Tag Archives: wordpress

Diving Into WordPress 5.8’s New Widgets Screen – WP Tavern

[ad_1] It has been a while since I have touched widgets. Once the site editor landed in the Gutenberg plugin, I almost exclusively dropped the old sidebar paradigm and moved to block templates. Reactivating old themes and jumping into the widgets screen felt like time-traveling into a bygone era. After months of being deeply embedded within block themes, it is hard to imagine moving back to the sidebar widgets system that most WordPress users are still using today. WordPress 5.8 is slated to ship with a small taste of bringing blocks outside of the content editor. However, it can feel like a surface-level refresh of a dying system, one that does not always work. Block-based widgets are part of the transitional phase between classic WordPress and the future, which centers on a complete site editor. Once the bulk of themes are built atop blocks, the need for widgets will wane. The site editor and block themes do not support the old sidebar system. Instead, users will be able to place blocks anywhere. Last October, I asked the question: Are Block-Based Widgets Ready To Land in WordPress 5.6? At the time, the widgets screen was expected to launch with the final release of 2020. However, the development team pulled back on the feature’s inclusion, primarily because the customizer implementation was sub-par. Asking the same question of WordPress 5.8, my answer is mostly the same. It is time to ship the current feature and prepare for a future without widgets. There are so many components that are far more exciting around the corner. The primary user-experience issues will linger around until users have moved on to block themes. I have long been in the camp of starting from a clean slate for block themes, letting widgets die out. However, the path WordPress has chosen is to create this stepping stone for users who may be on traditional themes for a while. It provides an opportunity to use blocks outside of the editor, which may be a leap forward for many. With the vast number of libraries, one-off blocks, and support from plugin authors, users have a wealth of block choices at their fingertips. Right now, if there is no equivalent widget, those users can only ever use those blocks in their content. Within a block-widget system, that limitation does not exist. It also lifts some burdens from developers. Those who want to shed some of their old code and go all-in on blocks can begin considering deprecating or retiring widgets. Transitioning to the new Widgets screen should feel simple to users familiar with the WordPress content editor. Inserting blocks is the same. The difference is that each sidebar has its own container. Widgets screen with a Gallery block in the Footer sidebar. The range of blocks within core WordPress could also let users drop some of their widgets-based plugins. One of the most popular types of widgets over the years has been for handling post lists. There are dozens of such plugins and an untold number of themes that include one. Coupled with WordPress 5.8’s Query Loop block, users can now recreate many of those widgets themselves. Custom post list using the Query Loop block. Much of this depends on the theme’s design support of blocks and whether it will accommodate anything other than traditional widgets. Customizer support for block widgets is lightyears ahead of where it was just a few short months ago. However, it feels awkward at best. There is a deep feeling of not belonging. While it was a remarkable programming feat to make the two features work together, the user experiences are nearly a decade apart. Editing a Heading block in the customizer. Despite the customizer providing a live preview, the Widgets screen in the WordPress admin gives the necessary workspace. Trying to squeeze the block editor into the tiny customize controls panel was never going to be an ideal experience, and it still is not. It gets the job done, but I recommend the traditional widgets screen for fewer headaches. Problems Remain In the eight months since I first dived into the block-based widgets, the system has been overhauled. However, the potential issues I brought up remain. Just dropping blocks into a sidebar can have mixed results. For example, compare a Legacy Widget to Heading and Latest Comments blocks in the footer sidebar of the popular OceanWP theme: Mismatched headings and colors. The issue is that WordPress treats every block as a widget. Traditionally, widgets have had both a title and content. Blocks have no such concept. A Heading followed by something like a Paragraph, Latest Comments, or another block has no special meaning in the block system. They are all treated separately. This issue is in full view when adding blocks to the default Twenty Twenty-One WordPress theme: Block treated as widget in Twenty Twenty-One footer sidebar. Notice the Heading and Latest Comments blocks are columnized because they are seen as separate widgets. To address this, users must add multiple blocks into a Group block if they want them treated as a single “widget.” It is a simple matter, but it could still be a usability hurdle for some. Even with a fix in place, there is no guarantee that blocks will appear as the widgets the theme author intended. I long ago gave up on the hope that there would be better handling for block widgets. The Classic Widgets plugin is available for those who need it, and theme authors can opt-out. These are necessary tools for an experience that can range from downright awesome to utterly broken. Bringing blocks outside of the content editor for traditional theme users is probably necessary for the transition, but the current site editor experience already feels much smoother than block widgets. The long-term focus should be on moving away from the dated concept of widgets and into a WordPress front-end 100% built on blocks. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Is It the Best WordPress Membership Plugin?

[ad_1] Considering using MemberMouse to create your own WordPress membership website? MemberMouse is a popular option known for its advanced features, but it has some very real pros and cons, so it’s not the right solution for everyone. In our hands-on MemberMouse review, we’ll help you understand MemberMouse’s advantages and limitations so that you can decide if it’s the right plugin for your needs. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s dig in! MemberMouse Review: A Quick Look at The Features To kick off our MemberMouse review, I want to quickly run over the various features that MemberMouse gives you access to. I won’t spend too long here because you can find all this on the MemberMouse website (and I’ll go hands-on with these features in the next section). But I think it’s useful to start here so that you know what MemberMouse does. To manage members, you can create unlimited free or paid membership levels or bundles (add-on levels). You’ll be able to easily manage your members and automatically assign members to certain WordPress roles as needed.  Members can also manage their own memberships from the front-end, including support for prorated upgrades/downgrades. To restrict content, you get all the flexible options you’d expect from a membership plugin. You can: Restrict individual pieces of content (or parts of content) or bulk restrict content (like restricting all the posts in a certain category). Drip and schedule content to make it available at different times. To monetize your site, you can: Sell one-off or recurring memberships that give people varying levels of access. Sell products, such as an eBook. Use coupons and other discounting strategies. Offer payment plans for high-ticket items/memberships. Use one-click upsells (or downsells) to create smart funnels. Other useful features include: Custom notification emails (send to admins or users). SmartTags (shortcodes) to display dynamic content. Auto-lock shared accounts to prevent sharing. Finally, you also get a very detailed reporting and analytics area that helps you track engagement, churn rate, lifetime value, your most effective products/channels/payment gateways, and more. That’s just a brief look at the features – keep reading the full hands-on section of our MemberMouse review to see it in action. Hands-On With MemberMouse Now, let’s go hands-on with MemberMouse and I’ll show you what it’s like to use, as well as my thoughts on the features. For reference, I’m using the MemberMouse Advanced plan on my test site. Basic Setup Once you activate the MemberMouse plugin, you’ll get two new menu areas in your WordPress dashboard: MemberMouse – this is where you manage most settings, including your members. Reporting Suite – with the Advanced plan or up, this is where you can view detailed reports on your membership site. MemberMouse will also automatically create all the core pages that it needs. For example, it will create pages where people can purchase memberships, manage their accounts, reset their passwords, etc. There’s no setup wizard beyond that, which I think would be useful for helping people to get up and running. But you do get a bunch of training videos if you go to the main MemberMouse area: Creating Membership Levels To create a membership level, you go to MemberMouse → Product Settings. MemberMouse calls everything a “product”, whether you’re selling one-off or recurring membership access or an actual product (like an eBook). When you create a new product, you’ll get a popup where you can: Enter the price. Add a free or paid trial period. Set up a recurring subscription on a custom schedule. Require shipping (for physical products). You can also set up commission details if you’re offering an affiliate program (more on that later). Once you create your product, you can go to the Membership Levels tab to link it to a membership level. This opens another popup where you can: Assign members of this level a certain user role. Make it free or paid. If paid, you can associate it with the product that you created. Add expiration details. Customize the welcome email. Assign it to bundles. Choose entire WordPress categories to automatically protect for this level. You’ll get a similar interface when creating a bundle. A bundle acts like an “add-on”. Each member can only have one membership level at a time, but they can add unlimited bundles to their account. You can learn more about bundles here and the bundle creating interface looks a lot like adding a membership level, except that you can assign people who purchase a bundle to one of your existing membership levels: Restricting Content You already saw one option for restricting content in the previous section of our MemberMouse review- you can restrict access to entire categories when you create a membership level (or bundle). For more control, you’ll also get a MemberMouse Options area when editing an individual piece of content that lets you grant access to just that content based on a user’s membership level or bundle. This also lets you set up content dripping by only granting access on a certain day: To easily see your content dripping schedule, you can go to Product Settings → Drip Content Schedule: You can also partially restrict content using a shortcode. This is called a SmartTag – more on them later. Setting Up Payments and Checkouts MemberMouse supports the following payment gateways: Stripe Braintree Authorize.net PayPal ClickBank Coinbase You can set these up from MemberMouse → Payment Settings: If you go to the Checkout Settings area, you can also customize the checkout process, including adding your own custom fields to collect additional information from your customers: Setting Up Emails and Notifications One neat feature in MemberMouse is the ability to set up your own custom emails that are triggered by certain actions. You can do this by going to Developer Tools → Push Notifications and you can send these to yourself (for admin) or to your users). You can see the long list of event triggers in the screenshot below: Creating Coupons MemberMouse includes a built-in coupon

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WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 Released

[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, the WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 is out and ready for testing. 38 bugs have been fixed since the second beta release. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new features. Beyond that, Automattic has launched a new mobile app for Jetpack, available on iOS and Android. We also have some awesome tutorials and roundups for you as usual. 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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25+ Best WordPress Plugins in 2021

[ad_1] Choosing the right WordPress plugins for your website can be hard. The sheer number of free and premium plugins, and the amount of information circulated about them, often results in people having to put in hours and hours of research to help them decide on the best plugins for their sites. Luckily, we have put together this collection of top WordPress plugins, to help save you time and ensure you have the best plugins installed and running on your site. We have made sure we included a range of plugins that will add all the essential functionality your WordPress site will need, as well as plugins that add powerful advanced features, to give your website an edge over the competition. To make it easier to find the right plugins for your site, we’ll divide our list into six different categories: Marketing and SEO plugins Security and anti-spam plugins Content creation plugins Monetization and payments plugins Performance plugins Misc. plugins So let’s check out which WordPress plugins made the cut… Best Marketing and SEO Plugins These plugins help you boost your marketing efforts, including optimizing for search engines, growing an email list, and more. 1. Yoast SEO Yoast SEO is the leader in its field when it comes to search engine optimization. This free plugin comes with a ton of features including XML sitemaps, title and meta description templates, schema implementation, and control over your site’s breadcrumbs. Importantly, Yoast SEO also analyzes everything that appears in your content – keywords, titles, meta descriptions, and more – to optimize your posts and pages for the search engines. What’s the alternative?  Having an SEO plugin on your WordPress website is a must. So if you aren’t keen on Yoast SEO then Rank Math is a great alternative. Visit Yoast SEO 2. Rank Math While we mentioned Rank Math as an alternative to Yoast SEO, it’s so good that it deserves its own spot on any list of the best WordPress plugins. Rank Math can do everything that Yoast SEO can do. But one of its standout points is that it also adds a lot more features than Yoast SEO, even in its free version. For example, you can optimize for multiple keywords, get related link suggestions, set up redirects, and more – all for free. What’s the alternative? We already mentioned a good alternative above – Yoast SEO! Visit Rank math 3. Convert Pro Convert Pro is a popular plugin to help you grow your email list with popups, slide-ins, notification bars, and other types of forms. It integrates with most popular email marketing services so that you can add subscribers directly to your service of choice. You can start from pre-built templates and customize everything using a visual, drag-and-drop builder. You’ll also get advanced targeting and trigger rules, along with analytics and built-in A/B testing. Convert Pro costs $79 for use on unlimited websites. What’s the alternative? If you’re looking for a free opt-in plugin, MailOptin is a good free alternative. Thrive Leads is also a good premium option if you’re interested in other plugins from Thrive Themes. Visit Convert Pro 4. MailerLite MailerLite is a powerful email marketing service that helps you manage your subscribers and send them one-off or automated emails. You can easily create dynamic flows and set up automatic emails to market on autopilot. It integrates with most popular WordPress list building plugins, including the Convert Pro plugin from above. There’s also a free dedicated plugin at WordPress.org to help you create signup forms. As a side note, MailerLite is also the actual service that we use to manage email marketing here at WPKube. What’s the alternative? There are numerous email marketing services to choose from. Constant Contact can be another good option or MailPoet for a freemium native WordPress option. Visit MailerLite 5. Monarch Social Sharing Monarch is a social media sharing plugin created by Elegant Themes. Integrating with over 35 social networks, this plugin will encourage readers to share your posts and pages, helping your content to reach a wider audience. Within the dashboard of this all-in-one solution, you can customize your sharing buttons and configure your display settings, as well as monitor analytics to see how your sharing buttons are performing. This premium plugin is available when you purchase an Elegant Themes license, which also gives you access to the Divi and Extra themes, as well as the lead generation plugin Bloom. 💲 Don’t forget to use our Elegant Themes coupon to get 20% OFF. What’s the alternative? Social Snap is a complete social media tool kit, that includes social sharing buttons as well as social follow buttons, click-to-tweet, and automatic social sharing, to name a few options. Or, NovaShare if you only need the most popular networks and you want the best performance. Visit Monarch 6. Gravity Forms Gravity Forms is an impressive freemium plugin that will enable you to add stylish and highly optimized forms to your WordPress website. Create and display a range of form types including contact forms, surveys, online orders, quizzes, file upload forms, and more. Gravity Forms also provides an extensive list of features to help enhance each form you add to your site. Design your forms using the intuitive visual form builder, select from 30+ form fields, use conditional logic to personalize what your users see, and integrate your forms with third-party services to streamline your workload. What’s the alternative? Simple Basic Contact Form is an impressive free WordPress contact form plugin (which we will discuss next)… Visit Gravity Forms 7. Simple Basic Contact Form If you are looking to add a simple yet effective contact form to your website, that is quick and easy to create, then the free WordPress plugin, Simple Basic Contact Form, is for you. Designed by the developers over here at WPKube, this plugin is clean, secure, and extremely flexible. Using this plugin, you can easily configure a stylish contact form via the plugin settings. You can then display the form

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30+ Best WordPress Sport Themes in 2021 (Free & Paid)

[ad_1] Many sports enthusiasts find it hard to select a theme for their WordPress website. There are dozens of free and premium options. Each theme looks better than the previous one. How do you compare the numerous WordPress sport themes and select the best one for your website? That’s where this article comes into play. We have picked the top twenty-five WordPress sport themes after reviewing over one hundred themes on the market. You can use these themes both for individual as well as team sports websites, and you can also customize them for any team you support or play for. That’s not all. All these themes have the color scheme and the design to level up the excitement of your fellow sports enthusiasts. They also have special sections for news, fixtures, results, and schedules and give your website visitors the option to contact you. Read on to know more. OceanWP OceanWP is an excellent multipurpose theme that works well with a sports blog or website. Its powerful customization options make it one of the best free WordPress themes in the market. Pros Fully Responsive eCommerce ready Support experience is really good RTL support Cons The free version has too many ads Price Get OceanWP Sportify Sportify is one of the smoothest WordPress themes around. This premium theme helps you get up to speed with its tutorials, demo websites and more. It offers 13 custom posts, 9 page templates, cross-browser optimization and hundreds of Google fonts. Sportify has also thrown in the user-friendly Slider Revolution plugin in its package. You can use it to make visually appealing and smooth slideshows to showcase your website’s content in an eye-catching way. It is also WooCommerce compatible to allow you to sell products on your website. Pros 13 custom posts 9 page templates Social media support Cons Dedicated to gym and fitness Price Get Sportify Neve Neve Fitness is a must-have if you’re thinking of launching a fitness and gym blog. This WordPress theme boosts an uber-responsive design and is compatible with Elementor and Gutenberg. It offers multiple demos to help you get up to speed with its features and is WooCommerce ready as well. What’s more, its AMP ready feature means you won’t miss out on mobile viewers. You can also count on this theme to receive reliable updates, with each new update shoring up your website’s security as well as bringing in new features. And the best thing about this theme? It’s a cinch to install. Article Continues Below Pros Translation & RTL-ready Optimized well for mobile devices Smooth onboarding process Cons Limited color customization options in the free version Price Get Neve Kallyas Kallyas has everything you might want in your ideal WordPress sports theme. It comes search engine optimized, offers lightning-fast loading speeds and provides free lifetime updates. You also get video tutorials for the most seamless website development process ever. It also offers a full-screen slider, stunning classes pages, parallax effect, and a booking form. You can use its services page to push your offerings and introduce your professional trainers to website visitors. This will make them aware of what to expect when they hire your services. Pros Stunning classes pages Full-screen slider Free lifetime updates Cons Isn’t compatible with legacy versions of internet explorer Price $69 (for regular version); $2100 (for extended version) Get Kallyas KickOff KickOff is explicitly designed for football clubs, leagues, players and teams. It provides full updates on the players, upcoming fixtures, league standings and more. Your website visitors can also see team lineups, player stats and full detail of matches. All in all, it has everything for a football enthusiast. This football-specific theme also offers unlimited color schemes, support for PHP 7.0 and compatibility with the Elementor plugin. It also ensures all your web graphics look immaculate, thanks to its full retina compatibility. And it comes with all PSDs files to let you modify its design per your heart’s content. Pros Offers video background Integrated with BuddyPress Cross-browser compatible Cons Price $59 (for regular version); $2950 (for extended version) Get Kickoff Oxigeno WordPress sports templates can be divided into two categories. The first type of themes are those dedicated to a particular player, club or league. The second type, to which Oxigeno belongs, offers visitors extensive information such as fixtures lists, results, highlights and more. Oxigeno sets itself apart from most sports themes that focus on popular sports such as football, basketball, and baseball by covering swimming. However, that doesn’t mean you can create a sport for another website. The bundled Bold Builder plugin lets you create a site for any of your favorite sport. Pros Huge collection of Google Fonts Includes Bold Builder plugin in the package Easy to customize Cons Feels less polished than most other themes Price $69 (for regular version); $2950 (for extended version) Get Oxigeno Article Continues Below Alchemists Most sports fans would testify that the idea that modern sport is driven by statistics is true. You have player stats, team points, league scores, standings and much more. Finding a theme that would let you showcase all this data without looking like an excel spreadsheet is tough. Alchemists likes dealing with tough challenges. Every element of this theme’s design is colorful and bold, and gives you access to multitudes of options, such as game results, fixtures lists, team standings, and embedded streams. Regardless of your favorite sport, it’s a theme worth checking out. Pros Integrated with WooCommerce plugin Gives you the option to create e-sports website Has a bold and colorful design Cons Price $69 (for regular version); $2600 (for extended version) Get Alchemist Redy Redy is vibrant, bold and dynamic. It’s a no-nonsense WordPress sports theme that’s ideal for fitness coaches, athletes or anyone promoting a healthy lifestyle. This theme offers one-click installation and lets you create swipe effect for your pictures with the bundled Revolution Slider plugin. This theme’s compatibility with various useful plugins is its unique selling point. That’s because it lets you

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WordPress Theme Lock-In, Silos, and the Block System – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] For many years, I was a hardcore advocate of separating any non-design functionality from themes into their own plugins. I wrote extensively on the issue. Whether it was shortcodes, custom post types, user metadata, and any number of things related to a user’s content/data, I drew a deep line in the sand. This belongs in a plugin. If you have never heard of the “theme lock-in effect,” that’s OK. For many, it is a non-issue. Places like the WordPress.org theme directory have, for the most part, drew a similar line in the sand. The goal has always been to avoid trapping a user into perpetual use of a particular theme. It is not an ideal user experience when some crucial data is no longer available when switching designs. And, all users eventually want to change that up from time to time. Getting stuck with [shortcode-soup] tags littered throughout a site is never fun. Neither is losing admin access to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pages from a custom post type that suddenly disappears. The WordPress theme development community has avoided this problem — some more so than others — by bundling crucial content-related features separately in plugins. Those theme authors who bypassed theme lock-in via plugins have mostly done so in their own silos. For example, instead of integrating with an existing portfolio plugin, they would just create their own. The only themes that support that plugin? Theirs. Ultimately, users were still trapped. I cannot lay the entire weight of this issue on the shoulders of theme authors. Portfolio plugins are a dime a dozen. Supporting WooCommerce for an eCommerce solution or bbPress for forums are easy choices. But, when there is no clear industry front-runner, an in-house solution is just as good as most others. However, the block system is already complicating matters. When a theme supports features like font sizes, colors, and gradients, it essentially locks users in. Switch to another with a different configuration, and every font size, color, and gradient the user chose to use is gone. Imagine inserting a Paragraph block and choosing that sky blue from your theme as the block’s background. Now, imagine doing this a few hundred times only to have it disappear a couple of years down the road when you want to switch designs. I won’t dive into the technical details of how this works under the hood. It is just the way the system was designed. Some problems could have been mitigated early on, but that ship sailed two and a half years ago with the launch of WordPress 5.0. There are also ways this might be solved in the future with technical workarounds. Last week, a reader named Nick brought up this issue in regards to block patterns. The theme in question used custom CSS classes to achieve a specific design. Because Gutenberg lacks all the features mentioned above, the theme uses some custom CSS classes, and these classes are coded in the theme’s style sheet. The problem with this is that now that you have used these patterns, YOU ARE LOCKED IN to this theme. Because the moment you change themes, the new theme will not have these custom classes defined, the patterns will be broken. This is THE SAME reason why shortcodes were outlawed many years ago from inside the themes — and yet when it comes to patterns, this is somehow allowed? Note: Shortcodes were disallowed in the WordPress theme directory because the actual post content was broken on theme switch. It was unrelated to a broken design. I already hear what some of you are thinking. This is not the same as “content” lock-in. No, it is not. Not exactly. However, because the block system intertwines content and design, it sort of is. I doubt the average user appreciates the distinction when they end up in scenarios with white text on a white background, as shown in the following screenshots: Blue background with one theme. Blue background gone with second theme. That is a very real scenario. I see it almost daily as I test out different themes. And, this is just the beginning. As WordPress’s design system grows and themers can configure more pieces, users will become more locked into their existing theme. Or, they may be locked into one developer’s or one shop’s way of doing things. I do not necessarily see this as a Bad Thing. We have always had these little silos in the WordPress ecosystem, and they have mostly worked out. In a sense, little has changed. Users often stick with the same theme companies for one reason or another. And, those same themers tend to build on top of homegrown libraries or frameworks, reusing the same systems — at least the best ones do. This usually means that users can freely switch between themes made by the same people without losing anything. The old-school purity test of not mixing content and design is gone. This is a chance for solo developers and shops to strengthen their brand. If this is the system that WordPress is providing, build strong products on top of it. Build naming schemes that allow users to switch between your themes. Create loyal customers who will want to stick with you for years. If users are essentially locked into one shop’s theme products, that sounds like a lucrative opportunity to build solutions and healthy user communities around individual brands. I also envision a future where users will need to switch themes far less often. After the site editor and global styles features become available, users will have more direct control over their design. Once they have settled on a solid theme, they may never need to change it as long as it stays relatively up to date. 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WooCommerce Selects Paystack as Preferred Payments Partner in Africa – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] WooCommerce has named Paystack its preferred payments partner for WooCommerce in Africa. More than 20,000 merchants are using the free Paystack WooCommerce Payment Gateway plugin but searching for and downloading the plugin separately is no longer required. Store owners can now easily select Paystack as a payment method when inside the WooCommerce dashboard. Paystack has a recently updated tutorial for how to set up the gateway in WooCommerce. As an alternative to the recommended method, merchants can opt to install the free plugin instead. Paystack is the most widely used payment gateway in Africa, accounting for more than half of all online transactions in Nigeria. More than 60,000 stores use the gateway. In October 2020, it was acquired by Stripe for more than $200M. The gateway can be used by businesses in Nigeria and Ghana and last month it added support for South Africa, after a six-month long pilot program. “Paystack is leading the charge in bringing a world-class payments experience to African merchants,” WooCommerce Director of Business Development Mechiel Couvaras said. “Their product offering, user experience, and expansion plans within Africa were some of the most important factors in considering the partnership. Receiving funding from  Stripe and Visa was also a strong indicator of their potential.” Paystack, like all of WooCommerce’s other payment partners, has a financial arrangement with the e-commerce platform where it pays a percentage of transactions processed. Couvaras said the Paystack partnership is directly with Paystack and separate from WooCommerce’s Stripe partnership. “eCommerce is still very nascent in most African countries, however, Nigeria and South Africa are amongst our fastest growing countries globally,” Couvaras said. When Stripe acquired Paystack, the company noted that African online commerce is growing 21% year-over-year, 75% faster than the global average. WooCommerce is well-positioned to capture some of that growth with Paystack pre-installed as a preferred payment partner. The e-commerce platform is also keeping tabs on other emerging markets, as global market adoption has grown to 8.2% of the Alexa top 10 million websites. Over the past year WooCommerce launched partnerships with Indian payment companies Razorpay and PayU India, as well as Mercado Pago, a Latin American payments company focused on supporting local payment methods across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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LearnDash Review 2021: The Best WordPress LMS Plugin?

[ad_1] Considering using LearnDash to create online course content with WordPress? LearnDash is a popular WordPress LMS plugin that works for both serious academic institutions, solo course creators, and everyone in between. It can help you create unlimited courses, add unlimited lessons and topics, quiz your learners, require assignments, etc. It also includes built-in features to charge one-time or recurring access fees, as well as advanced features like content dripping, course prerequisites, and more. Overall, it’s definitely one of the top options when it comes to WordPress LMS plugins. And in our hands-on LearnDash review, we’re going to take a detailed look to help you decide whether this plugin is right for you. Here’s how we’ll break up our LearnDash review: Thoughts on the types of users who can benefit from LearnDash A hands-on look at how LearnDash works Seven pros and two cons of LearnDash FAQs about LearnDash Final thoughts Let’s dig in… Who Is LearnDash For? LearnDash is a pretty flexible plugin that can benefit both academic institutions as well as businesses, solo creators, and more. On the academic front, LearnDash supports SCORM and Tin Can API (xAPI) for heavy-duty implementations. The ProPanel feature is also well-suited to academic institutions, as it offers quick assignment management, emailing features, and more detailed learner information/analytics. However, LearnDash can also be quite effective for more small-scale uses, too. For example, if you’re a solo course creator, LearnDash can help you create and deliver free or paid course content to your members, which makes it a great solution for monetizing your site with online courses. It can also be useful to businesses that want to provide training to employees. You can use LearnDash to set up employee onboarding or certification and track your employees’ progress to make sure they’ve completed all the relevant education materials. All in all, you have a lot of different ways to use LearnDash, which is why it’s one of the top WordPress LMS plugins.  How LearnDash Works In this section, I’ll give you a general overview of what it’s like to create course content with LearnDash. Then, in the next section, I’ll single out some specific pros and cons. Basic Setup When you first activate LearnDash, it launches a “bootcamp” guide to show you all the actions you need to take to set up LearnDash. Each step includes a video and text article, and you can mark them as complete as you go through them: Overall, I think this is really convenient as it helps you make sure you’re not missing anything important. Creating a Course Your first step is to add a course. Each course can include unlimited lessons, topics, quizzes, assignments, etc. When you create a course, you’ll see the native WordPress block editor (for the course listing page content), as well as tabs across the top to configure additional options: Using the Course Builder The course builder is one of the most useful features in LearnDash as it lets you set up the structure of your lessons, topics, quizzes, and more using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Lessons are the main knowledge block, and then you can subdivide lessons into topics. You can use the buttons to add new lessons, topics, and quizzes and then drag-and-drop things to rearrange them as needed: Adding Lessons/Topic Content Once you’ve added the high-level structure of your course using the builder, you can open the editors for individual lessons/topics to add the content for those units. When you add a lesson/topic, you can add the content using the regular WordPress block editor. You’ll also get a useful Associated Content box in the sidebar to let you see how this unit matches up to other topics: In the Settings tab, you can also add a dedicated video that users must watch to complete the lesson, as well as configure other features like: Lesson materials (e.g. a PDF checklist) Assignments Lesson timers Adding a Quiz To add a quiz, you’ll get a dedicated quiz builder that works a lot like the course builder. You can add different questions and use drag-and-drop to change their order: If you go to the Settings tab, you can configure more advanced options like the passing score, retakes, question order randomization, a quiz certificate, quiz timer, and more. Setting Up Course Access Once you’ve added and organized your course content, the next step is to control access to your course, which you can do from the course’s settings. You have five options: Open – anyone can access the course. It’s public on your site. Free – the course is free, but people need to register and enroll for it. Buy Now – people pay a one-time fee for access. Recurring – people pay a recurring fee for access. Closed – you must manually add learners (or use a separate payment/membership plugin). You can also set up other restrictions, such as course prerequisites and access expirations: And that’s a general high-level look at what it’s like to create a course with LearnDash. Of course, I didn’t cover nearly every feature, because there are a lot of small options. But you should have a good idea of how it works. LearnDash Pros and Cons – 7 Pros and 2 Cons Now, let’s dig into some of the specific things that LearnDash does well…and some of its weak points. LearnDash Pros 1. User-Friendly Drag-and-Drop Builder I showed you the course builder in the tutorial, but it’s worth highlighting again because it’s such a useful feature. When you have a lot of lessons, topics, and quizzes, it can be hard to visualize how everything fits together and the progression that your students will follow as they move through the course. Having the course builder interface not only makes it easy to see how everything fits, but it also lets you easily make changes using drag-and-drop. It also just generally speeds up your course building because you can easily open the editors for all the course’s content from one spot.

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How to Switch from Wix to WordPress (Step by Step Guide)

[ad_1] It gets said about many aspects of running a website, but your choice of platform is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. However, mistakes happen and needs change. If you’re currently looking to switch from Wix to WordPress, you’ll want to make the process as smooth as possible. While there’s nothing wrong with Wix in some aspects, it’s a closed-source problem to WordPress’ open-source solution. If you want to make the switch, there’s a lot of ‘donkey work’ in getting posts, pages, and media from one platform to another. As such, this post will show you how to switch from Wix to WordPress step-by-step. We’ll cover all of the aspects you need, and mention some future considerations too. Comparing Wix to WordPress On the surface, there’s a lot to like about both Wix and WordPress. For example: They both offer a full-featured solution for creating a website. Building a layout using both platforms is a breeze. The extendable nature of both solutions means you’ll be able to create a site to your exact requirements. Overall – and it might be polarizing to say – Wix does represent a good platform in some use cases and for some site owners. However, there are some drawbacks that warrant attention. Why You’d Want to Switch From Wix to WordPress In a bubble, Wix represents a dependable solution for creating and managing your website. However, you may have come up against some of the following issues: You’d like to run more than one site, without increasing your current budget. The storage for your Wix account has run out. You want to scale your site for more traffic and growth. The requirements you have for an eCommerce site can’t be met with Wix. In all of these cases, a switch from Wix to WordPress makes sense. Note that we’re talking about self-hosted WordPress here, rather than the .com version. Self-hosted WordPress is a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS) that can be tailored to your exact requirements. What’s more, the core software is free, as are thousands of themes and add-ons called ‘plugins’. Of course, you’ll need to pay for some aspects of hosting your WordPress website, but on the whole, you stand to save money by switching. Also (and it’s something we consider the most important aspect), you have total control over how to run and present your website. How to Switch from Wix to WordPress (In 6 Steps) As we noted, making the switch from Wix to WordPress is tougher than other platforms. This is because Wix doesn’t let you export your content with the same flexibility as its competitors. As such, there are a few steps you’ll need to take to get everything ported over: Purchase suitable hosting. Pick a theme for your site. Import your Wix content into WordPress. Design your new layout. Add functionality to help your new site meet your needs. Redirect your old site to the new one. We’ll dedicate more time to some of these steps than others, so let’s get to it! 1. Choose a Suitable Hosting Provider Before you think about making the switch from Wix to WordPress, you’ll need somewhere to host your new site. Wix includes hosting in its monthly price, while self-hosted WordPress doesn’t. Even so, you’ll usually pay around the same price for your own host, and get more control over your performance to boot. If you’re wondering which host to choose, we’ve looked at a number of options previously. However, the field is more packed for WordPress, given how popular the CMS is. As such, you might want to consider managed hosting. This keeps the control and flexibility with you, while letting your host handle under-the-hood tweaks. If you’re still unsure which host to choose, we’d recommend A2 Hosting: They have good support, a wide selection of plans, and suitable options for a range of budgets. We’ve covered them before (+ 52% off coupon) at WPKube, and had a lot of good things to say about the entire service. Installing WordPress You’ll also need to install WordPress in some cases. However, a lot of hosts include a one-click installer such as Softaculous, or pre-install WordPress for you. If you’re fortunate to have WordPress pre-installed, a chunk of the work is already done for you. However, if not, WordPress is a snap to set up. In fact, we’ve covered this in a previous article, so check that out if you need the guidance. 2. Choose the Right Theme For Your New WordPress Site Once WordPress is up and running on your host, there are a few tasks you’ll want to check off. We’ll talk about some of these later, but for now, getting your site looking right is our focus. WordPress uses ‘themes’. Think of them as ‘skins’ for your site, that can also implement additional functionality in some cases. While there are hundreds of themes available for free, they’re not usually the best fit for a business site, for a few reasons: You’ll get better support under normal circumstances with a premium theme. The functionality will be more robust. Free themes often have a reduced set of features in order to convince you to upgrade. Updates will be more frequent, as developers can devote their whole time to fixing bugs and enhancing the theme. You should look to pay around $50–100 for a decent premium theme, although you can find options at all price points. What’s more, there is lots of choice for your industry or niche. When it comes to narrowing down your options, consider how established the developer is, how often a theme has been updated, and other user’s reviews before stumping up the cash. Once you’ve chosen a theme, you’ll need to install it on your site. WPKube has put together the ultimate guide to getting themes up and running on your site, so check that piece out if you need the assistance. 3. Import Your Wix Content Into WordPress Here is where making

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Refreshing Old Twenty* WordPress Themes With Block Patterns – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] What began as a project in August 2020 has now become a reality. All past Twenty* default WordPress themes now have their own unique block patterns. In recent weeks, Twenty Ten through Twenty Fifteen received updates. Designer Mel Choyce-Dwan kick-started tickets for all previous 10 default themes before the WordPress 5.5 release, the first version to support patterns. Twenty Twenty, Twenty Nineteen, Twenty Seventeen, and Twenty Sixteen each made the cut for that update. However, the remaining default themes were left to languish, at least for a few months and WordPress updates. Jumping back over a decade to update past themes might seem extreme, but all of the default themes are still some of the most popular from the directory. Granted, they had the benefit of being installed directly in WordPress. Still, the current number of active installations means they are worth a small refresh: Twenty Fifteen: 100,000+ Twenty Fourteen: 100,000+ Twenty Thirteen: 70,000+ Twenty Twelve: 100,000+ Twenty Eleven: 100,000+ Twenty Ten: 100,000+ Despite having the lowest installation total, Twenty Thirteen has some of the best pattern designs. The Informational Section and Decorative Gallery patterns stand out the most, but all fit well with the overall theme design. Informational Section Decorative Gallery Twenty Thirteen is also the only remaining default theme that supports wide and full alignments. Its one-column layout affords it more flexibility, and the old design feels fresh again with its new pattern choices. Perhaps they can revive the theme’s lagging numbers relative to the other defaults. The initial pattern designs for the theme included a suite of layouts for post formats, one of the features Twenty Thirteen leaned on. Something similar to the first gallery design landed, but the others were left out. Patterns designed to match post formats. Post formats never garnered widespread support past their launch, and the core development team all but abandoned them, never building atop the feature. However, all of the format-specific patterns might be welcome for those users still running the theme. They would have been a nostalgic nod to the old WordPress, a throwback to yesteryear. If nothing else, maybe they can serve as inspiration for those of us still clinging to that tiny sliver of hope that post formats will make a roaring comeback. These theme-bundled designs highlight how the upcoming pattern directory is not meant to be the only destination for snagging the best layout sections to drop into the block editor. Often, the best choices will be specific to the theme. Much of the flavor of custom design is lost when building for a general audience. What looks good with Twenty Twenty-One may look terrible in another and vice versa. Maybe that will change as block design tools become more robust and how they are used becomes standardized, but for now, at least, the most artistic patterns are those that designers include with their themes. Aside from Twenty Thirteen, Twenty Ten’s new patterns stood out the most. The theme was the first of the new era of yearly themes, and its classic blog design has weathered the years well — just ignore the 12-pixel sidebar font size. Twenty Ten’s new patterns. The three patterns are at home in the theme. The Introduction pattern, which showcases the Image, Heading, and Paragraph blocks, is simple, but it relies on Twenty Ten’s typography for an elegant article intro. The Quote and Alternating image layouts do not try to do too much, simply highlighting the theme’s design. Landing squarely in my favorite-but-most-disappointing category was Twenty Fourteen. The About pattern’s image and text looked elegant and roomy in the editor, but the front-end view painted a different picture. Because the theme lacks wide-alignment support, the photo was scrunched up. The gallery-supported Summary pattern has a lot of potential as a full-width pattern, but it falls short in the theme’s 474-pixel wide content area. About Pattern Summary Pattern There is really no reason why Twenty Fourteen could not support wide and full alignments. It has free space. At least the timeline-esque List pattern is pretty sweet in both the editor and front-end views. I may borrow that for my own projects. List pattern included with Twenty Fourteen. I was not particularly excited over the other patterns, but I am happy to see a little love thrown toward the 600,000 or so users with these themes still active. I am sure many will find something they can use on their own sites. The themes are aging; the wrinkles and weaknesses of their designs are showing. With the site editor looming ahead, it might be time to consider retiring them. That is assuming no one wants to take the reigns and update them for a modern era. Otherwise, they will continue falling behind, remaining a relic of classic WordPress. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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