Gutenberg 12.8 landed in the WordPress plugin directory earlier today. I have been tinkering with many of the features as they were committed over the last couple of weeks. There are some things that I am excited about. The Web Fonts API is something I have patiently waited months for, but the ability to quickly…
WordPress.org’s contributors are preparing to open the doors of the Pattern Directory to public submissions. Patterns’ transformative effect on page building in the block editor has made the feature important enough to earn its own directory in July 2021. For the past nine months, it has been limited to a small, curated selection of patterns…
GiveWP quietly released its new plugin, Donation Form Block for Stripe, in the WordPress directory last week. It is a standalone block that allows users to accept donations almost instantly. No complicated setup. Just install, activate, connect to Stripe, and play. I named the GiveWP plugin my favorite of 2019. The team behind the donation…
CSS-Tricks has been acquired by DigitalOcean, a cloud hosting provider popular among developers. Chris Coyier started the site in 2007 and will be working with DigitalOcean as an advisor during the transition before stepping back to focus on his other projects. “CSS-Tricks deserves more human muscle behind it than I’ve been able to provide for…
Background tools in Gutenberg are currently limited to the Cover block, but contributors are working on expanding support so that any block can opt into it. Discussions about the best way to do this have been happening for the past two years and now are gaining some momentum. “Right now it’s possible to add video…
Koji, a popular “link in bio” platform that provides apps to the creator economy, has launched a WordPress plugin for the block editor. The San Diego-based startup has raised $36.1M, most recently securing $20M in a funding round led by Jump Capital. Koji has attracted 150,000 users since its official launch in March 2021. It…
Patchstack has published its State of WordPress Security whitepaper with a summary of threats to the WordPress ecosystem recorded in 2021. The whitepaper aggregates data from multiple sources, including the Patchstack Vulnerability Database, the Patchstack Alliance (the company’s bug bounty platform), and publicy reported CVEs from other sources. In 2021, Patchstack recorded nearly 1,500 vulnerabilities,…
Block themes continue to trickle into the WordPress theme directory. Classic design submissions still outpace them by margins that make it look like blocks are not even in the race yet. However, some designers seek to pioneer this still-foreign space. Brian Gardner is not new to this. His latest theme, Avant-Garde, plays on the block…
WPExperts has acquired the Password Protected plugin from WordPress developer Ben Huson, author of nearly 20 plugins on WordPress.org. Password Protected was by far his most popular one with more than 300,000 active installs. The acquisition is hot on the heels of the company’s purchase of the Post SMTP plugin two weeks ago, another product…
Donna Cavalier announced the vision of WordPress.com’s marketplace earlier today via the site’s news blog. This future will include bringing more premium themes, plugins, and services to users. Automattic, the company behind the site, will be partnering with third-party developers to bring these commercial offerings to its customers. Plugin developers, theme designers, and WordPress service…
WordPress’ performance team has released a new feature plugin called Performance Lab that includes a set of performance-related improvements for core. The team, which formed just five months ago, is led by Yoast and Google-sponsored core contributors, and has had more than 250 people join its Slack channel, with many participating regularly in weekly chats.…
Anne McCarthy announced the launch of the Museum of Block Art earlier today via the Gutenberg Times blog. The site’s goal is to showcase creative uses of blocks and inspire the WordPress community to push the limits of what is possible with the block editor. The site showcases 22 pieces of block art from 11…
Tetsuaki Hamano released the Piano Block plugin for WordPress on Monday. It allows users to insert a piano-based interface into the editor for playing music. Mostly, it is just a lot of fun. Hamano launched RichText Extension, his first submission to the WordPress plugin directory, in the spring of 2020. At the time, block-related plugins…
WordPress core committer Jonny Harris merged a patch into WordPress core for a 12-year-old ticket that he says has the potential to bring “a massive effect on performance for custom pages.” The change, which will be included in the upcoming 6.0 release, stops unnecessary queries when developers are using the do_parse_request filter, thanks to a refreshed patch…
Another two weeks have flown by, and another Gutenberg plugin update is in the books. This release is not as feature-heavy as the last, but it feels solid overall. Other than one breaking issue, version 12.7 includes several nice-to-have enhancements. The latest update includes some early work for a new style engine. This is a…