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Month: November 2023
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Last Call
This has been an emotional, bittersweet morning for me, reading through old posts, as I close the book on my time at this beloved publication. Today is my last day before moving on to embrace a new challenge in the world of tech. In 2013, the year I started writing at the Tavern, just 17.4%…
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WooCommerce 8.3 Makes Cart, Checkout, and Order Confirmation Blocks Default on New Installations
WooCommerce 8.3 was released today, featuring Cart, Checkout, and Order Confirmation blocks as the default checkout flow for new installations. This is a major milestone in moving WooCommerce towards a block-first checkout experience. Version 8.3 was slightly delayed, as core developers worked to ensure it would be compatible with the latest changes in WordPress 6.4…
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Elementor Pro Pricing Update Slashes Features in the Essential Plan for New Customers
Elementor, the most popular website builder plugin for WordPress with more than 5 million active installations, has announced major changes coming to the features included in its Elementor Pro Essential subscription plan. The plan will still include the Theme Builder along with access to 50+ Pro widgets, basic marketing tools, and the Form widget, but…
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WordCamp Asia Extends Sponsor Application Deadline
The WordCamp Asia organizing team has extended its call for sponsors until Thursday, November 30, 2023. In an update on the official website, organizers explained that they received feedback from multiple potential sponsors regarding why they had been unable to apply before the original deadline. Some of the reasons included the following: WordCamp Asia’s organizers…
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Brainstorm Force Invests in LatePoint Bookings and Appointment Scheduling Plugin
Brainstorm Force, makers of the popular Astra theme, has invested in LatePoint, a commercial booking and appointment scheduling plugin for WordPress. LatePoint is used on 21,000 websites to enable bookings for small businesses, such as salons, therapists, doctors, spas, and fitness studios. It also supports a growing library of add-ons for further customizing the booking…
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ElmaStudio Releases Moog: A Free Block Theme for Blogs
Moog is one of the latest free block themes to be released on WordPress.org. It features a minimal and bold layout with a responsive, masonry style grid on the homepage. Moog is well suited to blogs or even small magazine websites, with options to radically change the style with the click of a button. Moog’s…
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WordPress 2024 Roadmap: 3 Major Releases with a Focus on Collaboration Features
WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy has published a proposed schedule for 2024 that includes three major core releases. The dates have not yet been set in stone but have been planned to avoid major holidays and WordPress events. The first release of the year, WordPress 6.5, is scheduled for March 26, followed by 6.6…
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Wordfence Launches Bug Bounty Program
Wordfence launched a bug bounty program today to provide financial incentive for security researchers reporting high risk vulnerabilities to the company’s program. After researchers disclose vulnerabilities to Wordfence, the company triages them and confidentially discloses them to the vendors to fix. When the fix is released, the vulnerability will be included in Wordfence’s public database,…
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WordPress 6.4.1 Fixes a Critical cURL/Requests Bug
WordPress contributors have worked quickly over the past 24 hours to prepare a 6.4.1 maintenance release after a critical bug emerged from a change in the Requests library, causing problems with updates on servers running older versions of cURL. Hosting companies began reporting widespread impact of the bug. Tom Sommer, from one of Denmark’s largest…
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WordPress Contributors Target Upcoming 6.5 Release for Merging Performant Translations Into Core
WordPress’ Performance team is proposing merging Performant Translations into core in time for the upcoming WordPress 6.5 release. After an in-depth performance analysis earlier this year revealed that translations can significantly impact server response times, the team discussed various solutions and landed on one that requires no configuration from users. More than 2,000 WordPress sites have tested…
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WordPress 6.4 Introduces Twenty Twenty-Four Theme, Adds Lightbox, Block Hooks, and Improvements Across Design Tools
WordPress 6.4 “Shirley” was released today, named for famed American jazz pianist and singer Shirley Horn. This release introduces a new batch of writing and design tools that give users more powerful customization capabilities inside the editor. We covered most of the changes as they were released in the Gutenberg plugin and added to core,…
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Jetpack 12.8 Launches Jetpack Creator for Monetizing Content and Subscribers
Jetpack 12.8 was released this week, introducing Jetpack Creator, a new product under the Growth category that sits alongside the recently launched Newsletter product. Jetpack Creator is aimed at users who want to monetize their content and subscribers. It supports e-books, courses, paid newsletters, advertising, paywalled access, and other content monetization options. The market size…
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Newspack Plugin Update Checker Lets Users Update from GitHub
Adam Schweigert, an independent media and technology consultant, has released a plugin called Newspack Plugin Update Checker that enables self-hosted Newspack users to keep their plugins up-to-date. The Newspack project was launched in 2019 by WordPress.com, with support from the Google News Initiative, the Knight Foundation, and The Lenfest Institute. It provides local news organizations…
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WordPress Theme Handbook Updates Chapter on Block Templating
WordPress contributors have updated the Theme Handbook to include a new chapter on block templating. The chapter covers how the WordPress block template system works, how to build custom templates and parts and include them in a theme. This is critical documentation designed to provide a learning path for those who are building their first…