WordPress News Roundup November 2019: WordPress 5.3 “Kirk” and Twenty Twenty Arrive After State of the Word

November 2019 was one of the year’s busiest months. It opened with WordCamp US in St. Louis, where Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word made the case that all roads in WordPress now lead through the block editor. Less than two weeks later, WordPress 5.3 “Kirk” shipped with a refreshed editor, a more accessible admin and the new Twenty Twenty default theme.

The same day, bbPress 2.6 finally arrived after six years in development, and PHP 7.4 landed at the end of the month. On the business side, one of WordPress’s best-known performance plugins found a new home.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

On November 1, BoldGrid announced that it was joining forces with W3 Edge and acquiring W3 Total Cache, one of the longest-running caching plugins on WordPress.org. W3 Total Cache had seen slower development in recent years, and the deal promised renewed investment in a plugin used on a very large number of sites. No other significant deals were announced in November.

WordPress Core Updates

• RC4 (November 5): A final release candidate arrived a week before launch.
• WordPress 5.3 “Kirk” (November 12): Named after jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 5.3 brought more than 150 new features and usability improvements to the block editor, including group blocks, new style variations and improved large image support for high-resolution photos from phones and cameras.
• Accessibility and admin styling: 5.3 integrated block editor styles into the admin, improving colour contrast on form fields and buttons and making the editor and dashboard more consistent.
• Under the hood: The release improved date and time handling, added PHP 7.4 compatibility, and began periodically asking administrators to confirm the site’s admin email address.
• Twenty Twenty: The new default theme, built from Anders Norén’s Chaplin, gave users more design flexibility with the block editor.
• Release calendar: The core team published a tentative release calendar for 2020 and 2021, and announced a new CSS focus with its own Slack channel.
• Gutenberg 6.9 and 7.0: Gutenberg 6.9 introduced an early block patterns API and image titles, and 7.0 on November 27 shipped a stable Navigation block along with experimental post blocks and template parts.

Other WordPress News

• State of the Word 2019: At WordCamp US, held November 1–3, Mullenweg reviewed a year of block editor progress and previewed block patterns and full site editing. His recap followed, and the presentation itself was built with the block editor.
• Five for the Future page: Mullenweg announced a dedicated Five for the Future page highlighting people and organisations that pledge at least five percent of their resources to WordPress.
• bbPress 2.6: Released on November 12 after more than six years, bbPress 2.6 added per-forum moderation, new import platforms and an engagements API. Versions 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 quickly followed.
• WordCamp US 2020 dates: Next year’s event was set for October 27–29 in St. Louis, moving to weekdays for the first time.
• Annual survey: The 2019 WordPress survey opened on November 2, available for the first time in five additional languages.
• Recurring payments: WordPress.com and Jetpack launched a recurring payments feature for subscriptions and memberships.
• Newspack expands: Oklahoma Watch became the first US publication on Newspack, and 34 newsrooms were named for the next pilot round.
• Developer tooling: WP-CLI 2.4.0 added support for WordPress 5.3 and PHP 7.4, and WordPress Coding Standards 2.2 shipped five new sniffs.
• Diverse events: The Community Team updated its handbook to help organisers build more diverse events.
• Remembering Kim Parsell: The People of WordPress series profiled Kim Parsell, the contributor whose name lives on in the travel scholarship.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• WP-VCD explained: On November 4, Wordfence published an in-depth look at WP-VCD, malware spread through pirated “nulled” themes and plugins that site owners install themselves. It remained one of the most common WordPress infections.
• Email Subscribers & Newsletters: Multiple vulnerabilities were patched in the Email Subscribers & Newsletters plugin, reported by Wordfence on November 13.
• WP Maintenance: A high-severity vulnerability was fixed in the WP Maintenance plugin on November 19.
• 5.2.4 credit: WordPress.org updated its 5.2.4 notes to credit Simon Scannell of RIPS Technologies for a path traversal issue that could lead to remote code execution.

Industry Trends and Insights

• Blocks everywhere: The State of the Word made clear that patterns, navigation and full site editing were the roadmap for 2020, and that themes would change the most.
• PHP 7.4 arrives: PHP 7.4 was released on November 28, bringing typed properties, arrow functions and preloading. WordPress 5.3 was ready for it on day one.
• Images get heavier: 5.3’s big image handling acknowledged that many uploads now came straight from phone cameras, and that WordPress needed to protect performance by default.
• Contribution as strategy: The Five for the Future page made sponsored contribution more visible, encouraging companies to see it as part of their brand.

Theme of the Month: Twenty Twenty

Twenty Twenty shipped with 5.3 and was the first default theme designed from the start to show what the block editor could do on landing pages as well as blog posts. Its strong typography and full-width templates gave many users a better first impression of blocks.

Plugin of the Month: bbPress

bbPress 2.6 was a long-awaited release for anyone running forums on WordPress, including the WordPress.org support forums themselves. Per-forum moderation and the new engagements API modernised a plugin that had waited years for a major update.

Host of the Month: Flywheel

Flywheel, acquired by WP Engine earlier in 2019, continued to serve designers and creative agencies with managed WordPress hosting and its Local development app. Local’s quick site setup made it easy to try 5.3 and Twenty Twenty before upgrading production sites.

Founder of the Month: Frederick Townes

Frederick Townes created W3 Total Cache and founded W3 Edge. His plugin helped popularise page caching, minification and CDN integration for WordPress, and November’s agreement with BoldGrid gave it new resources for the years ahead.

Looking Ahead to December 2019

December should bring a 5.3.1 maintenance and security release, an update on the nine projects Matt Mullenweg set for 2019, and planning for WordPress 5.4. Gutenberg 7.1 is due, and early documentation for block-based themes is expected as full site editing work speeds up.