Questions regarding WordCamp Europe’s commitment to diversity were in the news last week. The event came under fire for its first few rounds of speaker announcements.
A tweet from Global Organizer Sjoerd Blom also raised eyebrows. StellarWP’s Michelle Frechette observed the roster’s lack of women and people of color. Blom replied that Frechette was “being prejudiced”.
Blom has since apologized for his remarks. Event organizers are expected to make a more formal statement regarding diversity in the near future.
Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern reports that the event has released its full schedule, which includes a wellness track. It will feature activities such as a group hike and yoga.
WordCamp Europe is scheduled to take place from June 8-10 in Athens, Greece.
Links You Shouldn’t Miss
WordPress 6.2.2 was released on May 20. This was a fast-tracked version focused on fixing an issue caused by WordPress 6.2.1, released just four days earlier. That release intentionally broke the use of shortcodes within block theme templates to tighten security. Users expressed frustration and a patch was quickly implemented.
The roadmap to WordPress 6.3 was recently published. It’s notable for several reasons. First, it marks the “finale” for Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project, which focuses on the editing experience. But it’s also the first release in some time that doesn’t include WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg as the lead developer. In fact, Mullenweg’s name is absent from the release squad roster. Meanwhile, version 6.3 is scheduled for release on August 8, 2023.
The WordPress project is looking for feedback on an experimental Command Center feature. Available since version 15.6 of the Gutenberg plugin, the feature allows users to quickly navigate to various parts of the back end via a command prompt.
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- Pressable makes it easy to manage sites with its award-winning control panel, but what if you’re managing sites across multiple accounts or hosts? Pressable is thrilled to announce its extension partnership with MainWP, which uses the Pressable API to provide a simple, yet powerful solution for this all-too-frequent challenge.
From the Grab Bag
Now it’s time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors.
- WordPress sandbox provider InstaWP is recruiting developers who want to sell custom website designs via their marketplace. Templates can be sold through a custom link or as part of the InstaWP store, with the company receiving a commission on sales.
- WordPress.com has released a new local WordPress development environment. wp-now is powered by WordPress Playground, uses a command line interface, and is available via an NPM package.
- Speaking of development, you can help the Learn WordPress team better understand how you work. Take the State of WordPress Development Tools survey, offered by project contributor Jonathan Bossenger.
- Developer Robert DeVore has released IntelliPress, a virtual AI-powered assistant for WordPress. The plugin offers content creation and SEO functionality.
- Navigating the WordPress Site Editor can be tricky. Gutenberg 15.8 aims to fix this by adding a Pages menu to the mix.
- Guildenberg’s Jonathan Wold looked back at 20 years of WordPress. He reviewed the highlights and provided predictions for the future of the CMS.
- The #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign is continuing. Users are encouraged to respond to daily prompts to celebrate WordPress’ 20th anniversary.
- If you miss the old active installs charts from the WordPress Plugin Repository, a tool exists that attempts to recreate the experience. WordPress Plugin Daily Downloads works with Zapier and can automatically write data to a Google Sheet.
- It’s now possible to use AI to convert an article into a podcast-like audio recording, thanks to recast. The service is available as an iOS app and Chrome extension.
New Members This Week
- Mustaasam Saleem, follow @MustaasamSaleem
- Also, a special thank-you to Jeff Chandler for supporting us with 10 virtual coffees!
If you’re not a member yet, go to thewpminute.com/support/ to join.
Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:
- Jeff Chandler
- Jess Frick
- Cameron Jones
- Courtney Robertson
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Thanks to our Pillar Sponsors
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