Last week the major update to WordPress 4.9 was released. Although without - as initially planned - the new Gutenberg editor, but with other practical features, especially in the Customizer. Also, the removal of the WP-SpamShield plugin by the plugin review team has caused some discussion. And we have put our sessions from WordCamp Cologne online: With a workflow for your local development, the power features of Webpagetest and holacracy in theory and practice.
Our sessions from WordCamp Cologne 2017
For three days we worked on community WordPress projects and gave talks at WordCamp Cologne. The result: Not only a great event with many national and international community members, but also three sessions, each highlighting one aspect of WordPress en detail.
Our Senior Developer Matthias has written a script for you that makes developing on a local environment as easy as possible. In the video he shows how it works and what you need to give your development workflow the decisive kick.
The Webpagetest Power Features
Our performance expert Jan will show you the power features of Webpagetest in his presentation. With the advanced analysis options you not only understand your pages better, but also optimize your development processes and enrich your customer communication.
holacracy in practice
Johannes, CEO and co-founder of Raidboxes, shows you how we turned our company into an agile and efficient organization. You can download his holacracy session here.
Business
How to build a WP business that scales
Wanting to make their lives more flexible, Katie Keith and her husband quit their day jobs and started their own WordPress web design startup. They have since made the transition from service provider to plugin business with over $300,000 in annual revenue - and without hiring a single permanent employee. The entrepreneur shares the mistakes she and her husband had to make before their startup became one of the most well-known WordPress agencies in the UK.
WooConf session videos are online
53% of mobile site visitors will leave your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Furthermore, increasing mobile load time by just one second can result in a 7% lower conversion rate. Yet, over 75% of mobile web pages take more than 10 seconds to load. These exciting insights from Lisa Wang - Product Manager at Google - and many more WooConf sessions, can be found here.
Security
Controversy about the 'WP-SpamShield' plugin
The widely used plugin 'WP-SpamShield' with over 100,000 installations has been removed from the official plugin directory. Scott Allen, the developer of 'WP-SpamShield', criticizes the non-transparent procedure and the decision of the plugin review team: "We repeatedly asked them what rule we broke, to no answer. Only after I called Mika out on the forum did she come up with something - Rule 9 - exploiting a loophole in the rules. Seriously? It's impossible for developers to comply with rules that are constantly changing". Now Allen has announced to remove all plugins of his team from WordPress.org .
WordPress
WordPress 4.9 is out!
In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday WordPress 4.9 "Tipton" has been released. The update brings many interesting features. Especially in the Customizer there are some improvements: For example, you can now save customizations to the design of your site as a draft and - just like with posts - set a publication date. Also, you can browse over 2600 WP themes directly in the Customizer and create and share a preview of your changes. Other new features of the update include alerts for coding errors, widget updates, and much more!
One hour WordPress with Matt Mullenweg
Finally, we have a podcast recommendation for you: In an hour-long interview with Post Status' Brian Krogsgard, WP co-founder Matt Mullenweg talks about the new features in WordPress 4.9, the Gutenberg editor, the debate over the 'React' JS framework, and the future of WordPress.org, among other things.
