During WordCamp US’ contributor day this weekend, Matt Mullenweg published a renewed call for WordPress’ Make teams to adopt a plugin-first approach when developing new features for core. He revived the notion of canonical plugins, first introduced to the WordPress community in 2009 as a means for delivering optional features to users with a higher level of confidence than regular …
WordPress.com Defies Marked Increase in Russian Takedown Demands
Automattic published its bi-annual transparency report this week, which highlights the different information and takedown demands received across the company’s services. Historically, Automattic has used these reports as an opportunity to publicly reaffirm its commitment to actively pushing back against requests that violate users’ freedom of speech and bring attention to abusive takedown demands. In 2014, the company open sourced …
WordPress Announces 10 Style Variation Selections for Twenty Twenty-Three Theme
WordPress’ design team has announced the winners of the challenge to create a style variation for the upcoming Twenty Twenty-Three (TT3) default theme. Organizers received 38 submissions from 19 contributors (some submitted multiple variations) hailing from eight countries. Given the wide range of colors and typography combinations, TT3 is gearing up to be a vehicle for a diverse set of …
iThemes Patches Vulnerability in BackupBuddy, Wordfence Tracks 5 Million Exploit Attempts
BackupBuddy, a commercial plugin from iThemes that performs scheduled backups with remote storage options, has patched a vulnerability that allowed for arbitrary file download by unauthenticated users. iThemes published an advisory for its users, indicating that the vulnerability affects versions 8.5.8.0 through 8.7.4.1 and is being actively exploited. Wordfence reviewed its data and found that attackers began targeting this vulnerability …
Gutenberg Contributors Make Progress on Distraction Free Mode
During last week’s Editor chat meeting, Automattic-sponsored Gutenberg contributor Andrei Draganescu reported that he is “slowly but definitely going to introduce distraction free mode,” a project he has been working on since early explorations began in February. The PR he referenced (#41740) is an extension of those explorations that takes the mode even further towards the objective of removing visual clutter …
Gutenberg 13.9 Adds New Shortcut to Wrap Selected Text in Quotes
Wouldn’t it be convenient to select a sentence or paragraph and instantly wrap it with quotes by tapping on the quote key? This is a fun little feature that was tucked into the Gutenberg 13.9 changelog last month with very little fanfare: Rich text: Add character shortcuts for wrapping selection. (42469) The new shortcut is a rich text feature contributed …
#41 – Laura Nelson on How To Create a Profitable Newsletter
On the podcast today, we have Laura Nelson. Laura is a Content Marketer at WooCommerce where she’s responsible for creating and planning engaging content for their users. Prior to WooCommerce she worked at MailPoet, an email marketing plugin for WordPress, and before that, she worked at Pragmatic, a UK based WordPress agency. She’s on the show to share her experience …
WP-Optimize Denies Allegations of Cheating Performance Tools
Yesterday, we published allegations from Gijo Varghese against UpdraftPlus, the makers of WP-Optimize. Varghese is founder of FlyingProxy, a competing company, and identifies himself as a “performance enthusiast.” He accused the plugin of “cheating Pagespeed and other tools” by hiding JavaScript files from loading when users test their sites through popular performance testing tools. The code uses an odd set …
WP-Optimize Plugin Accused of Cheating PageSpeed and Other Performance Testing Tools
Gijo Varghese, a developer who calls himself a “web performance enthusiast,” shocked WordPress users around the world over the weekend when he tweeted a screenshot of how WP-Optimize is explicitly preventing select JavaScript files from loading when users test their sites through popular performance testing tools. “When a site is loaded, the JavaScript files are loaded only when the user-agent/browser …
Catch Themes Releases Pentatonic: A New Block Theme for Bands and Musicians
Block themes are expanding to include more niches beyond the simple one-column blogging themes, and Catch Themes is one of the companies at the forefront of this new frontier. Pentatonic, the company’s latest release on WordPress.org, is a free theme created for band and musicians. The theme uses core blocks to create sections that showcase the work of creative artists …