Ryan Boren published a post to the Make/WordPress Core blog this afternoon, titled Trust, Live Preview, and Menus in the Customizer. In it he clarified the reasons why he and several other core contributors are committed to iterating the customizer and identified the feature as a means of building user trust through live previews. Being…
The Wapuu craze has spread far and wide. From its origin in Japan, to WordCamp London, and across the US, Wapuu has become quite the traveler. While the mascot has mostly represented WordCamps, site owners are creating a custom version of the mascot to represent their sites. Michelle Schulp, a graphic designer who runs Marktimemedia,…
WordPress agencies provide a critical connection point between users and the software by building custom solutions and guiding some of the more complex implementations. Yet client work is challenging, and many developers who work in it are concurrently planning their escape into product businesses. Growing an agency reliably is one of the more difficult business…
BuddyPress fans, mark your calendars! BuddyCamp Brighton, Europe’s very first BuddyPress conference, is just two months away. The event will be held at Clearleft’s 68 Middle Street venue on August 8, 2015. This venue has a maximum capacity of 60 people, so tickets are likely to sell out fast. BuddyPress lead developer Paul Gibbs and…
The WordPress Theme Review Team (TRT) is currently seeking feedback via three separate surveys on the review process, themes, and the directory. After weathering several months of increasingly negative community feedback, the team is now looking to users and theme authors to help shape its roadmap for the future. The team’s controversial decision to require…
WordPress 4.3 release lead Konstantin Obenland posted notes from this week’s core development chat, confirming that the Menu Customizer plugin has been conditionally approved to merge. The approval is pending a few conditions that will be required before officially merging it: Complete a11y audit. Address possible blockers. Merge php tests. Add JS tests. One of…
Easy Digital Downloads announced a major change to its themes marketplace today. All official EDD themes (those that are built by the EDD core team) are now 100% free. This includes half a dozen themes that are guaranteed to be fully compatible with EDD, including the new Vendd theme launching today. EDD support manager Sean…
WordCamp San Francisco has traditionally been one of the most important WordPress events of the year where Matt Mullenweg delivers his annual State of the Word address. Last year, he announced that the the event had outgrown the Mission Bay venue and that it would be expanding to become WordCamp US in 2015. Touch the…
Contributors on the Menu Customizer feature plugin are proposing its inclusion in WordPress 4.3. Nick Halsey posted the Customizer Team’s proposal last night, beginning with a summary of the purpose of moving menu management into the customizer: In the process, we hope to offer an updated design with improved user flow, a mobile-first interface, improved…
More than 38k plugins are available for free on the WordPress plugin directory. While the theme directory has a category for commercial themes, the plugin directory does not. When Matt Medeiros interviewed Matt Mullenweg earlier this year and asked if the plugin directory could turn into something similar to an app store, Mullenweg replied that…
The quest for the perfect WordPress admin search tool continues with yet another plugin designed to help you zip around the backend. Those who are familiar with Alfred for Mac will find many similarities in Aladdin, which was released today by Gerasimos Tsiamalos and the folks at CSSIgniter. Aladdin joins the ranks of Jarvis, WP…
WordPress.com announced major improvements to its Stats feature today. The new Insights tab gives users a bird’s eye view of posting activity and visitor trends. The Stats panel now displays all-time numbers for posts, views, visitors, and the day the site received the most number of views. Insights also calculates the most popular day of…
Sergej Müller is saying goodbye to WordPress after nine years and nearly three million downloads of his free plugins. Antispam Bee, his most popular contribution, is currently in use on more than 200,000 WordPress sites. Müller penned a farewell Gist on GitHub in his native German, which Caspar Hübinger was kind enough to translate into…
Three key provisions within the Patriot Act will expire at the stroke of midnight on Sunday. The Senate needs 60 votes in order to provide an extension or renew the provisions past June 1st. Section 215 of the measure is particularly controversial in that it allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect data from…
WordCamp Miami 2015 is taking place this weekend with a BuddyCamp kicking off today. The event sold out again this year and will have roughly 800 attendees, including a kids’ camp, convening at the Florida International University School of Business campus on Saturday and Sunday. If you weren’t able to make it to BuddyCamp, the…