{"id":4971,"date":"2026-05-02T13:19:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2026-05-02T13:19:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:19:48","slug":"gutenberg-times-studio-code-hosting-call-for-testing-design-with-ai-and-more-weekend-edition-365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=4971","title":{"rendered":"Gutenberg Times: Studio Code, Hosting call for testing, Design with AI, and more \u2014 Weekend Edition 365"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi there, <\/p>\n

May is an action-packed month for the WordPress community, packed with tons of local WordCamps and Campus Connect<\/a> events. After so long without seeing each other, it\u2019s awesome to get together in person \u2014 sharing ideas, storytelling, and just making real connections. In this digital age, those genuine face-to-face moments remind us how much it really matters to show up in person.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the people around you, friends and family. Speaking of which my next two weeks are all about that. We are on the road to a family reunion and the following weeks we get a visit from our long -time Canadian friends. I also will take another break on the weekend edition, though. Number 366 is scheduled to come out on May 23, 2026, the 77th Anniversary of the German Constitution. <\/p>\n

Have a wonderful weekend.<\/p>\n

Yours, \"\ud83d\udc95\"
Birgit<\/em><\/p>\n

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress<\/h2>\n

Amy Kamala<\/strong>, co-release coordinator for WordPress 7.0, published an Urgent: Testing request to Web hosts for collaborative editing by May 4th<\/strong><\/a>. The results will inform core architectural decisions before release. The test suite needs only bash<\/code>, cURL<\/code>, WP-CLI<\/code>, and patch<\/code> \u2014 and the Core team wants data from your actual<\/em> customer environments, not clean installs. Results are aggregated and kept anonymous. <\/p>\n

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\"\ud83c\udf99\" The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #130 \u2013 WordPress 7.0, Gutenberg 22.9 and 23.0, WordCamp Europe, Block Themes and More<\/a> with Tammie Lister<\/strong>, Chief Product Officer at Convesio <\/p>\n

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Hamza Kwehangana<\/strong>, co-organizer of WordCamp Vienna, walks you through everything new in WordPress 7.0<\/strong><\/a>, the release that kicks off Phase 3: Collaboration. You\u2019ll see real-time multi-user editing in action, native AI Connectors for plugging in providers like OpenAI or Anthropic, a refreshed admin with Data Views, and a new Notes and Comments system for editorial teams. Block-level additions include heading variations, fit text, responsive editing mode, a native Icons block, and Visual Revisions. <\/p>\n

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners<\/h2>\n

The WooCommerce<\/strong> team is actively exploring a DataViews-powered Product Catalog Management experience<\/a> <\/strong>that could improve how merchants handle large product sets. Led by Luigi Teschio<\/strong>, you can already test a working prototype via WordPress Playground. The shared blueprint installs WooCommerce nightly, Gutenberg, and sample products in one click. Smoother filtering, price filtering, inline variation handling, and improved bulk edit workflows are all on the table. <\/p>\n

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WPMet<\/strong>, plugin developers of GutenKit, introduced TableKit, a native Gutenberg table builder<\/a> <\/strong>aimed at replacing the block editor\u2019s limited default table with a more sophisticated approach. You get four table types \u2014 standard tables, WooCommerce product tables with live stock and direct add-to-cart, data tables that import from CSV, Google Sheets, or JSON with auto-sync, and WordPress post tables. Standout features include conditional formatting, freeze columns, column sorting, search and filtering, and export to PDF, CSV, or Excel, all without shortcodes or leaving your editor.<\/p>\n

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Mike McAlister<\/strong> has been busy shipping for Ollie Pro. He posted a demo on X showing new responsive controls in the block editor<\/a> \u2014 device-specific settings for typography, padding, margin, spacing, and text alignment at specific breakpoints, no custom CSS or extra plugins required. Alongside that, he introduced a completely redesigned Ollie Pattern Library<\/a> with a unified design language across hundreds of patterns, a faster Browse tab with live search and one-click actions, and a brand-new Discover tab powered by Ollie AI, letting you describe a layout in plain language, use pre-made prompts, or hit \u201cInspire Me\u201d to instantly assemble a full page.<\/p>\n

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Maxime Bernard-Jacquet <\/strong>announces that Modern Fields 1.0 is now out of beta<\/a> <\/strong>\u2014 a custom fields plugin built for the block editor era and positioned as an ACF alternative. The 1.0 release adds JSON import\/export, automatic field sync with the theme, a no-code UI for creating custom post types and taxonomies, and WP-CLI commands. A live in-browser demo requires no installation. A Pro version is in the works, with repeater and relational fields, conditional logic, options pages, query loop filters, and custom block creation planned. <\/p>\n

Core contributors Nik Tsekouras<\/strong> and Marin Atanasov<\/strong> started an Experiment: Content types tracking issue<\/strong><\/a>, developer might want to keep an eye out. The idea is to bring management of majority of the cases to core and leave complex use cases in plugin territory. <\/p>\n

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks<\/h2>\n

Jamie Marsland<\/strong> shares a neat design-system-to-WordPress workflow<\/strong><\/a> that lets you spin up a styled site in minutes \u2014 no local install, no hosting, no deploy. Head to claude.ai\/design<\/a>, grab a DESIGN.md<\/code> from the awesome-design-md repo<\/a> (Vercel, Linear, or Stripe are solid picks), upload it to Claude, and ask it to build a homepage, about page, and blog with sample posts inside WordPress Playground. One tip you shouldn\u2019t skip: make sure Playground uses storage=browser<\/code> so your work persists between reloads.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u201cKeeping up with Gutenberg \u2013 Index 2026\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly.\u2002<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The previous years are also available:
<\/strong>2020<\/a> | 2021<\/a><\/strong> | 2022<\/a><\/strong> | 2023<\/a><\/strong> | 2024<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.<\/h2>\n

Taylor Drayson<\/strong>\u2018s WP Wireframe <\/strong><\/a>is a PHP library that you can include in your plugin to create complete WordPress admin settings pages using one configuration array\u2014no JS build step required. It offers over 20 field types (like text, color, file picker, and more), an API for accessing settings, options for conditional visibility, validation, support for multiple pages, and a helper to adjust settings. Install it with Composer, point it to a settings.php<\/code> file, and your settings page is ready to go. Or so Drayson promises. <\/p>\n

AI and WordPress<\/h2>\n

Automattic\u2019s Alexa Peduzzi<\/strong> introduces Studio Code, now in public beta \u2014 a WordPress-native agentic CLI tool<\/strong><\/a> built on top of Claude Code. Install Studio CLI and run studio code<\/code> to get started. Unlike general-purpose coding agents, it\u2019s purpose-built for WordPress: you can describe a site in natural language and it builds a complete block theme \u2014 layout, typography, fonts, and content \u2014 then validates block markup against the real editor, runs WP-CLI commands, audits performance, and pushes to WordPress.com or Pressable hosting. Free during beta.<\/strong> Details on how to get started are on the developer portal<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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Varun Dubey<\/strong>, founder of Wbcom Designs and BuddyPress contributor, offers a developer\u2019s honest take on WordPress 7.0 AI Connectors \u2014 what they get right and what still worries him<\/strong><\/a>. You\u2019ll find the case for standardization (one dashboard for all AI providers, lower barrier for solo plugin developers, user choice of cloud or local models) balanced against real concerns: data privacy enforcement is still honor-system, budget limits are soft rather than hard, and local\/self-hosted AI remains a second-class setup experience despite Varun\u2019s own work running a private Ollama-powered WordPress instance. His prescription for the ecosystem \u2014 mandatory data transparency declarations, hard cost caps, end-user consent hooks, and provider certification \u2014 is worth reading before you start wiring AI connectors into your own plugins.<\/p>\n

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Among other things, Varun Dubey flagged unencrypted AI Connector key storage as one of the sharper edges of WordPress 7.0 \u2014 and Encrypt AI Connector Keys<\/strong><\/a> by Thomas Zwirner<\/strong> is exactly the kind of ecosystem response he was calling for. Install it, re-enter your keys under Settings > Connectors<\/strong>, and they\u2019re saved encrypted using the battle-tested Crypt for WordPress<\/em> library, with the decryption key stored outside the database in wp-config.php<\/code>, an MU plugin or a custom file. No settings page, just one filter hook if you need to customize the encryption method. <\/p>\n

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If you\u2019ve ever asked an AI to write a post for your WordPress site, you\u2019ve probably seen what happens: the content looks fine at first glance, but once it\u2019s in the editor, the blocks are a mess. That\u2019s because AI tools are great at plain HTML and Markdown, but Gutenberg\u2019s block format \u2014 with its mix of HTML and JSON-formatted comment tags \u2014 is just quirky enough to trip them up regularly.<\/p>\n

Block Format Bridge<\/strong><\/a>, a new open-source plugin by developer Chris Huber,<\/strong> offers a sensible fix. Instead of wrestling AI into producing perfect block markup, it lets AI do what it\u2019s good at and handles the conversion to blocks itself, server-side. It works the other way too, so you can pull post content back out as Markdown or HTML whenever you need it. If you\u2019re experimenting with AI-assisted publishing on WordPress, this one\u2019s worth a look. Install it and it automatically makes the conversion. <\/p>\n

In this post, i dived a bit deeper into the matter: Block Format Bridge: A Practical Solution for AI-Generated Content in WordPress<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Greg Zi\u00f3\u0142kowski<\/strong> maps out what he\u2019d like to see land in WordPress 7.1 for Core AI<\/a>,<\/strong> building on the Abilities API and server-side WP AI Client shipping in 7.0. You\u2019ll find proposals across four areas: <\/p>\n