Jetpack 3.3 is now available. The highlight of this release is the new centralized site dashboard feature that allows users to manage multiple Jetpack-connected WordPress sites and WordPress.com sites from one location in WordPress.com. The new dashboard is mobile friendly and includes the centralized posting feature that was introduced in Jetpack 3.2. It also allows…
Over the weekend, the security team at Sucuri discovered that more than 100,000 WordPress sites have been hit with the SoakSoak.ru malware campaign. This campaign has resulted in more than 11,000 domains being blacklisted by Google. SoakSoak modifies the wp-includes/template-loader.php file in order to inject Javascript, which contains the malware, into every page on compromised…
When Pippin Williamson launched Easy Digital Downloads in early 2012, he could not have predicted the success that the open source project is experiencing today. The core plugin is approaching half a million downloads and recently passed 100 contributors on GitHub. It provides the foundation for a profitable commercial marketplace of more than 190 extensions…
Have you ever wondered what CMS and eCommerce system Shark Tank contestants use? WP Engine used BuiltWith and looked at the websites of each contestant appearing on the show between seasons 1-5. They also manually investigated each site to determine some of the more complex setups. Factors WP Engine looked for include: if the site…
For over six years, the Google Earth API has enabled countless developers to build 3D mapping applications in the browser. Those days are over as Google announced on its developer blog that the API is deprecated and will officially retire December 12th, 2015. The Google Earth API is built on the NPAPI plugin framework which…
John James Jacoby’s crowd-funding campaign for development on WordPress’ sister projects is now closed and fully funded at $51,500. For the first six months of 2015, he will be working full-time to push the BuddyPress, bbPress, and GlotPress projects forward. Jacoby is essentially pioneering a new way of working as an open source developer funded…
If you’re brand new to bbPress, you may not know about some of the ways it can be extended beyond being a simple forum. Additional functionality can be added with plugins, its output can be manipulated through CSS, and development is easy to keep up with. Even though bbPress has a getting started guide available,…
Brad Parbs and his colleagues at WebDevStudios have created a new tool for the thousands of developers out there who utilize Varying Vagrant Vagrants for WordPress development. As Vagrant development environments are a daily staple of work life at WDS, the team needed a faster way for setting up new WordPress sites with VVV. Variable…
One of the oldest and simplest ways of accessing public opinion is through an up/down voting system. When offered in a controlled setting where everyone has the chance to vote, the system causes the best ideas to float to the top. Idea Factory is a plugin designed to make it easy for WordPress administrators to…
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Marcus Couch and I discuss what it would take for WordPress to lose its dominant market share position. We both agree that WordPress isn’t going anywhere soon but it’s something to be mindful of. We share our thoughts on the recommended plugins tab coming in WordPress 4.1 and whether…
WordPress made great strides in 2014 towards improving internationalization for the global community. WordPress 4.0 streamlined language management in the admin and brought language selection to the installation process. In the State of the Word address this year, Matt Mullenweg highlighted the importance of internationalization to the project when he said, “If WordPress is going…
bbPress is a 10 year old project that’s supposed to make it easy to attach a forum to WordPress. On the day after Christmas in 2004, Matt Mullenweg spent an entire weekend coding an alternative to miniBB, from the ground up that at the time, powered the WordPress support forums. bbPress was stand-alone software until…
When WordPress 3.0 introduced the ability for developers to register their own custom post types, the software became far more flexible for use as a content management system. This was a major turning point for WordPress, as it gave developers a standard way to structure custom content with core-supported features. Four years later, custom post…
BuddyPress 2.2 is shaping up to be an exciting release, packed full of new features for developers. Support for Composer will be included in 2.2, as well as a basic member type API, which will allow developers to create different user types. The upcoming 2.2 release will also introduce the ability for new activity items…
Several plugins are starting to spring up in the WordPress Plugin Directory to bring Google’s new No Captcha reCAPTCHA to WordPress forms. With public hatred for CAPTCHAs at an all-time high, Google finally put its efforts into redesigning the experience, replacing the distorted text with a simple checkbox. WordPress developers have been quick to take…