WordPress development shifts focus to version 7.1 as the community prepares for beta testing. The first beta release arrives July 15, 2026, with three additional Gutenberg plugin updates scheduled before that milestone.

The Gutenberg Times editor announced a temporary publishing pause during vacation. Regular coverage resumes in early July, coinciding with the WordPress 7.1 beta 1 release.

WordPress 7.0 Armstrong Features Explained

The OpenMakers show recently featured a detailed discussion of WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” capabilities. Visual revisions now display edits with color coding in context. The Notes feature keeps feedback directly inside the editor interface.

Patterns gained content-only editing functionality. Blocks can now hide based on device type. New AI connector APIs provide developers with a unified foundation for building intelligent features. However, real-time editing capabilities remain scheduled for a future release.

Site administrators should test updates on staging environments first. PHP compatibility checks are essential before upgrading production sites.

Gutenberg Plugin Updates and React 19 Rollback

Gutenberg 23.3 introduced several significant changes. The modal media editor became the default cropping tool, consolidating cropping, flip, rotation, and metadata functions. An experimental customizable dashboard added five new widgets with drag-and-resize capabilities.

Responsive styles now apply to individual blocks. This enables designs to adapt automatically across different screen sizes. The customizable dashboard represents the most substantial structural change to WordPress admin in years.

Arthur Chu detailed these improvements in a walkthrough post. Users can enable experimental features under Gutenberg settings to test the new dashboard layout.

React 19 Compatibility Issues

Developers reverted the React 19 upgrade in Gutenberg shortly after version 23.3.0 shipped. Many plugins built for React 18 experienced crashes due to runtime conflicts. The React 19 runtime rejected elements created by bundled React 18 JSX helpers.

Jarda Snajdr reported that version 23.3.2 rolled back to React 18. The development team still plans the React 19 upgrade for WordPress 7.1. This time, implementation will include a feature flag and compatibility layer to prevent plugin conflicts.

WordPress 7.1 Testing Calls Issued

Contributors published multiple testing requests this week. The tight development schedule requires community participation to identify issues before beta 1.

Ramon Dodd requested testing for the new Media Editor Modal. The WordPress-native tool replaces the limited third-party library used for years. It supports freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, flip, rotation, and metadata editing in one interface. A ready-made Playground link makes testing quick and accessible.

Collaborative Editing Outreach Program

Anne McCarthy announced a collaborative editing outreach effort for WordPress 7.1. After real-time collaboration was delayed from version 7.0, this initiative gathers early adopters across diverse hosting environments. The goal is faster bug detection through real-world testing.

Participants use the #collaborative-editing-outreach Slack channel. Site owners who regularly need collaborative editing features and run the latest Gutenberg build are invited to join. Contributors receive a test team badge upon completion.

Rae Morey covered the program launch in detail. The FSE-style outreach approach aims to accelerate collaborative editing readiness.

Client-Side Media Processing

Adam Silverstein issued a testing call for client-side media processing. This feature targets WordPress 7.1 and fundamentally changes how image uploads work. Browsers resize and encode images locally using VIPS in WebAssembly before server upload.

This approach reduces CPU and memory load on hosting servers. It brings modern formats like AVIF, WebP, HEIC, and JPEG XL to every WordPress site. Browsers without WebAssembly support automatically fall back to server-side processing. Testing requires Chromium browsers with the latest Gutenberg plugin.

WordCamp Europe 2026 Coverage

WordCamp Europe livestreams are running through the weekend. Friday’s keynote featuring Joachim Valdemar Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros discussed WordPress at CERN. All streams route to the WordPress YouTube account, with recordings uploaded to WordPress TV.

Matt Mullenweg closes WordCamp Europe 2026 on Saturday with his keynote at 2:15 UTC. Organizers will reveal the WordCamp Europe 2027 location afterward. The full schedule appears on the event website.

Plugin Development and AI Integration

Brian Coords hosts a live panel on AI workflows for WordPress and WooCommerce on June 30, 2026, at 10am PDT. The panel features Shani Banerjee, Nik McLaughlin, Kyle Runner, and Suzanne Kolpakov discussing WooCommerce MCP, WordPress Abilities API, and Pressable MCP.

Topics include making plugins more agent-ready and managing stores with AI tools. Registered participants receive the recording if unable to attend live.

WordPress Plugin Directory Challenges

Nathan Wrigley interviewed plugin reviewer Luke Carbis about plugin directory challenges on the Jukebox podcast. Plugin submissions have quadrupled in one year, largely due to AI-generated content. Quality plugins struggle to gain visibility in the crowded marketplace.

Carbis proposed several solutions for testing. These include logging into sites with WordPress.org accounts, installing from Git repositories, or creating a commercial marketplace that funds contributors. The discussion also covered AI ethics and the need for AI-disclosure headers in the directory.

Block Editor Development Tools

Casey Burridge introduced Block MCP, GravityKit’s open-source WordPress MCP server. Existing MCPs treat posts as single HTML blocks, which breaks layouts when AI makes edits. Block MCP exposes each block as an addressable unit with stable IDs.

AI agents can make surgical edits, batch up to 50 changes atomically, and undo individual changes. Testing across Claude models showed only Block MCP worked reliably without stripping block markers.

Custom Icons and Color Palettes

Justin Tadlock published a tutorial on registering custom icons for WordPress 7.0’s Icon block. The public registration API won’t arrive until version 7.1. The workaround uses PHP Reflection to access the protected WP_Icons_Registry::register() method.

The approach bundles SVGs in themes through an Icon enum and registrar class. It’s educational rather than production-ready, where Nick Diego’s Icon Block plugin remains the recommended solution.

Ajit Bohra and the LUBUS team released Color Palette Block 2.0. The free plugin builds and shares color palettes in the block editor. Users add swatches manually, pull from theme colors, or generate random palettes. Four display styles are available: Square, Polaroid, Circle, and Droplet. Colors copy as HEX, RGB, HSL, or CSS variables.

Resources for WordPress Developers

The Gutenberg Times maintains a chronological index of WordPress Make Blog posts from 2025. The index covers posts from Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta teams. Archives extend back to 2020 for historical reference.

Daily Gutenberg plugin builds from the master branch are available for testing. WordPress Playground integration eliminates the need for local or server test sites. Developers can access experimental features without complex setup requirements.

Original Source: gutenbergtimes.com