It’s been about four months since the last time I shared my experience with Gutenberg. In that time, there have been sixteen releases. The more I use Gutenberg, the more nuances I encounter. Disruptive Writing Flow When writing a post, I press the enter key at the end of a paragraph. This creates a new…
In the past few months, the WordPress mobile application for iOS has quietly received a steady round of improvements. Version 10.5 increased its compatibility with Gutenberg. Earlier this year, Gutenberg and the iOS app didn’t get along particularly well. About a month ago in 10.4, an activity log was added that allows users to see…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss what’s new in the world of WordPress. First, we talk about Syed Balkhi’s growth accelerator fund and learn that Jacoby pitched a similar idea to Balkhi at WordCamp Miami 2017. We discuss the new feedback surrounding Gutenberg thanks to the call out in WordPress 4.9.8. Near…
Syed Balkhi, founder of WPBeginner, has announced a growth accelerator fund aimed at helping companies focused on WordPress prosper. The fund will provide between $100K-500K to a small group of selected companies. In addition to the funding, selected companies will be able to take advantage of Awesome Motive’s media presence, network of business associates, and…
Gutenberg 3.5.0 is available for download and polishes existing features. This release adds an edit button to embed blocks that allows users to edit the source URL. The contrast has been increased for input fields and check boxes have visually more distinct states as the following video shows. One notable change is the addition of…
Ephox, the creators of the TinyMCE editor library that’s been used by WordPress for more than 10 years, has changed its company name to Tiny Technologies Incorporated. The new name provides an at-a-glance view of what the company does and establishes a tighter relationship with its flagship product. To make it easier for you to…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Scott Kingsley Clark, lead developer of the Pods framework. Clark describes what it was like to lead the Fields API project, the difficulties of working hard on a project and not getting core buy-in, and why building the Fields API into core first would…
Justin Tadlock, founder of Theme Hybrid, has released Mythic, a starter theme that provides modern tools to get theme developers started on the right foot. Theming in 2018 is much different than theming in 2008. Without the right tools, it can be overwhelming to simply get started building even the most basic theme. Justin Tadlock…
WordCamp Ann Arbor MI, is an annual Fall tradition that takes place each October. This year however, the event won’t be taking place. In an email sent out August 3rd, organizers explained why they cancelled this year’s event. Why did we decide to cancel WordCamp Ann Arbor this year? It’s a long story. The most…
WordPress 4.9.8 is available for download and is a maintenance release. Headlining this version is the “Try Gutenberg” callout. Note that not everyone will see the callout. Its visibility is determined based on certain criteria. WordPress 4.9.8 continues to improve the foundation set forth by the privacy improvements that went into core earlier this year.…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss what’s new in Gutenberg 3.4 and share our recent experiences with the editor. We talk about Facebook’s decision to shut down its API for apps to publish to user’s profiles on their behalf. This leads to a side rant of our user experience with Facebook and…
Pippin Williamson, founder of Easy Digital Downloads, published an apology on the company’s blog today admitting that it made a mistake in its pricing model for extension passes. In mid-June, the company introduced a new set of pricing options or passes. The passes come with a single license that provide access to a group of…
WordPress 4.9.8 Release Candidate 3 is available for testing. This version includes one important enhancement that limits the visibility of the ‘Try Gutenberg’ callout. If Gutenberg is not installed or activated on a site, the callout will be displayed to users with the install_plugins capability. If Gutenberg is activated, the callout will be shown to…
After nine years since the project began, version 1.0.0 of the WordPress Coding Standards is available for download. The WordPress Coding Standards is a collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules or sniffs to validate code developed for WordPress. It ensures code quality and adherence to coding conventions, including the official WordPress Coding Standards. In addition to being…
As Gutenberg nears a merge with WordPress, Theme Authors are running out of time to ensure that their themes are compatible. The Gutenberg handbook has an excellent article on how to opt-in and add support for enhanced features. Most themes will present the default blocks without any issues as the blocks themselves provide their own…