COVID-19 awareness icons added to Font Awesome. On Monday, the Font Awesome team launched a new set of icons to promote awareness around COVID-19. The solid icons available in the Font Awesome 5.13 update are all available for free and are open-source. The regular, light, and duotone versions of the icons are a part of the pro package. The goal …
Gutenberg 7.8 Adds Patterns API and Continues Interface Cleanup
Version 7.8 of the Gutenberg plugin landed yesterday. The team continues to improve the editor with the refreshed interface work that began in version 7.7. The most useful feature with this update of the plugin is the inclusion of the Patterns API for plugin and theme developers. This release is not the massive feature release that we experienced with some …
Finding Balance in These Uncertain Times: Remote Work and Sharing Our Struggles
There is a popular saying, which has been used in several memes, among my developer and remote-working friend groups. It goes something like the following: Government and Doctors: Practice physical distancing during this pandemic. Remote Workers: I’ve been preparing my whole life for this moment. I got this. The truth is that we don’t “got this,” at least I know …
Yoast Publishes Free Online Training Course for the Block Editor
Yoast, the company behind the popular Yoast SEO plugin, launched its free block editor training course today. The course is available to anyone by signing up for Yoast Academy, which also includes multiple other free and paid courses. Users can learn everything from SEO and copy writing to basic WordPress skills. The Academy team’s latest course promises to get first-time …
Block Patterns Will Change Everything
Book sales section from a custom theme. It was about a year ago. I was happily designing a theme for aspiring novelists. I wanted to get ahead of the competition and market a theme specifically to writers who would be attempting the National Novel Writing Month 2019 challenge. NaNoWriMo, for short, is a whirlwind of a month where 1,000s of …
Still No Wood Grain: WP Tavern Design Update
WP Tavern homepage design. It has been a bit of a slow news week in the land of WordPress with the COVID-19 pandemic reaching across the globe. Most people are hunkering down or getting accustomed to a change in their daily lives. For some people, that has meant figuring out a way to work with children at home. For others, …
Block-Based Themes and the Problem with Dynamic Data in HTML Templates
The Gutenberg project and its eventual full-site editing feature is coming upon a major issue that will need to be solved. Block-based themes of the future are currently on a path toward a template system that will comprise of plain HTML files. While that will work for the majority of a theme’s output, the trouble is figuring out how the …
Build Custom Templates with the MB Views Add-On for Meta Box
Meta Box released its MB Views add-on plugin last week. The new extension allows developers to build custom templates from the comfort of their WordPress admin. The goal is to provide an easy-to-use interface for outputting custom fields without editing theme files, but its flexibility pushes the boundaries of full-site editing. Quick take: MB Views offers a solid developer experience …
GitHub Acquires npm, Plans to Improve Infrastructure and Experience
GitHub announced yesterday that it had acquired the popular JavaScript package service npm for an undisclosed amount. npm, Inc. was the company behind the Node package manager, npm Registry, and npm CLI. The company is shuttering its doors, but the future of the npm service looks bright with this acquisition. Currently, npm serves over 1.3 million packages with 75 billion …
Gutenberg 7.7 Ships Refreshed UI and First Iteration of Block Patterns
Last week, version 7.7 of the Gutenberg plugin shipped to users. In what is one of the more visually-striking updates in a while, the design team presented a refreshed UI. Users will also get their first chance to test the upcoming block patterns feature. Some users may get a surprise. Gutenberg 7.7 is the first version of the plugin to …





