Hey everyone! August is over, and we’ve got some good news and bad news. (Kidding, there is no bad news.) It’s the last month of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, where (literally) 90% of the people on Earth live; and that’s why things have been slow in the WordPress ecosystem. This month we see a little spike in the news and tutorials, and it’s going to be even spikier the next month.
So, buckle up as we get started!
WordPress News
WordPress 4.6 “Pepper” is out, right after the second release candidate. It’s packed with new features and improvements, you can check ’em out on WPLift’s roundup.
Also, development of version 4.7 has officially kicked off, according to WP Tavern.
WordCamp isn’t the only convention for WordPress professionals. There is WordSesh, an 24-hour long online conference. It’s relatively small, but it’s growing. Check out the videos of the fourth annual WordSesh conference.
Envato is 10 years old, only five days before we got the Power Elite badge! Time to party, everybody.
Opinion Pieces
This is my favorite part, but sadly, I’ve read only four articles for this section:
- Chris Lema argues that writing about a WordPress product is harder than writing that very WordPress product’s code. I have to agree: Writing WordPress articles is no easy job.
- CodeinWP shared a kick-ass infographic about WordPress hosting companies. Love the “wild West” theme.
- Ahmad Awais has some thoughts on the new
.blogdomains. I’m a bit more skeptical about them, but he has some good points. - And Jeff Starr from DigWP has a rant about plugins and themes ruining the WP Admin area. We need more rants like these.
WordPress Plugins & Tools
Have you heard about Calypso? If you haven’t, go check it out on Sitepoint’s blog. It’s the awesome new interface of WordPress.com, and hosted WordPress sites with Jetpack plugins.
WordPress.org theme developers (and users), rejoice: A new plugin adds changelogs to WordPress.org themes.
George Gecewicz from The Events Calendar shares their team’s favorite developer plugins. Only four plugins are reviewed, but they’re all great.
Jon Penland from WPMU DEV has a bigger roundup: 22 tools to improve the WP Admin area.
Finally, Jason Daszkewicz from WP Explorer reviews 10 WordPress plugins for multi-author blogs.
WordPress Tutorials
I have no idea how fast is your website, but I bet it coud go a bit faster. ThemeIsle has a guide on speeding up your website.
Ready to get your hands dirty with high-end programming? Tuts+ Code has a fantastic, four-part series to build a WordPress-powered front-end with the WP REST API and Angular.
Need to customize the WP Admin area? Nick Schäferhoff from Torque talks about customizing the back-end for your clients, or yourself.
Here’s a hidden feature: You can change the author of a WordPress post.
Here’s a feature that’s been hidden better: Jenni McKinnon from WPMU DEV walks us through the process of changing the WordPress file and directory structure.
Do you know how important caching is? You don’t? Better get back to ThemeIsle’s website to learn about it.
Writing a simple plugin is one of the best ways to learn the inner workings of WordPress. If you’re curious to know about writing a plugin, WP Explorer has a great guide for you.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading! If you liked this roundup, don’t forget to tell your friends about it by sharing it. Stay curious!