If you haven’t visited the WordPress Pattern Directory lately, it may look very different from when it launched two years ago. At first there was an emphasis on getting the community to contribute to the resource but the directory has now passed more than 1,500 patterns.
Contributors are making changes to provide a more curated experience ahead of the inclusion of a new Pattern Directory Explorer that is still in progress. A recent update to the Pattern Directory alters the homepage and category pages to show curated patterns by default, a change that has been a bit confusing for some when returning to the directory.
— Jamie Pootlepress – YouTuber and WP Plugin builder (@pootlepress) June 22, 2023
The curated patterns are those by WordPress.org – the core bundled patterns. Community-contributed patterns are available as a filter in the dropdown of the directory’s menu.
There are only 46 core patterns, so some category pages tend to look a little sparse and far less colorful than when community patterns are selected. At the moment, having curated patterns display by default does not offer the best experience for users coming to browse, as Pootlepress founder Jamie Marsland pointed out on Twitter. Automattic-sponsored contributor Rich Tabor responded that there is still more work to be done on providing a better curated experience in the Pattern Directory.
The top ones are the best. Still lots to do though.
“This change also prepares to support the Pattern Explorer in the editor,” Automattic-sponsored contributor Kelly Choyce-Dwan said in the announcement. “It’s still in progress, but it will be possible to search through community-submitted patterns directly from the editor.”
Choyce-Dwan referenced an effort that is currently underway to bring a new flyout to the patterns tab of the inserter inside WordPress, making the modal a place where users can more easily explore and access patterns from the directory.
There are also related discussions on how themes could create pattern bundles, enabling the possibility of users filtering by theme. In this discussion, Automattic-sponsored contributor Anne McCarthy suggested these pattern bundles could be automatically submitted to the directory upon the theme’s approval, which would make it effortless for theme authors to contribute them.
Updates to the Pattern Directory’s filtering are part of the redesign work on WordPress.org and more discussions are happening on the Pattern Directory GitHub repository.
WordPress.com has been known to experiment with its pricing from time to time, and the platform announced another major change today. Users on the Free plan are now able to use monetization features without upgrading.
In the past, WordPress.com users who wanted to earn money on their websites by collecting donations, creating a newsletter, or selling items or subscriptions, had to be on one of the paid plans. These monetization features are now available to all users on all tiers.
The fee structure varies, based on the user’s plan. Transaction fees are the highest for Free users at 10%, but it gives creators the opportunity to see if they can make money without it costing anything upfront. Commerce plan users ($70/month or $45/month billed annually) don’t pay any transaction fees. Stripe also collects 2.9% + US$0.30 for each payment made to a Stripe account in the US.
WordPress.com Plan
Payment Fees
WordPress.com Commerce
0%
WordPress.com Business
2%
WordPress.com Premium
4%
WordPress.com Personal
8%
WordPress.com Free
10%
Self-hosted WordPress users already have many free plugin options to monetize theirs sites but with that comes the requirement of knowing how to maintain and update their own sites. WordPress.com’s offering is targeted at creators who just want to get started making money online. The company is inching closer to being a one-stop shop for websites, especially as it makes a play for former Google Domains customers who are looking for somewhere to host domains after theirs were sold to Squarespace.
It’s important to note that creating a full-featured online store is still restricted to Business and Commerce plans. Using Pay with PayPal to accept credit and debit card payments via PayPal is also only available via an upgraded plan.
WordPress.com’s pricing page has not yet been updated to reflect monetization features as being free – i.e. the Personal plan still lists paid subscribers and premium content gating as an upgrade. It’s possible the team hasn’t edited that page yet or this may be another pricing experiment.
Expanding the availability of monetization features is likely to be received as a positive change, since users are not losing any features that were previously free. Instead, they have the opportunity to see if they can monetize and then adjust their plans based on their comfort level with the transaction fees extracted.
Up until yesterday, the Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) blog lay dormant for nine years, the last post chronicling how the team set out to create a Gravatar app that somehow “morphed into a Selfies app.” Communication went silent after that, although the Twitter account posted occasionally.
The service has pivoted to become “a personal digital business card” where users can link to various apps and websites that help to establish their identities online.
Gravatar announced this week that it has launched new payment features for profiles. Users have the option to add links for PayPal, Venmo, and Patreon. The Gravatar team is looking at adding Cash App and more providers in the future.
On mobile, profiles appear with new “Send Money” and “Share Profile” buttons. Each profile has its own unique QR code that can be copied and shared.
The payment accounts show up as links that visitors can click through. Users can also display links to cryptocurrency wallet addresses, including Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, and Cardano (ADA).
Profiles can be customized with a background image, photo gallery, social links, and links to verified services.
Gravatar is used by Slack, Atlassian (owner of Jira and Trello), GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Disqus, serving millions of requests per day. Another new major user is OpenAI, which displays users’ Gravatar images when chatting with ChatGPT. The service is also integrated with every WordPress install, and an Automattic representative confirmed there are no plans to change this.
Automattic reported that the company does not receive a cut of any payments passed through Gravatar links, nor does it have financial partnerships with any of the payment providers. The company also has no visibility into the transactions that happen through Gravatar payment links.
During the past nine years, the small Gravatar team has been improving how profile pages look, adding services that can be verified, working to improve the hashing and security of data, and maintaining the infrastructure required to store and serve so many images and profiles.
“We aren’t currently working on a Gravatar app, but it is something we are considering,” an Automattic representative told the Tavern.
After the Selfies app was retired, some of the code went into Jetpack and is now part of the app. Jetpack users can manage their Gravatar profile information and avatar photo inside the app.Â
Well, it’s June again and you know that means: time for a report from WordCamp Europe 2023! Like many others, I descended on Athens this summer to attend the annual WCEU convention. It was the second in-person WordCamp Europe since the pandemic after last year in Porto. Besides meeting old friends, making new connections, and general socializing, I came to learn what’s new in WordPress and listen to talks on different topics.
The two main themes that dominated the discussion for me this year were artificial intelligence and the problem of bringing members of the younger generation to the WordPress sphere. Therefore, as I am trying to summarize some of my favorite talks this year, these topics will come up a lot.
So, if you couldn’t make it to the convention yourself, fear not. Here’s a glimpse into what WordCamp Europe 2023 was all about.
They stressed the importance of WordCamps as an opportunity for bringing people together, building the community, and sharing knowledge with each other.
(Case in point, one of the main things I learned this year was that the Gutenberg editor supports markup. That means, you can use ## to create an H2 heading, ### for an H3 heading and so forth. It’s a game changer. Thanks to Birgit Pauli-Haak for pointing that out to me!)
This year, 2,862 people from 100 different countries registered for the event, 1,300+ of them first timers. Besides the usual three tracks, they could also attend workshops, WP Connect for community events, as well as the wellness that we have gotten to know from earlier years.
Of course, what made it all possible were the 150 volunteers, many of which have been volunteering for several years in a row. In addition, the event couldn’t have taken place without the sponsors, which included 103 microsponsors from the community this year.
As usual, the event was live streamed on YouTube, so if you want to rewatch any of the presentations, you can do so here:
After that, it was time to dive right into the presentations.
WordPress Performance: Community Perspectives
The first talk I attended was a panel discussion on WordPress performance. The panelists were Miriam Schwab (co-founder of Stratic, now Elementor), Thierry Muller (Software Engineering Manager at Google/Chrome), Rahul Bansal (CEO rtCamp), and Adam Silverstein (moderator). They discussed performance not just in terms of speed but also in terms of usability and user experience.
AI and Website Performance
One thing that they touched on was how artificial intelligence could help with WordPress performance. Here are some of the use cases they imagined:
It could help with the last mile of performance that’s hard for humans to do, like shift around render-blocking JavaScript without breaking the website
Generally, AI could be better at contextually analyzing performance problems on individual websites and offer tailored advice
Why Has WordPress Not Improved as Much as Other Platforms?
Here, the panelists said that the first thing to keep in mind is that other platforms have control over their entire website stack, making it easier to introduce changes. That is simply not the case in WordPress, which has to account for many different setups. In addition, WordPress has legacy code to maintain for backward compatibility.
As a consequence, WordPress is simply moving more slowly. However, in addition, there has been a lack of focus on performance so far. The problem was mainly outsourced to hosting providers.
This is changing now. For the first time we have a WordPress performance team, which shows a shift in focus to the topic of performance, including environmental factors. So, WordPress will catch up but it takes a little longer.
Finding a Balance Between Features and Performance
What might help balance features and site performance, including for client work, is to treat performance as a feature in itself and tie it to ROI and business goals. Once a site has been published, the goal is for it to succeed on the web and user experience is very important for that. This includes non-front end parts, such as dashboards.
Therefore, if you or you client is thinking of adding a feature, A/B test it against performance. If users fall off, it’s probably not worth adding the feature. You can also use this to demonstrate to clients that adding more functionality might be hurting their goals, e.g. that it reduces sales due to performance. User experience is the ultimate goal.
Going Beyond Performance, What is Your Dream for WordPress in 10 years?
At this point, Miriam was the first to mention the need for making WordPress more attractive to young people. She brought her daughter to WCEU, who had never heard about WordPress. The platform unfortunately has a problem appeal to young people and getting out there.
Probably one of the main problems here is user experience, especially for new users. A possible remedy for that could be better onboarding. For example, finding a way to capture user goals, then automatically create a website for them with the necessary tools as a good starting point.
Other items on the wish list were better media management and optimization as well as video and image editing inside WordPress as part of content creation.
WordPress Performance: Q&A
The session ended with questions from the audience, which raised additional issues:
Admin performance — There was an important reminder to also look at the wp-admin interface when it comes to performance, which currently loads a lot of JavaScript libraries on every screen. The panelists also reminded the questioner that optimizing this is a matter of resources and that right now content creation and front end performance have priority. However, it’s not a question of if but when the back end gets its turn.
Modern image formats — Another question was about implementing modern image formats like AVIF or JPEG XL in WordPress. Moderator Adam Silverstein actually gave a talk on that at WordCamp US 2022 for those who want to learn more.
Panel Discussion: AI in WordPress
Another panel discussion that I attended was on the topic of AI in WordPress. The panel was made up of individuals whose companies already have AI tools and products out in the wild. Therefore, the discussion was about real and tangible examples of what AI is already used for in WordPress and not just theory.
Here’s who took part in the discussion and how they are already using artificial intelligence:
Sujay Pawar (Brainstorm Force) — His company has developed an onboarding process using AI as well as other AI products.
Gabriella Laster (Elementor) — Elementor offers access to an AI model in their page builder plugin that can generate text, change the tone, translate content, and generate custom code. They are also launching an AI model for image creation and other tools for web creators.
Constanze Kratel (BigCommerce) — BigCommerce have been using AI to improve the developer process and for ecommerce.
Daniel Kanchev (Siteground) — Siteground uses AI internally and externally for translation, support, and content classification (i.e. spam). They are also working on getting AI to help with website creation.
Shane Pearlman (Liquid Web) –Shane’s company offers AI tools such as to build quizzes for the LearnDash plugin. He was also the moderator of the discussion.
AI as an Assistant for Website Setup
One of the biggest challenges in both website and content creation is the blank page. The panelists agreed that in order for AI to be useful for setting up websites, users need more than a prompt, they need choices. Collecting targeted feedback from users allows you to zone in on what they are trying to build.
Another issue that AI raises for the WordPress sphere as a whole is how to get AI tools to suggest WordPress as a website building tool in relevant prompts. Having outstanding documentation that they can index as content is key here.
What Else Are You Using AI for?
Among the panelists, one of the most frequent areas of application for AI was in support, both internally and externally. AI models can help support members, customers, and developers find the right information and provide targeted consumer assistance.
Siteground also uses artificial intelligence in customer communication as a quick help guide. Users can select an AI model to answer their question, which accesses the knowledge base and generates a reply. If that isn’t enough, they can escalate to a human operator.
All of the panelists stressed the necessity of proper feedback for training the AI. It’s important to both collect the right feedback and regularly test and review the answers the AI gives, not fully rely on user reporting. Another ways is to use AI as a copilot for support agents who can see its replies and provide feedback on them.
Translating Websites Using Artificial Intelligence
Another application for AI is in the area of translation. Here, too, it’s super important to train the models well. You need to provide them with the right terms and be prepared to improve the models over time. Plus, definitely have human translators at hand for checking and feedback.
This also works for customer support in different languages. Here, keep in mind that the target isn’t necessarily native language proficiency. The AI only needs to be better than two non-native speakers trying to communicate in a common foreign language. Customers want their stuff fixed, they don’t need perfect speech.
In the end AI can take you 80-90 percent there but you still need internal, human input to make it really good. The human touch is probably something that will always be required.
AI for Media Creation
AI can also really help streamline image production. For example, it can provide different color options for the same product photos, eliminating the need to have to photograph each item variation.
You might also be able to get different background images and settings or quickly localize banners. Overall, AI image generation is getting better quickly so we will see more variety and content soon.
Accessibility and AI
Another area that artificial intelligence will likely have a big impact on is accessibility. For example, it is already possible to feed Midjourney an image and have it describe its content for you. You can use that as an ALT tag or even have an AI automatically fill it in.
In addition, AI might be able give you a checklist of what needs to be done to make your site more accessible and also propose ways to do it. This is something that would be great to have in WordPress Core.
Search, Reporting, and Analytics
There are already different models for improving search and reporting. In the future, AI could give you the ability to log in to your site or tools and simply ask for your desired information, such as top-selling products, etc.
It might, at some point, even be able to implement the findings and act on results and feedback, such as adjusting product pricing. AI might even run tests and experiments and make recommendations from there.
What Are You Hoping to See in the Future for AI in WordPress?
The answers to this question varied:
Gabriella — The majority of the population have not adopted AI yet. It would be great to make it more accessible and help people get on board. In addition, currently we are looking for AI to make our lives easier. However, the next step is to think about how AI can help us do things that we have never done before.
Daniel — AI will soon help end users build their own websites. The next step is to have it work as an agent to help you run the rest of your business. AI could provide analysis and tips or you could give it a goal and it iterates on it.
Shane — Get AI into business intelligence tools and analytics. Get it to a point where you can just have a conversation. It could look at how things are going on your website and give recommendations for improvements. The next step is for it to organize your life, book appointments, and work as an assistant. Right now, we are in pure discovery phase. We don’t know what’s possible yet until we see it.
Constanze — Using AI for store optimization, automatic translation, and localization. Get sentiments and data from your community and aggregate it to propose improvements for your business.
Sujay — You use so many tools in business, it would be great to have one central tool that integrates with all of them and can simply answer questions.
In short, we have exciting times ahead of us.
Tomorrow’s Generation’s Perspective on WordPress
This talk was given by Tycho de Valk who, at 16 years old, was the youngest speaker to ever be on stage at a WordCamp. He is also the son of Joost de Valk and Marieke van der Rakt (formerly Yoast), a support engineer at Yoast, and has his own web development agency.
After doing a survey among people his own age, Tycho discovered that their awareness for and opinion of WordPress was not that great. His talk was about why that is and how to address this problem.
3 Reasons Why WordPress Fails to Appeal to Young People
Tycho identified three reasons why WordPress is not popular among the younger generation:
Its marketing does not focus on young people
WordPress is hard to get started with
The platform is not as appealing as its competitors
To the first point, the social media platforms that WordPress is popular on are not the same as young people use. Gen Z is mainly on YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat and listens a lot to influencers. WordPress does not take advantage of that.
For example, Shopify does do marketing for young people. They had a cooperation with Mr Beast (currently the most popular YouTuber) who named a mountain in Antarctica after the platform.
In addition, WordPress’ onboarding isn’t great, competitors are much better at this. Case in point, Shopify and Wix will both help you set up your site, in WordPress users are mostly left to fend for themselves.
Finally, WordPress is not that flashy, it doesn’t look as modern as its competitors. In Tycho’s survey, 75% of respondents liked the Wix or Shopify interface better.
How to Address These Issues
Fortunately, there are ways to address these problems. For one, better onboarding experiences already exist in the WordPress sphere such as Woo Express or Extendify. That shows that it’s possible to improve in this area. In addition, shifting the focus to social media for young people and collaborating with influencers are also within the possibility of the WordPress sphere.
Finally, to make WordPress more appealing to young people, the ecosystem has to work together. Unlike its competitors, WordPress is not one brand or one company. Therefore, the companies and people who make up the WordPress ecosystem have to come together and develop a unified marketing approach.
They got together to talk about the future of WordCamp Europe and existing challenges. Here is a summary of what they discussed plus answers to questions from the crowd.
Bringing Younger People to WordPress
WCEU can be a great portal for attracting younger users. To use it as such, we need to continue to be mindful about being open and inclusive for everyone.
Another idea is to expand the offers for children and extend them to young people. We could train more people as caretakers and make kids feel welcome. That way, they get to know what an event is and get familiar with the community early on.
In addition, the focus needs to shift from technical aspects to the possibilities WordPress offers, the ease of use, etc. We can also learn from a lot of brands that are present in higher education like Microsoft, Google, Cisco, etc. Maybe WordPress marketing could focus on schools and universities as well.
Innovation for WordCamps
Another topic that came up was the need to keep innovating. The format of WCEU has essentially stayed the same, we just added more things over time.
One idea was for a new generation of WordCamps that are more specialized and niche. This could open up new topical areas and audiences.
For that, it would also be possible to bring in people from outside WordPress to give presentations. Right now, WCEU is offering a mix of talks and workshops that cater to the largest possible audience. With more experimentation and focus on different niches and topics, the content could become more interesting.
On the other hand, it also helps that WordCamps offer a wide variety and scope in terms of topics. Therefore, it might be a feasible idea to experiment only on one track or on a smaller scale.
To find out more about this, the panelists invited everyone to answer the WordCamp survey. It provides important feedback and the organizers need community opinions and points of views to make decisions about WCEU.
The session started off with some updates from the WordPress sphere.
For one, WordCamps are making a comeback. In 2022 there were only eight WordCamps in the first half of the year, now there have already been 25, more than in all of last year together. There is also a community summit happening in Washington DC, August 22-23, 2023 just before WordCamp US.
Secondly, there was an update on Five for the Future, which was a big topic last year. There have been 727 more contributors, 95 more pledges, and 40 more company contributors.
What’s more, OpenVerse is now on openverse.org and contains nearly 800 million images and audio files, which are also available in Gutenberg.
Another big new addition is playground.wordpress.net, which allows you to run a WordPress instance online in the browser. You can use it as an instant development environment and even import it as an iframe.
It even runs on your phone. You can find out more here.
After that, Matias showed a video presentation about the progress of Gutenberg. You can find it below.
Then it was time for the usual Q&A session, which brought up some interesting inquiries.
How Do You Think We Can Work as a Community to Create More Diversity, Inclusivity, Variety, and Equality?
There is still a long way to go. At the same time, there are also already initiatives out there that you can get involved in such as #WPDiversity.
In addition, it’s important to listen to feedback from the community on how to provide more representation. It’s also something every single person can contribute to by welcoming everyone at WordCamps and building an open community.
Gutenberg Has Great Tools Now But Is There Some Assistance to Use It Better, to Help Create Good Designs?
The developers are experimenting with transformations where, if you select several elements, the editor could suggest patterns to you. AI could also be an option for this in the future.
How Do You See Gutenberg and AI Coming Together?
Matt said he has never seen things move as quickly as they are right now. Even Jetpack has an AI now but they are still figuring out the pricing, use cases, etc.
He further said the two mega trends of the next 20 years will be AI and open source, which are highly combinable. AI will start building things and use open source to do so. Both are also very democratizing technologies, we all have access to them.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the best things we are seeing now are the worst things we will see. In addition, the open source stuff is catching up really quickly.
Back in 2016 the motto was to learn JavaScript deeply, now it is Learn AI deeply. In the future, it will likely be as important as literacy. So, play with it, explore the possibilities.
Is There an Approximate Date for Gutenberg Phase 4 (Multilingualism)?
Phase 3 will start properly after WordPress 6.3 comes out. It’s hard be certain about Phase 4, also because we don’t know where AI will be in terms of translation in five years. The fourth phase might be able to start in 2024.
The reason for that is that multilingual is very very complex. For it to work, every single item in WordPress has to go from one-to-one to many-to-many relationships. This adds multifactorial complexity.
It will be most difficult thing we will ever do in WordPress, therefore we need to do it right. It’s important to get the base layer in place, after that things will more easily fall into place. We probably need 18 to 24 months of Phase 3 before the developers can start looking into Phase 4.
Do We Have Any Ideas or Plans for Official Mentorship Programs in the WordPress Community?
One of the most helpful things for people to join the community is when they have someone to turn to. There is a trial program for that in Five for the Future that launches on July 12 where people in the program are asked to become mentors for others, especially from underrepresented groups. If you want to be a part of that as well, you can join here.
Could We Have a Public View of Where in the Different Teams We Need More Support?
We could consider adding dashboards on WordPress.org that display metrics for the different teams. This would show where more help is needed.
Can We Add Volunteer Badges to Profiles on WordPress.org?
Yes, there are some ideas already in the works.
Closing Remarks: See You in Turin, Italy!
And then it was already over again. To be honest, no WordCamp has ever passed as quickly to me as this one. It seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.
Here are some stats for the event. WordCamp Europe 2023 had 2,545 attendees from 94 countries and 658 contributors on Contributor Day. There were 102 speakers from 29 countries and posts from and about WCEU reached 23.2 million people. Of course, none of it would have been possible without the organizers, so a big thanks to them again at this point.
If you want to help make WordCamp Europe even better, please fill out the feedback survey. Aside from that, WCEU 2024 will be in Turin, Italy. See you there, hopefully!
Were you at WordCamp Europe 2023? What did you like/dislike the most? Let us know in the comments below!
Blocknotes is a new experimental app that runs WordPress natively on the iPhone. It was created by WordPress core committer Ella van Durpe and is powered by WordPress Playground, a project that runs the software in the browser without a PHP server.
“WordPress’ ecosystem can now run anywhere – desktop, mobile, web, even fenced ecosystems,” WordPress Playground creator Adam ZieliÅ„ski said, sharing a screenshot on Twitter.
Meet Blocknotes, the first native iPhone app running WordPress on the device.@ellatrx built it with Playground. It saves notes to HTML and synchronizes them over iCloud.
WordPress ecosystem can now run anywhere – desktop, mobile, web, even fenced ecosystems. Exciting! pic.twitter.com/ko20RGP4hT
“Blocknotes allow you to create notes with Gutenberg, save them as HTML files to iCloud, and synchronize them across your devices. This paves the way for future WordPress-based mobile apps and that’s just a start.”
Zieliński eplained that this particular experimental app is technically a WebView that runs a HTML page where the WebAssembly version of PHP runs – the same one as on playground.wordpress.net.
“Browsers and other JavaScript runtimes all adopted a common standard that is WebAssembly,” he said. “Turns out you can build many ‘regular’ programs, including PHP, to that standard and then you can run them in the browser.”
The significance of this app running natively on iOS is that it demonstrates the possibilities of running WordPress in many new contexts without the requirement of a server. Zieliński believes this implementation can even be turned into an app template to build a WordPress app with the click of a button.
“Playground, as a WebAssembly software, brings WordPress to Node.js, mobile devices, desktop apps, ecosystems like VS Code that support JavaScript extensions,” ZieliÅ„ski said. “The mobile app, desktop app, and a hosted web app could all use the same code and also provide a Playground-based demo version.”
ZieliÅ„ski said he expects to see people building mobile apps in the future “with nothing more than a WordPress plugin.” This would drastically reduce the learning curve for creating and customizing mobile apps.
“Or even better, with no code at all – they’d just use the admin interface to configure a WordPress site to look and act like an app,” he said.
“Changing the app look and feel could be the same as switching a theme in WordPress.”
Zieliński has a virtually inexhaustible spring of ideas for how the WordPress Playground can benefit the ecosystem and his passion for the project is evident in a recent interview on The Code and Coffee Show.
The Blocknotes app offers a solid example of WordPress Playground working in the real world. It’s a use case that seems to have resonated strongly with developers as a new way to run WordPress across platforms.
Blocknotes is available for beta testing! Even though I already use it for my notes, be careful! Normally, if the app freezes, your notes should be safe in iCloud Drive.
WordPress Playground is being developed to become “the official WordPress previewer,” according to the roadmap – the officially supported tool for testing WordPress plugins, new features, beta/RC releases, without expensive infrastructure. Demos and testing sites can be launched instantly by clicking a link. The project also promises to provide an interactive learning experience for WordPress documentation to help new developers.
Opening new doors for WordPress is also on the project’s roadmap, for the creation of tools that run across multiple devices. WordPress Playground removes limitations developers have lived with for years.
“Let’s enable a new generation of WordPress tools running on desktops, mobile devices, in CLI, and inside web browsers,” ZieliÅ„ski said. “Imagine WordPress as a cross-device note-taking app, or WooCommerce as a ticket-scanning app running on a phone, or a code editor running on a tablet where you can build WordPress extensions.
“WordPress won over 40% of the web as an app that can only run on a server. What will happen now that WordPress can run on almost any device?”
A lively discussion is happening on the Gutenberg repository about renaming the Command Center. This new feature, designed to be an extensible quick search and command execution tool, was introduced in Gutenberg 15.6. In version 16.0, it came out of the experimental stage and its API is now public, ready for developers to create their own custom commands.
The Command Center is on track to land in the upcoming WordPress 6.3 release but may be arriving under a different name. Automattic-sponsored contributor Reyes MartÃnez opened the discussion and identified three main purposes the feature is meant to serve:
Quickly search, navigate, and switch between different types of content
Run commands to perform tasks or actions
Extend and customize the tool, also with AI, via third parties (plugins)
“The concept of a command center can convey the idea of a centralized location to execute commands and manage tasks, but it seems a bit technical and carries some militant connotations,” MartÃnez said. “Additionally, after reading some feedback left in Riad’s call for feedback, my impression (from a marketing perspective) is that this name may not fully convey its potential and different use cases.”
MartÃnez contends that “Wayfinder” as a name “better captures its different use cases” and “reflects benefits, and appeals to a less technical audience.” She also suggested that it “has the potential to evoke a sense of curiosity, exploration, and discovery in more types of users.”
Two Automattic-sponsored contributors responded with support for Wayfinder as the name shortly after the discussion was posted. Nearly every other participant has highlighted concerns about using Wayfinder and suggested other names that more clearly describe the feature. The term does not have a direct translation in many languages and leans heavily towards navigation, leaving out the other purposes the feature is meant to serve, such as running commands and actions, as well as AI and other third-party integrations.
I'm not sure I could articulate why I feel so strong about the naming of the command bar coming to the #WordPress Site Editor (and eventually the whole Dashboard ) in a tweet, but wow I have strong feelings. https://t.co/yP4dx1LEDl
“There’s two things here. One is ‘What is it?’ and the other is ‘What is it called?’” WP Engine developer Ross Wintle said.
“I would rather it was just called a command palette on both counts. This is by far the most common term in use to describe this kind of thing. I see no need to stray from popular convention. Anything else is either confusing or marketing and I don’t like either.”
He suggests WordPress adopt the term based on its well-documented use throughout the industry for similar features in apps like Sublime Text, VS Code, GitHub, Jira, and others.
“We did hear MatÃas call it a “Wayfinder tool” in the WordCamp Europe 2023 Keynote, so at this point perhaps making arguments for it to be called something else may be moot, I’m not sure,” WordPress developer Aurooba Ahmed said.
“However, I was curious about the argument that a term using the word command would be less appealing to non-developers, so I wanted to document names around the internet for command palettes that I’ve seen in non-developer tools/services (to augment @rosswintle‘s documenting of tools and what they call this feature as well).
Ahmed cited apps using “Command Palette,” including Miro, Reflect, and Obsidian. Another common name for this feature is “Command Menu,” used by Todoist and Cron. She also cited ClickUp as using “Command Center” and Missive using “Command Bar,” among other apps with similar terms.
“I’m sure there’s more, these are just the ones I could think of, off the top of my head,” she said. “I’m not sure I consider the argument that a name with the term Command would be less appealing to non-developers a very strong one.
“That’s not to say that WordPress shouldn’t choose a different or unique name for this feature. However, then at this point I’m wondering what kind of name is wanted: one that feels new and different or one that clearly communicates its purpose and easy to remember?
“Those ideas don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but going against a fairly internet-wide informally established naming convention and understanding of a certain feature should have a solid reason behind it.”
Automattic-sponsored contributor Nicholas Garofalo noted that the name itself will not be prominently featured in the interface, based on recent mockups.
“The name, like Gutenberg, will be used primarily for marketing and documentation,” Garofolo said. “That influences naming and translation concerns.”
“Even differences in US vs UK English make it extremely difficult to find a catchy (Ie. marketable) and universally understood (Ie. easily documented) name. That’s why I agree with the aforementioned recommendation that we treat this a bit like ‘Gutenberg’ or ‘plugin.’ If this were appearing frequently within the interface then I would perhaps feel different.”
Other suggestions from speakers of different languages include Actions hub, Finder, Quick commands, Quick actions, and Quick finder. Even if Gutenberg contributors are determined to emphasize the navigation aspect of the feature at the expense of its other capabilities, a term like Quick finder is more easily understood for the 52% of WordPress users who use the software in a language other than English.
“The term ‘Wayfinder’ is very much associated with navigation and not with taking actions or giving commands,” WordPress developer Ian Svoboda said. “This feature’s purpose is to make it easier to run commands and move about the dashboard.
“A term like Wayfinder feels like marketing speak more than an actual feature name. Consider the difference between saying: ‘use the Wayfinder’ and ‘use the command palette.’ In the later example, the meaning and purpose is immediately clear. So sure someone else may not know what a ‘command palette’ is but I’d wager way more folks know what a command palette is than a random feature in me specific app called Wayfinder.
“I would ask that we focus on being easy to understand and to translate above trying to be clever with a name.”
The issue for renaming the Command Center is still open on the Gutenberg repository and discussion is ongoing. The general consensus of participants is to use clear language over a term that evokes curiosity (and likely confusion since it doesn’t translate well). A decision has not yet been made but should be forthcoming as WordPress 6.3 Beta 1 is expected on June 27, ahead of the general release on August 8.
Have you ever wondered how your audience finds you on Google?
Ever wished there was an easy way to figure out the exact terms your target audience type in on search engines WITHOUT the high costs?
If you’re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.
Today, I am excited to release our free WPBeginner’s Keyword Research Tool, which lets you figure out what your users are searching for on Google.
We built this tool because we want to make it easy and free for everyone to grow their organic traffic with keyword research.
What is WPBeginner’s Keyword Research Tool?
Our Keyword Research Tool is a powerful FREE online platform that lets you generate 300+ keyword ideas for your website in a click.
With this tool, you can quickly find every possible combination of keywords that your potential customers type in on Google. That way, you’ll get to know what keywords you’ll need to rank for on Google to boost your SEO and drive organic traffic.
Most keyword research tools available on the market are either crazy expensive or limit the number of keywords you can discover.
This is why we decided to build a keyword research tool and make it free for our WPBeginner readers.
With our keyword tool, all you need to type in is a seed keyword, and you’ll instantly find hundreds of keyword ideas. Plus, you can even download all the keyword ideas in a CSV file for future use.
And it’s absolutely free of cost. No signup or registration is required to use it.
Some of the benefits of using our keyword research tool are:
Ease of use: You’re just 1 click away from generating hundreds of keyword ideas.
Free unlimited access: Get unlimited access for free. Generate as many keyword suggestions as you want.
Save resources: It saves you time and money. To make it even easier for you, keywords are well organized in several groups.
How to Use WPBeginner’s Keyword Research Tool?
To find keyword ideas you need to rank for, the first thing you’ll need to do is to head over to our Keyword Research Tool page. Then type in your seed keyword, which is a short-tail keyword generally consisting of 1- 3 words. Then click Analyze.
The tool will instantly generate hundreds of ideas, which you can copy and save on your computer. To make it easy for you to brainstorm and analyze keywords, all the keywords are organized into these sections.
Alphabets: All keywords will be arranged in alphabetical order from A to Z.
Prepositions: In this section, you’ll get keywords with prepositions like for, is, near, to, and so on.
Questions: You can find long tail keywords with questions.
Aside from generating keyword ideas, our keyword tool also helps you see keywords organized with a graph in SVG. You can copy SVG to your clipboard. Alternatively, you can download the keywords in a CSV file for future use.
Finding the Right Seed Keywords for the Best Results
In a keyword research process, coming up with a seed keyword is always the starting point. And to find the right seed keywords, you’ll need to ask yourself a few questions:
Write your answers down. Then try to come up with a few seed keywords, each of them consisting of 1 to 3 words.
Our keyword analyzer gives you unlimited access to the tool, meaning you can generate as many keyword ideas as you want based on any number of seed keywords.
Just because you’ll get tons of keyword suggestions doesn’t always mean you need to choose all of them. Keep in mind that filtering out those ideas that don’t matter to your business is also an important part of keyword research.
Create Blog Post Ideas Based on the Keywords
Now that you know how to generate keyword ideas for your site, it’s your turn to bring them into action, like creating blog posts targeting those keywords. To be able to publish great blog posts consistently, you’ll first need to generate some blog post ideas.
With WPBeginner’s Blog Post Idea Generator, you can instantly generate around 250 content ideas, which otherwise would take a few hours, if not days. Backed by data, our free tool analyzes the keyword you entered and provides you with content ideas that are proven to attract your target audience.
Just like our Keyword Research Tool, the blog post idea generator is also a free online tool. No installation or email signup is required!
Start Your Keyword Research Today!
Our Keyword Research Tool is a great platform to help step up your SEO game.
It will only take a couple of minutes to get going with our tool and you’ll be on your way to generating keywords that can drive more organic traffic.
Here are a few of our free tools that will help you grow your SEO even further.
If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginner’s Free Keyword Research Tool or other tools more helpful for you, then share your thoughts in the comments.
As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.
In May 2023, WordPress’ Community Team announced that it would be evolving the WordCamp format to promote adoption, training, and networking for professionals, leaving the flagship events to focus more on connection and inspiration. This major shift opens the door for more experimentation through varied formats. In a recent update, the team shared that progress on the discussions has generated 64 ideas with 59 organizers who are willing to follow up on their ideas.
There are also eight pilot events that have been confirmed and six of them will launch in 2023. These include some of the most creative concepts that WordPress has ever officially entertained, as the previous WordCamp format had become predictable and requirements somewhat inflexible. These pilot events offer a glimpse of what events could look like going forward.
The WordPress community in Leipzig, Germany, is planning the first ever Low-Cost WordCamp for July 1, 2023. Organizers will host 90 attendees and keep costs low with no swag, no social dinner, and no after party. They will offer just one track of presentations.
“The goal is to motivate and help new and veteran organizers to create a lighter, impactful event that is low cost and requires less time, financial resources, and fewer organizers/volunteers,” Automattic-sponsored Community Team contributor Isotta Peira said.
Contributors in Sevilla, Spain, are planning a “WordPress Day” on July 2, 2023, where the focus will be engaging 50 attendees in three different areas of contribution.
“The goal is to bring new contributors to the community and retain them by organizing multiple events every year,” Peira said. With these small numbers and limited goals, this effort could easily be organized as frequently as they anticipate.
The community in Tegal, Indonesia is planning a “Scale Up” Workshop for October 22, 2023. A group of 50 participants will join in a 1-day training event that will expand their WordPress skills by “diving into the world of WordPress for enterprise.”
The three other approved pilot events for 2023 include a Rural event for small towns/villages, a WP for Publishers in Bangalore, and a Community Day in Rome, Italy, designed for WordPress community organizers, scheduled for September 29.
All of the confirmed events fall within the new purpose for WordPress events that the Community Team identified earlier this year:
WordPress events spark innovation and adoption by way of accessible training and networking for users, builders, designers, and extenders. We celebrate community by accelerating 21st-century skills, professional opportunities, and partnerships for WordPressers of today and tomorrow.
Prospective event organizers who are inspired by the confirmed pilot events can submit their creative ideas via a dedicated form. The Community Team is still accepting pilot events for 2023 and is also scheduling into 2024.
The module was one of five projects, selected from 35 proposals, that was granted funding during the DrupalCon Pitchburgh innovation contest. The winners were announced as part of Dries Buytaert’s State of Drupal presentation at DrupalCon North America 2023 in Pittsburgh.
“Since Automattic is the main developer behind Gutenberg, I shared the Gutenberg proposal with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic,” Buytaert said. “Matt was really excited about the idea of more Drupal sites using Gutenberg, and he kindly offered to provide the full €20,000 in funding through Automattic. Furthermore, he will be sending some Gutenberg experts to join the sprint without any cost to the Drupal community.”Â
The Drupal Gutenberg module is used on more than 3,000 Drupal websites. Frontkom, a 120-person agency, uses it exclusively when building Drupal sites for clients.
“Our clients love it,” Frontkom sales director Thor Andre Gretland said. “In fact, we haven’t built a Drupal site without Gutenberg since we started the project back in 2018.”
In his pitch video (embedded below), Gretland said the requested funding will be used to take the project to the next level by arranging an in-person workshop for a few days. They intend to gather people from the WordPress core team who have built the editor, the Drupal core team that knows the needs and possibilities for the admin initiatives, and the Drupal Gutenberg team that built and maintains the module.
Gretland listed several things he hopes the teams can create together, including a Gutenberg starter theme and a starter pack, where Gutenberg is setup with a complete frontend as a base theme or theming reference, as well as the ability to make it work work within the layout builder.
“Our goal is to make sure that the Drupal Gutenberg of the future is always using the latest and greatest version from the WordPress team, and better enable Drupal developers to contribute back upstream,” Gretland said. “We want Gutenberg more tightly integrated with Drupal and to do this properly we need to gather the people that should be involved. This is a great opportunity to extend our cooperation across open source projects and to move forward making Drupal the most easy to use enterprise CMS.”
In 2005, Timothy “Wolf” Bishop was serving time in an Iowa prison for charges related to a gambling addiction.
“When I was 25, I made a bet that I could not cover,” Bishop said. “I had gambled with a local thug on a local semi-pro baseball game between the Burlington Bees and the Clinton Lumberkings. I bet on the Bees, who lost the game without even scoring.
“I did not have the $10,000 I had bet. When I told the man I owed this, he was less than happy. He put a gun to my head and told me that if I did not have his cash in one week, he would put a bullet in my brain. I had the money three days later.”
It was the crimes Bishop committed to cover that debt that got him sent to prison. Now an experienced professional, entrepreneur, and educator, who has spoken at numerous WordCamps, he credits WordPress for changing the trajectory of his life and helping him find a place of stability.
“It saved my life,” Bishop said. “I am not being over-dramatic when I say that. If it was not for WordPress, I would either still be in prison or dead.”
During the time Bishop was incarcerated in Rockwell City, the Iowa Department of Corrections began allowing limited internet access to inmates, and he was fortunate enough to be in one of the select prisons. Writing a personal blog was one of the allowed activities, so Bishop went on the hunt for a blogging platform to use. He had already tried many of them, as he had been into open source software since the mid-90’s.
“As I was also fighting to overcome my gambling addiction, I had the idea of starting a blog about my experience as a sort of self-therapy,” he said. “I tried TypePad first, but did not like it. Less than a month later, I discovered WordPress thanks to a correctional officer who had a blog of her own.”
Wolf Bishop in prison in 2005, Rockwell City, IA
The officer had maintained a blog for the past several months and recommended to Bishop that WordPress would be the easiest and best for his needs. This was in the summer of 2005, just a few months after WordPress 1.5 was released with a new “Pages” feature, a better templating system, and the Kubrick default theme.
“I was at a point in my life when I knew that I needed to change, and drastically, or I was going to be in prison for the rest of my life, or worse….dead,” Bishop said. “I know that sounds over dramatic, but I swear it is true. I hoped that by blogging about my battle with addiction, I could better overcome it.”
His first blog launched in September 2005, and he posted weekly for just over one year.
“Prison is a place where hope is in low supply,” Bishop said. “You have to watch your back every minute of every day. Before WordPress, I got in a ton of trouble in prison. I spent a lot of time in the hole. I had nothing to focus my time or energy on, so I fought and walked around with a giant chip on my shoulder.”
At one point he realized that he needed to change if he wanted to survive, get out of prison, and stay out of prison, but he was struggling with how to make this happen. Bishop attended Gamblers Anonymous (GA) but described himself as a somewhat shy person and found it difficult to open up to other people in the group.
“You cannot effect change until you open up,” he said. “So when I found WordPress I was able to remain somewhat anonymous, and that made it easier to open up. I could write about my struggles and my feelings. I had some place safe to vent my fears and frustrations and anger. I had a safe space to process childhood trauma and self-destructive thought patterns.”
In January 2007, Bishop was released from prison and went into a work release program. These kinds of programs have employment requirements and have been shown to lower the recidivism rates among prisons.
“It was then that I discovered how difficult it is to overcome the stigma of being a felon,” he said. “No matter how much I wanted to do better and succeed, it proved to be more challenging than I expected. Within three months I was sent back to prison for a parole violation after losing my minimum wage job.”
Bishop, who describes himself as “a pretty intense mix,” of being bi-polar and living with ADHD on the Autism spectrum, found it difficult in prison to manage the mental and emotional health issues that led him to a gambling addiction. Mental health resources for prisoners can be scarce, but blogging helped him find a way through.
“I guess you could just call it personal talk therapy,” he said. “By writing about the experiences I had, being in prison, and how I was feeling, I was able to address my demons and work through the thought patterns that kept leading to destructive behaviors. I guess you could say it was more like a publicly accessible journal.”
Launching a WordPress Career Fresh Out of Prison
What Bishop learned in the work release program in 2007 about the challenges inmates face after prison became even more clear when he was finally released in 2010. Even though he had fully completed his sentence and was not on supervision, the challenges remained.
“Every GOOD job I applied for shot me down the second they learned I was an ex-con,” Bishop said. “From 2010 until 2015, I struggled to get a job that would pay the bills. I worked dead end fast food and temp jobs.”
In 2015, he and his wife were homeless with three small children living in a tent in Texas. It was this year that he was given the opportunity that launched his career in WordPress. He was offered a support role at InMotion Hosting.
“They took a chance on me and they paid for us to move to Virginia Beach,” Bishop said. “At first, we still lived in a tent and then a hotel. From there it was an upward trajectory and my career has continued to grow.”
Wolf Bishop speaking at WordCamp Atlanta in 2018
In the years following, Bishop has worked in various support roles and branched out into launching his own development and hosting companies. He is now on his fourth WordPress business, WP Octane, which follows two that failed and two that he successfully built and sold. WP Octane started in 2016 under the name WP Top Hat, and was geared towards being a 1-stop WordPress shop.
“The idea was to have a company that provided everything a business needed for its online presence,” Bishop said. “But trying to provide managed hosting, ongoing care, content management, marketing, SEO, and several other services proved to be more than I could handle on my on.”
In 2019, just before the pandemic hit, he decided to convert to just a managed WordPress host with ongoing care plans included, and changed the name to WP Octane. For the next two years his small startup struggled to thrive during the pandemic, although he did see some growth.
“Finally, in early 2022, WP Octane became profitable for the very first time,” Bishop said. “Since then we have continued to grow, albeit slowly.”
In late 2022, after investing more into infrastructure, WP Octane pivoted again to offer low cost shared WordPress hosting that serves a middle of the road between shared and managed.
“We limit tenancy of all servers to a fraction of what most shared hosts have,” Bishop said. “We introduced features that allow us to outperform most shared hosts and come pretty close to matching performance of a managed WordPress host. We have virtually eliminated many of the typical pitfalls of shared hosting like the dreaded noisy neighbor syndrome.”
WP Octane still offers fully managed plans with ongoing care included as they did previously, but the new shared platform has taken off better than Bishop expected and is now the company’s primary focus.
Empowering Inmates and Ex-Convicts for Success with WordPress Skills
Bishop is also now invested in giving back through a new effort to launch a prison program that will teach inmates the skills they need to use WordPress. The program is still in its early stages and has gotten preliminary approval from the Missouri Department of Corrections, which is local to where he now lives on 63 acres in the Ozarks. He is working on completing the curriculum, a requirement before it can be fully approved. The target for that phase is early August so it can go to a committee for approval at a September meeting.
“It is this struggle that led me to start this project,” he said. “I want to give inmates that truly want to turn their lives around a skill that can enable them to do just that. If they learn how to work with WordPress, whether it be design, development, SEO, or any other area, they can avoid some of the challenges I faced.”
Bishop said inmates equipped with WordPress skills will not be at the mercy of employers who are unwilling to give them a chance, because they have a skill they can use independently. If they go the route of custom development, most clients do not ask for a background check.
“When participants complete the program and eventually get out of prison, they will have a portfolio that they can show to potential clients and even employers,” Bishop said. “It is my hope that it will increase their chances of success.”
This is a first of its kind program that is still awaiting final approval. In the beginning he is aiming to launch it in the Missouri prison system but said he would love to take it nationwide some day.
Bishop is also working on a related project – a website that lists employment opportunities with WordPress companies that are willing to give ex-offenders a chance. The project is still in the early planning stages as he talks with employers to encourage them to join this movement. His experience with this community has led him to believe that WordPress will be a beacon of hope and opportunity for anyone who wants to make something on the web.
“WordPress helped me overcome addiction,” Bishop said. “It taught me the value of community and that if you are willing to put in the work, you do not have to rely on others to ‘let’ you succeed. WordPress lets you make success a choice.”
Even though I already use it for my notes, be careful! Normally, if the app freezes, your notes should be safe in iCloud Drive.
) in a tweet, but wow I have strong feelings. 
