Jetpack 5.4 was released yesterday with many small enhancements to existing modules and an expansion of features for users on the paid plans. A new date picker field is available for the Contact Form, allowing administrators to request additional information such as project timelines, event reservations, or any other date-related (more…)
WordPress.com now supports seamless integration between Google Photos and the WordPress media library. Users can connect their Google accounts to have access to their photos when inserting an image. Google Photos has gained popularity due to its automatic tagless organization and free, unlimited backup for photos and videos up to (more…)
Jetpack 5.3 was released with compatibility for PHP 7.1, a task the Jetpack team has been working on since January 2017 after they received multiple reports of failures with PHP 7.1 when opcache was enabled. This interfered with XML-RPC requests and some users reported issues managing their sites from WordPress.com (more…)
Jetpack’s Contact Form module hasn’t seen too many changes since its first release (version 1.3) in 2012. It is easily one of the most compelling features included in the plugin and has long been overdue for a refresh. Today’s 5.2 release brings major improvements to the Contact Form module. Previously, (more…)
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Cody Landefeld, Senior web strategist and founder of Mode Effect. Landefeld describes some of the challenges that shop owners face and provides insight into a couple of WooCommerce projects Mode Effect has recently built. We discussed the future of (more…)
Automattic has been teasing its plan to add commercial themes to Jetpack for several months after introducing theme installation for self-hosted users from WordPress.com. In March, the plugin opened up access to all of WordPress.com’s free themes via the Jetpack Manage interface. All signs pointed to Automattic developing the infrastructure (more…)
WordPress.com is venturing into the realm of social media management applications with its latest feature that allows users to schedule Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates for individual posts. This goes beyond the basic Publicize functionality that automatically shares posts to connected accounts as soon as they are published, giving users (more…)
Late last year, Jetpack 4.3 unveiled a new admin interface written in React.js. The Jetpack team received feedback from more than 8K users before it was publicly released. While the old interface displayed all modules on one page, the new interface breaks up module management into sections. You can also access (more…)
Jetpack 4.9 gives self-hosted WordPress users access to some of the widgets that are available on WordPress.com. One of the most useful ones for European websites is the new EU Cookie Law Banner widget. The WordPress plugin directory has dozens of plugins related to cookie consent, but Jetpack users can (more…)
“Alexa, tell Blog Helper to create a new post called ‘Granny’s banana bread recipe.’” Imagine logging a new draft on your WordPress site using only your voice while working in the kitchen. That’s what Blog Helper, an Alexa skill, enables for WordPress.com and self-hosted Jetpack users. It is available for (more…)
Jetpack 4.8 was released this week with a settings redesign that is a continuation of the React.js-powered admin interface introduced last September. The new settings screen has been completely rearranged under a more simplified menu. “We went through every setting on WordPress.com and Jetpack to make sure it was necessary (more…)
Automattic’s mobile engineers released a major update to WordPress for Android this week. Last year the app’s users saw a growing disparity between the features available to self-hosted sites and those available to WordPress.com users. Not having the WP REST API in core was holding the app back from providing (more…)