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WP Builds Newsletter #22 – WordPress 4.9.8 improvements, UI fun and weird divs
Listen to the full episode here:
https://wpbuilds.com/2018/07/23/wp-builds-newsletter-22-wordpress-4-9-8-improvements-ui-fun-and-weird-divs/
This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 16th July 2018:
WordPress 4.9.8 Beta 1
“It’s that time again, we have a new beta release package for 4.9.8, and we’d love your help testing it out. It’s important to make sure that a release is fully tested and bugs are squashed. If you’re new (or it’s been a while) you can checkout the guide for helping to test a beta version. This beta release contains 21 bug fixes, 9 enhancements and 2 blessed tasks. The purpose of this release has been to focus on additional enhancements for privacy in WordPress (following up on the tremendous work done for 4.9.6), as well as adding a callout to try the new Gutenberg editing experience…”
WordPress 4.9.8 Will Significantly Reduce Memory Leak
“WordPress 4.9.8 Beta two recently shipped and although much of the focus will be on the “Try Gutenberg” call-out, there’s a patch included that addresses a memory leak that was quite a problem for some users. When WordPress 4.9.7 shipped, the WordPress.org support forums saw an increase in reports of memory exhausted errors due to the wp_is_stream function…”
First Look at “Try Gutenberg” Prompt in WordPress 4.9.8 Beta 2
“WordPress 4.9.8 Beta 2 was released today, featuring the new “Try Gutenberg” prompt that will appear in user dashboards when the official release drops at the end of the month. The prompt invites users to install Gutenberg if they want to try the new editor or install the Classic Editor to keep using the current editor until they are ready to make the change. WordPress contributors discussed variations on the design and wording of the callout and finally settled on what you see in 4.9.8 Beta 2…”
Gutenberg 3.3 Released, Adds Archives and Recent Comments Blocks
“Gutenberg 3.3 is available and continues the trend of refining the user experience, user interface, and tools. Two new Widget blocks have been added, Post Archives and Recent Comments…”
Why the makers of Ninja Forms are getting into eCommerce
In this episode, of the ‘Post Status Draft Podcast’ Brian Krogsgard talks with James and Kevin — cofounders of the Ninja Forms product — to discuss why their next leg of their business is in the competitive landscape of eCommerce.
Announcing MainWP and WP Security Audit Log Integration
“Today we are happy to announce that we have been working together with the WP Security Audit Log team to develop a WordPress activity log solution for MainWP. In the tradition we started back in 2015 with site Backups we continue to defer to the experts when it comes to complicated problems. What makes this extra exciting for us, is that is one of our first true third party integrations where we have worked hand in hand with the developers and the fact that the WP Security Audit Log plugin is the most comprehensive WordPress activity log plugin solution, both in terms of features and coverage…”
Elementor – Introducing Filter Effects & Blend Modes
“Using Filter Effects & Blend Modes, you can turn your experience as a designer into a limitless playground, allowing you to produce a broader spectrum of designs. Instead of switching back and forth between Photoshop and Elementor, you can accomplish amazing results – all on one platform…”
Smart Slider 3 – Split Slider
This is an interesting split screen UI which is quite fun to look at. Not much to say other than it’s quite cool and you can do this with Smart Slider!
New WordPress Feature Plugin Adds Support for Progressive Web Apps
“WordPress contributors are working on getting support for Progressive Web Apps (PWA) into core. A new PWA feature plugin is now available on WordPress.org, spearheaded by the teams at XWP, Google, and Automattic. Progressive Web Apps are applications that run on the web but provide a speedy app-like experience inside a mobile browser…”
Toolset Maps 1.5 with Azure Maps, Google Street View, and ordering by distance
“The Toolset Maps 1.5 release brings support for Azure Maps API. This gives you more choice for selecting the best map service provider given the latest changes to Google Maps API pricing. Besides this, we added support for Google Street View, ordering Views by distance, and more…”
iThemes Enters the Hosting Space
“iThemes is getting into the hosting business after launching three plans that take advantage of its relationship with Liquid Web. The plans are finely tuned around the company’s products and come with free SSL certificates…”
Non WordPress, but useful anyway…
The div that looks different in every browser
Fun and weird!
Slickmap 2.0
“Slickmap CSS is a simple stylesheet for displaying finished site maps directly from HTML unordered list navigation. It’s suitable for most web sites – accommodating up to four levels of page navigation and additional utility links – and can easily be -
85 – Create a turnkey website business with WordPress… Matthew Rodela did
In this episode:
Discussion – Website caching… is it worth it? – [3:30]
Interview – Create a turnkey website business with WordPress… Matthew Rodela did – [19:39]
Ending Fact – 52% of website visitors want to see ‘about us’ information – [56:10]
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We’ve all had that dream… Create a platform that you can set free unto the world. A platform that will allow you to gather new customers who would like to use your product, even though they’ve never talked to you before. A platform that will automate all the things so that you can sit on a beach drinking expensive cocktails and… erm… you get the (somewhat exaggerated) idea!
Seriously though. How many times have you thought about leveraging WordPress so that it could be used a platform that could automate your website building business? I know that I have. The problem is that I never have enough time to do this and work out all the kinks and problems. There’s too many other things to do and this always gets put on the back-burner.
Unlike you and I, Matthew Rodela stuck at it and has managed to create a business which pretty much automates the creation of websites and his customer base. He’s leveraging that well known but under explored feature of WordPress – Multisite.
There’s no magic here and Matthew is very honest and revealing about how it’s all done. It’s basically a mixture of WordPress, the right plugins, good hosting and time.
Matthew has spent a long time thinking about all this; weighing up the plugins and systems that work and then giving that knowledge to you lot. His Turnkey Websites Blueprint Course is a good place to start, because it has all of his insights in one place, but if you’re more of the tinkering kind and like to work this stuff out for yourself, then there’s a Facebook Group which is good place to go. It’s super cool and full of kind and insightful people sharing their knowledge.
What I like about Matthew’s approach is that it’s very ‘down-to-earth’. It’s a process that you and I could all follow with almost zero understanding of code and / or WordPress. You just have to follow the instructions and then apply dedication; and that’s the point right? What’s holding you back here is not the technology, it’s the time and willingness to get this thing up and and running and then the drive and motivation to hustle this thing in to profitability. That’s the hard bit.
Speaking of the technology, Matthew mentions in the podcast about a comparison chart that he put together to show which of the three plugin solutions that he’s tested have which features. It’s great to see this all side-by-side so that you don’t have to do the work to figure it all out! You can find that comparison chart here.
It’s all sound too easy, but as we know it isn’t that, but you can see the fruits of Matthews labour in this own Turnkey Website Platform here. He’s very upfront about the fact that it’s not going to win any design awards, but that’s not the point, it’s purpose is to serve his niche, and for them, it works just fine.
So what are you waiting for? Check out the episode, connect with Matthew and get your WordPress website business automated!
As a head’s up, I’m interviewing the creator of the plugin which ‘wins’ Matthew’s comparison chart contest, and I’ll be posting that as soon as it’s ready!
Mentioned in this episode:
Turnkey resources and training for other web professionals:
https://www.turnkeywebsitesblueprint.com/
Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/turnkey.websites
Turnkey Websites Membership Plugins Comparison Chart:
http://www.turnkeywebsitesblueprint.com/comparison
Matthew’s turnkey platform:
https://techsitebuilder.com/
Prize alert:
We recently ran a contest to win a lifetime Brizy Pro license. Well no that Giveaway has finished, and the winner is… go the the WP Builds Facebook group to find out:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpbuilds/permalink/1932963693435086/ -
WP Builds Newsletter #21 – Gutenberg; disable it, theme it and send android messages from your PC
Go here to find the links:
https://wpbuilds.com/news-archive/ -
84 – Build 48 websites in a weekend for good causes with Adam Walker
In this episode:
Discussion – How do we get clients on our care plans? – [3:24]
Interview – Build 48 websites in a weekend for good causes with Adam Walker – [21:09]
Ending Fact – Gutenberg – [54:40]
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Prize alert:
Want to win a LIFETIME license for Brizy? Erm… yes please! Head over to the WP Builds Giveaway page for more details:
https://wpbuilds.com/competition/
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We do have some cool guests on this podcast don’t we? Yes we do, and this week is no different. It’s not about a plugin or a theme, or how to run your business. No… this is about philanthropy and doing nice things for people who need nice things to be done for them. It’s about 48in48.org.
Adam Walker is the man behind it all and so he’s on to tell you about it and hopefully get you involved.
The idea is really very simple… there’s a whole load of deserving people out there who are trying to be good. They do good things with their time and make the world a better place. Sadly though, many of these good things don’t make a lot of money and so they cannot afford to have websites built for them. Adam thought, I should try to solve that, and solve it he did!
Adam and his team take requests for people and organisations who would like to have a footprint on the web. They sift through them and somehow decide which ones have most merit. They then go back to those people and say, “you’re in, now send us all your content”.
Then loads of people like you go to a venue on a given weekend and meet up with loads of other people who also want to take part. Someone pushes a button on a giant clock (I just made that bit up, I don’t think there is a giant clock!) and the countdown begins. A 48 hour countdown.
In that time 48 websites will be conceived, created and launched into the world and the UNESCO metric for World Happiness goes up just a little bit.
The people getting the websites are happy because they have a website and can spread their message over the internet, you are happy because you did something good and knew that you were doing it because you’re a kind person and Adam is happy because, well, he just seems really happy, as you’ll hear on the podcast.
This is web philanthropy at it’s best. Free software, free time, free websites.
Please go to 48in48.org and see if you can help out.
Mentioned in this episode:
48in48.org
https://48in48.org -
WP Builds Newsletter #20 – WordPress 4.9.7 & 4.9.8 plus a spaceship going to the sun
Go here to find the links:
https://wpbuilds.com/news-archive/ -
WP Builds Podcast #83 – Brizy Page Builder – Dimitrie Baitanciuc tells us all about it
In this episode:
Discussion – Technophobic clients and how we deal with them – [3:24]
Interview – Brizy Page Builder – Dimitrie Baitanciuc tells us all about it – [29:48]
Ending Fact – 7 out of 10 customers find a company via the blog – [1:24:17]
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Prize alert:
Want to win a LIFETIME license for Brizy? Erm… yes please! Head over to the WP Builds Giveaway page for more details:
https://wpbuilds.com/competition/
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Brizy can be found here:
http://bit.ly/2Ihpxim
Brizy Page Builder… This episode feels like it’s timed at right moment because, if like me, you are always hunting around WordPress communities for news, then you cannot have failed to hear about the new Page Builder on the block – Brizy.
We’ve become used to Page Builders now haven’t we? Well, many of us have anyway! They cut a huge amount of time and effort out of creating pages in your WordPress site and they’re also getting more and more capable of taking on the task of creating headers, footers, archive pages. In short, they’re getting too sophisticated to ignore.
There are a bunch of Page Builders that we know and love, so why should the Brizy developers have launched into a market that already has some major incumbent players? Why indeed?
Well the answer is pretty straightforward, Brizy has a different approach. They’ve looked at what’s out there and thought that they could shake things up a little; create a new way of interacting with the pages, new ways to edit the components of the page, new features that you might like to see.
You’ll find new ways to edit images, new edit menus that float in the place where your mouse already is, 4,000 free icons, built in sliders, autosave, a great way to alter padding. I could go on, but I think that you get the point that there is enough differentiation here that you should at least give it a look.
It’s also worth mentioning that the developers behind Brizy have heritage. They are the same people who run Themefuse, a popular WordPress Theme Shop.
They have a great attitude to their free version, which you can find on the WordPress.org repository. They throw more or less all the features that you could want at it, which is pretty generous, don’t you think?
Dimitrie does a great job of explaining why they built Brizy and how it’s all put together. What makes it unique and why you should give it a try.
Speaking of ‘giving it a try’, now would really be a great time to do that as right now you can get it for a one-time lifetime license fee. The price is slowly rising, but if you get in now, you’re going to lock in unlimited everything for a small one-time fee. I think that they’ve already built enough to prove that they can pull this off and so it might well be an investment that you’re glad that you made. Click on this link to get Brizy now! -
WP Builds Newsletter #19 – Acquisitions madness, flaw in WordPress Core and loads of Google stuff
Go here to find the links:
https://wpbuilds.com/news-archive/ -
WP Builds Podcast #82 - Properly supporting our wonderful WordPress community with Dan Maby
In this episode:
Discussion – What systems are available to get paid? – [4:31]
Interview – Properly supporting out wonderful WordPress community with Dan Maby – [29:12]
Ending Fact – Exit pop-ups actually work! – [1:09:03]
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One of the best things about doing this podcast is getting to meet people that I might not otherwise have had the chance to talk to. Often those people are doing amazing things in the WordPress space. Dan Maby is one such person. He’s doing really amazing things, and I loved chatting with him.
Dan appears to be on a mission to set up WordPress meetups all over the UK, and this is no trivial task. If you think about what goes into a WordPress meetup, the room hire, the food order, the speaker scheduling etc., then you’ll realise that running one of these things is almost like a part-time job! Dan however runs many of them, all over the UK. So what might have been a part-time job suddenly becomes multiple full-time jobs. I honestly don’t know where he gets all the energy and enthusiasm from.
It’s so fabulous that someone like Dan is around to create events like these so that people like me and you can benefit from them. I wonder how many seats Dan has filled over the year? Quite a lot, I’m sure!
As if that were not helpful enough, Dan decided that there was more volunteer work that needed to be done. This time not meetups, but something called WPandUP.
This is a new, and I might say important, initiative to help WordPress freelancers with their mental health concerns. We all know how isolating sitting in front of a screen all day can be. It’s not good for you physically, and sometimes it takes a toll on your mental health too. But, where do you go for support, help and advice? Well, from now on WPandUP might be your best bet.
Broken out into four ‘Health Hubs’; Business Health, Code Health, Mental Health and Physical Health, each Hub is designed to offer you support that can bring you back on track.
Dan talks about why he’s set all this up and what it’s all about – it’s very cool and I’m deeply impressed by him as a person and the change that he’s trying to bring about.
This is something completely new to the podcast; no talk about plugins, hosting or code. Just a chat with one guy who is on a mission to make all of our lives better.
Completely awesome!
I’m really hoping that some of you will reach out to Dan in the WP Builds Facebook group and give HIM some support and encouragement for all the great things that he’s doing. You never know, you might be able to give something back through the many things that Dan is doing.
This is a ‘must listen’!
Mentioned in this episode:
WPandUP - https://wpandup.org/
David Waumsley and Dan Maby on YouTube discussing the WordPress London Meetup site, or if that link does not work try this link instead!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe9khu-o2YA6glTpr6UqXtnRV_dVJcmBF
https://wpldn.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/davidwaumsley
Exit pop-ups actually work - https://cubicleninjas.com/2018/04/13/mind-blowing-web-design-facts/ -
WP Builds Newsletter #18 – Way too much Gutenberg news, Automattic buys Atavist and more EU laws
Go here to find the links:
https://wpbuilds.com/news-archive/ -
WP Builds Podcast #81 - WordPress security and what you need to know about it with David Hayes
In this episode:
Discussion – Can we avoid burnout? – [3:38]
Interview – WordPress security and what you need to know about it with David Hayes – [24:38]
Ending Fact – What is the shelf life of a website? – [1:04:19]
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This week on the podcast we talk about something that is very dear to my heart… WordPress security!
I have literally no idea why this subject fascinates me as much as it does, but for some reason, I cannot help myself, I just love it!
To be fair, it’s not just WordPress security that I’m interested in, it’s internet security in general. It’s a sad but true fact that I have listened to all 666 episodes of the Security Now Podcast! It’s utterly compelling!
I am interested in WordPress / internet security from the 10,000 mile high perspective. I like to hear the stories and understand the general ideas, but I’m not the kind of person to delve into the math of Elliptic Curves or Diffie Helmann symmetric keys. You need to be clever to actually understand this stuff, and as we all know, cleverness is not something that I possess too much of!
David Hayes on the other hand is a clever person; the kind of man who understands the code behind WordPress security.
The reason that I know this is because David co-runs WPShout.com, where they write about learning WordPress development, and recently he’s been focused on WordPress security.
You should really go take a look at the WordPress security course, because it’s really well prepared and touches on so many of the areas that you need to know about.
The 17 modules cover everything from hardened WordPress to security plugins to writing secure code. It’s all there.
David explains some of the more straightforward things that you can do to try to ensure that you don’t wake up at 3am with an email saying that you sites are all down. What are some of the simple things that you and your clients can do to make sure that your site has as good a chance as any of being alive tomorrow?
Regrettably, hacks don’t get worse, they only get better and, man, the bad guys are seriously good at this stuff now. Whether it’s poking around your site to deface it for SEO purposes, or to install some Crypto Mining software, these folk are looking for cheap, automated ways to take your site down and so having some knowledge in this area is a must.
I learned a lot and I hope that you do to.
Remember go subscribe to one of our many channels to keep the conversation going:
https://wpbuilds.com/deals
Happy listening!
Mentioned in this episode:
https://courses.wpshout.com/wordpress-security-with-confidence/
http://wpsecuritycompared.com/ -
WP Builds Newsletter #17 – State of the Word Address, Gutenberg Ramp and a spying football app
Go here to find the links:
https://wpbuilds.com/news-archive/ -
WP Builds Podcast #80 - Gutenberg’s design lead, Tammie Lister, explains what it’s all about
In this episode:
Discussion – Red flag warnings for web design clients – [3:38]
Interview – Gutenberg’s design lead, Tammie Lister, explains what it’s all about – [24:38]
Ending Fact – What version of PHP are people using to host WordPress? – [1:04:19]
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Ever heard of Gutenberg? Nah, nobody in the WordPress community has mentioned it at all this year have they?!
It’s the most talked about thing in WordPress right now, and for good reason.
When WordPress 5.0 ships at some point in 2018, Gutenberg will be along for the ride too, and it’s going to change WordPress in a pretty significant way.
Now, I’m not too sure exactly what it will look like and exactly how it will behave, because it’s going through some serious iterations at the moment. It’s come a really, really long way over the past year and recent updates have seen it change even more quickly.
It’s changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, isn’t it? Luckily there are people out there who do know what’s going on with Gutenberg, and what’s going to happen to it in the near future. Tammie Lister is one such person, because she is currently the design lead for the Gutenberg project.
She explains what Gutenberg is about, why it is needed, what it’s purpose is. She then explains how it works and what decisions the whole team has made over time to make it work the way that it does. Turns out that there are many people involved with Gutenberg development, whether they are people writing code or posting their ideas about the project’s direction etc. Tammie is at great pains to point out that it’s not a small team effort, it’s the WordPress community as whole that are shaping this, and hopefully will be using it.
If you’ve got an interest in the future of WordPress, then this is a really cool episode for you. I cannot think of anything in our community right now that is getting more attention and hearing from Tammie is calming – it’s great to know that intelligent , thoughtful people are taking the lead on this issue so that people like you and I can benefit in WordPress’ future.
Go check it out.
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We mention:
Share Gutenberg on Twitter using: #gutenberg #wordpress #karmatosed
Atomic Blocks
WP Builds Podcast / NewsMG Montague2018-07-24T22:12:49+00:00
