Gutenberg 9.0 Brings Major Improvements to Navigation Screen and Query Block

If you haven’t played around with Gutenberg’s experiments lately, the Navigation block is getting some exciting updates. Version 9.0 was released today with drag-and-drop support added to the list view of navigation items. Contributors have been working through several different prototypes aimed at unifying the controls and simplifying the menu building process. The Navigation screen included in version 9.0 has …

Upcoming API Change Will Break Facebook and Instagram oEmbed Links Across the Web Beginning October 24

In an extraordinarily inconvenient API change, Facebook and Instagram will be dropping unauthenticated oEmbed support on October 24, breaking content across millions of websites. The change will force users to generate an app ID with a developer account in order to continue embedding links via oEmbed: Changes to tokenless access for User Picture and FB/IG OEmbed endpoints: By October 24, 2020, developers must leverage …

Podcasting During the Pandemic: Castos Sees 300% Growth in New Podcasters

“My Podcast Set I” by brainblogger is licensed with CC BY 2.0. Podcasting, like many other industries during the pandemic, is seeing a strong shift over the past six months, which has resulted in more shows and fewer listeners. While some avid podcast fans have taken solace in listening to their favorite shows to stay connected, many listeners who previously had podcasts …

Deque Systems to Host Axe-Con Virtual Accessibility Conference, March 10-11, 2021

Deque Systems, a widely respected accessibility firm that has contributed to setting up automated accessibility testing for WordPress core, will be hosting a new “Axe-con” virtual conference focusing on digital accessibility. Axe-con is named for the company’s axe-core project, an open source library and accessibility testing engine that can be customized to integrate with all modern browsers and testing frameworks. …

Jetpack Launches Email Marketing Tools with Creative Mail Integration, WooCommerce-Triggered Store Emails Coming Soon

Jetpack is firing up a new suite of email marketing tools in partnership with Endurance International Group’s Constant Contact brand. Last week version 8.9 of the plugin introduced a new newsletter signup form inside its Form block, based on an integration with the Creative Mail plugin that Constant Contact recently launched as a solution tailored specifically to WordPress and WooCommerce. …

iThemes Enters the WordPress Membership Plugin Market, Acquires Restrict Content Pro

Last Tuesday, iThemes announced it had acquired the Restrict Content Pro plugin from Sandhills Development. iThemes is part of the Liquid Web family of brands. Pippin Williamson, Managing Director at Sandhills, said the company had no intention of selling the plugin last October when talks of the acquisition began. However, moving forward has created some opportunities for his company and …

WordPress Support Team Seeks to Curb Support Requests for Commercial Plugins and Themes

WordPress’ Support Team contributors are discussing how they can curb support requests for commercial products on the official WordPress.org forums. Users sometimes seek help for commercial product upgrades on the forums of the free version, not knowing that the moderators’ official policy is to refer them to the extension’s commercial support channel. In other instances, it is not immediately clear …

Sunlit 3.0 for iOS Released, Featuring New Post Editor and Improved Discovery Interface

Sunlit 3.0 was released this week and is now available in the App Store. The free photoblogging app is a companion app to the Micro.blog indie microblogging platform. Sunlit has some similarities to Instagram minus the deadweight of ads and algorithms. Users can follow each other, comment on posts, and timeline photos are displayed in chronological order. “The idea is …