One of the repositories I have been keeping an eye on over the past few months is Block Experiments. It is a monorepo of blocks in various stages of development from Automattic. In total, five of the team’s block experiments are now available for download from the plugin directory. Three others seem to still be…
Shinobi Works, a web development and illustration company based in Japan, released Shinobi Blocks last week. It is the second plugin the team has added to the WordPress plugin directory. The plugin is a block collection that currently has two blocks for creating how-to and FAQ sections on a site. Overall, the blocks work well.…
Imagine a future where you log into your website’s admin. You head over to the editor. This particular editor has all the tools and features in place that make you more efficient at producing whatever content you put out for the world to see. You immediately start tapping keys or dragging your mouse around the…
PHP and WordPress version checks are coming to the WordPress theme system — finally. The feature was pulled into core WordPress three days ago. It will prevent end-users from installing or activating a theme that is incompatible with their current version of PHP or WordPress. The change is slated to land in WordPress 5.5. This…
While it is still Wednesday here in the U.S., some parts of the world are already awakening to the third Thursday in May, which is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of the event is to get more people discussing, learning, and addressing issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the…
Automattic-owned eCommerce platform WooCommerce launched its new WooCommerce Payments feature today. The company seeks to make it easier for plugin users to manage the entirety of their shop from a single location. For users based in the U.S. with WordPress.com-connected accounts, they can begin managing payments directly from their WordPress admin. WooCommerce Payments is available…
Last week, the official Theme Review Team (TRT) decided to change its name. The re-branding was mostly about fixing a naming mistake for a team with multiple responsibilities outside of reviews. The hope is that it also shifts the public perception about what the team does. The idea isn’t new. The team has tossed the…
On Wednesday, the Gutenberg team released version 8.1.0 of the plugin. The update includes a new block-copying feature, block pattern search, testimonials pattern, and API changes. The new version does not add a lot of major user-facing changes but improves the experience overall. The update included two dozen bug fixes and nearly as many enhancements.…
Watch out block patterns. There is an old player in town making the hard sell before you have even rolled out of bed. Envato just dropped a massive library of template kits for Elementor in your front yard. Not to worry, the company plans to open things up for the block editor in the future.…
With full-site editing just around the bend, it is a fair question to ask whether the WordPress ecosystem is prepared for such a transition, particularly on the theme development side of things. It is no secret that theme developers have struggled to keep up with the barrage of changes between Gutenberg plugin updates and, ultimately,…
Last week, Tetsuaki Hamano contributed his first plugin to the official WordPress plugin repository. RichText Extension grants additional options for inline text in the block editor. RichText is a component in the editor that allows end-users to add and edit text. Typically, users may think of this component when dealing with paragraphs. However, it also…
It is not often that I come across a free WordPress theme that instantly impresses me. Far too often, I spend half an hour or more just getting to know a theme, checking its options, and figuring out how long it will take to recreate something that looks remotely like the demo. However, every now…
Earlier this week, Sajjad Hossain Sagor released the first version of his Drag & Drop Menu Items plugin in the WordPress plugin repository. The plugin is a one-off, single-use plugin that does exactly what its name describes — it allows end-users to drag menu items from the meta boxes on the nav menu screen to…
Managed web hosting company WP Engine launched the new Genesis Pro add-on for customers of its hosting service today. The add-on brings additional block editor features for users who are using a Genesis-based WordPress theme. Genesis is a parent theme developed by StudioPress. WP Engine acquired the theme development company in 2018. Later that year,…
Over the weekend, Munir Kamal released version 2.0 of his ACF Blocks plugin, a project that creates a suite of blocks for the editor. The plugin offers 18 custom blocks in its free version and 15 more in the pro upgrade. It is built on top of Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF Pro). The latest…