The new Gutenberg editor has an open ticket for allowing users to sort blocks via drag and drop. Blocks can currently be sorted with up and down arrows located to the left of the content but the beta only allows for single-column stacking. One of the goals for Gutenberg is to provide “a page building…
Gutenberg development is marching ahead with version 0.3.0 released today. New releases are shipping out on a weekly basis, so testers will get to discover another round of new additions after updating to the latest. The changelog has a full list of the 50 additions and improvements included in this release, but here’s a quick…
At WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to speak with WordCamp Netherlands organizers Marcel Bootsman and Luc Princen, along with WordPress Global Community Team members Josepha Haden and Andrea Middleton. The group has had several conversations about the future of WordCamp Netherlands, which was shut down earlier this year in favor of city-based WordCamps, and…
WooCommerce 3.1 was released today after four weeks of beta and RC testing. Although it is just a minor update, the release was a large undertaking with 1,600 commits from 84 contributors. The most exciting feature in 3.1 is the new built-in product importer/exporter that supports CSV files, a feature previously offered through extensions. The…
Testing Gutenberg Outside of the WordPress' Developer Community is Critical to Its Success
For the past several months we have received inquiries about Automattic’s open source Underscores starter theme. After six months of no commits to the GitHub repository and pull requests left unanswered, users and contributors were beginning to wonder whether the project was abandoned. After contacting Automattic to get a status update on Underscores, the company…
While attending WordCamp Europe I met Catalina Alvarez, a Master’s degree student at Paris 8 University, who is studying Occupational Psychology and Human Resources. She is in the process of writing her thesis about WordPress community health, with a focus on “autonomous motivation as a moderator in the Demands-Burnout relationship.” Alvarez is conducting a survey…
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the WordPress open source project and CEO of Automattic, joined Pippin Williamson and Brad Touesnard on episode 81 of the Apply Filters podcast. Apply Filters is a podcast dedicated to WordPress development. During the interview, Mullenweg touched on a number of topics including, a progress report on the three core focus…
The Gutenberg plugin is moving fast with version 0.2.0 now available. This is the first release since the plugin was added to the directory last week. It includes two new block types, along with other new features, improvements, and fixes for many bugs that previously severely impaired the editor’s usability. A new Custom HTML block…
Matt Mullenweg, the overall product lead for core releases in 2017, has published an overview for what users can expect in WordPress versions 4.9 and 5.0. After the success of 4.8 and the initial release of Gutenberg last week, Mullenweg is aiming to see the plugin installed on 100K+ sites during the next few months…
One of the featured sessions at WordCamp Europe 2017 was Om Malik’s interview with Matt Mullenweg, followed by a 20-minute Q&A from the audience. After showing a preview of the new Gutenberg editor with dynamic blocks replacing widgets, Mullenweg announced that it is now available as a plugin on WordPress.org. Gutenberg has been in development…
WordPress’ Marketing Team has launched a set of surveys to gather case studies and usage data from agencies, clients, and enterprises, with the goal of providing more resources for adoption. The Usage Survey was created to capture feedback on the factors that influenced an organization to select WordPress as well as any barriers to using…
WPHierarchy.com is a WordPress resource created by Rami Abraham in 2013. The site is an interactive version of Michelle Schulp’s colorful diagram of WordPress’ template hierarchy. Each template is linked to documentation that explains its function. Over the years, WordPress’ template hierarchy has changed. For instance, paged.php no longer comes after archive.php. The site however, hasn’t kept…
Belgrade, Serbia will host the sixth edition of WordCamp Europe, June 14-16, 2018. Prior host cities include Leiden, Sofia, Seville, Vienna, and Paris. Attendees and the massive 221-person volunteer crew gave their enthusiastic approval when organizers announced the event would be returning to Eastern Europe next year. View this post on Instagram A post shared…
WordCamp Europe was held this weekend in Paris, bringing together 1,900 attendees from 79 countries. Another 1,000 people joined via livestream from 77 countries to make a total audience of 2,900 participants from 92 countries. The number of attendees on the ground was about one third less than original estimates of 3,000, but everyone who…