All in One SEO Pack patched an XSS vulnerability this week that was discovered by the security researchers at Wordfence on July 10. The popular plugin has more than 2 million active installs, according to WordPress.org. Wordfence researchers categorized it as “a medium severity security issue” that could result in “a complete site takeover and other severe consequences:” This flaw …
Astra Becomes the Only Non-Default WordPress Theme With 1 Million Installs
On Tuesday, Brainstorm Force announced its Astra theme passed 1 million active installations. It is the only non-default theme in the official WordPress theme directory to reach such a height. Popularity breeds popularity. Once the theme broke 50,000 installs in January 2019, it was a quick hop and skip to 500,000 in October and 1 million less than a year …
Blocksy Theme Adds New Charity Starter Site, Pro Version to Launch in 2020
Blocksy is one of the best free themes available for the block editor right now and is rapidly growing in popularity. CreativeThemes, the Romania-based company behind the theme, released an update to Blocksy this week, along with a new starter site for charities. The concept of “starter sites” is an interesting new twist on “starter templates,” which essentially allow users …
WordCamp Europe Goes Virtual for 2021, In-Person Conference to Resume 2022
While much of the world is currently suspended in the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, WordCamp Europe delivered a surprisingly decisive announcement today regarding the status of the 2021 event in Porto. Organizers moved to make it a virtual conference, 10 months in advance of the planned dates, June 3-5, 2021: After careful consideration, and following guidance from WordCamp Central, …
Admin 2020 Reimagines WordPress Admin and Media Library
Unless I’m trying to be aware of it, I don’t see the WordPress admin anymore. When you work inside it every day, it becomes a means to an end, like a subway ride to work. You scan your ticket (log in) and you’re on your way to whatever admin business is the order of the day. After awhile, you accept …
WordPress Documentation Team Bans Links to Commercial Websites
This week WordPress’ Documentation team announced a ban on links to commercial websites in a revision to its external linking policy: During discussion about external linking policy, we came to conclusion that we won’t allow, at least in the beginning and for the time being, any commercial blogs. So before you start arguing that some popular plugin’s blogs have valuable information, …
Open Source Initiative to Host Virtual State of the Source Summit, September 9-10
OSI (Open Source Initiative) is hosting a new 24-hour, virtual conference called State of the Source Summit, September 9-10. The non-profit organization plays an important role in the open source ecosystem as stewards of the Open Source Definition (OSD). OSI is responsible for reviewing and approving licenses as OSD-conformant, which indirectly helps mediate community conflicts. As part of the organization’s overall mission …
Jetpack 8.7 Adds New Tweetstorm Unroll Feature, Improves Search Customization
Jetpack 8.7 was released this week with an exciting new feature that allows users to “unroll” a tweetstorm and publish it in a post. The feature works inside the Tweet block. After a user embeds a tweet, it will automatically detect a tweetstorm and display a prompt to fetch the rest of the tweets. It functions in a similar way …
New Gatsby Source WordPress Plugin Now in Beta
Gatsby announced its new source plugin (v4) for WordPress is now in beta. The plugin has been completely revamped to improve headless WordPress setups where Gatsby powers the frontend. It also integrates with Gatsby Cloud to provide real-time previews and incremental builds. The Gatsby team has had a long journey towards creating an integration for WordPress sites that would satisfy more complex …
WordCamp Attendance Badges Could Be a Good Thing, but That’s the Wrong Discussion
WordPress profile badges. On July 3, Timi Wahalahti opened a discussion on the Community WordPress blog on whether WordCamp volunteers, WordCamp attendees, or Meetup attendees should be awarded a WordPress.org profile badge. The discussion stemmed from a nearly two-year-old Meta ticket that was recently resurfaced. The general consensus from the comments on the post seems to be that volunteers should …