Now that WordPress 6.7 is available, the roadmap for all WordPress releases throughout 2025 is being outlined.
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Program transcript
Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, you’ll find the information from November 18th to 24th, 2024.
Whenever a major version of WordPress is released, like 6.7, there are a few days dedicated to reviewing and preparing the next steps…
The first of these steps has been the release of WordPress 6.7.1, which fixes some issues that have appeared with the latest version, addressing a total of 16 bugs in the core and the block editor. The fixes include visual adjustments and those related to HEIC image format support, as well as a bug that had been causing issues with the new translation file uploads. Another issue addressed was the problem with loading the custom logo on the login page and incorrect image processing in media editing.
In any case, the plan for 2025 has been laid out, which involves the release of three new versions. The first of these will be WordPress 6.8, scheduled for release on April 15, with its beta phase starting in early March. The call for volunteers for this version is already open and should include the improvements applied up to Gutenberg 20.4.
The second release, WordPress 6.9, is set for August 5, with its beta phase beginning on June 24, after WordCamp Europe. The third, WordPress 7.0, is scheduled for release on November 11, with its beta phase beginning on September 30.
What could these new versions bring? The most likely focus will be on two lines of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project. The first is a complete redesign of the admin panel, continuing with the Site Editing aspect and all the DataView and DataForm, although it already seems that progress is being made in real-time collaboration.
The first steps in this have already been taken with the hiring of Kevin Jahns for the project, the author of Yjs, who has already demonstrated some synchronization between multiple users. As the first step for this synchronization, we have also seen the experiment within Gutenberg for inline comments within each block, where conversations can be generated for each element in the editor.
And continuing with releases after the big launch, we have Gutenberg 19.7, which starts to include some awaited projects. One of the first major changes is that the Style Guide now has its own panel, allowing a clearer view of each element and block. The way to switch from a view showing only the content to seeing how the complete page will look has also been improved, as well as an easier way to convert any image from content into a featured image.
The Playground team has announced that the ability to test patches and new features of WordPress is now available from the platform’s options menu, which will help indicate the number of elements to test, what will be applied in that installation, and how to check its functionality.
The Community team has announced the end of this quarter’s edition of the Mentorship Program, celebrating the graduation of 63 participants out of more than 100 enrolled. Over six weeks, starting on October 16 and ending on November 26, 2024, the participants improved their contribution skills to the WordPress project, supported by 25 experienced mentors. The key achievements include strengthening the community and driving meaningful contributions.
The program will continue in the future, focusing on further training new contributors, providing personalized mentorship, and allowing more people to have a positive impact on the WordPress ecosystem.
And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!
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