This Week in WordPress #150

Welcome

Issue #150

Another week, and quite a lot has happened especially regarding...

WordPress now has +40% of the CMS marketshare
Elementor has decided to up their pricing and added in some additional support options
GoDaddy has a new hob which you can use to maintain all your WordPress websites
WP Feedback is no longer a plugin, it's now a SaaS called Atarim
We've got a single page which tells you all you need to know about F.S.E. (Full Site Editing)
WP Rocket have a new website, and it's really, really fast!
Pods has reached version 2.8

There's a whole lot more than this, and you can find all that by scrolling down!

This Week in WordPress

This Week in WordPress #150 - "Prices only go up, they never go down"

Recorded on Monday 15th February 2021. With Nathan Wrigley, Paul Lacey, Christina Hawkins and Bernhard Gronau.

Each week we discuss some of the the stories (from below) which captured our attention. It's like this newsletter but with real people!

If you ever want to join us live you can do that every Monday at 2pm UK time on the WP Builds LIVE page.

WordPress Core

News – WordPress 5.7 Beta 2

"Since Beta 1, 38 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes..."

Community

WordPress Passes 40% Market Share of Alexa Top 10 Million Websites

"WordPress has passed 40% market share of all websites, up from 35.4% in January 2020, as measured by W3Techs. These numbers are derived from the Alexa top 10 million websites, along with the Tranco top 1 million list. By W3Techs’ estimates, every two minutes, another top 10m site starts using WordPress..."

Full-Site-Editing: MVP and Ultimate Resource List

"Pressed on details of what an MVP would entail, Joseph Haden published a follow-up post defining it as “The MVP should make it possible to build a version of the Twenty Twenty-One theme, using only blocks, without any coding knowledge.” She also pointed to the Site Editing Milestone issue by Matias Ventura..."

Rendering the WordPress philosophy in GraphQL

"WordPress is a CMS that’s coded in PHP. But, even though PHP is the foundation, WordPress also holds a philosophy where user needs are prioritized over developer convenience. That philosophy establishes an implicit contract between the developers building WordPress themes and plugins, and the user managing a WordPress site..."

GraphQL API for WordPress is now scoped, thanks to PHP-Scoper!

"Plugin GraphQL API for WordPress is now scoped. This means the plugin can be finally uploaded to the WordPress plugin directory..."
There's also this link, which goes into more detail.

Transparency Report #12: burning rubber for a change

"After settling into our new shared reality, we found ourselves balancing the handbreak with the gas peddal, all while driving through thick fog. Dive into this transparency report and learn about all the tunning, flaming, and drifting we’ve been at since the last one, published in July 2020..."

The Power of Pods 2.8 and Pods Pro

"In this webinar, Scott Kingsley Clark, lead developer of the Pods Framework will talk about the excellent new features coming in Pods 2.8 and how it will give you more tools for site-building. He’ll also give an overview of the new Pods Pro offering..."

GoDaddy Launches the Hub, a New Site, Project, and Client Management Experience for Web Professionals

"On Monday, GoDaddy officially launched the Hub by GoDaddy Pro, a dashboard that brings together all of its products, pro-specific tools, and solutions. The experience is geared toward website developers and designers, creating a central location to manage their client work..."

Why WP Rocket Chose Gutenberg and How Performance Improved

"Lately, there has been a lot of talk about Gutenberg and its performance vs. the easiness of its features. Is Gutenberg the right choice for your site? Do the pros outweigh the cons? If you’re curious to find out more, keep reading! Our brand-new website is 100% Gutenberg, except for the header and footer. As WPMarmite said, this makes our website unique. And we’ll share our experience and results. We’ll explain why we chose Gutenberg and what made this choice the right one for us. As a bonus, we’ll give you some food for thought to understand if Gutenberg can be the right solution for you, too..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

Announcing Elementor Pro New Pricing Model and Plans

"On March 9th, 2021, Elementor will be adding new Studio and Agency Pro subscription plans and adapting the Expert plan, to best accommodate users’ growing needs. These changes will only apply to new purchases. If you’re on an existing active subscription plan, nothing changes for you..."

Elementor to Roll Out Significant Pricing Hike for New Customers

"Earlier this week, Elementor announced a significant pricing hike coming in March 2021 for new customers..."

WP Feedback Rebrands To Atarim, Moves To a Full SaaS Model

"Earlier this week, WP Feedback founder Vito Peleg announced the company was changing its brand to Atarim. After 18 months since its launch, it would also be moving toward a complete Saas (Software as a Service) model..."

How to Turn Beaver Builder into the Ultimate WooCommerce Page Builder

"In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the WooCommerce plugin. Then we’ll show you how to use Beaver Builder to quickly and easily create your online storefront..."

Toolset Integration

"Dynamic Sources are available through Stackable’s integration with Toolset. It helps you build beautiful, advanced sites, even if you’re not a developer! With Dynamic Sources, you can display existing content from standard fields, custom fields and taxonomy in Stackable blocks..."

Copy and Paste Block Styles

"Today we’re releasing one of the most requested feature in Stackable: Copy and Paste block styles! It works across Stackable blocks and even native blocks. Update to 2.14.0 now..."

Security

WordPress Vulnerability News, February 2021

"WordPress vulnerability news is a weekly digest of highlighted WordPress plugin security vulnerabilities or vulnerability discloses that have been published..."

Severe Vulnerabilities Patched in NextGen Gallery Affect over 800,000 WordPress Sites

"On December 14, 2020, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team finished researching two Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in NextGen Gallery, a WordPress plugin with over 800,000 installations, including a critical severity vulnerability that could lead to Remote Code Execution(RCE) and Stored Cross-Site Scripting(XSS). Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to a site takeover, malicious redirects, spam injection, phishing, and much more..."

Multiple Vulnerabilities Patched in Responsive Menu Plugin

"On December 17, 2020, our Threat Intelligence team responsibly disclosed three vulnerabilities in Responsive Menu, a WordPress plugin installed on over 100,000 sites. The first flaw made it possible for authenticated attackers with low-level permissions to upload arbitrary files and ultimately achieve remote code execution. The remaining two flaws made it possible for attackers to forge requests that would modify the settings of the plugin and again upload arbitrary files that could lead to remote code execution..."

WP Builds

'D' is for Database #216 of the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast

"It’s the 4th in our series of chats called ‘the A-Z of WordPress’ where we attempt to cover all the major aspects of building and maintaining sites with WordPress. Today, we are really going set pulses racing with the letter ‘D’ for Database..."

Not WordPress, but useful anyway…

A webcam app left thousands of user accounts exposed online

"A webcam app installed by thousands of users left an exposed database packed with user data on the internet without a password. The Elasticsearch database belonged to Adorcam, an app for viewing and controlling several webcam models including Zeeporte and Umino cameras. Security researcher Justin Paine discovered the data exposure and contacted Adorcam, which secured the database..."

Disney Plus hits 94.9 million subscribers, beating its four-year goal in 14 months

"Disney Plus reached a new high of 94.9 million subscribers around the world, the company announced in its Q1 2021 earnings report. Hulu now has 39.4 million subscribers, while ESPN Plus has 12.1 million subscribers..."