June was an exciting month for the WordPress community. WordCamp Europe was successfully held in Athens, Greece, and contributors shared the first beta of our upcoming major release, WordPress 6.3.
But that’s not all that happened in June. Hostinger also released new features for WordPress users.
Hostinger blog themes
Earlier this month, we released Hostinger Blog Themes to simplify the setup process for our hosted WordPress sites. This theme is available for business web hosting and cloud hosting users who are setting up their WordPress site using the hPanel onboarding feature.
![A sample website homepage using the Hostinger Blog theme](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/06/hostinger-blog-theme.webp)
This theme was built specifically with the Hostinger AI Content Generator in mind. During the onboarding process, the user enters a business or blog description and the tool delivers her website with pre-built content. Additionally, our Unsplash integration includes stock images related to your blog visuals.
![AI Content Generator panel where users can enter blog name and description](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/06/ai-content-generator.webp)
For more information on these new features and how to use them, read our Hostinger blog theme product update post.
WordPress updates
Two new Gutenberg versions were released in June – 16.0 and 16.1. Each comes with additional features and improvements to the block editor. Here are some of the most notable updates:
- Sophisticated site editor page management – Gutenberg 15.8 introduced a new feature that makes it easier to navigate between pages using the site editor. Gutenberg 16.0 now allows users to add new pages without leaving the editor.
![WordPress site editor showing page navigation](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/07/site-editor-page-navigation.webp)
- lightbox element – New option available to change image blocks in lightbox behavior, no longer needing additional plugins with functionality.
- Turn reusable blocks into patterns – One of the biggest changes introduced in Gutenberg 16.1 concerns reusable blocks.they are now known as sync pattern. By combining reusable blocks and patterns, custom patterns can now be created right in the editor without the need for additional plugins or coding.
![Synchronization pattern option to replace reusable blocks](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/07/synced-patterns.webp)
Most importantly, WordPress 6.3 A beta version has been released for testing. This next major version consolidates various features from Gutenberg 15.2 to 16.1 into the core software, along with many other enhancements and bug fixes.
To test this release, WordPress beta tester plugin.please choose cutting edge channel and Beta/RC only Update your site to WordPress 6.3 Beta using Stream. Always use a staging website to keep everything safe during testing.
Stay tuned – we’ll be publishing a blog post soon letting you know what to expect in WordPress 6.3.
word camp
One of the major highlights of June was WordCamp Europe 2023, which coincided with WordPress’ 20th anniversary. At the same time, the WordPress community team announced some exciting news about the upcoming WordCamp.
WordCamp Europe 2023
WordCamp Europe 2023 was held in Athens, Greece from June 8th to 10th, 2023. With 2,545 participants from 94 countries, it was the largest flagship WordCamp so far this year.
The event also hosted several sessions related to recent trends such as 20 years of WordPress and the presence of AI in the WordPress ecosystem. For event highlights, see our WordCamp Europe 2023 recap.
![youtube channel logo](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/themes/blogthemeuplift/public/images/youtube-channels/hostinger-academy.jpg)
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Next Generation WordCamp Pilot Event
The WordPress community team announced New ideas for WordCamps and community events. The community is encouraged to experiment with new formats and specific focal points.
After much discussion, 64 ideas were shared for next-gen WordPress events, with 59 organizers willing to participate. More importantly, eight pilot events have been confirmed, six of which are scheduled for this year.
- Low cost WordCamp – WordCamp attendees are limited to 90 people and there are no keepsakes, social dinners or after parties. It was held in Leipzig, Germany on July 1, 2023.
- WordPress day – 2nd July 2023 in Seville, Spain. The event was similar to Contributor Day, with 50 attendees focused on his three specific areas of contribution.
- country – Quarterly community events held in rural areas for the purpose of teaching WordPress to people who have limited access to WordPress events in rural communities and big cities. An event of this kind is being piloted in Spain, but no dates have been set yet.
- WordPress for Publishers – A one-day WordPress event for publishers in Bangalore, India. This event has two purposes. Existing WordPress users can discuss and brainstorm new WordPress features, while non-WordPress users can better understand WordPress and make the switch to WordPress.
- community day – Scheduled for September 29, 2023 in Rome, Italy. To ensure a healthy and sustainable WordPress community, we will bring together representatives of all WordPress Meetups in the country for an event management workshop.
- Scale-up workshop – A one-day WordPress Proficiency Workshop event scheduled for October 22, 2023 in Tegal, Indonesia.
These pilot events vary in format but share a common theme of being smaller and cheaper than traditional WordCamps. These events should pave the way for more affordable community gatherings and allow WordPress users to gather more often in a variety of engaging formats.
WordPress Playground
WordPress Playground was a big topic at WordCamp Europe 2023. As Matt Mullenweg said in his State of the Word 2022 keynote, this browser-based sandbox is becoming more and more stable and useful for testing themes and plugins and even designing his website. is also very helpful.
If you want to try out the WordPress Playground, simply visit the Playground URL and it will instantly give you a temporary site that you can tweak. Enter the admin panel using the admin bar at the top.
![WordPress playground interface](https://www.hostinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/07/wordpress-playground.webp)
The great thing about Playground is that you can switch between PHP and WordPress versions, so you can easily run compatibility checks for plugins and themes.
You can also upload and download your website, so you can easily experiment and customize, then upload your work to the live site.
However, WordPress Playground has some limitations. For example, you cannot install themes or plugins from the admin panel directory. Instead, you must upload the ZIP file and install manually.
WordPress security news
When it comes to WordPress security news, we surveyed the Patchstack database to identify critical security issues in popular plugins. Fortunately, fewer vulnerabilities were found this month, and all popular plugins listed below have already released updates to address these vulnerabilities.
Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce
CVSS Score: 9.8 (Severity)
This abandoned cart plugin for WooCommerce was vulnerable due to broken authentication. This could allow the attacker to access the user’s account, i.e. the customer who abandoned the cart on the account. High-level users, including administrators, were also vulnerable.
No exploits have been reported, but the developer has already fixed this issue in version 5.15.0.
WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway
CVSS Score: 7.5 (High Severity)
Developed by WooCommerce, the plugin has over 900,000 installations and was susceptible to two vulnerabilities: access control corruption and unsafe direct object references. These are different types of vulnerabilities, but both can allow malicious attackers to gain high-level access to your site.
Nevertheless, they scored the same Common Vulnerability Scoring System grade – 7.5. This vulnerability has been fixed in version 7.4.1. However, nearly 50% of active installations are still using older versions, leaving over 450,000 websites vulnerable.
download monitor
CVSS Score: 9.9 (Severity)
One of the most popular download manager plugins with over 100,000 active installs was vulnerable to a critical arbitrary file upload vulnerability. A malicious attacker could upload any type of file to the website and allow backdoor access to the website.
All versions of Download Monitor up to 4.8.3 are vulnerable and a fix is available for version 4.8.4.
Unlimited elements in Elementor
CVSS Score: 8.3 (High Severity) to 9.9 (Severe Severity)
Multiple vulnerabilities were found in the Unlimited Elements For Elementor plugin, including breaking access controls, bypassing restrictions, and uploading arbitrary files. Users who have installed version 1.5.65 or earlier of this plugin are at increased risk of security breaches.
If you’re using this plugin, please update to at least version 1.5.67 to ensure your site is secure.
Schedule for July
In July, most of the WordPress community’s focus will be on the upcoming WordPress 6.3. The final release is planned for August, but testing of the release candidate version can begin on July 18, 2023.
Website, plugin or theme developers are strongly encouraged to test their products on release candidate versions to ensure everything works as expected.