Copy by Anne McCarthy (@annezazu) and Design by Mel Choyce-Dwan (@melchoyce)
In WordPress circles (whether it’s your local meetup, a trusted publication, or your networking group), you may have heard terms like Core Editor, Gutenberg, and the Block Editor used interchangeably over the last four years. And if you’re following contributor work on the project itself, you may also have heard some additional nuances—Gutenberg plugin, Gutenberg, or Block Editor.
It can get a little confusing, so let’s take a look at four terms that will help you find your way:
WordPress – WordPress refers to the open source software but also to the community that surrounds it.
Gutenberg – Gutenberg is the code name for a multi-year project to update editing areas for the WordPress software.
Editor – The editor refers to a section of the software that allows you to update content on your site’s posts and pages.
Gutenberg Plugin – The Gutenberg plugin is where early work to update the editor is shared.
The Gutenberg Plugin
Now that we’ve cleared up the definitions, let’s talk about the plugin. When might you use it? What would you use it for? You can think of it as an early access program or a “WordPress lab.” The plugin is updated every two weeks, which means that bugs that have been reported are often fixed and that what you see changes rapidly.
The Gutenberg plugin also contains features that aren’t yet ready for their WordPress debut but are ready for curious users to test and provide feedback. This is a common practice that allows stable features to make it to your site in WordPress releases while allowing experimental features to be tested and refined. To get a sense of whether using the Gutenberg Plugin might be something you want to explore to get access to earlier features, check out the “What’s New” release posts and the Core Editor Improvement post series.
Do I Need the Plugin to Use Gutenberg?
It depends on your comfort level! Generally speaking, it is not recommended to use the plugin on a site that has launched and is actively in use unless you’re very comfortable with the code side of WordPress. Fortunately, each WordPress release comes ready to go with multiple versions of the Gutenberg plugin.
But if you are a keen beta tester who loves reporting feedback, or you feel comfortable navigating how to opt-in/out of the experimental aspects of the plugin, here are a few reasons you might want to dig into what the Gutenberg Plugin has to offer:
Test new features and give helpful feedback. For example, you can use the plugin to help test Full Site Editing.
Get early access to the latest & greatest while navigating when to opt-in or out of experimental features.
Prepare for the future whether you’re a theme author, plugin developer, agency owner, etc.
Do you use the Gutenberg plugin and share feedback on GitHub? Thank you! This kind of feedback is what helps ensure stability in what’s shipped in WordPress releases.
This security and maintenance release features 26 bug fixes in addition to two security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 4.7 have also been updated.
WordPress 5.7.1 is a short-cycle security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.8.
You can download WordPress 5.7.1 by downloading from WordPress.org, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now.
If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.
Security Updates
Two security issues affect WordPress versions between 4.7 and 5.7. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.7, all WordPress versions since 4.7 have also been updated to fix the following security issues:
Thank you SonarSource for reporting an XXE vulnerability within the media library affecting PHP 8.
Thanks Mikael Korpela for reporting a data exposure vulnerability within the REST API.
Thank you to all of the reporters for privately disclosing the vulnerabilities. This gave the security team time to fix the vulnerabilities before WordPress sites could be attacked.
WordPress is open source software, maintained by a global network of contributors. There are many examples of how WordPress has changed people’s lives for the better. In this monthly series, we share some of the amazing stories that are lesser-known.
Embrace Who You Are and Your Journey
In this People of WordPress contributor story, we chat to Tyler Lau from the US on his relationship building work in marketing and his WordPress journey.
Read on to discover his story which shows it is often what you have learned from negative experiences in your life that can make you a major asset to a product team.
An Entrepreneurial Mindset
Tyler recalls he always had a knack for spotting a enterprise ideas. As an industrious seven-year-old, he was already finding ways to make sales during the school breaks.
While many entrepreneurs have similar stories, Tyler’s path took many turns before he discovered and thrived in the WordPress community.
He was drawn to both the software and the community that surrounds it from his search for personal and professional freedom. He ultimately was able to combine his various business interests and people skills into professional marketing work.
Using your skills to uncover your journey
Tyler’s current role is as a Marketing Relationship Builder, based in Kansas, USA. His responsibilities span across all digital properties and products, leveraging his broad set of business and people skills.
These skills are amplified by his creativity and adaptability. Tyler says that one reason he is always looking for new projects is his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a diagnosis he received in 2005.
In an industry built by programmers and developers who often have a strong sense of focus, Tyler felt that someone with ADHD wouldn’t be seen as a natural fit. He found the WordPress community to be a place where everyone can find the right spot for their unique skills. Tyler’s skill is people, and this has translated into many opportunities and responsibilities in his work life. His skills have also helped him give back to the WordPress community as a speaker and volunteer, and through multiple contributor days.
Relationship-building as a career
Most of Tyler’s experience was in the restaurant industry, and his resume did not exactly point to a career in tech. But the service industry actually prepared him well for everything he has taken on since.
When he is at work events, he meets people from across the world and builds connections with them. As an extrovert, he enjoys this and couldn’t imagine a job where he was isolated from getting to know others and relationship-building.
Understanding people and being able to operate in any setting are key competencies. Social skills and tact are useful for community building in the WordPress space too, and in Tyler’s life at different times it has been necessary for survival.
The true meaning of freedom
In the WordPress community, the concept of freedom comes up often. WordPress is built on GPL, free software, and open-source values. Practically speaking, anyone can work remotely or be their own boss to gain more freedom in work and life. Tyler feels that he never fitted into a traditional work mould. With his strong focus on freedom, he found this resonated with the freedom and opportunities he believes WordPress provides him and thousands of others.
Tyler describes how in 2013 his ‘inner opportunist’ got him into trouble. After dropping out of college following a brain aneurysm, he needed capital to fund his first startup. He shares that he found a quick but unlawful way to make money. Alongside this between shifts as a waiter, he worked on prototypes for his first product. The company was growing fast, and to protect his patents and take research and development to the next level, he had to work hard. Everything came to a halt when some of the actions he took resulted in being sent to prison.
He says that meeting other inmates reminded him that he was in a much better situation than most. He was educated, well-off, loved, and knew he had a future once he was released. He found that many inmates never graduated from high school and were computer illiterate. While inside, Tyler taught subjects like science, math, writing, reading, and social studies. He found that due to the lack of skills and support, many inmates would struggle upon release. He believes getting the mental health support and job training needed to thrive after prison is not easy for many.
“There’s more to freedom than just being on the outside. You also need a sense of agency and enfranchisement,” says Tyler. He considered his sense of purpose and support network were plenty to keep him going and was ready to take on his next (legal) business challenge as soon as he could.
Going forward positively
The idea that your past doesn’t define you and you can choose to embrace it, is a key driver for Tyler.
He describes himself as an outlier in many ways. He recalls how politics influenced his life from the day he was born. Tyler’s father is a semi-dissident Chinese visual anthropologist, his mother is an art professor who left her home country of Japan to break free from traditional Japanese gender roles. Tyler feels he inherited a lot of this fearlessness.
“I’ve never fitted in, and yet this is what makes me able to adapt to most situations and relate to just about anyone. I embrace my eclectic, dissonant past and see beauty in the person those experiences shaped me to be,” says Tyler.
Now, he’s able to put those skills to good use in the WordPress community and beyond.
He says: “Regardless of your physical abilities, mental health struggles, upbringing, and even your run-ins with the law, no one is excluded from carving their place in the WordPress industry”.
Contributors
Thank you to Tyler Lau (@tylermaximus) for sharing his #ContributorStory.
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
In this episode, Josepha explores the five groups within the WordPress ecosystem and provides a high-level example of how they interact and support one another. As always, stay tuned for the small list of big things and a contributor highlight.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
This way of iterating improves WordPress and ties back to one of my favorite open-source principles. The idea that with many eyes, all bugs are shallow. To me, that means that with enough people looking at a problem, someone is bound to be able to see the solution.
These words from Josepha Haden Chomphosy on the How WordPress Improves episode of the WP Briefing Podcast point to the factors that differentiate building software in an open-source environment. Our updates this month are closely tied to the philosophy behind those core principles of open source software.
Want to contribute to WordPress 5.8? Join the WordPress #core channel in the Make WordPress Slack and follow the Core Team blog. The Core Team hosts weekly chats on Wednesdays at 5 AM and 8 PM UTC.
Version 10.1 showcases significant improvements to reusable blocks, a clearer image toolbar, and spatial options for the social media block. Version 10.2 offers block pattern options to display contents from the query block and removes writing prompts from empty paragraphs in the editor. It also adds width adjustment for spacer blocks in horizontal parent blocks and the ability to transform media and text blocks into columns.
Proposal launched for a WordPress contributor handbook
A proposal has been kicked off on building a project-wide WordPress contributor handbook. The handbook will have content around the WordPress project’s underlying philosophies and commitments, along with shared expectations on working together and building products. It will also contain modern open source best practices for WordPress.
Further Reading
You can now schedule office hours with Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden as part of their Q2 Quarterly listening hours initiative. This quarter’s listening session is scheduled for April 7th, 2021, from 22:00–24:00 UTC. Slots are still available — sign up now!
The Themes Team is working on automating the theme review process. The team has shared a detailed post on these changes and is requesting feedback.
The Core Team has kicked-off plans on dual licensing Gutenberg under GPL and MPL.
Version 7.2.1 of BuddyPress (security release) is out! Update all your BuddyPresses!
The Make WordPress Slack workspace briefly went down on March 30 due to a Slack ToS issue, which was subsequently resolved. More details on this explainer post.
Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it using this form.
If you’ve ever built something for the WordPress block editor — a theme or a plugin — you may have also heard about block patterns.
Looking at the patterns that come bundled with WordPress, I thought it would be nice to dedicate to them a short post. They’re pretty nice, useful shortcuts when you know them, but there’s a good chance you may not know what they are or why you might want to use them.
What’s a block pattern?
Patterns are collections of pre-arranged blocks that can be combined and arranged in many ways making it easier to create beautiful content. They act as a head-start, leaving you to plug and play with your content as you see fit and be as simple as single blocks or as complex as a full-page layout.
They live in a tab in the block library. You can click or drag and you’re able to preview them with your site’s styles.
Basically, a block pattern is just a bunch of blocks put together in advance:
<!-- wp:group -->
<div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} -->
<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/>
<!-- /wp:separator -->
<!-- wp:image {"align":"center","id":553,"width":150,"height":150,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","className":"is-style-rounded"} -->
<div class="wp-block-image is-style-rounded"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img src="https://blockpatterndesigns.mystagingwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/StockSnap_HQR8BJFZID-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-553" width="150" height="150"/></figure></div>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:quote {"align":"center","className":"is-style-large"} -->
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-style-large"><p>"Contributing makes me feel like I'm being useful to the planet."</p><cite>— Anna Wong, <em>Volunteer</em></cite></blockquote>
<!-- /wp:quote -->
<!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} -->
<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/>
<!-- /wp:separator --></div></div>
<!-- /wp:group -->
That’s also how you create them: just use the block editor to configure a smattering of blocks to your liking, and the hard part’s over.
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Quote Pattern Example Plugin
*/
register_block_pattern(
'my-plugin/my-quote-pattern',
array(
'title' => __( 'Quote with Avatar', 'my-plugin' ),
'categories' => array( 'text' ),
'description' => _x( 'A big quote with an avatar".', 'Block pattern description', 'my-plugin' ),
'content' => '<!-- wp:group --><div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} --><hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/><!-- /wp:separator --><!-- wp:image {"align":"center","id":553,"width":150,"height":150,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","className":"is-style-rounded"} --><div class="wp-block-image is-style-rounded"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img src="https://blockpatterndesigns.mystagingwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/StockSnap_HQR8BJFZID-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-553" width="150" height="150"/></figure></div><!-- /wp:image --><!-- wp:quote {"align":"center","className":"is-style-large"} --><blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-style-large"><p>"Contributing makes me feel like I\'m being useful to the planet."</p><cite>— Anna Wong, <em>Volunteer</em></cite></blockquote><!-- /wp:quote --><!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} --><hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/><!-- /wp:separator --></div></div><!-- /wp:group -->',
)
);
?>
👆 That’s a snippet of PHP, which means you can drop it in a WordPress plugin, or perhaps more simply, paste it into the functions.php file from your theme. Done:
For patterns that include images, it’s worth thinking about where those are stored. The TT1 Blocks theme (which is a fancy name for “TwentyTwentyOne Blocks”) stores images in the theme library.
Now what?
The thing about a block pattern is, as soon as you insert it from the block library, it stops being a cohesive unit — now it’s just a smattering of blocks, detached from the pattern you created and meant to be customized to your liking. It’s a shortcut, not a template. That also means you don’t have to worry about switching themes or deactivating pattern plugins: the blocks you already inserted won’t go anywhere.
That being said, if you like this one pattern so much you want to use it again and again, with no customization at all, you can make it into a reusable block:
Reusable blocks are created, as the name implies, to be reused. The feature is a great way to store small bits of commonly used snippets that you can edit in one place to update in all. “Follow me on Twitter,” “Article series,“ or “Subscribe to my podcast” are great examples of that.
What makes a good block pattern?
Patterns, as they ship today, are limited by the features available. If the block editor doesn’t allow you to customize letter-spacing, your block pattern can’t either. While the Global Styles project will expand what’s to blocks, in the meantime, we have to work with the available tools.
Even then, with the most basic ingredients — color, photography, typography — it is possible to do a lot:
Three columns with images and text
Media and text with image on the right
I designed these patterns to potentially land in WordPress core, which all have a few properties in common:
They share a theme.
You can think of a pattern as a section of a website: it is meant to be part of a whole, and so it works best when it can exist in the context of other patterns that share the same theme. There are a few sharing a Nature theme in the patterns above, a few sharing an Art theme, and others sharing an Architecture theme. When seen together, it becomes easier to see how you might be able to piece together multiple pages of your site, one page at a time.
They share a minimalist color palette.
By being parts of a whole, patterns will inevitably land in a context that uses different colors. With a reduced color palette, there’s both a better chance of fitting in and less to customize to make it just right.
The best patterns do things you might have not done otherwise.
Whether that’s images offset to create a unique silhouette, or just using less visible features (like fixed positioning in the Cover block), it’s a way to surface creativity.
Tip: You can use any block in your patterns, including blocks that came from a plugin. And if that block is in the block directory, it will prompt you to install it with one click if it’s missing from your self-hosted WordPress:
Here’s a plugin for you
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Quote Pattern Example Plugin
*/
register_block_pattern(
'my-plugin/my-quote-pattern',
array(
'title' => __( 'Quote with Avatar', 'my-plugin' ),
'categories' => array( 'text' ),
'description' => _x( 'A big quote with an avatar".', 'Block pattern description', 'my-plugin' ),
'content' => '<!-- wp:group --><div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} --><hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/><!-- /wp:separator --><!-- wp:image {"align":"center","id":553,"width":150,"height":150,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","className":"is-style-rounded"} --><div class="wp-block-image is-style-rounded"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img src="https://blockpatterndesigns.mystagingwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/StockSnap_HQR8BJFZID-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-553" width="150" height="150"/></figure></div><!-- /wp:image --><!-- wp:quote {"align":"center","className":"is-style-large"} --><blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-style-large"><p>"Contributing makes me feel like I\'m being useful to the planet."</p><cite>— Anna Wong, <em>Volunteer</em></cite></blockquote><!-- /wp:quote --><!-- wp:separator {"className":"is-style-default"} --><hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-default"/><!-- /wp:separator --></div></div><!-- /wp:group -->',
)
);
?>
In case you want to make patterns, this example plugin features two of the patterns you saw above. Drop it in your plugins folder and they should show up in your block library.
Installed pattern under “Text” Category
Feel free to tweak it, customize it, and make it yours. It’s GPL, after all!
In this episode, Josepha is joined by Matías Ventura, also known as “the spark behind the vision of Gutenberg.” Josepha and Matías discuss full site editing and answer your questions, from “is full site editing a standalone plugin?” to “will full site editing break my current site?”
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy explores the WordPress release process. Tune in and learn the phases of a release and catch this week’s small list of big things.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.
Bringing you fresh colors in the admin, simpler interactions in the editor, and controls right where you need them, WordPress 5.7 lets you focus on the content you create.
Meet “Esperanza”, the first WordPress release of 2021. “Esperanza” is named in honor of Esperanza Spalding, a modern musical prodigy. Her path as a musician is varied and inspiring—learn more about her and give her music a listen!
With this new version, WordPress brings you fresh colors. The editor helps you work in a few places you couldn’t before without getting into code or hiring a pro. The controls you use most are right where you need them. Layout changes that should be simple, are even simpler to make.
Now the new editor is easier to use
Font-size adjustment in more places: now, font-size controls are right where you need them in the List and Code blocks. No more trekking to another screen to make that single change!
Reusable blocks: several enhancements make reusable blocks more stable and easier to use. And now they save automatically with the post when you click the Update button.
Inserter drag-and-drop: drag blocks and block patterns from the inserter right into your post.
You can do more without writing custom code
Full-height alignment: have you ever wanted to make a block, like the Cover block, fill the whole window? Now you can.
Buttons block: now you can choose a vertical or a horizontal layout. And you can set the width of a button to a preset percentage.
Social Icons block: now you can change the size of the icons.
A simpler default color palette
This new streamlined color palette collapses all the colors that used to be in the WordPress source code down to seven core colors and a range of 56 shades that meet the WCAG 2.0 AA recommended contrast ratio against white or black.
Find the new palette in the default WordPress Dashboard color scheme, and use it when you’re building themes, plugins, or any other components. For all the details, check out the Color Palette dev note.
From HTTP to HTTPS in a single click
Starting now, switching a site from HTTP to HTTPS is a one-click move. WordPress will automatically update database URLs when you make the switch. No more hunting and guessing!
New Robots API
The new Robots API lets you include the filter directives in the robots meta tag, and the API includes the max-image-preview: large directive by default. That means search engines can show bigger image previews, which can boost your traffic (unless the site is marked not-public).
Lazy-load your iFrames
Now it’s simple to let iframes lazy-load. By default, WordPress will add a loading="lazy" attribute to iframe tags when both width and height are specified.
Ongoing cleanup after update to jQuery 3.5.1
For years jQuery helped make things move on the screen in ways the basic tools couldn’t—but that keeps changing, and so does jQuery.
In 5.7, jQuery gets more focused and less intrusive, with fewer messages in the console.
Check the Field Guide for more!
Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of. WordPress 5.7 Field Guide.
The Squad
The WordPress 5.7 release comes to you from a small and experienced release squad:
This release is the reflection of the hard work of 481 generous volunteer contributors. Collaboration occurred on nearly 250 tickets on Trac and over 950 pull requests on GitHub.
WordPress is open source software, maintained by a global network of contributors. There are many examples of how WordPress has changed people’s lives for the better. In this monthly series, we share some of the amazing stories that are lesser-known.
From a natural interest in computers and fixing things as a young woman, Olga Gleckler from St Petersburg, Russia, found WordPress took her on a journey to becoming a successful female tech entrepreneur. On International Women’s Day, we share her story.
Finding your path can take longer than you expect
From the age of 15, Olga found herself under pressure to find a free place for her professional studies. She said: “I didn’t know how high or low my chances were even if I had very good marks. I could have been just the biggest fish in a small pond. But anyway, I made up my mind to go to technical school.”
On leaving school in St Petersburg with her certificate, Olga felt her knowledge of opportunities was very narrow. She had pictured being an ecologist or guide translator based on the subjects she had been taught at school. There was also an advertising boom in Russia and she began to explore this as a career avenue. She had developed her computer skills and found opportunities to practise by helping her teachers with administrative work.
Though she did not have access to any formal career advice, her journey led her into programming. She said: “The range of technical schools was not wide. I spent four years studying transistor markings, soldering and drawing PCB layouts. Programming courses using Pascal didn’t do anything useful with it.”
A lack of suitable access to English-language courses made things harder for Olga. She was determined that she would master the language later in her life. In the meantime, she left technical school with an honors degree and improved typing skills.
“I faced it was a wild, unfriendly market. I didn’t know how to recognize a genuine job offer or how to avoid the bad ones. It was difficult and I don’t know how long I would’ve looked for work without help.”
Think differently to find where you belong
Olga’s father worked in an IT company and was able to give her some advice and help with potential introductions. When she was still studying, he suggested her strong technical skills might be useful as a substitute typist. When she finished her studies, he helped her apply for a job updating a legal system on clients’ computers.
Six months later, she got a full-time job in the same service department. She liked her position and her clients. However, she was given friendly advice that without a university degree she would not be able to have any further promotions.
At this time, Olga was trying to study PHP from a book. She found it very exciting at first, but a lot of their functions did not give her explanations on how to build something useful. She found when she tried to build practical items from book reading, it did not always make sense and the solutions would often fail.
She said: “It was hard to admit a failure even to myself and it was nagging me for a long time. I had to choose something I could handle, that I was interested in and could afford. It turned out to be advertising.”
She spent most of the family’s holidays on learning sessions during the next six years. Olga recalled: “It was tricky for my husband to make me leave a computer, once I was glued to it, so he bought me my first laptop. English was still hard for me, I got high marks through just memorizing all the words in a textbook and how they should sound.”
Doubting your professional skills can happen when you are at home isolated looking after children. Keeping up your interests is important.
Olga’s life took a change after having a new baby and she spent three years doubting her professional skills and her chances of getting a good job. She tried to get back into other interests through studying, baking and drawing, but found ‘the pram was pulling me back’. She found she became very isolated and felt less able to contribute as the family was relying on her husband’s income as she tried to focus on looking forward.
She said: “I was convinced (and saw) that not too many companies wanted a woman in the office, who with a small baby might need lots of leave.”
She finished her education when she returned to work after three years caring for her son. She secured a promotion but with changes in the company’s staffing, things were tense. She found the difficulties there had become more heightened and felt that young female colleagues were treated as ‘pieces of furniture’ by one manager. She did not want to stay in this environment and in a few months time decided to leave.
Your next chapter may be nearby
Determined to not repeat this type of experience, Olga looked at the brighter side. She said: “I wanted to be a marketer. Knowing how tricky it is to sell intangibles, I wanted a solid product to work with.”
It turned out to be more difficult to find a job outside traditional IT as a young mother. Some human resource officers advised her to remain within the technology arena.
Olga remained hopeful and continued to study hard. She had many learning experiences along the way, which she hopes others can learn from too. One was setting a low bar to employers. She said: “Companies I worked in wanted to get all publicity and sales increases achieved through deductions from my salary.” This happened once and the next time she was in this situation she asked specifically about the budget before signing up. “I was assured this would not be the case, but again I found the budget for publicity came out of my wages. It was a tough period of disappointments. So when I was offered a part-time administrative job with basic sick leave, I took it gladly as a reprieve.”
The job was far from home and involved a lot of travelling. Olga spent two to three hours a day on buses with Harry Potter audio books for company. “In these traffic jams, I started to feel English at last and loved it. It gave me a freedom no money can buy. Life was getting better.”
Though the job did not pay highly, it gave her something valuable – a working website. After her boss and the developer parted company, she was asked to maintain the site. Through some studying and reverse engineering, she discovered how it worked and it gave her an insight into how to write simple websites from scratch.
Olga’s first encounter with JavaScript wasn’t easy: “My first JavaScript calculator almost made me crazy, but I pursued it.”
Quickly she started to get small tasks from friends and relatives, usually to solve some urgent problems and started to meet popular content management systems. One of the first she met with was WordPress. There was an issue in a website theme used by a website which had been changed and not maintained. It took a whole weekend to solve, but she was determined to work it out. Back then, WordPress was ‘just a system’. She didn’t know then how much it was to become part of her life.
Olga spent the next two years in this role. As time went on, she started to feel worried and less satisfied with the work. The last straw for her was a negative statement from her boss, who was not a programmer and who hadn’t seen any of the work done on the website. She felt the approach was unfair as she had done extensive work on the site. She recalls: “I became angry, but it was exactly what I needed to move jobs.”
When Olga was job hunting, she didn’t feel she had the courage to apply for a developer’s role, despite the learning and work she had already done. So instead she started working on projects where she felt she was more like a ‘seller of box-ready websites’. It was another tough half a year for her with a lot of work, low payment and plans not turning out as she had hoped. On top of long hours, she ended up with pneumonia. She said: “I see now that I was doing a disservice to customers, websites are not a microwave meal – quick, cheap and dummy. There was no life in the sites without a lot of work which no one was willing to buy. Most of the sites I sold back then died after the first year and they never were truly alive and useful.”
You need to be brave and have courage
Olga really wanted a developer job but seeking jobs of this type was very frustrating. From the job adverts she found, it felt like most IT companies were asking for geniuses who already knew a lot of technologies and frameworks. She found this very demotivating.
She then found a job offer on a website outside the most popular job portals and it seemed like a perfect fit. They wanted someone with experience to write from scratch, understand someone else’s code and maintain it, with an ability to translate technical documentation and articles, and make simple designs for printing products. After completing a trial task, she was taken on, and enjoyed a better salary, in a calm environment with good colleagues and without the requirement for a lot of extra hours.
The advert turned out to be a direct ad from one of the sales departments in a technology company. By succeeding in the task set, Olga had bypassed the Human Resources team which she felt would not normally have considered her.
Her boss agreed to her working remotely most of the time. It solved any potential leave problems which Olga had thought may be an obstacle.
For Olga it had been 14 years since the original decision to become a programmer and it was only the beginning.
After a few years at what she describes as an ‘amazing experience’ in this workplace, Olga felt able to move on to her next challenge as a developer.
Decision-making can benefit from wider knowledge
After working with different systems Olga became sure that WordPress is the best CMS for developers and clients. But she was disappointed to find that the ease of use meant that good code was not always a priority for some of the sites she looked at.
“The biggest flaw of WordPress – it’s so easy to make things work that some may feel they don’t need to bother to do things right, but this becomes a problem later.”
In custom themes for a site, she also saw sites being made and clients left without any further support, or items hard coded when clients actually needed more control to change regularly.
Olga used to rely on examples she could easily find, documentation and search engines to improve her understanding in using WordPress. She discovered that just by searching for a specific feature or a solution, you can miss the whole picture.
She turned to online courses to get more comprehensive knowledge and then started to attend WordPress events, firstly online and then by foot, trains and planes! She discovered a worldwide community that was very much alive. She didn’t know when she started studying online materials and attending discussions that she would end up contributing herself to the Learn WordPress platform a few years later.
WordCamps and contributor days became a big part of her life. From her early days attending events and starting out contributing to WordPress, she is an active member of the WordPress.org Global Marketing and Polyglots Teams, and supported the recent WordPress release. She is just beginning her first WordCamp organiser experience, joining WordCamp Europe 2021 on the Contribute Team.
Olga said: “Through the wider WordPress community, I knew not only where to look but also whom to ask. Most importantly, I found allies who don’t think I’m going crazy by speaking with delight about work, and with whom I share a passion and fondness for WordPress. This is what matters.
“Now, after more than seven years of full time development, I am still enjoying endless learning, frequent discoveries, mistakes and an impassioned wish to do better.”
This and a desire to help others use WordPress.org is part of Olga’s continued contribution to its Support and Marketing Teams, and led her to be involved in the Release Marketing questions and answers in 2020.
There is no chequered flag on the way
The road to freedom and becoming her own boss has not been easy for Olga. It is the path that got her where she is today, and she continues to find joy in it. She retains the lessons she’s learned and is always hungry to learn more.
“I travelled through a very uneven path, with a lot of obstacles and noise, but for me it’s like a kaleidoscope where a little turn presents a new picture, a new “ah-ha” moment, new excitement after seemingly pointless efforts.”
She added: “When in doubt I remind myself about David Ogilvy (generally considered the Founding Father of the modern advertising industry) who tried a lot of things before he struck gold with advertising, and maybe that’s why he did.”
Finally, she learned not only to keep a good spirit and try different things, but also to dare as you move forward.
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
