Jetpack 9.8 Introduces WordPress Stories Block Alongside Forced Security Update

Jetpack 9.8 was released this week, introducing WordPress Stories as the headline feature. The Story block, which allows users to create interactive stories, was previously only available on mobile. It can now be used in the web editor. Stories went into public beta on the Android app in January 2021, and were officially released on the mobile apps in March. Version …

Blocksy Theme Expands Free Starter Site Collection, Plans to Create New Suite of Blocks

When Sergiu Radu and Andrei Glingeanu launched their free Blocksy theme nearly two years ago, they were surprised by how quickly their business grew during a global pandemic without any investment in marketing. Blocksy is now active on more than 20,000 WordPress sites and its commercial version, launched in October 2020, has grown to where both founders are now working …

Gutenberg 10.6 Adds Duotone Filters, Query Pattern Carousel, and Most-Used Tags Selector

The Gutenberg development team has taken massive strides in the latest release. Version 10.6 of the plugin introduces several user-facing features and changes that upgrade the block-editing experience. The new duotone filter for images is just downright fun to play with. The UIs for the Query pattern selector and template-editing mode have been overhauled. Plus, the most-used tags feature from …

Classic Widgets Plugin Disables WordPress 5.8’s Upcoming Block-Based Widgets System

Yesterday, WordPress released a core plugin named Classic Widgets. Core contributors Tonya Mork and Andrew Ozz created the plugin under the WordPress Contributors account. It allows end-users to disable the upcoming block-based widgets system. Support is expected through 2022 or as long as necessary according to the plugin description. Decided last month by a small group of core leads following …

Jetpack 9.7 Makes More Features Available without Connecting to WordPress.com

Jetpack 9.7 was released today with updates under the hood that ensure the plugin’s blocks are compatible with the full-site editing features coming in WordPress 5.8. It also changes how sites access features that require the WordPress.com infrastructure. A pull request merged in version 9.7 changes the connection flow to make Jetpack active as soon as the plugin enables a …