While WordPress 6.4 arrives, and with an eye on WordPress 6.5, concrete proposals are launched as to what the next version of the editor should include.
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Program transcript
Hello, I’m Javier Casares, and you’re listening to WordPress Podcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
You’ll find updates from October 23rd to 29nd, 2023.
The Phase 3 of Gutenberg continues, following several meetings with companies and individuals working simultaneously on content editing.
Concerning collaborative editing and asynchronous collaboration, there has been expressed a need for asynchronous collaboration tools rather than real-time editing, especially in larger organizations. This highlights the need for specific role permissions, granular editing capabilities, commenting features, and public preview link functionalities.
For workflows, which are currently diverse, there is a clear demand for a task manager, seamless integration with other tools, and improvement in task management linked to content creation.
More visual revision histories have been requested, as well as the ability to track changes beyond the post content. This includes features for effectively managing revisions, especially for posts with extensive revision histories, and the ability to schedule massive changes across the site.
Another important element is the Block Library, as there are issues managing access to and configurations of blocks due to inconsistencies and a lack of control. This calls for more granular control, clearer insights into the use of patterns across the site, and the ability to apply theme.json configurations to groups of blocks.
A classic in editing is found in the Media Library, crucial especially for large organizations with high volumes of daily uploads. This includes better management of copyright and attributions, improvement in managing alt texts, folder functionality, enhanced search capabilities, and more efficient photo uploading for specific posts.
And one of the largest elements to be seen in upcoming versions is the redesign of the Admin Panel, focusing on the need for a more modern admin experience, customizable menu items, and overall design improvements.
Speaking of updates, we have WordPress 6.4 release candidate 2, accompanied by the classic Field Guide, which includes a list of all the new features in this version.
A last addition has been the incorporation of a framework for future reviews of Phase 3, in which developers are asked to use metadata and apply the new filter to enable this functionality in the future.
The recommended PHP versions for WordPress 6.4 have also been defined as PHP 8.1 and PHP 8.2, pending some additional documentation on known exceptions.
Speaking of new features, we have the first version that will not be included in WordPress 6.4 of the editor: Gutenberg 16.9.
This new experimental version allows renaming practically all the editor’s blocks, duplicating and renaming patterns, and multiple improvements in CSS viewports.
And we now have the new WP-CLI 2.9.0 version, with 225 changes from 62 contributors.
The last details of compatibility with PHP 8.2 and WordPress 6.4 have been polished, and a new feature has been added: wp config is-true. When you pass it a constant, it will tell you whether it exists or not, very useful for creating scripts.
Another major new feature is the ability to test WordPress with SQLite without the need for MySQL or MariaDB.
The Design Team has released a promotional video for the Showcase, as well as testing with the search and selection of images from Openverse within the editor.
Another element being designed is the image compression system, which could allow for optimization and compression directly from the editor.
The Documentation Team is calling for volunteers to finalize the new end-user documentation content prior to the release of WordPress 6.4.
There are approximately 30 documents that correspond to new features or changes in current features.
Finally, this podcast is distributed under the EUPL license. For more information and links, please visit WordPress Podcast .org or follow the content, also, in Spanish.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!
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