This (mostly) bi-weekly serves to inform and enlighten our minds on latest happenings in the sprawling countryside we call WordPress Land.
Release News
- WordPress 5.2 is out and includes two big improvements: Site Health Check and PHP Error Protection, as well as a bunch of accessibility improvements, new dashicons, and more.
- Investigations into simplifying the WP Admin nav and improving the UX have started. It will be very interesting to see how this shapes up and what the ultimate direction ends up being. One thing’s for sure though: no matter what approach is taken, there will probably be a good number of people upset about it!
Extending WordPress
- Advanced Custom Fields 5.8.0 has released, bringing with it the ability to create custom Gutenberg blocks with PHP rather than just React. This is a huge lead in utility for a plugin that already solved so many problems and a great example of a premium plugin development team identifying gaps in the core WP product and filling them.
- Jetpack 7.3 dropped recently and brings better usability to the plugin itself, a new membership block, and a bunch more.
- My go-to plugin for migrating sites and keeping environments in-sync is WP Migrate DB Pro. The author is currently in the process of updating the plugin from jQuery to React and wrote up a deep dive into the process.
Grab Bag
- Tickets for WordCamp US 2019, November 1–3, 2019, in St. Louis, MO, are on sale for $50.
- So remember when there was all that controversy over the WordPress accessibility team raising alarms over the accessibility problems in Gutenberg? Well WPCampus contracted a third party (Tenon, LLC) to conduct an audit. The results were…not good. “Gutenberg has significant and pervasive accessibility problems, the likes of which amount to a step backwards for users with disabilities over the legacy editor.” As usual, WPTavern has a great rundown and analysis.
“Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.” – John Steinbeck