WP Owls #4

WP Owls
3 min readDec 1, 2020

In this issue: changes in WP5.6, Automatic Platform Optimization, WP-CLI & Gutenberg, how to create a good brief and much more…

A number of important changes to Gutenberg were to debut in WordPress 5.6.

In the end, however, it only came to a new widget screen and a new theme.

All in all it might be for the better — widget themselves can be troublesome so major changes should be introduced gradually.

WordPress 5.6 Due December 2020 is Scaled Back

10 Web showed off their new tool. Thanks to AI it takes only minutes to convert any HTML to Elementor. As useful as such tools are (fast HTML to WP conversion), my attempts at converting WP Owls only proved our jobs remain unchallenged.

AI Website Builder

Cloudflare shows how to speed up content serving using Automatic Platform Optimization. The creators claim it will both spread the content worldwide & clean cache properly after changes to the website.

Building Automatic Platform Optimization for WordPress using Cloudflare Workers

An engaging interview with Joost on how WordPress market share is calculated.

Joost de Valk on WordPress marketshare

The main WP-CLI maintainer, Alain Schlesser, interviewed on what changed in the project within last year and if Gutenberg & WP-CLI have anything in common.

Supporting WP-CLI, an Essential Developer Tool for WordPress

A guide on how to create a good brief turned up on Elementor blog. I know firsthand how helpful it can be and how it can reduce the number of corrections.

How To Write The Perfect Website Design Brief

Backyard — a framework facilitating creation of plugins for WordPress. Currently still in beta, but looks very appealing. I’ll wait for version 1.0 and surely try!

Backyard for WordPress

WebDevStudios explains how to secure forms in WordPress using nonces. If You are a plugin creator and the word ‘nonce’ itself seems alien to you this is a must-read.

Safely Coding: Nonces

Pantheon clarifies when it’s worth using WordPress Multisite and when better to install several WP separately.

How to Use WordPress Multisite To Power a Network

An excellent guidebook presenting how to create multilanguage documentation in Gutenberg’s blocks with a bit of MarkDown. A truly great concept.

Using Markdown and Localization in the WordPress Block Editor

Sami Keijonen prepared a guide describing how to merge WP with Eleventy (a really nice static page generator).

WordPress and Eleventy

A small but useful addon to ACF to use posts from other blogs within the same network in the post relations field

ACF field for network post relations

Digital Ocean has just launched a new platform improving quick start and app scaling. I haven’t tested it yet, but judging from the videos it looks very encouraging.

Introducing DigitalOcean App Platform: reimagining PaaS to make it simpler for you to build, deploy, and scale apps.

David Sutoyo who hadn’t used Gutenberg for quite some time decided to give it another chance. He shared his impressions of course and they are of the good kind.

I Gave Gutenberg a Second Chance. Here’s What I Learned.

Demo of a very nice plugin for building newsletters without leaving the admin panel. It’s worth mentioning that the plugin is integrated with popular mailing systems.

Newsletter Glue, is it for you?

Upcoming Events:

Coming this weekend! (17–18 October)
WordCamp Los Angeles 2020
Many familiar faces with very enticing lecture topics on the online stage. Maciek Palmowski with his ACF Blocks among them!

WordCamp Los Angeles 2020

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Last week’s major news from the WordPress world!