“The Final Word” is a new plugin that extends O2 to highlight a comment at the top of a thread. O2 is the plugin successor to P2, Automattic’s group blogging theme that introduced quick posting from the front page with real-time comment updates. The code was released on GitHub in (more…)
Equifax has launched a WordPress-powered website to connect with consumers affected by its recent security breach, which compromised 143 million customers’ personal data. The exposed data includes names, birth dates, social security numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, driver’s license numbers, and other sensitive financial information. The equifaxsecurity2017.com site was launched (more…)
Gutenberg contributors continue marching forward this week on their relentless drive to improve the usability of the controversial new editor that will ship with WordPress 5.0. Meanwhile, discussions about Gutenberg’s timing, implications, UI, architecture, and other aspects of the project continue across the web, as the community grapples with what (more…)
Jetpack 5.3 was released with compatibility for PHP 7.1, a task the Jetpack team has been working on since January 2017 after they received multiple reports of failures with PHP 7.1 when opcache was enabled. This interfered with XML-RPC requests and some users reported issues managing their sites from WordPress.com (more…)
While attending WordCamp Grand Rapids I had the opportunity to interview developers and business owners about their first impressions of the new Gutenberg editor. Many attendees I spoke to had not yet heard of the project but were intrigued and decided to install the plugin on a test site. A (more…)
The 4th edition of WordCamp Grand Rapids was held last weekend at Grand Valley State University’s downtown Pew Campus. After a brief hiatus following previous events in 2012, 2013, and 2014, the WordCamp is back in action with first-time lead organizer Cate DeRosia at the helm. Tickets sold out shortly (more…)
Gutenberg 1.0.0 was released this week as another iteration in the beta period that will continue on with 1.1 next week. Design lead Tammie Lister said the team decided “not let numbers set expectations” and will carry on at the same pace with weekly releases. One of the most visible (more…)
Although WordPress core currently maintains backwards compatibility with PHP 5.2.4+, plugin and theme authors are not required to do so. When developers include features that require more recent versions of PHP, it can break sites or cause otherwise unexpected behavior. As part of a larger effort to encourage users to (more…)
Matt Mullenweg published an appeal to WordPress users over the weekend in a post titled “We Called it Gutenberg for a Reason.” In it he offers a better look at his vision for Gutenberg, which he contends will be as transformative for WordPress’ future as the first movable type printing (more…)
Last month React users petitioned Facebook to relicense the project (and its other open source projects) after the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) added Facebook’s BSD+Patents license to its Category X list of disallowed licenses for Apache PMC members. Participants and subscribers to the GitHub thread waited weeks for a decision (more…)
WordPress’ Core PHP team has created a new GitHub organization for initiatives focused on improving the use of PHP in the project. The first one they are tackling is a new page on WordPress.org dedicated to educating users about the benefits of upgrading PHP. Contributors are collecting third-party articles and (more…)
Google Search Console has started sending out notices to sites that have not yet migrated to HTTPS. Chrome 61 is now in beta and version 62 is on track to begin marking HTTP pages as “NOT SECURE” beginning in October. It will show the warning if it detects any forms (more…)