MDEditorsy – This GUI-based tool enables you to build a Markdown/GitHub README profile.
A Handy Little System for Animated Entrances in CSS – Check out this set of CSS utilities for animating elements as they enter into view.
50 Free Christmas Templates & Resources for Designers – A fantastic collection of free Christmas and holiday season resources and templates we know you will love.
Responsive Layouts, Fewer Media Queries – Some tricks and techniques for reducing (or even eliminating) the number of media queries in your CSS.
Image Optimizer – Reduce load times with this open-source tool for optimizing images and vector graphics.
How Web Designers Can Cope with Situations Out of Their Control – Exploring a few difficult-to-control situations that typically impact web designers and ways to let go.
Dynamic Color Manipulation with CSS Relative Colors – A look at some new ways to manipulate colors using CSS.
2022 Color Trends – What colors will rule the new year? Shutterstock provides their best guesses.
50 Free High-Resolution Photoshop Brushes – Create stunning image effects with this collection of Photoshop brushes.
SVGcode: a PWA to convert raster images to SVG vector graphics – Turn your standard GIF, JPG, PNG & WebP images to vectors with this handy tool.
My Custom CSS Reset – A CSS reset with modern web features in mind.
Testing Your Marketing Efforts as a Freelancer Designer – How to test your marketing until you get it just right.
I made a working Gameboy CSS art: try it out – How one developer created a working replica of the iconic game system.
Equinox – Drag and drop your images to make a macOS native wallpaper.
30 Free Responsive Email & Newsletter Templates – Browse our collection of easy to edit and free responsive newsletter templates that work well on all email clients and devices.
nnnoise – Create subtle (or not-so-subtle) SVG noise textures with this online generator.
How to design great keyboard shortcuts – Considerations for creating keyboard shortcuts that are discoverable, memorable, and conflict-free.
The post Weekly News for Designers № 621 appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
Despite the holiday season being around the corner, the WordPress project didn’t slow down. In a recent episode of WP Briefing, Executive Director Josepha Haden shares the first thing she wants people to notice about WordPress, which is also the heart of this open source project:
“Now, the first thing I want people to see on that site is that WordPress has not only 18 years of learned knowledge that every single new user benefits from, but that it also has thousands of really smart people making sure it works and gets better every day.”
As always, contributors across various teams are working hard to ensure the upcoming release of WordPress 5.9 doesn’t disappoint. With State of the Word 2021 coming up soon, there are many exciting things in the works. Read the November 2021 edition of the Month in WordPress to learn more about what’s happening.
WordPress 5.9: Expected to release on January 25, 2022
- The Core Team announced the WordPress 5.9 Revised Release Schedule, and the release is now planned for January 25, 2022.
- WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 was recently released and is available for testing. This version of the WordPress software is under development. Check out the release post to learn more about what’s new in version 5.9 and how you can help testing.
- Check out “A Look at WordPress 5.9” for a first peek into the exciting features included in this major release.
- WordPress 5.8.2, a security and maintenance release, was out on November 10, 2021. This release includes two bug fixes and one security fix.
Are you interested in contributing to WordPress core? Join the #core channel, follow the Core Team blog, and check out the team handbook. Also, don’t miss the Core Team’s weekly developer chat on Wednesdays at 8 PM UTC.
Gutenberg releases: 11.9 and 12.0 are out
Two new Gutenberg versions have been released!
- Version 11.9.0 brings new Gutenberg blocks for working with post comments, a fullscreen pattern explorer modal, further iterations on the Navigation block, and many other improvements.
- Gutenberg 12.0.0, released on November 24, improves the Block Styles preview and includes featured image block visual enhancements, a site Editor welcome guide, official JSON schema updates, and much more.
Want to get involved in developing Gutenberg? Follow the Core Team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Make WordPress Slack. Follow #gutenberg-new for details on the latest updates.
Add the event to your calendar so you don’t miss State of the Word 2021! Want to ask Matt a question during State of the Word? Please send your questions ahead of time to ask-matt@wordcamp.org or ask them live during the event via YouTube chat.
Team updates: Nominations for some team representatives are still underway
- Requests 2.0.0 has been released. This release is fully compatible with PHP 8.0 and 8.1, indicating that a legacy codebase can be modernized, made more stable and secure without breaking backward-compatibility. The Requests project is a dependency of WordPress core, which was adopted into the WordPress organization earlier this year.
- The 2020 WordPress Annual Survey results are available to be viewed.
- The Core Team added six new committers.
- Last month, the Marketing Team opened its call for team representatives, joining Core, Themes, Accessibility, Support, and Hosting from October 2021.
- The Core Team announced its new Team Rep for 2022 (and beyond).
- The Design Team and the Accessibility Team’s meetings will be held bi-weekly moving forward.
- The Marketing Team published the latest edition of People of WordPress, featuring Devin Maeztri from Indonesia.
- There’s an open call for suggestions for Global Community Team, Training Team, and Polyglots goals for 2022. Please drop your ideas by December 6, 2021.
- The Accessibility Team has opened 1-2 volunteer positions for the #diverse-speaker-support channel.
- The November 2021 edition of the Polyglots monthly newsletter is out.
- The Marketing Team welcomes any help to promote WordPress Meetups on a weekly basis and thus keep the community connected.
We want to hear from you! Suggest your 2022 goals for the Global Community Team by December 6, 2021.
Feedback/Testing requests: Test WordPress 5.9 Beta 1; Take the 2021 Annual WordPress Survey to share your experience
- WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 is now available for testing and we’d like to hear from you! Testing is vital to ensure the release is as good as it can be—it’s also a great way to contribute. Read the comprehensive guide, “Help test WordPress 5.9 Features,” to learn how to test WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 and report any bugs.
- There’s an open call for testing for WordPress iOS 18.7 and Android 18.7.
The 2021 WordPress Annual Survey is out! Please respond to the survey, so your WordPress experience is reflected in the results.
Keep an eye out for WordCamp Taiwan and Sevilla, along with several WordPress workshops in December 2021
Give back to open source. Please donate to the WordPress Foundation’s mission this holiday season.
Have a story that we could include in the next ‘Month in WordPress’ post? Let us know by filling out this form.
The following folks contributed to October 2021’s Month in WordPress: @anjanavasan, @harishanker, @rmartinezduque, @callye, @jrf, @webcommsat, and @nalininonstopnewsuk
Backing up your precious data is a common best practice these days. But, what about your WordPress-powered website? Yes, most web hosting companies do perform regular system backups.
But beware – not every host is reliable when it comes to backups. And you certainly don’t want to wait until disaster strikes to find out how they did.
You’ll get much more peace of mind if you perform regular site backups yourself. Luckily, there are several outstanding free plugins that will do the job for you.
Note that there are some differences in what various plugins will backup. A WordPress website is comprised of both a database (usually MySQL) and a set of files that sit on the webserver.
You’ll really only need to worry about the /wp-content/ folder, which contains your theme, plugins, and file uploads. Some plugins backup both the database and files.
Others will handle one of the two. Keep in mind that you’ll need both the database and the /wp-content/ folder to have access to all of your site’s data.
Now, let’s check out some plugins to keep your site backed up. We’ll take note of whether they back up a site’s database, file system, or both.
WordPress software updates can sometimes cause problems. That’s why it’s important to have backups that can be restored immediately.
Total Upkeep’s auto rollback feature will create backups before you run updates, allowing you to easily restore the site to its previous state. A Pro version also enables cloud-based backups and staging sites.
Backs Up: Database and File System (with an option to customize what gets backed up)
Having a staging environment for your WordPress website is always a good idea. But if your web host doesn’t offer this functionality, WP STAGING can help.
The plugin makes it easy to clone your site and into a subfolder (or a subdomain, if you opt for the Pro version).
Backs Up: Database and File System
Backup, restore or even migrate your site. Also available is the ability to download a copy of a backup to keep on your local machine. A pro version lets you schedule backups and connect to various cloud storage services.
Backs Up: Database and File System (with an option to customize what gets backed up)
Schedule regular backups of your WordPress database and have it both emailed to you and stored on your web server. Restore a backup with just a couple of clicks.
Also, you can schedule automatic database optimization and repair.
Backs Up: Database Only
Rather than doing a time and resource consuming full backup each time, WP Time Capsule will perform an incremental backup of just the files that have changed.
You have the ability to schedule backups and connect to Dropbox, Amazon S3 and Google Drive.
Backs Up: Database and File System
WPBackItUp touts its ease of use – just one click to backup your entire site. The plugin compresses the backup into a .zip file stored on your web server. Backup status notifications will arrive via email.
Backs Up: Database and File System
Automatically or manually backup your entire site to your web server, multiple cloud services, email or even an FTP server. Restore backups directly from inside WordPress. Site migration packages can also be downloaded.
Backs Up: Database and File System (with an option to customize what gets backed up)
Backup your site’s database to the cloud, email, or FTP. Set up a schedule to run on a routine basis. The ability to exclude specific database tables is included.
Backs Up: Database Only
You can schedule complete automatic backups for your site and store them in the cloud. Backups can be compressed into .zip, .tar, tar.gz or tar.bz2 formats. BackWPup will also check, repair, and optimize your database.
Backs Up: Database and File System
This plugin is all about simplicity – there is no setup required. Backup your entire site on a schedule and optionally have the archives emailed to you. Backups will run even on low-powered web hosting accounts.
Backs Up: Database and File System (with an option to customize what gets backed up)
No More Excuses – Backup Your Site!
A WordPress site can break for many reasons, including a database crash, theme or plugin incompatibility, or a failed web host. But you don’t have to leave things to chance.
There are free WordPress backup plugins that cater to every need. It’s time to be proactive with your website and prepare for the worst. If something does happen, you’ll be glad that you took steps to regularly backup your website.
The post 10 Totally Free WordPress Backup Plugins appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
