Issue #25 - On Facts - Block Phases, Elementor Dev, Plugin Issues

The year 2020 saw a lot of changes in the WordPress ecosystem. The State of the Word 2020 address by Matt Mullenweg highlighted a few of these changes aka facts like fast WordPress growth, Gutenberg blocks editor marching ahead, and better community learning. Plus, what’s new with popular products like Elementor builder, and Astra theme – all covered in this weekly issue.

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• WordPress market share… has crossed 39%, and this has been the fastest year of the growth fueled by factors like lock-downs, eCommerce, and economic uncertainty.
  
  
• Coming next… is the new Gutenberg site editor (demo video @ 21.33) that allow editing block themes and all their template files. Check more info including query block for posts, navigation block, and global styles. More about Gutenberg phases below.
  
  
• Learn WordPress… community resource has been launched at learn.wordpress.org website. A place for beginners and advanced users to learn, share, grow together in the WordPress space through courses, workshops, lessons, and more.

1. In the News… as a part of “WordPress Gives a Hand” initiative, Visual Composer will donate 10% of all sales from Dec 21 to 27, 2020. This charity movement (#wpgivesahand) also include WordPress businesses like TranslatePress, NinjaTeam, wpDataTables, YayCommerce, and Amelia.
   
   
2. Interesting Finds… something broke on your website? Try plugin conflict that helps a user walk through troubleshooting steps. Also, how about automating the process of taking screenshots of the dashboard in different colour schemes?
   
   
3. New Updates… Elementor power users can look forward to Elementor Beta Developer Edition to test new features and share quick feedback with the dev team. Also, Astra 3.0 update promises even faster theme. It will be released the next week along with much-anticipated Header & Footer builder feature.

• A person story on the importance of owning website content.
• Video demo of version 1.1.0 of Simple Sandbox Pro plugin.
• Editor Plus plugin for blocks crossed 3000+ install milestone.
• Contact Form 7 plugin vulnerability & 5+ million sites in question.
• More amazing speakers announced for WordFest 2021 event.
• Wordcamp Sevilla 2020 (Spanish) from Dec, 26 to 29, 2020.
• Ymir is a new WordPress serverless DevOps platform for AWS.
• Full site editing blocks theme or generate own version.
• Internet Works coalition announced, includes Automattic.
• Five learnings from sending 5 million Black Friday emails.

Here is the breakdown of Gutenberg progress in four phases by Matt Mullenweg (video @ 4.05) at the State of Word 2020 address.

The 1st phase is about creating fundamental blocks setup for creating posts and pages content. This is complemented with mobile support, design tools, block directory, and patterns. Currently, we are in the 2nd phase (development-wise) for creating and editing content outside of posts and pages. It would allow the use of blocks to create headers, footer, and other parts of the website (full site editing).

The 3rd phase (which hasn’t started yet) would focus on collaboration, workflow, and real-time co-editing (like multiple users can co-edit in Google Docs). Lastly, the 4th phase (which is in the imagination stage as of now) would focus on building multi-language websites natively with WordPress.

• Christmas offer: Astra & all plugins 30% OFF till Dec 25, 2020.
• StudioCart is a new funnels & cart solution WordPress plugin.
• Grab 40% off on Fluent Forms, Ninja Tables till Jan 01, 2021.
• Lifetime deal of Piotnet Addons For Elementor on Appsumo.
• Make Elementor & Beaver client friendly with Wallace Inline.
• Peerboard hosted community can embed on WordPress site.
• Not comfortable with CSS? MicroThemer makes it all easy!
• Popular Gutenberg Blocks plugin Qubely at $49 lifetime deal.
• ConvertBox is a solid email lead capture & conversion tool.

Upcoming Events 💬

Jan 22, 2021 / 4 Time Zones
WordFest. The festival of WordPress is an online event bringing the community together with sessions on WordPress, remote working, mental health, and more.

Jan 30 - Feb 14, 2020
WordCamp India. 2021 edition of WordCamp India is an online-only event featuring workshop days, contributor days, and speaker talks.

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

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