In last week’s annual State of the Word address, WordPress project lead Matt Mullenweg announced the WordPress.org photo directory. Officially, it has not yet “fully launched.” However, it is live on the site, and anyone with an account can submit their photos. Thus far, the directory has 103 submissions and are under the CC0 license.…
One of the best things about WordPress is the hundreds of ways of turning things off. There are likely dozens of plugins for disabling various items, each with its own unique set of options. No Nonsense is no different. It is a plugin that allows users to control whether they want to use over a…
It is literally the one thing that no one was asking for, but we can all collectively agree is kind of cool. A block-based version of the old-school Kubrick WordPress theme exists. Gutenberg lead Matías Ventura tweeted a quick video of it in action yesterday. Fellow Automattic engineer Riad Benguella had put the theme together.…
David Gwyer has been teasing ThemeGen over the last couple of weeks. It is his upcoming block theme generator app. Piece by piece, it has seemed to be coming together and could prove invaluable for theme developers. Currently, it is in beta testing. He provided me with a link to an early preview to get…
One month ago, UXL Themes released Alara. It was a theme that carried with it one bold promise: every week for the next year, users could expect a new design variation, child theme, or block pattern. And, all of this would be done on the back of the block theme system that is slated to…
Last week, I played around with a new plugin that allows users to export a custom theme.json file. The project is still a little buggy at the moment, but I look forward to covering it in more detail soon. The export function was more of a secondary objective for the plugin, but it represents a…
Earlier today, version 1.0 of 10up’s Publisher Media Kit went live in the WordPress plugin directory. It is a preconfigured set of blocks and patterns for jump-starting a media kit page for small and medium-sized publications. When I first noticed the plugin, my mind immediately jumped to press kits and branding pages for businesses. Not…
Earlier today, Gutenberg 12.1 landed in the WordPress plugin directory. The latest release was heavy on improvements to the user experience, including a fix for the block appender layout shift, new global styles features, and improved templates list view. Theme authors also have a new flag for enabling all appearance-related tools. WordPress 5.9 was slated…
I read some posts from “Ask the Bartender,” and I appreciate it a lot! Thanks. I have a question now. :) I want to refine my WordPress theme development process, which is: To make a unique-creative design with Adobe XD or Figma. To convert it to static HTML using VS Code with Bootstrap. In WordPress,…
Automattic’s latest Blockbase child theme landed in the WordPress.org directory today. Videomaker is aimed at film directors and video creators. I have put it through its paces in the last week as it waited for approval in the review system. At first glance, there is not much that separates Videomaker from any other plain ol’…
Anne McCarthy announced Round #11 of the FSE Outreach Program on November 11. The latest test, dubbed Site Editing Safari, calls on volunteers to run through a step-by-step list to find strengths and weaknesses around the upcoming WordPress 5.9 site editor. Volunteers are still welcome to provide feedback until Tuesday, December 7. This is actually…
Luke Carbis and Rob Stinson, two of the three-person Block Lab team that WP Engine picked up in 2020, are back together on a new project. This time, they are joined by Byron Keet. The trio is taking on the WordPress charts space via a suite of blocks named Hello Charts. “Some folks launch deals…
Last month, Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced the annual WordPress survey. If you have not gotten around to participating, it is still open for the rest of 2021, leaving everyone another 30 days to answer. The survey is relatively short. I finished it in 16 minutes, but I also took screenshots in case I needed to…
As a non-developer, I honestly don’t know what direction to take my WordPress site anymore. I used to rely on themes and even bought some premium ones, but over time, I’d outgrow them. As an artist myself, I prefer having control over every aspect of my website, from its layout, colors, to its fonts. Thus,…
Last week, contributors to the Gutenberg plugin wrapped up the version 12.0 release just ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Most work is being pushed toward the upcoming WordPress 5.9 release, which has been postponed to January 25. As a result, Gutenberg 12.0 has fewer bells and whistles and more bug fixes and maintenance. However,…