Month: April 2020

  • WordCamp US 2020 Goes Online, Cancels In-Person Event

    WordCamp US 2020 Goes Online, Cancels In-Person Event

    WordCamp US 2020 organizers have cancelled the in-person event in favor of hosting it as an online-only conference. With more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. today, 63,000+ deaths, and 31 states set to partially reopen this weekend, the pandemic’s trajectory throughout the country has become increasingly uncertain. Many statewide stay-at-home orders…

  • Gutenberg 8.0 Merges Block and Pattern Inserter, Adds Inline Formats, and Updates Code Editor

    Gutenberg 8.0 Merges Block and Pattern Inserter, Adds Inline Formats, and Updates Code Editor

    The team behind the Gutenberg plugin shipped version 8.0 yesterday. The update adds some nice user-facing changes, including a merged block and pattern inserter, new inline formatting options, and visual changes to the code editor. Over two dozen bug fixes were included in the release, along with several enhancements. Designers on the project updated the…

  • WordPress 5.4.1 Addresses 7 Security Issues and Fixes Several Bugs

    WordPress 5.4.1 Addresses 7 Security Issues and Fixes Several Bugs

    WordPress 5.4.1, a security and maintenance release, dropped today. The release addresses seven security issues, which were all responsibly disclosed to the WordPress security team. Core developers also included several fixes for code regressions in the previous version 5.4 release and ported bug fixes to the block editor from the Gutenberg plugin. End-users with automatic…

  • Tectonic Shifts in Retail Industry are Creating Unprecedented Opportunities for Independent Stores

    Tectonic Shifts in Retail Industry are Creating Unprecedented Opportunities for Independent Stores

    Major retailers that are part of the critical infrastructure for distributing household essentials, healthcare items, and shelf-stable food, are raking in the cash during this pandemic. While consumer spending at bars, restaurants, and places of entertainment has dropped precipitously, spending at Amazon and Walmart has increased considerably in the past few weeks. The companies cannot…

  • David Vongries Takes Over as New Owner of the Kirki Customizer Framework

    David Vongries Takes Over as New Owner of the Kirki Customizer Framework

    Ari Stathopoulos sold Kirki, his 6-year-old customizer framework, last week. The plugin is a widely-used tool for theme authors and currently has over 400,000 installations. It is also bundled as a drop-in package within an unknown number of themes, likely numbering in the hundreds. David Vongries, the owner of the Page Builder Framework theme, has…

  • WordCamp Europe 2020 Online Registration Now Open: Tickets are Free

    WordCamp Europe 2020 Online Registration Now Open: Tickets are Free

    WordCamp Europe 2020 is just 37 days away. Organizers announced in April that the event, which was supposed to be hosted in Porto, is moving to be 100% online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. WCEU will kick off with a virtual Contributor Day on June 4, followed by two half days of talks…

  • Should the Block Editor Have a Grid System?

    Should the Block Editor Have a Grid System?

    Laying out a webpage design and getting every element aligned perfectly can be a tough job. Even many developers rely on CSS grid frameworks. Granted, with the introduction of the flexbox and grid systems in the CSS language, such frameworks are becoming unnecessary. Whether it is getting the vertical and horizontal rhythm down or simply…

  • Watch the Women of React Conference for Free on Saturday, April 25

    Watch the Women of React Conference for Free on Saturday, April 25

    While much of the world is in lockdown, public gatherings and conferences have been cancelled, leaving a void in the lives of people who enjoy meeting their fellow open source contributors and colleagues in person throughout the year. Virtual events, which were already on the rise, are enjoying a bit of a renaissance by necessity.…

  • WP Feedback Kicks off Free Virtual Summit for WordPress Professionals on April 27

    WP Feedback Kicks off Free Virtual Summit for WordPress Professionals on April 27

    WP Feedback is running a virtual event from April 27 – May 1. The event is primarily geared toward WordPress professionals who are looking to scale their business. It will feature CEOs, designers, freelancers, and more from the WordPress space. Between five and seven video sessions will be available each new day of the event.…

  • Chatterbox Plugin Uses WordPress Blocks to Show Conversations

    Chatterbox Plugin Uses WordPress Blocks to Show Conversations

    Chatterbox is a new plugin with a fun and creative use for the block editor. It displays chat or text threads using blocks that are styled as conversations. Users can type in a record of a chat, including timestamps, with a live preview in the editor. Since written conversations are essentially little blocks of text…

  • You Deserve to Wear Sweatpants; Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Any Different

    You Deserve to Wear Sweatpants; Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Any Different

    Lounge in your Baby Yoda sweats. Break out those knee-high Santa socks that you love to wear during the holidays. Slide into your Rocket City Trash Pandas tee and pretend the baseball season is going to happen this year. Sure, you can wear a suit and tie when you’re working from home. However, I invite…

  • Frontity Raises €1M with Automattic and K Fund

    Frontity Raises €1M with Automattic and K Fund

    Frontity, a free, open source framework for building WordPress themes with React, has raised €1M in funding in a round led by K Fund, with Automattic covering 22%. The team behind the framework officially made it open source in May 2019, after battle testing it internally. In one year the framework has more than 12,700…

  • Gutenberg Hub Launches Online Block Template Builder

    Gutenberg Hub Launches Online Block Template Builder

    Gutenberg Hub launched the first version of its block template builder last week. The template builder allows users to select from the team’s existing library of nearly 200 templates. It is essentially an online builder that allows users to craft a full page layout by mixing and matching various sections. They can then copy the…

  • Google Shopping Is Now Open to Free Product Listings

    Google Shopping Is Now Open to Free Product Listings

    Google announced today that it is bringing free listings to the Shopping tab in the United States before the end of April and will expand globally by the end of the year. Previously, merchants were required to pay for ad placement and product listings, which led to major online retailers dominating the Shopping tab. “Beginning…

  • WordPress Dashicons Project to Discontinue Development in Favor of New Icon Component

    WordPress Dashicons Project to Discontinue Development in Favor of New Icon Component

    Dashicons, the WordPress admin icon font, is now closed to new icon requests. After the block editor adopted the approach of using SVG icons directly, WordPress design contributors have recently reevaluated the efforts going into the Dashicons project. The team decided to wrap up existing tickets for new icons, push out a final release, and…

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