In July 2020, Bing released its first official plugin for WordPress that allowed site owners to submit URLS and get their content indexed immediately, instead of waiting for the search engine to crawl the site. The IndexNow API, which debuted in October 2021, is the next evolution of the Bing URL submissions API, created by Microsoft Bing and Yandex. Bing …
New WordPress Plugin Offers a Markdown Editor Solution
Earlier today, a new editor plugin named Markup Markdown landed in the WordPress directory. It replaces both the classic and block editors with a Markdown solution. It is the first plugin by an author simply known as Peter, or @peter202202. As someone who almost always writes in Markdown, I did not think twice about downloading, installing, and activating it. I …
Gutenberg 12.3 Introduces New Blocks, Design Options, and a Complete Core Blocks Reference
The first Gutenberg plugin release of the year contains loads of features. Developers should enjoy a completed core blocks reference. Group block spacing controls offer more layout flexibility, and a new Post Author Name block has arrived on the scene. Overall, the site editing experience is shaping up. The latest release adds a couple of nice-to-have design options. The Group …
Anariel Design Releases Bricksy, Its Third WordPress Block Theme
Yesterday, Anariel Design’s third block theme, Bricksy, went live in the WordPress.org directory. Ana Segota, the co-founder and self-proclaimed “creative motor” of the company, has almost become a master at block-based theme design at this point, and this project is just her showing off her skills. I actually took the theme for a spin over the weekend when I saw …
WordPress 5.9 to Fix Lazy Loading Performance Regression, Resulting in 30% Faster Page Loads in Some Cases
WordPress sites may soon see a slight performance improvement on page loads, thanks to a fix for a performance regression in the core lazy loading feature. An analysis published in July 2021 showed that lazy loading applied too aggressively can have a negative impact on performance and that it’s better to eagerly load the images within the initial viewport. WordPress’ …
WP Tavern’s 2021 Year in Review
Abstract Lights by Marcus Kazmierczak A friend prompted me to fix an issue with the WP Tavern archives page a few days ago. Not all of 2021’s posts were visible. As I glanced over the updated list, I realized our team put in a lot of work for the year. In the day-to-day mix of things, it is easy to …
A Throwback to the Past: Retro Winamp Block
In mid-November, I happened upon a block plugin called Retro Winamp Block. As many of our readers know, I am always on the lookout for those WordPress extensions that remind me of the era when I first started using computers and exploring the web. The plugin seemed to fit the bill. It had “retro” in the title, so it had …
Multiple State of the Word Attendees Test Positive for COVID-19
State of the Word 2021 in NYC Matt Mullenweg’s 2021 State of the Word address was held in New York City nine days ago with a live studio audience. On Sunday, December 19, all in-person attendees were notified by email that they were possibly exposed to COVID-19 after one of the attendees tested positive. Although proof of vaccination was required …
WP Engine Acquires Brian Gardner’s Frost, Opens It to the Public
Brian Gardner announced today that WP Engine has acquired his latest project, Frost. In an email sent out to all customers, Gardner said his team had issued refunds to all current customers. The business model is changing, and Frost will be a freely-available project going forward and focus on full site editing. Frost is a WordPress theme that Gardner released …
Ask the Bartender: Will It Become Easier To Create Block Patterns?
Do you know if WordPress FSE is working to make it easier to create block patterns? Templates and Parts need to just click a button to download them. But patterns are very manual, and you need to register all of them programmatically. Thiago You are not the first person to ask this question, and it is something that I have …