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Knowing that you can develop a certain product, an idea, or a service that no one else yet was able to come up, is reason enough to celebrate. But, having your own product or service...
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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, we have agreed to hold WCEU 2021 online.
Although it was a difficult decision, it also seems the right thing to do. Considering the continuing uncertainty regarding COVID-19, we are hesitant to draw so many individuals from so many different places into one physical space.
We understand that this decision will come as a disappointment to many. We know that this event is a much-needed social outlet for many in our community and that an online event isn’t quite the same as a physical event. We’re so sad to not be able to greet you all in person in Porto in June.
The announcement cited several positive aspects of going virtual, including eliminating the uncertainty for attendees and their travel arrangements, allowing for a larger global audience without the expense and risk, and having more time for creating a better online experience. The 2020 event had just three months to convert to a virtual conference but was able to reach more than 8,000 attendees.
In the absence of a vaccine ready for mass distribution or any proven commercially available therapeutics specifically designed to target the virus, it is impossible for organizers to nail down a safe timeline for a multinational event in 2021. Hugh Lashbrooke, who is assisting the WCEU organizing team as a mentor from WordCamp Central, identified risk mitigation as one of the primary factors in their decision.
“Attendee safety is a primary concern in WordCamp organizing,” Lashbrooke said. “While the pandemic is progressing differently in different regions of the world, it seems that large in-person events that bring together thousands of people from multiple countries in a single shared space are still a risky proposition — and it’s not clear when this will be safe again.”
WordCampers reacting to the news today seemed to understand the need for such a disruptive change, but most expressed deep disappointment.
“I’m sure the decision won’t have been taken lightly,” Simon Dickson said. “But WCEU is so important in terms of defining and sustaining the European – and indeed, global – WordPress community. With all due respect to online alternatives, two blank years will hit community spirit hard.”
The goal for WordCamp Europe is to resume the in-person event in 2022 and organizers have booked the Super Bock Arena (Pavilhão Rosa Mota) for June 2 – June 4, 2022.
If WCEU can resume normal operations in 2022, it will be the first time in three years that the European WordPress community has had the opportunity to gather in-person in one place. One disappointed attendee said, “Understandable. As we say in Portugal: À terceira será de vez! Até 2022,” which roughly translates to the English saying, “Third time’s a charm.”
Lashbrooke said adjusting to emerging world events has been hard on all WordCamp organizing teams this year, as well as sponsors, speakers, and attendees. WordCamp Asia was forced to cancel, WordCamp US has gone virtual, and many other smaller camps have gone online or been postponed. The WordPress Community team is discussing how they can improve online events to provide a better experience for the community. Some of the broader ideas for creating more effective events include the following:
A peripheral discussion regarding sponsors is happening on Twitter, after recent online WordCamps failed to deliver a positive experience of virtual sponsor booths.
“If you want to offer sponsors a ‘Virtual Booth’ as a benefit of sponsorship, you’re going to have to do something during the main event to make that attractive and easy for attendees to attend — otherwise it’s not a sponsor benefit,” Matt Cromwell said.
“If attendees have to log off the regular WordCamp platform, then go find some other link to some other virtual platform the experience becomes arduous and full of friction for the attendee making it highly unlikely they’ll attend. WordCamps that are switching to virtual should look into more robust platforms like Hopin which allow for various rooms that are consolidated to the same platform for attendees.”
WordCamp Europe 2020 organizer Bernhard Kau said his team looked into using Hopin but found it wasn’t fully accessible.
“Hopin looked promising at first, not only for sponsors, but also for networking between attendees,” Kau said. “But it lacks basic accessibility. It’s unusable with keyboard only for example. I’d love to see it improve, so we could use it in the future.”
Lashbrooke said WordCamp Central has also considered Hopin, among other apps, while doing extensive research on accessible platforms.
“Right now, everyone’s still working on a way to make that work for everyone, and we’re lucky that our sponsors are so honest with us about their experiences, because it helps us improve,” Lashbrooke said.
“One thing that is of paramount importance to us as a team is that all WordPress events maintain a high level of accessibility, and unfortunately when it comes to streaming platforms we have very limited options when it comes to accessible streaming services. Zoom is about the only fully-accessible platform, so it’s the only option to use for sponsor booths.”
With ten months of lead time, WordCamp Europe organizers will have plenty of opportunities to experiment with new ideas to make the event more engaging for both attendees and sponsors. All the other WordCamps on the schedule through the end of the year have already been converted to online events. For the time being, it looks like virtual camps are here to stay.
“I really doubt we’ll be abandoning online events, after COVID-19 is more under control worldwide,” WordPress Community organizer Andrea Middleton said. “I think that we’ll need to figure out how in-person events and online events can best coexist, but it seems like we’ll have time to figure that out.”
Every day, the ProgrammableWeb team is busy, updating its three primary directories for APIs, clients (language-specific libraries or SDKs for consuming or providing APIs), and source code samples.
When we need to migrate workloads to the cloud or build a greenfield environment in the cloud, a point of discussion that often comes up is which cloud provider to choose. The decision is often straightforward for organizations that are already on a specific cloud for the last several years, and have adopted a specific cloud provider. For any new workload migration or to build cloud-native apps, for obvious reasons that specific cloud provider is often the preferred one unless there is a compelling reason to look at some specialized capability of another cloud provider.
However, there are many organizations today who have only moved a few workloads to the cloud or none at all and plan to migrate their on-premise data center workloads in the next few years. For these organizations, it becomes critical to decide which cloud provider to choose.
Miners are a necessary and important link in the cryptocurrency chain that take an active part in the issue of coins and maintain the system’s performance. A couple of years ago, it was possible to mine on a home PC and make a profit; now, the mining process has become so complicated that even collective pools and large farms do not always pay off. Therefore, cloud mining services began to appear.
The essence of the method is simple: instead of spending money on equipment, the user rents it from large companies. Such companies are most often created in countries with affordable electricity tariffs and a cool climate (these countries hold the largest mining pools). The user pays them a fixed commission and a percentage of the profit.
From effectively communicating with the target audience to promoting and selling their products and services, businesses are increasingly relying on mobile applications to improve their marketing and sales strategies and at the same time offering enhanced customer experience. Mobile applications offer businesses an excellent method for communicating with their customers.
A well-designed mobile app can give a small company an edge in competing against larger companies in its industry.
In this article, we’ll take a look at building a secured REST API by integrating with Okta as the identity provider via OpenID Connect (OIDC). This article is based on the DZone article Building a Java REST API with Quarkus, which explains how to create a Java REST API with Quarkus and Okta. We will be implementing a similar scenario here by using Ballerinalang, and show how it’s simpler and more straightforward to implement compared to our Java counterpart.
Verify the installation by typing “ballerina -v” in the command line. This should output the currently installed Ballerina version.
Over the weekend, Alex Shiels announced an open call for plugin authors to begin submitting one-off block plugins to the official block directory. In the upcoming WordPress 5.5 update, slated for release on August 11, end-users will be able to search for, install, and add blocks directly from the editor. With little time left before release, will plugin authors make this a worthwhile feature for users?
“The Block Directory is a subset of plugins in the plugin directory that can be instantly and seamlessly installed from the Gutenberg editor with a single click,” wrote Shiels in the announcement. “We call these new plugins ‘block plugins’ and have worked hard to make it easier for people to contribute to this new feature coming to WordPress 5.5.”
WordPress plugin authors now have a new block validation tool at their disposal. The validator can check an SVN repository URL, Github URL, or plugin slug to determine if it is suitable for inclusion into the WordPress block directory. It is still under development, so plugin authors should report any issues they run into.
For existing plugins in the plugin directory, developers can publish them to the block directory after passing validation with the tool. Plugin authors can also remove their plugins from the block directory at the click of the button.
The block plugin guidelines are still under development. The draft ticket has been open since November 21, 2019. It has seen little activity in the months since. Presumably, there will be a finalized version on WordPress.org rather than GitHub before WordPress 5.5 lands.
Developers who want to begin building block plugins should follow the updated block development tutorial.
Technically, plugin authors have been able to submit blocks to the directory for months. It was a bit of a hidden feature that few developers took advantage of. The user base was primarily Gutenberg plugin users who had enabled the experimental block directory search feature. Despite the small user base, it was an ideal time for plugin authors to begin experimenting and building an audience. It could have also been a great opportunity for relatively unknown developers to make their mark upon the WordPress world. There is still some time for that, but the community has not been actively encouraged to create blocks for the directory. With WordPress 5.5 looming ahead, the past few months seem like a missed opportunity.
Nick Hamze, one of the most prolific publishers of one-off blocks, is taking a break. He originally had plans to release 99 plugins throughout 2020, but the WordPress plugin review team asked him to dial things back a bit. His routine releases were putting a strain on the team. The problem is that he was one of the few plugin authors putting in the work to make the block directory a great thing.
As a former reviewer for the themes team, I understand how easy it is to get overwhelmed with a wave of new projects that need a code review. At the same time, I would be willing to bump Hamze’s work to the front of the line, regardless of how often he was releasing new plugins. It may be a bit unfair to other plugin authors, but few others were betting big on what will be one of WordPress 5.5’s highlights: a searchable block directory.
“If someone would have just given me the barest encouragement I would have kept going, but due to my experience, I stopped submitting blocks and won’t do it anymore in the future,” said Hamze.
If no one else was putting in the work, there should have been no harm in giving him a bit of priority or a helping hand. That way, when WordPress 5.5 launches, there is something to show for this feature.
Now, we are in the 11th hour, mere weeks before 5.5’s official release, with a meager offering of blocks — instead of hundreds of blocks, we are currently nearing the 60 mark. It is a last-minute rallying call to get plugin authors churning away before the final bell rings. Yet, WordPress just benched what was essentially its star player.
I have no doubt the block directory will continue to grow. More developers will buy into it, especially as full-site editing creates more possibilities in WordPress 5.6 later this year. Some authors will likely produce more blocks than the totality of the current number in the directory.
If the Gutenberg team had managed to squeeze the directory and management screens into WordPress 5.5 admin, it would have made for a far bigger splash. It would have been good visibility for block makers. WordPress will support a block directory search for now. However, there is no way for end-users to more casually browse blocks via their admin. There is no way to see the latest block plugin releases or view the most popular blocks. Some of these things may have made one-off block development a bit more enticing to plugin authors.
I am still optimistic that more plugin authors will jump onto the block bandwagon. It will just be a while before we start seeing the wealth of blocks that cover the entire spectrum of what users need.
If you’re a freelance wordpress designer or developer, you probably know how important it is to have a good portfolio. It can serve as a powerful marketing and sales tool and increase your chances of getting hired if you create it properly. That’s why today I would like to share with you 8 tips on […]
The post 8 Characteristics of a Great Portfolio Website appeared first on WPExplorer.
GitHub is undoubtedly the largest and most popular social development platform in the world. According to its 2019 State of the Octoverse Report, GitHub is home to over 40 million, and the community keeps expanding every day.
As developers in this deeply interconnected community use open source code to build software, Github security should be a top priority. This is because extensive code re-use increases the risk of distributing vulnerabilities from one dependency or repository to another. As such, every contributor should focus on creating a secure development environment.
Did you know the smart grid data analytics market is anticipated to grow by 25% from 2020 to 2024? This data analytics is now playing a more important role than anything else in the modern industrial system today. Indeed, it has unlocked novel groundbreaking opportunities for almost everyone. While among this all, smart grid data analytics is shaking up the entire industry with its utilities and technological innovations, making a significant impact on the lives of many people.
Please continue reading to know more about smart grid big data analytics, and how it is influencing the living of us all!
Scrum, as we know, is a very important part of Agile software development practices. But it has many other applications that a lot of aspiring project managers are not aware of. These scrum apps can be used in various production settings ranging from construction processes to marketing endeavors.
In the project management paradigm, all of the software facilitating the PM projects have a lot of functionality to follow a Scrum framework including sprint planning and backlogging features.
Looking for the best warehouse management software? We like Fishbowl Inventory and think you will too.
A good warehouse management software gives your business the tools it needs to track the movement of items at your warehouse.
Not only that, but it also keeps your customer happy knowing that their products will get to them in a timely manner.
But what does a good warehouse management software look like? And what are some of the best ones?
Luckily, we’re here to answer just that. Keep reading to find out our top suggestions for the best warehouse management software.
• Our top pick
• Real-time updates
• Automatic reordering
• Great integrations
• Try it for FREE
A warehouse management software (WMS) allows you to track and organize the storage and movement of resources at your warehouse. This can include everything from tracking inventory and raw materials, to managing your employees and ordering new supplies.
And having a good WMS is integral to modern-day supply chain management.
Whereas old WMS could only do the bare minimum such as locate where items are being stored in your warehouse, most warehouse management software in modern times allows you to perform a wealth of functions through a centralized system.
That’s because modern-day WMS rely on cloud technology to keep track of everything. Gone are the days of keeping physical books and ledgers of warehouse supply. Now everything is fully integrated online so all you need is a phone or tablet to get the job done.
That’s important because it allows your warehouse to be fully in-sync with the customer-facing portion of your business, giving you and the customer real-time information to track orders, fulfill shipments, and get shipping estimates.
Our top 6 warehouse management software are:
• Our top pick
• Real-time updates
• Automatic reordering
• Great integrations
• Try it for FREE
When it comes to their warehouse management features, they include things such as real-time inventory updates, automatic reordering, and integrations with a ton of invoicing and ecommerce shopping solutions.
In fact, they’re fully integrated with platforms such as:
And more. That means if your business is already using one of these solutions, you’ll be able to seamlessly add on Fishbowl Inventory without disrupting existing workflow.
They’re also a solid option when it comes to asset tracking. From across multiple warehouses, you’ll be able to track shipments for customers, automatically reorder any low inventory items, and keep track of expiration dates — perfect for any food you have in your inventory. Their barcoding feature also keeps everything organized in your system.
One drawback is that the interface isn’t the nicest looking (think mid-2000s Windows desktop).
Software pricing starts at $4,395 and includes permanent ownership of the software. You can also try it for free for 14-days to see if it’s a good fit for you and your business.
• User-friendly interface
• Comes with hardware
• 24/7 customer support
• Comes with personal consultant
• Pricing starts at $395 a month!
Where Infoplus really shines is how user-friendly the interface is. It’s simple design allows any manager or employee to track down what they need quickly and easily.
Infoplus Software also provides you with the hardware you need to get your warehouse up and running such as barcode scanners.
If you decide to go with their solution, you’ll be assigned with an implementation consultant to help your specific warehouse get exactly the knowledge they need to run smoothly. This helps address any unique needs your business and employees might have.
And if you run into any trouble, don’t worry. There’s 24/7 customer support to make sure any issues are addressed as soon as possible.
Pricing starts at $395 a month for their Infoplus Startup Plan. That comes with customized reporting, hardware such as scanners, scales, and printers, as well as their intuitive dashboard. If you’re interested, each of their plans comes with a demo as well so you can try it out before purchasing.
• Tracks inventory
• Good mobile apps
• Barcode labeling
• Expiration tracking
• Get a free consultation today!
Their WMS helps you get control of daily operations through task management, packaging and shipping orders, and tracking your inventory. They also provide a great mobile app that allows you to easily keep track of inventory on your phone as well.
Features such as barcode labeling and expiration tracking keeps everything organized and optimized. While warehouse operation features such as multiorder picking and suggested putaway helps reduce costs.
You’ll be able to get real-time data on your warehouse to give you — and the customer — a more accurate view of your inventory and resources.
They also give you 3PL management as well just in case you need to work with other brands and businesses for ecommerce solutions.
Unfortunately, their pricing is a little obscure. To find out if Netsuite is right for your business, you can schedule a free consultation with them.
• End-to-end inventory tracking
• Integrates well with automated systems
• Unique route tool
• Easy collaboration
• Get a quote today!
Their end-to-end tracking of your entire inventory makes sure that nothing ever gets lost and the inventory always makes it to where it needs to be.
It also comes with a very interesting “pick route” feature that allows you to configure multiple different order picking tactics. That way you can see all your options and choose the best for you and your business.
As mentioned before, they’re able to integrate with different automation systems. This makes collaborations with 3PLs and vendors a snap.
Their software is also available through the cloud or on location at your warehouse. And with clients like Duluth Trading Co and Pepsi under their belt, you know you’ll be in good hands with them.
Pricing is obscured on their website — but if you like what their website offers, then you can sign up to discuss a project with them. They’ll set up a time to call you and discuss your business’s needs and then you’ll get a quote!
• Great cloud-based software
• Real-time inventory data
• Excellent 3PL support
• Easy upgrades
• Get a quote today!
This is a great WMS for a business of any size too, allowing you to scale in features as your company grows or shrinks.
Since it is cloud-based, you’ll be able to keep valuable data safe even if there’s something wrong at the warehouse’s physical location or if there’s a service outage. You also don’t have to stop all operations just because there’s an upgrade either.
With real-time inventory data, you’ll be able to reduce costs and accurately project how much material you have in your warehouse. Forecasting for managers allows you to make the right decisions when it comes to optimizing workflow.
There’s also great 3PL support. This allows you to work easily with any vendors without worry about if it’ll be friendly with your WMS.
A few drawbacks might include that Mac OS does not support Oracle Warehouse and there’s not as many integrations with common accounting platforms like Quickbooks.
Pricing is also obscure so you’ll have to contact their sales team for more information on how they can tailor their services to your needs.
• Very customizable
• Real-time inventory data
• Easy integration with QA verification
• Barcode scanning and tracking
• Request a demo today!
As such, it’s easily one of the most flexible WMS on this list. You’ll be able to quickly port and integrate with QA verification and “no downtime” according to their website.
You’ll also receive great real-time data on your inventory from your warehouse, allowing you to save money. You’ll also get updates on daily operational status. This lets managers make smarter decisions about optimizing.
One interesting thing that PTC MOVE offers is integration with robotics and intelligent apparel management. Great for specific companies that can’t find these services in other WMS.
PTC’s MOVE also offers the typical features you come to expect from a good WMS such as reporting and analytics, barcode scanning and tracking, inventory tracking, and real-time inventory management.
Their pricing is obscured on the website, but you can always request a demo to see if PTC MOVE is right for you and your company.
Your business is unique. As such, what you’ll be looking for in a good warehouse management software will be unique to you.
However, there are a few solid rules-of-thumb you can follow to separate the bad software from the good ones.
Below are our top 4 criteria for warehouse management software. They’re the features and tools we come to expect from a good one.
A good warehouse management software allows you to integrate with your existing systems. That can mean anything from your accounting software to your enterprise resource planning systems.
When you’re looking into a warehouse management software, poke around their website to see if their software integrates well and is compatible with the software you currently use. And if it’s not online, do what you can to reach out to a sales representative to get the answers you need.
Knowing that the warehouse management system will play well with your existing structure can save you a LOT of time, energy, resources, and headaches down the line.
This is a no-brainer and non-negotiable feature you should look for in any warehouse management software. You want one that is able to keep track of all of your inventory from when it leaves the vendor’s or supplier’s warehouse, to when it arrives and exists on your shelves, to when you need to ship it out to customers or wherever else.
Not only that, but you need to be able to access vital pieces of information regarding your inventory such as how much you have in stock. Features such as expiration date trackers can also help you save a lot of time and money. After all, you don’t want to be taking up valuable warehouse space with materials that can’t be used or sold.
This is a crucial step you don’t want to forget when choosing your warehouse management software. You need to be able to balance the costs of the software with what you’ll be getting out of it.
That means everything about the warehouse management process needs to come into play. Consider the costs and how much you stand to gain when it comes to:
Balance that with the costs and how much you stand to gain with your WMS. Keep in mind that the warehouse management software you choose might end up costing you money if it doesn’t integrate well with your existing system, or if they aren’t there to help you with customer support when things go wrong.
You don’t plan on keeping your business the same size forever. Why should you expect your warehouse management software to do the same? A good WMS is able to adapt to your growing needs with new features and tools. Of course, that’s going to come at a steeper cost to you, but with that costs comes greater support.
You want to find a WMS that’s able to scale well then with your company. That also means scaling down if it fits the needs of your company.
• Our top pick
• Real-time updates
• Automatic reordering
• Great integrations
• Try it for FREE
When it comes to warehouse management software, we recommend Fishbowl Inventory. Top to bottom, it is the strongest competitor when it comes to handling your inventory, and giving you the metrics you need to succeed.
Problem Statement:
I have installed RabbitMQ on windows machine N number of times, but this time, it swallowed all my brain. Reason? Maybe the new permissions/policies that my company has enforced. I have installed Erlang 10, set ERLANG_HOME as well, and then installed RabbitMQ 3.7.7. No error, no exception, but I was unable to see RabbitMQ as a service.
Google has a new Top-Level Domain (TLD) they are offering: .new. They have special requirements for it:
Navigation to a .new domain must bring a user directly into the action generation or online creation flow. Navigation or redirection to a homepage or landing page that requires the user to take additional steps or clicks to initiate action or creation will not be deemed to comply with this policy.
For example, GitHub has repo.new that takes you to a page to create a new repository. Stripe has invoice.new for taking you directly to a page for building an invoice.
Now CodePen has pen.new for taking you straight to the Pen Editor.
Since we applied during the “Limited Registration Period”, we had to fill out an application saying what we would do with it, and fortunately we were approved. After approval, then we could proceed with buying the domain. It’s $500 a year! Google says it’s because it’s a brand new TLD that they’ll need to highly monitor and protect. Pretty pricey for a TLD. Not too many that are more expensive.I guess it’s no .rich 
I think it’s worth it because it’s fun and if it encourages some folks to build that domain into their muscle memory for creating new Pens, that’s a good thing for both of us.
The post New URL: pen.new appeared first on CodePen Blog.
Hey quick! You’ve gotta create the navigation for the site and you start working on the mobile behavior. What pattern do you choose? If you’re like most folks, it’s probably the “hamburger” menu that, when clicked, uses a little JavaScript to expand a vertical list of navigation links.
But that’s not the only option.
Depending on the context and contents of the navigation, there may be a JavaScript-free method that gets the job done while providing a more accessible experience.
It is considered best practice to use a progressive enhancement approach, building webpages for users with the oldest and least capable technology first, then introducing additional enhancements as support allows. If you can provide a quality experience for users with basic technology, then you might consider whether or not your webpage even requires JavaScript functionality at all. Leaving JavaScript out of the navigation can ensure that users are able to navigate your website even if JavaScript is disabled or network issues prevent scripts from loading — which are definitely wins.
Let’s look at three alternative patterns to the JavaScript-powered hamburger menu.
Who said navigation has to be in the header of every page? If your front end is extremely lightweight or if you have a long list of menu items to display in your navigation, the most practical method might be to create a separate page to list them all. The lightweight WordPress theme Susty utilizes this method for its navigation.
This pattern is especially useful for static websites that use filesystem routing. If the project is built using a static site generator, the page load might be imperceptible to the user and have the added benefit of keeping your templates as modular as possible.
All this takes is basically replacing the “Menu” button with a close button instead when the user is on the menu page. When clicked, we can take the user back to the last page they were on in a couple of ways. If we are using a server-side CMS, like WordPress, then we can grab the last URL using $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] and set it as the “close” button URL.
But if we’re not using a server-side setup then, yeah, we might need a few lines of JavaScript to get that last URL.
<a href="https://MyHomePage.com" onclick="handleClick(event)">×</a>
<script>
function handleClick(event) {
// Don't follow the link
event.preventDefault();
// Go back to last visited page
window.history.back();
// Bail out of the function
return false;
}
</script>So, while I like this method and pattern, it might require JavaScript depending on the project.
This approach is perfect for shorter link lists and allows users to access all of the navigation items without opening anything or clicking away from where they are. GitHub uses this approach for sub-menus.
Using flexbox combined with a scrolling overflow in CSS will do the trick!
Just because the hamburger menu pattern is often done with JavaScript doesn’t mean we have to use JavaScript. Using CSS pseudo-selectors and an HTML <input>, we can create a rich mobile menu and save JavaScript for other functionality that actually requires it.
See? Just because a convention is popular doesn’t mean it is the only way to do things. There are often simpler, more accessible methods, especially when it comes to navigation. It’s not much work to create functional, lightweight, immersive navigation without JavaScript and we get some nice benefits along the way. If you’ve created any interesting CSS-only navigation patterns, I’d love to see them — please share in the comments!
The post Three CSS Alternatives to JavaScript Navigation appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
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Like Kickstarter, but for Web Platform Features.
That’s about the quickest way to sum up Open Prioritization from Igalia. Igalia is an independent company that works on browsers. They literally commit to all the different open source browsers to implement (and fix) features that we all use. Now they are asking: what browser features are important to you? Are they important enough for you to pledge some money to get it implemented?
I think it’s a clever idea and I’d love for it to get enough legs that it actually starts working and that enough money comes in that Igalia is able to throw resources behind the features that people have voted are the most important with their money.
For example, I pledged $20 to get d: path(); support in Firefox. Heck yeah, that would be awesome! If it starts edging closer to that goal, I know I’d be tempted to up that to get it over the line, but some momentum needs to start building first.
Is this all sunshine and roses? Perhaps not. Some of the pushback I’ve heard so far is about the message this sends to the massive companies behind these browsers. Rather than the message being “please fix these features of your incredibly important piece of software, it will make things better for everyone including you,” the message becomes, “I guess we’ll spend our own money and band together to try to get a third-party to fix your software for you.” A bit like when school teachers need to buy their own classroom supplies.
Rachel Andrew talked to Brian Kardell about some of this nuance in her coverage on Smashing Magazine.
And, oh hey, in related news, I recently came across this Web Platform Contribution Guide. What a nice resource for people looking to get into helping the web literally and directly.
Direct Link to Article — Permalink
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