Gutenberg Times: Interactivity API, WordPress 6.8.2, Transitions API and Pride Photo Drive — Weekend Edition #333 - Digital Media Marketing, and Technology News

Hi there,

Are you ready for a summer break of the Gutenberg Times? I am definitely ready for a vacation. It’s been a fabulous first half of the year with plenty of new experiences, and reconnecting with friends in the WordPress community. There is soo much inspiring creativity in the community around block editor, Playground and AI. I am curious what the second half of year will bring.

As for WordCamps, I am considering going to WordCamps, Gyndia, Verona, and Pisa. Once the decisions are made, I, of course, will let you know. Do you have any WordCamp plans?

Enjoy the summer and I’ll be back.

Yours,
Birgit

Table of Contents

In their post, Share your Pride Photo Drive is back for 2025, Anne McCarthy invites you to an open photo submission event to boost LGBTQ+ representation in the WordPress Photo Directory. The initiative encourages everyone (not just the LGBTQ+ community) to contribute, with fun incentives and cash prizes, emphasizing the importance of diverse, high-quality imagery for web creators. The deadline is July 1st 2025.

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Jean-Baptiste Audras just dropped the schedule for WordPress 6.8.2 Release Schedule. There are a few bug scrub sessions coming up, with the first release candidate (RC1) out on July 8, 2025, and the final version landing a week later on July 15. He also shared some handy links to the list of fixes they’re hoping to squeeze into this update.

The latest episode Gutenberg Changelog 118 – WordCamp Europe, WordPress New AI Team, the Pride Photo Drive, Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0 Anne McCarthy is back from sabbatical and we talked about WordCamp Europe, the new WordPress AI team, the Pride Photo Drive, and Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0 .

If you are listing 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 his post Introducing the View Transitions Plugin for WordPress, Felix Arntz
announced a new plugin that brings smooth, animated transitions between pages to WordPress sites. He explains that the plugin uses the View Transitions API to create seamless visual effects, making navigation feel more modern and app-like without the complexity of single-page applications. Arntz described how the plugin works out of the box, offers customization through both the WordPress admin and theme code, and supports various animation styles. The goal is to improve user experience and perceived performance with minimal setup.

In his latest video, The Secret to Client-Proof WordPress Sites, Wes Theron shows how to let clients safely update content while keeping a consistent design. He demonstrates using synced patterns with editable overrides. Global design changes to a pattern update all instances on the site. He explains how clients can modify specific elements without disrupting the layout. This method simplifies site management and maintains design integrity, making WordPress sites easier to manage and grow.

Claire Brotherton reviewed the Twenty Twenty-Five WordPress theme, highlighting its flexibility and modern design. Brotherton details its customizable templates, diverse style variations, and extensive block patterns, making it easy to create unique layouts. She notes the theme’s accessibility features, international typography options, and compatibility with the latest WordPress tools. The guide also covers practical tips for editing menus, headers, and footers, and encourages users to experiment with the theme’s many design possibilities. The post Twenty Twenty-Five Theme: the Ultimate Guide definitely lives up to its promise.

Johanne Courtright introduced the Groundworx Navigation plugin, a flexible, block-based navigation tool for WordPress. After years of building custom menus, she created this plugin to streamline features like accordions, slide-ins, sticky headers, and responsive toggles. Designed for Full Site Editing, it fits modern WordPress workflows and eliminates the need to rebuild navigation logic for each project, making advanced menu patterns easier for both developers and site owners. Check it out from GitHub. Once it goes through the approval process, it will also be available for download from the WordPress repository.

In his post What’s the plan for PublishPress Blocks? Steve Burge mentions the new Block Usage Screen. It shows you any usage of blocks on your site or search for blocks. For example, it will show how many paragraph blocks you used throughout all blog posts. He also shows the new menu from within the plugin and lists six more features: control on who can use each block, additional blocks like accordion, galleries, tabs etc. I am excited about the feature to create my own Block Styles right from the interface without code. In the video on YouTube, Burge shows off how to find your WordPress Blocks with the PublishPress Blocks Plugin.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

A common solution to make a sticky header is to wrap the template part in a group block and set the Position to “sticky”. Mike McAlister has more elegant solutions to Fixing the sticky header bug in the WordPress site editor.

Hans-Gerd Gerhards has also tackled this problem with his plugin Dynamic Header & Navigation for Block Themes, that also, among a few other things, it gives you settings to shrink the header on scroll, so it doesn’t take up too much real-estate.

In her post, Layout and Design with the Grid Block, Anne Katzeff explains how the grid block can help make web pages look cleaner and more organized. She gives simple advice for setting up columns, spacing, and alignment, and encourages people to play around with different layouts to find what looks and works best. It might just be the manual you have been looking for.

“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

In this high-level post, 15 WordPress Interactivity API examples – WP Gallery
Diane Collet, co-founder of Twentig and WP Gallery, explains how the new WordPress Interactivity API empowers developers to create dynamic, interactive front-end experiences without relying on heavy JavaScript frameworks. She highlights how the API enables seamless, reactive user interfaces directly within WordPress blocks, making it easier to build features like live search, filters, and instant feedback. Collet emphasizes the API’s simplicity, performance benefits, and its alignment with WordPress’s vision for a more interactive and modern web, encouraging developers to explore its capabilities for enhancing user engagement.

To get started with the Interactivity API, you can work through this list of resources:

JuanMa Garrido was inspired by Igor Benić’s list of WordPress challenges. In his live stream he ventured to solve some of them. The recording is on YouTube. The first challenge was: Create a block that fetches and displays posts from a specific category dynamically (using ServerSideRender component).

In his live stream, WCEU workshop code along, Ryan Welcher followed Bero’s WCEU workshop on setting up automatic testing with Playwright and Playground.

This week, Jonathan Bossenger updates us about WordPress MCP & Feature API on his live stream.

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