In this episode Tammie Lister, who has a deep history with WordPress and themes, discusses the evolution of WordPress theming, the concept of Full Site Editing, and its adoption challenges. She highlights the importance of experimentation and adaptability in themes, the underestimated impact of block themes and theme.json, and envisions a future where themes might…
The article delves into the popularity of WP.org themes, employing a lighthearted approach and original metrics such as “usage rate” and “enthusiasm gap” to assess user preferences and enthusiasm for different WP themes.
Now that WordPress 5.3 Beta 1 is open for testing and with the official release slated for November 12, it’s time for theme authors to begin making sure their themes are ready for several changes. Most work will revolve around the block editor. WordPress 5.3 will include versions 5.4 – 6.5 of the Gutenberg plugin,…
I began using WordPress in 2005. I’d already been learning HTML and CSS for a couple of years. I even had a home-brewed blog that pulled posts from plain text files at one point. I knew enough JavaScript to do pop-up alerts and other annoying things that served no purpose and made for a poor…
Two weeks ago, Justin Tadlock published a proposal on behalf of the Theme Review Team to create a set of standardized packages that theme authors can drop-into their themes. This week, the team has released two feature packages that illustrate what the project is trying to accomplish. The first is an Autoloader that provides the…
As Gutenberg nears a merge with WordPress, Theme Authors are running out of time to ensure that their themes are compatible. The Gutenberg handbook has an excellent article on how to opt-in and add support for enhanced features. Most themes will present the default blocks without any issues as the blocks themselves provide their own…
WooCommerce 3.3.1 is available and fixes template conflicts discovered in a handful of WordPress themes that forced the team to revert WooCommerce 3.3. The team reviewed handful of the most common themes running WooCommerce and tested them for compatibility with 3.3.1. WooCommerce developers recommend that theme authors use hooks instead of template overrides to ensure…
Earlier this year, WordPress.com launched an experiment giving Business plan subscribers the ability to install third-party plugins and themes. Automattic concluded the experiment earlier this week and officially made the features part of the subscription plan. “With support for plugins and third-party themes, WordPress.com Business users will be able to connect their sites to great…
This post was contributed by Rebecca Gill. Rebecca is the founder of Web Savvy Marketing, a web development, design, maintenance, and SEO consulting company based in Michigan and host of the SEO Bits podcast. Rebecca recently sold her Genesis Theme store to 9seeds, a store she managed and maintained for five years. In this post,…
One of the most important things that distinguishes self-hosted WordPress from WordPress.com is the ability to install custom themes and plugins. A recent change to WordPress.com’s Business Plan removes this limitation, allowing customers to install most third-party plugins and themes. In a WordPress.com support thread created in February, a user asked how to install plugins…
Astute testers may have noticed a new feature in WordPress 4.7 beta 1 that enabled users to search, preview, and install themes from within the customizer. This feature was part of five feature projects related to the customizer that were approved for merge last month. Its goal is to unify the theme browsing and customizing…
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Marcus Couch and I are joined by Chip Bennett, Jose Castaneda, Tammie Lister, and Edward Cassie who are members of the WordPress Theme Review Team. We learn why the team exists, its goals, and what the process is for getting a theme into the official directory. The team clarified…
WP Contributions is a new plugin by Dustin Filippini, Damon Cook, and WebDevStudios that displays WordPress contributions via widgets. Widgets included are: Contributions to the Codex WordPress Core Contributions Featured Plugin Featured Theme Once activated, browse to Appearance > Widgets to access the new widgets. You’ll need to know your username for WordPress trac and…
If you’re brand new to bbPress, you may not know about some of the ways it can be extended beyond being a simple forum. Additional functionality can be added with plugins, its output can be manipulated through CSS, and development is easy to keep up with. Even though bbPress has a getting started guide available,…
In an effort to inspire WordPress theme designers and add a variety of new themes to the directory, the WordPress Theme Review Team is hosting a Design Challenge Weekend, December 13-14th. The challenge is meant to do the following: Raise the design standard of the WordPress.org theme directory. Match developers to designers. Encourage designers to…