In this week’s edition: WordPress handbook, deployment by Buddy, page builder comparison & much more…
I live in Oleśnica and am a dedicated developer & open source software contributor. I work at Automattic where I code in JavaScript & develop block editor in WordPress core. When I’m not coding, I prefer to spend my time with my family travelling and discovering new places (not in the middle of pandemic though). I’m a big basketball fan and I still like to play with my friends.
My choices are inevitably connected with Gutenberg block editor that I have been incessantly working on for over 3 years now courtesy of Automattic. I assume that a great part of the community got used to creating content with blocks and some can’t imagine going back to a classic editor. In the nearest future it will get even better as first themes based entirely on the new approach to whole site management have already appeared.
Work on Full Site Editing (FSE), i.e., the possibility of editing whole website with WordPress blocks is gaining momentum. The last iteration of Gutenberg plugin introduced changes that automatically add a new edition page for themes compatible with FSE (e.g., Q). It’s worth mentioning that currently it replaces Customizer pages & Widgets.
If You want to know more on creating FSE theme entirely based on blocks concept, Fränk Klein shares his thoughts on rewriting his Bosco theme from 2014.
In the end, for those who haven’t had an opportunity to experiment with creating their own blocks, I recommend official WordPress tutorial – it should simplify the whole process.
Black Friday is coming, so most companies are preparing 50-90% discounts. Weglot is an exception to the rule – they decided to donate 50% of their entire daily profit for charity. I truly believe it is an attitude worth following.
Doing things differently this Black Friday
It appears that from a technical point of view WordPress is the biggest winner of American election. As Donald Trump’s campaign website, based on Expression Engine, was hacked on the 27th of October, this success seems even greater.
Infinum owns a magnificent handbook on WP – you can find useful information & many tricks there. Apart from the handbook itself, I really like the philosophy of creating them. It’s a pity that only few companies share their knowledge so openly.
LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. Trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
A great piece on what to test & how to do it. I really like the author’s reasonable approach; he also enumerates consequences of writing tests (you guessed it, that’s another thing that needs to be maintained).
Weight comparison of various Page Builders. I must admit that it is really impressive how Brizi has grown since December 2018. It’s a pity that the comparison is missing Gutenberg.
See how you can automate WordPress deployments on Digital Ocean with Buddy. I strongly recommend this solution and still am amazed how we used to transfer files manually through FTP.
ClassifAI is a truly unique plugin masterfully using AI in WordPress. The latest version received OCR (reading texts from images) and embeds from FB & Instagram. Latest FB moves involving oEmbed show why it’s always worth having a backup of your content.
Envato (renowned for Theme Forest or Code Canyon) announced that their community earned over 1 billion dollars by selling products on their platform.
WP Tavern draws attention to the other side of the coin concerning Envato profit – i.e. subscription allowing for unlimited downloads. While it’s viable for users (some catches aside), it’s not so much for the creators.
Metabox.io describes how to create clear PHP code with WordPress in mind.
Despite of current pandemic there are still employers who switch to remote work pretty reluctantly. Here’s a short tutorial how to persuade them to change their mind.
If you use Local & want to play with Full Site Editing, use this Blueprint. It’ll install all required elements in no time at all.
WordCamps finally received a better structure for their URLs.