The Month in WordPress – August 2023


August 2023 marked another exciting chapter in WordPress, with the Community Summit and WordCamp US bringing the community together for meaningful discussions, knowledge sharing, and learning. This month also welcomed the long-awaited WordPress 6.3 release and offered a glimpse of what’s to come. Let’s dive into it.

Meet WordPress 6.3 “Lionel”

WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” was released on August 8, 2023, and named after the acclaimed vibraphonist, pianist, and jazz percussionist Lionel Hampton.

This major update makes bringing your vision to life with blocks more intuitive and efficient. Your content, templates, and patterns are now seamlessly integrated into the Site Editor, enabling you to craft every aspect of your online presence within a single location. You can sharpen your designs with new tools, enjoy fine-tuned control over navigation menus, and work faster with the Command Palette. Explore what’s new.

WordPress 6.3 features over 500 features and enhancements with a continued emphasis on performance and accessibility. This release was made possible by more than 650 contributors from 52 countries.

While the Site Editor will continue to be enhanced, this release means a significant milestone as it marks the conclusion of Gutenberg Phase 2. Take a moment to watch “Designed with WordPress”—an ode to this remarkable journey worth celebrating.

Download WordPress 6.3.1.

Roadmap to 6.4

Contributors are already working on WordPress 6.4, expected to be released on November 7, 2023. This release, led by an underrepresented gender release squad, will focus on enhancing different aspects of the WordPress experience while continuing the foundational work for Gutenberg Phase 3. Users can anticipate features like font management and a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four.

Twenty Twenty-Four aims to be a versatile theme, featuring a range of templates and patterns specifically designed for three use cases: entrepreneurs and small businesses, photographers and artists, and writers and bloggers.

Check out the 6.4 roadmap post for a tentative preview of expected features.

New in the Gutenberg plugin

Two new versions of Gutenberg shipped in the last month:

  • Gutenberg 16.4 was released on August 9, 2023. It introduced a new “auto-inserting blocks” experimental feature, a progress bar component that can be used throughout the interface, and block supports for the Footnotes block.
  • Gutenberg 16.5 shipped on August 23, 2023, and focused on enhancements to the Command Palette and enabling further customization of blocks.

Follow the “What’s new in Gutenberg” posts to stay on top of the latest enhancements.

Team updates: Next generation of WordPress events, WP Admin redesign, and more

Keen to see new WordPress event formats happening in your local community? Get inspired by these creative concepts and share your ideas!

Feedback & testing requests

The Training team seeks feedback on the first learning pathways outlined to improve the Learn WordPress educational experience. Share your thoughts by September 15, 2023.

WordPress events updates

Join Josepha Haden Chomphosy in Episode 61 of WP Briefing as she discusses her takeaways from the Community Summit.

Have a story we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? Fill out this quick form to let us know.

The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: @rmartinezduque, @laurlittle.