A new MariaDB Health Checks plugin is now available on WordPress.org, thanks to the efforts of contributors involved in the 2023 CloudFest Hackathon which took place in Germany. MariaDB is a popular open source database used by those looking to further scale their websites, as it is generally faster than MySQL with better support for a concurrent number of connections. …
Automattic Releases wp-now: A Local Development Environment Powered by WordPress Playground
Automattic has published a new project called wp-now that creates a local development environment in seconds. The tool is a NodeJS app that is powered by WordPress Playground, an experimental project that uses WebAssembly (WASM) to run WordPress in the browser. wp-now allows developers to quickly spin up a new WordPress site with their chosen theme and then open it in …
Gutenberg 15.8 Adds Pages Menu to Site Editor, Revisions UI to Global Styles
Gutenberg 15.8 was released with some exciting features that were included in the tentative WordPress 6.3 roadmap. Users are getting closer to a more unified content editing experience with the addition of the Pages menu to the Site Editor. Clicking on Pages will load the ten most recently updated pages with a link to “Manage All Pages” at the bottom …
Can ChatGPT Build a Useful WordPress Plugin That Actually Works?
Can AI turn non-coders into pro WordPress plugin developers? To find out, we asked ChatGPT to build a custom WordPress plugin from scratch and then had our crack team of developers examine the code… AI is the world’s most popular two-letter word right now. With all the recent news headlines about whether AI will take our jobs away, we wanted …
WordPress 6.2.2 Restores Shortcode Support in Block Templates, Fixes Security Issue
WordPress 6.2.2 was released early this morning as a rapid follow-up to 6.2.1, which introduced a bug that broke shortcode support in block templates. Version 6.2.1 was also an important security release, but due to the catastrophic breakage for those using shortcodes in block templates, some users were implementing insecure workarounds or simply downgrading to 6.2 to keep critical functionality …
WordPress 6.3 Development Kicks Off to Conclude Gutenberg Phase 2
The WordPress 6.3 development cycle has begun and work is already underway on an ambitious list of features that will debut in the upcoming major release. It will cap off Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project, with an emphasis on polishing customization features and making them easier to use. WordPress 6.3 Editor Triage co-lead Anne McCarthy published a roadmap to …
WordPress Is Developing a Command Center for Quick Search and Navigation Inside the Admin
WordPress may soon be getting a Command Center, which would function as a quick search component for navigating to other areas of the admin, and would also be capable of running commands. The feature was introduced in Gutenberg 15.6 under the Experimental flag and currently has limited use in the Site Editor context while navigating and editing templates. The Command …
WordPress 6.2.1 Update Breaks Shortcode Support in Block Templates
WordPress 6.2.1 was released yesterday and rolled out to sites with automatic background updates enabled. The update included five important security fixes. Ordinarily, a maintenance and security release can be trusted not to break a website, but many users are struggling after 6.2.1 removed shortcode support from block templates. A support forum thread tracking the broken shortcodes issue shows that …
WordPress 6.2.1 Released with Fixes for 5 Security Vulnerabilities
WordPress 6.2.1 was released today. Those with automatic background updates enabled should see a notice in their email, as updates rolled out earlier today. This is a maintenance and security release that includes important fixes for five security vulnerabilities outlined by core contributor and release co-lead Jb Audras: Block themes parsing shortcodes in user generated data A CSRF issue updating …
ACF Plugin’s Reflected XSS Vulnerability Attracts Exploit Attempts Within 24 Hours of Public Announcement
On May 5, Patchstack published a security advisory about a high severity reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in ACF (Advanced Custom Fields), potentially affecting more than 4.5 million users. WP Engine patched the vulnerability on May 4, but the Akamai Security Intelligence Group (SIG) is reporting that attackers began attempting to exploit it within 24 hours of Patchstack’s publication. “Once …





