Twentig Now Upgrades the Twenty Twenty-One Theme Experience

Twentig, the brainchild of sibling co-founders Diane and Yann Collet, now supports the Twenty Twenty-One theme. The developers originally built the plugin, which is hosted on WordPress.org, around the idea of “supercharging” Twenty Twenty. After its initial success, they have turned their sights onto the most recent default theme, adding a slew of new features over the past few months. …

FSF Doubles Down on Stallman Reinstatement, WordPress Does Not Support His Return to the Board

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is hemorrhaging board members and management following the reinstatement of Richard Stallman. The GPL author and founder of the FSF announced last week that he had rejoined the board and is not planning to resign a second time. An open letter signed by more than 3,000 people called for the removal of Stallman from all leadership …

Gutenberg 10.3 Supports Default Image Sizes, Continues Normalizing Toolbars, and Categorizes Theme Blocks

Version 10.3 of the Gutenberg plugin landed yesterday. Users can now define a default Image block size. The development team also continued work on normalizing block toolbars, created a “theme” block category, and added a padding option to the Verse block. Contributors fixed over 30 bugs. However, the bulk of work went toward Full Site Editing (FSE) with over 70 …

WordPress to Drop Support for IE11 in Upcoming 5.8 or 5.9 Release

In early March, WordPress contributors began discussing the possibility of dropping support for IE11 in the near future after usage fell below ~1%. This week, the discussion’s facilitator, Héctor Prieto, confirmed the majority of participants are in agreement to move forward and set a timeline for discontinuing support. Contributors are now considering either the 5.8. or 5.9 release. “The argument …

10up Creates Classic Post Migration Route With Its Convert to Blocks WordPress Plugin

Yesterday, 10up officially announced Convert to Blocks, a WordPress plugin for transforming classic posts into blocks. The goal is to provide users with a safe migration route for old content while removing the burdens of other options in the space. I briefly mentioned this plugin in an article covering bulk conversion in the Ask the Bartender series. However, I could …

Insert Font Awesome Icons Into the Block Editor via the JVM Gutenberg Rich Text Icons Plugin

Joris van Montfort, a freelance WordPress developer, released the JVM Gutenberg Rich Text Icons plugin over the weekend. The goal was simple: allow users to insert icons nearly anywhere in the block editor at the click of a button. The plugin uses version 4.7 of the Font Awesome library out of the box. However, developers can modify this to include …

Chrome 90 to Use HTTPS by Default in the Address Bar

Chrome’s upcoming version 90 will use https:// by default in the address bar, bringing a significant improvement to security and loading speed. HTTPS adoption has shot up significantly over the past six years after Google announced in 2014 that HTTPS would be used as a ranking signal in search results. In February 2021, W3Techs found that 82.2% of websites use a valid SSL certificate. …