WP Engine vs SiteGround for WordPress Hosting: An Honest Comparison

[ad_1] Trying to choose between WP Engine vs SiteGround to host your WordPress site? WP Engine and SiteGround are two of the bigger names in the WordPress hosting space and both offer quality hosting products. However, they do so at different price points and with slightly different features, so you’ll want to make sure you’re picking the right host for your situation. That’s what we’ll help you understand in this post – both hosts can be a good pick; it’s just about matching the right host to your needs and budget. Keep reading to learn whether SiteGround or WP Engine is better for you… WP Engine vs SiteGround Comparison Summary If you’re in a rush, here are the basic conclusions of our comparison: Taking price out of the equation, WP Engine is the overall best host out of these two. However, SiteGround is still a good bit cheaper than WP Engine (though some recent changes have made the gap smaller). Because of its lower prices (and still quality service), SiteGround is probably still the better option for most “regular” WordPress sites including low-traffic blogs, portfolio sites, brochure websites, etc. SiteGround is also better if you’re just launching your first WordPress site because you’ll get everything you need for a cheaper price. For “serious” websites like high-traffic blogs, eCommerce stores, or membership sites, then WP Engine is probably the better choice because it can better stand up to resource-heavy sites and offers useful features that SiteGround doesn’t. Detailed WP Engine vs SiteGround Comparison Now, let’s go more in-depth by comparing SiteGround vs WP Engine in five key areas: Customer satisfaction Features Performance Support Pricing 😊 Customer Satisfaction Let’s kick things off with a basic question – which host has more satisfied customers? When in doubt, the wisdom of the crowds is usually a pretty good starting point. To get a good understanding of how people feel about a host, we aggregated reviews from several different platforms/surveys including Trustpilot, WhoIsHostingThis, CodeinWP’s hosting survey, and Review Signal. We then averaged out the overall rating from each site (this data is current as of April 2021). The idea is to get an overall picture of how people feel about each host. Here’s the overall satisfaction for each host, standardized to a score of 100: Overall ⭐ CodeinWP WhoIsHosting Trustpilot Review Signal WP Engine 84 ⭐ 89 82 88 77 SiteGround 86 ⭐ 86 96 94 68 Overall, that’s pretty dang close, and you can see that customers are about equally as satisfied with WP Engine as they are with SiteGround. The scores are also pretty good in general, which shows that customers at both hosts are pretty happy. Interestingly, though, the scores are moving in opposite directions from when we first collected this data in early 2020. That is, WP Engine has improved from its older 75% while SiteGround has dropped a bit from its older 89% (perhaps because of its pricing changes). ⚙️ Features Now, let’s compare some key features in a table: Feature WP Engine SiteGround Custom hosting dashboard ✅ ✅ WordPress autoinstaller ✅ ✅ Automatic WordPress core updates ✅ ✅ Server-level caching ✅ ✅ Free SSL certificates ✅ ✅ Staging ✅ ✅ Email hosting ❌ ✅ Automatic daily backups ✅ ✅ On-demand backups ✅ ✅ Built-in CDN ✅ ❌ (has a Cloudflare integration) Free migrations ✅ ✅ Safe automatic plugin updates ✅ (higher-tier plans) ❌ Elasticsearch ✅ (eCommerce plans) ❌ Multisite support ✅ (higher-tier plans) ✅ Local development tool ✅ ❌ Pre-installed WP-CLI ✅ ✅ As you can see, the main “feature” advantage that SiteGround has over WP Engine is that SiteGround offers free and unlimited email hosting (e.g. create a you@yoursite.com email address). WP Engine does not offer email hosting, so you’d need to use a third-party service like Google Workspace or MXroute to add email hosting, which is a small added fee. Other than that, WP Engine is the winner in terms of advanced features because it has some useful options such as: A built-in CDN (SiteGround advertises a CDN, but it’s really just a Cloudflare integration). AI-powered safe plugin updates with automatic rollbacks. Elasticsearch, which is great for WooCommerce stores or other search-heavy sites. Multiple staging environments (Staging & Development). Easy local development and push to live hosting with Local. * Not all of these features are available on the entry-level WP Engine plan – more on pricing later. Additionally, one thing that I didn’t add above is that all WP Engine customers get free access to the Genesis Framework and all StudioPress child themes, which is a nice little bonus. 🏎️ Performance To assess a host’s performance, we like to rely on Review Signal’s performance benchmarks as they implement rigorous testing in several different areas. SiteGround is a regular participant in the benchmarks, but WP Engine has unfortunately not participated in the past couple of years. In the 2020 benchmarks, Siteground earned Top Tier status (the highest designation) in both the <$25 and $25-$50 per month tiers. WP Engine last participated in 2018 and only with its enterprise plan, but it also earned Top Tier status in the 2018 benchmarks. Anecdotally, I’ve also tested these hosts several times myself and found that SiteGround offers excellent performance for the money, but WP Engine holds up better in load test situations. Based on their prices, this is kind of what you’d expect. So I would sum it up like this: SiteGround offers good performance for its price and will be plenty fast for most “regular” WordPress sites. For example, low-traffic blogs, portfolio websites, simple brochure websites, etc…all of those will load fast on SiteGround and you won’t benefit that much from WP Engine. WP Engine is better for high-traffic and/or high-resource sites. For example, high-traffic blogs, eCommerce stores, membership sites, etc. 💬 Support Both WP Engine and SiteGround offer 24/7 support on all plans. For WP Engine, you can get support via: Live chat and ticket on all plans. Phone support on the Professional plan and above. SiteGround

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What’s New in WordPress 5.8 • WPShout

[ad_1] Another version of WordPress, 5.8 is about to drop. Like literally it is scheduled to come out tomorrow. You’ve probably seen at least a few headlines about it if you follow WordPress news. And it’s a big one! What particular caught my eyes was this big (and maybe overwhelming) summary of the whole thing over at Kinsta by Carlo Daniele. Unlike the usual “Field Guide” on WordPress.org (this time done very well by Milana Cap), he included lots and lots of screenshots. Which I think is really helpful, because all the recent changes to widgets (make them actually block areas) and the first time we’ll have “Full-Site Editing” features in WordPress core requires a great deal of visual summary. While it’s hardly as consequential as Full-Site Editing for most non-technical people’s real attention, I’m also pretty into the fact that WebP is coming to WordPress. Anyway, give it a look and you’ll be less surprised when you upgrade 😎 Visit kinsta.com → [ad_2] Source link

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How to Add a Timestamp in WordPress

[ad_1] The concept of evergreen content is a sound one. Though, there are lots of times you’ll want to date your content. Not only this, but comments and other site elements can benefit too. If you want to add a timestamp in WordPress, the process can be simple to implement. The WordProof plugin for WordPress let you add the functionality to timestamp your content using the power of the ‘blockchain’. This is bleeding-edge technology, refined into a powerful way to protect your content and build user trust. In this post, we’ll show you how to use the WordProof plugin to add a timestamp in WordPress. Before this, let’s break down the whole concept of WordProof, timestamping, and the blockchain. What a Timestamp Is (And Why You’d Want to Add Them to WordPress) In its fundamental form, a timestamp is a way to tie a specific time and date to a piece of content. It’s not unique to WordPress, but you see this in a rudimentary form with comments and post dates: Note that we’re talking about the core concept here. This is because timestamping can get complex, as we’ll see. At a base level, it’s a way to attach a time and date to content. It’s helpful and valuable for a few reasons: You can give readers an idea of when content was first published. This might help when deciding if content will apply to a current situation. Expanding on this, you can show readers if content has been updated, and when. For comments, you can gauge a timeline of events. This is helpful if a product has previously had issues, and you’re trying to decide if they’re resolved. WordPress, of course, has its own way of timestamping content, but it’s a basic implementation. For the majority of users, this is fine. Some even decide to remove timestamping from their sites. Though, there’s a more complex version of timestamping that we can use a plugin to implement. Let’s get into this subject next. Introducing WordProof Given that WordPress already has timestamping included in its core code, you’d be forgiven for thinking why you’d need a plugin to help. This is because adding a timestamp to WordPress can take different forms. Rather than offer a date of publishing, you can use a plugin such as WordProof to embed a timestamp to offer verification of content. This lets you connect your site’s content to any EOSIO blockchain. The great news is that you don’t need any prior experience of the blockchain to use WordProof. It’s a ‘plug-and-play’ solution, which means you don’t need to lift a finger to use the plugin. Apart from letting you auto-timestamp your content, you can also display a certificate that verifies your content, and lets the reader see how and when your content has changed. This is much like a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. As for why you’d want to do this, there are a few reasons: You can offer transparency to users, which will increase trust and authenticity. There could be Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits down the line. You’re able to prepare for future data protection regulations, especially within the European Union (EU), which has lead the way over the past few years. You can help protect the copyright of your content, through third-party verification. It’s this last point that makes WordProof so interesting. It harnesses the power of the blockchain to add a timestamp in WordPress, which gives your content protection. We’ll talk about this next. Explaining the Blockchain The blockchain is something that has become more prominent over the last couple of years or so, with the advent of cryptocurrency. While this isn’t the focus here, cryptocurrency is a digital payment method that is verified using the blockchain. In simple terms, think of the blockchain as a list of records in a database, each one linked using cryptographic methods. For every ‘block’ that exists, you’ll find transaction data of some description, a cryptographic hash of the previous block in the chain (hence the name), and a timestamp. It’s used for a lot of other applications besides currency. For example, supply chains, healthcare, and energy companies like the decentralized openness of the blockchain. You may be starting to understand how the blockchain can help you add a timestamp to WordPress, but we can help fill in the blanks a bit more. How the Blockchain and WordProof Helps You Protect Your Content and Build User Trust Because the blockchain encrypts every included block, it’s a secure system. As such, the data you see related to a block can’t be changed without amending every other block in that chain. For all practical purposes, it’s not possible. This means the data you see is ‘the truth’. There are a lot of plus points in using something so secure to timestamp your content: For content that requires a high degree of trust, such as medical or financial information, a verified timestamp is a signal to the reader. You’re also able to offer proof that an article is accurate, especially when it comes to time-sensitive information. Consider information surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic as case in point. If you set things up in the right way, you have an element to help you win copyright cases. This is going to matter if you offer content that, if stolen, affects your income. A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) would be a good example. By this point, you might be onboard with using a solution such as WordProof to add a timestamp in WordPress. The final step for you is to figure out how to implement them. How to Add a Timestamp in WordPress (In 3 Steps) The good news is it’s straightforward to add a timestamp in WordPress. In fact, there are three steps you need to take. Let’s go over them in brief: Install the WordProof plugin on your WordPress website. Go through the WordProof setup wizard and sign up for an account. Begin timestamping your content within WordPress. Most

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Identify and Select Blocks via the Wayfinder WordPress Plugin – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Christopher John, a Seattle-based designer and UX engineer, released his first project to the plugin directory yesterday. Announced via Twitter to high praise, Wayfinder is a block outline solution for the WordPress editor. Like similar plugins, the goal is to make it easier for end-users to select nested blocks, which can sometimes be tough to pin down. Wayfinder outlines each block in the editor on hover. It then displays the block name at the upper left of the box. My favorite feature that you will not find elsewhere is the addition of each block’s classes at the bottom right of the box. This makes it easy for designers or users who want to quickly find a class for styling. Outline of a Heading block. Users can also enable or disable the pieces of the UI they want to appear via the plugin’s setting screen. However, any changes affect all of the site’s user experiences. Currently, there are no per-user settings. At first glance, the plugin seemed to work great. The hover outline experience felt smooth, and I did not need to change the default options. Wayfinder almost seemed to be everything one might look for in a block-outline solution. It was besting existing plugins in nearly every way. However, things soon began rolling downhill when writing a typical blog post with nothing other than Heading, Paragraph, and Image blocks. I first noticed that I could not type the same number of words as usual on one line. My perfectly-tuned typography was breaking sooner than it should have. Spacing between paragraphs seemed a bit too large. My wide-aligned images were just a little smaller than usual. The user experience still felt good until this point, but the little oddities were stacking up. Something was not right. The plugin had been showered with praise on Twitter and already received three five-star reviews in its first 24 hours. Maybe my custom theme was the issue. However, similar problems arose when testing several others, such as Twenty Twenty-One, Nutmeg, and Eksell — each a well-rounded theme catered to the block editor. As clean as the plugin’s UI is, it more often than not wrecks the theme’s default block spacing. This becomes more noticeable as users begin adding nested layers of blocks. The problem is the plugin adds 18 pixels of padding around every block via its stylesheet. .wp-block:not(.block-list-appender) { position: relative; outline: 1px dashed transparent; padding: 18px; overflow: visible !important; } To the untrained eye, this may not be a visible issue in many cases. It will affect each site differently, but 18 pixels of extra padding on every block will undoubtedly mess things up to some degree unless the theme itself uses that exact same spacing in its design. The more noticeable issues are seen with blocks like Social Icons: Holy moly! Those are some gigantic social icons! But, even something as basic as a List block can be misaligned: List block shifted out of alignment. Theme authors can write custom CSS to overrule the plugin’s padding. However, the last thing the WordPress community needs is a specificity war between themes and plugins. Themers already have to do this enough to wrangle blocks now. Removing that one padding rule from the plugin’s editor-style.css killed 99% of its issues. Afterward, things were running like a well-oiled machine. As a developer, I would explore outline-offset for spacing between the block and its outline, maybe cutting that 18px down a bit. Because outlines are not a part of the CSS box model, it would not affect spacing. Adjustments may be necessary on a per-block basis, especially when those blocks are nested or small (e.g., Social Icons, Navigation). It would carry its own challenges but should be a less destructive course. To a lesser extent, the plugin’s overflow rule breaks the theme design from time to time. Its position and outline rules could overrule some edge-case block styles too, but they are necessary for the plugin to actually do its job. In particular, I could see positioning being problematic with sticky headers as we get into site editing. The only other issue might be themes that use ::before and ::after pseudo-elements on blocks, but the plugin also needs to overwrite those to display the block name and classes list. This is likely another edge case. Despite the issues, the plugin is ahead of the pack at this point. Gutenberg Editor Full Width Blocks Border (a bit of a mouthful), another recent plugin to offer similar functionality, breaks custom theme design across the board. It does accomplish the job of making blocks easier to select, but the sacrifice of a WYSIWYG is not worth it. The Editor Block Outline plugin has been my go-to recommendation for a while. It has a few design issues of its own, but some of those are adjustable on a per-user basis. However, as of late, it has made the editor feel sluggish. Plus, its misuse of the WordPress admin notice system for Twitter followers makes it something I’d prefer to steer clear of. EditorsKit has a similar “block guidelines” feature that uses a box-shadow instead of padding and an outline. It does not muck up most theme layouts with that technique. However, I have hit other style conflicts with the plugin. Plus, EditorsKit is overkill for users who simply want just one feature. That leaves us with Wayfinder. Warts and all, it is the best standalone option right now. Maybe that’s not saying much, but it is saying something. This is a feature that is hard to nail down. I do not envy the developers who are trying to make miracles happen. It is sure to please many who have been on the lookout for a block outline solution. It is in a position to pull farther ahead of the competition with its relatively solid first outing. With more thorough theme testing and a bit of adjustment to its approach, it could be even better. I am eager to test

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WordPress 5.8 Release Candidate 3

[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, WordPress 5.8 is getting its final touches and is almost ready to launch. The release candidate 3 is available and ready for testing. If you’re interested in testing the new features, now is your chance before the update lands in less than a week. Kinsta shared a detailed post that takes you through all of the new features you can expect. Beyond that, WP Rocket is celebrating its 8th birthday with a massive giveaway and discounts on new licenses. In theme news, TeslaThemes is relaunching as WPRealEstate. We also have a lot of other news, tutorials, and roundup posts for you. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link

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Edupack Is Tackling Higher Ed With WordPress, Looking for Development Partners – WP Tavern

[ad_1] “We’re basically building the Jetpack for Higher Ed,” said Blake Bertuccelli as he pitched me on the idea of Edupack, a project still in its early stages. He and his team are looking for more advisors to join the eighth round of their once-monthly braintrust events. It is a project they began in November 2020, now coming to fruition. Feedback is crucial to pushing such undertakings out of the gate, and the team needs more of it. Bertuccelli listed several focal points for the Edupack project: Onboarding: New campus users can set up a beautiful campus WordPress site with a few clicks. Archiving: Stale sites are automatically archived to save campus resources. Reporting: Accessibility, plagiarism, and resource usage can be accessed from the Edupack dashboard. Brand and Content Management: Approved Higher Ed content patterns and universal brand controls keep sites beautiful and consistent. Configuration Management: Cloud-controlled configuration settings means admins can control millions of sites from one place. Onboarding form with Tulane-branded elements. “Our onboarding form offers pre-built sites for users to start from,” said Bertuccelli. “So, if a scientist needs a new site for their lab, the scientist can select a pre-built lab site from our onboarding form then add in their unique content.” Bertuccelli is Edupack’s CEO. He called himself a “forever learner” and is currently reading A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. “I paid for my Tulane education by coding WordPress themes,” said Bertuccelli. “After college, I founded one of New Orleans’ first WordPress dev shops (Decubing). A year ago, I presented on building a self-publishing platform with Multisite at WP Campus. The feedback was phenomenal, and two blokes from Birmingham offered to work on a plugin with me. A few months later, we launched Edupack’s MVP. Since then, folks from Harvard, Dartmouth, and about 17 other universities have been working with us to make WordPress an even better CMS for Higher Ed pros.” The “two blokes” he is referring to are his co-founders, Nathan Monk and Matt Lees. They run a WordPress shop called SMILE. Monk is serving as Edupack’s CTO. Lees is the Chief Creative Officer — Bertuccelli called him “Lord of the UX.” Altogether, the three co-founders have over 30 years of experience working with Higher Ed and WordPress. The Edupack team is making accessible content a priority, which is a primary issue for Higher Ed. The goal is to offer A11Y reports inside of the WordPress dashboard and tie them into publishing workflows. This would notify users of errors as they publish content. “Our accessibility reports tie into another feature we are launching this month: site archiving,” said Bertuccelli. “Campus users graduate and often forget about their sites. Edupack sends a notification to a user if the site hasn’t been accessed, then adds an “archived” meta value to the site that super administrators can take action from. Setting up automated archiving. “Devs often recode thousands of sites to add new Campus branding,” said Bertuccelli on the reasons behind Edupack. “Department budgets are drained on resources for stale sites. Institutions are sued over inaccessible content or misused branding. “Edupack intends to automate website management so that Higher Ed pros can focus on supporting education.” The following video is an introduction to Edupack: Join the Braintrust Session Every third Wednesday of each month, Edupack holds a “Braintrust” event. Bertuccelli says it is the best way to get involved. The session lasts for an hour over a Zoom video chat. The next event is scheduled for July 21, 10 am – 11 am (CDT). Each session focuses on a single question. Next week’s question: “How can we enhance WordPress blocks for Higher Ed?” “We’ll demo Edupack updates, brainstorm solutions for block enhancements, then wrap up with action steps for us to do by next month,” said Bertuccelli. “Folks who manage WordPress sites for global institutions and companies have attended our last seven braintrusts. Any Higher Ed pro is welcome!” Those interested can also keep track of progress via the Edupack blog. Pricing and the Future There is currently no publicly available pricing list. The project’s FAQs page says the team is still tuning the costs, and Bertuccelli remained quiet on any hard numbers. “Community colleges can’t afford tech used by bigger schools,” he said. “That’s not fair. Edupack will be priced so that every institution can afford the service. We haven’t thought about pricing beyond that.” Universities that wish to get check out the project should schedule a demo from the site’s homepage. Edupack has around 20 institutions serving as development partners and guiding the roadmap. The team invites new schools to join every few months. Currently, Tulane and the University of Gloucestershire are using Edupack. Harvard and Dartmouth should be next. The service is limited to universities and colleges at the moment. However, the team would eventually like to expand across the education sector. After that, we will have to see. “Edupack’s features can be applied to any industry where users run lots of sites,” said Bertuccelli. “I could see ad agencies using Edupack, hosting companies integrating our tools, and School Districts running their site network via Edupack and WordPress.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Introduction to WordPress (Gutenberg) Block Filters • WPShout

[ad_1] Like many, I’m still very much getting my sea legs when it comes to doing wed-development tasks that affect aspects of the (Gutenberg) Block Editor. While its no longer new, it’s never really overlapped very clearly with work either I (or a client) have needed to do, so I’m very much in learning mode with this article from Dmitry Mayorov over at CSS-Tricks. All that is to say: if you click over and this entire article just goes over your head, have no fear (you likely won’t need to do this stuff anytime soon) and I get you. For those of you who aren’t lost when terms like ES6, JSX, and React come up, I really do think this article is great intro to a topic I’m sure I’ll need to use… sometime. His adding of the size attribute to the button element is actually rather similar to a task I failed and gave up on a few months ago. Happy hacking! Visit css-tricks.com → [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress 5.8 Media Library Changes You Should Know About – WP Tavern

[ad_1] It is hard not to look through a list of upcoming WordPress 5.8 changes and not find at least a little something to whet your appetite. With so many enhancements headed our way, even we have not been able to keep up with them all here at WP Tavern. The next release will bring a few much-needed media-related upgrades. Users should enjoy WebP image format support and a copy-to-clipboard button on the media upload screen. Developers have a new hook for filtering the image output format, and the platform is dropping infinite scrolling. WordPress 5.8 is scheduled to ship on July 20, so these changes will be landing in less than a week. If you have not already done so, give WordPress 5.8 Release Candidate 3 a test run and report any issues. Infinite Scroll Replaced With Ajax Button Media Library screen (first) and overlay (second) with “load more” buttons. The upcoming core release will drop infinite scrolling for media in favor of an Ajax-powered “Load more” button. The admin screen and editor’s media overlay will cap the initial and subsequent “pages” to 40 media items each. This change is a part of an effort from the WordPress accessibility team to improve the experience for end-users. Team member and core contributor Andrea Fercia noted two a11y problems with infinite scrolling. The first is that it is impossible or nearly for keyboard users to reach content appended to the screen. Second, there is no audible feedback or instructions about how infinite scrolling works for screen readers. He also noted usability and performance issues. Infinite scroll can break the browser’s history, and there is no JavaScript fallback. And loading hundreds or more large-sized images increases the memory footprint. While the media library is getting the Ajax treatment in WordPress 5.8, we should expect similar updates for other areas in the future, including: Add Themes Screen Customizer > Add Menu Items Editor > Link > Search Copy URL From Add New Media Screen Copy URL to clipboard button on the Add New Media screen. This change is an enhancement that rids the platform of a small but noticeable nuisance that has plagued it for years. When uploading an image from the Media > Add New screen in the WordPress admin, there was no way to grab its URL without clicking over to the edit screen. WordPress 5.8 introduces a “Copy URL to clipboard” button that appears after the image has been uploaded. No need to leave the page and track down the URL. The change also makes the user experience consistent with the Media Library screen and overlay in the post editor. More often than not, browsing Trac means seeing many of the same names. This time around, it seems that a regular user wanted a feature. They created an account — perhaps for this purpose alone –, wrote a support forum post, was directed to Trac, and created their first ticket. It took eight months to work its way into WordPress, but it is one of those success stories of an average user making things happen by just providing feedback. Thanks for the contribution, @anotia. WebP Image Format Support WordPress is allowing a new image format. And, no, it is not SVG (technically not an image). There are still security hurdles to jump for that to ever happen. However, it now supports WebP, which carries with it the promise of better performance for those who use it. As Sarah Gooding reported for WP Tavern last month: 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. In the report, she noted that only 1.6% (currently at 1.8%) of the top 10 million websites used the WebP format. With WordPress now adding support, that percentage is likely to rise in the coming years. Developers: Image Editor Output Format Hook For developers who want to transform images with one mime type to another, 5.8 introduces the image_editor_output_format filter hook. Plugin authors can convert all newly uploaded images or only overwrite specific formats. The following example converts JPG images to the new WebP format: add_filter( ‘image_editor_output_format’, function( $formats ) { $formats[‘image/jpg’] = ‘image/webp’; return $formats; } ); The output format will be applied to all image sub-sizes as they are created. However, this will only work for WebP images if the webserver supports it. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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How WordPress Has Changed My Life – Gtarafdar

[ad_1] I’m Gobinda Tarafdar from Dhaka, Bangladesh. In short, Gtarafdar. This short form is available everywhere on social media. Actually, while I was a kid, a medicine specialist suggested this short form of my name. From that time, I had a plan to use it. Moving on, now I have become a WordPress Enthusiast Marketer. In this essay, I will share my journey to WordPress with you. Early Stage Of My Career: I started my career as a teacher in an academic coaching center back in 2010. I was then a 1st-year student of my 4-year Graduation Program. But the number of my earnings was not sufficient to cover all my livelihood. My parents were giving me support to continue my study at that time. So I was looking for more ways to earn my living. But in our country, it’s tough to get a job without graduation. I tried to find more tutoring jobs but failed to get one. Then I gave stand-up comedy a try. At that time, it became popular. I participated in a TV reality show based on stand-up comedy. But failed to reach the top five. So, didn’t get much success in the comedy sector as well. In this way, two years passed. After a while, I got the idea of a call center job in the telco industry of our country. I gave an interview to our number one telco company Grameenphone – a sister concern of Telenor. And luckily got the chance to join there. And it’s a game-changing part of my career. I learned a lot about team play, pressure handling, the ability to put myself in a customer’s shoes, and more. But it was a part-time job, and my graduation was about to end. Immediately after finishing my graduation, I got the opportunity to join Grameenphone’s Finance team. However, I had to pass the challenging interview as many other promising candidates were competing with me. Everything seemed so great at that time. Got the opportunity to work in the country’s best corporate office, but bad luck struck again. Didn’t get the chance to be a full-time employee from contractual employee status. I took a break to join the country’s public service commission. Unfortunately, I failed to get the desired position again. In the meantime, my father retired from his job. All of a sudden, so many responsibilities came upon me. By the way, I forgot to mention, in this time frame, I had completed my Graduation, Masters, and MBA. The year where I’m now in the beginning of 2018. After my father’s retirement, I had no time for an experiment. But the main challenge came then. No one wanted to give me a chance as I worked at one of Bangladesh’s most prominent companies; they thought I couldn’t fit into their office culture. Also, I wanted to start my career as a Digital Marketer, and I had no practical experience at that time. I had some certification of Udemy and Hubspot free courses. But I was confident that I had a degree of MBA in Marketing. But all of my confidence was doomed within three months. I stopped applying everywhere, started to do some research on the job sector. Finally, I decided to join the IT industry, and in our country, WordPress Based companies are in the leading position. So, I had my target fixed towards the WordPress industry. A Huge Risk-Taking State in My Career: I took a huge risk to start my career in the WordPress industry. After not seeing much job opportunities in the Digital Marketing area in my country, I was planning to join the telco industry again as I was finding no option to cherish my dream. I badly needed a job at that time. But meanwhile, I found a job circular in weDevs. They were looking for a Digital Marketer Intern. So I made my decision to take part in this program. Surprisingly, I got another job offer from a renowned MNC of our country in the sales team. But I took a huge risk and started trying for the weDevs internship program, and refused the salesperson job. My friends Mayeen & Arif helped me a lot to learn more about WordPress. And they guided me on how I could set up localhost on my computer, and from then, I started to explore themes and plugins from the WordPress repository. I must say I got an interesting tool to play with. After passing three stages, I finally got the chance to join weDevs. weDevs is a popular WordPress Plugin making company. It’s famous for Dokan Multivendor Marketplace Solution for WooCommerce. My Life at weDevs Ohh, maybe you have a question about how it can be risky to go for the weDevs internship program! Well, the payout of the other company was three times higher than the weDevs internship payout. And I refused to join the other sales team while I still didn’t have any guarantee to join the weDevs team. So now you can judge, isn’t that risky? (Sorry, I can’t share the name of the sales company publicly here due to some policy issue.) The Journey to WordPress: From the day when I had installed WordPress in my local host, my journey in this ecosystem started. I found it so easy to use and user-friendly that I felt anyone could create a website. I started to read articles and explore the World of WordPress. Also, weDevs’s internship program helped me a lot to get involved in the WordPress industry. My mentor Afshana Diya and Mainul Kabir Aion guided me a lot to dive deep into the sea of WordPress. Learned the area of content marketing, explored paid mediums, gathered knowledge on social media marketing, and more within three months. The internship program was exact and compact, along with interactive. Here came another twist. I wanted to be a part of the Digital Marketing Team. But because of my communication skills and interpersonal relationship

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InstaWP Launches New Service for Disposable WordPress Testing Sites – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Competition in the sandboxing products space is heating with the entrance of InstaWP, a new service for setting up disposable WordPress testing sites. Founder Vikas Singhal created the tool to provide a quick way to set up live testing sites online or to show something to a client or team. InstaWP joins the ranks of services like TasteWP and WPSandbox but with a few unique options. At setup, users can select from WordPress versions back to 4.7 and may even choose to spin up a site using the latest beta or release candidate. Like other services, InstaWP allows you to choose your PHP version. The ability to disable WP cache and browser cache is coming soon. Users can create a custom name for their sites or leave it blank for a randomly generated name. Free WordPress instances stay live for 8 hours, and users can link their accounts via email to extend it to 48 hours. InstaWP, not to be confused with InstantWP, a local WordPress installation tool, was built on an nginx + Apache server without any containers. Singhal said he found containers to be too heavy for this particular use case. He runs a WordPress plugin/theme shop along with an agency on the side, both of which could benefit from InstaWP’s quick testing sites. “I wanted to build a solution for ourselves where we can quickly launch WP instances for a variety of reasons – testing a feature of WP, testing a plugin/theme, testing in different versions of WP/PHP and last but not the least – creating an ‘instant’ test environment for the clients for them to test our plugins/themes,” he said. Singhal started InstaWP a month ago and received so much positive feedback on Reddit and from the Post Status community that he hired two dedicated developers to work on the project. Testers have commented on how fast the service spins up sites. Version 1.1.0 introduced Slack integration, which allows users to instantly set up a site by typing /wp in Slack. The release also added WordPress admin auto login for quick access without username and password. InstaWP has a public road map. Features on deck for future releases include the following: Slack and cli commands Download Files and DB Backup from the UI Direct push to FTP or cPanel nginx and nginx + Apache configurations Finer controls on PHP settings Save configurations for instant launch of pre-configured WP Integrations with hosting providers Map custom domains Multiple servers around the world (USA, Singapore, London, etc.) Singhal said he was aware of TasteWP as a competitor but plans to differentiate InstaWP based on simplicity and feature set. “My vision with InstaWP is make it a default tool for WP learners, enthusiasts, freelancers, and agencies – basically everyone,” he said. Singhal plans to monetize the tool for both end-users and plugin and theme authors. Users will have to upgrade to gain access to increased limits, custom domains, FTP access, and the ability to reserve a site. WordPress product authors can upgrade to provide 1-click demos to their clients and prospective customers. Singhal said so far more than 500 instances have been created and teams from Yoast and some agencies are already using the tool. Several prominent WordPress businesses have requested agency pricing that would allow their users to test their plugins via a 1-click preconfigured install. The service is still under active development and Singhal plans to iron out pricing in the near future. Testers who have suggestions for InstaWP can log them on the tool’s idea board for future consideration. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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