Doc’s WordPress News Drop is a weekly report on the most pressing WordPress news. When the news drops, I will pick it up and deliver it right to you.
We now know the schedule for the next WordPress release, version 4.9.8, which features a big push for users to help beta-test Gutenberg. In this week’s video, Doc talks about what to expect from 4.9.8 and when to expect it.
Love WordPress news, but hate reading? My name is Doc and this is Doc Pop’s News Drop.
We now know the schedule of WordPress version 4.9.8, which includes a massive release of the “try Gutenberg” button.
The release was initially scheduled as 4.9.7, but then a surprise security release came out a few days later, which bumped the release number up by 0.0.1.
The main focus of WP 4.9.8 will be a “Try Gutenberg” call prominantly displayed in the WordPress dashboard with a link to the Gutenberg beta plugin. In other words, the main focus of this release is to encourage all WordPress users to start testing out Gutenberg.
That may not sound like a big deal, but it’s a huge step for the Gutenberg team. Basically it means that Gutenberg is stable enough for major testing and that a code freeze on any new features will occur. As Matt Mullenweg said at WordCamp Europe, the goal is to have at least 100,000 Gutenberg users and 250,000 posts before WordPress 5.0 is released, which could be as early as August.
The current timeline for 4.9.8 is a beta release on July 17th, and the official release on July 31st.
Along with this release, there are a few specific goals for Gutenberg itself. In July, WordPress.com will begin making Gutenberg the default editor, and requiring users who want the classic editor to “opt-out” of Gutenberg. The team will begin collecting information on how many users opt-out and why.
A code freeze will be put into place and the Gutenberg team will focus on fixing bugs and getting any code-blockers down to zero before the official release in 5.0.
Also in July, Gutenberg phase two will begine, which explores integrating Gutenberg features into the theme Customizer and other areas of WordPress other than the post editor.
In August, all critical Gutenberg issues should be resolved and there should be full integration for Calypso users as well.
As I mentioned earlier, we may see WordPress 5.0 released in August with Gutenberg made as the default editor for all new WordPress sites. Anyone who wants to use the classic WordPress editor will have to install the Classic Editor Plugin to restore the previous functionality.
So yeah. We may actually see Gutenberg released before season 8 of Game of Thrones. Wow.
Doc Pop
Doctor Popular is an artist and musician living in San Francisco. As a full disclaimer, he is neither a doctor nor popular.
The post Doc Pop News Drop: WordPress 4.9.8 and the upcoming “Try Gutenberg” button appeared first on Torque.
