The major update to WordPress 4.9 was released last week. Although without - as initially planned - the new Gutenberg editor, but with other practical features, especially in the Customizer. In addition, the removal of the WP-SpamShield plugin by the Plugin Review Team has caused some discussion. And we've 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
We spent three days at WordCamp Cologne working on community WordPress projects and giving presentations. The result: not only a great event with many national and international community members, but also three sessions, each highlighting one aspect of WordPress in 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 you how it works and what you need to give your development workflow that decisive kick.
The Webpagetest Power Features
Our performance expert Jan will show you the power features of Webpagetest in his presentation. With the extended 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
Katie Keith and her husband quit their day jobs and set up their own WordPress web design startup out of a desire to make their lives more flexible. They have since made the transition from service provider to plugin business with over $300,000 in annual revenue - without hiring a single permanent employee. The entrepreneur talks about the mistakes she and her husband had to make before their startup became one of the most well-known WordPress agencies in England.
The 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 the mobile loading time by just one second can lead to a 7% lower conversion rate. Despite this, over 75% of mobile websites take more than 10 seconds to load. You can find these exciting insights from Lisa Wang - Product Manager at Google - and many more WooConf sessions here.
Security
Dispute over the 'WP-SpamShield' plugin
The widely used 'WP-SpamShield' plugin, which has 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". Allen has now announced that he will remove all of his team's plugins from WordPress.org.
WordPress
WordPress 4.9 is here!
WordPress 4.9 "Tipton" was released in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. The update brings many interesting features. There are some improvements in the Customizer in particular: For example, you can now save adjustments to the design of your site as a draft and - just like with posts - set a publication date. You can also search over 2600 WP themes directly in the Customizer and create and share a preview of your changes. Other new features of the update include warning messages for programming errors, widget updates and much more!
An hour of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg
Finally, we have a podcast recommendation for you: In an hour-long interview with Brian Krogsgard from Post Status, WP co-founder Matt Mullenweg talks about the new features in WordPress 4.9, the Gutenberg editor, the debate surrounding the JS framework 'React' and the future of WordPress.org, among other things.
