those, you will have to investigate if this change impacts you,&#8221; Plugin Review Team Rep Mika Epstein said. &#8220;If you are impacted, you will need to update (or close) your plugin accordingly. I know a lot of free plugins will have some hard choices to make here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;For plugin users, if a plugin suddenly breaks on/around the 9th, please be generous and kind to the developers. They really got blindsided by this, and it’s a lot to sort out in a short amount of time.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress plugin developer Joe Dolson, author of WP to Twitter and WP Tweets Pro, <a href=\"https://www.joedolson.com/2023/02/wp-to-twitter-wp-tweets-pro-and-twitters-new-api-policies/\">published</a> an early reaction to the news.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;WP to Twitter makes very little revenue as it is,&#8221; Dolson said. &#8220;If I end up doing a lot of support because of this, or need to make significant changes to the plug-in, I will most likely just shut everything down and close the plug-in. That’s a purely practical decision.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dolson also said if the API costs are affordable for the average small user, then he will likely keep things as they are. This is because API access for the plugin is managed through each users&#8217; developer account with Twitter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;If the API costs are very expensive for the average small user, I suspect that will completely destroy the WP to Twitter user base, and there will be little to no justification to my continuing to maintain it,&#8221; Dolson said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many users are likely not technical enough to understand what an API is, let alone why free access is being cut off. This could create a major support burden for plugins that no longer work after February 9. Developers who become frustrated with the platform becoming less open, may no longer be motivated to create these kinds of tools.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Now <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Twitter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@twitter</a> are removing free API access my \"Fetch my Tweets\" <a href=\"https://twitter.com/WordPress?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WordPress</a> plugin is likely to longer work, all these platforms are just getting harder and harder to do anything interesting with!</p>&mdash; Paul Jackson (@pixelsandthings) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/pixelsandthings/status/1621262819717955585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 2, 2023</a></blockquote>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>With just one week&#8217;s notice, and very few details, developers have little time to react. Once Twitter releases more information next week about its API changes, plugin developers will need to be ready to take action with notices written to help users understand what is happening. This news comes on the heels of the company updating its developer rules last month to ban third-party Twitter clients. </p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 04 Feb 2023 02:23:32 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:59:\"WordPress.org blog: The Month in WordPress – January 2023\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=14352\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:71:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/02/the-month-in-wordpress-january-2023/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:9902:\"<p>Welcome to the first 2023 edition of The Month in WordPress! January kicked off with an overview of <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/18/big-picture-goals-2023/\">WordPress&#8217; big goals for 2023</a> and new projects beginning to take shape. Moreover, work on the next major release, WordPress 6.2, continues with Beta 1 scheduled for next week. Read on for the latest news.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-light-grey-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-light-grey-background-color has-background\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress 6.2 Beta 1 is on its way</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first beta release of WordPress 6.2 is <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/17/wordpress-6-2-planning-roundup/\">scheduled</a> for next Tuesday,<strong> February 7, 2023</strong>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you may have heard, this version will wrap up work on Gutenberg Phase 2 (Customization), but what does this mean in the larger context of the WordPress project?</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size\">\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\">Tune in to Episode 48 of WP Briefing</a> to hear Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy discuss what it means to conclude a Gutenberg phase.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s new in Gutenberg</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/\"><strong>Gutenberg 15.0</strong></a> was released on January 18, 2023. Some highlights include a new “paste styles” feature to easily create multiple blocks with identical styling, and a “sticky” option to keep a block at the top of the page while the rest of the content scrolls.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, block settings have been split into two tabs in the sidebar: Styles and Settings. This makes blocks with more controls, such as the Group block, easier to customize, and allows the interface to scale with the growing number of design tools.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size\">\n<p><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/01/core-editor-improvement-strengthening-style-options/\"></a><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/01/core-editor-improvement-strengthening-style-options/\">The latest “Core Editor Improvement” post</a> highlights the newest style features enhancements. Learn how they can help give your site a unique and cohesive look and feel.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Team updates: Matrix exploration, WordPress.org redesign news, and more</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>WordPress and Matrix contributors published <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/01/25/a-meta-subproject-for-evaluating-matrix/\">a proposal to explore the open source chat system Matrix</a> as a possible replacement for the WordPress community&#8217;s Slack.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Several sections of WordPress.org have been redesigned lately, including <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/01/24/new-look-new-site-new-helphub/\">Documentation (HelpHub)</a>, <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/enterprise/\">Enterprise</a>, and <a href=\"https://mercantile.wordpress.org/\">Mercantile</a> (the official WordPress swag store). Learn more about the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/01/26/wordpress-org-redesign-recent-launches/\">latest redesign updates</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The implementation of the block editor in the WordPress.org forums is <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/02/block-editor-live-in-most-forums/\">progressing well</a> and the feedback so far has been very positive.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/25/wordpress-community-support-wordpress-foundation-entity-structure/\">This comprehensive post</a> clarifies how WordPress Community Support (also known as WordCamp Central) and WordPress Foundation entities are set up and addresses some misconceptions about them.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/18/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-2/\">bug scrub schedule for WordPress 6.2</a> is now published. The goal of bug scrubs is to ensure tickets move towards a resolution—anyone can join these sessions to learn, help, or even <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/tutorials/leading-bug-scrubs/\">lead one</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Openverse <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/02/03/openverse-is-moving/\">will be moving</a> from wordpress.org/openverse to openverse.org next week. Along with this move, new improvements are coming to the site&#8217;s homepage, header, and footer.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Plugin Review Team is looking for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/01/13/looking-for-your-intentionally-wrong-plugins/\">your (intentionally) wrong plugins</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The latest edition of People of WordPress features <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/people-of-wordpress-daniel-kossmann/\">Daniel Kossmann</a>, a software engineer from South America.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size\">\n<p>As part of the discussion on <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/09/request-for-feedback-how-can-we-improve-the-five-for-the-future-contributor-journey/\">improving the contributor journey</a>, Josepha wrote some thoughts on <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/27/discussion-ending-the-eternal-september/\">the Eternal September phenomenon in open source</a> and invites you to share yours.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Feedback &amp; testing requests</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>The Community Team is gathering feedback on a <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/19/proposal-adopt-github-for-team-projects/\">proposed move to GitHub</a> for standardizing the project’s management tools.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>To mark WordPress&#8217; 20th anniversary milestone, Core Team contributors are organizing <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/24/proposal-old-tickets-trac-triage-sessions/\">several bug scrub sessions</a> to tackle long-standing Trac tickets.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Version 21.6 of the WordPress mobile app for <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/01/24/call-for-testing-wordpress-for-ios-21-6/\">iOS</a> is available for testing.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size\">\n<p>The Training Team calls all WordPress users to complete <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/individual-learner-survey/\">this short Individual Learner Survey</a> by February 20, 2023. Your feedback will help identify the most high-impact resources for <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/\">Learn WordPress</a>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress events updates</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Would you like to be a speaker at WordCamp Europe 2023? <a href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-speakers/\">Submit your application</a> by February 5, 2023. The organizing team released the&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/wceu-tickets-available-now/\" target=\"_blank\">first batch of tickets</a> and is also calling for&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-volunteers/\" target=\"_blank\">volunteers</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/call-for-photographers-is-now-open/\" target=\"_blank\">photographers</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The first WordCamp to be held in Africa in 2023, <a href=\"https://entebbe.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Entebbe</a>, is <a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/01/wordcamp-entebbe-first-wordcamp-to-happen-in-africa-in-2023-is-on/\">well underway</a> and set to take place on March 10-11.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don’t miss these other upcoming WordCamps:\n<ul>\n<li><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1fa-1f1f8.png\" alt=\"🇺🇸\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://birmingham.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Birmingham, Alabama</a>, USA on February 4-5, 2023</li>\n\n\n\n<li><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1f5-1f1ed.png\" alt=\"🇵🇭\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://cebu.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Cebu</a>, Philippines on February 11, 2023</li>\n\n\n\n<li><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1ea-1f1f8.png\" alt=\"🇪🇸\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://chiclana.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Chiclana</a>, Spain, on March 3-4, 2023</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size\">\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Asia 2023</a> in Bangkok, Thailand, is only two weeks away! Check out the <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/livestream/\">livestream schedule</a> if you are attending virtually.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-light-grey-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-light-grey-background-color has-background\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em><strong><em><strong><em>Have a story we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? <strong><em>Fill out </em></strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/month-in-wordpress-submissions/\"><strong><em>this quick form</em></strong></a><strong><em> to let us know.</em></strong></em></strong></em></strong></em></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The following folks contributed to this edition of The Month in WordPress: <em><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>webcommsat</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>rmartinezduque</a></em></em>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 03 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"rmartinezduque\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:66:\"Gutenberg Times: WordCamp Asia 2023: Eight Gutenberg related talks\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=23294\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:76:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-asia-2023-eight-gutenberg-related-talks/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3501:\"<p>Here is a list of talks, that indicate via the description that it touches on Gutenberg adoption and implementations. A talk about WordPress increasingly also means talking about the Block editor, Site editor and block themes and the available tools in general terms. It&#8217;s not always clear how much of the talks takeaways are block related. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>I might miss a few, especially those around content creation and marketing. If I do, please let me know in the comments and I update this list. </em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, due to time constraints, I list the title and the speaker links back to the WordCamp Asia site. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/evolution-of-wordpress-in-a-product-organization/\"><strong>Evolution of WordPress in a Product Organization</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/avinash-kundaliya/\">Avinash Kundaliya</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/getting-your-designer-ready-for-gutenberg/\"><strong>Getting your designer ready for Gutenberg</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/rahi-prajapati/\">Rahi Prajapati</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/start-your-subscription-business-with-no-code-saas-and-fse-full-site-editing/\">Start your subscription business with No Code SaaS and FSE (Full Site Editing)</a> </strong>with Okamoto Hidetaka</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/layout-layout-layout/\"><strong>Layout, Layout, Layout</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/isabel-brison/\">Isabel Brison</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/mastering-in-theme-json/\"><strong>Mastering in Theme.json</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/tanvirul-haque/\">Tanvirul Haque</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/is-learning-react-necessary-for-block-development/\"><strong>Is learning React necessary for Block development?</strong></a>  with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/edmund-chan/\">Edmund Chan</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/how-can-theme-developers-monetize-in-the-era-of-block-themes/\"><strong>How can theme developers monetize in the era of Block Themes?</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/hidekazu-ishikawa/\">Hidekazu Ishikawa</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/session/case-study-a-nocode-contributor-journey-on-the-wordpress-gutenberg-github-repo/\"><strong>Case Study: A #nocode Contributor Journey on the WordPress Gutenberg GitHub Repo</strong></a> with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/speaker/birgit-pauli-haack/\">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-light-background-background-color has-background\">The <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/livestream/\"><strong>full Livestream schedule</strong></a> with times in your local time zone is already available on the WordCamp Asia website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This post will be updated with the links to the video / timestamp of the Livestream every day. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>For readers, who are attending WordCamp Asia in-person, and who would like to meet with me for a chat, <a href=\"https://calendly.com/pauli-haack/wcasia?month=2023-02\">use my calendar link to schedule</a> a meeting. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Gutenberg Times is an <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/media-partners/\">official Media Partner of WordCamp Asia</a></em></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 03 Feb 2023 11:31:05 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:113:\"Post Status: The WP Agency Journey with Bradford Campeau-Laurion of Alley Interactive  — Post Status Draft 139\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=146807\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:118:\"https://poststatus.com/the-wp-agency-journey-with-bradford-campeau-laurion-of-alley-interactive-post-status-draft-139/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:60325:\"<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\"><div class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/potatomaster\">Bradford Campeau-Laurion</a>, CEO of <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alleyco\">Alley Interactive</a>, joins Cory Miller to talk about publishing technology past, present, and future. Working with WordPress at the enterprise level showcases incredible capability and highlights possibilities for future growth within WordPress. </p></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"yoast-reading-time__wrapper\"><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__icon\"></span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__spacer\"></span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text\">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__reading-time\">40</span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__time-unit\"> minutes</span></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript\">Transcript</a> ↓</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2001 <a href=\"https://twitter.com/potatomaster\">Bradford Campeau-Laurion</a> began his career in publishing technology at Forbes Magazine, which evolved into utilizing WordPress in the enterprise market. Today he leads <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alleyco\">Alley Interactive</a>, an agency focused on publishers, non-profits, museums, and brands. Brad shares his extensive experience in publishing technology and his view of the strengths and challenges within the enterprise market of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Shifting to Paywall Content.</strong> Perhaps a major misstep in early online publishing was setting the expectation of free content. Now print subscriptions are down. Publishers can’t secure advertising without extremely high volume. And consumers are hesitant to pay for online subscriptions.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>WordPress Creator Economies. </strong>Within WordPress there are software and content creators. Software creators the directory to serve as a centralized community and marketplace. Content creators face a bigger challenge to find their market because there isn’t a collaboration tool and algorithm like a social platform driving the creator economy of WordPress.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enterprise WordPress vs. Competition. </strong>The closed platforms have appeal-single providers, monthly pricing models, built-in solutions. To customers who aren’t aware of the benefits of open source, it can be confusing to help them understand the optionality and freedom they relinquish even if the initial investment of time and money is more. Enterprise WordPress faces the challenge of crafting appealing solutions without becoming the antithesis of open source.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-4 wp-block-columns Pressable has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background\" id=\"Pressable\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<h3><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Sponsor: <a href=\"https://poststat.us/pressable\">Pressable</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Founded in 2010, <strong>Pressable</strong> is a world-class managed WordPress hosting provider built on the same data network as <strong>WordPress.com</strong> and <strong>WordPress VIP</strong>. With industry-leading performance, 24/7 expert support, a 100% uptime guarantee, and seamless integrations with <strong>WooCommerce</strong> and <strong>Jetpack</strong>, Pressable provides the tools you need to manage your WordPress websites and grow your business all in one place. <a href=\"https://poststat.us/pressable\">TRY PRESSABLE→</a></p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center\">\n<a href=\"https://poststat.us/pressable\"><img src=\"https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/pressable-icon-primary.svg\" alt=\"Pressable\" class=\"wp-image-121339\" width=\"150\" title=\"Pressable\" /></a>Pressable\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-mentioned-in-the-show\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png\" alt=\"🔗\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.joomla.org/\">Joomla</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.drupal.org/\">Drupal</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.drupal.org/\">Forbes</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/\">New York Times</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://observer.com/\">New York Observer</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://slate.com/\">Slate</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.kff.org/\">Kaiser Family Foundation</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/\">National Science Foundation</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.figma.com/\">Figma</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/netaustin/\">Austin Smith</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/xmatt\">Matt Johnson</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://time.com/\">Time Magazine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://thepointsguy.com/\">The Points Guy</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/\">Washington Post</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://defector.com/\">Defector</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://deadspin.com/\">Deadspin</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.brightspot.com/\">Bright Spot</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.rebelmouse.com/\">Rebel Mouse</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.brightcove.com/en/\">Brightcove</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/tomwillmot?lang=en\">Tom Willmot</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://humanmade.com/\">Human Made</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"eplus-wrapper\">\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/potatomaster\">Bradford Campeau-Laurion</a> (CEO, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alleyco\">Alley Interactive</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/corymiller303\">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/lemonadecode\">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"eplus-wrapper has-background\">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png\" alt=\"📝\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /><br /><br /><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes</a>, <a href=\"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube</a>, <a href=\"http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stitcher</a>, <a href=\"https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Simplecast</a>, or <a href=\"https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P\">RSS</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png\" alt=\"🎧\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another Post Status draft episode. And this is, uh, another interview and story in our agency journey series. Um, I&#8217;ve got Brad, who&#8217;s been a member of Post Status for a long time that leads, uh, Allie Interactive. Um, but we&#8217;re gonna. Talk about his story in just a little bit. But, um, you know, I&#8217;m always interested in these stories because how you got there, where you were.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then we&#8217;re gonna talk a little bit about WordPress in the future. And, um, but Brad, thanks again for, um, being, taking some time to share your story and journey. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your, your origin story with WordPress?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Yeah. Thanks Corey. Thank you for, for having me on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, yeah, I started with WordPress around about, I wanna say 2008, 2009. Uh, I spent, I spent my entire career [00:01:00] working in publishing technology up to this point, and, uh, I started at. Forbes Magazine, uh, in right around 2001. Uh, I eventually worked for forbes.com and, you know, towards the, the end of my tenure there, we were getting into launching some blogs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, I thought this WordPress platform looked pretty cool. Uh, I believe version three had just come out and, and, and it was starting to look, you know, a little more. Enterprise technology. Uh, you know, up to that point, you know, I think Droople was probably even Jula, I hate to say, was, was, uh, you know, an, an early, uh, adopter in the early, had some early adoption in the enterprise market, but WordPress was really picking up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, I liked the, I liked the technology behind it. I liked the interface a lot better than either of those platforms and, you know, just really on my own, took over a, a spare server and started to build out some blogs. Um, I, I had finally left the company in, in [00:02:00] 2010, but, Shortly after I left, WordPress actually took over, you know, their entire c m s at least for, for a period of time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, you know, it, it was good to see, um, WordPress start to get some, some enterprise adoption, uh, in that, in that market. Um, you know, and, and still at that phase, you know, WordPress was still. You know, I, I would say more uncommon than common, you know, for, for usage and enterprise publishing. You know, fast forward to, um, you know, 2010, I, I had taken over as CTO of a, of a small media company and we had a need to build out a couple of foreign language sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, we had actually chosen Droople at that time, uh, not WordPress and. My COO at the time, um, had previously worked at the New York Observer, um, with a couple of folks, uh, Austin Smith and, and Matt Johnson, uh, who had just founded a, a very small [00:03:00] agency, uh, of three people called Ali. And, uh, I, I became acquainted with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, hired them to build, build those two sites for us. So I actually became one of Ali&#8217;s first clients, uh, before I even worked here, uh, which, which was pretty cool. Um, stayed in touch with them. Uh, and then, uh, 2012 when I was, uh, c t o of a, a small startup, um, which, Wasn&#8217;t, wasn&#8217;t the best job I&#8217;ve ever had.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s say, uh, I won&#8217;t name the company. Um, but Ali was just starting to really, um, grow at that time. Uh, they were about to land, uh, their first set of really big enterprise clients, uh, a couple of which we still work with to this day. They&#8217;re also getting more into WordPress because, you know, the, the market really seemed to be starting to head in that direction, at least for open source enterprise publishing technology.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had built up a lot of WordPress knowledge at the startup that I was working at. You know, we had, we had stayed in touch over the, the last couple of [00:04:00] years and. Uh, I, I decided to join them and there were, I think, six of us at that point. And, you know, later, um, you know, shortly thereafter became, uh, the, the third partner in the business.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve added a, uh, several others since, but, uh, you know, we&#8217;ve grown to a team of 70 people since then. So there&#8217;s a lot that happened in between. But, you know, it, it was an interesting journey to, to get to, you know, where I am today. Um, you know, as CEO of the. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Okay. Well, you kinda shared some of that snippet of your journey related to Allie.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, what does Allie do in WordPress in the world? Like who, who are your kind of focused clients? Um, what are the kind of types of work you do related to WordPress?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Yeah. When, when Austin and Matt, you know, originally founded the company, um, what was great is that you. I think the three of us always shared a common vision for, for what we wanted it to [00:05:00] be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, and, and really a common interest in, in the types of clients that we wanna work with. You know, the. The worldview that the company was, was founded with wa was with the, the First Amendment as the, the company&#8217;s North Star. Uh, you know, a strong belief in freedom of the press, um, and, and really helping, you know, it sounds very bold, the helping civilization bridge the divide from, you know, pre to post internet free speech.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, so the, the partners in the agency have always staunchly supported publishing and, and as a result, you know, we have only ever worked with publishers. Uh, you know, we started with. A lot of expertise in, specifically in news media. Um, you know, Austin and Matt had experience working for companies like the New York Observer, um, New York Times Slate.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, I, I had worked at Forbes and a couple other media companies, so, you know, we, we had a lot of experience there, but, You know, it, [00:06:00] it became clear that there were, you know, others who really fit that, that definition as publishers that were also important and interesting for us to work with. So, you know, early on, one of our first big clients was, was the Kaiser Family Foundation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and since then we&#8217;ve worked with a lot of other nonprofit publishers, you know, who have, you know, just as an, an important mission supporting their communities as our news media clients do supporting free. Um, you know, and we&#8217;ve worked with some book publishers and, and cultural institutions as well, but, you know, allie&#8217;s like never gonna build an an eCommerce site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re, you know, not gonna get into, you know, other areas of, of, you know, WordPress development and design. Uh, it, it&#8217;s always been focused on publishers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> That&#8217;s cool, especially with your background, uh, in publishing. Um, Forbes, obviously everybody knows Forbes. Um, and one of the strengths I&#8217;ve seen of WordPress, obviously it&#8217;s democratized publishing, so that that lines, and I love the, [00:07:00] the focus on the First Amendment, and the free speech part of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s excellent. So with a lot of these publishers as being kind of a default client of what you all focus. Um, what&#8217;s the type of work, can you, and, and I know there&#8217;s clients you might not be able to talk about, so I, I totally respect that, but what&#8217;s the type of work you&#8217;re doing for some of these clients?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is it rebuilds, is it park maintenance? Is it responding to a news team or a room or something like that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Yeah. You know, and, and I think that that&#8217;s part of the, You know, evolution of the company that I sort of glossed over between about 2012 and now. Um, when, when I started you, you know, Allie originally, um, the folks that started it myself and, and, uh, and Austin and Matt and, you know, we, we, everyone that started the company and was there in the early days were, we&#8217;re all developers and, you know, we all had experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, you know, as programmers, you know, I wrote code for. [00:08:00] Pretty much until about five years ago, um, you know, full-time. Uh, and you know, so that&#8217;s where we started. You know, we partnered with, uh, large organizations to build out, you know, solid publishing technology, infrastructure, you know, with the caveat that we understood publishing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had. Worked with folks in newsrooms. So, you know, although at that time we weren&#8217;t doing actual, like web design, we understood how to design a CMS that was efficient and, and that took the experience of the editors, you know, into account. Because, you know, very often, you know, I, I, I saw it in my, in my own career for many years, folks would build things for, you know, for editors to use, folks who.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Often on a deadline trying to get a story out quickly. And the interface would be clunky, it would be slow, it would be inefficient, you know, too many clicks, too many steps, not intuitive. Um, so that part of what [00:09:00] we do was there from the beginning. Um, but early on we were working with, you know, primarily outside designers to, to actually, you know, create the designs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had a couple of agencies that we used to partner with, you know, relatively frequently. It became clear to us like round about 2014, uh, that, that, that was a pretty inefficient way to work. And, and so about eight, no, now, now nine years ago, we started our own design practice internally and, and now really, you know, we, we&#8217;ve become truly a, a full service agency from strategy to design to, to development it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s just so much more, much more of an efficient experience for the folks that we work with to have, you know, A single team under one roof that has all the skills end to end to, you know, thoughtfully think through what we should be building for them. Because, you know, we&#8217;re not just implementing code and design and products.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re helping to transform their business. You know, like especially on for r and D&#8217;s media [00:10:00] clients, you know, creating. A product that generates sustainable revenue for them is very important. Um, and, and the only way that we could do that effectively was to bring everything under, under one roof. Um, . You know, one of the other things that we always saw, you know, in, in working with an outside design firm is you always had this, this dreaded handoff, you know, of, of the design from one agency, um, to the other, you know, to us for implementation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, you know, back then it was, you know, Photoshop files. Eventually it became, Envision and then Figma. Um, but, you know, regardless, you know, developers who weren&#8217;t necessarily in the room when the product was being conceived are now being forced to interpret it. And certainly, um, you know, especially once, you know, responsive design became a thing, you know, we all, we all take it for granted now, but.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, not every breakpoint situation, you know, potential flow of text around embeds and images was, was thought about. And a [00:11:00] lot&#8217;s left up to interpretation. But, you know, by having developers and designers on a single team, you know, we are able to do a lot more design and browser. You know, we can create a Desi, uh, a style guide and immediately go to code and, and we know that the product works earlier on and, and it really saves our clients a lot of time and money and hassle.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, really we&#8217;re not, we don&#8217;t wanna waste people&#8217;s time, you know, doing things that can be done in a better way. If we wanna spend our time, most of our time, you know, thoughtfully thinking through, you know, what is the best product that we can build for them that&#8217;s gonna meet their goals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Well, I asked the question cuz I know, um, you all recently posted a job on post status for, I think it was senior WordPress developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m curious what a senior WordPress developer at Alley, you know, does like, what&#8217;s their week or day look like? You know, coming in, working with these, like, I, I was just going to your website and I was like, New York Post National Science [00:12:00] Foundation, um, of course the Kaiser Foundation and. That&#8217;s exciting to me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m, my background is as being a journalist, but I, these are name brand, very well known, huge organizations doing really good work in the world. And I wor and I wonder like, how does that connect down to that WordPress developer at Ali doing work on like a weekly basis because, um, I come from the product side and always, you know, some people prefer the product side, but there&#8217;s a, there&#8217;s a potential.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monotony. Okay. I&#8217;m just doing these things with client work and some of these clients, I&#8217;m like, oh, there&#8217;s gotta be something new pushing the envelope every day. Uh, publishing is changing, web is changing, and all that. So what does a, a typical week in a WordPress developer&#8217;s life look like at Ali?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Yeah, it, it, it&#8217;s certainly, I mean, it&#8217;s certainly interesting, you know, for for sure, you know, every, every team has, uh, [00:13:00] typically a, a mix of one or more clients that they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re supporting and in the long term, you know, we.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Really value having long-term relationship with, with our clients now, I would say the, the vast majority of work that we do after we build something, we end up, you know, working with that client for months or years afterwards. I think our longest client relationship is probably hitting 11 years this year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, which is, which, which is pretty crazy to me. It&#8217;s, um, it&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a long time. All, all of our teams, uh, in general are, are dedicated Scrum teams that work with, you know, a client or a particular, you know, set of clients. Uh, so our, our developers. You know, tend to say working on, on the same teams, you know, month over month, even, you know, even year over year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, and, you know, they are working with, uh, you know, a product manager, a scrub master, um, you know, a designer if, if they&#8217;re working on a team that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s in the midst of a design [00:14:00] project. So, you know, they are, they&#8217;re part of a team that&#8217;s that&#8217;s trying to. You know, come up with Yeah. Ongoing solutions for, you know, whatever business problems our, our clients are trying to solve.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and yeah, in the case of something like the New York Post, you know, where, which you mentioned, um, it&#8217;s not even just implementing product, you know, that&#8217;s really interesting work for, um, the developers working on that project because we&#8217;re. Often pushing the bounds of, of WordPress and WordPress, VIP and, and you know, what those particular platforms can do to serve WordPress at scale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re talking about, you know, hundreds of millions of people that are, that are trying to access a WordPress site. Um, you know, which is pretty amazing when you try to, when you think about where. You know, WordPress came from, its, its origin 20 years ago. Um, you know, the sites we built are probably serving collectively billions of page views a month.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, um, so, you know, WordPress has really, you know, hit that, hit that true enterprise scale. Um, [00:15:00] which is probably something more we can, we can, we can talk about later. Um, but yeah, the, the average developer that you know is, is working at Ali is, is solving, uh, Really interesting, complex problems. Um, but also they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re serving Ali&#8217;s mission.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re supporting publishers, you know, they&#8217;re not just, um, writing code for the sake of writing code. They&#8217;re writing code that&#8217;s helping, you know, keep the world informed or, or helping communities, uh, you know, beyond, you know, what they&#8217;re doing. You know, just, just day to day working at Ali.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. I love that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Any, any way you&#8217;re able to combine making meaning. With money, profits and perfect, uh, purpose. I, I love that. And serving that, hiring good with, while getting paid, you know, to do and solve problems every day. So. Okay. I&#8217;m curious, you have an extensive background with publishing and this is a little bit off my normal scope, but I want to go where, where you know people are [00:16:00] and get your feedback and vision and thoughts publishing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I go back to the actual print. I remember my first job. I was like in awe, seeing this big printing press, you know, go around and something came out the other side and then, um, I would drive home and by the time I got home that paper would be on my doorstep. Internet revolution, all that revolutionized all that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you&#8217;ve seen so much with publishing. I&#8217;m curious, you know, the web just continues to acceler. With and, and technology accelerates. What are you seeing with publishing? How has that evolved in your, you know, in your career? What are you seeing in the future for it? We&#8217;ve got, like I just saw medium. Um, embraced Macedon, which we&#8217;ve talked about on this podcast, uh, the fed averse and all that. And, you know, again, the, the headline is another billionaire buys a [00:17:00] big social network, and, but I&#8217;ve seen this trend. I love publishing, I love publishing with WordPress. I, I just wanna ask the general question. What are you seeing now? What are you seeing in the future for publishing on the.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Yeah, I mean, I, gosh, like this, this could be an entire podcast episode, but it, it should be, you know, . What, what I will say is that when I started working full-time in publishing, um, you know, 20 years ago and, and I had been. You know, aware of the publishing technology world. Prior to that, my, I actually got into this business because my, my uncle actually helped design the first, uh, electronic publishing system at Time Magazine in the seventies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s really like comical to me to look at the, I have, I solved the Frame Blueprint, um, believe it or not, . Oh yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> That&#8217;s awesome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> It had, it had a massive array of two, 300 megabyte hard drives that, that [00:18:00] pub powered the entire system. Anyway, what What was comical to me about it was that they were all dumb terminals that ran off a central server, and then we went into this whole desktop publishing revolution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone had this whole end-to-end suite of. You know, very complicated, expensive applications, um, on their desktop computers. And now we&#8217;re doing everything in web browsers, connecting to a server. So we actually had it figured out like 50 years ago, and then we kind of straight away for, from a bit, and then we came back to it, which is, which is amusing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, but, you know, the, the, the bigger, the bigger thing to me about the transition from. Print to web and, and where we are today is, you know, like 20 years ago when I was first getting into this and we were starting to, you know, really see, um, uh, proliferation of publishers, you know, launching more, you know, full featured websites that, you know, weren&#8217;t just, you know, a few articles thrown up here and there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like they might have been in the late ni in the [00:19:00] mid to late nineties for the very early adopters. And they were, they were full-fledged products with unique content of their own. But I think that a lot of publishers, and, and I have some, some stories that I, that I can&#8217;t share, but I, but I know certainly details about how certain publishers thought about things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, but there was a prevailing sentiment that the websites then were an experiment, you know, or, or even, uh, you know, a toy, they, they. Viewed as being necessarily, you know, the, a real publication, the way that the, the newspaper or the magazine or whatever it is, was, um, so they were free and, and we set this, this expectation very early on that websites were, were free. You would just go and read them and, you know, there were a few that had a paywall, but, um, you know, charging for content online back then was also super hard [00:20:00] because the payment technology stunk. Um, people, you know, weren&#8217;t. Quite used to, to buying things online yet like they are now, you know, eBay, Amazon sure they existed, but it&#8217;s not like it is today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, you know, the, the payment systems that were available, you know, had a fair degree of friction to them. Um, you didn&#8217;t necessarily have the consumer market for it. The, the publishers themselves, especially, you know, folks like at the, at the C-suite level, didn&#8217;t really view them as being a primary business driver yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, you know, then, then of course things changed. Everything moved online. Um, you know, throughout the mid two thousands, you know, we just started to shovel ads onto the sites and we were getting loads of traffic and making tons of money for advertisers. And then, you know, advertisers started to get savvy about things like viewability and click through rates, and it&#8217;s like, oh wow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, real human beings probably aren&#8217;t seeing about 80 or 90% of these [00:21:00] ads. And then, You know, that whole market just cratered and you know, so now you&#8217;re left with this dilemma where most of the traffic to your publication is now online. People want to consume content that way, and it gets hard to start to shift the mindset that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, to, to that you should be paying for this content. Um, and, you know, you can still make money on advertising, but it takes a tremendous amount of volume. Um, or it takes an extremely niche market. Um, you know, for example, Um, you know, a site like the Points Guy Travel site, you know, they make a ton of money on, on, on credit card referrals, which are really high, um, you know, high value things that, that, that, that those companies are going to pay for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, you know, those examples are few and far between and you&#8217;re, and you&#8217;re left with this, you know, this middle ground where. You know, publishers aren&#8217;t getting the subscription revenue from the websites that they need to get. They&#8217;re not getting the ad [00:22:00] revenue they need to get, and they&#8217;re having dwindling print subscriptions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, so, you know, how do all of these important organizations that are keeping the world informed, you know, continue to exist? And, and that&#8217;s an ongoing challenge that, you know, we are trying. To help our clients work through. And, and there&#8217;s really no, you know, one size fits all solution for, for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, you know, during the, during 2020, during, in 2021, during the pandemic, when. Us, like a lot of folks had a, had a little downturn in business, we had some availability. Um, you know, that&#8217;s why we started working on our lead platform, um, L E D E for all you publishing nerds out there. Um, and you know, that was specifically geared towards.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Startup, subscription driven publications, you know, to help create the next generation of, of sustainable journalism. You know, everyone on the platform, you know, has, has paywall content. They charge a subscription fee. [00:23:00] Um, and, and we&#8217;re helping them, you know, build out those communities to, to, you know, create, you know, really the next generation of publishers because without things like that, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s really hard for them to get off the ground.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You. If you have funding for a startup publication, you, it&#8217;s probably pretty limited, and you shouldn&#8217;t be spending it on technology. You should be spending it on hiring writers and, and, and, you know, enabling those people to go out and, and, and do their jobs and, you know, you know, create great content. So, um, it just, you know, anyway, it&#8217;s a challenge, but, but I think that we all really screwed up back in the.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, in the early two thousands when, you know, we didn&#8217;t set the expectation that, you know, you have to pay for this. Did you pay for your newspaper before that? Did you pay for your magazine? Of course you did. . Yep. You know, maybe you&#8217;d, maybe you&#8217;d read it for free if you had found it on the train or you were sitting at the dentist&#8217;s office, but you know, if you wanted that, that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Content for yourself in the comfort of your own home. You paid your [00:24:00] subscription fee. So yeah. Um, there, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a big reset that&#8217;s going on now and, and, and, you know, and you know, uh, we want to be here to help our clients, you know, think through that, work through that, and, and, you know, use our experience to, you know, hopefully guide them in the right direction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, there&#8217;s</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> too many outlets. I think quite a bit about that, that seem to have. A big transition. This is why I got outta the newspaper. So it&#8217;s like they weren&#8217;t embracing technology. It&#8217;s like you said, they set a wrong expectation from the beginning. It&#8217;s like, how do you preserve that? And the two I think of are Washington Post in the New York Times, the, the Gray lady, I think she&#8217;s still called, um, iconic journalist.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, organizations, um, and I see the New York I, I&#8217;ve watched The New York Times, obviously I use Word all every day, but I go, you know, it seems like they had some good traction with digital subscriptions and, and things like that. And so I love that cuz [00:25:00] there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s such a part of this fourth estate that it, that we need as a society.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Quality journalism, sharing, like you said, inform the world of what&#8217;s going on. Uh, and it&#8217;s sad because I&#8217;ve seen what used to be local. Like, the newspapers I worked for were local, city based, you know, small compared to the one we just talked about. And, um, there&#8217;s a vital need that they played in the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now contrast that too. So what do you think? Are you seeing trends and things? Obviously you, I, I looked up lead here and I love the name by the way. Um, lead. So trying to help them build community. So that&#8217;s another part of some of the things we&#8217;re seeing in publishing. It&#8217;s not just inform. It&#8217;s, I mean, post status is a very microcosm of this is like, we do news, I guess we do content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, but really we&#8217;re a community. Um, and, and I&#8217;ve seen that with business, how we&#8217;ve added community into business. We did this at I [00:26:00] themes, uh, now with post status is going okay. I don&#8217;t, we get labeled as a news outlet, but I go, we&#8217;re we&#8217;re community, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re relational. Um, what are some of those things you&#8217;re seeing with, uh, within the publishing organizations you all work with?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building that community. You see, uh, authors and writers building their own community, like Twitter instantly goes, okay, you can&#8217;t see ESPN or any of the big things. You see the little, here&#8217;s the anchor or writer or whatever it is talking, and there&#8217;s a Twitter byline. They&#8217;ve cultivated their own kind of followings and things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what are you seeing with those kind of trends related to lead, uh, lead in the work that you all do with your clients?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong>  Yeah, with on, on Leads specifically, you know, I obviously, you know, you could, you know, from an economic standpoint, you could gauge the success of the community through the number of subscriptions they get.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, obviously if people wanna pay you money, they wanna be part of, you know, what, what you have going on. But, um, one of, one of the most interesting things I see [00:27:00] within, within Lead is with, with Defector, which is probably the, you know, one of the largest sites we run on the platform, and you know, how.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How many websites do you go to that actually have a decent comment section under their articles? Um, you know, not, not many. Uh, you know, in fact, some of our clients have started to only selectively enable comments or disable them entirely because there just wasn&#8217;t productive. . And you know, pretty much every defector article that that gets written has dozens of comments.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like, not only do the people wanna read the articles, they wanna discuss them with each other, with the other folks that are, that are reading the site. And they&#8217;re actually like, really funny and interesting, you know, like arguments and comments and, and um, you know, discussions around the topics at hand that go back and.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, to me, I would gauge that as being a success over, over anything else. I, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m part of that community as well. I mean, I&#8217;m probably a little biased. I was a big fan of Deadspin, [00:28:00] um, back in the day. But, you know, I think what you said, Um, before when you were introducing, that was also really interesting, which is the, the, the topic of local news.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think local news is, is been affected by this shift. You know, more than anyone, you know, if the Washington Post and the New York Times, you know, decide to start, you know, charging a subscription fee, which of course they both did, you know, um, many years ago. Yeah, with their scale, it&#8217;s easier to maintain some degree of profitability and they have profits coming from, from other areas as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not just their, their online subscription revenue, um, you know, cuz they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re catering to a national audience. The New York Times is, and the, and the Washington Post are. New York City and Washington DC papers in, in name only, you know, they, they certainly have a, both have a metro beat, which, which covers the local area, but the majority of the content appears to a national, even a global audience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re just dealing with a different scale. Um, [00:29:00] you know, there are so many local news deserts that have developed over the last decade across the country where, Um, you know, the local paper is just gone, or, you know, there were three local papers, even in major metropolitan areas. Now there&#8217;s one local paper, um, and, and you don&#8217;t have any, you know, dissenting opinions and you don&#8217;t have enough coverage to, to reach every community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and that news is just disappearing, you know? No, no one&#8217;s covering it. Um, you know, with, with folks. Buying print subscriptions with, you know, not even having the scale to, to, to generate any online revenue. Um, you know, it&#8217;s really hard. So they end up getting. A lot of them that do still exist end up getting, you know, slurped up by one of the, the major conglomerates that&#8217;s purchasing lots of local news organizations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, and even then you, you, you&#8217;re seeing their operations get gutted in favor of centralizing, you know, copy editing and, and, and lots of other services. [00:30:00] So, , you know, the actual folks that are on the ground covering things are really limited and, you know, there are stories that are slipping through the cracks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, I mean, I mean, look at, look at, I live in New York City, right? I mean, and, and the New York City metropolitan area is a huge market. We have multiple papers. And you know, something like the George Santos story, which was definitely covered by a local media organization, you know, slips through the cracks to the point where, you know, someone was elected.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stevie had lied about some things, . So it, it&#8217;s really just, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s quite remarkable that even in a, even in a market like, you know, New York City, um, something like that can happen these days. So, um, you know, I think we, we really, we, we have a lot of questions we have to answer and I, and I don&#8217;t have all of them today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, yeah. You know, but certainly it, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a goal of mine to help, you know, help help us, help our client organizations work, work through these challenges. Yep.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> So thank you for that. Cause I just wanna get perspectives, um, cuz this is, the [00:31:00] publishing is central to WordPress and, you know, switching, uh, uh, an area here for a second.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just wanna get your quick thoughts on this and then we&#8217;ll move on to WordPress on the enterprise, but, You know, my story with WordPress is I started my first WordPress blog in 2006, not really to anything I&#8217;m doing today, but it, it enabled me, empowered me to be able to publish and that that was an incredible experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clicking publish on my first WordPress site. and there&#8217;s this trend that I see and I go, yeah, we called them bloggers back then, but the creator economy, and I&#8217;m just kinda, I know this isn&#8217;t your bread and butter, but it is in a bigger category that you all serve at a high, high level. Um, but the creator economy, the ability to someone to go on an Instagram, create content, engage a kind of followers slash community, and I.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>opportunity with WordPress two. Um, my wife looks at Instagram quite a bit. That&#8217;s kind of [00:32:00] her default entertainment channel. And one day she was like, just look. Cuz I was like, ah, I don&#8217;t have time. I, I don&#8217;t want to get, I&#8217;ll go down that rabbit patrol. But I started looking at some of the people that created content and go, they&#8217;ve got massive followings.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then you go business model creator economy. And I think WordPress is positioned there to go, how do you monetize it? Same problem we have on the big scale publishers. We talked about how do we find a sustain. Business model for that classic journalism, local news, news in general, but then for the creator economy, I&#8217;m curious your thoughts on that, what you&#8217;re seeing, what you hope for, uh, in that, I ha have the ability now to create or press blog or Twitter account or a Instagram or whatever that is, and become a de facto one person publishing company and myself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What, what are you seeing for that? Do you pay attention to that? What are you curious about seeing</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> for. Yeah, and there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a lot there. Um, you know, for, for WordPress itself, [00:33:00] you know, you, you essentially have, you know, two creator economies. You have those that are creating the software and those that are creating the content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s actually a, you know, a, a a really a double pronged creator economy, um, within the WordPress world itself. You know, for, for something like. You know, TikTok or Instagram or, or you know, Twitter, um, you know, as probably less so, you know, Twitter to a degree. Cuz I feel like, you know, primarily folks are, you know, following people that they&#8217;ve chosen to follow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and if they&#8217;re getting exposed to other accounts, it&#8217;s usually through retweets, you know, um, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a little less algorithmic than I would say, you know, especially TikTok, which is entirely algorithmic. . But, but the point is, you know, those are little, little snippets of information. Um, you know, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a lot of discovery, um, that&#8217;s inherent to that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, you, you end up finding [00:34:00] people to follow through others that you&#8217;re following through, through algorithmic recommendations depending on, on the platform. Um, and, you know, they&#8217;re little. Snippets of entertainment, you know, that don&#8217;t require a ton of engagement. You know, your, your average engagement there is, is measured in seconds, not minutes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s really just an endless stream of stuff that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s triggering your dopamine receptors, and, and, mm-hmm. , um, you know, making you entertained and abused. And look, there are creators that are creating like some really. Interesting, thoughtful, you know, content, whether it&#8217;s, you know, stuff that is pertinent to my industry, um, you know, historical content stuff that&#8217;s, you know, extremely socially aware.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, there&#8217;s a lot of stuff that you can get exposed to on this, on those platforms that&#8217;s, um, meaningful and interesting. And there&#8217;s a lot that&#8217;s just, you know, purely entertainment. It doesn&#8217;t have a lot of depth to it, but it makes you laugh or, you know, whatever. You [00:35:00] know, WordPress, I mean WordPress is a platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a tool. Um, it lets people create a different type of content. Um, you know, typically, typically written content, uh, which requires a longer engagement time. And of course there are plenty of people who would rather, you know, engaged with, with a creator, um, you know, through written content, um, that has more depth to it, you know, that that takes longer to read and digest.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re certainly gonna. You know, probably retain something better and get something more, you know, rich and meaningful out, out of that type of engagement. Um, but, you know, it&#8217;s, but again, WordPress is an open source distributed platform. It&#8217;s not just like Instagram or, or TikTok or Twitter, which has an app that you install on your phone and everyone&#8217;s using the same app.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, a word WordPress sites are hosted across the internet in, in a million different places. , you know, and, and there are certainly some big, um, consolidated hosting platforms like wordpress.com, but, [00:36:00] um, you know, you&#8217;re not, it&#8217;s not like every WordPress creator in the world is being merged into this like, you know, central funnel where it&#8217;s just piped into, you know, a single place that everyone&#8217;s engaging with those creators.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I think it&#8217;s a lot more challenging for, for the WordPress creator in general to find their market. You know, some of them will, can leverage those other platforms, you know, to bring them back to their blog and or, you know, to their site to continue to engage with them. But, um, you know, it&#8217;s not like we&#8217;re all collaborating together and, and feeding into an algorithm in, in the creator economy of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, it&#8217;s an entirely different beast. Um, you know, I would say that the. WordPress software creators, those that are building plugins through the, you know, wordpress.org, you know, plugin directory. Prob probably have something closer to that than, than the creators who actually created the content. Do you know, just by virtue of using WordPress, of course, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cory Miller: Yeah, yeah. The repo is the central [00:37:00] community in a sense, in a way to launch a market, for sure. Okay. Thank you for that. I wanted to, I wanted to segue for a moment cuz I th this is a topic I think we continue to be talking about in the WordPress ecosystem, um, because it&#8217;s how I got started in millions and millions of other people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, being able to click publish on your dream, use the software to do something cool and build a business, whether it&#8217;s like you said, the software or the content. Okay. Next topic real quick as we kind of wind down. I want to ask about is what you&#8217;re seeing on WordPress and the enterprise.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Um, again, again, a topic suitable for an entire podcast episode, maybe even a podcast series, you know?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I agree. Well, I mean, look, word, word Press has been, You know, enterprise software now for, you know, I would say at least 10 years, probably a little bit longer than that. Um, you know, to me the real dividing line was when [00:38:00] WordPress b i p spun up, you know, that that was when, uh, I start, started to see the really big sites came on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s when we, that&#8217;s when we started to really, you know, work on the really big sites. You know, our, our first, our first enterprise WordPress launches were the Kaiser Family Foundation and New York Post on, on a very early version of, of, you know, WordPress VIP, um, And you know, back then it was, um, you know, there, there were, those were, they were the early adopters.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They were the ones that saw the, not just the value of WordPress software, but the value of using open source in the enterprise. You know, the having real control over, uh, , um, their software, you know, the, the, the software behind the site was portable. If they decided they didn&#8217;t like their hosting company, they, they could move, they could change anything that they wanted.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, but the thing that they were starting with WordPress was already pretty good out of the box. So, you know, that was actually pretty minimal. Um, You know, then, you know, a [00:39:00] few years later you had the really, the next big group of, of publishers that we worked with that, um, you know, saw the early adopters were having success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They wanted to be on board. Um, you know, now, uh, I&#8217;m seeing a lot of competition in the market for. You know, from other platforms, um, platforms that are closed source, um, that are, you know, in the long term, more expensive in, in cost of ownership. Um, but you know, the challenge when I&#8217;m talking to, you know, a, a potential client about a project, you know, whether it&#8217;s a nonprofit or a media publisher, it doesn&#8217;t matter. It ends up being a, a similar conversation. Um, you know, I&#8217;m not ever competing against another WordPress agency. I&#8217;m almost always competing against another platform. And, you know, that, and, and it could be something like Arc, bright Spot, um, you know, and even I even see, you know, rebel Mouse every now and then, [00:40:00] um, in, in those sorts of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But like the difference between WordPress. Pretty much any other platform is it, you know, not everything is, is included out of the box. Um, you know, with many other platforms you&#8217;re seeing, you know, A A C M S that has analytics included, um, you know, probably more, uh, workflow tools for a large newsroom. Um, especially in, you know, in the case of arc, um, you know, video tools.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, You know, uh, lots of, lots of other integrations that you know, you, which WordPress is perfectly capable of handling. You know, there are excellent enter enterprise plugins that connect to pretty much any advertising analytics video provider. Um, you know, uh, third, you know, third party authentication provider.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take, take your pick of like what enterprise software, you know, you need to integrate with WordPress. Um, there, there&#8217;s probably a plugin for it and. It&#8217;s probably [00:41:00] an enterprise plugin and it probably works really well and gets you, you know, 90% of the way to, to where you need to go. Um, and you know, to me more importantly, You know, you have a choice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like, you know, if you, if you buy an off, if you, if you sign up with a large, you know, platform that does everything, all in one, um, and you don&#8217;t like their video solution, you&#8217;re stuck. Um, you know, you don&#8217;t have the choice of switching from, you know, Brightcove, the JW player. You know, if, if you think that, that, you know, it meets the needs of your product better, you, you don&#8217;t have that option.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where the problem, you know, comes into play is, you know, when you get to the point of, you know, negotiating business terms and sending a proposal and talking to people in the, you know, in, in procurement, you know, who&#8217;re trying to compare apples to apples to make the, the best decision for their organization.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they have, you know, platforms A and B that have all these things built in. Um, you know, this is, this is a [00:42:00] startup cost, this is the monthly fee, and that&#8217;s it. And although WordPress, you know, you&#8217;re getting all the software for free, um, you know, you&#8217;re probably going to hire someone like us to at least help with the initial build and, and, you know, do some integration work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, you, you have to pick your hosting provider. Um, so, and then there&#8217;s gonna be an, a monthly cost for that, you know, maybe a startup cost for, for us, and then maybe a monthly cost for us. In the end result, you know, it&#8217;s not gonna take probably any longer to migrate all your content and get set up with WordPress, um, you know, through that method than than signing up for one of these other platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re gonna have a better experience because you know, you have so much more optionality and. Where you host, who you work with and, and what you integrate with. Um, you&#8217;re not paying any licensing fees. You know, you&#8217;re not beholden to a single provider and their business model and their pricing model, um, to run the most critical aspect of your [00:43:00] business.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, you can control all of that on your own, but that moment when you&#8217;re making the decision. and comparing it for some, for some of the folks that we talked to, I think that it does, it does seem more complex, um, because it sounds like there&#8217;s more work to do. Um, there are more choices to make, um, you know, versus just deciding and picking, you know, one thing versus the other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and I think that that&#8217;s a challenge, you know, in, in the, in the enterprise market, which is like, That initial, you know, quote unquote out of the box demo of, of enterprise WordPress, um, you know, isn&#8217;t necessarily as, as well formed as it is for, for some of its competitors. Um, you know, for folks that really understand the.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The benefits of open source folks that, especially that have used the WordPress before. Um, it, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s not a challenge, but, you know, for, for, for organizations that are coming into this really, [00:44:00] um, you know, cold maybe from a proprietary platform trying to make that, that decision, I think it can be, it can be somewhat confusing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, so the, I mean, I think that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s one of the, the big challenges that I think, you know, enterprise WordPress faces, but, You know, how do you solve it? You know, I think that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s the hard part because solving for that would mean, you know, being a bit more, um, being a bit more opinionated about, you know, things that are included in, in WordPress or, you know, for one of the big enterprise hosting platforms to, to pick a direction, um, and, and build bundle more stuff into the platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that all of a sudden, you know, immediately, immediately becomes the antithesis of open. Um, so there&#8217;s a middle ground there somewhere. I, I don&#8217;t think that we found it yet. Um, and, and, and also if you read some of the stuff that, like, you know, Tom from Human Made and, and Magda from decode have written, you know, and, and talked about your podcast recently, um, you know, [00:45:00] It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s very much related to, you know, how we are all solving the, the same problems, you know, in different ways across all of our organizations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, hell, even in the early days of Guten Gutenberg, um, you know, years ago until we standardized, I saw different teams with an alley solving things in different ways. So, um, you know, there. There&#8217;s something to it because, you know, at least for increased collaboration, I think, you know, within our, within our enterprise community, because.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s to all of our benefit, I think that enterprise WordPress continues to succeed and thrive. Um, not just because, you know, I want my company to exist and, and to make money, but, um, if not us, then, then who? Because the, the other options that I see enterprise publishers going to are you. Big closed source platforms and, and that&#8217;s not something that I [00:46:00] believe in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, I, I, I don&#8217;t think you should have to pay for software. If you&#8217;re spending money, you should be hiring people to write content, or you should be paying people, you know, to build the really custom aspects of your product that differentiate you, the things that make your business sustainable. The other stuff should be free, you know, and, and open source software is great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, it, it&#8217;s foundational to what the internet is so, . Um, yeah, I really hope absolutely that we can all get together and find a path forward.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s one of the reasons I created our, um, enterprise leaders group on post Slack, is I think the conversation needs to be had on multiple levels within the ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, but I, I&#8217;ve not. Personally been in enterprise work, ever have friends members, uh, that do this, and I go, I love work. What I hear WordPress is doing on that level, you, you know, from all the media organizations you represent. For instance, at Ali, I go, that&#8217;s [00:47:00] cool because when in my daily, I go out and like, what do you doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I kind work around WordPress. What&#8217;s WordPress? Okay. But I go, it&#8217;s powering this percentage of the web, or you know, it&#8217;s the dominant thing on the web, uh, for publishing. Um, but also I get to hit those highlights. You&#8217;ve probably been on a WordPress hat and didn&#8217;t necessarily know it. These cool organizations are doing, using this open source tool and continuing to, I think it&#8217;s healthy for the open web to continue to fly the banner of freedom.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, that open source and WordPress in particular, um, champion and to keep that going. I think it&#8217;s healthy for us as a a planet society business ecosystem. It, it seems like it&#8217;s all. Gonna be better when you have these great options, one of which is WordPress. Well, thank you Brad for, um, sharing the story, snippets of your join journey, the things that you&#8217;re doing [00:48:00] with WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s all inspiring, and I know it&#8217;ll inspire the members here and those that are looking at click and publish with WordPress or using it in some way, shape, or form. Um, where can we find more about you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Of course. Yeah. If, if you want to, you know, learn more about Ali, uh, if you want to apply to work at Allie, we are still hiring developers currently and, and occasionally other positions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, just check out ali.com, uh, a l l e y.com. So nice and straightforward and uh, yeah, yeah, I&#8217;d be happy to chat with, you know, anybody else is interested in learning more about us. And your</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> inward and post Slack, so well, thanks again Brad, so much for taking the time. Love what you&#8217;re doing, keep it up, and thanks for being a part of Post</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bradford Campeau-Laurion:</strong> Status.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, thanks for having me, Corey. I appreciate it.</p>\n<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 03 Feb 2023 10:10:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Olivia Bisset\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:84:\"WPTavern: New Proposal Calls for Automated Performance Monitoring for WordPress Core\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141641\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:95:\"https://wptavern.com/new-proposal-calls-for-automated-performance-monitoring-for-wordpress-core\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4358:\"<p>WordPress Core Committer Adam Silverstein has published a <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/02/automated-performance-monitoring-in-wordpress-core/\">proposal for adding automated performance tooling</a> that would offer continuous monitoring for performance issues so they can be resolved before major regressions are committed to core. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Similar to our unit test suite, automated performance testing would help protect core from introducing large performance regressions by catching problems immediately and tracking performance over time,&#8221; Silverstein said. &#8220;Automating testing also means saving contributor effort by replacing a time consuming manual process.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Performance team is focused on introducing new features with measurable gains, as well as testing new WordPress releases before they ship, they have haphazardly uncovered what Silverstein described as &#8220;significant performance regressions.&#8221; A few examples include <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/44772\">a regression found before WP 6.1 in theme.json processing</a> and another <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39210#comment:66\">issue</a> with changes for loading the textdomain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Automated testing would catch this type of regression as soon as it was introduced, making it much easier to resolve,&#8221; he said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Silverstein highlighted the Gutenberg project as a good example of <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/03/23/core-editor-improvement-performance-matters/\">performance tracking</a>, as each release publishes metrics for changes in loading time, typing time, and block selection time. 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At milestones like a major release, the metrics can be compared against the previous release to gauge progress.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Silverstein proposes WordPress start small with by simply running a set of automated tests on each core commit for things like load time and total query time for classic and block themes. In the future, the team could capture additional server timing metrics and metrics for other contexts beyond the home page, such as the admin and single post post.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Response to the proposal so far has been positive, as the only alternative is relying on individuals to manually uncover new performance bottlenecks and report them. Better tools will help pinpoint these issues faster, before they get rolled out to millions of people. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Given how much emphasis peer CMS platforms place on &#8216;advertising&#8217; their performance and benchmarking it against the industry leaders, investing in tools to ensure WordPress continues to perform optimally makes a lot of sense,&#8221; WordPress marketing contributor Dan Soschin said. &#8220;And, given how many sites are powered by WordPress, even minor gains in performance (including those unnoticeable to most people) add a lot of value to web hosts and lowering overall internet traffic burdens/bandwidth.&#8221; </p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 03 Feb 2023 02:50:28 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"WPTavern: WordPress Training Team Seeks Feedback with Individual Learner Survey\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141596\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:90:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-training-team-seeks-feedback-with-individual-learner-survey\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2181:\"<p>In 2020, WordPress began prioritizing education as critical to the project&#8217;s future, <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/learn-wordpress-platform-launches-with-free-courses-workshops-and-lesson-plans\">launching Learn.WordPress</a> to support beginners to advanced learners with free educational content. 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If you have a few minutes, <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/individual-learner-survey/\">take the survey and send some feedback</a> to help make the resources more useful in the future.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 02 Feb 2023 18:04:36 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:94:\"WPTavern: WordPress.com Introduces Browse Mode, Style Book, and Push to Global Styles Features\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141599\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:103:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-introduces-browse-mode-style-book-and-push-to-global-styles-features\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2260:\"<p>WordPress.com users are getting early access to some of the major new features that are shipping with the upcoming WordPress 6.2 release. 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One thing the platform did well in this announcement was to answer the user question, &#8220;Why would I need this?&#8221; for each new feature: </p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em><strong>When to use this feature:</strong> You’re curious about switching up the colors or typography on your site, but you want to know what it’ll look like, especially within specific blocks, before committing. </em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>video source: <a href=\"https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/02/01/whats-new-on-wordpress-com-tools-to-make-designing-your-site-easier-than-ever/\">WordPress.com</a>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress.com launching these features to millions of users demonstrates high confidence in their readiness for use in production on the platform. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Self-hosted WordPress users will get this update in a couple months. Beta 1 is expected on February 7, with RC1 planned for a month later, and the official release scheduled for March 28, 2023. Those who want these features now can  get them today by installing the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/\">Gutenberg plugin</a>, where they have been tested for months by more than 300,000 users.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 02 Feb 2023 03:36:49 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:103:\"Post Status: When Gutenberg Phases End • Priorities in Onboarding Contributors • Redesign Roll Outs\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=146925\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:106:\"https://poststatus.com/when-gutenberg-phases-end-priorities-in-onboarding-contributors-redesign-roll-outs/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:20087:\"<h2 id=\"h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-january-30-2023\">This Week at WordPress.org (January 30, 2023)</h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\">What happens when we reach the end of a <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/\">phase in Gutenberg</a>? Josepha shares what this means for additional features and requests in the WP Briefing.  Josepha also posed a few questions at how we prioritize doing the work of contributing while onboarding new contributors and ways to simplify the experience new contributors have. Finally, get an early look at the design changes coming for Hosting, Jobs, About, and Dev Blog.  </p></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"kt-info-box_94d1bd-77\" class=\"wp-block-kadence-infobox\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media-container\"><div class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none\"><div class=\"kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container\"><span class=\"kt-info-svg-icon kt-info-svg-icon-fe_aperture\"></span></div></div></div></div><div class=\"kt-infobox-textcontent\"><h2 class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-title\">Gutenberg Phases End, Redesign Roll Outs, and Simplifying Onboarding </h2><p class=\"kt-blocks-info-box-text\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2753.png\" alt=\"❓\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\">What Does Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Mean?</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a8.png\" alt=\"🎨\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/01/30/design-share-jan-16-jan-27/\">Redesigning Hosting, Jobs, About, and Dev Blog</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3af.png\" alt=\"🎯\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/27/discussion-ending-the-eternal-september/\">Creating Clear, Skilled, and Prioritized Contribution Efforts</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f9d1-1f3fd-200d-1f4bb.png\" alt=\"🧑🏽‍💻\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/01/25/a-meta-subproject-for-evaluating-matrix/\">Considering Slack Alternatives</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3cb-1f3ff.png\" alt=\"🏋🏿\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/02/automated-performance-monitoring-in-wordpress-core/\">Automated performance monitoring in WordPress core</a><br /><br /><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/26a0.png\" alt=\"⚠\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/02/03/twitter-api-changes/\">Plugin Devs: Twitter API Changes</a></p></div></div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-news\">News<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/10/wordpress-6-1-release-candidate-3/\"></a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/people-of-wordpress-daniel-kossmann/\">People of WordPress: Daniel Kossmann</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\">WP Briefing: Episode 48: What Does Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Mean?</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\" /></div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-11 wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<h2 id=\"h-accessibility\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility\">Accessibility</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/01/28/a11y-meeting-notes-0120-2023/\">Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 20, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-community\">Community</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/03/update-apac-meetup-reactivation-project/\">Update: APAC Meetup Reactivation Project</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/01/community-team-meeting-agenda-for-2-february-2023/\">Community Team Meeting Agenda for 2 February 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/01/wordcamp-mentors-february-check-in/\">WordCamp Mentors’ February check-in!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/31/updates-to-the-regional-wordcamps-handbook-page/\">Updates to the Regional WordCamps Handbook Page</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/30/wc-asia-contributor-day-what-should-we-work-on/\">WC Asia Contributor Day: What should we work on?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/25/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-january-25-2023/\">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on January 25, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/25/wordpress-community-support-wordpress-foundation-entity-structure/\">WordPress Community Support &amp; WordPress Foundation Entity Structure</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/20/proposal-dedicated-communication-place-for-wordcamp-mentors/\">Proposal: Dedicated communication place for WordCamp mentors</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/19/proposal-adopt-github-for-team-projects/\">Proposal: [Experiment] Adopt Standardised Team-wide Project Management Tools – already utilised by other Make Teams for a Quarter.</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-core\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core\">Core</a> </h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/02/automated-performance-monitoring-in-wordpress-core/\">Automated performance monitoring in WordPress core</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/30/a-week-in-core-january-30-2022/\">A Week in Core – January 30, 2022</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/24/proposal-old-tickets-trac-triage-sessions/\">Proposal: Old Tickets Trac Triage Sessions</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 15.0? (18 January)</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"h-wordpress-6-2\">WordPress 6.2</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/03/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-2/\">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/18/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-2/\">Bug Scrub Schedule for 6.2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/11/early-bug-scrub-schedule-for-wp-6-2/\">Early bug scrub schedule for WP&nbsp;6.2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/17/wordpress-6-2-planning-roundup/\">WordPress 6.2 Planning Roundup</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"h-meetings\">Meetings</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/02/developer-blog-editorial-meeting-february-2-2023/\">Developer Blog – Editorial meeting: February 2, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/31/dev-chat-agenda-february-1-2023/\">Dev Chat Agenda: February 1, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/30/editor-chat-agenda-february-1st-2023/\">Editor Chat Agenda: February 1st 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/30/core-editor-chat-summary-25th-january-2023/\">Core Editor chat summary: 25th January 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/27/dev-chat-summary-january-25-2023/\">Dev Chat summary, January 25, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"h-dev-blog\"><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/\">Dev Blog</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/02/creating-custom-block-styles-in-wordpress-themes/\">Creating custom block styles in WordPress themes</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-design\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design\">Design</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/01/30/design-share-jan-16-jan-27/\">Design Share: Jan 16-Jan 27</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-docs\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs\">Docs</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/02/03/onboarding-session-for-github-related-roles/\">Onboarding session for GitHub-related roles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/01/31/summary-for-docs-team-meeting-january-24-2023/\">Summary for docs team meeting, January 24, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-marketing\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/marketing\">Marketing</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/01/31/notes-global-marketing-team-meeting-jan-24-2023/\">Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, Jan 24, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-meta\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta\">Meta</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/01/26/wordpress-org-redesign-recent-launches/\">WordPress.org Redesign Recent Launches</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/01/25/a-meta-subproject-for-evaluating-matrix/\">A Meta subproject for evaluating Matrix</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/12/22/two-factor-auth-progress-for-wordpress-org/\">Two-Factor Auth progress for WordPress.org</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-mobile\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/mobile\">Mobile</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/01/30/mobile-team-update-january-30th/\">Mobile Team Update – January 30th</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-openverse\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse\">Openverse</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/02/03/openverse-is-moving/\">Openverse is Moving!</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<h2 id=\"h-performance\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/performance/\">Performance</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/performance/2023/02/01/core-performance-team-rep-updates/\">Core Performance Team Rep Updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/31/performance-team-meeting-summary-31-january-2023/\">Performance Chat Summary: 31 January 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-polyglots\">Polyglots</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/02/01/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-february-01-2023-1300-utc/\">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – February 01, 2023 (13:00 UTC)</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-plugins\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins\">Plugins</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/02/03/twitter-api-changes/\">Twitter API Changes</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/01/31/plugin-review-team-30-jan-2023/\">Plugin Review Team: 30 Jan 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-project\">Project</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/27/discussion-ending-the-eternal-september/\">Discussion: Ending the Eternal September</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/18/big-picture-goals-2023/\">Big Picture Goals 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-support\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support\">Support</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/02/block-editor-live-in-most-forums/\">Block Editor Live in Most Forums&nbsp;</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/02/agenda-for-february-2nd-support-meeting-2/\">Agenda for February 2nd Support Meeting</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/02/01/support-team-meeting-updates-for-january-26th-2/\">Support Team Meeting Updates for January 26th</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-test\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test\">Test</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/01/25/hallway-hangout-themer-goodies-edition/\">Hallway Hangout: Themer Goodies Edition</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/01/31/test-team-update-30-january-2023/\">Test Team Update: 30 January 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-themes\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/themes\">Themes</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/01/31/themes-team-update-january-31-2023/\">Themes team update January 31, 2023</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-training\"><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training\">Training</a></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/individual-learner-survey/\">How did you learn WordPress?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/02/03/proposal-training-faculty-developer-squad/\">Proposal: Training Faculty Developer Squad</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/02/03/new-learn-wordpress-github-project-view-updates/\">New Learn WordPress GitHub Project View Updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/02/02/training-team-values-exercise-recap/\">Training Team Values Exercise Recap</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/01/30/meeting-agenda-for-january-31-2023/\">Meeting Agenda for January 31, 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/01/30/training-team-meeting-recap-for-january-17th-2023/\">Training Team Meeting Recap for January, 17th 2023</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/01/24/brainstorm-wordcamp-asia-2023-contributor-day/\">Brainstorm – WordCamp Asia 2023 Contributor Day</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"h-online-workshops\">Online Workshops</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=lets-code-wp-rest-api-custom-routes-and-endpoints\">Let’s code: WP REST API – custom routes and endpoints</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=27869\">WP dev livestream: WP REST API – custom routes and endpoints</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=explore-with-me-whats-new-in-gutenberg-session-2\">Explore with Me: What’s New In Gutenberg? Session 2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=explore-with-me-whats-new-in-gutenberg-session-1\">Explore with Me: What’s New In Gutenberg? Session 1</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=ep12-block-pattern-create-and-submit-bangla\">EP12: Block Pattern : Create and Submit | Bangla</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=ep11-block-editor-gutenberg-settings-bangla\">EP11: Block Editor (Gutenberg) : Settings | Bangla</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=ep10-block-editor-gutenberg-what-and-how-bangla\">EP10: Block Editor (Gutenberg) : What and How | Bangla</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=live-stream-reviewing-developer-focused-features-in-gutenberg-15-1\">Live stream: Reviewing developer-focused features in Gutenberg 15.1</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=live-stream-integrating-openai-with-a-custom-block-2\">Live stream: Integrating OpenAI with a custom block</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=live-stream-integrating-openai-with-a-custom-block\">Live stream: Integrating OpenAI with a custom block</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=thessaloniki-wordpress-meetup-block-theme-workshop-part-3\">Thessaloniki WordPress Meetup: Block Theme Workshop – Part 3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=block-themes-and-wordpress-live-stream-5\">Block Themes and WordPress: Live Stream</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wordpress-dev-livestream-extending-the-wp-rest-api-modifying-responses\">WordPress dev livestream: Extending the WP REST API – modifying responses</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=lets-code-extending-the-wp-rest-api-modifying-responses\">Let’s code: extending the WP REST API – modifying responses</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=a-deep-dive-into-wordpress-loops\">A Deep Dive into WordPress Loops</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=apac-using-the-columns-block\">APAC: Using the Columns Block</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=using-the-columns-block\">Using the Columns Block</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"h-tutorials\"><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials\">Tutorials</a></h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/using-theme-json-with-classic-themes/\">Using theme.json with classic&nbsp;themes</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-wptv\">WPTV</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/\">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-related-news\">Related News:</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.php.net/ChangeLog-8.php#8.2.1\">PHP 8.2.1 Changelog</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://getcomposer.org/changelog/2.5.1\">Composer 2.5.1 Changelog</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background\">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/\">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/\">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter\">our newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f48c.png\" alt=\"💌\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background\"><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/\"><img src=\"https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png\" alt=\"Post Status\" class=\"wp-image-85823 size-full\" /></a><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size\" id=\"h-get-ready-for-remote-work\">You — and <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#Agency\">your whole team</a> can <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/#choose-membership\">Join Post Status</a> too!</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-small-font-size\"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/newsletter/\">newsletter</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png\" alt=\"✉\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Listen to <a href=\"https://poststatus.com/podcasts/\">podcasts</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png\" alt=\"🎙\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Follow <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status/\">@Post_Status</a> <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> and <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/\">LinkedIn</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png\" alt=\"💼\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div>\n<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 01 Feb 2023 20:29:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Courtney Robertson\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:66:\"WPTavern: #61 – Robert Rowley on Securing Your WordPress Website\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=141591\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/61-robert-rowley-on-securing-your-wordpress-website\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:66653:\"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case security on the internet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or go to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy and paste that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you or your idea featured in the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today we have Robert Rowley. Robert is Patchedstack&#8217;s security advocate, where his time is spent interacting with open source communities to share the word about security best practices. Given his background, the podcast today is all about internet security.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We start off with a topic which is very much in the news at the moment, the LastPass security breach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re a user of LastPass then you&#8217;ll know what their service is. But if you&#8217;re not, here&#8217;s a quick introduction. LastPass is a password manager. It will lock up your passwords and any other data for that matter, in a secure vault which can only be read if you decrypt it with the correct password.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of 2022 LastPass announced in a series of blog posts that their customer vaults had been taken from their cloud storage. The way that this was communicated, left, many of their customers questioning their use of the service and whether they could now trust LastPass with their data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert&#8217;s explains how the incident occurred and if you should be concerned. The answer is, as you might expect, it depends. There are situations in which the settings that you had in your LastPass account might mean that you need to act sooner rather than later. The length and complexity of your master password is also a key factor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This then leads to a conversation about the broader issue of website security and the security of WordPress websites in particular. What are some of the considerations that you need to think about when protecting your website, and how can you communicate these considerations to your clients?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of the podcast, we chat about a project that Robert&#8217;s been involved in during 2022. He&#8217;s been patching plugins which are no longer being maintained, but are still being used, so that they present less of a security threat to their users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious about website security, then this is a podcast for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. And you&#8217;ll find all of the other episodes there as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, without further delay, I bring you Robert Rowley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Robert Rowley. Hello Robert.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:54] Robert Rowley: Hello Nathan. How are you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:55] Nathan Wrigley: Good, thank you. Lovely to have you on. Robert and I have actually met in person. We&#8217;ve done a variety of different podcast episodes before and, he&#8217;s here today to talk to the wheelhouse that he&#8217;s in, which is internet security.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given that very brief introduction, Robert, I wonder if you wouldn&#8217;t mind just painting a picture for our audience of who you are, what company you currently work for, and what your background is in internet security. And if there&#8217;s a reference there to WordPress, include that as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:24] Robert Rowley: No problem, yeah. So I&#8217;m Robert Rowley and I am currently working as the security advocate for Patchstack. Patchstack is a WordPress plugin security company. We have a plugin and we have a bunch of services offered for the WordPress and open source communities right now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I got started in the information security industry, I guess, in open source community, probably 20 years ago using Linux. I was using WordPress, one of the first releases. Not the first, but once it started to become popular in the early mid aughts, I guess is what they&#8217;re called. And yeah, I&#8217;ve worked professionally for hosting providers, securing and protecting the customer websites. That was my focus when I was working at hosting providers. I was doing a ton of hacked site cleanups.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, I&#8217;ve also worked in the opposite end, instead of defending and protecting, I&#8217;ve worked in the attack arena, where I&#8217;ve worked for pen testing companies, PCI auditing companies and things like that. Where we were validating, doing security tests, to validate that our customers had a reasonable amount of security for their websites and their businesses.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So with Patchstack and my role as a security advocate, I like to blend the two. Patchstack is focused on protecting and securing the customer&#8217;s environment, and my role as an advocate, I really get to speak to people about how corporate or enterprise level security, a higher level security, really works. Which the WordPress ecosystem could really benefit from I would say. There&#8217;s a whole lot of security hygiene and best practices that are kind of skipped over or glossed over. Mostly because people aren&#8217;t asking for them. That&#8217;s basically the word that I try to spread.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:54] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you so much. We&#8217;re going to start our conversation in a somewhat unexpected and slightly time-bound way. We are recording this at the beginning of 2023. It may well air a few weeks after the recording. But over the Christmas period some news came to light, which is going to begin our conversation, and then we&#8217;ll go off in all sorts =of different tangents.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the news is surrounding a, a very popular password manager called LastPass. And LastPass really holds whatever data you wish to throw at it. And the promise is that it will hold that data in an encrypted form, which is only readable by you. Now that&#8217;s great, except just prior to Christmas, just prior to the Christmas holidays, there was an announcement on the LastPass website, which indicated that their data had been breached.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, that isn&#8217;t to say that the data had been decrypted, or at least we don&#8217;t know the status of that decryption. But the blob of data which holds your encrypted information has been taken, and there&#8217;s been a real ground swell of concern around this issue. And so the conversation that we&#8217;re going to have is going to be beginning all about password sanity checking, and hygiene and all of those kind of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you just want to give us a bit of a backstory on what&#8217;s been going on over at LastPass? Obviously important to anybody managing passwords in LastPass, but it also might be interesting more broadly for audience members.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:26] Robert Rowley: Yeah, I&#8217;ll try to hit it from multiple angles. So LastPass had this breach that they announced in December, but it wasn&#8217;t initially first announced in December. It started in the summer. They had announced the first indicators that they had signs of a breach had happened to their systems, back in August or earlier than that maybe. But, I think it was somewhere in the summer of 2022.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, the big worry is with LastPass, what is it that they have that is of value or of risk to an individual who is a user? And the whole purpose of LastPass is that you have all your secrets, right? Your passwords, your credit card numbers, SSL certificates, all these really highly sensitive things. LastPass was offering a service that said, you can store those with us, we are a cloud service provider, and we will encrypt those using zero trust systems. Zero trust means is that they are not going to be able to decrypt it unless they know what your password is. And they&#8217;re going to store all of your stuff in an encrypted way that nobody there at LastPass should ever be able to decrypt it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, as we are now aware since the story began in the summer and ended in the winter, to this day, or at least to this point. That there was a breach. They had access to the source code. At first, the attackers had access to the source code. Then we learned later the attackers had access to a developer&#8217;s machine and that developer&#8217;s machine had access to these cloud storage drives. But nothing, you know, no customer data yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it wasn&#8217;t until it was December 22nd, that is when LastPass updated. So just three days before Christmas, they said, oh, by the way, also all of our customers stored encrypted vaults were also exfiltrated by the attackers. I shouldn&#8217;t say all, they just said the customer vaults were exfiltrated by these attackers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that&#8217;s going to be a lot of data to move, and it&#8217;s not useful to the attackers until they can get people&#8217;s master passwords. But since the attackers have access to the source code and they have access to the encrypted vaults, it&#8217;s just a matter of brute forcing these passwords.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you use LastPass and you have a very weak password, maybe your master password with something like the word password, uh, which is a terrible idea, that&#8217;s a really bad security hygiene. That would be brute forced in probably a matter of seconds.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you had a strong master password, which I&#8217;m sure LastPass encouraged users to do, then it may take years for that master password to be bruteforce, to unlock the encrypted vault that contains all of your passwords. Which puts everybody at a weird position. If you&#8217;re a LastPass user, you&#8217;re now aware as of December 22nd that the encrypted vault that stored your passwords, but really a lot of LastPass user&#8217;s passwords has been leaked and could be, at any point in time the attackers could be beginning to do the work to attempt to brute force these vaults.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And as they become successful, they&#8217;ll have access. They&#8217;ll know the url, right? They&#8217;ll know your username very likely. They&#8217;ll know everything that was stored in your vault. So it puts people at a high risk. But there&#8217;s this big thing of a matter of time. And it&#8217;s going to take a good amount of time, depending on the strength of your password versus the strength of the computers the attackers can use to attempt to brute force these vaults.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:30] Nathan Wrigley: I&#8217;m just going to add a little bit of context and forgive me, Robert, if I say something which is factually incorrect, please alert me and I will backtrack. But my understanding is that LastPass in effect rolls up all of your data into one giant blob. I&#8217;m imagining it in my mind as like a football.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So all of the passwords, all of the credit card details are, if you like, poured into this football and the football is encrypted. But the point is everything is inside that one blob. And so if the attackers decrypt one thing they have decrypted all the things. So it&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s a password connected to this website over here and this credit card number over here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As soon as they&#8217;ve bruteforced it, and figured out way to get in, every single item inside that vault is now available in plain text. Is that, for a start, is that true? Once they&#8217;ve got something they&#8217;ve got everything?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:29] Robert Rowley: I believe that&#8217;s true because that one thing that the attackers need to get is your master password. Your master password is the secret that LastPass is not aware of on their end, which they used to hold true for their marketing spiel which is zero knowledge, right? Like they can&#8217;t decrypt your passwords unless they have your master password.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that football or that blob of encrypted data, once the attackers are able to brute force, and that blob is unique to every user, because every blob is encrypted with each user&#8217;s master password. But the only secret that needs to be gotten, you know, brute forced is that master password.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:02] Nathan Wrigley: I suppose it raises all sorts of really interesting concerns because the promise was that it was encrypted and there&#8217;s zero insight from LastPass. If you lose your master password, there&#8217;s no point in going to Lastpass support and saying, well I&#8217;ve lost my password. Can you please send it in an email, and I&#8217;ll be trouble free. If you lose that, that&#8217;s tough.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s the nature of what&#8217;s inside that vault. So, if it was just a handful of passwords. If you were a user of the internet fairly infrequently, and you were just logging onto a, couple of websites, your email and what have you. Then you could quickly go around and sweep up all of those websites and change the passwords and you know that you&#8217;re fine.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think a lot of people using services like LastPass have gone all in. And so, as we said, credit card numbers, mortgage details, pension details, bank account details, credit card numbers, all of these things have gone in there. And so the worry now is that if that is retrieved, then all of that is available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the problem is you can&#8217;t go to LastPass and simply change your password. All you are doing is changing the current blob&#8217;s password. The ship has already sailed there. The hackers who&#8217;ve got this, they have it, and if they figure out your password, no matter how many times you change it, what settings you fiddle within in LastPass. If they get through your password the day it was stolen, then everything is up for grabs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s just the wealth of things that must be in there. So in my case, I&#8217;m a LastPass user, I have a paid account. There&#8217;s an awful lot of things that I would really wish didn&#8217;t escape. So, financial things and so on and so forth. But imagine across the population of the, I don&#8217;t know how many users they had, let&#8217;s imagine it&#8217;s hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, I don&#8217;t know. There&#8217;s a trove of information. So there must be a giant incentive for the hackers to get to work and figure out these passwords, one at a time. Even if that&#8217;s what it takes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:07] Robert Rowley: You&#8217;re absolutely right There&#8217;s a difference in the data that was stored in LastPass. You made a great point there where, a password can be changed. A password can be updated and it&#8217;s no longer a threat if the old password is leaked, or compromised. But information like privately or personally identifying information, privacy things that were stored in LastPass, those are going to be a much harder thing, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to change your mortgage information, right? It&#8217;s hard to change your, your address. If your address is stored somewhere in there. But there will be certainly things that are extraordinarily difficult for people to get rotated or changed out. Here in the US, right a social security number, things like that. If that gets leaked, then it&#8217;s really a big pain to deal with identity theft the rest of your life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:47] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, and I guess to be fair, we did realize, I mean the technology was explained. There is this blob, we don&#8217;t know the password. If the blob were to be stolen then the level of complexity that that password had will be crucial to whether it&#8217;s decrypted or not. As you say, if the password is the word password, a few seconds will pass.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have any insight from a technological point of view in terms of the power that computers can bring to bear trying to decrypt these? I&#8217;m guessing it&#8217;s brute force. It&#8217;s literally just trying a password. No, move on. Try another one. Trying it over and over and over again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s imagine that we had a, let&#8217;s say it was a ten digit password of just pseudo random nonsense. You know, just some characters and some strange punctuation. It&#8217;s unintelligible, it&#8217;s not a dictionary word. Can we be fairly sanguine that we&#8217;re still talking decades, possibly hundreds of years for computers to be able to brute force this, or do we need to be concerned?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:48] Robert Rowley: You should always be concerned, but not overly concerned. This isn&#8217;t an emergency. You know, unless your password was password, then it&#8217;s an emergency. But you shouldn&#8217;t be too concerned if you have a decent password hygiene, right? Do you choose decently strong passwords? They&#8217;re gibberish or they&#8217;re things that, you know, don&#8217;t use things like your name or a birth date that&#8217;s important to you, like the year numbers. Things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As long as you&#8217;re not using something that&#8217;s very common and you are using a properly gibberish one, it works. And part of this thing is, and I&#8217;ll steel man LastPass a bit, because they did the technology right, they did it to the best they could do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They tell people that your master password was hashed over 100,000 times, in newer versions after certain releases. Which means that a computer to try to guess that password would have to run this hashing algorithm over 100,000 times.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s 100,100 times exactly. And that just takes time. That means they did something intentionally that slows down the process if you are randomly trying to guess the password. Which buys the user&#8217;s time to rotate out their passwords and take appropriate action in response to the incident.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And as far as it goes for enter, even enterprise level security, that&#8217;s the best you can offer in relation to stored secrets that get leaked. You say you&#8217;ve provided sufficient time for the reaction to, uh, take place before the attackers are able to decrypt the vaults.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:09] Nathan Wrigley: So given Moore&#8217;s law, I should probably explain. Moore&#8217;s Law basically says computers only ever get better, they never get worse, and they get better quite rapidly. If we were to look at a computer from 20 years ago and ask it to sort of hash passwords, or rather brute force passwords. It would be able to do that at a significantly slower rate than computers of today can.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And my understanding is that things like GPUs have been repurposed, and essentially those pieces of hardware can do this work significantly quicker. So given Moore&#8217;s law, and the fact that this trove, this vault, this football is in somebody&#8217;s possession probably for the rest of time. Do you think that there is going to be concern enough that you should now be really, at breakneck speed, starting to change the passwords that you had in the LastPass vault?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because that&#8217;s really the only mitigation here. If your blob is accessed and the, the information leaks out, and the hackers get inside. If you&#8217;ve changed all the passwords, well it didn&#8217;t matter anyway. But from what you are saying the grade of security that was applied by LastPass, at the minute, still holds up. But do you have any insight into how long we can be quite so cavalier?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:27] Robert Rowley: I&#8217;ll go back. I&#8217;ve been working in security and security related fields for, oh for about 20 years now, and I do remember 20 years ago they were talking about certain encryption algorithms being unbreakable. And they would do these mathematical calculations and they&#8217;d say if you encrypt it using this size key, using this algorithm, it will take you 20 or 50 or a hundred years, right, depending on the length of your password to decrypt the vault.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This wasn&#8217;t specific to LastPass, but this was just like back then what we were talking about. And then five years later, well, it stops being 5, 10, 100 years. It starts being 1, 3, 10 years. And then five years after that, in 2010 or so, that same algorithm with the same size key is decryptable within one year. It&#8217;s always this thing, as computers get faster, and you&#8217;re right, GPUs change the game. GPUs are able to fire off multiple concurrent threads to attempt the same brute force in quick succession. And that basically changes the whole game in certain algorithms where it will reduce over time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So today&#8217;s numbers, and I&#8217;ve seen some posted around online, if you have like an eight character password that&#8217;s properly gibberish, it might take 20 or 30 years, but that&#8217;s just today&#8217;s numbers. And the tactics used, you mentioned GPUs. I have a GPU system at my house that I&#8217;ve turned on. Hashcat is the application. It works really quick to attack passwords, and break down passwords.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What you need to know is again, yeah, knowing the time you have. The lead time you have is useful for that moment, and it really is helpful towards how fast you should respond. So a lot of that is, in the enterprise security world, it&#8217;s the time to response, right? How much time do you have to take action in response to a threat or a compromise?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what we&#8217;re talking about right now with LastPass, assuming you had a decent password as your master password, it&#8217;s a number of years, most likely. And also assuming that there are no, how to say, exotic computer systems that the attackers have access to that can crack these passwords much faster than what the current knowledge is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As long as they don&#8217;t have exotic systems and as long as your password was sufficiently strong, you probably have some time to rotate your passwords. But really we should be talking about, hygiene, general hygiene. You should be rotating your passwords anyways. LastPass, like again to steel man them a bit, even though I don&#8217;t use them anymore. They have a feature within the app that will rotate the passwords for you. And you can set it on a schedule and just say, hey, rotate the password for this web app every six months. And they&#8217;ll just handle that for you. Doing this rotation of passwords is very useful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:54] Nathan Wrigley: I&#8217;m confused by how that would work in the sense that, so let&#8217;s say for example Gmail or some sort of Google property. If it&#8217;s going to rotate the passwords for me, presumably it is mimicking my login. It goes to the website, it puts in the username and passwords, and they&#8217;ve got some mechanism for navigating to the page where the password is changed and they&#8217;ll substitute in the. How would that work, for example, if I&#8217;ve got 2FA, so let&#8217;s say I&#8217;ve got an authenticator app or something. Presumably at that point it&#8217;s going to be stifled and it won&#8217;t work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:25] Robert Rowley: Well, you&#8217;re thinking that it&#8217;s going to log in for you, but this was a feature of the browser extension, as I remember it. It was something you&#8217;d go into the browser extension and set to change passwords for certain web apps. And I&#8217;ve said enough nice things about LastPass that I should say something bad.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This feature rarely worked correctly for me. It wouldn&#8217;t update very often. Sometimes it would update and then it would have the wrong information in LastPass. Like the password they updated in LastPass did not match what was on the website, so it would lock me out of it, and I&#8217;d have to go through my password history to find the correct one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the idea is there is that they knew rotation of passwords is a, it&#8217;s a security best practice. It&#8217;s a hygiene thing. You should be doing it every so often any ways. Just like not reusing passwords is something that is also very much good security hygiene, and good security best practice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And again, the reason why, how it would work is it would basically, while your browser is currently logged into that web app, it just hijacks your browser and makes a request, to send the update password.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:17] Nathan Wrigley: Got it, okay. Given everything that we&#8217;ve talked about, the bottom line with all of this is the password hygiene. And so we&#8217;re recording this, like I said, beginning of 2022. Caveat emptor, if you listen to this in six months time or a year&#8217;s time, everything that we&#8217;re talking about could have changed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe the news has been updated. Maybe there&#8217;s been some miracle of hacking and they&#8217;ve managed to brute force all the passwords. Who knows? But given where we are now, could you just talk us through, so this is nothing to do with LastPass, this is just general website, internet password hygiene. What are your sort of recommendations in terms of how long they should be, how dictionary based they should be. Whether you&#8217;ve got a technique for coming up with passwords by appending things to the beginning or the end.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, making it more memorable to you. Just lay out what your best advice is for a typical user. Not somebody who&#8217;s really obsessing about all this, all the time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:13] Robert Rowley: I&#8217;ll try to step it up slowly. The average user, right? The person who doesn&#8217;t want to be bothered too much by security best practices, they find them annoying and difficult. I know this because I&#8217;ve interacted with a lot of these people in my career. For you, and I have somebody in my mind right now. Just use a unique password on every website that you visit. And ideally, if you&#8217;re repeating the same password like I love pancakes, right, every account you have. When one of those accounts gets compromised, then all of your accounts will end up getting compromised.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not a good thing. And it should be something strong. It should not be your last name. It shouldn&#8217;t be the year you were born. It shouldn&#8217;t it be anything that&#8217;s guessable or even your address of your business or your location, because that information is semi-public and an attacker could start guessing, right? They can feed in this information into a bot that&#8217;ll try to rebuild the dictionaries against you. So it should be unique for every website and strong.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, if that&#8217;s a little bit too hard for you, this is what I used to say, then use a password generating tool like LastPass. That would create new passwords for you, you know, at least 12 or 16 characters long, and it&#8217;ll store the password for you. So you never need to really remember it yourself. Now, of course, LastPass is kind of confusing if we should recommend it anymore, but there are other options. There is 1Password. There is Bitwarden. There&#8217;s a bunch of options.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:37] Nathan Wrigley: There&#8217;s one called Dashlane if memory serves.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:39] Robert Rowley: Yes. Dashlane is another one. They vary in price. Some are free, some are open source. I believe Bitwarden is a great example of a free or very affordable option, which is really similar to LastPass, especially how LastPass used to be. You store your data in the cloud, so yes, the same risk is present. Whereas they could get their cloud services compromised, and then you&#8217;re going to have to go through the same, rotate all your passwords process.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or you could go a little bit more hardcore and start storing your passwords locally. This means it&#8217;s going to be stored on your laptop or your PC, maybe on a USB drive, but you&#8217;re going to have to choose a piece of software that does that. A good option for that would be KeyPass or KeyPass SX. They&#8217;ve got a few versions of it. They all use the same underlying technology. It&#8217;s mostly an interface to access this vault. But the vault always exists on systems you own and you control. That&#8217;s the only way you can get outside of that, the realm of risk. Or you can alleviate and reduce the risk of somebody breaking into a cloud service provider and stealing all the passwords.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With all that said, that&#8217;s the basics, right? And if you&#8217;re a basics user and you&#8217;re a little, but you&#8217;re a little bit more than a basics user, right? And you got a more serious account, maybe it&#8217;s your banking account or your Amazon EC2 accounts. Well then you need to use something more like a two factor authentication, like a second factor. It could be your email or sms, like your cell phone number. Or it could be something stronger like a Fido key, which is like Yubikey. There&#8217;s a few other vendors that make these physical hardware keys that punch out random gibberish.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or it could be what we&#8217;re really familiar with is this Google Authenticator. This is a time-based token, and it&#8217;s a one-time token for this little 30 second period of time, and it&#8217;s about a six, sometimes eight character pin. And those things, those require you to have physical access to a phone, right? That you run the Google app on or the Google Authenticator app on, or there are alternatives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>LastPass has an alternative for it. Authy is another very popular one. The big difference between, I&#8217;ll compare Authy to Google Authenticator, is that Google Authenticator, if your phone dies, there&#8217;s really no way to restore those secret tokens, right? Or if you upgrade your phone and delete, get rid of the old one. It&#8217;s really hard to upgrade and move it to the new phone. You have to do an intentional process where you do it an export first, and then you later import it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authy on the on the other hand, does cloud-based storage, and one of those benefits of cloud-based storage is it&#8217;s easy to share between devices. So with Authy, you&#8217;re able to set up one device or one account. And then if you lose your phone or the phone gets destroyed, you can easily reset up and get all your old two-factor authentication tokens, working easily and quickly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:12] Nathan Wrigley: In the case of this breach that we&#8217;re talking about, the two factor authentication, if you have that enabled or quickly go and enable that, that really does put a bit of a roadblock in the hackers path. Because even if they get your password, username and all of that good stuff, they&#8217;re going to be hitting this barrier of being asked to perform another action.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they&#8217;ll be able to successfully partially log in, but then they&#8217;ll be required to, I don&#8217;t know, either push a button on a mobile phone or press a button on a Yubikey or a Fido key or whatever. And that&#8217;s going stop them in their tracks. And also commonly with that, you get an email alert, assuming they haven&#8217;t got into your email, which is probably the first thing to shore up. You&#8217;ll get an email saying, look, something peculiar is going on. You need to be looking at your whatever, I don&#8217;t know, Dropbox or whatever account it is. So that&#8217;s another layer of security, which really would help.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:08] Robert Rowley: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. There&#8217;s a great point there on why two factor authentication may protect. And you should have two factor authentication on, even if you&#8217;re a basic user. You should have that set up for some of your more important accounts. If your password gets leaked, they&#8217;re still not going to be able to get into your, to your systems.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:23] Nathan Wrigley: In the case of the listenership to this podcast, I would imagine there&#8217;s quite a lot of people who are using password managers, and they are using it for their client websites. So I don&#8217;t know, you&#8217;ve got a hundred client websites. And all of a sudden you are facing this jeopardy that your business, not just your personal details, but your business is in some kind of danger, because the last thing you want is for the hackers to gain access to one, two, a hundred of your client websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Would you, if you were in the business of building WordPress websites for clients, would you rank that as a fairly good priority? Should people be going out and informing their clients that, look, I actually held this in a LastPass vault. That vault has been breached. Do you know if we have any obligations for our clients? And would you recommend that they, being circumspect essentially? Go out there and start changing these things pronto.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:21] Robert Rowley: Yeah, oh absolutely. I believe they should definitely get ahead. The best way you can react to any sort of security incident is to get ahead of anything else bad happening. You have to say the bad news, right? That starts with it. You have to tell that your customer&#8217;s, I store, I was storing your website account passwords in LastPass and as you may know, LastPass had a breach. All you have to do, if the next sentence is, I have changed the password. That&#8217;s it, and then you can say very confidently that there is no longer any risk associated with the fact that I used to store the WordPress password, WordPress access website access passwords in LastPass.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s how you get ahead of a security incident. And that&#8217;s a, that&#8217;s another great way to approach security as well as security hygiene thing. If you do experience a, let&#8217;s say LastPass aside, we&#8217;ll just put that as not the issue here at all, you experience a compromise on one of your customer&#8217;s websites. If you try to go in and manually clean it up yourself and you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re doing. And, you know, the hacks persists. If you inform the customer, hey, we saw this, it looks like it&#8217;s hacked, here&#8217;s what we did.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it gets hacked again, say, oh, we&#8217;re going to do more this second time, right? We&#8217;re going to do more. We&#8217;re going to hire an outside party now because obviously our services didn&#8217;t meet the needs. And that&#8217;s how you get ahead of the problem. Whereas if your customer&#8217;s site experienced a hack and you try to clean it up and you don&#8217;t tell the customer anything, you just hope they never notice, and then they get hacked again. What are you going to do that second time, right? Are you going to keep trying to clean it up? You&#8217;re going to keep going through this process? Or you&#8217;re probably going to create a little lie saying, oh, you got a hacked site and now we&#8217;re going to hire this third party.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, what I&#8217;ve seen in my experience, in my career, the sooner anybody&#8217;s ever transparent and upfront with the incident as it happens, and they are as clear as possible, including having a recourse, basically, here&#8217;s the next steps we&#8217;re going to take. That&#8217;s the clearest sign that somebody&#8217;s taking security responsibly, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They have a mature security model. They understand that breaches happened. These things you know, they didn&#8217;t cause it, some hacker caused it somewhere. Some nefarious person is doing something nefarious. But here&#8217;s the things that we did to address the issue. We&#8217;re aware of the issues. Here&#8217;s what we do to fix the issues in the future. You look at it as a learning experience for everybody involved. We could reflect back on LastPass and say, well, why was it that they saw the compromise start in the summer, yet it wasn&#8217;t until the very dead of winter that they announced the worst part.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The one thing that everybody was most concerned about. Had they done that at a different time, it may be different. The PR, right. How it would look to people would be different.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:48] Nathan Wrigley: The recommendation, I&#8217;m guessing, that you would have is that, you said a moment ago that 2FA ,two factor authentication, really you should be using that where it&#8217;s available. And I know that in WordPress there&#8217;s a whole slew of different ways of doing that. For example, the company that you work for, Patchstack, they offer a 2FA option, as do a whole bunch of security vendors.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there&#8217;s also plugins which just simply do that one thing. Would you be recommending that for every username and password on any WordPress website, or are you kind of limiting this to the administrator roles and the other ones perhaps less of a concern? I&#8217;m just trying to get an idea of how judicious you think you would need to be if you were a website agency at this point informing your clients that there&#8217;s possibly a breach, and trying to guide them towards better solutions, more robust things like 2FA.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:43] Robert Rowley: Yeah, it&#8217;s a good question. I would agree administrator users make the most sense for these stronger, or higher requirements for authentication. What you can think of it is, it&#8217;s not just the administrator user necessarily. It&#8217;s any user that can upload a plugin, upload a theme, edit PHP files. Any of those key roles or capabilities within the user are what are important. Those would directly connect to compromise the website, right. If a user is compromised and they have ability to upload a plugin, that plugin they upload could just be a backdoor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you should start with that, understanding the capabilities, if you have unique capabilities and unique custom roles built into your WordPress website. If you don&#8217;t, then it&#8217;s easier. Yes, admin users are the ones that can upload plugins and such. So those are the ones that you need to make sure have stronger authentication requirements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the remainder of the users, that&#8217;s really up to the organization of the website owners. Their ability to understand risk, right? It may not be that bad if a, well, it&#8217;s not necessarily bad at all if a subscriber account gets compromised. It&#8217;s not good, but more concerning if an author account, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They could start editing posts that were published by that author or things like that. But if you prevent the authors publishing new posts by having an editor role who needs to approve things, then you&#8217;ve got a good little safeguard there, right? An author getting compromised isn&#8217;t the worst thing either. However, they should have been using strong, unique passwords, because that&#8217;s the basics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do they need 2FA? Maybe, maybe not. And then you kind of go up, as you go up the roles and capabilities of every user group in your WordPress website, maybe you&#8217;re thinking, yeah, this person can do this thing, and that would be horrible for our business, right? Maybe you have a role that&#8217;s specific for handling your shipping items, right? Or your coupons for your WooCommerce site, or something like that. Those roles, those custom roles, would be a very high effect if they were to be compromised. So maybe on those, those accounts, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If they handle your customer data, shipping information, coupon codes, right? You don&#8217;t want somebody creating a 99% off coupon code. So you want to lock those accounts down too, with a higher level of requirement. And I&#8217;ll be honest, that after you get used to the process of 2FA or some of the other options, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of a password, a pass key, or IP address limitations. People can only log in from certain zones or certain areas. Once you start doing that and just becomes part of the process of logging into the website, it really becomes not a big issue. It&#8217;s that initial, that initial adoption period that you&#8217;ll have the most pushback and then people get used to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And most people find that 2FA, well, it can be annoying if you can&#8217;t find your phone, or if you can&#8217;t find the physical key. Generally you remember to pack it. So you, you&#8217;d end up not ever going anywhere. You don&#8217;t take your laptop to go work on your WordPress website without also bringing your 2FA token with you, so it just becomes a habit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:25] Nathan Wrigley: I confess in my case, I began using 2FA, almost as soon as it was an option. And I remember really disliking it to the point where I disabled it and I did another six months, and then I thought, actually, do you know what, there&#8217;s a lot of sense in this. So I switched it back on. So this is going back quite a number of years. And it really has become part of the muscle memory of logging into a site. You know, I go there, I type in the username and the password, or in my case, the password manager handles that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then I get this additional prompt. And all in all the whole thing is an additional possibly 10 seconds. And whilst it&#8217;s irritating, that 10 seconds probably could be better spent. On the grand scheme of things, it&#8217;s really not that amount of time. And I always thinking that if something is inconvenient, then it&#8217;s probably a good idea. With greater inconvenience, probably lies greater security.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:20] Robert Rowley: I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;d fully agree, cause I can think of some greatly inconvenient things, but you have the right idea. I remember, yeah, many years ago, I was working at DreamHost and we rolled out 2FA for access to the DreamHost panel. So this is access authentication where somebody could take over all your websites. They could migrate your domains elsewhere, right? Like it&#8217;s your whole business.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there was pushback. There was genuine pushback and it was an option too. It was quite funny. But, there was genuine pushback from our customers saying, I would never enable this because what a waste of time it takes to type in this code. But I think over the years people have simply adopted how to use it. I&#8217;m sure, I&#8217;m not this old yet, but I&#8217;m sure back when passwords were first created, right? The idea of having to log in with both your username and some sort of password caused some uproar at some university&#8217;s on old Unix systems. They&#8217;re like my login should be just my login. We should trust everybody. And then of course, you know, they learn that, yeah, you need to do a, some form of challenge response to verify authentication, who the user is, who they claim they are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:23] Nathan Wrigley: It&#8217;s not only something that you know, your password and username, but it&#8217;s also something that you have, a physical possession, in this case, a phone or a Fido key or whatever it may be. It really adds that extra layer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things that we keep talking about, I guess it&#8217;s par for the course really, given the nature of the conversation, is passwords. The fact that we have to memorize a combined thing. There&#8217;s a username and a password. I don&#8217;t quite know how that came to be, the way that we logged onto more or less everything, but there&#8217;s these two fields. Username, typically an email or some kind of thing that you&#8217;ve decided to use. Might be a, a shortened version of your own name or something like that. And then there&#8217;s the password which sits alongside of it. Given that that system, should it be discovered, allows complete access to whatever is in that service, Google, Dropbox, whatever it may be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m . Wondering if that system is broken. I wonder if it&#8217;s time to get away from, or slowly start to move away from, the username and password combination, which allows access to everything once successfully done. Even though it can be married with 2FA, like we&#8217;ve described. And I&#8217;m wondering if any new and emergent technologies have passed your radar that may be replacements for things like usernames and passwords. I&#8217;m sure there must be some ingenious cryptographers out there somewhere trying to get rid of this devilish thing, the username and password, but I don&#8217;t really know much about them. So I&#8217;m just going to hand it to you and see if you do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:55] Robert Rowley: Well, I&#8217;m going to first start off saying I do not understand enough about cryptography. And so you&#8217;re absolutely right to call them genius cryptographers. They&#8217;re phenomenal at math. I&#8217;ve read their papers and I, my eyes still gloss over. But I understand their high concepts, which is why they&#8217;re truly geniuses, is that they&#8217;re able to understand the big concepts of this very convoluted math to more lay people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is true. What we&#8217;re dealing with is a lot to do with cryptography. This is a matter of a secret which is known to an individual, which is then stored somewhere and then verified so that we can be decrypted in a way that we confirm that the individual is the only one who we assume has the knowledge of that secret to decrypt this vault or password cache or things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what we&#8217;re dealing with is secrets and cryptography. Oh boy, I don&#8217;t even want to get into the whole cryptography thing, but like, public-private pairs. Where you can store them. How you can store a public key, and the public key is not a big deal if it&#8217;s been stored or shared publicly because it&#8217;s only your private key that can decrypt data that&#8217;s been encrypted using the public key.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Basically this two key system. When you really kind of like, understand how it all works, you&#8217;re like, oh, okay, cool, this makes sense. But really in the end of the day a password is just a key. It&#8217;s something you know. A good analogy maybe is when you were using LastPass, you and I were both using LastPass, probably for a number of years. Did you have a knowledge of your passwords?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:17] Nathan Wrigley: No. None whatsoever. I always go for a very long gibberish password. And even if you forced me to read it out, I wouldn&#8217;t be able to memorize even one of them. They were so ridiculously long, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:30] Robert Rowley: Exactly, so that&#8217;s how I was using LastPass as well. LastPass, I knew my master password, which was being used to decrypt these gibberish long passwords, which were all stored in LastPass. And I was using LastPass as this storage device for these long gibberish passwords. But they&#8217;re not words, they&#8217;re not pass phrases, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s define a few terms. Passwords sound like a word, which is a secret word, like, open sesame, to enter a, get authentication to enter a system. Passphrase is another terminology that the security community pushed out there for a while. And this is more like, horse, battery, banana, stable. Something like that. You&#8217;re creating a phrase, a whole sentence, which makes a longer word. It&#8217;s not really a word anymore, it&#8217;s a phrase. They&#8217;re trying to encourage people to use sentences. I used an example earlier. I love pancakes, right? That&#8217;s something I encountered in my life, for bad pass phrases.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, now we can get into a new world where we can define this as a pass key. And now a pass key is kind of what that thing that we&#8217;re using LastPass to do. We&#8217;re storing this large gibberish, basically a little blob that we don&#8217;t know, we can&#8217;t even pronounce if we wanted to. And that is the secret that is being stored and saved with the server, or basically not saved with the server, but as a challenge in authentication step within the server.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we&#8217;ve extended what started as a password and as the common term would be password to passphrase. And now we have this new thing called a pass key. And how we were using it in LastPass is bastardized version of what a pass key should be. And there are new technologies now, being the thing that on the internet. Because web browsers make web applications accessible to the whole wide world, we&#8217;re starting to see that pass keys, this high level of entropy. This long amount of gibberish. This inability for an attacker to brute force the authentication step is what we&#8217;re needing in order to protect ourselves against attackers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in that case, in that sense, pass keys are actually a real thing. You don&#8217;t have to implement them using LastPass, using long gibberish things that you can never remember yourself. But you can use them by storing them locally, or having a system that can unlock that key only when you basically, like we were using with LastPass. It could unlock the key, which then is being sent to the web server, web application to pass that challenge for authentication.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are plugins for WordPress, which are already available, and they will utilize a system that&#8217;s more of a pass key system. They&#8217;re not always how we were explaining with LastPass. Some of them will use your phone, it&#8217;ll scan a QR code, and when your phone can decrypt the QR code correctly, it will pass the challenge, the authentication challenge that the plugin, or the web application, has presented. So it verifies you as authenticated. I hope I&#8217;ve explained that right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:08] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, let me just outline whether or not I&#8217;m confused about that. So with passwords and pass phrases, essentially both parties need to know what they are. So the website, let&#8217;s take the example of Google, Google needs to know what my password is. I need to know what my password is. And in order to keep that secure, I encrypt it inside my password vault and Google encrypt it on their servers with whatever technology they have available. Hopefully, Decent and strong.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the point is there&#8217;s two secrets held in two different locations. The same would be true for pass phrases because it&#8217;s just another, it&#8217;s just a really, it&#8217;s more or less exactly the same thing. But is a pass key in any way different to that? Is it being stored in both locations. Do I need to store a copy of the pass key and does the website need to store a copy of the pass key? Or is there something going on which is slightly different where only one of us knows? That&#8217;s the bit that I haven&#8217;t quite worked out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:05] Robert Rowley: What you were explaining is what&#8217;s called a two-way or symmetrical encryption. Both parties know a secret and they both use that same secret to confirm a identity, right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:15] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:16] Robert Rowley: If the bouncer on the other side of the door knows the secret password to enter the club is open sesame, then they wait for people to say it on the outside. Both parties need to know this. There&#8217;s another way with encryption. This is why cryptologists are geniuses, which is called one way encryption. One way says that the bouncer on the other side of the door actually does not know what the passphrase is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What they know though is for your user, some mathematical equation, right? I&#8217;m going to simplify this. That will embarrass myself, because I&#8217;m going to go to junior high level maths. And this is a terrible example, but like one plus x is equal to seven. Solve four x, right. It&#8217;s that sort of thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But they&#8217;re doing mathematics, which are like multiplication charts, an elliptical curve. They go way out there. So it&#8217;s very hard to do this, you can&#8217;t do &#8217;em in your head. But they do, and actually they&#8217;re using prime, I believe. They&#8217;re using prime numbers, which are hard to, it&#8217;s hard to calculate in the reverse direction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s that sort of idea is that the bouncer on the other side knows the maths to do, right? They know the algorithm, or not the algorithm, they know the equation. And on the other side, you just simply say the word six, and then the bouncer on the other side puts six into this math equation. They run this math equation, which depending on the speed of the bouncer&#8217;s CPU in his head, he has one plus six is equal to seven, is that true? And that&#8217;s how they work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the bouncer does not know at any point in time what the secret is until you give it to him. And then that, basically then he uses the math behind the algorithm to verify that the secret is true. Does that make sense? That&#8217;s a one way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you have a application, we&#8217;ll see this with GPG or PGP, which is a public-private key system, where your private key is what you need to keep secret. And then the public key is what&#8217;s shared publicly. So anybody could know your public key and then they can compare it. And then you would basically, they would use the public key to encrypt data to you, and then you would use your private key to decrypt the data or vice versa.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:46:06] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I understand. I think I&#8217;m hoping for an era in which the knowledge that I have doesn&#8217;t need to be known at all by them. So I could display something to a website or a SaaS app or whatever it may be, and the mere fact that I possess it combined with something that they possess. But the two never need to collide, if you know what I mean.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can constantly keep my thing secret. They can keep their bits and pieces secret. And I believe there are endeavors to do things like that. I think in my case that the LastPass data breach has made me realize that having trust for all the things in a third party service, that&#8217;s been shaken a little bit for me, over the last few weeks. And I would like to hope that things, I don&#8217;t know, inside the browser or inside the Mac or inside the iPhone or whatever it may be, will make this easier over time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:46:59] Robert Rowley: Yeah, definitely. It&#8217;s a thing that&#8217;s always going to change, but we have to remember, we&#8217;re using computers and they&#8217;re reliant on math. And unfortunately it&#8217;s going to be up to some really, really, and this is why I&#8217;m so nice to cryptographers, I think they are all geniuses. It&#8217;s going to take some really smart guys and girls as cryptographers, to figure out the algorithms that are going to work and be resilient against attacks like bruteforce attacks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s what LastPass was doing, was hashing your password. So one over 100,000 times because if you hash, that makes it 100,000 times harder, or slower, for the process of hashing, right? So hashing it once might take a millisecond, but hashing it a hundred thousand times, now that takes a second or so. And that&#8217;s what they did based on the technology and the cryptography as we understand it today, the applied cryptography, I should say. That was their best option to slow things down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And doing that, choosing the algorithms they chose, choosing the bit sizes for the keys that they chose, choosing the number of iterations of hashing that they chose, all gave us some time. And that&#8217;s the time that we needed to update and rotate out our passwords and our secrets that unfortunately were lost.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:48:08] Nathan Wrigley: Well that was a good segue. You mentioned time and time is slowly running out for us. But I just want to give you an opportunity to mention a couple of the things that you are doing in the WordPress space, which are nothing to do with LastPass, even though the name of it may be, with retrospect, may collide very closely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tell us about Last Patch, which is a project that you&#8217;ve been involved in, don&#8217;t know for how long, but tell us what you&#8217;re doing over there. It&#8217;s wonderful actually. It&#8217;s such a nice, almost philanthropic thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:48:37] Robert Rowley: Just a bit, yeah. Unrelated to LastPass, I&#8217;ve been writing a series of blog posts that I&#8217;ve been calling Last Patch. The concept here is that, I wanted to write about vulnerabilities and exploits on WordPress plugins for some time, but I&#8217;ve found it, it&#8217;s not very nice to talk accidents and mistakes other peoples have made, especially when they&#8217;re still writing actively to the project, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like, I don&#8217;t want to take a, somebody patch this bug, this security bug, which is a more sensitive bug than a normal one. And I don&#8217;t want to just put &#8217;em on blast saying, hey everybody, here&#8217;s how you attack this bug in case nobody updated yet. So instead, what I did is I found out, and this happened last year, we were writing a white paper, which basically was explaining about a 2021&#8217;s, a year in WordPress security retrospective.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we found out that a good handful, I think it was seven or eight plugins were disabled and they had, out of 30 critical vulnerabilities that were reported in WordPress plugins in 2021, about seven or eight plugins received no patch. So a critical vulnerability received no patch, and sites were still simply running an insecure version of these plugins.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s not good either. So a solution oriented towards fixing things instead of just pointing out mistakes, was that I wanted to start writing patches for these abandoned plugins that had security bugs in them. So in quarter four of 2022, I was given some time and I wrote up a few blog posts about six in total explaining for six, each blog post is its own plugin that has its own vulnerability in it, and none of those plugins got patched in 2022. So what I went through and I went ahead and just wrote the patches. I explained how the vulnerabilities worked. The target audience for this could be really anybody.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re a site owner, and you&#8217;re running one of these plugins and you want to patch it yourself, I don&#8217;t recommend running my patches, because these are abandoned projects. If it&#8217;s an abandoned plugin, I recommend you find a new alternative. But if you absolutely need to run it, yeah, you can use the example that I&#8217;ve given you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s even better for a developer. If you&#8217;re a WordPress developer or even a new developer, and you&#8217;re kind of curious how about how security bugs work and what to do when you encounter them, these series of blog posts will walk you through how these security bugs work and how to basically write a patch.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most security bug patches are pretty rudimentary. You&#8217;re going to be looking at writing an allow list, verifying authorization, or sanitizing or escaping data correctly. So that&#8217;s the series of blog posts that I&#8217;ve released, and they&#8217;re all available on the, LastPass, last sorry, Patchstack blog.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:03] Nathan Wrigley: Too many patches and lasts in this episode. Pass, patch, last. There&#8217;s lots going on. Yeah. That&#8217;s amazing. What a nice endeavor. Do you intend, funding and time permitting, is this something that you would wish to continue? Are you going to try to do this through 2023?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:20] Robert Rowley: I would hope so. I genuinely had fun writing these patches. Reviewing the code. I&#8217;m an awkward person in the head, I guess because I like looking at other people&#8217;s source code, figuring out what went wrong, and adding, because I, I&#8217;ve done that in my career for the past 15, 20 years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve reported security vulnerabilities to developers. I&#8217;ve become empathetic enough to understand their position of not wanting to see the report, not enjoying that process. But I genuinely enjoyed this process and I like sharing with other people, especially developers. The idea that a mistake, mistakes can be made, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mistakes were made. It&#8217;s okay. It doesn&#8217;t matter what happened. What matters is how you respond to it. And you should be responding to security breaches like LastPass. Or you should be responding to security bugs, like open source developers. The majority of them, I&#8217;ll have to share here, the majority open source developers are very receptive to security bug reports.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It should be considered a contribution to the project. It&#8217;s a way to make the project better, more secure. And as a developer for the developers, it&#8217;s a way to improve your skill sets. You know how to identify, like if you take it seriously, you&#8217;ll learn how to identify security bugs, how to program defensively so that security bugs don&#8217;t affect your application, and so on and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:34] Nathan Wrigley: What a great endeavor, yeah. Thank you for doing that on everybody&#8217;s behalf. That&#8217;s really wonderful. Robert, because we&#8217;re close, closing in on an hour, I&#8217;m going to knock it on the head. But before that, I&#8217;m going to ask you to tell us where we can find you online. If anybody&#8217;s listened and wants to reach out. Do you have any publicly available Twitter handles or email addresses or contact forms that you want to mention?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:57] Robert Rowley: Sure. A great way to follow me online nowadays is Mastodon. There&#8217;s been this wonderful guy who created a wpbuilds.social Mastodon account. I&#8217;m on that as well as rawrly, r a w r l y. I am apologizing for such a weird name, but that&#8217;s also my wordpress.org username.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you follow me there, you can see what I&#8217;ve done on wordpress.org and you can find me on the wpbuilds.social Mastodon account. You can also, if you want to keep up to date and you don&#8217;t need to talk with me, but you just want to hear more about security topics and information, you can go to the Patchstack blog. I write articles there on occasion.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And every week I do a Patchstack Weekly, I think it&#8217;s episode 53 right now. And for the beginning of this year, all I&#8217;m going to be talking about a security hygiene best practices. All those things that you maybe should be doing about once a year. That&#8217;s my New Year&#8217;s resolution, to get a handful of these things shared with the public so that they can take, especially the WordPress public, this community can take security more seriously. Just knowing what to do is really what most people need. So again, Patchstack.com, or wpbuilds.social.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:53:59] Nathan Wrigley: Robert Rowley, thank you for chatting to us today on the podcast. I really appreciate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:03] Robert Rowley: Thank you.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://wpbuilds.social/@rawrly\">Robert Rowley</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert is <a href=\"https://patchstack.com/\">Patchstack&#8217;s</a> security advocate, where his time is spent interacting with open source communities to share the word about security best practices. Given his background, the podcast today is all about internet security.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We start off with a topic which is very much in the news at the moment, the LastPass security breach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re a LastPass user, then you’ll know what their service is, but if you’re not, here’s a quick introduction. LastPass is a password manager. It will lock up your passwords, and any other data for that matter, in a secure vault, which can only be read if you decrypt it with the correct password.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of 2022, LastPass announced in a series of blog posts that customer vaults had been taken from their cloud storage. The way that this was communicated left many of their customers questioning their use of the service, and whether they now could trust LastPass with their data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert explains how the incident occurred, and if you should be concerned. The answer is, as you might expect, it depends. There are situations in which the settings that you had in your LastPass account might mean that you need to act sooner rather than later. The length and complexity of your master password is also a key factor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This then leads to a conversation about the broader issue of website security and the security of WordPress websites in particular.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What are some considerations that you need to think about when protecting your website and how can you communicate these considerations to your clients?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of the podcast, we chat about a project that Robert’s been involved in during 2022. He’s been patching plugins which are no longer being maintained, but are still being used, so that they present less of a security threat to their users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re curious about website security, then this is a podcast for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://patchstack.com/\">Patchstack</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://hashcat.net/hashcat/\">Hashcat</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.lastpass.com/\">LastPass</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://1password.com/\">1Password</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bitwarden.com/\">Bitwarden</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.dashlane.com/\">Dashlane</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://keepass.info/\">KeePass</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://keepassxc.org/\">KeePassXC</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://fidoalliance.org/\">FIDO Alliance</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.yubico.com/\">Yubikey</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Authenticator\">Google Authenticator</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://authy.com/\">Authy</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://patchstack.com/category/last-patch/\">Last Patch</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://patchstack.com/articles/\">Patchstanck blog</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wpbuilds.social/@rawrly\">Robert&#8217;s Mastodon account</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rawrly/\">Robert&#8217;s WordPress.org account</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://patchstack.com/category/weekly/\">Patchstack Weekly podcast</a></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:43:\"HeroPress: Giving up the good for the great\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=5130\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:138:\"https://heropress.com/essays/giving-up-the-good-for-the-great/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=giving-up-the-good-for-the-great\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11973:\"<img width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/013123-min.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Pull quote: I have built some great relationships through WordPress and I am extremely grateful to be a part of such an awesome community.\" /><p>If you didn’t already know, HeroPress is all about writing to your peers. When Topher asked who I will be writing to, I wasn’t sure at first. I had to think about this for a couple of days before I went back to him.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I found this question difficult because I couldn’t think of how I fitted into a certain bracket or who my peers actually were. I’m just a thirty two year old man from the UK who’s going grey way too early and likes building things with WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After some thought and thinking about my journey through life so far, the only thing that stuck out was my change of career around eleven years ago. For me this was a big decision and not one I took lightly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, I’m writing this essay for anyone who feels stuck in their current job and can’t see a way out. I want people to realise it’s never too late to make a change in your life, you just need to want it strongly enough. I’m not claiming to have done anything extraordinary, it’s just my story and I hope it will give some people the inspiration to change their future.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-how-it-began\">How It Began</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I don’t want to be that person who tells you their life story from the day they were born, but I will set the scene from when I first discovered my love for design at a fairly young age.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was nine years old, I got my first computer which came with Disney’s Magic Artist Studio. I would spend hours using this to “design” things like t-shirts, trainers and logos. I had no idea at the time that this was going to set me on a journey that I am still on today.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/disneys-magic-artist-studio.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>When I left school at eighteen years old, I went to university to do a foundation in graphic design. During this time I was also working part time at a tattoo studio, drawing customer’s tattoos and manning the reception desk. The excitement of it led me to abandon my journey in graphic design once I completed my foundation year. Instead of doing a BA, I started an apprenticeship in Tattooing and one year later I was tattooing paying customers.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tattooing.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>This was an exciting time of my life. I did this for around two years and up until that point I was very happy. However, I started to feel like there was something missing in my life, like there was an itch that I couldn’t scratch. I wondered what this was for a while but couldn’t quite get to the root of it. After a few more months of feeling like this I eventually realised that my love for graphic design hadn’t gone away and this was where my true passion lied.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-shifting-gears\">Shifting Gears</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon enough, the feeling that I was not on the right career path had become too strong for me to ignore. I knew I wanted to get back into the digital world, so I started looking for jobs online. Most positions required a degree but I really didn’t want to go back to university for three years. I quickly came to the conclusion that my best option would be to do an internship or an apprenticeship to gain experience quickly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it had been a few years since university, I was completely out of touch with the current technology and design trends. I knew the only way I could switch careers was if I had a good portfolio and was up to speed with current design tools and best practices.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, over the next three months, I dedicated most evenings to improving my design skills, working on my portfolio and learning HTML &amp; CSS. I watched YouTube tutorials, read articles, read books, practised on Codecademy and built basic websites that I had designed. It was quite difficult to work my day job and upskill in my spare time, but my determination to follow my passion kept me going.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-starting-again\">Starting Again</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I felt like I had a good foundation of design skills and a good understanding of HTML &amp; CSS, I applied for a junior graphic designer role. I didn’t get the job which wasn’t a huge surprise to me but it gave me valuable interview experience which helped me know what I needed to improve on for next time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I went for my second interview soon after. It was for a web design apprenticeship at a Digital Marketing agency. To my surprise, I actually got the job! </p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/starting-new-job.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>I couldn’t believe that the hard work I had put in over the last three months had actually paid off. I was back on the path I was supposed to be on. Compared to my previous job the pay wasn’t great and it was definitely a huge life adjustment. However, I was committed to making this work, whatever it took.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started that job back in 2012 and guess what, I am still working for the same company today! During my time working for this agency, I have had lots of job titles as I worked my way up. I am now Director of Web Services, leading a team of Graphic Designers and Web Developers who design and build WordPress websites for a wide variety of clients. The company recently threw me a ten year work anniversary party!</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10-years.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past couple of years, my role has become predominantly remote based, I have the flexibility to choose whether I go into the office or not. This gives me a great sense of freedom because I can now work from anywhere in the world if I choose to. To be honest though, I work in my garage 99% of the time which I’ve converted into an office. However, it’s nice to know that I have the choice and I’m not tied to any location.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/remote-working.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>Remote working suits me perfectly because when I pop into the house throughout the day to make a cup of tea or have lunch, I get to spend some time with my one year old daughter. This is the most amazing benefit of working from home. Without having a job that can be done remotely, I’d miss out on these priceless moments.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/snowman.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-where-wordpress-fits\">Where WordPress Fits</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress has always been a big part of my role at the agency I work at. Even though I am now managing a team, I am still getting my hands dirty building and supporting WordPress websites on a daily basis. I think it’s important for managers to stay up to date with the tools and technology their team is using to effectively mentor and support them. I also think it’s important to take time to have fun with your team and don’t be afraid to show vulnerability.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/team.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides playing a big part in my career, WordPress has also allowed me to explore some of my own ideas. The ability to be able to execute them fairly easily with WordPress is one of the reasons why I love it. You can completely take control of your future with WordPress, if you’re willing to put in the work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is also really exciting, is the fact that WordPress shook things up in version 5.0, by introducing the Gutenberg project. This brought the block editor to WordPress and at first a lot of people were very sceptical about it. Some still are today. However, a lot of people, including myself, can see the potential it has and are embracing the changes.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/gutenberg-5.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>Before Gutenberg, the market was saturated with plugins and themes that catered for every possible thing you could think of. It felt like there was nothing left for new developers to build. However, now with blocks, the playing fields have been levelled and everything is up for grabs again. Plugins and themes that were built before Gutenberg, can now be built again to be compatible with blocks. Suffice to say, this is an extremely exciting time to be a WordPress developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-building-new-things\">Building New Things</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To help developers take advantage of the new demand for Gutenberg compatible products, I decided to create <a href=\"https://gutenbergmarket.com\">Gutenberg Market</a>, the first marketplace exclusively for premium block plugins, block themes and block components. I did this because I spotted a gap in the market and also because I wanted to help others earn fairly from their hard work. Most other marketplaces take a very large percentage of the sale, usually more than the author receives, so I wanted to create a marketplace where the commission was always in favour of the authors.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/gutenberg-market.jpg\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>I also host a YouTube channel called <a href=\"https://youtube.com/@wpBros.\">wpBros</a> with my friend Phil Sola, where we provide Gutenberg Block Development tutorials. People seem to like the informal chatty style of our videos and we’ve received some great feedback so far. We don’t profess to be experts in this subject, as we are still learning ourselves. We found it difficult to find good resources at the beginning of our journey, so our main reason for starting the channel was to simply help people get started with block development. If you are thinking about building blocks but don’t know where to start, you might find our videos very helpful.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/wpbros-academy.png\"><img /></a>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-powerful-community\">Powerful Community</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to also mention how amazing the WordPress community is, which is another compelling reason to make the switch to WordPress. There is a thriving community of WordPress advocates on Twitter who offer their wisdom freely and help out when you’re in need. There are regular WordPress meet-ups planned all over the world and lots of other events online and offline you can get involved with. I have built some great relationships through WordPress and I am extremely grateful to be a part of such an awesome community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, to close, my advice to anyone who is thinking about making the switch to WordPress or another career, is just go for it! There is so much potential in the WordPress space right now and there is a high demand for developers. You will almost certainly land a job as long as you have the skills and are committed to learning. It’s also so easy to get started with all of the free resources available online. If you’re willing to invest some money into your training there are also some fantastic paid tutorials on Udemy and other course providers too.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wish you all the best in your endeavours and please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter if you need any help transitioning to WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, I want to leave you with one quote that I really like…</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>“I can&#8217;t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”&nbsp;</p>\n<cite>Jimmy Dean</cite></blockquote>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/adjust-my-sails.jpg\"><img /></a>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://heropress.com/essays/giving-up-the-good-for-the-great/\">Giving up the good for the great</a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://heropress.com\">HeroPress</a>.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 01 Feb 2023 08:00:34 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:17:\"James Koussertari\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:56:\"WordPress.org blog: People of WordPress: Daniel Kossmann\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=14226\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:71:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/people-of-wordpress-daniel-kossmann/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13149:\"<p><strong>This month we feature Daniel Kossmann, a software engineer from South America who shares his enthusiasm for WordPress at every opportunity.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The <em>People of WordPress</em> series features inspiring stories of how people&#8217;s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global community of contributors.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1014\" height=\"627\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/01/daniel-kossmann-2018-wc-saopaulo.jpg?resize=1014%2C627&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14222\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel&#8217;s adventure into WordPress began in 2009 when he needed a way to publish and share articles on films. From that small spark, he now enjoys an interesting and varied career in Brazil and beyond, and an ever-expanding community network. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following WordPress and its new features fascinates Daniel and he is always looking for ways to share what it has to offer with others. His initial focus on WordPress for content publishing soon became a wider appreciation of the platform’s capacity for building communities and careers.&nbsp; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel has served as a community organizer for seven years in Curitiba, Brazil and co-organized four annual <a href=\"https://wptranslationday.org/\">WordPress Translation Day</a> events in the city. Community building initiatives, like these, bring in new volunteers and help spur on local user groups.<br /><br />Now working as a software engineer manager, Daniel maintains his interest in supporting the WordPress community through a newsletter in Brazilian Portuguese.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Finding WordPress to publish content can be life-changing</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel&#8217;s web development skills were initially self-taught, and built on his interest in technology and from his earlier interest in video games. He developed systems in ASP and PHP, and created online resources to teach others how to create websites. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the time came to choose his academic path, he had no doubt that it would be something related to computers and picked Computer Science at the Federal University of Paraná.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>“In order to focus more on content rather than coding, I ended up getting to know WordPress. It was love at first sight!” </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2009, he launched a public blog about films that became a hub for cultural content related to cinema, literature, and comics. The blog had collaborators from several cities in the country. He found WordPress an easy tool for publishing articles. It allowed him to spend more time on writing content rather than having to use his software engineering skills to write code.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, once he discovered the range and versatility of the software, he wanted to build themes and features to customize websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As he searched for learning materials, he came across a WordPress event happening in his own city. This event, <a href=\"https://curitiba.wordcamp.org/2010/\">WordCamp Curitiba 2010</a>, had a deep impact on Daniel.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>“Other tech events I attended charged more than double this WordCamp, but hadn’t offered half of the things it did.” </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel was inspired not only by the talks but also the kindness shown by others at the event. His inherent shyness meant he had to step out of his comfort zone to socialize. However, the friendliness of attendees and the welcome he received made this less foreboding. He was hooked by the community he met, and he pledged to volunteer at the next WordCamp and even apply as a speaker.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/01/daniel-kossmann-2018-wc-saopaulo-2.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\" alt=\"Daniel giving a talk at WordCamp São Paulo 2018 \n\" class=\"wp-image-14223\" /><em>Daniel giving a talk at WordCamp São Paulo 2018 about Gutenberg</em>\n\n\n\n<p>Less than two years later, Daniel helped to organize <a href=\"https://curitiba.wordcamp.org/2012/\">WordCamp in Curitiba 2012</a>, and this was where he gave his first public talk. It was an important moment in his journey. He is determined to keep improving his public speaking skills each time he presents, and help others to do so too. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">From WordPress user to entrepreneur</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel had dreamed of starting his own company since childhood. Following his university graduation in 2011, he decided to fulfil that dream. He started a web development company, envisioning it as a creative project lab.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initially, he worked with a variety of systems and programming languages. Soon, he realized that maintaining multiple solutions took considerable time and effort. So he opted to use a single platform, WordPress. It offered ease of use for his clients and the possibility of offering various types of websites. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>“This decision allowed me to dive even deeper into the system, making better and faster-to-deliver solutions for my clients,” said Daniel.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the company grew, he expanded the services it offered to include support, maintenance, courses, consulting, and optimized hosting for WordPress. This gave Daniel access to a wider range of clients and greater specialization in the WordPress platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as a small company, Daniel wanted to give back to the WordPress community. Through using this open source software, the business had not faced the costs of using commercial platforms. He felt he should invest back into the software and its community it as much as he could, from sponsorship of events to collaborating in the Contributor Teams.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/01/daniel-kossmann-2018-wc-floripa.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14221\" />\n\n\n\n<p>His community contributions include speaking at meetups and WordCamps to share what what he has learned in his day-to-day work. “It was always and still is a big pleasure to be able to make these contributions,” he affirmed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2019, he decided to close his company after eight years and start a new chapter in Development Coordination. His focus continues to be on WordPress, both professionally and in the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Supporting local: re-energising the Curitiba’s WordPress community</h2>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/01/daniel-kossmann-2016-meetup-curitiba.jpg?resize=680%2C510&ssl=1\" alt=\"Daniel speaking at a meetup in Curitiba in 2016.\" class=\"wp-image-14241\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" /><em>Daniel speaking at a meetup in Curitiba in 2016</em>\n\n\n\n<p>After WordCamp in Curitiba in 2012, the community there took a break from organizing events. Three years later, Daniel was eager to help restart meetups in Curitiba. He connected with others in the Brazilian community to find a way forward to support both end users of WordPress and firms using the platform. Through instant messaging tool Slack, a rebooted meetup was organized in August 2015. All the planning was done virtually and they only met for the first time in person on the day of the event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although they did not have much initial experience in event planning, the meetup organizers were determined attendees should have fun and enjoy a relaxed atmosphere. They wanted people to feel comfortable socializing and to chat before and after the talks. The tips that attendees shared at every meeting were one of the most successful elements of these user-focused meetups.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Daniel, getting up in front of people to introduce the meetup was still not easy. However, he knew continuing to practice and improve his self-confidence was the only way to overcome his shyness. This determination and sense of achievement inspires him to encourage others to present talks and share the tips he uses when presenting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/wpcuritiba/\">Curitiba meetup</a> continues to flourish. Though Daniel has moved to supporting the community in new ways, he has a lasting fondness for it. It has made him an advocate for local groups at the heart of the WordPress community. He believes the shared interest and enthusiasm for learning at meetups helps to increase attendees&#8217; interest in both the software and its community, and their willingness to participate .</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sharing the benefit of WordPress across Brazil</h2>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/01/daniel-kossmann-2019-meetup-curitiba-4.jpg?resize=680%2C411&ssl=1\" alt=\"Daniel presenting at a Curitiba meetup in 2019.\" class=\"wp-image-14242\" width=\"680\" height=\"411\" /><em>Daniel presenting at a Curitiba meetup in 2019</em>\n\n\n\n<p>In June 2019, Daniel created a newsletter to spread content about WordPress in Brazilian Portuguese and inspire others to create content in the language. Translating, Daniel believes is a powerful way to make WordPress more accessible to people who do not speak English, which is the case for a lot of people in Brazil. In 2021, Daniel started writing regularly about WordPress on his blog too. He continues to publish weekly news, tutorials, tips, and share events. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Advice to future WordPress contributors</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel believes that the WordPress community is a key strength of the platform. It attracts people with a range of technical skills and backgrounds, and strives to have a diverse and open space for exchange. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are so many ways to contribute to WordPress without working with the code. He said: “I&#8217;m a big evangelizer of learning in public. A great way to collaborate is to create your blog in WordPress itself and share your journey of using it, and to write about tips and useful resources. This will eventually lead you to the official WordPress documentation and, the more you use it, the more opportunities for improvements you will see. Then you can start contributing to improving it. Besides this, you can pick a plugin or theme that you use and help with its translation.&#8221;<br /><br />He added: “My biggest advice for those who are starting to contribute to WordPress is to start with a small step, maybe solving an easy bug or fixing a typo, and create a routine to consistently work on it, like an hour every weekend.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Daniel has made several lasting friendships, received professional referrals through his participation in community events, and enjoys a career that continues to have variety and new things to learn. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>His final message is to join WordPress <a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/topics/wordpress/\">meetups locally</a> or online in other cities, and be inspired like he has been for 14 years and still counting. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Share the stories</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/category/newsletter/interviews/\">People of WordPress series</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contributors</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you to <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kossmann/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>kossmann</a> for sharing his adventures in WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you to Abha Thakor (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>webcommsat</a>), Larissa Murillo (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lmurillom/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>lmurillom</a>), Meher Bala (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>meher</a>), Chloe Bringmann (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>cbringmann</a>) for research, interviews, and writing this feature article.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>People of WordPress</em> series thanks Josepha Haden (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>chanthaboune</a>) and Topher DeRosia (<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/topher1kenobe/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>topher1kenobe</a>) for their support.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-center\"><img width=\"180\" height=\"135\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2020/03/heropress_logo_180.png?resize=180%2C135&ssl=1\" alt=\"HeroPress logo\" class=\"wp-image-8409 size-full\" /><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on </em><a href=\"https://heropress.com/\"><em>HeroPress.com</em></a><em>, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. </em>#HeroPress </p>\n</div></div>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 01 Feb 2023 02:30:03 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"Abha Thakor\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:91:\"WPTavern: A Look Under the Hood at Engine Awesome, a Laravel-based SaaS App Using Gutenberg\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=140882\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:101:\"https://wptavern.com/a-look-under-the-hood-at-engine-awesome-a-laravel-based-saas-app-using-gutenberg\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5926:\"<p>During the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2022-matt-mullenweg-highlights-gutenbergs-progress-announces-new-community-tools\">2022 State of the Word</a>, Matt Mullenweg highlighted a few examples of how Gutenberg adoption is growing beyond WordPress and how he believed it could become “bigger than WordPress itself.” <a href=\"https://engineawesome.com/\">Engine Awesome</a>, a Laravel-based SaaS application, is one example he cited that is using the block editor to allow customers to build their own custom applications.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Steve Bruner, SlipFire agency owner and former CEO of <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/piklist-is-shutting-down\">Piklist</a>, and WordPress developer and core committer Timothy Jacobs, joined forces in 2022 to create Engine Awesome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;All companies use unique processes and workflows to run their businesses,&#8221; Bruner said in the company&#8217;s launch post. &#8220;Even those in the same industry do things differently from their competitors. Unfortunately, today’s software does not allow for this flexibility. Instead, they feature defined rules, often forcing us to put square pegs in round holes. We want to change that.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Engine Awesome is a no-code application builder where users can create object types (similar to custom post types) to store and organize their data. Here is an example from the dashboard of a demo application for cleaning jobs. </p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>It offers a user-friendly interface for team members or others involved in managing the business to schedule and edit entries as work is completed. </p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>On the application building side, users can easily add, edit, or delete object types and add a theme for the layouts.</p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>Editing an object type looks very similar to the WordPress block editor. App creators can easily add fields that will be part of that object and drag and drop to rearrange them. Users can create relationships between object types for smart ways of organizing the app&#8217;s data. Engine Awesome is also set up to connect apps to more than 5,000 services via Zapier integration.</p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>If the interface looks similar to WordPress, it&#8217;s because the front-end uses the same theme.json system as WordPress core to provide different themes and appearance options. In the future, Bruner said the apps created could automatically inherit the styles of a WordPress site by consuming its theme.json file.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Engine Awesome is a SaaS application with a Laravel and Postgres backend,&#8221; Bruner said. &#8220;We chose MongoDB to store customer data because its document-oriented design allows our customers flexibility when choosing their fields.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The front-end is a headless React application built primarily using the Gutenberg JavaScript packages. We use the Gutenberg packages directly instead of the Isolated Editor project as it affords us a higher degree of control and customization.&#8221; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Engine Awesome provides a user-friendly UI for tracking information that might otherwise be added to a spreadsheet. It gives users a more flexible way to manage their business data via an application designed for their needs, at a fraction of the cost of having a custom app created by a development company.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Engine Awesome is currently manually onboarding new customers as the company works on its pricing and signup process. Prices start at $10/month following a 30-day free trial which includes an initial Zoom call to help customers get up and running. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bruner shared a few applications that customers have created using Engine Awesome:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Shelly’s Organic Home Cleaning has four teams of three cleaners each. Each morning teams will log into Engine Awesome to see their upcoming jobs. Once at the location, they place the job in “cleaning” status and being. Upon completion, the job is placed in a “Done” status. Homeowners are automatically emailed when the job has started and when it ends. Once the cleaning service moves to credit cards, we will email a Stripe payment link upon completion.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A Marketing company that builds interactive in-store displays is creating an application to manage them. Engine Awesome will hold product and store information, and the displays will update via our API.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Homeowners Hub, a home repair concierge, is testing an application where their vendors create a quote in their own Engine Awesome account, which gets updated in the Homeowners Hub account—providing a direct integration between the two companies.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Bruner said the most popular feature is building a CRM with an activity feed. All of the applications these customers have created have various Zapier integrations that provide further automation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The app builder is fairly simple right now but there are many possibilities the Engine Awesome team plans to explore in the future. The current roadmap includes the following planned features:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Direct eCommerce functionality</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Integrated scheduling and booking</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Templates so users can get up and running quickly</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Front-end forms</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enterprise features</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It is exciting to see the block editor being used outside of WordPress but Bruner said Engine Awesome also plans on having a WordPress plugin that would deliver some of its functionality. The plugin specifics have not yet been nailed down, but the team is considering connecting WordPress sites to Engine Awesome to sync data. For example, WooCommerce customers could automatically be added to an Engine Awesome CRM. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Down the road, we may include a version of the application builder in WordPress itself,&#8221; Bruner said. &#8220;Right now our focus is on making the SaaS product the best it can be.&#8221;</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 31 Jan 2023 22:53:49 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"WPTavern: WordPress Contributors Work Towards Removing Site Editor Beta Label for 6.2 Release\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141527\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:104:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-contributors-work-towards-removing-site-editor-beta-label-for-6-2-release\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3130:\"<img />\n\n\n\n<p>Will WordPress be ready to remove the Beta label from the Site Editor in the upcoming 6.2 release? The project&#8217;s Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy addressed this question in her latest WP Briefing podcast episode titled &#8220;<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\">What Does Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Mean?</a>&#8220;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;All of the projects, with the exception of two, I believe, in the <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33094\">Phase 2 scoping ticket</a>, will be shipped in the Gutenberg plugin before [the] WordPress 6.2 release comes out,&#8221; Haden Chomphosy said. &#8220;Barring any major breaking issues, those will then land in that major release in WordPress 6.2. So 99% of the features we considered in scope for Phase 2 will be in core by April.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haden Chomphosy also mentioned the possibility of removing the Beta label from the Site Editor, if a specific set of conditions are met. She referenced the <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/39293\">tracking issue</a> created in March 2022, that outlines the most critical remaining items in Phase 2 that must be completed before removing the label, as well as a few other follow-up items that are related but less critical to resolve before taking it out of Beta.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We’ve been discussing that possibility with the input of the community over the course of the last few major releases, and we’ll do the same as we get ready for the 6.2 release as well,&#8221; she said.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Fingers crossed that we get to remove that label this time around, but also, the acceptance criteria on it are pretty clear. So it’s really a matter of yes or no on all of the columns all the way down.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contributors have been aiming to get the Beta label removed since 6.1 but the criteria had not yet been met. The current blockers include a <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/35503\">ticket to improve the Site Editor loading state</a> so that everything is fully loaded before users start interacting, removing the jumpiness of half-rendered states. This item was added to the Todo column of the remaining <a href=\"https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/63\">WordPress 6.2 Editor Tasks</a> project board.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haden Chomphosy assured podcast listeners that the conclusion of Phase 2 does not mean that WordPress will stop accepting user feedback or bug reports on customization features. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It definitely does not mean that we will stop shipping refinements to the user experience,&#8221; she said. &#8220;As much as I’d like to say this isn’t true, I think all open source contributors know that no matter how much you test a solution, you can’t actually account for all possible use cases when you work on a project this size.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;So as we find things that we didn’t realize were a little rough to use, we will, of course, make the effort to smooth those workflows as quickly as possible.&#8221;</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 30 Jan 2023 22:50:54 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:61:\"WPTavern: WordPress Launches Old Tickets Trac Triage Sessions\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141509\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:72:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-launches-old-tickets-trac-triage-sessions\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3212:\"<p>As part of the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-project-aims-to-complete-customization-phase-and-begin-exploring-collaboration-in-2023\">big picture goals for WordPress in 2023</a>, the project is embarking on an effort to work through old tickets that are stuck due to no consensus, missing decisions, or multiple possible solutions. WordPress Core Committer Jb Audras has organized <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/24/proposal-old-tickets-trac-triage-sessions/\">Trac triage sessions</a> dedicated to moving these tickets forward or closing the ones that are no longer relevant.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Audras&#8217; audit shows that there are <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&time=05%2F06%2F2003..01%2F01%2F2008&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&order=priority\">19 tickets</a> that are more than 15 years old, <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&time=05%2F06%2F2003..01%2F01%2F2013&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&order=priority\">688</a> that are 10 years old, but the largest chunk of <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&time=05%2F06%2F2003..01%2F01%2F2018&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&order=priority\">3,484</a> tickets falls into the 5-10 year old category.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first kickoff session was held on January 26 in the #core Slack channel. Contributors started with a small selection of very old tickets with the goal of identifying a path towards resolution and an owner for the ticket. This generated some renewed discussion, for example, on a 17-year-old ticket where “<a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2691\">HTML comments in posts aren’t handled properly</a>&#8221; and another of the same age regarding an <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2877\">unwanted slash in&nbsp;<code>get_pagenum_link()</code></a>.&nbsp; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In some cases tickets were closed and in others contributors are working on reproducing the issue, testing, and refreshing patches where possible. One 13-year-old ticket, which <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14148\">fixes the wp_get_attachment_url() function not returning a valid URL if the filename contains unescaped URL characters</a>, was added to the 6.2 milestone with a PR awaiting review. Some tickets require deep historical knowledge of WordPress and will benefit from having participation from veteran contributors.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next “Classic” triage session will happen in the #core Slack channel on <a href=\"https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20230209T1500\">Thursday, February 9, 2023 at 10:00 AM EST</a>. Anyone who wants to be part of finding a resolution for some of these old tickets is invited to join. Participants in the kickoff session also discussed alternating between very old and very new tickets, which are often easier for getting newer contributors involved.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 30 Jan 2023 18:06:18 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:96:\"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 48: What Does Concluding a Gutenberg Phase Really Mean?\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=14213\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:97:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/episode-48-what-does-concluding-a-gutenberg-phase-really-mean/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8724:\"<p>On episode forty-eight of the WordPress Briefing podcast, Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy reflects on the closing of Gutenberg phase two, and what that means in the larger context of the project. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Have a question you&#8217;d like answered? You can submit them to <a href=\"mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org\">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Credits</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Editor:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/\">Dustin Hartzler</a><br />Logo:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/javiarce/\">Javier Arce</a><br />Production:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/santanainniss/\">Santana Inniss</a><br />Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Show Notes</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/39293&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1674835876639227&usg=AOvVaw3p5tCc9THqs-s4oFT7aXL8\">Removing Block Editor Beta Label GitHub Issue</a><br /><a href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/testing/reporting-bugs/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1674835876639741&usg=AOvVaw26y93yfwo7kmKoajxvyYQC\">Reporting Bugs</a><br /><a href=\"https://www.make.wordpress.org/design\">make.wordpress.org/design</a><br /><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/09/request-for-feedback-how-can-we-improve-the-five-for-the-future-contributor-journey/\">Contribution Conversations: Improving the Contributor Journey</a><br /><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/27/discussion-ending-the-eternal-september/\">Contribution Conversations: Ending the Eternal September</a><br /><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/01/20/proposal-dedicated-communication-place-for-wordcamp-mentors/\">Contribution Conversations: WordCamp Mentorship</a><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/01/27/discussion-ending-the-eternal-september/\"><br /></a><a href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/livestream/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1674835876640083&usg=AOvVaw1ew_7Sux2HngWq8FSO__kW\">WordCamp Asia Livestream Info</a><br /></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Transcript</h2>\n\n\n\n<span id=\"more-14213\"></span>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m your host, Jospeha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:40]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve barely gotten moving here in 2023, but even so, WordPress is already working toward its next major release– coming to us at the end of March. You&#8217;ve probably heard by now that with this release comes the “end of Phase 2.” But for a lot of folks, that&#8217;s raising some questions about what to expect.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:00]&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m gonna spend a little time today sharing what I currently know. Let&#8217;s start with what that phrase does mean. Firstly, all of the projects, with the exception of two, I believe, in the Phase 2 scoping ticket, will be shipped in the Gutenberg plugin before WordPress 6.2 release comes out. Barring any major breaking issues, those will then land in that major release in WordPress 6.2.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, like, 99% of the features we considered in scope for Phase 2 will be in core by April. It also means the block editor may finally shed its beta label. We&#8217;ve been discussing that possibility with the input of the community over the course of the last few major releases, and we&#8217;ll do the same as we get ready for the 6.2 release as well. That discussion is tracked over in GitHub, and I can share a link to that in the show notes. For anyone who is a little super nerd, like me, the ticket number is 39293.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>So not only if you&#8217;re going to memorize it and be one of those cool WordPressers who can call tickets to mind based on the numbers. This is a good one because not only is it an important topic, to be able to recall, but also it&#8217;s a palindrome, so you get to be fancy and know that forever.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But anyway, I&#8217;ll put a link to it in the show notes for all the rest of us. Fingers crossed that we get to remove that label this time around, but also, the acceptance criteria on it are pretty clear. So it&#8217;s really a matter of yes or no on all of the columns all the way down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what does that phase <em>not</em> mean? Firstly, it does not mean that we will stop accepting user feedback or bug reports on any features up to this point. It is always encouraged to file a ticket on track or GitHub detailing any bugs that you&#8217;ve encountered. If you&#8217;ve never reported a bug before, don&#8217;t worry. We have all been there. I&#8217;ll gather a link or two with some information for first-timers.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you ever run into me at a WordCamp, feel free to ask me about my first bug-reporting experience. And after you&#8217;ve heard that, you will immediately go and file that bug that has been sitting screenshotted on your desk for six months because it honestly cannot get any worse than my first one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secondly, it definitely does not mean that we will stop shipping refinements to the user experience. As much as I&#8217;d like to say this isn&#8217;t true, I think all open source contributors know that no matter how much you test a solution, you can&#8217;t actually account for all possible use cases when you work on a project this size.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So as we find things that we didn&#8217;t realize were a little rough to use, we will, of course, make the effort to smooth those workflows as quickly as possible. So that&#8217;s my little reassuring tl;dr for what that phrase means. If you are listening to this and haven&#8217;t spent much time in the block editor as it exists today, I encourage you to do so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has really changed substantially since it was first merged in 2018, and it represents thousands of hours of research and problem-solving and creation, and outreach. If you know someone who has contributed to the project or whose content helped you make sense of some inscrutable part of it, also maybe, drop them a line and let them know you appreciate their hard work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:26]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>That brings us now to our small list of big things. Firstly, we are thinking a lot right now about the paths to contribution. Both at the start of your contribution journey and as you grow into a long-term, seasoned contributor. There are a couple of different discussions related to that right now. So there are actually two project-wide discussions that are on make.wordpress.org/project.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there&#8217;s one that is specific to WordCamp membership, and that is on make.wordpress.org/community. You can head over to any of those and share your experiences, thoughts, and any wild ideas that you have.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second thing on my small list is that there are a lot of pages across wordpress.org that are getting shiny new designs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to get involved in those discussions, or you just wanna catch early previews of what&#8217;s coming to the site, you can hop over to make.wordpress.org/design or join the design team meetings in Slack.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the last thing is that WordCamp Asia is coming quickly, my friends. This event is near and dear to my heart. I hope to see a lot of you in person, but if you won&#8217;t be able to make it in person, we still have you covered. There will be a live stream, and the schedule for that is already on the site. It shows the times for each session in your local time zone so you can easily decide which presentations you absolutely must see right in the moment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:00]&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.</p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 30 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Santana Inniss\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:110:\"Gutenberg Times: Advanced Query Loop , WordPress 6.2, Find Your Style and Gutenberg 15.0—Weekend Edition 242\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=23234\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:116:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/advanced-query-loop-wordpress-6-2-find-your-style-and-gutenberg-15-0-weekend-edition-242/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:20773:\"<p>Howdy, </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Winter came to Bavaria just in time for me to enjoy it. Or Not. It took me week, to not be cold all the time. How are you doing with Winter in your area? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today&#8217;s round-up includes the schedule and the release squad for the next major WordPress release, planned for March 28, version 6.2. Beta 1 and Feature Freeze is next week (Feb 7th) with Gutenberg plugin release version 15.1. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next Friday, February 3rd, Nick Diego and I will record episode 79 of the Gutenberg Changelog. We will chat about the latest two releases of the Gutenberg plugin and also what&#8217;s in-store for WordPress 6.2 in broader strokes. If you have questions, send them to us at <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a> and we will answer them in the show, and if you are ok with it, we&#8217;ll mention you by name, too. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now without further Ado, the news around the block editor from the last two weeks. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a wonderful weekend! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost\"><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-s\">Upcoming WordPress events</a><ul><li><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-l\">Learn WordPress Online Meetups</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In her article: <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-project-aims-to-complete-customization-phase-and-begin-exploring-collaboration-in-2023\"><strong>WordPress Project Aims to Complete Customization Phase and Begin Exploring Collaboration in 2023</strong></a>, <strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> discusses the Big Goals for 2023, Josepha Haden Chomsphosy posted on the Make Blog earlier this month. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://twitter.com/michaelburridge\">Michael Burridge</a></strong> was the lead for the Gutenberg 15.0 plugin release. He highlighted in the release post <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/\"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 15.0? (18 January)</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/#tabs-experiment-stabilized\">The Block inspector tabs experiment has been stabilized</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/#paste-styles\">The “Paste styles” option was added to the block settings</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/#block-style-variations\">Edit block style variations from global styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/#images-constrained\">Images constrained to their containers</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/#sticky-position\">New “Sticky” Position block support</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> wrote <strong><a href=\"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-15-0-introduces-sticky-position-block-support-adds-paste-styles-option\">Gutenberg 15.0 Introduces “Sticky” Position Block Support, Adds “Paste Styles” Option</a>.</strong> The release also marks the end of the block inspector tabs experiment, which is now stabilized in the plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<p><strong>🎙️ </strong> New episode:  <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-79-wordpress-6-2-gutenberg-plugin-versions-15-0-and-15-1/\">Gutenberg Changelog #79 – WordPress 6.2, Gutenberg plugin versions 15.0 and 15.1</a> with Birgit Pauli-Haack and special guest Nick Diego </p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/01/16/fse-program-running-through-refinements-summary/\"><strong>FSE Program Running Through Refinements Summary</strong></a>, with the outcomes from the 19th call for testing. &#8220;Feedback for all the tested features was generally positive with folks able to see how what’s being worked on unites and moves forward the Site Editor experience. As always, there were also noted bugs, feature requests, and areas of refinement that mostly matched either current priorities or previously reported items, underscoring where the experience needs to move towards. &#8221; she wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hector Prieto</strong> finalized the schedule and the release squad for WordPress 6.2 in his post <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/17/wordpress-6-2-planning-roundup/\"><strong>WordPress 6.2 Planning Roundup</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Beta 1 is scheduled to be released February 7th, 2023</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Release candidate 1 will escape into the world on March 7, 2023</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Final release is scheduled of March 28, 2023. </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>if you want to follow along on the release squad communication you can lurk in their public channel on the WordPress Make Slack <a href=\"https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C04JZ199XPG\"><strong>#6-2-release-leads</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dave Smith</strong> published a behind-the-scenes view on the new editing experience for the Navigation block. Watch how this all came about and how the list view experience will solve previous problems. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAxn8AhFcLs\"><strong>Easier Nav block Editing for WordPress 6.2</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Munir Kamal </strong>wrote a tutorial on <a href=\"https://gutenberghub.com/how-to-create-google-web-stories-on-wordpress-website/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>How to Create Google Web Stories on WordPress Website</strong></a>. AMP Stories were <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQ0Uyvem_c\">all the rave in 2019. </a>Three year&#8217;s later AMP is no more, but you can still take advantage of the incredible mobile  interface for Web stories. Kamal showed you how using the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/web-stories/\">Google Web stories plugin</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/01/24/patterns-reusable-blocks-and-block-locking/\"><strong>Patterns, Reusable Blocks and Block Locking </strong></a>is the title of <strong>Wes Theron</strong>&#8216;s workshop to Learn WordPress. He explored using block patterns, creating and editing reusable blocks and utilizing the block locking features. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his post <a href=\"https://torquemag.io/2023/01/best-wordpress-gutenberg-blocks/\"><strong>8 Best WordPress Gutenberg Blocks (And How to Use Them)</strong></a>, <strong><a href=\"https://twitter.com/nschaeferhoff\">Nick Schäferhoff</a></strong>, show you first how to add blocks to your post pages and work with the Inserter. Then he takes a deeper dive on eight powerful WordPress core blocks, the query loop block and the fairly new post template blocks. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Carolina Nymark</strong> shows you the tutorial <a href=\"https://fullsiteediting.com/background-image/\"><strong>How to add a background image or background video with full site editing</strong></a> in 4 steps. &#8220;Adding a background image using the Customizer was a single step process. In the Site Editor you have more options to choose from, for example duotone and opacity.&#8221; Nymark wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/01/11/fse-program-testing-call-20-find-your-style/\"><strong>20th Call for testing via the FSE Outreach program</strong></a> takes you through the latest features of the Gutenberg plugin (15.0). This time you come from a classic theme and switch to Twenty-Twenty Three theme, and test the migration of widgets and menus with the new features. <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> will collect all your feedback and summarize the outcome. Deadline is<strong> February 1st, 2023.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are a bit unsure if you can do it, follow along with <strong>Courtney Robertson</strong> and <strong>Sarah Snow</strong>, who did a walk through the call for testing in this video: <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/01/27/courtney-robertson-sarah-snow-call-for-testing-find-your-style/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Courtney Robertson, Sarah Snow: Call For Testing: Find Your Style</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/wpebuilders\"><strong>WPEngine Builders</strong></a> tweeted: The <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/\">WordPress Developer Blog</a> is a treasure chest of knowledge for those who want to build block themes and leverage new settings for the editor. Here’s an example that’s super useful and can result in beautiful things. <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/01/using-the-box-shadow-feature-for-themes/\"><strong>Using the box shadow feature for themes</strong></a> by <strong>Justin Tadlock.</strong> </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nick Schäferhoff </strong>took the latest WordPress default theme for a spin and published his review in <a href=\"https://torquemag.io/2023/01/twenty-twenty-three-theme-review-flexible-and-community-driven/\"><strong>Twenty Twenty-Three Theme Review: Flexible and Community Driven</strong></a>. The difference between previous default themes and Twenty-Twenty Three is &#8216;an intense focus on community involvement.&#8217; Schäferhoff took a closer look at some key features of this theme. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In this video, <strong>Jonathan Bossenger</strong> talks you through <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2023/01/27/using-theme-json-with-classic-themes/\"><strong>using theme.json with classic&nbsp;themes</strong></a>.  The theme.json is a file that allows block theme developers to control the settings and styles of the blocks in the Editor. In this video, you’re going to learn what happens when you add a theme.json file to a classic theme.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>During this week&#8217;s Twitch livestream, <strong>Daisy Olsen</strong> covered the fourth part of <strong>Building a Starter Block Theme</strong> series: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-GhY6R4AQE\"><strong>Presets in theme.json</strong></a>.  &#8220;In this video, we have many technical difficulties and a look at how to add Theme Supports to control which block style controls are available for content creators and site editors.&#8221; Olsen wrote. Hey it&#8217;s a live stream! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The previous parts of the series &#8220;<strong>Building a Starter Block Theme</strong>&#8221; are: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Part 3: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJZtaVViuBw\"><strong>Theme Supports in theme.json</strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Part 2: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tld0hTINPPk\"><strong>Index template, singular template, Header and Footer parts</strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Part 1:  <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZslURB8tos\"><strong>Local Development, Create Block Theme Plugin, Code Review</strong></a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> covered a myriad of topics in his latest livestream recording. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xZgpngqslc\"><strong>Gutenberg 14.9 | Advanced Query Loop | WordPress Tutorial</strong></a>. He looked at some WordPress developer-focused changes in the Gutenberg 14.9 release. Welcher also added the ability to query multiple post types in his <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-query-loop/\"><em>Advance Query Loop plugin</em></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/carlodaniele\"><strong>Carlo Daniele</strong></a> wrote a tutorial to teach developers <strong><a href=\"https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-add-meta-box-to-post/\">How To Add Meta Boxes and Custom Fields To Posts in Gutenberg</a>.</strong> &#8220;If you’re a developer and want to get more out of WordPress custom fields, integrate them seamlessly into the block editor, and display them on the frontend of your WordPress website using a custom Gutenberg block, then you’re in the right place.&#8221; Daniele wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dean Sas</strong>, JavaScript wrangler at Automattic, invites developers to learn about  &#8220;<a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/01/some-very-cool-things-can-happen-when-you-hit-enter-in-a-block/\"><strong>Some very cool things can happen when you hit Enter in a block</strong></a>. You’re writing a list in the editor, and you hit Enter and automatically, you get another bullet point! If you&#8217;d like to make your own blocks to do something like that, Sas&#8217;  article helps you with. It will probably make more sense to you if you’ve written some blocks before. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To get started developing with blocks, see the Learn WordPress course: <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/course/introduction-to-block-development-build-your-first-custom-block/\">Introduction to Block Development: Build your first custom block</a></em></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress blocks have come a long way since Gutenberg was first released as part of WordPress 5.0 in 2018. Special guest: <strong>Nick Diego</strong> fills you in on the latest episode of Delicious Brain Waves <a href=\"https://podcast.deliciousbrains.com/podcasts/49745/episodes/episode-16-unlocking-the-power-of-wordpress-blocks\"><strong>Episode 16 &#8211; Unlocking the Power of WordPress Blocks</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://twitter.com/KristinCodesWP\">Kristin Falkne</a>r</strong> is a freelance web developer specializing in fully custom WordPress sites. In her article, <a href=\"https://wpfieldwork.com/utilizing-patterns-vs-building-custom-acf-blocks/\"><strong>Utilizing Patterns vs. Building Custom ACF Blocks</strong></a>, Falkner describes her journey from ACF blocks to creating block patterns with WordPress core blocks. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"5-s\">Upcoming WordPress events</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>February 4 + 5, 2023</strong><br /><a href=\"https://birmingham.wordcamp.org/\"><strong>WordCamp Birmingham, AL</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>February 17 – 19, 2023</strong><br /><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2023/\"><strong>WordCamp Asia 2023</strong></a>&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>March 21, 2023<br /><a href=\"https://events.wpengine.com/event/b1c1e30f-2c73-4abb-a609-52afaed68717/websitePage:efdb2b4b-9c33-43ea-8831-a841975fef2c\"><strong>WP Engine is hosting DE{CODE}</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><em><a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/schedule/\"><strong>Check the schedule of WordCamp Central</strong></a>&nbsp;of upcoming WordCamps near you.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-l\">Learn WordPress Online Meetups</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>January 31, 2023 – 3pm ET / 20:00 UTC<br /><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/290414181/\"><strong>Creating a photography website with the block editor</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>February 3, 2023 &#8211; 3 am ET / 8am UTC<br /><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/290971392/\"><strong>Let’s make custom templates in the Site Editor!</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>February 3, 2023 &#8211;  10:30 ET / 15:30 UTC<br /><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/fhqnbtyfcdbfb/\"><strong>Block Themes and WordPress: Live Stream</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>February 7, 2023  &#8211; 22:00 ET / 3 am UTC<br /><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/290414689/\"><strong>APAC: Creating a photography website with the block editor</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>February 7, 2023 &#8211; 15:00 ET / 20:00 UTC <br /><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/291094663/\"><strong>Builder Basics: Adding Custom CSS to Block Themes</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/\"><strong>More events are scheduled via the Meetup group</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/363c5fcac7/\">Colorful Candy Dispensers</a> by Chris Edwards found on WordPress.org/photos</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<form class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input type=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" name=\"ngl_email\" id=\"ngl_email\" /></div></div><button type=\"submit\" class=\"ngl-form-button\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" id=\"ngl_list_id\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" id=\"ngl_double_optin\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 28 Jan 2023 08:08:10 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:87:\"WPTavern: Open Source Initiative and OpenLogic Release 2023 State of Open Source Report\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"https://wptavern.com/?p=141467\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:98:\"https://wptavern.com/open-source-initiative-and-openlogic-release-2023-state-of-open-source-report\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:2931:\"<p><a href=\"https://www.openlogic.com/\">OpenLogic</a>, a company that provides technical support for enterprise open source infrastructure, and the <a href=\"https://opensource.org/\">Open Source Initiative</a> (OSI), the nonprofit stewards of the <a href=\"https://opensource.org/docs/osd\">Open Source Definition (OSD)</a> have published the <a href=\"https://www.openlogic.com/resources/2023-state-open-source-report\">2023 State of Open Source Report</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The annual vender-neutral survey received 872 qualified responses from people in more than 20 major industries. Responses indicate that open source adoption continues to grow, as 80% of organizations reported increasing the use of OSS over the past year. The industries where open source adoption increased significantly include oil and gas, telecommunications, and energy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked which categories of open source are being used or evaluated in their organizations, more  than 32% of respondents said they are using open source software development life cycle tools, containers and container orchestration tech, and databases. Open source content management systems, a new category this year, have been adopted by more than 21% of respondents. One interesting finding is that usage of open source security tools has declined from 22% last year to 15.94%.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One question of the survey aimed to identify the reasons why organizations choose open source software and respondents could select more than one answer. The variety of reasons with no particular standouts indicates that organizations have many diverse and important factors that drive them to using open source software, which may not be easy to predict based on industry or organization size.</p>\n\n\n\n<img />\n\n\n\n<p>The top four challenges organizations reported in supporting open source software include maintaining security policies or compliance (41.97%), lack of skills, experience, or proficiency (37.50%), keeping up with updates and patches (36.70%), and lack of low level technical support (36.47%).</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.openlogic.com/success/2023-state-open-source-report\">Download the free report</a> to get a more detailed look at the top open source infrastructure technologies, frameworks, and data technologies. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perforce OSS Evangelist Javier Perez and OSI Executive Director Stefano Maffulli will be discussing the findings on February 16th in a live webinar. They will be highlighting the most popular OSS used today, key challenges, how it varies by industry, region, and company size, and the latest trends for this year. <a href=\"https://www.openlogic.com/resources/events/2023-open-source-report-analysis?region=north-america&utm_medium=content&utm_source=press-release&utm_campaign=OPL-GLB-2023Q1-CON-StateofOpenSource&utm_content=resource&utm_term=false&utm_adgroup=false&utm_leadsource=false#north-america\">Registration</a> is free. </p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 27 Jan 2023 04:12:53 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"Sarah Gooding\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:89:\"Post Status: The WP Agency Journey With Mario Peshev Of DevriX  — Post Status Draft 138\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:32:\"https://poststatus.com/?p=146731\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:95:\"https://poststatus.com/the-wp-agency-journey-with-mario-peshev-of-devrix-post-status-draft-138/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:57798:\"<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\"><div class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\">In this episode, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/no_fear_inc\">Mario Peshev</a>, founder of <a href=\"https://devrix.com/\">DevriX,</a> joins Cory Miller to discuss WordPress retainers, entrepreneurship, and the future of WordPress. Mario encourages agency owners to chase recurring revenue to build in the freedom to do quality work with the capacity to lead into your future vision for your business. </p></div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper\"></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"yoast-reading-time__wrapper\"><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__icon\"></span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__spacer\"></span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text\">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__reading-time\">40</span><span class=\"yoast-reading-time__time-unit\"> minutes</span></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript\">Transcript</a> ↓</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/no_fear_inc\">Mario Peshev</a> had an interest in technology from childhood. After working as a software developer, he transitioned into WordPress and founded his own agency, <a href=\"https://devrix.com/\">DevriX</a>. They coined the term “WordPress retainer.” It is the mantra fueling their operations and one they hope other agencies will adopt. He joins Cory Miller to dive deep into the how and why of WordPress retainers, sharing his experience and his hopes for the future of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>WordPress Retainers:</strong> Business doesn’t have to be feast or famine. Several other industries utilize retainers because they provide consistent revenue and secure client commitment for ongoing work. The entire world is living around monthly costs. Not aligning your service-based business with that model is counterintuitive. Essentially it is just selling hours in bulk, turning services into products. Allotting 10% for project management while using the rest to prioritize and execute projects. The longevity and security enable you to plan, diversify, hire well and grow.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Learn How the Sausage is Made:</strong> If you want to start your own business, work in a similar business for a few years. Learn what it takes to operate, what roles are needed, and how the pipeline works. Work with bosses, teams, and clients to learn how you want to build and operate once you’re on your own.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Increase Adoption by Building Simplification</strong>: Many of us started in WordPress because of the famous 5-minute install, and any design could become a theme. It was easy, but now building on other platforms is actually easier. WP needs to create tools to solve for this in order to increase adoption by younger generations.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-18 wp-block-columns sponsor has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background\" id=\"StellarWP\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<h3 class=\"StellarWP has-theme-palette-1-color has-text-color\" id=\"Sponsor\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png\" alt=\"🙏\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Sponsor: <span><a href=\"https://poststat.us/elementor\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow\">Elementor</a></span></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Elementor </strong>enables web creators to build professional, pixel-perfect websites with an intuitive visual builder. Quickly create amazing websites for your clients or your business with complete control over every piece, without writing a single line of code. Join <a href=\"https://elementor.com/community/\">a vast community of web creators</a> from all around the world who deliver exceptional websites using Elementor.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-top\"><div class=\"wp-block-image elementor-logo\">\n<img src=\"https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Elementor-Logo-Symbol-Blue-150x150.png\" alt=\"Elementor\" class=\"wp-image-104033\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" title=\"Elementor Logo\" />Elementor</div></div>\n</div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-mentioned-in-the-show\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png\" alt=\"🔗\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://mariopeshev.com/\">Mario Peshev</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://devrix.com/\">DevriX</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.oracle.com/\">Oracle</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.java.com/en/\">Java</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.blogger.com/about/?bpli=1\">Blogger</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.livejournal.com/\">Live Journal</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.hubspot.com/\">HubSpot</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://reactjs.org/\">React</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://nitropack.io/\">NitroPack</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://angel.co/\">Angel List</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.envato.com/\">Envato</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.sap.com/index.html\">SAP</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.vmware.com/\">VMware</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.home.cern/\">Cern</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.home.cern/\">Hadron Collider Company</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.unicef.org/\">Unicef</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.jango.com/\">Jango</a>&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.python.org/\">Python</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.figma.com/\">Figma</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://elementor.com/\">Elementor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://ghost.org/\">Ghost</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://fediverse.info/\">Fediverse</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter\"><img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png\" alt=\"🐦\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"eplus-wrapper\">\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/no_fear_inc\">Mario Peshev</a> (CEO, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/WPDevriX\">DevriX</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/corymiller303\">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://twitter.com/lemonadecode\">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/post_status\">Post Status</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"eplus-wrapper has-background\">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png\" alt=\"📝\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /><br /><br /><a href=\"https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes</a>, <a href=\"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube</a>, <a href=\"http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stitcher</a>, <a href=\"https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Simplecast</a>, or <a href=\"https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P\">RSS</a>. <img src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png\" alt=\"🎧\" class=\"wp-smiley\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"eplus-wrapper\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey everybody. Welcome back to Post Tennis Draft. This is another interview in our series of agency journeys, and I&#8217;m talking to my friend Mario, uh, who lives over in Europe. I&#8217;ve got to meet him a couple times in person, but you probably have seen his work online. He&#8217;s very active and vocal and does great work in the WordPress land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, passionate contributor. Um, and Ward Preser. So, Mario, thanks for coming on and, and, uh, sharing your journey of, uh, Debs and your personal journey related to that. Hey, Corey, thanks for having me. Anto, uh, you know, having a great time joining you and everyone else on post status. Um, okay. So tell us, tell us, uh, who, how you got started with WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tell us a little bit about your work, not just your agency, but like your work and your start with WordPress. Yeah, absolutely. So I&#8217;ve been, I&#8217;ve been toying with computers ever since I was probably nine. I actually built, [00:01:00] well, maybe since I was six. I built my first website, uh, back in 1999. It was still a static website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was a fan of Pokemon, so I built a Pocket X, which was kind of the, the main thing that kept me busy with H C Ss. Uh, then fast forward, it spent a few just trying to kind of, you know, freelance as a kid, pretty much just in my teen years or so. Uh, and. And I&#8217;m kind of just moving towards this digital, uh, field of like software development and web development and everything else.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was kind of back on the market, my trajectory and kind of my, uh, you know, background and career in college and so forth were also related to software engineering, like high school and college. Like university were kind of in that same realm of informatics. Uh, so it wasn&#8217;t, it didn&#8217;t come as, uh, surprise to me that WordPress is pretty aligned with kind of what I want to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was still a cms. We&#8217;re kind of a. Web application framework or anything along those lines. Uh, so unlike other people that I&#8217;ve, I&#8217;ve been working with back in the day, most of them were, uh, either writers using [00:02:00] WordPress just as kind of bloggers, uh, you know, uh, or let&#8217;s say designers who needed kind of a software infrastructure to start building websites on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And kind of the reason I got passionate about WordPress was I was actually coming from the other side of the fence. I was coming from the perspective of, uh, enterprise grade software. Right back in the day, I was already spending, uh, you know, several years building Java software and.net. I was certified, uh, son afterwards, Oracle, Java, uh, software developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and kind of most of what I was doing, uh, at my day job was actually building enterprise projects for, uh, telecoms, for banks, for kind of multinational stores like, you know, the Walmart of the world, uh, which. Pretty hardcore, pretty complicated, but at the same time, things were moving really, really, really slow, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To build a feature, you need four months and a team of 40 people, usually in kind of three different offices, just kind of building specifications and nowy and stuff, and, and honestly, I was getting bored, [00:03:00] right? It, it, it just didn&#8217;t move fast enough. I&#8217;m more of a startup person. It&#8217;s about velocity. It&#8217;s about moving fast, uh, and, and kind of, WordPress was a software I stumbled upon that was pretty, pretty quick to get started with and, and then start building on top of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, uh, kind of to sum it up, it&#8217;s probably moving from the enterprise world to how can we build rapid applications? How can we stop reinventing the wheel and going through several different phases of that. Like, I, you know, moved from Java to P H P, then from different frameworks like Coding Nire and K P H P and other frameworks in different languages.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two, WordPress as kind of a side builder. Again, application framework and then building on top of that, uh, this kind of went through different iterations, right? It was more like, Hey, you have a touchpoint to, for press ones like a couple months later, another one, a couple months later, another one. And then at some point it just starts pulling you in, like due to the community, the flexibility, the, the, the promise of better platform, [00:04:00] uh, and everything else.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, um, yeah, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s probably more or less kind of how I got put in, in terms of a timeline. Um, backing maybe. 2006, I was working in a media group and they were building their own blogging network. Um, and, and I was also part of the research team of other alternatives like, um, you know, blogger and WordPress of course, and live journal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there were a few other platforms living out there. And WordPress has always been standing as the kind of, the two that was most promising, had. Famous, uh, five Minute in Install. And, uh, the, the massive flexibility compared to say, Jumo and dpo, other competitors on the market, the ability to, to turn ev any single design into a living breeding website, uh, winning lots of awards like c s s awards and so forth due to all of that flexibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So just, just kind of the system that&#8217;s really headed. All right. Uh, and, you know, starting with that, spending some time as a boger and. [00:05:00] Couple websites for clients as a, you know, freelancer. Uh, then, you know, working for myself and using different systems until eventually I decided to drop everything else I was doing and just, uh, spend a hundred percent of my time and effort into WordPress itself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Excellent. So thank you for that background. That&#8217;s awesome. Going through enterprise software and then I love the stories I hear all the time about. Being six years old, 10 years old, whatever it is, you know, and doing cool stuff. Um, okay, so that brought us to WordPress and, um, so today, where are you, uh, at Devex?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tell us a little bit about devex, the agency, um, and your work there. And then after that we&#8217;re gonna talk about your journey to get, to get where you are today. But right now I just wanna talk about where are you at today with DevX and what are you doing with WordPress and. Yeah, absolutely. So first off, as disclaimer, I do run [00:06:00] different initiatives right now and you know, dev is the main one, but I also kind of participate in other businesses which do acquire media website to work on SaaS solutions and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s kind of a broader suite in itself. Uh, but it started Dev, I think 13 years ago, and it was kind of the natural continuation of my, uh, first of. Career as a software engineer, then full-time freelancing, then growing full-time freelancing into the type of business that, that actually makes sense as an agency business.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right? Uh, so we started right at the beginning of the recession, by the way, which is another, uh, probably interesting fact simply, To the time we are living in right now. Uh, and for, for anyone who happens to be just starting right now, I actually think the translations are the best possible time to start a business, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s the crappiest possible moment. You get no support, no funding, no clients. Everyone else is like, nobody&#8217;s opening your door. Nobody has free cash and stuff. If you, if you can survive. [00:07:00] For the next like six to eight to 10 years. Uh, it, it&#8217;s only going to get easier. Like there&#8217;s no harder moment than starting your recession.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So like literally the best possible time to start right now if you just wanna survive the next 10 years. Uh, so again, right now we are around, I dunno, 50 people or so. Our main focus is, uh, WordPress retainers, which we completely turned to in 20 14, 20 15. We actually coined the term WordPress retainers, and this is kind of our main, uh, mantra.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My, our main, our main way of living, this is what we believe in this, is we believe that we provide the highest possible quality as retainers has possible attention to detail and, and everything else for our clients. Um, I&#8217;ve, you know, spent a lot of. You know, talking about retainers, even at Word camps and other events, I&#8217;m more than happy to just, you know, offload that model to everyone else in the market because I believe that this model in itself is the future and everyone else has to adopt retainers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s kind of just, uh, more or less a side [00:08:00] note. So yeah, we are about 50 people right now. Uh, we have our portfolio retainer clients. Some of them started back when we initially launched retainers 20 14, 20 15, like seven, eight years with. Uh, pretty happy. We are growing with them. They&#8217;re growing with us.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, so, so it&#8217;s a pretty sustainable way for us to keep learning more and keep investing in growing existing businesses, not just providing development services, but helping them, uh, scale and accelerate and go through different business challenges. So, okay, let&#8217;s talk about the retainers. What kind of work and what kind of.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, are we talking about with this? So I get the, uh, idea of a retainer, um, being able to retain your services on an ongoing basis. I think there&#8217;s a bunch of benefits obviously around that, but what kinda work are you doing with those re retainers? Well, and that&#8217;s a great question, and our retain. Vary due to the fact that different clients look for [00:09:00] different things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And interestingly enough, even though development like design development is kind of the main thing that we do, uh, we do provide a broader range of services and we have added or evolved some of them over time due to client needs. For instance, we do have a marketing department in-house. We have writers, we have people helping out with seo.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We do have a design team. Uh, we were offering adopt services for several years for publishers, scaling their ad stacks and so forth. Um, speaking of marketing, we used to be a HubSpot agency partner for a while, simply because we had that much demand for marketing, uh, solutions. And kind of when you take a look at the broader suit of this, we keep adding on different things, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Either on the technical side, like let&#8217;s say. React, which we don&#8217;t actively sell, but we still do. Or, uh, you know, DevOps or kind of other activities in terms of monitoring, alerting, integration with third party systems, uh, you know, building with earpieces or anything else on the market or the, the pure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Business, uh, side of [00:10:00] things, which is, um, uh, again, marketing, building funnels, helping out with business models, even kind of price gauging or, or kind of other activities from the marketing segment. And then there&#8217;s purely business where in some cases we literally just get inside of a business and, and help out with, uh, the, the actual kind of product line.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The, the, the production line from, hey, like for example, your e-commerce, let&#8217;s build out. Uh, let&#8217;s make sure you have the right dashboards. Let&#8217;s set up the right KPIs. Let&#8217;s build out your OKRs, right? Like, just make sure we participate in your quarter planning. Let&#8217;s make sure we build out scorecards and then, you know, try to evolve with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s try to, you know, do some data and analytics, data engineering, which we do for some of our plans, right? Uh, to, to make sure we identify needs to, uh, identify new markets, new opportunities, new target audiences, or anything like that. So, so it&#8217;s more of a consultancy than, you know. You know, offloading a one-off offer development due to the fact that we keep working with our [00:11:00] clients for years, years to come, and we spend enough time to understand their business models and just say, Hey, let&#8217;s try to be as helpful as possible in as many areas of work as possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, and this oftentimes it just explores different ways to be helpful for, for our. Excellent. What&#8217;s a wide range of op of services, which is incredible. To really come alongside business or an organization, you can help out in a ton of ways. Um, so how does, how does it work? A new client comes to you all, um, and you, you&#8217;re talking through h how does it they present, okay.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;re coming to you for something and then how, how does it work? You, you, you&#8217;re talking about, okay, this is how we work. We&#8217;re breast retainers. Can you. You know, just that. Mm-hmm. , how that works. Yeah. Uh, to, to oversimplify that, you know, our retainers come at a price tag, right? So, uh, you know, public one is 180 per hour, and to go, of course we have discounts depending on how many [00:12:00] kind of monthly package and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But at the end of the day, we say, Hey, like, based on your budget, we can offer a bulk of ours. And then make sure, like, let&#8217;s say you, you, you buy a 50 hour retainer or a hundred hour retainer, let&#8217;s say 50 hour, right? 10% is project management. You end up with, uh, 45 hours, which is a little bit over 10 hours a week, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we make sure we develop our sprints on a week-to-week basis. Uh, we work with you. We try to have flexibility for stuff that comes up last moment. Uh, and based on kind of your long-term goal, we try to split it into, again, milestones, split that into sprints, and then just work on this one, uh, one piece at a time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this is kind of a K D R essentially. You know, depending on how much you&#8217;re willing to pay ahead of time, that&#8217;s how much time we can invest. And, you know, depending on that, we can figure out what sort of resources are suitable for kind of what you need. Uh, again, that&#8217;s not how we sell it , but this is the simplified explanation of kind of how it works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, and, and then it really depends on kind of what sort, what sort of plan, what sort of project and kind of what sort of initiative, uh, for. [00:13:00] Part due, due to kind of the way we&#8217;re working and we structure our, uh, kind of business. Most clients coming to us are existing businesses generating like 7, 8, 9 figures.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have Fortune one thousands and kind of larger businesses as well. We work with Meta, uh, and so forth. But, uh, in most cases it&#8217;s like at least, you know, seven figure business, uh, with an existing business. That&#8217;s kind of based on digital, right? They&#8217;re, uh, a publisher, a SaaS, uh, B2B leg, a website, a e-commerce, anything that&#8217;s actually making money off of, off of the business is built out, uh, with a kind of crappy code base.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, let&#8217;s say, um, I know, uh, DV plus five sliders plus something crappy on a, you know, $10 per month host or something like that. You know, just, just, uh, several non-ideal compromise. Bundle up together and, and, and, and they understand that they&#8217;re losing money, right? They have a pain point in place. So they started themselves, or they started a freelancer, then they went to a kind of mid tier [00:14:00] agency, uh, that didn&#8217;t really quite help them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then they know they have to pay premium and go to. Really people who profile in that solving complex problems are willing to just retain them for a bunch of different things. And oftentimes while we are doing kind of the initial reviews, assessment, d conversations, whatever it is, we just end up identifying lots of different things that need attention as kind of separate swim lanes, separate verticals, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>User experience. We see that, you know, like, uh, in terms of accessibility, in terms of user experience, in terms of conversion rate optimization, there&#8217;s a lot of work needed. Performance for various reasons. You know, again, US usability or a c or anything else, it is a problem. We do profiling, you know, improving core web vitals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We do partner up with vendors like Nitro Pack, which are kind of turnkey. Uh, get your core web vitals fixed. We have the, the quick solution to stop the bleeding, and we have the, the permanent solution to, to fix the underlying cause, right? Uh, then it goes, you know, uh, Just functional development, then we have design, then we have, [00:15:00] could be different things sometimes against EO analysis.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s restricting content, lots of different areas. So we try to analyze this segment, then figure out what&#8217;s the pain point that the client&#8217;s willing to, or has prioritized, figure out if there are other vendors in the field, like an SEO agency, creative branch agency, anything else. And we try to play in the same kind of playing field, um, in a fair and consistent manner.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Love it, you know. With all that you do and your technical expertise in your team, it, you know, it&#8217;s such a, to me it&#8217;s a risk and it&#8217;s a hard thing to hire somebody full-time to come in to do any of the things that you mentioned. It&#8217;s the workforce we&#8217;re seeing at Post in particular. Um, we&#8217;re hearing it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a tight workforce.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s talented people are always in demand, and I think if I&#8217;m a business and I don&#8217;t focus on doing what you. I&#8217;m trying to run my business over here. I wanna pull in experts that, that worry about that [00:16:00] acquiring talent, training talent, you know, getting them in a process and stuff like that. So I, I love that aspect and I see it more and more with WordPress or agencies of post status.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, okay, before we get to the journey to where you are now, Now I gotta talk about WordPress retainers. I gotta let you go on this because I mean, from a business model standpoint. So the first part was for prospective clients, if you are looking for a great partner in Devex is awesome. Um, and you can see how they work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now I kinda wanna talk about for our other fellow agencies out there and freelancers, um, when you say retainer, I instantly perk it, perk up because it&#8217;s consistent revenue. It allows you to work with good clients. See, you know, committed value, what you&#8217;re doing. And I mean, so many times I talk to agencies and it&#8217;s the feas famine, it&#8217;s up and down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And from a pure business standpoint, I go retainers all the way, subscriptions all the way. Um, but tell me about WordPress retainers. [00:17:00] I wanna let you go on this. Just see, get your thoughts and I&#8217;ll chime in and ask questions. Oh man, I&#8217;m pretty sure I have so much to, to say about retainers. Again, I&#8217;m so passionate about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like, a lot of people just call me crazy, like, do, like, that&#8217;s not the only way, right? People still do one off projects. People still want a fixed food, still look for just, uh, you know, um, $99 maintenance or something like that. Like, so many other opportunities. I&#8217;m like, Nope, everything&#8217;s a retainer. That, that&#8217;s just how my head works, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m so brainwashed at this point. So we can just start a separate, like, uh, you know, post retainers post or whatever, and, and you know, I have. At least a hundred episodes prerecorded for you. Uh, but, but, but really, I mean, we do as an agency and like, not just my agency, but, but like other businesses as well, we do have a legal formal retainer, right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Retainers are fairly popular in the low, uh, kind of field, you know, reviewing contracts and kind of, you know, sending, I know letter of intent or NDAs or whatever. We do have a legal formal retainer. We can&#8217;t get access to a lawyer on time unless you have that. [00:18:00] Uh, we have a c p A, we&#8217;re an accounting firm retainer, and like we work with other business, like a PPC firm retainer or like , gen, DemandGen, whatever it is, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s really not unpopular, right? What I&#8217;m trying to say is we haven&#8217;t reinvented the wheel. We haven&#8217;t kind of invented, like, I know traveling, uh, flying to Mars and then actually flying back to Earth. We haven&#8217;t quite done that. Uh, so it&#8217;s popular in different fields, is what I&#8217;m trying to say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marketing right. Copywriting, Azure reviews, like even brand work, it is essentially retainer. So what, what I saying is most other indu industries have figured it out already. Why haven&#8217;t we, you mentioned the feast and feminists as a very common problem, right? I hate that. I hate the fact that if you don&#8217;t have business close by, let&#8217;s say December 15, you have to wait up until, let&#8217;s say February 1st to start getting some leads.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That sucks. Or December is your busiest way of the month of the year period, simply because everyone wants [00:19:00] everything done by the end of the year. That&#8217;s so common. In the industry that&#8217;s burning people out and making their lives miserable, simply because it&#8217;s based on that seasonality that everyone&#8217;s looking for, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I firmly believe in diversification. I firmly believe in recurring revenue, right? Uh, if I had to start all over, the first thing I would do in a business is just chase recurring revenue as the holy Grail period to rather rise, and probably not even going to get there, just recurring revenue that. Uh, and diversification, like building a business model that&#8217;s not as expensive.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like it&#8217;s not, you have an agency of five people and then you have to get a project with three people full-time, and then you can take another project, or you can only take one or two. And when this project is done, you have no idea what to do after, right? So retainers so. Both the fifth and timing thing due to that recurring plan and long-term planning and the diversification thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And of course it&#8217;s recurring revenue that you can plan around, figure out if there is kind of a payroll to be tackled. It actually helps you out and kind of define [00:20:00] a proper financial modeling of like revenue and profit margins. And again, hiring plans like can you afford to go to an event or sponsor something out does make sense to do PR or like, like lots of opportunities when you know kind of what you&#8217;re making more or less on a monthly basis.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, Yeah, again, probably oversimplifying, but like again, in my head it&#8217;s just retainers and like everything else is, um, like a . Yeah, I totally agree. Um, it, it&#8217;s just better for business when you have that consistent revenue and you&#8217;re not trying to continually go out and allows the business, your business to, to hire good people, retain good people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So like in that scenario, when you&#8217;re hiring a firm like Devex, Um, you&#8217;ve done all the recruiting for that technical talent. You&#8217;ve done all that time and expense that it takes to find good people. And so they don&#8217;t have to do that. They can co concentrate on their core expertise, and it&#8217;s a huge benefit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I, I would [00:21:00] say this too, like I&#8217;m on the bandwagon with you. Um, I, I would say like you should want to. Businesses that have retainers because, you know, there&#8217;s a long, they, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s better for the business. Growth that, that you&#8217;re using with a vital vendor. Um, yeah, so, okay, love that. We&#8217;ll be talking more, we&#8217;ll come back to WordPress retainers cuz I, I agree.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think if more agencies went to that, it could be a net effect to say like, this is how you get consistent quality work. Um, from an agency you can depend on, just like you hire a full-time person, you pay them salary or whatever it is on a consistent basis, it frees them up to focus on what they do best.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, your life is, as you said, like you&#8217;re hiring people. It, it, you know, you pay them on a, like every couple weeks, every month or whatever it is. You pay rent, you pay, you know, electricity bill or like, like most things that you pay in life are just schedules, right? Every couple weeks, every month or so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s [00:22:00] how life works. So not trying to invest in. Kind of recurring revenue is just counterintuitive. That said, product businesses, especially SaaS and subscription based, they know that and that&#8217;s why they&#8217;re successful. That&#8217;s why unicorns are normally SaaS businesses, they&#8217;re scalable, they have better ROI and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So like in most cases when you have a successful product business, you know, that like that&#8217;s the only way forward, right? Uh, but, but I think that kind of the biggest obstacle, like the biggest reason why people. In kind of the WordPress space are not spending time thinking about retainers is due to the fact that service-based businesses are traditionally not structured as retainers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right? You, like you, when you call a home board, it&#8217;s not a retainer service when you call a I know hairdresser. It&#8217;s not a retainer service unless you turn it into an, unless you turn it into a package, unless you turn it into something else. And, uh, I was just looking, uh, just a couple months ago. Well, couple months ago I was speaking with Brian Castel from Zipes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has a great service for ay and ay kind of [00:23:00] ambassador, but back like maybe a, I dunno, 10 years ago or so, he had a, a, a website, I think it was productized and scale and she was teaching people. Yeah. You know, wow. I I was, I was a student. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know that like he was literally teaching people how to stop changing every single project and turn whatever series they.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Into a product, right? Um, Naval, you know, the AngelList guru, like, oh, ominous investor, you know, like the, the tweet rockstar and so forth. He also has a productized type of service, uh, and, and book as well, just preaching about that, right? So like a lot of smart people, a lot of people smarter than me, Have figured out that services have to be productized.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And again, you, you have been a student of brand. You know what, he preaches it. It&#8217;s really the, it, it&#8217;s just a mantra. It&#8217;s just a way of thinking. Like the entire world is living around monthly costs, monthly fees, you know, your bank takes a monthly whatever, uh, or annual. Create [00:24:00] card fee taxes or anything else, like you file annual taxes as an individual and like everything else, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everything is recurring. So turning, adapting and adjusting to that one way or another is going to make your life easier so that you have that spare time actually thinking of strategy and bigger picture things. Well, in particular in web, web work, it&#8217;s someone to rely on, someone to go to and trust and know they&#8217;re gonna be there to help you with your technical needs in particular.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmm. Okay, we can geek out on this for the rest of the time, but I wanted to talk about your journey. So we&#8217;ll have to follow up, uh, Mario, and, and talk more about retainers, cuz I think it&#8217;s something that we need to talk about in, in the ecosystem so that there&#8217;s more sustainable businesses with outcomes that products that clients can, can rely on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Absolutely. Okay. So I&#8217;m curious. Devex and all the other things you have going, you have several projects [00:25:00] you talked about, like SAS and different things of your own. Um, in addition to helping your clients with that, um, 50 people, all this work. That&#8217;s crazy. Congratulations on your journey to get here. Oh, thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But how&#8217;d you get here? So I know we got back, you got a computer technical background, you found WordPress. What was that first step when you started, um, getting paid to do what you&#8217;re doing that eventually led to and grew to what you&#8217;re doing now? Um, Yeah, good question again. So considering the fact that my background was in software engineering, I already had, um, idea and exposure to different businesses doing that, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, I worked for two different, It&#8217;s development shops. It&#8217;s not quite an agency, but it kind of works similarly. Uh, but you know, I still, I was still working on, on proposals. I was still working on kind of functional analysis and lots of different like, uh, time and material type [00:26:00] of projects going through me for just for more complex projects or rather, Projects that were taking more time due to the tech stack, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, so what I&#8217;m saying is, and, and that&#8217;s kind of also a piece of advice I often kind of recommend to my, you know, followers and people just kind of, uh, working with me. If, if you wanna start your kind of own business, just don&#8217;t start with no experience whatsoever. Spend at least a few years working in a business kind of similar business, especially a service-based business, which is fairly dynamic.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand how, uh, you know, the, the, the bread and butter, how sausage is made, as they say, right? Uh, and, and takes to figure out what the business looks like, like who&#8217;s in charge, like who&#8217;s, you know, generating revenue, what&#8217;s kind of the pipeline like, and, and, and just go through that process a few times to figure out how it works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a lot easier than, yeah, go ahead. Get? No. I wanted to say yes, a hundred percent. A hundred thousand percent. Most entrepreneurs I&#8217;ve known over my career didn&#8217;t go in high school or [00:27:00] school go, I&#8217;m gonna be an entrepreneur. I&#8217;m gonna be a startup founder. That&#8217;s a whole startup. Founder&#8217;s a whole other thing over here, but most entrepreneurs will talk about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Including this one stumbled into it, fell into it. And what you said there is so relevant. I&#8217;ve got friends that own construction companies, um, ma big manufacturing companies, and what you said right there, so vital because you didn&#8217;t just, we weren&#8217;t just perhaps born with all of this knowledge about how do I.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do I do a client proposal or anything? And I, so I think if there&#8217;s someone that has that interest in buildings having their own business, that is critical because you can watch, I look back at my career, Mario, and I&#8217;m like, oh, I learned leadership from these people. This one I learned leadership. Not to do the opposite, but like that collection of experiences is so vital.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I just wanted to say, heck yes, because then you get a feel for. How you wanna operate [00:28:00] and see as a model for someone else. So that experience, I just wanna say, heck yeah. Okay. Keep going. And, and and, yeah. I love it. And you mentioned leadership and learning leadership from people how to do or how not to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. And, and the ability to actually work in a, you know, real business. Gives you the opportunity to work with bosses or majors or clients and just understand what you like and what you don&#8217;t like, and actually develop your style before you&#8217;ve had the chance to start and have no idea what you&#8217;re doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And like, not even get an opportunity to build your own style. Right. So that&#8217;s why I also think it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s so damn critical. Uh, but, but kind of back to the original topic of kind of WordPress, like working for a few years, I already knew kind of what the process was like. I was already building proposal, I was already talking to clients like, you know, kind of a, a.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, business intelligence person or whatever role I had back in the day. Uh, and, and it wasn&#8217;t really. Uncharted territory. However, I, I also spent probably a year just reading freelance resource, right? Uh, there were a bunch of these, like one of them actually got, got acquired by Envado several years [00:29:00] ago.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, but like several kind of freelance. I just, you know, talking about estimates and kind of how you do pricing and taxes and proposals and contracts, like all. Just the, the operational part of the, the work, right? You can get a brief and develop it one way or another, regardless of whether you&#8217;re a developer, designer or something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You, you can get a fun, you know, functional list of features and build it, right? You can go to even weeks and we and squares and all the others and just draft it out one way or another. Right? But there&#8217;s so much to lending a project and completing a project to that, right. Uh, First off, lead generation and marketing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How you do that, how, how you position yourself pr, branding. Then you have sales and negotiations. Then you have again, pricing and estimates. Then you have budgeting for all the horror stories. Then you have gathering requirements. Then you have, uh, time slash resource location. What do you do with multiple projects at a time?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you hire, how do you manage projects? How do you report, how do you communicate? [00:30:00] And again, tax and legal. There&#8217;s so much in running a business. And again, I&#8217;m not saying that to discourage people even though I don&#8217;t. Everyone has to deal with all that shit. Uh, but, but there&#8217;s just a lot to that. So again, it&#8217;s important to be in a business to figure out what the business looks like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s also important to read and, and kind of figure out how it looks. So after spending several years working for people and learning extensively, and also building small lance projects, I turned into full-time freelancing and almost went bankrupt simply because it was still not. It was just still not enough.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right? My negotiation skills sucked. Uh, I was really bad into that. I was great at allowing scope creep to happen, right? A month long project, easily turned into a five month project to the same fee. Cause clients wanted everything and anything in the world, and I was a good guy and letting that. And this was absolutely terrible and a horrible way to just run a business.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right? Uh, luckily I had other ways to make money, which is essentially my technical [00:31:00] training and kind of other capabilities, kind of charging high profile consulting rates, working for companies like S A P and VMware and, uh, a bunch of other Jans, including cern, the Hadron Collider Company, uh, and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like they were literally paying all my expenses like several months ahead so that I can. Go to realizing. Um, and, and I mean, it was funny. I really wanted to do that. I said like, I was okay at development, right? And like I was building my brand and stuff, but negotiations just, just terrible. Just, just horrible, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, so, so this was a pretty slippery thing up until we got our first pro. Well, it was I and. Like one person, my kind of co-founder, uh, who&#8217;s our CTO right now, um, we were kind of working on one of projects really hard to, to just compensate financially. But we got the first project paying a monthly retainer, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it was absolutely eye-opening, right? So, so this way we [00:32:00] kind of. Kept working with them, allocating enough time, uh, getting some breeding room, not arguing on scope, like whether you&#8217;re getting paid or not. Getting a solid monthly paycheck, and then allocating resource for the team. Growing a small team, it was really great in like, all right, like that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s supposed to be done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s really efficient. We are delivering more. We are not spending time marketing, and so everyone&#8217;s happy. Uh, so like this was the way to, to get it done. Um, now this was a horror story in itself in the sense of, um, one day that plan that was literally generating 90% of our 85% came to us and said, look guys, this software is so great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It can run on autopilot for a year. We&#8217;re just going to take the next four months off, just like literally doing nothing and keep it, you know, on autopilot for another four or five months and then sell it. Because like we literally, it&#8217;s absolutely brilliant. Doesn&#8217;t require maintenance. Thank you so much for helping us out, [00:33:00] but we are not going to pay anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right? So we were, as you know, people say we were victims. Our of our own. . Um, so the reason that failed is the, the second reason I like retainers, which is divers. It&#8217;s just being smart enough not to work with Longwell and, and kind of going bankrupt. So anyways, I, I had this followed a couple months when I was working, probably 18 hours a day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just, you know, calling, waking up in the morning, uh, sales coach with Australia in the evening, sales calls with the States daytime, trying to chase local league in Europe. So it was, uh, uh, a horrible part of my life. But even. Did close some projects to help us persevere over the next four or five months, and we tried to turn all of them into retainers and we converted maybe two or three of them as retainers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this got us back into the recurring revenue game and gave us a solid start and, and just, you know, Allowed us to be grateful and thankful to these clients. And also keep chasing even [00:34:00] small projects or other deals or kind of maintenance or steroids or support jobs or whatever it is, and just add to that retainer portfolio.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;d say this is the kind of the high level of how it worked out and some of the obvious horror stories of why it was this close to not working out if it wasn&#8217;t for. I think that&#8217;s part of the gig with being an entrepreneur is start, start going on something, see when something&#8217;s not working, and try to refine the process.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, looking at a business as a product itself and going, we&#8217;re having a bug here, we need to, you know, patch that bug. We want a new feature release, new version release. Okay. And I see that with your. Is I, I resonate too, by the way, with it. I don&#8217;t like sales . I don&#8217;t like the back and forth contract stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Um, I&#8217;ve done all that, but I don&#8217;t like it. And then going, it seems like there was this big version release with your journey where you&#8217;re like, this is not working. We&#8217;re gonna go to this new [00:35:00] model, and why it helped. Were there other things along the way that were catalysts to where you are? Uh, perhaps, I mean, there are a bunch of these, but I&#8217;m going to try to synthesize them in a short term manner.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So one of them was just rediscovering corporate. Um, again, I had exposure to different systems and different platforms at, at some point in time. At the same time, um, I had a. I had a c plus plus project going on for, for mining, you know, gold mines and all those cards pulling, mines c plus plus. I was building, uh, a similar software for, for set up boxes for hotels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh, I was working on a UNICEF project in Jango, which is Python. I had a couple of PhD projects and I still had like, uh, my Java job, like some remaining projects that I was completing. Right. So it was, and I was also working on Android. By the way, but that&#8217;s still kind of Java. So very diverse, very, you know, [00:36:00] inconsistent and focused kind of way of, of doing development.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it was working out, right. The problem is you can&#8217;t really kind of specialize in one thing or the other. So one of my. Clients for the Jango app. Uh, he was starting a theme framework business, right? For, for kind of one of the big, uh, team marketplaces. So I joined as a Ct O right? Just kind of technical reviews and stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had a lead developer, so I spent maybe three months working day-to-day on WordPress, actually trying to extend it towards a powerful theme framework. Now, whether this was a great idea of providing the monstrous premium multipurpose theme, experie. That&#8217;s a different story, but it really opened my eyes as to how flexible WordPress is besides design, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Custom posts, custom taxonomy settings, API options, API transients, lots of different things happening behind the scenes. That was pre rests API and. Pretty guttenberg and stuff, but it really told me, all right, like this is actually extensible, right? [00:37:00] You can build an e-commerce from scratch, you can build a mo, you know, a marketplace from scratch or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can build an OMS from scratch. It&#8217;s not a hacky way. It&#8217;s not something that you&#8217;re patching on top of that, because you know, It has to be in WordPress, it&#8217;s actually thought out, right? You do have APIs and and SDK and stuff to do stuff. And if it doesn&#8217;t make sense, for example, like stable or so for the general ui, it works out right away.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You