New Full Site Editing Testing Challenge: Create a Custom 404 Page

The Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program has launched its third testing call, continuing the effort to engage users in a structured testing flow focused on specific practical tasks. Previous rounds had testers building a custom homepage and exploring the distinction between editing modes (template vs page/post). The challenge in round #3 is to create a fun, custom 404 page. …

WordPress.com and Jetpack Launch Story Block for Mobile Apps

Automattic-owned WordPress.com launched its new Story-publishing feature today. Currently, only users with the WordPress for Android or iOS apps can add stories. Self-hosted users with Jetpack-connected sites can publish via the mobile apps too. The development team previewed the Story feature in January, launching a public beta on the Android app. Stories are essentially media and text slideshows. They have …

WordPress Considers Dropping Support for IE 11 After Usage Falls Below 1%

A new proposal on WordPress.org explores the ramifications of dropping support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). Héctor Prieto summarized the current state of IE usage among WordPress users, citing three metrics that demonstrate declining usage that is now cumulatively below ~1%: 0.71% from StatCounter’s GlobalStats 1.2% from W3 Counter 0.46% from WordPress.com StatCounter’s GlobalStats record IE11 having dipped below 1.0% for the first …

Ask the Bartender: What Happens When Block Markup Changes?

I’m a developer that has started developing with Gutenberg recently. There are a bunch of amazing benefits and features, but there are also a ton of drawbacks, inconsistencies, as well as absolutely awful and outdated documentation. One of the worst aspects of Gutenberg from a developer perspective has been block validation. Consider the following scenario. I build a custom (non-dynamic) …