Month: April 2021

  • Recreating the Classic Wedding WordPress Theme Homepage With the Block Editor

    Recreating the Classic Wedding WordPress Theme Homepage With the Block Editor

    I simply do not understand it. For at least the better part of a decade, theme authors have asked for the tools to create more complex layouts with WordPress. They have asked for the ability to allow end-users to more easily recreate their demos. They have wanted methods to bypass the “restrictive” theme review guidelines.…

  • Automattic Launches Jetpack Boost: A New Performance Plugin

    Automattic Launches Jetpack Boost: A New Performance Plugin

    The Jetpack team has been quietly testing a new plugin called Jetpack Boost, which addresses website owners’ performance and SEO concerns. Version 1.0 was released today, one month after the final pre-release came out in March. Boost is a separate plugin under the Jetpack brand and it does not require Jetpack core to work. The…

  • Gutenberg 10.4 Introduces Block Widgets in the Customizer

    Gutenberg 10.4 Introduces Block Widgets in the Customizer

    The latest release of the Gutenberg plugin (10.4) brings block widgets into the Customizer. When customizing widget-enabled areas, a new block inserter icon is now available for dropping blocks into sidebars. This is the first iteration of block management in the Customizer, tackling the technical integration for editing blocks while also taking advantage of the…

  • Enō: ‘Probably This Is the Best Blogging Theme Ever’

    Enō: ‘Probably This Is the Best Blogging Theme Ever’

    Sometimes a theme’s description is so moving that one must install, activate, and test the project. I often rail against the obviously keyword-stuffed text in the free WordPress theme directory. But, I am pleasantly surprised from time to time. Enō is an elegant, modern and functional WordPress theme. Probably this is the best blogging theme…

  • Full Site Editing Is Partly a ‘Go’ for WordPress 5.8

    Full Site Editing Is Partly a ‘Go’ for WordPress 5.8

    Today, Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced the results of yesterday’s “go/no-go” demo and decision on whether Full Site Editing (FSE) would land in WordPress 5.8. The site editor and global styles are not landing in the next release. However, several other features should launch and allow users to build their sites with blocks in new ways.…

  • Zerodium Temporarily Triples Payout to $300K for WordPress Exploits

    Zerodium Temporarily Triples Payout to $300K for WordPress Exploits

    Zerodium, one of the most well-known security vulnerability brokers, announced that it is tripling payouts for remote code execution exploits on default WordPress installations. Payouts are typically $100K but have been temporarily increased to $300K. The company focuses on acquiring original and previously unreported zero-day research. It pays researchers for high-risk vulnerabilities and fully functional…

  • FSE Outreach Round #5: Venturing out on a Query Quest

    FSE Outreach Round #5: Venturing out on a Query Quest

    The Full Site Editing (FSE) outreach program is chugging along. Since December, it has called for and completed four rounds of testing. The latest round asks volunteers to provide feedback on the Query block, arguably one of the most crucial pieces of the FSE-puzzle. Automattic Developer Relations Wrangler Anne McCarthy has been overseeing the program…

  • WordCamp Europe 2021 Opens Call for Speakers and Workshops

    WordCamp Europe 2021 Opens Call for Speakers and Workshops

    WordCamp Europe 2021 will be taking place online, June 7-10. This will be the second year in a row that the event has not been held in person due to the pandemic, but organizers are incorporating feedback from the first edition to improve upon it. Speaker applications are now open and first-time speakers are encouraged…

  • Yet Another WordPress Block Library Plugin

    Yet Another WordPress Block Library Plugin

    You are the team manager at a WordPress development company. You just spent the last couple of months directing the group of highly skilled developers that you oversee to create the latest and greatest block library for WordPress. Your developers just spent those two months recreating what has already been done at least a couple…

  • Free Software Foundation Unrelenting on Stallman Reinstatement: “We Missed His Wisdom”

    Free Software Foundation Unrelenting on Stallman Reinstatement: “We Missed His Wisdom”

    The Free Software Foundation has published a public explanation of why they decided to reinstate Richard Stallman to the board of directors last month: “The voting members of the Free Software Foundation, which include the board of directors, voted to appoint Richard Stallman to a board seat after several months of thorough discussion and thoughtful…

  • Display Digital Sheet Music With the WordPress Block Editor

    Display Digital Sheet Music With the WordPress Block Editor

    PhonicScore, a company out of Vienna, recently released its OpenSheetMusicDisplay (OSMD) plugin. It is a WordPress block built for rendering digital sheet music in the browser. The OSMD plugin is built on top of the team’s JavaScript library of the same name, a project officially released in 2016. It is a bridge between VexFlow and…

  • Set Up a Gutenberg Test Site in 2 Minutes with the Gutenberg Nightly Plugin

    Set Up a Gutenberg Test Site in 2 Minutes with the Gutenberg Nightly Plugin

    WordPress contributors are working towards landing full site editing (FSE) sometime this year, an ambitious plan that will require all hands on deck for testing. A meeting of a small group of core leads on April 14 will start the process of deciding whether FSE will land in version 5.8. In the meantime, the FSE…

  • Will Full Site Editing Land in WordPress 5.8? A Decision Is Forthcoming

    Will Full Site Editing Land in WordPress 5.8? A Decision Is Forthcoming

    Yesterday, Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced the roadmap for deciding whether Full Site Editing (FSE) will land in WordPress 5.8. After the launch of Gutenberg 10.4 on April 14, a small group of core leads will participate in a go/no-go demo. The following people will be on the call: Matias Ventura – Gutenberg Project Lead who…

  • iThemes Acquires Kadence WP, Plans to Sunset Legacy Themes in 2022

    iThemes Acquires Kadence WP, Plans to Sunset Legacy Themes in 2022

    iThemes has acquired Kadence WP, the Missoula-based makers of the Kadence Blocks plugin and its accompanying Kadence theme. Originally founded in 2008 as a themes company, iThemes became more of a plugin-oriented business over the years before it was acquired by Liquid Web in 2018. The company is returning to its roots with this acquisition…

  • Yes, Comments Are Still Relevant, But We Need a Better System

    Yes, Comments Are Still Relevant, But We Need a Better System

    More and more, open comments are becoming a thing of the past. Large news organizations have kicked them to the curb. Frustrated bloggers who no longer desire all of the hassles with moderation shut down their forms. The conversations have moved to corporate-controlled social media. It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment much of…

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