April was a busy month for the WordPress community following the first major release of the year — WordPress 6.2.
After shipping out the latest WordPress release, the development team started preliminary work on Gutenberg’s third phase while releasing two new Gutenberg releases. April also saw WordPress developers experimenting with Gutenberg-native AI technology.
Read on to learn the latest WordPress updates this April.
WordPress starts preliminary work on real-time collaboration
WordPress 6.2 marked the end of the Full Site Editor’s beta phase, meaning WordPress is ready to move on to the third phase of the WordPress roadmap.
From Full Site Editing, WordPress is now shifting to real-time collaboration. The best example to visualize it is to think of how Google Docs works.
In a March 25th blog post introducing the third phase of the Gutenberg project, Matias Ventura shared that the third phase is “going to be centered around fostering seamless collaboration, tying together the user experience and streamlining the content management flows to improve the way creators and teams work together within WordPress.”
He also shared an outline of the features they plan to include, such as:
- Real-time collaboration, or the ability to simultaneously work on the same content and designs across all block editors.
- Asynchronous collaboration. Features like draft sharing, inline-block commenting, assignment reviews, improved version control and task management will enable larger teams to work on projects independently.
- Publishing workflows. Several content workflow plugins are available, but WordPress wants to add features that support publishing steps — from creating and editing to reviewing and publishing — to the core.
Suggested features include customized goals, task completion requisites and support for multiple previews.
Phase 3 will also introduce improvements to the post revisions interface and media library, and a customizable global search and command component.
The WordPress team is still planning, so features are subject to change. The team is also planning to stagger the release of features, as with the previous versions of WordPress.
Latest Gutenberg releases
The Gutenberg team released two versions in April.
Gutenberg 15.5 was released on April 5th. This release’s most notable improvement was using patterns as template starters.
For pattern starters, Gutenberg 15.5 merges two concepts introduced in versions 14.9 (template types support) and 15.2 (a new modal for adding templates in the Site Editor).
With the older versions of Gutenberg, users had to choose between starting a new template or using a fallback template.
Now, they can build new templates from registered template patterns. This new feature also allows theme authors to register new patterns meant for specific purposes, like single posts or 404 pages.
Version 15.5 notable updates also include:
- Style captions via the Styles interface, which allows users to customize captions’ color, typography and size without touching code.
- Experiments on the Grid layout type as a variation of the Group block. To test it, visit Gutenberg > Experiments in the WordPress admin area and enable the Grid variation for the Group block option.
Gutenberg 15.6 was released on April 19th. This new version of Gutenberg introduced the Details block under the Experiments menu.
The block lets users publish hidden content, which can be helpful in text transcripts for video blocks. Users will be able to see the hidden content by toggling the switch.
Other notable features of the latest version of Gutenberg include:
- Command center for the Site Editor, which users can leverage as a quick search for pages or templates.
- Spacing presets to Spacer block settings, which allows users to adjust spacing.
- Style variations in browse mode, which make Style variations accessible from the left menu.
WordPress developers experiment with Gutenberg-native AI
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, and WordPress is no exception. However, copy-pasting paragraphs from ChatGPT to WordPress can only go so far, so WordPress developers are experimenting with Gutenberg-native AI block and content assistants.
Joe Hoyle of Human Made shared that they’ve been working on a ‘WordPress Copilot’ that understands how to navigate Gutenberg. The tool is directly embedded in the block editor and can perform tasks such as generating block layouts, content streaming, context-editing, auto-linking and summarizing translations.
Check out a tool demo below:
WooCommerce 7.6 introduces two new blocks
WooCommerce 7.6 was released on April 19th, 2023. The release introduces two new blocks — the Single Product Details and Add to Cart form blocks.
The Single Product Details block is available for users who want to use the Site Editor to add product descriptions and information to their stores. Users can also use the block to design their own Single Templates.
The Add to Cart form is now in block form. The block allows merchants to display a button and options in Single Product templates.
WooCommerce 7.6 also introduces:
- Improved look and performance for the Mini cart block. Content loads immediately when users open the Mini cart.
- Improved Product block attribute filtering. Users can now filter products directly from the Editor interface to make it more streamlined.
- Multichannel marketing feature in Beta. WooCommerce adds a new Campaigns card that shows your marketing channels’ campaigns on the Marketing page.
As of writing, WooCommerce 7.7 Beta 1 has been released. WooCommerce developers encourage users to test it before WooCommerce 7.7 drops on May 9th, 2023.
WooCommerce introduces Woo Express
WooCommerce finally launched Woo Express, its managed hosting service, to the public.
Woo Express has everything you need to take your store online. Plans come with managed WooCommerce hosting on WordPress.com’s infrastructure, an SSL certificate and a custom domain. They also include pre-installed extensions and themes.
Woo Express handles maintenance and security updates and provides customer support.
Woo Express offers two types of plans — the Essential (basic plan) and Performance (higher-tiered plan). The Essential plan’s price starts at $40/month but can go as low as $25/month when billed annually.
Woo Express comes at a time when web hosting services like Bluehost and GoDaddy are also launching their respective managed WooCommerce hosting offerings.
In a recent Doo the Woo podcast episode, WooCommerce Head of Engineering Beau Lebens says offering curated solutions like Woo Express gives users the best experience by bringing uniformity to the WordPress ecosystem.
Woo Express’ plans are pricier than Bluehost’s ($9.95/month, renews at $24.95/month) and GoDaddy’s ($20.99/month, renews at $29.99/month) introductory rates but come bundled with extensions that the other two plans don’t have.
iThemes is now SolidWP
In an April 3rd, 2023 blog post, Matt Cromwell, Senior Director of Ops and Marketing at StellarWP, shared that iThemes will now be known as SolidWP.
iThemes key offerings will be rebranded to the following:
- iTheme Security → Solid Security
- Backup Buddy → Solid Backups
- iThemes Sync → Solid Central
- iThemes Training → Solid Academy
iThemes has been around since 2008. Through the years, its product focus has shifted to security, backups, training and site maintenance — none of which come to mind with the name iThemes. The rebrand looks to the future and intends to convey a solid foundation.
Many existing iThemes products and bundles will still be available on the website, while others will be retired.
April WordPress acquisitions
April saw a few WordPress acquisitions, including:
WPExperts acquires the Change wp-admin plugin
WPExperts acquired the Change wp-admin plugin from its developer Nuno Sarmento on March 22nd, 2023.
Change wp-admin joins WPExperts’ roster of acquisitions, including Post SMTP plugin, Login Designer, Email Templates and Password Protected.
LearnDash acquires Real Big Plugins
LearnDash has acquired the Real Big Plugin collection of add-ons, including:
- Gradebook for LearnDash
- LearnDash Slack
- LearnDash MailChimp
- LearnDash ConvertKit
The Real Big Plugins development team will join LearnDash.
MonetizeMore acquires Advanced Ads
Canadian global ad company MonetizeMore has acquired Advanced Ads, an ad-tech platform for WordPress publishers. Before the acquisition, Advanced Ads powered over 150,000 websites worldwide.
The acquisition allows MonetizeMore to expand its ad optimization solutions and strengthen its offerings using Advanced Ad features. The Advanced Ads team will stay on board.
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