Hi!

We are back after our annual team meetup more motivated than ever. We are one of the media partners for the upcoming WordCamp Asia 2024.

The roadmap to WordPress 6.5 has been published and hopefully, we get to see the font library feature soon. Also, WordPress 6.4.2 was released and the plugin preview is now available to the developers.

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

Roadmap to 6.5

A glimpse into all the new features and changes set to arrive with WordPress 6.5 has been published. We can expect an all-new font library, support for appearance tools in classic themes, improved pattern management with classic themes, new APIs, and so on.

• WordPress 6.4.2 maintenance & security release: This release includes seven bug fixes in the Core as well as a security fix that patches a remote code execution vulnerability.
• State of the Word 2023 recap: The post provides a quick recap of everything that happened at the State of the Word 2023, and most notably a new project introduced by Matt Mullenweg for 2024 called Data Liberation. WP Tavern also did a quick roundup of the event diving a bit deeper.
• Plugin previews are now available for opt-in: The plugin developers are now able to enable the preview button for public users on their plugins.
• Meet your 2024 Training Team representatives: The Training Team representatives for 2024 are Laura Adamonis, Benjamin Evans, and Destiny Kanno.
• Election process and nominations for MakeWP Marketing Team Reps 2024: The nominations are open till December 19 and the voting process will follow a new approach with ranked-choice voting.
• Proposal: Default theme task force for 2024: This post proposes the creation of a contributor working group with the goal of tackling the Bundled Theme component ticket backlog, focusing on one or two themes at a time.
• Recap: WordPress 6.4 “Shirley” retrospective: This post summarizes the feedback received with regard to the WordPress 6.4 release cycle.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 17.2?: The latest update brings sticky table headers and pagination, improvements to the toolbar in distraction-free mode, and various other fixes.
• Raising the minimum version of MySQL required in WordPress 6.5: With the release of WordPress 6.5 the minimum required version of MySQL will be raised from 5.0 to 5.5.5.
• What’s new for developers? (December 2023): This edition provides updates on experiments, enhancements, and bug fixes.
• Design Share: Nov 20-Dec 1: The design team has shared an update on a few projects they have worked on over the past couple of weeks.
• Grok AI launched: The AI platform from xAI is now available to a limited number of users in the United States.
• Google introduces Gemini and updates Bard with Gemini Pro: Gemini is Google’s most advanced AI model, with multimodal understanding, advanced reasoning of complex topics, expert coding skills, and more.
• OpenAI investigates ‘lazy’ GPT-4 complaints on Google Reviews, X: Google Reviews highlighted mixed experiences with GPT-4, account issues, and an allegedly volatile work environment.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

Critical vulnerability in Elementor affecting 5+ million websites

 An authenticated arbitrary file upload vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.

• WordPress vulnerability report — December 6, 2023: Weekly vulnerability report from SolidWP.
• Wordfence intelligence weekly WordPress vulnerability report (November 27, 2023 to December 3, 2023): There were 124 vulnerabilities disclosed in 123 WordPress Plugins and 2 themes.
• Update ASAP! Critical unauthenticated arbitrary file upload in MW WP Form allows malicious code execution: An unauthenticated arbitrary file upload vulnerability was patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.
• Critical unauthenticated remote code execution found in Backup Migration plugin: A remote code execution vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.
• Mozilla VPN security risks discovered: The audit revealed vulnerabilities of medium or higher severity, ranging from Denial of Service (DoS). risks to keychain access leaks (related to encryption) and the lack of access controls.
• Zoom privilege escalation vulnerability via improper authorization: Zoom issued an urgent security advisory about a flaw in the Zoom client that could allow a user to gain higher level privileges and access that they are not authorized for.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Smartlog theme

A theme that is suitable for business websites.

• Blockskit Corporate theme: A multipurpose theme with 10 style variations.
• Charity Blocks theme: A theme suitable for charitable organizations and non-profits.
• Env indicator plugin: A plugin that shows the environment type on the admin bar.
• WB Content Stats plugin: With this users can showcase the post’s word count, character count, and reading time.
• Media experiments plugin: This experimental plugin aims to bring improved media capabilities to WordPress.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Introducing Crosswinds Framework

Jacob Martella has launched the Crosswinds Framework and at the core is a free base theme and blocks plugin and over 50 patterns that allow users to create a multitude of websites with ease.

• The annual WPGivesAHand is now open: This year the event will take place from December 25th to December 31st and all the companies that take part in the event will donate a percentage from every sale in this time frame to charity.
• Katie Keith shared how the Black Friday sales impacted their revenue: The sales helped them reach their best monthly revenue of $178k (the previous best being $136k), and compared to last year’s sale, this is 16% more. Also, the Barn2plugin team has launched a new merch store.
• Syed Balkhi sheds light on the Easy Digital Downloads acquisition: The post on X dives deep into the acquisition history, the improvements they have made, and what’s in store for the future.
• The WP Awards 2023 published: The results of this year’s WP Awards have been published. There were 27 categories and to name a few winners, Elementor is the best page builder, Gravity Forms is the best form plugin, and RankMath won the SEO plugin category.
• David Waumsley is leaving the WP Builds podcast: After 7 years, David Waumsley will no longer be a regular host on the podcast.
• Shusei Toda receives the Yoast Care fund: Shusei Toda a prominent member of the community and one of the organizers of WordCamp Asia 2023 is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care fund.
• The Kinsta website gets a revamp: Kinsta has undergone a redesign, however, a few of the users still prefer the old look and have expressed their concerns.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• LGBTQIA+ inclusivity: Human Made’s getting louder & prouder: From Human Made
• Plugins: D.M.C.A: From Half-Elf on Tech
• Exploring color and typography presets derived from WordPress theme style variations: From Rich Tabor
• My WordPress origin story: From Matt Cohen
• Why you should start using Plugin Check now: From Pascal Birchler
• How to contribute to WordPress as a non-developer: From The WP Minute
• How many Automattic products is too many?: From The WP Minute
• Artemy Kaydash on exploring AI and how it will alter the workplace: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• Rebranding your WordPress plugin business with Robert Abela: From Doo the Woo
• Syed Balkhi & Spencer Forman discuss the future of WordPress: From WPLaunchify
• Mastering Google Search: Using search operators for SEO: From Yoast
• Voice-to-text: The future of search?: From Yoast
• 20 Docker commands you need to know: From Kinsta
• Understanding categories and tags: A comprehensive guide: From Rank Math
• Year in search 2023: Google’s top trends & 25-year time capsule: From Search Engine Journal

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• A walk-through tutorial on using create block theme plugin: From WordPress Developer Blog
• Creating a one-page website: From WordPress TV
• How to fix the “parse error: syntax error, unexpected” in WordPress: From Rank Math
• How to disable PHP execution and directory browsing in WordPress?: From Patchstack

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• Kolkata CareerCamp 2024: The event will take place on 6th January, Saturday, 2024.
• 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: The third batch of tickets was released and are still available. WordCamp Asia is also 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

• 40% off for 4 months on all hosting plans + 40 free migrations at Cloudways  (Coupon Code – BFCM4040)
• 70% off for NordLocker
• 45% 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)
• 85% off for plugins at WPPool
• Up to 77% off hosting plans at HostPapa
• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• Upto 55% off hosting plans at Nexcess
• 86% off at AtlasVPN 
• 20% 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 67% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 77% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India (Coupon Code- SUNSHINE)
• Up to 85% off at Liquid Web
• 68% 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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