WP Realm

WordPress news, community news, reviews and more from all over the world

The WordPress Core team proposes to auto-update old WordPress installations

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There’s an interesting proposal on the Make Core blog by Ian Dunn. The proposal suggests to auto-update all older or equal than 3.7 – the version that introduced auto-updates – WordPress instances to 4.7.

The reason for wanting to do this is actually best summarized by Otto in a comment:

If we simply said “we’re not backporting fixes anymore” and left it at that, then that changes nothing except now we’re intentionally leaving a huge portion of the web vulnerable to undiscovered threats

Samuel “Otto” Wood

Read the rest of the post on the Core blog and weigh in. It’s a bit of a read, but I would include the comments before asking your questions or adding your comments.

Themes on WordPress.org will require keyboard navigation to be built in

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The Theme Review Theme announced today that they will shortly be requiring new themes to include keyboard navigation to be built in.

The main goal for this new requirement is to make the themes on WordPress.org have better accessibility features by default. Having keyboard navigation included means you would be able to navigate theme settings and such in the browser without the use of a mouse. This is especially needed for users of alternative input devices who are sighted.

Read more about it at the announcement post.

Google launches Site Kit

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Google announced the developer preview of Google Site Kit on GitHub. They’re launching it on GitHub first so this way they allow WordPress developers to test drive the plugin and test Site Kit compatibility with other plugins. For now, it’s the easiest way for Google to gather implementation feedback and recommendations for this plugin.

Google’s current implementation of the plugin setup flow requires developer know-how and familiarity with Google Cloud Platform and OAuth verification process.  The current setup experience is not the final user experience they plan to make available to WordPress users. Learn more about it on GitHub.

An Ode to the Unsung Heroes of PHP

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Over the holidays, Juliette Reinders Folmer published an interesting article over at 24 Days in December.net that is well worth your attention. Juliette talks about some of the most used projects in the PHP sphere are largely maintained by one person.

And while it’s bad enough that it’s a relatively thankless job for the maintainers, what scares me is this: what will happen if one of them steps down ? Or changes job and won’t get much time from their new employer to continue working on the project ? Or just loses interest ? Or – while we don’t like to think about this -: what will happen if one of them would die ?

[Read more…] about An Ode to the Unsung Heroes of PHP

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5 Steps to Consider When Taking over a Slow WordPress site

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If you provide WordPress services sooner or later you will run into a client that has had their site built on WordPress by someone and are now concerned with the website being slow and they want you to fix it.

You start looking into it and notice their hosting is a bit sucky and also their theme was poorly built or they’re using a “premium” theme that is isn’t all that great for performance.

It is a real challenge, how do you go about it?

1. Explain what is involved to the client

The client already did some investment on the website and they may not be very happy to invest a lot more. Try to reaffirm their purpose and then state what it will take to get there. Don’t compromise or settle for less simply because they already invested. It will be worse if they invest some more and keep the same problems. Establish your terms and what it will take for you to become the tech CO for their website. Because that is what you’re signing up for when you say yes.

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What HeroPress does for the WordPress community

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HeroPress continues to publish excellent personal essays from across the WordPress Realm. They put the spotlight the different perspectives and different challenges facing people who work with WordPress.

This is an excellent write-up from Ana at Anariel Design, on the real value of HeroPress for the WordPress community:

Diversity is the key to the healthy world in which I want to live. Any community that wants to exist needs to let diversity to live and to embrace it. Sharing all these beautiful essays on HeroPress from different people is sharing diversity.

Ana’s conclusions are spot on and her essay is well worth your time to read. Go check out The Value of HeroPress for the WordPress Community.

A New WordPress User Experience Write-Up

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task2-1

Hi there! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Roan de Vries. I’m 18 years of age and I’m studying music in The Netherlands. I think you can guess my hobby by now, which is making music in general, but specifically playing the guitar. Most of you probably never heard of me, but you may have heard about my dad: Remkus de Vries.

My experience so far in WordPress has been very limited, but I have been to my first WordCamp recently in Antwerp. I’m very keen to learn more about WordPress.

My dad pointed me to an article about improving the WordPress New User Experience by creating a more beginning user friendly environment. As I was reading it made me curious how I would perform on those tasks. I thought I’d do my share and give a look inside my head on how I complete a set of four very beginner tasks (as shown in the article). [Read more…] about A New WordPress User Experience Write-Up