WordPress News

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WordPress.org plugins can be favorited, improved forum integration

By 2 days agoMay 21, 2012

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If you spend any time on the WordPress.org plugin directory (or heard us talking about it on any of WPCandy’s podcasts last week) then you likely noticed a few updates. Matt Mullenweg described the tweaks himself over on the WordPress.org news blog, which is worth reading if you want to know the thinking behind the changes.

Briefly, the updates included:

  • Support forum threads are now pulled into their own tab, complete with the plugin’s header graphic at the top (assuming your plugin uses one of these).
  • Logged in users can now favorite plugins, which will display on their WordPress.org profile page.
  • Plugin authors are back in the right sidebar, and styled a bit nicer than before.
  • The plugin sidebar also includes the number of forum threads resolved in the last couple of weeks to help and point out active plugins.

If you’d like to take a look at these updates in action, check out the BuddyPress plugin page for an example, complete with header image.

The WordPress.org team completed the updates last week (along with the latest addition to Audrey Capital) during a BBQ week in Memphis. As Matt said in his post:

This is why WordCamps usually have BBQ – it imparts magical coding powers.

Had you noticed the updates to the plugin directory before seeing the announcement, or this post? Let us know what you think of them in the comments.

Tickets for WordCamp Edinburgh UK 2012 go on sale

By 2 days agoMay 21, 2012

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If you’ve awaited news on WordCamp Edinburgh UK 2012 and when ticket sales start, then today is your lucky day. You can now get your hands on an early bird ticket for £35, as long as you order it before June 1st when it increases to £45. The ticket price entitles you to two days worth of speakers and a social event on Saturday night. What more could you want?

Sponsorships are also available, ranging from £75 to £1,000 (which covers the official social event on Saturday night).

So are you looking forward to WordCamp Edinburgh UK and your visit to Scotland?

Scott Reilly (aka coffee2code) joins Audrey Capital

By 3 days agoMay 19, 2012

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WordPress developer and self-described “prolific plugin developer” Scott Reilly has joined Audrey Capital, Matt Mullenweg’s angel investment and research company. Reilly joins Audrey’s other developers Andrew Nacin and Samuel (Otto) Wood to work on WordPress.org and whatever other special projects come their way.

Reilly has contributed to WordPress since 2004, both by contributing patches to core and by developing and releasing many, many plugins. Odds are you’ve used at least one of his slew of plugins at one point or another — I’ve certainly praised his plugin work time and time again.

Developers at Audrey Capital, put simply, work on whatever projects Mullenweg assigns. Their work often includes work on WordPress.org (the website) and other community initiatives. The work often coincides with the consumption of barbecue, as it did this past week.

Follow WordCamp Austin and Seattle from the comfort of your home

By 4 days agoMay 19, 2012

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WordCamp Seattle and WordCamp Austin are happening this weekend. Actually, they’re happening right now. Since it’s far too late to snag a ticket and run over there (far, far too late), I suggest you attend the events in whatever way you can:

Just because you can’t be there doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy (part of) the show. And hey, while you’re here in this post, why don’t you share the next WordCamp you plan to attend in the flesh. Visit WordCamp Central to see the events happening all over planet Earth in the near future.

Code Poet relaunches, expands beyond a listing service

By 4 days agoMay 19, 2012

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“I’m just a huge supporter of having all these small businesses built around WordPress, whether individuals or small companies,” Pete Davies told me over the phone. “And I know there’s stuff that people struggle with everyday, and stuff you can’t help them with in the WordPress forums.”

Davies is the Premium Services Lead at Automattic, and the lead on the latest Code Poet project. He and his team have expanded CodePoet.com from a directory of high-end WordPress consultants into a resource site for anyone building website — or ”making things” — with WordPress.

The new CodePoet.com, or rather build.CodePoet.com, offers two free ebooks, interviews with WordPress professionals, and a collection of resources the team has curated that they think other Code Poets would find useful. The listings, or Code Poet Directory, can now be found at directory.codepoet.com.

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WP App Store launches with 17 theme and plugin partners

By 7 days agoMay 16, 2012

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WP App Store, the project aiming to make plugin and theme purchases easy within the WordPress dashboard — and which we previewed a couple of months ago — quietly launched yesterday (complete with slick intro video). Their plugin is downloadable on their website, which once installed will give you a new top-level menu item for browsing commercial themes and plugins recently added to their system.

Seventeen theme and plugin partners are in place at launch, a few more than announced when the original teaser page went up. Brad Touesnard, the developer behind WP App Store, said that a couple of the vendors that originally showed interest haven’t been responsive, while others just aren’t in the store yet. Developers interested in bringing their own theme or plugin products to WP App Store can request an invite.

Touesnard’s certainly not on his own with this project. In addition to the vendors partnering with WP App Store, his advisors include prominent WordPress business owners Adii Pienaar, Carl Hancock, and Jason Cohen.

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How 92% of us stiffed ThemeThrift in its first week

By 12 days agoMay 11, 2012

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On Tuesday evening the countdown clock on ThemeThrift counted down to zero, and the week-long experiment that theme developer Jake Caputo began on a whim came to a close. For seven days his theme Modest was available via a pay-what-you-want model, with options ranging from $0 to $50. By the time the clock ticked to zero the theme had seen downloads from 272 people, 8% of which opted to pay something for the theme.

When I spoke to Caputo this week he said he expected to see a bit of activity on ThemeThrift when he launched it last Monday. I asked him to clarify, thinking he meant to say he hadn’t expected that. But he said  he did expect some attention, since the idea was a bit off the beaten path and, well, risky.

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WPMods.com sells on Flippa for $80,000

By 12 days agoMay 11, 2012

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WPMods.com, Kevin Muldoon’s website that he put up for auction on Flippa last week, sold this morning for a final bid of $80,000. The bidding began up just over a week ago, but the bulk of the bidding activity took place in the last 48 hours.

Muldoon said in the Flippa listing that the site averages 105,000 page views and $1,300 in revenue each month. The final bid amount came in $20,000 over his original reserve price of $60,000.

This is easily the highest (publicized) amount for any WordPress-centric website sold within the community. There’s no public information on who the buyer was yet, nor any new activity from the buyer on WPMods.com, but we shouldn’t really expect to know anything for another couple of weeks. I’ll keep you updated as I learn more.

For those interested, we also discussed the Flippa auction the last two episodes (7 and 8) of the WP Late Night podcast.

What do you think of the auction, WPMods, and the final purchase price?

WordPress for Android 2.1 brings comment edits, autosave

By 14 days agoMay 9, 2012

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For those of you who have to get your blogging fix on the go, listen up: version 2.1 of the WordPress for Android app is now available. The update brings slight user interface updates and performance tweaks, but those aren’t the changes you’re interested in, right? Noteworthy features in this release include:

  • the app will autosave your post every 60 seconds,
  • comments can now be edited within the app, similar to the way you can edit them within the dashboard, and
  • a new option to link to a resized version of uploaded images.

A complete list of changes and more details are available on the WordPress for Android blog. You can download the updated app from the android.wordpress.org site, and those interested in contributing to the project can find more information on the development blog.

The app update also includes the WordPress.com reader as well, which may or may not be something you’re interested in. Android users, I’m curious: what do you think of the WordPress.com reader being included in the app?

Sucuri reports WPStats.org, Advanced Search plugin as spam

By 14 days agoMay 9, 2012

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This morning Sucuri reported that a website called WPStats.org seems to be behind a series of blackhat spam cases. Code found on compromised websites includes a call to WPStats.org for a Javascript file that hides a slew of spam links on the targeted website.

Along with the spam, the same group’s “Advanced Search” plugin includes hidden links and another callback to the WPStats.org website. The plugin itself has been removed from the WordPress.org plugin directory. If you’re already using the plugin, you should remove it immediately and run your site through a scanner (like Sucuri’s SiteCheck tool) right away.

For a breakdown of the offending code snippets, and exactly what to look out for on your blog, see Sucuri Security’s blog post.