Author: Sarah Gooding

Posted on

Gutenberg 14.5 Introduces New “Document Overview” Panel, Improves Block Spacing Controls

Category Image 091

Gutenberg 14.5 was released today with a modest set of enhancements and dozens of bug fixes and code quality improvements. The highlight of this release is the new “Document Overview” panel, which combines what was previously found under separate icons in the Editor toolbar under “List View” and “Details.” This popup was where information like words, characters, headings, time to read, paragraphs, and blocks used to be found:

Details view prior to Gutenberg 14.5

The new Document Outline panel can be opened using the List View icon in the toolbar. Characters, words, and “time to read” have been moved to the bottom of the panel. This makes the entire panel cleaner, as the document stats were overly prominent before and the details popup had become even more crowded after the addition of the “time to read” stats.

image credit: Gutenberg 14.5 release post

This release also improves block spacing controls to make them more visual so that users can immediately see how changing the controls will impact the surrounding blocks. Gutenberg contributor Nick Diego demonstrated this update in a video:

A few other notable additions to this release include the following:

Check out the release post for a more detailed list of all the bugs fixed, documentation updated, and code quality improvements in 14.5.

Posted on

WordPress 6.1 Retires Default Site Tagline in Favor of Empty String

Featured Imgs 23

WordPress’ default site tagline, “Just another WordPress site,” is now a thing of the past, though not yet fully retired to the realm of nostalgia. The recent 6.1 release resolved a ticket that lead developer Mark Jaquith opened 15 years ago to encourage people to change their taglines. The tagline has now been changed to an empty string for new installations. This was added as a note of interest in the 6.1 release post, which was the first place many learned about it:

“The site tagline is empty by default in new sites but can be modified in General Settings.”

For those who are sentimental about the tagline, rest assured that it has been preserved as placeholder text in the admin.

“I do think the easier solution is to replace the ‘Just another WordPress site’ value with a placeholder,” WordPress Core Committer Jb Audras said in the discussion on the ticket. “By doing this, we keep this sentence which is in my opinion part of the WordPress history —by doing so, it would at least appear on the Settings screen, so we keep this signature sentence somewhere on the admin— but the value is empty by default for new installs.”

This is the solution he committed, which landed in 6.1. The commit message identifies the reasoning behind the change:

Administration: Change default site tagline to an empty string.

This changeset replaces the default “Just another WordPress site” tagline with an empty string for new installations. The reasoning is:

  1. Not all themes display the tagline;
  2. Not everyone changes the default tagline;
  3. When people don’t see the tagline in their theme, they may not realize it is still visible in some places, like feeds.

The string “Just another WordPress site” and the related multisite string: “Just another {NETWORK} site” are now only used as a placeholder for the tagline admin option.

The advent of block themes was also another factor, since the Customizer was where users often managed their taglines in the past. Contributors concluded that the increasing use of block themes might result in more people who have the default tagline on their sites without even knowing about it. The conclusion was it is better to make it an empty string than to add a bunch of admin prompts to update it.

This is a welcome change to how taglines are presented, and it was past time to update it. Although most WordPress professionals had become accustomed to it, more casual users often searched for how to get rid of it, sometimes without knowing it could be customized. The message also wasn’t doing WordPress any favors, unless it was originally written to imply WordPress’ ubiquity on the web – a claim that was aspirational at the time it was first committed to core. In that case, it has long since served its purpose. An empty string ensures that the only taglines showing up for new installations are ones that admins intentionally wrote for their sites.

Posted on

The WordPress Community Isn’t Ready to Leave Twitter

Category Image 006

Elon Musk has bought Twitter in a $44B deal that closed this week, tweeting “Let the good times roll,” on Friday after taking the helm. Musk fired top executives at the company and tweeted an appeal to Twitter’s advertisers to share his motivation in acquiring what is arguably the world’s most important social network:

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”

Musk also hinted at the importance of content moderation, saying “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” The company is forming a council to discuss content moderation, but nobody knows what that will mean for the future of Twitter.

While some Twitter users have considered migrating to Tumblr, the structure and user base isn’t currently comparable to the Twitter experience. In response to Verge co-founder Nilay Patel’s provocative article titled “Welcome to hell, Elon,” Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg tweeted his support.

“This is an unfortunately good summary of why running a social network is so hard, as I’ve learned with Tumblr,” Mullenweg said. “I am wishing Twitter the best and also hope this doesn’t slow down Tesla or SpaceX, which I think are critical to the future.”

Patel aptly communicated the weight of the political challenges Musk will face in his commitment to steering Twitter away from becoming “a free-for-all hellscape,” which some think has already happened. If Musk decides to open the doors to unsavory characters who were banned in the past, it may drive the social network into the ground.

While the WordPress community has many online gathering places – various Slack workspaces, P2 blogs, and Facebook groups – it has always been Twitter that served as the place for both casual interactions and breaking news. It is the de facto social network for those working in tech. There are many who only use the platform for keeping up with WordPress news and the community.

“There’s nowhere else to really go!” WordPress product designer Mike McAlister said. “WordPress people are pretty much exclusively on Twitter it seems.”

Apart from the few optimistic souls who think Twitter will be better than ever, many community members expressed apprehension about losing the network they have built over the years. As the closing of the sale loomed, people threatened to leave Twitter on principle if Musk gained control. That day has arrived, but for the most part the WordPress community is not abandoning Twitter.

“Twitter has had too good of an impact on my life to just jump ship,” Edan Ben-Atar said. “I’ll stick around for as long as it makes sense. For now, nothing has changed from what is noticeable to the eye.”

WordPress designer Dustin Henrich says he is staying but also looking up the people he follows on other platforms.

“I’ve made too many good connections, enjoy reading about people’s tech and non tech lives, and learning from some wicked smart people,” Henrich said. “I’d truly be sad if this just all went away.”

Decentralized social networking, which has so far failed to gain much mainstream attention, is getting a second look in light of Twitter changing hands. WordPress agency owner Tom Finley is experimenting with using the Activity Pub plugin to set up his site as a private Mastadon server. It implements the ActivityPub protocol for WordPress so readers can see the site’s posts on Mastadon and other federated platforms (that support Activity Pub).

Some WordPress community members are flirting with joining Mastadon instances, or have already committed to posting in both networks, but we are not yet seeing a mass exodus flocking to the fediverse.

“We’ve seen this attempted exodus to the promised land many times before,” Ross Wintle said in a post that explains why he isn’t optimistic about people successfully leaving Twitter. “Without a proper mass migration of people and organizations to another service, it doesn’t stick.

“You end up with people cross posting to multiple services to reach all the people that they want to reach. And then as a reader I’m checking multiple services and seeing the same things. The signal/noise ratio goes down. And most people get fed up and end up back where they were before.”

The most hopeful speculators ask if this could this be the return of blogs. At the moment blogs are not social enough, and there isn’t a critical mass of bloggers eager enough to adopt the protocols necessary to connect their sites in a stream of easily digestible, short updates.

Until Elon Musk makes more radical changes, many WordPress community members see no reason to leave Twitter.

“For now, I don’t see a reason to leave,” WordPress developer advocate Birgit Pauli-Haack said. “Block, Unfollow, Mute are my friends for curating my feed. I did cancel my subscription to Twitter Blue after 12 months. Being allowed to edit tweets is not worth it.”

Overall, most people are taking a “wait and see” approach regarding leaving Twitter.

“I haven’t found a viable alternative,” WordPress meetup organizer Sallie Goetsch said. “I do hang out in various WP Slack groups, but for the wider world…we’ll just have to see what happens here.”

One positive byproduct of this recent shake-up is that the WordPress community is considering a future where important conversations happen on another platform. As users explore other social networks, they may gain an affinity for a different type of social media culture with features that Twitter is lacking. Migrating and settling into a new social home on the web takes time.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t love a mass migration to happen,” Ross Wintle said. “I’ve just seen so many attempts now and none seem to have been particularly successful, and I don’t see why this one would either.

“For a big change to happen, I think either the platform has to spontaneously combust itself or it falls out of fashion by a long period of attrition and fades from the public consciousness over time. Facebook may even be at the start of this. Time will tell.

“Perhaps, one day, we will look back and remember that thing we all used called Twitter the same way we remember Geocities and MySpace. But I struggle to see how that will be next week or next month. It will be in many years.”

Posted on

Gutenberg 14.4 Introduces Distraction-Free Mode, Redesigns Pattern Inserter

Category Image 091

Gutenberg 14.4 was released today with long-awaited support for distraction-free editing, to the delight of content editors around the world. It hides all non-essential UI and clears the canvas for a focus on text-based content creation.

The mode can be toggled on in the options menu in the top toolbar. Distraction-free mode hides the top toolbar, any open sidebars, along with the insertion point indicator and the block toolbar.

source: Gutenberg 14.4 release post

The project to improve the editing experience for text-based content began with early explorations in February, which progressed into a PR that contributors have been refining for the last few months. This distraction-free mode is a monumental improvement over the days when users struggled to write with various UI elements popping in and out of view.

Another major update in 14.4 is the redesigned pattern inserter. It has been updated to show the categories before rendering the patterns, giving users a more fluid visual preview as they browse the pattern library. Patterns can be dragged and dropped from the preview pane into the canvas.

source: Gutenberg 14.4 release post

Other notable improvements users may notice include the following:

Performance benchmarks show an improvement in loading time for both the post and site editors. Check out the release post to see the full list of all the changes and bug fixes included in 14.4. This release will not be included in the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release next week, but users who are eager to adopt these new features can get them right now in the Gutenberg plugin.

Posted on

UniBlock: A Free Business Block Theme for WordPress

Best Wordpress Themes 1

WPZOOM is coming in strong with its first block theme approved for the WordPress Themes Directory. UniBlock is a beautifully designed theme that is well-suited for businesses and freelancers. The company plans to adopt the concept of full-site editing in other WPZOOM themes as well, following the release of UniBlock.

UniBlock’s default look is sporting a darker color palette in the navigation and above the fold, with a lighter background for the rest of the website. The video on the sample homepage uses the free WPZOOM Video Popup Block plugin, which supports Vimeo and YouTube. It’s a simple, lightweight block that allows users to customize the play button and play icon.

After activating the theme, clicking on ‘Customize’ will prompt the user to install the video plugin. It can also be converted to a Custom HTML block or removed entirely at the user’s discretion.

UniBlock’s 19 custom block patterns include everything one might expect from a business theme but, most impressively, it ships with five full-page patterns:

  • Front Page
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact

Alternatively, users can assign the page template in the post settings to get the same effect.

These full-page patterns are convenient for speedy page building. They make it possible to get a basic business website up in a matter of minutes. Here’s an example of the Services full-page pattern that will instantly embed when selected. Users can delete any sections they don’t need, add more blocks and patterns, and quickly fill in all their own information.

Separately there are patterns for a footer with text, links, multiple arrangements of featured boxes with text and button, multiple designs for call-to-action sections, pricing tables, team members with social icons, testimonials, header cover, sidebar, 404 page, and more.

Users can delve even further into customizing the templates with the site editor, as UniBlock is packaged with nearly two dozen templates and template parts. Here they can also edit the menu and adjust global styles.

WPZOOM is developing a Pro version of the theme to release in a few weeks with support for importing the whole demo, multiple color schemes, multiple demos, premium block patterns, and additional header and footer layouts.

Check out the demo on the WPZOOM website to see the theme in action. WPZOOM has also written documentation for UniBlock, which covers general topics like how to use block patterns, how to set up the front and blog pages, and how to create a menu in the site editor. Since the company’s most popular themes are what would be considered classic themes, UniBlock is new territory for most of their customers. It is so far the only block theme among WPZOOM’s collection of 31 themes.

Block theme adoption is slowly making its way across WordPress’ major theme shops and the official directory is now hosting 160 themes tagged for full-site editing. As more longtime theme companies make their block theme debuts and develop a base for future themes, WordPress users may start to see a rapid acceleration of the number and variety of block themes available. UniBlock is so far one of the few block themes in the directory with a singular focus on business websites. It is available to download for free from WordPress.org or via the admin themes panel.

Posted on

Gutenberg 14.3 Improves Image Drag and Drop

Category Image 091

Gutenberg 14.3 was released this week with drag-and-drop improvements for both the block editor and the site editor. Automattic-sponsored contributor Aaron Robertshaw published a video, illustrating how the block editor now supports  dropping an image onto an empty paragraph block to replace it with a new Image block.

The site editor has also added drag-and-drop capabilities for blocks and patterns in the new zoomed-out view, which was added in Gutenberg version 14.1. It zooms out to focus on building and composing patterns, allowing users to move sections around without affecting the inner blocks. It can be enabled under “Experiments.” In 14.3, users can drag blocks and patterns right onto the canvas with an overhead view that makes it easy to place in between existing blocks.

video source: Gutenberg PR #44402

This version also introduces new support for alt + arrow keyboard combinations for navigating blocks. Robertshaw explained how they work:

For example, if your cursor is towards the end of a long paragraph, you can quickly press alt + up arrow to move to the beginning of that paragraph. If you are already at the beginning of a text block, you’ll move to the start of the previous paragraph. Similarly, alt + down arrow will move you to the end of a block of text.

The Styles typography controls have been updated to include the Tools Panels that users have available in the Block Settings interface. This makes the experience more consistent and expands the capabilities to allow for resetting the values.

This release includes dozens of fixes and improvements to design tools, components, the Block API, and more. Check out the changelog in the announcement post for the full list of updates.

Gutenberg 14.3 will not be included in the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release but will be rolled into core the next time around. If you want these features now, you can install the Gutenberg plugin.

Posted on

Shortcodes Ultimate Plugin Patches CSRF Vulnerability in Version 5.12.1

Wp Plugins

The Shortcodes Ultimate plugin, used on more than 700,000 WordPress sites for creating things like tabs, buttons, and accordions, has patched a vulnerability in version 5.12.1. The plugin’s changelog simply says, “This update fixes a security vulnerability in the shortcode generator. To the author’s credit, the changelog clearly denotes it as a security update, although it doesn’t offer specific details.

The vulnerability was reported by researcher Dave Jong at Patchstack and is logged at the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) as a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability leading to plugin preset settings change. It was patched two weeks ago and the NVD published the advisory this week.

At this time, the vulnerability is not known to have been exploited, but users are advised to update to the latest version. Based on WordPress.org stats, 46% of the plugin’s user base is running on versions older than 5.12.x. The Shortcodes Ultimate plugin author has since released version 5.12.2, which fixes an issue with the Shortcode Generator Presets that was introduced in the previous update.

Posted on

Molten: A Free WordPress Block Theme for Restaurants

Best Wordpress Themes 1

Molten is a new block theme from first-time WordPress.org theme author Paul Truong, designed for chefs and restaurateurs to showcase their work. The theme puts the spotlight on food photography offset with bold typography featuring the Playfair Display font for headings and Source Sans Pro for paragraph text.

Truong is working on setting up a marketing site for the theme so there is no demo at this time. One drawback is that it does not include any full-page patterns where you can quickly build a homepage or menu page without having to think about how the design should go together. You will have to rely on your own sense of design but Molten comes packaged with ample patterns for building pages.

Molten has four different hero patterns, three “coming soon” patterns, and six “call to action” patterns in various layouts (media and text, full width cover with text and button, and three columns with images and content). The theme also comes with a large gallery block pattern and multiple location pattern designs.

There’s almost nothing worse than a restaurant website that makes you download a PDF menu. It’s not mobile or SEO-friendly, and downloading a separate file is a terrible user experience. Restaurateurs have traditionally used PDFs because it’s easier to update it by uploading and replacing the old files. It’s also easier to design it to approximate the printed menu. Blocks can make it easier for restaurants to abandon this practice of using PDFs. A block-based menu can be quickly edited and expanded as necessary without messing with uploading any files.

Molten includes four Menu block patterns with different layouts for wine lists, dishes, and pricing.

Molten packages nine templates and five template parts for users who want to dig into full-site editing. There are multiple light and dark footer and header designs, search, archive, a completely blank template, and more. It includes four style variations which can significantly change the mood of the website.

Overall, the theme has just about anything a restaurant or “coming soon” establishment may need in terms of layout and design. The default color palette has a simple black and white typography-forward design that puts the emphasis on the food. Molten is available for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.

Posted on

ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

Category Image 091

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) has announced the availability of version 6.0, an update that applies to both the free and pro versions of the plugin. This release introduces a refreshed admin UI that ACF product manager Iain Poulson said users had been requesting since 2021.

“We didn’t want this to be a huge change that would disrupt a user’s workflow, but instead a light reskin that focuses on bringing user experience improvements to the Field Group editor,” Poulson said.

“The team have done a great job with the new design, improving all the ACF plugin admin screens from the Field Group editor to the Tools page.”

The reskinning delivers the following improvements:

  • Reduces the vertical height of the field settings
  • Improved experience adding new fields to a Field Group
  • Added a sticky “Save Changes” button to the header bar that is always visible without users having to scroll up to the top of the page
  • Added more width to “Fields” box to reduce cramping from nested subfields
  • Keyboard navigation for fields
  • Improved focus states across the Field Group editor, toggle switches, radio buttons, and checkbox groups
  • New opt-in setting for Repeater pagination

Version 6.0 also includes ACF Blocks Version 2, a feature included in ACF PRO. It allows developers to use a PHP-based framework for developing custom block types.

“ACF 6.0 contains a new block versioning system, allowing you to opt in to new versions which will change things like the markup and structure of ACF Blocks in both the backend and frontend, and may require updates to your theme to support,” Poulson said.

“This next generation of ACF Blocks brings us much closer to the native block experience, while still giving you the PHP based templating language you know as a WordPress developer.”

ACF users were encouraged to see that the plugin is still moving forward after having changed hands twice in the past two years. Delicious Brains acquired ACF from its creator Elliot Condon in June 2021. By November of that year, Delicious Brains was soliciting the plugin’s Lifetime License holders for contributions via email, urging them to purchase annual subscriptions. Seven months later, Delicious Brains sold off ACF and four other products to WP Engine, rattling customers who were concerned about the plugin’s lack of innovation and its stability in the hands of a large hosting company.

Poulson, who continued on with WP Engine to support Delicious Brains’ products after they were acquired, said the next thing on the roadmap is adding the ability to register custom post types and taxonomies in the UI and improvements to how field types are selected.

Posted on

Design Mode: A Free Portfolio Block Theme Designed for Freelancers and Agencies

Best Wordpress Themes 1

The count for WordPress block themes has reached 137. It’s a far cry from the 500 block themes WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy set as a goal for 2022, but the number is steadily climbing as theme authors find their footing and discover how quickly block themes can be created.

Brian Gardner is throwing his hat into the ring again with his latest release. Design Mode is a new block theme created for freelancers and agencies to showcase their services and work. After its release, several of Gardener’s contemporaries, fellow theme designers, remarked on how refreshing it is to see a block theme with “real world use cases,” as so many seem to be geared at bloggers.

Design Mode features Outfit, a geometric sans serif Google font, designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida, a Venezuelan type designer based in Santiago de Chile. It is used for both headings and paragraph text throughout the theme.

The demo gives the best idea of what the theme looks like with a curated set of images, titles, captions, menus, and buttons all filled with content. Once installed and activated on a new site, the theme looks very similar to the demo but has a placeholder image instead of the photos used in the demo. This is because the photos did not have the right licensing for distribution on WordPress.org, but the way it ships has the advantage of giving users a visual blank slate for those featured sections.

Design Mode includes 10 different patterns, which are essentially all Aspects of the design deconstructed into parts. There are multiple patterns for sections with cover, heading, text, and button, a query grid with three columns, a section with text and separators, a footer, and a header with site title and navigation perfectly spaced. The theme also conveniently includes a whole page pattern that will instantly reproduce the homepage in the demo.

Design Mode is an opinionated theme. Users can adjust colors for background, text, and links, and adjust various templates via full-site editing, but it does not come with additional style variations. Personal blogs may benefit from a kaleidoscope of style variations but a well-designed portfolio theme does not usually lend itself well to wide variations in style. In this case fewer options is a good thing that should preserve the simple palette the theme packages.

This is a very fast theme by itself. Gardner reports that Design Mode scores 99 and 100 on Google page speed for mobile/desktop. Depending on what plugins and optimizations a user has active, this theme could be a good choice for performance-conscious WordPress users.

Design Mode is Gardner’s third block theme in the directory. It bears some similarities to his black and white minimalist Avant-Garde theme but has more of a friendly showcase vibe that is suitable for personal portfolios, agencies, and any kind of service business that would benefit from an elegant, structured design.

Design Mode is available for free on WordPress.org or inside WordPress via the admin themes browser.

Posted on

National Harbor, Maryland to Host WordCamp US and Community Summit, August 23-25, 2023

Featured Imgs 23

WordCamp US 2022 has concluded after two days of presentations and a contributor day last weekend. Some attendees are still making their way home with hearts full of good memories until the next time they can gather in person again.

Outside of the main event, attendees had many opportunities to network, connect with new friends, and finally meet people they have been working with on the web for years.

The event’s organizers have invited attendees to share their photos in the WCUS Community Photo Album on Google Photos.

The Job Posting board is back in business and shows several dozen agencies, product, and hosting companies hiring for roles across the WordPress ecosystem. Many of these companies were also sponsors of the event.

All the sessions from WCUS were recorded and will be coming to WordPress.tv soon. In the meantime, sessions can be viewed through the livestream recording on YouTube. There are separate videos for the Sun track (Friday and Saturday), and the Palm track (Friday and Saturday). The recording of Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A is available on WordPress.tv. He answered questions about improving contributor experience, accessibility, the timeline for multilingual features in core, and more.

At the end of his Q&A session, Mullenweg announced the location of the next WordCamp US. In 2023, the event will take place on the East coast at National Harbor, Maryland, a waterfront convention center located along the Potomac River, 20 minutes from Washington, D.C. The dates are set for August 23-25, which will include contributor days, presentations and workshops, and a WordPress Community Summit. Organizers said the event will focus on learning and creation.

Posted on

WordCamp US 2022 Kicks Off Today, Free Livestream Available

Featured Imgs 23

WordCamp US 2022 is underway in San Diego, California, following last night’s welcome party for speakers, sponsors, organizers, and volunteers. For many attendees, this is their first in-person WordPress event since 2019, before the pandemic began shutting down conferences.

Unlike previous events, where attendees numbered in the thousands, this year tickets were capped at 650. They were sold out the first day they went on sale. A smaller crowd should make for a more intimate event where attendees have a higher chance of bumping into the people they hoped to meet.

Opening remarks are expected at 9am PDT. WordCamp US’ schedule includes 41 sessions over the span of two days. Those who are not able to attend in person can still catch the livestream for both tracks, without any special ticket required. Access is free and presentations will be shown live as they are happening on the two tracks:

Sun Track: https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/livestream/sun-fri/

Palm Track https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/livestream/palm-fri/

Virtual participants can use the #WCUS hashtag on Twitter to join in the global conversation.

On Saturday, September 10, Matt Mullenweg will deliver an address at 4:45 pm -5:30 pm PDT and answer live questions from WordCamp US attendees. This will also be streamed live as the last session of the event.

Posted on

WordPress Announces 10 Style Variation Selections for Twenty Twenty-Three Theme

Category Image 091

WordPress’ design team has announced the winners of the challenge to create a style variation for the upcoming Twenty Twenty-Three (TT3) default theme. Organizers received 38 submissions from 19 contributors (some submitted multiple variations) hailing from eight countries.

Given the wide range of colors and typography combinations, TT3 is gearing up to be a vehicle for a diverse set of styles from WordPress’ community of designers. Submissions included creative variations for all kinds of design moods – dark with high contrast, bright yellow with a smaller universal type size, a gradient aubergine background, and many more.

Automattic design director Channing Ritter published the selections that made the cut to be shipped with Twenty Twenty-Three:

“These variations were selected in an effort to feature the most drastically different set of variations possible — so in many ways, we were looking at what would work best as a collection versus selecting our favorite standalone submissions,” Ritter said.

The selections are not in their final form. Contributors will continue iterating on them, under the direction of design team leaders, until the WordPress 6.1 beta period begins on September 20.

“Some of the changes suggested may be a bit aspirational, but let’s continue pushing to see how opinionated we can make each of these variations,” Ritter said.

Submissions that were not chosen to ship with TT3 may still have a path towards inclusion via an official child theme of the default theme. Contributors discussed how this might work and have closed the issue in favor of creating a separate project for it after TT3 has launched.

“I particularly like the idea of continuing to create style variations beyond those that are bundled with TT3,” Automattic-sponsored contributor Sarah Norris said. “I think this is a great opportunity to introduce people to block themes and building variations, with the help of the community and experienced block-themers. It also provides a space to test Gutenberg PRs, in a similar way to how emptytheme is currently used, but with more opinionated settings enabled.

“I’m not sure about this being part of the current TT3 project, and in my opinion, it would be best to start this initiative soon after TT3 has launched.” 

In the meantime, contributors plan to refine the selected variations, and the child theme project can proceed without affecting the theme’s current timeline.

Check out the announcement to see each of the selected variations in more detail.

Posted on

iThemes Patches Vulnerability in BackupBuddy, Wordfence Tracks 5 Million Exploit Attempts

Category Image 032

BackupBuddy, a commercial plugin from iThemes that performs scheduled backups with remote storage options, has patched a vulnerability that allowed for arbitrary file download by unauthenticated users. iThemes published an advisory for its users, indicating that the vulnerability affects versions 8.5.8.0 through 8.7.4.1 and is being actively exploited.

Wordfence reviewed its data and found that attackers began targeting this vulnerability on August 26, 2022. The company has blocked nearly 5 million attacks targeting the vulnerability since that time.

Wordfence found that the method BackupBuddy used to download locally stored files was insecurely implemented, making it possible for unauthenticated users to download any file stored on the server.

“Due to this vulnerability being actively exploited, and its ease of exploitation, we are sharing minimal details about this vulnerability,” Wordfence threat analyst Chloe Chamberland said.

Wordfence found the majority of the attacks are attempting to read sensitive files, including the following:

  • /etc/passwd
  • /wp-config.php
  • .my.cnf
  • .accesshash

iThemes published specific indicators of compromise and detailed steps to detect if a site was attacked. The company outlined additional steps for sites that have been compromised.

All BackupBuddy users are advised to update to the patched version 8.7.5. iThemes made it available to all users, regardless of their current BackupBuddy licensing status, due to the severity of the vulnerability.

Posted on

WordPress To Drop Security Updates for Versions 3.7 Through 4.0 by December, 2022

Category Image 032

WordPress’ Security Team announced it will be dropping support for versions 3.7 through 4.0 on December 1, 2022. To give some context for how old these versions are, in 2013, WordPress 3.7 introduced automatic background updates and 3.8 updated the admin with a new design based on the MP6 plugin.

WordPress’ official policy is that the security team only provides support for the most recent version, but as a courtesy has extended backporting security fixes to older versions that are able to receive automatic updates.

“Until now, these courtesy backports have included all versions of WordPress supporting automatic updates,” 10up-sponsored Security Team member Peter Wilson said. “Versions WordPress 3.7 – 4.0 have reached levels of usage, namely less than 1% of total installs, where the benefit of providing these updates is outweighed by the effort involved.”

More than half of all WordPress sites are on the latest version – 6.0+ (54.3%), and security updates will still be available to more than 99% of sites on older versions after this change. Wilson said the decision to drop support for 3.7 through 4.0 was based off the information reported on the statistics page.

WordPress version stats – 9/7/2022

“The effect of this imbalance means that the Security team spends most of the time preparing backports for the vast minority of WordPress installations,” Wilson said. “By dropping support for these older versions, the newer versions of WordPress will become more secure as more time can be focused on their needs.”

Over the next three months, versions 4.0 and older will receive their final updates and will also display a non-dismissible notice in the dashboard, advising users to upgrade to the latest version as their sites will no longer receive security updates.

Posted on

James Koster Shares Design Explorations that Transform WordPress’ Site Editor Into a More Visual, User-Friendly Tool

Category Image 091

Automattic-sponsored designer James Koster has a vision for taking WordPress’ Site Editor from its beta awkwardness and transforming it to become a more visual and user-friendly design tool. In a recent post titled Revising the presentation of key Site Editor features, Koster identifies unbalanced feature weighting as a critical design flaw that is negatively impacting users’ experience with the editor:

The Site Editor is a powerful tool, but the user experience lacks some coherence and a sense of hierarchy.

Template management and editing has central focus, despite the fact that it’s a product area that has proven difficult for some users to interpret.

Impactful features like style and menu management are hierarchically relegated, and consequently deliver a sub-optimal UX.

This week I’ve been ideating on how we might present site editor features with more appropriate weighting, so that the overall experience feels more like a design tool.

Instead of dropping users directly into editing the homepage, Koster contends that the Site Editor’s design should be updated to become a “navigable frame” where users can select from a menu of features and styles on the left. This is a radical improvement over the current experience, which feels like walking into a room with all the lights on and multiple features competing for attention.

“The combination of the site frame (Browse mode) and one-click editing helps to obfuscate some of the aforementioned confusion around template editing,” Koster said. “Now you simply browse to the page you want to update, and click ‘Edit’.”

Another idea Koster explored is a view that makes it easier to understand the interaction of styles and templates. The UI is much cleaner and drastically reduces the cognitive load for users who are struggling to grasp the concept of templates in the first place.

Identity and homepage configuration options haven’t found a place in the site editor yet. Koster proposed bringing them into the editor in a similar fashion to how it was previously presented in the Customizer, with live previews.

Koster also proposes organizing features like templates, template parts, reusable blocks, and patterns in a “Design Library” section, presented via a grid of thumbnails that would open the edit view. This would bring a new level of organization to a set of tools that are currently scattered throughout the site editor interface.

These are just a few highlights from his explorations. Although Koster articulates many of the Site Editor’s current pain points, his designs present an elegant solution for each. Check out the full post to see all the videos and other ideas for organizing features in the site editor.

The disparity between the current experience and Koster’s mockups is like a night and day Cinderella style transformation. It’s a powerful example of how thoughtful design can really solve problems. His explorations received positive feedback from those eager to see these designs implemented in Gutenberg. Koster said his next step is to prepare some simpler prototypes for collaboration on GitHub.

“The ideas are still formative, but with some pruning we can get things into a shippable state,” Koster said. “My next step is to refine and prototype a more stripped-back version, and take that to GitHub for wider thoughts and feedback.”

Posted on

WordPress 6.1 to Add a Block Themes Filter to Menu on the Theme Install Screen

Best Wordpress Themes 1

In July, WordPress’ Themes and Meta teams collaborated to add a new “Block Themes” menu item to the filter menu on the directory homepage in an effort to improve block themes’ visibility. Block themes currently account for less than 2% of the directory’s 9,900 themes but activating one is the only way users can take advantage of WordPress’ full-site editing capabilities.

Not all users hunt for their next theme directly on WordPress.org. One reason is that browsing themes inside the admin allows for using the Live Preview feature to see how the theme might look with a site’s particular content. Four weeks ago, WordPress contributor Jessica Lyschik opened a ticket proposing to add the same Block Themes filter menu to the theme browsing experience inside the admin.

image source: ticket #56283

The code to add this menu item was committed and users will be able to filter for block themes in WordPress 6.1, expected on October 25, 2022. This change also introduces two new action hooks:  install_themes_pre_block-themes (fires before the tab is rendered) and install_themes_block-themes (fires at the top the tab).

Posted on

Newsletter Glue Closes Free Plugin on WordPress.org

Featured Imgs 26

The creators of Newsletter Glue have removed their free plugin from WordPress.org in favor of focusing on the commercial version. The plugin streamlines the publishing workflow for newsletter authors who also publish to their WordPress sites. It includes blocks and patterns for email templates and subscriber forms. Five months ago the plugin’s authors warned users that they would be closing the free version and would no longer be updating it as of May 1, but the process of removing it was delayed until today.

Co-founder Lesley Sim announced the plugin’s closure on Twitter and shared a few valuable lessons for WordPress product businesses looking to use WordPress.org as a their primary distribution channel.

“We made a bunch of noob mistakes in the way we set up free vs paid,” Sim said. “Which made the customer upgrade flow kind of weird. I think it could’ve worked. We just didn’t set it up right, and it just doesn’t make sense to fix it.”

At the time of closure, the free Newsletter Glue plugin had approximately 200 active installations, which seems low for a growing commercial plugin. This is because the free version got uninstalled when a user upgraded to pro, so it was never a good representation of how many people were using the product. Sim said Newsletter Glue wasn’t growing the free user base and “it was just sitting there like a dead tree stump.” The company had not updated it in over a year.

“We stupidly set it such that when a user upgrades, they install the pro version and the free version automatically uninstalls,” Sim said. “So we lost free active users as a ‘reward’ for new conversions.”

This architectural choice meant that WordPress.org wasn’t bringing the product a significant flow of traffic and prospective upgrades.

“A year ago, we simply didn’t have enough features to make good decisions on what to put in the free versus pro,” Sim said. “So we went from having all our integrations on the free plugin to gating some integrations instead. I think this was a poor decision and led to our install count instantly stagnating. This could have been reversed, so I don’t think this was a key reason. But it was an instigating reason to begin considering removing the plugin from the repo since it was no longer bringing us traffic and installs.”

Despite not finding WordPress.org a good source of traffic for the product, Sim said the decision to close was not easy.

“Here are some things we lost out on:” Sim said. “1) Biggest distribution channel in WP. 2) Easy way for reviewers to check out the plugin for free without having to contact me. 3) Source of credibility (reviews).”

Current users can still use the free plugin but it will not be getting updates anymore. In lieu of a free plugin, Newsletter Glue is offering a test drive option where users can try it on a demo site before purchasing. The company has taken a unique path to becoming a commercial plugin that is fully independently distributed.

“I hate the free to paid user experience on the WP directory with a passion,” Sim said. “We had a full standalone pro plugin so the upgrade flow was really clunky. We’d get users using the free version emailing us saying, ‘I’ve just upgraded, but I don’t see any pro features on my site. What’s wrong?’ I also had some wonderful customers who would upgrade then continue using the free version for over a year, not even realizing they were on the free version.”

By focusing focusing exclusively on promoting the commercial product, the Newsletter Glue team is now free of the burden of supporting customers transitioning from the free version. The trade-off is missing out on exposure on WordPress.org. It’s an approach that works for the company at this stage but may not be suitable to other new products without strong marketing in place.

“Unless you already have experience marketing a plugin from scratch AND you have a good go to market plan, I think the default choice should be to be on the [WordPress] repo,” Sim said. “Just make sure you set up the commercial part of your plugin correctly so that it makes sense.”