As WordPress currently powers 23% of the web, the platform’s security is constantly under scrutiny. WordPress has long been a favorite target of hackers and spammers who want to get the most return on their efforts. Since the the platform powers millions of websites, a critical vulnerability with a popular plugin or WordPress core can…
The WordPress.org Meta team is on a roll this month. Following the successful launch of the new theme directory, the plugin directory is getting the same treatment with a fresh coat of paint and a set of brand new features. Browsing the official plugin directory is now similar to searching via the admin plugin browser.…
Over the weekend, WordPress lead developer Andrew Nacin announced a major update to WordPress version stats for PHP, MySQL, and WordPress. While the stats page looks much the same as before, more sophisticated methods of collecting and processing the data have been put in place, thanks to the efforts of WordPress.org contributor Dion Hulse. The…
Those who host plugins in the WordPress plugin directory may have noticed a change to their plugin’s ratings. That’s because the ratings system has been reset and rebuilt by Samuel “Otto” Wood. The ratings now correspond exactly with reviews. According to Wood, the change has been two and a half years in the making: Back…
Press This is a bookmarklet tool that was added to WordPress 2.6 in 2008. You can access the tool by browsing to the WordPress backend and select the Tools menu. It acts as a small app that runs in the browser to quickly share content on the web. Press This is in the process of…
WordPress 4.1.1 is available and fixes 21 bugs. According to Andrew Nacin who published the announcement, 4.1 was a smooth-sailing release and has been downloaded over 14 million times within the last two months. One of the bugs fixed is an issue where a tag and a category with the same name could get muddled…
The Customizer Theme Switcher feature plugin was approved for merge today during the regularly scheduled WordPress core development meeting. Lead developers and contributors in attendance agreed that there are no major blocking issues. The Customizer Theme Switcher in WordPress 4.2 will make it possible for users to browse through themes that have already been installed…
Emoji characters were born in Japan in the late 90’s but took nearly a decade to break into global usage. They entered popular culture full force when select emoji character sets were incorporated into Unicode in 2010. Since that time, emoji popularity has grown, and there’s no denying that they are mainstream and here to…
In the past two years, there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding the WordPress REST API project. If you’re not familiar with it, Brian Krogsgard published a great article that explains what it is, how to get involved, and the possibilities it opens up to developers. Krogsgard believes the REST API is “the most exciting…
Since Automattic was founded in 2005, it has acquired several businesses, services, products, and people. In August, the company will be 10 years old and I thought it would be interesting to see if the acquisitions the company has made are still around. The list is organized from earliest to latest. Gravatar Gravatar stands for…
This week, Nick Halsey officially proposed the Customizer Theme Switcher feature plugin for merge into WordPress 4.2. Halsey summarizes the goal of bringing theme switching into the customizer: “By integrating themes directly into the Customizer, live-previewing workflows are greatly simplified, and the relationship between themes and theme/site options is clarified for the user,” he said.…
In 2009-10, there was an intense debate between the co-creator of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, and the founder of DIY Themes, Chris Pearson. The debate centered on whether or not Thesis needed to be 100% GPL licensed. Thesis lifted lines of code from the core of WordPress, which some people claimed made Thesis a derivative of…
WordPress 4.2 development officially kicked off today at the regularly scheduled core development meeting. Andrew Nacin announced that 10up engineer Drew Jaynes will be leading the release. Jaynes, who has contributed to every major release since 3.3, recently led the initiative to create inline documentation for every hook in WordPress. He will be accompanied by…
Whether it’s businesses participating in charity work or individuals who need financial assistance, the WordPress community has repeatedly shown how generous it is. Here’s at look at some WordPress businesses that participate in philanthropy and individuals who experienced the community’s generosity first hand. Matt Mullenweg Co-creator of WordPress Matt Mullenweg is a strong believer in…
When we asked readers what they thought of the new Distraction-free writing mode in WordPress 4.1, a majority of readers responded that it was an improvement. However, a number of others stated they preferred the old version. Readers also took to the comments to describe their first impression of the feature. Since the release of…