Many WordPress users elect to automatically close comments on older posts in order to keep the constant deluge of spam at bay. This method works, but it comes with a couple of drawbacks. The option, found under the Settings → Discussion screen, is essentially an an all-or-nothing choice on older posts. The comment deadline setting…
BuddyPress 2.2 is under active development and contributors are close to having the basics of a new Member Type API on board for the upcoming release. The new API would allow developers to separate users into different types, a common request for many BuddyPress-powered communities. User types make it possible to create some interesting community…
WooCommerce recently passed five million downloads, shortly before the Woo team kicked off the first WooConf earlier this month. The conference, devoted solely to WooCommerce, sold out with 300 attendees. The plugin had 294 contributors on its most recent 2.2 release and is currently being used on 18% of all e-commerce sites on the web.…
WordPress theme developers will be pleased to know that the upcoming 4.1 release will remove the custom background and header screens in the admin. These screens will be replaced with deep-links to the customizer. To be clear, header and background menus will still appear in the admin, but they will be deep-linked to the customizer.…
WordPress 3.0 introduced the ability for developers to register their own custom post types, enabling the software to be used more easily as a CMS. Custom post types ushered in a new era that allowed plugin developers to create and organize content in a more modular way. If you’ve ever tried to explain the concept…
WP Engine is launching its high availability enterprise hosting platform today. The new product is called Mercury and it’s built to provide HHVM (with PHP-FPM failover) to customers who require better PHP performance. WP Engine is one of the first WordPress managed hosts to offer HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine), a PHP execution engine originally created…
WordPress core contributors released a security update today. All users who have not yet received the automatic update are encouraged to update as soon as possible. WordPress 4.0.1 is a critical security release that provides a fix for a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability, originally reported by Jouko Pynnonen on September 26th. Sites running WordPress versions…
In just under two years, DigitalOcean has managed to sail past competitors to become the world’s third largest hosting provider, according to a recent report published by Netcraft. The company’s SSD-based cloud hosting products cater to developers and other tech-savvy customers. As of November, DigitalOcean counts a total 187,866 active users running a cloud server…
When version 3.0 of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate was released, it came with a brand new community website. After three years of continual improvement, creator Tom McFarlin felt that the project had finally matured enough to warrant its own branding and website. As the boilerplate gained traction, McFarlin started receiving numerous requests for a generator…
A couple months ago, Automattic made headlines with its public dismissal of Janet Jackson’s spurious claims of trademark and copyright infringement. Jackson is now a fixture in the company’s Hall of Shame, along with others who have issued abusive takedown demands. Automattic considers these a threat to freedom of speech and has even taken to…
Postmatic is hoping to revolutionize WordPress comments by giving readers a way to subscribe to new posts/comments via email and leave a comment by simply hitting reply. Since email is usually the way most people find out about comments, having the ability to reply without leaving your inbox in convenient, especially when you’re on the…
Gigaom has been pumping out a steady stream of news and analysis on technology since 2006. The WordPress-powered site attracts 6.5 million monthly unique visitors with topics ranging from science and energy to cloud businesses, media and mobile. With years of articles buried in its archives, it’s important for Gigaom to have a solid search…
In a matter of months, Slack has managed to become the favorite communication tool for thousands of businesses, boasting more than 250,000 daily active users, with roughly 30% of them paying for the service. The company recently acquired $120 million to fund further growth and is now valued at $1.1 billion dollars. While Slack helps…
WordPress 4.1 beta 1 was released into the hands of eager testers today, just in time for the weekend. John Blackbourn announced the beta and outlined a list of features and improvements that you’ll want to put through the paces. The most visible items include the following: The new Twenty Fifteen default theme New distraction-free…
Masonry is a new free WordPress theme with an elegant 1-column design. You’d be hard-pressed to find a theme that is easier to set up. It offers just a handful of options built into the native customizer, including the ability to customize the header colors and header background image. The theme is mobile-friendly, with a…