This Week in WordPress #164

Welcome

Issue #164

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

A shiny new plugin to automate the creation of social media images
ProfilePress in the dog house for their 'jam packed' plugin update
2 online events to attend
Automattic has lots of jobs
Bye bye IE...

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 #164 - "A lively debate"

Recorded on Monday 17th May 2021. With Nathan Wrigley, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Spencer Forman.

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

Dropping support for Internet Explorer 11

"When WordPress 5.8 is released in July of this year, Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported..." Yay!

Community

ProfilePress Rebrands and Repurposes WP User Avatar, Now a Membership Plugin, Users Revolt via the WordPress Review System

"Less than two weeks after publishing about the broken user experience of the former Dark Mode plugin being renamed and repurposed, another plugin development company decided to do the same. The consensus seems to be that this is a bad idea. However, the ProfilePress Team renamed and repurposed the WP User Avatar plugin..."

#3 – Benjamin Intal on Why He’s Betting His Business on Blocks

On the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast we're talking to Benjamin Intal from Stackable, which is suite of WordPress blocks. We talk about why he's betting his business on blocks and how the company have evolved their product line over the last three years. From a period in which the adoption of blocks was uncertain to now, in which blocks appear to be gaining more momentum. What problems did they encounter along the way and how they iterated their offering.

Changelog #44 - Gutenberg 10.6 Release, Features Coming to WordPress 5.8, and Theme Settings in Theme.json

"Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss the Gutenberg 10.6 release, Features Coming to WordPress 5.8, Theme Settings in Theme.json and What’s in Active Development..."

Custom Post Type UI Hits 1 Million Active Installations

"Recently, our plugin, Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI) achieved a major milestone. Over 1,000,000 WordPress websites have actively installed CPTUI, a plugin which was born from necessity. Back in early 2010, the roadmap for the next WordPress release was being defined by the core contributor team. It was clear that a big marquee feature shipping in WordPress 3.0 was the introduction of Custom Post Types (CPTs)..."

How to Run WordPress as a Headless CMS With Next.js (In 3 Steps)

"Headless WordPress gives you greater control over your content and the freedom to build a completely custom front end. However, the process of configuring and designing this presentation layer isn’t always easy. That’s where having a solid development framework comes into play..."

WordSesh 2021, May 24-28

"A virtual conference for WordPress developers featuring hands-on workshops, incredible sessions, great swag, and an amazing community..."

Summit/2021 – Save the Date for WP Engine’s Virtual Conference

"Summit/2021, WP Engine’s all-digital event for developers and marketers is back on June 24th and Registration is completely free..."

StellarWP

"StellarWP is Liquid Web's home for the most trusted commerce and non-profit plugins on WordPress..."

Plugins / Themes / Blocks

Automatic Social Images For WordPress - Social Image Generator

"Social Image Generator is a WordPress plugin that automatically creates social share images for your content, saving you hours of tedious work..."

ACF 5.9.6 Release

"Advanced Custom Fields version 5.9.6 is now available. This release contains a number of important bug fixes for both the ACF and ACF PRO plugins, which we hope you enjoy..."

Changelog – Bricks 1.2

"Bricks 1.2 introduces the long-awaited "Container" element, which is replacing the "old" section, row, column layout..."

No More Accidental Custom Plugin Overrides, WordPress 5.8 To Allow Developers To Set Plugin Hostname

"Almost since the dawn of the plugin and theme upgrade mechanisms inclusion in core over a decade ago, third-party developers have asked for an easy way to bypass the system. WordPress 5.8 will finally deliver on this feature request..."

Upgrade Your Publishing Flow with the Post Descriptions WordPress Plugin

"Tom de Visser, a developer from Amsterdam, released the Post Descriptions plugin last week. It was his first submission to the WordPress.org plugin repository. It allows users to write short descriptions on a per-post basis, which are then displayed on the post-management screen..."

Toolset Blocks 1.5.2 - New Theme Integrations and Even Better Performance and Compatibility

"We’re introducing three new theme integrations, faster images, compatibility with new WooCommerce add-ons, and improved compatibility with other themes and plugins..."

Blocksy Theme Expands Free Starter Site Collection, Plans to Create New Suite of Blocks

"...the team plans to release 3-4 more starter sites in the near future, targeting different niches, including blogger, agency, lawyers, wedding, and music/bands..."

WP Migrate DB Pro 2.0 Released: New React-Powered UI, New Media Files Addon, Remote Plugin Updates, and More

"Can you believe it’s been almost two and a half years since our last major release! It’s been a long time coming, but we’re pleased to announce that WP Migrate DB Pro 2.0 is ready for the big time..."

New YITH Multi Currency Switcher plugin

"It has been in the pipeline for a while to develop our own multi-currency plugin and it’s finally here: the key tool if you plan to sell products and services to an international audience and offer your customers the best buying experience ever, no matter where they are..."

Deals

60% off Formidable Forms

To celebrate 10 million installs, Formidable Forms are offering 60% off with coupon code...
10million

Security

Over 600,000 Sites Impacted by WP Statistics Patch

"On March 13, 2021, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated responsible disclosure for a vulnerability in WP Statistics, a plugin installed on over 600,000 WordPress sites. The vulnerability allowed any site visitor to extract sensitive information from a site’s database via Time-Based Blind SQL Injection..."

WordPress Vulnerability Report: May 2021, Part 3

"Vulnerable plugins and themes are the #1 reason WordPress websites get hacked. The weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report powered by WPScan 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

'K' is for Killer Tips - WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast #230

In this episode of the podcast we asked you submit what you thought were some Killer Tips for creating your WordPress websites, and you did not disappoint! So there's loads of useful little nuggets of information in here, many of them might be new to you. It never ceases to amaze me just how my processes differ from other people doing the exact same job, and how much I could learn from other WordPress professionals. Well in this episode of the podcast, we kinda make that possible! Go check it out!

Jobs

Work With Us – Automattic

"Want to make the web a better place for more than a billion people each month? We’re hiring..." That's a LOT of jobs!

Not WordPress, but useful anyway…

Advertisers flee to Android as majority of iOS users opt out of ad tracking

"According to data from the Post-IDFA Alliance, only 36.5% of iOS 14.5 users are opting in to ad tracking, which is causing an advertiser exodus to Android..."

Google Aims to “Revitalize RSS” and Recapture Users’ Trust with Experimental Follow Button in Chrome

"The internet was set abuzz yesterday after Google officially confirmed that it has been testing a Follow button for websites in Chrome. In February, the publishers of Chrome Story spotted the button on Canary for Android, and speculated that it may be integrated with Google’s Discover feature. Chrome announced that it is building on RSS to allow users to follow websites..."