Tag: news

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Introducing Search & Replace Everything by WPCode: Bulk Editing in WordPress Made Easy

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Have you ever wanted to make bulk updates to your WordPress site?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could update hundreds of posts with a single click… without having to update them manually?

If you’re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

Today, I am excited to announce the new Search & Replace Everything by WPCode, a free tool to easily perform bulk search and replace operations in WordPress.

Introducing Search & Replace Everything by WPCode

Why Did We Build This Tool?

By default, WordPress does not come with a Find and Replace tool. This makes it hard to do bulk updates on your site.

Especially if you want to quickly update a link on every page, change an image that’s used in multiple areas, or making bulk changes when you’re moving your site.

Website owners either have to update every page manually which is extremely inefficient and time-consuming, or hire a developer to write a SQL query which can be expensive.

And that’s why I decided to create Search & Replace Everything by WPCode.

Search & Replace Everything revolutionizes how you update your content on your site once and for all.

This tool is designed for anyone who manages a WordPress site and wants to save time and avoid errors.

Here are some of the top use cases:

  • Bulk Update Content in WordPress Posts: As the plugin’s name suggests, you can search and replace any content on your website with a single click.
  • Replace an Image Used Across Multiple Locations: Quickly replace outdated images anywhere on your site with the new ones with just a click.
  • Updating URLs After WordPress Migration: When you migrate a WordPress website to a new address, you can replace URLs pointing to the old address. The plugin helps you fix all broken links while also saving you time.

Making Bulk Changes in WordPress Effortlessly

With Search & Replace Everything, our goal is to make it easy to make bulk changes to your website.

Instead of writing complex SQL queries on your own or hiring a developer, you can enter what you want to search for and what you need to replace it with.

Let me show you what makes Search & Replace Everything incredibly powerful yet so simple.

1. Update Everything Quick and Easy

Search & Replace Everything comes with a clean user interface. Just go to the Tools » WP Search & Replace page, enter the content you want to find, and then add the content you want to replace it with.

This simple layout ensures that even non-technical users can perform complex operations without hassle.

Easy to use interface

2. Control Where to Search

Target your changes precisely by selecting specific database tables or searching across all tables for comprehensive updates.

This feature ensures you’re making changes exactly where needed, preventing any unintended modifications.

Select tables

3. Precision Search with Case Sensitivity

By default, the plugin performs case-sensitive searches, ensuring accurate and specific matches.

For example, a search for “WordPress” will not match “wordpress” or “WORDPRESS”.

However, if you need to make your searches case-insensitive, you can easily toggle the option. This allows you to find and replace text regardless of its case.

For instance, enabling case-insensitive search would allow “WordPress,” “wordpress,” and “WORDPRESS” to be treated as the same.

Case Insensitive searches

4. Preview Before Making Changes

Worried about making mistakes? Preview all the changes before you save them. This feature ensures you get everything right the first time.

Preview changes

5. Replace Any Image in Your Media Library

Replacing images used in multiple places? No problem.

Switch to the ‘Replace Image’ tab, find your image, and click ‘Replace’. It’s that simple.

Replace image in media library

6. Track & Undo Changes

You can keep track of Search & Replace activity in the ‘History’ tab. This allows you to quickly review the changes you made and undo them with the click of a button.

Track history and undo changes

Note: This feature is available with the paid plan with an introductory $30 discount.

6. Fast, Even on Large Websites

Performing site-wide search and replace operations consumes server resources, which could slow down or crash a website. Search & Replace Everything is designed to be fast and efficient, even if you have a larger website with tons of data.

With Search and Replace Everything, making bulk changes has never been easier.

What’s Coming Next?

Search & Replace Everything by WPCode provides an incredibly powerful tool for WordPress site owners.

It makes advanced database search and replacement operations quite simple for all users.

Before performing bulk updates, always create a fresh WordPress database backup. I recommend using Duplicator. It’s an easy way to back up your database and restore it with a single click if needed.

We’re truly building something special here. If you have ideas on how we can make the plugin more helpful to you, please send us your suggestions.

As always, thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner. We look forward to serving you for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post Introducing Search & Replace Everything by WPCode: Bulk Editing in WordPress Made Easy first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Find Your Perfect Backup Match

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As 90s dance legend, Robin S famously sang, “Back It Up!” And that’s exactly what we’re here to help you do – find the perfect backup partner to keep your client(s) websites safe and secure.

Just like in the dating world, not every backup solution is a perfect match. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with our lineup of eligible backup bachelors, ready to sweep you off your feet (and protect your data).

Hourly Backups: The Attentive Suitor

Name: Hourly Backups

Age: Recently added in 2022, but wise beyond its years

Looking for: High-traffic sites, particularly in industries like eCommerce, finance, news, education, or enterprise – sites that need constant attention and care.

About Me: I’m the backup equivalent of a doting partner who’s always by your side. Available exclusively for WPMU DEV-hosted sites, I create a new backup every hour, giving you 720 restore points over 30 days. That means you’ll never lose more than 59 minutes of precious data, no matter what happens.

My backups are incremental, which means I only store the changes since our last rendezvous. This keeps things light and speedy, so you won’t have to worry about me taking up too much space (or bandwidth). For sites that are constantly evolving, having a backup that can keep up with the pace is essential. Data is the new romance language, and I’m fluent!

At just $5 a month, I’m an affordable catch that other hosts can only dream of. But the real prize? You can resell me to your clients, setting your own price and bringing in that sweet, recurring revenue. Talk about a power couple!

More about me: https://wpmudev.com/hourly-backup-hosting/

Snapshot Pro: The Open-Minded Charmer

Name: Snapshot Pro

Age: Recently updated and improved from its 2017 debut

Looking for: Anyone who’s not exclusively hosted with WPMU DEV but wants to explore the idea of a third-party storage fling (or is already flirting with the idea of hosting with us).

About Me: I’m the backup equivalent of a charming, open-minded partner who’s always up for trying new things. My incremental backups are lightning-fast and can be stored for up to 50 days! The first backup is a full-site one, and from there, I only save the latest changes and updates – efficient and space-saving, just like a good partner should be.

But here’s where I really shine: I’ve recently been updated to allow you to export your backups to popular third-party platforms such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and others.

Whether you’re hosted with WPMU DEV or not, you’ll always know when our last backup was and when the next one is scheduled. And if you do decide to take our relationship to the next level by hosting with us, you’ll get an even deeper insight into our backups via The Hub. Maybe it’s time to check out our Hosting Plans and see if there’s a perfect match?

I’m sleek, easy to use, and offer the added bonus of third-party storage options. If you’re looking for a backup partner who’s always open to new adventures, I might just be the one for you.

More about me: https://wpmudev.com/project/snapshot/

Hosting Backups: The Reliable Companion

Name: Hosting Backups

Age: A classic, around since we began!

Looking for: Anyone who wants to host a site with us or is already part of our hosting family.

About Me: I’m the backup equivalent of a reliable, trustworthy partner who’s been by your side from the very beginning. With any level of WPMU DEV’s hosting, whether single or multisite, I’m included as a standard feature – like a partner who’s always there, no matter what.

I’ll never let you lose more than 23 hours of data, with nightly backups, and with my fast one-click restore accessed via The Hub, you know your site(s) are in safe hands. I perform a full site backup every 15 days, and all backups are stored for a 30-day period. But what really sets me apart is that I offer automated backup storage on remote (offsite) locations.

To get the most out of our relationship, check out our membership options – you’ll unlock a world of just more than nightly backups, including 24/7 expert technical support, The Hub, and a complete suite of Pro plugins. And don’t forget to enable our Uptime service, so you’ll always know if there’s any downtime or response time issues.

More about me: https://wpmudev.com/hosting/

Will We Get a Second Date?

We’re confident that there’s a backup feature out there for everyone, and we hope this quick and easy-to-digest overview has helped you find your perfect match. Of course, with WPMU DEV, you’ll always have our 24/7 support team on hand to help you navigate the different backup options.

We’ve got so many other features that can enhance and streamline your business, as well as the possibility of reselling to your clients. So why not drop us a line and let’s start planning our first date? Who knows, it could be the beginning of a beautiful (and well-backed-up) relationship!

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Introducing Broken Link Checker – Never Have Dead Links On Your WordPress Site Again

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Are you tired of finding and fixing broken links on your WordPress site?

Have you ever wished there was a foolproof method to periodically monitor all internal and external links easily WITHOUT the high costs?

If you’re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

Today, I’m excited to announce my new product, Broken Link Checker, which works silently in the background on your site, giving you peace of mind.

We built this tool to help you quickly check your site for broken links and easily fix them to improve search engine optimization (SEO).

introducing broken link checker for wordpress by aioseo

What is Broken Link Checker?

Broken Link Checker is a powerful WordPress plugin that crawls your website periodically and checks every link to ensure it is not broken.

It is built as a SaaS service, so it never puts load on your WordPress hosting server or slow your website down.

The Broken Link Checker plugin was developed by the same team behind AIOSEO (All in One SEO), the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

When broken links are found, the plugin makes it easy for you to fix them right from within the plugin without even having to visit individual pages where those links were added.

Why Do You Need Broken Link Checker?

Broken links can frustrate your website visitors and cause them to leave your site. They can even hurt your website’s SEO, conversions, and sales.

On WordPress sites, broken links typically occur when moving a site to a new domain name, or when deleting a post or page without proper redirection.

Sometimes broken links can also happen due to a typo, and they can go unnoticed for months if not years. But worse, if you ever link to an external website that’s not yours, and they change the page, delete it, or shut down the site, then your site will have broken links.

This is why monitoring broken links on a regular basis is important for your WordPress website.

While there are SaaS broken link checkers in the market, most are either crazy expensive or not built specifically with WordPress websites in mind.

So I decided to work with my team to finally create a beginner-friendly broken link checker for WordPress.

With Broken Link Checker, you can…

  • scan all links on your site every 3 days
  • detect valid links, broken links, and redirects
  • set which post types (posts, pages, or custom post types) and statuses (published, draft, and so on) to monitor
  • exclude certain URLs from being checked

… and a whole lot more.

If you’re serious about your website and want to grow your online business, then you know how important it is to offer a seamless website browsing experience to your visitors.

The last thing you want your readers to see is a big 404 page not found error message serving as a dead end on your WordPress site.

How to Use Broken Link Checker in WordPress

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate Broken Link Checker on your site.

aioseo broken link checker

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, you’ll need to connect the plugin to your Broken Link Checker account.

Upon connecting the plugin with your account, you can turn the toggle on to stop search engines from following broken links. You can even set it not to update the modified date for a page/post when a link is updated via the plugin.

link tweaks broken links tool

When you click the Broken Links tab, you can see that the plugin has automatically scanned the entire site, and links are categorized into broken, redirects, and dismissed.

The Broken Link Checker plugin lets you fix broken links quickly and easily right within your plugin. To replace a broken link, simply click Edit URL.

Alternatively, if you want to remove the link, just click Unlink and the link will be removed from the page.  

edit url in broken link checker

After updating the link, you can recheck if the link is still broken by clicking the Recheck option. If you want, you can even dismiss the message from the plugin.

Get More Details About Each Link

Broken Link Checker gives you additional details for each link, like how long the link has been broken and response header information, HTTP Status code, and more.

get status details for broken links

Control Which Types of Pages are Scanned

Another important Aspect of Broken Link Checker is its advanced settings, which give you full control over which pages get scanned. Within the plugin, you can set which post types (posts, pages, or custom post types) and statuses (published, draft, and so on) to monitor.

You can also exclude certain pages from being checked.

advanced settings of broken link checker

This helps you better manage the crawl budget, so you can ensure you’re not wasting the link scan credits.

Scanning Your Site the Right Way

Broken Link Checker scans both external (links from your website to others) and internal links (links from one page on your site to another page) on your site.

Unlike other WordPress plugins, Broken Link Checker uses an external private server to scan (or, in other words, ping) for broken links on your site. That’s because repeatedly pinging external sites from your servers can make your site look suspicious to internet service providers, putting your sites at risk of being blacklisted.

This is why most WordPress hosting companies put traditional broken link checker plugins in their block list.

Since Broken Link Checker uses an external private server for pinging external links, you can rest assured that you’re in safe hands.

What’s Coming Next?

Broken Link Checker is a product by my AIOSEO team which is a leading WordPress SEO plugin with over 3 million installs.

Our goal is to continue to build best-in-class SEO tool to ensure your website is always outranking your competitors.

Broken Link Checker is just one of the new tools that we’ve launched.

We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us to make this plugin even more powerful, and I am very proud of our team.

If you have ideas on how we can make the Broken Link Checker platform or other SEO tools more helpful for you, then please send us your suggestions.

As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

P.S. Want us to acquire or invest in your WordPress business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth Fund.

The post Introducing Broken Link Checker – Never Have Dead Links On Your WordPress Site Again first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Major Earthquake in Turkey Today | 7.8 Magnitude

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A devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit southeast Turkey, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. The quake was recorded by the US Geological Survey and struck at 04:17 local time, at a depth of 17.9 km near the city of Gaziantep. The impact of the quake was felt in ten cities including […]
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120+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2022 WordPress Deals – Big Savings

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Looking for the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on your favorite WordPress products?

The next few days are the perfect time to buy premium WordPress plugins, themes, web hosting, and tools to grow your business. As always, to help you find the best deals, we have created the ultimate listed of best WordPress Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for 2022. Some of these are exclusive just for WPBeginner readers.

View our Complete Black Friday and Cyber Monday List for 2022

We will be updating this page on a daily basis to add more deals.

View our Complete Black Friday and Cyber Monday List for 2022

The post 120+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2022 WordPress Deals – Big Savings first appeared on WPBeginner.

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

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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.

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WordPress 6.1 Retires Default Site Tagline in Favor of Empty String

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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.

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The WordPress Community Isn’t Ready to Leave Twitter

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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.”

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Gutenberg 14.4 Introduces Distraction-Free Mode, Redesigns Pattern Inserter

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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.

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UniBlock: A Free Business Block Theme for WordPress

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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.

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Gutenberg 14.3 Improves Image Drag and Drop

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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.

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Shortcodes Ultimate Plugin Patches CSRF Vulnerability in Version 5.12.1

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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.

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How to Manage WordPress Comment Notification Emails

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Do you want to improve your WordPress comment notification emails?

Comments drive discussion and user engagement on many blogs. However, WordPress doesn’t do such a great job when it comes to notifying users about comment activity.

In this article, we will show you how to better manage WordPress comment notification emails to boost user activity on your website.

How to manage WordPress comment notification emails

Why Improve WordPress Comment Notification Emails

Comments are an important element of many WordPress websites, particularly on news sites and WordPress blogs. More comment activity means a more engaged audience which results in more page views and ultimately more revenue.

However, the comment system that comes with every WordPress website is fairly limited. It sends comment notifications only to site administrators and article authors. Apart from that, there isn’t a default option for other site users to be notified of new comments.

Wouldn’t it be nice if users were able to get comment notifications for the posts they like or when someone replies to a comment they left?

That said, let’s see how you can enhance the default WordPress comment system and notification emails for a more engaging user experience on your website.

The Default Comment Notification Options in WordPress

By default, WordPress does not have an option to send notifications to commenters.

However, it does have an option to send email notifications to site administrators when a new comment is published and when a comment is held for moderation.

You can view these options by going to Settings » Discussion from your WordPress dashboard and navigating to the ‘Email me whenever’ section.

Email me whenever settings

Both these notifications are only sent to the site administrators. However, WordPress also sends an email notification to the post author about new comments.

If you get a lot of comments on your website, you might not want to receive email notifications for all comments held for moderation. You can simply uncheck the box here to disable those.

How to Let Users Know When Their Comment is Approved

If a user’s comment is held for moderation, they will see a message telling them so. However, they will have no idea whether you approve it or not without returning to your site.

Unfortunately, many of these users never return to your website to check, so they won’t ever know that you approved their comments.

You can fix this by using the Comment Approved Notifier Extended plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Comment Approved Notifier Extended will notify users when their comment is approved. It works right out of the box, and there are no additional settings you need to configure.

You can also see our list of best plugins to improve WordPress comments.

How to Allow Users to Subscribe to Comments in WordPress

In addition to not knowing if their comment was approved, commenters will not be notified about replies, either.

Once they leave a comment, they will have to manually visit your website again to see if someone has replied.

To solve this, you need to install and activate Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

It allows your users to subscribe to comments on any article with or without leaving comments. Users can also easily unsubscribe at any time.

StCr settings in WordPress

For detailed step-by-step instructions, see our article on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress.

How to Allow Users to Subscribe to Just their Own Comments in WordPress

Many users may not want to receive notifications for all comments on an article. However, they may want to know if someone replied only to their own comments.

You can add this feature as well using the same Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, simply visit the StCR » Comment Form in your WordPress dashboard. From here, click on ‘Yes’ next to the ‘Advanced Subscription’ option.

StCr settings in WordPress

Users will now see a new option under the comment box whether they’d like to subscribe to all comments or just their own comments.

For more details, see our article on how to notify users of replies to their own comments in WordPress.

How to Allow Authors to Subscribe to Other Author’s Posts

If you run a multi-author blog, then other authors may want to keep up with discussions across your website. If you already have comment subscriptions enabled, then each author can manually go and subscribe to comments.

However, if you want certain users to receive all comment notifications, then you can do this with Better Notifications for WordPress plugin. For more details, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is active, you can head to Notifications » Add New from your WordPress dashboard and can enter a title for your notification at the top.

Next, you can select ‘New Comment’ from the ‘Notification for’ dropdown menu. After that, simply add the user roles that will receive these notifications in the ‘Send To’ field.

Comment notifications for certain user roles

The plugin also offers an option to send notifications to the post’s author and even exclude user roles from receiving email notifications for new comments.

How to Create Custom Comment Notification in WordPress

Want to create your own custom comment notifications in WordPress? Custom notifications can allow you to replace the default WordPress notification with your own.

First, you will need to install and activate the Better Notifications for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Notifications » Add New page from your WordPress admin panel to create your custom comment notifications.

Create a custom notification

You can edit the notifications for new comments, comments awaiting moderation, and comment replies. Additionally, you can send notifications to any user role or to individual users.

The plugin also lets you add email addresses manually that are not even connected to a user on the site.

You have the option to completely customize the comment notification sent by WordPress and use shortcodes inside the email text to add custom tags.

For more details, see our article on how to add better custom notifications in WordPress.

How to Improve Deliverability of WordPress Email Notifications

All the above tips will fail if your WordPress site fails to send email notifications or if those emails are marked spam by email providers.

To fix WordPress email issues and improve email deliverability, you need to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the Settings » WP Mail SMTP page to configure plugin settings.

WP Mail SMTP settings

This plugin allows you to use SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send emails. SMTP is a much better and more reliable method than the default mail function used by WordPress.

It works with any email service that supports SMTP. This includes your free Gmail account as well as Google Workspace, Mailgun, and Sendgrid.

Choose Other SMTP as mailer

For details, see our article on how to use SMTP server to send WordPress emails.

We hope this article helped you learn how to manage WordPress comment notification emails. You may also want to see our ultimate step-by-step guide on improving WordPress speed and performance for beginners and how to start an online store.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Manage WordPress Comment Notification Emails first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Molten: A Free WordPress Block Theme for Restaurants

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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.

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ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.