“The way that themes have evolved within WordPress has made creating them easier,” wrote Tammie Lister in the opening line of her article titled Theme creation is now easier. “That feels like a bold statement, but it’s true.” It is not a stretch to say that many would be asking for this secret-sauce recipe of…
Rich Tabor, the Senior Product Manager of WordPress Experience at GoDaddy, has been on a bit of a publishing productivity and workflow kick as of late. The co-creator of the Iceberg Editor plugin released a Markdown Comments block last month, allowing users to write editor-only notes. Last week, he launched the Todo List Block plugin.…
WordPress 5.8 was one of the most feature-packed updates that the community has seen in ages. There was just about a little something for everyone. And, there were plenty of things that some users would rather live without. Big releases on the CMS that powers 40% of the web mean that some users will want…
The Gutenberg plugin continues to march forward. Yesterday’s release, coming merely a day after the launch of WordPress 5.8, brings several new features and nearly three dozen bug fixes. The big-ticket items are drag-and-drop blocks in the list view and a much-needed upgrade for border support. Theme authors should enjoy the ability to control the…
Yesterday, the WordPress pattern directory went live to the world as the development team behind it put the finishing touches on the project. It will work similarly to the theme and plugin directories in time. Along with WordPress 5.8, users can browse and use block patterns directly from the post editor. Officially, the pattern directory…
Last week, WPBeginner released Comment Moderation Role to the WordPress plugin directory. The plugin does a simple job of creating a single user role that can only moderate comments. The most common use case for such a role — named “WPB Comment Moderator” in the admin — is for larger teams that need a separate…
Christopher John, a Seattle-based designer and UX engineer, released his first project to the plugin directory yesterday. Announced via Twitter to high praise, Wayfinder is a block outline solution for the WordPress editor. Like similar plugins, the goal is to make it easier for end-users to select nested blocks, which can sometimes be tough to…
Features such as the upcoming block-based widgets system, the template editor, theme-related blocks, and others have taken up much of the spotlight as of late. However, one of the best user-focused tools shipping with WordPress 5.8 is a duotone filter for Image and Cover blocks. The term “duotone” in this sense means combining two colors…
A week ago, I published my thoughts on the block system from a developer’s perspective. Taking a weekend-afternoon deep dive into creating custom block types meant learning some tough lessons and familiarizing myself with a programming language I had little experience using. Programming has always been a trial-and-error affair for me: write code, refresh the…
WordPress 5.8 is on deck for July 20, just a mere 10 days from now. The release is geared up to be the most feature-packed update the community has seen in a while. Block-based widgets, the pattern directory, WebP image support, template-editing mode, and many more tools are nearly ready to ship to the masses.…
Gutenberg 11.0 landed yesterday with a pile of changes. The development team has been moving fast, and it shows. For a two-week cycle, version 11.0 includes an insane number of bug fixes. Contributors squashed over 70 in this release alone. This seems to be in preparation for WordPress 5.8, which is expected to land on…
Ella van Durpe, a core WordPress contributor and software engineer at Automattic, released a note-taking plugin earlier today. Hypernotes is a simple custom post type that allows end-users to take private notes or serve as a journaling tool. I have seen similar plugins in the past. I even began building one years ago before ultimately…
Today, Automattic released version 9.9 of its popular Jetpack plugin. The development team improved the modal animation and transition speed for the Instant Search module and added the Social Preview panel to the pre-publish sidebar. However, the most notable user-facing update was a refresh of its Carousel feature. The module creates a fullscreen overlay gallery…
Like most years, I spent this U.S. Independence Day cooped up with my furry friends. I closed all the windows, shuttered the blinds, switched on a couple of fans for white noise, and clicked the television on. My cats and I relaxed. It is my job to keep them calm while my — usually drunken…
Automattic released a new plugin titled Sketch Block earlier today. It is a one-off block that allows end-users to draw directly in the editor. The plugin is marked as a beta release and requires Gutenberg to be activated to use. It is a part of the company’s Block Experiments project. To be perfectly honest, I…