It was GeneratePress theme working on speed enhancement the last week, and this week, Astra theme and Kadence theme continue the focus on speed for faster loading WordPress websites. Plus, a new upcoming event aka Festival of WordPress and much needed attention to Google Analytics 4 upgrade.
What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- Faster Themes… besides 50% faster customizer, the new Astra theme 2.6 added better blocks compatibility, color controls, and teased upcoming header/footer builder. While Kadence Theme can now load Google Fonts locally (Customizer: General > Performance).
- Plugin Focus… are you game for passwordless login to a WordPress website? Also, can Admin Notices Manager plugin be the solution to alerts from other plugins invading your WP dashboard?
- Blocks Life… listing featured posts using Gutenberg blocks with some code play by Giorgos Sarigiannidis. Also, Munir explores displaying testimonials with Gutenberg blocks and possibly the easiest method to create custom Editor block visually.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- In the News… try before you buy a WP plugin, barn2 has launched free trials for their all WordPress and WooCommerce plugins. While, WPBeginner (Awesome Motive) has acquired PushEngage, push notifications service. And, frontity has partnered with 10up.
- Dev Focus… Daniel Lee shares how to set up and get WordPress working with Docker. Also, check this handy checklist to launch a virtual event powered by WordPress.
- Core Updates… WordPress 5.6 Beta 1 is available for testing. Gutenberg 9.2 plugin will be included in WP 5.6 release with features like subtitle support for video block, repeat background option in the cover block, change multiple selected blocks into column block.
Quick Bits 👍
- Next OceanWP 2.0 is coming soon with these things.
- Grab a free ticket to Wordfest – the festival of WordPress.
- BuddyBoss has added new LiferLMS dashboard features.
- Perfmatters added testing mode option for script manager.
- RankMath v1.0.50 reduced plugin size by 26% & other changes.
- Lottie Files in Elementor, start to finish video by Tim Preut.
- A detailed guide to setup Cloudfare APO for faster WP sites.
- Take note WP people, MailChimp now has a website builder.
- WooCommerce testing Instagram Shopping checkout feature.
- MakeStories now with editor for WP, Google’s Web Stories rival!
[Attention] Upgrade to Google Analytics 4 🤖
Google Analytics is a popular way to track visitors data on WordPress websites. The new version called Google Analytics 4 is now available with AI-powered insights, more granular data controls, and tracking across devices. Here is a video with detailed instructions on how to upgrade GA4. You can either create a parallel instance or wait till the upgrade button appears in your Analytics account.
