WordPress contributors are working on getting support for Progressive Web Apps (PWA) into core. A new PWA feature plugin is now available on WordPress.org, spearheaded by the teams at XWP, Google, and Automattic. Progressive Web Apps are applications that run on the web but provide a speedy app-like experience inside a mobile browser. Google describes…
Paul Biron and Joshua Wold are leading the upcoming WordPress 4.9.8 release, which was originally announced as 4.9.7. WordPress core contributors met yesterday to decide the general focus and set the release schedule. In the meantime, the 4.9.7 security and maintenance release was rolled out to fix an authenticated arbitrary file deletion vulnerability, along with…
At WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to sit down with Matías Ventura, the technical lead for Gutenberg. Ventura, who has been responsible for building the vision for Gutenberg (in addition to building the actual product), shared a few things the team might have done differently in the earlier days to improve its reception in…
At his WCEU keynote address in Belgrade, Matt Mullenweg laid out a detailed roadmap for Gutenberg to land in WordPress 5.0 within the next few months, garnering mixed reactions from attendees. Gutenberg’s timeline is one of the most pressing questions for those who work in the WordPress ecosystem. The Gutenberg team has sustained a rapid…
Jack Lenox, a Software Engineer at Automattic, has launched a new site called SustyWP that focuses on web sustainability using WordPress. By removing the parts of Underscores he didn’t need, using one inline SVG image, no sidebars, limited CSS, and no webfonts, Lenox was able to launch a WordPress site that only has 7 Kilobytes…
Providing support on the WordPress.org forums is one of the easiest ways to contribute to WordPress and those who do are some of the unsung heroes of the project. One of those heroes is James Huff known as MacManX on the forums. Huff has been supporting users for 13 years and recently celebrated an awesome…
This Sunday, May 27th, marks the 15th anniversary of the first release of WordPress. Users are celebrating the occasion across the world with huge cakes, cupcakes, memorable photos, parties, and meetups. To see if there is an event near you, visit the official WordPress 15th anniversary site and type your city into the search box.…
WordPress 4.9.6 was released last week and was labeled a minor release. Minor releases trigger WordPress’ automatic update system. Shortly after its release, some users began questioning why their sites were not automatically updating to 4.9.6. I wondered the same thing after logging into a site I maintain and discovering it had not updated. It…
WordPress 4.9.6 Release Candidate 1 is available for download and addresses some of the issues that have been reported in beta 1. Since the beta’s release, there have been 30 bugs fixed. Many of the fixes in this release are focused on the new privacy tools that help with GDPR compliance. The verbiage has been…
WordPress 4.9.6 Beta 1 is available for testing. It’s the first step in bringing GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) tools to WordPress. In addition to 10 bugs being fixed, this release heavily focuses on privacy enhancements. One of the first changes is the addition of a Privacy tab on the successful update screen. The message…
The WordPress Accessibility team is seeking contributors for its handbook project. It’s a collection of tips, resources, tools, and best practices. The goal is to educate users through summaries, articles, and reference materials. The handbook was created after the accessibility team repeatedly noticed the same accessibility issues cropping up and not having a central place…
WordPress 4.9.5 is available for download and is a maintenance and security release. WordPress 4.9.4 and earlier versions are affected by three security issues. The following security hardening changes are in 4.9.5. Localhost is no longer treated as the same host by default. Safe redirects are used when redirecting the login page if SSL is…
At the end of last month, Matt Cromwell, Head of Support and Community Outreach for GiveWP and an administrator for the Advanced WordPress Facebook group, hosted a question and answer session about Gutenberg with Matt Mullenweg. Mullenweg was asked a few times if he could provide a concrete date on when Gutenberg and WordPress 5.0…
Hours after WordPress 4.9.3 was released, the WordPress development team followed it up with 4.9.4 to fix a critical bug with the auto update process. The bug generates a fatal PHP error when WordPress attempts to update itself. This error requires WordPress site owners and administrators to manually update to WordPress 4.9.4 by visiting your…
WordPress 4.9.3 is available and fixes 34 bugs. Customizer changesets, the visual editor, widgets, and compatibility for PHP 7.2 highlight this release. You can view all of the changes via the changelog or trac tickets. Most sites will update automatically. However, if you want to trigger the update ahead of time or manually update, visit…