Issue #101 - Rumblings - New Themes, Cool Dashboard UI, Installs Milestone

Are the recent rumblings like Elementor laying off employees and Toolset announcing a pause on new features troubling you? Ups and downs are part of (WordPress) life, and I think we can focus positive energy on things like the new WP Dashboard look, the future of WordPress, milestones by creators, and new themes.

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• New Themes… Extendify team has released a new free Extendable Theme promising to be the most expressive block theme yet with multiple style variations support. Also, check the new Wei Theme by Rich Tabor, a minimal block theme with bold color schemes and color-matching featured images.
  
  
• New Video Shows… the team at the BuddyBoss has launched the new The BuddyBoss Podcast hosted by Jason Broderick, and two videos (and audio) episodes are already available. Also, here is the announcement video of the upcoming Glam That Plugin show by Matt Cromwell from GiveWP and Lesley Sim from Newsletter Glue.
  
  
• WP Milestones… Joshua Dailey shared about the Big File Uploads plugin crossing the 60K active installs milestone and Nick Diego shared about the Block Visibility plugin going from 1000 to 5000 active installs in one year. In the Youtube world, Gutenberg Hub shared about their Youtube channel crossing 1K subscribers and Imran Siddiq shared about his Youtube Channel reaching 7000 Subscribers in almost 1 year time. Congrats all!

1. WP Rumblings… Toolset made an interesting announcement (which, in my view, is being brutally honest with its users!) to pause the development of new features till the FSE (Full Site Editing) features in the WordPress core become more clear. While Elementor is laying off 60 employees (15% of its workforce), as a part of a restructuring and being better prepared for the upcoming global slowdown.
   
   
2. Talking WP Future… the executive director of WordPress, Josepha Haden Chomphosy answered questions about the future of WordPress and if WordPress will become paid only solution. While Matt Mullenweg shared about the future of technology and the role of WordPress within that at the in-house WPTavern podcast.
   
   
3. WP To Think About… Brian Coords rightly highlighted where would the WordPress middle class, that exists between no-code solutions and advanced development will go? Also, we all love to keep an eye on the up and down movement of the WordPress market share figure. Brin Wilson explains why quoting WordPress market share figures can be misleading, agree?
   
   
4. Service Updates… Rocket.net hosting has launched the WordPress Access Logs feature allowing a more easy and user-friendly way to understand visitors’ activity on your website. Also, Jack Kitterhing elaborated on why LearnDash switched its sales system from Zoho Subscriptions to WooCommerce.

• Starts Today: Page Builder Summit 2022 online event for WP folks.
• Matt Cromwell: Which features you would love to see in WP Core?
• A few of the best lesser-known plugins from the WordPress repo.
• Note: Which Elementor addons are actively adding new features?
• List of a few sandbox services to test on your WordPress tools!
• WooCommerce 6.6 is now available with 900+ commits to the core.
• Why WordCamp US is scaling down from 2000 to 650 attendees!

The future dashboard layout of your WordPress website might look like this. First, very thankful that WP Dashboard is finally getting the much-needed attention and UI makeover. This is a very early stage concept that for sure looks very neat and does remind me of Ghost and Squarespace – which ain’t a bad thing!

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Upcoming Events...

Jun 20, 2022: 4th edition of the Page Builder Summit is here.
Jun 25, 2022: WordCamp Montclair 2022, in-person event.

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By
Davinder Singh Kainth
A creative who Loves to Create Online Spaces powered by WordPress.

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