Hi,
Welcome to the 55th edition of our Newsletter ๐ค
Itโs celebration time. Your favorite newsletter is turning 1. It was on February 09, 2021 that we send out our first Newsletter ๐
We thank all our readers for being with us on this WordPress journey. Youโre awesome โค๏ธ
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See you next week.
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๐ฐ LATEST WORDPRESS UPDATES
- Gutenberg 12.5 has been released: It introduces global styles variations, preserves adjacent button styling, and adds alpha transparency to color pickers.
- Feature Project Proposal – WP Notify: WordPress is currently lacking a fundamental mechanism: sending notifications to users to give them feedback about state changes in the system. Jonathan Bossenger wants to officially kickstart a Feature Project called โWP Notifyโ to address this issue.
- WordPress.com has a new home on YouTube: WordPress.com announced a brand-new WordPress.com YouTube channel.
- Community Team goals 2022: The team is attempting a process to gather more information around suggested goals and finalize high-impact action items for 2022, in a collaborative way.
- 2022 WordPress Community Support financial update: WPCS does have an adequate amount of cash on hand to meet the current needs of the program.
- FSE Program exploration: all things media: Since this is not quite a call for testing due to the lack of flows, focus less on finding bugs (although they are still welcomed) and more on thinking through things you wish would happen. You can engage with all of the items or just one of them. Anyone is welcome to contribute, and feedback is open until February 23.
- Comparing Patterns, Template Parts, and Reusable Blocks: Differences between the 3 terms.
- New tools from WordPress.com for creating beautiful sites: Over the next few weeks WordPress.com will be rolling out new tools out to all customers.
- Uberflip joins the WordPress VIP Technology Partnership Program: Uberflip is a content experience platform that empowers marketing and sales to create engaging, relevant content destinations quickly for every campaign, audience, and stage of the customer journey.
- Everything you need to know about Openverse and the WordPress Photo Directory: Check out the latest status of both.
- Sketch2Code: Transform any hand-drawn design into HTML code with AI. From Microsoft.
- Google says emojis wonโt hurt or help SEO: Google provides an update on the use of emojis in webpage titles and meta descriptions, saying theyโll neither hurt or help SEO.
- Google Ads introduces new recommendations for Discovery Campaigns: Google Ads rolled out updates to Discovery Optimization Score, auto-applied recommendations, and YouTube campaign optimizations.
- Google finally launches revamped Partners program: After nearly two years, the new Partners program requirements have taken effect and Google will notify all Partners of their current status.
- Google Calendar’s โAppointment Scheduleโ is good, not great: Google has a new feature that makes it easy to find a time to meet with someone.
- Google buying guides in search results: Basically this “buying guide” in Google Search lets you really drill into the options around what products you can buy based on your query.
- How Google Search understands human language: Google explains how its AI systems work to understand human language and return relevant search results.
- Facebook shifts focus to short-form video after stock plunge: Following the greatest single-day stock drop in recorded history, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to shift the companyโs focus to growing short-form video
๐จ Web security & Vulnerabilities
- North Korea hacked him. So he took down its internet: Disappointed with the lack of US response to the Hermit Kingdom’s attacks against US security researchers, one hacker took matters into his own hands.
- An insidious Mac malware is growing more sophisticated: MAC malware known as UpdateAgent has been spreading for more than a year, and it is growing increasingly malevolent as its developers add new bells and whistles. The additions include the pushing of an aggressive second-stage adware payload that installs a persistent backdoor on infected Macs.
๐ Plugins & Themes
- Jetpack 10.6 released: It offers more customization options like Contact Info and Markdown Blocks, bug fixes and improvements.
- New product filtering by attributes rolling out in WooCommerce 6.3: The new product filtering mechanism that was announced a few months ago is rolling out for everybody in WooCommerce 6.3.
- Dynamic Block Template from Ryan Welcher: This template will scaffold a plugin that is set up for registering multiple blocks in a single plugin create using the @wordpress/create-block tool.
- Block X-ray Attributes โ A new plugin: This plugin from Sal Ferrarello adds a section called โBlock X-rayโ to the Document sidebar in the editor. This โBlock X-rayโ section displays the attributes for the currently selected block. It is now one of Justin Tadlockโs favorite tools.
- Classic Menu Block – A new plugin: This is a very simple plugin from Jonny Harris that adds a new classic menu block to the Gutenberg editor.
- Wavy Divider โ A new plugin: This plugin from Kevin Batdorf helps generate and add a simple wavy divider to anywhere on your page, giving you the ability to separate blocks of content with an impressive, professional-looking design element. Hereโs Justin Tadlockโs take on the plugin.
- Carousel Slider Block Plugin – Review: Justin Tadlock reviewed the plugin.
- The SiteGround Optimizer Plugin is now available ะฐnd free for all WordPress sites: The SiteGround Optimizer plugin can now be used by any WordPress website, regardless of where itโs hosted.
- An Elementor Addon, Dynoments Rexy is closing up shop: Dynoments has been unable to sustain sales. It allowed you to work with ACF repeater and flexible content fields in Elementor. Support is being continued until May 8th.
- Sensei LMS 4.0 introduces new block-based Learning Mode Course Theme: Full-site editing has come to Sensei LMS in the pluginโs latest 4.0 release. The headline feature of this update is Learning Mode โ a new block-based theme that gives course authors the ability to customize the learning experience in ways that were not possible before.
- A deep introduction to WordPress Block Themes: Ganesh Dahal on WordPress Block themes
- Generate your own Full Site Editing (FSE) child theme from existing themes: From Herb Miller. Check it out.
๐ต Investments & Acquisitions
- Convesio raises $5M funding: The round of funding was secured from a select group of private investors, some of whom had originally contributed to Convesioโs crowdfunding round in 2019, which raised over $1M from 800+ individual investors. The investment will enable Convesio to accelerate the development of its unique container-based solution and continue to disrupt a market that is slow to innovate.
๐ฅ Community News
- Matt Mullenweg will be running Tumblr personally for a while: Hopefully it will be a new dawn for the once most popular and talked-about cultural spaces
- My crash and burn()out: Cory Miller of PostStatus admits his burnout and stepping down. His wife Lindsey will be taking over as CEO.
- CMS and E-Commerce churn data shows WordPress maintaining market lead: Rick Viscomi, one of the maintainers of the HTTP Archive, tweeted some interesting data. WooCommerce is more or less breaking even in the trades, but Shopify is gaining a lot of ground, especially from WooCommerce. WordPress picked off 9K sites from competitors but also lost ground to other CMSโs.
- Bloganuary was a resounding success: Check out what the participants had to say.
- Daniel Schutzsmith on diversity in WordCamps: He is frustrated about the underrepresentation of some sections while whites get away with the lionโs share.
- Diversity at WordCamp Europe: Response from the organizers of WordCamp Europe 2022, after being called out for a lack of diversity on the Organising Team.
- The complicated futility of WordPress: Dan Devineโs thoughts on how WordPress is no longer his CMS of choice.
- Building Twitter with WordPress 5.9: Kjell Reigstad helps to make your website look like Twitter.
- Who is Full Site Editing for?: From the WP Review team.
- How to downgrade a WordPress website to a previous version: Article from the Jetpack team.
- How to submit a WordPress issue: Courtney Robertson on how to request new features and report bugs.
- The complete Gutenberg vs Brizy comparison: WP Astra team takes a look at which one is better.
- Pay attention to WebAssembly: Harshal Sheth on what WebAssembly is, what makes it a relevant technology, and where itโs being used today
- Wordfence Care and Wordfence Response: Wordfence has two new products: Wordfence Care and Wordfence Response. Both include all the benefits of Wordfence Premium.
- Top ten Node.js Github repositories that every Node.js dev should check: Do check it out.
- The hyperbolic use of the term “block” in web development: Alain Schlesser shares his irritation
- Gender-biases in sharing and recognizing technical knowledge on Stack Overflow: This paper examines gender biases on Stack Overflow, the worldโs largest question-and-answer forum of programming knowledge.
- Frontend design, react, and a bridge over the great divide: Brad Frost on frontend design as the helpful mortar that bridges the gap between design and development.
- High quality, free, Open Source design assets โ 2022 edition: A recently compiled list of design resources that Christy Nyiri and Allan Cole compiled for their team at Automattic.
- Savio Martin & Easlo have curated Startup Resources: It is a collection of 200+ useful resources.
- Where to put your logo? What the research says: Brenda Barron on which position is right for your logo.
- Blockstudio ACF Blocks and the Full Site Editor: A Game Changer? David McCan shares his experience trying out the Blockstudio on Full Site Editor.
- How to generate SSH keys for GitHub: Daniel Diaz on how to generate and configure GitHub SSH keys.
๐ Save The Dates
- WP Support Team meeting on February 10: Check the agenda and details.
- Diverse Speaker Training group Volunteers Zoom Call on February 23: The Diverse Speaker Training group is having a Zoom call for the groupโs volunteers, and the call is open to all in WordPress.
- WordFest Live 2022 on March 04: This fun festival of WordPress is also a fundraiser for the Big Orange Heart charity that promotes positive well-being and mental health within remote working communities.
- GatsbyConf 2022 on March 2nd and 3rd: Registration is now open.
- WP Career Summit on April 08: The conference for job seeking and hiring in WordPress.Calls for speakers and sponsors and opens registration.
- WordCamp Athens 2022 on April 9 – 10: The Greek WordPress Community will host WordCamp Athens 2022 in person at the Athenais Cultural Center.
- IAC22 on April 18-23: The IA conference exists to promote discourse and learning about the intentional design of information environments. Save $50 on standard and premium passes by registering before February 16th, 2022.
- Expand 2022 on April 27-28: Call for speakers is open. Expand (organized by GoDaddy Pro in Orlando, FL) is an event created to connect web pros through networking, education, and fun. The theme of Expand 2022 will be Empowerment.
- The First Post Status Twitter Conference on May 24: The goal for the Post Status Twitter Conference is to have two presentations every hour from 9am โ 4pm EST, around WordPress and the web industry.
- 10th Annual WordCamp Europe on 3-4 June 2022 in Porto: Tickets are available now.
- WordCamp Montclair 2022 on June 22: Call for speakers is now open.
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