Howdy,
And just like that, the last quarter of 2025 has begun. It’s been an interesting year again, and now we are on the home stretch, heading into a Holiday season. It’s become my favorite time of the year when Autumn make nature paint trees and bushes in so many colors. After a life near evergreen Everglades of Florida, the middle European changing colors of the fall seems magical.
Soon it’s time to plan for 2026. Speaking of which, in case you missed it, WordCamp Asia Call for Speakers has been out for a couple of week, and the deadline is quite early: October 31, 2025. If you were thinking about going to WordCamp Asia, what would be a talk you would be interested in seeing in April of 2026?
Anyway, the present is pretty amazing right now, too. So without further ado, the news.
Yours, 
Birgit
PS: This weekend, on October 3rd, Germany celebrates the 35th anniversary of the Reunion after the Iron Curtain was lifted.
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
.Jonathan Bossenger, WordPress 6.9 release co-lead for testing, is asking for your help to test changes to the template management. The new feature is a great enhancement to the way templates are handled in the Site Editor. More eyes are needed to make sure it’s the best it can be in the short amount of time until the first Beta version is released. The instructions are detailed, and Bossenger added a video to show how the various sections of this test should work.
The security and maintenance release, WordPress 6.8.3 is now available. John Blackbourn led the release and shares the details in his release post. Update as soon as you can, as it plugs a few security holes.
Carlos Bravo issues the release candidate for Gutenberg 21.8 and it’s available for testing. The final release is scheduled for October 8.
The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog 121—Gutenberg 21.6 and 21.7, Block Theme Development, and Block Themes with Anne Katzeff of AskDesign.
If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It’ll help with the distribution.
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
In the WordPress VIP blog post and video, Pew Research Center Builds Interactive Content at Scale, the Seth Rubenstein and his team share how they rebuilt their website using WordPress VIP to tackle challenges in a world where people seldom visit original sources. Their old method took weeks of custom coding for interactive content, which delayed publishing. By adopting a block-first strategy in 2022, they cut production time from weeks to minutes, enabling editors and designers to create quizzes and maps on their own. This shift allowed developers to focus on innovation while increasing publishing frequency and lowering costs with evergreen interactive content that engages audiences directly.
In his video Level up your Product Collections, Brian Coords demonstrates the new features in WooCommerce 10.2. He covered carousel layouts, taxonomy filters (Category/Brand/Tag), and an improved Cross-Sells collection for displaying products.
Joanne Courtright of Groundworx released a new Testimonials plugin in the WordPress repository. Get the skinny from her blog post: Introducing Groundworx Testimonial: Modern Testimonials for WordPress Block Themes. “Most testimonial plugins are still stuck in the classic era. This one is designed for developers and site builders who want testimonials that “just work” with Gutenberg, she wrote. It aims to be Gutenberg-native, theme.json aware, and accessibility-first. It includes a dedicated Testimonial post type + flexible blocks.
Justin Tadlock released the first version of an Authors List Block for multi-author sites. “This is especially useful if you’re coming over from using a classic WordPress theme and need a block that’s similar to the old wp_list_authors() template tag,” he wrote. The plugin comes with a full array of block design tools. It also sports options to display number of posts, various order filters, and feed links.
Mike McAlister released his Ollie Menu Designer for free in the WordPress repository. It is a powerful way to build mobile and dropdown menus in the WordPress block editor—no coding required. For more details, watch his announcement video on YouTube.
Blocks Galore with Telex
In his post, If Automattic’s Telex Builds This, You Might Not Need That Page Builder, Jamie Marsland explores how Automattic’s Telex AI tool could transform WordPress by enabling users to extend existing core blocks rather than just creating new ones. Currently, Telex generates custom blocks like video effects and timelines, but extending core blocks like paragraphs, tables, or buttons requires complex developer skills. If Telex could extend core blocks and offer a public directory for sharing these extensions, it could replace traditional page builders by unlocking the full potential of WordPress’s native blocks without adding technical debt or duplication.
Tammie Lister started her personal Blocktober, posting a block a day on the newly created site. Every day at noon, she uses Automattic’s Telex and builds a new block. Spanning the arc of history back to the 1980s, Lister started with an ASCII Tetris block. Here goes my Thursday morning….
In his latest blog post, Marko Ivanovic made a set of blocks for designers with the help of Automattic’s Telex. Earlier he also created animated icon blocks. Ivanovic is a designer working for Automattic, and since 2022. His post on how he rediscovered WordPress and why any designer should embrace WordPress is worth a read, too. And I love those sticky notes.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
In preparation for the WordPress 6.9 release on December 2, Justin Tadlock published a new tutorial on the WordPress Developer Blog: You on how to implement Border radius size presets in WordPress 6.9. “You define an array of sizes that users can apply to blocks that support border radius. You can also reuse them within your own theme stylesheets and theme.json file.”, he wrote.
At WordCamp Gdynia I shared how to use WordPress Playground and GitHub for No-Code Version Control of Site Editor Changes The recording of my talk is now on WordPress TV. You will learn how theme developers can leverage WordPress Playground alongside the Create Block Theme plugin to create a seamless, browser-based development environment that integrates directly with GitHub for version control—all without writing a single line of code. The slides are available on Google Drive.
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Long-time block developer Kevin Batdorf at Extendify just updated his Block Starter plugin repo—an “opinionated starter template for crafting WordPress block plugins,” as he calls it. It uses Tailwind v4 with output for the editor and frontend, TypeScript and Biome.js for code quality and type safety, and runs Playwright tests on PR using the Playground CLI. It also includes a Plugin Check on commits to main and before a release.
Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com
Howdy,
And just like that, the last quarter of 2025 has begun. It’s been an interesting year again, and now we are on the home stretch, heading into a Holiday season. It’s become my favorite time of the year when Autumn make nature paint trees and bushes in so many colors. After a life near evergreen Everglades of Florida, the middle European changing colors of the fall seems magical.
Soon it’s time to plan for 2026. Speaking of which, in case you missed it, WordCamp Asia Call for Speakers has been out for a couple of week, and the deadline is quite early: October 31, 2025. If you were thinking about going to WordCamp Asia, what would be a talk you would be interested in seeing in April of 2026?
Anyway, the present is pretty amazing right now, too. So without further ado, the news.
Yours, Birgit
PS: This weekend, on October 3rd, Germany celebrates the 35th anniversary of the Reunion after the Iron Curtain was lifted.
Table of Contents
Developing Gutenberg and WordPressPlugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and ownersBlocks Galore with Telex Theme Development for Full Site Editing and BlocksBuilding Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Developing Gutenberg and WordPress
.Jonathan Bossenger, WordPress 6.9 release co-lead for testing, is asking for your help to test changes to the template management. The new feature is a great enhancement to the way templates are handled in the Site Editor. More eyes are needed to make sure it’s the best it can be in the short amount of time until the first Beta version is released. The instructions are detailed, and Bossenger added a video to show how the various sections of this test should work.
Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.
Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience
The security and maintenance release, WordPress 6.8.3 is now available. John Blackbourn led the release and shares the details in his release post. Update as soon as you can, as it plugs a few security holes.
Carlos Bravo issues the release candidate for Gutenberg 21.8 and it’s available for testing. The final release is scheduled for October 8.
The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog 121—Gutenberg 21.6 and 21.7, Block Theme Development, and Block Themes with Anne Katzeff of AskDesign.
If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It’ll help with the distribution.
Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners
In the WordPress VIP blog post and video, Pew Research Center Builds Interactive Content at Scale, the Seth Rubenstein and his team share how they rebuilt their website using WordPress VIP to tackle challenges in a world where people seldom visit original sources. Their old method took weeks of custom coding for interactive content, which delayed publishing. By adopting a block-first strategy in 2022, they cut production time from weeks to minutes, enabling editors and designers to create quizzes and maps on their own. This shift allowed developers to focus on innovation while increasing publishing frequency and lowering costs with evergreen interactive content that engages audiences directly.
In his video Level up your Product Collections, Brian Coords demonstrates the new features in WooCommerce 10.2. He covered carousel layouts, taxonomy filters (Category/Brand/Tag), and an improved Cross-Sells collection for displaying products.
Joanne Courtright of Groundworx released a new Testimonials plugin in the WordPress repository. Get the skinny from her blog post: Introducing Groundworx Testimonial: Modern Testimonials for WordPress Block Themes. “Most testimonial plugins are still stuck in the classic era. This one is designed for developers and site builders who want testimonials that “just work” with Gutenberg, she wrote. It aims to be Gutenberg-native, theme.json aware, and accessibility-first. It includes a dedicated Testimonial post type + flexible blocks.
Justin Tadlock released the first version of an Authors List Block for multi-author sites. “This is especially useful if you’re coming over from using a classic WordPress theme and need a block that’s similar to the old wp_list_authors() template tag,” he wrote. The plugin comes with a full array of block design tools. It also sports options to display number of posts, various order filters, and feed links.
Mike McAlister released his Ollie Menu Designer for free in the WordPress repository. It is a powerful way to build mobile and dropdown menus in the WordPress block editor—no coding required. For more details, watch his announcement video on YouTube.
Blocks Galore with Telex
In his post, If Automattic’s Telex Builds This, You Might Not Need That Page Builder, Jamie Marsland explores how Automattic’s Telex AI tool could transform WordPress by enabling users to extend existing core blocks rather than just creating new ones. Currently, Telex generates custom blocks like video effects and timelines, but extending core blocks like paragraphs, tables, or buttons requires complex developer skills. If Telex could extend core blocks and offer a public directory for sharing these extensions, it could replace traditional page builders by unlocking the full potential of WordPress’s native blocks without adding technical debt or duplication.
Tammie Lister started her personal Blocktober, posting a block a day on the newly created site. Every day at noon, she uses Automattic’s Telex and builds a new block. Spanning the arc of history back to the 1980s, Lister started with an ASCII Tetris block. Here goes my Thursday morning….
In his latest blog post, Marko Ivanovic made a set of blocks for designers with the help of Automattic’s Telex. Earlier he also created animated icon blocks. Ivanovic is a designer working for Automattic, and since 2022. His post on how he rediscovered WordPress and why any designer should embrace WordPress is worth a read, too. And I love those sticky notes.
Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks
In preparation for the WordPress 6.9 release on December 2, Justin Tadlock published a new tutorial on the WordPress Developer Blog: You on how to implement Border radius size presets in WordPress 6.9. “You define an array of sizes that users can apply to blocks that support border radius. You can also reuse them within your own theme stylesheets and theme.json file.”, he wrote.
At WordCamp Gdynia I shared how to use WordPress Playground and GitHub for No-Code Version Control of Site Editor Changes The recording of my talk is now on WordPress TV. You will learn how theme developers can leverage WordPress Playground alongside the Create Block Theme plugin to create a seamless, browser-based development environment that integrates directly with GitHub for version control—all without writing a single line of code. The slides are available on Google Drive.
“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025” 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. The previous years are also available: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024
Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.
Long-time block developer Kevin Batdorf at Extendify just updated his Block Starter plugin repo—an “opinionated starter template for crafting WordPress block plugins,” as he calls it. It uses Tailwind v4 with output for the editor and frontend, TypeScript and Biome.js for code quality and type safety, and runs Playwright tests on PR using the Playground CLI. It also includes a Plugin Check on commits to main and before a release.
Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don’t hesitate to send them via email or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.
For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog, send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com
Featured Image: “Building blocks” by jgbarah is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 and found on WordPress.org/openverse.
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