People have been asking if QR codes are dead for the past decade, but their relevancy has only increased as digital life becomes more vibrant. eMarketer forecasts that the number of US smartphone users scanning QR codes will increase from 83.4 million in 2022 to 99.5 million in 2025. QR codes are even more popular…
WebMan Design owner Oliver Juhas released the first version of the Abs – Additional block styles plugin on Monday. Unlike many block-related extensions, it does not offer any blocks of its own. Instead, it registers custom styles to enhance those packaged with core WordPress. In total, the plugin adds 18 styles. Some are specific to…
WP Migrate DB, a popular WordPress site migration plugin by Delicious Brains, has rebranded to WP Migrate with its latest version 2.3 release. The original name was always a bit of a mouthful but also became a less accurate representation of the plugin’s full capabilities as they grew over time. “This plugin has been capable…
Gutenberg 12.9 landed in the WordPress.org plugin directory today, and it is a beefy release, packed with a little something for everyone. Even after tinkering with new features over the last few days, I have yet to explore everything as much as I would like. Given the practical limitation of time, I will not be…
In the early days after the block editor landed in WordPress, block collection plugins exploded on the scene and were quick to rack up hundreds of thousands of users. Plugins like CoBlocks, Kadence Blocks, and Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg offer dozens of blocks in one package, focusing mostly on blocks not offered in core. WordPress.org’s…
After considerable pushback from the Plugin Review team, WordPress.org has removed a plugin called Zamir, which was created by a Russian developer to display the Z symbol in support of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The plugin gained attention after Gravity Forms founder and CEO Carl Hancock noticed that it was listed under the “New”…
Over the weekend, web developer Marie Comet released the Lock Reusable Blocks plugin. Since then, she has published a couple of more updates that polish that initial release. The extension blocks users from directly editing reusable blocks from the post-editing screen. Reusable blocks allow users to group one or more blocks in the post editor,…
I have a new favorite WordPress development-related plugin: Theme YAML. Sascha Paukner released it a mere day ago, and it may find its place in many theme developers’ toolboxes before long. It allows themers to write theme JSON in YAML format. To use, theme authors only need to create a new theme.yaml file and begin…
Newfold Digital, the parent company of Bluehost, Yoast, and Web.com, has acquired YITH, a WordPress plugin company with more than 100 WooCommerce extensions. YITH’s has more than 2.3 million active installs across its suite of products. The company hosts 31 plugins on WordPress.org, many that are lite versions with commercial upgrades. YITH’s most popular product,…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…