With the EU GDPR compliance deadline just 178 days away, many WordPress site owners are looking for tools that will help them meet the requirements. The regulation expands existing rights of data subjects in several key ways, including (but not limited to) the right to be notified of data breaches, the right to access personal…
Last week XWP dropped an intriguing preview of a new project called Tide that aims to improve code quality across the WordPress plugin and theme ecosystems. The company has been working with the support of Google, Automattic, and WP Engine, on creating a new service that will help users make better plugin decisions and assist…
Envato has added unlimited WordPress theme and plugin downloads to its Elements digital assets subscription service. The company is including a curated collection of 210 WordPress themes and 100 plugins along with 400,000 other design assets already offered through the service. Envato is the largest WordPress theme marketplace on the web with 39,102 themes and…
Enclavely, Inc., the owners of the Tailor Page Builder plugin, have announced that they will be discontinuing its development effective immediately. Andrew Worsfold, the original developer, launched Tailor in April 2016 and the plugin received an enthusiastic reception from the WordPress community. After performing a critical review of the major page builders available to users…
Last month GitHub launched its Dependency Graph feature that tracks a repository’s dependencies and sub-dependencies under the Insights tab. This week the company rolled out an expansion of the feature and will now identify known vulnerabilities and send notifications with suggested fixes from the GitHub community. Dependency graphs and security alerts are automatically enabled for…
WordCamp Europe 2018 has opened the call for speakers and will be accepting applications through January 15. The organizing team recommends that speakers already have some experience ahead of applying to speak at the largest WordPress event in Europe, but a dedicated Content Team will also be available with resources for helping speakers create a…
The next release of WordPress (5.0) will introduce the new Gutenberg editor and contributors plan to keep it rolling towards the eventual goal of providing a full site building experience. Nearly every WordPress theme and plugin developer will be impacted by the change and many are starting to look ahead to how their products may…
Community feedback on the new GDPR for WordPress project, created by WordCamp Denmark organizer Kåre Mulvad Steffensen and WP Pusher creator Peter Suhm, has started rolling in after the two launched a survey for developers. The project aims to provide an industry standard for getting plugins compliant with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation…
WordPress 4.9 “Tipton” was released today, named for Oklahoma-born jazz musician William Lee Tipton, a gifted pianist and saxophonist. This update introduces major improvements to the design and collaboration workflow in the Customizer, improves WordPress’ built-in code editor, and enhances core text and media widgets. Draft, Schedule, and Preview Changes in the Customizer Prior to…
Gutenberg 1.7 was released today, two weeks after version 1.6, with a fresh round of new features, design updates, and the groundwork for nested blocks and block extensibility. Last week contributors began exploring an alternative to using iframes for meta boxes. This experiment has landed in 1.7 so that the plugin now renders meta boxes…
iA Writer 5 for iOS was released last week, nearly a year after version 4. This update is free for those who purchased version 4 from the iOS App Store. iA Writer 5 for Mac is still in the works. The free Android version of the app is receiving incremental improvements that will bring it…
The WP-SpamShield plugin was removed from the WordPress.org directory this week due to what the Plugin Review Team has deemed a violation of the guidelines and a possible miscommunication. Two weeks ago, the author of WP-SPamShield and the author of the Plugin Organizer plugin exchanged contentious remarks in a support forum thread where each accused…
Weglot, a SaaS-based multilingual plugin that entered the WordPress market last year, has passed €44,000 in monthly revenue. The company received €450K in seed funding in May 2017 and has nearly doubled its user base in the past six months. Co-founder Rémy Berda reports that the plugin is approaching 20,000 users and that more than…
Jetpack 5.5 was released yesterday with several important changes that ensure the plugin is compatible with the upcoming WordPress 4.9 release scheduled for November 14. The plugin will be able to shed some weight, as core improvements will make Jetpack’s syntax highlighting and gallery widget obsolete. WordPress 4.9 incorporates CodeMirror, which brings syntax highlighting, linting,…
The discussion surrounding the use of iframes for meta boxes in Gutenberg became more heated over the weekend, as concerned developers implored the team to consider the detriments of the current approach. Responses from Gutenberg’s leadership initially deflected concerns, presenting the iframe implementation as an experiment that “works ‘for now’” but isn’t what the team…