[ad_1] Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) put out a big release today, following several maintenance releases and the last major release in July. Version 3.1 introduces 10 new core blocks available to users who are running WordPress 5.8 or newer: Buy Button Order History Products Registration Form Login Form Download Terms Receipt Confirmation Cart Checkout (Beta) These blocks enable store owners to do more than their shortcode predecessors. Although the shortcodes still work, the block versions allow for much easier customization with a better UI. One example in the announcement is the Order History block. The previous Purchase History shortcode output a simple table of orders, but the new Order History block has a card style view and allows users to easily modify the number of columns and how many orders are displayed per page. Purchase History shortcode output New Order History block The other blocks have been updated in a similar fashion, with extended functionality and greatly expanded customization options. It’s important to note that the new Checkout block was released in beta. It is not turned on by default for new stores yet. Users who want to test the block will notice that EDD has reordered some of the fields to improve conversions, improved the user context detection (only showing necessary fields to users), and redesigned the payment method picker. Email Summaries is a new feature for store owners in 3.1. It sends a weekly or monthly email to the admin or other custom recipients with a store update that includes metrics like gross and net revenue, new customers, and average order amount. It can also be disabled in the admin. A few other notable changes in version 3.1 include the following: New setting to require users to login to download files Success Page has been renamed to Confirmation Page to differentiate it from the receipt More detailed views and filtering options for Reports reCAPTCHA keys added to Downloads » Settings » Misc so users can automatically enable reCAPTCHA for the lost password and the registration forms New color options for purchase buttons New “View Receipt” link in the orders table Easy Digital Downloads is installed on more than 50,000 WordPress sites. The ten-year-old plugin is continuing to evolve and become a more block-friendly tool for selling digital products. Check out the announcement post for a full tour of all the new blocks and their capabilities. Category: News, Plugins Tags: easy digital downloads Share this: Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Like this Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingTag Archives: Adds
Jetpack Social Plugin Adds Paid Plan, Free Users Now Limited to 30 Shares per Month – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Jetpack has announced changes to its Jetpack Social plugin that may impact publishers who frequently share across social media networks. Previously, users could share an unlimited number of posts automatically via their connected social media accounts. Jetpack is shuffling its monetization strategy for this extension and has capped social sharing at 30 shares per month for the free tier. A new paid plan offers 1,000 shares and re-shares per month, starting at $1/month for the first month and is $10/month thereafter. As a concession, Jetpack is rolling the social previews and re-sharing into the free plan. With Jetpack Social, if a post is automatically shared to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, that counts as three shares. It’s easy to see how quickly these shares can rack up to where even a casual blogger might require a paid plan. Publishers that are used to being able to automatically share all their posts for free should be aware this change that limits them to to 30 shares per month. I would not be surprised to see some users switch to another social sharing plugin, as many others offer far more social networks and don’t limit the number of times users can share. Instead they opt to restrict re-sharing, scheduling, or the ability to connect multiple accounts per social network. Jetpack Social has a new team behind it focused on making the product better. In 2021, Automattic acquired the Social Image Generator plugin with plans to integrate it into Jetpack’s social media tools. This may make the product more compelling, since it currently doesn’t stand up well to the myriad of free sharing plugins out there. Jetpack only supports four social networks, but the team is working on expanding the plugin’s capabilities. The plugin’s development team also accepts feature suggestions on its GitHub repository. Version 1.4.0 of the Jetpack Social plugin moved the share limits code to the Publicize package and added a meter to show users how many shares they have remaining. Users on the free plan should notice these changes in their dashboards. [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWordPress Themes Directory Adds Style Variation Previews – WP Tavern
[ad_1] WordPress.org theme previews just got a major improvement this week with the addition of Style Variation previews. The previews now appear on block themes that include style variations. Themes that have more variations than what fits in the space beneath the preview pane will display all variations in a carousel with little arrows to navigate to the next ones. Here’s an example with the Pixl theme from Automattic that contains seven brightly colored variations: It’s also possible to see a selected style variation loaded into the theme preview now. Clicking the ‘Preview’ button will allow users to scroll and explore the theme with their selected style variation applied. “These style variations, designed by theme authors and packaged in block themes, help users have a diverse set of approaches to their site design allowing them to find one that aligns with their goals,” Automattic-sponsored Meta team contributor Steve Dufresne said. “This feature helps to highlight the flexibility of modern WordPress themes and it’s time to have it baked into the theme directory experience.” The new style variation previews are fetched from the themes’ /styles/{variation_name}.json files, so theme authors do not have to do anything to make the previews work. They will automatically display for any theme that includes style variations. Meta team contributors are also working on adding the ability to filter the directory for themes with style variations. Dufresne proposed creating a new style-variations theme tag as the simplest route towards implementing this. “Doing so will allow the active filtering of these themes without needing to make many if any code changes,” he said in the ticket‘s description. “A longer-term solution should look at exposing these features visibly somehow without needing to find the obscured filters that we currently have. This feature should be judged equally with others and therefore, this type of implementation should be better debated and falls out of the scope of this ticket and the immediate need to see themes with style variations.” This is a good observation, as not all WordPress users hunting for themes will know that a tag exists in the Feature Filter. That list is already quite lengthy and not the best user experience for discovering themes with specific features, especially if users don’t understand what the terms mean. Theme authors will want to watch this ticket. If the shorter term solution of creating a new style-variations tag is committed, they will need to update their themes with the tag to be included in the filtering. [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingNew Missing Menu Items Plugin Adds Site Building Links to WordPress Admin – WP Tavern
[ad_1] If you are going all in on building sites with the new full-site editing (FSE) experience, then you may have noticed a lack of menu items that will deliver you directly to the tools you need to use. It may be because the Site Editor is still in beta, or because WordPress leadership may still be discussing whether to rename FSE. Perhaps it’s better that users don’t blindly stumble into FSE templates from the main admin menu, but some of these site building features are buried away with no quick access. For example, you are three clicks deep before arriving at Template Parts. Managing reusable blocks is also a tucked away on a separate screen that can be accessed through the post editor but sends you to a new page. If you’re using the block editor, and reusable blocks Do yourself a favor cut and paste this at the end of your website: /wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=wp_block Then bookmark it. — Ben LayerWP & WPDeals.email (@benswrite) October 26, 2022 When LayerWP founder Ben Townsend brought attention to this in a tweet, Roy Sivan responded with a link to a new free plugin that creates quicker access to these menus. Missing Menu Items expands the admin menu with links to reusable blocks, navigation menus, templates, and template parts, so they are all one click away. It adds them to the Appearance menu under the Editor (beta) link: If you are regularly working with Reusable blocks or editing navigation and templates, this plugin will save you some time and help you zip around the editor faster. Missing Menu Items was made by Easily Amused, the creators of Block Styles, a commercial plugin that lets users further customize core blocks with unique styles and boasts “fully responsive block-level design control.” The team will be adding more useful menu links and admin improvements in future releases. Users can contact the development team with menu item requests and they will consider them. Missing Menu Items is available on WordPress.org. Direct support is available for those who have purchased a BlockStyles membership, and community support can be found in the plugin’s forums on the directory. [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingGutenberg 11.5 Adds Widget Grouping, Iterates on the Block Gap Feature, and Updates Nav Menus – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Gutenberg 11.5 landed earlier today. It is a hefty release that includes extensive changes to the Navigation block, a new way for grouping widgets, and more block gap feature integration. I have had mixed reactions to the features that made it into the latest release. At some points, I thought to myself, finally, this made it in. At other moments, I rendered my best version of Jean-Luc Picard’s famous facepalm. But, the wheel keeps turning, and the developers who put their time and effort into the project continue to improve it. One quick note is that everyone not running a theme that supports the block editor should check that their backend styles are not out of place. Gutenberg automatically outputs some default editor styles if the user’s active theme does not register its own or have a theme.json file present. This should be bundled in point release such as WordPress 5.8.2 so that users are not waiting for it until 5.9. Navigation Block Changes With nav menus still being a pain point in site editing, Gutenberg has added new levels of complexity. The Site Title and Site Logo blocks are allowed inside of the Navigation container. As Joen Asmussen shared in the original ticket, some complex layouts would benefit from allowing more inner elements within the Navigation block: Navigation block patterns. This could open a world of layout possibilities for theme authors through custom patterns. I have no issue with Gutenberg tackling the foundation for these more advanced layouts. However, we have yet to smooth out the basics of navigation. The experience of searching for and inserting in-site links is lackluster at best, requiring multiple mouse clicks. There is an open ticket for a lighter navigation experience, and that should be the focus. Theme authors should also note that the Navigation block now relies on the CSS gap property for spacing instead of margin. I almost missed this since I customized this for my own projects months ago — welcome to 2021, where we no longer need to rely on hacky margin solutions for simple spacing. This change could impact existing theme designs. FSE Admin Notice Limited to Themes Screen The lone FSE theme admin notice. There are plenty of gripes to be had with the Gutenberg plugin as its features are constantly in flux. However, the most annoying thing about running the plugin has been its persistent, non-dismissible admin notice when a user is running a block theme. In previous versions of the plugin, this notice has appeared on every screen in the backend. Now, it only appears on the Themes/Appearance page. Over the past few months, I have kept the Toolbelt plugin by Ben Gillbanks active for the sole purpose of hiding this notice. Good riddance. Farewell. Widget Group Block Editing a Widget Group block title. While I generally believe the Gutenberg plugin developers and core WordPress make good use of feedback, the block-based widgets system has been one area where the project has dropped the ball. As I have been repeating since September 2020, the feature was fundamentally broken. The goal was to allow end-users to add blocks in more places, but it was never compatible with classic theme markup and styles. I proposed using patterns, but the team went with a Widget Group block. The end result is similar but not exactly the same. The good news is that it fixes what should have been a blocker for the feature landing in core. The better news is that this is likely to land in WordPress 5.8.2 instead of the 5.9 release later this year. I would not go as far as calling it a perfect solution. The experience does not make it immediately clear how to add a widget title. Users must first add a block. Once a block is added, they can then click on the heading/title placeholder that appears. Then, the UI switches to a field for typing the title. The following video shows how the Widget Group block works: I would rather have a bit of a janky experience than no solution at all. At least users now do not have to manually create widget wrappers. Some could even deactivate the Classic Widgets plugin if this issue was a holdup. “Row” Group Variation and Flex Layouts Adding a post meta (byline) section with the Row block variation. To begin testing the new flex layout system introduced in Gutenberg 11.2, the development team has added a variation on the Group block named Row. This allows users to align inner blocks side by side instead of on top of each other in the default “flow” layout. There are tons of use cases for the feature. One of the primary scenarios for theme authors will be aligning post and comment metadata bocks next to each other. Previously, this required use of the Columns block or custom styles, neither of which are ideal. The experience is rough around the edges. I often found it hard to click in the right spot to edit a block, and the appender button did not always appear for adding new ones. The Social Icons block also uses the new flex layout. However, there is currently no way to switch it to flow mode for vertical social links. More Block Gap Integration Gap between each Column block. The Columns block now uses the gap feature introduced in Gutenberg 11.4 for handling the spacing between individual Column blocks. There is no UI for end-users to control this yet, but it is likely to land in a future release as the feature evolves. Gutenberg 11.5 has now added a bottom margin to the post title in the editor. For whatever reason, the development team has made a leap and assumed its current handling of the block gap feature needed this. It is a complex problem to solve. In the meantime, some users might see more whitespace than they are accustomed to between their title and content in the editor. Lots of extra
Continue readingGutenberg 11.4 Overhauls Galleries, Adds Axial Padding for Buttons, and Lays Groundwork for Global Spacing – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Another two weeks have flown by, and another Gutenberg plugin update is in the books. I always look forward to the latest release, awaiting what goodies our contributor community has produced. Sometimes I jump the gun and install a development version of the plugin to understand an upcoming feature, such as the new “block gap” style setting. Other times, I like to be surprised with enhancements like the new vertical/horizontal padding controls for the Button block. Of course, there is always a good chance that a plugin update will throw off our theme’s editor styles in a new and exciting way. It feels like it has been a while since Gutenberg caught me off guard. At least it is only the post title this go-round. The WP Tavern theme is aging a bit anyway. It is due for an update (hint, hint). Aside from block gap and axial padding, Gutenberg 11.4 turns the Gallery block into a container for nested Image blocks and adds duotone filter support to featured images. Other notable enhancements include an option for adding alt text to the Cover block and font-weight support to the Post Date, Post Terms, and Site Tagline blocks. Axial Padding for Button Block Adjusting vertical and horizontal Button padding. The Button block now supports changing the spacing along the X or Y axis when unlinking the padding. Previously, users could define the padding for all sides, but this could be tedious work. In most designs, top and bottom (vertical) padding should match, and left and right (horizontal) should get the same treatment. This change should speed up padding customization in nearly all cases. However, it does introduce a regression. The consensus in the ticket was that the tradeoff for a less cumbersome experience was worth less flexibility for edge cases. Overall, this should be a win for most. I am already a happier user. Gallery Block Uses Nested Images Adding a link to an Image block within a Gallery. The Gallery block in Gutenberg 11.4 supports nesting individual Image blocks. It is currently hidden behind an experimental support flag and must be enabled via the Gutenberg > Experiments settings screen. Effectively, the Gallery block is now a container. Inserting media still works the same way. The difference is that end-users have access to customize each Image block within a Gallery separately. One use case for this feature is to allow users to add custom links around images. However, they now have access to more of the Image block’s options, such as custom theme styles. Last week, I covered this feature in-depth because it is expected to land in WordPress 5.9, and theme authors should be ready for the transition. This is a breaking change in terms of HTML. Any themer with custom Gallery block styles should test the front-end and editor output before WordPress merges the changes. Featured Image Duotone Support Applying a duotone filter to the Post Featured Image block. While we are still missing an image size control, I will take any Post Featured Image block improvements I can get at this point. The block felt like a second-class citizen for so long that I am giddy about any enhancements. Duotone filters, which landed in WordPress 5.8, allow end-users to add a CSS filter over images to control shadow and highlight colors. Themes can register custom ones, or users can modify them. The latest Gutenberg plugin update brings this feature to the Post Featured Image block. This change allows theme authors to explore adding some visual flair since the Post Featured Image block is meant for templating or site editing. It still has a long way to go before it is ready for more advanced theme design, but the tools are getting us closer. Global Block “Gap” for Themes Highlighting a Paragraph block and its preceding “gap” (top margin). One custom feature that has become commonplace with themes that support the block editor is a “global spacing” style rule, which controls the whitespace between elements. Gutenberg contributors have noticed this trend and are now shipping a standard solution for it. Themes that use a theme.json file will automatically opt into support. The gap feature adds a top margin to all adjacent sibling elements within block containers. This creates the space between each block using a standard method. Theme authors can control this via the styles.spacing.blockGap key in their theme.json files. If you are a theme developer, this is one of the most crucial components of block theming from a pure design viewpoint. It is not something to avoid until it lands in WordPress. The time to test and provide feedback is now. It is also merely a first step. There are pieces left to implement and problems to solve. There is currently an open pull request to bring this to editor block controls. There is also another ticket for zeroing out the margins for the first and last blocks, which would typically not need any. There are still some open questions on how to best deal with exceptions to the default block gap in the original ticket. Regardless of its unfinished nature, it is an exciting development if you care anything at all about vertical rhythm in design systems. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingGutenberg 11.3 Introduces Dimensions Panel, Adds Button Padding Support, and Speeds Up the Inserter – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Earlier today, Gutenberg 11.3 landed in the WordPress plugin directory. The latest update introduces a new dimensions panel for toggling spacing-related block options. The Button block now supports the padding control, and the Post Featured Image block has new width and height settings. One of the release’s highlights was a speed improvement for both opening and searching within the inserter. The opening time dropped over 200 ms, from 370.35 ms to 137.28 ms. Search speed went from 190.37 ms to 67.24 ms. The latest release includes a simplified color picker library. Rich previews for links, a feature introduced in Gutenberg 10.9 for external URLs, now works with internal site links. Theme authors should enjoy the reduced specificity of the reset and classic editor stylesheets. Such changes always make it a little easier for theme authors to match editor and front-end styling. Dimension Panel for Spacing Controls Toggling the padding and margin controls for the Site Tagline block. Gutenberg 11.3 introduces a new Dimensions panel for blocks that support either margin or padding controls. The feature adds an ellipsis (…) button in place of the typical open/close tab arrow. Users can select which controls they want to use. The long-term goal is to clean up the interface, only exposing controls that a user actually needs. Because such needs are subjective, allowing users to toggle them on/off is an ideal route to take. The current downsides are twofold. Once choosing to display margin or padding controls, the panel itself cannot be collapsed. This exacerbates the very problem that the new feature attempts to solve — decluttering the sidebar interface. For me, at least, I always want quick access to spacing controls. However, I do not always need them shown. The second issue is that the user choice of what to display does not seem to be stored. Each time you work with a block, you must select which controls should appear. The new Dimensions panel is only one part of the process of wrangling sizing (width and height), spacing (padding and margin), and related controls for blocks. Work toward a more well-rounded solution is still underway. Presumably, the development team will address these issues and others in future releases. However, those who run the Gutenberg plugin in production should expect oddities with usage. The Block Visibility plugin has the most user-friendly version of such a toggle control right now. It is not yet a perfect solution, but it works a little better than what is currently in Gutenberg. Button Block Padding Testing the new Button block padding option with TT1 Blocks. It is no secret that I dislike the default padding of the Button block when using the TT1 Blocks theme (block-based version of Twenty Twenty-One). I have made it one of my missions to routinely point it out, even going so far as refusing to use the block in the last call for testing as part of the FSE Outreach Program. An oversized button is not always the wrong stylistic choice on a webpage. Context matters and I somehow continue to run into scenarios where I need something a bit more scaled back. Control over the Button block’s padding has been on my wish list for months, and the Gutenberg development team delivered. As of 11.3, users can control the padding of individual Button blocks. It will now appear as an option within the new Dimensions panel mentioned earlier. Prayer answered. Now, let us move toward adding padding controls to all the blocks. The one potential issue some users might run into is maintaining consistent spacing when using multiple Button blocks together. The easiest way to do this is to add and style the first, then duplicate it to create others with the same spacing. This is not a new issue; it applies to all Button options where users want consistency within a group. Featured Image Dimension Controls Adjusting a Post Featured Image block’s dimensions. The Post Featured Image block has finally received a small but handy upgrade. In the past, users and theme authors only had a single option of deciding whether to link it to the post. Now, they can control the width and height of the image. If a user sets a height for the image, the editor will reveal a separate “Scale” option with the following choices: Cover (default) Contain Stretch What do these options actually do? That would be a good question. Even as someone in the web design and development loop for close to two decades, I sometimes forget and must look them up. They are values for the object-fit CSS property and are likely to confuse users in many instances. Cover and contain allow the image to fit within the containing element’s box while maintaining its aspect ratio (no stretching the image). The difference is that the cover value will be clipped if it does not fit and the contain value may be letterboxed. A stretch value will fill its container regardless of the aspect ratio. Depending on the image’s aspect ratio on its container, each of the values could essentially display the same thing on the screen. Or, they could provide wildly different results. Coupling these dimensions controls with wide and full alignments (also width-related options) could make for some unpredictable experiments too. The theme designer in me wants to disable the UI for this altogether and present something slightly more controlled: an image size selector. Such a selector should not be confused with width and height controls. WordPress theme authors have been registering custom image sizes for years. The primary use case for this was featured images. Users can use these sizes with the current Image and Latest Posts blocks. However, they do not yet have this option with Post Featured Image. I am in the camp that believes image size controls should have been the first addition to the block. It is such an integral part of WordPress theme design that it cannot be left out, and I have
Continue readingGutenberg 11.1 Adds Drag-and-Drop Support for List View and Upgrades Block Borders – WP Tavern
[ad_1] The Gutenberg plugin continues to march forward. Yesterday’s release, coming merely a day after the launch of WordPress 5.8, brings several new features and nearly three dozen bug fixes. The big-ticket items are drag-and-drop blocks in the list view and a much-needed upgrade for border support. Theme authors should enjoy the ability to control the Columns block’s stacking on mobile and some updated design controls for nav menus. While labeled an “enhancement,” themers should also check their designs against a breaking change to the RSS block’s updated styles. Drag and Drop Blocks in List View Dragging a block around in list view. Drumroll, please. The moment we — or at least many of us — have been waiting for has finally arrived. The editor’s list view has become a powerhouse for managing long documents with many blocks. Over the past dozen or so releases, the development team has continued to tack on necessary feature after necessary feature. In version 11.1, users can drag and drop blocks from within the list view to order and organize content. However, users are not merely limited to moving things around within the list view itself. They can drag blocks from the list over into the content canvas and vice versa. I do not often use emoji, but sometimes I like to dole out a slow clap for a job well done. 👏 👏 Border Support Adding a dashed border to a Group block. I have already been having a bit of fun with the new border options. Lately, I have been in the holiday spirit because I was getting ahead and buying my Christmas tree in July (when you find the good deals). This inspired me to create a coupon code block pattern, and the Group block’s border support was perfect for this. Gutenberg 11.1 refines the user experience for border options. The development team tightened the UI and placed the settings into logical groupings. Only the following core blocks have partial or complete border support: Button Group Image Search Table Users can also define individual corners with the border-radius option in this update. I would love to see the same treatment for the top, right, bottom, and left borders in the future. I also would not mind seeing a double-border style. Columns Block: Stack on Mobile Adding post metadata to an unstacked set of columns. By default, individual Column blocks will stack on top of each other in mobile views. However, users can now disable this via the parent Columns block on a case-by-case basis. This has also been one of the missing pieces for more layout control in block themes. One of the primary use cases for a Columns block that does not break on mobile devices is post metadata sections that should be inline. For example, theme authors often want to align the post author, date, and comments link in a single row below the post title. This toggle switch sort of moves us in that direction. However, it is a stopgap solution that does not afford theme designers the flexibility they are accustomed to with CSS (this is not generally a complicated affair). Before block themes and the site editor are rolled into core WordPress, theme developers will need fine-tuned responsive control over the Columns block and, perhaps, some type of row/inline/flex block to go along with it. Theme authors who need to target the Columns block based on whether mobile stacking is disabled can use the .is-not-stacked-on-mobile class. Post Terms and Tag Clouds Controlling the number of tags output. The development team has crossed one of my months-long pet peeves off the list. In past releases of the plugin, the Post Terms block (variations of Post Tags and Post Categories) has displayed a pipe (|) separator between individual items by default. It now shows a comma, followed by a space. Theme authors can change this in their block templates, and users can customize it from the editor. The setting is located under the “Advanced” tab in the block options sidebar. The Tag Cloud block got a small but much-needed upgrade. Users can now set a limit on the number of tags to display. By default, it is set to show 45 tags. Navigation Submenu Colors The Gutenberg development team added two new color options for the Navigation block. Aside from its existing text and background colors, users can now change the text and background colors for submenu items. The Navigation block, while improved, still seems to be one of the trickiest pieces of the site-editing puzzle. It is trying to be the Jack of all trades, mastering few — if any — solutions. And, there is already a ticket gaining traction that would allow users to stuff a wider range of inner blocks into it. But, we have submenu text and background colors, which is a win. Only, they are named “Overlay Text” and “Overlay Background.” I am unsure whether it works as part of the mobile responsive menu. Gutenberg seems to have once again failed to bundle its front-end navigation JavaScript. Like this: Like Loading… [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 readingGutenberg 10.9 Renames the Query Block, Adds Collapsible List View Items, and Rolls Out Rich URL Previews – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Yesterday, Gutenberg 10.9 landed in the WordPress plugin directory. The update overhauls the Query and Query Loop blocks, allows users to expand or collapse items in the editor list view, and introduces rich URL preview cards for links. The new version also packs in an updated template-mode creation modal and moves the blocks manager. This update ships several enhancements, particularly to the user experience. One of my favorite low-key upgrades is a new set of add-card, bug, key, post author, and security icons by Filipe Varela, a product designer at Automattic. Another small-but-packs-a-punch UI change is the inclusion of the post type in the editor breadcrumb trail. The type’s singular name label now replaces the root “Document” item. For the past several cycles, the new template editor slated to launch with WordPress 5.8 has been enabled by default. The goal was always to allow everyone the chance to experience it, regardless of whether they were on a classic or block theme. The development team has now scaled this back to only be auto-enabled for block themes. Classic themes must opt-in to support it. Theme authors should read the recent template editor overview by Riad Benguella for the complete details. Query and Query Loop Blocks Renamed Query Loop block in the editor. Query? Query Loop? What the heck is all this? If you are unfamiliar with those terms, you are not alone. Even on the developer end, the early implementation of the Query and its inner Query Loop block could be a little confusing. For the average user, it probably makes even less sense. Gutenberg 10.9 takes one step toward clearing up this confusion for end-users. The former Query Loop block is now named Post Template. This is a far more accurate description of what it does. It is the “template” that outputs individual posts. It contains all the things you see, such as the post content or excerpt, the featured image, tags, categories, and more. This template is, of course, customizable via the block editor. While this is a step toward a less complex user experience, it is not quite where it needs to be yet. The Query block has been renamed to Query Loop. Therein lies the remaining issue. The terminology might not still be confusing. The goal is to expose a variation of this block named Posts List to users. It already exists, but the query-related terminology still appears when using it. There is an open ticket to address this. The primary win with this update is the overhauled text in the Query Loop block sidebar. “The query block is a powerful and complex block,” said lead Gutenberg developer Matias Ventura in a GitHub ticket. “It can be intimidated to users without proper guidance. We can use this block as an opportunity to explain some of the underlying concepts of the WordPress software in a more didactic manner.” The more advanced options, such as whether to inherit from the URL and which post types to include, now have longer descriptions. Each should guide the user through features that have long existed in the developer world. If you are a theme author and have already been building with these two blocks, do not worry about everything breaking when updating. The Query block has simply been renamed to “Query Loop” in user-facing text. Under the hood, it is still the same. The former Query Loop block has literally been renamed to Post Template (core/post-template block name). It is backward compatible. However, you should update any past calls to the wp:query-loop block to wp:post-template. Expand and Collapse Nested List View Blocks List view with collapsed nested blocks. The development team introduced an expand/collapse feature for the editor’s list view. Once opening the panel, users should now see arrow icons next to each item with nested blocks. Closing one or more of them makes it easier to see all or many top-level blocks at once. The downside is that the open/close state is lost once the list view is closed. If I had one request, it would be to store this data while editing the post. That would improve the user experience with longer documents, particularly when switching between navigating and editing. This update, along with the persistent behavior of the list view in Gutenberg 10.7, has made for a much more well-rounded document navigation experience. Rich URL Previews The editor will now show a website preview in the link editor popup. This feature only works for links in a Rich Text context, such as in the Paragraph, Heading, and List blocks. The preview also only appears after the link has been set and clicked on, not when initially typing it. If available, the popup preview displays the site icon, title, image, and description. “In the near future however, we expect to extend this to provide previews of internal URLs and to roll out support to more areas of the software,” wrote George Mamadashvili in the Gutenberg 10.9 announcement post. Admittedly, I was not keen on the idea of adding this feature. It felt like unnecessary bloat when more pressing issues were lying on the table. However, in the past day, I have enjoyed the quick previews when double-checking links in posts. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
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