WordPress 5.6 is set to add a UI that allows users to opt into auto-updates for major versions of core. Previously, developers could turn these updates on by setting the WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE constant to true or by using the allow_major_auto_core_updates filter. Version 5.6 exposes this setting in the UI to make it more accessible for users. Jb Audras posted a dev note…
Last Thursday, Automattic announced its new Spearhead theme to WordPress.com users, which primarily focuses on podcasters. However, the team has marketed it toward content creators in general. It is a child theme of the company’s recently-released Seedlet theme. Cece Yu originally created the design for the Spearhead podcast, which is currently in use on the…
WordPress has opened its 2020 Annual Survey, a short set of questions designed to collect more information on how different groups of people are using the software. It takes approximately 5 minutes to complete and all data is anonymized. WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy said she uses the results from the survey to inform…
WordPress’ Core systems team had an eventful Friday when an error in the auto-update system caused sites to update to WordPress 5.5.3-alpha-49449, including live production sites with no auto-update constants defined. Those who received an email about the update logged into their sites to see the message: “BETA TESTERS: This site is set up to install…
Last Friday, Themes Team representative Carolina Nymark announced the Twenty Twenty-One Blocks theme project. It is a block-based version of the Twenty Twenty-One default theme that is shipping along with WordPress 5.6. It will work with the site editor available in the Gutenberg plugin. Developers will work on the two themes as separate projects. The…
Last week, WP Busters released its first plugin titled Passwordless WP. It is a project from full-stack developer Ilya Zolotov that allows end-users to log into their WordPress websites via Touch ID, Face ID, or pin. The goal is to make accessing a site easier and more secure. Zolotov built the plugin after checking his…
In what seems to be a never-ending onslaught of new features, Munir Kamal has released some major new features to his EditorPlus plugin in the last two updates. Version 2.0, which landed earlier today, includes a set of seven new blocks. The previous release showcased a create-a-block feature that puts more customization options in the…
Block patterns were one of the most exciting and transformative features introduced in WordPress. 5.5, giving users a giant head start on building pages by allowing them to insert sets of pre-designed blocks. Core now includes a handful of default patterns available in the block inserter but contributors are exploring the idea of expanding this…
If you have been testing the latest development version of WordPress in the past week or so, you may have noticed that the ability to drag and drop meta boxes seemingly disappeared. This is not a bug. Nine days ago, lead developer Andrew Ozz committed a change that requires end-users to click the “screen options”…
WordPress 5.6 is set to include a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-One, designed to give users a blank canvas for the block editor. The theme doesn’t fall under any particular category and is meant to be suitable for use across different types of websites. One new feature that has very recently come under consideration is…
Gutenberg 9.2 was released this week and is the last release of the plugin to be rolled into WordPress 5.6. It features the long-awaited video tracks functionality, closing a ticket that has been open for more than two years under development. Video tracks includes things like subtitles, captions, descriptions, chapters, and metadata. This update introduces…
ESLint, one of the most popular JavaScript linting utilities, quickly eclipsed more established early competitors, thanks to its open source license. The clear licensing enabled the project to become widely used but did not immediately translate into funds for its ongoing development. Despite being downloaded more than 13 million times each week, its maintainers still…
Themes Team representative Ari Stathopoulos is now officially the first theme author to have a theme in the directory that supports full-site editing (FSE). With a slimmed-down beta release of FSE shipping in WordPress 5.6 this December, someone had to be the first to take the plunge. It made sense for someone intimately familiar with…
WordPress.org has pushed out a forced security update for the Loginizer plugin, which is active on more than 1 million websites. The plugin offers brute force protection in its free version, along with other security features like two-factor auth, reCAPTCHA, and PasswordLess login in its commercial upgrade. Last week security researcher Slavco Mihajloski discovered an…
Earlier today, MakeStories launched version 2.0 of its plugin for creating Web Stories with WordPress. In many ways, this is a new plugin launch. The previous version simply allowed users to connect their WordPress installs to the MakeStories site. With the new version, users can build and edit their stories directly from the WordPress admin.…