In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Michelle Schulp, an independent freelancer and Director of Technology at AIGA Minnesota. We discussed the impacts speaking at multiple WordCamps had on her business early on, why she continues to be a freelance contractor as opposed to managing her own agency, and the role fitness has in her life. We also touch on what her personal experience has been like as a woman in the WordPress community.
While most were happy for Vladimir Prelovac, founder of ManageWP, many customers worried about GoDaddy’s reputation, unsatisfactory service, and how such a great service would fit into GoDaddy without changing much in the process.
Nearly three years later, Prelovac is no longer with the company as he quietly left soon after the acquisition. I reached out on Twitter to ManageWP customers who stayed with the service through the transition and asked if they’re pleased with their service and if it has improved. Here are a few of the responses I received.
I think it’s gotten a bit better (to my surprise). I run into failures less often.
Personally it’s been about the same for me. No features really added that make my job as a developer/site maintainer easier but none have been taken away either and pricing hasn’t increased for no reason.
I wish they would work on the web app more. It’s sluggish
If you use ManageWP and have been a customer since the acquisition, let us know in the comments about how the service has evolved. Have you noticed any significant changes?
It’s highly recommended that all users upgrade to 1.6.9 to patch the security issue. Details of the vulnerability will be published after users have had time to upgrade. In addition to patching the security issue, this version also improves the debug log by hiding data such as the ABSPATH directory of the WordPress install and login cookies.
“Unfortunately in the past users have copied the log file data into forum posts. A warning message has been added asking the site owner not to publish the debug log,” Donncha Ó Caoimh said.
Also worth noting is that after updating to 1.6.9, existing debug logs will be deleted.
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by David Shanske. David introduces us to a set of philosophies known as the IndieWeb, explains how it’s different from the Open Web, and how he’s been involved in the community. We discuss tools that help people own their data while still being able to take advantage of the benefits that social networks offer. We also talk about WordPress’ role and how capable it is out-of-the-box for participating in the IndieWeb.
Stories Discussed:
Bridgy connects individual sites with social networks
Those who use the All-in-One WP Migration plugin are encouraged to update to version 7.0 as soon as possible as 6.97 contains an admin backend cross-site-scripting vulnerability.
An attacker would already have to be able to either compromise the database or gain access to a user account with high enough privileges to view the backup history, so some damage has already been done, but such an attacker could then also insert some XSS in order to compromise other admin users.
When double-clicking the backup description on the backup history overview page, in order to edit the description text, the text is not sanitized/escaped via html entities when generating the input field.
Version 7.0 was released on the plugin directory about a day ago and patches the vulnerability. According to the stats on the WordPress plugin directory, All-in-One WP Migration is actively installed on more than two million sites.
A proof of concept will be published on July 24th which gives site owners about a week to update. Unfortunately, users who view the changelog prior to updating will not be able to determine it patches a security issue due to the patch being labeled as a general fix.
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Javier Cano, Director of Marketing for Liquid Web. We discuss the challenges people are facing selling CBD products on e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce and what Liquid Web is doing to be an ally to the industry. We also talk about high-risk payment processors and the brick and mortar approach versus selling high-risk products online. Cano also shares his experiences from attending and speaking at recent CBD expos.
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Wednesday, July 24th 3:00 P.M. Eastern
Earlier this year, Newspack chose twelve publications to take part in the initial rollout phase of the platform. Newspack is a collection of themes, plugins, and features geared towards newsrooms such as revenue generation wizards, mobile delivery, and search engine optimization.
Steve Beatty, head of Newspack Communication says they’re seeking up to 50 newsrooms to be part of phase two which lasts from September 1st – February 29th, 2020.
“What you’ll get: a new Newspack website, including the migration of your existing site; free hosting, security, updates, backups and support on WordPress.com through February 2020; membership in the Newspack community of users; access to Newspack developers; exclusive performance benchmarking against your peers; and more,” Beatty said.
Organizations that are selected are expected to provide feedback, test new features, and help shape the overall direction of the platform.
Free hosting for charter members will expire on February 29th, 2020. News organizations with revenue under $500K can expect to pay $1,000 per month and organizations that generate revenue of over $500K will pay $2,000 per month. Newspack is currently in negotiations to provide subsidies for organizations that encounter difficulties with the pricing structure.
Those interested in participating in the charter program have until August 15th to fill out the application.
There’s a lot of great WordPress content published in the community but not all of it is featured on the Tavern. This post is an assortment of items related to WordPress that caught my eye but didn’t make it into a full post.
Changes to WordPress PHP Coding Standards
Based on changes that were proposed back in March, the PHP Coding Standards for WordPress have been altered. Note that these changes apply to WordPress core only and Gary Pendergast recommends that developers can and should choose practices that best suit your needs for plugins and themes.
Excluding Remote Employee Job Applicants Based on the State They Live In
Like Brad, the topic of not hiring job applicants for a remote company based on the state they live in because of tax laws is not something I’ve seen discussed.
A really interesting topic around remote companies, and one I haven't seen talked about much, is the idea of "stateism". Basically, not hiring from certain states because of their heavy handed laws (usually tax related). There are a few states I'd rather avoid at this point.
In certain situations, companies that go the extra mile to hire a remote worker can also turn that person into an advocate.
Interesting. @wpengine had to jump through some additional hoops to employ me remotely as a Canadian and I think that shows what a good employer they are and makes me advocate for them more. Worth thinking about beyond purely financial considerations.
If you’re involved in the hiring process for a remote company, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments.
Would You Like to See A Product Hunt for WordPress Products?
Once you create something awesome in the WordPress ecosystem, it’s tough to get the word out. Ben from LyrWP wants to know if anyone is interested in a Product Hunt website for Themes, Plugins, and Services.
Would anyone be interested in a Producthunt purely for #WordPress themes, plugins and services? I think this needs doing. It's hard for #developers to get the products they slave over out there without costing a bomb in marketing. Anybody else interested in this happening?
I think it’s a great idea and something I’d like to see become a reality. There are probably a ton of great products in the WordPress space that go unseen because there’s no easy way to reach a large mass of people outside of sites like the Tavern.
However, Mario Peshev is concerned that such a site may end up posting infrequently or promote mediocre products.
I don't disagree with your stance. I just think that the overall quality of WP-baked solutions is pretty poor.
Meaning that the site will end up promoting mediocre products or post infrequently, that's all.
If Peshev’s concern became a reality, there wouldn’t be much of a point to continue with the site and developers would be back to square one.
Speaking of learning about new products, who remembers the Plugin Release posts on WeblogToolsCollection.com?
Early Look at What A Block Directory in WP-Admin Could Look Like
Mel Choyce has shared a collection of concept images that depict what a Block Directory could look like inside of WP-Admin. She describes the inspiration for each image and how each screen would work.
What I find interesting is that users will be able to try out new blocks before installing them. “Inside the modal, you’d also be able to demo a block before installing. @ck3lee has figured out how to make this possible,” Choyce said.
It’s also great to see that the tech behind Shiny Updates will be used for quickly installing and activating new blocks. If you have feedback regarding the conceptual designs, please leave a comment on her post.
Notes From Lead Developer Conference
More than 20 Automatticians are attending the Lead Developer Conference in London, England, and are publishing notes from each day. You can check out Day 1 here.
WPCampus 2019 Will Be LiveStreamed
Thanks to Pantheon, all sessions excluding workshops at WPCampus will be livestreamed with captioning and available to watch for free. Simply visit the livestream page on Friday, July 26 and Saturday, July 27.
Apply for a DonateWC WordCamp Sponsorship
DonateWC is looking for applicants for its sponsorship program. DonateWC provides underrepresented and minority groups within the WordPress community with the means to attend a WordCamp.
That’s it for issue twenty-eight. If you recently discovered a cool resource or post related to WordPress, please share it with us in the comments.
If you’ve been looking for a way to add slots and controls to the Document panel in WordPress’ content editor, check out a new plugin released by 10up called Gutenberg SlotFill and Filter Demos.
SlotFill and Filters is a new take on the classic filters, actions, and hooks system in WordPress. Slot and Fill are React components that enable developers to inject items into predefined spaces in the new editor.
“SlotFill is a pattern for component extensibility, where a single Slot may be occupied by an indeterminate number of Fills elsewhere in the application,” Ryan Welcher said.
An Example of SlotFill in Action
In the demo screenshot above, 10up was able to stick to the Classic UI conventions in the mobile app while displaying the same information in the Document panel of the new editor.
SlotFill initially started as a GitHub repo where Welcher collected his findings. The repo eventually turned into a library of examples and explanations for SlotFill and JavaScript based filters.
In January, Welcher submitted a pull request to the Gutenberg repo asking for SlotFill to be added to the document sidebar. His request received positive feedback and not only has SlotFill’s documentation been added to the WordPress Core Gutenberg Handbook, but the functionality is available in Gutenberg 6.1 and will be available in WordPress 5.3.
The News Project founded by Merril Brown has launched its first customer site, CALmatters. CALmatters is a nonprofit journalism venture that covers politics, environmental regulation, education, and more.
The site sports a new design, a fresh logo, and was built using WordPress. The News Project describes itself as a “solution that integrates best-of-breed content, audience and revenue tools that a typical news venture would assemble separately at far greater cost in time, effort and dollars.”
Interestingly, Newspack, a vertical on WordPress.com and open-source plugin tailored to newsrooms and journalists is described in a similar fashion, “It’s a ready-to-go, intuitive, revenue-focused publishing platform that will let small and medium-sized newsrooms dedicate more resources to their journalism. Newspack will be simple to set up, easy to use, durable, flexible and fast.”
The descriptions and the services being offered are interesting because of what happened earlier this year. Back in January, WordPress.com secured $2.4M in funding from Google and other partners to build a publishing platform for news organizations. Around the same time, The News Project announced it received a six-figure investment from WordPress.com VIP which is essentially accomplishing the same thing.
I don’t understand why Automattic would invest in The News Project and then create a vertical on WordPress.com that solves the same problem. Since The News Project is already using WordPress to power the CMS and WordPress.com VIP to host their customers, perhaps the capital was more of an in-kind gift.
Regardless of the relationship between the two company’s, newsrooms and small-to-medium-sized publications are getting more options to consider when it comes to hosting and a CMS that’s highly tailored to the industry.
We also learned that local communities that have participated in the training at the meetup level have seen a sharp increase in the number of diverse speaker applications submitted to WordCamps. Binder is hoping to be sponsored 100% so she can work on the project full-time. If you’re interested in sponsoring her work, please visit her contact page and get in touch.
I have a hard time walking a mile or two let alone 718km, but that’s what Marcel Bootsman did on his journey to WordCamp EU to generate funds for DonateWC.
In this interview, Bootsman explains how he prepared for the journey, what he experienced during his trip, and why he chose DonateWC as the charity to raise funds for.
One of the things that I was curious about was what Bootsman thought about during those long stretches where he had plenty of time to think to himself.
The thing that I noticed is that my thinking had changed during the month. In the beginning, I was thinking about my work, my company, and my family a lot. After about a week my family met me and it was very emotional.
After that week I found a how do you call it, peace or something like a Zen mode. Nothing was on my mind for large parts of the route. While I was walking, I was just looking around at the scenery and checking out the animals that I saw.
Sometimes I got an idea about my work and what I wanted to do differently. I’d write it down on my phone and the trip was mostly calm and relaxing.
Marcel Bootsman
The interview is 31 minutes long and is available in video and mp3 formats. There’s also a transcript available below. In the end, Bootsman was able to raise €8590 for DonateWC and inspire a lot of people. To learn more about his journey, check out his Walk to WordCamp EU summary.
If you use Firefox and manage multiple websites that use different Content Management Systems and have a hard time keeping track of the various URLs to their backends, consider using the CMS Backend Opener Firefox extension created by Andy R.
Once installed, you can use either a keyboard shortcut (Alt + Y) or press a button within the browser and it will automatically open the login page for the detected CMS in a new window.
The extension uses the CMS meta-tag: Generator to detect which CMS is being used. The following CMS’ are supported:
Typo3
Typo3 Neos
Joomla
WordPress
Django
Shopware (beta)
Magento (beta)
Drupal
Contao
Weblication
WebsiteBaker
CMSQLite
Oxid
Although the extension has not been updated in two years, I tested it on Firefox 67.0.4 on my MacBook Pro and it worked without any issues. I typically use a bookmark to browse to WP-Admin but this is more convenient, especially on WordPress.com.
I’ve also learned that if you have Pretty Permalinks enabled in WordPress, you can type /login or /admin after your domain and it will typically load the login page.
There’s a lot of great WordPress content published in the community but not all of it is featured on the Tavern. This post is an assortment of items related to WordPress that caught my eye but didn’t make it into a full post.
Carol Gann Awarded the 2019 Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship
“My proudest contribution to the WordPress open source project is training small business owners and bloggers to be comfortable and conversant with their own WordPress websites. WordPress empowers people. Many end users of WordPress are not technically minded. As a WordPress Meetup co-organizer, I contribute to the coffee help desk, assisting others in finding solutions to their WordPress problems. I also host another help desk opportunity, ‘Coffee With Carol,’ to empower WordPress users,” Gann said.
I can tell from the quote above that Kim and Carol would get along well as Kim was also the type of person who would do what she could to help others.
GravityView Diversity Grant to Attend PressNomics 6
The folks over at GravityView are offering a grant to recognize the challenges certain groups of people face succeeding in technology fields and to promote inclusivity and diversity. The grant includes a ticket to PressNomics 6, a flight to Tuscon, AZ, lodging, transportation via a Lyft gift card, and a one-on-one business consultation with Zak Katz, Co-founder of GravityView. The deadline to apply is 11:59 PM MDT on June 30, 2019.
10up OpenSource Project Scaffolding Suite
10up has released a project scaffolding suite that includes a WordPress starter theme, starter plugin, and NPM package. The purpose of the suite is to streamline repetitive tasks, encourage community contributions, and provide a starting point that includes 10up’s engineering best practices.
I was looking back through the Tavern archives and realized that this past January, WP Tavern turned 10 years old. It’s been quite a journey and it’s not over yet. Check out the first post I published on the Tavern announcing its opening.
Matt Mullenweg Announces That Automattic Is Sponsoring Jill Binder’s Work
John James Jacoby Releases A Plugin That Cryptographically Signs Posts
John James Jacoby has released a small plugin on GitHub that cryptographically signs posts. The plugin splits the content of posts in words and then stenographically inserts zero-width characters between them. These characters then form a unique, invisible pattern that can be used to detect plagiarised content. This plugin sounds like it would pair well with WordProof.
What does DXP Mean?
I asked on Twitter what does DXP or Digital Xperience platform mean? It comes across as fancy marketing lingo. Here are a few of the responses I received.
Matt Mederios – ‘DXP’ or in other words, how we want our customers to experience WordPress in our controlled ecosystem. All your solutions in one place, possibly to the point you don’t recognize it’s WordPress.
Stephen Cronin – DXP is an enterprise thing and has been around for ages in various guises. WordPress is not listed by Gartner, but Drupal and SharePoint are, along with other enterprise CMS’s. If people want to create DXPs out of WordPress, more power to them.
Karim Marucchi – Forget the buzz, large sites are moving past ‘just’ content, no one product (not #AEM not #Sitecore) will ever be perfect for all the existing & new features that are popping up ‘monthly’, so with #OpenSourse we all can make the most open easy/most compatible /cheap framework that will help the #enterprise manage/customize/blend all the ways you need to interact with your clients. And yes, the good Hosts, are staying out of trying to be all things.
Thanks to these three, the meaning of DXP is a bit more clear.
WordCamp EU Organizing Team Issues Apology
There were some things that took place during the WordCamp EU afterparty that didn’t sit well with some people. The WordCamp EU organizing team explained what happened and issued an apology for the mistakes that were made.
Torque Interviews Marcel Bootsman
Doc Pop of Torque caught up with Marcel Bootsman to talk about his walking journey to Berlin. Ironically, the interview occurs as they’re walking around.
WordPress for iOS 12.6.1 is now available in the iTunes App Store. The User Interface as well as the backend that powers stats has been revamped and more closely resembles what you see on the Jetpack Stats module. There are now date selectors and individual stats contain more detail.
Revamped Stats in the WordPress for iOS App
More often than not over the years, when I’ve tried to view stats, they don’t load. In 12.6.1, the stats are cached making them not only quicker to load, but they’re available to view offline as well.
This version also improves the block editor by fixing an issue where the setting to open links in new tabs was always set to off. Also, when users attempt to put invalid content into blocks, there’s a more descriptive error message.
Those who share photos into WordPress from other apps can now share an unlimited number of photos and if an image fails to upload, the error message will contain more detailed information.
The WordPress for iOS app uses libraries from third-party’s. To see who these parties are, the team has added an acknowledgments section in the app. You can view this page by browsing to Me > App Settings > About WordPress for iOS > Acknowledgements. Fair warning, this page is quite lengthy. There’s also a variety of bug fixes in this version as well.
WordPress for iOS Third-party Library Acknowledgements
One change that I noticed that doesn’t make sense and that I’ve been unable to find an explanation for is the labeling change. The app is now labeled on the app store as WordPress #1 Website Builder.
I don’t view the app as a website builder, it’s more of a website manager. I’ve asked in the WordPress Mobile Slack channel why this change was made but as of publishing, have not received a response.
WordPress for iOS is free and available on iTunes. There’s also a mobile app for Android devices and a desktop application that be found on the WordPress Mobile Apps site.
Updated June 28th, 2019
I received a response from Elisa Budelli, Mobile Developer at Automattic, regarding the label change.
“The title is describing WordPress as a full product, not only the mobile apps. The switch is based on a recommendation from a SEO specialist, and we will evaluate how it works and revert if we see no impact.”
In this episode, Malcolm Peralty and I are joined by Dan Maby, Founder of WP&UP. WP&UP is a non-profit charity based in England that supports and promotes positive mental health in the WordPress Community.
Dan explains why he started the charity, what he’s learned and how he manages his own mental health, and how the donation funds are spent. He also shared some startling statistics from a recent mental health survey they conducted. The results of this survey are being put into a white paper that will be published later this year.
We finished up the show covering the news of the week. If you’re interested in supporting WP&UP, please consider donating.
Two weeks ago, Justin Tadlock published a proposal on behalf of the Theme Review Team to create a set of standardized packages that theme authors can drop-into their themes. This week, the team has released two feature packages that illustrate what the project is trying to accomplish.
The first is an Autoloader that provides the means necessary for theme authors to autoload PHP classes. While Composer is recommended, the team has created a PSR-4 compliant autoloader as an alternative for those not ready for Composer.
“This is a foundational package that will allow you to use any other packages that we create,” Tadlock explained. “You could even use it for autoloading your own theme classes if you choose to do so (assuming they follow the PSR-4 autoloading standard for class and folder names).”
The second package provides a Customizer Section Button that enables theme authors to create a link or button that points to a URL. This feature was originally developed to allow developers a standard way to display a Pro/Upsell link within the customizer. However, the package is generic enough that developers can use it to link to any URL.
Tadlock also provided feedback on a number of ideas that were proposed. Packages up for consideration include, Breadcrumbs, Sliders and Sections, Mobile Navigation, Color Control with Transparency, Appearance > Theme Name Page, and Standard Template Hooks.
In a move that caught somepeople by surprise, WP Engine has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Managed WordPress host, Flywheel.
While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Heather Brunner, WP Engine’s CEO confirmed to TechCrunch that the company needed to raise a small round of funding to finance the deal.
Dusty Davidson, Tony Noecker, and Rick Knudtson founded Flywheel in 2012 in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2012, there were already a handful of players in the Managed WordPress Hosting space but Flywheel was able to carve out a niche by focusing on Designers and Agencies.
In 2016, Flywheel became one of the few hosting companies added to the WordPress.org recommended hosting page. However, their listing was removed a few months later without an explanation.
Also in 2016, Flywheel acquired Pressmatic, a local WordPress development application for OS X from Clay Griffiths and rebranded it to Local by Flywheel. Representatives from both companies have stated that there are no plans to merge WP Engine Devkit with Local by Flywheel.
According to a frequently asked questions document, nothing much is changing in the foreseeable future for Flywheel customers.
Business will continue as usual! There will be no immediate changes to the Flywheel platform, plans, or experience. We’ll be spending the coming weeks and months on strategic innovation and integration planning, and are super excited to figure out how we can leverage all of our collective strengths, products, and brand assets in the best possible way.
Flywheel has generated a loyal following of happy customers over the years and some of them took to Twitter to express their concerns regarding Monday’s announcement.
Please, please, please don't have this be the beginning of the end! Flywheel rocks and I hope you continue to do so! I've been down this acquisition road before (remember when Host Gator got bought?) and it usually doesn't end well.
I’m sure you’ll are very excited and feel this is nothing but a positive thing but as someone who has found flywheel to be a saving grace in a sea of disappointment, I am very concerned to lose the only hosting service I ever loved.
Seeing these types of responses from customers is a testament to the level of service Flywheel provides. Many of them explained why they chose to host their clients with Flywheel over WP Engine.
Both companies have vowed to keep customers in the loop of any potential changes to plans, services, or products. While each company will operate independently as things are sorted out, it will be interesting to see how the two companies are integrated over time and how customers respond.
If you’re a Flywheel customer, please let us know what you think about the acquisition in the comments below.
To learn more about the deal, check out the following links.
(@DaronSpence) 
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about his 
