It’s been a big week, hasn’t it? One of the most pivotal things that could be introduced for WordPress has been introduced. You can read all about it below, but there was more happening this week. I
I’m preparing for a week full of connecting with friends, new and old, at WordCamp Europe. I’ll be driving with my son
Lots to cover for the 160th newsletter, I hope you enjoy it!
🗞️ Within WordPress News
Here’s what I saw happening this past week:
- Let’s start with what, I think, is the most important thing that happened this week, heck, all of this year’s week? I think so. WordPress.org
introduced a Make WordPress AI team . With James LePage and Felix Arntz leading the team, I could not be more excited about this team.
Scroll down to find the podcast recording I did with James LePage where we talk about the impact potential of this team.
- Tammie Lister explores
how AI can help optimize triage and review processes in WordPress , looking at ways it could support contributors, ease bottlenecks, and reduce burnout across open-source projects.
- I love when people list their favorite WordPress tools. There’s always a ton to learn about their favorites. Sure, there’s always overlap, but I find gems every single time. Just like I did when EZ Smith
shared his list , and I scoured through the comments.
- And similar to how I like WordPress favorites being shared, I love it as well when deep dives for case studies are being shared. This time around, 10up. They share how they built a
custom AI integration for Penske Media , enabling editorial teams to generate headlines, summaries, and SEO metadata directly in WordPress.
It is a smart example of AI woven into real-world publishing workflows.
- How to add additional fields easily to your WooCommerce checkout block to collect information for your customers. Tom (from WooCommerce) explains
how to add additional fields to the WooCommerce Checkout block , showing how to hook into its filters and keep your customizations upgrade-safe.
A useful guide for anyone extending modern WooCommerce. And he follows it up with another good one in this context:
- With
how to make your WooCommerce additional checkout fields conditionally visible , so you can display fields only when they are relevant to the customer.
Sliiightly related, I’m happy to see
- My amigo Fran Torres reflects on
two years of reviewing plugins on WordPress.org , sharing lessons learned, challenges faced, and why plugin review is such vital work for the WordPress ecosystem.
(Shout-out to my
- Ronald Huereca, whom I think doesn’t need an introduction, shares
an introduction to nested blocks using InnerBlocks , covering how to build flexible, reusable block structures inside WordPress.
If you’re doing block development, this is a good one to read. It’s written a year ago, but still incredibly useful.
- And, btw, if you’ve not touched Block Themes before, Mike Hindles offers
an introduction to the WordPress block theme editor , explaining how it helps site owners edit headers, footers, and templates visually.
Also, good to check out if you’re curious about how far the editor has come.
- Rodrigo Donini announced a tool he developed to showcase WordPress profiles (from your official WordPress profile) on any WordPress site, and it’s called
CardPress . It turns your public WordPress profile into a beautifully designed shareable card that highlights your avatar, name, badges, and contributions.
Neat-o.
- WooCommerce 9.9 RC is ready for testing. Help out to validate performance improvements,
check out new features, and prep for launch .
- You want to use custom block styles in your WordPress Block Theme, but don’t know how to define them without writing some PHP or JavaScript code? Then read Bernhard Kau‘s latest blog post to learn
how to do it with only one JSON file .
- WordPress Sites cost up to 44% less than proprietary CMS Platforms. WP Engine’s
latest report shows this . Strong data to back what many in the WordPress space already know.
- Filter, the WordPress agency that also bring you PersonalizeWP, introduced another great WordPress plugin called Filter AI. It brings the power of AI to WordPress, streamlining content creation and enhancing your editorial workflow.
Check out its beta !
🚀 Performance & Security
- In
this issue of Tidbits , Brian Jackson (of Perfmatters fame) talks about how they saw a ~29% decrease in image sizes moving from WebP to AVIF in his latest newsletter.
- Kinsta’s
PHP Performance add-on is now available to everyone, with new API controls to fine-tune CDN, edge caching, and PHP behavior. More power, more flexibility for performance-focused sites.
- Improve the navigation of grid & flex layouts with the reading-flow & reading-order properties, plus use the CSS if() function for concise conditional values. You guessed it,
Chrome 137 is here !
- If you’re new to the concept of CSS Classes and Variables,
this new video by Paul from WPTuts will help explain and clarify the fundamentals.
- Weston Ruter wrote about
how to improve LCP by deprioritizing Script Modules from the Interactivity API . This is a really lovely deep-dive into the issue, the research, and the result, the plugin that fixes it.
Some of my favorite WordPress tools:
- My two favorite forms for WordPress:
Gravity Forms and WS Form - These are the themes I use:
Ollie , Rockbase and GeneratePress - And, obviously,
Scanfully for all my Site Health & Performance monitoring
🔆 Within WordPress Highlight
Kevin Geary showed a bit more of what’s coming to Etch, and wow, once Etch hits its stride, other page builders are going to have to seriously step up.
Its seamless blend with the block editor means you can whip up native experiences fast, letting clients tweak content directly without a chance of there being issues.
Auto block authoring is a standout feature you can’t afford to ignore. Check it out:
💡 Interesting Finds
- Achille Lacoin blogs about
the case for using a web browser as your terminal . And I like it the thought of this as a fan of the terminal.
- With Gemini now included in all business tiers, Google is
raising Workspace plan prices in 2025 . More AI, higher costs, so now is a good time to review what you are actually using.
- Dave Foy points out
a great tip for layout control : if using flexwithrow-gapgives you uneven vertical spacing because of extra space around text, the newtext-box-trimproperty in CSS fixes it. A total game changer for clean, consistent typography.
- In the context of understanding SEO and AI, this is a must-read article. Mike King explains
how AI mode works in search engines , breaking down how LLMs, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation are changing search. Seriously… you have to read this if you want to understand the future of SEO.
PHP can now run in, blend with Node.js . Yeah, I know… 🤯
- I got a site review a while back from Piccia Neri and based on her feedback, I redid my personal site and split off Within WP. Piccia had her birthday this week and
shared that she’s offering a 30% discount on her audits for the occasion.
🎁 Bonus
🎙️
Anyway, do check this one out. So much to unpack in this one, and
That’s it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!
Best, Remkus
Leave a Reply