Sarah Gooding

  • Harare and Nairobi Host 2nd Round of Successful WordCamps

    Harare and Nairobi Host 2nd Round of Successful WordCamps

    Six WordCamps were held over the weekend in cities across the globe, including two in Africa where WordPress events are just starting to take off. Harare and Nairobi hosted their second WordCamps in areas where the WordPress community was virtually non-existent two years ago. Harare’s first camp was part of the WordCamp Incubator program the…

  • WordCamp Europe 2018 Early Bird Tickets Now on Sale

    WordCamp Europe 2018 Early Bird Tickets Now on Sale

    WordCamp Europe 2018 has begun early bird ticket sales for its sixth edition in Belgrade, Serbia, June 14-16. Attendees who purchase a ticket before December 31, 2017, will receive a limited-edition swag item. WordCamp Europe has sold out in many previous years and organizers of the 2017 event in Paris anticipated that it would be…

  • Gutenberg Contributors Discuss the Drawbacks of Using iframes for Meta Boxes

    Gutenberg Contributors Discuss the Drawbacks of Using iframes for Meta Boxes

    A lively and productive discussion regarding Gutenberg’s use of iframes for meta boxes is happening on GitHub. Yesterday, WordPress developer Kevin Hoffman created an issue titled “Are iframes a viable long-term solution for meta boxes?” Gutenberg 1.5 introduced initial support for meta boxes. Hoffman identified several issues with iframes that have been popping up as…

  • Press This Removed from WordPress 4.9 in Favor of a Plugin

    Press This Removed from WordPress 4.9 in Favor of a Plugin

    Press This, a tool that allowed users to quickly clip and publish content from web pages, is set to be removed from WordPress’ upcoming 4.9 release. The feature is being retired and will live out its remaining days as a canonical plugin. WordPress contributors opted to make a clean break by completely removing Press This…

  • GitHub Launches Community Forums to Connect Developers

    GitHub Launches Community Forums to Connect Developers

    GitHub launched its new community forums this week as another way for the platform’s 24 million developers to stay connected. The company built them on top of the Lithium SaaS community platform, a popular choice for enterprise customers, including Sony, Cisco, HP, Skype, Barclaycard, Symantec, Google, and PayPal. The first iteration of the forums includes…

  • Gutenberg 1.6 Improves Writing Experience, Moves Block Toolbar to the Top of the Editor

    Gutenberg 1.6 Improves Writing Experience, Moves Block Toolbar to the Top of the Editor

    The Gutenberg plugin’s Halloween release (version 1.6) includes major updates to the writing experience and many performance improvements. The block toolbar has been relocated to the top of the editor, a suggestion that was mocked up and described in detail in a post on the Yoast SEO blog proposing an alternative approach for Gutenberg. Prior…

  • Scotch School Offers Free Course on Getting Started with JavaScript for Web Development

    Scotch School Offers Free Course on Getting Started with JavaScript for Web Development

    The Scotch School, a developer resource with video training and tutorials, is offering its Getting Started with JavaScript for Web Development course for free through the end of this week. If you’re just now getting started on your journey to learning JavaScript deeply, this 23-lesson video course from Chris Sevilleja offers a quick foundation on…

  • GDPR for WordPress Project Seeks to Provide a Standard for Plugin Compliance

    GDPR for WordPress Project Seeks to Provide a Standard for Plugin Compliance

    WordCamp Denmark organizer Kåre Mulvad Steffensen and WP Pusher creator Peter Suhm are working on a GDPR for WordPress project that aims to provide an industry standard for getting plugins compliant with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation. The deadline for compliance is May 28, 2018, approximately 200 days from now. The Danish duo…

  • New Dispensary Details Plugin for WooCommerce Adds Cannabis Details to Products

    New Dispensary Details Plugin for WooCommerce Adds Cannabis Details to Products

    Two years ago, WordPress developer Robert DeVore launched WP Dispensary, a free marijuana dispensary menu plugin for WordPress, and has since built an accompanying theme, additional free add-ons, and six commercial extensions. DeVore is aiming to make WP Dispensary a complete online menu software solution for dispensaries and delivery services. The business has grown enough…

  • Patreon Launches App Directory and Free WordPress Plugin for Membership Sites

    Patreon Launches App Directory and Free WordPress Plugin for Membership Sites

    Patreon was founded in May 2013 as a service with business tools that allow content creators to crowdfund their work through donations and subscriptions. The service is now expanding to help users connect their accounts to more third-party tools that make patron management easier. Patreon launched its new App Directory and Developer Portal today, featuring…

  • WordPress 4.9 Will Support Shortcodes and Embedded Media in the Text Widget

    WordPress 4.9 Will Support Shortcodes and Embedded Media in the Text Widget

    WordPress 4.8 brought TinyMCE to the core Text widget, along with brand new Image, Video, and Audio media widgets. The upcoming 4.9 release builds on this progress and will introduce some long-awaited improvements to Text widget. Users will finally be able to use shortcodes in the Text widget without the help of additional code from…

  • Goodnight Firebug

    Goodnight Firebug

    Twitter is lighting up with sentimental Firebug remembrances today after Mozilla announced it will reach end-of-life in the Firefox browser next month. Firebug was the first browser-based tool that allowed developers to easily inspect HTML and debug JS. It was discontinued as a separate add-on and merged into Firefox DevTools in 2016 where it will…

  • WooCommerce Retires Canvas Theme, Recommends Customers Migrate to Storefront Theme

    WooCommerce Retires Canvas Theme, Recommends Customers Migrate to Storefront Theme

    WooCommerce is retiring its Canvas Theme after seven years. Canvas was one of the most innovative themes on the market when it first launched in 2010, giving customers the ability to modify their sites’ design and layout through an extensive options panel. It sold for $99 before the product URL was redirected to a retirement…

  • Gutenberg 1.5 Adds Initial Support for Meta Boxes, Makes Gutenberg the Default Editor

    Gutenberg 1.5 Adds Initial Support for Meta Boxes, Makes Gutenberg the Default Editor

    Gutenberg 1.5 was released this morning and introduces several major changes to the plugin. This version takes the new editor off the back burner and makes it the default for creating new posts. The team has also included a way for users to create posts with the Classic Editor, but this requires knowing where to…

  • Facebook is Testing a “Pay to Play” Requirement for Publishers in the News Feed

    Facebook is Testing a “Pay to Play” Requirement for Publishers in the News Feed

    Last week Facebook began rolling out its new Explore feed, which is now available for users globally on both desktop and mobile. The new Explore feed encourages discovery by including posts from people and pages that the user doesn’t follow. Over the weekend, Filip Struhárik, a journalist and editor at Denník N, published data from…