WordPress hosted a “first-of-its-kind event” via Zoom this week where members of the 6.0 release squad and core contributors conducted a live walkthrough of the major features coming in the next release. The event was recorded and is now available on WordPress.tv and embedded below. WordPress 6.0 is set to include approximately 400 updates and…
Over the past year, I have been on a mission. I have eagerly awaited each release of the Gutenberg plugin, followed tickets, and chimed in when I could. I have been holding out some sliver of hope for one feature in particular. I wanted to use featured images within a Cover block. That day has…
WordPress.com officially announced its new pricing yesterday, after rolling it out on April 1. The lack of communication about the changes, and the free plan’s severely pared back storage and traffic limits, alarmed and frustrated many users who for years have considered WordPress.com their go-to platform for simple blogging. WordPress.com has simplified its offerings from…
A couple of weeks ago, Rich Tabor announced a GitHub repository that listed all of his block plugins. These were already publicly available. However, some had yet to land in the WordPress plugin directory. As a fan of his simple approach to block design, I was quick to start tinkering with them. One of those…
People have been asking if QR codes are dead for the past decade, but their relevancy has only increased as digital life becomes more vibrant. eMarketer forecasts that the number of US smartphone users scanning QR codes will increase from 83.4 million in 2022 to 99.5 million in 2025. QR codes are even more popular…
Anne McCarthy announced round #13 of the FSE Outreach Program on March 31. This call for testing focuses on creating an author template via the site editor. Several of the new features used during this round were only added in Gutenberg 12.9 last week. The call asks volunteers to test and provide feedback on features…
Over the weekend, a post regarding WordPress.com’s as yet unannounced pricing changes went viral on Hacker News. In a post titled “What are you doing, WordPress.com?” one user identified as “VM” expressed concerns about the pricing, which has changed from five plans to two plans, and slashed storage on the free tier from 3GB to…
I was neck-deep into the block system during the months leading up to its debut in 2018. This also just happened to coincide with the first November I had ever completed National Novel Writing Month, a 30-day challenge to write a 50,000-word first draft of a novel. I have since won a second time in…
Despite the flurry of April Fools day jokes circulating today, the WordPress product market has been heating up in the past couple weeks with new entrants that we are highlighting in a roundup. These products range from newly in beta to fully launched. Some are banking on the freemium model and others are fully commercial…
WebMan Design owner Oliver Juhas released the first version of the Abs – Additional block styles plugin on Monday. Unlike many block-related extensions, it does not offer any blocks of its own. Instead, it registers custom styles to enhance those packaged with core WordPress. In total, the plugin adds 18 styles. Some are specific to…
WP Migrate DB, a popular WordPress site migration plugin by Delicious Brains, has rebranded to WP Migrate with its latest version 2.3 release. The original name was always a bit of a mouthful but also became a less accurate representation of the plugin’s full capabilities as they grew over time. “This plugin has been capable…
Gutenberg 12.9 landed in the WordPress.org plugin directory today, and it is a beefy release, packed with a little something for everyone. Even after tinkering with new features over the last few days, I have yet to explore everything as much as I would like. Given the practical limitation of time, I will not be…
In the early days after the block editor landed in WordPress, block collection plugins exploded on the scene and were quick to rack up hundreds of thousands of users. Plugins like CoBlocks, Kadence Blocks, and Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg offer dozens of blocks in one package, focusing mostly on blocks not offered in core. WordPress.org’s…
WordPress’ Performance Team has published a feature proposal that would enable WebP images by default, expanding core support for the modern image format. In July, 2021, WordPress 5.8 introduced WebP support, allowing users to upload and use WebP images in their content. If the proposal is approved, version 6.0 will generate WebP images by default…
Yesterday, Ella van Durpe merged a long-awaited feature into the Gutenberg plugin that allows users to select and modify text across multiple Rich Text blocks. It should land in version 13.0 of the plugin and WordPress 6.0 in May. Users can currently select text across multiple blocks, but the editor automatically adjusts that selection to…
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