WordPress 7.2: a new default theme and the end of year-based names

What is the Ipsum theme?

A new default theme described as a deliberately minimal blank canvas, aimed at bloggers. More interestingly, it ends the year-based naming convention that has run since Twenty Ten in 2010.

That convention had a quiet cost. A site running Twenty Twenty-One announced its own age to anyone who looked, and clients noticed. Naming themes properly removes a small, recurring embarrassment.

For agency work the practical effect is limited — you are unlikely to ship a client on a default theme. It matters more as a signal about where the project is heading: fewer assumptions baked in, more left to the person building.

What does form styling in Global Styles mean?

Buttons, fields and labels become styleable from the interface, without CSS.

This follows the interactive states work in 7.1 and points the same direction: things that previously required a developer, or a page builder bolted on top, moving into core.

Forms are a good candidate because they are where most sites look least considered. Default input styling is where otherwise careful designs tend to fall apart, and it is rarely worth a client paying for custom CSS to fix.

What is changing around security?

Three things, and this is the part of 7.2 most worth paying attention to.

• Better application passwords

  The mechanism that lets external tools authenticate against your site. Improvements here reduce a common route into otherwise well-maintained installs.

• A Secrets API

  A proper place for API keys, rather than each plugin inventing its own storage. Keys currently end up in options tables, config files and occasionally in version control.

• Early work on sudo mode

  Requiring re-authentication before sensitive actions, the way your operating system asks again before installing software. Early work, so do not expect it finished in 7.2.

The Secrets API is the one to watch. A standard place for credentials is the sort of unglamorous infrastructure that quietly removes a category of breach, and it only works if plugin authors adopt it.

Anything else worth knowing?

Suggestion mode arrives for Notes, letting authors accept or reject proposed edits rather than just reading comments. If you review content with clients inside WordPress rather than over email, this is the feature you will actually use.

Release events are also moving to a livestreamed webinar format, starting with this release. Matt Mullenweg is release lead.

How certain is any of this?

Less than it sounds. The project is explicit that appearing on the feature list does not guarantee inclusion, and items get deferred late in the cycle every release.

Treat this as direction rather than commitment. The useful thing to do now is nothing — 7.2 is in beta, and beta is for testing on staging, not for client sites.