Earlier this year, Newspack chose twelve publications to take part in the initial rollout phase of the platform. Newspack is a collection of themes, plugins, and features geared towards newsrooms such as revenue generation wizards, mobile delivery, and search engine optimization. Steve Beatty, head of Newspack Communication says they’re seeking up to 50 newsrooms to be part of phase two …
JAMstack’s Growing Popularity Brings Increase in WordPress Plugins for Deploying to Netlify
One of the more interesting trends this year is that WordPress developers are beginning to explore JAMstack setups for their sites. JAMstack is a term coined by Netlify CEO Mathias Biilmann to describe development architecture that includes client-side JavaScript, reusable APIs, and prebuilt Markup, the three pillars of a modern static website. Static websites are making a major comeback right …
WordPress Theme Review Team Seeks to Curb Obtrusive Admin Notices with New Requirement to Follow Core Design Patterns
For years, the WordPress admin has become increasingly overloaded with admin notices. Some of them are giant, branded notices with their own particular designs that obstruct users’ activities in the admin. The Theme Review Team is taking action to curb obtrusive notices that fall within its purview – those generated by themes hosted in the official directory. In the excitement …
WordPress Theme Review Team Initiates New Long Term Plan to Make All WordPress.org Themes Accessible
The WordPress Theme Review Team (TRT) met today and agreed to put new accessibility requirements in place for themes hosted in the official directory. These include some of the items that are required for theme authors who want to add the accessibility-ready tag. A handful of these requirements will soon be added to the standard requirements for all themes. The …
Anders Norén Release Free Chaplin Theme Designed for Block Editor, Theme Authors Discuss Better Ways to Promote Truly Free Themes
Anders Norén has released Chaplin, his 20th free WordPress theme, designed specifically for use with the block editor. Chaplin could be loosely described as an agency or business stye theme but the capabilities of the block editor enable users to create advanced page layouts that would suit many different types of websites. The layout for the front page shown in …
Free Online JavaScript for WordPress Conference to Feature “Headless WordPress” Track, July 12
The second edition of the JavaScript for WordPress conference will be streamed online July 11-13, 2019. Based on the success of the 2018 event, which had 1,200 attendees watching live, organizer Zac Gordon decided to expand the event to feature three free days of talks, workshops, and a contribution day focused on JavaScript and WordPress. The conference will run from …
WordPress for iOS 12.6.1 Revamps Stats, Acknowledges Third-Party Libraries
WordPress for iOS 12.6.1 is now available in the iTunes App Store. The User Interface as well as the backend that powers stats has been revamped and more closely resembles what you see on the Jetpack Stats module. There are now date selectors and individual stats contain more detail. Revamped Stats in the WordPress for iOS App More often than …
WP Engine Acquires Flywheel
In a move that caught some people by surprise, WP Engine has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Managed WordPress host, Flywheel. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Heather Brunner, WP Engine’s CEO confirmed to TechCrunch that the company needed to raise a small round of funding to finance the deal. Dusty Davidson, …
WordCamp Europe 2020 to be Held in Porto, June 4-6
Another successful edition of WordCamp Europe concluded this weekend in Berlin. The event was the largest WordCamp in history, with 3,260 tickets sold and 2,734 attendees present on the ground. WCEU sold 800 more tickets than the previous year in Belgrade. Contributor Day gathered 611 attendees into 25 teams, and approximately 28% of them (169 attendees) were new WordPress contributors. …
Contribution Time, Sponsored, and Teams Fields Added to WordPress.org User Profiles
A new section named Contribution has been added to WordPress.org user profiles. This section contains fields that enable users to share how much time they contribute to WordPress on a weekly basis, which teams they contribute to, and whether or not those contributions are sponsored. New WordPress.org User Profile Fields Each field is optional and will only appear if the …