Jetpack Launches Customer Research Project to Improve the Plugin and Reduce User Frustration

Jetpack’s Design and Research Team is launching a new customer research panel as part of an ongoing effort to collect feedback in advance of launching new features. They are allocating one day every month to talk with users: It’s a small step toward an important goal of better understanding what our users need, seeing and hearing first hand where they …

Gutenberg 9.8 Brings Rounded Borders To the Group Block and Moves the Site Editor Canvas Into an Inline Frame

Gutenberg 9.8 launched yesterday with a few minor UI improvements. The development team added an initial implementation for border-radius support for the Group block that theme authors can opt into. They also moved the site editor into an iframe element to remove CSS conflicts from the global admin styles. Those who have been testing Full Site Editing should be pleased …

Custom Layouts Plugin Creates a Posts Display System for Both the Classic and Block Editors

Ross Morsali, via his brand Code Amp, released the Custom Layouts plugin last week. The plugin’s goal is to provide a visual post layout builder for users of both the block and classic editors. For end-users, this is yet another choice between the multitude of plugins for displaying posts. After years of new plugins launching in this space, it would …

All in One SEO Plugin Turns on Automatic Updates without Notifying Users, Removes Functionality in Latest Release

Buried in the changelog of a series of minor releases that dropped before the Christmas holiday, All in One SEO plugin users were given the surprise gift of automatic updates. After a seemingly endless run of releases (12 updates during a span of six weeks at the end of 2020), the plugin’s developers decided to change its auto update policy …

Contact Form 7 Version 5.3.2 Patches Critical Vulnerability, Immediate Update Recommended

Contact Form 7 has patched a critical file upload vulnerability in version 5.3.2, released today by plugin author Takayuki Miyoshi. The plugin is installed on more than five million WordPress sites. “An unrestricted file upload vulnerability has been found in Contact Form 7 5.3.1 and older versions,” Miyoshi said. “Utilizing this vulnerability, a form submitter can bypass Contact Form 7’s …