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
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.
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?
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 The existing video tutorials will still be available on the site, but as soon as they go out of date, they will be removed completely.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.
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.
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.
Great Articles From Around The Web
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.
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?
Oh wonderful!
I really missed this list,
Will check out one by one.
Thanks for sharing this roundup.
Have a great year ahead
~Annphil
Thanks! Hope you’ll find it useful. 🙂
What a great way to summarize the WP December year 2015. Thank you, I am more than exited to read this article .
Thanks! Happy to hear it. 🙂