The short answer: probably not. The longer answer… It will depend on many things going right over the next couple of months. WordPress 6.0 is scheduled for launch on May 24, 2022. The 6.0 Beta 1 is on April 12. Even with a slightly extended cycle, major updates come fast. Anne McCarthy opened a discussion…
Block themes continue to trickle into the WordPress theme directory. Classic design submissions still outpace them by margins that make it look like blocks are not even in the race yet. However, some designers seek to pioneer this still-foreign space. Brian Gardner is not new to this. His latest theme, Avant-Garde, plays on the block…
WPExperts has acquired the Password Protected plugin from WordPress developer Ben Huson, author of nearly 20 plugins on WordPress.org. Password Protected was by far his most popular one with more than 300,000 active installs. The acquisition is hot on the heels of the company’s purchase of the Post SMTP plugin two weeks ago, another product…
Donna Cavalier announced the vision of WordPress.com’s marketplace earlier today via the site’s news blog. This future will include bringing more premium themes, plugins, and services to users. Automattic, the company behind the site, will be partnering with third-party developers to bring these commercial offerings to its customers. Plugin developers, theme designers, and WordPress service…
WordPress’ performance team has released a new feature plugin called Performance Lab that includes a set of performance-related improvements for core. The team, which formed just five months ago, is led by Yoast and Google-sponsored core contributors, and has had more than 250 people join its Slack channel, with many participating regularly in weekly chats.…
Anne McCarthy announced the launch of the Museum of Block Art earlier today via the Gutenberg Times blog. The site’s goal is to showcase creative uses of blocks and inspire the WordPress community to push the limits of what is possible with the block editor. The site showcases 22 pieces of block art from 11…
Tetsuaki Hamano released the Piano Block plugin for WordPress on Monday. It allows users to insert a piano-based interface into the editor for playing music. Mostly, it is just a lot of fun. Hamano launched RichText Extension, his first submission to the WordPress plugin directory, in the spring of 2020. At the time, block-related plugins…
WordPress core committer Jonny Harris merged a patch into WordPress core for a 12-year-old ticket that he says has the potential to bring “a massive effect on performance for custom pages.” The change, which will be included in the upcoming 6.0 release, stops unnecessary queries when developers are using the do_parse_request filter, thanks to a refreshed patch…
Another two weeks have flown by, and another Gutenberg plugin update is in the books. This release is not as feature-heavy as the last, but it feels solid overall. Other than one breaking issue, version 12.7 includes several nice-to-have enhancements. The latest update includes some early work for a new style engine. This is a…
While Russia is decimating Ukrainian cities in an unlawful attempt to occupy the country, WordPress companies and individuals are seeking ways to help refugees fleeing the violence, as well as those who have stayed behind to fight. We are living in one of those rare times in history where events have captured the attention and…
It feels like the end of an era. Last week, core contributors merged a patch that removed PHP variables named $pee and $tinkle from the WordPress codebase. Yes, the software that powers 43% of the web has pee-pee jokes in its code. I know how it sounds. I felt silly writing that sentence. My job…
The journey toward a web fonts API in WordPress has been a rollercoaster of emotions for developers. After being punted from the WordPress 5.9 release, it was moved to the Gutenberg project, where it could be built alongside related features that relied on it. The API has been merged into the Gutenberg plugin and should…
Strattic, a WordPress hosting company that creates static files managed via a headless install, has acquired WP2Static, an open source plugin for generating a static WordPress site. Leon Stafford, the plugin’s creator, has been working for the company for the past nine months and will continue to maintain WP2Static. In 2020, Stafford removed WP2Static from…
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.