Over the years, WordPress’s developer documentation, originally the Codex but now the WordPress Code Reference, has served the project well. However, there’s been a sense in the community that much of the more recent documentation- for example, the JavaScript APIs and packages coming out of Gutenberg- has been inconsistent and harder to read and understand. Developers often find themselves navigating …
Certain WP Form Plugins Make Accessibility Easy
According to the WAVE web accessibility tool, Gravity Forms scores a perfect score out-of-the-box for their front-end forms. Same with Ninja Forms, Contact Form 7, and WP Forms. I tested 2 other popular WP form plugins that did not fare as well. Gravity Forms’ Investments in Web Accessibility Are Paying Dividends The Tavern reported in 2021 that Gravity Forms invested …
Gutenberg’s Project Leadership Sits Down with New Outreach Team to Discuss Problems with the Site Editor
What do you get when you put a handful of outspoken WordPress developers, agencies, product owners, and community advocates on a video call with both the Lead Architect and the Product Owner of the entire Gutenberg project? Hopefully progress. Matt Mullenweg may have surprised a few people when he recently stated that the Gutenberg project still has years of development …
WordPress Photo Festival 2024, A Five Part Retrospective, Part 5, What We Learned, Where We’re Going
In this last episode about the Kerala WPPhotos Festival I talk not only about the project, but also where this project is leading us. Next Gen events are a breath of fresh air for those of us who need something more than the classic WordCamp. This article is available in video, audio, and transcribed text. Audio version: Transcription: [00:00:00] Welcome …
WordPress Photo Festival 2024, A Five Part Retrospective, Part 4, Next Generation Events
In the penultimate episode of this series I talk with Julia Golomb from the WordPress Community Team about Next Generation WordPress Events. We’ll include how the WPPhotos Event was a great template, and other ideas that could come. This article is available in video, audio, and transcribed text. Audio version: Transcription [00:00:00] Topher: Welcome back! In this episode, we’re going …
Data Liberation: Meet WordPress.org’s Ambitious Plan for 2024
“Imagine a more open web where people can switch between any platform of their choosing. A web where being locked into a system is a thing of the past. This is the web I’ve always wanted to see.” At the end of his State of the Word 2023 keynote, Matt Mullenweg pulled a Steve Jobs move, revealing Data Liberation, an …
The Perils of Hiring: A Cautionary Tale from A WordPress Business Owner
After being in the WordPress world for 15 years, I’ve made some incredible friendships and I’ve heard some crazy stories in regards to their WordPress business. Recently one of those friends reached out to share his latest experience, and I’m here to say it is one of the crazier ones. For privacy reasons, I’ve changed the names of both parties …
WordPress Photo Festival 2024, A Five Part Retrospective, Part 1, Organizers
This article is available in Video, Audio, and transcribed text. Audio Edition Transcription [Music] Hello, my name is Topher DeRosia. This episode begins a five-part series on the WordPress Photo Festival 2024 that took place February 3 through 10. We’ll talk to organizers, volunteers, and participants about how the event went, as well as the community team about how this …
Proposal: Host 3rd-Party Blocks in Gutenberg’s GitHub Repository
Matias Ventura, Gutenberg’s Lead Architect, recently made a pitch to incorporate some 3rd-party blocks in the Gutenberg GitHub repository: “There’s a growing subset of blocks that we may contemplate creating that are either more niche or—for various reasons—not necessarily an immediate fit for the bundled library in core. This would include blocks that have enough appeal, demand, and where offering …
WooCommerce Releases 8.6 & 8.6.1
tl;dr WooCommerce 8.6, delayed due to an Order Attribution Tracking issue, has been released. It features a new Product Details block style, six new layouts for the Product Collection block, and a sales column for marketing analytics. For developers, it offers improved logging, a notice on Legacy REST API removal, simplified customer history calculation, and 8.6.1 patching four issues. After …