This bi-weekly serves to inform and enlighten our minds on latest happenings in the sprawling countryside we call WordPress Land.
Release News
- So I keep talking about the Gutenberg project but I’m not sure I’m doing justice to how drastic of a leap this will be in the world of WordPress. Thankfully, other people are better writers than I am. Morten Rand-Hendriksen has done a bang up job of really laying out what the project means to the WordPress community, users, and the potentially revolutionary effect it could have on the platform.
- A new WP REST API Roadmap has been published, laying out the two primary goals for the immediate future of the API: using the API in the admin, and authentication for external applications. They also discuss why things have slowed down a bit in the WP REST API realm as of late, which boils down to a lack of contributors. So maybe you…yes YOU…should help out rather than just complaining all the time.
- Speaking of the REST API, Torque recently published a tutorial on how to use the API to query multiple post types in one request. It’s a very specific solution to a targeted problem and I don’t normally link to stuff like that, but I wanted to mention it because it’s a good example of Torque’s developer-centric tutorials that they regularly publish. It’s a resource worth bookmarking.
- In order to make support for WordPress more streamlined, core developers have been kicking around the idea of auto updating sites running WP 3.7 – 4.0 up to version 4.1. This would be a break with the standard practice of only auto updating for minor security and maintenance releases, but I’m a dedicated WordPress professional and as such, the sites I manage are always up to date, so this doesn’t worry me.
Extending WordPress
- WooCommerce has a new Amazon Fulfillment addon for people who love selling things but hate doing the actual work of sending those sold items to buyers. The addon has some powerful features like auto stock syncing, tracking, manually sending orders, and more. If you want to use it, don’t forget to get an Amazon Pro Seller merchant account and an active Fulfillment by Amazon service, or you’ll probably be pretty disappointed.
- WordPress now allows plugin authors to specify a minimum PHP version requirement, which is a solid move since WP core supports all the way back to PHP 5.2 and plugin authors shouldn’t be obligated to do the same.
Grab Bag
- WooConf, the annual WooCommerce Developers Conference is currently running a 2 for 1 deal on tickets. Considering tickets are $699, that’s a pretty solid deal.
- The third WordPress Global Translation Day will be held on September 30th. The “global” in the title seems awfully limiting and probably means we won’t see a Huttese translation so I’m out.
“What’s talent but the ability to get away with something?” -Tennessee Williams