In this issue of Delicious Brain Bytes, we dive into the 2025 WordPress release schedule, peek at an advent calendar (for code), look ahead at the upcoming PressConf event, and much more!
Enhanced DataViews and DataForms
The latest “What’s New for Developers?” digs into changes to the site editor’s Style Book, improvements to the WordPress Playground, and the latest updates to WordPress core and Gutenberg.
Of particular interest, the DataViews and DataForm components have been enhanced with a new API, enabling developers to register and unregister DataViews actions more flexibly. Additionally, the getValueFromId function now supports nested objects for default values, and individual fields can declare a layout different from the one defined by the DataForm.
For more details, please see the full blog post.
WordPress 2025 Release Schedule
The release schedule for WordPress in 2025 has been announced. It includes three major updates: WordPress 6.8, 6.9, and 7.0.
- WordPress 6.8: Beta 1 on March 4, stable release on April 15.
- WordPress 6.9: Beta 1 on June 24, stable release on August 5.
- WordPress 7.0: Beta 1 on September 30, stable release on November 11.
Advent of Code
Advent calendars are a holiday tradition for many, with kids (and some adults) eagerly looking forward to the next day’s treat. Advent of Code follows a similar principle, but instead of chocolate, you get the gift of small programming puzzles.
According to Eric Wastl, the calendar’s creator, the puzzles are suitable for a variety of skill levels and can be solved in any programming language.
We’re already well into December, so you’ve got a lot of these treats built up. You can start on Advent of Code here.
PressConf: The Revival of a Legendary WordPress Business Event
If you were a fan of Pressnomics, you won’t want to miss PressConf. Scheduled to take place from April 23-26, 2025, at the Mission Palms Resort in Tempe, PressConf is poised to fill the void left by its predecessor and provide a unique platform for industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and creatives within the WordPress ecosystem.
PressConf is the brainchild of Raquel Manriquez, Community Manager at Elegant Themes. Manriquez has secured the blessing of Pressnomics founders Josh and Sally Strebel to revive the conference.
PressConf will feature a single track, ensuring all attendees can experience every presentation. You won’t be able to catch them later, as none of the presentations will be recorded.
Recognizing the importance of “hallway track” connections, PressConf includes structured networking time in its schedule, separate from talks and social events. This is designed to Early bird tickets are available at $680 for VIP access and $580 for general admission. The attendee count will be capped at 300 to maintain the intimate and focused nature of the event. Tickets are non-refundable but fully transferable. For those interested in bringing a plus-one to the evening gatherings, separate Party Plus-One tickets are available.
Please visit the PressConf website for more information.
RAVE for WordPress: Ensuring Package Integrity
RAVE (Reproduce And Verify) is an automated tool designed to ensure the integrity of WordPress packages by comparing their contents against the canonical source code. It is available on GitHub.
RAVE checks packages from various sources, including wordpress.org, GitHub, and some unofficial packages, to ensure they match the source code. The tool uses GitHub Actions to run the build process and compare package contents hourly, testing the latest versions in the three most recent branches.
RAVE addresses the risk of package tampering, whether through external attacks, internal breaches, or other malicious activities. By using the diff utility to compare package contents, it reduces the likelihood of malicious code being introduced without detection.
While RAVE is effective, it does not detect malicious code inserted into the source code repositories or targeted attacks that vary package contents based on request parameters. It also does not handle build provenance, attestation, or software signing.
For more details, please view the readme file in the GitHub repository for RAVE for WordPress.
Wiggling for Speed
As Mercedes Lackey once wrote, “If it is stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.” We were reminded of this quote reading a recent post by @LaurieWired where she noted “There’s a joke in the Win95 era that wiggling ‘makes the sand fall faster in the hourglass.’ The crazy part? It’s sort of true.”
She explained further Windows 95 applications often used asynchronous I/O, and file operations often resulted in programs going to sleep until the OS was finished. Jiggling the mouse around woke the program immediately.
Boosting Performance With NitroPack
The performance of a WordPress site is crucial for providing a seamless user experience and optimizing SEO. There’s a lot you can do to boost Core Web Vitals by fine-tuning settings, minifying resources, and concatenating JavaScript, but all of those techniques take time.
NitroPack can help to greatly simplify the optimization process, with caching and image optimization, JavaScript deferral, CSS minification, and more.
In this article, we show you how you can use the NitroPack plugin to boost performance with preset modes or a customized configuration.
What’s the most interesting news you’ve come across recently? Pop by Twitter and let us know.