I do not know how I overlooked LIQUID SPEECH BALLOON. The plugin is less than a month shy of being three years old, and I follow block-related projects religiously. This one slipped through the cracks, at least until I haphazardly stumbled upon it when searching for something else entirely. It is also relatively popular for…
Sometimes the sweetest things in life are the simplest. Automattic’s latest block theme landed in the review queue yesterday, and I had to give it a spin. What I found was a minimally-elegant design that I fell in love with. Really. I even dedicated an entire demo post on my install to it: Well, that…
Extendify has simplified access to its pattern library with a new plugin that offers patterns and full-page layouts for WordPress sites using Gutenberg-friendly themes. The company has high expectations for the product, publishing it under the name “Extendify” as its flagship free plugin in the official directory. Although a different version of the pattern library…
WordPress 5.9 is set to launch on January 25, and many users will be in for a surprise. The upcoming release will be the most monumental shift in how the platform works since the introduction of the block-based content editor in 5.0. Block themes, global styles, and the site editor will kick-start a new future…
The advent of block themes delivers more creative power into the hands of users, but there are times when theme authors may want to lock down key elements of a design and its designated content areas. First introduced in Gutenberg 11.6, the upcoming WordPress 5.9 release will include a new API for locking blocks. Template…
Mounting concerns about loose safety protocols at upcoming WordPress events, and the prevalence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, have prompted the Community Team to be more explicit in its COVID-19 safety guidelines. The team is proposing additional measures previously not required. Currently, in-person attendees are required to be fully vaccinated, recently tested negative, or…
Nine years ago, the customizer had a rocky start among theme authors and users. Despite this, it has become the standard for modifying the look and feel of a website. Developers have become comfortable with the API. Users have grown accustomed to adjusting colors, fonts, and even internal WordPress options through it. However, it will…
In July 2020, Bing released its first official plugin for WordPress that allowed site owners to submit URLS and get their content indexed immediately, instead of waiting for the search engine to crawl the site. The IndexNow API, which debuted in October 2021, is the next evolution of the Bing URL submissions API, created by…
Yesterday, Kelly Choyce-Dwan released a souped-up Spacer-type block. However, instead of just empty space on the screen, end-users can decorate the area with various gradient backgrounds. Grainy Gradient Block is just the type of plugin that I look forward to tinkering with. It is not complex. It stays in its lane. And, it is just…
Earlier today, a new editor plugin named Markup Markdown landed in the WordPress directory. It replaces both the classic and block editors with a Markdown solution. It is the first plugin by an author simply known as Peter, or @peter202202. As someone who almost always writes in Markdown, I did not think twice about downloading,…
WordCamp organizers are responding to community concerns this week, as the more highly transmissible Omicron variant surges in many locations around the world. With WordCamp Birmingham less than a month away, the event’s COVID precautions came under greater scrutiny this week, as organizers work to adapt to the changing pandemic landscape. Yesterday, the event’s masking…
The first Gutenberg plugin release of the year contains loads of features. Developers should enjoy a completed core blocks reference. Group block spacing controls offer more layout flexibility, and a new Post Author Name block has arrived on the scene. Overall, the site editing experience is shaping up. The latest release adds a couple of…
Yesterday, Anariel Design’s third block theme, Bricksy, went live in the WordPress.org directory. Ana Segota, the co-founder and self-proclaimed “creative motor” of the company, has almost become a master at block-based theme design at this point, and this project is just her showing off her skills. I actually took the theme for a spin over…
After 10 years in the WordPress ecosystem as one of the most popular plugin businesses, Yoast is branching out with a new SEO app for the Shopify market. The app will offer Shopify merchants a set of optimizations for search results and Google Shopping, automatically add structured data, and allows users to optimize for desired…
WordPress sites may soon see a slight performance improvement on page loads, thanks to a fix for a performance regression in the core lazy loading feature. An analysis published in July 2021 showed that lazy loading applied too aggressively can have a negative impact on performance and that it’s better to eagerly load the images…