Okay, the holiday season is officially open. And not only in your local supermarket, but in the world of WordPress as well!
It seems we’ll end the year on a high note with a handful of positive WordPress announcements, just to get us in the right mood for what’s coming next.
So … new rules, designs, releases, statistics, and services … all this and more in this edition of This Month in WordPress w/ CodeinWP – our monthly roundup of news and stories from around the WordPress space.
November 2015 in WordPress
By far, the biggest news of the month. WordPress.com launches a new design, and also releases a new desktop app for Mac.
The app is called Calypso and it lets you manage your WordPress.com blogs, as well as self-hosted WordPress sites that have Jetpack installed.
Some more interesting resources on this:
It was just a matter of time. This month, WordPress has finally managed to reach the magical number of 25 percent! This means that every one in four sites runs on WordPress.
The gap between WordPress and the other platforms is truly huge. For example, the second place on the podium goes to Joomla with only 6.6 percent.
WordPress’ domination is just amazing.
Although the algorithm responsible for putting a theme on WordPress.org’s Most Popular list was never made public, the number of downloads was always believed to play an important role.
That being said, not all downloads are created equal … at least now.
From this point going forward, automated downloads are not added to a theme’s total number of downloads.
A new version of BuddyPress – “Pietro” – has just been released and it seems to come with a couple of intriguing features:
- drag-and-drop cover images,
- profile fields specific to each member type,
- Twenty Fifteen theme compatibility,
- unique homepages for every group,
- lots of improvements including bug fixes and feature enhancements.
Great Articles From Around The Web
Here’s a thorough and complex article on everything you need to know about WordPress and GPL.
“An Untechnical Guide To The WP REST API”, A Free White Paper For NonDevelopers
Don’t know what REST API is? Read this and find out. Bonus, it’s for non-technical people.
9 Awesome and Obscure WordPress Features You Didn’t Know Existed
You’ve been probably working with WordPress for a while, but did you know you can do all those cool things?
Top 10 Sites to Ask All Your Programming Questions
Have any WordPress development questions? Here’s where you can find the answers.
A really cool visual presentation on how WordPress has evolved over the years. Particularly when it comes to the admin design and the default theme.
A really interesting study on what makes a plugin popular and what you should pay attention to when working on a new plugin.
How To Reduce The Abandon Rate Of Your WordPress Plugin
People seem to love your plugin when they first fire it up, but then abandon it soon after? Read this.
How To Create a Social Network Using WordPress
WordPress is good for everything, even for social networks. So if you’re planning to create your own, take a look at how you can successfully do so.
Feeling “Christmasy”? Since the holidays are just around the corner, consider decorating your WordPress site with some cool seasonal plugins.
That’s it for this edition. Anything we missed?