Sunlit 3.0 was released this week and is now available in the App Store. The free photoblogging app is a companion app to the Micro.blog indie microblogging platform. Sunlit has some similarities to Instagram minus the deadweight of ads and algorithms. Users can follow each other, comment on posts, and timeline photos are displayed in…
WordPress 5.5.1 was released yesterday with 34 bug fixes, 4 enhancements, and 5 bug fixes for the block editor. Version 5.5 removed 19 legacy JavaScript localization objects, in favor of using the new functions and utilities found in the i18n package introduced in WordPress 5.0. One of the most notable changes in this maintenance release is the inclusion of a backfill for…
The second edition of WordSesh EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) is happening in less than 48 hours on September 2. The virtual event’s schedule is tailored to attendees living in the Eastern hemisphere. In its first year running, WordSesh EMEA attracted a solid turnout of close to 1,000 attendees and was the proving ground…
WordCamp Austin 2020 is putting out a call for musicians, alongside its call for speakers. The event’s organizers are rising to the challenge of creating a unique experience for attendees, while working within the constraints of a virtual format. Because the city prides itself on being “the live music capital of the world,” due to…
MotoPress, a theme and plugin shop in operation since 2013, has acquired the Gutenix WordPress theme and its commercial ZeGuten blocks plugin for Gutenberg. The free theme currently has more than 700 active installs after nine months on WordPress.org. MotoPress already has a number of successful niche WordPress themes and plugins but Gutenix fills the…
StudioPress, which was acquired by WP Engine in 2018, is rebranding its popular Atomic Blocks plugin to Genesis Blocks. WP Engine also acquired Atomic Blocks in 2018, growing the plugin’s user base from 3,000 active installs to more than 60,000 over the past two years. The purpose of rebranding is to more tightly align the…
Over the weekend, Matt Mullenweg announced on Twitter that Apple’s App Store had blocked Automattic from shipping updates to WordPress’ official iOS app. Automattic doesn’t sell anything for WordPress.com or Jetpack inside the mobile apps, but the app included external purchasing methods that bypassed Apple’s requirement of selling via in-app purchases. On the surface it…
One of the minor but useful additions to WordPress 5.5 is the new wp_get_environment_type() function. It makes it possible for plugin and theme authors to do some interesting things based on whether a site is identified as staging, development, production, or some other custom environment type. In discussion on the original trac ticket, Marius Jensen suggested…
Last month the WordPress Documentation Team announced a ban on links to commercial websites within the official docs. These include the HelpHub, Code Reference, Plugin and Theme Developer Handbooks, Block Editor Handbook, and the Common APIs Handbook. The reason behind the ban was that heavily policing commercial links placed too much responsibility on the documentation team, when they are already working with limited…
In just one week since WordPress 5.5 was released, the Enable jQuery Migrate Helper plugin has passed 10,000 active installs, as users look for a fix for broken sites. The plugin was developed by the WordPress Core team to mitigate jQuery-related problems users may face after updating to 5.5. WordPress has removed jQuery Migrate 1.4.1,…
Beginning September 1, 2020, Apple’s Safari browser will no longer trust SSL/TLS certificates issued for longer than 398 days, which is the equivalent of one year plus the renewal grace period. Apple cited its “ongoing efforts to improve web security” in the announcement earlier this year. The change affects the full lineup of Apple platforms:…
WordPress 5.5 has already been downloaded more than 4 million times after its release earlier this week, and it’s time to kick off work on 5.6. Josepha Haden will be leading the release alongside coordinator Dee Teal, with additional leads for Triage (Tonya Mork), Core Tech (Helen Hou-Sandì), Editor Tech (Isabel Brison), Design (Ellen Bauer…
Now that WordPress 5.5 has shipped, block patterns are available in core for all users. If you have previously been relying on reusable blocks but prefer the flexibility of block patterns, you may want to convert these. WordPress core developer Jean-Baptiste Audras has made this possible in the latest update of his Reusable Blocks Extended…
The world of open source tooling has expanded to welcome JSHint, as the project’s maintainers have finally completed the necessary work to adopt the MIT Expat license. Previously, the JavaScript linter’s code was partially published under the JSON license, with an additional seemingly innocuous clause that stated: “The Software shall be used for Good, not…
WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine” landed today, named for American jazz singer Billy Eckstine. This release introduces major improvements for the block editor and the security of WordPress. It was made possible by the contributions of 805 volunteers (with 38% of them being new contributors.) The 5.5 update is a testament to the stability of WordPress during…