Have you joined Bluesky, like many other WordPress users, a new place for an online social presence? Also in this issue: CrawlWP, Asset Management Framework, Indystack’s AI Builder, and Blocks for GitHub plugin.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- WP Folks Flock to Bluesky… Justin Ferriman observed a growing trend of WordPress people leaving Twitter(X) and moving to the Bluesky platform. He noted, “As Bluesky’s growth accelerates, WordPress professionals are leveraging community-curated Starter Packs – curated lists of WordPress developers, designers, and community leaders that users can follow with a single click”.
- Easy Media Management… Matt Watson over at Human Made shared more information about their open source Asset Manager Framework for WordPress. It acts as bridge between WordPress and a content delivery network (CDN), allowing you to offload assets on a CDN and yet manage them within WordPress backend, even the NASA website use this!
- Went all in on Slack… Aaron Bowie shared in-depth how and why they went all in on Slack for everything in their online business, team, and support. Also, embracing Slack Templates and Workflows for bug reporting, one time requests, and more.
- FluentCommunity Out… the big launch of 2024, online community building solution – FluentCommunity is now available for everyone at special launch lifetime pricing. The first update 1.1.0v (Nov 20, 2024) has added the ability to customize login and signup pages.
New: WordPress Plugins, Services, & Tools
New SEO Insights Plugin… Collins Agbonghama, creator of MailOptin and ProfilePress, has launched CrawlWP for WordPress websites for instant indexing and SEO Insights. It allows you to monitor your WordPress website’s visibility on Google, Bing, Yandex, Naver, and Yep.
For Plugin Creators… if you use GitHub Actions to build and deploy your plugin to the WordPress Org Plugin Directory, then check WordPress Plugin Attestation over at GitHub, created by John Blackbourn. You can add this action to your deployment workflow to generate an attestation for the build provenance of the plugin ZIP file on WordPress Org website.
Native AI Blocks Builder… the team at Indystack has launched AI-builder that uses native Gutenberg Blocks. Just describe the website you want in 100 words or so, and get auto generated blocks powered site created with AI powers.
GitHub Content in WP… Devin Walker has released a free Blocks for GitHub plugin that allows you to display GitHub profiles, organizations, and repositories on your WordPress website within the Block Editor.
New Features: Font Subsets, Course Builder, Forms Undo
Limit Google Fonts subsets… Perfmatters 2.3.5v update has added new local Google Font option to Limit Subsets that are downloaded and included in the stylesheet. Their test shows 80% decrease in the font CSS size when selecting one specific subset.
New Course Builder… TutorLMS 3.0v is a big update that introduces a new updated course builder, now divided into three sections: Basics, Curriculum, and Additional. This update also enhanced the quiz builder and the AI studio for generating content with AI powers.
Forms Editor Undo… Fluent Forms 5.2.5v has added the ability to undo and redo actions in the form editor using keyboard shortcuts like the WordPress editor. It has also added a global option to choose date time format for the entries view.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- Automattic acquire Harper… Automattic has acquired Harper, a grammar checker for developers, and its founder Elijah Potter, has joined Automattic. Matt shared, “Harper is a super-fast local English grammar checker. The technology is nascent, but I’m very excited to embed this throughout all of Automattic’s products”.
- Rocket net Partnership… Rocket .net hosting has announced a strategic partnership with WP Rocket, a website performance plugin. This will make the WP Rocket plugin available for free to all Rocket .net hosting customers on Starter, Pro, and Enterprise plans.
- GoDaddy Hosting Performance… Michael Roehricht shared about GoDaddy hosting performance and uptime as reviewed through third-party benchmarks by Catchpoint. “…performing at or near the top in average response times across North America, Latin America, Europe, and India compared to competitors”.
- New WordPress Update… WordPress 6.7.1 Maintenance Release is now available (November 21, 2024). This is a minor release that comes with 16 bug fixes throughout Core and the Block Editor.
- Gutenberg Update… Gutenberg 19.7v bring global styles to the main site editor sidebar. This also allows swifter hiding and showing of the template, and the ability to set image blocks as featured image.
- Gutenberg Phase 3… Anne McCarthy published update on the phase 3 of the Gutenberg project focused on collaborations. This involves introducing real-time collaboration features, inline comments, and admin interface redesign.
- Volunteers for WP 6.8v… the call for volunteers is now open for WordPress 6.8 participation until December 06, 2024. WordPress 6.8 is scheduled to release on April 15, 2025, and the target for WordPress 6.8 Beta 1 is March 4, 2025.
- Scholarships for WordCamp… if you are looking for financial assistance to attend the upcoming WordCamp Asia 2025 event, you can apply for scholarships until December 6, 2024. Two scholarship programs are available: Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship and Diversity Fund Scholarship.
- WordCamp Asia Speakers & YouthCamp… WordCamp Asia 2025 speakers have been announced in round 1, round 2, and round 3. Also, YouthCamp is coming to WordCamp Asia 2025 for children ages 8 to 17 years.
New Updates: Woo Bricks, Live Search, Meta API
Woo Checkout Builder for Bricks… Max Addons for Bricks has introduced WooCommerce Checkout Page Builder for Bricks Builder. It allows you to customize the checkout with elements for: Billing fields, Shipping Fields, and Checkout Hooks.
Live & Fuzzy Search… Ajay D’Souza has released version 4 of the Better Search plugin. This update introduced live search feature allowing you to see results instantly and Smart Fuzzy Search to find content even with typos.
Meta Ads Conversion Tracking… Conversion Bridge plugin 1.5v with Meta Conversions API feature allowing conversion tracking with Meta Ads through Conversions API instead of the default JavaScript tracking methods.
Quick Bits 👍
- Mark from WS Form teased upcoming Styler feature (video).
- Indystack introduced new hosting plans starting $24.99 / mo.
- Check Black Friday Giveaway by Florian Dee at wpbfdeals site.
- Aki Hamano’s Block based piano (Links X), code is music, right!
- Modernizing WooCommerce Emails: Woo needs your feedback.
- Mary Hubbard, new WP director says hello to the community.
- WordPress Sydney 2024: Watch all the sessions (Links YouTube).
- WordCamp Asia 2025: New batch of tickets coming on Nov 28.
Continued… ACF Pro now, PeepSo leave WP Org
ACF Pro now… David McCan published a video explaining how ACF Pro features are now contained in the free newly added Secure Custom Fields plugin with the same URL slug. Earlier, Advanced Custom Fields was renamed to Secure Custom Fields but the URL slug remained ‘advanced custom fields’. So, now we have two plugin variants of this on the WordPress org website.
PeepSo Leave WP Org… PeepSo plugin for building online communities, has closed its free version listing on the WordPress org website’s plugin repository. This decision stems from the Matt vs WP Engine issue, and also their plugin’s recent suspension without warning.
More… From Automattic and Matt Mullenweg
Automattic responds to review…. last week, Dumitru Brinzan published an analysis of WP Engine sites data as revealed via WP Engine Tracker. Automattic responded, “I am hopeful you are amenable to correcting a few errors present throughout the coverage, including the headline”. Check Dumitru’s response on this.
Matt Mullenweg in an interview with Observer, discussed the ongoing issue with WP Engine. “I make plans in decades. This is not a huge deal to me. The saga is part and parcel of maintaining the longevity of WordPress”.
Matt Mullenweg also appeared on stage for a fireside chat at Nerdearla Mexico 2024. Here is the video of him answering about WordPress and Automattic.
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