DEV: What a Wonderful WordPress

Welcome to DEV, your monthly WordPress deep dive.

As we roll on into June, here’s the low-down on new releases, fancy features and community calls to action. Let’s get into it!

Oh, and stick around to the end to see “rolling on the floor with laughter,” personified.

In today’s edition:

WordPress 7.0 lands, finally giving Louis Armstrong his WordPress debut after 23 years of jazz names.
The WP Community Collective wants to know how WordPress folks are really doing. (Anonymous hot takes welcome.)
WooCommerce 10.8 drops, with a cartload of improvements including faster storefronts, review request emails and Armstrong-friendly admin.

Hot Off The Presses: What’s New?

 
Sure, this meme is funny, but in the age of AI there’s a bigger question starting to loom:

When we stop asking and answering in public, what happens to the shared knowledge base future developers (and future AI tools) rely on?

Stack Overflow may have been famously, uh, “character-building” for anyone brave enough to ask a question, but it also gave us something incredibly valuable: public debugging, weird edge cases, battle-tested answers, and comment threads where the real fix was always hiding three replies down.

It’s worth remembering that the robots learned a lot of that ancient magic from humans posting, correcting, arguing and documenting with their real, flesh-and-blood, Cheeto-dust-encrusted, human typing fingers.

So don’t forget to answer a question in public sometimes! Write up that weird fix you found. Leave a breadcrumb for the next dev Googling in a cold sweat at 11:47pm.

In the meantime, let’s scroll on and see what’s new in the wonderful, weird world of WordPress.

Armstrong Has Landed

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom, for me and you

And I think to myself…

It’s time to update WordPress!

WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” has officially shipped, named for jazz legend Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.

Which is wild when you think about it. After 23 years of WordPress releases named after jazz greats, we’re only just now getting to Louis Armstrong?

The big headline is that WordPress 7.0 lays the foundation for AI across the WordPress experience, with an AI Client in Core, the Abilities API, a central place to manage AI connections, plus new creative and workflow tools waiting in the wings. There’s also a refreshed dashboard, new blocks, design controls, block-level custom CSS, and a beefier developer toolbox.

The WordPress AI plugin 1.0.0 was also released on May 19th, adding request logging, connector approvals, improved media and alt text workflows, editorial tools, and early content provenance work.

Of course, with great prompts comes great responsibility. Patchstack founder Oliver Sild has already raised concerns that WordPress 7.0’s AI infrastructure could kick off a gold rush for stolen AI API keys.

Keep the Field Guide handy when you start poking around under the hood. WordPress is hitting some big new notes here, and your job is to make sure none of them turn into an ear-splitting support-ticket squeak.

The State of the Community Survey Wants YOU

In the WordPress world, community is everything. But how IS the community actually feeling right now?

The WP Community Collective aims to find out. They’ve launched their State of the Community Survey, to get an official “vibe check” about where things are headed and the forces shaping our favourite open source project.

Why? “Change needs context,” explains the official press release.

WordPress folks aren’t just usernames on a screen, WP Community Collective CEO Sé Reed explains. We’re people in the real world, navigating very real challenges. To effectively support the community and have productive conversations about the future of WordPress, the first step is to listen to what people have to say.

The survey takes about 10-20 minutes to complete and covers hot-button topics like AI, contributor participation, events and open source sustainability. It’s open to anyone who works with, builds on, contributes to or simply cares about WordPress.

So, whether you’re a freelancer, agency owner, plugin builder, core contributor or theme designer, if WordPress matters to your business you’re welcome to take part.

All responses are anonymous, so you can spill all your controversial takes without worrying about drawing the ire of a digital pitchfork mob. Responses are being collected until June 28, 2026 at 11:00am UTC.

Go ahead, throw in your 2 cents here.

WooCommerce 10.8 is Ready for Checkout

WooCommerce 10.8 brings a shopping basket full of handy improvements for store owners and devs alike.

The newest release landed on May 26th, bringing compatibility updates, performance improvements and plenty of fancy little quality-of-life tweaks designed to make your Woo store run a little smoother.

Some of the improvements include:

Customer review request emails: Gives stores an easier way to nudge customers to leave feedback, before their retail therapy buzz wears off and they move onto the next shiny new purchase.
Faster storefronts: Reducing friction from the “Add to Cart” journey so stores feel less “loading spinner of doom” and more “yes, please take my money!”
Armstrong ready: 10.8 includes about 15 pull requests that align this version with WordPress 7.0 styling, so you can update both together and the admin stays seamless.

Plus, there’s a bunch of other handy behind-the-scenes developer goodies in there, like custom shipping providers, coupon-related workflows and email blocks, that’ll help you build better sites for your clients.

Check out the release notes to see what’s new.

Mind Bloggling Facts & Stats

Within one week of Armstrong taking the stage, 46% of all WordPresses had already updated to the new version. But what’s really wild is that there are 0.36% of sites that are still on Version 4.7? Hello? Anyone home? (Source)
There’s more than one way to center an element. 100 ways, apparently. Although, about 60 of those are “hacky” and “not recommended.” (Source)
The WooCommerce Design Team decided to reward merchants with the cutest interactive piñata to celebrate their 1st, 100th and 1,000th sales. Who doesn’t love a playful Easter egg? (Source)

Blogs & Resources You Shouldn’t Miss

WordPress just turned 23, which in internet years makes it approximately 417. Happy B-Day, WP!

If an AI reads your blog in the forest and nobody clicks through, did you really get a visitor?

Are volunteers needed for WP Suomi in Finland? Oulu betcha.

WP Canada is looking for speakers. Apologizing before your talk is optional.

WordPress.com launched Lately, for when your blog wants to be a group chat with better formatting.

Finally, Jetpack Search now speaks Woo.

We all know the real ultimate AI use case: Making a Wapuu that looks like you.

Coffee Break Distractions

Ok, this is a truly original app idea. It’s like Google Maps for your Mind Palace.

I was proud of myself for my mediocre chopstick skills until THIS made me feel inadequate.

Sometimes you stumble on a website that’s actually a work of art. This is one of those times.

Or, for a work-of-art website that’s equal parts beautiful, simple and calming, check this out.

Iceberg. Canyon. Pineapple. Lighthouse. Research says visualizing random words can help you sleep.

May you be as happy about anything as this dude is about visiting the aquarium.

In an alternative universe where this sax-hating time traveler was successful, jazz music would be very different indeed.

And finally…

Sometimes the very best physical comedy moments take you by surprise.

Love this mix of nerdery and nonsense? Share it with your favorite WordPress weirdo.