This week Headless and serverless, Global Community Sponsorship, Gutenberg blocks, and much more…
Guest editor:
An inveterate volunteer, Angela has a longstanding passion for building strong, inclusive communities. She is a Community Strategist at Automattic, where she focuses on Programs & Contributor Experience for Automattic’s Five for the Future sponsored division. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Angela is currently trying out Madrid, Spain.
There’s always something exciting happening in the WordPress universe. All eyes are understandably focused on the upcoming WordPress 5.9 release, full site editing, blocks, theme development, acquisitions, and in-person WordCamps, just to name a few. Today, I’d like to highlight a few additional initiatives in the WordPress space that are also worth watching.
The power of WordPress is in its community. And with incredible, extendable software, the opportunity is at our fingertips to connect and empower others. For me, that closely ties in with our mission of democratize publishing — it’s not just about being able to have a voice online, but lowering the barriers to do so. Here are some projects to watch (maybe get involved in) toward that worthy goal.
Introduced late 2020, Learn WordPress is a learning resource to help everyone and anyone be more successful with WordPress, whether they are a contributor, user, or builder, or any kind of WordPress enthusiast. The WordPress Training Team has put immense energy and thought into the future of Learn WordPress, and today, you can watch full courses, workshops, take quizzes, or review lesson plans, all about WordPress. Fresh content is added regularly. And, you can contribute to Learn WordPress too. Join the Training Team to help plan the future of Learn WordPress, to review or create new content, or to help by building the Learn WordPress platform.
If you’ve been around the WordPress community team, you may have heard of this working group already. The one and only Jill Binder and team have done incredible work in helping WordPress events attract and develop more diverse speakers since 2017. Today, the team has three main focus areas: workshops to empower more diverse speakers; a diverse speaker support channel that offers mentorship and connects speakers with speaking opportunities; and an allyship program to help anyone level up their allyship skills. To join upcoming events, follow #WPDiversity. To get involved, join the #community-team on Slack, and say hi at a Diverse Speaker Training Working Group meeting on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every month at 17:00 UTC.
HeroPress, lovingly curated and nurtured by dynamic duo Topher and Cate DeRosia, has long been known for HeroPress essays. These stories showcase WordPress community members, who share how WordPress has changed their lives. These stories are so deeply real, illuminating challenges and struggles, joy and success. They’re an absolute pleasure to read, especially when I’m in need of some inspiration. Cate and Topher have real been busy lately, running Hallway Chats and launching WP Podcasts. They’ve recently announced The HeroPress Network, a main hub (with Slack channel!) to help everyone see and access a broad view of our beloved WordPress community.
Speaking of WordPress 5.9
Alright, I know you want a rundown of the latest on WordPress 5.9 and Full Site Editing. Here are some links, as suggested by the wonderful Anne McCarthy, who leads the Full Site Editing Outreach Program.
As the WordPress 5.9 release approaches, submit your burning questions by Oct 27th to yes, get answers, but also to help grow community knowledge by laying some groundwork for documentation. If you want to get a glimpse of what is coming, check out these design explorations for block theme switching. Gutenberg 11.7 was just released, so check out these highlights. There was a Hallway Hangout to discuss the Navigator Editor and Block. For the absolute latest, check out the recap of the WordPress 5.9 Feature Go/No-Go decision.
Courtney Patubo Kranzke submitted a proposal for the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2022. As analog events are still up in the air, WordCamps are not included in the draft.
Carl Alexander explains the difference between headless and serverless.
Ashley Rich from Delicious Brains describes load balancing, its benefits to your website, and the issues it may introduce.
LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. Trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
Chris Wiegman encourages not to hide wp-admin as it doesn’t make any sense nowadays.
Elaine Shannon shows how to register a new block in Gutenberg using the block.json file.
Brandon Ernst of Gaucho Plugins chronicles their achievements with the Domain Mapping System plugin they adopted a year ago and unveils their plans for its future.
AJ Morris recalls his beginnings with theme.json and the problems he encountered in particular.
In his new tutorial, David Gwyer shows how to use the Popover Component when creating Gutenberg blocks.
When it comes to creating web pages, the simplicity of the development tools doesn’t always translate into quality (especially in the long run) – Eric Karkovack indicates.
Jetpack introduces another innovation – VideoPress, which is nothing more than video hosting. The free version allows you to upload one movie.
Alex Standiford shows how to use hashes when creating plugins creatively.
Justin Etheredge shares his 20 years of experience as a developer. Admittedly, some of Justin’s observations are pretty original.
Alex Juchniewicz details his everyday life as a Technical Project Manager at Maintainn.
David Mainayar recounts the history of WooCommerce in a nutshell.
Fran Agulto explains how SEO works in Headless WordPress.
Upcoming events:
On October 28, WebDevStudios and Post Status are organizing a webinar, “The Legend of the Headless Website.”
WP Engine Summit/2021 will take place on November 4.
WordCamp Taiwan is set to take place on December 11-12.