Jetpack 9.8 was released this week, introducing WordPress Stories as the headline feature. The Story block, which allows users to create interactive stories, was previously only available on mobile. It can now be used in the web editor. Stories went into public beta on the Android app in January 2021, and were officially released on the mobile apps in March. Version …
Building Featured Boxes With the WordPress Block Editor
It is a new day with another chase for that elusive block plugin that will bring a little joy into my life. Today’s experiment comes courtesy of the Feature Box plugin by Sumaiya Siddika. It is a simple block that allows end-users to upload an image and add some content to an offset box. The plugin’s output is a typical …
Forks and Alternatives: Custom User Avatar Plugins for WordPress
You know what one of the great things about open source is? Others can use a project’s code, share it wholesale, modify it, and/or distribute their changes. These are the pillars upon which WordPress stands. It is a beautiful thing to watch in practice. Most often, it means we can build off the shoulders of those giants who came before …
Chrome Canary Adds Flag for Disabling FLoC Testing
Google’s controversial Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) experiment now has a feature flag within Chrome Canary (the nightly build of Chrome for developers) that allows users to opt out. In January 2020, Google announced its plans to discontinue support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years. The first bits and pieces of the company’s Privacy Sandbox initiative started landing …
Breaking Down WPMarmite’s 127-Shop Full Site Editing Study
Earlier today, the WPMarmite team released a massive study of 127 WordPress theme shops. It primarily focused on integration with the block editor. The team also surveyed 22 of the shops directly to dive deeper into what the future might look like when the Full Site Editing (FSE) project is entirely bundled into the core platform, which could be around …
The Automattic Theme Team Announces Blockbase, Its New Block Parent Theme
Blockbase WordPress theme as seen from the site editor. Any WordPress company that builds and maintains themes worth its salt is already doing at least some preliminary work as WordPress inches ever closer to bundling its upcoming block theme system. Automattic’s Theme Team is no exception. Ben Dwyer announced the team’s new Blockbase parent theme on the Theme Shaper blog …
Happy 18th Birthday, WordPress
WordPress is celebrating 18 years today since the first release of the software to the general public. That release post, titled, “WordPress Now Available,” kicked off an exciting era in the history of the blogosphere where WordPress emerged as an unofficial successor to the abandoned b2/cafelog software. Reading the comments on the first release, you can feel the energy of …
Joomla Blocks FLoC by Default, Drupal Moves to Block FLoC in Upcoming 9.2 Release
Joomla has announced plans to block Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) by default going forward. The 3.9.2.7 security update, released yesterday, added a Permissions Policy header to disable FLoC. Users can now find a new setting in Global configuration on the Site tab in the Site Settings area, where they can toggle FLoC on if desired. This change will …
The Price of Admission: WordPress Users Get To Hold Creators Accountable
When I reported on the WP User Avatar plugin’s rebranding and repurposing last week, it came as no surprise that users were angry. However, I did not expect pushback against those user complaints from a subset of commentators and others in the community. There were a few points, each boiled down to the argument that free plugin users have a …
My Codeless Website App Detects Site Builder Tools
My Codeless Website is a new tool that detects if a site was built using a website builder. The app can detect more than 50 different tools that people use to create sites, including WordPress-powered ones like Beaver Builder, Elementor, and Divi, as well as Drupal, Squarespace, Shopify, Wix, and others. It was built using PHP and an AJAX call …