Hello!

After a week’s delay, WordPress 6.5 will be released later today. It arrives with a new Font Library, new APIs, and a host of improvements and enhancements as always. Also, the call for volunteers for the upcoming WordPress 6.6 is now open.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.5 Release Candidate 4

The RC4 is now available and we can expect WordPress 6.5 to be released later today.

• WordPress 6.5, originally slated for release on March 26, will be released today: WordPress Core Committer Jonathan Desrosiers has shared that this change is in response to community feedback on the Font Library and Synced Pattern Overrides, and Font Library follow-up posts.
• WordPress 6.6 planning proposal & call for volunteers: The call for volunteers for the second major release of WordPress in 2024 is now open.
• Providing more clarity in the Gutenberg GitHub Repo: An overview of the work done to make the Gutenberg GitHub labels more reliable, more consistent, and easier to follow.
• Hallway Hangout: Data Liberation discussion and brainstorm: The upcoming Hallway Hangout scheduled on Thursday, Apr 4, 2024 will cover the Data Liberation topic.
• Recap Hallway Hangout: Using site editor in production for client sites: A quick overview of the recently concluded Hallway Hangout that discussed how do agencies and freelancers adjust their workflow and tooling to provide a consistent experience for their clients.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 18.0: The latest version brings the ability to set side-wide color and typography choices, improvements to data views, and more.
• A proposal to update the full site editing tag for block themes has been opened: Anne McCarthy has opened a new ticket to propose renaming the “full site editing” tag to something more focused on site editor or site editing.
• Design Share: Mar 11-Mar 22: The design team has shared an update on a few projects they have worked on over the past couple of weeks.
• Advertisers sue Meta for allegedly inflating ad viewership in $7 billion lawsuit: The advertisers claim they were unfairly charged inflated premiums to serve ads on Facebook and Instagram.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

State of WordPress Security in 2024

According to the report, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) accounted for 53.3% of all new security vulnerabilities found in the WordPress ecosystem. It was followed by Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities at 16.9%, and Broken Access Control at 12.9%.

• WordPress Astra Theme vulnerability affects +1 million sites: Astra WordPress theme with +1 million installs quietly patched a possible XSS vulnerability according to security researchers.
• Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin vulnerability affects +2 million sites: Rank Math SEO plugin with over 2+ million users recently patched a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability that makes it possible for attackers to upload malicious scripts and launch attacks.
• Unauthenticated stored cross-site scripting vulnerability patched in WP-Members Membership plugin: The vulnerability that allows threat actors to inject arbitrary JavaScript via the X-Forwarded-For header, used by the plugin for logging purposes was recently patched.
• Elementor WordPress plugin hit by 6 vulnerabilities: Security researchers issued an advisory on six unique XSS vulnerabilities discovered in the Elementor Website Builder and its Pro version that may allow attackers to inject malicious scripts.
• 2M+ WordPress sites hit by Essential Addons for Elementor vulnerability: Two Stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities could allow attackers to inject malicious scripts into WordPress sites. Users are advised to update to the latest version immediately.
• 15 vulnerabilities in 11 Elementor Addons hit +3M WordPress sites: Researchers have issued advisories for eleven separate Elementor add-on plugins with 15 vulnerabilities that can make it possible for hackers to upload malicious files.
• WordPress vulnerability & patch roundup March 2024: Monthly report from Sucuri.
• WordPress vulnerability report — March 27, 2024: Weekly report from SolidWP.
• Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (March 18, 2024 to March 24, 2024): There were 91 vulnerabilities disclosed in 78 plugins and 3 themes.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Jaida theme

A theme suitable for blog websites.

• Bohoma theme: A multipurpose theme.
• Cafe Eatery theme: A theme suitable for cafes, bistros, restaurants, and eateries websites.
• Freight Modifier plugin: The plugin allows administrators to modify shipping rates based on specific settings
• Reading Progress Bar plugin: The plugin adds a progress bar to your blog posts, allowing readers to see how much they have scrolled through the content.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• InMotion Hosting partners with Codeable to expand WordPress development services: This strategic collaboration aims to grant InMotion Hosting customers access to an elite network of WordPress and WooCommerce professionals, adept at handling projects of varying sizes and complexities.
• Canva acquires Affinity: Canvas has acquired Affinity, a creative software platform.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Introducing WP CLI Dev

 A new project by Enrique Chavez, WP CLI Dev is an alternative to the official WP-CLI documentation, offering a modern and user-friendly guide to mastering the command-line interface for WordPress.

• Introducing a new extension to facilitate Woo.com product updates: To better align with WordPress.org’s guidelines, the team is transitioning Woo.com extension and theme update functionalities from WooCommerce core to a new extension, Woo.com Update Manager. The plugin will be released on April 9th, 2024 alongside WooCommerce 8.8.
• Atlas VPN to sunset on April 24, 2024: Atlas VPN has announced that it will sunset its service on April 24, 2024, and all premium users will be transitioned to Nord VPN.
• WordPress for Minecraft leaked: An alpha version of Minecraft WordPress edition, codename Project PressCraft, has been found on a testing device.
• Marketer’s Guide to WooCommerce: The new guide from Filter Agency is focused on e-commerce and explores why WooCommerce could be the ideal platform for your business.
• The ultimate guide to online forms: All new book from Jotforms covers everything you need to know about online forms.
• InMotion Hosting wins the Winter 2024 Leader Award in web hosting from SourceForge: InMotion Hosting is the winner of the Winter 2024 Leader Award from SourceForge, the world’s largest software reviews and comparison website.
• Introducing new pricing for Wordfence CLI!: The new pricing starts at a base price of $119 for the first 100 sites, add on additional sites at increments of 100 with price-per-site dependent on the total number of sites.
• Surendra Shrestha receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community: Surendra Shrestha, a member of the WordPress Community Team is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care Fund.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• 7 Animated website effects and how to recreate them on WordPress: From WPBakery
• In the presence of new rationale, good maintainers change their mind often: From Aaron Jorbin
• Processing one billion rows in PHP!: From DEV Community
• Why I’m excited about WordPress again: From Rafal Tomal
• Plugins: How not to report: From Half-Elf on Tech
• WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com: Which one is right for you?: From WPBakery
• A microcosm of the interactions in open source projects: From Rob Mensching
• Are your websites designed with privacy in mind? Privacy by design: From The Admin Bar
• WordPress file permissions: Everything you need to know: From Torque
• Object-oriented programming in PHP: Transforming WordPress development: From Kinsta
• Can holistic SEO and trending content coexist?: From Yoast
• All about Core Web Vitals: INP (Interaction to Next Paint): From Yoast
• Shawn Hooper on launching WordCamp Canada (WCEH): From WP Tavern Jukebox

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• How to work effectively with the useSelect hook: From WordPress Developer Blog
• How to register custom font collections for the Font Library: From WordPress Developer Blog
• How to use WordPress React components for plugin pages: From WordPress Developer Blog
• Using block variations with the block bindings API: From Brian Coords
• How to create a backup of your WordPress site using cPanel: From Jetpack
• Extracting a site from multisite into a standalone WordPress site: From Koen Reus

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• Networking at WordCamps on May 13, 2024: This event by Support Inclusion in Tech will help you make the most of your WordCamp experience. Ticket sales go to 1 local SiNC speaker applicant.
• WordCamp Europe on 13-15 June 2024: The call for speakers, volunteers and sponsors is live. The call for photographers is now open.
• WordCamp Canada on July 11-13, 2024: The call for speakers, volunteers, and sponsors is now open.
• WordCamp US on 17-20 September 2024: The tickets are now available.
• WordCamp Asia on February 2025: The event is in the early planning stages and the call for organizers 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

• 40% off for 4 months on all hosting plans + 40 free migrations at Cloudways  (Coupon Code – BFCM4040)
• 53% off for NordLocker
• Up to 75% off on plugins, themes and hosting at WP Hive
• 50% off on the Thrive Suite yearly plan.
• 50% off Web Hosting Packages at StableHost (Coupon Code – 50OFFYEAR1)
• 80% 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 75% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 83% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India (Coupon Code- SUNSHINE)
• Up to 74% off at Liquid Web
• 52% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

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