WordPress 5.2 Beta, Global Translation Day, WordPress Triage Team 🗞️ April 2019 WordPress News w/ CodeinWP

Hello friends, welcome to our April 2019 WordPress news roundup! I don’t know about you but, at least in Romania, everyone is enjoying Spring. Things are looking bright in our WordPress community, too.

WordPress 5.2 is ready for testing, the contributors formed a Triage Team to watch over all the issues in the Core Trac, the next Global Translation Day is coming, and a new plugin brings you pre-built templates entirely made of blocks.

But this is just the warm-up. A lot of other catchy news is waiting for you to take a look at. For example, the Dark Mode plugin needs a new owner, which could be you.

Read further for even more stories involving security, Google, Automattic, WordCamp, Elementor and a few great articles on how to get the most out of our CMS.

WordPress 5.2 Beta 1

WordPress 5.2 beta is out and ready for you to test. The software is still in development, so do not install it on your production website yet. The official release is scheduled for April 30th, which means that you have one month left to report potential bugs or issues.

In WordPress 5.2, the block editor is getting huge performance improvements (aka it runs faster) and a better accessibility strategy. Moreover, the upcoming release will come with five new blocks. Site Health Check and a new threshold for the PHP minimum supported version are also on the priorities list.

Introducing the WordPress Triage Team

One of Matt Mullenweg’s focus projects for this year was forming a team to monitor the 6,500+ open issues in the Core Trac. This month, he addressed this item by introducing the WordPress Triage Team, which will dedicate its time to Trac.

The initial team structure was decided based on the interest the contributors had in this topic and on the nominations in the comments of Make WordPress Core posts. Each current member has a strong experience in contributing to WordPress, but more people are expected to join.

Check out the post to see who’s part of the team right now.

WordPress Translation Day 4 | 11 May 2019

The fourth edition of WordPress Translation Day will take place on May 11th, 2019. This is a 24-hour event that will gather all the polyglots from all around the world to help translate WordPress into their native languages. The event is both virtual and in-person (in the last edition, people met in 71 places across 29 countries).

At this moment, WordPress is translated into 186 languages. If you want to contribute with your own language, you can join the Polyglots team this year via #polyglots-events Slack channel. More information on the official website and blog!

Dark Mode WordPress Plugin Up for Adoption

The most popular plugin that makes your dashboard dark is up for grabs. Its author, Daniel James, is stepping back from plugin development and wants to leave his nice product in good hands. In 2018, James proposed that Dark Mode should be merged into the WordPress core, but it got rejected soon after.

Having his idea rejected after spending much time on developing it for free, along with the direction WordPress is going with Gutenberg, didn’t give James another choice than giving up on further plugin updates. So if you want to continue his work, contact him for more details.

Gutenberg Blocks Design Library Offers Pre-Built Page Designs Using Existing Core Blocks

This is an interesting new plugin that provides pre-made page templates created out of the default core blocks in Gutenberg. This means that you can use templates made entirely of blocks, so you don’t have to build them on your own from scratch.

The free version of Gutenberg Blocks Design Library offers you 50 different designs that you can simply import to your site. The templates are diverse and include all kinds of sections such as call-to-action, testimonials, team members, text with images, contact pages, and more.

Zero-day Vulnerability in Easy WP SMTP Affects Thousands of Sites

This month, two popular plugins were ‘diagnosed’ with zero-day vulnerabilities which give access to unauthenticated people to make changes on a site. The plugins in question are Easy WP SMTP and Social Warfare, both impacting thousands of WordPress sites.

Both plugins have been patched by the developers, but you need to update to keep your site secure.

Welcome to Season of Docs

If you are a technical writer who knows how to create good documentation, you can apply to Google’s new ‘Season of Docs’ program by the end of April. You’ll have the chance to collaborate with great open source projects and make extra money.

A meditation on the open web

An interesting animation made by Automattic, which points out the differences between WordPress and the big Facebook-Instagram social duo. The video presents WordPress as the solution for escaping the superficiality that you get daily on social media. WordPress sets you free. A good topic to reflect on.

Kids At WordCamp Miami 2019

Apparently, the WordPress community will have a new event dedicated to kids. This year’s WordCamp Miami held a successful Kid’s Panel with learning stories where 100+ kids attended. This turnout inspired the organizers to host another one-day event for kids and teachers/educators in Miami this summer.

New Tools for Theme Developers: Theme Sniffer Plugin and Automated Accessibility Testing

There are two new tools that the WordPress core team has been preparing for developers, in order to ease their crowded workflow. Theme Sniffer tells you when a theme does not meet the WordPress coding standards, while WP Theme Auditor provides automated accessibility feedback.

Learn PHP – New free course by Codecademy

If you want to learn PHP, Codecademy just launched a new course that’s completely free. The course is for beginners and takes around three hours to complete. You can also take quizzes.

Introducing the Ultimate Freehand Design Experience

Elementor also made its users happy by releasing a new version with an improved design experience including side-by-side widgets, Flexbox distribution, performance enhancements, and complete control over your elements’ position across a page. The feature is called Flexible Layout.

Identifying the Stakeholders of WordPress

A great read on who is keeping WordPress alive: from contributors to business owners, hobbyists, customers and consumers, volunteers, educators, and a few more categories. Hats off to everyone in either category for making WordPress what it is now. Which one are you?

WordPress Emergency Help: Who You Gonna Call? (And 6 Fix-It Tips)

What happens when your WordPress site goes down, a page is not working, or you lost your data? You are not technical and don’t know what to do. Maybe call a friend? This article brings you the emergency measures for desperate times.

Learn What Top Experts Say About Bootstrapping a Business

What does it take to start a business by yourself without the help of the bigger fish, sponsors or external investors? It’s hard, of course, but not impossible. Hear it from people who actually did it and are now successful.

What is Position Zero? How to Win at SEO with Featured Snippets

Do you want to show up first in Google as a featured snippet? All you need to do is to create quality content, that’s the first rule. But then, there are still some small tricks that would also help. iThemes shares them in their article.

7 Tips to Host a Successful Giveaway Event on Your Blog

If you want to host a giveaway on your website, Torque tells you how to do it. But first, make sure to ask yourself if doing it is helping your business at all.

To Fund WordPress Plugin Development Through Sponsorship, or More Traditional Models?

How to develop a plugin while maintaining costs at a decent scale? This is the take of a developer on this matter. You can either find sponsorship or implement some mild payment methods in order to keep your head above water while owning a product.

Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. Learn more below: