The Month in WordPress: April 2019
This past month has been filled with anticipation as the community builds up towards a big new release, plans some important events, and builds new tools to grow the future of the project.
WordPress 5.2 Almost Due for Release
WordPress 5.2 is due for release on May 7 with many new features included for developers and end-users alike. The Field Guide for the release provides a lot of information about what is in it and what you can expect, including a few key elements:
Site Health Check
One of the most highly anticipated features for v5.2 is the Site Health Check. This feature adds two new pages in the admin interface to help end users maintain a healthy site through common configuration issues and other elements that go along with having a robust online presence. It also provides a standardized location for developers to add debugging information.
Fatal Error Recovery Mode
The Fatal Error Recovery Mode feature was originally planned for the 5.1 release but was delayed to patch up some last-minute issues that arose. This feature will help site-owners recover more quickly from fatal errors that break the display or functionality of their site that would ordinarily require code or database edits to fix.
Privacy and Accessibility Updates
Along with the headlining features mentioned above, there are some important enhancements to the privacy and accessibility features included in Core. These include some important developer-focused changes to how privacy policy pages are displayed and user data is exported, as well as moving to more semantic markup for admin tabs and other improvements such as switching post format icons to drop-down menus on post list tables, improved admin toolbar markup, and contextual improvements to archive widget drop-down menu.
New Dashicons
The Dashicons library was last updated was over 3 years ago. Now, in the upcoming release, a set of 13 new icons will be added to the library along with improvements to the build process and file format of the icons.
Block Editor Upgrades
The Block Editor has seen numerous improvements lately that will all be included in the v5.2 release. Along with the interface upgrades, the underlying Javascript module has been reorganized, improvements have been made to how the block editor is detected on the post edit screen, and the Javascript build process has been enhanced.
WordPress 5.2 is now in the Release Candidate phase and you can test it by installing the Beta Tester plugin on any WordPress site.
Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
WordPress Translation Day 4 is Almost Here
On 11 May 2019, the fourth WordPress Translation Day will take place. This is a 24-hour global event dedicated to the translation of all things WordPress, from Core to themes, plugins to marketing.
Over the course of 24 hours, WordPress communities will meet to translate WordPress into their local languages and watch talks and sessions broadcast on wptranslationday.org. During the previous WordPress Translation Day, 71 local events took place in 29 countries, and even more communities are expected to take part this time.
Want to get involved in WordPress Translation Day 4? Find out how to organize a local event, follow the updates on the Polyglots team blog, and join the #polyglots channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
Block Library Project Gets Started
Since the initial proposal for a Block Library that would be made available from inside the block editor, work has been done to put together some designs for how this would look. Since then the project has received a more direct focus with a planned out scope and timeline.
The project is being managed on GitHub and people interested in contributing are encouraged to get involved there. You can also keep up to date by following the Design team blog and joining the #design channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
Further Reading:
- The results from the 5.0 release retrospective survey have been published – this is the first time this kind of open retrospective has been done for a WordPress release and the results provide valuable insight into the project and its contributors.
- The team behind the WordPress Coding Standards has released version 2.1, including some very useful new sniffs.
- The community is looking for volunteers for the Get Involved table at WordCamp Europe on 20-22 June.
- Gutenberg has been ported for use within the Laravel framework in a project dubbed Laraberg.
- The 2019 WordCamp for Publishers event has opened its call for speakers.
- The Gutenberg team has published an RFC regarding blocks being used in widgets.
- WordCamp Europe, taking place on 20-22 June, has published the schedule for the event.
- The Community Team has published the results of the 2018 meetup group survey.
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