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";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"version";s:3:"2.0";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"channel";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:61:"
	
	
	
	




















































";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WPTavern: NaNoWriMo 2016 Kicks Off Today: Write Your Novel with WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63374";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://wptavern.com/nanowrimo-2016-kicks-off-today-write-your-novel-with-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6194:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nanowrimo.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nanowrimo.jpg?resize=1025%2C402&ssl=1" alt="nanowrimo" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63376" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a> (National Novel Writing Month) today kicks off its 18th year helping writers achieve their creative goals. The online event is organized by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that encourages participants to work towards writing a 50,000-word novel. Writers commit to posting their word counts to their profiles each day during the event, which runs from November 1-30.</p>
<p>NaNoWriMo began in 1999 in the San Francisco Bay Area with just 21 writers and grew to 5,000 participants the following year, thanks to promotion from bloggers around the web. In 2015, the project had 431,626 participants, including 80,137 students and educators in the Young Writers Program.</p>
<h3>WordPress Tools for NaNoWriMo</h3>
<p>The NaNoWriMo website encourages writers to use their own materials for writing their novels, such as a word-processing program, typewriter, pen and paper, or whatever inspires the most creativity. WordPress is ideally suited for capturing your writing and keeping track of your word count. There are also several plugins that make it easy to break novels up into chapters and export your work into the proper formats for <a href="https://wptavern.com/how-to-self-publish-a-book-with-wordpress" target="_blank">self publishing with WordPress</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/nano-stats/" target="_blank">Nano Status</a> is a plugin created specifically for NaNoWriMo participants. Public accountability with word counts is one of the motivating factors for many writers who participate in the event, and Nano Stats makes it easy to display your progress in posts, pages, and sidebar widgets. It pulls in word count stats from the NaNoWriMo website for the username entered in the plugin&#8217;s settings.</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nano-stats.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nano-stats.png?resize=616%2C359&ssl=1" alt="nano-stats" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63393" /></a></p>
<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/mybookprogress/" target="_blank">MyBookProgress</a> plugin is another option for tracking your novel&#8217;s progress and displaying stats. The plugin&#8217;s writing goals and deadline tracking features are customizable so it can also be used for other projects besides NaNoWriMo.</p>
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/mybookprogress-widget.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/mybookprogress-widget.png?resize=283%2C156&ssl=1" alt="mybookprogress-widget" class="alignright size-full wp-image-63396" /></a>MyBookProgress allows users to upload cover images for their books and displays a progress bar using a widget or a shortcode. It also includes MailChimp integration so that readers can subscribe to get progress updates on a book.</p>
<p>In addition to the customizable goal tracking, MyBookProgress comes with preset template for NaNoWriMo participants who are working to achieve the 50,000-word goal. Progress can be recorded directly inside WordPress for display on your own website, as opposed to having to sign into the NaNoWriMo website. The backend of the plugin includes a writing statistics dashboard to give you an idea of which day of the week is your most productive, and your average percentage per day/week/month. Users can easily share their progress to Facebook or Twitter directly from the plugin&#8217;s writing dashboard.</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MyBookProgress.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MyBookProgress.png?resize=805%2C582&ssl=1" alt="mybookprogress" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63398" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/author-wordcount/" target="_blank">Author Wordcount</a> is a much simpler plugin that allows writers to display one or multiple works in progress via a widget. Current word count and expected (goal) word count can be entered in the admin on the plugin&#8217;s settings page. It also has a simple UI that fits in more seamlessly with WordPress than the MyBookProgress plugin.</p>
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/author-wordcount.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/author-wordcount.png?resize=932%2C1198&ssl=1" alt="author-wordcount" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63404" /></a></p>
<p>During the NaNoWriMo event&#8217;s 18-year history, nearly <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/published-wrimos" target="_blank">400 novels have been published</a> via traditional publishing houses. Participants have also self-published more than 200 novels. If you achieve your goal of finishing a novel and want to look into <a href="https://wptavern.com/how-to-self-publish-a-book-with-wordpress" target="_blank">self-publishing</a>, there are many tools that make it easy to export content hosted on both WordPress.com and self-hosted sites.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/anthologize/" target="_blank">Anthologize</a> plugin allows authors to publish their works in several ebook formats, including PDF, EPUB and TEI. <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/bookpress-client/" target="_blank">BookPress Client</a> is another free plugin  that organizes your writing into a custom post type so book posts won’t show up mixed with normal blog posts on your site. It supports both ePub and Kindle mobi formats. WordPress.com users can take advantage of services like <a href="http://www.fastpencil.com/" target="_blank">FastPencil</a> or <a href="http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.html" target="_blank">Blog2Print</a> for importing their posts into different book reader and print formats.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 01 Nov 2016 21:03:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"Mark Jaquith: The 4 best WordPress hosts of 2016";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/?p=5235";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/best-wordpress-hosts-in-2016/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6421:"<p>As a seasoned WordPress developer, I am frequently asked what WordPress web hosts I recommend. There are so many solid choices now! The WordPress ecosystem is truly a bounty of choice in 2016. I could write an exhaustive comparison of all of the options, but these are called &#8220;exhaustive comparisons&#8221; for a reason. Let&#8217;s skip that, and I&#8217;ll just tell you the four WordPress hosts I recommend in five&nbsp;distinct tiers.</p>
<p>Note that many of these hosts target a range of sites, from starter sites to enterprise sites, so I am picking the hosts that I think fit each tier of site&nbsp;<em>best</em>, even though they might also work for other kinds of sites.</p>
<h2>Starter Site</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm?afcode=d3f3dc4c98ccbebf43909e7d7971eca7&campaign=WordPress">SiteGround</a> is one of my favorite WordPress hosting companies. They offer a range of hosting solutions, but their WordPress-tailored plans are a tremendously good value and have many WordPress-specific perks. Ask around the WordPress community — SiteGround&nbsp;is a well-respected company that works hard to win and retain the business of WordPress customers. Their plans start as low as $3.95 a month, which is an incredibly good deal. If you aren&#8217;t sure what you need, SiteGround is what I would choose.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm?afcode=d3f3dc4c98ccbebf43909e7d7971eca7&campaign=WordPress">Take a look at SiteGround&#8217;s WordPress hosting plans</a>.</p>
<h2>Developer-Friendly Site</h2>
<p>What if you know your way around WordPress, want things like Git and <a href="https://wp-cli.org/">WP-CLI </a>access, or want advanced WordPress-friendly caching for your site? <a href="https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm?afcode=d3f3dc4c98ccbebf43909e7d7971eca7&campaign=WordPress">SiteGround has you covered</a> there, too. Their GoGeek plan (currently $14.95 a month) offers all of these perks, unlimited sites, WordPress staging sites, and so much more. I love working with GoGeek-level SiteGround sites, because they work really well and give me access to all the tools that I need as a developer. Or, if you&#8217;re not a developer, but have hired one to work on your site, you may want to upgrade to GoGeek hosting so she can work at maximum efficiency.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm?afcode=d3f3dc4c98ccbebf43909e7d7971eca7&campaign=WordPress">Go sign up for SiteGround&#8217;s GoGeek WordPress hosting</a>.</p>
<h2>Intermediate&nbsp;Site</h2>
<p><a href="http://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=917225&u=1391570&m=41388&urllink=&afftrack=">WP Engine</a>&nbsp;has been around since 2010, focuses entirely on WordPress hosting, and has established themself as a solid choice in the intermediate range. Their plans start at $29/month and include a 60-day money-back guarantee and free automated migration of your existing WordPress site. WP Engine&nbsp;also has more advanced hosting options, so they&#8217;re an option that could grow with you.</p>
<p><a href="http://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=917225&u=1391570&m=41388&urllink=&afftrack=">Sign up for WP Engine using this link</a> and you&#8217;ll save 20% off your first payment.</p>
<h2>Professional Site</h2>
<p><a href="https://pantheon.io/pricing">Pantheon</a> got their start as a Drupal host, but have taken their innovative container-based hosting technology to the WordPress market. As a developer, I appreciate their Git-based development flow, their powerful &#8220;Terminus&#8221; command line client, and their built-in and dead-simple dev/test/live environments. On the higher level plans, you get &#8220;Multidev&#8221; which lets you spin up a sandboxed development environment for a specific Git branch. This means you can send clients and testers URLs for testing new features in isolation, before they are merged back into the main code branch. Awesome.</p>
<p>Their professional tier starts at $100/month, which isn&#8217;t cheap, but your developers will love their deployment tools, their dev/test/live code staging flows, and their Git-based deploys to the development environment. Pantheon is a great choice for professional WordPress sites that have a developer on staff or on retainer.</p>
<p><a href="https://pantheon.io/pricing">Check out Pantheon&#8217;s professional WordPress hosting plans</a>.</p>
<h2>Enterprise Site</h2>
<p><a href="http://pagely.7eer.net/c/335029/141222/2787">Pagely</a> has been around since 2006! They started the whole WordPress-dedicated hosting marketplace. When they started, they targeted a range of WordPress sites, but now they focus on enterprise hosting. This is where big brands go for custom WordPress hosting solutions. The folks at Pagely know WordPress well, and will be an excellent hosting partner for your enterprise WordPress site. Their VPS solutions start at $499/month, but they also have a shared server plan called Neutrino for $99/month.</p>
<p><a href="http://pagely.7eer.net/c/335029/141222/2787">Get started with Pagely enterprise hosting</a>.</p>
<h2>How I Picked</h2>
<p>My method here was simple. I thought about how I answer if a friend or a client asks me for hosting advice. I found that I regarded sites as fitting in one of five categories. Then, I considered which hosts offer the best service and value in those categories, and picked these four hosts. After I had made my picks and written about their benefits, I went to see which of my picks had affiliate programs. Three of them did, and one did not. I used affiliate links for those that offered them, and a direct link for the one that did not. Using affiliate links to sign up for their service will earn me some money, but you can of course just go directly to their sites if you like. I stand by these recommendations, either way. I&#8217;ll write a new post in 2017 with my new picks. Let me know <a href="https://twitter.com/markjaquith/status/793562226305146880">on Twitter</a> what hosts are your favorites, and why!</p><br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/markjaquith.wordpress.com/5235/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/markjaquith.wordpress.com/5235/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="https://pixel.wp.com/b.gif?host=markjaquith.wordpress.com&blog=316&post=5235&subd=markjaquith&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 01 Nov 2016 20:27:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mark Jaquith";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"WPTavern: Beware of Links to Baidu in Skype Messages";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63378";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"https://wptavern.com/beware-of-links-to-baidu-in-skype-messages";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4741:"<p>I recently logged into Skype and received two messages from people who I haven&#8217;t spoken too in years. Both messages contained a URL to <a href="http://www.baidu.com/">Baidu</a> with my Skype username at the end. I immediately became suspicious and after a cursory search of Google, I discovered that I <a href="https://community.skype.com/t5/Security-Privacy-Trust-and/Link-to-quot-baidu-quot-website-sent-to-all-of-my-contacts/td-p/4461728/page/15">wasn&#8217;t the only one</a> receiving these messages.</p>
<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SkypeBaiduLink.png?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-63380" src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SkypeBaiduLink.png?resize=378%2C229&ssl=1" alt="Baidu Links in Skype Messages" /></a>Baidu Links in Skype Messages
<p>According to a <a href="https://community.skype.com/t5/Security-Privacy-Trust-and/Spam-messages-amp-links-sent-from-your-account/td-p/4511001">support document</a> published by Claudius, Community Manager at Skype, the accounts sending the messages are most likely compromised. The document offers a list of steps that includes, checking your computer for malware, changing passwords, and increasing the security of your Skype account.</p>
<h2>Tips to Strengthen the Security of Your Skype Account</h2>
<p>Microsoft recently made changes so that Skype, Office, Xbox, and other Microsoft services can be managed with a single account. If you haven&#8217;t <a href="https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34657/one-account-for-skype-and-your-other-microsoft-services">upgraded your Skype account</a> to a Microsoft account, visit <a href="https://account.microsoft.com/">Microsoft&#8217;s account</a> page and enter your Skype username and password. You&#8217;ll be prompted to upgrade which can only be done once.</p>
<p>Once upgraded, click on the Security and Privacy settings link. This is where you can change your password, add security information, and enable two-step verification.</p>
<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TwoStepAuthentication.png?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-63384" src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TwoStepAuthentication.png?resize=445%2C171&ssl=1" alt="Two Factor Authentication Enabled" /></a>Two-Step Verification Enabled
<p>It&#8217;s important to note that in recent years, there have been major data leaks where the login credentials of millions of people have been exposed to the public. If you use the same password on multiple sites, visit <a href="https://haveibeenpwned.com/">Have I Been Pwned</a> and check to see if your password was leaked. If you see the Oh no — pwned! message, you should update your password immediately.</p>
<h3>Create a New Primary Alias</h3>
<p>In addition to changing passwords and turning on two-step verification, you should limit the aliases that are allowed to login to your account. By default, your Skype username is the primary alias. You should change this to an email address or a phone number and disable your Skype username. Allowing only one alias that&#8217;s different from your Skype username limits the amount of entry points into your account.</p>
<h2>Keeping Tabs On Your Skype Account</h2>
<p>One of the major benefits of upgrading a Skype account to a Microsoft account is the ability to view recent activity. To view the most recent activity, click the Security and Privacy link and click on the <strong>see my recent activity</strong> link.</p>
<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SeeRecentActivity.png?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-63387" src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SeeRecentActivity.png?resize=1025%2C395&ssl=1" alt="How to View Recent Activity" /></a>How to View Recent Activity
<p>This will inform you of successful and unsuccessful login attempts. Some users who have unwillingly sent spam messages with links to Baidu <a href="https://community.skype.com/t5/Security-Privacy-Trust-and/Link-to-quot-baidu-quot-website-sent-to-all-of-my-contacts/m-p/4513254#M64691">confirmed</a> through the recent activity page that their login credentials were compromised. In addition to the recent activity page, users are encouraged to enable and create alerts to be notified of suspicious activity.</p>
<p>If you receive messages out of the blue on Skype with links to Baidu or LinkedIn, do not click them. Delete the message, <a href="https://community.skype.com/t5/Security-Privacy-Trust-and/Spam-messages-amp-links-sent-from-your-account/td-p/4511001">send the user a link to this page</a>, and inform them that their account may be compromised.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 01 Nov 2016 19:28:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"BuddyPress: 2016 BuddyPress Survey for Site Builders and Developers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=260614";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://buddypress.org/2016/11/2016-buddypress-survey-site-builders-developers/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1197:"<p>Earlier this year, Project leads <a class="bp-suggestions-mention" href="https://buddypress.org/members/johnjamesjacoby/" rel="nofollow">@johnjamesjacoby</a>, <a class="bp-suggestions-mention" href="https://buddypress.org/members/boonebgorges/" rel="nofollow">@boonebgorges</a>, and <a class="bp-suggestions-mention" href="https://buddypress.org/members/djpaul/" rel="nofollow">@djpaul</a> presented a number of strategic priorities which included defining the primary intended audience for BuddyPress: Site Builders and WordPress Developers, an explicit recognition of what BuddyPress has become, and how people use it.</p>
<p>Help us start the year right in 2017. Your feedback is important to help us improve BuddyPress  by ensuring that we’re still building what you want to use and help us determine if any course corrections are necessary. </p>
<p>This survey will run from November 1 &#8211; 30, 2016. It has 36 questions and could take around 15 &#8211; 20 minutes to complete.</p>
<p>Thank you  for your participation !</p>
<p><strong>=&gt; <a href="http://mercime.polldaddy.com/s/2016-buddypress-survey-site-builders-developers">Take the 2016 BuddyPress Survey now</a>.</strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 01 Nov 2016 18:51:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"@mercime";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"WPTavern: Mullenweg Takes Aim at Wix over GPL Abuses, Wix Response Fails to Address Licensing Issue";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63325";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://wptavern.com/mullenweg-takes-aim-at-wix-over-gpl-abuses-wix-response-fails-to-address-licensing-issue";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12008:"<p>Over the weekend WordPress co-creator and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg <a href="https://ma.tt/2016/10/wix-and-the-gpl/" target="_blank">called out Wix for copying GPL code</a> from the WordPress mobile app and distributing it in its <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wixcom-launches-wix-app-providing-a-powerful-mobile-operating-system-for-small-business-owners-store-owners-hoteliers-and-bloggers-around-the-world-300339448.html" target="_blank">proprietary app</a>. He identified <a href="https://github.com/wix/WordPress-Editor-Android" target="_blank">two</a> <a href="https://github.com/wix/react-native-wordpress-editor" target="_blank">repositories</a> that Wix forked in order to bring the GPL-licensed WordPress Rich Text Editor into its app.</p>
<p>&#8220;If I were being charitable, I’d say, &#8216;The app’s editor is based on the WordPress mobile app’s editor.&#8217; Mullenweg said. &#8220;If I were being honest, I’d say that Wix copied WordPress without attribution, credit, or following the license.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even though the Wix app is made up of different modules and libraries, the GPL requires that the entire application be GPL-licensed since Wix is distributing the app with GPL code in it. Open sourcing the entire app&#8217;s code under the GPL is the only way to resolve the license violation, according to Mullenweg.</p>
<p>&#8220;Your app’s editor is built with stolen code, so your whole app is now in violation of the license,&#8221; Mullenweg said. Some took issue with use of the term &#8220;stolen code&#8221; in connection with public, open source repositories, but the effect is the same regardless of Wix&#8217;s intention. Wix distributed GPL code without respecting its license, putting new limitations on it instead of preserving its freedoms. That code was not legally available to be repurposed without following its license.</p>
<p>&#8220;You’d probably be in the clear if you had used just the original editor we started with (ZSSRichTextEditor, MIT licensed),&#8221; Automattic&#8217;s General Counsel Paul Sieminski commented on the issue. &#8220;Instead, Wix took our version of the editor which has 1000+ original commits on top of the original MIT editor, that took more than a year to write. We improved it. A lot. And Wix took those improvements, used them in their app but then stripped out all of the important rights that they’re not legally allowed to take away.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mullenweg called for Wix to release its entire mobile app under the GPL, as required by the license, and make the source code available so that others can build on it and learn from it.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you want to close the door on innovation, Wix, that’s your decision to make — just write your own code,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;If you’re going to join the open source community, play by the open source rules.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Wix CEO Responds, Neglects to Address GPL Licensing Issues</h3>
<p>Mullenweg&#8217;s open letter to Wix took the company by surprise. Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami <a href="http://www.wix.com/blog/2016/10/dear-matt-mullenweg-an-open-letter-from-wix-coms-ceo-avishai-abrahami/" target="_blank">responded</a> the next day on the company&#8217;s blog with a tone that imposed an artificial sense of fraternity in order to make the original allegation appear to be an over reaction. &#8220;Wow, dude I did not even know we were fighting,&#8221; Abrahami said. He cited Wix&#8217;s manifold contributions to open source software on the company&#8217;s GitHub account and their admiration of WordPress&#8217; commitment to giving back.</p>
<p>His artful deflection avoids the licensing issue completely and demonstrates a lack of understanding of the GPL:</p>
<blockquote><p>Yes, we did use the WordPress open source library for a minor part of the application (that is the concept of open source right?), and everything we improved there or modified, we submitted back as open source, see here in this <a href="https://github.com/wix/react-native-wordpress-editor" target="_blank">link</a> – you should check it out, pretty cool way of using it on mobile native. I really think you guys can use it with your app (and it is open source, so you are welcome to use it for free). And, by the way, the part that we used was in fact developed by another and modified by you.</p></blockquote>
<p>GPL compliance, however, requires more than a show of open source spirit. Abrahami did not address the requirement that the entire mobile app be released as GPL but offered a vague statement about sharing code.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you need source code that we have, and we have not yet released, then, most likely we will be happy to share, you only need to ask,&#8221; Abrahami said. It is still unclear as to whether his statement means the company will release the entire mobile app under the GPL or not. However, the company indicated on Twitter that they will release the app on GitHub.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/yairwein">@yairwein</a> We'll release the code on Github, where we also shared our previous projects: <a href="https://t.co/FBhp2Kd5wn">https://t.co/FBhp2Kd5wn</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Wix.com (@Wix) <a href="https://twitter.com/Wix/status/792656290854174721">October 30, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>The other option would be for the company to completely remove any GPL code from its app and use the original MIT-licensed library for the editor.</p>
<p>&#8220;The WordPress GPL Rich Text component in question, is actually a wrapper around another Rich Text component named ZSSRichTextEditor which is licensed MIT,&#8221; Wix lead engineer Tal Kol said in the article he <a href="https://medium.com/@talkol/how-i-found-myself-accused-of-stealing-code-from-wordpress-a7350da9f9f2#.h5zgf9lnc" target="_blank">published</a> over the weekend. &#8220;In retrospect it would have been easier to use it directly.&#8221;</p>
<p>Using the original library would stop the current GPL infringement but does not erase the fact that the company has already violated the license by distributing the code.</p>
<p>Wix has not yet officially announced what it plans to do, but at the time of publishing the company continues to distribute GPL code inside its proprietary app.</p>
<h3>Mullenweg Is Willing to Go to Court to Protect the GPL</h3>
<p>According to the GNU.org GPL FAQ, the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhoHasThePower" target="_blank">copyright holders of the software have the power to enforce the GPL</a>, as the license is a copyright license. Copyright holders are advised to inform developers of the GPL-covered software if they see a violation. With the GPLv2, the only way for license violators to receive back their rights after violation is to <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.en.html" target="_blank">petition the copyright holder</a>. Mullenweg has already identified a path to compliance for Wix.</p>
<p>Although many in the open source community are itching for a definitive court case involving the GPL, Mullenweg said his preferred outcome is to see Wix open source its mobile app.</p>
<p>&#8220;I would much rather they just release their app as GPL rather than have to get into a legal fight,&#8221; he <a href="https://ma.tt/2016/10/wix-and-the-gpl/#comment-586279" target="_blank">replied</a> to commenters on his blog.</p>
<p>When I asked if he is willing to take the matter to court if Wix does not comply, Mullenweg said, &#8220;We would of course go to court to protect the GPL.&#8221; He also said that if Wix decides to pursue the other avenue, &#8220;removing the library would fix it going forward, but not for things that already infringed.&#8221; Mullenweg could not say what Automattic will or won&#8217;t do in a legal context regarding the past infringement, as the situation is still developing.</p>
<p>This weekend&#8217;s debate between Mullenweg and Wix sparked discussions across social media platforms as well as blog post responses about how the the GPL affects the industry. It also shows how divisive the license can be even among open source software proponents. Mullenweg, who is known inside the WordPress community as a zealous defender of the GPL, has demonstrated a willingness to go to battle over <a href="https://wptavern.com/mullenweg-and-pearson-square-off-on-patents-gpl-and-trademarks" target="_blank">violations of the license in the past</a>.</p>
<p>Many in the WordPress and Wix communities took issue with the public handling of the matter, but ultimately the controversy is not a personal matter between Mullenweg and Wix. The proprietary mobile app distributes GPL code that was the work of many contributors. WordPress&#8217; open source code was built from the hard work of people who were willing to give that time and energy because they believe in the project and the freedoms that its license guarantees. Wix&#8217;s disrespect of that license illegally co-opts those contributions for the company&#8217;s closed source app.</p>
<h3>&#8220;My program will have liberty, or never be born.&#8221;</h3>
<p>The GPL license is holistic in the sense that all parts of an application are connected &#8211; if one part bears the freedoms of the GPL, the entire app benefits from the GPL and must be therefore be open for all. The GPL is the reason WordPress exists and the reason why Mullenweg is so passionate about it. If b2/cafelog had not been GPL-licensed, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little would not have been able to <a href="https://ma.tt/2003/01/the-blogging-software-dilemma/" target="_blank">build on it</a>.</p>
<p>One of the questions in the GNU GPL FAQ asks, &#8220;<a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhatIfSchool" target="_blank">What if my school might want to make my program into its own proprietary software product?</a>&#8221; This question addresses how many universities try to restrict the use of the knowledge and information they (and their students) develop, a problem that also exists in commercial businesses. The GNU recommendation for developers wanting to ensure their software is allowed to be GPL licensed is to raise the issue at the earliest possible stage for the most leverage:</p>
<blockquote><p>So we recommend that you approach them when the program is only half-done, saying, &#8216;If you will agree to releasing this as free software, I will finish it.&#8217; Don&#8217;t think of this as a bluff. To prevail, you must have the courage to say, <strong>&#8216;My program will have liberty, or never be born.&#8217;</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>This powerful sentiment is one that many GPL software contributors have adopted as a way of life. They contribute code on the basis that it will be passed on with all its freedoms. Taking GPL-licensed code and putting it in a proprietary app is an affront to their contributions.</p>
<p>Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami&#8217;s casual response identifies both parties as open source proponents who are working to make the web a better place. This response misses the mark because it fails to recognize WordPress&#8217; 13-year history with the GPL and how deeply it has impacted the software&#8217;s trajectory and ability to make the web a better, more open place. This license and WordPress&#8217; commitment to user freedoms has been the project&#8217;s true north from its inception.</p>
<p>When a project is given the GPL license, it makes that code and the license&#8217;s freedoms inseparable. Essentially, that code isn&#8217;t legally available to anyone without those freedoms in place. Regardless of whether Wix&#8217;s deflection of the issue is motivated by ignorance of the GPL or malicious intent, the company has to answer for its misuse of the software. The ball is now in Wix&#8217;s court &#8211; to comply with what the GPL license requires or take its own interpretation to court.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 31 Oct 2016 21:23:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Matt: Apples TV’s Struggles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46916";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/apples-tvs-struggles/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:983:"<p><a href="http://joe-steel.com/2016-10-28-Apples-October-TV-Surprise.html"><img class="  wp-image-46924 alignright" src="https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2016/10/apple-tv.jpg?resize=231%2C201&ssl=1" alt="apple-tv.jpg" /></a>Joseph Rosensteel has <a href="http://joe-steel.com/2016-10-28-Apples-October-TV-Surprise.html">an outsider but savvy perspective on the updates and technology around Apple TV</a>. Definitely a worthwhile read. I&#8217;ve experienced a lot of this frustration myself &#8212; I have a large library of things bought through iTunes, I like the interface of the Apple TV (though I liked the old one a little better), and Airplay is handy, so I want to love the Apple TV. The market is so bad right now that <a href="http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-media-streamers/">most review sites like Wirecutter recommend Roku</a>, which for me came with a branded remote button for a service that is out of business (Rdio) and has an interface that feels DOS-like.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 31 Oct 2016 14:45:03 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"Matt: The Wix Mobile App, a WordPress Joint";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46879";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:38:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/wix-and-the-gpl/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12333:"<p>Anyone who knows me knows that I like to try new things &#8212; phones, gadgets, apps. Last week I downloaded the <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wixcom-launches-wix-app-providing-a-powerful-mobile-operating-system-for-small-business-owners-store-owners-hoteliers-and-bloggers-around-the-world-300339448.html">new Wix (closed, proprietary, non-open-sourced, non-GPL) mobile app</a>. I’m always interested to see how others tackle the challenge of building and editing websites from a mobile device.</p>
<p>I started playing around with the editor, and felt… déjà vu. It was familiar. Like I had used it before.</p>
<p>Turns out I had. Because it’s WordPress.</p>
<p>If I were being charitable, I’d say, &#8220;The app&#8217;s editor is based on the WordPress mobile app&#8217;s editor.&#8221; If I were being honest, I&#8217;d say that Wix copied WordPress without attribution, credit, or following the license. The custom icons, the class names, even the bugs. You can see the <a href="https://github.com/wix/WordPress-Editor-Android">forked</a><a href="https://github.com/wix/react-native-wordpress-editor"> repositories</a> on GitHub complete with original commits from Alex and Maxime, two developers on Automattic’s mobile team. Wix has always borrowed liberally from WordPress &#8212; including their company name, which used to be Wixpress Ltd. &#8212; but this blatant rip-off and code theft is beyond anything I&#8217;ve seen before from a competitor.</p>
<h3>Dear Wix,</h3>
<p>This explicitly contravenes the GPL, which requires attribution and a corresponding GPL license on whatever you release publicly built on top of GPL code. The GPL is what has allowed WordPress to flourish, and that let us create this code. Your app&#8217;s editor is built with stolen code, so your whole app is now in violation of the license.</p>
<p>I suppose we’ll take this as a compliment &#8212; I’m sure the hundreds of people who have contributed to WordPress Core and our mobile apps are flattered that you chose to build one of your company’s core features using our code. We’re also excited to see what great things you create with all the time you saved not having to write your own mobile editor.</p>
<p>You know what’d be even more exciting? To see you abide by the GPL and release your source code back to the community that gave you that jump start.</p>
<p>I’ve always said that <a href="https://ma.tt/2014/01/four-freedoms/">the GPL isn’t about limits, it’s about possibilities</a>. In open source software, you trade some of your control as a developer to better serve the developer community and the people using your sites and products. I don’t think that’s a limit, I think it’s a way to make sure we encourage innovation and momentum. If you want to close the door on innovation, Wix, that’s your decision to make &#8212; just write your own code. If you’re going to join the open source community, play by the open source rules.</p>
<p>Release your app under the GPL, and put the source code for your app up on GitHub so that we can all build on it, improve it, and learn from it.</p>
<p>Love,<br />
Matt and the open source community</p>
<h3>An Update</h3>
<p>The <a href="http://www.wix.com/blog/2016/10/dear-matt-mullenweg-an-open-letter-from-wix-coms-ceo-avishai-abrahami/">CEO of Wix has posted a response on their blog</a>. I&#8217;ll also try to post my response it to the comments there. <a href="http://wpgarage.com/news-views/weak-wix-response-wordpress-gpl/">Miriam Schwab also has a very good response</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>We were all very surprised by your post, as you have so many claims against us.</p>
<p>Wow, dude I did not even know we were fighting.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s not a fight: the claim is that the Wix mobile apps distribute GPL code and aren&#8217;t themselves GPL, so they violate the license.</p>
<blockquote><p>First, you say we have been taking from the open source community without giving back, well, of course, that isn’t true. Here is a list of 224 projects on our public <a href="https://github.com/wix" target="_blank">GitHub page</a>, and as you can see they are all dated before your post. We have not checked if WordPress is using them, but you are more than welcome to do so, some of them are pretty good.</p></blockquote>
<p>Very glad your company has projects on GitHub! Thank you for the offer to use them; if we do, we&#8217;ll make sure to follow the license you&#8217;ve put on the code very carefully.</p>
<p>Releasing other open source projects doesn&#8217;t mean that you can violate the license of the editor code you distributed in your mobile apps. To repeat my earlier points: since you distributed GPL code with your apps, the entire apps need to be released at GPL, not just your modifications to that one library.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12828814">this Hacker News comment put it</a>, &#8220;Open source is not a swap meet; you can&#8217;t violate a license if you voluntarily release some other code to make up for it.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>We always shared and admired your commitment to give back, which is exactly why we have those 224 open source projects, and thousands more bugs/improvements available to the open source community and we will release the app you saw as well.</p></blockquote>
<p>If you were to release the entire source code of the apps under GPL that would bring you back into compliance with the license you violated. I <em>think</em> you&#8217;re saying you will do that here, but can you clarify? When should we look for the app code to be released, and where? That would resolve this issue completely.</p>
<blockquote><p>Next, you talk about the Wix App being stolen from WordPress. There are more than 3 million lines of code in the Wix application, notably the hotels/blogs/chat/eCommerce/scheduling/booking is all our code.</p></blockquote>
<p>I said the app includes stolen code. It doesn&#8217;t matter if it&#8217;s 30 lines or 30 million lines: because it includes GPL code and you distributed the app, the entire thing needs to be GPL. If you release the entire app&#8217;s code, as I think you said you would, then that resolves the license violation.</p>
<blockquote><p>Yes, we did use the WordPress open source library for a minor part of the application (that is the concept of open source right?), and everything we improved there or modified, we submitted back as open source, see here in this <a href="https://github.com/wix/react-native-wordpress-editor" target="_blank">link</a> – you should check it out, pretty cool way of using it on mobile native. I really think you guys can use it with your app (and it is open source, so you are welcome to use it for free). And, by the way, the part that we used was in fact developed by another and modified by you.</p></blockquote>
<p>Thank you for admitting you used the code and not trying to hide it. The issue isn&#8217;t the changes you made, it&#8217;s that including the editor means you need to submit the entire app as open source, which you have not yet &#8212; it&#8217;s completely proprietary.</p>
<blockquote><p>If you want to read the account from Tal Kol, one of the leading engineers on this project, <a href="https://medium.com/@talkol/how-i-found-myself-accused-of-stealing-code-from-wordpress-a7350da9f9f2#.7yyylkagl" target="_blank">here it is</a>. He was really happy to share his side of the story.</p></blockquote>
<p>I have seen it, and it <a href="https://medium.com/@csu/can-you-address-this-point-made-in-matts-post-this-explicitly-contravenes-the-gpl-which-7b6460b5b3e1">already has a number of good comments on it, including this one</a>: &#8220;Can you address this point made in Matt’s post: &#8216;This explicitly contravenes the GPL, which requires attribution and a corresponding GPL license on whatever you release publicly built on top of GPL code&#8217;.&#8221; It appears you and Tal might share a misunderstanding of how the GPL works &#8212; software licensing can be tricky and many people make honest mistakes. (If you want to get into serious detail, <a href="https://ma.tt/2016/10/wix-and-the-gpl/#comment-586319">this comment</a> lays the licensing requirements out clearly.) It is easy to rectify this one: release your apps as open source under the GPL.</p>
<blockquote><p>Now, what is this thing about us stealing your branding? Our product was always called Wix and our website Wix.com, we never borrowed from your marketing or brand.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sorry for including this distraction; I was referring specifically to the fact that Wix used to go by &#8220;Wixpress.&#8221; You can see this <a href="http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-29IDMU/0x0xS1193125-13-387285/1576789/filing.pdf">in your Form F-1</a>, and there used to be a support page about this on your site:</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46910" src="https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2016/10/Screen-Shot-2016-10-30-at-3.12.19-AM.png?resize=604%2C94&ssl=1" alt="" /></p>
<p>Although that is still in Google, the <a href="https://www.wix.com/support/html5/ugc/62ae9410-79d0-4198-8ff1-4a37966e1e94/0d1a19e1-c862-44e4-a9d6-bc813f8a9207">page</a> it links to <a href="https://cloudup.com/cu5miENIoLl">now mysteriously returns a 404 error</a>, which you may want to look into.</p>
<blockquote><p>In fact, if I remember correctly, until recently the Automattic home page was all about blogs and only recently it has become “websites.” Also, your business model changed to almost exactly the one we had for years. Can it be that you guys are borrowing from us? If so, again, you are welcome to it.</p></blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://automattic.com/">Automattic home page</a> has been a series of haiku about our products <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20121218130226/http://wordpress.com/">since 2009</a>, pretty much unchanged &#8212; I think you mean the WordPress.com home page here. WordPress has been used for creating websites, not just blogs, since <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2005/02/strayhorn/">our 1.5 release in 2005 added themes and pages</a>. In my <a href="https://ma.tt/2014/10/sotw-2014/">2014 State of the Word address</a> I talked about how 87% of WordPress sites use it as a CMS. We regularly test dozens of variations of the WP.com homepage and some of them definitely emphasize website creation. I will say we look to Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace as innovators in the space with products that reach many small businesses, and Wix especially should be commended for its success and growth as a public company.</p>
<blockquote><p>If you believe that we need to give you credit, that you deserve credit, I must say, absolutely yes. You guys deserve a lot of credit, but not because of a few lines of source code, you deserve credit because you guys have been making the internet dramatically better, and for that we at Wix are big fans. We love what you have been trying to do, and are working very hard to add our own contribution to make the internet better.</p></blockquote>
<p>Thank you very much, that is kind. I do think there are a lot of values we share in common and would love to see this one issue resolved.</p>
<blockquote><p>If you need source code that we have, and we have not yet released, then, most likely we will be happy to share, you only need to ask. We share your belief that making the internet better, is best for everyone.</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s what my post was asking, for you to release the code. To quote my original letter: &#8220;Release your app under the GPL, and put the source code for your app up on GitHub so that we can all build on it, improve it, and learn from it.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>Finally, during the last couple of years, I reached out a couple of times trying to meet with you. Could I do that again here? I believe in friendly competition, and as much fun as it is to chat over the blogosphere, maybe we can also do it over a cup of coffee?</p></blockquote>
<p>Once this is resolved I&#8217;d be happy to meet up. I believe when we exchanged emails in 2014 there was trouble finding overlap in our travel schedules.</p>
<p>I hope the above clarifies where we think Wix made a mistake, and how to fix it.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2016 19:45:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Matt: Kanye McDonald’s Poem";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46881";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/kanye-mcdonalds-poem/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:302:"<p>You might need a reason to smile today. If so, <a href="http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/8/22/12586016/kanye-west-mcdonalds-poem-frank-ocean-boys-dont-cry-zine">Kanye&#8217;s poem for Frank Ocean&#8217;s Boys Don&#8217;t Cry zine, illustrated by Dami Lee at the Verge</a>, might be that reason.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2016 19:30:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.7 Removes the Underline and Justify Buttons From the Editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63314";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-removes-the-underline-and-justify-buttons-from-the-editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2298:"<p>Back in August, we highlighted <a href="https://wptavern.com/improving-the-user-experience-by-rearranging-the-wordpress-post-editor">potential changes</a> to the WordPress editor that would improve the user experience. The team has since <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/28/editor-changes-in-4-7/">implemented</a> some of the suggestions outlined in <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/27159">ticket #27159</a> into WordPress 4.7, including rearranging some of the toolbar buttons. The headers drop-down menu is now in the top row of buttons while the strikethrough and horizontal rule buttons are on the second row.</p>
<p>The underline and justify buttons are no longer available. According to Andrew Ozz, who primarily works on the TinyMCE editor in WordPress, underlining text causes confusion as readers may interpret it as a link. The justify button was removed because it has uneven browser implementation and often makes text less readable. However, keyboard shortcuts for both buttons will continue to work in 4.7.</p>
<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WP46FreshInstallPostEditor.png?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-60457" src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WP46FreshInstallPostEditor.png?resize=573%2C396&ssl=1" alt="WordPress 4.6 Post Editor" /></a>WordPress 4.6 Post Editor
<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WordPress47PostEditor.png?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-63316" src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WordPress47PostEditor.png?resize=637%2C248&ssl=1" alt="WordPress 4.7 Post Editor" /></a>WordPress 4.7 Post Editor
<p>In addition to these changes, tooltips that appear when hovering over a button will display the keyboard shortcut making them easier to discover.</p>
<p>Since WordPress does not track which buttons are used most often the team can not accurately measure the impact these changes will have. Users are encouraged to test <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-beta-1-now-available-for-testing">WordPress 4.7 beta 1</a> and share your feedback on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta</a> section of the support forums.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2016 17:12:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.7 Beta 1 Now Available for Testing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63291";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-beta-1-now-available-for-testing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2558:"<p>WordPress 4.7 <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2016/10/wordpress-4-7-beta-1/" target="_blank">Beta 1</a> was released this evening with a long list of highlighted features that are certain to delight both end users and developers. Core contributors are asking for testing and feedback on some of the larger items ahead of the official release, slated for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/4-7/" target="_blank">December 6</a>.</p>
<p>Twenty Seventeen and its support for atmospheric videos is one of the major front-facing features in 4.7 that could use testing. Last week, when <a href="https://wptavern.com/new-wordpress-default-theme-twenty-seventeen-merged-into-4-7" target="_blank">Twenty Seventeen was merged</a>, there was some uncertainty as to whether or not the first version would ship with video headers. Contributors knuckled down and worked quickly to get basic <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38172" target="_blank">core support for video headers</a> ready for an initial commit.</p>
<p>Twenty Seventeen will be the first WordPress theme to use the new feature. Users will be able to manage video headers in the customizer by selecting a video via the media library or setting a URL to an external video, such as one hosted on YouTube. Theme authors who want to add support for videos will be able to do so by passing &#8216;video&#8217; => true as an argument when adding theme support for custom headers. If the browser is unable to play the video, it will fallback to the header image.</p>
<p>Other user-facing features that require testing include:</p>
<ul>
<li>New site setup flow</li>
<li>Custom CSS with live previews</li>
<li>User admin languages</li>
<li>PDF thumbnail previews</li>
</ul>
<p>WordPress 4.7 release lead Helen Hou-Sandí also requested that plugin and theme developers test the REST API content endpoints, any plugins that might be impacted by the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/09/08/wp_hook-next-generation-actions-and-filters/" target="_blank">WP_Hook overhaul</a>, the expanded Settings Registration API, custom bulk actions, post type templates, and a few other items.</p>
<p>With the impressive list of features on deck for 4.7, it&#8217;s only fitting that Beta 1 was accompanied by an extended five-stanza haiku. Check out the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2016/10/wordpress-4-7-beta-1/" target="_blank">announcement post</a> to read the haiku and find more information on how to test changes coming in the next release.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2016 06:01:11 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.7 Brings Custom Page Template Functionality to All Post Types";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63284";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-brings-custom-page-template-functionality-to-all-post-types";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3231:"<a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/colored-pencils.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/colored-pencils.jpg?resize=1025%2C464&ssl=1" alt="photo credit: Mari Pi" class="size-full wp-image-50851" /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/7MBZIHU7O7">Mari Pi</a>
<p>WordPress 4.7 will <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/38951" target="_blank">introduce support for post type templates</a>, an exciting new feature for theme and plugin developers. <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/template-files-section/page-template-files/page-templates/" target="_blank">Page templates</a>, which allow developers to specify a different layout or design for a page, are nearly as old as WordPress itself. For years developers have coveted that same functionality for other post types. In fact, a plugin that attempted to create this functionality (<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-template/" target="_blank">Custom Post Template</a>), has more than 50,000 active installs, despite not having been updated for four years.</p>
<p>Post type templates follow a format similar to that of the existing custom page templates. The author can specify a template name as well as the post types where the template will be available as a dropdown in the page attributes metabox.</p>
<p><code>/*<br />
 * Template Name: Foggy Memories<br />
 * Template Type: memory, event<br />
 */</code></p>
<p>The current implementation of post type templates can be used with any post type that supports page-attributes, which means that it will not work with regular posts by default. I think they would be more immediately useful for the average user who likes to tinker with templates if they worked with posts by default, but the assumption is that developers are likely the ones who will be implementing post type templates.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18375" target="_blank">ticket</a> for the feature, which was opened four years ago, includes many potential use cases. One developer was building a project involving landing pages that were set up as custom post types. He needed to have multiple templates for the landing pages but had to create a work around since post type templates were not yet available.</p>
<p>Another developer wanted to make a distinction between posts with guest contributors versus those coming from regular writers, such as displaying author boxes and avatars. Since this project was for a client, an implementation involving post templates would make it easy to assign the different designs via the dropdown in the post attributes metabox.</p>
<p>&#8220;By opening up the page template functionality to all post types, we continue to improve the template hierarchy&#8217;s flexibility,&#8221; WordPress core committer Pascal Birchler said in his commit message. This new feature opens up many new avenues of customization for theme developers who want to offer alternative layouts and designs for posts. It also makes it easy to include multiple designs (inside a theme) for specific custom post types that a theme will support.</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"Dev Blog: WordPress 4.7 Beta 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=4535";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2016/10/wordpress-4-7-beta-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6878:"<p>WordPress 4.7 Beta 1 is now available!</p>
<p><strong>This software is still in development,</strong> so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.7, try the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-4.7-beta1.zip">download the beta here</a> (zip).</p>
<p>WordPress 4.7 is slated for release on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/4-7/">December 6</a>, but we need your help to get there. We&#8217;ve been working on a lot of things, many of them to make getting your site set up the way you want it much easier. Here are some of the bigger items to test and help us find as many bugs as possible in the coming weeks:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://2017.wordpress.net/"><strong>Twenty Seventeen</strong></a> &#8211; A brand new default theme brings your site to life with immersive featured images, video headers, and subtle animations. With a focus on business sites, it features multiple sections on the front page as well as widgets, navigation and social menus, a logo, and more. Personalize its asymmetrical grid with a custom color scheme and showcase your multimedia content with post formats. Our default theme for 2017 works great in many languages, for any abilities, and on any device.</li>
<li><strong>Video Headers</strong> &#8211; Sometimes a big atmospheric video as a moving header image is just what you need to showcase your wares; go ahead and try it out with Twenty Seventeen. Need some video inspiration? Try searching for sites with video headers available for download and use.</li>
<li><strong>Set up your site in one flow</strong> &#8211; From finding and installing themes right inside the customizer, to automatically staged theme-specific starter content, to clickable shortcuts that jump directly to editing an item from the preview pane, to adding pages while you&#8217;re building a nav menu or setting a static front page: getting a new site spun up and ready to share with a friend or a coworker is faster and easier than it&#8217;s ever been. Note: starter content appears when live previewing brand new sites and is currently only available in Twenty Seventeen. We&#8217;ll be expanding this to other bundled themes very soon, and perhaps to sites with existing content in future releases of WordPress.</li>
<li><strong>Custom CSS with live previews</strong> &#8211; Ever needed to hide or tweak the look of something in your theme or from a plugin? Now you can do it with CSS and live preview the results while customizing your site. CSS can be a powerful tool; you may find that you won&#8217;t need the theme editor or child themes anymore.</li>
<li><strong>User admin languages</strong> &#8211; Just because your site is in one language doesn&#8217;t mean that everybody helping manage it prefers that language for their admin. To try this out, you&#8217;ll need to have more than one language installed, which will make a user language option available in your profile.</li>
<li><strong>PDF thumbnail previews</strong> &#8211; Uploading PDFs will now generate thumbnail images so you can more easily distinguish between all your documents.</li>
</ul>
<p>As always, there have been exciting changes for developers to explore as well, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>REST API content endpoints</strong> &#8211; If you only test one thing as a developer, please test these. This phase is particularly helpful for people building plugins, themes, and in-admin interfaces. Can you build the things you need? Are these ready for release, and is the world ready for them? (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38373">#38373</a>)</li>
<li><strong><code>WP_Hook</code></strong> &#8211; The code that lies beneath actions and filters has been overhauled. You likely aren&#8217;t affected, but if you&#8217;ve done things to the <code>$wp_filter</code> global or experienced funky recursion bugs in the past, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/09/08/wp_hook-next-generation-actions-and-filters/">please take a moment to read the dev note</a> and test your code.</li>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/04/custom-bulk-actions/"><strong>Custom bulk actions</strong></a> &#8211; List tables, now with more than bulk edit and delete.</li>
<li>Expanded <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/26/registering-your-settings-in-wordpress-4-7/"><strong>Settings Registration API</strong></a> via <code>register_setting()</code>.</li>
<li>For theme developers: <strong>Post type templates</strong> (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18375">#18375</a>)</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/09/09/new-functions-hooks-and-behaviour-for-theme-developers-in-wordpress-4-7/">More goodies for theme developers!</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Locale switching</strong> (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/26511">#26511</a>)</li>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/comment-allowed-checks-in-wordpress-4-7/"><strong>Comment allowed checks</strong></a> have the potential for a back-compat break.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you want a more in-depth view of what major changes have made it into 4.7, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/4-7/">check out posts tagged with 4.7 on the main development blog</a>, or look at a <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&resolution=fixed&milestone=4.7&group=component&order=priority">list of everything</a> that’s changed. There will be more developer notes to come, so keep an eye out for those as well.</p>
<p><strong>If you think you’ve found a bug</strong>, you can post to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/reports/">file one on WordPress Trac</a>, where you can also find <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">a list of known bugs</a>.</p>
<p>Happy testing, and please enjoy this extended haiku break, courtesy of <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/ramiabraham">Rami Abraham</a><em>.</em></p>
<p><em>Exquisite endpoints</em><br />
<em>Extol epic exabytes</em><br />
<em>Enabling earthlings</em></p>
<p><em>Careful interfaces</em><br />
<em>Considerately conjured</em><br />
<em>Customizer chic</em></p>
<p><em>Ring in the new year</em><br />
<em>With elegance and balance</em><br />
<em>Twenty Seventeen</em></p>
<p><em>Hooks hook healthily</em><br />
<em>17817</em><br />
<em>Sane iterations</em></p>
<p><em>Admin in your tongue<br />
One site, many languages<br />
We all speak WordPress</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2016 04:30:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Helen Hou-Sandi";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 252 – Flywheel Hosting Three Years Later";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=63280&preview=true&preview_id=63280";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-252-flywheel-hosting-three-years-later";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2843:"<p>In this episode of WordPress Weekly, <a href="http://marcuscouch.com/">Marcus Couch</a> and I are joined by Dusty Davidson, co-founder and CEO of <a href="http://getflywheel.com/">Flywheel</a>, a managed WordPress hosting company that caters to agencies and designers. Davidson last appeared on the show <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-118-hey-get-flywheel">three years ago</a> when the company had yet to launch to the public.</p>
<p>In the interview, Davidson tells us what he&#8217;s learned in the three years since launching the company. We discuss current trends in the industry and how hosting providers are affecting the WordPress ecosystem.</p>
<p>Davidson explains how the company maintains its stellar reputation for customer support and the impacts of being listed on the WordPress.org <a href="https://wordpress.org/hosting/">recommended hosting</a> page. Near the end of the interview, we learn how Flywheel is implementing <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/">Let&#8217;s Encrypt</a> to easily provide SSL certificates for customers.</p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/linkedin-learning-is-offering-free-access-this-week-to-its-library-of-more-than-5000-courses">LinkedIn Learning Is Offering Free Access This Week to Its Library of More Than 5,000 Courses</a></p>
<h2>Plugins Picked By Marcus:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/import-meetup-events/">Import Meetup Events</a> is an add-on for The Events Calendar and Events Manager plugins. It allows you to automatically import events from Meetup.com into The Events Calendar or Events Manager.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/click-to-clipboard/">Click to Clipboard</a> allows you to copy paragraphs from your site&#8217;s main content to the clipboard to use elsewhere.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/archive-control/">Archive Control</a> allows you to customize your archive listing by modifying your Archive title, adding a featured image, including content before or after the list. You can also change the order of display and include pagination, adjust the terms, and more.</p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, November 2nd 9:30 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
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<p><strong>Listen To Episode #252:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 27 Oct 2016 22:35:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"WPTavern: The Challenges of Organizing a WordCamp From Abroad";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63151";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"https://wptavern.com/the-challenges-of-organizing-a-wordcamp-from-abroad";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3591:"<p>Earlier this year, a <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-to-launch-experimental-wordcamp-incubator-program">WordCamp incubator program</a> was created to help three cities establish their first WordCamp. After <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-incubator-program-to-launch-in-indonesia-zimbabwe-and-columbia">receiving 182 applications</a>, the three cities selected for the program were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Denpasar, Indonesia</li>
<li>Harare, Zimbabwe</li>
<li>Medellín, Colombia</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://2016.medellin.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp Medellín</a> is scheduled for November 5th and is the first of the three incubator events to take place. Andrea Middleton, Community Organizer for the WordPress open source project, is part of the organizing team and says organizing a camp from the other side of the world is challenging.</p>
<p>&#8220;The local community is still quite loose/unstructured and there isn&#8217;t a very well-established group of local leaders, so it&#8217;s been an interesting exercise in finding local organizers, speakers, and volunteers,&#8221; Middleton told the Tavern.</p>
<p>The organizing team consists of a U.S. expatriate who recently moved to the area, a Colombian who now lives in Spain, three locals, two members of the WordCamp Lima team who are lending their experience, and Middleton.</p>
<p>Spanish is the primary language in Medellín which can present communication challenges. I asked Middleton if she needs to use a translator to communicate to the team, &#8220;I lived in Mexico for 5 years back in the 90s so my Spanish is passable, but it&#8217;s a pretty bilingual group,&#8221; Middleton said.</p>
<p>&#8220;The last meeting was in English but most of our text interaction is in Spanish to accommodate the Colombians who are not proficient in English.</p>
<p>&#8220;I ask native Spanish speakers to review and or correct my written Spanish when I&#8217;m publishing content to the site. I&#8217;m the primary venue contact and all of that has been in Spanish over email.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to Middleton, WhatsApp is huge in Colombia but is not ideal for collaborating with members of WordCamp Central since the team uses Slack. So half of the communication is on WhatsApp while the other is conducted on a free Slack instance.</p>
<p>WordCamp Medellín&#8217;s <a href="https://2016.medellin.wordcamp.org/programa/">schedule</a> includes sessions by local entrepreneurs on how to contribute to WordPress, Multilingual WordPress, and SEO. The opening session features a 15 year-old speaker.</p>
<p>Thanks to considerable effort on the part of Middleton, the event has a female speaker, &#8220;We had no female speaker applicants, so I poured over the list of women who had attended the meetups and then researched them and recruited them to speak,&#8221; Middleton said. &#8220;It only ended up with one local female speaker, but I think she&#8217;s going to be great.&#8221;</p>
<p>Middleton says that when the event concludes, she&#8217;ll publish a post detailing the things she&#8217;s learned organizing a WordCamp from abroad. Tickets are <a href="https://2016.medellin.wordcamp.org/registro/">still on sale</a> for <a href="https://2016.medellin.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp Medellín</a> at $10 each and includes lunch and a shirt.</p>
<p>To learn more about Middleton&#8217;s role in WordCamps and the incubator program, listen to <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-234-all-things-wordcamp-with-andrea-middleton">episode 234</a> of WordPress Weekly.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:11:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"WPTavern: Controversy Surrounding WordPress.org “Popular” Themes Exposes Weaknesses in the Algorithm";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63129";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://wptavern.com/controversy-surrounding-wordpress-org-popular-themes-exposes-weaknesses-in-the-algorithm";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10973:"<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/chart.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/chart.jpg?resize=1025%2C511&ssl=1" alt="photo credit:  Luis Llerena" class="size-full wp-image-46313" /></a>photo credit:  <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/S3JE5YAMND">Luis Llerena</a>
<p>If you&#8217;ve ever wondered how the <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/" target="_blank">WordPress Theme Directory</a> identifies and ranks the themes that display under the popular tab, you might be surprised to learn that it has nothing to do with ratings. Popularity is a somewhat subjective quality to measure in the first place, but WordPress.org has an algorithm in place to give users an idea of which themes are trending.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/theme-directory-popular-tab.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/theme-directory-popular-tab.png?resize=1025%2C775&ssl=1" alt="theme-directory-popular-tab" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63133" /></a></p>
<p>The number of sites using a theme is the first metric that comes to mind for popularity, but it cannot be limited to that or else the results might be skewed towards older themes that are not in fact popular anymore. Samuel &#8220;Otto&#8221; Wood, in response to a <a href="https://twitter.com/mattmedeiros/status/791009700171087872" target="_blank">Twitter thread</a> about how themes appear to be gaming the system, created a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwFscqBOiOY&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">video</a> to explain how the popularity algorithm works.</p>
<p>&#8220;Popular is currently active installs divided by age of the theme and a few other factors,&#8221; Wood said. &#8220;Ratings don&#8217;t currently factor into it. We&#8217;re trying to work out an algorithm to add ratings to it. For the most part it&#8217;s a popularity thing.&#8221;</p>
<p>I asked him for more clarification on the other factors and he said it varies depending on what data they have and how that data looks over time. &#8220;We adjust it to have it change fairly regularly, but still reflecting what is popular at the time,&#8221; Wood said.</p>
<p>Dion Hulse, who also helps maintain WordPress.org infrastructure, said, &#8220;It&#8217;s not published by design, to hopefully prevent authors gaming it too much. Other than what Otto has said, they only other public part of it is that a theme must be at least two weeks old to be included in the popular rankings.&#8221;</p>
<p>At the end of last year, <a href="https://wptavern.com/the-wordpress-theme-directory-replaces-download-counts-with-the-number-of-active-installs" target="_blank">theme download counts were replaced with the number of active installs</a> to try to prevent theme authors from gaming the system in order to appear on the Popular tab. Gaming the system is much more difficult now but there are other ways to do it, due to the imperfect measurements for active installs.</p>
<h3>How WordPress.org Measures Active Installs for Themes</h3>
<p>The topic of active installs was re-ignited yesterday by Matt Medeiros, a small business owner and <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/author/slocumstudio/" target="_blank">WordPress.org theme author</a>, who suspected the author of a recently popular theme of gaming the system.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Gaming .org theme downloads/active is running rampant. This theme “already has 10k active installs.” DL count roughly 3k <a href="https://twitter.com/Otto42">@Otto42</a> <a href="https://t.co/aaYwWcsvu8">pic.twitter.com/aaYwWcsvu8</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Matt Medeiros (@mattmedeiros) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattmedeiros/status/790940338030608384">October 25, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/vertex/" target="_blank">Vertex</a> theme, new to the directory this month, already has more than 10,000 active installs, despite having a much lower download count and no ratings. Medeiros made a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XACFOft1hA" target="_blank">video</a> explaining what he perceived as suspicious activity propelling it to the fourth most popular spot on WordPress.org. This prompted Samuel Wood to film a response, which breaks down some of the flaws in the system that measures active installs.</p>
<p>&#8220;The active install count is a count of sites that have reported to us that they are checking for an update for that theme and that it is active,&#8221; Wood said. He explained that the 10,000+ in this instance and in many others is a rough estimate because WordPress.org does not have an exact measurement of how many sites have installed a theme:</p>
<blockquote><p>What we are actually counting is yes, the number of active installs of a theme named Vertex. That may include themes not in our directory, such as this one from Elegant themes. If the theme isn&#8217;t in our directory we still get reports about it. The only way for us to not do that is to have the theme itself that theme check them for updates instead of checking us for updates, which their theme should indeed do. I would go so far as to say that any commercial theme should indeed be checking their commercial site, their systems not ours, but if they don&#8217;t have any special code to handle that case, then yes it will report back to our API server looking for updates. And if it has the name Vertex then yes, it&#8217;s going to be counted as being the Vertex theme. </p></blockquote>
<p>In this instance, the creators of the Vertex theme were made aware that the name was already in use outside of WordPress.org. They <a href="https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30317" target="_blank">offered to change the name of the theme</a> to iVertex during the review process, but the Theme Review Team decided that it wasn&#8217;t necessary.</p>
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no gaming going on behind that,&#8221; Wood said. &#8220;If somebody does game the system, I will find it. I guarantee you. However, this is not such a case. Our current algorithm looks at active installs and if you happen to pick a name that is very popular [outside of WordPress.org], you can have a large number of active installs without it actually being this theme that is being counted.&#8221;</p>
<p>This problem could be solved with a unique ID for themes. Wood said there is a six-year-old core ticket that he would like to implement, but it&#8217;s not currently a priority.</p>
<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, there is no real push to do that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;At some point in the future, I would like all themes and plugins in the WordPress directory to get a unique ID which they can put in their headers and when they report back, having that unique ID will uniquely identify that theme or plugin. It would eliminate so many problems for me. It would make updates so much easier. I would be able to do a whole lot of useful things with it and it would let me fix this problem right here.&#8221;</p>
<h3>How the Popular Themes Algorithm Affects Theme Businesses</h3>
<p>Getting unique IDs in place is no easy fix, as theme reporting would need to be overhauled and multiple systems that interact with each other would need to be changed. It would be worth it in the long run for more accurate reporting on WordPress.org, which is the first place many users browse when looking for a new theme. If the active install counts are not a proper representation of installations via WordPress.org, then it doesn&#8217;t make sense to pin the popular algorithm to that number.</p>
<p>I asked Matt Medeiros why he chose to highlight the situation with Vertex, and he explained why many small business owners have a strong interest in the popular themes page.</p>
<p>&#8220;It’s getting harder and harder to survive as a theme shop these days,&#8221; Medeiros said. &#8220;Indie authors are overshadowed by huge theme shops and mega marketplaces. For me, .org is the only source of distribution for my themes, and I have a  desire to see the repo become the defacto place to find quality themes. Sadly, not all themes are submitted to &#8216;do it right&#8217; and many crop up to make a quick cash grab from unsuspecting end-users. Top spots are worth A LOT of money (see: Zerif) and coupled with an aging search engine for themes, gaming to the top is worth it, even in the short term. Unsuspecting users, who find searching too challenging, settle with what’s in front of them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Medeiros referenced Zerif Lite, which was recently <a href="https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-theme-directory-300k-users-left-without-updates" target="_blank">removed from WordPress.org</a>, due to violations of guidelines that began to be enforced after the theme was approved. The theme was pulling in tens of thousands of dollars for ThemeIsle, thanks to its frequent spot among the most popular themes on WordPress.org. Ionut Neagu, the company&#8217;s CEO, estimates that Zerif Lite&#8217;s suspension from the directory will diminish the company’s $70K/month revenue by 50%.</p>
<p>&#8220;There’s a lingering distaste in the review process for freemium upsells,&#8221; Medeiros said. &#8220;Not everyone agrees that folks should have an upsell product here, and that’s unfortunate. As a small business owner, that revenue helps me reinvest into the WordPress community, WordCamps, hire and train people in developing with WordPress. At times the review process, mixed with the emotions of others, feels like a rising tax against the small software business owner, like myself.&#8221;</p>
<p>When drawing attention to the suspicious active install numbers for the Vertex theme and the flaws in the algorithm, Medeiros drew resistance from Wood, who does not see the directory as a place where businesses should expect a return for their investments.</p>
<p>&#8220;The theme directory is not an advertisement to peddle your wares,&#8221; Wood <a href="https://twitter.com/Otto42/status/790999917451808768" target="_blank">said</a>. &#8220;It is exactly that sort of thinking [that] makes me want to ban all themes with a &#8216;paid&#8217; version from the directory entirely. The theme directory is not an advertising means. That is not its purpose. If that is your intent, then you are doing it wrong.&#8221;</p>
<p>Medeiros said he isn&#8217;t interested in reviewing all themes for possible fraud, nor does he expect Otto to do the same. Vertex is just one example among many where the flaws in the algorithm are on public display.</p>
<p>&#8220;I chose to highlight this issue because I think the repo can be a better choice for users than a for-profit marketplace,&#8221; Medeiros said. &#8220;Either way, I can only hope unearthing this conversation helps affect change for the better.&#8221;</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:16:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: Weglot Multilingual WordPress Plugin Passes €10,000 in Monthly Revenue";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63048";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"https://wptavern.com/weglot-multilingual-wordpress-plugin-passes-e10000-in-monthly-revenue";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6542:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/weglot.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/weglot.jpg?resize=781%2C350&ssl=1" alt="weglot" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63101" /></a></p>
<p>Augustin Prot and Rémy Berda, co-founders the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/weglot/" target="_blank">Weglot</a> multilingual plugin for WordPress, started their operation in a small apartment in September 2015. Weglot was originally a simple JavaScript project that offered a language switcher so that users could view websites in different languages. After testers started asking for a solution that could be used with WordPress without causing SEO problems, Weglot co-founders scrapped the JavaScript idea and put all their energies towards creating a WordPress plugin that would follow best practices.</p>
<p>Berda, the engineer who built the plugin, said he developed it from a &#8220;non-WordPress&#8221; point of view and the team was excited when they started getting one person a day downloading the plugin. They jumped into the WordPress market sight unseen, with no contacts and very little understanding of the community.</p>
<p>In February 2016, after finishing out the previous month with 291€ in revenue, Weglot co-founders officially launched their <a href="https://weglot.com/pricingwp" target="_blank">SaaS-based commercial offerings</a> to extend the capabilities of the free WordPress.org plugin. They brought the plugin out of beta and decided to sponsor and attend WordCamp Paris to connect with the community.</p>
<p>&#8220;WordPress was just a name that we had heard of but didn’t know anything about it,&#8221; Berda said. &#8220;Sponsoring the WordCamp was without a doubt what really launched us. Within two days, we had met and exchanged with many people from the WordPress community. After the WordCamp, we started to get more and more users.&#8221;</p>
<p>I asked Berda what surprised him about WordPress and its commercial ecosystem as someone who was brand new to the community in 2015. He said they knew coming into it that many websites were built on the software but couldn&#8217;t imagine the size or the strength of the community.</p>
<p>&#8220;We didn&#8217;t imagine that WordPress was so &#8216;community&#8217; based,&#8221; Berda said. &#8220;Events, meetups, WordCamps (in so many cities), blogs, and even a French Slack group.&#8221;</p>
<p>Berda said he and his co-founder were also surprised by how infrequently the SaaS model is used in the WordPress ecosystem.</p>
<p>&#8220;People were reluctant to use a SaaS approach at first &#8211; they prefer to buy a piece a software even if it means no support,&#8221; Berda said. &#8220;It was surprising to us because outside WordPress, SaaS has surpassed the &#8216;software&#8217; approach for many reasons. The good thing we&#8217;ve seen is that it changed rapidly between the end of last year and today. It seems the SaaS approach we have is no longer a problem for our users as they understand the value.&#8221;</p>
<p>In July 2016, Weglot passed €3,500 in monthly revenue, which enabled the team to rent a small office where they could be fully dedicated to the project. Prot and Berda have added a customer support specialist and Weglot&#8217;s monthly recurring revenue is on a steady uphill climb. Last week the plugin <a href="http://blog.weglot.com/0-7000euromonthly-beginning-journey/" target="_blank">passed 5,000 active installs</a> and Berda said they passed 10,000€ per month in actual revenue (7,000€/month in recurring revenue).</p>
<p>Weglot now has paying customers in 75 countries and Berda gave us a break down of their top seven in terms of MRR (Monthly Recurring revenue):</p>
<ul>
<li>France : 20%</li>
<li>USA : 13%</li>
<li>UK  : 6.4%</li>
<li>Spain : 6.3%</li>
<li>Germany : 4.4%</li>
<li>Canada : 3.5%</li>
<li>Italy : 3.4%</li>
</ul>
<p>As Weglot&#8217;s founders are French, it isn&#8217;t surprising the product has taken off in France. Over the past few years <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-paris-2014-uniting-the-french-wordpress-community" target="_blank">the French WordPress community has become more united and connected</a> with WordPress-related events expanding into other cities beyond Paris. The challenges of multilingual publishing is an important topic at these events and other WordCamps around Europe, and Weglot seems to be solving some of these problems for users.</p>
<p>Compared to more established competitors in the multilingual plugin space, like <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/polylang/" target="_blank">Polylang</a> (with 200,000+ active installs) and the 100% commercial <a href="https://wpml.org/" target="_blank">WPML</a> plugin, which boasts a 40-person team, Weglot is still considered a small player. Berda said they hope to distinguish the plugin from its competitors by providing a quicker, simpler setup, a clean approach for SEO, and broader compatibility with WordPress&#8217; ecosystem of themes and plugins.</p>
<p>&#8220;Weglot has a technical approach that is really different from other plugins,&#8221; Berda said. &#8220;For translated pages, Weglot lets WordPress build the webpage normally and hooks at the end of the code to translate the content. By doing so, Weglot works on a HTML page, making its content source-agnostic and thus solving many compatibility problems.&#8221;</p>
<p>The plugin also uses rewrite rules to create different URLs for each language offered on the site. For example, <strong>mywebsite.com/contact</strong> returns a page in English, <strong>mywebsite.com/fr/contact</strong> displays the French version, and <strong>mywebsite.com/es/contact</strong> returns the page in Spanish.</p>
<p>&#8220;This approach combined with adding tags &#8216;alternate&#8217; hreflang in the page, means that Weglot meets <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en" target="_blank">SEO best practices recommended by Google</a>,&#8221; Berda said.</p>
<p>Apart from finding the right technical approach, Berda said one of the biggest challenges has been maintaining a high level of support. His team has committed to supporting both free and paying customers through forums and live chat. Over the next six months Weglot is aiming to grow its revenue to €20,000/ month, expand its support team, and establish its SaaS approach as a viable business model in the WordPress multilingual plugin space.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2016 19:56:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"WPTavern: WordPress and Web Development Communities Get Together to Help Non-Profits at Website Weekend LA";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63108";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-and-web-development-communities-get-together-to-help-non-profits-at-website-weekend-la";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3114:"<p>This past weekend, people from the web development and WordPress communities <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-to-take-center-stage-during-website-weekend-los-angeles-oct-22-23">gathered in Los Angeles</a> to attend <a href="http://websiteweekend.la/">Website Weekend LA</a>. Organized by Alex Vasquez and Natalie MacLees, in association with the Los Angeles chapter of <a href="https://www.girldevelopit.com/">Girl Develop It</a>, attendees helped non-profit organizations with their sites.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/alexjvasquez">@alexjvasquez</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/nataliemac">@nataliemac</a> wrapping up a great weekend of talented web folk donating their time to help non-profits. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gdiwwla?src=hash">#gdiwwla</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/connect16?src=hash">#connect16</a> <a href="https://t.co/GhQhFq07by">pic.twitter.com/GhQhFq07by</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Rachel Carden (@bamadesigner) <a href="https://twitter.com/bamadesigner/status/790362187076214784">October 24, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Roy Sivan, Senior WordPress Developers at Disney, attended the event and <a href="https://www.thewpcrowd.com/wordpress/website-weekend-la-recap/">published a recap</a> on The WP Crowd website. According to Sivan, each organization was assigned a lead developer, 2-3 junior developers, a project manager, and a user experience designer. Sivan&#8217;s team worked on <a href="http://thero.org/">Thero.org</a>, a non-profit in San Diego, CA, that provides mental health resources.</p>
<p>Sivan&#8217;s team revamped the site&#8217;s search functionality making it similar to <a href="http://www.zillow.com/">Zillow</a>. When visitors search the site, they are taken to a map page that has markers displaying the facility&#8217;s location. The markers also link to their profile on the site. The team also performed optimizations to speed up the site and reworked the donation page to improve its flow.</p>
<p>Although the event was geared towards non-profits, Sivan says the teams benefited by sharing knowledge with each other, &#8220;I talked to many lead developers through the weekend, and some non-lead,&#8221; Sivan said.</p>
<p>&#8220;While the non-profits were the main focus for the weekend, we were clearly all there to help them, many developers got a good tutorial or two in advanced coding especially on a team. Ryan on our team helped Kelly setup DesktopServer, and we both taught them how to use GIT for versioning, SASS and finally gulp for processing.</p>
<p>&#8220;I even got a chance to bestow some AngularJS knowledge since the map and search results sidebar on the map were an AngularJS application powered by custom routes and endpoints of the WordPress REST API.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sivan says he was astonished by the amount of people in the community that came together to volunteer their time and skills to help non-profit organizations and that he&#8217;s looking forward to attending the event again next year.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2016 18:58:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"Matt: Common at Tiny Desk";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46868";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/common-at-tiny-desk/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:443:"<p></p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/">Tiny Desk concert</a> at the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/10/03/496433228/common-tiny-desk-concert-at-the-white-house">White House with Common</a> and some of my favorite musicians <a href="http://www.robertglasper.com/">Robert Glasper</a>, <a href="http://music.derrickhodge.com/">Derrick Hodge</a>, and <a href="http://bilalmusic.com/">Bilal</a> was incredible.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2016 14:28:04 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.7 to Introduce User-Specific Language Setting for the Admin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63054";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-to-introduce-user-specific-language-setting-for-the-admin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1948:"<p>WordPress 4.7 will allow users to <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/38705" target="_blank">select a language to use in the admin</a>. Prior to this change, using a different language for the admin required installing the necessary translations and editing the <em>wp-config.php</em> file or using a plugin.</p>
<p>A user-specific language setting makes it possible to run a WordPress site in one language on the front end and administrate it in another without all of the previous hassle. For example, if a German newspaper site has contributors from all around the world, WordPress 4.7 makes it possible for each contributor to use the admin in his or her native language. The setting is available as a language dropdown on the user profile edit screen at <strong>wp-admin/profile.php</strong>.</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/admin-language-setting.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/admin-language-setting.png?resize=1025%2C325&ssl=1" alt="admin-language-setting" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63059" /></a></p>
<p>During my first test of the new feature I thought it was broken, but it turns out the setting is not visible if the site language is set to the default en_US. Change the site language under Settings to something else and WordPress will then show available translations in the user profile language dropdown.</p>
<p>The user-specific language setting comes as a result of work on a two-year-old <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/29783" target="_blank">ticket</a> and contributors&#8217; discussions at several European WordCamps during the past few years. It introduces a new <code>get_user_locale()</code> function that plugin developers will want to be aware of, especially those who have built other solutions that allow users to set a language for the admin.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Oct 2016 21:22:03 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"WPTavern: LinkedIn Learning Is Offering Free Access This Week to Its Library of More Than 5,000 Courses";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63072";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"https://wptavern.com/linkedin-learning-is-offering-free-access-this-week-to-its-library-of-more-than-5000-courses";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2104:"<p><a href="https://www.lynda.com/">Lynda.com</a>, a site that offers <a href="https://www.lynda.com/subject/all">thousands of online training courses</a> is giving everyone an opportunity to access any course they want for free. Dubbed the &#8220;<a href="https://learning.linkedin.com/week-of-learning">Week of Learning</a>&#8220;, starting today and ending on October 30th, visitors can take any course they want without any strings attached. The only thing that&#8217;s required is a LinkedIn account which is used to login to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/?trk=lilblog_src.li-other_c.WOL-announcement-10-21-16_brandspark_learning&cid=70132000001AyziAAC">LinkedIn Learning</a>.</p>
<p>Morten Rand-Hendriksen, an instructor for a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/725535">number of courses</a> on Lynda.com, is excited about the event, &#8220;It gives everyone a chance to check out all the amazing content available on LinkedIn Learning and further their personal skills and professional careers,&#8221; Hendriksen said.</p>
<p>To help newcomers decide which courses to take, Jillian Senechalle has compiled a list of the <a href="https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/whats-new/starting-this-monday--a-100--free-week-of-learning--for-the-firs">10 most viewed courses</a> this year. Some of them include, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/excel-2013-essential-training?trk=lilblog_src.li-other_c.WOL-announcement-10-21-16_brandspark_learning&cid=70132000001AyziAAC">Excel 2013 Essential Training</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communication-fundamentals?trk=lilblog_src.li-other_c.WOL-announcement-10-21-16_brandspark_learning&cid=70132000001AyziAAC">Communication Fundamentals</a>, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/javascript-essential-training?trk=lilblog_src.li-other_c.WOL-announcement-10-21-16_brandspark_learning&cid=70132000001AyziAAC">JavaScript Essential Training</a>. If you&#8217;ve ever wanted to take a course on Lynda.com but didn&#8217;t have the funds, now is your chance.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Oct 2016 21:18:10 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"WPTavern: Automattic Releases Free WordPress Stickers App for iOS 10";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62709";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://wptavern.com/automattic-releases-free-wordpress-stickers-app-for-ios-10";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2713:"<p><a href="http://www.apple.com/ios/ios-10/" target="_blank">iOS 10</a> was released last month with support for stickers in the the iMessage apps for iPhone and iPad. If you want to add a little WordPress flavor to your mobile communications, check out the new free <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress-world-stickers/id1139958755" target="_blank">WordPress World</a> iMessage sticker app from Automattic. The app includes some of the company&#8217;s mascots and logos, such as WooCommerce and Jetpack, as well as a collection of &#8220;sticker-ized&#8221; <a href="http://jawordpressorg.github.io/wapuu/" target="_blank">wapuus from the community</a>.</p>
<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/stickers-screens.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/stickers-screens.png?resize=1025%2C910&ssl=1" alt="image credit: WordPress.com" class="size-full wp-image-63040" /></a>image credit: <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/express-yourself-with-new-wordpress-stickers-for-ios-and-imessage/">WordPress.com</a>
<p>The sticker set is also being ported for use with Telegram, which has supported an <a href="https://telegram.org/blog/stickers-revolution" target="_blank">open sticker platform</a> since May 2015. <a href="https://twitter.com/astralbodies" target="_blank">Aaron Douglas</a>, an iOS mobile developer at Automattic, has added the stickers from the iOS app into a <a href="https://telegram.me/addstickers/WPWorld" target="_blank">WordPress World sticker pack for Telegram</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/stickers-telegram.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/stickers-telegram.png?resize=1025%2C1395&ssl=1" alt="stickers-telegram" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63074" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;The process of porting is manual but doesn&#8217;t take a terrible amount of time,&#8221; Douglas said. &#8220;The only weird thing is Telegram associates an emoji with every sticker so finding an appropriate emoji for a particular sticker is tricky. Some people on Telegram just pick random emoji and they don&#8217;t care about the equivalence.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Telegram sticker collection matches those in the iMessage sticker app after an update Douglas pushed this morning. Just a handful of the planned stickers are currently available, but users will automatically receive the new ones as the iOS app and Telegram pack are updated. Douglas said Automattic is planning to add more Wapuu created for the WordCamps and is looking into commissioning a few new ones for the app.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Oct 2016 17:58:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"Post Status: WordPress REST API in Core — Draft podcast";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=30103";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-rest-api-core-draft-podcast/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1964:"<p>Welcome to the Post Status <a href="https://poststatus.com/category/draft">Draft podcast</a>, which you can find <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008">on iTunes</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/m/Ih5egfxskgcec4qadr3f4zfpzzm?t=Post_Status__Draft_WordPress_Podcast">Google Play</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast">Stitcher</a>, and <a href="http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1061/rss">via RSS</a> for your favorite podcatcher. Post Status Draft is hosted by Joe Hoyle &#8212; the CTO of Human Made &#8212; and Brian Krogsgard.</p>
<p><span>In this episode, Joe and Brian talk about the WordPress REST API and the core approval process</span></p>
<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');</script><![endif]-->
<a href="https://audio.simplecast.com/50492.mp3">https://audio.simplecast.com/50492.mp3</a>
<p><a href="http://audio.simplecast.com/50492.mp3">Direct Download</a></p>
<h3>Topics</h3>
<ul>
<li>The API&#8217;s journey</li>
<li>How Core projects work</li>
<li>What to know about the API know that it&#8217;s in trunk</li>
<li>What that means for the future of the API</li>
</ul>
<h3>Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://apisyouwonthate.com/">Build APIs you won&#8217;t hate</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wp-api.org/index-deprecated.html">Legacy v1 API</a></li>
<li><a href="https://getmoxied.net/lean/">LEAN</a></li>
<li><a href="http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mcmansion-hell-devil-details/">McMansion Hell: The devil is in the details</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Sponsor: OptinMonster</h3>
<p><span><a href="http://optinmonster.com/the-new-google-mobile-friendly-rules-for-popups/">OptinMonster</a> allows you to convert visitors into subscribers. You can easily create &amp; A/B test beautiful lead capture forms without a developer. Check out <a href="http://optinmonster.com/">OptinMonster</a> today!</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Oct 2016 13:39:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Katie Richards";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Matt: Taking Sides";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46861";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/taking-sides/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:858:"<p>From <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-acceptance_en.html">Elie Wiesel&#8217;s Nobel Peace Price acceptance speech in 1986</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remain silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.</p></blockquote>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 22 Oct 2016 17:32:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"Matt: Defrauding an Election";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=46846";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"https://ma.tt/2016/10/defrauding-an-election/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1186:"<p>Wired has a fun and informative look at <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rigging-presidential-election/">How to Rig a Presidential Election in 1000 Easy Steps</a>. Basically it&#8217;s impossible &#8212; I hadn&#8217;t really thought of this before, but every precinct has its own officials from both parties that certify everything, there are just a ton of people involved at every step of the process. All that said, I would love if voting platforms <a href="http://www.osetfoundation.org/">were completely open source software and had paper receipts that could be verified manually</a>.</p>
<p>Also speaking of politics getting dirty, the San Francisco State Senate race has had a ton of falsehoods and attacks from Scott Weiner, someone I&#8217;ve met before and previously thought was a nice guy, but <a href="http://48hills.org/2016/10/20/scott-wieners-deceitful-guardian-mailing/">the latest mailers I&#8217;ve seen have just been deceitful</a> (especially considering the Guardian actually <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/2016/10/06/endorsements-the-case-for-six-progressive-supes-kim-for-state-senate/">endorsed his opponent, Jane Kim</a>).</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2016 23:12:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"WPTavern: Peter Meth Launches Kickstarter Campaign to Produce 7″ Wapuu Plush Toys";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63019";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://wptavern.com/peter-meth-launches-kickstarter-campaign-to-produce-7-wapuu-plush-toys";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2894:"<p><a href="https://ja.wordpress.org/about-wp-ja/wapuu/">Wapuu</a> is the <a href="https://wptavern.com/community-translation-and-wapuu-how-japan-is-shaping-wordpress-history">unofficial mascot</a> of the WordPress project and is quite the traveler appearing at WordCamps all over the world. While there is a <a href="https://mercantile.wordpress.org/">variety of swag</a> featuring Wapuu, outside of handmade items, there isn&#8217;t a way to obtain a plush toy.</p>
<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WapuuPlushToy.jpg?ssl=1"><img class="size-full wp-image-63021" src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WapuuPlushToy.jpg?resize=700%2C770&ssl=1" alt="Wapuu Plush Toy Prototype" /></a>Wapuu Plush Toy Prototype
<p>Peter Meth, a Senior PHP Consultant based in Toronto, Canada, is looking to change that with a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1035100786/plush-wapuu-collectible-unofficial-wordpress-masco">crowdfunding campaign</a> using Kickstarter. Meth is seeking $11,338 to create a number of 7&#8243; Wapuu plush toys.</p>
<p>&#8220;The factories that produce most of these items are in China and there are large minimum orders,&#8221; Meth said. &#8220;I have done the calculations and have tried to keep the Kickstarter goal at a minimum.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meth has previous experience creating plush toys for other software projects. Last year, he <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1035100786/truenorth-php-woolly-mammoth-plush-toy">successfully raised $35K</a> from 432 backers to create a PHP Woolly Mammoth plush toy. While the web version of Wapuu features the WordPress logo, the plush toy does not.</p>
<p>&#8220;The WordPress logo is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation,&#8221; Meth said. &#8220;I did not get permission to use their logo. I am in no way affiliated with WordPress. This product is a plush toy, not software and on his chest is just a regular W with a circle around it.&#8221;</p>
<p>If successfully funded, backers won&#8217;t receive the product for at least a few months as the orders are created, processed, and shipped from China to Canada. Meth will then package the orders and ship them to backers, &#8220;I have done it before and have figured out the best ways to get these items to backers quickly and efficiently,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Pledges range from purchasing one plush toy up to five. There&#8217;s also a pledge available for about $763 where companies can have their advertising materials shipped with each toy.</p>
<p>So far, Meth has raised <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1035100786/plush-wapuu-collectible-unofficial-wordpress-masco">$676 from 20 backers</a> with 29 days left to go. Considering the lack of Wapuu plush toys in existence, these would be excellent collectibles to give away at WordCamps.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:22:13 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WPTavern: WordCamp Orlando Rescheduled for November 12-13";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63014";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-orlando-rescheduled-for-november-12-13";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1336:"<p>WordCamp Orlando which was originally scheduled for October 9-10 will now take place the weekend of<a href="https://2016.orlando.wordcamp.org/2016/10/12/wordcamp-orlando-2016-is-rescheduled/"> November 12-13</a>. The event <a href="https://2016.orlando.wordcamp.org/2016/10/05/wordcamp-orlando-canceled-due-to-hurricane-matthew/">was cancelled</a> after the venue was ordered closed due to Hurricane Matthew.</p>
<p>The event is being held at the UCF Rosen Campus and features a different schedule than the October event. Saturday will have a networking brunch, keynote session, and three tracks of hour-long sessions. The Developer&#8217;s and WordPress for Beginners workshops will be held on Sunday along with a track of sessions dedicated to business and marketing.</p>
<p>Lisa Melegari, lead organizer for WordCamp Orlando, says the team was unable to re-negotiate a discounted rate for hotel rooms with Rosen Shingle Creek. If your reservation was cancelled due to the storm, she suggests contacting the hotel directly and try booking the room at the same rate.</p>
<p>Extra tickets will go on sale once sessions are decided and speakers are confirmed. Those who purchased tickets for the October event and did not request a refund are able to use the same ticket to attend in November.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2016 19:24:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"WPTavern: LoopConf Rescheduled for February 6-8, 2017, in Salt Lake City, Utah";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=63008";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"https://wptavern.com/loopconf-rescheduled-for-february-6-8-2017-in-salt-lake-city-utah";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2433:"<p><a href="https://loopconf.com/">LoopConf</a>, a conference geared towards WordPress developers has been rescheduled for February 6-8, 2017, and will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The event was originally scheduled to take place in Florida but <a href="https://wptavern.com/loopconf-postponed-due-to-hurricane-matthew-wordcamp-orlando-is-questionable">was cancelled</a> due to Hurricane Matthew.</p>
<p>Ryan Sullivan, lead organizer of the event who lives in Salt Lake City, says one of the reasons he chose his hometown is to take advantage of local connections.</p>
<p>&#8220;When we chose to reschedule LoopConf, there was a very large financial impact attached to that,&#8221; Sullivan said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Had we chosen another resort destination, our money would have been committed to the logistics and venue there, and we would have had to scale back on attendee experience.</p>
<p>&#8220;That wasn’t something we were willing to sacrifice, so we brought the event back home so we could lean on some local connections, and still put on a fantastic event without asking anything else of the attendees or sponsors.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tickets that were purchased for the Florida event are automatically being transferred to the Salt Lake City event. Those who can&#8217;t make it and would like to request a refund need to send an email to info @ loopconf.com and add Refund Request to the subject line. Refund requests should be submitted before October 31st.</p>
<p>Those who couldn&#8217;t attend the event in October but can in February are in luck as <a href="https://ti.to/loopconf/loopconf-2016">tickets are back on sale</a> to the public, &#8220;We’re hoping to bolster and regain some of what we’ve lost, and we know that won’t be possible without the support of the WordPress community at large,&#8221; Sullivan said.</p>
<p>Sullivan has also negotiated a deal with the <a href="http://saltlake.littleamerica.com/">Little America</a> hotel located a few blocks from the venue. Room rates are $179 per night instead of the usual $229 and ground transportation will be provided each day to and from the venue. While rooms are not currently available for reservation at the lower price, Sullivan says a special link will be published soon.</p>
<p>For detailed information on the event and to purchase tickets, visit the <a href="https://loopconf.com/">LoopConf</a> website.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:26:03 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"WPTavern: BuddyPress 2.7 Released, Features Groups Query Overhaul and Improvements for Site Administrators";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62866";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:116:"https://wptavern.com/buddypress-2-7-released-features-groups-query-overhaul-and-improvements-for-site-administrators";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4016:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/samsbrooklyn.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/samsbrooklyn.jpg?resize=886%2C487&ssl=1" alt="photo credit: Eater NY" class="size-full wp-image-62882" /></a>photo credit: <a href="http://ny.eater.com/2010/11/12/6710425/leave-the-attitude-at-the-door-at-sams-restaurant">Eater NY</a>
<p><a href="https://buddypress.org/2016/10/buddypress-2-7-0-migliaccio/" target="_blank">BuddyPress 2.7</a> &#8220;Migliaccio&#8221; was released yesterday, named after the family who runs Sam’s Restaurant in Brooklyn. The sign in front of the establishment features steaks and chops, but the restaurant&#8217;s pizza is &#8220;one of the great under-appreciated pies in all of NYC,&#8221; according to BuddyPress core developers.</p>
<p>This release is heavy on features for developers, in line with the project&#8217;s <a href="https://wptavern.com/buddypress-2-7-development-kicks-off-project-shifts-focus-to-developers-and-site-builders" target="_blank">recent change of course</a>. The BuddyPress core team is now focusing on the experience of developers and site builders, as opposed to providing something that is 100% turnkey.</p>
<p>Version 2.7 delivers significant performance improvements to sites that are using the Groups component. <a href="https://bpdevel.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/group-queries-have-been-rewritten-for-bp-2-7/" target="_blank">Group queries have been completely re-written</a> to be less memory-intensive by following WordPress&#8217; move to use the &#8220;split&#8221; model for object queries.</p>
<p>&#8220;The changes we’ve made for BP 2.7 should lead to a huge performance improvement on sites using persistent caching,&#8221; BuddyPress lead developer Boone Gorges said. &#8220;When querying groups, not only are group objects now fetched from the cache when available, but the ID queries themselves are cached as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>Version 2.7 is rather lean on user-facing features but one helpful addition is a new email token that makes it possible for users to <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6932" target="_blank">unsubscribe from BuddyPress-generated emails</a>. The unsubscribe links have been added to the emails that are listed on the email settings page.</p>
<p>This release also introduces many improvements for site administrators, which will make BuddyPress easier to manage and customize:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Use WP Page Names for Headings of BP Directory Pages</strong><br />
Whatever you choose as the title of your Activity, Sites, Members, or Groups directory pages on the back end, is what you’ll get as the heading on the front end.</li>
<li><strong>Use the Site Icon as Your Site’s Profile Photo</strong><br />
BuddyPress sets the site admin’s profile photo as the default site profile photo on the Sites Directory page. You can now use the <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Favicon#WordPress_Version_4.3_or_later" target="_blank">Site Icon introduced in WordPress 4.3</a> instead.</li>
<li><strong>Member Type and Group Type Filters in Users and Groups Admin Screens</strong><br />
Easily filter your members and groups by type and set types in bulk on the users and groups list tables in the dashboard.</li>
<li><strong>Improved Profile Date Field</strong><br />
New Date Field settings, “Date format” and “Range”, make it easier for site administrators to decide how date-based data will be collected and displayed.</li>
</ul>
<p>This is the first release since the project&#8217;s new developer-oriented direction was announced. The improvements shipped in 2.7 reflect the core development team&#8217;s commitment to better serve those who are developing and managing BuddyPress sites. For a list of all the changes and links to documentation, check out the full <a href="https://codex.buddypress.org/releases/version-2-7-0/" target="_blank">2.7 changelog</a>.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2016 04:16:24 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"WPTavern: New WordPress Default Theme Twenty Seventeen Merged into 4.7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62839";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"https://wptavern.com/new-wordpress-default-theme-twenty-seventeen-merged-into-4-7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3781:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/twenty-seventeen-1024x597.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/twenty-seventeen-1024x597.png?resize=1024%2C597&ssl=1" alt="twenty-seventeen-1024x597" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62970" /></a></p>
<p>WordPress 4.7 will ship with a new default theme in December. David Kennedy <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/38833/" target="_blank">merged Twenty Seventeen into core</a> yesterday as his first commit to WordPress. Any remaining development issues for the project will now be managed via Trac.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/18/twenty-seventeen-merge-proposal-for-4-7/" target="_blank">merge proposal</a>, Kennedy described Twenty Seventeen as &#8220;an ambitious theme that focuses on a creative home page and an easy site setup experience for users.&#8221; It is the first default theme designed specifically for business websites. The theme includes four customizable panels on the front page (as seen in Kennedy&#8217;s demo video below), which can be set to display content from existing pages. It includes support for uploading a custom logo and uses SVG icons throughout the theme, which Kennedy notes is a first for a default theme.</p>
<div class="wp-video"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');</script><![endif]--><br />
<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/files/2016/10/panels-ui-small.mp4">https://make.wordpress.org/core/files/2016/10/panels-ui-small.mp4</a></div>
<p>Twenty Seventeen will offer three different options for a color scheme: light, dark, or custom (which can be set via a user-friendly color-picker):</p>
<div class="wp-video"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/files/2016/10/colors.mp4">https://make.wordpress.org/core/files/2016/10/colors.mp4</a></div>
<p>&#8220;Twenty Seventeen will ship with its current implementation of panels in the theme and without video headers,&#8221; Kennedy said during yesterday&#8217;s core development meeting. A <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38172" target="_blank">ticket for adding core support for video headers</a> is open on Trac and contributors are still working out all of the intricacies of the feature. It may not be ready to ship with the first version of Twenty Seventeen, but it&#8217;s an exciting step forward for standardizing an approach for developers who want to build video headers into their themes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Video headers are definitely doable,&#8221; Nick Halsey said during yesterday&#8217;s meeting. &#8220;It&#8217;s a matter of getting consensus on the best approach on the ticket.&#8221;</p>
<p>Contributors have also <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37974" target="_blank">discussed creating a multi-panel page</a> that lets users select content for the different sections. It would benefit Twenty Seventeen but contributors are considering giving it more time in development as a feature plugin.</p>
<p>&#8220;Regarding multi-panel, I’d agree that it’s not going to make it,&#8221; Kennedy said in the #core Slack channel today. &#8220;That isn’t to diminish the awesome work done so far, but it needs more. I’d like to start making plans for it to be a feature plugin, perhaps. I want to see the momentum continue. Core needs a solution around this, and it will take more people to help make it even better.&#8221;</p>
<p>Twenty Seventeen has had 59 contributors to date and may gain a few more before the 4.7 release cycle is finished. The theme will benefit from testing in as many different environments as possible, since it will immediately be high profile as the next default WordPress theme.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 20 Oct 2016 18:19:17 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:38:"WPTavern: WordCamp WarmUp Is a Success";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62874";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-warmup-is-a-success";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2384:"<p>Rebecca Gill, founder of <a href="https://www.web-savvy-marketing.com/">Web-Savvy-Marketing</a>, has published a postmortem of <a href="https://2016.annarbor.wordcamp.org/wordcamp-warmup/">WordCamp WarmUp</a>, an event that took place two days before WordCamp Ann Arbor aimed at breaking the ice for new WordCamp attendees. The event surpassed its goal of 50 attendees forcing Gill to close registration early.</p>
<p>&#8220;Not only did most WarmUp guests arrive right on time, we had a full room of WarmUp attendees and even had a few unexpected friends show up,&#8221; Gill said.</p>
<p>Gill created three different lists that included interesting things about attendees, their interests, and their talents. She then created packets that attendees could use to seek out specific people, &#8220;I’m not sure how many people used my lists, but I will say most people took packets with them when they left the event,&#8221; Gill said.</p>
<p>She challenged attendees to meet at least 20 people during WordCamp Ann Arbor. While a handful of people completed the challenge, its purpose was to provide an additional incentive.</p>
<p>&#8220;I really don’t care how many people an individual met,&#8221; Gill said. &#8220;My goal was to get them to meet more than they would without WarmUp and to encourage them to get to know others if their personalities allowed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Gill conducted a poll shortly after the event to gather feedback and received 15 responses. When asked how the event made their WordCamp experience more meaningful, a number of people offered positive feedback:</p>
<ul>
<li>It was nice to come on Friday and already recognize some people</li>
<li>I was able to connect with other WordCamp goers, which made the following days more exciting. It helped me orient myself mentally to think ahead about what I wanted to learn and what I wanted to get out of the event as a whole.</li>
<li>I met some people! So then there were familiar faces at the actual WordCamp.</li>
<li>The event was a great ice breaker to WordCamp.</li>
</ul>
<p>To read all of the feedback and view photos of the event, check out the <a href="https://www.web-savvy-marketing.com/2016/10/recap-of-wordcamp-ann-arbors-wordcamp-warmup/">wrapup post</a>. If you attended WordCamp Warmup, tell us about your experience in the comments.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 21:12:09 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"WPTavern: WP REST API Content Endpoints Officially Approved for Merge into WordPress 4.7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62877";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"https://wptavern.com/wp-rest-api-officially-approved-for-merge-into-wordpress-4-7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2640:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wp-rest-api.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wp-rest-api.jpg?resize=1025%2C469&ssl=1" alt="wp-rest-api" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-43000" /></a></p>
<p>After a lengthy and impassioned meeting in the WordPress #core Slack channel on Monday evening, the WP REST API content endpoints were <a href="https://wptavern.com/wp-rest-api-content-endpoints-conditionally-approved-for-merge-in-4-7" target="_blank">conditionally approved for merge into 4.7</a>. Since that time Brian Krogsgard published a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/19/wordpress-rest-api-success-metrics/" target="_blank">document</a> with input from the team on how they plan to measure the success of the API.</p>
<p>The conditions included some last minute work from the team on demonstrating how the API can benefit core development. Contributors produced multiple proofs of concept, including <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38343" target="_blank">leveraging the REST API endpoints for Press this</a> and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38342" target="_blank">Quick Draft</a> features.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think the team has come together really well over the last couple days to tackle the merge tasks,&#8221; WordPress core committer Jeremy Felt said. &#8220;It seems that the momentum is on the right track to merge and then continue knocking out issues throughout the rest of the cycle as we start testing it as part of core. I’m also pretty excited about the pieces of the admin that are about to start using it with such a short window. 4.8 and 4.9 have a ton of potential with the API.&#8221;</p>
<p>Contributors in attendance at today&#8217;s core development meeting agreed that the team had made significant strides to meet the conditions previously identified for merge. After a short few minutes of discussion, WordPress 4.7 release lead Helen Hou-Sandí officially approved the WP REST API content endpoints for merge into core.</p>
<p><a href="http://github.com/WP-API/WP-API" target="_blank">Code on the GitHub</a> repository will now be frozen and continued development will be managed via WordPress trac. The WP REST API has had 99 contributors on the project to date. The content endpoints identified in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/08/rest-api-merge-proposal-part-2-content-api/" target="_blank">merge proposal</a> will ship with WordPress 4.7 and contributors will focus on authentication for the 4.8 release cycle.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 21:10:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.7 to Ship with Infrastructure from the Customize Snapshots Feature Plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62835";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-to-ship-with-infrastructure-from-the-customize-snapshots-feature-plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3965:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/snapshots.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/snapshots.jpg?resize=750%2C446&ssl=1" alt="photo credit: Chantel Lucas" class="size-full wp-image-52875" /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/410Y7ES74I">Chantel Lucas</a>
<p>Customize Changesets, the technical term for the infrastructure in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/customize-snapshots/" target="_blank">Customize Snapshots</a> feature plugin, was <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/38810" target="_blank">merged into WordPress 4.7</a> yesterday. The project, formerly known as <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/01/26/customizer-transactions-proposal/" target="_blank">Customizer Transactions</a>, brings the underlying architecture required for the ability to save a session as a draft. It enables WordPress to save a set of changes made in the Customizer so that it can be shared, previewed outside of the iframe, and even published at a future date.</p>
<p>Although the initial introduction of Customize Changesets will ship with no UI, it is the gateway for a host of exciting new features in the Customizer.</p>
<p>&#8220;The new APIs make possible many new user-facing features in future releases and feature plugins, including saving long-lived drafts, submitting changesets as pending for review, scheduling changes, seeing the previewed state on the frontend without being in an iframe, sharing preview URLs with others who do not have customizer access, and others,&#8221; project lead Weston Ruter said in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/12/customize-changesets-formerly-transactions-merge-proposal/" target="_blank">merge proposal</a>.</p>
<p>Users will be able to detect the Customize Changesets architecture in WordPress in two ways. A new customize_uuid query parameter is added onto the URL. Also, users can now reload pages in the Customizer and the changes that have already been made will persist.</p>
<p>&#8220;In future releases we can explore new UIs to take advantage of the new capabilities that changesets provide,&#8221; Ruter said. &#8220;New UIs can provide a way to schedule changes, the ability to undo the last change, show an audit log (revision history) for changes, collaborative editing of a customizer changeset, and so on. Future feature projects will explore many of these and feature plugins will start to prototype them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ruter also noted that Customize changesets fixes &#8220;several long-standing issues related to incompatibilities between JavaScript running on the site’s frontend when previewed in the customizer.&#8221; This should make the experience of customizing WordPress less buggy for users.</p>
<p>When I asked Ruter if the UI for core will come from the Customize Snapshots feature plugin, he said he&#8217;s not certain whether the team will migrate the features into a separate “Customize Changesets UI” plugin or adapt it to make use of changesets instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;Either way, the UI features will live on and will be prototyped in feature plugin form before proposal for core merge,&#8221; Ruter said. &#8220;The underlying plumbing from Snapshots was adapted for changesets now in core. So the snapshots itself needs its internals to be gutted to re-use changesets.&#8221;</p>
<p>From there contributors will begin <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/31089#comment:11" target="_blank">building a UI for managing changesets</a>, which includes listing existing changesets and their revisions, as well as moving a changeset post from auto-draft to draft, pending, or future. Ruter encourages those who want to contribute to a changesets UI for core to get involved in the <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-customize-snapshots" target="_blank">Customize Snapshots plugin on GitHub</a>.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 19:25:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49:"BuddyPress: BuddyPress 2.7.0 – “Migliaccio”";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=260004";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://buddypress.org/2016/10/buddypress-2-7-0-migliaccio/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9299:"<p>BuddyPress 2.7 “Migliaccio” is now available for download from the WordPress.org plugin repository, or right from your WordPress Dashboard. “Migliaccio” focuses on new features for developers and site builders.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-list-view"></span> Groups Query Overhaul</strong><br />
Huge performance improvements on sites using persistent caching. Learn more about the Groups Query rewrite.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-calendar"></span> Improved Profile Date Field</strong><br />
New Date Field settings, &#8220;Date format&#8221; and &#8220;Range&#8221;, make it easier for site administrators to decide how date-based data will be collected and displayed.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-groups"></span> Group Types Integration in Templates</strong><br />
Enable developers to show Group Types on the front end as well as control where the group type information is rendered. Learn how to implement this feature.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-admin-multisite"></span> Use the Site Icon as Your Site’s Profile Photo</strong><br />
BuddyPress sets the site admin’s profile photo as the default site profile photo on the Sites Directory page. You can now use the Site Icon introduced in WordPress 4.3 instead.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-filter"></span> Member Type and Group Type Filters in Users and Groups Admin Screens</strong><br />
Easily filter your members and groups by type and set types in bulk on the users and groups list tables in the dashboard.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-clock"></span> Localized Timestamps</strong><br />
Fix inaccurate timestamps due to time zones or page caching with new client-side timestamp handling.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-email"></span> Links to Unsubscribe from Emails</strong><br />
Improve user experience by facilitating the removal of any or all subscriptions via new email tokens and unsubscribe links.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-admin-page"></span> Use WP Page Names for Headings of BP Directory Pages</strong><br />
Whatever you choose as the title of your Activity, Sites, Members, or Groups directory pages on the back end, is what you’ll get as the heading on the front end.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-universal-access"></span> Accessibility Updates for the Front End and Back End</strong><br />
Continued improvements for universal access help make BuddyPress back- and front-end screens usable for everyone (and on more devices).</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-screenoptions"></span> Refactored <strong>BP_Button</strong> Class to Accept New Arguments</strong><br />
Provides developers with improved syntax and more control over the rendering of buttons.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-image-filter"></span> Improvements to a Single Group’s Management Screens</strong><br />
Improved markup, new modular group management templates, and a new member search form are just some of the enhancements added to the single group admin screens.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons  dashicons-groups"></span> Support for Querying for Groups by New Column <code>parent_id</code></strong><br />
Query support for hierarchical groups makes it much easier for developers to add custom front-end functionality.</p>
<p><strong><span class="dashicons dashicons-chart-bar"></span> Many, Many Performance Improvements</strong><br />
Improved performance by removing extra database queries, adding new cache calls, and removing the number of loops in <code>bp_get_user_groups()</code>.</p>
<p><strong>…and much more!</strong><br />
Read about all the bug fixes and feature enhancements introduced in BuddyPress 2.7.0 at our <a href="https://codex.buddypress.org/releases/version-2-7-0/">official 2.7.0 changelog</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Thank You to Our Contributors</strong><br />
Many, many thanks to all those who contributed during this development cycle. This is a volunteer-run project, and these contributors freely gave of their time and expertise to make BuddyPress better than ever:<br />
<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/">Aaron Jorbin (jorbin)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/abwebstudio1/">abwebstudio1</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/boonebgorges/">Boone B Gorges (boonebgorges)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/sbrajesh/">Brajesh Singh (sbrajesh)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/needle/">Christian Wach (needle)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/danbp/">danbp</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/danielhuesken/">Daniel Hüsken (danielhuesken)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dcavins/">David Cavins (dcavins)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/demon_ru/">demon_ru</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpdennis/">Dennis (wpdennis)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/ericlewis/">Eric Andrew Lewis (ericlewis)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/henrywright/">Henry Wright (henry.wright)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/herbovec/">herbovec</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/hnla/">Hugo (hnla)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jdgrimes/">J.D. Grimes (jdgrimes)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/johnjamesjacoby/">John James Jacoby (johnjamesjacoby)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dunhakdis/">Joseph G. (dunhakdis)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/kitsunesolar/">kitsunesolar</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/lakrisgubben/">lakrisgubben</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/Offereins">Laurens Offereins (Offereins)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/imath/">Mathieu Viet (imath)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/mercime/">mercime</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/tw2113/">Michael Beckwith (tw2113)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/michaelbeil/">Michael Beil (michaelbeil)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/swissspidy/">Pascal Birchler (swissspidy)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/DJPaul/">Paul Gibbs (DJPaul)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/r-a-y/">r-a-y</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/espellcaste/">Renato Alves (espellcaste)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/scharc/">scharc</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/slaffik/">Slava Abakumov (slaffik)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/spenser4551/">spenser4551</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/netweb/">Stephen Edgar (netweb)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/svenl77/">Sven Lehnert (svenl77)</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/tharsheblows/">tharsheblows</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/thomaslhotta/">thomaslhotta</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/tomas711/">tomas711</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/venturavan2/">venturavan2</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/wordpressrene/">wordpressrene</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Thank You BuddyPress Translators!</strong><br />
Thank you to all of our multilingual friends who make BuddyPress available in a bouquet of languages. The following generous volunteers have 95% complete translations (or better!) of BuddyPress in your language:<br />
<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/baardkr/">baardkr</a> (nb_NO), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/casiepa/">casiepa</a> (it_IT), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/danbp/">danbp</a> (fr_FR), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dancaragea/">dancaragea</a> (ro_RO), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/espellcaste/">espellcaste</a> (pt_BR), kidsguide (en_CA), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/netweb/">netweb</a> (en_AU), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/slaffik/">slaffik</a> (ru_RU), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/trkr/">trkr</a> (tr_TR), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/vanespenamaury/">vanespenamaury</a> (fr_FR), <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/webaware/">webaware</a> (en_NZ)</p>
<p>Many more are nearly complete. <a href="https://buddypress.org/support/topic/buddypress-translation-editors-contributors/">We could use your help</a>!</p>
<h2>Meet you at Sam&#8217;s</h2>
<p>We&#8217;ve called BuddyPress 2.7 &#8220;Migliaccio&#8221;, in honor of the family that runs Sam&#8217;s Restaurant in Brooklyn. Don&#8217;t be fooled by the &#8220;Steaks&#8221; and &#8220;Chops&#8221; signs out front: the Italian food here is great, but the pizza stands apart as one of the great underappreciated pies in all of NYC. As a bonus, careful observers just might spot hanging in Sam&#8217;s a photo of a certain BuddyPress developer, taken on the day he became a father. It&#8217;s a real family joint!</p>
<h2>Time to Go Get 2.7.0!</h2>
<p>Download BuddyPress 2.7 &#8220;Magliaccio&#8221; from the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/">wordpress.org plugin repository</a>, or install/upgrade right from your WordPress Dashboard. </p>
<p><strong>Questions, comments, feature requests, or bug reports</strong>? Please use our <a href="https://buddypress.org/support/">support forums</a> or our <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/">development tracker</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 19:16:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"@mercime";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"HeroPress: WordPress Set Me Free";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"http://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=1415";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"http://heropress.com/essays/wordpress-set-free/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13485:"<img width="960" height="480" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/101816-1024x512.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: I'm now a believer that WordPress can scale on large projects." /><p>I’m Carl Alberto, a work-from-home WordPress web developer based in Antipolo, Philippines. I hope my story will inspire people that came from schools that don’t teach too much technical stuff and people that are coming from remote or not highly developed places It won’t be a hindrance in getting a good WordPress related job.</p>
<h3>Web Development in my early years</h3>
<p>I had a first glimpse about web development around the mid 90’s when my dad was able to manage in buying an IBM-clone 4&#215;86 for me. It was marquees and frameset were the cool stuffs back then. During our college, not too much is being taught in our school and Internet is slow and very limited so I have to learn on my own and mostly at home. It’s amazing to imagine that we were able to survive with a 56kps dial-up connection way back then.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLa-YgTgtqp/" target="_blank">my first computer circa 90s #oldpic</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 11, 2016 at 4:46am PDT</p>
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<p>I was able to get a lot of practice in programming because my other batchmates were too lazy to do their school projects. They easily give up, rant a lot about the school’s broken facilities and would rather play Warcraft DOTA or Counter Strike while I am busy doing thesis projects. At that time, I was into electronics and was using other CMSes for web based projects because I had the impression that WordPress is just a blogging platform and not as powerful as the others.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLc6P9LglLd/" target="_blank">Worth the effort, sleepless nights of research and programming #collegedays #oldpic</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 11, 2016 at 10:49pm PDT</p>
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<h3>Entering The Corporate Office Scene While Undergraduate</h3>
<p>Unfortunately, due to financial issues, I have to work on my own to finish up my last few years of studies but it did not became a hindrance for me in getting my degree. The fastest way to get a job here without any diploma and experience is through contact centers. I am very thankful to this industry because many filipinos got a decent living out of it specially for those people that came from the provinces.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLcNZirA69o/" target="_blank">Tech Support days at Epson &#8211; Teleperformance</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 11, 2016 at 4:17pm PDT</p>
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<p>After a year of struggle with the traffic and balancing my life with school and work, finally I got my diploma. I tried to pursue an office based tech related career but most of the job openings needs at least 1 years experience and based in Makati, which is 2 hours away from me. I was able to land an office based job but I gave up in less than 6 months because of the huge amount of time and effort that I loose during the commute. Imagine, an average filipino loses 4 hours of time during the travel. In a month, it translates to at least 80 hours of wasted time. Multiply that to the millions of the office workers that travels everyday.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLdCy4Ig-W9/" target="_blank">View of #metromanila from #antipolo it looks near but traffic will kill your time  #drone #aerialphotography</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 12, 2016 at 12:03am PDT</p>
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<h3>Shifting from Tech Support to a Web Developer</h3>
<p>Good thing, there is newly opened web development company here in Antipolo so I left my job from the Metro to grab this opportunity closer to home. Luckily my web development projects from college served as my portfolio to land into that job. At this point of time, we are not mainly using WordPress and only use it as the part of the SEO process. A year has passed and I tried applying to companies that offers remote positions, luckily I was accepted by an Australian web development company. Before I switched my career in a remote working environment, I got married.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLc8Iy_AT4D/" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/72x72/1f642.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> got married &amp; changing to a work-from-home setting at that time</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 11, 2016 at 11:05pm PDT</p>
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<p></p>
<p>With my employer at that time, we are still not using WordPress as our main CMS and using single-sign-on connector to manage it. After years of doing this process, when major revisions of the other CMSes rolled out, we’re having hard time coping up with the compatibility of modules, extensions, plugins and themes. Then we saw some of our blogging sites that is running on WordPress, still solid and with minimal issues during major updates. We offered upgrade packages to clients but some of them view it as a rip-off because they already spent a lot in the development and after a few years, they will be paying again for an upgrade which they don’t really care about as long as they have a website running.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLa6_Czgzcw/" target="_blank">The #family that works together, stays together</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 11, 2016 at 4:17am PDT</p>
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<h3>Awakening WordPress in me</h3>
<p>At work, we studied WordPress in-depth, researched it and compared it with other, and was able to discover that there are already huge sites that is running solely on WP so why do we still have to run it side-by-side with another CMS? It’s scalable, easy to manage, extended via plugins and communicate with other system using its REST API. Then we got ourselves busy by getting migration projects from other CMS to WordPress. When I got immersed with WP projects, I never looked back and never again tried another CMS or programming languages.</p>
<h3>Mastering WordPress</h3>
<p>I applied again with another interesting employer, this time under the US timezone, they are the one that introduced me to the WordPress ecosystem. The owner Toby C, served as my idol and mentor in the WP world. He encouraged us to contribute and allotted 5% of our work time to contribute back to the WP Community. He is very active in their local community and meetups. WordPress became our primary choice for all projects, if client do not trust WP as their CMS, we don’t do it. At this time, I am now a believer that WordPress can scale on large projects, we’re able to utilize multi-sites, we were able to work in teams, use version control properly, we even used a custom WP site as our internal project management system. We created custom themes and plugins for each client’s specific needs. We lived and breathed WP everyday. It’s fun working with them and even met with one of my remote team mates on another province.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BB7dAich_a0/" target="_blank">AWS &amp; WordPress Usergroup meetup in UP Los Banos, 1st time to meet my remote workmate Abel @TheMightyMo</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Feb 18, 2016 at 5:16am PST</p>
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<p></p>
<p>Unfortunately after 2 years, the 12 hours time difference of US and Philippines worn me out easily. Good thing about WordPress is there are abundant jobs available and was able to find another employer with a Danish company which is only has 6 hours time difference. Their main business is catering ice, cocktails, wines, bar tending stuff, etc. but their front-end online platform is all built with WordPress &amp; WooCommerce. From here, I was able to harness the power of WP and WooCommerce.</p>
<h3>Contributing back to the WordPress</h3>
<p>I’m very thankful that WordPress has the REST API and it helped me create custom endpoints for 3rd party integrations, but still it has a lot of shortcomings and documentation is not perfect. Instead of ranting out those issues, it encouraged me to reach out in the WordPress.org support forums. I just found out that the WP codex will be deprecated soon and will be replaced with a more streamlined support system which is currently in the making by a group of volunteers around the world.</p>
<blockquote><p>The WP community is very friendly and will point you to the right person on whom to get in touch with if you have any WP related questions.</p></blockquote>
<p>There, I met Jon A., one of the most supportive person in the forums, as well as Hugh L. (big fan of his WP plugin template), both of them is leading that Codex replacement project at that time. From them, I was inspired to give back some of my spare time by contributing to the project that they are working on. Another thing that I love with the community is even if your contribution is big or small, it doesn’t matter, they will always make you feel awesome and urge you to help more.</p>
<h3>Spreading the WordPress Community in the Philippines</h3>
<p>I am very active in attending events and hackathons here in the PH but I noticed that there is still a lot people look down to WP developers because of the mindset that is just a blogging platform, but hey you can rapidly prototype a Minimum Viable Product with it and win some hackathon like what we did in this Bitcoin event. I also noticed that there are a lot of WordPress groupies here in the Philippines but it seems they are divided and after years of observing, nobody is organizing a local group. Luckily after months of waiting, our WordPress Meetup group for Manila was approved and we are now on a mission to unite the local WP community and reviving the WordCamp which became dormant after 2012. If ever you are in the province and cannot attend to our monthly gathering in the PH, I’ll do my best to help you out in getting your local community started or simply fill out the meetup application.</p>
<blockquote><p>I’m also glad that under the spirit of Open Source, we have the support of other local communities like Drupal and Mozilla that help each other.</p></blockquote>
<p>Since then, I try my best to accommodate schools in the provinces that requests to talk in their school or organization, engage them to learn Web Development and WordPress, help them not to be discouraged even they are far from the city and from a remote location, there is a big chance to have a WP related job to be found.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLXlCargWoE/" target="_blank">Thank you Batangas IT Society for inviting me to share topics about #webdevelopment and #WordPress</a></p>
<p>A photo posted by Carl Alberto (@carl.alberto) on Oct 9, 2016 at 9:07pm PDT</p>
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<div class="rtsocial-container rtsocial-container-align-right rtsocial-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal-button"><a title="Tweet: WordPress Set Me Free" class="rtsocial-twitter-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=WordPress%20Set%20Me%20Free&via=heropress&url=http%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fwordpress-set-free%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal fb-light"><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal-button"><a title="Like: WordPress Set Me Free" class="rtsocial-fb-button rtsocial-fb-like-light" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fwordpress-set-free%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-linkedin-button" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fwordpress-set-free%2F&title=WordPress+Set+Me+Free" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Share: WordPress Set Me Free"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-pinterest-button" href="https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http://heropress.com/essays/wordpress-set-free/&media=http://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/101816-150x150.jpg&description=WordPress Set Me Free" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Pin: WordPress Set Me Free"></a></div></div><a rel="nofollow" class="perma-link" href="http://heropress.com/essays/wordpress-set-free/" title="WordPress Set Me Free"></a></div><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://heropress.com/essays/wordpress-set-free/">WordPress Set Me Free</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 10:00:06 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Carl Alberto";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"WPTavern: Why PixelGrade is Experimenting with a $225 WordPress Theme on Themeforest";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62807";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/why-pixelgrade-is-experimenting-with-a-225-wordpress-theme-on-themeforest";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8947:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/sami-k.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/sami-k.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" alt="sami-k" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-62748" /></a>This post was contributed by guest author <a href="https://foxland.fi/" target="_blank">Sami Keijonen</a>. Sami is a math teacher who enjoys learning about the web, accessibility, and WordPress. He juggles between freelancing, building themes at Foxland, and teaching.<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<hr />
<p>Several theme authors have been <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-theme-authors-experiment-with-new-pricing-on-themeforest">experimenting with new pricing on ThemeForest</a>. But <a href="https://pixelgrade.com/">PixelGrade</a> took it to the next level by raising the price of its <a href="https://themeforest.net/item/pile-an-uncoventional-wordpress-portfolio-theme/8989183">Pile theme</a> from $59 to $225.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pile.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pile.jpg?resize=1025%2C505&ssl=1" alt="pile" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62846" /></a></p>
<p>That’s a bold move, but I expect nothing less from them. They want to think outside of the box and push the boundaries. Based on the theme shop&#8217;s wild yet functional <a href="https://pixelgrade.com/">designs</a> and the anti-corporate thoughts expressed in the co-founder&#8217;s <a href="https://medium.com/@vladpotter/our-saga-of-not-giving-a-fuck-about-market-sense-108f7d0749a7#.shqg2u48o" target="_blank">Our Saga</a> article, I have to say that I like PixelGrade&#8217;s approach.</p>
<p>Vlad Olaru, co-founder of PixelGrade, was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about the Pile theme price increase.</p>
<h4>Why did you raise Pile&#8217;s price by 281%?</h4>
<p>The first obvious answer is that now we can set our own prices on ThemeForest due to Envato extending the Author Driven Pricing to the WordPress category. We’ve been preparing for this for a long time.</p>
<p>But just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should, right? We have been thinking about our business strategy for quite some time now &#8211; and not in a shallow way.</p>
<p>We’ve gone through a painful process of rediscovering our core values and purpose, what kind of experience we wish to offer to our customers, and what kind of customers we want to attract and keep aboard.</p>
<p>A direct consequence of this whole process is rethinking our pricing based on our firm belief that not all products are created equal. We haven’t thought in terms of percentages (it’s the first time the 281% comes to mind &#8211; thank you for doing the math), but in terms of our overall effort and value delivered to the customer.</p>
<h4>Why $225 and not $150, for example? Did you do some research before making the decision?</h4>
<p>Yes we did, and it was very thorough. We did not base it on market fit, market tolerance, or anything like this. On the contrary, it was an internal research focused on the the two pillars mentioned earlier: how much do we work for something (effort invested) and how much does it help our customers (real value).</p>
<p>First, we needed some numerical relation between the various types of themes we produce, in terms of complexity. We’ve divided each theme’s design into components and identified the overlaps, meaning work that is built upon to deliver higher level functionality (i.e a style guide is used to create a blog section).</p>
<p>So, with a clearer picture of the overlaps and the actual effort needed for each stage, we’ve analyzed how much value a customer gets from these specific components.</p>
<p>This helps us to fairly and wisely distribute our efforts, while at the same time identifying where we can decrease or increase the price. With higher delivered value comes a greater acceptance for higher prices.</p>
<p>In the end, we’ve come up with a set of price multipliers starting from our lowest offering, the blogging theme. By the way, we don’t intend on selling the core design separately. With this clear relation between the three categories, we’ve ran simulations to see where is the point where we can generate a healthy monthly income and get a manageable number of customers.</p>
<p>“Manageable” is a very key concept in this whole scheme because it relates directly to the experience we wish to craft for each customer through our Customer Happiness department.</p>
<p>We feel personally involved in the success of our customers&#8217; online endeavors. You can’t really do that when you focus on volume. A close and personal relationship needs a thoughtful balancing act for it to flourish.</p>
<p>So there you have it &#8211; the “magic” revealed.</p>
<h4>What kind of customers are you looking for with this price change?</h4>
<p>As I’ve said before, we are currently focusing on three main personas:</p>
<ul>
<li>Hobby-driven people (storytellers, journalists, travelers, life/fashion/design bloggers)</li>
<li>Creative Entrepreneurs (photographers, visual artists, designers, architects)</li>
<li>Small Local Businesses (restaurants, coffee/tea shops, boutiques, small studios)</li>
</ul>
<p>I don’t think all the people that fit these categories can digest the prices above, at least not in the current state of the market. On the other hand, we are not delusional. But I highly believe we can make a pretty good case to enough of them about the added value they get when trusting us.</p>
<p>Of course, it will be an uphill struggle with the habits and assumptions ingrained by the years of “bazaar marketplace.” Our bet is that we are doing things right and the right thing, at the same time.</p>
<h4>So if a $59 customer won&#8217;t buy a $225 theme, what is PixelGrade going to do to attract $225 customers to the platform and specifically, the item.</h4>
<p>First of all, you need to see this whole (not so new) pricing structure in a more global approach. We are currently selling our themes through our own shop, on WordPress.com, and ThemeForest.</p>
<p>For about two years now, all of our shop and WordPress.com themes have been priced at $125. They are all blogging themes. We are pretty happy with how things worked out. So we don’t know if ThemeForest is the place where people would be willing to value our themes at these prices. We are hopeful and we will definitely give our best, but it is still too early to tell.</p>
<p>We are going to focus most of our marketing efforts on attracting the right kind of customers to our own shop because we are in full control of the whole experience. On ThemeForest and WordPress.com we can’t do the same due to how a marketplace at this scale functions. Hopefully, Envato will do its part (as it has been in recent times &#8211; kind of slowly for our liking, but still) and the right type of potential customers will get to judge our offering.</p>
<h4>Are you experimenting with your top-selling themes or just doing a trial with one of the themes in the collection?</h4>
<p>Once again, I think times are changing on ThemeForest and we are taking it one step at a time. The ideal future would be one where all of our themes, regardless of distribution channel, would be priced the same.</p>
<p>We are definitely keeping an eye on the opportunity to take the next step, but it is still too early to give a time frame.</p>
<h4>How do you bring the rest of the marketplace into 2016 pricing without being accused of price collusion?</h4>
<p>Price collusion? I had to google that.</p>
<p>We have no plan to make any sort of agreement with anybody. We will do what we feel is right and aligned to our core values, talk about it, and, hopefully, others will follow suit.</p>
<p>Now that I have read that definition, I realize that you might be referring to the concern (expressed by some pre-sale comments on ThemeForest) that we might be driven by greed here. Far from it. If that was the story, we would have lowered our prices and driven out the competition (as I suspect some will do). Like they say, with great liberty comes great responsibility.</p>
<p>We will shape our message on value-pricing and do our best to live up to these self-imposed standards. The customers will be the most accurate judge of our stance on this.</p>
<hr />
<h4>Are you ready for higher prices?</h4>
<p>Thanks again, Vlad, for answering the questions. It will be interesting to see how it goes.</p>
<p>I don’t have a strong opinion about the company increasing prices to that degree. I can see myself selling themes for $125, but I hope $225 works well for PixelGrade.</p>
<p>As a customer, would you buy a theme for $225 and what would make it worth it?</p>
<p>Any other theme shops have plans for increasing prices?</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 19 Oct 2016 03:11:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"WPTavern: WP REST API Content Endpoints Conditionally Approved for Merge in 4.7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=61815";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"https://wptavern.com/wp-rest-api-content-endpoints-conditionally-approved-for-merge-in-4-7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3694:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wp-rest-api.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wp-rest-api.jpg?resize=1025%2C469&ssl=1" alt="wp-rest-api" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-43000" /></a></p>
<p>The WP REST API team and WordPress core contributors met tonight to decide whether to merge the content endpoints in 4.7. After the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/08/rest-api-merge-proposal-part-2-content-api/" target="_blank">merge proposal</a> was published a week ago, several core developers expressed concern regarding the brokered authentication scheme and the team has since decided to remove it from the proposal in favor of focusing on it for the 4.8 development cycle.</p>
<p>Discussion at the meeting tonight centered around six topics: security, performance, user feedback, if merging will negatively impact API development, whether content endpoints will benefit core development, and whether those endpoints belong on every WordPress site. The team also discussed possible ways to measure the success of the project once it has been merged into core.</p>
<p>Contributors agreed on a conditional approval for merging the endpoints, provided that the team address outstanding questions on object meta and that others outside of the REST API team provide a proof of concept for how WordPress core can use the endpoints. These conditions must be met before the enhancement deadline next Wednesday.</p>
<p>&#8220;Making something work in core does not mean committing it to trunk,&#8221; WordPress 4.7 release lead Helen Hou-Sandí said. &#8220;This is also a call to the greater dev community &#8211; there is a chance to do something that doesn’t necessarily carry the weight of being shipped in core that can serve as proof that you want something. A developer’s vote.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hou-Sandí said that requiring the proofs to be created by developers outside of the REST API team will demonstrate &#8220;how other people experience the development process.&#8221; It also frees up the project&#8217;s team to focus on other pre-merge tasks.</p>
<p>Multiple proofs of concept are encouraged and some of the features being considered include Press This, Quick Draft, infinite scroll on admin list tables, and anything else anyone wants to try. Adam Silverstein volunteered to take a crack at Press This and by the conclusion of the meeting said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got Press This creating new posts already actually, that was pretty straightforward to switch over.&#8221; He plans to include his work in a new ticket on trac.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have no blocking objection but I am pretty wary and want to make sure that conditions for keeping in 4.7 are hammered out in the next 24 hours and conditions for beyond worked on before beta,&#8221; Hou-Sandí said. Matt Mullenweg, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the project&#8217;s readiness so far, agreed with her statement but also said he isn&#8217;t yet satisfied with how the team plans to measure the success of the project.</p>
<p>&#8220;I also feel like the measure of success is still woefully undefined, and there&#8217;s still a lot of fuzziness in the core arguments of &#8216;if this is in [core] people will use it more,'&#8221; Mullenweg said.</p>
<p>Contributors seem very motivated in the final stretch and are working towards producing the necessary proofs of concept prior to the enhancements deadline. If any of the proofs are solid enough to be merged, the WP REST API content endpoints will ship in WordPress 4.7 alongside a core feature that is using the API.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 18 Oct 2016 04:31:44 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"WPTavern: Headway 3.8.9 Patches Potential XSS Vulnerability";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62793";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://wptavern.com/headway-3-8-9-patches-potential-xss-vulnerability";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5000:"<p>If you noticed an update for Headway, it&#8217;s not your mind playing tricks. Late last week, Headway Themes released version 3.8.9 to patch a potential security vulnerability involving the license key field. The vulnerability was discovered and reported to <a href="https://sucuri.net/">Sucuri </a>by Gary Bairéad, a former Headway Themes employee.</p>
<p>At the time of writing, the company has not publicly announced the <a href="https://headwaythemes.com/downloads/headway/?changelog=1">availability of 3.8.9</a> to customers. The update comes more than a month since founders Grant and Clay Griffiths <a href="https://wptavern.com/headway-themes-confirms-financial-difficulties-issues-apology-to-customers">issued an apology</a> for the lack of customer support and communication.</p>
<h2>Lack of Communication and Support Continues</h2>
<p>Since the apology was published, the <a href="http://headwaythemes.com/blog/">company&#8217;s blog</a> and social media accounts have remained silent. Bairéad continues to use his site to update the public on the status of Headway Themes. In his most <a href="https://headwayupdate.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/still-no-support/">recent post</a>, Bairéad published a number of screenshots that show the company is still not providing the level of support <a href="http://headwaythemes.com/policies/support-policy/">advertised on its site</a>.</p>
<h2>One Month Progress Report</h2>
<p>I reached out to Grant and Clay Griffiths to find out what progress they&#8217;ve made on providing &#8220;a first level of support service&#8221; as mentioned in the apology, what steps they&#8217;ve taken to rebuild the business, and if they have any comments on Bairéad&#8217;s article.</p>
<p>&#8220;Support is being provided and updates have been and will continue to be pushed,&#8221; Grant said. &#8220;We are also in contact with Influx to further improve our support,&#8221; Clay said.</p>
<p><a href="https://influx.com/">Influx</a> provides customer support for companies, including those in the WordPress ecosystem such as <a href="https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/">Advanced Custom Fields</a>. Influx has elastic pricing allowing companies to pay for the amount of support they need. Prices start at $199 per month and increase as the number of responses increases.</p>
<p>While the Griffiths did not recognize unpaid staff in their apology, former employees have since received partial payments of the money they are owed.</p>
<h2>Community Is Optimistic About Headway Fork</h2>
<p>While the future of Headway Themes and its product remain in limbo, many in the community are optimistically supporting a fork called <a href="http://bloxthemebuilder.com/">Blox Builder</a>. Blox is a <a href="http://bloxthemebuilder.com/start-downloading-beta-blox-theme-v1-0-0/">fork of Headway 3.8.8</a> created by Maarten Schraven that is 100% GPL licensed.</p>
<h2>Headway is Not 100% GPL</h2>
<p>According to <a href="http://headwaythemes.com/legal/terms-service/">Headway Theme&#8217;s terms of service</a>, &#8220;All WordPress themes produced by Headway Themes, LLC are released under the GPL version 2.0 license.&#8221;</p>
<p>A key difference between Blox and Headway is that Blox doesn&#8217;t use <a href="https://imperavi.com/redactor/">Redactor.js</a>, a WYSISWYG editor. The script is $199 and its <a href="https://imperavi.com/redactor/license/">license agreement</a> makes it incompatible with the GPL.</p>
<p>Upfront, a product created by WPMU Dev <a href="https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/introducing-upfront/?utm_expid=3606929-87.FQUx5sKvRhKbhK_8_C59WQ.0">launched with Redactor.js</a>. In the launch post, James Farmer, founder and CEO of WPMU Dev, confirmed that everything in Upfront is GPL except for Redactor, &#8220;Everything in Upfront is currently 100% GPL, with that exception, as they won’t let us… we’ve asked,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>At best, Headway is split-licensed but there is no verbiage on the site that informs customers. Considering Clay is a co-owner of a WordPress business that sells a product that is not 100% GPL, should he be <a href="https://wptavern.com/former-headway-themes-employee-goes-public-staff-has-not-been-paid-and-customers-are-not-receiving-support#comment-196834">able to</a> sponsor WordCamps <a href="https://2016.la.wordcamp.org/sponsors/">advertising Pressmatic</a>? According to the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/first-steps/helpful-documents-and-templates/100-gpl-vetting-checklist/">WordCamp organizer handbook</a>, no.</p>
<p>If users and customers want to support a 100% GPL product that&#8217;s actively developed, check out the <a href="http://bloxthemebuilder.com/">community-driven fork</a>. Blox recently <a href="http://bloxthemebuilder.com/pricing/">came to a consensus</a> on pricing and are offering a 40% discount with three months of extra support and updates for former Headway customers.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 18 Oct 2016 03:40:10 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: StudioPress Puts WooCommerce Compatibility on the Roadmap for New Themes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62755";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"https://wptavern.com/studiopress-puts-woocommerce-compatibility-on-the-roadmap-for-new-themes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6270:"<p>In Rainmaker.fm&#8217;s recent <a href="http://rainmaker.fm/audio/studiopress/matt-mullenweg/" target="_blank">interview with Matt Mullenweg</a>, StudioPress founder Brian Gardner confirmed that the company has put WooCommerce compatibility on the roadmap for its themes, starting with new products first. The &#8220;unofficial announcement&#8221; was not a secret, as Gardner has been hinting at it on social media and also <a href="https://dribbble.com/shots/2977620-WooCommerce-Shop-Page" target="_blank">posted a sneak peak on Dribbble</a> of StudioPress&#8217; upcoming WooCommerce theme.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/studiopress-woocommerce.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/studiopress-woocommerce.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1" alt="studiopress-woocommerce" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62780" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;We are focusing our themes and I&#8217;m literally designing one as we speak that will be WooCommerce compatible,&#8221; Gardner said. &#8220;The writing is on the wall. We&#8217;re now at a point where we can focus and dedicate some of our time. My hope is that we can take all our existing themes on StudioPress and work in the WooCommerce component &#8211; at the very least &#8211; to make WooCommerce out of the box look good.&#8221;</p>
<p>StudioPress, one of the oldest shops in the WordPress themes marketplace, has <a href="http://my.studiopress.com/themes/" target="_blank">58 themes in its collection</a>, including 18 themes developed by third parties. Getting the entire collection compatible with WooCommerce will take some time. Gardner said the company&#8217;s initial focus will be ensuring compatibility for all new products.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our emphasis then will be on continuing to just design and develop themes for the Genesis framework and all that,&#8221; Gardner said. &#8220;But as a side note, all of our themes will be styled at a basic level for anyone who wants to use a theme and start selling stuff. So WooCommerce and e-commerce for us is definitely on the radar and the roadmap.&#8221;</p>
<p>StudioPress plans to release its first WooCommerce theme in the next couple weeks.</p>
<h3>Embracing the Competition: Mullenweg Shares Long-Term Vision for WooCommerce</h3>
<p>Matt Mullenweg, the featured guest on the podcast where Gardner confirmed StudioPress&#8217; plans to add WooCommerce compatibility to the roadmap, seemed pleasantly surprised to hear the news. As CEO of Automattic, Mullenweg would arguably be StudioPress&#8217; chief competitor for WooCommerce theme products, but he shared an interesting approach to competition within the WordPress ecosystem.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can compete and cooperate at the same time, especially if you think long term,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;I just think of it as what is the best long-term thing for WordPress as a whole?&#8221;</p>
<p>Since acquiring WooCommerce, Mullenweg said Automattic has increased the size of the Woo team by over 40% and the developers on the core software have gone up by 5x.</p>
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot more people working on the software and we&#8217;re looking at it from a very long term view,&#8221; he said. Mullenweg elaborated on his vision for making WooCommerce &#8220;a commerce engine for the next decade:&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>E-commerce for WordPress needs to be a platform, meaning that the core software that drives the commerce engine needs to be available as widely as possible and really robust. It needs to be something that scales from a small store selling just a handful of t-shirts to really huge stores with 60 &#8211; 70,000 SKUs doing tens of mullions or hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. We wanted that to be something that lots of other businesses could be built on. Woo was the best fit that we identified at the time.</p></blockquote>
<p>Mullenweg, who has in the past identified external threats to WordPress as far bigger than any intra-WordPress open source threats, encourages WordPress businesses to work together. Mullenweg noted that Wix is spending 160 million dollars this year in advertising to drive people signing up.</p>
<p>&#8220;These are things we have to keep in mind and also do some coordination across the community,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If we all kind of run our own directions and just try to localize and maximize our own profits and everything, we&#8217;ll be out-gunned by these other companies. Because the truth is that Wix&#8217;s $300M in revenue is bigger than any company I&#8217;m aware of in the WordPress space individually, but it&#8217;s much smaller than we are collectively. So then the question becomes: How can we work together? How can we team up? And how do we get the right philosophies and the right ways of doing business and best practices so that as we do our own things in our own places, we&#8217;re heading the same direction in a way that no company could ever compete with &#8211; just like the Encyclopedia Britannica could never compete with Wikipedia.&#8221;</p>
<p>During his WordSesh session this year, Mullenweg said he has been entertaining the idea of organizing a WordPress Growth Council for those who are &#8220;invested in WordPress&#8217; growth and whose business models are predicated on the growing pie of WordPress.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;We can grow the pie far faster than we can take a share from people in the same pie,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;There&#8217;s a much bigger opportunity.&#8221; Embracing WooCommerce themes competition from companies like StudioPress, while increasing opportunities for all companies who want to compete, is one example of this idea in action. Gardner said Automattic&#8217;s greater vision for WooCommerce, following its acquisition, was one of the major factors in his decision to add WooCommerce compatibility to the StudioPress roadmap.</p>
<p>Mullenweg has not yet published any official plans for the possibility of a growth council, but his response to intra-WooCommerce competition seems to set a precedent for cooperation within the community with an increased focus on competing together against external threats to WordPress.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 17 Oct 2016 20:41:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"WPTavern: Behind the Scenes of WordPress.com Themes with David Kennedy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62746";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"https://wptavern.com/behind-the-scenes-of-wordpress-com-themes-with-david-kennedy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11383:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/sami-k.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/sami-k.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" alt="sami-k" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-62748" /></a>This post was contributed by guest author <a href="https://foxland.fi/" target="_blank">Sami Keijonen</a>. Sami is a math teacher who enjoys learning about the web, accessibility, and WordPress. He juggles between freelancing, building themes at Foxland, and teaching.<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<hr />
<p>I’ve been doing several <a href="https://foxland.fi/tag/wordpress-theme-shops/">WordPress Theme Shop interviews</a> lately. The original reason for the interviews was that people kept asking me where to find well-designed WordPress themes. (Yes, I know the irony because I also create solid themes.)</p>
<p>The interviews have been valuable for helping users find themes they like, analyzing different business models for selling themes, and exploring the history, present, and future of WordPress themes.</p>
<p>This time I’m thrilled to publish an interview with <a href="https://davidakennedy.com/">David A. Kennedy</a> from <a href="https://automattic.com/">Automattic</a>. I see him as respected Theminator (we’ll get to this title later on) who cares about accessibility.</p>
<p>We talked about themes on WordPress.com, Twenty Seventeen, theme user experience, and other theme-related topics.</p>
<h3>David A. Kennedy Introduction</h3>
<p><strong><em>Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Automattic.</em></strong></p>
<p>I’m David A. Kennedy and my official title at Automattic is Theminator. That really means I do a bit of everything with themes. My primary role is to watch over premium themes on WordPress.com, making sure shops have whatever they need to be successful.</p>
<p>I also launch free and premium themes and contribute to Components and other internal theme projects.</p>
<p>In my free time, I play a lot of video games.</p>
<p>Coming up, I&#8217;ll be helping lead the release of Twenty Seventeen, the next default theme for WordPress.</p>
<h3>Twenty Seventeen</h3>
<p><strong><em>What makes you excited about Twenty Seventeen?</em></strong></p>
<p>Everything! It&#8217;s an honor to help lead the release of a default theme and have the opportunity to make something amazing with the WordPress community.</p>
<p>The task I most look forward to is finding the balance between pushing the boundaries of what should be done in a default theme versus fostering best practices for everyone who opens it up to learn from.</p>
<p><strong><em>What are the biggest pain points you see when developing Twenty Seventeen?</em></strong></p>
<p>Making the homepage setup as simple and effortless as possible for people. This isn&#8217;t just a pain point for Twenty Seventeen but also for the vast majority of themes out there.</p>
<p>Front Page should be done in a way that makes the most sense for users. I hope to validate that through user testing and plenty of iteration.</p>
<p>Core developers, themers and the community all have the responsibility to improve it. There&#8217;s never been a better time to get involved and help solve a big challenge for WordPress.</p>
<h3>What We Look For in Themes</h3>
<p><strong><em>You just published an article <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2016/09/01/what-we-look-for-in-themes/">what you look for in themes for WP.com</a>. Can you summarize what kind of themes WP.com users are looking for? Is there a pattern for themes that are the most popular?</em></strong></p>
<p>We&#8217;re looking for the best of the best. That&#8217;s a tough mark to hit for anyone, even for us when we&#8217;re designing our own themes. I recently <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2016/09/01/what-we-look-for-in-themes/">published a post on our blog, ThemeShaper</a>, about some of the timeless things we look for in a theme.</p>
<p>Beyond that, our users always want themes that just work. That means themes that keep options to a minimum and require little setup to look fantastic.</p>
<h3>Theme User Experience</h3>
<p><strong><em>Can you offer some insight on what &#8220;theme user experience&#8221; (TUX) means?</em></strong></p>
<p>I wrote <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2016/08/30/theme-user-experience-requirements/">a post about this recently on ThemeShaper</a>.</p>
<p>User experience is the overall experience of a person using a product. Similarly, the TUX list is a set of best practices that will help a theme&#8217;s experience be as easy as possible for people.</p>
<p>We still have a long way to go toward substantially improving people’s WordPress theme experience, but it&#8217;s a start, and we encourage everyone to use the TUX list today.</p>
<h3>Accessibility in WordPress.com</h3>
<p><strong><em>How do you ensure that all new themes are as accessible as possible on WP.com?</em></strong></p>
<p>We pay a lot of attention to keyboard accessibility since it&#8217;s the foundation of good accessibility and has a ripple effect that touches many areas. It&#8217;s on our development checklist and it&#8217;s something we test for in every theme that launches on WordPress.com.</p>
<p>We also actively look for ways to improve accessibility in our starter-theme projects, like Underscores and Components. Anything that goes in there makes it to all the themes we launch.</p>
<p><strong><em>Have you considered requiring all new themes to be accessibility-ready?</em></strong></p>
<p>I see more possibility for an impact in every theme we release when we focus on some of the more foundational aspects of making a theme accessibility-ready. In that way, we get many more accessible themes, faster.</p>
<p>A lot of accessibility is having quality code, and that&#8217;s what we can ensure more easily right now. Whether a theme goes all the way to meet the accessibility-ready requirements is really the decision of the theme author.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ve released a handful of accessibility-ready themes recently, as have many of our theme shops on WordPress.com.</p>
<h3>Showcase Your Coolest Themes</h3>
<p><strong><em>Showcase two of your or Automattic themes that you are most proud of. Why are they cool themes?</em></strong></p>
<p>Picking two themes is tough, but here it goes!</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sela.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sela.jpg?resize=1025%2C615&ssl=1" alt="sela" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62767" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/sela/">Sela</a>: Users of both WordPress.com and WordPress.org love Sela and use it for all kinds of sites, from life-coaching consultants to municipal portals. We think it&#8217;s pretty awesome for its versatility.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pique.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pique.jpg?resize=1025%2C504&ssl=1" alt="pique" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62768" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/pique/">Pique</a>: Pique has a modern feel from a design standpoint, plus it really changed the way we thought about setting up a home page in a WordPress theme. Its panel-driven layout helped inspire some of our other themes and a lot of experimentation.</p>
<h3>Workflow</h3>
<p><strong><em>Is there any specific workflow for how Automattic themes are built and which tools you use? Do you have designers who create layouts in Sketch or Photoshop and developers who continue with the code, etc.?</em></strong></p>
<p>To start the code of our new themes, we use <a href="http://components.underscores.me/">Components</a>, a new starter-theme generator we built. The design tools depend on the theme wrangler working on the theme. Some like Sketch, some like Photoshop. Some design in the browser.</p>
<p>The only thing that really matters is whether the process works for the wrangler doing the work.</p>
<h3>Wearing Many Hats</h3>
<p><strong><em>WP.com theme wranglers can wear many hats. They can be theme reviewers, designers, developers, and more. Which hats do you wear, which is your favorite, and why?</em></strong></p>
<p>The best thing about my job is wearing those different hats. I do all those things but am definitely more comfortable as a developer rather than a designer.</p>
<p>My two favorite hats are the developer one and the teacher one. I like creating things, but quite honestly, I like it even more when I get to teach people what I know. More often than not, whomever I&#8217;m teaching teaches me more. That happens often through theme reviews, so the combination of building themes and reviewing them is a fun one for me.</p>
<h3>Is WordPress.com Open for New Theme Shops?</h3>
<p><strong><em>How can new theme authors submit their commercial themes to WP.com? It used to be open submission but as far as I know it’s now closed. Any plans to change that?</em></strong></p>
<p>We hope to open the form up some time in the future, but don&#8217;t have a concrete date. We do invite new shops to WordPress.com when we find themes we love.</p>
<p>Whether our marketplace is officially accepting new theme shops or not, we’re always looking for amazing, new themes. Make one, put it out there, and we’ll probably find it.</p>
<h3>Automattic Business Strategy on Themes</h3>
<p><strong><em>How do you market themes on WP.com and what is Automattic&#8217;s business strategy on themes? Do you focus more on free themes than commercial ones?</em></strong></p>
<p>We don&#8217;t do any special marketing on WordPress.com for themes. Lately, we&#8217;ve focused on creating more free themes because our theme shops provide plenty of awesome premium themes. Our focus this year has been finding ways to make all themes on WordPress.com as easy to use as possible.</p>
<h3>Future of Themes</h3>
<p><strong><em>Do you see themes going in a certain direction in the future? How do you feel about Javascript-based themes for example?</em></strong></p>
<p>We&#8217;re big fans of the REST API, JavaScript, and its future in WordPress theming.  We&#8217;ve <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2015/11/23/javascript-theme-tutorial/">explored a bit here.</a></p>
<p>We see a future where themes become more focused on specific use cases, are as lean possible and just work upon activation. We&#8217;ve aimed to instill many of these principles in Components.</p>
<p>In order for theming to advance for both themers and users, more themers need to get involved in Core. So much help is needed and a lot of it doesn&#8217;t involve writing code.</p>
<h3>Open Floor</h3>
<p><strong><em>Any tips and tricks you’d like to share?</em></strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve subscribed to a few more newsletters lately that have helped with general inspiration and ideas, especially outside of the WordPress community.</p>
<p>My two favorite are <a href="http://sidebar.io/">Sidebar</a> and <a href="http://css-weekly.com/">CSS Weekly</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>Thanks, David, for answering the questions. I’d like to add <a href="http://a11yweekly.com/">Accessibility Weekly</a> newsletter by David himself.</p>
<p>If you have more questions I’m sure David is more than happy to answer them in the comments.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 17 Oct 2016 05:26:51 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"WPTavern: WangGuard Plugin Launches Indiegogo Campaign to Fund Development and Support";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62706";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"https://wptavern.com/wangguard-plugin-launches-indiegogo-campaign-to-fund-development-and-support";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5970:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wangguard.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wangguard.png?resize=1025%2C536&ssl=1" alt="wangguard" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62711" /></a></p>
<p>This week José Conti, creator of <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wangguard/" target="_blank">WangGuard</a>, announced that he would be shutting down the service and further development. The plugin, which Conti says has nearly 20,000 users, is one of the few effective solutions for combatting WordPress, multisite, BuddyPress, and bbPress spammers and sploggers. Conti was struggling to pay for the servers and, after six years of supporting the plugin, had only received six donations from the community.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">After 6 years of work and only 6 donations,I don’t see that people appreciate WangGuard, so I’m Shutting Down WGG.Thanks for your confidence</p>
<p>&mdash; WangGuard (@wangguard) <a href="https://twitter.com/wangguard/status/785185033359360002">October 9, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>After receiving encouragement from fans and users, as well as a generous donation of servers from a hosting company, Conti <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wangguard-service-plugin-development-and-support-service#/" target="_blank">launched an Indiegogo campaign</a> to fund future support and development of the service. The goal is set at $35,000, out of which Conti will need to pay the Indiegogo commission, the Gateway commission, and taxes.</p>
<p>&#8220;The goal of this campaign is to cover the expenses of a full year of my work to improve WangGuard and to keep providing support for free to all users,&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;I’m not aiming to become a millionaire, just to be able to work and improve a service which has more than 20,000 active users per day with benefits for sites all around the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>I asked Conti if he has considered offering a commercial tier to cover the time he puts into supporting the plugin&#8217;s users, which he said averages 20 hours per week.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve thought about charging for WangGuard, but it&#8217;s something I wanted to do for the community,&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;And I was hoping that the community, seeing the benefits it gave them, would donate to me. But that has not been the case.&#8221;</p>
<p>Conti named WangGuard after a fierce warrior from Chinese mythology who served as a protector and guardian of the palace. (After launching the plugin he discovered the meaning in English but found that many people liked the name, so he decided not to change it.) The plugin and service blocked 710,000 sploggers its first year, 15 million the third year, and has blocked 220 million sploggers to date. Conti said its effectiveness has now reached 99%.</p>
<p>Conti wants to keep the plugin free for all users and plans to create a campaign every year to raise funds for WangGuard development and support.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have always believed that WangGuard is truly needed and everyone deserves to use it for free,&#8221; Conti said in his campaign overview. &#8220;But, on the other hand, I can’t afford to keep paying all expenses for the maintenance of the best (in my opinion) anti-splog service. I need help.&#8221;</p>
<p>So far the WangGuard campaign has received $1,145 towards its flexible goal of $35,000 and there are two months remaining until it closes.</p>
<p>Conti&#8217;s situation highlights the plight of many WordPress.org plugin developers who offer free products and receive meager donations for their efforts. Some of these plugins amass large user bases that depend on them but not all plugin authors are prepared to create a commercial operation to support their continued efforts.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/ffreaker">@ffreaker</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/pgibbs">@pgibbs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hnla">@hnla</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wangguard">@wangguard</a> search/replace is at least 1000 uses a day, maybe get something once or twice a year.</p>
<p>&mdash; David Coveney (@davecoveney) <a href="https://twitter.com/davecoveney/status/785769780733063168">October 11, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/pgibbs">@pgibbs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hnla">@hnla</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wangguard">@wangguard</a> nobody donates. They assume you are on a jet ski somewhere living off your internet dollars.</p>
<p>&mdash; Silicon Dales (@SiliconDales) <a href="https://twitter.com/SiliconDales/status/785814999507804160">October 11, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>&#8220;The problem is that people confuse free vs. &#8216;for free,'&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;We must make people aware that developers must pay for things and we have to make money. Maybe the WordPress repository needs another design that makes the importance of donations for developers more visible.</p>
<p>&#8220;People think that everything is free. It is, but there is an effort behind it that people should value. Maybe they are not appreciating it, because nobody told them clearly that it should have value.&#8221;</p>
<p>Although putting a price tag on a plugin is not necessarily an indicator of value, it allows users to demonstrate what they think it&#8217;s worth to them. Offering users a higher level of service for a price, also known as the freemium model, is the most common way plugin developers cover the costs of their time. However, not all developers who make free plugins want to run a business. Short of asking for donations or launching a fundraising campaign, is there anything a developer can do to cause people to value the time and effort put into supporting a free plugin?</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 14 Oct 2016 18:47:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: Lizz Ehrenpreis Wins Kinsta’s $1,500 Travel Scholarship";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62676";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"https://wptavern.com/lizz-ehrenpreis-wins-kinstas-1500-travel-scholarship";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2751:"<p>Last month, <a href="https://wptavern.com/kinsta-to-award-1500-travel-scholarship-for-wordcamp-us">Kinsta announced</a> it would give away one $1,500 travel scholarship to pay for an individual&#8217;s airfare, lodging, and admission ticket to <a href="https://2016.us.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp US</a>. The company has announced on Twitter that <a href="https://twitter.com/ecehren">Lizz Ehrenpreis</a>, who resides in Portland, Oregon is the winner.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congratulations to Lizz of Portland OR on winning the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WCUS?src=hash">#WCUS</a> scholarship! Enjoy the WordCamp. <a href="https://t.co/awKZEwZE55">https://t.co/awKZEwZE55</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ecehren">@ecehren</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WordCampUS">@WordCampUS</a> <a href="https://t.co/lPD1Q1UnFt">pic.twitter.com/lPD1Q1UnFt</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Kinsta® (@kinsta) <a href="https://twitter.com/kinsta/status/786596638127034368">October 13, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>I reached out to Ehrenpreis to learn what the scholarship means to her, how it impacts her life, and what she&#8217;s looking forward to at the event.</p>
<p><strong>What does winning this travel scholarship mean to you?</strong></p>
<p>It means so much! I have had the privilege of working with several WordPress companies as an agency employee and now as a freelancer, as a communications and marketing maven, but haven&#8217;t had a chance to attend many WordPress events.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve gone to two WordCamps, but that&#8217;s it! Being able to go to this huge event, learn more about WordPress, and connect with people I&#8217;ve only thus far interacted with through the magic of the internet and to see friends and colleagues is an enormous gift.</p>
<p><strong>In what ways does the scholarship change or impact your life?</strong></p>
<p>Well it certainly changes my December schedule in a good way! Aside from giving me the opportunity to meet new people and see the ones I adore, it&#8217;s also a huge learning and networking opportunity that I wouldn&#8217;t otherwise get&#8211;and its incredible timing considering I just went full-time freelance and launched out on my own.</p>
<p><strong>Would you have been able to attend the event without the scholarship?</strong></p>
<p>No, I wouldn&#8217;t have.</p>
<p><strong>Is this your first WordCamp US and what are you looking forward too most?</strong></p>
<p>It is my first WordCamp US! I lived vicariously through social media and post-event recaps last year, and it looked enormously fun. I can&#8217;t wait to see who is speaking this year, and I can&#8217;t wait to expand my WordPress knowledge.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 14 Oct 2016 17:49:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"Dev Blog: Join Us Again for Global WordPress Translation Day";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=4516";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"https://wordpress.org/news/2016/10/join-us-again-for-global-wordpress-translation-day/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4154:"<p>The WordPress Polyglots team is organizing the second <a href="https://wptranslationday.org/">Global WordPress Translation Day</a> on November 12th. Everyone is invited to join – from anywhere in the world!</p>
<p>Translating is one of the easiest ways to get involved with WordPress and contribute to the project. Global WordPress Translation Day is your chance to learn more about translating WordPress, meet people from all over the world, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams">translate WordPress into one of more than 160 languages</a>.</p>
<h3>Join us on November 12th from anywhere in the world</h3>
<p>The translation day starts on Saturday, November 12th, 2016, at 0:00 UTC and ends 24 hours later. <a href="http://arewemeetingyet.com/UTC/2016-11-12/00:00/Global%20WordPress%20Translation%20Day%202">See what time that is for you!</a> You can join right from the start, or any time it&#8217;s convenient for you throughout the day.</p>
<h3>What are we doing?</h3>
<p>Local contributor days are happening all over the world, and are a great way to get involved. <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=12Gni4JMfShyWHPqGNwh5-PMneMM&usp=sharing">Check out this map</a> to see if there&#8217;s already a local event happening near you. Can&#8217;t find one? <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2016/09/22/global-wordpress-translation-day-2-on-november-12th-2016/">Organize a local event!</a></p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://www.crowdcast.io/e/gwtd2/register">join the community for 24 hours of live-streamed, remote sessions</a> in numerous languages. Sessions will cover localization, internationalization, and contributing in your language.</p>
<h3>Who&#8217;s it for?</h3>
<p>Whether you&#8217;re new to translating and want to learn how to translate, or an experienced translation editor building a strong team, the translation day is for <i>you</i>. Developers will also enjoy topics from experienced contributors, whether you&#8217;re learning about internationalization and or want to find more translators for your themes and plugins. There&#8217;s a session for everyone!</p>
<h3>Get Involved</h3>
<p>Joining is easy! On November 12th, in your own timezone, <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org">translate WordPress</a> or your favorite plugins and themes into your language, while watching live sessions over the course of the day.</p>
<p>Want to get more involved? <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2016/09/22/global-wordpress-translation-day-2-on-november-12th-2016/">Sign up to organize a local event</a> and invite your local community to translate together on November 12th. Events can be formal or completely informal – grab your laptop and a couple of friends, and head to a local coffee shop to translate for an hour or two.</p>
<h3>Can you get involved if you only speak English?</h3>
<p>Absolutely! Even if you only speak English, there are great sessions about internationalization that can benefit every developer. There&#8217;s also lots of English variants that need your help! For example, English is spoken and written differently in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. You can learn about these differences and why these variants are important during the sessions.</p>
<p>And if you’re feeling fun, try translating WordPress into emoji! Yep, we have a translation of WordPress in emoji! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/72x72/1f30e.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/72x72/1f30d.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/72x72/1f30f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
<h3>Questions?</h3>
<p>If you have any questions, the polyglots team and the event organizers hang out in <a href="http://wordpress.slack.com/messages/polyglots/">#polyglots in Slack</a> and are happy to help! (Get an invite to Slack at <a href="https://chat.wordpress.org">chat.wordpress.org</a>.)</p>
<p>Sign up to take part in the event on the <a href="https://wptranslationday.org/">official website</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 14 Oct 2016 13:33:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Petya Raykovska";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: Bitbucket Pricing Hike Increases Cost Per User by 100%";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62686";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://wptavern.com/bitbucket-pricing-hike-increases-cost-per-user-by-100";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3780:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/bitbucket-logo.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/bitbucket-logo.png?resize=1025%2C381&ssl=1" alt="bitbucket-logo" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62699" /></a></p>
<p>After <a href="https://wptavern.com/github-introduces-unlimited-private-repositories-hikes-prices-for-organizations" target="_blank">GitHub hiked its prices</a> last May, many users who were negatively impacted by the changes took a second look at competitors like Bitbucket and GitLab. GitHub switched from per-repository to per-user pricing, requiring organizations to purchase a seat for each user at $9 per user/month. This was a drastic increase when compared to the legacy plans that started at $25/month for 10 repositories and unlimited members.</p>
<p>This week Bitbucket <a href="https://blog.bitbucket.org/2016/10/12/scaling-in-bitbucket-cloud-new-features-and-reliability-numbers/" target="_blank">announced</a> new features to help customers scale in the cloud, including Bitbucket Pipeline (build, test, and deploy from Bitbucket) and Git Large Files Storage (stores large files externally to keep Git repositories lightweight). Atlassian, the company behind Bitbucket, tacked a pricing change on at the end of the post under the heading &#8220;Pay only for what you need with per user pricing.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bitbucket will still offer unlimited private repositories, but it is changing user pricing from <a href="https://bitbucket.org/product/pricing?tab=host-in-the-cloud" target="_blank">a groups model</a> (i.e. 10 for $10, 25 for $25, etc) to <a href="https://bitbucket.org/product/pricing/upcoming?tab=host-in-the-cloud" target="_blank">a per-user model</a> based on the number of users with access to the private repository. The announcement puts an odd spin on the pricing change, masking the fact that nearly 100% of its customers will be paying more, and in many cases double what they did before:</p>
<blockquote><p>Most companies use SaaS so they can scale easily in the cloud and pay only for what they use. In our current model, unless you have exactly 10, 25, 50 or 100 users, you can end up paying for seats you don’t use. In the new pricing model (price-per-user) you only pay for the users who are actually part of your team. The Standard plan includes the Bitbucket you love at $2/user/month. The Premium plan at $5/user/month is for teams that require granular admin controls, security and auditing. Bitbucket Cloud will still be free for small teams of up to 5 users.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Customers replied that they expect pricing increases but don&#8217;t appreciate the company making it sound like they will be saving money.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/kevinzych">@kevinzych</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Bitbucket">@Bitbucket</a> I expect price increases at times. Compared to JIRA Bb was a steal. Just don't make it sound like we'll save money.</p>
<p>&mdash; Matt Sollars (@ventaur) <a href="https://twitter.com/ventaur/status/786257383156686848">October 12, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Although Bitbucket&#8217;s pricing change amounts to roughly a 100% increase for most customers, it is still significantly <a href="https://twitter.com/Pe_D/status/786313076027060224" target="_blank">more affordable than GitHub&#8217;s upcoming pricing structure</a>. Atlassian plans to put the <a href="https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/future-bitbucket-cloud-pricing-plans-856694492.html" target="_blank">new pricing</a> into effect in early 2017 and promises to give customers at least 30 days notice before rolling out the new model.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 14 Oct 2016 04:23:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"WPTavern: GoDaddy’s New Primer Theme Bypasses Theme Review Queue, Highlights Bottlenecks in Review Process";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62478";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:115:"https://wptavern.com/godaddys-new-primer-theme-bypasses-theme-review-queue-highlights-bottlenecks-in-review-process";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7090:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/red-pen.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/red-pen.jpg?resize=1024%2C500&ssl=1" alt="photo credit: pollas - cc" class="size-full wp-image-37241" /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pollas/526544001/">pollas</a> &#8211; <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>
<p>As part of its <a href="https://wptavern.com/godaddy-launches-new-onboarding-experience-for-wordpress-customers" target="_blank">new onboarding experience for WordPress customers</a>, GoDaddy has created a group of 10 themes to streamline the process of creating a business website. In order to host updates more effectively, the company is submitting the themes to WordPress.org and the first one is now live after less than 24 hours in the theme review queue.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/primer/" target="_blank">Primer</a> is the parent theme for nine upcoming child themes, which will be submitted to WordPress.org one at a time. Its controversial fast-tracking through the queue angered and frustrated WordPress theme authors who currently have theme submissions that have been waiting months for a review.</p>
<p>Samuel Wood, who works on WordPress.org but is not part of the Theme Review Team, explained in the <a href="https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37025#comment:7" target="_blank">ticket</a> why he processed the theme outside of the queue.</p>
<p>&#8220;The special case here is that they needed to reuse an old name for assorted practical reasons, and it had to be live to allow the already created child themes to be added to the directory,&#8221; Wood said. He had to manually make the theme name available or GoDaddy would not have been able to submit it under this name. Wood had the theme reviewed first and the required changes took three weeks to finalize. After it was finished he was able to transfer it to use the Primer name.</p>
<p>&#8220;Timing was important because they made this one theme as a base for a dozen or so child themes, and are deploying this to all their WordPress installs, which is quite a lot,&#8221; Wood said. &#8220;We&#8217;d rather have them updating properly from our servers instead of having them create some wacky solution that updates it from theirs or from GitHub.&#8221;</p>
<p>The necessity for administrative intervention in this case, and the resulting frustration of other theme authors who have been waiting, once again highlights how painfully slow the theme review process can be. The long wait times discourage some authors from submitting themes to the official directory.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have three free themes on wp.org and one of the most demotivating things, while waiting to be approved, was the wait times,&#8221; WordPress.org theme author Tomas Petrašiūnas <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/permalink/1272580572804154/?comment_id=1272587419470136&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D" target="_blank">commented</a> on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/permalink/1272580572804154/" target="_blank">related post</a> on the Advanced WordPress Facebook group. &#8220;Building a theme in a week and then waiting for a few months to even start the review process &#8211; that&#8217;s the exact reason why I&#8217;ve never bothered to get more themes approved on wp.org.&#8221;</p>
<p>Chris Bavota, author of the popular <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/arcade-basic/" target="_blank">Arcade theme</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/permalink/1272580572804154/?comment_id=1272739546121590&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R4%22%7D" target="_blank">said</a> he &#8220;submitted three themes in February and [is] still waiting on approvals and reviews.&#8221;</p>
<p>The WordPress.org theme and plugin directories have historically been protected from commercial interests receiving any special treatment, but exceptions like this one made it difficult for other waiting theme authors not to see <a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/global-community-sponsors/" target="_blank">GoDaddy&#8217;s major sponsorship of WordCamps</a> as the reason for getting a theme fast-tracked.</p>
<p>&#8220;As someone who has been waiting months for a simple child theme review and who has been a WordCamp sponsor, this sucks big time,&#8221; Stiofan O&#8217;Connor <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/permalink/1272580572804154/?comment_id=1272626316132913&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D" target="_blank">commented</a>.</p>
<h3>Incomplete Theme Submissions are Slowing the Review Queue</h3>
<p>Samuel Wood <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/themereview/p1476211288005598" target="_blank">identified the Primer theme situation as a special case</a> and encouraged theme authors and reviewers who were frustrated to explore new ways of managing the queue. At this time there are <a href="https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/report/2" target="_blank">more than 600 themes in the queue</a>, an improvement from the 900+ that were waiting a month ago.</p>
<p>Key reviewer Emil Uzelac said one of the main issues that slows the process is <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2016/09/29/incomplete-theme-submissions/" target="_blank">incomplete theme submissions</a>, which includes themes that present with more than five errors. Sometimes themes languish in the queue and by the time they are reviewed they haven&#8217;t been updated to meet newer requirements. Others include common mistakes like missing translation functions or prefixes, or including custom versions of scripts that are already included with WordPress.</p>
<p>To mitigate this Uzelac said the team has implemented some new policies which he says have helped reduce the queue over the past month.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are actually limiting submissions to one theme per author now, and if the theme has five or more distinct issues, we close it as not-approved,&#8221; Uzelac said. &#8220;It has been working very well. Once we are around 100-150 this will go much faster.&#8221; He estimates it will take a few months to get there.</p>
<p>The Theme Review Team is also working on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2016/09/29/why-are-we-working-to-improve-the-automation-of-the-theme-review/" target="_blank">improving automation for routine tasks</a>. Due to the architectural shortcomings of the Theme Check plugin, the team is looking to PHP_CodeSniffer to create a better solution. They are working to add a new <a href="https://github.com/WPTRT/WordPress-Coding-Standards" target="_blank">WordPress-Theme</a> coding standard to the existing <a href="https://github.com/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards" target="_blank">WordPress Coding Standards</a> project, and contributors are building <a href="https://github.com/WPTRT/WordPress-Coding-Standards/issues" target="_blank">a list of sniffs</a> that pertain to theme review requirements.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 13 Oct 2016 22:00:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"WPTavern: WPCampus Online Scheduled For January 23rd, 2017";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62638";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://wptavern.com/wpcampus-online-scheduled-for-january-23rd-2017";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2424:"<p>Earlier this year, a number of people gathered in Sarasota, FL, to <a href="https://2016.wpcampus.org/">attend WPCampus</a>, the first conference devoted to WordPress in higher education. As the organizers continue to <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpcampus-is-accepting-applications-to-host-the-event-in-2017">accept applications</a> to host the event in 2017, the team is also organizing a virtual conference called <a href="https://wpcampus.org/online/">WPCampus Online</a>. WPCampus Online is an all-day event planned for Monday, January 23rd, 2017.</p>
<p>Organizers are <a href="https://wpcampus.org/online/call-for-speakers/">accepting speaker applications</a> until Friday, November 18th at Midnight. The event will have multiple tracks and opportunities to network with each other. Rachel Carden, lead organizer, says they&#8217;re looking for a variety of session topics with a focus on &#8216;Why WordPress in Higher Education?&#8217;</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a highly valuable topic to our community that can range anywhere from case studies to how to overcome biases and pitch WordPress to your administration,&#8221; Carden said.</p>
<p>Carden emphasized that WPCampus Online is supplemental to the in-person event and is not a replacement, &#8220;We as a community hope that, by taking advantage of readily available streaming technology, we can make the education and development we wish to provide more accessible for our community,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>&#8220;This type of event not only helps those limited by a travel budget but allows us to increase the number of educational opportunities throughout the year.&#8221;</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if there are any sessions dedicated to clearing up some of the <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpcampus-survey-results-indicate-misconceptions-of-wordpress-are-slowing-its-growth-in-higher-education">misconceptions of WordPress in higher education.</a> According to a <a href="http://bit.ly/WPCampusStudy">user survey</a> conducted earlier this year, security, scalability, and WordPress&#8217; reputation are misconceptions that are slowing its growth in higher education.</p>
<p>Pricing information for WPCampus Online was not available at the time of writing. Those interested in attending are encouraged to keep an eye on the <a href="https://wpcampus.org/online/">event&#8217;s website </a>for updates.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 13 Oct 2016 20:04:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 251 – AMP, Translation Day 2, and the Other Side of WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=62660&preview=true&preview_id=62660";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-251-amp-translation-day-2-and-the-other-side-of-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3220:"<p>In this episode of WordPress Weekly, <a href="http://marcuscouch.com/">Marcus Couch</a> and I discuss the latest stories making headlines in the WordPress community. We talk about the latest changes in the official AMP plugin and the second global WordPress translation day. We also discuss HeroPress obtaining its first financial sponsor and the not so happy side of WordPress. Last but not least, we talk about the proposal to add a CSS editor to the customizer in WordPress 4.7.</p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/the-deadline-to-apply-for-the-kim-parsell-scholarship-is-october-16th">The Deadline to Apply for the Kim Parsell Scholarship Is October 16th</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-adds-customization-for-amp-pages-pushes-update-to-amp-plugin">WordPress.com Adds Customization for AMP Pages, Pushes Update to AMP Plugin</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/wp-rest-api-team-proposes-to-merge-content-endpoints-into-wordpress-4-7">WP REST API Team Proposes to Merge Content Endpoints Into WordPress 4.7</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/polyglots-team-to-host-2nd-global-wordpress-translation-day-november-12">Polyglots Team to Host 2nd Global WordPress Translation Day November 12</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/xwp-is-the-first-financial-sponsor-of-heropress">XWP Is the First Financial Sponsor of HeroPress</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/you-are-responsible-for-your-own-awesome">You Are Responsible for Your Own Awesome</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/the-days-of-creating-child-themes-for-simple-css-changes-may-soon-be-over">The Days of Creating Child Themes for Simple CSS Changes May Soon Be Over</a></p>
<h2>Plugins Picked By Marcus:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-worktime-logger/">Post Worktime Logger</a> is a tool that tracks how much time it takes to write a post.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-facebook-live-video/">WP Facebook Live Video</a> displays a live video from your Facebook Page or Profile on any WordPress post or page using a simple shortcode.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/reviews-plus/">Reviews Plus </a>allows you to manage and display your customer reviews for products, services or any other type of content. Reviews Plus will replace the comments for a selected post type. Reviews Plus rating summary is fully compatible with Google&#8217;s guidance in order to show up in the results with review stars as part of the listing.</p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, October 19th 9:30 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: </strong><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wordpress-weekly-podcast?refid=stpr" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Listen To Episode #251:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 13 Oct 2016 18:43:06 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"BuddyPress: BuddyPress 2.7.0 Release Candidate 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=259787";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://buddypress.org/2016/10/buddypress-2-7-0-release-candidate-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:864:"<p>BuddyPress 2.7.0 Release Candidate 2 is now available for testing. Please <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.2.7.0-rc2.zip">download the 2.7.0-rc2 zip</a> or get a copy via our Subversion repository.</p>
<p>This is our last chance to find any bugs that slipped through Release Candidate 1. So please test with your themes and plugins. A detailed changelog will be part of our official release notes, but you can get a quick overview by reading the post about the <a href="https://buddypress.org/2016/09/buddypress-2-7-0-beta-1/">2.7.0 Beta 1</a> release.</p>
<p>Let us know of any issues you find in <a href="https://buddypress.org/support">the support forums</a> and/or on <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org">our development tracker</a>.</p>
<p>Thank you. We’re excited to release 2.7.0 next week on October 19!</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 13 Oct 2016 03:03:41 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"@mercime";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: Call for Applications to Host WordCamp Europe 2018 Will Open in December";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62480";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"https://wptavern.com/call-for-applications-to-host-wordcamp-europe-2018-will-open-in-december";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4721:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wordcamp-europe-2018.png?ssl=1"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wordcamp-europe-2018.png?resize=1025%2C520&ssl=1" alt="wordcamp-europe-2018" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62630" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/" target="_blank">WordCamp Europe 2017</a> is eight months away from kicking off in Paris, France, and the event&#8217;s core leadership team is already looking ahead to <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/2016/10/11/would-you-like-to-host-wordcamp-europe-2018/" target="_blank">prepare a host city for 2018</a>. Applications will open December 1. This year&#8217;s event brought 1,950 attendees to Vienna and more than 1,000 tickets were claimed for live streaming. With attendance growing every year, the venues required to host WordCamp Europe are getting bigger and require booking further in advance.</p>
<p>WCEU organizers are inviting conversations with teams in European cities that have an active local community and have hosted at least one WordCamp in the past.</p>
<p>&#8220;The idea is for them to get a better sense of what it means to host, how the WCEU team works, how much they would need to invest in terms of time, and what part of the organizing they’ll be expected to cover,&#8221; said Petya Raykovska, one of the members of the event&#8217;s leadership team. &#8220;It’s a long term commitment, too &#8211; usually we expect at least one or two members from the team that is chosen to host the year after to get involved with the current organizing team.&#8221;</p>
<p>Raykovska said that all teams interested in applying will be able to have as many mentoring sessions as they need until the end of November. Despite the preparation requirements of completing a budget and identifying venues with a 3,000 person minimum capacity, Raykovska believes there are many European WordPress communities that could be potential candidates.</p>
<p>&#8220;Poland has many cities that can host &#8211; not just Krakow &#8211; and so does Portugal,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Germany has had several nice WordCamps throughout 2015 and 2016. Serbia has had two really successful WordCamp Belgrades in the same years. Italy’s community is booming &#8211; they’ve had two WordCamps just in 2016 and they have many local meetups and loads of energy. And that’s just to name a few.&#8221;</p>
<p>Raykovska said that nearly every European city that has hosted a WordCamp in the past is capable of hosting WordCamp Europe if the local team is committed. She encourages any group of two or three co-organizers who are curious about the possibility of hosting to get in touch.</p>
<p>&#8220;You don’t need to have everything figured out,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The idea of these talks is to answer all of the questions and to bring more clarity.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Continental WordCamps May Spread to Asia in the Next Few Years</h3>
<p>Past events in Leiden (2013), Sofia (2014), Seville (2015), and Vienna (2016) grew out of well-established local communities that were able to provide enough volunteers on the ground to support the large numbers of attendees. WordCamp Europe is headed into its 5th year running and the success of the event has inspired WordPress enthusiasts in Southeast Asia to begin building the local communities required to host a continental WordCamp.</p>
<p>&#8220;Strong local communities in Asia are now helping developing communities grow because they would like to see something like WordCamp Europe happen in Asia,&#8221; Raykovska said. &#8220;It was amazing talking to the Japanese community at WordCamp Tokyo about this and seeing how experienced contributors are jumping to get people from Thailand, Cambodia, and many other SEA countries involved.&#8221;</p>
<p>Raykovska, who has witnessed a lot of WordPress translation-related activity in Asia, predicts that the continent&#8217;s local communities will gain more momentum in 2017. &#8220;Singapore has some great, enthusiastic, very energetic people,&#8221; she said. &#8220;India is blooming, the first WordCamp Kathmandu is coming, WordCamp Denpasar in Bali, and Indonesia as well. Thailand is going to be next.&#8221;</p>
<p>WordCamp Europe, which has sold out every year, has provided an excellent testing ground for demonstrating that the global WordPress community enjoys connecting at continental WordCamps. The call for applications for 2018 host city opens on December 1st and will close January 31, 2017. The current organizing team will announce their selection for the next host city at the event in Paris next June.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 12 Oct 2016 23:15:13 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"WPTavern: The Days of Creating Child Themes for Simple CSS Changes May Soon Be Over";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=62136";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/the-days-of-creating-child-themes-for-simple-css-changes-may-soon-be-over";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4469:"<p>The general advice given to users who want to make simple edits to a theme without losing them is to create a <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes">child theme</a>. This involves creating a directory, CSS file, a functions.php file, and uploading them to the webserver via WordPress or FTP.</p>
<p>Users must also make sure the child theme references the parent theme correctly in order to establish the proper inheritance. This can be a complicated process for a lot of people but thanks to a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/#comment-31359">new feature proposal</a> for WordPress 4.7, the days of going through this process may soon be over.</p>
<h2>The Benefits of Adding a CSS Editor to the Customizer</h2>
<p>The proposal suggests adding a CSS editor to the customizer which offers a number of benefits. Users can live preview changes before they&#8217;re applied and see how they&#8217;ll appear on mobile devices. Instead of editing files directly, changes are stored in a Custom Post Type for each theme and override theme styles.</p>
<p>Related projects such as customize changesets (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30937">#30937</a>) and revisions for customizer settings (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/31089">#31089</a>) will allow for future enhancements. Adding the editor will also lay the groundwork for possibly removing the Theme file editor from core at some point in the future.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an example of what the CSS editor looks like in action. Note the line numbers that can help with troubleshooting purposes.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-62554" src="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/custom-css-proposal-demo-1.gif?resize=1025%2C516&ssl=1" alt="custom-css-proposal-demo-1.gif" />The editor also displays error messages for common syntax errors. For example, a missing bracket. Adding the editor is only the beginning with revisions, syntax highlighting, and in-preview selector helpers, planned for future iterations.</p>
<h2>Special Meeting Planned to Discuss Storage Issues</h2>
<p>In today&#8217;s <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/core/weekly-developer-chats/">WordPress developer chat</a>, attendees discussed the pros and cons of the editor and whether or not it&#8217;s ready to be merged into WordPress 4.7. A point of contention preventing a final decision is <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/core/p1476305179005750">how data is stored</a>.</p>
<p>Members of the Core and Customizer Component teams will discuss this particular issue in detail in a <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/core-customize">special meeting</a> before making a final decision to merge it.</p>
<h2>Testing and Feedback Needed</h2>
<p>To test this feature, you&#8217;ll need to apply the <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35395">patch via Trac</a> or the <a href="https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/xwp/wordpress-develop/pull/154.diff">Pull Request</a> from GitHub as it won&#8217;t land in WordPress Trunk unless the proposal is approved. The team encourages you to add custom CSS in the customizer using a variety of themes and to share your experience and feedback <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/">in the comments</a>.</p>
<h2>A Use Perfectly Suited for the Customizer</h2>
<p>While I have yet to test this feature myself, it seems like the perfect use case for the customizer. While some developers have <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/#comment-31346">expressed concerns</a> with the proposed implementation, others are <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/#comment-31359">excited to see it</a> land in core.</p>
<p>Removing the need to create a child theme for small or simple changes is a huge win for users. It&#8217;s also a major win for those who provide support. Instead of giving a customer complicated directions, it can be as simple as telling them to open the customizer, click on additional CSS, paste the snippet of code, and click the save button.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 12 Oct 2016 22:36:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"Post Status: Ask Post Status: Innovation in WordPress — Draft podcast";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=29986";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://poststatus.com/ask-post-status-innovation-wordpress-draft-podcast/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2456:"<p>Welcome to the Post Status <a href="https://poststatus.com/category/draft">Draft podcast</a>, which you can find <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008">on iTunes</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/m/Ih5egfxskgcec4qadr3f4zfpzzm?t=Post_Status__Draft_WordPress_Podcast">Google Play</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast">Stitcher</a>, and <a href="http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1061/rss">via RSS</a> for your favorite podcatcher. Post Status Draft is hosted by Joe Hoyle &#8212; the CTO of Human Made &#8212; and Brian Krogsgard.</p>
<p><span>In this episode, Joe and Brian answer listener questions. You can go to poststatus.com/ask to ask questions for a future episode. We spent the second half of the show talking about innovation in WordPress and what makes big innovation difficult.</span></p>
<a href="https://audio.simplecast.com/49688.mp3">https://audio.simplecast.com/49688.mp3</a>
<p><a href="http://audio.simplecast.com/49688.mp3">Direct Download</a></p>
<h3>Topics and Links</h3>
<ul>
<li>What is Publish going to be about?
<ul>
<li><a href="https://poststatus.com/publish/">Post Status Publish</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>What is A Day of Rest?
<ul>
<li><a href="https://adayofrest.hm/boston-2017/">A Day of Rest Boston 2017</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Managing sites between local, development, staging, and live
<ul>
<li><a href="http://mergebot.com/">Mergebot</a></li>
<li><a href="https://versionpress.net/">VersionPress</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Theme review process
<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/">Theme handbook</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wptest.io/">WP Test</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Donations for free plugins
<ul>
<li><a href="https://teleogistic.net/2012/05/31/the-patronage-model-for-free-software-freelancers/">The patronage model for free software freelancers</a></li>
<li><a href="https://poststatus.com/kickstarter-open-source-project/">Using Kickstarter to fund open source</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>How can the WordPress project innovate?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Sponsor: Pagely</h3>
<p><span><a href="https://pagely.com/">Pagely</a> helps the world’s biggest brands scale and secure WordPress. They are the original managed host, and have been at it for seven years now. Check out <a href="https://pagely.com/">Pagely</a> today, and thanks to Pagely for being a Post Status partner.</span></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 12 Oct 2016 17:24:53 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Katie Richards";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";a:10:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Wed, 02 Nov 2016 21:00:29 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:14:"content-length";s:6:"269643";s:10:"connection";s:5:"close";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Wed, 02 Nov 2016 20:45:11 GMT";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:4:"x-nc";s:11:"HIT lax 250";s:13:"accept-ranges";s:5:"bytes";}s:5:"build";s:14:"20160318175910";}