[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, Gutenberg version 11.0 is released with new features and a massive amount of bug fixes. The development team has been working hard in preparation for WordPress 5.8. You can check out a full list of the updates in the release notes. Beyond that, the second release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available. If you haven’t tested its features yet, now is the time before the final release on July 20. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingMonthly Archives: July 2021
Awesome Motive Acquires SearchWP – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Awesome Motive, the company behind MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, WPForms, and several other popular products, has acquired SearchWP, a commercial plugin that enhances WordPress’ search functionality. No changes have been announced for the plugin and Awesome Motive CEO Syed Balkhi says it will be “business as usual” for current customers. “We have built a lot of internal tools to improve our website search that I’m really looking forward to sharing with the WordPress community,” Balkhi said. “We will be combining Jon’s vision with our own experience, so you can literally have the best search plugin in the industry without the high costs.” In 2013, when Jon Christopher launched SearchWP, he quickly carved out a slice of the WordPress search market among early competitors. The freemium model was already popular in those days with plugins like Relevanssi, but Christopher chose to launch SearchWP as a commercial-only product. “There was already freemium competition, and I felt that the pricing model (which is the same today) was stronger given the product itself,” Christopher said. “I saw the pricing model as something that would help SearchWP stand out, and I also wanted to avoid opening the doors to overwhelming amounts of support requests right from the start. “I had no idea if SearchWP would be successful given the landscape, I built it first to scratch my own itch while knowing that even if no one bought it, I would 100% use it in my own work, and use it a lot.” His gamble paid off and the plugin has been used on more than 30,000 WordPress sites. Christopher had one support contractor but otherwise had been running the business alone for the past eight years. WordPress’ growing market share has made one-person plugin businesses difficult to maintain once they become very popular, as seen in the recent sale of ACF to Delicious Brains. “I was looking ahead and considering what would be best for SearchWP’s customers,” Christopher said. “I want SearchWP to live as long as it possibly can. If I’m by myself it’s a bit of a risk to continue that way as the business continues to grow. I know that I prefer to build things from the ground up, and I also know that I’m not the guy to build (or manage) a team, it’s not my strong suit. Given all of those pieces it was clear to me that it was a good time to consider selling.” Christopher described the 2013 WordPress ecosystem as more “scrappy,” as developers launched product businesses and worked to figure it out along the way. “There are pros and cons to an environment like that, but it was fantastic from my perspective,” he said. “Over time that feeling went away as companies grew, matured, and playbooks began to take shape. That cycle has continued over time and especially in the last 18 months we’re getting a look at where WordPress is headed – lots of big players in a really big space.” For those who are jumping into the waters with a new product business, Christopher underscored the need for strong marketing. “I think that a lack of serious marketing will in fact be a limiter in today’s WordPress economy,” he said. “Products that have been around a long time have a natural momentum that’s really tough to beat, but that momentum doesn’t come without friction. In order to keep up with where WordPress is going, I do feel like you need assets (and capital) aimed directly and solely at marketing for the long haul.” Balkhi did not elaborate on Awesome Motive’s immediate plans for the search plugin but said the company will be executing on a 12-month plan to make it easier for beginners and non-technical business owners to set up in less than 10 minutes. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingGutenberg 11.0 Includes Over 70 Bug Fixes, Continues Improving With WordPress 5.8 Just Two Weeks Away – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Gutenberg 11.0 landed yesterday with a pile of changes. The development team has been moving fast, and it shows. For a two-week cycle, version 11.0 includes an insane number of bug fixes. Contributors squashed over 70 in this release alone. This seems to be in preparation for WordPress 5.8, which is expected to land on July 20. The upcoming block-based Widgets screen had the lion’s share of bugs. However, the block library had nearly two dozen, many of those issues with new theme-related blocks. The downside of such a massive release is that there are too many features and not enough time to cover them all. I will be cherry-picking some of my favorites, but feel free to dive into the release notes for a complete picture. Theme and Template-Editing Mode Changes One of the primary Full Site Editing features making its way to WordPress 5.8 will be disabled by default for most users. In a rare move from the core project, the template editor will be opt-in, at least for users with classic themes. It is opt-out for block themes. As I wrote last month, until users are on actual block themes, the template editor is “a sort-of-OK-but-kind-of-amazing landing page creator.” Template-editing is really only as good as the weakest link in the system. This will almost always be the theme over the next few months. Because the template editor is a new feature that directly attempts to overwrite the front-end output, it will always be at odds with many themes that were never designed with it in mind. The opt-in approach is unlikely the best route to mass adoption, but it is in the interest of the user experience. Making it opt-in also allows theme authors to make template editing a smooth experience. Gutenberg 11.0 introduces a new defaultBlockTemplate editor setting. Theme authors can create the default blocks that users begin with when creating a new template. Starting with a custom default block template. Ideally, this default template should include some base layout components, such as a header, footer, and post/page content. However, themers are free to put their own spin on this. For more information on creating default block templates, theme authors should read Themes Team rep Carolina Nymark’s overview of WordPress 5.8 theme features. Media & Text Block: Drag-and-Drop Media Replacement Dragging a new media file into the Media & Text block. Users have long been able to drag and drop an initial image or video into the Media & Text block. However, they were unable to replace it using the same method. Gutenberg 11.0 creates a new “drop zone” over the media column, making it easy to change the media to something new. The feature already exists with the Cover and Image blocks, so this change brings Media & Text up to date. We probably should have had this feature months ago, but the patch sat in limbo waiting for a code review. Accessibility: Categories Dropdown Has Label Label difference between the Archives and Categories blocks. The development team added a new “Categories” label when the Categories block is shown as a dropdown. This is a welcome improvement to help those using screen-readers better navigate the page. The problem with this change is the lack of consistency. In Gutenberg 10.8, the team removed the .screen-reader-text class for the Archives block label, making it appear on screen for all users. These types of inconsistencies that seem trivial on the surface tend to pile up, creating code bloat for theme designers in the long run as they try to wrangle them. I would prefer both labels to be marked as screen-reader text. Regardless of the default, the two should match. Then, throw in an option for the end-user to decide whether to show the label similar to how the Search form handles it. The Return of Post Classes Post classes appear for Post Template block. For those theme designers who need them, Gutenberg 11.0 brings back post classes. If you are wondering where posts classes had gone, you may not be alone. In the world of blocks, they are not needed as much as they once were. Traditionally, WordPress theme authors used these classes to dynamically change the output of a post based on contexts such as type, format, category, and more. When the Post Template block (formerly named Query Loop) was introduced, there was a noticeable lack of the traditional classes attached to the wrapper for individual posts. This latest update brings them back. In the future, block themes will likely rely on these classes less and less. With much of the design configuration moving to theme.json files and user-controlled options, it is probably time to say goodbye to one of the core features of theme design over the past decade. However, it is a comfort to know it is there when needed. Decimals Allowed in Spacing Controls For those who are particular about getting their margin and padding just right, they can finally rejoice. Spacing controls now allow for decimal values and not just whole numbers. In past versions of the plugin, a value such as 1.5 would be rounded up to 2. When used with rem and em units, such rounding created a 50% difference between the intended spacing and reality. I am happy about this one. It is a fix for one of the tickets I opened (hooray for contributing!). However, I cannot take credit for fixing the problem. That honor goes to Themes Team representative Ari Stathopoulos. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingHow To Downgrade Composer, PHP, and NPM
[ad_1] TL;DR: If you’re working on a variety of projects each of which requires different versions of PHP, Composer, and/or NPM you may need to change the version of all or any permutation of any of these utilities. This article outlines what steps need to be taken to downgrade Composer, PHP, or NPM when working on any given project. Downgrade Composer, PHP, and NPM Downgrading Composer 2 to Composer 1 For the last couple of months, I’ve been using Composer 2 with no problem; however, I’ve just had the need to downgrade Composer for a current project. To do this, issue the following command in the terminal: $ sudo composer self-update –1 Usually, this will work. If it’s been a little while since you’ve done anything like this then you may need to update your keys. Verify Keys The terminal commands for updating this are easy enough in terms of guiding you how to do it but having the following URL will be handy. First, grab this URL: https://composer.github.io/pubkeys.html. Then issue the following command: $ composer self-update –update-keys From there, the terminal will prompt you for which key you need to enter. Once done, you should be able to complete the downgrade process. Downgrade PHP I use Homebrew to manage the various installations of PHP that I have. I’ve been working on a project that was using PHP8 but have needed to downgrade it. Assuming you already have the existing package for the version of PHP you want to use, you can use one of the previous installed versions. For example, I have PHP 7.3.26 installed in /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.3 on my local machine. To see which versions you have installed, I do something like this: $ ls /usr/local/Cellar/php* And the outline will return the directories of the versions of PHP I have installed. At the time of this writing, I have: /usr/local/Cellar/php which is 8.0.3 /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.3 which is 7.3.27 To use the older version, I first need to unlink the current version of PHP: $ brew unlink php And then create a link to the previous version: $ brew link php@7.3 –force –overwrite And it’s important to use the directory name (such as php@7.3 that terminal returns above). To verify that this works, you should be able to run $ php -v and see the version that’s currently being run. Downgrade NPM Similar to the previous two items above, I’ve needed to downgrade a package which came as information when running npm i in the terminal. Assuming the warning, error, or notice shows the version that you need then use that as a guide for what version to downgrade. First, identify the current version by running: $ npm -v Then, using the information from the message in the terminal, run the following command: $ npm install -g npm@6.13.4 One done, double-check the version once more using the same command as above and it should match with what you just installed. Not All At Once Obviously, you may not need to change all of these at the same time but one at a time. And that’s not unusual. This post is the result of me working on something from front-end to back-end that required I update the whole environment. Ultimately, upgrade or downgrade only what you need. One doesn’t necessitate the need to update the others. [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingCreate food delivery website in less than 30 minutes
[ad_1] If you are looking for a reliable theme that can enable you to take your restaurant business online, this blog post is perfect for you. While there are loads of popular food delivery themes and plugins out there, they lack some essential functionalities. Some have suitable ordering mechanisms but fail to give a good UI or vice versa. This article will review the Lafka WordPress theme, which focuses on making burgers, pizzas, and food delivery easy with WooCommerce. Lafka Theme Review: Quick Overview Developed by AIThemist, Lafka is a highly customizable and powerful theme that offers seamless integration with WooCommerce. You can easily set up an eCommerce shop for your food or restaurant business with this theme. On top of the WooCommerce compatibility, Lafka comes with unique features that make product listing and customizations as easy as ABC. One thing that I found interesting is that the theme is designed after consulting real fast food business owners to provide a custom-made solution that fits the restaurant and online food delivery business real needs. Here are some notable features of Lafka: Combo Products functionality allows the website owners to up-sell products and offer their customers discounts and other benefits while maximizng the average order amount and profit. Variable Product add-ons – You can set free or paid product addons or even let your customers customize their products like ‘build your own burger’. New Order Push Notifications, so you never miss an order Highly customizable order hours functionality, so you can limit the order timings for online food orders based on the operating hours of your business. The automatic RDI calculator tells your customers the reference daily intake values based on WHO and FDA recommendations for a 2000 calories diet. Seven ready-to-use templates for fast food websites. You can get this theme for $59 from ThemeForest. These are just the most notable features of this theme. If you want to take a closer look at the features of this theme, read on! Lafka Review: Features Lafka is a well-designed niche theme for Fast Food businesses focusing on expanding their online presence and food delivery services. It hosts multiple features that can help you operate your online pizza/burger delivery. Non-technical Features (Business Side) 1. Product Addons with Variable Pricing This is undoubtedly one of the most unique features of this theme. With variable pricing, you can set custom prices for different customization of individual food orders. For example, if you are running a pizzeria, you can set different prices for a single topping (say pepperoni) depending on the size of the pizza. Larger the size of the pizza, the more price you can ask for the same topping. You can set global addons based on product category (e.g. apply to all Pizzas), but there is also a possibility to exclude certain products and even цреате product-specific addons. Each addon can have an image (optional) and you can also set limits for each group (e.g. – choose up to 3 additional toppings for your pizza). You can set a radio group addons for single choice options, checkbox addons for multiple choice and a text block for additional information (imagine a custom cake with text wishes on it). Article Continues Below If you are a true business owner, you know the potential of these small features and how you can maximize them to grow your business. 2. Build Your Product Functionality Since you know it is possible to set variable pricing on addons, I am sure you must have guessed this one. This theme allows your customers to build custom products for their order by choosing their favorite ingredients as easily as clicking on checkboxes and radio buttons. For example, if you are selling burgers, you can give your users to select the type of patty, toppings, and even the bun. Lack of this functionality is why still most people prefer ordering on the phone or in person, and with this feature, you can reduce the manual work on your end and put things on automation. 3. Combo Products Having the option to upsell is always good, and with the combo products feature, you can offer discounts on bulk products like combo meals or even create custom products like “Half & Half” Pizza with different flavors on each half. For example, if your customer is placing an order for a burger, you can pitch in meal sides like fries and a drink for a discounted price. The best part is that you do not have to reduce the price manually and it works by combining products already existing in your shop. The system does it automatically for you. With that functionality, you can even set minimum, maximum or pre-defined quantities of products in the combo meal in order to get the discount. 4. Limiting Order Hours Since not all restaurants operate 24/7, you need a system that starts and stops taking orders during specific hours. With the Lafka theme, you can simply set up ‘order hours,’ and customers will only be able to place orders in that time frame. Also, it is worth mentioning, they can check out the products and the restaurant menu during the non-operating hours, so the audience is not deflected. You can set different hours for each day of the week by just dragging your mouse over the timetable and additionally set vacations, national holidays, etc. 5. New Order Push Notifications To make sure no orders slip through the cracks, the theme has push notificationс feature that fires off when someone places a new order. No matter on a computer or an Android phone, you always get the notification with a sound alert. Now that’s all with the business-side features. Now let’s take a look at the technical aspects of this theme. Leaving the extra WooCommerce features found in Lafka aside, for those who don’t really need online orders functionality, the theme offers a dedicated menu custom post type where you can list your menu items in different ways
Continue reading10 Best Food Blog Themes for WordPress: It Can’t Get Any Tastier Than This!
[ad_1] Are you are a food lover with a burning desire to share your delicious creations with the world? Or perhaps you want to connect with other foodies around the globe? Whatever your motivation, it’s crucial to have a strong web presence that attracts other like-minded food lovers to you. When you have a WordPress website, you are in luck: You can choose from a galore of awesome food blog themes that make your site stand out. Although there are plenty of templates to choose from, we have gathered the 10 best food blog themes you should consider using on your website. 1. Florentine Florentine, by Meridian Themes, is a magazine/recipe theme that makes your food creations look delicious in the eyes of your followers. The theme has a handy recipe formatter. The tool lets you focus on entering recipes, and the theme takes it from there, making your recipes look great. You can also rate recipes, bookmark them, and print them. One of the helpful features is the useful distraction-free cooking mode. It lets your readers focus on the recipe instructions and nothing else. Florentine integrates with social sharing platforms like Facebook or Pinterest. This integration helps you to spread the word about your recipes and other food-related content. Key Features Fully responsive design; looks great on every device. Recipe formatter that helps you style your masterpieces without hassle. Meridian Styler tool gives even more theme customization options for your layout. Built-in newsletter module. Price: starting $59/year/single site DOWNLOAD / MORE INFO VIEW DEMO 2. Foodie Pro Foodie Pro takes a clean and minimalist approach to a food blog. As a theme built on top of the Genesis Framework, you can be sure to have a rock-solid foundation for your website. The theme has plenty of customization options, including fonts and colors. You can also change the layout of your blog with just a couple of clicks. Want to monetize your blog with ads? You can do that since Foodie Pro has dedicated ad sections on the page, like before or after the header. Finally, you can also connect the theme to your preferred email marketing service to collect email addresses. Key Features: The theme is mobile responsive, and it looks great on every device. It contains pre-made custom page templates for the default page, archive pages, and blog pages. Foodie Pro includes special widget areas (three on the homepage, five site-wide) that help you customize your blog’s look and feel. Customizable logos with images or text. Optimized for fast page-loading speeds. Price: starting from $129.95 (including the Genesis Framework) DOWNLOAD / MORE INFO VIEW DEMO 3. Foodica Want to create a food blog, magazine, or recipe website? If so, Foodica is a brilliant choice for you. The theme has plenty of valuable features. For instance, it contains a Theme Options Panel, giving you better control over how your blog looks. You can also set the color to your liking by choosing from six different color themes. You can also set the color and font choices with Visual Customizer to match your branding. Key Features: The Recipe Index is great for showcasing all the recipes you have created with love. The theme is WooCommerce-ready so that you can start an online shop, too. Custom Gutenberg blocks, like WP Recipe Card, make your recipes stand out. Ad zone support for banners on four locations, including the header, sidebar, or inline. Mobile and Retina ready, so your visitors can access your website with any device. Price: $79 DOWNLOAD / MORE INFO VIEW DEMO 4. Divi Theme’s Food Recipe Landing Page With this theme, you can create a variety of pages on your website. Landing pages let you dedicate a section of your site to a particular type of food and give it the emphasis it deserves. And landing pages are great for collecting email leads, too. You can also create recipe pages, about pages, and contact pages. Naturally, there is also a blog feature that lets you show your passion for food. Key Features: You can access Visual Builder to create the content with style. Integrate an opt-in form to gather the email addresses of your followers. Display recipes in a beautiful and distraction-free manner with recipe pages. Price: $89/year 👉 See our full Elegant Themes Review💰 Use our exclusive Elegant Themes Coupon to get 20% OFF DOWNLOAD / MORE INFO VIEW DEMO 5. Cookely Cookely lets you showcase delicious recipes stylishly. It has plenty of powerful features that make your food blog stand out. The theme contains four color schemes that help you adjust your blog’s look and feel the way you wish. You can also choose between the grid or traditional blog layout according to your needs. And if you want to tweak the outlook even more, you can access the Visual Customizer, which lets you change the colors or fonts on various parts of your website. Key Features: Cookely supports responsive layouts that work on every device. The theme is WooCommerce-enabled, so you can create an online shop and start selling your products. You can build your email list with a dedicated newsletter area on the home page. Recipe organization is easy with the Recipe Index feature. List your recipes chronologically, by category, or a simple list. Customize the structure of your posts. Show or hide your posts’ properties (title, date, tags…), even reorder them the way you wish, then see the changes immediately on the preview window. Price: $79 DOWNLOAD / MORE INFO VIEW DEMO 6. Sprout & Spoon Sprout & Spoon, by SoloPine, is a fully-featured food blog theme, helping you showcase your best recipes and turn your random followers into raving fans. The theme is mobile responsive so that your followers can consume the content through any device they like. It’s also Gutenberg ready, so you don’t have to invest in a page builder to create great-looking content for your site. Sprout & Spoon also includes a Solo Pine Recipe Plugin, which makes creating
Continue readingPrivate Note-Taking and Journaling With the Hypernotes WordPress Plugin – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Ella van Durpe, a core WordPress contributor and software engineer at Automattic, released a note-taking plugin earlier today. Hypernotes is a simple custom post type that allows end-users to take private notes or serve as a journaling tool. I have seen similar plugins in the past. I even began building one years ago before ultimately abandoning it for a simple Markdown solution in a private repository. What makes Hypernotes unique is its handling of “folders,” which essentially work like categories. However, each folder gets its own sub-menu link under the Notes section in the WordPress admin. Hypernotes’ folder system. This more closely mimics other note-taking apps where users can switch between various folders to quickly find notes. The code to make this happen is simple; the idea is ingenious. It is the sort of outside-the-box thinking I love to see from plugin developers. There are a few trivial issues with it, such as the folder names not being highlighted when viewing their screens. However, that is a WordPress-specific bug. A simple dash before each folder name could spruce up the UI a bit too. They sit below the “All Notes” menu item, so it would create more of a folder effect. On the whole, the plugin works well as a note-taking application. Writing a note in the WordPress editor. The plugin description does have a security note for users who are wondering just how private their content is: Only you will be able to see your notes within the WordPress admin, but the notes are NOT encrypted at the moment, so anyone with database access will be able to read them. Hypernotes also ensures that no post is ever accidentally published for all the world to see. Under the hood, it automatically sets all notes to the “private” status. The plugin’s post type cannot be publicly queried on the front end either. It is worth mentioning that the plugin does not create custom capabilities (permissions) for its post type and taxonomy. Any registered user on the site with the right post-editing capabilities can access others’ notes in the backend, such as people with the Editor role. This is unlikely an issue given the nature of the plugin. I imagine the primary audience will be made up of solo bloggers who want a simple note-taking solution. I ran into one not-so-trivial issue when I began trying out Hypernotes, believing my website was broken. This is usually because of a patch I am testing for the Gutenberg plugin or just one of its run-of-the-mill updates. However, the typical culprit was not to blame. After a half-hour or so trying to figure out why my theme styles were not appearing for Note posts, I finally cracked the issue. Hypernotes disables all theme editor styles. The beautiful typography of my currently active theme was gone, which would work well with a note or journaling plugin. This was easy enough to overrule with a few lines of custom code. If I was going to save a few quotes that I liked as personal notes, I at least wanted to do it in style: Bringing back my theme’s custom quotes style. The plugin also attempts to disable wide/full alignment and theme editor font sizes. The code it uses works for traditional WordPress themes but not for block themes, which have a different mechanism for registering such support. This was also one of the reasons it was tough to track down the issue. Everything else from my theme was working but custom editor styles. I understand the idea behind removing support for those features. Themes design the front end of the site, and Hypernotes is purely a backend tool. However, I would rather see an option for letting the user control what gets disabled. Some theme editor styles would pair well with the plugin. Disabling these features has other implications too. For example, all of my theme’s custom block style variations were registered and usable from the editor. However, because my styles were not loaded, they did not work correctly. Another option would be for the plugin to provide its own editor styles. There would still be some complications going that route, such as the block style variations issue, but the plugin could become a beautifully designed note-taking app in its own right. For a version 1.0 outing, I am a fan of the simplicity. More so, I am impressed with the clever method of handling note “folders.” I am eager to see how this plugin evolves over future iterations. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingDynamic Favicons for WordPress • WPShout
[ad_1] I can’t be the only one who sometimes has dozens of tab open, all from my own WordPress site. And then I lose track of which I was seeing the public side of my site, vs the admin side where I writing a post, tweaking settings, etc. It’s because of the (admittedly minor, but nonetheless real) headache of this that this little article from Thomas Park over at CSS-Tricks caught my eye. In it he explains how he uses a different color of SVG to allow him to distinguish (for example) these back-end tabs from the front-end ones. But what’s cool is that he even goes a step further, making different pages on the public side of his site have different (colored) favicons. I admit the tab-finding problem is small and rare enough to me that I’m not adding implementing this to my to-do list anytime soon. But it sure is good to know that there’s a solution next time it really starts to frustrate me. 🙂 Visit css-tricks.com → [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWordPress 5.8 Adds Support for New Emoji Introduced in Twemoji 13.1.0 – WP Tavern
[ad_1] In the upcoming 5.8 release, WordPress is updating its version of Twemoji, Twitter’s open source emoji library that supports the latest Unicode emoji specification. Version 13.1.0 introduces five new smileys and emotions, including heart on fire, mending heart, face with spiral eyes, face in clouds, and face exhaling. Version 13.1 adds mixed skin tone support for all variations of the “Kiss” emoji and the “Couple with Heart” emoji. It also makes it possible to add a bearded man or a bearded woman in all skin tone variations. WordPress 5.8 will also include significant changes to the syringe emoji that were committed to a previous version of Twemoji (13.0.2) earlier this year. Instead of a blood-filled barrel accented with drops of blood leaking out of the tip, the new syringe emoji contains a non-specific liquid. This makes it more flexible for use cases that don’t involve removing blood. Emojipedia has a fascinating look at the syringe emoji’s history, dating back to 1999 when it was primarily used in Japan for blood donation. A 2021 refresh on the syringe makes it possible for it to be used in reference to vaccines, a topic of public conversation across the globe. In addition to changes to the syringe, Jonathan Desrosiers, who opened the trac ticket to initiate the update, summarized a few other changes from previous Twemoji versions that modify existing emoji: Cricket: the colors have been adjusted to improve readability on small screens and to prevent confusion with other Emoji that had a similar color. T-Rex: The color and posture of the T-Rex has been adjusted. Portuguese flag: A line within the flag’s circle has been corrected. Thai flag: The proportions of the stripes for this flag have been corrected. Fox face: The symmetry has been improved. Transgender flag: The lines have been updated to prevent small gaps between stripes from showing when rendered with antialiasing. Rolling on the floor laughing: Adjusted to be less exaggerated and appear more natural. The official emoji lexicon is constantly being tweaked and updated for accuracy, and to better serve conversations, as current events increase demand for visual representations of specific objects and emotions. Although many of these updates and new additions may seem pandemic-inspired, there’s a lengthy, official process for proposing changes to the Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee reviews proposals, which require compelling data on compatibility, expected usage level, distinctiveness, and other factors. Candidates approved for inclusion do not arrive to major platforms for approximately a year. WordPress 5.8 will bump Twemoji from 13.0.1 to 13.1.0. Unicode 14.0, the next major update, is expected for release in late 2021. Emojipedia has a draft list of what is on deck for the next version and those that are approved would likely make it to major platforms by the end of 2022. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingJetpack 9.9 Released With a Refreshed Image Gallery Carousel – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Today, Automattic released version 9.9 of its popular Jetpack plugin. The development team improved the modal animation and transition speed for the Instant Search module and added the Social Preview panel to the pre-publish sidebar. However, the most notable user-facing update was a refresh of its Carousel feature. The module creates a fullscreen overlay gallery of a post’s images once one is clicked. Users can enable this feature via the Jetpack > Settings > Writing page in the WordPress admin. Users can also turn on the display of EXIF data and the media attachment commenting form. Jetpack Carousel handles Image and Gallery blocks a bit differently. Regardless of whether Gallery images are linked or not, they will always be included in the image carousel when clicked. However, only Image blocks that specifically link to the attachment page are added. I have never much cared for the Jetpack Carousel feature. There were always prettier image-overlay, lightbox-type solutions out in the wild. We use the plugin here at WP Tavern, so it is just something I have learned to live with. There was no sense in installing yet another plugin when we were already using the massive mono-project to run many other features on the site. And, it generally got the job done. However, today, I can finally say that I am happy with the implementation. It is cleaner, offers a larger viewing area for individual images, and tucks unnecessary bits away for the average user. The following is a screenshot of the carousel in all its fullscreen wonder: Jetpack carousel in version 9.9. For comparison, here is what the same image slide looks like in Jetpack 9.8.1: Jetpack carousel in version 9.8.1. In the new version, the image metadata and commenting form are hidden by default. The user must click the info or comment icon buttons to slide each section open. This is a better implementation because it decreases the noise in the carousel while still making the features available for those who want them. Image metadata in the carousel. Overall, I am enjoying this update. Swiping and scrolling through the gallery feels smoother. I would love for WordPress to bring a standard set of functions and blocks for displaying media metadata to the development community. Every plugin and theme author who wants to showcase that info must build a custom system for their projects, such as formatting aperture, shutter speed, and focal length. The following is the output of an image attachment page from a theme I have worked on: Custom theme image info. There is no reason that the theme and Jetpack should be working with custom wrappers for the metadata. WordPress stores EXIF and ID3 tags automatically. It just does not expose them to developers in any meaningful way. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
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