Version 10.3 of the Gutenberg plugin landed yesterday. Users can now define a default Image block size. The development team also continued work on normalizing block toolbars, created a “theme” block category, and added a padding option to the Verse block. Contributors fixed over 30 bugs. However, the bulk of work went toward Full Site…
Anne McCarthy announced the fourth round of testing for the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program last week. This testing phase calls for users to build a restaurant-themed header via the Gutenberg plugin’s site editor. Testing is open to anyone, and participants should leave feedback by April 8. The testing process is broken down into…
WordPress contributors began discussing the possibility of a block pattern directory in October 2020, an idea that garnered enthusiastic support. The directory would offer a place to browse user-submitted patterns, as well as one-click installation of patterns from the block inserter inside the editor. Interface designer Shaun Andrews published the initial designs for the pattern…
GoDaddy Pro is launching its first virtual Expand event on April 27. The free-to-attend conference will focus on web professionals and will last until April 28. In February, GoDaddy re-launched GoDaddy Pro as a formal sub-brand of the company. The “Pro” branding was not a new outing. However, it was a fresh take on an…
Open Collective has launched Funds, a new funding infrastructure for funneling contributions to open source projects. Any open source project can receive contributions from a Fund, even those that are not listed on Open Collective due to having their own foundation or working with another fiscal host. The new feature was added to Open Collective’s…
I am uncertain of how I first came across the Meow Gallery WordPress plugin. It was a pinned tab in my browser for a while, but it has recently become one of those projects that I keep coming back to. I delight in the imagery of the Meow Apps brand, created by Japan-based software developer…
In early March, WordPress contributors began discussing the possibility of dropping support for IE11 in the near future after usage fell below ~1%. This week, the discussion’s facilitator, Héctor Prieto, confirmed the majority of participants are in agreement to move forward and set a timeline for discontinuing support. Contributors are now considering either the 5.8.…
Yesterday, 10up officially announced Convert to Blocks, a WordPress plugin for transforming classic posts into blocks. The goal is to provide users with a safe migration route for old content while removing the burdens of other options in the space. I briefly mentioned this plugin in an article covering bulk conversion in the Ask the…
GPL author Richard Stallman announced this week that he has rejoined the board of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which he established in 1985, and is not planning to resign a second time: “I have an announcement to make. I’m now on the Free Software Foundation Board of Directors once again. We were working on…
With the release of Editor Plus 2.7 in recent weeks, Extendify stamped its brand name on the plugin. The company officially acquired the plugin months ago. However, this was its first public outing as the new owner of a project that has seen a steady uptick in its popularity, recently surpassing 5,000 active installations. Extendify…
Joris van Montfort, a freelance WordPress developer, released the JVM Gutenberg Rich Text Icons plugin over the weekend. The goal was simple: allow users to insert icons nearly anywhere in the block editor at the click of a button. The plugin uses version 4.7 of the Font Awesome library out of the box. However, developers…
Chrome’s upcoming version 90 will use https:// by default in the address bar, bringing a significant improvement to security and loading speed. HTTPS adoption has shot up significantly over the past six years after Google announced in 2014 that HTTPS would be used as a ranking signal in search results. In February 2021, W3Techs found that 82.2% of websites…
Anders Norén’s new Eksell theme is now available for download from the WordPress Themes directory. Eksell was inspired by Swedish graphic designer Olle Eksell. It arrives a year and a half after Norén’s popular Chaplin theme was released. Last week Justin Tadlock published a preview of the theme while it was still making its way…
Like many others, I often have pinned tabs of all sorts of things in my browser. Some of them linger there for months. Others for years, I shamefully admit. Of the handful of Gutenberg-related browser tabs I have had pinned since late 2020, one of them finally had the sort of movement I have been…
Ulysses, the writing app for Mac, iPad and iPhone, released version 22 this week with support for updating WordPress posts as the headline feature. The app aims to provide a distraction-free writing experience and has offered the ability to export to WordPress for years. Ulysses began alpha testing the highly requested WordPress post updating feature…