Tag Archives: Tavern

Wordfence Now Authorized as a CVE Numbering Authority – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Wordfence has been authorized by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®) Program as a CNA (CVE Numbering Authority), which allows the company to directly assign CVE numbers for new vulnerabilities in WordPress core, plugins, and themes. The authority is granted by Mitre Corporation, a federally-funded US non-profit that manages research and development centers. Wordfence anticipates that the ability to create CVE assignments will expedite its security research. “As the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team continues to produce groundbreaking WordPress security research, Wordfence can more efficiently assign CVE IDs prior to publicly disclosing any vulnerabilities that our team discovers,” Wordfence threat analyst Chloe Chamberland said. “This means that a CVE ID will be immediately assigned with every vulnerability we discover rather than waiting for an assignment from an external CNA.” Not having to wait on a CVE ID is a major advantage for the company, especially when working with enterprise installations where WordPress is used in combination with other software. It also helps security personnel prioritize and act based on the potential severity of threats. “Our efforts to become a CNA had these individuals, institutions, and enterprise personnel in mind, as well as WordPress’ reputation as a whole,” Chamberland said. “Now, those tasked with securing WordPress will be able to quickly reference the CVE ID from our blog posts when reporting vulnerabilities throughout their organization and handling security update prioritization. We also hope that by being a CNA, Wordfence will receive even more direct reports from security researchers.” Becoming a CNA simplifies a security company’s process of submitting vulnerabilities. Wordfence is the second company to become one, operating within the scope of WordPress and related vulnerabilities. In January 2021, WPScan was granted CVE Numbering Authority status. Prior to becoming a CNA, assigning CVEs for every vulnerability in WPScan’s database would have been too time consuming. “Becoming a CNA has allowed us to help security researchers to verify and triage their vulnerabilities,” WPScan founder and CEO Ryan Dewhurst said. “This has helped grow our WordPress vulnerability database and keep WordPress users secure. But it is just one source of vulnerabilities among many others that we use.” The process for Wordfence to become a CNA was surprisingly simple. Chamberland said the company filled out a registration form with a few questions. “Once we were approved and agreed upon a scope, you are required to watch a series of onboarding videos that explain the processes required of a CNA,” she said. “After that, we had an onboarding meeting to ensure our team was fully trained on CVE Program protocols. It took Wordfence about a month to get authorized as a CNA once they received our registration form.” Historically, the WordPress ecosystem has been a magnet for those looking to exploit vulnerabilities, due to its large footprint on the web. That trend is likely to continue. Chamberland believes there is room for multiple CNA’s in the WordPress space. “We’ve had a great working relationship with WPScan over the years, and we expect that this relationship will continue as we have a similar mission in helping secure the WordPress community,” she said. “As WordPress grows, it becomes a larger and more attractive target for malicious actors. The more hands we have on deck, and the better we collaborate and adhere to industry standard security practices, the safer WordPress will be.” Attracting more researchers to report vulnerabilities is a major benefit to security companies that gain CNA status, since they are essentially in the business of selling vulnerability protection data. They give their paid customers early access to patches that are not yet available to the general public. Becoming a CNA has the potential to increase the value their businesses can provide. “With this growth in WordPress, we expect to see more security researchers in the WordPress space,” Chamberland said. “As such, we are bound to see an increase in CVE ID requests. Having multiple CNA’s that can assign CVE IDs to WordPress core, plugins and themes make sense to improve the speed in which security researchers can obtain CVE IDs, and provides researchers with multiple sources for CVE IDs.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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New Blocks, New Widgets Screen, and Pattern Directory on Deck – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] WordPress 5.8 beta 1 is ready for testing. This upcoming release makes major strides towards solidifying WordPress’ site building capabilities, along with improvements to features users have enjoyed since the launch of the block editor. It is one of the most feature-packed releases in recent history and as such requires all hands on deck for testing. New blocks in 5.8 include Page List, Site Title, Logo, Tagline, Query Loop, and Duotone. I decided to take each one for a spin this weekend on a test site, putting myself in the shoes of someone trying these blocks for the first time. I was surprised to learn that the template editor will be available to sites using any WordPress theme, since all the previous FSE testing rounds have called on testers to use the latest version of the TT1 Blocks Theme. It will be interesting to see how users respond to this and if it works well with older themes. Users can now create and edit custom templates for pages and posts using blocks. The template editor includes the new List View panel that gives an overview of all the sections and blocks in the template. Most of the new blocks in 5.8 are intended to work within the context of the template editor, but they also work in the post editor. The Page List block magically populates a list of all the pages on a site as soon as it is inserted. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to delete a single page from the list. If you try to delete a page the entire block disappears. This seems like a bug and is a frustrating experience in the context of the post editor. It may be more useful in terms of building navigation but this seems like a rough first pass. The Query Loop block comes with some different designs for how the loop could be displayed. Once a basic layout is chosen for a starting point, users can further customize the blocks within the loop, including typography, color, length of excerpt, and more. The Site Title, Tagline, and Logo blocks all seem to work as expected but I found previews to be unreliable for things like alignment and spacing. At this point in time, it seems like template editing will be better suited to users who are more adventurous and experimental when it comes to new features. Duotone is a fun new core block that you can see in action below, demonstrated by WordPress documentation contributor Milana Cap. The block adds images effects that can be used in media blocks. Theme and plugin developers can also employ and customize the effects for their own particular use cases. Oh. My. Gutenberg. Imagine images in duotone on your website 🤯 And now that you imagined it, you want it, right? Right? It’s coming up in #WordPress 5.8 😍 stay tuned 😊 pic.twitter.com/t5JHBcTEOV — Milana Cap (@DjevaLoperka) June 9, 2021 Hello New Widgets Screen! WordPress users will be greeted with a new block-based widgets screen in 5.8. It allows you to use blocks in any widgetized area. It wasn’t until I saw how this works that I realized how rigid our old widgets system was. Whatever functionality you were trying to insert had to be readily available as a widget or shortcode. Now any block from the vast world of blocks can be added to widgetized areas. Justin Tadlock wrote a post about how users can disable it with the Classic Widgets plugin. Should you disable it? Not unless you are forced to because of using a theme that doesn’t support it very well. Using blocks in widget areas is going to give you much more flexibility for what you can insert. You can even continue to use the old style widgets via the Legacy Widget block. Users may need a little time to adapt to the new interface but it’s worth it to have access to the growing world of innovative blocks. Pattern Directory Will Be Integrated with WordPress 5.8 The new Pattern Directory will launch on WordPress.org along with the 5.8 release. Justin Tadlock recently amplified the Design Team’s call for pattern contributions that would be available to users right away. Several have already been submitted via GitHub issues for the directory and the creativity here is energizing. In addition to introducing an exciting new avenue for designers to put their work out into the ecosystem, the Pattern Directory stands to become a valuable resource and inspiration to users who are designing their own websites. A “How It Works” pattern submitted by Lax Mariappan At launch the directory will only contain patterns that use core blocks but using blocks from WordPress.org may also be a possibility in the future. “There have definitely been some discussion of allowing any blocks from the Block Directory to be used and that they would be auto-installed if someone inserted the pattern,” Shaun Andrews commented in response to a theme studio inquiring about submitting their own patterns that use free blocks. “I believe this is possible, and something we should do, but there simply hasn’t been any work done to enable it yet. “We’re focused on getting the first iteration of the Pattern Directory launched, and then we plan to continue improving things.” Pattern transformation is a new feature launching with the new directory, which allows users to convert a block or collection of blocks into different patterns. Patterns can also be recommended and selected during block setup, which should make product onboarding easier. These are just a few features coming in WordPress 5.8 that need testing. Check out the 5.8 beta 1 release post for a more comprehensive list of all the improvements that are on deck. The official release is scheduled for July 20, 2021. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Gutenberg 10.8 Adds New Typography Controls and Block Previews – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] On Wednesday, Gutenberg 10.8 landed in the WordPress plugin directory. The release includes new typography options for controlling the Heading block’s font-weight and the List block’s font family. The Audio and File blocks now show preview content in the inserter. Gutenberg 10.7 felt like it introduced flashier features than 10.8. But, this was still a solid release. Sometimes the things that you do not see are just as important as those that you do. Full Site Editing (FSE) components continue to move along at a swift pace. Most changes were bug fixes rather than enhancements. One of the primary theme-related FSE upgrades allows developers to set the padding for nav menu links via theme.json. This may be a small win, but it is unlikely to address the numerous issues with styling navigation items and nested lists. The change also does not affect the Page List block links, which can be set as a nav menu item. The Navigation block will be one of the toughest nuts to crack before site editing is a possibility. Enhancements like this help, but it is a long and winding road to a solution that satisfies both theme authors and users. Users should see the post title in template-editing mode. The template details modal also includes more detailed information, such as how to best name custom templates. New Typography Options Gutenberg 10.8 enables the font-weight control for Heading blocks. This allows theme authors to define the default weight via their theme.json files, and users can override this via the sidebar panel in the editor. Testing font weights for the Heading block. The control displays all nine possible weights: Thin Extra Light Light Regular Medium Semi Bold Bold Extra Bold Black While each weight is selectable, it does not mean all fonts support a specific weight. For example, users will see no difference between Extra Bold and Black with the Twenty Twenty-One theme. In the long term, this should be coupled with the font family control. This would allow theme authors to define which weights are supported by a specific family, making those the only options for users. The List block is jumping ahead of others with its support of the font family option. Generally, we would see the Heading or Paragraph blocks gain such features first. Setting a custom font family for a List block. The Site Title, Site Tagline, and Post Title blocks all currently support the font family control. It is a welcome addition to see expanded typography options, but I look forward to the day they are offered across every block. Theme authors can also define custom letter spacing for the Site Title and Site Tagline blocks. However, the feature does not currently appear in the block options sidebar, which would allow users to customize it. There is an open ticket to address this missing piece of the UI. Audio and File Block Previews Audio block preview in the inserter. The development team added new previews for the Audio and File blocks in the inserter. This is a nice-to-have enhancement, adding long-missing previews of some of the remaining core blocks, but it is also a bug fix. In previous versions of the block editor, users who attempted to upload media via the Audio or File blocks would get a duplicate upload. This only happened in situations where their theme or a plugin registered a custom block style. Adding a preview apparently fixed this odd bug. This change also nearly gives us a complete set of previews for the pre-WordPress 5.8 blocks. Classic, Spacer, Shortcode, and Legacy Widget do not have them, but they are unique cases. The upcoming theme-related blocks also lack previews. “Archives” Label Now Shown for Archives Dropdown Duplicate archives heading and label. When using the Archives block as a dropdown, it now outputs a label titled “Archives.” While it is a seemingly trivial change, it could impact how themes typically present this block. This enhancement changes some existing expectations. The primary use case throughout WordPress’s history has been to show the Archives dropdown in a widget. In that case, there is almost always a widget title with the “Archives” text preceding it. I expect most other use cases would follow a similar pattern. This essentially creates duplicate text. Themes Team representative Carolina Nymark had an alternate suggestion: What if the label was visible by default, but there was an option for hiding it? Similar to the search block, except there would be an actual label hidden with a screen reader text CSS class when the option is toggled. That would have been my suggestion too if I had seen the ticket earlier. For now, theme authors who need to hide it should target the .wp-block-archives-dropdown > label class in their CSS. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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“The Block Editor Gets Ready to Become a Site Builder” – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Matt Mullenweg and Matías Ventura joined WordCamp Europe to chat about what’s happening with the Gutenberg project and celebrate the progress contributors have made over the past four years. “For me, 2020 was the year that really felt like people started to see the vision of Gutenberg from four or five years ago, when it was very abstract and they saw it as kind of like the old WYSIWYG editor with some extra lines on it or something,” Mullenweg said. “The first 17 or 18 years of WordPress democratized people putting text into a box. Now we’re democratizing design, allowing people to control the boxes.” Ventura commented on how transformative patterns have been for making page design approachable for users. “Perhaps it was a smaller part of the roadmap initially but it’s becoming a centerpiece – especially because it allows…world class designers to provide a starting point for users and users get to learn design as they are interacting with themes,” Ventura said. He began his WordPress developer journey by “tinkering with themes,” as many others did, and believes that blocks can unlock a similar experimental learning experience. “I think we are getting into a chapter where people will be able to tinker with things that were sort of hidden for you in WordPress – more advanced things like queries and loops, that we can now expose through blocks,” Ventura said. “They can be stepping stones for people to learn how to work with WordPress.” Mullenweg commented on how things that previously would have required a fairly experienced WordPress developer to do, like creating a home page with a column that shows five recent posts from a particular category, and another column that shows featured posts in a different category, you can now do with just a few clicks. “It’s no code – it’s like expanding the layers of accessibility of what people are able to do with WordPress,” Mullenweg said. “That, to me, is very core to our mission.” Mullenweg and Ventura debuted a new “Gutenberg highlight” video that covers current and new features coming to the block editor, as it “gets ready to become a site builder.” These kinds of marketing videos are so valuable because users don’t always know what is possible, even if the tools are approachable for anyone to use. The video demonstrates new design features for different blocks, including the transform live previews, dragging media into container blocks, inline cropping without leaving the editor canvas, the template editor, duotone image filters, more customization options for navigation, improvements to the list view browser, and the new global styles design that is coming soon. Check out the video below and you can also watch Mullenweg and Ventura’s conversation that was recorded during the event. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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A Progress Bar Block Plugin Done Right by the Tiles Team – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] I have been on the hunt for a decent progress bar solution for a while now. Most of them are bundled in large block libraries, requiring me to install another 20 or 30 blocks in which I have no need. Others seem to miss the mark entirely with odd configurations and block options. Some of the remaining plugins still use shortcodes and widgets, but it is 2021. I am looking for a block. A couple of days ago, the Tiles Progress Block landed in the directory. It seems to be a smaller piece of a larger project named Tiles. I have been keeping an eye on the team’s work since its initial design and patterns framework plugin launched last week. That project is still in beta, and only time will tell if it becomes a competitive project in the block space. However, the team’s new progress bar block was just what I was looking for. Other than one bug, which I reported to the developer, I found no serious issues. The plugin does what it says on the tin. It registers a Progress Bar block: Small and Large progress bars with default colors. Out of the box, it includes Small and Large styles, allowing the user to adjust the size of the bar. Its strength is that — I cannot stress this enough — the block’s content is editable within the editor canvas area. This includes the label and percentage. This is a refreshing change from the many others that require users to jump back into the block options sidebar to change simple text. Because the block uses Rich Text fields for its label and percentage, end-users can use inline formatting tools like bold, italic, and more. The block also uses the standard typography and color palette controls from core WordPress. This provides access to the theme’s font sizes and colors. Adding custom labels, percentages, and colors. Plus, users can choose wide and full-width layouts, an often overlooked feature in block plugins. Overall, I am digging this block plugin. If I had one feature request, it would be to add a border-radius option. By default, the progress bar is rounded, but some users might prefer squared corners. Extending the Block In theme previews, I almost always see progress bars showcased alongside how much PHP, HTML, and JavaScript the demo’s faux developer has learned. It is rarely a real-world representation of progress bars. How do you quantify how much of a coding language you have mastered? I have been doing this for nearly two decades and cannot answer that. Progress bars should be of measurable things. For example, steps someone has taken in an online learning course, percentage of total donations received, and any number of things that can be counted are far more realistic. My favorite use of progress bars also happens to be on my favorite novelist’s website. I like to keep an eye on Brandon Sanderson’s work, looking forward to getting my next literary fix (yes, I am a fanboy). Brandon Sanderson’s writing progress. Currently, Tiles Progress Block does not handle that exact layout. However, because it is built on the block system and does not do anything out of the ordinary, theme authors can change that with custom styles. And that is just what I did. My Sanderson-esque book progress bars (rough, unpolished code available as a Gist): Progress bars with custom block style. The thing I love about the block system is that themers can extend blocks in this way. There is no needless checking for active plugins, loading additional per-plugin stylesheets, or figuring out each plugin’s unique system. If a block is coded to the current standards, theme authors merely need to hook in with their own styles. Users can then select those styles via the editor and even make them the default. I want to see more of this from the block plugin ecosystem. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress 5.8 Introduces Support for WebP Images – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] WebP support is coming to WordPress 5.8. This modern image file format was created by Google in September 2010, and is now supported by 95% of the web browsers in use worldwide. It has distinct advantages over more commonly used formats, providing both lossless and lossy compression that is 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs and 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images. WebP is currently used by 1.6% of all the top 10 million websites, according to W3Techs, and usage has increased over the past five years. W3Techs: Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of image file formats for websites Adding WebP support to core won’t make all WordPress sites instantly faster, but it will give every site owner the opportunity to reduce bandwidth by uploading WebP images. In the dev note, Adam Silverstein suggested converting images to WebP using command line conversion tools or web based tools like Squoosh, but there are also many plugins that can perform conversion on upload. WebP Express uses the WebP Convert library to convert the images and then serves them to supporting browsers. It is used on more than 100,000 WordPress sites. Imagify is one of the most popular plugins in use with more than 500,000 active installs. It has a Bulk Optimizer tool that can convert previously uploaded images with one click. The EWWW Image Optimizer plugin, used on more than 800,000 websites, also has support for automatically converting images to the WebP format. By default, WordPress will create the sub-sized images as the same image format as the uploaded file. More adventurous users can experiment with Silverstein’s plugin that offers a setting for specifying the default image format used for the sub-sized images WordPress generates. A new wp_editor_set_quality filter is available for developers to modify the quality setting for uploaded images. “The media component team is also exploring the option of having WordPress perform the image format conversion on uploaded images – using WebP as the default output format for sub-sized images,” Silverstein said. “We are also keeping our eyes on even more modern formats like AVIF and JPEGXL that will both improve compression and further reduce resources required for compression.” WordPress 5.8 is expected to be released on July 20, introducing WebP support for uploads. The new release also adds information to the Media Handling section of the Site Health screen, showing the ImageMagick/Imagick supported file formats for the site in case users need it for debugging. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Original Dark Mode Developer Relaunches Plugin After the Apparent ‘Cash Grab’ of the New Owners – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] WordPress dashboard screen with Dark Mode 2. Daniel James, the original Dark Mode WordPress plugin creator, is stepping back into WordPress development after a two-year pursuit of other projects. His new plugin: Dark Mode 2. It is a response to the recent change to the original Dark Mode plugin for WordPress. Last month, I reported that the WPPool repurposed the plugin to include the commercial Iceberg editor, a feature entirely unrelated to providing a dark viewing mode for the WordPress admin. It is now called WP Markdown Editor. After the change, several plugin users left one-star ratings. However, its user base was small compared to that of ProfilePress (formerly WP User Avatar), which continues getting drenched in low ratings. Still, the change did not sit well with James. “After finding out that Dark Mode had been passed on to multiple people, I was disappointed to see so many people say they’d take it on without actually bothering to do anything with it,” said James. “It became even more disappointing when I learned the latest developers to have hold of it had ripped out the original functionality in favor of something completely different as a means of selling a product.” The Dark Mode plugin was once a feature proposal for WordPress. James began the process in 2018, but it never moved much beyond the initial stage. In 2019, he put the plugin up for adoption. It changed hands a couple of more times before WPPool became the owner. In hindsight, James said he should have just abandoned the plugin. At the time, he was stepping away from WordPress entirely to pursue other projects, including building applications with the Laravel PHP framework. However, he never stopped using WordPress completely and has kept an eye on the community. “I think there is more things that WordPress.org maintainers could do, specifically the Plugin Review Team,” he said. “I think more checks need to be done when plugins change ownership and/or are updated. As someone who used to put a lot of time into WordPress, I know how demanding it can be, so having volunteers tasked with more work is always a tricky thing to handle.” However, he said he did not have the solution to the problem. “When you take Dark Mode and, more recently, WP User Avatar having their code changed for what appears to be a cash grab, all it does is hurt developers, agencies, and site admins.” The repurposing of his former work was the catalyst that he needed to rebuild a solution from scratch. Now, Dark Mode 2 is on the scene. A New Plugin and a Fresh Take Manage posts screen with Dark Mode enabled. James says Dark Mode 2 is still early in its development lifecycle. However, he does not think it is far off from where the original plugin would be if he would have continued it. Maybe just shy an extra setting or two. “I’ve finally got it to a point where it’s ready to be used and replace the classic Dark Mode plugin,” he said. “The great thing about starting again is that it’s easier to style the WordPress dashboard. There is so much going on in the various wp-admin stylesheets that starting over was the only way. It means it supports the latest version of WordPress and cuts out any outdated styling that was previously there.” The plugin currently only has one setting, which individual users can set via their profile page. It is an option between “Light” and “Dark” viewing modes. Configuring Dark Mode from the user profile screen. There are several features James is eager to work on going forward. One of the most requested from the “classic” Dark Mode days is styling the WordPress editor. At the moment, the plugin steers clear of it. “I’ve always been hesitant to do that because of theme editor styles,” he said. “However, lots of themes tend to style the editors in a very basic fashion, so I’ll be looking at adding in ‘support’ styles for those that want a fully dark dashboard.” One of the other features he is working on is scheduling when Dark Mode is active or inactive. This would primarily work based on a user’s system preferences if they have their OS set up for light or dark mode at different times of the day. “For something that appears to be quite a basic plugin, there’s so much you can do with it,” said James. This time around, the plugin developer is making Dark Mode 2 a commercial-only plugin. He is pricing it at £25 (~$35.28 at today’s exchange rate). This includes lifetime updates with no installation limits. James said he wanted to keep the price low and not have people worry about another renewal fee every year while also still being supported for his effort. “I’m not going to make millions from this plugin, and that’s okay,” he said. “That’s not my goal. My goal is to make a plugin that helps people and makes it easier for them to manage their website. Plus, it’s about time WordPress got a proper Dark Mode!” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Open Invitation To Contribute to the WordPress Block Pattern Directory – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] The upcoming block pattern directory is launching alongside WordPress 5.8 in July. The goal is to make several high-quality designs available for users right off the bat. However, the official submission process will not open until the directory launches. In this chicken-and-egg scenario, the Design team is asking for early contributors to submit their pattern candidates via GitHub. “The project needs a collection of high-quality, diverse, community-designed patterns to populate it with during development,” wrote Kjell Reigstad in the announcement post. “These patterns will set the tone for quality in the repository and will make the directory useful for folks upon its launch.” Alongside Reigstad, Beatriz Fialho and Mel Choyce-Dwan have already added several block patterns. They are available through the Gutenberg plugin now. Several of the current block patterns. The trio has also submitted the majority of the 18 current potential patterns. While they have produced solid work thus far, the directory needs a more diverse set of designs from the community to launch with a bang. Creating a pattern requires no coding skills. It is possible directly via the block editor. Just design, copy, and submit. The team already has a GitHub template in place for submitting patterns. Be sure to use CC0 (public domain) images if they are a part of your creation. Copying a pattern from the WordPress editor. I have somewhere between 40 and 50 patterns lying around. You could say that I have been doing a bit of dabbling in the art of block-pattern design in my free time. Many of these patterns rely on custom block styles, so they are not suitable for the directory. However, I have several that are general enough for submission. As always, I try to pay it forward when possible. Therefore, I cleaned a couple of patterns today using the Twenty Twenty-One theme and submitted them for inclusion. The first was a three-column section of “about me” or “connect with me” boxes. This has been one of my favorites to play around with. About me boxes. It is not on par with my original design, but I like how it turned out. If you have read any of my past posts on blocks and patterns, I will sound like a broken record. However, I must say it for those who did not hear the message the first 100 times. The main limiting factor for block patterns is the lack of spacing options on almost all blocks. Blocks like Group and Column have padding controls, which are a nice feature. However, vertical margin options are must-haves for the directory to be as successful with its goals as it intends to be. A prime example is in my first pattern. My original mockup closes the gap between the heading and subheading. In my submission, I tightened the space by setting the line height, but I needed an option for zeroing out the vertical margin. If you compare it to the original idea built with some features not yet available, you can see how much improved the overall layout’s spacing is. Original about me boxes with tighter margin control. I ran into the same issue with my second pattern, Team Social Cards, between the Image and Separator blocks. The gap there has more to do with Twenty Twenty-One’s inconsistent spacing. I may revisit the giraffe photo, but it is growing on me. It is fun. Plus, end-users are meant to actually replace it. I will probably submit one or two more during this early phase, and I will definitely contribute more once the pattern directory is officially open. For now, I want to see our talented design community giving a little something back to the WordPress project. This is such an easy way to contribute that has no coding requirement — just a little time. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Review Signal Publishes 2021 Hosting Performance Benchmarks on New WordPress-Powered Site – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Kevin Ohashi has published his 2021 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks report. The annual report is broken down into six different hosting tiers, from the most economical <$25/month, to the $500+ enterprise level. This is the second year the stats include WooCommerce-specific hosts as a separate category. After eight years of measuring peak performance and consistency for WordPress hosts, Review Signal has relaunched benchmarks on wphostingbenchmarks.com, a WordPress-powered site. Review Signal started using sentiment analysis to capture consumer reviews of hosting companies on Twitter in 2011 and launched in 2012. Ohashi added a WordPress blog but said it never really integrated well with the code and design of the rest of the site. He launched the benchmarks in 2013, publishing the first handful of tests via a simple blog post. “In 2020 it was dozens of companies, 6 full price tiers of competition, and a separate WooCommerce group as well,” Ohashi said. “It really has become its own product, and creating a dedicated site for them at WPHostingBenchmarks.com is recognition of that fact. It also opened the door for a rebranding effort and a much better presentation of the results.” Results on the new site are much easier to understand at a glance with honorable mentions and top tier companies denoted by a half star and full star. Visitors can click through to get more specific information about each host’s performance on the tests. Top tier performers in the <$25 tier included 20i, CynderHost, EasyWP by Namecheap, Eco Web Hosting, Green Geeks, Lightning Base, RAIDBOXES, and WPX, with a handful of honorable mentions. In the Enterprise tier (shown above), RAIDBOXES, Scaleforce powered by Jelastic, Seravo, Servebolt, Servebolt Accelerated, and WordPress VIP capture the top tier spots. Now that the new site is database driven, Ohashi can publish faster and reduce the amount of work it takes going forward. “It also lets me auto generate pages from the data – for example company profile pages,” he said. “I attempted to write a blog post in the past about companies that did well, but it was never really a success. Now, I can display all their historical results, pull up analysis, compare them all by year, etc. So I am happier, companies are (hopefully) happier, and most of all – consumers get better insight into the results.” WooCommerce Benchmarks Expanding WooCommerce benchmarks have expanded since their first time to be included separately last year. Five out of the 11 companies tested scored top tier results, including Lightning Base, Pressable, Servebolt, SiteGround, and WordPress.com. Servebolt scored 99.999% Uptime and the fastest Load Storm average response time, along with the fastest wp-login, Buyer and Customer profiles and second fastest Home profile. Pressable reprised its top tier status with perfect uptime and the second fastest Average Response Time on WebPageTest. WordPress.com posted perfect uptime, the second fastest K6 average response time, and a solid Load Storm test. On the WebPageTest results WordPress.com took 10/12 of the fastest response times and posted the fastest WP Bench scores Ohashi has ever recorded and the second fastest PHP Bench. In 2021, SiteGround slipped to honorable mention status in every other tier where it was tested, with the exception of WooCommerce. Lightning Base maintained its top tier status with a 99.99% uptime rating, very good flat Load Storm and K6 results, and no problems with the tests. “For WooCommerce I had seven companies participate last year and this year had 11 companies, which is a 57% increase,” Ohashi said. “The traditional WordPress benchmarks grew from ~29 companies last year to 35-37 depending on if you differentiate Automattic brands (VIP, WP.com, Pressable) which is at least a 20% growth in participation.” Ohashi said he is pleased with the mix of new entrants and companies that have participated for years, but the pandemic has slowed Review Signal’s business. “It’s been a bit slow revenue wise,” he said. “I don’t sell any products and don’t think I’ve found any advantage during the pandemic to make what I do stand out relative to what’s happening to the world. That is another motivating reason for creating WPHostingBenchmarks.com, I wanted to take that extra time I have and make the biggest change for Review Signal in years.” Review Signal’s benchmarks are one of the most thorough and transparent evaluations of hosting products in the industry. This is because Ohashi doesn’t accept any hosting sponsorship. Each company pays a small, publicly documented, fee for participation to cover the costs of the tests. These fees are standardized based on the pricing tier of the product entered into the testing. Consumers in the market for a new hosting company will find WPHostingBenchmarks a solid resource for comparing how companies perform at different pricing tiers. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Spice Up Your Food or Recipe Blog With the Nutmeg WordPress Theme – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Last week, Dumitru Brînzan announced Nutmeg Plus. It is the latest commercial theme offering through his ILOVEWP brand. Earlier today, the free version of Nutmeg landed in the WordPress theme directory. The theme is built for food and recipe bloggers and is another solid example of building on the block system. As is typical of his style, Nutmeg rests on a foundation of clean lines and readable typography. It pulls elements from some of Brînzan’s previous work, such as the featured pages section of Photozoom and the two-column intro from Endurance. Reusing code is one of the cornerstones of smart development. The theme never gets too flashy, nor is it a bold step forward in design. However, it has a timeless layout that is hard to go wrong with. Where it shines is in its use of block patterns and styles. Recipe post built with Nutmeg. Sometimes, theme authors surprise me with, in hindsight, simple solutions. Nutmeg’s List block styles had me asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Last month, I challenged theme authors to build out patterns that are often created as custom blocks. In the post, I showcased an example of how themers could provide pricing columns for their users. The Nutmeg theme is a perfect example of that same concept, only applied to recipes. The unique aspect is that Brînzan did not make it complex. With a few simple styles for the List block, he had all the makings of the typical “recipe card” seen on many food blogs. Is it as advanced as a fully-featured recipe card plugin? No. But, that should not be the goal. If users need more advanced recipe-related features and functionality, that is where plugins make sense. The theme even recommends a few like WP Recipe Maker, Recipe Card Blocks, and Delicious Recipes for those who need more. However, for bloggers who are just starting, undecided on recipe plugins, or simply do not want another dependency, the theme has built-in solutions for them. It is tough to discount the value in that. Adding instructions and ingredients. With a starting point of the Recipe Info, Ingredients List, or Ingredients + Instructions patterns, users can quickly pop these sections into their content. Or, they can go the alternate route of starting with the List block and selecting one of four custom styles. Theme authors should be able to build unique and complex combinations of blocks with custom styles. Users should be able to just make it look like the demo. Block Patterns Will Change Everything It was March 2020. The Gutenberg development team had just pushed block patterns into the plugin, but the feature would not land in core WordPress for months. I do not want to call myself a prophet. It was plain enough for anyone to see: block patterns would eventually change how end-users interact with the editor and build their sites. Patterns were the answer to elaborate homepage setups. Instead of jumping back and forth between non-standard theme options, hoping for the best from a theming community that never learned to entirely leverage the customizer, users could simply click buttons and insert layout sections where they wanted. Recreating Nutmeg’s homepage demo was easy. By just picking a few patterns and adding some custom images, I was up and running in minutes. No tutorial necessary. No half-hour session of figuring out a theme’s custom options setup. Select the custom homepage template. Add the Cover with Overlay pattern and upload an image. Drop in the Opening Message pattern and customize. Insert the Featured Pages pattern and add images. Homepage built from patterns. Simple setup processes like this are the exact thing that theme authors have been repeatedly asking about for the better part of a decade. Except for a powerful Query solution, which is arriving in a limited form in WordPress 5.8 (the Post Featured Image block is the weak point), the tools are mostly in place. The feature set is only growing with each release. One of my favorite solutions in the theme is the use of the Cover block’s inner container. The plugin has several styles for moving this inside box around and creating a featured section. Customizing the Cover block with styles. One improvement I might suggest is to provide “width” styles for the inner container here. Core already provides an alignment matrix option. Styles for 25%, 50%, and 75% width (100% being the default) would offer more variety when coupled with the existing alignments. The only things that felt out of place with the theme were its alignment block styles for Heading and Paragraph blocks. WordPress already provides alignment options for these blocks. I am not sure if there is a use case that I am unaware of for the styles, but they were definitely confusing. The theme is worth a test run for any food or recipe bloggers who need a dash of Nutmeg to spice up their site. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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