Sarah Gooding

  • BuddySlack Plugin Sends BuddyPress Activities to a Slack Channel

    BuddySlack Plugin Sends BuddyPress Activities to a Slack Channel

    Not long after the WordPress project adopted Slack as its primary form of communication, David Bisset started using it to help organize WordCamp Miami 2015. The application added real time communication for organizers, speakers, volunteers, sponsors, and the public. He found it to be a helpful addition to the WordCamp’s conference communication tools. As a…

  • Stack Exchange Blog Ditches WordPress for Jekyll

    Stack Exchange Blog Ditches WordPress for Jekyll

    Last week Stack Exchange announced its new blog, revamped to publish company news and engineering posts. The first post on the blog, written by Jon Chan, Stack Overflow’s developer evangelist, made no small amount of fanfare over migrating from WordPress to Jekyll. Chan’s explanation of the team’s process cites a few curious reasons for their…

  • BuiltWith Reports a 7% Increase in WordPress’ Usage from January – July 2015

    BuiltWith Reports a 7% Increase in WordPress’ Usage from January – July 2015

    BuiltWith, the popular service dedicated to monitoring internet technology trends and providing platform usage analytics, released its bi-annual internet coverage report for CMS usage from January – July 2015. The report shows that WordPress, which accounts for 48% of total CMS’s tracked, added 1.1 million domains since January. WordPress has been found on an additional…

  • WordPress 4.3 Improves User Search and Turns Comments Off on Pages by Default

    WordPress 4.3 Improves User Search and Turns Comments Off on Pages by Default

    WordPress 4.3 beta 1 was put into the hands of testers last week. Those who have been following 4.3 developments are already familiar with the major features headlining this release, ie. the new site icons, menu management in the customizer, and more secure passwords. However, there are also a couple lesser-known improvements that will have…

  • Highlights of Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A Session at WordCamp Europe 2015

    Highlights of Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A Session at WordCamp Europe 2015

    The video of Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A session at WordCamp Europe is now published on WordPress.tv. For those who were unable to attend, this session provides a glimpse into what WordPress’ co-founder sees for the future of the software and the community. One of the most exciting parts of the video is where Mullenweg talks about…

  • A Narrative of Using Composer in a WordPress Plugin

    A Narrative of Using Composer in a WordPress Plugin

    This piece was contributed by guest author Peter Suhm. Peter is a web developer from the Land of the Danes. He is the creator of WP Pusher and a huge travel addict, bringing his work along with him as he goes.   The other day I posted a warning about using Composer in WordPress plugins…

  • Resonar: A Free WordPress Blog Theme Designed to Showcase Featured Images

    Resonar: A Free WordPress Blog Theme Designed to Showcase Featured Images

    Resonar is an elegant WordPress blog theme that was launched in mid-March on WordPress.com and is now available to self-hosted WordPress sites. This theme makes a big impact with its strong typography and fullscreen featured images. Resonar was designed by Takashi Irie, the same designer for the Twenty Fifteen and Twenty Fourteen default themes. Irie’s…

  • Lasso Adds Real Time Revision Restoring to WordPress

    Lasso Adds Real Time Revision Restoring to WordPress

    This week Nick Haskins launched an update to Lasso, which introduces real time revision restoring. Lasso, a plugin originally designed to improve the experience of using of Aesop Story Engine, is currently one of the most user-friendly and well-supported attempts at bringing frontend editing to WordPress. The plugin works with or without Aesop Story Engine.…

  • WordPress 4.3 Beta 1 Now Available for Testing

    WordPress 4.3 Beta 1 Now Available for Testing

    WordPress 4.3 is right around the corner with beta 1 released and ready for testing. According to the 4.3 project schedule, there will be no more commits for new enhancements or feature requests from this point on. Contributors are now focusing on bug fixes and documentation ahead of August 18th, the target release date. With…

  • Ship: A New App for Shipping Plugins from GitHub to WordPress.org

    Ship: A New App for Shipping Plugins from GitHub to WordPress.org

    One of the small hurdles to hosting a plugin on WordPress.org is the fact that you have to use SVN to ship your updates. Most developers are far more familiar with Git. It’s not difficult to learn how to use SVN for the sake of WordPress.org plugins, but many find it to be inconvenient. Ship…

  • WordPress 4.3 Adds New Site Icons Feature and a Text Editor to Press This

    WordPress 4.3 Adds New Site Icons Feature and a Text Editor to Press This

    WordPress 4.3 is on track to include a new site icons feature, which will allow administrators to easily upload an image to be used as the favicon and app icons for a site. Favicons have traditionally been handled by WordPress themes or plugins, but the new core support means that users no longer have to…

  • Filter to Disable the Customizer Shot Down on WordPress Trac

    Filter to Disable the Customizer Shot Down on WordPress Trac

    WordPress 4.3 will introduce menu management via the customizer, providing live previews on the frontend for adding, deleting, and ordering menu items. Although users still have the option to manage menus using the admin interface, developers who are not keen on the feature are searching for an easy way to disable the customizer and remove…

  • UpThemes Adds Managed WordPress Hosting to Theme Club Business

    UpThemes Adds Managed WordPress Hosting to Theme Club Business

    After five years of selling themes and support, UpThemes is branching out into the managed WordPress hosting business. Last week the company announced the new hosting venture and partnership with Aesop Interactive: We are excited to announce UpThemes Hosting, a managed WordPress hosting solution that includes 40+ premium WordPress themes including our entire theme library,…

  • Theme Hybrid Experiments with Free Signups for Club Membership

    Theme Hybrid Experiments with Free Signups for Club Membership

    Justin Tadlock, creator of Theme Hybrid, announced today that the seven year old theme club is experimenting with a radical change in club pricing. Club membership is now free for anyone who wants to sign up. Although Theme Hybrid’s plugins and themes have always been free, standard club membership (which includes access to the support…

  • Vienna, Austria to Host WordCamp Europe 2016

    Vienna, Austria to Host WordCamp Europe 2016

    The local WordPress community in Seville welcomed a diverse group of attendees to WordCamp Europe 2015 over the weekend. WordPress enthusiasts and professionals from Europe and beyond made strategic connections, contributed, found jobs and employees, and enjoyed presentations from a selection of world class speakers. Seville has got the imaginative juices flowing and led to…