Gutenberg Times: My WordPress, WordPress 7.0, Gutenberg 22.7, and AI Experiments — Weekend Edition 361

Hi,

This week, we saw many updates in WordPress Core with two Betas and three security releases. Your auto-update email folder got plenty of traffic if you are managing more than one website 🤗 The next step for the security team is to backport the 6.9.4 fixes to older version for WordPress, all the way back to WordPress 4.7.. It’s a huge job and it needs to be diligently executed.

Be well and hope you can enjoy Spring or Fall colors.

Yours, 💕
Birgit

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

WordPress 6.9.2, led by John Blackbourn, is a security-only release you’ll want to apply immediately. It patches ten vulnerabilities: a blind SSRF, a PoP-chain weakness in the HTML API and Block Registry, regex DoS in numeric character references, stored XSS in nav menus and via the data-wp-bind directive, an AJAX authorization bypass, a PclZip path traversal, and an XXE in the bundled getID3 library—now also patched upstream by James Heinrich.


WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 is available for testing, packing over 101 fixes since Beta 3. The headline new feature is a Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar — logged-in editors will spot a ⌘K / Ctrl+K symbol in the admin bar, giving you instant access to navigation and customization tools from anywhere on the site. The final release remains scheduled for April 9, 2026.


Ben Dwyer recaps what’s new in Gutenberg 22.7, a feature-packed release. You’ll find a new experimental Connectors screen under Settings, letting you manage AI providers like OpenAI with extension hooks for plugins. Real-time collaboration is now enabled by default, style variation transforms show live previews, the Grid block visualizer is more responsive, and the Playlist block gains a WaveForm Player.


Maggie Cabrera and I sat down to discuss the latest Gutenberg release and the Dev notes for WordPress 7.0. It’s been a while since we chatted and it was a great conversation. As always, the episode will drop into your favorite podcast app over the weekend. Stay tuned.


Anne McCarthy has issued a call for volunteers to build the Twenty Twenty-Seven default theme, with Henrique Iamarino confirmed as lead designer. Targeting the WordPress 7.2 release in early December, the team is getting started early to allow room for iteration. If you want to contribute to development or testing, leave a comment on the post by Friday, March 27th — the community response has already been enthusiastic.

Draft highlight grid for WordPress 7.0

This month’s What’s New for Developers (March 2026) is your essential pre-launch briefing as WordPress 7.0 approaches RC1 on March 19. The big headline is Real-Time Collaboration, now built on HTTP polling with Yjs and CRDT data stored in post_meta. You’ll also find AI provider packages for OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic landing in the Plugin Directory, plus visual in-editor revision tracking, a new Icon block, Content-Only pattern editing by default, and phpMyAdmin support in wp-env’s Playground runtime.


Maggie Cabrera outlines what’s new with pseudo-element support for blocks and their variations in theme.json in WordPress 7.0. You can now define :hover, :focus, :focus-visible, and :active states directly on blocks and their style variations — no custom CSS needed. An “Outline” button variation, for instance, can have its own distinct hover behavior. No Global Styles UI yet; that work continues separately.


Gopal Krishnan outlines what plugin and theme developers need to know about real-time collaboration in the block editor in WordPress 7.0, powered by Yjs. Collaboration is disabled when classic meta boxes are present, so you’ll want to migrate those to registered post meta with show_in_rest. The new sync.providers filter lets you swap the default HTTP polling transport for WebSockets or WebRTC. Avoid local React state for shared data — always derive values from the WordPress data store.

🎙 The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #127 – WordPress 7.0 Beta and Gutenberg 22.6 with special guest Jessica Lyschik, senior developer at Greyd

Jessica Lyschik and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording Gutenberg changelog episode number 127

Anne McCarthy shared a candid look at three Notes features for WordPress that didn’t quite make the 7.0 cut — show/hide notes on the canvas, filter options in the Notes panel, and compact notes. All built with Claude Code as part of her “Learn AI deeply” effort. She’s openly working through open questions, including whether “Open” or “Unresolved” is the clearer label, and whether a resizable sidebar should replace the compact toggle entirely. Chime in if you are interested and have an opinion.

My WordPress

Brandon Payton announced my.WordPress.net, a browser-based WordPress that requires no sign-up, no hosting, and no domain — just open it and start creating. Built on WordPress Playground, your site lives privately in your browser, persists across visits, and stays entirely yours. An App Catalog offers one-click installs for a personal CRM, RSS reader via the Friends plugin, and an AI workspace that can modify plugins on your behalf. As Alex Kirk puts it, this is WordPress democratizing digital sovereignty.


Where the official announcement focused on the product itself, Matt Mullenweg‘s WordPress Everywhere is the strategic vision behind it. He zooms out to explain what’s coming next — peer-to-peer sync, version control integration, and cloud publishing — and frames Playground containers as composable, atomic units you can roll back entirely. Mullenweg believes this shifts WordPress from millions of installs to billions, with AI making open source more powerful, not less relevant.


Sarah Perez covers WordPress’s new browser-based workspace, my.WordPress.net, for TechCrunch.

Emma Roth reported about it for The Verge: WordPress launches an in-browser website creator.


Ben Werdmuller marvels at your browser becoming your WordPress — a genuine innovation announced by Brandon Payton. Built on WordPress Playground and powered by WASM, my.WordPress.net installs a full WordPress instance directly in your browser: no sign-up, no hosting, nothing between you and a running site. Werdmuller wonders about cross-device syncing and sees broader implications — to-do lists, CRMs, source management — as a glimpse of what private, browser-based personal apps could become.


If you get a chance to try my.WordPress.net in its current early state, go in with the right expectations: this is a proof of concept, a rough but genuinely exciting experiment. The App Catalog reframes plugin discovery in a way that just feels right, and the idea of a private personal space — where outside research meets things you want to keep to yourself — is compelling. Give it a few months, more apps, and a designer’s touch.

Just before the official announcement of My WordPress, Ray Morey interviewed Adam Zieliński’ on his vision for Playground in 2026 and also recounts the history of WordPress Playground starting in 2022.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

On the WooCommerce Developer Blog, Brian Coords invites you to Building Ecommerce Community: Meetups, Networks, and Real-World WooCommerce, a free 60-minute panel on March 31, 2026 (17:00–18:00 UTC). Coords brings together Amber Hinds (Equalize Digital), Mary Hubbard (WordPress Executive Director), and Raquel Manriquez (PressConf) for an honest conversation about building community, finding collaborators, and getting real value from events — whether you’re an agency, freelancer, or developer who’s never quite felt at home in a crowd.

WooCommerce Community building panel March 31, 2026

Mike McAlister has expanded Ollie into WooCommerce territory, adding dedicated shop templates, product grid patterns, custom WooCommerce blocks, and a guided setup wizard — all built natively for full site editing. You can design and customize your store, product pages, cart, and checkout entirely inside the WordPress site editor. One user reported a 170% year-over-year sales increase after rebuilding their client’s store with Ollie.

Rae Morey, The Repository also reported on it in Ollie Moves Into Ecommerce With Full WooCommerce Support


Derek Hanson, Technical Account Manager at Automattic, shares 10 field-tested tips for building custom WordPress blocks with Telex AI, drawn from real agency work on his team. You’ll learn practical techniques like drafting prompts in Claude before opening Telex, using post-it sketches as visual references, remixing projects as version control checkpoints, and knowing when a block has outgrown the tool and needs a developer to finish it properly.


In his latest video, Wes Theron shows you how to speed up your designs with WordPress patterns. You will learn how to quickly build and customize professional WordPress layouts using block patterns. Theron shows you how to insert, modify, and create patterns to design pages effortlessly.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

The Create Block Theme plugin v2.9.0 brings a handful of focused improvements to your theme-building workflow.

  • fixed localization for Cover block background images and the Read More block’s content attribute.
  • added basic end-to-end tests and an AGENTS.md file,
  • polished the sidebar with a Card component,
  • consolidated redundant APIs,
  • migrated to husky v9, and bumped the minimum WordPress requirement to 6.8.

“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025”
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

In this week’s livestream, Ryan Welcher and Troy Chaplin teamed up on this episode of Talk Devy To Me to walk you through “Veils of Fate,” a fully functional Choose Your Own Adventure game Chaplin built entirely with the WordPress Interactivity API. You’ll see how he delivers instant feedback and seamless state changes across game choices — no page reloads, no JavaScript framework. A creative, boundary-pushing demonstration of what the Interactivity API can do beyond typical block development use cases.

Wojtek Naruniec writes about two new debugging tools now available in WordPress Studio: Xdebug support and a debug log toggle. Xdebug lets you set breakpoints and step through code line-by-line from your editor on port 9003, no system-level installation is needed. The debug log toggle sets WP_DEBUG and WP_DEBUG_LOG automatically and adds a direct “Open log file” link in Settings. A bonus tip: point your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) at wp-content/debug.log to interpret errors hands-free.

AI and WordPress

Jeffrey Paul recaps what’s new in AI Experiments 0.4.0 for the WordPress AI Team. This release, shaped by 14 contributors, introduces prompt-based image generation in the editor and Media Library, along with a Generate Review Notes experiment for accessibility, readability, grammar, and SEO suggestions.

In another post, Paul outlines what’s new in AI Experiments 0.5.0, a focused release aligning with WordPress 7.0. It removes AI client dependencies, using the WP AI Client in core instead, while previous credentials migrate to a new Connectors screen. The plugin is available in the repository.

Ray Morey reported on both releases for The Repository: AI Experiments Plugin Gets Two Updates in a Week, With WordPress 7.0 Now the Focus


Elliott Richmond put wordpress-agent-skills repo and Automattic’s Claude Cowork plugin through its paces and came away impressed. Describe your site, pick from three AI-generated design directions, and a complete block theme — theme.json, templates, patterns, the lot — deploys straight to WordPress Studio in minutes. The generated code follows solid conventions and is yours to iterate on. Setup requires MCP configuration and Studio CLI, so developers will find it straightforward; everyone else faces a steeper climb. Token usage on Opus is substantial.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.


Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.


For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com


Featured Image:


How I Display WooCommerce Reviews Anywhere in WordPress (& Boost Sales)

Hiding your best WooCommerce reviews on product pages is like keeping your top salespeople in the back room. When reviews are scattered or hidden, most visitors never see them. And that means missed chances to earn trust and make sales.

By showing your reviews on your homepage and other key pages, visitors can see real customer experiences right away. This helps them feel confident about buying and gives your store a real boost in credibility and conversions.

After testing several plugins, I found that Smash Balloon’s Reviews Feed Pro makes it easy to display WooCommerce reviews anywhere on your WordPress site.

In this guide, I’ll walk you step by step through the process so you can turn your customer reviews into a powerful sales tool.

How to display WooCommerce reviews anywhere

📚 TL;DR: The easiest way to display WooCommerce reviews anywhere on your site is with Smash Balloon’s Reviews Feed Pro. It detects your products automatically and lets you add review feeds to your homepage or sidebars – no coding needed.

Why Show WooCommerce Reviews on Your WordPress Website?

Showing WooCommerce reviews outside of your product pages is a simple way to build trust and boost sales across your entire site.

Most shoppers look for social proof before they buy. In fact, over 90% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase.

However, when reviews only appear on product pages, many visitors never see them. This is especially true if they land on your homepage or a landing page first.

I’ve seen this with a lot of WooCommerce stores. The reviews are there, but they’re not doing much because they’re hidden where casual visitors don’t usually look.

Here’s why showing your reviews in more places can make a real difference:

  • 🤝 Build trust right away — when visitors see real feedback as soon as they arrive, they feel more confident browsing and buying.
  • 📈 Increase conversions with social proof — reviews work like recommendations from other customers, which is often more convincing than sales copy.
  • 🧩 Stop letting great reviews go unnoticed — if shoppers never reach your product pages, they miss your best testimonials.
  • 🧑‍💻 Reach visitors no matter where they are — adding reviews to your homepage, landing pages, or sidebar helps more people see them.
  • 💰 Use reviews as a flexible sales booster — you can highlight feedback by product, category, or tag to match what different visitors care about.

The best part is that setting this up doesn’t require any coding or technical skills. In the steps below, I’ll show you exactly how to display WooCommerce reviews anywhere on your site:

Step 1: Install and Activate Reviews Feed Pro

Smash Balloon’s Reviews Feed Pro is the best customer review plugin for WordPress. It lets you display reviews from WooCommerce and other platforms anywhere on your WordPress website.

This powerful plugin comes with a visual customizer, flexible layout options, and automatic review syncing. So, your feed always stays up to date without any manual work on your end.

One of the things I appreciate most about it is that the plugin automatically detects your WooCommerce store. This means there’s no coding and no API keys to deal with. It connects to your products automatically.

You can learn more about it in our detailed Smash Balloon review.

⚠️ Before You Begin: You’ll need an active WooCommerce store set up on your WordPress website. Also, make sure that reviews are enabled in your store by checking WooCommerce » Settings » Products and checking the ‘Enable reviews’ checkbox.

If you haven’t started yet, check out our guide on how to set up a WooCommerce store.

The Reviews Feed free version is a good starting point, but it’s limited to Google and Yelp reviews. To display WooCommerce reviews and access more powerful options, you’ll need Reviews Feed Pro.

To get started, head over to the Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro website and sign up for an account. From there, you’ll need to pick a plan and complete the checkout process.

The Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro WordPress plugin

Once your purchase is confirmed, you’ll be able to download the plugin zip file from your account dashboard. Make sure to also copy your license key because you’ll need it in just a moment.

From here, you can install and activate the plugin.

In your WordPress admin area, let’s navigate to Plugins » Add Plugin.

The Add Plugin submenu under Plugins in the WordPress admin area

Next, click ‘Upload Plugin.’

In the file uploader, simply click ‘Choose File’ and upload the zip file you downloaded.

Select plugin zip file to upload and install in WordPress

Once uploaded, click ‘Install Now’ followed by ‘Activate.’ See our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin if you need help with this step.

After activation, the plugin will prompt you to enter your license key. Simply paste the key you copied earlier into the field provided and click ‘Activate’ to activate it.

Reviews Feed Pro's setup wizard to verify license key

Once your license is verified, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

With that done, you’re all set and ready to create your first WooCommerce review feed.

Step 2: Create Your First WooCommerce Review Feed

Now, it’s time to create your first feed.

From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Reviews Feed » All Feeds. This is where you can manage all your review feeds once you start creating them.

To get started, click the ‘Add New’ button at the top of the page.

Creating a reviews feed on your WordPress website

The plugin will prompt you to add a source for your feed. A source is simply where your reviews come from — in this case, your online store.

Click ‘Add Source’ to begin the setup process.

Clicking Add Source in Reviews Feed

On the next screen, you’ll see a list of available review platforms.

Choose ‘WooCommerce’ from the options.

Choosing WooCommerce as a source

Because Reviews Feed Pro automatically detects your WooCommerce store, it will connect right away without any extra configuration.

You’ll then need to decide which reviews you want to pull into your feed. The plugin gives you three flexible options:

  • Individual Products — pick specific products by searching for them by name or SKU. This works well if you want to highlight reviews for popular products.
  • Categories — display reviews from an entire product category at once. This is a great option if you want to showcase feedback across a full product range.
  • Tags — pull reviews from products that share a specific tag. This is useful for niche collections or themed groups, such as “summer picks” or “staff favorites.”

Once you’ve chosen your preferred option, you can search for or select the specific products, categories, or tags you want to include.

Choosing reviews to display

Before you finish, Reviews Feed Pro will ask you to give your source a name.

I recommend using something descriptive, such as “Summer Collection Reviews” or “Best Sellers Feed,” for easier organization.

Naming WooCommerce reviews feed

Once you’re happy with your selection, click ‘Finish.’

Reviews Feed Pro will now pull in the reviews connected to your chosen products, categories, or tags, and get your feed ready for customization.

WooCommerce source added

Go ahead and click ‘Next.’

Step 3: Customize Your Review Feed Design

Now that your feed is pulling in reviews, it’s time to make it look great on your site.

Reviews Feed Pro will redirect you to a live customizer. It shows you a real-time preview of your feed as you make changes. This makes it easy to get everything looking just right before you publish.

Adjusting the Layout

The first thing you’ll want to do is choose a layout for your feed. The plugin offers several options, for example:

  • Carousel — Displays reviews in a sliding format, which works well for homepages or landing pages where space is limited.
  • Grid — Shows reviews in a clean, organized grid, making it a good fit for most pages.
  • Masonry — Similar to a grid, but with varying card heights for a more natural, Pinterest-style look.

There are other options, like Simple Cards or a Single Review. Each layout has its own feel, so it’s worth previewing all three to see which one suits your brand best.

For this guide, I’ll choose the ‘Carousel’ template.

Choosing a Smash Balloon template for your reviews

Once you choose a layout, you’ll land on the customizer’s ‘Layout’ panel.

💡 Note: Customization settings may vary depending on your chosen template. I’m using the ‘Carousel’ template.

Here, you can control how your reviews look from the left-hand panel, such as:

  • Spacing between reviews — Controls how much space there is between each review, so everything feels less crowded and easier to read.
  • Number of reviews shown on desktop, tablet, and mobile — Lets you choose how many reviews appear on different screen sizes, so your layout looks good on any device.

Note that these default layout settings work well for most sites, so you can leave them as-is or tweak them if needed.

Reviews Feed's live customizer

If you scroll down this panel, you’ll find more customization settings:

  • Carousel breakpoints — Set how the review carousel adjusts on different screen sizes.
  • Columns and rows layout — Control how many reviews appear in each row and column.
  • Rewind or infinite loop — Choose whether the carousel stops at the last review or loops back to the start.
  • Slide interval time (in milliseconds) — Decide how fast the reviews move when autoplay is enabled.
  • Navigation controls — Show or hide arrows and pagination dots to make the carousel easier to use or to keep a simpler look.
  • Autoplay — Turn automatic sliding on or off.
  • Content length — Limit how many characters are shown in each review to keep the layout tidy.

Here, I kept everything as is except for the navigation controls. I hid the arrows as I found it cleaner that way.

Layout customization panel

With that done, you can click the back button to the main customization panel.

Customizing the Header

From here, you can customize your WooCommerce reviews header. The header appears at the top of your review feed. It gives visitors instant context about what they’re looking at.

First, make sure it’s enabled inside the customizer, and then you can click ‘Heading’ to customize it.

Enabling Heading in Reviews Feed

In the ‘Content’ field, you can edit your heading. Something like “What Our Customers Say” works well for most stores.

You can also change the text color and size to make sure the header blends naturally with the rest of your site’s design.

Customizing heading's content

💡 Note: If you accidentally closed the editor, don’t panic. You can go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds in the WordPress admin and click on the ‘Edit’ icon next to the feed.

Once you’re done, you can click the button to go back to the main customization panel.

Customizing the Reviews Section

Next, you can fine-tune your reviews feed.

In the ‘Reviews’ panel, you can customize your post style and how each individual review is displayed.

The Reviews panel in Reviews Feed

Let’s start with ‘Post Style.’

You can choose from two options:

  • Boxed — Displays each review inside a bordered box and lets you set a background color.
  • Regular — Shows reviews without a box, using a simple divider line that you can customize the color.

💡 Note: Post style options may vary depending on your chosen template. I’m using the ‘Carousel’ template.

Matching the background or divider color to your brand colors helps the feed blend naturally with your WordPress theme.

Customizing reviews' post style

Then, in the ‘Edit Individual Element’ page, the plugin lets you control exactly what appears inside each review card.

You might choose to show or hide elements like the reviewer’s name, star rating, review date, or review text. This gives you a lot of flexibility to keep things clean and focused.

Expert Tip: When displaying customer reviews, you are technically handling user data. I recommend updating your Privacy Policy to mention that you display these reviews. This keeps your site compliant with data protection laws.

Customizing reviews' individual elements

For each of those elements, you can edit the colors, padding, and margin.

You can also customize the font’s weight, height, and size in the ‘Review Paragraphs.’ Plus, you can show or hide the reviewer’s uploaded images or videos.

Next, if your feed includes a lot of reviews, you can enable a ‘Load More’ button so visitors can browse additional reviews without the page feeling overwhelming.

Enabling a Load More button

If you’d prefer to keep the feed compact and show only a fixed number of reviews, you can simply leave this option off.

Before you move on, I recommend taking a moment to preview your feed on smaller screen sizes using the customizer’s device preview options.

Reviews Feed Pro is designed to be responsive, but it’s always a good idea to double-check that everything looks clean and readable on mobile devices, too.

Previewing WooCommerce reviews feed for different devices

Once you’re happy with how your feed looks, click ‘Save’ to store your customization settings.

Step 4: Add Multiple Sources to One Feed (Optional)

If you want to take your review feed a step further, Reviews Feed Pro makes it easy to combine reviews from multiple sources into a single feed.

This is completely optional, but it can be a powerful way to show off a wider range of customer feedback in one place.

To add a second source to your existing feed, go to Settings » Source inside the feed editor.

Navigating to Sources settings

Then, click the ‘Add another Source’ button.

This lets you go through the same source setup process you completed in Step 2.

From there, you can add another set of products, categories, or tags to the same feed.

Clicking the Add another Source button

One practical use for this is combining reviews from different product categories. For example, if you run a clothing store, you might combine reviews from your Men’s and Women’s categories into one feed for a general testimonials page.

You can also get more creative with how you combine sources.

A great approach is to mix broad categories with specific individual products. For instance, you could pull in testimonials from your entire ‘Accessories’ category and then add a specific bestselling product on top of that.

Adding an entire WooCommerce category to the source

This way, your most popular items get extra visibility while the feed still feels well-rounded.

If you create multiple feeds over time, use the source popover to stay organized.

With one click, you can see which products, categories, or tags are connected to a feed. You can also verify sources without opening the editor and update feeds faster for promotional or seasonal campaigns.

Reviews Feed's source popover

This is especially helpful for larger stores managing many feeds.

While you’re here, you may also want to explore a few other settings, such as ‘Moderation.’

Moderating WooCommerce reviews

It lets you easily moderate and filter your WooCommerce reviews to choose exactly which ones are displayed on your site. But if you want to keep it automatically updated, you can leave this setting disabled.

Step 5: Display Your Review Feed on Your Site

With your feed created and customized, it’s time to put it to work.

Where you place your reviews matters just as much as the reviews themselves. The goal is to get them in front of visitors at the moments when they’re most likely to be influenced by social proof.

I recommend starting with your homepage — it’s the first place most visitors land, and a well-placed review feed can immediately build trust.

Here’s how to do each of these using Reviews Feed Pro.

Add Feeds to Your Homepage Using a Block

The easiest way to embed your review feed on a specific page is by using the Reviews Feed block inside the WordPress block editor.

To do this, simply click the ‘Embed’ button to launch the embed wizard.

The Embed button in Reviews Feed

On the popup, you’ll see your feed’s shortcode and an ‘Add to a Page’ option.

Let’s choose ‘Add to a Page.’

Selecting the Add to a Page option

Then, go ahead and select the page where you want the feed to appear, such as your homepage (or a custom landing page).

Click the ‘Add’ button.

Choosing an existing page to embed the reviews feed

In the block editor, click the ‘+’ icon to add a new block.

Search for ‘Reviews Feed’ and select it from the results.

Adding the Reviews Feed block

You’ll then see your review feed appear right there in the content editor.

If you have multiple review feeds, the plugin will let you choose which feed you want to display. You can also click the dropdown menu on the block’s settings panel on the right of the editor.

Reviews Feed block settings

From here, you can move your review block up or down.

Once you’re happy with the placement, click ‘Publish’ or ‘Save’ to save your changes.

You can now visit your site to see it in action:

WooCommerce reviews feed on the homepage
Add Reviews in Sidebars and Widget Areas With a Shortcode

This method works great for sidebars and footers, which are commonly used in classic WordPress themes. It also works with most page builders that support shortcode blocks.

To start, simply click ‘Embed’ inside Reviews Feed Pro’s customizer.

The Embed button in Reviews Feed

In the popup, you’ll see the review feed’s shortcode along with an ‘Add to a Page’ option.

Go ahead and click ‘Copy’ next to the reviews feed’s shortcode.

💡 Note: If you accidentally closed the editor, don’t worry. You can find your shortcode in the Reviews Feed » All Feeds page and locate the feed you created. The shortcode will be listed there — it will look something like [reviews-feed].

Copying the shortcode in the Embed popup

Now, you can head over to Appearance » Widgets.

Then, add a ‘Shortcode’ block to your preferred widget area, like the sidebar or footer.

Adding the shortcode block to Sidebar

From here, paste your copied shortcode into the widget.

With that done, click ‘Update’ to save.

Adding reviews feed's shortcode

And that’s it, you can head over to your site and see everything in action.

Here’s how the WooCommerce reviews look on my contact page, for example:

Reviews Feed on a Contact page's sidebar

🧑‍💻 Pro Tip: Do you want to enable a profile picture upload to your contact form just like in the screenshot above? Check out our guide on how to let users take live photos and videos in WordPress forms.

Add Feeds Sitewide Using Full Site Editing (FSE)

If your WordPress theme supports Full Site Editing, you have an even more powerful option available. FSE lets you add your review feed directly to theme templates like your header, footer, or custom page templates.

This way, your reviews will appear consistently across multiple pages without having to edit each one individually. It’s a real time-saver for stores that want sitewide social proof without a lot of manual work.

To get started, go to Appearance » Editor from your WordPress dashboard.

Navigating to FSE

💡 Note: If you don’t see ‘Editor’ in your menu, you are likely using a classic theme. In that case, you should stick to the shortcode or widget method shown above.

From there, navigate to the template where you’d like to add the feed.

For example, I’m going to add it to my active ‘Blog’ template.

Choosing an active pattern in FSE

Once you’re in the template editor, click the ‘+’ icon to add a new block.

Then, simply search for ‘Reviews Feed’ and insert it just like you would on a regular page.

Adding Reviews Feed block in FSE

Once that’s done, visit your site to see the result.

Here’s how WooCommerce reviews are displayed on my WordPress blog:

Reviews Feed on the Blog page

Bonus Tip: Show Google, Facebook, and Yelp Reviews in WordPress

If you want to pull even more social proof onto your site, you can display reviews from major platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp alongside your WooCommerce reviews.

These can boost credibility and increase conversions even further.

Smash Balloon’s Reviews Feed Pro supports all of these platforms, so you can create separate feeds for each one or combine them with your WooCommerce reviews using the multi-source feature you learned about in Step 4.

This is a great way to show visitors that your store is trusted across multiple platforms, not just on your own WordPress website.

Adding a custom header to a Yelp, Facebook or Google review feed

For details, see our guide on how to show Google, Facebook, and Yelp reviews in WordPress.

FAQs About Displaying WooCommerce Reviews in WordPress

Below are answers to some common questions about displaying WooCommerce reviews on your WordPress website.

Can I display reviews from only specific products?

Yes, you can show reviews from specific products using Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro. You can choose the ‘Individual Products’ option when setting up your feed and select products by name or SKU. This way, only reviews from those products will appear in the feed.

Do new reviews automatically appear in my feed?

If you use Reviews Feed Pro, new reviews will automatically appear in your feed without any manual updates needed. This plugin syncs with your WooCommerce store in the background, so fresh reviews are pulled in and displayed as they come in.

Will short reviews appear in my feed?

Yes, short reviews will appear in your feed by default. However, some customer review plugins let you control what content is displayed inside each review card.

Can I display a WooCommerce review feed on multiple pages?

Yes, you can display your WooCommerce review feed on as many pages as you like.

For example, if you’re using Reviews Feed Pro, you can add the feed using a block in the block editor or paste a shortcode into any page, widget area, or page builder module where you want the reviews to appear.

Can I combine WooCommerce reviews with reviews from other platforms?

Yes, you can combine WooCommerce reviews with reviews from other platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp using Reviews Feed Pro.

Next Steps to Grow Your WooCommerce Store

Congratulations – you’ve learned how to create a feed from your WooCommerce products!

Next, you might want to check out our other helpful guides on:

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How I Display WooCommerce Reviews Anywhere in WordPress (& Boost Sales) first appeared on WPBeginner.

Matt: Selling Your Company

I would like to offer some free business advice to people who are considering selling something they’ve created.

First, if the buyer insists you don’t talk to any other bidders, you are being screwed. They only do this because they don’t want you to find the market-clearing price.

Do you think when Microsoft called LinkedIn and said, “We want to buy you for $26B,” and they replied, “Sure! That sounds good.”

If you’re very lucky, you get to work with a bank like Qatalyst, which says, “That’s a lovely offer, let’s see who else would be interested.”

Ask yourself why someone wants to buy you? Who else might have the same motivations? That begins a process in which a wide array of parties review the deal.

If you don’t have the connections or a bank to help you, just email the CEOs of other companies that might be interested. Say: “XYZ wants to buy me for $Y dollars. Is that something you’d also be interested in?”

Now you’re creating a market.

Remember that you’re doing this for the first time, and on the other side of the table, they’ve done dozens of deals.

It really pains me to see WordPress-adjacent companies get taken advantage of by sophisticated financial and corpdev players who strong-arm them into not shopping their deal.

A confident buyer doesn’t care if you talk to others because they know they can offer you the best deal, which usually combines money with what happens to the business after it’s sold. This is the magic of Berkshire Hathaway.

Warren Buffett doesn’t care if you talk to other bidders; in fact, he wants you to, so you see why he’s the better outcome for your business if you want to sell it.

It’s tempting to want to celebrate every time a creator sells something. Say it’s good for the community. But if they didn’t sell it through a fair process, it’s more likely they were taken advantage of, and that saddens me.

For public companies, failing to follow the process I describe above can constitute a breach of your fiduciary duty to shareholders and expose you to legal action. But there aren’t any such rules for private entities, which is why they get rolled over so often.

Matt: Popping Bottles

With the rise of GLP-1 drugs, there’s a trend that magnums are being ordered at clubs to meet minimums but left unfinished.

I think there’s a space for an ultra-high-end wellness drink at clubs. Imagine Erewhon meets Magic Mind meets Kin,  maybe with some effervescence. An elixir that comes out with sparklers but makes you feel great with nootropics not hungover. Priced at hundreds of dollars retail so thousands at a club. It could even be a cold chain, with the freshest ingredients that need to be preserved.

Let’s do some turmeric-ginger-cayenne shots and get crunk.

WordPress.org blog: WordPress 7.0 Beta 5

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to test Beta 5 on a test server and site.WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 can be tested using any of the following methods:

Plugin Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct Download Download the Beta 5 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command Line Use this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-beta5
WordPress Playground Use the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is still April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information. What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3 and Beta 4 announcements for details and highlights.

How to test this release

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Beta 5 updates and highlights

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains more than 101 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release.

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes, and more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 using these links:

Issues addressed since Beta 4:

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains a new feature!

Instantly access all the tools you need with a single click using the new Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar! In 7.0 Beta 5, logged-in editors will see a field with a ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol in the upper admin bar that unfurls the command palette when clicked. The new command palette entry point streamlines navigation and customization, giving you full control from anywhere on your site – whether you’re editing, designing or just browsing plugins.

A Beta 5 haiku

A smooth melody

Beta 5 plays on its strings.

Seven brings good things.

Props to @amykamala, @annezazu and @4thhubbard for proofreading and review.

Into the Omniverse: How Industrial AI and Digital Twins Accelerate Design, Engineering and Manufacturing Across Industries

Editor’s note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how developers, 3D practitioners and enterprises can transform their workflows using the latest advancements in OpenUSD and NVIDIA Omniverse.

Industrial AI, digital twins, AI physics and accelerated AI infrastructure are empowering companies across industries to accelerate and scale the design, simulation and optimization of products, processes and facilities before building in the real world.

Earlier this month, NVIDIA and Dassault Systèmes announced a partnership that brings together Dassault Systèmes’ Virtual Twin platforms, NVIDIA accelerated computing, AI physics open models and NVIDIA CUDA-X and Omniverse libraries. This allows designers and engineers to use virtual twins and companions — trained on physics-based world models — to innovate faster, boost efficiency and deliver sustainable products.

Dassault Systèmes’ SIMULIA software now uses NVIDIA CUDA-X and AI physics libraries for AI-based virtual twin physics behavior — empowering designers and engineers to accurately and instantly predict outcomes in simulation.

NVIDIA is adopting Dassault Systèmes’ model-based systems engineering technologies to accelerate the design and global deployment of gigawatt-scale AI factories that are powering industrial and physical AI across industries. Dassault Systèmes will in turn deploy NVIDIA-powered AI factories on three continents through its OUTSCALE sovereign cloud, enabling its customers to run AI workloads while maintaining data residency and security requirements.

These efforts are already making a splash across industries, accelerating industrial development and production processes.

Industrial AI Simulations, From Car Parts to Cheese Proteins 

Digital twins, also known as virtual twins, and physics-based world models are already being deployed to advance industries.

In automotive, Lucid Motors is combining cutting-edge simulation, AI physics open models, Dassault Systèmes’ tools for vehicle and powertrain engineering and digital twin technology to accelerate innovation in electric vehicles. 

In life sciences, scientists and researchers are using virtual twins, Dassault Systèmes’ science-validated world models and the NVIDIA BioNeMo platform to speed molecule and materials discovery, therapeutics design and sustainable food development.

The Bel Group is using technologies from Dassault Systèmes’ supported by NVIDIA to accelerate the development and production of healthier, more sustainable foods for millions of consumers. 

The company is using Dassault Systèmes’ industry world models to generate and study food proteins, creating non-dairy protein options that pair with its well-known cheeses, including Babybel. Using accurate, high-resolution virtual twins allows the Bel Group to study and develop validated research outcomes of food proteins more quickly and efficiently.

Using accurate, high-resolution virtual twins allows the Bel Group to study and develop validated research outcomes of food proteins more quickly and efficiently.

In industrial automation, Omron is using virtual twins and physical AI to design and deploy automation technology with greater confidence — advancing the shift toward digitally validated production. 

In the aerospace industry, researchers and engineers at Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research use virtual twins and AI companions powered by Dassault Systèmes’ Industry World Models and NVIDIA Nemotron open models to accelerate the design, testing and certification of aircrafts.

Learning From and Simulating the Real World 

Dassault Systemes’ physics-based Industry World Models are trained to have PhD-level knowledge in fields like biology, physics and material sciences. This allows them to accurately simulate real-world environments and scenarios so teams can test industrial operations end to end — from supply chains to store shelves — before deploying changes in the real world. 

These virtual models can help researchers and developers with workflows ranging from DNA sequencing to strengthening manufactured materials for vehicles. 

“Knowledge is encoded in the living world,” said Pascal Daloz, CEO of Dassault Systemes, during his 3DEXPERIENCE World keynote. “With our virtual twins, we are learning from life and are also understanding it in order to replicate it and scale it.” 

Get Plugged In to Industrial AI

Learn more about industrial and physical AI by registering for NVIDIA GTC, running March 16-19 in San Jose, kicking off with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address on Monday, March 16, at 11 a.m. PT. 

At the conference:

  • Explore an industrial AI agenda packed with hands-on sessions, customer stories and live demos. 
  • Dive into the world of OpenUSD with a special session focused on OpenUSD for physical AI simulation, as well as a full agenda of hands-on OpenUSD learning sessions
  • Find Dassault Systèmes in the industrial AI and robotics pavilion on the show floor and learn from Florence Hu-Aubigny, executive vice president of R&D at Dassault Systemes, who’ll present on how virtual twins are shaping the next industrial revolution.
  • Get a live look at GTC with our developer community livestream on March 18, where participants can ask questions, request deep dives and talk directly with NVIDIA engineers in the chat.

Learn how to build industrial and physical AI applications by attending these sessions at GTC.

Computers, networking, games, people management, call centers, reporting & whatever.