We have issues in the WordPress world, be it contributor sentiments going down, security issues in the Bricks Builder, or overlapping problems with the Block Editor. On the brighter side, there are many new feature updates from MainWP, Elementor, Kadence, FlowMattic, and WooCommerce.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- Coming Soon Updates… Dennis Dornon shared about the upcoming MainWP version 5, bringing an all-new core module for financial management to monitor and analyze your spending easily. Ben Ritner shared about the positive response to the Advanced Query Loop feature in Kadence and the team is now focusing on phase 2 for range, ratings, and swatch filters.
- Product Updates… Elementor AI 0.2 update with AI generated wireframes feature that allows users to enter a URL and have an inspired container-based website generated based on that. FlowMattic 4.1v has added RSS Feed Triggers allowing you to initiate workflows whenever a new item is added to specific RSS Feeds.
- Being Resourceful & Price Drop… Ovidiu Maghetiu has added WordPress playground feature on the WPCodeBox site and created an online tool to learn and play with code, check out. The team at Melapress has reduced pricing across all their plans, with a price drop ranging from $10 to $160 for various security plugins.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- WP Community Buzz… The WPTavern site is finally alive after being without a writer for quite some time. James Giroux (Links X) is the first out of seven writers and has published a profound report on the formation of The Open Web Alliance. Anne wrote an insightful post, ‘Overlapping problems’, summarizing the current state of the WordPress Block Editor.
- Acquisitions Train… OptinMonster has acquired Beacon, a service for creating lead magnets and opt-in forms. Beacon’s integration with OptinMonster is coming soon. ShortPixel, known for WordPress image optimization solutions, has acquired reSmush it, the original free image compression WordPress plugin and API. More such coverage in the Business of WordPress Database.
- New Integrations… FluentBooking 1.2.4v has added Nextcloud integration that allows you to sync FluentBooking events with Nextcloud’s CalDAV server. WS Form has added integration for Webex by Cisco, allowing you to automatically send the form data to the Webex platform.
- Dev Focused… Gato GraphQL 2.1v comes with an automation extension that enables the automator user interface directly within the WordPress Block Editor. Colin Stewart shared progress on plugin dependencies that involve plugin authors informing users about other plugins that they depend on.
- WP Core & Woo Updates… WordPress 6.5 Beta 1 is now available for your testing, with the final WordPress 6.5 release scheduled for March 26, 2024. WooCommerce 8.6.0v is out with a new block style for the product details block and improvements to debug logging.
- WP Milestones… Patchstack has been selected to join Google for Startups Growth Academy for AI in cybersecurity. Katie Keith shared (Links X) about a historic sales milestone of having sold 80,000 plugin copies at the Barn2 website; impressive for sure!
Quick Bits 👍
- Kadence’s Form Block now with views & submissions analytics.
- Conversion Bridge now integrates with 43 WordPress Plugins.
- Astra team has released a free Elementor course for site building.
- Adii Pienaar wrote on WordPress homecoming & reconnecting.
- Plugin Nominations now open for Plugin Madness 2024 contest.
- Vectormaker for free PNG to SVG and more in Tools Weekly issue.
Big Security Issues, update ASAP!
If you are Bricks Builder user, then update your Bricks copy immediately as version 1.9.6 is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE) as published at Patchstack (By Snicco). This has affected many websites from folks in my WordPress circle! Also, a similar issue has been discovered for Cwicly by Calvin Alkan at Snicco.
On the positive security front… Aurelio shared a preview (Links X) of the new alerting center on the WP Umbrella platform for website downtime and plugin vulnerabilities powered by Patchstack.
2023 Annual Survey: Understanding Results!
The 2023 WordPress annual survey results are now available, bringing forward interesting insights. With regard to contributor sentiment, fewer contributors had a positive experience in 2023 (55%) versus 2022 (64%), and contributors felt less recognized in 2023 (46%) than in 2022 (51%).
Overall, 63% felt WordPress is as good or better than other CMSs, down from 68% in 2022. The Gutenberg usage is up in 2023 to 60% compared to 54% in 2022. The top three worst things about using WordPress were: too many plugins, the site editing experience, and security.
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