Easy Digital Downloads 3.1 Adds 10 New Core Blocks, Introduces Email Summaries

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) put out a big release today, following several maintenance releases and the last major release in July. Version 3.1 introduces 10 new core blocks available to users who are running WordPress 5.8 or newer: Buy Button Order History Products Registration Form Login Form Download Terms Receipt Confirmation Cart Checkout (Beta) These blocks enable store owners to …

Registration Now Open for WP Accessibility Day, November 2-3, 2022

WP Accessibility Day 2022 is taking place next month on November 2-3. The one-day virtual event features 24 hours of talks on building accessible websites in WordPress. It is independently organized by volunteers from WordPress’ Accessibility Team and other community members. The schedule for the event is currently a password-protected page but should be available soon. The YouTube recordings for …

WordPress.org Plugin Developers Demand Transparency Regarding the Removal of Active Install Growth Data

Frustrations are mounting, as WordPress.org plugin developers plead with WordPress leadership to restore access to the active install growth data for plugins after it was removed last weekend without any public discussion. A ticket calling for bringing back the charts is home to a heated discussion on the matter but so far the developer community has not been able to …

WordPress.org Removes Active Install Growth Data for Plugins

Over the weekend, WordPress.org meta contributors removed the active install growth charts for plugins, a key metric that many developers and a handful of services rely on for tracking. “Insufficient data obfuscation” is the cryptic reason cited for the charts’ removal, but the decision-making process was not transparent. In a ticket titled “Bring back the active install growth chart,” RebelCode …

WordPress Punts Locally Hosted Fonts for Legacy Default Themes to 6.2 Release

In June 2022, WordPress.org’s Themes Team began strongly urging theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, following a German court case, which fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts. For years, theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors’ IP addresses. The Themes Team …

New Prototype Runs WordPress in the Browser with No PHP Server

Automattic-sponsored core contributor Adam Zielinski published a demo today of WordPress running in the browser with no PHP server. This is accomplished using WebAssembly (WASM), a format for a stack-based virtual machine that enables deployment on the web for client and server applications, and Emscripten, an open source compiler toolchain to WebAssembly. It’s not stable yet but the concept is …

PublishPress Acquires MetaSlider Plugin and MetaSlider Lightbox

PublishPress, a company that develops free and commercial publishing and permissions plugins for WordPress, has acquired MetaSlider from Extendify. The plugin is used on more than 700,000 sites to build sliders, slideshows, carousels, and galleries. The company’s mission is to help publishers succeed, so this is a curious acquisition as sliders seem to have fallen out of favor on the …