WordPress wish list for 2022

Since it’s the beginning of a new year, we’re keeping up our annual trend of creating some resolutions we wish WordPress would make. You can read our previous wish list for 2019, 2020and 2021 to see how are hopes and dreams for WordPress have changed over the years.

1. Dark mode support

WordPress has made strides toward supporting dark mode, but WordPress does not yet support dark mode to its fullest potential. With Mac, iOS, and Android devices all supporting dark mode, this feature now sits atop our list. Ideally, WordPress would offer separate light mode and dark mode color pickers for each element in the Customizer. It’s even possible to serve separate images for light mode and dark mode, so we’d love to see WordPress eventually support light and dark mode images as well. With WordPress powering 35% of the internet, dark mode would immediately become ubiquitous if WordPress would get things figured out.

The world is waiting, WordPress. Make it happen.

2. Dark mode in the WordPress Dashboard

Speaking of dark mode, we’d love to see the WordPress Dashboard support dark mode for nighttime content creators as well. This would be a much easier change to implement, as WordPress has a consistent color palette through its backend so there would be no need for custom color pickers. WordPress only needs to select a second color palette for dark mode. Accessibility is the only concern. Dark mode for the Dashboard is a much simpler solution than making it work on the front end of websites, so we might see this change implemented sooner.

3. Content update scheduling

This feature topped our WordPress wish list in 2019 and also appeared on the list in 2020 and 2021 as well. Currently, new content can be scheduled to go live at a certain time. We make use of this feature every week, as we schedule our WordPress tips to go live on Monday mornings. Why, then, can’t we schedule updates to existing content in the same way? It’s a no-brainer that would be useful for many small things:

  • Changing the text of an article to match the current season or year
  • A page about a temporary sale or deal that won’t be around forever
  • Simple text updates to keep a page updated (“this year” vs. “last year,” etc.)

Since WordPress already has content scheduling, it wouldn’t be difficult to add update scheduling as well. We make use of the PublishPress Revisions plugin to make scheduled revisions happen, but this is a feature that would make more sense in Core. The PublishPress Revisions plugin is slightly confusing at first, and many users would don’t realize the plugin exists would make use of scheduled revisions as a built-in feature.

4. Migrate Jetpack features to core

Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and other popular WordPress features, offers a useful plugin called Jetpack that adds additional features to WordPress sites. We’ve featured Jetpack before here on MPWR Design, even going so far as to include it as one of three must-install WordPress plugins. But why must these features remain separate from WordPress itself?

Many great security plugins exist — WordFence and iThemes Security are two of the best. But with security being such a major issue, WordPress would be wise not to leave things to a third-party plugin.

Another feature built into Jetpack that really needs to make its way into WordPress core is website stats. Originally, Jetpack served to provide features from WordPress.com that weren’t built into self-hosted WordPress sites. But why not migrate them into WordPress after all this time? Most every website owner is interested in tracking traffic data and keeping their site secure, so it only makes sense.

What features do you think WordPress is missing? Let us know in the comments!

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