In this 134th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast, Birgit Pauli-Haack hosts Jessica Lyschik , senior developer at Greyd, to discuss recent Gutenberg and WordPress developments. The conversation centers on the releases of Gutenberg 23.7, 23.8, and WordPress 7.1 (\u201cMary Lou\u201d), highlighting user-facing enhancements and developer-oriented changes.<\/p>\n
WordPress 7.1 introduced notable features, including new styling tools, updated media flow, notes functionality for collaboration, and improved support for AI-driven workflows. Jessica Lyschik emphasized the impactful addition of pseudo states (hover, focus, active) in buttons and navigation links, though global style options for navigation states are still being developed for 7.2. The new icon API was also discussed, which currently requires plugins for full editor integration.<\/p>\n
Both speakers observed an ongoing shift: features first become available via The episode closed with a look toward WordPress 7.2, highlighting efforts to address \u201cblock editor paper cuts\u201d (small annoyances) and improved tracking of in-progress features. Birgit Pauli-Haack announced a three-month podcast hiatus for sabbatical, promising a return for the 7.2 release. Listeners were encouraged to follow GitHub tracking issues and stay current with upcoming Gutenberg releases.<\/p>\n Show Notes<\/a> \/ Transcript<\/a><\/p>\n Show Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n Greyd Conversations #19 \u2013 How Can Product Companies Grow in WordPress Right Now<\/a><\/p>\n Stay in Touch<\/p>\n Transcript<\/strong><\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Welcome to our 134th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today\u2019s episode, we will talk about Gutenberg 23.7 and 23.8, and also, of course, WordPress 7.1, which was just released, and also what\u2019s in the pipeline. Not very detailed, but we\u2019ll see. I\u2019m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project sponsored by Automattic. It\u2019s again a special treat for me to have Jessica Lyschik to join me on the show again. Jessica is a senior developer at Greyd, which is a German WordPress company that builds Greyd.Suite, an all-in-one toolkit for building and managing professional WordPress sites. Welcome to the show, Jessica. How are you today?<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Thank you. I\u2019m very good today. And thanks for having me yet again. I don\u2019t know how often have I been here now?<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> I think it\u2019s either the 6th.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> 3rd, 4th?<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Well, I think we\u2019re coming up to 6 or 7.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Is there like an ongoing list of people how often they have been on the show?<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Of course. Of course there is a list.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Probably I\u2019m very at the top.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> It feels like. Absolutely. Yeah, you are. Top producer here.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Nice.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: Yeah. So Jessica, you are not only working on Greyd, you also work co-organizer on the WordPress Germany, and you also are a co-organizer for the German-speaking DACH Online WordPress Meetup. DACH, for those who don\u2019t know it, is Deutsch, Austrian, also \u00d6sterreich and Schweiz, L\u00e4nderkennung.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: Yes.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> And the meetup comes together every other month, right?<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yes.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> The 3rd Wednesday in a month in odd months. Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: Correct. Yes.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah. So what are you doing there? What\u2019s coming over next?<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> So our next meetup is, well, it is all in German. So for those listeners who are not speaking German, it\u2019s unfortunately not for you, but you can try and come over and practice and listen. But we mainly held a whole day meetup in German. So for the German, Austrian, and Swiss communities. And yeah, the next meetup is in September and it is, yes, on the 16th. And we are talking about WordPress 7.0 and 7.1 as the latest releases. We will have Benjamin Sekavica with us who was also the, I think, release coordinator for 7.1, if I\u2019m not mistaken.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: Yes.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> So he will share a bit more because he has been fairly involved into the last past 2 releases and he will share a few insights and everyone can share their experiences. We can answer each other\u2019s questions. And yeah, that\u2019s what we are going to do. So we aim for more of a professional audience with the online meetup.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> You mean developers and agencies?<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, or also anyone who is working professionally with WordPress. And we are not focusing too much on like beginners, but this is our area where we have our target audience, basically.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Awesome.<\/p>\n Well, thanks for letting us know about that. We\u2019re coming to some announcements. I only got one that I wanted to share with you, dear listeners. Jeff Paul opened the call for volunteers for WordPress 7.2 release squad, and the release is scheduled for December 9th. So that\u2019s kind of the timeframe that you\u2019re looking at. December 9th means there\u2019s 4 weeks beforehand is release candidate, and 6 weeks and 7 weeks is beta before that. So by October, you\u2019re probably gonna be part of the\u2014 ongoing work to get this release over the finish line 2 months later.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> So experience being on the release squad, you had experience with that and I had too. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a job for someone who hasn\u2019t been part of core for a while because it\u2019s a very fast-moving process and you need to know a lot about how WordPress is actually managed, developed, and released.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: There are quite a few release squads from previous releases that could come up and volunteer again. Yeah. <\/p>\n So speaking of first-time contributors to core, there is a new WordPress Contributor Toolkit that has been tested quite a bit, and it\u2019s out in the first version. The first contribution does not start again with installing Git, Node.js, and Docker, and kind of takes the whole Contributor Day morning or in the afternoon when you start doing that. So this is a desktop \u2026<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> I remember this.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah. And not everybody has their computer set up so it all goes smoothly. Yeah. So I have always had trouble with all the installations because my computer is not on the latest stuff. Yeah. So this desktop app handles it all. And after you run the setup wizard, Contributors can link to a track ticket and apply or test existing patches on the running site. It\u2019s also based on Playground. And then open a pull request or attach a patch or hand their work to a mentor or\u2014 yeah, there\u2019s quite a few features in there. And Juan Margarito is the project manager, so to speak, but he had input from quite a few core contributors. And I have not heard yet how it all went on WordCamp US, but I think the next version for WordCamp Asia is already in the works. So yeah, test it out. Then if you see something that needs to be fixed or that doesn\u2019t work, yeah, find your way into the GitHub repo so you can leave an issue or, yeah, have some discussion there.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, that sounds actually very promising to speed up the process. As I said, I remember like being on Contributor Day and now you have to install this, now you have to install Docker. Now you have to do this. Docker doesn\u2019t work properly. What is the issue? It was a never-ending story. And having a setup that is like ready to go, I think this is very interesting. Yeah, I have not been at WordCamp US either, so I don\u2019t know how this worked out, but I heard only good vibes so far from Contributor Day. Right.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> They published quite a few.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> I think it will speed up the process.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, WordCamp US was, the Contributor Day were about 400 people out of 1,000. So that\u2019s a phenomenal ratio there. And they changed the format a little bit from what I read, that they actually were project-oriented. So they actually were able to finish a few projects. And it\u2019s more like a hackathon rather than kind of everybody picks something up and works on things. And that\u2019s what I heard from a lot of people that were at the contributor day.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> And on August 19th, WordPress 7.1 was released called Mary Lou. After the jazz musician Mary Lou Williams, who has over 100 records. So she was very prolific in producing her music. And I\u2019m glad that we found another woman to be part of the jazz naming for a WordPress version. <\/p>\n We talked quite a bit on this show about the various features. Just a reminder, there\u2019s a lot packed into new styling tools. Updated media flows, added notes functionality, some changes to the new capabilities for AI, other tools and workflows. Anne McCarthy was the first-time release lead for it, and I must say she did a fantastic job, probably better than any other of the release leads because her communication style was very upfront, and it was also always kind of keeping everybody in the loop, and it was really nice to see. And for me, working on the source of truth, truth, it was really helpful that she was the release lead and I could bounce off some things like, how does it work? Or did I get this right? Or yeah, what is missing? What are your most favorite features from 7.1? Or what is it that tripped you up as a developer? Kind of, we can have both ways of talking about things.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, we can, we can do it. There\u2019s, uh, some things that have happened. So what I\u2019m really happy about is the pseudo states. So hover, focus, active on buttons. For when I saw that, I went in there and during the release candidate phase and was like, hmm, I read something about navigation and if in the source of truth, what is going on? So I figured out that navigation links do have on the individual navigation links, you can toggle it on. But then I thought like, hey, for navigation, it would just make so much more sense if you would do that in the global styles. But it was not there. So there was nothing in the global styles to change these states. And I was a bit confused about that. But glad we figured it out in the outreach channel. I think I posted it on Slack. And it was actually not done yet because there\u2019s one more addition coming to it, which is the, the active state.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> So it\u2019s not the, it\u2019s not the pseudo state active, but when you have in WordPress, when you click on a navigation item, then this specific navigation item on the page you\u2019re on gets the class current menu item as of now. I don\u2019t think this is going to change in the future, but then what\u2019s being worked on is that this also can be, this color can also be changed or this settings for when this state is actually happening.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: And now for the navigation items, you would have then 3 states. So you have the responsive styles, you would have the pseudo styles, and you would have this active style. And because these are kind of intertwined, this was the reason why it has not been coming into 7.1 yet, but it\u2019s being worked on for 7.2. So Maggie is on it. Maggie Cabrera, who I did the Twenty Twenty-Four theme with, she\u2019s working on that. So that\u2019s very cool. And yeah, that\u2019s something to look forward because I just remember like the last week been talking about it with someone and it was in Torino Twenty Twenty-Four on my talk when at Workcamp Europe where I think it was Rich Tabor who asked the question what I would like to see, and I was like, pseudo styles would be great. <\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> So 2 years later, we are finally here. Of course, it\u2019s not everywhere yet, but I think it\u2019s a very good start. We have it on buttons now, and it can only extend to other blocks as we have seen it with many features before. They start out on one very specific area and then got released to the rest of the items that are there. So yeah, I\u2019m very much looking forward to that. The new icon API is also something that\u2019s very interesting. And I just had an email from a client today saying, hey, there\u2019s this new icon API. What\u2019s, what\u2019s the matter? So I was curious too, of course, can I just do this in the editor? Because this was probably most people are going to ask. And no, you cannot, but you technically can through a plugin. There\u2019s also an article from Justin Tadlock on the developer blog about this, right? I saw that this week.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> I have not tested it out yet. I had not had the time with this, but it definitely looks promising to\u2014 we\u2019re getting there to like all these little changes that are kind of not just nice to have, but kind of sort of life improvements to how you would otherwise work that. I mean, there\u2019s the icon block, of course, from Nick Diego, who is like the base for all what is in Core now, but you still can do a lot more in terms of customization with it. But yeah, we\u2019re getting there. So yeah, we\u2019re looking forward to that.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: Yeah. So when you say it\u2019s not there yet for the navigation link, it\u2019s also not there. Well, you can do it in the theme.json. So it\u2019s just the UI or the interface wasn\u2019t finished. But the feature is there for theme builders that use the theme.json to style their stuff. They don\u2019t have to rely on the global styles interface.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, but that\u2019s always the first route you go. So you go first in the editor. Can I see it? Is it there? And it was like, eh, disappointment. Yeah, but that\u2019s what I forgot to mention. You can use it through theme.json, but then it\u2019s like a bit of a, how to say, it\u2019s, yeah, like you need to have your own theme.json. You just cannot go into any default theme or any existing theme that is from another author and then change it there because with the next theme update, your changes will be gone. So this is something you have to watch out for. And then for most people, it\u2019s like also the feedback I often get from clients, from colleagues, it\u2019s like, is it in the editor? No, sorry.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: Not yet. Still have to code. Not yet.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Not yet.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> But that\u2019s pretty much the cadence of any of the styling things, that they are first coming into theme.json for theme builders, because that\u2019s the basis of it. That\u2019s kind of the API. That\u2019s the\u2014 yeah, how it all fits in with the rest of it. And then it\u2019s a whole different mindset to figure out how the interface is going to work, because the interface also needs to kind of figure out not only for those that are advanced builders, but also for those that are actually beginners or don\u2019t know what a pseudo-state is. Yeah, so you have a language issue there, and it\u2019s a whole different mindset to get this right for the interface. And I\u2019m really glad that we finally have it in the theme.json and people can work with it from there. But yeah, you\u2019re right, it\u2019s not for one of the default themes where you can change the theme.json. Yeah, but it\u2019s your own. Yeah, like I did for the Gutenberg Times. I have my own theme and I can kind of change things there.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, it just depends how comfortable people are with using it. So if some are just, give me an existing theme that does get updates every now and then to do changes. And some just code their own because they feel comfortable with it. So It\u2019s, it\u2019s just that as long as we communicate, hey, that\u2019s the current state of this. You can use it there, here and there, but here, watch out. This is the catch. Then I think it\u2019s all fine because the more you know, the more you can adjust to your needs.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> And some who are longer in the WordPress space than just 4 years or so, so since it\u2019s block themes, there is also the idea of a child theme that a lot of people go that route, which has its own theme.json. that is then combined with the parent theme and the global style. It gets a little bit unwieldy. Yeah, kind of figuring out where things are changed and how do you revert something and where does it go? Because you also have the additional CSS and then the block-level CSS. So yeah, there\u2019s a lot of things that you can change and confuse everybody.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: Or even yourself. So it does happen that you change something somewhere, then forget about it and come back like 6 months later and be like, Why does this not change when I change the setting here? Now I can change the setting, but nothing happens. And I\u2019ve been there. Don\u2019t worry. It happens to the best. So it\u2019s a tough one, but yeah, you just have to find your way in how you approach things. And again, everyone\u2019s different. Everyone has different knowledge, different base on it. Child themes, definitely you can use them. Some people say child themes are dead. Well, it depends.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> It depends. Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: I mean, the most cases are slowly like, for example, if you wanted to use fonts, special fonts, then a child theme was always the best option to just have the files there, implement them and queue them correctly and so on. Well, now we have the font library. So. With a little exception, if you cannot upload certain fonts or do not want to use Google Fonts, for example, like there\u2019s Adobe and like Adobe Fonts and another font places. where we, where you can get fonts from, you still need to implement them in a sort of hacky way. It does work. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s one of those things where a child theme would, or is still useful in my opinion.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> And yeah, there\u2019s just so much variety around it. So yeah, everyone will find its way or their way too.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> I made the decision to not go with child theme, although the Gutenberg Times theme is based on Twenty Twenty-Five. Okay. I don\u2019t, I don\u2019t wanna kind of have this whole mental load, like figuring out where my patterns live or what are the theme.json settings that I need to override. And so I said, okay, I will make a copy and delete everything else that I need\u2014 don\u2019t need, and then take it from there. It\u2019s so robust that I don\u2019t think I\u2019m running into any problems that I didn\u2019t make myself. Yeah. <\/p>\n What else? 7.1, I wanted to interject that with\u2014 so 7.2 is of course coming. We talked about it on December 9th. There is not a roadmap out yet, but what\u2019s already in the works is what you mentioned is that we get ourselves confused when we don\u2019t know where things are in styling. There\u2019s actually an effort to have in the inheritance of styles be marked in the interface. There is a discussion on how to make that, and the designers are still kind of figuring it out. But you get an indicator in either the global styles or in the block settings in the sidebar if that\u2019s a changed style. So it\u2019s not the global style, but it\u2019s kind of an individual style. So you can at least manage that.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack<\/em>: Or at least recognize it. How far it goes, we don\u2019t know, but the discussions are there. And I will link that particular issue in the show notes so you can kind of check it out if you want to and kind of see how that\u2019s gonna come out. So anything else you wanna kind of say what you like about 7.1? What about the responsive styles? Do you like them?<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik<\/em>: They look promising. I have not tried them out yet. I mean, it\u2019s been just 2 days. I have been very busy with keeping up and, well, not having things break for great customers. We did have a little release. I was doing a little release yesterday for a little fix. No fatal errors or anything. <\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> Yeah, you are on your tippy toes when a new release is out. And of course, I have had it running on my local environment for quite some time, the release candidate, just to make sure that if I work or test things that I do not run into any issues. No, no deep dive yet, but what I noticed is that quite a few things moved around. For example, I was just made aware of yesterday that at the group block, you now have these settings that were usually the first thing. It\u2019s like the blocks should inherit the site width or content width or something like that.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Oh yeah.<\/p>\n Jessica Lyschik:<\/em> This, this, the layout. Yeah. The layout part, it has now been moved from the settings to the styles. And I think this was because of the responsiveness, because then you have everything together in one go and do not have to switch the tabs back and forth for this.<\/p>\n Birgit Pauli-Haack:<\/em> Yep.<\/p>\ntheme.json<\/code> for theme builders, then gradually get exposed in the UI for broader audiences. They also touched on the evolving approach to child themes, font management, and the need for clear style inheritance indicators. Specific enhancements in Gutenberg 23.7\/23.8, like responsive editing toggles and improvements to dynamic galleries and block inspector controls, were covered alongside new opt-out mechanisms for block controls.<\/p>\n\n
Special Guest: Jessica Lyschik<\/h2>\n
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Announcements \/ Community contributions<\/h2>\n
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WordPress 7.1 <\/h2>\n
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Gutenberg releases<\/h2>\n
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What\u2019s discussed or in the works<\/h2>\n
WordPress 7.2 Tracking issues <\/h2>\n
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Greyd Conversations<\/h2>\n
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Announcements<\/h3>\n
Community Contributions<\/h3>\n
What\u2019s Released \u2013 WordPress 7.1<\/h3>\n