Hi!

Our team celebrated Diwali 🪔 and indulged in some delectable sweets. Also, our Black Friday article is now live.

WordPress 6.4 is finally here and brings in a host of new features along with improvements. WordPress 6.4.1 was released after 24 hours to fix the cURL bug.

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

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📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.4 “Shirley” released

The third major release of 2023 is here and is named after Shirley Horn, an iconic American jazz singer and pianist. The new version introduces a new default theme, improvements to the command palette, and so on.

• Main query loop handling for block themes in 6.4: The post covers a change introduced in WordPress 6.4 as to how the main query loop is being handled for block themes.
• WordPress 6.4 improves server response time by ~4%: This, combined with additional frontend optimizations, leads to improvements to Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)—an important Core Web Vital.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 17.0?: The latest release brings updates to the command palette with improved contextual suggestions when editing patterns, additional visual cues for LinkControl, and more.
• What’s new for developers? (November 2023): This roundup post covers all the changes that have already landed in WordPress 6.4 along with some features that are still in development.
• Merging Performant Translations into Core: The core performance team is working hard to merge Performant Translations into the core in time for the next 6.5 release.
• Proposal: cancel core editor chat: Based on the several developments that have occurred in the past two years, combined with other findings, the proposal seeks to cancel the core editor chat. The discussions are open for a duration of three weeks.
• Proposal to change weekly meeting time: A doodle poll is now live to determine the new day and time for the test team weekly meeting. This is being done to boost participation as well as to avoid overlapping with the release cycle parties (Beta/RC).
• Twenty-One merged PRs for WP-CLI Hack Day 2023: The second WP-CLI Hack Day saw twenty-one pull requests that were merged and an additional four pull requests that were submitted but aren’t yet merged.
• An update to the core commit message format: The post provides an outline of the updates made to the core commit message format.
• OpenAI announces data partnerships: The goal of this program is to work together with organizations to produce public and private datasets for training AI models.

🗣️ TALK OF THE TOWN

WordPress 6.4 Crashing Sites

• WordPress 6.4 crashing sites using Oxygen page builder: An official Oxygen Facebook group admin posted that they are looking into what is causing Oxygen sites to crash.
• WooCommerce Stripe plugin breaks with WordPress 6.4: Tom Sommer shared a manual hot fix.
• Andrew Robbins tweeted about the WP 6.4 bug that “prevents WordPress plugin and core updates, breaks downloads, and causes the WP REST API to timeout” and SpencerForman was very vocal “it’s like ONE PERSON just pushed a completely untested piece of sh*t into core”. To John Blackbourn “it looks like the next outreach program that the WordPress community needs to do is to get Curl updated everywhere.”
• Brian Jackson advised investing in quality hosting and having an update schedule while Calvin Alkan wondered whether all are “just going to ignore that some of the largest WP hosting companies are running 10 years out of data cURL versions and then go around and blame WP Core?”
• Andrew Palmer swore this “There is no way I would be a contributor to #WordPress I get enough crap thrown at me for being a product owner from #WordPressers”.
• WordPress 6.4.1 maintenance release: It was released after 24 hours of WordPress 6.4 and fixes four bugs in the core.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (October 30, 2023 to November 5, 2023)

There were 79 vulnerabilities disclosed in 64 WordPress plugins.

• Arbitrary attachment render to XSS in Elementor Plugin: An authenticated cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could allow a user with a minimum user role of a contributor to inject arbitrary JavaScript code into the website was patched. All users are to update to the latest version immediately.
• OpenAI resolves periodic ChatGPT and API outages caused by DDoS attacks: The DDoS attack caused an abnormal traffic pattern.
• WordPress vulnerability report — November 8, 2023: Weekly report from SolidWP.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Twenty Twenty-Four theme

The latest default theme was introduced with WordPress 6.4 with 8 style variations. The publisher of The Repository Newsletter, Rae Morey tweeted “WordPress 6.4 and Twenty-Twenty Four are a match made in heaven!” while Tareq Hasan dubbed it “the first professional looking WordPress theme”.

• The Canvas theme: A block theme with 11 style variations.
• Apartment Blocks theme: A theme designed for real estate and property management websites.
• Mixtape plugin: The plugin allows readers to effortlessly notify site staff about found spelling errors.
• Live auto refresh plugin: The plugin instantly reloads the browser when any theme file code is edited during development or when a content edit is saved which enables the developer to see the updated version of the website in the browser.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• InstaWP announces partnership with Melapress: The new partnership will result in the WP 2FA plugin being available in the InstaWP dashboard, thereby improving the security of the websites created.
• Jack Kitterhing announced yet another acquisition: KB Support a WordPress Helpdesk and knowledge base plugin, has been acquired by Jack Kitterhing.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Wordfence launches bug bounty program to fund WordPress security research and showcase researchers

The program will provide security researchers with financial rewards for finding vulnerabilities, and for disclosing them privately to Wordfence’s program.

• Patchstack is introducing Patchstack Priority: Patchstack Priority is a new vulnerability scoring system aimed at providing a clear representation of the seriousness of security vulnerabilities.
• Jetpack 12.8 – Jetpack Creator launch and more: The release introduces Jetpack Creator, improvements to how character counts for SEO title and SEO descriptions are displayed, and includes bug fixes and improvements.
• WPBakery 7.2 introduced new AI website building assistant: The key features of the AI include the ability to generate text, improve text, translate, and also to generate code.
• ProjectHuddle is now SureFeedback: ProjectHuddle which was acquired by Brainstorm Force in 2021 has completed its rebranding to SureFeedback.
• Grab the limited lifetime deal from Essential Blocks Pro: The lifetime deal that starts at $99 provides 50+ advanced blocks, 5000+ Ready Templates, 5+ Premium Blocks, and more.
• Puneet Sahalot Memorial Scholarship: WordCamp Udaipur is announcing the Puneet Sahalot Memorial Scholarship, established to support WordPress enthusiasts who wish to attend WordCamp Udaipur but may face financial constraints.
• Mullenweg confirms Tumblr failed but not closing: Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic confirmed that despite spending $100 million dollars Tumblr failed to achieve a turnaround. Recently Matt Mullenweg also hosted an AMA session on Tumblr about its future and different approach for 2024.
• Milestone for Yoast Care Fund: Yoast Care Fund has reached a 100 interviews milestone and the latest recipient is Alexander Gounder.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• Plugins: What a B*tch: From Half-Elf on Tech
• Free versus premium: From Post Status
• WordPress 6.4 new features explained via X thread: From Rich Tabor
• How managed hosting can support a WordPress multisite network: From WebDevStudios
• Understanding CSRF attacks and locking down CSRF vulnerabilities: From Patchstack
• Marieke van de Rakt on uniting the WordPress community for a stronger future: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• What you need to know about hashing in Python: From Kinsta
• Yumi ‘Mimi’ Nishioka: Breaking barriers and building local community: From Hostinger
• Which is better, Elementor or Bricks?: From Pootlepress
• Black Friday & Cyber Monday ecommerce security threats: From Sucuri
• SEO basics: What is thin content?: From Yoast
• Search evolved: Exploring the AI-powered world of Google’s SGE: From Yoast
• List Of 16 GPT SEO AI tools publicly available right now: From Search Engine Journal

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• Working faster with the command palette: From Learn WordPress
• Introducing the twenty-twenty-four theme: From Learn WordPress
• Exploring WordPress 6.4: From Learn WordPress
• Rapid WordPress dev setups with wp-now: From Siegfried, deploy 
• How to hide a page title in WordPress: From RankMath

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• WordCamp Udaipur on November 25, 2023: The call for speakers and sponsors is now open.
• WordCamp Ahmedabad on December 9, 2023: The second batch of tickets will be out on Oct 25th.
• NextGen Jakarta 2024: The event will take place on 27 January 2024. The call for volunteers is now open.
• WordCamp Asia on March 7-9, 2024: WordCamp Asia is searching for its 2025 location.

🎁 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

• 30% off at Cloudways  (promo code- TREAT23)
• 70% off for NordLocker
• 40% off for HappyAddons
• 50% off for FluentBooking‘s Early Bird Lifetime License Deal
• 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
• Upto 55% off hosting plans at Nexcess
• 85% off at AtlasVPN 
• 40% off for Fluent Forms plugin
• 50% off at Formidable Forms
• 40% 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
• 77% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India (Coupon Code – SUNSHINE)
• Up to 74% off on 24 month VPS Plans at Liquid Web
• 50% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

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