This Week in WordPress #161

Welcome

Issue #161

Another week, and we're bringing you the latest WordPress news from the last seven days, including...

The Patterns Directory is due to land in WordPress 5.8
The Page Builder Summit is open for registrations
Lots of news about CC search and how that's going to work in the future
Quite a few plugin updates
and Google Argentina available for $2!

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!

No 'This Week in WordPress' Show this week

It's a public holiday in the U.K. this week, and so we thought that we'd give ourselves the day off, but we'll be back next week and there's plenty in this newsletter to keep you going!

WordPress Core

Pattern Directory Targeted to Launch with WordPress 5.8

"Last month WordPress contributors published the initial designs for the upcoming pattern directory, which will host community-submitted patterns that can be installed with one click from the block inserter in the editor. A live prototype of the work in progress is available at wordpress.org/patterns..."

Community

CC Search to join WordPress.org

"The WordPress community has long advocated for a repository with GPL-compatible images, and it’s time to listen to that need. CC Search, a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) image search engine, is joining the WordPress project with over 500 million openly licensed and public domain images discoverable from over 50 sources, audio and video soon to come..."

Creative Commons Search to Relaunch on WordPress.org

"The Creative Commons search engine will soon be part of WordPress.org, as Automattic will begin sponsoring several members of the CC Search team to maintain it. The engine currently offers over 500 million images, audio, and videos, under Creative Commons licenses or the public domain, aggregating more than 45 different sources..."

New WordPress Make Team

"we are thrilled to bring the Creative Commons Search product into the WordPress Community. The new name for the product will be Openverse and will eventually live at https://wordpress.org/openverse. There are many logistics and steps to work through as we grow and build out a new WordPress team and focus..."

Automatically Catching Bugs in Plugins

"Static code analysis could help to catch bugs, and inform developers how to fix them. It could also reduce the amount of time the Plugin team spends doing manual reviews. The Coding Standards project has already built an extensive set of PHPCS sniffs, and the Meta team has prototyped a custom PHPCS standard for the Plugin Repository. Would something like that be useful? If so, what exactly should it check for...?"

Companies Running Competitive Ads Against WordPress May Soon be Banned from Sponsoring WordCamps

"The WordPress Community Team is discussing banning companies from sponsoring WordCamps if they advertise competitively against WordPress. A WordCamp organizing team recently brought the concern to community deputies regarding a potential sponsor that is advertising its product in such a way that it puts WordPress in 'an unflattering light'"...

Call for Sponsors - WordFest Live 2021

"WordFest Live – a global 24-hour celebration of WordPress – will bring our community together in a safe environment. We are enabling freedom of movement to connect with people within the virtual event space. This is your opportunity to be part of something unique, view packages..."

FLoC Blocking Discussion Continues on WordPress Trac

"Last week WordPress contributors began a heated discussion regarding blocking FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts). Google’s experimental alternative to third-party cookies has become a highly contentious topic that made its way into last week’s Core developers meeting..."

One.com owner snaps up WordPress experts WP Media

WP Media will continue to operate as an independent brand". The parent company of web services brand one.com, group.ONE, has acquired WordPress-focussed website performance company WP Media..."

Cloudways Joins the Million Tree Challenge

"Starting from this Earth Day, we want to do our part to support the Green Movement. This begins with a robust company-wide initiative..."

Alpha Particle and Flowspoke Acquire Kanban for WordPress for $15K

"Digital consultancies Alpha Particle and Flowspoke have acquired the Kanban for WordPress plugin, a tool that puts Kanban boards into the admin to measure progress on a goal. The plugin is used for agile project management, sales tracking, editorial scheduling, and other planning purposes..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

WooCommerce Invests in PeachPay

"More money flowing in the WordPress economy. Today we get the announcement in Business Insider (paywalled), PeachPay, a one-click checkout startup created by recent college grads, is looking to compete with red-hot startups Bolt and Fast as e-commerce booms:PeachPay, which launched in January..."

Big things coming your way in Stackable V3

"We’ve got a big update rolling out very soon! New blocks. New features. Better functionality. And a whole new way of building with Stackable..."

Elementor Update Addresses Core Web Vitals

"WordPress page builder plugin publisher Elementor announced an update that introduces improvements meant to deliver better Core Web Vitals scores..."

Gutenberg 10.5 Embeds PDFs, Adds Verse Block Color Options, and Introduces New Patterns

"Sometimes, such is life on the bleeding edge, or at least life when running the fortnightly releases of the Gutenberg plugin with automatic updates enabled. It presents a challenge or two or a hundred. I had let my guard down after a smooth 10.4 release, and I knew better..."

Security

WordPress Vulnerability Report: April 2021, Part 4

"This report covers recent WordPress plugin, theme, and core vulnerabilities and what to do if you run one of the vulnerable plugins or themes on your website..."

WP Builds

Building websites in a day with your team - WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast #227

I’ve often thought about building my WordPress websites on the one day model, it’s got so much going for it. I’ve heard stories of quite a few people who are managing this very effectively. However, it’s always been something that I’ve associated with a single freelancer. I’d always assumed that the margins were pretty tight, and therefore most likely to work with one person. Not so, it would appear!

This Week in WordPress #161 May 4th 2021