I admit I haven’t been following the concept and execution of Gutenberg Block Patterns very closely. Primarily this is because visual design has never been with a strong suit for me, nor (consequently) something I spent much time on. It is precisely for this reason that I’m so grateful for Birgit Pauli-Haack’s “WordPress Block Patterns Resource List.”

I’ve somewhat intentionally given this little story about a new WordPress 5.5 feature a silly title. But as this story from Sarah Gooding over at the Tavern illustrates, people are already putting the new WordPress wp_get_environment_type() function to good use. And this story was doubly-interesting to me because I for one had no earthly idea that this new function existed. 😳

Ben Gillbanks has been a minor celebrity in my internet world for over a decade at this point. Even back in the 9rules days (if you knew what that was without looking, please sound off in the comments. I love OG interneters, as a general rule.).

I’m a sucker for small useful programmer features. While most of the WordPress peeps are chockablock with opinions on Gutenberg blocks vs PAGE BUILDER OF CHOICE, I just want you to know that you can now pass some variable around in your template files. If you’ve looked at the PHP files in a theme, you may be familiar with functions like get_template_part().

The Wordfence Security team has found a security vulnerability in Elegant Themes’s themes Divi and Extra, as well as in the Divi Builder plugin. Elegant Themes writes:

In just about two weeks (depending on when you read this 🤓) the WordCamp that I (David) have been helping to organize for a few years—I actually forget if I helped in 2017 🤷‍♂️—is happening. That is it’s WordCamp Denver 2020 time. Because of that whole bother about COVID, we’re going to be virtual, which does mean that if your area has good time-zone overlap with the US, you can likely attend all or parts of it live. And we’d love to have you!

It being the year of COVID (to say nothing of America’s very recent confrontation with our persistent problems with racial injustice) means that WordCamp Europe—now very online and starting tomorrow—had slipped my memory and attention.

A quick little uplifting story I missed a few weeks ago: as the COVID-19 lockdowns were setting in worldwide, more and more people were doing web searches for “wordpress.” Or so reports Alex Denning, the original creator of WPShout, and a reliable man in my book.

Another catchy little diddy bankrolled by my friend Zach Katz over at GravityView:

I feel like I’ve heard this “block pattern” idea in a few different places for a while. But I’ve always taken extra interest in WordPress technology once Justin Tadlock writes about it. So I think I’ll want to install Gutenberg 7.7 somewhere soon to see the next level of Gutenberg. Because Justin got me a little hyped about them too, just as he is: