WordPress 4.0 Beta 1 is now available for download and testing. This means that core developers are now onto the stage of bug fixes and inline documentation in preparation for the official release in August. Helen Hou-Sandí, the release lead, announced the beta with an outline of user-facing features that need testing. The list offers…
WP Engine has revamped their user portal and is the first large partner to integrate Sidekick into its service. Sidekick provides WP Engine customers access to guided tours for understanding how different components of the User Portal work together. Sidekick is a product created by FlowPress to create interactive, narrated, guided walkthroughs. The new user…
Admin pointers were first added in WordPress 3.3 for the purpose of helping users discover and navigate new features in major releases. For example, when widgets were added to the customizer, an admin pointer displayed to highlight live widget previews on the themes page. The friendly pointers, when used sparingly, can draw attention to important…
In the past two weeks, a lot of work has been done to improve the various plugin installer modals in the backend of WordPress. A modal is a fancy way of saying a dialog or popup box. One of the modals revamped is the plugin details view. When users click on the details link when…
Mark Gavalda, CEO of Kinsta WordPress Hosting, has published an in-depth guide covering the history of WordPress, its vast ecosystem, and the community surrounding it. Gavalda does a great job explaining the impact WordPress has had on so many individuals and businesses with quotes from notable members of the community. The largest take away for…
WordPress.tv added its first German language video today. Konstantin Obenland’s “Underscores: Ein Startertheme Für Alle” presentation from WordCamp Hamburg is, surprisingly, the only German video to make it to WordPress.tv so far. Obenland is a code wrangler at Automattic and has also worked extensively with the default WordPress themes. His presentation covers the history and…
When widgets were added to the customizer in 3.9, WordPress users were generally surprised and delighted. Live previews are so beneficial to the editing experience that contributors are starting to pursue an expansion of the role of the customizer into all aspects of WordPress. Nick Halsey has been working extensively with the customizer as part…
In March of 2013, Matt Mullenweg stopped by the Memeburn office to talk about how WordPress went from being just another blogging platform to becoming the CMS of choice for the majority of the web. The author of the article infers that Mullenweg thinks 90% of WordPress development will be JavaScript based in the next…
Some of the best collaborations and discussions happen at WordCamps. While attending the WordCamp Seattle contributor day last month, Siobhan McKeown, Mike Schroder, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, and Sonja Leix began some preliminary discussions on how they could improve the image editing experience in WordPress. The current state of WordPress image editing is functional with basic rotation…
WordPress resource site WPBeginner, is celebrating its fifth birthday. As part of the celebration, it’s giving away $26K worth of prizes. Prizes range from licenses to popular WordPress plugins such as Backup Buddy and Soliloquy to webhosting packages with Pantheon and SiteGround. However, it’s not just about giving away prizes, Syed Balhki wants to help…
Dribbble was founded as a community for designers in 2009 and has since grown to become a profitable company and a popular source for inspiration on the web. The site provides a social outlet for designers, allowing members to share samples of their work and get feedback from other professionals and enthusiasts. While you may…
WordPress 4.0 will be introducing some major internationalization improvements that will make it much easier to set up and use the software in languages other than English. A few weeks ago, WordPress lead developer Andrew Nacin published a plan with internationalization goals for 4.0. “Only 5%-10% of the world speaks English,” Nacin said at WordCamp…
When using WordPress to manage a large number of pages with content structured 2-3 levels deep, the native UI doesn’t make it easy to visualize where new content is being created. Thanks to the vast world of plugins, WordPress can easily be shaped to suit a more page-oriented website. Clarity is a plugin that provides…
Koding is an online development environment where you can create and run apps in the cloud. The platform encourages collaboration and social interaction with an integrated activity stream where you can post status updates, code snippets and topics for discussion. Koding includes an Ace code editor and a Linux terminal to your own private virtual…
A few years ago, I talked about how great it would be if there were ways to visually build websites in WordPress. Today, tools like VelocityPage and Headway Themes allow users to visually build pages and even entire websites. As I’ve become accustomed to WordPress, I no longer desire these visual page or site builders.…
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