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April 2, 2024

What’s New in WordPress 6.5 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.5 is here! This is the first big update of the year 2024 and a particularly exciting one.

It is packed with new features, loads of bug fixes, and improvements that will make your website management and content creation even better.

We will walk you through some of the major highlights of WordPress 6.5 with screenshots and details so that you can learn how to use these new features.

A look into the new WordPress 6.5 release with screenshots

Note: WordPress 6.5 is a major release. Unless you are on managed WordPress hosting, you will need to initiate the update manually. Follow our guide on how to safely update WordPress for detailed instructions.

Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before doing the update.

Now, let’s look at what you’ll find in WordPress 6.5 after the update. Here is a quick list of the major features we will explore:

Introducing the Font Library
Plugin Dependencies
Block Editor Improvements
Connect Blocks to Custom Fields
Smart Overlay for the Cover Block
Drop Shadow Effect
Block Settings in List View
Rename Blocks in List View
Improved Link Control Adds NoFollow Checkbox
Refreshed Preferences Panel
Site Editor Changes
New Data Views
Improved Style Revisions
New Interactivity API
Under the Hood Changes in WordPress 6.5

Introducing the Font Library

The font library finally makes its official debut with the WordPress 6.5 release. It allows users to manage, install, and use fonts inside the WordPress editor.

The font library can be managed by launching the Site Editor (Appearance » Editor) and switching to the ‘Styles’ panel. After that, click on ‘Typography’, and you will see the fonts currently available with your WordPress theme.

Next, you can click on the ‘Manage fonts’ button to open the library in a popup.

From here, you can upload fonts from your computer or switch to the ‘Install Fonts’ tab and connect to the Google Fonts library.

Simply click on the ‘Allow access to Google Fonts’ button, and you will be able to browse fonts that are available for installation.

You can choose any font, and once you install it, it will be downloaded and served directly from your website (not from Google servers).

With the new font library feature, you don’t need to install a typography plugin just to use a custom font on your site.

Plugin Dependencies

Have you ever installed a WordPress plugin, struggled with it for a while, and found out it needs another plugin to work?

WordPress 6.5 fixes that issue for the end users and plugin developers.

Developers can now add a ‘Requires Plugins’ entry into the plugin header and mention the additional plugins required to be installed and activated for their plugin to work.

Now, when users install a plugin that depends on other plugins, they will see an error when they try to activate it (post-installation).

On the Plugins page, users can also see which plugins are required.

Those plugins will then need to be installed and activated by the user.

Once all the required plugins are activated, the user can activate the main plugin that needs them.

Currently, this feature can only install plugins hosted on WordPress.org. This means third-party or premium plugins hosted elsewhere cannot use this feature to manage dependencies.

Block Editor Improvements

The block editor is the default WordPress editor. This is where you create your content and edit your pages.

Each WordPress release has many improvements, and new features have been added to the editor.

Obviously, 6.5 is no different, and you may want to take note of some of those features, as they can save you a lot of time.

Connect Blocks to Custom Fields

Custom fields in WordPress allow you to add custom metadata to WordPress posts and pages. For more details, you can see our glossary entry on custom fields.

They have been around for a long time, and developers and advanced WordPress users use them in many different ways.

WordPress 6.5 introduces a new Block Binding API, which allows users to use custom fields and other dynamic data as attributes for individual blocks.

This will also allow developers to display dynamic data inside the standard core blocks programmatically. Here is a detailed overview of Block Binding API on Make WordPress Core.

For those of you who are adventurous, here is a quick way to try it out.

Simply edit a WordPress post and add these two custom fields:

mood
weather

You can see below what this should look like.

After that, in the block editor settings, switch to the code editor view.

You can do this by clicking on the three-dot menu in the top right corner of the screen and selecting ‘Code Editor’.

Next, in the content area, you need to add the following code to a text field, such as a Paragraph block:

<!-- wp:paragraph {"metadata":{"bindings":{"content":{"source":"core/post-meta","args":{"key":"mood"}}}}} -->
<p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
 
<!-- wp:paragraph {"metadata":{"bindings":{"content":{"source":"core/post-meta","args":{"key":"weather"}}}}} -->
<p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

You can now save your changes and preview your post and page.

From here, you will be able to see the meta key values displayed in your block code.

Smart Overlay for the Cover Block

The Cover block includes a cool enhancement in WordPress 6.5. It will now automatically choose an overlay cover based on the image or the color you use for the block.

Then, you can easily adjust the overlay opacity to match your design.

Drop Shadow Effect

The drop shadow effect allows you to give the illusion of depth and make certain elements in your layout look prominent.

WordPress 6.5 adds the drop shadow effect to the Image, Column(s), and Buttons blocks. Plus, you can choose from a few different drop shadow styles to better match your design.

Block Settings in List View

The list view in the block editor gives you a bird’s eye view of your content layout. It is particularly handy for lengthy articles, landing pages, and complex page layouts.

Previously, you had to click on the three-dot menu next to an item to see its settings in the list view. In WordPress 6.5, you can now just right-click to access block settings.

Right click to see block settings in list view

Rename Blocks in List View

WordPress 6.5 also allows you to rename any block in the list view. This helps you better organize and understand the layout of your content.

Improved Link Control Adds NoFollow Checkbox

Link control (the insert link popup) has significant changes in WordPress 6.5 to make it more user-friendly.

First, it will highlight your blog and front pages with different icons.

Secondly, once you have added a link, clicking on it will show you a better context menu.

From here, you can see where the link goes, edit the link, unlink, or copy it with a click.

Go ahead and click on the edit link button and then click to expand the Advanced menu.

Now, finally, you can choose to make a link nofollow in WordPress out of the box.

However, you will notice that opening a link in a new window or making it nofollow requires multiple clicks.

To make this easier, we recommend using All in One SEO for WordPress. It shows all the options in the custom link control panel right away.

Refreshed Preferences Panel

WordPress 6.5 ships with a refreshed Preferences panel in the block editor.

Just click on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of the screen and then select ‘Preferences’.

The panel now includes Appearance and Accessibility sections, along with improved categorization of previous sections.

Site Editor Changes

The Full Site Editor is where users can make changes to their site, much like the former theme customizer.

Context: The Site Editor is only available in block themes with full site editor support. Older themes that don’t support the site editor are now called classic themes.

WordPress 6.5 comes with several improvements to the Site Editor. Let’s check out some of the more significant changes.

New Data Views

WordPress 6.5 includes a better way to view your pages, block patterns, and templates in the Site Editor.

You can view items in Grid view with large previews and sort them in different orders.

You can also see items in the table view.

For instance, you see your page list and start editing without leaving the Site Editor interface.

Improved Style Revisions

Style revisions were introduced in WordPress 6.3, allowing users to track and undo style changes to their site easily, just like post revisions.

However, style revisions only showed a timeline, and you had to browse it to see what changes were applied.

WordPress 6.5 brings better style revisions, which show you a description of changes made for each revision.

The browsing between different revisions has also become smoother. You can easily switch to a revision by clicking on the ‘Apply’ button.

Plus, you will also see the changes that were made but have not been saved yet.

Unsaved changes or apply a previous version

New Interactivity API

WordPress 6.5 comes with the Interactivity API, which provides a framework for developers to create modern front-end interfaces that don’t require complete page reloads.

Think of reading comments on your favorite blog, and a new comment just pops up as you are writing your own reply. Or imagine a live search feature that doesn’t slow down your website.

The team behind the project has made a demo website to showcase the capabilities of the Interactivity API.

Hopefully, you will see some WordPress plugins utilizing the API to create some cool things in the coming days.

Under the Hood Changes in WordPress 6.5

This release also comes with a ton of behind-the-scenes changes to improve performance, fix bugs, and give developers more options.

Here are some of those changes.

Performance improvements: The Block and Site Editors will load two times faster, and the input time will be four times faster than WordPress 6.4. (Details)
An improved library is introduced to load translations much faster. (Details)
Classic themes can now add support for appearance tools. (Details)
The Block API now recognizes the viewScriptModule field in block.json metadata. (Details)
WordPress 6.5 updates Block Hooks to make them more widely useful and includes some frequently requested new features. (Details)
Major updates to the HTML API, including the Tag Processor, which can now scan every token in an HTML document. It now supports more of the HTML specification than WordPress 6.4. (Details )

We hope this article helped you explore new features in WordPress 6.5. While you are exploring different areas of your WordPress website, you may also want to optimize your website speed and performance or review essential WordPress security settings to keep your site secure.

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 What’s New in WordPress 6.5 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 21, 2024

What’s Coming in WordPress 6.5 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress has released the beta for the release of version 6.5 for testing.

We have been watching the development closely and are quite excited to report on all the new features expected to be released in this version.

It will be the first major WordPress update of 2024, and many people have done significant work on it.

Let’s look at some of those amazing features and enhancements that are coming in WordPress.

What to expect from the upcoming WordPress 6.5 release

Note: Using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, you can try out the beta version on your computer or a staging environment. Please keep in mind that some of the features in the beta may not make it into the final release.

Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.5:

The Fonts Library
Custom Fields for Blocks
Plugin Dependencies
Block Editor Improvements
Drop Shadow Effect
Smarter Overlay Colors for Cover Blocks
Rename Any Block in the List View
Right Click on a Block in List View to See Settings
Link Control Changes
Preferences Panel Updated
Site Editor Changes
Synced Patterns Get More Powers
Data View Enhancements
Improved Style Revisions
The Interactivity API
Miscellaneous Under-The-Hood Changes

The Fonts Library

Earlier, we reported that Font Library will be included in WordPress 6.4. However, it was postponed and wasn’t included in the final release.

We are glad to report that it will be included in the WordPress 6.5.

This will allow users to manage fonts used in their WordPress theme and across their website.

Users can view the Font Library under the Styles panel in the site editor. Switch to the Typography view and then click on the Manage Fonts button.

This will bring up the Fonts popup.

By default, it will show you currently installed fonts for your WordPress theme. You can switch to the Upload tab to upload more fonts from your computer.

Installed fonts available with your WordPress theme

Want to use privacy-friendly Google Fonts for your website?

Switch to the Install Fonts tab to connect your website to Google Fonts.

You’ll then be able to browse Google fonts.

Search the font you want to install and then select the variation. Finally, click on the Install button to locally host the font and serve it from your website.

This will help site owners customize their site’s typography with custom fonts for their existing theme.

Custom Fields for Blocks

Another exciting feature that is debuting in WordPress 6.5 is the ability to associate custom fields with block attributes.

Custom fields in WordPress have been around for a very long time. They allow you to add custom metadata to your WordPress posts, pages, and other content types.

Now, developers and advanced users will be able to associate custom fields data to individual block attributes.

However, these connections are not just limited to custom fields. The block binding API introduced for this functionality also makes it possible to use other sources to provide dynamic data for blocks.

For those who want to test it out, add these two custom fields to your post:

mood
weather

You can see in the image below the custom fields interface:

Then, switch to the code editor view and add the following code inside a text field.

<!-- wp:paragraph {"metadata":{"bindings":{"content":{"source":"core/post-meta","args":{"key":"mood"}}}}} -->
<p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph {"metadata":{"bindings":{"content":{"source":"core/post-meta","args":{"key":"weather"}}}}} -->
<p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Now save your changes.

Next, you can preview your post to see the custom fields in action.

The theme should simply output the values of your meta keys.

This is just a very basic example.

Developers would be able to do much more by showing connections in the editor and the ability to choose dynamic values from a drop-down menu by registering those connections.

Plugin Dependencies

Some WordPress plugins depend on other WordPress plugins to provide certain functionalities.

For example, a WooCommerce payment addon would require WooCommerce to be installed for it to work.

Plugin authors can now add a Requires Plugins entry into the plugin header and mention the plugins required to be installed and activated for their plugin to work.

Those plugins will then need to be installed and activated by the user.

Once all the required plugins are activated, the user will be able to activate the main plugin that needs them.

The required plugins cannot be deactivated until the plugin dependent on those plugins is deactivated first.

Prior to WordPress 6.5, if a user installed such a plugin and activated it, they will see an error page.

This error page does not tell users which plugins to install or have instructions to go back to the plugins page. This feature is a big improvement in user experience.

Block Editor Improvements

The majority of WordPress users spend most of their time writing content, editing pages, and working with the block editor.

This is why each WordPress release has significant improvements and new features to improve the block editor.

WordPress 6.5 will be no different and is packing many enhancements to improve the content editing experience for all users.

Drop Shadow Effect

WordPress 6.5 will introduce a drop shadow effect for more blocks. Here are some of the blocks where users will be able to use the drop shadow effect.

Image
Columns and Column
Buttons

Simply click on the block and look for Border & Shadow under the Style Panel.

Smarter Overlay Colors for Cover Blocks

The cover block can now select the overlay color automatically based on the background color of the image you choose.

Rename Any Block in the List View

WordPress 6.4 allowed users to rename Group blocks in the list view for a better understanding of what each group block contains.

WordPress 6.5 will take it to the next step and allow users to rename any block in the list view.

Right Click on a Block in List View to See Settings

Now previously, you needed to click on the three-dot menu next to a block to see its settings in the list view.

In WordPress 6.5, you can just right-click on any block to see its settings.

Link Control Changes

Link Control in 6.5 will highlight your blog and front-page pages with different icons to distinguish them.

Right after you add a link or when you click on a link, it will show you a context menu.

Here, users can see where that link goes. It will automatically fetch the linked page title, and show the action buttons to edit, unlink, or copy the link.

The preferences panel will be updated in WordPress 6.5.

It will now show Appearance and Accessibility panels and previous options are now better categorized.

Site Editor Changes

Site Editor is where users can make changes to their site, much like the former theme customizer.

This release will come with several improvements to the site editor.

Synced Patterns Get More Powers

Synced patterns help website owners create patterns to reuse later across their websites.

With WordPress 6.5, users will be able to override locked synced patterns for individual use cases.

For instance, a pattern for product review where a user wants to be able to edit the Pros and Cons but not the layout of the pattern.

To test it, add a synced pattern to a post and click on the Edit Original button.

This will open the isolated pattern edit mode.

From here, click on the block that you want to override. Then, under the block settings expand the Advanced panel and check the box next to the Allow Instance Overrides option.

This feature allows you to create synced patterns that need to be edited based on the context in which they are used.

Data View Enhancements

WordPress 6.5 will bring a better way to view your pages, patterns, and templates with in site editor.

You can view items in Grid view with large previews and sort them in different orders.

You can also see items in the table view.

For instance, you see your page list and start editing them without leaving site editor.

Improved Style Revisions

Previously, Style revisions showed a timeline and you had to browse through it to see what changes were applied.

WordPress 6.5 will bring better style revisions which show you a description of changes made for each revision.

The browsing between different revisions will also become smoother. You can also switch to a revision by clicking on Apply button.

You will also see the changes that were made but not Saved yet.

The Interactivity API

Another exciting feature making its way into WordPress 6.5 is the Interactivity API.

The API provides a framework for developers to create modern front-end interfaces that don’t require complete page reloads.

This enables developers to create user experiences that are more ‘Interactive’ than old-school web pages.

Think of reading comments on your favorite blog, and a new comment just pops up as you are writing your own reply. Or, imagine a live search feature that doesn’t slow down your website.

The team working on the project has made a demo website to showcase its capabilities.

Miscellaneous Under-The-Hood Changes

WordPress 6.5 release will be packed with changes targeted at developers or behind-the-scenes improvements. Let’s look at some of them:

Performance improvements: The Block and Site Editors will load two times faster and the input time will be four times faster than WordPress 6.4. (Details)
An improved library is introduced to load translations much faster. (Details)
Classic themes can now add support for appearance tools. (Details)

Overall, the beta release includes 681 enhancements and 488 bug fixes for the editor, including about 229 tickets for WordPress 6.5 Core.

We hope this article helped you discover what’s new in WordPress 6.5 and which new features to try out. We are particularly excited about the interactivity API and the glimpses of a future admin redesign.

While you’re digging into the nuts and bolts of WordPress, you may also want to check out our look at how to install WordPress the right way and the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

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 What’s Coming in WordPress 6.5 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 25, 2024

Use of the Word ‘Tapestry’ in Web News More Than Doubled Last Year

Tracing AI-generated content in online news articles with corpus linguistics

A query in the 'News on the Web' Corpus reveals that the use of the word 'tapestry' in online articles has more than doubled last year from 3,085 instances in 2022 to 7,891 instances in 2023

Today, we delve into the rich tapestry Stop. Don't worry. This text has not been generated by a Large Language Model (LLM). Much of what you find on the internet these days, however, is. This article will help you distinguish between the two. Youll find out why ChatGPT is over 1,000 times more likely to use certain words than a human, what those words are, and other signs to look out for when trying to find out whether the article you are reading is AI-generated.

Tracing AI-Generated Content with Corpus Linguistics

People who work a lot with LLMs have noticed that they tend to overuse certain expressions, and may have developed an eye for spotting AI-generated content. Especially ChatGPT has been criticized for its undeniable preference for words such as delve and tapestry. Hence, when I was trying to find out how common it is among journalists to write their articles with the help of LLMs, I looked for those words as a clue.

Over a decade after completing my masters thesis, I decided to revisit the world of corpus linguistics. I examined the News on the Web (NOW) corpus at english-corpora.org, which currently comprises over 18.5 billion words from English-language online newspapers and magazines, from 2010 to the present. This corpus allows users to check the frequency of certain words over time, the context in which they occur, and make comparisons. For example, a search for covfefe in the NOW corpus shows 1,241 occurrences, with none between 2010 and 2016, 792 in 2017, and considerably fewer since:

Timeline of occurrences in the corpus

The logic here is clear: as the material is comprised of news articles, the use of certain expressions may peak in years when they occur in the context of some media debate. However, the words I looked into to trace ChatGPT in the corpus are not related to any specific current issue. Although some meming has been going on about LLMs preference for certain words, there are not many news articles dealing with this phenomenon.

Examining the context in which tapestry appears in recent examples reveals that it is indeed a non-topical and unironic use of the expression:

The context of the 27 lastest occurences of tapestry in the NOW corpus

Yet, the frequency of tapestry in news articles has risen dramatically within just one year, from 3,085 instances in 2022 to 7,891 instances in 2023. And the word is in good company. Multifaceted records a 62% increase (from 4,217 to 6,834) and delve an increase of 92%:

The use of the word delve also steeply increased from 2022 to 2023

One might argue that there is a general trend towards an increase in occurrences, as e.g., delve only appeared 630 times in 2010. The obvious reason is that more online content is created today than 10 or 15 years ago, leading to a massive difference in the total size of the 2010 corpus compared to the 2023 corpus. The metric to focus on is the annual development, which in the case of delve has increased almost every year until 2018, but has never shown anything near a 92% increase within just one year before.

So, what explains this explosion in the use of these words in online news articles? I believe its related to AI-generated content.

The Words ChatGPT Uses Too Much

As already mentioned, experienced users have long noticed overused terms and have practice spotting them. However, there is also an empirical basis for this. Jordan Gibbs analyzed 1 million words of GPT-4 output on a variety of topics, then compared this dataset to a database for English word frequency. This analysis identified the words that ChatGPT is most likely to overuse.

Interestingly, some of these words were names e.g., Elara, which is 3,504 times more likely to occur in generated text. Gibbs cleaned up the data to remove names and "other creative writing jargon" to compile a list of the most over-prevalent words in GPT-4:

The most over-prevalent words in GPT-4 | Source: Jordan Gibbs @ Medium

As you can see, the most overused word is reimagined, which ChatGPT is over 1,000 times more likely to use than a human. Delve ranks in the 7th place. You can access the unfiltered top 100 expressions here.

More Givaways that Text was Written by an LLM

Other clear giveaways for AI-generated texts (that have yet to be empirically examined) are frequent occurrences of comparative structures (e.g., not only , but also), uniform paragraphs with similar length and phrasing, as well as a boundless enthusiasm for lists.

As our expedition into corpus linguistics has shown, AI-generated text is already big out there, not only in the form of bot-comments on social mediabut also in journalism and online news. For now, the best way to avoid wasting your time on reading generative content may be to learn how to recognize it quickly.

To me personally, the most certain giveaway of an AI-generated text is eloquent vocabulary combined with soulless content. Hence, if web journalists don't want their content to be easily identified as AI copy, they will have to do more than just edit out some tapestry.

December 1, 2023

Recovering Deleted Files From Your Git Working Tree

There are times when mistakes happen, and useful and important files are deleted by error or lost from your file system irrevocably (or seemingly, at least). Version control systems make it difficult to permanently lose files, provided they have been either added to staging or committed to a remote repository, because Git allows you to undo or revert changes and access previous versions of the saved files.

It is also possible to erroneously erase files from both the working directory and the Git repository. I’ve certainly done that! I imagine you have, too, if you’re reading this, and if that’s the case, then you will need a way to recover those files.

I have a few methods and strategies you can use to recover your deleted files. Some are more obvious than others, and some are designed for very specific situations. And while it is indeed possible to irrevocably lose a file, even then, you may have a path to at least recover a copy of it with third-party software if it comes to that.

How Git Works With Files

Before we dive into all of that, let’s explore how your files journey from your local computer to your remote repository.

Your files are initially only located on your computer’s storage, known as your working tree or working directory, and Git has no idea they exist yet. At this point, they are at their most vulnerable state since they are untracked.

Adding files to the staging area — also known as the index — so that Git is aware of them is what the git add <filename> (or git add -A for all files) is for. What actually happens under the hood when pushing files to staging is that Git hashes the content and creates a blob for each file based on the file’s content and proceeds to store them in the /objects subdirectory located at .git/objects. Run git status to confirm that the files you want to commit have been added to your staging area.

Once the files are staged, Git is at least aware of them, and we can include them in commits. When including a file in a commit, Git creates a new tree object to represent the state of the repository at the time the commit happens. The tree object contains the following information:

SHA-1 hash of the tree object that represents the state of the repository;
SHA-1 hash of the commit’s parent commit object if it has a parent;
Author and committer information;
Commit message.

It’s at this point that the files are git push-ed to the remote repo, wherever you happen to be hosting it, whether it’s GitHub, Beanstalk, Bitbucket, or whatever.

How Files Can Get Deleted From A Working Tree

So, the key pieces we’re talking about are your project’s working tree, staging area and commit. It is possible for files to be deleted at any one of these points, but it’s the working tree where it is most irreversible, or at least tough, to restore a lost file.

There are some very specific Git commands or actions that tend to be the biggest culprits when a file is deleted from the working tree.

`git rm`

I’m sure you have seen this one before. It’s a command for removing (rm) files from the working tree. It might be the most commonly used command for deleting files.

`git reset`

Anytime a reset happens, it’s very possible to lose any files you’ve been working on. But there are two types of Git resets that make this possible:

git reset --hard
This command is sort of a nuclear path for resetting a working tree and the staging area. If you’ve made any changes to tracked files, those will be lost. That goes for commits, too, which are discarded altogether. In fact, any files or directories that are not in the HEAD commit are removed from the working tree.
git reset <filename>
This is a lot less damaging than a hard reset, but it does indeed remove the specified file from the working tree. But it’s worth mentioning that the file is not pulled out from the staging area. So there’s a path back, which we’ll get to.

`git clean`

This removes untracked files from the working tree. Untracked files are not in the Git staging area and are not really part of the repository. They’re typically temporary files or files that have not yet been added to the repository.

One key distinction with a clean command is that it will not remove files that are included in a project’s .gitignore file, nor will it remove files that have been added to the staging area, nor ones that have already been committed. This can be useful for cleaning up your working tree after you have finished working on a project and you want to remove all of the temporary files that you created.

Like git reset, there are different variations of git clean that remove files in different ways:

git clean <filename>
Used to remove specific files from the working tree.
git clean -d
Removes untracked files from a specific directory.
git clean -i
This one interactively removes files from the working tree. And by that, I mean you will be prompted to confirm removal before it happens, which is a nice safeguard against accidents.
git clean -n
This is a dry run option and will show you the files that would be removed if you were to run the original git clean command. In other words, it doesn’t actually remove anything but lets you know what would be removed if you were to run an actual clean.
git clean -f
This one forces the git clean command to remove all untracked files from the working tree, even if they are ignored by the .gitignore file. It’s pretty heavy-handed.
git clean -f -d
Running this command is a lot like git clean --f but wipes out directories as well.
git clean -x
This removes all untracked files, including build products. It is best used when you want to wipe your working tree clean and test a fresh build.
git clean -X
This only removes files ignored by git.

Of course, I’m merely summarizing what you can already find in Git’s documentation. That’s where you can get the best information about the specific details and nuances of git clean and its variants.

Manually Removing Files

Yes, it’s possible! You can manually delete the files and directories from your working tree using your computer’s file manager. The good news, however, is that this will not remove the files from the staging area. Also, it’s quite possible you can undo that action with a simple CMD + Z/CTRL + Z if no other action has happened.

It is important to note that manually removing files from the working tree is a destructive operation. Once you have removed a file from the working tree that has not been added to a commit, it is almost impossible to undo the operation completely from a Git perspective. As a result, it is crucial to make sure that you really want to remove a file before you go this route.

But mistakes happen! So, let’s look at a variety of commands, strategies, and — if needed — apps that could reasonably recover deleted files from a working directory.

How Files Can Be Recovered After Being Deleted

Git commands like git checkout, git reset, git restore, and git reflog can be helpful for restoring files that you have either previously added to the staging area or committed to your repository.

`git checkout`

If you have not committed the changes that deleted the files and directories, then you can use the git checkout command to checkout a previous commit, branch, or tag. This will overwrite the working tree with the contents of the specific commit, branch, or tag, and any deleted files and directories will be restored.

git checkout HEAD~ <filename>

That will take things back to the last commit that was made. But let’s say you’ve made several commits since the file was deleted. If that’s the case, try checking out a specific commit by providing that commit’s hash:

git checkout <commit-hash> <filename>

Oh, you’re not sure which file it is, or there are more files than you want to type out? You can check out the entire working tree by committing the filename:

git checkout <commit-hash>

`git reset`

If you have committed the changes that deleted the files and directories, then you can use the git reset command to reset the HEAD pointer to a previous commit. This will also overwrite the working tree with the contents of the specific commit, and any deleted files and directories will be restored in the process.

git reset <commit-hash>

`git restore`

If you want to restore deleted files and directories without overwriting the working tree, then you can use the git restore command. This command restores files and directories deleted from the staging area or the working tree. Note that it only works for tracked files, meaning that any files that weren’t git add-ed to the working tree are excluded.

git restore --staged <filename>

To jump back one commit, you could go back to the --worktree instead of the staging area:

git restore --worktree <filename>

And, of course, leave out the filename if you want to restore all files in the working tree from the previous commit:

git restore --worktree

Another option is to restore all of the files in the current directory:

git restore .

`git reflog`

There’s also the git reflog command, which shows a history of all recent HEAD movements. I like this as a way to identify the commit that you want to checkout or reset to.

git reflog

Last Resorts

When files that are neither present in the staging area nor committed are deleted from the working tree, it is commonly accepted that those files are gone forever — or oti lor as we say in Yoruba — without any hope of recovery. So, if for any reason or by error, you delete important files from your project’s working tree without ensuring that they are either in the staging area or have been previously committed, then you may be thinking all hope of getting them back is lost.

But I can assure you, based on my experiences in this situation, that it is usually possible to recover all or most of a project’s lost files. There are two approaches I normally take.

File Recovery Apps

File recovery tools can recover lost or deleted data from your storage devices. They work by running a deep scan of your device in an attempt to find every file and folder that has ever existed on your storage device, including deleted and lost files and folders. Once the files have all been found, you can then use the data recovery tool to restore/recover the files of your choice to a new location.

Note: Some of the deleted and lost files found may be corrupted and damaged or not found at all, but I am certain from my experience using them that the majority will be found without any corruption or damage.

There are a variety of file recovery tools available, and the “right” one is largely a subjective matter. I could spend an entire post exclusively on the various options, but I’ve selected a few that I have used and feel comfortable at least suggesting as options to look into.

Wondershare Recoverit is capable of recovering more than 1,000 file formats. Its free tier option allows you to run a scan to find files on your computer’s storage, but to actually recover the files, you will have to do a paid upgrade to one of its paid plans starting at a $69.99 annual subscription or a one-time $119.99 license. There’s a premium plan for more enhanced recovery methods for things like videos and files, as well as fixing corrupted files that go well beyond the basic need of recovering a single lost file.

Pros: High success rate, free tech support, allows partition recovery.
Cons: Free tier is extremely limited.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is perhaps one of the most popular tools out of what’s available. Its free tier option is quite robust, running a deep scan and recovering up to 2GB of data. The difference between that and its paid subscription (starting at $119.95 per year, $169.95 lifetime) is that the paid tier recovers an unlimited amount of data.

Pros: Fast deep scans, file preview before recovery, easy to use, generous free tier.
Cons: Paid plans are significantly more expensive than other tools, Windows and macOS versions are vastly different, and the macOS software is even more expensive.

DM Disk Editor (DMDE) makes use of a special algorithm that reconstructs directory structures and recovers files by their file signature when recovering solely by the file system proves impossible. DMDE also offers a free tier option, but it is quite limited as you can only recover files from the directory you have selected, and it only recovers up to 4,000 files at a time. Compare that to its paid versions that allow unlimited and unrestricted data recovery. Paid plans start at $20 per year but scale up to $133 per year for more advanced needs that are likely beyond the scope of what you need.

Pros: High recovery success rate, generous free tier, reasonable paid tiers if needed.
Cons: I personally find the UI to be more difficult to navigate than other apps.

Software	Operating Systems supported	Starting price	File types and formats supported
Wondershare Recoverit	Windows, Mac, Linux(Premium)	$69.99/year	1000+ file types and formats
EaseUS	Windows, Mac	$99.95/year (Windows), $119.95/year (Mac)	1000+ file types and formats
DMDE	Windows, Mac, Linux, DOS	$20/year	Supports basic file formats. Does not support raw photo files.

As I said, there are many, many more options out there. If you’re reading this and have a favorite app that you use to recover lost files, then please share it in the comments. The more, the merrier!

Last Resort: `git fsck`

First off, the git fsck command can be dangerous if used incorrectly. It is essential to make sure that you understand how to use the command before using it to recover files from the working tree. If you are unsure how to proceed after reading this section, then it is a good idea to consult the Git documentation for additional details on how it is used and when it is best to use it.

That said, git fsck can indeed recover files lost from the working tree in Git and maybe your absolute last resort. It works by scanning the Git repository for “dangling” objects, which are objects that are not referenced by any commit. The Git docs define it like this:

dangling object:

“An unreachable object that is not reachable even from other unreachable objects; a dangling object has no references to it from any reference or object in the repository.”

This can happen if a file is deleted from the working tree but not committed or if a branch is deleted, but the files on the branch are not deleted.

To recover files lost from the working tree using the git fsck command, follow these steps:

Run git fsck –lost-found, which is a special mode of the git fsck command.
It creates a directory called .git/lost-found and moves all of the lost objects to that directory. The lost objects are organized into two subdirectories: commits and objects. The /commits subdirectory contains lost commits, and the /objects subdirectory contains lost blobs, trees, and tags. This command prints the dangling objects (blobs, commits, trees, and tags) if they exist.

Run the git show <dangling_object_hash> command for each dangling object that is printed.
This will print the content of the object and enable you to see the original content of the hashed object so you can identify the dangling objects in the case of files dangling blobs that correspond to the files that you want to recover.
To recover a dangling object, you can manually copy the content of the printed in the console when you run the git show <dangling_object_hash> command or run git show <dangling_object_hash> > <filename> command to save the content of the hashed object to the file you specified in the command. You can also use the git checkout <dangling_object_hash> command to restore the file to the working tree.

Once you have recovered the files that you want to recover, you can commit the changes to the Git repository as if nothing ever happened. Phew! But again, I only advise this approach if you’ve tried everything else and are absolutely at your last resort.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to recover files lost from your working tree, your mind should be relatively at ease whenever or if ever you find yourself in this unfortunate situation. Remember, there’s a good chance to recover a file that may have been accidentally deleted from a project.

That said, a better plan is to prevent being in this situation in the first place. Here are some tips that will help you prevent ending up almost irrevocably losing files from your working tree:

Commit your files to your Git repository and remote servers as quickly and as often as you create or make changes to them.
There is no such thing as a “too small” commit.
Routinely create backups of your project files.
This will help you recover your files if you accidentally delete them or your computer crashes.

130+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2023 WordPress Deals – Big Savings

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 list of the best WordPress Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for 2023. Some of these are exclusive just for WPBeginner readers.

These offers are LIMITED TIME only. We’ve indicated the expiration date next to each offer. Some deals are not live at the time of publishing this blog post, but they will be going live throughout this week.

Note: We believe in transparency. If you buy using the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. This helps us find great deals for you. Learn more »

Bonus Giveaways

Some WordPress companies are doing exclusive Black Friday giveaways. Here are the top ones:

Win a 15″ MacBook Air from WPForms
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Win a 13″ MacBook Air M2 from SeedProd
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Apple MacBook Air from Smash Balloon
Win MacBook Air from Thrive Themes
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Important: Don’t forget to bookmark this page because we will be updating it throughout the week as we find new deals. We will also be sending exclusive deals to our newsletter subscribers throughout the week.

Editor’s Pick

Below are the featured WordPress black friday deals that are our team’s favorite:

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Other WordPress Black Friday Deals

Below is a comprehensive list of WordPress Black Friday deals that were submitted through our contact form:

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Get 50% off Gravity Forms – Allows you to easily create advanced forms for your WordPress website.
Get 40% off WP Activity Log – Allows you to easily monitor and track all user activity on your WordPress website. Coupon code: MP2023
Get 40% off WP 2FA – Allows you to easily add two-factor authentication to WordPress login. Coupon code: MP2023
Get 50% off Spectra – Offers a page builder that works in block editor.
Get 40% off Cloudways – Offers managed WordPress hosting. Coupon code: BFCM4040
Get 30% off Schema Pro – Allows you to add schema markup in WordPress.
Get 50% off Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder – Offers extra addons and widgets for Beaver Builder.
Get 30% off Convert Pro – Offers a lead generation plugin for WordPress.
Get 30% off Advanced Ads – Allows you to easily manage ads in WordPress.
Get 25% off Profile Builder Pro – Helps you create custom user profiles and registration forms. Coupon code: BF2023
Get 50% off Event Espresso – Offers a solution to manage event registrations and tickets on your WordPress website.
Get 75% off CheckoutWC – Allows you to optimize the WooCommerce checkout page.
Get 50% off WP Draw Attention – Helps you create and add interactive images in WordPress. Coupon code: BLKFRISAVINGS
Get 50% off Simply Schedule Appointments – Allows you to add an appointment booking feature in WordPress. Coupon code: BLKFRISAVINGS
Get 25% off Paid Members Subscriptions – Allows you to add paid members and subscriptions in WordPress. Coupon code: BF2023

That’s all for now. We will be adding more deals and updating this page throughout the month.

Aside from these, we also have tons of other WordPress deals and discounts for WPBeginner readers.

Hopefully, you can take advantage of some of these limited time deals. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

P.S. If you’re a WordPress company offering a discount or know of one that is having a deal, then please send us a message via our contact form, so we can update this article.

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 130+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2023 WordPress Deals – Big Savings first appeared on WPBeginner.

November 8, 2023

Announcing WPBeginner Solution Center: Your One-Stop Hub for WordPress Product Reviews

Have you ever wanted to buy a premium WordPress plugin or theme but were unsure if it would live up to the hype and promises?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could see real user reviews before buying a WordPress product or service?

While the official WordPress repository displays user reviews, unfortunately, it’s limited to free plugins and themes only. There are so many other premium WordPress plugins, themes, agencies, and other business tools that simply can’t be listed there.

This was a huge gap and many of our readers told me that.

I listened to your feedback, and this is exactly why we built the WPBeginner Solution Center, a one-stop WordPress review hub that gives you access to both our expert reviews along with real user reviews to help you pick the best solutions for your need.

What is WPBeginner Solution Center?

WPBeginner Solution Center is your one-stop hub for finding the right business tools for your website including WordPress plugins, themes, web hosting, marketing tools, etc., to help grow your business.

To find the best products for your need, you can simply search the WPBeginner Solution Center page, read our expert reviews, and also read what real users are saying about those products.

Why WPBeginner Solution Center is Important for You – Our WordPress Users

If you’re a WordPress user, here’s how WPBeginner Solution Center can benefit you:

1. Real User Reviews to Help You Choose the Right Product

One of the best things about using WordPress is that you can easily find a lot of plugin and theme options to choose from. Unfortunately, choosing the right one for your specific needs can be intimidating because there is no way to compare user reviews before choosing one.

While the official WordPress repository displays user reviews, the repository is only limited to free WordPress plugins and themes. But WordPress site owners need tools that are not just plugins and themes. What about WordPress hosting, WordPress development agencies, other marketing tools, or premium-only WordPress plugins that are not listed on WordPress.org?

With WPBeginner Solution Center, you’ll easily find all the different WordPress products, both free and premium, including WordPress themes, plugins, and hosting.

Currently, products are listed under different categories, like design, eCommerce, hosting, marketing, security, and performance.

Since we’re just starting out, I’m sure these categories will grow as needed.

2. Rigorous Quality Assurance + Expert Review

Now you might say Syed, but there are other review sites like G2, TrustPilot, etc? What about them?

There is simply no quality control requirement to get a product listed on typical software review sites, like G2 or TrustPilot. Since anyone with a website can create a listing, those generic review sites are not a great place to get expert review advice for WordPress products.

This is why I built the WPBeginner Solution Center with the WordPress open-source principles and standards in mind. Every product we list undergoes thorough listing requirements. Plus, our team examines every single product, tests it personally, and only then publishes a detailed expert review.

In a nutshell, if you’re looking for expert advice on which WordPress products to use, then WPBeginner Solution Center is your best bet going forward.

Since we’re just getting started, if you come across a plugin or solution that’s not mentioned there, please reach out to the plugin company or theme company, and ask them to submit their plugin to be reviewed using the form here. Also you can just reach out to our team and let us know too, and we can get in touch with them.

How to Get Your Products Listed on WPBeginner Solution Center

Do you own a WordPress theme or plugin and want to get it listed on WPBeginner Solution Center?

You can get started by submitting our application form here.

Since we are just starting out, and each product review takes a lot of work, please understand that there will be some wait time, but we’re trying to get as many high-quality products listed as possible.

Here are a few benefits of getting listed on Solution Center:

1. Get featured on WPBeginner for FREE:

WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource for beginners. By getting featured on WPBeginner Solution Center, you can drive more traffic and sales to your product sites.

2. Get our expert review for FREE:

Unlike other WordPress bloggers that charge $600+ for product reviews, we’re doing this for free to help the community. Our expert team will examine your products and write a detailed review on WPBeginner’s Solution Center for free.

3. Get an ad-free page:

Unlike typical software review sites like G2 or TrustPilot, we’ll list your product on an ad-free page. And none of your competitors will ever be mentioned on your dedicated product page, so you can use it in your marketing and ask your customers to leave reviews for your product without any concerns about them seeing your competitors.

4. Get a WPBeginner Verified badge:

All products listed on the WPBeginner Solution Center are allowed to use a WPBeginner verified badge on their sites and marketing material as long as it links back to their dedicated product listing page, so users can see the reviews.

Since WPBeginner verified products are fully vetted and handpicked, this badge helps boost credibility and can help convince potential customers to purchase your product.

5. Get more user reviews:

You can ask your customers to post user reviews on your WPBeginner Solution Center page to continue increasing your trust factor among your potential customers through brand reputation management.

If you want your products to be listed on WPBeginner Solution Center and want our expert team to review your products, feel free to reach out to us by submitting our contact form here.

My goal is to make WPBeginner Solution Center the best place to find premium WordPress solutions for your business needs.

I need your help. If you’re a plugin owner, please submit your plugins to the solution center. If you’re a user, please let us know what new plugins we should add to the listing.

We’re truly building something special here. If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginner Solution Center more helpful to you, 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

The post Announcing WPBeginner Solution Center: Your One-Stop Hub for WordPress Product Reviews first appeared on WPBeginner.

November 8, 2023

What’s New in WordPress 6.4 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.4 has been released recently. It is the third major release of 2023.

It comes with significant new features, bug fixes, and changes to improve the way you create and manage your website.

In this article, we will show you what’s new in WordPress 6.4 with screenshots of new features.

New features and screenshots of WordPress 6.4

Note: WordPress 6.4 is a major release, and unless you are on a managed WordPress hosting service, you’ll need to initiate the update manually. Follow our guide on how to safely update WordPress for instructions.

Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before the update.

That being said, here is a breakdown of what’s new in WordPress 6.4:

New Default Theme – Twenty Twenty-Four
Improved Pattern Management with Custom Categories
Attachment Pages Disabled By Default
Display Images in Lightbox Pop
Redesigned Command Palette
Block Editor Improvements
Background Images for Group Block
Improved Toolbar for Parent / Child Blocks
Improved Outline / List View
Open in New Tab in Link Preview
Block Hooks Are Now Available
Under The Hood Changes

New Default Theme – Twenty Twenty-Four

As the year’s last release, WordPress 6.4 will ship with a new default theme called Twenty Twenty-Four.

It is a multi-purpose default theme suitable for all kinds of websites.

With flexibility and customization in mind, Twenty Twenty-Four is quite easy to edit and customize. It even ships in 6 style variations to choose from.

WordPress block patterns enable users to quickly create content layouts for their posts and pages.

Twenty Twenty-Four ships with dozens of patterns you can use on your site.

This includes section patterns that allow you to add commonly used sections to your layouts like an FAQ section, call to action section, services, and more.

Improved Pattern Management with Custom Categories

Patterns are groups of blocks pre-arranged to use anywhere on your website quickly.

WordPress 6.4 makes managing all your patterns in the site editor easier.

You can now add your own pattern categories when creating a new pattern.

The Pattern creation modal looks the same across your WordPress admin area.

Inside the Site Editor, the Patterns tab shows your patterns organized in categories.

Attachment Pages Disabled By Default

Previously, WordPress created a page for attachments you uploaded to your website.

This page only showed the attachment (image or other media file) and its description. These pages were then crawled by search engines and considered unsuitable for your WordPress website SEO.

Users relied on WordPress SEO plugins like All in One SEO to disable attachment pages and redirect users to the post where they added that image or media.

With WordPress 6.4, attachment pages will be disabled by default for all new websites.

If you have an existing WordPress website, it will work as before. However, if you want to disable attachment pages, then you can add the following custom code snippet to your website.

update_option( 'wp_attachment_pages_enabled', 0 );

Another popular way to display larger images is by displaying them in a lightbox popup.

WordPress 6.4 now allows users to enable lightbox popups for images in their posts and pages.

After adding an image, you can toggle the Expand on Click option under the block settings to open it in a lightbox popup.

This simple image popup allows users to enlarge images without leaving a page.

This feature is new and quite basic. For instance, if you add an image gallery, you’ll have to set it for each image.

For a better user experience with beautiful image galleries, we recommend using Envira Gallery or NextGen.

These are the best WordPress photo gallery plugins for photographers and portfolio websites with beautiful lightbox popups, animations, slideshows, gallery styles, and more.

Redesigned Command Palette

The command palette was introduced in WordPress 6.3. It allowed users to type in commands using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+K quickly.

WordPress 6.4 brings several improvements to the tool and new keyboard shortcuts. First, there is a subtle design update, which makes element text slightly darker to increase contrast.

There are new commands and actions introduced to work with blocks. This includes duplicate, transform, delete, or insert commands.

You can also select multiple blocks and transform them using the command palette.

Block Editor Improvements

WordPress 6.4 includes several Gutenberg (the project name for the block content editor) releases in the core. Each one of them includes several new features and enhancements.

Following are some of the more noticeable enhancements in Block Editor.

Background Images for Group Block

Grouping blocks is the easiest way to create different layout sections in the post, page, or full site editor.

Previously, it wasn’t possible to add a background image to a block using the block editor. WordPress 6.4 now allows users to set a background image for any group block.

Setting background image for the Group block

When working with blocks that have child blocks, the toolbar previously kept moving and changing as you moved around blocks.

This didn’t produce an ideal user experience for blocks like Navigation, List, and Quote.

WordPress 6.4 automatically attaches the child toolbar to the parent and creates a consistent user experience as you move around the inner blocks.

Improved Outline / List View

The List view shows you a quick outline of your page or post layout in the site/block editor.

WordPress 6.4 comes with a revamped list view with new features and a better experience.

You can now rename Group blocks in the list view.

This would help you identify what each group block does and will make your layouts more readable.

Previously, the list view only showed the label image or gallery when you added an image or gallery. You had to scroll to see which image or gallery it was manually.

With WordPress 6.4, you will now see a preview of the image in the list view.

Open in New Tab in Link Preview

In WordPress 6.3, the link preview control moved the option to ‘Open in new tab’ under the Advanced toggle.

It required a few extra clicks to open a link in a new tab.

This was a commonly used feature used by many users.

Based on the user requests, the core team added a new checkbox in the link preview modal so that users can set a link to open in a new tab without going into the advanced options.

Block Hooks Are Now Available

WordPress 6.4 brings the block hook functionality for developers.

Named after the functionality of the hooks in WordPress core APIs, block hooks allow developers to extend blocks dynamically.

For instance, plugins can add their own options to a block. The block settings panel will show these options, and users will be able to turn them on and off.

Under The Hood Changes

WordPress 6.4 also includes several changes intended for developers. Here are some of the most significant under-the-hood changes.

New admin notice functions are introduced. (Details)
TEMPLATEPATH and STYLESHEETPATH constants are deprecated. (#18298)
Framework to add revisions for post meta in WordPress. (#20564)
Theme developers can configure their own default min and max viewport widths for calculating fluid font sizes. (#59048)
A block hook field is added to block types. (#59346)

We hope this article helped you explore the new features of WordPress 6.4. We are particularly excited about block hooks for developers and all the quality-of-life changes to the block editor that will make it easier for users to create content.

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 What’s New in WordPress 6.4 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

November 1, 2023

Announcing WPBeginner Top Commenter Contest: Win Prizes Worth $10,000+

Wouldn’t it be great if you could win exciting prizes for engaging with the WPBeginner community?

For the last 14 years, we’ve been helping you learn WordPress and improve your website with our FREE WordPress tutorials and other training resources. Today, we’re moving one step forward in making your WordPress learning journey even more exciting and fun.

We are excited to announce our WPBeginner Monthly Top Commenter Contest. Now, you can win HUGE rewards for asking questions, offering suggestions, and sharing your opinion by commenting on our blog posts!

Every month, our top blog commenters will win prizes, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes. Aside from the monthly contest, we will also have awards for our top commenters of the year as part of our annual contest. Annual winners will get the prize including Macbook Air, Apple iPad, and Airpod based on your rankings!

Top Commenter Contest: Duration, Rules and Prizes

Our Top Commenter Contest is a monthly contest that starts on Nov 1st, 2023, where our 3 top commenters can win exciting prizes by regularly commenting on any WPBeginner blog posts.

In addition to the monthly contest, we are also running a grand annual contest where 3 of our top commenters across all months will win even more exciting prizes.

Contest Duration & Prizes

The contest starts from Nov 1^st, 2023, to Oct 31st, 2024 (12 months). After every month, we announce 3 winners on this page. Below are the prizes you can win:

Cash prizes: Every month, our 3 top commenters can win cash prizes worth $200 / $100 / $50 respectively.
A Premium WordPress plugin: Aside from the cash prize, you can also win a Pro license for any premium plugins listed below.
Annual Prizes: Finally, we’ll choose 3 grand winners at the end of the contest October 31, 2024. The prizes for the annual winners are MacBook Air for 1st place, Apple iPad for 2nd place, and Airpod for 3rd place.

Here is the list of products from which you can choose your pro licenses.

WPForms, MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, AIOSEO, SeedProd, Thrive Suite, Funnelkit, Uncanny Automator, MemberPress, Easy Digital Downloads, SearchWP, RafflePress, Formidable Forms, WPCode, Duplicator, Smash Balloon, WP Mail SMTP, WP Simple Pay, AffiliateWP, Pretty Links.

Contest Rules

Here are the rules for our Top Commenter Contest.

Moderation rules: We typically approve all blog comments for publication as long as they comply with our Comment Policy. We moderate our comments on weekdays. Only the approved comments will be counted for the contest.
Comment qualification: To prevent spam submissions and contribute value to the discussion, it’s advised to all participants to follow the quality guidelines given below. Even if the comments are approved, failing to adhere to these guidelines will disqualify the commenters from participating in the contest.
- Make sure to add value to the conversation. You can ask questions if you need help or help other commenters by replying to their thread. You can also share your thoughts, provide an additional tip, and more.
- Do not game the system, which includes but is not limited to submitting similar comments on multiple blog posts for the sake of increasing the comment count.
- Only comments with a minimum of 50 characters will be counted for the contest. Shorter comments will be excluded from counting.
Eligibility: Everybody is eligible to participate in the contest except for the following people.
- People who post less than 10 comments in a month.
- Any employees of Awesome Motive or subsidiary companies belonging in the WPBeginner growth fund.
- We also reserve the right to ban any commenters from showing up on the comment counter who abuse the system, like not complying with the above rules.
Transparency: At the bottom of this page, you can see a comment counter that shows a list of top 10 commenters.
Name and email: When submitting multiple comments throughout WPBeginner, be sure to use the same name and email address. That way, our comment counter can display the number of approved comments, and you can stand a chance to win the contest.
Choosing winners: Top commenters, unless they’re disqualified by not adhering to the rules, will be automatically classified as winners. With that said, the final decision to decide the winner will remain at our sole discretion.
Winner announcement: Winners’ name and their comment count will be published here on this page. If you’re selected as a winner, you’ll receive an email from us.

Top Commenters for the Current Month (Nov 2023)

Here are the top commenters of this month.

Shafqat Khan

1 comment

Lisa

1 comment

Burhan Ali

1 comment

That’s it! We hope you’ll love engaging with our community and learn more about WordPress in the process.

What are you waiting for?

Go read our articles and share your thoughts with us!

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

The post Announcing WPBeginner Top Commenter Contest: Win Prizes Worth $10,000+ first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 30, 2023

Target Website Visitors More Effectively With SmartCrawl’s Location-Based Redirects

No one likes to be given the runaround…especially potential customers looking to buy from you! Learn how to use SmartCrawl‘s Location-Based Redirects to automatically send your site visitors to the right place based on their location.

If you run a simple site, you can easily direct visitors to different sections of your site using elements like navigation menus, breadcrumbs, keyword linking, and hyperlinks, to name a few.

But… what if you run global or multilingual sites where visitors need to be directed to pages based on their location or language?

Not a problem!

SmartCrawl Pro (our smart and powerful SEO plugin) comes with a powerful built-in URL redirection tool that lets you automatically redirect traffic from one URL to another. This is great if you have changed a page’s URL and wish to keep traffic flowing to the new page.

The plugin’s new Location-Based Redirects feature now extends the power of URL redirections by also letting you easily direct your website visitors to specific pages based on their location.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use SmartCrawl’s new geolocation features:

Why Use Location-Based Redirects?
How to Set Up Location-Based Redirects
Smart Post and Page Selection for Redirects

Let’s jump right in…

Why Use Location-Based Redirects?

Geolocation-based URL redirects can be a powerful tool for website owners to enhance user experience and improve their online business.

Before we look at how to set up location-based redirects on your site, let’s look at several practical examples of why you would want to use geolocation with URL redirections:

Multilingual Content

If you have different versions of your website set up for different languages, you can use geolocation to automatically redirect visitors to the appropriate language version of your site. For instance, you can redirect users from France to the French version of your site, while sending visitors from Spain to the Spanish version.

Geo-Specific Landing Pages

If your business has multiple physical locations (e.g. a store chain), geolocation can increase foot traffic by directing users to their nearest store or office.

Content Localization

Do you run a news-based website? Use Geolocation to redirect users to local news or content relevant to their region and enhance engagement.

Load Balancing

Websites with multiple server locations can use geolocation to redirect users to the server nearest to them. This helps to reduce page load times and improve site performance.

Legal Compliance

Ensure compliance with local laws and regulations. For instance, your website can redirect users to GDPR consent pages if they are from the European Union.

Event Promotion

If you manage an event portal website, you can increase attendance at events by automatically redirecting users to pages about local events, seminars, or conferences happening in their region.

Targeted Ad Campaigns

Use geolocation redirects to show different advertisements based on the user’s location, ensuring that your ads are more relevant and effective.

The above are just some examples of how geolocation-based URL redirects can improve user experience, increase engagement, and drive business growth by delivering personalized, location-specific content and services.

Now that we have looked at why you should use location-based redirects, let’s look at how to set these up using SmartCrawl.

How To Set Up Location-Based Redirects

With SmartCrawl, you can now add Geolocation-based rules to URL redirects to ensure that your users see the most relevant content based on their locations.

Note: This is a SmartCrawl Pro feature. If you are currently using the SmartCrawl free version of the plugin, consider upgrading to Pro by becoming a member.

To do this, go to SmartCrawl Pro’s Advanced Tools section and click on the URL Redirection tab.

SmartCrawl - Advanced Tools: URL Redirection — Set up location-based URL redirects in SmartCrawl’s Advanced Tools section.

Click on the Add Redirect button to access the Location Rules feature

SmartCrawl - Add Redirect — Set up location rules in the Add Redirect screen.

Note: To use SmartCrawl’s location-based redirection you will need access to Maxmind’s GeoLite2 Database. See our documentation section for step-by-step details on how to set up and configure a free Maxmind account.

After signing up for your account, enter your license key into SmartCrawl’s Location-based Rules settings to activate the feature.

SmartCrawl Location-based Rules settings

Once the geolocation feature has been activated, SmartCrawl will automatically fetch the latest data from GeoLite2 each week.

With the license activated, you can now set up location rules by going to Advanced Tools > URL Redirection > Add Redirect > Location Rules and clicking on + Add Rule.

SmartCrawl Add Redirect Rules — Click on + Add Rule to set up location rules.

In the Location Rules screen, choose whether to set up From or Not From rules to either include or exclude locations and specify the URL to redirect visitors.

SmartCrawl Location Rules - Countries — SmartCrawl Location Rules – Countries

The From and Not From options allow you to set up very specific redirects.

Notes:

SmartCrawl currently allows you to set up location rules for countries only. Future plugin updates will include more granular options.
The feature follows a “top-to-bottom” order of processing rules, so rules at the top of the list are processed first before the next item below it, and so on.

SmartCrawl Location Rules - From/Not From options — SmartCrawl Location Rules – From/Not From options

The location-based redirects you set up will display in the URL Redirection table with a “globe” icon for easy identification. (Tip: Hover over the global icon to view the options you have set up.)

SmartCrawl URL Redirection list — Location-based redirects display with a globe icon.

To edit or delete your redirects, click on the gear icon next to the item.

Edit redirects. — Easily edit or delete your redirects.

Smart Post and Page Selection For Redirects

Another new and useful feature of SmartCrawl is smart post and page redirects.

Previous versions of the plugin included only a New URL field for adding destination URLs for redirection…

SmartCrawl pre-version 3.8 Add Redirect screen. — SmartCrawl’s Redirect tool prior to version 3.8.

From SmartCrawl version 3.8 onward, in addition to the new Location Rules tab described earlier, you will find that the Advanced redirection section (which includes labels and Regex options) has been moved to its own tab, and two additional Redirect To options have been added to the URL field: Post and Page.

SmartCrawl's post-version 3.8 Add Redirect screen. — SmartCrawl’s post-version 3.8 Add Redirect screen with smart Post and Page selection.

The Smart Post and Page selection tabs allow you to create redirections to existing posts or pages on your site more easily.

Simply start typing in a keyword and SmartCrawl will bring up a list of posts or pages from your site that you can select and redirect visitors to.

SmartCrawl Smart Post and Pages feature. — Start typing a keyword to see all the existing posts and pages you can redirect visitors to.

With this time-saving feature, you don’t have to search your site then copy and paste destination URLs…SmartCrawl’s smart engine will do the searching for you.

After selecting a post or page in the Redirect To field, select a Redirect Type from the drop-down menu, then click on the Apply Redirect button.

SmartCrawl - Smart Page redirect — Redirecting visitors is now faster and easier in SmartCrawl.

Coming Soon…New Features and Improvements

SmartCrawl is the only plugin you need to automate all of your WordPress SEO needs and it just keeps getting better.

Future versions of SmartCrawl’s URL Redirection tool will include new features and improvements like:

New redirections types (e.g. 307 Temporary Redirect, 410 Content Deleted, 451 Content Unavailable for Legal Reasons)
Automated notifications to create a redirection when a post is deleted or drafted
Bulk editing/deleting redirects.

SmartCrawl - Advanced Tools — Stop telling everyone where to go…send them there instead with SmartCrawl’s Location-Based Redirects!

WPMU DEV members get access to everything, including all of our Pro plugins. If you need help setting up URL redirections, check out SmartCrawl’s documentation or reach out to our 24/7 expert support team.

October 30, 2023

Welcome Seahawk Media to the WPBeginner Growth Fund

Today, I’m extremely excited to announce that WPBeginner Growth Fund has taken an investment stake in Seahawk Media, a global WordPress services provider, that is a trusted partner of popular web hosts and agencies around the globe.

Over 1,000+ brands, like DreamHost, GoDaddy, and others partner with Seahawk to offer custom WordPress development, website maintenance, and other services for their clients.

Seahawk Media joins WPBeginner Growth Fund

About Seahawk Media

Seahawk Media is a premier WordPress services company, founded by Ryan James and Gautam Khorana.

They provide a wide range of WordPress services, like WordPress development, design, maintenance, migration, support, and more.

With Seahawk Media, you can:

Hire WordPress experts: Hire reliable WordPress experts for any WordPress related services, like custom website design, website migration, site optimization, WordPress maintenance, and more.
Hire SEO and content marketers: If you want to do an SEO audit of your site or create high-quality content, then you can rest assured you’re in safe hands.
White-label partnership: If you’re an agency, you can outsource your work to Seahawk Media and / or offer additional services to your clients without hiring additional resources into your agency. It’s a great way to build recurring revenue for your agency.

Best of all, Seahawk is trusted by the top managed WordPress hosting and technology companies, like DreamHost, GoDaddy Pro, Alibaba Cloud, Pressable, and more.

In a nutshell, if you’re looking for a WordPress design and development agency to outsource your next WordPress project, then Seahawk Media is the best bet.

Background Story

In our annual WPBeginner reader survey, one of the user suggestions that we always get is to build a company that offers affordable WordPress development and website maintenance services.

Now as you know, my focus has entirely been on building our WordPress plugins and software products, but I wanted to solve this problem for our users.

So I started talking with some of my friends who own WordPress development agencies to see if we could start referring customers to them in a more official capacity.

Most of them told me that they are always fully booked for months out, and asked me if I knew of smaller agencies or freelancers to whom they can refer clients because they were only looking for projects with larger budgets.

So at WordCamp US this year, I talked with several freelancers and boutique WordPress agency owners, and each of them told me that they too were fully booked.

In these conversations, I learnt that most reputable WordPress agencies and freelancers were not interested in projects that involved small website customization, website maintenance services, website migration, or even low budget custom website design projects.

Instead everyone wished that there was a company that they can use to offer white-label services to build recurring revenue streams while offering high-quality services to their clients.

At the same WordCamp US, I also met with Ryan and Gautam, the co-founders of Seahawk Media. They have been doing exactly this – white-label WordPress development services at revolutionary prices.

Syed Balkhi with Ryan and Gautam from Seahawk Media

As I learnt more about what they were doing, I knew this was going to be a perfect partnership. Seahawk already has an amazing team that’s experienced in offering white-label WordPress development services to customers of big name companies like Dreamhost, Alibaba Cloud, Vendasta, Pressable, GoDaddy, and many more.

And they have a wide range of services from custom WordPress development to smaller one-off tasks like WordPress site migration, website maintenance & care package, hacked site repair, and others.

So I decided to invest in Seahawk Media with two primary goals:

1. Offer a reliable WordPress Pro services partner to small business owners that can handle all their website’s technical needs at affordable prices.

2. Offer our freelancer and WordPress agency audience a great solution to build recurring revenue by adding white-label services to their clients.

Many agency owners and WordPress freelancers are already using Seahawk Media to offer additional white-label services to their clients and adding extra recurring revenue in their businesses.

Along with agencies, many web hosting companies also use Seahawk’s white-label development services to activate and retain customers through professional website design services, website optimization packages, and more.

I am looking forward to working with Ryan & Gautam through the WPBeginner Growth Fund, and I will be advising the team on how to expand their business.

At Awesome Motive, we have years of experience building popular WordPress plugins that are used by over 25 million websites, including OptinMonster, WPForms, MonsterInsights, and many more.

Not to mention, our WPBeginner growth fund portfolio companies like MemberPress, Formidable Forms, Pretty Links, Wholesale Suite, Uncanny Automator, and others have seen tremendous growth over the years.

Sharing our combined knowledge with Seahawk Media will help all of us better serve the larger WordPress community.

They will be joining me at our next Mastermind.

Awesome Motive and WPBeginner Growth Fund Mastermind 2023

As always, thank you so much for your continued support of WPBeginner.

WPBeginner and Awesome Motive would not be here without YOU, and I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you.

And I look forward to continuing serving you and the larger WordPress / web ecosystem for years to come.

Sincerely,

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 Welcome Seahawk Media to the WPBeginner Growth Fund first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 26, 2023

An Actionable And Reliable Usability Questionnaire With Only 7 Items: <span style=”font-variant: small-caps”>Inuit</span>

A lot of contemporary usability evaluation relies on easily measurable and readily available metrics like conversion rates, task success rates, and time on task, even though it’s questionable how well these are suited for reliably capturing a concept as complex as usability in its entirety.

The same holds for user experience. When an instrument is used to measure usability, e.g., in controlled user studies or via live intercepts, it’s often the simple single ease question, which is generally not a bad choice, but has its limits .

Note: For more information on usability evaluation, you can check the article “Current Practice in Measuring Usability: Challenges to Usability Studies and Research” by Kasper Hornbæk and “Growth Marketing Considered Harmful” by Maximilian Speicher.

Ultimately, when you intend to precisely and reliably measure the usability of a digital product, there’s no way around a scientifically well-founded instrument or, in everyday terms, a “questionnaire.” The most famous one is probably SUS, the System Usability Scale, but there are also some others around. Two examples are UMUX, the Usability Measure for User Experience, and SUMI, the Software Usability Measurement Inventory.

To join this party, in this article, we introduce Inuit (the Interface Usability Instrument), a new usability questionnaire. We will share how and why it was developed and how it’s different from the questionnaires mentioned above.

To immediately cut to the chase: With a scale from 1 (“completely disagree”) to 5 (“completely agree”), Inuit looks as follows. The parts in square brackets can be adapted to your specific interface, e.g., products in an online shop, articles on a news website, or results in a search engine.

Q1	I found [the information] I was looking for.
Q2	I could easily understand [the provided information].
Q3	I was confused using [the interface].
Q4	I was distracted by elements of [the interface].
Q5	Typography and layout added to readability.
Q6	There was too much information presented in too little space.
Q7	[My desired information] was easily reachable.

The Inuit metric (a score between 0 to 100, analogous to SUS) can then be calculated as follows:

(Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 - Q3 - Q4 - Q6 + 11) * 100/28

Why 11 and 28?

We have seven items rated on a scale from 1 to 5, but for some (Q1, Q2, Q5, Q7), 5 is the best rating, and for some (Q3, Q4, Q6), 1 is the best rating. Hence, we need to subtract the latter from 6 when we add up everything: Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 + (6-Q3) + (6-Q4) + (6-Q6) = Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 - Q3 - Q4 - Q6 + 18. This gives us an overall score between 7 and 35.
Now, we want to normalize this to a score between 0 and 100. For this, we first subtract 7 for a score between 0 and 28: Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 - Q3 - Q4 - Q6 + 18 - 7 = Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 - Q3 - Q4 - Q6 + 11. Finally, for a score between 0 and 100, we need to divide everything by 28 and multiply by 100: (Q1 + Q2 + Q5 + Q7 - Q3 - Q4 - Q6 + 11) * 100/28.

You might have noticed that compared to, e.g., SUS with 10, Inuit consists of only 7 questions. Apart from that, it has two more advantages:

Inuit has been designed to provide training data for machine-learning models that can then automatically predict usability from user interactions or web analytics data.
Its items (i.e., the questions) are diagnostic, at least to a certain degree. This means you see what’s wrong with your interface simply by looking at the results from the questionnaire. Have a bad rating for readability (Q5)? You should make the text in your interface more readable.

Now, at this point, you can either accept all this and simply get going with Inuit to measure the usability of your digital product (we’d be delighted). Or, if you’re interested in the details, you’re very welcome to keep reading (we’d be even more delighted).

“So, Why Did You Develop Yet Another Usability Questionnaire?”

You probably already guessed that Inuit wasn’t developed just for fun or because there aren’t enough questionnaires around. But to answer this, we have to reach back a bit.

In 2014, Max was a Ph.D. student busy working on his dissertation. The goal of it all was to find a way to determine the usability of an interface automatically from users’ interactions, such as what they do with the mouse cursor and how they scroll, rather than making participants in a user study fill out pages and pages of questions. Additionally, the cherry on top should be to also automatically propose optimizations for the interface (e.g., if user interactions suggest the interface is not readable, make the text larger).

To be able to achieve this, however, it was first necessary to determine if and how well certain interactions (mouse cursor movements, mouse cursor speed, scrolling behavior, and so on) predict the usability — or rather its individual aspects — of an interface. This meant collecting training data through users’ interactions with an interface and their usability assessments of that interface. Then, one could investigate how well (combinations of) tracked interactions predict (aspects of) usability using regression and/or machine-learning models. So far, so good, as far as the theory is concerned.

In practice, one important decision that would have huge implications for the project was how to collect the usability assessments mentioned above when gathering the training data. Since usability is a latent variable, meaning it can’t be observed directly, a proper instrument (i.e., a questionnaire) is necessary to assess it. And the most famous one is undeniably the System Usability Scale (SUS). It should’ve been an obvious choice, shouldn’t it?

A closer look showed that, while SUS would be perfectly well suited to train statistical models to infer usability from interactions, it simply wasn’t the perfect fit. This was the case mainly for two reasons:

First, many questions contained in SUS (“I think that I would like to use this system frequently,” “I found the various functions in this system were well integrated,” and “I felt very confident using the system,” among others) describe the effects of good or bad usability — users feel confident because the system is well usable and so on. But they don’t describe the aspects of usability that cause them, e.g., bad understandability. This makes it difficult to know what should be done to make it better. What exactly should we change to make users feel more confident? The questions are not diagnostic or “actionable” and require further qualitative research to uncover the causes of bad ratings. It’s the same for UMUX and SUMI.
Second, with just 10 items, SUS is already a very small questionnaire. However, the fewer items, the less friction and the more motivated users are to actually answer. So, is ten really the minimum, or would a proper questionnaire with fewer items be possible?

With these considerations in mind, Max went on and ultimately developed Inuit, the instrument presented in the introduction. He ended up with seven items that were better suited for the needs of his Ph.D. project and more actionable than those of SUS.

“How do you know this actually measures usability?”

Inuit was developed in a two-step process. The first step was a review of established guidelines and checklists with more than 250 rules for good usability, which were filtered based on the requirements above and resulted in a first draft for the new usability instrument. This draft was then discussed and refined in expert interviews with nine usability professionals.

The final draft of Inuit, with the seven factors informativeness (Q1), understandability (Q2), confusion (Q3), distraction (Q4), readability (Q5), information density (Q6), and reachability (Q7), was evaluated using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

CFA is a method for assessing construct validity, which means it “is used to test whether measures of a construct are consistent with a researcher’s understanding of the nature of that construct” or “to test whether the data fit a hypothesized measurement model.”
— Wikipedia

Put very simply, by using a CFA, we can check how well a theory matches the practice. In our case, the “construct” or “hypothesized measurement model” (theory) was Inuit, and the data (practice) came from a user study with 81 participants in which four news websites were evaluated using an Inuit questionnaire.

In a CFA, there are various metrics that show how well a construct fits the data. Two well-established ones are CFI, the comparative fit index, and RMSEA, the root mean square error of approximation — both range from 0 to 1.

For CFI, 0.95 or higher is “accepted as an indicator of good fit” (Wikipedia). Inuit’s value was 0.971. For RMSEA, “values less than 0.05 are good, values between 0.05 and 0.08 are acceptable” (Kim et al.). Inuit’s value was 0.063. This means our theory matches the practice, or Inuit’s questions do indeed measure usability.

Case Study #1

Inuit was first put into practice in 2014 at Unister GmbH, which at that time ran travel search engines like fluege.de and reisen.de, and was developing an entirely new semantic search engine. The results page of this search engine, named BlueKiwi, was evaluated in a user study with 81 participants using Inuit.

In this first study, the overall score averaged across all participants was 59.9. Ratings were especially bad for informativeness (Q1), information density (Q6), and reachability (Q7). Based on these results, BlueKiwi’s search results page was redesigned.

Among other things, the number of advertisements was reduced (better reachability), search results were displayed more concisely (better informativeness), and everything was more clearly aligned and separated (better information density). See the figure below for the full list of changes.

After the redesign, we ran another study, in which the overall Inuit score increased to 67.5 (+11%), with improvements in every single one of the seven items.

“Why Wait 9 Years To Write This Article?”

There were various factors at play. One was what’s called the research–practice gap. It’s often difficult for academic work to gain traction outside the academic community. One reason for this is that work that is part of a Ph.D. project is often a little neglected after it has served its purpose — being published in a research paper, included in a thesis, and presented at a Ph.D. defense — which is pretty much exactly what happened to Inuit.

Case Study #2

Another factor, however, was that we wanted to put the instrument into practice in a real-world industry setting over a longer period of time first, and we got the chance to do that only relatively recently.

We ran a longitudinal study over a period of almost two years in which we ran quarterly benchmarks of multiple e-commerce websites using both SUS and Inuit, with a total of 6,368 users. The results of these benchmarks were included in the dashboard of product KPIs and regularly shared with the team of 6 product managers. After roughly two years of conducting and sharing benchmarks, we interviewed the product managers about their use of the data, challenges, wishes, and potential for improvement.

What a high-level analysis showed was that all of the product managers, in one way or another, described Inuit as more intuitive to understand, less abstract, and more actionable compared to SUS when looking at both instruments as a whole.

They found most of Inuit’s items more specific and easier to interpret and, therefore, more relevant from a product manager’s perspective. SUS, in contrast, was described as, e.g., “good for [the] overall score” and the bird’s eye view. Virtually all product managers, however, wished for even more specific insights into where exactly on the website usability problems occur. One suggested building an optimal instrument by combining certain items from both SUS and Inuit.

As part of the analysis, we computed Cronbach’s α for Inuit (based on 3190 answers) as well as SUS (based on 3178 answers).

Cronbach’s α is a statistical measure for the internal consistency of an instrument, which can be interpreted as “the extent to which all of the items of a test measure the same latent variable [i.e., usability].”
— Wikipedia

Values of 0.7 or above are generally deemed acceptable. Inuit reached a value of 0.7; SUS a value of 0.8.

To top things off, Inuit and SUS showed a considerable (Pearson’s r = 0.53) and highly significant (p < 0.001) correlation when looking at overall scores aggregated over the different e-commerce websites and tasks the study participants had to complete.

In layman’s terms, When the SUS score goes up, the Inuit score goes up; when the SUS score goes down, the Inuit score goes down. Both questionnaires measure the same thing (with a very, very rough approximation of INUIT = 0.6 × SUS + 17).

Since these first results were so encouraging, we decided to write this general, more practice-oriented overview article about Inuit now. A deeper analysis of our big dataset, however, is yet to be conducted, and our current plan is to report findings in much more detail separately.

“Why Do You Think Inuit Is Better Than SUS?”

We don’t think so (or that it’s better than any scientifically founded usability instrument, for that matter). There are many ways to measure the same latent variable, in this case, usability. Both questionnaires, SUS and Inuit, have proven that they can measure the usability of an interface. Still, they were developed in different contexts and with different goals and requirements in mind.

So, to address the question of when it’s better to use which, as true researchers, we have to say “it depends” (annoying, isn’t it?).

SUS, which has been around since the 1990s, is probably the most popular and well-established usability instrument. It’s been studied and validated over and over, which Inuit, of course, can’t compete with yet and still has a long way to go. If the goal is to compare scores at a high level and even tap into public benchmark numbers for orientation, SUS would be preferable.

However, by design, Inuit has two advantages over SUS:

Inuit has only seven items and is still a “complete” usability instrument.
30% fewer questions can be a major factor when it comes to motivating users to fill out a questionnaire. Assuming that a big part of remote online studies is done quickly in passing and with short attention spans, designing efficient studies that generate reliable output and minimize effects like participant fatigue can be a major challenge for researchers.
Inuit’s items have been specifically designed to be more actionable for practitioners and lend themselves better to manual analysis and inferring potential interface optimizations.
As we’ve learned in our second case study, talking to actual product managers revealed that for them, the results of a usability assessment should always be as specific as possible. Comparing the items of both, Inuit points to more concrete areas to improve than SUS, which was perceived as rather vague.

“Where Can I Use Inuit?”

Generally, in any scenario that involves an interface and a task — either defined by you or the user themselves. In the studies mentioned and described above, we could demonstrate that Inuit works well in controlled as well as natural-use settings and with news websites, search engines, and e-commerce shops.

Now, of course, we can’t evaluate Inuit with any possible kind of interface, and that is part of the reason for this article. Inuit has been around and publicly available since 2014, and we have no idea if and how it has been used by other researchers, but if you do, please let us know about it. We’d be thrilled to hear about your experience and results.

The questions presented at the beginning of the article are relatively focused on finding information because that’s where Inuit is historically coming from and because most of the things users do involve the finding of information of some kind. (Please keep in mind that information doesn’t have to be text. On the contrary, most information is non-textual.) But those questions can be adapted as long as they still reflect the underlying aspects of usability, which are informativeness, understandability, confusion, distraction, readability, information density, and reachability.

Say, for instance, you want to evaluate a module from an e-learning course, e.g., in the form of an annotated video with a subsequent quiz. To accommodate the task at hand, Q1 could be rephrased to “I had all the information necessary to complete the module” and Q7 to “All the information necessary to complete the module was easily reachable.”

Conclusion

There are plenty of usability questionnaires out there, and we have added a new one to the pool — Inuit. Why? Because sometimes, you find yourself in a situation where none of the existing questionnaires is the perfect fit. Inuit has been designed to be more diagnostic than existing usability instruments like, e.g., SUS and for use with machine learning, all the while asking fewer questions than other questionnaires. So, if any of this seems relevant to your use cases or context of work, why not give it a try?

From a scientific and statistical point of view, in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Inuit has demonstrated that its questions do indeed measure usability. On top of that, it’s consistent and correlates well with SUS, based on data from a large-scale, longitudinal user study.

Note: If you want to dive deeper into the science behind Inuit, e.g., how exactly the items/questions were chosen, you can read the corresponding research paper “Inuit: The Interface Usability Instrument,” which was presented at the 2015 HCI International Conference. If you want to learn more about how Inuit can be used to train machine-learning models, read “Ensuring Web Interface Quality through Usability-Based Split Testing.” And finally if you want to see how Inuit can be used as the basis for a tool that automatically proposes optimizations for an interface, you can refer to “S.O.S.: Does Your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Need Help?” which was presented at the 2015 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

References

“SUS: A ‘Quick and Dirty’ Usability Scale,” John Brooke (Usability evaluation in industry)
“Confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis for validating the phlegm pattern questionnaire for healthy subjects,” Kim, Hyunho, Boncho Ku, Jong Yeol Kim, Young-Jae Park, and Young-Bae Park (Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine)
SUMI Questionnaire Homepage, Jurek Kirakowski
“10 Things to Know about the Single Ease Question (SEQ),” Jeff Sauro (MeasuringU)
“Measuring Usability: From the SUS to the UMUX-Lite,” Jeff Sauro (MeasuringU)
“Ensuring web interface quality through usability-based split testing,” Speicher, Maximilian, Andreas Both, and Martin Gaedke (International Conference on Web Engineering)
“Inuit: the interface usability instrument,” Speicher, Maximilian, Andreas Both, and Martin Gaedke (Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design Discourse)
“S.O.S.: Does Your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Need Help?,” Speicher, Maximilian, Andreas Both, and Martin Gaedke (Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
“Conversion rate & average order value are not UX metrics,” Maximilian Speicher (UX Collective)
“So, How Can We Measure UX?,” Maximilian Speicher (ACM Interactions)
“Growth Marketing Considered Harmful,” Maximilian Speicher
“Current Practice In Measuring Usability: Challenges to Usability Studies and Research,” Kasper Hornbæk
Latent variable, Wikipedia
Confirmatory factor analysis, Wikipedia
Internal consistency, Wikipedia

October 3, 2023

What’s Coming in WordPress 6.4 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.4 beta was released recently. We have been closely monitoring the development and testing it out.

It will be the third major release of 2023 and will ship with significant new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements.

In this article, we’ll show you what’s coming in WordPress 6.4 with details and screenshots.

Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.4:

Twenty Twenty-Four Is The New Default Theme
Manage Fonts Across Your Website with Font Library
Enlarge Images with Lightbox Popup
Improved Command Palette
Block Editor Enhancements
Block Hooks
Background Images for Group Block
Improved Toolbars for Parent / Child Blocks
The Outline / List View Revamped
Improved Pattern Management
Open in New Tab in Link Preview
Under The Hood Changes

Twenty Twenty-Four Is The New Default Theme

It is a WordPress tradition to add a new default theme each year. Usually, it comes with the last release of the year.

WordPress 6.4 will ship with Twenty Twenty-Four, as the new default theme.

Keeping up the design philosophy of the previous default theme (Twenty Twenty-Three), the new theme will feature a minimalist layout out of the box.

However, don’t let its minimalist appearance deceive you. This powerful theme is packed with features.

It is made to work well with the Site Editor and ships with 6 style variations to choose from.

It also includes dozens of WordPress block patterns to use with the site editor or when writing posts and pages.

These patterns include several section patterns that help you quickly add entire sections to your pages or templates.

It also ships with four fonts that you can use when working on your site. This brings us to the next exciting feature expected to be released in 6.4, the Font Library.

Manage Fonts Across Your Website with Font Library

WordPress 6.4 will include the new Font Library feature. This will allow users to manage fonts used in their WordPress theme and across their website.

Users will be able to view the Font Library under the Styles panel in the site editor. They will also be able to add or remove fonts to their website.

Clicking on the Fonts icon on the panel will bring up the Font Library.

From here, you can upload fonts directly from your computer.

Want to use Google Fonts locally? Font Library will allow users to download and install Google Fonts on their WordPress website.

This will connect to Google servers only once to download the font files. After that, fonts will be served from your own servers.

Want to open your WordPress images in a lightbox popup?

WordPress 6.4 will allow users to enable lightbox popups for images in their posts and pages.

After adding an image, you can toggle the Expand on Click option under the block settings to open it in a lightbox popup.

This simple image popup will let your users enlarge images without leaving a page.

It is still very basic and in the early stages of development. For instance, for the Gallery block, you’ll have to set it for each individual image instead of the whole gallery.

If you need a better user experience with beautiful image galleries, we recommend using Envira Gallery or NextGen.

These are the best WordPress photo gallery plugins for photographers and portfolio websites with beautiful lightbox popups, animations, slideshows, gallery styles, and more.

Improved Command Palette

WordPress 6.3 came with a new command palette tool, which allowed users to quickly type in commands using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+K.

WordPress 6.4 will come with several improvements to the tool and new keyboard shortcuts. First, there is a subtle design update, which makes elements slightly darker.

Secondly, there are new commands and actions introduced to work with blocks. You can duplicate, transform, delete, or insert blocks from the command palette.

For instance, you can now select multiple blocks and transform them using the command palette.

Block Editor Enhancements

This release primarily focuses on improving and extending existing site and block editor features. The groundwork for phase 3 of the Gutenberg project has begun, which will focus more on collaboration.

WordPress 6.4 will merge several Gutenberg (the project name for the block editor) releases into the core. Each one of them includes several new features and enhancements.

Following are some of the more noticeable enhancements in Block Editor.

Block Hooks

WordPress 6.4 will bring Block Hooks functionality for developers. This would allow plugins to automatically add blocks upon activation.

Named after hooks used in WordPress core, block hooks will enable plugin developers to interact with the block editor and extend blocks without touching them.

For instance, a membership plugin can now add a login button in the navigation menu.

The block panel will show you which blocks are added by plugins and you will be able to turn them off/on.

Background Images for Group Block

Grouping blocks is the easiest way to create different sections of a layout in the post or full site editor.

Previously, users were only able to select background and text colors for the entire group block. WordPress 6.4 will also allow you to set a background image.

Improved Toolbars for Parent / Child Blocks

When working with blocks that have child blocks, the toolbar kept moving and changing as you moved around blocks.

This didn’t produce an ideal user experience for blocks like Navigation, List, and Quote.

WordPress 6.4 will now automatically attach the child toolbar to the parent and create a consistent user experience as you move around the inner blocks.

The Outline / List View Revamped

The List view shows you a quick outline of your page or post layout in site/block editor.

WordPress 6.4 will improve the list view by adding some cool new features.

First, you can now rename Group blocks in the list view. This would help you identify what each group block does and will make your layouts more readable.

It will also show previews for images and gallery blocks.

This is immensely helpful and makes the outline view a much more useful tool than ever before. Previously it just said ‘Image ‘and you had to click to select the block and view which image is there.

Improved Pattern Management

In the previous WordPress release, Reusable Blocks were merged into Patterns, and a new pattern management screen was added to the site editor.

WordPress 6.4 will come with improvements to the pattern management in site editor.

You will now be able to add pattern categories when creating a new pattern.

The Pattern creation modal will look the same across WordPress.

Inside the Site Editor, the Patterns tab will now show your patterns organized in categories.

Open in New Tab in Link Preview

In the previous WordPress release, the link preview control (the popup that appears when you add a link in WordPress) moved the option to ‘Open in new tab’ under the Advanced toggle.

This meant that users were required a few extra clicks to open a link in a new tab.

Based on user feedback a new checkbox is added in the link preview modal allowing users to easily open a link in a new tab.

Under The Hood Changes

WordPress 6.4 also includes several changes intended for developers. Here are some of the most significant under-the-hood changes.

TEMPLATEPATH and STYLESHEETPATH constants are deprecated. (#18298)
Framework to add revisions for post meta in WordPress. (#20564)
Theme developers can configure their own default min and max viewport widths for calculating fluid font sizes. (#59048)
A block hook field is added to block types. (#59346)

We hope this article helped you discover what’s new in WordPress 6.4 and which new features to try out. We are particularly excited about all the changes to the site editor.

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 What’s Coming in WordPress 6.4 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

August 10, 2023

What’s New in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.3 has been released as the second major WordPress release of 2023.

This new WordPress version has several significant updates, new features, enhancements, and bug fixes that make WordPress even more powerful and useful.

In this article, we’ll show what’s new in WordPress 6.3 and which features you should try after the update.

Note: WordPress 6.3 is a major release, and unless you are on a managed WordPress hosting service, you’ll need to manually initiate the update. Follow our guide on how to safely update WordPress for instructions.

Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before the update.

That being said, here is a breakdown of what’s new in WordPress 6.3

New Site Editor Navigation
Improved Pattern Management
Edit Pages in The Site Editor
Manage Navigation Menus in The Site Editor
Easily Switch Theme Styles in The Site Editor
Preview Themes in The Site Editor
Style Revisions to Easily Undo Changes
Introducing the New Command Palette Tool
Two New Blocks in The Block Editor
Better Padding and Margin Tools
Select Aspect Ratio for Your Images
Improved Top Toolbar
Cover Block with Layout and Color Options
Link Control Enhancement in WordPress 6.3
Under The Hood Changes

New Site Editor Navigation

WordPress 6.3 introduces a more polished navigation experience for the site editor.

The left column will now show Navigation, Styles, Pages, Templates, and Patterns. Users can easily locate the section they want to edit from here.

The new navigation interface includes a search button at the top. Clicking on it will bring the new command palette (more on this later).

You’ll also notice that Template Parts are not among the main navigation items. That’s because they are moved under the Patterns.

Improved Pattern Management

WordPress 6.3 now includes an improved pattern management experience in the Site Editor. Starting with the Site Editor navigation, which now has Patterns as one of the main navigation items.

Clicking on Patterns shows synced and unsynced patterns along with template parts.

Reusable blocks are now called Synced Patterns. You can find your reusable blocks under the My Patterns tab. These can be used across your website, and changing them affects all places where the pattern is used.

Unsynced patterns are those that can be used anywhere, and changing them doesn’t affect the original pattern.

You can also click on the Add (+) button to create a new pattern or template part.

At the bottom of the navigation column, you will find links to manage all your patterns and template parts.

Manage template parts and patterns from site editor

Edit Pages in The Site Editor

A lot of folks coming from other web platforms may want to add or edit a page when editing their website.

WordPress 6.3 makes creating and editing pages directly from the site editor easy.

Simply click on the Pages menu in the Editor navigation, and it will show you a list of your pages.

You can click on a page to start editing it or click on the add (+) button to create a new page draft.

Manage Navigation Menus in The Site Editor

WordPress 6.3 also introduces a new way to manage navigation menus inside the Site Editor.

Previously, users had to add a navigation block and then edit it. Now users can create, edit, and manage menus by clicking on the Navigation tab in the site editor.

Editing WordPress navigation menus in Site Editor

This will show you all the navigation menus you have created on your website.

To edit a menu, click to open it in the site editor.

First, you will see the menu items as a list in the navigation column. If you just want to rearrange them, you can move the menu items up and down.

To edit a menu, click the edit button or the editor canvas and start editing the menu in the site editor.

Easily Switch Theme Styles in The Site Editor

Earlier, theme styles were tucked away under the Styles panel inside the site editor. This made them a little less noticeable for beginners.

Now users can see the styles in the site editor navigation itself. This way, they can start with the style they prefer and immediately start editing it to their liking.

Preview Themes in The Site Editor

Before, users were able to preview WordPress themes using Theme Customizer. This allowed users to preview a theme without activating it on their website.

WordPress 6.3 will allow you to preview block themes inside the site editor. Go to the Appearance page in the admin area and click the Live Preview button below a block theme.

Live preview block themes in site editor

This will open the theme in the site editor with a live preview of how your content would appear in the new theme.

You can also edit the theme, try different styles, use your own colors, and make any changes before actually choosing the theme. However, to save those changes, you’ll need to activate the theme.

Note: Classic themes without site editor support will still show the live preview using the old theme customizer.

Style Revisions to Easily Undo Changes

WordPress saves multiple revisions of your content while you work on it. This allows you to easily undo changes to your posts and pages.

Similarly, WordPress 6.3 now allows you to see revisions for your styles and easily undo any changes.

Simply select a style or block that you want to edit in the Styles panel. Click on the ‘Revisions’ button and then select ‘Revision history’.

This will show you the changes you have made to that particular style or block. You can move between different revisions to see how an item looked at that time.

To undo changes, simply click on the Apply button, and WordPress will restore that revision.

Introducing the New Command Palette Tool

Keyboard shortcuts help you become more productive by quickly doing things without taking your fingers away from the keyboard.

WordPress comes with a bunch of keyboard shortcuts already, but with WordPress 6.3, it now has a command palette tool too.

To give it a go, simply edit a WordPress post or page or open the site editor. Once you are in the editor, press the CTRL+K or Command+K keys on your keyboard.

It will show a search popup where you can find keyboard shortcuts to toggle panels, create new posts or pages, navigate to the site editor, and more.

The command palette tool also has an API that allows third-party developers to add their own commands to the tool.

Two New Blocks in The Block Editor

The block editor in WordPress 6.3 ships with two brand-new blocks that you can use.

Footnotes Block

Footnotes are the easiest way to provide references to resources at the bottom of your article. However, WordPress users had to create them manually or use separate plugins to add footnotes.

Now, with WordPress 6.3, you can just use the Footnotes block. Simply select the ‘Footnote’ option using the three-dot menu in the toolbar.

The Details Block

Details block allows you to hide content requiring users to click on an item to reveal the hidden content.

Simply add the Details block and provide the content you want users to see. Below that, you can provide content that will be revealed when users click on the visible content.

You can add any kind of block to be hidden, including paragraphs, images, media, blocks added by plugins, and more.

You can also add multiple detail boxes together to create a FAQ section, trivia questions, info panels, and more.

Better Padding and Margin Tools

Previously, when users unlinked padding and margin tools, they took up a lot of space.

The new padding and margin tools now take up much less space and are more user-friendly.

Select Aspect Ratio for Your Images

WordPress 6.3 allows users to select the aspect ratio to display an image. Instead of resizing and cropping an image, users can now choose an aspect ratio that looks good across devices.

WordPress shows a toolbar over the block you are working on in the post editor.

It also has the option to move the toolbar to the top for a cleaner editing experience.

However, the top toolbar appeared just below the toolbar on the top.

It took up more space and didn’t look great.

WordPress 6.3 now includes an improved toolbar on the top panel for easier and quicker access.

Cover Block with Layout and Color Options

The Cover block also has also received a facelift in WordPress 6.3.

Just like the Group block, users can now choose the Layout for the Cover block.

It also includes more design options in the block settings panel.

You can also use Duotone filters with a Cover block like the Image block.

Link Control Enhancement in WordPress 6.3

Link control is the tool used by the block editor to add links. WordPress 6.3 comes with improved Link control settings.

For instance, you can now create a page directly from the link control popup.

WordPress 6.3 has also moved the toggle to open a link in a new tab or window.

It is now located under the Advanced settings when adding a link.

Under The Hood Changes

WordPress 6.3 also includes several changes intended for developers. Here are some of the most significant under-the-hood changes.

Image performance enhancements to improve page load speeds and resolve some of the common core web vital issues such as rendering of the LCP and prioritizing images in users’ viewport. (Details)
Improved emoji loader to reduce the time spent on loading the emoji script. (#58472)
Defer and async support added to the WP Scripts API. (#12009)
Fetch priority support was added for images. (#58235)
Skipping lazy loading for images outside the loop in classic themes. (#58211)
Attempt rollback for failed plugin and theme updates. (#51857)
Merge get_posts() and get_pages(). (#12821)

We hope this article helped you discover what’s new in WordPress 6.3 and which new features to try out. We are particularly excited about all the changes to the site editor and performance improvements.

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 What’s New in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

August 1, 2023

Introducing a New Chrome Extension by All in One SEO: Analyze Your SEO in a Click

Do you think SEO is hard and tedious?

Ever wished there was an easy way to point out nitty-gritty details of your SEO, so you don’t have to worry about it?

Every minor detail can fluctuate search rankings, but ensuring they’re in place is not easy.

Today, I’m excited to share the launch of my brand new Google Chrome extension, All in One SEO Analyzer, which shows you all your SEO details in a click.

We built this tool to help you save time with fast SEO checks, so you can focus on creating great content while our tool handles the SEO details.

What is All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome Extension?

The free All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome extension is the easiest way to run an SEO audit of any website instantly with a click.

Once you install the extension on your Chrome browser, all you have to do is to visit the page where you want to perform an SEO analysis. Then click on the extension, and you’ll get a detailed SEO report of that page, which includes…

Analysis of basic SEO elements, like meta descriptions, titles, keywords, and content structure
SEO score analysis of your meta data, which shows you whether they need further improvement
Quick links to your robots.txt file and your website’s sitemap
Detailed reports of your heading tags, image’s SEO, internal, and external links, schema markups, social media tags, and more.

In a nutshell, the All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome extension shows you all your SEO details instantly.

Why Use the All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome Extension?

For most website owners, SEO is complex because there is no clear-cut way to analyze your website’s SEO unless you hire an SEO consultant or buy premium software that costs a fortune.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the budget or resources to do so, which limits their ability to grow their website and rank better on search engines.

We want to fix it once and for all. This is why we decided to build a free Chrome extension for SEO analysis and make it free for everyone.

Our SEO extension makes it easy to do quick SEO checks and make necessary changes to your site in no time.

Easily Generate an SEO Audit Report

Ever wondered if there’s any room for optimizing your content to boost your SEO?

No matter how well-structured your content is, there will still be room for improving it. With AIOSEO’s Chrome extension, you can scan your entire page with a click and generate an SEO audit report to see if there is any room for improvement to boost search rankings and organic traffic.

Here are a few elements that our Chrome extension helps you analyze and improve.

SEO title and meta description: Optimize how your search results are being shown on search engine result pages for higher click-through rates.
Keywords used and heading tags: The extension shows you how many heading tags are used and what keywords you were using on the site.
Image SEO: It shows you how many images you’re using, whether they’re optimized with alt tags and titles.
Internal and external link count: Have a quick understanding of the total number of links you use on your site, whether they’re internally linked or externally.
Schema.org data: Schema is a type of microdata that provides additional information about the content of a web page to search engines. You can quickly figure out whether you’re using the right Schema markup.
And more…

Perform SEO Analysis of Any Websites

The best thing about our Chrome extension is that it lets you analyze any website you want, whether yours or your competitors.

It also helps you learn from the SEO strategies of your top competitors and peers in your industry so you can discover how they structure their content and replicate the process on your site.

For example, you can visit any blog post you admire, click the extension, and then navigate to the Heading section. Then click the Export button.

All headings used in that article will be downloaded in a CSV file.

Find SEO Errors Right Within WordPress

Do you want to perform a detailed SEO audit and find critical errors right inside your WordPress dashboard? Then, we recommend installing the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin.

Aside from showing you a detailed report, its free plugin offers suggestions to improve it.

AIOSEO also offers a premium version that provides you with advanced features like a redirection manager, powerful sitemap tools, schema markups and more.

What’s Coming Next?

All in One SEO Analyzer is a great Chrome extension to help you step up your website’s SEO strategy.

SEO takes time, but with the right tools at your disposal, like our Chrome extension, you can save your efforts with fast SEO checks.

The All in One SEO Analyzer Chrome extension provides you with an SEO report, but if you want to get actionable insights into how to make improvements to grow your traffic, then install the free All in One SEO plugin.

Aside from SEO suggestions, it comes with several essential tools, like breadcrumbs, sitemaps, and more, to optimize your site.

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, 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

The post Introducing a New Chrome Extension by All in One SEO: Analyze Your SEO in a Click first appeared on WPBeginner.

July 26, 2023

UI/UX design for taxi apps: common and optional features

In the dynamic landscape of transportation, taxi booking applications have experienced remarkable growth, with their value estimated to be around $36 billion in 2017. Industry experts anticipate a promising future, projecting a compound annual growth...

The post UI/UX design for taxi apps: common and optional features appeared first on 85ideas.com.

July 10, 2023

What’s Coming in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.3 Beta arrived a few days ago and is expected to be released on August 8th, 2023. This will be the second major release of 2023 and will come with significant new features and improvements.

We have closely monitored the development and tried new features on our test sites.

In this article, we will look into what features are coming in WordPress 6.3 with details and screenshots.

What to expect from WordPress 6.3 with new features and improvements

Note: You can try out the beta version on your computer or a staging environment by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Please keep in mind that some of the features in the beta may not make it into the final release.

Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.3:

Site Editor Enhancements in 6.3
New Navigation in Site Editor
Manage Patterns in Site Editor
Quickly Edit Pages
Preview Block Themes in Site Editor
Style Revisions to Easily Undo Changes
The New Command Tool in WordPress 6.3
Block Editor Improvements
Footnote and Details Blocks
Improved Padding and Margin Controls
Better Handling of Image Aspect Ratio
Color and Layout Support for Cover Block
Link Control Enhancements in 6.3
Under the Hood Changes

Site Editor Enhancements in 6.3

The site editor in WordPress came out of beta in 6.2. The upcoming 6.3 will improve the site editor with several new features and enhancements to improve user experience.

New Navigation in Site Editor

WordPress 6.2 introduced a new navigator to the site editor. This allowed users to choose the template or template part they wanted to edit.

WordPress 6.3 will bring improvements to this navigator, allowing users to select not just template or template parts but also pages, styles, patterns, and navigation menus.

The search icon will open the command tool (more on this later), where you can look for the area you want to edit.

You can also quickly open your site in a new tab by clicking the ‘View Site’ button. The button only appears when you take your mouse to the site title and the search area.

Manage Patterns in Site Editor

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce a new and intuitive way to manage patterns. You can view all your patterns inside the site editor.

Clicking on ‘Patterns’ will show the patterns available on your site in categorized sections.

These will include both synced and unsynced patterns that you can use.

Unsynced patterns are standalone patterns that can be inserted at any time. After adding them, you can make changes, and those changes will not affect the original pattern.

Synced patterns can be used across your WordPress website. Changing them will affect the original pattern. They behave like reusable blocks, so all your reusable blocks will also appear here and now be called ‘Synced Patterns’.

At any time, you can click on the ‘+’ button in the Patterns menu to create a new pattern.

You can also manage your custom patterns by clicking on ‘Manage all of my patterns’ in the sidebar.

This will allow you to edit and manage your custom-made patterns and reusable blocks.

Quickly Edit Pages

The site editor will now allow you to easily select ‘Pages’ from the editor navigation menu.

Clicking on this will also show you the pages you edited most recently, enabling you to quickly resume edits on a page you have been working on.

You can also click the ‘+’ button in the navigation menu to quickly create a new page and immediately edit it in the site editor.

Preview Block Themes in Site Editor

When installing classic themes, you can already preview them without activating them on your site. This allows you to preview a WordPress theme without changing your live site.

WordPress 6.3 will also allow users to preview block themes inside the editor. This will help users test-drive a theme before activating it on their sites.

Note: This is an experimental feature that didn’t work well during beta testing on our test sites.

Style Revisions to Easily Undo Changes

WordPress makes it super easy to undo changes to posts and pages using a feature called Revisions.

The same feature will now be available for site editor styles. It will allow you to see the changes you made to your theme styles and undo them if needed.

Simply select a style or block that you want to edit in the Styles panel. Click on the ‘Revisions’ button and then select ‘Revision history’.

This will show you all the changes made to the style of the selected item.

You can then switch between different versions and click the ‘Apply’ button to undo a change and revert to a previous state.

The New Command Tool in WordPress 6.3

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce the new command tool. It will allow users to perform actions quickly using the keyboard.

Simply press the CTRL + K or Command + K keys on your keyboard. This will bring up the command tool, where you can simply start typing to search.

It will then show you matching templates, template parts, patterns, blocks, posts and pages, and more. Selecting an item from the results will open it in the site editor.

Block Editor Improvements

WordPress 6.3 will also bring several new features and improvements to the block editor.

Footnote and Details Blocks

WordPress 6.3 will ship with two new blocks called Footnote and Details.

Footnote Block

Before, the block editor had no easy way to add footnotes to a post. Users had to create footnotes or use a third-party plugin.

With WordPress 6.3, users can simply select the ‘Footnote’ option using the three-dot menu in the toolbar.

Details Block

Have you ever wanted a way for users to click on some text to reveal more information? The Details block lets you do just that.

Simply add the Details block and provide the text that will be visible to the users.

Below that, you can add the content you want to hide inside the hidden block.

This content could be text, images, media, and more.

The Details block could be a handy replacement for accordions, which are commonly used to add FAQs or information in a compact style.

Improved Padding and Margin Controls

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce improved padding and margin controls.

Previously, if you unlinked padding and margin controls, they took up a lot of space in the right column.

In WordPress 6.3, padding and margin controls will be more compact and easy to use.

Better Handling of Image Aspect Ratio

WordPress 6.3 will allow users to choose the aspect ratio for an image. This will enable users to easily select the image size while maintaining the aspect ratio.

This ensures that the images will look good in all sizes.

Color and Layout Support for Cover Block

The Cover block will get improvements in WordPress 6.3.

Users can now choose its layout options, similar to the Group block.

The Cover block will now support duotone filters.

Users will also find more design options for text inside the Cover block.

Link Control Enhancements in 6.3

Link control is the tool used by the block editor to add links. WordPress 6.3 will make some adjustments to improve it further.

Users can create a new page directly using the ‘Create Page’ button within the link control tool.

The toggle to open a link in a new tab is also unavailable when adding a link. However, you can edit a link and find the option tucked away inside the ‘Advanced’ setting.

Under the Hood Changes

There are also a ton of changes in WordPress 6.3 intended for developers. Here are some of the new features that you will find in the update:

Improved emoji loader to reduce the time spent on loading the emoji script. (#58472)
Defer and async support added to the WP Scripts API. (#12009)
Fetch priority support added for images. (#58235)
Skipping lazy loading for images outside the loop in classic themes. (#58211)
Attempt rollback for failed plugin and theme updates. (#51857)
Merge get_posts() and get_pages(). (#12821)

We hope this article helped you get a sneak peek into what’s coming in WordPress 6.3.

Comment below to let us know what features you find interesting and what you’d like to see in a future WordPress release!

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 What’s Coming in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

July 4, 2023

WPBeginner Turns 14 Years Old – Reflections, Updates, and a Giveaway ($50,000 in Prizes)

Today is July 4th, which means WPBeginner is officially 14 years old. We’ve come a long way!

Like every year, I want to take a few minutes and do a quick recap of all the major things happening in business as well as my personal life.

Bonus: I’m also doing a massive birthday giveaway, and you’ll get a chance to win your favorite premium WordPress plugins worth $50,000. On top of that, you can also win a 1-on-1 mentorship call with me for 1 hour.

Enter WPBeginner’s Birthday Giveaway!

Since this is a long article, you can easily skip to the section you’re most interested in:

WPBeginner Story
Personal Updates
WPBeginner Updates
Product / Company Updates
WPBeginner Birthday Giveaway

WPBeginner Story

I first started using WordPress when I was 16 years old and I fell in love with the community. This led me to start WPBeginner at age 19 with a single mission: to make WordPress easy for beginners.

Since then WPBeginner has become the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.

For those of you who’re new, you can read the full WPBeginner story on our about page and use the Start Here page to get the most out of WPBeginner.

Personal Updates

My son Solomon is now 6.5 years old, and it’s quite cool to see him taking interest in WordPress. He attended WordCamp Asia with me earlier this year in Bangkok.

His favorite task in the company is coming up with mascot ideas for our new plugins at Awesome Motive.

We as a family are continuing our travels around the world, and it’s really awesome to meet our local WPBeginner users.

Since the last WPBeginner birthday, we have taken trips to Istanbul, Karachi, Alaska, Dubai, California, Mexico, St. Thomas, Maldives, Thailand, Canada, and more.

One of the best parts about running a fully remote online company is that I can work from anywhere in the world. We have team members in 50 countries now, and I’m planning to visit at least few more countries this year.

If you didn’t get a chance to read my 2022 recap, I highly recommend checking it out on my personal blog where I share lessons learned from last year.

Btw, here’s a preview of a mascot that Solomon helped come up with for our new plugin, Duplicator. The mascot’s name is Willie the Walrus.

Duplicator Plugin Mascot created by Solomon Balkhi

WPBeginner Updates

Thanks to our awesome community, WPBeginner has continued to grow year after year. Aside from all the amazing WordPress tutorials on our blog, there have been several notable updates from last year that I’d like to highlight.

But before I do that, I want to share a huge milestone that I’m super proud of. We got featured on the NASDAQ billboard in Time Square for passing 25 million active installs of our products.

This was a huge celebration for our entire team — going from a blog to being in Time Square in New York City!!!

We passed a BIG milestone!

Now over 25 million websites are using our software 🚀

I'm super proud of our team @awesomemotive and the amazing work we're doing to help shape the web for billions worldwide.

Here's our team featured on NASDAQ Times Square. pic.twitter.com/v9QJF6gu5R
— Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi) April 3, 2023

These milestones are proof that hard work does pay off.

Talking about hard work, here are some big WPBeginner updates that happened in the last 12 months:

1. We launched Five New Free Business Tools

Since last year, we have launched 5 new free business tools to help you do more with WordPress.

Keyword Generator Tool: It makes keyword research easy by helping you generate 300+ keyword ideas in a click.
Blog Post Idea Generator: It helps you come up with a year’s worth of content ideas in a second.
Smart Headline Analyzer: It lets you write irresistible headlines that your users can’t help but click.
Website SEO Analyzer: It finds critical errors on your site and generates a free SEO report to fix them.
Keyword Density Checker: It enables you to find the primary keywords on any content to fix over-optimization. Also great for competitor research.

2. Larger community + More Content

Our community has continued to grow on all social media networks. Our WPBeginner Engage Facebook group now has over 94,000 members.

And the WPBeginner YouTube channel has passed 291,000 subscribers.

We also revamped our WPBeginner video site. Now you can access loads of step-by-step videos without hiring a developer for free.

You can follow us on various social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter.

3. Contributing to WordPress and Open Source

We have always been huge supporters of open source. This past year, we revamped our free Insert Headers and Footers plugin from the ground up and relaunched it under a new brand WPCode.

It was originally created to help you add code snippets in WordPress without editing your theme’s functions.php file or installing an additional plugin.

Now we launched a brand new snippet library from where you can find the snippet and add them to your site with one click.

You can also create your own WPCode profile to save snippets, create private snippets, and more.

See the full WPCode announcement to see why this is the most underrated yet MUST HAVE plugin for all websites, and it’s now being used by over 2 million websites!

4. New Acquisitions & Investments

In 2018, I created the WPBeginner Growth Fund to invest in WordPress-focused companies that are solving important problems that you, our readers, want me to help out with.

Over the past 12 months, we have made several big acquisitions and investments in the ecosystem.

We acquired Thrive Themes, company behind some of the most powerful growth tools for WordPress. Over 200,000+ smart website owners use the Thrive plugin suite to easily convert website visitors into email subscribers, paying customers, and raving fans. Some of their plugins include landing page builder, quiz builder, course platform, and more. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired Duplicator, a powerful WordPress backup and migration plugin used by over 1.5 million websites. You can use it to create automatic backups and store them on cloud. It comes with easy restore option to save time. It’s also the best solution to migrate your website from one hosting provider to another, or even from local server to live. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired WP101, which offers professionally-produced WordPress training videos to help you learn WordPress, fast. It’s a perfect solution for business owners to offer WordPress training videos in their employee onboarding process. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired Easy WP SMTP, which helps you solve email delivery issues and prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder.

Aside from the full acquisitions, we also invested in HeroThemes, a company that specializes in building tools to help users deliver great customer service on their websites. See more details here.

I’m really proud of how far we’ve come with the Growth Fund, and it’s really amazing to see the impact our companies are making in the WordPress ecosystem and the larger open web.

Want me to invest in your business? Learn more about the WPBeginner growth fund.

Product / Company Updates

Often readers ask me what is WPBeginner’s income, and how does WPBeginner make money by giving away all WordPress tutorials for free.

Well, we make money indirectly through our suite of premium WordPress plugins that are now running on over 25 million websites. Aside from that, we also have investments in a suite of other WordPress companies through our growth fund that I mentioned above.

Our team at Awesome Motive continued to set new records this year, and all of our products saw tremendous growth.

Here’s a list of our plugins that you should check out:

OptinMonster – The #1 conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers. There’s also a free version here.
WPForms – The most beginner-friendly WordPress form builder used by over 5 million websites. There’s also a free version – WPForms Lite.
MonsterInsights – The most popular WordPress Analytics plugin to help you grow your business with confidence. I use this on all of my websites. Free version available: MonsterInsights Lite.
AIOSEO – The original WordPress SEO plugin to help you get more traffic. Used by over 3 million websites. There’s also a free version of AIOSEO.
WP Mail SMTP – The #1 plugin that helps improve your WordPress email deliverability. The free version: WP Mail SMTP Lite is sufficient for most website owners.
SeedProd – The best drag & drop website builder for WordPress. You can use it to create custom WordPress themes, landing pages, and website layouts without any code. Try the free version of SeedProd.
RafflePress – A powerful WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow your website traffic.
Smash Balloon – The most popular social media feeds plugin for WordPress. A free version is available for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube feeds.
PushEngage – The leading web push notification software for small businesses. It helps send over 9 billion push notifications each month.
SearchWP – The most advanced WordPress search plugin. Completely customize your WordPress search form and search results algorithm to improve your content discoverability and increase sales. Trusted by over 30,000+ website owners.
Easy Digital Downloads – the top-rated WordPress plugin for selling digital products and subscriptions. Easily sell eBooks, software, music, and more, protect digital downloads, accept payments, and more. Trusted by over 50,000+ website owners. Try the free version of EDD.
AffiliateWP – The most popular affiliate management plugin for WordPress. Easily launch an affiliate program for your store. One-click integration with WooCommerce, WPForms, and 20 other payment plugins. Unlock a new growth channel without the middleman fees.
WP Simple Pay – Easily accept payments online without a complex shopping cart setup. Great for simple one-time or recurring payments. Built-in support for credit card payments, ACH bank debit, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. Try the free version of WP Simple Pay.
TrustPulse – Leverage the power of social proof to instantly increase site conversions by up to 15%. Automatically show real-time purchase notifications and other website activity notifications to increase trust, conversions, and sales.
WP Charitable – The top-rated donation and fundraising plugin for WordPress. Over 10,000+ non-profit organizations and website owners across the world use Charitable to create fundraising campaigns and raise more money online. Try the free version of Charitable.
Thrive Themes: Powerful growth tool suite for WordPress to help you transform your website into an online business platform. The suite includes Thrive Theme Builder, Thrive Automator, Thrive Architect, Thrive Leads, and more.
Duplicator: Secure your WordPress website with reliable backups. It also makes it easy to migrate and restore your website to your favorite locations. Try the free version of Duplicator.
User Feedback: Easiest way to collect user feedback and make surveys on your website. Great HotJar alternative (free version here).

We’re a fully remote team of over 290+ people across 50 countries. Want to join our team and work alongside me in helping small businesses grow and compete with the big guys? We’re hiring.

WPBeginner Birthday Giveaway

To celebrate the 14^th birthday of WPBeginner, we are offering premium plugins worth $50,000.

The prize includes 10 licenses of each of the plugins listed here.

On top of that, you can also win a 1-on-1 mentorship call with me for 1 hour.

The winner will be chosen randomly using a random generator script.

Thank You, Everyone

I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported us in this journey. I really do appreciate all of your retweets, personal emails, content suggestions, and interactions at events.

I also want to say a special thank you to everyone who’s using our plugins because that enables us to keep bringing more free tutorials on WPBeginner.

You all are AMAZING, and without you, there is no WPBeginner.

I look forward to another solid year ahead of us.

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post WPBeginner Turns 14 Years Old – Reflections, Updates, and a Giveaway ($50,000 in Prizes) first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 15, 2023

21 Little-Known Ways to Use Expiring Posts in WordPress

You may already know that WordPress lets you schedule posts to publish at a later date, but did you know that you can also schedule posts to automatically unpublish after a set time period?

In a previous article, we looked at the best post scheduling plugins for WordPress. Depending on the nature of your content, however, you may also want posts to automatically unpublish after having served their purpose.

In this article, we look at practical ways to use expiring posts in WordPress and plugins that will help you automate this.

We’ll cover the following areas:

Effective Ways to Use Expiring Posts
Expiring Post Plugins for WordPress

21 Ways to Use Expiring Posts

Here are 21 ways to improve your content and marketing strategy using expiring posts in WordPress:

1. Time-Sensitive Promotions

If you run time-limited sales announcements, promotions, offers, or contests on your website, scheduling expiring posts lets you automatically remove or update those posts once the promotional period has ended.

Scheduling posts to automatically expire at the end of a promotional campaign ensures that visitors and customers are not presented with outdated offers or information, preventing confusion and avoiding disappointment, and helps to maintain your brand’s credibility.

For example, let’s say you have a retail store or an eCommerce website and are planning to run a week-long flash sale on selected items. You could create a series of posts promoting different products and schedule them to automatically expire at the end of the sale period, ensuring that customers only see your active promotions.

2. Seasonal Updates

Scheduling expiring posts can be really useful if your business has seasonal products, services, or events.

Automatically expiring posts that contain seasonal content, such as holiday greetings, seasonal sales, or event announcements (e.g. festivals, growers markets, etc.) helps to keep your website’s content aligned with the current season and relevant throughout the year, and avoids showcasing outdated products or information.

This is not only useful for businesses that offer seasonal products or services, such as gardening supplies or holiday-specific decorations, but also seasonal offers or services.

For example, if you have a holiday-specific campaign, you can schedule the corresponding posts to expire once the holiday is over, saving you the effort of manually having to remove or update content every season.

Or, let’s say your client runs a travel agency and wants to showcase different holiday destinations throughout the year (or promote destinations that match discounted airfares from different airlines). They could create posts highlighting specific locations and set them to automatically expire once the corresponding season ends, keeping their website content aligned with the current season.

3. Event Management

Setting expiration dates for event-related posts ensures that outdated event details are automatically removed, maintaining accurate and up-to-date information for attendees.

For example, if your company organizes events, you can schedule posts to expire after the event has taken place. This helps manage event-specific content, such as registration details, agenda updates, or speaker information, and ensures that your website stays relevant before and after the event.

Similarly, if your business organizes conferences, you could create posts promoting each session and speaker and then schedule these to expire after the session has taken place, ensuring that outdated session details are automatically removed.

4. Limited-Time Offers

Promoting exclusive deals or discounts by scheduling posts to expire when the offer period ends creates a sense of urgency for visitors and encourages customers to make timely purchases.

This is ideal for online retailers planning to launch a one-day or weekend sale with posts featuring discounted products.

By scheduling posts to automatically publish when the event kicks off and then setting the posts to expire at the end of the sale, they would not only create a sense of urgency but automate the entire process so they wouldn’t even have to monitor it (think of all those limited-time sales that end at midnight…you could be sleeping and still be making money!)

5. News and Updates

When you have important announcements or releases that need to be shared at a specific time, such as product launches, press releases, or scheduled events, scheduling expiring posts ensures that the information becomes available and expires automatically according to your desired schedule.

Scheduling your news articles, press releases, or industry updates posts to automatically expire when the information loses its relevance or becomes outdated after a certain period helps to keep your website current, maintains a current and accurate representation of the news landscape, and ensures that readers are always presented with the latest news stories.

6. Product Launches

Scheduling posts to expire after a product launch prevents outdated information about previous releases from cluttering your website.

If you are a technology company planning to release a new version of its software, foir example, you could create a series of posts providing information and updates about the upcoming release, then schedule these to expire shortly after the launch to prevent users from accessing outdated software details.

7. Temporary Notices or Alerts

Displaying time-sensitive notices or alerts, such as maintenance notifications or temporary closures, that automatically expire once the issue or event has passed, ensures that visitors no longer see the closure notice.

For example, a small business could display a notice on its website about a temporary closure due to personal reasons (e.g. owners travelling overseas or a death of a key business team member), and schedule the post to expire once the business reopens.

8. Membership or Subscription Expiration

Automatically expiring posts that are accessible only to members or subscribers after their membership or subscription period ends, encourages them to renew or upgrade.

A good example of this is where a membership-based website grants access to premium content for a specific subscription period and sets users’ access to posts and resources to automatically expire at the end of their subscription.

9. Course or Lesson Availability

Controlling access to course or lesson content by scheduling posts to expire based on the duration of the course or availability of the material encourages students to progress through the course within a designated timeframe.

For example, an online learning platform could provide access to course materials for a limited duration with each lesson post scheduled to expire after a certain number of days.

10. Contest or Giveaway End Dates

Setting posts to expire when a contest or giveaway ends ensures that the information remains accurate and helps to avoid confusion for participants.

A practical use of this could be where a social media influencer runs a giveaway and promotes it through posts on their website. The posts are then scheduled to expire at the end of the giveaway, ensuring that participants can no longer enter after the specified deadline.

11. Archiving Outdated Content

Automatically expiring and archiving posts that are no longer relevant or useful keeps your website clutter-free and ensures a better user experience.

For example, suppose your company blog features posts about past product releases. As new products are launched, the corresponding posts are then scheduled to expire and automatically move to an archive section, keeping the main blog focused on current offerings.

12. Regulatory Compliance

If you need to comply with specific regulations regarding the removal or expiration of certain types of content, scheduling posts to expire can help you meet those requirements.

An example of where setting posts to expire once a required duration has passed to ensure compliance with regulations would be where a financial-related institution publishes posts with legal disclaimers that must be displayed for a specific time period.

13. Legal Compliance

Similar to the above, you can automatically expire posts that contain time-limited legal disclaimers, privacy policies, terms of service, or cookie notices to ensure compliance with changing regulations.

For example, let’s say that an online service provider includes a cookie notice on their website. The post containing the notice can be scheduled to expire after the required consent duration, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations.

14. Expiring Downloads or Resources

You can also schedule posts to expire when downloadable files, resources, or documents are no longer available or have been updated.

Scheduling posts related to older versions to expire once new updates are released ensures that users access only the most recent and relevant resources and prevents them from accessing outdated information.

15. Scheduled Content Updates

Plan ahead by scheduling posts to expire and automatically trigger updates or new content, ensuring a consistent publishing schedule and reducing manual intervention.

So, if you run a magazine-style website publishing articles on a weekly basis, you could schedule posts to automatically expire at the time of each new publication, allowing for seamless content updates without manual intervention.

16. A/B Testing

Using expiring posts to test different versions of content or design elements by setting expiration dates lets you compare performance and make data-driven decisions.

For example, suppose you run an e-commerce website and want to test two different versions of a product description. You could create two posts, each featuring a different description, and schedule them to expire after a set period. You can then analyze the metrics and determine which version performs better.

17. Content Rotation

Automatically cycling through a set of posts by scheduling them to expire and publishing new content allows you to create a dynamic and ever-changing website experience.

Suppose an art gallery website wants to showcase different artists. They could schedule posts featuring different artists’ works to automatically expire and publish new posts showcasing other artists, providing a constantly changing selection for visitors.

18. User Engagement

Encouraging regular visits to your website by regularly expiring and replacing content helps to entice users to return for fresh information and increased engagement.

An example of this would be where a lifestyle blog regularly features “Tip of the Week” posts. Each post is scheduled to automatically expire after a week, encouraging readers to return for fresh tips.

19. Content Freshness

By scheduling non-evergreen posts to expire, you ensure that your website or blog remains up-to-date with fresh content. This is particularly important if you publish time-sensitive information, such as news, promotions, or event announcements on a regular basis.

Once a post expires, it can automatically be removed or replaced with new content, keeping your website content fresh and relevant.

20. Content Cleanup

Schedule posts to expire and be removed from your website’s public view to maintain a clean and organized content repository.

For example, suppose your blog includes guest posts or paid posts that are only relevant for a limited time. You can schedule guest posts to expire and be removed from your website after the agreed-upon period, keeping your content repository well maintained, clean, and focused.

21. Editorial Workflow

Scheduling expiring posts allows you to plan your content publishing in advance. This can help streamline your content creation process and manage your editorial calendar more effectively.

By pre-scheduling expiration dates, you can focus on creating new content rather than constantly monitoring and manually updating old posts.

This is useful for businesses with news-like websites that follow an editorial calendar. They can schedule posts to expire according to the planned publication schedule, ensuring a steady flow of new content while seamlessly removing outdated articles from the website.

Expiring Offer Post Example — Why stay up all night to unpublish posts when you can set these to automatically expire?

Expiring Post Plugins for WordPress

Here are some post expiration plugins for WordPress you can use to publish a post for a limited time and have your posts be automatically unpublished after the period has expired:

PublishPress Future

PublishPress Future (formerly Post Expirator) is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that not only lets you automatically unpublish posts, pages, and other content types in WordPress, but also delete your post, change its status, update the post categories, or make other changes.

With PublishPress Future installed, you can:

Choose expiry dates for content in any post type.
Select expiry dates in the right sidebar when editing posts.
Modify, remove or completely delete content when the expiry date arrives.
Modify expiry dates using “Quick Edit” and “Bulk Edit”.
Receive email notifications when your content expires.
Show expiry dates in your content, automatically or with shortcodes.

After installing and activating the plugin, you will see the plugin’s editor block (if using the Block Editor) or settings panel (Classic editor) when creating or editing a post, giving you flexibility and control over when your content will expire.

Simply enter the date and time that you want your post to expire using the intuitive interface…

PublishPress Future Block — Use the plugin’s editor block to set your post’s expiry date and time.

And choose what should happen to the post when it expires by selecting an option from the “Action To Run” section…

PublishPress Future block - Actions menu — Choose what happens to your post after it expires.

You have various options for future actions on expired posts.

For example, you can:

Change the status to Draft, Private, or Trash.
Delete the post.
Keep all existing categories, and add new categories.
Remove all existing categories, and add new categories.
Keep all existing categories, except for those specified in this change.
Enable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
Disable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
Move the post to a custom status (Pro version)

PublishPress Future gives you complete control of scheduling and managing post expirations via its extensive settings panel. A Pro version of the plugin is available offering additional features and support.

PublishPress Future Settings panel — The plugin puts you in complete control of your post expiration’s settings.

The PublishPress Future plugin includes the following additional features and functionalities:

Quick and Bulk Edit

Use the convenience of the plugin’s “Quick Edit” and “Bulk Edit” options to make changes to expiry dates. and manage a large number of posts.

PublishPress Future - Quick Edit feature — Set posts to expire using the plugin’s convenient Quick Edit and Bulk Edit options.

Email Notifications

Receive notifications when your posts are due to expire so you can stay informed about your content’s expiry and never miss a critical update.

Display Expiry Dates in Your Content

PublishPress Future allows you to automatically show expiry or action dates within your articles. This feature adds a date stamp at the bottom of your post.

Post Expiry Status — Display the post expiry status to provide transparency to your audience.

You can also use customizable shortcodes to display the expiration date inside your posts, tailoring the format to meet your specific needs.

Expiry Defaults for Post Types

The plugin not only lets you customize default expiry options for each post type within your WordPress site, but you can also configure default expiry settings for all of your content.

PublishPress Future expiry options — Automate your content scheduling even further by configuring default post expiry options.

Advanced Features & Detailed Logs

The Pro version of the plugin offers additional functionalities, such as moving posts to a custom status upon expiration and keeps a comprehensive log of all changes made to your posts.

Seamless Cron Job Integration

WP-CRON is a built-in feature of WordPress used to schedule recurring tasks, such as publishing scheduled posts or processing queued tasks in plugins.

PublishPress Future uses custom cron jobs to execute expiration events efficiently, reducing server overhead for busy websites. To fully leverage the plugin’s capabilities, make sure that WP-CRON is properly set up and functional on your web host.

More details: PublishPress Future

Note: When using plugins that require WP-CRON, it’s essential to monitor the performance and resource usage of your site, as WP-CRON can consume significant resources when running heavy or frequent tasks.

If you notice performance issues, you may need to optimize the plugin settings, offload tasks to external services, or use a real server-side cron job to improve efficiency and prevent performance degradation on your hosting account.

If your sites run on WPMU DEV hosting, rest assured that any WordPress plugins that require WP-CRON will run just fine.Learn more about our hosting

For the best experience running plugins that require WP-CRON functionality, consult the WPMU DEV support team to ensure your website is running optimally on your selected hosting plan.

Auto Post Expiration

Auto Post Expiration is another plugin you can use to easily set expiration dates for your posts in WordPress.

With just a few clicks, you can schedule posts to automatically change to “draft” status, ensuring they are no longer visible on the front end of your site.

Key features of this plugin include:

Set Post Expiration Date and Time

The plugin provides an intuitive feature that lets you easily select the desired date and time for your posts to expire and transition to the “draft” status.

Admin Column Display

Auto Post Expiration shows the expiration date and post status directly in the admin column, making it easy to stay organized and keep track of when posts are scheduled to expire.

Gutenberg and Classic Editor Support

The plugin seamlessly integrates with the block and classic editors, so you can use your preferred editing interface when creating or editing posts.

The plugin also offers a Pro version that lets you unlock advanced features, such as setting expiration dates for single posts, pages, products, and custom post types, WooCommerce Support (set expiration dates for your WooCommerce products), and email notifications for Admin.

More info: Auto Post Expiration

From Inspired Content To Expired Posts

Hopefully, this article has inspired you to use expired posts. Auto expiring posts can help you streamline your content management processes, control the lifespan of your content, and keep your website current, fresh, and relevant to enhance user experience.

For complete WordPress automation, consider becoming a WPMU DEV member. Our all-in-one WordPress platform is ideal for web developers and agencies and includes robust site management tools and Pro plugins that will automate all aspects of your WordPress sites.

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`git rm`

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Last Resort: `git fsck`