This Week in WordPress #152

Welcome

Issue #152

Another week, and we're bringing you the latest WordPress news from the last seven days, including (but not limited to)...

WordPress has a new release candidate to test out with a new password reset option, as well as the groundworks for some security updates in the future
Bluehost might have misused the WordPress brand, but will anything be done about it?
FSE gets some more updates and we have a demo of how you might be able to use that in the future
Plus there's updates to the way that you can build dynamic sites with GeneratePress and Oxygen

There's a whole lot more than this, as there is each and every week, and you can find all that by scrolling down and clicking on the links!

This Week in WordPress

This Week in WordPress #152 - "Who should be on that page?"

Recorded on Monday 22nd February 2021. With Nathan Wrigley, Paul Lacey, Bernhard Gronau and Tim Nash.

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

WordPress 5.6.2 Maintenance Release

"This maintenance release includes 5 bug fixes. These bugs affect WordPress version 5.6.1, so you’ll want to upgrade..."

WordPress 5.7 Release Candidate

What’s in WordPress 5.7? Robots API and Media Search Engine Visibility, Detect HTTPS support, Lazy-load iframes, jQuery migrate-related Deprecation notice clean-up, Admin color palette standardization, The newest version of the Gutenberg plugin."

WordPress 5.7 Lets Administrators Send Password Reset Links

"It’s that time in the release cycle when all the dev notes are rolling out ahead of the next major update. These notes include technical summaries of all the goodies coming in the next release. If you haven’t been paying close attention, there are always a few happy surprises in there that pop up as conclusions to tickets that contributors have been working on for years..."

Community

WordPress search trends for 2020: amazing for WooCommerce, good for plugins, bad for themes

"WordPress is the most dominant CMS by a huge margin, and by one measure it recently passed a 40% share of all websites. As a community, though, we have a relatively poor understanding of specifically what drives WordPress’ growth. If we don’t understand why WordPress grows, we won’t be able to evaluate opportunities or respond appropriately if the growth rate ever changes..."

Bluehost Misuses WordPress Trademark, Reigniting Controversy Over Recommended Hosts Page

"Bluehost was called out this week for misusing WordPress’ trademark, as the WordPress Foundation prohibits its use in advertising. The company has been featured on WordPress’ recommended hosting page for the past 16 years, as one of a handful of hosts that have been arbitrarily selected based on an incomplete list of criteria..."

Last Week in WooCommerce: WooCommerce Growth

"This last week I pulled the data below, which suggests WooCommerce isn't just for the small stores anymore. We had more than 100 stores doing over $1,000,000 in revenue last year, with an average order was just under $150..."

WCPUB Meetup: Career Growth and Development in WordPress and Beyond

"What are some of the memorable moments in your career that significantly helped you grow—or impeded your professional development? Our first WordCamp for Publishers meetup in 2021 focuses on growth and career development..."

Working at Yoast during the COVID-19 pandemic

"Working during a global pandemic is hard. Still, from the start, we have a guiding motto – we do what we can and, together, we make the best of it! Here is how it has been going so far..."

eBooks - PowerPack for Elementor

"Comprehensive & Detailed eBooks To Understand & Learn Elementor Better. These eBooks help you streamline your work process and assist you in building websites using Elementor. From getting started with Elementor basics to creating a fully-functional e-commerce website, we’ve got you covered...!"

FSE Outreach Round #2: Building a Custom Homepage With Gutenberg’s Site Editor

"Anne McCarthy announced the second round of testing for the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program. The call for testing asks that users build a homepage from the Gutenberg plugin’s site editor. Feedback is open until March 5..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

GP Premium 2.0 - Introducing the GP Theme Builder!

"GP Premium 2.0 brings you theme building using the core block editor and the GenerateBlocks plugin. Do you want stunning page heroes, personalized post meta, or custom sidebars & footers? You got that. Or maybe a custom author box without adding a plugin or writing code? How about your very own custom element populated with custom field content? But what if you could build your own single posts and post archive templates? Well… you got that too...!"

Oxygen 3.7 Now Available

Introducing native CSS grid and the Composite Elements library. In This Release...CSS Grid,, Composite Elements library (subscription based add-on), 16 Bug Fixes & Tweaks..."

Code refactoring, compatibility, user interface and experience enhancements – SEOPress 4.4 update release

Since the beginning of the year, we have launched the complete refactoring of the plugin, starting with the generation of titles and metas. Ultimately, this will allow better maintainability of the code, better performance and greater flexibility for developers. Indeed, our objective this year is to offer a Rest API to retrieve all the data generated by SEOPress and thus allow the construction of static (headless) websites.

GraphQL API vs WPGraphQL: the fight!

It's a fun take on this difficult subject!

"Welcome to the MGM Grand Garden Arena for the bout of the century! Tonight, we are making history. Two young fighters will face each other out in the ring, clashing for the prize they have worked so hard for... To become the "GraphQL in WordPress" world champion..."

The Gutenberg WordPress Plugin To Introduce a Table of Contents Block

"What was once likely viewed as plugin territory is now a reality as part of the Gutenberg project. Yesterday, the team merged a pull request for a Table of Contents (TOC) block into the plugin’s codebase. It was a contribution driven by developer Zebulan Stanphill, starting nearly a year ago..."

Build a Full WordPress Site via Block Patterns With the Hansen Theme

"Earlier today, the WordPress theme directory welcomed its fourth block-based theme. Built by UXL Themes, Hansen is one of the more stylish projects capable of working with the site editor in the Gutenberg plugin. The theme author also stepped it up a notch and included several block patterns..."

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..."

WP Builds

'E' is for eCommerce #218 of the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast

It’s another of our chats in the series called the ‘A-Z of WordPress’, where we attempt to cover all the major aspects to building and maintaining sites with WP. Today is ‘E’ for… Ecommerce...

Not WordPress, but useful anyway…

Changes to LastPass Free

"We’re making changes to how Free users access LastPass across device types. LastPass offers access across two device types – computers (including all browsers running on desktops and laptops) or mobile devices (including mobile phones, smart watches, and tablets). Starting March 16th, 2021, LastPass Free will only include access on unlimited devices of one type..."