There were a number of WordPress performance enhancements in 6.3, which is due to be released tomorrow. This article reviews the enhancements and the changes related to them.

WordPress org will be moving to Matrix for chat and group discussions. The move has started now with single sign on using your WP org login and a Slack / Matrix bridge so that you can login on either side. There are several Matrix clients, so there will be some choice. This is discussed in this post on the Make blog.

In this chat summary of the core performance team they discuss the impact of loading translations. I had no idea of the performance impact, but it makes sense

I wonder that their possible solutions have no mention on the future Guteberg stage, though maybe that is too far in the future for consideration?

Here is the “Field Guide” for WordPress 6.3 that is released with the first release candidate. This is a comprehensive list and there are a number of things that have been shared previously and some others that I haven’t I hadn’t noticed.

WordPress 6.3 introduces a new “development_mode” constant. This post talks about how it can be used and a couple of related settings. I can see this being useful for developers and testers.

Much of this is technical, but it is good to see attention to optimization being carried out for WordPress core.

WordPress (finally) drops support for PHP 5. Beginning with WordPress 6.3, the minimum required version will be 7.0 and 7.4 will be the recommended version.

Ronald Huereca has a great tutorial on how to add your own commands to the coming Command Palette.

The first beta of WordPress 6.3 is available. It includes the Command Palette, improved page management, new blocks, and many other improvements.