The WP Community Collective (WPCC), a non-profit organization created to support individual WordPress contributors and community-led initiatives, has funded its first fellowship. Alex Stine, a fully blind individual contributor who has been working with the WordPress Accessibility team since 2016, is the first recipient of the funds designated for the fellowship. WPCC reports that the…
group.one, a European cloud hosting and digital marketing services provider, has acquired the BackWPup, Adminimize, and Search & Replace plugins from Inpsyde. Together the products have more than 1.1 million active installs and will join group.one’s growing portfolio of WordPress products, which include WP Rocket, Imagify, and Rank Math SEO. Inpsyde sold the plugins to focus more on its consulting…
WordPress.org’s support forums are a vital resource and communication tool for users supporting their own sites and developers extending the software. Visiting the forums often means users have gotten stuck somehow and need to have a successful support experience in order to continue on their WordPress journeys. They are looking for help deciphering the meaning…
What are blocks? WordPress has added a new resource to its website at wordpress.org/blocks that attempts to explain blocks visually with simple language. The landing page is aimed at those who are new to the block paradigm or those who may not yet fully understand blocks’ ease of use and powerful features. Automattic-sponsored core contributor…
Crocoblock, a Ukraine-based company with plugins on WordPress.org as well as commercial products, is hosting a WordPress Web Agency AI Summit event on September 28-30, 2023. The company has a community of more than 24K+ freelancers and web agencies on Facebook and is moving to organize its first large virtual event that will be free for all…
WordPress’ Themes team launched its Community Themes initiative earlier this year with the goal of bringing together contributors to build block themes year round, the same way that default themes are built and officially supported. Their first theme release was Stacks, a single-purpose theme for creating slide decks that can be used for a presentation.…
The monumental task of overhauling WordPress’ aging admin design is coming into focus, as contributors kicked off explorations of some initial mockups this week. Gutenberg’s Phase 3 is focused on Collaboration and this admin revamp is part of that road map. As a starting point, Automattic-sponsored product designer Saxon Fletcher published some images and videos…
WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” was released earlier this week with an overview video that offers a beautiful, dizzying demo of the many new features packed into this update. It’s a two-minute guided tour of WordPress’ greatly expanded customization features, streamlined Site Editor interface, pattern creation and management, and the new Command Palette in action. For the…
Gutenberg 16.4 has been released with a new auto-inserting blocks experimental feature. It allows developers to specify a location in which the block will be automatically inserted, such as before or after a template. The block can then be repositioned after insertion using the editor tools. “This applies both to the frontend and to the…
WordPress’ Plugin Review team is wading through a backlog that was over 900 plugins awaiting approval earlier this week. The current count has 870 plugins sitting in the review queue, with an average wait time of 61 days before initial review. WordPress developer Marcus Burnette drew attention to the matter on Twitter after submitting a…
The Kadence Blocks plugin, which is used on more than 300,000 WordPress sites, has patched a critical vulnerability in its Advanced Form Block file upload capability. Version 3.1.11, released on August 8, 2023, patches the security issue with the form uploads. The plugin’s development team is getting out ahead of the situation by posting an…
WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” was released today, named for Lionel Hampton, an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. As the last release in Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project, many updates in WordPress 6.3 are targeted at polishing up customization features and the UI that supports them. Content, templates, and patterns can now be edited…
ConvertKit has updated its official WordPress plugin and WooCommerce add-on to support a range of new features. More than 40,000 sites use ConvertKit’s plugin to integrate their newsletters, email campaigns, and digital products with WordPress. The service is free for the user’s first 1,000 subscribers but offers more automated features and third party integration on…
WordPress’ Training Team is launching its first Learn WordPress Course Cohort, which is a social learning method where a group of people go through the learning process together with some synchronous group activities. One of the benefits of cohorts is the sense of community and connection that can develop between the participants, fostering more support…
WordCamp Asia 2024 is happening in Taipei, Taiwan, next year from March 7-9, at the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC). With the dates locked in and venue secured, organizers have now opened the call for speakers. The event will feature three days of talks, workshops, and networking events, and organizers expect more than 2,000 attendees. Talks will…