This week: Plugin Machine, WordPress and CDN, introduction to WP-CLI, Core Web Vital, and much more…
Guest Editor
I have been active in the WordPress community for over a decade creating content and educating users. When WooCommerce came out I jumped on board almost immediately and have experienced its growth for the last 10 years. Today, I run Do the Woo, where I guide, connect, and elevate the WooCommerce builder community.
If you listen to all the builders in the WooCommerce ecosystem, the subject of performance is never lacking. It’s an area that has improved over the years and is evolving as time goes by. But as more and more businesses move online, it’s becoming even more critical to stay on top of.
Recently, I had four developers literally geek-out while taking a deep dive into the issues, challenges, and solutions around performance with WooCommerce. Jonathan Wold, Zach Stepek, Till Kruss, and Carl Alexander left no stone unturned in the lively conversation.
Hosting and performance go hand in hand, and if you Google WooCommerce performance, a large portion of the results will be posted from hosting sites. Carl Alexander takes this a step further and states that no WordPress platform has more to gain from serverless computing than WooCommerce. He wrote a post that digs into the topic deeper that explains that serverless is the perfect technology to take on the unique challenges that come with WooCommerce.
I tend to preach the importance of understanding WordPress from one end to another with Woo builders. If both have optimal performance, you are ahead of the game. On WordPress.org that have recently posted two excellent articles on the core editor. On the overall performance and another on post/page speed. And most recently, the performance of a WordPress performance team.
Whether it’s your Woo shop or your WordPress site, Jetpack has gotten a bad wrap over the years on performance. But in the past few years, their focus has been on continuous improvement with both functionalities, and, no, breaking the plugin up into small pieces. Steven Seear from the Jetpack team spoke chatted with Brad Williams and me on how that misconception is changing.
Josh Pollock is working on the Plugin Machine. Plugin Machine will help us to create plugins in a more standardised and simpler way.
I am very much looking forward to the final effect.
Max Denysenko has created a tutorial on data sanitation in WordPress. Every developer should read it and take it to heart.
An interview with Birgit Pauli-Haack appeared on MainWP. Todd touched on many topics, such as where did this fascination with Gutenberg come from and how did it happen that she became a Developer Advocate at Automattic.
LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. Trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
I’m a huge fan of Hookturn and their ACF Custom Database Tables plugin. Version 1.1.0 allows storing repeater fields in the custom table.
HeroPress Network is looking for investors. Thanks to the support, the entire network will be able to function for free and implement new ideas.
Carl Alexander describes how to cache WordPress via CDN. He also describes how some hosting companies leverage this possibility.
Matt Shaw describes the current state of HTML in emails sent by WP. In short – it’s far from perfect.
David Gwyer just launched Flexible FAQ plugin. Thanks to it, you can easily create sections with frequently asked questions.
Justin Tadlock described how in WordPress 5.9 it will be possible to partially overwrite theme.json in child themes.
Jeff Chandler shares his thoughts on Gutenberg. The motivator for this entry was last week’s post by Justin Ferimann.
The WP Migrate DB plugin got a lot of nice improvements in version 2.2. The coolest change according to me is the migration between databases with different prefixes.
Allen Smith, who is a Developer Advocate at WooCommerce, appeared in Do the Woo. He told what his typical day looks like and what his job is about.
If you still do not use WP-CLI, maybe this introduction from Marcus Kazmierczak will convince you to give it a try.
Sérgio Gomes not only explains what Core Web Vital is, but also answers many interesting questions, such as why the CWV results differ depending on the tool used for the measurement.
WPChill bought the Gutenberg Forms plugin from Extendify.
Claudia Romano explains how the CSS CodyFrame framework has evolved step by step.
Upcoming Events
WP Engine Summit/2021 will take place on November 4.
Maciek Palmowski and Andy Fragen will talk about making plugins upgradable thanks to Git Updater.
WordCamp Taiwan is set to take place on December 11-12.