Tag Archives: Users

Is Gutenberg Finally Winning Users Over? We Analyzed 340+ Opinions to Find Out

[ad_1] Over the past few months, I’ve been diving deep into what people really think about WordPress’ block editor – Gutenberg. I thought this was going to be a fun project. I analyzed over 340 opinions from platforms like Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and WordPress.org. I also spoke with developers, colleagues, and other professionals in the WordPress community to get a well-rounded perspective. The goal was to understand how people feel about the block editor in 2024. When it first launched at WordCamp Europe in 2017, the initial reaction was curiosity, which quickly turned into disappointment. That reputation has been hard to shake ever since. However, I’m noticing a slight shift. For instance, take this chart: What it shows is the ratio of 1-star to 5-star reviews over time for the standalone Gutenberg plugin. As you can see, we were really close – really close(!) – to a tipping point, but negative reviews have started creeping up again. So, is the block editor actually improving, or are users starting to get frustrated again? Depending on how deep you want to go, I have two choices for you: 💪 “I’m interested in the whole thing! I want to see all the opinions, plus the potential implications for the WordPress ecosystem as we know it.” → Go to the main post on Themeisle 🤩 “I just want a compilation of some interesting/ridiculous/insightful/surprising comments.” → Keep reading Now, the chart I showed above tells just part of the story. While the percentage ratio of negative to positive opinions is what it is, it’s also important to note that Gutenberg has been getting significantly fewer reviews each year. In 2024, for example, only 37 reviews have been added so far (eight months into the year at the time of writing). Given that early reviews came in much larger numbers, it’s difficult to say with confidence whether the WordPress community has been enjoying Gutenberg more (or less) over time. What we can say for sure, though, is that people aren’t any less passionate about it. 🤩 Here are some of the most interesting opinions I found (according to my subjective assessment). [ad_2] Source link

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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

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Quick Tip: Show All Users Sorted by Metadata

[ad_1] In the previous post on sorting users by meta data, I concluded with the following: Note that how the status is set will depend on the plugin you’re working on and whether or not you want to render a column on the All Users page for this. And I can show that in another tip in a future post. By this, I mean that it’s one thing to actually sort the users on the All Users page but it doesn’t make a lot of sense unless there’s a column by which the status is shown and the value of said status. Given that, here’s how we can show all users sorted by the metadata that we reviewed in the previous post. Show All Users Sorted by Metadata First, we want to add a column on the All Users page. This is easy to do given the manage_users_columns hook. This filter will allow us to add a custom column to the array of columns that render on the page. In short, we’re going to add a column header that reads Status: add_filter( ‘manage_users_columns’, function ($columns) { $columns[‘status’] = ‘Status’; return $columns; } ); This adds the column but it doesn’t show the value. Using one more action, we can add the value of the metadata and we can render the value inline with the given user. add_action( ‘manage_users_custom_column’, function ($value, $columnName, $userId) { if (‘status’ === strtolower($columnName)) { $status = get_user_meta($userId, ‘status’, true); return ‘1’ === $status ? ‘Active’ : ‘Inactive;’; } }, 10, 3 ); In the above code, notice that we’re using manage_users_custom_column hook. Filters the display output of custom columns in the Users list table. Developer Handbook We’re also executing this with a priority of 10 and we’re sending 3 arguments into the function: The value The column name The ID of the user being rendered We need to check the $columnName value. I use strtolower to make it easy to run a conditional check against the column. This is why status is lower case. Next, we take the $userId and then get the metadata using the get_user_meta WordPress API function. We’ll specify the current $userId key, the status meta key, and then specify true since we want the value to be returned as a string. Finally, we’ll compare the value of $status to 1 and determine whether or not the user is active or not. Depending on the outcome, we’ll return Active or Inactive. Next to the user in the All Users page. [ad_2] Source link

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Should Users Be Able To Select More Than One Block Style? – WP Tavern

[ad_1] When I first tried the block styles feature in WordPress, I was impressed. As a theme creator, it was a simple way of allowing users to select a design-related class without them actually needing to know what was happening under the hood. In that first week or so, I hit the problem that many others had. I wanted to combine two or more classes/styles to offer a wide range of user options. This was back in late 2018 or early 2019 — around the time of the WordPress 5.0 release. Others have requested the ability to combine styles since, and Keith Devon, the co-founder of Highrise Digital, brought the issue up again via Twitter last week. However, these multiple requests have never resulted in a change to the core code. This snail’s pace has been beneficial. Jumping too early on some features when others have yet to mature can create unnecessary legacy baggage. Over the past couple of years, I have reassessed my position on combining block styles. As the editor has evolved, there is a clearer vision emerging around what options users will have. While I initially wanted to combine block styles, I am not so sure anymore. The primary reason for this is that core has already made many obsolete through block options, and it will continue to do so with other controls in the future. When WordPress itself handles this, it creates a standard that all themes can rely on. With one of those passion projects I’m building in my free time, I currently have six styles for the Image block: Rounded Flip: Horizontal Flip: Vertical Polaroid Polaroid: Tilt Left Polaroid: Tilt Right Polaroid-style image tilted left. There are times when mixing and matching some of those might make sense. For example, the Flip: Horizontal style fits well with all the others and would not cause issues when combined. I could also go overboard by adding choices to meet every possible variation. Some combos would break down entirely or not be aesthetically pleasing. For example, the Rounded style does not work well with the Polaroid styles. However, these are simple styles that barely scratch the surface of what is possible. Most of these are not block styles that I would want to ship with a theme. For example, the Rounded style could easily be handled via the WordPress-supported border-radius option. The Polaroid style is just a fancy name for some padding and a box-shadow on the image. These are all standard design features that should eventually be a part of the base editor experience. Currently, themes that ship such styles are filling in the gaps where WordPress has yet to do so. In the short term, theme authors must cater to their user base. However, down the road, WordPress should offer a more robust set of tools that cover the basics. There really is no reason for every theme to have a different, non-standard slug (i.e., class name) for essentially the same block styles (e.g., Polaroid vs. Framed vs. Borders). It creates cross-theme compatibility issues that we should avoid when possible. Block styles are handy for introducing quick methods for achieving these fundamental design options, but I am looking at what they should be for the long term. If core WordPress evolves to the point where it makes most of these styles obsolete, what should theme authors do with the feature? That is where more specialized block styles make sense. The goal is the same: fill in the gaps that WordPress leaves open. One example that would be tough to replicate with simple design options would be a tag/label style for the Tag Cloud block, as shown in the following screenshot. Tag/Label style for tags. I also have a Pill Outline style for the same block: Pill Outline block style for tags. Obviously, those two styles would not work together. Creating a system where users could choose both would result in some problematic outcomes. The more complex any two block styles become, the more likely they will conflict with each other. Right now, it is too early to commit to a multi-select feature for block styles. We need to let this thing play out a bit and give the core design tools a chance to catch up. We can reevaluate when most of the blocks packaged with WordPress have a broader set of styling options. At that point, it may even make more sense to begin using block variations, an API that allows developers to preconfigure block attributes. If a solid set of design options exist, it would be simple to offer multiple combinations out of the box for users. In the meantime, I would like to see a reevaluation of the UI for block styles. Shaun Andrews has an in-depth piece, Thinking Through: Switching Block Styles, that explores various options on how we could iterate on it. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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What Is Gravatar? Complete Guide for WordPress Users + Everyone Else

[ad_1] What is Gravatar and why should you care about it? In a nutshell, it’s a service that helps you display avatars on the Internet. If you’re a user, it helps you create a profile picture that automatically follows you around to other sites. And if you’re a WordPress webmaster, it helps you automatically display profile pictures for your users and commenters. In this post, we’re going to cover everything that you need to know about Gravatar, with a special focus on WordPress because we’re a WordPress blog. With that being said, anyone can benefit from this article – we won’t get to the WordPress stuff until the end! Here’s everything that we’re going to cover: What Gravatar is, explained in more detail How to set up your own Gravatar Some tips for working with Gravatar on WordPress, like disabling it or caching the images locally Let’s get started! What Is Gravatar? Gravatar helps you create a unique user avatar that you can easily use at a ton of different websites across the Internet. Or, if you have a website, Gravatar helps you easily display unique avatars for all of your users. Gravatar is a portmanteau of the phrase globally recognized avatar. The idea is that a person can upload an avatar in one spot (the Gravatar website) and then have that avatar automatically recognized by other websites. The basic process works like this: You create a Gravatar account using your email address. You can add multiple email addresses if needed. You upload your desired avatar picture to Gravatar. When you use your email address on a website that uses Gravatar, that website will automatically use the avatar image that you set up with Gravatar. Gravatar comes from a company called Automattic, which is the same company behind WordPress.com and is owned by one of the co-founders of the open-source WordPress software (which is different from WordPress.com).  Because of this, Gravatar is built into WordPress, though many other sites and services use it. Gravatar Examples To drive home the point, let’s look at some Gravatar examples. One of the most common examples is WordPress. All WordPress sites use the Gravatar service by default. Let’s say you leave a comment on a WordPress blog (like this one) using the same email address that you registered with at Gravatar. Well, that WordPress site will show your Gravatar image next to your comment – here’s an example from our comments section: There are a lot of other Gravatar examples beyond WordPress, though. For example, Slack uses Gravatar to generate profile pictures by default. So does Stackoverflow and tons of other websites and services. So, whether you knew it or not, you’ve probably used a site that supports Gravatar. How to Create a Gravatar Creating your own Gravatar image is easy and 100% free. Here’s how to do it… First, go to the Gravatar website and click the Create your Gravatar button: You’ll then be prompted to either: Create a new free WordPress.com account (if you don’t have one already). Log into your existing free WordPress.com account. WordPress.com is a service from the same parent company as Gravatar. Gravatar uses WordPress.com as its sign-on solution and creating a WordPress.com account is 100% free: If you just created your WordPress.com account, you might see another prompt on the Gravatar website telling you to sign in. Go ahead and click that button if you see it. Or, you might already be connected, in which case you can jump to the next step: Now, you’ll see your email address, along with a prompt to add a new Gravatar image: When you click that, you’ll be prompted to upload an image from your preferred source. Or, you can take a new picture with your webcam: Once you select your image, you’ll have an option to crop it if needed. Or, you can just leave it as the original. Once you’re happy with how it looks, click Crop Image: Then, you’ll need to set a rating. This helps website/service owners make sure they don’t accidentally have explicit pictures on their sites. If it’s just a normal “run of the mill” avatar, choose the suitable for display on all websites option and click Set Rating: And that’s it! You’re all done. If you want, you can repeat the process to add more avatars. Gravatar also lets you set up some profile information in the My Profile tab. However, you shouldn’t feel compelled to fill any of this out as most people will just see your avatar picture: How to Use Your Gravatar The nice thing about Gravatar is that you don’t need to do anything special to use it. All you need to do is use the email address associated with your Gravatar account. As long as: You use that email. The website/service supports Gravatar. Then your avatar image should show up automatically. If you want to associate multiple email addresses with your avatars, you can add new email addresses from your Gravatar dashboard: You’ll need to click the link in the activation email that Gravatar sends your new email address to make it live. Gravatar Profile Search – Search for Gravatar by Email If you want to look up your own Gravatar image (or someone else’s image), there’s a Gravatar profile search feature that lets you look up someone’s profile picture by entering their email address. To use this feature: You’ll then see the different profile picture options: WordPress Gravatar Guide: Improve Gravatar Usage On Your Site Now, let’s start moving into the WordPress-specific Gravatar tips for WordPress webmasters. While Gravatar makes it really easy to have real profile pictures on WordPress, there are two potential issues: User experience Performance In terms of user experience, the issue is that visitors can’t change their profile pictures from your WordPress site – they have to do it from the Gravatar website. This isn’t a big deal in your comments section. But if you allow user registration (say for a membership

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Revisions Extended Plugin Lets Users Schedule Updates to Published Posts – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WordPress has long had the ability to schedule content to be published in the future, but it can only make immediate changes to posts that are already published. If you want to schedule changes to published content, a plugin is necessary. Corey McKrill, a full-time sponsored contributor to the WordPress.org Meta team, has developed a plugin, with the help of contributor Steven Dufresnethat, which is now in use on WordPress.org. Revisions Extended allows users to schedule revisions, or updates, for posts that have already been published. It extends WordPress’ revision system to include a “future” post status as a revision post type. McKrill recorded a gif to demonstrate the UI: https://cloudup.com/cOHLm_77ECk Although there are existing plugins which already perform this functionality, McKrill said they were either inadequate for WordPress.org’s needs or add extra functionality that they don’t need. Revisions Extended supports the following for any post type that supports revisions: From the block editor, make changes to an already-published post and schedule those changes to go live at a later date. In the block editor UI as well as other admin screens, indicate when a post has a scheduled update. View a list of all scheduled updates Delete a scheduled update or trash/unpublish a post with a scheduled update Edit scheduled updates, including the content and the future publish date. Compare scheduled update content to the current published content. The ability to schedule updates is especially useful for ensuring that software documentation is updated when a new release is available or when API changes go into effect. The plugin entered the testing phase in March and is now used on multiple sites across the WordPress.org network. It makes it easier to schedule updates to lesson plans on the Learn WordPress site after a new version of WordPress is released. It also makes updates to HelpHub and DevHub more efficient. “If you need to schedule updates for published WordPress post/page/CPT without changing what’s already published (nor switching to draft), this is something we recently started using at the WordPress Docs Team and it’s a game changer,” contributor Milana Cap said. Revisions Extended is currently being developed on GitHub. McKrill said it may be be submitted to the official plugin directory someday when it is more ready for that level of exposure. “It’s a possibility,” McKrill said. “There’s a bit more functionality I think should be added first, namely the ability to create updates in a ‘draft or ‘pending’ status to go alongside the current ‘future’ status. Adding it to the plugin directory would allow a lot more people to try it out and give feedback, but it might also greatly increase the support and maintenance burden. So that has to be part of the calculation when deciding if/when to add it.” McKrill believes Revisions Extended could be a useful addition to core but there is not currently an active plan to bring it into WordPress. “Something like this might get traction during Gutenberg Phase 3, which will focus on collaboration tools,” McKrill said. For now, those who are interested to use Revisions Extended can download it and/or contribute to its development on GitHub. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress 5.8 Puts a Powerful Image-Editing Tool Into Users’ Hands – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Features such as the upcoming block-based widgets system, the template editor, theme-related blocks, and others have taken up much of the spotlight as of late. However, one of the best user-focused tools shipping with WordPress 5.8 is a duotone filter for Image and Cover blocks. The term “duotone” in this sense means combining two colors as a filter. Then, layering it over an image or video. More specifically, one color is used for the shadows (dark elements), and the second color is used for the highlights (light colors). When the feature first landed in Gutenberg 10.6 back in May, I spent a couple of hours just tinkering around with it on that first day. Since then, I have racked up a few more. It is a powerful media-editing tool that does not require users to dive into image-editing programs, allowing them to change the mood of a story at the click of a button. Duotones can be anything from a simple grayscale to a mixture of any two colors. Shadows and highlights can even be inverted, depending on the shades chosen. The following shows the difference between an original image of kittens (because who doesn’t love kittens?) and one with a grayscale filter: Original image vs. grayscale duotone version. WordPress offers a set of eight duotone color sets by default. This includes a grayscale, dark grayscale, and various combinations, making for some fun filters. Some will work better than others, often depending on the media file uploaded. Applying the WordPress purple and yellow duotone filter. Like many other features awaiting users with WordPress 5.8, theme authors are those who need to dig in to offer a range of ready-baked options for users. The new theme JSON file configuration allows developers to define a set of duotone colors that match their theme. Defining custom duotone filters is as easy as plugging a name, a slug, and two colors into a theme.json file. The theme developer handbook includes examples of creating such presets. Custom “emerald scale” duotone filter from a theme. Users are not limited to the filters that WordPress or their themes offer. The duotone popover allows them to choose from any range of colors for custom shadows and highlights. Duotone typically works best when an image has a high contrast, which means a wide-ranging spread between the light and dark colors. Darker shadows and lighter highlights make for more visually stunning filters. When used with the Cover block, users can add filters to both image and video backgrounds. However, they also have access to the typical overlay color or gradient option. This provides a ton of flexibility for customizing media. Duotone filter + gradient overlay on a Cover block. Because the duotone feature works with an inline SVG file under the hood, it also means that using it does not permanently change image or video files. Users can still use their original media elsewhere on the site without uploading a second copy. Duotone is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other possibilities outside of just laying a couple of colors on top of an image. Bence Szabó wrote an extensive tutorial on using SVG filters for patterns on CSS-Tricks. This could be a route for background options in the future — wood grain, anyone? Maybe not every possibility is suitable for core WordPress, but I would love to see plugin authors taking a stab at some alternatives. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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WP Engine Makes Local Pro Free for All Users – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WP Engine announced today that Local Pro, the commercial upgrade for its local WordPress development product, is now free for all users. Beginning with version 6.0, all features that formerly required a paid subscription are now available with a free Local account. These include Live Links Pro, Instant Reload, Link Checker, and MagicSync. “We believe Local Pro features benefit a broader WordPress developer community and we want to deliver the full value of Local to more developers than ever,” WP Engine Senior Vice President Seth Halpern said. “We want to empower the freedom to create on WordPress by making all Local features available for free.” WP Engine’s recently published research estimates the WordPress economy at $596.7B. The company may be in a better position to gain customers for its hosting products if they make Local completely free, as the tool was designed to seamlessly connect with WP Engine and Flywheel’s hosting. It is currently used by more than 300,000 developers. Over the years Local has gained popularity due to how easy it makes setting up WordPress development and testing environments. Version 6.0 also introduces Local’s new Cloud Backups add-on, which will allow users to backup to Google Drive or Dropbox. Cloud backups can be restored from the Tools tab. The 6.0 release post details a few features that have been moved to new locations in the interface: MagicSync is now a global preference, and the default push/pull experience can be toggled in the Preferences menu.  Live Links Pro, now Live Links, will be accessible for all users by connecting your Local account. Link Checker and Instant Reload have been moved to the Local Add-ons Library.  Xdebug Add-ons have moved from the Utilities tab into the Tools tab within Local. Existing Local Pro subscribers will have access to priority support until September 1, 2021. After that time, dedicated ticket support will be discontinued in favor of directing users to the community forums and help docs. WP Engine is offering customers full or prorated refunds, which will be sent out before July 31, 2021. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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