Hi!

WordPress 6.4 is set to arrive later today with a new default theme, features, and fixes. The end-user documentation tasks for WordPress 6.4 are still open.

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 Release Candidate 4 released

This unplanned RC4 release does not impact the general WordPress 6.4 release date, which is set to arrive later today.

• WordPress 6.4 Accessibility Improvements: This release addresses numerous issues that affect accessibility and general UI consistency, including many long-standing wp-admin bugs, such as a six-year-old issue adjusting the relative proximity of interface buttons “Delete Menu” and “Save Menu.”
• Proposal: 2024 Major release timing: The proposed dates for 2024 releases are Feb.13 for WP 6.5 Beta 1,  Jun. 4 for WP 6.6 Beta 1, and Sep. 24 for WP 6.7 Beta 1.
• Hallway Hangout: Issues Triage Extending Gutenberg: The upcoming Hallway Hangout on November 10th, will involve Tammie Lister, Fabian Kägy, and Birgit Pauli-Haack where they will be discussing what the stage is on getting more extensibility features, hooks, and filters into the block editor.
• Calling all WordPress Meetup Organizers around the world!: The post talks about the possibility of hosting an exciting in-person watch party event for the upcoming State of the Word which will be held in Madrid, Spain on December 11, 2023.
• Design Share: Oct 23-Nov 3: The design team has shared an update on a few projects they have worked on over the past couple of weeks.
• OpenAI introduces GPT-4 Turbo, Custom GPTs, Assistants API, and more:  OpenAI announced several new products and enhancements at the OpenAI DevDay event. This includes GPT-4 Turbo which offers 128k context windows, Assistants API, updates to GPT-3.5 Turbo, and more.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (October 23, 2023 to October 29, 2023)

 There were 109 vulnerabilities disclosed in 102 WordPress Plugins.

• WordPress vulnerability & patch roundup October 2023: Month-end report from Sucuri.
• WordPress vulnerability report — November 1, 2023: Weekly report from SolidWP.
• Announcing vulnerability scanning in Wordfence CLI 2.0.1 “Voodoo Child”: Wordfence CLI 2.0.1, codename “Voodoo Child” is a completely free WordPress server vulnerability scanning at a massive scale for both personal and commercial use.
• Know your malware part two – Hacky obfuscation techniques: The post covers more creative, or “hacky” malware obfuscation techniques in widespread use.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Hideo theme

A portfolio theme with 7 different theme styles and more than 20 block patterns.

• Moog theme: A theme with 25 style variations that are suitable for blog sites.
• Fotografie Blocks theme: A theme suitable for photography websites.
• Fast smooth scroll plugin: This plugin enhances user experience by enabling smooth scrolling for anchor links without the need for jQuery or other dependencies.
• Insert special characters plugin: A Special character inserter plugin for the WordPress block editor.
• Crosswinds Blocks plugin: The plugin adds blocks that can be used in posts and pages.
• Enable button icons plugin: A plugin to effortlessly add icons to button blocks in WordPress.
• Newspack plugin update checker plugin: This plugin helps users to keep tabs on updates to Newspack plugins that are only available on GitHub.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• Woo and Canal announce partnership: With the Canal for WooCommerce extension, merchants can easily sell third-party products in their Woo shops without adding or integrating new inventory.
• Brainstorm Force invests in LatePoint: LatePoint is a modern appointment booking and scheduling plugin designed exclusively for WordPress and used by over 21,000 businesses.
• Jack Kitterhing acquired two plugins: Jack Kitterhing via X has announced the acquisition of Check & Log Email and WP SMTP plugins. He has also hinted at a possible acquisition that will be announced soon.
• InstaWP partners up with LifterLMS: The partnership with LifterLMS provides everything to create, launch, and scale courses. They have also partnered up with Limit Login Attempts which will increase the website security by preventing unauthorized access.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Jetpack’s lazy loading feature deprecation

The changes introduced in the upcoming WordPress 6.4 and Gutenberg 16.6.0 release have led to conflict issues with the lazy loading feature. As a result, the feature will be disabled automatically with the update to WordPress 6.4+ or Gutenberg 16.6.0+.

• Meet Site Profiler from WordPress.com: Site Profiler is a fast, accurate, and ad-free tool designed to provide WHOIS and hosting information about any domain.
• Torsten Landsiedel will stop maintaining plugins at pluginkollektiv: Torsten Landsiedel via  X has announced his decision to no longer maintain plugins at pluginkollektiv, which is a community project dedicated to the maintenance and continuous development of Sergej Müller’s free plugins.
• FluentBooking 1.1.0: Sell your appointments with WooCommerce and more!: This version brings WooCommerce integration, personalization shortcodes for FluentCRM, Fluent Forms Conversational Form support, clone calendars, and more.
• Yoast SEO 21.5: Helping you block AI bots in premium: This version includes an option allowing users to block AI web crawlers, and various enhancements and fixes.
• App Store for AI: OpenAI’s GPT store lets you build (and monetize) your own GPT:  ChatGPT announced GPTs, which allows anyone to create custom versions of ChatGPT. Also, users will also be able to publish it on a marketplace called the GPT Store.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• Should you buy a pre-owned domain for SEO purposes?: From Rocket.net
• The future of selling plugins for WooCommerce: From the WP Minute
• Transparent salaries in WordPress: From Aaron Jorbin
• On funding and business success: From Post Status
• New Features chapter in the WordPress Theme Handbook: From WordPress Developer Resources
• How to make sure AI is a good fit for your WordPress product: From The WP Minute
• The Pros & Cons of Customizing WooCommerce: From Speckyboy
• WooCommerce 2024: Innovation or alienation?: From WP Mayor
• Why accessibility is important (in the time of AI): From Yoast
• Estela Rueda, Courtney Robertson and Javier Casares on the future of translating WordPress: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• Press This: WordPress search gets smart: From Torque
• WordPress security statistics: How secure is WordPress really?: From Torque
• Google News October 2023: From SEOPress
• 10 Essential gems for Ruby on Rails applications: From Kinsta
• How to avoid search marketing burnout: From Search Engine Land
• How Astra is making WordPress the top choice for business: From Search Engine Journal

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• How to add custom color options to blocks: From WordPress Developer Blog
• Working faster with the command palette: From Learn WordPress
• How to set a homepage in WordPress: From RankMath
• New hacked database guide: From Sucuri
• How to back up your WordPress database (and restore it): From Jetpack
• Mastering Git Hooks: Advanced techniques and best practices: From Kinsta
• How to optimize your product feeds with ChatGPT and FeedGen: From Search Engine Land
• How to boost 2024 SEO performance with pillar pages & topic clusters: From Search Engine Journal

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• WordCamp Montreal on November 8-9, 2023: Tickets are available now.
• Gaddy’s Award November 9, 2023: Registrations are now open for those who wish to attend the event where they will celebrate the winners of the first Gaady’s awards, honor the advances in digital accessibility, and support the work of the foundation.
• WordCamp Manila on November 11, 2023: The schedule is out.
• 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.
• 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

Latest from WP-CONTENT.CO

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Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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