Issue 138

Welcome

WordPress 5.6 Beta 4, Black Friday is coming and Black holes.

This Week in WordPress, a roundup of the latest WordPress News!

We're going to be going live to discuss the topics raised in this post at 2pm UK time on Monday 16th November at the WP Builds LIVE page / https://wpbuilds.com/live. Please join myself (Nathan Wrigley), Paul Lacey and Dovy Paukstys for the chat!

WordPress Core

News – WordPress 5.6 Beta 4

"Since beta 3, 42 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary..."

Themes Team Removes Outdated CSS Guidelines, Adds Stricter Requirement for Links in Content

"In yesterday’s twice-monthly meeting, the WordPress Themes Team made a couple of important changes to the official theme directory guidelines. They removed a requirement of some CSS classes that have long been sitting on the chopping block. They also implemented the third stage in their long-term plan to make all WordPress themes accessibility-ready."

'This Week in WordPress' Sponsor

AB Split Test

Want to set up your AB Split test in record time, like a couple of minutes? Use your existing pages and test anything against anything else. Buttons, images, headers, rows... anything. The best part is that it works with Elementor, Beaver Builder and the WordPress Block editor. Check it out at absplittest.com

Community

Envato Passes $1 Billion in Community Earnings While Continuing to Aggressively Market Its Elements Subscription Against Marketplace Authors

"Envato has passed $1 billion in community earnings after 14 years in business. The company reached the goal a year earlier than anticipated, thanks to the contributions of 81,000 different creators around the globe and millions of customers..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

Simple Sandbox Pro Pre-Launch Introduction - Video

"In this screencast I walk through the basic functionality of the Simple Sandbox Pro WordPress Plugin right before launching 1.0."

FAQ schema for Elementor – SEOPress 4.1 update release

"SEOPress 4.1 is now available. We encourage you to update your site as soon as possible to take advantage of the latest features and improvements."

Do Not Build Theme-Specific Block Plugins for WordPress, Please

"A few days ago, I came across a small library of blocks. As always, I was interested in seeing what this new plugin brought to the table. Would it surprise me with a block that has not been done before? Would it present a new take on some old ideas?"

Make the Most of Cyber Monday 2020: How to Prepare Your Store

"Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the biggest shopping days of the year and, though that’s not expected to change in 2020, there are a lot of things that will look very different."

Editor Plus 2.1 Overhauls Block Controls UI and Adds Lottie Animations

"Yesterday, Munir Kamal released version 2.1 of the Editor Plus plugin. The biggest change is a complete overhaul of its design controls. The developer also added a new Lottie animation block."

Oxygen 3.6 Now Available

"Oxygen 3.6 includes two new features and several bug fixes. In This Release: Edit Mode (Requires Agency License), Custom Units, Rem Units, 39 Bug Fixes."

Deals

WordPress Deals for Black Friday 2020 - Plugins, Themes, Blocks and more

Find all the best WordPress deals this Black Friday / Cyber Monday on the WP Builds Deals Page. Go bookmark it for later use...!

Paced Email - $19 for life

Security

WordPress Vulnerability Roundup: November 2020, Part 1

"Quite a few new WordPress plugin and theme vulnerabilities were disclosed during the first half of November. This post covers the recent WordPress plugin, theme, and core vulnerabilities and what to do if you run one of the vulnerable plugins or themes on your website."

WooCommerce Patches Vulnerability that Allowed Spam Bots to Create Accounts at Checkout

"WooCommerce 4.6.2 was released yesterday with a fix for a vulnerability that allowed account creation at checkout, even when the “Allow customers to create an account during checkout” setting is disabled..."

Critical Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilities Affect 100K Sites Using Ultimate Member Plugin

"On October 23, 2020, our Threat Intelligence team responsibly disclosed several vulnerabilities in Ultimate Member, a WordPress plugin installed on over 100,000 sites. These flaws made it possible for attackers to escalate their privileges to those of an administrator and take over a WordPress site."

WP Builds

Flipping websites with Blake Hutchison

Flipping domains can be a profitable business and today on the WP Builds WordPress podcast we’re going to be hearing about how and why you might want to look into doing it. Firstly though, what is domain flipping? In it’s simplest form it’s the process of buying (or selling) a domain. In the real world businesses are bought and sold all the time, there’s nothing unusual about it at all, but buying a current domain can be a little harder.

Not WordPress, but useful anyway…

Come June 1, 2021, all of your new photos will count against your free Google storage

"Come June 1, 2021, Google will change its storage policies for free accounts — and not for the better."

Getting a biometric security key right

The YubiKey Bio will be the first product to introduce biometric capabilities (in addition to PIN) to our portfolio of YubiKeys.

The Black Hole Information Paradox Comes to an End

"In a series of breakthrough papers, theoretical physicists have come tantalizingly close to resolving the black hole information paradox that has entranced and bedeviled them for nearly 50 years. Information, they now say with confidence, does escape a black hole."