WP Weekly 219 - Loaded - Hosting Buzz, Bricks Templates, Accessibility Features

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WP Weekly 219 / Loaded

This issue is loaded with many new things by and for the WordPress world. More accessibility checker features, free Bricks templates, big GenerateBlocks update, new WowOptin Plugin, and free PMP addons. Also, updates for Elementor, Real Cookie Banner, SureTriggers, and Conversion Bridge plugins.

The WP Awards 2024. Voting from the WordPress community is going strong. Don’t forget to… Submit your Vote. This event is sponsored by: GoDaddy, 20i Hosting, Pressable, Crocoblock, WP Division, & Dynamic.ooo.

20i® Next-Gen WordPress Hosting – Blazing-fast cloud platform with free Staging, Cloning, WP Manager, CDN & Edge Cache. No plug-ins required!

SureTriggers pre-built workflow recipes can fully automate processes, like generating social media content and creating no-code web apps.

Platform InMotion with high performance servers for serious WordPress websites, comes with hassle free deployment tools and expert support.

Patchstack offers the fastest WordPress vulnerability mitigation. Protect your sites with automatic virtual patching & 48-hour early warning.

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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖

Automated Accessibility Fixes… Accessibility Checker from Equalize Digital has added 14 automated accessibility fix features. In the free version: enable skip links, block links opening new windows, and focus outline. In the pro version: block PDF uploads, add file size, label form fields, and more.
JavaScript Debugging… Khalid Farhan shared about new Chrome extension for developers that helps with debugging code in the browser. The free plan has 100 console messages per day and usage on one browser – with paid options at the Hover Console site.
Free Bricks Templates… Khan has announced (Links X) about the launch of the Free Bricks Templates project featuring over 50 free section templates for Bricks Builder users.
Big Generateblocks Update… the upcoming version 2.0 update of Generateblocks promises seriously powerful improvements like new blocks, upgraded Global Styles integration, dynamic tags, and enhanced UI with full search – filter functionality.

New Plugins: WowOptin, Block Usage, Woo Heath & Gifts

New WowOptin… the team WPXPO has launched a new WowOptin plugin promising all in one marketing funnel tool. It features popup campaigns, floating bars, exit intent triggers, WooCommerce targeting, and more.

Block Usage Tracker… Robert DeVore has released (Links X) a free Block Usage Tracker WordPress plugin. It lists each block type used in posts, counting the total occurrences, and shows direct links to each post where a block appears.

Woo Shop Health… Marinus Klasen at Wooping is gearing up (Links X) to launch the first free plugin, Wooping Shop Health, which promises to improve your WooCommerce shop by analysing your store. You can sign up for early access on their website and follow-up updates.

Gift Cards for Woo… Robert DeVore is on the plugin launch spree; the latest is the free Gift Cards for WooCommerce plugin. It integrates gift card functionality in your WooCommerce store for more conversion and sales.

Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥

Data Shared to WP Org… Duane Storey shared (Links X) about the release of the free WP API Privacy plugin that strips out data sent to WP Org for plugins that are hosted off-site. Also, published details on specific data being collected and privacy concerns around it.
Two Free PMP Addons… as part of the Giving Tuesday Campaign, the team at Paid Memberships Pro is offering two addons for free (Goals Progress Bar and Donations) for the month of November.
ACF Survey 2024 Results… started in 2023, the results of the Annual ACF Survey for 2024 are now available. These results are from data of 1350 respondents: 57% use the Block Editor, Elementor, Bricks, Divi, Beaver Builder are the most popular builder plugins.
Core & Gutenberg… WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 4 (RC4) is now available for your testing. Also, Gutenberg 19.6v is available with an experimental inline comments feature and other improvements.
Wider Scholarship Program… WordPress Foundation shared that the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship will be expanded to WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Europe – in addition to existing WordCamp US.
AnyoneCanWP Winners… AnyoneCanWP Hackathon is coming to end on November 11, 2024, when winners will be announced with Matt Mullenweg and Jesse Friedman appearing as guests.
WP Milestones… WordPress resource website, WP Mayor, is celebrating 14 years with a giveaway, offering a chance to win $4,000+ worth of prizes. Carl Hancock shared (Links X) about Gravity SMTP Plugin crossing 25,000 active installs in just six months.

Updates: Elementor, Cookie, Triggers, & Conversion

Elementor… 3.25v is now available with continuous CSS optimization like Elementor Pro now starts with zero CSS by default and Global Styles are now loaded conditionally. Also, new anchor offset control ensures that anchor links scroll to the correct position on the page.

Real Cookie Banner… with translation and localization support for 17 languages, you can now use Real Cookie Banner in the entire EU (and Switzerland). The 5.0 version has also added many enhancements for specific use cases.

SureTriggers Embed… promising to make integration of automations more easy in your app or platform, the SureTriggers Embed feature for connecting with 900+ popular tools like Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Slack, and more.

Conversion Bridge… 1.4v release has added support for Divi 4 to easily add conversion tracking to all button, call to action, form, and email option. The Bricks integration was enhanced and ClickWhale integration was completely redone.

Quick Bits

Last Grab: SlimSEO Lifetime Deal option is ending on Dec 01, 2024.
WPSyncSheets website has a new look, which is clean & engaging.
Check out the all new Figma library for WordPress Design System.
Gravity PDF with Composer support for plugin & paid extensions.
Discussion Video: Should you put plugins on WordPress Org site?
22+ billion requests served by WordPress VIP during US Election.
Automattic will 2.5X contributions (Links X) to The PHP Foundation.

Business of WP: Price Hike, Hosting, & Acquisition

Wordfence Price Hike… from December 05, 2024, Worfence will be increasing prices across all plans. Like Wordfence Premium Plan will go up to $149 per year from $119 per year. Also note, Wordfence Premium plan customers with legacy pricing of below the $119 base price will see their renewal prices increase.

More Kinsta Resources… Kinsta has renamed hosting plans and boosted resource limits in them. For example, in the Starter Plan visits went up to 35K from 25K and CDN limit went up to 125 GB from 100 GB. Business 1 Plan now comes with 125K visits and 500 GB CDN limits.

Hosting Acquisition… NoFrillsCloud hosting has been acquired by Kevin Graham from Site Arrow. With this acquisition, everything including the NoFrillsCloud branding and services will continue like before.

Ongoing: Legal, WP Future, & WP Engine Sites List

Legal Movement… Automattic posted (Links X), “Earlier this week, private-equity firm SilverLake and WPEngine filed yet another document with the court, filled with cherry-picked, out-of-context statements and unfounded allegations–all in an attempt to distract from the reality of their factually and legally unsupported narrative”.

Future of WordPress… Automattic published in detail highlighting aspects like “WordPress is Resilient by Design, Private Equity vs. Open Source, Silver Lake & WP Engine, Calling out WP Engine, Standing Up for WordPress, What This Means for You”. This had many replies (Twitter X), when shared by James Giroux on X.

List of WP Engine Sites… got noticed, a website by Automattic, that shares the number of websites leaving WP Engine hosting. WP Engine Tracker also gives a download-able CSV list of websites currently hosted on WP Engine.

Kinsta managed WordPress hosting with unparalleled speed, leveraging Google Cloud & latest C3D servers, it ensures lightning-fast performance.

SleekPixel creates dynamic Open Graph images for WordPress with drag-and-drop editor. Automatically update visuals as your content evolves.

Omnisend is an easy, simple to use email marketing, email newsletter, SMS marketing & automation plugin for WordPress websites.

mySites .guru is the Ultimate Toolkit for managing multiple WordPress sites with the award winning Site Audit, Backup, Update, Secure, Monitor.

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WordPress Deals + Black Friday

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Upcoming Events

The WP Awards 2024: Vote Now for your WordPress favorites!

Online Events:
November 10-11, 2024: AnyoneCanWP Hackathon by InstaWP.

Upcoming WordCamps:
November 14, 2024: WordCamp Romania 2024, in Romania.
November 16, 2024: WordCamp Port Harcourt 2024, in Nigeria.
November 22, 2024: WordCamp Malaysia 2024, in Malaysia.
November 22, 2024: WordCamp Wrocław 2024, in Poland.
November 24, 2024: WordCamp Sofia 2024, in Bulgaria.
November 29, 2024: WordCamp Netherlands 2024, in Netherlands.
November 30, 2024: WordCamp Delhi 2024, in Delhi, India.

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