Automattic’s acquisitions train continues along with more and more products adding support for Gutenberg with regard to user experience (why not!). Also included in this issue: a few new launches, upcoming core WordPress updates, a look at the archive page set up in the blocks world.
Master Full Site Editing is the course for people who want to create great-looking websites without code, all using Gutenberg and the Block Editor.
Visual Composer is an intuitive drag & drop WordPress website builder that helps you create any professional design quickly for yourself or your clients.
WP Complete helps online course students track their progress and work with the most course & membership plugins for more successful online courses.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- Got Noticed… team at fatcatapps has rebuilt their easy pricing table plugin for Gutenberg, so now you can add a pricing table from within a post or page while in the block editor. Also, Brizy is shaking up pricing plans from from September 18, 2021, moving forward Brizy WordPress and Brizy Cloud will be separate products and thus separate purchases (no change for existing users).
- New Launches… here is Sail tool, a free and open-source CLI tool by Konstantin Kovshenin to provision and deploy WordPress application on the Digital Ocean cloud. Also, check this interesting new site demo creator plugin by Corey Maass that lets you record your website in a web browser or mobile mockup.
- Milestone Bumps… WP101 plugin is celebrating 10 years milestone and also offering a $150 discount for instant access to 200+ video tutorials. While the FluentCRM team shared about achieving 10K active installs milestone, for sure – they raced to that very quickly!
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- WP Ecosystem… keeping the business of WP going, Automattic has acquired social image generator plugin and its functionality will be added into the Jetpack offering. The team at Gravity Forms has launched a new podcast called Input hosted by James Giroux.
- Core Updates… WordPress 5.8.1 is now available with 60 bug fixes and 3 security fixes. Also, see what’s coming in the next WordPress 5.9 release scheduled for Dec 14, 2021, like new default theme, interface for theme.json, and more design tools.
- Blocks Life… how global styles would work in the upcoming WordPress 5.9 release, here is the preview of the interface for global styles in Gutenberg editor. Also, exploring improvements to the featured image block for more content creation options.
Quick Bits 👍
- Kinsta website got a new upgraded look, which is fab for sure!
- Pods 2.8 RC 1 is now available, a big update with a lot of features.
- Automattic’s Worldwide WordPress 5K event from Oct 01, 2021.
- More speakers annouced for the WordCamp US 2021 event.
- See what’s coming in the 2nd WPMRR virtual summit on Sep 21.
Rethink: Building a Blog or Archive Page
While reading through this article on creating an email newsletter archive page that is SEO friendly, made me realize how blocks have changed the posts listing page routine – now very similar to a page builder. So, instead of a traditional blog loop strictly controlled by the theme – one can display posts on the page using a block to make a custom archive page. Quick and easy!