Tetsuaki Hamano released the Piano Block plugin for WordPress on Monday. It allows users to insert a piano-based interface into the editor for playing music. Mostly, it is just a lot of fun. Hamano launched RichText Extension, his first submission to the WordPress plugin directory, in the spring of 2020. At the time, block-related plugins…
WordPress core committer Jonny Harris merged a patch into WordPress core for a 12-year-old ticket that he says has the potential to bring “a massive effect on performance for custom pages.” The change, which will be included in the upcoming 6.0 release, stops unnecessary queries when developers are using the do_parse_request filter, thanks to a refreshed patch…
Another two weeks have flown by, and another Gutenberg plugin update is in the books. This release is not as feature-heavy as the last, but it feels solid overall. Other than one breaking issue, version 12.7 includes several nice-to-have enhancements. The latest update includes some early work for a new style engine. This is a…
While Russia is decimating Ukrainian cities in an unlawful attempt to occupy the country, WordPress companies and individuals are seeking ways to help refugees fleeing the violence, as well as those who have stayed behind to fight. We are living in one of those rare times in history where events have captured the attention and…
It feels like the end of an era. Last week, core contributors merged a patch that removed PHP variables named $pee and $tinkle from the WordPress codebase. Yes, the software that powers 43% of the web has pee-pee jokes in its code. I know how it sounds. I felt silly writing that sentence. My job…
The journey toward a web fonts API in WordPress has been a rollercoaster of emotions for developers. After being punted from the WordPress 5.9 release, it was moved to the Gutenberg project, where it could be built alongside related features that relied on it. The API has been merged into the Gutenberg plugin and should…
Strattic, a WordPress hosting company that creates static files managed via a headless install, has acquired WP2Static, an open source plugin for generating a static WordPress site. Leon Stafford, the plugin’s creator, has been working for the company for the past nine months and will continue to maintain WP2Static. In 2020, Stafford removed WP2Static from…
WPExperts, a Pakistan and Egypt-based WordPress development agency with more than 120 employees, has acquired the Post SMTP plugin from its former developer, Yehuda Hassine. This is the agency’s second acquisition this year, after picking up Rich Tabor’s Login Designer plugin in January. The Post SMTP plugin is a fork of the Postman SMTP plugin,…
The Kyiv Independent, a new English-language media outlet powered by WordPress, is seeking donations to continue their reporting at this critical time in Ukraine’s struggle against Russian invasion. The fledgling publication is just three months running and its staff is already plunged into what may be some of the most important reporting of their lifetimes.…
The WooCommerce development team released the first RC for version 6.3 this week. The upcoming major release is expected on March 8, 2022, and is set to introduce an exciting, long-awaited feature: a new lookup table that will offer the ability the accurately filter products by attributes. Shop owners who sell variable items have been…
Automattic’s Skatepark landed in the WordPress.org theme directory on Monday. It was designed for modern events and organizations, but it should work well for many sites with a small amount of customization. For those keeping count, it is number 52 on the long path toward the 3,000 themes project lead Matt Mullenweg hopes for before…
The third edition of WordFest Live is coming up on March 4, 2022. The online event will feature more than 60 sessions over the course of 24 hours, as well as workshops, socials, and celebrations. Sessions will be focused on WordPress, remote working, and mental wellbeing. Topics include leadership, freelancing, website performance, podcasting, WooCommerce, dealing…
Elastic has resolved a trademark infringement lawsuit related to usage of the term “Elasticsearch.” Amazon has agreed to drop the term from its product line. “We believe this resolution will remove confusion in the marketplace and provide much-needed clarity to our community and customers,” Elastic CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni said in the announcement. “There is only…
There is not much I miss about the classic editor. It was dead to me when the block system became the new normal. However, there might be a feature or two that I miss. The biggest of those features? The “Add New” button at the top of the post editor. So, when Aurooba Ahmed mentioned…
Today we are continuing on with our new Building with Blocks series, where we demonstrate some fun things you can create with blocks. In this tutorial I am going to show you how to build a simple vCard website with a video background in under five minutes. I wanted to build a website like this…