Is WordPress 6.7 Good?  ## Metadata - Author: [[The WP Minute+]] - Full Title: Is WordPress 6.7 Good? - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/f22d522b-6890-4dbf-9e06-aefe64be5723 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Block Bindings Feature Insight** - WordPress 6.7 introduces block bindings, allowing blocks to pull data from custom fields, mostly beneficial for developers. - However, end users need custom fields with code to fully utilize this feature, limiting its immediate accessibility. Transcript: Jono Nolan Jump. I see it as not a big, big deal. What do you think? Brian Coords Well, I think, yeah, I mean, I think there's not like a standout feature that you can get excited about that like font, like the font, Google font installer was like a few releases ago That got people excited. Like when you have some kind of big, exciting, shiny thing, you know, that's usually the thing there. I feel like this whole year and especially this one is a lot of like under the hood, like these are going to lead to great things just in a few more releases. Clean up, a lot of getting all the blocks to kind of match and get all the little settings, all the design settings on all the blocks to kind of match each other and stuff. So nothing big and exciting except for the default theme, I guess. This is that default theme release. But yeah, not a lot to dive into maybe. Jono Nolan Now, I saw a demo video, which has been getting high praise, produced, I assume, by Jamie Marsland in the back end and starring Richard Tabor, who you and I shared a few beverages with At WordCamp US. I saw him actually clicking and assigning a custom field into a blocker pattern so that UI is there for, for the block bindings and the custom fields, or am I mixing up the technology terms Here? Brian Coords Yeah, no, that's, that's it. So yeah, the block of bindings is basically like, can I take a block, like a paragraph and can the content of that block come from somewhere else? So could I take a button, but the link in that button could pull from, you know, the permalink of the article or a custom field that I've added. So it's about like connecting other data into your blocks. And so that part is really exciting. And what they released this time is you can actually like see it in the sidebar and you can pick, okay, I want the URL of my button to pull from here and stuff like that. The only downside is you have to actually have custom fields to pull from. And that's not something you can do in WordPress without writing code. So you can't go to playground. As far as I can tell, I don't think you can go to Playground and just try it because you kind of have to have custom fields. So it's a feature that's going to get us somewhere. It's a feature that developers, I think, are going to be a little more excited about. It's probably not a feature that 90% of WordPress users are going to use. Jono Nolan It's almost like you are watching my screen because that's exactly what I'm doing while you're talking. I booted up Playground, which is my favorite place to, if you don't know, dear listener or viewer, playground.wordpress ([Time 0:03:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bf5f63b4-3f9a-439f-8f90-ffa6368bad09)) - **Disable Pattern Popup Toggle** - Use the new preference toggle to disable the pattern suggestions popup in the WordPress editor if you find it annoying. - Be aware that in Twenty Twenty-Five, this toggle must be enabled to apply the business homepage template, a change from previous themes. Transcript: Jono Nolan Is one feature that was added that I, I am really excited about, which I literally just learned about 30 minutes before we started recording from somebody I think you know, Jessica Lishik. Lishik, is that how you say her last name? She introduced a feature inside of the preferences panel. So if you're in the site editor, WordPress editor, or page post editor, and you go to preferences, under the general screen, there's a little toggle to show starter patterns. I can toggle that on or off. So every time you create a page and the patterns things pops up, and I'm like, just get it out of my way, man. I don't need it. We can now disable it and do it. Except for the fact, which I learned today, that 20 well i learned today i learned yesterday that 2025 you need that turned on in order to slap the uh business home page template on which Which blows my mind because it's a huge departure from 2024 where 2024 had that air quotes business template loaded in templates and you would assign it by creating a blank page and then Selecting that template or just actually loaded by default. So when you pulled up a fresh install of WordPress, ah, there's my homepage. It's a placeholder content, may not be what I exactly want, but at least as the end user, you knew this is a starting point. This is where you can go with this thing. But that's gone in 2025, which was weird for me. Brian Coords It's a weird philosophical choice this time that 2025 loads so blank. Um, it's, it, it reminds me of 2023, which was the really stark black and white one with like the neon green button. But this one is even less placeholder content. And I guess in a sense, that's maybe useful in certain situations, but I loved 2024. I feel like all that placeholder content really made you feel optimistic that you could build something really cool for your homepage. And now we're back to WordPress as a blog and here's your single posts with the picture of a boat or whatever it's going to be. And it's not, it's, I don't know, it's not, it's not as exciting. Jono Nolan I don't know why. I was chatting about this with Frank Klein on Twitter. Do people still use Twitter? And Mike McAllister jumped in and he said, debatably, 2024's little trick of putting the homepage design on the blog homepage template broke a longstanding, quote, no content in templates Guideline. It's a band-aid for a much bigger issue. I'm not against it per se, but it sets a bad example for many folks who now do this. Frank also came back and mentioned, it could be easy as WordPress adding a homepage.html template. So front page covers both cases. Home covers the blog. Home page covers the page on front. Up for changing the name, but the idea makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's from the end user experience. I think just the Hello ([Time 0:07:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/14665201-cdca-4ab3-831f-3c940ec20772)) - **Twenty Twenty-Five Theme Style** - Twenty Twenty-Five theme adopts a minimalistic style focusing on photography, art, and digital media websites. - This makes it more of a magazine or fashion blog style than a general business theme. Transcript: Jono Nolan A nice theme. I have no problems with it. It's not particularly a starting point. I think for most businesses, is subjective of course but I see this design and I think photography art you know digital media if you're doing like video and like production and stuff Like that like that's where I or just blog like you just want a nice clean looking blog I think it's good for that but like if I'm going to stamp this as a, what kind of WordPress theme is this? I'm going photography, art, digital media. That's how I see this. Brian Coords What's your thoughts? I would say like a magazine is like, it's like a magazine theme. Like it looks like a fashion or art blog or something like that. It's so it's a little more opinionated in that sense, you know, than 2023, which really did feel like, I don't know, just generic in a good way, like generic in a, it could be a small business Site. It could be something like that. Um, the other thing I was actually thinking, I just talked to, I think you mentioned Mike Calister who has Holly WP. I don't know if you've used his, but his theme, his pro theme, like has a way where when you're in a page, you go like you're going to add a block, but you can actually add his pattern library And it opens this pattern library and it's like categorized and very visual and you can see everything at different screen sizes. And it's, you know, do you want a full ([Time 0:13:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d7bf307a-9763-4135-b8a5-1740f80514b4)) - **Use Business Pattern Packs** - Consider using pattern packs as plugins to add business-oriented layouts and blocks instead of always switching themes. - This allows leveraging block pattern flexibility without rebuilding entire sites when upgrading themes. Transcript: Brian Coords From other themes and stuff, but it's not super easy. So maybe, you know, what if instead of another core theme, they just released a whole set of business patterns, 2025 business pattern pack or something. It's a plugin and it comes installed and you can turn it off if you don't want the patterns or something like that you know things they could do without redesigning re-theming just give Me the patterns and the way wordpress works now they'll they'll fit into my theme pretty well like they'll look pretty good i don't actually need a whole new theme you know brings up the Jono Nolan Um that age-old debate of like do we need a new theme every year uh that was on my mind with 2025 i had a couple comments i think ([Time 0:19:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/87bec2dd-122a-4f59-bffd-8e5cda54f449)) - **Theme Switching Challenges** - Switching between Twenty Twenty-Four and Twenty Twenty-Five themes is not seamless; content and styles often need to be rebuilt. - Copy-pasting patterns works only to a limited extent and is far from perfect for theme migration. Transcript: Jono Nolan Maybe you and i talked about this on another live stream or a podcast i had a couple questions coming on youtube and folks were like oh do i need to upgrade from 2024 to 2025 uh and i think You and i chatted a little bit about it in a DM. I know that. And I started to test it myself and my God, it's just not even possible. Right. So like, you know, in my, from the end user perspective, I hear things like, oh, you can just copy paste patterns from one WordPress site to the next. But sorely, like it just does not work that seamlessly i ran a couple demos uh locally to just see what would happen if i upgraded from 2024 to 2025 or copy pasted patterns content from My it's just it's not even happening it's not happening don't even try it uh you know at the end of the day and i wonder how many how many people actually think about that when they see like The layman person who's using WordPress looks at the new update and they go, oh, it's 2025. Like, do they have to upgrade in the back of their head? Are they thinking they have to upgrade? And if they do, are they just like blowing their site up? Because of that? You know, I don't have the answer, but it's just something I think about when I see these new themes roll out. Brian Coords Yeah. And if there's like a push to be more, they call it composable, where your fonts are here, your colors are here, your patterns are here, your templates are here and you can mix and match. Like we're not there yet. You should never change your theme unless you are ready for like a weekend of work. Like it's not a simple task. Um, but yeah, that's why I think like, I don't know that we need I'm on the team, like no more default themes, or figure out a way to break these things apart a little bit more so that I can Get I almost don't really need a new design. But I would love new types of content, new different things like that, to, to bring it in. But no, don't definitely don't change your theme unless you, uh, want to lose everything, but you can, um, go to a 2024 site and copy paste patterns, or you can go to the pattern ([Time 0:19:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0e89d07d-cd11-42b8-97be-54251cd3d6d4)) - **Learning to Code with AI** - Jono Nolan shares his experience using AI tool Cursor to learn coding, which dramatically improved his ability to build apps. - He compares this to the excitement of unlocking WordPress custom post types years ago, feeling empowered by AI-assisted coding. Transcript: Jono Nolan That we've published. Um, but, uh, let's, let's talk, uh, really quick here about, um, AI. Um, I've been using it recently with something called Cursor, which I guess is forked from VS Code. And how I was learning how to build these things, which you'll hear in another episode with Mark Zemanski and I talk about, but I was just throwing things at Claude in the web browser of Claude and just like smashing my head against it. Like, build this thing, do this. This doesn't work. Try it again. I was just burning through credits and I just felt like I didn't largely know what I was doing. I still don't. Uh, but then I found cursor and it would allow me to do the prompts to Claude through cursor without eating up my pro account, um, tokens. And, uh, the beauty of all of this is it brings me back to like when I first started unlocking some of the magic with custom post types and gravity forms and WordPress and custom fields, I'm like, Oh shit, I can build these cool things now. And I'm having that same feeling like building with cursor. Um, again, I don't know what the code's doing, but I'm learning a lot. I'm learning API endpoints, passing data. I'm learning a little bit more about JavaScript. I'm learning about new environments, new coding frameworks, front-end frameworks like Svelte, using Cloudflare. I'm in this whole absorption mode of learning again and it feels kind of fun, but then it also makes me appreciate everything that's baked into WordPress as like a complete application. Like, holy crap. Uh, you know, there is a lot here. Um, while I'm just like making one massive file to make an entire app. Um, it's a, it's a, it's a weird, it's a, it's an interesting ([Time 0:25:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2c396d04-c1a3-4763-a1a9-23da9820a533)) - **AI Accelerates Idea to MVP** - AI coding tools speed up going from idea to MVP, reducing development time drastically. - These tools won't replace developers but change how quickly ideas become functioning products. Transcript: Brian Coords I don't know where to lead me, but it's been fun. I think that I, it's funny cause I'm, I'm doing the exact opposite thing, but I think we should talk about this first. And it's,'s I like I really do think that these AI tools when it comes to like coding I think first of all coding is the perfect thing for AI because it's their language models that are predictive Language but they're machines and coding is like a language written for machines and it's the best so far what I've seen the best thing that AI can do is write code and then explain it to You and teach it to you while you're writing it. And so, you know, I think, I don't think people should be, if you're really into coding and that's where you make your money, I don't think you need to be worried. I don't think Matt Medeiros is going to AI his way to replacing you. But instead I do think- Oh, you mark words, Brian. Well, I mean, if you learn all this stuff and you learn it and that that's the same, you know, whether you learn it from a AI or not, uh, that's, that that's irrelevant. Um, but I do think like people's ability to have an idea and have that idea exist in the world is going to be a lot faster. I even had a call recently with a person who hired a bunch of developers to build a thing, the kind of work that we used to do for years, and then talked through it and was kind of like, I think I could just do this with a spreadsheet and AI and not hire a bunch of developers to take six months and build me this complicated thing. And then if it works and I make a a bunch of money, then I'll go get the developers and they'll turn it into the nicer thing. But like idea to MVP, I think like that gap is like going way down with these tools. Jono Nolan It also has me thinking, this ([Time 0:27:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7e9ff5df-8ddf-49e9-9ab4-1dd07ae5c8b3)) - **AI Challenges Open Source Appeal** - The rise of AI-powered proprietary platforms may weaken arguments for open source like WordPress. - People might prefer quick, AI-driven solutions on proprietary platforms over managing complex WordPress setups. Transcript: Jono Nolan Is the scary part and it's where we could get in trouble again, but that's what you and I like to do. Amidst all this stuff in the WordPress community, it really has me worried about the impact of the situation that we're in. In other words, yeah, we love WordPress. I think a lot of us love the idea of like this open source and, and being sort of, uh, the North star for that. Right. Well, you know, Hey, you should use WordPress. It's open source. It's good. It's good. Uh, it's good to use open source. It's good to spread that. Um, and you know, you should vote, you know, you know, even with the complexities of WordPress and the challenges it has, you should also vote because it is open source and you control It, yada, yada, yada. But this stuff is really going to take away that excuse or that hurdle where people are like, you know what? I hear what you're saying over there. I hear that you want me to use WordPress. I'm glad it's open source, but I'm just going to whip together this thing with AI, you know, and I'm just going to, I'm going to connect up to a Google spreadsheet and I'm just going to, Yeah, I'm just going to string along a couple of proprietary sources to put this thing together. Need to wrestle with it just because you want me to have this thing that is good for the open source world and for humanity. I don't know how we're going to wrestle with that packaging of that message moving forward. Technically, you can make arguments, but I think from the layperson who has this power in front of them, there's to be like, yeah, you know what? I don't care if I have to pay five bucks a month to Wix. And I just, I make this AI script and it shoots off this database thing and it stores it in Wix and it displays in Wix. I can do it, uh, versus, you know, wrestling with, with WordPress. No direct question there, but like, these are the feelings I'm starting to see as I get outside of the walls of WordPress. And it only took me a week to start to see like, Oh shit, like this is what people are talking about on this side ([Time 0:29:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e1df5962-975e-4630-8bc6-5fb86ebe841b)) - **Ephemeral Content Trend** - Online content is becoming less permanent, with social apps embracing ephemeral content. - Users prioritize quick creation and immediate needs over owning long-term content, favored by many current tools. Transcript: Brian Coords About when like Snapchat came out and it was like the idea that you would post content and it would delete after 24 hours. And that was like this novel thing. And now it's pretty common in social media that you make content that disappears. And I think this idea that everything you make online has to be so permanent and you want to own it is going to just does feel like less and less. You're like, no, I actually don't really care if this is going to be around in five years. I just want to try to make something and see what happens and see if I could solve this immediate need and make something cool and then move on. And like that is solved by a lot of these tools. And then I think the other thing is if people hadn't watched, it's the WordCamp year, no, Asia speech from Noel talk, who talks all about the future of WordPress. And he really harps on this idea that like, what makes WordPress powerful is how you integrate it with other things. And we used to always have to say, everything goes in WordPress. I'm going to make my emails in here and my customer database in here. And I'm going to build everything inside my WordPress site. Whereas now what people really want is integrations. And they just like, I want a central hub to connect this and this and this. And if WordPress could still be that, that would be amazing. Cause it would be this kind of piece you own. That's at the heart of everything. Um, but if it doesn't, then yeah, I'm going to go pay 20 bucks a month to like make.com or something and kind of get a database and everything else that I needed from WordPress. And it's going to have all the integrations and it has a little AI where I just say like, I want this to do this and it'll just make it for me. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's very different than I think the internet expectations we all had 15 years ago. Jono Nolan WordPress as the operating system of the web is what we were talking about. ([Time 0:31:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/43d5fe8d-7519-47e7-a8d6-a98492e80f60)) - **WordPress As Integration Hub** - WordPress’s power lies in integrating with other platforms rather than hosting everything internally. - Users want a central hub to connect disparate tools, ideally owning their data while posting everywhere effortlessly. Transcript: Brian Coords Had 15 years ago. Jono Nolan WordPress as the operating system of the web is what we were talking about. Uh, what we collective, we mostly Matt, uh, many years ago. And, um, that was the tagline that always, you know, bought, bought me into this whole thing is like, yeah, that sounds really interesting. And again, this is like 15, 16, 17 years ago when he was saying stuff like that. And I was like, wow, I can really see this really see WordPress as that central hub to do all these things. You know, and we're seeing it now, like, um, whatever this big rush to blue sky, uh, you know, whatever it's another social media thing uh which is owned by the same guy who started twitter Um and if what it's like when does when are humans gonna learn right yeah everything's great now man like yeah yeah this algorithm's great there's no ads nothing here. Until there is, you know, and look what happened with Twitter. Twitter wasn't like amazing. Um, before Elon got it, Twitter wasn't, hadn't been amazing since like the first three years of its inception. Um, you know, uh, so whatever, it's just another social network, but it also has me now going, fuck. And now I have to watch and post over here. I just want one place that posts everywhere, which is literally, you know, people should just be doing Mastodon, right? But people don't like it because they're just like, what? This techie geek thing that I have to load up, and there is no algorithm to surface any content. There's nothing that drives me back to it. You know, people will live and die by this, this engagement algorithm that all these social media tools will eventually have. Um, I'd love to be able to go to WordPress and just be like, here's my post. It saves it as a blog. And then it also goes out to all the freaking platforms and post to all of them and that's it. And it leads it right back. And we're kind of getting that with like the Macedon add on, but I needed to go across all social media sites. And I need the experience of on my phone to just be, I don't want to log in, admin dashboard, see it, navigate, click. I just want to do it. Post it, send it. Save the post and let's move. Brian Coords I mean, I think Blue Sky did come from Twitter originally. Like it was a program in Twitter he spun out right before they got taken over. What's his name? Dorsey. He doesn't even own it anymore. It's a little independent, but it is almost actually the same as Mastodon. It's the same where it's open source. You can see all the code for it. You can always export all of your content and data cause you have full access to your handle. You can take your username with you, which you can't do in Mastodon. Um, and it's federated, so you can make your own little standalone blue sky and connect it with that. So it's, it's kind of the same thing and it's got a lot of those same principles. And then yes, of course it has taken money from big companies and including automatic and other big companies. Um, but there are people working on doing for WordPress, what they did for Mastodon, you know, but doing it for blue sky, like getting, figuring that out. I've seen people already do, they can post from WordPress to blue sky and the next one will be, I think, comments and stuff. So I feel like all we really want is RSS and comments to work together and not have social media at all. We all want that golden era to come back. We want social networks to work the same way email works, where I just can sign up wherever I want, and you sign up wherever you want, and we communicate, and it works. And I don't care that I'm on Google and you're not. That's all we want. Jono Nolan Yeah. I mean, and again, I still see it ([Time 0:32:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b9fc297c-72eb-4d01-8ae0-03b900ead63b)) - **RSS Vital for Content Control** - RSS remains key for content ownership and distribution despite social media dominance. - True decentralization would allow users to host content accessible from anywhere, mirroring email’s interoperability. Transcript: Brian Coords You're not. That's all we want. Jono Nolan Yeah. I mean, and again, I still see it as WordPress could be, could be that cornerstone RSS, uh, all your data, one place, everybody just subscribe to your RSS feed. RSS must continue to win. Uh, this is why I'm so, uh, crazy about it when, especially when it comes to podcasting and people are like, Oh yeah, Spotify is going to do it. Spotify didn't do it. Now everyone's like, oh, YouTube's going to do it. Well, watch what you wish, because Google killed their podcast player on all Android devices. So do you think they actually care about podcasting and RSS? No, they just want you to go right into YouTube and feed that machine. RSS, man, is the way. If everyone had an RSS feed, like everyone can have a domain, all your information would be there. You'd know how many subscribers you would have. You just post your information, everybody would get it. And the social sites just destroy it. But hey, I'm willing to try. I'm willing to try Blue Sky kicking and screaming. Brian Coords I mean, I, there's two reasons I've really struggled with Mastodon. And one is the technology and the user experience. And I've even tried the fancy apps and I just, I don't know. It's hard. I don't feel like ([Time 0:36:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bfc8ac70-1904-4268-b062-90f034174ea4)) - **Be Constructive On New Platforms** - Approach new social platforms like Blue Sky with openness and positivity rather than as a reaction against others. - Building constructive communities is vital for these platforms' success, beyond political or negative vibes. Transcript: Brian Coords Sky kicking and screaming. I mean, I, there's two reasons I've really struggled with Mastodon. And one is the technology and the user experience. And I've even tried the fancy apps and I just, I don't know. It's hard. I don't feel like I, it doesn't feel as snappy as something like Twitter, but I think the other thing too, is they all start growing their own culture based on when they got big and popular. And so I think there's a definite culture that happened when Mastodon really like hit that last stride and it has a certain vibe to it. And I think blue sky is right now hitting that. And I really hope it's not like just a reactive political vibe, but it actually is just like a, it needs to be more than that because that's kind of what Mastodon felt like. And then I was like, well, if we're, if we're all just here, cause we're against an idea and not here to constructively, you know, that's not as helpful. So if you're going to try blue sky, come in constructive and like make something that people are excited for, not just mad about something else. That's my, my take. 100%. Jono Nolan Uh, that's today's episode, WordPress 6.7, 2025 theme. You can zoom out now. ([Time 0:37:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/51bd0df6-86d2-41aa-a0a8-36831fa424b6))