WordPress 3.4 introduced the WordPress Customizer API and over time it has evolved from being a theme customizer to a framework for live-previewing changes to WordPress. Since its inclusion, one of the most common complaints about the Customizer is its narrow sidebar. Even on widescreen monitors, the Customizer sidebar is only 300px wide. This limitation was one of…
Late last year, Jetpack 4.3 unveiled a new admin interface written in React.js. The Jetpack team received feedback from more than 8K users before it was publicly released. While the old interface displayed all modules on one page, the new interface breaks up module management into sections. You can also access some modules by typing its name…
In Matt Mullenweg’s 2016 State of the Word, he announced the WordPress Growth Council. The council was created as a think-tank for individuals and organizations in the WordPress community to share ideas on how best to tell WordPress’ story to grow market share. The Growth Council serves as a collaborative means to combat the more than $300M in…
The month of May is Mental Health Awareness month. On this episode, Ed Finkler, founder of Open Sourcing Mental Illness (OSMI), and Bridget Willard, Marketing Manager for WordImpress, join me to raise awareness of mental health. We start the show by discussing what mental health is and what it means to feel normal. We talk…
WordPress 4.8 Beta 1 is available for testing and has a couple of features that will likely have a big impact. New Image, Video, and Audio Widgets WordPress 4.8 has three new core widgets and adds a visual editor to the Text widget. Adding video, audio, or images to text widgets typically involves using custom…
One of the most important things that distinguishes self-hosted WordPress from WordPress.com is the ability to install custom themes and plugins. A recent change to WordPress.com’s Business Plan removes this limitation, allowing customers to install most third-party plugins and themes. In a WordPress.com support thread created in February, a user asked how to install plugins…
On this episode of WordPress Weekly, I’m joined by James Farmer, co-founder and CEO of Incsub. Farmer has been involved in the WordPress community for 11 years and in that time, he and I have butted heads, mildly speaking. Last year, Farmer looked back at the last 10 years of being a WordPress entrepreneur. In that post, he…
Nealy a year ago, VersionPress 3.0 was released. This version added new search capabilities, bulk undo, and a number of bug fixes. It was the first release since it became a free, open source project. In a post on the project’s development blog, Borek Bernard, co-founder of VersionPress, describes what the team is focusing on for…
For the past few months, users have been testing bbPress 2.6 Beta 2. bbPress 2.6 will be the first major version update since 2014 and will include the following features: Per-forum moderators Improved favorites and subscriptions management Improved BuddyPress integration Performance improvements User experience improvements to meta-boxes and admin-area tools Tighter integration with the WordPress Dashboard…
When it comes to spam, comments are one of the first things that comes to mind. However, spam user registrations can be just as prolific on sites with open registration. Leland Fiegel, founder of Themetry, has developed a new plugin called Stop Signup Spam that prevents users from registering an account if their email or…
In the past two years, there has been an increased effort in the WordPress community to raise awareness of mental health. Cory Miller, Rich Robinkoff, Michele Butcher, and others have presented on the subject at numerous WordCamps. A common theme that surrounds mental health is the fear of discussing it openly. WPHugs.org, a passion project by Leo Gopal,…
In this episode, I’m joined by John James Jacoby. We recap WordCamp Chicago 2017 and learn about what he’s been up to as of late. Jacoby was recently elected as a trustee by the Village of East Troy, WI. We discussed what lessons he’s learned through open source software development that he’ll apply to his…
Managing social media accounts across multiple networks can be a cumbersome task. Social Media Suite by Tina Todorovic and Dejan Markovic, based in Toronto, Canada, aims to make managing those accounts a breeze. At its core, Social Media Suite is a social media marketing management platform. To use it, you’ll first have to install the…
One of the most difficult things about writing online is expressing tone and emotion. Emoticons and Emoji help, but what if there was a tool that uses artificial intelligence to determine the emotional response readers are most likely to have after consuming your content? That’s the idea behind Watsonfinds, a free WordPress plugin created by…
It’s been seven months since Grant and Clay Griffiths, founders of Headway Themes, apologized to customers for failing to communicate on a regular basis and provide adequate customer support. In the apology, the founders admit that the company was experiencing financial difficulties and noted that competition in the WordPress drag-and-drop page-builder space was tough. The…