WordPress News and Links
We're here to help you stay up-to-date on the latest WordPress news and resources. We write our thoughts on the news in WordPress a few times a week, so check back here often for a curated and thoughtful WordPress news feed.
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Latest WordPress News and Resources
State of CSS, 2020

Long time readers will know that I consider myself a CSS outsider. I learned how to do it about 10 years ago, and have just enough skills to get by today. So I read with interest Sacha Greif's "The State… [Keep reading]
A Quick Tour of Full-Site Editing in WordPress

If you saw my post from last week looking at full-site editing you might wonder what it's like. And if you're lazy/busy like me, you probably haven't yet made a point of giving it a run-through on your own. So… [Keep reading]
Are you competing with WordPress.com?

You may have seen the headlines about how WordPress.com is coming for all the freelancers. For those that didn't see it, WordPress.com (owned by a company called Automattic) recently announced that its “premium website building service” is now officially accepting… [Keep reading]
Armando & Full Site Editing Themes

This article from Justin Tadlock over at WP Tavern caught my attention over holiday break. While Justin's been talking about full-site editing themes for a while, Armando was the first of these "future of WordPress themes" that I took a… [Keep reading]
Automattic Acquires MailPoet

Without knowing this news, MailPoet came up organically last night in a discussion we were having at the Fort Collins WordPress Meetup. Someone was looking to send an email newsletter from WordPress, and MailPoet was the option a few of… [Keep reading]
WordPress 5.6 Field Guide

Always a worthy read, the Field Guide for the next version WordPress---5.6---is here. The new theme, application passwords being integrated, and a load of incremental updates are the highlight features for me. Sure to be a solid release, but if… [Keep reading]
Seasonal CSS

I love this little CSS stylesheet to give you a simple but pleasant little change of color on your site throughout the days of a year. James Stanley's little project is a better-version of some of the first WordPress code… [Keep reading]
Better Blogging with the Hemingway App

I was recently talking to a friend about new projects for Writers.com. He suggested developing a writing clarity checker "like the Hemingway app." I'd heard of Hemingway the writer, but not of an app by that name, so I checked… [Keep reading]
What’s new in PHP 8?

For those who don't know, WordPress run on PHP on the server. This has been true for all of WordPress's life, and remains so. For the most parts, this dependence on the PHP language has been an interesting tidbit. But… [Keep reading]
CSS Grid Generator

Frequent readers my recognize me as the not-great-at-CSS person here at WPShout. So for me, this Interactive CSS Grid Generator from Layoutit! is just such a welcome relief. I can (and have) learned all the different bits of markup and… [Keep reading]
An Overview of CDNs

If you've been around WordPress for long, you've likely heard of a "CDN." A CDN, or content-delivery network, is one of the most common parts of speeding up a WordPress site, especially for visitors who are far away from where… [Keep reading]
How Quick is WordPress Plugin Auto-Updating?

As you might have noticed, in WordPress 5.5 you can now tell WordPress itself to keep specific plugins up to do. This is a great feature and one that I'm eager to turn on for more than a few plugins… [Keep reading]
Draw Things for Free with Autodesk SketchBook

I recently bought a drawing tablet (googling "Wacom Intuos Wireless Graphic Drawing Tablet (Medium)" should find it for you), because I had no way I liked to write out visual notes, especially timelines and complex process flows. It was one… [Keep reading]
Some JAMstack Drama…

I have to admit that one of the places I feel I most conspicuously show my age is how little interest I have these days for the latest of web-dev hype. I would consider the "JAMstack" hype train one of… [Keep reading]
Everything About Gutenberg Block Patterns

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… [Keep reading]
Easy A/B Testing with Google Optimize

I need to A/B test lots of parts of Writers.com, and I've been putting it off because I wasn't sure which tool to use. Third-party SaaS solutions and WordPress plugins both feel to me like they'll be a bummer to… [Keep reading]
Never Test on Production Again!

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.… [Keep reading]
A Fun Gravatar Alternative in Pixel Avatars

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… [Keep reading]
Amazing Weekly Web Dev Link-Collection, August 21 Edition

Over on her blog at Lireo Designs, Deborah Edwards-Onoro has been collecting an amazing array of great content about web design and development for while. And I had no earthly idea. It was only when I randomly noticed that she'd… [Keep reading]
Fire Slack Notifications Based on WordPress Events with Slack Notifications by dorzki

We use Slack to coordinate our work, and the Slack Notifications by dorzki plugin makes a very handy addition, by allowing us to create Slack alerts based on WordPress events on the WPShout site itself. We currently have it configured… [Keep reading]
Pass Data to Template Files in WordPress 5.5+

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… [Keep reading]
Beautiful Color Palettes Quickly with Colormind.io

I'm always looking for tools that can give me a leg up on design, and I find that choosing a good color palette is one of the hardest and most subjective parts of designing a site. Colormind.io is one of… [Keep reading]
Why Not to 301 Redirect all 404s to Your Homepage

Our site Writers.com has a lot of 404s stretching back across its long history. As I've started to work to clean them up, I flirted with simply 301 redirecting every 404ing link to the homepage. (There are a few plugins… [Keep reading]
Speed Up Image-Heavy Sites with a3 Lazy Load

WordPress has a number of lazy loading solutions, but the one I've most recently used to improve Writers.com's performance on our image-heavy pages is a3 Lazy Load, and I'm very happy with my choice. Lazy loading speeds up a site… [Keep reading]
Pexels: Free, Unrestricted-Use Images

Since I found Unsplash in 2018, it's been my go-to for free, unrestricted stock images of all kinds. However, I'm also very happy to have a backup source of images when Unsplash doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for. Pexels… [Keep reading]