DEV: You Had Me At “Hello World”

Welcome to DEV, your fortnightly roundup of WordPress news, clever builds, and contributors who keep the project humming along.

We’re here to share the highlights that make developers fall in love with the craft all over again.

Oh and if you want to see some proper panda-monium, stick around to the end.

In today’s edition:

• WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 is live: AI experiments and editor twists await brave testers.
• WordPress gets a Contributor Dashboard: finally, stats for the people powering the project.
• PHP 8.5 lands on WPMU DEV hosting: speed gains ahead.

Hot Off The Presses: What’s New?

I’m in this photo and I don’t like it. 🙈

Why is finishing a project so much harder than talking about it?

If my “Finish Project” box had a dollar for every time I bought a $12 domain and told my spouse “this is the big one,” I’d finally be able to afford that sleek ergonomic office chair.

Maybe it’s because telling everyone gives you 100% of the social glory and 0% of the CSS debugging.

If you’re currently ignoring a half-finished block theme to read this… we got you.

Contributor Dashboard: Counting the Steps That Power WordPress

Every fitness bro tracking cardio duration, heart rate, and “active zone minutes” on a smartwatch will tell you one thing:

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

And if we want the WordPress project to stay fit and healthy, we need to track the lifeblood that keeps it going: Contributors.

That’s what the Contributor Dashboard is all about.

This newly-launched all-in-one “contribution health” dashboard shows key data at a glance, including stats like:

• Number of contributors
• Total contributions
• Average contributions per contributor
• Amount of time from account creation to first contribution
• And even the “drop-off risk” of one-time contributors

In other words, it’s the WordPress equivalent of checking your step count… except instead of steps, it’s forum replies, translation suggestions, and WordCamp participation.

The dashboard is essentially a custom plugin that pulls contribution data from WordPress.org, giving the community a clearer picture of how people join the project, what they’re working on, and how their participation evolves over time.

The next step? That’s up to you.

• Team-managed personas: What if each Make team could create their own contributor “personas” – such as language-specific ladders for translation contributors, or community-specific personas for WordCamp or meetup organizers?
• Built-in automated engagement. Imagine getting a little reward for leveling up your contributions. Not that anyone contributes for the glory… but let’s be honest, nobody has ever been sad about receiving a free sticker.

👉 Share your feedback on which feature should come next

PHP 8.5 Lands on WPMU DEV Hosting

Speaking of updates: PHP 8.5 is now on all WPMU DEV hosted sites! 🎉

If you’re ready to make the switch, you can update the PHP version your sites use with a couple of clicks in The Hub.

Here’s how:

👉 Guide to updating your PHP version on WPMU DEV

A few words of dev wisdom:

• Test before switching production sites.
• Keep an eye on plugin compatibility.
• Make sure everything works on your staging environment first.

Most modern plugins and themes should play nicely with PHP 8.x by now, but there’s always that one rogue plugin still living in 2017.

WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 Arrives: Testers, Assemble!

Oh, and if you’re in testing mode, why not play around with 7.0 Beta 3?

It just dropped and it’s packed with AI experiments, block theme CSS tweaks, and editor upgrades waiting for brave testers to poke, prod, and report back. Use it to do the things you’d normally do with a WordPress site – and see what happens!

What’s new?

• Connectors: A central UI in your wp-admin where you can hook in 3 main AI providers: OpenAI, Anthropic & Google. (Mark McNeece called this “both less exciting and more important” than he expected.)
• Iframed editor improvements: Instead of checking all registered blocks across your plugins, WordPress only looks at blocks actually inserted into the post. If there’s not all version 3 or higher, the iframe won’t be auto-inserted, to make sure the lower-versioned blocks will still work.
• WordPress core now runs PHPStan static analysis as part of development. Which means WordPress officially stans PHPStan now.

Meanwhile: Anne McCarthy shares some Notes features that didn’t make the cut, and welcomes your feedback on the PRs.

The Core team wants testers of all skill levels, from seasoned plugin devs to curious clickers who will break things and then report what happened. Spin up a staging site, poke around, and submit your feedback.

The more eyes on Beta 3, the fewer surprises when 7.0 goes live on April 9th.

👉 Beta 3 download and testing instructions
👉Core call for testers

Mind Bloggling Facts & Stats

• Patchstack found 91% of new WordPress vulnerabilities come from plugins. The call is coming from inside the /wp-content/plugins folder. (Source)
• Another example of a naughty plugin: a calendar booking tool leaves 100k sites wide open for privilege escalation. (Source)
• Even though WooCommerce data shows a 27% boost in conversions with the Checkout Block, many sites still use the classic shortcode checkout. Rodolfo Melogli reckons that’s because switching checkouts is messy, and no one wants to potentially break what’s kinda working. (Source)

Blogs & Resources You Shouldn’t Miss

Nick Hamze experiments with a rotating batch of 8 fresh, curated “hidden gems” in the Featured Plugins tab.

Have your say in the Admin Bar’s 5th WordPress Agency Survey. Last year 1,233 responses revealed how agencies run.

“WordCamps are just for developers, right?” Nope. Here’s why designers belong in the room too.

BTW, wanna volunteer at WCEU in Kraków? Free tickets, t-shirts and an invite to the After Party sounds pretty sweet.

There’s a new subreddit on the block: /r/WordPressBlocks was launched recently by WP Engineer Johanne Courtright.

When it comes to Blocks, this plugin will give yours an accessibility audit, with clear guidance on what needs fixing.

On Open Makers, Cami McNamara shares how freelancers can avoid digital distrac… oh wait one sec I just got a DM… brb.

Coffee Break Distractions

“Just one more Jira Dashboard” = Famous last words.

That 5-legged office chair you’re sitting on? There’s a weird engineering reason it has five legs.

When you’re emoji-reacting on Slack to show how much you’re “helping” with the project.

This homemade 7-up ad is pure cinema.

This magic trick is still pretty impressive, even when you know the secret of how it works.

If Eminem got his lyrical inspiration from the cheesy quotes on throw pillows.

And finally…

What’s black and white and goofy all over? These ridiculous creatures.

Love this mix of nerdery and nonsense? Forward it to your favorite WordPress weirdo. 💗