Hi!

WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” was released last week with 6 Core contributors from our team 🎉 Did you update your website?

And Happy Independence Day to all our Indian friends🥳.Let’s celebrate the spirit of freedom and unity. 🎊

You can also subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Until next week,

Bye!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

---

Community Sponsors

WP Job Openings – Easy-peasy Recruitment Plugin.
Create a career page and start recruiting talents in a few minutes
Check it out  →

---

📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.3 “Lionel” released

The latest release of WordPress is here, named after Lionel Leo Hampton, who was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, and percussionist. This release marks the end of the Gutenberg Phase 2.

• Admin Design Kickoff: An update on the progress of the Admin Design has been provided by Automattic-sponsored product designer Saxon Fletcher. He has provided multiple images and videos that refer to the various concepts explored so far.
• WordPress Plugin Review Team addresses backlog of 900+ plugins, implements strategies to improve approval process: The queue for the approval of plugins drew attention when Marcus Burnette on Twitter posted about the waiting period after he submitted his plugin for review.
• An all-new landing page for WordPress 6.3, “Lionel”: The latest version of WordPress has its own landing page that quickly showcases some of the new features and changes.
• Introducing WordPress.org/blocks: A new page has been created on WordPress.org to tell the story of blocks, both within WordPress and as a broader framework for folks to consider with their next project.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 16.4?: The latest release includes a new auto-inserting block in its beta stage, a new progress bar component, new commands in the Command Palette, and a few more new features and enhancements. Also, The Gutenberg plugin’s minimum PHP version has been bumped from 5.6 to 7.0.
• The Inaugural Cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program has concluded: The program which commenced July 12th and concluded on August 9th, 2023 had a group of 13 contributors who were selected as mentees from a pool of around 50 applicants.
• Updating WordPress to use more modern versions of Node.js/npm: In order to continue contributing to WordPress through wordpress-develop or WordPress/Gutenberg, users will need to upgrade the version of Node.js to one that’s greater than or equal to 16.19.1 (the latest is currently (16.20.1).
• What’s new for developers? (August 2023): A quick overview of all the new features and changes that have landed in the current release whereas some are still only in the Gutenberg plugin.
• FSE Program Testing Call #25: Let’s start from the beginning: The goal of this testing is to see if the ability to build out all parts of your site without leaving the Site Editor has any issues.
• Automattic is on the list of the top 100 biggest private cloud companies of 2023: Automattic is number 68 on the list of the top 100 biggest private cloud companies of 2023.

🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week

weDevs addresses Privilege Escalation vulnerability in WP Project Manager WordPress plugin

A Privilege Escalation vulnerability in weDevs’s WP Project Manager plugin which allows an authenticated attacker to grant themselves administrative privileges by updating user metadata was patched.

• Multiple high and critical vulnerabilities in Avada theme and plugin: All the users of the Avada builder plugin and Avada theme should update to the latest version to patch multiple vulnerabilities.
• Kadence Blocks 3.1.11 includes patch for critical vulnerability: A critical vulnerability in the Advanced Form Block file upload capability has been patched. All users are advised to update to the latest version immediately.
• SiteCheck remote website scanner — Mid-year 2023 report: The mid-year report from Sucuri reveals that out of the scanned 54,743,804 websites, 628,085 sites were infected and 851,164 sites were found to contain blocklisted resources.
• Demystifying the WordPress vulnerability landscape: 2023 Mid-year Wordfence Intelligence WordPress vulnerability review leveraging ChatGPT: A mid-year vulnerability report from Wordfence.
• Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (July 31, 2023 to August 6, 2023): 29 vulnerabilities were disclosed in 24 WordPress Plugins in the last week.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes

Blue Note theme

This is the second WordPress community theme and is inspired by jazz and the record label “Blue Note Records”.

• Simply Zen theme: The theme is based on the Twenty Twenty Three theme Version 1.1 and modified under the GNU GPL.
• Gemma theme: A simple and modern block theme with responsive typography.
• Edit image thumbnails separately plugin: Separate editing of image thumbnails is deprecated and disabled since WordPress 6.3. This plugin re-enables editing of the thumbnail size of images separately.
• iFlair woo product filters plugin: The plugin allows users to add various product filters that will help customers to filter out their desired products.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from WordPress Community

WordPress Web Agency AI Summit 2023

Crocoblock is organizing a summit from September 28-30, 2023 to discover the practical use cases of AI in various fields such as marketing, design, web agencies management, and more.

• Page Builder Summit to take place in September: This year’s Page Builder Summit will take place from September 18-22 and will be an online event. The confirmed list of speakers is now live.
• Introducing Spectra Pro: Unleash your web design superpowers like a Pro!: Spectra Pro is here with brand new blocks, premium templates, dynamic content, a loop and popup builder, new animations, and a whole lot more.
• New WordPress Core Blocks Explorer: The WPHelpers team of Aurooba Ahmed and Brian Coords have introduced WordPress Core Blocks Explorer which allows one to explore all the WordPress core blocks and their properties in one place.
• UpdraftPlus releases free WordPress migration features: All users can now migrate their WordPress websites using the free UpdraftPlus plugin.
• ACF 6.2 Release – Options pages UI, bidirectional relationships and more: This release introduces the ability to create options pages right from the plugin admin UI in ACF PRO, as well as bring bidirectional relationship functionality natively to the plugin and more.
• Elementor 3.15 is here: The release introduces a new taxonomy filter widget, a new accordion widget with nested capabilities, more styling capabilities for Carousel widgets, and so on.
• Yoast SEO 20.13: A few more enhancements: This release mainly involves fixes for the SEO workflow as well as a compatibility update for WordPress 6.3.
• Introducing Divi AI: Powerful AI tools for WordPress creators: An AI-powered text and image generator built inside of Divi. The images can be created in various styles such as paintings, 3d animation, digital art, drawing, and so on.
• Gutena Forms Pro launched: The Pro version has been launched and a 14-day free trial for one site is now available on InstaWP.
• WordPress 6.3 a quick look at all the new features: Rich Tabor via a Twitter thread has covered all the new features in WordPress 6.3 that everyone needs to know.
• Interesting facts about WordPress 6.3: Aaron Jorbin has shared a few interesting facts via a Twitter thread in relation to WordPress 6.3.

INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More blog posts and podcasts from WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

• WordPress 6.3. My heroes, the release squad and contributors: From BobWP
• WordPress 6.3: A more intuitive way of working on your site: From Yoast
• WooCommerce vs. Wix: Pros, cons, and how to migrate your site: From WooCommerce
• 20 Website vulnerabilities & security threats you need to know: From WPScan
• 5 WordPress side projects to help you learn & grow: From Speckyboy
• The grumpy designer meets the outside world (again): From Speckyboy
• State of accessibility in WordPress 6.3 Gutenberg: From Alex Stine
• WordCamp Europe statistics: A decade in numbers (Infographic): From CodeinWP
• From WordPress to YouTube stardom: Jamie Marsland’s journey of growing an audience and building a brand: From Plugin.fm
• 8 Ways generative AI will have an impact on search and SEO: From Torque
• What would it take for a CMS to catch up to WordPress?:  From The WP Minute
• Tracking 20 years of search: From Search Engine Land
• 5 SEO use cases for the ChatGPT code interpreter plugin: From Search Engine Land

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• How to run the official product demos in WordPress release cycles: From Nomad Blog
• Exploring WordPress 6.3: From Learn WordPress
• Styling blocks: empowering users with CSS custom properties: From WordPress Developer Blog
• Testing your plugins for PHP version compatibility: From Learn WordPress
• How to use the spacer block: From Learn WordPress
• Common WordPress APIs: Global variables: From WordPress TV
• How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team: From WordPress TV
• Quick Tip: Using the did_filter Function: From WebDevStudios
• How to make automatic WordPress backups on the cloud: From Jetpack
• How to CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) with Laravel: From Kinsta
• Understanding Laravel Blade and how to use it: From Kinsta
• How to SSH into a Docker container: From Kinsta

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• The WordPress Community Summit on August 22-23, 2023: The Community Summit is an “unconference,” without slides, selected speakers, or planned presentations. 
• WordCamp US 2023 on Aug 24-26, 2023: Contributor day signup is now open.
• WordCamp Kathmandu on September 8-9, 2023: Call for sponsors is now open.
• WordCamp Malaysia 2023 on Sep 9, 2023: Call for speakers and sponsors is now open.
• WordCamp Rochester on September 30, 2023: Call for speakers and sponsors is now open.
• WordCamp Masaka on October 6-7, 2023: Tickets are available now.
• WordCamp Deutschland 2023 on Oct 19-21, 2023: Call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp Asia on March 7-9, 2024: Call for speakers is now open.

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Just the best deals of the week, again, handpicked by yours truly!

EXCLUSIVE DEALS

• 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
• 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)

OTHER DEALS

• 10% off on Crazydomains WooCommerce online store (Coupon Code- BUILDURSTORE)
• 50% discount on yearly and lifetime plans on Variable Inspector Pro
• Up to 50% off on plugins & PHP scripts at CodeCanyon
• Up to 40% off for CartFlows
• Up to 75% off on plugins, themes and hosting at WP Hive
• 50% off Web Hosting Packages at StableHost (Coupon Code – 50OFFYEAR1)
• 80% off for plugins at WPPool
• Up to 75% off hosting plans at HostPapa
• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• 55% off for Annual Hosting plans at Nexcess
• 85% off at AtlasVPN 
• 30% off for Fluent Forms plugin
• 50% off at Formidable Forms
• 20% off for FluentCRM plugin
• 50% off for WP Social Ninja plugin 
• Upto 95% off for PitchGround products 
• Upto 65% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 73% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India
• Up to 85% off on VPS plans at Liquid Web (Coupon Code – SUMMER85VPS)
• 50% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

Latest from WP-CONTENT.CO

---

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

Built with Newsletter Glue.