Back in March, I explained how to connect WordPress powers sites to Apple News. After three weeks of being in the system, here is what I experienced. Stuck in Limbo After configuring the plugin and successfully getting WP Tavern approved on Apple News, I thought that articles published on the site would automatically publish to…
The team behind AffiliateWP is celebrating its second anniversary today. The plugin and its suite of add-ons has rapidly become one of the most successful products in the WordPress ecosystem under the leadership of Pippin Williamson and his team. Williamson, who is known for his yearly transparency reports, shared that AffiliateWP was the fastest of…
Authorities have not yet identified the hacker behind the Panama Papers breach, nor have they isolated the exact attack vector. It is clear that Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm that protected the assets of the rich and powerful by setting up shell companies, had employed a dangerously loose policy towards web security and communications.…
Today GitHub announced a new feature that allows project owners to block abusive users from public repositories. Users who are blocked will no longer be able to open or comment on issues or pull requests, nor will they will not be able to add or edit any of the project’s wiki pages. Blocked users are…
During the 2015 State of the Word address, Matt Mullenweg shared a few stats that demonstrate the growth of the global WordPress community. A total of 89 WordCamps with 21,000 attendees were held across 34 countries in 2015. This week WordPress community organizer Andrea Middleton published a more thorough breakdown of 2015 stats. She noted…
The WP REST API team released version 2.0 beta 13 of the feature plugin today. This release includes a couple of breaking changes, JavaScript client updates, and many other fixes and improvements. Developers who use the plugin in their projects can expect it to follow a more stable release cycle in the future, as beta…
Last month WordPress contributors approved accessibility coding standards for the core handbook. All new and updated code will need to conform with WCAG 2.0 level AA guidelines. With WordPress core moving firmly in the direction of accessibility, its new guidelines set the bar for themes, plugins, and websites built on top of the platform. Text…
Jetpack 3.9.5 was released yesterday with compatibilities for the upcoming WordPress 4.5 release and a handful of enhancements/bug fixes. Shortly after issuing the routine maintenance update, the Jetpack team began receiving reports of random, unwanted videos being added to the comments of posts. Any number string in the comments was automatically converted into a Vimeo…
WordPress.org is second only to WordPress.com in Google search results for “WordPress,” followed by the project’s download, about, and featured themes pages. Unfortunately, visitors to WordPress.org land on an outdated website that doesn’t accurately represent the vibrance of the WordPress project and its strong community. As the face of the open source project, WordPress.org is…
A Day of REST, the first conference dedicated to the WordPress REST API, was held in London at the end of January 2016, hosted by the events team at Human Made. Attendees offered overwhelmingly positive feedback after the conference finished, with 81% of the 221 participants saying they would attend again. The event’s organizers announced…
The official plugin directory is arguably the best place to host a plugin if you’re looking for the widest distribution, but it’s also one of the most inhospitable for developers. A current meta team initiative is focused on improving search, including prioritizing translated plugins for international users, and streamlining plugin submission, among other improvements. This…
The 31st Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference was held in San Diego, California, last week. Every year thousands of attendees gather to share knowledge and best practices for technology that removes barriers for people with disabilities. This year Rian Rietveld was recognized by Knowbility.org for her accessibility contributions to WordPress core. She…
Modern Tribe, a top digital agency with a collection of popular plugins on WordPress.org, announced that it has acquired GigPress. With 20,000+ active installs and more than 260,000 downloads, GigPress is one of the most widely used plugins for musicians and performers who want to manage events with WordPress. Despite the plugin’s solid placement in…
HeroPress.com, where inspirational essays are published each week from people across the world is one year old. In a post celebrating the milestone, Topher DeRosia highlights some of the site’s accomplishments throughout 2015. Authors from eighteen countries have published essays including, Lebanon, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, and more. There are twice as many men as…
Ed Finkler is on a mission to raise mental health awareness in the tech community with his Open Source Mental Illness (OSMI) campaign. In 2013 Finkler started speaking at conferences and gathering information on mental health in the tech workplace. His goal is to provide resources and documentation that companies can use to create more…