The WordPress Accessibility Team is organizing a new online event called WP Accessibility Day that will take place on October 2, 2020. The event will feature 24 hours of educational sessions that focus on the intersection between WordPress and web accessibility. Inspired by the Polyglots’ Global Translation Day, which greatly expanded the team’s base of […]
Matt Mullenweg joined Matías Ventura at WordCamp Spain yesterday for a lively Q&A session. The virtual event drew 5,000 registered users, and attendees came prepared with some thought-provoking questions about the future of WordPress. Here are a few highlights on some recent topics of interest. WordCamps around the globe have been going virtual, embracing the
It is not often that I come across a free WordPress theme that instantly impresses me. Far too often, I spend half an hour or more just getting to know a theme, checking its options, and figuring out how long it will take to recreate something that looks remotely like the demo. However, every now
Earlier this week, Sajjad Hossain Sagor released the first version of his Drag & Drop Menu Items plugin in the WordPress plugin repository. The plugin is a one-off, single-use plugin that does exactly what its name describes — it allows end-users to drag menu items from the meta boxes on the nav menu screen to
You’ve probably never heard of Robert B. Strassler. That’s OK, you’re not alone. Early in his career, Strassler worked in oil fields, but he always had an interest in the classics (the formal designation for the studies of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations). Eventually, Strassler’s hobby became an obsession. He went so far as to author his
How do you know what blocks are in use on a WordPress site? I recently saw a tweet asking this question in regards to knowing whether it is safe to turn off a plugin. This seems like it could become a common question, especially for those who have hundreds or thousands of blog posts as
It is inevitable that when we publish a story on the Tavern that is remotely related to the block editor or the Gutenberg project, we receive negative comments. Despite sprinting along in its second year as part of core WordPress, there are still those who liken posts on the editor to Soviet-style mind manipulation and
The pandemic has caused economic hardships and upheaval in nearly every industry. Open source communities and contributors have been affected in a myriad of ways – whether it’s a loss of donations, the burden of nonrefundable travel expenses for canceled conferences, or severely diminished business and fundraising opportunities. FOSS Responders is a working group of
The three-person Block Lab team of Luke Carbis, Ryan Kienstra, and Rob Stinson is joining WP Engine to work on the company’s block editor projects. WP Engine approached the team members after seeing how successful the Block Lab project had grown and made them an offer. The team will be able to continue building projects
WordCamp US 2020 organizers have cancelled the in-person event in favor of hosting it as an online-only conference. With more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. today, 63,000+ deaths, and 31 states set to partially reopen this weekend, the pandemic’s trajectory throughout the country has become increasingly uncertain. Many statewide stay-at-home orders
WordCamp Europe 2020 is just 37 days away. Organizers announced in April that the event, which was supposed to be hosted in Porto, is moving to be 100% online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. WCEU will kick off with a virtual Contributor Day on June 4, followed by two half days of talks
Laying out a webpage design and getting every element aligned perfectly can be a tough job. Even many developers rely on CSS grid frameworks. Granted, with the introduction of the flexbox and grid systems in the CSS language, such frameworks are becoming unnecessary. Whether it is getting the vertical and horizontal rhythm down or simply
While much of the world is in lockdown, public gatherings and conferences have been cancelled, leaving a void in the lives of people who enjoy meeting their fellow open source contributors and colleagues in person throughout the year. Virtual events, which were already on the rise, are enjoying a bit of a renaissance by necessity.
WP Feedback is running a virtual event from April 27 – May 1. The event is primarily geared toward WordPress professionals who are looking to scale their business. It will feature CEOs, designers, freelancers, and more from the WordPress space. Between five and seven video sessions will be available each new day of the event.
Chatterbox is a new plugin with a fun and creative use for the block editor. It displays chat or text threads using blocks that are styled as conversations. Users can type in a record of a chat, including timestamps, with a live preview in the editor. Since written conversations are essentially little blocks of text
Dashicons, the WordPress admin icon font, is now closed to new icon requests. After the block editor adopted the approach of using SVG icons directly, WordPress design contributors have recently reevaluated the efforts going into the Dashicons project. The team decided to wrap up existing tickets for new icons, push out a final release, and
All of the recordings from the free WPBlockTalk virtual event are now available on WordPress.tv. In case you missed it, WPBlockTalk was a WordPress community event sponsored by Automattic, and produced by Brian Richards, creator of WPSessions. It took place earlier this month on April 2, though some of its momentum may have been lost
Ihave been thinking a lot about digital gardens this week. A blog post by Tom McFarlin re-introduced me to the term, which led me down a rabbit hole of interesting ideas on creating a digital space that is more personalized and tended in a way that is antithetical to the chronological blog. The concept of
As many countries around the world are currently in some form of lockdown to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, the hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit by the new restrictions. Restaurants and breweries in particular have had to radically change how they do business and either lay off or furlough the
On Tuesday, GitHub announced a change to its plans that would make collaboration between developers much cheaper. Free, in fact. Anyone can launch an organization for at no charge with unlimited public and private repositories. The change also includes an unlimited number of collaborators. This will be good news for small WordPress development teams without
