My word. How fast times flies. This is already the fifth sixth rendition of my new newsletter! Can you believe that?! Who knows, this might flow over to me blogging more as well. I know at least Chris Lema would love to see that as I’m so vain 🎶 to think this blog post was aimed at me (based on a Twitter convo we had).
But, we’ll see. Right now I’m quite content with having a flow for writing newsletters and actually publishing them. In fact, let’s dive in!
WordPress News 🗞
To me, I’d say the main WordPress news is the WordPress 5.8 Field Guide. It’s got all the ins and outs that are relevant to you and your users among the many improvements coming in 5.8. And they are bountiful. Published by the wonderful Milana Cap. Go and check it out and be prepared!
- Sometimes it’s the super simple plugins that make you go “Oooh, I didn’t know I needed that one!”. Today’s this feeling was summoned by Rich Tabor’s Markdown Comments. It allows you to add an internal block, so to speak. This internal block allows you to add comments that are only visible in the editor itself. Super handy if there’s multiple people working on content.
- My former colleague Thomas published a mega article today about how to speed up WooCommerce. And if you’d like to see a no-bullshit article that actually covers the things that have an impact, do check it out. He also goes into detail on some common misconceptions on “speed improvements” you read all over the internet. Things on that supposedly impact WooCommerce’s performance such as disabling cart fragments and database revisions. Highly recommended to read what the true story is!
- Here’s a block that I know I’m never going to use, but you might. Perhaps. It’s called Sketch, not to be confused with this awesome vector graphics editor for macOS, and it allows you to create a block in the WordPress editor in which you can sketch and draw freely on a canvas with brush strokes that feel natural. It’s released by Automattic, so I guess they saw a need for this for WordPress.com?
- Timezones, we all hate them, right?! Online events make them even more a PITA. Hallway Chats episode 151, featuring Dan Maby and Michelle Ames talks about the ins and outs of running a conference across multiple time zones.
Interesting finds 💡
Sharing interesting finds with you is one of my favorite things to write about. Today I’d like to share an interesting Twitter thread with you where Feross asks what open source library you have recently discovered that were shockingly good. And I thought you should see it.
What I am reading 📖
Outraged. Outraged is what I was when I read this article that I’m about to share with you. It’s called Mad Men. Furious Women and it is written by Zoe Scaman. She writes about the misogyny women are enduring in the ad industry (but I suspect it’s not limited to that industry). And it’s downright appalling what women have to endure. Men, if you’re reading this and you see this happen ANYWHERE… I hope, no, I expect you to speak out!
Kev Quirk published an article about online conversations and website engagement. His TL;DR is that receiving emails is way better than having comments. I’m not sure I’m there just yet, but I will say that since I started this newsletter, I’ve received many emails (DMs as well, btw) as a response, a comment to the newsletter. And yes, those are hella fun. Still enjoy comments as well, though.
Bonus 🎁
Design inspiration. We all need it from time to time. I’m looking to redesign my site and as such love diving into posts and Twitter threads that are loaded with design inspiration. This one fit the bill for this week. If you know of a great design for a personal blog, I’d love to see your recommendations, btw!
That’s it for this week’s ramblings. Thanks for reading!
Best,
Remkus
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