WordCamp US 2022 convened from September 9 to 11 in San Diego, California. It felt reminiscent of earlier gatherings that offered a comfortable environment for reconnecting, learning, and discussing all things WordPress. The highlight for many was the closing session with the project’s co-founder, @matt, who shared a sneak peek at features slated for the upcoming 6.1 release and engaged in conversation with attendees in a Town Hall Q&A.
In an effort for no questions to go unanswered, those submitted on Livestream and Twitter are listed below with answers from WordPress contributors.
Q1. How do we convince legacy web builders, agencies, and companies to more quickly adopt new WordPress features? I’m seeing a ton of opportunities to support older sites (5.0), but very few agencies/projects/companies are moving to build on 6.0.
A1. A few teams are working hard to share and educate users about new features in the latest WordPress releases. The Training Team publishes tutorials to help ease adoption. Marketing highlights new #WordPress features across multiple social networks. @annezazu hosts regular Hallway Hangouts in Test. Your thoughts on additional adoption initiatives are welcome.
Q2. How close is WordPress to editor collaboration? It’s sometimes frustrating that two people can’t be in the editor at the same time.
A2. The project roadmap shows the big picture goals and upcoming releases, and @matveb shared some early thoughts about building a “multiplayer” experience, but there is no release date for this feature yet. As noted in the Q&A, some big questions need to be addressed before collaboration can be addressed. That said, some exciting plugins explore comments and other collaborative tools.
Q3. Any thoughts on p2’s release date for self-hosting? It looks lovely!
A3. The new version of P2 requires WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ hosting to power its more advanced feature set, so there is currently no self-hosted version available. You’re welcome to try the O2 plugin and the P2 Breathe theme, but please note that this pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party is not in active development.
Q4. What commitment does WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. have to advance accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) for disabled WP users and also for baking it into WordPress sites created?
A4. Accessibility is top of mind while developing WordPress, and WordPress 6.1 has seen 40 accessibility improvements listed under milestones 13.1-14.1 in the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository, if you would like to follow along, with more expected in upcoming releases. As Matt mentioned in the Q&A session, there is an interest in slowing down the fast clip of Gutenberg development to allow for necessary improvements, like accessibility.
Q5. What is the plan for making the Site Editor accessible?
A5. Every new release includes a variety of accessibility improvements. You can read about WordPress 6.0 Accessibility Improvements and expect more in 6.1. You can also get involved with this work by joining the #accessibility channel in Make Slack.
Q6. Are there any plans to make future WordCamps hybrid to take advantage of the aspects of video conferencing that we discovered during the pandemic?
A6. WordCamp US 2022 had a captioned Livestream available throughout the event (recordings also available). Community members in San Diego and at home kept the conversation going with #WCUS across social platforms, especially on Twitter. WordCamp organizers are committed to iterating and exploring how best to bring the experience to participants both in-person and online.
Q7. What is the timeline for removing the “BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process.” tag from the Site Editor?
A7. The Core Team is discussing open issues and blockers to the removal of the Beta label. You can follow along with the discussion on GitHub.
Q8. Right now, the navigation blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. is basic. Are they planning to improve this? For example, I would like to easily create a mega menu.
A8. Navigation is a crucial part of the site editing experience and can cover a wide array of use cases, from simple “all pages” navigation to complex structures. Currently, the project is focused on ensuring the best experience possible for the most common use cases while still allowing extensibility. Once that experience is polished enough, the editor will be extended to allow more complex navigation structures such as mega menus.
Do you have a question? Comment below, and join one of the many teams making WordPress for answers.