Hello!

WordPress 6.5.3 was released which addresses quite a few issues and also adds a new alert notifying users to refresh the page once a plugin installed as a way to address the Ajax plugin activation challenges. Also, a few features set to arrive with WordPress 6.6 are ready for testing.

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

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Client Billing by Cloudways, Omnisend and WP Job Openings

Client Billing by Cloudways

Introducing Client Billing by Cloudways! Streamline, automate, and white-label invoices. Accept payments via Stripe. Try now!  →

Omnisend

Boost your sales with email & SMS—without breaking the bank
Check it out  →

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 6.5.3 maintenance release

This minor release features 12 bug fixes in Core and 9 bug fixes for the block editor. This release also addresses the Ajax plugin activation challenges by adding a new alert notifying the users to refresh the page after a plugin installation.

• Recap: WordPress 6.5 “Regina” Retrospective: The post summarizes the feedback received from the WordPress 6.5 retrospective. Also, the anonymized form responses have been shared for the public to take a closer look at.
• Early opportunities to test WordPress 6.6: A few of the features set to arrive with WordPress 6.6 are ready for early testing, ahead of the beta phase. Anne McCarthy has outlined how to set up the testing environment and which features and changes are ready for testing.
• Proposal: WordPress Hosting Directory: The project’s goal is to create //make.wordpress.org/hosting/directory/ where filtering can be done based on various needs, displaying a list of companies and products. Filters might include the type of hosting (shared, VPS, cloud, etc.), whether WP-CLI access is available, or the type of energy the servers use.
• Core Editor Improvement: Upgrade your designs: An overview of the various new design tools and their possibilities that have shipped in the last few Gutenberg releases slated to arrive with the upcoming WordPress 6.6.
• Merge proposal: Preferred languages: The proposal seeks to merge the Preferred Languages plugin into the core with the release of WordPress 6.6. Josepha Haden Chomphosy supports this merge proposal and her request is to focus on the user flow/UX so as not to overcomplicate anything.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 18.3: The latest version brings negative values for margin controls, adds defaultFontSizes option to theme.json, and more.
• Progress report: HTML API: An update on the progress of the HTML API has been provided and the current objectives are to complete the HTML Processor, work on the virtual nodes, and eliminate text decoding problems.
• Plugins: Add “Community” and “Commercial” descriptions to search archives: Discussions are going on to add descriptions to the “Community” and “Commercial” categories in the search archives.
• Meta launches AI-powered ad creativity tools: Meta’s latest update will allow advertisers to automate parts of ad creation using brand products and guidelines to inspire the creations.
• Google launches new ‘saved comparisons’ feature for Analytics: Google announced a new tool for Analytics to streamline data comparisons. The ‘saved comparisons’ feature allows you to save filtered user data segments for rapid side-by-side analysis.

🗣️ TALK OF THE TOWN

Modern WordPress – Yikes!: David Bushell shared his disappointment with the modern WordPress themes. He finds “Modern themes are this weird code-within-code unmaintainable inception that looks like AI LLM generate garbage.” This has created a lot of discussion and several community members expressed their opinion. Calvin Alkan posted on X and seemed to support David’s view, saying, “Yikes indeed”. Emmanuel ARNOUD says, “True, it’s always easier to criticize than to build, but it remains that this article further diminishes the faith I have in #WordPress as of 2024…”. Hendrik Luehrsen also chimed in and said, “The issues shown in the article are why I don’t think that FSE will be picked up in the professional world.”

Later David Bushell published an update and he concluded “Gutenberg is a failed experiment. The core architecture of WordPress is a broken, tangled, unmaintainable mess.”

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (April 29, 2024 to May 5, 2024)

Last week, there were 159 vulnerabilities disclosed in 141 plugins and 7 themes.

• High priority vulnerabilities patched in Uncode Core plugin: Two vulnerabilities were recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.
• WordPress vulnerability report — May 8, 2024: Weekly vulnerability report from SolidWP.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Dawson theme

A portfolio theme specifically tailored for photography.

• Pulitzer theme: A minimal blog theme designed for writers, with special consideration for newsletters.
• Tronar theme: A simple blog theme.
• Article Reading Time plugin: The plugin accurately calculates the estimated reading time for your articles, providing your readers with a clear expectation of the time investment required.
• CocoPopup plugin: A popup builder plugin.
• Duplicate Post and Clone Page plugin: A plugin for effortlessly duplicating your WordPress site’s posts and pages.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• StellarWP acquires LearnDash add-ons from WisdmLabs: WisdmLabs LearnDash add-ons are the newest acquisition to join the LearnDash suite of online learning and training solutions.
• Convesio acquires WooCommerce marketing automation platform Growmatik: Convesio has acquired Growmatik, a marketing automation tool for WordPress and WooCommerce.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

WP Community Collective and GoDaddy launch fellowship program to promote underrepresented WordPress speakers

The initiative aims to support and promote underrepresented speakers at regional and flagship WordPress WordCamps, providing a platform for diverse voices within the community.

• 2024 WordPress Hosting Survey: The survey conducted by WPShout saw the participation of over 1800+ people who were asked about their web hosting service providers and the quality. The results show Hostinger as the most popular host.
• Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2024: The 13th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is scheduled for Thursday, May 16, 2024. The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than One Billion people with disabilities/impairments.
• A new block: Dark mode toggle: Rich Tabor has created a new WordPress block that allows users to add a toggle to switch between light and dark mode.
• Introducing Markdowner: A new project from Dhravya Shah, Markdowner is an open-source tool to convert any website into LLM-ready markdown data.
• Astha Jain receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community: Astha Jain 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

• WordPress turns 21: From GoDaddy
• Have we reached “peak” WordPress?: From James Giroux
• Plugins: Do better: From Half-Elf on Tech
• Can WordPress run Doom? (of course it can, here’s how): From Rhys Wynne
• 8 Vibrant animated background effects for WordPress sites: From WPBakery
• One year on the plugin review team: From Francisco Torres
• Hostinger Sustainability Report 2023: Making a social impact: From Hostinger
• Paolo Belcastro on how AI is shaping WordPress wordflows: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• When should WordPress devs learn version control?: From Brian Coords
• Integrating SvelteKit with headless WordPress: From Kinsta
• What is a web application firewall (WAF) for WordPress?: From Jetpack
• How to get more value from site visitors with A/B testing: From Yoast

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• Building plugins and themes that support multisite: From WordPress TV
• Advanced multisite management: From WordPress TV
• Writing functional tests for WP-CLI Packages: From Delicious Brains
• How to create a MySQL database for WordPress: 5 methods: From Melapress
• How to build a WordPress theme with React: From Kinsta

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• Page Builder Summit on May 20-24, 2024: The speaker lineup has been published.
• WordCamp Europe on 13-15 June 2024: The call for sponsors is live.
• Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024 on July 5th, 2024: Organized under the theme, “Problem Solving With WordPress”, it is a dynamic next-gen event that brings together high school and university students. The call for sponsors and projects is now live.
• WordCamp Canada on July 11-13, 2024: The call for volunteers, and sponsors is now open.
• Stellar Spark on July 19, 2024: A free online event with a focus on growth, creativity, collaboration, and more. The call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp US on 17-20 September 2024: The tickets are now available.
• WordPress Accessibility Day on Oct 9-10, 2024: The call for speakers is now open.
• 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 50% off on EchoRewards PRO.
• 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
• 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 69% 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

Latest from WP-CONTENT.CO

---

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Client Billing by Cloudways, Omnisend and WP Job Openings

Built with Newsletter Glue.