This Week in WordPress #163

Welcome

Issue #163

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

GiveWP Acquired by Liquid Web
Robert Jacobi joins Cloudways as Director of WordPress
GeneratePress Premium 2.0 Releases with first Block based Theme Builder
Gravity Forms: Introducing the New 2.5 Features: Accessibility

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 #163 - "Get Robert on Speeddial"

Recorded on Monday 17th May 2021. With Nathan Wrigley, Paul Lacey, Ronald Gijsel, Joe Casabona and Topher DeRosia.

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 5.7.2 Security Release

"This security release features one security fix. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated..."

Gutenberg 10.6 Adds Duotone Filters, Query Pattern Carousel, and Most-Used Tags Selector

"The Gutenberg development team has taken massive strides in the latest release. Version 10.6 of the plugin introduces several user-facing features and changes that upgrade the block-editing experience. The new duotone filter for images is just downright fun to play with. The UIs for the Query pattern selector and template-editing mode have been overhauled. Plus, the most-used tags feature from the pre-block era is making a return..."

Community

GiveWP Joins the Liquid Web Family of Brands

"Today, I’m excited to announce that GiveWP is now a part of the Liquid Web family. If you use GiveWP for fundraising, this is exciting news for you as well..."

Robert Jacobi Joins Cloudways as Director WordPress Business

"Cloudways is excited to announce the joining of Robert Jacobi, an industry vetaran, to the team as Director of WordPress. Robert will be leading the WordPress business unit with their strategic partnerships, building community engagement and helping establish new channels of outreach and building brand equity..."

New WordPress Design Course

"We just published a brand new training course on designing sites in WordPress. It covers essential design theory and how to apply it to your own projects built with Toolset..."

Announcing Cloudflare Images beta to simplify your image pipeline

"Today, we are announcing the beta of Cloudflare Images: a simple service to store, resize, optimize, and deliver images at scale..."

Musings, ninja ones: Avoiding Busses

"Maybe as few as two people would have to wake up this morning and decide they want to do something different with their lives in order for the PHP project to lack the expertise and resources to move it forward in its current form, and at current pace..."

Upcoming Webinar: Making Online Summits Work With Nathan Wrigley

Are you planning to host your first online event in the near future? Has your experience hosting online events been a small fiasco? Join Cory Miller, Post Status partner, in a conversation with Nathan Wrigley (WPBuilds) and Anchen le Roux (Simply Digital Design) for an interactive webinar about setting up and running online events that work. Learn the ins and outs of effective online event hosting from planning to execution with us. RSVP for free today!

Accessibility Advocates Sign Open Letter Urging People Not To Use AccesiBe and Other Overlay Products

"AccessiBe and other similar tools are coming under fire after more than 400 accessibility advocates and developers signed an open letter calling on the industry to unite against the use of accessibility overlay products. These overlay “widgets” are technologies that apply third-party code to the front end in an attempt to automate repairs after sites launch without having accessibility baked in from the design phase..."

FSE Outreach Round #6: Building a WordCamp Landing Page via the Template Editor

"As has almost become ritual at this point, I am always looking forward to the next testing round for Full Site Editing (FSE). Spearheaded by core contributor Anne McCarthy, the FSE Outreach Program’s fortnightly user tests are usually fun and offer everyone a chance to get involved, regardless of their experience level..."

WordPress Community Team Discusses Adding Vaccination Status to In-Person Meetup Safety Checklist

"The WordPress community is eager to return to in-person events and organizers are discussing a path to ensure the safety of resuming meetups as a first step before considering WordCamps. Previous discussions led to the creation of a checklist to assist local organizers in determining if their chapter is eligible to proceed. Noticeably absent from the checklist at the time was the requirement for widely distributed vaccines before resuming local events..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

Stackable Integrates with ACF

"We heard you! Advanced Custom Fields is now integrated with Stackable. For those whose best friends are custom fields, this integration is for you..."

You asked. We listened. Announcing Big changes to StudioPress!

ProPlus customers will get access to Genesis Blocks Pro and Genesis Custom Blocks Pro for FREE. Genesis Framework and the Sample Theme will be available for free.

Introducing the New 2.5 Features: Accessibility

"Last week Gravity Forms 2.5 went live - with this release you'll find a re-designed form editor that provides a beautiful new look and feel as well as new ways of working. However, alongside the form editor, 2.5 saw a major push on accessibility, helping to position Gravity Forms as the #1 form builder for accessibility on the market..."

What’s new in version 2.5 of the Groundhogg Booking Calendar!

"One of the biggest complaints was that the frontend design of the Groundhogg Booking Calendar was ugly, and to be fair it wasn’t the sexiest. It could be modified with custom CSS but no one wants to put up with that..."

Genesis Framework To Become Free, StudioPress Announces Changes

"Yesterday, StudioPress announced several changes to its themes and marketplace coming on or around June 8. For those outside its community, the company will be making its Genesis Framework available for free. The company is overhauling its marketplace, no longer selling individual themes..."

iThemes Security Pro 7.0 is Coming and It's Going To Be EPIC!

"We are on the threshold of the biggest release in the history of iThemes Security Pro! Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, update to get the change..."

Deals

Celebrating 7 Years! Get up to $30 off GeneratePress Premium!

Great theme at a great price, with new block based theme builder!

40% off Gridbuilder ᵂᴾ

Use coupon code BIRTHDAY40 to get 40% off all licenses including the lifetime deal.

Sticker Mule - Cheap Stickers!

Anyone not like stickers, no, I thought not. These are great, and cheap!

Security

WordPress Vulnerability Report: May 2021, Part 2

"Vulnerable plugins and themes are the #1 reason WordPress websites get hacked. 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..."

WordPress 5.7.2 Security Release: What You Need to Know

"On May 13, 2021 01:00 UTC, WordPress core released a security patch for a Critical Object Injection vulnerability in PHPMailer, the component that WordPress uses to send emails by default. If your site is set to allow auto updating of minor point releases, your site has probably already updated to WordPress 5.7.2..."

Critical Vulnerability Patched in External Media Plugin

"On February 2, 2021, our Threat Intelligence team responsibly disclosed the details of a vulnerability in External Media, a WordPress plugin used by over 8,000 sites. This flaw made it possible for authenticated users, such as subscribers, to upload arbitrary files on any site running the plugin. This vulnerability could be used to achieve remote code execution and take over a WordPress site..."

WP Builds

Creating Custom Sales Funnels For WooCommerce with LaunchFlows - WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast #229

In today’s world there is no difference between “digital” and “physical” products insofar as the transactional engine of your website is concerned. While it may have been true in the past that certain products like EDD were focused on capabilities for those who sell digitally licensed subscription software, that is no longer a factor, as the capability exists for WooCommerce to do everything. Since WooCommerce is one of the most popular plugins in the entire WordPress ecosystem, why “wouldn’t” anyone use it for all purposes? And that's what the podcast is about today, a plugin called LaunchFlows which will help you supercharge your WooCommerce store. Go listen...

Not WordPress, but useful anyway…

Amazon makes its lossless music streaming service a free upgrade

On the heels of this morning’s announcement of Apple’s next-generation music service featuring lossless audio and spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos, Amazon is making a move likely aimed at retaining its own streaming music subscribers. The company says that going forward, its high-quality streaming tier, Amazon Music HD, will be made available to all eligible Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers at no extra cost.