During WordCamp Europe this past Wednesday Matt and I gathered to discuss the latest developments of Gutenberg and to share a video with some of the current and upcoming highlights. The video is wonderfully narrated by @beafialho and it was a great opportunity to celebrate all the incredible work that contributors are doing around the globe to improve the editing and customization experience of WordPress. For those that weren’t able to attend live it’s now available for watching online.
Matt also opened a thread for questions on his blog, so be sure to chime in there if you have any!
CSS for Web Vitals – Optimization techniques for improving your site’s Core Web Vitals.
CSS Layout Generator – This online tool will help you craft perfect layouts using either CSS Grid or Flexbox.
Fabius – Free Resume WordPress Theme – A free one-page resume WordPress theme which would be perfect as the personal portfolio of any digital professional.
Universal Icon Set – Download this set of 60 free icons, available in three distinct styles.
Fluid typography – Create text that scales with the window size, so that your headings look great on any screen.
Portfolio Air Free WordPress Theme – A free lightweight portfolio WordPress theme for creatives with a clean and minimal style, and smooth user experience.
How Simple, Classic Design Should Work – How simplifying your “recipe” of features and information is one of the most important steps toward creating the best user experience possible.
Million – A library-agnostic Virtual DOM to serve as the core for JavaScript libraries.
iPhone 12 Clay Mockup – Download a Figma/Sketch compatible mockup of the latest iPhone.
PHP Internals News: Episode 88: Pure Intersection Types
London, UK
Thursday, June 10th 2021, 09:16 BST
In this episode of "PHP Internals News" I talk with George Peter Banyard (Website, Twitter, GitHub, GitLab) about the "Pure Intersection Types" RFC that he has proposed.
Welcome to PHP internals news, a podcast dedicated to explaining the latest developments in the PHP language. This is Episode 88. Today I'm talking with George Peter Banyard about pure intersection types. George, could you please introduce yourself?
George Peter Banyard 0:30
Hello, my name is George Peter Banyard. I work on PHP code development in my free time. And on the PHP Docs.
Derick Rethans 0:36
This RFC is about intersection types. What are intersection types?
George Peter Banyard 0:40
I think the easiest way to explain intersection types is to use something which we already have, which are union types. So union types tells you I want X or Y, whereas intersection types tell you that I want X and Y to be true at the same time. The easiest example I can come up with is a traversable that you want to be countable as well. So traversable and countable. Currently, you can do intersection types in very hacky ways. So you can either create a new interface which extends both traversable and countable, but then all the classes that you want to be using this fashion, you need to make them implement the interface, which might not be possible if you using a library or other things like that. The other very hacky way of doing it is using reference and typed properties. You assign two typed properties by reference, one being traversable, one being countable, and then your actual property, you type alias reference it, with both of these properties. And then my PHP will check: does the property respect type A those reference? If yes, move to the next one. It doesn't respect type B, which basically gives you intersection types.
Derick Rethans 1:44
Yeah, I saw that in the RFC. And I was wondering like, well, people actually do that?
George Peter Banyard 1:49
The only reason I know that is because of Nikita's slide.
Derick Rethans 1:51
The thing is, if it is possible, people will do it, right. And that's how that works.
George Peter Banyard 1:56
Yeah, most of the times.
Derick Rethans 1:57
The RFC isn't actually called intersection types. It's called pure intersection types. What does the word pure do here?
George Peter Banyard 2:05
So the word pure here is not very semantic. But it's more that you cannot mix union types and intersection types together. The reasons for it are mostly technical. One reason is how do you mix and match intersection types and union types? One way is to have like union types take precedence over intersection types, but some people don't like that and want to explicit it grouping all the time. So you need to do parentheses, A intersection B, close parentheses, pipe for the union, and then the other type. But I think the main reason is mostly the variance, like the variance checks for inheritance are already kind of complicated and kind of mind boggling.
Derick Rethans 2:44
Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 20384 bytes)
The WordPress plugin marketplace is seeing quite a bit of consolidation lately. And, even if you aren’t a close follower of the business side of things, it’s likely some of these moves will impact you.
For example, the recent sale of the wildly-popular Advanced Custom Fields plugin is a pretty big deal. The free version of the plugin is active on over a million websites. And that doesn’t even include those utilizing the commercial “PRO” version. It spent 10 years as a project of solo developer Elliot Condon. Now, it’s in the hands of the team at Delicious Brains.
Other plugins changing hands include GiveWP, Kadence Blocks and Kanban for WordPress. Then there was the controversial move in which WP User Avatar was purchased and rebranded into a completely different plugin. We could go on, but you get the idea – there has been a lot of movement.
What does this flurry of activity say about the state of WordPress and its future? The following are a few thoughts on what it all means. At least, according to this user’s perspective.
The WordPress Ecosystem Is Maturing
WordPress has been around since 2003 and has grown to dominate the market. During its rise to the top, many developers jumped into the surrounding ecosystem by releasing plugins.
In some cases, these plugins were a hobby or intended as a way to give back to the open-source project. Others looked at plugin development strictly as a business opportunity. Regardless of intent, the door was wide open for anyone with an idea.
Along the way, the growth of WordPress brought with it an explosion of use cases. What started out as simple blogging software became a full-fledged content management system (CMS). WordPress is now as likely to power a large enterprise site as it is a mom-and-pop business.
This has completely changed the game for a lot of plugin authors. User expectations are high. Stability and new features are paramount to success. Not to mention having to keep up with the massive changes to WordPress core.
Frankly, it’s becoming a lot harder for solo entrepreneurs or small development shops to manage a popular plugin. Supporting a large userbase while also focusing on the future could become overwhelming.
Thus, it’s not surprising to see that some of these products are being sold off to larger firms. We saw something similar happen with internet providers back in the early 2000s. The more mature the market, the harder it became for a small company to carry out its mission. Pretty soon, they were just about all bought up by corporate interests.
While that may not fully reflect the case here, it seems to at least be trending in that direction.
For Better or Worse, Large Developers Will Hold More Sway
It stands to reason that the more popular plugins a developer acquire, the more users they have access to. This provides companies with plenty of opportunities to upsell premium products and collect user data.
A company such as Automattic, owned by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, already had an edge in this area. They were humming along thanks to their do-it-all Jetpack plugin, among other offerings. But their 2015 acquisition of WooCommerce only added to their cachet.
The amount of product movement we see now makes it looks like more companies may join the party. It will take some time. But there might come a day when a typical business website runs plugins from perhaps only a few big development houses.
This may cause a bit of concern for some observers. Seeing the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon push their weight around leads to thoughts of something similar happening with WordPress. A few big players simply set the rules for everyone else to follow.
However, there’s reason to believe things won’t become quite that dystopian. WordPress is, after all, an open-source application. Anyone with the talent and desire to build a plugin can still do so. It just may become more difficult to gain traction.
The Good and Bad of Consolidation
Consolidation is always going to be a part of business. With regards to WordPress, both themes and plugins will continue to change ownership for a variety of reasons. It’s something we should be used to by now.
But as some of the more widely-used plugins are bought and sold, we’re seeing more than just software changing hands. The entire ecosystem has the potential to change along with these moves.
On the one hand, user confidence and stability can (theoretically) be enhanced when a solo entrepreneur sells to a multi-person company. Web designers and website owners won’t have to worry quite so much about a plugin becoming extinct.
New ownership often means more resources to maintain, support, and extend the software. This could be a great thing for the WordPress community.
The potential downside is that consolidation will do to WordPress what it has traditionally done in other industries. That entails massive amounts of market share being gobbled up by a few large players, with everyone else hunting for scraps. The fear is that competition will shrink and that we may become too reliant on a small number of developers for the bulk of a site’s functionality.
Here’s hoping that a proper balance can be struck. In the long term, it’s in everyone’s best interest that the WordPress ecosystem be diverse, stable, and affordable. That will keep the CMS and its surrounding community both thriving and sustainable.
The PHP team is pleased to announce the first testing release of PHP 8.1.0, Alpha 1. This starts the PHP 8.1 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.For source downloads of PHP 8.1.0 Alpha 1 please visit the download page.Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.The next release will be Alpha 2, planned for 24 Jun 2021.The signatures for the release can be found in the manifest or on the QA site.Thank you for helping us make PHP better.
Apple computers are known for their simplicity in design and excellence in performance. These are the two basic reasons that entice web designers and developers to use Macs as their work computer.
There are oodles of third-party applications out there for web designers and web developers who use Macs. In this article, we share with you the top ten web design apps for Mac that web designers/developers will find useful.
Though not all of them are exclusively for Macs, they are all built with Mac users in mind (and not haphazardly ported over for compatibility).
1. Seashore
Seashore is an open-source image editor that utilizes the Mac OS X’s Cocoa Framework. It’s a full-fledged image editor that gives Photoshop a run for its money. Seashore provides a ton of features for its end-user including various textures, gradients, and anti-aliasing for its text and brush tools. Along with those great options, it also supports editing over multiple layers and alpha channels. It’s an awesome image editor for Mac users on a budget.
Coda can be the sole reason for switching to a Mac as a web designer; it is an extremely well-done and intuitive application that makes the web development workflow a breeze. It was designed to compartmentalize website-building processes and for team collaboration. Coda isn’t free, but at less than a hundred dollars, you get a lot of bang for the buck.
TextMate is an comprehensive text editor application designed exclusively for the Mac computer; it is the premier example of how text editors should function. A premium application, a MUST have for all web designers.
Paparazzi! is a basic tool for the Mac OS X which enables the user to take screenshots of entire web pages without any external editing. This tool relies on the Cocoa API and WebKit framework, written in C. A great tool for designers who need to capture entire web pages for design mockup presentations or as web graphics on a site they’re making.
5. Nvu
Nvu is a high-performance WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor built around Gecko (the rendering engine for Mozilla-based browsers). This application runs on Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later which makes web designing a cinch even to beginning-level web builders.
Think is an excellent application for making you focus on the task at hand. This application creates an ‘Illumination Panel’ that replaces the Mac OS dock by creating a list of applications that you use to select the application you want to ‘Focus’ on. This is an essential application for those that are easily distracted by other things such as Instant Messaging, Twitter, and emails.
Aquamacs Emacs is an extended version of the original and robust Emacs text editor with an addition of the new Aqua look-and-feel making the application blend right into the Mac OS X user interface. This editor is perfect for people who work with HTML, LaTeX, C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP and much more.
8. Xee
Xee is a straightforward application for browsing your images. This app can be considered as a replacement for Preview or any other default image viewer pre-installed on the Mac OS X. It’s sleek, fast, and uses very little system resources. Loads of shortcuts and a nice streamlined user interface add to its list of features.
Scribus is an open source application for creating high quality page layouts for Mac and Linux users. Scribus has an intensive feature set under its clean and impressive GUI. Some of its publishing features include: CMYK Color, Separations, ICC Color management, and flexible PDF Authoring and Editing.
Smultron is a gratis text editor which can be considered as a replacement for the default text editor that comes along with the Mac. Smultron is quite versatile and easy to use. It is meant to be used on the Mac OS X Leopard 10.5. The editor can be used as a basic text to a complete HTML & Script editor.
What are your favorite web design applications?
Do you have a favorite Mac application that you can’t live without? Do you have experience with the above list of applications? Please share your thoughts in the comments – we’d love to hear them!
WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 is now available for testing!
This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Instead, we recommend that you run this on a test site to play with the new version.
You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 in two ways:
Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. This is just six weeks away, so your help is vital to ensure this release is tested properly and as good as it can be.
So what’s new in this 5.8? Let’s start with some highlights.
Highlights
Powerful Blocks
Discover several new blocks and expressive tools, including blocks for Page Lists, Site Title, Logo, and Tagline. A powerful Query Loop block offers multiple ways for displaying lists of posts and comes with new block patterns that take advantage of its flexibility and creative possibilities.
Interacting with nested blocks has been made easier with a permanent toolbar button for selecting a parent. Block outlines are shown when hovering or focusing on the different block type buttons. Block handles are now also present for drag and drop when in “select” mode.
Introduces the List View, a panel that can be toggled and helps navigate complex blocks and patterns.
Reusable blocks have an improved creation flow and support for history revisions.
A cool new duotone block adds images effects which can be used in media blocks or supported in third-party blocks. Color presets can also be customized by the theme.
Handpicked Patterns
Patterns can now also be recommended and selected during block setup, offering powerful new flows. Pattern transformations are also possible and allow converting a block or a collection of blocks into different patterns.
New collection of Patterns and an initial integration with the upcoming Pattern Directory on WordPress.org.
Better Tools
New template editor that allows creating new custom templates for a page using blocks.
Themes can now control and configure styling with a theme.json file, including layout configuration, block supports, color palettes, and more.
New design tools and enhancements to existing blocks, including more color, typography, and spacing options, drag and drop for Cover backgrounds, additions to block transformation options, ability to embed PDFs within the File block, and more.
Includes improvements to how the editor is rendered to more accurately resemble the frontend.
Internet Explorer 11
Support for Internet Explorer 11 is ending in WordPress this year. In this release, most of those changes are being merged so use the Beta and RC periods to test!
Blocks in Widgets Area
You can now use any block in your theme’s widget areas using the all new Widgets screen and updated Customizer.
Looking for a change and can’t find it? There are more improvements listed after the break.
How You Can Help
Do some testing!
Testing for bugs is an important part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute.
If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.
Full Site Editing Coming at the end of year But first, Beta 1
Improvements in this Release
Improvements to Reusable blocks, Cover block, Table block, List View, Rich text placeholder, Template Editing Mode, Block Inserter, and Top Toolbar
Query loop block that uses a query/filter to create a flexible post list based on templates. Best used with patterns.
Parity refinement between editor and frontend, Standardization to block toolbars organization
Block widgets in the Customizer
Introducing the Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: control the editor settings and available customization tools and style blocks using a theme.json file.Template editor opens inside an iframe to more accurately resemble the front end.
Ability to transform Media and Text into Columns
Embedded PDFs within File block
Spacing options for Social Links and Buttons, Spacer block width adjustments
Twemoji has been updated to version 13.1, bringing you many new Emoji.
Editor performance improvements
Hide writing prompt from subsequent empty paragraphs
More descriptive publishing UI
Added capability to set the default format for image sub-sizes as well as WebP support
Added widgets block editor to widgets.php and customize.php
Added block patterns to default themes
Added ability to mark a plugin as unmanaged
Enable revisions for the reusable block custom post type
Enqueue script and style assets only for blocks present on the page
Abstracted block editor configuration by deprecating existing filters and introducing replacements that are context-aware
New sidebars, widget, and widget-types REST API endpoints
Added support for modifying the term relation when querying posts in the REST API
Site Health now supports custom sub-menus and pages
Themes now display the number of available theme updates in the admin menu
