Google had set September 2020 as the deadline for when it would begin to fully switch over to crawling and indexing sites using mobile-first indexing but announced today that site owners will have more time to prepare. The deadline has been extended to March 2021. Mobile-first indexing is a long-term plan that Google began rolling…
Mike Stott, co-creator of Zero BS CRM, announced the launch of Jetpack CRM on Monday. The news was the seemingly inevitable rebranding of the original plugin that he and Woody Hayday had built. Automattic, the owner of the Jetpack plugin, acquired the project almost a year ago. While Jetpack CRM carries the “Jetpack” name, it…
Unsplash has released its own official plugin for WordPress, co-developed with the team at XWP. The plugin seamlessly connects Unsplash’s 1 million+ free high-resolution image library with the WordPress editor. Users can easily search Unsplash directly inside the custom block and insert images with attribution and alt description info automatically filled in. The selected images…
“Do you ever read the subtitles on a video so you didn’t need to unmute it?” asked William Patton, a representative from the WordPress Themes Team. “Used the ‘beep’ from a crosswalk to know when to cross the road? Found yourself reading the info panel at an airport? Those things are considered features, but in…
WordPress 5.5 will be dropping Hulu oEmbed support after Hulu silently disabled its oEmbed API. This is the API that allows users to copy and paste a link into the editor and have it automatically embed the content, as opposed to copying a chunk of embed code. Documentation contributors discovered that it wasn’t working while…
Theme developers can finally rejoice. For the first time, it is now possible to pass data to templates via the various core template-loading functions. Enrico Sorcinelli announced the change on the Make Core blog this past Friday. The feature was originally proposed by Scott Kingsley Clark in 2012. Over the years, the ticket has received…
All in One SEO Pack patched an XSS vulnerability this week that was discovered by the security researchers at Wordfence on July 10. The popular plugin has more than 2 million active installs, according to WordPress.org. Wordfence researchers categorized it as “a medium severity security issue” that could result in “a complete site takeover and…
WPCampus, a community focused on WordPress and higher education, will host its 5th annual in-person conference as a free, online event this year. The two-day event will feature sessions, lightning talks, sponsor demonstrations, and trivia, July 29-30, 2020. Although the WPCampus community is no stranger to hosting online events (they usually host a virtual conference…
WordPress has almost always provided a top-level admin menu item for themes. It is clearly labeled “Appearance.” It is the single location that all WordPress users know to visit to modify any appearance-related things for their WordPress site. However, there is a movement within the Themes Team to allow themes to place an additional top-level…
On Tuesday, Brainstorm Force announced its Astra theme passed 1 million active installations. It is the only non-default theme in the official WordPress theme directory to reach such a height. Popularity breeds popularity. Once the theme broke 50,000 installs in January 2019, it was a quick hop and skip to 500,000 in October and 1…
Blocksy is one of the best free themes available for the block editor right now and is rapidly growing in popularity. CreativeThemes, the Romania-based company behind the theme, released an update to Blocksy this week, along with a new starter site for charities. The concept of “starter sites” is an interesting new twist on “starter…
Blossom Themes launched Sarada Lite, its 25th theme, on the WordPress theme directory today. The theme is billed as a “feminine blog theme” specifically for professional bloggers. However, it would work well in a variety of contexts. While it is targeted at fashion, travel, and lifestyle bloggers, it is well-rounded enough for anyone who wants…
While much of the world is currently suspended in the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, WordCamp Europe delivered a surprisingly decisive announcement today regarding the status of the 2021 event in Porto. Organizers moved to make it a virtual conference, 10 months in advance of the planned dates, June 3-5, 2021: After careful consideration, and…
Over the weekend, Alex Shiels announced an open call for plugin authors to begin submitting one-off block plugins to the official block directory. In the upcoming WordPress 5.5 update, slated for release on August 11, end-users will be able to search for, install, and add blocks directly from the editor. With little time left before…
Unless I’m trying to be aware of it, I don’t see the WordPress admin anymore. When you work inside it every day, it becomes a means to an end, like a subway ride to work. You scan your ticket (log in) and you’re on your way to whatever admin business is the order of the…
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