Last week, Kalimah Apps released its Editor Block Outline plugin to the WordPress plugin repository. The idea is simple. The plugin adds a bordered outline to each block in the document along with their associated labels. For some users, this will help them navigate more complex layouts. There is little information available about Kalimah Apps…
Google’s Rich Results Test came out of beta in July with support for all Google Search rich result features like carousels, images, or other non-textual elements. At that time, Google announced it would be deprecating the Structured Data Testing Tool, which SEOs, developers, and site owners have relied on for testing structured markup and troubleshooting…
Jonathan Desrosiers, a WordPress core committer and software engineer at Bluehost, has published a new workshop titled “How to Use Trac” on the Learn WordPress platform. The 20-minute video offers a crash course on the ticket tracking software that WordPress relies on to manage core development. Trac is also used for contributing to WordPress’ meta…
For some people, Christmas arrived a couple of days early. Gutenberg 9.6 launched with its first iteration of drag-and-drop blocks from the inserter. There are some other enhancements like vertical buttons, heaps of bug fixes, new APIs, and other improvements. But, let’s be real. The ability to drag blocks from the inserter into the content…
Kjell Reigstad announced the Photo Blocks theme on December 9. It is a part of an ongoing set of experimental work from the WordPress Theme Experiments repository on GitHub. It is essentially a testbed of ideas that are helping to propel the upcoming block-based theming era. In the past few months, I have covered the…
Shutterstock has released an official plugin for WordPress. The 17-year old company is as old as WordPress itself but this is the first time it has provided convenient access to its library inside the admin. Seven years ago, Shutterstock released a plugin for affiliates using a third-party development company, but it failed to gain much…
As I said last week, 2021 will be the year of the site editor. Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word confirms it. WordPress 5.7’s release planning is focused on it. It has been a long journey getting to this point, and it will be a much longer adventure afterward. The ultimate promise of the work…
If the 2020 State of the Word address was any indication, WordPress is moving full steam ahead to land full site editing in 2021. The 5.7 release cycle kicked off this week with the proposed scope centered around full site editing via Gutenberg. Matt Mullenweg will be leading the release and the rest of the team…
My question to you is how you see the future (or even the present) of integrating software with WordPress and when you should make the distinction of going the integration vs. native approach. In other words, with the vast ecosystem of WordPress plugins out there, how can a website owner discern which responsibilities WordPress the…
WordPress enthusiasts around the world tuned into Matt Mullenweg’s annual State of the Word address this week, delivered virtually for the first time. Mullenweg recognized the community’s efforts in working together during a global pandemic, without the benefit of periodic in-person events that have traditionally re-energized collaboration on the project. During a most unusual year…
Contact Form 7 has patched a critical file upload vulnerability in version 5.3.2, released today by plugin author Takayuki Miyoshi. The plugin is installed on more than five million WordPress sites. “An unrestricted file upload vulnerability has been found in Contact Form 7 5.3.1 and older versions,” Miyoshi said. “Utilizing this vulnerability, a form submitter…
All hands on deck. 2021 will be the year of the Site Editor. Anne McCarthy announced the official start of the Full-Site Editing (FSE) Outreach Program last Friday on the Make Core blog. The program is primarily geared toward end-users. With few channels for average users to communicate with the development team, this offers an…
Mapbox GL JS, formerly an open source JavaScript library for interactive, customizable vector maps, has adopted a proprietary license in its recent version 2 update: mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license. By upgrading to this release, you are agreeing to Mapbox terms of service. Refer to LICENSE.txt for the new licensing terms and details.…
Block-based themes are not complicated. Their structure is almost simple enough that developers are unlikely to need a tool to generate a blank theme. However, for those unfamiliar with how themes are built for the upcoming full-site editing (FSE) feature, a boilerplate is a good place to start. The Theme Experiments repository now has a…
WordPress.org has officially launched its new “Learn WordPress” platform, a free educational resource that includes courses, workshops, quizzes, lesson plans, and discussion groups. The material spans the spectrum of WordPress experience from beginners to advanced, and and allows users to learn asynchronously at their own pace. After a successful beta launch in August, the platform…