WordPress Digest #49

This bi-weekly serves to inform and enlighten our minds on latest happenings in the sprawling countryside we call WordPress Land. After being discovered using WordPress for a personal blog, a high crime in Drupalville, the Prime Minister of Drupalville has started investigating his powers to pardon himself.

Release News

  • There were some issues with the WP 4.8 WYSIWYG widget stripping out some users’ custom html. Word on the street is WP 4.8.1 will contain a dedicated “Custom HTML” widget to avoid these issues. And yes, it’s a very boring street.
  • The new Gutenberg content editor is still in development but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to start looking into how to develop for it and create custom content blocks. If that sort of thing sounds like your bag, check out the Gutenberg Boilerplate For Third Party Custom Blocks.

Extending WordPress

  • Version 2.0 of the Members plugin, a user role manager, has just released and includes a slew of feature additions like the ability to register custom capabilities, assign multiple roles to users, authentication of users for WP REST API endpoints, and more.
  • WordPress.com and JetPack premium have added functionality for scheduling social media sharing of WP posts. Not a bad addition for sites already making use of several JetPack features.

Grab Bag

  • All right so I’ve made jokes about the anti-spam plugin WangGuard before, because come on, but now the service has been shut down by it’s creator because he’s sick of getting death threats from the mafia. Seriously.
  • Still not clear on WP template hierarchy? Well here’s a nifty interactive diagram to help you.
  • I guess 24% of the anticipated attendees for WordCamp Europe didn’t show up. I can only hope their drunk tickets for the meet and greet were distributed amongst the other attendees to ease the pain of being stood up.

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” -Charles Spurgeon