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December 2015 WordPress News – This Month in WordPress w/ CodeinWP

So here we are in 2016 already!

But, let’s go back just a bit to discuss what happened in December 2015 in the world of WordPress. After all, it was a very “rich” month when it came to news. We had new releases, new goals to focus on in the new year, lots of stats, and some curious announcements.

So before getting completely engaged with the new year’s tasks, let’s take a look back at the big changes that took place right before the year ended.

Here’s This Month in WordPress w/ CodeinWP – the final edition of 2015.

December 2015 in WordPress


WordPress 4.4 “Clifford”

The last month of the year gave us a new version of WordPress. It’s called “Clifford” and the version number is 4.4. As with every new release, Clifford brings a couple of interesting improvements and features:

  • The release of the newest WordPress default theme, Twenty Sixteen.
  • Responsive images. From now on, your images will be displayed properly on every device, and you don’t need to do anything to make it work … it just does.
  • Easy embeds. Just copy any URL to your WordPress site and you’ll automatically see the preview/excerpt.
  • REST API infrastructure added, which means that the REST API has been fully integrated into the WordPress core.



State Of The Word 2015

If you had to summarize the year 2015 in WordPress, which highlights would you put on the list? To help you out, here’s Matt Mullenweg sharing his “State of the Word” at WordCamp US.

Apart from the video version, there’s also:

Already feeling excited for this year! How about you?


Treehouse Drops Support for WordPress Education

It seems like one of the most popular learning platforms online, Treehouse, will no longer support WordPress courses. Zac Gordon, the guy who used to make great tutorials for the Treehouse students, is not a part of the team any more. The existing video tutorials will still be available on the site, but as soon as they go out of date, they will be removed completely.

Zac said that he will still focus on teaching WordPress on his site WPDevCasts. Kicking the year off with his new JavaScript for WordPress Master Course.

zac gordon

javascript
More and More JavaScript in WordPress

2016 will be “the JavaScript year” in WordPress, as Matt Mullenweg emphasized in his “State of the Word.” This doesn’t seem like great news for developers who, from now on, will have to turn their attention to learning JavaScript at a high level.

The JavaScript craze started with the introduction of Calypso last month, and it’s considered by Matt as being an important aspect to look at in 2016.

“Learn JavaScript… Deeply!” – were some of the most quoted words that went viral after the last WordCamp of the year.


Security Concepts: Half of all WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities are XSS and Securing FTP

As for the “It’s good to know this” stuff, WordFence came up with some interesting stats about what’s affecting the WordPress plugins the most.

According to their tests and numbers, almost half of the vulnerabilities are caused by XSS (Cross Site Scripting) in a proportion of 47%. Unsecured FTP causes plenty of troubles for WordPress site administrators too (that’s why it is recommended to use sFTP instead).

If you don’t want to fight these WordPress monsters in the future, you might be interested in reading WordFence’s Security Learning Center, where you can find more details about each vulnerability and how to prevent it.

wordfence security concepts

Great Articles From Around The Web

The Future of WordPress Plugins: What’s on the Horizon for 2016 and Beyond?

Planning to develop a new plugin in 2016? Take a look at these predictions from team ElegantThemes. How much WordPress plugins will change in the near future?

WordPress Security: The Essential Checklist to Prevent WordPress Hacking [17 actions]

Coming back to the security side of WordPress… It’s always better to prevent things than to combat them. Check out this list to see how you can sometimes get rid of potential hacks before you become their victim.

The WPLift Roundup of the Best Free WordPress Themes December 2015

Here’s a few of the last free WordPress themes developed in 2015!

16 WordPress experts share their insight about the new WordPress Calypso

As Calypso’s release stormed the WordPress community pretty much, here’s what the WordPress experts think about this new big change, and what will be its impact over the long haul.

How to Convert Wix to WordPress: A Complete Guide to All Your Options

Have a website built on Wix and want to switch to WordPress? Check out this guide on how to do the conversion successfully, without losing any data.

A Really Big Guide to Finding Images for Your Blog (and How to Use Them Like a Pro)

Working a lot with images? Here are some great resources from where you can get free photos. Bonus, great advice on how to use them efficiently.

15 Tips to Get Your WordPress Website Indexed by Google

Just launched a site and want to make sure it gets tracked by the Google search engine? Here’s what you need to do first to have it indexed.

20 Hottest Trends That Will Shape Web Design Come 2016

If you care about web design and you’re curious about what’s coming up in the near future, you might want to take a look at this article.

5 Reasons to Start a Plugin Business

Want to develop a plugin and start selling it, but you’re not really sure about how much can this business bring to you? Maybe the 5 reasons above will convince you why it’s worth it.

How to Easily Add CSS Animations in WordPress

Animations always introduce some elegance and beauty to a WordPress site (when they are used wisely). If you want to make your site a bit more catchy by adding a few CSS lines, here’s how you can do it.

11 Best Tools for A/B Split Testing in WordPress

Doing tests and experiencing with your site is the right path for a better user interface. There are a lot of plugins and tools that can help you do so. Check out 11 of the best ones here.

WordPress Plugin Roundup – December 2015

And here are a few of the last free WordPress plugins created in 2015.

That’s it for this edition. Anything we missed?

Adelina Tuca

4 Comments
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Annamma Philip Vergh
March 23, 2016 12:53 pm

Oh wonderful!
I really missed this list,
Will check out one by one.
Thanks for sharing this roundup.
Have a great year ahead
~Annphil

Adelina Tuca
March 29, 2016 1:37 pm

Thanks! Hope you’ll find it useful. 🙂

WPDean.com
January 12, 2016 9:33 pm

What a great way to summarize the WP December year 2015. Thank you, I am more than exited to read this article .

Adelina Tuca
January 13, 2016 12:26 pm
Reply to  WPDean.com

Thanks! Happy to hear it. 🙂

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