In July 2020, Bing released its first official plugin for WordPress that allowed site owners to submit URLS and get their content indexed immediately, instead of waiting for the search engine to crawl the site. The IndexNow API, which debuted in October 2021, is the next evolution of the Bing URL submissions API, created by…
Yesterday, Kelly Choyce-Dwan released a souped-up Spacer-type block. However, instead of just empty space on the screen, end-users can decorate the area with various gradient backgrounds. Grainy Gradient Block is just the type of plugin that I look forward to tinkering with. It is not complex. It stays in its lane. And, it is just…
Earlier today, a new editor plugin named Markup Markdown landed in the WordPress directory. It replaces both the classic and block editors with a Markdown solution. It is the first plugin by an author simply known as Peter, or @peter202202. As someone who almost always writes in Markdown, I did not think twice about downloading,…
WordCamp organizers are responding to community concerns this week, as the more highly transmissible Omicron variant surges in many locations around the world. With WordCamp Birmingham less than a month away, the event’s COVID precautions came under greater scrutiny this week, as organizers work to adapt to the changing pandemic landscape. Yesterday, the event’s masking…
The first Gutenberg plugin release of the year contains loads of features. Developers should enjoy a completed core blocks reference. Group block spacing controls offer more layout flexibility, and a new Post Author Name block has arrived on the scene. Overall, the site editing experience is shaping up. The latest release adds a couple of…
Yesterday, Anariel Design’s third block theme, Bricksy, went live in the WordPress.org directory. Ana Segota, the co-founder and self-proclaimed “creative motor” of the company, has almost become a master at block-based theme design at this point, and this project is just her showing off her skills. I actually took the theme for a spin over…
After 10 years in the WordPress ecosystem as one of the most popular plugin businesses, Yoast is branching out with a new SEO app for the Shopify market. The app will offer Shopify merchants a set of optimizations for search results and Google Shopping, automatically add structured data, and allows users to optimize for desired…
WordPress sites may soon see a slight performance improvement on page loads, thanks to a fix for a performance regression in the core lazy loading feature. An analysis published in July 2021 showed that lazy loading applied too aggressively can have a negative impact on performance and that it’s better to eagerly load the images…
In the dawn of the block theme era, the WordPress theme directory could use a reimagining. That is what Munir Kamal set out to do before WordPress 5.9 launches later this month. He announced an alternative theme directory on the Gutenberg Hub website earlier today. It lists all the block themes that are officially hosted…
Matt Mullenweg’s 2021 State of the Word address was held in New York City nine days ago with a live studio audience. On Sunday, December 19, all in-person attendees were notified by email that they were possibly exposed to COVID-19 after one of the attendees tested positive. Although proof of vaccination was required at the…
WordPress 5.9 beta 4 was released this week with fixes for 20 bugs since beta 3. There are a few important changes to note in this release regarding how the WordPress admin will direct users who are exploring block themes. Prior to a fix in beta 4, it was possible for users to switch to…
Brian Gardner announced today that WP Engine has acquired his latest project, Frost. In an email sent out to all customers, Gardner said his team had issued refunds to all current customers. The business model is changing, and Frost will be a freely-available project going forward and focus on full site editing. Frost is a…
Some Gutenberg plugin releases feel like heavy-hitters with new user-facing features. Others, such as today’s version 12.2 update, smooth over problems and create a more well-rounded experience. Switching between the site editor and templates is smoother. The color picker is no longer a hot mess. And, border controls now use the tools panel approach of…
Last week, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy opened a discussion on how many releases the project will aim for in 2022. “Given that we have a release in January already, I wonder if we might be able to use 2022 to attempt four releases,” Haden Chomphosy said. She proposed three different release schedules: Quarterly…
More than half of all WordPress sites (50.5%) are using translations for non-English speaking locales. It’s only natural that these users would want the ability to register, log in, and reset their passwords in their own languages. A new language switcher on the login screen has finally made its way into core, four years after…